Girl Geek Speaks: Marketing

Why Translate Your Website into Other Languages?

2008-05-12T14:46:00.003-06:00

"Bill Dunlap, managing editor for Global Research, INc., notes that for every $2 million a web site is doing in domestic sales, companies are leaving another $1 million on the table in international sales, if their material is only in English.

Donald A DePalma reported in a study conducted for Forrester Research that online buyers are 3 times more likely to buy if addressed in their own language; and customer service costs drop when instructions are displayed in the user's language.

The message is loud and clear. Do not asume that there is no reason to translate your marketing material or that English is used in other countries!

If translation is not part of your international e-commerce strategy, they you may be leaving money on the table!"

from AAATranslation.com Chesterfield, MO

More Social Networking Sites

2008-01-06T12:42:00.000-06:00

It seems more social networking sites come online all the time. These are ideal for growing your business through...well,.....networking! They are also a great place to post a link to your website for search engine optimization purposes. As you will be able to glean from the names of the sites, some are organized around a theme. Depending on how well you know your niche, certain of these might be more appropriate for your networking forays.
Here's a new list:

facebook.com
myspace.com
thomas-fletcher.com
hi5.com
ilike.com
ning.com
http://nycshrinks.ning.com/
migente.com
friendster.com
linkedin.com
meetup.com
bebo.com
tagged.com
buddypic.com
last.fm
purevolume.com
1up.com
letssingit.com
flixster.com
lyrics.com
blackplanet.com
stickam.com
tribe.net
modelmayhem.com
myyearbook.com
mocospace.com
localhookupz.com
teenspot.com
dada.net
singsnap.com
menupages.com
bikerornot.com
zorpia.com
tchatche.com
perfspot.com
lavaplace.com
hoverspot.com
insiderpages.com
metroflog.com
louisvillemojo.com
camfrog.com
pickaprof.com
xuqa.com
person.com
activediner.com
nexopia.com
face-pic.com
mingleville.com
wamba.com
menuism.com
daplus.us
macraesbluebook.com
dogbook.ca
zoominfo.com
citidex.com
tdotwire.com
citidexli.com
mashable.com
restaurantrow.com
numberway.com
magicyellow.com
searchbug.com
zami.com
restaurants.com
businessnation.com
phonebook.com
wetpaint.com
profilepic.com
petpeoplesplace.com
plentyoffish.com
swap-bot.com
a2zcity.com
drivingdirectory.com
schoolsk-12.com
mustangclassifieds.com
bowling2u.com
hondahookup.com
iamfreetonight.com

Thanks for visiting!

Annette Vaillancourt

Girl Geek Web Designs: Custom Websites and SEO for Small Businesses on a Budget

Get on Yelp!

2007-07-27T08:02:00.000-06:00

Check this out!
Here's a new way to get your name out there and get feedback about your products or services.

Yelp.com is the new and fun way to find, review and talk about what's great - and not so great - in your neighborhood and beyond, everything from cool restaurants and bars to doctors and yoga instructors....oh, and Girl Geeks and other small businesses!

Check it out my listing at

http://www.yelp.com/biz/f8mji7_I2o3dEpl7Nc6AKA

Then go sign up for your Free account at
http://yelp.com/e;AQIAIw;IOqx3PZgPOO0_t3b0uhGjA

See you on Yelp,
Annette Vaillancourt
Girl Geek Web Designs: Custom Websites and SEO for Small Businesses on a Budget

Marketing Books Girl Geek is Reading

2007-06-11T10:42:00.000-06:00

Small is the New Big: and 183 other riffs, rants and remarkable business ideas by Seth Godin

Naked Conversations: How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers by Robert Schoble and Shel Israel.

More later....I'm off to the gym!

Annette Vaillancourt
Girl Geek Web Designs: Custom Websites and SEO for Small Businesses on a Budget
1-877-866-GEEK

Use Your Blog to Get Better Search Engine Rankings

2007-06-11T10:38:00.000-06:00

If you post to a blog that's hosted on your server, you don't get as much bang for the buck if you were to host it remotely. The blogware I use for this blog is www.Blogger.com, which is owned by Google. I let them host it. Then everytime I post something to the blog, I add a link to my website in the posting (see below) and it results in a quality link to my website, thus increasing my organic rankings.

As you can see, I also use internal links in the text of my posts. This is also helpful for search engines to rank your site.

Happy Posting!
Annette Vaillancourt
Girl Geek Web Designs: Custom Websites and SEO for Small Businesses on a Budget
1-877-866-GEEK

Letter to a Client

2007-06-11T10:24:00.000-06:00

Hi All,

I wrote this to a website client who is relying heavily on his website being ranked high in search engines to get prospects. It's not confidential, so I thought you all might benefit from my "sage advice."

