By Ray "Catfish" Comstock| Oct 4, 2010

Part 1 and Part 2 of this series have covered how to measure search engine optimization (SEO) performance and why the new Google rankings data from Webmaster tools is so important to understanding that performance.

For this article, I wanted to explain how understanding SEO performance impacts different types of businesses. Specifically, I had planned to illustrate the differences in how mom and pop style businesses, small businesses, and enterprise-level companies use this data on an ongoing basis to augment their SEO campaigns.

As I started to analyze my initial hypothesis that there were significant differences in how these companies use this data, however, I came to the conclusion that these companies really differed because of the amount of resources available, the amount of data available, the amount of work that needs to be done (the amount of opportunity) and the amount of reporting that's needed. But the real revelation was that all of these types of businesses should have a similar strategic approach on how this data should be used to drive the ongoing SEO campaign.

Of course, the tactics of how to then execute those strategies do differ by business type. But, fundamentally what the data is saying, and what you should do from an SEO perspective based on what the data is saying, is the same.

So let's take a deeper dive into how businesses should use Webmaster tools search rankings, brand versus non-brand traffic, and long tail keyword performance to drive SEO beyond just understanding performance.

Webmaster Tools Search Rankings

The first data set we'll examine is the Webmaster tools ranking information. In addition to using rankings to gauge performance, this data set is immediately actionable.

The first thing to do is prioritize which keywords are driving the most revenue (or conversions depending on what you're tracking). Then, identify which significant keywords have moved in the last month, both positively and negatively. After correlating those ranking changes to any changes made from an SEO perspective within the last couple of months, you hopefully have an idea of which ongoing optimization tactics (especially link building) have been effective.

Positive trends based on SEO activities should validate those activities. No movement in rankings over a three or four month period of time might indicate that you should change tactics. A negative movement in ranking immediately requires an audit of content, link structure and technical issues to make sure that the decrease in rankings is not self-inflicted.

Any major algorithm change announcement by search engines as well as overall keyword volume of the keywords in question should also be considered as a possible cause. This exercise is to understand the nature of the decrease and whether you can fix in the short term or if there are long term implications.

Month-to-month trends are important to monitor from a rankings standpoint to understand how well your campaign is growing and to be aware of any negative movements as quickly as possible. Additionally, rankings in the top 30, but not in the top three, illustrate immediate opportunity. These rankings are close enough to be in the top three (which generates most of the traffic for any given phrase) that in many cases, although certainly not all, a relatively small amount of effort may be required to move your site up into the top 10 or even top three and thereby generate a lot more traffic for that keyword.

Brand vs. Non-Brand Traffic

In addition to search rankings, one of the key measurements we talk about in SEO performance is brand versus non-brand traffic levels. In other words, how much of your traffic is related to people who are looking for you specifically and how much traffic is related to people doing general searches for keywords related to your content.

As you would expect, the amount of brand-related search activity that is available is usually correlated to how big of a business you run. Therefore, for larger businesses it's extremely important to understand your brand-related keywords, their search volume, and what your current performance is against those words. That's because brand-related traffic converts the best and is usually the result of other marketing efforts that you're already paying for.

Additionally, the opportunity can be enormous for large brands, especially from a long tail perspective.

For that reason (and this is where enterprise level organizations actually are a little different than smaller companies), it's necessary for websites with a lot of brand-related search activity to monitor which of their brand-related words have the most permutations and how well they rank for those permutations.

One of my clients had a product which had a brand attached to it. The number of search referrals for the brand was around 250 a month, which didn't seem substantial. But when we added up the literally thousands of monthly permutations (many of which are too small to identify manually given how large the data set is), the amount of traffic ended up being more than 20,000 visitors monthly. This painted a much different picture about the importance of this brand-related keyword.

Maximizing your listings around the long tail of your brand is a critical part of any SEO campaign.

Long Tail Keyword Performance

The previous example illustrates the importance of looking at long tail performance from a brand-related perspective. But non-brand long tail performance is also important to measure.

This data set has the same potential as the brand-related data in terms of framing the opportunity and highlighting areas with the most potential for gain. However, unlike brand-related search, there is much more likely to be unrelated or undesirable words in a long tail list of non-brand related keywords.

