Avoid these common landing page traps

By Dino Adamou

Imagine seeing a great ad for an intriguing new flea shampoo call ShamKill. It's only available at PetWorld, so you hop in your car and head on over. You walk in the doors and are quickly greeted by a sales person, but when you ask for further details, you are given a wishy washy answer. Your sales person claims to know all about dogs, birds, and toilet training cats, but is clueless about ShamKill.

A web site where the landing pages are not designed properly is just like PetWorld. Let's learn how to turn this situation around so that when someone comes into your store, your sales people (landing pages) will know exactly what to do.

A landing page acts as the top part of your sales funnel. It captures visitors and tries to keep them engaged long enough so that when the call to action comes, they are likely to answer the call and move on to the next part of the sales process. If people are coming onto your site and then spilling over the sides of your funnel and never coming back, then it is time to evaluate your landing page strategy.

Smooth Transitions – For landing pages that receive traffic from PPC campaigns, email blasts, or any other source that you directly control, make the transition from the source page to your landing page as smooth as possible. Don't dump your readers directly into the middle of a sales page. If they came from your Facebook campaign, keep your landing page social and friendly. If they came from your ads on a tech blog, your landing page should be a tech sounding page as well.

Direct Calls to Action – Don't be shy about telling your readers what you want them to do next. For every 1 person who is offended by a blunt request to join a mailing list, there are 3 who consider it just part of being on the Internet. Tell them what you want them to do and make it easy for them to do so. Don't beat them over the head though, 2-3 calls per action should be plenty for an average sized landing page.

Engaging Content – Just because your landing page is effectively a pre-sell page, that doesn't mean that it has to sound “salesy”. Keep it informative, keep it engaging, and keep your readers nodding along with the content so that when the call to action shows up they are already in a “yes” kind of mood.

Effective Section Headers – Just like with print copy, when someone first lands on your page it is likely they will merely skim the section headers to get a quick idea of what that page is about. If you have bland section header (introduction, conclusion, etc) then don't be surprised when your readers just move on to their next bookmark without even giving your page a chance. Use informative section headers that tell a complete story if the user just reads them and nothing else.

For example:

Does Your Cat Suffer from Fleas?

New Flea Shampoo Guarantees 100% Kill

Veterinarians Agree that ShamKill Works

Here's How to get ShamKill

Just the Good Stuff – Don't give your readers reason to leave your page, except for when it's to sign up for your mailing list, trial offer, or download your special report. The only links on your landing page should be ones that further reinforce your message (testimonials, for instance). Keep them informed and entertained, but keep them in a box.

A good landing page keeps your readers' right where you want them all the way up until the time they sign up for your email list or other steps in your sales funnel. A good landing page does not distract or bore your readers, and it does not step lightly around what it wants your readers to perform. Good landing pages drive sales, so don't ignore this critical portion of your site.

How does your landing page measure up? Tell us about it and tell us what we missed.

One of the most underestimated aspects of SEO

By Dino Adamou

Ever wonder why some sites that are on the front page of Google don’t get as much traffic as other sites on the same page? Sometimes, a site that is near the bottom of page one or even on the second page of search results can get quite a bit more traffic than one of the big boys in the top three, but why is that? Most likely, it is because of the title tags, little bits of extra HTML on a page that can make all the difference in the world.

When someone does a search on Google they are presented with a long list of search results. Each result contains a small description about the page that can make or break a website and greatly influences the amount of traffic and search engine love that the page receives.

The first part of the description that you see (highlighted in the red circle above) is the “title tag” of that page (highlighted in the red circle below). The title tag is one of the most important and one of the most overlooked pieces of the SEO puzzle. Getting this tag right on all of your pages can make a big difference in the amount of traffic you get. The title tag is your “first impression” on the world.

Pick your favorite topic and do a Google search on it, then examine the results. Notice how some of the title tags are bland and generic and stuffed with keywords? This is a bad idea. When readers who are looking to buy exercise equipment are browsing search results, do you think they are going to visit the site that has a tag of “Dumbbells, Kettle bells, P90X” or the site that has a tag of “Great Deals on Exercise Equipment”?

