Twenty-five is a number with a lot of significance in our world. It is the atomic number of manganese, it is the number reserved for the player deemed the best “slugger” on a baseball team, and it is the name of the national board game of India. To the hardworking men and women of the Beasley Direct and Online Marketing agency, however, twenty-five carries a much higher level of significance.

A Walk through History

The Beasley Direct and Online Marketing agency was founded in 1990 by Laurie Beasley after a successful career as a marketing manager for Borland International. After leaving Borland, Laurie began to consult for other software and hardware companies who all recognized the need for an upgraded revenue model. This was rewarding consulting work; however, Laurie began to recognize that companies were having trouble executing the plans. Direct marketing is both science and art, and companies were struggling with both aspects. Eventually, Laurie decided to switch from just being the consultant who built models, to a full-service agency that built the model and executed it using database marketing.

In 2001-2002 the U.S. experienced the dot-com crash. Many agencies went out of business then, but Beasley Direct and Online Marketing thrived by adding a full set of services to help companies get their digital marketing programs up and running, including websites, email programs, and online advertising.

In 2008 the world experienced the Great Recession. Many more agencies went out of business during that year and the years which followed. The members of Beasley Direct jumped in and helped companies shift a heavy proportion of their marketing budgets to online, including search and social media.

Beasley Directs Growth along with Marketing Advances

Despite the challenges of the past, technology moves ever forward. With the arrival of the Internet, a huge shift occurred in marketing. To stay ahead of the curve, Beasley Direct added creative and technical services for developing websites and online advertising. As Internet marketing has progressed, Beasley Direct fought to stay ahead with the addition of sophisticated email and search marketing services, and more recently content marketing and social media services.

“Marketing managers must understand and use a wide array of tools…. We help clients avoid letting the tools replace or hinder good strategy, and to the relief of most of our clients, we help in the day-to-day optimal use of the tools.”–Laurie Beasley, President of Beasley Direct and Online Marketing

With all these advances in marketing technology, a huge need grew in the industry for training marketers to keep up and stay ahead of changes. To meet this growing need, Laurie Beasley created and managed a Certificate in Direct and Online Marketing at San Jose State Professional Studies, and then cloned this program at UCLA Extension, UC Santa Cruz Extension, UC Berkley Extension, and the Online Marketing Institute. Many of the Beasley Direct consulting staff members now teach in these programs.

What Does the Future Hold for Beasley Direct and Online Marketing?

“I believe the future of marketing will evolve with social media and the internet. Mobile marketing will continue to force innovation on marketers to keep their websites, search and social media effective for the mobile user. The introduction of mobile apps, kiosks, and third screen interactivity will provide many more avenues for marketing messaging and lead generation.”–Laurie Beasley

A Message to Other Marketers

“Marketing never stands still, and you need an agency that will keep you ahead of the curve. Beasley Direct has stayed far ahead of the learning curve, adding technical and creative skills to an ever-growing list of media channels.”–Laurie Beasley

With a future that includes wearable technology and a technologically desensitized population, the fight to stay ahead of marketing curves will never be over. However, you can bet that Beasley Direct and Online Marketing will be at the front lines, ready to provide absolute top notch services.

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Elizabeth Beasley, Account Manager, Beasley Direct Marketing

This post was authored by Elizabeth A. Beasley, Account Manager, Beasley Direct Marketing, Inc.

Elizabeth Beasley serves as an account manager at Beasley Direct Marketing, Inc www.BeasleyDirect.com   Elizabeth manages new client onboarding and accounts, social media, corporate presentations, corporate website, and database maintenance. She also serves as an account manager for the Direct Marketing Association of Northern California www.DMAnc.org, managing event logistics, registration and promotion. She holds a B.A. in Communications from National University.

The post Beasley Direct & Online Marketing Agency Celebrates Twenty-Five Years of Great Service appeared first on Beasley Direct and Online Marketing.

By John Thyfault, Vice President of Search & Social Strategy, Beasley Direct Marketing

Client:        A law firm specializing in family practice.

