SEO – Page 3

4 Reasons Why You Need an About.me Page

Online Consulting, SEO, Social Media Advisors

Yesterday Mashable broke the news of a new start-up company About.me being bought by AOL after only four days of going live. Since AOL bought this company, I figured there had to be some sort of value in what it offered. So, I headed over to About.me and began setting up my profile. At first I thought this was just another one of the cheesy services where you put in a few links to your stuff and added a picture and you were done.

My biggest issue with all these type of sites including this one is that I would never really use the link to direct my traffic away from my site to theirs. Why would I want to share a link over to a site I have no control over? They could place advertisements to any and everything on the blog. Also, there is no way for people to actually become a consumer of my products/services from a site like that without extra clicks over to my blog, Facebook page, etc. I think you should always be handing out a link directly to your about me page on your site if someone wants to learn more about you or your business.

So Why Have An Account Then?

Well, here’s the beauty of it. The number one reason I like having an account is that it gives you a good credible link back to your website. Remember, links help a lot in determining how a website ranks in the search engines. As more people begin setting up accounts there and it continues to age, I think the pagerank of the site will go up giving you an even more authoritative link back to you. This too can help with the rankings. Any time I can help the SEO of my site I am happy.

The second reason you should set up an account is that people will be on the site using it as a directory to find specific people as it continues to grow. By being placed in the directory, there is an option of someone finding me, and following the links over to my site. There’s a possibility that it will turn into a giant people directory to find others. Think of it as a yellow pages of online profiles.

The third reason is how easy it is to set up. You can literally set up an account here in under 3 minutes time. I took longer because I wanted to do my fourth reason which was the ability to customize. I fired up PhotoShop and began designing a fun and branded background for my page. This is huge to me as i always think it is important to keep a level of conformity in all your branding online. It took me about five minutes to design, another five to tweak and load. All together I spent about fifteen minutes setting up my new profile.

So in closing, while I don’t think this new platform is any major game changer in the social media realm, I do think it is something valuable and definitely worth the three minutes it will take you to set up. Go get yours now!

Is Your Sidebar Sending Mixed Signals?

Custom WordPress Sites, How To Blog, Online Consulting, SEO, Social Media Advisors

After watching the game last night between the Green Bay Packers & New England Patriots, I noticed that as the game winded down to the last minute of play, the message being sent to Green Bay’s rookie quarterback must have been mixed. He played a great game last night until the final 60 seconds. It seems as though he became completely unglued in the final 53 seconds. I think that this was caused by confusion in signals which happens when you have inexperienced people running things. As you watched the final play of the game, Matt Flynn tried to at one point call a huddle, then a timeout and then finally rushed to just get a play off that ended the game.

While part of this fault lies on the rookie QB, I think more fault should be left with his coach that had called a timeout just before that. At that point he should have given his quarterback a clear and concise game plan as to what he wanted done. If that had taken place, there would not have been so much confusion and the Packers might have won the game.

This same type of confusion takes place daily on websites across the world. Consumers visit thinking one thing to be greeted by buttons and flashy objects that simply confuse them and divert their attention. In this post I am going to give you a clear and concise road map to making your site function better.

I talked last week about ironing only the front side of your shirt and the importance of looking at more than just the visual appeal of your site. We discussed the importance of your site being shared socially easily and also having a good foundation to the search engine optimization side. I mentioned in that post there was a third element that I would cover soon regarding the calls to action on your site.

What are calls to action? They are graphics or links on your site that you wish for people to click on and use. Normally you want to set these up to drive people to specific areas of your site where they can either purchase your products or services, hire you to work with, or subscribe to your site. If they are placed in the proper segments you can help direct your traffic to the exact places you want on your site.

Sorry What Were You Saying? I’m Lost In Adwords!

