Entries Tagged 'General' ↓

Website usability is crucial because it assesses how visitors find your website from the point of utilization.  If a website is user-friendly with potential customers able to find what they want and make the purchase easily, you are going to develop a loyal customer base.  Visitors who find your site difficult to use will quickly leave and go elsewhere.

Website usability involves human test subjects being asked to perform certain operations on your site, such as proceeding to check out and payment.  Usability tests allow you to check how easy it is to use the site, to catch glitches and issues causing visitors to be inconvenienced, frustrated or simply downright unhappy. Continue reading →

Web analytics uses visitor data captured for the purpose of analyzing behavior and helping to determine what aspects of a website are working and which are not.  As a set of tools for helping site owners to tweak their sites and adopt strategies for maximizing the return on investment, web analytics plays a vital role in achieving and maintaining commercial success.

There are several vendors offering solutions but we are going to look at three solutions we think are the best on the market. Continue reading →

As many as 75% of online shoppers fail to complete the purchase and abandon the shopping cart.  Imagine three-quarters of shoppers in Wal-Mart pushing their trolleys around the store and leaving them at the checkout – Wal-Mart would be upset and so should you.

Before we look at what can be done to tackle the problem, we need to look at why shopping cart abandonment happens. Continue reading →

You have a great web site and are generating great traffic, but this is all for nothing unless you turn visitors into paying customers.  Your web traffic needs to be converted – cajoled, persuaded, sold, convinced – to click on your order and payment sections of the site and authorize payment for an order.

Some tips are peculiar to the web, but selling is selling no matter what channel you are using, so some of these tips are based on fundamental sales principles as old as mankind.

Continue reading →

The Search Engine Optimization (SEO) industry is always changing in an endless evolution; the techniques available have largely remained the same for the last five years, but how the net is being used by surfers has undergone a significant sea-shift.  Social Media has made a huge impact, and sites, such as Twitter and FaceBook, are delivering almost real-time information about what is going on now instead of accessing an indexed archive i.e. a search engine. 

Consider this scenario:

Company A relies on traditional SEO – funneling marketing efforts into a keyword or phrase, say, “green energy”, which has been identified from keyword research based on relative use by competitors and search engine research.

Company B operates in the same market as Company A, however it relies on Real-Time Search (RTS) – the RTS results for which keyword they should be focusing on is “bio-ethanol”.  This has been identified by what consumers are discussing, searching for and emailing each other about the most right now.

Under these circumstances, Company B has its SEO finger on the market’s pulse, whereas Company A is using historic information upon which to base its future internet marketing strategy. 

Knowledge is power – Company B is likely to attract more traffic to its site than Company A, because it is deemed to be more relevant to what people are interested in right now and the search engines are going to give it increasing relevance which means a higher ranking.  More than this, users are interested in “bio-ethanol” more than they are in “green energy”, which will generate even more targeted traffic to their web site.

Twitter provides real-time data on what surfers are interested in almost instantaneously, and while other platforms, such as FaceBook, have enabled real-time data access, Twitter leads the way in delivering usable information.  This is why Twitter has become the real-time information source of choice for a number of search engines including Google, Bing (in tandem with Yahoo! and Microsoft) and a host of others. 

The results you see returned from a search engine are giving increasing relevance to fresh content; in other words, what people are talking about “now” is more important compared to what they talked about yesterday, much more so than last month and vastly greater than a year ago.

SEO techniques must change to keep pace with the how search engines are tapping into real-time information sources and the new relevance this has to SEO and rankings.  Clients and their advisers must take into account the increasing weight given to real-time search and real-time sources of information.  As Twitter is the leading source, this means efforts should be focused on establishing a Twitter presence which is relevant and authoritative.

RankPay clients are already enjoying automated, real-time updating by use of an auto-Tweet feature which was enabled for client sites in October.  The auto-Tweet feature automatically posts, or “Tweets”, to a Twitter account, providing interesting content for other Twitter users as well as providing another avenue to generate links back to the main site. 

By leading the way in breaking new SEO ground, RankPay is at the forefront of developing an online reputation for clients which is increasingly important for gaining high rankings.  Within a year, those web sites with a real-time reputation for providing relevant, quality posts using Twitter, will be gaining enhanced rankings simply because they are deemed to be more authoritative than another web site which has ignored RTS issues.

In order to get ahead, clients need an SEO partner who understands how search engines and user habits are developing, in order to continuously adjust the strategies needed to gain and maintain high search rankings. 

Gaining high rankings in the search engine listings is important; the basic principle is that the higher your rank the more traffic to your website you will enjoy and more traffic means more conversions and more sales revenue.  

