Websites Under Your Control Blog

Google has recently started testing a way for their users to vote for search results they like, either from the search results page or from the page itself. 

They call it the "+1" -- see www.google.com/+1 for more information from Google.

When someone with a Google account is logged in (and most people with such accounts just stay logged in all the time), they will see a faint icon next to some* of the results, and a slightly more obvious icon when they hover over the result with their mouse.

If the Google user clicks on the icon, they will be endorsing that web page.

* - Why only some of the results? Owners of websites who want to participate will have to add a snippet of code to their websites. They also have the option to add the clickable icon to their website.

Want this for your website? Google tells you what needs to be done -- see the short version or the detailed description. If you are comfortable editing the HTML of your website, you can do it yourself.  (If you are one of our Online Business Partner users, just go to the "tracking code" content holder, click "HTML", and add the snippet before or after anything that is already there.)  Otherwise, check with your webmaster.

While it’s true that a picture may be worth a thousand words, your website can’t be only graphics. You need the right well-written text to deliver your message.

In fact, the best looking site won’t be the best-performing site on the web, unless you have solid content that reaches your audience and propels them to action.

You want your site to entertain or educate, but not at the cost of sales.

Here are several tips that will punch up your text, making it easier to read and understand.

• Rather than writing in long paragraphs, use bulleted lists. Visitors to your site may get put off by the sight of long paragraphs, and they won't read them. The only person likely to wade through a white paper on your background is your mom.
• Keep each topic focused. It’s better to have one page on shipping and one on receiving than a combined page on shipping and receiving. That way, your visitors can read the only the parts they need. (It is better for your search engine results, too.)
• Use subheads. Subheads make the text look nicer and give it a more organized feel. Readers can go right to the part that interests them.
• Avoid bragging or hyperbole. Save that for the ads. Your website should be an objective take on your services. Make it a gentle read.
• Don’t try to "stuff" your content with keywords. Search engines are too sophisticated to fall for that old trick. It’s better for you to have well-written content that delivers to your audience. That way your visitors will get your message completely, and take action.

If you don’t feel qualified or don't have time, hire a pro--like ours. We have a ghostwriter in captivity who is ready to write some great content for your website. And if you need a newsletter, press release or blog article, our writer will compose it quickly and well.

It can be humorous, instructional or informative. You can have one article written or one every week or month. The more work we give this guy, the less noise he makes.

Hiring a professional writer is a good idea if you don’t feel like dusting off the old English 101 textbook, or you'd rather be on the golf course in the little free time you have.

But whether you write your own content or hire a ghostwriter, follow the above steps to make your website more readable, more persuasive and more frequently read.

Unless web geeks are your best customers, keep it simple, avoid the costly flashy stuff, and never, ever, have a starting page that says "click to skip intro." And write for your customers, not your own ego!

One of our oft-repeated messages to our clients is, focus your web site toward those people and businesses you feel are most likely to become your best customers.

Some want a website that tries to be all things to all people. That may sound like it would get more potential business, but you are diluting your appeal to your best prospects, and inviting time-wasting inquiries you don't want from people you can't help.

You are also dramatically weakening your Google appeal.

If you have a site that proclaims "anything for dogs" but you only sell jackets for dachshunds, you’re going to compete with a vast number of other sites for Google ranking.

Great Dane owners will find nothing to buy, and  your best customers will probably never find your site.

However, if you aim your site specifically toward wiener-dog owners, you’ll be more likely to get prominent Google ranking, even without any other special efforts.

But there's more to life than Google...

How much time do you want to spend with the wrong people? How about, precisely zero?

So in addition to what you say, make sure that you keep your best prospects in mind when you decide how you say it.

By way of example, since you are already here, look around our new website  (update long overdue, but you know about the shoemaker's children...)

Rather than design a garish, overblown site with fireworks and an organ grinder just to prove we can, we designed it as we would for any of our customers. We kept it simple, easy on the eyes, and informative.

Our decision to keep the tone light was based on our own personalities, plus our preference to work with people who think like we do. We want to inform, not preach. We’d rather joke than complain.

This is who we are, not who we want you to think we are.

