Three old ladies huddle around a burger with a massive bun and a tiny patty. “It certainly is a big bun.” says one. “It’s a big fluffy bun!” says another. Meanwhile the third stares grumpily at the sandwich and then says, “Where’s the beef!?” 

She clearly wanted a real burger — not a bun, not an air sandwich, and she didn’t want to be full on just some fancy baking. No matter how good the bun looked, or tasted, it was ultimately useless without the big, beefy burger she wanted. 

Similarly, this is what happens when you have designed a smashing layout with a high bounce rate. If your grids are tight, your typography is engaging, and you are getting loads of traffic, but you have a big bounce rate, then your customers are saying, “Where’s the beef!?” 

No matter how fancy your site may look, if it doesn’t convert to sales, your site is lacking serious beef. A few tips to adding beef to your website: 

 1. Be relevant. If a visitor comes to your site expecting one thing and gets something else, they’ll leave your site with a bad taste and will likely never return. You may dress nice, but you MUST be relevant. 

 2. Engage users. Do this with relevant content, impeccable design and a clear call to action. 

 3. Provide quick value. People’s time is valuable. Make sure to give them what they want quickly or else they’ll bounce. Offer enough value so they’ll want to spend time on your site and come back again. 

 4. Clarity. Explain your product, how it works, what you do and why the user needs you in just a few words. The clearer your message, the quicker the reader will take action. 

 5. Offer Expert Advice. You can do this through blogs, white papers, webinars, etc. This lends credibility to your brand and provides a purpose behind your website. It also helps with search engine optimization by providing fresh new content, andestablishing your site as an expert in your industry. 

What is the next phase? While I would argue that content is king and good content strategy accounts for 3/4 of the success for a site, the remaining 1/4 rests squarely on taking that content and making it deliverable and engaging. 

You need to take that valuable nugget of information, that hamburger patty you lovingly crafted, and garnish it. Present that information in a clearly legible manner. Use practical infographics that compel the visitor to sit up and pay attention. Engage them with interactive elements to help them really understand what it is they are looking at. Make that game the most amazing thing they have played recently. Compell them. Teach them. Guide them. Don’t make them think.T

he New York Times is a great example of great content leading the way for great design to seal the deal. Apple is another but with a more product oriented approach. ESPN is a great example of a leisure brand excelling at this. This final step will set you apart from the rest. If you are not sure how to speak to your user through these means, hire an expert. There are designers out there who speak this language so well they can engage users without them even realizing it, and these subtle successes are often times the most potent. 

Never underestimate solid design backing great content strategy. 

This one two punch — opening with a focused quality content, and driving it home with a grand user experience — will ultimately lead you to the top of the charts on a given search engine. You will keep the users you gain, lower your bounce rate, raise your conversion rate, and leave no one questioning the substance of your idea, event, or product.

To All of my SEO clients; 

I am giving away a brand newly built 20 page website or 1 free year of SEO to one of my current SEO clients in June of this yeaar. 

Here is what you have to do to qualify. 

1.Blog at least once a week (you get 1 point every week if you do) 

2. Add an article to your website once a month (another point every month if you do ) 

3. Someway Somehow you must be actively doing SMM Social Media Marketing and have it linked to your website.(one point each month for that) 

4. If you do any press releases for your website 1 point for each one. 

5. You also get a point for every video you have on your site and 2 points for any new video’s or any videos of surgery. 

Each point is a ticket that will go in the hat for the drawing. 

All of these things are what you should be doing anyways to gain success. 

On June 1st we will have the drawing and the winner we will either build a new 20 page website or erase their SEO Payments for 12 months. 

The 20 page website will be the most up to date technology and the most interactvie website alive (which is what people want) 

Good Luck and Thank You for being my CLIENTS!!

One way links are links that point to your site from others, but which are not linked to from your website. Google and many other search engines include link popularity as part of the way they evaluate and rank websites. Links are seen as a positive "vote" towards the quality of the website. As such, the more links from other relevant websites to yours, the better. 

Here are some of the ways to get one way links pointing to your website. 

Writing articles is an excellent way for you to get free publicity. Getting an article published is free. The publicity you receive by having your article published in a newspaper, magazine or website can be worth thousands of dollars in equivalent advertising space. Well written articles yield better results than advertisements and earn you respect from customers who see you as an expert in your field. 

