Anybody who monitors their rankings with the same vigor that we in the SEO community do will have noticed some fairly dramatic shifts in the algorithm starting last Thursday (July 5th) and continuing through the weekend. Many sites are rocketing into the top 10 which, of course, means that many sites are being dropped at the same time. We were fortunate not to have any clients on the losing end of that equation however we have called and emailed the clients who saw sudden jumps into the top positions to warn them that further adjustments are coming. After a weekend of analysis there are some curiosities in the results that simply require further tweaks in the ranking system.

This update seems to have revolved around three main areas: domain age, backlinks and PageRank.

Domain Age
It appears that Google is presently giving a lot of weight to the age of a domain and, in this SEO’s opinion, disproportionately so. While the age of a domain can definitely be used as a factor in determining how solid a company or site is, there are many newer sites that provide some great information and innovative ideas. Unfortunately a lot of these sites got spanked in the last update.

On this tangent I have to say that Google’s use of domain age as a whole is a good filter, allowing them to “sandbox” sites on day one to insure that they aren’t just being launched to rank quickly for terms. Recalling back to the “wild west days” of SEO when ranking a site was a matter of cramming keywords into content and using questionable methods to generate links quickly I can honestly say that adding in this delay was an excellent step that insured that the benefits of pumping out domains became extremely limited. So I approve of domain age being used to value a site – to a point.

After a period of time (let’s call it a year shall we) the age should and generally has only had a very small influence on a site’s ranking with the myriad of other factors overshadowing the site’s whois data. This appears to have changed in the recent update with age holding a disproportionate weight. In a number of instances this has resulted in older, less qualified domains to rank higher than newer sites of higher quality.

This change in the ranking algorithm will most certainly be adjusted as Google works to maximize the searchers experience. We’ll get into the “when” question below.

Backlinks
The way that backlinks are being calculated and valued has seen some adjustments in the latest update as well. The way this has been done takes me back a couple years to the more easily gamed Google of old. This statement alone reinforces the fact that adjustments are necessary.

The way backlinks are being valued appears to have lost some grasp on relevancy and placed more importance on sheer numbers. Sites with large, unfocused reciprocal link directories are outranking sites with fewer but more relevant link. Non-reciprocal links lost the “advantages” that they held over reciprocal links until recently.

Essentially the environment is currently such that Google has made itself more easily gamed than it was a week ago. In the current environment, building a reasonable sized site with a large recip link directory (even unfocused) should be enough to get you ranking. For obvious reasons this cannot (and should not) stand indefinitely.

On the positive side of the equation, PageRank appears to have lost some of it’s importance including the importance of PageRank as it pertains to the value of a backlinks. In my opinion this is a very positive step on Google’s part and shows a solid understanding of the fact that PageRank means little in terms of a site’s importance. That said, while PageRank is a less than perfect calculation subject to much abuse and manipulation from those pesky people in the SEO community it did serve a purpose and while it needed to be replaced it doesn’t appear to have been replaced with anything of substantial value.

A fairly common belief has been that PageRank would be or is being replaced by TrustRank and Google would not give us a green bar to gague a site’s trust on (good call Google). With this in mind one of two things has happened; either Google has decided the TrustRank is irrelevant and so is PageRank and decided to scrap both (unlikely) or they have shifted the weight from PageRank to TrustRank to some degree and are just now sorting out the issues with their TrustRank calculations (more likely). Issues that may have existed with TrustRank may not have been clear due to it’s weight in the overall algorithm and with this shift reducing the importance of PageRank the issues that face the TrustRank calculations may well be becoming more evident.

Conclusion
So what does all of this mean? First, it means that this Thursday or Friday we can expect yet another update to correct some of the issues we’ve seen rise out of the most current round. This shouldn’t surprise anyone too much, we’ve been seeing regular updates out of Google quite a bit over the past few months.

But what does this mean regarding the aging of domains? While I truly feel that an aging delay or “sandbox” is a solid filter on Google’s part – it needs to have a maximum duration. A site from 2000 is not, by default, more relevant than a site from 2004. After a year-or-so the trust of a domain should hold steady or at most, hold a very slight weight. This is an area we are very likely to see changes in the next update.

