Steve Hudgik's Internet Marketing Blog - Internet Results

7 Customer Service Tips

2008-02-15T08:28:00.000-08:00

Today's edition of the American Chronicle has an article by Robert Moment called "Customer Service Tips to Keep Your Customers Satisfied". The article opens by stating:

"Customers shop in order to satisfy something: a need or a desire. Therefore, it follows that your goal must be to keep your customers satisfied. However, don´t make the common mistake in assuming that it is only the product or service that you are selling that will provide the satisfaction that the customer is seeking."

"In actuality, the need or desire that customers are seeking to fill include much more than the product in itself. It also includes a sensation that they will be treated well, that they will be served professionally by a knowledgeable staff, and that if they should run into a problem, it will be managed quickly and effectively. Just as it seems, there is a lot involved in accomplishing this task. However, when it is done correctly, your business will run like a well oiled machine, and will be well worth the effort in its rewards."

It then lists seven tips for keeping your customers satisfied.

1. Keep your promises
2. Set Good Goals
3. Go Above And Beyond
4. Pay Attention to Customer Needs
5. Nurture Long-Term Employees
6. Make Customers Feel Wanted
7. Nitpick About Customers For Life

Over 1 Million Potential Victims of Botnet Cyber Crime

2007-11-30T06:54:00.001-08:00

The Department of Justice and FBI announced the results of an ongoing cyber crime initiative to disrupt and dismantle “botherders” and elevate the public’s cyber security awareness of botnets. OPERATION BOT ROAST is a national initiative and ongoing investigations have identified over 1 million victim computer IP addresses. The FBI is working with our industry partners, including the CERT Coordination Center at Carnegie Mellon University, to notify the victim owners of the computers. Through this process the FBI may uncover additional incidents in which botnets have been used to facilitate other criminal activity.

A botnet is a collection of compromised computers under the remote command and control of a criminal “botherder.” Most owners of the compromised computers are unknowing and unwitting victims. They have unintentionally allowed unauthorized access and use of their computers as a vehicle to facilitate other crimes, such as identity theft, denial of service attacks, phishing, click fraud, and the mass distribution of spam and spyware. Because of their widely distributed capabilities, botnets are a growing threat to national security, the national information infrastructure, and the economy.

“The majority of victims are not even aware that their computer has been compromised or their personal information exploited,” said FBI Assistant Director for the Cyber Division James Finch. “An attacker gains control by infecting the computer with a virus or other malicious code and the computer continues to operate normally. Citizens can protect themselves from botnets and the associated schemes by practicing strong computer security habits to reduce the risk that your computer will be compromised.”

The FBI also wants to thank our industry partners, such as the Microsoft Corporation and the Botnet Task Force, in referring criminal botnet activity to law enforcement.

Cyber security tips include updating anti‑virus software, installing a firewall, using strong passwords, practicing good email and web security practices. Although this will not necessarily identify or remove a botnet currently on the system, this can help to prevent future botnet attacks. More information on botnets and tips for cyber crime prevention can be found online at www.fbi.gov.

The FBI will not contact you online and request your personal information so be wary of fraud schemes that request this type of information, especially via unsolicited emails. To report fraudulent activity or financial scams, contact the nearest FBI office or police department, and file a complaint online with the Internet Crime Complaint Center, www.ic3.gov.

To date, the following subjects have been charged or arrested in this operation with computer fraud and abuse in violation of Title 18 USC 1030, including:

* James C. Brewer of Arlington, Texas, is alleged to have operated a botnet that infected Chicago area hospitals. This botnet infected tens of thousands of computers worldwide. (FBI Chicago);

* Jason Michael Downey of Covington, Kentucky, is charged with an Information with using botnets to send a high volume of traffic to intended recipients to cause damage by impairing the availability of such systems. (FBI Detroit); and

* Robert Alan Soloway of Seattle, Washington, is alleged to have used a large botnet network and spammed tens of millions of unsolicited email messages to advertise his website from which he offered services and products. (FBI Seattle)

The FBI will continue to aggressively investigate individuals that conduct cyber criminal acts.

How Would You Market MOST The Movie?

2007-11-09T16:51:00.000-08:00

This has been a tough question. Start with an outstanding film no one knows about. Mix in a film producer that knows little about internt marketing. They need to sell copies of the DVD, but...

The film is called "Most the Movie". It is a 33 minute short film that tells about a bridgetender whose son falls into the gears that lower the bridge. The train is coming! What should the bridgetender do? He can only do one thing. Either save his son or save the train.

