West Bay Web Internet Marketing Blog

Social Media Improves Traffic and Visibilty

Published January 12, 2012 | By West Bay Web

Social Media is playing and even larger role in Google rankings. Facebook, Twitter and Google’s very own Google + are very strong influences on your organic search results. Traditionally when optimizing a website for top placement in Google, there was no quick fix or magic bullet that could instantly alter your ranking. That is by and large still true, but… social media does have a potential for boosting traffic to your site for both short and long term effect.

We have seen client sites that are integrated with social media become spidered and indexed within 30 minutes of publishing new content. As always, the quality of content is paramount. Merely making posts without significantly unique and meaningful content will not assure you of positive results. In fact, the same standards that Google has preached remain. Do not be tempted to misuse or abuse Social Media, it is not the “new” way to keyword stuff or cloak. If you spam via social media, you will suffer the same penalties as you would risk with your website.

Google has just announced that they will be personalizing search results based on your connectivity and interaction with social media. This is an expansion of existing personalization but with and even greater weighting based on your interaction with social media sites. This is a much larger shift in Google’s algorithm than the Panda update. This will put even more pressure on site owners to become more socially integrated although not all sites will benefit.

Choosing the appropriate social media sites is an important part of your online marketing strategy. Facebook is an obvious choice and does merit serious consideration. Twitter is another near obvious choice and Google + offers certain advantages. Other sites may be considered as well based on your goals and customer profile. Each has their strengths and weaknesses as well as logistical considerations.

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Every Page is a Landing Page (or should be…)

Published May 18, 2011 | By West Bay Web

Don’t be deceptive.

In the world of online marketing you hear so called SEO’s talking about how you should create landing pages in order to do x, y, or z. The problem is that every page should be a landing page, and by default, it should exist for a specific reason. All pages should serve your reader or target audience. If a page does not serve a purpose or return value to the reader, it is spam and it must be eliminated from your site or Google will penalize you for poor quality content.

Most traditional Landing Pages are written to lure readers to a site and serves the site owner’s needs ahead of the reader. This is deceptive and Google knows it and they subsequently dole out punishment for this behavior. These poor quality landing pages will have a high bounce rate (one of Google’s key signals). As with any page with a high bounce rate, something is wrong and must be fixed. This is part of Google’s Democracy of Search.

So what is a landing page anyway? Poorly informed SEO’s define it as a page specially designed to “blah, blah, blah”. In this model, the landing page is specifically engineered attempt to game Google and other search engines in order to direct traffic to that page rather than present useful information to your readers. Tricks don’t win customers, offering what your customer wants and doing whatever it is that you do better than your competitors is what wins customers.

The right way.

Our definition is any page that a visitor reaches through a search based on a specific search query is a Landing Page. That’s right, not everyone enters your site through the homepage! In this model, every page on your site is important and serves a useful purpose. Building sites according to this concept takes a bit more planning and forethought but it pays off.

If a page does not serve a purpose or return value to the reader, it is spam and it must be eliminated from your site or Google will penalize you for poor quality content.

When working with our clients we look at their entire business: its structure, its products and services, and their customer support systems in order to best define the goal of the website, as well as how to design the architecture of the site. Once this analysis is complete, we begin mapping out what each individual page will contain, how it fits together with the other pages, what key information your reader wants to know, what action from that page is expected, and so forth.

“Focus on the user and all else will follow” – Google

Remember that Google values web sites that serve the reader. Stop writing pages that serve primarily yourself or your company but rather write content that your customers want and need. Google is very clear that this is important!

If you write useful content, every page is a landing page. Reward your customers with what they want, and then they (and Google) will reward you!

Posted in Google, Selling, SEO | Leave a comment

Google’s Golden Rule

Published April 4, 2011 | By West Bay Web

Do Unto Others…

Google is very clear that as a web author, you must provide useful and relevant information to your audience. This is Google’s Golden Rule and is the first and most important step in gaining Google’s good graces.

