Keyword stuffing

The biggest, fattest DO-NOT-DO-THIS on the list: keyword stuffing.

Keyword is exactly what it sounds like: stuffing a bunch of random keywords into places they don’t belong, bogging down your content so it’s barely readable for any actual human.

This mistake sits at the top of the list, because algorithms are much smarter than they used to be — and much smarter than keyword stuffers give them credit for. Search engines know when you’re trying to play them.

Forgetting to change title tags and meta descriptions

Individual title tags and meta descriptions should be present on every single public page of your website. Title tags are a page’s message to the world, and meta descriptions are the explanation of exactly what a reader will find on that page.

If you use the auto-generated title tags and meta descriptions, you risk not accurately representing what is on your website, which will likely result in less views and clicks.

Not consistently updating your website

Miss Google values a fresh, clean, accurate website. Consistently updating your website is key to remaining relevant to search engines, and offers the added bonus of keeping all of your content current and correct.

Not using Google to your advantage

When people talk about SEO, they often mention how we need to do everything in our power to show up in a Google search… but people rarely mention all the ways Miss Google can actually help us do exactly that.

Aside from explicitly outlining everything we need to know about her algorithm, Google has a number of practices inside the Google Marketing Platform place to help us optimize our sites for SEO.

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Let’s be honest, although technology plays a crucial role in our lives, it can be intimidating. If you’re running a business, you often don’t have time to be on top of “the next big thing” each time it rolls around. You trust your vendors and partners to provide you with honest direction and to understand the role technology plays in your business. Perhaps you’ve been pitched marketing packages by fast talking, high pressures sales folks signaling doomsday if you don’t sign up for their digital services. We have seen (and been told about) several examples of these partnerships going awry. After the contract is signed, you’re unable to cancel, continue to be billed for months and can’t get a hold of anyone in customer service. Not cool.

At JB Systems, we prefer to do business a bit different; entirely different, in fact. Our commitment to our clients means we’re always available to offer advice on what web, marketing and other digital services might be the best fit for your business. Additionally, our proposals are always transparent, straightforward, and easy to understand so you know exactly what you’re paying for. Give us a call and setup an appointment for a complimentary website review and/or to discuss any of our services. We won’t lock you into a multi-year contract, highjack your domain or send you invoices for additional services you didn’t agree to. It’s all part of our promise at #TeamJB to make the web simple.

Did You Know? JB Systems Offers The Following Services:

• Monthly SEO Programs
• Pay-Per-Click & Ad Remarketing Services
• Content Strategy/Preparation with Emphasis On SEO Analysis/Mapping
• Photography
• Video
• Email Campaign & Drip Messaging
• Social Media Management
• Website Maintenance Programs
• Print Collateral & Marketing Materials
• …and course, website design, development, training and more!

We’re proud of our 15 years of business and the hard-working foundation to which our company is built on. We thank you for your business and hope to continue to partner with you as “we’re never done.” Please click here for any additional questions on how we may be of service to you.

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This is when it helps to have a professional step in and help you understand the Analytics and the SEO world. JB Systems has an in-house SEO Strategist who takes the confusion out of SEO and assists our clients in understanding their Analytics. Two SEO vocab words that seem to have people confused as of late are Bounce Rates and Exit Rates.

The bounce rate shows you how many people (or users) visit your website, and then leave after only one pageview. This means that either the user clicked on your website by accident, they weren’t getting the information they needed, or they DID get the information they needed in one page, so they left.

The exit rate refers to anytime a user leaves your website, regardless of how many pages they viewed of your website.

