SEO Tips & Tricks
27 October 2009
Website conversion tactics | SEO Drives Activity - Activity Drives Sales
Photo by alan(ator) via Creative Commons |
I use this in our SEO training and have many clients meetings on the topic. Many website developers profess to be experts, but few will agree to be measured on it.
Nobody likes being manipulated, mislead or coerced. Being persuaded to perform an action is however OK. It's called buy-in. The user's choice is at stake, and the user remains empowered. Users who have "bought in" also usually return and become repeat customers. This is conversion.
So can we persuade website users to perform the required choice of action and get more visitors to do this? Consider your last sales experience.
Think about your last purchase:
On average the sales person probably presented some or all the following attributes to close the sale:
• They presented well, were likable, helpful and credible and appeared sincere, knowing their own field of expertise well and could answer the questions you asked
• They provided proof of the product by either having used 1 themselves or having a close friend who did
• The big sell didn't happen upfront, it was through a process you found hard to back out of, a series of small yes's. Do you have this issue? Have you experienced that? Would you like to try this? And so on.
• Answered the small lingering doubts subtly, such as warranty, returns, hidden features, there was no way back, no excuses not to buy
• They made it personal, how this product would meet your needs
• They had a close. "We only have x in stock", or "We have a special on this week" etc. Would you like me to get one from the back for you?
Who is your customer?
Ok, so a website works differently, but just to add complexity. We are different and behave differently in a purchasing process, sometimes exhibiting different behaviours for different products? Recognize some of these traits below?
• Direct approach: They want to know outcomes, results and answers. Just the facts please. This group will also put off a purchase if there is more to gain from waiting. They are smart and want options that make sense on all fronts not just financially and to be able to control the option they choose.
• Methodical buyer: They work through a process, understanding the product attributes, features and price. They work toward a deal and need information to decide on what that deal should be. It Can be very tiring for the salesman who can easily lose the deal due to a lack of patience.
• The Feeler: They focus on the human side, wanting to understand the product impact on others and the environment. They may put themselves second. They also are easily influenced and want to see testimonials or endorsements from perceived people in the know. Low levels of product knowledge but lots of external positive influencing factors.
• Spontaneous: They are impulsive and excitable, they go to buy groceries and come home with a flat screen TV. They need the answers quick, stock must be available and the ability for them to walk out the store with product in hand is important, or you may lose the deal. These people may drive around for a day seeking a specific product, and not give it a second thought the next day.
Do you know your customer? Do you accommodate each of these groups?
Onto website conversion. How to minimise that bounce rate and get more than your fair share of conversions. I mean really get on top of this from the ground up, not just at a superficial level with some feel good A/ B testing.
Simplified Conversion factors to consider
1. Create a good first impression:
You have around 3-5 seconds:
• What does the user see first to keep them there?
• How fast does the page load?
• Does the page load without errors?
• Do you have a credible and professional logo, slogan and overall website look and feel?
• Are you unique or do you look like all other websites? That's the problem sometimes with best practice.
• Do you have a contact us page, about us, terms and privacy policy that is easily accessible?
Does your website come across as a trusted, credible and quality website, ready to meet their needs? People will only convert if they feel comfortable. Discomfort in many cases = risk.
2. Where to next with navigation?
Now you have them on your page. What do you want them to do? Push the big red button with "BUY HERE" or "FREE TRIAL" on it? Alternatively, let them hunt around hoping they find the grey'd out link in the footer? Website navigation takes many twists and turns, make sure you understand your customers needs and take them through a process and make it easy to convert. Keep in mind small purchases with low risk require no process, while larger high value purchases may require several visits, research and even discussions prior to making the decision.
Do you take them through a process of small yes's, logical next steps, which attempt to obligate them to buy? A process of persuasion subtly answering questions and concerns along the way to the end goal. Big yes's upfront can = big no's.
3. Provide relevant content to support different user requirements
Include detailed and engaging information, images, tools and videos on product features for those researching, provide testimonials for those needing to be persuaded, provide a streamlined process with an overview of features for those impulsive buyers.
What information does your average user need to convert? How have you positioned this information on the website? Are your differentiators, product features and needs clearly defined? Is the real problem or issue your product or service addresses clearly articulated?
Do you answer the little alarm bells ringing for the customer such as return policies, money back guarantees and privacy? These may not differentiate you but need to be there to put you on par with competitor sites.
Identify the tickets to play items with respect to conversion and the real differentiators or unique propositions you offer. Map these out and consider how best and when they are communicated to the user to support the conversion process.
Can you answer all their questions, supporting their decision to purchase no matter what the buyer type is? Is this is a series of little yes'es, taking them down the road of conversion?
4. Continually develop conversion processes to close
Link points 2 and 4 above together. Think about where users enter your site. Search engines will deliver them to different pages throughout the site based on search terms. Think about how you want people to navigate, given how they might interact to convert and ensure these conversion paths are easy and simple. Monitor Analytics to establish common user paths through the website and improve both primary and secondary conversion paths and actions, continually.
Does the website close well. When the user has enough information to buy, can they? Or do they need to hunt around looking for the place to do it?
