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Archive for March, 2010

March

Long Tail Optimization

Do you want to attract just anyone to your site, or do you want qualified traffic; people ready to buy what you’re selling? When you booked your last vacation, you probably typed in a specific phrase like, “extreme ski resorts” for a certain location. It’s unlikely you searched “travel” right before making that purchase. Long tail optimization capitalizes on specific phrases with low competition and potentially high conversion rates.

The Long Tail

Long Tail Keywords

For those new to long tail, let’s back track. The graph above illustrates high and low frequency online searches. The spike to the left represents highly searched words like “mp3″ and “travel.” It’s a small area on the graph, but think of it as a chaotic mosh pit of sites that are pushing to rank for keywords that probably won’t convert. Seriously, when was the last time you searched “buy car” and then bought a car? So, what else is going on here? To the right you can see a dip in search frequency which levels off. This level, or long tail, consists of the less obvious, more specific phrases (i.e. “new 2010 Dodge Durango SLT” in a specific city/state instead of “buy car”). This long tail area consists of less competition and a greater opportunity to generate income.

What is a Long Tail Phrase?

Long tail phrases:

Multi-word phrases of common terms
Searched less, but more specific
Have less competition
Are easier to rank for
Target qualified traffic
Can increase your conversion rate

Start With Keyword Research

As with other online marketing campaigns, you want to start long tail optimization by performing keyword research. Start by searching your primary product or service in Google, and then examine the keywords used by the top 10 sites, and other competitors.

Read Effective Keyword Research to learn the tools and methods for finding the best keywords. (Go ahead, read it. I’ll wait).

Google Search-Based Keyword Tool

Google has a search-based keyword tool that will give you keyword ideas based on your (or your competitor’s) existing pages. The Google keyword tool analyzes the website entered and matches it with searches already being performed by users in Google, giving you a list of potential keyword phrases. The results also indicate the number of monthly searches, amount of competition, and suggested bid. This is a decent tool for exploring your competitor’s keywords. You can quickly sort the results by number of daily searches and competition by clicking the header tags.

Once you have a decent list, scan it over and make sure it includes variations specific to your product/service including sizes, colors, descriptors (review, discount), conditions (new, used), brand, model numbers, city/town, state/zip, etc.

Long Tail Phrases That Convert

Remember, long phrase doesn’t automatically mean long tail phrase and less competition doesn’t automatically mean better converting. To learn which phrases will result in sales, you need to test using PPC. If you can’t make a sale with a keyword phrase in PPC, you won’t be able to make money organically with that phrase. Once you know which phrases convert, you’ll know where to focus optimization efforts.

Long Tail Optimization and Site Architecture

Keep long tail optimization in mind when building new sites, creating categories, and naming pages. Give each page a unique Title, description meta tag, header tags, content, and anchor text that includes the converting phrase. Thinking long tail can also give you direction and inspiration when creating a content schedule.

Research, Test, Target

Many site owners lock in on highly competitive terms and never look back. There is nothing wrong with being ambitious, but making money is nice too! A better approach is to research, target, and test long tail phrases. In fact, some terms might have such little competition that quick page optimization might be enough to get you the conversions you’re after. Just remember, long phrase doesn’t necessarily mean long tail and not all long tails convert–you must test to see what works.

Read more articles:

• Title Tag Recommendations & Tips
• Effective Keyword Research

Tags: keyword research, Long Tail Keywords
Posted in SEM/SEO, Webmaster | 4 Comments »

March

Audrey Kerwood: eCommerce Site Reviews

Audrey Kerwood

If there is one aspect to online marketing that I have a weakness, it is eCommerce stores. The main reason is I have sold all of my stores over the years and have concentrated primarily on affiliate marketing. During my time as faculty of Stompernet, the one member of the faculty that impressed me with her knowledge and expertise with eCommerce stores was Audrey Kerwood.

If your store is struggling to meet your revenue projections, I’d recommend joining Audrey on Monday (that’s tomorrow) March 29th at 3pm for a free webinar where she will be doing live site reviews. I first started watching site reviews at Webmaster World back in 2005 and even if your site isn’t the one being reviewed, you learn something … and sometimes it is that one key ingredient you are missing.

This is a straight link, no affiliate link, no cookie that is dropping … go ahead, check. This is a pure recommendation to help your business meet your goals and Audrey can help you.

Posted in Webmaster | 2 Comments »

March

Forcing Customers to Register?

One of the biggest issues I have online is the site that makes me register for an account before I buy. I hate it. It ranks right up there with going to the dentist … okay, maybe not that bad, but it is close. I will tell you that I have abandoned dozens if not hundreds of shopping carts over the years that have attempted to force me to register first.

