Dashal

SEO: How to create an effective title

Nick Harrison — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 17:15:33 +0000

Achieving SEO success for your website, your blog or both has a lot to do with the web or blog page title for these two reasons:

1: Google and other search engines use your webpage title (the title that appears on the top of your browser) or your article title to help determine which web pages to index using a specific search term. When you do a search for a keyword or phrase you will notice that practically all of the website links that you see have the keyword or phrase in the listed titles of the queried results.

2: An effective title will likely increase your CTR (click-through-rate). When people are using a search engine, their brains are focused on their search agenda: finding the first link that appears relevant to their search queries.
So, How do you create an effective title for SEO?

SEO how to:

SEO success starts with knowing the specific terms that people are searching for. Let’s use this very article as an example. Before doing any research, this article was originally named “Creating effective SEO titles.” After doing research, I learned that few people, if any, are searching the phrase “creating effective SEO titles.” There were also only 1,300 searches per month for “SEO titles” and 5,400 search queries for “SEO title.” Combined, 6,700 searches per month can produce some traffic if you are ranked near the top of Google’s search listing. However, I found that 1,830,000 searches per month have searched the phrase “SEO how to.” Worldwide, there were more than 11,100,000 searches for that phrase versus 26,600 for my original title. Even landing on the second or third page, I will more than likely get significantly more traffic with this new SEO-focused title. Plus, with the revised title “SEO: How to create an effective title,” I am focusing on the search phrase that is a lot more popular, while at the same time not ignoring “SEO title(s)” as a phrase.

For this research I used Google’s Adwords Keyword tool, which is free to use.

A popular misconception is that if more people are searching a term or phrase that it is harder to get a high position in the rankings. A lot depends on how much competition that search query has and how Google views your site overall as far as trust.

Analyzing competition for search terms is well beyond the scope of this article, but by doing research on what people are searching for, you can much better target your articles to where the traffic is.

CTR: Getting people to click

When people are searching for something specific, that is where their focus lies. This is precisely why I started this article’s title with “SEO: How to” because that is the term I feel is going to garner the most traffic. Google makes keywords and phrases that were searched for bold in the results. By having the term first, it may make it easier for my article to stand out since the searcher is more likely focused on finding that specific phrase vs. a title with scattered keywords.

Although having the phrase appear in succession vs. spread apart in the title may not necessarily change my results, it may help the post stand out more to end-users.

I also have noticed that articles with concise titles do better than those without. This is both from search engine results as well as social media sharing. A user shouldn’t have to figure out what your article is about because your title is confusing or too clever.

If you want to increase your traffic, research what people are searching for and incorporate those terms or phrases into your web page and article titles. It can substantially improve your traffic for years to come because SEO is the gift that keeps on giving.

Make your QR codes clickable

Nick Harrison — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 16:59:06 +0000

As you are probably well aware, QR codes are everywhere from clothing to sides of vehicles. They are also visible quite frequently on websites and emails. What is the problem with that? Often times, people are viewing your website or email using the very tool they use to scan the code in the first place, their smart phone. Studies show that soon more people will be accessing the internet via their smart phones than their own PCs.

That is a problem that can hurt the number of people accessing your content significantly when using a QR code to market. How can we solve this? Simple; make the QR code clickable. A QR code, or Quick Response Code, is simply an image. All images both in emails or websites can be turned into links.

Example: Your regular QR code HTML coding probably looks something like this

To place in a link, all you have to do is place it in a link tag.

Example:

Super simple, and it allows me and everyone else viewing the QR code on our scanning devices to see your content by clicking on it.

If you are wondering how to create a QR code in the first place, just go to QRstuff.com, specify where you want it to go or what you want it to do, click a button and there you go. Piece of cake!

Effective Marketing on a Budget

Nick Harrison — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 16:59:38 +0000

Marketing can be both expensive and time-consuming, and it also can fail to show a return on an investment. The cost and success of marketing often can lead to the success or failure of a business.

