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Eleven Step Guide to Understanding SEO – Part 2
posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 8:00 AM
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Eleven Step Guide to Understanding SEO – Part 2
One piece of ‘new media jargon’ that has got the vast
majority of business leaders confused is SEO (search engine
optimization). Too many people have been charged too much
for either inappropriate or ineffective SEO services, often
because the supplier does not really understand it either.
This two part article is for people who are not experienced
or very knowledgeable when it comes to SEO – defining what
it is and what it can do.
The introduction and first five steps to SEO heaven
discussed how to get a website ready for an SEO campaign.
In part two (steps 6 to 11), we’ll explore the continuous
and competitive process of earning a high search engine
ranking for a SEO prepared website.
Step 6 to SEO Heaven – Web Analytics
As with any marketing, but particularly for online
marketing, where the tools and results are so effective, it
is essential to measure and track results. Market behaviour
is very predictable. Accordingly, the effectiveness of each
part of your campaign can be compared and optimized. The
options for web analytics vary from free services to very
expensive and customizable packages.
Whichever you choose, don’t put it off. Measure your results
from day one and use them to improve your site and your
marketing campaigns. That old statement ‘I know half my
advertising does not work, if I only knew which half was not
working I’d stop spending it’ is not true on the internet.
You can and must know.
Step 7 to SEO Heaven – Content Building
Part of being ‘the best and most relevant’ result is having
the freshest content, and the search engines look for that
by regular visits to your site and reviewing your site’s
progress. They use a formula, not usually a human being,
unless they detect potential fraud.
Actually, good SEO means a website is never done, and the
fact that it has to change and grow over time gives your
customers a better experience. Search engines reward a
‘natural process’ that adjusts to changes in the market
and your normal business growth.
Providing good quality content that is related to what you
do, but not necessarily aimed at selling something directly,
is a powerful, perhaps the the best, opportunity to increase
the traffic to your website and the exposure of your
business. Most people do not link to pages that only serve
the purpose of making a sale.
This leads to the next step in this 11 step process of
successful search engine optimization for your website.
Step 8 to SEO Heaven – Link Building
The internet works through links, it would not be a “net”
without links. A collection of independent pages that are
not connected to each other cannot be found and, for the
most part, that defeats their purpose. People seeing and
clicking on links to your site make effective inbound links
that search engines like to reward with a higher ranking for
your website. They are also vital for SEO.
Inbound links play an important role in virtually every
search engine when it comes to ranking pages in their search
results. In the normal course of business links are added,
and sometimes removed, all the time. This never ending
organic process is monitored and measured by the search
engines as an indicator of importance and relevance – so it
is advisable to be pro-active in acquiring good inbound
links. There are plenty of sites out there that should link
to you, but don’t know you and your content. Help them to
find your content and encourage linking to it.
Step 9 to SEO Heaven – Engagement, Trust and
Community Building
Like it or not social media is a reality whole sections of
society participate in for hours daily and is a fundamental
indicator of relevance and popularity. Don’t allow your
website to exist in an isolated bubble. Talk to people and
allow them to respond and to interact with you.
People will talk about you with or without your permission.
Much better to seize the initiative and become part of the
discussion. Use it to build trust and deeper relationships
with your customers or potential customers. Use it like
research. Listen to what they say and learn about their
wants and their needs. Listen and take note of comments,
especially criticisms, and use them to improve. You can save
the money you might have spent on focus groups and get
feedback free of charge on the internet.
In relation to SEO, social media provides a huge opportunity
to expand your link building. For your business it increases
your brand exposure for a fraction of the cost of traditional,
more intrusive advertising campaigns that are usually less
effective.
Step 10 to SEO Heaven – Ranking and Traffic Analysis
When you begin, or if you have already started, check where
you are today to be able to track and compare with data in
the future. Look for trends and evaluate the progress
towards your goals. You know those goals which we set in the
first paragraph before we began the campaign. The ones you
should specify before you engage in any type of marketing
campaign. Those goals were measurable I hope? If you view
improving your SEO ranking as a measure of your business
success rather than an essential step to achieving business
success, you will maintain a high SEO ranking for the long
term. Why, because the high traffic that comes with it will
drive your business.
Does the change in ranking yield the traffic you expected?
Does this traffic actually convert? Which leads us neatly
to step 11 of SEO heaven.
Step 11 to SEO Heaven – Conversion Analysis
All of this effort matters not one jot unless you make your
profit number (or the equivalent in not for profit
organizations). It all comes down to one critical factor -
what is your bottom line? Did you make profit or did you
lose money. Web Analytics is part of the process of making
this determination. Focus on the things that work and help
your bottom line and stop doing the things that don’t.
Work on the details to increase visitor conversion to sales.
This requires testing. Don’t try anything upfront without
testing it first. The things that work for others might not
work for you and the same is true the other way around.
Many with experience in the SEO game will tell you that
there is another, more important step that would make this
article 12 steps to SEO heaven. That step is to be sure
only to work with people who can really explain SEO in plain
English. To be blunt, small, independent and one-man-band
web designers rarely get SEO fully and their usually well
meaning efforts end up costing you more than they deliver.
They do get part of the story, but they fail you by wasting
both your money and your time.
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Eleven Steps to SEO Heaven – Part 1
Are you fed up with feeling baffled by search engine
optimization (SEO) because of jargon and poor practitioners? Do
you feel you have been charged too much for less than you were
promised? This two part article sets out to explain the process
and put you back in control.
If you have focused objectives and a clear online strategy then
SEO will almost always be a good cost effective addition to the
marketing tool set. The first thing to understand is that search
engine businesses, like Google, Yahoo and Bing, have customers
to satisfy too. Their customers are searching and they expect to
see the ‘best and most relevant’ search results. I expect like
me, you get frustrated if your searches bring irrelevant results
first. No surprise then, that the methods used by the search
engine operators are designed to deliver customer satisfaction.
They work hard to eliminate bogus SEO services that aim to
cheat.