As far as backlinks go, we’ll see changes in the way they are calculated unless Google is looking to revert back to the issues they had in 2003. Lower PageRank, high relevancy links will once again surpass high quantity, less relevant links. Google is getting extremely good and determining relevancy and so I assume the current algorithm issues has more to do with the weight assigned to different factors than an inability to properly calculate a links relevancy.

And in regards to PageRank, Google will likely shift back slightly to what worked and give more importance to PageRank, at least while they figure out what went awry here.

In short, I would expect that with an update late this week or over the weekend we’re going to see a shift back to last week’s results (or something very close to it) after which they’ll work on the issues they’ve experienced and launch a new (hopefully improved) algorithm shift the following weekend. And so, if you’ve enjoyed a sudden jump from page 6 to top 3, don’t pop the cork on the champaign too quickly and if you’ve noticed some drops, don’t panic. More adjustments to this algorithm are necessary and, if you’ve used solid SEO practices and been consistent and varied in your link building tactics – keep at it and your rankings will return.

Author: Dave Davies, CEO of Beanstalk Search Engine Positioning

Google Algorithm Update Analysis

Technorati Tags: Google Algorithm Update Analysis

A few years ago I wrote the article Ten Steps To Higher Search Engine Positioning. The article was well received due to the breakdown of the core requirements for ranking a website being reduced into simple steps. Well today we’re going to break it down into 5 steps. Is it even easier to rank a website today than it was a few years ago? More straight forward? Yes. Less time consuming? Not a chance.

As our company provides guaranteed SEO services for our clients, two things are necessary:

1. We need to know that our tactics work
2. We need to maximize efficiency so we’re not having to charge our clients unreasonably high rates

And so we’ve developed processes by which we can attain maximum results in the least amount of time through carefully developed stages. While we are interested in all the major engines, it is of course Google that we spend the lion’s share of our time studying (having never heard a client say, “I don’t care about Google, just get me ranking on Ask.com.”) Here are the steps we use to optimize websites (including our own) for Google.

Step One: Website Structure
The structure of your website affects the way search engine spiders see your site and thus, affects your rankings. I’m going to assume from the get-go that your site is in a position to be spidered and the internal links followed (i.e. none of the content is hidden due to poor development). This does not mean that the structure is optimized.

The way the code appears on your page affects the way the search engines prioritize specific content. For example, if your navigation appears higher in the code of your web page than the content then it is given a higher priority. The goal then is to make the core sections of your page appear higher in the code than the portions that are not critical to the optimization of each page. Generally the content area of your page contains the majority of the keywords and is more easily optimized and tweaked. For this reason, you will want the content of your page to appear higher in the code. This is especially true if you have image-based navigation.

The methods for doing this differ depending on how your site was initially built. If your website was built using tableless design practices (ideal) then the matter is “simple”. Now, I can’t get into all the details here as this is a huge area unto itself. There are many great sites, articles and forums on CSS that get into this area of structural optimization in detail and where you will find many helpful forum members willing to help out and answer questions. Or of course you could hire a professional developer who already knows how to do this in which case it will take a fraction of the time. This will depend on your resources, time and of course – whether you’re a do-it-yourselfer simply interested in learning another web development skill.

If your website is designed using tables the solution is actually much easier though less ideal. As Beanstalk’s Mary Davies wrote about in her article on Table Structures, with table-based designs the issue is resolved by simply structuring the cell layout in such a manner that the spiders “read” the content before the navigation and/or other, less easily optimized portions on your page.

We can see that a blank cell is placed above the left hand navigation. Because a search engine spider reads from top to bottom, left to right they will hit the top table (the header) and then proceed to the table cell down and to the left. With the vast majority of sites this will be the left hand navigation however, if the table structure illustrated above is followed this will lead a spider to a blank cell. The spider will then quickly move to the cell on the right which is the main content area of the page. It is only after seeing the content that the spider will move back to the left, crawl the navigation and then proceed down to the footer.

The Point Of This
The goal with site structure optimization is to create an environment where the spiders will crawl the most important (and most easily optimized) content as early on the page as possible. This will give increased priority to the content that matters most.

