Your Competitors Don't Understand SEO

Want a large competitive advantage for your business? 

Your competitors don't understand SEO. That's an Achilles heel you can easily and quickly leverage.

SEO is something you can seize as an opportunity to increase sales and brand loyalty. And divert web traffic away from your competitors and direct to your website.

You can gain this strong commercial advantage in a totally legitimate Google-compliant manner. You simply install correctly written meta tags, H tags, image alt attributes, photo titles, captions, and other SEO values in your website. 

Add some appropriate unpaid directory listings. 

Develop link-worthy, search-friendly content pages that drill down into deep expertise. Promote your web content and blog posts in Facebook and GooglePlus.

Keeping adding frequent, keyword-savvy, informative (not just promotional) content via News page, blog, and social media.

Do these few simple things and you'll zoom past your competitors on search results pages.

With the right types and amounts of authoritative, helpful content, qualified customers will benefit from your website and be more prone to buy something from you.

Implement Schema.org structured markup microdata.

Much more is involved with SEO and web content development, but get going on these issues and you'll be off to a great start.

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33 Questions to Ask Your Web Designer

Ask your web designer these questions BEFORE giving them the job.

(1) Can I see an online portfolio of websites you've designed?

(2) Do you design in HTML5? Schema.org? Why not?

(3) Do you use templates or custom design from scratch?

(4) Do you create wireframes (sketches of where content will go) before designing the site?

(5) How easy will it be for me to access the admin panel and make changes to the HTML and content, and upload photos and video?

(6) Where did you learn web design?

(7) Will you install Google Analytics on my site?

(8) Do your websites use light gray text on white backgrounds (which is difficult to read)?

(9) Do you do responsive web design (so the site looks good on any device)?

(10) What are the 5 worst mistakes that can be made on a website?

(11) How long will it take you to get my website up and running?

(12) Will you test my website for cross-browser compatibility? (So it looks good in Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari, etc.)

(13) How will you accommodate my business goals for this website?

(14) How will you differentiate my business from my competitors?

(15) How will you implement a strong Call To Action on every page of my site?

(16) What will the top navigation links be?

(17) How will you test my website for usability?

(18) How will I be able to add fresh content to my website?

(19) Where will my website be hosted?

(20) How will you form the URLs for each webpage (should be keyword rich, like www.example.com/products/organic-seeds/pumpkin-seeds and notwww.example.com/1433793)

(21) What kinds of non-stock photos do you need from me and how do you plan to use them on my website?

(22) What kind of Contact form do you plan to use?

(23) Where will you put the business address, phone number, etc.?

(24) How will you implement social sharing links (like, share, plus one, retweet) for my business Facebook page, GooglePlus, Twitter, YouTube, etc.? How will you link to my social media pages?

(25) How will you make my website mobile friendly (mobile optimization)?

(26) What CMS (content management system) will you use? WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, proprietary? NOTE: Proprietary CMS is often used to trap you into a CMS that only the designer understands, so you can't leave. Other times proprietary CMS is created to accommodate a client's non-standard needs.

(27) How will you implement a blog for my website?

(28) Do you plan to use Flash or iFrames? (These are not good for SEO.)

(29) How will you implement a site search functionality (for larger websites)?

(30) How will you implement internal linking?

(31) How will you format content to comply with Google Hummingbird semantic search?

(32) What SEO values (meta tags, H tags, robots protocols, site map, etc.) will you build into my website?

(33) How will I be able to track results from my website, to get an ROI and ensure that it's productive?

NOTE: If you need further explanations of these issues, contact me.


steven.streight@gmail.com

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3 Reasons Why Businesses Won't Use Social Media

"Our top competitor isn't blogging or using Facebook -- so why should we? They're very successful without it."

My answer: Because this is a vulnerability of your competitor. You can take advantage of their cluelessness about social media. You can be better than your competitor.

Slavishly imitating a competitor is a sure way to destroy your own business. That successful competitor may be bankrupt a year from now. They may be doing many things right, but some things wrong, and if you imitate the things they do wrong, you'll suffer for it.


A consultant like myself will analyze the competitor and find the Achilles heels.

