Holiday Marketing Plan – NOW Is The Time

What You Can Do Today To Tap Into More Holiday Shopping Traffic This Year

Check these stats out:

• Cyber Monday sales at online retail websites were 19.4% higher in 2010, compared to the online sales of Cyber Monday in 2009 – Coremetrics
• $1.028 billion was spent online on Cyber Monday in 2010, the first day in U.S. retail history to surpass the billion-dollar sales level. – comScore
• 9 million people made purchases online on Cyber Monday in 2010. – Comcast
• The average online order on Cyber Monday 2010 was $194.89, which was 8.3% higher than the $180.03 average in 2009. – Coremetrics

Do you want your piece of that action this year? What are you willing to do to get it?

If you haven’t started a holiday campaign yet – now is the time. So what can you do to tap into it?

Start by forgetting about you and what you want. Forget your goals and sales objectives. The key is to think about what holiday shoppers want and to think about what problems they face. Then offer them a solution.

If you can solve their problems and get yourself found so they know you solve their problems – you’ve got them!

So while the list is endless, I’m going to start with just a few of the major problems they face:

• They don’t want to fight crowds, look for parking, carry heavy bags through the mall. They are looking for convenience.

• They are often looking for deals – especially in a tough economy.

• The are looking for ideas and gift suggestions.

• They have to get their hands on hard to find item.

• Want something unique/different – something that shows they really care and put a lot of thought into the gift.

• Logistics – sometimes gifts need to be transported/shipped to family and friends in other locations.

• They have very little time – there is so much to do around the holiday season and shopping can take up a big chunk of their time.

• The realization slowly hits them that anything they buy – they will have to wrap.

• They are concerned about the cost of shipping if they do shop online.

• They are concerned that they can’t really see the items well if they do shop online.

Take a look at that list. How many of those problems can you help them with? I would think most if not all.

But do they know that? Probably not.

So now is the time to start blogging (don’t forget to use social media & RSS feeds to promote your content).

Start by checking out all the queries people used last year:  example: gift ideas, gifts under $100, gifts for bosses etc etc etc.

Your site needs to come up when they search for these phrases this year. One you have a list of keywords you want to tap into start blogging (now is the time, don’t put this off)

Your posts should offer them solutions. They need to clearly see that you offer the solution to their holiday shopping woes.

Let’s take a look at that list again and look at some things you can do to show them you meet their needs.

This could be a whole series of posts you write (this is the best way to go), or it could be one long post that covers all the points.

• They don’t want to fight crowds, look for parking, carry heavy bags through the mall. They are looking for convenience. Share some stats about the cost of gas and crowds in malls and share stats about the numbers of people shopping online to specific avoid this chaos.

• They are often looking for deals – especially in a tough economy. Offer sales. Also consider adding “freebies” with purchase. You don’t always have to discount on pricing – you can bulk up the value of what they get. If a toy costs X at pretty much all the stores, you can still charge them X but instead of just getting the toy – they get the toy + some other “freebie” that has value but is reasonable for you to throw in. The funny thing is people will often pay more than regular price to get something for “free”.

• The are looking for ideas and gift suggestions. This one is easy and you can have fun and get creative with it. Create a gift guide that they can download from your site. Think of all the kinds of gifts someone could buy from you site – the more people they can buy for from one site, they more compelling you will look to them. It’s nice to have a little reminder – do you need to buy for your clients, for your boss, for your secretary, for your neighbor, for your best friends, for your hubby or wife, for your kids, for your parents etc? Great here is what we suggest….

• They have to get their hands on hard to find item. Have a hot item that is in demand – let everyone know you have it in stock.

• Want something unique/different – something that shows they really care and put a lot of thought into the gift. Talk about what is unique and special about your gifts. Share stories and testimonials from clients that have been thrilled with the item. You may have to get creative on this one depending on what you sell, but you can do it!

