Search Engine Guide : Small Business Search Marketing

SEO 101 - Part 7: Everything You Need to Know About Site Architecture and Internal Linking

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 06:32:38 -0600

by Stoney deGeyter

The following series is pulled from a presentation I gave to a group of beauty bloggers hosted by L'Oreal in New York. Most of the presentation is geared toward how to make a blog more search engine and user-friendly, however I will expand many of the concepts here to include tips and strategies for sites selling products or services across all industries.

Common Architectural Problems

In order to move your site up in the search engine rankings you have to get your optimized content to the search engines in the most streamlined way possible. There are some common problems that often stand in the way of that. These problems may not keep the search engines from finding and indexing and even ranking your content, however they can greatly effect the performance of that content in terms of how well it ranks in the search results.

Too many URL parameters

The web is littered with long complicated URLs such as this:

site.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=10051&langId=-1&catalogId=10053&productId=100615137&N=10000003+90401+528374

Aside from changing the actual domain name, the URL above is a real one. Look at it closely, everything after "ProductDisplay?" are the various parameters that tell the browser what content to pull up.

Each "=" in the URL represent a different parameter. Each parameter represents a slight variation of the content. Every variation represents a potentially different page that can be indexed by the search engines.

The search engines want to index valuable content, but URLs such as this can often send engines away. They don't want to be caught into endless loops of variation. While the search engines certainly have no problem indexing dynamic content, once you get more than three parameters your risking losing the search engines all together. The engines tend to shy away from sites with duplicate content or endless loops created by many parameter possibilities. Your best bet is to keep the parameters down to a minimum.

Inaccessible content

Great content is often inaccessible to the search engines either because it's hidden behind search options or buried deep within the site. Setting up a proper navigation and clickable link search structure is essential for any site, but even more important for large sites with hundreds of pages or products.

Some pages have to be buried, there just isn't any other way to go about it. But they don't have to be so deep that they can't be found without a GPS tracking device. It's all a matter of laying out your site's architecture so all pages have a proper place and that the most beneficial content is the easiest to find.

Session IDs

Session IDs create duplicate content by the hundreds, if not thousands. Every visitor to a site is given a session IDs which is appended to the end of each URL visited. Multiply your visitors by thousands and you now have thousands of new URLs all pointing to the same content.

There are some workarounds when using session IDs for tracking, however there are better solutions altogether that you should look into.

Code Bloat

Avoid building navigation links using Flash or JavaScript. Depending on how these are implemented they can often be problematic to the search engines. Pages which are only linked to via these methods can often be outside of the search engines spidering reach and therefore not included in the index.

Directory Structure

There are three basic directory structures you can have, flat, deep or somewhere in between.

A flat directory structure puts all of your site pages on the same directory level. Each page is essentially one click away from the home page and no page is given any type of prominence.

A deep directory structure is the near opposite. Only a few pages are accessible from the home page, then a few more are accessible from those, a few more from those and so on. This puts some pages many clicks away from the home page unnecessarily.

You want to be somewhere in between. You want a directory structure that makes sense. Pages should be grouped together in broad level categories and only sub-categorized as makes sense from the navigation standpoint. You can go a bit deeper with your URLs but again you don't want half a dozen directories when a few will do just fine.

Internal Linking

You want to do a good share of internal linking within your site. Not just the navigation, mind you but link from within your content areas and product pages. Good internal linking helps your visitors navigate from page to page and find other areas and products that interest them. This improves visitor satisfaction, leads to more sales and helps improve search engine rankings.

Use whatever opportunities you have to give your visitors opportunities to find these other sections of the site. If you talk about a product or service, link to it. If you have a related bit of information or another similar or companion product, link to it. Using keywords in these links gives the search engines more keyword juice for determining how pages should be ranked.

Site Maps

Site maps provide a great way to allow both your visitors and the search engines to find their way to your content with as few clicks as possible. Your site map should always be no more than one click away, no matter what page the visitor is on. This way, if they get lost in the site or have trouble finding what they want, a quick click to the site map gets them a list of every page or piece of content you offer.

Generally you want your site map to be fewer than 100 links. Larger sites may need a site map that links to other site maps in order to keep all your products and pages accessible as easily as possible. The site map should be the only page on your site that links to every page, unless your site is under 20 or so pages.

Missed a part of this series?
Part 1: Everything You Need To Know About SEO
Part 2: Everything You Need To Know About Title Tags
Part 3: Everything You Need To Know About Meta Description and Keyword Tags
Part 4: Everything You Need To Know About Heading Tags and Alt Attributes
Part 5: Everything You Need To Know About Domain Names
Part 6: Everything You Need To Know About Search Engine Friendly URLs & Broken Links
Part 7: Everything You Need To Know About Site Architecture and Internal Linking

Be sure and visit our small business news site.