Step Two: Content Optimization
Content optimization is, for our purposes here, the optimization of the wording and formatting of the page and site content to maximize its effect on a site’s rankings. There are three defining principles to this stage:
• Keyword density counts
• The formatting of content matters
• Overall site relevancy helps

So let’s discuss these in order:

Keyword Density
Keyword density is essentially the number of times the keywords are used on your page relative to the total number of words on the page. If you had a page that was 1000 words in total and you used your keyword 100 times you would have a keyword density of 10% (this is way too high by the way).

The optimal keyword density generally seems to hover around the 3 to 5% range. Of course the optimal level fluctuates with the algorithm however it’s been a long time since I’ve seen it leave this range. You will find sites that rank with higher and lower densities than this. Keyword density is not the only factor (or how easy would an SEO’s job be?).

The Formatting Of Content
Content in header tags as well as bold, italic, anchor text and other formatting options increases the weight this text carries. Now, this doesn’t mean to run out and bold every instance of your keywords in your content but rather to make use of this as you are trying to draw the visitor’s eye to the important content on your pages. Logically enough, if you are targeting a phrase on the search engines then it is highly likely that you will end up wanting to draw the visitor’s eye to these keywords periodically on the page. This is more about usability and conversions than anything else. If a visitor enters our site using the term “seo services” we want to make sure that they find this phrase quickly when they land on the page. This will make the visitor feel more comfortable and help them more quickly find the content they are looking for.

If a page we are working on has an overall keyword density of 4% we would target to attain roughly 25 – 30% of this in some sort of formatting outside of the standard of the site. That said, the visitor is more important than the engines and if doing this will take away from the visual appeal of the site then it is not recommended. We can make up any loss in other areas.

Overall Site Relevancy
The relevancy of your entire site is going to impact the rankings of an individual page. If your entire site is about mortgages for example, you’re going to find it easier to rank for related phrases than if you have a general site with a single page about mortgages. This is because the cohesion of content among the pages of your site builds the overall relevancy of the site to that topic. If we think about it, when Google is trying to determine if a searcher if likely to find what they’re looking for on a site are they likely to believe a site with a single page on a topic is going to give the searcher the information they’re looking for or are they more likely to assume that a site with many pages on a topic is going to prove more useful to the searcher?

So we’ll resurrect the overused saying “content is king”. Many pages on one topic will fare better than many pages on different topics.

Step Three: Link Baiting
The next step (and an ongoing one at that) is link baiting. Link baiting, as we discussed in our article on the topic, is the development of content/tools/etc. for your website with the primary function of attracting links to that page or to another page on the site.

Link baiting can be something as simple as a blog where updates are posted on a topic that others would want to link to (you’re of course going to have to market your blog to get these posts found so they work as link bait). Link bait can also be created in the form of tools, contests, humorous stories or cartoons, or really anything you can dream up that would inspire someone to link to your site.

While most link bait doesn’t inspire links being built directly to the homepage of the site they do work to build internal links which boost overall site strength as well as to build links to internal page which might themselves rank for phrases.

Link baiting is an ongoing process. You don’t simply build some link bait, get some links and move on. The more often you develop content that others link to the more often people will visit your site, the more content they will find and the more new links they will build. You will also want to test out different methods for marketing your link bait: Press releases, articles, blog feeds, etc. People won’t simply find your bait because you built it, you need to inform the world that it is there.

Step Four: Link Building
Ahh link building, perhaps the single most discussed aspect of SEO out there and also the topic shrouded in the most confusion. Do reciprocal links still hold value? Is it worth my time to post to forums from a link building perspective? Are articles really worth the time they take to write and submit? The short answer to all of these questions is “yes” but with conditions (isn’t there always a snag?)

Never wanting to give advice I wouldn’t take myself, Beanstalk applies a minimum of 3 different link building methods for each client. Now, exactly which methods we use for link building depends on the client, the type of site, and a number of other factors but the core reason that we use at least three different link building methods is the same for all: one link building method may increase or decrease in value with an algorithm shift. The sites that tend to skyrocket and plummet with algorithm shifts are those that use a limited number of tactics and thus aren’t safeguarded against changes in the way rankings are calculated. Sites that use multiple techniques are better shielded from these adjustments. And so you are left to ponder, which link building tactics will work for my site?