Make sense? Let’s dig into this a little more. Let’s say you have three web pages that are visited throughout the work week:

• Home page
• About Us page
• Contact Us page

On Monday, a person visits your website they start on the Home page. From there they go to the About Us page. Lastly, they visit your Contact page before exiting your website. (Home page> About Us page> Contact page> Exit)

On Tuesday, another person visits your website. They start on the About Us page, and after reading more about your company they realize they clicked on the wrong link so they bounce off your site. (About Us page > Exit)

On Wednesday, a different person comes to your website and they start on your Home page. Next, they visit your Contact page. Lastly, they view the About Us page and then leave your site. (Home page> Contact Page > About Us Page> Exit)

Thursday rolls around and a new visitor comes to your website. They enter your site on the Contact page. They fill it out, and since that’s all they needed, they leave your website. (Contact page > Exit)

Finally it’s Friday, and one more person visits your site. They arrive on the About Us page and read a little bit about your company before clicking over to your Contact page. Then they check out your Home page. From there, they exit your site. (About Us page > Contact page > Home page> Exit)

Let’s summarize the week:

• Monday: Home page> About Us page> Contact page> Exit
• Tuesday: About Us page > Exit
• Wednesday: Home page> Contact Page > About Us Page> Exit
• Thursday: Contact page > Exit
• Friday: About Us page > Contact page > Home page> Exit

Using the summary above as a reference, let’s look at the Bounce Rate for each page. The Bounce Rates for this example are as follows:

• Home page: 0% (one session began with the Home page but it led to other pageviews on the site, so it has no Bounce Rate)
• About Us page: 33% (3 sessions started with the About Us page, but only one of those sessions led to a bounce)
• Contact page: 100% (one session started with the Contact page, and it lead to a bounce)

Now let’s look at the exit rate. Remember, the Exit Rate refers to the page of the website that the user left on. The Exit Rates for this example are:

• Home page: Out of the 3 sessions that included the Home page, only in 1 session did the user exit on the Home page
• About page: Out of the 4 sessions that included the About page, in 2 session the user exited on the About page
• Contact page:  Out of the 4 sessions that included the Contact page, in 2 session the user exited on the Contact page

Make sense? If you’re still confused about bounce rates or exit rates, or have any SEO related questions, please Contact JB Systems. We’ll work together to make sure you have a solid grasp on SEO!

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In a previous post, we had discussed the security vulnerabilities in plug-in based template sites and the latest malware attack is a perfect example. The problem: many of these plug-ins are not easy to update and leaves not just the plug-in but the whole website in jeopardy. Each plug-in (and there are literally hundreds) can be developed by a different business or individual who is responsible for monitoring security threats and creating fixes. If your website “solution” relies on 4 different plugins (not uncommon) that translates into a lot of potential issues with many different hands touching a site. Most of which support and provide these plug-ins,
for free, raising the issue of how “motivated” are the developers to stay current with vulnerabilities.

We all know the importance of having a good business website and ranking high on search engines, Google specifically. Over the past few years, WordPress has been used to create quick, fast business sites. But what happens if one of the hundreds of different plug-ins from a hundred different companies are affected by a security flaw and your site suddenly disappears from the search rankings? From experience, getting a site back up in the search rankings is not as simple doing an update and suddenly you are back to #1 or #2. It takes time for Google to re-index and confirm that you are indeed, a clean site.

Imagine that you are a small consulting firm, using your website as a way to generate leads. You are currently ranked #2 on Google using your WordPress site. So far, things are going well. You are generating 2-3 conversions per week and business is growing. Suddenly, a malware attack strikes and your website can’t be found on the first 10+ pages of Google search. Now, you have to spend precious time and resources researching the problem, fixing the problem, and waiting for Google to “OK” your site again. Two weeks have passed and you may have potentially missed out on 6 new clients and this is ONLY if you can gain back your #2 spot.

In this day and age, security is important! As a business owner, your website is your image and your brand. It would be devastating for your business to close your store for 2 weeks because someone boarded up the door and you have to figure out a different way to let your customers in! Making sure to have a secure, well-coded website is a smart business investment and although it isn’t a 100% guarantee that a security issue won’t happen, you are 100% guaranteed that your website will have a secure foundation from the beginning. And if the worse should happen, a good development team will get your site fixed as soon as possible and it will be back to business as usual.

In summary – we leave leave you with this question, “Who’s backing your site?”
If you’re not enthused about maintaining 8 moving pieces of your website, from eight different developers, most likely from 8 corners of the world – you may ready for a new experience in web design. We encourage you to give JB Systems a call – our custom website brainstorming sessions are free – as is a great cup of coffee.

