Website – Maroon Interactive

September 7, 2012

How to improve your search ranking on Yelp

If you are running a small business – say, a mechanic shop, diner, dentistry or hair salon, chances are people are talking about your business on Yelp. Over 30 million customers have written a review of a local business using Yelp and about 78 million folks check out those reviews every month. The site’s popularity is such that a search for a business by name could list it’s Yelp review even before the business’ own website.

Getting a positive (or negative) review on Yelp is not hard, but since a big chunk of Yelp’s 78 million monthly users are accessing reviews directly via their website or app, the challenge is getting your business at the top of Yelp’s search results. Here are five tips for improving your ranking on Yelp –

1. Get more reviews. Unless your business is the only one Continue reading “How to improve your search ranking on Yelp”

April 15, 2011

Do Small Websites Need a CMS?

So you are getting ready to launch a Website to promote your business and your Web developer is recommending that you use a content management system (CMS) to manage the Website – is this a good idea or just an additional expense? Here are five reasons you should use a CMS to manage – and take control of your Web presence:

1. There’s a CMS for every budget. Content management systems are great at managing data publication. Although there are many great expensive CMS platforms out there, some of the best platforms are free to use – even thought they might attract a modest fee for set-up and customization. Check out this review of a variety of CMS platforms.

2. Manage your Website’s ‘look and feel’. Whether your Website has 4 Web pages or 50, a decent CMS will make it easy for you to seamlessly apply your Website’s design to all content pages and provide a consistent user-experience for visitors. For example, if you decide to change your logo or information that appears on all pages of your Website, a CMS could make this process a breeze by removing the need to update each Web page individually.

3. Save time with a CMS. The CMS will reduce the amount of time (and cost) required to add content or make changes to your Website. If you’d like to update your Website and don’t know much about Web development and coding, a good CMS will also make it easy for you to make simple updates your Website.

4. Faster, uniformed deployment of helpful Web applications. If your Website is informational, you might think all you need to get your point across are a few Web pages – this might be true, but a CMS will also make it easy for you to engage in search engine optimization (SEO) or add Web applications to your Web pages that will help potential customers find your Website and share it with others.

5. Stay up-to-date with interactive marketing technology. Most developers of content management systems (CMS) review and update these Website management tools quarterly. The updates usually apply user feedback and the latest Web technology to the platforms – for example, a robust CMS will let you know when your Website is not secure or if your site’s code is outdated.

There are content management systems (CMS) for every budget – many reputable systems such as Drupal and WordPress are even free of licensing fees. If you care about consistency and maintaining a high quality Web presence, it’s well worth it to invest in a CMS.

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 24, 2011

Yahoo! Embraces the Power of Facebook and Google

After much testing Yahoo! made a bold move last week to allow all users to log into their Yahoo! accounts with their Facebook or Google IDs. According to company executives, this is a move to consolidate usernames and passwords and make it easier for new users to manage their Yahoo! account.

Businesses and organizations can learn three things from Yahoo!’s move –
1. If you cant beat ’em, join ’em. Google has long outpaced Yahoo! in the search business, and with over 500 million users, Facebook is the go-to place on the Web. Making space for the competition will boost Yahoo!’s relevance.

2. Shared login or OpenID authentication is a great idea. If your business or organization require members to log in to access content, this feature is a great way to share content and user activity in a wider network — and if your members are sharing something good, you may even recruit new members.

3. Embracing the competition can keep you in the game. Yahoo! may have lost it’s search engine crown to Google but it still has a popular and successful email product. Associating Yahoo!’s brand with Google and Facebook is also a good way to make users feel they can have all products with just one log-in — yeah for interoperability!

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”

July 13, 2010

Best Billboard? Yahoo! Mail Homepage

A few months ago Yahoo! Mail users were greeted with Yahoo!’s latest ad placement. The new ad spot is brilliantly featured as the background for the Yahoo! Mail’s login page where millions of Yahoo! Mail users are bound to see it. The spot is a win-win for advertisers looking to score on impressions. This is perhaps the best online placement I’ve seen that makes good use of idle space – you can’t miss the 1,440px × 1,024px image, and there’s no fast-forwarding past it.

I’m expecting Yahoo!’s bold move to inspire other Web sites to create similar placement opportunities for advertisers. Continue reading “Best Billboard? Yahoo! Mail Homepage”

January 10, 2010

When your Company Name is Your Top Keyword

Everyone wants certain keywords to put their Website among the top 10 search results on Google, Bing or Baidu. The baker wants his Web site to show up every time someone search for “tarts”, the travel agency wants their site to show up every time someone search for “Jamaica” and so on. The fact is, sometimes your company name is the number one keyword driving traffic to your Website. Does this mean your keyword strategy is a failure? Absolutely not.

If your company or organization name is among the top keywords sending traffic to your Web site it doesn’t mean people are coming to your Web site for the wrong reasons – it means they are coming! Continue reading “When your Company Name is Your Top Keyword”