It is common in SEO to inadvertently target unrelated keywords by your optimization efforts. Therefore, it's important to understand the negative keywords that should be filtered out of long tail, non-brand related keyword lists before using that data to analyze or prioritize resources.

Conclusion

While the size of the business definitely impacts the size of the campaign, especially as it relates to brand-related search opportunity, the fundamental activities based on the data being measured are similar, if not the same. Some of the tactical execution is different depending on resources and scope, but ultimately we need to use this data to understand how our SEO campaign is performing and to prioritize opportunities within the campaign so that we achieve the highest possible ROI

See the full story at: www.searchenginewatch.com

For more information about S.E.O, e-commerce website design, e-mail marketing, web site design service and website development, just visit us at www.7strategy.com 

Another excellent benefit and reason of going global is to generate more revenues.  A custom web site design company is going to help you the best they can with selling as many products on your site as possible.  They will provide many different efforts to get the word out about the business online, build a site that works well with the search engines, is appealing to the users, and much more.

If you have a local establishment, hiring a custom web site design company to help you go global is one of the best opportunities you can take advantage of today.  This will help you expand your customer base around the world and generate more revenues while creating a name for yourself around the world.  You can be successful online and the importance is taking advantage of true globalization and what the World Wide Web really has to offer.

Resource Box

Rat Wulf - Website Designer

7strategy Web Design Company

117 N. Cooper St.

Olathe, KS - 66061

By Christian Arno| Aug 25, 2010

When it comes to creating websites for foreign language markets, a few necessities are immediately obvious.

First, the websites need to be in the native or primary language of the country you're targeting. Also, you'll need to take into account consumer behavior and culture in that country -- where's your gap in the market and what's your unique selling proposition (USP)?

You'll also need to work out your search engine optiimization (SEO) strategy, because what's the point of spending all that time and money developing multilingual websites if they aren't ranking in the search engines?

Where to Concentrate Your SEO Efforts

The tricky point to consider here, though, is that while you may be well attuned to the needs and vagaries of Google, the Internet superpower isn't the dominant search engine in every country.

You've likely heard of Baidu, the Chinese search engine, which leads Google China on searches by 52 percent to 33 percent.

There are a few theories on why Baidu is the Google-killer in China. Some pundits believe it's due to Chinese patriotism (despite the fact that Baidu started in the U.S.). But the more likely reason is because the Chinese love to search the web for MP3s (55 percent of Baidu users are MP3 searchers). Baidu is better for illegal downloading because it's held to less strict legal standards than Western search engines.

Among the other Google-beating local search engines, popularity is attributed to their being optimized for the alphabet and language of the country.

For instance, Yandex succeeds in Russia (with a 64 percent market share) where Google.ru fails, largely because it's built around the Cyrillic alphabet and recognizes Russian grammar and inflection.

Then, of course, there's Seznam, the dominant search engine in the Czech Republic. In South Korea, Naver has 70 percent of the search market (compared to Google's 2 percent). Meanwhile, the Japanese inexplicably prefer Yahoo Japan to Google.

Naturally, then, it makes sense that you if you have a Russian website, you would want to concentrate most of your SEO efforts on Yandex, and Baidu for China, and so forth.

Changing Your SEO Strategy for Market-Leading Search Engines

Sadly, there isn't enough space here to outline every difference and similarity. Extensive research can be found online that goes into SEO strategies for each search engine, but the general consensus is that they all operate in largely the same way, with a few key differences.

Baidu doesn't seem to take into account inbound links -- one of the integral parts of effective Google SEO -- so building links with Chinese websites would seem to be a waste of your time. Your money might be better spent on increasing your Baidu PPC advertising budget, as Baidu apparently doesn't take relevancy into account with PPC -- higher rankings are achieved with higher spend.

Yandex, meanwhile, counts inbound links as relevant, and also highly rates relevant geographic location. Interestingly, Yandex will also penalize you for having spam-like roll-over and pop-up ads on your site.

Fortunately, each search engine offers its own keyword research tools, so you're obviously far better off using the data analysis tools of the search engine you're trying to game, than, say, applying your Google China keywords to Baidu.