The link building methods you choose now are not set in stone nor should they be. Should you choose to go with three different link building tactics and settle on reciprocal link building, directory submissions and articles you are not locked into this forever. I generally recommend getting some of the easiest out of the way first. Directory submissions are a no-brainer and should be part of virtually every promotion so they make a good first round. If there are a lot of related sites in your industry (say, if you’re a real estate agent) then reciprocal link building makes a fairly simple second tactic to employ. Now, let’s be clear on reciprocal links. Reciprocal link building is not dead but it has been brought back to what it should be – an actual vote for a site. A link exchange between the mortgage site noted above and the Beanstalk site would hold little value for either of us. The sites aren’t relevant. That said, a reciprocal link between said mortgage site and a real estate broker would make sense to both the visitors and the search engines and thus, it is a good candidate.

So you’ve launched in with two link building tactics, let’s assume you decide to try your hand at publishing and submitting an article next. First you’re going to need to accumulate information and check around to see what editors are publishing and people are asking. This should (and likely will) lead you to forums. While you’re there you might as well answer some of the questions people are asking that you’ll be writing about. This is a good test of your material (but please, make sure your comments actually answer people’s questions and aren’t blatant ads – I visit a number of forums daily and nobody likes the ads and they don’t stay posted for long). So you’re in the forums gathering information and answering questions while writing your article (which has added a fourth link building method into the mix), now you’ve got your article published. The next step is to submit it.

A few simple searches on your favorite search engine will provide long lists of sites that publish articles, you’ll simply need to create an account and submit it. I recommend setting up Google Alerts to email you with a random sentence from your article. This will allow you to monitor where it’s being picked up and, of course, make sure the credits are in place.

So there you are, you’ve already employed four different link building tactics (and we’re not even including link baiting in this total). From this stage you need to keep on each of them to insure your link counts continue to climb but you can relax a bit and move on to Step Five.

Step Five: Social Media
The use of social media for SEO purposes is a fairly recent evolution in the community. While the links from social networking sites themselves do hold value, the larger purpose of social media from an SEO perspective is the effect that it will have on personalized search results. I wrote a very lengthy article on personalization and so I won’t repeat all of the details here (if you’re so inclined you can read it after this. It’s titled, “Personalization & The Death Of SEO”).

Now, using social media as a traffic and SEO tool is a highly specialized area. To keep posted on this ever-changing field I recommend reading Neil Patel’s blog on social media marketing. In his blog he covers a lot more than social media as an SEO tool but I won’t get into that in this article.

Aside from the links themselves social media holds one basic function for SEO’s – building relevancy. Google, in their personalization-related patent applications, has been very clear that they will be looking at community and group similarities when personalizing search results. If I like site x then it is likely that if it shows up for a different search I will find it useful again. That is the current state of personalization. It is clear it is going to go further than this and evolve into a situation where the results will run on assumptions such as, if I like site x and my friend Jim likes site x then if Jim, on a different search, like site y – chances are that I will like site y if I run the same search. Now, this doesn’t work well in a micro, two-person universe however when the technology evolves to the point where the patterns of millions of users can be analyzed effectively the results will likely yield quite significant shifts in rankings. But what does this have to do with social media?

Social media is user-based votes wrapped into communities. If I find a site worth bookmarking in Digg and another SEO finds the same resource worth bookmarking, and so on – soon it can be assumed that people involved in SEO communities feel that a resource is worth saving and thus, that result will – when personalization evolves – rise in the rankings.

It is for this reason that social media is going to be an important factor in the ranking of websites down the road. This makes today the perfect day to get started; you don’t want to be playing catch-up to the sites that are currently employing social media tactics now.

Conclusion
So, as you can see, I was not being altogether accurate in the title when I called them “Easy Steps”. The tactics required to rank highly on Google can be complex and time consuming however the path itself is straight forward. If you are willing to spend the time it will take to do it right, success is virtually assured. If you are not, then prepare to make way for those who are.

Author: Dave Davies, the CEO of Beanstalk Search Engine Positioning

SEO For Google

Technorati Tags: SEO For Google

Organic search engine optimization, until recently, had been a fairly straightforward endeavor. The goal was to optimize the content on a website so that it would show up in the organic results on one or more of the major search engines – results that were comprised of nothing but other websites. However, in the middle of May 2007, Google began rolling out its new “Universal Search,” something it had been working on behind the scenes for several years. This new search option may have long-term repercussions for every search engine optimization company in the industry if it is something that is preferred by the public at large and if it becomes the standard going forward.