An article is a short piece of information that aims to educate and inform people about something, which they may be interested in. They are usually between 500 and 3,500 words long and at the bottom of each article is a link to your website as well as a resource box about your company. An example would be my resource box at the bottom of this article. By writing and distributing these articles you are sharing information, which displays your expertise and gains you trust and credibility. No amount of advertising can gain you either trust or credibility. The best articles are 'tips' or expert pieces. People are looking for guidance and will purchase from experts who show them how to solve their problems. Writing your own articles may seem to be a daunting task, but you can get your articles written by professional writers at very reasonable costs and then distributed by various online services, such as Submit Your Article or The Phantom Writers. Also don't forget to set up "Google Alerts" so that you can see whenever your articles are published on various websites. The great thing about articles is that if your articles are well written they will spread virally, meaning that people will pick up the articles from article directories and include them on their website. 

Over the last couple of years video has become a popular marketing strategy, as it can quickly generate traffic and interest. Unfortunately many people are still afraid to use it and think it's difficult to do. So now is the perfect time for you to get ahead of your competition. One of the major advantages of videos to traditional written marketing is that it saves your visitors a lot of time understanding what is being offered and there isn't much effort required on their part. Start the video and everything is explained to them right there and then. Hearing and seeing you tell them about your products or services has more credibility and allows you to connect to your visitors on an emotional level. Another great advantage of video marketing is that if you use the right keywords in your video's tags, you have a much better chance of reaching high rankings in many search engines. 

Your website should be submitted to as many directories and search engines as possible, especially those relevant to your country or industry. 

A blog is basically a journal that is available on the web. The activity of updating a blog is "blogging" and someone who keeps a blog is a "blogger." Blogs are typically updated daily or weekly using software that allows people with little or no technical background to update and maintain the blog. Blogs give you an increased presence on major search engines, like Yahoo! and Google. If you use Blogger (Google's Blogging Tool), every message you post creates a new page on Google so in a very short time you could have a lot of pages pointing to your website, bringing you lots of new visitors. 

Having a story written about you and your business will not only bring you lots of new customers (at no cost to you), but will also provide you massive credibility. Stories about you in the media are far more believable, powerful and attractive than any ads you could possibly run. People will trust and respect you instantly. A media release (also called press or news releases) should provide enough details to be informative, but it should leave out just enough information to be tantalizing so that the media person calls you to find out more.

Do you want a tremendous presence on Facebook, Digg, LinkedIn, Twitter and more? I have been doing it for a few Doc’s and can now expand to a few more. 10 hours a week for $400 a month discounted down to $300 a month. Or 5 hours a week for $230 a month. Either way you can not go wrong. Get your video’s on these platforms. Constant updates and linking. Tons of sending your name and practice out to others to get yourself seen.

• Twitter and Facebook dominate the scene, but Twitter has no revenue stream while Facebook becomes the dominating force in Social. 

• Twitter and Facebook have become the way people share information, and it is affecting social bookmarking sites such as Digg. 

• Twitter has redefined the way people communicate and the way search engines determine what is popular. 

• Twitter seems to have reached its potential, and is going to be hard pressed to grow any further in its current form. 

• In order for Facebook to retain, and increase users, keep an eye out for a completely redefined 

“Group” option, or a vertical-ization of a new public section. 

• It will be a shock if Twitter isn’t acquired by a larger company by the end of 2010 

 (Facebook Prepares for Dominance) 

One of the most important things we’ll see happen between Twitter, Facebook and upcoming Social Media like Foursquare, is definition. Social media sites will define their purpose, their existence, and their unique selling position (USP) this year. 

Facebook is currently one of the strongest ways to advertise to targeted demographics and markets, while Twitter is the best way to “listen in” and distribute news, and information to the masses. As Twitter and Facebook start to better define their USP, corporate America should become more comfortable in developing marketing strategies with social media in 2010. 

