Author Archive
June 1st, 2010 by Lisa Rosenkrantz
Even if you have a great looking website, its success isn’t guaranteed. You need to think proactively and plan out the website’s purpose, design and content – and then you need to monitor and test its activity. What you want to ensure with your website is that it’s got the right stuff to get visitors to your site in the first place and keep them interested long enough to win them over.
Strategize your success by avoiding common website mistakes.
• Start with a real domain. Avoid being a sub-domain for a blog or other hosted service. It’s not only cumbersome, but it does nothing for your SEO and it’s hard to change domains later. Domains can be very inexpensive, sometimes less than $10, so it’s worth it to spring for one.
• Skip the flash intro. Even though they are sometimes cool to look at, most people have no patience for them and will click on Skip Intro the first chance they get or they might even bail. The only thing worse than having a flash intro is having one and not offering a Skip link. Just avoid it.
• Change the color of visited links. This is a major part of good navigation and when not done, proves to be one of the costliest Web design mistakes. Users like to know where they’ve been on your website, and including this feature allows them to instantly plan out their next move. Without it, they can become disoriented and annoyed if they inadvertently repeat a page. Really pay attention to this and all other aspects of the navigation on your site so you don’t lose your visitors.
• Don’t set up new browser/pop-up windows. There is nothing to gain from having windows open all over the place without the user’s consent. It disrupts smooth navigation, especially since a fresh window doesn’t have a Back button. Your links should lead customers to a new page that replaces the current view, with easy access back.
• Make your call-to-action crystal clear. Whether you want someone to make a purchase, sign up for a newsletter, complete a form or register a product online, you want visitors to know exactly what you’re after. Isn’t that why you have the website? Position the call-to-action button clearly and make sure the color, font and size are appropriate.
• SEO and SEM it. We can’t emphasize this enough. Working to generate visitors is crucial – so you can’t just create a site and expect crowds of people to find you right out of the gate. Do your homework and research keywords, create tags, develop content and do plenty of off-page optimization. Buy pay-per-click ads – anything that gets your site noticed in the search engines. Hiring professionals to handle all this is an excellent idea.
Your website should enhance your business, not disappoint it! Plan carefully – know what you want your site to achieve and who it’s for and take action. And always make sure you have a way to measure its performance so you can make adjustments quickly and avoid unnecessary website mistakes.
Tags: common website mistakes, web design mistakes
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
June 1st, 2010 by Lisa Rosenkrantz
We like personalization – even with our search engine experience. Google knows this and has something new to check out. In an effort to help signed in users be organized and upgrade how they keep track of their favorite visited websites, they’ve implemented Google Stars. It’s easy to use and totally intuitive, as all you have to do is mark the star next to a website in the SERPs:
When you do your next related search, the websites you starred in your previous searches show up at the top of the page for your reference:
The starred websites also populate your bookmarks and your bookmarked websites/pages will in turn show up in the stars feature. If you’re someone who does a great deal of searching on the Web, but you’re not always organized, this is a fabulous feature. All you have to do is perform a simple mouse click and you’ll be able to track where you’ve been and come back to that page at an opportune time. It can be a real time saver.
The Stars in search replace the SearchWiki personalizing feature, which allowed users to customize search by re-ranking, adding, deleting or commenting on search results. It has been criticized for affecting the order of natural search results and that was unsettling for website owners. If you still wish to use the Wiki notating feature, you still can by selecting related (and public) Sidewiki as one of your Google Toolbar options:
Many people have worried about the affect Stars might have on their SEO efforts and their organic search engine rankings. You need to remember that the Stars/Bookmarks, etc. are only in effect if you’re signed in. If you’re signed out, the results are in their natural state and are the same for everyone.
Even if you are signed in, Google says, “Your starred results are associated with your Google account, so they only affect how your personal search results appear. By starring a result, its search ranking will not change, even though you may see it appear at the top of the page in the ‘Starred results’ section.”
To further back up that claim, a Google Star Test was created by Patrick Altoft, who tested the affect of the stars on his website using a specific keyword. The bottom line? According to this blog post, “…these stars have made little to no effect on the SERP ranking of the target website.”
So – good to know. You can do your research, have solid Google search personalization, remain organized and still have uncorrupted natural results.
