Pleasanton Web Design

Last week I met with a client who runs a non-profit organization that feeds the needy here in the Bay Area. The client mentioned in passing that she was approached by Yelp to “help” her advertise for a significant monthly payment. In researching the “money” keyword for this organization I noticed that Yelp completely owned the SERP above the fold.

I’ve also been noticing Yelp pages taking position one in the SERPs of a lot of business verticals. In addition to that, the non-Yelp websites that are advancing seem to be the ones that have Yelp reviews of the business.

It certainly seems that Google has recently handed over a lot of SERPs to Yelp. That gives Yelp a huge amount of leverage with which to market their services to businesses that they now outrank, or push down below the fold (as in the case of my client).

Small businesses should be thinking about 1) completing their Yelp profile, 2) asking clients to post favorable reviews and 3) those with poor reviews need to start responding to those in a positive and constructive way, and brainstorming ideas on how to improve the aspects of their business that are generating the poor reviews.

Whether Google is getting some kind of kickback by boosting Yelp in their search engine rankings is hard to say. It’s not the kind of information that is available to me, nor could I do anything about it if it were. However unfair, unethical, or downright evil Yelp may be, the reality is you are compelled to play ball, or at least address the 3 items I listed previously.

Personal Injury Attorney Web Design and Promotion

Non-Profit Web Design

Mobile version of website for swimming pool builder in the San Francisco Bay Area

There are a wide variety of expectations regarding the cost of a website. Assuming you are shopping for a business website that will serve the purpose of making you money, here are some things to look for on the window-sticker.

One-time costs

1. Competitive analysis and promotion strategy
   Business websites are built to achieve goals, and it is a good idea to figure out how those will be achieved before building your website. If you are starting an internet business, this should be part of your business plan.
2. Web design, development and production
   Taking your vision from concept to reality, resulting in a visually appealing and functional Website.

Ongoing costs

1. Search engine promotion
   Google doesn’t care about your new Website. You have to make it care. You have to prove it is popular and useful in the ways that Google uses to calculate those factors. It can take a lot of effort and cost to get the “free traffic” that Google, and the other search engines have to offer. Here are some typical ongoing activities that can increase your rank in your “money” SERPs (search engine results pages) :
   • Link building
     Gaining links pointing to your site.  This is difficult and other webmasters don’t want to give you a free link any more. Link exchanges are so 2003. It is still possible to gain quality links, but it requires building real relationships.
   • Citation building
     Important for local search, which is most likely where you will get your traffic. Just remember NAP (name, address and phone number) must be consistent, and start building those Yellow Pagey directory listings . Don’t bother too much with small directories. That’s so 2011.
   • Blogging
     Most normal people realize that blogging is a lame thing to do (ironic?). It is, however, the way you can offer some value in exchange for attention on the Internet. That attention is what makes Google think you are popular (or at least your website is popular), and you will be rewarded by better rankings in searches, and hopefully some targeted traffic.
   • Social Networking
     Social networking is the way you promote your blog articles. Most reasonable people see that “Tweeting” is even lamer than blogging. Google doesn’t think so though, and that’s who you are trying to please.

1. Web hosting
   Nuts and bolts stuff – the Web Host is the server that holds the files that make up your Website. And you have to pay for that. Monthly or annually.
2. Domain name registration
   An annual or semi-annual cost – just don’t let your credit card expire, and do keep your email updated with your registrar. If you lose the domain name, you may not get it back.
3. CMS software updates
   If your website is built on a content management system (CMS), such as WordPress, Joomla, or Drupal, you’ll want to make sure it is updated regularly, unless you don’t mind getting hacked. Most CMSs now have one click updates, HOWEVER, you will want to test the update on a development mirror, and back-up your website before updating. Otherwise you could be looking at some downtime, when the unexpected strikes.

I put together this quick video using animoto – a free video production tool that can help you create short promotional videos for your business. You can use these videos on your website, blog, Google Places listing, Youtube, and anywhere else a video is appropriate. It took me about 15 minutes.

Nothing mind-blowing, but for what it is, I think it works. Give it a try yourself!

animoto

This year has seen a lot of changes in the world of Web Design and promotion. Some of the biggest changes have been:

Google search engine ranking and results pages

Google continually rolled out major changes throughout the year that changed the landscape of their search results pages.

• The space for organic results was enormously reduced, cutting the opportunity for “free” traffic.
• Google Penguin changed the way incoming links (back links) to a website effect ranking. This set of changes alone destroyed many websites and blogs. Keywords in anchor text are now penalized and many sites that were promoted for years using that standard technique had a distinct disadvantage over new websites with little or no history or linking.
• Local results with maps began dominating many search results.
• Social Networking became a required aspect of any website promotion campaign.
• Google stepped up it’s obfuscation of the relationship between changes in their algorithm and the ranking of a particular website in a particular search at a given time. This is done to detect and penalize spammers aka people who are trying to improve the rank of their website aka YOU!

Mobile Websites

The use of mobile devices, particularly tablets and smartphones, made a huge dent in overall traffic. It is no longer advisable to design solely for desktop. Mobile sites are a now a must.

Content Management Systems

The quality of content management systems, particularly Joomla and Worpress made it easier and cheaper for small businesses and individuals to have high quality, professional-looking websites with a high degree of functionality and security.