Lowering your marketing costs is not just about making more of an initial impact. It is most effective when a customer comes back again and brings his or her friends.

Here are some things to consider when marketing:

Ability to track: Think of how you can track your campaign before you begin. If you don’t know the ROI on your marketing efforts, you won’t know if you should keep doing them or move on to something else.

Don’t be afraid of change: Be open to trying new methods and content. Even if you have something working, it doesn’t mean something else won’t work better. I also would suggest not investing a lot of money in something that has not been proven successful for you. Try a test campaign first. Hopefully, it will give you an idea if you should invest more.
Don’t always be worried about the other guy: Just because someone else is using social media, or sending out mailers, etc., it doesn’t mean that is the best way to spend your time and money. Keep alert and open to new ways to market, but don’t necessarily do something just because someone else is doing it.
Market smarter: Think of ways to be able to market that same person again, but this time at no cost to you. What if instead of that QR code giving them a discount, perhaps have it take them to your site to capture their information before giving them that discount. Opt-in email lists can be enormously effective. You can market to that same person a million times over for practically nothing.
Repeat business is the secret sauce: The easiest way to lower your marketing expense is with repeat business and referrals. This should be your primary goal with every customer interaction. You and your employees should have a consistent way of providing your service and a consistent quality product. Even if the first four times a customer has a positive experience and the fifth time was less than positive, there could be a good chance they won’t be back and an even better chance they won’t refer people to you.

ROI is everything in marketing, and it is imperative for maximum success that you know what is going on and are trying to lower your marketing expense. Don’t forget that time is an expense and a major one. Certain marketing may “seem” free, but when you factor in time that could be better spent improving your quality of product and service, it could prove expensive.

Ten Steps to Creating the Most Effective Website for Your Biz

Nick Harrison — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 16:15:05 +0000

As a small business owner or an executive in any size business, one of the toughest challenges you face is making important decisions on areas outside your core competencies. So when you hire a web designer or digital agency, sometimes you don’t get what you pay for.

Below are ten steps that you and your agency should address during any website creation or redesign to ensure that you have the most effective website possible and that you get a good return on your digital investment.

1. Know (and communicate) thy brand: It all starts with your brand, but many small businesses have trouble communicating their brand message. Here are some key brand questions to address: What is your target market and why? Has your brand architecture been created? What differentiates your company from your competition? What do you do well (and not so well)? Before any web or digital work is started, you need to have a brand foundation and then be consistent with that foundation. Lack of consistency will cause confusion with your customer and less efficiency in your website.

2. Set site direction and goals: Decide upon specific calls to action and the overall site function. What is it that you want your user to do when they get to your site? If you have multiple calls to action (which I recommend that you limit), the most critical action needs to stand out among other possible calls to action, otherwise it can detour a user from what you want them to be doing.

3. Focus on UI and UX design: UI (User Interface) is how a website user interacts with your website. UX (User Experience) is the experience a user has with your website. Human behavior is tricky, making this a challenging area that takes years to understand. The color of a button, a sentence, your logo, placement of your navigation, a link, color/text, can all have an effect on the final outcome of each user’s visit. Your team should be putting a lot of thought into how a user will experience the site and creating the easiest way for that user to get to the desired result, such as a sale or phone call to hire you.

4. Streamline the design process: Only after the first three steps are completed should the design process begin. They will affect choices related to font, the overall color scheme, and process of completion of a user action, and so on. You should be less focused on the design aesthetics and more focused on how to get that user to do exactly what it is that you want them to do. I normally suggest the creation of three designs to start. Too many choices can lead to indecision; too few can hurt your chances of coming up with the best design.

5. Feedback: Given that neither you nor your designer is purchasing your entire product inventory, you want to get the opinions of your target customer. What matters most in your web design is what your target audience responds to. Before any coding takes place, you need to get feedback. Using anonymous polling will garner the most accurate feedback. Plus, the more people who are polled, the more scientifically accurate the results are.

