The Importance of Search Engine Optimization for Your Site

Search Engine Optimization is important because it helps to make your website easy for both users and search engine robots to understand. Although search engines have become increasingly sophisticated, it is difficult for them to process a web page the same way a person does. SEO helps the search engines determine what each page is about, and how it may be helpful to a user.

All major search engines operate on the same principles—automated search bots crawl through your website, follow links and index content, and store this information in in massive databases. The data is retrieved and displayed when a users initiates a search.

Consider these facts:

• 70-80% of users ignore the paid ads, focusing on the organic results.
• 75% of users never scroll past the first page of search results.

Optimizing Your Website for Search Engines
The rules of SEO and organic search marketing are constantly changing. In the past, SEO specialists focused their attention on keyword-rich content, meta title tags that accurately describe your product or service, and inbound links from other relevant websites. Today, SEO is driven by fresh, updated content where search engines are giving more credit to those who demonstrate authority and expertise in their industry which is reflected by certain keywords, and by articles and blogs.

The Importance of Social Media
One of the most neglected components of SEO is the alignment of your search engine optimization strategy with social media activity. Google analyzes Facebook "shares" and Twitter posts for determining search rankings, so a powerful online social presence is important for your business to get noticed. Social Media Optimization is not a one time process, but an ongoing campaign that constantly drives quality visitors to your site.

In order to work, SEO must be a continuous process. It's not enough to build and optimize a website, you need to commit to a strategy that includes an on-going plan to regularly add original content and integrate social media sites.

Web Site Design: Planning Your Home Page

A well-constructed home page will project a good first impression to all who visit your website.

All websites are organized around a home page that serves as a logical point of entry into the rest of your site. The home page sits at the top of the hierarchical chart of pages, and helps to divide your audience and provide clear pathways to their particular area of interest.

It is important that your home page clearly communicates your site's purpose, and provide all of the major options available on your site. Information on your home page should be visible "above the fold", and the content should focus on what your site offers that is of value to the visitor, and how it differs from your competition.

When a visitor arrives at your site, the first thing they do is scan your home page for links and major headings. Requiring visitors to read large passages of text can slow them down, or frustrate them to the point of leaving your site, so your website home page should enable easy navigation so that visitors can quickly browse for information they want without any hassles.

Invest a little time planning the organizational structure of your home page and think about who your audience is, and what they would expect to see on your site. Successful sites inform, engage and meet visitor expectations.

How Vital Is Brand Consistency?

Consistency is one of the most important cornerstones in maintaining brand strength, but it can be compromised easily. Often, consistent branding falls victim to uncertainty during organizational change or shifts in marketing strategy.

Your brand is the component of your company or product that resonates emotionally with your customers and prospects. Strong, effective branding helps customers build an attachment to your company or product beyond features, benefits or price.

A well-defined and consistent brand, then, allows the marketplace to rely on your brand to deliver a specific, consistent experience during interactions with your company. And that results in stronger customer loyalty and ultimately, consumer trust.

But brand consistency isn’t limited to how a product should look, or how it’s perceived.

Brand consistency is all about the touch points of your brand. It requires constant monitoring and response in the following areas:

•        Employee-customer exchanges, whether in person, by telephone, fax or e-mail
•       Website
•        Social media Video
•        Product attributes, such as packaging, product functionality, features and benefits
•        Warranty/customer service policies
•        Advertising – all forms
•      Print collateral (print matter and stationery)
•        Product manuals, inserts, directions
•        Physical locations of headquarters or offices
•        Trade show booths and graphics
•        Distribution sources
•        Public relations

When branding vacillates toward inconsistency, consumers report a sense of uncertainty and a lack of confidence in products and services attached to that brand.  

In fact, experts maintain that poor branding is more detrimental than no branding at all.

Elements of a Good Website

A good website has well-written, relevant content that is regularly updated, and a design that is intuitive and easy to use. However, many businesses struggle to build and maintain a strong web presence because they do not fully understand what makes a website successful.

A Good Website Has:

• A tagline clearly identifies what you do
• Consistent design and navigation on all pages
• Clear hierarchy of information
• Footer links at the bottom of every page
• Keywords that identify what your business does
• Easy-to-find contact information
• A method for gathering user data
• Content that is relevant, informative and motivates a visitor to act
• High rankings with major search engines

View Visionary's Portfolio of Website Designs

Proper Evaluation is Crucial in Achieving Your Website Goals

Effectively measuring site performance will enable you to accurately gauge ROI, and will aid in future decisions and strategy for evolving your site. Google Analytics is the most widely used website statistics service. The basic service is free of charge and a premium version is available for a fee. Google Analytics generates detailed statistics about the visits to your website.

