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Consumer Time Spent on Mobile – Few companies budget to take advantage of the opportunity

Posted on April 17, 2012 by admin

“No one ever got fired for making a television commercial because you can’t prove that it’s not working”. That’s what Patrick Moorehead senior vice president of mobile at draft CB had to say in Chicago recently.

What Mr. Moorehead was referring to is the fact that most companies are not allocating budget towards mobile marketing. A recent report released by Flurry Analytics shows that mobile is consuming 23% of consumers time yet receives only 1% of budget money. This demonstrates the deep gap between brands marketing campaigns and user behavior.

A lot of companies are saying that they understand mobile is both today and the future. A look around in any mall, restaurant or just about any place where the public is gathered and the evidence is very strong of how addicted people are to their mobile devices. Companies just don’t understand how to pay for reaching them.

Mobile advertising should be woven into every piece of both online and off-line marketing. The key to mobile marketing is to first reach the market and then measure all actions and conversions. This is still a very new medium that many people are having a very hard time wrapping their minds around.

It does not appear that it is make or break for companies in the search engines having a mobile optimized site, but not having even a mobile optimized site means that many companies are missing out on a great opportunity to connect with consumers.

To read the entire article regarding mobile marketing check out the article Mobile is Under spent in marketing budgets: Draftfcb exec

You can find it on the Mobile Marketer website.

Posted in Mobile Marketing | Tagged mobile marketing budget | Leave a comment

Top 10 mistakes made in Title Tags – And what to do about them to get a page ranked.

Posted on February 27, 2012 by admin

One of the most important upgrades you can make to get a page ranked in the Search Engine results pages is to incorporate proper title tags.

Search engines put great importance on title tags as they use them to define the topic of the individual page. Title tags are placed in the header of each page between the <head> </head> tags. This tag can be found by looking at the source of any page. In Internet Explorer the title appears in the upper left of the blue “title bar” located across the top of your open browser window.

When optimizing a site each page should be made up of an individual topic or theme. Usually this is restricted to 1-3 words/phrases that are closely related. This defines the topic of the page to the search engines and is reinforced by both internal and third-party anchor text.

For maximum effect in the search engine results pages, the title must be interesting enough to compel the searcher to click on the result. In addition, the title is used when shared on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Again, you must compel social media users to click on the link. An added benefit is that social media mentions, are a ranking factor in Google’s search results.

Take the time to check the following 10 steps against the titles on your pages. If you find any of these problems take the time to make the corrections as this is the most important piece of search engine optimization you can do.

10 steps to increase business using correct Title tags.

1. Homepage; a common mistake is using “Home” or “Home Page” in the title tag

For 99% of the sites out there the homepage is the most important page of the site. In most cases, it is the door that opens for the most visitors to the site and is commonly the most linked to. Therefore, it is very important to have the title accurately reflect the topic of the page. “Home” is generally an ignored word if the rest of the page is not optimized for the word home.

2. Do not place your domain name in the title tag

A common mistake is to add the companies domain name in the title tag. In most cases, the search engines are smart enough to rank you well for your domain name. Do not waste the space of this important tag.

3. Restrict your title tag to 70 characters

Title tags that are longer than 70 characters will get truncated and may not display your entire message that compels the searcher to go to your site.

4. Use as close to 70 characters as possible

each page stands on its own as an individual topic, but may contain a couple of keywords that are related to each other. For example, using a title such as “DUI attorney” may not help you attract people who are searching for “DUI lawyer”. By combining the two. “DUI attorney | DUI lawyer “ you are in effect widening the net of keywords that you can be found for.

5. You must include the keywords that are relevant to the page

Too many times I see companies that will write a title and not use any keywords. They may write something to the effect of “free shipping” or “contact us”. Remember, the purpose of the title tag is to get your page found in the search engines and to compel people to click on that link when they see it in the search engine result pages.

