One thing I see time and time again and that is someone trying to squeeze far too much sales into an email newsletter or promotional email. Now there are the rare types of businesses that can get away with this (amazon, dabs etc…), but generally most businesses should focus on one key message or product/service. People have short attention spans these days.
This may mean that you send out your email to a smaller list of customers or prospects that would be interested in it or you could hope that if they aren’t they will pass it along to someone else who is. Regardless try to target niche markets in your industry you should find it increases response rates and hopefully conversions as a consequence.
Bonus tip: Keep your email short and put the real detail on a separate sales page on your website, that way you can hook them in with a snappy quick to read email with only the main benefits to get them interested. This detail will also be picked up by search engines so you should benefit from that as well.
I’m finally getting back to an eBook I started writing last year titled “The Lost Knowledge – Things your web developer never told you”
What I hope to achieve is to highlight many things that may be within your actual power to improve on your website from Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) to improving the conversion rates of your website call to actions. Most of which can be done without any specialist coding knowledge or skills, just your time and effort.
I mean what is the point in having a Content Management System (CMS) to control your website, if you don’t have the knowledge to actually get the most out of it.
What I’m looking for is to talk to people who currently have a Content Management System, but feel they aren’t getting anywhere with their site, and if all you’ve been told this phrase “All you need to do is add new fresh content to your site regularly” then please get in touch there’s a lot more to it than that and it’s not difficult to do once you know how.
I will gladly throw in a couple of hours free consultation to anyone willing to talk openly about their issues, plus I’ll give you and your business a mention in the eBook, maybe even a free copy when it’s completed
I thought today I would give out 10 tips for improving your Search Engine results, I’ve split it into Avoid and Do not’s.
Avoid
choosing a title that doesn’t match up to the content on your web page
embedding text in images as users may want to copy and paste it or even more important search engines won’t be able to pick it up.
not formatting your page with the proper structure, think back to doing essays in english, title heading, content, sub heading, content, sub sub heading, content. google and many other search engines will reward you for it
having a complex navigation structure as search engines won’t like it but more crucially it may turn away visitors as they won’t know how to find the information they are looking for
having drop-down menus, images, or animations for navigation only. Most search engines may miss out on some crucial links from your website. Also having the links follow the standards will aid in your sites accessibility
Do not
hide text on your website, Google or another search engine may remove you from the search engine results.
duplicate content on your site from other sites. True, Google does like content, but it needs to be original to help get you to the top!
buy 1000’s of links and think “that will get me to the top of the search engines!”. Google especially like natural link growth over a long period of time and are coming down hard on mass link buying.
link to every single person/business who wants a reciprocal link. Try to only link to sites that are related to your industry and will help your visitors.
have the same anchor text for every link pointing to your website, try to change it to use various keywords that you want to target your site with if possible.
For any of you out there that still say or even hear the words coming from another web development company “Flash isn’t Search Engine Friendly” go to this page and read the news SEO FLASH
Flash actually has been SEO friendly for a long time now, but most web developers aren’t experts in flash like we are so they shy away from it.
Go to this site http://www.seomoz.org sign up even to the free account and be amazed at some of the information you can get. If you feel particularly adventurous, check out the pro account and get access to a wealth of Search Engine Optimisations information. You can even use this to analyse your competitors to see what they are doing to get ahead in the Search Engines.
Here are the 7 SEO mistakes we find are made a lot:
1. Targeting the wrong keywords & lack of keywords in the content
2. Ignoring the Title tag
3. A full Flash website, where a html one would do
4. Lack of consistency and maintenance
5. Concentrating too much on meta tags
6. Using only Images for Headings
7. Back link spamming
I will elaborate on some of these in future blog posts.
I’ve had some clients in the past ask me about the difference between SEO and SEM, so I thought that I would describe it as simple as I can.
SEO = Search Engine Optimisation
This process is where you make your site friendly to search engines and visitors.
Think of it like having a shop and you arrange the product on the shelves so that it is easy for you to restock or re-arrange them, but it is also easy for your customers to find the actual products they are looking for.
SEM = Search Engine Marketing
This process is where you concentrate on getting visitors to your website.
Think of it like making flyers and adverts or spreading a good reputation through word of mouth to get the customers to visit your shop.
There is one more that I use called:
SER = Search Engine Research
This process is where you study your competitors and keywords for your website.
Think of it like walking into another shop and seeing what everyone is buying and what stock they carry and how much everything is. This is to see if you match up or beat them.
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