What is Universal Search?
Someone using Google’s Universal Search will find that a query brings back results that encompass not only web pages, but also videos, blogs, images, news articles, and other media available online. While Google already had in place options for searching each of these areas individually, many searchers did not notice those options or did not know how to use them, a phenomenon that became known as “invisible tabs.”

With Universal Search, there’s no need to select a separate menu item – the search will return results that encompass many different types of media. For example, a search for “breakdancing” might bring up not only web pages about breakdancing, but also blog posts about it, videos showing technique, and news articles about it. It would not, however, give you the reason why you were wearing parachute pants and trapped in the eighties.

However, Universal Search hasn’t been rolled out fully yet. Currently, certain terms will give Universal results, while other searches will remain the same as before. This is a classic Google move – roll something out gradually, see how it plays in the public eye, and then decide what to do from there. Basically, Universal Search as it exists right now is very likely to change, depending on user feedback.

And if the limited queries that now return Universal Search results do not garner positive responses, it’s likely that Google will revert to its previous, webpage predominated results. They obviously don’t want to lose market share, and they already learned a valuable lesson not long ago when they released a new algorithm that was poorly received and which was subsequently dialed back.

What are the Benefits of Universal Search?
Universal Search brings several benefits to searchers. A searcher no longer has to specify the media he or she is looking for – one keyphrase search will cover everything. And the results from a search will be more comprehensive in many instances, giving a well-rounded picture to the searcher that may include better information than would previously have been found in a search of just one type of media.

What are the Drawbacks of Universal Search?
The problem with Universal Search is that it can muddy the results, and it can also introduce irrelevant results that a searcher cannot use. A search for “Paris Hilton” (ever heard of her?) will bring up news, videos, and other information about the heiress. But it will also bring up a map of the city of Paris showing locations of Hilton hotels, something most searchers that typed that exact phrase probably did not have in mind. Plus, 28% of Internet users are still using slow dialup connections , according to RVA Market Research. Many of these people are likely not interested in videos or other results that require much bandwidth, and such users may turn away from Universal Search entirely – there are, after all, other search engines. No, really – there are.

In addition, there is no way to turn off Universal Search; as it exists right now, it is part of the standard “Web” search, eliminating the ability to simply search web pages and introducing a new wrinkle in search engine optimization efforts. Now, a website is competing not only with other websites, but also with all the other media that will be included in the results that an average searcher sees. And Universal Search makes it difficult for Google itself to determine the relevance between different types of media, since the factors that determine a web page’s relevance are much different than those that would determine a video’s relevance, for example.

What Can You Do Now to Make Sure Your Site Is Ready to be Found in a Universal Search?
Clearly, Universal Search will change how an SEO campaign is run if it catches on. But this is a real if - users’ search habits are hard to change overnight, even if you are Google and you essentially define what searching is and how it works. If it does catch on, you’ll need to analyze the industry you are in and figure out which types of media might be most important for you. For example, if you are a real estate firm, images of the buildings and homes you are selling might become a very important part of your site, and so you will want to focus on adding alt tags to each image so that not only does your site show up for certain keyphrases, but your images do as well. If you are a business services firm, you instead might want to focus on news items produced by your company – press releases and white papers – and make sure that those are available to search engine spiders and optimized for critical phrases.

If you are working with an outside search engine optimization company already, now is the time to ask what they plan to do in regard to Universal Search. Your search engine optimization company should at least have an awareness of the magnitude of this new way to search on Google and should be able to present you with some sort of plan of attack, even if they plan to wait to embark upon the plan until they know for sure that Universal Search is going to catch on. If you are looking into hiring an outside search engine optimization company to launch a new campaign, the same holds true – ask your contacts at the firm how they are planning to handle Universal Search. They should at least be familiar with the concept and have a general outline to present to you.

Conclusion
If you thought that it was just Google that was working on what it calls Universal Search, think again. Yahoo, MSN, and Ask, as well as several minor search engines such as A9, are all working on their own versions of a universal search that will display different media types. These versions are currently still in the testing phase, but they could be rolled out at any time. What all this means for you and your search engine optimization company is that the face of SEO will be changing dramatically over the next several months — or it won’t. Only time will tell.

