Archive for July, 2008
We live in an information-saturated world. There are more than 5 billion websites out there so people have a lot of choices. This means if people cannot figure out what your site is about almost immediately they will move on to the next site. So how do you make sure they stick around long enough for you to really get a chance to persuade them to buy your product or use your service? You need to control your visitor’s eyes of course. Don’t worry it sounds a lot more complicated than it is.
First of all, you need to provide a quick summary of your site. This does not mean you have to write a paragraph about what your company does. Actually that is quite the opposite of what you should do. You just need to find a way to let your visitor know what you do as soon as he gets on the page. There are many ways to do this. If you are in the retail business you could feature one of your products on the page; this lets the consumer know what kinds of products you are selling and lets him know he has come to the right place. This hotspot or feature spot also works as a great starting point, this is the place your visitors will look at first and then work from that place. If you know what they are looking at first it is easier to direct them to the next place you want them to look.
So where do you position this feature spot? Luckily most pages have a similar layout so most readers tend to all look to the same places when they first get to a page. If you don’t know where hotspots are you can check out this map from Google. The darker the area the more time visitors spend looking at that spot.
Aside from the feature spot your site needs to have a headline. Just like the headline of an article draws you in the story the headline of your website should draw in visitors. It should convey a central message that relays what your site is about.
Finally, a good way to get a message across quickly is by using images. People are drawn to images more than text because they can get a large amount of information with very little effort. Images let you show your customer instead of telling them something.
Now to make sure that you have achieved your goal you can test your site. To do this you will need to requite someone who has never seen the site. Ask them to sit in front of your computer and pull up the site. After two seconds close the browser. Do not warn them that you are going to do this. Then ask them the impressions of you r site. What did the notice, what do they think the site is about, did they trust the site? Using their answers you can go back and make adjustments where needed.
http://www.site-reference.com/articles/Website-Development/Controlling-Your-Visitors-Eyes.htm
Tags: website usability
I’ve often suggested to clients that they run a pay per click campaign for their brand name. Usually, there’s resistance. After all, some of our clients already rank first in the organic results for their company name. Why would run a paid ad when they can get traffic from brand-related terms for free?
In rare situations, this point is valid. But here are only a few convincing reasons why you should, at a bare minimum, run pay per click campaigns for terms related to your brand name.
Bad Organic Ranking
Sometimes companies have trouble getting a top organic ranking for their name when their company name contains generic keyword phrases that are harder to rank for. For companies that don’t rank #1 for terms related to their brand name, it’s absolutely critical that they run a pay per click campaign for terms related to their brand name.
Imagine the frustration of a potential customer who saw an ad of yours (online or offline) and now can’t find your website to do business with you. Also, imagine their impression of your company if you’re that hard to find on the internet.
Aggressive Competitors
In situations where your competitors are bidding on your brand name, again, you definitely want to be there as well. What this means is that your competitors can run ads that appear any time your name is searched. Whether you rank first in the organic results or not, cleaver ad copy by your competitors could be just enough to distract a potential customer. If for example, the only product you sell is tennis sneakers, your competitor may run an ad offering 50% of all tennis sneakers when your name is searched, in hopes that they can pull your customer away. Marketers who have used this strategy can attest to its effectiveness.
Take a minute and search for your name and variation of your name. Are any of your competitors using this strategy?
Your Brand Name or Website Address is Hard to Spell, Say or Remember
That’s right, not everyone knows as much about your company as you do. If for example you’re one of the zillion law firms out there named after six different partners, you’ve got to make sure you’re bidding on a variety of keywords that searchers might use to find you.
If you’ve got a tough name to spell or a long website address, try to think of different ways that customers may try to spell it and run ads for those terms.
Offline Marketing Support
Let’s say you’re running a series of radio ads this week. Listeners may hear your ad, like the offer, and then want to go online to get more info. Of course, they were driving home from work when they heard the ad and won’t be able to get on the web until later. By the time they do get around to searching for you, it’s possible they misspell your company name, web address or just can’t remember your exact name. Consumers are force-fed advertisements all day which makes it hard to remember the specifics of any one ad. Compliment offline campaigns and ensure that potential customers find you by running complimentary PPC ads.
These are just a few of many reasons that you might want to consider starting a few small brand name keyword-specific pay per click ads. After all, you wouldn’t open a store in a local strip mall without putting a sign out with your name on it, would you? Then why run the risk of having potential customers look for you online and not find you. Besides, if it turns out that no one is searching for your brand name, it won’t cost you anything and may be a sign that you need to run pay per click ads for other reasons…
In an ideal and alternate universe, fame, popularity, influence, the size of your “carbon footprint”, are all a product of what you do, not who you do know. And with the big lean on reputation management, it’s essential that the name a SEOlebrity makes for him or herself is one earned.
