Intentions – good or otherwise?

Despite all the chatter about AI and big data a lot of the basis for success in online marketing comes down to sussing out your prospects’ intentions. This is a very human process.

People can be characterized into a number of personality types. There are a number of well-defined systems for analyzing these types. One is the DISC system.

This system is useful both for its simplicity and accuracy even when you have little observational data to work with.

Your online presence can satisfy the needs of all of the different personality types with the proper strategic planning. Carefully oversimplifying would mean: Be succinct and clear about benefits everywhere for D types. Be upbeat for I types. Cultivate your business on social media for S types. Provide information about your business with microscopic granularity buried on your website.

How do you gauge your prospects’ response to these items?

Website analytics: Look at the webpages your visitors visit, how long they stay on, and their activities. Patterns and trends can indicate your visitor’s goal. For example, pages with high bounce or exit rates may indicate a mismatch between content and visitor expectations.
Surveys and market research: Ask questions about customer preferences, needs, and motivations.
Customer interactions: Analyze customer service logs, call center recordings, and online chat sessions.
Visitor identification data: See who’s visiting your website and what they’re doing there.
Buying signals: For example, when prospects sign up for a free trial or complementary offerings, it’s a clear sign of their interest in the product.
Clicks a link in your email: Analytics of their behavior on where your link directed them to can show their buying intent. For example, if they click on a link like the content of your email but may want some time to do some research on their own before speaking with a sales rep, you can follow up with them relatively quickly while their attention is focused on you.

This is an overview of the process that we follow at sem[c].

December 5, 2023December 6, 2023

The Importance of Technical SEO for Business Growth

Technical SEO Overview

In today’s digital landscape, a business’s online presence is crucial for success. A well-optimized website can attract potential customers, increase brand awareness, and generate leads. However, without proper technical SEO, a website may struggle to achieve its full potential. Most frequently when we begin an SEO project at sem[c] we find that we are working with a slowly loading website. This is true regardless of what platform the site is built upon. Technical SEO focuses on whatever the underlying infrastructure of a website might be, ensuring that it is easy for search engines to crawl and index. One of the most critical aspects of technical SEO is site loading speed. A slow-loading website can lead to a higher bounce rate, reduced user engagement, and ultimately, lost revenue.

Five Benefits of Improved Technical SEO and Site Loading Speed

Improved Search Engine Rankings: Search engines prioritize websites that load quickly and provide a positive user experience. By optimizing site loading speed, businesses can improve their website’s rankings in search results, leading to increased organic traffic.
Enhanced User Experience: A fast-loading website provides a seamless user experience, keeping visitors engaged and reducing bounce rates. When users can access information quickly and easily, they are more likely to return to the website and make a purchase.
Increased Conversion Rates: A study by Google found that the probability of bounce increases 32% as page load time goes from 1 second to 3 seconds. In addition, a one-second delay in page load time can lead to a 7% decrease in conversions. By improving site loading speed, businesses can increase the likelihood of visitors converting into customers.
Reduced Bounce Rates: A bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who leave a website after viewing only one page. Slow loading times are a major contributor to high bounce rates. By optimizing site loading speed, businesses can reduce bounce rates and keep visitors engaged for longer.
Improved Mobile Friendliness: With the increasing prevalence of mobile devices, it is essential for websites to be mobile-friendly. Site loading speed is particularly important for mobile users, who may have slower internet connections. By optimizing site loading speed for mobile devices, businesses can ensure that their website provides a positive user experience for all visitors.

Optimizing Site Loading Speed for Technical SEO Success

There are several techniques that businesses can use to optimize site loading speed:

Image Optimization: Optimize images by reducing their file sizes without compromising quality. Use appropriate image formats and dimensions for the intended use.
Minify Code: Minify code to remove unnecessary whitespace, comments, and characters. This can significantly reduce page load times.
Leverage Browser Caching: Enable browser caching to store static content, such as images and CSS files, on the user’s device. This can reduce the amount of data that needs to be downloaded each time the page is visited.
Utilize a Content Delivery Network (CDN): A CDN distributes website content across multiple servers worldwide, reducing latency and improving page load times for users across different geographic locations.
Choose a Reliable Hosting Provider: Select a reliable hosting provider that can handle the traffic demands of your website and provide adequate bandwidth and server resources.