Search engines generally limit what they display of your title tag to around 70 characters. In less than half a Tweet, you need to attract the attention of browsers, and this is why so many people get it wrong. They want to stuff the title tag with keywords instead of telling reader (and Google) what the page is actually about. No matter how many times Google tells them that keyword stuffing doesn’t work, no matter how many times the emphasis on relevance and readability is pounded into their heads, some people just don’t get it.

Here are a few tips to help you create relevant title tags?

1 - Make them short and to the point. In 70 characters, tell the reader exactly what the page is about and why they should want to visit it. If the page is selling something, make sure they understand that they are about to visit a page that offers a great deal on a great product.

2 - Use them on every page. If your website architecture is setup properly and a user lands on a page deep within your site, you will have a good chance of keeping them there. Don’t think that pages that only get a few hits a week are worthless. They are breadcrumbs that lead back to your monetized content.

3 - Use title tags to enhance your brand. Incorporate branding into your title tags whenever possible, but not at the expense of relevance. “Great deals on Exercise Equipment from ExerMart” is a good, branded tag.

4 - Be better than the competition. Do searches on your site’s keywords, examine the title tags of the top two pages of results, and figure out how to write better tags than your competitors.

Title tags are important, second only to the actual body of your posts in terms of search engine optimization. What are some tactics that you employ in your title tag standards?

Reasons Why Your Content Might Be Failing You?

By Dino Adamou

 Every content creator and blogger knows the feeling: you spend all night working on a great article or post and no one ever comes to read it. The days go by and no comments appear and the hit tracker just sits at zero, mocking you. Why did your stunning piece of content end up in the bin?

There is no simple answer to this question. Content, even quality content, can go unnoticed for a lot of reasons. However, there are some common failures that many content creators fall prey to, so let’s look at them and see what we can do about them.

Good Content Needs To Actually Be Good

You’ve been writing on computer repair for months and no one visits your blog? Maybe you don’t know as much about computer repair as you thought. Have an expert in your field look over your blog and make sure that it sounds like someone who knows what they are talking about. Maybe you do have great knowledge; you just are not very good at communicating it. Do some research and learn how to make your writing more powerful, or better yet, just hire someone to write it for you.

Good Content has Great Legs

If you want to spread your message, you need to have content that people are going to find interesting, so interesting that they want to share it with their friends. This is how content goes viral, by being compelling, interesting, shocking, gripping or funny enough that when you read it you want other people to read it. It’s very hard to create viral content from the ground up because in our own minds everything we create is awesome. The best you can do is write to the best of your abilities and provide link sharing buttons and widgets around your content to try and encourage people who might be on the fence.

Good Content is Authoritative

Google loves content that speaks with authority. Readers respect articles that provide useful, actionable advice. This means that you can’t just throw stuff together and hope for the best. You need to do research, cite sources and quote experts wherever possible (without making the article sound too scholarly). Look at articles from “real” magazines and newspapers. Do they sound like someone rambling about their favorite subject? No, they are backed up with expert insight and references. Even if you ARE the expert, having references that compare and contrast to your writing is important.

Good Content is Promoted

As much as we love having our content found “organically” through search engine queries and by having users share the content with each other, it is naive to think that all we have to do is “write it and they will come.” When you put up a new article or blog post, go out and promote it! Tweet about it, share it on your own Facebook page, etc. The first person who should be cheerleading for your new content is YOU, so go do it!

Content is what makes or breaks a website. Informative, useful information is what Google and readers are looking for, so if you want to succeed that’s exactly what you have to provide. 

What are some of your content strategies that you employ on your own sites?

LinkedIn Profile Tips

By Dino Adamou

LinkedIn offers professionals and entrepreneurs the opportunity to connect and network with colleagues and potential clients. When used properly, the professional social networking site can help users land new jobs and keep in touch with people who can make a difference in their career. When used improperly, a LinkedIn account is about as useful as a bicycle to a fish.

