May 2009 Archives

Although on site optimization is only one part of SEO, it's still essential to ensure your site is built in a search-engine "amenable" way.

But is it necessary to adhere to every tenet preached by SEO experts? Are there certain processes or practices that you should definitely follow and others that are nice to have?
Companies should try to adhere to specific practices when building a Web site. There are three key areas to consider when optimizing a Web site: navigation/linking, design, and content.

See the full story at: http://www.clickz.com/3633547

Your most reliable collection point for e-mail addresses is a dedicated subscription page at your Web site, but it's not the only source.

Online vs. Offline Acquisition

Your subscription or registration page is the best source of e-mail addresses, for two reasons:

• Verified information: Your subscribers are providing the information and are responsible for its accuracy. Depending on how you set up your subscription page, you might be able to help them verify it.

• Consistent message: Your e-mail program's value proposition and benefits are presented exactly as you intend them.

As reliable as online collection is, it lacks the personal touch of a persuasive salesperson at the cash register or on the sales or trade-show floor. With the right point-of-sales (POS) equipment, your salesperson can enter the e-mail address during the sale, while the customer's interest is red-hot. You also have exposure to a wider range of customers, not just the ones who shop online.

See the full story at: http://www.clickz.com/3633650

Maintaining any healthy, balanced relationship takes a lot of work. There's the compromise, the willingness to do things for each other, and, of course, the endless honey-do list.

When you're talking about a relationship with the online users who share your interests, maintaining this balance is critical, takes effort, and relies largely on the reciprocal sharing of links. Those links need to be earned through commitment and value given first without expectations.

By linking to valuable content and driving traffic back and forth within a neighborhood of good sites, you can provide your users with an expanded universe of knowledge across a myriad of subcategories within your content area. In addition to nurturing the ongoing dialogue you strive to produce with your users, the creation of this neighborhood will establish you as a credible source for relevant industry information.

See the full story at: http://www.clickz.com/3633649

In its simplest form, SEO is a three-step process: break down crawling barriers to help the engines efficiently index a Web site; craft keyword-targeted content that appeals to search engines and visitors alike; and, most critical, practice link-building for targeted terms and phrases.

Social media optimization, on the other hand, is primarily about knocking down the walls of user-generated content to be a dynamic part of an online community. It's not a simple process and it takes time. Just because a "Digg This" button has been added to a blog or Web site doesn't mean every post or product is compelling enough to be considered socially buzzworthy.

Social media is just another liberating facet of content optimization tactics that can lure in thousands of new visitors and hundreds of inbound links. When it works, it's scalable. But it doesn't always work in a predictable manner.

See the full story: http://www.clickz.com/3633618

With Mother's Day a few short days away, perhaps it's time we gave a little respect to the moms and aslo contact a web design for little refresh of your site for this special day

See the full story at: http://www.websitemagazine.com/content/blogs/posts/archive/2009/05/04/moms-in-business-and-everday-usability.aspx

Buying into SEO is a difficult process. Without at least a basic understanding of SEO, it's really tough to tell the difference between someone who knows their stuff and someone who talks a great game without backing it up with results.

Many companies looking for SEO help -- even those with a decent understanding of SEO -- try their best to shop around, but they always end up with two simple questions:

1. What is this firm going to do for me?

2. How much do they cost?

When you're hiring for a particular position in any business, you're looking at that individual's background. You aren't just hiring them based on how much they cost, or what they say that they will (or can) do. You're hiring them based on their resume, their references, and their history of performance.

For some reason, these basic principles get lost for people when they search for an SEO company (or hire an in-house optimizer). By selecting an agency or employee purely on cost, you could be setting yourself up for trouble ahead.

See the full story at: http://searchenginewatch.com/3633648

I have a saying that I often apply to many situations in life: "Don't go to China to get to California."

How does that apply to online marketing? More often than not, we determine an online campaign's success through some high value action, like lead capture, video view, or something similar. But just as often, and even though these actions are at the heart of a campaign's success, those actions are hidden or put at the end of a process or banner.

