Fact is, over 75% of searches for information on local businesses & services occur online, over 85% of those searchers contact the business in some form and of those more and 60% purchase goods or services from that business. Now, big companies don’t care as much about this. Think about it. If I want to go to Walmart, I either know where it is already or I type in www.walmart.com in the url window and hit “enter”. But wouldn’t it be fantastic if when a potential customer is looking for your goods or services, YOU come up first in the search results?

This isn’t about paid advertising, ie- PPC or “Sponsored Results”. That’s a quick, yet costly, way to get exposure for your website. Have you heard of the “10 Box” or “10 Pack”? If yes, you’re way ahead of the game. If not, it’s Google’s Local Map Listing results (See Above Pic). These are keyword and geographically pulled listings that you can position your business to show up for. Note, however, that the “10 Box” is only triggered to show up for certain keywords in each category and those are the ones that you will want to optimize your site and your listing for.  Also note:  the searcher doesn’t necessarily even have to enter in a city, town or zip code with their search terms.  Google knows where they are based on their IP address (scary, I know) and is assuming that they are looking for a business or service close by.

Aside from massive amounts of exposure, there are many reasons why you want to give Local Search some serious attention:

User experience – For the most part, consumer’s fingers are no longer “doing the walking” through an actual Yellow Pages book. They are, however, furiously zipping across their keyboards searching, researching and critiquing businesses before ever picking up the phone to call or stepping outside to get in their car. They want to see you on the map, read a review, and maybe even see a photo of the business. Trust me, if they can’t find you to do this, they yell “Next” and move on. This is the experience of today’s user and you need to be a part of it whether you want to or not.

Reach – The reach you get from being listed online, and then in local directories as well, is enormous. Now the data collected and managed online goes even further. Not only is Mobile local search gathering momentum with the iphone and similar devices, but you can often find businesses with your GPS as well. Imagine your business showing up on people’s GPS when they enter in a request for, say a nearby restaurant or florist. How cool is that? The idea is to have your listing ready to pop up anywhere and everywhere that people may be looking for it.

Ranking – This is just the basics. The more places that you are listed online and the more references there are to your site and your business, the better for your search ranking and your bottom line. The more popular, or higher ranking, sites that link to yours, the better for your rankings as well. Listings with Local Search Directories count as having popular relevant links to your website so you are really getting a double benefit there.

Submitting to Local Search Engines & Directories
Submitting to local search engines and directories is very time consuming but it’s important to note that there is some work involved before jumping into the submission process. It is crucial to identify your keywords and create some good copy on your website that will capture your target audience once you get them to your site. You will want an analysis of which keywords will pull up Google’s 10-Box in local search and then a determination of which of those keywords you want to optimize for. It is recommended that you enlist the services of a professional to consult with you on this process.

There are now dozens of places online to find local businesses, so knowing the best local directories for local search and how to submit to and get listed with all of these local search engines and directories is extremely important to today’s local business.  Below is a pretty comprehensive, although not complete, of local search directories:

As you can see UBL, Universal Business Listings, actually covers a lot of these so if you decide to undertake this yourself, they are a recommended service.  For just $30, you can have your listing included in many free and several paid local search directories but, keep in mind, it is an annual fee.  It’s still worth it to have the peace of mind and uniformity across all of the directories.

Today well over 10 BILLION unique searches are done monthly online  – Just in the U.S.!  Both Google and Yahoo have made some dramatic shifts in the past year in how they return search results and trends are geared toward Local Searches.  Mobile search is just now taking off and that has a huge local component to it as well.  If you’re a small to medium-sized business looking to make your footprint online, there’s no better time than now to get started.  In fact, things are moving so fast, that if you wait too long you may very well get left behind.  Don’t let that happen.