© Medium Blue 2007

Search Engine Optimization - Universal Search

Technorati Tags: Search Engine Optimization - Universal Search

25 Tips to Increase Conversion Rates

Site owners spend so much time and money on search engine optimization that they often leave conversion optimization to chance. They’re happy with a 1% - 2% conversion rate, the typical rate for smaller sites. Converting visitors to buyers is part science, part art. No one formula fits all sites but here are 25 tips that will boost conversion rates on most commercial sites.

1. Keep it simple. The simpler it is for visitors to complete a purchase the more purchases (and fewer shopping cart abandonments) you’ll see. Make it simple to find the product and go through the checkout process.

2. Provide complete contact information including a telephone number. Buyers want to know you’re real and they want to know how to reach you in case of a problem.

3. Provide encouragement throughout the checkout process. The best way to do this is to let buyers know what stage of checkout they’ve reached, and to provide them with highlighted signage to let them know what to do next.

4. Use product pictures in shopping carts. This reminds visitors what’s in their carts. It also reinforces, in the visitor’s mind, the reason(s) for the purchase.

5. Link back to the product page. After an item has been placed in the shopping cart, the visitor should be able to click on the item and be directed back to the product page in a new window for example. This makes buying comparisons easier and ensures the visitor has the right item for his/her needs without leaving the shopping cart.

6. Don’t keep shipping costs a secret. Nothing kills a conversion faster than a $19.95 shipping and handling charge on a $10 item. Provide shipping cost information on the first page of the checkout.

7. Is it backordered? The visitor finally reaches the end of the checkout only to discover that the item isn’t in stock. Do you think they’ll come back when the item comes in? They won’t.

8. Provide complete product information including sizes, colors, styles and other product descriptors. This will cut down on product returns because buyers will know what they’re actually purchasing. Avoid hyping products for the same reason.

9. Keep terms of service (TOS) simple and unambiguous. What’s your guarantee? What’s your return policy? Eliminate the boilerplate and give them the facts.

10. Provide a menu of payment gateways. Not all buyers want to pay by credit card. Some don’t even have a credit card. Buyers should be given the option to pay by debit card, personal check (snail mail), PayPal and other similar services, bank transfer and, if the want to stop by to pick it up, you’ll even take cash.

11. Never blame the buyer. When a potential buyer clicks on the wrong link, or forgets to enter all data fields, put up a message explaining the problem and how to fix it. The customer is always right and it’s always your fault. Period.

12. Offer gift cards. Some buyers just don’t know what to buy as a gift. A gift card solves the problem.

13. Use real testimonials. If you’re doing it right, you’ve gotten good feedback from some buyers. Ask permission to use their testimonials. Don’t use fake testimonials signed by Diane E., California. It’s an obvious fake testimonial.

14. Provide a customer service line. Outsource it if it isn’t part of the budget but buyers want to know there’s help in setting it up, whatever “it” is.

15. Avoid distracting links. If your home page is crammed with PPC ads and links to other sites, it’s distracting and you’ll see a lot more bounces (visitors who never get past the home page).

16. Offer incentives. Free shipping encourages buyers. So do upgrades, i.e. “Spend at least $50 and receive 10% off your entire purchase.” Some buyers will do the math and figure out they’re getting something for half price.

17. Welcome repeat visitors by name. Your customer data base is filled with solid gold information including names, purchase amounts, items purchased and so on. First, welcome a return buyer by name. Then, offer suggestions for purchase based on individual buying histories. (See Amazon.com for examples of using data base information to boost conversion ratios.)

18. Provide a currency converter. Not all buyers will be using your country’s currency. Make it easy to convert from euros to drachmas to dollars.

19. Offer a free newsletter. Your regular buyers will appreciate it when they’re notified ahead of time of upcoming specials, new product launches and other site related information.

20. Add a forum. This is a great way for buyers to share information, make recommendations and complain. It’s also a great way for you to handle complaints quickly, with the resolution posted right there on the complaint thread.

21. Provide informational content on your site. This establishes your credentials and credibility as an authority, whether you’re selling kayaks or bake ware.

