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Facebook or Blog?

January 18, 2012 By Leave a Comment

I ran across an interesting question today about where you should put more effort, in your blog or your Facebook page.

I’m not really sure why that is a question. Let me break it down for you.

Your website is your own personal piece of  internet real estate. Think of it as your home because in terms of your marketing, it is. Your blog should be the heart and soul of your website. In web design today, integrating your blog as a page on your website is the only way to go. If your blog is off on another url from your main one you are missing the boat.

Today’s brides go to one place to find their vendors above all others:

SEARCH.

If you aren’t ranking high in search engines for what you do and where you do it, you are behind the game.

Reread that last sentence. Notice I did not say for your name. I hope to hell you rank number one for your name. Unfortunately, that isn’t how brides search. They search for things in places.

Huh?

They search for florists in Bucks County.They search for wedding planners in Washington, DC. They search for caterers in Fairbanks, AK. They don’t search for Polly Sue Purebreds Catering. If they do it is because they have already been made aware of Polly Sue from a referral and that is a post for another day.

Now that you understand this, you understand why your personal piece of real estate is so important.

Back to the original question: your blog or Facebook.

Every time you post to Facebook, you are sending all that Google juice to Facebook.com, not to Polly Sue’s url. Great, I’m sure Mr. Zuckerberg appreciates the Google juice, but frankly, you need it worse than he does.

Think of it this way, you have an office or a store but you still meet people in the local coffee-house. Instead of investing to improve your office or store, you take time and treasure to improve the coffee-house. That’s just dumb.

How about this instead, you work on improving the store, and then post updates on the coffee-house bulletin board. When your potential customers start looking for you the coffee-house bulletin board is one of the many signs pointing to your store. When they get to your store, they see how amazing you are.

Enough with the analogies, if you don’t get it yet you never will.

Your blog should be an integrated part of your website.

Facebook should send traffic to your website, not the other way around.

Post to your blog and have it automatically cross-post a headline and an excerpt to your Facebook page leading them to your website.

 Done.

 

 

Filed Under: Announcement, Marketing, Social Media, Website marketing Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Don’t You Wish This Was Your Google Analytics

August 19, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Last week I posted about a website I had updated for a client, Picture This Nashville.

Well today I got this in an email from Elaine, the sites owner.

Wouldn’t you love results like this for your website?

Just  sayin’

 

Filed Under: Blog, Website marketing Tagged With: , , ,

Wedding Experts and Web Content

January 13, 2011 By 3 Comments

This has been bugging me for a while so prepare yourself for a rant!

I have been following a couple of discussions over on eWedNews, one about wedding portal websites and another about so-called experts in the wedding industry. Gah!

First off, have you done any bride-style surfing on the internet lately? Seriously type in any search string  that a newly engaged woman  might use, like “How to start planning a wedding”? Every damn one on the first page for that search is some self-serving drivel written as “keyword content”.  There were 5,240,000 results. The 7th listing was from a website called MamasHealth. For real! What makes them experts in wedding planning?  The 8th result was for a site called the Power of Home Biz telling you how easy and lucrative becoming a wedding planner is. For crying out loud, the Knot didn’t even make the first page! Not that they are an example of great content, but still.

This is the world your brides step into the minute they get engaged. It is one loaded with hucksters and shysters and carnival barkers all wanting a piece of the supposedly rich, recession proof wedding market.

If you take the time to read some of this stuff you will quickly get an understanding of why today’s brides are so confused/deluded/insane.

Once they get past the basic search and start hitting the blogs to gather information to put into their binder they get hit with fairy dust stories of spectacular weddings on a buck .95 budget. Whoops, that bride with the over the top wedding on a $5ooo budget neglected to mention that her sister is a photographer on a par with Jasmine Starr, her aunt owns a posh boutique bakery, her uncle Louie is a caterer to the stars and her best friend is Martha Stewart’s assistant. But hey, she did it for $5K, so can you!!!

How did all this happen? Greed. Greed for search ranking.

In a post Google world, search ranking is the golden ring and content is king. Google is after all only an algorithm, it can’t discern the quality of the content, only if it has the right searchable keywords. Therefore, any article with the right keywords, no matter how bad the information, can get to the top of the list. To the searcher, that gives it credibility. Google has judged your content to be worthy and declared  you an expert. Pffffft! Give a huckster a list of the right keywords and they can game the system to make themselves look like an expert in any field, not just this one of badly informed brides. Go MamasHealth!