I fear that the 3 main reasons a business resists promoting themselves on Facebook or a blog are:

(1) They just don't care about customers as people with needs. Customers are just wallets that open. They don't want to engage in conversations with them, or provide their expertise to them. They just want to customers to spend money, without the CEO having to have any human warmth or social interaction with them.

(2) They think "if we build it, they will come." That silly phrase is used to justify not having SEO and not blogging. So their website just sits there, with nobody coming to it. They don't understand that Google wants to see fresh, original, relevant, frequent content -- not a static website with sparse content, no News page, no new information.

A blog is a great way to grind out fantastic content, that Google will take into consideration when driving customers to websites that seem relevant and up to date.

They don't understand the marketing power of blogging, they don't want to spend time writing blog posts, they aren't good writers, or they don't want to pay someone to write good blog posts for them.

(3) They believe in old fashioned media, like TV and radio commercials. They don't understand how wasteful those investments can be. They don't understand that their customers are on Facebook and are influencing each other about what to buy.


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Current state of SEO and what clients need to know

What Clients Need to Know about the Current State of SEO

A friend on LinkedIn, Chris Abraham, was musing about how SEO is evolving. He said some SEOs now proclaim that you must remove all meta tags from HTML. This is ridiculous.

Google Webmaster is not saying that. Google gives a list of "meta tags we understand":

https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/79812?hl=en

Chris also said that many big SEO clients are re-writing their hobbled together websites to comply with new search engine algorithms and rules. Many websites of larger companies have been stitched together without much rhyme or reason, due to departmental feuds and time constraints.

It's good to re-write corporate fluff into engaging, customer-centric content.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20141210172334-474636-your-competitors-are-doing-seo

I offered this comment:

Title and meta description and H tags are valid, but meta keywords tag should be empty. Fresh, original content that answers customer questions in an FAQ format is how to do SEO services now.  

The big challenge is convincing clients that: 

* new subpages need to be created for major keyword topics customers are doing searches on, but there is no corresponding webpage in the client's website

* each webpage must have a single H1 tag that identifies the main theme

* keyword ranking is dead (since the Not Provided change at Google)

* page level metrics is all we have now, so we start optimizing the pages that get the most traffic or have the best financial payoff value

* they need to have more definitions and explanations from the customer viewpoint (you-oriented conversation, not we-oriented fluff)

* they need to define Conversion Goals and track them through Google Analytics so they can see the ROI of SEO

* Schema.org structured markup microdata code is now mandatory for implementation in the HTML, though very time consuming to do so manually.

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Schema.org Introduction to structured data

HTML5, Google Hummingbird Semantic Search, Linked Data, and Structured Markup -- how the web is moving from web page to data set as the atomic unit.

This is the path to competitive superiority, via enriched SERP snippets.

Enriched SERP snippets -- that's where your SEO focus should be now. Schema.org structured markup in your HTML5 website code is how to get there.

Google Webmasters explains "snippets":

QUOTE

Snippets—the few lines of text that appear under every search result—are designed to give users a sense for what’s on the page and why it’s relevant to their query.

If Google understands the content on your pages, we can create rich snippets—detailed information intended to help users with specific queries.

For example, the snippet for a restaurant might show the average review and price range; the snippet for a recipe page might show the total preparation time, a photo, and the recipe’s review rating; and the snippet for a music album could list songs along with a link to play each song. 

These rich snippets help users recognize when your site is relevant to their search, and may result in more clicks to your pages.

END QUOTE

The web is evolving from being a system of interconnected documents (web pages) to a set of linked data.

Web pages have been linking to each other from the beginning. Now data sets within web pages, and in other types of content, are being linked. So they will benefit from detailed instructions to search engines, code that will further explain the data set embedded in, or converted into, HTML.

Microdata, semantic web, structured data, it all relates to  more specifically identifying, and differentiating, the information found on a web page. The end goal is for people to more quickly and accurately find the information they seek on the internet.

This will help clear up any confusion about a name being the name of a record label, or the name of a fruit, or the name of a company in any particular usage of "apple," for a simplistic example. It goes much deeper, into the intricate aspects of store hours, location, founder of company, product offer expiration date, types of payment accepted, and so forth.

