Get Your Business Ready for Facebook Timeline

by Kiri Glover on March 13, 2012

in Social Media Marketing

In case you haven’t heard, the Facebook Timeline is becoming mandatory for all business Pages by the end of this month. The Timeline layout puts stronger emphasis on personalisation via the Milestones feature, and encourages businesses to make their pages more engaging through posting visually rich content.

Let’s look at some of the major differences between the traditional Facebook layout and the Timeline layout, so you’ll be well prepared when the big switch comes.

Cover Photo and Profile Picture

The cover photo is the first noticeable and major change to your business Page, which you can see below:

 

Traditional Business Page

 

Timeline Business Page

 

You now have one large image to showcase what you are all about! Facebook have kept the guidelines strict with this one, saying the cover image must not contain:

  • Price of purchase information
  • Contact information
  • Reference to user interface elements e.g. ‘Like’ or ‘Share’
  • Calls to action, e.g. ‘Enter our new promotion here’

Milestones and Timeline

This is your chance to display your company’s history and story through visually compelling milestones. You can take advantage of the time-tagging/milestone feature and post old pictures, articles or videos that highlight significant events and achievements your business has experienced over the years.

Old Spice Founding Date Milestone

 

Highlighted and Pinned Posts

To help make your Page more visually engaging, picture and video posts are shown much larger than in the traditional layout. For a post to really stand out, you can now ‘highlight’ your posts so the picture or video will span across the whole page (see below), or you can ‘pin’ the post so that it will stay at the top of your timeline for up to one week.

Pinned Post

 

Highlighted Post

New Applications and Tabs

I was a little disappointed that default landing pages have been removed in the new Timeline layout. The old landing page setting was a great way for businesses to welcome new fans, promote special offers and encourage growth of their fan base.

Another change is the shifting of Tabs for application pages from the left hand side of your Facebook page to right underneath the your cover photo.

Old Tabs & Applications

New Tabs & Applications

As you can see in the new Facebook tab and applications picture above, there are four spaces available. As an admin, you can have up to 12 apps, however only four can be shown on your business Page.

Private Messaging

You now have the ability to enable private messages that users/fans can send you. To me, enabling this is a no brainer.  Private messaging opens a new means of communication that is more personalised between the admins and followers of a Page. It will also prevent messages like these from showing up so frequently on your Wall: “Hello? My delivery still hasn’t come … can someone help me?” Many customers would much prefer to resolve issues like these privately, and only post publically to your Wall because (until now) they had no alternative.

 

Facebook Offers

You soon will be able to offer your Facebook fans special deals through your Page and their news feed. The offers will be free to post or claim, and fans that take you up on an offer will be auto-emailed a unique voucher code to redeem it.

Facebook Offer

 

Admin Panel

All the important things you would want to view about your Facebook business activity are now all on one page – the Admin Panel.

The Admin Panel is broken into 5 sections:

  1. Notifications
  2. Messages
  3. New Likes
  4. Insights
  5. Page Tips

Admin Panel

 

 The Switch

Before the new layout becomes mandatory, you should invest at least an hour or two getting your Page Timeline-ready. You don’t want to ignore this great opportunity to make a greater impression on your followers, and nor do you want your followers to get the wrong impression (i.e. you’re an outdated brand that doesn’t respond well to change).

The main things I would focus on:

  • Choose a great cover and profile photo
  • Ensure that your tabs/applications are reviewed and optimally displayed
  • Post more visual content
  • Use pins and highlights to give your best visual content maximum impact
  • Fill in your Timeline gaps with milestones, so your followers can get a better understanding of your company’s story
Good luck! :)

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Why Google Places Wants Your Website Mobile Friendly

by Paula Lay on March 12, 2012

in Local Search

Local business stand to benefit from several recent changes to the layout of Google’s search results. For starters, meta descriptions (formerly pulled from the company’s Place page or  directly from its website) no longer appear in the blended results:

Improving the experience for mobile users is one possible reason for this change. As previously reported by Kevin Dam, “66% of local searches are from a mobile device“, so removing unnecessary content provides the space for mobile searchers to see essential contact details at a glance. It also helps to increase the speed of the search results for mobile devices.

Another visible change is in the non-blended search results page, with map listings being included in organic search results via a sitelink extension:

What will this mean for local search listings?

The changes are another nudge from Google for businesses to update their websites to be mobile friendly and optimised for local search. This becomes especially relevant if your business offers services or products restricted by location, e.g., plumbers, restaurants and beauty salons.

Google has repeatedly stated that its “goal is to provide users with the most relevant results and a great user experience”. So if you’ve been asking yourself, “Do I Need a Mobile Friendly Site?”, then chances are, you do. It’s not a matter of if your Places rankings will suffer if you put your mobile visitors through an unpleasant experience, but when.

But fear not – optimising your website for mobile and local searchers isn’t difficult. Read more of our blog for tips on what your business could be doing to improve local search listings.