The first thing that will come with social media “definition” is a mutual goal with Twitter and Facebook. Both entities will make sure users understand that Facebook is not Twitter, and Twitter is not Facebook. The general public will learn and understand they are not the same thing, and there are benefits for using both mediums. By making this point clear to users, both companies should see an increase in users and interaction between users. I predict that the two companies will embrace each other, and incorporate each others’ strength. There is no better way to do this than with an official partnership, or even a merger. (As a side note, “TwitFace” could become Google’s worst nightmare.) 

If Facebook (being the bigger fish in the pond) doesn’t take Twitter to be its lawfully wedded partner, then I predict that we will see some big changes for Facebook coming in the ways of “Group” and vertical-ization of a new public profile option. 

Facebook’s next direction (in my humblest of opinions) needs to focus on having an option for “like- minded” strangers to connect without giving away the farm, personal family info, embarrassing photos of you that your jackass friend put up. The reason the current “fan pages” don’t work is because there is no seamless interface between you and your fan page. If this all comes to fruition then I strongly believe that we will see Twitter slowly suffer. Facebook would have serious leverage in providing and developing real-time search (RTS) abilities with the new public profile option (all enhanced by the Friendfeed acquisition), in addition to having the ability to connect complete strangers with similar interests. 

Twitter will be the most vulnerable company that 53M+ users can’t live without, simply because it makes no money. Again, if a partnership can’t come together with Facebook, then the next logical option would be for Internet King Google to buy up the company so they could strictly control the RTS scene. And Google already has rumors circulating that they are interested. We will then see the most famous tweet of all time from @mattcutts: “What? It was either buy Twitter or create Gtweet.” 

Social Media War: Facebook bans all Twitter language from status updates because it only comes across as gibberish to non-Twitter users. 

 THE BEST THING THAT CAN HAPPEN TO SOCIAL MEDIA 

Facebook develops a Twitter translator that will automatically translate Twitter language into readable phrases for non-Twitter users to better understand. In addition Facebook will create a “Gaming Facebook Platform” so I don’t have to know what happens to your Farm or Mob family. Just sayin’…

 What We Know- 

• Bing is looking to take over Yahoo! Search, making this a 2-search engine world (US Market, or larger?). 

• Mobile search will grow exponentially and may become bigger than desktop search. 

• Google has China in their sites, and Baidu is the target. 

• Personal search tied into real-time search will show Google’s dominance in every aspect of our lives. 

 • Bing will go big or go home. Meaning either Yahoo people will love or hate Bing. With articles like this, showing that Bing is gaining new traffic, I suspect Bing will go big with Yahoo! users. 

 • Players who understand how their market uses the Internet will be providing mobile sites, optimized for (hold your breath) Google      

   Mobile Search. 

 A.- Does your site have too much Flash for Google Mobile? Full flash sites will really struggle showing up on Google Mobile but stay ok for Desktop. 

 B.- Is your site too big for Google mobile? 

 C- Is it too small? 

D- Do you even know what Google mobile is? You probably have one in your hand every day. It is almost being used more often then 

     a desktop and shortly it will be used more then computers. 

• The best way to kill Baidu is to buy Baidu, but can it be done? 

• Big Brother is coming … 

 How Will it Happen? 

Bing’s goal is to bring serious competition to the search-engine table. The only issue is Bing is trying to run the table with money: buyout Yahoo Search and news outlets, run intensive ads on TV. When all is said and done, Bing may spend more trying to buy their way into search than they actually did on developing their engine (slight exaggeration may be implied but $100 million is their rumored TV budget alone). 

As stated before, I suspect that with the success Bing is having with new visitors, we’ll see some safe gains in the Bing corner. But I have a hard time believing Bing will provide Google with serious competition. Google has plans of its own. 

Those plans include a growing list of future Google products and a growing list of companies it plans to purchase. (Example: Yelp is in Google’s sights, to improve local search options, but Yelp seems to be playing “hard to get.” This is how Google plays the game.) 

In addition, Bing isn’t Google’s only concern. China is the largest developing market for Web use, and Google wants to be on top. In order to get there, Google will need to figure out how to handle Baidu. Even though in 2005, Robin Li, CEO of Baidu, refused to comment about rumors that Google was in negotiations to buy Baidu — leaving the world to speculate — Baidu has grown too large, and owns too much of the market to make that remotely possible. 

