Do write copy with local language. You know the sort of things I mean- is it “pop” or “soda”? Matching their word choice ensures you match their search terms.
Don’t stuff pages with zip codes and city names. It’s spammy and frequently chasing no-volume searches. A rank for a popular -search term- in Mesa beats ten low-volume -search term- in 85215 rankings.
Do use secondary means to imply your locality. Make sure the phone number, especially a local one, appears in text. Licence numbers are a good excuse to mention local authorities. Reference local codes, or charities you support in the area. It helps with semantic analysis– these words go with your address, reinforcing your relevance for the area.
Don’t get too wrapped up in trying to handle out-of-area leads. Some firms believe they can turn into a firm that sells business to others- if they rank for every city. Good luck unless it’s a full commitment thing. Finding shops out of town can be a hassle, and you can end up spending all your time running the side business.
Do claim your business in local sites. Aside from adding link value, it ensures they’re under your control to see reviews and spam.
Don’t buy any services from local sites. Most of them are just selling Google traffic, and you can outrank ‘em and get users directly.
Do promote cross-media. Search is big, but some businesses still benefit from brick-and-mortar messages or social-network activity to put the service in front of a visitor at their need. The more emergency your service is, the less non-search brand you have to build, but there’s still merit in being the brand a visitor recalls from other media.
Don’t go for excessively labor-intensive promotions. Give the visitor a coupon; don’t expect him to Like you on Facebook before you’ll cut him a promotion. It becomes analogous to the shops which demand 20 page forms for their discount-club card.
A few days ago, this google patent application was awarded a patent that details a “System and method for modulating search relevancy using pointer activity monitoring ” according to the patent title and abstract. If you read on, it explains that the data the patent suggests collecting is the mouse location on page and hover duration. What could this mean for SEO?
The simple answer is that there’s a new factor influencing rankings. The patent calls it the “client attention coefficient.” That wording suggests that it will have a direct effect on how “relevancy” is calculated for all Google searches. Any time a search engine makes a change in how they rank sites it’s reflected in the rankings. That may sound obvious, but it’s something every good SEO thinks about when changes start happening. Should Google incorporate this mouse tracking idea into their search engine it could produce some interesting results both good and bad. One thing we know is that we’d have to start paying more attention to how our indexed pages appear on SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages.)
When Google builds a SERP for a search query it takes the titles and descriptions of the results and serves them up as a vertically aligned list with higher ranking pages at the top. The typical searcher begins scanning with their eyes at the page and sometimes follow with a mouse pointer. Referring back to the patent, this shouldn’t have a direct effect because the patent proposes a timer or “threshold value” that would filter out times when a cursor “temporarily passes through [these] regions.” However, this doesn’t change the fact that the results at the top are more likely to get mouse pointer attention. Depending on how much weight Google assigns to this new metric this could strengthen the barrier-to-entry for new rankings even more.
The “client attention coefficient” might also accidentally favor indexed pages with longer titles and descriptions. The two search results below illustrate an example case.
A result that shows up on a serp (search engine results page) looking like the first result might not hold a visitor’s attention as long as the second. Another advantage the second has over the first is that it simply occupies more space on the page. It will grab more mouse time because of this but, Google’s engineers aren’t dumb. I bet they’ve already thought up a solution but there’s no best way around it. There will be some artificial-ness leaking into the organic rankings.
We won’t know how effective it is in improving results until Google actually implements it if they ever do. They may never implement this hopefully out of respect for our privacy. Hopefully we can prevent Google from looking through visitor’s webcams and tracking eye movement across the page. Anyone want to file that one now before Google does?
There are two major types of analytics systems: client-side and server side. Client-side analytics relies on an event fired by a user to record a page-view. Google Analytics is the most common client-side system. Client-side packages are beneficial because they can also track non-page-loading events, such as interacting with a form or video. Being user-ran, they can also harvest user data like screen resolution and connection performance. A server-side system, like AWStats, looks at server logs to determine the volume of pages requested. Server-side analytics are good for tracking special cases– like lost pages that need redirects, the traffic of search engine spiders, and mobile users, but have limited insight on conventional PC users.
It’s important to recognize that client-side and server-side analytics never match exactly. Since a client-side system cannot record traffic by robots, and some limited users– like mobile users with no image or script support, it tends to undercount by a few percent. Server-side systems often mis-classify users based on browser headers- many obscure browsers emulate IE or Safari.
Moreover, even inside a category, disputes occur. Does a visitor who sees a second tab on one page count as a bounce? Is a user who hits a Bing ad driven by Bing or the Microsoft ad network? Analytics vendors have many judgement calls. An important guideline is to use analytics data for month-to-month comparison in a single vendor. Google Analytics for June compares sensibly with Analytics for May, but trying to reference it against AWStats for June leads to confusion and bad decisions. Occasionally, a disparity between packages can reveal unusual user behaviour, such as a denial-of-service attack seen by the server-side system and not Google Analytics, but it’s more often statistical noise.