The site I've linked above is a non-profit that offers the film at a reduced price. They are the ones who would like to make the film more widely known. They even give away copies.

So here are a few suggestions:

Improve your search ranking by making useful comments on blogs that are talking about evangelism. Not all blogs allow links, and services such as Blogger put a "nofollow" on comment links, but this a good way to generate some buzz. Also, some forum posts wouldn't hurt, although links in forums don't provide any search ranking boost.
Increase the content you have about the film on your web site. Surely there is more you can say that will create additional keyword rich spider food.
Look for champions who are willing to use their blog or web site to promote the film. This film is of such high quality, and is so good, it should be possible to find some people who would want to champion it.
How about putting out a press release. In this case I'd guess the press release will rank much higher than the web site. That could pull in additional traffic and generate a few links.
Be creative. MOST the Movie is an outstanding film. Get the publicity going and it may start generating buzz just based on its quality.

Web Site Restored From Google Ban

2007-06-28T18:17:00.001-07:00

In March I wrote about one of my web sites that had been banned from Google (911christ.com) . Last week I noticed that it was showing up at #3 in Google's search results. It had been restored.

I use a service called Google Alerts to monitor important keywords. Last week I received a Google Alert that informed me the banned web site was now showing up in Google's search results.

What did I do to get this site unbanned? Not much. Only what I described in my previous post. Using the information in Google Webmaster Tools I had noticed the site was banned. I was also able to determine the most likely cause. I wrote to Google, using the form provided in Webmaster Tools... and then I applied patience.

For three months I did nothing concerning this issue. I did not write to Google again. I did not change anything on the web site. I mostly forgot about this site, other than doing the things I'd normally do. For example, I added some Russian language graphics.

It appears that it takes Google about three months to review and act on a re-inclusion request.

An Easy Way To Get Banned From Google

2007-03-27T05:33:00.000-07:00

I regularly use the Google Webmaster Tools. The information they provide is invaluable.

Yesterday I was surprised to see that one of the web sites I manage was listed as being banned by Google! What was going on? I never use black hat SEO. Not only that, the banned site is a very simple web site with essentially no SEO. Why did Google ban such an innocent web site?

A deeper look into the information provided by Google Site Maps revealed the problem.

Going to "Page analysis" under the Statistics Tab revealed that the content Google was seeing was all mortgage and travel related. However, all of the links were Bible related (this is a Christian web site.) Google had determined that there was a significant difference between what Googlebot was seeing and what visitors saw. This is a major violation of Google’s rules and had resulted in the site being banned.

The problem was, I had never put mortgage or travel information on this web site. The web site had been online for about eight months, and it had had Christian content from day one… or did it?

When the domain was registered we were not sure what it would be used for, so the domain was parked at SEDO. This is a service that puts ads on parked domains and splits the income with the domain owners. I have no doubt that many of those ads were travel and mortgage related. But why was Google picking up the SEDO content as being the current content of the web site eight months after unique content had been developed for this site?

When the content for this site was ready we uploaded it to our hosting provider and set up their DNS records to point to the new web site. The result is that browsing to www.911christ.com brings you to the correct web site. However, Google does not look up web sites the same way a browser does. Google remembers the IP address. Google had used the IP address for SEDO; found a SEDO DNS reference for the web site (I had neglected to delete this web site from SEDO); and read the SEDO content. The result is that Google was seeing different content than visitors see and the site was banned.

I have submitted a reinclusion request through Google’s Webmaster Tools and, of course, deleted this web site from SEDO. So now we’ll see how the reinclusion process goes.

Google and Duplicate Content

2006-12-21T15:09:00.000-08:00

One of the biggest issues for web designers and SEO professions is that of duplicate content. What is duplicate content? Will it get your web site banned? Will it get your web site penalized?

The Official Google Webmaster Central Blog has posted much needed information about duplicate content. Adam Lasnik answers the following questions:

What is duplicate content?

What isn't duplicate content?

Why does Google care about duplicate content?

What does Google do about it?

How can Webmasters proactively address duplicate content issues?

The answers to this last question are particularly useful. Lasnik lists specific things web designers can do to address duplicate content, such as:

+ Use 301s permanent redirects.

+ Keep internal linking consistent, don't link to /page/ and /page and /page/index.htm.

+ If you syndicate your content on other sites, make sure they include a link back to the original article on each syndicated article.

+ Use the preferred domain feature of Google's webmaster tools. This allows you to tell Google whether they should link to www.yourdomain.com or yourdomain.com. otherwise Google might link to each individually and see the same page as being a duplicate of itself.

