Mar 1, 2013

SEO Guide: 301 Redirects Explained

What Are 301 Redirects and Why Do They Matter

301 Redirects are the most important action that can be taken when moving content from one URL to another while maintaining PageRank as well as search rankings. If done properly, the value will be transferred over slowly, meaning the value from the old URL will not be apparent immediately after the redirect has occurred. Through the slow transfer of old value to a new URL, bots are able to determine if the new page correlates in context with that of the old URL. If the context between the two URLs is not the same, the value should not be switched over since they are not, in fact, the same.

Proper use of 301 redirects increases user experience by not showing a 404 error when attempting to land on a page that is not available. A 404 error page for a user essentially means they’ve found a dead end and need to choose a new path. It is also important for your overall site health to fix any 404 errors. This can be done by either setting the Robots.txt file to no-follow for that URL, or implementing 301 redirects to the correct functioning URL the user would have intended to land on.

301’s, beyond increasing the user experience and overall site health, tells search engines that any link juice being given to the old URL should now be given to the new URL. In essence, it makes it so you don’t have to do the work of building up PageRank for a URL from the start, since some previous value of the old URL will be transferred over to the new one.

There is no limit to the number of 301’s that can be done for a website, however, Google does limit the number of “steps” it will take down a 301 path. For instance, let’s say you want site A to redirect to site G. It’s best if you simply redirect A to G, and Google bots will even follow you if you redirect site A to B to G. However, Google bots will not follow site A to B to C to D to E to F before finally reaching G. Google bots understand this is excessive and will simply end the silly goose chase. These excessive redirects gives warning that something fishy or Black Hat is occurring since rarely is there a need to redirect a site 2 or 3 times before reaching the actual intended URL.

How To Do 301 Redirects in WordPress

Considering that there are different ways to do 301 redirects for different development programs, we are just going to focus on one, that being WordPress. Essentially, the two methods that are used for WordPress to do redirects are the Redirection WordPress Plugin, or manually redirecting from the .htaccess files.

WordPress Plugin Redirection: This plugin found on the wordpress.org site is one that manages 301 redirections and tracks any 404 errors that may be present on your site. This plugin is especially useful when attempting to migrate pages from an older site or when changing the directory location of your WordPress installation files. The WordPress Plugin redirection can be found Here.

If you view the features included in the plugin, you will soon realize its awesome versatility and how it makes 301 redirects quick and easy. It also gathers information that would otherwise need to be done manually, such as giving statistics on how many times a redirection of a specific URL has taken place, the dates and times when those redirects occurred, who issued the redirect, and where that URL is being found which generates the traffic to your site. Overall, it’s a rather useful and crafty tool, one where if you have a WordPress website, it would behoove you to install the Redirection plugin. The only word of warning for the plugin is that if there is a WordPress update, and the plugin was not updated by the developer along with it, the plugin may very well fail you. In that case you would have to do the redirects through the .htaccess file manually, which is what we will get into next.

.htaccess File For Static Redirects: For those of you who would rather do it manually, perhaps for the sake of thoroughness, perhaps so as not to rely on plugins, but either way, it is definitely a bit more difficult to write them all in by hand as well as time consuming. With that said, let’s jump right into it by first discussing a few important aspects of using .htaccess to do redirects.

Before editing begins, make a backup of your .htaccess file. You don’t want to make any mistakes that couldn’t be undone.
On a single line, you are able to insert as many redirect statements that are necessary, but it’s easier to discern them individually if you write them on separate lines.
500 internal server errors frequently occur when the code written for redirects is wrong or incorrectly stated. A 500 internal server error is essentially a generic message that is given when no other message to be given was specified. Essentially being the error message for an error message.
Ensure that after you have completed your redirect, that the URL was indeed redirected properly.

Once these above points have been recognized, it’s time to do the redirects themselves. To start you open up the .htaccess file. At the end of the file, or next to other redirects if they are present, you write in exactly how it is written below, so as an example:

redirect 301 /(error URL)/ /www.url.com/(redirected URL)/

Notice the space between /(error URL)/ and /www.url.com/(redirected URL)/, without that space, you would essentially be saying the URL you want redirected is /(error URL)//(redirected URL)/ and did not state the where it is to be redirected. Without including the space, you will certainly receive a 500 error.

You then continue through all of the errors that are coming up in this manner, going through them one by one, and checking to make sure each has been redirected properly. It’s simple enough, but can become a large hassle the more errors there are to deal with.

If you need help with 301 redirects, improving your site health, or any other SEO concern that may arise, and are looking for an SEO consulting firm to assist you, be sure to contact CustomerParadigm.com right now! We’ll be able to help you whether you’re an old and/or established website looking for improvements, or a fresh and brand new one looking to start things off on the right foot. We have the experience and knowledge necessary to deal with any and all SEO problems, helping you to rank better for specific keywords, receive more traffic, increase brand awareness, and allow for better opportunities to increase conversions.

Nov 1, 2012

5 Must Know eBusiness Stats for 2012

Being involved in internet marketing, you are well aware that inbound marketing is just as essential as opening the front door of your business. It’s the first step that allows leads to get to your business. But, unfortunately accomplishing/magento-development/internet-marketing/social-media/ this is not as easy as a physical location with people walking by. No, with a website you not only have to open your door (index your site) you have to open doors where the traffic is.

This is where inbound marketing techniques associated with social media come to play!

Don’t be mistaken social media isn’t solely an avenue for you to post all your products and shout about how great you are. Instead it is becoming increasingly influential in consumption behaviors. It’s becoming a new avenue for customer service. People are tweeting for customer help, and responses have been speedy and saved business relationships.

With the growth of social media, the skeptics were hesitant to get on board and dedicate time to managing their social media avenues. It has undoubtedly become an influential factor in business. Now arise the big questions, how can we leverage this factor for greater business?

5 Tempting eBusiness Statistics of 2012 & What to do!

1. LinkedIn for B2B Leads

According to Social Media B2B, LinkedIn generated the most B2B leads for any company. When businesses were asked if they were actively using LinkedIn as a social media medium only 45% of businesses said they actively used LinkedIn.

If you are a B2B company, and not actively using LinkedIn you could be missing out on business opportunities. The first step is to create a business page on LinkedIn. Let your existing employees know you have created a business LinkedIn profile, so that they can connect and more users can find you.

Follow Customer Paradigm on LinkedIn >> Follow Here

2. CEO’s Get Involved!

According to an article by eMarketer it is important to consumers that CEO’s are involved in their social media communication. Seventy-seven percent of consumers say they will be more likely to buy from a company if the CEO or upper level management is involved in their social media communication. Almost 95% of people said that they view the brand as more trustworthy and overall increase brand image when management is involved in social media.

We know that CEO’s are busy and their list of to-do’s seems like an endless pad of paper. If the head management is unable to directly facilitate social media channels, then always post on their behalf.

3. Lower Barriers of Involvement

Account Login Requirement statistics We know you are trying to collect information to keep involved with your customer base or viewers, but beware that collecting information as a requirement can be a huge barrier to entry and decrease your user involvement. According to Marketing Sherpa 86% of people say they are irritated when the website requires them to make a new account.

As a business you have two options, understanding that asking a user to sign up for your site to view it is asking a bit much. Why don’t you just marry me now and then I will talk to you later? This makes no sense.

Option 1: Take your barrier to entry out and write engaging content that brings users back because of genuine interest. Eventually they will give their information and sign up for your newsletter.

Option 2: Provide options for the user. Don’t give them one option, for example don’t make them sign in only through your services. Provide them with Google, Facebook, Yahoo, and other third party sign-in options.

4. Write Blogs & Share

It is argued that blogs are the single most important inbound marketing tool. Why? Because (according to Mindjumpers) blogs and social media reach about eighty percent of all internet users in the United States. There is a high correlation between blogging frequency and the number of customers acquired. According to Hubspot 92% of blogs that posted multiple times a day acquired more customers.

Blogging is an important tool for your inbound marketing strategy. Don’t doubt the power of a good blog with useful information. A statistic which should get the ball rolling on your blogging is that B2B companies with blogs generate close to 70% more leads than companies with no blog.

If your website needs to integrate a blog, call Customer Paradigm at 303.473.4400 to speak with a real person about how we can create a blog and generate more inbound leads. Remember, develop strong, useful topics, write clearly and spread the news.

5. Accessible on a Mobile Platform

E-mails and websites are increasing in viewership through a mobile device. 4.8 billion people own phones, and on average 50% of B2B sites are being viewed through a mobile device. The strange statistic is that 75% of all marketers are aware of the increase in viewership through a mobile device but only about 20% of marketers find it a critical move to develop a mobile platform.

I like to be ahead of the curve, not reacting to the change because it becomes a critical function for business to continue to survive. If your B2B company sees a trend for an increase in mobile device visits bring up a mobile website as a critical issue. Trust me, your business will be thanking you for pressing the development.

If your business is in need of a mobile platform development, call Customer Paradigm now at 303.473.4400 to talk to a real person. We listen to your business goals and help you market yourself to accomplish your business goals while meeting the consumers needs.

I hope you found these 5 statistics of 2012 interesting, and provided you with some great ideas to branch your business out and grow with the changes of technology and consumer behavior trends. Please follow us on Twitter @custparadigm to keep up with more trends ad updates.

Oct 22, 2012

Unnatural Link Profiles – Causes, Actions and Solutions – Disavow Tool

Spammy Links, Give Me Back My Traffic! Please?

On October 16, 2012 Google has responded to the cries from websites who have lost their search engine ranking positioning due to an unnatural or spammy link profiles. A spammy link profile can be created without you lifting a finger or engaging in any black hat SEO tactics, or link-building scams. It can simply be born from “unnatural links” that direct back to your website.

