Increasing Visitor Conversion Rate - #seopodcast 158

Howdy, and welcome to the SEO Podcast, Unknown Secrets of Internet Marketing. My name is Chris Burris, owner of eWebStyle. I am Charles Lewis, your internet marketing specialist. Can we get a howdy? Howdy, though, really? I thought we were saying that, too, February. Oh, yeah, we'll bring that back up again. With the rodeo. Well, this was just in honor of Anise Parker, that's the mayor of Houston, actually being on Stephen Colbert last night. As you regular listeners probably know, I watch Stephen Colbert. Actually, it's TiVo'd, so I watch almost every episode. The only ones I miss are the ones that somehow AT&T doesn't TiVo. I don't know, U-verse. You are listening to the most popular SEO podcast on iTunes. That is because of all of you. And gesturing to the world in general. Howdy, I'm going to say y'all. Y'all, there you go. All y'all. We have 7,000 downloads on a weekly basis. And I pulled up 76 countries over a 30-day period. That's sad, because I can't. I don't know if I can name 76 countries. No, I couldn't. Yeah, no. Yeah, that's pretty sad. And really incredibly cool. Remember, we are your friendly local neighborhood top position snatchers. Yes. Where our mantra is. Don't be a douche. Oh, don't be a douche. No, it's not a good look. And if you are in front of some sort of device right now, go ahead and tweet. Hashtag SEO podcast. You know what? Now, the thing is, since we stopped tagging the numbers, I never know which podcast we are on. This is 158 or 159? 158. Okay, but don't tag that. Just go hashtag SEO podcast. Then tag us at eWebstyle. That way we'll know you did it. We can retweet it, network, and things of that nature. And just for y'all who maybe don't know, what we're trying to do is take over Google for the phrase SEO podcast. And one of our many tactics is going to be claiming this hashtag. So, hashtag SEO podcast, and we shall appreciate it. We actually have

some stuff from our section, the algorithm cataclysm. Yeah, if you was watching right now, you saw me shake like the earthquake. Okay, once we get a camera guy, then he will actually shake the camera at that point. Yeah, so the algorithm cataclysm. So, I'll go update. Not really an update, but it is a change to how Google is presenting search engine results. So, if you go to Google and you search for, you know, here, go to Google, search for SEO podcast, hopefully we'll show up. Yeah, yeah. We should show up. And if we do, when you find us, once you hover your mouse over the listing next to the green link that's the web address, you should get a share option that shall pop up. They've replaced the plus one with share. And so, instead of being able to give us a plus, instead, you click share, and that'll open up your Google Plus account, if you have one, and you're logged in, so you can share that listing. So, try that out. Share it with me. I'm Charles Lewis. Share with E-WebStyle. Chris is actually on there. Share with Chris. And that way, we can re-share it and punch you in the face. Patoof! We were just talking before, I end up sharing websites every now and then with you guys if I'm somewhere, I don't know, doctor's office and killing some time, and I pull up an article on my phone, you, it's built into the browser on the phone, that option to share. It's just kind of like when you take a picture with your Android phone, you can share it via Facebook or email or message or whatever. And this is really kind of incorporating that sharing, that more social aspect directly into the search and result page. So, that's pretty cool. So, that was our algorithm cataclysm. Um, Verizon, Verizon has hinted at a possible iPhone 5, I don't know when that's coming out, Marissa Mayer, right? So, you know, this is a... Yeah, super punch in the face. Yeah.

She got this uphill climb ahead of her, but you know, I heard she got like an NBA contract. It was like five years, 70 million, something like that. Yeah, one million a year salary, and then a bonus of 200 times salary, so another two mil possible bonus on a yearly basis, plus stock options that value that 12 million. So, yeah. It's kind of cute, too. Yeah, yeah. I mean, young chick, you know, so good luck with that. Yahoo is, uh, it's Titanic. It hasn't sank yet, but there is a leak. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? It already bumped into the iceberg. Exactly. And so, um, so yeah, good luck with that. And apparently she's not doing it for the salary, because she's one of the original Google, so she's worth 300 million dollars. No, she's, well, she was one of the first, one of the original 20th, I think they said the 20th employee. Wow. Yeah, and they got a lot of people now, so. Yeah. Even the janitors are millionaires over at Google. So, um, let's see, Comcast is prepping a 305 MIP IP service. So this is, like, to compete with, uh, and it should be out by the end of the year. Uh, uh, Fios, Fios, have you heard of Fios? So up north, I know, at least up north there's a service called Fios, that's north of the United States, of course. Um, 305 MIPs. That's just screaming. Yeah, I mean, Comcast, I use Comcast now, and I've used U-verse here, and they're way faster in regards to internet speed. And so, uh. No doubt. So, yeah, that's faster than fast. I was one of the first Comcast cable modem, uh, subscribers, and back then, you actually, when you subscribed, you actually had to go to a class on how to install it and use it. Wow. Yeah, that was pretty funny. Um, this was really interesting. How many users in the last year do you think China added internet users? That sounds like a loaded question. Which is loaded

