I’ve just completed a project where the desires of the graphic designer took precedence over search engine visibility and site performance.  I had only heard about these sorts of debates before and had never had been involved in one.

The designer admitted they cared more about look and feel of the site than they did about its features and functions.  Ultimately being forced to defer to the designer’s logic by putting a scroll box into a post, for the sake of aesthetics, enforced website design tactics that have not been popular since the late 1990’s.  Neither the project initiator nor the graphic designer seemed to care at all about search engine visibility, website performance, or the impact their design-based decisions were having upon the website.  Regardless of my feelings about it, I did as I was instructed and delivered a site that has absolutely no SEO value, much to my chagrin.  I contributed my ideas and they were ignored.  What else was there for me to do? 

But, my position stands that graphic design should NEVER take precedence over website performance, function, and search engine optimization.  I will augment this by saying that website aesthetics and website functionality and value are not mutually exclusive goals.  With a little bit of understanding, beautiful website designs can be rendered to functional code that performs well and is also optimized for search engine visibility.

In my experience, graphics designers rarely have website development or SEO skills.  I have the distinction of possessing design, development and SEO skills, among other things, so this is not true of me.  My composite skill set is extremely rare, so I have been told.  Because it is important to my clients, I keep abreast of current online marketing tactics and website development trends so I can educate my customers and offer choices, should the need arise.  Of primary concern to me is overall website SEO and performance.  A properly designed website can garner organic traffic, especially if it uses the built-in features of a content management system like Wordpress, and performance does not have to suffer if the developer knows what they are doing.

With the caveat that there are many people out there who know as much or more about this topic than me, I will share a little of what I know about these things in this post.   It is not all inclusive, for it would be impossible to encapsulate years of experience on such large subjects into a single post.

Why Should You Care about SEO?

A pretty website pleases the eye, and design does matter, but your website SEO strategy can make the difference between a profitable website and a wasted expense.  If you are not doing your own development work, you have paid a professional developer real money their time.  Viewing your website as a marketing asset should not be taken lightly.  With good planning, design, and a solid SEO strategy in mind, your website can becom an extremely valuable tool that facilitates your business success.

Search Engine Optimization is not a huge mystery.  There are several sites with valuable and free content out there for people to study, if they are willing to invest the time and energy.  While each SEO “expert” seems to subscribe to their own philosophy, some factors are constants.

Generally speaking, there is on-page SEO and off-page SEO.  On-Page SEO is what you do with your website design and post content.  Off-Page SEO can be loosely defined as the linking strategies you employ to elevate your site’s authority on the internet.  Both are important, but the latter has very little to do with website design.

On Page SEO

Each page of your website is viewed individually by search engines.  Thus, it is possible for some of your pages to have a more elevated listing status in the search engines than others.  Content management systems, like Wordpress, offer really cool SEO features like internal linking and frequent updates through RSS feeds and commenting features.  While some Graphic Designers hold steadfastly to their belief that there still is a place for straight HTML websites, open source applications like Wordpress, which is continually improving, make that belief all but obsolete.

Within a page, search engines are alerted by text styling tactics of using headings (H1 is best) or bold text to call attention to important content that contains the keywords you are pursuing.  Enabling Wordpress plugins that permit you to specify relevant meta titles, descriptions, and post-specific keywords will assist with acquiring organic traffic and gaining better page listings and rankings.  Since I put up my first Wordpress Website years ago, I’ve been using the All in One SEO plugin.  There are others out there.

Having a keyword rich domain name and page title goes miles toward a quick ranking.  Post titles and overall URL length matter.  The last time that I checked, search engines only read the first 256 characters of a URL.  This could have changed, so don’t quote me.  So, if you have a long domain name and a long page/post title, your effort in researching and placing keywords could be pointless.  Wordpress setup defaults are not the best for creating links.  There are multiple opinions about what is the best way to customize the permalink structure.  In any case, finding ways to eliminate unimportant words and numbers from the link is the only way to go.

