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August 30th, 2008 Losing Sight of the Big Picture  When starting a website one can easily become overwhelmed with all the options available for it’s creation, promoting it and improving sales. Concentrating on (or obsessing about) just one aspect of the website or website promotion can lead to you losing sight of the big picture of how all the pieces fit together.As you start researching what is required for successful marketing on the Internet you are confronted with all kinds of ideas of what to do. Search engine optimization, web design elements, marketing sales copy, getting listed quickly in the search engines, email marketing, there’s so many the list could go on forever. With all the excitement around each idea, it’s easy to get caught up in the hype and lose sight of the big picture, to create a successful website using different techniques that work for your targeted audience.The website is an investment both in time and money. To get a good return on investment (ROI) you need to carefully consider which ideas you come across will work for your target audience. It’s not just about having a ton of hits on the website, it’s about drawing in buying customers. Investing time and money wisely on ideas which truly give a better return on investment is the way to go. Sometimes, this does require stretching the budget for the right investment.Search engine optimization (SEO) is one area where there is all kinds advice available on the Net. Whether you do your own SEO or hire it out, analyzing the advice you find and calculating the true ROI (look beyond the hype of the advice) would be something to do.Website design is another area where you can invest a lot of time (if you are a DIY website owner) or money (if you hire someone). Carefully considering what website theme and features suit your targeted website visitors is best. It’s easy to get caught up in the idea of a fancy website theme but in the end, it just won’t give you the ROI expected if it is not tailored to suit your website visitors needs and be optimized for the search engines.The list could go on as to all the aspects of a website that are important and that’s the point, there’s so many ideas of how to build and promote your website, you loose sight of the big picture of how everything needs to work together.Start with a plan (or go back to this step if you have an existing website that isn’t performing). Make a list of all the ideas you have collected. Check how the ideas work with what you are marketing and who you are marketing to. Discard the ones that won’t work for your targeted audience. Prioritize. Work on the items that will fit together the best, give the best ROI and ultimately will make the website successful. Get everything in order for your website visitors before spending any time or money on advertising. A website requires ongoing maintenance and updating, so it is never really finished, but get the major components done that your targeted visitors will be looking for before launching the website. If you have done your planning homework you will have part of your search engine optimization program started.Some don’t give an idea a chance. You have worked on your website and search engine optimization but no immediate increase in sales. Things take time to work. Hopping from one website promotion idea to another without giving the previous one a chance it’s going to help. If you have given the promotion idea a fair chance, then maybe you need to review your website content and your search engine optimization. When a promotion idea has worked and then it doesn’t seem to be working, keep in mind your competition is keeping their eye on their site too. If you start beating them, they will tweak their site to try and get back above you in the search engine results. Search engine optimization is an endless task. You have to continually tweak, as your competition will do.Sorting all those ideas you have for marketing your business with ROI in mind will help stop you from losing sight of the big picture, to have a successful online business. Seriously look at each idea, it’s pros and it’s cons, and only try those which work for your business. Don’t let quick and cheap solutions prevail. In the end, a well thought out plan, with a reasonable investment of time and/or money could be the right long term solution, even if it stretches the budget.Article by V7N SEO Blog guest author S. Emerson of Accrete Web Solutions Posted by Cricket @ 10:39 amFiled Under: Marketing | 2 Comments » July 1st, 2008 Search Engine Friendly Flash With the recent new releases by Google and Yahoo concerning advances in crawling flash, we are very pleased to share this timely and very informative article by V7N SEO Blog guest authorS. Emerson of Accrete Web Solutions.The web design and search engine optimization communities are a buzz in the last few days with an announcement that hit the news that it will now be possible to create search engine friendly flash files.Google and Yahoo to Search Inside Flash Files“Adobe announced Tuesday that Google and Yahoo are adding search capabilities that will enable users to look inside the content of files encoded in Adobe’s Flash file format SWF….”Source: The New York Times July 1, 2008Optimized Flash Player makes SWF Flash file format searchable by Google, Yahoo engines“Adobe Systems Inc. today announced that an optimized Adobe Flash Player will be added to the search engines of Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc. under agreements with the two Internet firms. The tool will help the search engines better index dynamic Web content and rich Internet applications (RIA) that include the Flash file format, or Shockwave Flash (SWF)….”