Conclusion on the Importance of Technical SEO for Your Website

Technical SEO is essential for businesses that want to maximize their online presence and achieve their business goals. By optimizing site loading speed and addressing other technical SEO issues, businesses can improve their search engine rankings, enhance user experience, increase conversion rates, reduce bounce rates, and ensure that their website is mobile-friendly. In today’s competitive digital landscape, investing in technical SEO is a wise investment in the future of your business. Your best choice in improving your site’s technical SEO is sem[c] so contact us today.

June 21, 2018December 6, 2018

Great SEO vs. Really Bad Design

Bad design trumps everything, even great SEO

Huge problems arose the first day of sem[c]’s engagement. The previous SEO provider had also served as the web developer (Developer #1). He had been tasked to move the WordPress site into Visual Composer but instead used a little-known page builder from the UK without notifying the client. He also hadn’t mentioned that the page builder was reliant on the developer’s paid subscription. The result wasn’t pretty. The site instantly slowed to a crawl but sem[c] was able to replace most of the proprietary and paid plugins with free alternatives and restored performance by putting in many hours within one day of switchover.

There’s nothing that even great SEO (as done by sem[c]) can do to remedy a really bad design. Good business results depend on an effective team effort. Without that no amount of increased search traffic with get those results, as this tale of woe shows.

There remained problems in support and backup because there was no evidence available that a backup had ever been performed. Even if it had, the developer hadn’t been able to demonstrate a restore from backup. He only provided techno-babble excuses. He was unable to provide access to a development environment. The only thing he had delivered competently was the graphic design.

Working with a new developer (Developer #2), sem[c] recommended that a very inexpensive support subscription be purchased and that a working development environment be deployed retaining the graphic design. Before that could happen Developer #2 was fired. The next developer (Developer #3), had a condescending attitude that was worsened by his complete ignorance of SEO backed with very strong but wrong opinions. He was released within two days after his engagement for insulting the client. Not quite soon enough.

The next developer (Developer #4), was gung-ho for doing a complete (expensive) redesign and, consequently, was adamantly against spending $50 for the support option. The redesign was unnecessary and sem[c] continued to recommend retaining and improving the then-current design. This recommendation was ignored by the client. Nothing happened for the next four months except that sem[c] doubled search traffic to the old website. There was little evidence that any SEO had been done previously. There was no indication why the redesign was taking so long.

Without notification the new design launched badly. The front page took nearly 20 seconds to load. There were no calls to action. Functionality was spotty. Page URLs were changed without any need to do so. The new graphic design relied on the technique of cognitive dissonance. However, rather than using the technique correctly, Developer #4 never mentioned or illustrated what the client actually did. Nothing about the business’ expertise or benefits that a visitor might expect were mentioned. At all. On the technical side, there was still no relevant development environment. All in all it was awful.

This nonsense had a devastating effect on search performance. The site dropped from the first page for critical search terms to the third page. This forced sem[c] to completely redo everything that it had done over the previous five months.

After several more months of half-hearted attempts by this incompetent supplier to improve the horrible site performance a talented web developer (Developer #5) was brought in to assist sem[c] in correcting the mess made by Developer #4.

Unfortunately, the self-referential and client-adverse graphic design of the site itself remained. The Bounce Rate had skyrocketed due to the miserable site performance and, if that weren’t bad enough, the design had little to offer anyone to stay. They didn’t. Nearly 95% of visitors left after viewing just one page. It took months for all the corrections that were necessary to lower the Bounce Rate “down” to 80%.

