Boom Consulting Blog

SEO Content Strategy and Services

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 18:16:08 Z

If you've researched website search engine optimization at all, you've probably run across the phrase “Content is King.” “Content” means the substance of your website – the pages, images, and videos that make up the website itself. “King” means that engaging, valuable content reigns supreme over all other factors that help your website succeed. There’s a huge value in creating content both for your users and for the search engines.

So-called “black-hat” SEO professionals of the past tried to slip poorly written content past Google, such as pages so bloated with keywords that you could only read them if you were a search spider. These days, as the number one search engine in the world has refined its search algorithm, placed user experience ahead of mathematical equations, and even hired actual human beings to review search results, black-hat SEO doesn't work anymore.

Neither, unfortunately, does a bare-bones business website.

There's only one way to have a website that's easy and enjoyable to use and that ranks well in search engine results: interesting, well-written, and relevant web content. Most likely, if you’ve created a business, whether it is a restaurant, construction firm, medical equipment supplier, etc., you are a subject matter expert in the field (or should be). No one knows your business as well as you do so take the time and write high quality content about what products or services you provide, what makes you different, and how you can help your customers. If you don’t write perfect copy, no problem, Boom Consulting has proofreading professionals to help clean it up and make sure it is bullet proof.

“Just Another WordPress Blog” Won't Cut It Anymore

If you're a small or medium-sized business owner, this is the point in the conversation about internet marketing when you start to feel nervous and wonder to yourself, “How in the world am I going to find the time to develop excellent website content? I can barely keep up with everything else as it is!”

Many business owners, overwhelmed with the prospect of adding internet marketing to their to-do-list, content themselves with a simple website. They hire a cousin or a friend or a local freelance designer to throw up a basic website with an about us page, a contact page, and a couple other pages about their products or services.

Be warned: This simple type of website might be enough to get your business off the ground, but it's not enough to be competitive in today's business environment. As we mentioned above, no one knows your business as well as you do.

Widget Makers Shouldn't Have to Be Website Designers

Whether you're an accountant, a dentist, a widget maker or a women's boutique owner, you shouldn't also have to add “website designer” or "SEO specialist" to your resume. You can – and should – invest in professional web design and internet marketing services. Outsourcing your internet marketing is one of the best marketing investments your small or medium-sized business can make. Boom Consulting is a full-service Austin web design, SEO, and internet marketing company that specializes in search engine marketing (SEM) and search engine optimization (SEO) strategies and solutions.

A professional website design and SEO firm (like ours, hint hint) can help your company create engaging website content that reads well whether you're a human or a search engine. Contact Boom Consulting today to find out more about building your organic search engine rankings and how we can help give your website a much-needed content lift.

Boom Consulting Publicly Launches in Austin

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 15:35:33 Z

We are thrilled to announce the public launch of Boom Consulting here in the Austin area. We've been doing business from North to South, from East to West, and even overseas, since 2004, but we've never publicly marketed our services before. Up until now, our clients have all come to us from word of mouth.

Now we're ready to show off our capabilities on a larger scale, so welcome to Boom Consulting, Austin! If you're looking for a stunning and functional website (new or redesigned) or a marketing strategy that improves your bottom line and makes your phone ring, drop us a line.

Is Your Website Using Social Sign-on?

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 03:52:46 Z

If not, chances are you're getting incomplete or inaccurate data during your user registration process. That's what the most recent data shows from a new report conducted by Blue Research on Jan 10, 2012 and published "Social Sign-On Is Consumers’ Choice" by eMarketer. It shows that a whopping 88% of online buyers had at some point intentionally left registration information blank or used incorrect information when creating a new online account at a website. This is up 12 percentage points since 2010.

Source: eMarketer

The same report also showed 77% of online buyers also think sites should embrace social sign-on, which is up 11% from 2010.

Source: eMarketer

Clearly, this is a sign that people are getting more comfortable with privacy issues that linger when site A is sharing information with site B. Facebook, Google, and the like have been pressured to make it clearly evident what profile data they are opting to share when they use Social Sign-on.

What exactly is social sign-on?

Social sign-on is the integration of your website with social networking websites like Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, Microsoft Live, Google, and many more. Social sign-on allows your end-users to login to your website using an existing account via sites mentioned before. Your website can then ask the user and third-party site to share certain demographic profile information that your website needs to conduct business. If you still require additional profile data, you can always ask the user as another step during the sign-up process.

Naturally, this is a win-win situation for all. The end-user doesn't have to fill out a lengthy registration form and you get profile data from the social network, which is 7 times out of 10, probably more accurate.

Like many people, our team at Boom Consulting has hundreds of passwords to manage so we are big supporters of a social sign-on approach. We integrate social login into any new website we develop that has some form of user registration. It simply makes sense from a user experience standpoint. New users get an accelerated sign-up process and return users get a simple login experience with credentials they've already come to know.

Our web development team are experts at integrating third-party social sign-on solutions that allow your users to login using credentials from Aol, Yahoo!, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google, MySpace, Windows Live, PayPal, Salesforce.com, foursquare, Hyves, Verisign, MyOpenID, OpenID, Flickr, Blogger, Livejournal, Wordpress, Orkut, VZ-Netzwerke and Netlog. (Whew, that's a lot!) You can view our implementation of the Janrain Engage Social Login on Find Internet TV, JumpUpon, and our very own site here at Boom Consulting. Janrain has also published research outlining the benefits of supporting multiple social and email logins.

If you use the web much, you’ve probably noticed that more sites are integrating social sign-on. It simply makes sense for your business and end-users. Check out your competitors and see whether they are already using social sign-on, which could be the deciding point on whether you or your competitor gets the business! Contact Boom Consulting and we'll start integrating social sign-on into your website.

Beware of SEO Scams

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 00:00:00 Z

The Internet presents so many opportunities for companies and organizations to market in today's world. Internet marketing such as search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click advertising, social media marketing, and online advertising, have the power to put you in front of local or global audiences of millions of people.

Unfortunately, with the Internet comes a swarm of companies and people that look to profit from the lack of education there is specific to online marketing. To help our customers and readers be better informed, here are some tips to identify suspect emails and companies that you probably shouldn't be doing business with:

Ignore email solicitations for SEO that usually say something like, “We can place your website on top of the Natural Listings on Google, Yahoo and MSN…” or “We visited your website and noticed you are not on top of the rankings…”
No one can guarantee you a number one ranking on Google, Yahoo, or Bing. Heck, they can’t even guarantee you first page organic listings. If someone is making these claims, then they aren’t a legitimate company and aren’t looking out for your best interests. The only way to help improve your site’s ranking is through calculated changes to your website and content and lots of work to build legitimate incoming links. Go with a company that is local and one you can shake hands with and look eye to eye.
Avoid companies that promise to provide hundreds of inbound links to your site. While inbound links are an important factor in your search engine ranking, the quality of those links is equally important. Most likely, these companies have created “link-farms” (need to explain link farms) and Google is always on the hunt to penalize any website that deals with a link-farm.
Always be sure you know what you are paying for. There are organic search engine results and paid search engine results and they provide dramatically different results. Investing in SEO is a long term investment that can pay off tremendously for a great length of time, whereas pay-per-click advertising is a short term investment that looks to return immediate results.
Do a WHOIS (need to explain what WHOIS is) on the domain of the company and reach out to them. It’s easy for anyone to talk about SEO but ask for them to present active referrals you can contact and/or case studies on the work they’ve done.

Contact Boom Consulting with any questions you have about search engine optimization and we’ll work with you to develop a SEO solution specific to your website that benefits your business.

Do you have any other tips, advice, or personal horror stories to add this? Let us know.