The World Does Not Begin and End With SEO

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 10:03:59 -0600

by Jennifer Laycock

Ever notice how when someone finds a solution to a problem they're having, it suddenly becomes the solution to everyone else's problem as well? People who love their chiropractor tell you how much seeing one would help your sore back/sinus problem/shin splints/etc. People who have lost and kept weight off with a specific diet suggest how well it will work for you. People who experience success trying a marketing tactic tell you what a difference it will make for your company if you do it too.

This is fine and dandy. It's called word of mouth and it's a very effective way to influence decisions. The problem comes when the love of the solution supersedes the common sense needed to apply it properly. That chiropractor likely isn't going to fix your blocked heart valve and that special diet probably won't heal your broken ankle. In the same way, we need to remember as search engine marketers that just because something can help search results doesn't make it a good mainstream marketing strategy.

Debra Mastaler pinged me this morning to point out a post that's a good demonstration of a strategic search marketing ideas being pushed past the point of common sense. In a post over at SEOMoz, Rand Fishkin encourages marketers to replace the standard "visit us at domain.com" with "search for "company name" on Google" in their offline ads. His reasoning is that personalized search has now become the default option on engines like Google and driving consumers to the engine to search for and click on your listing is a good way to increase your relevancy in Google's eyes so you'll stand a better chance of ranking for other searches later.

Here's how it would work...

Superbowl Ad - A big company, let's say Coke runs a Superbowl ad and closes it with "visit www.google.com and search for "Coke," instead of simply giving consumers the company's URL.

Consumer Action - Joe Soda drinks the kool-aid...er, I mean cola...and heads to Google after the game. He searches for Coke, which will clearly pop up www.coke.com as a top result, clicks it and visits the site.

Search Engine Action - Google makes note that Joe Soda clicked through to the coke.com domain and increases the relevancy of that domain for Joe Soda's future searches.

Consumer Action - Joe Soda is thirsty, but he's tired of all those calories. He heads back to Google to find a new alternative and searches for "no calorie cola made with Splenda." The hope here is that the past search will increase the relevancy for Coke.com enough to increase it's chances of ranking well for that related search.

Now that's fine and dandy in theory and I don't doubt at all that there may be some positive impact by getting a bunch of people to search for and click on your domain name.

But Here's the Big Gaping Hole in this Theory

You've just increased the barrier for your consumer and you've done it to benefit your own search rankings.

What I mean by that is you've made the consumer take an extra step to find your site and your product. You could have simply told them to visit you at www.coke.com but no, you got greedy. You knew it would be a benefit to your company's search rankings to make them take that extra step to actually FIND you. It has nothing to do with what's best or easy or convenient for the consumer, it has everything to do with your search engine optimization efforts.

Now let's take a little detour into conversion optimization 101.

Less steps = more success.

It's a very simple equation. Let's look at it again...

Less steps = more success.

That's right folks, the LESS things you ask a customer to do, the more likely they are to do it.

Now clearly we live in an enlightened enough world that most people can guess www.coke.com even if Coke is brazen enough to hide that info and direct users to go run a search instead. But what if you aren't a big brand name like Coke? What if you're a little beauty salon called Curl Up and Dye in Wisconsin? Are you really going to tell your customers to go and search for you in your TV, radio and newspaper ads? Heck no, you're going to give them your URL and phone number to make it as easy as possible for them to find you. Otherwise, they're going to go find someone else.

Optimize Your Own Dang Site

It's not the job of consumers to optimize our web sites. It's not their job to take on MORE work in their daily activities so we stand a better chance of showing up for related searches down the road. Now I'm not saying there aren't innovative ways to impact these things. A great example of this is a comment on the original post saying they've sent out direct mail pieces with specific instructions to search for a discount. This gives the customer something of value in exchange for their extra work and still offers the benefits of the original idea.

The problem I see repeatedly is a severe case of cranial rectal inversion. Our industry spends so much time talking algorithms and social sites and deep links and site wide links and blah blah blah that we forget to see things from the perspective of the everyday consumer. The average American watching the Superbowl doesn't have the Google toolbar installed. They have no idea what Google Chrome or Google Wave are and they don't know personalized search results are even being delivered to them. They just want to get to the information they want and need the fastest way possible. They don't know, nor do they care, about the inner workings or latest and greatest features offered in the world of search.

So whether you're part of the industry or you're a small business owner, I'd ask you to remember to place common sense at the top of your marketing strategy arsenal. Stop thinking about what will benefit you or your rankings and start asking yourself in all honesty if this approach is going to benefit your users. If the answer is no, you need to move on to a new idea.

Be sure and visit our small business news site.

SEO 101 - Part 6: Everything You Need to Know About Search Engine Friendly URLs & Broken Links

Thu, 04 Feb 2010 06:59:38 -0600

by Stoney deGeyter

Search Engine Friendly URLs

When developing a website, you can save yourself a lot of problems down the road by planning ahead before moving full speed into the site development process. One of the first site architectural issues to consider is how your URLs will read. This is especially important for e-commerce websites that quite often have long complicated URLs. But having good URL structure is still no less important for static websites.

