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Apps?
If you have a smartphone the manufacturer has undoubtedly gone out of its way to trumpet how many apps are available for it. Apple’s iPhone led this charge although the various flavors of Microsoft’s mobile offering have had many available for years. Google’s Android operating system is now being offered by a large number of manufacturer’s and the rate of app development for Android has surpassed that of Apple’s iOS which means that Android will soon offer the largest number of apps.
Apple has now led the way again into tablets with their iPad. The larger screen of such tablets has started a new wave of development for tablet-specific apps. Google has released Android 3.0, nicknamed “Honeycomb”, which is the first version that is optimized for tablets.
All this enthusiasm for apps has spurred businesses to develop apps that are designed to specifically market their business. While no one can deny the “wow” factor of launching your very own app it does make me question how many apps the average person will use.
Both iOS and Android now have search built into the apps listings. Isn’t it easier to simply use the Internet to search for what you need? The blurring of utility between apps and websites becomes nearly complete when your website is properly designed to display a handheld-friendly design when accessed by a smartphone or tablet. A perfect example is found in Google Voice for iOS. What appears to be a nicely realized app is rendered in the Safari browser.
Contact us to discuss whether or not a custom app is right for your business.
Is AdWords Too Expensive?
AdWords
The cost of running an AdWords campaign seems to be a concern to a lot of people … including both my clients and my prospects. Of course, this is one of the reasons that we think that organic SEO is such a great idea for businesses because it delivers qualified clicks with paying for each click.
This is in no way meant to denigrate the value of AdWords in any way. We always strongly suggest a small initial campaign that is designed to accurately discover the most important keyword phrases for your business. This ensures that optimization will benefit your business in the best possible way. Once you are effectively optimized you can reduce your reliance on paid advertising. We think that’s a good plan, don’t you?
We recently enrolled in a program that Google has created to make our ability to help our clients maximize this benefit. One thing (of many) they’ve made available is a great brochure explaining AdWords very clearly. It’s available on our website at:
After you’ve read it you’ll probably want to ramp up traffic to your website with AdWords from sem[c]. When you work with us you’ll get the first $100 free! Contact us today at 773-769-7362
Mobile rising?
Do you see people with smart phone and tablets everywhere? Everywhere I look on the train people are reading, texting or surfing (even, occasionally, talking). With the news that Google has entered into the handset production business mobile has moved to the front burner. They made the acquisition of Motorola in defense of the Android operating system. Google now owns thousands of patents related to mobile computing. This acquisition clearly makes the statement that Google sees itself as a mobile company.
Some of the various sites that we monitor are showing over 15% of the total visits coming from mobile devices. This emphatically underscores the importance of making sure that your website is mobile-friendly. If your site relies on Flash-based navigation alone it is likely that many mobile visitors will not be able to get any of the information that they are searching for. Apple’s iOS that runs on iPhones and iPads cannot see Flash animations. This makes it very unlikely that they visitors will return to your website on their mobile devices. The good news is that the Flash can be converted to HTML5 which will preserve the functionality while, at the same time, make it accessible to all Internet-connected devices.
It should be noted here that the Web crawlers used by Google and other search engines don’t handle Flash very well either. For SEO purposes it is a very good idea to limit Flash usage or convert it the the HTML5 alternative.
Please contact us if you have any questions about search engine optimization, social media marketing for all types of Web browsers from the desktop to your mobile handset.
How can a security problem affect your website’s SEO?
A lot of us are a little sloppy about keeping our desktop and other documents organized. Sometimes things get too disorganized in other venues… like our websites, for instance. Recently a client needed to deal with their site being hacked because it was being used as a part of a “phishing” scheme to trick people into revealing their usernames and passwords for websites like their bank. Criminals sell this information to other criminals.
There are a number of organizations that monitor such activity and make the information about compromised websites widely available. When your website makes these lists it is likely to get “blacklisted”. When your website is blacklisted your company emails could get blocked. Google and other search engines could de-list you so that you disappear from search results. This is the opposite of search engine optimization (SEO).
My client learned the hard way that failed installs and old software left on their website had become a security risk and had very likely been exploited by criminal hackers. They asked me to quarterback the correction so I brought in a developer who was familiar with some aspects of the site. Even after the developers cleaned up the site it will need to be monitored because nothing is completely certain in a circumstance like this.
In addition, like the software on your computer, server software needs to be updated to the current releases to ensure that it is not easily hacked. The ISP (Internet Service Provider) in my client’s case was not updating one of their most basic server software, PHP, because they were afraid of breaking the functionality of some of the sites that they host. I disagree with that kind of reasoning. It’s better to require necessary changes to functionality programming than to jeopardize the security of all the hosted sites.