6. Bring on the coding: Coding is incredibly important and done ineffectively a large percentage of the time. I have seen major brand sites with 6 and 7 figure budgets coded in ways that kill the efficacy of the site. If your site isn’t coded correctly, it can affect your SEO, the time it takes to load, the difficulty it is to add on to your site and can lead to areas of your site breaking down.

7. Choosing or creating the CMS: Your CMS (content management system) and the functionality it possesses is an important part of your day-to-day website content changes and add-ons. If the wrong CMS is chosen it can hurt your SEO results, take longer to load the page, and can give you limited access to areas you want to change.

8. Think mobile: I almost always suggest creating a mobile site in tandem to the regular site. If not, the regular website should at least be mobile friendly. A lot of dropdown menus aren’t accessible via touch-screen devices since there is no hovering. Flash isn’t available on the iPhone and iPad and certain CSS design coding doesn’t work properly in certain mobile browsers. With more and more customers using mobile devices to access your site, don’t ignore this element as an important part of the process. Mobile doesn’t have to kill your budget either — our firm creates budget-friendly mobile sites that don’t break the bank.

9. Don’t forget about SEO: Too many times SEO is thought about after the site is fully completed. Your content and site coding should have an SEO focus during its creation. This will ensure that you get the most traffic after you launch.

10. Launch only when ready: Don’t launch too soon. If your site isn’t where it needs to be, it’s simple — don’t launch it. Having a live site that has issues can be a detractor from your brand and user experience. There will always be issues and small fixes that need to be done post-launch, but wait until you have tested the site thoroughly to put it out into the public domain.

Having your web team follow these ten steps will reduce your chances of throwing money into an endless black hole of web development or losing potential site revenue.

20 Interesting Facts About Steve Jobs

Robbie Di Natale — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 16:20:18 +0000

While I doubt there is anyone under the age of 60 who does not know who Steve Jobs was, there are many things about the man you may not know. Although he wore his private life close to the vest, there are some aspects of it you may not have known and will find quite interesting.

Steve was adopted by Paul and Clara Jobs. Although Steve’s biological mom wanted her son to be adopted by college graduates and Paul and Clara were not. They promised Steve would go to college when he grew up.
Steve dropped out of college after one semester to save his parent’s money. He did drop-in though for 18 months.
While dropping in on classes, he slept on the floors of his friends’ places, turned in coke bottles for 5 cents to use the money to eat with, and hiked 7 miles across town once a week to get a decent meal at the Hare Krishna temple in town.
Steve’s original aspiration was to become a Buddhist Monk. After traveling toIndiawith one of his best friends fromReed College. Upon his return with shaved head, he became a Buddhist.
He worked with Steve Wozniak for Atari game systems before Apple Computers. They reportedly were paid $5,000 for their work of which he shared $375 with Wozniak.
We all probably know that Steve Jobs began Apple Computers, Inc., in 1976 with Steve Wozniak in his parents’ garage. But there was a third member, Ronald Wayne. After two weeks Ronald left for a one time payment of $800 for his share of Apple stock. Reportedly this stock would be worth $22 billion today.
Steve lured John Sculley from Pepsi-Cola to become Apple’s CEO in 2003. Coincidently it was John Sculley who then fired Jobs in 2005. Steven would later comment on it saying “the heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.”
Jobs and Wozniak named the company Apple because they were huge Beatles fans.
He had four children, one out of wedlock that he at first denounced, but later claimed and went on to have a great relationship with and even named a computer after her.
Steve was actually a pescetarian not a vegan.
Jobs stock in Disney had more value than in Apple, since Steve sold a lot of shares in the 90’s and owned less than 1% at the time of his death.
Steve had over 300 patents.
Jobs bought Pixar for 5 million and transformed it with their first movie Toy Story. Jobs was credited as an executive producer on the film Toy Story.
He dated John Baez when he was younger.
It is rumored that the name of the new iPhone4s means iPhone 4 Steve.
He was upset that Wozniak was employee number 1 and that he was employee number 2. He protested until he became employee number 0.
He was dyslexic.
He was obsessed with type fonts and calligraphy. Claims that the reason why Apple had different fonts was probably because he dropped into a calligraphy class in college.
He saw his first computer at age 12.
He owned over 100 pairs of Levi jeans.

