Google Optimization

We have integrated Google Analytics right into Marketpath CMS. You can now learn more about where your visitors come from and how they interact with your site. You'll get the information you need to write better ads, strengthen your marketing initiatives, and create higher-converting websites. Learn more about the benefits directly from Google.

Google Analytics replaces the default 'Visitor Tracking' panel within Marketpath CMS and opens up in its own tab. If you're interested in knowing what your website is doing, call us today at 800-657-7786. Integration of Google Analytics is included with any Marketpath CMS account.

One of the things that can help distinguish your website from your competitors is how often you update your content. We all know this, but yet some of us still find it difficult to make changes.  This might be the rationale behind Google putting stock into how recently and how frequently a site is updated.  Google prides itself on giving searchers the most relevant information available, which a lot of times will translate into the freshest information available.  Google will rank sites that administrators care enough to make changes to higher than their stale counterparts. 

Now obviously, Google isn't ranking sites soley based on frequency of updates, however it is one piece of the overall equation.  In my opinion, it is the easiest piece of the overall SEO equation to put into action.  Invest in a good content management system and swap out a picture or two every once in a while, blog about news worthy events, add a landing page that correlates to a new ad campaign.  Make your website work for you.  It's easy with the right tool.

Often times I sit with my son and daughter and find educational websites, including videos on YouTube (usually of giraffes, zebras, elephants, etc). Today, my son asked to see talking couches.  He's four.  So, I looked for videos of talking couches and I was not surprised to find the first result below.  My son, on the other hand, was extremely excited to see a real live talking couch!

This goes to show one thing. If you are looking for something specific you can probably find it on the web. And if you sell talking couches I hope that you are shown on the first page of search results. How do you do that? By following search engine optimization techniques and updating your content frequently.  Using a web content management system that lets you do both is a great start.

Take a look at this URL from newegg.com - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822140118.  Do you have any idea what the product is before you click on it?  Unless you're really good at memorizing item numbers, probably not.  Not only is this URL not attractive to humans, search engines like Google place an emphasis on the URL when looking for keywords.  Walmart is guilty of the same problem.  http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=10290815 is a link to buy dog food, but how would anyone know? 

Based on the URL rewriting work I did for blogging, I'm now applying it to our new e-commerce module - Marketpath StoreFront.  Like blogging, StoreFront will be an add-on for Marketpath CMS.  Our version of the same Walmart page would look like http://www.walmart.com/pets/dogs/dogfood/purina-beneful-healthy-radiance.  Much better.  This will no doubt be a future trend in online stores as it helps redefine SEO for e-commerce.

I am notoriously guilty of losing focus in my blog.  I often get so wrapped up in all the wonderful tools available (like blogging, email marketing, and social media), that I forget to cover content management.  Although Marketpath in many ways is a full-service internet marketing shop, our focus is (and should remain) product and service-driven. 

Content management is arguably the most important part of an organization's online presence.  The reason I believe this is that so many of your potential customers are not bloggers and don't participate in social media (though I do believe it is important to use your site to help expose visitors to social media).  When Joe-six-pack is Google-searching to find parts for his '86 Camaro, there is a good chance that he won't find a blog or twitter feed relevant.  The problem that's arising is that there is so much content in the Google index that comes from social media that it can be hard for a traditional website to compete.  This phenomenon increases the importance of utilizing social media, and it makes it completely necessary that the content on your site is relevant.

'But Colin, there are so many CMS options (many of them free) that allow users to update the content on their sites.'  This is true.  There might be literally hundreds of CMS tools out there on the web and they are relatively easy to find.  The problem is that many site administrators get lost along the way.  Once it becomes possible to keep a website up-to-date, many users still don't do as much as they should, because they don't know how.

This is where it is helpful to have a partner you can trust, a consultant who you can count on to point you in the right direction.  No one is born knowing how to optimize a site for search.  No one is born knowing how to create online conversions.  These things can be taught by knowledgeable professionals, and education is exactly what most organizations need to go along with their content management system.  We're here to help.  Class will be in session all week.  Feel free to attend.

This morning I discovered Kyle Lacy's video blog.  Kyle is a social media evangelist who owns an online marketing company in Carmel, IN, and he has definitely been one of the key people who have shown me the ropes with social media.  Kyle's 'Vlog' (actually I hate that term - I'll stick to calling it a video blog) is fantastic, because he seems to be differentiating it from his standard text blog.  In his traditional blog he discusses various online topics, marketing topics, interesting posts on other blogs, and really anything else that he finds interesting.  His video blog is a bit different, in that it is dedicated to helping business professionals understand how to use social media to effectively impact the bottom line.  So the question remains..... Why do I need one? (or better yet why do you need one?)