Have you ever visited a site thinking it was about a specific thing, but when you start looking at the site you get confused what the site is about? I see too many sites now where the sidebars are wasted on driving the traffic you worked so hard to get to your site right back off your site to somewhere else. Here’s a screenshot from a friends comedy website:

So they worked hard getting someone to come visit their jokes and they are instantly met by Google Adwords above the post driving them to school lunch programs, nutrition schools and more. The sidebar doesn’t look much better with ads driving them to natural healing school, eating heart healthy, and other fun places. While they do receive a little bit of money from people clicking on the links, I asked them how much revenue they actually created each month. He shared it was less than $20 per month. It boggles me when someone places these types of ads on their site trying to garner riches and glory. Unless your site is seeing major traffic, you will not see big money coming from them. Instead you drive your consumers away from your product and place them off your site on others.

Confusion In Content

Back in the late 90’s 2003 MySpace was king of the customizations and abilities to add all types of fun widgets to your profile. Unfortunately those days are over. Having a giant meez dancing or taking photos is no longer a popular practice. Also, you are once again driving your consumers off to other distractions instead of your products or services. Over on the right you can see the actual sidebar of another friends website. You can see they start off with some interesting content telling us that their site has “STUFF you NEED to know if you planning to buy or sell your home.” They do warn that they has a sense of humor by saying you will be entertained while learning. But, under the brief description we have a broken widget that should be for feedburner. It has sat like this since at least May 2009.

Following the broken widget is a PayPal Verified seal which baffles me even more. Last time I checked, consumers are not using PayPal to buy or sell a home. If they were selling an online product on the site and PayPal was their preferred form of handling transactions it would make sense. They the finish off the sidebar by adding their Meez of a girl with a camera taking photos. The sidebar to this site leaves me in complete confusion as to what the site is about. Is this a product site where I can buy things, is it a photography site, or is int an entertainment site. To the average consumer, this same confusion will take place. The search engines too are completely confused which hurts your SEO.

Creating The Dummy Button- My Top 3

The top two or three things you share on your sidebar are the most important. That is what will show up on the screen above the fold to a consumer visiting your site. This is your prime real estate space and you shouldn’t fill it with jibberish that does not help your business. Here’s a great tool to see what a consumer is going to see on their computer. I use it regularly as I work on my system with a high resolution 24″ monitor that most consumers do not own. So use Google’s simple browser size tool to test what content runs above the fold at different sized screens and resolutions.

So what makes your call to actions effective? The most effective call to action buttons are going to be catchy graphics that are predominantly displayed in prime locations on your site. I nickname them dummy buttons as I feel it is pretty simple to an consumer visiting my site they know exactly where I want them to go. On 210 we have three main call to actions. The first is to subscribe via email to our blog. Some may debate why I placed this button first, but I think this is huge to growing your readership, your influence and overall business. In just over 6 months of this being installed on our blog we have over 825 people subscribed and receiving every blog post we write directly in their email.

Our second call to action button is to one of the products we sell. By viewing my Google analytics, I found out quickly that most of the consumers who come to our site are looking for information about our custom WordPress sites that we design. So, I created a quick and catchy animated gif to place on our sidebar that linked directly to that page. I also added an image to the footer of every single blog post we write that does the same type of thing. By doing this, that page that page is now receiving four times more traffic than any other page on our site except the home page.

The third call to action button we found beneficial to our business was the button to hire us to speak. Why would I add this button? The reason was simple: The more speaking gigs we get, the greater exposure we get for our business. The more exposure we receive, the more business opportunities will arise. This button is in our sidebar and also in our main navigation to our site. Since the addition of the speaking button, our speaking page has remained in the top 10 pages for traffic on our site. It has also garnered speaking engagements in large arenas like the Coldwell Banker Generation Blue Conference in Las Vegas.

The Rest Of My Sidebar

These are the buttons that consumers have to scroll down to use. They still have good value and deliver your quality business but aren’t worthy of prime placement. This is where my lead generation button is to gather email addresses for my newsletter. I haven’t really pushed much yet with growing my newsletter list and still I get 2-3 new opt-ins daily. This is followed by our chat buttons which allows consumers to see when we are online and chat with us about anything. This chat function has been great in generating business as I have sold several sites directly through chatting with a consumer and answering all their questions directly and quickly. There was no delay in filling out a contact form and waiting for me to respond. Instant gratification is huge and consumers love it.

