Spring Forward with Your SEO Efforts

March 11th, 2012

spring forwardDaylight saving time – today marks change! Leaping forward one hour brings a sense of freshness that can revitalize your SEO goals and overall strategies for online marketing. As we transition from winter into spring, your business should also embrace this seasonal change and keep moving forward to see how you can improve.

Here are a few resources to inspire you:

For Spring cleaning: Google released 40 search quality highlights. Even though these rolled out late-February, they’re important because the changes are still being seen now, for better or for worse. You can use this list like a check list and take care of the ones relevant to your business.

Schema.org and video marketing: Although it can be time consuming, this code is easy to implement and highly effective. So effective that Google is actually recommending it. So, what are you waiting for?

Re-educating yourself about WordPress and other CMS: This article explains why a Theme could actually your your SEO. As with using any template, you have to make sure that a tag like rel=canonical or duplicate meta information is being applied the same way to every page. Image if the nofollow tag was accidentally applied all over your site without you knowing!

Find out why the iPad will transform web design: This means that you can expect higher quality, faster-loading websites with clean designs and crisp graphics. This means that you (or your designers) will have to work even harder to achieve the desired results!

So, enough about work… don’t forget that this springtime season of change also comes down to your personal life. Don’t forget to stop and enjoy time by yourself and your loved ones. As for me, I’m already looking to warmer weather and more daylight! What are you looking forward to?

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Sitemaps: The Spider Webs of Organization

March 9th, 2012

sitemapAs if creating, designing and editing content isn’t enough to worry about, there’s also the important task of organizing it. That’s where sitemaps come into play.

A sitemap is a page where you keep a list of all the important pages on your site. Much like a table of contents page, it’s a place where users can find a comprehensive list of all your content and find what they’re looking for. Depending on the size of your site, it’s acceptable to have multiple sitemaps for the sake of simplicity and ease. Remember, adding new pages to your site means that your sitemap should also be updated.

Some myths to keep in mind: Adding a link on your sitemap doesn’t guarantee that Google will crawl it. Adding links to a sitemap is not an easy fix to get your content crawled and indexed. Instead of waiting for it to happen, you have to actually have to go out there and create or earn it. This is where link building comes into play. The more relevant links that are pointing to your web page, the more likely it is to get indexed.

Google also likes it if you have a sitemap.xml file. In here, you’ll keep track of your pages along with a note of how often you update the page (monthly, weekly, daily, never). This is all fine for record keeping but like so many other things they’re so cryptic about, Google doesn’t explicitly say that having an updated sitemap.xml file will help your rankings in any way. Go figure…

There are many tools and free resources you can use to automatically generate a sitemap file for your site. Remember to use them with caution and review before updating. You can use a free broken link checker like Link Sleuth to make sure that every link works before making it live!

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Facebook Timeline for Businesses Arrives

March 8th, 2012

We all knew this coming. So now that it’s here, how do you feel about the new Facebook Timeline for businesses and how it changes the game for social media marketing?

No More Default Landing Tabs – The Biggest Change
Most users where upset with the changes, so how do you think businesses will feel about the new Timeline rolling out to their Pages? Most are upset that there is no longer a main landing tab where businesses can conduct contests and other promotional strategies that were also known as “Like-Gating“.

Alternatives for Promotion
But don’t fret quite just yet. This is still possible! Check out Macy’s Win a Million tab (box?). This is example of how you can run these types of contests to engage with fans. Sure, Facebook makes things more difficult and is trying to get more businesses to spend more money in their ads, but it IS still possible. This is where a website marketing firm can come handy! To keep you in the loop with new information and to help out with creating graphics, applications and whatever else your business needs.

Key Features to Utilize
The new Timeline will force businesses to be more creative – from the cover photo to new content and even displaying company history. For business owners who are worried about their Page looking empty or inactive, the Timeline creates opportunity to populate more information that will be helpful for customers. Make sure to take advantage of this and fill out:

- Company history in the About section and adding Milestones. This can be robust as you want and you can fill out as much detail as you want.
- Monitor and show or hide the “Recent Posts by Others” Section. This part reminds me of a Twitter feed that you’ll have to keep your eye on for negative or spammy comments.
- “Pin” your posts at the top of your Page. (Pinterest, anyone?) Important posts can be highlighted at the top of your page for up to 1 whole week.

