The WebSpecialist Blog

Maryland SEO and search engine optimizers everywhere like to play the doom and gloom card whenever something new from Google is released — and no product from the company was met with more boos and eye rolls than Google Panda. The tough algorithm update was released last winter to extreme pessimism. Now marketers and SEOers alike have unlocked a way to make Panda work for them: fresh content.

A new infographic from Brafton reports that original content on a website can translate to sales. Katherine Griwert, who created and compiled the infographic for Brafton, says that 57 percent of marketers report that new customers have come in via company blogs. But spammers beware: Google Panda does not respond well to churned-out paid content and instead gives higher rankings to fresh content like blogs and social media interaction. In short, original content is a tasty recipe anybody can cook up to keep Google Panda fat and happy.

Lately, we have seen a lot of big brands, including Perrier and Virgin, jump head first into the mobile marketing game. Marketing big shots spend tons of time mulling over what their mobile websites should look like and how they should function. Meanwhile, every publication and blog from The Wall Street Journal to TechCrunch and beyond continues to weigh in on what an effective mobile marketing plan should consist of. But maybe, just maybe, you're already using a rocking mobile marketing plan — you just don't know it.

Is it finally safe to assume that in one way or another, all businesses, big and small, have a digital marketing plan that includes social media and directing traffic back to their websites? Our culture's collective romance with smartphones has eliminated the once very clear line between mobile sites and regular ones. All of the functionality and accessibility of shopping websites like Amazon and Groupon, as well as those of small businesses, are at our fingertips. We now use our phones to keep us in touch with our most-used websites and to help us find new ones. And social media is helping us bridge that gap even more.

Question: Does your business website display properly on tablets and mobile phones? Could anything be done to improve the user experience on these devices?

Consider this: Last month, a new study from comScore reported that social media use on mobile devices had grown a whopping 37% over the last year. This means more and more people are using their phones to check in with brands and friends. In fact, 69.5% of mobile users rely on their smartphones to update their statuses, tweet and create new content. Each time we tweet about our company's new products or post pictures on our business' Facebook page, we're actually engaging in mobile marketing. We no longer have to wait for our target audience to get home and turn on their computers. They can learn about our business' brilliant innovations from wherever they are.

So while we'd love to talk with each of our clients about their mobile marketing strategies, maybe we don't actually need to over-scrutinize. Maybe we just need to make sure they have an an easy-to-use mobile-ready website that helps them continue to do what they're already good at.

Care to tell us about your company's mobile website or mobile marketing? Got any interesting success stories? Sound off below with your comments.  

This morning, we found an interesting blog article entitled "Everyone Should Hire 'Social Media Experts,'", which was a response to another blog article, "I Will Never Hire a 'Social Media Expert,' and Neither Should You". Both articles make good points as to why you should and should not hire "Social Media Experts," respectively.

Both articles are right in their own way. Let's take a look at the article that argues against hiring a "Social Media Expert," first.

The author argues that too many people are calling themselves "Social Media Experts" who are really lacking in total knowledge about social media marketing as a whole. Too many people believe that they can call themselves "Social Media Experts" just because they know how to post on Facebook and Twitter. However, social media marketing is way, way more than just knowing how to post on two platforms. It's even more than just knowing 10, 20, or 30 of the platforms. Social media marketing involves determining how to effectively build your online presence, analytics, determining the psychology of your users, knowing the tools for the job, and much, much more.

If you hire a "Social Media Expert," and all they know how to do is post on Facebook and Twitter, you've wasted your money! You could save that money, not hire that person, and handle those updates in house. You probably know just about as much about posting on Facebook and Twitter as they do.

That being said, let's move onto the article that DOES recommend hiring Social Media Experts.

This article argues that it is entirely beneficial to hire Social Media Experts. It looks at the data: there is an increasingly large demand by companies for social media experts, and they are hiring them more than ever before -- even more than traffic planners. The author states: "In the current economic climate, corporate profits are at record levels and companies are hiring with a much greater eye to the bottom line than any other time in the past 20 years. These businesses are investing in high ROI projects + people, and social media is part of that." So basically, companies are investing wisely when they are hiring social media experts -- their money is not being wasted.

