WDTalk

As Google continues to refine its algorithms to return relevant results - I sometimes don’t want to see results based on where Google thinks I am, my past search history or what Google Plus circle I’m in.

In the graphic below, my default location - is Maryland Heights, MO (West St. Louis County). If my default location was Honolulu, or if I selected my location to be Honolulu, I’d see different results for the search query of “dedicated servers St. Louis,” even though my search was very specific to St. Louis. From Honolulu, WHT dropped from number 2 to number 5, Hostirian remained at number one on both, and a couple of local St. Louis firms moved ahead of WHT (using Maryland Heights).

In the following graphic, I’ve compared search queries, again using Honolulu versus Maryland Heights, but dropping St. Louis from the search query.

In this comparison, the query using Honolulu as the location showed NO results for Hostirian, a St. Louis dedicated server provider. However, the same query using Maryland Heights did show Hostirian on the first page at numbers 11 and 12. Worth noting is that by adding St. Louis to the search query, Hostirian ranked at number one on both, because it is a local St. Louis company.

Of course, if you’re using Chrome – and are logged into your Gmail account, throw all this out of the window. Personalized search takes over, making social book marking all the more important.

Update: September 23, 2011

CALIFORNIA REPEALS THE AFFILIATE NEXUS TAX LAW

See this Press Release by the Performance Marketing Association.

PMA executive director, Rebecca Madigan stated, “The signing of this legislation means these 25,000 web-based entrepreneurs will be able to get back in business. For the PMA, this issue has always been about keeping the vibrant Affiliate Marketing sector of the economy strong and growing.”

Original article written July 19, 2011

Thousands of entrepreneurs market other vendors wares as affiliates - but it seems an increasing number of states are defining virtual stores as an in-state entity for the purpose of collecting sales tax, even though the affiliate may not have a physical presence in their state.

I can’t confirm the list below - but they have all reportedly terminated their affiliate memberships in California.

6pm.com   1-800-PetMeds   Amazon.com   Amerimark   Backcountry   Bag.com   BagsBuy.com   Barware.com   BedBathStore B&H Photo   Boden   BrickHouse Electronics   BuildDirect.com   Cabela’s   Calvin Klein Jeans   Candelabras.com   CD Universe CKU   Collections Etc.   Compact Appliance   Costume Craze   CreateForLess.com   CSN Stores   Cymax   Dermadoctor   Dr. Leonard’s   Endless.com   Eurosport   Fabric.com   Fingerhut   FootSmart   GAIAM   Garden.com   Gardeners Supply Gettington   GiftBaskets.com   Hayneedle Stores   Herroom   K. Jordan   Luggage Online   Maryland Square   MetroKitchen Overstock.com   Overstock International   PC Connection   Potpourri Group   Shindigz   Shoe.com   ShoeBuy.com ShopBop.com   ShoppersChoice.com   Silkpalms.com   SmartBargains.com   Spiritline   StumpParty   TABcom theWineEnthusiast   ThinkGeek   TimeForMeCatalog   Total Gym   Woot.com   Zappos.com

Understandably, these states desperately need to increase revenues - but I wonder with so many vendors terminating their affiliate memberships there, will California’s anticipated increase in sales revenue ever come to fruition?

Your thoughts?

Have you ever heard the term - “Sell the Sizzle, not the Steak”? Buying means making a decision, and that decision making process begins with a need to ease some pain, then logically progresses (in person) through stages of talking, thinking and actions toward closing the sale.

Online though, there are no body clues – no sales representative to nod their head up and down, looking for a yes response, cueing the prospect to follow suit. Online, compelling landing & checkout pages are vital to your success.

Buying anything is an emotional process – for some much more so than others, like me. Using the five senses of sight, hearing, taste, touch and smell to evoke an emotion (tied to your offer) helps reinforce your solution in the eyes of your prospect.

Closing the sale – isn’t simply a yes or a no. It’s a logical progression from a search query to the point “Add to Cart. “ The term, “Always Be Closing,” applies to each and every page the prospect touches until the order is completed, and really should continue beyond that, with either a survey or recommendations for other products and services based on what they just purchased.

Giving your prospect too many choices – or making the navigation from Point “Search” to Point “Buy’ difficult, is just as bad.

Last month, Matt Cutts from Google posted - on his blog, “What cool new websearch ideas should Google launch in 2012?” That article received 254 comments like the ones listed below:

• “I’d love a “search by date” and “search by newest” options to be expanded to the main search functions (and as a webmaster, the option added to Site Search). Too often I am looking for something very specific that happened recently, but get older articles that Google deems to be more relevant, even though from my perspective, they are useless.”
• “The other thing I would like to see (and rumors say it is coming) is the scroll down result effect you see for image searches being applied to web searches so there is no longer page 1, page 2, page 3, etc. results. It might level the playing field a bit and would certainly make scanning results easier.”
• “I would like to have the option of turning personal search on and off for when I need to see different results.”
• “And a “-1″ button in the search result, so I can penalize pages I don’t want to see.”

I read an interesting article that contends - that keywords beyond the top ten (in sum) refer more traffic than the top ten combined. This was attributed to a long tail effect. It went on to say that the terms that are most popular (most managed by site owners) are rarely those that provide the most business.