For example, you are the owner of a flower business which sell bouquets of deliverable flowers and suddenly as a result of your poor link profile, your natural traffic is gone. You begin to panic, that’s thousands of dollars in revenue you’re losing every day. You begin to do your research and find that many websites not in your industry or related to you are linking back to you. This is frequently an issue when companies engage in black hat SEO tactics that gain links through spammy comments from anywhere they can. Being as smart as you are, you ask the important questions, “How did these poorly related links start?” “What do I do now?”

As they look through their link profile they begin to identify thousands of inbound links from unrelated sites such as house building, mechanical, adult content and more. It’s coming up on Valentine’s day, the day of their biggest sales and showing up on rankings is important. What do they do?

The First Steps Are Always The Hardest

Identify the Source of the Issue

With any issue it is important to look at the symptoms, identify the issue, and then take action. In this case, your symptom is that you have lost all search engine traffic to your website. The issue comes down to one of two: you are engaging in SEO practices that are building you spammy link profiles, or, you are not engaging in SEO practices and the poor links are being created naturally.

If you are paying for an SEO service, call them now and let them know you have received a notification that your website has received an unnatural link profile notification and your search traffic has dropped dramatically. Request a link profile analysis and instruct them to stop all link-building for your site. After you have received your link profile and have gone through it to mark all inbound links which you believe are hurting your profile, send it back to your service and request to have them fix the situation. (Note: This is a very long process. It is easy to have your links go up on a site that is poorly managed, but having the moderators search through the site for you is a very difficult task that rarely gets done.)

If you are not paying for any SEO service, and poor links have been born naturally contact us today or call us at 303.473.4400 to talk to a real person about your unnatural link notification. We will analyze your website and your link profile, and help you work to bring your site back to full traffic.

To help the process be easier as you go, create a .txt file with all the links you are working on and their status. The best format is to have a commented out section stating the progress of that link. For example:

#contacted admin 5 times, last contact October 22, 2012

http://www.annoyingdomain.com

Cleaning the Grime of Bad Links With Persistence and Patience

As noted above, if you begin to clean your link profile it will be a long process and if it isn’t tell me how you did it. First, you must contact the moderators or site admins of each root link and the more work you can do to get rid of the link the better. For example, anticipate that the moderators are not going to be very happy that you are saying their site linking to your attributing to your poor traffic. That’s not exactly a compliment to them. The best strategy I have come across is being as courteous and helpful as possible.

Explain that you are trying to tailor your link profile to domains relative to yours. Find the exact page on their site and let them know the anchor text which is linking to your website and request to have it removed. If the moderator or site admin is polite enough they will e-mail you and let you know it has been done. If not, continue to check in on the link periodically.

Remember >> Persistence and Patience

If All Else Fails: Google Disavow Link

Google doesn’t want your website to fail, if you have been hit with a poor link profile. Sometimes it just comes down to the mistake of signing up for an all inclusive SEO package with too many confusing points to begin with. You hoped with all their beautiful testimonials circulating throughout their site that there was some truth to it. Who can blame you? Unfortunately, there are plenty of SEO companies who do not keep up on the new algorithm changes and still engage in old tactics that now cause harm to your business and more specifically website traffic.

You’ve Done It All, Still No Results… What Now?

Only after you have contacted all the administrators to have your links removed and have been persistent and patient, should you turn to the Google disavow tool. It is important that you understand this should be your last resort. Google has made it very clear that this should not be used loosely to heal your link profile.

Now that we are on the same page, here’s what you need to know about the Google disavow link tool.

What You Need: Google Webmaster Tools Profile

Make sure you have your website set up on Google webmasters >> Google.com/webmasters/

If you already have that set up then you can visit the Google Disavow Link Page >> Here

Select the website from the menu in your Google webmasters tools which you would like to clean up the link profile for.

You will then be prompted to upload a file which contains all the links you wish to disavow.

Creating a Valid Disavow File – BE CAREFUL

The Google disavow file is a very simple .txt file

My first warning, I say be careful for a reason. Matt Cutts from Google has said once a link has been disavowed, re-avowing a link will take a lot longer. So make sure that the links you wish to disavow have been properly identified as a spammy link.

It has been recommended to create this file while working on cleaning up your link profile (as mentioned above). It is important to add comments and work on the status of your requested disavow links, this one, keeps you organized, secondly, lets Google know you have been working on it.

Here is the format:

# Note about your Progress such as: Contacted siteadmin of badlink.com on 10/22 and have had no response

http://www.badlink.com/content4.html

http://www.badlink.com/content21.html

# Comment about next bad link

http://www.badlink2.com/right-now-help/

http://www.badlink2.com/mechanics-need-help-too/

The disavow links can be used on two levels. You can disavow links on a site wide level in this case you would put the root domain on its own line in the example file shown above. Or, you can request disavow links on specific pages within a site. This would be used for example, if you have built one good piece of content and have sourced it to that website, then you engaged in poor comment spamming throughout the site on irrelevant topics.

The disavow file will work similar to a .htaccess file for your website. You will be able to upload, download and modify the existing file if there are changes you need to make.

How Long Do I have to Wait?

After all the long work and organizing, you’ve uploaded your disavow list, now how long? According to Matt Cutts from Google it will take 2 weeks to a month for Google to crawl your requested disavow links and re-index your site.

It is important to know that Google will treat all the disavowed links as “strong suggestions” treated similar to a “no follow” tag on a link.

I hope that this guide has helped you understand the steps you should take if you receive an unnatural link profile warning from Google or have experienced a dramatic drop in natural traffic. It is important that you employ companies that engage in white-hat SEO tactics and are constantly working and staying plugged in with that’s new and next with Google. If your website is a victim of poor link-building please contact Customer Paradigm today at 303.473.4400 to talk to a real person and have your website analyzed. Work with our professional SEO team to get your site back to health and move forward with solid proven SEO tactics today.

Alisa Carscaden //
No Comments //
Articles, Blog, Internet Marketing, Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Oct 9, 2012

Facebook Plans for A Search Engine: Opinions of The Crowds

Confirmed: Facebook is Building a “Search Related” Tool

Oh how the opinions are coming out as Mark Zuckerberg founder of the social media platform Facebook brings his serious face to discuss the growth into a Facebook search engine. As he calmly boasts without even trying at Disrupt that, “we’re [Facebook] basically doing 1 billion queries a day”. For years it has been in the game plan but with the expansion of dealing with many other trends business takes time.

The Facebook evolution has grown so much. He has revealed to us that Facebook will be starting their own search entity. Currently there are search queries such as “where to eat Italian”. He has admitted that the results are not worthwhile, but where there’s a demand a business will supply.

What Do We Know About the Facebook Search Tool

Everyone is crawling over the new details based on what Mark Zuckerberg has said in relation to the new tool. What functionality will it hold? What will dictate the search results? Does it really have the power to compete with Google?

To be honest we all know very little about what functionality the tool will actually hold. But, we do know one thing that the search tool is being created and the questions which have sparked interest to spur the project have been in relation to businesses and friends.

“Where have my friends gone to get sushi in New York?”

For Users: From this, I assume that there will be a higher ranking for result within your friendship network.

For Businesses: Encouraging check-ins and ratings for your business will increase the likelihood for repeat customers or showing up higher in search results performed by friend networks.

“Do any of my friends work at X business?”

For Users: You may have a better chance of getting in contact with specific individuals that work at a location without having to go through the entire LinkedIn process of requesting people to be in your network or unable to message individuals without an upgraded account. You may also be able to research more about a business before you sign up. On a privacy note if you don’t want to talk about work or be contacted for an internal opinion you may want to change your privacy settings for employment.

For Businesses: The businesses who have been skeptical about getting involved in social media and Facebook should deeply consider there involvement and employee moral. A disgruntled employee randomly contacted could be the difference between a great new employee which you have been aiming to get. LinkedIn should also consider their accessibility to connect with other users.

Opinions: Will Facebook Search Engine Sink or Swim?

The first question for me is, “why now?” Is it because Zynga isn’t doing well and I don’t think will last much longer than another year? Currently Zynga is reported to be 11% of Facebook’s income. Are they trying to create avenues of revenue through this grand search engine idea?

Undoubtedly, as Zuckerberg explains many times Facebook is well positioned to create a search engine.

1. Their tool starts out with billions of users

2. An already well established social network and there is no learning curve of their existing customer base on how to use the product.

3. Users are already tapped into individuals with opinions that they trust.

4. There has been proven marketability through Facebook.

You couldn’t ask for a better starting point. But the question really comes down to, if they can succeed?

With the news of the new Facebook Search Engine coming out Greenlight Digital created a report asking individuals:

“Would you use Facebook Search Engine over your preferred search engine?”

The Big Opinions..

The Google Enthusiast

“This whole idea is a joke. Why would I want to use Facebook for search when I can use far larger and more comprehensive search engines like Google? I guess it depends on whether you’re looking for accurate information or something your stoner friend clicked “Like” on a couple of years ago. Regarding the example given above for sushi restaurants, frankly I trust the comprehensiveness of Zagat reviews more than the limited experience of a friend visiting New York.” -Yahoo User

“Man, when are you fools going to quit this, OH I THINK THEY CAN COMPETE WITH GOOGLE CRAP!, ZUCK talks alot , but maybe and truthfully , all of you will admit maybe, FB’s focus should be services that actually make money…” -Anonymous

The Facebook Enthusiast

“Zuck is a pimp he will killlll the goog.” -Facebook User

The Know-it-Alls

“Told you so 2 years ago!” – Facebook User

Your turn

What do you think about this Facebook Search Engine?

How will Google react?

Do you think Facebook can compete with Google?