The trick is to make sure that you hire real social media experts -- not just people who say that they are experts. Your ideal social media expert should have advanced experience in many social media platforms, tactical social media knowledge, user psychology, creativity, analytics, and social media tools.

So the answer to the question: should you hire a social media expert? is yes, with one stipulation -- the label "social media expert" shouldn't come from the job candidate him or herself. The candidate should only receive that label from companies or individuals who have worked with that person and can attest to his or her experience and advanced knowledge.

In addition, you don't necessarily need to hire an in-house social media expert. It might make more sense to outsource that task to a company that is already well versed in social media, rather than taking the time to train a new employee in house.

Are we at WSI WebSpecialist social media experts? Well, that's up to you to decide! Learn more about our own social media marketing services or contact us!.

We usually use drop down menus on our websites as the primary navigation method. This is not the only website navigation method out there, but it is the one that we've found works best for us. We usually develop the content for our websites in a bullet list format, such as the following:

• Main Menu Item 1
  • Sub Menu Item A
  • Sub Menu Item B
• Main Menu Item 2
  • Sub Menu Item C
  • Sub Menu Item D
• Main Menu Item 3
  • Sub Menu Item E
  • Sub Menu Item F

This bullet list menu is "transposed" into a horizontal format, like the menu that you see on our own website. The sub menu items in our menu are "hidden away" in drop-down menus.

In our five years of designing websites, we have run into a few clients and website visitors that do not realize that the the "main menu items" are actual pages that can be clicked on. This left us wondering recently: should the main menu items be pages at all?

There is no set in stone answer to this question. Only usability studies done on your own website can give you the most accurate answer. However, there are a few things to keep in mind.

What is your target audience? Is it a younger, or an older demographic? Is your audience very comfortable with computers, or do they have trouble browsing the web on occassion? If your target audience is an older demographic, or is not very comfortable with computers, they may not realize that the "main menu items" are linked to actual web pages.

How important is the content that you want to put on the web pages of those main menu items? If the content is extremely important, and you do not want to risk a website visitor not seeing the content, you might want to consider not putting any important information on these main menu item pages. Instead, you might put this content on one or more of the sub pages. You could use the main menu item page as a "table of contents" for the sub pages in that section -- so, the main menu page would contain a short description of the information contained in that section, as well as a list of the sub pages, with their links.

If your website builder allows it, you might also consider including a tooltip that pops up when you hover over a main menu item that says something like "Click here to learn more about [this section]!" It would be hard for someone to miss a pop-up tooltip. However, if you are using a CMS, not all CMSs will allow you to include a pop-up tooltip.

As to the main question at hand: should drop down main menu items be web pages or not? We personally think the answer is yes, they should. Over time, as people get more comfortable with surfing the web, we believe that they will learn to notice when something is a link and something is not. For instance, when you hover over a link in your browser, the URL of that link should appear in the bottom of your browser's window. That is one way you can tell if something is a link or not.

If you would like more information on this topic or other website design questions, please feel free to call us at 410.638.9877 or contact us online!

Occasionally we will have a website redesign project that seems to drag on a bit past the initially agreed-upon launch date. Ask any web designer or graphic designer and they will tell you this is not unusual in an area where subjective artistic design elements are involved.

However, more often than not, it is not the graphic design that is the hold up. In about 80% of cases where we see a client asking to delay the launch of their new website, it is because they feel their content is "not quite ready for prime time" yet.

Sometimes it's the text on a particular page that doesn't seem quite right. Other times it's that the business owner wants to include a nice photo of the staff, and they have not yet found the time to get the photo taken. Yet other times, it may be that our client has asked to include a blog on the site, but the person responsible for writing the blog has not quite figured out what to write. (We developed a quick guide for blogging to help out.)