So, that takes us to an important question: How easy is your checkout process?

If your site requires a lengthy registration process you may be losing out on sales. Indeed, research has proven that you could be missing out on sales even with a quick registration process.

This doesn’t mean that you need to remove your membership registration completely; merely try implementing a “Buy it Now” button, or something similar. This will allow your members to keep their membership benefits, and allow casual shoppers to still purchase from your store.

Your goal should be to make your site as user-friendly as possible. This includes making it easy for customers to purchase your products. Giving visitors the choice of whether or not to register for an account to purchase an item will increase your conversion rates exponentially.

And right now in this economy, a slight increase in conversion rates makes a world of difference.

Posted in Webmaster | 2 Comments »

March

Google Launches Social Search

Well it’s about time…finally a smart personalized search option thanks to Google.

Hitwise reported that Facebook outranked Google as the most visited US website for the week ending March 13, 2010. (Let’s not get too deep into this statistic, since a lot of variables are unknown). One thing is not debatable. Web users are interested in what their family members, co-workers, and friends are saying online and are seeking a more personalized web experience. That is what Google hopes to offer with the launch of Social Search.

What is Google Social Search?

People post a lot of information online and make it publicly available. These include blog posts, Tweets, pictures, etc. With Google Social Search, when you perform a keyword search the results will show what your friends, family, and anyone else you designate have posted on certain sites regarding that topic. For example, if you search “universal healthcare coverage,” you’ll see what your contacts are posting via images, videos, Tweets, RSS feeds, and blogs. This information appears towards the bottom of the page after the regularly indexed sites. According to Matt Cutts, these results only appear when the Google algorithm determines it will improve your search experience. So, with one search you can see what information is available on the wider web and among your social circle.

How do You Sign up for Google Social Search?

To get started, you’ll need a Gmail account. Contacts added to your Gmail chat list or in your Friends, Family, and Coworkers contacts automatically become part of your social circle. If you have a Google Talk account, that chat list is also thrown in the mix. Anyone you follow or subscribe to on certain social sites also become part of your circle. As contacts are added, the circle will expand by association (friends of friends, followers of followers on Twitter, etc.). From there, all you need to do is login to Google and search. Results will appear towards the bottom of the page. (It can take a few weeks before a contact’s content appears in your results).

Social Search and SEO

Become part of someone’s social circle and your blog posts, images, and Tweets will appear in their search results. I’m sure you can see the possibilities there. As mentioned above, to get started, sign up for a Gmail account, create a Google Profile and then add your social media links. If you haven’t already, sign up at social sites like Twitter, Flickr, and FriendFeed and then add those links to your profile.

When someone in your social circle performs a search, Google pulls publicly available content from your Profile links (blogs, Flickr, Twitter, etc.) and that is what appears in the search results for your contacts. So, it’s very important to include those links in your profile and to regularly post quality and optimized content. From there you want to build contacts and increase social subscribers/followers. Get creative with your email newsletters too, since Gmail is part of the social circle.

Of course there will be tweaks and technical issues while Social Search is perfected, but you have an opportunity to get a jump on the competition by building your profile and connections. Check it out today! You can read more about it in Google’s article about
Social Search.

Tags: Google, seo, Social Search, Twitter
Posted in Google, SEM/SEO | 3 Comments »

March

Importance of ALT Tags

Images are important to websites. They add value to the design, break up the text, and help communicate a message. In terms of SEO, the code used to add an image provides you with an additional optimization opportunity. It’s called the ALT tag, or alternative text, and when used correctly can give your site an advantage.

What is an ALT Tag?

Search engine spiders can’t read the text in images. To understand what an image is about, it relies on ALT tags, the image file name, and text around the image. The ALT tag is an attribute that allows you to add descriptive text that can be crawled by search engines. In fact, if you don’t currently use ALT tags and don’t disallow images in your robots.txt, do a search for your URL at Google Images and see which words Google associates with your images. Most web design software allows you to add an ALT tag, or you can place it directly into the HTML. Here is an example of HTML with the image and ALT tag.

Example of ALT Tags in Code

The Purpose of ALT Tags

The purpose of the ALT tag is to describe the image. ALT text appears when the image is loading, when a person disables images in a browser or mobile device, or they use screen readers and text browsers. In these instances, the ALT tag, or image description, would appear in place of the image or be read by a screen reader. IE browsers will also see the ALT tag when they run a cursor over the image, provided the title tag is not also used.