Tags: google stars, personalize google search
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
May 24th, 2010 by Lisa Rosenkrantz
It’s important for your online business to keep customers engaged – so why would you confuse them with website content that’s all over the place? Would you want to shop in a store with ladies’ undergarments on the same shelf as work boots and bubble gum? It wouldn’t make sense. So it’s important to optimize your Web content, and to organize it into neatly packaged webpage themes that not only the search engines will love, REAL PEOPLE will, too! And really, who are you trying to impress anyway? People who’ll start off as visitors and become your customers, that’s who.
Think back to one of those college research papers. Remember when part of your grade depended on your outline? Well, webpage theming is no different, really, except it doesn’t have to be as detailed or have any precise formatting. It’s just so much easier to work from a well-structured outline, even if it’s informal.
Some benefits of theming out your pages:
- Streamlines your content
- Keeps related keywords on each page
- Makes pages distinguishable and focused
- Keeps continuity between title, content, keyword density, internal links
- Is favorably viewed by search engines and human visitors
So just because you have a website, you shouldn’t assume that search engines will be able to identify each and every segment of the site in a structured and logical way. That’s for you to work out. For many sites, it’s probably reasonably clear what your breakout themes should be, but you’ll need to support your intuition by solid keyword research using the Google Keyword Tool.
To give a super simple example, let’s say you’re a taxidermist and you have a small website. Your outline might look something like this (or it might be in your head):
With just this basic framework at your fingertips, it’ll be easy to work out the structure of your web page themes and write effective content, titles and tags. Having distinct pages and strong themes can help your site be viewed as an authority, and will be regarded more favorably by Google and other search engines than other, more haphazard sites. It’s worth it to do the work to make your site relevant and dominant – Google loves structure and so do your visitors.
Tags: keyword theming, web page theming
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
May 24th, 2010 by Lisa Rosenkrantz
If people are coming to your website, they need a purpose. Perhaps you want them to buy, register, bookmark, donate, make an appointment, fill out a form, subscribe or sell something. Whatever you want them to do, you  need to make it abundantly clear in a tactful, legit way that they’re not going anywhere until they comply with your wishes. Your call-to-action is the element you use to compel visitors to do something specific that enables you to measure whether or not your website is doing its intended job.
The website call to action, then, is small but mighty. Everything you do with it is important and there are many considerations and ways you can handle it. From placement to wording to the actual color you use for the button, you really need to think about it methodically. Make sure the message clear, encouraging, trustworthy and not overwhelming so you can enjoy a healthy conversion rate.
From a Web design perspective, there are the elements to keep in mind when planning out your advertising call-to-action that can lead to increased conversions:
Placement: Make sure your call-to-action message is noticeable to visitors. It should be above the fold and in a prominent place, somewhere next to or within the content. Put a button on the homepage for sure and don’t hesitate to place buttons on other pages throughout your website. Also, make sure there’s direction for each step of the process, so no page is ever a dead end.
Text: What should your call-to-action say? Definitely NOT just Click Here, which isn’t cluing your visitors in on the real action you want them to take. Be clear; use wording such as Try It for Free! or Buy Now! or even Click Here to Subscribe to Our Newsletter! That’s some solid direction.
Color: The call to action button should be noticeable and perhaps contrasts with your main colors. Also, according a recent blog post, the colors you choose for your Web call-to-action make a difference, and should be chosen carefully according to the action. For example, red is popular but might be associated with debt, while white might be lost in the crowd and overlooked.
Size: A larger button will make it more prominent on a page and will have a positive impact on conversion, but don’t make it so big or flamboyant that it’s obnoxious and takes away from the tactful message.
Icons: Images and buttons catch people’s eyes and stand out against the text. The fact that they’re a contrast to the rest of the page inherently implies a request to take action.
To determine the best advertising call-to-action for your particular website, it’s important to do some testing to find out what’s working. Experiment with different colors, sizes, shapes, locations, etc. and check which are leading to a better conversion rate. Use the free Google Website Optimizer tool to help you do this.
Don’t take the call to action for granted on your small business website and forget why you have a website in the first place. You’ve got a potential customer visiting your well-designed website and reading your excellent content… now you’ve got to ask for a conversion.
