Blogging Is Hard To Do

We had given up blogging there for a while. It really can take a lot of time and usually never results in anything other than spam comments to moderate - from people being paid slave wages to post backlinks to their clients websites.

So, will we keep blogging? Not for a while. Currently we are too busy helping business owners make money online. Obviously, maintaining this blog has taken the back burner for a couple years now.

I know that everyone starts a blog and then can never maintain it. I advise people over and over NOT TO DO IT, it's the first thing that goes bye bye when things get busy. Who has time to blog when you are running a successful business? If you are not running a successful business, you shouldn't be spending all that free extra time writing a blog. You should be doing other things to improve your business. There are more important things to do online.

Maybe the next time we are up to it, we will share something new.

What Is Google Panda ?

Google Panda

Google internally designates their projects, products and services by names like Penguin, Gingerbread, Cupcake or Panda, the subject of this blog. 

Google Panda is a change to Google's search results ranking algorithm. Panda was first released in February 2011. The update was controversial and many sites felt they were unfairly affected by it. The purpose was to lower the page ranking of "low quality sites" and content farms while returning higher quality sites to the top of a search results page. 

What Happens When A Panda Update Occurs?

Since the first launch of Panda there have been 24 additional updates or refreshers to it. Sometimes Google would announce an update, confirm what the specific changes were to the algorithm and the % impact on existing search results queries. Sometimes they would not provide any information regarding an update. If webmasters and SEO Marketing companies knew the specifics of the algorithm update they could make the changes to their clients' website pages. These actions would lessen the impact of a loss in page results positioning, or at least try to adjust to it.

  

Each time updates occur without an announcement by Google webmasters and SEOs know it. They see their client's page result positions change for a keyword or phrase search query and decline for no apparent reason. As an example, my client used to be in the 2nd position for plumbers Las Vegas. Now he's 9th. Why?

Future Panda Updates by Google

Google has recently announced it's unlikely they will announce future updates because they will be incorporated internally during the indexing process. This indexing is what a search engine does to pages within your website to gather metadata or keywords and store it so they can quickly access and generate search results. 

It's Google site and they can certainly do what they want with their own website. Especially when the ad visibility is in the natural-organic free area of a search results paqe. Google's new process will put many webmasters and SEOs in the position of being reactive to a drop in page rankings for their clients' ads and not knowing the specific reasons as to why.

How to Lessen the Impact of Panda Updates

The key to lessening the impact of a Panda update is Google's underlying agenda for making the changes. This is certainly not a cure all but it may help. Google wants creative, unique, fresh and trustworthy website word content that user's will be glad they found. They also will rank your website based on the links your website has with other sites that are relevant to the content of your website and theirs.

Things You Can Do To Help

• If you add new products, services, or market areas to your business be sure to let your SEOs know. Fresh, new pages on your website can help. 
• Get your customers to post legitimate, favorable reviews for your business on the internet.
• If you have a CMS website and the know how to update it please do so on a recurring basis. If you are not comfortable making the updates get an SEO professional to do it. A website that does not get fresh content and new web pages on a recurring basis will eventually go stale and lose visibility for search queries.

In Closing

Good page ranking and positioning for your website on Google is getting harder. As they release updates we may see changes in ad positioning for certain keywords and phrases. 

Be aware that SEO requires constant maintenance, updating and tweaking to your website pages. The affect of these actions do not impact a page ranking overnight. Those who perform within Google's guidelines and agenda in the long run will come out on top. No pun intended.

Do Search Engines Care About How Your Website Is Designed?

Yes, your website needs to be optimized from the ground up when it's built. This will allow search engines to see what your website is about. Load time being fast, unique content, images being tagged, page titles, page descriptions, headlines, links on your site and much more matter.

We recently were on a conference call with a new prospective client and their expert that works at Amazon, and he asked "how many sales are you getting with your current website? Well, don't expect that to improve just by spending all this money on a new website." That made our heads spin over here. There is a big difference between a website that looks nice, and a website that is coded and structured properly. Proper coding and structure enhances conversions from customers, and visibility on Google. We have plenty of samples of website that have been launched where the rankings shot up with no marketing dollars spent after the fact. When you have a SEO expert building your website you can tell by looking at it.  We have highlighted some samples at the bottom of this posting that show what a new websites have done for a few of our customers. 

What Search Engines Do

Search Engines assign a ranking to each page based on keywords in the content and many other factors. The best matches that are relevant to a user's search are, in theory, the first ones Google lists. Getting a prominent spot on Google's results page could mean a huge increase in the number of website visitors which in theory will bring more business.