But are any of these things really good reasons not to show the world your new website?

In this age of modern websites built with content management systems that make it easy to update your website content, none of these reasons are valid. In general, if the design of your newly developed website is better than your currently-live website, and the content on the new site is the same as (or better than) the live site, then it's time to launch your new website.

The funny thing is, many of our clients tell us they need to redesign their websites because they are embarrassed to send people to the current site. This begs the question, then, of why they would want to delay the launch of the new site at all. In short, simply ask yourself, "Is our new website more impressive to web visitors than the one they are seeing now?"

All modern, interactive websites should be seen as constant works in progress - forever growing, evolving, improving. Waiting until your new website is "perfect" is like asking an unborn child to wait until he's full grown before entering the world. It just doesn't make sense, and you lose the opportunity for feedback and nurturing that helps your "baby" mature through exposure to the real world.

We often tell our clients, "Don't let perfect get in the way of good enough." The next time your business embarks on a website upgrade or redesign, keep this in mind.
   

Every once in a while a client will call to say they will be offering a special deal offline, and they want to know how to incorporate that same offer online as well. While it is usually possible to create effective online marketing for just about any offer, it is important to realize that online marketing differs from offline marketing.

Specifically, there are ways to track the effectiveness of your online marketing that are simply not possible offline. But if you don't take a little time to think about how to track your online efforts, you'll be missing a great opportunity.

As an example, one client recently made plans to send out a snail mail offer. He initially called simply to tell me what he was doing, and asked if we could add something to the Home page of his website so people who received the offer would also see it on the website. The answer, of course, was yes.

But then I asked how he was planning to track the effectiveness of the snail mail campaign. He said his staff was going to ask people when they called, "How did you find out about us?" Now, while that might give an indication of the effectiveness of the mail piece, I explained that a better way to track effectiveness would be to place a "coupon code" or "offer code" directly on the mail piece before mailing - and then ask callers to give the coupon code when ordering. To track this effectively online for those who receive the mail piece but then go online to make their purchase, I suggested we add a field to the website's contact form and order form that asks for the offer code.

This is not a new concept. But it is surprising how many businesses do not put it into practice. Of course, it's a lot easier if you have access to edit your own website using a good CMS.

To make the same campaign more encompassing, why not then create a special landing page on the website for the same offer, only with a slightly different coupon code, and run a PPC ad campaign online to drive traffic to it?

And while you're at it, send an email blast to everyone on your mailing list, segmented into different groups: Previous clients get one offer code, and former/current prospects get another code - and both of these codes are different from the snail mail and PPC offer codes. Now when someone fills out the contact form or makes their purchase, asking for the coupon code will tell you which of these marketing avenues was most effective in driving actual contacts or purchases.

If you'd like sound advice on how to better measure the effectiveness of your next marketing campaign through online channels, please contact WSI WebSpecialist at 410.638.9877.

Today I'm going to give you step by step directions on how to leave a review on a Google Local Business listing. Why is this important? Well, Google is increasingly integrating Local Business Listings into its search results. If you have a business, you want to be one of those lucky few businesses that shows up in the Local Business Listings when someone searches for your industry on Google.

How do you get to be in those top 3 listings, or even number 1? Well, one of the criteria for ranking high is how many favorable Google Place reviews your business has. Note that this isn't the only criterion, but it is certainly a large factor!

Please feel free to forward these directions to your clients. Let them know that you would love it if they left you a Google Place review about how much they love your services!