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3 Things Your Analytics is Trying to Tell You

by Aris Abramian on March 8, 2012

in Analytics

There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics. – Mark Twain

While Mark may have a point, Google Analytics has a few hidden gems that I’m going to share with you today – three, actually.

1. New opportunities

This one seems a bit obvious, but unless you know what to look for you may miss it.

First of all, you’ll need to filter your traffic by non-paid Search Traffic, and view your organic search keywords.

Sort your keyword list in ascending order by Average Time on Site. So you’ll have 00:00:00 at the top, and be looking at keywords for products/services that generate traffic, but that your website doesn’t actually offer*.

For example, you may own a car rental company, and your website is receiving some traffic for bus, van or truck rental search queries. That’s traffic your website can’t sell to or engage with; in other words, it’s worthless. However, if you start catering for these products/services, you’ll be able to put that traffic to lucrative use.

Obviously, buying a fleet of buses just to capitalise on this search traffic is probably not a good business decision (unless the traffic is significantly high). What you could do is try to capture these visitors’ details through an enquiry form, and then resell them as leads to a bus rental company! Why waste good traffic, right?

*Lies: It may not always be possible to turn these into new opportunities, but may highlight areas of your site that need tweaking improve your visitors’ experience.

2. What your visitors want

If you don’t know what they’re looking for, you can apply the technique above and find out. For instance, if people are finding your site searching for a Returns Policy, and that page has a very low Time On Site, there’s a good chance that you aren’t meeting their needs*.

By knowing what people are looking for, you can tailor your next blog post, PR release, newsletter, or TV advertisement to satisfy your visitors.

Enabling Site Search is also an excellent way to discover what people are actively trying to find on your site. While we all want to put our high ticket items in the front window (or homepage), often people are looking for bargains instead of for expensive stuff. This is equivalent to putting your most requested product “somewhere out the back”, rather than on the showroom floor with giant arrows pointing to it.

*Damned Lies: Except if your returns policy is only one or two sentences long, then a low Time On Site is what you would expect.

3.  Identifying your most profitable online channel

So, is SEO or PPC making you more money?

An accurate analysis goes far beyond simple monthly conversions. Imagine the following scenario:

I click a banner ad somewhere, visit a website, and then leave. Three weeks later, I get a pay raise, so I search for and return to that website and buy a $250 watch.

Traditionally, this would be attributed as a search conversion, even though it was a banner ad that first brought me to the site.

The secret is the Assisted Conversions area of Analytics: go to Multi-channel funnels -> Assisted Conversions -> First Interaction Analysis. You’ll see information that looks like this:

Table of Data, showing Analytics Assisted Conversions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

First Click Conversion Value attributes a transaction/goal conversion to the very first source used to find your site.

Last Click Conversion Value shows you  the final source that lead to the sale/goal conversion.

Here’s a simpler explanation:

First Click Conversion: Drove them to the site.

Last Click Conversion: Made the sale.

Now, let’s take a closer look at the Paid Search data (second row in the table above).

First Click Conversion Value: $1,248.00. This revenue generated from PPC driving people to the site.

Last Interaction Conversion Value: $0.00. This is where it gets interesting! PPC in this case doesn’t close any final sales. It does, however, drive a good deal of traffic that later converts through other means.

The older version of Google Analytics would have reported the Paid Search Revenue as $0. Now, with the new Assisted Conversion report, we can see that its true value is in generating the lead, not closing the deal.

Conversely, the Direct Traffic row shows that this channel doesn’t sell well on its own, but is an excellent closer for traffic that’s come through other channels.

So what does this mean for you? Well, if you previously thought a specific campaign wasn’t performing – change what you’re measuring and surprise yourself*!

Or not, if the campaign actually isn’t performing …

*Statistics: They’re your friend! Just be sure to look at them regularly, and analyse them correctly.

 

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Basic SEO FAQs

by Annie Nguyen on March 6, 2012

in SEO

In this blog post, I thought I’d go over the basic FAQs that often come up around the fascinating and complex subject of Search Engine Optimisation. If you’re considering engaging SEO services for your website, or giving SEO a try for yourself, these FAQs and answers will give you a great starting point for your research.

So, what is SEO and how can it help my website?

People search the Internet via search engines such as Google, Yahoo! and Bing – but mainly Google. :) The order in which websites appear in the search engine results page is determined by the relevance and quality of your website in the eyes of the search engine. Search Engine Optimisation is a method of marketing which uses specialised techniques to improve your website’s ranking in the search engine results page for particular keywords. This allows you to capitalise on the traffic delivered to your website through your search engine visibility.

What’s the difference between SEO and SEM?

Although some may use the terms SEO and SEM interchangeably, SEO is actually a component of Search Engine Marketing (SEM). SEO is concerned with optimising your website to receive higher positioning in major search engines while SEM involves multiple aspects of website promotion through search engines, including SEO and paid search listings.

What’s the difference between paid and organic search listings?

