Panda Updates
By now we’ve reported on at least two major Google ‘Panda’ updates. But do you know where that name originated from? Google actually hired a man named Navneet Panda to develop ongoing updates to Google’s algorithm that reward ‘good’ content and penalize ‘bad’ content. What is considered ‘good’ content? According to Google, Panda will reward content that is original and interactive, such as videos, infographics, white papers and so on.

The Statistics Are In

• If you’re still not convinced that content is indeed king, consider these recent numbers:
• 57% of marketers have used blogs to acquire new customers
• 20% of social media posts contain links to content, such as articles, blog posts, videos, etc.
• 50% of consumers reported that a blog affected their buying decision
• Bing uses Facebook likes and Google uses +1 as ranking signals
• In fact, check out this infographic from Brafton News that shows quite convincingly that ‘good’ content is crucial to any SEO campaign.

Stricter Penalties for ‘Bad’ SEO
The old ways of optimizing websites for the search engines are no longer as effective as they once were. Traditional backlinking may still hold some relevance, but not as much. Artificially inflating links and other aspects of the site will only get your site penalized, but now the penalties are much harsher than they were previously. For instance, merely placing thin content on your website could send your website three or four pages behind competitors. It’s not worth the risk.

SEO Has Gone Social
Today’s SEO is focused more on user relevance. The more readers/viewers your website gets and the longer you can keep your visitors on the page, the higher your site will rank. And if your content is passed around on the social networks, that’s even better. While keyword optimization and link building are still helpful in generating organic traffic from the search engines, Google and the other engines are putting far more emphasis on high-quality content that is read/viewed and shared.
In short, content should always be the pillar of your SEO campaigns. Just keep producing that same useful content that’s aimed at drawing more human visitors and not just search engine spiders, and you’ll have no problem dominating the competition.

• Even though I normally update my site about once a month, now I’m going to write a blog article every day
• Our product descriptions are all out of date, but with this new site I’m going to triple my online inventory
• My marketing team is already stretched, but now they will have to manage a new site that is 5x bigger than the old site

In order to use your website effectively as a marketing tool, it has to be “manageable.” This means having a CMS like WordPress so you can update the content, but it also means using the power of page templates so you work smarter, not harder. Here’s an explanation of Page Templates, and see the infographic at the bottom for an example.

What are Page Templates?

Think of page layouts like building a house by selecting from a dozen architectural layouts. By choosing from layouts that your builder knows well, you are saving labor and therefore money. You can still add your touch by customizing the paint and window treatments, selecting shingles and siding, and landscaping your yard.

By using page templates, you also save money as we can reuse common elements throughout sections of your site instead of starting from scratch with every page. You also make your job of maintaining the site easier, since updating a common element once updates it everywhere on the site that it is used.

What are elements of Page Templates?

Page templates are usually comprised of many of these elements:

• Header and/or Sidebar Navigation
• Sidebar Widgets (Screenshots, Recent Articles, Most Commented Articles, Resources)
• Footer Links and Information (Copyright, Privacy Policy)
• Dynamic/Contextual Navigation (A link to the next Article, Related posts)

What are examples of Page Templates?

When we build you a website, we are providing you with a half dozen or dozen (or more) architectural layouts for your pages. Common templates include:

• Home/Landing: implemented for the pages visitors will likely come to first, and oriented towards calls to action
• Generic Content: often used for pages like About Us, Our Team, Terms & Conditions
• Articles: built to handle the dynamic, frequently updated blog and news articles — includes categories, tags, share on twitter and facebook, and more
• Product Listing: a thumbnail and excerpt of a product line or family of products for browsing
• Product Individual: the actual product itself, with specifications, pictures, FAQ’s, and more
• Contact Us/Response: includes styled form fields
• My Account: contains a customer’s billing profile, contact information, recent orders
• Cart: used for the cart summary, payment information, shipping information, and other ecommerce pages

Page templates help you execute on your website strategy, by helping you (and us) work smarter, not harder!

• Almost half reported using an app on their smartphone more than 10 times per day (more frequently than they spend grooming or eating)
• 73% reported using a mobile app in the purchasing process, either to buy or to assist in the decision
• 78% of those surveyed preferred mobile apps for customer service purposes and 72% would replace some traditional channels with mobile apps for customer service purposes

I’m putting the finishing touches on a mobile app for a denver based client as we speak, and I came across a seminal article on maintaining some hard-headed pragmatism as we approach mobile marketing. While mobile websites and apps are indeed the growth sector in digital marketing, it must be subject to the same ROI  analysis as any other medium. Here are some high points from the article “Top do’s and don’ts of mobile marketing:”

• Don’t give the consumer too many choices
• Do have a simple and clear call-to-action above the fold of the phone screen
• Don’t do mobile for mobile’s sake

Blue Riot Labs are Denver Apps Developers that build shiny stuff that help you achieve your pragmatic business goals.