While Steve Jobs obviously wasn’t the only creator at Apple, he was the driving force behind the company. Steve Wozniak said this, “Every time I designed something great from when we were very young, he would say, “Let’s sell it.” “It was always his idea to sell it.”

Leading A New Era Of Customer Engagement With Customer Loyalty 3.0

Carol Roth — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 15:12:58 +0000

“That will be $56.02,” said the woman behind the counter.

“Oh wait,” I replied. “I am a member of your VIP program.”

The woman rolled her eyes. “Do you have your card?” she grumbled impatiently.

I rummaged through my wallet, sifting through “buy nine and get the 10th free” punch cards in search of a white plastic rectangle.

I didn’t have it.

She asked me for my phone number. I gave my cell number. Nope. Then my home number. Not there either. Finally, the third time was the charm — the account was registered under my office phone number. The woman lodged my 56 points in the computer system and shoved my bag of cosmetics at me.

Ah, the portrait of an effective customer-loyalty program, don’t you think?

Hardly.

I didn’t feel like a VIP member — I felt more like a fool. Loyal customers are the holy grail for most businesses. With customers having so many different options for goods and services, developing long-term loyal customers is critical for brands and companies. Not only is it easier to sell more things to customers who already love you, but raving fans will tell other customers about your brand or company. When you factor in the expense of trying to reach new customers and the high lifetime value of each individual customer, loyalty needs to be a top priority for every business.

However, many companies have approached this effort in very much the wrong way and are stuck in old-school, ineffective loyalty approaches. It is critical for companies that want to develop long-lasting customers and raving fans to start coming around to what I call Loyalty 3.0.

With very few companies even coming near Loyalty 3.0, there are unprecedented opportunities for forward-thinking companies to become leaders in this movement and gain competitive advantages by forging rock-solid customer relationships.

The reality is that not only are most companies not at Loyalty 3.0 levels, many — like my example above — are still in primitive program mentalities, believing that having a paper or plastic card creates anything near loyalty.

Loyalty 1.0 is where companies believe that by rewarding the customers who spent the most with them, that they are creating loyalty. This comes in programs like points-per-dollar spent or “buy nine, get the 10th free” cards. This form of loyalty looks an awful lot like bribery.

There are several problems with 1.0:

It creates loyalty to the program, not the brand or company; you are only as effective as your offer.
It creates another form of price competition. Buy nine and get one free is akin to a 10% discount across the board.
It only rewards the “spenders” — customers are only considered as important as their last set of purchases.

Additionally, as my example demonstrated above, it’s a farce. Why would a customer have to provide a card to be deemed important? It’s against all logic.

Loyalty 2.0 evolved in the form of social media. Brands realized that it was not just the spenders who were important, but also the influencers (aka the senders) who indirectly accounted for sales through brand advocacy. This was an important realization for companies and brands.

However, many companies approach 2.0 in the same way as 1.0. Once they identify the senders, they employ the same strategy and try to buy their attention and affection with swag. Yet this still doesn’t create loyalty.

Loyalty 3.0 is where we are headed. Some companies have been doing this for a long time, but they are definitely in the minority.

This is where companies and brands engage both the senders and the spenders by making them feel cared for and important. It is a holistic approach that can be led with product functionality (think Apple), customer service (think Nordstrom), creating an affinity group or lifestyle association (think Harley-Davidson), creating an experience (think Trader Joe’s) or even by creating a bridge to the customer with ancillary products, services, content or experiences that are important to the customer (think food companies with time-saving recipes).