Issue:        The client wanted to reduce cost per lead, which was more than $220.

Solution:    Segmented marketplace to reveal which segments were most productive; refined keywords used in online advertising; reworded ads; analyzed lead history to optimize ad placement.

Results:     Within six months, reduced cost per lead by about 50%; increased conversion rate by about 15%.

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A law firm specializing in family practice in New Jersey asked Beasley Direct Marketing to reduce its cost per lead and acquisition. The practice handled a broad range of issues, including divorce, marriage, child custody, naturalization, immigration and pre-nuptial agreements. When we started with the firm, cost per lead was more than $220. The law firm advertised both online and in print in local publications.

Our first step was to determine if the client wanted to target all types of business that it handled, or only specific segments. We discovered that, historically, the types of clients providing the most revenue at the lowest cost per acquisition were divorce, child custody arrangements and pre-nuptial agreements. Further analysis showed that the quality of pre-nuptial leads was poor (lots of people were voyeuristically searching for celebrity “pre-nups”), and this was dropped from the ad program. In the case of divorce and child custody, we were able to identify clients, segment by male versus female, and target those who were in the process or just thinking about it.

The overall quality of the leads coming in from the firm’s advertising program was poor. Quality scores tend to vary by market; similar click-through rates in two different markets may yield very different levels of quality. We did geographical targeting, aiming at commuters in the bridges and tunnels in the tri-state area, and we also developed localized ads to support the firm’s different offices, getting the ads in front of people who worked or lived in proximity to those offices. So instead of bidding on “New Jersey family law firm,” we bid on specific towns and regions. This was especially effective on the New Jersey turnpike corridor, where towns tend to run into one another. (Geographical targeting alone yielded a 10% decrease in cost per lead.)

We analyzed the language of the online ads and refined them with cleaner, less cluttered language (keeping in mind at all times the restrictions on lawyer advertising by the New Jersey Bar Association). We also looked at the list of keywords to identify those that had historically converted well, winnowing out the less-productive ones. We continue to do this on an ongoing basis.

We also looked at timing considerations. When we first started with the firm, it was running all the ads at the same price 24 hours a day and seven days a week, all year long. Examining their Google Analytics data, we were able to identify where they derived their most leads by time of day, week and year. For example, Sunday evenings from 10 pm to 1 am were highly productive times; apparently, the end of the weekend is a time when many people begin considering divorce. Another spike occurred just after lunch during weekdays. We also noticed that suppertime on any day and mid-morning and mid-afternoon during weekdays were not productive. This allowed us to pare about 30% off the cost of acquisition, simply by running ads only during the times of greatest productivity. The remaining cost reductions came about through keyword expansion and refinement and constant ad testing, which allowed us to drop losing ads and retain or develop ads that were proven winners.

The client wanted to try remarketing—the practice of identifying a searcher’s interests and targeting ads that follow that individual around the web. We were not in favor of this because the client sells services with many privacy concerns. For example, if a man has been searching for divorce lawyers and his wife uses the same computer, she may be able to discern from the ads she sees that her husband is contemplating divorce—information that, if true, should come from her husband, not the Internet. But we did a limited test, and actually saw a decrease in click-throughs and conversions, so the downside was greater than even we had anticipated.

In addition to abiding by the advertising regulations of the New Jersey Bar Association, the client also wanted to stay within the bounds of good taste and a genuine concern for clients’ privacy and wellbeing. This concern extended to which keywords we selected, as well as the wording of ads. Despite these restrictions, we were able to slash cost per lead by about 50%, while increasing ad productivity by about 15%.

Of course, this kind of process is never “done.” We continue to keep track of keyword productivity, ad scheduling and other data to assure the client’s promotional program is cost-effective and productive.

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This post was authored by John Thyfault, Vice President of Search & Social Strategy, of Beasley Direct Marketing. Contact John at jthyfault@beasleydirect.com.