+ Minimize boilerplate repetition. If, for example, you must put a disclaimer at the bottom of each page, just include a short summary with a link to a separate page that has the complete disclaimer.

Plus five other suggestions. This is a blog post all web designers, SEOs, or anyone involved with web design should read, and have bookmarked.

Do It Yourself SEO

2006-12-08T05:53:00.000-08:00

Have you been reading about the importance of the internet and search engine optimization in various trade publications? Do you feel your web site could use some work to improve its position in search results? But you don't have the cash to spend on a search engine expert???

Before you try to do SEO (Search Engine Optimization) yourself, I have some suggested reading for you. Ross Dunn has updated his Ten Minute Search optimization white paper. I highly recommend reading it before you attempt to do SEO on your web site. In particular focus on the things not to do, such as item #3. You'll be wasting your time if you spiff up your site, only to make common mistakes that will get it penalized, or worse yet... banned from Google. Once you have the DO NOT things firmly fixed in your mind, then start on making the changes that will improve your search visibility.

You'll find the Ten Minute Optimization paper at: http://www.searchengineguide.com/dunn/2006/1130_rd1.html

Counting Backlinks

2006-12-07T05:58:00.000-08:00

Enter the following in the search box of any search engine to see the backlinks for any web site. Of course, replace "www.yoursite.com" with the appropriate URL.

MSN
link:http://www.yoursite.com

Google:
link:http://www.yoursite.com

Yahoo:
Yahoo now has a separate "search engine" for learning what information they have in their index about a specific site. It is called Site Explorer. Go to Site Explorer at the URL below and enter the URL for the web site in the search box. When the results page appears, click on the "In Links" link.

http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/

Yahoo's help page says this about Site Explorer:

" You can use Site Explorer to track the coverage and freshness of your site in the Yahoo! Search index. You can find out:

Which pages from your site are indexed by Yahoo! .
What links exist to your site's web pages.

If you "authenticate" a site by validating your access to a site, you can access more detailed information like:

What subdomains from your site are known to Yahoo!
What other information Yahoo! detects about your site, such as language."

Google Search For Your Site

2006-10-24T05:27:00.000-07:00

In the past it has been possible to add Google search to your web site, but Google has now made it a much more powerful tool. You'll find information and the signup at: http://www.google.com/coop/cse/

Google describes this new search tool as providing:

Specify the sites you want to include in searches.
Place a search box and search results on your website.
Customize the look and feel to match your website.
Invite your community to contribute to the search engine.
Make money from relevant ads in your search results.

Looking For An Image

2006-09-27T08:22:00.000-07:00

Images are expensive to produce. Whether creating art or hiring a photographer, you can expect to send significant dollars for images. But, having quality images for your web site is important.

Stock.XCHNG is a free stock photo web site. Over 200,000 images are available for use without fees. Some of the images have restrictions that, for example, do not allow them to be used on commercial web sites. However, most may be freely used on any web site.

Images are uploaded by people who are willing to share their photography. Quality of the photography varies, but after reviewing over 500 images I can't say that I saw any that were terrible, and I did find about a dozen excellent images for a new web site I was creating.

Give Stock.XCHNG a try. It's worth a visit.

Four Steps Every Business Can Take to Improve Local Search Results

2006-09-06T10:11:00.000-07:00

In the past the greatest value in having a web site was that you were reaching a worldwide market. A business that served a local market might have avoided the web because it brought in inquires from a worldwide market they did not serve, and did not want to spend time dealing with. If this is the way byou are thinking, it's time to change your thinking.

Patricia Hursh has an excellent article on Clickz that discusses "Four Steps Every Business Can Take to Improve Local Search Results". If you are targeting a local market you need to be showing up in the local search results. This article provides the best suggestions I've seen for accomplishing this. Here suggestions are:

"Update your business directory listings. Visit the Amacai, infoUSA, and Acxiom Web sites."

"Submit your site to local search engines. Submit your Web site to local search engines such as Google Local, MSN Local, Yahoo Local, Ask Local, and TrueLocal."

"Update your IYP [Internet Yellow Pages] listings. Likewise, find and update your listings at YellowPages.com, Verizon SuperPages, and SwitchBoard.com."

And don't neglect to "Feature your address on your Web site."