True customer loyalty stems from making your customer feel important, but in whatever way resonates with him or her. This is tricky territory because not all customers have the same wants or needs.

Do we know who our spenders and senders are?
Are we listening to their dialogues to understand what is important to them and what easily fits into their lives? Are we demonstrating to them that they are important and that we care for them (as a brand or a company)?
Are our employees our loyal fans?

Those questions need to be layered on the pillars of loyalty based on the type of company you are and the needs of your customer. It isn’t easy — if it were, everyone would be doing it already. However, it is incredibly worthwhile, as nothing is more important to your business than solid, loyal customer relationships.

Social Media: Ask Me, Don’t Tell Me

Nick Harrison — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 13:43:46 +0000

No matter how you look at it or how much more social media will become a part of our lives, it will never be quite the same as an in-person meeting. I have met many great friends and contacts via social media who I ended up meeting IRL (in real life), and will hopefully meet more in the future. There is only so much you can engage with a person digitally, and that disconnect from digital and real-life is hurting proper etiquette at times.

I keep getting emails with the subject line, “Facebook wants your opinion.” I keep seeing Twitter and Facebook updates that say, “Like this page.” or “This person wants you to do this.” Wait a second, I am a person right? Would you go up to someone and only say “I want your opinion.” or “Here, like this?” Just because you may be talking to an email address, an avatar on Twitter, or a “friend” on Facebook, it doesn’t mean I am your animal jumping for treats.

Is it so hard to have a little common courtesy? Do you think my reaction would have been different if that email line said, “Can you give us your feedback on Facebook?” or “Can you “Like” our page?”

The more you “tell” me what to do, the more defiant I will be, no matter what it is. Even though the method of communication is other than an in-person meeting, it doesn’t mean I am not a person.

Please keep this in mind when engaging in social media. Thank you.

Why I Am Now Happy Apple Said No To Flash

Nick Harrison — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 13:15:05 +0000

When Apple came out with the iPhone, there was a lot said on how its software would not allow Adobe Flash. In fact, I would say most people were annoyed and confused. The annoyance came from having so many websites built in Flash and all of the video content that now no one with an iPhone could see. I was one of the annoyed. I assumed they made a mistake (rumors didn’t help) and the new software version and/or phone would include it. At the time I felt like Steve Jobs was being a jerk, and I was far from alone in that thinking.

Then the iPhone 4 and iPad came out. So, um, still no Flash. This further spurred on the adaption of HTML5, which could create animation and video without having to use Adobe Flash. This turned out to be a cluster for developers because, no surprise, IE (Internet Explorer) basically didn’t support it or half-heartedly supported it depending upon which version you were running. So, now we have Apple saying no to Flash and Microsoft saying no to HTML5. Well not “no,” just late as always.

So, developers did what they had to do and either created animations in Flash and HTML5 or picked one. Adobe tried to keep their Flash software current by trying to create software that would convert FLASH to HTML5, which is now barely in BETA after all of this time. Then, of course, if you have a site completely in Flash (which way too many people do, including agencies (really?), you can’t view it at all on an iPhone or iPad.

Then one day, it hit me. I was going on a pretty normally scheduled rant about how this site I am creating looks horrible in IE6 and now I will have to make CSS adjustments and possibly JavaScript adjustments for it to work on that browser. I finally realized what Steve Jobs was doing all along. It took me awhile, but I figured it out. He was so sick of archaic technology that he just said, “no.” He basically said, I don’t care if less people buy my iPhone, I am not budging because this is crap. And honestly, it is. Websites should not be built in Flash, and I mean never. It often crashes, and search engines have issues with it and there just isn’t any benefit. Flash makes no sense in today’s world that is about content, not something flying around. It still has a place in some advertisements, but that is about it. The consumer has evolved and they honestly don’t care if a site is in Flash. They want to see the content and move on.

