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4 Criteria to Consider when choosing a new Domain Name

May 17, 2010 By

We’re often asked by online marketing clients and others to help choose a domain name for their site.

From a strict SEO perspective, there is indeed a debate as to whether the domain name affects rankings in the search engines. In addition to this, we also think about how it will impact the user’s experience – from the first impression it creates when it’s first noticed to how easily people remember it.

While there are several things to consider when choosing a new domain name, your web address should meet the following 4 criteria.

1. Easy to remember

Your domain should be as descriptive of your business as possible so it helps explains to newcomers what your business is about. This includes the order of words as well as the words themselves.

2. Easy to spell

Try to avoid words people may have difficulty spelling. This will save you headaches when trying to give your web address over the phone and help avoid typos from people typing it in directly or in any press coverage.

3. Contains keywords (industry, location, etc.)

While it’s debated as to whether there are any SEO benefits to be had in your domain name, all things equal, it may help. Use hyphens to separate words so search engines can recognize them (seo-advantage.com vs. seoadvantage.com). If you do this, be sure you purchase both domains so you can redirect folks who don’t use the hyphen and not lose out on their traffic.

4. Brief

What’s a good length for a URL? That depends but you shouldn’t sacrifice the other elements just so you can have a short URL. Your initials will make the URL brief but it won’t carry much benefit otherwise…but don’t make it so long and full of keywords that it’s hard to remember and difficult to enter in.

Remember, you need to think about how this URL will look on your business cards, brochures and other marketing materials as well.

The domain name you ultimately choose for your business will be influenced by your business’ name and situation. If your company is well known or its name meets the criteria above, use it since you will want to build your brand in that regard. Keep in mind that you can purchase several domain names that you think people may try and type in to find you.

Some final advice – get some impressions from friends and colleagues before settling on a new domain name. You never know what a second, third or fifth set of eyes can pick up on!

Filed Under: Online Marketing, Site Architecture, Tip of the Day Tagged With: , , , , ,

How Many Keywords Should I Target in a Landing Page?

May 10, 2010 By

Writing content for your website is undoubtedly a major undertaking requiring time and patience. Much research is required beforehand along with organizing your thoughts – all of that before you even write a word!

Considering the time and resources it takes to create landing pages and articles, you may think optimizing for as many keywords as you can is the way to go.

Absolutely not!

To be clear, I’m not saying you should only have one or two words on your page and that’s it…you can’t simply have your keyword(s) with no supporting content to go with it.

However, your page needs to have one primary focus, one underlying concept. Optimizing your webpage for several keywords dilutes the impact of your copy which means you will have wasted your time rather than taking it slow and doing it right.

In many instances, you may have two words that mean exactly the same thing – take “certified public accountant” and “CPA” for example. Both essentially mean the same thing and conceivably either one will be used in an online search. But adding “tax accountant”, “tax services” and “income tax filing” to the same page will dilute your results and keep your rankings off page 1. While these concepts are related to one another, combining all of these keywords onto one page will only frustrate your efforts.

You shouldn’t think of web pages as a catch-all where you can optimize for several different concepts at once…doing so usually results in confusing the search engine and lowering your rankings.

Reading this is probably leading you to one conclusion – “I’m going to have to create a lot of landing pages!”

Quite true…and while it’s a long endeavor, it’s well worth it in the long run. Start out with the big keywords and work your way down. In due time, you will cover your target markets and have a better position in the search engines and well on your way to higher site visits and conversions.

Filed Under: Copywriting/SEO Content Development, Online Marketing, SEO Technology, Tip of the Day Tagged With: , , ,

3 Essential Components of SEO Reporting: Going Beyond Rankings

May 5, 2010 By

One of the best ways to prove enterprise-level SEO provides a strong, consistent return on investment is to provide ongoing SEO reports to your bosses or clients.

Many SEO professionals in the past relied on providing simple visibility reports that detailed the rankings for particular keyword phrases in the top search engines – namely Google, Yahoo and Bing. While this data can provide some excellent illustration of a project’s success, it is possible that reporting of this nature can be misleading or irrelevant when considering things from a conversion/revenue perspective.

Continue reading to learn about 3 essential components your SEO report should have so your bosses or clients can have actionable insight into how their SEO campaigns are progressing…please note that each client is different so you may have to provide modified/customized reporting formats.

1. Executive Summary

This summary provides a quick overview of the SEO campaign’s performance and describes what activities were performed since the last report. This section can also provide other metrics that apply to the client’s particular situation.

2. Visibility Reporting

When starting an SEO project, you collect a list of keyword phrases you intend to target, giving you a baseline ranking report for positioning in the search engines. Progress is measure against this baseline ranking on an ongoing basis.

A good visibility report provides the baseline ranking, the prior report’s rankings and the current rankings for your chosen phrases. It’s important that people who look at your report understand these rankings represent a snapshot in time, as they may not actually match when the report is actually completed and delivered.

WARNING: Unethical SEOs can manipulate this type of information, targeting easy-to-rank for keywords and making it look like the client is farther along than they really are.

3. Analytics Reporting

Analytics should be the primary driver for any actionable data contained in an SEO report. Any number of key performance indicators can apply, including:

  • Organic traffic (broken into branded and non-branded searches when possible)
  • Organic conversion percentage
  • Average order value
  • Revenue per visit

There are many ways you can present this type of information but the most important thing to remember is that analytics data should drive ongoing strategy and adjustments to an ongoing SEO campaign.

Many have a tendency to think that search engine rankings for a particular set of keywords are all that matter but realistically, conversions are what matter so don’t forget to include this type of information in any SEO report you provide clients.

