Even if you hire web developers to build or manage your website, it's important for you as well to have a basic understanding of the various elements necessary to build a successful web-page. Ignorance of these things may be bliss until you realize you have spent hundreds or even thousands of dollars on a beautiful website that is in no way search engine friendly.
Having a basic understanding of the construct of your web pages allows you to ensure that the marketers will be able to work with what's been developed without asking for a redesign of the entire site. To successfully optimize your pages for search engine rankings many key elements that must be properly implemented.
Title Tag
Websites don't operate like a book or a brochure, where pages simply flow from one to the next. Every web page on your site is considered a unique document and it needs to be able to stand alone, as well as part of the collective whole. To help establish each page's "identity" (for lack of a better word,) each web page should be given its own unique purpose. The page's title tag is used to identify that purpose.
The title of each web page is found in the <title> tag between the opening and closing <head> tags. For the most part the title is unseen to the visitor except in the top bar of your web browser or in the search results.
<head>
<title>E-Marketing Intelligence - Up to date search engine marketing information from the Internet marketing experts.</title>
</head>
Your title needs to accurately reflect the content of the page. Keep it short, approx 8-12 words, and include the primary relevant keywords. Since this appears as the clickable text in the search results you also want to make it compelling. You're competing for attention here so make it good.
The title tag of each page should be unique. Don't use on-size-fits-all title tags, throwing them all dozens of site pages at a time. Take the time to craft one specifically for each page.
Meta Description
The Meta Description tag is a way to provide the search engines a summary of the page's content. Completely unseen to the human visitor, it can sometimes be displayed as the descriptive text below the clickable title in the search results.
In your code, the Meta Description is placed between the <head> tags below the title.
<head>
<title></title>
<meta name="description" content="(EMP) E-Marketing Performance, E-Marketing information and search engine marketing resources: Featuring up to date search engine marketing and optimization information covering a variety of topics relevant to the search marketing and Internet promotion industries. Search marketing information to render your competition powerless." />
</head >
Your Meta Description should be between 20-50 words in length. It factors in very little in terms of search engine rankings. Your primary benefit is as the description text in the search results, so again, use keywords but make it compelling. It's still a good idea to use unique descriptions on your pages, especially if you are targeting specific keywords. If your page doesn't have a specific keyword focus then it's OK to leave off the description completely.
Meta Keywords
The Meta Keyword tag has so little relevance that it's barely even worth mentioning here. Typically it appears below the Meta Description, but again, it can be left off entirely and nobody would be the wiser, not even the search engines.
Heading tags are generally used as paragraph headings for your body content. It's a short headline placed in <hx> tags (<h1>, <h2>, . . . <h6>.) On the page they are excellent for providing visual separation of content, making pages easier to skim.
<body>
<h2>Heading tags are really neat-o</h2>
</body>
Headings should be used as you would outline a term paper. Each page should only have one H1 tag. Your main sections of the page should use H2 tags, and then sub-sections can use any lower numb heading tags as needed.
You can also use your H2 as a sub-headline below the H1, in which case your main sections would be H3 with sub-sections using lower heading numbers as needed.
Body Content
The visible text of each web page is the single most important element for marketing and ranking purposes, with the exception of the <title> tag. Most body content is located between the <body> tags and usually placed in <p> (paragraph) tags.
<body>
<h2></h2>
<p>Your main body content sells your product or services</p>
</body>
It's important that the textual content be in HTML form and not embedded within images or flash. Search engines are getting better at reading images and flash, but nothing beats text used in the proper paragraph format.
Use your keywords within the textual content but don't muck it up by trying to stuff them in everywhere you can. Text should be written in natural language, clear of grammatical and spelling errors.
Images
Images can be used to convey many important concepts and visual cues to the visitor while also giving your site a more professional or elegant look. It's important to use images properly but within moderation, consistent with the needs of your target audience. As mentioned earlier, text in images is typically invisible to the search engines, so use text within an image only if it is unimportant to the search engine optimization and ranking process.
