Managed Content Syndication Services
If you have a website or a blog by now you must know that it has to be promoted in one fashion or another. I have written a lot of posts about different ways in which to promote your sites in both search engines and RSS directories. I have been getting a lot of emails from people asking for an overview of website promotion. Rather than re-invent the wheel, I am going to talk about my company’s primary service and use that as a blueprint for those of you that do self promotion.
A lot of my peers have asked me why I give so much information away, particularly about marketing tactics and SEO. The fact is most of my readers are advanced users and would find this information either the way I have through trial and error, or by searching the Internet for it. SEO and Social Network Marketing, especially optimizing WordPress is a much covered subject. The clients that I have now and are on the lookout for, are companies that don’t have the personnel to execute a Web 2.0 marketing plan. Whether they lack the programmers or content writers, they just can’t put the time in to commit to Web 2.0. Make no mistake, if your business relies on the Internet, especially organic traffic, you must put in the time and resources to be successful.
Content Creation And Syndication
Assuming that you have either a website with a blog, or a blog system that serves as your site, the 2 primary things to work on is solid and optimized content, and syndication. I am working on several articles about WordPress optimization both from the writing side and from the server side. In fact I have been putting together a plugin package that will take your WordPress system to a new level. I know that not everyone uses WordPress so I am also creating a new real estate portal that will be using TypePad as well as another mortgage related portal that is using ModX as its content management system. I have a rather large real estate company as a client and have had unbelievable success with WordPress, but I do think it is wise to not put all my eggs in one basket. So as I work with these other systems I will post articles on the SEO progress of these other systems.
One last thing before I get started; all of the guides that have to do with WordPress are using standard SEO practices, so if you have a regular website you can take the tactics and easily apply them. The hardest part of Web 2.0 on a static site is RSS feeds. It is possible with either CaRP Evolution or even Feed For All to create dynamic news feeds from static pages. This will allow you to utilize feed and article planters as well as ping services and XML-RPC on a non-blog site. I have had a lot of skeptics that say XML-RPC on a static site is a waste of time, or too hard to implement and not worth the effort. I am running a major test series now on a high profile website. Next week will be the first post in a series of articles explaining XML-RPC and how to utilize it on static sites.
Get Found Now’s best selling service is the Managed Content Syndication Service. It basically is a Web 2.0 action plan for businesses with a static website. I have only done 2 jobs in the last 3 years for clients that had no web presence whatsoever, but I have done hundreds of upgrades and WordPress installs for businesses that have an existing site. The fact is we have had a great deal of success.
It all starts with a solid content plan that is based upon keyword research. By knowing my clients keywords, I can create URL’s and content that gives the website authority in the search engines for those keywords. It is all about authority. Your page must seem to be an authority on the keywords you are promoting. This is done by moderate keyword stuffing and link baiting the pages with inbound links that have those keywords in the anchor tags.
The key is to plan ahead in your content outline. On a static site I recommend bread crumb linking as the means to ferment deep link navigation, an essential part of SEO and usability. Read my article about Website Usability and Deep Link Navigation for more info. Once you have content the next goal is to get it out on the web.
RSS Syndication is the most powerful means for a website to reach the masses. Read this article if you want an Overview of RSS Syndication. By using RSS Syndication Services you can reach more readers than any other method of organic traffic acquisition. I use FeedBurner to manage all my feeds and have been beta testing FeedBurners RSS to Email service. While it isn’t as sexy as FeedBlitz, it is great to track all your subscribers at once rather than relying on separate analytics.
By taking standard SEO practices, providing original and optimized content, then submitting the site through syndication, Get Found Now has found a recipe for success in Internet Marketing. Our Managed Content Syndication Service is the heart of our social network marketing strategy.
RSS To Email Services Update
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about FeedBlitz as being the best rss to email service that I had found to date. I recently discovered that FeedBurner had upgraded their RSS to Email service. Find out more about RSS Syndication Services – FeedBurner to see my original post about FeedBurner.
