Targeted and Compelling Page Titles
All of your website’s page titles should be unique and they should include your main keyword phrases. The idea is to create titles from words and phrases that your prospects and customers will want to click-through when they appear in the search engine results pages. Just remember that every one of your pages should have a unique title.

Write Meaningful and Useful Descriptions
Never copy the manufacturer’s description or else you risk producing duplicate content. Instead, customize your product descriptions using your keywords and even by providing your own personal review of the product in question. Or, you can use information you’ve learned from your customers who have used the product. By creating unique descriptions for every one of your products, you set your site apart from any other sites who may be using the same or similar products.

No Waffling or Unneeded Pages
Keep your content useful, informative and unique. Don’t fill your pages with filler text and keep your product pages simple. It may be tempting to create new pages for variations in product color, size, etc. but that could earn you a penalty from big ‘G’. Don’t chance it!

Update Your Content Regularly
The search engines love fresh, unique and useful content. How do you update e-commerce content without changing your product names, descriptions, etc.? There are plenty of ways, such as:

• Putting a ‘Showcased or Featured’ item (or items) on your homepage each week/month.

• Offering on-site ads, promotions and special offers.

• Posting articles, blog entries, etc.

• Including reviews from consumers and experts alike.

• These are just a few ideas. Think outside of the box, try to be different and never stop producing!

Be Mindful of Image Searches
Each of your products’ images will need Title and Alt Tags so that they can be found in image searches. If you want the engines to properly index your images, use your primary keywords and keyword phrases.

Create Clear Calls-To-Action
One great way to increase your site’s conversion rate is to use calls-to-action that really speak to your customers. Unfortunately, there’s no perfect call-to-action. That’s why you need to be clear and you need to test your calls-to-action to see what works. What do your customers want? Do they want free shipping? Do they want to receive their packages by Christmas? Use these ideas in your calls-to-action and you just might see the increased conversions you’ve been hoping for.

Use SEO Friendly URLs
Your e-commerce site’s URLs should include your keywords and should include hyphens separating the words. Make them easy to ready by human visitors and search engine spiders alike. When your URLs are easier to read, they will also be easier to remember, which means more repeat visits. Also remember to use the right anchor text (also with your keywords) when creating links on your site. Your website visitors should always know where a link or URL is going to take them just by looking at it.

Choose Your Categories Carefully
When choosing your category names, think like a search engine. You should only have between 10 and 50 products under each category (use sub-categories if you have to) and each one of those products must relate to the category name you’ve chosen.

Link Your Best Selling Products To Your Home Page
By making it simple to get back to the home and main category pages, you can guide your customers to each of your best selling products, enticing them to spend even more money with you.

Conduct Careful Keyword Research
Using Google Analytics and customer feedback, start to pay attention to what your prospects and customers are searching for. What are they entering into Google and the other engines to find your site, products and services? These are the keywords you’ll want to use. Once you find the proper keywords and you put all of these e-commerce tips to good and proper use, you should see a nice and steady conversion rate increase.

Keep It Simple: When creating content for your websites, blogs, articles, etc. keep them simple and leave the fluff out of the mix completely. Your consumers want the information they came for and nothing more. This means clear descriptions and clear intentions.

Choose Your Keywords Carefully: Your keywords must be relevant to your content and should never go above a density of 3.5%, and even that may be pushing it. Keyword stuffing will not be tolerated with Panda and Panda 2.5. Always consider what your prospects and consumers are searching for and you will have the keywords you need.

Content And Meta Data Must Match: Your titles, headers and descriptions must match what’s on the rest of the page. If you promise users something and you deliver something else, your site is going to drop heavily in the results pages.

Create Sharable Content: Panda 2.5 will undoubtedly give more weight to content that is more readily passed around. Hopefully by now you have Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and any other social networks integrated with your online presence. Your next step is to produce content that people will want to share with their friends and colleagues. Create content that entertains, informs and educates. In fact, every web page, article, blog, video and everything else needs to be created this way if you hope to get into Google’s good graces.

