one good question

Often the question purposed to me is “Why is SEO important?”  The answer is best described in the image below.  Notice this screen capture of the visual portion of the browser.  What do you see?  You see two sites that rank organically.  The rest is info Google has crammed in.

Now if you are ranked 1 or 2 things are looking good for you.  But if you are number 3, 4, 5 or lower how much harder will it be to get clicks? This picture also shows that organic is hard place to win even if you are number 1.  Google has images below the number one ranking taking your eye away from it.  Also it has images in the upper right hand corner to steal clicks.  Prices, stars, reviews, specs are all given before you click on a site.

Now this is not seen when you go to a mobile browser.  And this is where many companies can win. In 2 years, they predict that 50% of all internet traffic will be on a mobile phone.  If you have a high ranking site, the quick to click, high ADD mobile user will easily see your site and click.

So think not just about what they will see, but how they will see it.  Do not think about ranking just your site, but perhaps your images, videos and more.  SEO will always be a challenge, because now you can be seen by not just the url, but the content you produce.  My job is harder, but the clients possibilities are amazing.

Here is an article I came across recently.  Scary how the times are changing.

Young women are becoming more and more dependent on social media and checking on their social networks, according to a new study released earlier today by Oxygen Media and Lightspeed Research. In fact, as many as one-third of women aged 18-34 check Facebook when they first wake up, even before they get to the bathroom.
The study sampled the habits of 1,605 adults using social media between May and June of this year in an attempt to break down their social media habits. While some of the results are in line with previous studies we’ve read, others simply shocked us (e.g. 42% of young women think posting photos of themselves “visibly intoxicated” is okay).

Here’s a short rundown of how young women are utilizing Facebook and social media in general:

Are Young Women Addicted to Facebook?

While the study covers all of social media, it’s clear that women in the 18-34 range are focused on their Facebook accounts. More than half of young women (57%) say they talk to people online more than face-to-face. A full 39% of them proclaim themselves Facebook addicts, while 34% of young women make Facebook the first thing they do when they wake up, even before brushing their teeth or going to the bathroom.

Here are some other interesting stats regarding young women and Facebook:

21% of women age 18-34 check Facebook in the middle of the night
63% use Facebook as a networking tool
42% think it’s okay to post photos of themselves intoxicated
79% are fine with kissing in photos
58% use Facebook to keep tabs on “frenemies”
50% are fine with being Facebook friends with complete strangers

What conclusions can we draw from this data? It’s not just that young women are using Facebook religiously: it’s that they’re very open with what they post and who they accept as friends. Combined, it can lead to a privacy mess.

Social Media’s Role in Dating

We already knew that Facebook has radically changed dating, and Oxygen Media’s stats only back up that assertion. 50% of women believe that it’s just fine to date people they’ve met on Facebook, compared to 65% of men. 6% of women use it to “hook up” (20% of men do the same).

It gets murkier for relationships. 49% of women believe it’s fine to keep tabs on a boyfriend by having access to his accounts (42% of men think the same way). 9% of women have broken up their relationships via Facebook, as compared to a full 24% of men.

Luckily, most women don’t believe that breaking up via Facebook is okay: 91% to be exact. I don’t want to meet the 9% who think it’s just fine.

Women and Privacy

The Oxygen Media/Lightspeed Research survey is filled with a lot of other interesting data points, but it all circles back to the privacy issue. 54% of 18-24 year old women do not trust Facebook with their private information, and 89% agree that “you should never put anything on Facebook that you don’t want your parents to see.” That seems contradictory to the 42% that think it’s fine to post pictures of themselves drunk.

Our habits are changing due to social media technology, particularly Facebook. It’s not just a connection tool for many women, but a research tool, a dating network, and a way to keep tabs on both boyfriends and enemies.

For a business on the internet there is a simple formula.

Traffic —–>Website —-> Action of User ——> Money

Often the website is there, the traffic is coming but the action of the user is not.  Perhaps the sale is not being done, or  no one is calling or rather few are signing up for your newsletter.  The culprit may be your lack of optimization.  Optimization is nothing more than a serious of small tests to ensure you give the audience what they want.

So if you want to drive sales, test and see if the price makes a difference.  (One test at a time people.) Then change the color of the product.  Then highlight your best feature.  Put it on the other side of the page.  Then have the call to action button be different, instead of saying buy now, put Get Yours Today.  The list could be endless.  But just because your favorite color is blue do not think that the whole site will be ready made for a customer.  You need to split test and think through the variables to strengthen the sales funnel.