Off Page SEO

This is, in a nutshell, your linking strategy.  Over the years that I’ve been involved with website delivery, I’ve seen hundreds of offers for SEO automation tools that claim they can drive floods of traffic to your site by exploiting loopholes in search engine algorithms.  I’ve never taken that bait.  As for other tools that offer SEO link building assistance that is white hat, I’m skeptical that these products have delivered the results promised but I do confess to not having tried more than a handful of them.  In my humble opinion, high quality external links are earned through the time-consuming work of posting articles, providing high-quality responses in active forums, and building an online reputation for your site’s authority by offering sincere and relevant blog comments or appearing as a guest blogger on a high ranking site.

Freelancers offer SEO services of link building through article creation, blog commenting and forum posts.  I cannot compete with offshore service provider pricing so this is not a service that I offer.  I educate my customers on link building tactics and sometimes refer work out to colleagues.  There are article spinning tools that allow you to write one good article and spin it multiple ways so you can have unique content up on multiple sites.  As for automating blog comments, I don’t approve spam comments on my sites so why should I expect anyone else to do so?    Forums may seem like old news but there are some very busy forums with high authority on which I’ve been actively pursuing links back to a few of my sites.  Just ensure that you become active in a forum that is related to the main topic of your site if you choose this tactic for link building.

Website Performance Notes

If you are using images on your site, upload and reference them with keyword rich names.  Embedding keywords as alt text for your images is a important too because search engines can read it.  More and more frequently, websites are being found through image searches.  Although it makes a site or post more interesting, excessive use of images is discouraged because each call for that image results in another http request which can inhibit performance.

Pages that are designed entirely in flash are … well, flashy.  I truly admire the skills that flash programmers have honed but I have never recommended flash introductions when text and images will deliver the same message.  Opinions may vary but mine is that flash intros and pages are not good for SEO.  Additionally, flash is a client-side application that relies on the technology configuration of the viewer’s computer.  Most non-technical people are not as fastidious about PC maintenance and technology upgrades as I may be and no developer can write code to overcome that.  Hire the flash developer, by all means, but keep in mind that your multi-thousand dollar expense for flash programming may be lost on a portion of your potential audience who is frustrated by the fact that they see nothing on the page or it is taking too long to load.

When moving a site from HTML to a content management system, I frequently hear my clients say that the site seems slower.  That’s true.  It is, by comparison.  This has to do with PHP and database access speeds.  Designing code that works as optimally as possible is my responsibility, so I’m not abdicating entirely.  Recently, when this protest kept coming up, I set up the same site on two other hosting services so they could compare site performance.  It was a proverbial “no brainer” decision.  Their hosting service was the stumbling block.  Both A2 Hosting and JustHost eclipsed Network Solutions for page loads and video performance.

The use of CSS sprites improve website performance because only one image is referenced.  I do not advocate for the use of image-based menus, however, because their use removes text from the pages and eliminates dynamic addition of navigation links.  This is best explained by example.  One of the features of Wordpress is that it automatically adds new category links to menus without having to alter site code.  This translates to ease of use for my customers, once they’ve gotten a handle on the difference between pages, posts and categories.  With the exception of the site that I was recently asked to develop, all of my site navigation code has been pure CSS, clean and simple.  After working with a beautiful theme that used one image for all of its iconography and backgrounds, my custom theme designs will be making much more use of CSS sprites.

Designing a website for conversion is something that every business owner cares about, if they are savvy and have a solid business goal for their sites.  Top gun internet marketers sell memberships and consulting services to people who want to get income online.  It is a good idea to have a mentor when you are starting out, for sure, but I wonder if there really is a one-size-fits-all approach to building an online business.  My instincts say no. 

As an Online Branding Consultant and website developer, I’ve been monitoring website tools and trends for years.  When my daily research introduced the idea that the color orange converted better than any other color, it seemed like a reasonable thing to try.  Within a few months, just about every site that I saw had an orange buy now or add to cart button.  Recently, this button has gotten much larger.   Does the image below look familar to you and did you feel compelled to press the button?  It took me 2 seconds to find one. 

One trend that I have no argument with at all is to use Wordpress website technology as the basis for a business and sales funnel.  The software is remarkable, easy to manage, and delivers great SEO benefits too.  Many top guns have migrated their sites to wordpress with good reason and anyone paying attention knows that Wordpress is much more than a blogging tool. 

Video capture pages are a very good idea and they have been for a long time.  However, there has been a disturbing trend with them recently.  The latest video marketing tactic is to enforce an opt in before one is granted access to the video.  This is a ploy to build a list, which I understand, but if you do this please manage your lists so you aren’t broadcasting the same message multiple times.  That is kind of irritating.  