With Great Effort Comes Great Possibility

Clearly, one size doesn't fit all when it comes to SEO strategies for different countries.

The crucial lesson here: developing SEO specific to each country's dominant search engine is just as important as creating language- and culture-specific websites in the first place. Mastering the tricks of each market's search engine is the key to success.

See the full story at: www.searchenginewatch.com

For more information about S.E.O, e-commerce web site design, e-mail marketing, web site design service and website development, just visit us at www.7strategy.com 

Most search engine optimization (SEO) agencies are now accepted as an integral part of their customers' wider marketing strategy -- and that's because it's increasingly obvious that SEO underpins every other online promotional tool.

In fact, my recent post "How to achieve excellence in joined-up marketing" showed how SEO can work with many other marketing tools in order to make marketing spend work even harder.

Despite this, some SEOs just don't get it. I was chatting to a young, bright, up-and-coming SEO at a conference recently about the strategy he was employing to boost an already-popular website.

He explained that he was writing some "keyword-heavy guides" for the site's pages, which interested me because he had no copywriting experience.

"Oh, it doesn't matter about the quality," he explained. "For this content, Google is the only customer."

Google is Never the Only Customer

Now, this guy isn't an employee at my company, so he didn't have to sit through the usual lecture I roll out at this point.

Suffice to say, in our industry, Google is never the only customer because it's humans who search, humans who visit the pages after they have been crawled by the spiders, and humans who use the content on those pages to form opinions on the company that supplied it.

It isn't impossible to create articles, guides, news stories, blog posts, and landing pages that are both useful to people and attractive to search engines. You just need skilled, informed writers with a firm grasp of SEO principles.

Google is Evolving

The most successful search engine in the world is so successful because it gives people want they want -- and they don't want keyword-stuffed garbage.

Yes, your website content needs to include relevant search terms because you need to show Google and other search engines that your page is relevant to the customer.

However, Google wants to give people useful information. Google's engineers are constantly working to refine its algorithm to make sure that's what it does.

If you want to future-proof your SEO strategy, you'll make sure your pages are useful and not just "optimized" by having a bunch of keywords crowbarred in.

You Risk Damaging Your Brand

There's a real danger that having poor quality copy on your website damages your brand in the eyes of any humans who stumble across it.

Your website is the equivalent to your shop front, your office reception, even your staff's attire in client meetings -- it's how customers form opinions of your brand.

Poor quality, keyword-stuffed, useless content lowers your brand's value in the eyes of the customer. The customer is the only customer -- not the search engine that brought them there.

Poor Copy Won't Convert

Whatever your website's purpose, poor quality content won't help you achieve it.

Whether you're trying to garner support for a cause, enhance brand engagement, or simply sell a service or product, your content needs to promote that end.

You can't have some copy on the site that you hope humans won't read. Those searchers who do land on it will quickly leave your site -- often with a lower opinion of your company than before.

You Won't Get Any Link Love

A low-quality, keyword-crammed guide on your site might attract the attention of the search engine spiders, but it won't get any humans particularly excited.

However, a well-written, informative industry guide could easily be tweeted, shared, and linked to. That encourages natural traffic and aids your website's optimization, so it's a double win.

Why bother with useless, brand-damaging, short-term copy when a little extra effort could bring you all these benefits?

See the full story at: www.searchenginewatch.com

For more information about S.E.O, e-commerce web site design, e-mail marketing, web site design service and website development, just visit us at www.7strategy.com

There are three primary elements of website design that must be considered when you build a company site.  They include appeal, colors, and if the site is user friendly.  These things are not important for personal sites that are only for friends and family but if you want to generate customers they are very important.

One of the major elements of website design is the colors you choose to use on your site.  The most successful sites have soft colors that are pleasing to the eyes.  If you use a color like neon green and construction orange then they can be almost blinding online.  This will definitely cause users with sensitive eyes to immediately leave the site as quickly as they can click to get away.  Softer colors include white, tan, beige, and taupe backgrounds.  The text on the site that is best is black.  Many people want to get creative but with a business there are many other ways to be creative than with the colors.  Stick with professional colors even if you are trying to be fun.

