Author: Nancy McCord

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Bing Webmaster Tools Offer Real Help for Understanding Your Website

In the last few weeks Bing has upgraded its webmaster control panel from insignificant to significant. In fact, in many ways Bing Webmaster Tools make Google Webmaster Tools appear superfluous.

In the new Bing interface here are some new things you can now do:

  • Link Explorer. You can now review backlinks for your own Bing verified site or for pages on a competing website.
  • SEO Analyzer. Get real page specific help highlighted for you with recommendations.
  • SEO Report. Bing will even create a report for you of which pages in your site need code help for better optimization.
  • Canonical Alerts. Bing will let you know if it finds a problem in your message box.
  • URL Removal tool. Don’t like a URL? Get rid of it from the Bing index tied to your site.
  • Keyword Research. Bing integrates a keyword search tool in their site helping you to focus on optimizing your website for better search terms.

Personally I find many of the tools very user friendly and helpful. I think Bing has done a wonderful job at integrating these new tools into their webmaster control panel and making them highly understandable and helpful for website owners and site webmasters.

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There is No Time Machine for Website Placement

I have had a rash of phone calls from prospects telling me that their organic placement has dropped so much after they paid a ton of money for a new website that they want to repost the website they had five years ago to get their old traffic and Google.com placement back. Sorry, but there is no time machine that will take us back to the time you placed highly on Google.com.

A website is not a brochure; you create it once and then hand it out for years. It is a work of art, a puzzle, a tool, a selling machine. It needs care and it needs content updates. What worked three years ago and five years ago certainly does not work now. Even if we could reload a website that performed well five years ago on Google, it would certainly not perform in the same place today.

The Web has changed dramatically in the time that I have been providing professional services and it has significantly changed in the past three years and significantly changed this past year. What is important for website owners to understand is that now the content is crucial for organic placement, but more than that, it cannot just stop at great content.

A well placed website (in the organic search results) needs:

  1. great content that provides features and benefits
  2. content that is informational beyond what you sell and service
  3. regular updates of interesting articles, white papers, and informational updates
  4. social networking work off site on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+
  5. a blog that is updated a minimum of three times a week and  deep links to pages in your website

That in a nutshell is a web authority site! A website that is beyond a brochure but provides real help and information for readers not only on services and products that are sold but on topics and ideas. This is no five page website, that’s for sure.

It takes time and money to build and maintain a web authority site, but the rewards can be big. With a site that is well placed organically, you may not need to spend quite so much in advertising to get traffic to your site. The older your authority site is, the more links you will naturally earn which will continue to improve your placement as well. Additionally, the depth of information you have on your website will let prospects know you know your business and are the go-to person for their needs.

What used to work three years ago for organic placement certainly will not work now, but quality content and information-rich web pages will never go out of style. I invite you to visit our “web authority website” and see if we can help you too.

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Afraid to Test AdWords Try Google AdWords Express

Some clients may be selling a service or product that may not be a wonderful match for Google AdWords. There’s a great way to test if AdWords is right for you before taking the big plunge in regards to set up fees and click charges.

First, this is why AdWords may seem not be right for your business:

  1. Your products or services are priced higher than other competitors in your market. For example, you may only sell products bundled into a four pack and your competitors will sell singles. This makes your superior product, seem more costly than the competition.
  2. Your service is unique but costs more to buy due to your expertise. Others who do not have your longevity in the industry may be selling what seems to the consumer the same service but at half the price.
  3. You are offering coupon codes to discount your products and promote them widely on the Web, but when a consumer reviews your product (which they can buy elsewhere) head to head on the Web without using the discount your product and shipping may be higher.

Second, this is how you can test AdWords for your business with minimal set up expense:

  • Set up a Google Places account or claim your listing. Then use AdWords Express within the control panel to show ads in up to a 50 mile radius to test the waters with your AdWords program.
  • Although this is a local test and not a national test, for just a few minutes in set up, and no keyword entry, you can try out Google AdWords to check the viability of your product or services on Google AdWords.
  • When you set up a Google AdWords Express account, Google will set your cost per click, create a simple keyword list and even create your ad text.

Third, when should you consider the test successful?

  1. If your traffic and phone call level have improved from this limited scope test, it may be time to consider a full Google AdWords program. I recommend moving to this new level only if you have the budget to truly test a four to six month period at an ad spend of $500 to $2,000 for a 30 day period.
  2. If you got lots of clicks and no sales or phone calls, I would recommend that you review your position in the market to one see how you can clearly differentiate yourself from low price competition, re-align selling policies and prices to be more competitive in the consumer’s eyes, and evaluate if there may be alternative ways to cost efficiently promote your products and services other than Google AdWords.

If you are looking to move into a three or four month AdWords evaluation program after testing the waters, we’d be a good match for your needs. With a strong focus on sales and lead conversions, our service and honest advice will identify if AdWords is the place for you. We have recently introduced a new program called Local Start. In this program we set up a Google AdWords Express account for you. Check out more details on Local Start.

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Twitter May Be Better Than Facebook for Your Business

It used to be that I felt that every business should have a Facebook page. With the changes that Facebook has made this past year, I am starting to rethink Facebook’s importance and consider that businesses may be better served by a strong presence on Twitter instead.

Although Facebook still owns the social marketplace and is the place that consumers spend a measurable amount of time, Facebook has made it very difficult for a business to establish a vibrant presence easily on their platform. I am finding that new business pages without additional marketing will simply not grow a “like” or fan base quickly or easily.

On Twitter, additional follower numbers can be grown fairly quickly with good updates AND follower interaction. I have seen that updates alone are not the key to growth on Twitter. It is the combination of the manual addition of new followers, creation of lists, and interaction with followers that helps an account to grow and for messages to go viral.

When a follower retweets your status update (that may potentially link back to your blog or your services), your link exposure and potential to reach new customers is tremendous. With regular interaction on Twitter you will find that there are certain people you can really connect with that you can use to reciprocally push out each other’s content. If these Tweeps (Twitter friends) have “klout” (measurable Twitter or social impact) or a larger follower base, the result of clicks in to your content can result in increased traffic and potentially a better SocialRank score.

Both Google and Bing are watching SocialRank and have stated that they will be using this metric in their organic search algorithm. To what degree is SocialRank important to organic placement, that we simply don’t know. What I do know is that with the changes on Facebook, it is by far easier to grow, connect with others, and funnel traffic to your website by Twitter than by Facebook.

If you are looking for help to establish or grow your Twitter presence, I invite you to review our affordable Twitter services.