In the HTML code, images are placed using the <img tag and designating the location of the source (src) file.
<img src="/images/logo_main.jpg" />
When using images, be sure that each is used appropriately to enhance the concepts conveyed on the page it is on, is clean, and works to help "sell" your product or service.
Alt Attributes
Within each image you can add "alternative" text which appears when visitors have their images turned off. Alt text can be found in the "alt" attribute of the image tag and is a great way to describe or name the image for those that can't see it.
<img src="/images/logo_main.jpg" width="401" height="130" alt="EMP E-Marketing Performance, Search Marketing Information to Render Your Competition Powerless!" border="0" />
You want to be sure to use alt text conservatively and properly for each image. Don't use alt text just to stuff additional keywords into your page, but only to properly describe what the image visually conveys to the viewer.
While there is a lot of other code needed to build a web page effectively, these are the key elements used when optimizing your pages or just making them search engine friendly. Throwing your keywords into one or all of these tags won't suddenly get you top rankings, but when used properly they provide both the search engines and your visitors better cues to the content and value of each page.
By Search Engine Guide : Small Business Search Marketing
by Manoj Jasra
Just got the email from the Yahoo Analytics man himself, Dennis Mortensen - Yahoo has just launched the Web Analytics Consultant Network (otherwise known as YWACN). The purpose of this YWACN is to help Yahoo Analytics clients get the best out of the tool as well as to help spread the gospel of YWA.
Benefits of the Yahoo Web Analytics Consultant Network?
In return and as a Member of this exclusive, global professional network of Yahoo! Web Analytics consultants you will receive a number of benefits, this including:
Yahoo! Web Analytics FREE account creation rights
Listing on Yahoo!'s Consultant Network web page
Potential client referrals from the Yahoo! Sales team
Exclusive "Yahoo! Web Analytics Consultant Network" icon for display on your website
Premium levels of technical support and access to a partner portal
Access to an exclusive YWACN forum to share ideas and technical tips with other top analysts worldwide
Unique opportunities to work with Yahoo! to provide trainings, books and speaking engagements
Yahoo! may consider a number of factors in evaluating potential members for acceptance into the YWACN, including the following:
Your company or a prominent division of your company is dedicated to web analytics
Must work with a minimum of 5 Yahoo! advertisers
Must have at least two full-time web analysts employed that are accredited in one of the major enterprise analytics applications
Must provide a minimum of three customer references for whom you have provided paid analytics support (all major analytics solutions accepted), including deployment and consulting services
Must be willing to share information, including:
How many client accounts you have that utilize Yahoo! Web Analytics
Website link from your home page that prominently describes your analytics services
Description of the complete range of paid services you offer related to analytics, including analytics planning, installation, configuration, data analysis, and training; as well as other services offered, such as SEM, SEO, display campaign management, etc.
By Search Engine Guide : Small Business Search Marketing
by Sage Lewis
Microsoft and Yahoo are partnering to take on the master... Google. This is the beginning of the end for Yahoo. But it's good news for searchers and ultimately might be just what Yahoo and Microsoft need to get into the search engine game.
By Search Engine Guide : Small Business Search Marketing
by David Carberry
Papa John's Needs a Better Online
Ingredient!
If you have watched your television
over the past few months, you have seen Papa John's Founder John Schnatter
delivering his pizza's all over the country. In Papa John's
latest press stunt they were in Chicago setting a world record for the
world's highest pizza delivery at more than 1,300 feet.
Schnatter planned on delivering more than 100 slices of pizza to the
ledge at the Skydeck Chicago.
This is truly a great promotion.
They have blended radio appearances, press releases, a well crafted
television campaign, @PJsidekicks tweet their upcoming locations, and
a great story that is on every Papa John's Box Top.
Papa John's is out and about, but
they are missing a key online marketing ingredient... LOCAL MARKETING!