If you notice, our Facebook Page widget is well down our page and not as important for consumers to view. Why you may ask? To me it isn’t important to push traffic on my site off to another platform where I have no control. If Facebook shuts down tomorrow and I have all my business focused there, I would be in big trouble. I do want people to know we are on Facebook and give them the option to connect, but it isn’t near as important to me as the buttons that get space above it because I already have people on my site where I ultimately want them to end up.

Lastly you will notice we display proudly our official SOB badge. This award was given to us by our good friend Liz Strauss and was an honor to receive. It brings a level of credibility to our site so it is important to share. However we don’t want to place this badge at the top of our site as it does drive our traffic away from us and over to her site. I also place at the bottom of my page the link to affiliates I am connected with. As you notice, this is at the absolute bottom of my page under even the archive section of my blog. While I am happy when someone signs up for hosting with Bluehost through my affiliate link, I am even happier when someone purchases a Custom WordPress Site, books me to speak, or signs up for personal coaching because these are the primary sources of income for my business. Affiliates can be a good auxiliary source of income, but they should not overtake your primary source of income in terms of space given on your site.

What’s Your Sidebar Saying?

So now that I shared with you some advice on what types of things should and should not be in your sidebar, take a moment to look at yours. What does it say about you and your business? Are you sending mixed signals to your consumers? Are your call to action buttons clear as to what you want the consumers to do and are they driving the consumers directly to your services/products? Or are your sidebar buttons and widgets causing confusion and pushing your traffic away to other sites.

Remember, we work hard to get the traffic to our site to generate business, make it clear what you want them to do, and keep them with you not onto another site. If you need help with any of the things discussed, feel free to contact me for help.

Photo Credit: idovermani

Are You Ironing Only The Front Side Of Your Website?

Custom WordPress Sites, How To Blog, SEO, Social Media Advisors, WordPress Plugins

The other day, I was at church and was listening to the message when the speaker mentioned that sometimes when her husband is in a hurry he only irons the front of his dress shirt. She said he does this because since he is wearing a coat, nobody will ever see the back half, so what does it matter? The only people who know it isn’t fully ironed is he and his wife. Unfortunately, I have seen on too many occasions that this is the same concept people place into their website for their business.

We all want the flashy designed and pretty looking site, but are not willing to put the time & effort into making the site useful. You can have the most beautiful site in the world, but if it is missing key elements like calls to action, SEO optimization & Social integration, you in essence have spent a bunch of money for something pretty but unproductive. In this post I am going to cover two of these three. I will save the calls to action & sidebars for another post in the very near future.

How Social Is Your Site?

I recently wrote about making your WordPress site more social for consumers. In that post I shared about some great plugins that are designed for WordPress Sites that allow consumers to share your content easily and quickly on social media platforms. As you can see, currently Facebook is sending more traffic to our site than Google. Also, you can see that Twitter has made the top five. The reason that Tech Savvy Agent is in our top five is that I write there on a regular basis with links back to our site. When you look at the analytics on their site, it too shows Facebook at the top of the list. Chris Smith shared with me recently that they see over 45% of their traffic from their powerful Facebook page of over 12,000 fans alone.

We are currently seeing almost 36% of our traffic on 210 just from the various social platforms we participate on. This traffic comes not because we just broadcast our content onto Facebook & Twitter. The traffic comes because Jason & myself engage our friends/followers on the social networks in conversations and build relationships with them. After this trust has been established we can then share links to blog posts and sections of our site and people will click on them and visit. Not only will they read our content, but they are also more willing to share it with their friends/followers after reading as well. Being the complete statistics junkie I am, I did an analysis on the past 30 posts that have been written on our blog to see how much social sharing is taking place. For the past 30 posts, on average, they have been re-tweeted 23.74 times and shared on Facebook 34.19 times.

They say the average person on Facebook as 130 friends. That means on average my posts have a reach of nearly 4,420 people just on Facebook each time we write a blog post. The same holds true on Twitter. This reach is in addition to the thousands of friends/followers that we have. By using an analytic type plugin I can watch when I send out a tweet or post on Facebook the traffic coming to my site immediately. Usually there is a big rush all at once and a few hundred show up within 10 minutes. If you don’t have a site that allows for the installation of these type of social plugins, it might be time to consider a site like WordPress.