Annette
--------------------------------------------------
Hi David,

Been thinking about your website and marketing your practice. I've been reading marketing guru, Seth Godin's book on marketing and business ideas. I agree with him when he says marketing is a funnel, where you put alot of unqualified prospects in the top of the funnel and the ones that come out the bottom become customers; however, the think his better idea is to turn the funnel into a megaphone. See below.

Your website is designed to try to gather alot of people for the top of the funnel, but it's not doing anything to develop a relationship with those prospects or to get them to work WITH you. How you build a relationship with website visitors is by GIVING THEM SOMETHING THEY NEED TO SOLVE A PROBLEM or at the very least entertains them. So far the website is all about you and what you do and not about the prospective client. I think we need to put some give aways on the site...things that will keep people coming back (make your blog more topical, fun or newsworthy), or add useful tips they can request through an autoresponder, or put some free legal forms on the site, or something unusual for an attorney's site (even if it's attorney jokes). This will also make your site more apt to get other sites spontaneously linking to it, which will increase it's rankings in organic results.

How you get them to work WITH you is to ask them to add content to your site or give feedback or post on your blog, etc.

Godin also says, to turn your funnel into a megaphone and blast your message out there using social networking sites. His credo is
Turn strangers into friends
Turn friends into customers
and then...do the most important job
Turn Customers into Salespeople.

How you do that via the web is through social networking sites. I set up accounts for you on De.lic.io.us, Digg, Ryze, Linked In, (and maybe Plaxo) and other social networking groups, but we have yet to make the most use of them. That's another way to form relationships with possible referral sources. Seth Godin has something called Squidoo.com, where you can post about any passionate interest you have and get good links back to your site. It's another great way to develop relationship and indirectly promote yourself. For example, if you're passionate about Zachary or Alex's baseball, that would be something to post about. It gives people a peek into the person behind the law degree.

Just some thoughts....

Annette Vaillancourt
Girl Geek Web Designs: Custom Websites and SEO for Small Businesses on a Budget
1-877-866-GEEK

Online Yellow Pages

2007-03-15T20:56:00.000-06:00

I just posted several free listings in http://www.yellowpages.com/ and http://www.superpages.com/ for a website client of mine. More people are using online YellowPages to find businesses, so go sign up for a FREE listing for your coaching services.

You can post links to your website on your listing, so if you're trying to improve rankings in organic search engine results, these will be quality links.

Happy Marketing!
Annette Vaillancourt
Girl Geek Web Designs: Custom Websites and SEO for Small Businesses on a Budget
1-877-866-GEEK

Using Online Free Classifieds -Google Base

2007-03-14T08:16:00.000-06:00

One way to promote your website, products or services is using free online classified ads. When doing so, remember to put your most important keywords in the title of your ad. Also add your website address in the body of the ad. If you can make the link to your website live, all the better!

One great place to start is Google Base. You will need to open a free Google gmail account, if you don't already have on. Google Base is a place where you can easily submit all types of online and offline content, which is searchable on Google. You can even add images to your posting.

Happy Marketing!
Annette Vaillancourt
Girl Geek Web Designs: Custom Websites and SEO for Small Businesses on a Budget
1-877-866-GEEK

New search engine for Baby Boomers

2007-01-16T19:27:00.000-06:00

Those of you who market products or services to Baby Boomers might want to check out the new search engine especially for the 50+ generation.

It's http://www.cranky.com/. Great name, huh?

I'm going to check it out.

Happy Marketing!

Annette Vaillancourt
Girl Geek Web Designs: Custom Websites and SEO for Small Businesses on a Budget
1-877-866-GEEK

Become an Expert

2007-01-05T19:01:00.000-06:00

I signed on with AllExperts.com awhile back to provide free advice to people seeking information about web design and search engine marketing. Although I don't get any direct business from it, what I do is use those questions and my answers in my FAQ blog and my email newsletter, Girl Geek Speaks.

Nothing like actual questions from real people to bring up timely issues.

Perhaps your business would fit into one of the AllExperts.com categories too. There's also a wiki at www.eHow.com, where they ask for experts to write in. At the very least you'll get links back to your website when you add your signature to every entry

Annette Vaillancourt
Girl Geek Web Designs: Custom Websites and SEO for Small Businesses on a Budget
1-877-866-GEEK

An Hour with PPC Experts Andrew Goodman and Mona Elesseily

2006-12-14T18:39:00.000-06:00

If you are curious about or considering using a Pay Per Click advertising program to drive traffic to your website, read on.

