SEO Tactics Versus SEO Strategies – Where Do I Begin?

May 12, 2013 By + Leave a Comment
woman with a question mark sign

Where do I start with SEO and internet marketing?

Internet marketing is truly a double-edged sword. There are SO many free or nearly free tools out there that allow us to create amazing systems fairly easily. WordPress is one such tool. Download their free software, drop a theme (design) on top, and boom, you’ve got a blog and/or website. Get a free SEO plugin (add-on) that promises to make the Google gods happy.

E-mail marketing tools like Constant Contact give us the tools and templates to create great looking, spam-resistant e-mail newsletters that our customers read and respond to.

Here at the Search Engine Academy, our hands-on workshops teach lots of students from all over the world the tactics they need in order to “do” SEO the correct way:

  • How to do keyword research
  • How to generate great content readers (and the search engines) love
  • How to use all the amazing free (and paid) Google tools like Adwords, Analytics, Webmaster Tools, Authorship, Google+, etc.
  • How to understand all the mechanics of search engine optimization (META tags, links, URLs, etc.)

Once you have even the basics down from reading information online (like in this blog) or even taking a basic SEO class, you can do a reasonable job and get reasonable results. Our advanced SEO training takes students even further with more tactics that they can implement to get even better results.

In my opinion, this is all fantastic stuff. Some people like consuming the plethora of information on their own and trying things out. Others like to get the training in a classroom. I did just that and took John Alexander’s class in 2007.

But honestly, there’s something missing here.

Where Do I Begin?

Just because we have a mechanic’s set of tools in our garage, doesn’t necessarily make us a mechanic. Looking at all the wrenches, screwdrivers, ratchets and power tools, makes it difficult to know where to start. Maybe we know something’s not working right or not quite tuned up with our car, but where do we start?

A seasoned mechanic will know how to diagnose the issues and put together a plan to get things humming again.

Websites can suffer the same fate. Maybe things are working OK, but it’s not the finely tuned machine that we want it to be, and we just don’t know where to begin to figure it out. Some not-so-obvious issues might include any or all of the following independently or in combination:

  • Usability issues (difficulty people finding what they want)
  • Customer capture and conversion issues
  • Coding issues
  • SEO problems
  • Technical problems

Then when you consider all the options for online marketing:

  • Search engine optimization (SEO)
  • Social media
  • E-mail marketing
  • Paid advertising
  • Optimized press releases
  • Blogging
  • Etc.

This can add up to a lot of confusion and churning.

Where do I begin? Truly. Where do I start to make it work?

Internet Marketing Retreat

I’ve been thinking about this for awhile, and while I love teaching the tactics in our workshops, I’m considering having a completely separate internet marketing retreat that focuses on these problems. I want to structure a one-day session for people like you who feel it’s just too overwhelming to try to figure out where to start with your digital marketing efforts. Maybe you’ve already been through our (or another) SEO class. Maybe you just have the basics that you’ve read about here or other places. That’s OK. This won’t be a technical, in-the-weeds session.

Instead, I want to bring it up to a higher level. Participants will walk out of the room at the end of the day with a full internet marketing plan in their hands, ready to implement. It will include:

  • A detailed analysis of your website – usability, flow, client capture tools, and technical
  • A strategy for attracting the types of customers that YOU want
  • A customized plan for your business to implement the strategy that will work for you

However, first things first. I want to find out if you’re interested in this before I put any plans down, but I want to move quickly. If you’d be interested in participating in a customized strategy planning session:

Please send me a blank e-mail to seoretreat [at] aweber [dot] com with the subject “I’m interested in the internet marketing retreat!”

This doesn’t commit you to anything, it just lets me know there’s interest. You’ll hear back from me within the next couple weeks on more details as I put this together.

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Filed Under: News, SEO, SEO Blogging, Workshops Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Does SEO Matter Anymore To Rank In SERPS?

May 7, 2013 By + 2 Comments

Howdy ho, my SEO comrades! Search Engine Academy has to answer the question “does SEO matter?” posed constantly. The short answer is yes, SEO does matter. The longer answer is that there’s more than just SEO nowadays to get visbility in the search engine results pages (SERPs).

does SEO matterThe next thing I hear is “well, just exactly how much does SEO matter in the big scheme of things?” I can’t give you a number or percentage; smarter people than me probably have that knowledge on the tip of their tongue, but let’s just say it matters a helluva lot.