It is possible for you to make your website ‘the best and most
relevant’ for certain searches and to convince the search
engine operator you are just that too. That is SEO. Each of my
11 steps to SEO heaven is necessary. I assume that you will be
committed to a long term marketing strategy, and to measuring
results with a view to adjusting your activity. The steps
include those of preparation as well of those of continuous
repeated activities. The early preparatory steps are perhaps the
most important as errors here will frustrate the effectiveness
of the later ones.
Armed with our clear objectives and online strategy:
Step 1 to SEO Heaven – Keyword Research
A vital first step that should not be undertaken lightly. While
experienced pay-per-click advertisers will know that you can
easily test and change hundreds of keywords in paid search
campaigns, they should understand this not possible for organic
search optimization. It is normally advisable to concentrate on
one to five key phrases for the whole site around a core theme.
Then, for individual pages only one to three phrases. For large
sites with hundreds of pages it is hard to optimize every single
page. The effort and cost of SEO to the full extent produces
diminishing returns.
Step 2 to SEO Heaven – Competitive Intelligence
SEO is competitive. There is only one front page and only one
top slot so it is important to know your competition and perform
better. What are they doing? Where do they rank and for which
keywords? Who is linking to their website and why? The less
competitive your industry is online the easier it is for you to
outperform your competition. This is an important determining
factor in the cost and resources necessary to achieve your
desired SEO outcome.
Step 3 to SEO Heaven – Web Design and Development
Like trying to cable an old building for modern communications
or boosting performance of an obsolete machine, fixing a bad
website design is much tougher than building properly from
scratch. When you create a new website, make sure to consider
search engine friendly design and architecture before and during
the actual development of the website. Almost all template-based
websites are tough to re-engineer for SEO. A good design from
the start will save you a lot of time and money. In most cases
it will put you ahead of a considerable number of your
competitors. In most cases a high performing design for SEO is
also a user friendly design, but occasionally compromise is
necesary.
Step 4 to SEO Heaven – Get Your First Inbound Links
There is no need to pay to submit your website to any search
engine. Just as soon as you create inbound links from other
websites to yours the search engines will find your website.
There are plenty of scam products and services. Avoid them. They
are a waste of your money. No one can guarantee you a number 1
ranking. It must be earned and maintained by being the best and
most relevant.
There are some web directories that are recognized by search
engines and gaining a trade listing there will be a helpful
kick-start to your SEO campaign. Then ask your customers and
suppliers to place a link to your website from theirs. Most will
be pleased for the favor to be returned.
Step 5 to SEO Heaven – Sitemaps
The larger search engines allow webmasters to submit a sitemap
to them via a webmaster console. The search engines also provide
reports and other useful information, such as technical problems
with your websites you might not be aware of via their console.
Even if you decide against the submission of a site map to the
search engines, it is advisable to create an account and
register your website with them, just for the reports and
statistics they provide free of charge and which are invaluable
for your internet marketing efforts.
After completion of the first 5 steps, schedule them for
occasional review. The remaining tasks require regular and
repetitive effort. In Eleven Steps to SEO Heaven (steps 6 to
eleven) we look at taking a website that is a SEO ready site
with a ready to run campaign and look at the steps and work
needed to claim a high search engine ranking.
Google Real Time Search Impact On Small Businesses
posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 8:00 AM
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Google Real Time Search Impact On Small Businesses
Google recently introduced us to Real Time Search and this has
been met with a lot of questions. What Tweets will show up in
real time? How will this affect businesses who are, and those who
are not, engaging in social media? How will it affect PPC? Where
will the searches show up? The biggest question is what impact
will this have on small business? Small business owners are
met with limited resources and adding any additional hours into
their day is nearly impossible. But can a small business ignore
real time search?
What is Real Time Search? As per Google
“… new features that bring your search results to life with a
dynamic stream of real-time content from across the web. Now,
immediately after conducting a search, you can see live updates
from people on popular sites like Twitter and FriendFeed, as
well as headlines from news and blog posts published just
seconds before. When they are relevant, we’ll rank these latest
results to show the freshest information right on the search
results page.”
In other words, your tweets from Twitter and new blog articles
will be appear as “Latest Results.” The latest results are
featured in 2 ways.
a. On the search results page below the “News Results” (if
there are news results). This appears for very hot topics that
are getting a lot of activity.
b. The “Show Options” menu: click on “Latest” under All Results
and the live search results will appear.
What Does This Mean for Small Businesses?
1. Customer Experience.
Consumers are much more savvy and they are going online for more
information. A quick Google search will provide them possibly
more information about your company than you might have thought.
A business cannot control what a person tweets about. As we see
in the example below, tweets are posted when they mention a
topic, business name, a name, etc.
See: http://www.sitepronews.com/images2/googlerealtime.jpg
Image Courtesy of: Lifehacker.com
(http://www.lifehacker.com.au/2009/12/is-google-real-time-search-any-good/)
Most tweets, blog entries and company mentions will show up
under “Latest” and not on the main search results page. However,
if a consumer wants to see more information about you, they have
the option at their fingertips.
2. Reputation Management.
Not every business is on Twitter or has a blog, nor do they
necessarily belong. However, ignoring your “Latest” news can
present a problem. If a consumer is singing your praises, or
worse a bad comment is written and you do not respond, you are
adding fuel to the fire. That customer has been given a chance
to continuously go on and on about your company/brand whereas
the praise singer just got deflated with no feedback from you.
Failing to monitor your reputation online could result in some
missed opportunities or a poor company image that leads to
reduced sales.
3. Spam.
Yes there will be spam because spammers are going to jump
on this like ants at a summer picnic. While Google will make
every attempt to try and control spam, the current algorithm for
posting in real time makes that nearly impossible. How will this
affect a small business? Spammers could very well keyword stuff
tweets to get ahead and push your company lower on the tweets
area. This is going to happen. There is no control right now, but
the key is to try and stay ahead of them.
4. Search Engine Optimization.
Will real time search improve page rank? This remains to be
seen. Will keyword laden tweets that are tweeted over and over
from different accounts and push a company to the top of a
searched term make a difference? Will this be seen as spam?
Keyword laden tweets will give great results for a specific
term, especially for those difficult to rank terms, and even
if your company is atop of tweets for a short time, you may reap
some rewards.