If you enjoyed this article, please like our page: Facebook.com/Customerparadigm

Oct 9, 2012

Twitter Stepping Up SEO Factors

The wildest SEO moves by big companies are done in the secrets of the night.

You may not know this, but Twitter has launched a user directory which contains every twitter account. The full directory is accessible when you are logged out of Twitter, it is located in the footer and basically works as a Sitemap. A smart SEO move for websites is to always put the sitemap on the home page because it is the first page this crawled the most thoroughly. By placing this new user directory on the homepage Twitter is putting every user profile up for the crawl call.

First: Results on Hashtag Association

Well. I wouldn’t call this wild, but Twitter has made big changes in the crawlability of users accounts. For example, when searching for information on Google specific tweets are now showing up in search results. From my results, I have seen that it has mainly been in relation to keywords associated to hastags “#”.

For instance, if you label a tweet with a hashtag and it has been retweeted multiple times which increases it’s value and association it is probable that your tweet will show up in it’s own individual search result. Twitter has developed a page result, it displays the users profile with the specific tweet below and the interactions as a result of the tweet.

Follow Customer Paradigm’s Twitter: @custparadigm

Second: Results on Directory Profiles

Twitter has made the profiles of each Twitter user indexed. https://twitter.com/i/directory/profiles/

What does this mean for users?

For businesses this increases the SEO value of association to your username. Which makes creating and picking a username even more important. For example all the above names and associated Twitter accounts will result under the keyword search for “Annette”. Although, I say now that the importance of picking a username will affect your exposure of your Twitter account while that is true now. I am always thinking about what is to come next.

With the current downward trending of Exact Match Domain (EMD) url’s I think eventually the same will take affect for Twitter usernames. For instance, SEO accounts that do not active tweet will rank lower for their Twitter profile despite the fact that their profile url is Twitter.com/SEO. In the end I believe it will come down to the quality of tweets over time. Yes, we do tweet about the occasional weather update or something that is not within the collective interest of our followers, but essentially it will play the same role as new content.

Follow Customer Paradigm Twitter @CustParadigm

How to Make Your Profile Indexed?

Google bots are currently running through the new directory of millions of Twitter profiles to be indexed. There are currently 673,000 profiles that have indexed through Google and Bing crawls a bit slower than Google.

Why Hasn’t This Been Done From The Start?

If I was running Twitter I would be doing anything and everything to continue to gain traction for all my profiles and make Twitter accounts an even more enticing tool for social media bloggers and SEO guru’s.

So, why now?

1. Google Real Time Search Results

When Twitter first started out there were many issues between Google and Twitter. If you remember Google launched a “real time” search results to increase the relevance of people searching for issues at that moment in time. For example if you were searching about “Colorado Fires” Google wanted the search results to come up in accordance with the latest fires not the “history of fires in Colorado”.

With this real time change came a huge emergence of Twitter feeds showing up in SERP’s and taking over the top 10 rankings. Because Twitter was the “real time” of news, if there was an event people were tweeting about it and this was especially true during sporting events. As quietly as the real time change came into the search engine, it quickly slipped away.

2. Twitter SEO Value

Talk about a nightmare of content from an SEO perspective, even though you have plenty of content that is fresh and new and great interactions, you have an undeniable amount of duplicate content kindly named “re tweeting” and tweets in general are taking snippets from big articles and spreading them.

With the cleaning up of the content and information, Twitter has finally come to a position where there content will no longer create poor SEO value, so the timing is perfect for indexing profiles.

Oct 8, 2012

CP Client AeriNOx Inc. – U.S. Based Selective Catalytic Reduction

AeriNOx Inc.

When Boulder-based AeriNOx Inc. approached Customer Paradigm for help with SEO and internet advertising, it seemed like a perfect fit. AeriNOx is one of the first U.S.-based companies to install Selective Catalytic Reduction Systems for stationary diesel or natural gas engines used for industrial processes. Selective catalytic reduction reduces NOx emissions from industrial engines, helping protect the environment from dangerous greenhouse gases. This certainly fits in with our Boulder environmental sensibilities.

For years, the kind of cutting-edge industrial emission control technology which AeriNOx specializes in was only produced and installed by companies based in Europe, especially Germany. Europe has had more stringent industrial emissions requirements than the U.S. for many years. However, greater awareness of the impact of industrial emissions in the U.S. has led to more stringent emissions requirements for U.S. industries, and necessitated the kind of equipment and know-how that AeriNOx possesses. For more information visit AeriNOx-Inc.com.

For more information about how SEO and web-based advertising can grow your business, please visit us at CustomerParadigm.com/SEO.

Scott Belford //
No Comments //
Blog, Internet Marketing, Online Advertising, Our Clients, PPC, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), SEO

Sep 28, 2012

Google AdWords: Unique Sitelink Extensions

Google sent out a policy enforcement e-mail in regards to the Sitelink Ad Extension. If you are using sitelinks now, or are considering using sitelinks extension then this a blog post for you.

What is the Sitelink Extension?

A sitelink ad extension is a feature on your Google Adwords campaign which allows you to add links to specific landing pages below your CPC listing. For example when searching for art supplies, dickblick.com comes up with 4 links to interior landing pages: Art Supplies, Clearance, Hot Deals of the Week and New Products. There is a limit of 10 links you can add to you listing, which helps the click-through rate for your campaign. Among 11 links inclusive of the main title link to your website you are bound to have one link which entices the user based upon their search query.

Google’s Change to Sitelink Ad Extensions

As always Google is catering to the end user. As a result they are constantly seeking out strategies which have created loopholes diminishing the end users experience. With the gracious amount of sitelinks (10) people are abusing the space and use by creating multiple links to the same page. For example, dickblick.com could be abusing this extension by adding Art Supplies to their interior page e.g. /art-supplies/and also linking the text “Cheap Art Supplies” to the same interior page. Shown Below:

Unique Sitelink Ad Extensions

There is going to be an enforcement change to these extensions which will prevent the linking of the same landing page with different link text. This is to not only increase the users experience by giving them genuinely different options, but to strengthen the value of your CPC listing by providing links to unique content within your site.

What does this mean for my existing sitelink extensions?

Initially Google says they will focus on new sitelink extensions which are being created in the system. If your ad campaign does not adhere to the new standards your ad extension will be disapproved and not appear in search results. Next Google will start going through the ads which are being served for search queries and grade the performance of associated ad extensions. It is important to not be complacent about this issue and allow your text ads to run without the extension, it will directly affect the value of your text ads. Having non-eligible sitelinks could result in lower CTR and ultimately less visibility.

How much time do I have?

I received the e-mail on September 28th, according to the e-mail they will be going through the links in the next couple months, so I assume near the beginning of December ad campaigns will begin to be affected by this issue. Let us know if you see any changes in your campaigns.

Questions about Your Existing CPC Ad-Extensions

If you would like more information about this sitelink policy visit here.

If you need help managing your existing CPC Campaign call us now at 303.473.4400 to talk to a real person about your internet marketing strategies. We will work with you to drive profitable traffic to your site.

Sep 5, 2012

Facebook Taking Action Against Fake Likes

To many SEO companies it seems like an easy formula.

Increasing your social media interactions increases the user interactions which increases your Google rankings. So, start at the beginning and increase your social media interactions to increase your Google rankings. Voila! It’s done.

No. Be cautious of SEO companies which tell you they can increase your Facebook likes to 1,000 by the weekend. This may sound like a great perk, I couldn’t get 1,000 likes by this weekend or 3 months for that matter, but fake likes don’t increase your value.

If you haven’t, read my post on: Fake Social Media Fans or Google Reviews

Facebook Cracking Down on Fake Likes

The main goal of cracking down on fake likes is to stop programs which generate fake “likes” for a business. Although this is said to possibly influence only a handful of likes, Facebook wants to act now to take a stand against poor business practices. My theory is that they know that social media plays a role with Google, and by taking action to have integrity in their metrics they will continue to be included. I can understand this, if they begin to lose integrity for being a true source of reviews, they will become mis-leading and less used.

In all honesty, I would not say many users go onto their Facebook pages and view a business and determine if that business has 100 likes they must be great! There is not a cap on the amount of likes a page can have, whereas a true rating system is on a fixed scale. More or less I have found it true that many Facebook users like a business page as more of a way to “subscribe” to the business’s news feed. I personally liked SEOmoz on Faceboook so that I could see their news feed in the mix with all my friends post updates. Not because I wanted to check them out on Facebook and evaluate how many likes they had to determine if I was willing to visit their website. I’d love to hear your thoughts on the legitimacy of Facebook acting on this issue.

If not that, then this?

Here is my possible speculation on what is really going on. Some articles have quoted that with the improved elimination of fake likes it will only affect 1% or less likes on any given page. That seems like a very small amount to make a big deal about.

My theory is we should be expecting a rating system similar to Yelp and Google Local Pages. Since people are checking in quite often through Facebook pages linking reviews seems to be the next logical step. What do you think?

Oh… speaking about Fake “likes” you should like our page on Facebook >> Like Here

Sep 4, 2012

Magento Retailers Represent With Google Trusted Store Badge

Get the Google Trusted Store Badge

Magento is now a proudly offering the Google Trusted Store Badge. With Google’s great reputation of advancing the internet, there is a trust associated with their brand. As they continue to increase users experience with every click across the internet, we now see a visible rating for quality.

There are not many forms in which Google rates websites. At least not visible to the common public. We do see the ratings on Google local pages, but that is a reflection of user ratings.

Features of the Google Trusted Store Badge?

