Jon's In Waikiki (AKA The Waikiki Marketer)

Google is serving its search results more and more on a ‘personal’ basis. In other words, they use your previous searches and ‘search behavior’ to decide how to rank the results you get now.

That means rankings are no longer a real guideline that we can hang our SEO hat on.

Find out how you – as an SEO or online business – can react to this and get the results you need to in order to survive and succeed in Google.

Article here:

How To Use SEO To Beat Google’s Personalized Search

One of the important things people forget when creating web pages is that reading patterns are very different online than off.

People reading websites tend to skim or skip around the page, looking for either what they came for or for something that catches their eye.

That means you need to add signposts, in a sense, to guide your readers’ eyes. Such as, you ask?

Most important are headings and subheadings throughout the copy and content. Let the reader know what the copy is about and why it might interest them.

These are also good places to get keywords in, because this will help your SEO efforts. It also will confirm in the mind of the reader that they are in the right place.

When they see a keyphrase they used to find you in a search engine, it reinforces that they’re going to get the information they want, so they’ll stay longer.

There’s a lot more to this subject, but this is a good start to solving one problem many miss on their websites.

Remember, they Skim more than the read in the traditional way, top to bottom. Keep that in mind and you’ll be ahead of the pack for both your SEO and your site usability.

A lot of businesses are cynical, to say the least, about doing both SEO & Paid Search (PPC) campaigns. The argument is that you end up paying for clicks you would have gotten for free.

I don’t believe this is the case for various reasons.  Some of those reasons have been discussed in this blog and the others will wait for later posts.

For now, though, here is an excellent article about a study done on the effect of doing both. And the news is good! Read what the NY University School of Business found out here:

http://www.searchfuel.com/2010/01/how-seo-can-help-your-paid-search-campaigns/   [LINK CURRENTLY DOWN]

I downloaded a PDF listing sites that offer link listing (directories, etc). There were over 400 sites listed and I’m always on the lookout for directories so I dived in.

Before I got into the list, though, you were given an offer – they would submit your site to all 400+ sites for a bargain price, saving  you time and effort.

I like to do my own SEO link work for various reasons, so it didn’t persuade me. What really hit me as I checked out the sites on their list was how worthelss their submission offer was. Why?

The vast majority of the directories on the list were extremely specialized. Which meant  that if your business or site didn’t fit the focus of that directory you didn’t have a chance at being listed.

Here’s just a sample of some of the  directories they were offering to submit you to for ‘valuable SEO’:

– Directory specifically for Mexican businesses

– A directory that was entirely in Hebrew

– Directory specifically for other directories

– A directory for women-owned businesses only

And on and on and on. Paying someone to submit you to sites that will NEVER list you is like paying for a blank white square to run in the newspaper as your ‘ad’.

I should be grateful that I got a (very) few new directories to add to my link list, over 90% of their list was useless for most businesses.

Careful what you pay for.

All the SEO in the world won’t help if….you don’t complete the transaction. This is a real problem for most business on the web including, very possibly, yours.

SEO gets the searcher to the site. It can confirm consciously and unconsciously that they’re at the right place to get what they want.

BUT SEO alone isn’t going to get the sale.

WHERE & HOW SEO ALONE  FAILS YOUR BUSINESS

I’ve seen site after site that is well optimized for search, but fails miserably at moving people through the door to a Conversion. Why?

Because they do things like show a product, but then fail to give the visitor an obvious way to buy it.

Some I’ve seen don’t give a way to buy at all. It’s like a store putting their products behind glass and the cash register behind a locked door. It makes no sense, but it happens all over the Internet.

Once the searcher arrives you have to continue to talk to them. To sell to them. Many sites have the attitude of ‘Thanks for coming. You’re now on your own. Good Luck.’

You must guide them, give them a clear path to get where they want to go. You still have to tell them why they should buy or why they should contact you for a follow up.

SEO ISN’T THE ENDS, IT’S THE MEANS

SEO is a means, a vital one. But it’s not the ends. It’s the important step of getting them through your door. But your job isn’t done.

Even those stores you’ve walked out of without buying from had to get you in there first.

Think about why you’ve walked out of those stores or service businesses empty-handed that you had every intention of buying from. What happened? Because it’s probably happening on your site as well.

Emphasize SEO but complete the sales process, whatever that may be for you – a purchase, a lead, a consultation request, whatever.

That’s what we provide along with our SEO services. Going beyond the Arrival is crucial if you’re going to succeed in today’s competitive Web.

I’d be happy to discuss what we can do for your business if you contact us today. Why wait?

You could be losing sales right now and the consultation/proposal is free. We look forward to talking with you.

It looks like Google might be using your bounce rate as part of their ranking algorithm. What does that mean for our SEO efforts?

Strictly speaking it’s not actually an SEO problem. Let’s define what a ‘bounce’ is and get some other facts of the way first.

A bounce is a single page visit – the person arrives on your site, looks at the page they arrived at, then leaves without going any further.

A bounce could be someone who takes one look and backs out or someone who reads the whole page before taking off.

Now – how is Google figuring out yoru site bounce rate? They have a variety of ways, the most complete being the monitoring of Google Analytics, if you use it.

Other avenues are whether you use the Google toolbar or the new Chrome browser. They can also keep track of how quickly a searcher returns to Google again for a search.