Search engines return two types of search results: organic and paid. Organic search results are the web page listings that the search engine has naturally determined as relevant to the search query. This is where SEO techniques can come into play and help you improve your organic search listing. The section highlighted in green below is where organic listings appear in Google.

Paid Google listings, also known as AdWords, are sponsored links which appear above and beside the natural search engine results (as indicated by the yellow sections above). Website owners pay the search engine in order for their ad to appear when a relevant search query is entered. Payment occurs on a ‘pay-per-click’ (PPC) basis and you have ongoing control of your ads, keywords, ad link and text. See here for more information on PPC.

What is on-page and off-page SEO?

SEO combines the process of optimising off-page and on-page factors to increase your website’s search visibility. On-page refers to optimisation of the content and HTML of your website pages. Off-page refers to external factors, namely the quantity and quality of links pointing to your website. For more information about on-page and off-page SEO here is a useful link: Updated SEO Fundamentals.

What are long-tail and short-tail keywords?

Short-tail keywords are short, generic words and phrases; for example, “toys” or “car”. Long-tail keywords are longer, more detailed search queries; for example “buy plush teddy bear” and “rent BMW Australia”. Although the more precise the keyword is the less the search volume, if a potential customer types in a highly specific query in Google which matches your long-tail keyword optimisation, chances are they will find what they are looking for. As such, the conversion rate for long-tail keywords is generally much higher than for short-tail keywords.

And how do I track the results?

Although SEO affects the movement of your page rank in search engine results, keyword rankings are only part of the measure of success and should not be the primary goal of SEO. A better way to track your SEO results is by measuring incremental increases of non branded organic website traffic.

Any questions I haven’t answered here? Please ask them in the comments!

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Digital Darwinism: Adapt or Perish

by Michael Laps on March 5, 2012

in Industry News

Our world is changing more rapidly than ever. Babson College recently released an eye-opening statistic: “Over 40 percent of the companies that were at the top of the Fortune 500 in 2000 were no longer there in 2010”. The book Built to Change by Edward  E. Lawler and Christopher G. Worley claims the trend is accelerating, too. If it continues at this rate, 70 percent of Fortune 1000 companies will turnover from 2003 to 2013.

Think about that.

3 out of 4 of the world’s biggest, most successful companies will fall from grace by next year. Welcome to Digital Darwinism. It’s literally become adapt or die.  TIME Magazine published an interesting article titled “Is Technology Moving Too Fast?”  It was a warning; the main concept being the world was in “autocatalysis” – a state of perpetual self-accelerated development. As a result, the market for change could eventually hit a dry spell. People are struggling to keep up with technological advancements, because they occur more rapidly than most would consider healthy. That article was written in 2000. Lets look at what’s happened since then.

This graph shows how many businesses that were started in 1992 were still operating in 2002. 71% of them failed.

Now check out this video by Brian Solis, author of The End of Business as Usual. Count the number of companies you recognise that are no longer operating.

In a study of the 10 biggest bankruptcies in history, all 10 of them occurred this decade, and totaled over a whopping $1.5 trillion. That’s 12 zeros.

We’ve hit the stage where the rate of change is making it almost impossible for companies to keep up. No wonder most businesses can’t stay in the Fortune 1000 for long! Some will now look at it as a death sentence – the business has hit its peak. But perhaps it should be seen as a challenge. What is your business doing to stay ahead of the curve?

The Internet is the biggest technological and communications advancement in history. Now it’s hit the stage where if you’re not visible on the Internet, then you’re not visible at all. The same is becoming true for the social media revolution. And yet most businesses are still too afraid to dip their toe in the water, let alone go for swim. Entrepreneurship and the ability to pivot a business in a new direction when needed are so key to staying afloat. The most successful companies identify successful ventures just as quickly as they identify ones that are failing. They know when to invest, and when to get out. They also see opportunities and act quickly to get involved.

So with the world’s technological advancements breaking through the proverbial ceiling on a weekly basis, organisations need to be on their toes more than ever. There’s no time to drag one’s feet in a world where being aerodynamic and malleable is the new structure of survival. One step ahead is no longer enough. We need to start predicting the trend that will replace the next trend, which is obviously easier said than done.

Unless you’re Google, in which case you already know everything…

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Guide to Google AdWords for Video

by Annie Nguyen on March 3, 2012

in Pay Per Click (PPC),Video Marketing

Last year the world’s biggest ad network and most popular video community joined forces to combine the powers of online advertising and rich media engagement in Google AdWords for Video. This platform enables you to easily manage your video ads on YouTube and the Google Display Network. Best of all, you only pay for the ones that actually get watched.

Here is a short clip introducing Google AdWords for Video:

AdWords for Video is located on the left navigation menu under Online Campaigns in your AdWords account dashboard. If you don’t have an AdWords account, setting one up is an easy 5 step process (click here).

Ready to go? Great! Now, let’s go through some of the terminology you’ll encounter when using AdWords for Video.