Anyway, the one’s I have made recently have not been malled by the YouTube police yet, but I also post on Vimeo just to be safe.  Here’s a video from a Consulting Challenge Conference that I attended in Las Vegas this past weekend.  Special thanks once again to Maria Gudelis with Wildhorse Performance Marketing and to all of the wonderful people that I’ve connected with over the past month.  What a group!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Everyone knows what a banner ad is.  If not, spend a few minutes surfing around…AFTER you’ve read everything on my blog and my website.  Generally, the ads are constructed from images (JPEG, PNG, GIF), and employ animation and sometimes even sound (yuk) with the use of Javascript, Shockwave or Flash.  Banners are seen everywhere and are placed on websites per the permission of the site owner, who usually gets a small commission on sales generating from their clicks.  When a banner ad is displayed on a web page, it is called an “impression”.  When a viewer clicks on the banner and is transported to the advertiser’s website, that’s known as a “click-through”.  Click through rates (CTR) are calculated based on the clicks divided by the impressions.

Now that we have all of that out of the way, Click through rates (CTRs) on banner ads have fallen over time.  That’s a fact.  There are plenty of reasons why a banner ad may not be producing respectable CTRs, among them are:

It’s ugly, annoying, loud, too flashy, illegible, weak, boring, confusing, or has a link that goes to an error page.  Just to name a few.

But what about the notion that banner ads are passe’?  Old news?  Not necessarily!  A recent study from iProspect indicates that banner ads are actually generating traffic outside of just the CTRs.  When they surveyed internet users to determine what actions they took when viewing a display ad, nearly one third said they clicked on the ad.  BUT, 27% said they used a search engine to find the product, brand or company listed in the ad and another 21% said they typed the company web address into their browser and navigated to the site.  That’s not all.  Another 9% indicated that they investigated the product, brand or company through social media or message boards.  

The same study dug a little deeper and determined that, among those who saw the display ad and performed a related search at some point, 14% actually visited the site and purchased the product advertised.  Maybe not money in the pocket for the site owner sponsoring the banner ads but, as a business deciding where to place my advertising dollars, I don’t know that I’d write off banner ads just yet.

The point here is that the use of these things could actually be affecting your bottom line.  chenry over at seomoz.org did a study and his results showed that, with CAPTCHA’s, there was an 88% reduction in SPAM but 159 FAILED CONVERSIONS!  Wow!  From a percentage standpoint, he showed that with the CAPTCHA on, there was a potential loss of 3.2% of conversions.  That could be a serious dent in sales at the price of getting rid of some SPAM.

It doesn’t have to be just black or white, however.  Instead of just flying naked with no SPAM protection, what other CAPTCHA alternatives are out there?  There are actually quite a few.  Some I have run across before and others are very novel ideas and, perhaps, worth a shot.   Here’s the list:

Non-Interactive Alternatives to CAPTCHA:

• Insert an input field that is invisible to the user.  By verifying that the field is empty you can detect human visitors.  You should probably insert the CSS in an external style sheet. You can also replace {visibility: hidden} with {display:none}. It also would be a good idea to change the name of the field as frequently as possible.  Here’s the code:

<input name="spam" type="text" style="visibility: hidden">

• You can use a hidden submit button and add a user button with Javascript.  A SPAM bot may click on the wrong button.  Here’s a sample:

<input type='submit' name='p' value='go' style='display:none'/>
<script language=\"JavaScript1.1\" type=\"text/javascript\">
document.write('<in' + 'put ty'+'pe=\"hid' + 'den\" na'+'me=\"acti'+'on\" va'+'lue=\"addme\">');
document.write('<input t'+'ype=\"sub'+'mit\" na'+ 'me=\"post\" value=\" $[Post] \" />');
</script>

Interactive Alternatives to CAPTCHA:

• Use logical puzzles such as “3 plus 2 = ….”, “How many wheels does a car have?”, etc.
• Use trivia such as “fire is not cold but ….”
• Present pictures of objects and ask visitors questions such as: “how many flowers are in this picture”, “is there a bird in the picture”. You could make this multiple choice.
• Present several pictures and have visitors click on a specific picture, for example the kitten. After the second/third attempt the message should be in the moderation cue.
• Make a “yes” and a “no” radio button and make “no” the default. Have visitors state that they are not spammers by selecting “yes”.
• Make an audio file that reads out loud the figures and have visitors type them in. Although this system helps the blind, it cripples the deaf.