Importance of ALT Tags

In terms of SEO, the importance of the ALT tag lies in its ability to help boost your web page rank and if you choose to have images indexed, increase your exposure through image search. I don’t recommend allowing your images into the index; however, some Webmasters prefer this. In those instances, let’s say you sell blue widgets on your site, but don’t use the ALT tag. Search engine crawlers won’t know what your image is about and your images will not appear in image searches. If used well, and not abused, the ALT tag can help improve your rank and better index your images for image search if you choose to do so.

Optimizing ALT Tags

Try to be brief, clear, and contextual when using these tags. You want to describe a particular image in just a few words, but with keywords that will help rank. Check out the top 10 sites in Google for the keywords your page targets and see how they’re using ALT tags. Never keyword stuff (spam) the ALT tags–not even if your competitors are! This will hurt, not help, your site. You also want to use relevant words, but mix it up, don’t use the same phrase each time.

Here are some examples of ALT tags:

Blank: Not Optimized:

<img src="Chicago.jpg" alt=""/>

Vague:

<img src="Chicago.jpg" alt="Chicago"/>

Relevant:

<img src="Chicago.jpg" alt="Site of Fort Dearborn in Chicago">

Spam:

<img src="Chicago.jpg" alt="Chicago Illinois fort dearborn
history Chicago archaeology history sites pizza Cubs Sox
Black Hawks Chicago Illinois tours sightseeing guided tours"/>

In the video below, Matt Cutts shows you what makes a good ALT tag.

Don’t Abuse ALT Tags

First and foremost, some web users rely on screen readers to access sites. If your ALT tags are stuffed with keywords, they have to listen to all of that, which is rude. You want to use and optimize the ALT tags, but also be mindful of who really relies on them. Secondly, Google uses freelancers to personally check out sites. If one sees you’re spamming ALT tags that could hurt your rank. More likely than a visit from Google quality control, is a spam report submitted by one of your competitors!

ALT tags are now a basic requirement for your site. If you’re not using them, go through your code and start adding them today!

Tags: ALT tags, image search, optimizing ALT tags
Posted in SEM/SEO, Webmaster | 5 Comments »

March

Tips for SEO and Website Design

Most website owners focus on creating a website first and then optimizing it later. You might as well open your wallet, open a window, and let the bills fly. If you don’t incorporate optimization into elements of the design you’re going to end up spending more money in the long run.

It is a challenge to create a site that is both appealing to users and search engine friendly, but the following tips will get you started.

Here is a simple formula to be remember:

SEO Website Designing Tips

If you’re ready to get started here are a few tips:

Tip #1: Adapt to Changing SEO Strategies

The Internet and SEO are constantly changing. Constantly. If you’re basing your SEO strategies on hype, then you need to adopt tested SEO methods that work otherwise your efforts will be wasted.

Tip #2: Code Matters

Your site’s code directly affects its spiderability. Excessive scripts, over edited templates, error ridden code, and unnecessary tags are just a few of the mistakes that can lead to errors in crawling a site. Cleaner code and less of it will put more emphasis on your content and keywords. Make sure to use semantic code, so that search engine spiders can read and access your page easily. You can check your pages for errors using the W3C Markup Validator.

Tip #3: Use Meta Title Tags

Make sure the Meta Title tag of the page matches the content. This sounds obvious, but Titles are often neglected either by using duplicate Titles, stuffing it with keywords, or having little relevance to page content. The Title is going to help search engine crawlers determine the page content as well as help attract visitors in SERPs.

Tip #4: Don’t Cramp out the Content

Content sections are very important. Make sure the page layout allows enough space for content in the main body area. Some sites go heavy on images and ads and squeeze text into confinded boxes. That’s a mistake. Content sections contain the relevant information your visitors and search engines want, as well as links that tend to be given a higher value.

Tip #5: Research Page Names

When naming pages (e.g. www.yourdomain.com/pagename.htm) do you research the competition and keywords, or just name pages on the fly? For example, a realtor might have a new listing for a home at 123 Street Name, City, State, Zip Code and just name it “123streetname.htm.” A better choice would be “listingtype/streetname-city-state-zipcode.htm.” Remember, once a page goes live, it is indexed, ranked, linked, bookmarked, etc. It’s much easier to perform research and select optimized names before a site goes live, rather than change the name and perform a redirect afterwards.

Tip #6: Navigation and Structure

This is one of the important tips to remember. When designing your site’s navigation, you want to create a clear hierarchy of pages (most important pages/categories first, second most important pages/categories next, etc.). Navigation serves multiple purposes: making the site easy to navigate, leading the potential buyer to converting pages, telling search engines which pages to give the most PageRank to. Research site structure before you start creating the site, not while you’re creating it. Also, don’t forget to leave room to grow! Adding a new section shouldn’t lead to a reconfiguration of your entire navigation path/menus.

