KISS SEO & Web Design

Where were the grownups from Brentwood, Pa.?

2012-02-08T10:52:00.000-08:00

As president of a high school sports website -- www.sportsink.com -- I was appalled at the story of the three students from Brentwood, Pa., who jumped onto the basketball court in banana suits to mock the opposing team, which was comprised primarily of African-American athletes.

Where were the supervising adults? I've seen fan interaction between student sections get loud and obnoxious, but school administrators typically are quite visible at high profile games and generally will step in before anything gets really out of hand.

Of course there's the issue of freedom of speech, but in any environment, there are limits and ramifications. This was racist hate speech, pure and simple, and shouldn't be tolerated in schools.

The folks in Brentwood should be asking some questions about the proper supervision at these events and what the school is going to do to make amends and prevent it from happening again.

Here's the story.

When you get a chance, check out SportsInk.com, which covers 46 high schools in Summit, Medina and Portage counties.

Interested in starting your own high school sport site? Get details at Sports Reporting Technologies

Making the most of your website contact forms

2011-07-18T08:22:00.000-07:00

My pet peeve about having to give too much information in doctor's offices turned into a column about "5 Tips for Making the Most of Your Contact Forms" for SiteProNews.

For assistance in making your website and contact forms more user friendly, contact Pilot Fish SEO at 877-799-9994 ext. 2104.

It's 2011: Are you budgeting for SEO?

2011-01-26T13:03:00.000-08:00

78% of businesses interviewed by BtoB magazine said they plan to increase their online marketing budget in 2011.

Search engine optimization should be high on any company's list in order to get your website in front of prospects who use search engines to research products and services.

Read more about the survey: Include SEO in your 2011 marketing budget

Effective SEO video

2011-01-04T13:20:00.000-08:00

Here's a video created from an article I wrote on justifying the costs for effective SEO. It's called "Effective SEO no walk in the theme park."

The reason I titled the article and video "Effective SEO" is because there are so many scam artists out there touting low-cost services as SEO. For the average person trying to sort through the knowledgeable professionals in the field and the ones who will provide a very basic level of service, it's like walking through a minefield.

So, for assistance with an "effective SEO" program, contact Pilot Fish SEO at 877-799-9994 ext. 2104.

New high school sports CMS aids newspapers, radio stations

2010-12-23T11:06:00.001-08:00

One of the difficulties of the newspaper industry, which has been suffering from plummeting circulation during the last 10 years, is being able to commercialize an online product.

The issue isn't having the content. Rather, I believe, the issue is presentation of the content and most newspaper chains lack of financial flexibility to invest in an online product that will generate value for their company.

I've spent the last several weeks reviewing newspaper websites and many offer nothing more on their site than they do in print. Additionally, what is available really isn't developed for Internet -- it's just a cut-and-paste job from the print property.

Internet users have become accustomed to wanting a rich, multi-media experience when they go online and, until newspaper sites find a way to deliver that, it will be difficult to create a revenue stream from their websites.

That's where Sports Reporting Technologies comes in. We've just opened up for licensing our SPORTSITEWARE(TM) CMS platform for covering high school sports. It enables journalists with little technical ability to operate a full multi-media site including news stories, photos, audio, video, game schedules, results and stats.

The system also can be used by entrepreneurs interested in starting their own high school sports site.

Read more about our high school sports reporting website CMS.

What's effective SEO worth to you?

2010-12-23T08:47:00.000-08:00

I could have titled this blog item "What's SEO worth to you," but that would ignore all the scam artists out there that offer to provide SEO services for a ridiculously low price. Problem is, the results bear out the effort they put into it and by the time the client figures that out, they are long gone.

We are occasionally asked to compete with other "SEO" firms for specific projects and I cringe at the process. Too often, the client is looking for the lowest bid and not paying attention to the details about what they're actually going to get. We usually end up getting the client anyway, perhaps a year or two later, after they realize that the methodic program we outlined, priced higher than the SEO vendor who originally won the project, in retrospect sounds more sensible than the quick-fix they were promised by the other guys.

Effective SEO is not a quick fix, it requires skill and talent, and it can be expensive. I wrote a more extensive article about the expense of SEO for the website SiteProNews. You can read it here: Effective SEO No Walk in the Theme Park

Thanks University of Akron soccer team: LeBron who?

2010-12-14T08:20:00.000-08:00

After taking a beating by the Miami Heat at home on Dec. 2, the Cleveland Cavaliers face the dubious task of challenging them on their home court tomorrow night. That first match-up wasn't pretty and sent the Cavs into a tailspin, with six straight losses after that (actually, maybe we should blame Boston for the current losing streak, it might make us feel better).

So, things don't look good for tomorrow night.

For many of us in Akron who have been true wine-and-gold Cavs fans, we're ready to exorcise ourselves from the LeBron James mania. See column I wrote on the topic the day after the Heat wave.

That's where the University of Akron and its national championship men's soccer team comes in. The third-seeded Zips beat No. 1 seeded Louisville 1-0 in the national championship on Sunday. Once we clear out all the snow, we'll plan that ticker-tape parade.

Congratulations to the team and Coach Porter. LeBron who?

Note to LeBron: It's not your race, it's the quitting that's the problem

2010-10-07T13:38:00.000-07:00

As an avid Cleveland area sports fan, and the president of an Akron, Ohio, high school sports media site that covers LeBron James' alma mater, St. Vincent-St. Mary High School, I was surprised to learn last week that I am a racist. According to LeBron and his super sidekick Maverick Carter, the strong reaction they received to "The Decision" was because of racism.

That kind of riled me up, but not wanting to spew anything equally nonsensical, I decided to sit on it a few days, till I could express my opinion on the topic in a cogent fashion. So here goes:

At no time when I have donated money to MY alma mater, St. Vincent-St. Mary High School, have I ever stopped to consider the race of a student who might benefit from the financial aid that the school offers to those who wish to attend. When I bought Cleveland Cavalier merchandise, I never weighed whether to buy the jersey of lily white Zydrunas Ilgauskas or one of his darker skinned teammates. And when LeBron James declared his decision, it didn't matter to me what color he is.

What was upsetting to me and to most people in Akron and Cleveland, was that this young man, who espoused the virture of playing at home, would so easily throw away the "home" advantage for an easier path to a championship.

In the most simple terms: He is a quitter. LeBron was in a position to be the highest paid basketball player AND still live and play at home. Who wouldn't want that dream scenario!

Instead, LeBron James chose a shortcut to a ring, quitting on his team, his teammates and his non-quitting fans. For people who have supported Cleveland sports teams through thick and thin, this is the worst possible attribute an athlete could have. They haven't quit on their teams, and they thought LeBron was one of them, that he wouldn't quit either. As Art Modell showed Cleveland fans not that long ago, quitters come in any color, and the reaction to both of them has been equally strong.

What makes SEO complicated

2010-05-04T12:36:00.000-07:00

More often than not, when we are asked to provide a quote for our search engine optimization services, the prospective client is surprised at the amount of work we tell them must be done and the resulting cost.

Perhaps the expectation-reality gap is a result of the ease with which so many other technical tasks can be completed with automated tools. Buy a copy of Microsoft FrontPage and build a web site in an afternoon. So, SEO should be similarly simple, right?

Unfortunately, while technology tools can make a light work of a lot of tasks, building a well-optimized website is not one of them.

For the most part, the SEO implementation process relies on human judgment and know-how. A generic SEO tool can’t be expected to understand the complex terminology in an industrial or other business-to-business environment or how to differentiate those terms from the same ones in other uses.

Similarly, an automated tool won’t be able to write optimized copy that also makes a compelling case for your products and services to the prospects you’re targeting.
Most importantly, the search engines themselves prevent the SEO process from being easily automated.