Let's look at another example.  If you were visiting the greater Indianapolis area and you were to search for a local liquor store on google, there is an excellent chance that you would find Greenfield Liquors on the first page for most keywords.  The reason they consistently score so highly is that they have invested a great deal of time and money in their online presence with Smaller Indiana and their Compendium Blog.  One of the most interesting things they do on their blog is to include drink recipes.  More interesting still is that they use video in conjunction with the recipes and actually SHOW you how to utilize the liquors they sell.  So..... Why should you be doing this?

Video creates a TON of value for your customers (and potential customers)!  Kyle Lacy is providing a valuable resource for business professionals who are seeking to learn more about social media.  At the same time he is establishing himself as an expert in his field (actually he probably has already accomplished that, but the vlog can only help).  The folks at Greenfield Liquors are providing an awesome service to their customers as well; they're teaching them how to better enjoy the products they buy.  The fact that they are providing this service (and the fact that it helps them rank so highly on google) means that people looking for high-end liquor will be much more likely to buy it from them. 

Basically what I'm getting at here is that video is a great differentiator for your blog and for your organization.  While I don't have a date set in stone, I have been planning on launching a video blog for a while now and it IS coming.  So kudos to Kyle and Greenfield liquors for giving me an awesome topic and doing such fine work with their online marketing.  Keep it up!

It's so beautiful when a plan comes together.  For example, I'm heading down to Terre Haute this evening for a long weekend and my buddy Weir's wedding.  There are lots of elements I've got to have in place it order to be sufficiently prepared.  I need to pack, gas up the car, coordinate with everyone else who's going, pick up my guitar amp from a friends house, and all of this has to be done in time for me to arrive in Terre Haute at a descent hour this evening.

When it comes to planning it's all about organizing a lot of little details so that they come together to form a cohesive whole picture.  Here's one example as it applies to marketing.  A new restaurant called Zing opened here in downtown Indianapolis a few weeks ago.  I first learned about it from their unusually branded sign that they posted in front of the building about a month before the opening.  A few weeks later I received an email announcing the opening.  I hadn't opted in to their mailing list so my interest was starting to grow.  Then, a few days later at a networking function my friend Brian Graham mentioned that he was doing their marketing, and that he had opted me in for the email.  Interesting, I thought.  As the weeks before the opening came to a close, I kept hearing about it more and more.  Guess what I was doing on the day they opened.  Yeah, I was there.

My point is that it takes a lot of careful planning in order to reach new customers.  It takes several 'touches'.  Your email marketing might not be enough, but your email marketing + your search engine optimization + your direct mail campaign + your outside sales + your referrals will end up paying huge dividends.  It's true that you can buy word-of-mouth, but it's worth a lot more if you earn it.  You earn it by planning smart and executing flawlessly.  Good luck.

I'm a big fan of search.  That may seem obvious, but when we consider how far we've come in the last few decades, it really is outstanding.  Search engine optimization is obviously good for business, but when you consider it in the context of the consumer it really is very important.  You have to look at the search market just like any other market.  It's always going to be difficult to get any group of people to do anything unless there is money in it.  It would be impossible for google to properly index the web if sites didn't take the proper SEO precautions.  With that in mind, there are literally hundreds of SEO guidelines and tools available to ensure that your site can be found.

I'm a huge fan of website grader.  My favorite part about this tool is that it takes into account lots of different types of content and then ranks your site on a scale of one to a hundred.  This is supposed to somewhat accurately decide how well you will rise through the search rankings.  I especially like this site because it takes into account how much of any given SEO strategy you are using.  For example, if you have a lot of links, but are weak in other areas you will still rank favorably, because links are important.  If you are using blogging as a tool for inreasing your search rankings, then it takes the ranking of your blog into consideration.  It's also nice, because it provides simple and measurable steps that you can take to get it right. 

I like to think of the web as a kind of 'economics of information.'  It's very similar to actual economics, except that instead of money you pay in knowledge.  Now, of course you can pay good money for SEO knowledge, but the beauty of it is that much of the good information is already available for free.  SEO can be a bit of a crap shoot, but if you are representing yourself honestly there is no reason to believe that anything is impossible.  Web 2.0 is here and there is MUCH more content than there once was.  There is really a world for everyone here, and proper SEO practices will ensure that the best content for you rises to the top.  Some terms are indeed very competitive.  This competition keeps the web healthy.  It's a big pie and there's enought to go around.

Just two days after I post about Microsoft IE8, I get an alert that Google has announced their new web browser, Google Chrome, will be available in beta for download September 2nd. If you're not familiar with the term 'beta', it is basically a testing release before the official '1.0' is added. Read the official notice from Google.