More Free Press Release Services

2006-08-23T10:04:00.000-07:00

Last February I listed some of the better free press release services. Here are three more to add to you list. I've just started using these three, so I can not yet comment on how effective they are. For now I'll just say they exist and their service is functional.

http://i-newswire.com/ - Fast and easy to use. No registration required. Releases are reviewed and put online within 12 hours.

https://www.pr.com/ - Has a somewhat lengthy registration process. Links within the press release are not clickable. There is a $30 fee for each link you want to be a clickable link.

http://www.clickpress.com/ - Requires a quick registration process that includes validation of an email address. Submittng a press release is quick and easy.

http://www.przoom.com/index.php - A free press release distribution service. Does not allow links, or even a non-clickable URL in text form, in the press release. Seems like too much work for not enough return.

News Wire Today - I've not yet had a chance to review this service. However, I'm seeing press releases on their site receiving high placements in search engine results.

Likno AllWebMenu Pro

2006-08-01T04:18:00.000-07:00

I'm pretty good with javascript and CSS, so whenever I've needed a web site menu system I've just written it myself. That was not a very bright thing to do.

Recently my workload has grown such that I needed to find ways to save time--and I had a web site that desperately needed its site navigation to be simplified. I quickly investigated software for automatically creating nested menus, and selected Likno AllWebMenu Pro. That was a very good decision.

It took less than 30 minutes to install AllWebMenu Pro and start creating the menu system I needed. Including the installation time, learning curve (which is very short), and the time it took to create a custom menu system for the web site, I spent about 1/4 of the time I'd have spent creating a menu system myself. This software paid for itself on the first day!

A wide selection of menu themes are included, with more available for purchase. Select the theme that is closest to what you want, then customize it using an easy-to-use style editor. Just fill-in-the-blanks with characteristics such as background color, opacity and the type of border you'd like and you are good to go.

Creating your menu is just as easy. Once again just fill-in-the-blanks with the text and the link and you are building your menu. What's nice about AllWebMenu Pro is that menus can be created by just entering basic information, and it also offers more advanced options such as setting the Z-index and running a javascript when a menu item appears or disappears.

This is a powerful menu building package that is easy to use. No DHTML, javascript or CSS knowlege is required. AllWebMenu Pro will create the files you need and even automatically place the code that is needed in your web pages. All you need to do is follow the instructions AllWebMenu Pro provides that describes which files to upload and where they should be located. It's soooo easy!!

What I particularly like is that adding to or updating menus is so quick and easy. A new menu item can be added (or removed) in less than a minute... and you don't have to worry about the changes introducing bugs into the code (as my fat fingers sometimes do). So not only do you get great menus and save time making them, you get the peace of mind knowing that the code will be clean and bug free.

Every web designer should have a copy of AllWebMenu Pro in their "toolbox". There are all positives and no downsides to owning a copy of this software. For more information about AllWebMenus Pro visit the Likno website.

Google Revealing "Click Fraud" Numbers

2006-07-31T23:06:00.000-07:00

A post on the Google Inside Adwords blog announces that you can now see the number of invalid clicks as a part of an Adwords report. The report can show you both “invalid clicks” and the “invalid clicks rate”.

Most people seem to be jumping on this as a number that shows the level of "click fraud" - people intentionally clicking on ads multiple times for fraudulant reasons. But that is not the complete story. For example, there are times when I've clicked on an ad, read the page, moved on to something else, and then wanted to go back to the ad landing page. Maybe another question has come to mind or I need to clarify some of the information on the landing page. The easiest way to get there is to do the search again and click on the ad again. Google counts this as an invalid click. They only charge for the first visit, they do not charge the advertiser again if that same visitor returns within a reasonable time period.

There are other sources of invalid clicks that are not fraudulent clicks. So, although this new Adwords reporting feature gives you some insight into the potential click fraud your Adwords campaign is experiencing, don't count these numbers as "hard" click fraud numbers without another source of information such as your landing page logs. (Landing pages I create always include a lagging feature that logs each hit on the landing page.)

Deleting Search Engines From Firefox

2006-07-18T14:44:00.000-07:00

Firefox is the browser to use, but it does have one thing I find irritating. It is difficult to find out how to remove search engines from the Search Engine Bar. I'm not interested in searching EBay or Creative Commons and I like to simplify my life by removing things I don't need or want. But I could not find a button or menu option to remove search engines.

That's because there isn't one.

Removing search engines is actually very easy, but it involves deleting the search plug ins for the search engines I don't use. This is how it's done:

Go to the folder where Mozilla Firefox is installed and then go to the "searchplugins" subfolder. In most cases you'll be looking a path that looks like this:

C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\searchplugins

Then delete the search plug in files associated with the search engines you want to remove from the list. There will be two files for each search engine. A PNG image file and a SRC file. Delete both files. When you restart Firefox those search engines will be gone.

