Easy SEO Tip

October 12, 2009

Here’s a quick tip for you – and it works nearly every time (although, it wouldn’t if everyone does it, so I’m wondering why I’m telling you!).

Anyway – I’ve written about Product Comparisons as a content generation strategy before. Here’s a really simple way to ramp up your results from that:

Just put a “Vs.” in the title.  As in “Red Widgest Vs. Blue Widgets” – you’d be shocked how important that “Vs.” is to search engines, and how few people have optimized for that.

Just don’t do it for any niches I’m working in. Please.

Quick Tip – Using Video on your Blog

October 7, 2009

Any marketer you ask will tell you that you should be using some sort of multimedia on your blog – and the mulitmedia of choice is, of course, video.

Why? Well, it looks cool.  It’s easy to add, and it comes with a built in distribution network that is off the charts. Since this is a “Quick Tip” I’m not going to go into how to make good videos, or what you should use to produce them – that’s another post entirely.  I have two big points for you:

1)If you want to add video to your blog, you should be using Thesis.  The multimedia box makes for the easiest integration you can have in a Wordpress theme.

2)If you don’t want to tick your users off – don’t JUST offer video.  This is another reason Thesis is great – there’s no way to just offer a video without looking silly. People DO like video, but a lot of people don’t as well.  And, even folks that do like video don’t always feel like watching it. So, make sure you add some coherent, relevent, and scannable copy on the page as well.

On a side note – occasionally, for entertainment purposes, we’ll sit around and check out the new landing pages of all the overweight “Get Internet Monies” gurus out there, shooting videos from their mom’s basements.  Especially the ones that point to a conversion element on the page – hilarious. In fact – if someone is pointing to a conversion element on their page from a video…they’re going to rip you off. That’s a free “quick tip” :)

Using Product Comparisons for Fun and Profit

April 28, 2009

One of the best ways to create new content is to do a product comparison.  You can go about this from a few different angles:

1) You Vs. Competitors – Use a comparison page to show why your Unique Selling Point (you have one, right?) is powerful enough for your customer to purchase your product or service over your competitor’s.

2) Product Option A vs. Product Option B – Use a comparison page to show different features of your products or services.  A good example would be if a landscape company created a page showing the differences between, say, organic and inorganic fertilizers…and the pros/cons of each.

3) Affiliate product comparisons – It’s possible that you’re running an ad supported site, and are selling competing products, create a comparison of them to increase your sales of both!

So, what are the benefits of comparisons?  For one, you can clearly and concisely illustrate why your website visitor needs to purchase from you vs. your competitor.  On a deeper level though, it is an opportunity to create content that will rank well for a number of longer keyphrases.

For example, my site receives a good bit of traffic because I did a comparison of SEO and PPC – so now I get Google searches for “SEO vs. PPC”.

This is just one more step you should be taking to enhance your web prescence.  Keep up the good work, and be sure to check back for more!

Content Strategy for Your Website

April 21, 2009

I was in a client meeting yesterday, discussing content strategy and how it relates to their need for SEO and better conversions.  We’ve made some really good progress in a super-competitive area the last three months, but were having trouble converting visitors and wanted to expand our SEO footprint.

The CEO asked me, “Is it better to have several pages that are always changing, or to have a site that is constantly growing with new content?”

The VP of Sales laughed out loud when I answered that question, “Yes!”

We all know that fresh content is vital to SEO success.  It’s also important for visitor conversion.  And, it’s important to not only have your most prominent pages (home page, etc…) “freshen up” every now and then, it’s also important to push out new content on a regular basis.

From a search engine standpoint – it gets spiders coming back more frequently, which gets you indexed more thoroughly, more often, and often better.  From a visitor standpoint, it gives you the opportunity to excite and engage the visitor more.

More and more, we are seeing that visitors need more than a catchy landing page, a great offer, or a slick form to turn in to leads or customers.  Search is becoming less and less a direct conversion tool, and more of a sales process that you need to nurture in order to get the customer.

Of course, this rings true a little more for larger ticket item purchases than for, say, a book or pair of shoes.

What does this mean for your business?  For one, you need to craft all your content with an eye for the ultimate goal – conversion.  You need to come up with a schedule and stick to it (this is much harder than it sounds).  You will need to create content that is interesting and useful for someone, even if they aren’t your customer.  You need to give options to share your content (social bookmarking buttons, email this buttons, etc…) – and encourage people to use them.

In short – your website needs to start to become a combination of promotion and enhanced conversion strategies, and real substance.