22. Learn from your competitors. Visit the sites of more-established competitors to see what they’re doing to convert. How is the homepage designed? Navigation? Checkout? You can’t copyright an idea so you might as well “borrow” from the best.

23. Improve site stickiness. In other words, give buyers a reason to return. Some suggestions? The Sale of the Day, Tip of the Day, Your Horoscope, This Day in History, etc. This keeps your site green and visitors returning.

24. Let buyers post product reviews. Nothing sells better than a positive review from another buyer. Of course, the converse is true, too. Nothing will kill a sale faster than a bad review. And if a product receives lots of bad reviews, drop it from your product line.

25. Target your site’s skin to your demographic. If you’re selling collectible knives, your site should have a certain “look” and that look doesn’t include pastels and prissy type. Big, bold and manly – that’s the way to go. On the other hand, if you’re selling needlepoint patterns, a nice pastel background with little flowers works perfectly.

Search engine optimization is designed to attract search engine spiders. It’s also intended to ensure that your site is accurately and completely optimized. But, once traffic arrives on site, conversion optimization takes over.

Keep it simple. Keep it easy. Keep it honest. Not only will you see a boost in conversion ratio, you’ll also see a nice pop in return buyers. And they’re the best buyers any web site owner could ask for.

Author: Dave Davies, CEO Beanstalk Search Engine Positioning, Inc.

25 Tips to Increase Conversion Rates

Technorati Tags: 25 Tips to Increase Conversion Rates

Three Things a Search Engine Spider Can’t See

Graphic text – Most professionals involved in website creation take great pride in their work, which is obviously a desired trait. Occasionally, however, this can present problems. When a web designer decides to use text in a graphic form (meaning that the text is actually an image), the search engine spider can not read what that text says. A common reason for a designer to use text in a graphic is because he or she wants to use a rare font that most visitors won’t have on their machines. Another reason is that the designer wants to have absolute control over how the website text renders. When faced with the choice over which kind of text to use, it is important to weigh the aesthetic choice against the potential loss of search engine visibility.

Images – As touched upon above, a search engine spider is not yet able to look at images or pictures and determine what they are (although you can and should attach a tag to them which the spider can read – commonly referred to as an “alt” tag). A spider will skip directly over your logo and masthead, any pictures, and most other graphical elements.

Flash – Search engine spiders will not read through the text in any Flash animation on your site (or any other animation). This does not mean that using Flash elements will render your site invisible; it merely means that you should not count on the text that appears in any Flash animation on your website to be indexed. If the team responsible for your website creation decides to build the entire site in Flash, however, you will encounter unique problems. While some search engines are getting better at trying to index websites built entirely on this platform, it is still an overall rankings killer. If you must have a website created entirely in Flash, it is wise to also have an alternate HTML version for search engines and people who prefer HTML sites.

Three Things a Search Engine Spider Can See

HTML text – A search engine spider relies heavily on HTML text to determine what a web page is about. Spiders, therefore, index HTML text and will even make distinctions between differences in how the text is presented. For example, text that is in a headline or is bolded is assumed to be slightly more important than regular text.

Links – Outgoing links on your pages are easily understood by the spider, especially if they are text links. The wording of these links (or the alt tags attached to them) can, like HTML text, give the spider an idea of what your page is about. However, there are certain types of links that are not easily indexed. If your website creation team embedded your links in a pull-down menu that utilizes JavaScript or other scripting language, most search engine spiders will not see them.

Tags – There are many kinds of tags, but not all are important for search engine optimization. Meta tags include the “keywords” tag, which should list keyphrases that describe the page. Another meta tag is the “description” tag, which should be one or two brief sentences that describe the page. Another tag, which is not actually a meta tag, but which has significant importance to search engine rankings, is the “title” tag. This tag contains the words that you will see in the blue bar at the top of your web page.

This list is by no means comprehensive - there are many other attributes that aren’t mentioned in this article. The primary message here is that companies should do their homework before engaging in website creation. There are thousands of resources available on the Internet that can answer your questions about any element you are considering adding before you build (or redesign) your site. Take the time to study each so that you can be sure you aren’t sacrificing your search engine rankings for the sake of something largely unnecessary.

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Website Creation and the Search Engine Spider

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