with a buttload of people. Of course, I have no clue. 50 million in the last 12 months. 50 million new internet users? New internet users. Wow. People who have access. That's, France and England have a total of 52 million users online now. Wow. China added almost France and England. In one year. Last year. This was pretty interesting. So, the largest count of users goes China, U.S., Japan, India, and then Brazil. China's at 456. U.S. is at 244. And then it scales down to. 244 million people who have internet access. Yeah. Does that count wireless users? Yeah. It does. I'm pretty sure it does. It just seems kind of low to me now. I mean, because when I think wireless, I think phone. Yeah. And everyone has a phone. Yeah. Although, I think there's a lot more people who don't have a smart device than you and I think. Because just the circle we travel. I think there's a lot of people who have still a phone. Phone. I don't know what you say after that. Because it doesn't make sense. Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. That's an update. It's halted in Australia. It's happening in Australia. It's not meeting some emergency call situation. I thought that was interesting. And speaking of these huge numbers. You know, I said we get 7,000 downloads per week. Right? We're actually downloaded in 76 different countries in the last 30 days. And we don't have a review. Ew. You see that? That's like an intern Bennington. Yeah. I wasn't here. No review. No review. Look, all we're asking, if you get any value out of this podcast, please, actually, go to our G Plus account. So, go to e-webstyle.com slash SEO podcast. As you scroll just under the videos, you'll see this line of links. Go to the G Plus link and add a review. Just let everyone know that you're getting some value out of this. And then send us an email. You send the email to podcast at e-webstyle.com. And let us know that you submitted a review

either on iTunes or on G Plus or wherever. And we'll give you a punch in the face. And if you want to, in other ways, follow us. By the way, go to our Facebook page because we are doing another caption contest. It's worth a $10 gift card. So, go ahead and get on our Facebook page, which is facebook.com slash e-webstyle. Our Twitter page is twitter.com slash e-webstyle. YouTube page is youtube.com slash e-webstyle. And, again, send us an email, podcast at e-webstyle.com. And I forgot our tip from the last podcast. I mean, I forgot to say it because I know it because it's right here written down. That's what happens when you leave your iPad at home. Yeah, I left my iPad at home. That's just, look at this. Some portion of a tree has been recycled. When you write down your business plan, right, for a new business, make, this is the tip, make sure to include budget for internet marketing. Yes, especially if you're a new business and, you know, it's imperative, there's that word again, that you establish your web presence very upfront, very hard, and very solid. And so, make sure you budget for that. A lot of people budget for everything else and then throw the scrap set getting their website done, and it looks like that. No, make sure that your web presence is definitely on point, it's optimized well, and you have a marketing plan behind it to support it. And I got to say, slightly counterintuitive, this is no more important. So, it couldn't be more important than if your business is a website. So, if you don't have brick and mortar, right, at least brick and mortar, you have the option that somebody might walk in. If your business is the website, you have to have an internet marketing budget because it is no longer true that if you build it, they will come. If you build it and market the hell out of it, they will come. So, make sure you have a market the hell

out of it budget, whatever that is. Yeah, call us and consult with us about what you should incorporate in terms of a market the hell out of it budget for your business. We should create that package. Yeah, market the hell out of your brand new website. All right, we have reached our Gino time limit. Now, it's time to get, that was the potatoes. Hope they tasted good. Now, it's time for the meat. Okay, so I was online today looking what could we present today, and so I knew that I wanted to talk about a couple things, really keywords and content, and more importantly, how they tie into site structure. Yeah. Right, because optimization, one of the things we talk about is the benefit of having one company who's not only handling your marketing but also handling your website. I love this example. Picture this. Nightmare scenario. You have a company that's made you a beautiful website. You have a company that you're paying and they're sending lots of traffic to that beautiful website, and you're getting no business. Who do you fire? Hmm. Yeah. Both. Both of them. Yeah. Both. And come to us, or come to a company, an internet marketing company, that does both. Because we're responsible not for just making a good-looking website, not for just sending lots of traffic to it, but for making sure that traffic actually turns into business. We know you're not going to sign another contract if you have a pretty website and lots of traffic and no business. I mean, we might as well make it be better to have an ugly website, minimal traffic, and lots of business. If that's the equation that works, that's what we're going to make work. So, I think that example really hammers home one of the challenges of internet marketing for a small business owner. Yeah, definitely. You want to make sure that it's consistent. And so, what we did here, I found an article called The Pillars of Strategic SEO in a prime-on website design by Tron. I