If you want to get the most out of LinkedIn, then you have to start with a profile that lets people find you and then, once you have them, keeps them interested. Here are some tips on how to get the most out of your LinkedIn account:

Be Professional

Really can’t stress this one hard enough. LinkedIn is where you show off your skills, talents, and desire for work to the world. It’s not where you voice your distrust of the government or how you feel about the latest American Idol. Keep your profile “strictly business” and you will stand out from the casual user crowd. 

Show off your Skills

One of the more over-looked features of LinkedIn profiles is the skills section. Here you can list everything that you have the talent for doing - including writing, programming, design, etc. By listing all of the skills that you possess, you make it a lot easier for searchers to find you.

Put Keywords in your Profile

Your summary, experience, education, and any other section that LinkedIn lets you fill in yourself should be keyword optimized. This means that if your primary skill is web design, make sure that you mention it in as many places as possible (but don’t go overboard). The search function on LinkedIn hits all of these areas, so if your profile is better keyword optimized than your competitor, who do you think is going to get found (and hired) more often?

Use a Photo

People trust faces more than anonymous profiles. If you have a professional looking picture as your profile photo, it makes a much better first impression. If you don’t have a good mug shot already, then hit the yellow pages. Many smaller photography studios will gladly hook you up with a professional headshot for under $25.00, and it only takes a few minutes of your time.

Promote your Website

Your LinkedIn profile not only gives you a platform to promote yourself, it gives you a place to tout your website as well. Make sure you mention your business website and your blog in your profile wherever it is appropriate. If you can’t land the deal based on your LinkedIn profile alone, maybe your website will finish the job for you.

Be a Contributor

LinkedIn is more than just a place to dump your profile and resume. It’s also a place where people connect and discuss business. Join one of the thousands of LinkedIn groups that are related to your field and participate in the discussions. Hop on over to the Answers section and see if you can provide assistance to someone looking for advice. Don’t be a wall flower. The more your name shows up on LinkedIn, the more likely it is that someone looking to hire someone just like you will find you.

How are you using LinkedIn to get the most out of it? Are there any questions you have about the business social network? Let us know!

Is Your Website Architecture Hurting Your SEO?

By Dino Adamou

The one aspect of SEO that you have complete control over is your website architecture. You control how your site is built, how the pages relate to each other, and how your page hierarchy flows. These aspects are just as important to getting decent page placement results as having a ton of back links. We will look at a few of the most important website architecture elements that have a critical impact on SEO.

Title Tags

While the title of your web page that the reader sees might be “Designer Shoes Enhance any Outfit” the title that the search engines sees can be something entirely different, and you control what that title is. Every web page should have a title tag in the header, and what you put in there is completely up to you. This tag is where you should make sure that the primary keywords for your site are prevalent. For instance “cheap designer shoes – woman's fashion shoes” would be perfectly acceptable for a title tag for this page.

Internal Keyword Anchoring

Just as you want other sites to link to yours using anchor text that contains the proper keywords, you want to ensure that your pages link to other pages within your own site using the same strategy. For instance if your website is about telescopes, then every article you publish on that site should have 2-3 hyperlinks that use relevant keywords and target pages within your own site.

Let’s say that your front page article uses the phrase “beginner telescope”. You would use that phrase as the anchor text for a hyperlink within your own site that describes a good telescope for beginners. While internal links do not hold as much weight as links from other sites, they are still important and help reinforce to the search engines exactly what you your site is about.

The Three Click Rule

Ideally, from the front page of your site, every other page on your site should be accessible in three clicks or less. The easiest way to accomplish this is through correct categorization and sub-categorization of your content. By dividing up sites with a lot of content into categories and sub-categories, it makes it easy for both your readers and search engine robots to navigate your site.

Images

Images may or may not be worth a thousand words, but for SEO purposes they are worth at least a few dozen. By having images on your site with keyword optimized “alt” text, you are giving search engines another trail of crumbs that leads back to your site. In addition, images make pages more interesting for your readers and help reduce the clutter that many long content pages are plagued with.