Despite all of these changes our businesses learn, adapt and grow. Here’s to a happy and prosperous 2013 to you, your business and your family!

Link-building has long been a primary task in the process of improving the rank of a small business website and increasing targeted traffic. That has changed with the implementation of the Panda and Penguin modifications to Google’s ranking algorithm. Links to your website from low quality directories or thin blogs will no longer help your website’s link authority, and will no longer improve your rank on Google. Using the wrong link building strategy, especially with keywords in the anchor text, can actually earn you a penalty now.

So how does a small business gain more targeted traffic to its website? Well, luckily at the same time Google was making it impossible to get cheap and easy link authority, it was also transforming the results for searches that could be remotely interpreted as having local intent. Local results tied into Google Maps/ Google Places/Google Plus now dominate these results and push just about everything else, out of sight, below the fold. Being number one in organic results for these listings no longer guarantees any traffic. So in order to get that traffic, you need to get on the map! That is, you need to optimize your Google Places/Plus listing, and promote it with both structured and unstructured citations.

But before you do anything take a NAP!

Ok, don’t actually take a nap, but take your NAP (referring to Name, Address, Phone Number) very seriously. Decide exactly how it should appear in all citations, and stick to it. If you don’t your efforts could be seriously dissipated.

What is a citation?

A citation is the information about your business that appears on another website. The citation does NOT have to link to your website to be considered in your ranking by Google.

Structured Citations

Structured citations are sets of  formalized data in a consistent format, such as Yellowpages.com listings. These are usually found on the website of a trusted provider and often written in standardized schema.org markup.

Unstructured Citations

Unstructured citations are casual references to your business location on another website. They could mention your city, phone number along with your business name.

Citation Building is the new Link Building

As with link building, the task of citation building has its own learning curve and set of best practices. Next time we’ll cover Best Practices in Citation Building. In the meantime, check out this informative talk by Rand Fishkin at SEOMOZ. Also, see how you are doing right now with this free analysis by YEXT.

Comments or Questions? Please join the discussion!

I ran into a couple of nice articles detailing some average costs per click for various industries. If you are researching whether or not to get into Google Adwords Advertising, this data will be helpful in determining whether or not Adwords costs will be in the ballpark of ROI. Of course you can look us the Adwords Keyword Tool to get specific about individual keywords, but I found that the averages reported in the articles to reflect my experience with the industries described.

This article presents some useful data on the most expensive industries for Adwords advertising:

The infographic below will give you a visual feel for the data.

I created this table for you numbers people:

Most Expensive Adwords Keywords

Luckily ALL Adwords keywords are not THAT expensive. Here is a rundown from this article on SEOMOZ that show some more reasonable costs:

Google Adwords in not for everybody and the days where campaigns were low maintenance is long gone. In addition to the keyword costs you need to factor in the cost of hiring someone to maintain your campaign, or setting time aside to maintain it yourself.

The following are some common misconceptions I’ve noticed that non-technical people tend to have about search engines, and the process of gaining search engine exposure for their business. Clearing these up prior to any project is essential in order to realistically set expectations.

1. Misconception: Getting on Page One of the search results is a matter of having my website built by someone who knows SEO.

Reality: Even if a website is properly optimized for the correct search terms, it will always take some amount of initial and ongoing promotion to rank and bring in traffic. The primary effort in search engine promotion occurs in off page activities such as link building, and social networking.

2. Misconception:The secret of getting on top of the search engine results is knowing the SEO tricks.

Reality: There is certainly a lot you need to know in order to effectively market a website, however like any endeavor; results are achieved as a result of a lot of hard work. The conception that ”it is easy if you know how” is an idea nurtured by scam artists to turn a quick buck.

3. Misconception: Once my website is published to the internet, it should show up in the rankings right away.

Reality: It can take from 2 to 4 weeks for your site to show up in the search engine index, and another 4 to 8 weeks for it to be completely crawled and included in a way that you will achieve optimum results. If you are looking to compete with established websites, it could take months or even years before your ultimate ranking goals are achieved. This is because search engines “trust” established websites and “mistrust” new websites as potential sources of spam.

4. Misconception:Getting my website on Page One of Google will gain my website traffic and increase sales.

Reality: Getting on Page One of Google for an obscure search term like “Used car with red paint in Hayward California” is easy, but will not gain you any traffic or make you any money. On the other end of the spectrum, getting on Page One for the term “Car” is just not going to happen for a small or even medium size business. All “SERPs” (search engine results pages) are not created equal. The first step of any search engine promotion program is keyword analysis; finding the SERPs that are not only valuable, and also achievable given your marketing budget.

5. Misconception:If I’m on top of the search results for the terms I have chosen, I’ll be getting traffic and making money.

Reality:Many business owners choose keywords they think are valuable based on a feeling, perceived status, or some other superficial factor. As previously mentioned, keyword analysis as the first step of any search engine marketing campaign is essential, and will ensure that effort spent is the subsequent steps will be efficiently focused.Secondly, getting on Page One for the right search will not get you anywhere if your website doesn’t convert. Optimizing traffic conversion on an ongoing basis is an often overlooked task in maintaining search engine promotion campaigns.

The common thread in all of these misconceptions is the idea that there is a “magic pill” or a “free lunch” (or free search engine traffic). The reality is that it takes not only knowledge, but a considerable amount of hard word and patient effort to gain valuable internet traffic. So get to work!