Let’s take a look at some fundamental SEO stuff and things that aren’t likely to change anytime soon.

First, doing keyword research – the foundation, the bedrock, the number one step in your SEO journey – is more critical than ever. She who ranks high for multiple keyword phrases shows up higher in SERPs. Besides, if you don’t know the keywords and phrases your target market is plugging into Google, how the hell are you going to show up in their search results?

Creating and optimizing useful, unique meta data – I hope it’s not a news flash to you that taking the time and effort to make butt kicking meta titles and descriptions that match the page content they’re married to is still extremely important. Use your chosen keyword phrase in the title and description tag, try to fit in a call to action, and if local SEO is critical for your business, be sure to include specific geographic information such as a city, state, county, zip code, etc.

Writing high quality, useful, unique, educational content – Google maintains your job is to write for your human reader, not the search engine crawlers. By creating content that stands out and using natural language processing, and taking personalization of search into account, you should stand a good chance of getting good visibility in the SERPs.

Providing a helpful site navigation experience with a user-friendly linking strategy – be sure you sit down and map out your site’s Information Architecture (IA). Make it easy for your target audience to find your most important content quickly. Yes, this is part of SEO.

Provide a site map – I don’t care if your site is only five pages. Make sure the site map is linked on every page. It’s for the human reader and the search engine crawlers.

Even if you’re doing social media, does SEO matter still?

Sure – SEO augments your social media efforts. Can you use a keyword phrase in your social media streams, titles, descriptions or alt tags? Do so!

In particular, if you’re playing around in Google Plus with a personal profile, Google Authorship, Google Community pages and hangouts, it’s to your advantage to use your SEO skills and knowledge to make sure you show up higher in the G+ landscape.

I hope this short diatribe answers the question. I realize there are fads, that strategies come and go, or are turned upside down by algorithm and ranking changes like Google Penguin and Panda, but through all the changes, SEO still comes out on the other side as being necessary.

Until next time, keep it between the ditches, and if you’ve got some basic SEO to do your site, why not go ahead and knock it out, then measure the results?

All the best to you,

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Filed Under: Content Marketing, Link Building, Local Search, Meta Tags, SEO Tagged With: , ,

Google Authorship – 7 Benefits Beyond SEO

April 26, 2013 By + 6 Comments

Google trends on Google Authorship from 2011 to 2013

The interest in Google Authorship is rising almost as fast as the increase of usage of mobile devices to browse websites and search the internet.  It got off to a slow start, but the adoption rate among search engine optimization and social media marketing professionals is quickly picking up steam.

I’m a little embarrassed to admit that when I first heard about Google Authorship it went in one ear and out of the other.  I couldn’t imagine setting up yet another profile on yet another social network just so my picture would show up on a search results page.

Thank goodness my colleague and fellow Search Engine Academy instructor Nancy Wigal kept encouraging and educating me about the importance of  Google Authorship and Google Plus and how they can help you achieve your SEO goals.  If it hadn’t been for her I may have waited to verify my authorship or even worse, I may not have done it at all {GASP!}

In a very short amount of time I’ve gone from being ambivalent about it to borderline fanatical.  I recently came across a good Quick Start Guide on Search Engine Watch, the second sentence of the article by Chuck Price was “If you aren’t on Google+, you’re on the path to irrelevance.”  It might have been that sentence that tipped the scale from mere supporter to full-fledged advocate.

Simply put, Google Authorship is going through a process which includes setting up a profile on Google+ to verify your identity as an author.  Or in other words they know that a real human wrote and published the content.

When I first heard about it, I thought, “Ok, so after I set up a Google + profile and now my picture might show up on a search result page, so what.”  How is that going to help me with SEO?

Don’t get me wrong, I thought it would be kind of cool to have my picture associated with a piece of content but other than that I didn’t really ‘get’ it.  And boy oh boy – did I totally miss the importance of Google+and why it should be part of your web presence and search engine optimization strategy.