Tags: call to action, website call to action
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
May 19th, 2010 by Lisa Rosenkrantz
I’m pretty happy with conducting any and all searches on Google – it provides the tools, data and resources I need to do my job and find what I need for real life. It’s pretty much automatic to reach for Google first thing in the morning and last thing at night; however, it doesn’t hurt to check out alternative search engines once in a while to see if there’s possibly anything else of value out there. To that end, I searched (on Google) for new/unique/unfamiliar-to-me search engines and made some first impression observations.
Blackle (www.blackle.com):
This is basically Google wearing black – while being green. The premise is that it saves energy over a white background by reducing color settings and desktop graphics. It’s sleek and all, but if you click on a link, you’re no longer in Blackle, so what’s the big deal? Are the three seconds you spent doing a search going to make that much of a difference? B
Cuil (www.cuil.com):
I would say this one is really pleasant on the eyes and delivers some streamlined results. This is great for people who want to cut to the chase and find their information without repetition, sponsored links and clutter. You can just feel the editing that goes into generating the results. B+
Dipity (www.dipity.com):
This search engine, like TagGalaxy (below), is one where I can see getting caught up in the features and functions. It delivers your results in the form of a timeline and incorporates results from YouTube, Flickr and Digg. You also have the options of having your  results appear in List, Flip Book and Map forms. While this is a great tool for anyone, I could see high school and college students really lapping it up. A
GooBingHoo (www.goobinghoo.com):
After you type in your keywords, the results from Google, Bing and Yahoo! appear together. The top third of each results page shows up and you can customize it to show them vertically or horizontally, making it a convenient way to see the difference in rankings. Visually, it’s annoying to me because when you scroll through one set of results, they all scroll. C
Instafound (www.instafound.com):
Their motto is “type a term and get taken to a site.” Well, they deliver on that, but if you’re impatient at all or are a visual learner, this won’t work. You have to wait for their choice of sites to load, and if it doesn’t work for you, you have to scroll to the next one and wait again. Plus, you’re inside frames, which I don’t like. There’s no picking and choosing, so you might as well use Google’s I’m Feeling Lucky feature which is faster and frameless. D
Quintura (www.quintura.com):
At first I found this one difficult to maneuver, but once I got the hang of it, I found it helpful for generating ideas and keywords. I still like Google’s Wonder Wheel better for this purpose, but it was fun to play around with keyword variations, which are prompted by a cloud of search topics that appear to the left of the results. B-
Soovle (www.soovle.com):
You type in your keyword and suggestions from Google, Bing, Amazon, Wikipedia, YouTube, Yahoo! and Anwers.com appear in a web around the search box. It’s a helpful tool for generating ideas as well as for search, but the layout could be a bit more polished. C
Sputtr (www.sputtr.com):
This one is very simple and meant for mobile devices. You type in your keywords and select from a drop-down menu the search engine you wish to use. It’s basically what you may already have on your browser’s toolbar, with the addition of YouTube, Flickr, Amazon, Ebay and Wikipedia. B
TagGalaxy (www.taggalaxy.com):
Two thumps up! This is a picture search engine that has an amazing and fascinating design interface. Put in your keyword and it will quickly deliver whatever it has scraped from the Web on animated, orbiting, 3-D planets. The additional ideas it generates are quite impressive. I heartily recommend this one – try searching with “Spain” and see all the possibilities! A
Viewzi (www.viewzi.com)
When it comes to explaining how much I love this unique search engine, I’m speechless. It has every format for results at your fingertips – timelines, web snapshots, tag clouds, photo clouds, news articles, power grid…you just select your preference from a view menu. The results are from Google, so you’re guaranteed relevance and everything comes up lightning fast. This is the only alternate search engine I’ve added to my browser’s toolbar. A+
Yoowalk (www.yoowalk.com):
This one is like a video game, actually. You search the web in the form of a customizable avatar that strolls through and among 3D representations of websites and categories. There’s a social component, as you can interact with other users and submit favorite sites. It’s interesting, but you probably won’t get much accomplished. Plus, it crashed my browser almost immediately. B-
Zhift (www.zhift.com):
This search engine concentrates on the forum niche. You can also elect to search for PDF docs and Forum DoFollows. I don’t think I’ll get much use out of this engine, though. I tried two separate and unrelated searches and the results for both were far from relevant. Despite having launched and re-launched a bunch of times, maybe they haven’t quite gotten it right. C-
There are scores of other alternative search engines to explore, but I think I’ll stick with Google for my basic daily requirements and play around with some of these new discoveries when I’m looking for visual or cerebral inspiration. What do you think of these sites? Have you found any other interesting ones?