One of the controversial issues regarding this markup is how some have figured out how to spam it, adding unverified glowing reviews from spurious review sites, thus adding 5 stars to the "aggregate rating."

This deconstruction of web content is a revision of Tim Berners-Lee's original idea of the web page as the atomic unit of the web. Microdata for semantic purposes means that the data set, as few as one word or an entire tome, is now the new atom in the web universe.

This fits in perfectly with the Google Hummingbird semantic search engine that was installed recently. Google is now paying more attention to the intention of a search query, than to the keywords used. 

Google wants to be able to correctly guess that a give instance of "silver apples" is referring to an early electronic band, not a decorative item sold at Hobby Lobby. Or that "place for Italian" means a restaurant that serves spaghetti, not a class teaching the Italian language.

So now SEOs, web content developers and internet marketers must think about not just the major theme and keyword density of a web page, but also the building blocks of that page content. 

How that web page content can be subdivided into individual questions and answers, like an FAQ, but beyond that -- into the realm of all the minutiae of corporate structure, product types, offer packages, date founded, logo, parent organization, and other small, precise details.

Even within the About Us page, for example, there can be subsections (or subpages) on Company History, Founder's Welcome, Annual Report, Mission Statement, Staff Bios, Financial Data, Community Engagement, Associations, Photo Gallery, TV Commercial Videos, and so on.

This is part of the semantic web, where search engines understand more deeply what you're looking for, and why you're looking for it, what your intentions are, rather than just what keywords are being used.

Think of it as your website having a heart-to-heart talk with Google, patiently and meticulously explaining what is content is and means and for what kinds of customers it's best suited.

Schema.org is the structural microdata that needs to be implemented in websites for eventual search ranking improvements, matching customer queries, and enriching SERP (search engine results page) snippets (bits of content describing the web page and motivating people to click on the link).

Add Schema.org structured markup to your top priority webpages, then all pages. Your list of major SEO values must now include micro data.

SEO HTML5 code optimization should include:

(1) title tags

(2) meta descriptions

(3) page download speed

(4) image titles and alt attributes

(5) H tag hierarchy

(6) robots protocols

(7) XML site maps

(8) Javascript minifying

(9) CSS compacting

(9) Google Analytics code

(10) viewport configuration

(11) resource compression

(12) tap target sizing

(13) browser cache leveraging

(14) font legibility

(15) Schema.org markup

Here is the Schema.org section for LocalBusiness.

http://schema.org/LocalBusiness

Moz Blog "The Lowdown on Structured Data and Schema.org"

http://moz.com/blog/the-lowdown-on-structured-data-and-schemaorg-your-questions-answered

W3C "What is Linked Data?"

http://www.w3.org/standards/semanticweb/data

Google Webmasters "About Structured Data and Rich Snippets"

https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/99170?hl=en

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How to Advertise Your SEO Services

How to make advertisements for your SEO services.

SEO is Super Earthy Operation.

It's getting your website content down to earth, where the rubber meets the road, "getting dirty" and sometimes it's messy and challenging, way down there, deep into the Real World...where the customer lives.

Make your website work as hard as you do.

Win with Google-compliant Search Engine Optimization.

steven.streight@gmail.com

SEO is styling in the world wide web, giving your website a systemic superiority that speeds along the information super highway to your dreams: sales of product and solution to the customer's need.

steven.streight@gmail.com

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#1 Lie about Websites - Build it and they will come

Biggest Myth about Websites

"Build it and they will come" is the biggest lie, the #1 misleading statement that is made about websites.

There are millions of websites on the internet that get no traffic. They were built -- but no one is coming. 

You must promote your website on Facebook and other platforms. But first, you have to get your web content right.

Content -- frequent, relevant, original, well-written, keyword-rich CONTENT on your website or blog. That's what drives traffic to a website. Along with some other SEO factors and link building tactics.

You can track results from your website easily. 

One way is by having a dedicated phone number that is used ONLY on your website. Every call that comes to your business from that number will be because the customer visited your website. Make the phone numbers clickable, so the customer just clicks on it from your website.