With the portals, well they aren’t much different. They want your money, they use their website stats to show you how wonderful they are so you will advertise with them. How did they get those stats? Content. Have you ever actually read any of it? Most of it is bullshit with dash of recycled garbage and a touch of fairy dust. When brides read it, one of two things happen: either the site completely loses credibility or worse case, the bride buys into the bogus information. The first group won’t bother to look at vendors on the site and the second group you don’t want as your bride anyway.

Then there are the bloggers. I’m not talking about all wedding bloggers. Please don’t think that I am.Some of the only really credible, honest information today is found in the blogs.  There are two kinds of wedding bloggers. There is the vendor that chats about their business and the weddings they have done as a way to market their business and educate brides on their business and their part of the industry. Good on you. Then there are the ones that are just trying to keyword load and will post anything they can think of to wrap around a keyword. My all time favorite was the DJ that was telling brides if your baker wouldn’t guarantee you that your cake would be baked the morning of your wedding, move on and find a reputable baker.

Then there are the probloggers. Generally these guys are pretty good. After all they make their living off this and know where and how to find the real experts to quote and inform. They have a little work to do on budget honesty, but all in all, most are pretty good.

I know this was a long rant and I appreciate you patience in reading it. Unfortunately I don’t have an answer for you…yet. I just wanted to make you aware of the lay of the land in a Google world.

Filed Under: Blog, Rants & Raves Tagged With: , , ,

Google, Genesis and Being #1

October 23, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Back on October 1 I told you that I was doing a major upgrade on this website. Nothing much changed on the face of things. I think you will agree that it pretty much looks the same and works the same, right?

So what’s the big deal?

What changed is on the back side. I upgraded to the Genesis Framework from Studiopress. I figured that if I was going to be an affiliate and since I build nearly all of my client’s sites on it, it was high time I use that mojo for myself.

One of the reasons I did it was because of the powerful built in SEO that it offers. I picked a keyword that I wanted to own, using the Google Keyword tool to help in that selection. I took care to configure my settings well and I let it roll.

The reconfiguring and theme change only took me a few hours on a Thursday afternoon. (10-7-2010)

This morning I hit Google, 16 days later, to see what the results were.

Now do you understand why I love Studiopress?

Drop me a line if you want this much mojo in your corner too.

Filed Under: Announcement, Website marketing Tagged With: , , , ,

How Are You Using Your Stats?

June 3, 2010 By Leave a Comment

I am always telling people that you need to know how to read the stats on your website. Today I want to share a great practical application.

Blog Statsical application from one of my clients.

I was chatting  with Sarah. Last year I designed a new website for her bridal salon. It seems that she has been watching the patterns emerge in he web stats. She can now tell by her traffic on Tuesday and Wednesday how busy her shop will be on Saturday.

She tells me that she now uses that information to decide how to staff her shop for the weekend. How cool is that?

Tracking your stats is really all about patterns. I have been uploading all the member content for Think over the last few weeks, every time I do my stats skyrocket. So now I am uploading a couple a day instead of spending a day and uploading in bulk.

If you follow the pattern, you can adjust the way you do thing to maximize the benefit.

Filed Under: Blog, Website marketing Tagged With: , , ,

Search and Why You Need To Understand It

May 27, 2010 By Leave a Comment

I am not talking about search in terms of how to come up higher on Google; I’m talking about how to search.  It is fundamental in understanding how to get a desired outcome that you deeply understand how something works.

Every time I do a seminar and I get to the part about search I see all these amazed looks when I tell them the kind of search terms that bride use.  Our brides are very computer savvy. They learned long ago that a generic search brought up too much and quickly learned how to use the tools available to pare it down and bring up more relevant listings.

Brides don’t type in wedding gown; they type in something like lace ballgown with ruched bodice or satin wedding gown+pickups +sweetheart neckline my town. Likewise, they don’t use wedding venue in my townwhere to have a garden wedding for 200 people in My Town. they use

Here is a fun little video that explains it in plain English.

http://www.commoncraft.com/search

For a more technical and in-depth explanation, go straight to the source:Google

http://www.google.com/support/websearch/bin/answer.py?answer=136861

Now, why is any of this important? Well, just like any hunter, it helps to know your prey. If you want brides to find your website in search, it helps to what they are looking for and how they do it.

Once you understand how they use search, you can do a better job of using the all important keywords in your website and blog. This is the most basic way to increase your organic search.

Google’s job in life (aside from total world domination.hehe) is to provide the most relevant search results possible. That is part of the reason that the algorithm keeps changing. SEO mavericks quickly learn new tricks on how to game the system. That’s why sticking with the basic policy of great, relevant content, frequently updated will always work.

