Website – Maroon Interactive

March 9, 2011

Google Search Algorithm Updates-What’s New

If you’ve got a Website or any type of Web presence, search engine rankings should be important to you. Last week Google made some dramatic changes to their search algorithm which is changing the way search results are generated – and affecting companies that invest heavily in staying on top of rankings. According to the company –

Our goal is simple: to give people the most relevant answers to their queries as quickly as possible. This requires constant tuning of our algorithms, as new content—both good and bad—comes online all the time.
–Google

Here’s what’s in and what’s out with Google Search algorithm changes:

1. Websites with “better quality content” will move to the top of search rankings.
There is much contention about what constitutes “better quality content” or a “high-quality” Website. Google is describing this as original content and information such as research, in-depth reports and thoughtful analysis.

2. Users will get the “most relevant” answers to queries.
The most noticeable updates here are location-based results, and the increasing inclusion of “Real Time” results picked up from social media Websites such as Twitter and YouTube. Also, if you have the type of name that typically deliver porn sites when Googled, those types of results will now be pushed back to 2nd or 3rd page of results – bad news for those type of Websites, good news for you (if you are not in that type of business).

3. “Low quality sites” will be suppressed in search results.
This has caused uproar in the Web development and business community because Google used information from “Personal Blocklist “, a tool that works with their Chrome browser. This tool allowed Chrome users to rank and block sites they found sub-par or sites that promoted content they didn’t agree with. Although Google say they don’t rely totally on the results from Personal Blocklist, it’s still a factor in rankings.

4. Hacked Websites and domains responsible for spam are being eliminated from results.
‘SPAM’ in this instance means repeated “spammy words “, automated content, and Web sites with too many comments that originated from content authors. ‘Content farm’ Websites are taking the biggest hit with this update. According to CNN “..sites like Mahalo.com, Wisegeek.com, Ezinearticles.com… [are] among the biggest losers in the algorithm tweak. Google-generated traffic to each dropped more than 75%…” The bad news is that Google has not clarified why a hacked Website should be punished or how the site can get off the blacklist.

5. Copy-cat Websites will move to the bottom of the search results pile.
If you steal, borrow, take, liberate or copy content from other Websites – stop. Hire a copy writer and start over if you care about your Website’s place in search results. New changes to Google’s search algorithm are not kind to Websites mirror the content of other sites. See #1.

So what does this all mean? Content, my friends, is about to become king again!

February 24, 2011

Celebrate a Holiday – It’s Good for Business

Everyone loves a holiday – especially smart marketers. There is no better time to promote a product, service or cause than when your target audience is in a celebratory mood. The reason some top brands spend millions promoting holiday festivities is clear – it’s great for sales and brand awareness.

If you don’t have a seasonal campaign calendar, it’s worth it to start thinking about putting one together. A seasonal campaign calendar will help you anticipate upcoming holidays so you can turn them into sales and marketing opportunities for your business.

Running a successful seasonal campaign involves more than sending a ‘Happy Valentine’s Day’ type email. You’ll have to come up with cleaver ways to engage your audience, pair your brand with the festivities, and present an opportunity to convert your audience to customers.

Here are three smart steps you can take towards seasonal campaigning –

1. Get a list of holidays that work for your product, service or cause. Start with the holidays your client’s are most likely to celebrate; if you don’t know what they are – ask them. Demographic information could also offer some clues. Holidays that align with your brand are also great places to start – for example, if you are running an Irish pub, St. Patrick’s Day could be a winner!

2. Engage your audience. How do you communicate with your target market? Get your modus operandi into holiday mode. Your e-newsletter, Website, social network presence should be dressed up for the party!

3. Convert your audience to customers. Create a buzz with giveaways, events, coupons – whatever will get your target audience in the door to sample your wares and have a great time.

If you came up with some great ideas you’d like to share – let us know!

January 2, 2011

New Year’s Resolutions For Small Businesses

1. Get a smart phone. This great tip appeared on the New York Times‘ list of “10 Ways to Get the Most Out of Technology“. Your clients are no longer using phones for conversation only, they are using them to find products and services, get directions, keep track of appointments and goals. Mobile marketing is the next frontier for engaging your clients. In order to understand how your customers are using mobile phones, you need to become a user.

2. Socialize your Website. If referrals are important to your business, you’ll need to make it easy for your current clients to tell their friends about your great products and services. Subscribe to services (such as ‘Add This‘ and ‘Share This’) that allow visitors and clients to share your content with friends in their social networks. After all, your clients (and potential clients) are visiting your Website, but they are spending most of their time in social networks.

3. Form partnerships to promote your business. Although new media marketing delivers clear, track-able results, it can be costly and time consuming for small businesses. Partnering with a business that is not a competitor is one way to over come the cost and time. For example, if you are running a bakery, partner with the shop next door to retweet messages, Facebook statuses and share a marketing budget. Soon you’ll find that you are building and sharing a community of supporters for half the effort.