How Does Your Site Rank in Search Engines?

Search Engine Optimization still plays a major role in how consumers find your site. The social platforms do a great job of directing those you are already connected with to your site, but the search engines is what can bring in those that aren’t connected to your sphere. Before the recent explosion of social media, sites would see close to 76% of their traffic come directly from search engines. I believe that sites that are optimized properly can still see a major chunk of traffic from Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc. The problem however lies in what is set up on back end of your site that is never even seen by a consumer. Each page in your site has three basic SEO components that without the proper setup you are throwing away valuable Google Juice. One of my recent clients contacted me an asked why her static website was not showing up for anything in the search engines. She would search and sometimes find it showing up on page 7 for a very specific term, but it was not generating any business for her. I asked for her web address and immediately looked at the page source for the site. Here is what search engines saw for her site:

Page Source Code — click to view full size

The three main components that need to be filled out on every single page of your site and every blog post you post is the Title, Description, & Keywords. In that order of importance too. As you can see from the source code of her site, the first two segments were greatly overlooked. I cannot stress how extremely important these are to determining how your site ranks in the search engines. It is imperative that you fill in these sections with keyword rich content. This client had done a pretty decent job with keywords but their description and title was basically their name, where they are licensed and the name of the company they worked for. Unfortunately, not many consumers search for you by your name unless you are a celebrity and those searching for a company will land at the company page 9 times out of 10.

To help solve this problem, I always install on WordPress sites I build for clients a powerful plugin called All-In-One-SEO Pack. It works great and can really help take a page up the search engine results by giving you an easy way to add a separate Title, Description & Keywords for each individual page & post of content on your site. Make sure that when you add content to your page to take the extra few moments to fill it out. These simple steps can be the difference between your site ranking on page 9 for your terms or page one. A recent SEO overhaul we did for a client took her for her main keyword which she wasn’t found in the first 12 pages of Google to #4 on Page 1 in under 2 months. Since then she has reaped the benefits of increased traffic and increased income all because we went back and fixed the title, description, and keywords on the static pages of her site.

Time to Iron The Back Half of Your Shirt

So if you have been only ironing the front side of your shirt and focusing only on the visual appeal of your site, it’s time to flip the shirt over and start ironing the back half as well. 2011 is almost here and what a better time to get everything in order. Go set up the SEO & social side of your site now and start gaining the benefits as the new year comes in. If your current site does not permit you to add these components, it might be time for a change to a custom WordPress site that offers these types of things. As always, if you feel this is overwhelming and need assistance, feel free to contact us, we are here to help.

photo credit: banalities

Google Launches Instant Previews- What this Means For Your Website

How To Blog, SEO, Social Media Advisors

Today search engine giant Google is releasing a new feature on their searches called Instant Previews. What this does is allows consumers to get a snapshot view of what a website looks like without having to visit the page. They believe that by giving a sample view of the site before you click into it will help consumers to to find what they are looking for quicker and easier than having to click through various links. Personally, I think that this new feature will help websites to lower bounce rate as consumers can get a good feel of what the site is about without ever having to click into it. If you wonder what it looks like, here is a screenshot:

So How Does This Effect My Site?

I am glad you asked! I think that Google Instant Previews is going to cause us all to do some minor adjustments to our sites. The first thing I think this is going to cause us all to do is look at the current website design/layout we have and determine if it is truly attractive enough to entice consumers to want to view. If your site is 7 years old and is plain and boring, it might be time to upgrade to a new custom WordPress site. If you site is more appealing than the others in the preview window, you have a better chance of the consumer clicking in to your page.

Secondly, I see the use of pictures on your posts and pages becoming even more critical. I talked about the importance of photos and labeling them properly before for SEO purposes, but this takes it all to a whole new level. Now not only are the pictures important for SEO, but they are also extremely important to the visual appeal of your site. I once heard that adding just 2 photos to a blog post can increase the time on your page by up to 300%! Now not only will this help keep the consumer there, but these photos will actually help to bring them in.