So, there seems to be quite a few viable alternatives to using CAPTCHA that may be worth a try.  For those currently using CAPTCHA technology on any of their sites, it goes without saying that it’s not impenetrable.  There are circumvention techniques out there such as image recognition software, brute-force attacks, and just simply employing cheap human labor to process the tests. 

It really comes down to the neverending struggle for anyone doing business online and that is getting every single one of the good customers in and keeping all of the Spammers out.  There will always be that opportunity cost of the customers that you lose because of the safeguards that you implement.  Is 3.2% an acceptable loss of conversions for you?  It wouldn’t be for me.

So, what is “Black Hat SEO” anyway?  Black hat refers to the usage of practices that are against the terms of service presented by major search engines. This includes spamming the internet in an attempt to manipulate both users on the internet and the search results.

One method of Black Hat SEO is called “Keyword Stuffing”.  

Keyword stuffing is the process of cramming numerous keywords into a site. These keywords can be in the meta tags or visible on the text of the site. Webmasters that keyword stuff often believe that by loading their sites with keywords they will in the end rank better for all of these keywords in search engine results. Keyword stuffing, however, often has a negative impact on keyword rankings.

Including Keywords Without Stuffing
Including keywords in a natural way and not stuffing them in either the visual pages of a site or in meta tags is far more practical. By narrowing down the keywords a webmaster intends to target and then writing reader friendly text with these keywords sprinkled in is a much better way to gain keyword rankings. In the past keyword stuffing may have provided results but search engines have come a long way and now they can easily detect keyword stuffing and spamming.

Types of Keyword Stuffing
Keyword stuffing can be meta tag stuffing where a webmaster crams keywords into their meta tags in an attempt to get these keywords to rank in search engine results. Keyword stuffing can also be invisible text which is where a webmaster makes the long list of keywords the same color text as the background so it is not seen by readers. Neither of these processes will be likely to help a site gain rankings.

Another method of Black Hat SEO is called “Hot Linking”

Hot Linking is when you display video files or image files on a web site when the files are actually on another site’s server.  Hot linking is also known as inline linking, leeching, piggy-backing, direct linking, offset image grabs and bandwidth theft.

Why Do People Hot Link
If you display images or video files on your site that have been developed and appear on another site you’re using someone else’s bandwidth. The act of hot linking is considered unethical unless you have received permission from the site owner you are taking the image from.

Ranking a site in major search engines takes hard work but using approved methods are the best decision. After the site is ranked it can lose it’s rankings overnight if caught using spam techniques. However, if a site is ranked using only ethical techniques it does not run the risk of getting banned or receiving a penalty.  Use these black hat techniques at your own risk.

Web analytics remain one of the most important ingredients of successful online businesses. They help keep track of visitors and give critical information as to how your site is faring with the audience. Through web analytics, it’s feasible to find out about your visitors and their sentiments.

Definition:

Web Analytics is a series of reports giving quantitative indicators of the behavior of the visitors of a site. It tracks the movement of visitors and the cause of his/her visit. Put Differently, it provides a well-defined report of the performance of your website and the trends. From these reports and trends the site owner is able to produce and execute more effective programs to increase sales.

There are two types of web analytics: on-site and offsite web analytics.

On-site web analytics: This type of web analytics measures a visitor’s session on your website. This means it checks the pages that encourage people to purchase your product or service, the pages that drive them away and the ones drawing more visitors. It measures the website performance in a commercial context. The data collected from here is used to compare against the key performance and used to better the marketing campaign.  This data is compiled with the use of logfiles, and by tagging each webpage with a bit of Javascript.

Off-site web analytics: You can make use of this even if you do or do not own/ keep a website. It assesses the various opportunities in the market such as potential customers, the visibility of a site and other factors that affect a website promotion.

So, how do you get these “analytics” again?  Well, as stated before, you can insert some code into your website and utilize a free, but Amazing!, program like Google Analytics to review your stats.  On the other hand, the good thing about using a reliable website hosting service is that every time someone visits your site, your web host server records the user’s activities in a log file.  The data in this log is ordinarily abbreviated and cryptic making it difficult and time consuming to use. But, your Web host generally uses a software tool to import the log-file data into a built in database which in turn translates the data into readable and simple to understand statistical reports.