From a consumer perspective, hurray! I do like having a choice..... but not too many. Too many choices and I just get confused and easily cheated by imposters and me-toos (ok, I don't get cheated with software much because I am a developer by trade, but my Grandmother does... and my parents, and my sister, and my cousins.... I hope you get the point). So, now I can use Firefox (the champion of people who dislike Microsoft), or I can use Internet Explorer (the standard built-in browser for Microsoft Windows), or Safari (the Mac OS built-in), or Google Chome (a wonderfully simplistic, yet powerful browser - I'm sure). Of course, there are a couple others, but they barely register as a blip in the browser usage radar.

From a developer/marketer's perspective, I am a little annoyed. Building rich and dynamic cross-browser websites can be a challenge, even though development has improved a lot over the last 5 years. There are still inconsistencies, mostly with Javascript and CSS (style sheets). Developing cross-browser websites is sort of like putting up a billboard that can only be read by people in certain types of cars. If you drive a BMW it appears perfect.  If you drive an '84 Chevy Celebrity (like my first car) the billboard shows a big red X. It's challenging to get the message right for everyone.

If your website is not dynamic, i.e. contains no Javascript, then you will likely be fine. The challenge is with rich sites - those websites that have put a lot of time and effort into improving the user experience. There will most likely be compatibility issues and you will need to fix those as soon as you can.

Google has a huge following. To many people, they are still the underling that develops cutting edge software. Once Chrome is released in beta, you can count on a ton of people trying it out - if not adopting it entirely. This means you need to test your corporate websites, landing pages, micro-sites, and customer applications.

Google is pretty good at releasing quality software, but I have seen several applications in beta that were buggy. If Chrome gets adopted by a large number of consumers, I hope they have worked out most of the kinks.

Well is it?  At last weekend's blogINDIANA conference Chris Baggot of Compendium Blogware argued that the blog is the perfect search result.  He argued that it is in google's best interest to provide information that people want.  Now I love to blog.  I find it fun and therepudic and extremely enjoyable, but I don't necessarily believe that a blog entry the most relevant organic result on any given topic.

That's not to say that I'm angry.  I'm glad that my old friend google loves blogs so much, because it helps me rank for many of the terms that are relevent to my business, but I have to think that if I were searching for 'indianapolis corporate blog software' that I would rather be taken to a page that had definitive information on the topic, not some random blog entry written by someone like me.  I know that google's love affair with the corporate blog is good for marketers, but is it good for the consumer?

With that in mind, how long can google's blog obsession last?  How long before blogs are relegated to the types of specialty blog searches of the past and what will those who have invested heavily in the blog as a marketing tool do if it someday goes away?  I don't have the answers to these questions, but for now I'm glad that my blogs are tops for search.  I'll rest easy knowing that a full featured content management system with blog technology is doing its job by positively impacting my marketing stra 

I wanted to take a minute to discuss the various tools available.  Which tools should you have?  How should you use them?  And what do you get for your investment?  Let's start with content management (CMS).  This is not an area where you want to pinch pennies.  Your web content is the life blood of your web presence.  Your CMS should allow you to edit textual content in every area of your site.  This is important, because changing text placement and content has a dramatic effect on your search optimization and marketing effectiveness.  It should be easy to create links within the site, as well as create, delete, and modify menu items.  Finally (and this is a big one), your CMS should have powerful and versatile image tools that allow you to easily link pictures, resize, and ad alt image tags.

It's impossible for me to talk about a CMS without mentioning search engine optimization.  Google indexes all the content on your site, so every time you update content it tends to help.  But, in addition to content a CMS 'power tool' should allow you to easily customize your meta data, meta keywords, title tags, as well as the aforementioned alt image tags.  Your CMS should also allow RSS feeds, and allow you to create a 'call to action page' such as a 'request a demo' or 'quote' page.  Getting visitors to this page is the #1 reason you paid for someone to design the site for you, so it's important that it's done right.

The most powerful weapon in the savvy marketer's arsenal is their blog tool.  Again, it's important that you get this right.  Take a look on the right side of this page.  Those are categories.  Each of those categories catalogues blog entries relevant to that topic and each one is associated with its own URL which is updated dynamically each time a new post is added.  This means that by writing this post I am updating many other URL's.  This is a very very good thing for my search marketing campaign.  The point is that there are tons of web tools out there, but not many 'web power tools.'  We've all got budgets to work with, so spend your money wisely.  Make sure you're getting the most marketing bang for your marketing buck.

