Archive for the 'SEO' Category

The Return of the Splash Page?

Published by Marc on 15 April, 2008 in SEO and Web Standards. 0 Comments

With Google’s recent statement they were going to give increased importance to the loading times of a website’s home page (and penalise accordingly slow loading sites), could we be seeing the return of the Splash Page?

 

Here’s a favourite Splash Page of mine - Ginko Gardens

  

Ginko Gardens Splash Page

 

Splash Pages – Counter to ‘Usability’ and SEO best practice?


Much like hard copy brochure covers, splash pages typically contain very little content. Instead what you find is Flash animation, a striking image, a fancy tag line or a brief intro spiel advertising what the site is about. Throw in a logo, a keyword optimised footer and you’re done!

 

From a user’s perspective, splash pages are just one more click to make to get to the content they’re after. So they’re a big waste of time.

Splash Pages = Low Exit Rates

For website designers and online marketers, splash pages aren’t necessarily all bad news. For one thing, they can load pretty quickly (which given Google’s recent pronouncements is good news) and they usually offer a low exit rate.

 

Assuming few users leave the splash page and pursue their journey further into a website, that could have some SEO benefit. Search engines are known to value positively websites with low exit rates on their top web pages…

Is Google encouraging the return of the Splash Page?

So could Google’s latest pronouncement in favour of fast load times further encourage the use of splash pages? And doesn’t that run counter to usability best practice?

 

Imagine the web populated by useless splash pages. They would no longer contain Flash (as Flash increases load times), but they would be extremely content light to upload fast and would likely require users to click on to get to the content they’re after.

 

With savvy web marketers around… That scenario is not so hard to imagine.

 

Your thoughts?

Google Search Query Reports - Tweak your PPC and SEO

Published by Josh on 17 March, 2008 in SEM and SEO. 0 Comments

So your Google PPC campaigns are under-performing… Or your SEM client now wants you to do sort out their SEO… This is where running a Google AdWords Search Query Performance Report could come in real handy!

Search Query Reports – Where the magic happens

So what’s a search query report? It’s a report containing nearly every searched term that triggered a Google PPC ad. You find it under the AdWord’s Reports tab and it comes loaded with heaps of information on user search queries.

Google Search Query Report

Which keywords are converting? Which ads are performing?

Say you want to know which search query is your highest performer and which of your ads gives you the best return from that query… Search Query Reports deliver. You can drilldown to average position, clicks, impressions, CTR, etc, and at a glance identify the winners and losers among your ads and your keywords.

Spot negative keywords. Spot new ones too!

If you find your ads are being shown through irrelevant search terms, add these to your list of negative keywords. And should you happen to come across new keywords which led to conversions (if conversion tracking is on) you know what to do.

Give your CTR a boost!

The proof is in the pudding! When we tweaked the performance of a new account following our analysis of a Search Query Report, we noticed an immediate performance lift; a 20% sales rise coupled with a drop in our CPA!

Conversions vs CPA

You might not get this result every time, but with new accounts when you’re unsure about where you’re at, a Search Query Report can point you in the right direction.

A perfect SEM tool? Well… almost!

One thing you’ll notice when you run a Search Query Report is that Google spits out results in that show up as ‘## other unique queries. And no (before you ask), you cannot see what those ‘unique queries’ are… So what’s up with that?

Firstly, it’s labeled as a ‘unique query’ because that’s exactly what it is: ‘unique’. It may be a sentence long and could turn up once a year at best, so you’re not missing out! Google lumps these ‘one of a kind’ queries with the other one timers to save you the bother of sifting through the clutter.

Secondly there’s a server issue. Listing all one off queries would require heaps of memory – and even Google can’t carry that load!

That said… Give Search Query Reports a try and see how you go! It could make a big difference to your accounts.

Online Reputation Management - Know your Brand

Published by Tom on 3 February, 2008 in Reputation Management and SEO. 0 Comments

Whether you’re an ASX top 100 company, small business or an up and coming star looking to land the next big job, your reputation is critical to what others think about you.

Today, prospective job hires and businesses are going straight to Google to see what might turn up. For small businesses, especially those with little or no brand awareness, a single negative story can turn a potential buyer off and onto one of your competitors. Today, no one can afford to ignore their online profile.

