If you want results, it’s time to jump on this bandwagon, because 2009 will be a big year for online video and what it can bring you. There are various techniques in optimising your video content. It’s important to categorise your video content correctly, whether by tagging, titles or keywords and even transcriptions. There are numerous ways to ensure that your video content is indexed correctly and it can possibly bring a huge amount of traffic to your website. Talk to us to find out more!

Some interesting things are happening on the SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) front, especially with Google and how they approach the organic ranking of websites.

2009 is going to see some shifting in how Google works. I don’t think it will be a major ‘flip the switch’ moment, but from what I’ve learned, Google is striving to improve their search results even more.

The ‘voting on search results’ that I recently discussed forms part of Universal Search. Universal Search brings about customised search results, based on many factors. In essence Google tracks what you’ve searched for historically (even when you’re not logged into Google) and this, including your geographic location will ensure biased search results.

If you’ve got a history for example of having an interest in travelling, your search results might serve up more travel flavoured results. What this means is that the user gets more results in line with their interests and historical search trends, therefore Google is serving their needs better.

In 2009 it will also be important to engage your website visitors better. It will be extremely important to track your analytics properly and ensure that you engage the visitor on multiple fronts, like video, flash, audio, images and written text. The reasoning behind this is that Google’s spiders (the little bots that index content from websites) will continually improve on extracting content from these mediums and it might give a slight competitive advantage.

If you engage your visitors better and give them more of what they want, they stay on your site longer, which also means your bounce rates (the percentage of visitors that arrive and leave immediately) will be reduced. All of this is part of the increased number of variables that determine rank for web pages in Google. It’s said that this figure is now hovering around the 200 variable mark. This means there are 200 different factors that come into play in how well your website will rank.

For SEO’s, this will mean some adjustment in the way we approach search engine optimisation. Very importantly though, there is no exact recipe (apart from the obvious standard compliance tweaks) to achieve perfect results for each client. It will be more important to focus on conversion and how well you can get your website traffic to convert (I’ve been preaching this for years!).

If Google sees that your website is converting well, it will probably influence your ranking positively as your website is able to provide visitors with solutions to their search queries. How they measure whether conversion takes place (if you haven’t got Analytics with conversion metrics installed) is still a mystery, but it will be interesting to note.

My suggestion for companies busy looking at their online strategies would be to look into going multimedia (where applicable) and to offer the best possible user experience. It’s not just about trying to get the most possible traffic! This doesn’t mean that you should put ‘Flash all over your website’ or ‘blinking text’ as was the craze when that specific technology first came out, but rather experimenting with all your options and closely monitoring results through your analytics to see what brings about the most quality conversions.

That’s not all, if you’re a signed-in user of Google you can leave comments, all wiki-style.

I’m not sure whether this is going to stay on mainstream search results and what influence this will have, but I’m assuming it’s personalised results and that Google will ‘learn’ your preferences.

I can’t see it influencing general search results as that would open the system up to gaming of all sorts (according to Seth Godin), but there is value in it for Google to show users more of what they want to see.

It’ll be interesting to see how comments will be moderated… Only time will tell!

Old sites that sit and gather dust (I’m talking anything that’s older than 5 years with reasonable traffic) can be compared to classic cars. Some of them has to be scrapped and resold as recycled material and other are gems that will be worth much more than their unsuspecting owners might think.

The thing is, older domains have some mojo in search engines, call it ‘age before beauty’ if you will, but they tend to perform well in search results if they were well maintained (same as with classic cars).

There is a lot of merit in redesigning your site every 3-5 years. First of all you’ll stay with the times in look and feel, and secondly you’ll stay up to date with technology, because as with computers, you can’t ever keep up with the times. That said, the old static site is kind of a timeless classic technology wise. It’ll be around for a while to come and if well maintained can increase your business dramatically. It’s not always necessary to re-invent the wheel…

There are some cool things you can do to pimp your site, but first of all, get a good web design company that knows the ins and outs of search engine optimisation. You will not only have a beautiful design, but also an intelligent design that will not just sit there with blinking text and scrolling marquees, but actually serve as your PA, constantly aligning new business, managing first point of contact with new prospects and providing 24/7 friendly service.

See your website as your shopfront. Now do you really want animated clipart kittens and blinking flower faces decorating this shopfront? Think about who you want to target, and design your new theme around it. And don’t hesitate to spend actual money. YES, it’s going to cost you something to redesign the site. If you keep on getting a backyard mechanic to fix your car you’re running a much higher risk of something breaking down more often.