The Trusted Store Badge works as a “report card” of how well your eCommerce store performs. In order to earn the badge your site must exhibit fast, reliable and responsive customer service. Once your website has been approved, you will receive a grade. The badge will hover in a fixed position at the bottom right of your screen so it is visible during the entire shopping experience on your eStore. Upon hovering over the badge the grade will show. Below is a screenshot of the hover view from http://www.dickblick.com an art supply eCommerce store.

http://www.dickblick.com

Benefits & Drawbacks of Google Trusted Store Badge

Potential Benefits

Google has many case studies which support the benefits of having the badge >> View Here

Increase in average order size
Increase in conversion rate
Ability to show an essential rating system on your page
Badge show up in Adword ads

Potential Drawbacks

Forums have revealed an abundant concern for privacy, the code requires that the shipping address of every customer is revealed to Google.

Get the Google Trusted Store Badge

There are many resources for installing the badge onto your eCommerce store. Many people are coming across bugs trying to replicate the codes. My best advice is follow the steps that Google has put in place.

If you use Magento >> Get the Badge Here

Through Google >> Get the Badge Here

eCommerce Platforms for Google Trusted Store Badge

Although you are able to receive the badge through any eCommerce store, this is where people are coming across bugs trying to replicate the code for their own eCommerce platforms. Currently Google has easily integrated this feature with the three following eCommerce sites:

Magento
3dCart
Core Commerce

If your current eCommerce store does not have the full functionality you are looking for, consider migrating your eCommerce site to Magento. Magento is a eCommerce platform that was designed with eCommerce in mind and is tailored to maximize sales and usability.

Aug 23, 2012

Lost Reviews on Google Local Business Profiles

Are you a business owner whose reviews have disappeared from your Google Local page? One day, you had a great review and when you scanned back through the reviews it was gone. Don’t let yourself believe this is a glitch in the system; there is a reason and a method to these lost reviews.

The disappearance of these reviews has been monitored and under suspicion since 2006. Google has placed a filter to avoid black-hat SEO tactics such as spam reviews. This is when a group of individuals posts false reviews on the Google Local Page to boost their page rankings. In their goal to avoid fake comments, there has been an unfortunate loss of legitimate reviews which has left many business owners frustrated. For more information on fake social media followers read: Fake Social Media Followers.

If you have lost a Google Local Page review and would like Google to restore it: Click Here.

Fair warning, with any communication to the great Google a response is never guaranteed.

What Are the Rules for Reviews?

Often to increase rankings, businesses solicit for reviews. For example: “Post a review on our Google Local Page and receive 10% off your next rafting trip”. This mass call for reviews results in a rush of evaluations within a close time frame which can result in solicited reviews being flagged and ultimately deleted from your business profile. Due to the flagging, you run the risk of losing legitimate reviews which have been batched into a specific time frame.

I believe it is Google’s goal to have people review on their own accord, without being prompted. If your customers are so pleased with your services they are compelled to write, it will result in a random pattern of reviews.

But, What if Your Business works in Waves?

A big question on my mind is, “What if I run an event planning company?” Events are not held on a consistent path, there are spikes and naturally with these spikes may come waves of reviews. How is a small business to hold these legitimate reviews if the natural cycle of business is moving from peak to peak?

As an SEO specialist I can say we are constantly chasing after Google and their algorithm change. As much as you try to cut them out of the chain of influence, it’s Google’s game with their rules. This may be one instance where Google needs to reconsider their filter to avoid losing legitimate reviews for business owners. One simple solution is for businesses to start looking for other forms of review sources to have people check out and post their reviews, one that will not filter the reviews without warning. I am not saying to avoid using Google reviews period, the reviews will always matter in your rankings and they will still occur naturally. But, instead directing your personal reviews to another website may be a profitable move.

Reviews With A Safety Net

If you are a business that does work in waves, you should be cautious of your reviews. A good practice to adapt would be copying and keeping any legitimate reviews you do receive. If they are deleted, you will have no other way to refer to the reviews without a copy. Make sure you set up your Google Local Page to send your e-mails whenever you receive a new review.

I know it is very difficult to receive business reviews and when you do get them they mean a lot. It’s a way for people publicly proclaim how you have been doing. As rare as it may be in some work places to receive feedback, you get the joy of feedback of your work from your customers and through a filter those legitimate may be incorrectly deemed fake. This is still a situation which is completely speculative, but under the microscope to be watched. If you have any updates on this situation or you have been affected please tell us about your experience.

Alisa Carscaden //
1 Comment //
Blog, Internet Marketing, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Social Media

Aug 22, 2012

404 Errors – Maintaining Your Website Health Through SEO

There’s nothing more frustrating to a user who is trying to find a page on your website and up pops the lovely and usually creative 404 error page. As creative and funny as your 404 error page may be, there is nothing more disheartening to the user than attempting to find the information they need and be faced with a wall. There are two real issues at hand with a 404 error page, first being the risk of losing a potential clients, second being the loss in SEO value to your website. I will go over both of these issues in length and tell you why it is important to maintain the health of your website and the ways which you can do this.

What is a 404 Error?

A 404 page is an error page that results when a page does not exist. For example, if you were to create a page and the page were to be removed from your website, and the URL was to be requested again a 404 error page would result. Another way 404 errors can arise is the changing of pages, for example on a basic html site if you changed the services page from services.html to Services.html the old page would result in a 404 error unless both pages were kept. The only way these errors are shown is if the previous URL’s have been indexed.

Risk 1: Potential Loss of Clients

If you want more site traffic on your website, you should always be providing great service. Referrals and recommendations are the main contributing factors to a strong conversion. Have you ever tried out a new restaurant and what you intended to order they are out of? It lists the item on their menu, but whenever you order it, the waiter informs you they can not fulfill that request. This is essentially a 404 error in the restaurant. You know it exists because the menu shows you it does, just as Google knows it exists because they have crawled it and seen it. But when you order it, the request is not filled. Luckily in a restaurant the waiter is able to notify the staff that you are out of the ingredients to produce a certain menu item, and it is quickly brought to the staffs attention. Even better, the waiter is able to suggest other items or compensate a potential client for a meal.

In the website world, you do not have a waiter that quickly informs you when you are not providing a request. You don’t have the opportunity to reach out to the potential client and offer them a page they could request instead. With the inability to interact and maintain clients, it makes it even more important to monitor and have “waiters” that monitor the health of your website. This is why hiring an SEO service is fundamental to keeping the marketing of your website running smoothly to avoid losing potential clients.

Risk 2: Loss in SEO Value of Your Website

As always Google’s goal is to produce the most valuable websites for any given search query. The websites are determined based on a complex algorithm which dictates the strength, usability and how relative a website is. When Google crawls your webpages and finds broken internal links which lead to 404 errors as a result the SEO value is decreased in the usability metric.

Why is SEO value decreased?

For one the usability is less, because the internal links don’t lead anywhere. Second, the indexed page content has been lost which also decreases the SEO value because your page does not hold the same amount of information as it once did. Even if you have a page that has been renamed, the page authority begins to accumulate from the starting point. If Google crawls your website many times and it continues to run into the same errors, your page can be penalized.

If you are interested in finding how many 404 errors your website we are offering a free SEO analysis.

How to Identify 404 Errors on Your Website

There are many ways to identify 404 errors, but I am going to go over the 2 that are most frequently used.

1. Crawl Reports

A crawl report is a diagnostic report which goes through your website similar to a Google bot and produces all the broken links or indexed pages that result in a 404 error. Crawl reports also produce other SEO information which may hurt the productivity of your website. If you are interested in a free crawl report fill out this simple form >> Here

2. Google Webmasters

Google webmasters tools will identify the health of your website. If you go to http://www.google.com/webmasters/

Sign in –> Health –> Crawl Errors

Google will only show crawl errors as they are found by Google. With a crawl report you are able to have the advantage of identifying crawl errors before they get to Google and you are penalized with a devalued SEO score. Another disadvantage to Google webmasters over a crawl report is the need to fix each error manually. This is not a disadvantage if you only have a few 404 errors, but when you are handling thousands it can quickly become a cumbersome task.

Fixing a 404 Error

There are many methods to fix 404 errors, again I will go over my personal recommended methods.

1. Hire an SEO service

If you are one of those business owners that wants to handle everything on your own, guaranteed you can be doing better things with your time like looking forward to where your business will take its next steps to continue to grow and keep up with the times. Handling your 404 errors is a constant process of monitoring and checking the health of your website. Trying to handle 404 errors on your own can result in internal errors and an unintentional de-indexing of a webpage.

2. Create 301 redirects

A 301 redirect is a permanent redirect which can be performed through your .htaccess file. A permanent redirect is saying to Google, “this is what the URL used to be, but now when it is requested I would like you to produce this new URL”.

This is done through your .htaccess file with the lines of : old URL/ New URL

3. Remove pages from Index

If the requested page is resulting in a 404 error, you can completely remove the page from being indexed and followed. This can easily be done through many CMS.

If you have any questions regarding your 404 errors please feel free to comment, fill out the contact form below or call us at 303.473.4400. If you are interested in quality white hat SEO services see what Customer Paradigm has to offer >> here.

Aug 21, 2012

SEO and Fake Social Media Fans

Yes it is true that social media is playing an increasingly important role in the SEO value of your website. This is no surprise, after all if Google wants to produce websites that are relative it is intuitive that users will interact with a site the more they find it useful. It’s easy to think creating fake profiles and liking your page will help your social media profile, ultimately helping the SEO value of your webpage.

Below is a popular offer from a fake twitter follower company: Buy Active Fans. They provide 10 tiers of prices and quantity for Twitter followers. If you are interested in this service they are a great company.

If this is All I Have to do, Why isn’t Everyone Doing It?