• Logistics – sometimes gifts need to be transported/shipped to family and friends in other locations. Remind them the benefits of you guys doing the shipping – then they don’t have to buy and then pack it up and then go to UPS. They just click and fill out a form and presto the gift is on its way. Be sure you assure them about shipping times – if they are concerned it won’t get there on time or safely, they may not buy. Remember your job here is to convince them you offer the solutions they are looking for.

• They have very little time – there is so much to do around the holiday season and shopping can take up a big chunk of their time. Easy peasy. Just write again about the conveniences of them shopping from home – paint a picture with your words. A read through your gift guide, a few clicks a form to fill out – all while they sip hot chocolate in their pajamas with Christmas carols in the background.

• The realization slowly hits them that anything they buy – they will have to wrap. If you offer wrapping, be sure you let them know. Also if you can include gift cards etc.

• They are concerned about the cost of shipping if they do shop online. While people may want to shop online, they may think it’ll end up costing more because of shipping. Can you offer free or discounted shipping? Maybe the more they buy, the more you discount the shipping. You have to look at your margins and see what you can afford but they will be thinking about this, so you may as well be up front about it. Even if you can’t discount, let them know shipping costs are reasonable and well worth it for the time and stress they will save.

• They are concerned that they can’t really see the items well if they do shop online. Be sure you offer big, clear photos and lots of product descriptions so they don’t feel such a disadvantage by not being able to touch and feel and really inspect the items.

There may also be privacy and security concerns, so be sure you are very clear about the safety and security of shopping on your site and be sure to include a privacy policy.

You can also:

Encourage people to start shopping now – give them some kind of incentive to get that shopping done. Many people are afraid they’ll miss out on the late shopping season sales if they shop too soon, so offer some early season bonuses.

If you can make yourself not only a place to buy high quality items but also a resource with helpful information, they’ll be a whole lot more likely to think of you the next time they need to buy what you sell. Post checklists that may help them.

A free PDF shopping list template that they can print and fill out or a holiday greeting card list template. People love stuff that helps them get organized and people love stuff that is free. So think about what things people may need to keep track of at the holiday season (even if it’s not directly related to your product) and get some helpful checklists.

A few ideas: If you are in the food or cookware or dishes etc industry – create a holiday meal checklist. Offer them a 2012 resolutions and goals checklist if you are in accounting, or fitness/weight loss. Offer them a holiday party guide if you are in the entertainment industry. Offer a look your best and dazzle at holiday parties check list if you are in fashion/clothing/make up/accessories/hair care etc.

Write about any holiday traditions/recipes/events related to your product or service (ex: you sell dishes, write posts about holiday meal traditions, feature recipes and have various products and specials featured).

Once you’ve created all this content – and I can’t stress enough – have some fun with it. Show some personality – let them feel like you are right there personally sharing info with them. Position your content as their personal shopping concierge that guides them through what they need to get done. OK, so once you’ve done that, you can (and should):

• Be sure your post is optimized.

• Syndicate your RSS feed.

• Send out mailings to current customers and let them know about your Blog posts and any special offers.

• Promote all your new content and specials via social media. Maybe even announce a special holiday contest.

• Syndicate it to article directories (just be sure you post it to your site or Blog and the engines index it before you syndicate it)

• Look for people that want guest Bloggers and share your content with them (again only once it’s posted and indexed on your own site).

Whether you implement some or all of this, the time to get it done is now. You need to get that content created and get it circling out there.

Get creative. This article is just to get the ideas flowing and get you to take action. So run with it and see you can come up with. ?

As always, I welcome comments and questions.

Popularity: 6% [?]

How To Optimize A Blog Post

On EcomBuffet’s Facebook Fan Page I asked what questions people had that they needed answers to.  I got a great question from my loyal follower Rich Epstein (check out his Rhode Island Real Estate Blog )

The question was:

For each blog post what should I do in the title, H1, H2 and post keywords to optimize SEO? Let’s say it’s a post about the interest rates falling this week.

So what Rich really wants to know about is…

SEO for Blog Posts

It’s a great question; how to optimize a Blog post is something I get a lot of questions about.

