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March 18, 2014 By Jody Raines

SEO And Business Marketing – How To Optimize Your Website

Optimize website for search“How do I optimize my website for keywords and Google search?”

This is one of the most frequent questions I hear when I do public speaking on Internet marketing.

The falacy with optimizing for search is that “search” is not a customer.  While it’s great (and certainly an ego stroke) to rank high in the search engines for keyword phrases (that you think are important) the reality is that keyword searches are not necessarily synonymous with customers.

One of the biggest mistakes small businesses make with their websites is thinking that they can figure out what keywords their customers are going to use.  There are metrics that tell us what phrases and words are more popular than others… but this is not always the solution that we used to think it was.  Here’s a quick example.  We live in a area near Philadelphia, but really it’s South Jersey.  It can be referred to as the Delaware Valley which encompasses an area that could be construed to include the Philadelphia metro.  The reality is that customers don’t refer to themselves as living in the Delaware Valley, even though media does.  I had a customer who had a telecom business who insisted that was where their service area was.  It wasn’t until we started to divide the “Delaware Valley” into the smaller geographic areas, and referring to them as Montgomery County, Doylestown, Cherry Hill or Philly (versus Philadelphia) and using these phrases in our web content that we started to see results.  Zip codes are also important if you have a business that services a very distinct geography.

But optimizing for your customer is a different process than optimizing for search, although by doing the first, you will succeed at the second.

What do you need to know to optimize for your customer?  Well first, you need to know what your product is.  Not what your product is to you but what your product is for your customer.  A big mistake that many small business owners make it attempting to select their own keywords.  This is a mistake because you are referring to your products and what you do by the terminology you use, which may be inconsistent with what your customer calls it.

When describing what your offer is, it’s ok to use several ways to describe it.   There may be customers who refer to your product in different ways.  Where you don’t want to use different phrases or looks is when referring to your brand.  There is only one company that I know of that gets away with a ton of different treatments of its brand, and yet is incredibly recognizable, and that is Harley Davidson.  You see their logo played with in many different fonts, sizes and even colors.  If you had a marketing budget the size of Harley Davidson, you may want to play with your image that way, however, most companies pick a logo and brand identity, then reinforce it every where.  If you take out your business card, any brochures  you produce and put them in front of your computer screen, you logo should appear the same on all.

So, ask your customers – what is it that you are searching for when you look for what we sell.  You may be surprised.  Understanding what appeals to your current customers may not be what you thought you were selling.   I spoke with one gent who thought he sold office furniture… and he paid someone to optimize his website for terms related to office furniture.  That’s not what he was selling at all  – he sells office planning and he is experienced in putting together efficient space for a new office.  If you like the plan, he can spec and get excellent pricing on the office furniture, but he has no showroom and he is not competitive if you only want to buy a chair.

What is it you really do?  What is your competitive advantage. How can you stand out from the crowd and help your prospects find you?  That’s the real secret of search engine optimization. Once you understand why your customers want to work with you and do business with you, use their words to describe it, and you have a fairly strong foundation for building your SEO program.

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Filed Under: Keyword Phrases, Semantic Search, SEO, Website Design, Website Optimization

March 17, 2014 By Jody Raines Leave a Comment

Small Business – Hard Lesson: What You Need To Know About SEO

Cost of SEOYour SEO expert may be killing your business.   Recently I’ve been receiving calls from friends and potential clients who have been referred to me for help or advice.  In most of these cases, I am seeing a similar situation.  There is a trend among small businesses to attempt to improve their business by hiring someone who has presented to them a rationale to “improve their SEO”.   Most small business owners are adept at understanding their offer and their customer.  They are not necessarily website experts, and when presented with a compelling marketing case to improve their website, they feel that they are embracing new technology.   Especially if the website has been static for a long time, the buzzwords and inexperience in social media may entice the small business owner to agree to pay an “SEO” to “get me to the top of Google”.

First rule of thumb – anyone who wants your business and who promised to “optimize” to “make you number one on Google” is someone to be wary of.   Not because having a high ranking on Google is not a good thing – it is a good thing, generally.  What I object to is the charletan who sells a bill of goods about optimizing your website without any regard to who your customer is and how your customer shops, and most importantly, what would be the best type of business for you?

I think it may be clearer if I share some examples.   Recently I was approached by a company that offers office furniture for business.  The gentleman who owns the company was concerned because he recently spent “a ton of money” with an SEO company to optimize his website.   His concern stems from the fact that before the optimization, he would recieve phone calls.  Now, his phone does not ring at all.