Imagine you run Google. Your company derives its revenue by selling advertising in the form of textual ads on its search engine results pages. Also on those pages are free listings, ranked by your company. Knowing that those free listings are considered the more valuable real estate, will you allow businesses to capture those positions for the price of a $39.95 third-party software?

Or, will you make the system sufficiently complicated for businesses to attain a first-page position that most give up in frustration and instead buy into your AdWords pay-per-click program?

That’s the real reason why SEO is complicated.

What I learned about SEO on the job

2010-01-26T08:45:00.000-08:00

... A Guest Blogging post by Pilot Fish Account Manager, Leanne Wicks

Like many people who work in the search engine optimization industry my first experience with SEO was purely by accident. The company I was working for was closing up shop and Polysort/Pilot Fish needed an admin person. It was a marriage made in… well, necessity.

On my first day, I met with each member of our staff so that I could get a chance to learn about what they do. I vividly remember sitting in our sales director’s office that day and thinking to myself, “What on earth did I get myself into? This is crazy talk!! How can anything we do to a client’s site have any effect on their results on Google??”

Oh, how little I knew!

Five years, dozens of web sites and hours of blood, sweat and maybe even a few tears and I don’t think it’s so crazy anymore. Nowadays I have the privilege of managing many of our clients’ projects but I still remember those first few weeks and the concerns I had.

As you embark on your web site project, I bet you share some of them, too:

1. Google is smart. Why should I do anything special to my web site?

Google may be smart but at the end of the day, it still needs your help. Well written content, well designed navigation, well constructed code all make a huge difference in whether or not Google “gets” what your site is about. Leave out any piece of the puzzle and Google might get confused. A confused Google is a Google that gives up and moves on to some other site instead of giving your site the attention it deserves.

2) All of you SEO firms talk a lot about keyword research… frankly it seems like a waste of money. I already know what my products are called!

It’s true – You are an expert on what your business does but your customers aren’t experts and they are the people you’re trying to reach.

Even though you might call something one thing, they might be using a completely different way to describe it. Since people find web sites through keyword searches and Google uses your keywords to rank your site, you need Google to know that even though your product is called XYZ, when someone else calls it ABC, it’s still the same product.

Keyword research helps you determine how your prospects are searching for you and it lets you know which terms are the best chance for reaching the right people. Leave this part out and you pass up sales. Can you afford to do that?

3) I’ve already written my web site, why would I hire someone to revise the content on it? Isn’t that a waste of money?

The truth is that going back and revising content for a web site is a lot harder and more time consuming than simply allowing an SEO firm with strong copywriters on staff to write your content right from the start. It’s not that we won’t do it – we revise content all the time (almost every site we’ve ever worked with has needed at least some re-writing in order to best capture visitors and search engines) – but you’ll be a lot happier with the results if you let us help right from the start.

If you’re just starting out with a web site or considering re-doing it, consider letting an SEO firm in on the process from Day One. You’ll wind up with properly optimized text that is compelling both to visitors and search engines and you won’t have to spend any amount of time re-doing someone else’s work. It’s a win-win for everyone.

If it’s too late (you’ve already written your site), remember that well-optimized content can be the difference between ranking on the first page of results and the 50th page of results. Since visitors generally don’t go past the first couple of pages, can you afford to be anywhere else?

4) You keep talking to me about links and off-page elements. Why does this matter? I already let you design my site, write it, code it…!! Isn’t that enough?

Five years ago? Yes. Today? Not so much. Sure, there are some sites that seem to do well without paying any attention to this but believe me when I say it is pure accident and it won’t last forever.

Just like you wouldn’t send a product to market without any marketing materials, you shouldn’t send your web site out onto the Internet without working on promoting it. There are a lot of ways to do this but the most effective way is to apply sustained efforts to building links from good sources like press releases, articles and appropriate directories. And depending on your industry there are also huge opportunities available to participate in the social media space (YouTube, Facebook, etc.)

Is it time consuming? Absolutely. Hard? It can be. Boring? Once in awhile. But it’s also necessary. And an SEO firm that doesn’t talk to you about these things is doing your site a disservice.

And even if you do everything else right but leave this part out, your web site and your business will eventually suffer. Just ask the sites that enjoyed prime time placement with no effort right up until one of their competitors got on board with marketing their site. Don’t put yourself in that position. It is much easier to work hard consistently than it is to scramble at the last minute!

Do you have other concerns about search engine optimization? Contact us and let us help put them to rest.

SEO vs. PPC

2010-01-25T12:40:00.001-08:00

We're frequently asked the question whether a client or potential client should engage in SEO or PPC to drive traffic to their web site.

Pilot Fish had the chance to test this recently, when we developed a new high school sports site -- www.sportsink.com.

What we learned was not surprising: while PPC offered immediate click-throughs, SEO delivered much higher numbers and still does today.

Read the full case study on SEO vs. PPC.

Job-hunting must: Write a cover letter

2009-10-28T13:07:00.000-07:00

I'm in the process of reviewing resumes for two positions we're filling. Here's something I've noticed that make me wonder whether some candidates will ever find a job.

Many people send their resumes online without a cover letter. Most of these are coming via a job-posting site, so responding to my ad is as simple as clicking a few buttons. And that's why this annoys me. Given the number of applicants I've had for each of the positions, I've resorted to canning any resumes that arrive without a cover letter. It makes me think that the person applying really doesn't have that much interest in the position. If they did, they'd put a little more effort into making themselves stand out. A cover letter helps do that.

Here are some other ways a well-written cover letter can help:

1. Relate unrelated experience -- Quite a few people have applied for our positions who don't seemingly have the experience we're seeking. I don't have a problem interviewing people who feel they can translate other prior experience into this position, but I've got to know why you feel that's the case. Without a cover letter, I have no idea why you're applying for my position.

2. Explain job hopping -- I know times are tough and people are finding themselves in unfortunate situations multiple times. But, I'd really like to know why you've worked at 5 different places in the past 7 years. And, I'm not going to call you in for the interview to find out.

3. Draw attention to special accomplishments -- A person with 10-20 years work experience can have a pretty extensive resume. Help the hiring party out by detailing in your resume the special skills or accomplishments you've attained that set you apart from other applicants.

4. Showcase your communication skills -- Many jobs require someone with good written and verbal skills. A well-written cover letter will help show your ability in these areas. People who list "strong verbal and written communication" on their resume and then don't include a cover letter are liars or just lazy.

When Google Speaks ...

2009-09-23T08:54:00.000-07:00

On Monday, Google engineer Matt Cutts posted a video on his blog in which he discussed Google's official policy on meta keyword tags. In a nutshell, they don't use them.

That's old news to SEO firms that optimize web sites to perform on Google. We've known that for a long time.

But, we still have conversations with prospects and clients who ask us to quote an SEO project that entails "updating our meta keywords." In their eyes, updating the keywords tag is a quick and inexpensive fix. The problem is, it doesn't work.

Google gives no weight to the meta keywords tag at all. What they do look at is the title tag, description tag (for purposes of displaying your listing), your content and incoming links.

That doesn't mean that keywords have become obsolete. It's an issue of how you use them. Read my article on The Difference Between Meta Keyword Tags and Keywords.

Survey Identifies Links as Top Ranking Factor

2009-09-10T09:21:00.000-07:00

For those wondering about all the hype around links and SEO, there’s a new study out by SEOmoz that identifies the current most important factors to a site’s performance on the search engines.

The survey highlights the universal experience of SEO professionals who work on websites every day. Pilot Fish’s own John Inama is a member of the organization; we find it beneficial to have the opportunity to brainstorm and network with folks in our own industry.

The SEOmoz report identifies the Top 3 ranking factors as being related to a web site’s incoming links. More specifically, they are:

1. Keyword-focused anchor text from external links: This is the text in clickable links that are pointing to your site from external sources.
2. External link popularity: This refers to the quality/quantity of external links.
3. Diversity of link sources: This is the number of links from several diverse root domains.