Website productivity down? Contact form is dead? No email inquiries? Phones not ringing? Cash registers not singing? Maybe you need some business expertise and professional solutions.

I'm currently providing internet marketing, online branding, web content development, and SEO for hospitals, insurance companies, accounting firms, tax preparation services, financial institutions, manufacturers, agriculture, and event planners.

Where do you want to be with your internet marketing or ecommerce? 

Let me show you how to win.

steven.streight@gmail.com

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SEO to the rescue: increasing website productivity

A website can look nice, have professional design, say the right things, show the right images -- and still be a dud.

One way to track website productivity is to have a dedicated phone number used only on the website. If the phone's not ringing, something's wrong.

An SEO audit will discover the problems, which are typically easy to fix, but up to date, Google-compliant SEO expertise is rare.

The secrets of SEO revolve around correct HTML tags (title, metadescription, H, img alt attributes), properly formatted content, and new content based on trending topics. The entire foundation is user-centric, not focusing on transient gimmicks, but customer behavior and search query terms.

Ready to test your website's SEO power?

CONTACT

steven.streight@gmail.com


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Link Velocity and SEO

Getting lots of backlinks suddenly to your website could harm your SEO.

Is it a good idea to invest in link acceleration? Should you want to increase your backlink velocity (the rate at which other websites link to yours)?

Generally NO. Be suspicious of any claim to get you tons of links quickly. These tend to be low quality, or even spammy or malicious, links that will hurt your SEO due to both poor link quality and speed of link acquisition.

This is interpreted by Google as an attempt to manipulate your search engine rankings for your website, to trick Google into thinking, "Wow. With all these links going to XYZ website, it must be an authority on a topic, or a source of news about a trending topic." But Google is hip to such black hat gimmicks.


Goodroi gives a good explanation of Link Velocity in Webmaster World thread.

http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4674574.htm

QUOTE

I would guess that the more links you have the more links you can gain. The New York Times gaining a thousand links overnight is not a big thing. A brand new 20 page site gaining a thousand links overnight is a big potential red flag.

I would also suggest that not all links are equal. I suspect some links are high quality and other links are very poisonous. If you gain a small number of very poisonous links from websites that obviously exploiting Google, I would expect you will have ranking trouble sooner than later.

I value links by the odds that the link will send me real traffic that converts. The more chance the link will perform, the more effort I exert in developing that link. My focus is building up external traffic sources so I am not dependent on Google. The more I do this, the more traffic Google sends me. People that tend to target low quality links that don't send any traffic tend to have more ranking issues IMHO.

END QUOTE

In a Google forum, this was the Best Answer (by RainboRick) to a question about link velocity.

QUOTE

Google employees have occasionally indicated that when a site suddenly gets a burst of links, it can be taken as a sign of attempts to manipulate the rankings. But this is in the context of a manual review or a situation that might trigger a manual review.

Since a page about a hot topic might well see a sudden surge of links, it isn't automatically going to damage a site's rankings in and of itself. But if the links look like they're artificial in some way, they could become a problem.

Generally speaking, this shouldn't concern most webmasters. Sites go through peaks and valleys of link building, especially when they're new.

As long as you're not out there buying links or getting a lot of site-wide links from unusual or unrelated sources, it shouldn't be a problem.

END QUOTE
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How To Improve Your Reading Skills

You Can Improve Your Reading Skills - in 5 Easy Steps

Someone on Facebook said he wanted to quit his job bagging groceries, and get a better job. He knew this meant he must increase his skills, which requires reading, but he's not that good at it. 

This inspired me to make this list:

(1) Read things that you're really into, from rap lyrics to books on basketball and football, written by players, coaches, fans, news reporters.

(2) Keep a good dictionary at your side and look up every word you don't know as you read.

(3) Realize the subversive nature of this activity. Reading and writing were feared by ancient kings. In the old days, people memorized large texts. Word of mouth ruled. Writing and printing words was considered revolutionary, anarchist, threatening.

(4) Once in a while, read something way too hard to understand, and try to force yourself to learn a little something. Stretch the mind -- and see reading as fun and needed to increase income.

(5) Read your favorite books and blogs in a comfortable place, where you feel happy, safe and private. Concentrate your mind and enter the magical world of literature. Keep rising higher and higher in difficulty, which is making you smarter.