The bottom line is that  If you have a Google+ profile you’ll be more visible in search results than if you don’t have one.  This started to happen as far back as 2009 (ancient history in internet time) when Google introduced Social Search, which was designed to help people quickly find publicly available web content from your social contacts. In January of 2012, they introduced Search, plus Your World, which incorporates personal results, profiles, people, and pages in search. In other words if you search on a term that someone in one of your circles has written about, their content will be far more likely to show up in your search results.

As with anything else related to SEO, there are additional variables that will be taken into account before a piece of content is considered relevant enough to display in your results, but who you are connected to and whether or not they’ve verified authorship is certainly one of them.

There are benefits beyond SEO as well, and if you’re an author of content I think you’ll welcome them.

Benefits of Google Authorship:

  1. Higher click through rates - statistically people click through at a higher rate on links with rich snippets
  2. Establish authority – a result with a headshot separates you from the back and reinforces that it’s a credible piece of content
  3. Keep your identity – a picture’s worth a thousand words – if you have a common name like ‘Beth Browning,’ you’ll be able to put the name with a face
  4. Beat plagiarism - he original author gets credit – wave goodbye to copy artists and article spinners
  5. Build Trust - it’s all about relationships and people and this is one more way to build trust in an on-line world
  6. Verify guest posts and comments – your profile follows along as you comment on blogs and publish posts on other blogs
  7. Elevate the value and role of writers – as businesses start to recognize the benefits, good writers won’t have to defend why they charge $100 or more for a blog post

If you’re contributing content and you haven’t verified your Google+ Authorship, don’t wait any longer – get started here now.

Join me here on Google+ for regular tips on SEO and more – I’m still learning, so let’s have some fun while we learn together – be sure to mention you read this post.

What are your thoughts about Google Authorship?

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Filed Under: Content Marketing, SEO Tagged With: , , , , ,

Local SEO: What to do About Google’s Utterly Unpredictable Moods

April 23, 2013 By + Leave a Comment

Local Search Can be a Frightening Place

alice and the cheshire cat“But I don’t want to go among mad people,” Alice remarked.
“Oh, you can’t help that,” said the Cat: “we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.”

Local Search is a visit to Wonderland through the Looking Glass.  I’ve encountered this strange terrain increasingly as I work with more and more clients who need to be present in local search results.  I’m going to use a recent adventure that I encountered on behalf of my client, and I want to share what I learned as a cautionary tale.  Warning, this is not for the faint of heart.

 

 

 

“When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.”

alice and humpty

Local means what Google says it means, neither more nor less.  The client I referred to above is ranked very well for traditional organic results but is invisible in local results.  This stems from some interesting confusion about their address (I wrote a separate blog post about the mess surrounding that situation and how we resolved it: “What to do When Google Maps Has it Wrong“).

One of our goals for this client is to make sure that they establish a presence in Google Local results.  This means targeting the infamous Google “7-Pack,” the block of local results that Google displays when they think the searcher has “local intent.”  In this case our client is moving company in a major metropolitan area.

A local listing can be a great advantage, but at the same time, Google has so stripped down what local search results display that in our practice we would always prefer a traditional organic listing to a local listing if – and this is a major “if” – the organic listing tops the 7-pack.  The reason for our preference for a pure organic listing has to do with our desire to optimize the title of the listing for improved conversions.  Typically the title of the search engine results page (SERP) listing is drawn from the “Title Tag” of the page that the listing links to.  But in local, typically the title of the listing is the business name.   This leads to an undesirable result if the business name is less than intuitive.  For example, I found this listing in a search for moving companies in San Diego:

 

Google search results for 7-pack listing

(click to see larger)

 

Additionally, you may have noticed that Google does not display an additional text snippet in local results, which in traditional organic results is usually taken from the Meta Description tag (especially if one has been optimized for the page, something we always do for our clients).

This leads to another, related concern: usually Google seems reluctant to display a traditional organic listing for business and a local search listing on the same page.  This is sometimes called a “double.”  And in some markets for some terms it’s easy to score a double, but usually only if there are very few results for the search term.  The following is an example of a double:

screen shot of google local results

(click to see larger)

But in this case a double seems unlikely.  I checked the term “moving companies” in about 6 different metro markets and could not find a single instance where any of the search results showed the same company in both organic and local results on the same page.   While I was checking, I was struck again by the stark inconsistency of how Google displays results.  And this is not an issue of personalization of search, because in each case they are displaying the results to the same confused person: me.