Here are a few things you can do to give yourself search engine friendly URLs:

Keep it short

Jut like your domain name, you want your URLs to be short. We're not talking three letter short, or even three word short, but short enough that it can easily be typed in the the browser's address bar.

A lot of ecommerce systems create long-complicated URLs that couldn't be retyped in the address bar without error if they were being dictated to you one letter, symbol and number at a time. Use words, directories and sub-directories strategically.

Use keywords

Again, just like your domain name, you want to use your keywords in the URL structure. If your site is organized properly, this shouldn't be a problem. Use your categories and sub-categories for your URL directories and sub-directories.

These two tips will go along way to giving your URLs more context and assisting (however small) with the optimization efforts.

Canonical URLs

The web is rife with duplicate content. Much of duplication is deliberate, done by screen scrapers and other nefarious means. When another site steals and duplicates your content you can submit a DMCA complaint to Google to try to get them to remove it. There are other legal remedies as well that I won't go into here.

But many sites are their own worst enemy when it comes to duplicate content problems. It is created by developers building systems that reproduce content across multiple URLs on the same site. When building your URL structure it is important to ensure you work in solutions to prevent potential duplicate content issues before they become a problem.

The home page is one that is the most often producing duplicate content to the search engines. Unchecked, your home page content can be indexed in the search engines with four different URLs creating a duplicated home page three times over.

www.site.com
www.site.com/index.html
site.com
site.com/index.html

There are some simple steps you can take to correct these problems so that all of the above URLs will redirect the visitor to www.site.com.

These types of issues are not found only on the home page but can raise their ugly heads all through the site. Consider these duplicate URLs:

www.site.com/directory/
www.site.com/directory/index.html
www.site.com/directory2/
www.site.com/directory2/index.html

Of the four URLs above, only two provide unique content. But the search engines see four pages.

Products pages also suffer from extreme duplication when they can be found through multiple navigation paths, each creating a different URL for the same product. While the best solution is to ensure that each product simply have no more than one URL to access it, there is a less absolute solution that can be implemented: The Canonical Tag.

Canonical Tag

<link rel="canonical" href="http://www.example.com/canonical-page.html"/>

Adding the canonical tag into the tags of any page that creates duplicate content tells the search engine which page is the "proper" one to be indexed. While the search engines use this as a guideline rather than a hard and fast rule, it's a decent band-aid measure you can easily implement until you get a more permanent fix in place.

There is great value in the permanent fix. The search engines have to index a page before they can read the canonical tag. All this extra indexing doesn't do you any good, slows down the spidering and dilutes the PageRank of the proper pages. Fixing these issues can greatly improve your overall site performance.

Broken Links

Broken links are more than just a nuisance to your visitors, it's a sure way to lose potential customers. Anytime someone comes across a broken link on or to your site, its an opportunity for them to leave. And they often take it.

The easiest way to find and correct broken links is to run monthly broken link checks with a program like Xenu Link Sleuth. Xenu will spider each and every link on your site to make sure it works. The report tells you of any links that don't work, whether they are internal (within your site) or external (points to other site's).

Running a Xenu report once per month ensures that over the course of any changes made to your site, all the links continue to lead where they should, and that links off-site are also still going to valid pages.

Sites with dead links have a tendency to perform less spectacularly in the search results as its a sign of lack of care and maintenance performed on the site.

404 Redirect

You not only want to be aware of broken links on your site but you want to know about links on other sites that lead to old or non-existent pages on your site. You can do this by keeping an eye on your logs and looking for those coming in getting page not found errors. With this you can do three things:

1) Find out what pages are attempted to be accessed the most. If people are coming to a recently deleted page you either want to put something back up in its place or implement a 301 redirect from that page to the page that is the closest match.

2) Find out where the traffic is coming from. If other sites have links to you that don't work sometimes you can get that corrected by simply asking them to fix the link. They linked to you for a reason and it likely is in their audience's best interest to make sure the link works.

3) Implement a custom 404-redirect page. You won't be able to fix or redirect every broken link coming to your site but you can make sure that anybody coming to your site from a bad link gets more than the generic white "page not found" screen. By creating a customized page visitors can be redirected to relevant content on your site, you will keep more visitors and have an opportunity to convert them. You can read a longer tutorial on 404-redirects here.

Be sure and visit our small business news site.

GTmetrix - A New Tool For Google's Speed Factor

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 13:42:49 -0600

by Robert Clough

Much has been written about the load time of pages as a ranking factor in Google. If you aren't already up to speed on the topic, these articles are a good place to start:

Site Speed, Google's Next Ranking Factor - Search Engine Land

Google: Page Speed May Become a Ranking Factor in 2010 - WebProNews

So, will Page Speed be more important than your content? No. Matt Cutts of Google weighed in on the topic to assure site owners that Page Speed is not more important than relevant content. In their article "Google Sets Record Straight on Page Speed as Ranking Factor," WebProNews highlighted some key comments in a video in which Matt Cutt's states:

"If you have two sites that are equally relevant, same backlinks, everything else is the same, you'd probably prefer the one that's a little bit faster, so page speed can in theory be an interesting idea to try out for a factor in scoring different websites. But, absolutely, relevance is the primary component, and we have over 200 signals in our scoring to try to return the most relevant, the most useful, the most accurate search result that we can find. So, that's not going to change."