I’m going to start at the very beginning so everyone knows exactly what they need to do:

Once you’ve selected the topic (which should be something that is current, relevant and interesting to your readers), you want to do some keyword research to find the best phrases that are related to that topic.  Find phrases that people are currently searching for.  I usually focus on 1-3 keywords per post.

I like to start by writing the post and getting out all the important information that I need to share.  Be sure it’s compelling.

Tips For Good Blog Posts:

Don’t forget to include images and pay attention to formatting so it’s easy to read (and remember most people skim before they commit to really reading, so use sub-headlines and “attention-getters” throughout the post).  Remember to include a call to action so people know what the next step is.  (Those are just a couple of the general guidelines for “good Blog posts” that you should familiarize yourself with).

Once I’ve got the post written, I go back and edit to see if I can add some additional keywords in there.  Never keyword stuff.  Make sure your content uses the keywords well but most importantly, make sure it reads well for site visitors. (Tip: read the post out loud, if its keyword stuffed you’ll be able to hear it when you read it out loud).

Now assuming you’ve got a good Blog post in place now – it’s well written, well formatted, it has calls to action now you are ready to think about…

How To Optimize Your Blog Post:

I always bold at least one instance of the keyword phrases (don’t go overboard and bold too many, it really depends how long the post is how much bolding you can get away with).

I use the keyword phrases (or variations of the phrase) in my Categories and tags.

I use the keyword phrases in the Meta Title and Description tags.

Depending on the length and the format of the post, I will use an H1 and a couple H2s.

If it makes sense, I use a keyword phrase to link to a page on my site or another Blog post (didn’t do that on this one but normally I would).

I hope that helps ya Rich.  If not, lemme know what questions you still have.

To wrap things up, a couple notes about the SEO for this Blog post:

Note: the keywords I used in this Blog post are:
•    Good blog posts
•    seo for blog posts
•    how to optimize a blog post

You’ll notice I bolded them, I used them a few times in the copy, I used them in the Meta tags, tags and categories, and I used H tags.  I used a couple different variations of the phrases so they made sense within the copy.

OK, it’s late Sunday morning and I’ve been working for a few hours.  Off to go enjoy some sunshine now! 

Popularity: 4% [?]

Learn SEO: Breaking The SEO Code

Every day I get so many questions about SEO, social media, budget for SEO, Blogging and more.  I realized that a lot of you may not know about my book Breaking The SEO Code.

For under $15 you can access to my book with all the step by step details on SEO, in-depth social media information and Blogging etc.

Who is this book good for:
1.    Anyone that wants to do their own SEO on their site
2.    Anyone that wants to understand SEO so they know if their current contractor is actually doing a good job or not
3.    Anyone that wants one source of info they can trust on SEO, Blogging and social media
4.    Anyone that knows they need to ramp things up before the upcoming holiday season
5.    Anyone that knows a little about SEO but wants to know more

Recently I received this email from a client of mine:

“Since hiring EcomBuffet.com, LLC to handle my website my internet results have consistently improved. When you spend money in business and it generates more profit than what you spent then it is an “INVESTMENT” not an “EXPENSE”. This is what EcomBuffet.com, LLC is to me and my business – an INVESTMENT. They are the REAL DEAL.” – Michael Hull,
Liberty Floor Solutions

The same knowledge we used to get the results for Michael is what you will find in my book.

Check it out today, for under $15 it’s a no brainer. http://www.ecombuffet.com/ebook.htm

To Your Success,

Jennifer Horowitz
Director of Marketing
www.EcomBuffet.com
562-592-5347
jennifer@ecombuffet.com

Popularity: 12% [?]

SEO Questions (and answers)

I promised I would work my way through questions I’ve received via email. This one is from Stuart at www.tvglandscaping.co.uk

1). What are the most important SEO to get correct, for a novice? Is it TITLE, KEYWORDS and DESCRIPTION tags?
Your tags are important, but it’s also important to be sure the code is clean and there is unique, quality content on the site that uses your keywords well (and that doesn’t mean stuffing them into your text – it has to read well). SEO is about doing a variety of things well, so I really can’t assign you one specific thing to focus on.