So take a look at the following screen shots, which contrasts the different results in 3 metro areas.  Below the screen captures, you’ll see my takeaways on this mess.

A Split 7-Pack in Google Search Results for San Diego

screen shot of google search for moving companies san diego

In San Diego only the top two traditional organic listings appear above the fold, and both of those are claimed by Yelp. So, good luck in San Diego.

 

 In Salt Lake City the 7-Pack Rules the SERP

 

screen shot of google search results for "moving companies salt lake city"

In Salt Lake City not a single traditional organic result for "moving companies" appears above the fold.

 

 In Los Angeles Your 7-Pack is Down to a Threebie

 

screen shot of google search results for "moving companies los angeles"

Only 3 local results in L.A. Probably because it's such a small city.

 

“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.” 
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master – - that’s all.”  

So how do you master such uncertain terrain as what Google has created for us?  Really you only have one option: you have to master it all.  Your best result would be a top organic ranking, if it shows above the 7-pack.  But since you have no guarantee that will happen, you must also work toward a position in local results.  My recommendation would be to go aggressively after the traditional organic ranking by studying the competitive landscape.  Be present in Google Places/Plus Local, but don’t abandon your traditional SEO for a local emphasis just yet.

I’d love to here your experiences in Wonderland.  Leave a comment.

By the way, our Master SEO Class (which I teach in Colorado and Utah) goes into considerable depth on the techniques that you need, not merely for traditional SEO, but local search optimization as well.  To find a class near you, check out our schedule of SEO Workshops.

 

 

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Local Search Optimization: What to Do When Google Maps Has it Wrong

April 19, 2013 By + Leave a Comment

image showing huge Google push pinGoogle Gets Confused Just like the Rest of Us

Local Search is a strange place, but one thing seems to be clear:  One of the single most important factors in Local SEO is something you might hear cryptically called “NAP Match” or “NAP consistency.”  NAP stands for “Name, Address, Phone.”  Making sure that the NAP is consistent between various local directories, and especially that it is consistent between your website and Google/Bing/Yahoo/Yelp (otherwise known as the “Gang of 4″) is one of the basic best practices of Local SEO.  (You can find this and other information contained here in David Mihm’s incredibly useful local search ranking factors survey.)  Naturally, you run a big risk if you choose to represent your address in a way that conflicts with Google.  Unless of course you can get Google to see reason and correct their version of the address.  Doesn’t that sound easy?  Well, sometimes.

how to submit a problem report in Google Maps

(click to see larger)

Correcting An Address When it’s Easy

To correct your address, you can log into your Google Places page, if you’ve verified that you’re the owner, and correct it.  Or, if you don’t own the business, you can conduct a search at maps.google.com, find the listing, and “Report a Problem.”  (See screen shot at left)

But, what happens when Google does NOT show your business, verified or not, in its vast and conflicted database of local businesses?  How do you submit a correction?

I recently had to struggle with a situation where Google did not have the business in Places, but was convinced that the business address was incorrect.  Allow me to clarify.

My client has a business location in a fairly new industrial park in Las Vegas.  By fairly new, I mean it’s only been there about a year.  However even that is long enough for Google to show the industrial park correctly in a map view.

 

Spring Valley “Trumps” Las Vegas

Unfortunately for my client, Google decided that the neighborhood was more important than the exact city in showing the address.  When I Google the address for this business, notice what Google changes the city to in the next screen shot.

screen shot of address mismatch in Google places search

(click to see larger)

Now before we go any further, let me explain that the address I typed into the search field is a postal-service-verified address, and that the actual city really is Las Vegas.  Spring Valley is an unincorporated township within Las Vegas, in essence a sub-division.  My client needs to be recognized as being a Las Vegas business, not a Spring Valley business (I think lots of Las Vegans don’t know where Spring Valley really is, and I grew up near Spring Valley in San Diego County, so the potential for confusion is considerable).