In a scene from ‘The Weatherman’, Nicholas Cage’s character, a putzy chi-town weather forecaster, is consoled by his Pulitzer Prize-winning father, played by Michael Caine.
He says, “Nothing that has meaning is easy.”
And when that nugget of wisdom is applied to the SEO community, I think we can begin to cull the glass chewers from the glass jaws.
The how-to for making a name for yourself, well, that one is fairly straightforward—offer something no one else can or already has, create, become and integral part of your community, maintain an amiable rapport, become iconic.
But how not to make a name for one’s self—there’s not an instruction manual for that, until now.
Meet Julia Allison, quintessential fameball and Disney animatron. This former Star-online editor rose up from the dregs of a whimsical Manhattan lifestyle and engineered a fame for herself, one founded on nothing more than showing up to a party in a costume of condoms.
From a surface inspection, it would appear that Allison took the Walt Whitman approach to celebrity-status by fueling her own publicity, but what separates the two is glaring; one had a prowess for creating, the other is simply a lamprey of others’ fame and married to the lens of a camera.
Fast-forward nearly two years. Following a botched six-figure position at Star magazine, a handful of appearances on Fox News and CNN, an expose in Wired, and talks of a TV show aptly titled ‘IT Girls’, there is still nothing, really, to warrant such attention. With any positive press, she attracts twice as much negative. And instead of being proactive about it, managing her reputation, and performing some much-needed damage control, she gets upset.
Present and future SEOlebrities would be wise to use the trainwreck that is Julia Allison’s fame as a lesson on how not to earn your reputation. You have to find your niche, be unique, have something brilliant to offer, serve your time, and become endorsed by the community you serve.
Most people know that the first step to creating a website is planning. What might be a little more unclear is how is the best way to go about planning a site.
Your 1st step should be to find websites that are serving a similar purpose as the one you want to build. Next, you should asses the strengths and the weaknesses of those sites. Use the sites to get ideas of what you would like to incorporate and what needs work.
For the second step get out a piece of paper and a pen (you can also you a pencil). On this paper jot down all your ideas about how you picture your site. Answer the following questions:
• “What are your goals in creating this website, what overall information do you want to convey?
• Who is your audience? Students, prospective students, faculty, staff, community, or a combination of two or more of these? What will be their goals in using your website?
• Are there different goals for different audiences? If so, what are the goals for each?
• Does the written content for your site already exist, or will someone be creating it?
• If the content exists, how and where is it currently stored?
• How often does the content change?
• Are there constraints on the information you want to display? For example, a page on this website should only be visible to students enrolled in a specific course.
• What interaction do you need between your site and its users? Do you have a database from which you want to extract and display information? Do you have forms that site visitors will need to complete?”
From: http://west.wwu.edu
Once you have answered all these questions and have written down all your thoughts it is time to make an outline. Think of this outline as a sort of table of contents of what will be found on your site.
From this move on to the 3rd step; a flow chart. This will allow you to have a visual representation of your site. You will be able to see clearly which pages link to each other and how your users will go through the site.
Finally make actual sketches of how you want each page to be laid out. Now this does not have to be perfect but it will allow you to have a good idea of what the final page will look like.
Now you are ready to get on the computer and actually make your site. Enjoy and don’t forget to check some of the design rules that I often talk about!
Tags: Page Layout
Posted on Jul 21, 2008 by Rick to SEO
There are many different approaches to effective link building, many of which are effective under the right circumstances. Some approaches will provide instant and measurable results. For example, submitting a website to a niche directory may provide a link once the website is submitted and/or paid for. Other approaches, while you don’t always see immediate results, can create a steady stream of inbound links over time.
Creating Quality Content
Time and time again we hear that ‘quality content is king’ when it comes to improving website visibility and rankings. Creating quality content can mean anything from writing a great article or creating a great online resource to building a helpful application free for others to use. The more quality content you can produce; the more there is for the search engines to digest.
Another big advantage of producing quality content its’ tendency to increase the number of inbound links to your website. As other webmasters and bloggers find content you’ve created; some may find it useful enough to link to from their own website or blog. The search engine logic of assigning so much value to inbound links is rooted in the very concept that good, useful content will attract links.
Marketing Quality Content
The ‘build it and they will come’ philosophy doesn’t always apply when trying to gain exposure to content. While it’s possible that others will stumble-upon content you’ve created, sometimes it doesn’t hurt to help this process along. Here’s what you can try:
1. Write an interesting, informational and unique article related to your niche, create a useful application, or compile a useful resource on a topic relevant to your website.
2. Submit a link to your new content to websites like Digg, Technorati, Stumbleupon or other similar websites. Here, you’ll be presenting your content to peers for review. If they like it, you’ll receive votes and more exposure.