What are True View Video Ads?

In the AdWords For Video platform, promoted videos are called True View Video Ads. From your dashboard you can view which of your True View video ads are contributing most to the success of your campaign, as well as the ones that aren’t getting many views or conversions. You can target your video ads to particular audience segments with demographic or geographic filters, to maximise their exposure to only the audiences who would be interested in what you have to offer.

Types of True View Video Ads

True View ads are available in four different ad formats: in-search, in-slate, in-display and in-stream.

In-search Ads
In-search ads are those that appear in Google and YouTube’s search results. In Google, these videos are integrated as part of the Search Engine Results Page (SERP); in YouTube, they appear as Promoted Videos. Like traditional text ads in Google’s Search Network, in-search ads are priced on a CPC model, i.e. you only pay when someone clicks.

In-slate Ads
In-slate ads appear before long-form (10 minutes or longer) videos on YouTube are played. Viewers can either to choose to watch an ad from one of three different advertisers before the long-form video plays, or to see regular commercial breaks during the video. You only pay if a viewer watches your ad.

Below is an example of how in-slate ads appear on YouTube.

In-display Ads
In-display video ads appear embedded in websites across the Google Display Network, including on YouTube as Sponsored Ads. Unlike other display ads which are priced on a CPM model, you will only pay when someone clicks to watch your video.

In-stream Ads
In-stream ads are skippable ads that appear before a viewer selected video is played. These ads play pre, mid or post-roll in videos of all lengths on YouTube, and in video content across the Google Display Network.

Your ad plays for a minimum of 5 seconds, after which viewers can either continue watching or choose to skip it. If a viewer chooses to skip, you don’t pay for the ad. If the viewer watches for 30 seconds or more, you pay for the ad.  If your clip is under 30 seconds, then you pay only when the ad is viewed to completion.

Below is an example of an in-stream ad:


What does this mean for you?

The next time a potential customer enters a relevant search term for your business model, have a video ad up and running before your competition does! Many web users are more likely to click on a video over a text or image PPC ad. It’s new, it moves and it’s a chance to watch rich content instead of being directed to read another static web page.

Video advertising is also highly targeted and cost-effective. The AdWords for Video platform allows you to control your budget based on performance and, since you only pay when viewers choose to watch your ad, you are more likely to be paying for views by qualified prospects who are interested in your products or services. And as an added bonus, you get an increased YouTube video count!

What are you waiting for? Here is the proof in the pudding!

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The SEO Revolution – from Great to Insanely Great

by Dan Jebamony on March 1, 2012

in SEO

E-Web Marketing has always prided ourselves in delivering a great service to our clients. The world of online search is a challenging field, one that is the lifeblood of many of our clients’ businesses. Given the gravity of what we do, we asked ourselves a big question:

 

Is a great service good enough? 

 

One of our company values is to “create raving fans”. Not for just our key accounts – for ALL of our clients. And, while we have high satisfaction rates, we can’t claim that every single one of our clients is a “raving fan”. Like any company, have a few campaigns that have not gone as well as planned. From this point of view, we saw that “great” is not good enough. We decided that we wanted something that would be – as Steve Jobs would have said – “insanely great”.

So we set about asking ourselves what the common feedback is with the SEO side of our business. Some of the (paraphrased) feedback that we found that we heard on an ongoing basis:

  • Can you take care of SEO so that I don’t have to write content?
  • Can you get me ranking high without compromising the look of my website just to have SEO content?
  • Why do results take so long?
  • Can you get this seasonal keyword ranking, pronto?
  • Can you just get my one or two money keywords ranking, fast?
  • Will the work that you do now still be effective in 6 months or a year?
  • What if someone sees that link?
  • What if none of the link “submissions” get accepted?

In the weeks since then, the team here at E-Web Marketing have been working extremely hard on revolutionising our link building service to address all of this feedback.

The SEO Revolution

The result is what we call The Grid, and it means:

  • The emphasis on content is minimal
  • Results happen in a matter of weeks, even days
  • We can target competitive keywords on smaller budgets
  • The work we do now won’t get re-evaluated by Google’s updates
  • Every link submission will be accepted – guaranteed

So what is The Grid? Without going into too much detail, E-Web has created relationships with a large collection of online properties that we have authority to use in order to build the online reputation of your business. The result for you is that the links that we build for you are quality links, as described in my last post. There’s a lot more sophistication to it, but that’s the guts and essence of our new approach.

From an insider’s perspective, the changes have been both cutting edge as well as incredibly fast. It’s hard, if not impossible, to convey to an outsider how exciting the changes are, and I’ve been finding that a great deal of my clients don’t understand why we have to change things around so much. After all, change is like cough medicine – it’s good, but it ain’t easy to swallow!

So WHY are we are making these changes? Before we get into that, let’s revisit who we as a company are.