I couldn’t disagree more – as I’m seeing a growing trend toward more descriptive content, offering solutions to problems or issues – than I am to SEO structured content (for example, keyword saturation). Google has been stressing relevancy for some time, and webmasters are realizing the importance of combining keyword research with content – in other words, writing for their audience (visitors) rather than sculpturing their site for SERPS.

Content that reads naturally - (entices all five senses) and that has a strong call-to-action converts at higher ratios. Which do you prefer from the two examples below?

Susie’s Flowers has the right boutique for you! We carry an assortment of flowers from roses to lilies. Visit our online shop and photo gallery to view our current boutiques.

Susie’s exotic flower shop specializes in custom arrangements for every occasion; from weddings to back yard BBQ’s. From prom queens to blushing brides, imagine yourself adorned with a deep purple orchid corsage, being presented with a boutique of red and white long stemmed roses from your special partner. That’s the dream we deliver at Susie’s exotic flowers. Search our extensive online gallery of corsages and boutiques, or come by in person. We’d love to meet you.

The second example uses emotions to - drive traffic and conversions, and if you’re like me, buying anything (taking money out of my wallet) is an emotional experience.

How do you measure the success of your website? Is it an increase in link popularity, search engine results pages (SERPS), hits per day, unique visitors, pages viewed, length of time on your site, conversions – or what? What keywords are visitors entering into search engines to find your site? 

Are you actively managing your websites? In order to manage anything, you need some benchmarks to measure against. Web analytics provide those benchmarks. Analytics are indicators that reflect the potential of your website. As Internet professionals, we all know that we can’t manage what we can’t measure, and that goes to say, you can’t monetize it either.

How would you know if your site is underperforming? Is it as simple as tracking unique visitors or page views? Not really. There can be an endless number of other performance indicators that define and reflect the success, or lack thereof, of a particular campaign. Are you sending out direct mail? Doing email broadcasts? Advertising in print media? Running pay per click (PPC) ads? Are these tied to your website? If you’re a solutions provider, analytics analysis helps both you and your customers by defining opportunities.

Knowing how a visitor arrived at your website, when they arrived and what they did on your site is invaluable. Aligning that data should define the scope of future marketing campaigns.

What’s important to your organization? This all starts with what’s important to you. Tie that in to your analytics metrics. Decide what key indicators best align with the objectives of your campaigns. Come up with a list of a few basic indicators that will reflect the most insight. One key indicator could be – how many visitors does it take to achieve your goal? If that goal is for visitors to purchase product directly from your website, conversion factors are important measurements. If your goal is to generate leads or brand awareness, would poor page design or navigation hurt? Landing pages are immensely important, especially those that draw the most traffic to your site via relevant keywords or extended keyword phrases.

Tweaking your website What typically happens when a visitor first lands on your website – first impressions?  If you draw 100 unique visitors to your main landing page daily, but only 2 click through to your shopping cart, could tweaking your landing page improve your response rates, and ultimately the number of conversions?

Are some pages on your website not attracting visitors at all? If not, it’s probably time to update those pages. Likewise, if viewers are highly engaged in a specific content area of your website, would linking other parts of your site to that content help?

My recommendation Start with keyword analysis. Enter the keyword or extended keyword phrases that attract the most visitors to your site. Take notice of the results pages, specifically your competitors’ sites. If their sites rank higher in SERPS than yours, what is different between the sites? Is it their content? Their navigation? Their meta tags? Displaying higher in search engine results pages dramatically improves website performance. Take that information and your analytics analysis – to shape and redefine your site for success.

The Internet is information intensive - with major search engines like Google and Bing assigning priority to content on websites that lend value to the end user.  Gone are the days where SEO experts could simply employ search engine tactics to trick sites onto page one to increase their advertising revenues.  As the Internet attracts more computer savvy enthusiasts, the value of  search engines results pages (SERPS) increases in turn. The greatest content is of little value if no one sees it.

Content is KING - More and more, you’ll see websites on page one and two of search queries with relevant content. I personally hate clicking on a site that tells me nothing – instead just leading me to countless pages of links going nowhere.  While the major search engines do not reveal their search algorithms, they do make recommendations, for instance with Google’s Webmasters Tools.  Relevant content creates value, and value sells products and services – and advertising.

Content should have appeal and uniqueness. If a prospect were searching for a web hosting provider, and clicking between results, why would they be intrigued by your site?

• Do you have products or services that drastically vary from hundreds of competitive providers?
• Do you offer a knowledge base that’ll help with their research?
• Do you offer live chat or 800 phone services for those with questions?
• Does your site appeal to their senses (a tour)?
• Is it graphically pleasing?
• Is the type well written and easy to read?
• Does the information on your site flow, and is it easily navigable?
• Do you have a site map?
• Is your pricing competitive?
• Do you offer the culture of your business – it’s management, history and valued clients?

Content is about supplying answers (and solutions) - If you offer Live Chat on your website, when asked a question you cannot answer off of the top of your head, admit you don’t know the answer, but promise you will find it … or at least give the perception that you have the ability to get the answer. It’s extremely important to get back to the prospect in timely fashion, whether you have the answer they’re looking for or not.  You can’t be everything to everybody, but you can be professional in every contact with every prospect and client.

Under promise and over deliver - is a phrase I’ve heard a lot. Don’t promise what you can’t deliver. This applies to your websites as well. Putting relevant content on your website is so much more than an SEO strategy. It’s a business strategy – one of providing value, and that’s what drives business long term.