You know the saying, “sounds too good to be true” well in this case, if it is so easy for a company to buy 100,000 extra followers and it increases their SEO value, why don’t you see the leading companies doing this? You would think an extra $95 a month to increase their Twitter followers by 2,000 would be a menial cost. It is apparent to search engines like Google and even humans when your Twitter followers jump by a few thousand in a night.

Fake Twitter Followers has been highly scrutinized as a poor politics move. Mitt Romney increased his twitter following by 100,000 new followers over night. Why did he do this? Simply, popularity gains popularity. If his campaign strategists were able to show a bounding leap in followers and support it might change the potential voters mentality seeing a leap in support through his Twitter campaign. Unfortunately the illusion of popularity was revealed as a lie.

Buying fake twitter followers is becoming a black hat SEO tactic. Twitter and Facebook strongly discourage the purchasing of fake fans and followers to boost your online campaign. With Google’s Penguin update placing a strong emphasis on the need for quality content at a consistent rate, you have to remain ahead of the curve and assume the need for quality will trickle into your social media efforts.

Fake Followers and SEO Value

By purchasing fake followers your number of followers may increase but the interaction will not. Every true social media campaign is chasing the goal of achieving engagement and interest. Having your numbers skyrocket with no engagement will not increase your SEO value and you will no longer be considered a contender for your competition if you engage in poor SEO tactics.

Here is a great tool to check the quality of your Twitter Followers: Fake Twitter Followers

If you are interested in engaging your website and social media campaign in white hat SEO tactics that form quality results please contact us by filling out the contact form below or call us now at 303.473.4400 to talk to a real person.

Aug 20, 2012

Google Algorithm Update: Copyright

As all Google algorithms roll out, Google states that:

“Transparency is a core value at Google. As a company we feel it is our responsibility to ensure that we maximize transparency around the flow of information related to our tools and services.”

The Copyright Update:

All you SEO lovers, Google has done it again. This new update to the Google algorithm takes into consideration the number of valid copyright removal notices your have received in relation to your domain name. A “valid copyright removal” is a removal request from the copyright owners and government to remove information a website has published without permission. As a result if your website has multiple removal notices, you will appear lower in results.

The Reason for the Google Copyright Update:

Google’s goal is to provide the best search results for a search query, mainly the issue that has been an embarrassment has been search queries in relation to videos. To avoid individuals who have stolen media clips and prevent them from rising above the original in search rankings. As a result of this algorithm change the big player websites such at NBC, Hulu, and Spotify will show up high in rankings for a search query due to their licensing reputation.

Google’s Control: Copyright Laws

Google does not go through webpages looking for copyright infringement, as always it is always up to the copyright holder to act. Where is Google’s role in this process?

I want to stress that Google can NOT decide if a copyright has been infringed this is up to the courts. Read here for More Information.

Jul 9, 2012

What Really Matters to Search Engines

Advanced Search Engine Optimization (SEO): What Really Matters to Search Engines

eLearning Series

by Jeff Finkelstein

888.772.0777
303.499.9318

It used to be enough to just have relevant text on your site, and get a few inbound links. These still matter.

But other factors are also incorporated into the overall decision for how your site ranks for specific keywords.

Read more below >>

View of the Flatirons in Boulder, Colorado.
(Photo by Jeff Finkelstein)

Search Engine Optimization Advanced Strategies:

What Really Matters to Search Engines?

What Really Matters to Search Engine?

What really matters to a search engine like Google? Here’s a breakdown of the most important factors:

24%: Trust / Authority of the Website / Domain:

Nearly a quarter of your search engine ranking is based on the overall trust and authority of your website and domain name. If your site has original content, doesn’t appear "scammy" or "fly-by-night" and other people rely on your site as a resource for information, you’ll have a strong page rank and trust score.

Page Rank (named for Larry Page, co-founder of Google) assigns a numerical ranking to your site. Ten is the best — and only a handful of sites have a Page Rank of 10. Page rank 9 is reserved for top sites like the New York Times, CNN.com and others. Denver Craigslist is a 6, as is the Customer Paradigm site. Many sites have a zero page rank, especially if the site is new or doesn’t have much relevant content. Want to know your site’s Page Rank? Email me back, and we’ll let you know.

22%: Links to the specific page:

This does not mean any link to any page on your site (i.e. the home page). This measures how many inbound links you have to the specific page you rank for. The more inbound links to the page, the better.

That said, not all links are created equal. A single link from a highly trusted domain (see above) can be worth more than hundreds of inbound links from less relevant sites.

When CNN.com or NYTimes.com (both Page Rank 9 sites), for example, linked to my wife’s site, www.AdventureRabbi.org, this drastically boosted the overall relevancy of her site.

20%: Anchor Text of External Links:

Just having a link isn’t enough. Another 20% of your ranking is based on the words inside the link. You need the words in the link to specifically use keywords that matter.

For example a link that simply says, Click Here, ranks for the words, "Click Here." Not very helpful.

Instead, a link that reads – Visit here for Expert Magento Developers, ranks for "Expert Magento Developers."

15%: On Page Keyword Usage:

Content is still king. The words that you use on your page still matter. If you don’t have content on your site that matches what people are searching for, you’re likely not going to be ranked for those terms. Title tags are critical. H1 Headings show search engines what content is most important. Boldface text helps. Meta keywords, though, are just ignored.

7%: Traffic and Clickthrough Data:

You might think that it’s enough to have relevant text, a strong domain name, and great links pointing to your site. But if people "bounce" back to a search engine after briefly looking at your site, then your rankings will be diminished. Google and other search engines want to display the most relevant search results possible, and they track any time you:

Type in a search query
Visit a site
Hit the "Back" button to return back to the search results page

This is what is known as a "Bounce" in search engine marketing. In email marketing, bounces are when an email address doesn’t exist.

6%: Social Media Metrics:

Six percent of your search results rankings are based on social media metrics. For example, if there are a lot of people on Facebook or Twitter who post links to your site, this will help.

Think of it as a high school popularity contest. If everyone is pointing to you (via tweets on Twitter or "Likes" on Facebook or +1 on Google), then you’re considered the popular person, and seen as the authority. Google and other search engines reward you as a result.

I’d expect social media metrics to play an increasingly prominent role going forward in search engine rankings.

5%: Registration and Hosting Information:

Google and other search engines value websites that have "Withstood The Test of Time." Funny for an industry that’s only about 12 years old. But in order to prevent someone like me from registering a domain today, building a website tonight and stuffing it with keywords, Google places about 5% of your score based on domain name factors such as how old your domain is. A domain that was registered in 1999 will often outrank one that was just registered last week. In fact, many sites won’t even show up in Google’s index for six months or more. This is known as the Google Sandbox, although there are ways to have your site appear faster.

Top level domain name extensions matter. In the US, .com is considered the best for businesses. A .biz, .ws, .us or .net domain name is often secondary.

Where your site is hosted matters, too. If your site is hosted in Russia or China (the source of many shady businesses), you may be ranked lower than someone else who is hosted in the same country their business is located.

Finally, Google and other search engines look to see if all of your inbound links are coming from sites that are hosted at the same hosting company. For example, if all of your inbound links are from similar IP addresses, your site may not be perceived as relevant.

Summary:

There are many factors beyond relevant text and inbound links that matter to search engines.

Want help with your CPC Advertising or Lead Generation? We Can Help! Please call 303.499.9318 or 888.772.0777 to speak with a real person. Or click here to have a real person contact you now >>

I hope you found this case study helpful – please let me know if you’d like help with your online marketing.

Thanks,

Jeff FinkelsteinFounder, Customer Paradigm
Jeff Finkelstein
Founder, Customer Paradigm
jeff@customerparadigm.com
303.499.9318 x8282

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Customer Paradigm
5353 Manhattan Circle, Suite 103
Boulder, Colorado 80303

Visit our Website

direct		303.499.9318
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Web & Print Design · Programming · Email Newsletters · Search Engine Marketing · eCommerce

Alisa Carscaden //
No Comments //
Articles, Blog, Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

May 29, 2012

AAMCO Colorado Keyword achieved 10th ranking globally!

Customer Paradigm has the great privilege of working on AAMCO Colorado’s site. Through a strong SEO strategy, social media implementation and paid-advertisement campaign a milestone has been achieved! AAMCO Colorado now ranks 10th globally for the term “transmission repair”. After discussing with AAMCO Colorado what services are important to them, it was easily narrowed down to their specialty of transmission repairs. So we began our work optimizing their services pages for transmission repair, their CPC campaigns were optimized and our goals of keyword ranking were achieved much faster than we anticipated (no complaints there). The term transmission repair averages around 12,000 searches per month in the United States.

Below is a graph of the increase in AAMCO Colorado’s rankings for “transmission repair” from December 2011 to May 2012.

This graph shows that over the past seven months AAMCO Colorado’s rankings have increased by 100 rankings. Increasing in ranking is a process that takes time and patience. The rewards of increasing your visibility and rankings is worth the effort.

If you are interested in increasing your rankings and would like some Search Engine Optimization help call Customer Paradigm at 303.473.4400 or contact us now.

Alisa Carscaden //
No Comments //
Blog, Case Studies, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Success Stories

May 18, 2012

Google bots learning to read webpages like humans

Here’s another really interesting article about Google’s bots… they are now starting to execute javascript, so that they can use sites more like humans… Google bots learning to read webpages like humans, one step closer to knowing everything. -visit here to read.