Real time search is not just the posting of tweets. It also
posts company mentions from blog articles. So if your company
has a blog, you may want to check out your “Latest” results.
In small business branding we have to consider social media
marketing as an extension of your brand in the same way that we
do traditional advertising. For some businesses, it is a time of
uncertainty. As stated earlier, not every business needs to be
on Twitter. A “crickets” account is worse than no account at
all. But can you still just ignore the social media community?
The good news here is that, if you are able to squeeze in an
extra hour as a small business owner, you can go and see what
terms are popular in your industry, see what is being said
about you, and see if you need to move full steam ahead in 2010.
Most smal businesses will need to do so because social media
marketing has just started to make a big impact and getting in
now will make a world of a difference in a year or so.
What to Expect from Web 3.0
The buzz is growing about Web 3.0, but as usual you have to
filter out all the hype, self-serving PR, old-fashioned
nonsense, newfangled marketing verbiage and other noise. You
will then find a few facts that you can grab onto and try to
figure out what’s going on. The first thing to remember is that,
like “Web 2.0,” the term Web 3.0 is not an official term of any
sort, does not represent any particular protocol or standard,
belongs to no one – and is used, misused and made nearly
meaningless by everyone. It is, quite simply, just an arbitrary
“version number” that, at most, describes how the Internet is
built and how it delivers services, at least as of the
freeze-framed moment in time that represents the end of 2.0 and
the start of 3.0.
Sometimes it is called the “semantic Web,” but perhaps the
less-used term “everyware” is more descriptive. The new scenario
is one of ubiquitous computing, the advent of cloud computing
where a “thin client” (no- or low-powered PC, or even just a
monitor and mouse) runs cloud-based applications using
cloud-based data and services. The Apple iPhone, iPod and iPad
are all examples of formerly standalone devices that were
integrated into the Web, and connect people in a seamless,
real-time and very simple way with – well, with everything, from
libraries and department stores to other people, anywhere in the
world.
From Read-Only to Interactivity
One of the Web’s true “parents” was Tim Berners-Lee, who had his
own notion of how the technology and the Internet developed. The
first phase of the Web had read-only capabilities. It was
essentially a spectator experience until read-write
functionality came along (sure, call it Web 2.0) that included
services to enable contribution, collaboration, content creation
and interactivity. The next step in Berners-Lee’s version
vision, Web 3.0, is heralded as “new territory,” where users can
assemble and run their own applications, create all sorts of
cooperative and collaborative enterprises, and truly put their
ideas in motion rather than simply uploading stuff to this, that
or the other site.
People with money invested in other, still-useful devices -
phones, PDAs, fax machines, etc. – don’t have to worry about Web
3.0 making them obsolete. In addition to letting users create
their own tools, Web 3.0 is another step in the evolution of
usage and interaction in which the Internet holds multiple
databases and content that will be accessible to many
non-browser-based devices and applications. The obvious uses
will be video that streams from a PC to a TV, picture frames
that receive wireless updates from an online or local photo app,
and phones that display items recommended by your trusted
sources – friends, review sites, experts – when you’re shopping.
From Data to Knowledge
In addition to the foregoing characteristics, Web 3.0 is also
said to encompass other important advances. For one thing, all
sorts of inputs are possible, which means all sorts of new
combinations become possible. Content can be made even more
broadly relevant when it’s related to GPS, so that social
networking, for example, can be enhanced by knowing who is
where and doing what.
More importantly, you will get more and better control of your
data and be able to establish a number of personalization
systems to “wrap” your personal information with different
levels and types of protection – so that you can share it
widely, narrowly or not at all. Over time, the accuracy of
recommendations and trustworthiness of ranking systems will help
us determine which data sources to take seriously and which to
avoid.
From Business Faxes to Online Games
With the rise of “linkable web apps” you will be able to use all
of your different desktop, server and mobile devices and
applications – telephones, fax machines and online fax services,
instant messaging, pagers – and control them from a single
browser window on your desktop, smartphone or handheld device.
All of it will take place in an always-on, always-everywhere
environment, with functionality embedded sometimes in hardware,
sometimes in software, sometimes in both – so that when you need
to take care of business without downloading the capability,
you’ll be able to do so.
Along with more of the visual and voice-based services that are
already starting to proliferate, there will be more lifelike
avatar interactions in the growing virtual social networking
world. This will lead to social shopping trips and virtual
reality gaming far beyond anything currently being done.
In mid-2009, the “Wall Street Journal” ran a story on the
development of Web 3.0 capabilities and the promise of
ever-greater interconnectedness among technologies, products,
services and people. The story even gave us a yardstick by which
to measure the success of Web 3.0, if in fact it does succeed.
If, as the WSJ puts it, “computing could become as integrated
and invisible as electricity and just as important” – and we can
attribute it to the new and improved Web – we’ll know that the
promise has lived up to the hype. Here’s hoping!
SEO Tips: Get More Traffic with These 10 Important Inbound Links
posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 8:00 AM
Friday, August 27, 2010
SEO Tips: Get More Traffic with These 10 Important Inbound Links
Don’t overlook your inbound linking strategy as you think
about search engine optimization for your site. An inbound
link is a hyperlink back to your site from another web site.
The one constant and reliable strategy in search engine
optimization is that sites with a variety of high quality
backlinks rank higher in the search engine results pages.
Why are these links to your site important? They can can…
– bring potential customers to your site when they click
on the link
– increase the number of visitors to your web site
– dramatically improve your search engine rankings
Even though there are software packages on the market that
help automate the linking process, use them sparingly, if at
all. The only way to succeed in linking strategies is (aside
from creating useful content that will encourage inbound
links) by manually creating the links. That’s a hard fact
to swallow, given how I like to automate as much of my
marketing as I can.
Here are the 10 most important inbound links you must have
to your site:
1. Directory Links
Directories are indexes of online sites, typically organized
by category. Links back to your site from directories like
Yahoo Directory and DMOZ.org are very valuable. DMOZ.org is
edited by human editors, and while it’s free, it may take
awhile for your site to be listed. Getting listed in Yahoo’s
Directory costs $299/year.