6. Do you want more business or an ego stroke?

You have to make a decision. Do you want qualified visitors to your site or you just want to build your brand? Time to push the ego aside and make use of your title tags to increase the number of people who find you. Visitors coming from the search engines will in most cases be new visitors. People who are not familiar with your company. They’re more interested in knowing about your product or service than they are your name.

A well known brand such as Neiman Marcus benefits from their name in the title. Unless you have a well known brand there really is no reason to put your company name in the title. You will be much better served to add your company name in the meta-description. If you feel as though you must add your name add it at the end of the title tag.

7. The first three words are the most important

Both search engines and searchers look at the first couple of words of the title tag. We read from left to right. By putting the most important words at the beginning of the title tag we’re able to capture the searchers attention and compel them to read the rest of the title and hopefully lead them into the description that follows.

8. If you depend on business locally, Include your location

search engines and searchers alike want to know where you are located. If your dependent on people in a geographic location you must include at least the city you are in. While it is possible that you would hire for example: an attorney that is out of your area, it is highly unlikely. In some cases, like pizza shop. It helps to be able to add a neighborhood name and even a zip code. Following is an example. Injury Attorney Mesa AZ | Injury Lawyer Mesa AZ

9. Do not stuff your title tag with keywords

There’s a fine line between getting getting found in the search engines and compelling people to click on your listing to get them to come to your site. By “stuffing” your title tag with a string of keywords. You may be able to rank well in the search engines, but few if any searchers will actually click and come through to your site. A simple example of this would be: DUI | DUI attorney | DUI lawyer | lawyer | Attorney

Do not duplicate title tags from page to page

A very common mistake is writing a good title tag and duplicating it from page to page. Unfortunately, some content management systems will not allow you to change the title from page to page. This is a problem that goes much deeper than this article. Remember, each title must define the topic or theme of the individual page it is on.

About the author: Terry Mickelson has been doing search engine optimization since 1998 and is the founder of the Scottsdale SEO company PageViews. PageViews provides performance-based search engine optimization – you only pay for results.

Posted in SEO | Tagged ranking, scottsdale SEO, search engine optimization, search engine rank, SEO, title tags | Leave a comment

Are you measuring customer satisfaction?

Posted on February 19, 2012 by terrymickelson

Recently I did a search for the keywords “customer satisfaction”. I came upon a recent press release put out by a company called South Office, LLC. titled “Roses Are Red, Violets Are Blue, Why’s It So Hard… To Dump You?”

The article addresses an issue that many of us struggle with. How do you get your customers to give you honest real-time feedback? In the past, the answer has not been comment cards as much as we would like them to be. How many times have you gone to Home Depot or Jack-in-the-Box and been asked to go to a website that is on their receipt? They try to lure you in with a $5000 all-you-can-eat burger drawing or some other promotion. Half the time when I have tried to complete these using my iPhone I get part way through and the survey times out. No es bueno.

Other businesses, especially those that are dependent on the local market try to rely on social reviews at sites such as yelp and Citysearch. These business owners, hopefully, understand that the only people completing these reviews are those that are either bribed, extremely happy or haters – people that have had very bad experiences.

South Office, LLC appears to have come up with a very good answer to give accurate real-time data to business owners that is based on a study produced by Harvard. They incorporate. QR Codes and customer satisfaction surveys. If you would like to read the South Office, LLC article about customer feedback management, you can find it here. Did I mention the service is free?

Scottsdale search engine optimization company, PageViews achieves first page rankings in the search engines for clients from many different industries. PageViews does not get paid until rankings reach a top 10 position. PageViews Interactive also specializes in reputation management. Although we can help companies remove negative listings from top search engine results pages, we also take preventive steps to ensure that the top ranking pages are controlled by customer companies.

Posted in Customer Service | Tagged customer comment cards, customer satisfaction, customer satisfacton, measure, pageviews, Scottsdale search engine optimization | Leave a comment

link building automation

Posted on February 19, 2012 by terrymickelson

If you are involved in the search engine optimization business you know that everywhere you look new tools have recently popped up that promise to change your life. Promises of giving you time back, relieving you of ever having to write copy and top Google rankings. All for about $147 per month.