SEO is not sales. There’s nothing that SEO, even when done by sem[c], can do to remedy really bad graphic and technical design. Good business results depend on an effective team effort. Without that unity of purpose no amount of increased search traffic with get the results that every business needs.

September 12, 2017September 12, 2017

What do you know about the SEO of page builders for WordPress?

WordPress is an option when building a new website

Recently, the ‘next big thing’ in web development has been a graphic design layer that enables drag’n’drop editing to your new WordPress site. These software layers or ‘page builders’ go by a lot of different names: Visual Composer, Divi and many more.

What does this all mean to you?

Everyone wants a great looking site. But the reality is that if the pages take too long to load prospects will leave without seeing anything. Google has a tool that will estimate what percentage will leave based on their test of the performance of your site. Achieving a great looking site that is slow will cost you prospects (and your SEO).
The developer that builds your site will not be around forever. You, as the owner of your site, should have everything documented so that any transition for any reason will be straightforward. Page builder setups can be very complex.
Your developer is responsible for demonstrating the ability to restore your site from the regular backups that he or she is making. Something is very wrong otherwise.
One of WordPress’ great strengths is the ability to update its look while keeping all of your content completely intact. If a developer says that they need to start completely over it will damage your SEO. This is only necessary if the previous developer damaged your site or that the new developer is not sufficiently trained.

sem[c] has been asked to optimize a number of different varieties of page builders recently and they all had speed-of-performance issues that needed to be addressed. More specifically, we were engaged to work on a site that we found to be using a suite of plug-ins called Pagelines. Like each of the other page builders it has its adherents but the sheer number of plugins that it uses sent up a red flag from our SEO point of view. The unfortunate part of this story is that the developer was tasked by the client to move this WordPress website into the Visual Composer page builder. Without saying why, this developer used Pagelines instead but didn’t inform the client. In addition, the developer used paid licenses that belonged to his company NOT the client’s. This meant that when he was removed as the administrator the site stopped working. Completely.

It’s not feasible or cost-effective for most business owners to study web development to the level of detail that has been discussed above. That fact should suggest that having a separate SEO consultant on board in conjunction with site development is a good idea. It is.

For more good ideas contact us or call 773.769.7362.

April 27, 2016April 27, 2017

It’s “your” website… really?

What do you mean by “your” website? A typical website consists of files on a server that can be reached on the Internet by means of a domain name. Unless you own the webserver you can only edit “your” files by using the correct username and password to access your website’s hosting provider. You may not even know in which country the server is located.

Another thing that you might not know about your website is the type of server software that’s making it appear on the Internet. You might not know software named Apache and IIS. There are even smaller divisions of specialties in this area. One of our clients got hacked because their (former) web hosting provider had not updated it’s PHP software. You have likely been licensed to use this software under your terms of agreement with your hosting provider.

Without a properly configured domain name your website’s address will be a string of numbers. This may require another username and password depending on your domain name registrar. We have had clients that only think they know who might know these usernames and passwords. We have had clients whose names are not part of their domain name registration.

Like many websites, yours might use a content management system (CMS) for convenience and ease of use. A typical CMS like WordPress supports plugins to offer specialized functionality. Both the CMS and the plugins are software written by someone (usually not you) and your use of them is under the terms of a license agreement about which you may know nothing. One of our clients licensed a proprietary CMS but didn’t receive the source code. This resulted in there being no way to change anything about the front page of the website without paying the developer to make the change.

Other websites might think so highly of your website that they “borrow” from it without crediting you. There are tools like Grammerly and CopyScape that can help you find your content if it gets expropriated.

You should also have information about usernames and passwords should anything happen to you so that whomever is entitled can access the website when you no longer can.