Papa John's set up is similar to many existing companies that look
for expanded growth in the food industry. They have corporate
owned locations and franchised locations all across the country.
When you try to take a national product and spread it across corporate
budgets and then down to the franchise level some pieces get lost.
Today more than ever the complexities
of the local space can also play a large role in how a company manages
listings across all of their stores. Let's start off with the
first piece.
Papa John's corporate headquarters
is located in Louisville Kentucky. If you search for pizza
delivery in Google you will see that Papa John's is nowhere to be
found in the Google One Box. You can find Boombozz Pizza and their
big rival Pizza Hut. Before @PJSidekicks writes another
tweet they should jump onto Google and claim their free listing.
Miriam Ellis posted a great article on "How to Claim Your Google Maps Listing". Adding your listing to Google Maps
isn't that complex, especially utilizing a data file or bulk uploads.
The complexity comes when the listing has already been claimed.
Franchisee's take pride in their
stores and want to spread the word. Aside from Google having a
"claim your listing" so does every other online directory
out there. A franchisee might claim a listing on Yelp, Merchantcircle.com,
Yellowpages.com, superpages.com and a slew of other locally driven sites.
This adds to the complexity and the confusion of the brand. If
a franchisee accidently adds a listing that says Papa John Pizza, or
Papa John's of Maryland LLC. and then you multiply this mistake by
hundreds of owners then you have a local oil spill to clean up!
Papa John's needs to implement a top down system to ensure each franchisee
is providing the correct corporate branding or let the franchisor take
control.
In Papa John's case you can find
Papa
John's Pizza
Papa
John
Papa
John's
Papa
John S Pizza
Papa
Johns
Papa
John's Pizza
Papa
John S
Keyword insertion and messaging
are extremely important - of the over 3,000 listings for Papa John's
only about one third are populated with keyword information. If
someone is searching for a thin crust or specialty pizza Papa John's
might not be found in the local directories.
Hours of operation, parking
and credit cards accepted should all be listed direct from the Franchisee
or the corporation. Too often Google is crawling a third party
provider site and displaying wrong information.
Last on the list is tying
the search campaign into their current promotional "papasroadtrip.com"
campaign. At the time of writing this article I searched for keywords
like "papa's camaro contest" and "papasroadtrip.com".
They are displaying top organically, but it wouldn't hurt them to
bid on promotional terms for extra emphasis on the campaign.
It doesn't look like Papa John Schnatter
has made it to Baltimore but, if and when he does, he is more than welcome
to visit my home and I'll do a little local marketing for a Papa's
Thin Crust Hawaiian Pizza. Better online ingredients makes
a better online search experience.
By Search Engine Guide : Small Business Search Marketing
by Stoney deGeyter
We often come to the SEO table thinking that it's going to be relatively easy. While SEO isn't inordinately difficult (neither is changing the car oil, building a fence or painting a house) it is often time consuming and rarely ever "simple." What appears to be a small task on the surface can often become a much larger task once properly researched and considered. Like an iceberg, the bulk of SEO is behind the scenes and requires hours upon hours of labor.
I only need a little bit of text!
Not long ago I was performing a cursory site audit for an e-commerce site. On the surface, the site looked pretty minimalistic. There were only four main product areas, each having anywhere from 5-20 categorical divisions. Each of those divisions contained only a handful of products, many that fit into multiple categories. By all measures, this is rather small for an ecommerce site.
But as I began to analyze the site more carefully, paying attention to it's optimization needs, a whole new world opened up before me.
The site totaled around 50 category pages, and close to 100 individual products. Each of these pages needed optimized content, titles and description meta information written. We are talking anywhere from 40 hours (10 minutes per page, making superficial edits) to 150 hours (60 minutes per page with full content rewrites) of writing needed on this "small" site alone.
Before you can start writing keyword research needs to be performed. The research for each page wouldn't be that difficult but good research is time consuming to ensure you find all potentially relevant terms. Then it's a matter of determining which keywords have the most value and will generate the most sales-driven traffic. Such determinations are an ongoing process, that is confirmed and re-confirmed only when properly analyzed by tracking performance.