Who We Are

Our company vision is “We exist to bring Happiness, Success and Fun to everyone we encounter”. This is the driving force behind everything that we do. It’s the E-Web difference. Anyone that has been to our St Leonards office will know that we’re a fun-loving and happy bunch that are more than willing to spread that effusive energy.

More than just our energy, it’s a deep-seated passion drive to succeed that motivates us. And, since we’re in marketing, we succeed when you succeed. It’s a nice, convenient way to keep us motivated in your best interests, innit?

It works well because we are like a family and our clients are our extended family. When you aren’t succeeding, we aren’t succeeding. That hurts us to our core so much that our CEO, Gary Ng, has gone on record to say that he will personally field a call from any unhappy client, no matter how big or small, and no matter what time of day or night it is.

It’s this passion that drives all of the changes at E-Web, including this latest change. So, if you take anything away from this blog post, take this – we only make changes to the way we do things if we have a genuine, heartfelt belief that it will bring you more Happiness, Success and Fun. We are constantly evolving what we do so that you get the best possible results.

Now, moving on to the common “why” questions that we have been hearing…

Why We Are Changing Our Approach

The only thing constant about search engines is change. The search landscape is in a state of perpetual flux. Search engines are constantly updating their algorithms in response to new research, engineering breakthroughs, new media formats and, of course, to stay one step ahead of black hat SEOs (what I like to call the “Red Queen” phenomenon).

Google updates its algorithm 1-2 times per day on average. That’s a phenomenal rate of change. We have constantly been evolving our SEO to keep up with these changes – for example, the types of links that we build has mushroomed in the last 6 months to include social bookmarks, video links, document links, web 2.0s, niche blog posts and more in addition to the article submissions, directory submissions and blog commenting that we used to do.

This has gotten us some pretty great results, and happy clients. It’s worked well to date, but from all of the research we put into evolving our link building, we realized that what we were doing was just the tip of the iceberg. Here’s why we are so confident that our new approach is a revolution:

  • It’s algorithm-proof – we are building a natural link profile around the powerful links we build
  • Control – we no longer rely on independent third parties to submit articles to, meaning all of the links we post are guaranteed to be accepted and indexed
  • Maintenance – we are continually building up the authority of the domains that we work with

The benefit of our new approach is so huge that it would be downright irresponsible of us to not do it!

Why This Will Be Better For You

As Simon Lissa, our Search Strategy Director put it, “Our approach will build the authority and power of your website and brand online through attaining more votes and increasing the visibility of your reputation…enough said.”

How important are these votes? Although Google’s algorithm is still strictly confidential, industry experts have attributed off-page factors as having the following weighting:

  • 22% to inbound link anchor text
  • 22% to page authority
  • 24% to domain authority
  • 5% to social metrics

That’s a lot of weighting given towards the authority built up from inbound votes. Also note that, while we’ll focus on specific keywords with our links, it will also build authority to your entire domain. With 24% of Google’s algorithm attributed to domain authority, the added benefit of our approach is that feeding the authority of your website will help you rank not just for targeted keywords, but also for the thousands of variations on those targeted keywords.  And it makes sense too – the CNN website is more trustworthy that a one-man band blog.

Given that Google’s algorithm is now approximately 72% based on the authority of your website, why wouldn’t we do it this way?

Why We Are Not Doing Hands-On On-Page SEO Anymore

Wait, so up to 28% of Google’s algorithm is on-page – why would we move away from doing on-page SEO? Good question Jimmy! Let’s look at the breakdown of on-page factors:

  • Keyword Usage – in content, title tags and H1 headers
  • Traffic Patterns – is your site showing traffic patterns of visitor engagement, such as a low bounce rate?
  • Registration/Hosting data – is your website hosted in a trustworthy data centre?

Looking through these, what becomes apparent is that two of these major factors, keyword usage and traffic patterns, are related to how engaging your business is. We don’t claim to be the experts in your business – in fact, we believe that YOU are the expert in your business.

Given that Google is interpreting content better and rewarding engaging content, we feel that it’s best for us to share the knowledge that we have on how to tailor your content to be friendly to Google. After all, knowledge is abundant! Our new approach is to empower you with the tools and knowledge (such as tips on setting meta tags, writing H1s and keyword density in content) to convey how compelling your business is.

You know your business better – so ask yourself, would you want your SEO company telling the world about what you do, while battling with your web developer about who is making changes on the site? Or would you rather :

  1. Trust yourself (as the expert on your business) to spread your own message
  2. Trust your web developer (as an expert on web development) to make changes on your website
  3. Trust your SEO company (as the expert on search) to deal with the tricky business of building your brand online

To me, the answer is simple – what about you?

Why We Are Building “Less” Links to your Site

In conversations with your contact at E-Web, you may find that the quantity of links we are building now seems to be dropping. This may be setting off alarms in your head – is E-Web doing less work?

I invite you to ask yourself, would you rather your business was recommended by 10 people that had no affiliation with your industry and a small network? Or would you prefer to be recommended by an industry expert with a huge reach and network?