Tags: alternate search engines, new search engines
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
April 27th, 2010 by Lisa Rosenkrantz
 I came across a blog post from last year about optimizing the Thank You web page that makes so much sense. Not only is it a good business practice to deliver that confirmation page after the customer has made contact with you or purchased something, it’s such a great opportunity to redirect them back into the fold, whether you offer to show them how to track their order, give them a coupon for next time or suggest related products. Since you already have their attention (and their confidence), you might as well create a chance keep them enchanted for a little while longer.
The last year or so has seen the explosion of the use of social media – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. have gone from central locations where you keep up with friends and business associates to must-have networking and marketing channels. If you have a business, it’s become essential that you also have a Facebook page and a Twitter profile so you can gain followers, fans and hot leads and market to them directly.
Your website Thank You page is a perfect place for you to let your customers know you’re connected and there’s plenty of room for them in your network. Invite them to join you and encourage them to bookmark you or write a review of their experience doing business with you. Such calls to action can not only increase your following in general, but can lead to otherwise untapped conversions. After all, these are pre-qualified visitors – the best kind. (Of course this all depends on how you use your social networking opportunities.)
A great way to use the Thank You page is as an advertising spot for your affiliates and for links to other related companies. Your customers won’t feel overwhelmed or overmarketed if those links are totally relevant. Additional ways to use this page include referring friends, requesting surveys, providing links to FAQs, posting your contact information or offering a printable version of the confirmation. Using the Thank You web confirmation page creates goodwill between you and your customer, which puts them in the frame of mind to respond to your additional marketing efforts.
Tags: confirmation page, optimize thank you page, website thank you page
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
April 15th, 2010 by Lisa Rosenkrantz
Consumers’ online activity keeps growing every year, and online transactions keep growing as well. You should capitalize on this by studying what they’re doing, where they’re doing it and how they’re doing it.
What is behavioral targeting?
Behavioral targeting is one of the latest marketing trends, with its use expected to grow over 450 percent in the U.S. by the end of 2012. It involves analyzing past consumer behavior to model future behavior; in other words, you can actually decide what consumers will do before they do it.
What are the benefits?
Because advertisers are naturally concerned with their ROI, behavioral ad targeting technology will help them reach their goals by advertising to the correct target audience at the correct time. It enables them to display content that is more directly relevant to the interests of the visitor viewing a page, which is much more effective than random advertising. This improves the value of your advertising investment.
How is it done?
Typically, web analytics are broken down into a certain number of channels. Each channel is scrutinized and profiled in order for website operators to decide which content, layout, navigation, etc. is appropriate for each. Advertisers usually use specialized software for these purposes, with which visitors are assigned cookies and tracked throughout their Web session. This is the data – combined with demographics and purchasing history – that is used to determine which content will be served.
Is this a form of stalking?
There have been some concerns raised regarding privacy; however, the behavioral targeting advertising industry does its best to educate consumers on the non-personal nature of this type of marketing, and seeks permission from end-users where applicable. There are regulations in place in North America and Europe; however the majority of users, when surveyed, are still opposed to online behavioral targeting.
Tags: behavioral targeting
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
April 9th, 2010 by Lisa Rosenkrantz
A press releases is a valuable marketing tool for your website and applying search engine optimization is a powerful way to drive a sizable wave of targeted customers to your business. Press releases are relatively simple to write and submit to news channels, but somehow people still make a number of mistakes that sabotage their efforts.
Many of these self-defeating errors can be avoided by simply hiring a professional SEO company to worry about drafting a perfect press release and optimizing it for the search engines. But, if you’re a diehard do-it-yourselfer, keep in mind what we consider the top mistakes to avoid.
Number 1: Not developing your target keywords. This is a must for optimizing press releases and you must conduct a bit of meaningful research to ensure you’re targeting the appropriate keywords for your objective.