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A Website Without SEO is Dead

Empower Your Website with SEO

A website without SEO is like a sports car without an engine. It's dead, Jim. It just sits there, debunking "If We Build It, They Will Come." Not productive. Phones aren't ringing. Sales aren't happening. Registrations for our event -- where are they? 

Empower your website with SEO (search engine optimization). Google-compliant SEO will give you a big competitive advantage, because few companies do it correctly, ethically, and effectively.

Let's get started. Drive more qualified customers to your website. 

CONTACT
steven.streight@gmail.com

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Hidden Text in Spam Emails

Do you know why spammers and con artists use hidden text at the end of an email message?

Hidden text occurs in emails and websites. They use white type on white background. They want search engines or spam filters to read the text, but not humans.

Hidden email message text can be seen if you highlight the large empty space at the end of the message. 

You may also see it if you click Reply, then click on Show Trimmed Content (in Gmail).

It will be full of nonsensical sentences and random wording.

Here's an explanation of this black hat email marketing technique from my pals at Hoax Slayer.

QUOTE

I often receive emails that ask why random text is sometimes hidden within HTML spam messages. You may not even see these hidden messages unless you view the source code of the email. Depending on the configuration of your email client, the hidden text may be rendered visible when you reply or forward the message. Sometimes, highlighting empty space in the spam message will reveal the hidden text.

This hidden text is a common component of spam messages. Spammers include hidden text in their HTML emails in order to try to trick spam filters. A lot of spam filters are configured to detect messages that contain certain words, phrases or ways of structuring sentences that are commonly indicative of spam. If these indicators add up to a significant percentage of the message, the filter will block the message as spam.

The hidden text can effectively dilute the overall "count" of these spam indicators, so that the message can sneak through the filter. Many recipients would not see the hidden text, or even know it existed, but it is easily "seen" by the spam filtering software.

The buried messages usually consist of random words or phrases that have nothing to do with the visible content of the email. Sometimes, it is tempting to attach some intrinsic significance to the hidden messages. However, I believe that they are just unconnected words, letters and numbers tacked together by the spammer. The messages have no meaning of their own and are added only to fool spam filters.

EXAMPLE:

ghastly climatology astigmatism
Go Web in 1898 stars battle
driving at? Forget it!
Everything to our topic Health world OFFBEAT
whats going on engine
Family Hold on in 1951 The thing is
Snowboarding Miss World
in 1814 in 1871 I am on a Spice Girls
don't feel well in 1979
Absent Without Leave Red Herring

END QUOTE


http://www.hoax-slayer.com/hidden-text-spam.html




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#1 Mistake in Web Content is We Oriented Copy

Egotism instead of customer-centrism is the primary, fatal mistake in website copywriting.

You'll ruin your website by saying "We" and Our" all the time. Yet many websites do this. Hammering away at what you do and what you sell is the wrong way to reach customers. You need to use "you-oriented" language to speak to customers.

You'll destroy your website's productivity in achieving business goals by not using "You" and "Your" as much as possible.Telling your company's story from your corporate point of view is a guaranteed way to alienate your customers.

"We provide blah blah blah."

"We have blah blah blah services."

"We've been in business for X number of years."

"We offer the best products at the lowest prices with incredible service."

"Our staff has blah blah blah."

"Our products will blah blah blah."

BORING. SMUG. COUNTER-PRODUCTIVE.

You must write website content from the point of view of the customer, not the company.

You do this by forcing yourself to start most sentences with "You...." and "Your...."

It's not that hard to convert corporate boasting and generic fluff into customer-centric text.

NOT: "Our company provides you with a team of specialists and customized programs to make your disease easier to manage."

RATHER: "Your disease will be much easier to manage with customized programs and your own team of specialists assisting and guiding you."

Imagine yourself as the customer. Look at that wimpy "we-oriented" copy and ask, "What's that mean for me specifically?"

People don't give a damn about you or your company or its products.

People care about their personal problem, need, or desire.

If you show your customers that you care about them, by addressing them directly, then they might start caring about how your products solve their problems. Once they're convinced your products might meet their needs...

