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What Is The Right Domain Name for My Business ?

March 27, 2010 By kirkoconnor Leave a Comment

This is a common questions we get asked at Onlineassist4u.

As always the decision comes back to what is right for your specific business not what is right for Google or Bing or Yahoo or any other external factor.

And what is right for your business most commonly equals what is right to get more sales, more revenue and more profit.

Selecting A Domain Name – The Important Factors to Consider

There are a few very important questions you should consider when making this decision.

  1. Will my existing customers be able to find my business online ?
  2. Will new potential customers that have heard of my business be able to find it online ?
  3. Will customers searching for my product or service be able to find my business online ?
  4. Will my business be able to get onto the front page of Google to get part of that 60%+ of traffic that never searches beyond the front page ?

Most people, when selecting a domain name will try and secure a name that closely mirrors their business name.

If my business is called Kirk Plumbing then I might try and secure kirkplumbing.com or, if located in Australia, kirkplumbing.com.au as I am targetting local clients with my plumbing service (in this case it makes a lot of sense to try and buy both domains but that is another story).

We will call this approach “naming your domain name after your business name”.

Pros and Cons of Naming Your Domain After Your Business Name

On the plus side;-

  • My existing clients will be able to find me quickly
  • Potential new clients that have heard of my business through friends etc will also be able to find me very quickly

On the negative side;-

  • There is only one potential relevant keyword in my domain name “plumbing”.
  • It will be extremely difficult for me to get to Page 1 on Google for this keyword.

ASIDE – How do I know it will be difficult to get to page 1 of Google for the keyword “plumbing” ?

keyword research plumbing

keyword research for "plumbing"

To work this out the first test I would give the word plumbing is a “common sense test”.

A single word “keyword” that is fully descriptive of the industry I am in is likely to be totally dominated by big players in my market.

They have websites that have been around forever and they have thousands of backlinks to their site and pages on their website.

They will continue to inhabit the front page and I will be relegated to page “irrelevant”.

Why compete with them when I am likely to fail ? It is a dumb move !!!

The next test I would do (and Onlineassist4u will do this for you if you ask us to after you sign up for our services) is to do some professional keyword research on the term plumbing to validate my common sense test and to see if there are easier and better alternatives to my blatantly obvious keyword choice.

We use a tool called Market Samurai to do this and we have performed the analysis and the results are shown to the right top.

Our test is restricted to the Australian market because this is where this imaginary business is located.

SEO competition keyword plumbing

SEO competition for keyword plumbing

The keyword “plumbing” gets a lot of search queries on average per day in our local Australian market.

This is fantastic for a business ranked number one as, on average, 40% of the clicks for that keyword will go to their website.

The rest of the front page will get a good whack of clicks too – especially if the first couple of sites listed are not plumbing service suppliers.

This does ring alarm bells though. The keyword “plumbing” is obviously very valuable.

What can we expect for something of great value ?

Thats right, a whole bunch of bigtime players will be all over this keyword (see chart to lower right).

There is very little (if any) chance of my little plumbing business getting first page for the keyword “plumbing” unless I spend up big on SEO services, adding content, building backlinks etc.

All that effort just doesn’t make any business sense. So I am not going to do it – period.

Pros and Cons of Naming Your Domain to Get Search Traffic From Google

What are the advantages and disadvantages of taking this approach ?

On the plus side;-

  • If we do our research properly and then build our website and promote it we can get a good flow of hot leads through Google – leads that we might not have otherwise received
  • Google loves a keyword rich domain name. It gives us a “free” boost up the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs)

On the negative side;-

  • This takes time and effort and can cost money (speculate to accumulate) – will we be sufficiently committed to do this and continue to do it ?
  • Our existing clients might find it harder to find our website if our name is not in the domain name

So what would we have to do if we decided to take this option ?

As we said above. To get a decent volume of search traffic from Google we need to be on page 1 for a search for our keyword phrase.

We also need to select a keyword phrase that gets a good volume of searches per day and isn’t overrun by competitors that have good SEO on their websites, have lots of backlinks to their websites and have websites that have been around for many years.

So, in the interests of being accurate, I am going to go away now and do a bit of research to find just the right keyword. Once again, I will be using that most professional of keyword research tools, Market Samurai.

The results are in and it was a pretty quick search. “Plumber Perth” has a small (but for my small business OK) average volume of search per day.

The competition is there but with diligence and a bit of hard work I believe I can get into those top 10 entries and onto Google’s front page.