Clean Code: As a general rule, you will want to make sure that your web pages include more text than HTML. The more code you have, the slower your page loads and the more cumbersome your page becomes for search engine spiders and crawlers. Remember, keep things simple.

Video Does Very Well: The recent Panda 2.5 update seems to favor video. You don’t need the team from Pixar or DreamWorks to create an engaging video. A simple informative presentation or a funny sketch will not only add emphasis to the text on your page, but it will also give your web visitors something different than your competition is offering.

If you have been panicking in light of this recent change to Google’s search algorithm, it’s ok to relax. In this case, change is a very good thing. The above tips are geared more towards the reader and viewer and less towards the search engines, which is how it should have been all along. The Internet has become too garbled with sales pitches and Google’s merely trying to clean shop. As long as you give your website visitors what they’re looking for every time and you create content that is relevant and easily passed around, you’ll surely rise through Google’s ranks.

Top of the SERPs Faster
You have probably noticed that Google and the other search engines are starting to put YouTube videos near the tops of the search results pages. Just by posting a video, you could rise to the top of the charts very quickly.

Fresh Content (Appeases Google’s New Fresh Update)
Google recently unveiled its “Fresh Update” that is said to affect 35% of searches. Basically, with the Fresh Update, new content is always published first. So the more videos you post, the better you’ll do in the rankings.

YouTube Is Here To Stay
YouTube is owned by Google and is considered the second largest search engine in the world. Let’s face it, the video giant isn’t going away anytime soon.

The Site is Incredibly Popular
Millions of people all over the world use YouTube and the number of visitors, viewers and uploaded videos continue to climb daily. A recent report stated that YouTube reaches upwards of 800 million people per month! With all that traffic, you have the chance to create a massive, worldwide viewership.

Owned by Google
Google is the largest search engine in the world and it owns the Second largest. When it comes to SEO, using YouTube is a no-brainer.

People Like Videos
People respond to videos, as they allow the viewer to zone out and take the information in. There’s no work involved! But you need to produce good videos and ones that are optimized for the search engines. Use these tips to help you.

• Always make your videos, useful, informative, educational and/or entertaining. If you can be funny, that’s even better.

• Give the video an appealing title and always put keywords first.

• Ensure the video is relevant to the product/service it is intended to promote.

• Upload more than one video to reach a larger audience.

• Provide enough quality so that viewers can watch your videos with ease.

• Avoid explicit content or content that may offend people.

• Keep your videos short and simple, usually around three to five minutes.

• Put your keywords in the titles and descriptions of your videos to enhance searchability.

• Use Likes and Favorites to increase your videos’ rankings.

• Write good tags that are common and specific.

• Respond to viewers’ comments in a timely manner to increase viewer loyalty and search ranking (the more responses to your videos, the better!).

YouTube Channels Are Tagged and Indexed
Every video you post to your YouTube channel is tagged and indexed, which increases the odds that your brand name will appear in natural searches for your business’s keywords.

YouTube Is A Social Network
With YouTube, you are encouraged to discuss your video’s content with viewers in the comments section. But YouTube also connects easily with Facebook, Twitter and everywhere else. That’s the best part about social ‘net’working, it’s all connected.

It’s Free and Easy
Uploading your videos to YouTube costs you nothing and it’s super-easy to navigate through the site. You can be up and running in no time.

Gives Your Videos Viral Potential
Nearly every day you hear about a new video that’s gone viral. This video could be a kid playing the piano or it could be your latest video describing how to use your newest product. Because YouTube is so popular, all it takes is one well-produced video with great content and you could be the next viral sensation.

In short, YouTube is awesome for SEO. With Google and the other search engines favoring video so much and with the video giant’s immense worldwide popularity, you can’t afford NOT to use it.

Fully-Customizable: Our designers will work with you to determine the best look and feel for your online store. With a professionally designed store, you’ll attract and convert far more paying customers.

Quick and Easy Promotion: Magento Go has gone to a lot of work to make promoting your online store a breeze. You can create discounts, such as ‘Buy One, Get One Free’, you can create banners and you can even create promotions using Magento Go’s user-friendly control panel.