...THEN, at that point, they might even be curious to learn more about your company, its history and achievements.

They won't care what you know (or are selling) until they know that you care.

To the untrained, non-marketing person, this may seem like a subtle difference, but actually it's as different as night and day.

You'll gain a huge competitive advantage by using the customer-centric style of web content writing.

Most of your competitors will think "I want our website to tell people what we do."

You'll buck that dopey trend by thinking "I want our website to tell people how we understand their problem and aim to fix it."

You convey that understanding of the customer and their needs by start most sentences with "You" and "Your."

Remember this tip and you'll greatly increase your success in internet marketing.


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12 Tips on Self Promotion at Tech Conferences

My latest article at The Peorian: "Advice for the Conference Attendee"

INTRO:

Having recently attended a tech conference dealing with cyber security, data storage, and other IT issues, I thought about some of the things I typically do at these events. I decided to prepare a list of things that can make your attendance more productive.

These tips are designed especially for job seekers, career ladder climbers, and consultants wanting more clients.

(1) Sit up front. This makes it better when Q&A time comes along. Or sit way in the back, even stand in the back, so you can bop around taking photos and getting more coffee without disturbing anybody.

(2) Have plenty of business cards, with your LinkedIn, blog, or website url, to exchange with presenters or attendees. Obtain business cards from others and send them relevant news stories, articles praising their company, your own advice, etc., as appropriate. Nobody does this kind of follow-up. Don't pester or act needy. Just keep presenting yourself as someone with expertise, authentically and honestly. It's easy to impress when most people are not self-promotional.

(3) Bop around taking photos of audience and speaker, from a variety of angles, with a fancy camera (never a cell phone camera) and people may think you're with the local media. Explain "I'm a citizen journalist. These photos will be on Facebook and GooglePlus."

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE to see all 12 tips.


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10 SEO Tips for Photos in Your Website

Photos can make your website more humanized, professional, and engaging.

Photos are extremely important visual content for your website. A website without photographic documentation of what the products, store, owner, etc. look like will suffer from reduced credibility. Effective use of photos can really make a company stand out. 

But many of your competitors will probably have done a lousy job with photos on their website, if they even have any.

As a photographer, I pay a lot of attention to the images used online. (The photo above is today's sunset over Big Hollow Plaza.)

Here are some how to tips for more effective use of photos on your website.

10 SEO Photo Tips:

(1) Avoid stock photos unless you absolutely must have strict confidentiality regarding your customers or employees. Use current photos of happy customers, staff, managers, owner, CEO. 

Customers are typically happy to let you take their photo and use it on your website, but get their permission and explain what the purpose of the photo is.

(2) Use photographs to generate good will, get people to like you, and show products and facility.

(3) Show products in the act of solving a problem, enhancing a lifestyle, or meeting a need. Also show close ups of important but easily overlooked features. If appropriate, show the product from different angles, in different colors, etc.

(4) Use photos of satisfied customers along with a testimonial for added impact.

(5) Include keyword-rich captions under the photos that explain what, where, who, why, when, or product benefits, specs, etc.

(6) If you have a bricks and mortar store or facility, show it, along with address and directions, so customers can more readily find it.

(7) Include photos of CEO and employees at civic functions, charity events, conferences, office parties, and presentations. Convey a sense of community involvement to make people like and trust you.

(8) Provide a keyword-rich title for each photo.

(9) Provide a keyword-rich img alt attribute for each photo file.

(10) Use photos to break up text content, for greater readability and ease of skimming and scanning.

PHOTO: Hawk Over Big Hollow.
Oct. 27, 2014


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Your Website Must Be an Answer Machine

Customers are searching for answers first, products second. 

Make your website a Library of Solutions,  an Answer Machine.

Product hype is not enough anymore.

Many potential customers are in the problem solving exploration stage. 

They're not ready to buy a product. They're asking questions related to problems your product solves. If your website has FAQ type information that answers those questions, Google will send you a lot more qualified customer traffic. If you answer their question, they may suddenly be ready to make a purchase from you.

While some customers know what they need and are searching for products to meet that need, many customers are in the exploration stage. They see a problem, lack, or opportunity. They are seeking enlightenment. They want to know more -- before they'll be ready to shop for a product.