Content is King

When all is said and done, the value that your site gives to your readers is the most important part of SEO that there is. Readers who find your site informative and engaging will return to your site often to check for updates AND they are more likely to share your site with their friends. As time goes on, the little “tricks” that the SEO “experts” use to leapfrog over top of sites with real information lose their effectiveness and sites with useful, regularly updated content take their rightful place at the top.

What website infrastructure rules are you following to ensure proper SEO? Have we missed any, or do you disagree with the ones we have highlighted? Let us know!

An SEO Tactic That Deserves More Attention

By Dino Adamou

While Google and other search engines have tweaked and optimized their search algorithms a dozen times or so this year, one truth still remains: keywords are king. If you are not properly choosing the keywords your site is going to target, then you are condemning your site to the back pages of Google where only the most determined (or bored) searchers are likely to see it. Keyword selection is not as simple as slapping “laptop” all over your home page, but it isn’t rocket science either.

Think like a Buyer

Most likely, you are looking to catch buyers with your keyword selection. This is why you avoid generic terms like “iPod”. You don’t necessarily want everyone interested in iPods coming to your site because 90% of them probably already have one and are not in the market for a new one.

To catch buyers, use phrases that people might search on when they want to buy an iPod. For instance “iPod discounts”, “iPod coupon codes”, “iPod reviews”, “comparison of iPod models”, etc. This will get people who have their wallets in hand coming to your site and people looking for tips on how to use the iPod they already own going somewhere else.

Use Exact Match to Verify Keyword Selection

The Google keyword tool is a great tool, but it’s not perfect, especially for people unfamiliar with SEO strategies. While “bowling balls” when searched under Broad Match has 301,000 searches, the same phrase searched under exact match only has 40,500. Ideally, you want your keywords to have a high number of both Broad and Exact searches, but the latter is more important. If “fuzzy widgets” has 3,000,000 broad searches but only 300 exact searches, then “fuzzy widgets” is a poor keyword to target.

Track How Visitors are coming to Your Site

How visitors found their way to your site is important, particularly in regard to the search phrases they used to get there. If you analyze your logs and find that people are occasionally coming to your site via some long tail keyword phrase that you didn’t think of, then maybe it’s time to expound upon that phrase and add some additional content around it.

Keyword review is also important for the keywords that you already have in place. If you are sure that one of your keywords is a good one but it is not getting much action, then you know that you need to ramp up the content you have around that keyword. Don’t forget the popular keywords either. If people are landing on your site all day and night because of “iPod coupon codes” then toss up a couple of more pages around that keyword and catch a few more of them.

Don’t start a fight with a Bigger Dog

If you have a small budget, don’t try to outrank an industry giant for a popular keyword. To keep beating a dead horse, at this stage in the game ranking anywhere near the top of the SERPs for a phrase like “iPod” or “iPad” is pretty much a losing battle. Choose a set of more specific, buyer friendly keywords and target the heck out of them.

Have you had any success in outranking a big dog? Do you have a secret keyword strategy we haven’t covered? Tell us about it!

Don't just be on Google page 1, own it.

Despite all the challenges and hurdles the eCommerce industry faces today, it’s still very much a booming industry. It also goes without saying that content is an essential component of any successful eCommerce website.  In the case study that follows, we look at a client of ours who sells refurbished medical equipment such as EKG machines, holter monitors, spirometers and more and how they implemented a smart strategy that allowed them to own more real estate on page 1 of Google Organically.  

Introduction:
The client’s website contains 38 unique product categories and within each category, there are approximately 30-40 products listed. The website has been operational for just over five years with the marketing focus on both paid search and SEO.

The Problem:
Given the large number of product categories on the site, achieving page 1 ranking for many of them was a challenge. While the client has been successful at ranking organically on page 1 for his higher search and more profitable keywords, he has also noticed that competition in the medical space has intensified, driving up his marketing cost, and even worse, taking business away!