3. Visit forums where people interested in your content may visit. It’s important that you’re an established member of this community before posting. You’re reputation in the forum will make you suggestion more trusted by those in the community. If you’re not a member of any relevant forums, get going now. Social media marketing is always easier when you’re already apart of the social scene.
4. Make it easy for your website visitors to recommend the content to others. This can be accomplished by adding a ’send to a friend’ link or by adding links that make it easy for visitors to recommend your content to the popular social networks like those listed above.
As I mentioned at the beginning, this particular method of link building can take time. Don’t worry if you’re content didn’t shoot to the top of Digg on the first day. The important goal here is to get your content as much exposure to the right people as possible.
The main benefit and what makes this such an effective link-building technique is that this is the link building technique that keeps on giving. As time passes and your website attracts more visitors, you’ll have more opportunities to build links without any additional effort. If you’ve provided truly great content, you’ll hopefully continue to periodically receive links to your website.
Tags: link building
Eye tracking allows us to graphically observe what a person sees when they look at a website. It gives us an idea of where people look first and what grabs more attention. Some big companies may want to use eye tracking to make sure the right parts of their website is actually being viewed. Those who may lack the ability to get an individual assessment can learn from the many studies that have been conducted using eye tracking technology.
1. Most people come to your site looking for information; this explains why text gets more attention than graphics.
2. Most websites have a similar format which includes important information, such as a logo, in the top left corner of the page. This is why most people look to that corner first.
3. After they have looked at the top left corner they proceed by looking down and to the left.
4. Most readers ignore banner ads because they are so used to them.
5. Any text that may be misinterpreted for an ad, usually over-formatted text, is not read.
6. It is better to use numbers than to spell out the word because most people are just scanning over the page.
7. Font size affects the way a person reads a page. Smaller font size makes people focus while people usually scan over lager fonts.
8. Be careful about putting important information at the bottom of the page because most people generally scan near the bottom.
9. Keep paragraphs short. People have short attention spans and so it helps to have shorter paragraphs.
10. Use one column instead of multiple ones because too many will make a reader feel overwhelmed.
11. Ads next to the most important content get the most attention.
12. Text ads perform better because they blend into the page and are less irritating.
13. Bigger images are better because people like to be able to make out the details. Therefore make sure the quality is good too.
14. One of the first things a reader looks at is the header so make sure it is catchy.
15. Readers spend a lot of time looking a button and menus so make sure these are well built.
16. As was mentioned before long paragraphs do not hold attention, but list do. So try breaking up some longer paragraphs with bullet points.
17. Formatting words, if not overused, will draw attention. Underlining, bold, and italics can be good tools however using it too much will have the reverse effect.
18. Leave some pieces of your site free of any content. White space will keep readers from feeling overwhelmed and help them focus.
19. Ads in the top left corner of a page will get the most visual attention, so try placing your best ad there.
20. Put your navigation at the top of the page this way it will get more attention and help people go from one page to another more easily; this way they will spend more time on your site.
Tags: eye tracking
Hitwise recently reported that Google served up about 70% of all internet searches done in June in the USA. While Google’s competitors continue to struggle with keeping with the search giant, industry experts wonder if Google will continue gobbling up the competition.
One question that comes to mind for many of us in the search engine marketing industry is that, if Google continues it’s quest for world search domination, how much time should we continue to spend in paying attention to the ‘other guys’ in our search marketing efforts.
Since MSN, Yahoo and ASK still serve up a combined 30% of the total searches, paying attention to the smaller engines will still pay off. The smaller amounts of traffic generated from Google’s competitors can have a huge benefit on SEO results in the long term the same way that long-tail search strategies does. This consistent flow of traffic from other sources, no matter how small, adds up in the long run and helps to create stability in website traffic.
What this means for our SEO efforts?
Since Google still seems to consider linking to be more important than other SEO factors, it’s more important than ever to focus SEO efforts on building quality links. Although it is often the most time consuming and frustrating part of SEO, it also yields the greatest benefit. MSN and Yahoo still seem to consider the on-page factors as pretty important so we need to have continued diligence in using best practices for on-page optimization.
What’s great is that our efforts in all these areas will pay off to some extent in each search engine, regardless of which search engine is dominant.
Tags: google
If you have a website you might be asking yourself whether your site is fine as it is or if you should redesign it. This is a tricky spot to be. I will go over some of the top reasons you should consider redesigning your site. If you do not fall into one of these categories it does not mean that a redesign is out of the question, at the end of the day it is best to use your own judgment.
1. Making your site more visually appealing
I thought I would get the obvious one out of the way first. A good looking professional website will draw in a lot more business than a poorly built one. Remember your website is like a virtual storefront. You wouldn’t want your store or office building looking all run down or unkempt, the same should be true of your website.
