What exactly is search engine optimization?

March 28th, 2010 by Karen Skeens, Creative Director/Website Project Manager | | View Comments

In the past it’s been presented by some almost like it’s a “magical” inside, proprietary knowledge that SEO “experts” have that they can’t share. Well, it is inside knowledge that comes from years of studying and most of all, keeping up to date with Google guidelines, which are non-proprietary. At Ad Ventures, we research SEO and Google updates to it on an ongoing basis, sometimes daily, at the minimum on a weekly basis.

Can you get this information on your own?

Yes, if you have the developer resources, and time to research and test, test, test and then test some more like we have.

Good SEO techniques have evolved over the years and are comprised of many components. The most important thing to remember is to follow Google guidelines to the T. Google provides the overview; SEO experts such as Ad Ventures provide the “big picture” of what is needed, the testing resources, the web development for the framework of your site, and the senior copywriters for writing good metatag title, description and image alt tags.

1. What does the phrase “search engine optimization” mean?

It means making your site visible to the search engines in a search-engine friendly way so that your site is included in search engine indexes, at the highest ranking possible. Almost every category of websites relies on website traffic, so if your site has good ranking for your most important keyword phrases, then people searching those keyword phrases will more easily find your site.

2. What should good SEO include?

Website SEO – an overview
  • The keyword phrases you want to target (there are online sources where you can test the keyword phrases that are most commonly searched for your product or service in your area.)
  • Tableless CSS development (not HTML tables, which are not SEO friendly)
  • Keyword-rich H1 headlines (HTML headlines are best, but there are work-arounds for graphic, more aesthetic headlines)
  • Title metatagas – clearly written to be both “search engine friendly” and “human friendly”. The Title should reflect 90 – 100% of what the content of the page reflects.
  • Description metatags – clearly written to be both “search engine friendly” and “human friendly.” The description should reflect 85 – 100% of what the content of the page reflects.
  • Image alt tags which clearly describe the image and keywords that further describe the image
  • Error-free HTML code
  • W3C standards compliant
  • Keywords added into your site in the correct way (towards the top, no one keyword too heavy in keyword density, etc.)
  • Keywords specific to specific interior pages that are written for the benefit of the human reader, not so much the Google robots. Aim for getting high ranking for not only your home page, but also your interior pages.
  • Quality content: Google and other search engines favor a site that provides fresh, new quality content, content that is updated frequently. (This is one reason why we recommend a blog or news/tips section on websites that you can easily update internally.)
Local Listings
  • Make sure your site information is listed at multiple quality sites, i.e., http://www.superpages.com; http://www.local.com
  • Make sure your site information is listed the same way everywhere you list it (For example, our official corporate name is “Ad Ventures Marketing, Inc.” but our formal DBA company name that we list everywhere is “Ad Ventures Design & Marketing” for continuity.
  • Update the “old-fashioned” listings such as the Better Business Bureau. In your business you’re likely dealing with younger “Facebook” users as well as older “newspaper readers and BBB users.” So don’t forget the Better Business Bureau. It may take just a couple of updates to change your B+ rating to an A like it did for us.
  • Create local accounts with Yahoo, Bing and Google.
Competition Checks
  • Check out the “competition” to make sure there isn’t any cloaking of your site going on. Check them out in the BBB and Linked In , for example as well, to make sure another company hasn’t “borrowed’ your company name, or a similar version of it.
  • And another good way to check for competitors or “spammers” of your site, is to review the incoming link report that you can view via your Google and Yahoo webmasters accounts.
Webmaster Tools Account for monitoring and correcting
  • Yes, Webmaster tool accounts on Yahoo, Bing and Google are an important part of maintaining optimal SEO. A simple link name change can affect all your incoming links from outside websites, and instead of linking back to your site, the user gets linked to a 404 (page not found) blank bage.
  • Google now reports that they provide feedback on sites that receive penalties. (There are approximately 50 different penalties that Google issues for everything from duplicate content to hidden text.)
  • See how Google views your website and your keywords. For example, if you are linking a style-guide PDF to your site that contains the word “hex” 100 times, get a robots.txt block on that ASAP. Otherwise, Google will include that “hex” word as one of your top keywords, thus diminishing your more valuable keywords.
  • New features: Google provides load test tools and suggestions how to reduce your file size and load time. They have also included a tool that, with a click of your mouse, checks your site for any malware in less than 1 second.
Inbound linking
  • Search engines value high quantity of high quality links from other websites to your website. So don’t sign up for link farms, sign up for Better Business Bureau, and other organizations that provide free listing services.