On the surface, what appeared to be a quick and easy site to optimize became much more involved and time consuming upon closer inspection.
I don't see a problem with the navigation!
Another site I recently reviewed was even smaller. Only a couple dozen pages, all outlining the various benefits of a single product. And again, on the surface, all appeared pretty simple. But once I got investigating, a nice and clean navigation was revealed to be anything but.
This site requires a significant architectural overhaul to create a more search friendly site architecture and eliminate what amounts to at least a dozen and a half pages of duplicate content.
Once that is fixed then the keywords will need to be carefully researched and implemented. The site has great content, just needs to be keyword focused and targeted. This site is a case-in-point to why SEOs should be consulted with throughout the site development process. Instead of paying to have the site re-developed to be search engine friendly, the company could have saved money having it done right the first time.
These keywords are gonna be easy!
A few years back I took on a client in a very niche, yet extremely competitive, industry. There wasn't a lot of other businesses competing for the same keywords, but those that were invested heavily in the SEO making getting good search results much more difficult that initially thought. This can happen if you do not adequately investigate the competition, which I admit I was guilty of. It looked easy and I made some assumptions.
While we were able to achieve results for a decent number of keywords, the cost and time involved didn't quite bring about a strong ROI for the client. Over the long-term the ROI will improve. Less work will be needed to maintain their places in the rankings, but the initial year was a near break-even for the client. The client then moved on to other forms of advertising and marketing and received similar low-ROI results.
The allure of SEO is a double-edged sword. There are promises of better ROI than other advertising, but that ROI is never instantly achieved, especially in competitive markets. SEO takes time to work and, as it is commonly said, time is money. Some company's have enough to invest, but not quite what it takes to succeed. This is to no fault of the business owner, other than ensuring expectations are in line with reality. The SEO must do his part to keep expectations in check as well.
Optimizing most sites is generally never as easy as it appears on the surface. There are almost always delays by either the client or SEO, or more issues get uncovered than was found in the original analysis. But when it's all said and done, SEO is about time. Time to write compelling copy, time to build a good site architecture, time to research keywords, and time to keep pushing rankings up in the results while pushing the competition down.
The next time you think you've got an easy optimization project, take a second and even a third look. It may not really be as simple as you think.
By Search Engine Guide : Small Business Search Marketing
by Mike Moran
Analysts keep bringing it up. Reporters do, too. How much money is Google losing on YouTube? And can they afford it? The lingering question that affects Internet marketers the most is what happens if Google decides they can't afford it. If you are using YouTube for marketing, should you be worried?
First off, no one knows how much YouTube costs Google, nor how much revenue it brings in. Given the cost of servers, storage, and bandwidth for streaming so much video over the Web, it's certainly true that it costs them a bundle--far more than they ever expected.
It's likely that YouTube has become as popular with video watchers as Google expected, but they miscalculated its appeal to the advertisers whose money offsets the costs. Advertisers have not yet flocked to be shown side-by-side with amateur content, while services that show Hollywood videos, such as Hulu, have flourished in comparison.
Google continues to tweak its offering, but admits that the right formula has not appeared yet. The question is whether Google can afford to lose this much money, with it ever increasing as long as that formula remains elusive.
It probably can afford it for the foreseeable future. The question is whether it will decide to, which might depend more on attitude than data.
YouTube was expected to be a huge advertising success. I mean, how could it miss? Videos are the most popular form of media and YouTube's model created the content for free, so how could advertisers resist all those eyeballs? But somehow, they have, making YouTube an immense disappointment for Google.
On the other hand, listing off the other free content plays, such as Gmail, Google Docs, and the forthcoming Google Wave, which one of those is profitable? I'd bet that none of them are. And, they were never expected to be, at least not by now.