Solution:
The client asked us for advice on what options were available to allow him to capture more sales and more market share. We advised the client that he needed to own more real estate on page 1 of Google while continuing to drive rankings on his current site. To achieve this result, we advised the client to select niche product categories from his site, launch them on uniquely branded new sites and then drive these new sites to page 1. This strategy would allow the client to have his current site as well as the new site both showing up on page 1 giving him a greater chance at capturing the search traffic. Theoretically, this sounded like a great idea, but our client told us he didn’t have time nor the resources to make it happen.

The timing could not have been better! We introduced the client to eDevelopers, a sister division to eCopywriters. At eDevelopers, we offer clients access to sophisticated and proprietary website platforms that have been built through over 10 years of SEO trial and error. For this client, we started by selecting a product category from his list that had decent search traffic and was highly profitable – EKG Machines. We then sourced a relevant keyword domain, EKGmachinesforsale.com and deployed the new domain on our SE Commerce Cart. The client provided us with a download of his product list and in less than 24 hours the site was live and loaded with over 100 products. Now the fun part could begin, driving the site to page 1 of Google.

Key Findings:
We registered the domain name on September 9th, 2010. The site achieved page 1 Google rankings on January 22nd, 2011 – just over four months later. As of October 1st 2011, the site commanded a PR of 5. From a conversion optimization perspective, the site has a bounce rate of 20%. On average, the site generates 770 long tail keyword combinations per month and consistently ranks for 18 organic competitive keywords on the first page of all 3 major search engines. Of the search traffic to the site, 88% of it is derived from the three main search engines due to the SEO effort.




Conclusion:
As of late October 2011, our client successfully operates two unique properties on the first page of Google, both of which rank highly for both broad and long tail keyword variations of 'EKG machine.' Rather than start the web design project from scratch on his own time which would have cost him even more money, our client opted to lease the SE Commerce Cart from eDevelopers, which included the SEO campaign for a flat monthly fee. This allowed him to not only meet his revenue goals, but exceed them as well without having to incur additional overhead costs to support the new program. The success of this program was so overwhelming for the client, he has now commissioned us to perform the same service across multiple other categories for which he wants to dominate the first page of Google.

The success of the SE Commerce Cart can be attributed to several factors.

1. Consistent with Google’s mission to serve up the most relevant search results for a given keyword search, EKGmachinesforsale.com is highly regarded per Google for keyword saturation.

2. eDevelopers’s SE Commerce cart is designed and built on close to an entire decade of SEO expertise with every aspect of SEO conversion taken in to account. Achieving the goal of being on the first page of Google within only three months with a reported PR of 5 is evidence of this.
3. eCopywriters placed fresh, original and unique content on the site including unique product descriptions. All of these met Google's requirements per the PANDA algorithm update that was introduced in 2011 to Google's search algorithm.  The PANDA algorithm takes user behavior patterns gained through SERPs into account and impacts the ranking of the entire site, as opposed to individual pages.
4. Utilizing rigorous link building efforts, the eDevelopers team implemented a link building program with eDomainers that served up industry relevant, high PR websites with contextual links – which were helpful in boosting the rankings of EKGmachinesforsale.com in search engines.

Google To Focus On Landing Page Relevancy With Their Latest Algorithm Change

In typical Google fashion, the Internet search engine giant has clandestinely been working on improvements to their algorithm yet again. 

How Will This Impact You?

There are two factors: the copy contained in your AdWords ads and the quality of content on your landing pages. 

In an effort to further enhance the user-experience, Google has revamped their algorithm so that relevant landing pages, by Google standards, with AdWords ads will start to increase in the SERPs (search engine results pages) for lower CPC (cost-per-click) bids.

While Google’s current algorithm is clearly effective, their director of product management, Jonathan Alferness, has stated that they’ve found “that there are ads available in the auction that are as good a quality as the top ads. But the landing pages – the merchant sites, the advertiser landing pages – are of much higher quality than the ads that we see at the top of our auction”  (http://searchengineland.com/google-tweaks-adwords-to-give-landing-page-quality-more-weight-95488).

Ultimately, the reason for the shift in the algorithm is to enhance the user experience.  The goal is to ensure that the ad created, the keyword(s) targeted and the landing page that the aforementioned factors are directed to result in a relevant solution for the end-user.