Often with brick and mortar stores you decorate the inside and put up signs to lure them where you them to go.  Think of your website in the same manner.  People are not cattle.  They just need an easier or better to use site.  Give it to them, and they will give you their money.

Below is a new post from Google. After that are my thoughts…..

One year ago today we announced Google Squared in Labs, an early attempt to find and extract structured data from across the web, such as a detailed table of [dog breeds] or [broadway shows]. Since then, our team in New York has steadily worked to improve quality and add new features, such as the ability to sort your data and export it to a file. In the past week, we’ve introduced two features that bring parts of Squared’s technology directly to regular search results. The first provides better answers to fact-finding queries like [independence day of india], and the second is “something different”, a special kind of search refinement in our new left-hand panel.

Better answers, with sources
Often people search to find basic facts, such as [catherine zeta-jones date of birth]. Three months ago we began using Squared technology to highlight answers for these types of searches in snippets. Today we’re expanding that effort so that when you’re looking for this kind of simple fact in search, we give you more accurate answers right at the top of your results, sourced from across the web:

If you click on the new “show sources” link, a box will slide down with websites that corroborate your answer.

The sources list includes the relevant text from each page so you can quickly verify whether the webpages seem reputable and whether our algorithms correctly interpreted the context of the answer. If you see a mistake, please let us know by clicking on the “Feedback” link so we can make it better.

You’ll find answers to millions of different fact-seeking searches because the feature relies on an algorithmic understanding of webpages, not a hand-crafted set of special sources. For example:
At a pub quiz night and need help on the round about India? Quickly find out the [prime minister of india] and the [capital city of india].
Listening to Abbey Road and forget [when did John Lennon die]? Learn it was December 8, 1980.
Writing a paper about the American Industrial Revolution? Find out who was the [inventor of the telephone] (Alexander Graham Bell) or [who invented the cotton gin] (Eli Whitney).
Forget how long ago Dark Knight was released? It was July 18, 2008, according to [dark knight release date]. Want to know when Iron Man 2 came out? May 7, 2010, according to [iron man 2 release date].
Often you’re looking for these kinds of quick answers when you’re out and about, so we’ve made sure the feature also works great on mobile browsers, where it can be slow and awkward to dig through multiple webpages to find an answer. Next time you’re on a date to see The Nutcracker, discreetly pull out your phone and search for [nutcracker composer] and impress him or her with your deep knowledge of ballet (and Tchaikovsky).

“Something different”
Google Squared technology also helps power one of the new features of our latest enhancement to the search results page: “Something different.” Sometimes when you search on Google, you’ll see a new section at the bottom of the left-hand panel which contains related search terms. For example, search for [zebra] and you’ll see other related searches such as [giraffes], [elephants] and [hippos]:

This can be a useful way to explore topics related to your original search. In the past, you may have seen similar search refinements at the bottom of Google search results pages under the heading “searches related to.” These queries are a great way to drill down further into a specific topic, such as [zebra facts] and [zebra pictures]. But we’ve found that when people are searching for zebras, they often search for other zoo animals as well. So just as Google Squared can put together a table of zoo animals, with “Something different” we automatically find other entities in the same category, such as gazelles and rhinos. This helps for times when you want to browse a broad topic using Google, rather than dig for a specific bit of information. You can learn more about how this works in our Help Center.

In one year, we’ve come far enough with our experimental Google Squared technology to start using it to help you both formulate your search and find exactly the information you’re looking for. While I’m happy with the progress we’ve made, there’s much more to be accomplished in this area — from searches that have multiple answers, like [us supreme court justices], to searches too complex for us to understand today, like [what major did bill clinton’s daughter study at stanford?]. We’ll continue to look for new ways to apply our deepening understanding of the web to improve your search results. Both new features will be available globally in English (something different is available now, and the improved answers feature should finish rolling out by the end of the week).

Posted by John Provine, Technical Lead

Now at first glance you go, “cool, how nice and fast”.  But Google does not know the answers.  It found it on someone’s site, and then displayed it to you.  Yes they cleverly cite it, but on whole, they did not ask your permission nor do they take that person to your site.  Instead the user got what it wanted and moved on and never knew more about your site, you, or your company.  At what point does internet traffic go down, lead conversion sink, or ad space become dirt cheap because there is no need for webpages?  Google is cutting out the very thing it told us to build: the web.  Now the web is a bunch of noise.  They know longer find value in what is the best site, they skip websites altogether.