Here’s a link to the SEOmoz Search Engine Ranking Factors study.

To find out whether your web site has enough or the right type of links to help your site perform on search engines, contact John Inama at 877-799-9994 ext. 2104.

National High School Sports Site Model Launched

2009-08-27T11:10:00.000-07:00

I've been away from my blog for a while, and now I can tell you why. We've been developing a new business concept, which we are now launching.

Check out Sports Reporting Technologies, our new company devoted to licensing our SPORTSITEWARE(TM) system for developing a high school sports site business.

This system is different than any other sports site software out there. It's not geared for schools or individual sports teams to record detailed game stats.

This system is about developing news and filling the gap where newspapers have fallen in their coverage of high school sports. With the SPORTSITEWARE(TM) system, you can select the schools, sports and conferences you want to cover. We provide the tools to publish news, photos, audio, video, game schedules, results and stats. Our system also includes advertising and premium content subscription modules for revenue generation.

Currently, we're offering custom programs for these high school sports: football, volleyball, soccer, cross country, basketball, wrestling, swimming/diving, baseball, softball and track and field. We'll be adding new features once our inital rollout is complete and expect to add more sports for next year.

We've just launched our pilot site, SportsInk, which covers all the sports for 35 high schools in Summit and Medina counties in Ohio. We've gotten great feedback from coaches already, many of whom we provided a preview during the summer while the site was still in development. It's still in development; we're rolling out new features every week, but when you have a chance, check it out!

What you'll see on SportsInk is that they've already sold a good bit of advertising. Talk to local advertisers about high school sports -- they'll tell you they're interested in sites that show high interest in local markets. It's like shooting fish in a barrel!

We'll be licensing the technology to persons or companies that want to run an online sports site business. Licensing will include revenue rights to national advertising contracts we're already negotiating, as well as a "how-to manual" on setting up an online business, from staffing to promotion to selling advertising.

For more information, contact me at 877-799-9994 ext. 2102.

Strategies for Search Engine Success -- NPE 09 Presentation

2009-06-29T09:03:00.000-07:00

Last week I gave a presentation on search engine optimization (SEO) at NPE 09, the plastics industry's triennial tradeshow held at McCormick Place in Chicago. I got rave reviews on the material. Many plastics businesses don't understand the basic mechanics of how search engines rank web sites and what they need to do to get the visibility necessary to drive new business leads.

For those that missed it, here's my presentation:

Strategies for Search Engine Success

View more documents from Polysort.

Optimizing Foreign-language Web Sites

2009-06-03T10:56:00.000-07:00

Optimizing a web site for foreign search engines isn't much different from optimizing for our English-language search engines.

Like Google here in the U.S., the search engine is quite popular around the world and now boasts more than 100 foreign language versions.

We recently built an optimized Spanish-language site for one of our customers. Within a month, the site has earned its way to the first page of more than a dozen Spanish-language Google sites, and the company now gets more than 10% of its site traffic from Spanish-speaking prospects.

Read the full case study on this foreign-language SEO project.

Case Study Shows Value of SEO to Industrial Firms

2009-05-06T08:12:00.000-07:00

Although times are lean, many companies realize that pulling the plug entirely from their marketing efforts could impact their ability to bounce back quickly when the economy takes a turn for the better.

The key is deciding how most efficiently to spend a very limited marketing budget.

Last fall, Polysort/Pilot Fish began working with Champion Plastics, a plastic bag manufacturer, to improve the company's search engine placement. Champion had hired an ad agency to redesign the site, and the newly designed site failed to improve the company's search engine positioning, site traffic or leads.

Upon review by our staff, we discovered the site had been built in a way that blocked Google and other search engines from indexing it. We corrected the technical barriers and optimized the content. Within weeks, the company closed on a new customer that directly resulted from being found on Google. And, within three months, the company's site was performing for more than 60 important keyword terms.

All this happened in the throes of a terrible recession.

Champion Plastics' John Callaghan credited our company with his site's turnaround: “We got that customer as a direct result of the work Polysort did for us. Polysort was able to diagnose the site’s problems and provide a workable solution. We’re now performing on many variations of keywords that are bringing potential customers to our site.”

Read the full case study.

Polysort provides web design and search engine optimization to companies in the plastics and rubber industry. Our Pilot Fish SEO division serves industrial and B2B clients in other markets.

For assistance with your search engine placement, contact John Inama at 877-799-9994 ext. 2104 or fill this form.

Back to My Roots: I'm Speaking at NPE 2009

2009-04-06T11:47:00.000-07:00

I love plastics guys. Perhaps it's because of where I'm from -- Akron, Ohio. By the time the world of business had entered my consciousness, Akron was well in the throes of what would become a decade-long identity crisis.

Just months before I joined the staff of industry publication Tire Business as a reporter, Goodyear had fought off a greenmail attack by Sir James Goldsmith. Little did I know that that event would be the beginning of the end for tire production in Akron and our city as the Rubber Capital of the World.

One after the other, Akron tire giants fell to foreign ownership and the eventual departure to cities of better weather. General Tire to Continental AG, the combined Uniroyal and BFGoodrich to Michelin, and Firestone to Bridgestone.

The void that was left hasn't entirely been filled, but the plastics industry has done the best job of any other to take a position of prominence in our rubber-stained city.

During that time, I jumped ship as well, joining the editorial group that would launch the first plastics industry weekly newspaper -- Plastics News. As assistant managing editor of the publication from 1989 to 1995, I immersed myself in all things plastic.

I particularly enjoyed our work every three years in Chicago, when Plastics News would go full throttle to publish a daily newspaper during the huge U.S. plastics tradeshow NPE.

And so, here I am, 20 years and 1 month after the launch of Plastics News preparing to speak to the industry at NPE 2009. Ironically, this trip brings me full circle in more than one way. At the time I joined Crain Communications right after college, I viewed my stint at Tire Business as a short-term gig where I'd learn how to be a better writer before getting into my true area of interest -- public relations.

Little did I know that I'd spend 10 years in trade publishing, and then leverage that experience to help launch a PR-related business (web design and search engine optimization) to serve companies in the plastics and rubber industries. After leaving Crain in 1995, I spent my first week on the job at the Plastics USA tradeshow (at that time, the smaller sibling of NPE). I handed out diskettes that would help companies set up their first Internet connection and talked about how to get e-mail and why to develop a web site.

My how things have changed! And yet, how much they stay the same. I look forward to seeing many old friends in June and, perhaps, making some new ones. See you at NPE!

View info on my SEO speech for NPE 2009.

Trust the SEO Keyword Research

2009-03-24T08:10:00.000-07:00

Perhaps one of the most difficult things a company has to do is trust their brand image to an outsourced vendor. Whether it's an ad agency designing a print ad or direct mail piece or an SEO company creating optimized content, the tendency is to not trust the hired firm to be able to communicate to your customers and prospects what you think the message should be.

Too often we hear "You don't know our industry, or our products or our terminology." This may be true, but SEO firms do know research. And, SEO keyword research oftentimes shows that the client is not seeing the full picture.

For instance, people in the banking industry talk about ATMs -- Automated Teller Machines. A company that sells these units refer to them as ATMs. But, more than 70,000 people monthly search Google for "ATM machine" or "ATM machines". Clearly, it's a redundant term "ATM machines -- automated teller machine machines", but a lot of people are using it.

A banking client might advise that we can't use "ATM machines" as a term on our site because it's redundant and we'll look like idiots to the rest of our peers. But, who are you selling to, your competitors or prospects? Using that term speaks directly to what the customer is looking for, and if you're looking for new business, you're not going to shut the door on a customer who uses the wrong terminology.