like Tron. I read several of his articles before on Search Engine Land. I thought the first movie was better than the second. Tron. Tron with a D. Oh, there's a D. It is a D at the end. So, at the end of the second movie, I felt like I had been Tron-ed. Oh, you got me in the shins. So, it's a long article, lots of infographics and things like that in it. So, I'll G-plus it and Facebook it immediately following the podcast. But I did pull out some pretty compelling, compelling, is the first topic he has on here, information out of it. And so, one of the topics he says is craft a compelling user experience. What does that mean? Number one, he says, help them get oriented. And so, a lot of times, people come to your site. You would like people to come from a search engine. Great, because usually they'll land on some sort of landing page. But sometimes, people get to your site from links from other pages, from a four-page, a business card, things like that. And so, you want to make sure that they know exactly where they are and where they can find what they're looking for, excuse me, pretty quickly. And so, one of the ways you help orient them is by making it extremely clear what they're going to find on your site and what you offer immediately once they land on the site. Whether that's done by graphic in the header somewhere, whether it's mentioned in the sidebar somewhere, or something like that. You have to let people know what they're there for and what they can find, regardless of what page they land on. Number two, he says, make it quick and easy to move around. And I'm going to breeze through these because it's quite a few. Make it quick and easy to move around. Now, simple navigation, if you have tons of pages, drop-down navs, breadcrumbs, things like that that make it easy for people to click and find what they're looking

for. And this is where, you know, even you, when you first joined us, you looked at some of our portfolio and you're like, oh, you look a little template-y. And honestly, like there was a time where that was, your goal was to make sure you didn't look template-y at all. And now, really, people realize that when they come to a website, you've got to have things in certain places. Certain places. Logos, usually upper left. Phone number, upper right. Yeah, contact information, usually the last one on the nav. I mean, if you're a blog, you usually have categories down the right side or left side. E-commerce site, they're usually on the left side. Yeah. I mean, this main nav is usually across the middle. That's just how it goes. It's footer information, always has terms of service, privacy policy, things like that. And so, while, yeah, once our sites have that sort of structure, yeah, then they can begin to look sort of template-y. And so, by the way, just for clarity, they're all custom designed starting from logo to the actual design. Number three, you put don't over-optimize. And this is a good one because over-optimization hurts in several ways. Number one, there's a recent algorithm update about that. And so, if you're over-optimizing, you will be penalized and end up losing ranking instead of getting ranking. First reason, you shouldn't over-optimize. Number two, for the sake of a better user experience, people, you know, we tend to over-optimize by a good example would be creating separate pages, targeting a keyword when, truthfully, those pages could probably be merged. And you could have all of that content on one page. But instead, you have two subpar pages when you could have one great page. And so, you know, that hurts the user experience. Maybe it's faster for them to read all of that information on one great page, especially if it's closely related. And don't over-optimize by trying to split it up and create a whole bunch of fluff content and keywords and this and

that because now Google thinks you're a douche and the user has two more clicks to find out what they're looking for. Google thinks you're a douche and the user knows you're a douche. Yeah, exactly. And don't be a douche. So, yeah, so don't over-optimize. So, talking about content, right, we talk about content all the time and it's all about in SEO, it's keywords, keywords, keywords. And so when we talk keywords, one of the things when it comes to effective SEO, keywords take center stage. I like how you put that. And when we talk keywords, we talk about the context of your keywords. It's like, are they local keywords? Are they national kind of global keywords? Are they statewide keywords? You need to consider your focus. Consider what you offer. Consider your product, your service. Who is going to be searching for you and what do you want to be found under? And that's how you determine your keywords. And also keep in mind that Google's changing. Their whole shift is towards local. And so it may not be necessary to tag your keywords with your city name or community or area. Yes, certainly, yeah. Because by default, people are getting a local search anyway. Yep. Look at your content. How is your content optimized for those keywords? And we'll talk about that a little bit more in a second. I like this one. Structure. Is your content presented in a logical order? Because what you don't want to do is put the cart before the horse. You know, if you have an e-commerce site and it's a pretty pricey product, then you probably want to show people the product, highlight the features of that product, show the benefits of getting it, then take them to the cart. If it costs, you know, a couple thousand bucks. What you don't want to do is just as soon as they land on there, immediately push them to the cart. You need to educate them first. So, you know, is your content presented in a logical order? Is

