Monday, July 23, 2012

Levels of Web Page Optimisation

Every webpage should and must have an objective. It may be to introduce the visitor to the services you are offering to him to solve his problem. It may be to optimise his website to get traffic or to defend his online reputation or to increase his brand awareness. Whatever it was that brought the visitor to your website you must satisfy that desire.

Levels of Web Page Optimisation

Your webpage is about presenting your first impression. Research tells us you have seven second to capture the visitor’s attention: the first seven seconds of a visitor landing on your page are critical and must answer the visitor questions. Webmasters should optimise webpages of a website for thought sequences of the visitor to gain better results. The content should answer these three fundamental questions:
  • Where am I?
  • What can I do here?
  • What do I do next?
 Also very page of the website should seek to answer this question:
If I am your ideal customer why should I buy from you and not your competitor?
The forth fundamental to design website pages is this:
  • State a value proposition that solves propects problems
  • State a clear call to action
  • Encourage the prospect to navigate where you want him to go
The fifth and final fundamental to design website pages is design elements of eye path:
  • size
  • motion
  • colour
  • position
  • shape
  • paths of familiarity
  • attraction
  • relevance
  • acceptance
  • motivation

Types of Webpages

There are three types of web pages: home pages, inner website pages and landing pages. The goal of a home page is not to get the visitor to it but to get the visitor through it on a desired path to reach a desired goal. Inner website pages are usually an extension of the home page and compliment it to reach a desired goal: buy product, get an email address or subscribe to a newsletter.  Landing pages are usually an extention of pay per click campaigns and are specific to one product or services and to obtain a positive follow up or objectove
The goal of all web pages is to achieve the highest conversion rate possible. Achievements of the perfect website are constrained:
  1.  by the broader initiatives of the organisation; 
  2.  by your organizational capabilities; 
  3.  by your overarching strategy.

 A useful model to apply when optimising web pages is depicted in this image Courtesy of Bruce Clay:

Seven Levela of Optimisation

 1. Element optimization. The most important elements on the search engine results page are the title and description. These are seen first by the searcher and entice him/her to click on your website. So these elements must conOther elements are image alt tags, bold important words and relevant content.
2. Page Optimisation. This is of course the most important element to consider. Creating unique content will enhance the visitor’s experience and favour search engines. This section considers design and layout of the page. On home pages there are competing actions for the products but you should consider promoting one principle product, service or actions which will be tied to the maximum profit generating factor. All other considerations are major but not the principle. Headings and sub headings become vitally important to encourage the visitor to stay on the page and read the compelling content you’ve written. Inner pages and landing pages are similar in design as their objective is singular to get the visitor to perform an action.
3. Path optimization. A page is merely a single step along a path It may start from the home page, or an email. Optimizing the path is more to do with matching the message and expectation of the visitor than anything else. Optimising at this level lets you leap ahead of competitors.
4. Segment Optimisation. Optimising for market segments is the domain of the landing page. Recent statistics released by Google show that 40% of keywords are unique. To construct a home page or an inner page that caters for multiple keywords or keyword phrases is a challenge that’s not always successful. Different respondents arrive with different needs and varying frames of reference. At this level up, you start optimizing different paths to cater to those different audiences. With this optimization, you can reveal tremendous insights about who your customers are andhow they view themselves and their interest in your company. These discoveries not only improve your conversion rate for specific paths — they can help optimize our segmentation strategy at a higher level too. Creating landing pages for specifi market needs will bring you greater conversions.
5. Campaign Optimisation. In 2012 there is a more fluid marketing environment; there are still different initiatives in the field that connect certain messages, offers, audiences, and tactics with common threads. At the campaign level, web page optimisation is matching the pages and paths with the right messages of the campaign, and using the front-line results to inform and improve overall campaign effectiveness. It requires coordination and continuity.
6. Operations Optimisation. Maximizing the efficiency of your overall landing page capabilities is the key here. The personal skills required in operations of web page optimisation are design, production and construction. Increasing the reaction speed of changes to web page alteration can dramatically increase conversions. Monitoring social media chatter may reveal shifts in demand that if acted upon swiftly will increase conversions.
7. Strategy optimization. At the very top of the pyramid, the focus is on optimising marketing strategy. At this level of web page optimisation there are directions that must be considered and are namely: which strategic segments do we follow and which segmented market has the largest growth.

