Often it is your website that introduces you to potential customers. Every aspect of brand development should be reflected here—the look, the feel, the text, the photos. Users visit websites with expectations about what they hope to find—engaging, informative, intuitive, and useful. Search engines “want” the same things and deliver sites that meet these expectations. The following principles are essential to Web success:

1. Power of Branding. Presentation is everything. Statistics show that users form an impression of a website within the first few seconds of their visit. A good first impression increases your perceived credibility and positions you as a leader. Design should communicate trust.
2. Don’t Make Me Think. Provide a good user experience. Make it intuitive. Users want to find what they are looking for quickly and easily, or they may just go elsewhere.
3. Be Specific. What is the purpose of your site? To sell? Showcase products? Inform? Get them to call? Be clear, then focus the message.
4. Target Market. Define your target market to strengthen sales. Are they male? Female? How old are they? Where do they live? Why do they buy? Why would they choose you?
5. Scream Value. What are the problems or issues that drive a user to search for your product or service, and how will you solve them? What sets you apart? Write it from their point of view. What’s in it for them? Be persuasive.
6. Killer Content. Good web writing is hard to do. Write relevant content. Put conclusions at the beginning. Use action words. Use lists, not paragraphs. Write short sentences.
7. Get Sticky. Update regularly. This builds user trust, increases your relevance, and Search Engines reward it. Sticky content means higher search placement.
8. Dialogue with Users. Get a blog. Add a personal voice to your business. Turn users into participants. Get comments, feedback, ideas, concerns. Enhance credibility. Search Engines love them.
9. Position Yourself as an Expert. Publish articles and whitepapers in your area of expertise. Articles get picked up by Search Engines.
10. Optimize. If Google cannot find you, neither can we. Organic search results are based on content, title tags, keyword relevancy, and links from third party sites. Page positioning is achieved organically versus who paid the most money to appear at the top. People trust organic search results more than sponsored results.
11. Stop Guessing. Review your site’s analytics for better conversion of visitors to customers. Analyze what users click on to further refine your site’s effectiveness and also to strengthen other marketing initiatives.
12. Email Marketing. It’s inexpensive. It’s effective. It’s immediate. It’s targeted. It’s easy.
13. Embrace Social Media. Social media is any form of communications technology that allows you to interact with others on a one-to-many basis. Includes LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, MySpace.

June 21st, 2010 How to Select Keywords Using the free Google AdWords Keyword Tool Keyword optimization is the first key to successful SEO. A keyword is a word or phrase that’s relevant to your business. A good keyword phrase for STUDIODOG would be, “web design company Poughkeepsie NY 12601”. It’s a good idea to use keywords in your page titles, throughout your page content, and as “anchor text” within your site. Anchor text are the hyper-linked words on your website. Anchor text is important because it helps search engines understand what a page is about. The more keywords and phrases that are incorporated into your blog and website, the higher you’ll rank for that keyword phrase. How to use the Keyword Tool. The importance of RESEARCHING the most effective keywords and phrases you’re optimizing for on a specific page of your website is vital to the success of your efforts. When selecting keywords and phrases, remember — specific keywords drive quality traffic, generic keywords drive larger quantities of traffic, but not necessarily quality traffic. Even if you’re not familiar with the basics of SEO, then Google Adwords Keyword Tool can help you find keywords for your website. The Google Adwords Keyword Tool is pretty easy to use. To begin, go to the Google Keyword Tool site, enter a search term or phrase, enter the security check code (helps prevent spam), then view the results. The results give you information that allows you to refine and match results with the number of searches for the search terms. By refining your search terms you can learn how to drive more web traffic to your site. Making Sense of Search Results. Search results are displayed in 4 rows of columns – competition, global monthly searches, local monthly searches, and local search trends. Competition displays an approximate number of advertisers bidding on each keyword. Global Monthly Searches displays the approximate 12-month average of user queries for the keyword on the Google Search Network. This data is specific to your Keyword Match Type selection. Local Monthly Searches displays local search results if you specified a zip code, country or language for your search. Local search is gaining momentum, so use location-specific keywords “Web Design Company Poughkeepsie NY 12601” if local search is important to you. This display is the approximate 12-month average number of user queries for the keyword for those countries and languages. It is specific to your Keyword Match Type selection. Local Search Trends displays a keyword’s fluctuation in traffic over the past 12 months. Each bar represents a different month. This statistic is specific to your targeted country and language as well as your Keyword Match Type selection. Search volume data is approximate. Drive Traffic to your Website. SEO builds credibility and should be part of your long-term marketing strategy, but takes time to achieve natural search results. Over time, your SEO campaign will drive traffic to your site and increase the quality and quantity of leads for your business. When selecting your keywords, be sure that they are relevant to your business, have a decent local (or global if applicable) monthly search volume, and have a small number of other sites who are using the keyword. This will give you the best opportunity to move up the ranks for that keyword. Because SEO techniques are ever evolving and since SEO is such an important part of a small business owners’ marketing plan, let STUDIODOG help you find the best organic or PPC SEO mix for your business. Let us know if you have questions or need help getting started.

You can’t manage what you don’t measure. Data tracking on your website gives you insights into your traffic and marketing effectiveness, which helps you stay ahead of the competition. Web Analytics tells you what you’re doing well, and where you need improvement. Do you know what pages on your website are the most popular? What search terms are the most effective? What the average length of time visitors stay? Do they visit at specific times? Do they browse more than one page before leaving? What pages do they exit from? What pages do they enter on? Where do they come from? How are they finding you? Does it sound like I’m speaking a foreign language? If so, then you are a good referral for STUDIODOG. Work smart play hard call STUDIODOG so you don’t have to work like one!