2). Done no.1, so what else can I do to keep on top of SEO, doing it DIY?
Make sure you stay current on industry news. Buy my book (LOL) – http://www.ecombuffet.com/ebook.htm Keep adding content, get active on social media.

3). Press releases, what is the best software to use for multiple PR releases, to get good http: links to my web site?
Press releases are only valuable if you have something really newsworthy. Tons of press releases just to earn links clutters the space and devalues the whole practice. So be sure you have quality writing and newsworthy topics. I don’t know a lot about this area, I only use PR Web. Not sure what else is out there that may be good. Wow, I guess it turns out I don’t know everything. My husband will be happy to hear this!

4). How many people have visited my site? What is the best software to notify me of who, when and how visited my site? Is it Google Analytics? As I have heard this can be 20% accurate?!
I personally like Analytics, it’s easy to use and has great data in an organized way. No stats program is going to be 100% accurate. Of the free ones, Analytics is best. There are many paid ones and some may be worth the cost, some not so much BUT I would say put your money to use elsewhere and go with Analytics. It’s going to meet most people’s needs just fine.

Thanks for the questions Stuart.

Email me your questions or visit our Facebook Page and ask questions there: www.ecombuffet.com/SEO-Fanpage/

Popularity: 18% [?]

3 Things You Can Do Today To Grow Your Business

Nope, no magic pill or fairy dust here. Sorry.

But there are 3 things you can do today to help grow your business. Then do 3 more things tomorrow. The next day you could try doing 3 more things.

Get the message here? There is no overnight, magic pill. You need to take action DAILY and move towards your goals.

So what are the 3 things you could do? Let me give you some ideas:

1. Take action on SEO if your site isn’t ranked well. There are 2 choices here:

a. Do it yourself. Check out my book for all of the info you need to handle your own SEO (special introductory offer price: $14.97) (check it out now: http://www.ecombuffet.com/ebook.htm)

b. Request a consultation and proposal to get a formal evaluation of your site and see what it’ll take to get your site on top. Request your consultation here: http://ecombuffet.com/Consultation-request.htm

2. Get active on Facebook. Some ideas:

a. If you don’t have a Fan Page – get one. (Need help with that? Email me and I’ll get you a quote).

b. Invite new friends and fans so you can network and connect.

c. Post to your Fan page and engage fans.

d. Look into a contest to grow your fan base.

e. Make sure your Blog, Facebook, Twitter and site are all working well together for maximum benefit.

3. Get active on Twitter: (Need some help? Check out: http://www.ecombuffet.com/Twitter-quickstart.htm)

a. If you don’t have an account yet, get one started.

b. Writer tweets and engage your followers.

c. Connect with industry leaders.

d. Share content.

e. Build followers.

f. Learn how to use Twitter better with my Do It Yourself Twitter Quickstart Success program.

4. Build content for your site or Blog.

5. Write a newsletter or email offer for your list.

6. Check your Blog’s backend and be sure it’s properly configured with the right plugins to get maximum benefit.

7. Check your web stats and find areas you can improve your site to increase your bottom line.

8. Check for 404 errors and clean up your site.

9. Review Webmaster Tools and see what you can learn to improve the optimization of your site.

10. Review content and make sure there are no errors, make sure your copy is clean and tight and prepared to sell your site visitors when they enter your site.

11. Test your shopping cart to make sure everything works and is user friendly.

12. Invite guest Bloggers to add some interest, different perspectives and fresh content to your Blog.

13. Check on your PPC campaigns and see what you can improve.

14. Set up split tests on landing pages to improve results.

15. Find opportunities for you to be a guest Blogger.

16. Make sure your product feed is working and up to date.

17. Look into mobile search and mobile marketing.

18. Make sure your local listings are all accurate, up to date and optimized for maximum results and exposure.

19. Get active on LinkedIn.

20. Follow up with leads and prospects (key area that most businesses fail)

21. Identify opportunities that you have been too busy to take advantage of and get on it!

22. Get a press release out there.

23. Write an article for syndication (just know the rules and guidelines so this doesn’t end up working against you)

24. Get a video online and promote it like crazy.

25. Check out your competitors and see what you need to do to beat them out.

26. Build links.

There ya go – 26 ideas for you. Pick 3 and take ACTION.