5. Test everything
Test and monitor everything from headlines to action buttons. Be patient, analyse the data and make informed improvements. Document your process.
In summary then:
1. Tell them what you want them to do
2. Make it easy for them to do
3. Tell them when they've done it
Planning your site's conversion processes is more than just deciding on where to put a button on a wireframe. It is an integration of customer understanding, site content and process design. Get it right and the value of your website will increase substantially. Get it wrong or don't bother, and you may be missing opportunities. The traffic is there, the investment is done. You may as well convert more of them.
Posted by Jeremy Bolt on 27 October 2009 at 11:05 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
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7 October 2009
SEO for mobile - back to 1999
Do you remember websites in the 1999? List of links and information, not very content rich, lots of 404 error pages, algorithms based on on-page factors (such as keyword density) and links were not a major ranking factor in most of the popular engines. It was just the beginning of a new economy with new business models and a new exciting channel for companies. Businesses were unfamiliar with this new channel and were adopting their old marketing knowledge to the web. Search engines were still trying to understand the complexity of the web. Does this sound like websites for mobiles in 2009? I think so. However, I believe this time round, companies will start considering the importance of website design and seo for this new channel much earlier than before.
Mobile internet growth
The mobile internet has been taking off only recently and things are beginning to evolve in 2009.
SEMPO has just released a white paper released on the growing of the mobile market which included some phenomenal stats:
- US: mobile searches will expand to 56.2 million by 2013. In May 2009 there have been 64 Million US surfers in the mobile internet (twice that of 2008)
- Japan : 55% of Japanese mobile users accessed the interned at least once a week
- China: Almost 20% of mobile users (118million people) accessed the internet at least one hour a week
- EU-7 (FR, GE, IT, Neth, SP, SW, UK) end of 2008 - 24% of mobile users accessed the internet at least once a month.
Interesting statistics have been released from AIMA on usage behavior and preferences of Australian mobile phone users (based on a survey of 3,710 respondents). According to the research:
- 56% of respondents used their mobile phone to get information at least once a month
- 21% of respondents said they visit websites on their mobile phone at least once a day
- 25% of respondents conducted mobile searches at least once a week.
- 34% of respondents accessed websites on their phone by typing in a URL
- 18% were likely to access the web using the mobile phone's company portal
- 52% used their mobile phone to visit websites
- 49% used their mobile phone to browse the internet
- 43% used their mobile phone for mobile search
- 50% uses their mobile phone for account balance
- 14% used their mobile to buy things not for their mobile phone
Interestingly 34% of respondents type in URLs as opposed to using search engines. This is mainly believed to be because of the poor usability of handsets, but I also believe due to the lack of accessibility through search engines or mobile portals. 53% of the respondents stated that they used coupon or barcode to a free discount or a free ticket (that's very interesting). According to AIMIA the next area of growth are payments through mobiles. This will reinforce the importance of the mobile channel for e-commerce opportunities.
The industry has overcome some barriers however still some more need to be overcome. A big barrier to entry is cost as consumers still believe that mobile internet is too expensive. Speed is improved however it is not fast as we would like.
SEO for mobiles face new challenges.
The biggest challenges are the multiplicity of platforms and browsers, different hardware and software, different apps and rival search engines. Most of the websites do not have mobile friendly version of their sites. Currently search engines use transcoded software to re-format websites to their mobile standards for mobile search users' devices (e.g. flash technologies frames and Ajax that are not supported by mobile phones). The downside is that transcoded websites are usually poorly re-formatted, causing a poor users experience - this is very bad for SEO as URLs and links are transcoded too. Technologies however are evolving and adapting to mobile users needs, in fact Adobe recently announced that the Flash Player for mobiles will be available in 2010.
At this stage, the mobile results reflects desktop results due to the lack of mobile content available. So if a site ranks well in Google for desktop, it should rank well also on mobiles. Still this does not guarantee that your visitors are going to convert if your site is not user friendly. However new mobile metrics are emerging, such as location, device type and content format and I am curious to know how search engines will control this. According to Google, the average queries on mobile search are 15 characters and Google is now using what is called "predictive search" to assist users in completing their search.
Interesting guidelines have been released by mobithinking.com for mobile seo best
practises. In summary key points are:
1. Improve user experience on mobile to attract more audience
2. Focus on targeting mobile users not desk users
3. Recognise the difference between mobile search engines and traditional search engines - where location, devices type and formats play an important role
4. Understand mobile search phrase queries and optimise around them - most of mobile search queries are location/task specific
5. Realise the challenge of different browsers, devices and content standardisation
6. Submit your mobile site to directories, business listings services and relevant portals
7. Make your mobile site crawlable - use correct headers, don't block IP ranges unless necessary, submit a mobile sitemap, use clean code, link to other mobile pages
8. Confirm to the new W3C MobileOk .
Posted by Raffaella Bronzi on 7 October 2009 at 11:17 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
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17 September 2009
Google Video Sitemaps | What Are They and How to Create One
Online video is increasingly becoming an important element to consider from a search engine optimisation perspective. What if your company has just recently released a great promotional video on their web site and after a few of weeks of continuous monitoring, using the company's analytics software, you realise that the video has not been indexed by Google at all ? So how do you get that video indexed in Google and increase exposure to the online World ?