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Relevance in Search Engines

Relevance used to mean that you had the most backlinks and popularity among other sites. Then people started using money to gain popularity, trying to beat the system. Google’s response: Google Panda Update.

Relevance used to mean that your site had a dense amount of specific keywords in it. Then people started hiding text and stuffing keywords wherever they could to trick Google into ranking them first. Google’s response: Google Penguin Update.

Well, today, Google has pretty much manhandled every trick in the book and the only way to have long-term success in search engine marketing is to focus on your users, your content, and the overall health and usability of your website. While you still want to optimize your content using keywords, structure, tags, etc., you can’t take advantage of the rules and “trick” Google into putting you at the top of the list. Google, like your users, will respond positively to a great user experience, so that should be the goal when building or redesigning your website.

What did all of those Google updates do?

I’m not going to mention all of the many versions of updates that Google has performed, but here’s a basic recap of major recent algorithm updates from Google:

Google Panda – February 2011

Google started filtering out sites with ‘thin’ content that didn’t have much substance. This is really when it became more important to focus on the quality of your content, not just quantity.

Google also heard from users that they didn’t like the experience of having to scroll past a bunch of ads before getting to the actual content, so they rewarded sites that had their original content at the top of the page.

Google Penguin – April 2012

Google penalized those sites who were spamming the search engine using keyword stuffing, cloaking, paid links, or other ‘black-hat’ SEO tactics. This update also got rid of a lot of the ‘aggregator’ websites whose sole purpose was to provide backlinks for boosting SEO. If you want to get backlinks to your site, you need to earn them by producing and sharing useful content.

Google Pigeon – July 2014

(Actually, Google didn’t name this one. Pigeon was the label given by Search Engine Land.)

In this update, big directory sites like Yelp and Trip Advisor have benefited the most. This may be because of Google wanting to offer better comparison shopping for users, or a better way to offer reviews to users. However, it also reaffirms Google’s push for local search. Many changes lately have been focused on localizing the search results to help users find services that are closest to them at that moment, a trend that is largely being driven by the increasing use of mobile devices. According to Google, the goal is “to provide a more useful, relevant and accurate local search results.”

Other recent Google updates include the loss of author photos, video snippets, and review stars to reduce visual “distractions” in the search results page. That’s not to say that all visuals are going away – you’ll still see video screenshots come up with a YouTube listing – but you won’t see these extra visuals as much.

What can you do to make sure your rankings get to (and stay) at the top?

This search results page from Google shows the local carousel full of images and reviews/ratings, and the directory listings at the top of the organic results.

If you are a restaurant, hotel, service business, retail shop – make sure your listings on directories like Yelp, TripAdvisor, UrbanSpoon, and others are up to date and consistent (name, address, phone number, web address) across all sites, including Google Plus.

Make sure your site has a solid SEO structure and good general web practices, such as renewing your domain for several years, establishing/earning backlinks from partners, vendors, related industries, etc.

Restaurants, hotels, and retail stores in the ‘carousel’ have heavy emphasis on image and ratings – pay attention to these! Make sure you have nice photos uploaded to your Google Plus page, and ask your best customers to leave you reviews when you bring them their check (or send a thank you or make a follow up call).

Contact us at JB Systems today to learn more about our ongoing website SEO service.

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Recently, the Chippewa Valley Business Report wrote about something near and dear to our hearts: the online marketing world. I wanted to take just a minute to focus on a couple of ideas they mentioned, and explain why they’re important. And of course, we can help you out with any of this on your site.

Landing Pages and Microsites

Landing pages allow you to easily track where your website traffic is coming from so that you know what marketing efforts are working…and which are not. Think of your marketing activities – whether it’s advertising, trade shows, direct mail, or another offline channel. How do you know if they were effective? Landing pages are specifically targeted to exactly what the ad or direct mail piece is talking about so that the customer isn’t at all confused. This makes it more likely that they will keep clicking through and eventually buy or contact you.