The final piece that I see Google Instant Previews changing is the effectiveness of Ads run on Google. If you notice in my screenshot above, the preview window basically covers the entire sidebar of ads. I think that this will really cut down on the number of clicks that the ads receive. Thus making CPC and CPM advertising not as effective as it has been in the past simply because the ads are being covered over by the giant preview window. This also means that having a good online presence in search engine rankings is becoming even more important. Getting to page 1 is crucial for your keywords.

What Do I Need To Do?

So in closing, what should you be doing to help your site with this new feature? First and foremost, look at the sites design and appeal. Does your site have very clear call to action buttons installed? If not, you need to get them there ASAP. As you can see from the screenshot to the right, The calls to action are very clear. People can see at a quick glance what the site offers and what they want you to do on it. Secondly, the site has a very clean and clear look to it. The images are bold and easy to see. Seeing something like this would make me want to click in and view.

Next, make sure you are using plenty of photos in everything you do on your site. It is not only important for SEO, but now more than ever is going to be important on bringing in consumers to view the content of your site. On the other hand, I know someone is thinking right now, “I’m gonna go put 27 photos all over my site because Jeremy said photos will make more people come.” STOP IT NOW! That is not what I am saying. All things are good in moderation. Add one to two photos per page and it will be appealing. Add 27 photos to a page and you have major chaos. Keep it simple and easy.

So, take some time look at your site and get things prepared for Google Instant Previews. If your site needs a facelift, let us know, we would be glad to design a custom WordPress site for you.

Goo.gl Changes Link Shortening

SEO, Social Media Advisors, Social Media Training

Today I took some time to play with a new favorite of mine Goo.gl. This is a great product that the search engine giant created that simply rocks. What Goo.gl does is allows you to shorten links quickly and easily.This feature alone is nice, but it isn’t the reasons that fell in love with this new product. There are three major pieces that I simply love with Goo.gl. Here’s a short synopsis of it.

QR Codes

QR Codes are the newest & latest craze that is sweeping the digital community. Many think it is a way to make paper marketing once again effective. Personally, I don’t think things are quite there yet. I understand the concepts of QR codes and think they are cool, but unless consumers have a smart phone they cannot use QR code. I have seen many people starting to remove all their contact information and placing just a QR code there for people to scan. I am all for cutting edge technology but, I think that is a little more on the bleeding edge. Nevertheless, you can create them very quickly and easily by using Goo.gl. All you need to do is add .qr to the link. I simply copied the image and then linked to it and the QR code to the right was made. In the future as QR codes continue to grow in popularity, I see Goo.gl becoming a very important tool used to creating them.

Goo.gl Allows Easy Link Tracking

Wonder how many people are really clicking on the links you share on Facebook, Twitter, and more? If you shorten the links with Goo.gl, you can then track instantly how many times your links are clicked upon and also where your efforts are paying off. I ran a test earlier today with one of Jason Crouch’s posts on Using Social Media to increase Face to Face Meetings. I then shared the shortened link on Facebook and also on Twitter. You can see the results below. It shows you how many clicks, where they clicked in and also you can see the time where I posted it as well as when Jason did. At both times there was a quick spike in traffic.

The other things I enjoy is that Goo.gl shows me what browswers, what country and also what platforms the person was using when they clicked the link. I know, you may be thinking who cares about how many times something gets clicked and where they click from, but three situations where you may care.

1. Clients want to know what your online marketing efforts are doing for them. Ever have a client that wants to just see the numbers? This happens so many times when things may not be going perfect. You are doing your job, it is just taking a little more time to bring the results they expect. The next time you have someone ask you well what is going on with (insert so many things here) that you could respond with, let me see what type of clicks we are getting.

When the client sees that you have generated 28,000 clicks, they will be able to see that you are doing a good job and hopefully reduce the heat.