2. Organization
If you can’t find what you are looking for on your own website chances are no one else can either. If people cannot find what they are looking for they will get frustrated and leave. This is also a lot like a store, if you walk in looking for a blue polo but nothing is organize and shorts are mixed with t-shirts and collard shirts you will probably get frustrated and go to a store that is better organized. Make sure there is a flow within your site.
3. Style
A website not only needs to be appealing, but appropriate as well. What I mean by this is you could have a good looking website but if it does not match with the object of your website it could send confusing message.
4. Promotion
If you are getting ready to promote your website either through SEO, email campaigns, or links you might want to consider redesigning your website first, so that all your promotion efforts are not wasted.
5. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
If you know how SEO works then you know that it is important the right keywords are associated with your website. If you want your website to turn up higher in search engine results it might be a good idea to get your website redesigned.
6. Graphics
If you don’t have a lot of good graphics on your website it might be a good time to look into some redesign because graphics really aid in making a website more interesting.
7. Simplicity
It is extremely important that your website is easy to use. Whether people are buying things or researching information about a service it needs to be easy.
Article syndication is one of the most effective link-building tactics you can use in your SEO campaign. The goal of this tactic is to distribute articles that contain links to your website to many other related websites.
To be effective at this tactic, you need to start with by creating several well-written articles. Your articles should contain valuable information about a topic related to your website, have entertainment value and must be interesting to read. They should also be free of spelling and grammatical errors. Be sure to include at least one keyword-rich link back to your website in the article body or in the by-line or author information area.
Once you’ve written a few articles, you need to seek out other websites that are interested in publishing your articles. Finding interested websites can sometimes be the most time-consuming part of content syndication.
You should start by setting up an account with a popular article directory or two. An article directory is a great place to publish your article because they get a lot of attention from the search engines and from other website owners who may want to re-publish your article. Many article directories also rank well for popular keyword phrases, which may mean great exposure for your content.
You can also search for bloggers or other websites that write about the same topics that you have. Some of these may be willing to post one or more of your articles as a guest writer. The advantage for the blogger or website owner is that they get to add great content. The advantage to you is that you get a link back to your website.
The key to article syndication is to create really good content which makes it easy to get others to re-publish. Spend a little time on the effective link building tactic and the results will make it worthwhile.
Tags: link building
There used to be a time when a good looking site was generally a sign that the company was real and honest. These days smart consumers know that a professional looking website is not necessarily a sign of credibility. There are people everywhere who are looking to steal people’s money or information, and consumers are being extra careful that they are not one of the victims.
Stanford University did extensive research to find out what most people looked for when deciding in a site was credible. I will discuss what they found.
1. “Make it easy to verify the accuracy of the information on your site.”
If your site is informational you can increase credibility by citing your resources. You should be able to back up any claims on your website. Probably the best way to show that your site is credible is to include third party support. Use third party security providers and make sure that their icons are displayed where they are easy to see. Make sure to offer more proof that you are certified by that company if the consumer wants it.
2. “Show that there’s a real organization behind your site.”
A good way to prove to customers that there is a real company associate with the site is to make sure the address is on the site. You can also post a picture of the office building or store.
3. “Highlight the expertise in your organization and in the content and services you provide.”
This is as simple as just giving your credentials. You can state either the qualifications of your company as a whole, or of individuals on your team
4. “Show that honest and trustworthy people stand behind your site.”
Images are again useful here; use them to show who is a part of this company. Also try to include short bios so that visitors know that there are real people behind the site.
5. “Make it easy to contact you.”
This step is very easy and very helpful. Make sure your contact information (address, phone number, and email address) are easy to find. A contact link in the top right corner is usually a good place to put the information, as well as again in the footer.
6. “Design your site so it looks professional (or is appropriate for your purpose).”
I find this pretty self-explanatory so I will leave it at just that.
7. “Make your site easy to use — and useful.”
Now this sounds simple and it is but it is also easily forgotten. We are often overtaken by an urge to make everything as amazing as we can but sometimes keeping it simple is the better way to go.
8. “Update your site’s content often (at least show it’s been reviewed recently).”
A site that has not been reviewed in over a month usually seems out of date or forgotten and people tend to trust it less.
9. “Use restraint with any promotional content (e.g., ads, offers).”
Too many ads can send the wrong message. Make sure that you minimize the number of ads and separate them from your content.
10. “Avoid errors of all types, no matter how small they seem.”
Even a small typo can make a site seem less credible so make sure to double check everything.
A few extra tips that may be useful are:
11. Include testimonials
12. Demonstrate your philanthropy
Show people what you have done for the community; but make sure not to flaunt it too much.
13. Check your domain name.
.com and .org are more respectable than other domains such as .net
14. Send confirmation emails
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