December 28, 2010

Non-profit fundraising – from email to donation form

Care2 hosted a great Webinar today: The Procrastinator’s Guide to 2010 Year End Fundraising. We’ve remixed four great take-aways for organizations using email to get visitors to give through online donation forms:

1. Get to the point
So, you’ve sent your appeal with a nice “click to donate” button. When your readers click that button they should be taken to the donation form – not to another ‘please donate’ pitch. Your email already made the pitch and the donor is ready to give; inserting another pitch before donation form can be distracting and could lower your conversion rate.

2. Keep your donor focused
Suppress your global navigation if you can. This will help your visitor to focus on why they came to your Website: to make a donation. Continue reading “Non-profit fundraising – from email to donation form”

October 30, 2009

How Much Time Should Visitors Spend on Your Website?

Recently one of my clients called expressing much frustration that visitors to her Website were not staying long enough. Business was going well and most of her customers came to her through her Website but still the average time on site was less than 3 minutes per visitor. What was she doing wrong? Why weren’t her visitors staying longer?

Rather than worry about how much time people are spending on your Website, here are two questions you should be answering Continue reading “How Much Time Should Visitors Spend on Your Website?”

July 27, 2009

Your Website is your “game face” – Is it on?

The first thing most customers do before they follow a lead to any product or service is to ‘look online’ to learn more about that product or service. Your potential client is likely to take two steps before giving you a call or making a commitment to your product or service – 1. use a search engine to look for your business, 2. visit your Website (if you have one).

When potential customers find your Website online, what should they see? Your Website is the global face of your business. In today’s marketplace, Websites are required to legitimize a business or organization. When potential customers arrive at your Website, they should see what they are looking for – not just what you want them to see. Continue reading “Your Website is your “game face” – Is it on?”

July 20, 2009

When to use a Social Network as Your Website

Test your business idea for cheap. If you are an entrepreneur that’s just starting out, launching your business’ Web presence in a social network could be a great first step before launching a fully developed Website. Social networks are often free to use and the best ones even offer e-commerce tools for cheap. Take a quick peek at the top social networks and you will find entrepreneurs of every stripe using the networks to understand and break into their markets.

Create a buzz, get feedback. Social networks are great places for polling an audience and getting a product or service airtime that it would not otherwise get. MySpace for example has been a true blessing for unsigned bands. They are able to create profiles with pizzazz, upload their music, share it for free and even sell it; with a big enough following of “friends”, they might Continue reading “When to use a Social Network as Your Website”

June 6, 2009

Are Websites Still Relevant?

Some businesses are asking what’s the use in setting up a Website when everybody’s on Facebook, MySpace or Twitter? Why not just set up a Facebook or MySpace page and use that as a business Web address? After all, on any given day there are up to 110 million people on either Facebook or MySpace building trustworthy relationships–why not stay there instead of trying to lure them to your own Website? While it seems as if these folks are just creating customer profiles and waiting for smart marketers to present products and services which can be peddled in those networks outfitted with the necessary e-commerce and communication tools, taking this position is like saying its wiser to live in a hot new nightclub than to get your own home. Continue reading “Are Websites Still Relevant?”

April 6, 2009

Expand Your Reach: Country-Coded Domains

Entrepreneurs that dream big know that having a Website is not enough to get your brand and ideas out there. If your product is as vital as say… food, medicine or a tourist destination, you might want to add to your to-do list a strategy to go international by obtaining one or more ccTLDs- country-coded domains assigned to other independent countries (e.g. Jamaica uses .jm, and the UK uses .uk.)

3 good reasons for acquiring a ccTLD outside your home country (Caribbean or otherwise) are-

1. Send your brand where it could be more profitable
It’s simple, if you want to get paid in pounds, euros or yuan – go where you can get it! Acquiring myhotcaribbeanproduct.co.uk, .eu or .jp will get you more play in search engines queried abroad that at home.

2. Protect your brand in a shrinking world
If you’ve got a great product with cross over appeal (and who doesn’t?), save yourself the headache of dealing with international domain squatters who can hold your URL at ransom for big bucks later on. Websites such as Sedo’s is a weeping ground for businesses that underestimated the value of their brand or that they would want to open up shop elsewhere in our shrinking world. A domain that you can purchase for $20 today, could cost you $2000 tomorrow.

3. The grass looks sexier from the other side
It’s no mystery why marketers and businesses are scampering to secure domains in places like Tuvalu, the Federated States of Micronesia and Montenegro – with extensions such as .tv, .fm and .me your message could be made clearer and hotter in your own home market. It’s true that few in your home market will be thinking about Tuvalu if they saw hotcaribbeanthing.tv; but they sure would be logging on to “watch” it –and that’s the point!

Until next time when we’ll talk about some things to know before you go ccTLD.