Specifically, a few things need to be tracked for every online business:

Bounce rate:

The bounce rate assists in determining why the visitors are probably going away from the site. The higher the bounce rate, the more visitors are not interested in your website.

Visit length:

Learning the average length of time of visitors remaining on your website proves helpful. If your visitors are lingering around your site for sometime then they are probably finding the information at your site useful. Thus, learning about the reader’s pursuit can be easily evaluated from the visit length. If, however, the average time on your site is 12 seconds, there’s a problem.

Visit depth:

Whether the visitors to your website are looking at the other pages of the site or not, influences the visit depth. If some people have visited almost all of the pages of your website and passed some choice time at every web page then it signifies your site is outstanding. However, if the visitor has visited several web pages but does not spend more time at each page then, it’s probably not a solid sign. Higher visit depth certainly will help the growth of your online business.

Returning visitors:

The returning visitors signal that you are having some loyal readers. If some readers are returning to your site repeatedly then, chances are that they like your site and find the information useful. Such readers could be called loyal visitors. The more faithful visitors your site has, the more popular your site is going to be.

Most search engines consider all of these as elements in their algorithms for search engine ranking for some particular keyword. Therefore, it’s important to make a note of all of these points and evaluate accordingly. But these are simply the fundamental principles.  It can, and does, go much  than this.

In the past, web analytics used measure things like server hits, entry pages, exit pages, unique visitors, repeat visitors, first page visited and the time spent on the website. The advanced web analytics are more business specific and can show us conversion ratios, browse to buy rates and customer acquisition costs. As the technology improves web analytics are able to help us find other aspects of the web as well.

At present web analytics help us analyze your visitor’s behavior. This data could be utilized to better your SEO strategies, keyword selection, site architecture and design. You can also improve the marketing methods and follow the proper steps to bring relevant traffic on to your website. In short, web analytics is the best way of improving your return on investment (ROI).

If you are presently marketing your business online and have not put a lot of consideration into the content on your site, you may be making an unbelievably pricey mistake. The content on your website is invaluable for a list of reasons. First of all it gives visitors to your website their first impression of your company and the products and services you provide. Additionally, well written content can be instrumental in selling your products and services to your prospective customers. Finally, the content on your website can influence the size of the target audience you are able to touch by helping to better your search engine rankings. With your content capable of doing so much, it is clear you should be engaging a professional content writer to assist you composing the copy for your website.

One of the most fundamental reasons why the quality of the content on your site is so important is because visitors to your site will likely build their first opinions of your site based on the content on your website. If the copy is poorly written, doesn’t hold the visitors attention and doesn’t promote your products and services well, visitors are likely to exit your site without making a purchase. Conversely, if the copy on your website is well written, engages the reader and promotes the products and services you offer the visitor is more likely to look into the website further to learn more about the products and services and might make a purchase.

Well written sales copy should accurately describe the products or services offered, accentuate the importance of these products and services and compel the visitor to make a purchase. All of this should be accomplished without appearing to be blatantly promoting the products and services. Composing this type of copy can be rather intricate and typically requires hiring a sales copywriter who is experienced and skilled at composing this type of informative and compelling content. Sales copy written by an nonprofessional or an unseasoned writer will not likely be as effective as copy written by a professional with a good deal of experience in online marketing.

Finally the content on your site is extremely important because it can greatly influence your search engine rankings. This is critical because high search engine rankings help your business to extend to a considerably broader audience. Internet users are typically looking for information quickly and require immediate results to their inquiries. Search engines understand this profile and write complex algorithms which help them to supply the most pertinent websites when a user searches for a particular word or phrase.

This is crucial to business owners because Internet users recognize the value of search engines and are apt to only visit sites which rate high in the search engines. This includes websites which rank on the first page or two of search results. Your business might sell football jerseys and you may have a well designed website, a quality inventory and outstanding prices but if your site doesn’t rank well in search engines you’re losing out on a great deal of free advertising. If your site lands on the third page or lower most visitors who search for relevant terms will not likely visit your website because they will have found what they were searching for on earlier pages.