What Can You Do?

Although we may not be able to control Google’s algorithm, there are certain elements that we can tweak and modify to ensure that we’re aligned with Google’s ever-updating best practices.  In this case, the copy in your AdWords ads and the landing page(s) that the ad is directing to are factors that you can optimize.

Here are some quick tips for improving your landing page quality:

·         Make sure that your ad copy is concise, clear and effectively targets the primary keyword harbored on the respective landing page.

·         Optimize your landing page for the keyword targeted in your ad.

·         Ensure that the content on your landing page is effectively organized so that your users can easily access and locate what they need.

·         Provide fresh content on your landing page to ensure that it is always as updated and relevant as possible.

·         Create several versions of your landing pages for testing purposes to ensure that you’re presenting the most valuable version to your target audience. Use ECOPYWRITERS’ crowd-sourcing service to receive multiple versions of 1 page in a quick and efficient manner.

 In the end, if your ad copy and landing page content align, then your user retention and conversion rates will likely increase. 

What Does This Mean For You? 

In short, more business, more repeat customers and a better ROI on your ad campaigns.

5 Simple Ways You Can Get Your Target Audience To Read Your Content

You create a masterpiece that you think will undoubtedly be the next social media miracle.  

You post it to your website but, alas, you get nothing in return.  You sit pondering where you’ve gone wrong and how you can fix it, but you don’t want to mar what you consider an obvious masterpiece…

Be Concise: Make Your Content User-Friendly

While we may have been taught to compose in paragraph format, beginning in elementary school, writing for an Internet audience is a whole different craft than doing so for your intimidating English teacher.

In order for your content to garner attention, your important points should be addressed immediately; further, they should be easily identifiable as well as clear & concise.  For Internet audiences, there is generally no need for you to fluff up your composition as this more often than not results in lost or dissatisfied consumers.

How You Can Give Your Content The Best Opportunity To Hit The Social Media Circuit

Many online marketers consistently post content because they read and believe that it’s one of the most effective ways to help increase their rankings for certain keywords.  However, while this notion may hold some truth, the most important factor is to ensure that the content posted is actually read, digested, shared and appreciated by those you’re targeting.  

Here are a few tips to help entice your target audience to read and share your content:

1. Use line breaks: Line breaks enable readers to skim and scan content, to look for points that apply specifically to what they’re seeking.  Shorter paragraphs & shorter sentences will help them to get there faster.
2. Include sub-heads: Sub-heads can go a long way in regard to directing web users where they want to focus their attention.  If you create catchy, compelling and concise sub-heads throughout your content, then you’ll be effectively demonstrating the organization of your copy and your main messages.
3. Don’t be afraid of bulleted & numbered lists: Simply put, most people do not have more than a minute or two to spare to read through something.  If your content or even email, for that matter, is only in paragraph format, then it likely won’t get read. The human eye is attracted to lists; they’re easier to scan & digest and they exude importance as they clearly delineate primary points.
4. Leverage the power of formatting: While your main goal is to easily and effectively convey your message, leverage the use of bolding and italicizing where necessary.  These are additional formatting techniques that you can employ to ensure that the meat & potatoes of your post are highlighted.
5. Links, links, links: Consider the use of both internal and external links.  Including internal links to relevant pages on your site will further demonstrate your concern for the consumer, while embedding external links to high quality content affords you the opportunity of showing respect to experts in your industry/field.  Additionally, this tactic reveals your own research methods to both consumers & competitors, which can function to increase your own credibility within the industry.

Have you been fortunate enough to receive comments on your postings, shares on Facebook or Tweets?  If so, what have you found to be the most effective tactics in terms of showcasing your content?

Can you afford to miss the boat?

