SEO Rants and Resources

Are you asking too much of your customers?

One of the most common mistakes sites make in welcoming a new visitor is to expect her to register before she can get to the “good parts” of the site. Of course as marketers we all want a lot of information, but the visitor has no idea if the information is worth getting on “another” list. Gathering the information is good for the company but what is in it for the visitor?

Cord Silverstein, who blogs at Marketing Hipster, suspects that sites requiring registration don’t provide enough for a visitor to come back a second time so they have to capture the information on the first visit. Silvertein’s advice is to create a site worthy of repeat visits and use a registration form that only captures 3 pieces of information. Name, email address and zip code. With this information you can contact them again, personalize messages to them and know what part of the country they live in.

You can read the full story here:

 http://www.marketinghipster.com/2007/08/28/online-registrations-done-wrong/

Sneak Peaks in search results

One of the smaller search engines, Ask -  www.ask.com, has been using sneak peeks to give searchers a quick peak at what they can expect from a site before they visit it.  Searchers who use Ask.com can mouse over an icon next to many results and see a screen shot of the website. No clicking needed.

A search for alkaline battery produces results images, encyclopedia and video results with images along side the standard text listings.

Google, always watching for search trends, seems to have noticed, because they've filed a patent for expanding their own snippets.  It looks like Google searchers will be able to read expanded summaries of pages, or longer clips of page text. This tactic appeals to searchers who are now demanding more and more information faster and faster from the top Internet search engines, and who don't want to waste precious seconds clicking on a link and then on the back button to find just the right site for their needs. For the search marketer it means paying more attention to where the information is drawn from so they can control the image and the text.

SEO/SEM firm Pageviews Releases B2B Search Engine Optimization and Marketing White Paper

Everyday more and more people turn to the internet to research products and services prior to making a purchase. This is great news for the companies whose web pages are found in the top search engine results pages. But for millions of business to business companies this is not happening. Too many times, searchers are not finding the best product or service and are making decisions for their company based on the product or service they find rather than the best available solution. This leaves both the marketer and the searcher with less than desirable results.

 For many B2B marketers this is not acceptable but many do not understand how to improve their search positions. B2B companies spend money each year on traditional marketing only to loose new customers to competitors just because the competitor is easier to find in a search.

 There are two ways to get ranked high in the search engine results pages. Companies can pay search engines like Google to be listed in ads at the top of the results pages. The more popular the ad the more often it is shown. Each time the ad is clicked on, delivering a visitor to the advertiser’s site there is a “pay-per-click” charge. The cost of these clicks range from a low of $.10 per click to over $50. per click. While not complicated to set up, management can be time consuming and the cost of clicks can add up quickly.

 Search engine optimization is the process of modifying an existing web site to make it easy for the search engines to read and to index the pages. By changing certain elements on pages it clarifies the exact topic to the search engines.  Working hand in hand with these on page modifications are the search engines definition of reputation and popularity of the page. The reputation is defined by what the page is about and what the links that point to the page say about it. The popularity is defined by the number of relevant links that point to the page.

 According to Terry Mickelson, President of Scottsdale, AZ  based Page Views, “There are many challenges to reaching the B2B buyer at just the right time. For example understanding what words will be searched for at different times in the buying cycle. When a B2B prospect starts researching for solutions to their problem, they may initially search for something like; organize sales leads. The person who has a better understanding of the market may search for customer relationship management or even do a brand specific search; SalesLogix customer relationship management. If you do not have the right words selected you may generate additional traffic but it will not convert to leads or sales, wasting time and money.” 

 Page Views, Inc. a leading search engine optimization firm  The paper details how to overcome this challenge using 10 proven techniques developed for the competitive B2B online marketplace and is available at no cost. To download a free copy of B2B Search Engine Optimization and Marketing go to: www.pageviews.com