More and more companies and people are discovering how easy, fun and manageable it is to build an entire website in a blog platform, like Wordpress. If you plan to do the same, just remember one word: fresh.
Fresh content will make you more visible, no matter what format your site is built in. But if you're building a site on a blog platform, it's so easy to refresh your site, you should do it daily. Do it with a new link, a new post or a twitter feed. Change things around. Play. It will work in your favor.
Monday, October 18, 2010
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Google Instant. Instantly Problematic?
The votes are coming in, and the answer is..... maybe.
For SEO, it will be problematic if your site isn't well-written, organized and optimized for keywords. It will favor the big guys. It will be a problem for those who ascribe to the "just plug 'em in" SEO strategy.
Unlike before, searchers will not have to type in long tails - Google will serve them up, and they can just choose. Google has already been doing "personalized" search for a long time - when you type in the Google space on your browser, it basically does what Instant does. Just without showing all the pages.
Now, you'll see results and ads changing in real time as you type. So it will make search more efficient, even if for many, it's more irritating. But it does NOT make SEO irrelevant. Long tails will matter less, but how well Google likes your site will matter more. Good content is king, still.
For SEO, it will be problematic if your site isn't well-written, organized and optimized for keywords. It will favor the big guys. It will be a problem for those who ascribe to the "just plug 'em in" SEO strategy.
Unlike before, searchers will not have to type in long tails - Google will serve them up, and they can just choose. Google has already been doing "personalized" search for a long time - when you type in the Google space on your browser, it basically does what Instant does. Just without showing all the pages.
Now, you'll see results and ads changing in real time as you type. So it will make search more efficient, even if for many, it's more irritating. But it does NOT make SEO irrelevant. Long tails will matter less, but how well Google likes your site will matter more. Good content is king, still.
Monday, August 30, 2010
SEO Changes - Do You?
SEO is a constantly challenging challenge. It's not something that you can "do" - it's something that needs to live and breathe. Here are a few things you should be up on right now:
- Social Media SEO. Creating links and backlinks is even more important than ever. So is building good social media profiles and networks
- On-page quality. Quality of the writing, load time, ease of use all contribute to your SEO.
- Build a good local presence. The old adage of "think globally, act locally" comes to play here. It's easier to build a big local presence than a global one. The search engines will help you out by ranking you higher.
- Make sure you optimize for mobile devices. Duh.
- Videos. Put up videos on YouTube with your keywords and watch your optimization climb.
- Integrate your blog into your site instead of letting it live somewhere else. This is especially true for small business.
- Keep at it. I cannot stress this enough. YOU HAVE TO KEEP WORKING AT IT.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Pay Per Click Campaigns and The Big Question
Can you do it yourself?
Maybe. If you're a small local business, then it should be fairly easy to set up and manage a PPC on Google Adwords. But - and this is a big but - you may not know how to get the most out of it.
Let's say you have a small budget of maybe $10 a day. And you're a localized service business like a plumbing company, a single franchisee or florist. You can geo-target your ads to a radius around your business, pick some keywords, write a couple of ads and poof! You've got a PPC campaign.
But to really get the most out of your dollars, you need to monitor it constantly, switch out keywords, know how to write ads that Google likes and will serve up and know what to change about ads that don't perform well. It's a time investment, and you'll have to do some reading and research to understand what things like quality scores and click through rates really mean. You'll have to check out what your competition is doing, get your optimization working in your favor, know what needs to be on your landing pages, which landing pages you should really link to and figure out why your cost per click can fluctuate wildly.
If you don't have that kind of time, then the answer to the big question is NO. You can't do it yourself. Or you'll be wasting money and whatever time you do put into it. If your budget is small, choose an independent who knows what he or she is doing. If it's large, choose a company that can handle larger PPC campaigns, web revisions and SEO. It may cost you a bit, but in the end, it will save you money.
Maybe. If you're a small local business, then it should be fairly easy to set up and manage a PPC on Google Adwords. But - and this is a big but - you may not know how to get the most out of it.
Let's say you have a small budget of maybe $10 a day. And you're a localized service business like a plumbing company, a single franchisee or florist. You can geo-target your ads to a radius around your business, pick some keywords, write a couple of ads and poof! You've got a PPC campaign.