2. What network is my sweet spot? I share things on Facebook all the time but don’t really see a ton of interactions on my Facebook profile or our company Facebook Page in comments/likes. But when I started doing the test, I noticed quickly that on my first test link that Facebook connections clicked on the link a lot more than those on Twitter. While Google Analytics gives me some of this info, I am not crazy about the fact that it takes time for the analytics to update. With Goo.gl it updates instantly. I am a big fan of instant results. (not a Google Instant pun)

3. Effective Time Management. Ever wonder what time of day is best for you to be tweeting and sharing info? Well, with Goo.gl you can quickly and easily view when your links are getting more clicks and adjust your strategies accordingly. Test it out over few different days and times and you will learn quickly.

Collaborative Link Tracking

If you are like me, you work on projects from time to time with teams. Or maybe even with just your clients. One of the coolest features that Goo.gl does is allow you to create a shortened link, give to a group to share and then also let the entire group track the Results. In the first comment below you will see a link to track the clicks on this post. So if you want to share the Goo.gl shortened link for this post and see what type of traffic you generate you can. Anyone and everyone that you want to share the data with can by simply visiting a URL.

No longer will clients be contacting you wanting updates on numbers. They can simply follow along with you as you share with your online friends about their product or service.

Go give Goo.gl a try now! By the way, all the links in this post have been shortened, so when you click around, I am gonna know! 🙂

Google Instant and How It Will Change Your Keywords

Online Consulting, SEO, Social Media Advisors

Google Instant released today which I believe will be making some major changes in the way consumers search online. What this allows is for people using the search engine giant to begin the search process while you type in the term you are searching for. No longer to you have to type in the entire phrase and then wait for it to bring you back results. Because of this, I think there will be some major changes coming in the way keywords are determined for your website.

First, the Longtail Shift

Longtail Keywords have been a major player in the success of so many websites over the past few years. People have been able to generate large sums of business by skipping the major terms and focusing on all the other things applicable to their business. By doing this, you were able to rank well on specific keywords and get those people first and foremost. The quality of these leads are great and more likely to turn into a transaction. But, with the implementation of Google Instant, I think this will begin to shift. People will no longer take the time to type in longer terms like before. From playing with Google Instant most of the morning I found that after the first 3-4 words of a search term I was normally able to find something that fit what I was looking for. So the number of people doing 6-10 word searches will begin to drop dramatically. This means 2 things:

1. We will need to start learning more condensed keywords to do instead. So if my keyword before was “how to tie a full windsor knot video,” I need to now focus on the term “How to Tie a.” because when you type those first four words, Google has already displayed multiple videos that will show you exactly what you wanted to learn.

2. The quality of those still doing the extra long search will be even stronger.

Bye Bye Plural Words

One of the terms that our business has been able to always rank well because of it being part of the name of our company is Social Media Advisors. We’ve dominated page one of the search engines since almost the inception of our website. But, now when someone goes to Google and starts to type that term, they will get all the results they would want by simply typing “social media advisor” and will get all the results they need. They don’t need to add the plural S anymore to find what they want. In fact, you could simply type social media advis and find the same results. For our company, we will now need to change some of our keywords to rank on better terms.

This means for sites, your keywords will need to be updated. If you are in the real estate industry for example, you no longer need to fight to rank on terms like Myrtle Beach Homes, or Myrtle Beach Houses you can now focus on just Myrtle Beach Home and other singular terms. If you are some of the early adopters to these new sets of keywords you will be able to get established on the singular terms before others realize the change.

The Art of Typos

This SEO tip has been around for a while, but with the implementation of Google Instant, it becomes even more important. How many times have you made a typo when entering a search term in Google? If you are anything like me, it happens probably multiple times each day. Since the new search engine will auto-fill results without needing to correct the typos. So, while it may seem a little crazy to do, but focusing once in a while on typo keywords could bring you massive amounts of traffic with Google Instant.

Your competitors won’t be able to understand how your business is doing so well while they are struggling. All because you did a few simple typo error terms that are showing up ahead of them in the search engines. It’s a great source of traffic and can be an even great source of revenue!

So now that Google Instant has been released, it is time to revisit your keyword research for your site’s search engine optimization and figure out what the newest things we should focus on. As always, if you need our services to assist you with the search engine optimization of your site, you can contact us if you need help with your social media needs.

Photo Credit: Change Coming