 Critical messages and calls to action are obscured by creative, images, and messaging, and they're relegated to the back of the visual and click-path sequence. Yet those items' resulting metrics are the first thing people look at when evaluating a campaign's key performance indicators

See the full story at: http://www.clickz.com/3633548

Depending on your industry, your business is probably down significantly. While no one likes the way things are right now, there some useful ways to be spending this down time, ways that will help differentiate your company. We find that small innovations help our customers increase their revenue and position them for future growth.

Let's look at simple changes first. One client just changed its site navigation to better reflect what people are buying now. Has buying behavior shifted on your site? If so, create a test in which you embrace this shift and make it easy for customers to find the products that are trending well. Our client saw a 10 percent conversion increase during this test. It's now using that navigation primarily, while continuing small tests that feature other categories and product types.

See the full story at: http://www.clickz.com/3633595http://www.clickz.com/3633595

A Tweak a Day Convinces Visitors to Stay

We want our site visitors to complete the tasks we designate for them. We want them to feel comfortable, rather than anxious. We want to persuade them to do something beyond what they came for, or maybe tell a friend about what we offer. You can nurture your website every day by remembering that you are the host and everyone who arrives wants to know what you have and how it will benefit them.

Here are some ways you can take a fresh look at your website every day to ensure maximum usability:

1. Give someone who is not familiar with the site a task to complete. Observe how they navigate your site and go about completing that task. Note any areas of difficulty, no matter how small.

2. Go back and gather every possible note, bar napkin and whiteboard meeting scribble where the design was hashed out. Look for and document those ideas that were not included. These may turn into future enhancements. See the full story at: http://www.websitemagazine.com/content/blogs/posts/pages/everyday-usability-14-point-checklist-for-success.aspx

A recent study on usability found that men prefer fast download speed to easy navigation. Women prefer ease of use, easy navigation, and accessibility.

In a survey of 301 undergraduates on the importance of different web usability criteria, researchers from Southern Illinois University found that after ease of use, men prefer fast download speed over easy navigation while women prefer ease of use, easy navigation, and accessibility.

Both genders seemed to agree that ease of use is the most important factor in assessing website usability. It is in the second-most important factor that gender differences come into play. Men prefer fast download speeds second, while women prefer easy navigation. Web customization was found to be the least important factor in web usability , consistent with a previous design factors research.

In a survey of 301 undergraduates on the importance of different web usability criteria, researchers from Southern Illinois University found that after ease of use, men prefer fast download speed over easy navigation while women prefer ease of use, easy navigation, and accessibility.

Both genders seemed to agree that ease of use is the most important factor in assessing website usability. It is in the second-most important factor that gender differences come into play. Men prefer fast download speeds second, while women prefer easy navigation. Customization was found to be the least important factor in web usability , consistent with a previous design factors research.

See the full story at: http://www.websitemagazine.com/content/blogs/posts/archive/2009/05/01/men-vs-women-website-optimization-usability-study.aspx

More than 200 years ago, Voltaire said, "The perfect is the enemy of the good." It's a concept that still holds true today.

A recent Jupiter Research executive survey asked email marketers what their greatest challenge was for improving their e-mail programs. The answer: "Knowing where to begin." My response to these confused marketers: Start somewhere; start anywhere. Even the smallest change you make today will start you down the path to the right strategy.

See the full story at: http://www.clickz.com/3633579

Online search is a critical component of doing business today, and not just because people need to find whatever it is you're selling. Search engines are the barometer of relevance in our digital society. If a Web site lands high in a search result, the collective feeling is that it must be important and relevant to a large number of people, lending credibility and trustworthiness to the product or service being offered.

Thus, visibility in search results reaps many benefits, not the least of which are prosperity and good reputation. I know very few companies that wouldn't want those benefits on their side.

See the full story: http://www.clickz.com/3633516