Now, other businesses are not dumb and through their foresight they have already taken plumberperth.com.au and plumber-perth.com.au

What do I do now ?

Well, all is not lost and I am going to hit two birds with one stone here (my apologies to all the animal’s rights activists – I have never actually thrown a stone at a bird – or shot any living thing either for that matter).

I am going to name my domain kirkplumberperth.com.au

I could also have selected kirk-plumberperth.com.au but I find it is difficult to explain a hyphen to people over the phone.

Conclusion

So what is the right way to go ?

Do I choose a domain name that reflects my business name or one that will get me traffic through Google ?

Unfortunately there is no single best answer.

For some businesses choosing a domain name that reflects their business name is best and for others trying to get search traffic is extremely important.

If you can get both in a single domain name (and it is not so long or complex that it is impossible for your clients to enter into Google) then that might be the best compromise for you because you get some Google keyword goodness plus you get your business name into the domain name as well.

The best advice we can give is go back to your business plan – identify what type of business you are – where you are taking your business – who is your market – what is important to them etc.

Then do the right keyword research or get a professional to do it for you.

Then select a domain name that reflects your review and the keyword research results.

This will give you the best answer for your particular business.

Postscript – You Guys Chose The Business Name for Your Domain Name – Why ?

At Onlineassist4u we chose our business name as our domain name. We have onlineassist4u.com and onlineassist4u.com.au registered.

Why did we do this when we are supposed to be all techy and great at search engine marketing and stuff ?

Like I said at the top of this article. This is a business decision and it must be viewed as such. 100%.

For us, we were establishing a new business that we knew would have much of its success locally at first due to our business strategy of working from business referral clubs and referrals in general.

So if our business was to come from people we met in person and from those people referring us then having our name in the domain name was essential.

Another overriding factor for us was the immense competition for keyword terms that are important for our industry.

Terms like SEO, search engine optimization, web development etc are well and truly owned by people who really do know what they are doing.

Many of them have websites that have been going for years and have tens of thousands of backlinks.

It makes no sense for us as a young business to compete with those guys for those keywords. We would be putting a humungous amount of energy into something that was not guaranteed to bring results.

As we move forward we will find other micro niches we desire to work in, we will do our professional market research and we will build sites that have the keywords in their domain names (we have a few already as it happens).

So, we have a domain name strategy that is based 100% on our business strategy rather than on Google and search. This is the correct way to do it.

Filed Under: Digital Marketing Strategy, Featured Articles, Internet Marketing, Keyword Market Research, Search Engine Optimization, web development

Internet Newbies and Email SEO Scams

November 26, 2009 By kirkoconnor Leave a Comment

I loved the following article so much I am including it in full (with the publisher’s permission of course) for you guys.

It perfectly sums up our opinion (and most if not all of those providing quality Internet Marketing support services) with regards to the crooks, scam artists and swindlers sending small businesses solicitations via email to get their website on the front page of Google.

I get these emails regularly myself as I run a range of websites in various markets and mostly ignore them. Commonly the scammer sends me an email the next day wanting to know why I have not responded to their offer of help.

I have been tempted to respond with a tirade of abuse telling these crooks what I really think of their unethical and, yes, criminal, business proposals, however, that has not happened as yet.

Modern social media means that it will not be long before the vast majority of people are alerted to the fact that the promises of these crooks are just another scam. Hopefully we are doing our bit in educating those of you that visit our site.

SEO Scams and Newbies Realm of Gullibility

an article by David Jackson

One of my all-time favorite tv shows is The Twilight Zone. I particularly like Rod Serling’s memorable opening narration:

“There is a sixth dimension, beyond that which is known to newbies. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, and it lies between the pit of newbies gullibility and the sunlight of their naiveté. This is the dimension of smoke and mirrors. It is a dimension known as SEO Scams and Newbies Realm of Gullibility.”

Okay, so I took a little poetic license with Mr. Serling’s classic narration. But I did it to make a point, and the point is, everyday thousands of naive and gullible newbies are targeted, and ripped-off by common SEO scams – mostly scams that have been around since the advent of the Internet. You may even have been a victim yourself.

The question is, why do these seemingly obvious scams continue to thrive year after year after year? My guess is, because most of the victims are newbies who have entered the newbies realm of gullibility.

Hopefully, this article will prevent other newbies from entering this undesirable realm, and being unnecessarily victimized. Anyway, following are some of the most common SEO scams:

1. E-Mail Solicitations

First of all, legitimate companies, SEO or otherwise don’t send out e-mail solicitations without permission. And unless you signed up to receive e-mail solicitations from a particular company, delete all spam immediately. Don’t open it, and don’t send these scam artists your hard-earned money!