To Your Action & Success,

Jennifer Horowitz

Director of Marketing

www.EcomBuffet.com

562-592-5347

jennifer@ecombuffet.com

Follow me on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/ecombuffet

Facebook Page: http://www.ecombuffet.com/SEO-Fanpage/

Popularity: 25% [?]

What’s Going On??? And What Do You Do About It?

There has been a lot of talk lately about all the changes – both with Facebook and Google.

I wanted to break it all down for you in a way that is easy to understand, but first and foremost, if you or anyone you know was impacted by the recent earthquake in Japan or the resulting tsunamis my heart and thoughts go out to you.

Back to business…

My husband makes fun of me all the time for stating the obvious but I always tell him, it’s important to just put things out there, even if they are obvious.  You never know what it is that someone will respond to and if I can say something that finally makes things click for someone, I am going to!

So, here it is…without social media and SEO, you are missing out on traffic, exposure and sales.  It’s that simple.

Getting top rankings and social media exposure isn’t that simple though.  And that’s where you might need a little help.

So let me help you out by breaking down the recent changes and what they mean to you.   There are three trending topics that are getting a lot of attention recently.

1.    The Facebook changes – keep reading for a little info on this.

2.    The Google Farmer/Panda update.  I know, there are a zillion posts out there about this but I am going to add one more to the mix. Based on questions I am getting and bizarre advice I see floating around out there – I think it does need more coverage.

3.     Large companies being busted for poor SEO practices.  This one is pretty easy: Black hat, nefarious SEO practices don’t work long term!  You will eventually  get caught and doing it right the first time, (even if it takes longer) is the best way to go for two reasons – you’ll be able to sustain long term success and it’s better for your site visitors (when you are providing real content of value and obtaining links that are legit and linking to content that is worthy of a link)

WARNING: This is going to be a LONG post.  Print it if it makes it easier for you.  You need to read every word and then take action!

OK onto the specifics…

Facebook:

The new Fan/Business Pages went  live as of Friday March 11, 2011  (Yay!  It was weird seeing some old and some new, I preview the navigation on the old pages but like the rest of the features on the new version)

So anyone that didn’t upgrade their page prior to Friday had it happen automatically.  So now we are all on the same page (ha ha ha, no pun intended!)

If you are creating a new custom tab going forward, you will need to use iFrames and not the Static FBML app now.  (Don’t worry, if you have a current page with the Static FBML tab they are still supporting it and it will display just fine – you just can’t add new ones anymore.)

The really cool thing about the iFrames is that you can have your designer create a tab that looks and feels like your current website or Blog theme and then they just place it on your page (don’t forget it needs to be 520 pixels wide).  Fun!

While it’s true you definitely need some coding knowledge to be able to create a killer tab for your Fan Page, it’s not really that different than when we were using the Static FBML app, you needed coding knowledge for that as well.

Stay tuned as things evolve and more cool apps start popping up!

Need a Fan Page for your business?

OK, let’s tackle Google now….

For those that don’t know – Google made a change that impacted about 12% of search results.

The goal of the recent update?  To remove poor quality sites from the top of Google’s results pages.  An excellent goal, I think.

As always, we can count on Googler Matt Cutts to give us the scoop:

“This update is designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites—sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful. At the same time, it will provide better rankings for high-quality sites—sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on.”

Why such a big change?  It was necessary!   If searchers aren’t finding quality sites in response to their queries, they are likely to leave and start searching on another engine (like perhaps Bing – which is now officially the second place engine according to recent stats!).

Let’s face it, love or hate Google, they got to where they are by delivering high quality results that people could count on.

If you aren’t OK with this change, it is most likely because your site was impacted by it.