The really cool thing about SEO that differentiates it from traditional advertising is that there is so much ability to track user behavior and to use this research to develop a successful web site strategy. The key is, keep mindful of the end goal and trust the SEO keyword research.

Learn more about how SEO keyword research works.

Some things are best left to the professionals

2009-03-02T09:57:00.000-08:00

When I win the lottery, I’m going to have my yard professionally landscaped and the interior of my house redecorated. With the Mega Millions lottery up to $212 million this week, lots of people are probably making plans for their sure winnings. As my husband and I discussed it last night, it occurred to me that we had a whole list of things we’d like to have done around the house. Not because we can’t do them ourselves, but rather because there are people out there with the talent to do them much better than we can and have.

Web design and search engine optimization kind of fall into those categories as well. Just as there are nifty landscaping and decorating tools we can use to make improvements at our home, there are lots of automated software programs that will help the Average Joe build a basic site or do some semblance of search engine optimization. However, without the knowledge of how to use what and when, Average Joe most likely will end up with a site that won’t perform on the search engines or convert visitors to leads.

Successful website design and search engine optimization aren’t about the tools you use. It’s about understanding the balance between graphic design and content; the content needs and requirements of search engines and site visitors; organizational and structural best-practices for user conversion; and the ins and outs of Internet strategy to stay ahead of your competitors. You can’t find those things in the help menu of a software program.

What's Good Content?

2009-02-24T12:07:00.001-08:00

When it comes to building a business web site, companies seem to be stuck on the basics: tell them who we are, where we live, what we sell.

That's really just Step 1. If you want your site to get some traction, and ultimately show up on the search engines, it really should contain information someone might find useful.

Here's an article that I thought gave good ideas on topics for a small business web site:

10 Link Bait Tips for Small Business Marketing

If SEO doesn't work, it's because you did it wrong

2009-02-18T06:48:00.000-08:00

As a company that launched the first plastics and rubber industry portal back in 1995, we're used to being ahead of the curve. We spend a lot of our time educating clients and prospects about the Internet technologies they can use to build new business. As a result, for the last several years, we've become accustomed to explaining the why's, what's and what for's of search engine optimization (SEO).

What's nice to see in the b2b space is that companies are finally understanding what SEO is, or at least have an understanding that it's something they should check out. At the same time, we're also beginning to talk with companies that have tried SEO already and have seen it fail, making them very skeptical about the process altogether.

Unfortunately, like any other industry, there are snake oil salesmen in the SEO industry. They're the ones that blast out the unsolicited e-mails offering to "put you on top of Google within the next half-hour", or to "submit your site monthly to thousands of search engines." Or, the ones that say they can guarantee you a position on Google and you don't really have to take any active role in improving your site, you just have to pay them money.

It's important to ask a lot of questions before you hire an SEO company -- the competent, reputable ones will appreciate your interest in learning more about SEO and will be happy to help you through the process.

Another reason that SEO can fail is that a company doesn't make a full commitment to the process. Some companies get way to focused on one aspect of SEO, blaming their site URLs, meta tags, keywords, etc., rather than making sure they've taken care of ALL the big things first. Usually, when an SEO project has failed, it's because the right amount of attention wasn't given to every aspect that's important to ranking.

What we usually find is that companies ignore incoming links -- it's difficult and time-consuming to do and so it gets pushed to the back burner. When their SEO doesn't work, they start re-examining the keywords, the site structure, the content, rather than addressing the most obvious problem -- lack of links.

I saw a blog post this week regarding SEO naysayers who claim SEO is snake oil. Check it out.

Importance of Finding an SEO-Friendly Web Design Firm

2009-02-17T11:04:00.000-08:00

As you consider a site redesign, it's important that you find a web design firm that's also skilled in SEO. Incorporating SEO right from the start of a web design project will save you time and money as many of the elements that will be built in the web design process are impacted by SEO efforts.

Read more about SEO-Friendly Web Design Firms in an article I wrote for Xemion.com.

The Land of Opportunity

2009-02-11T09:24:00.001-08:00

I picked up my son and his friends from school last week and one of them immediately plugged in an Ipod. Out blared Big Band music, circa 1940s! I couldn't believe my ears. Turns out they got turned onto it from a video game they were playing and downloaded the music.

Which got me to thinking: There is so much opportunity companies haven't yet leveraged for marketing purposes. The convergence of technology has created a land of opportunity, limited only by our own creativity and ambition.

Much of it will play out for b2c companies, but b2b firms should keep their eyes and minds open to it too. It took a while for people to realize all the different entry points that the Internet provided to a given website. Similarly, we're getting to a point where cellphones, MP3 players, computers and other Internet-enabled devices will easily share the same information. We just need to be creative in identifying the way businesses can utilize them.

You're Spending Too Much Time Online When...

2008-12-17T10:55:00.000-08:00

To bring some levity to our office on this dreary December day in Northeast Ohio, we had our staff come up with some funny observations on how they know they've been spending too much time online.

Read "You're Spending Too Much Time Online When..." from the staff of Ohio SEO firm Pilot Fish.

Include an SEO Firm in Your Site Redesign

2008-09-15T12:16:00.000-07:00

Many companies operate under the misguided notion that a simple facelift or “freshening up” will improve traffic and leads to their web site. Although having a fresh look and new content are important to site credibility, a site redesign alone won’t improve your site’s performance on the search engines or get more eyeballs to your site.

As you begin your next site redesign, be sure to include an SEO firm in the process. An SEO firm will help make sure that the improvements you are making to your site at the minimum won’t hurt your search engine positioning and at best will improve it.

For example, although Flash adds a lot of pizzazz to a site, building a site entirely in Flash will render the content virtually invisible to the search engines, making it nearly impossible to gain top performance on important keywords. An SEO firm will help guide you on the best ways to use Flash so that it’s graphically effective, not a hindrance to your site’s search engine ranking.

Read about the important factors that a qualified SEO firm can help you with during the redesign process.

This Working Mom Won't Vote for Sarah Palin

2008-09-02T11:45:00.000-07:00

Perhaps my headline is a bit strong given that I haven't heard Sarah Palin's VP acceptance speech yet. But, I have my doubts that her speech will put to rest any of my concerns with her candidacy.

I have no doubt that she is bright, capable and ambitious. Really, in 99% of the cases, you have to be for success in politics.

She's a woman, and working mom, with conservative values cherished by the Republican Party. That's where it starts to get sticky for me. I won't vote for a woman just because she's a woman, or a working mom like myself. I'm putting race and gender on the shelf when it comes to deciding who's most qualified. Rather, I'm interested in who is in best position to have my interests at heart.

One would think that Sarah Palin would be in the best position to understand the complexities of raising a family and balancing a career. That there are times in a woman's life when career ambitions have to take a back seat to the more pressing needs of family. That a true commitment to family values means direct involvement by both parents. That sometimes you have to say no to some great opportunities because right now your kids need you more.

That's where I have a problem with Sarah Palin. She's sending one son off to war, the youngest of her children, an infant, has Down's Syndrome, and her 17-year-old daughter is pregnant. Any one of these situations might give any parent pause when considering a life-changing career, but to have all three situations and think "Gee, this would be a great time to run for Vice President," seems cold at best, perhaps even mercenary.

It's hard to conceive that these issues will never create distractions for Ms. Palin. And, in any other job, in any other career, she'd be expected to deal with it and still show up to work. But, we're not talking about just any other 9-5 job. We're talking about being one heartbeat from the presidency with travel demands and schedule demands that make it impossible to be a dependable mother.

I feel the most sorry for her 17-year-old daughter. Sarah Palin's infant son no doubt will receive excellent care, albeit without much involvement from his mother. And her older son will take care of himself. But, her daughter seemingly is being thrown to the wolves. It's hard to imagine how much direct support Bristol will get from her mother while mom is jet-setting around the world. And, when it comes to the birth of a child, shouldn't it be Bristol's mom who the girl should be able to rely on for help?