What adds to the complication is the fact that my client’s business name was unknown to Google.  When I Googled my client’s business, I got irrelevant, unrelated business results.  The client has no Place Page, in other words.

In order to try and figure out what was going on, I gave it another try, but this time I omitted the zip code when I searched.  Hurray!  Google let me keep the city name as Las Vegas.

image of another local search address mismatch in Google

(click to see larger)

But wait.  What’s this I see?  They’ve changed the zip code to 89148.  That’s not even close.

I won’t even mention the variant where Google gave me the correct city but switched the zip code to 89118, but they did that as well.

Can You Fight Google Hall?

At this point I had a dilemma.  Do I create a place page using an address that Google won’t validate?  I already have on client where Google simply won’t accept a correction I made to their address via their Place Page.  I can’t really move forward and list the client with an inaccurate zip code, and although Spring Valley might create an address where mail will find them, it’s an unacceptable marketing and branding situation.

 

Getting Help

At this point I turned to an excellent resource for local search issues, the Catalyst eMarketing Local Search forum run by Local SEO guru Linda Buquet.  My question sparked a very informative thread that reminded me of a long forgotten, and little noticed, branch of Google’s empire called Google Mapmaker.  And mapmaker proved to be the solution to my problem.

I was able to log into my personal Google account, navigate to http://www.google.com/mapmaker and create a business listing at the correct address.  Google allowed me to input whatever I wanted in that way.  Google reviews such submissions, but I was able to attach a note explaining the situation and clarifying the correct zip and city name for the client’s business.  Google reviewed and approved it within 24 hours and, voila!, my client’s business now shows under its correct and approved name.  Additionally, they also immediately showed up in Places and I was able to merely claim them using the traditional claiming process.

screen capture of adding a place to Google map maker

(click to see larger)

Now that Map Maker is back on, er, my map…I can see one more option in my steadily increasing list of local SEO tools.

By the way, in our Master SEO Class we do an in-depth module on local search.  The class is in a workshop format and is taught across the United States, as well as Europe, Asia, and Australia.  For SEO class dates, please check our schedule.  And if you are looking for specific local SEO information, I highly recommend Linda and the community at http://localsearchforum.catalystemarketing.com.

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Filed Under: Local Search, Misc, SEO Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Press Releases, Duplicate Content, & SEO

April 12, 2013 By + Leave a Comment

In my last post, Beyond the Optimized Press Release – What is the Media Looking for?, I described the key components of a News Room and shared some tips for making sure your website is media friendly. At the Search Engine Academy, we teach about the value of writing optimized press releases as part of a search engine optimization strategy.

One of the components that editors like to see on a website is a consolidated library of press releases, which is great except for the fact that it causes a duplicate content issue.  The original version of the press release was published through whatever service you use and if you post the exact same content on your website you are creating duplicate content and this could cause problems down the road because your site could end up being viewed as a duplicate content offender.

On a mission to find an answer that would enable my client to set up the best news room possible without creating a duplicate content issue, I turned to Google and my colleagues to find the best approach. I got pretty excited when I read about an option to use a syndication source tag as a way to cite the original content, but was deflated pretty quickly when I learned that it had been depreciated  and isn’t considered to be the best approach.

After exploring many options including:

Option 1: Create unique versions of the press release for each distribution channel: a wire version, website version, and a social media version.  Fresh content and different links.

Pros:

  • No duplicate content issue
  • Additional content that can help with SEO

Cons:

  • Resource intensive and time consuming to create multiple versions
  • It may be difficult to make them appreciably different depending on the scope of the announcement
Option 2: Update the robots.txt file to block the content in the news room from being indexed.

Pros:

  • No duplicate content issue
  • No need to invest in creating additional content

Cons:

  • Other content such as white papers and case studies that are stored in the same location as the press releases would not be indexed and they will lose the SEO value of this content.
Option 3:  Leave the copies of the press releases on their site add links to the original version of the news release.

Pros:

  • Easy to make minor changes to the exisiting press releases
  • No need to invest in creating additional content
  • The SEO value with other content in the newsroom remains in tact

Cons:

  • There is no real SEO benefit from it

By nature, presses releases will be syndicated, Google “knows” there will be copies of it all over the place, and it’s very common practice for companies to (including very large and savvy companies) to publish a copy of the release on their own domain.