There was a time when thousands of automatically spammed directory submissions would have gotten you ranking for your targeted keywords. Ranjit who is emailing you from his Banglalore office might do 10,000 directory links for $2. But will that help you? Not really. In fact, it will probably get you banned in time.

The links that we build will have very high authority and relevant, quality content, making them far more valuable (in Google’s eyes) than a ton of less authoritative links. If you’re still unclear, I invite you once again to read my last post to get a better understanding of why sometimes less is more in the world of search. And at the end of the day, your improved rankings will tell the story.

In addition, we will be building other links in the form of web 2.0 properties, social bookmarks, article submissions and a whole host of other link varieties. These links will point to:

  1. The links that we build, to increase their page-level authority and yours in turn
  2. Your website, to build additional authority and maintain a natural link profile

We are constantly changing what we do, and I completely understand my clients’ frustration with not being able to peg down a specific number of links we will build for them. At the same time, I know that it would be irresponsible of us to grant them that peace of mind if it meant compromising their results. So if you want a specific number – I’m sorry, but we won’t compromise our results based on our knowledge. Perhaps I could refer you to Ranjit in Bangladore?

Why E-Web Controls the Links

Imagine you’re a boxer and you get a recommendation from Cassius Clay. That’s pretty cool, huh? Now imagine he retires straight after he hits the big time. How valuable would that recommendation be? Pretty valuable! On the flipside, how valuable would it be if he continued boxing and building his reputation? That recommendation would then be INVALUABLE.

That’s exactly what we’ll be doing with the links that we build. While the links that we create for you are on properties that we have strong relationships with, we will grow their reputation. And in the long run, that’s what’s gonna get you to the top.

As any seasoned SEO worth their salt will tell you, that’s all very true. They will also tell you that the following facts are true:

  • Links will deteriorate naturally as the internet changes and is re-indexed. We have to maintain these links for them to remain powerful. Unfortunately, this costs money. As a colleague of mine put it, “If you pay for half a cheeseburger, you’ll get half a cheeseburger”. As the experts, it would be irresponsible of us to “give” these links to our clients if we weren’t confident they would be maintained.
  • Your link volume and velocity will no longer be growing steadily. This will have a further negative impact, as Google will see your site as no longer receiving a steady stream of votes to it – and if it ain’t growing, it’s dying.

And hey – in six months, one year, two years – we will have evolved and revolutionized our approach to keep at the cutting edge. At that stage, what’s best for you may be to control your own links. At this stage, having links on authoritative properties that we have built relationships with is the best thing for your business. It comes back to who we are – if we didn’t think this was the best thing for you, we wouldn’t be doing it!

Besides – if what we’re doing is working, why would you want to stop working with us?

Wrapping It All Up

Thinking about the “why” of our new approach has been a personal journey and a transformation for me – it has clarified to me why we do what we do and why I love coming into the office every single day. We’re here to make a difference in people’s lives through not just what we do and how we do it, but why we do it. That’s the E-Web Marketing difference, and that’s why it’s a very special company to be a part of. So come join us for the ride!

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Mr Culture & Mrs Strategy: The Perfect Couple

by Michael Laps on February 29, 2012

in Industry News

It’s a dog-eat-dog business world out there. Every morning billions of people go to work and try to help their company out-grow, out-manoeuvre and out-position their competitors. It’s a daily struggle that managers, executives and CEOs taken upon themselves – leading a team to the Promised Land.

But what’s the best way to get there? Recently, there has been more and more discussion about which is more important: culture or strategy. The final showdown of a tactician’s heavyweights. But what if they didn’t need to fight all the time? What if they were the next Brangelina? Perhaps it’s simply a Cultegy in the making. Or Strature if you prefer …

Strategy

A good strategy is impossible to go past. It provides direction, unifies everyone on a common path to a shared goal. It allows for research into the external environment – what competitors are up to, how the business market is performing, any upcoming industry trends. Establishing competitive advantage doesn’t happen overnight. Strategy is the plan for success. With a poor strategy, your goal of world domination is unlikely to eventuate.

Culture

A good culture is what most companies strive for – and dream about – but usually fail at achieving. The Zappos of the world are few and far between. They’re special because they’ve created an office environment that breeds creativity, encourages personality and individuality, while still promoting the importance of financial success. Happiness in the workplace is the carrot dangled in front of everyone who steps in the door to these companies. Appreciation, growth and the true joy that comes from enjoying your work. It’s the triple-threat combo that provides the ultimate motivation. Every employee is determined to make the business succeed at all costs because they understand that if it does, their happiness will skyrocket in tandem to their bottom line.

The Marriage

Cultegy – or Strature – as we’ve decided to rename them, are both critical. But individually they’re only half the equation to victory. Their union is what provides the spark to mould a business into a titan. To successfully arrive in the Promised Land, every leader must find a way to forge the two internally. It will provide all employees with a mutual vision,  a united determination and an internal support network that competitors will find extremely difficult to replicate.