Alex Taylor //
No Comments //
Articles, Blog, Magento eCommerce, Magento Programming, Online Advertising, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), SEO

May 16, 2012

Google's Knowledge Graph: Search Engine Channel Surfing

By Scott Belford, Internet Marketing Director

Today (Wednesday, May 16th, Google has rolled out the first version it’s Knowledge Graph. The Knowledge Graph enables Google users to search for things, people or places that Google “knows” about and instantly get relevant information in a “knowledge panel” in the upper right corner of their search result page. The contents of the knowledge panel varies for a given search query (and right now it only shows up for select search queries), but the purpose is to allow users to further refine their search results based on the intent of their query. A search for the word “buffalo” for instance, a yields a result that looks like this:

There’s a big “knowledge panel” on the right with a Google map of the city of Buffalo, NY, and some information and statistics about the city that Google has pulled from Wikipedia, and some links to points of interest. Note that the points of interest urls do not link to any web page, but another set up search results (with a corresponding “knowledge panel” that are relevant to the particular point of interest that you’ve selected. Below are some are other links to searches representing potential search intents that Google has anticipated it’s users may have when they type “buffalo” into their search bar, including “American Bison,” the “University of Buffalo,” and the “Buffalo Sabres” professional hockey team. Clicking on each option yields a new page of search results relevant to the particular category. Here is what I see if I click on “Buffalo Sabres,” for instance:

My search results have all changed to results that I would get from a search for “Buffalo Sabres,” and the knowledge panel on the right now has some information about the team, and links to search results for the city, coach, and a drop down menu showing search results for each player on the roster!

How is Google able to do this? Google boasts that it has compiled over 3.5 billion facts about the relationship with over 500 million objects. According to Amit Singhal, head of Google’s search department, Google is able to match each object in its database with the most searched-after associated facts. So for a search for “buffalo,” Google is able to anticipate a set of associations (American Bison, the City of Buffalo, the Sabres hockey team) that are based statistics and information that it’s compiled from millions of individual searches.

There will be much more on this topic. According to Singhal, Google has just scratched the surface of the complete implementation of Knowledge Graph. Right now, for instance, the Knowledge Graph based results are heavy on informational content but lacks actionable content (many users who search Buffalo Sabres, for instance, may be most interested in getting tickets to the next Buffalo Sabres game, and this information doesn’t seem to be included in the “knowledge panel” results), and it is not clear how and why Google selects the pages from which is culls images and content snippets for the “knowledge panels.” We will continue to follow this latest update from Google.

Customer Paradigm is a full service interactive agency specializing in search engine optimization, internet advertising, and website development for ecommerce. For more information, visit customerparadigm.com or contact us to speak to a real person now.

May 15, 2012

Shafner Law: New WordPress Site

Customer Paradigm had an amazing opportunity to work with Denver Attorney Alan Shafner on his new WordPress site. Alan Shafner has been raised in Denver, Colorado and has been practicing law for over 28 years. In 2011 he opened his own firm, The Law offices of Alan C. Shafner.

Alan Shafner focuses on many types of law, one specialty is Personal Injury Law; he has served a wide variety of scenarios and is equipped with expertise to handle your case. His personal injury law ranges from Colorado auto accidents to medical malpractice law.

Alan Shafner also focuses on fighting against elder abuse and abusive nursing homes. There can be many reasons for elder abuse in a nursing home; many are due to under-staffing, poor training methods, employees with violent histories or even neglecting to properly care and maintain the facility.

Shafner Law also handles commercial truck injuries, often there are multiple liable parties. There are many aspects associated to a commercial injury such as medical bills, insurance costs, representation, experience and resources. If you have been involved in a commercial truck injury Shafner Law is the Attorney for you.

For more information on website design or SEO Services please contact us or call us at 303.473.4400 to talk to a Real person.

Alisa Carscaden //
No Comments //
Design, Our Clients, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Website Design

May 15, 2012

Categorize this Magento!

What do we do when a search is made? Why can’t I display custom text for that search? Can I modify the pages that show up when a search is made?

These are all questions on our minds, especially if you are working on the SEO of your site. If you aren’t questioning this, get on the train because optimizing your individual product pages will make a difference for your conversion rates. Currently, Magento allows us to work on the defined category pages and insert HTML to add content or images. But, when using the search bar to peruse through all your available products, the end page that the customer lands on is not able to be modified. Until Now!

Customer Paradigms Magento Programmers have developed a Magento Extension that is simple to use, quick implementation and ads SEO value to your product pages through a dynamic search box. Below is a screen shot of this simple extension:

You are able to enter a custom search term, insert HTML into the Search Text for content development, and enable the status. That’s that, you’re ready to format!

For more information about Magento Programming or to get help now, call 303.473.4400 or contact us to speak to a real person now.

May 15, 2012

Nothing says Gluten Free Lipstick like some quality A/B Split Testing

What is A/B Split Testing? A/B testing is a scientific experience of web users behaviors based on changes of independent variables. These tests are performed to verify what may seem meaningless independent variables such as color, size, layout, location or even down to the font type to determine how users react to the changes differently.

Customer Paradigm is performing an A/B Split test for Red Apple Lipstick. In this case study, our goal is to determine which landing page yields more conversions, this particular scenario conversions is determined when users sign up to receive the newsletter. In this A/B test we have two variables, one is having a button instead of a small text and the other is adding relative content.

How can an A/B split testing be performed effectively? The best way to perform an A/B test is to face the process similar to a scientific experiment. First, you always have a control which is your base of comparison. For Red Apple Lipstick, our control was the landing page is below:

Notice, below the “Subscribe & Start Shopping” button there is a small text link that reads, “I don’t want to subscribe, I just want to see what you have.” Although our goal is to increase points of contact through users signing up for a newsletter, we also want to increase the overall click-through rate.

This is an alternative landing page with the small text “I don’t want to subscribe, I just want to see what you have” as a more visible button, we will call this version BUTTON. Through the BUTTON version, our goal is to increase conversions (newsletter sign-ups) while decreasing bounce rate from the landing page.

The second alternative landing page, features both a button for “I don’t want to subscribe, take me to your lipstick” in addition to a small content blog about the gluten free lipstick products. We will call this version BLOG:

Now to measure the A/B split test the alternative landing pages BUTTON and BLOG as well as the control page are active, when users click through ads unknowingly they are directed to one of these pages. In our test ideally we would like to wait until a total of 100 conversions are completed on each landing page. Since we cannot control traffic to our webpage, this turns into a waiting period until you reach the goal of 100 conversions. From the base point of 100 conversions we are able to draw conclusions and determine the performance due to the small changes in the independent variables.

For example, if we see that the BLOG landing page is able to increase newsletter sign ups through the change of more information we have increased our conversion rate. From here, we can apply this same theory to other pages that are performing poorly and add content to the site in hopes of increasing the conversion rate.

After 100 conversions on the BUTTON landing page, we see that there is a decrease in the conversion rate for newsletter sign-ups; we would want to change the button back into text. The final optimal landing page from our A/B test would be to have content on the page with no button.

If you are interested in performing an A/B split test to increase the conversions on your pages and work on your Search Engine Optimization please contact Customer Paradigm or call and talk to a real person at 303.473.4400.

May 14, 2012

Website Design and Thornton Design, now all we need is a bottle of wine.

When an interior designer collaborates with a website designer, the experience can be nothing less than thrilling. Julie Thornton owner of Thornton Design has been creating homes and business locations with the clients’ insights and aesthetics in mind. She has been working in Boulder and Denver Metro in the interior design industry for over 25 years working from the base of architectural design, to the last pieces in the backyard. She is known for her impeccable eye for bringing a room together down to every small detail. Her clients rave that having the opportunity to work collaboratively with Julie Thornton is an experience in its own.

Customer Paradigm’s Website Design team worked to build her a customized website in an afternoon. She knew that she was looking for something with a bit more customization, and we were happy to complete her vision for her website. Now Julie Thornton is able to receive new client leads through having a presence on the internet. She has also taken advantage of Customer Paradigms SEO services and is gaining a presence on Google relevant to her industry.

If you are interested in learning more about Customer Paradigms Website in an Afternoon or SEO Services please contact us or call a real person at 303.473.4400.

May 14, 2012

Rel="Canonical" vs. Pagination : Weeding Through Duplicate Content with a Paginated Sequence Tank

If you are working on any Magento E-commerce site, your website most likely falls under the umbrella of multiple products that can be categorized by more than one attribute. This makes it very likely that you will have many pages displaying the same products. So what can we do to avoid duplicate content of product listings? Just because your site has plenty of products to offer and a variety of ways to define precisely what you are looking for doesn’t mean you should suffer any duplicate content penalties.

Rel=”canonical” Tactic

One common solution is adding a rel=”canonical” link to the <link> section of your first product page to indicate this is the page you wish to be indexed by Google. Next, on all your pages that display similar products you add a <rel=”canonical” href=”http://www.example.com/product=X634K23> to the <head> section of your HTML pages. This signals to Google to ignore that page and says this [href] is the main page that you want stressed in search results. By completing this, the SEO content of your first product page that is indexed is able to be optimized for its full value. For Example:

<title> How to use rel=canonical</title>

</head>

Below is a visual representation of the rel=”canonical”:

Paginated Sequences: Rel=”next/prev” Tactic

Another solution that is the pagination sequence which uses rel=”next” and rel=”prev” this is a process that is most effectively used for pages in a series, one after the next. For example, if you were reading an article and it was split into four pages. From the second page, the rel=”next” would be linked to the third page in the article, the rel=”prev” would be linked to the first page. A user would most likely not click from the second page in the article and continue reading on the fourth page. For example:

This code is easily implemented and organized the sequence of your pages, this differs from rel=”canonical” in that all the pages come from one page and point to the next, instead of each page pointing to one page.

Below is a visual representation of a Pagination sequence:

Which tactic should I use?

From a Search Engine Optimization point of view, the winner is definitely the Pagination Sequencing tactic. By implementing pagination sequencing you are able to yield the SEO strength of all linking pages rather than just the single canonical page with the rel=canonical tactic. This gives you the strength of all your title tags, image alt-tags, and content of all pages associated.