However, Google stands at a crossroads in China. Should it continue on its current strategy, which has worked globally so far, but not with the Chinese, or does Google mold itself to fit the culture like Baidu has? In either case, I don’t think the search algorithm will change for the people of China. Ultimately, finding SEO success in China through Google should happen the same way you find success in the rest of the Google world. 

Personalized Search (PS) and Real Time Search (RTS) are starting to bust their way onto the search engine scene. Neither one has struck a chord with the majority of users. I honestly don’t know of anyone out of the SEO/SEM world that has noticed the additions (even as I write this it seems that Google is reconsidering how to implement RTS). For this reason many people are beginning to write RTS off as a failure, and are predicting them to disappear in 2010. But even if Twitter doesn’t improve RTS, the caffeine update from Google proves that RTS is important. And whether we like it or not, I believe Google will place a lot of importance in developing this technology further. 

In addition to PS and RTS, I believe you’ll also see more emphasis in mobile search as speculations say it could out-do computer-based search in the years to come. Overall, I believe mobile search will develop to be a major new search engine within itself. Because of the innovations from mobile devices like iPhone, and Google Android, I think you will begin to see a search engine designed specifically for mobile websites (sites that have been redone for easy viewing on those devices). The main factor that will propel mobile search as a big market is an increase in local/localized search as well (acquiring Yelp is starting to make more sense here) so that people can quickly find the store, the product, or the services they need while out and about in their daily lives. 

TIME TO PANDER TO YOUR FEARS 

Consider all the information we are willingly giving to Google: our email, all of our contacts, our calendar, health information, financial information and anything else found on Google Docs. Not only is this information handed to Google, but Google collects huge amount of data on our habits (that is why it is called Personalized Search). And not just what we do on Google, but what we do on websites we visit before and after using Google. Ultimately, Google is given a lot of power. Some say too much power. With all of this information being collected and analyzed, Google will begin laying the ground work for the most secretive, powerful, and threatening product ever conceived by Eric Schmidt himself. Some call it “Big Brother,” but its official title will be “Google Government …

” This post was fun. Look for my predictions tomorrow on social media, where we’ll discuss the future of the biggest social media platform Facebook, and its plans with Twitter.

A lot of people have made a New Year’s resolution to lose weight in 2010. For website owners, you might have made a similar commitment to lose some undesired thing: your high bounce rate. To make this type of resolution come true, first you need to understand what causes a visitor to bounce from your website. Then you’ll be able to understand how some simple changes can keep people on your site and result in more online sales. 

Recently, while visiting my family in Canada I was looking for a specific Toronto Blue Jays baseball hat. I visited three sports apparel stores. The first two were similar. I spent only a few minutes in each store after finding out they didn’t have the hat I wanted. Then I found a sports store that sold only hats. I spent more time in this store browsing over the large selection of hats. But they didn’t have the style of hat I was looking for, and a similar style wasn’t available in my size. So I left. 

We can compare this experience to searching online. If I was searching online for the baseball hat and I visited three sites similar to those stores, the first two sites would get a high bounce rate from my visit, and the third site would have a lower bounce rate but still not convert into a sale. I would “bounce” from each of the websites because I couldn’t find what I was looking for in the same way I left each of the stores when I couldn’t find what I was looking for. 

If you consider my example of shopping for the baseball hat, each store could have reduced the chance of me “bouncing” from the store by expanding the inventory that they carried, or by not being listed on the mall directory as a store that would possibly have the hat I wanted. If we take these concepts and apply them to a website, you will get a similar affect with the bounce rate of the site. 

You can lower the bounce rate of your website if you: 

Provide more products or services relating to what was being searched for: Expand your product line to include all products available to sell that are relevant to the keywords your website is ranked for and make sure your products are easily found on your site. If you sell services you can break down your services into some that are more specialized. If I offer Internet marketing services, I could offer different focused services like organic SEO services or PPC management services that both relate to Internet marketing. 

Target the most relevant search terms: I have mentioned the importance of targeting relevant search terms in a couple other posts and I will mention it again. You might have a business selling tropical fish online but that doesn’t mean that “tropical fish” is going to be a good term to get your website ranked for. I could be searching for “tropical fish” because I want to take my kids to see tropical fish at an aquarium. If I found your site that sold tropical fish, I wouldn’t stay at your site for more than a second because it isn’t relevant to what I was searching for. Think of the most targeted terms that relate to your products or services and optimize for those terms. 