Those of us that have been in the industry for more than a couple of years have to Scoff. We have seen tools come and go. Doorway creators, meta-tag builders, scripts that would steal your e-mail address land on a page and more. In my humble opinion, there are no shortcuts. There are helpers that do reduce the amount of time needed but no magic bullet.

For professional results in competitive spaces you can save time and money by hiring a professional SE company. Feel Free to call Aaron at 480-556-9752 Ext. 1 for more deails or check out PageViews by clicking here. Scottsdale SEO

Posted in Search Engine Marketing | Tagged building automated links, link automation | Leave a comment

11 SEO tips for ecommerce sites

Posted on February 16, 2012 by terrymickelson

This morning I read a good article relating to ecommerce sites and what the owners of these sites must keep in mind when optimizing the site.

Create unique content on each of your product and product category pages.
Discover what shoppers are actually searching for.
Create pages for categories people are searching for.
Interlink your pages using good anchor text.
Allow people to share your products on social media sites.
Get valuable backlinks.
Avoid duplicate content issues.
Use descriptive URLs.
Let visitors leave reviews.
Include a sitemap to help Google find all your pages.
Update your website content regularly.

Most of these tips are true for all sites. For “the rest of the story” go here.

Posted in Search Engine Marketing | Tagged ecommerce, search engine results pages | Leave a comment

Beware of the reciprocal link request

Posted on November 8, 2011 by terrymickelson

Being a link builder that has built tens of thousands of links, I get a lot of requests for link exchanges. These days these link exchange requests come primarily from out of country webmasters and link building companies. I suspect this happens because of the low cost of outsourced labor and the lack of knowledge by website owners thinking that link exchanges are still effective. Quite frankly I haven’t bothered looking at any link exchange requests in a long time. However the one that follows made it through my spam filters and caught my eye. To me, this is both ingenious and sad. Sad because it takes advantage of the webmaster who does not know better.

The link builder who sent this e-mail preys upon those who do not understand link building. They state as fact “As you know, linking benefits both of us by raising our search rankings and generating more traffic to both of our sites.”

Of course link building does benefit both sites. However nowhere in this message does the link builder offer a reciprocal link (which provides very limited benefit) or even offer to provide a link back from another site. Instead, this link builder implies that I will receive benefit for giving them a link. I think a lot of webmasters are still conditioned to think that if you put a link up the person you link to will give you a reciprocal link.

I have changed the name e-mail address and URL in the following message.

Barton hoode barton.hoode@some.com
4:06 AM (4 hours ago)

Dear Webmaster

I am barton woot of myfinancialdream.org

As you know, linking benefits both of us by raising our search rankings and generating more traffic to both of our sites.

My link information is below:

Title : Debt Consolidation

URL : http://www.myfinancialdream.org/debt-consolidation-page.htm

Desc : American Financial Solutions – Non-Profit Agency: Free, confidential, debt counseling and debt management options. One low monthly payment, lower interest rates and fees.

HTML code for the above information is :

<a href=”http://www.myfinancialdream.org/debt-consolidation-page.htm”>Debt Consolidation</a> -American Financial Solutions – Non-Profit Agency: Free, confidential, debt counseling and debt management options.
One low monthly payment, lower interest rates and fees.

Awaiting for your positive reply with exact URL where my link is present.If you are not the concerned person, please forward my email to your webmaster.

Thanks & Regards,
Barton
barton.woot@some.com

Posted in Linking | Tagged link building, link exchange | Leave a comment

Good News for Sites Hit by Google Panda Update 2011

Posted on July 27, 2011 by admin

It was confirmed by Google that last week a minor change was made in the newest set of algorithm changes for this year. Of course they are downplaying it as one of the 500 changes that are made yearly to their algorithm. However, for our website, and many of our clients, we have seen some improvements that have put us in better shape in search results than we were before the first major updates hit earlier this year. While all of our content creation and linking techniques were Google friendly, some of our rankings and those of other wrongfully penalized client websites were still struggling to even out.