Hosted and Secure: Magento Go’s platform is hosted at a tier 4 data center and is completely PCI compliant. Your prospects and customers won’t have to worry about security breaches and they can shop with complete ease-of-mind.

More Engagement With Customers: When your Magenta Go store goes online, your prospects and customers will be able to view product comparisons, ratings and reviews. They can even add items to their very own wish lists. And there’s also customer-assisted shopping for extra support.

Sell to Anyone, Anywhere, Using Any Currency: Magento Go makes it easy to sell products and services all around the world. Using the Magent0 Go control panel, you can set language preferences and you can sell your products using several different currencies if you wish.

Built-In SEO: Magento Go offers you complete control over URLs and meta information and you don’t even need to generate a site map. Everything is done for you and that means that search engines and customers will always be able to find your online store.

Reports and Analytics: Magento Go’s control panel allows you to see reports and analytics so that you know exactly what to do in order to improve sales and convert more customers.

Easy to Navigate and Search: Searching is super-easy for your customers, as each product can be sorted by price, name and position. Your customers will love the fact that they can find anything they want with just a few clicks.

Unlimited Product Options: Magento Go’s product catalog is flexible enough to support any type of product. You can sell products with product-specific options, such as T-Shirt sizes and colors, and you can even create groups and bundles by linking multiple products together.

The Platform Is Always Improving: Magento Go is constantly being updated with new features, including security features. But no matter how often it’s updated, your images, products and your online store as a whole will remain completely compatible and unchanged. You simply get a better platform as time goes by.

As you can see, Magento Go provides you with everything you need to sell products quickly, easily and securely. As design service providers for Magento Go, we look forward to helping you get your online marketplace up and running. Don’t leave your customers waiting. Contact us and we’ll work with you to make sure your Magento Go online store is always an ecommerce hot-spot.

White Hat SEO
When you want to know something about a subject, you go to the master. And right now, Google is currently the master of the Internet. Few can debate that. With Google Webmaster Tools, you can learn about search engine optimization, the definitions of commonly used terms and, well, you will learn how to create relevant content that is easily accessible by Google’s, and the other engines’, robots.

White Hat SEO Techniques are the ones you’ve probably read about a million times. These techniques include:

-Using a reasonable amount of relevant keywords
-Providing Links to Related Websites
-Publishing Content That is Relevant and Updated Regularly
-Using Social Media
-The Study of Your Site’s Analytics and Statistics and Acting Accordingly

Black Hat techniques are nothing new, but they may soon be disappearing altogether. You’ll soon know what I mean.

Black Hat SEO

Black Hat SEO techniques are those that are meant to game Google’s and all the other search engines. Some popular Black Hat SEO tactics include:

-The Use of Hidden Text and Links
-Keyword Stuffing
-Link Farming
-Spam Blog Comments/Forum Postings
-Using Irrelevant Keywords and Links
-Keyword and Link Cloaking

Google has warned against using Black Hat techniques and there are plenty of Google horror stories floating around the net about business owners who have witnessed their page rankings plummeting overnight, and even stories of entire sites being banned altogether.

The Game is Changing
Some business owners keep to their white hat techniques, but they also use things like ‘Auto Frienders’ for Facebook or ‘Auto Followers’ for Twitter, and other gray SEO techniques. These might be within the rules, but the general user population isn’t going to like it very much. And when the users don’t like something, that ‘something’ usually disappears very quickly. And that’s what’s happening with many Black Hat techniques.

The Users Dictate the Content
Automation tools can be effective if they are used correctly, and they can add usefulness and value to your business. But in the wrong hands, automation tools and other tools like them will only produce SPAM. So the lesson is that it isn’t the tools or the technology that makes white hat or black hat SEO. It’s solely the intention that makes it ‘good’ or ‘bad’. But regardless if a technique is good or bad, if the users don’t like it, that technique is going to lose its usefulness. Worse, using techniques that an online community disapproves of can seriously hurt your brand.

