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Improving SEO Results

It's easy to get started with videos.
It’s easy to get started with videos.

The key to increasing Search Engine Optimization results for a company already doing well is to look at more channels besides blog posts and keyword rich home pages to augment results. The explosion of sites like YouTube can be a good place to start when you want to branch out in other areas to keep your search engine results where they belong.  The proof that branching out into other areas of online advertising can really work is evident when looking at what Google does to grow their own business.

SEO and page rank expert Matt Cutts is a big proponent of using video to help increase SEO and draw more attention to a business.  A YouTube video can be especially helpful to get the word out about new products you are offering. Demonstrating a machine you sell or posting a how to video on a product to the DIY crowd can yield far more hits for your site than just manual instructions. An added bonus could come from those “do it yourselfers” going back and revisiting the demonstration which will help increase organic search results.

Have you brainstormed how you can use video to help position your website in the organic search results? It’s not hard to get started, in fact you can even start with a whiteboard and a digital camera and then post the same day YouTube.

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Don’t let Things Get Lost in Translation

Reach a wider market with translation services.
Reach a wider market with translation services.

Any business that is operating on the web has to find ways to expand their customer base. One way to do that can be to appeal to those living in other countries. This is something that can certainly be considered but there may be something that is currently holding you back.This is where it helps to spend some time and money on a translation management system. There are some businesses that may be able to try crowd sourcing for a one time translation project for a specific product or as a way to enter only one market at a time. You could also consider choosing a vendor; evaluating them by checking references, looking at their client list and experience and making sure that translation management is at the heart of their business.

You may even want to try some free translation tools first before you pay to have your whole website translated and localized. I like to use Google Translate. You can click the icons in my left sidebar to automatically translate this blog post. Although automated tools don’t always give the best translation, using them allows you to test at a very low cost to see if website translation is a workable approach for your needs.

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Tips for Designing Websites That Look Good on Tablets

Test your site on tablets.
Test your site on tablets.

People don’t just use their tablets – they love ‘em. The portable, powerful little devices entertain, inform and connect, so it’s no surprise that businesses by the thousands are optimizing their websites to accommodate tablet trends.It’s not just a matter of shrinking the page to the tablet’s vertical/horizontal ratios. Tablet layout is an art unto itself.

Web-to-Tablet Basics
Test. Use a common browser, like Firefox or Safari, on a tablet to see how your current site appears. Does text run off the sides, or images look compressed? The answers will help your designer create a tablet-ready site.

Simplify. A crowded homepage isn’t ideal even on a PC, but it can spell disaster on a tablet. Strip out the non-essentials – the stock photos, the testimonials, the ads – and focus on the most important information and links to get users on their way.

Enlarge. Make live areas like call-to-action buttons large enough to see quickly and finger-sized so that only one touch is necessary.

Un-Flash. The mega-popular iPad is notably resistant to Flash applications, so keep them off your tablet-ready site. Android tablets are advertised as supporting Flash, but early response has had it labeled a disappointment. Interactive elements in HTML5 or JavaScript can recreate the Flash experience without the risk.

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Getting Your Full Value Out of Mobile

McCord Web Services is a Bing Ads Accredited Professional Company and Google AdWords Certified Partner.
McCord Web Services is a Bing Ads Accredited Professional Company and Google AdWords Certified Partner.

As the leader of online marketing Google is paving a new path into the digital world and helping advertisers on the way to understand how to market in our “always on” world. Anyone who is involved in selling knows that the new frontier is mobile and that it is changing how we market forever.

Google has done quite a few really smart things to embrace this new frontier. First, they have introduced AdWords Enhanced Campaigns which is the first step in leveraging mobile activity and advertising on smartphones to reach people where and when they are making buying decisions.

Second, Google created a partnership with DudaMobile to help advertisers get a free mobile website that can be used in the AdWords interface as the destination URL even with the DudaMobile.com domain URL.

Third, Google has done a marvelous job of training and reaching out to account managers like me to assist them with how to help move clients into the mobile arena. The seminars are excellent and topical. Although they are really in a closed by invitation arena and not widely published, much of the information has also been disseminated via Hangouts at Google+.

I personally have attended one and sometimes two, one hour seminars for at least the last eight weeks and have had a Google account manager available to assist me with mobile implementation, followup, implementation of mobile conversion tracking and assists with DudaMobile for my own clients.

The power of mobile is to not just getting click activity on mobile phones, but to understand that the real value of mobile is much bigger than that. Mobile activity drives website traffic, e-commerce activity, and increasingly foot traffic into stores. My personal feeling is that the true power of mobile to drive sales should not be discounted and should be fully evaluated for each business.

Not all businesses will need the marketing strategies that some local selling businesses may need when it comes to mobile, but even national businesses may find that mobile activity is a growing percentage of their overall online activity.

Mobile brings a whole new perspective to the marketing table. Make sure that you are testing, trying out, and really thinking about your own mobile strategy in the weeks and months to come.