For job applicants even a MySpace or Facebook entry, especially if it contains sexual references could mean the difference between getting the job or being passed by. Your online profile is a real testament to your character that a potential employer is going to consider when deciding whether you fit in with their culture. If the employer finds a reference distasteful it could mean them placing your resume to the bottom of the pile without an opportunity to explain the incident.

The recent rise to fame for Corey Delaney, a teenage from Victoria who announced a party at his parent’s place on MySpace while his parent’s were away, is an excellent case study in online reputation in the making. If he decides to pursue a career as a playboy, DJ or MC then his current online profile will fit the part. However, if he has a change of heart and decides to try his luck in a professional role, all the negative news about his teenage antics could come back to haunt him. While one would hope that his actions will later be seen as a teenage prank, the sheer amount of recent negative publicity may lead a potential employer to unfortunately judge him on what she reads.

In a corporate example, a prominent Australian marketing firm came out the on the losing end with Google after pushing the boundaries with their own reputation. After 8 months, you’ll still struggle to find the company’s website in the natural listings on Google even when you search on their company name. Instead you find, a list of articles and stories on their tumble from grace. The company has had to resort to using paid search and has even taken the extraordinary step of changing their domain name to get a fresh start.

When it comes to information online, especially negative news, it doesn’t disappear and will only get pushed down if it replaced by more current and relevant information. Businesses that ignore what their customers are saying online are at serious risk of wasting money and effort they spend to build their brands.

So what can you do to build a positive online profile or improve on a negative one?

Monitor

The first step is to know you have an issue by monitoring your brand. For budding professionals you are your brand se beware of what is said about you. Tools such Google’s or Yahoo’s Alerts will keep you on top of what others are saying about you.

Analyse

Analyse your online assets including websites, trademarks, blogs, partner sites, online forums, consumer complaint sites and social networks. Are people talking trash or just disappointed in your service?

Influence

Influence the results by participating in the conversation. Become a leader in your field of expertise or industry to influence the conversation. Your participation will help improve the perception of your brand.

By taking control of your brand you’ll be in a better position to tip the conversation in your favour and show the real you.

Social Media Optimisation - what the heck is it?

Published by Marc on 14 November, 2007 in SEO. 1 Comment

A client recently asked us about Social Media Optimisation or SMO as to ‘what the heck it was’ and if he should ‘get in on that action?’ Little did he know he was already applying many SMO techniques - he just didn’t know it!

SMO as defined on Wikipedia is ‘a set of methods for generating publicity through social media, online communities and community websites’.

So if like our client you’re performing SMO if you are…

Adding links back to your site

Search engines like Google and Yahoo value links and reward sites who have many incoming links from other websites (especially relevant links from heavily trafficked websites). So listing your business on paid or free directories is a sound strategy for improving your natural (organic) search rankings.

How to find directories and acquire links

A good place to start: Type ‘Australia Directory Listings’ into a search engine and you’ll come across some popular directories, many of which are free.  Simply submit your site and wait to receive confirmation of your posting!

Popular directories include:

Making your site easy to tag and bookmark

Giving visitors to your web site the opportunity to bookmark your content is also a sound optimisation strategy. Don’t lose your traffic! Make it easy for users to stick around and engage with your brand by providing them with the tools to reconnect with you again and again.

Popular bookmark tags include:

Adding content mashups

A further way to enhance your website’s content is via content mashups. Add videos, maps or streamed content from a news source provider to provide a better web experience or facilitate a sale. It’s surprisingly easy and a handy way to take your website to the next level and as search engines improve, those new forms of content will count ever more towards your quality score.

For example:

Sharing your content

It pays to share. And that saying certainly holds true for the web. Sending your content on via newsletters or posting to your company blog interesting topics like ‘Social Media Optimisation’ can only serve to increase the number of repeat visitors to your site.

So share your content through:

  • Blogs (like this one)
  • newsletters

A little site called Facebook

And finally… Is there a person who has not heard of a little website called Facebook? Synonymous with social networking online Facebook is great way to network, keep in touch with friends and link to people with similar interest locally and internationally.