I had used FeedBurner’s rss to email service in the past and it wasn’t all that great. I suppose that was one of the first things Google upgraded when they took over since the service is very good now. I have been testing it on my wife’s Homes Advisory Real Estate Portal WordPress install, and it works great.
Why RSS to Email is So Important
Not everyone is up to speed on what RSS is. In my original post about FeedBlitz RSS to Email I explained the nuts and bolts of how to best exploit and use RSS to Email. The only difference is that you can now go to the “publicize” section of FeedBurner and activate the email subscription service.
The best reason to do this is to have all your subscribers stats under one roof. There is a definite correlation to RSS subscribers and rankings such as Technorati authority. In fact with Google’s purchase of FeedBurner, you have to think that it will play into the natural SERP’s sooner rather than later.
I have gotten so many requests for more information on how to use FeedBurner that I am working on an instructional video now that will be released later in the week… so stay tuned.
In the meantime if you have any questions about RSS to email, please leave a comment in this post.
RSS News
Website Usability: Keeping Content Above The Fold
One of the most important aspects of Website Usability is keeping content above the fold so users are not scrolling up and down your web pages. This is absolutely essential when it comes to the home page. People just don’t scroll on the home page.
By now you should know what I mean when I say “above the fold”, but if you are new here I will explain. When you visit a website, whatever is within the boundaries of your screen is Above The Fold. If you have to scroll down to read content or take action, you are venturing below the fold.
No Scrolling Is The Best Policy
Most users just don’t scroll when they come to a web page. This is more true on the home page than any other page. The majority of your sites’ visitors enter on your home page. The ones that don’t have more than likely hit an optimized page that you created for specific keywords. If they don’t see what they are looking for in 30 seconds they will either hit your home page or leave.
These statistics and others I am going to be using, come from years of experience and analytics from thousands of websites. Today I oversee the management of hundreds of websites, together the average close to a million unique visitors a day. I use advanced algorithms to create usability studies. I also have used teams of these companies employees in usability studies over the years. Read my Website Usability Overview and Website Usability Deep Link Navigation posts to learn more about how and where I get my data. I feel it is nesassary to qualify these statistics so everyone can see the importance of usability and analytics in their web strategy.
I want to be clear about this: I am not saying “don’t put content or site features below the fold” , I am saying “put your message and IMPORTANT site controls above the fold”! I generally will put content geared more to search engines than people below the fold. I am not talking about keyword stuffing, I merely am saying that a few paragraphs and static links within the bottom part of a page can go a long way to letting search engines know what your page is about. The critical info for users as well as search engines needs to be as close to the top as possible.
Users just don’t scroll, in fact 65% of home page visitors will not look at more than 1.3 screens worth of data under any circumstance on sub pages that actually have the information they are looking for! If your site is designed around either templates, includes, or css, keep the skin short, headers should not be more than 150 px high. This give you more screen real estate to work with. I prefer navigation elements to be on the left and across the header. These are very common design practices.
Last year when I was involved in a re-design of a 350 page web site that averaged 10,000 unique visitors a day, my team and a team of their employees looked at a list of 400 websites that were on or similar in topics to my clients. We found that 80% of the sites we looked at used the same design approach.
Out of those 400 websites, 90% of them had major site elements below the fold on the home page. Since my client had hired me to obtain traffic organically as opposed to the $16,000 they were spending a week on Google and Overture, I needed to come up with a design that would not only convert, but also be optimized for search engines.
We set up 4 different versions of the home page and split up the PPC so they got pretty close to equal traffic. By studying the different home page styles we were able to have their site visitors work for us and help us decide which was the best design! This is called landing page optimization. There are several companies that sell landing page optimization systems, and they are all very expensive. They also use scripting to control the different “recipes” or page designs. This is so similar to cloaking that I wouldn’t do it even if my clients had thousands of dollars to throw down the drain. We were able to do it all with our analytics suite for no extra costs at all.
The results were pretty much what I expected. The page that converted the most leads had all content and controls above the fold and used standard design and navigation.
One year later, this company is spending only $4000 a month on pay per click and is averaging more than 10,000 unique visitors.
The moral of this story is: KEEP YOUR CONTENT ABOVE THE FOLD!!!