If you were impacted and it was well deserved (read as: your site sucks and you were lucky you got away the rankings for as long as you did) – there is something you can do: improve your site and your content.  Stay tuned for more details on how.

If you were impacted and don’t feel you should have been, let Google know: http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?tid=76830633df82fd8e&hl=en Of course there is no guarantees anything will be done about it, but you may as well let Google hear your side.

OK, so what do you do if you were impacted OR what can you learn from this to make sure you are in good shape going forward even if you escaped with rankings in tact on this one.

Through information that Matt Cutts and Amit Singhal have shared, we can surmise the following:

Sites that have a high percentage of duplicate content are going to be considered low quality.

Your action item: develop new, unique content and grow your site.

Let’s look at this scenario: If you have a page here and there that has duplicate content but the rest of the site has unique content, those pages with the dupe content may not fare well but your site as a whole should still do OK.

But when going page by page, if the engines are hard pressed to find quality, unique content then it will end up impacting your site as a whole.  Google’s official take on this: “low quality content on part of a site can impact a site’s ranking as a whole.”  So be careful!
For those that repost content and then add a line or two with their opinion on the content, and feel that is enough unique content to satisfy the engines.  That is going to be problematic going forward!  If lots of pages have only a small percentage of the page’s content being unique, those pages won’t fare well either.

Google also seems to be looking for pages that have a high volume of ads that aren’t relevant to the content of the page (especially if the ads are higher up on the page).  These pages will not fare well in today’s Google.

Your action item: Be sure to review your site and get rid of ads that are irrelevant.  Also be sure your site isn’t too cluttered with ads.

If your site happened to rank well for a phrase but the phrase is not really present in the Title tag or the body content, the page isn’t going to continue to do well going forward.

Your action item: Review your site and make sure each page has unique Title Tags that use keywords that are also present in the body content.

Keywords being repeated over and over and over and over will trigger the new algorithm to devalue the page.  Keywords should be used appropriately.

Your action item: Review your content, tone down your keyword density of you need to.  Be sure it reads well. One test many copywriters share is reading your content out loud, your brain processed it differently when it hears the text out loud and you’ll know if there are too many keywords stuffed in there.

The next one is something a lot of people struggle with:

High bounce rates and low time spent on the site can impact rankings.  This will force people to really look at the quality on their site and improve things so they entice visitors to not bounce and to stay longer.  It means strong marketing principals and good copy are going to be more important than ever.

Your action item: Get a professional marketing review of your site (or do it yourself if you feel you have the knowledge and experience to honestly assess it).  Improve headlines, calls to action and general usability of the site.  Email me at jennifer@ecombuffet.com if you want details on a marketing review of your site.

CTR (clickthrough rate) from the SERPs (search engine results pages) will also impact rankings.  If your site comes up a lot but no one is clicking, you can be sure it’ll impact things.

Your action item: Review your Title tags:

Pay attention to the length of your Title tags and be sure your descriptions on the SERPs aren’t being truncated before you reveal the most important info.  This is key!  People need to be able to see what you offer and how it’s relevant to their query.  So also get your keyword in there early.  In other words, look at where Google is pulling the data from that they display in the SERPs (usually your Title tag is what they use to create the main headline for the listing) and make sure that area of text is compelling, and that is explains exactly what the page has to offer, it’s also helpful if it includes a keyword phrase.

Ex: A Must Have Comprehensive Guide: Learn How To Care For Your Pet Turtle – not so good – the keyword phrase is pushed to the back of the phrase and will likely get truncated.

Ex: How To Care For Your Pet Turtle – Must Have, Comprehensive Guide  – much better – they keyword phrase is at the start but you also still got the descriptive compelling content in there.

If you need your company name in your Title tag, put it at the end.

Think of your Title tag like an ad – be descriptive of what the page is about but be compelling so people want to click through.  Promise a benefit (as long as your content delivers on what you promise)

OK now back to more lessons from Google’s recent update:

They don’t want to see boilerplate content (content that is the same and repeated on every page)

Your action item: Review your site and look for blocks of content that you are reusing on multiple pages.  Tweak it, so it’s unique.

