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February 8, 2009 | Andrew Kamphuis

The importance of being #1 on Google

On Friday the Google Blog offered a peak into some of the studies they are doing around their user interface.

This picture comes from an eye-tracking study that Google conducted. The deeper the color, the more a person's eyes focus on that part of the page.

Based on this image, all the focus is on the top two results. Coming up fifth or sixth on Google doesn't seem to garner much attention. It really pays to be number one or two.

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As a side note, it's interesting to see that Google is constantly studying and testing their user interface. Too often a website is built and the interface is left alone for 2-3 years with no testing, tweaking, or continuous improvment.

Feb 8, 2009 at 8:59 PM

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January 13, 2009 | Andrew Kamphuis

Get Found on Google

Getting found on Google always seems to be a hot topic for our website clients. Here are a couple of interesting blogs that came out last week.

The easiest way to a first-page ranking on Google (from Forresters Research)
Sitemaps Decrease Crawler Response Time (from Search Engine Land). (Note that our current platform automatically creates these site map files and automatically puts them into a robot.txt file for you)

While we don't provide Search Engine Optimization for clients, we do have a very Search Engine friendly platform and we can recommend a few search engine optimization companies and are more than happy to talk with you.

Jan 13, 2009 at 10:00 AM

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December 29, 2008 | Andrew Kamphuis

Search Engine Marketing 101

We get asked about search engine marketing more than any other topic. While there are no magic bullets, let's start with some search engine basics - MetaTags.

Metatags are placed at the top of the source code of a web page, and provide information about a page which guides search engines to categorieze your page correctly.

Let's look at the the 3 tags we talk about all the time.

The Title Tag

While not a true meta tag, the title tag is often treated like a MetaTag. This tag is crucial for search engines and one of the top 10 factors in how search engines rank your page.

Your title tag will be the tag that is displayed in the search results on google. Your title tag is also used as the name of the bookmark and is the text that shows up in the title bar of the browser above the <back> <forward> arrows.

Your title tag should be short, descriptive, and contain key words about your page. We typically recommend a title tag to have both your brand name and the name of the page. (Title tags should be 4-7 words long)

The Description Tag

The description tag should provides a concise explanation of a webpages content. The description is often (but not always) displayed on the search engine results page and can impact click through rates.

This description tag is your chance to "sell" the page. Make it relevant to searchers and to the page content. Ideally the description should be 200 characters or less. Just like the title tag, you should not use the same description tag on every page.

The Keyword Tag

The keyword tag at one time provided search engines with the "keywords" of your website. Unfortunately due to unscrupulouse webmasters, false keywords have often been embedded in this metatag, and the keyword tag is no longer used by many search engines. (The keyword tag has little to no impact on Google, however there is some suggestion that Yahoo still uses the keyword in it's rankings)

If you need assistance or would like to talk about your metatags, please feel free to comment below, send an email, or call our office.

Dec 29, 2008 at 7:00 AM

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November 16, 2008 | Andrew Kamphuis

Search Engine Optimization Start Kit

Earlier this week Google released its 22 page Search Engine Optimization Start Guide.

Most of the tips we've been preaching for quite some time (especially their top 3).

Create unique, accurate page titles. (If you have a website built by us, our system automatically creates "meta tag" titles for you, but you should still be reviewing and tweaking these titles yourself, when you are editing a page, product, etc. this is on the marketing tab)
Make use of the description meta tag. (If you have a website built by us, the meta tag description is on the 'marketing' tab when you are editing pages, products, etc)
Improve the structure of your URLs (Again if you have a website built by us, our system automatically creates marketing URLs for you, but you should still be reviewing and tweaking marketing urls which again are on the marketing tab)
Make your site easier to navigate
Offer quality content and services
Write better anchor text
Use heading tags appropriately
Optimize your use of images
Make effective use of robots.txt (Any site that we built in the last few years will have this file. You can follow the Google Guide to see if you have one. Also check out what your robot.txt file says. It should have a link to your XML site map)
Be aware of rel="nofollow" for links
Promote your website in the right ways
Make use of free webmaster tools
Take advantage of web analytics services (Again any site that we built should have analytics installed. It doesn't matter when we built it. If you don't have analytics, or are unsure how to access your analytics make sure you talk to someone at our office)

You can read more about the guide here. You can download the guide here.

If you have a website built by us, and have any questions at all how to implement some of these suggestions into your site, be sure and call or email our office.

Nov 16, 2008 at 7:17 PM

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September 18, 2008 | Brent Johnson

Internet Marketing Conference (IMC) Vancouver 2008

Last week Friday I went to the Internet Marketing Conference (IMC) held in Vancouver, BC. The topics ranged from SEO, visitor intent tracking, A/B testing, Google Website Optimizer, Social Media, website monetization, CMS systems, web 2.0, community engagement, mobile marketing, conversion optimization, website analytics, email tracking, copywriting and online advertising. The conference has previously been held in New York City, Las Vegas, Montreal, Stockholm, Berlin, and Copenhagen.