“…As a result of the partnership between the three firms, pre-existing Flash-based RIAs, including content that loads at runtime, will be searchable without alteration by companies or developers, Adobe said. Google has added the optimized Flash Player to its site already, and its search engine will be able to access SWF files as of today. Yahoo plans to add the technology to a future update of Yahoo Search. A schedule for adding the technology to Yahoo wasn’t disclosed…”Source: Computerworld July 1, 2008Google has a post on their Webmaster Central blog about this news also, Google learns to crawl Flash, . They have also started answering questions in another post, Improved Flash Indexing. Pay particular attention to the question regarding current technical limitations before you get too excited about this new feature.So how does this effect web design houses and website owners?In the past, it was difficult to get a website built using Flash® indexed in the search engines. If you do a Google search on the topic, you will find ways to attempt to get a flash based website indexed. Now it appears these methods will no longer be required in the future.With this partnership, now websites using Flash® will be indexed better almost immediately according to the post at Google and in the future with Yahoo, per the quote above from Computerworld.What does this mean to website owners?Your website, if it uses Flash®, will be indexed easier in Google and Yahoo. Note that this partnership is with only 2 of the millions of search engines and directories available on the Net. Yes, these two feed information to other search engines and directories, but what about those who are not in partnership with or are fed by these search indexes?This news only tackles one of the problems of using Flash® in a website. There are still the issues of the download speed, usability and accessibility of Flash® that need to be addressed when you hire a designer who wants to build your website using Flash®. A qualified designer can tackle all of these issues, but, will your return on investment justify the expense of hiring such a designer?S. EmersonAccrete Web Solutions Posted by Cricket @ 7:33 pmFiled Under: Google, SEO, Search Engine News, Yahoo Local | 2 Comments » June 23rd, 2008 Industry Specific Buzzwords Take a long hard look at your site. How often do you use words that only someone very familiar with your industry would understand? If your readers cannot easily understand what you are saying, they will leave your site rapidly. When we use jargon or industry specific buzzwords without explaining their meaning, we can lose a huge number of potential sales.If your company offers services, take a look at the list of what you have to offer. Will your target audience understand? You would be shocked to find out how often they do not understand because we use words that they are unfamiliar with.As an example –Let’s say you are a writer and I am browsing through your website because I need someone to help me write content for my site. I know that I am looking for a content writer. If your list of services only says copywriter, and this is the keyword you have targeted, will I know that is what I want? Will I know to even search for it?As another example –Let’s say you are a web designer and I am browsing through your website because I need someone that will set a site up for me. If you are busy telling me that your work validates with the W3C, will I know what that is?Will I care? Have you told me why it matters? If you are talking to me about domain names and hosting, do you assume that I know what this all means? Do you have an FAQ (frequently asked questions) section that will explain it to me?Go ahead and use buzzwords if you must, just make sure it is not your only focus, and that your target audience understands the meaning. One way to verify this is to have someone read through your website who is not familiar with your business. Ask them tell you if they do not understand sections.Finally, keep in mind that if our target audience does not know the industry specific buzzwords that we keep focusing on, they are also unlikely to search for them either.J. Cricket Walker of CricketWalker.com Posted by Cricket @ 11:36 pmFiled Under: Internet Marketing | 3 Comments » May 11th, 2008 Does Google PageRank Matter? I find it difficult to understand how topics involving the importance of Google PageRank continue to be an ongoing debate in forums. Interestingly enough, often those people claiming that PR has nothing to do with how Google determines the placement of sites in search results, are those people with low PR sites.Google PageRank is certainly not the only factor in determining your position in the SERPs, but believing that it does not play a role in search results is simply crazy.A Google feature that helps determine the rank of a site in our search results. PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page’s value. Important, high-quality sites receive a higher PageRank, which Google remembers each time it conducts a search. Google combines PageRank with sophisticated text-matching techniques to find pages that are both important and relevant to your searches. Webmaster Help Center When a user enters a