I've never been offered the chance to be vice president of the United States, but I have considered opportunities that would have required a similar upheaval in my family's life. In the end, it became difficult to rationalize the sacrifice my family would endure for my own career ambition. That type of decision would seem to fall in line with the promoted Republican values.

Instead, Sarah Palin's decision to allow the her daughter to endure the limelight as a result of her candidacy perhaps is a more realistic example of the promise that Republican morals offer: Let's teach our kids only about abstinence and, when they screw up and get pregnant, force them into a teen marriage or onto welfare rolls, leave the child-rearing entirely to them, and then push for the death penalty when the young dad shakes the baby.

No compassion. No support. No help.

And, as far as I'm concerned, no vote.

Are You Infecting Your Customers' Computers?

2008-08-25T05:47:00.000-07:00

As part of our company's customer prospecting activities, our sales staff will routinely review a prospect's web site to learn more about the company before making contact.

Several times in the last few weeks, we've nearly become infected by computer viruses by sites that are infected just by visiting the web site. Fortunately, our anti-virus protection has enabled us to avoid catastrophe.

I often wonder how long it will be before the company will discover that their site is trying to infect everyone that visits it. I don't blame any company that becomes a victim of hacking as it can be difficult to keep up with all the new viruses launched. But, if a company's site has been infecting visitors for some time without the company knowing or addressing it, then that's a clear sign of web site neglect.

Every company should take responsibility for making sure that its site is functioning as intended by regularly reviewing it. From the standpoint of virus protection, that should happen every day by visiting the site. Applications should be tested once a month to make sure they're operational.

Having a site requires a proactive attitude toward marketing, customer service and site maintenance at a level that wasn't heard of in pre-Internet days. Not to make that adjustment hurts not only your company's ability to compete, but ultimately could damage the relationships you have with existing customers.

Quality SEO Services Focus on Three Areas

2008-07-15T12:15:00.000-07:00

Given that Google and Yahoo regularly tinker with their algorithms, I thought it might be good to review the specific areas that are most important currently (summer 2008) in search engine optimization.

There are 3 primary areas that comprise SEO services:
-- Keyword Research
-- On-Page Optimization or SEO Copywriting
-- Off-page Optimization or Link Building.

Keyword Research is the process of identifying which terms are most used by the prospects you are trying to reach. Keyword Research not only evaluates the most popular terms, but also the competitiveness of those terms. Some terms might be too competitive for SEO purposes, making them more suitable for pay-per-click advertising. A good Keyword Research program will put together the best set of keywords for your site to generate the most and best quality traffic.

SEO copywriting involves incorporating the keywords into your site content, developing a site strategy that logically describes your business using those keywords and coding the site to emphasize the proper keywords.

Link building has become increasingly important and ignoring this area likely will result in a failed SEO program. Once you've identified your keywords and incorporated them into your site, it's important to find appropriate third-party sites that are willing to provide a link to your site. Trade publication sites, association sites and business directories are among the types of sites that can provide a valuable incoming link.

For more information about SEO services, contact Pilot Fish at 877-799-9994 ext. 2104.

Google Defines Change, Change Defines Search

2008-06-03T12:27:00.000-07:00

“The world hates change, yet it is the only thing that has brought progress.”

I wouldn’t be surprised if these words by American inventor Charles Kettering (developed automatic transmission, spark plug, safety glass, electric railway gate, among others) were etched above the doors at Google Inc.’s headquarters in Mountain View, Calif.

Google has single-handedly changed the way people locate information on the Internet. Every move it makes is studied, second-guessed and mimicked by its competitors. And, in the spirit of all great American inventors, the company is never satisfied with the status quo, always working on the next iteration of search that will make its site that much more vital in the research habits of Internet users worldwide.

And, true to Mr. Kettering’s quote, every time Google changes its algorithm, the world of Internet users and web site owners hates it. Hates it because for some businesses the hard-earned positions on the search engine suddenly drop off and with it, traffic and leads.

Once again, Google is going through an algorithm change, the results of which will be felt in the weeks to come. To help you understand what your business can do to weather these changes, I recommend you read this article on “What’s the Best Way to Deal with a Search Engine Algorithm Update?”

Check out some other quotable gems from Charles Kettering.

RSSHugger a Good Way to Learn about Blogs

2008-05-14T11:54:00.000-07:00

I'm still looking for a resource that lists blogs being written in the b2b and induststrial space, but I stumbled on one that lists lots of other stuff.

RSS Hugger is a simply laid out site intended to connect blogs with blog readers. For folks just getting started and wanting to see what other people are doing, RSS Hugger is an easy-to-navigate site that lists more than 1,700 blogs among more than 100 categories.

Check out RSS Hugger.

Questions to Ask Prospective SEO Firms

2008-05-14T09:53:00.000-07:00

Not all SEO firms are alike. Unfortunately, because search engine optimization is a mystery to most marketing managers, it can be pretty easy to get bamboozled by an unscrupulous company offering you SEO services on the cheap.

To help you avoid that problem, which at minimum would result in money wasted on an ineffective campaign and at worst could cause your site to be banned by Google or Yahoo, I've created a list of questions to help you choose the right SEO firm and also have identified common mistakes that neophyte companies make when starting SEO.

You Can Manage Your Own PPC, but Should You?

2008-05-13T06:16:00.000-07:00

Search engines Google and Yahoo have created user interfaces that enable most companies to set up and manage their own pay-per-click advertising campaigns. But, in the end, your ad campaign is likely to be far more successful if you invest in having an appropriate agency manage it for you.

Not all PPC ads are created alike; there’s a trick to writing a search engine ad that entices search engine users to click yours ahead of others and a bigger trick to getting these prospects to take action once on your site.

Search engine marketing companies that employ experienced Internet copywriters are best suited to manage your pay-per-click campaigns to maximize the response rate. In addition to providing high-response ads and landing pages, your PPC manager also will invest time researching the best keywords for your campaign, and monitor performance regularly, making adjustments to ads and landing pages, keywords and campaign buys to improve overall effectiveness.

Recently, Pilot Fish began managing the PPC ad campaign for one client that had been running its own PPC ads. Within one week’s time, the click-thru rate had doubled and the client reported receiving four very promising leads.

Not only did we rewrite the ads, we advised them on the pages to use as landing pages (finding that they already had pretty good copy on their site) and made recommendations on how much to spend for each keyword.

We regularly review the results and will continue to advise the client on how to maximize their investment for best return.

This client is using PPC as a lead driver during the time that we redesign and optimize their site for better natural position on the search engines. The expectation is that once their site optimization is in full gear, we'll be able to use PPC to fill in the gaps.

How to Get the Website Redesign You Want

2008-04-10T06:52:00.000-07:00

The answer to the title above seems simple enough ... just tell the graphic designer.

However, when it comes down to it, it can be pretty difficult to describe to a graphic designer what you're picturing in your head. And, it's next to impossible when you really aren't sure what you want from your website redesign.

We've found that web site redesign projects are far more successful from the standpoint of customer satisfaction when the client provides a significant amount of detail about what they want. They don't have to draw it out for us. Rather, all we're looking for is a pretty good indication of their design preferences, which we then can use to create a unique design for them.

To help our clients communicate those preferences, we've created a list of design questions with sample sites. Check out the 20 questions to ask before starting your website redesign.

Tips on SEO Copywriting

2008-04-01T09:28:00.000-07:00

One of the primary reasons that companies outsource to SEO services firms is the knowledge they bring to the SEO copywriting process. Sites that are poorly written from an SEO standpoint face an uphill battle in gaining position at the forefront of search engine results.