2. Press Releases
If you’re writing press releases, make sure they are optimized
for keywords that someone would use to find a business like
yours and include links back to your site, as well. Once
written, you can have your press release distributed through
a service like PRWeb.com, which will create links from high
traffic news sites back to your site.
3. Article Directories
Writing and distributing articles through high traffic article
directories, like EzineArticles. com, is a great way to get
valuable inbound links from a high traffic site. By crafting
an effective resource box at the close of your article, you can
drive traffic back to your site!
4. Social Bookmarking
Similar to web browser bookmarks, social bookmarking sites
store individual pages (bookmarks) online and allows users
to tag (with keywords), organize, search, and manage bookmarks
of web resources as well as share them with others. If you
bookmark your own content on these sites (like Digg.com,
Reddit.com, Del.icio.us. com), you get a link from the service.
By producing content that your readers love and then bookmark
to their friends, the link increases in SEO value.
5. Blog Comments
To find blog posts on which to comment, you can use
blog-specific search engines like Google Blog Search. Make sure
these are blogs read by your target market, not your colleagues.
Brand yourself by always using the same name and remember to
link back to your site. Always leave a comment that adds to the
conversation that’s happening within the comments.
6. Social Media
Now, Google also indexes your Twitter updates and your social
networking profiles. Add that to Web 2.0 hubsites like Scribd
or HubPage and you’ve got the option of creating many, many
inbound links in a very short period of time.
7. Blog/Podcast Syndication
Submitting the RSS feed of your blog and podcast to syndication
services will give you a link back to your site. In some cases,
each time you publish a new blog post, the post itself will also
get a link.
8. Video Syndication
YouTube is one of the most visited sites online, and the number
of sites that syndicate videos is growing each day. These sites
often allow you to link to your site either in your video’s
description or on your profile page, or both.
9. .EDU and .GOV Links
Search engines place a great deal of credibility in government
and education web sites, and the links carry a great deal of
weight. Frankly, it isn’t easy to get inbound links from these
sites.
10. Internal Links
Remember, if you have more than one web site, or a web site and
a blog, be sure and link one to the other. You can do this by
linking one article to other related articles, or link to
categories or archives of information.
Creating a sound inbound linking strategy is a key component
of your search engine optimization efforts. Try a few of the
strategies listed above and see how your traffic and rankings
increase.
Advertising is Dead – Long Live Advertising
posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 8:00 AM
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Advertising is Dead – Long Live Advertising
Brand leadership through social media
Not so long ago, the relationship that brands had with their
customers was a one-way street. The brand was the boss. They
told their customers what to like and how to like it. The only
say the customer had was the decision to buy. This is no longer
the case. Customers are very publicly talking back and it is
making the management teams of some brands very nervous.
Web-based social networking platforms give customers power never
seen before. Now one voice can be heard by thousands of people.
Brands need to learn to deal with this evolution, so here is a
primer.
First, some background on how the internet has altered consumer
behaviour. The internet, and particularly the rise of social
media, has allowed people with similar interests to connect.
This becomes obvious when one trawls through Twitter, where the
common social network model of simply connecting with people you
know tends to give way to people connecting in groups according
to interest. Indeed, people interested in any topic imaginable
from all areas of the world are connecting. It’s like
subject-based forums on steroids. People are forming tribes.
Humans have always formed tribes. Religion, family, sports and
fashion are all examples of tribal behaviour. The difference now
is that any interest group can form a tribe almost instantly.
Social media has allowed any fringe idea to become the basis of
a tribe and a movement. People want desperately to be connected,
but, even more importantly, they want to be led. We are in a
time of massive change, which is driven by everybody’s desire
to do things in a new way and to be heard.
Barack Obama’s recent landslide victory is a good example of
this. He promised change, he communicated differently and led
with integrity. He connected to his audience through social
media. He started a movement, formed a tribe and then he and his
followers charged to victory. What the world discovered is that
you can now make an ad campaign as slick as you want, but if the
product is poor then it simply doesn’t matter.
So “advertising is dead” in the sense the old methods don’t
work the same way they used to. Obama’s opponents didn’t fully
understand the impact that social networking has had on society.
They continued to use the old and trusted methods of marketing.
These apparently transparent methods are diminishing in
influence as social networking begins to infiltrate every media
touch-point. In two recent articles I wrote for Anthill I talked
about how this is already happening to television and how the
newspaper industry needs to change to avoid becoming
irrelevant.
Social media is much more than a passing phase. Human
civilisation is built around social interaction. It’s what the
people want and this new media is only going to get bigger. It
will eventually become part of everything. Individual social
media companies might fade away (MySpace seems to be in that
category) as better designed products come onto the market, but
the world has spoken and it wants to be connected. Brands that
don’t adapt to this reality will be left behind. They will
become the guy at the party that nobody wants to sit next to
because he just keeps talking about himself.
Tribal Behaviour
Blogs have become socially and commercially influential. From
what started out as individuals chatting on about their lives,
blogs have become business tools and money making ventures. They
influence groups, buying patterns and fashion. They are modern
tribal leaders.
Not so long ago commentators speculated that blogging was simply
a passing fad. What these commentators didn’t realise was that
it was yet to achieve maturation and once it had it would signal
big trouble for the large media organisations. Now anyone with a
camera or a desire to write is ‘the press’. This pattern is
being repeated for micro-blogging, a category in which Twitter
is the current market leader. Some commentators question the
relevance of utilising Twitter to listen to people “drone on
about their lives”. But Twitter, and other micro-blogs, are in
the early stages of their development. They too will mature,
most probably much quicker than the original blogs, and enable
much bigger tribes to develop around even more specific subject
matter.
The tribal leaders of these new social media can be reached and
persuaded to support you, no matter what platform they decide to
use. Unlike the old ‘one way’ approach however, they need to
be interacted with on their own terms. Provided they have a
group of true fans, they can influence hundreds of thousands of
people – in a matter of hours. This is what gives them such
power.