query, our machines search the index for matching pages and return the results we believe are the most relevant to the user. Relevancy is determined by over 200 factors, one of which is the PageRank for a given page. Google 101 How often does Google crawl the web? Google’s spiders regularly crawl the web to rebuild our index. Crawls are based on many factors such as PageRank, links to a page, and crawling constraints such as the number of parameters in a URL. Any number of factors can affect the crawl frequency of individual sites. Webmaster Help CenterPlease do not bother showing me dozens of examples of sites with low PageRank doing better in the search results than sites with higher PR. No one is saying that PageRank is the only factor. It is simply one of many factors involved.Until Google chooses to ignore PageRank by removing it from the algorithm, it would be foolish for website owners to do so. While I do not feel it is something we should obsess over, for top 10 results, we certainly shouldn’t ignore it either.J. Cricket Walker of CricketWalker.com Posted by Cricket @ 8:03 pmFiled Under: SEO | 5 Comments » May 2nd, 2008 10 Ways to Prevent Increasing Links Don’t bother adding comments to popular blogs. It’s a waste of your time. You are about as likely to write anything interesting enough to drive a reader to your website as I am likely to shoot an Ansel Adams’esque windswept landscape, blindfolded.Of course…They just might like what they see, and tell others about you. *gasp!You can’t risk it!They might link to you!If you take the time to set up a blog, make sure that the content is of no value to anyone. Just scrape duplicate content from other blogs and add a ton of spammy links. That way you can be sure no one considers linking to you.Do not add quality content to your website!Make sure it breaks in all but one browser. Preferably Opera: because nobody uses that one anyway.Whatever you do, don’t even think about joining a quality ‘Webmaster Forum’ as the last thing you would want to do is become a valued member of any online community with your signature attached to your post and profile.Though, if you feel the need to join, don’t bother with quality posting……Better yet, don’t even read the rules!Just dive right in with ‘Mr. Obvious Replies’ and spam your URL all over the community in as many threads as possible with as much zest for ctrl-v as your fingers will allow. That way you can get banned faster and won’t have to worry about someone wanting to link to you.Even curiosity can get a hit or two to your site a day and god-forbid if your posts lasted longer than the Windows Boot Logo. This way, they’ll all hit the Spam can and be assured of never being seen.If someone is foolish enough to ask you for an interview after seeing the quality of your posts in the forums, tell them ‘No!’ immediately. You cannot take the risk as they will inevitably link to your site as part of the article. This can be bad news, indeed.If after seeing your crappy content, someone is desperate enough to ask you to write a guest article for them, (it goes without saying that you would certainly never offer to write a guest article) turn them down. If the bar is that high then you haven’t been working hard enough and need to re-read this article. If they insist, make sure you do not add an author bio linking to your site.It would be nuts to submit to a quality directory like the V7N Web Directory. Directories are like a phone book of the web. Why would you want to be listed with like-minded business people?Join social bookmarking sites like StumbleUpon? Are you crazy? Even though they use the nofollow attribute on all outgoing links, you cannot take the risk.What if someone actually likes what you have to say, and starts paying attention to your post? What if they look up the URL to your site? Don’t do it! A few links might sneak through!Co-Authored by Jay M. of OpticalDevotee and Cricket of CricketWalker.com Posted by Cricket @ 4:42 pmFiled Under: Links, SEO | 6 Comments » February 24th, 2008 On the Importance of Communication  For the most part, I’m not inclined to explain myself. If I do something, I know why I did it and if others can’t understand, or if they misunderstand me, I tend to think of that as their problem, not mine. In the past, this attitude has gotten me in trouble. In business and marketing, it can really get you in trouble. I recently saw a post by DreamHost staff making fun of their own downtime. At first, it was very confusing. Do they now know how offensive their clients find downtime to be? It seriously angers me when a host I pay good money to can’t keep their servers up. But I’m sure they know that. They just didn’t communicate their knowledge of it very well. In business, especially the Internet kind, I think communication is extremely important. Explaining where you see your organization going is important. Explaining how you will deal with challenges that arise, and how you plan to overcome challenges that have arose; these are important tasks, and fundamental to marketing. Customers can’t read you mind. You need to tell them exactly what you’re thinking. That’s my thought for the day, and one that is somewhat related to my post about Brand Management. Posted by admin @ 9:14 amFiled Under: Branding, Brands | 3 Comments » February 18th, 2008 Stepping Away For active members of the V7N Forums, the announcement that I’ve stepped away from V7N’s daily operations is not new news. For several months now I’ve been less and less