Tracking visits is vitally important for a deeper analysis of your website. When you can reliably track visits, the additional statistics you can derive are some of the most informative and interesting.
A few are:

• Number of visits
• Average number of requests per visit
• Average duration of a visit
• Top referring organizations
• Top entry pages
• Top page durations
• Top exit pages
• Top referring URL’s
• Average number of users per day
• Most active day of the week

Planning a Successful Website

A successful website must have clearly identified goals and compelling content that encourages your audience to explore deeper into your site. In addition, the site must be easy to navigate and attractively designed to complement your content. Here are important considerations when planning your site:

Site Planning
When planning the organizational framework of the website, there are 3 concepts that require your attention:

1. What the audience wants from you
2. What you want to say
3. How you arrange the content to best meet your audience’s needs

Site Content
Most content on the Web is gathered in short passages. Users appreciate short “chunks” of information that can be located and scanned quickly. This method translates well to the Web for several reasons:

1. Few Web users spend time reading long passages of text on-screen
2. Chunking can help organize and present information in a uniform format
3. Concise chunks of information are better suited to the computer screen. Long pages tend to disorient readers and require users to scroll long distances.

The content should focus on potential and current client’s needs. People visiting your site are only concerned with their needs—not necessarily what you have to offer. Copy should reflect the true business value that you deliver to your clients.

Site Design
The design of your site should offer relief to the eye by striking a balance between text and graphic elements. Photos can reinforce the text message as well as add a more “personal” element that would breathe life into your site.

Consistency
A consistent approach to layout and navigation allows users to adapt quickly to the site design and predict with confidence the location of information and navigation controls across the pages of your Web site. Omnipresent logos and contact information should be consistently displayed on all pages of the site.

Compelling Choices
Never assume your visitors will click past the home page. They’ve arrived at your site somehow and for some reason. Now give them several compelling choices to encourage them to click further into the site before

Web Site Conventions Enhance User Experience

Without being taught, we learn to read a newspaper - the large bold text is a headline, the text under a photograph is a caption; these elements are called "conventions". Conventions are a set of accepted standards and norms that make it easier for people to process information. When it comes to the web, conventions are essential because they help visitors “feel at home” when visiting your website. Most websites adhere to a few important conventions and yours should to. The most common conventions are:


The logo should be at the top left corner of the page
This is the first place people will look to identify the site they are on.

Your logo should link back to your homepage
By clicking on the logo, visitors should expect to go back to your website home page.

Links are underlined and in a different color than regular text
Links are usually underlined and blue, but it has become common practice to match the color scheme of the site.

The navigation is consistent and predictable throughout the site
Consistent navigation means that it is always at the same place, usually across the top (horizontally) or along the left side (vertically).

Conventions are visual shortcuts, capable of conveying complex information with the simplest visual cues.

Inbound Marketing: A Primer

There’s a lot of talk about inbound marketing vs. outbound marketing these days.

At the heart of the discussion is that inbound marketing historically translates in better ROI than outbound.

Here’s the reason: inbound marketing means that prospects and customers are reaching out to YOU, as opposed to you reaching out to THEM through more traditional marketing, like print, radio, TV and direct mail.

The tried-and-true method of marketing shows us that with frequency, advertisers will achieve success in the form of some prospects taking action. But that formula means that advertisers will have to "buy" consumer actions via a media spend.

With inbound marketing, you’re more likely to experience a better ROI, a more loyal customer following, and better word-of-mouth promotion. Another important difference: your customers will engage on a more personal branding level when they FIND you as opposed to being accosted by advertising at all turns.

Inbound marketing allows you to deliver personalized, consistent information across all channels through social medial and content marketing.

So the question is: when will your brand be “hitting on all cylinders” for inbound marketing?

And the answer is…when your brand flexes its “social media” muscle through Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Pinterest; when you offer content marketing in the form of white papers, blogs, podcasts and develop a community of followers; and when your website offers search engine-rich, meaningful content that speaks to each of target markets as individuals.

Last, remember to measure your results through analytics, website form submissions, and other feedback mechanisms.  

What’s All The Buzz About “Buzz”?

Surely you’ve heard people talking about “buzz” associated with a company, product or service.

Contrary to what appears to be an arbitrary or random display of interest, buzz is actually the result of a carefully cultivated strategy to help an organization benefit from social networking.

Just what is buzz and why is it important?  

Buzz might be defined as the sum of activity and discussion about a product among a group of people at a given time. It’s sort of like a bit of gossip exchanged at a cocktail party among friends. After a short time, lots of people in the room will be talking about the rumor.

