Homepage Optimization 101

Homepage Optimization Checklist

Before working on the content for your new homepage, the number one message to deliver is TRUST.  People will do business with you if you have a unique selling position and they believe it will work.  There are secondary reasons which support building trust with users, so they feel like giving you their hard earned money.

To make this as effortless as possible remember the basic foundation of a homepage optimization checklist:

1. Minimize your time spent on writing and developing (Your time is valuable too!)
2. Maximize the number of customers staying on your site
3. Entice with an offer, or to take another action.

Include the most important key points at the top, so that people know they are on the right page and include a value proposition so they want to read more.
Make this content visible and you will gain their attention.

Once you’ve developed trust then they’ll follow your advice for everything else that comes after…

What your Website does

Explain from a consumers point of view why your product or service is unique and better than other imitations, and explain why that is valuable to your potential customers.

Where you are located

The physical location of your business or service area should be on the homepage. People like to know where businesses are located, before they buy.  As search becomes more local people want to know your accessible and have a physical location. This information is also important trust factor in the ranking for your Google Business Listing

All the best reasons people would buy from you

You have the best product or service because of a unique feature or other tie-in that is memorable and valuable to potential customers. You’ve developed trust with other clients and have a long history in the industry, area or community. ex. “Been in business for 10 years in Vancouver”or “Authentic real Italian pizza” .
Give your items/service the “spin” it deserves’ to differentiate from your competitors offering.

Make it easy to buy from you

They were interested enough in coming to your site (the SEO worked!) -  now make it way too simple to buy. We mean simple here.
Consider an ecommerce solution for multiple items or an easy solution (PayPal), always include contact details like email or telephone number.
If they can’t find out how to pay you – they are gone to the next search result.

Content for the “Drillers” and Skimmers” -

Have a balance between core message, and finer details. Some people will only read the headlines and skim the rest, while others will drill down to the details of the and history of your products and entire company history.

Short Paragraphs

Keep content short and simple. Key text in bold ; Bullet Points; Headings
Keywords and inbound links – All homepages should be optimized with on page seo and off-page link building strategies.

Make them interested in you

Call to action… There is a timed promotion or schedule and they must do something right away before they miss out on an amazing deal.

Understanding Process

People don’t have time or are uncomfortable asking questions that may seem obvious to others. People are afraid of asking questions because of a fear of the unknown. Make them feel at ease by telling them how to purchase and what to expect after they purchase too. Consider adding website text about the process of doing business with your company. ex. shipping and handling, turn around time and order processing.

Your Guarantee to them

List all the reasons users should trust your company (BBB, Guarantee Seal, Money Back Guarantee, Certified Qualifications, Customer Testimonials)

Have these in place and you’ll be a good position to convert new customers. People need to trust you on the internet. Once you’ve developed trust then they’ll follow your advice for everything else after. I hope this helps some of you and thanks for reading!

How To Create a Local Business Listing in Google Local Places

Recently, we blogged about deleting duplicate listings from Google Local Places which sparked off a frenzy of emails from small business owners asking how to create a listing in Google Local Places if their business was not featured in it already. So here is a very quick and easy guide to help small businesses to put themselves on the map… literally.

Step #1 – Go to www.google.com and click on Maps to check if there already is a listing for your business by typing in your business name and address. If there is a listing you will need to click on the “More Info” link next to your business name, which will take you to a new window. In the new window, click on “Business Owner?”, if your listing is not there proceed to www.google.com/places.

Step #2 – If you have an existing Google or Google AdWords account, use that account to log in, if not create a new Google account.

Step #3 – Once you’re signed up, click on “Add New Business” on the Google Places Homepage.

Step #4 – You will be prompted to enter information regarding your business, make sure you fill out the required fields, once you have entered all of the information, click on “Next”.

Step #5 – You will be prompted to fill out more information regarding your business such as categories, hours of operation, payment options, photos, video and additional details. The more information and photos you add the better.

Step #6 – As you progress through creating your listing, your listing will appear as it is shown on the map on the right. Once you are satisfied with the way it looks click “Submit”.

Step #7 – And finally choose how you would like to verify your listing, the phone method is immediate as opposed to the postcard method which can take up to 3 weeks and click “Finish”.

Once all the above steps are completed the listing will go live once it has been verified. The above information is also available at www.google.com, for more information regarding setting up your Google Local Places Listing, please visit Google support at http://www.google.com/support/places/bin/static.py?page=guide.cs&guide=28247.

How To Delete Duplicate Local Listings From Google Places

A while back the Yellow Pages were delivered to my apartment. After a couple of weeks I decided that I was never going to use them, so I took it downstairs to the recycling bin only to find it overflowing with yellow directories. While businesses continue to spend big money on Yellow Pages, consumers are moving to the internet, especially for local businesses and services.

Google responded to this demand a few years ago by creating Google Places formerly known as Google Local Business. Google Places allows businesses to literally put themselves on the map, and with a little SEO help they can achieve a prominent position on the first page of search results, like the Vancouver pubs shown below.