Here’s my tip. Think about the product you sell and how your customers would describe it. (Note, not how you would describe it) Then use those words and phrases and any variations on them in your content as often as you can without it sounding funny.  Here is an example, I was maintaining a large site for a group of wedding vendors and a men’s formalwear store called to ask why her shop didn’t come up on the site when she searched “tuxedo”  I asked her if that word appeared in her copy? It didn’t because as she said, it is properly called formalwear. I knew that and of course she knew that but the brides don’t. Heck, even she searched for tuxedo! Google is only so smart. You have to use the words that your bride will use and not hope that Google will just understand.

OK, Christine, what word should I use? You already know the answer to that, it’s what your customers ask you for when they call or email. What the heck do they ask for, what word do they use?

The other thing that you need to remember is to put your location in your copy. You know that you serve the, oh let’s say, Orange County, CA area but unless that is spelled out, search won’t just understand because it is on your contact page. Pepper that phrase throughout your site and your blog.

  • XYZ is my favorite florist in Orange County
  • I can’t think of a prettier place to get married in Orange County
  • The next time you are in Orange County, stop by and check out…

See what I mean by including your keyword phrases in a way that doesn’t sound funny? The more you do this, the easier it gets.

Why is that important? Brides will search for vendors in their area. If you don’t use it, you may place high if brides search generically, but hit the bottom of the list when they add the My Town modifier. That put you in competition with the world, not just those in the area you serve. I don’t know about you but I would rather be one of 40 or 50 possible choices than 1 of 1,000,000.

Filed Under: What Brides Say Tagged With: , , , , ,

How Brides Search

March 23, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Do you realize how important the images on your website are to your search traffic?

I was speaking to a regional conference of ABC members recently and was telling them about the way their target market searches when planning their wedding. In the early stages they primarily are searching for images.

One young lady stood up and identified herself as a member of Gen Y. She then went on to say that not only was it true that  they were looking at images but that in truth, they rarely took time to read even the smallest amount of copy. Only if an image really caught them would they bother to find out more. Half of the time they never even bothered to visit the website hosting the image, just surfing though a panel on Cool Iris that matched their search.bride+cooliris

How does your website fit into this pattern?

First off, if all of your images are locked into a Flash gallery, they aren’t search-able at all. You may have the most beautiful image of “Winter Candle Centerpiece” but if it in a Flash gallery it won’t show up in a Google (or Bing or Yahoo) image search.

Your images need to be labeled and described using related keywoods; including any long-tail keywords that apply. This is the sum total of what the search engines see; they don’t “see” pictures, only the words attached to them.

I see so many websites that are Flash that have been optimized to get the homepages to show up in search. They are  full of metatags and some even still have hidden text. I have news for you, that is not where most people land from a search, they usually land somewhere in the middle on a specific image, page or post. If we are talking about GenY, it will most likely be an image.

So, knowing all this, how does your web presence stack up?

If it doesn’t, give me a shout.

Filed Under: Blog, Website marketing Tagged With: , , ,

When Did You Last Update Your Website?

January 11, 2010 By Leave a Comment

I had an interesting conversation with a new client recently. Part of my review of his marketing strategy included asking him when he last updated his website. His answer startled me; he hadn’t updated anything in over a year!

I’m sure you are thinking big deal but this really is a big deal. In the case of this particular client, a caterer, he hadn’t even changed the prices on the posted menus. If you have bought anything in the last year like oh say food or gas then you know what has happened to prices. What do you think having to live with year old prices did to his bottom line? Exactly.

When he told me why he was doing that to his business I was even more stunned. He hated to call the webmaster to change anything because it cost an arm and a leg. Sound familiar? I am dealing with the same situation with an organization where I am a member of the board. This is lunacy.

In today’s culture a website has to be a dynamic, current, ever changing entity. Today’s bride can smell outdated at thirty paces. I’m not necessarily talking about changing the over all look of a site, although that should be done every 2 to 3 years. I am most concerned with you keeping the information up to date.  Are you a wedding planner that only has pictures of weddings you did 4 or 5 years ago on your site? Why not the images from last weekends wedding? I know, the webmaster again, right? What about you florists, those bouquets look a little out of date do they? Are you representing your business to its best advantage? Probably not.

With the tools and products on the market today there isn’t any reason why you should have a website that can’t be quickly and easily updated BY YOU at the click of a button. If your web designer is telling you different he is holding you hostage to old technology and stuffing his wallet at your expense.

I also have clients that have come to me with a perfectly good site that was in fact built so they could update it but they never learned how. WHAT??  Come on, that’s such an easy fix I almost feel bad telling you. If you need to learn how to use the website you have, call whoever built it, offer to pay them for their time and have them sit down with you and teach you how to use it. How do you think I started learning all this stuff oh those many years ago?