Effective SEO copywriting focuses on many different factors such as the strong web content as well as keyword optimization.  Keyword optimization is making certain that your website has full use of a specific set of keywords so that when people search the Internet for these phrases, your website will be on the first page of results.  A good SEO copywriter should help you to acquire a high page rank within the different search engines as well as help build the sales through your site.

First, a little basic psychobabble – The human brain receives signals faster through eyes rather than ears. Visual appearance is supposed to be more appealing when compared to any other senses, no matter what the medium of presentation is. 

According to a study, big budget companies spend billions in the color market research, which helps in product and packaging development. Put another way, Intel isn’t throwing up websites with neon yellow backgrounds and purple text, so why are you?    Color, along with content, helps to capture the interest of the visitor and makes him surf the website longer.  A colorful article, done the right way, will make the reader read it till the end. Color makes things look more amiable.

It’s a must for an advertiser to have the knowledge about the colors and what they refer to.  The following is a list of colors and potential meanings:

• Red: passion, romance, fire, violence, aggression. Red means stop, or signals warning or forbidden actions in many cultures.
• Purple: creativity, mystery, (reddish purple) royalty, mysticism, rarity. Purple is associated with death in Catholic cultures, as mentioned above.
• Blue: loyalty, security, conservatism, tranquility, coldness, sadness. Light blues create a feeling of openness, clean air and freshness, while dark blues can convey tradition, trust and solidity.
• Green: nature, fertility, growth, envy. In North American cultures, green means ‘go,’ is associated with environmental awareness, and is often linked to fiscal matters. A lighter, somewhat desaturated green is the color of money and indicates wealth or value.
• Yellow: brightness, illumination, illness, cowardice. Some yellows can symbolize the precious metal – gold – and are universally valued.
• Black: power, sophistication, contemporary style, death, morbidity, evil, night.
• White: purity, innocence, cleanliness, truth, peace, coldness, sterility. White is also the color of death in Chinese culture, as mentioned above.

From the advertiser’s point of view, we can conclude that colors can determine the shopping habits of customers. Black, blue, red and orange attract impulsive buyers. Smart shoppers are attracted to pink, light blue and navy blue colors. Companies use colors in logo, advertisement, etc., to pass the right message to the customer. Wal-Mart advertise has a navy blue background and its catch line is “We sell for less”, which means smart customers are their goal. Mercedes has a silver logo, true to its class.

Before designing an advertisement, the targeted customers should be recognized and the advertisers shouldn’t use the colors that are their personal favorites but according to the ad campaign. Hot pink may be your favorite color but it may not be the best color for your consulting services website.  Advertisement for children should have bright and vibrant colors. Yellow, red, blue and green, which are the primary colors, are the colors, which attract the children, which is why parents buy those colors for their kids. These colors represent warmth, sweetness, trust, reliability, playfulness and security.  

Color harmony is the most important criteria when selecting colors. We recommend selecting a moderate number of colors. Four or five colors, plus black and white, should be sufficient. Too many colors create discord and will distract the user.  Finally, it can’t be stressed enough that your content and your background be contrasting to the point that your content and images are easily readable and “pop” from the screen.

So exactly what is search engine optimization and do you have to use it? Search engine optimization is using tools and methods in making your website top rating in the results of search engines. Getting yourself in the first page and, better yet, in the top half of the page (above the fold) will assure that there will be public awareness established of your site’s existence and subsequently generate more traffic, traffic that could lead to possible income and business. The answer to why you need search engine optimization an easy one. Read on.

Have you observed the climbing costs of pay-per-click (PPC) advertising or sponsored ads on the search engines? Research shows, 72% of clicks in Google’s search results are on links in the natural listings, as opposed to the sponsored listings.  Natural or “organic” listings are the free ones – and those are the listings you want to have. With search engine optimization you can get the benefit of generating a high traffic volume. Let’s just say you get only a turn out of successful sales with 10 to 20 percent of your traffic. If you get a hundred hits or more a day, you get a good turn out of sales already. If you get only twenty to ten hits a day, you only get one or two if not any at all.