Google Squared is nothing more than copying homework.  Some one else worked hard on it and they get the good grades and applause.  They should have to ask permission to such a thing and pay royalties like I would a book or song.  Who will stand up first?

American composer and conductor Eric Whitacre spliced together nearly 250 submitted YouTube videos to form an online choir performing “Lux Arumque,” and then posted the assembled piece on YouTube.

Whitacre used social media — his blog, a Facebook page and YouTube — to assemble and audition singers for his piece. He sent the sheet music out so people could submit videos featuring them singing individual parts. He then sifted through the videos and edited the audio parts together to form a very professional-sounding choir.

For the video, he visualized the choir in a 3D, virtual array of living rooms and bedrooms, with him standing in the middle conducting. You probably haven’t seen anything quite like it before.

The most similar thing we can think of is Israeli musician Kutiman’s Thru-You (which is also worth a look and listen), but Kutiman assembled unrelated videos of people expressing themselves musically on YouTube without any prior planning or composition, so it’s not quite the same.

Watch the performance below. It’s rather stunning.

Now this question gets asked a lot and thought I would share with you here.

For my example, we did the same search on each search engine for the term “one good question”.  I did not use quotes, but just typed in the words.  This does make a difference.  But for our example just doing a broad search.

In Bing we typed in one good question.  You can see the results below.

The first result is the main domain name, as expected.  Then the SEO page, the most viewed, and third the Facebook page.  The Facebook page is number three because it is Facebook.  The clout given to Facebook is really big.  And the fourth one down is a story about Jesus.  I’d say we’re in good company

In Yahoo we did the same thing typing in the name one good question.

Here the main domain name comes up again number 1.  But the second position is onegoodquestion.NET That domain is blank.  There is nothing on it.  I have it so you can’t buy it.  But because of the clout of the main domain it ranks the .NET extremely high.  A bit too much even if my ego likes it.  The third position is a TV station with the words in the title.  Because we did a broad match, without quotes, it is pulling in those words as best it can.  The problem with Yahoo, as you can see, is the ranking of a blank domain so high and not having my Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or other posts ranked above it. Very tricky.

On Google we again type in the name one good question.

Hooray I come in first on Google.  But look at what’s number 2.  It’s a site about quizzes.  It has a decent amount of backlinks, and since I did a broad match, that was able to beat out Facebook and some of my other pages on this domain.

So when doing search engine optimization how do you know where things will rank on each search engine?  You have a feeling but you really do not know until you get into it.  Google loves links and tries to be fair.  Yahoo likes presumed authority.  Bing likes to be as exact as it can.  The other thing to consider when looking at the differences is who uses them.

Google is 80% of the population.  Yahoo is known as the entertainment engine (TV station good example) and Bing is mostly people surfing while at work.

To understand the differences between Google, Yahoo and Bing look up various phrases and see what they are doing in your industry.  Each algorithm they use is different, but slowly they will be growing closer together.  The best way to determine the difference though is not so much on rankings but on conversions.  If you see you get more action from your users on a particular search engine, then spend more time on that keyword in that search engine.  Then the differences will be narrowed for you and the time saved will be immense.

The Woodlands SEO efforts or lack thereof:

The Woodlands is a city north of Houston with a large per-capita of small businesses. Of those business very few have back links or proper HTML coding to rank high in Google.   I do not want to give out domain names but the major industries all have ways to be at the top.

If you are in The Woodlands you would be surprised to know the number of searches in that town. Well above average for internet usage. With mobile phones growing in internet searches the necessity to be the top 3 is more important than ever.

If you need a quick lesson to get your company up on the top of Google, give us a call. You will be surprised how a little investment can have great returns. You can see below some of the more popular search terms for the area.  We can help you rank high for the keywords below to improve your business.

Local advertising seems to be the hot thing.  And it should be.  The reason to advertise locally is for several reasons.  Let’s discuss the reasons and then some how-tos.

Cause its close

No matter how techy we get you can land and close more deals face to face.  Email is an utter disappointment in business and sending out pdfs will kill morale.  Go to lunch, a full hour with someone, you have to try and mess that opportunity up.