If you’re concerned about duplicate content, and it’s not important to you to have a copy of the press release on your website, the cleanest approach is to publish the press release using a service such as PRWeb and include a link back to your website.   If you want to publish the press release on your site, you can evaluate the options here and make your decision based on how conservative you want to be.

In my client’s case (short term), we decided to go with option 3 in addition to writing a blog post in addition to the press release to expose the information to a different audience and get the SEO benefit.

What are your thoughts on the subject of press releases and duplicate content?

Until next time,

Cheers!

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Filed Under: Content Marketing, Duplicate Content, PR Web, Press Releases Tagged With: , , ,

Beyond the Optimized Press Release – What is the Media Looking for?

April 9, 2013 By + 1 Comment

One of my clients recently engaged a PR firm to assist them with content distribution and to build relationships with media so that we can get more exposure for their great products and services.  As a part of their search engine optimization strategy, I’ve been writing optimized press releases, case studies, and blog posts for them for about six months. We’ve been seeing great traction and improved lead generation from the blog posts and case studies.  Given the success, the time was right to expand the reach by including a PR firm who has solid contacts and relationships with the media.

In spite of what some naysayers think, an optimized press release is still a valuable search engine optimization tool.

The new relationship is proving to be a great experience for all of us.  I’m learning how to do an even better job when it comes to writing press releases from the gals at the PR agency and I’m passing along valuable SEO tips to my client and the agency.

One of the very interesting things that I learned is that it’s important to have a News Room on your website if you want to get the most traction possible from your press releases.  When someone from the media is determining whether or not to pick up and promote a press release they often go to the website to evaluate the credibility of the source as well as the newsworthiness of the announcement.

The key components a News Room are:

  • Company background – a 10 sentence overview that describes how a company was formed and what they offer.  It’s important to avoid marketing lingo, exaggerated adjectives, and industry jargon.
  • Press Releases – html or .pdf versions of company press release, organized by product offering if appropriate (this introduces a duplicate content conundrum which I’ll discuss in my next post).
  • Press Mentions – post links to any news your company has been mentioned in.
  • Product Resources – a library of product literature such as, whitepapers, case studies, and data sheets – this is a great opportunity to produce some keyword rich and very valuable content for your visitors.  Also include product screen shots and videos (optimized for SEO) in your library.
  • Corporate management – team bios with downloadable head shots in high and low resolution formats.
  • FAQ’s – the top 8 – 10 questions the press would ask about the product.  Avoid marketing lingo, be honest, and be clear about how you describe your product.
  • PR Contacts – who should the media call if they want additional information.

In a nutshell, it’s important to make your press room as easy to find and use as possible.  Don’t make editors jump through hoops to find the information they’re looking for.

Although it’s great to have the information in one tidy location for the media, it’s important to remember that if you’re posting exact copies of your press releases on your website, it’s likely that you’re causing a duplicate content headache.  In my next post, I’ll review options and solutions that will enable you to get the word out without having adverse affects.

Cheers!
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Filed Under: Content Marketing, PR Web, Press Releases Tagged With: , , , ,

Information Architecture Design, Documentation And SEO

April 3, 2013 By + Leave a Comment

Howdy, howdy, my SEO comrades! Search Engine Academy is back at ya with another Wednesday edition of information architecture (IA) and search engine optimization (SEO).

We have been showing you how to implement your IA plan. Let’s keep on rolling with IA design and documentation.

Now that your IA research and strategy are pretty well done, it’s time cough up an information architecture for the website. Whether you’ve done a small, simple site with a web design expert, or built a large controlled vocabulary as part of a larger design effort, what you produce as a deliverable is what you’ve experienced throughout this entire process.

How To Clearly Represent Your IA Efforts

As an IA expert, you’ll use a lot of visual representations to communicate the IA you’ve helped design. This can be really challenging, because IA is so multi-dimensional. You’ll need to design and present diagrams to show your IA efforts. Here’s a couple ways you can do this.