Another thing to consider is appeal when it comes to website design.  You might think if you cannot change the colors then the appeal is gone.  This is not true.  Appeal can happen by a site that has photos that are unique and interesting, content strategically placed around the site and more.  An appealing site doesn't have too much content or not enough.  It has the right mix of everything so the visitors are happy to click through the site.  It maintains interest of the visitors also.

Another element of web design is that the site needs to be user friendly.  A user friendly site means that it is easy to click around and get through.  A visitor should know exactly where they are at all times when clicking through a business site.  At any point in time should they become confused about how to get back to the home page of the site they will leave and most likely not return.  Clickability is very important with the design of a site.

There are three primary elements of website design that you should consider when building your site.  These things include colors that are easy to look at and pleasing to the eyes, an appealing site that is interesting, and a clickable site that is easy to understand.  Success online is easy but you must maintain a sense of professionalism if you want to succeed.

Resource Box

For more information, tips and resources about web site design, you always can visit http://www.7strategy.com, or send an email to info@7strategy.com

7strategy Web Design Company

117 N. Cooper St.

Olathe, KS - 66061

1-888-231-3062

A reader recently asked me how to know when their content quality was good enough. This question is interesting because it's rooted in a mindset of "What is required to get the best SEO results?"

However, this same question can be applied quite a bit more broadly. Here are some of the ways you can evaluate that question.

Though it may be the middle of July, ecommerce merchants are getting ready for the upcoming holiday season. Best practices are important year round but they are even more critical during a time of heavy sales. Converting visitors into customers, eliminating shopping cart abandonment, and optimizing sites for search engines are all important but Website Magazine Twitter followers have even more tips See the full story at:

http://www.websitemagazine.com/content/blogs/posts/archive/2009/07/20/e-commerce-tips-for-holiday-season.aspx

So you own a small ecommerce shop and are wondering how to expand your business? As you may or may not know by now, search can drive an incredible amount of traffic to your site. Whether you are selling products or services to your customers online, the concept is typically similar.

It is best to approach search as a key driver to your online business. If you are a typical "bricks and mortar" store, you will find that most of your successful offline tactics have little or no meaning within your online business model. For example, if your store sold electronics, you may consider the overall presentation of your products based on either price or popularity. While most online shoppers are looking for a very specific product or class or product, many of these buyers will use the credibility of the store as a key buying factor over price.

For a brick and mortar site, it's important to start working with a development group who understands SEO and SEM, and will work with you to help prioritize your top products and categories within this process. Web sites that are well developed toward all markets, including users who may be disabled or visually impaired, will substantially increase your overall chances of domination within search engines.

See the full story at: http://searchenginewatch.com/3632227

As you know, Facebook can be an invaluable source of marketing for your ecommerce business. However, keeping up with the ever-evolving social bookmarking service is a challenge. Facebook has rolled out changes to Business Pages that directly influence how you use them and how your fans can interact with you on Facebook.

To help you adjust, we take an in-depth look at recent changes made to Business Pages. Plus, we offer tips on how to use new features, such as status updates and Wall feeds to better connect with your Facebook fans.

The New Wall and Tabs Layout

The new Business Pages are designed to make your page look more like a personal profile page on Facebook. If you think of the new Page layout as being divided into three columns, the left-most column is where your brand logo, information, fans, links and admin tool links are located.

The center column, like the new personal profile pages, is the largest by width and importance. This center column is divided into tabs, with the Wall tab being the default. Here the Facebook mini-feed and Wall have been merged into a Twitter-style update feed that puts an emphasis on "what's new" updates on Facebook.

See the full story at: http://www.ecommerce-guide.com/solutions/advertising/article.php/3812101

When you spend thousands of hours on search engine optimization and thousands of thousands of dollars on paid search or display advertising, you better be absolutely sure that not only are you converting visitors but that you've got strategies in place to ensure you retain those customers so they buy from you, the merchant, in the future. Let's look at a one essential Web customer retention tactics in loyalty programs.

