by KevinPosted on Posted in Search Engine Optimization — No Comments ↓

When search engines were younger, it was easier to achieve high search engine rankings by using unethical SEO methods. Methods like keyword stuffing were used in the late 1990’s for unsophisticated search engines. It involved “stuffing” pages with keywords to achieve a higher ranking. Today stuffing pages with keywords has a negative impact. Google imposes penalties for unethical tactics like this one.

Search marketers still drop links in blog comments as a way to get links. This method is considered blog spamming. To combat this, Google uses a nofollow link tags (a signal to search engine spiders to ignore a link) and devalue links in blog comments.

Search engine submission has also become unnecessary. Google has the ability to discover and index content. Search engine submission is obsolete and waste of money, not to mention automatically submitting your sites can hurt their rankings.

Unethical site owners and SEOs abuse META keywords by including misleading unrelated keywords to their content. Google ignores the keyword tag due to unethical practices.

Web site owners who practice in link exchange schemes that intentionally influence rankings is a violation of Google. Avoid methods such as link farms,off-topic links, and do not rely heavily on reciprocal links and paid links. These methods will get you penalized by the search engines.

In conclusion, do not practice unethical seo tactics. Unethical seo tactics will get your website penalized by the search engines.

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by KevinPosted on Posted in Search Engine Optimization — No Comments ↓

Once your site is live, you can still do a few things to improve the findability. Google’s Webmaster guidelines offer specific suggestions for new and existing sites. Among them include the following tips:

Use a text browser, such as Lynx, to get a sense of how most search engine bots see your site. This exercise can help you determine where you may need to make changes for SEO. You can paste your URL in the Lynx viewer to find out how your page would look when viewed with Lynx, without having to download and install the browser.

Make sure that your site does not have duplicate content. Duplicate content can hurt your search engine ranking.

Create a XML sitemap for your web site and submit it to the major search engines; this gives the search engine bots a list of URLs on your site that you want them to index.

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by KevinPosted on Posted in E-Commerce, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media, Web Design — No Comments ↓

When retailers think about redesigning their web sites, they expect the redesign to boost their sales immediately. Before doing the redesign, retailers need to figure what consumers want to do and how easy it will be to satisfy them.

Shoppers visit ecommerce web sites not only to make purchases, but to gather product information, read or write product reviews etc. It is important that the site design allows the consumers to easily find what they are looking for. For example, if the customer wants to get additional product details or read reviews, there needs to be a clear path. Sites that make it easy for consumers to accomplish their goals build long-term loyalty.

Once the retailer has a well designed site, they need to address how to get visitors to the site. An Internet Retailer Survey reports that 40.2% of the respondents would like the search engines to get them visitors. This is done by a process of search engine optimization (SEO). Moreover, 27.8% of the respondents would like to have more community features, which is done by using social media.

Social media is a major source of information for consumers. A social network presence can help drive traffic back to a retailer’s site. This trend is prompting many retailers to participate in social networks and be part of that information exchange.

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by KevinPosted on Posted in Mobile Advertising, Pay Per Click — No Comments ↓

Mobile advertising is a powerful way to advertise because mobile devices are used by business people and regular consumers. According to a tech panelist, mobile advertising is three to five times more effective than online advertising. Consumers browse the internet for news and information. In addition, consumers use their mobile devices to go on social networking sites such as Facebook,Tweeter, and share pictures.

More consumers are using mobile devices for the holidays to find deals. According to Deloitte LLC, nearly one in five consumers are expected to use their mobile phones to assist with holiday spending. 55% of consumers planned to find store locations, 45% research prices, 40% find product information, 32% get discounts and coupons while 31% read reviews. More importantly, one in four shoppers expected to make a purchase with a mobile phone. Furthermore, the time time is now to start utilizing mobile ads in your marketing program.

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by KevinPosted on Posted in Search Engine Optimization, Spam — No Comments ↓

There are experts who will advise you to submit your site early, often and submit many web site pages. Do not listen and only submit your home page as a last option.

Submitting your web site is a last option because you were unable to get links to your web site or your web site was blocked by the spiders. If you have to submit your web site, only submit your home page. A site map allows spiders to find everything. Many times individuals submit their sites over and over without checking to see if the spiders blocked their site.