Exact Match

Local mean your advertising can be an exact match.  For example.  If you do construction and you know a hail storm is coming, a big one, then you can be first to advertise.  Before the storm hits your advertisements are ready, you have extra people to help and great sales.  When the storm blows over you say ” Hail damage repair.  10% off done in 2 days” Now this sounds easy, but some prep work and targeting for the event, weather, emotion, etc. can pay off in big ways.

Laser Targeted

If you live in a college town, majority is elderly, or know that the area has high ranking elementary schools, this can be to your advantage.  Target your ad to that demographic, in a certain locale, at the prime time and hit that emotional bulls-eye.  A mom who wants to see her child succeed will be more willing buy textbooks early to be sure, than someone else.   Each ad can be exact to a demographic.  Not just hoping that demographic finds it, you will know.

Need some more examples and how tos?

Use Facebook advertising.  One of the best for local advertising.

Use Twitter with local hashtags and verbage.

Use your website and rank for local city, teams, etc.

Local business listings like Google, Yahoo, and Bing help alot.

And one of the best: Offer a seminar at local business function

The ways to advertise locally are amazing.  But they do not all have to be traditional media.  Look beyond what you know and capitalize on what can be with the internet.

Now we are number one on Google for the term College Station SEO. one good question has been growing fast. We do search engine optimization for many companies in Bryan/College Station/Hearne and Navasota.  Here is a breakdown of what we do and how we do it in regards to search engine optimization.

Start with a good question:

We start by asking questions.  What do you expect from your online website?  What action do you hope the end user takes on your site?  What does quality mean to you?  With some simple but direct questions, the business model will unfold naturally.  This will do two things.  First make it easy to understand your expectations, and two, will allow us to set up specific metrics for your campaign.

Philosophies:

SEO is often as much about philosophies as tactics.  SEO is pretty much the same niche to niche.  The differences lies in what is quality and timing.  We work on large tail keywords that we know will convert.  We work on short term keywords as a good foundation is set.  We also believe that the only reason you should rank high for a term is to get a desired result from that term.  “Free Beer” will bring in a lot of traffic, but will it convert to a sale?  Often the philosophies of long term, metric based, converting traffic, is what we are doing.  Ranking for a lot of terms is not hard, but not always worth your money and time.

Expectations:

When its all said and done, its up to us to know Google, Bing and Yahoo better than anyone else.  We have mandatory 10 hours a week continuing education for each employee.  We go to great lengths to be the best of what we do and know how to navigate the search engines effectively.  We do no blackhat marketing.  All links and tactics will ensure our integrity as well as your companies.

Us being on top for College Station SEO is mostly for pride.  It does us no good.  We hope we get you to the top of the rankings.  That is where we get true satisfaction.

This has been my question coming into 2010. How can I make my business bigger and better. In my years in corporate America I saw alot of companies grow big but not really better. If the bottom line is my company has more people, responsibilities, and red tape but no one is getting paid more or are happier about it then what did it accomplish? My search this year is to find ways that grow one good question into bigger and better company.  Want to grow in areas of financially, stability, and diversity.

There are many options to get to this point. One way to grow one good question is labor.  If I hired more people, outsourced more work, or got some volunteers I could accomplish helping other businesses.  But management takes time.  A lot of time.  Where is the trade off in gaining ground with more clients, yet all the “freed up” time then goes back into management?

Another area is just going after bigger fish.  Many companies do this.  They see where they can make the most money and concentrate on that.  The 80/20 rule.  This works well for many, but always seems to limit growth of the business, though short term does help profit.

Many times you see companies grow by introducing something brand new;  a service, product, or packaging.  This is doable but first must have the idea.  Circles back to “how to make the company bigger and better?”

So we do not have all the answers here.  But will continue to find ways grow. The best idea I have come up with comes from a quote from Proverbs: “Wisdom is found in Counsel”.

To this end, I started an Entrepreneurial Breakfast. It’s a collection of entrepreneurs in the area. We eat and talk about any and all things. How we do insurance, when to outsource, share our problems, etc. What’s great is that each person if from a different industry. So the ideas are fresh and new.

I have gained valuable knowledge from my friends and we continue to grow. This is probably the best way for my company to get better, is to get smarter and wiser. By making a community where this continues to encourage me and challenge me I will not have to rest on one answer every 6 months or so. I have an ongoing community to ensure my business is bigger and better.  And that is the best resource to have.