The typical pattern for online users looking to buy is to use the internet in three steps;

1. Generic searches (or research searches) are conducted which will look like [widgets] – from this the surfer will find out what widgets are, what they do, performance, options, how they satisfy the user’s needs and so on;
2. A Local Search is conducted which will look something like [widget]+[TheirTown] – at this point they are looking for likely sources to provide widgets and are closer to making a buying decision; and
3. The Purchase is made either online or offline with the supplier of their choice.

Changing Surfer Habits: Creative Searches and the Mobile Internet

How internet surfers have been using search engines has changed dramatically; no longer are users simply searching for “widgets” and buying from a site based on such a basic search.  This may have applied a few years ago but times have moved on. Instead, surfers are getting creative with how they use search engines and increasing the level of search term sophistication.  Searches such as, [widget]+[color options]…[green credentials]…[open at midnight]…[allows pets]…[competitors] or similar, are being used to elicit the information they are looking for.

It is a powerful buying signal when a surfer makes a search – [widget]+[location] – because now they have decided the “widget” they are interested in and are now looking for a supplier where they are situated.  The reason they do this is simple – they are looking to buy very soon.

 How surfers search is not the only factor – the Apple iPhone, Googlephone, Blackberry and other smart phones are with us and users are accessing the mobile internet “on the go” to source products and services.

Picture the scene; a couple meet up after work and are looking for somewhere to go, using their iPhone she searches for somewhere to eat while he pulls out his Blackberry and looks for somewhere with great music and dancing – the need is now, the location is “here”, and the time to making a purchase is as long as it takes to get there. 

Online buyers are not using the internet to simply buy from Amazon or the big online brand names – they are looking for suppliers in their immediate locality i.e. where they are at the moment whether that is their hometown, somewhere they are passing through, or while away on business or vacation.  Generic searches are of no use under such circumstances but, because your business has a physical location you can use this to capture your share of the local search business on a far more level playing field.  For instance, Blackwell Bookshop in Billerica MA, will have a far better chance competing for business against Amazon when [bookstore]+[Billerica] is the search term being used as opposed to [bookstore].

What Can You Do To Benefit From Local Search?

Local search represents a major opportunity to increase your sales from your website because generic search terms have far less significance. You can leverage your local presence to increase your local search rankings which is something companies aiming at national coverage find more difficult to do.  You also don’t need to spend huge sums of money which is a prerequisite if you are competing directly with big online names.

What can you do to maximize your local search rankings?

There are a number of local search SEO techniques available and here are just a few to consider:

Use Your Contact Information

Make sure you include your physical business address on every web page – this is good selling advice too as after all, you want customers to be able to find you quickly.  Using the html  <address> tag to enclose your address (and telephone number) will help ensure your location is known to the search engines when they crawl your site. 

Having the address on the site also helps establish what is termed, “trust ranking” compared to a site that has no mailing or location address.

Adding a footer such as: “Widget Business : Billerica’s Widget Source: Based in Billerica, MA”, makes it very clear to search engines where you are located.

Register with Local Search Engines

Google and Yahoo! are both serious players in developing local search – more sales for local businesses means more business for them, so take the time to register with local search engines and communities. 

Here are the links for Google Local Business Center and Yahoo! Local Merchant

You can also set your location using Google Webmaster Tools

CitySearch and Local City Searches

You can register with CitySearch which provides users with local information depending on the city they are in.  More importantly, CitySearch is a major source of local business information for sites such as Expedia and Ticketmaster amongst many others.

Register With Internet Directories

Sites such as Yelp, CitySquares and MojoPages provide good “indirect” traffic i.e. when a surfer makes a local search and it is their entry which has a high ranking, but you are listed within it. They also provide you with back links, which improves your “authority” ranking for that location, i.e. you will rank higher for that location no matter what business you have.

Food For Thought

Obviously, we’re just scratching the surface with Local Search and the techniques available to gain high local search rankings.  What’s important to take away is that Local Search is where the money is at when it comes to increasing sales revenues online – surfers are using and accessing search engines in a more sophisticated way, but more importantly, when they do using Local Search, they are very close to making a buying decision and your physical proximity is more important than having a huge, online presence. 

A search engine’s ultimate goal is to find the best way to present the most relevant search results to its users. As such, Google and the search engines employ over 400 new changes to their ever-growing algorithms every year to help combat potentially spammy and illegitimate websites from ranking well. One method for identifying potentially legitimate websites over illegitimate sites is a website’s domain age and registration length.

A website’s domain age is something that cannot be manipulated or faked, which is why the search engines place greater weight on older domains and domains with longer registration dates. The older the domain generally means that more time, money, and resources have gone into it. Websites that are attempting to manipulate the search results typically have a short life span, with the webmasters understanding that one day soon their website may be banned from the results. Therefore, it isn’t cost effective to register a domain for years knowing that one day soon that website will no longer rank.