active. Adam Smith, a friend I knew in Seattle who lives with his wife and children here in Tokyo, has taken over day-to-day operations. He effectively runs our Contextual Links service, and our customers give him rave reviews. Reiko still handles the office and taxes and all those mundane things.As for me, I must admit that SEO no longer holds my attention. That does sound like a horrible thing to say after the kindness the SEO industry has shown me, and the lifestyle it has afforded me, and the relationships which resulted from my participation in this industry. But the fact remains that SEO simply doesn’t interest me. At this point in life I’d be more interested in reading a user guide to a microwave oven than a Google patent. Making money is good, and SEO does that. The Internet remains the easiest place to advertise and the largest market there is. But in the end, what does it matter? For the past several months, I’ve been in “back to school” mode. At my age, going back to school is certainly not the norm. But the political issues we still face today interest me, and I’ve always believed that people do the best at what interests them. No, I’m not going into politics. But I do want to understand the issues, and see if I can’t add my voice to the chorus of voices that is required in a democracy. What does the future hold for V7N? I really don’t know. I’ve considered selling. I still do consider selling. But for now, there will be no major changes. Adam and Reiko are running things nicely and it leaves me plenty of time to read and study. If I do sell V7N, it will be with stipulations that protect the interests of our customers. So, in other words, no worries. And thanks to all the fine folks in the SEO industry who’ve made it such an intriguing and human industry. Posted by admin @ 12:31 amFiled Under: V7N Stuff | 9 Comments » December 24th, 2007 Tips on Advertising I’m no expert on advertising. I do tend to be greedier than many advertisers, though, and my approach to advertising has served me well. So think of it as a guerrilla marketer’s guide to advertising.Advertising Builds Brand AwarenessA lot of folks want advertising to convert immediately. That’s rarely what happens. Advertising should be thought of primarily as a brand building vehicle.Take for example my banner ads for V7 Inc, our web hosting service. Most users seeing that banner will see it at the very moment that they need web hosting. Most impressions will be wasted, if you think of it that way. But what the advertising does is build awareness of the V7 Inc brand so that when the time comes, and the consumer thinks, “I need hosting”, V7 Inc may have a place in that consumer’s mind.To illustrate this point, I will admit to placing affiliate banner ads for LunarPages on V7N’s Hosting Directory. Although the banner ads were removed last month, just yesterday I received notification of a sign up. People do not necessearily act immediately, but if your ad is being seen chances are it is making an impression which may translate into sales down the road. Read the rest of this entry » Posted by admin @ 8:59 amFiled Under: Advertising | 1 Comment » December 10th, 2007 What Determines Link Juice Whatever determines link juice, it sure as hell ain’t PageRank. This comes as no new news to most SEO’s, but the myth of PageRank being the dominant factor in link juice is still quite popular amongst the forum posting crowd. We here at v7n place a lot of links. (Matt doesn’t read this, does he?) Our Contextual Links Program has paid out over $140,000 to thousands of bloggers. So, yeah, we know links. In the link building business, no matter how indifferent one is, sooner or later you’ll take a good look at what links are passing link juice and what links aren’t. So we do tests. We place links on blogs, using keywords in the anchor texts that do not appear on the linked-to pages. We track these links, and sometimes we place them on pages blogs that we wouldn’t usually use in the program. We place them on brand spanking new PR0 websites. We place others on old crummy PR0 websites. In most cases, the links do pass link juice. Yes, links on PR0 websites - websites that have never had PR - still pass link juice. Amazingly enough, they pass enough link juice to put the linked-to website in the top ten for search terms that do not even appear on the linked-to page. But sometimes links do not pass ranking juice. Why is that? When we find sites that do not pass link juice - and they are not as common as you might think - the one thing they all have in common is a lot of links to not-so-nice neighborhoods. And that doesn’t mean “paid links”. Paid links, even when they are marked as such, do not automatically result in a website losing its link juice. It appears to be an issue of number, frequency and percentage. If a good portion of the outbound links are to penalized websites, you can expect to lose your link juice. If, on the other hand, you slip in an occasional link or two to a bad neighborhood, chances are that you will not suffer any link juice loss. Posted by admin @ 3:59 pmFiled Under: SEO | 10 Comments » October 15th, 2007 Blog Action Day: Environment _qacct="p-0b3h-OQlCaVM-";quantserve(); var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src="http://blog.v7n.com//" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-4812160-1"); pageTracker._setDomainName("v7n.com"); pageTracker._initData(); pageTracker._trackPageview(); |
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