With that said, Matt also made it clear the speed of your site is an element of user experience that should not be overlooked.

"But, if you can speed your site up, it's really good for users, as well as, potentially down the road, being good for search engines. So it's something that people within Google have thought about."

With that in mind, the folks at Gossamer Threads have launched GTmetrix, a free tool to help site owners measure the speed of pages on their sites. It's a handy tool that provides a Page Speed Score with in-depth information on the factors that affect the speed of a page. You can find a list of the factors with information on each here.

Give GTmetrix a go and you'll likely learn, as I did, about factors you may not have previously even been aware of.

Be sure and visit our small business news site.

SEO 101 - Part 5: Everything You Need to Know Domain Names

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 07:32:20 -0600

by Stoney deGeyter

Domain Names

Its easy to think that all the good domain names are taken. Sure, the easy and obvious ones have been snatched up years ago, but that doesn't mean there still aren't any good .com domain names left that are perfect for your business or blog.

The starting point, however, is to realize that you do need own your own domain name. Most businesses have figured this out already but a lot of bloggers haven't. That's because it takes a bit of work and some small fees. First you have to purchase the domain, then host it, pay the monthly hosting fees, install the blog, etc., etc. Not quite as easy as signing up for a blog service and pounding out your first blog post all in ten minutes.

If your blog is nothing more than a personal diary then the free blogging services may be all you need. But if you're looking to build an audience, sell a few products, or make a name for yourself, getting your own domain name is the way to go.

Whether you're a business, a blogger, or something in between, selecting your domain name can be a trying process. Those of you who have searched for the "perfect" domain name know what I mean. You go through dozens, if not hundreds of different options looking for just the right one. When looking for domain names for your business or blog, here are a few guidelines:

Keep it short

Short domains are the hardest to find. Unless you're willing to shell out big bucks, give up on the dream of getting your business' initials (i.e. ppm.com, emp.com, etc.). But that's not to say you can't find just the right short domain name for you. You don't need something as short as three letters, but I wouldn't go much longer than three words. Your own mileage may vary but keep in mind, the longer the domain name is the more difficult it will be to remember when being passed along via word of mouth or in casual conversation.

Make it memorable

You want your domain name to be somethign that can be remembered easily. Word of mouth and your 30-second elevator pitch rely on it. When looking to get a short domain name many people try to cut corners with abbreviations or clever spellings. The problem with that is clever spellings have to be explained when passing the site on verbally.

Imagine if you were reading SrchEngineGide.com right now instead of SearchEngineGuide.com. Or maybe you shop at TheShooShop.com instead of TheShoeShop.com. Or perhaps you are browsing How2LoseW8.com. Now imagine telling someone about it. Each would require a little extra effort that most people won't take.
And even when it is, its easily forgotten or the hearer is confused. Not a great way to grow your business or blog.

There are some instances where clever can be memorable and easy. Flickr.com is a good example. Notice though the simplicity of this, but if they had called it FotoFlickr.com it would have been a different matter entirely.

Use keywords if possible

Without going too long and still keeping your domain name memorable, try to find one that uses your primary keywords. Years ago the site BatteryStuff.com was called 4Unique.com. They still have the old redirect in place. Which would you say is the better URL?

It's not always easy to find domains with your primary keywords still available, but keep looking. Just avoid the temptation to load up your your domain with all kinds of keywords. BatteryStuff.com could have just as easily been MotorcycleBatteriesChargers.com Not quite the same impact. Do you sacrifice keywords for simplicity? In most cases yes.

Alternate Domains

Once you've found the perfect domain you want to make sure you buy up many of the alternative domains that go along with it. These can be the .net, .org, or .biz versions. It can also include misspellings, common typos and even yoursitesucks.com just in case. It's also valuable to purchase domain names named after your products or other brand names.

All of these combination can add up to a dozen or more alternate domains. You have them, now what do you do with them?

301 Redirects

There are two things you don't do with your alternate domain names: 1) let them sit with a "not found" error, and 2) park them on your main domain. You can get some benefit from these domain names, but only if you leverage them properly.

You also might be tempted to build mini-sites on each of these domain names. Don't do that either. The solution is much simpler than that. Simply redirect these domains to your main domain.

Take note that there is only one proper redirect to put in place, that is the 301 Permanent Redirect. Don't settle for anything less, because anything else can potentially reduce the impact your site will have in the search engines.

You'll want to talk to your web host about how to implement the 301 redirect. They may have an easy solution. Short of that, here's quick tutorial:

Purchase a separate (cheap) web hosting account for one of your alternate domains
Set up a 301 redirect from the alternate domain to your main domain
Park the rest of your alternative domains on the hosted/redirected alternate domain

That's pretty much it. You can read a more detailed 301 Redirect tutorial here.