You may receive unsolicited e-mails offering to submit your web site to thousands of search engines. These emails reference some statistics of millions of visitors that this will generate by submitting to thousands of search engines. Always avoid automated submissions. These automated submissions are considered spam and your web site can be banned for excessive submissions.

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by KevinPosted on Posted in News — No Comments ↓

In 2009, News Corp took on Google. News Corp dislikes the fact that Google provides access to News Corp’s massive amount of content without paying for it. News Corp is threatening to block Google from indexing News Corps’ web sites and is negotiating a deal with Microsoft to provide exclusive search engine access to web content on Bing. Under the deal Microsoft would pay News Corp for access, which is reportedly still under negotiation.

Watch Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp founder explain News Corp Sites May Be Removed From Google click www.youtube.com/watch?v=sewucH3rOPM

This can be monumental if approved. This can lead to other media companies following News Corp’s path. Bing could leverage content access rights to challenge Google.

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by KevinPosted on Posted in Web Statistics — No Comments ↓

In the beginning of the web, web site traffic was measured in hits. Hits are the number of computer files that your Web Server serves to your visitors. During the early stages of the web, this made sense since most web pages consisted of text from a single file. For example, if every page consisted of one file then the number of hits were the same as the number of page views. This was an easy way to measure page views because your web server logs a request every time it serves a file.

In the late 90s, hits had no meaning at all. Pages were a more complex combination of multiple text and image files, therefore the hit metric was unable to tell you how many actual pages were viewed.

While the volume of hits is an indicator of Web server traffic, it is not an accurate reflection of how many pages are being looked at. Each time you type in your web address, the browser hits the website’s server for the document. The server sends the web page to the browser. Once the browser begins to display the information, it continues to hit the server for any additional elements needed. For example, a logo will represent one hit as the server returns that image to your browser. Because of how hits are measured, this number is inflated and different from page views or visitor counts. More images in a website leads to a greater number of hits being recorded.

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by KevinPosted on Posted in Marketing, Track Offline Sales — No Comments ↓

If you have a web site and are having a difficult time tracking offline sales listen up. If there are no systems in place which enables you to track your offline sales to your web site, all is not lost. It is not difficult to set up special phone numbers or print discount coupons.

If you are still having difficulties following the steps above try to estimate them.

    Ask the customers when they buy if they used your web site prior to buying.
    If your company uses warranty cards, update your warranty cards that asks about the use of your web site.
    Add a question to a survey. Your business may regularly send surveys to your customers. Add a question regarding whether customers used your web site prior to their last purchase.

You can use estimates to perform trend analysis checking ups and downs from month to month. Furthermore, you can also implement systems which accurately track sales.

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by KevinPosted on Posted in Web Design — No Comments ↓

How does your web site design look these days? Does your web design look professional compared to your competitors? Do the links work properly on your web site and does your web site download fast?

If the answer is no, it is time to change your web site to a professional web design. After all, image is everything. You do not go on job interview with ripped jeans and expect to be hired. You dress for the job that you want and those that look the part get the job.

Web site appearance needs to be kept up as well as the web site copy. Every word on your web site needs to be read over. The web site copy needs to be error free and look professional. First impressions do matter and often times your business is judged by how well written the copy and design is. Furthermore, the time is now to update your web site design and copy because your competitor is just one click away.

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by KevinPosted on Posted in Marketing — No Comments ↓

394273_9575Email marketing is an integral part in your success in marketing. Email remains one of the most powerful tools for marketers. Email is inexpensive, targeted, direct and offers immediate returns. Email marketing increases traffic to web sites, drives results, awareness and engagement. According to a June 2009 Marketing Trends Survey, 42 percent of nearly 1,000 global leaders plan to increase their marketing budgets in 2009. 81% percent of the global businesses leaders plan to increase what they spend on e-mail marketing. Veronis Suhler Stevenson reports spending on email marketing will expand at double-digit rates for the next five years expanding at 18.5%.

Email marketing is trackable and cost effective. It is more result oriented for performance. Look at your web statistics when you do an email marketing campaign. This will show an increase in traffic on your web site. There is email marketing software that track whether your email is opened such as E-listmail Click here for e-listmail.

E-mail allows an opportunity to connect to your customers and prospects. There is a limitation if email does not engage in results or users unsubscribe.

Three methods to increase the chance of success in email marketing include:

1. Personalization
2. Branding
3. Call to Action
Click here to watch a video on email marketing

The time is now to utilize email marketing to increase branding and results.

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