Who says print people can’t go digital? See what we came up with…

Check out the before and after screenshots…

SEO Monitoring Dashboard

Description: Taken from the fantastic SEOBook.com, this is a powerful 360 view of your organic SEO performance.

Link: Click Here

This Week vs Last – Dashboard & Email Report

Description: Set the date range to “last week,” then check the “compare” box. Once the email report looks right, you can also click “Email” and turn this dashboard into a weekly email report.

Link: Click Here

Top Content & Searches

Description: A simple snapshot showing you how your content is performing. Content is king, even more true in the “sharing” world of social media. This report will show you what’s working.

Link: Click Here

In the famous fable, the steady tortoise wins over the flashy hare with steady, consistent effort. Too often companies approach launching a website as the finish line, when it is in fact the starting line. A website gets you in the race, but then you have to start running! Here’s some tips on how small business owners can get ahead with steady, consistent marketing efforts.

Create a Marketing Plan (Quickly)

For most small business owners, having a Chief Marketing Officer or dedicated marketing team is the stuff of dreams. That doesn’t mean you can’t be intentional about your marketing efforts!

• Do it quickly: Don’t spend more than an hour! Create a Word Google Document with:
  • An outline of your various marketing channels (website, blog, enewsletter)
  • Your objectives: what do you want to achieve? For example: increase web visitors by 5%, decrease bounce rate on home page by 10%, add 100 Twitter followers, increase ecommerce business from return customers by 15%. Be SMART with your goals!
  • Your strategies: how are you going to accomplish these objectives? For example: increase ecommerce business from return customers through sending out monthly enewsletters with 10% off coupons to previous customers who haven’t bought in the last 3 months.
• Track the Results: What’s the point of a plan if you aren’t going to see if it’s working? However, the sheer amount of data available from your marketing tools can be overwhelming. So pick some leading indicators that have a direct impact on your business. If you want to centralize all the results, just create an Excel or Google Spreadsheet with the various data points recorded for each week or month.
  • Google Analytics Conversions: learning how to use GA conversions will take a little time, but be worth every second. In summary, create “conversions” such as filling our a “Contact Sales” form that indicates an important step in your sales process has been completed.
  • Google Analytics Traffic Sources: is the traffic from organic search, pay-per-click campaigns, or social?
  • Google Analytics Visitor Data: how many visitors, how long did they stay, what was the bounce rate?
• Make adjustments: It’s a quick and dirty plan, but revisit it once a month for some mid-stream adjustments. For example, the first Monday of every month at 9am spend 30 minutes going over your plan.
• Just do it: as my business mentor Chuck Blakeman points out, quoting his Marine buddies: “Bad Plans Carried Out Violently Many Times Yield Good Results. Do something.” There is no perfect plan. Implement the plan, and perfect it as you go!

Choose Easy to Use Tools

Spend more time on marketing and less time on monkeying with your website tools by selecting the right one for the job. Choose the content management system, enewsletter, social media, and analytics tools that are easy to use and easy to integrate.

What are you Waiting For?

The spoils on the web are not for the witty or wily, but those who create a simple plan, implement it, and make corrections along the way. I’ve observed and participated in hundreds of small business marketing campaigns over the last decade, and the steady tortoise pretty much always beats the hare. You don’t need to win every race, you just need to keep showing up to the track every day.

Need help creating a marketing plan? Shoot us an email and let’s see how we can beat that hare with steady, tortoise-like marketing.

Blue Riot Labs is a Web Development Denver company providing Denver Search Engine Optimization and Denver Web Marketing services.

(Take a breath). Ok, let’s have some straight talk: the only thing that revolutionizes online marketing is when you select the right tool, integrate your efforts, and continually improve your use of the tool. Rather than an overview of all the available tools, I’ll show you here our favorites; those tools that work as intended, integrate easily, and are either free or reasonably priced.

Select the Right Tool

1. Website Content Management System: WordPress
   • WordPress is used by over 14.7% of Alexa Internet’s “top 1 million” websites and as of August 2011 manages 22% of all new websites. This runaway success is due to two important factors: it was built for CMS users not web developers, and it began as a publishing platform. WordPress now powers everything from Mobile Apps to Ecommerce, but its still easy to use. That means our post-project relationship with the client is “how do we make this even better,” not “how do I use the d@#$ thing!”
   • As an Open Source platform, WordPress stands on the shoulders of a massive community of developers. I’ve owned a business too, and understand the fear that a contractor will box you into a platform that will be hard to leave or become obsoleted. WordPress provides the closest thing to “future-proofing” you are going to get in business.
   • WordPress has plugins for everything from social share buttons to photo galleries, which means that we often can build on the work of others, rather than starting from scratch.
2. Enewsletter – MailChimp, Campaign Monitor
   • Many of our clients still enjoy great success and high open rates with quality enewsletters. You’ll enjoy the process of creating those newsletter much more if you use the great tools from MailChimp and Campaign Monitor! They have attractive templates, great tutorials, and excellent analytics to track your success.
3. Social Media – Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest
   • Remember: sniper rifle not shotgun!
   • Facebook lends itself to consumer products, daily deals, advocacy, and any organization where affinity and loyalty are key to the purchasing process.
   • Twitter and LinkedIn have proven themselves effective for PR, promotions, observing trends around your product or service, and immediate consumer feedback.
   • Pinterest allows companies to connect with passionate niche communities (fitness freaks, moms of toddlers, nature lovers) with unique content and top-shelf photography.
4. Analytics – Google Analytics
   • Google Analytics is free, and with the recent additions of features like custom reports it has become even more useful at creating actionable data