Incorporate a clean and user friendly site design: The bounce rate can be reduced by using easy navigation and a clean, appealing design. Make the products easy to find. Links to service or product pages should be clearly labeled. Include prominent links on your homepage to top selling products or most popular services. Check your products or services pages to see how easy it was to find them and make sure it doesn’t take more than two clicks to find them. 

 Most businesses of a certain size start flirting with the idea of having a company newsletter. Newsletters began as a way to disseminate information to employees when meetings weren’t practical. But newsletters grew as a way to cultivate the existing customer database. 

Notices of sales, new employees, new products, location changes, community participation; these are points of interest hailed as perfect fodder for newsletters. With eNewsletters being emailed out, a convenience was placed on the poor postage meter and the content was now at the whim of the junk mail filter. Whether or not you personally like the idea of newsletters, there is something here that is very important for your SEO effort. Your newsletter is a source of content. 

    Ask any web marketing guru if your website should keep having content be added and he’ll say “Yes.” Without content, your site doesn’t have much to say and the website visitor will wonder if you are actually doing anything or if the site was abandoned long ago. Not only does it make your site easier to index in the search engines you will give an edge to your thought leadership. 

    More King? Anyway, the content you come up with has a great advantage of all the repeated and shallow content that is out there. Content farms try to sell as much content as possible to as many people who will buy it to post it on their site. With ploys of promising “articles on your industry ready to go” and “look like a pro with our content,” I wonder how many times it has been around the corner so-to-speak. If you create your own content, you are already miles ahead of your local competition. 

     I remember talking to a CEO about blogging and they were reluctant on the whole idea. “What’s the point?” Well, after giving her some reasons, the whole crux of the argument came down to the writing ability and the scholarly-ness of the piece. When I told her that it didn’t have to be deep or lengthy, but addressed the topic completely from a perspective of an industry insider – that’s all she needed. It’s about having something, anything that shows the visitor that you are aware of what’s going on in your industry and you have something to say about it. 

 Newsletter Articles Reworked 

    Maybe you have an industry newsletter article about “heavy lifting” and the dangers therein. Rather than send that article to the eventual recycle pile, recover it as a page on your site. Expand on it, put 3rd party links on there. Put in a safety section that ties to other safety concerns. You have now taken a one time flash-in-the-pan article and created a page that adds thought leadership and maybe some key indexing for topics that are dealt within your business. 

    There was one client who archived all their newsletters online in a document format. The articles were great and could be reworked to remove any shelf life. Once it was seen that no one was looking through their archives, they agreed to repurpose the content into blogs and fill out some product pages. The eNewsletter now has a new purpose.

Many businesses don’t even know their website doesn’t connect with their demographic, much less the human race. 

So, in no particular order, here are a few Internet and website pet peeves that will cost you visitors, readers, customers, and, most importantly, money:

 *Popups. These make me want to howl and then close my entire browser. It’s amazing to me how many annoying popups still exist. If you want people to stay on your page, please get rid of these. 

*Intruding, drop downs, advertisements or graphics. I’m OK with ads – as long as they don’t cover the text, float across the page, or do something else extremely annoying. They often make me think my computer is coming down with a nasty virus. 

*“Give us your email, social security card and bank account number to read this.” I hate it when companies hold content for ransom. Companies try to promote their stuff then try to make you give them all your contact information to get it, often in the form of registration log on pages. *However, in some instances I think it’s OK, such as Webinars, etc. For the most part, free content available to anyone is the way to go. If you want to capture emails, have a newsletter sign up box, but don’t twist people’s arms. 

*Overly promotional social media updates and press releases. These make me gag a little, especially when I was an editor at a newspaper. With social media and PR, you are providing information and connecting with people. It’s for conversation and news. It’s not for exaggerated fluff. 

*Ambiguous home pages. You have just a few seconds before a visitor leaves your site or clicks through it. If your site doesn’t have a clear direction, say, “hasta luego” to your potential customer. 

*Confusing Navigation. If it’s confusing, I’m going somewhere else. 