Register your domain for as long as possible; the longer the better. Google, Yahoo, and MSN will be able to see the extended registration date, which will help your rankings in both the short and long term. It shows the search engines that you are dedicated to the domain and the future of its development. In one case, we have seen a client’s website go from outside the top 100, to top 20 within several weeks! Have a question regarding domain age and registration length? Please feel free to contact RankPay support.

Back in the good ol’ days the Keyword meta tag used to be pretty important. You could stuff the tag with all your keywords and have a real impact on how your pages ranked in the search engines. Unfortunately, today you’ll find that getting to the top of the search engines isn’t that easy . . .

First off, let’s go over what “meta tags” are in the first place.

Meta tags are found in the “head” area of your web pages (near the top of the page’s HTML). Other than a web page’s “Title Tag”, the information in the head area of your web pages is not seen by those viewing your pages. Instead, meta information in this area is used to communicate information to search engine spiders and browsers.

The meta keywords tag allows you to provide additional text for search engines to index. The keyword tag is sometimes useful as a way to help your Web page rank for synonyms, misspellings, or unusual words that don’t appear on the Web page itself.

SO, when it comes to the keyword tag, here’s what we recommend…

First off, make sure you do have the tag on each and every page in your Website. Next, be sure to include keywords related to the central theme of your page. Separate each keyword phrase by a comma and be sure not to include more than ten phrases. Many people believe that you can stuff the keywords tag with as many keywords as you like, but our testing and results don’t agree. Too much of ANY optimization factor is generally is not a good thing.

Here’s an example of properly structured Meta Keyword tag:

<META name=”keywords” content=”furniture, tropical furniture, bamboo furniture”>

So be sure that all of your pages have the tag properly place, it doesn’t take long. If you have any questions about the Keyword Meta Tag, feel free to contact our Support Team within your RankPay account.

One of the most important factors in the amount of time and effort it takes to getting one of your Web pages to rank in the search engines is the current level of existing credibility the page has in the eyes of the search engines.

Credibility is often measured in how long a particular search engine has known about the page. Of course, the amount and quality of content on the page also matters. So do other factors, like how many other Websites link to your Web page.

The primary way to evaluate the overall credibility of your pages is by viewing it’s Google “PageRank”. The scale runs from 0-10 with ten being the best possible score. PageRank (aka “PR”) is one of the methods Google uses to determine the relevance or importance of a Web page.

Google explains PageRank this way:

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“PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page’s value. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves “important” weigh more heavily and help to make other pages “important.”

Important, high-quality sites receive a higher PageRank, which Google remembers each time it conducts a search. Of course, important pages mean nothing to you if they don’t match your query. So, Google combines PageRank with sophisticated text-matching techniques to find pages that are both important and relevant to your search. Google goes far beyond the number of times a term appears on a page and examines all aspects of the page’s content (and the content of the pages linking to it) to determine if it’s a good match for your query. ”
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It’s important to note that PageRank is not the only determining factor in where your page will be ranked or what the future SEO future holds for you and your Website. There are plenty of examples in which low PR pages rank high in the search engines (usually for keywords that aren’t very competitive). PageRank is just general barometer . . .

How do I view the PageRank of my pages?

You can accomplish this one of three ways:

• Login to your RankPay account and view the PR of the pages you have already assigned to keywords. Do this by clicking on the Active Keywords or Pending Keywords tabs.
• Download and install the Google Toolbar which has a Google PageRank “meter” on it. You can download the GToolbar here: http://toolbar.google.com
• You can also use a Website that has a PageRank tool like PageRank.net.

You can learn more about Google’s PageRank system by visiting the Google site at:

http://www.google.com/technology/

After you choose a new keyword at RankPay, the next step is to assign the keyword to a  Web page that you want to rank in the search engines.    After you identify which page you want optimized, you or your webmaster will need to do a couple of quick tasks to get your Web page ready for our service:

1. Optimize Your Title Tag - Make sure the exact keyword is in the title tag. The title should consist of this keyword and 1-3 additional words. It’s also best to place the keyword farther to the left. If you are using the same webpage for multiple keywords make sure each keyword is the title and use a | or comma
2. Keyword at Top & Bottom of Page - Make sure the keyword is in the first sentence towards the top of your page. Then place the keyword in text somewhere near the bottom of your page.
   

When you’re done, log back into your RankPay account and click the “Pending Keywords” tab. Enter the URL of the page you optimized for each pending keyword and click the button to verify your onpage optimization.