Be sure and visit our small business news site.

Are You Undervaluing Your Web Site?

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 02:21:38 -0600

by Mike Moran

Image by liewcf via Flickr

When I see the same issue coming up for so many clients, it makes me think that something more is at work. My latest issue that seems to crop up with nearly every client is tracking offline sales back to Web activity. I mean, I know it isn't easy, but it's amazing how rarely I run into a client who feels able to take on the task, much less has a system in place already.

It's not that they've lost interest in ringing the cash register. No, if anything, they are under more pressure than ever in that regard. I think somehow that tracking customer activity is so alien to them that they don't feel up to it.

Not all companies are like this. If they already have a direct marketing department, and have been tracking catalog sales for years, they know exactly what I am talking about. But most companies don't have such a background. They know how to count the money in the register, but they don't know how to attribute the marketing credit for what put it there.

They are willing to track things, yes, but only Web things. They'll happily report the number of search referrals, popular keywords, page views, sure, but they can't make the leap from what happens online to what happens offline.

In Las Vegas, they say "what happens here, stays here," but Las Vegas ain't got nothin' on the Web. For most companies, what happens on the Web stays there. Then, a miracle occurs and someone buys something offline.

Now, it depends on your business what you need to do about this. Consumer product companies might need to use coupons for retails stores. Other companies might need to use a phone number they publish only on their Web site. Still another company might want a request for quote button that enters the lead into their Customer Relationship Management System.

I don't know what you should do, but do something. Until you do, no one will know what the Web is worth and that means you are under-investing.

Be sure and visit our small business news site.

Poor Logic: Letting Your Competitors Hold You Back

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 17:30:52 -0600

by Miriam Ellis

Being satisfied with as little as possible may be an excellent strategy for enjoying a simple life, but it's a recipe for disaster when it describes your approach to promoting your presence on the web. One of my favorite aspects of my job is conversing with new prospective clients about the nature of their businesses, their plans and hopes. I love hearing their stories! Sometimes, though, these conversations go nowhere because of poor logic on the part of the business owner, and no matter what I say, my own hopes dim for their chances of success on the web. Recently, I had just such a conversation.

A few weeks ago, I was called by a gentleman asking for help in improving the visibility of his local-focused business. He was an extremely pleasant man, but as our chat progressed, it became clear to me that he was very unlikely to become a client because of the following things:

1. Satisfied With A Poor Website

His relatively new website had been built in Front Page by a relative, and, it looked like it. Cross-browser alignment issues, poor structure, poor contrast, poor Usability and no real on-page SEO were the hallmarks of this homemade site, meaning that room for improvement was huge. I am so polite when I speak critically of a company's site, but despite my mild words, he became somewhat defensive, saying he was very happy with the site and that it had been built by a professional.

2. Satisfied With Doing The Least Work Possible

The nature of the business called for the various services the company offered to be broken up into dedicated, unique pages - one for each service, optimized both for the service term + geographic region, in compliance with basic good SEO and Local SEO practices. His objection to this suggestion was that his competitors are ranking well with one page websites. This was true - lazy, one-page websites had a presence in Google's top 10 for his keywords because no one was making any effort in the industry to do more.

When I asked how he would like to blow his competitors away, a motivated response simply wasn't there. If his competitors were doing the bare minimum, why couldn't he, too? The poor logic in this is obvious: what about the competitor who comes along 3 months from now and does hire me, and we oust the lazy folks from their positions with our well-built, properly optimized site? Waiting for a competitor to make the first move before you make any effort is a really strange business strategy.

3. Satisfied With Poor Copy

In trying to help this man see how his website could be improved to meet his stated goals of improving his visibility and conversions, I turned next to the minimal text copy on his few pages. Like the copy on so many business sites, it was speaking to itself instead of speaking to the site's users - this man's potential clients. The passive language of:

We have been in business for 10 years. We are a reliable and trustworthy company. We are proud of our customer service. We, we, we...

was as far as the copy got, never once making an offer to the user to benefit you, help you, serve you, solve your problems and meet your needs.

I explained that the copy needed to be expanded and swung in the direction of the user instead of speaking in this insular, uninviting manner, but again, I met with resistance and an explanation that he had worked very hard on the copy. I didn't doubt this; some business owners genuinely do find it really hard to describe their business in the written word, but this is what I am here for. I explained that, as part of the redesign of his site, I could help him turn his copy into something that would showcase the benefits to the user and call him to the desired actions of making a phone call to set up a consultation. Somewhat dismissively, the gentleman expressed the opinion that this would seem like an advertisement. And, of course, none of his competitors were doing it this way.

"Well, yes," I agreed. "Your website is an advertisement. In fact your website is a sales rep, working for your 24 hours a day. While you are working, eating and sleeping, your sales rep should be working for you, welcoming clients, answering questions, showing what you can do for them and inviting people to contact you. That's the whole point."