Tip #7: Internal Links / Anchor Tags

Links help search engines understand the subject matter of a web page. They also help search engines crawl your site and navigate your pages. Make sure each of your most important pages is reachable by at least one link. Limit links to less than 100 per page. The anchor text, or words used when linking, should be well researched and carefully used. Using the phrases; “click here” or “email us” are completely ineffective–unless your goal is to rank high for “click here.” A better approach would be to use phrases like “Keyword tips,” “Read more about keyword,” or “learn more about keyword.” Vary the anchor text used and be sure to add relevant links to the main content areas. These links will be more useful, but only if the pages contain useful and relevant content.

Tip #8: Use Appropriate Keywords and Phrases

There should be a strong connection between your chosen keywords and page content. Page relevance might seem obvious, but too often Webmasters write content around keywords, instead of the other way around. Make sure the keywords and phrases you add not only convert, but are relevant to the page. Be sure not to use the same keywords on all of your pages in hopes of dominating rankings. Most of the search engines consider this a spam tactic and won’t index all of your pages. Well structured content with properly used and relevant keywords should be your goal.

Tip #9: Update and Expand Your Content

Don’t let the cob webs form on your site. Updating and expanding content is a task that is necessary to your site’s success. Try to add a page per day, or every week at the very least. If you want to rank well, or hang onto your rank, it is vital that your site is also reliable and consistent.

Tip #10: Avoid Using Flash

Flash isn’t the SEO nightmare it was in earlier days. The fact that it can now be crawled is quite helpful, but you still want to make sure it’s used in moderation and not on your most important pages. Google has some additional helpful tips on design guidelines and what to avoid.

Tip #11: Add Alt Tags / Title Tags

The purpose of the Alt Tag is to provide a text substitute of an image for the benefit of visitors with the graphics disabled, or using software that reads a web page. For that reason, you do not want to keyword stuff or use irrelevant keywords! However, you’ll want to assign keyword rich and appropriate labels to images within your web pages. This will also help with the optimization process.

Example of the image Alt tag in html code:

img src=”images/seo-updates.jpg” alt=”Alt Tags Display” width=”25″ height=”66″ align=”center”

Alt Tags Display

If you want an advantage over your competition, you must marry web design and optimization. Start by using clean code that is search engine friendly. Research link, page, file, and section names. Make the page appealing and easy to use, but also structure it in a way that leads the user to best converting pages. With a properly structured website and judicious use of SEO, you can give your site a real advantage of your competitors.

Tags: SEO and Website Design
Posted in SEM/SEO, Webmaster | 10 Comments »

March

How to Attract Qualified Traffic

Targeted Keyword Research

Let’s say you’re a real estate investor who buys homes for cash in Las Vegas, Nevada and you’ve optimized a new website for the phrase “cash for homes” because you want “tons of leads daily.” Well, you achieve that. You spend a good portion of your day sorting through tons of leads daily–from people all over the world. So now you’re asking yourself, why aren’t people in Las Vegas contacting me? Well, are you targeting people with homes in Las Vegas?

The more you target your web traffic, the more qualified that traffic becomes. Focus on towns, zip codes, and situations specific to your market. Don’t confuse the number of SERPs or daily searches with conversions! Those general trophy phrases are not going to bring the targeted visitors you need to convert traffic.

If this investor was buying a mailing list for a direct mail campaign, he or she would choose a targeted list based on specific criteria, right? They wouldn’t waste money marketing to the entire country when they are only interested in Las Vegas property owners. That same filtering and targeting should be applied when optimizing a web site. Otherwise, you’re going to waste a lot of time and money!

Read more articles:

• Effective Keyword Research
• Long Tail Optimization

Tags: keyword research, qualified traffic, targeted keywords
Posted in SEM/SEO, Uncategorized | No Comments »

March

Framing the Offer

One of the biggest mistakes that most marketers make is they have a good product or service and they just “throw it up there” and hope the prospect can “connect the dots” and buy it.

Stop being lazy.

In this short 9-minute video I explain the power of Framing Your Offers and how it can be a great persuasive technique. Of course, the concept has been well known for thousands of years, but Mark Joyner puts a unique spin on it.

Increase your conversions by 6 fold by framing your offer. I’ve been doing it for years and swear by it. I’ll be showing an actual example of a campaign in the coming weeks.

http://www.vimeo.com/9937214

Posted in Affiliate Marketing | 16 Comments »