Where is your website traffic coming from?
Recently a client asked me what was the cause in a large spike of traffic to his website. By looking into his Google Analytic stats I saw that there was one day on which search traffic for the name of his company jumped. This is an example of validation, a key component of the current buying cycle. His products had been featured on an HGTV cable show. People watching the show wanted to know more and both searched and typed in the address for his website.
Your website stats can tell you a lot about what’s working and what’s not working effectively for your website. It can even help you with conventional media exposure like TV or print. For a recent print example: we had a client who wanted to run print ads in magazines that had good and relevant content to his product. We created landing pages specifically for each magazine so that it would be easy to see which media buy was the best. This is SOP in online marketing because it is so effective in giving valuable information about your print campaigns.
“Best” from a marketing standpoint means increased traffic to the website. It is important to understand that sales will come from that increased traffic but the ratio of visits to sales will vary depending on media, time of year and many other variable specific to the product or service that is being sold.
We believe that Google Analytics gives you the best look at what’s happening with your website and install it on all of our clients’ sites. For more information search or click, you’ll find us.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, from our ongoing review of online discussion seems to have begun to receive an undeserved unsavory reputation. This must be a result of “black hat” practitioners that have caused problems instead of delivering results.
I was speaking with one of Google’s SEO consultants recently and I mentioned that there were people being quite vocal online about SEO being some sort of “scam”. She laughed. Of course the fact that Google, Yahoo and all the other search engines have SEO people on staff should alert everyone to the validity of the art of SEO.
In fact, SEO not only helps with organic search engine return position (SERP), but also results in the improved relevancy that keeps costs down in a paid online search advertising campaign (SEM) and ensures that people looking for what you offer find you easily.
Being relevant is critical in the lightning quick world of online search and the more one’s website is honed to be relevant to its prospects, the more successful it will be.
sem[c]‘s combined SEO / SEM campaign for a major Chicago real estate firm nearly doubled the number of visitors and tripled the number of registered site users interested in buying and selling real estate. These numbers were achieved in a “down” market. This is the effective power of SEO.
Are you benefitting from the increase in mobile traffic?
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SEO update 2010
The state of SEO 2010
There’s been a lot of action in the search engine arena recently. Yahoo’s transition to using Bing’s search results has been largely completed in North America. This means the search results that you get on both Yahoo! and Bing should be very similar. As of the end of August, the total number of searches in the USA show Google with around a 70% market share and Bing/Yahoo! With 25%. Ask and AOL split the final 5% of market share according to Marketwire.
This represents the final month statistics before Google’s introduction of “Google Instant” which has a lot of potential. Google’s new approach is certainly compelling to watch as your results change as you type in your query. Google also showed an increase in paid results in both month-to-month and year-to-year numbers. This is further justification of our recommendation that AdWords is your most valuable pay-per-click resource.
This information is valuable to you not only for the quality clicks it produces but also as our research tool. In a project with our alliance partner, website developer Caxy, Inc., for Hair Professionals Beauty Schools we were able to identify the most commonly used keyword phrases by potential students looking for their options in pursuing their professional cosmetology licenses. This has quickly produced well-qualified visits to the website that could not have found their way there before we started.
We’ve found that we can help most B2C businesses and many B2B businesses. Please visit our website or call or email us to find out how we can make your website a more effective business tool. Our customers have found that the online marketing power we’ve brought to their websites has got them on track to increase sales.
Refining the sales process with search marketing.
Marketing supplies leads. Sales converts those leads. This is the difference between marketing and sales. Internet marketing, specifically search marketing, can provide very well qualified leads but it takes quite a bit of care and planning to use the information gleaned to improve a business’ approach to sales.
What does it mean if search marketing brings in a significant increase in leads but sales sees little or no increase in client interactions, be they inquiries or sales?
Keyword problems? If the keyword that is most used by searchers reaching your website isn’t increasing actual interactions there are a number of possibilities that need to be sorted out. The keyword may mean something different than what it means to your business. Some people use the phrase “wedding band” for music and other use it for rings.
Branding problems? Does your brand name suggest something other than what your business actually does? The word “imports” could mean anything from automobiles to zebra print blankets. If your brand name suggests some other product in any way you need to make perfectly clear what your point of distinction is.
Copy problems? Your website needs to clearly state your benefit to a potential customer. They need to be told quickly and clearly what is in it for them. It’s probably not significant to them whether or not you graduated magna cum laude from Harvard if you don’t make it clear that you will get their carpets really clean.
The process of sorting these issues out is something we do with every client but it takes a team effort because, we are marketers and don’t really have direct control over the sales process. We will get you leads and refine exactly how qualified those leads are.
For more information contact us!