I thought of several titles for today's post.  "All my eggs in one SEO basket"  "Count your search chickens before they hatch" even "Humpty Dumpty had a great SEO fall"  Why? Because I got complacent.  I never considered that I was vulnerable.  I never considered that the world was plotting against me.  Let's face it, I just wasn't smart enough to see what I was up against.

I know that the content in my blog gets indexed by Google.  As most people can tell you I'm totally obsessed with my blog right now, so naturally I've been blogging about the importance of corporate blogging and neglecting other keywords like SEO.  Consequentially, we no longer rank as high as we used to for SEO.  I'm upset.  In fact I'm down right mad.  I want my ranking.  I had it.  I worked for it.  Now I've lost it.  Let me set one thing straight Mr. Google;  we are search engine optimizers.  We are SEO experts.  We have something to say about search marketing.  Is that enough key words for you?  Can I have my 1st page ranking, please?

Let this be a lesson to all you corporate bloggers out there.  Don't put all your eggs in one basket.  Spread your topics out over all aspects of your business, or your competitors will gain ground.  You will sacrifice all that you've worked for.  You'll be forced to whine and cry like I am.  You'll end up down on your knees begging for Google's forgiveness.  Heed my warning.

I met with Scott Abel this past Tuesday and we briefly spoke about semantic search.  I'll admit, I've read about semantic search in the past but I wasn't very familiar with it.  So I did a little more research.

Semantic search is based on objects instead of just keywords, as traditional search is today. Today's search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc) find websites that contain the keywords you entered. Now, if I typed in "horn" I will get many different results.  I will get results for french horns, Cape Horn, Horn's Gaslight Bar & Restaurant on Mackinac Island, Hansen & Horn, and many other results.  But I will have to sort through all of those results to find what I'm really looking for, my grade school gym teacher "Mr. Horn." 

Semantic search would allow me to sort results by the type of object instead of just wether the pages included my keywords.  When I type "horn" I could also include "person."  So my query might be "person horn." A good semantic web search engine would also recognize that many different object types exist for the word horn and present those to me so I could easily narrow my selection.

We constantly hype about good keyword placement and strong search engine optimization but semantic web presents a different twist in search that could yield much more relevant results and get us to the information we want faster. Semantic search has a long way to go before being fully adopted but it is something to keep your eye on.

Last night I joined thousands of other parrotheads to witness the Indianapolis performance of Jimmy Buffet and the Coral Reefer Band, and I came to an interesting epiphany; as much as I've always enjoyed his music, Jimmy Buffet is not a musical genius.  He is, however, a certified marketing genius.  What is the key to his success?  I argue that all of the success that Jimmy Buffet has ever had can be directly attributed to FRESH CONTENT!

Think about it.  The great thing about Jimmy Buffet is that he's always doing something new.  For example, at last night's show his big new push was for Landshark Lager, a new beer he released this year which is very similar to Corona.  You can bet that there were hundreds of signs, t-shirts, banners, hats, etc. plastered all over everything and everyone in the arena.

Imagine if the promotional memorabilia wasn't at the venue.  Imagine if JB wasn't promoting the new product on his website.  Do you think there would have been anywhere near that amount of hype?  Absolutely not!  Every business changes.  It's the only way to stay relevant in the market.  Your website marketing must reflect your most recent activity.  Your search engine optimization should be kept as up-to-date as possible to make absolutely sure that people looking for your company find it, even if you're not quite as famous as Jimmy Buffet.

As I was sifting through all of the usual news stories on CNN this morning, I came across one that piqued my interest (thanks, Dave).  There is a new search engine in town.  Started by a couple of ex-Googlers, 'Cuil' has launched in the recent days and has a new, and perhaps better, method for indexing and ranking websites.  Cuil's idea is that popularity of a website shouldn't be the dominant factor to whether a site can be found or not.  Their philosophy is this:  relevant content matters. 

They aren't tracking users, counting links, or being picky about who gets indexed and who doesn't.  They have indexed over 120 billion pages so far, and you can expect that number to grow pretty quickly.  Cuil has the idea that the internet has grown, search should too. 

If content is in fact becoming king, then it has become very apparent that having a way to manage that content is extremely important.  An easy-to-use content management system can take away any frustration that updating a website can cause.  No longer does it need to take an hour to make a change, with the right system (Marketpath CMS, hint hint) it can take only a few seconds.  If I have said it once, I'll say it again, providing relevant and up to date content can be the difference in driving traffic to your website.      

Marketing proffesionals all over the world are scrambling to beat their competition at the web race.  Who will finish first?  Who's marketing is the best marketing?  What techniques will put your company at the top. 