 Photo by googlisti via Creative Commons |
The simple solution for this is to create a Google Video XML Sitemap which makes use of the sitemap protocol with the addition of several video specific tags. Creating a Google Video Sitemap is an integral part of Video SEO that must not be ignored if you want your videos to be indexed and ideally rank for relevant keywords. In the Google Video Sitemap you can add information about each video such as title, description, rating, duration, category, expiration date and more. A Google Video Sitemap is a great way to alert Google that you have a video at a specific landing page.
Before we get to how to create a video sitemap there are a few important points to remember:
• The video sitemap must be less than 10MB uncompressed and contain less than 50,000 entries.
• The video sitemap must be a separate file (eg: companyvideos.xml) and cannot be incorporated into a standard sitemap.xml file.
• Make sure you are not blocking Googlebot from indexing the directory that contains the video file in the robots.txt.
• The video types that are compatible with video sitemaps (that are not streamed and can be accessed via http) are ; .mpg, .mpeg, .mp4, .mov, .wmv, .asf, .avi, .ra, .ram, .rm and .flv.
• If your video gets indexed and is about a product it may not only appear within normal Google search results and Google Video Search but also Google Product Search.
• Your video does not have to be hosted on your web server (you could have your videos on YouTube) to create a Google Video Sitemap.
With the above points in mind, the first line in the video sitemap starts with an xml declaration:
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9"
xmlns:video="http://www.google.com/schemas/sitemap-video/1.1">
The next step is to define the location of the landing page containing the video and the video location and video player location as follows:
<url>
<loc>http://www.company.com/videos/myfantasticcompanyvideo.html</loc>
<video:video>
<video:content_loc>http://www.company.com/awesomeseocompany.flv</video:content_loc>
<video:player_loc allow_embed="yes">http://www.company.com/videoplayer.swf?video=awesomeseocompany</video:player_loc>
Then you can add further information about your video such as the thumbnail location, video title, description, rating and more:
<video:thumbnail_loc>http://www.company.com/thumbnails/awesomeseocompany.jpg</video:thumbnail_loc>
<video:title>X Company Product Video</video:title>
<video:description>How to use the X product from X Company. </video:description>
The below declarations are all optional whilst the previous declarations above are all required:
<video:rating>4.8</video:rating>
<video:view_count>248</video:view_count>
<video:publication_date>2009-09-13T15:41:35+06:00.</video:publication_date>
<video:expiration_date>2009-10-01T23:59:59+06:00.</video:expiration_date>
The <video:tag> is where you can indicate the relevant keywords for your video:
<video:tag>x company</video:tag>
<video:tag>x product</video:tag>
<video:category>X Company Product</video:category>
<video:family_friendly>yes</video:family_friendly>
The duration of the video is declared in seconds:
<video:duration>600</video:duration>
Finally each video must have closing </video:video> and </url> tags.
</video:video>
</url>
Once all video locations have been added to the sitemap it closes with the following declaration:
</urlset>
Congratulations you're almost done! Just save this file as an xml file naming it something relevant but not sitemap.xml (as that is declared for the standard sitemap). The following steps just need to be applied to add your new Video Sitemap to Google Webmaster Tools.
1. Simply login to Google Webmaster Tools using your Google account and expand the "Site Configuration" link on the Dashboard in the left navigation and click on the "Sitemaps" link.
2. Click on the "Submit a Sitemap" button.
3. Fill in the page name and extension of the video sitemap and click on the "Submit Sitemap" button.
Finito!! Now just monitor the progress of the indexing of the Sitemap to ensure that Google doesn't report any errors and if all is good you have now alerted Google to your video/s and they will be indexed more quickly and efficiently in future. Now that you know how to create a Google Video Sitemap it's time to go use your SEO skills and further optimise those video landing pages for when the search traffic starts rolling in.
Posted by Grant Hilton on 17 September 2009 at 9:18 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
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8 September 2009
How to monetise great content
One of the things I love about working at Bruce Clay Australia is the fact that the organisation really does foster an entrepreneurial spirit amongst its employees. Several of the great people (Mr Awesome, Google Gal, War Hammer etc) I work with have their own ventures that they work on during their own time and I am no different. I have an editorial content site (I would never shamelessly plug a link, mainly because the site isn't ready) but as with all great content the clincher is monetising it. An interesting thought occurred to me; if I am having trouble figuring it out, some of you might also, so I did a bit of research and here are some of the best methods I came up with for monetising a great content website.