*Bad copywriting. Typos, cheesiness, too serious, too long, unclear, un-engaging, exaggerations, etc., will kill your website. A site is often all about the headlines, copy and call to actions. If the writing is bad, you’ll have no chance with a customer. 

“Install extra software to continue.” I hate this one. I fear getting a virus, and I don’t have the time to download new software. 

*Slow-loading pages. Not only is this a pet peeve, it’s also going to be big for the future of SEO.Dead links. They are dead ends that force me to go somewhere else. 

*Bad colors, graphics. Some websites make me want to scratch my eyeballs out. Many designs can be distracting, and the wrong background color can make it difficult to read the text. 

*Flash and sparkly stuff. Flash can be pretty cool, but not usually in a conversion sense. Sometimes designers and CEOs like flash, because, it’s cool. But, it can often be flashy without any substance, and as a result, waste the viewers’ time. Some sparkly design stuff will make your site look like a used car sales floor. That is never a good idea.Ineffective site tools. Why do people launch websites that don’t work? Why, why why? 

*MUSIC! Music on the homepage makes me do a mad scramble for the “X” button like it’s my full-time job to close out browsers. Music, and videos for that matter, that play without my approval, is a bad, bad thing. 

Internet marketing is all about two things: (1) getting more traffic and (2) converting that traffic into sales. 

That involves good SEO services, and a website designed around simplicity, easy flow, clear direction and good content. Everything on the page should propel the user experience. If it doesn’t, it will make my pet peeve list.

The best Internet marketing strategies of 2009 revolved around establishing credibility and targeted exposure. The search engine optimization company says similar tactics will work in 2010. 

In response to an eMarketer.com study stating that businesses will spend up to 75 percent more on Internet marketing this holiday season, Web 7 Media.net– a full-service Internet marketing company in Salt Lake City – announces the top 10 most effective Internet marketing strategies of 2009. 

“Businesses want to make sure every penny goes to something that produces results,” said Jim Vincent, chief executive of Web 7 Media.net. “For that reason, more and more money is being allocated to Internet marketing because it’s measurable and has proven to increase ROI.” 

There are a wide variety of Internet marketing methods, the most effective being the ones that establish credibility, trust and directly target a demographic. “Credibility is the most important,” said Jim Vincent. “When people are watching their money closely, they will only buy from companies and Web sites that they trust.” 

Credibility, Buckles said, depends on how well a site is architected, how many other sites and networks link back to your site, how much social media and buzz surrounds a domain, how often a site goes down, how unique a site’s content is and how fast a site loads. 

 1. Organic Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – Web sites in the top of the search results are viewed as the leaders of their industry, and more than 80 percent of Web users click on the first listings. Good SEO services will consistently deliver a huge return on investment. 

2. Facebook/Twitter/LinkedIn – Social media marketing engages customers on a personal level, and can rapidly create buzz around a product, brand or business. In 2008, Pubcon search conference spent $75,000 to marketing their conference. In 2009, Pubcon saved that money and used strictly social media advertising with great success. 

3. Keyword Research – Everything revolves around discovering what words and phrases your customers are searching for online. 

4. Video Marketing – This is becoming more important both on-site and off-site. Videos help convert Web site visitors into sales. In the universal search results, people tend to click on links with videos more than those without – even if the video link is ranked lower. 

5. Online Public Relations – This builds credibility online, in the mainstream media and for potential customers. Online public relations can help create a lot of buzz about your site through bloggers and industry sites, and can boost organic SEO. 

6. Link Building – A key element in search engine optimization. Search engines like “popular sites.” From the search engine’s point of view, a credible and popular site will have a lot of links pointing to it. 

7. Blogging – Blogs provide additional site content (which search engines love), graphics and other viral content to disseminate information and tie in with social media. Blogs can build your credibility by establishing your site as the hub for industry information. 

8. Conversion Web Design – A good Web design will keep visitors on your site and sell them products or services. In the end, it all comes down to a site that makes money. 

9. Paid Search Marketing – Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is an extremely targeted strategy with measurable, immediate results. This enables a more efficient spending of marketing dollars. 

10. Email Marketing – Nurture relationships and retain existing customers. It’s much easier to keep old customers than to get new ones. Send good offers and valuable information that’s customized to their needs.