I always delete all spam – except when I’m doing research for articles like this one. On those occasions, I find opening e-mail spam extremely useful, because I can pass on what I learn to my readers.

Anyway, if you’ve registered a new domain recently, you’ve probably been solicited by SEO scam artists, looking to steal your hard-earned money. See if any of these e-mail solicitations look familiar:

“I just looked at your website and we can help you get better search engine placement.”

I had to laugh when I received this solicitation, because I had just registered a new domain, and hadn’t even built my website yet. The only thing I had up was a generic “This website is coming soon” placeholder. Obviously, there was no way they could have looked at my website.

Here’s another e-mail solicitation I received recently:

“We have performed a free analysis of your website, and we can help you get better search engine placement”.

Again, how could they have performed an analysis of a website I haven’t even built yet? Answer: They couldn’t.

Here’s another one:

“I was just browsing your website, and realized that despite having a good design, your site was not ranking on any of the search engines for most of the keywords pertaining to your domain.”

Despite having a good design? It’s a freakin’ generic placeholder you scamming idiots!

This next e-mail solicitation I received doesn’t even bother wasting time with false pretenses. It goes right for the jugular (i.e. your wallet) immediately:

“Website Listing Service”

Annual Website Search Engine Listing.

From Nov. 1, 2009 thru Nov. 1 2010

Amount Due: $65

At first glance, this solicitation appears to be a bill for some sort of “annual website search engine listing.” But if you scroll down like I did and read the fine print at the bottom of the letter, you’ll see this:

“This is not a bill. This is a solicitation. You are under no obligation to pay the amount stated above unless you accept this offer.”

I can’t emphasize this point enough: Legitimate SEO companies don’t send out e-mail solicitations without permission. And unless you signed up to receive e-mail solicitations from a particular company, delete all spam immediately. Don’t open it, and don’t send these scam artists your hard-earned money!

2. “We’ll Submit Your Website to 2500 Search Engines “

First of all, there aren’t 2500 search engines out there – at least not 2500 that actually matter. There are really only three search engines that matter.

The three search engines are:

Google

Yahoo

Bing (Formerly MSN Live)

And the reason they’re the only three that matter is because they’re the only ones that can send you any significant traffic. And that’s not my opinion, that’s a fact!

According to The Nielson Company, 66.1% of searchers in this country use Google. 16.6% use Yahoo! and 8.8% use Bing (formerly Microsoft Live).

The point is, since there are really only three search engines that can send you any significant traffic, paying anyone to submit your website to 2500 search engines is really a waste of time and money. The three aforementioned search engines will eventually find your website on their own.

However, if you want to submit to them you can easily do so yourself. There’s no need to pay anyone to do it for you.

3. “Achieve Top 10 Search Engine Rankings Guaranteed!”

No legitimate SEO company will guarantee you a top 10 search engine ranking. Why? Because they can’t. A website’s ranking is determined by a variety of factors within a search engine’s algorithms. SEO companies have zero control over the constantly evolving algorithms of search engines.

And since SEO companies don’t have any control over those algorithms, it only stands to reason that they can’t legitimately guarantee you a top 10 ranking, right?

Now it is possible for you to get a top 10 ranking for certain long-tail keyword phrases that are less popular – keywords that aren’t heavily searched?

Yes, that’s very possible. But again, no one can guarantee you a top 10 ranking for those types of keywords either.

And even if you do manage to get into the top 10 for certain keywords, there’s no guarantee you’ll be able to stay there. Because the search engines are constantly changing their algorithms to thwart cheaters.

For example, you can be on page one today and just as easily be on page one hundred tomorrow. It can happen just that quickly. Don’t believe me? Do some research on Google’s infamous Florida Update.

4. “Generate 10,000 to 1,000,000 Visitors to your Website Guaranteed!”

This SEO scam is called a Guaranteed Traffic Program. And yes, you’ll receive plenty of traffic, but they won’t hang around on your website for any length of time, and they won’t buy anything.

Why? Because the traffic is poor quality. It’s garbage. It isn’t targeted. In fact, in many cases, it’s not even humans that actually visit your site through these programs.

I discovered first-hand that when you purchase guaranteed traffic credits, it’s actually bots clicking through to your site, and then immediately clicking out. While doing research for this article, I actually tested a guaranteed traffic program.

And the numbers don’t lie. When I checked my raw data logs, I discovered that all of those thousands of visitors I received only stayed on my site for about five seconds. Don’t waste your money with guaranteed traffic programs.