 Photo by depone via Creative Commons |
Advertising and affiliates
This can be a big winner especially if you have a great site/blog whose focus is around high paying keywords (insurance, loans etc). However it is also the most likely method that will irritate your visitors to the point that they leave your site. Like everything in life, moderation is key; pick and choose your advertising and affiliates by doing some research and select only those with the best reputations and best creative's; Google Adsense is not the be all and end all. Then do some research into the best practices for ad placement and once again be prudent - dont overload your visitors with massive, kitschy ads or you will see an alarming slide in visitor numbers. Personally I would use affiliates if your destination is at the very end of the consumer buying process i.e. just before the person is ready to purchase a product, this will enhance conversions and ultimately your profits. I generally use a CPC model as, unless you are getting hundreds of thousands of visitors a month, a CPM model will make you less than peanuts. The main thing to keep in mind is that the products you advertise needs to have a pretty strong tie-in with the content on your site.
Ebooks
Ebooks are flying high at the moment with their popularity soaring. They are a great way of making some money if you have loads of great content. Their disadvantage is the initial time and effort that goes into creating the ebook. You will have to spend countless hours creating original useful content, designing an ebook cover and creating a sales page. Some people become daunted by the amount of work ahead of them but if you can do it correctly and your ebook starts to sell like hotcakes then passive income dreamland is just around the corner. One last caveat here is that if you are going to sell your ebook it has to be not good but brilliant or word will surely get out that you have a less than fantastic product and sales will be no more. Another interesting way of selling an ebook I heard about recently is burning it to a CD and selling it on eBay and Amazon; I would use this method if you are finding it difficult to get exposure for your selling page.
Sponsored blogs/ donations
If you already have a fairly popular blog that is making some decent revenue a way to increase your income would be write a sponsored post. A sponsored blog post is where you get paid to review (normally positively) a product or service. This may seem like selling your soul but if you can do this in an ethical way that doesn't rub your visitors the wrong way, it is a good way to increase your income streams.
An old-school way of monetising your site would be to ask for donations in exchange for a valuable service or product that you are offering. This seems to be happening less and less as people are looking for tangible, reportable returns of their investment of time and effort.
If you think that making tons of moula by blogging is as real as the fairies at the bottom of the garden, have a quick look at the best paid bloggers in the world list, Problogger also has a breakdown on how he makes money on his blog.
Whatever kind of blog/site monetisation you try, you will make little if any money if you dont implement certain SEO measures to gain visitors. A blog/site with the best content will still be viewed by very few visitors if you don't use some kind of search engine optimisation measures. If you have any further suggestions of monetisation methods to add please let me know I would be delighted to hear about them.
P.S. if anybody need a Ferrari 430 reviewed in a blog please dont hesitate to call, I will see if I can fit you into my busy schedule.
Posted by Marc Elison on 8 September 2009 at 2:17 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
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26 August 2009
SEO vs PPC
Imagine you are a SME (Small and medium enterprise) and you have a limited budget set aside for your online marketing needs and you are not sure whether to invest in SEO or PPC, how can you possibly decide which will give your organisation the best ROI? First of all lets define these 2 Search Engine Marketing (SEM) options.
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SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation which is the process of ensuring that your website is as visible as possible in all the major Search Engines such as Google, MSN and Yahoo for the search keywords that your buying customers are using in their searches.
Statistics suggest that web users rarely venture out of the Top 10 search results, if they find what they need in the top listings. In terms of traffic; there is a large difference between even position #2 and #1 in click throughs and hence conversions (sales). If you are not in the top 5 positions, you are missing up to 80% of search engine traffic, and if you are not in the top 10 positions you can expect 1 in 100 hits by comparison to the #1 Position.
Search engine optimisation is the instrument that can make sure that your website will be listed within pertinent search results, and as close as achievable to the top of these results. One way to ensure a positive ROI is to use the services of a SEO firm with an established track record of achievement, knowledge of new trends and techniques, and skill working with the major players in your industry.
PPC
PPC stands for "pay per click". Pay per Click is an advertising strategy where enterprises pay a decided upon amount, each time a user clicks on their ad. Advertisers choose keywords, keyword phrases or keyword groups for which they want their advertisements to appear. Advertisers prepared to pay out the most money for a suitable ad will generally be listed foremost. Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing and Microsoft adCenter are three of the most often used PPC programs.
When you setup a PPC campaign you can manage the traffic. While a new site takes time to rank well in search engine results, with PPC you determine when your ad will be displayed. With PPC you can generate almost immediate website visitors. Unlike SERP's, you control the information and where the visitor is directed to on your website. Another advantage with regard to PPC ads is the opportunity for worldwide visibility. Organic search listings fluctuate in different countries. With PPC you have power over where your ads are seen. A thriving PPC campaign should be targeted not too narrowly and not too broadly. The campaign should direct the visitor who clicks on the ad to a relevant landing page that has information on it associated with the keyword used in the ad campaign.
Difference between SEO and PPC
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and PPC have a number of key differences. SEO is the science of increasing traffic to your web site by improving the internal and external factors influencing ranking in search results. There may be a more expensive cost of optimising the website upfront, however once this is complete any traffic you gain is free.
PPC is a form of Internet marketing that seeks to promote websites by increasing their visibility in search engine result pages (SERPs) through the use of paid placement, contextual advertising, and paid inclusion - this is most often called PPC for Pay Per Click.
Which online marketing method should you use?