With social media and online forums, everyone has their own little online group. And these groups are great at policing their little areas on the web. For instance, if SPAM shows up on a news feed, the community has the ability to vote it down. If the originator of that SPAM sends any more messages like it, that person will likely be reported and banned from the platform outright. So you see, black hat techniques might work for some, but for many they will only bring bad news. If you are banned on Facebook and Twitter and if Google penalizes you because you chose to use a Black Hat technique, you’ll kick yourself. But that won’t help your business or your website, which won’t receive a single piece of traffic because it’s now buried in a sea of other search results just like it.

Don’t let this happen to your business. Even though Black Hat SEO techniques are tempting, they’re not worth it. In the end, content that isn’t agreeable to the community will get voted down anyway. It’s best to remain on the up and up. Sure, it may take some time to get to the first page of Google for your chosen keywords, but remember: The results that take the longest last the longest.

In short, it’s best to listen to Google Webmaster Tools when it comes to the right way to engage in search engine optimization. And let your audience dictate what works and what doesn’t work for you, because your prospects and customers are going to mold your business model and the techniques you use whether you like it or not.

Hopefully that clears up the White Hat Vs. Black Hat SEO debate for you. Stay on Google’s good side and you’ll enjoy longer lasting success. And when it comes to Black Hat SEO, well, the best advice we can give is that it’s always best to just say no. It’s just not worth it.

1. Do You Have The Skill?
Let’s face it, you can use Photoshop to create any site design conceivable, but if you’re not an artist, you’re not going to do very well. A professional website requires top-notch design work. But it also requires top-notch copywriting, coding and many other elements in order to be considered perfect.
If you want a website that looks, acts and does as it should, you likely need the help of web design experts. Just because you can design websites using many of today’s online tools, doesn’t mean that you’ll be good at it, or that you’ll produce quality work.

2. Do You Have the Time?
Even with all the free web design platforms and services out there, building a website takes a lot of time and effort. That’s time and effort that you are taking away from running your business. All business owners should learn to leave the professional web design services to the professionals. When you hire the right service, you have expert designers, writers, coders, marketers and everyone in between, all working for you and your business. That leaves your schedule open to run and organize yourbusiness, and to count your money of course.

3. Templates Are One-Size-Fits-All
Creating a business website is not unlike dressing up for a formal dinner party that is filled with people you’re trying to impress. Your suit/dress must be unique and it must fit you just right. After all, you’re going to be judged on how you look, how you act, what you say and how you say it.
Now imagine if you went to a dinner party with a one-size-fits all suit or dress. And imagine if you prepared for that dinner party with canned speeches that everyone’s already heard before. Trust me, it’s far better to be unique and to ‘dress to impress’ than to use templates that everyone else is using. In business, it’s all about first impressions. What first impression do you want to make?

4. Made-To-Order
A template is going to be loaded with graphics, copy and code that are used by dozens if not thousands of other businesses. A customized web design service offers the top-notch graphics, copy and code, but you also get custom web applications to go with your site. These apps include things like shopping carts, payment systems, and anything else your site needs to provide a functional and useful web browsing experience for your visitors, prospects and customers. A template or a DIY site won’t be as useful or as valuable as one that’s tailor made to fit your exact needs.

5. Worth the Investment
Sure, many templates and DIY web design platforms are free. But templates and halfway decent websites aren’t going to win you any favors in the business world. Not only will your website fail to impress anyone, but nobody will be able to find it.
A custom-built website created by a professional web design company is optimized for the search engines so that your target market is always within easy reach. And because most people are using their computers and smart phones to search for products and services these days, you’ll definitely want your website be optimized for the search engines. A template and a DIY website just won’t have the ‘search engine juice’ necessary to reach out to your audience.