5. Avoid SEO Contracts That Hold You Hostage

This particular SEO scam struck close to home recently, when my sister became a victim. Here’s how it works: Unethical SEO companies coerce you into signing a contract that commits you to using their service for 12 months or more. My sister got reeled in, because they told her that they needed to optimize her website’s coding every month to keep up with the search engines algorithm changes.

Can you believe that? What a load of bull crap! Anyway, she didn’t know any better, so she entered the newbies realm of gullibility, and signed a 12 month contract.

Unfortunately, when she finally got around to telling me about it, since she had already signed the contract, there really wasn’t anything that I could do to extricate her from the situation. And since her SEO contract is also tied into her hosting, they’re holding a huge hammer over her head.

In addition to that, they have all kinds of penalty clauses built in, in the event she tries to terminate her contract early. The good news is, next time, she’ll check with her big brother first, before she signs anything.

In fairness to legitimate SEO companies, I want to make something perfectly clear. Not every SEO company that has you sign a contract is unethical. And there are legitimate reasons for contracts.

For example, if you are implementing a link-building program, that obviously has to be monitored over time. Or perhaps your SEO company is managing your pay-per-click program. Again, this is something that has to be monitored over time.

That being said, caveat emptor! Personally, I have a problem with even legitimate SEO companies holding people hostage with long-term contracts.

Seriously, what do they need to hold you hostage for anyway? Now I don’t have a problem with a month-to-month contract. That way, if you’re not happy with the results you’re getting after a month or two, you can simply walk away without penalty.

So there you have it. The most common SEO scams rampant on the Internet today. Hopefully, you’ll heed the advice in this article, and walk away from these schemes, whenever they rear their ugly heads.

But should you choose to ignore the advice in this article, you can’t say that you weren’t warned!

David Jackson is the owner of http://reviews-by-customers.com – the Internet’s hottest new business directory!
This article courtesy of SiteProNews.com

Filed Under: Featured Articles, Internet Marketing, Search Engine Optimization Tagged With: Internet Marketing, scammers, scams, search engine optimization, SEO

Emails from Offshore SEO Experts and Why You Should Exercise Caution

November 5, 2009 By kirkoconnor Leave a Comment

Just had a rather tasty dinner of home made pizza and dropped back into my desk here to check my emails and my Twitter stream.

What should I find when I checked my email other than a very polite email from an ‘offshore’ Search Engine Optimization expert called Reema (if in fact that is a real name).

I have included the text of the letter below, however, to cut a long story short, I will show you what can be learnt from such proposals.

Firstly, the website Reema refers to is a “not for profit website” that myself and a couple of buddies maintain for the local football (soccer) market here in Perth, Western Australia. It is our passion and we love it, giving up our time and using our skills to promote our sport locally.

‘Reema’ states that “I was surfing through your website and checked it for a few keywords on Google. Unfortunately, it was not ranking on any of those.”

Well Reema, last time I checked, the website ranks as number 5 on Google for its primary keyword “football wa” out of 9.9 million entries (see image from Google).

Not so shabby for a website that we do not actively perform Search Engine Optimization on is it ?

So what keywords was my expert friend Reema checking our website for ?

Well , surprisingly enough Reema doesn’t mention these keywords. An oversight perhaps ?

Finding our primary keyword wouldn’t have been that difficult for someone who had any modicum of Search Engine Optimization knowledge. Its actually in the domain name www.club-footballwa.com.au. Yes its “football wa”. Well hidden wasn’t it ?

The website has been active for just on a year and to get to a number 5 position out of 9.9 million entries without trying is a pretty amazing effort but not according to my expert friend Reema.

So, what can we take out of this little exercise ?

Reema, of course, could be genuine and be genuinely interested in helping this website perform better in the rankings. Of course Reema is in business to make money and has a service to sell so why not send us an email offering to help ?

Alternately, Reema could know very little about football or football websites in general and therefore not know that our website ranks so highly for our primary keyword “football wa” because Reema didn’t consider that keyword a candidate in his / her list of “a few keywords”.

If this is the case Reema is definitely not the sort of person I would want to do business with as his / her knowledge of such an obvious part of this business is very limited.

Club Football WA Google Rankings
Club Football WA Google Rankings

Another possible option is even more worrying. “Reema” (and many like him / her) could be sending out hundreds of these emails a day to various websites around the world and convincing a huge number of small business people who know very little about SEO that they need Reema’s company’s services based upon at best poorly researched information or, at worst, no research at all. I do not know this to be true but it has to be an option I consider.