Our conversation ended with great amiability and he thanked me for my time, but it was very clear to me that I had failed to help this fellow get past the mindset of doing the least possible. I really liked this man and wanted to help him. He had come to me hoping to find a way to get more contacts and contracts and make more money. I tried to point the way, but because no one else in his town was making the slightest effort to effectively use the web to attain these kinds of goals, he remained completely unmotivated to invest time and money in the very things that would enable him to outrank his weak competitors and start hearing that phone ring more often.

There is nothing strange or new about this scenario. Fellow designers and SEOs will have sat through calls like this many times before, but it really made me think about how, in the business world, we take cues from one another, for good or ill.

If my colleagues and competitors blog twice a week, is this my permission to do no more than equal them, or should I blog twice as much in hopes of seeing twice the benefit? If my colleagues have never hosted a promotional contest, does this mean this just wouldn't work in my industry, or does it mean I've got a secret weapon no one else has tested yet? If no one in my industry is on Twitter, does that mean there's no point, or am I going to be a pioneer in using Social Media in an untapped business sector?

How you respond in your gut to questions like these likely says a lot about your drive to succeed on the web. One thing I can guarantee: every business owner reading this article would like to make more money. In the industry I took a glance at for this gentleman with whom I spoke, it would take just one person motivated to do the most, instead of the least, to wipe the competition off the map. Your industry may not be as neglected and wide open as this, but the same healthy resolve to be bold and do as much as you can is sure to serve you well.

A lax attitude troubles me, because it represents lost opportunities, but on a karmic level, I suppose it represents opportunities won for someone else. Where do you want to stand on the scale of things? Jog along with the pack or set the pace? Money's waiting at the finish line.

Be sure and visit our small business news site.

SEO 101 - Part 4: Everything You Need to Know About Headings and Alt Attributes

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 06:32:41 -0600

by Stoney deGeyter

Heading Tags

Heading tags are certainly no magic solution to building keyword relevance. They are merely one more baby step to creating a well-rounded optimization of a page. Adding heading tags using your keywords may or may not make a difference in your keyword rankings, but nonetheless, balanced against the rest of the page, using a heading tag properly, with keywords, is going to benefit your visitors, if not the search engines.

On the search engine front, at the very least, the Heading tags (H1, H2,... H6) can be used to tell the search engines the hierarchical structure of your page's content.

When developing content, it's pretty easy for visitors to see how the page breaks down, but search engines need a bit of help. The heading tags are that help.

Think of headings as you would an outline of an important paper. At the top is the Title, in this case the H1 tag. Next would be the Main points; In an outline they would be I, II, and III. In HTML you would use the H2 for all of them. Next we have our sub-points A, B and C, or the H3, and following that sub-sub-points of 1., 2., 3., or the H4. You get the point from there.

An alternate strategy would be to use your H1 for the title as noted above and the H2 for a sub-title. Then you'd start with the H3 for your main points I, II and III, and go down form there. You can go all the way down to the H6, but its rare that you have a page with so much content that this is warranted.

One of the problems I often see with heading tags is that they are used by developers for the site's navigation. In a way it makes sense, you want to segment different areas of the navigation with headers of their own. The only problem with this is that you end up using valuable hx tags in an invaluable area and you're diluting the effectiveness of the heading tags in your content where they would otherwise be most effective.

If your developers are intent on using hx tags in the navigation elements then make sure they stick to the lower level H5 and H6 so you can use the higher level tags in the content where they'll make the most impact. Make certain that they don't use the H1 tag for the logo, that's a complete throwaway and prevents you from gaining any effectiveness with an H1 tag in your copy.

All of the tags can be used repeatedly on the page, depending on where they fall in the total hierarchy, except for the H1 tag (or H2 if you are using it as a sub-headline.) Be sure to use it only once on the page.

Alt Attributes

Alt attributes, commonly referred to as "alt tags" allow you to add descriptive text to your images. The visitors generally won't see the alt text unless, in Firefox they mouse over the image or they have images turned off.

The alt text is meant to be a replacement for the image should the image not show. Make sure your alt text reads properly and adds something for the reader who doesn't see the image. The text itself should describe the content or visuals of the image for the visitor. This text also provides much needed information to the search engine, especially if the image contains text. That text should be included in the image.

Using Alt Attributes in your image tags can help you in a number of ways. 1) it provides a greater context for the text on the page which can be factored into your search engine rankings. 2) It can help your images come up in image searches, which can drive additional traffic and conversions to your site.

Text-only browsers, or browsing with images turned off still happens, probably more frequently than we know. People on slow connections will often turn their images off in order to speed up their browsing experience. Without alt text, an important element of your pages won't be available to them.

There are also a good number of visually impaired web surfers that use screen readers to deliver the content of web pages. The screen reader will read the image alt text, which means if the image is important to the visitor's experience on the site, not having an alt attribute can be detrimental.