The stand that Steve took is the stand that we must take regarding IE6. If we wait for eternity for stragglers, we will never get up to speed with current technology. It isn’t like most people who have IE6 cannot upgrade to IE7 or 8. Most of them are just either lazy or don’t care. Let’s stop worrying about archaic technology. If we don’t take a stand, we will always be at an impasse and it will make everyone’s job always twice as hard. Either you have a company website, or deal with technology period. Enough is enough.

Yesterday Steve Jobs announced that he was resigning as CEO of Apple. Thank you Jobs for taking a stand, even though most people at the time probably thought you were downright crazy.

Abercrombie and Fitch Has An Advertising “Situation!”

Nick Harrison — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 20:21:23 +0000

Clothing powerhouse Abercrombie and Fitch, whose consumers normally range from young teens to adults in their mid twenties, actually offered to pay Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino, chief resident of MTV’s Jersey Shore, to NOT wear their clothing.

Being clever is the key for creating buzz and conversation. Actually leading to sales though, is another matter (see my article, “Buzz Doesn’t Always Equal ROI”). Nonetheless, it is a valiant effort by A&F to create some conversation.

Does A&F’s brand get hurt by “The Situation” wearing their clothes? Hardly! Their consumers are directly in line with the Jersey Shore brand. Half the time their brand seems as if they are consulting with Calvin Klein on how to be risqué. A&F’s brand doesn’t exactly do a good job of making people believe that they feel their brand was threatened. Perhaps it was their PR statement this week, or maybe them actually bringing it up on their latest earnings report call.

I mean, really, it was like saying “WE TOOK CARE OF THIS, SO YOU DON’T SEE IT, LOOK THE OTHER WAY PLEASE, NOTHING TO SEE HERE,” and pasting it on the 405 freeway. Actually, it was worse.

So, it gets A&F in the news for the week with a gimmick. Given that they “offered” to pay him, it does not look like they are out any money at this point. Only time will tell if they will receive revenue from the publicity or end up losing future publicity if he decides to actually stop wearing their clothing.

Here is my question for you: Since A&F is not exactly a brand that will lose sales by having him wear their clothes, is the buzz that will last about a week end up more financially viable than “The Situation” wearing their clothing on a show that attracts millions of their target audience? Not to mention if he wears their clothes everywhere else.

A&F, not sure about this one…

Secret: Buzz Doesn’t Necessarily Equal ROI

Nick Harrison — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 14:46:38 +0000

PR, marketing and advertising firms have been creating “buzz” since practically the beginning of time in one way or the other.

Most of these firms, to this day, measure their campaign’s success based upon numbers that could be downright meaningless.

Just because your press release made the New York Times and you were interviewed on The Today Show, it does not necessarily mean it translated into revenue and improved your overall bottom line. How much did you have to pay your PR firm to create the buzz in the first place? What have those 10K followers on Twitter and 15K Facebook fans done for you? Don’t forget to think about the future time and expense managing those accounts.

I wrote an article last week called Pepsi Attacking Coke with Polar Bears?. In that article, I discussed how their advertisement made me want a Coke. I was reading in AdAge about how Coke’s SOV (share of voice) dropped from 75% down to 70% since Pepsi’s ad push. From the outside it looks like Pepsi is starting to create more buzz climbing to 30% from 25%. So this is all good – right? I really don’t know. I don’t know because Pepsi had to have spent millions upon millions to create and launch all of those advertisements. That is a LOT of cans of Pepsi needing to be sold.

They created some buzz, but that does not mean the added increase in conversation is translating into sales and if it is, it does not mean they will ever see ROI from their investment.

Everything has a cost. Just because a company is creating buzz from advertising, PR or social media, it does not mean they are making a profit. Don’t view a campaign’s success on the number of impressions it received. View the success based upon the return you received or did not receive on your investment.