I’ll tell you something else, most web designer will get a kick out of showing you all the nifty bells and whistles in your site. Remember, they are techies, this stuff excites them as much as that new source for the perfect ribbon or staffing solution or newest gown collection excites you. Let them show it off. Something else to think about, if you buy a new website make sure that a complete one on one tutorial is part of the package. That site doesn’t do you a bit of good if you can’t use it to its full advantage.

Technology is moving at light speed. The days of building a website and forgetting it are over. Remember, that is where you potential customers are looking for you.  Can you afford to show them you are outdated and out of sync with their world?

If you would like me to review your website, just drop me a line. If I get enough of them I may just do a column reviewing them next month, with your permission of course.

Filed Under: Clients, Social Media, Website marketing, wedding marketing Tagged With: , , , ,

What It Takes to Build a Great Website

September 22, 2009 By 5 Comments

There are so many things that go into propelling your blog or website to the top of search. One of the things that so many people forget is the basic structure that supports it all. So hung up are they on keywords and shiny new tools like Facebook and Twitter that they think that site structure itself isn’t important. Maybe that explains why so many people are still struggling to make their flash site search. You can keep throwing money at self proclaimed SEO experts but unless you have the proper foundation it won’t really make any difference.

You know by now how strongly I feel about using WordPress as the content management system for not only your blog but your entire website. There is more to it than just that. Not all WP themes are created equal. As they say “the devil is in the details”

You need a team that understands all the nuances and details behind all of the themes and what makes a great WordPress blog/website. A team that knows how to find the one theme that will not only work for you in terms of look and content layout, but more importantly how each of them is inherently optimized to behave and react in a way that the search engines expect. You need someone with a deep understanding of how the search engines work. Additionally you need someone that knows which plugins, set which way are going to add to your search mojo. And most of all you need someone who can create a great look, so that you grab the interest of the visitors the search engine delivers.

Let me tell you a little story.The Wedding Dish. Custom build blog by The Agency @ Think Last Friday we set the Wedding Dish to maintenance mode and rolled it to a different WP theme. Over the course of the next 24 hours we dressed it up, added a plugin here, tweaked a bit there and set it back to live. By Sunday, the unique visitors had increased by 20%! What’s more, the number of page views per visitor and time on the site went through the roof. That is overnight folks. We did nothing, not one thing to the content. This is purely the power of the right theme, optimized correctly with a look that engages the site visitors. Those numbers have continued to climb each day since and I don’t foresee that changing anytime soon.

Here at the Agency, we have assembled a team with the experts that understand the power of WordPress and how to build a site that can harness that, an award winning graphics team that can give you the look you need to keep you visitor engaged and express your brand and the deep background in the wedding industry to understand how to appeal to today’s brides.

So tell me, what is stopping you from rebuilding your foundation?

Filed Under: Blog, Marketing, Website marketing Tagged With: , , , , , ,

3 Tips for Publicizing Your Blog

August 20, 2009 By 4 Comments

There is a lot of buzz about social media as free advertising. Well that’s not completely true. Doing Social Media right requires an investment. Not in the traditional way that you may think, not in money so much as in your time.
This is particularly true of blogs. Blog have an amazing power to increase your visibility and authority as well as to increase traffic to your main website but only if you know what you are doing. You also have to be willing to invest the time.
By time, I don’t just mean the time it takes to write and post relevant content.  It doesn’t matter if you write the most informative/witty/beautiful blog in the world, if no one sees it you are just shouting in the wilderness. So the question is how to you get your blog known?

Here are 3 tips for getting the word out.Publicize your Blog

  1. Cross post: Every blog post I write, I post to Twitter, Facebook, StumbleUpon, LinkedIn, Plaxo and Bride Wire. It takes maybe an addition 3 minutes. Twitter, LinkenIn and Plaxo are automatic. Facebook posts automatically to my boxes but I go ahead and add a link on my status. StumbleUpon I do from a button on my toolbar and the BrideWire link I have saved to my favorite.
  2. Comment: I make a point of commenting on like minded blogs. This does two things, since a link to my blog is in the comment, other readers begin to notice me. Second, the blog owner will often discover you and add you to their blog roll.
  3. Label your images: The single biggest referring url I have is Google Images. Brides search for pictures online. If you take the extra time to label your images you are putting yourself way ahead of the game in terms of search. I cannot begin to impress upon you just how important this is. If you are confused on just what I mean, here is a good article on it.
Filed Under: Blog, Marketing, Social Media Tagged With: , , ,
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