On July 14, 2010, I will discuss how to maintain Page Rank when you update or launch a new website with the North Alabama Web Developers group.
This issue can arrise when companies or divisions combine; product lines are renamed or when a new face is placed on an exiting website. Money spent on redesign and years of traffic building can be squandered, if this critical step is missed.
In this session we’ll discuss Google webmaster tools, Google analytics, sitemaps, and using redirects to map content with the .htaccess file (emphasis will be on Apache/Linux hosting).
Please visist the meet-up site for details and sign-up.
http://www.meetup.com/web-99/calendar/13878846/
SEM Huntsville SEM Huntsville
I attended PubCon in Dallas last week. I have attended several Search Engine Strategies (SES) and Search Marketing Expos (SMX) over the years, but this was my first PubCon. PubCon is driven by the folks at WebmasterWorld, which is the leading source of what is happening in search and is a different crowd than either SES or SMX. I went to PubCon to get a fresh perspective on the SEO universe and I have to say, I wasn’t disappointed. I picked up especially good information on reputation management and Black-Hat SEO that I haven’t gotten anywhere else.
Black-Hat techniques are often used to inflate a websites ranking or destroy some one’s reputation. While I don’t advocate or use Black-Hat techniques (if caught you will be banned from search engines), it was good to learn some of the many nefarious techniques that are employed.
I was eager to connect with some of the people associated with WebmasterWorld. I was extremely pleased to meet Ted Ulle (Tedster), a prominent poster on WebmasterWorld. I attended Ted’s session on Information Architecture [take away: limit choices to seven or less]. I also attended sessions with Tim Ash and Bryan Massey on Landing Page Optimization [take away: test, test, test...] and the session on Local Search Marketing by Kate Morris was especially good and uncovered several recent additions to the AdWords interface.
It will take some time to digest all that I learned, but I will discuss key finds with my customers and begin to roll out key changes for their sites in coming weeks.
SEM Huntsville black-hat, Pubcon, SEM Huntsville, SEO Huntsville
I am not a designer, but having been in marketing for many years, I always recommend that clients use a designer for anything that touches the customer. Whether it is business cards, brochures, a trade show booth, or a website, you want to convey the proper image.
A professional designer can help you identify with an audience and project an appropriate image for your company. Even small details like font type, font sizes, colors, and ease of navigation all come together to set your company apart from the crowd and can make a huge difference in how your business is perceived on the web.
Remember when you attended trade shows?
This point was really driven home years ago when much of product marketing was done at trade shows. When walking the aisles of a large trade show it was easy to spot the homemade designs. Sure, sometimes the product was so compelling or unique that the homespun booth design didn’t get in the way, but more often than not, it just identified that company as a minor player in a much larger market.
Read more…
SEM Huntsville designing a website, SEM Huntsville, web design
I am attending the search optimization and marketing conference SMX West in Santa Clara next week. If you will be at the conference and would like to get together, drop me a note. For my customers, this is one of the larger industry events. While I follow in the neighborhood of 20 blogs on marketing and optimization all year, this show does a lot to pull all the information together. Confirming trends and many times is the launching point for new techniques and information.
SEM Huntsville SEM Huntsville, SEO Huntsville
I have written several posts on Quality Score, but I recently found two articles on the subject that make it worth revisiting. Quality Score is Google’s way of assessing how relevant your paid search keywords are to the searchers you’re targeting.
This article by by Craig Danuloff discusses in monetary terms what the real costs of a low-quality-score are and this recent article, also by by Danuloff suggests 5 Steps to Improve Your Quality Score.
SEM Huntsville ppc, quality score, SEM Huntsville