Guaranteed Top Spot in Google

2006-07-18T13:17:00.000-07:00

Here's a web site that uses an interesting approach. The web site is: http://www.cablingproducts.com/ . Scroll down toward the bottom of the page where you'll find three links for free guides. But instead of going to a page that offers the free guides, these links go to Google searches. The web page boasts that you'll find links to the free guides offered by this company at the top of the Google rankings... and you do. Isn't that taking a risk that their pages, at some time in the future, might not rank in the #1 position. How do they get Google to always show their pages as #1 in the search results?

It's not that hard.

There is a search phrase built into the link that is specific to a unique phrase found on the web page they want to be in the #1 position. If you check the total number of pages found for these searches, it's a very smal number... 20 or 30 pages. There's no competition for the search phrase and it's so specific that the pages they want are just about guaranteed to top the rsearch results.

There is a risk in doing this. A competitor could put the target search phrase in one of their web pages and possibly take the top spot away.

Exclude DMOZ Descriptions On Google

2006-07-17T12:17:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday Google annouced a new tag that allow web markerters to indicate to Google they do not want DMOZ descriptions used to describe their web site in Google search results. Google calls the descriptions they use "snippets. The post on the Inside Google Sitemaps blog said:

"One source we use to generate snippets is the Open Directory Project, or ODP. Some site owners want to be to able to request not using the ODP for generating snippets, and we're happy to let you all know we've added support for this. All you have to do is add a meta tag to your pages.

To direct all search engines that support the meta tag not to use ODP information for the page's description, use the following:

<META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="NOODP">

DMOZ, also know as the Open Directory Project, is a volunteer edited directory of web sites. It is probably the most respected web directory, but as a human edited directory it has some characteristics some web marketers do not like. One of those is that it is difficult to get the description you want for your web site. DMOZ has non-commercial guidelines editors follow that result in descriptive, but at time rather dry descriptions.

Having your web site listed in DMOZ is important both because it provides a quality link to your site, and DMOZ provides information to many other directories on the web. Now, with the new Google META tag, if you do not like your DMOZ description, you can have Google find a description elsewhere. This does not mean you'll get the perfect description to promote your products, nor does it mean the description in the description META tag on your page will be used. It just means the DMOZ description will not be used.

Google Adwords' Exclusion Feature

2006-06-26T18:31:00.000-07:00

An important feature of Google's Adwords is the ability to exclude specific web sites from showing your ads. If you ads appear on inappropriate web sites it can hurt you in two ways.

1) People who have no interest in your product will be clicking on your ad. You pay for the ad, but don't get a qualified customer or lead.

For example, I'm managing an Adwords account that promotes an industrial printer used to make posters. This is not the type of machine used at home. Shortly after starting the ad I noticed in the log files that the ad was getting a lot of clicks from a Curt Kobain (Nirvana) web site. The ad offered a free sample poster and the Nirvana fans were clicking on the ad and costing the advertiser $30-$40 per day in worthless clicks. I added the site to the exclusion list and the cost of that ad dropped substantially.

My guess is that the operators of the Curt Kobain web site may have also noticed a drop in their Adsense income. It probably decreased by about $200 a week. I regularly read messages from people using Adsense who are complaining that their Adsense revenue just had a sharp decline. One possibility is that a wrongly targeted ad (or two or three), that had been earning them a lot of money, was no longer being shown on their web site.

2) Your ad will be shown to people who are not interested in your product and they will not click on your ad, this will reduce your click-thru rate if the site is being shown on the Google network. A lower click-through rate may result in your costs for the ad going up. Although Google does not count low click-thru rates against your content ads, it does hurt you for search ads... and non-Google search ads are still shown on the syndicated Google network and thus are included as a part of your search statistics.

How do you exclude web sites from showing your ad? Go to the Campaign Summary screen and click on the "edit" link for "Excluded Sites".

How do you know what sites to exclude? You need to be tracking who comes to your landing pages and where they come from. All the landing pages I use are PHP pages, and they log all the important information for each visitor.

Google Ad Scheduling Brings Automated Day Parting

2006-06-16T08:58:00.000-07:00

Google Adwords has just added a new, very useful feature... Ad Scheduling

Ad scheduling allows you to preset the times when your ads will run on Google. Times are set on the campaign level and can be set in 15 minute incredments. I've already added scheduling to most of the campaigns I manage. The Adwords help page describes the features in ad scheduling:

"Ads are scheduled on the campaign level, from the 'Edit Campaign Settings' page. The unique ad scheduling tool lets you simply click the blocks of time when you want your campaign to run. A bulk edit feature allows you to edit all days, all weekdays, or all weekend days at once if you prefer.