Search Engine Optimization is a buzzword that is currently circulating around the marketing world.  There are companies that charge tens of thousands of dollars, and still can't guarantee that your name will rank on the first page of the Google organic search. 

The truth is that there is no guarantee when it comes to SEO.  It is easy to rank for certain terms, because very few people are searching for them.  Other terms are nearly impossible to rank for. 

A good CMS is an integral part of attaining high organic search rankings.  If content has been posted recently, search engines look at it more seriously (would you rather read yesterday's newspaper or today's newspaper?).  Another powerful tool is the corporate blog.  I have a business associate who was able to significantly increase his search rankings simply by writing in his blog regularly.  We the people want new content!

In my last post I wrote about the downfalls of flash, search engine optimization, and direct linking.  Now it's time to talk about AJAX and web 2.0 and how search engines perceive the two.  First of alll, let's define AJAX and web 2.0.

AJAX is an achronym for Asynchronous Javascript And XML.  It provides web clients (e.g. Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Safari) a mechanism for delivering rich experiences for its users.  Google Suggest  is an example of an application that uses AJAX.  As you type, suggestions appear that you can click on to quickly select your topic.  Notice that the entire screen doesn't refresh.  Instead of the browser making a call back to the original web server for a whole new page (including suggestions) it only updates the list of suggestions by passing the typed characters to the server - using AJAX.  The amount of data is very small and the data returned is also very small.... thus very fast.

AJAX enables the concept of web 2.0 - the rich user experience.  It is a great idea to build in a rich experience that makes it easier and more inuitive for users to interact.  Our web content management system has an enormous amount of AJAX programming.  But the problem is with search engines.

AJAX is based on Javascript and Javascript is based on user events (e.g. mouse-up, mouse-down, click, etc).  Search engines don't have the capability to launch javascript events which means if your website's navigation is based on AJAX (which, again, uses Javascript) then search engines will not be able to index it.  This means the website pages you want people to find will not be found because they were never indexed. 

The moral of the story is to use AJAX sparingly if you want your website to be indexed by search engines and definitely do not setup your navigation with AJAX or Javascript.  Check with a knowledgeable software developer and SEO firm and ask them if your site is SEO friendly.

Using Adobe Flash within a website at one time was the bane of search engine visibility.  Although Flash sites were often dazzling, highly interactive, and dynamic, they were not adequately being indexed (if at all) by the big search engines.  Here's a flashback article from 2003 on this topic. 

Adobe has just announced a plug-in available to Google and Yahoo that allows their search engines to act like a user clicking thorugh a flash website.  This seems to be the latest effort at indexing Flash sites but some say that obtaining a high search position willl still be difficult because of the inability to provide direct links within the flash site. 

For example, if a blogger finds a page in a flash site that is several clicks deep she will not be able to link directly to that page in her blog.  Instead, she would have to link to the front page (the page that loads initially) and instruct the user how to get to the deeper level page.  Yuck!

So, if you want to build a highly interactive website, use AJAX and Web 2.0 technologies instead of Flash.  You can still use Flash movies embedded within your site but don't let the Flash handle your website navigation.  I'd like to caution, though, that AJAX and Web 2.0 have their own issues which I'll tackle in my next post.

Ajax in many ways is the basis for Web 2.0.  The funny thing is that Ajax has been around long before the word web 2.0 was coined.  Microsoft developed a Javascript function for Internet Explore 5 called XmlHttpRequest.  This is the essence of Ajax.  One single function which seems to have caused an overnight explosion of rich web-based applications.

Web 2.0 is based on this because Web 2.0 is highly interactive - similar to what you would find in a desktop application.  Web 2.0 is about the rich user experience.  No slow page loads or postbacks.  Almost instant data and responses because most of the processing is performed on the client machine as opposed to the server (where most processing took place 5 years ago). 

Google maps and Microsoft's LiveSearch both use a great deal of Ajax and web 2.0 methodologies.  Another site with Ajax examples (the first one that showed up in search results) is http://www.ajaxdaddy.com/.

Marketpath CMS uses Ajax throughout the entire application on every page and every dialog.  We could probably stretch all of our Ajax code from coast to coast in 12pt font. 

Developing web-based applications with Ajax and web 2.0 methodologies is no longer cutting edge.  It is a requirement for intutive, easy-to-use, and responsive user interaction.

4/24/2008 - Harding Poorman Group, an Indianapolis printing company that specializes in offset printing, printing on plastics, wide-format printing, one-to-one marketing, cd/dvd duplication and mailing/fulfilment services, has chosen Marketpath for website design, search engine optimization and web content management for its seven websites.

The new Harding Poorman Group websites will be completed and live in early June.