There is no hard and fast rule that's says you should use PPC exclusively or SEO exclusively, it all depends on what your defined objectives for your online marketing campaign are and what kind of time scale you need to achieve these results. If you need results fast then PPC is probably your better option as the results are pretty much immediate whilst implementing SEO takes a fair bit of time. If you are looking at sustained ROI then SEO is the better choice as the work and resources dedicated to SEO repay themselves many times over, within a longer period of time. If you have a limited amount of expertise on the matter and are determined to carry out your online marketing campaign yourself then you should probably use PPC as it takes much less knowledge on the matter to implement. If you are a small business with locality as a USP (unique selling proposition) you should use SEO to get listed within the Google local results.
Results are easier to measure and analyse with a PPC campaign than with SEO so if certain stakeholders are expecting detailed ROI reporting PPC might be the correct element of SEM to implement. Organic listings are generally more trusted than PPC ads so if you have a product or service that is somewhat perceived as unreliable or risky; you should try to use SEO to get in the organic search results. PPC definitely has merit, but overall PPC will leave you with thinner margins and an ever decreasing ROI. The reason for conducting an organic SEO campaign is to appreciably increase your ROI over the long term. If you want to direct visitors to a specific page in your site as opposed to your website as a whole, you should implement PPC as you have the ability to choose your landing page
In conclusion there is no real comprehensive answer to the question of which SEM element to use, you need to examine your objectives, evaluate your resources and see which method will lead customers to choose your website over competitors, whether that means using SEO, PPC or a combination of both.
P.S here is an eye tracking study showing the difference in levels of attention that organic and PPC listing get.
P.P.S A very happy birthday to our very own superstar and fellow blog aficionado, Kate Gamble
Posted by Marc Elison on 26 August 2009 at 11:41 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
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17 August 2009
YouTube and SEO
Photo by ijustine via Creative Commons |
So your dream is to be the new Clare Werbeloff (Chk-Chk Boom girl), you setup your webcam, get dressed up in your Sunday best and belt out a resounding version of Waltzing Matilda. Next, after several playbacks and self admiration, you upload your video to YouTube and wait impatiently for the record deal and the paparazzi to arrive. The only problem is that after one month only 3 people have seen the video and those 3 people are your gran and her cats. You decide to do some investigation and discover that you are approximately the 6814th video in a search for "superstar".
Today I am going to share some YouTube optimisation tips and techniques so that your video will get more exposure and rank higher for your selected terms so you can follow your dreams of being the next superstar.
Optimising your YouTube video is similar to using SEO to optimise a web page with a few added extras. Two main factors exist when it comes to ranking videos highly in YouTube, these are; number of votes your video has accrued and number of views your video has, so make it good! If you can't do that, ask all your friends to vote and view your video, share it on your facebook profile, simply put use all the tools at your disposal to get exposure for your video.
There are certain attributes which you can actually assign to the video itself, namely the YouTube Video Title, the YouTube Video description and the YouTube Video keyword tags. What follows are the best practice guidelines for these tags:
• Title-your highest priority keyword should be in the first 3 words of the title, use unique titles for all your videos.
• Description-should contain all of the key points that best describe your video. Be sure to include keywords that you think users might search to find videos like yours. This should include many different phrases that you think your target market would be searching for.
• Keyword tags-make sure your keyword tags are relevant and contain most of the words you used in your title and description, use as many tags as you want, normally there is no penalty for using lots of keyword tags but ensure you avoid keyword stuffing.
There are some extra things you can do, to get the best result from posting your video to YouTube, namely:
• Make your video is 5 minutes or less
• Make sure your YouTube video is named correctly with a keyword rich filename
• Try to create links to your YouTube video with keyword rich anchor text
• Post your videos towards the end of the week, weekends are YouTube's busiest days
As a bonus Google also shows YouTube videos in its search results and there is a good chance of ranking highly in the SERPS's if you rank well in YouTube. One of the cornerstones of search engine optimisation is good unique content, the same applies here, if you have fantastic video and implement these suggestions there is a good chance you are well on your way to becoming a YouTube star.
Posted by Marc Elison on 17 August 2009 at 1:29 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
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4 August 2009
SEO Tips-4 SEO Quick wins
So you have a small Website, 30 or less pages to be exact and you have not implemented any SEO measures in the past but suddenly, you read all about this Matt Cutt's guy and decide it's time that you want your site to start ranking, but what do you do next?
Photo by Kevin Zollman via Creative Commons |
We know you are a busy person, training for the city to surf or simply working 9-5. That doesn't leave much spare time for you to delve into the formidable subject of search engine optimisation. So I have complied 4 quick wins that can be implemented in less time than it takes to watch the movie Australia (3 hours give or take) and that can have an impact on both your rankings and other KPI's.