My advice to you friends is to only have Search Engine Optimization performed by someone who has been recommended by a business colleague or, if you can’t get this, a local Search Engine Optimization consultant.

Pick a company that you can work closely with to have them understand your business and, should things go wrong (and sometimes they do), one where you have some recompense towards the return of some or all of your hard earned readies (your money).

Give “Reema” and his / her buddies short shrift.

Hi,

I am Reema, Manager – Online Marketing

We are an ISO Certified, SEMPO registered Online Marketing firm based in (taken out to protect honest businesses in this country).

I was surfing through your website and checked it for a few keywords on Google. Unfortunately, it was not ranking on any of those.

As per the trends in your industry – over 80% of people search for your products/services online and buy the same. These rankings also influence other channels of sales as well.

There is a simple equation that is applicable to the online world.

Ethical SEO -> Better Traffic ->Higher Sales.

Just wondering, if you would be interested improving the position of your website for the key terms your clients would be using to search your services.

In case you require any additional information, it shall be our pleasure to furnish the same. No obligations.

Let me know if you are interested we can discuss this further.

I look forward to your mail.

Yours sincerely,
Reema

I don’t think you will be doing any business with this little black duck Reema !!!!!

Filed Under: blog, Featured Articles, Keyword Market Research, Search Engine Optimization Tagged With: keyword research, ripoff, search engine optimization

Where The Professionals Will be Spending Their Marketing Dollars

October 25, 2009 By kirkoconnor Leave a Comment

How many of you pick up and skip through the Yellow Pages when you want to find a product or service these days ?

I hazard a guess that it is far less of you than would have done that 5 years ago.

In our house we do not even know where the Yellow Pages are so, yesterday, I set off on a mission to find them.

My wife’s system of storage for household items is predictable and pretty precise (apart from when it comes to filing old bills, bank statements etc – which never get filed) so I was able to track down the big soft cover books within minutes.

Both Yellow and White Pages still in their plastic wrapper. never opened. never used. A victim of the Internet I fear.

Anyway, enough of the digression. I was only using it to prove a point that most of you know anyway – that the Internet has become the prime way to search for products and services in much of the developed world and this trend will continue as our young’uns mature and us older guns become more adept at using the technology.

A blank advertising board against a wall.

How do the professionals see the situation though ? You know, those highly skilled and highly well paid executives that must choose where to spend their (or their client’s) money to promote their products. For them the stakes are much higher.

A recent article on The New Era of Inbound Marketing by SEOMoz Blog suggests that “…. over the last two decades, we, as a generation have been drifting further and further away from it (direct sales). Door-to-door salesmen are nearly gone. The effectiveness of brand advertising, direct mail, trade show marketing and cold calling sales have all diminished rapidly in favor of a new set of channels we all use to buy – nearly all of which center around the web.”

They go on to provide a raft of figures from Forrester Research based on projected marketing investment in the next 5 years to prove their point.

So what does it mean for you as a small business owner ?

If the Yellow Pages are not being opened in my house (and there are four of us here ranging in age from 50 to 18 years of age) then they are not being opened in other people’s houses as well.

As for the online versions of these products. Well, we wouldn’t know where to find them and that goes for other online directories as well.

What do we all do ? We SEARCH on Google for whatever we need and you can just about bet that this is what most people do as well.

Now that’s OK for when we are actually looking for something but what about that advertisement that catches our attention and takes us to a website selling a product that we didn’t even know we wanted ?

That is perhaps a little bit more problematical but it is a fact that we are most likely to at least see those advertisements in places that we frequent most often. That is obvious isn’t it ?

After all, there is no point putting a billboard in a laneway with no traffic is there ?

For me it is the football sites that I visit every day or the WordPress, Internet Marketing, web coding or web design blogs that I also frequent regularly to keep up with my industry.

Or through Twitter – but that is another story and a big one at that……

For my daughter and my wife it is undoubtedly Facebook. yes Facebook, the fourth most populous ‘nation’ on the planet.

So where are you going to spend your precious advertising dollars ?I know where I am going to be spending mine………..

Filed Under: Digital Marketing Strategy, Featured Articles, Internet Marketing, Online Advertising, Search Engine Optimization, Social Networks Tagged With: advertising, facebook, search engine optimization, SEO, social media

Why You Must Have a Social Media Strategy

October 22, 2009 By kirkoconnor Leave a Comment

Here at Onlineassist4u.com we have always been strong supporters of having a social media marketing strategy for your business.