First, create and present multiple view of the information architecture. Websites, which can also be called digital information systems, can’t really be shown statically all at once. Instead, create a series of diagrams in different formats to communicate the various aspects of the IA you’ve worked on. Multiple diagrams may be the way to go.

Develop your diagrams for the different target audiences’ requirements. What you create to show the C-level folks may be very different from what you can share with the web development and design team.

It’s best if you did the presentations yourself. If the audience is unfamiliar with IA, your most beautiful diagrams will still look like gobbledegook. This is a great opportunity for severe miscommunication and disconnects that could leave the impression that you don’t know what hell you’re doing, that you didn’t listen to a damn thing that was said to you about requirements, etc. You need to be there in person to explain, translate, and heaven forbid, defend what you came up with.

If you can, get an understanding of what your target audience needs before you create your IA diagrams. Don’t assume anything…you know what that means!

The diagrams most frequently used are wireframes and blueprints. These emphasize website content structure, but not so much the semantic content. Blueprints and wireframes can show structure, movement and flow, but they can’t really talk to the semantic component of content or labels.

Visual Communication

You can communicate two things about a website IA with diagrams. You can define content components – what is a unit of content and how to group those content components. You can also show connections between content components – how they’re linked for navigating the site.

You can use something called a “visual vocabulary.” Basically, it’s symbols you can use to describe a system, structure or process. You use boxes, connector lines and arrows. It looks a lot like flow charts and organization charts, to be honest. If you use Microsoft Visio, there are several applications that play well with it to create IA diagrams.

Don’t know Visio, and don’t want to learn? You can use word processing tools to manually create diagrams. Whatever works for you, because you’re going to spend a lot of time creating, refining and presenting these things.

This is enough for today. Next week, we’ll look at blueprints, yay! Until next time, think about what type of software you might use to create an IA diagram, and how you might present it to a group of stakeholders.

In the meantime, keep it between the ditches!

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Mobile SEO in a World that is “Always on the Go”

March 22, 2013 By + 1 Comment

"Google on Smart Phone - Mobile SEO"Does your business need a mobile SEO strategy? You might be surprised how many businesses overlook this critical component of their overall search engine marketing strategy.  Mobile search is on the rise and it impacts both natural search and PPC.

The percentage of people who use mobile devices to search and shop online varies widely from one industry to another. The first thing you need to do before you write off the need to implement a mobile search engine optimization strategy is take a look at your analytics. Find out what percentage of your traffic is coming from a mobile device, which devices, and what they are doing on the site.  If you don’t have the information available, then the first thing you need to do is implement a tool like Google Analytics and start keeping track.

If you own or operate a local business like a restaurant, movie theater, gas station or store chances are good that people are searching for the products or services you sell on either their smart phone or tablet.  In fact, it’s not a stretch to say that there’s a high probability that they started their research on their laptop or desktop and incorporated the use of a mobile device when they got closer to the decision to buy.

Mobile search is driving in-store traffic:

  • 40% of mobile searches are local[1]

After finding a business on a smart phone:

  • 61% of people call the business[1]
  • 59% visit the location [1]

Mobile Search is Different

In addition to understanding the nuances of local and generic SEO strategies, marketers also need to know the requirements for mobile search.

There are a few facts about mobile devices that need to be taken into consideration from a usability standpoint:

  • Mobile devices have small screens
  • Data access is often-times slower than home or office internet service
  • Searches are generally done in real time and the searcher won’t want to scroll for important information

There are a couple of ways you can approach having a mobile friendly website.  It might be tempting to just miniaturize your site so that it scales down to fit on a mobile screen, but that’s not the best approach because mobile search needs are different from desktop requirements. On a desktop solution, it’s great to provide as much information about a product or service as possible, but a mobile interface should contain “just the facts.” You also want to minimize (if not remove completely) the use of video and heavy graphics.  Forget about flash, not only is it bad from an SEO standpoint, the objects won’t render on an iPad or iPhone.

Given the fact that the information and presentation for a mobile device is a scaled down version of a full website, it’s best to create a mobile website or App.  In addition to having a mobile site, provide access to your full site in case the visitor wants to go there.