At Web-Op, we’ve been doing sites for local real estate agents for years. In many ways, it’s still a market which is fairly weak in the SEO space. Many firms rely on cheap ‘iframe’ display of listings, so they end up with a site that Google sees as having no real content.
However, even innovations in data import technology, like TransparentRETS and dsIDXPress, allowing you to import MLS data in bulk onto a familiar, easy-to-install backend, are not a cure-all for top rankings. (more…)
Mesa, AZ (Web-Op) February 4, 2010 – Web-Optimize LLC., a leader in internet marketing and software development, announced the release of a new real-time marketing package specially tailored for Twitter and other social mediums.
New internally developed software allows Web-Op to promote site and brand recognition on Twitter and other social mediums. Fused with current online marketing strategies it provides the ultimate in online media presence. This new marketing strategy covers all online sectors including organic search, pay-per-click, social media, and bad press. Providing an optimum balance between automation and human involvement is our goal.
Social mediums such as Twitter are packed full of opportunity. The problem is it would cost far too much attention to hand manage a marketing campaign. The common solution is to say, “Follow us on Twitter!” and periodically post updates to a Twitter account. This isn’t effective. Our solution provides incentive for interested users to opt in though keyword targeting and friendly conversation. The video shows a more detailed view.
Another strategy is through improving organic search and indexing. Organic search rankings can be frustrating for all. The keys to improvement are having a steady and strategic linking campaign while carefully monitoring the changes over long and short periods. Our time proven solution for search provides sustainable long term growth. Malicious or slanderous online press can be buried with higher rankings and the promotion of positive press.
Our strategy also includes pay-per-click campaigns managed in detail with constant tracking and split testing to maximize gains and performance.
Through our re-tooled reporting system businesses can see growth as it happens in an online statistics monitor as well as detailed monthly reporting from the experts. Our engineers have worked hard on streamlining the process to allow for such transparency.
About Web-Optimize
Web-Optimize, LLC is a leader in internet marketing campaign management and software development for both new and established businesses. Our industry expertise and forward looking strategies help businesses grow and gain positive recognition. We deliver hand crafted solutions to businesses to maximise return on investment. Unlike traditional SEO’s, our services are well documented and transparent with solid results. Web-Optimize is based in Mesa, AZ. For additonal information, please visit web-optimize.com or call 1 (866) 937-7082.
Everyone has a shopping cart on their site. Odds are, it’s been 5 or 10 years since the first time you bought something online. You’d think by now, they would have ironed out the kinks. However, year after year, new website owners continue to make the same mistakes. Before you unpack that ASP.NET Storefront or Zen-Cart archive, why not take a moment to plan a strategy for your cart to search and sell well. (more…)
If you’re starting a web presence from scratch, there’s a significant chance you’re about to waste $5,000.
Many businesses are keen on the concept of the “premium” domain name– in particular, short, generic names. Why not be “loan.com” instead of “SmithMortgageCompany.com”, or “roses.com” for your nursery? Even long after the domain market peaked with the multi-million dollar sales of names like business.com, people are still paying four, five, and six figure prices for attractive sounding names.
The problem is, like many Internet-based profit plans, it’s based on dated logic. (more…)
Whether you have a canned blog install or you’re developing a completely custom content management system, many website owners don’t really consider the consequences of their policy decisions. By making smart choices, both users and search engines can do better. (more…)
If you’re looking at the website of a SEO company, it’s probably not the only way you’ve considered building traffic. No doubt, you’ve been bombarded with spam from people eager to show you how to get “50,000 hits on your site every month for $100″ or similar promotions.
While it might, at first, sound appealing to be able to say, “I’m getting 50,000 visitors per month to my site”, it’s the quality of visitors that matter far more than the number.
When people are willing to promise you specific quantities of traffic, your first question should be “how can they do that?” Although we may know, for example, that 500,000 searches per month are made for a given keyword, real customers do not come in neat boxes of 1,000 users that can be blindly pointed to your site. When you see guaranteed traffic packages, it usually comes from one of a few sources:
Malware. A classic symptom of undesirable software installed on your PC is when the browser starts popping up windows you didn’t ask for. Those windows don’t choose their destinations for fun. If you have an army of compromised computers opening whatever pages you order them to, it’s easy to ensure that your site gets 50,000 hits this month.
Automaton Users. A similar story to malware, but with user cooperation. I’ve seen programs where they’ll basically pay users to leave their PCs on a special homepage, which uses browser-scripting to shuffle from one paying customer’s site to another. No matter how compelling your content is, it’s unlikely a user will be willing to turn off the automatic cycling”and his 10 cents per hour credit”to read it, assuming the sponsored browser window doesn’t turn into background noise altogether.
Sham sites. It looks like a search engine, or legitimate directory, but the results have been partially, or completely stacked, to ensure that users end up at the sites that paid for their position. There’s nothing wrong with paid directories in and of themselves”Yahoo! is a shining example of how one can be a legitimate and trustworthy resource, and many of them represent strong B2B presences”but there’s a thin line which seperates “legitimate resource” from hall-of-mirrors scam. And “Hall of Mirrors” here is more than a cute metaphor: I’ve seen sites where “Page 2″ of the results are almost complete duplicates of “Page 1″! They’re serious about moving people to those links.