Whether the website is coming up at the “top” of a search is irrelevant if it does not result in improved business.

The gentleman learned a lesson the hard way.   The first mistake that was made was when the SEO (and I use that term loosely) told him that he had to completely re-do the website.

Second rule of thumb – if anyone comes in and tells you that they have to completely re-do your website, ask them why?  What are they seeing that makes it important to rip apart what is there to create something new?  If the website was built in an old technology,  or had un-indexible content, that is a valid reason to re-do the website.  However, care should be taken to preserve the SEO or any inbound links or references to the URLs of the existing site.  If the web designer does not give a clear reason, then beware!  Unfortunately, sometimes a web designer wants to re-design a website simply to bump up the amount that you will wind up paying over time.

Another reason you may wind up creating a new website is that you were with a service and no longer want to utilize the service.  Some franchised web companies will get business by suggesting that they specialize in a specific business market, for example, there is one that I can think of that supposedly specialized in day spas.  Another that I can think of specialized in real estate.  A third ostensibly is expert with legal websites.  Is there an advantage of going with an organization that has done a done of websites in your industry?  Yes and no.   The advantage is that they probably have done some research and know what keywords to pursue.  The disadvantage is that they have done some research and know what keywords to pursue – and they have done the same research and keywords for every other client in the same industry.  So, your website will not be unique, your keywords will be the same as everyone else’s, and you will wind up with a formula site and a high probability of being penalized by the search engines for duplicate content.

One scam I saw recently was a human resources firm that hired a company to “optimize” their website.  The optimization agency only charges if they obtain first place ranking on Google for keywords that the client suggests.   It’s not hard to see what could potentially be wrong with this picture.  I happend to have visibility into the analytics, and sure enough, there was a ton of traffic when the agency started up.  Ironically none of the traffic was from the trade area that the hr company draws from.   Will they be paying for this optimization, you bet!  But the price will not only be paying for placement, it will also be in lost business from true prospects who may find the company through organic search.

If there is a lesson to be learned, it’s that there are no shortcuts.  Or perhaps, there are shortcuts if you know the right way, and they consist of doing the right steps, and not trying to ‘scam’ the system.  Now that Hummingbird and symantic search have become the norm, it’s not as easly to stuff an article with keywords, or to pay for backlinks to your articles. That can and will be used against you.  Instead, the important steps to creating a well rounded, content rich website remain doing things the right way.

 

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Filed Under: Search Engine Optimization, Semantic Search, SEO, Website Design Tagged With: Black Hat SEO, Google Best Practices, Hummingbird, Search Engine Optimization, SEO, Website Design, Website Optimization

February 9, 2014 By Jody Raines Leave a Comment

Social Media Marketing And Inbound Marketing Trends For 2014

Social Media Trends, Social Marketing TrendsWant your online marketing to be a Knock Out?

Internet marketing trends continue to evolve and as we enter the new calendar year we evaluate what the Internet marketing trends will be, and what the impact will be on social media marketing or inbound marketing.  Some of the changes we are tracking will have great impact on the way we communicate using the Internet.