Make sure to carefully read Facebook’s new guidelines for Pages – for more on what you can and can’t do. Ahem, NO promotional language in the cover photo. This is just one of many, so make sure you’re playing by Facebook’s rules!
Also, check out the Emarketed Timeline and share yours with us!

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Knowing When to Quit Blogging

February 29th, 2012

quit bloggingAll good things must come to an end – or so they say. Is it time to quit your business blog? If you’ve had this feeling for quite some time, or feel that your blog isn’t a useful asset to your company, it’s time to take a comprehensive look at what you can do to go through with it or to change your outlook completely.

Whether browsing client-specific industry blogs or getting ideas from other online marketing blogs, I find it interesting to see a growing amount of un-updated and un-interesting blogs. I can’t help but ask myself, why are these blogs still here? Sure, it might take some time to come up with a blog topic but seeing posts from 2009… really?

Blogging takes commitment, perseverance and time management. If you don’t have any of these qualities or aren’t willing to hire anyone who does, it might be time to shut your blog down all together. Some people argue that they would rather see no blog, than to see a blog that hasn’t been updated for months or even years. Here are some other signs that you should quit blogging:

- No new visitors to your blog
- Your blog isn’t bringing traffic to your main site
- You don’t want dedicate yourself to blogging
- You feel burnt out and lack inspiration
- You’d rather invest your time and resources to other forms of online organic marketing

These are all valid reasons to quit blogging. And this doesn’t have to be a permanent move. You can also hide your blog from main view on your site until you’re ready to pick it up again or start anew later. Because really, if there’s a blog button front and center on your home page – people are going to expect recent and interesting news!

If you still have some inkling of hope that your blog can make it, chances are that it can! If your blog has some hefty content from the the past, it might be worth it to suck it up and continue blogging every so often. As PageRank improves over time, these pages will become a valuable and some-what permanent asset to your business. You’ll be surprised at the different ways customers can find you online – it doesn’t have to be just through your main site.

For more information or help on maintaining your business blog, contact us today!

http://www.emarketed.com/articles/blogging-tips-social-media-marketing

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What’s the Key to Keyword Density?

February 28th, 2012

keyword density

Like many things in the world of SEO, keyword density is a highly debated topic – especially in the wake of these online Panda updates. With all the sites that have been hit with less traffic, people are scrambling for ways to better optimize their content.

The way I like to see it, keyword density is still an important part of copywriting but not in a way that it was say… 10 years ago. Instead of focusing on hitting an “ideal” percentage, keyword density should be a measure of how you shouldn’t over optimize your content. For example, if you have a 200 word blurb about dog shoes and the word “dog shoes” is mentioned 20 times… you’re going to have a problem with natural readability and you don’t need a percentage to tell you that.

SEObook’s free keyword density analyzer tool is a good place to start when looking at your own content, as well as your competitors’. You can view percentages for individual pages based on repeating keywords and even phrases up to 3 words long. But remember, even in Google’s own words, your keyword density percentage shouldn’t be a big deal if you’re doing what you should be doing in the first place – optimizing for the user.

Some common sense ways are to search and highlight keywords you’re optimizing for on a single page. If you feel there are too many highlights, you’re probably right. Depending on the length, you can cut back when necessary. If you have a good 5 paragraphs, is it really necessary to mention an exact match keyword more than 5 times? Are you stuffing with other keywords such as location terms? With effective writing for SEO content, variation and synonyms are more important than repeatedly matching the exact term on the same page (and throughout your site for that matter).

This is all about building a “natural” link profile, or at least what Google perceives to be natural. One thing is for sure though, when you are too focused on the technical aspects of your content, it will reflect in your writing. Customers can tell and search engines can also get a sense of this and your site will suffer. The key takeaway is to use keyword density as an informative tool, not as a guideline to measure or gauge your ranking success.