Finally, many people browse the web on mobile phones. These phones are almost always slower than the typical internet connection and either the phone's browsers won't display images or users will turn the images off so they can browse faster. This is generally not the case with smart phones, but there are still a lot of non-smart phone users out there.

The most important area to use alt tags is in your navigation. Whether it be your header, footer or side-bar navigation, any place images are used be sure to supplement them with alt text. Failure to do so could make your sit unnavigable to any visitor that isn't seeing images.

Be sure and visit our small business news site.

Why Marketers Don't Need to Care About the iPad

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 22:56:14 -0600

by Mike Moran

It's hard to look up without reading about the iPad. I am sure that it is a wonderful device. And I know nothing about it that you can't read and see in all the usual places. But if you are wondering what you need to know about it for your business, the answer is probably "nothing." And that is a good thing.

For all the hype that you'll hear about the iPad, the best thing about it is that it is a revolutionary new hardware category (because tablets have all failed in the past), but the software is refreshingly evolutionary.

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Yes, people might suddenly buy tablets in droves and have a new device to find your business. But the way they find your business won't require much from you that is any different from what you needed before. Sure, if you run a magazine or a publishing company, this is big news, but you have a lot of other things to worry about, too. But for normal small businesses, there isn't anything new here, which is great news.

Here are the ways that an iPad user can find you:

Old-fashioned search in a Web browser. We don't have details yet, but it is likely that your plain old boring Web site will work just fine here. If you have already optimized your site to be found, the 1024x768 resolution should display your site just fine, with one exception: Flash is not supported. That will probably be fixed soon, but not today. (If your site doesn't render well without Flash, you probably have other issues that prevented you from optimizing it for search anyway.)
Local search. If you have a local business that benefits from walk-in traffic from people on the go, you should already be thinking about local search. If so, it is unlikely that you need to do anything special to support the iPad. From what I read, the iPad does not appear to include a GPS chip, so it won't be aware of exactly where people are (unlike most smart phones), so its local search is limited to knowing approximately where you have connected to the Internet. This isn't much different to how computer users are treated in local search, so I don't see any revolutionary changes to what marketers must do.
Apple apps. I want to call them iPhone apps, but now that they run on iPods and IPads, I think they need a different name and I am not smart enough to know if they already have a different name. Regardless, all of these existing apps are said to run on the iPad, so if your business already has an iPhone app or can be found by an important iPhone app for your industry, it will be found by iPad users with that app, too. You should expect to see some folks update their apps to take advantage of the larger screen size. If you have your own iPhone app, you might want to do that, too, but I don't think there is any fundamental marketing change needed here.

So, there is mostly good news here for digital marketers. If you've been ignoring how folks find you online, or you have no idea what local search is, the iPad is just another in a series of wake-up calls that you need to listen to. But if you've been paying attention to what's been going on the last few years, the iPad doesn't seem to add anything to your to-do list.

If the iPad takes off and creates a new successful category for mobile devices, then more folks will be searching and shopping and that will be great. What's even better is that what you are already doing to be found when they search is just about all you need to do to be found on the iPad. So, if you want to immerse yourself in the details because you are gadget hound, go ahead. But if you'd rather get back to work and mostly ignore all the hype, be my guest. Your business will be just fine.

Be sure and visit our small business news site.

Holy Cow, Pick Up The Phone! Or Blow Your Sales Leads

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 08:32:50 -0600

by Sage Lewis

You will want to pay attention to this article: "Kiss Your Phone Leads Goodbye"

Delaying your first-dial response time from when you receive an online form from 5 to just 30 minutes decreases your chances of qualifying the lead by 21 times!

Be sure and visit our small business news site.

Real Time Search - What It Means To You

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 08:26:33 -0600

by Sage Lewis

Real time search is the hippest topic on the search marketing landscape right now. Here's a rundown of what it is and how you potentially could use it for your business.

Be sure and visit our small business news site.

SEO 101 - Part 3: Everything You Need to Know About Meta Description and Keyword Tags

Tue, 26 Jan 2010 06:32:07 -0600

by Stoney deGeyter

Meta Description Tag

One of the big misconceptions about SEO is that everything we do is designed to increase search engine rankings. This isn't (or shouldn't be) true, and there is no simpler example of that then the Meta Description tag. Even though this description tag doesn't weigh all that heavily into the search engine ranking algorithms, it is still a very powerful part of an effective optimization campaign.

Like the Title Tag, the Meta Description tag will often show up in the search results. Generally what you see in the SERPs is the clickable title link and then the description tag or page snippet just below it. If the description is pulled in to the results, it becomes a very important part of helping entice visitors to click on the link into your site.

If your description tag fails to properly or adequately tell your visitors whats on the page then it's likely they'll click on another result.

The reason why many people don't put much stock into the description tag is because they are stuck on the belief that people click on rankings, not on search results. This isn't true. Sure, more people click on sites that rank higher, but only if those sites also have compelling titles and descriptions, which is often not the case. Few people blindly click links without first vetting them, and those that do often find themselves disappointed if they do.