  1. Semantic Search Yields Improved Results. The world of Google and search changed with the introduction of Hummingbird and the birth of semantic search.  What this means is that search is more intelligent and adaptive.  The old days of matching specific keywords for “optimized search” results are hopefully dead.  Long live the new SEO and semantic search results.  With a more intelligent and personalized result, the old days of ‘gaming’ the search engines are hopefully over.  A new dawn of improved search results will dictate that websites become more serious about improved and helpful content.  If the information is simply ‘marketing pablum’ with keywords sprinkled through the text, it will no longer garner top placement or search engine rankings.
  2. Mobile’s Influence On Responsive Web Design And Marketing. It still amazes me when I am searching for a company or service or product on my mobile device and the result is difficult to read or evaluate.  More and more, mobile has become the way we find what we are looking for, and if your website is not mobile enabled, you will be knocked out of the game.  Google Webmaster Tools even offers some best practices for mobile websites.  This past Holiday season, statistics show that over 25% of online purchasing was done on a mobile device.  With the increasing number of transactions and searches being performed on mobile devices, mobile responsive web design will be a huge factor for online marketing success moving forward.
  3. Social Video, Real Time Increase In Offers And Adoption.  Google+ was revolutionary with the Hangout and Hangouts On Air platforms. Integrating with YouTube (the #2 search engine) makes G+ Hangouts an important tool for 2014 and beyond.  Many traditionally audio podcasts have made the transition to video.   In fact, video production and embedding have become relatively easy.  There are tremendous advances in editing software that makes video production more attainable for the general population.   Apple has proven that you can use an iPhone as an all in one video capture and editing platform for creating surprisingly professional results.
  4. Wearable Technology And The Dick Tracy Era. Wearing your heart on a sleeve will take a back seat to wearing your phone on your wrist.  Jewelers who lamented the fact that no one wears watches any more are now excited about trends in wristwear that incorporate technology.  Whether it’s a watch that monitors your phone messages or records video or monitors your exercise, the way that we will communicate in the future is making great changes.  Google glass has had it’s blips and false starts, but generally its an exciting new technology.  At $1500 a pop, people have to wait to get an invitation to even line up to purchase the device.  Seems a bit expensive to have glasses that take pictures or record video, and perhaps the early adopters are reluctant to share the Emperor’s clothing scenario, but it’s definitely a trend to watch.
  5. Business Networking Expanded.  In the age of Linkedin, Quora, Google Plus and other networks that have a business edge, the importance of business networking, both online and in person has been escalated.  No longer can a company grow without a network of evangelists.  Brand evangelists will do the job of spreading the word better and faster and with greater credibility than the company can through advertising or other methods.
  6. Consolidation of Social Platforms. As social media platforms evolve, there is a tendency for them to become more and more similar.  When LinkedIn and Facebook added a Twitter-like stream, then when Twitter added a new improved Facebook-like wall the fuzzy differentiation became even more diffuse.  As Google+ and Facebook vie for social dominance with the newer entries like Pinterest and Jelly, the delineation will become blurred, and the fast pace of absorbing the newer, successful social channels will increase.  The good news is that the same skills for engagement and sharing social content that have helped to develop associations in the past will continue to be important, and those who have mastered the ability to identify and connect with influencers will continue to have success.
  7. Analytical Information Gains Importance. Does your social media program work?  How would you know.  Identifying measurable goals then finding a way to determine progress towards those goals will be the lifeblood of any social media program.  If a company is involved in social media, it’s not to say that every tweet or post or like has to be a contrived part of a plan, however the messaging and momentum should be consistent, especially in organizations where there could be more than one voice for the company.
  8. Sharing is the New SEO.  While Facebook celebrates its tenth birthday, social media and the era of engagement and sharing has blossomed and in some cases, social sharing has greater credibility than the old formula for inbound links.  The age of semantic marketing, of creating content that is meaningful and not just a mish mosh of keywords has begun.  For your web presence to be important, you must contribute and those contributions must be recognized by third parties. To the extent that you are tweeting or “liking” or “plussing” or being Best Call To Action Ideastweeted, liked or plussed, that is the way your authority and web presence will grow.
  9. Demands for Privacy Escalate. (The Downfall of Big Data).  Eric Snowden may have brought new focus to this issue, but it was there before the NSA backlash began.  In fact, there have been waves of people proclaiming loudly that they are leaving Facebook due to concerns about privacy, only to be  lured back and lulled into ambivalence by the comforting presence of their peers.  Just because other people are doing it, does not make it save and more and more the call for the opportunity to hide or block information has become louder and more strident.
  10. Accountability Of Individuals. (Reductions in Cyber threats, anonymous trolls, spam) Recently Google made a rather bold change in they way comments on YouTube videos are posted.  The comments are linked to a Google account and appear on Google+.  The anonymous troll who used to post derogatory and inflammatory comments is limited to a greater extent than ever before.  Whether the individual tries to obscure his or her identity or creates pseudonyms, the fact is that this is getting harder and more difficult than ever before.  Perhaps by making individuals accountable for their actions and words, we can begin to put a stop to cyber threats and online harassment.  Then again, if the person is truly “off their rocker”,  its evident by their posts.  Well, more appropriately clear to everyone except the perpetrator… The good news is that the public is demanding great accountability of organizations and individuals, and decrying those cowards who troll the Internet with the intent to do harm.

Have you identified additional trends? I’d love to hear about them and learn your thoughts – please share you ideas with whether you agree (or disagree) with these trends, and also whether you feel that there are even greater waves of change coming?

Giving the One, Two Punch to Improve Web Marketing Communications.

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Filed Under: Facebook, Google+, Internet Privacy, LinkedIn, Marketing Metrics, Mobile Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Semantic Search, Social Media Marketing, Wearable Computers, Website Credibility

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