And this is what marketers in the current environment have to
understand. The ‘mass-market’ model is on the decline. What is
needed now is a pattern of marketing to the ‘early adopters’ -
the ones at the front of the bell curve who have a true interest
in what you have to offer – and form a base of evangelists that
will market for you. You no longer have to aim to connect with
everyone. This really leaves the field wide open for the smaller
brands to break through – the ones willing to challenge.
The Age of the Challenger
In marketing speak, a ‘challenger brand’ is code for ‘the
small brand’. A challenger brand is one that is meant to be
fast, flexible and innovative in its communications. But in my
view the word ‘challenger’ should instead be short-hand for
‘emerging leader’.
Emerging leaders challenge the status quo, they challenge
themselves and they connect with others who have similar ideas -
those people who need a leader to show what to do and inspire
them. The market leader wants the status quo to remain just
that. They want to speak and be heard in a mass market. No
discussion thanks. The challenger realises that, in order to
create a movement there needs to be systems in place for
everybody in that tribe to be heard, and they commit to leading
that tribe with everything they’ve got.
Traditional advertising is not about interaction with the
individual. It is predominately a one-way conversation to a mass
audience. But nobody likes to be forced into making decisions.
This is why the traditional advertising model is beginning to
fail. It relies on mass media, and this media is itself being
transformed by social networks.
What can Social Networking do for Your Brand?
All of this may sound a bit scary for brand managers. It’s true
that it does take time and effort to build a community. And to
be truly effective, you have to obey some rules. Even so, it is
not a hard thing to do. It takes far more time and resources to
build that fan base with traditional advertising. Be honest, be
helpful and contribute to the community and you’ll get
supporters fast.
Social networking is far more than having a Facebook profile. It
is any platform that gives the end user an ability to
contribute. Many companies have realised that developing an
internal social media platform can aid in communication but have
yet to work out how it can help shape their brand personality.
A good social media strategy accepts that you can’t do
everything at once. A company can employ a social platform to
perform customer service, to connect directly with customers
(thereby humanising the brand), to obtain demographic
information on individuals to improve the effectiveness of
direct marketing or to harness a mass of surplus cognitive
resources to generate new ideas.
You can’t do everything with social media, but as long as you
are focused you will be able to do much more than you may
expect.
Where to Start
In the coming months, many companies will try to market through
social networks and many will fail. There are, of course, ways
of dramatically upping the chances of success, not least of
which is making sure you hire a company that knows the space
well. Making sure you know the fundamentals will help move
things along quickly.
The first thing any company moving into social networking should
decide is the overall goal. Knowing what you want to achieve and
why you are doing it may seem obvious but is something that is
easily overlooked if you rush into a project too quickly.
As with any good marketing activity, you need to know how your
customers think and behave. Unlike traditional advertising,
marketing online is very data-rich. It is possible to know
exactly what your customers are looking at, how long they spend
doing it and who they then talk to about the experience. Make
sure you know as much of this information as is possible before
you develop a strategy any further.
From there, deciding what channels you wish to utilise becomes a
very important choice. You should know where your target market
is by this stage, so deciding if Facebook, Twitter, Bebo or any
other platform is right should be easy. Deciding to create your
own platform is a bigger step but can be very rewarding if it is
done correctly. Again, make sure you are getting good advice and
a solid strategy and don’t just assume that if you make
something it will get used.
Measurement is important in all areas of business and social
networking is no exception. Developing good metric methods
should be an early priority. Remember that it is possible to
measure everything but not all information has value. Knowing
what you are looking at is vital. If you are hiring a marketing
firm to build you a social networking campaign, it makes sense
to have part of the payment tied to the performance of that
campaign. If you are building a network to get staff talking to
each other and your customers, the quality of the content will
go down if you assign KPIs to ‘platforms usage’ only.
Most importantly, make sure everyone involved knows what your
‘voice’ is. It is wise to develop a policy around social
networking usage, but if that policy is too tight you will lose
support. This is about people. Learn that it is OK to give up
control of your marketing message and become part of the
conversation. Be honest, be objective and be involved. And do
not leave your community. You have made a promise to these
people to listen to them. If you stop participating, they will
abandon you in an instant.
Start Lending
There is no better time to start developing social media
strategies. All market segments are spending a lot more time on
social networks (the time spent on Facebook grew by over 500
percent in the year Dec ‘07 to Dec ‘08) and in this time of
economic downturn it may be wise to attract new customers from
further afield. In the not-too-distant future, every company
will have a social networking policy, so getting in early will
give you an edge.
Marketing in social networks is not rocket science. It may
involve technology but, at its core, it is what human
civilisation is built upon. If you can hold a conversation you
can market in social media.
So get good advice and get moving. The world is changing and the
challengers are going to come out on top. They will create
movements and lead tribes. They will interact and not be afraid
of change. They will know how to listen and realise the greatest
power they have is to empower their customers.
If you understand that these networks have all been built
because it’s what your customers want, then the challenger, the
leader, can be you.
Is Load-Speed the Ultimate Google Ranking Factor?
posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 8:00 AM
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Is Load-Speed the Ultimate Google Ranking Factor?
Last week’s post about load speeds
(http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2010/04/
using-site-speed-in-web-search-ranking.html)on Google’s Official
Webmaster Central Blog finally confirmed the rumors which have
abounded across the SEO sector for months – that Google now
factors a site’s load-speed when assessing its search ranking.
And while this announcement, which comes as no surprise to those
with their finger on the Google pulse, has drawn a few favorable
responses from blog commenters, the overwhelming majority of
readers have expressed concerns and doubts about the soundness
of Google’s approach. At the forefront of these were questions
primarily regarding the exact magnitude of any negative ranking
impact carried by slow page loading speeds. Alongside these came
a large number of complaints about the fact that Google’s own
Analytics script is a known load-time decelerator, and about the
almost glacially slow rendering times of AdSense code.
When read together, many comments give one the impression that
webmasters are becoming apprehensive to the point of stampeding,
as is usually the case when Google does something new. Indeed,
the overall consensus seems to be that load-speeds are about to
become the ultimate criterion for search ranking performance, and
that this will cause major ranking damage to the average website.