To learn about what Vincent Sandford of SEO Synovation can do for your business email him or visit his website on web marketing.

Driving the Right Traffic to Your Website is the Key To Success

The purpose of this article is to illustrate the difference between website traffic versus targeted traffic and provides tips on web design and web marketing. It is often manifested that lower volumes of traffic in uncompetitive markets have higher conversion rates than in higher traffic markets. Less is more in some circumstances if you focus your marketing on targeted traffic and excellent webpage design. You'll quickly appreciate that the hits your getting on your website they'll be potential customers and, more importantly, convert to sales.

Driving Traffic To Your Website

Driving traffic to your website traffic is the single most important factor when it comes to the success of a website but what kind of traffic do you need: traffic that converts to sales and income. Although it's true that a constant stream of traffic is the lifeblood of a website, the quality of the traffic is far more important than the quantity.

Getting Traffic

The success of any website depends upon getting the right traffic and getting visitors that are looking for the products or information you have available on your site. The most common ways to drive traffic to your website and promote your product or service are:
1. SEO. Optimise existing website and website pages with keywords or keyword phrases that users are searching the web with.
2. Guest Blogging. Participate in blogs to positively promote the brand
3. Social Networking. Engage in social networks to positively promote the product or service.
4. Video Marketing. Create a video to promote your services on YouTube.
5. Informational Marketing. Create presentations and post them on Slideshare.
6. Image/ Info graphic Marketing. Create images and post them on image sharing website like Flicjkr to promote the product.
7. Article Marketing. Write articles detailing the performance of the product.
8. Link Building. Create linking strategy and obtain links to increase visibility of product and brand
9. Public Relations Marketing. Create press releases to increase visibility of product and brand and decrease the effects of negative comments.
10. Blogging. Engage bloggers to promote your product or services.

It’s exciting seeing high volumes of traffic getting to your website but if your visitors are looking for something other than what you are offering, for the most part, your website traffic is not reaching the business goals.


Prerequisites to Targeted Traffic

It’s not only necessary having a great website design, compelling copy, the lowest prices and fantastic special offers but all your efforts will be useless unless your website is drawing traffic that is interested in buying from you.


What you need are visitors specifically interested in your product or service -- you need targeted traffic. Before you start promoting your website using the ten most commons ways of getting traffic you should learn about the inhibitors to increasing conversions.



Inhibitors to Increase Conversions.

Moments of disorientation (two or three seconds) where users need to know where they are and have they clicked on the right website. You tell them by providing a title, description, heading and sub-heading that satisfies their need.

Moments of conversation (one or two seconds) where users need to know the benefits what can I do on this page. You tell them with calls to actions – contact us by email or subscribe to our newsletter.

Moments of Exchange (two or three seconds) where users are looking for the benfits of your product or service. You tell them by provided a bullt points list of benefits.



Objectives of Your Webpage

Most successful websites are tightly focused on their niche market and their marketing tactics are focused on driving people to their site that are looking for what they offer – that’s the power of targeted traffic.
The objective of the home page is NOT to get visitors to it but to get visitors through it to visit the inner pages of a website. There are three categories of objectives of a home page:

a. The primary object of the home page is to meet the key performance indicators of the business. These are generally long term and connected to the business model and marketing plan.

b. The major objectives of a home page are just as important but are not primary. They are usually long term in nature and may or may not be connected to the business plan.

c. Minor objectives of a home page are those which are functions of the website – site navigation, legal disclaimers etc.


Web pages need to be designed to fulfil each objective.