Microsites are exactly what they sound like – small sites within or added to your site that are specifically targeted to one product, program, service, etc. This is what Net Health Shops does for their various product lines. They allow you to provide a few pages of ultra-specific content to your customers who you don’t want distracted by other things on your website.

“No unsupervised thinking” - MarketingExperiments.com

Both landing pages and microsites are extremely effective for getting the customers to do what you want them to do on your website. Studies have shown that by being blatantly obvious about what you want customers to do and how to do it will increase your conversion rates in a huge way. And isn’t that what we all want – for our website visitors to convert into qualified leads, subscribers, customers, or donors?

Search Engine Optimization, Organic Search, and Paid Search

Although this may just sound like a collection of buzz words and trendy online jibberish, these are things that your company really should be considering in your marketing plans for 2010. If built and marketed the right way, your website can actually generate revenue or leads that turn into revenue, instead of just being another expense.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a process by which you make small, but significant changes to the content of your website (seen and unseen by visitors) in order to be listed higher on the search results page of Google, Yahoo, Bing, or other search engines. Why, you might ask, do I need to be ranked high in search engines?

Reason #1: Location, Location, Location. If no one could find your business, how long do you think you’d last? Same goes for your website.

Reason #2: We are spoiled. Well, maybe not spoiled, but busy – and because of that, we expect that everything should be right there, right now. We expect that the best results will be at the top. Would you go to page two or three when you can get the best on page one?

Reason #3: We don’t listen. It’s not that we don’t listen to things that we care about, but your advertising is not one of those things. We’ve been bombarded by advertising most of our lives and it has gotten to a point where most people just tune it out. Although using a variety of advertising channels is a good move for most companies, they won’t always remember your web address in that ad. If the ad was effective, they will, however, remember the ad’s message and maybe your company name or what kind of product/service was being advertised. That’s what they’ll put into the search engine. If you’re near the top and they heard/saw your ad, it’s pretty likely that they’ll click through to your site.

We have implemented our SEO+ program for several of our clients and they’ve seen some great results. Google uses about 100 different variables to determine your placement, so it’s not something that happens overnight and it’s not something that most small business owners have time for. SEO is an ongoing process; our program is 12 months and we meet with you every other month to talk about your rankings. We also review your analytics with you so that you really understand what’s happening on your site.

“Ok…I get the organic search stuff, but what about paid search?”

Paid search (also called CPC, PPC or pay-per-click advertising) means that you’re actually buying advertising on the search results page. Those ads are triggered by whatever keyword is typed in. You bid on keywords that are relevant to whatever you’re advertising, and the best placement goes to the highest bidder. When someone clicks on your ad, you get charged whatever your bid was to be to win that placement. The more relevant the target page is to the keyword typed in, the better placement your ad will have. I will caution you though: paid search is not for the faint of heart. It requires a lot of monitoring, bid modifications, and budget control. This is easily done by using the ‘daily budget’ function, but if that’s not used, you can rack up a hefty bill in no time.

There’s a lot more in-depth I could go, but for the sake of your precious time…here’s a link to tell you a little more about how our Search Engine Marketing program works.

Let us know if you have comments or questions about this kind of stuff. We’ve made these kinds of things work really well for several of our clients already and we’d love to share those successes with you. Comment on this post or send me an email!

The post You’ve got a great website. Now what? appeared first on .

Did you know? A website MUST have at least one incoming link (aka back link) from some other website, that Google already knows of, to REMAIN in the search engine’s index. More to follow next week…

Your Team at JB Systems, LLC

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WARNING: Do NOT steal or “borrow” text blocks or images from other websites! If you are reported for a copyright violation, Google’s punishment will be swift and harsh. It is just not worth it! More to follow next week…

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Did you know one needs to be careful about what type of websites your site is linking to? Google may punish you if you link to a “bad neighborhood”. A “bad neighborhood” would include sites with inappropriate language or discussion of adult types.

One also needs to check their website links periodically to make sure the website address one is linking to still exists. More to follow next week…

Your Team at JB Systems, LLC

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