While you may already be employing many customer retention techniques and tactics like personalized emails or triggered coupons, the majority of e-commerce merchants and Internet retailers are not using loyalty programs due to perceived (and real) complexities of implementation. In the end however, the value is clear and the investment low. Engaging users with loyalty programs for the sake of retaining business has been shown to yield a positive impact on a business time and time again - but not how you may think.

See the full story at: http://www.websitemagazine.com/content/blogs/posts/pages/loyalty-programs-as-a-customer-retention-tactic.aspx

You have the great idea, you have the enthusiasm, you even have the money to get started, but you still have more questions than answers when it comes to starting and sustaining your ecommerce website. To help address the issues all ebusinesses face, we've compiled this list of frequently asked questions. We'll continue to add to the listing, so keep FAQ checking.

See the full story at: http://www.ecommerce-guide.com/essentials/ebiz/index.php

It's easy to complain about customer service departments: they always seem to suck. But with so many companies struggling to keep hold of customers, I'm left wondering if they realize their customer service departments are a huge part of the problem. In this economy, you must put your best feet forward on all customer-facing fronts. Today we'll look at some best practices for customer service, along with some good and bad examples.

Make Your Contact Information Easy to Find

Some companies make it notoriously difficult for users to find their contact information. Don't be afraid of your customers: make your customer service phone number easy to find.

See the full story at: http://www.clickz.com/3633004

Possibly the single most important factor that impacts your e-commerce web site's success is its navigation system. For most of your visitors the distance between them successfully completing a purchase at your Web shop and giving up and going elsewhere is a few mouse clicks.

If you can improve your site navigation and deliver to your users what they are looking for quickly and efficiently you have a much better chance of selling to them. In short, poor navigation systems cost you sales.

Designing an effective navigation system isn't difficult but it does require some understanding of what makes a good navigation system in general and what will appeal to your customers in particular.

There are two important factors in designing a Web navigation system, one is adhering to the basic rules that apply to navigation and the second is to give your visitors what they, in particular, need.

The Basics of a Navigation System

As much as some of us like to be individual there are benefits to be gained on the Web in being just like everyone else. If you design your navigation system like nearly every other site's navigation system then your customers will find your site easy to use because they'll be used to that method of moving around, even if they haven't visited your site before.

The basic rules pertaining to a Web navigation system are:

1. The navigation system should appear on every page of your site.

2. The navigation system should appear in the same position on every page.

3. You should use the same navigation system on every page and not change its design.

See the full story at: http://www.ecommerce-guide.com//article.php/3801826

For the e-commerce industry, 2008 was a challenging year, yet growth is still on par with last year, and it appears online store-owners are busier than ever meeting the demands of a maturing market. Here's a look at some of the issues and trends that marked the year, and will certainly continue to grab headlines in 2009.

Trying to Cash In on Social Sites

Perhaps the biggest conundrum of 2008 in regard to online sales was how to make a profit by marketing and selling on social networks such as Facebook. Widgets and special e-commerce applications abound for social networks, but so far, members seem to want to communicate more than they want to shop.

Still, word-of-mouth marketing is powerful, and research continues to cite the fact that consumers continue to share -- and trust -- information about products they gain through social networks, even if they aren't actually making purchases there. So, we're certain in the coming year we will see more services and technology designed to help online businesses both market and sell through these sites.

The Risks: Fraudulent shopping sites, Holiday e-mail scams, and Malware

While the Internet can allow you access to millions of items and stores that you may want to shop for the holidays, it is important to remember that anyone can set up a Website that looks like a legitimate retail site. This time of year fraudsters know more credit card numbers are given out by online shoppers and to capture those numbers they are setting up legit-looking retail Website, accepting consumer's credit card payments for items they purchase -- and within a day or two the site is gone. In November and December there are also more instances of legitimate Web sites being hacked, with the results to consumers the same.

See the full story at: http://www.webopedia.com/DidYouKnow/Internet/2008/SafeOnlineShopping.asp

See the full story at: http://www.wdfm.com/marketing-tips/boost-site-sales.php

See the full story at: http://www.ecommerce-guide.com/solutions/advertising/article.php/3788236

According to a recent survey conducted by the e-tailing group, this holiday season more shoppers plan to do their gift buying online instead of in stores. The reasons shoppers gave for the switch included time savings, better product selection, no crowds and saving money -- in other words, convenience, value and time savings. Survey participants also said they planned on buying fewer holiday gifts and spending less money this holiday season.