Ad scheduling also includes an advanced setting which lets you adjust pricing for your ads during certain time periods. For example, if you find that your ads get the best results between 8:00 and 11:00 am, you can bid more for impressions or clicks during that period. Learn more about advanced mode."

It appears Google has been prodded by the features introduced by MSN to add this long overdue feature. Now we can automate day parting. The downside is the Ad Scheduling makes day parting so easy that my competition can start using it and I'll lose many of the advantages that day parting offered.

Returned From Russia

2006-06-05T07:15:00.000-07:00

I've just returned from Russia and I see I have a lot of catching up to.

Russia has a lot of very smart and skilled internet people. They are very sharp, innovative and resourceful people! The biggest problem seems to be that there are no jobs. In the U.S. this would mean the unemployed programmers and designers would be starting their own businesses. But one of the results of 70 years of communism seems to be that the knowledge of how to create a money-making business needs to be restored. This is not a lack on the part of individual people. I saw an entrepreneurial spirit all over the place in the form of thousands of small shops. Everyone seems to be trying to make a ruble. That's great! What is missing is the infastructure and body of laws that supports the formation of new businesses. For example, one business owner mentioned that taxes take 90% of a business' profits. There is little incentive to be highly profitable, and a lot of incentive to cheat on your taxes. When I asked my interpretor about the different types of police in Russia, she said there were just two. Regular police and the tax police.

I met a lot of highly skilled (internet skills) people who were unemployed or under-employed. There is a resevour of talent, creativity and desire in Russia that will one day explode on the world market.

Free Press Release Distribution Services

2006-02-01T15:00:00.000-08:00

Press release distribution services are coming and going so fast that I'm finding I need to update the list monthly. The last time I posted a list a free press release distribution services was October 20, 2005 and already half no longer exist and some have switched from free to paid services.

Here is my current list of free press release distribution services:

PR Leap - Free Press Release Distribution to Major Search Engines - this is the premier free press release service. Submitting a press release is straightforward and my releases typically show up in the SERPS.

Press Release Service from PRWeb - another excellent press release service.

The Open Press - I have gotten good results with The Open Press. Be sure to follow the submission guidelines and press release format. They have very specific requirements.

Free Press Release Distribution Service - does not allow links unless you use their paid services. However, it is quick and easy to submit a press release here, so I do use them.

Click2NewsSites - fast and easy to submit a press release. I've just submitted one release through Click2NewsSites so far, so I don't know how well they will do.

PR News Now - This one works a little differently. It more like having a blog for your press releases. I've had a good response from press releases posted here, with many of them showing up in the SERPs. This site requires that you use Internet Explorer. It does not work with Firefox.

The following are specialized free press release services. Even if these are not in your specific area of business, try them, as they may lead you to other topic specific web sites that offer free press release distribution.

Industrial Safety

Sign Industry

Manufacturing Press Releases

Engineering Talk

When sending out press releases, include your local newspaper. Even though your business may not be targeted at your local area, getting information about your business published in your local paper will put another article about you on the web for the world to see.

And, of course, you did include a link to your web site as a part of your press release, didn't you?

Do you need help writing your press release? Try this free tool at Duct Tape Marketing. It will help you to create a professional, correctly formatted press release.

Stealing Your Competitor's Links

2006-01-25T05:43:00.000-08:00

Yahoo offers an interesting free service called Yahoo Site Explorer. Enter a domain and Site Explorer will list all the pages from that domain that are included in the Yahoo index. You can see whether Yahoo has indexed your complete site, and if not, there is a handy link for submitting missing pages.

But that’s not where you’ll get the greatest value from Yahoo Site Explorer.

Yahoo Site Explorer can also show all the pages linking to any web page you specify. For example, you can find everyone who is linking to your home page. A filter allows you to eliminate the links coming from your own web site, so you’ll see just the inbound links (ILBs).

But that’s not where you’ll get the greatest value from Yahoo Site Explorer.

You can enter your competitor’s domain, or even specific pages, into Site Explorer, filter it to show ILBs and get a list of web sites that are good prospects for you to exchange links with. Web sites that have linked to your competitors should also be interested in linking to your site. And if you’ve done a good job of building a web site with lots of unique, useful content, you might even be able to get links that go to pages other than your home page or link exchange page. These deep links are of greater value because they increase your web site’s recognition as an authority.

So get going and start using Yahoo Site Explorer to mine your competitor’s links.