Sites that have a lot of low quality inbound links aren’t going to do well.

Your action item: Work on building links!

Sites that aren’t getting some social exposure (mentions and links from social media sites) won’t do well.

Your action item: Yep we keep saying it, and it’s true – you need to be on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.  Need some help with that?  See my special offer above for Facebook or email me with questions!

OK, so that’s the summary.  It’s a lot!   So what now?   You need to take this list and add them all up and see how your site fares.  Get making changes now if you aren’t doing so well in some areas.

Even if you weren’t hit in the big update, if your site has many issues in the areas outlined above you can and will lose rankings over time.  Sites that excel in what Google is looking for will dominate.

Now is actually a GREAT time to optimize your site.  You can jump in there and show Google that your site is worthy of rankings.

So let’s wrap it all up.  Some advice from Google…

“If you believe you’ve been impacted by this change you should evaluate all the content on your site and do your best to improve the overall quality of the pages on your domain. Removing low quality pages or moving them to a different domain could help your rankings for the higher quality content.”

Some advice from me:

Review your web stats and see what pages have taken a hit lately – you can work on improving those pages first (but a site wide review is never a bad idea, as mentioned above).  See if you can identify the difference between the pages that are still faring well and those that have been slammed.

If you really want to fix things, take an in-depth analytical approach and note which of the factors noted above are present on each page and strive to eliminate all the problem areas.’

Focus on improving your content and the user experience and you should be just fine.

You have 4 options right now…

1.    Do nothing!  Although this is only an option for those willing to accept poor rankings and lots traffic.
2.    Order an SEO Audit and see how your site fares, according to our SEO experts
3.    Request a proposal or consultation to see what it would cost for us to help you get your optimization cleaned up and get you some great rankings.
4.    Get to work on your own – work hard and fast and get your site in shape to get top rankings.

Popularity: 25% [?]

Google Algorithm Change (pay attention to this one!)

Last Friday, Google confirmed that an algorithm change had taken place on Thursday night. For those that track this kind of thing, you know Google makes a lot of algorithm changes. Most of them aren’t noticed by the masses and are ignored.

This particular change is worth some attention though.

Here is the scoop straight from the Official Google Blog:

Many of the changes we make are so subtle that very few people notice them. But in the last day or so we launched a pretty big algorithmic improvement to our ranking—a change that noticeably impacts 11.8% of our queries—and we wanted to let people know what’s going on. This update is designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites—sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful. At the same time, it will provide better rankings for high-quality sites—sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on.

So what does this mean? Google is going to reward unique content that is high quality and offers real value to site visitors. Excellent! As it should be.

Some people are calling this a shift back to “on-page optimization” – whatever you call it; just make sure you learn the lesson –

Adding quality, unique content to your site and Blog is always a good idea – for the engines and for site visitors.

Popularity: 26% [?]

Facebook Fan Pages: Changes, Confusion & More

Yesterday Facebook made some much anticipated changes to their Fan Pages.

For a good part of yesterday, confusion reigned supreme.  There was a glitch that caused the pages to be truncated and there was a lot of speculation that the width of the tabs was being changed.  That is not the case, it was just a glitch and from everything I am seeing and hearing, that has been fixed.

There are a few other changes that you should know about.

The navigation (links to other tabs) is now on the left side.  Facebook did this because they feel that is where people expect the nav to be, since that is where it is on personal profiles.  Lots of people aren’t crazy about this change, it makes the tabs less prominent and obvious.  It’ll be really important that you set the tab you want people to land on because if users aren’t seeing the nav and clicking on other tabs that may be all they see on your page.

Another new change is pictures across the top of the page (like on the personal profiles).  This makes pictures much more important than they were before.  My Fan Page just doesn’t have a lot of pictures, so my photo area is looking a little sad and I’ll need to get some photos loaded in there.  There are lots of cool tricks you do to play with the photos and how they appear.  I’ll have fun, as soon as I find the time!  Make sure you check out your page and see how your photos look and get some added if you need to.