Integrate Your Efforts

Google Analytics is a great place to start. The content analysis shows you where visitors go, what makes them stay, and what makes them leave! Social reporting helps you build on what’s working, and fix or abandon what isn’t. As the video below shows, their multi-channel funnels show you how your marketing channels are working together to create sales and conversions.

Kaizen – Continual Improvement

The rise of Japanese manufacturing as the best in the world came from this concept of “Kaizen,” a philosophy of continuous improvement that was made in America but perfected in Japan. It’s the idea of eliminating waste by improving standardized activities and processes.

Google Analytics, MailChimp, and Campaign Monitor all provide powerful analytics…well, powerful if you use them! A simple spreadsheet or document can be used to track important information like

• What was my open rates on my newsletters, and what strategies did I try? (image vs no image; 2 articles vs 3 articles; adding testimonials, etc)
• What percentage of my conversions in Google Analytics come from search traffic, pay per click (Google Adwords), social media, or enewsletters? Do those results match the time I spend on them?
• Which blog articles got the most traction in search and social media? Can you guess why? Did that traffic result in more leads or sales?

A novel could be written about each of these, but to reiterate our original point: the only thing that revolutionizes online marketing is when you select the right tool, integrate your efforts, and continually improve your use of the tool. So get out there and get going!

Blue Riot Labs is a Denver Search Engine Optimization and Denver Web Marketing Company; SEO Denver.

What’s New?
Google has done quite a lot to the old version of Analytics. The interface has been completely redesigned and is now faster than ever. There are also multiple dashboards that allow you to create a custom dashboard for each department. You can track Event Goals and you can even configure two-minutes of play time on a video as a goal.

Google has also unveiled more powerful reports, New Term Cloud visualization, the ability to link Adwords and Adsense accounts, In-Page Analytics and users of the old platform can easily migrate custom reports to the new platform.

New Google Analytics Features
Google has also included a number of innovative features to the new platform:

• Google Analytics Real-Time: Yes, Analytics finally offers real-time reporting that shows you exactly what is happening on your website ‘right now’. The reports are constantly updated and each pageview is reported within seconds of occurring.
• Multi-Channel Funnels: Do you want to know which channels your customers are interacting with prior to converting? Now you can with multi-channel funnels. You will be able to see which channels were interacted with during the 30 days prior to converting and the conversion path data also includes interactions with many media channels. These media channels include clicks from paid and organic searches, social media networks, affiliates, etc.
• Mobile Reporting: This feature lets you know how your mobile visitors are interacting with your website. You can even determine which mobile devices your visitors are using so that you can optimize your site for those devices.
• Reports: Google Analytics now offers a report email scheduler and PDF exporter.
• Flow Visualization: This is probably the most impressive of all of the new features offered by the new Analytics platform. Flow Visualization graphically shows you how visitors are navigating through your site. According to Google, this sophisticated tool was designed by completely re-imagining and redesigning the navigation tools that were available with the old version.

Google Analytics' Powerful New Flow Visualization

Google Analytics has been ahead of its time for some time, but now the platform is heading even further into the future. With a faster interface, state-of-the-art features and plenty more, there is no better way to keep track of your web traffic, conversions and everything else web-related.

Blue Riot Labs is WordPress Web Development company at the foot of the Rockies; Denver Web Developers.

Simple User Experience

A website is a business tool, a means to achieving ends including lead generation, new product launches, and providing support to end users. Therefore the primary goal is not a “pretty” site, but a “useful” site. Design elements like colors, textures, and fonts should support the business goals, not detract from them. Navigation should mimic how your target audience interacts with your products or service, and should funnel them towards taking the action you desire (purchasing a product, filling out a request for proposal, etc).

Let’s compare and contrast the user experience of two electronics manufacturers: Hitron and Himax.

“The Do’s of Simple UI”

The “Dont’s” of UI

Blue Riot Labs are a gaggle of WordPress Web Designers who build creative WordPress Web Development solutions for Ecommerce, Local Marketing, and Mobile.