Mobile SEO Tips:

  • Make it easy for searchers to find phone numbers, directions, hours of business, and other key information.
  • Keep the mobile website on your own domain.
  • Use “click to call”
  • Make sure it’s fast – reduce the size of rich content
  • Direct the search engines mobile crawlers and the users to the mobile site
  • Optimize your meta descriptions for mobile by using shorter queries

Capture new leads and drive more traffic to your business by adding a strategy for mobile to your search engine optimization strategy.

What’s your favorite mobile SEO strategy?

Until next time, Cheers!

 

[1] Google Performics & ROIResearch 2011 Mobile Insights Study (March 2011)

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Information Architecture Strategy And SEO Part 7 #SEO

March 20, 2013 By + 2 Comments

Hello to my SEO friends! Search Engine Academy has another Wednesday regular post for you on Information Architecture (IA) and search engine optimization (SEO). We have talked about how you can plan and implement IA into your SEO strategy for a little more than a year now. So let’s keep going, shall we?

Lately, we’ve been going over how to implement your IA strategy. Today, let’s talk about a key deliverable – the IA strategy report.

If you’ve done IA, you know it takes a lot of time for larger sites. If you’re doing IA for a client, this strategy report is the one that has to hit a home run. You must now show the client why and how IA helps your SEO strategy. You’re integrating everything into this document – the history of the site (unless it’s a new launch), research, analysis, testing, etc.

If you’ve been part of a team, this is where you all gather around the table, hold hands, sing Kumbaya and put the damn thing together, but you, as the IA expert, are the one who has to do the heavy lifting. Sorry!

Your challenge is put this report together so that it’s somewhat interesting to read, isn’t technical and clearly explains the IA you and your team propose.

Organizing the first draft is always the hardest part, isn’t it? You bet! IA is not linear, but guess what – the report is. Well, you will need images, illustrations and visuals. A picture is truly worth a thousand words, especially here, since IA can be a vague, fuzzy thing that’s just “out there.”

Here’s a sample table of contents you could use as a jumping off point. If it’s not perfect, then modify it for your use:

  • Executive Summary
  • Site Audience/Site Mission/Site Vision
  • Results of Benchmarking, User Interviews and Content Analysis
  • Site Organization and Content
  • Navigation
  • Labeling
  • Features
  • IA Strategies and Approaches
  • Mockups of Content Areas
  • Navigation Elements
  • Distributed Content IA Strategy
  • Content Management

I bet you’re wondering how long your report should be. If it’s a large, large, LARGE site, the report could easily go 100+ pages. In general, if you can keep it to about 50 pages or less, that would be preferable. People don’t have the time or energy to read long, large reports. You run the risk of losing the war before you even get started.

Executive Summary

The Executive Summary should be your 100,000 foot view. Make it a high level outline of your goals and the methods you used. Take a lot of care in writing this, as it sets the tone for the rest of the report. It’s very much like that first impression thing. Make it boring, and nobody will go past it.

If you can keep it one page, that’s great! You will want the best editor in the world, the most ruthless editor in the world to go over the report and cut the fat out of it.

Site Audience/Site Mission/Site Vision

Define the target audience and the site’s goals. Copy and paste the website’s mission here. If you think it makes the report more readable, create a table or matrix that lists the audiences and the site’s role for each target audience.

Make a table or matrix out of your lessons learned. People can easily scan the table and see the pain you went through without having to read a novel about the whole experience.

You could label the columns as Observation, Conclusion and Implications for the Site IA.

In the strategies and approaches section, discuss however many strategies you came up with for the site. If you have an accompanying wireframe, make a table that lists the callouts. Someone can print this report, separate the pages and compare the information to the wireframe.

Use flow charts and illustrations to help the end reader see the layout and information flow. From the wonderful book that’s written by Peter Morville & Louis Rosenfeld called “Information Architecture for the World Wide Web,” have a look at these:

Conceptual Blueprint Example for IA & SEO

Conceptual Blueprint

The wireframe

Wireframe For IA & SEO

IA & SEO Distributed Content Layout

Distributed Content Architecture

Hopefully now you have some ideas about how to draft a report. It doesn’t have to be exactly like this, but in general, this is good reporting structure that will present the information in a fairly organized manner. Until next time, think about the report you could develop for your client. And as always, keep it between the ditches, alright?

All the best,

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