The process of signing up to Google local business is quick and easy. Create a Google account, sign up to Google places, enter your business information, and validate your listing by punching in the 5-digit pin that Google will call, mail or sms to you.

From there on in, however, it can get messy. The whole program is notoriously full of glitches and is open wide to abuse. The most common problem users find is a duplicate Google Places listing, which may seem innocuous enough, but can cause major issues down the line.

There are several ways that listings can be duplicated in the Google Places system. The most common duplication happens when a listing is entered into Google Places by Yellow Pages and by the business owner.

Having two listings is confusing for users, hard to keep track of, and can cause Google to delete both listings. Merging the two into one listing is important.

Google gives this advice to merge the listings:

1. Claim the listing that isn’t yours. To do this, go into the listing by clicking on blue ‘reviews’ or ‘more information’ link on Google Maps.

2.  Pick the best listing. The listing with more links under the ‘more about this place’ tab and the most customer reviews is usually preferred by Google when it comes to rankings, so pick this one.

3. Delete all enhanced information out of the listing you want to get rid of such as categories, photos, and videos. Only keep the business title, phone number and address and make sure these match the information in the listing you want to keep.

4. Wait for two weeks, the two listings will have merged into one by then.

5. Once the listings have been merged, your Google Places Account will still show the duplicate listing, all you will need to do now is delete the duplicate listing.

I hope this has been helpful to those who had recently asked me about duplicate listings in Google Places and those out there who might be wondering how to delete their duplicate listings.

Follow us on twitter.com/standardmarket or add yourself to our facebook page for more helpful hints and tips.

Vancouver Olympics 2010’s Lessons for Internet Marketing

In terms of drama, the Vancouver Olympics had it all. There were early concerns about lack of snow, millions of people from all over the world visiting Vancouver, the tragic death of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili and the elation at the Canadian hockey gold medal triumph over USA. Not surprisingly every twist and turn was wired, tweeted, blogged, re-tweeted, posted, emailed and discussed to death by experts, sceptics and people that thought the whole thing was a waste of money.

Now that the Olympics are over and with the recent meeting between VANOC and the Russian Olympic Organizers for Sochi 2014 and with the upcoming London 2012 Olympics, we can reflect on how the massive influx of tourists, media and Canadian gold medals affected Google searches worldwide, and how businesses can look to capitalize on future events.

With over 2 million visitors to the city, it isn’t surprising that Google searches for ‘Vancouver Skytrain’, ‘Vancouver Maps’ and ‘Stanley Park Vancouver’ got a major boost during the Olympics. Bigger winners, however, were names of the main shopping and entertainment districts of Vancouver. ‘Main Street’ was searched for 1,800,000 times, ‘Granville’ 800,000 times and ‘Robson’ 250,000 times in a month. 

Surprisingly ‘Vancouver 2010′ or ‘Vancouver Olympics’ failed to come out as the top search term. Instead, according to Google, the most popular keyword was simply ‘Vancouver’, attracting almost 56 million local searches in February. Surrounded by the media attention and hype, keyword extensions were not necessary.  When internet users wanted an update on the latest Olympic news, why type in ‘Vancouver 2010′ or ‘Vancouver Olympics’ when ‘Vancouver’ pulls up a list of relevant news, image and video results in Google?

Cashing in on such a general term is not so easy, however in saying that there were a host of well-established news and tourism sites that dominated the top 10 on page one of Google during the Vancouver Olympics 2010. One of these sites, tourist information site Vancouver.com, saw 15,000 to 21,000 unique visitors per day a healthy increase from their previous 3,000 unique visitors per day, according to Alexa.com.

So what does this mean for the businesses looking to capitalize on upcoming global events? Although it’s too late to invest in search engine optimization for the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa, there is still hope for the London Summer Olympics 2012 and the Sochi Winter Olympics 2014.

‘London’ when Googled returns us with 643 million webpage results, for this reason it may be futile to aim for the first page of Google for ‘London’. It may be a wise investment for businesses who are looking for tourist trade, to spend some time and money optimizing for keywords like ‘Covent Garden,’ ‘Leicester Square’ or even ‘Buckingham Palace’ and ‘Tower of London’. 

For businesses in Sochi, there is a higher chance to get to the first page of Google using the general term ‘Sochi’ with a Google result of 3.1 million webpage results. However, this in no way means that businesses in Sochi can relax and figure out their search engine marketing for later. For international events, the internet is the first place foreign visitors go to for information about venues, hotels, restaurants and so on.

As there isn’t a one size fits all strategy, it is of high importance for businesses to pay attention to their search engine marketing well in advance in order to capitalize on their target market and direct traffic towards their site. This exercise can take time, requires a committed effort, strategy and investment towards building an online presence.

New Office

We’ve been busy at Standard Marketing for a little while now. We’re not complaining – we have more clients than ever before and the majority of them are on the first page of Google – but our blog has suffered as a result.

Last month we moved into a new office in Kerrisdale, we have taken on new staff and we will be making more time to blog regularly.

Sorry for the long blog absence, we’ll be back soon!