Simply tracking organic results is doing a big disservice to them.

Filed Under: SEO Technology, Tip of the Day Tagged With: , , ,

7 Ways Site Search Benefits your Online Marketing Efforts

April 28, 2010 By

Many websites today contain lots of information on helping visitors educate themselves and answer questions without making contact. These sites though are increasingly complex…and with all the features jam packed into today’s websites, it can be difficult for visitors to even ascertain if the site has what  they need, much less how to find it.

This is the central reason why installing a “site search” function on your website is a necessary investment for making your website a dependable lead generating tool.

Below are 7 advantages you can expect to see from installing a “site search” function on your website.

1. Satisfies customer’s “I want now” attitude

Time is money no doubt and many people who encounter a confusing site with lots of content won’t stick around long to dig through it. A site search gives someone the opportunity to quickly enter keyword phrases on what they’re looking for rather than sift through what they see as a confusing navigational structure.

2. Helps make your site more “customer-centric”

Successful websites must cater to a wide-range of Internet users – knowledge seekers, prospects, buyers and long-term customers. Site search helps you do this since it helps knowledge seekers find information on your site more easily…in essence, site search helps you transform your site from a “one size fits all” to a more “customer-centric” approach.

3. Appeals to the “searcher” type site visitor

People are different and prefer different ways of finding things. If someone uses a Google search to find you, they are more likely to rush to the search box to find information within your site.

4. Obtain valuable marketing data

With the right analytic tools, you can gather data from your site search function that gives you valuable information on who visits your site and how they navigate around it – their desires, intent and behavior. You can see exactly which pages they looked for and found and which ones they read and which ones prompted them to leave the site…this information can be tremendously helpful when planning your marketing strategy.

5. Site search provides insight into usability issues

Saving usage data and click path from real users through your site search function allows you to easily locate where users had difficulty, giving you clues as to places you need to update or expand. Adding typical searched on phrases can help you and your copywriters learn about who is using your site and plan content accordingly.

6. Get new product ideas

Looking at user’s searches can also help you identify new products. If a large number of customers search for something you don’t yet offer, you may want to consider offering a product that fills that void – especially if your site is already bringing in traffic for it.

7. Learn new keywords

Site search may also help you find keywords you weren’t aware, allowing you the opportunity to work those into your content. You may have pages you think are relevant to a specific topic that is missing the words people actually use to look for it. This information can help you refine your content and reach a wider audience.

To be successful online, you need to be mindful on new ways people are using to find and disseminate information online. Those looking to evolve their websites according to user demands could use a good site search function on their sites.

We recommend starting with Google custom search, which is readily adaptable to your needs.

Filed Under: Online Marketing, SEO Technology, Site Architecture, Tip of the Day Tagged With: , , , , , ,

My Site’s been Penalized – What Do I Do?

April 26, 2010 By

It’s the bain of any SEO or webmaster’s existence…your site for some reason has been penalized by Google and you’re experiencing a drop in rankings or site traffic. It may seem that all you have worked for may be slipping away. Your boss is unhappy or worse, that client you labored to obtain is getting nervous or upset.

No reason for despair if this happens to you. Rather, look at it as a process of discovery as to why you’re site’s dropped…you may be surprised at what you find out.

Here’s a method you can use to aid in your quest of finding the source of your problem and getting right with Google…watch the video below for more details.

Are you sure it’s a penalty?

There’s a good chance that it’s not even a penalty per se but more of a technical issue. Maybe there’s a crawl problem or you forgot to include keywords in some of your content. Check and see if Google is indexing your pages by typing a keyword phrase, a colon then your web address (keyword:http://www.yoursite.com/) and see if they’re indexing your pages.

Try and identify whether you’re experiencing a rankings drop or a traffic drop…doing that will help you determine what you can do to fix the problem.

Are any links you have causing the problem?

Links are big part of building rankings in the search engines so it stands to reason something could go wrong and cause a drop in rankings or traffic. There are a couple of possible reasons for this.

The first is a more outright penalty for having links from sites that make it look kind of obvious that you’re employing spammy/black hat type practices. They frown upon this and you can consider it to be more of a direct penalty.

On the other hand, you have many sites linking to you that were acquired legitimately through Google’s eyes that may not be valued as much or not at all for whatever reason. Maybe they’re engaging in bad linking practices or another site linking to them is. Either way, the link value you were getting isn’t there anymore so it will be prudent to get rid of that link to try and remedy the problem.

Getting right with Google

Once you’ve identified the problem, now you need to get back on the right side with Google’s spam team. Getting back in is usually based on three factors:

  1. Severity of the penalty or mistake
  2. Is this the first time or is it a repeat problem?
  3. Are you a brand name or little guy?

The more severe the error the tougher it will be getting back into Google. If you’ve engaged in any spammy/black hat practices for example you will have a harder time getting back in. First timers are given a little more leniency than repeat situations. And of course, size matters in this world so if you’re a big brand name site like Sony, Walmart, etc. you will have an easier time.

But if you’re a little guy and it’s the third time on a pretty bad penalty, you’re probably toast…you’re really at the mercy of the Google gods so the best thing to do is when you contact their spam team, be completely honest about any mistakes, etc. and what you discovered as your problem.

It’s possible they may ignore you and at some point, you will need to decide what to do. If you go a couple of months and you’re not getting anywhere with Google after you’ve discovered your problem, consider redirecting your site through a 301 redirect and starting over.

As you see, there are many reasons why you could be experiencing trouble with your Google rankings…watch the video for more details and other technical reasons as to why.

Filed Under: SEO Technology, Tip of the Day Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
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