I was lucky enough to get into a free teleseminar with Andrew Goodman, founder of Page Zero Media and author of the definitive Pay Per Click (PPC) book, Winning Results with Google AdWords and Mona Elesseily, author of The Unauthorized Yahoo! Search Marketing Handbook.

I have read both of these books and have implemented many of their ideas to create successful PPC campaigns for my clients. Even though Goodman says small companies can set up their own programs, that's coming from an expert who does this for a living. Personally, I would recommend reading his book before deciding to try it yourself OR if you are thinking of hiring someone, so you know the vocabulary and the right questions to ask.

Here are my notes from the teleseminar.

Top 5 Advantages of PPC Marketing

Customers are looking for you, not the reverse.
Return on investment is measurable as compared to other marketing approaches
It raises credibility and brand awareness for your company - you will be perceived as "cutting edge."
You can get "real time" data on your marketing campaign to determine what's working and what's not
You can use PPC programs to test your marketing message before you put that message out in more expensive media, i.e. print

5 Key Strategies for Successful PPC Marketing

Set up your campaign to target the correct market
Write copy that communicates value and has a strong "call to action."
Correctly target your ads by category, i.e. products, services, regions, keywords
Organize your keywords thematically
Figure out what analytic tools you are going to use and why, i.e. be clear about what you're measure, such as sales or lead generation

3 Key mistakes to avoid

Don't market to the whole world - use geo-targeting options
Forgetting to track your ROI (return on investment) - web up web analytics and tracking codes on your landing pages
Reacting to fluctuations in your data and pulling your ads - understand that fluctuation is normal and watch for trends over time.

How to Choose which Search Engines are best for Your Business

Estimates of Market Share

Google - 60 - 65%
Yahoo - 20 - 30%
MSN - 10 $
Ask.com - 5-6%

Bottom line is the PPC programs don't have a lot of differences, but Google sets the standards. Advertise on all of them. Remember, PPC is not a "set and forget" program - you need to monitor it periodically. (I tend to do monthly reports, then look at trends once the account has at least a 3- 6 month history. After that is when I do tweaks or go back to review the goals of the client and check to see if the PPC program is meeting those goals.)

What will it cost in time and money?

Andrew Goodman charges $4000 for just the initial consultation, then a flat fee for the next 3-4 months, then a percentage of what you're spending on your campaigns to maintain it.

For do-it-yourselfers, he says that if your monthly PPC spending is under $1000/month, you'd be better off to do it yourself. (I wonder if he doesn't want to be bothered with accounts that small.)

What Changes do you see coming for 2007?

Google is developing tools to test multiple versions of ads and landing pages to see what gives the best conversion rates.
Yahoo is coming out with new analytic tools which will allow you to track all the keywords that led up to a sale
The PPC programs are adding Quality Scores into their ranking algorithms, such that they will look at the correspondence of keywords in the ads and the content of your landing pages.

Miscellaneous Notes

Some research shows that longer queries, i.e. longer search phrases tend to convert better if your ad runs in lower positions. Core terms convert better in higher ad positions. Ad positions from 3-7 are the most "bang for your buck" according to Mona.

Look to Yahoo's Editorial Policies for their description of what they want on landing pages.

Whew! That's it for now.

Annette Vaillancourt

Girl Geek Web Designs: Custom Websites and SEO for Small Businesses on a Budget

1-877-866-GEEK

Social Networking Sites

2006-12-10T07:45:00.000-06:00

If you are looking for ways to drive traffic to your websites or get networked with possible referral sources or leads, check out these two networking websites. You can join for FREE. Also, once you're there, look for me and invite me to your network!

http://www.zoominfo.com
http://www.LinkedIn.Com
http://www.ryze.com
http://www.merchantcircle.com
http://www.squidoo.com
http://www.zandz.com
http://www.myspace.com

Hope this helps!
Annette Vaillancourt
Girl Geek Web Designs: Custom Websites and SEO for Small Businesses on a Budget
1-877-866-GEEK

Unusual places to get links

2006-12-09T18:27:00.000-06:00

After completing your keyword strategy for Search Engine Optimization, you need to create links into your site from relevant and busy websites. There are lots of ways to do this and being creative helps.

Everybody know Amazon.com, but did you know you can get links to your website by creating a list on their List Mania service?

Here's the link to my List called "Geek Books for the Technically Challenged." You can also add your comments about the book, thus creating some credibility or expertise in a subject area.

Another way to establish credibility and get links is to write book/product reviews for Amazon. At the minimum you can leave your email link. Just make sure it is the one associated with your website.