Picture this...you are 3-6 months into an online marketing campaign and you are starting to rank for your keywords, but for some reason, the phones are not ringing and the lead form is not being filled out. You decide to keep going because you are already committed, but still nothing earth shattering seems to be happening.  That’s when it hits you: you do some digging and realize that you missed the boat on a bunch of keywords that command a higher search volume. Any successful online campaign needs to start with the right blueprint; otherwise you run the risk of wasting time & energy that you can’t get back. While there are many factors that combine to create a successful SEO campaign, thorough keyword research ranks highly on the list.

Here are a few quick tips to help you ensure that you’re utilizing proper keyword research tactics:

Be realistic & logical: Vying for prominent search engine placement and positioning with general/broad keywords &phrases in an already saturated marketplace can be an uphill battle.  For example, if you operate an eCommerce site that focuses on selling area rugs, then naturally, your goal would be to rank highly for the phrase “rugs” or “area rugs”.  Individuals searching these terms are likely just beginning the purchasing process for the respective items.  However, if you leverage the data from your analytics to see which terms are actually driving the most traffic to your site, then you’ll likely find longer-tail, or more specific, terms are your highest converting keywords.  If your site is effectively organized, then you will probably have several primary categories showcasing your selection and designated by these more specific terms (i.e. ‘shag rugs’ or ‘kids rugs’).  This is why your conversion rate for such terms may be higher than the broader phrases you’re optimizing for.  Focusing your efforts on terms that are viewed as less competitive can help you to gain an edge in your industry.  In August 2011, almost one in five search queries in the US consisted of five or more words (figure 1.1) according to data by Experian Hitwise . One and two word queries are still the most common but the increase in long tail searches validates the importance of these keywords in a campaign.

 

Target the proper version of a keyword or phrase: Of course, search volume is an important element to consider as you initiate your optimization efforts.  After all, why optimize for a term that generates little to no traffic or that will result in no value for you or your business?  One issue that many marketers fall victim to, especially eCommerce businesses, is optimizing for the plural version of a word/phrase versus the singular version.  In most cases, you’ll find that the singular version of a word generates a higher search volume than the plural version; in order to see statistics, you can use a tool like Google Trends. Again, though, be sure to review your analytics to help you determine which version of a keyword is actually driving traffic to your site, and then use this data to help you achieve higher click through and conversion rates. 

Ensure that your target keywords are relevant to your site’s offerings: To a search engine, the explicit meaning of a keyword can be ambiguous.  It’s important to conduct your own Google searches of keywords that you want to optimize for to ensure that they’re contextually relevant to your business and to your site’s offerings.  Time, and effort, is of the essence when it comes to SEO so be sure that you’re spending time optimizing your site and your content for keywords that show the most promise for increasing conversion rates. 

While these are just a few quick tips, they should prove to be quite helpful as you design your SEO campaign. What other tactics have you employed to ensure that your keyword research efforts are as focused and fruitful as they can be?

Do You Have What It Takes To Write Optimized Content?

Producing content is an integral part of today’s online marketing efforts; however, writing optimized content is an art that takes time to perfect.  Creating captivating copy that meets the needs of both humans and machines can certainly be done, but it is undoubtedly a craft that requires constant care and cultivation.  

It can be equated to putting together a puzzle.  While you may have all of the tools, or pieces, that you need, it’s imperative that you take the time to analyze and digest how they fit together so that your result is exactly as it should be.

Here are a few quick tips to help you get on track for writing search engine optimized content:

1. Know & understand your target audience.  If you don’t know who your audience is or what they’re looking for, then you can’t operate an effective content strategy. Understanding the psyche of your consumers is paramount to producing and providing valuable, optimized content.
2. Ensure that you’re writing for your target audience.  Sure, optimizing pieces of content for your target keywords is a part of successful SEO; however, write an honest & informative piece and you’ll see that you can naturally and relevantly incorporate your specified phrases.
3. Perform extensive keyword research. Free tools like Google Analytics can help you to see which search terms are driving traffic to your site as well as which terms visitors are searching in order to arrive to your site.  Once you can analyze this data, then you can section your website and produce your content as relevantly as possible.
4. Use keywords as optimally as possible. While relevantly incorporating your keywords into content displayed on your site is a given, it’s as important to target these phrases in your Meta data and header tags so that you can properly inform the search engines of the goals of each page.
5. Outline your content before jumbling together incoherent thoughts & phrases that simply include your target keywords.  It’s critical that the content you share with your users and with search engine spiders is clear and cohesive.  If neither can decipher what your goals or messages are, then how well do you think the piece is going to rank?
6. Make sure that your content is presented in an easy-to-read format. In order to keep potential consumers returning to your site, make your content as easily readable as possible.  Formatting tactics like bullet points, numbered lists and shorter paragraphs help to not only convey your messages more concisely & easily, but also to retain readership for longer periods of time.
7. Edit your content.  Don’t simply regurgitate facts that you’ve found from around the web. Elaborate on existing thoughts and provide a fresh perspective so that your content attracts potential links from other sites. Always ensure that your content is grammatically and factually accurate so that you can maintain and increase your credibility in the marketplace.

What types of tactics have you found to be most helpful in your pursuit to provide consumers with useful optimized content?

A Gentle Giant or A Force To Be Reckoned With?

Ever since Google released its Panda update, we’ve kept you informed of the “hows” and “whys”. It is our mission as a content creation service to ensure that you not only understand why yours or your clients site may have been penalized, but also to show you how you can keep your site safely moving forward.  Although this resounding message from Google has loudly and clearly reverberated throughout the Internet marketplace, not all of those affected have taken the steps necessary to repair their reputations and rankings.

If your idea of generating leads, converting sales and branding your business stems from designing and deploying a cookie-cutter website as swiftly as possible, then think again.  While you may be able to out-smart your competitors, remember that you’ll likely never have the upper-hand when it comes to deceiving Google.  And that strong hand of Google can wipe out your identity almost as quickly as it appeared.

Don’t fall any further behind the pack; here are 5 tips on how to beat Panda:

1. Use Original Templates: Many businesses opt to use boilerplate templates; especially if they’re trying to launch a website or virtual storefront as quickly as possible. While using boilerplate templates in and of itself may not be detrimental, failing to load these pages with original content is a sure-fire sign of code duplication in the eyes of Google.  Make sure to differentiate your pages and to make sure that they’re valuable to your visitors; if you fail to meet these criteria, then you may not only be providing a disservice to your customers, but you may also be sabotaging your own business.
2. Use Each Site Page To Your Advantage: While the number of pages on your site can prove to be an influential factor in search engine visits, ensure that the pages you do have feature quality content throughout.  Many sites will host pages that feature only links to other pages within the site. Without posting verifiably quality content on such pages, you run the risk of being viewed as a spam site by Google.
3. File Articles with Similar Topics on the Same Page: Many companies and self-proclaimed SEOs follow the practice of producing a different article/page on their site for slightly modified keyword phrases.  For example, if one of your primary keyword targets is “soccer ball”, then you don’t necessarily need separate pages for all similar terms; i.e. “black soccer ball”, “white soccer ball”, etc.  Google views the creation of multiple pages that pertain to similar terms as spam and may instantly sandbox your site for using such tactics.  Instead, generate a strong, relevant and qualified page that highlights a primary keyword target and several long-tail variations in a natural and logical manner.
4. Avoid Overt Advertising Efforts: While advertising on your site isn’t necessarily forbidden, doing so in abundance can certainly compromise your credibility.  The primary goal of your site should be to deliver quality content; sure, optimizing for search engines is a necessity to compete, but it’s equally, if not more, important to produce content that your consumers are seeking. Littering your site with ads may not only push consumers away, but it may also leave you starting at square one when it comes to getting “in” with Google.
5. Original Content is STILL King: As far as Google is concerned, if you can continue to produce unique, quality content on a frequent basis, then you’ll most likely find your site rising in the rankings over time.  Taking an honest, original and useful approach toward content can only benefit your business.  In doing so, you’re demonstrating the following: your commitment to enhancing the user-experience, your value to your consumers, your credibility to Google and an ethical approach to your business goals.

What have you found to be particularly helpful in terms of optimization efforts in regard to the Panda update?