When your site begins ranking high in the natural or organic listings of the search engines, you can expect that:

• More people looking for your business can find it easily.
• You’ll yield more business, depending on how well your website is tuned to get your message across to your online audience.
• Other websites start linking to your site as the place to go.
• Your PR efforts harvest dividends as journalists find your website and “feature” you.
• Momentum builds over time and your website can start ranking high for multiple associated search terms.

Your target audience easily locates your website.
Is it not plain by now that people who are researching, have a need or want for something around your business are going to utilize a search engine because it’s convenient? Most of these seekers will not  go past the first page of results on a given keyword and some will not  go even “below the fold” (the first panel of results displayed) if they discover a site that has what they are looking for. Make it  for your target audience to find your site with top search engine placement, then watch them run to you – and stop paying so much for clicks. .

Generate more business.
Most businesses believe that driving more traffic to their website will lead to more business, but that may not be true if your website is not tuned to your prospects’ wavelength. What motivates your target audience? What problems are they trying to solve? What’s their psychology? .

Many organizations have false ideas about generating business through their site and selling online. They try to sell based on their corporate structure, rather than taking the time to build decision paths for prospects’ questions and concerns and taking them only as far as they want to go in their buying process. In short, they fail to engage their web visitor and form a relationship. When your site is shaped to communicate with your target audience, the conversion rate increases and you generate more business. .

Other sites begin linking to yours.
Inevitably, when your site is simple to locate and communicates well, it becomes a link-worthy website. Your customers and prospects begin spreading the word about your website by blogging it, instant messaging it and linking it as the place to go to. With no extra effort on your part, links to your site begin showing up all over the Internet. This is “word of mouth” advertising – also known as viral marketing – and it’s what all marketers lust.

A recent report by MarketingSherpa focuses on what’s effective in viral marketing right now. One of the charts in this report shows why seasoned marketers use these tactics: .

1.Reach can explode.
2.It’s cheap.
3.Leads can be highly qualified.
4.Breaks through the online/e-mail clutter.
5.It’s cool.
6.Improves natural search ranking.

Anne Holland, president of MarketingSherpa, commented, “Interestingly, although only 25% of marketers hoped a viral campaign would improve their search rankings, 64% hoped their online reach would ‘explode.’ Um, guys, guess what getting higher search rankings does to your reach?!” .

Most of these are results that can be realized in an amazingly short period of time with a good SEO strategy.  There is a long-term factor as well, and the momentum is just getting started.

First and foremost, you want to make sure that your site loads fast.  Both the search engines and the general public will leave you high and dry if they have to wait for your fancy movie to load. You have a maximum of 15 seconds to get your site completely loaded and that’s being generous.  Today’s web surfers are not a patient lot.   Next, make sure that the site is well-organized and the menus make sense.

Be certain that visitors are able to easily find the content that they want on  your site.  If you have a collection of 1500 articles, that’s fantastic but there’d better be a really clean database, glossary or index of those articles for your visitors or those articles will have been written in vain.  Additionally, make sure that all links on you site work and test them regularly.  Broken links are a pet peeve for many and the search engine robots aren’t going to give you high marks for them either.

Use flash movies and images sparingly.  Search engines can’t read flash so will not get any important content that is relayed through flash.  Continue to use meta tags and title tags but don’t stuff keywords into your source code.  Also, rely on CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) to format your webpages instead of using HTML tags like <font>.  This makes for lighter, faster and cleaner pages which benefits all concerned.

Finally, I almost left out something really important and it’s actually my pet peeve.  Make your content readable for normal people.  Unless you’re writing for the benefit of a 6-year old, consider that most of us can’t read size 9 font, much less size 9 font that is beige on a white background.   Font should be at least 12px on contrasting backgrounds.    On my sites, I’ve actually bumped it up to 13px because sometimes I can’t read my own content.  

 I think I’ll do something on the use of colors soon as well.