This is not just about selling your stuff to a new audience it is more about interacting with your community and trusting that sales will come from that interaction.

Whether your social media marketing strategy focuses on Facebook or Twitter, LinkedIn or the myriad of alternatives that exist really doesn’t matter so much – hopefully you have a strategy that straddles a number of these. The main thing is that you do have some sort of strategy and that you are engaging with your potential customers.

So Kirk, what are you telling us that’s new. You’ve said all this before why say it again ?

Well, the 20,000lb elephant has now entered the room.

Marissa Mayer, Vice President of Search Products and User Experience at Google has announced that Google “have reached an agreement with Twitter to include their updates in our search results.”

Google to List Tweets in Search Results
Google to List Tweets in Search Results

The full transcript of Marissa’s announcement follows;-

At Google, our goal is to create the most comprehensive, relevant and fast search in the world. In the past few years, an entirely new type of data has emerged — real-time updates like those on Twitter have appeared not only as a way for people to communicate their thoughts and feelings, but also as an interesting source of data about what is happening right now in regard to a particular topic.

Given this new type of information and its value to search, we are very excited to announce that we have reached an agreement with Twitter to include their updates in our search results. We believe that our search results and user experience will greatly benefit from the inclusion of this up-to-the-minute data, and we look forward to having a product that showcases how tweets can make search better in the coming months. That way, the next time you search for something that can be aided by a real-time observation, say, snow conditions at your favorite ski resort, you’ll find tweets from other users who are there and sharing the latest and greatest information.

So after Video has made such a big splash in the rankings we now have the fact that Twitter tweets will also be competing for that elusive front page position for a keyword search in Google.

So, if you haven’t got a Twitter account. Get one now and get started !

And if you think that Twitter is just for finding out what certain celebrities had for lunch today you are sooooooooo wrong. Even if you are not comfortable with ‘selling’ your product or services through Twitter today you should be on Twitter if only to get the best possible information and knowledge on what’s happening in your industry right now.

Just follow the top people in your industry and you will get an amazing amount of knowledge and free information that will ensure you are well on the way to becoming an industry leader.

Filed Under: Featured Articles, Search Engine Optimization, Social Networks, Uncategorized Tagged With: google, twitter

What Is The Fold and Why is It No Longer An Issue ?

October 20, 2009 By kirkoconnor Leave a Comment

For many years many web developers have stuck to the maxim ‘don’t place content below the fold’, however, times have changed and so have web pages (the best of them have anyway).

So, for those of you that think I am talking geek once more (yes Geoff I can hear your thoughts now!) what is ‘the fold’ ?

Think back to how you used to buy a newspaper (remember those things, printed text in ink on poor quality paper that helped to screw up the environment and keep you (mis)informed about what THEY thought was happening in the world). It commonly came folded in half.

newspaper showing above the fold

newspaper showing above the fold

The top half of the page with the headlines and the banner is ‘above the fold’ and the other bit ‘below the fold’. Makes sense doesn’t it ?

So what does this have to do with the price of fish and websites ?

Well, for a long time, the credible reasoning has been that people are basically lazy and that they will only read what is at the top of your website rather than scrolling down the page to check out the rest of your copy – so why put any copy ‘below the fold’ because no one will see it.

Times have changed, however, and your standard old fashioned ‘brochure’ website that is maybe changed once or twice or even 10 times a year no longer cuts it in a world of websites with dynamic content being updated many times a week and promoted like crazy.

Please accept my apologies if this describes your website. I do not mean to offend, rather to educate and if your are not interested in learning how to better market your business online you have no business being here on our website – so off with you now sirrah !!

Go on, those who are not serious about digital marketing for their business, go now – I’m waiting……………………………………………. and don’t slam that door !

So, now we have ejected the non-believers, we can get back to making a point.

Modern websites make sure they continually serve their visitors AND THE GOOGLEBOT interesting and relevant content that is updated regularly.

Onlineassist4u website showing the fold

Onlineassist4u website showing the fold

Many of the websites we build include a section on the homepage (below the fold) that summarizes the top articles on the website with an image as well to make it more enticing for the site visitors to click on the link and read the article (see the image of our homepage to the left).

This not only allows visitors to our website to checkout our new and best content very quickly, however, it also ensures that we are feeding the homepage (and the Googlebot) with new relevant content regularly. Yes the content is below the fold but visitors are used to that now and many of them have these magical little scroll wheels on their mouse which allows them to peruse all the content really quickly and without too much effort at all.