You will be able to receive notifications for your Page, view a News Feed for your Page, and “Like” and post on other Pages as your Page.  That means when I am logged in and comment on someone’s post or photo or whatever, I will have the choice to have the post be from “Jennifer Henry Horowitz” (my personal profile name) or “EcomBuffet SEO” (the name of my Fan Page).  That creates another way to get exposure for your page when you are commenting on other pages.  You can flip back and forth between the 2 – so don’t worry you don’t commit to one or the other permanently.

You can now change the Category you list your page as.  This is great.  Lots of people don’t really understand the category and the impact when they set up the page. You can now go back and change it.  (you go to Edit Page, then Basic Information and it’s right there on top)

You can choose to receive email notifications when someone comments/posts on your page’s Wall. (Go to Edit Page, then Your Settings, the second option is Email Notifications)

There are now two publicly visible Wall filters: “Posts by Page” and “Everyone.” So people can choose to only see the posts done by the page admin or posts done by anyone visiting the page.

Page admins will be able to view additional filters, like “Most Recent” and “Hidden Posts.”

When people visit your Page, they will be able to view their friends who also like your Page.  They will also see other pages that both they and you like.  This feature reinforces mutual connections.  I like this one!

The text in the little box under your profile pic now appears on the Info Tab (not crazy about this one, I liked having a little blurb there to introduce the page and welcome people)

Although there was no change to sizing of the tabs, there is new sizing for your profile pic on your Page.  They have been adjusted from 200×600 to 180×540.

Static HTML is going away (sort of).  Here is the scoop:

From the Facebook Developer Blog:

“With our recent launch of Requests and the support for iframe on Pages Tabs, we are now ready to move forward with our previously announced plans to deprecate FBML and FBJS as a primary technology for building apps on Facebook. On March 11, 2011, you will no longer be able to create new FBML apps and Pages will no longer be able to add the Static FBML app. While all existing apps on Pages using FBML or the Static FBML app will continue to work, we strongly recommend that these apps transition to iframes as soon as possible.”

This means that if you already have the Static FBML application added to your Page before March 11, 2011, it will work and your custom tabs will work. Phew!

This change will make it a little harder for amateur coders to create the custom tabs themselves.  They will need to be familiar with uploading HTML and CSS files to their server and they will definitely need to know how to set up iframes.  That’s where we can help!

You can feature other Pages that your Page likes, or you can show the admins of your Page.  You’ll see this in the new “Likes” and “Page Owners” sections on the left side of your Page.

Popularity: 23% [?]

The Latest Google Algorithm Change

Here’s info on the latest Google algorithm change, Directly from Matt Cutts:

“I just wanted to give a quick update on one thing I mentioned in my search engine spam post.

My post mentioned that “we’re evaluating multiple changes that should help drive spam levels even lower, including one change that primarily affects sites that copy others’ content and sites with low levels of original content.” That change was approved at our weekly quality launch meeting last Thursday and launched earlier this week.

This was a pretty targeted launch: slightly over 2% of queries change in some way, but less than half a percent of search results change enough that someone might really notice. The net effect is that searchers are more likely to see the sites that wrote the original content rather than a site that scraped or copied the original site’s content.”

Source: http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/algorithm-change-launched/

Sounds like a very good thing!  Let me know if you see any changes as a result of this change.  As always, we are monitoring and noting what we see.

Just another reminder that writing unique, quality content pays off!!  You can use quotes and excerpts from other sources and sometimes you have legit reasons to repost content – but that shouldn’t be your only “content addition” strategy.  You need to develop your own strong content – it’ll help in the engines and it should also help you build a loyal following and earn trust of site visitors.  Establish yourself as a resource and it’ll pay off!

Happy SEOing and Happy Friday!!

Popularity: 27% [?]

SearchEngineJournal Post…

My latest column at SearchEngineJournal….

http://www.searchenginejournal.com/increase-traffic-and-exposure-step-by-step/27426/

Popularity: 24% [?]