According to the buzz on the web, and articles about the recent changes like this one from Web Pro News: http://www.webpronews.com/daniweb-claims-110-recovery-from-google-panda-update-2011-07 , the latest update has made big improvements to search rankings for a large number of sites that had been victims of the large Panda updates in April. It gives some of us Webmasters who felt unfairly penalized by the update some hope for a full recovery. I am going to continue keeping my eyes on how these latest changes have affected other websites and companies!

Posted in SEO | Tagged Google algorithm 2011, Panda update, SEO | Leave a comment

Is human search VS Automation back in style?

Posted on January 13, 2011 by admin

I just read an article on CNN discussing, once again, the problems with spam appearing in Google search results. Of course once again the topic of using human editors to rate sites has been brought up.

According to the article the issue is created by marketers and SEO companies. They claim that the results delivered for “money” keywords are nothing but spam and that it is due to the proliferation of easy to generate content tools.

Of course the solution the author presents is to manually review sites. There are over a Billion pages on the internet so good luck with that!

Anyway, here is the link to the article. http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/web/01/13/people.power.cashmore/index.html

Posted in Search Engine Marketing | Leave a comment

Link Building for Bing

Posted on February 5, 2010 by Terry Mickelson

Bing recently published a document about link building. Although it
focuses on how Bing deals with inbound links, it can also help you to get better
links for Google, Yahoo and other search engines. The most important points of
Bing’s document can be found in this article.

The importance of link building

The Bing engineers know that link building is important and they describe
link building as follows:

“Link building is a very important form of self-promotion on the Web. You
contact webmasters of other, related websites and let them know your site
exists. If the value that you have worked so hard to instill in your site is
evident to them, they will assist their own customers by linking back to your
site. That, my friend, is the essence of link building.”

In other words, reciprocal linking is fine. They also remind webmasters that
link building is an ongoing process:

“Think of link building as your chance to build your reputation on the
Web. As your website is likely one of your business’ most valuable assets, consider link building to be a primary business-building
exercise. Just don’t make the mistake of believing it will result in
instant gratification. Successful link building efforts require a long-term
commitment, not an overnight or turnkey solution. You need to
continually invest in link building efforts with creativity and time.
Good things come to those who wait (and work
smartly!).”

Things that you can do to get good links to your website

Here are the things that Bing recommends:

You should develop your website as a brand and brand it consistently. People
like to link to high quality websites.

You should find relevant bloggers, industry websites and product reviewers
and make them aware of your website.

You can publish concise and informative press releases online.

You can publish expert articles in article directories.

You can participate in relevant conversations on blogs and forums and add a
link to your website when applicable.

You can use social networks to connect to industry influencers. Your
profiles should contain links to your website.

You can use email newsletters to notify people about new content on your
website.

You can launch a blog or a forum on your website.

You can participate in relevant industry associations and their online
forums.

You should strive to become a trusted expert voice for your industry while
promoting your website.

Warning: the following things will get your website in trouble

Just like Google and other major search engines, Bing doesn’t like to be
cheated. If they detect unnatural linking patterns, your website might be
penalized. The following things can trigger search engine filters:

Your website get a lot of additional inbound links a very short time.

Many links that point to your website are from unrelated websites or blog
comments.

Your web pages contain hidden links.

You get links from links farms or automated link exchange systems.

Paid links point to your website.

Known spammers link to your website.

Your website links to known spammers.

Here’s what Bing does when they find suspicious data that is related to your
website:

“When probable manipulation is detected, a spam rank factor is applied to
a site, depending upon the type and severity of the infraction. If the spam
rating is high, a site can be penalized with a lowered rank. If the violations
are egregious, a site can be temporarily or even permanently purged from the
index.”

Getting inbound links requires some work. The Bing engineers are very clear
about this fact: “Make no mistake: getting legitimate and highly valuable,
inbound links is not a couch-potato task.”

Fortunately, there is a product available called IBP that will help you get links and optimize your site. You can Download it here.

Posted in Linking | Tagged link building, link building software | Leave a comment