Tips for Targeted Traffic



Here are a few tips to help you prepare your website for targeted traffic:


a. Design your website to promote one particular product or service as your main item.

b. Determine the type of audience that will be interested in your product or service and adjust your website to be attractive to them. Insert keywords phrases in appropriated places.

c. Establish the items or services that are related to what you're promoting on your website. provide and or offer link building exchange facility to benefit a fuller user experience.

d. Offer free content to engage the visitor. Provide a stream of content, that your visitors will find useful, on your website and add new content and information often. Email strategy will invite your visitors back to your site to see the new material you're constantly adding.

e. Keep in mind, a website that's focused on a particular niche item or service lends itself to targeted traffic simply because there is something specific to target and the more targeted traffic your site receives, the more productive your site will be.

f. There are only three ways to increase business:
  • Get more customers. Follow tips a – e and 1 -10 above
  • Get customers to but more often from you. On first visit get their email address by offering something valuable they want.
  • Get customers to increase the average sale value at time of purchasing. At point of sale offer discounted value items. Say ,for examples, others also have bought this product and offer it at a discount.
For more website traffic and web marketing tips visit www.seosynovation.com or http://seosynovation.blogspot.com


Author Bio


Vincent Sandford of SEO Synovation is the author of numerous articles and blogs on search engine optimisation, online reputation management, web marketing, wine and real estate. He has a passion for website marketing and helping professionals, small and medium businesses grow. Learn what Vincent can do for your website by visiting http://www.sesynovation.com





Monday, July 16, 2012

Brand Image


Brand Image is an essential ingredient in managing your business profitably. It’s not only manifested online but also in products and in the opinions of other market leaders. There is a very close relationship between the Search Engine Optimisation, SEO in other words, and building a brand image to enhance your online reputation. The techniques and the tactics adopted in SEO can be and are applied in defending and repairing your online reputation.

Premess
Say you are an ecommerce merchant or a multi national conglomerate with an angry customer. The customer is so angry; he posts bad, negative reviews on the Internet about your company that are not true. Your online reputation is damaged. Your brand image is dented. What can you do? How can you combat it? What would we do about it? When your online reputation is damaged there are four actions:
 Do nothing 
 Defend it 
 Repair it 
 Monitor it 

First you employ a specialist agency like ours. Secondly we will defend, repair and monitor your online reputation. Thirdly on your behalf we will create a strategy to repair your online reputation and lastly in the following paragraphs we will show you how we do it that and how that links to search engine optimisation projects. 
Our professionals at SEO Synovation can suppress those negative listings or reviews and push them back in the search engines, where no one is ever going to see them. Statistics show that 85 percent of online searches never go past the first page. We create positive, truthful and legal online messages so that harmful listings are never seen on page 1. This is often very effective. 
Personal Approach. 
Research shows that only 85% of internet users go beyond the first pages of search engine results. Our strategy and goals are to decrease the number of negative comments that appear on the first three pages of a search engine results page. We do this by attacking negative comments of three fronts:
Existing and future websites 
Engaging in Social networks 
Promoting the brand and product 
This is the same approach adopted by SEO Synovation for a search engine optimisation project. Our team of fifteen professionals based in five countries and operating in eleven markets have the accumulated experience of more than one hundred and fifty years in marketing, internet marketing and online reputation management. 
Our Principles 
Our activity is founded on four overriding principles that guide us through every project namely:
Legality – we respect the letter and the morality of laws in Europe and published Google guidelines. 
Honesty – we tell the truth and nothing but the truth and avoid ambiguity.
Transparency – we show clients what we do and what the consequences of actions are.
Privacy - what we learn about your company, patents, and forthcoming projects is never made public, is never discussed, and never mentioned in general terms unless expressly approved in writing. We will sign a confidentiality agreement to that effect. 
Tactics of Search Engine Optimisation and Online Reputation Management -typical tactics we employ to suppress negative comments: 
1. We will optimise existing websites. 
2. We will create additional, promotional and positive websites to increase visibility of product and brand. 
3. We will create blogs to positively promote the brand. 
4. We will proactively engage in social networks to positively promote the brand and respond to negative comments. 
5. We will create videos to promote on influential video marketing sites. 
6. We will create presentations to promote the product on sharing platforms. 
7. We will create photographs to promote the product on photo sharing platforms.  
8. We will re-write and re-promote articles detailing the performance of the product. 
9. We will create linking strategy and obtain links to increase visibility of product and brand. 
10. We will engage with News Contributors and post contributions about the products/service. 
11. We will create press releases to increase visibility of product and brand and decrease the effects of negative comments. 
12. We will engage bloggers to engage in opinion sites to express an alternative view to negative comments. 
13. We will publish and provide clients a monthly status report of activities performed and the status of negative comments for the keywords agreed for the projects.
When your online reputation is damaged there are four actions: 
a. Do nothing 
b. Defend it 
c. Repair it 
d. Monitor it 
Our professionals can suppress those negative listings or reviews and push them back in the search engines, where no one is ever going to see them. Statistics show that 85 percent of online searches never go past the first page. We create positive, truthful and legal online messages so that harmful listings are never seen on page 1. This is often very effective.

