Search Engine Optimization - No Quick Fix

Everyone wants to be highly ranked in search engines, and so many people and companies are looking for a quick and easy way to attain results. Just as there is no magic weight loss pill, or easy get rich quick scheme, there really is no quick fix that will have meaningful or long term effects for search engine rankings.

I have come to learn that just as in so many areas of life and business, anything done for the wrong reason won’t work too well. If you’re optimizing your site, buying links for the sake of it, starting a blog purely for SEO purposes or paying someone not knowledgeable in your industry to write articles for you, I would bet that you won’t likely have good long term results.

On the other hand, if you are writing good, quality, relevant content in order to improve your website, writing a blog to provide more value to your customers or to start a web community, getting links naturally from articles you wrote or were written about your business, or generating links from other companies, associations you belong to, or other such sites that want to link to yours, then you’ll probably attain much better results.

Much like building a successful small business, getting good rankings happens gradually over time. I speak to people daily who want to be #1 in Google overnight. Keep in mind, it’s one thing to get traffic, it’s another thing entirely to convert that traffic to sales. Most website owners are astounded at how low the percentage is for visitors that make a purchase. But in this new world where everyone’s optimizing their sites and getting lots of visitors, consumers are fickle, will leave a site quickly if it offers little or no value, and must trust you before they buy from you. Remember, if it’s so easy to get traffic and make sales quickly, then you’re not the only one doing it.

Another common mistake often made is expecting that internet marketing can be the sole form of marketing. Traditional marketing techniques should not be neglected, as start-up sites often need word of mouth and personal networking to generate sales at first. Like any business, marketing should be a multi-pronged approach, including traditional and online marketing techniques.

Website Basics – Getting an Objective Opinion

A start-up company recently hired us to help them with their website. They had their entire site designed using Photoshop, and needed our help making it functional and giving it a professional look. They had a product line of about 10 products, so this project also involved implementation of a custom shopping cart, which is one of our specialties.

One of their requests was that we review the home page to ensure that it was effective and made the right first impression, so that visitors would hopefully purchase something while they were there. I was reminded of a valuable lesson while reviewing their home page.

I had formed an opinion of their home page rather quickly, and to ensure that it was sound, I had 2 of my designers and a non-designer employee take a look at the site. We all agreed that the home page had a major flaw – it was nearly impossible to tell what products the company provided! Only after clicking around the site did it become obvious what they did – but we felt very strongly that the home page would leave the visitor feeling baffled, and that as a result visitors wouldn’t hang around the site long enough to find out what it was all about.

This was HUGE flaw!! The basic problem was, the business owners were so engrossed in their website, so involved in everything, that they were unable to step back and take an objective look to realize that it needed to be simplified and made more obvious.

After we made them aware of this problem, they had us redesign the home page, and since opening their online store, they have thanked us for the thousands of dollars we saved them in potentially lost revenue.

So the lesson is – keep it simple, and always get a 3rd party's objective opinion.

Go Back in Time on Any Website!

Here's a really cool article from Affinity Consulting Group's blog about the Wayback Machine, a website that archives websites on the world wide web, allowing you to view virtually any website from any point in its existence.

http://blog.affinitycgi.com/2007/11/web-research-go-back-in-web-page-time.html

Results of On-Hold Messages

Our clients often report about the results they've achieved from their customized telephone on-hold recordings. Based on the feedback we've gotten over the years, by far the 2 most common things our clients report about are:

1. Callers inquire about services or products they heard about while on-hold. Our clients are usually surprised that soon after implementing their new on-hold recording, callers start saying things like, "I didn't know you guys offer ____." Plus, they often get compliments on their new recording from many of their customers.

2. The customized recordings enhance their image. Simply put, a custom on-hold recording just makes you look bigger, better, and more professional. Many of our clients start leaving callers on-hold for a few seconds longer just so they can listen to the messages! Our recordings are extremely effective in enhancing a business' image.

What are your callers listening to when placed on-hold??