We think a web site should be individual and personalized. It doesn’t have to scream to be heard.

Sometimes people listen more closely when you whisper.

 

Need help? That's what we are here for.

Interested in being at the top of Google when your local customers search for what you offer?

Here, we typed "home cleaning frisco" into Google, and were presented with listings with a map, labeled "Local business results," showing nearby services.

Google's local search results -- which happen automatically when Google detects that people are searching for something in a specific geographical area -- will display the closest matches on a map on the first page, before even the top-ranked "organic" search results.

Where do they get these matches?  Google gathers all sorts of information to populate this portion of their search results, and they may already have your business listed. Business owners can also list their businesses.

Whether you are listed or not, go to Google's local business update page and add or update your information. There, you will be able to add your contact and business details, links to your website, a description, images, videos, key words, categories in which you want to be listed, and much more.

You will have to do this yourself, because Google will "robo-call" your listed phone number to verify it is really you making the updates, but it is easy.

The best part?  It's free! No need to pay anyone, since all you do is fill out a form, and you are done.

You know the expression? It usually refers to a big talker who can't deliver on his claims.

We sometimes think of that phrase when asked to help someone get their amateurish website pushed to a more prominent position in Google.

For both the braggart and the website, once people get disappointed, they are likely turned off forever.

So even if you can get prime Google placement, if your website isn't up to snuff, well, nice hat!

We strongly advise: first and foremost, make your website appealing to your visitors. Only then give thought to your Google placement.

Why? Do the arithmetic.

Say your website brings in 500 visitors a month, and 5 of them, or 1%, become customers. Say each will spend enough to make you $100. That's $500 profit from your website.

Think about those 495 people who did not buy from you. Just like the 5 who bought from you, these 495  took the time to come to your website because they assumed you offered something they wanted.

What website improvements might convert just 5 out of those 495 interested people into buyers?

Get those 5 more, and the monthly net from your website just jumped from $500 to $1000.

Bonus:

Improve the content, and not only will your conversion rate improve -- the search engines will rate you higher as well!  If you missed it, last week we talked about how search engines are almost immune from "tricks" these days, and increasingly look for the quality of your website - so focus on compelling content.

(Need help with your content? We offer a ghostwriting service for our clients. If you're not our client, see if your webmaster or marketing advisor can help.)

There was a time when filling your website’s pages with relevant keywords and incorporating a variety of search engine optimization (SEO) tricks would all but ensure you would rank high in search engine results. There were plenty of SEO tricks back then, and many proved to be highly effective. But, as they say, all good (or maybe not so good) things eventually come to an end.

Search engines make their money by selling ads, and need lots of users in order to sell those ads.  It is only natural, then, that search engines continuously improve the methods they use to deliver the best, most relevant search results possible. As it turns out, they are very good at it – and getting even better.

It is no secret that Google adjusts its search algorithms more often than most people take a shower. One of the primary purposes of these tweaks is to seek out and destroy the tactics being used to surreptitiously increase a site’s ranking in search engine results. Consequently, websites filled with pages populated with content created solely with search engines – rather than visitors – in mind are only going to continue their steady fall into oblivion.

This leads to the obvious question: What do we do now? Well, we do what we should have been doing all along. We fill our web pages with high quality content that is well-written, informative, and of interest to our target markets. Search engines will only continue to hone their ability to recognize high quality content, while putting the kibosh on SEO tricksters.

If you populate your website with informative, quality content, it will naturally include words and phrases that are relevant to your topic or to the searches your target audience will perform to find products or services like yours. As long as the site is built properly (see our posts on titles and headlines), this is what it takes to for search engines to prominently display your pages.

(Need help with your content? We offer a ghostwriting service for our clients. If you're not our client, see if your webmaster or marketing advisor can help.)

The days of keyword stuffing have passed, and poor quality content written just to appeal to the search engines will no longer be so easily forgiven. SEO strategies that worked wonders before will now do little to increase your ranking, and their effectiveness will continue to dwindle in the coming months and years.

Providing useful, high quality content that educates your visitors and holds their interest is your best option. Rather than fanatically calculating your keyword density and obsessing over whether “web site” or “website” has more local search juice, simply deliver good, useful content that meets the needs of your target market.