All of these items will be very helpful to know in case a problem arises. For example, if your website gets hacked someone will need to know everything above to find a solution. When this happens it’s very difficult to claim ownership of “your” website since someone else has proven himself to be in control. Having quick access will help minimize the duration of the problem. We have helped clients recover from hacks and Google provides us with a number of resources that are useful in crafting a solution.
Contact us for more information from sem[c]

August 29, 2013April 27, 2017

Search engine marketing factors 2013

February 19, 2013October 31, 2016

For a search friendly website which comes first: What or Software?

The Argonne National Lab in collaboration with the Chicago Institute of Art has conclusively proved that Pablo Picasso painted masterpieces using common housepaint:

http://www.anl.gov/articles/high-energy-x-rays-shine-light-mystery-picasso-s-paints

This supports a more general idea that if you know what you are doing it doesn’t necessarily require any special tools or supplies to get it done. Picasso thought the type of paint he used to be so unimportant that he never discussed it. He didn’t decide that he wanted to do something with housepaint and wound up with “Guernica”. Quite the opposite.

We consulted on a project recently on which a particular platform for e-commerce was of interest to the client. There are several businesses under the same ownership and this platform was used for e-commerce on one of their websites. We have developed using this platform and our clients have found it to be a very good approach to e-commerce. The project overview was to refresh a legacy website that wasn’t working. The website had ineffective navigation and, as a result, a visitor had little chance of discovering much.

We prepared a proposal based on reskinning the content after using the sem[c] process to discover how best to optimize it. We included an innovative approach to utilizing an advanced search function of the e-commerce platform they had not used in their previous project. Our proposal was accepted.

The kickoff meeting revealed a very large amount of previously undisclosed information pertinent to how the businesses worked and their very different audiences. That is to say that is became very clear that part of the difficulty with the legacy website is that it really needed to be two. It also became clear that neither of these two websites would be doing e-commerce. Another surprise was that one of the websites needed to access information that the company was contractually prevented from showing on the Internet. Most importantly there was internal disagreement about all of those points.

The next day our client terminated us. The reason given was that we were not exclusive specialists in the e-commerce platform that was used for their e-commerce site. The only thing clear about what they needed to do with “our” project meant (to us) the platform was not a good fit to best fulfill their needs. Perversely, doing the project with that platform had become their only requirement despite their lack of clarity about what to do.

Your online presence needs to make it clear to your audience what you offer of value to them. The software you use is only a means to that end. It can help or hinder your goals. It’s very unlikely that a visitor will be so impressed with your unusual use of a serverside technology that they buy muffins from you.

August 27, 2012October 31, 2016

Redirects, soft 404s and their effect on SEO

Redirects are what happens when you try to go to a page and you go somewhere else or are “redirected” to a different page. There are a lot of reasons that this might occur. The page may have been removed. It could have been incorporated into a different page. The domain name might have changed. There’s a long list of legitimate things cause this. Most web servers will redirect to a “Page Not Found” or a “404”. This happens and doesn’t have major SEO consequences although it’s not the best for user experience.

The dark of side of redirect is why it is of concern to search engines and can have a negative effect on your SEO. Spammers took advantage of a type of redirect that used javascript to send a visitor from one site to another (and either spam or malware ridden) site. This type of redirect was inadvertently added into one of our client’s site by a graphic designer for what he thought was a great idea but it wasn’t. Google delisted the site entirely for all of the search terms that they had previously been on the first page in first position for.

According to Wikipedia: “The practice of employing fake 404 errors as a means to conceal censorship has also been reported in Thailand^[11] and Tunisia.^[12] In Tunisia, where censorship is reportedly severe, people have become aware of the nature of the fake 404 errors and have created an imaginary character named “Ammar 404” who represents “the invisible censor”.^[13] “

Another type of redirect that has negative consequences is a “soft 404”. This can happen when the web server doesn’t send you to the page you requested and sends you not to the designated 404 page but to some other page which still isn’t what you requested. Our client’s custom ecommerce storefront created nearly 500 of these “soft 404” errors that Google reported. Needless to say their movement towards optimization was slowed until this problem was solved.