This Will Save You $500

2006-01-24T05:17:00.000-08:00

My normal fee to do a quick evaluation of a web site and provide recommendations to improve search engine rankings and visitor response is $500. I find that I'm making the same recommendations over and over. So I'm going to give you those recommendations here, for FREE. All you need to do is implement them on your web site and you've just saved $500.

By the way, if you read this blog, and you don't make these changes, and then you hire me to evaluate your web site, PLEASE don't complain about paying $500 to get the same recommendations you've read here.

If you find that any of these recommendations apply to your web site, and you'd like to express your gratitude, please go to http://www.mtainfo.com and make a donation to help Russian orphans. (Thank you!)

#1 - Company name in the home page title tag. I find this problem on almost every web site I look at. The title I'm talking about is the title contained within the code in the HEAD section of your home page. It will be located between TITLE tags like these:

You won't see this title on your web site. However, it is a major factor used by the search engines in categorizing the page and it is commonly the source for the text that is displayed as the link text for your home page.

Instead of your company name, use a title that describes the content of the page or web site. If your home page is about engine maintenance for blue cars, then use the title: Engine Maintenance For Blue Cars. It will look like this in your HTML code:

#2 - Using the company name as the title for every page. Not only do most web sites I look at use their company name for the page title, they use the company name as the title for every page. This tells search engines that EVERY page on your web site is about your company name. If I were a search engine spider I'd think I was getting a lot of pages all about the same thing--that's not good spider food. (Spiders like variety.)

Do #1 above for every page on your web site. Each page should have a unique title that specifically describes the content of that page.

#3 - Flash menus. This isn't as common as the two items above, but it is a growing problem. If you are using Flash to create your menus, provide an alternative means of navigation using text links. More and more web sites are using Flash. Yes, you can do some cool things with Flash, but in many cases it's a dead end for search engines. They can't read the information in Flash files, which means they can't follow your menus. They'll get to your home page... and won't go any further.

You can keep your Flash animations and menus, but at the bottom of EVERY page provide text links that duplicate the links within the Flash file for that page. Spiders love text links and will follow them wherever they lead.

#4 - Frames. Frames should have died out years ago, but web designers continue to use them. A common use of frames is to make a page with the menus, and then frame the content. As you go through the menus it looks like the menu remains stationary and the content changes. Some web designers think it looks cool, but it's a dead end for search spiders.

The result most often is that the search spiders index the content within the frame as individual web pages. Visitors may end up at these pages, instead of the framed version, getting stuck on a plain looking page, with no navigation and usually no way out. It's a quick way to lose customers.

#5 - Database driven web sites. I've talked with web site owners who don't know what this means, and didn't know they had a database driven web site. A database driven web site is one in which information displayed on your web site comes from a database, and the web pages are created on the fly. They don't exist until someone wants to look at them. If you see a question mark in the URL for some of your pages (for example http://www.zd85.com/index.php?index=one), then it is probably a database drive web site.

Search spiders have gotten a lot better at indexing pages that come from a database, but there are still many problems. There are a few things you can do to make it easier for them to spider your database pages:

-- Keep the URLs short and with two or fewer parameters.

-- Remove the "?" from the URL and replace it with another character. For example, you can reconfigure Cold Fusion to use a "\" instead of a "?".

-- A must-do is to create a Google Site Map (https://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/login) that lists all the URLs from your web site. Yahoo also accepts site maps. Information about submiting a site map to Yahoo is available at: http://submit.search.yahoo.com/free/request.

-- Plus a good solid way to ensure your most important pages are indexed by search engines is to create static pages.

A static page is one that is not created by the database software, it exists all the time. One approach is to pick your key products and create static "featured product" pages. Link to these pages from your home page, site map and other relevant static pages on your web site. Link from these pages to the associated dynamic pages so your customers have direct access to the features of your database-driven pages such as online ordering.

These are just the top five SEO problems I've been finding on web sites. Fix these and then contact me for a quick evaluation of your web site. There are usually plenty of other things that need fixing. And please don't forget, if you found the above useful, please make a small donation to help Russian orphans. Thanks!!

PPC and SEM - Working Together

2006-01-19T05:33:00.000-08:00

I recently received an email that asked me to discuss the possible synergism between PPC and SEM. A couple of days later I decided to survey the web to see what others had to say on this topic. I wasn’t able to find anything. Almost all the articles I found were addressed the question: PPC vs. SEM, which is better?

It’s not a question of which is better. Each has its strengths and weaknesses. The question is, how can both work together to maximize profits. (Or to best achieve marketing goals.) I see PPC and SEM working together holistically in a relationship in which each fills in where the other is weak. They can also be used such that each builds on the knowledge gained from the other.