your URL optimized? Right? This is structure we're talking about. Are your keywords in alignment with user logic? I really like this. And what that means is the keywords you're optimizing for, are they what your user is really thinking or using? You know, a lot of times, being on the inside, you start maybe optimizing your site for industry terms, things that you use. Maybe a good one will be HVAC. You shouldn't go optimizing for HVAC if you really do AC repair. Yeah. HVAC is the term you probably use to order parts and things like that. But the client is looking for AC repair. And so, you know, make sure that your keyword is in tune with what the people are searching for. I like this one here. Is your site, is your structure set to scale up? So, let's say business takes off, everything does good, and all of a sudden you need to bring in more employees. So, you need to create more team members on this page. You know, you get a whole new slew of products. Is your site set to add categories and create more products? Or is it set to make you or force you to redesign? You know, so kind of keep that in mind. I believe everybody's plan is to grow. And so, keep your site ready to grow. Although, we bump into business owners every now and then. We're like, no, I'm good. I don't want that much business. Or the pool guy, I have 10 pools a year now. I want 20 and no more. Yeah. Well, then you don't want SEO. You don't want SEO. That's a good point because we will get you to the first page. And if we get you there, it's not like page search. I can't just turn it off. Tomorrow. Yeah. Yeah. You know, you're optimized and you're there. And we don't want to, you don't want to, you know, shut your site down. Yeah. We don't robot text it so that it goes away and then try and bring

it back up again. Yeah. So, think about that. So, he talked about this. We're talking about structure. So, he goes into crafting an optimized site structure. And we talked about this. A lot of this is basic SEO stuff. Title tag. Ensure your title tags are descriptive, informative. Because that's what shows up. It's a headline. Make it keyword rich. But more importantly, appealing headlines make it compelling enough for users to bookmark them or return later. A lot of times I see headlines and I'll click them. Well, I'll usually click my scroll on my mouse. Open it up in another tab and get to it later. Or bookmark it. So, definitely make your headline worth clicking on. URL structure. We talked about that. Category names. I think this is important for blog sites and e-com sites. Your category names should definitely describe the products and things that are in that category. The post. But more importantly, well, not more, but maybe equally as important, that category name should be keyword rich. Because it's a category. It's a link. It's a navigational element. And it helps people find their way through the site. And so, include your keyword there for your category name. So, here's an interesting one right here. Sculpt internal page rank. What does that mean? Chuck, glad you asked. So, sculpt internal page rank meaning, give you a good example. We have a client moving company and one of their targets was home movers. And so, what we did was, rather than create a navigational page called home movers, because of, this is why we like to rebuild sites, by the way, the way their navigational structure just didn't allow for another page. And so, I had to think outside the box. Created a page called home movers. We had our content writer write content for home movers. I went in and re-optimized this content. And what we did was, the pages that currently have a high PR and that get a great rank, I linked inside the content to the home mover page from

those. And what that did was make the home mover page increase in PR. And now, when you search home mover, that page shows up. And it's not even in the nav. To be honest, it's not on the home page. It's not on the home page. But yet, it ranks. And so, that's your internal PR. So, sculpt that. Build deep links, which is kind of the same thing. These are links to that home mover page were on other pages that link to that page. Lastly, put on here, harness social media. So, definitely make sure that you're taking advantage of Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, things like that. I will say this, because I just watched Rand's Whiteboard Friday. Be careful how you harness social media. He went on to say that you don't need to have Facebook embed boxes here. Twitter, and, you know, social links at the top, and a ton of share buttons at the bottom, and a follow me on G Plus here, and then a whole bunch of Twitter social links. It's way too much. It's overkill. And it's kind of like, he said, it's kind of like going to an e-com site, and they have buy now, buy now, buy now, buy now, buy now everywhere. Right. You know, figure out what's working for you on social. If it's Facebook and Twitter, then it's Facebook and Twitter, and push those. It's one nice area. This goes back to the psychological study that I reference regularly, which is they were selling jams on a table at a college campus. One day they had four jams. The next day they had 20 jams. And your intuition is, well, with 20 different flavors of jam, then you have enough to say, you know, you have a flavor to satisfy each person's take. The reality is the four jam tables sold, I think it's three times as much, or it was a significant amount more. And what happens is when there are more choices, the choice no becomes more attractive. And so you throw G+, whatever, Yahoo,