We get asked repeatedly about adding "meta tags" to websites, usually the "keywords" meta tag.

Let's deal with the myth first. Meta tags don't help your search results in Google.  Period, stop, done, over and out.

All the major search engines stopped looking at the keyword tag in 1997, when the "adult" website industry started stuffing innocuous but popular search phrases into their website meta tag keywords, to hijack searches.

The only meta tag that Google looks at that we care about today is the description tag.

How is the description tag used? Google will randomly select snippets of text from your web page and display that as the text in their search results.

If you add a description tag, then Google will throw that description into the mix, along with whatever random snippets it finds on your page.

That's all. It won't boost your ranking at all.

According to Google's Matt Cutts, "Even though we sometimes use the description meta tag for the snippets we show, we still don't use the description meta tag in our ranking."

So, meta tag keywords? Don't waste your time. 

Meta tag description? As a low-priority task, put some creative and compelling text there, and it will show up once in a while in Google's results.

To add text to the description meta tag (or the keywords tag, if you really want to cover all bases), just click on "Add meta data to Web Page" link in your Online Business Partner page editor.

Then, type the text you want to be occasionally used by Google when it displays your page in search results, and click "Publish".  You are done.

(If you're not using our Online Business Partner, check with your webmaster, who will be able to revise your site to add a description tag.)

This won't get you higher up on Google, but it will give you a chance to provide one more bit of compelling text, so when people see it, they won't be able to resist clicking on your link in Google!

(Of course, don't fib. Google can get pretty cranky when you try to trick them!)

We get asked occasionally about optimizing for Yahoo, Bing, and others, rather than Google.

As with any expenditure of time and money, you have to decide where to do your spending.

As of today, Google owns the search world, without question. As you can see from the following graph, Google has 85%, Yahoo and Bing split 10%, Baidu (Chinese language search engine) has 3%, and the remaining 2% is divided among thousands of search engines competing for the crumbs... so why even think about anything other than Google? Go where the searchers go!

Source: NetMarketShare

 

The purpose of search engine optimization is to get traffic to your pages, but your site must be written and formatted for those who visit.

Your headlines serve both purposes. The visual formatting makes the headlines stand out to your visitors. The designation of some text as a headline (using "heading tags") makes it stand out to Google and other search engines. For both, the headlines make it immediately obvious what topics are covered on your page.

How to make a headline

Headline levels, defined using "heading tags," can be numbered from 1 to 6, with 1 being the most important in terms of indexing.

For best results, place the main topic of your page in "heading 1" tags, and the subtopics in "heading 2" tags. If you care about Google showing the page, use words in the headlines that your visitors are likely to search for.  For example, a headline such as About Our Company informs your human visitors what is to follow, but a headline that says you are a company "serving the needs of North Texans needing ambulatory and wheelchair transport" is more informative, and certainly helped Preston Trail Transport to reach the first page of Google. Notice how it tells what they do, and where they do it.

If you use our Online Business Partner^® service, just log in and open your page, click in the relevant text, and click to set the heading in the tool bar. Otherwise, contact your webmaster with your instructions.

The bottom line: Optimize your pages with well-written content that uses important keyword phrasing in the headlines. It is one of the easiest ways to improve your search engine results.

Someone defined "insanity" as doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results.

If you try that in Google, you might actually get those different results - but don't worry, it's not you!

A few days ago we blogged about the need for titles on web pages, and while doing so, we searched for a handful of different phrases to find the most illustrative example for our screen shots.

First we searched for "health insurance frisco tx" and then "physical therapy frisco tx" before finding what we wanted when searching for "pizza frisco tx."

On the third search, we saw Google results that included items from the previous searches, totally unrelated to "pizza." See the screen shot at the right.

(The screen shot was fortunate, because trying to replicate this several times resulted in a different set of links each time.)

So no, you are not losing touch with reality -- Google really does vary its results on one search based on what you searched for previously.

This means that your results will vary from one search to another even on the same topic, and if you are on the phone with someone telling them to Google something, their results might very well vary from yours, even at the same time.