Number 2: Not having a newsworthy angle. Your online press release serves a dual purpose – to broadcast something about your business (as with any press release) and to further your optimization efforts. Don’t blow it by just providing encyclopedia information – make an announcement.
Number 3: Not being timely. On occasion, people develop a press release around something that is old news or irrelevant to the current market. It’s best to wait until you have something new to say; you’ll have significantly better results.
Number 4: Recycling the same old information. Some people think they should regurgitate the same news and slap a new date on it, perhaps assuming that it’s only the links that count. Not so. First of all, Google doesn’t give much credence to duplicate content, and it will be equally useless to the reader. It’s simply best to write a press release about something current and newsworthy.
Number 5: Not including a compelling title. This is an especially important component, as your title will be shown everywhere, usually accompanied by a short blurb but often the only part of your press release that a searcher will see. You want to make sure it’s attractive enough so people will want to click to read more.
Number 6: Not writing quality content. Once you’ve drawn in your reader, there has to be something to keep them interested in your story. If you don’t have facts and figures or quotes from the principals, the credibility of your press release could be damaged.
Number 7: Not including a clear way to get the customer to respond. It’s important to make sure that the reader will click through to an important page on your site that will provide an opportunity to extend your business relationship with them.
Number 8: Not formatting your press release properly. What some people do is write their press release like a newspaper article and don’t educate themselves on the proper structure required by news outlets. The moderators of these channels will reject a press release very quickly if it’s not configured properly.
Number 9: Using ineffective press release services. Believe it or not, some are better than others. Many people who don’t have experience submitting websites use the wrong service and waste their money and their time.
Number 10: Using too much marketing language. When you’re obviously just selling something, using terms you’d normally use in a print ad instantly takes credibility away from your press release and may also result in rejection by the press release services.
Press releases are a handy way to drive highly targeted traffic to your website in a short period of time – if you handle it responsibly and cleverly. To truly get the most from your online press release, professional help is in order.
Tags: press release mistakes
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
April 2nd, 2010 by Lisa Rosenkrantz
What is keyword cannibalization?
It is the repeated use of a particular keyword across pages of the same website. Also referred to as keyword blurring, it’s typically implemented by website owners who don’t realize the ramifications of this misguided attempt to rank for a keyword they have their heart set on. So what they do is place the keyword in the titles and content of every page on the site. They believe that this overzealous practice will make the keyword look more important and increase their chances of ranking on Google.
So what’s the problem?
There are quite a few. Since Google ranks each website page independently, having the same keyword on every page of your site forces Google to have to choose which one it will use to rank for that keyword. The other pages are left behind, so your efforts have been wasted. Also, if you use the same keywords in your content across the board, your visitors may get confused as to which one is relevant to their search. You run the risk of losing them.
There are also problems with linking. If you use internal anchor text, pointing to many different pages with the same subject reduces its value. Likewise for any backlinks – if they are all pointing to different pages with the same subject, their value diminishes and you’ve interfered with the most important component to ranking in Google.
In a nutshell, keyword cannibalization causes:
• Lowered SEO effectiveness
• Internal site competition
• Inadequate index depth
• Lowered content quality
• Reduced search engine traffic potential
• Internal duplicate content issues
• Search engine penalization
• Reduced conversion rate
How do you avoid keyword cannibalization but still rank for your desired keywords?
• Get rid of duplicate content
• Organize your keyword lists
• Organize internal informational structure
• Use Google External Keyword Tool to discover alternate keywords
• Vary keywords – both short tail and long tail
• Use more competitive broad terms on top level pages
• Write unique meta tag titles for homepage and internal pages
• Apply 301s on cannibalized pages, pointing to a single version
With a little SEO elbow grease, applying these remedies will make a big difference in combating keyword cannibalization and attracting quality visitors, thereby increasing your potential conversions and ROI. The quickest way to deal with cannibalized or blurred keywords is to clean up your meta titles, and make sure each one is concentrated on a specific page topic. Too often, a site will have the same titles on every page, or repeat the homepage title on interior pages. Even if you have to put generic titles (like your brand name) on less important interior pages, a unique homepage title can go a long way toward getting better search engine rankings.
Tags: keyword cannibalization
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
|
|