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Porn Sites, PageRank & Popularity

February 25th, 2012

Porn sites debunking SEO myths. Say what? Today, we take a look at a video by Matt Cutts explaining just that:

Is PageRank determined by popularity? Yes and no. Your site’s popularity is a factor in your PageRank but it’s not the only one. Among many other things, PageRank also includes reputation. Matt explains how even though porn sites are highly popular, they are often not linked by reputable sources like CNN and The New York Times. This explains why .gov and .edu sites (other reputable sources that aren’t as popular) have a higher PageRank than lower quality sites that aren’t reputable (porn sites).

Are porn sites (and other low quality sites) penalized by Google? The video shows that the porn industry isn’t necessary targeted as a whole to be penalized but there might be some other explanations. The question also brings up a good point, since porn sites often feature many link exchanges, ads and affiliate links to other low quality sites. As a whole, Google frowns on this.

What does Google consider trustworthy? – Reputation, trust, and authority are all words in Google’s vocabulary in ranking high quality sites. Google trust includes PageRank although Matt claims that it’s not really an algorithm, but more of a way how Google determines the usefulness and relevancy of a page. In other words, Google looks at pages in the eyes of an average visitor and judges the page on whether it’s delivering what it’s promising and in what manner.

What do you think and does this video help clear up the often misconceived notion that PageRank is solely based on popularity?

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Watch Out for Pay Per Click Traps

February 24th, 2012

PPC trap To many people, pay per click is a mysterious method of online marketing. There are many quality guidelines that change often – not to mention that highly competitive campaigns/budgets need constant monitoring. Before you choose a PPC company and invest time and money into paid campaigns, here are some things to look out for:

No detailed reports – Almost anyone can set up an Adwords account and set it on auto pilot to spend a certain budget. That’s just not what we do. One of the most horrifying things I’ve heard is from a client who had a massive pay per click budget, only to get a “report” with keywords and the amount spent on each one. The worst part is that he claimed to not get any good calls from these clicks and continued to blindly spend thousands of dollars a month!

At the least, you should work with someone who is willing to provide detailed analytics with specific information about what was spent, when and what can be done to improve. You’ll also want to dive into keyword data and ask questions about that.

If you feel uncomfortable or have any questions, a reputable company will be more than happy to explain the process to you or even help with a test period to see if the strategy will benefit your company in the long run.

Pay per click landing pages that aren’t relevant – If a PPC company doesn’t explain landing pages to you, this is a big red flag. You should see what your customers will see when they click on your ad. Your business will be more in the loop if you see the type of language and keywords used in the ads. This way, there is no surprise when you see the results and you can work together to see which ads performed better than others and why. On the topic of relevancy, when your customers click on an ad, they should be led to a page that they expected to see. Using broad keywords can be confusing, misleading and lead to a higher bounce rate – which means money wasted on your part because the ad did not deliver what was promised.

Not addressing what happens after customers click – So, your pay per click keywords are receiving clicks. Now what? Is there a strong call to action and are customers taking that action? An experienced PPC company can help you address what customers are doing or are not doing after landing on your ad. Whether you expect a call or a way to get contact information, your paid search campaign is not successful if you’re not getting a good ROI on any “relevant” clicks. This means having a good way to follow up once you get this information and retaining a potential customer that will use your services/products in the future.

If you need help with your campaign and are looking for a Google Adwords qualified company, look no further! Call us today for a free consultation – (323) 340-4010.

Here are some more helpful resources:
- 10 Mistakes To Avoid When Starting With PPC
- Avoid These 5-PPC Pitfalls
- How to Avoid 7 PPC Analysis Pitfalls
- 145 PPC Must-Do’s for 2012

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Bad Web Design Pet Peeves

February 21st, 2012

Outdated. Cluttered. Intrusive. Tacky. Hard-to-read. Confusing. Questionable. Unreliable.

These are all words that could be used to describe a bad web design. While effective design is based on different factors that are “objectionable”, there are some fundamental things to consider before creating your masterpiece.