The age-old saying “All roads lead to Rome” is usually right, but some roads turn out to be more of a perennial quest. A fantastic culture may lead to greatness in the business world, but by itself it could potentially take longer than a solid strategy. The same rings true in reverse. By far the quickest way to Rome – and success – is by combining the two. Or a plane. They’re pretty fast too.

 

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6 Social Media Don’ts

by Annie Nguyen on February 28, 2012

in Social Media Marketing

Social media for business can be a dangerous beast – or bird, if you’re partial to Twitter. Just look at some of the epic fails of companies that have mishandled a social media campaign … McDonald’s and Qantas spring to mind …

So what are some basic tips to prevent your business’ social media efforts from meeting the same fate? This handy list of social media “don’ts” will help you to manage your campaigns like a pro!

1.     Don’t let questions and concerns go unanswered

Being able to listen to your audience by promptly addressing their questions and concerns on your social media page is a reflection of your business’s customer care. Leaving these concerns unanswered is a big no-no, especially if the comment is negative. Not only does the customer who has made the comment know that you’re ignoring them, all your other fans or followers will know it too.

2.     Don’t delete what others have posted

By deleting a comment, whether it is good or bad, you are ignoring and insulting your audience. Social media is based upon authenticity, so by deleting posts you’re indicating to your audience that you are uncomfortable with what your brand is doing and what it represents.

Instead of deleting or leaving posts unanswered, address the situation head-on and with full transparency. This will earn you more brand loyalty and shows others that you believe in your product and service, you care about your customers, and you have nothing to hide.

3.     Don’t write only about your business and services

Although there is nothing wrong about promoting your product or service through social media marketing, to be engaging you need to think about what will add value to your fans and followers. By giving helpful advice and being part of the online conversation about your brand, you will have a more interactive social media page and your fans will be more inclined to pay attention to your posts, return to your page, and share your content.

Think of your social network pages as normal business networking vehicles. When you meet someone at an event, do you just talk about yourself and pressure the person to “Like” you? No, you discuss interesting topics and share your thoughts and opinions in order to try to find a common ground. Your social media networking should be done the same way.

4.     Don’t be inconsistent

Make sure that your social media pages and accounts include the same business information and follow a similar theme. A person with multiple personalities can be confusing and hard to engage with, and the same goes for a business using social media. To build your brand you have to know your message, and be clear and consistent in delivering it.

5.     Don’t be repetitive

While it’s good to have consistency in your brand message, don’t be repetitive or robotic in your posts. If you’re posting the same thing day-in and day-out it becomes less of a conversation starter and more of a snore – hardly effective for building an engaged community. So have variability in your posts and embrace a human presence in your social media activity. Make the effort to find different types of content to share, aiming for a mix of articles, websites, videos, images, and anything else your audience will find intriguing.

6.     Don’t spam or post sporadically

I recently unfollowed a Twitter account for this very offense. Tweeting the same topic 10 times or sharing the link to your website repeatedly can annoy your followers. At the same time, being a drive-by Tweeter that posts 5-6 comments then leaves for weeks and months at a time is also ineffective and spammy. In your fans’ eyes, when you are known as a spammer, your message becomes less relevant and you are more likely to be overlooked or unfollowed.

Making mistakes is an unavoidable part of life and many businesses are bound to make at least one mistake on social media. However, by keeping these simple tips in mind, you can avoid the more common missteps and be a better leader of your social empire.

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How to Transfer Your SEO to a New Website

by Stefan Chan on February 27, 2012

in SEO

new websiteHow can you ensure that your website’s SEO rankings and organic traffic aren’t lost when you’re getting a new website developed? It’s a question we get often from clients, and with valid reason – nobody wants to see their hard-won SEO gains get wiped away. So we’ve come up with a list of essentials that you or your web developer need to address before you flick the switch.

  1. On-page SEO and Content
  2. Top Level Domain and Hosting Location
  3. Website Structure
  4. 301 redirects
  5. The Testing Server
  6. Crawlability
  7. Tracking
  8. Post Launch Tips

1. On-page SEO and Content

onpage seoTransfer any page titles, meta descriptions, the use of heading tags over to the most relevant pages on the new website. For example, your new homepage’s on-page SEO should match up with what’s on your existing homepage.

Old Website Homepage Page title: SEO, SEM, Online Marketing | ABC Company
Meta description: ABC Company is the number one provider of SEO, SEM and Online Marketing services... 
New Website Homepage Page title: SEO, SEM, Online Marketing | ABC Company
Meta description: ABC Company is the number one company in SEO, SEM and Online Marketing services...

Do not remove large amounts of text content from a page if you want it to keep ranking. It may be part of your redesign strategy to change content to better reflect your brand or services. Modifying content like this is fine, so long as it remains relevant to your existing meta data. However, getting rid most of your current content will not go over well with Google.
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2. Top Level Domain and Hosting Location

choosing a hosting locationIf you’re doing business in Australia, you need to be ranking in Google.com.au, because that’s where your customers are searching. Whether your website gets ranked in Google.com.au or somewhere else like Google.com or Google.co.uk, depends largely on two factors. The first is your top-level domain – always choose .com.au over .net.au, .com, etc.