There were over 50 speakers from Europe, the United States and Canada coming together to speak at this sold out conference held at the Coast Plaza Hotel. The speakers were from companies such as Google, Yahoo!, Victoria Secret, VanCity, and Aeroplan.

I was having lunch with one of the past presidents from the International Internet Marketing Association (IIMA) and after talking about different CMS option and he asked if I would speak on a panel about CMS for them. I’m looking forward to meeting with IIMA and the other panel members.

I feel there were three main topics that seemed to seep through each topic, SEO, testing and social media. (I’ll put these topics into short bullet points to recap for you).

SEO

LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing) and LSA (Latent Semantic Analysis) are now more important than they ever used to be!
Go after long term results not the quick fix ranking jump (Don’t use “Black Hat” tactics like link buying and link sculpting)
Content is King

Testing

If you're not testing your website (A/B testing, conversion optimization, landing pages, etc.) then you’re behind the game already.
Test for visitor intent on your site
Use your analytics to conquer the “big-dog, little-dog syndrome” (the boss going with his hunch)

Social Media

Use relevant media to correctly seek out your target market
Go where your market is, get down on their level
Be authentic, they will be able to sniff you out if you’re faking it
Use it for the long term, social media might not pay off short term

Sep 18, 2008 at 6:00 AM

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September 4, 2008 | Brent Johnson

Social Media... good for business or wasting time?

Social Media defined is “the use of electronic and internet tools for the purpose of sharing and discussing information and experiences with other human beings.

The term most often refers to activities that integrate technology, social interaction, and the construction of words, pictures, videos and audio. This interaction, and the manner in which information is presented, depends on the varied perspectives and "building" of shared meaning among communities, as people share their stories and experiences.” (Thanks to Wikipedia).

Social media is unlike conventional media such as newspapers, television, books, and radio; conventional media is a one-way dialogue where as social media is an interactive two-way discussion. The video below clearly explains social media in a creative, down to earth way filmed by Common Craft.

Realizing that it is a two-way discussion, companies have the opportunity with social media to communicate with their target market. You can get feedback from consumers, companies, and employees that you wouldn’t have received before. I like to generalize social media into four different types, blogs, feeds, networking and… other.

What is a Blog?

A blog is fundamentally a website that is regularly updated with posts. Blog posts can be comments, observations, description, events, pictures, videos and any combinations of those. Most blogs have the ability for readers to write comments on posts. (You’re reading my blog post so you probably have a good idea what one is). Click here for another great video on Blogs.

What is a Feed?

A web feed (or news feed) is a form of data used to provide users with frequently updated content. For example you can use feeds to keep yourself updated in the blogging world using Google Reader. By having a feed on your site you can keep others updated with your recent news.

Wikipedia defines it as “a data format used for providing users with frequently updated content. Content distributors syndicate a web feed, thereby allowing users to subscribe to it. Making a collection of web feeds accessible in one spot is known as aggregation, which is performed by an Internet aggregator. A web feed is also sometimes referred to as a syndicated feed.”

What is a Social Network?

A social network service focuses on building online communities of people who share interests and activities, or who are interested in exploring the interests and activities of others. Most social network services are web based and provide a variety of ways for users to interact, such as comment boxes, blogs, and instant messaging services.

Social networking has revolutionized the way we communicate and share information with one another in today's society. Various social networking websites are being used by millions of people every day on a regular basis and it now seems that social networking is a part of everyday life. Have you heard of Facebook, MySpace or LinkedIn? These are perfect examples of social networks.

Personally I use facebook for almost all of my emails, instant messenger, photos, videos because most of my friends have facebook accounts (few are still to “cave into facebook”).

What is Other?

The “other” category is where I lump all the types that don’t fit nicely into blogs, feeds and social networking sites. Flickr is a photography based social media that allows to upload and share your photos and videos. Last.fm is a personal music social media. Last.fm will identify what music you play on your computer and make recommendation for new music you should listen to based on the genre, artist, etc. You can share music you’ve found with other users as well. There are many more types of “other” social media sites on the web.

Are you Applying it to Business?

Blogging, feeds and social networking sites are now option for your business to further promote itself. Establishing your company's presence on social media sites allow you to communicate your messages to consumers and industry and for them to talk back to you. It is a great way to share news and point people to the company website for more info.

Are you using a social media as a part of your business? Do you feel like it is building your brand image or are you spending hours wasting time? Which social media are you using, audio, video, words, pictures or combinations?

Sep 4, 2008 at 6:00 AM