Personal Approach To Projects 
What separates SEO Synovation is the personal approach to removing negative comments. There is no standard approach. Each Project is unique. Each campaign has its own set of peculiarities, such as the gravity and structure of the comments, the authoritativeness of the sites from which negative listings are coming from, and the depth of negative listings in search engine results pages.  
Creation of New Content. 
We create and launch new websites with content often with competing content. There are many components in these campaigns and are just limited to creating new websites. SEO Synovation copywriters create compelling content, relevant to the industry and to the company itself. We work with businesses in all sorts of different industries and we know what the search engines are going to view as compelling and relevant.  
After consultation with the client, about the marketing message that they want to portray and the branding efforts they want to disseminate we write the content for them, and then we promote is on the through the different sources, as quickly as possible and in a way that is not going to be flagged by any of the search engine’s spam teams. Then we create a linking strategy to the content created to effectively strengthen their presence. 
Is Every Company Defended? 
We are not lawyers that neither defend reputations in court nor judge the legal consequences of acts. We take the situation as it presented to us and appraise it on two fronts:
A. Is the potential client performing an illegal act?
B. Is the situation repairable?At SEO Synovation we have a strict code of ethics that we work with That code of ethics basically states that if what we do is going to perpetuate a crime or what we view to be unrealizable in any way, shape or form, we will not take on the campaign.
Opinion Websites 
There are many consumer complaints sites, where individuals can post complaints about a company. Anyone can post a complaint on those consumer complaint sites, and they are often untruthful, libellous and unverified. Their sources are often an unscrupulous competitor, a disgruntled ex-employee or just an unreasonable client.  
These comments get exposure, often on page 1 of search engines result pages due to the fact that within the search engines ranking algorithms, the websites are relevant and high ranking, and provide users with a useful, pertinent and valuable experience. 
When these negatives comments are posted online there’s no way for the business owner to protect himself, unless they contact a company like ours, to give them control, and give them the ability to formulate the correct message about their business.
How much does the service cost? 
The cost of campaigns depends upon the gravity of the situation. Our lowest priced campaign starts out at €950 per month. Contact SEO Synovation to learn more or receive a no obligation and free check of your online reputation.
About Vincent Sandford and SEO Synovation 
SEO Synovation is an agency specialising in Search OptimisationOnline Reputation Management and Web Marketing. We help businesses and individuals fortify their web  marketing and personal or brand names online. What we do is we give people control of their online reputation. We train them in techniques to monitor their own reputation and web marketing, become aware of what’s out there. We show them how to create an effective marketing message to accurately portray their image and use it to increase search engine rankings. 
SEO Synovation was founded in 1993 originally as Synergy Innovation, marketing and IT consulting group. Since 2001 it has expanded into web marketing sphere as DukCon, the search engine optimisation SEO market as MarcheRustico and in 2010 as SEO Synovation with special focus on defending online reputations to serve the expanding markets of Europe. We are headquartered in Assen, The Netherlands and have representations in The Netherlands, Italy and England. At present we are a group of 15 professionals providing Online Reputation Management, Web Marketing and Search Optimisation.