SEO TIP #1: Competitive/Keyword research
Keyword research is an important part of your search engine optimisation campaign. If your site is targeting the wrong keywords, your customers may have difficulty is finding you. Research is where any good SEO campaign starts. The Google Keyword Tool can give you a wealth of information with regards to what kinds of keywords you should use on your page to drive the most traffic. Start by brainstorming all the keywords you think are relevant to your site, then categorise them into some sort of order. Use those short lists and enter them into the Google Keyword Tool, it will generate a whole list of keywords (synonyms and phrases including your keyword) and give you an estimated monthly traffic volumes for those keywords. In this case the old adage "knowledge is power" is pretty apt as you can use the keywords that drive the most traffic and place them prominently throughout your website to optimise for these keywords and drive more visitors to your site.
The Google keyword tool also has an option where you can submit a website and the tool will crawl the website extracting the most relevant keywords that feature prominently on the site and give you an approximate monthly search volume for those keywords. This is a great way to see what keywords your competitors are trying to rank for. If you want to be a little sneaky you could also type in your phrase or word you are trying to rank for in the search engines and have a look at the title tags, meta descriptions and meta keywords of the top ranking sites. It can be a good idea to use publicly available information to help you when brainstorming keywords.
Steps to Competitive Keyword research
• Create a list of keywords you want to rank for and add these to your keyword list
• Use the Google Keyword Tool (Website content option) to explore your competitor's Websites and add relevant keywords to your keyword list
• Look at the top 5 ranking sites for your targeted words and phrases and study the title tags and Meta data, add any keywords and phrases you think are relevant to your keyword list
• Take out the duplicate keywords (Microsoft Excel has a great function for this)
• Finally, take your list of keywords and submit them using the Google Keyword Tool to get estimated monthly searches for each term (you can also get different search volumes for different geographic regions)
By doing this, you now have some powerful information in terms of knowing what people are searching for and you can use this information to do a bit of housekeeping on your website, for example using the keywords that drive the most traffic and are relevant to your site in prominent positions (title tags, header tags, meta descriptions, the first 200 words of content of each page etc).
SEO TIP #2: Unique Title Tags
Title tags are widely regarded as being one of the most important on-page SEO factors around. Not only do they play a major role in ranking of your pages, they are listed in the search engine results page and therefore play a big part in turning a searcher into a visitor.
Each page on your site should have a unique title tag that is relevant to the exact content of the specific page i.e. your title tag should contain specific keyword phrases that are prominent on the page the title tag is allocated to. So don't leave every page on your site with the same title tag, that's bad MmmmmKay. Your title tags should be between 6 and 12 words or they run the risk of being cut short when they are displayed the search engine results page.
A pretty common question is whether to have your company/website name in the title tag? As long as your name isn't ridiculously long like this, it is fine to use your company name in the title tag. If you do use your company name in your title tag, use a divider like a pipe bar (|) or a hyphen (-) to separate your targeted keyword phrase and company name, generally you should use your keyword phrase first then any supplementary information after the divider. You should write the content for the page and then develop your title tags from this content as opposed to the other way round.
SEO TIP #3: Internal Linking
Internal linking is the process of linking to pages within your site to other relevant pages. The official Google webmaster tools blog states
"the method of internal linking on your site--is a crucial step in site design if you want your site indexed by search engines. It plays a critical role in search engine spider's ability to find your site's pages and ensures that your visitors can navigate and enjoy your site."
For example if my sales page mentioned a particular product I would insert an internal link from my sales page to that product page. A link is like a vote, if one page links to another it is as if that first page is 'voting' for the second page.
The actual text you use for that internal link is also important. Using the keywords and keyword phrases you discovered during your keyword research as the anchor text (text inside the link) of the link can help give a topic to that link / vote. For example, if you have a page about golf shoes that is linking to a page about golf clubs, and the anchor text says 'great golf clubs' then search engines are more likely to see the golf clubs page as being an authority on golf clubs.
Good internal linking will help search engines find all the pages you have in your site as they follows links to discover new pages. Internal linking is not just for search engines though; user experience can also be optimised as people browsing your site can easily navigate from one relevant page to another.
SEO TIP #4: Google Analytics
Google analytics is a free web tracking service that is offered by the search engine to help website owners track and analyse visitors to their site. It is very simple to implement-you only need to add a snippet of code to each page you want to track. In essence Google Analytics gives online marketers and publishers accesses to powerful web analytics to help them better understand what their customers or readers want. Analytics is a vital part of your SEO efforts as they provide you with the data of what is working, and what is not. Every website is different, so figuring out what works for your unique site is important.
Google analytics is a truly revolutionary tool and offers the same benefits and features that paid analytic programs do. There are many other analytics programs out there that can do a similar job that Google analytics accomplishes such as Clicky, Crazy Egg and W3 counter however due to its impressive functionality and the fact that it's free, Google analytics remains one of the most popular analytics programs out there.
There is a massive variety of statistics that you can generate from analytics, such as number of visitors to your site from the search engines, to the top keywords people used when they found your website. You can also pull in your Google Adwords and/or Google Adsense data to give you a holistic view of your online ventures. This means you can choose better keywords to bid on for Adwords or choose highly paid keywords to include in your content for Adsense. Data can also be exported in many different formats so you can include all the great data in your internal reports or client reports. Avinash Kaushik is a Google Analytics evangelist and his blog Occam's Razor should be read by anyone wanting to improve their Google analytics knowledge.