One commenter even went so far as to announce that he/she will
remove all Analytics and AdSense scripts because their slow
performance will now obviously ruin his/her website’s
performance.
But are these worries actually valid, or are they just the latest
manifestation of unfounded Google-noia to hit the SEO sector?
Before I get around to addressing the question, I must admit
that I knew this was coming some time ago. Consequently I was
able to line up a few experiments on two sites from my own stable
in an effort to gauge any real-term ranking impact once Google
started to implement its changes.
What did I personally find?
Despite the fact that both websites are rich in graphics and
content, both have not been updated regularly since late last
year, and neither is what you might call a fast loader, I found
absolutely no detrimental ranking effects for either site during
the past couple of months. In fact, the slower of the two
websites (average load-time 5.3 secs) actually experienced
noticeable SERP improvements in the past week or so, which makes
me wonder if there’s not more to all this than simple load-speeds.
That, however, is another story.
Of course mine is only a limited sample, and a far from
conclusive one. It is, however, one of many indicators one can
find if one looks around. And with that in mind, let’s return to
the question at hand. Are webmasters’ fears justified or
ill-founded?
As usual, and as I’ve touched on already, each and every time
Google does something new, it invariably precipitates a spate
of trepidation and panic among the world’s webmaster and SEO
crowds. Perfect cases in point include the implementation of
the ‘Nofollow’ attribute, and the announcement that buying and
selling links for PR was no longer ok, both of which together
sparked major outcries throughout the online communities. And
from what I’ve seen, the initial knee-jerk reaction that the
Site-Speed announcement will certainly spell the end of the
Internet as we know it is no different.
But seriously, although load-speeds are now a ranking factor,
at least for English-language searches on Google.com, let’s not
forget that it’s still just a single one of over two-hundred
signals Google uses to assess a site’s rankings. And let’s also
remember that Google is first and foremost about delivering
relevant results, just as it always has been.
After all, what use is serving results from the fastest sites on
the web, if those sites don’t actually contain the information
the user is looking for?
In an interview (http://videos.webpronews.com/2010/04/01/
google-talks-quality-caffeine-spam-buzz-and-push/)less than two
weeks ago, Matt Cutts himself said: “People shouldn’t stress out
too much about Site-Speed, and the reason is that we’re always
going to care first and foremost about quality. How good is a
page for users?”
Addressing Site-Speed’s function in assessing SERPs, he also
said: “Don’t think it’s going to be the largest of the
two-hundred factors.”
These statements are more indicators…
As part of my daily involvement in Google’s Webmaster Help
Forum (http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters?hl=en),
I’ve had an opportunity to keep track of developments during the
past five months or so since the Site-Speed topic was first
raised. There, a number of highly enlightening discussions with
the forum’s other Top Contributors and Google staff, along with
the general speculations of a great many visitors, have provided
quite a clear picture of Site-Speed’s role in the overall scheme
of things. It is a role which, as is usually the case, focuses
on a better user experience.
Let’s face it, it’s no great secret that the average visitor’s
attention span is five seconds or less, and that long loading
times do tend to make users hit the back button. And that’s
exactly where Site-Speed comes in. It was never designed to be
the ultimate Google ranking factor; it merely provides a little
extra fine-tuning by casting the deciding vote in cases where
information of identical or similar quality is available on
multiple websites and needs to be ranked with a better user
experience in mind.
As a last word about load-times I would have to say that there
are a large number of reasons to make sure your web pages load
in a sensible amount of time. These should, however, be focused
on your visitors, not orbiting around your Google-noia.
15 Important Web Design Tips
Here are 15 important website design tips that you might not be
aware of or have overlooked. Consider taking advantage of them
if you haven’t already done so…
1. Custom 404 Pages
Create a custom 404 web page, so that any time your website
visitor mistypes or misspells a URL on your site, they will
still be provided with navigation options for your site
(instead of getting nothing but a “Page Not Found” error
message, which is neither friendly or helpful).
2. Redirect Non-www. To www.
Website visitors will often leave out the “www.” portion when
they type a URL or link to your website. Set the website up so
that it automatically redirects any non-www version of your
domain urls (http://domain. com) to the www version
(http://www.domain. com) of your website.
3. Properly Sized Graphics
Size and define all graphics and images on your web pages
properly and correctly. Web pages will load quicker if the
graphics contained on each page are properly defined so they
don’t require the web browser to re-size them. Properly sized
and defined images can reduce the web browser workload and speed
up the page loading time.
4. Favicon
Add a Favicon (favorite icon) to your website, so that your
company or product logo appears in the URL box. This icon will
also show up in a bookmark list, and gives the web site an added
level of professionalism.
5. Include RSS Auto-Discovery
If you offer an RSS feed for any content on your website, be
sure to include auto-discovery code in the header of your
website. This will allow many browsers and RSS readers to
automatically detect the presence of an RSS feed and alert the
visitor that it is available.
6. Alternate Domains
Domain names are relatively inexpensive, so you should register
multiple domain versions and extensions in order to protect your
brand. The varied domains can be parked on the main website,
simply to prevent others from obtaining them. Registering
alternate domain versions will help protect your brand.
7. Consistent Navigation
Navigation should remain consistent on a website. As a website
visitor moves through the website, the navigation bar should
remain in the same place on each page. This will make it easier
for visitors to navigate your website, and become more
comfortable as they move through your site.
8. Home Goes Home
The main graphic, company logo, or “header” at the top of the
site should be included on every page in the site, and should
always return the visitor to the home page of the website. This
has become a web standard, and most visitors now expect to
return to the main page of the site simply by clicking on the
main top graphic from any page within the site.
9. Copyright Notice
Include a copyright notice on the bottom of each page contained
on the website, and keep it current! It may seem trivial, but an
out-of-date copyright notice can send a message to your visitors
that the website and its content may be out-of-date as well.
10. Meaningful File Names
Use meaningful file names for any files, graphics, or web pages.
Many search engines look at file names as part of their search
algorithm, and using keywords in file names may help to improve
search engine rankings.
11. Hyphens vs Underscores
When naming files and webpages, use hyphens
(i.e. web-page.html) rather than underscores (i.e. web_page.html)
for the file names. It is much easier for search engines to
separate and index the keywords when hyphens are used.