To help you understand better the complexities of SEO copywriting, I've put together a comprehensive article on SEO Copywriting Tips for Google, Yahoo and Your Prospects. If you're committed to doing SEO on your own, this will give you an idea of what areas to focus on. If you're looking to outsource SEO, then use the article to determine which SEO services vendors are best capable to provide what your site will need to improve its search engine ranking.

Will PPC become an obsolete model?

2008-03-11T13:57:00.000-07:00

With the news last month that PPC clickers aren't the valuable customers that advertisers might have expected, will we see a major change in the revenue models of search engines?

According to a Feb. 2008 report on PPC click-through rates, 6% of ad clickers are responsible for 50% of display ad clicks. These clickers, tagged as "Natural Born Clickers" further erode the validity of pay-per-click models because of their demographics.

These clickers tend to be younger, in the 25-44 age bracket, and have lower incomes, less than $40,000. What that means, is that many companies that measure the success of their ad campaigns by the number of click-throughs, are possibly getting site visitors not able to purchase the products or services being advertised.

The study went on to imply that the sucess of an ad campaign, therefore shouldn't be measured by clicks, but rather than by exposure. If that inference sticks, might we see search engines revert to the old CPM model?

Optimization will Save the World!

2008-01-22T07:11:00.000-08:00

I'm all for optimization. I think we could better our lives, our economy, our environment and our web sites with optimization.

I looked up "optimization" on Dictionary.com, which defines it as “the fact of optimizing; making the best of anything” and “the condition of being optimized.”

I'm trying to do my part living an optimized life. My husband and I built a home using a geothermal energy system, so we're optimizing our energy use for heating and air conditioning.

I bought a hybrid car and have been trying to alter my driving habits to further optimize my use of petroleum.

A friend of mine is very health conscious; she's optimized carbs pretty much right out of her diet.

In each of these instances, the act of optimizing results in the use of less of something in order to be more efficient or gain a better result.

But, in the field of search engine optimization, the act of optimizing actually requires the addition of some things (i.e. fresh, optimized content, optimized meta tags, quality incoming links) as well as less of some things (i.e. less-complicated site coding, clean navigation).

If your company has a web site, it's important to have it optimized; not doing so only ensures that your site will be difficult next to impossible to find on the search engines.

Unfortunately, unlike the optimization examples above, in search engine optimization, doing everything correctly usually helps, but won’t guarantee the exact desired end result for every web site every time.

If it did, we’d call it search engine nirvana.

IT'S ABOUT KEYWORDS, STUPID

2007-12-04T06:34:00.000-08:00

I hate when people type their e-mails in all capital letters. It's hard to read, and shows little regard for the laws of English punctuation. Just call it a pet peeve of mine, as a former reporter and copy editor.

But, I decided to cross my own disdain for this practice and use all caps in this headline. Why? Because regardless of all the hype over how many and what types of incoming links a site needs to perform on the major search engines, success is first and foremost determined by identifying the right keywords and optimizing the web site for them.

Case in point: We recently worked with a client that runs an established company, a brand leader in its industry. As part of our research into the "Performance Keywords" by which this site would best drive traffic, we asked the client for their list of keywords. We do this to establish a baseline from which we do our research, and usually the client will get some of it right. They will be able to identify some of the money words by which Internet users are finding their site.

Usually, however, by the end of our research, we will have found a number of keywords they didn't give us that perform just as well or better than ones they are using. In this particular case, more than half of our recommended terms were ones they hadn't provided and that were not being used on their site. The result is that the site is not being easily found by many Internet users searching for sites like theirs.

Depending on the strength of the keyword, that can mean the difference in traffic of tens of thousands of visitors. Carry it through and it also means lost opportunity for sales.

Fortunately, the client expected as much. They'd been managing the site themselves for some time and had reached a point where they felt it was time to bring in the professionals in order to maximize the value of the site.

But, for many businesses, ego gets in the way of having the most effective web site. The client feels "they know their business, they know their customers" so they do their own interpretation of optimization and then wonder why it didn't work.

There are lots of things that can affect the success of a web site. Most people understand the relationship between search engine positioning and site traffic. But still too few realize the relationship between keyword selection and site traffic. Being No. 1 on a keyword that no one searches for might be good for the ego, but does nothing to drive sales.

Because no business likes to hear they lost potential business because the prospect couldn't find them, A SUCCESSFUL SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION PROGRAM ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS SHOULD START WITH A KEYWORD RESEARCH PROGRAM.

Comprende?

Read more about what's involved in a Keyword Research project.

What you need to know about 2nd generation SEO

2007-09-05T10:16:00.000-07:00

DIY tools have made it really easy for companies to build their own web sites, but the increased complexity of getting your web site to appear on the first three pages of Google or Yahoo still favors having the professionals do it for you.

Just as companies learned that adding “tags” on their home pages was important, the search engines changed their requirements, making optimized content and inbound links more important to site performance.

In May, Google launched Universal Search, which incorporates site images and videos to the optimization equation. On top of adding these new elements to the search formula, Google also has made it more difficult to get your pages indexed at all. The company’s Supplemental Index is a way of limiting the total number of pages in the database that displays web results; the pages Google deems to be of lower quality are banished to the Supplemental Index, where they have little chance of being seen by search engine users.

Given Google’s continual fluidity, it’s tempting to say “To heck with them,” and optimize your site for Yahoo and MSN. Unfortunately, Google is the 800 lb. gorilla. In July, its marketshare was 53.3 percent, compared to 20.1 percent for Yahoo and 13.6 percent for MSN. So, not putting the effort to perform well on Google is pretty much a suicide mission for your web site marketing.

Continued developments in software have made it easier than ever for companies to build and host their own web sites internally. But, the lack of internal expertise in navigating search engine waters usually renders these types of sites completely ineffective, as though they don’t exist at all.

Hacked off over copyright infringement

2007-07-26T11:36:00.000-07:00

I got a nasty surprise today. One of our employees accidentally discovered an unrelated company in another state had copied one of our web site designs for purposes of using it as a template to build their own site.

They had copied several of our pages and moved them, lock, stock and barrel, or in this case, content, coding and design, over to their servers, where they remain today. The home page that they're building still contains our meta coding, with our company name in the header! What's worse, the pages have been indexed into Google, which could really cause confusion among people looking for us.

So, now we're setting a curt letter to have the offending web pages removed.

Here are a couple sites that I found useful in determining how we'd handle this situation:

A 6 Step System to Stop People from Stealing Your Website Content

The U.S. Copyright Office's FAQ page

B2B Buyer Report Supports Importance of Search Engine Optimizaton

2007-06-11T13:39:00.000-07:00

A new survey of business-to-business (b2b) companies highlights the importance of investing in a web site that is designed and optimized to perform well on the major search engines and that has visibility on other related industry sites.

According to the Business to Business Survey 2007 by Enquiro, 65.3 percent of b2b buyers say they would start their research with a general search engine. Depending on which phase of the purchase cycle the buyer is in (awareness, research, negotiation, purchase), other online sources (b2b vertical web site, vendor web site, and industry information site) come into play as well to provide the buyers trusted information.

The survey points to the importance of having a company’s web site perform well on search engines and industry portals. The two factors cited as most influential in a buyer’s decision-making are the vendor’s web site and word-of-mouth recommendation. Given that nearly two-thirds of the survey respondents would begin their research with a search engine, it is critical that company web sites be found easily in the search engines.

Also covered in the survey was the type information that b2b buyers consider most important. In all cases, b2b buyers said they preferred to get information in a text format that could be downloaded and was portable. The reason cited for this preference was that in most cases, the person doing the product research is not the person making the purchase decision; therefore, the information needs to be available in a format that can be easily shared.

Google’s Universal Search Coming Too Fast for Most

2007-06-06T08:10:00.000-07:00

I think the Internet world is moving too fast for most companies. Just when businesses are beginning to understand the concept of on-page search engine optimization, we’ve had to try to quickly bring them up-to-speed with the importance of a good incoming link strategy.