Those who take the time to look through the search results, reading titles and descriptions to find the site that is most likely to give them what they are looking for, are more likely to be a targeted visitor one they land on your site.

If you're like me then you read descriptions before the title tags in the search results. I figure it's easy to stuff the main keywords in the title, but the description is more likely to have some of the longer tail phrases that I'm looking for. If the title matches my search broadly, the description should match much more specifically. If it doesn't then I'm probably looking at the wrong result.

The general rule is that you want each of your description tags to be unique. The description should b e a 20-40 word summary of what the visitor will expect to find on that page, and that page only. Descriptions for each page should be unique from the next. Make sure you summarize the page in a unique way, using primary and secondary keywords while making it compelling to searchers.

You don't always want or need a description tag on every page. There are some instances when you would be better served not having a description at all. For me, the general rule is if you're targeting broader keywords, use the description tag. If you're targeting long-tail keywords then don't.

The reasoning here is that if you're going after long-tail phrases on an article page or blog post, then there are simply too many variations to attempt to work them into a 40-word description. On the other hand, if those long-tail words are in the content, without the description tag, the search engine will import snippets from the page based on the search. This increases your likelihood of getting actual keywords into the description content below the clickable link in the search results.

Meta Keywords Tag

The only thing there is to say about the Meta Keyword tag is that there isn't much to say about it. The search engines don't put much, if any, stock in it and your visitors don't see it. By all measures its invisible.

But that doesn't keep people from asking, Do I use commas or spaces? Do I use phrases or words? How long should the keyword tag be?

The answer is: It doesn't matter. If you are going to take the time to add the meta keywords tag to your pages then I suggest this: don't waste your valuable time worrying about the "right" way to write it. Throw a few keywords in there and walk away. Don't worry about formatting, spacing, commas, length or anything like that. Keep is short, sweet and move on.

Be sure and visit our small business news site.

Have You Heard Of The Product Launch Formula

Mon, 25 Jan 2010 04:48:16 -0600

by Sage Lewis

If you haven't maybe you should. It's a distinctly different way of going about marketing. Understanding the concepts of this could significantly change how you think about marketing your products or services.

Be sure and visit our small business news site.

Beginning with Paid Search

Mon, 25 Jan 2010 04:41:26 -0600

by Charles Lumpkin

Sure we all want to dive right into keywords, but perhaps you should start your SEO strategy with research using paid search techniques. In this video, Charles Lumpkin tells you why and how.

Be sure and visit our small business news site.

How to Avoid Bloated Performance Expectations from Google's Keyword Tool

Sat, 23 Jan 2010 01:55:57 -0600

by Jeff Howard

Google's keyword research tool is an excellent resource for generating keyword ideas and also trending which keywords deliver a higher volume of searches. But, note the use of trending in the last sentence. The tool can't tell you how many website visitors you'll receive from a #1 ranking. Experience has shown on average it is 10% - 25% of the monthly estimate. Meaning if you go after a keyword with an estimated traffic volume of 4,000 searches per month, on average expect to see ~400 visitors per month from that phrase if it rankings #1.

This is just in general, and of course every case is different. Also clearly it's expected that not all users will click on a number one ranking, and personalized results will have an effect on what listing shows up as #1. Regardless, here are two strategies that can help remedy the ambiguity when determining what keywords should be chosen for organic optimization.

Strategy One - Rankings to Expected Performance

This strategy is not ideal for a website with little to no search engine traffic, it is ideal for a website revaluating its keyword strategy, and does not have a significant budget for a PPC campaign.

Gather The Following Two Lists

The Top 50 (or more) Search Engine Referring Keywords for the Past Month
A List of All the Keywords Your Website is Currently Optimized For.
The Google Keyword Research Tool Estimated Traffic Volume (monthly) for all of the Above Keywords
The Search Engine Rankings for all the Above Keywords for Your Website

Takeaways

The result of all this data should create an excel sheet that looks something like this. Notice I've already taken columns B divided by C and placed that percentage into column F. This delivers the performance to expectation level. Notice the trend for all #1 rankings to deliver a range of 10% - 25% of the given estimated volume. The spreadsheet helps identify trends as far as what keyword rankings perform well, for example possibly a few similar types of keyword rankings are sitting at #3 and #4 positions but deliver 40%+ of the expected traffic volume. This may indicate the website's title tags, and description tags are well written for these keywords, or the competitive landscape is less fierce. Either way, this data helps reiterate the gap between the Google Keyword volume estimation and actual traffic from rankings top rankings. You might even find some #1 rankings, that were suppose to bring in a lot of traffic simply don't perform at all. All this leads me to highly recommend using PPC data when in doubt about keyword choices for organic SEO.

Strategy Two - PPC

Run a PPC campaign on Bing (because it will be much cheaper) for one month from a long list of potential keywords rounded up from Google's Keyword Tool. This will help determine an actual search volume for all the keywords that are being considered for an organic optimization campaign.

Be sure and visit our small business news site.