12. Alt Tags
Use ALT tags to describe what images represent on web pages. ALT
tags not only assist visually-impaired visitors in knowing what
the images are, but they also help with search engine ranking.
13. Spell Check
Use a spell-check feature on the text of all web pages in a
website. A website that contains mistyped or misspelled words
just shouts “unprofessional”. Take the extra few minutes
necessary to check the spelling of text on each page of your
website.
14. Test
After making changes to a website, test it! Many times, a
webmaster will upload changes, confident in their abilities,
only to later discover that in their attempt to fix one thing,
they have “broken” something somewhere else. Make testing a
habit after making even the most minor changes!
15. Keep It Simple
Simple is good. Remove unnecessary clutter and distractions
from a website and navigation menu.
Landing Pages: What You Need to Explain to your Website Design Company
posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 8:00 AM
Monday, August 23, 2010
Landing Pages: What You Need to Explain to your Website Design Company
The definition of a landing page is simply “the first page
that visitors hit on your site,” so it is not strictly a
certain page but any page that a user “lands” on. All
websites have landing pages, whether they like it or not,
even if it was not specifically designed as such.
Landing pages can have a substantial impact on your e-
commerce website. A poorly-developed one can hasten its
breakdown just as an effective landing page can drive
traffic to your site, respond to calls to action and make
your business website a success.
One vital measure of the effectiveness of your website is
the “bounce rate,” or the percentage of visitors who
immediately leave your site without making any other click.
The bounce rate is inversely proportional to the
effectiveness of the landing page. Basically, this means
that a high bounce rate indicates that your landing page
isn’t compelling enough for the visitor to pursue his
interest or take some other action.
Normally, the home page is the primary landing page of most
typical websites. But more and more, site owners are
designing landing pages outside of the home page, and for
good reason.
Most users prefer to skip information which is irrelevant to
their needs. They want to get directly to their search,
hence the need for a landing page that delivers just that.
They can avoid the delays caused by having to click through
pages and pages of information when they already have
something in mind.
Landing pages serve their purpose when the site owner knows
the kind of visitor they are targeting. This is determined
by knowing what the visitor clicked on to arrive at your
site. A visitor who clicks on an ad for your product would
not want to go through other pages to get the information
about the product. Webinars, other event registrations and
special offers make use of this same principle.
Not all visitors are looking for the same information. One
may click on your link after reading an article you
submitted to a consumer review site while another may arrive
at your site after viewing your infomercial ad.
For each specific visitor, you can design a landing page
that will cater to his needs and contain the information he
is looking for. For example, infomercial viewers can be
directed to www.yoursite.com/infomercial, while visitors who
clicked on your banner ads for this month’s special will be
directed to www.yoursite.com/specials.
These landing pages should be evaluated for their
effectiveness. The bounce rate is a key measurement for
determining the effectiveness of landing pages.
Another measure for landing pages is the success of a “next
action.” It might be purchasing the product, requesting more
information, signing up for a free trial, etc.
Determine your conversion rate by dividing the number of
action takers into the number of visitors. A typical
conversion rate is 3 to 5 percent for lead generation pages
and 1 to 2 percent for e-commerce sites. If your site is
successful, you should be getting twice those numbers.
A concept that is intrinsic in creating effective landing
pages is “alignment.” This is the connection between your
source (where the visitor came from) and your landing page.
The more connected they are, the higher the success of
conversion.
A good example is a banner ad for a specific product from a
beauty products company. Clicking on the banner ad and being
directed to a landing page showing the exact same product
yields a higher conversion rate. If the alignment is not
present, on the other hand, there will be a significant
reduction in conversion rates.
In general, a landing page must stir these positive emotions
in a visitor for it to be effective:
Credibility
Your page must be able to capture the visitor’s trust by
presenting a credible appearance. Remove anything that can
cause a negative effect in the minds of your visitors, such
as a lack of contact information, grammatical errors and
typos, buzzwords, “marketese” and jargon, fuzzy or blocky
graphics and too much use of serif fonts, like Times New
Roman.
Recognition
Your page must provide your visitor a “This is what I’m
looking for!” moment upon landing.
Persuasiveness
Your page must be able to convince visitors that your
product or service can help them achieve their goal. Keep in
mind what attracted the visitor to your product in the first
place so you will understand what he is looking for.
Action
You must highlight an action for the visitor to take while
he is on your landing page.
Techniques to Use with Landing Pages
Here are some major principles to guide you in the process
of developing an effective landing page:
Make the Visitor Feel an Instant Affinity With Your Page.
The top half of the first screen should be effective in
making the visitor feel that he has come to the right place.
The use of the right taglines, images and a position
statement (usually about 12 to 15 words) can help to
establish your declaration and inform your visitor what the
site is about.
Use Specific Headlines and Sub-headings.
Throughout your page, include relevant headings and sub-
headings so that as the visitor skim reads the page they can
see what a particular paragraph or section is all about.
This helps him decide whether he will read the text or which
section he is interested in. The longer the page, the more
you should be using sub-headings. The headline should be
aligned as closely as possible with the banner ad or
whatever the visitor clicked on to arrive on your landing
page.
Focus on a Primary Goal.
A landing page can achieve only one primary goal. Examples
of these goals are a lead capture mechanism, such as a free
demo or product trial, or to lure the visitor to go further
and view your main site. The best results come about when
you focus on your goal. However, a secondary goal is possible
in a landing page. For example, if your primary goal is to
make the visitor purchase your product, your secondary goal
would be to entice them to sign up for newsletters or emails
to receive special offers.
Use Multiple Calls to Action.
Using multiple calls to the same action supports the one
primary goal principle. This holds true on a long landing
page. A page that doesn’t go below the fold may need only
one call to action. Overall, one call to action above the
fold and another at the bottom of the page are good.
Pay Attention to Your Layout and Graphic Design.
To make them easy-to-read, keep text columns narrow – about
80 characters or so wide – and left-aligned, not centered.
Place an image of the product (commonly called the “hero
shot”) and make sure the quality and clarity are good.
