Many of our clients ask us about “meta tags” when we perform fundamental search engine optimization techniques. Our reply? Don’t waste your time. Here’s the story of the death of the meta tag keywords attribute.

First a little history on the meta tag keywords attribute or what is popularly know as “meta tags”.

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Last week Google redesigned the local business results ten pack, well formerly ten pack. Now it’s a seven pack, but we’ll get into those implications in a bit.

The local business results are the map plus business listings that appear when you search for a product or service local businesses provide. Google figures, since you’re not going to travel to the ends of the earth for carpet cleaning or a dentist, they’ll show you local results along with or often above their national or global search results.

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Getting the right equilibrium in your search engine optimization (SEO) and a profitable user experience can be a challenge. It seems that most companies error on favoring one strategy over the other. 

For example your company may be stuffing the same keywords into every “alt” tag navigation graphic. This detracts from the user experience by making the page slower to load or visually impaired for page viewers.

Or your company maybe maximizing usability without concern for SEO by streamlining the homepage and other relevant pages, making it as simple and non-relvent as possible. Allowing search engines nothing to sink their teeth into to identify appropriate keywords for your business. 

When SEO is used properly it can enhance the usability of the site for the user and visa versa, usability, when used properly enhances the search engines findability of the site.

Think of your internal hierarchical linking structure for both your users and search engines, you want users to link to you because the more relevant links you have the more Google see them as votes and the more votes you have search engines see you as a authority in your business, and this ultimately helps your site climb to the top of search engines which increases your ROI. 

Want to see what type of synergy you are creating on your site. Fill out our “Get A Free Quote” form and put in the comment section “free google analytics report” to start tracking your sites performance today!

Can you predict your company’s marketing ROI (return on investment) for 2009 or the years to come from a simple ad campaign, television spot, or billboard?  It seems as though smart businesses are focusing on the highest ROI for their marketing dollars—the web. Top internet gurus think in 2009, business owners will be focusing on conversion rates supported by actual reports/statistics, something the web gives you easily.

Here’s a great video that was forwarded to me over the weekend, “You Down With ROI?… Yeah You Know Me” from renowned businessman and internet celebrity, Gary Vaynerchuk.

http://garyvaynerchuk.com/2008/10/08/you-down-with-roiyeah-you-know-me/

How do you plan to measure the ROI on your marketing this year?

Rise Creative Group is eager to announce top placement in our organic search marketing campaign for Car People Marketing. Rise Creative Group has remained focused on securing and maintaining targeted keyword positions for Car People Marketing in their efforts to gain top ranking in a fast-paced, ultra-competitive SEO market. Top placement includes the coveted organic search results of Google, Yahoo, MSN and all major search engines. Car People Marketing’s internet rankings have achieved six (6) top positions over the last three (3) months and have driven the highest volume of traffic among all of their online initiatives.

The benefit of targeted key word optimization and placement has enticed the savviest of companies to come out and compete for website traffic, global search exposure and substantial gains in new business revenues. Imagine what a comprehensive search marketing strategy could do for your company—call Rise Creative Group for your SEO analysis today!

Certain people have a keen way of just saying what they mean and others insist on guiding you through a crafted journey that ultimately persuades the same conclusion. At Rise, we’re the latter. We thrive on the journey the user takes and we feed off our ability to provide well crafted ethical persuasions. At heart, we side with our form in the proverbial debate that is: content vs. form. On a long day of code munching and laffy taffy use, knowing that our well tailored path (or form) is the ultimate contributor in a successful conversion, truly makes the invasive sugary goo in the back of our mouths that much sweeter.

But how do we really do it?

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In a world of e-revolution, where electronic store fronts are taking a competitive marketing approach, your organic internet search placement is becoming crucial for success. A normal query on a search engine often turns up hundreds if not thousands of matching web pages and only ten matches are displayed on the first page — are you in the top ten?

If you’re not in position one on the first page, third or fourth can be just as beneficial. Of course the higher your site is positioned, the higher its exposure and opportunities for capturing visits from engaged customers. Top ranking gets an estimated 56% of the clicks from searches. Second and third place get about 14% and 12% respectively. It pays to be number one.

As we all know, there is no Search Engine Optimization (SEO) formula for placement, just methods to follow to beat out your competition and obtain higher rankings.

Steps to Success in Search Engines

There are many steps to getting top placement online. 

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Website? Check. Traffic? Not sure. Conversions? Huh?

You must learn how to market your site to bring customers that convert.

GETTING STARTED:

Getting started, you need to have a plan in place, a web site marketing strategy. Without planning you have no direction to follow. So think about WHO you are wanting to target. WHAT their needs are once they get to your site. WHEN and how often will they need what your company has to offer them. And HOW you can get them to convert into a sale or a qualified business lead!

Promotional strategies will help narrow down what works for your company, don’t be afraid to try several at once, this will help you narrow down what is working and what isn’t. With the popularity of the internet you have so many ways you can test market what your company is selling; i.e. search engine campaigns, email marketing campaigns, forums, pay-per-click campaigns, web site optimization, writing press releases, social networks, blogging, etc.

YOU’RE HALF WAY THERE:
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You’ve seen it before, the common day-to-day unfolding of most organizations. They start somewhere between a second serving of coffee and a verbal rehash of yesterday’s news. Between the foreseeable dehydration and irrelevant debate, few decisions are made about the state of their web presence. What is far more daunting is that when the website is considered a topic of discussion, nothing profound or progressive pushes the rhetoric further than the aesthetic of the website.

Granted, to those involved in filling a 9 to 5 block, it may seem like time well spent picking pretty colors and finding more reasons for the website to “Pop!”. Unfortunately, these sorts of discussions are not sufficient in understanding the impact of an organizations website. Those in charge of making big decisions must come to terms with the idea that their website is an investment and should be cared for with the same amount of discipline. To those in the know, such accusations may come off as unsound or irrelevant due to the adoption rate of the internet. However, the affects of the internet along with simply having a website do not guarantee results.

I challenge you to examine your next company meeting and see if John-Doe from marketing is determine to send out his polished mailers or Jane from sales is set on buying more leads. If the latter describes your organization’s current state of investment, loosely, then I invite you to read on. On the other hand, if you’re fortunate and your company’s adoption characteristic in conversions is what Geoffrey Moore describes as pre-chasm(early adopters and or visionaries) in his book “Crossing the Chasm”, then we commend you and invite you to read for leisure. For those of us in the early majority, let me focus on the opportunity of converting a return on investment through the explorations in Lance Loveday and Sandra Niehaus’ book “Web Design for ROI.” Read the rest of this entry »