3. What SEO should NOT include

Believe it or not, there are SEO “experts’ who have been around for years who are still following gimmicky techniques that have potential to get your site penalized. Your short-term results may be good, but your long-term results as far as Google is concerned, not so good. Google, Bing and Yahoo continuously change their algorithms, so one day your site may appear on page 1, the next day it could drop to page 10.

Here are just a few of the “don’t do’s”:

(there are a variety of larger lists available on the web of what not to do with SEO)

  • Signing up to any link farms (this will achieve seach engine penalties, which will result in lost ranking.)
  • Hidden text
  • Resubmission of your site each month (simply not necessary)
  • Purchasing multiple domains that your host sets up as “alias” sites (this is considered duplicate content)

4. After your site has launched, complete with good SEO, will you need SEO maintenance plan?

Yes, for approximately the first six months so your agency/development company can test and experiment with keywords on your interior pages (and home page if necessary.)
It is important that there is a watchful experienced eye overseeing the search engines to assure that they have properly indexed your new pages. A good development company will also make sure that the proper 301 permanent redirects are put in place on old URLs that have been renamed with new URLs and new keywords.

5. Will you need an ongoing maintenance plan?

No, if you do not plan to do many updates, or your updates are confined to your content management section that you handle.
If you plan to make a lot of updates, it is recommended that you have a monthly or quarterly maintenance plan in place. For some sites that are large in size and do daily updates, a regularly daily maintenance plan is recommended.

Tags: , ,
Posted in SEO Tips, Web Design

Marketing Strategy and Websites

March 5th, 2010 by Karen Skeens, Creative Director/Website Project Manager | | View Comments
What exactly is “Marketing Strategy”

To some, it means putting together a marketing plan where to focus your resources for the best return in results.

To Wikipedia, “Marketing strategy is a process that can allow an organization to concentrate its limited resources on the greatest opportunities to increase sales and achieve a sustainable competitive advantage. A marketing strategy should be centered around the key concept that customer satisfaction is the main goal.”

To Ad Ventures it means all that plus deliberate, thoughtful focus on a client’s company growth objectives, putting one’s feet in the targeted person’s shoes, and then strategizing how to lead that Business to Business, or Business to Consumer through a series of steps and decisions, and through the “buying cycle” stages: awareness, interest, desire and action. A good strategic process is one of resourcefulness, putting a client’s budget to use in the best, most cost-effective way to achieve short-term and long-term results for the benefit of complete client satisfaction today and tomorrow.

Implementing Marketing Strategy into Website Design

When we design websites, a large portion of the audience research and strategizing is implemented at the front end. I’m not just talking design strategy, but marketing strategy. We automatically include the marketing strategy in our website design process because we can’t imagine doing it any other way. (Our ultimate goal is to achieve complete client satisfaction.) The end result of a well-planned website is ease in interface navigating, a call-to-action placed in view on every page, visual graphics that support the messaging and text – all elements flowing in a connected way. A well-strategized website looks like something a visitor can quickly “get their hands around.” It doesn’t come off as a website that someone will instinctively want to bookmark for later reading, but something that draws them in immediately for a quick scan, that quick scan providing them the most important information they need to know.

The other important strategic approach that Ad Ventures uses is planning how to present the information in a clear, concise way. For example, the top three – five most important benefits to a website’s offering should be well-highlighted on the home page. And the competitive edge (these benefits or positioning statements) are repeated throughout the website, so that there is consistent flow from the start, through the body, to the end.

How we get to the end of successful marketing strategy is how we begin. We start the entire marketing strategy process during the discovery stage, when we sit forward taking notes on our laptops and listening to our clients and their employees. A client will tell you how to sell them, without even always realizing it. Same goes with telling you how to “sell” their company product or service. Our job is to take a look at the information with fresh eyes, and interpret the information so that it “sells” to the website’s target audience. We not only use strategy in how to present the information, but also in a way so it speaks to multiple audiences, i.e., the first-time web visitor who knows little about the company’s service or product, and the repeat visitor, gathering updates or additional information from your website.