Website Design 101 - Optimization Tips

All the facets of website design can affect how a visitor reacts when they enter a website.The look and feel is important. If they enter a website and see an unappealing color they may quickly bounce out. A busy page layout, or lack of site navigation in an easily recognizable spot could cause frustration and a quick departure. Search engines are tracking this behavior and website page ranking is affected.

But, your website design is not just about the look and feel. The site may look appealing, but lack relevant content, so the search engine and your customers may not know what you do, where you do it, or how to contact you. Website design should also be WC3 compliant for better search results. The code needs to be clean, with clear code, and with no broken links and missing images.

Here are some examples that some website designers may skip, because you can't see it or don't know the importance - but search engines do.

• Relevant keywords need to be in your Title tag.
• A proper Page Description needs to be written in a sentence, usually containing the same words used in  your Title tag. 
• Relevant keywords need to visible to humans in your website content. The keyword density is important. Words should not be in lists, or stuffed around everywhere. 
• Header tags (h1, h2, h3, h4, etc) need to be used with keywords in the headlines.
• Optimized photos for web, rather than giant pictures, to increase website loading speed.
• Sitemap.xml feeds can be plugged into Google Webmaster Tools, for websites with a lot of pages.
• The website should be run through a broken link checker to find any broken links.
• The website should be run through a page load speed checker to make sure there are no calls to broken bits of code or snippets hosted elsewhere that are slowing your site down. 

What You Should Consider

If you have an older, obsolete website, or a website that was built by a novice designer - you most likely know you need to update it. Just having your website built by a marketing and SEO professional will make that website much more visible with no marketing budget beyond launch. If you have a marketing budget, then most pros can get you even better results after it goes live and they start driving traffic to it. 

Here are some of the websites Site Smart Marketing has created using these techniques and tools - with best SEO practices in mind. We build every website from the ground up, with marketing in mind. These sites show what proper website design can do, when it comes to your Search Engine Rankings. 

Websites With New Designs & No SEO Ever

These are websites that had little or no visibility before having a new website designed by Site Smart Marketing. The first sample had an existing website, but it was so outdated, that it was not ranking as well as it should be. Now the new website ranks in multiple spots 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th on the 1st page of Google, for many of the services and products they offer. You can't beat number 1.

www.flagslasvegas.com – Ranking number 1 for all of the keywords we are tracking. Keyword “flags las vegas”.

www.downsmechanical.com - Keyword “heating edwards co”.

www.dhexteriors.com – Keyword “james hardie siding contractor olathe”.

Just Launched – 1 Month Marketing

www.yostsalonsexclusive.com – Yost Salons Exclusive is one of the best hair salons in Las Vegas. Just launched at the end of December 2012, with 1 month of marketing so far. Went from zero visibility, with a brand new website and a brand new domain name, to almost all of their keywords ranking within 1 month. Keyword “lowlights las vegas” or "salon 89123".

Bottom line is that make sure you are educated about what needs to be on your website, and don't let a website designer skip important steps to save themselves time, know what to ask for and check your website yourself with the help of an expert. Call us for a free consultation if you need help assessing your current website. Suggestions for improvements are simple for any pro to do quickly and easily, within a few seconds in most cases, and they should be able to show you.

Backing Up Your Computer

Last week I turned my personal laptop computer on one morning. After 20 minutes of watching the screen with the spinning circle and the word "welcome" next to it I knew I had a problem. My mind started racing. Does my computer have a virus, is my Windows 7 operating system on the fritz, or do I have a hardware problem?

The computer was only 17 months old. Of course, like most Americans, I did not purchase an extended maintenance or warranty agreement when the computer was purchased.

Now here comes my public confession. Just one week before the computer mishap I bought a flash drive and backed up my files and photos. Prior to purchasing the flash drive, for 17 months, I had not performed even one backup of the information on my computer. I knew better. I just didn't do it.

A business associate at Site Smart had a friend who was able to help me out. After his inspection and testing he determined that my hard drive had failed. Thanks to his expertise and a little bit of luck he installed a new hard drive and was able to retrieve all of my data from the old failed hard drive.

All is well that ends well, right? Yes, but it also deserves some careful reflection on my part. For instance, even if I had purchased a warranty would the manufacturer been able to retrieve my data from the old hard drive? What if my business associate's friend could not have retrieved all the data and I did not have that data on a flash drive? The thought of a computer with a new hard drive but none of my data on it was not a solution.

The fact that I had just recently bought a flash drive and backed up my data was pure luck. The flash drive had a price of $ 14.00. My documents, music and photos are priceless to me.