But to really get the most out of your dollars, you need to monitor it constantly, switch out keywords, know how to write ads that Google likes and will serve up and know what to change about ads that don't perform well. It's a time investment, and you'll have to do some reading and research to understand what things like quality scores and click through rates really mean. You'll have to check out what your competition is doing, get your optimization working in your favor, know what needs to be on your landing pages, which landing pages you should really link to and figure out why your cost per click can fluctuate wildly.
If you don't have that kind of time, then the answer to the big question is NO. You can't do it yourself. Or you'll be wasting money and whatever time you do put into it. If your budget is small, choose an independent who knows what he or she is doing. If it's large, choose a company that can handle larger PPC campaigns, web revisions and SEO. It may cost you a bit, but in the end, it will save you money.
Monday, August 23, 2010
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
The Three Big Questions Before SEO and PPC
Before you even START thinking about implementing SEO or PPC, there are three hugely important questions you must ask yourself:
1. What do you want to be found for?
2. What are people actually searching for?
3. What do you want to happen when they find you?
So, while you may want to be found for some proprietary term you have for yourself like "experiential retention" what people are really searching for are terms like "customer service experts" or "effective loyalty programs". You cannot be obtuse when it comes to SEO or choosing your keywords for PPC.
Then, if you want people to actually do something once they do find you, send them to the right page. Don't send someone who click on an ad about rare vinyl records to a home page that's about your music store - send them to the vinyl records page. Don't send a person looking for diamond stud earrings to a page with a big picture of pearls. If you want them to buy something, send them there.
I've had SEO clients who have taken top search terms out of copy because they don't like the sound of them, or think they're too mundane. Problem is, those are the terms people are searching for, and if they're not in the copy, I can't just put them in the tags, so the search engines don't find them on their site, and guess what - they don't get found.
It seems simple, but it's one of the main mistakes I've seen. Don't make it.
1. What do you want to be found for?
2. What are people actually searching for?
3. What do you want to happen when they find you?
So, while you may want to be found for some proprietary term you have for yourself like "experiential retention" what people are really searching for are terms like "customer service experts" or "effective loyalty programs". You cannot be obtuse when it comes to SEO or choosing your keywords for PPC.
Then, if you want people to actually do something once they do find you, send them to the right page. Don't send someone who click on an ad about rare vinyl records to a home page that's about your music store - send them to the vinyl records page. Don't send a person looking for diamond stud earrings to a page with a big picture of pearls. If you want them to buy something, send them there.
I've had SEO clients who have taken top search terms out of copy because they don't like the sound of them, or think they're too mundane. Problem is, those are the terms people are searching for, and if they're not in the copy, I can't just put them in the tags, so the search engines don't find them on their site, and guess what - they don't get found.
It seems simple, but it's one of the main mistakes I've seen. Don't make it.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
How Many Hats?
How many hats do you wear?
If it's only one, you're waaaayyy out of sync with the rest of the business world these days. The fast pace of change in the marketplace, the ever-expanding ways to reach an audience, the downsizing of the recent past economy and the confusion on the part of management have all coalesced to form the perfect storm of hat proliferation.
Are you the project manager and the PPC person? Are you the go-to for social media and for SEO? Can you juggle your design work with app development? Stretched? We all are.
But.....
There are times when we all need some help. When we simply don't have time to learn a new application or polish up on the latest Google insights. It's okay to ask for help, even if it's with one of your hats. Every hat you take off lightens the load, even if it's only for a little while. And gives you the much-needed time to recharge. Occasionally, you must go hatless all together and re-boot.
And when you do need help, ask.
If it's only one, you're waaaayyy out of sync with the rest of the business world these days. The fast pace of change in the marketplace, the ever-expanding ways to reach an audience, the downsizing of the recent past economy and the confusion on the part of management have all coalesced to form the perfect storm of hat proliferation.
Are you the project manager and the PPC person? Are you the go-to for social media and for SEO? Can you juggle your design work with app development? Stretched? We all are.
But.....
There are times when we all need some help. When we simply don't have time to learn a new application or polish up on the latest Google insights. It's okay to ask for help, even if it's with one of your hats. Every hat you take off lightens the load, even if it's only for a little while. And gives you the much-needed time to recharge. Occasionally, you must go hatless all together and re-boot.
And when you do need help, ask.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)