If you are interested in implementing the Pagination Sequencing Search Engine Optimization strategy on your Magento or e-commerce site, Customer Paradigm is here to help! Please contact us or call and talk to a real person at 303.473.4400.

http://www.customerparadigm.com/category/blog/magento-ecommerce/

Apr 26, 2012

Running Varnish Caching on Magento – but pages not updating

If you care about optimizing an eCommerce site, you know that page load times are critical. For every second you shave off the time of a page load, conversions increase dramatically.

For every 1 second delay your page takes to load, you’ll see approximately 7% less conversions, and 11% fewer subsequent page views.

Our clients don’t usually call us to see if we can help speed up their page views. Rather, we look at their sites, using advanced tools (some free, like Google Analytics), and see how long pages take to load, and what the conversion rates are.

If we speed up a page, it means (a) more business for the eCommerce Magento site, (b) a better experience for the end user (we save them time), and (c) the page tends to be ranked higher via Google and other search engines.

If you set up your Magento eCommerce site correctly with caching turned on well, it will scream. Fast page load times – sub-one-second. We’ve taken sites from 8-10 second page load times, and had them load in 1 or 1.5 seconds.

How? We use many techniques, but one is Varnish.

What is Varnish?

Varnish is a HTTP Accelerator (reverse proxy for technical folk).

A HTTP Accelerator sits between your web server and other people’s web browsers, and creates copies of content normally served from the web server. This content can include anything from images, JavaScript files, swf files, HTML files, to dynamically generated content.

How does Varnish benefit someone running Magento?

Magento varies in the amount of resources it consumes, suffice it to say Magento is more resource hungry than most PHP apps.

For this reason Magento has many types of caching built into it (you can see these in your admin panel).

These caches can help quite a bit, but there is still more you can do.

The overhead of loading the actual Magento core to start utilizing these caches is one more component that we can eliminate with Varnish.

For the following cases:
•   First time users to your site
•   Users that are not logged in
•   Users that do have items in their carts

There may be no reason to have Magento load more than once.

Why is that? In the cases listed above Magento may not render any differently for different users.

Because of this we only need to let Magento once per page, from there Varnish will keep a static copy of the content so that PHP, Mysql, and Magento do not need to run in the future.

This saves system resources, and just as important it significantly lowers your First Byte Time.

Your users will be waiting less for the page to load, and Google will love you!

So you may be asking what about when I do not meet the criteria listed above.

In those cases you will need to let Magento run as it normally would, this is because we want each user to have a unique experience based on their interactions with the site (i.e. if a user adds a product to the cart, it needs to be shown to them in the header as it normally would).

In these cases however, users still benefit from Varnish since the system is not working as hard as it normally would, and can serve those users faster.

The problem with Varnish: When You Add New Products, Edit Products, Edit Categories or CMS Pages:

Why is the Customer Paradigm Magento Varnish Extension needed to run Varnish on my Magento site?

The Customer Paradigm Magento Varnish Extension takes a lot of the headache out of running Varnish, it automates many of the tasks needed to keep the Varnish Cache in sync with the actual Magento install.

For instance, if you did not have the Customer Paradigm Magento Varnish Extension , and updated a product from the Magento Admin Panel, your updates would not be reflected on the frontend until your restarted Varnish, thus reducing the effectiveness of Varnish.

With the Customer Paradigm Magento Varnish Extension , all changes to Categories, Product, and CMS pages are kept in sync.

It does this without ever needing to clear the entire Varnish cache, thus keeping most of your Magento site fast.

Customer Paradigm’s Magento Varnish Extension also provides methods to flush the entire cache, or to disable the cache for certain parts of your site. This is very useful for people that may not manage their server infrastructure directly.

What the Customer Paradigm Magento Varnish Extension Does:

•   Lowers the amount of time needed to setup a Varnish Cache.
•   Syncs Varnish with Magento’s Catalog Search, Catagories, Products, and CMS pages.
•   Adds debugging features to the Magento Admin panel.

Requirements:
• Magento 1.5 +
• Varnish 3.0.0

Results:

Non-Varnish results (3 users):

SIEGE 2.70

** Preparing 3 concurrent users for battle.

The server is now under siege…

Lifting the server siege…-done.

Transactions: 23 hits

Availability: 100.00 %

Elapsed time: 14.57 secs

Data transferred: 0.13 MB

Response time: 1.38 secs

Transaction rate: 1.58 trans/sec

Throughput: 0.01 MB/sec

Concurrency: 2.19

Successful transactions: 23

Failed transactions: 0

Longest transaction: 1.87

Shortest transaction: 0.89

Varnish results (1^st run ie. Not in cache)

SIEGE 2.70

** Preparing 3 concurrent users for battle.

The server is now under siege...

Lifting the server siege...-done.

Transactions:                    33 hits

Availability:                100.00 %

Elapsed time:                 14.76 secs

Data transferred:              0.19 MB

Response time:                 0.71 secs

Transaction rate:              2.24 trans/sec

Throughput:                    0.01 MB/sec

Concurrency:                   1.59

Successful transactions:          33

Failed transactions:              0

Longest transaction:           1.52

Shortest transaction:          0.01

Varnish results (2^nd run cache is loaded):

SIEGE 2.70

** Preparing 3 concurrent users for battle.

The server is now under siege...

Lifting the server siege...-done.

Transactions:                    48 hits

Availability:                100.00 %

Elapsed time:                 14.04 secs

Data transferred:              0.27 MB

Response time:                 0.36 secs

Transaction rate:              3.42 trans/sec

Throughput:                    0.02 MB/sec

Concurrency:                   1.25

Successful transactions:          48

Failed transactions:              0

Longest transaction:           1.96

Shortest transaction:          0.00

Want the Extension?

This extension is currently being submitted to Magento Connect, but if you’d like to get a copy before it’s available there, please call us at 303.473.4400 or click here to have someone contact you now >>

Jan 4, 2012

Building SEO-optimized E-Commerce Websites

In 2012, search engine optimization for ecommerce websites should start before the websites are even built. Updates to the search rankings algorithm associated with Google Panda and the rise of the social graph have made landing page hierarchy, usability, conversion rate, social engagement, and unique content more important than ever. Here are a few ways that you can get a head start on SEO for your ecommerce site.

Organize the site into categories that make sense for users and search engines.

Well-optimized product category pages are the most important SEO tool at the disposal of ecommerce websites. In 2012, Google and other search engines have placed a premium on unique, query-relevant content as a rankings factor. For sites that sell a variety of different products and services, creating targeted landing pages (pages created for the purpose of attracting a specific type of visitor) oriented around a keyword or group of keywords is critical to expanding search volume.

An ecommerce website selling snowboards, snowboarding gear, and accessories, for instance, may want to start organizing the site for SEO by dividing their products into broad categories that make sense from a user perspective. Dividing snowboards, snowboarding apparel, and snowboarding equipment are easy decisions from a user perspective, and allow for the creation of custom landing pages that attempt to engage the broadest search terms. Pages optimized for broad search terms, however, can’t hope to engage all of the more specific branded, product-type, or longer-tail search terms that your potential customers may be using to try and find the products that you sell. If you don’t optimize for more specific searches by creating more custom landing pages, you risk letting their business go to a competitor.

To gain insight into how I might organize my broader snowboard category, I consulted the Google Adwords keyword research tool. Here is my initial search:

This search tells me how to organize my snowboard category. I can see that the highest volume searches are for snowboards by brand. K2, Burton, Salomon and others get by far the most searches. I know that I want to create custom landing pages for each of the major brands of snowboards that I sell, to draw in users searching for a specific brand. The second most searched metric seems to be “sale snowboards,” “discount snowboards,” or even “$150 snowboards.” This tells me that I want to create a category page with unique content and products that are on sale, to engage these search terms. Third, it tells me that the potential customers of my theoretical snowboard store are searching based on gender and age. “Kids snowboards” and “women’s snowboards” are popular search categories. So, I will want to create custom landing pages for kids, mens, and womens snowboards, to engage this search volume.

I’ll repeat this process for my Apparel and Accessories categories. So, after about an hour considering my business and some help from Google Adwords, I have a basic structure for organizing my ecommerce site. Here’s what I have:

Obviously, there is more research to be done and more variables to be considered than overall search volume, including competition, conversion rates, and profitability of different products, but you get the idea: Organize your site into categories and sub-category pages that makes sense from a common sense, usability perspective as well an SEO perspective.

*A note of caution: There are made-for-seo sites and made-for-seo sites. Creating a large number of landing pages to engage too many variations of similar keywords can hurt your site from a SEO perspective because you run the risk of duplicate content penalties, and hurt your usability (which also affects your search rankings) because it can create a bewilderingly large number of pages selling similar or identical products. Finding the right balance between SEO and usability is important, but error on the side of usability.

Here is a real-world example from our experience at Customer Paradigm:

Customer Paradigm does internet marketing and SEO for Discount Decorating, a large online retailer of wallpaper and wallpaper borders. In order to increase their organic search traffic, we built out their category and subcategory pages by creating static urls for pages that had previously been internal search result pages, and added unique content and meta data to most of the new category pages we had created. The new category pages allowed Discount Decorating to rank well for a wide variety of more specific and long-tail keywords. The impact was immediate and dramatic. Within two weeks, Discount Decorating’s organic search traffic had doubled, and sales jumped at a corresponding rate. Here is their traffic graph:

Add SEO value to your landing and product pages with unique content

In 2012, the key to ranking well for Google and other search engines is uniqueness. This means each of your category and product pages should have unique text, images, schema.org or RDFA tagging, header tags, title tags, alt text, etc. Pages with duplicate content, meta descriptions, or title tags can negate the SEO value of your pages, and category page text or product descriptions copied from a manufacturers website can be very harmful. Search engines aren’t impressed with content that they can find elsewhere, and they may penalize you for it. You have to add something new and unique to climb up the rankings.