When a customer searches online for information related to your products, the question they enter into Google is about a problem your product solves. They'll be asking how to solve, fix, customize, repair, upgrade, adapt, or replace something.

Customer types questions into Google. Google then, through its new Hummingbird search engine, seeks the best answer to the customer's questions. That's where you need to be. Not hawking the product, but announcing the answer, and then promote your product.

Notice, I did not say "Google then seeks the best PRODUCT for the customer" -- but rather, "the best ANSWER."

So if your website just contains we-oriented generic fluff, boasting about how great your company is, saying what any competitor could also claim, and spewing forth the froth of product technical data and specs, guess what?

Google is not going to consider your website a good match for the customer query. That customer with a question will not be sent to your website.

Favor will go toward the website that provides complete, authoritative, well-written, original answers to customer questions.

To take full advantage of this to gain competitive superiority, use the FAQ format to present information about your products. Information designed, not to glorify the products, but to explain how you understand the customer's need, and explains how to solve the customer's problem, by way of your products.

Your website needs to describe the problem in the language used by customers, not by your marketing team, sales force, engineers, or vendors. Speak the same words your customers use when they talk about their need, problem, or enhancement to their lifestyle. Google will be looking for a match based on the words and the intention of the customer query.

Example of Website as Answer Machine

Let's say you sell silver jewelry.

Many potential customers already own some silver jewelry. Right at this moment, they need some sort of polish that will clean silver jewelry they already possess. Your opportunity lies here: if you have a webpage that discusses how to polish silver jewelry, what to use and how to do it, those people may visit your website to read that.

They may then look around at the silver jewelry you have for sale. Some of them might be so impressed at the styles and affordability, they buy some of your products.

Another customer may be wanting to learn how to evaluate the quality of silver jewelry and how it compares to white gold or steel. Still another may want to discover new jewelry gift ideas for a graduating college student, like a diamond studded iPhone case.

If you know what the most common questions are that potential customers are asking, and you provide answers to these typical questions, you'll impress Google and your website traffic will surge.

This is how you expand your market and how you make your website more productive in attaining your business goals.

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Why Generic Web Content is a Bad Idea

Your website must differentiate you from your competitors. Generic website content is not going to show your competitive superiority.

When website content is mediocre, your customers will not be impressed. Your content must be fresh, distinctive, original, and compelling. It should engage customers like a friend or a trusted adviser.

For website content to be effective, specific information about a business must be included. A content writer can't just make up copy. It can't be magically spun out of the thin air.

If you have a client that needs content for their website, here's how I operate.

I will need, from you, information about the client's business, brochures, lists of events, product specs, organizational history, whatever I deem relevant to the web content and cannot acquire on my own. Clients have printed material and specifications that need to be delivered to me in some form.

I will provide you with a list of data that I need from the client. I will not contact the client.

The client is not "writing the content" -- they are providing me with the information they already possess and use in mailings, office handouts, fliers, print ads, etc. I then tweak it, put it in user-centric language, build SEO values into it, and format it for web display.

I don't write generic web content that doesn't require any information from the client.

I don't just make up content based on nothing.

I don't have standard, pre-written content that is targeted toward various industries, which just needs changes in the business name and product titles.

Generic template web copy from remote content-grinders is typically duplicate content with slight modifications that is sent out to all websites in a given field and often relies on keyword stuffing and we-oriented fluff.

Web content that satisfies search engines and meets customer needs in a friendly and authoritative manner must be completely unique, sufficient to achieve "Best Page on Topic" status, and written in a FAQ format, mirroring the actual queries that customers use in searches.

Yoast, a Wordpress plug-in, is a poor SEO analyzer, which encourages using the same keyphrase in multiple locations within content and meta tags. Synonyms, variants, and substitute phrases must be used, rather than the exact same phrase over and over. Yoast can give some helpful suggestions, but slavish conformance to the "green button" activation will result in content that violates Google Webmaster guidelines. 

I provide marketing-savvy, personalized, user-centric SEO website content writing that is based on Google Hummingbird compliance and keeps pace with changes in the search algorithms, keyword usage, and customer interests.

