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April 21, 2008
8 redesign mistakes that can ruin your Google rank
By Kai Blum
Any of the following redesign mistakes can negatively impact your Google rank:
- Change page URLs and other file names (images, pdfs)
- Use different page titles and descriptions
- Replace HTML-based headlines and texts with graphics or Flash
- Make page text changes (content, formatting)
- Change your internal link structure
- Make changes to link anchor texts
- Make changes to alt tags of navigational elements and images
- Change links to external pages
In other words: Stay away from a complete redesign, if your web site is already ranked No. 1 on Google for your most important keywords phrases — unless you have an unbeatable number of quality inbound links. Even then, be very careful not to make any of the mistakes listed above, because on-page optimization is the foundation of search engine marketing success!
Posted by Alicia Dorset at 04:15 PM
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April 14, 2008
How choosing a physical location can influence Google rank
By Kai Blum
Seventy-four percent of U.S. consumers use search engines to look for local business information, according to Nielsen.
When they use a specific keyword, let’s say “massage” and combine it with a city name, for example “Ann Arbor,” Google will not only display the organic search results and the pay-per-click ads, but also ten “Local Business Results” near the top of the page and “number” them A-J.
The businesses with the most central physical address are usually listed first. I say “usually,” because there’s always a stray.
- “As with all other Google search results, Local listings ranks results based on relevance. Distance is one factor that goes into our relevancy ranking, but there are many factors as well. Sometimes our search technology will decide that a business that's farther away is more likely to have what you're looking for than a business that's closer.”
There’s no doubt in my mind that distance is the most important factor and therefore you should not only use the right keywords when naming your small business, but also choose a central mailing address.
Posted by Alicia Dorset at 09:48 AM
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April 09, 2008
The tools of the conference trade
By Alicia Dorset
As you probably read from Charlie's last post, he was at BlogHer Business last week, and I was right there next to him, enjoying another great discussion from some of the blogosphere's best minds. You might be wondering why you didn't see live updates from NYC here on BlogWorks. Here's why.
In our office, I think we can best be described as techy nerds. We love new digital technology, and right now there seems to be a never-ending supply of it. Some of us have been obsessed lately with Tumblr, a microblogging platform that lends itself perfectly to live blogging, blogging on the go and sending quick updates (photos, videos, links and even quotes). Think of it as a beefier Twitter.
For BHB, we decided that would be the perfect conference to try out Tumblr. We launched MSL Digital in the field log, a microblog that came in incredibly handy. Not only could I liveblog each session I attended, the blog-via-mobile function was a lifesaver when the conference's Internet connection went down and I headed over to my trusty iPhone to keep doing work.
Damian Rintelmann, our director of web operations, is a devoted Tumblr-er (not even close to a word), and is a fan of Jon Cockle, better know as Yongfook, a web designer based in Tokyo. He's turned his Tumblr into a "lifestream," and pulls in feeds from all of the web properties he's a member of. It's a brilliant concept and shows you the potential of the platform.
I know I use Tumblr as one of my personal blogs, and Damian and Dan Nixon, one of our web producers, have integrated Tumblr into their exisiting blogs. I can't wait to see it put to use for our clients.
Tumblr wasn't the only tool we used to get conference info during BHB. Charlie was regularly updating his own Twitter feed to not only get the word out, but stay up to date with some of his favorite mommy bloggers who were attending other conferences that day.
I'm curious... What do you use when you attend a conference to let others know what you're up to?
Posted by Alicia Dorset at 10:49 AM
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BlogHer Business: It's Not About You, It's About Them
By Charlie Kondek
I attended BlogHer Business last week in New York City. It was a good conference and a great chance to meet a lot of interesting people. Some of the folks I met are bloggers, some PR and marketing folks, and many are both. I even got to meet a few folks I've previously only known online or over the phone.
There was too much happening there over two insightful days for me to sum it up in one post. There were several great presentations by a variety of people on things being done in the realm of blogging, social media, social media-based marketing and PR, and other topics. Do click over to BlogHer's page to get a run-down of some of the presentations. Among them were:
- Research by BlogHer showing the habits of women bloggers. More of them are blogging, and more frequently. Their top motives for blogging are: fun, self-expression, and to connect with others. That's just a few of their findings.
- Jennifer Cisney of Kodak's Thousand Words blog talked about how the blog expresses the brand. It is, simply, passion for photography.
- General Motors (a client of ours) talked about the success it had with an event for the Manic Mommies community that shifted perceptions about the brand and engendered goodwill between the brand and the participants.
- Heather Gorringe is a delightful presenter, the chief brain behind Wiggly Wigglers, creator of a web site, blog and podcast for a company that sells worms from Herefordshire, in the U.K. Ok, it's not just worms, it's earth-friendly gardening supplies of all kinds. What was most remarkable about Heather, to me, was her down-to-earth manner of reducing what are seemingly complex marketing problems to the very simple process of "having a chat." She makes the new media landscape as approachable as an English village.
- Graco talked about the success it had with bringing bloggers to an event, and made the very important point that while people distrust companies, they trust individuals. They communicated through their work in this space that Graco, the company, is also people, and wants to relate, person to person, to its customers.
Those are just a few of the high points, as I said. One of the big messages I got from the conference was the recurring theme that in approaching bloggers, it's not about you, the agency, the brand, the company, it's about them, the blogger, the customer. Even a casual survey of social media shows we're living in a consumer-centric world. Talk to these bloggers, as Susan Getgood said, the way you'd talk to your customers.
Posted by Alicia Dorset at 10:37 AM
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