Here are some of my top pet peeves when it comes to bad seo web design:

Auto-play anything: Auto-play videos suck. Auto-play music is annoying. The worst offenders are sites that have a little person that walks out onto your screen and starts talking! I’m not sure who started this trend, but it’s 2012 and it should die already. A small but prominent call to action box is necessary sometimes, but this is just too much. (I’ve seen my fair share working on different websites, but what do you as a consumer think? Are these ever really helpful?)

Long, ugly contact forms: When a customer wants to contact you, they want to fill out as little important information as possible and hear back from you as soon as possible. Requiring a lot of personal information is aesthetically unappealing and can make potential customers question your ulterior motives. For example, are you giving away something for free in exchange for some contact information? Or are you asking potential customers to leave their information behind to be contacted. Either way, requiring too much info will kill your design and make your business seem not as trustworthy (all dependent on your industry, of course). Remember, this is an online contact form… not a tax return!

No clear call to action: Umm… where am I supposed to click and what am I supposed to do? Your home page and important landing pages should have an easy to find call to action. Contact, newsletter signups, click to call, buy now, download now – these are all easy to follow call to actions that your website needs in order to be useful. Don’t go overboard by displaying too many at the same time. Your customers don’t want clutter and too many CTA buttons can make your site look spammy.

Unconventional design that doesn’t make sense: Nowadays, every small business wants their site too look unique and capture the attention of their visitors. But going too abstract can make you lose site of basic website structure that is necessary for any website. I’m talking about: not having a home button, no contact information available, utilizing too much white space, using contrasting background and text colors. There are basic practices when it comes to effective web design and they exist for a reason!

Having a creative and effective website design doesn’t mean that you have to confine yourself inside a box but there are some things that you have to keep your eye on. Any design annoyances that you care to share?

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Web Hosting Solutions for Small Businesses

February 17th, 2012

Website hosting is an important but often overlooked step when preparing a new site. Whereas some may think to find the “cheapest” option available, it helps in the long run to choose a company that can accommodate your business needs. Cheap is cheap and you get what you pay for in web hosting. That doesn’t mean that you have to pay a monthly fortune… but instead, be more aware of the options you have and the ones you should look for:

Reliable servers – Does the company have a good track record? Search the company name + reviews to find out what other customers have to say. When your site is hosted on an unreliable server, your site may go down. Your site could even be hacked and injected with virus – not a fun thing to deal with or explain to clients!

Watch out for hidden fees – While some companies offer a low upfront fee, they may try to tack on additional costs when you need something else. For example, fees for email, website backup, and fees to transfer a domain – which is something that should commonly be included in the price you initially pay.

Customer service that’s readily available – Nothing’s worse than seeing that your website is down and having no one to help you out. Let’s say you sell jewelery online and your site is down during peak-Valentine’s Day buying hours. During this precious time lost, you will be losing potential customers and there’s nothing that you can do to make it up, except prepare for precautions in the first place. In a more serious scenario, imagine that the company operates on limited hours and is not open during the weekends. Who will be there to help you when you need assistance? Can your business really afford to wait?

Flexible options – All small businesses are not alike and understandably so, you should have a variety of different hosting options. Make sure that you don’t get locked into something that you don’t understand clearly and that there is room for upgrades or downgrades, if necessary.

Here are some helpful resources to check out before you choose a web host. And if you need the opinion of a website marketing firm, we’re always here to help!

- 10 Worst Web Hosting Providers as rated by About.com readers
- Website Hosting Buying Guide by CNET
- Web Hosting Reviews – 7052 Web Hosting User Reviews

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Happy Valentine’s Day!

February 14th, 2012

Wishing our readers a very Happy Valentine’s Day! Whether you have a special someone or not, Valentine’s Day is another holiday to spread the happiness to your friends and loved ones.

To celebrate, here are some links you’ll love:
- Top Ten Pickup Lines for SEOs (Search here often?)
- Affordable Valentine’s Day Romance in Eagle Rock (Mmm… heart shaped pizza)
- 10 Valentine’s Day Cards for Your Special Tech Geek (Awww)
- 20 Valentines Day Marketing Ideas for Ecommerce (Check out male vs. female spending)
- Valentine’s Day Ecards for the Cynical (Yes, you)

And remember, SEO should be like a continuous labor of love and not just something you have to do once a year!

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