We all seem to forget or ignore one important job to be performed regularly on our computers. Backing up our data, including files like office documents, our photos, music and videos must unconsciously seem like such a chore. If not a chore, maybe we are just not sure of how to perform a backup. Things can go wrong. Computers get viruses, hard drives fail, or an errant cup of coffee causes damage.

Smart phones should have backup too.

Check to see what type of backup program you have and whether you have to manually backup or it is automatic. Also make sure the backup device is separate from the computer. For personal use computers a flash drive works for me.

My next blog will discuss some of the devices you can choose to back up your own data.

Bob B.
Internet Marketing Consultant
Site Smart Marketing

Thanksgiving and Black Friday 2012 Sales Stats Are In!

According to IBM, as part of their Smarter Commerce initiative-Digital Analytics Benchmark, "shoppers once again took full advantage of early promotions this holiday season". Online consumer spending increased by 17.4% on Thanksgiving and 20.7% on Black Friday over the prior year.

Purchases made using a mobile device increased with 24% of consumers using a mobile device to visit a retailer's website, compared to 14.3% in 2011.

Here's a interesting statistic. Some very savvy consumers shopped in store,online and on mobile devices all at the same time to search for the best bargains.

It is clear, the increased use of mobile devices to shop and purchase is here to stay, for Black Friday or any day we are looking for products or services to buy. Mobile use is becoming mainstream for e-commerce shopping.

Mobile technology and the incredible growth of demand is revolutionizing the way we shop. This growth offers a very real opportunity for retailers to market their products and services from eCommerce as well as generate more in-store traffic by increasing their online presence. For the consumer mobile use shopping is convenient and efficient to determine product availability, price comparisons and ease of purchase.

Show Customers Offers On Their Mobile Maps

Google has just launched a feature applicable to the Google Plus Local Maps you may have for your business. Now, on a trial basis through 12/31/2012, you can show customers your offers on their mobile maps.

If they are looking for a restaurant and hover over your map location and tap it - your offer comes up. For example in the restaurant scenario it might show free dessert with the purchase of an entree, or 10% off. Customers simply show you the offer on their phone when they come to your location and you apply the discount at checkout.

As we all know, people are using their phones, more and more to find what their looking for locally - a restaurant, a nearby futon store, or a flower shop. Your business benefits from increased customer awareness of what you do where you do it and provides customers an incentive to visit your establishment.

If you are an existing Site Smart customer all you need to do is select the type of offer, decide how long you want to run it and contact Site Smart so we can update your Google Plus Local account.
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Saturday, November 24th is national "Shop Small Day". So get your specials to us ASAP!

First Impressions Are Lasting Impressions

I had a bad head cold last week and stayed home. In between taking medicine and naps, I surfed the internet. I came across a great article about the power of making a great first impression. When humans meet eyeball to eyeball it takes just a quick glance, consisting of 2-3 seconds, to evaluate each other when they meet. In this short time, each person forms an opinion about each other based on appearance, body language, demeanor, mannerisms, and how they are dressed. These first impressions are lasting and can be nearly impossible to reverse or undo.

As a result, one can only conclude first encounters are extremely important and set the stage for any relationship that follows. This stuff is not new but I think sometimes it is misplaced by all of us.

As a internet marketing consultant, my mind immediately applied the concept of the first impression to a visitor on the internet who views a website for the first time. I wondered how fast a first impression was made and what were the factors affecting that impression.

I never gave it much thought before as to all the things our website designers at Site Smart Marketing employ, to consistently make a great first impression on a website. I only knew that I always liked the aesthetics of the work they did when the project was completed.

I started surfing the internet again and simply put in the Google search field website first impressions.

I found some interesting facts from The Science Daily from a test performed on a group using an eye scanner when they first viewed a number of websites.

1. When viewing a website it takes users less than two-tenths of a second to form a first impression.

2. It takes about 2.6 seconds for a user's eye to land on that area of a website that most influences their first impression.

3. The website sections that drew the most interest from viewers tested, in ascending order based on time spent, were:

The company's logo

The main navigation menu

The search box

Social networking links to sites such as FaceBook and Twitter

The site's main image

The site's written content

The bottom of a website page

The test participants recommended the main color and background color be pleasant and attractive, and the contrast of the text color should be such that it is easier to read. The subjects in the study also indicated the use of images was also an important factor in web design.

With my new insight and a review of the websites our web designers build, I have a new appreciation for what our Site Smart web designers have to consider in building a website that creates a great first and lasting impression.

Bob Bratton