At the end of the day it is a tradeoff. By all means put the most important stuff above the fold. The rules still hold true for that.

Buy now buttons, links to special offers or special content, your logo, contact details, main menu etc. But do not constrain the effectiveness of your site by having a piddly little page with a tiny bit of content that is plonked there and stays there ad infinitum.

Anyway, as is often the case, others can say it better than I can so, if you want to read more, I suggest you click on the link to The Myth of the page Fold for more technical information on why this is no longer a big issue.

Oh, and by the way, this does not apply to any website where you have to scroll left to right to read content. If that is the case then any of the following might be true;-

  • You are using an 800×600 pixel monitor – get a new monitor grand dad – honestly they do not cost that much you tight git !
  • You have the resolution setting in your control panel set way too low for your monitor – get some glasses and you might be able to see the road as well
  • The web designer who built the site either doesn’t care about you or is a moron (take your pick)

What d’ya mean you have to scroll sideways on your mouse to see this page ? No, I am not a moron !!!!!

Filed Under: Copywriting, Featured Articles, Search Engine Optimization Tagged With: Copywriting, fold, search engine optimization, SEO, web design

Video Is A Great Search Engine Optimization – Proof

October 10, 2009 By kirkoconnor Leave a Comment

After a hard week of adding content, supporting clients and working on a number of yet (unpaying) projects I settled down to watch some football on Friday evening as the Perth Glory looked to extend their unbeaten run by defeating local (is 2000 kms local ? – it is when you live in Perth I guess) rivals Adelaide United (we won by the way – take that city of churches :-) ).

Halfway through the match I received a phonecall from my business partner Geoff Payne. Whilst Geoff had some great news for me he also wanted to berate me about some exceptionally effective but really annoying search engine optimization I had unknowingly done recently that was effecting one of his personal client’s websites.

It doesn’t sound so good initially when your business partner is calling you to tell you that you have usurped his client’s rankings and Geoff, let me tell you, is good at SEO.

Now, I have to explain that the keywords we are talking about here are very specific. The company is called Foresight Security and the website URL is www.foresight-security.com. Also, the volume of results returned in a search for such a specific phrase match search – www.foresight-security.com – is obviously not very high – only 8414. But it’s the principle that is important here…..

As the owner of this website I would expect to rank number 1, especially on a phrase matched search.

The facts, however, show otherwise….

Foresight Security Video gets No1 Ranking In Google Phrase Match Search

Foresight Security Video gets No1 Ranking In Google Phrase Match Search

The business showing in the first couple of spots here is my own private consulting business OVMwebbuilder So what could I be doing to get the best rankings for this keyword search ?

Well, if you look at the screen capture above it should become pretty obvious. It’s video isn’t it !

Geoff had referred David Turner, the owner of Foresight Security, to me to add professional introductory videos to various sections of his website.

We produced some stunning high definition videos with a super introduction and David speaking on the topic he is most passionate about (security of course).

These were uploaded to Vimeo and, of course, Geoff embedded them back into David’s website.

Of course, as part of the natural scheme of things and as an adjunct to the service I offer my video clients, I placed copies of the videos on my website as well.

This provides another opportunity for the client to reach a new audience and, of course, another backlink to their website. It also allows me to showcase work I am very proud of.

So, at the end of the day, what is the lesson to be learnt here. Repeat after me kiddies – VIDEO RANKS HIGH IN GOOGLE – even if it isn’t on YouTube.

And, if like David, you are prepared to spend a few dollars (and it was real small business pricing here I assure you – low three figure sum) on getting your video professionally produced and hosted then you will get multi-level benefits from it – even some you didn’t expect.

The ‘offending’ videos…..

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: blog, Featured Articles, Search Engine Optimization, Video Production Tagged With: ranking, search engine optimisation, SEO, video

What you must know before going “online”

October 7, 2009 By Geoff Leave a Comment

The 14 things you MUST know and why when looking to go “online”

It is great knowing you have to get online to generate additional income. However, what questions do you need to ask and why! Whats in it for YOU. It is your money and it has to return an income. Used wisely the internet can be a powerful addition to any business. Used incorrectly and you will spend more cash than you need with little or no result! Below are a few things you need to understand before making the “leap”.

Web design

1 Full custom designs

2 Website starter packages from as little as $1.60 per day

3 No contracts

Benefits:

  1. You own the site and can do what you want with it at any time.
  2. Small risk no contracts – find out if a website can work for you.
  3. You can stop the service at any time. You are in control.