Some of the most useful statistics you can extract from Google Analytics are:
• Visits
• Bounce Rate (users who see one page and then exit immediately)
• Average Time on Site
• New vs. Returning Visitors
• Traffic origins (did users come from a search engines, direct traffic or referrals)
• Most visited pages
• Goal tracking (did users complete a goal that had been set i.e. buy something
• User journeys through the site
While some of these activities may have immediate benefits for your website (i.e. Title tags and internal linking) others (i.e. competitive analysis and using information from Google analytics) will have long term strategic benefits. All 4 activities can be implemented quickly and with minimum SEO experience, so what are you waiting for?
Posted by Marc Elison on 4 August 2009 at 11:10 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)
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27 July 2009
SEO Tips-ALT tags
Photo by fabio via Creative Commons |
An ALT tag is simply a HTML tag that renders alternative information when non-text elements, normally images, can't be rendered. In addition ALT tags provide more information for an image and give more information to people with text-only browsers; the "ALT" attribute tells the reader what they are missing on a page if the browser can't render images. The browser will then display the Alternate text instead of the image. The ALT tag text also pops up when you hover the mouse over the image in question, further providing you with more information about the image.
The ALT tag has important ramifications for SEO as the ALT tag is given consideration when crawled by the GoogleBot. The ALT tag also provides textual representation of your graphics and the ability to index more content about your website. ALT tags filled (but not stuffed) with relevant keywords can also be used to boost your keyword frequency and help you achieve better rankings. Your images will also be optimised for the search engines' image search if you place contextually relevant keywords inside their ALT tags, as well as good content surrounding the image on the page. Generally the image ALT tag looks like this
[IMG SRC="URL" ALT="Insert your alternative Text Here"]
Tips for writing ALT tags
• Be succinct
On occasion some web browsers will crash if the ALT text has too many characters. While completely detailing what is in the image might be ideal, this is not the purpose of the ALT tag. The reason for the ALT tag is to put the image in context with regard to the rest of the page. The longest ALT tag you use should not be longer than 64 words.
• Be Useful
On the opposite side of the scale; don't make the ALT tags so short that they are of no use at all. The ALT tags should contain enough information for people who can't see the images to understand what the particular image represents
• Be aware of the role ALT tags play in the search engine optimisation process
Use clear and concise ALT tags that relate to the keywords on the page to maximise the effectiveness of your ALT tags with regard to SEO
• Don't write ALT tags purely for search engine crawlers
ALT tags should be written for the user first, and the search engine second. Using ALT tags to keyword stuff could trigger a spam violation on your site by the search engines which could result in a rankings penalty
In conclusion, try to prepare and write ALT tags for all your images in your website. Image ALT tags also make your site more reachable for visually impaired people using text readers. Even if your site is content rich, the ALT tags allow you to reinforce what is really relevant. Although the ALT tags isn't as important as some other on-page seo factors (like a title tag), they should be used as a holistic approach to optimising your page.
Posted by Marc Elison on 27 July 2009 at 1:37 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack (0)
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15 July 2009
Link Building-Where is the personal touch?
Link building is one of the cornerstones of search engine optimisation and significant amounts of time and resources should be dedicated to this endeavour. Using the information below should significantly increase your link building ability and therefore, your seo effectiveness.
Photo by Search Engine People via Creative Commons |
Everybody knows that the link building process is a long, tedious and never ending process. Agreed? Wrong, the link building process should be seen as a one-off chance to promote your website to likeminded people in your area of expertise. This process will repeat itself every time you contact a different webmaster in your pursuit of links.
That's why it's important to have link-worthy content on your website. If you can't answer "Why would anyone want to link to this?" then you should revise the content you're trying to promote. If you can answer the question, then the link building process won't seem like "begging" but more like "promoting" and when you get e-mails back from webmasters confirming that your content is indeed interesting and link-worthy it will make the link building process a lot more enjoyable.
Being a webmaster myself, I am bombarded daily with link request e-mails of which 99% will be doomed to my spam box, mostly because the majority has exactly the same subject line, so why should I waste my time if you haven't taken the effort to address me personally.
People think of link building as a dreadful process which they HAVE to do, rather than seeing it as an opportunity to create a relationship with likeminded people in your niche and like networking, link requests are very personal.
This inspired me to address these issues by explaining what I would like to see from a link request.
Subject Line:
The very first thing I see when I open my mail box is the subject lines of the e-mails. When I see e-mails with the following phrases, "link request" or "link exchange", rest assured, they will be forwarded to my spam box.
If you want me to invest time in reading your e-mail, the least you can do is change your subject line from the standard ones offered in hundreds of automated link request software packages. Be more personal when writing your subject lines. Brainstorm a few different ideas and then ask yourself, "If I got this e-mail, would I open it?"
Greeting:
"Dear Sir/Madam" look familiar to anyone? Could that greeting be anymore impersonal? You haven't taken the time to see who I am, what my name is, or whether I'm male or female.
Especially in Australia, where we like to pride ourselves on being "friendly" and "sociable", would you ever greet anybody like this, unless you know who the person is?