Building a website should be a 12 – 24 month investment. Work out your finances accordingly, and ensure that you run at a profit after 24 months and don’t hesitate to mention that to your resident web expert. You won’t keep that brick and mortar open for long if it’s not performing, right? Sometimes things don’t work out and there are times when you have to know when to cut your losses and close up shop, but 99% of times it will be because the business plan was flawed from the start.

That is where experience in web development and online marketing comes into play. Knowing when to invest in a certain market online only comes through years of experience and experience in being able to pulse the market properly without spending your whole budget up front. That’s where pimping that old site can open up a goldmine for you.

It’s not always sunshine and roses. Cracking a competitive market sometimes takes years to master and sweating blood in the process, but perceverence will pay off if the rights steps are followed. I have seen some amazing turnarounds on existing domains that have been ‘reconditioned’ and it’s always worth getting a quote.

Just take care with older sites that have large amounts of pages as you might shoot yourself in the foot if you remove pages improperly just to lose all that (behind the scenes) momentum that’s been built up over the years. Talk to an expert to find out whether it’s worth it. Might be that your old site might just find another new lease on life and grow to make it’s owner very happy into the length of days.

What I meant by ‘Springleap your company’, was being able to get active results in search engines, not just in competitions. If you really want to have SEO done on your site it should be a long term strategy with long term sustainable results. Contact Us for more information!

Awareness campaign in this case, all fine, but if you want to see real monetary value you got to rank well for ‘t-shirts’ or ‘custom t-shirts’ etc, because if you’re ranked number 1 for your company name you’ve still got to tell everybody about it and spend precious time to get them to actually search for your company name (if it’s not something obvious). Many people don’t keep that in mind…

There are several ways to increase conversions on your websites. If you don’t know what the hell I’m talking about it might be a good idea to read further! I have written about goal driven web design before, so I’ll try and focus on a specific element of web development which is often neglected.

Copywriting.

To set a basis for what I’m talking about, lets look at goals and conversion on a website. Most business/product/services related websites should have ultimate goals. In some cases it’s non-profit, eg. a personal site that you’re just blogging etc, but most of the time, you’re trying to sell something or reach a targetted audience.

Now wouldn’t you like to grow that audience and focus it even more?

A bigger audience means more sales, right? If you’re just blasting it into cyberspace, wrong! If you’re talking to the right people, right! And knowing that you’re talking to the right people is essential. That’s where tracking comes in. And you can use your normal website stats to see whether people are finding you online for your target phrases. Say you’re selling blue widgets and you’re seeing alot of ‘blue widget solutions’, ‘blue widget suppliers’ etc in your keyword stats, you know you’re doing something right (because people might be finding you on search engines). Further, the obvious one is sales that are increasing or better conversion on your other website goals.

What could these goals be?

First of all a website should always have several goals. Some primary and some secondary. A primary goal would for instance be an online sale of your products, or someone signing up for your newsletter. Secondary goals could be to get people to view certain content on the site etc. These are just examples as you determine would ultimately decide what you deem important as goals on your website.

Now without touching on other elements that increase website conversion (there are many and maybe I’ll follow this article up depending on response), lets look at how effective copywriting can increase your conversion.

There are subtle ways to write enticing copy for your website and I’m by no means an expert on the topic, but I’ve seen it in action and that’s why I feel like sharing this FREE information with you. For exampe, something I’ve picked up recently are the two terms implicit and explicit decision making. Implicit means that the reader makes a decision on their own to interact with you, be it to buy your product or to sign up for your newsletter for argument sake. An explicit decision means that you convinced someone to make a decision to sign up or buy, which is never as powerful for various reasons. There are various triggers that you can use within your website copy that will MAKE PEOPLE WANT to buy your products or sign up for your newsletter without you having to convince them to do so!

Further, getting back to targetted content, it’s not a good idea to deviate from the theme of your website when writing content as search engines tend to build up a quality score of your content, ranking you accordingly. It’s just one of several aspects that influence search engine rank, but something to also keep in mind when writing your website copy. The use of semantic phrases and keywords in your copy is important, because search engines will try and determine ‘what your content is about’. Therefore, it’s important to FOCUS your copy, write enough content on the subject and to keep it fresh. Relevance is a key factor and that is also time based.

Search Optimised and effective website copywriting comes with experience and patience. Most of our clients don’t have the time and we provide the service. Why not let us have a look at your website and give you a free basic assessment on how we think we can improve your conversion rates? If you’re thinking of starting a new website, even better, get it right from the start! Just fill out a free quote request here and be sure to select which of our other services you’d also like to get quoted on.