So if you own or operate an ecommerce web site and hope to turn a profit this holiday season, the message is clear. Your web design and your products really need to stand out. You need to make sure customers can easily and quickly navigate through your site. You need to make sure you have (in stock) the products that customers are looking for. And you need to make sure you have enough bandwidth, so if your site gets lots of hits, it won't slow down.

To see the full story visit: http://www.ecommerce-guide.com/solutions/advertising/article.php/3786966

Now that Halloween is over and November is underway, it's time to reassess -- and adjust -- your holiday email marketing plans.

Find out what Web shop owners should be doing between now and Dec. 1 to optimize their holiday email marketing efforts.

To see the full story visit: http://www.ecommerce-guide.com/solutions/advertising/article.php/3783891

Tips and Tools for a Thanksgiving-Themed Website Redesign

While cornstalks, turkeys and pilgrims set a festive decor for millions of homes and brick-and-mortar businesses across America, you may be wondering how to bring the feel of Thanksgiving to your ecommerce website.

If you are looking to dress up your site and brand for the holiday, it is important to remember that you don't need a full website redesign -- in fact, industry experts agree that a redesign just for a holiday is likely to confuse regular visitors to your site.

To see the full story visit: http://www.ecommerce-guide.com/solutions/design/article.php/3784171

New study finds that as customer expectations rise, online businesses neglect user experience at their own peril.

Online shopping is more popular than ever, but a new study has concluded that many ecommerce web sites provide a poor user experience, causing many customers to abandon their transactions and head to a competitor's site.

The survey, conducted by Harris Interactive, was commissioned by Tealeaf, a web company that provides Customer Experience Management (CEM) software to online merchants.

Of the 84 percent of online adults who shop online, nearly nine out of 10 said they have had trouble completing a transaction. Forty-one percent of the people who reported having problems said they either navigated to an alternative site or simply abandoned the transaction altogether.

To see the complete story visit: http://www.internetnews.com/ec-news/article.php/3771711/Online+Shoppers+in+Search+of+Better+Service.htm

7strategy selected as the

"Top Ten Most Dependable Web Design Firms"

featured in Southwest Airlines Spirit Magazine

 KANSAS CITY - May 15^th, 2008 -  7strategy, a Kansas City-based full service web design and development firm announced today that 7strategy has been honored as the Top 10 Most Dependable Web Design Firms , by Goldline Research.

Goldline made the announcement with a feature of 7strategy in Southwest Airlines Spirit Magazine. Firms were first selected and pre-screened using private and public sources. Research of the initially chosen web design companies took place over several months and the final list was later refined using specific criteria including: customer satisfaction surveys, number of clients, productivity measurements and client references (to name a few).

Ted Paff, Goldline Research President says, "Being selected for The 10 Most Dependable list clearly sets these companies apart from their competitors. Companies on The 10 Most Dependable list are considered high-quality companies that have achieved a level of excellence in customer service and professionalism."

7strategy Vice President of Business Development, Rasvir Mustan says, "We're proud to have received this award - and is a real testament to our team's capabilities and the trust we've established with our clients. This kind of ranking," continued Mustan, "will help strategically position 7strategy for future growth and competitive advantage."

About 7strategy

7strategy is a premier web development and online marketing firm headquartered in Kansas City. Rapidly growing, the company has acquired a worldwide customer base and has completed their most recent expansion into Colorado. With a reputation for truly innovative work along with strategic planning, 7strategy has built a reputation for delivering websites that blend design, e-commerce, Flash and 3D into solutions that leave a lasting impression and convert traffic into customers. Having been chosen by notable national clients to overhaul their website, 7strategy continues to set the standard of website design and development.

For more information, visit 7strategy website or contact 7strategy LLC, 117 N. Cooper St., Olathe, KS, by telephone at 913-638-2130.

Origins of E-Commerce

Do you know where and when the ecommerce born, well with this video you will know.