Another rising video marketing trend is to put up content with no controls or information about duration.  I find to be both inconvenient and rude, and I know I’m not alone.  If it is off-putting, why does it convert?  Perhaps someone who is doing this and tracking results can enlighten us all. 

The OTO (one-time-offer) tactic has taken on new proportions of irritation.  When I opt in to something for free, I expect an obligatory up sell but is it really necessary to introduce two, three or more?  Newbie or not, I’m betting that I’m not the only person who loses patience and gives up.  It would be great to see the split testing results that support the claims of people who say this builds loyalty and increases sales.   

Please save us all from the disingenuous “fear of loss” call to action tactic.  If you aren’t sure what this means, it is the one that compels you to decide right now and threatens that, if you don’t, the offer will be lost forever.  If it really is a limited time offer then using this tactic doesn’t constitute coercion.  A high percentage of the time, however, the claim is not true.  How many times have you bought something because you were led to believe you needed to decide right away and found that same site months after the fact? 

When internet marketers began to sell products that teach how to target local business owners, it intrigued me.  I wondered if they really knew what they were talking about.  As it turns out, few internet marketers have ever dealt with offline business owners so please don’t expect them to teach you everything you need to know in order to succeed in this niche.  I’m not saying it isn’t a good idea but, trust me, it isn’t an automatic gateway to wealth. 

If you want to have credibility with a local business owner, you need more than a spiel and a ghost written book to hand to them at your first meeting.  You must understand THEIR business and be prepared to explain how you can help them improve their bottom line.

Think about the different businesses that you see in your neighborhood for a moment, excluding chains and franchises.  I doubt that the target market for an attorney, accountant, florist, or day spa lends itself to hype, being forced into opting in to view a video that has no controls on it, or the huge orange “add to cart” button.  Please let me know if you think I am wrong. 

Small busines owners understand their niche and they’re good at sensing deception or they don’t stay in business long..  You won’t know how to help them if you haven’t done your homework.  Customer acquisition costs are a factor to small business owners, as well as return on investment.  If you want to play in that field, make sure you understand business basics first.

The bottom line is this:

No internet marketing formula is one-size-fits-all.  

We joke about watching paint dry when time seems to move too slowly but, believe it or not, this is an actual role for which people are paid.  Duties include touching the painted item to ensure that it is dry.  What does this have to do with businss and online income?  Read on… 

Many people put up pretty websites and expect immediate results.  Very few people get what they desire, unless they have found a particular niche that is in demand and has not already been exploited or they have a well established and responsive list. 

As a website consultant, I’ve always recommended beginning with the end in mind.  During initial meetings with any new client, I always inquire about their keywords and SEO strategy.  Of all the hundreds of sites that I’ve built, only one customer actually had a plan in place.  Statistically, those who did not embrace the idea that they needed to identify niche keywords and strategically pursue them experienced less than optimal results. 

Once you’ve determined your SEO and linking strategy, you must set about the task of doing the work necessary to accomplish it.  This entails tactics that will build relevance based on keywords through on-site and off-site content. 

Perhaps the best known method for getting links to your website is writing articles, adding a link to your signature in a forum, or commenting on blogs.  But, how do you know which sites have importance from Google’s point of view?  Michelle MacPherson recently released a free tool for monitoring top internet properties for your content and links.  I don’t know if it is still available but I’ve used it and it is very helpful.  The caveat is that each site has different rules so make sure you read the fine print when you register and begin to use them.

Lately, there has been a resurgence in using videos to promote your business or opportunity.  This isn’t big news.  Video marketing has been a great way to give voice to your brand for years and new video distribution channels are popping up every day.  Your videos need to go viral, for them to really provide benefit, and if you don’t use good keywords when posting the video, it is just “out there” waiting to be found.  Alternatively, and as I mentioned earlier, you can deploy it to your dedicated and responsive list. 

Differentiating yourself online may be the biggest challenge you face.  Most of what I observe is a lot of emulation.  That isn’t a bad idea.  Heck!  It worked for me when I wanted to learn to sing like Joni Mitchell.    Still, emulating what everyone else is doing only makes you like everyone else.  Your market will choose to buy the offer, if it is something they want or need, and they will buy it from a link that appears in early in their search results.  Thus, if you have no SEO strategy, whether or not you’ve done your niche research homework, there will be a lot of people ahead of you in the pile. 