Thursday, July 12, 2012

Link Building, How To Link Build and Calculate The Pagerank Weight of a Link

Not all links are equal. You need to examine the pagerank of the website and the number of outbound links from it in order to value the worth of the transferred link. Links should be relevant to the webpage you’re linking to. Do not use link farms or irrelevant websites with low quality content. This post explains how to calculate the pagerank of a link to gain maximum transferable value.
Introduction
A recent Google algorithm update highlighted the fact of good quality links. Google Penguin is a code name for a Google algorithm update that was first announced on April 24, 2012. The update was aimed at decreasing search engine rankings of websites that violate Google’s Webmaster Guidelines by using black-hat SEO techniques such as keyword stuffing, cloaking, participating in link schemes, deliberate creation of duplicate content and others.
What are Link Schemes
A website Pageranking is partly based on analysis of those sites that link to you. The quantity, quality, and relevance of links count towards your rating. The sites that link to you can provide context about the subject matter of your site, and can indicate its quality and popularity. However, some webmasters engage in link exchange schemes and build partner pages exclusively for the sake of cross-linking; disregarding the quality of the links, the sources, and the long-term impact it will have on their sites. This is in violation of Google's Webmaster Guidelines and can negatively impact your site's ranking in search results. Examples of link schemes can include:
  •  Links intended to manipulate PageRank 
  •  Links to web spammers or bad neighbourhoods on the web 
  •  Excessive reciprocal links or excessive link exchanging ("Link to me and I'll link to you.") 
  •  Buying or selling links that pass PageRank 
The best way to get other sites to create relevant links to yours is to create unique, relevant content that can quickly gain popularity in the Internet community. The more useful content you have, the greater the chances someone else will find that content valuable to their readers and link to it. Before making any single decision, you should ask yourself the question: Is this going to be beneficial for my page's visitors?
Relevance in Link Building Works Best
It is not only the number of links you have pointing to your site that matters, but also the quality and relevance of those links. Creating good content pays off: Links are usually editorial votes given by choice, and the buzzing blogger community can be an excellent place to generate interest. 
How to calculate the Pagerank Weight of a Link
To increase the popularity of a web page, website owners need to link it to other relevant quality sites. Any back link from any webpage increases your website's Pagerank (except with no-follow links). There are two measures that need to be defined:
 (a) Pagerank and
(b) the weight of a webpage.
What is Pagerank?
 Pagerank is the overall ranking of a webpage where as the weight of a link from that page is diluted by the number of outbound links. 
So there is a difference between a passed PR weight from each web-page, depending on its PR and number of outbound links it has. The higher the number of outbound links on a webpage the lower the transferred weight of the link to your webpage.
Get Links
The best way to increase your website Google Pagerank is to get links from webpage’s that have a low number of links from them and their Pagerank is high. This weight is calculated based on the Google PageRank Formula. For your convenience, below SEO Synovation have provided a simplified explanation of Google Pagerank formula.
An Example of How to calculate the Pagerank Weight of a Link
Google’s Pagerank formula uses a standard weighting factor for each Pagerank. Re-produced here:
Pagerank Standard Weight
PR 0 = 1
PR 1 = 5
PR 2 = 25
PR 3  = 125
PR 4 = 625
PR 5  = 3.125
PR 6 = 15.625
PR 7  = 78.125
PR 8  = 390.625
PR 9 =  1.953.125
PR 10  = 9.765.6256

 The simplified formula used by SEO Synovation Web Marketing Agency looks like this and has been approximated:
Page Rank Weight of the Webpage of the Link
The number of links on the page plus 1 *85%
Values in the example:
An example: Your webpage page rank = PR 2
Link page rank = 6
Number of outbound links = 25 plus 1 = 26
Applying the formula: PR 6 = 15.625/26 *85% = 510.81 added to your existing page rank weight for PR 2 (25) = 535.81 or PR 3 as total value is less than PR 4 (625). Page rank of your page would increase PR 3.
Damping Factor 
The damping factor is a number representing the probability that an Internet surfer randomly clicking on links will eventually stop clicking. And according to the original paper on PageRank by Google it’s set to 0.85. This means that only 85% of the total links to that are counted in the calculation.
Pagerank Weight of a Link 
This is value in terms of amount of Pagerank that will be passed on to your each web page linked to from the web page you’re checking.
Conclusion
This formula has been simplified for convenience but gives an accurate approximation of the Pagerank weigh of a link. It shows very clearly to get links from Web Pages with high Pagerank (always difficult as most links are from home pages) and few links from them (also very difficult). The Pagerank weight of all links is then added together to ascertain the Web Page ranking. The more you have the better it is. There is just one caveat: Google only re-calculated and updates