And the best part is that the investment for custom web design services is only a one-time thing. There are no monthly fees, thanks to WordPress and other content management systems (CMS). Take our clients, for example. They pay for our custom web design services one time, they manage everything through WordPress and they’re then able to reap the benefits for years.
These five reasons should convince you that custom web design services are worth the investment. Sure, anyone can make a website these days. But if you want your website to be the best and you want your business/product or service to go viral, you need to hire the best. Sure, I’m biased, but I recommend Blue Riot Labs. With expert designers, writers, coders, marketers and everything else web marketing related, you can’t afford to go anywhere else.

So if you’re currently using templates and DIY platforms for your business web design needs, you may be holding your success at bay. Unleash your potential and let Blue Riot Labs unleash your business/product or service on the masses. Give us a chance to show you personally why custom web design services are the way to go if you want to get ahead.

Location Based SearchMarketing – The Single Greatest Trend in Search Marketing, Hands Down!
Your clients may be searching for you right now. Can you be found?
If you’ve been holding off on Location Based Marketing because you feel that it’s just another online marketing trend that will come and go, think again. Or if you’re one of the businesses that may be waiting for the trend to pick up a little more steam before jumping in, by then it may be too late.
The time to get in on Location Based Marketing is now, before your competitors begin to figure out that this is one trend that isn’t going away anytime soon.

If you have been putting off Location-Based Mobile Search Marketing, consider this:

• 83% of Americans own a cell phone
• That’s 234 million phones
• Of those users, 31% own Smartphones
• And of those Smartphone users, 10% use location-based services once per week

Does that last number not seem like a lot? Well, consider these statistics:

• Four-Square, a location-based social network, currently enjoys upwards of 2.5 million check-ins per day.
• Yelp, a location-based social review site, enjoys upwards of 15 million reviews and 41 million visitors per month.
• And Google Maps, the world’s online leader in location-based map technology, reported 100+ members just last year, and the number continues to grow.

And this is just the beginning of a growing trend that will literally put your organization, your brand and your brand message in the hands of your clients, wherever they happen to be. With Google’s Mobile search queries growing a rate of 5 times in the past two years, location-based/mobile search marketing is a trend that will soon become the norm.

Right now, your clients may be using location-based services like Four-Square, Yelp, Facebook and Twitter to:

• Search for Local Business, Products and Services
• Find Nearby Places and Friends
• Share New Experiences, Reviews and Recommendations
• Your business you may already have reviews online right now. Do you know what they say? Let us control what information is shared about you and finally connect with your audience like never before.

With Three Location-Based/Mobile Marketing Solutions to choose from, you’ll get:

• Targeted Local Keyword Research
• Google Places, Yahoo! and Bing Mobile Directory Submissions
• Yelp Review Submissions
• Google Analytics Setup
• Competitor Local Listings Analysis
• 24/7 Online Project Access and Monthly Status Reports

How Location Based Marketing Works
First, we’ll get you set up on the three leading mobile search engines: Google, Yahoo! and Bing. Your clients will now see your listing within the first 7 local search results. We will then add directory links back to you, we’ll post positive reviews and we’ll even update coupons, news items and more, spreading your brand message far and wide.

QR Codes
Want to generate even more attention from your Smartphone-using audience. A QR code is a cryptic square that can be read by Smartphones. These QR codes can be placed on pizza boxes, in grocery store advertisements and even on restaurant table tents. When the code is read by the person’s smartphone, you control the message. You can offer discounts, announce sales and specials or you can invite your audience to leave positive reviews. QR Codes keep your brand relevant and they get your audience involved, making them an invaluable key to any mobile marketing campaign.

Local Mobile Search Optimization
We don’t just get you listed on mobile search marketing directories. Instead, we ensure that your prospective clients can find you every time! With Local Mobile Search Optimization, including content optimization and on-page SEO services, Google, Bing, Yahoo and all the other major mobile search engines will have no choice but to deliver your targeted message to all the right people.

But we’ll even take things a step further…

Social Media Marketing
We’ll help you get established with the major social media giants like Facebook, Twitter, Four-Square, Yelp and others. With regular social media updates, you’ll be able to stay relevant and in demand.
The bottom line? Location-Based/Mobile Search Marketing is here to stay. Are you ready to jump on board? Come on, we’ll show you the way.