More link ideas to come....

Annette Vaillancourt
Girl Geek Web Designs: Custom Websites and SEO for Small Businesses on a Budget
1-877-866-GEEK

Baby Stepping Towards Search Engine Optimization

2006-12-03T05:40:00.000-06:00

One of the first things I check for when someone asks me "Why doesn't my site rank well in Google?" is their metatags.

What is a metatag?

A metatag is a line of HTML code that works behind the scenes of your webpages and tells the search engines like Google, Yahoo, or MSN what that page is about and how to rank it in search results. As such it is an important part of search engine optimization or getting your page set up to rank well in the search engines.

The four main metatags every page needs to have are:

1. a TITLE TAG that names the page and includes the most important keywords for that page.

2. a DESCRIPTION TAG that will sometimes be the text that displays below the title of your page in search engine results. Therefore it needs to both contain keyword phrases and be compelling enough to coax people to want to open you site.

3. a KEYWORD TAG that contains 2-3 of the most important keyword phrases also contained in the text of that page.

4. A ROBOTS FOLLOW TAG that tells the search engines to read and index every page of your site. (You will need to have text navigation or a site map on your site for this to work, as search engines can't read anything but text, not Javascript, Flash, imagemaps or button navigational menus). This tag looks like this: META content="index follow" name=robots

To view the metatags for any site, go to Internet Explorer and Click "View" on the Menu Bar, then in the drop-down menu, click on "Source." The metatags should be the first thing you see after the Head tag.

If these are missing or used incorrectly, they will affect your rankings in search engines. The worst offense I see in the TITLE TAG is when it says either "Home" or "Welcome to My Website" because it doesn't contain any keywords or tell you anything about the page.

The biggest mistakes I see in the KEYWORD TAG is that there is a list of dozens of single words, none of which appear in the text of that page. What that tells me is that the page hasn't been updated in at least 5 years because search engines now frown on this type of tag usage.

Stay tuned for more tips and hints on SEO.

Annette Vaillancourt
Girl Geek Web Designs: Custom Websites and SEO for Small Businesses on a Budget
1-877-866-GEEK

What the Wall Street Journal Didn't Know

2006-12-01T20:40:00.000-06:00

Getting your website found on search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN is a critical marketing issue. Unfortunately it is often a mystery to many site owners and, sadly, to many web designers also.

That's why I want to start this blog talking about Search Engine Optimization or SEO, for short. SEO is the art and the science of getting high ranking in the search engines by using specific strategies in the construction and content development of your website and its incoming links.

If the Wall Street Journal can get it wrong, so can you. In the November 2006 issue of Website Services magazine, a comparison was made between the websites of the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. The article detailed the website mistakes that resulted in the Wall Street Journal website having fewer pages found on Google...394 to be exact, whereas the New York Times have 2.96 MILLION pages indexed on Google. Whose site do you think is going to be easier to find?

Just to test this out I typed "financial newspapers" into the search feature on Google. The Wall Street Journal ranked at #21 on the search engine results. That's 3 pages into the results. Most people don't look past the second page of search engine results.

What the Wall Street Journal web developers didn't know or do amounts to simple search engine optimization (SEO) techniques.

The first step in SEO is a marketing question: Who is your audience or target market? From this knowledge you create a list of keyword phrases they are likely to type into a search feature hoping to find your site. See my newsletter articles on Writing Well for the Web and Selecting Keywords for how to research keywords.

The second step is proper placement of those keywords in your site content, metatags, alt-tags, links and heading tags.

Feel free to comment or ask questions.

Show and Tell: Go to Google and type 'girl geek" in the search box. My website Girl Geek Web Designs has held down the second spot in the rankings for at least 2 years. go to MSN and enter "south Florida criminal defense attorney" and you should find my client www.JoffeLaw.com ranked #1 there.

How'd I do that? Stay tuned!

Annette Vaillancourt
Girl Geek Web Designs: Custom Websites and SEO for Small Businesses on a Budget
1-877-866-GEEK

Welcome

2006-11-29T11:28:00.000-06:00

I'm so excited to start this blog because after 7 years of designing websites, many of my questions are about how to get targetted traffic to your website.

In keeping abreast of all the changes related to Web 2.0, I will be posting things here and giving my readers tips for money saving strategies.

I would also welcome comments and questions from my readers. I would like this to be a place for dialogue and learning.

Annette Vaillancourt
Annette Vaillancourt
Girl Geek Web Designs: Custom Websites and SEO for Small Businesses on a Budget
1-877-866-GEEK