Assuming that you’ve are now convinced that learning SEO and keyword research is important to your business success … online or offline … what can you do?  Well, you can begin by learning more about SEO and keyword research from an expert.  Dan Thies has availed a great ebook entitled Fast Start SEO which you can download at this link.  Dan Thies also offers a free membership where people aspiring to learn more, or those who are active in the arena already, can interact and swap ideas.  You can choose to outsource the task to someone who knows what they are doing, if you feel you have more important things to do,  but I imagine it will be hard to sift the wheat from the chaff  when interviewing potential outsourcing partners without any knowledge so learning something about how SEO is done is still advisable. 

Building an online brand requires patience, dedication and belief.  Once you have your keywords and SEO strategy in place, all that remains to be done is to implement it.  However, waiting for the benefits you seek can be difficult if you are impatient.  Not much different than watching paint dry, I suppose.  But, if you’ve done your homework and selected a good niche and linking strategy, your results will come.

Tools help.  I use a product called Micro Niche Finder that is easy to understand and provides a lot of data very quickly.  If you don’t want to buy a product, you can also use Google’s free keyword research tool. 

If you’d like to know how I can help you, please don’t hesitate to ask.  You can complete the contact form at www.VirtuallyMarj.com and I will certainly respond.  I’d love to learn more about your business and, if it feels right to us both, help you build your online brand! 

When you decide to work with a client, your business relationship has potential to develop into a friendship.  This can be very rewarding, as long as the boundaries between friendship and business are established and maintained. 

Very few people understand how awkward it can be when questions they are asking begin to encroach on the time you had set aside to relax.  Under most circumstances, gentle reminders that you are “off the clock” will be enough.  Conscientious people will never ask you to work for free and there is no reason to feel guilty about accepting compensation in exchange for your expertise. 

Here are a few gray areas that you may have encountered:

1. Someone expects you to do something for them which is a service for which clients normally pay.
2. You’ve earned an affiliate commission because someone clicked on your link and that person treats it as if they are owed services in exchange.
3. Sudden demands for a “finder’s fee” months after an introduction.
4. Promising future work for reduced fees.

Expecting Free Help

We’ve all hit financial speed bumps.  My first response to someone who asks me to work for free so they can preserve their cash is to suggest that they need to adjust their mindset.  This sounds brutal but it isn’t.  We are what we believe and, if we believe we are broke, we are broke! 

Many philosophies, including the Law of Attraction, conceptualize thought as energy that attracts like-kind energy.  If your thoughts are trained on what you lack, you will attract more of that.  In other words, your lack will increase.  This is so stupidly simple, yet so difficult to master! 

Placating your associate’s fears by working for free is a choice that you make based on whether or not the time commitment will put your real business obligations at risk.  We all like to help people out but, if you do, recognize that it can be a slippery slope.  Like silencing your barking dog with a treat reinforces bad behavior, your associate may expect that you will continue to work for them for free. 

Leveraging Affiliate Commissions

You’ve taken the time to set up accounts and establish affiliate relationships for products or services that you want to recommend.  Affiliate earnings are intended to be passive.  Thus, any expectation that you will provide services in exchange for an affiliate commission you’ve earned is flawed logic.  All that person did was click a link to buy something of value that they wanted. 

In the rare instance that someone insists they could have purchased the same product on their own, it may be their way of inducing guilt.  Don’t fall for it.  If you are like me, you have not overpriced your services to begin with and you’re worth every penny. 

Does this mean you should not offer affiliate links to clients and friends?  If you do, ensure that you disclose the fact that you will earn an affiliate commission and that it is their choice to purchase elsewhere. 

What Finders Fees?

True Story:  A year or so back, a “friend” asserted that he was owed 25% of everything that I had earned since we met.  This came out of nowhere so I was stunned when I realized he was serious. 

I explained that I would never have agreed to referral fees of that magnitude without having a formal contract in place.  This fell on dead ears.  His rage and desperation, coupled with some other observations about his online behavior, created an awkwardness that ultimately ended our friendship. 