One great way to add uniqueness to your website as a whole is through a regularly updated blog. Include special offers, news, how-to guides, and other information relevant to your business and industry. Regularly updated content tells Google and other search engines that your site is an organic, growing site that is regularly adding unique content for its users. The search engines will reward you accordingly.

Usability is becoming increasingly important to ranking well and selling products

Not only is the usability of your site critical to your conversion rate (the % of people who visit your site who make a purchase), Google and other search engines are using increasing sophisticated ways to determine whether or not ecommerce sites are usable and using this analysis in their rankings calculations. Things like bounce rate, time spent on the site, number of pages viewed, and engagement metrics such as whether or not a person filled out a contact form, signed up for a newsletter, or made a purchase account for a significant portion of the search engine rankings algorithm in 2012.

The undisputed most important element to usability for ecommerce websites, particularly larger ecommerce websites, is the search feature. Almost every ecommerce site that sells more than a few products has a search tool that allows visitors to quickly find a product based on a series of custom filters. How quickly and with what precision a user can find the product they’re looking for often determines whether or not a visitor becomes a customer, and can go along way in determining the success of failure of an ecommerce site. Careful thought and attention must be paid to your search/filtering features.

*A note of caution: Many site owners and developers rely too much on search tools and other custom filters and ignore or under-develop their category pages. While search tools are great from user perspective, they don’t gain the SEO value that comes with category pages that have unique content and static urls that can be submitted in a sitemap. It’s important to keep both your users, and Google in mind when building an ecommerce site.

Prepare to engage with Social Media

Social media is a great way to interact with your existing customers and keep them coming back with updates, special offers, and other promotions. In 2012, social media signals can account for as much as 14-18% of the Google rankings algorithm: things like Google “+1s,” Facebook “likes,” and Twitter “mentions.” Adding social media buttons to your home page, category pages, and all product pages before the site is launced will give you a running start into social media.

SEO for ecommerce websites can be very competitive, but forethought, smart organizing, and awareness of SEO principles during the development of the site can allow your site to move up the search rankings faster, allowing you to make more money from you site sooner.

Customer Paradigm is a complete internet marketing agency for ecommerce websites, including search engine optimization, search advertising, and custom ecommerce website development. For more information, visit customerparadigm.com or call 303-473-4400 or contact us to speak to a real person now.

Nov 1, 2011

Magento Ecommerce Solutions for the Holidays!

With the holiday season rapidly approaching it’s time to focus on your online marketing strategy! Starting well in advance of the holiday season with “Early Bird Discounts” and “Sneak Peeks” is a great way to ensure that you have a successful and profitable final quarter this year.

Make a marketing plan today for the months of November, December and January. Your plan should include a schedule of what sales you will run, how you will run them and what customer groups should receive each sale (be it via email, advertised directly on the site, or through social media). To maximize your sales this season be sure and look over your previous campaigns for the year. Try and replicate your most profitable campaigns for the holiday season.

Other great ideas for Magento sales this holiday season include:

Special pricing on your best selling product.
Buy-One-Get-One-Free (or % off)
Special pricing on “Holiday Bundles” which include several of your best sellers
“Stocking Stuffers” sale

Another of my favorite tactics is to create new a new category in Magento called “Gifts” for the holidays. Then segment this category down to “For Moms,” “For Dads,” “For Kids,” etc. Once you have these categories live use them for a couple of your holiday campaigns, it makes finding the perfect gift easy on your customers which of course helps to increase conversions. There is more to having a successful holiday season then just coming up with innovative sales. Retaining prior customers can be difficult, and turning that first conversion into a second is critical for success at any time of the year. Email marketing and social media provide a perfect opportunity to re-market to current customers and attract new ones.

Three Keys for Magento Store Success (All Year Round!):

Abandoned shopping cart emails
Refer a friend
Cross sells, up sells and related products.

Sending out an abandoned shopping cart email to a customer after they have left your Magento store is an easy way to increase conversions. Many customers just need a little extra push to purchase something online. Including a coupon for free shipping or an extra 10% off is a great way to push a customer towards making that purchase. Another easy way to increase revenue and gain new customers is to reward them for their friend’s purchases. A great example of this is to give out a discount to your customer for every friend who makes a purchase. It’s best to do this through both social media and email marketing so that your customer can decide the best way to contact their friends. Finally make sure you have set up Cross Sells, Up Sells and Related Products for all your products in Magento. In some cases you may need to modify your current theme to show these for your products. Generally though you can set up each of these features by going to your Magento Admin Dashboard, going to Catalog -> Manage Products and then selecting the product you’d like to add these too. Then just go to the sidebar find Cross Sells, Up Sells or Related Products. Once you’re in one of those tabs just change “Yes” to “Any” and click search, now you can select your product and check it off to add it. For help upgrading Magento and other Magento programming solutions, contact Customer Paradigm now to speak to a real person.

Sep 14, 2011

New Homepage Design for Discount Decorating

Yesterday, Discount Decorating went live with a new home page layout design that is intended to increase usability of the site and increase shopping. The new look was designed by Gillian to simplify the page, and direct users to the parts of the site that will be highlighted each week or month.

Sep 14, 2011

SEO Guest Blogging Contest Sponsor

Customer Paradigm is a proud sponsor of the 2nd Annual The Bad Ass SEO Guest Blogging Contest hosted by The Search Engine Marketing Group. Started by Gerald Weber, the blog has become one of the premier sources of SEM content online. The contest brings together the SEO community by showcasing the awesome guest blogging skills of SEOs and Internet marketers. It began on 9.12.11 and goes until 10.12.11. Acceptable guest post topics include anything related to SEO, Internet marketing or social media. For more info, visit here. Know some great writers who want to show off their SEO savvy? Spread the word. It’s a great chance to connect and bring the SEO community together.

Sep 14, 2011

Research shows Americans Spent 53.5 billion Minutes on Facebook in May, 2011

Think about how much time you spend on Facebook. New research from a Nielsen study released today concluded that Americans spent a total of 53.5 billion minutes on Facebook in May 2011 – more than any other website – as part of the firm’s “State of the Media” quarterly report on social networking. Here’s an excerpt from the article in the San Francisco Chronicle:

…Yahoo was second with 17.2 billion minutes in May, with Google third at 12.5 billion minutes. With Americans now spending one-quarter of their overall Internet time on social networks and blogs, Nielsen said the results show “how powerful this influence is on consumer behavior, both online and off.” “Whether it’s a brand icon inviting consumers to connect with a company on LinkedIn, a news ticker promoting an anchor’s Twitter handle or an advertisement asking a consumer to ‘Like’ a product on Facebook, people are constantly being driven to social media,” the study said. Read more here.

If you’re a business or run an eCommerce site, how are you capturing the attention of all these social media users?

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5 Tempting eBusiness Statistics of 2012 & What to do!

1. LinkedIn for B2B Leads

2. CEO’s Get Involved!

3. Lower Barriers of Involvement

4. Write Blogs & Share

5. Accessible on a Mobile Platform

Spammy Links, Give Me Back My Traffic! Please?

The First Steps Are Always The Hardest

Identify the Source of the Issue

Cleaning the Grime of Bad Links With Persistence and Patience

If All Else Fails: Google Disavow Link

You’ve Done It All, Still No Results… What Now?

What You Need: Google Webmaster Tools Profile

Creating a Valid Disavow File – BE CAREFUL

How Long Do I have to Wait?

Confirmed: Facebook is Building a “Search Related” Tool

What Do We Know About the Facebook Search Tool

Opinions: Will Facebook Search Engine Sink or Swim?

The Big Opinions..

First: Results on Hashtag Association

Second: Results on Directory Profiles

What does this mean for users?

How to Make Your Profile Indexed?

Why Hasn’t This Been Done From The Start?

So, why now?

What is the Sitelink Extension?

Google’s Change to Sitelink Ad Extensions

Unique Sitelink Ad Extensions

What does this mean for my existing sitelink extensions?

How much time do I have?

Questions about Your Existing CPC Ad-Extensions

Facebook Cracking Down on Fake Likes

If not that, then this?

Get the Google Trusted Store Badge

Features of the Google Trusted Store Badge?

Benefits & Drawbacks of Google Trusted Store Badge

Get the Google Trusted Store Badge

eCommerce Platforms for Google Trusted Store Badge

What Are the Rules for Reviews?

But, What if Your Business works in Waves?

Reviews With A Safety Net

What is a 404 Error?

Risk 1: Potential Loss of Clients

Risk 2: Loss in SEO Value of Your Website

How to Identify 404 Errors on Your Website

Fixing a 404 Error

If this is All I Have to do, Why isn’t Everyone Doing It?

Fake Followers and SEO Value

The Copyright Update:

The Reason for the Google Copyright Update:

Google’s Control: Copyright Laws

Advanced Search Engine Optimization (SEO): What Really Matters to Search Engines

eLearning Series

What is Varnish?

The problem with Varnish: When You Add New Products, Edit Products, Edit Categories or CMS Pages:

Organize the site into categories that make sense for users and search engines.

Add SEO value to your landing and product pages with unique content

Usability is becoming increasingly important to ranking well and selling products

Prepare to engage with Social Media

Magento Ecommerce Solutions for the Holidays!

Other great ideas for Magento sales this holiday season include:

Three Keys for Magento Store Success (All Year Round!):

From Latest Twitter

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