Domain parking and forwarding. This is, in a sense, a cut over the sham site, in that it doesn’t promise to be anything but a dead site. There’s a little more integrity there. However, the user who typed in the dead site’s address probably wasn’t looking for you.
What do all these traffic sources have in common? Two things:
First, they’re going to be fountains of poor-quality traffic. If the user didn’t even want to go to your page, the odds are extremely high he’ll bounce. Meanwhile, “sham” search engines and directories have a motivation to ensure every user clicks something, even if it’s not a really useful site for his needs. The sham-search may consider your site relevant enough to promote, but the customer probably won’t.
Second, they have terrible reputations. Nobody wants to be associated with spyware or attempts to decieve users. Users may do more than bounce- they’ll remember who was associated with their frustration.
Still, many people will respond to the siren-song of guaranteed traffic, believing “even if a handful of those 50,000 visitors explore my site, I’ve gotten business I didn’t have.” Wrong. You’d be astonished how low click-through rates can be with low-quality traffic. I can quote statistics from a site using one of these programmes: over 80,000 visits to their front page in one month, and less than 50 visits to all the other public pages combined. The click-through rate, overall, was approximately one-twentieth of a percent. Notice I’m not saying “conversion rate”, or “sales rate”, just “rate of visiting a page other than the site’s front page!”
Basically, it’s a rehash of the old “pay-per-impression” advertising model, except instead of paying for uninterested customers to ignore your banner, you’re paying for uninterested customers to ignore your entire home page, plus the additional hosting expenses associated with the extra “junk” traffic.
Moreover, it diverts your web budget from places it will do good. $100 might buy you 50,000 low-quality clicks from a guaranteed-traffic service, or 1,000 hits on a smartly-targeted pay-per-click advertisement campaign which lets you choose, to a much greater extent, who you’re paying to bring to the site. Once you consider the conversion rate of advertising clients, versus the guaranteed-traffic client, the advertisements become an undeniable bargain.
You might be tempted to say “Isn’t SEO very much the same as a sham site or parked domain” fooling customers into clicking on your site?”. The answer is a resounding no. Ethical” and productive” search optimization is about attracting customers for the services you’re actually offering. The visitors SEO produces are customers who already were interested in what you’re selling. Optimization ensures that they know you’re offering it. That’s a far cry from the world of bought traffic, which would merrily hand out the same site to viewers actually seeking information about European vacations, reptile care, and new video cards.
After all this invective, I must admit that there is a potential narrow niche for bought traffic: if your site actually benefits from impressions above all else- such as a site swimming in pay-per-impression advertising- then, by all means, shovel those low-quality clicks on. Just don’t be unsurprised as advertisers grow increasingly sophisticated and wonder why 500,000 views of their banner produce zero clicks.
There are a few basic things any website owner should know if they’d like the world to find their website. If you have already built a website and have never used the term “SEO”, we have a problem. SEO stands for “search engine optimization” and is as important to a website as water is to man. Millions of visitors a year use search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and MSN to find information on a particular topic. The search engines are equipped to have a web visitor input complete or partial phrases into the search bar to find information on specific topics. Google is the “search engine giant” at the moment has over over 75% of the searches worldwide. Google has published many articles and guidelines to take in to consideration when constructing a website if you’d like to be found by potential customers in their search engine. Every search engine is a little different in the way it displays it search results. Google has 10 positions on the left column of their site that display search results for no charge. The first page results on Google for certain industries can be worth thousands of dollars in revenue if taken advantage of. There is some more reading you will need to do regarding how the search engines decide which sites to display first.
My goal in this article is to make you realize the potential your website has if optimized correctly. In years past, if the neighborhood boys accidentally hit a fly ball into your living room, you would get out phone book and find a window replacement company. While the boys were figuring out how to pay for the window, you continue to go through phone book hoping that you can somehow differentiate the best company based solely on a phone number. These days are visions of the past for most folks. Search engines are now the replacement. They offer an organized list of companies that fit my exact search terms in seconds. The search engines also offer a very good overview of the company you are thinking of giving your hard earned money to. The website of a company can tell a lot, and allows you to do some quick comparisons without leaving your house. Since the search engine wave started, companies have been targeting those 1st page positions. With the search engines possibly providing thousands to millions of visitors a day to your site, the profit potential is huge. This has lead to some fierce competition and a willingness to understand how Google works more than ever. You’d probably be money ahead to hire an SEO company rather than try and understand the algorithms. If you choose to “do-it-yourself”, you can simply start researching through the search engines themselves. This has been a quick and brief overview of SEO, leaving much more to learn. My goal with this article was to bring an awareness to a tool that could possibly make you millions, or simply keep you competitive with the rest of your industry. Happy searching!
Subscribe