Categories » ‘Organic search’Campaign to increase salesOctober 9th, 2009 by PeteLooking to increase sales? Even if your site is already generating leads or sales, there is scope to improve it further through campaigning i.e. short promotional activities designed to engage client interest. In supermarkets we see these as ‘specials’; and we get bombarded with them in TV advertising, so consider using a campaigning strategy to promote your business via your website. (more…) PDFs are great content for your website!September 12th, 2009 by PeteAdobe’s PDF (Portable Document Format) is a convenient format for making any document universally viewable, and an especially useful format for putting content into your website Newsletters, brochures, annual reports etc. in fact anything you can print or scan you can turn into a PDF document and have in your website. Visitors to your site can download the free PDF viewer from Adobe (and others) to have your document faithful represented on their browser independent of operating system and browser differences. Of course you need to link the PDF to your menu or content so visitors and search engines can reach it. Search engines? Yes! They treat a PDF as if it’s another page in your website. PDFs are a great way to increase the amount of content on a key subject to support search marketing efforts, not to mention the benefit of providing additional sales and product information etc that prospective clients can read to support their decision to purchase from you. Google cant read images inside PDFs Where are your PDFs ? inurl:pdf for example inurl:pdf www.succinctideas.com.au The INURL search operator tells Google to restrict search results to a particular document type. Read more about Google’s inurl: search operator Statics show that visitors will more readily open another page in your website rather than open a PDF so keep a balance of content types. So PDFs really are quite genuine content, engaging sales visitors and search engines! Matt Cutts | Are sites treated differently by Google?September 2nd, 2009 by PeteMatt Cutts is a well known Google’s technical guru, who often makes public statements on behalf of Google, including responding to questions from the internet marketing community. This is one of a series of YouTube videos that clarify important information about how Google works, because frankly there is a lot of mis-information out there.
To catch more of Matt Cutts and other Googlers on YourTube go to the GoogleWebmasterHelp channel Google Caffeine | More than just a reaction to BingAugust 19th, 2009 by PeteHas the hint of commercial pressure spurred Google into action to create an interesting new search architecture tagged Caffeine ? You can try out the web developer preview version of Caffeine here: Is Google feeling the pressure of Microsoft’s continuing battle to gain a share of the internet ? Microsoft have invested significantly into their new search incarnation Bing and there certainly is interest amongst my clients based on recent questions There’s even evidence that Bing is being used more now than MSN ever was; BUT let’s put that into context. This table compares the proportion that search engines are used in a popular Australian website in the last 4 weeks from 19 Aug 09
Google represents 94% of all searches that results in a visitor to the site. At 2.9% Bing is slightly higher than I would normally expect. Microsoft Search Network (MSN) and Live (an earlier Microsoft search engine incarnation) continue to spiral into online irrelevance While I enjoy conspiracy theories, there is just one fact that this one over-looks and that is that Google are continuously building new solutions; enhancements and gizmos. To suggest Google have cranked out Caffeine in response to Bing ignores the amazing stream of new products and enhancements that continues to flow out of the Google online solution factory. Amazingly most of these are absolutely free. In fact my personal favourite conspiracy theory is that Google Wave will be the last straw in undermining Microsoft Office by defusing Outlook’s domination of the business desktop. Feel free to share your favourite Google / Microsoft / World domination conspiracy theory with a comment. Boing it’s Microsoft’s Bing. Bing deal.June 3rd, 2009 by PeteIf you like me you rarely use Microsoft Live / MSN then we both missed the launch (rebadging ?) of ‘Bing’. It caught me by surprise when logging into the Microsoft WebMaster interface today and “boing” (with musical intonations!) there was the ‘Bing’ branding. Apart from that the Microsoft Webmasters interface is still extremely underpowered functionality-wise compared to Google’s WebMasters Tools If I cared more I’d research ‘bing’ and tell you more. Sorry, you’ll have to bing it yourself. Google Search Options | The next evolution of search?May 30th, 2009 by PeteThe subtlety of the new Show options link on the Google Search page defies its potential to change the way we search in future.
Here’s a summary of the search option functionality this new capability provides: Filters:
Search result views:
Search refinement:
This video provides a brief overview of the search options functionality: Google WebMasters Tools updateMay 17th, 2009 by PeteIt must be update time at Google with the new AdWords interface migrating into production, and now I see Google’s WebMasters Tools is also being updated too! Apart from a neater layout, the major enhancement is the ability to view more of the site’s serach queries and the ability to email alerts. Read more here or view it on YouTube Listen to what your website is trying to tell you!May 8th, 2009 by PeteI encountered a great example today of really appreciating what your website is trying to tell you. Actually it is really what visitor activity tells you, and the only way to ‘hear’ this is through interpreting website statistics. In this case the client had a temporary parking web page while they underwent the arduous task of implementing a new website. Recently installed, Analytics (my fav web metrics tool) revealed that the site was attracting visitors from searches nicely aligned with this client’s business and in their target geography. Great news! The bad news was Analytics revealed these visitors were immediately abandoning the site, apparently unimpressed with the parking page. Until I revealed this today the business had no idea how many sales opportunities it had lost, and as you would expect, the website refurbishment is now a top priority. How may sales leads are you loosing because you can’t hear what your website telling you ? Google gadgets are more accessible than you might thinkMay 1st, 2009 by PeteGoogle Gadgets have a stunning range of functionality. Check out some of the gadget functionality on offer. Ive added the Google gadget for Google’s Insights for Search into the right hand column in this blog so you can marvel at what South Aussies are currently searching for… OK so maybe you’re not that interested in what we do in little ‘ol Adelaide, but look closer at the Insights for Search Gadget and you’ll notice you can even filter the display to particular search terms. This example shows global searches relating to internet marketing in the last 30 days |