Now, we’re going to have to turn our attention to Google’s Universal Search. Google has begun implementing a change to its algorithms to pull content from its vertical search engines (News, Video, Images, Maps, etc.) to display amid regular text results in the main search.

It creates a great opportunity for businesses to leverage content they may already have on their site, or content that can be developed to get additional visibility on the search engine.

But getting them to understand it and then to make a commitment to use all the technology will be quite the challenge for some time.

Help out the Search Engines with an Optimized 404 Page

2007-05-23T08:45:00.000-07:00

Nobody’s perfect. And when it comes to web sites, no web site is perfect. Even with the best planning, it’s not unusual for a site redesign to result in there being a few broken links as the site structure is altered and old pages are removed.

In some cases, we’ll suggest a client keep old pages on the server to avoid a site visitor from being directed by a search engine to a dead page. But, that’s not always possible, in which case, it’s important to have the proper redirects set up.

Inevitably with a larger site that’s been online for some time and gone through several iterations, dead links will occur. In which case, it’s important to have an optimized Error 404 page.

The value of an optimized Error 404 page is that the site visitor has an opportunity to click on a link from a navigation bar to get to the main site and also to learn a little about the site, even though it’s technically a dead page. Also, the search engine spiders will be able to continue spidering your site via the links in the navigation bar.

Here’s a good article on how an optimized Error 404 page is set up.

Packaging company re-packages itself via Internet

2007-05-09T12:08:00.000-07:00

It’s exciting when you come across a company in your industry that you know “just gets it.”

Among the news stories on our plastics news page this week is one about Avon, Ohio-based American Built Containment Systems, now doing business on-line as ABC Packaging Direct.

The custom packaging company revamped its sales model and now does business exclusively on-line, resulting in a 40 percent boost in revenue. What’s interesting about ABC’s web activities is how the company uses its web site to interact with prospects and convert them to customers.

Among the interesting features is a human greeter who interacts with site visitors as they enter the site at www.abc-packaging.com. The greeter offers to assist the visitor in locating specific products.

Additionally, the site has an interactive web meeting function that allows customers to work directly with ABC’s staff to design the packaging they need and obtain a quote.

According to the company’s president, the transition to an all-Internet sales model enabled the company to reduce the size of its sales staff, eliminate travel for face-to-face sales calls and turn around packaging designs much more quickly.

Besides the interactive features on the site, the company also has invested in making sure the web site performs on major search engines like Google so that prospects can easily find the site. According to ABC Founder and CEO David Marinac in a company statement, “The acceptance of Search Engines as a primary tool for decision makers to solve packaging problems has led to a tremendous opportunity for growth at ABC Packaging Direct.”

Industry data supports Marinac’s assertion. According to a survey of technical buyers and engineers by GlobalSpec, 73% use search engines or online industrial directories ahead of trade publications or printed directories when seeking product information.

Kudos to ABC.

Keys to Successful Web Site Strategy

2007-05-01T08:49:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I gave a presentation to the Rubber Division of the American Chemical Society at their annual Spring Conference in Akron, Ohio, on "You're Online: Is it Working?"

During the presentation, I described web site marketing as a “three-legged stool.”

The first leg is content, the second is design/coding, and the third is promotion. Without any one of these elements, your web site will fail to deliver the traffic and leads you expect.

The presentation covers the key elements to successful web site content, design and search engine optimization. Additionally, I've provided current statistical data on Internet use in the b2b and industrial sectors.

Here's a link to view Polysort's Rubber Division presentation.

Why Links Have Become So Important to SEO

2007-04-16T08:44:00.000-07:00

When you're immersed in your business, you take for granted that everyone you talk to understands the jargon or innerworkings of your industry.

Internally at our company, we've had discussions about the level of understanding that clients and prospects have about search engine optimization and the factors that determine good SEO. Based on those conversations, derived from other conversations directly with our clients and prospects, it became apparent that we needed to take a couple of steps back and put together a basic piece on the history of SEO and how links have become such an important part of an SEO strategy.

For many people, links mean outgoing links, where a company might have a links page on their web site and provide links to various companies and organizations of interest.

But, for SEO purposes, it's incoming links as well as internal links that have greater importance.

For a basic understanding or how/why links are so important, read the article I wrote on "The Importance of Link-Building to SEO Success."

It’s About Links, Stupid!

2007-04-09T13:26:00.000-07:00

I just finished reading a report on Search Engine Optimization and what factors SEO experts say are currently the most important in getting a site well-ranked on Google.

A summary of the report indicates that there are 10 primary factors that affect how well a site will be ranked by Google. But, look more closely and it’s clear that the overwhelming favorite is links, whether inbound, outbound or internal. Of the Top 10 ranking factors, 7 relate to links.

Do I agree with the report? Largely, yes. What we see with the sites we’ve optimized is that many older sites we optimize perform fairly well purely on edits we made to the site to improve keyword density and tags (an older standard for SEO). But, sites wanting position on extremely competitive keywords or sites that are relatively new need the extra help of a strong link-building campaign to convince Google that the client’s site is important enough to be ranked on the first page for a given keyword search.

The secret to Google’s ranking formula is basic in understanding. The search engine is prioritizing sites based on how important they seem to a particular topic. To Google, a site’s importance is demonstrated by how many other important web sites link to a given page on your web site. If you make widgets, and 15 (hypothetical number) highly visited sites about widgets link to your page describing your widgets, then there’s a good chance Google will deem your site important enough to list it on the first page when visitors search for widgets.

The concept is simple. It’s the execution that can get tricky.

Read more about how not having good incoming links could permanently damage your site's position on Google.

What’s a fair price to pay for a site redesign?

2007-03-27T09:35:00.000-07:00

The fair price to pay for your web site is determined by which designer/firm seems best equipped to build the site you envision for your business. Ask for web design samples -- you'll see differences in styles that will tell you whether the designer is foremost a programmer or whether they are a skilled graphic designer.

In addition to look and feel, ask them whether they write the copy for their clients or are provided the content for pages. Usually, a much lower hourly price reflects a business that is more one-dimensional -- you're getting a nice site design, but no expertise in online copywriting, SEO, site planning, etc. The higher end firms will have specialists in all those areas, and a specialist in each area to work on your site.

If you're looking to your site to generate traffic and leads, bite the bullet and use a company that writes SEO-optimized content along with designing the site. We've had lots of clients that came to us for their redesign after going to less-expensive designers – they ended up paying twice to get one good site – not a very cost-effective solution.

Flash isn’t the problem, it’s lack of text

2007-03-19T11:10:00.000-07:00

We recently met with a prospect who asked us for an opinion about their web site and its performance on search engines. The site was beautifully designed, entirely in flash.

It was difficult to tell the prospect, who clearly had spent a great deal of time and investment on this site, that in order to achieve search engine positioning, the site would basically need to be blown up.

Ultimately, the problem wasn’t that Flash was used to design the site. The problem was that there was no text for the search engines to index. Flash can be used to improve the aesthetics of a site or draw attention to certain elements. But it shouldn’t be used to the exclusion of basic text, which is what the search engines need to index and rank your site.

Read more about how to properly design with Flash.

PPC vs. SEO

2007-02-27T08:10:00.000-08:00

A client recently asked whether they should embark on a pay-per-click online advertising program that another company had quoted them.

In the best of all situations, businesses would have enough money to work with to do both pay-per-click and search engine optimization to improve their visibility on the major search engines.

But in reality, most companies we work with need to get the most out of a limited budget, in which we case we will recommend search engine optimization over pay-per-click.

Why? Dollar for dollar, search engine optimization over the long-term generates more traffic to company web sites. Research shows that 30% of Internet users click on pay-per-click ads vs. 70% that click on the natural results that can be attained via search engine optimization.