Expecting Immediate and Repeated Help

Most people admire my intuitive grasp of technology.  I will always answer quick questions but, if I know that a request will take more time than I have available, it must be postponed.  When I find a solution, I take the time to carefully explain exactly what solved the problem, in layman’s terms, so people can more become self-sufficient. 

Some folks repeatedly return for help with the same things.  I don’t mind re-explaining but, if I can’t drop everything at the moment of their request, enduring unfounded accusations or complaints is unacceptable.  My rule is no tolerance for such bad behavior. 

Beware of Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing

One client relationship relationship evolved into spending a lot of time exchanging ideas about Wordpress website design, CSS and Photoshop techniques.  Those sessions always began when they would ask a “quick question.”  Since my associate already had some skills, it didn’t occur to me that I was providing information they planned to use to start a new and competing business.  When they announced their plans, they invited me to become a resource, with the provision that I could not use my own business name or offer a link to my website.  I declined and wished them luck. 

The tactic of promising “future work” for a discounted rate is the proverbial Pandora’s Box.  In my experience, such requests better serve the requester.  In one extreme case, my willingness to work in this way resulted in many delinquent invoice payments and their expectation that the delayed payments would not compromise the development schedule for the project.   This particular client also neglected to mention very time-consuming development requirements at the time we settled on price and refused to discuss additional compensation.  When their behavior turned into abuse, they were summarily fired with no regrets … at least on my part.   

Choose to NOT Diminish the Value of Your Expertise

We all have unique skills to offer in professional liaisons.  The confidence you gain through exceeding customer expectations can lead to business expansion.  When your clients trust you, they will naturally recommend you who their friends and colleagues.  Referrals from such sources are the best kind of business.

Wordpress was awarded the 2009 Open Source CMS Award last month. Not only is this a great honor for the software, it validates a decision I made to specialize with this CMS years ago and all of the recommendations that I’ve made to website clients for the past several years. Wordpress is a powerful CMS and, with the improvements introduced during the past year and this award, it is crystal clear that the software has stepped up to the plate for consideration as the basis for any website project.

Wordpress Wins 2009 Open Source CMS Award

Many of you who know me understand my deep appreciation for Wordpress. I began using the software as a blogger in late 2004 when I set up my first self-hosted blog. Since that time, my interest in blogging has become a way of life for me.  My Wordpress development skills have been a good source of income for me and I love being a self-employed entrepreneur.

In fact, entrepreneurship is a frequent topic on my blog. An important attribute of being an entrepreneur is having a willingness to take measured risks but crucial to entrepreneurial survival, regardless of one’s niche, is resilience. Ideas bloom, excitement builds, partnerships are formed, and there are many ups and downs along the way.

This amazing interview with Matt Mullenweg, the father of Wordpress, really gives a lot of great insights into a smart way to start and grow a company. Other participants in this show are Jason Calacanis and Joel Spolsky. All are visionaries and well respected in the internet arena. The interview is nearly 2 hours long but it is well worth your time to listen, at the very least. I must caution you that Jason uses some colorful language while telling some of his stories.

Personally, I find it enjoyable when something occurs that seems synchronous to events in present time. The other night, such an event occurred. While rifling through papers in my desk drawer, an old fortune from a fortune cookie surfaced. It read:

One’s mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.

Not only is this synchronous, it also is quite profound in its simple truth. Once we are introduced to a something new, and the idea takes root in our minds and inspires us, it is virtually impossible to operate as we did before we made our important discovery. Our eager minds pursue the idea and follow it through permutations and twists in the road. Through every turn, the core substance of the idea remains solid and the starting point to which you always will return, should you find a need to adjust your strategy.

Take Internet Marketing, for example. A few years ago, I decided that I would get income through online means. In pursuit of that vision, I began subscribing to newsletters and purchasing products that would teach me more about what people were doing online. Some of the methods that I evaluated are not ones that I use or would recommend but knowing what not to do is almost as important as knowing what to do, isn’t it? Due to my interest and attention, I am able to spot trends and, when it comes to opportunity offers, I have a pretty good system for separating the wheat from the chaff.

As I put my own business plan into motion, it became obvious that my time spent learning about internet marketing was extremely helpful to people who retained my services for Online Branding and wanted to get income online. Although my primary source of income is still from my consulting services, the fact that I am personally involved with my customers doesn’t imply that I am not an internet marketer. I source all of my business through Web 2.0 methods and enjoy working with people.  And, the best part is that my business is totally portable!