Web site Marketing

1       Search Engine Optimization

2       Social networking (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Linkedin etc)

3       Videos promoting your service and or products

4       Link building

5       Article submissions

6       Website submissions to search engines

7       Website analysis

8       Market trends for your industry (Internet based)

Benefits:

  1. Being seen on the first page of the search engines = lots of visitors to your website
  2. Putting your website out there to the world = lots of visitors to your website
  3. A picture speaks a thousand words. A video is 25 pictures a second. How powerful is that!
  4. Makes your site more ‘relevant’ to your visitors and the search engines
  5. Confirms you as an author and gives you credibility
  6. Makes sure the search engines know you exist
  7. Find out how you stack up against your competitors and how to beat them.
  8. Find out if you are promoting the right product or service at the right time. If not what you need to do to correct the problem

E-commence

1       Shopping carts

2       Cheap merchant accounts

3       Links to eBay

Benefits:

1       Sell products on line automatically.

2       Start small and let someone else take the financial risk

3       Use the power of the largest selling machine on the planet to promote your products or services

Have a look around the web and if you can see anything better than the package offered at Onlineassist4u then go with them with our blessings. If not you need to stop wasting your time thinking about it and sign up know so you too can start to generate additional cash for your business.

Filed Under: Featured Articles, Search Engine Optimization, web development, web development Tagged With: internet, rental website, SEO, website

Google Channel Helps With Your Site Ranking

October 7, 2009 By kirkoconnor Leave a Comment

A lot of what Google does with regards to it’s search engine page ranking algorithms is proprietary for the following reasons:-

  • Google is in business to make money and doesn’t give away its’ proprietary information to competitors
  • Internet spammers are Google’s arch nemesis. Google does not want to make their life any easier. Quite the reverse

Google, however, is keen to make sure that we all understand some of the basic (and sometimes more complicated) rules of the game.

To help us understand the rules Google runs its’ own YouTube channel. This iofficial YouTube channel for Google Webmaster Central, is a one-stop shop for webmaster resources that will help you with your crawling and indexing questions, introduce you to offerings that can enhance and increase traffic to your site, and connect you with your visitors.

It is run by Matt Cutts who is currently the head of Google’s Webspam team. Matt wrote the first version of SafeSearch, which is Google’s family filter, and has worked on search quality and webspam at Google for the last several years.

Matt hosts a series of videos which are updated regularly. A recent video is shown below to give you an idea as to whether it would be worth your while subscribing to the YouTube Channel to increase your knowledge of how to legitimately improve your website’s ranking.

 

 

Filed Under: Featured Articles, Search Engine Optimization Tagged With: google, search engine optimization, SEO, youtube

Moving My Backlinks from a Static to a Dynamic Website

October 1, 2009 By STEPHEN HIBBERT Leave a Comment

Many years ago (well a few anyway), people used to build and deploy ‘static’ websites with content that was placed up on the Internet by some geeky guy and that content never changed.

Come to think of it, many websites are still being developed that way today. ‘C’est un catastrophe !’ as my Belgian compatriot used to say when something went terribly wrong (Francis – I hope you are alive and well and prospering mon ami).

Just a quick diversion – the reason you do not build static websites is that Google and Bing are looking for websites that have quality content that is continually being updated – daily if possible ! this gives their users a better experience and therefore brings them more market share / advertising revenue.

The Googlebot loves new content – update your website at least twice a week !!!!!!!!!!

As time progresses hopefully you will migrate from your boring old, low ranking static website to a new dynamic (read WordPress) based website. Hopefully, hopefully – you will get us to develop it for you and to teach you how to continue to add new and interesting content.

But what about the backlinks that you have painfully managed to get attached to your old website ? God knows we do not want to lose those hard won votes.

So how do we transfer them to our website in a way that the Googlebot is happy with ?

What we do (warning Doctor Smith – technical bit coming up here) is to assign 301 re-directs to each of the old website pages and to point them to their equivalent on our new website.

The Googlebot, when doing it’s rounds, will land on the old page and be re-directed to the new one – and so will your clients who may have bookmarked that page by the way.

Result is a happy Googlebot, no links lost and happy clients – and a happy you I don’t doubt as well.

So, how do we do this 301 re-direct thng ?

Well, we do it for you when we set up your new website – free of charge – free of hassle.

Following is a video from Matt Cutts – Google guru and geek and allround nice guy with a voice reminiscent of Kermit the frog (really – just close your eyes and listen)

Check it out !!

Filed Under: Backlink Building, Featured Articles, Search Engine Optimization Tagged With: 301 redirect, backlink, search engine optimization
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