Your website project will receive high quality expertise that will result in a good ROI.

Here's a report on buying a generic Android tablet:

http://the-digital-reader.com/2012/02/15/on-the-perils-of-buying-a-generic-android-tablet/#.U9MD9uNdWSo

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SEO, Carpentry, and Website Productivity

I was talking with a person recently who does carpentry work. I told him I make websites more productive with SEO and content development. He said, "I have a website, but I don't get any business from it. All my business comes from referrals."

He is probably wrong. What he doesn't seem to realize is that even when a customer is referred to him by a friend, I'm sure the customer looks up the carpenter's website to verify that the carpenter's insured, licensed, been around a while, has a land address, is no fly-by-night con artist.

It also helps if the website contains before and after photos of his carpentry projects, a photo of the carpenter and an interesting bio, and website content that answers questions people have about various relevant topics. That's just to start with. There is much more that should be included.

So the website is a partner in the sales transaction; it's a vital part of the chain of events that transformed a person with a need into a paying customer for that carpenter.

If he had no website, or if his website was poorly designed, that would make a bad impression on the customer, and would very likely reduce the number of referrals that turned into customers for him.

You may think your website is just an internet presence, something you're supposed to have, but you're not sure if it's really doing anything for you. Your website should be a salesperson, working hard to attract web visitors -- and to convert visitors into customers.

Part of my work in SEO is advising companies to analyze the effectiveness of their website in terms of achieving conversion goals (product purchase, call phone number to set up appointment, sign up for newsletter, visit store, watch a promo video, etc.)

We do a benchmark study prior to the SEO work and content development. Then we do subsequent studies to measure the ROI, which is accumulative and gradual, not instant riches beyond your wildest dreams. It's incremental.

As you keep adjusting SEO factors and building new content, Google starts ranking your webpages higher, and the pay-off begins to snowball.

Most websites just look okay, but tend to have a lot of underlying code problems and slim content issues that impede effectiveness. They don't attract qualified customers, nor do they do a good sales job.

So it's rather easy to get a substantial competitive advantage by implementing Google Hummingbird compliant SEO.

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Facebook Top Stories vs. Most Recent

I knew something was horribly wrong when I kept seeing the same old posts. 

Oh, now I see -- Facebook has once again forced me back into News Feed >Top Stories, which ruins your experience. I had to revert back to my preference of News Feed > Most Recent.

This reverting back to what I do NOT prefer, forcing me to see the same old posts over and over again (and making me think nobody's posting anything all day long) -- is Anti User. When a user configures a setting, it should stay that way, not keep reverting back to what you don't want.

How many Facebook users are not savvy enough to even know that the reason they keep seeing the same old posts is because they've been switched to Top Stories? Some people may think there's something wrong with Facebook, or nobody's posting anything -- and then conclude that Facebook is boring and it's time to move on to something more dynamic.

Now that Facebook is coercing users into what they hate (Top Stories), we shall see how this impacts ad revenues, user engagement, and popularity of platform.


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Komatsu Renovation and LeTourneau Steel House

Some Komatsu buildings are coming down – and a beautiful view of the Illinois river is coming up.

Those old brownish red former Avery Tractor structures on Adams Street are being torn down to make way for a lovely scenic spot that will let people look out on the river. You'll be able to enjoy a snack at the Ice Cream Shack while enjoying a river view. 

This is the part of Averyville where the LeTourneau company built earth-moving and mining machines using Caterpillar engines, a business that was sold to Westinghouse Air Brake Company (WABCO) for $25 million.

The structures targeted for removal have appeared to be past their prime for quite a while now, but there is a unique historic treasure hidden in their midst. 

An R.G. LeTourneau steel house, preserved and converted into an office by Komatsu, will not be demolished. The Central Illinois Landmarks Foundation, in cooperation with Komatsu, is looking for a home for this LeTourneau building, a place where it can be preserved and exhibited to the public.

READ MORE

http://www.peorian.com/news/news/business/1662-streight-komatsu

Old LeTourneau steel house

behind MaxFit 360 Fitness Center

201 Spring Street, Peoria, IL.

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