My mind was stretched by this self-induced learning. When I approach a potential business liaison or client, it is nearly impossible for me to talk merely about traditional means of sourcing new business. When I set up ecommerce websites, for instance, I make recommendations beyond layout, technology, and graphics. My degree is in business and that knowledge, coupled with the education I’ve received through personal learning, are assets to any project that I undertake and I’ve heard this repeatedly from my customers.

All things being equal, anyone who has a business website is an internet marketer. Here is the caveat; The prettiest site in the world cannot manufacture new business and cash flow. If you haven’t done so already, it would serve you well to either learn about, or retain the services of someone who knows about techniques that will improve your website’s visibility through Web 2.0 techniques that drive targeted traffic, as well as performing the time-consuming SEO methods that will get it listed and ranked by search engines. If you are in business and have no website, you are missing an incredible opportunity. Personally, I feel that it is sheer folly to be in business without a website. It is statistically proven that people look online prior to making any purchase decision.

Even though this is not business related, our minds can also be stretched by ideas that present themselves in everyday life. The ingenuity of a child who is working out a difficult “engineering” problem related to the sand castle they are building at the beach is a good example. It is not an unimportant side note to remind you to take time to relax your mind so as to re-charge your creative juices.  If we are fortunate, we retain our sense of awe about things that are remarkable and have nothing to do with making money, like watching swallows soaring high above us or witnessing the oceans that undulate through forces unseen. At times when you need to restore yourself, it is good to have easy access to those things that opened your mind as a child.

Recently, while working on a YouTube video, I happened across the most adorable video with related tags.  I have a cat that plays piano.  The video that amused and inspired me was about another piano playing cat.  The number of views for that video averaged 275,000 per month over the past year.  I’m betting that this piano teacher’s business also grew as her video went viral on the internet, even though she made only small mention about her area of expertise.

This video was awesome to me for several reasons.  In a moment of epiphany, I posted it to Public Skype Chat with my thoughts about how viral this sort of video could be if properly used in a marketing campaign.  A member of the group, who was similarly intrigued after doing some of her own research, asked me how I found myself using this sort of media to promote my business.

What is seemingly off-topic from business but is also cute or funny can be used to leverage your primary business, if it is done right.  Internet and Affiliate marketers have been using this tactic for years by employing misspelled or extremely similar domain names and keywords which leverage high volume searches on the internet.  If you would like to know what is hot on the internet in real time, I recommend checking out Google Trends.

From a consumer point of view, if we think of the things that attract us in marketing, we all know there are several.  Babies and animals may be at the top of the list.  They have a way of making most people feel comfortable or empathize with the marketing message.  Of course, some marketers still use sex in every advertisement, especially automobile companies and alcohol distributors.  Regardless of the psychological tool employed, humor is a wonderful way to capture and hold a prospect’s attention at your website.

The simple truth is, whether online or offline, there are certain things that resonate with consumers or business opportunity prospects and trigger their responses.  Traditional marketing understands and leverages this knowledge.  Market testing is not a luxury phase for any product launch.  If your product is digital, don’t overlook the power of Google Analytics while you are tweaking your sites.

If you have a perceived urgency to generate income or a limited budget, as a consumer of products and services, you know what works best when you stop and think about it.  Walk around to the other side of your virtual cash register and view things from that perspective.  Once you adapt your thinking to that point of view, your marketing message and techniques become obvious.  You must capture the attention of your target market and hold it without trying to sell them anything. 

This may sound counter intuitive but, if you think of your own reactions to sales, I know that you know that it isn’t.  Even if you are on a showroom floor, how do you feel when a sales person interrupts your train of thought while you are considering your choices?  Do you like being told the differences or would you rather quietly compare the features and functions of the product to the things on your wish list?  It may not be possible to create one message for both audiences but it is possible to put up two different sites with two different messages and find out which works best.     

Although few people understand this, a good marketer leads a person to understand what they want.  Did you catch the most important word in that last sentence?  A good marketer is a leader, not a sales person.  Internet marketing is much more than formulaic sales, OTOs and pop-up offers.  People have written volumes about website design but none that I’ve read have discussed the psychology of marketing or how to really use it online.