Bounce rate is actually a good way of determining site quality, at least on first glance. If your visitors aren’t sticking around long, you’re not giving them the information they need.

Improving it will not only help your SEO rankings, it’ll go a long way to improving conversion.

Look at the elements of the page that stick out on 1st glance to a visitor. Make sure they’re telling them exactly what they need to know.

If you don’t, you’re not only losing search engine rankings, you’re losing potential income.

Many businesses realize that their site(s) need to be changed – sometimes for a more current look or to improve the user experience or some other reason.

What holds them back is the real fear that they could lose the search engine rankings they’ve fought so hard to get.

After years of consistent SEO, the possibility of losing their position, and by extension the profits that go with it, is a worry they must deal with seriously.

So what do you do? The number one thing to do is this: proceed slowly, carefully considering how to hang onto your optimization at every step of the way.

With the new pages, you must plan out how you will keep the keyphrases, the page titles, the headings and subheadings, the linking, the copy and every other search engine optimization ingredient you’ve contributed in the new design.

They must maintain their same prominence and general positioning within the pages. And those pages MUST retain the same addresses. Even a slight change, for example, changing page2.html to page2.htm can have repercussions in Google.

They see the .htm variation as an entirely new page, NOT as the same page as the .html one. And that means all you built up in SEO ‘credit’ is lost. You’ve started all over, at least for that page, and didn’t even realize it.

There’s much more to consider when redesigning a site that needs to retain rankings through the process.

However, using that ‘Plan Ahead and Plan Carefully’ guideline will put you in an excellent position for the change.

Remember, if your internet marketing needs updating, do it. Just do it the smart way. Plan.

“What?!?! It takes THAT long?!?!”. I was sitting across the table from a prospective client who had just gone into shock. His outburst took place after I had told him that SEO might not produce results for a few months.

His site was in bad shape and has not seen any search engine optimization ever. And it showed.

I knew this would probably be a slow grower, but the rewards would be great for their high priced services if we could move them up in Google.

Unfortunately, they would never get those rewards. The client had no patience and couldn’t see the point in SEO if he couldn’t instantly be seeing the money roll in.

Despite my attempts to smooth the way and explain things, I was pretty certain that I wouldn’t be doing their search marketing.

Too many businesses fall prey to this demand for No-Waiting Results. I’ve heard too many stories from businesses about how they had hired an SEO company promising mountains of profits in under a month.

The fact that it didn’t happen proves that old saying: ‘If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.’

Your business must understand that search engine optimization is a long term investment in your company. It doesn’t bring returns instantaneously, but it does pay off if your SEO is done right and is maintained.

If you don’t start now, using solid search engine knowledge and techniques, you’re just putting off a necessary avenue for your marketing. The one that just might make your business.

And that client who was so shocked? I checked his site out a year afterward. There had been no changes whatsoever on the site.

He still didn’t rank anywhere so he had obviously given up on search engines as profit producers.

A foolish mistake, in my opinion and one he’ll regret if he ever stops to think about it.

The Honolulu Advertiser carried an article today on the fact that Hawaii had seen a big gain in bankruptcy filings last month.

It should be noted that this is going on all over, not just in Hawaii. Another important aspect is that many of these were personal bankruptcies.

Still, that leaves a lot of room for Hawaii businesses to be included in that number. And they were indeed present.

What can Hawaii businesses do? Some won’t be able to do much in this time of crushing upheaval. It’s not their fault, it’s the time and the conditions. Some, though, could be doing better.

It’s my belief that SEO & Search/Internet Marketing could be a way out for some.

Search engine marketing – whether that’s organic SEO, paid search (Google Ads, etc.) and/or marketing on and of the site itself – are the most cost effective marketing avenues out there. It pays off better than print and TV, hands down.

Search/internet marketing gives you the means to target your best prospects precisely. It takes time and effort, but it costs less than traditional marketing.

Done right, online marketing gives you feedback so you can adjust your efforts to sharpen your aim more and more.

Hawaii businesses must work on finding their best prospects, the ones that bring the profits in consistently. That is what will see them through this difficult time.

Search and internet marketing should be at the top of their list. If it isn’t they need to have a good reason for why it’s not there. It could save your business.

If you’ve ever run an Google Ads campaign you probably already know that Google will show your ad for related keyphrases that are close to your selected keywords. That can be problematic if you don’t pay attention.

It’s part of ongoing work to eliminate keywords or keyphrases that aren’t good for your bottom line.

It looks as if Google is looking to expand these possibilities for adding keywords to show your ad for even more, though.

They’ve been integrating a new feature for some Google Ads campaigns as a test the past few months, expanding it even more recently.

The idea is that any ‘extra’ room in your daily budget could be applied to clicks for these ‘Automatic Matches’ that Google makes on your behalf.

Since Google has been doing this kind of matching for some time, it seems that this new feature in paid search would expand the matching potential even more.

Right now it is set so that you have to actually opt-in to have this matching done in your Google Ads campaign. However, from experience, it would be best to keep track of it in your dashboard.

You never know if they’ll set it to automatically be ‘On’ for all users. Especially once this becomes a standard feature for all search advertising accounts on Google.

I will not be using it as it relinquishes control over keywords, giving Google’s computers a lot of leeway on how my clients’ money is spent. I prefer to know where the budget is going and why.

Leaving this ‘feature’ running could be like turning on the faucet in the bathtub and then leaving for a vacation. You might come back to a mess when you return.