Additionally, pay-per-click only generates leads for as long as you keep paying for the ads. An investment in SEO usually will last significantly longer, requiring periodic updates to maintain or increase visibility.

So, if you need to make an investment to improve traffic and leads to your site, target the 70%, rather than the 30%, and target long-term vs. short-term results.

Here are a few other articles on the topic:
PPC vs. SEO
The Issue of Click Fraud in PPC
PPC vs. SEO from Marketing Chat

Is SEO Necessary for Every Site?

2007-02-26T13:27:00.000-08:00

I saw a post on this topic on an online discussion forum. The author proposed that if a site has a small universe of users, ie an internal site for a university, church, or business customers, and it is not intended as a tool to market anything or increase sales, then SEO is not necessary.

I disagree.

I've seen many instances of companies with similar names that could result in an Internet user not being able to find the company he does business with. For example, if XYZcompany.com is already taken as a URL, a company would use some sort of variation -- either a different extension, .net or .info, for example, or alter the domain slightly, like XYZcompanyinc.com.

If there are multiple XZY Companies across the country and the site's not search engine optimized, it's possible customers would not find it even under the company name. Not only is that possible, we've seen it happen.

My belief is that if a company determines that a web site is important for their business, whether for sales or customer service, then they make an assumption that people will find it and go to it. In this increasingly competitive web environment, the best way to ensure traffic is to optimize the web site.

Even in the case where a site is only targeted to a well-defined group, you can't make the assumption that everyone in the group will retain the business card, print ad, direct mail piece or letter that had your URL. You'll get a segment of that population that wants to go to Google, type in your name and click on your site.

Why make it difficult for them? Read more about "What is Search Engine Optimization?"

Phone or E-mail?

2007-02-13T10:03:00.000-08:00

What's more important to you from a business perspective, your phone or e-mail? I was pondering the question while feeling frustrated over phone issues in our office related to the transition to Voice Over IP technology.

In my case, I'd say I can't choose one over the other. E-mail has quickly become an essential tool to conducting business. On the rare occasion that it's down, I feel helpless -- as though I'm lost without the means to communicate, even though my phone sits just 18 inches away.

Likewise, when the phone isn't working, I feel the same way.

I guess that's because I've learned to compartmentalize the tasks for which I use e-mail and phone. Certain people, certain projects are best dealt with via e-mail, where I can document information and relay a significant amount of information without losing the fine points. Some projects, some people require phone contact for best impact.

E-mail allows me to extend my workday. I can communicate an idea or issue to someone at any time of the day without needing them to be at the other end at the same time.

But, if I need immediate response, I go with the phone. Not everyone checks their e-mail constantly.

Phone or e-mail? If I were forced to pick, I'd go with e-mail.

Don't let your designer bully you into a facelift

2007-02-06T10:52:00.000-08:00

I was watching Dr. 90210 last night (a reality show about Beverly Hills plastics surgeons), and was astounded at how easily one of the doctors featured had manipulated a patient into agreeing to a surgical procedure he hadn't requested.

The patient had gone to the surgeon to check into rhinoplasty to improve breathing through his nose. The patient said he'd broken his nose a number of years earlier and, as a result, could not breathe through it. It affected his ability to be active in recreational sports.

As the doctor examined his nose, he commented to the patient that he had a weak chin, one that could be improved upon to make him look more masculine. (Frankly, no one would have mistaken this guy for not being masculine.) Amazingly, the patient agreed to the additional surgical procedure, which, unlike the rhinoplasty, was purely cosmetic.

Maybe the chin surgery would make the guy feel better about himself, but, in reality, the guy didn't have a problem with his chin till the doctor brought it up.

I relate this to web site design because too often I talk to companies that tell me they've just undergone a redesign. When I ask why, they usually say their designer recommended it, without giving a good reason as to why the previous site was a problem.

I'm all for making money, but I'd much rather see web designers approach a website redesign from the standpoint of solving a problem, ie getting more traffic, getting more leads, introducing a new product, improving SEO, improving site navigation, etc. The exception to this would be web sites that were never professionally designed or are outdated-looking, in which case a redesign for cosmetic purposes is clearly warranted.

Other than that, leave the facelifts to the plastic surgeons.

Internet offers the space to be creative

2007-02-05T08:53:00.000-08:00

I was at a Bob Evans restaurant on Saturday morning for breakfast with my son, who was having a hard time deciding how he wanted his eggs prepared.

While he pondered his decision, it occurred to me that it would be a fun and useful feature on the Bob Evans menu and, even the web site, to have a "glossary" of all the different ways to cook an egg.

As a person who spent a significant portion of her career in print media, I really appreciate the flexibility the Internet offers as a marketing vehicle.

In my mind, some of the biggest advantages are:

Cheap, unlimited space;
Ease with which content can be edited (your mistakes aren't permanent on the Web!);
No deadlines -- you can add, update, edit whenever you want, without being at the mercy of a third-party publisher or mailing house.

As a result, the Internet offers companies (including yours) the opportunity to be creative in providing useful and engaging content.

Are you taking advantage of it?

If Results Aren't Guaranteed, Why Bother with SEO?

2007-01-30T08:09:00.000-08:00

Continuing on yesterday's article about SEO guarantees: If the results of true search engine optimization can’t be guaranteed, why bother?

First and foremost, research shows that 70% of search engine click-thrus occur from the natural results. Pay-per-click provides instant positioning, but your click-thru rate on PPC ads will be lower than what you’d achieve by being on the first page of search engine’s natural results.

Internet users consider the natural results to be more credible than PPC ads located on the same page, which explains the higher click-thru for natural results. Another benefit is that search engine users clicking on your link enter your site with high expectations that your company provides what they’re looking for.

Your search engine optimization efforts usually provide long-term return on investment. Once your site is positioned on the first page of the search engines, it’ll usually stay there for some time. Whereas with PPC, you’ll need to keep paying month after month to retain your ad position.

What's wrong with an SEO guarantee?

2007-01-29T10:41:00.000-08:00

Ten years ago, our company would routinely guarantee that we could position our clients' web sites at the forefront of the major search engines for important keywords. Today, we'd never think of doing such a thing.

Why?

In the early days of SEO, actually, before the term was even coined, very few companies understood the importance of search engine positioning, let alone what techniques could be used to improve it. At the same time, there were still relatively few sites competing with each other for keyword positioning, making SEO a simple and very rote process for us.

The landscape has changed significantly since then. Where there might have been 150,000 pages competing for a certain keyword, there now could be 15 million. Search engines have become much more sophisticated, requiring marketers to jump through many more hoops to have their pages deemed as important content. And, SEO firms abound, creating a much more competitive market for site positioning.

From our experience, SEO firms that today offer guarantees provide a promise to do something that ultimately is of little value to the client. They guarantee to position a client on X number of search engines for X number of keywords, with no promise that the results will show up on Google, Yahoo or MSN or for high-traffic keywords.

They also promise to "resubmit" their client sites monthly; again, a worthless proposition as search engines no longer require any sort of submission to index a site.

So, how do you determine what to believe from a company offering such guarantees?

You don't. You just run -- fast, and far away, with your hand on your wallet.

Why another blog on SEO and web design?

2007-01-24T09:07:00.000-08:00

This blog is intended for the average marketing manager of a business who has lots of balls in the air -- working with sales, executive management, and typically juggling multiple marketing programs, print, direct mail, web, etc.

So, their time is valuable, and limited. They don't have time to become SEO experts, but need to learn enough to be able to make some educated decisions about how to direct their company's online strategy.

That's my target audience. If you want real technical material, go somewhere else. This will be very high-level stuff, and easy to read.

That's why I've named it KISS -- Keep it Simple Stupid, SEO and Web Design.

Ciao!