Images are attention-getting, so put your key text, such as
your offer, below the product image or other appealing
graphics.
If your offer requires the visitor to fill out a form, it
will be more effective if placed on the landing page rather
than needing a click-through to another page.
Layouts and graphic designs depend on the products and their
market and can be very diverse. In spite of the variety,
however, they can all use the same design principles to help
them be effective in achieving their goal.
Driving traffic to your site will require an investment on
your part, so it is only sensible to maximize the impact of
that traffic for a quicker ROI. Increasing website
conversions is also an important consideration.
Developing effective landing pages for your business website
only requires the simple implementation of changes, yet their
impact is significant to the success of your business and
the user experience of your website.
LinkedIn – Best Practices For You and Your Business
posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 8:00 AM
Sunday, August 22, 2010
LinkedIn – Best Practices For You and Your Business
LinkedIn is a professional, business networking tool that is too
easily lumped into the social networking service. Even though
many of the same modes of operation are employed, the focus is
on professionals, professional dialog, professional
opportunities, and companies.
This list of LinkedIn best practices was compiled from my work
with clients, colleagues and friends who are trying to maximize
their professional opportunities. I hope it is also helpful for
you.
Get LinkedIn
If you are working, you need to be LinkedIn. If you are not
working, you really need to be LinkedIn (however, it would have
been better to be LinkedIn when you had a job). If you are a
college student, you need to be LinkedIn. The president of the
United States is LinkedIn… just do it.
Add Your Picture
A photograph not only personalizes your profile, it completes
it. Even though LinkedIn may no longer use a faceless silhouette
like other social sites, as shown here, you must keep in mind
that this profile is about you, put a face on it.
Finish Your Profile
If you are currently using LinkedIn, or at a minimum signed up
for it, finish your profile. Your profile should display 100%
Complete. If not, LinkedIn makes it easy with a profile wizard.
Typically, you can click on anything green and the wizard
recommends ways to increase your profile completeness. It will
suggest things to do like; write a recommendation, request a
recommendation, add more people, add another job, add
educational info, etc. The wizard helps get you to a point of
basic critical mass; displaying your completed profile
(education & job information) and about 20 connections.
Personalize Your LinkedIin URL
Which looks better to you?
Linkedin.com/pub/coco-design/4/74b/8b3
- or -
Linkedin.com/in/CocoDesign
Of course the second one is more marketable, more professional,
and easier to remember. More importantly, you need to get your
personalized LinkedIn URL before someone else, with a similar
name, gets it first.
Now that you have a personalized URL, add it to your business
email signature so that everyone who gets an email from you -
1) knows you are using LinkedIn,
2) can request to connect to you, and
3) learns about your capabilities when they review your profile.
Answer Questions
This is a great way to build credibility and expertise points.
When you answer a question on LinkedIn, the person who asked the
question can mark the best answer. The more “best answers” you
have, the more expertise credit you receive in your profile.
This is also a great way to connect with people of similar
interests or issues.
Asking questions is a good way to receive help from other
industry experts and colleagues. It is also good for informal
polling. Just do not make it a sales promotion. You will chase
people away.
Ask Others if They Use LinkedIn
When you meet someone that you would like to maintain a
professional connection with, ask them if they are using
LinkedIn and if the would mind if you sent a connection request.
This is generally a good question after trading business cards.
Grow Your Connections
Once you have your account to 100% with 20+ connections, you
will have created a little momentum. To help keep that going,
review your connections’ connections. Chances are you will know
a few of those people. Then each time someone connects with you
take a quick look at their connections… you may find one or
two that you have a relationship with as well. Send a link
request.
Important – Do NOT send invites to people you do not truly have
a relationship with. If you receive too many “I don’t know
this person” clicks on your request, you will be required to
know everyone’s email address to request a connection in the
future. Bad juju.
Give and Get Recommendations
LinkedIn is like a living, online professional resume/vita. What
makes LinkedIn better than a resume that says, “References
available upon request”, is that references are displayed for
all to see. These recommendations are written in the words of
the sender, you cannot edit them. If there is a problem with a
recommendation, you can easily request a revision or choose not
to display it. Note: you can only request a recommendation from
someone who is currently using LinkedIn.
Outbound Links
Your profile allows you to have three outbound links with labels
like “My Company”, “My Website”, “My Blog”, etc. I
recommend you change the label to “Other” for all three since
you can add personalized keywords to the label enhancing the SEO
for the target sites. For example, I could link to this article
with the label text “LinkedIn Best Practices Article” to help
with my search engine rankings for that keyword phrase. You can
also use the “Other” label for Facebook & Twitter links.
Join Groups
By joining Industry and interest-related groups you are
connected with a larger group of professionals within that
sector. This makes it easier for you to invite others in the
same group to connect without the need for knowing their email
address. Again, you need to be careful here. Unsolicited
invitations could get you hit with a few “I don’t know this
person” clicks.
Jobs Area
The jobs area is not only for people looking for work. It is
also an excellent place for businesses to list job
opportunities. Our small company does not use Monster, Career
Builder, Ladders, etc.; it would simply be too overwhelming.
When we are looking for someone, we only use LinkedIn Jobs. Not
only can I review the person’s professional profile and
associations, we can get an idea of how closely we are
connected. Job postings can be sent directly to people in your
list of contacts and they usually have good recommendations for
potential candidates.
LinkedIn Company
If you are a business owner add your company to the Company’s
area. If your company is already listed, make sure the
information is accurate and up to date.
Install the Toolbars
LinkedIn has both a browser toolbar and an Outlook toolbar. The
former works well with Gmail, with both IE & Firefox and, of
course, the latter works with Microsoft Outlook. The toolbars add
a LinkedIn icon next to a person’s email addresses in your
mailbox. This enables you to see their profile information and
makes it easier to send an invitation to connect.
Givers Gain
Bottom line, the more you give the more you get back. The more
information you share about yourself, the better the search
feature will return you or your company as a result. The more
recommendations you give, the more likely someone is to give you
one. The more questions you ask or answer the more likely you
are to connect with people of similar interests that you may
never have had the opportunity to meet.
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