Buzz, all of these RSS feeds in your social media link set, and then all of a sudden they're like, eh, no, no seems good. I'll not do any of those. I won't do any of that. And I wanted to, another key made, and we'll proceed, was that find the right time to give that social media pitch. You know, if you want people, if your social media call to action is share this article, then you should probably put that at the bottom of the article. Yeah. Because nine times out of ten, if they've taken the time to read this article, then they've absorbed the content, they've appreciated it, and they'll be more willing to share it, rather than blast them and share the article before they've even read it. I have to say, I know a number of people who will read a title and think that I need to read it. Those are also the people that I never read the articles they send me. Yeah. And he talked about that as well. You know, how, man, he didn't talk about it, but some of the comments below went into that discussion. You know, how effective is it to receive a shared article from someone who didn't read it? Yeah. It's not. It's not, exactly. Lastly, don't blindly follow SEO trends. You know, don't lose your customer because they, you know, one, didn't find your site. Yeah, so use the right keywords and optimize your site in that way they can find it. Or they didn't find your information, right? If I'm searching for Red Gatorade and you land me on a Ko-fi page due to an incorrect AdWords campaign or wrong optimized site, then I'm not finding the information I'm looking for. That's called a bounce. Yes. Out of here. Address their real issues. I like this one. You know, if someone is searching for whatever it is, on the page that you land them on, have relevant content that discusses that issue and not necessarily a brief paragraph about it. And then you

go on trying to sell them something. Address the issue. People tend to have value when their issues are resolved. Right. They'll be more prone to then be interested in what you have to sell. Speak to your, I remember somebody told me this, speak to your customer's pain. I was on the phone just before the podcast with the customers just having a horrible experience both with paper glitch and SEO. And so one of the things that we may incorporate into the new website as we're redesigning it is that, you know, how much do we want to speak to that? Have you had a bad experience with your SEO? Have you had a horrible experience? And actually, last contract and this phone call have been just horrible experiences with their previous vendor, which makes it harder on us. It also makes us, when we're able to sit down with the customer and convince them that we're not the previous vendors, it makes it so much easier for us to perform. We almost, we just answer the phone. They're like, you answered the phone. Yeah, dude told me, man, you actually called back. Isn't that, yeah. You requested a call back. Yeah, I'm going to call back. I like how he closed it out. He gave a quick scenario. He says, you know, just like a car dealership and somebody visits your site, they may not be ready to buy a car or they may not have decided what model to buy. You don't know if she needs a station wagon or a Porsche. You're not even sure of her budget age or any other important information that influences her decision. And so take that in mind. You don't really know why people are visiting your site. You just know that they're on your site. And so what you want to do is make sure you have enough information that's easy to be found to guide them down the path that they need to go. Whoever they may be. Whoever they may be. Right. So that's what I

have. Good stuff. Yeah, I'll post that. I'll G plus it. We'll Facebook it immediately following the podcast. And so, yeah, post a comment on it. Tell us what you think. Katoof to Trond. Yeah, great article, Trond. All right. Oh, got some blank stare. We got a little blank stare. Yeah, a little blank stare. I'm going to put the glasses on. Yeah, I'm going to take the hat off for this blank stare and hold it right here. Because this blank stare is really a moment of silence for all those people who lost their lives in Colorado. Last night and this morning, over the movie massacre shooting, it's all over the news. Guy comes in dressed like Bane and shot up a lot of people watching the Dark Knight movie. So rest in peace to those. Yeah, it's unfortunate. You have been listening to the most popular internet marketing podcast on iTunes. That is because of you, you, you, you, you, and you right there. Thank you guys so much for listening, watching, tuning in, hitting us up on our Facebook page. We really appreciate it. We really appreciate the opportunity to share SEO and internet marketing information with you. Until the next podcast, my name is Chris Burris. Charles Lewis. Bye-bye for now. Bye-bye for now. Bye-bye for now.