If Google can pay the freight, and if Google can change its attitude about YouTube, so that it's a long-term play, just like those other user-brings-the-content initiatives, Google can emerge as a leader in video and will eventually figure out the advertising plays for all of them (or figure another way to make money). If Google succumbs to a disappointment in YouTube not shown in Gmail, for example, it might miss out on a big market down the road.
So, if you use YouTube for your marketing, I wouldn't be terribly concerned about what you hear. Yes, I'd be posting my videos on Vimeo and other sites, too, just as a backup, but I wouldn't be worried that YouTube will disappear any time soon. If anyone has the deep pockets to suffer through YouTube's expensive adolescence, its Google.
By Search Engine Guide : Small Business Search Marketing
by Sage Lewis
You always think these kind of things won't happen to you. Social media can effect any kind of business: big, small, corporate, artistic. Look what has happened to Skylight Opera Theater. They are getting schooled in the powers of social media... big time!
By Search Engine Guide : Small Business Search Marketing
by Stoney deGeyter
In today's business environment, a website is absolutely necessary. It provides an avenue for people to find you and find out more about you as they sit in the comfort of their homes, while waiting in line at the grocery store, sit on the commuter train, or wherever. Unfortunately too many business take the wrong approach to how they build and market their websites.
Most companies stop their website development once the site is developed, and then move into marketing mode. The website becomes another product they have to market, rather than building a website that is the marketing vehicle for their products and services. We talk about website promotion quite a bit, which we understand is the process of getting the site visibility on the search engines. But getting people to the website is not the end goal.
The website is just another something the business must have in order to do business, but it never fully succeeds in being a tool that works for them to generate business.
Online marketing is different from off-line marketing, primarily in that you have to promote the very tool you use as a promotion for your business. With radio and TV you don't have to go out of your way to get people to listen. You run the ads and people do or don't. Websites must first be optimized in order to help improve traffic and visibility before they can be used as a business generating tool.
No wonder businesses pour thousands of dollars into traditional forms of marketing (phone book, magazines, radio, etc.,) which often produces significantly less return on the investment dollar. When it comes to properly planning and executing the development and promotion of their website, well, it's a bit more complicated.
Make Your Website Promote YOU.
With some exceptions, every website has its own unique characteristics. When building your site there really is no one-size-fits-all pattern to follow. Your site should be built to fulfill your informational and sales needs, while being effective for your target audience. With that said, there are specific components that almost every website needs in order to be an effective marketing tool.
Home Page
The home page is the online "face" of your company. It may not be the entry door for every visitor, but it is your front door and you need to make sure that you have it right. The home page should provide an all-encompassing view of what you do or offer while helping to establish trust with the new and repeat visitor.
To be effective, your home page must accomplish several things:
Establish your brand: Your home page sets the tone of the visitor's expectation. Everything from brand identity to confirmation that you can provide what they need must be established here.
Display your offerings: Visitors need to be provided a quick overview of the products, services and information they can expect to find as they dig deeper into the site.
Generate interest: The home page must do more than just provide information of what you offer; it must generate interest in those offerings. It must create a desire within your visitors to click further into the site to find out more and see how they will be benefited by your products or services.
Convey trust: Your home page can often be the first impression you give your visitors, therefore it must be able to establish an element of trust. If you come across as a slick used-car salesman, or a less-than-professional hobby site, your visitors will bolt.
About Us Page
Why do visitors go to the About Us page? Its a good question that is often ignored when web developers fill the content of these pages. Too many sites simply do not provide enough--or the right--information on this page.
The About Us page should be used to provide reassuring company information such as how long you've been in business, organizations you belongs to (chamber of commerce, BBB, etc.,) mission statement, bios of the executive staff. The information you provide on the About Us page is designed to help your visitors feel comfortable doing business with your business.
Contact Us Page
Even if you have your phone number, email address, fax number and snail mail address on every page of your website, it's still important to have a full page dedicated to this exact same information. It may seem odd, but many people looking for your contact info will ignore the information on whatever page they are viewing, looking instead for the link that reads "Contact Us."