Next article: When is the best timing for organizations to gather RFPs, before screening applicants or after screening applicants? The answer depends on what kind of RFP will achieve the best, desired results.

Tags: , ,
Posted in Marketing Tips, Web Design

Social Media & Social Networking

March 4th, 2010 by Karen Skeens, Creative Director/Website Project Manager | | View Comments

Social networking has been around forever. And today it’s bigger than ever. Social Networking has arrived at a new level from connecting in person to connecting online through a variety of key social media resources.

Simply put, every active business or organization should evaluate social media for social networking now. There are pro’s and con’s to it, but if it’s right for your business, now is the time to implement it.

Ad Ventures develops online social media plans at all levels – ones that involve minimal maintenance, as well as plans that need daily updating. We plan it, design it, and implement it. You monitor it and work it.

Expand your reach.
Reap the benefits from online Social Networking.

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Social Media

Strategy Behind the Ad Campaign

March 3rd, 2010 by Karen Skeens, Creative Director/Website Project Manager | | View Comments
From conceptualization to planning media to delivering the call to action

With the gigantic movement of ears and eyes to the internet, its formidable presence commands reconsideration of planning traditional media campaign mixes in print, radio, TV and outdoor. A well-strategized website should play a key role in every advertising campaign regardless of selected advertising mediums. It’s because a quality website has a long shelf life, sells 24-7 and is always available to answer quick questions, provide information or even close the sale. More importantly, there’s so much more you can say and show in your “website-encompassing ad,” much more than a 30-second radio or TV spot or a billboard, for example.

Ideally, every page in a website is part of an ongoing advertising campaign, whether you’re selling a concept or selling a widget or simply your brand.

Who is the campaign designed to reach and how often? Direct Response, in one swoop of an airplane-pulled banner, to increase your Adults 12+ reach? Or is the objective to build frequency with multiple magazine ads that speak to very specific target audiences over a long period of time? Whatever the objective, the call to action in the ad shouldn’t necessarily be to simply visit the business or organization, or buy the product, or implement educational tips, or email or phone for more information. Your primary call to action could be simply to drive people to your website where people can learn more, get qualified, buy or give you permission to contact them by email or phone. At the very least, an incentive to visit your website and sign up for future promotional announcements from your company should be included in as much of your advertising as possible, including direct mail pieces, radio spots, newsletters, e-newsletters and print ads.

Ad Ventures’ team has several years of experience planning, buying and selling radio, television and print. Combine that with our 10 years experience writing advertising copy for the web and placing online ads, and we bring insight and objectivity into the strategy behind the ad, writing the ad, designing the ad, and placing the ad.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Advertising

What web developers don’t always know….are must-knows for you.

March 2nd, 2010 by Karen Skeens, Creative Director/Website Project Manager | | View Comments

The Internet incorporates hundreds of combinations of website skill sets and technologies. Just because one’s skill set may be that of a “web developer or designer,” do not assume they have all the necessary web skills or know everything they need to know about websites.

In my role at Ad Ventures, I make it my business to know the key must-haves for every website. I’ve surprised more than one fellow new web developer, that a non-HTML type like me studies the left-brain geek stuff as much as I do. After all, my “creative director” title is a right-brain kind of title. But I love everything to do with website strategy and researching – it is my occupational hazard of a hobby.

Here are must-knows that I’ve come across over the years, that are so important that they are worth noting. It is staggering how many times I’ve encountered the three below must-knows during a web redesign, that weren’t known or implemented by a client’s previous web developer/company.

Must-Knows

1. When setting up your hosting: Resist the temptation to accept the hosting company’s suggestion that he set your business up with multiple ‘alias” websites (your website hosted for no extra charge at 5 or more different domain names.) It doesn’t matter what the host says in regards to SEO, what matters is what Google says. And Google penalizes for “alias” websites, AKA “duplicate content.” (Hosting companies are often confused as being SEO-knowledgeable. Remember, they typically specialize in hosting, not SEO.) If you find yourself with more than one domain serving up identical websites, a robots.txt file will block your alias sites from search engine view, and this issue will be resolved.