Launched in early 2004, Facebook has grown from a niche university social networking site into a worldwide phenomenon. By starting your own ‘special interest group’ on Facebook or joining an existing network of likeminded individuals, you can rapidly expand the reach of your content and broaden your link profile.

Top 5 tips for developing for SEO

Published by Scott Swabey on 10 November, 2007 in SEO and Web Development. 1 Comment

Making a website that ranks well with the search engines is a process that has to start from the foundations of the site. Stuffing a badly designed and built site full of keywords isn’t going to help, and is a waste of money.

There are numerous ways to make a website more accessible to search engines, and each has additional, tangible benefits to the website owners and visitors.

Presented below are my top 5 tips for developing a website to help make it an SEO success.

Design for search engines, enhance for humans

Search engines are very much like blind humans in the way they ’see’ a website. They read the page in the way the source is ordered, they do not see images, they have to make a ‘mental’ representation of the page by using semantic clues built into the page by the developer, and use that representation to make sense of the relationship between possibly disjointed blocks of information.

First step then is to design your page with no style, formatting, or other behavioural enhancement. A clean, semantic, well ordered page of data should be the goal. Once the textual content of the page has been laid out, you can start adding styles, images, and behaviours that will give the page visual appeal.

Lighten the code

Search engines have limits to the amount of data on a page they will index, depending on the size of the page. Using excessive amounts of code to display your content is therefore going to have an effect on what the search engines will do with your page. The goal then is to develop your page using the least amount of markup possible to achieve the required visual appearance. Using semantic markup certainly goes a long way to helping with this goal, and the natural added benefit is that your pages are lighter, meaning faster download times for your visitors, and less bandwidth/storage charges for you.

Images are for pictures, not text

OK, so your marketing department have put together a beautifully crafted piece of collateral, and they want you to replicate it online. No problem - convert the piece to a web optimised image and paste the darned thing, easy.

But remember in item 1 where we identified the search engine as a ‘blind’ visitor. He can’t see the image, and therefore cannot read the beautifully crafted message your marketing department has spilt blood to create. What a waste!

Any textual message should be displayed using text - simple. Everybody then gets the same message, whether fully sighted, sight impaired, or search engine. Once the textual message is available it can be enhanced using a variety of techniques, depending on the final visual requirements.

Images can be text too

What? Didn’t you just say images are pictures. Have you been at the hooch again?

No, there are times when an image is used in your page to support the text. Without the image, the text wouldn’t be complete. In these cases the image element should have an alt attribute applied to it. The alt attribute is used to provide alternative, textual content to the image, and it should describe the image. This alternative text will replace the visual image in cases where the image cannot be displayed or seen.

Don’t be shy, let your content shine

An all too common mistake is to develop your site using methods and technologies that essentially hide the content from search engines.

Simple mistakes like using forms for navigation, Javascript for links, Flash for navigation, or whole sites (unless the Flash has been developed using accessibilty settings). All of these will stop a search engine, and many visitors, from accessing your site. Not what you want after spending possibly thousands of dollars on your shiny new site.

So we loop back to item 1. Make the site for the search engine first, then progressively enhance it for visual users, and indeed visitors with greater processing capability.

Is there anything else?

The above tips are quite generic, but form a really solid base to work from. Any developer worth a fraction of the money you are thinking of spending with them should be developing to these standards. And that word brings me nicely to my conclusion.

Develop to Standards

The beauty of the Internet is that anybody can build a website and get it online. The horror of the Internet is that anybody can build a website and get it online.

Although we are working in a very young industry, there are global Standards that have been developed and put in place to ‘regulate’ the way that web technologies should be used. The big daddy of the web standards world is The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The W3C work on developing specifications, guidelines, software and tools for every aspect of online activity, and their published standards are what every developer should be working with. Sure, cousin Joey can knock out a website in a weekend with his laptop in his bedroom, but if you’re serious about making any kind of impact with your site, cousin Joey isn’t the best man for the job.

Hopefully this quick introduction has given you an insight into the foundations of developing for SEO. Please feel free to leave your comments regarding this post below.

If you have any request for future articles you can leave those in the comments as well.