Your Contact Us page should provide several different ways of contacting you including email, phone, and a web form. You should also include a physical address and possibly even a map. This is also a good place to display hours of operation.
Product & Service Pages
If you sell a product or a service you need pages dedicated to providing details about what you offer. Many small sites can put all their product information on the home page. This is great, but you still need to provide a page with additional details. If you have more than one product, then it's likely you need a page for each and every product or service you sell.
Product pages need to provide your visitors with everything they need to know to make an informed purchase decision. Price, style, expectations, specifications, size, benefits are all required information, depending on what you're selling. Your product page can never have too much information, provided it's laid out in a user friendly format that sells the product.
Site Navigation
Construction of your site navigation can make or break your website's performance. Shoddy and haphazard navigation schemes can easily confuse visitors causing them to make that dreaded click out of your site and onto a competitor. A properly constructed navigation can help visitors easily move from page to page finding everything that they are looking for quickly and easily.
Be consistent: Don't confuse your visitors by changing how the navigation looks or by moving its on-page location to a different area. Be consistent in it's look and placement. There are many different forms of navigational elements: main menus, sub-menus, breadcrumbs, etc. All of them should work together to create a consistent and recognizable flow as the visitor navigates through the site.
Be obvious: Make sure it is impossible for your visitors to get lost on your website. You want them to know where they are at all times and how to navigate back to the current and other main sections. Make good use of breadcrumb links as this provides your visitors a great visual indicator as well as easy navigation.
Be helpful: Large websites with many pages or products can easily create a navigational nightmare. It is essential that visitors don't have to "hunt" for what they want. This can be accomplished by providing clear section headings in your main navigation. You can also assist the visitors by including a site map that can be easily accessed and a properly function site search box.
Putting the Pieces Together
A website is far more than the sum of its parts. While all the components mentioned above are necessary to have a working site, when implemented properly each component compliments the others.
A website, like any ad made for radio, TV or newspaper, it must effectively do the job it was built for: selling. Building a website is necessary for online success, but you have to go beyond the build. Websites must be promoted effectively in order to get the visitors you need, but once there the site must then be able to do its job selling. Too often we promote the site but fail to get the site to promote the products and services we want people to buy. Before you promote your site, make sure your site promotes you.
By Search Engine Guide : Small Business Search Marketing
by Mike Moran
Recently, a commenter on this blog asked a question that I often hear, "What do you say to corporate people worried about security risks of social media within a company?" It's one of my favorite questions, because it really exposes the way we look at risk, which is all-too-human and, simultaneously, dumb.
I like to tell people that social media does not involve a risk. It's not a risk that someone will do something dumb someday. Actually, it is a certainty. If you allow employees to use social media, someone at some time will do something mind-numbingly idiotic.
It might be, as the questioner asks, a security breach. Someone decides that a trade secret would be just the thing to spice of their next tweet. Or it might be something else--making fun of your client, or sexually harassing someone, or telling a politically incorrect joke.
And, in fact, all of these things have been done on social media, and more. The problem, however, isn't social media. It's us. If we don't have the self-control to avoid that kind of behavior, then it will come out in social media or any other place that we operate.
The reason we see social media, or anything new, as risky is as fundamental as human nature. Studies tell us that we always are more comfortable with the status quo than with change, which has probably served mankind well throughout our history.
But risk doesn't disappear just because we are comfortable and accustomed to something. Think about financial risk. Many people were once comfortable with bank savings accounts because their money was growing, but they were running a huge risk that inflation would eat alive their purchasing power. Unfortunately, the risk of changing the investment loomed larger than the risk of staying the course, which seemed safe.
Social media, and just about anything new, is the same. You always have to balance the risk of doing it against the risk of not doing it.
But as I began to analyze the site more carefully, paying attention to it's optimization needs, a whole new world opened up before me. 
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