2. When beginning development: Don’t leave your site’s interior page URL naming to your web developer or web development company, unless they provide SEO as a specialized service and have included an SEO “foundation” in your scope of work. Not all web developers are skilled in SEO, and often they don’t know to include keywords in URLs. (Google weighs heavily on well-named URLs.) So be proactive and ask about the process naming URLs. Or ask to submit your own keywords and suggested URL names. Or hire a company (such as Ad Ventures) that does include SEO in the foundation of a website.

3. When launching your website: If you are one of the lucky few who got on board the internet in the early days and secured a ranking of #1 on Google or Yahoo just for being there, be careful not to lose it just because you launch an updated website. Far too often when a new site gets launched, the old URL gets left behind, only to lead the search engines down the path that you simply don’t exist anymore. So they report your missing site as “404” (page not found.) And within days, your site gets dropped from the search engine indexes.

How does something like this happen? The web developer didn’t know or didn’t take the proper steps to “connect” the old to the new. For example, let’s say you added a database to your new website, so your new URL has a .php file extension, instead of the old HTML file extension. Google doesn’t necessarily assume that they are one in the same. Unless a web developer takes steps by adding the proper redirects from the old URL to the new URL, as well as notifying the search engines of the URL change, your website will be treated as new and starting from the ground up in the search engine rankings.

At Ad Ventures, we take a team approach and have several “watchdog” check and balance systems in place for not just our web developers, but for all our team members. We regularly and thoroughly check each other’s work, keeping each other in-the-know. And we’re always on the look-out for what’s right for our clients.

Tags: , ,
Posted in Web Design

All “Web Geeks“ can talk the talk. But can they walk the talk?

March 1st, 2010 by Karen Skeens, Creative Director/Website Project Manager | | View Comments

You know who I am talking about: the web designer who, in an extremely convincing way, says “I can do that,” or “sure, won’t take long ….”
By the time you hire him, you’re so wowed that you’ve found the hidden gem, that you believe he can perform web miracles. Unfortunately, it sometimes takes a while for the average business owner or marketing director to see that the “can do” is nothing more than a definitely cannot do! But by then, months of valuable planning time and money may have been wasted going in the wrong direction.

What do you do?

We’ll tell you what some people did when this happened to them….they came to Ad Ventures, a full-service web development company, and started over. We’ve heard this type of story many times from businesses whose first website experience was a total misfire, so we empathize. (Perhaps some of these other talkative “web developers” should direct their talents to a good sales position, say at a car lot.)

Interviewing web designers and developers for the past 9 years, in my creative director / website project manager position at Ad Ventures, has made me truly respect the superior talent when it comes our way. I can recognize it a mile away. There is substance behind the knowledgeable developer’s words, proactive solutions, and, most importantly, ethics. A good web developer utilizes dozens and dozens of technologies and skill sets to produce quality sites, and he/she continually studies the Internet and new technologies because they find it rewarding. These are the kind of web developers Ad Ventures’ hires, tests and trains.

We work closely with our web developers, collaborating with them, providing them back-up, education, support, coaching and research so that the attitude is not only always “can do,” but “will do.” And our clients can be assured that there’s a team of highly skilled people “walking the talk” on every website we design on behalf of our clients.

Coming next: What web developers don’t always know….are must-knows for you.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Web Design

Welcome!

February 26th, 2010 by Karen Skeens, Creative Director/Website Project Manager | | View Comments

Hello! Ad Ventures’ new “Take Your Business Places” blog was added to our website on Friday, February 26. We plan to get cranking and write up a few “Tales from the Trail” for our website visitors’ reading enjoyment.

Follow us on Twitter, and we’ll send a tweet with every new posting. https://twitter.com/adventuredesign

Posted in Tales from the Trail

Ad Ventures Design & Marketing
Marketing Communications for Companies on the Move
6042 Seaview Avenue Northwest, Seattle, Washington 98107
206-282-1719 • Email Us >

© 2010 All Rights Reserved
home | company | approach | creative services | our work | blog | contact us | print brochure | site map

Take Your Business Places
Better Tag Cloud