Too many website authors (and owners) worry far too much about Google and forget the real reason why they have a website. Unless your web site for your own pleasure, your web site’s purpose is to provide useful and relevant information to your audience. Sales will follow, but you must have content first.

Google is not your audience; your customer is your audience. Google cares far more about your customers than they care about you. In fact, Google doesn’t care about you at all. Stop worrying about Google (Bing and Yahoo too) and start concentrating making your customers happy instead; do this and good things will follow. (Your rank in Google will most likely improve too!)

Why You?

Odds are that your business looks much the same to the average consumer as does your competitors. Why should anyone buy anything from you? Is it price, service, location, convenience, or something else? Whatever the reason is, you must be able to answer this face-to-face or online and stand out from the competition.

Except for impulse purchases, every customer weighs and considers their choices before opening their wallets. As a marketer, you must be able to tell the consumer exactly why you are the best choice instead of someone else. You must communicate your Unique Selling Proposition; bigger, better, cheaper, or whatever it is, your web site must answer your prospective customer’s needs.

Needs and Desire

Customers all buy to fulfill needs reasons and desires. You must to show your prospective customers that you can satisfy these better than anyone else can. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs gives an insight to the consumer psyche. The better that you can fulfill these needs the more likely you are to make the sale.

If you apply your Unique Selling Proposition to each of your products or services, you can write compelling copy to fill your site with information that will drive sales. How does your product or service benefit your customer? What need does it fulfill? What are the features, benefits, advantages? You need to stand out from the crowd and prove to your customers that that only you can satisfy their needs. If you do this then you will have fulfilled Google’s Golden Rule.

Be relevant, write useful ad copy, fulfill your customer’s needs and desires, and the rest is easy.

Posted in Selling, SEO | Tagged Google | Leave a comment

Google is Like Golf

Published March 15, 2011 | By West Bay Web

Scorecard

In both golf and Google, the low score wins. In golf, you are penalized for each stroke you take; Google penalizes for each fault that your website has. As Google reviews your website it looks for transgressions, tallies up the score, and applies it to their algorithm to determine how you rank compared to the rest of the world.

Of course, no one outside of Google is absolutely certain of all the parameters Google uses to assign penalty points to a site, Google acknowledges that there are over 200.

Google does give reasonable insight to how to avoid penalties. Google is very clear that “spammy” content and “Black hat” techniques will be punished. What Google is less clear about is how punitive they are to each infraction. Some transgressions are more damaging to your ranking than others are. The important thing to remember is that they are cumulative.

Technique

A good Web Designer or Search Engine Optimizer will pay attention to the Gospel according to Google and avoid transgressions by following Google’s Golden Rules.

1. Sites should be designed for the end user, not Google.

2. Google values sites that are valued by others.

3. Sites should be accessible.

Frankly, we feel that Google relies too much on rule #2. They call it democracy; we call it a junior high popularity contest. This rule has been taken advantage of by unethical SEO companies and the sale of backlinks permits ranking to be manipulated. The good news is that Google’s latest revision to its algorithm relies less on backlinks than it used to.

Google has decreased the weighting on backlinks, increased the local search weighting, and is now returning far better quality results. This is good news for site owners that do not have resources for link building campaigns. Even better news is that if your competition has participated in link farms, their sites may be penalized. Legitimate links are valued but spammy link farms are on Google’s hit list.

The Single Most Important Factor.

So how do you drive down your score and get better results for your website? Besides the basics mentioned above, your site needs to have useful content. Useful content must be written so that it is easy to read and comprehensible. Writing good content is the most challenging part of creating a website. Provide useful information to your target audience and you will improve your score.

And Then?

Remember that, Google gives no rewards, only penalties.

Paying careful attention to the details that make up a website will minimize the penalties that Google assess to your site and improve your rank. Low score wins!

Posted in SEO | Tagged Google | Leave a comment