1. Go to http://maps.google.com and search for the name of the business that you want to leave a Google Place review for. You may need to include part of the business's location, such as its city and state, in the search. So for example, to find WSI WebSpecialist, you could type

   WSI WebSpecialist, Havre de Grace, MD

   in the search box. (You can actually find us by business name alone, but this is just an example.)
2. Once you see the business name in the left column, click on "More Info" next to the business name.
3. Scroll down until you see the header "Reviews by Google users."
   1. If you are logged into a Google Account, you will see "Been here? Rate and review."
      1. Click on "Rate and review"
      2. Write your review in the box provided. You can also rate the business out of 5 stars.
      3. Click "Publish."
4. If you are not logged in, you will see "Been here? Sign in to rate"
   1. Click "Sign in to rate"
      1. If you have a Google account already, log in and then you'll be forwarded to a page where you can leave a review.
         1. Write your review in the box provided. You can also rate the business out of 5 stars.
         2. Click "Publish."
         3. If you don't yet have a Google account:
            1. Click the button that says "Create an account now" and follow the instructions to create the account.
            2. Once created, go back to the Business Listing page and click on "Rate and review" to leave a review.
            3. Write your review in the box provided. You can also rate the business out of 5 stars.
            4. Click "Publish."

And that's it! Remember, Google Place reviews are good for your business's search rankings on Google. Also, don't be tempted into leaving "fake reviews" for your own business, as the business owner! Google takes harsh actions against businesses who "cheat." If you cheat, you might never find yourself on the first page of Google ever again!

Are you interested in getting more help in ranking higher on Google? Contact WSI WebSpecialist today about our search engine optimization services!

Every once in a while I think it's important to spread the word about some of the good businesses I work with. I also know that in-bound linking is a critical part of our monthly SEO services, and our efforts to drive traffic to them. So I hope you won't mind if, on occasion, I post about the virtues of some of my best clients and the work they do!

For instance, if you live in NJ and are looking for a good NJ solar contractor or are investigating residential solar incentives in NJ, please contact our good friends at Eclipse Solar Specialists. They are a residential solar installer in DE, but do a lot of work in NJ as well - including offering assistance in qualifying for NJ REIP credits. Here are a few other of our great clients, in no particular order:

• Welch Mechanical Designs in Belcamp, MD offers expert precision optics and precision lens design for scientific use in the aerospace industry, with a concentration on government contracts.
• Anyone looking for quality used industrial shelving in MD or a Maryland pallet racking supplier for their warehouse is encouraged to contact Everything Warehouse in Baltimore.
• For epoxy floors in Maryland, look no further than our own Baltimore commercial construction contractor, O.T. Neighoff and Sons.
• Northern VA kitchen and bath contractor Thomas Custom Builders is your best bet for professional and reliable custom kitchen remodeling and Virginia design/build home additions.
• Looking for custom business signs? Call Maryland sign company Blue Water Signs, located in Forest Hill.

These companies all offer terrific products and service! If you are in need of services and are looking for a good referral to a reliable business, please contact us. We don't refer our clients because they're our clients, we refer them because they are good at what they do!
 

You've no doubt heard of websites like Facebook and Twitter. Perhaps you've even heard that people are using them for business purposes, maybe even that you should be participating in them. If, as a business owner, you have no idea why you should join them -- let alone make the time to participate regularly -- then please read on...

Website communities like these, as well as Linkedin, Digg, Delicious and StumbleUpon, are continuing to grow in popularity. By all accounts, they represent a new and important avenue for marketing, and one that consumers are embracing in record numbers. Your customers are talking about your business online, whether you know it or not. A business that chooses not to participate is, in a sense, telling at least a part of its target market, "We don't really care about you."

Only time will tell how many companies will actually be able to boost their revenue through social media. But for now, participation in social media online is not about getting new customers, or making more sales. It is about being aware of how people online are talking about you, your company, your products and services. More importantly, it is about taking measures to boost your reputation when possible, and professionally refute any "bad press" you may be receiving when necessary. Once you become an "online authority" in your area of expertise, and develop an online following or network, perhaps sales will follow. But without that following, they most certainly will not.

Last week I had a business owner ask me to give him "one good reason" why he should make the effort to join Twitter and "tweet" about his business. Here is what I told him: Because if you don't, someone else will take your name and do it for you.

If you need help creating a Social Media Marketing Plan, contact WSI WebSpecialist for help.