The second factor is your website’s hosting location. If your hosting company is overseas, you run the risk of your website appearing in the search results for that country, which won’t do you much good if your customer base is in Australia. So when preparing to launch your new website, make sure your hosting location is in Australia.

Other best practices that reinforce to search engines where you are:

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3. Website Structure

website structureYour new website’s URL structure should be consistent with, if not better than, that of your current website. This is important because it affects how you’ll 301 redirect URLs (more on that below). It also impacts crawlability of the website, i.e. how easy it is for search engine robots to crawl and index your pages. For example:

Your current website may have had a URL such as /shoes-brand-blue
You may want to improve the structure of your new website to be something like /brand/shoes/blue

The second structure is easier for search engine robots to crawl and index because it’s based on a clear subcategorisation system – similar to how a supermarket organises each aisle to display groups of related products.
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4. 301 redirects

301 redirectsImplementing 301 redirects correctly is crucial to maintaining your SEO during a website transition. Overlook this step and your rankings and traffic will almost certainly plummet. What you need to do:

  1. Make sure the most important pages on your current website all have matching or corresponding  pages on your new website, and;
  2. Make sure 301 redirects from current to new pages are in place before the website is launched.

Ideally, every single page should be redirected to its appropriate counterpart on the new site:

Redirect 301 /currentpage.html to /newpage.html

However, this isn’t always possible if, say, one of your current pages is about a product or service that you’re not featuring on the new site. In which case, redirect that page to the category page above it. Going back to the supermarket analogy: if you don’t sell raspberry tea anymore, then point the 301 redirect to your hot beverages aisle.

As a last resort, you can redirect to the homepage. This should only be done if there is no other relevant or semi-relevant new page available.

To manage your redirects effectively, I recommend creating a spreadsheet with two columns: current and new URLs. You can download a sample here to use. To get a complete list of URLs to redirect, simply run a sitemap scan on your current and new websites and go from there. Another option would be to use a crawler program such as Screaming Frog SEO, which will crawl your current website and spit out a list of URLs, along with the meta data for each.

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5. The Testing Server

Developing a new website usually involves building it in a testing server. This can be hosted on a subdomain of your current website, e.g. test343.ewebmarketing.com.au. However, if your web developer doesn’t deindex this testing server from the search engines, you may end up with duplicate content issues or even security problems.

The easiest way to prevent search engines from indexing pages being built on the testing server is to implement a robots.txt file containing the following code:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /

This simple step can save you a lot of problems down the track.
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6. Crawlability

crawlabilityIf your new website has a lot of internal JavaScript and CSS, it may be difficult for search engine robots to crawl and index. You want to make their job as easy as possible, so you have the highest chance of maintaining – and improving – your SEO rankings. So it’s not advisable to build your new website with unnecessary code to complicate the process:

<script type="text/javascript">
variables and functions go here
</script>
<style type="text/css">
pretty colour stuff goes here
</style>

Although search engines are getting better at crawling JavaScript, you should still externalise it where possible. Besides, lots of internal code slows down the load speed of your website as well, and slower websites are at an SEO disadvantage when it comes to rankings.

Have a look at the source code yourself through your web browser, by right-clicking on the page and selecting View Page Source. If you notice a lot of code like the examples above, ask your web developer about the purpose of it, and if it can be externalised.
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7. Tracking

tracking codeAlthough not quite to do with SEO, another important aspect is making sure your tracking data is transferred to the new website, or you won’t be able to measure the effects your new website has on your business. Copy over your base Google Analytics code at a bare minimum, as well as:

And if you’re still using the traditional Google Analytics code, now is the perfect time to update to the new code as it provides more accurate and detailed tracking information.
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8. Post Launch Tips

websit e post launchIn most cases, you should not see any drop in rankings or traffic if all these best practices are followed. However, nothing is certain in love, war and Google! From time to time a drop does happen, even if you take every precautionary measure. This is very rare, and your rankings and traffic will usually pick up again within only a few weeks.

I recommend that you monitor your new website daily for the first few weeks after flipping the switch. Things to watch for:

  • A sudden influx of  404 errors, crawl errors or general website errors in Google Webmaster Tools
  • Traffic and rankings dips, especially for your most important keywords
  • Whether your website’s most important pages are still being indexed. You can check this by searching for the new URL in Google to see if it appears. Or you can check cache:yourdomain.com.au to see when Googlebot last visited that page.

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By doing your due diligence in following these steps, I’m confident that you’ll be able to transfer your SEO to your new website with next to no problems. If you made it all the way to the end – thanks for reading! I hope you find this list of tips valuable when switching over to a new website. If you have any other questions that I haven’t answered in this post, please ask them in the comments.

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