If you are going to contact a complete stranger take the effort to learn who they are and their name, again the personal touch could make or break your email!
Continuing on from the pleasantries, don't get straight to the point. You are trying to establish (at least I hope) a relationship with the webmaster. Establishing a relationship is hard when I don't know who you are.
Adding just a one line introducing yourself and who you are a lot more personal and professional when you're approaching complete strangers.
Showing Interest:
Now that you've greeted me and introduced yourself, I kind of know who I am dealing with. The next part is why you should be showing interest in the website.
Always consider that webmasters could run multiple sites, so be sure to include the site name, and what you found interesting/relevant and provide the URL. Explain why you think that article/blog post is interesting because we webmasters enjoy a good attempt at ingratiation.
Reason for contacting:
This is possibly the most important part of the e-mail. This is your chance where you tell the webmaster that your content is valuable to him, and that it's worth publishing or linking to. Don't blatantly ask for a link request but explain why linking to your content would benefit his website and his visitors.
Your contact details:
Don't abruptly finish the e-mail by not publishing a personal message to the webmaster. Instead of "thank you for your time" let the webmaster know that if he or she has any concerns or further questions that you are available to be contacted. Give your personal e-mail address, or in-case of the prospective link being very beneficial to your site, add your phone number.
Ending:
When ending your e-mail, use a variety of different ways to thank the webmaster, don't stick to "thank you for your time" or "kind regards", try to be more personal in your greeting. Unless your prospect is a large corporate, personal messages tend to be more effective to the everyday webmaster.
Signature:
Your signature should be seen as your business card. This is most likely where the webmaster will get your contact information from, when they decide that they are interested in what you have to offer. Make sure you include your full name, company name, company address, telephone number and personal e-mail address at the very least.
Finally, if you're trying to establish a long term relationship with this webmaster, which you should be aiming for, do not include any HTML code or asking for a reciprocal link within your first e-mail. This comes later in the process when the webmaster has decided whether or not they are interested in pursuing a professional relationship with you.
Posted by Mike van der Heijden on 15 July 2009 at 12:42 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
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18 May 2009
Cebit Australia: In-House SEO Plus Live Clinics
Managing an In-House SEO Program, Jasmine Batra, Director, Arrow Internet Marketing
Jasmine began by elaborating on the different SEO models, namely, in-House, Consultants, Co-Source and Outsourced. Managing an in-house SEO program has the following steps:
1. Setting your campaign objectives
2. Analysing your competitive environment
3. Managing stakeholders
4. Selecting the core team
5. Mapping the key skills
6. Bridging skills gap
Typical core team comprises of: SEO strategist, technical engineers, content specialists and link building experts. The SEO process is as follows:
1. SEO audit
2. SEO plan
3. Implementation
4. Benchmarking
5. Reviewing and reporting
Tests of a good SEO audit:
• More than stating the obvious
• Includes specific examples and recommendations
• What's broken?
• What's working well?
• Design and structure flaws
• Keyword analysis and positioning
• Geographic targeting
• Server checks
• Pages indexed by the major S.E's
Implementation means applying your findings from the SEO audit and proposed SEO plan to the website in question. Important aspects include the role clarity, overcoming technology barriers and managing the approval process. Benchmarking includes internal benchmarking, industry benchmarking and international benchmarking. Reviewing and reporting means you need to ascertain what you are measuring, consistently measuring the same metrics, celebrating wins and re-defining SEO goals.
Costly SEO mistakes
• Misplaced expectations
• Incongruent teams
• Self-proclaimed gurus
• Turf battles
Pillars of SEO success
• 20-80 rule - 20% implementation = 80% results
• SEO champions - people who understand and believe in the SEO cause
• Skill sets
• Milestones & KPI's - set yourself manageable goals and celebrate them
• SEO knowledge - share knowledge within the organisation
Nice overview of steps and process' that are needed to run a successful in-house SEO team, good pointers and high level overview of the entire project management process. Jasmine even got a few laughs which on the second day of a web conference at 3-30pm is a seriously impressive feat.
Live Clinic 101 - Analysing Your Websites, Joshua Hay, Chief Operating Officer, E-Web Marketing.
This site clinic was performed on bridgestone.com.au. Various observations that came out of the clinic:
• For "tyre" Bridgestone needs to put tyres first in the title tag
• Bridgestone has 591 pages indexed while their competitors have less
• Bridgestone has 19 links only-need to create more
• Canonicalization issues
• Good unique meta description tags
• Some code is bloated-need an external file
• Have a sitemap and robots files which is good, although the robots file should have a link to the sitemap
• Some usability issues with the dealer locator button
• Flesh out titles for pages
Wow after 2 intense days on talks and live blogging I am pretty exhausted, guess im not as young as I used to be. It has been a whirlwind ride from building brands online to the semantic web and all of it has been warmly received by the webforward audience. The Cebit exhibition itself was a great event with a huge number of exhibitors and massive numbers of delegates. Look forward to next year.
Posted by Marc Elison on 18 May 2009 at 1:01 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
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Marc Elison
Kate Gamble
Martin Orliac