A key advantage of PPC is the speed with which your message can be online, and the flexibility it offers in allowing you to change your ad copy and keyword targeting. For example, if you are overstocked on certain items and plan to run a sale, PPC allows you to get your message out the day the sale starts. You can control the specific text of your message, and the position at which it appears on search result pages. With SEM a new page about the sale may show up in the SERPS (search engine results pages) within 24 hours, 24 days or never—and you have little control over the descriptive text or position in the SERPS. In addition, when the sale is over you can immediately remove the PPC ad, while the organic listing may continue to show up for many months.

A key advantage of organic SEM is that once your page is appearing in the SERPS, it can require little effort to keep it there. While you continue to pay for each click on your PPC ad, your pages that show up in organic SERPS will bring a steady stream of qualified leads at no cost to you.

This points out how PPC and organic SEM work together. Let’s say you are releasing a new product. Your web designer has created some fantastic new pages that feature the new product, but it will be awhile before they start showing up in search results. You can use PCC to immediately drive traffic to pages about your new product until the new pages start showing up in organic search results.

If you already have a page showing up in a top spot in organic SERPS for a targeted keyword, do you need to have a PPC ad for the same keyword? Research has shown that having a PPC ad on an organic SERP that includes a link to your web site, can significantly increase results. In this case you need to write the copy for the PPC ad so that it targets a portion of the market not targeted by the description the search engine has chosen to use. That way you pick up people who saw your organic listing, but who were not motivated to click on it by the associated description.

For example, if you sell widgets, the organic description may say that you offer three types of widgets. In your PPC ad you can say that customers get a free widget with the purchase of $100 in widget supplies.

You can also use information gained from your organic SEM to help target and optimize your PPC campaigns. For example, your web log files are one of the best places to find out what keywords are being used to find your web site. You can use this information in putting together your keyword list for your PPC ads.

On the other hand, PPC ads provide immediate feedback on what keywords are working and which are not. You can see how much traffic each keyword gets, and what percentage of that traffic clicks on your ad. You can change your ad copy and measure the effectiveness of different copy, and various offers and calls to action. All of this information can also be used to help you target your SEM efforts.

For example, you may test three variations of ad copy and find that one in particular gets a good response. You can then modify a page your web site to incorporate similar copy. Keep in mind, however, that in PCC the interaction between the ad copy and landing page is very important. However, a PPC landing page may not be well written from an SEM view. Don’t blindly use what works in PPC and expect to get good SEM results.

Looking at this from the other side, you may find that a certain web page is drawing an excellent organic response, possibly even from a market you did not know existed. You can take your organic experience and use it to target PPC ads at new keywords and market segments.

Using information gained from PPC to aid your SEM efforts requires information. That means you need to be tracking activity on your PPC landing pages and beyond. I’ll discuss how to do that in a future article.

Unwanted Web Pages

2006-01-18T12:45:00.002-08:00

As web sites change and grow, there will be times when some pages are no longer needed. If you just delete the page, however, search engines may still be sending traffic to it. This will result in visitors getting an error message that will probably cause them to move on to another web site. You lose the visitor and the potential sale.

I’ve previously discussed using a 301 redirect to send visitors to a different page. But, there are other options.

Let’s say a product has been discontinued and you no longer need the page describing that product. But, that page is still getting a significant amount of traffic from search engines. If you put a 301 redirect to the replacement product you might confuse people—they won’t understand why they clicked on a link for one product and they are on a page discussing another product.

What I like to do is replace the old page with a new one at the same URL. The new page explains what has happened. It features the old product in such a way that visitors immediately see they have found what they are looking for. But, it also explains the old product is discontinued and it offers recommendations for alternatives. Never give visitors the unexpected. Meet their expectations and then direct them along the course you’d like them to take.

Another alternative, that is a technique you can use in conjunction with the above, is to use the robots.txt file. It allows you to tell Google, Yahoo and the other search engines that you’d like a page (or entire folder) removed from their index.

To remove a page from Google include the following in your robots.txt file:

User-agent: Googlebot
Disallow: /foldername/page.html

To remove all files of a specific file type (for example, .gif) from Google, put the following in your robots.txt file:

User-agent: Googlebot
Disallow: /*.gif$

For Yahoo replace “Googlebot” with “Slurp”.

If you’d like to tell all search engines to remove a page from their index, replace “Googlebot” with an asterick (*). For example:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /foldername/filename.html

Or to have them ignore a folder

User-agent: *
Disallow: /foldername/