The American public is strongly susceptible to word-of-mouth advertising.  If you need a handyman, statistics show that you are far more likely to ask a personal contact for a reference, rather than selecting a source through advertising.

In fact, a study shows that 80% of Americans depend on personal networks as the best sources of information. That tops many other sources for recommendations, including advertising.

But if buzz was easy to generate, every organization would be involved in creating it, and then it wouldn’t be as valued.

Buzz is like……

Buzz is very much like the sun’s role in solar power.  Like the sun, buzz can be harnessed as a source, but one can never truly control the sun, or the interference of clouds. However, one can reap the benefits of the sun’s power. See? It’s beyond control, but it’s worth leveraging.

So, to recap, buzz can help you get the word out more efficiently and more cost-effectively, and can help position your product through well-regarded sources.

Why Buzz Works So Well

Buzz works, very simply, because it’s an inherent part of our survival mechanism. We interact with others to advance our own agendas, improve our knowledge, and avoid risks. Part of our evolution has helped humans discovered the power, safety and advantage of socialization and networking.

Who Starts the Buzz?

As we live and work each day, we move in and out of interpersonal communication networks: some are work-related, some are personal. These networks are key to the promotion of buzz.

All of us know that one person who travels from circle to circle, making acquaintances of our acquaintances. These people, as labeled in sociology experiments and publications, are connectors. The term connector refers to a fundamental part of all networks, from world economies to electronics to the human cell.

Connectors as people help advance the buzz from one group to the next. They are key to carrying a message forward, and are a vital part of keeping social networks together.

Then there are those people are considered important social opinion leaders. The can influence the opinions and behaviors of others informally. They are referred to as hubs.  Although they are opinion leaders, hubs are not the same as satisfied customers or “champions” of a product or service.

Both hubs and connectors can carry your message between social networks, tailoring your message to meet the concerns of each group.

How Do We Get People Buzzing?

Getting buzz started is like trying to hula hoop for the first time. It takes some coordination, some vision and moving in the right direction.

1.     First of all, simplify your message. Make it brief, but make it compelling. Attention is at a premium these days: the average American is exposed to more than a thousand advertising messages each day.

2.     Next, refine that message. Avoid your “rational claim”. Don’t talk about your service, your quality, or your selection. Instead, appeal to customer emotion to separate your company in the marketplace. For example, if you are selling life insurance policies to parents of young children, remind your audience of the security offered by parents who will always ensure the safety and well-being of a child.

3.     Then, think of ways to connect with social networks of your target market. If we look at the life insurance example again, consider connecting with board members at sports leagues, members of parent-teacher associations, camp directors, and more.

4.     Identify the members of these groups who will help spread your message effectively: connectors and hubs.  

5.     Once these social networkers are identified within a given group, look for ways to connect with them, and offer up your message.

6.     Encourage these social connections and interface frequently to build relationships and amplify your message.

Buzz Right In

Social networking is a learned skill, made better when you sharpen your intuition for networkers, improve your level of patience, and practice your messaging competence.

The single most impressive thing about generating buzz is that, when it works, buzz produces like no other form of marketing. All networkers want a “hot tip” a “good deal”, or to be “in the know.”

So, get your target market buzzing and you’re sure to see migration to your product and growth in your sales.

Introduction to Web Sites: A Presentation to NYS Small Business Development Center

Inbound Links Improve Search Results

While optimizing the pages of your web site is important, you will improve your search results even more by having links from other sites to yours. Inbound links are a great source of referral traffic and they will influence your site's rankings as well. 

Google was the first search engine to include inbound links as a ranking factor. They view a link from one site to another as a "vote" for the destination site. The more "votes' you have the more your site is considered authoritative. Researching your competitors' links can reveal identifying link opportunities that be useful for you SEO.

Interactive Media Spending Approaches Television Spending

Advertisers will spend as much on interactive marketing as they do on television advertising by 2016. 

In the next couple of years, spending in search marketing, display advertising, email advertising, mobile marketing and social media will approach $77 million and represent over one-third of all advertising. Growth in interactive marketing can be attributed to:

Larger interactive teams. Marketers have much larger interactive staffs than they did three years ago. 

Endorsement of emerging media. Marketers are utilizing mobile, social and search marketing tools, transforming these technologies into mainstream market options.

Effectiveness of interactive marketing. Marketers are investing more in interactive channels because they believe that they will generate better results over time. 

Connecting with customers. Businesses are looking to create customized experiences across their customers' preferred touchpoints. Forrester Research projects that by 2015, smartphone use will grow 150% and 82 million people will own a tablet.