John has more than 18 years of marketing, sales and product development experience, and he brings a proven track record of successful campaign, program and product development expertise. His knowledge of search engine optimization and marketing, combined with an in-depth understanding of customer identification, market analysis and segmentation, allows him to deliver high returns on our client’s marketing investment for both business-to-consumer and business-to-business markets.

Prior to working with Beasley Direct, John was Senior Client Services Project Director at ThirdAge.com, a first wave baby boomer lifestyle and community website. At ThirdAge he successfully led major client sponsorships for Fortune 100 companies in healthcare (Tylenol), financial services (American Century), technology (Intel & IBM) and consumer products areas (Revlon & Viactive). He was responsible for strategic and tactical goal setting, project management, new product creation and web site production. John previously worked in Channel Marketing and National Account Sales for IDG Books Worldwide, the publishers of the immensely popular “…For Dummies” book series. Additionally, he managed the wholesale distributor sales channel for Tor/Forge Books, an imprint of St. Martin’s Press.

 John is active in local marketing associations, including the Direct Marketing Association, the Business Marketing Association and is currently serving on the board of directors for the Silicon Valley American Marketing Association.

John has taught search engine marketing fundamentals extensively. He has led workshops for the Silicon Valley American Marketing Association, Northern California Direct Marketing Association (DMAnc) and the Business Marketing Association. He also teaches Search Engine Marketing at UCSC Extension (Silicon Valley).

The post Case Study: Lowering Cost Per Lead/Acquisition with Data Analysis appeared first on Beasley Direct and Online Marketing.

By John Thyfault, Vice President of Search & Social Strategy, Beasley Direct Marketing

In Parts 1 and 2 of this series, we dealt with boosting your SEO using a technical site review and keyword research. In this installation, we talk about improving SEO through a web content audit. While there is significant overlap with keyword research, analyzing how your content is structured as a whole and what it contains has turned content into the kingpin of search engine optimization. You must have effective content that will resonate with your audience, directly addressing their issues and written in the same language that customers use to search for your type of product or service.

First, use the language that your customers use to search. Google, Bing, Yahoo! and the other search engines look at your website as a whole, not page by page. As you are doing your content audit, you need to take the same perspective. Search engines look for the content that best matches the language used by the searcher. You need to understand the language your users/potential customers are entering into search engines, as this will be key to ranking well.

There are many ways to discover this language. Probably the easiest is to speak directly to your customers. Ask how they would describe your products/services and what their benefits are. Also talk to your own customer support staff and sales people. Both groups have more day-to-day contact with customers and potential customers than anyone else in your company. They will often have the greatest insight into the language customers are using.

Beyond these, look at your competition. Examine how they structure their websites and what language they use to communicate their offerings. Look at industry-specific analysts, blogs, and press coverage to understand the language the industry uses to talk about your category of products or services. Frequently, third-party analysts will create an industry term or classification that gets picked up in common parlance.

As you study these four areas, you’ll begin to see common terms and phrases shared across the industry. Ideally, these phrases will be three or more words and will be specific to your own offering. Research has shown that “Nearly 60% of all impressions, clicks and conversions occur with 11-20 characters.” (Head vs. Long Tail Keywords Analyzed: Impressions, Clicks, Conversions & Profitability, Search Engine Watch, Thumasathit, 10/4/12)

Once you have a good list of keywords, study the potential traffic and competition associated with those terms (and try to expand the list if possible). There are a number of tools that can give you the numbers, such as Google Adwords, Google Keyword Planning Tool, WordTracker.com, keyworddiscovery.com and spyfu.com. Using these tools will allow you to expand your keyword list to give you new combinations and ideas. They will provide overall monthly traffic volume on competitive sites, giving you a relative benchmark for the amount of traffic competitors are experiencing using the same keywords.

Your next step in analyzing your site’s content is assigning these keywords on a page-by-page basis. As you go through this process, you can narrow down the number of keywords on the list by determining which ones are the most critical and eliminating the weaker ones. However, you may have one key phrase that works across all pages.

At this point, you move beyond keyword analysis and begin digging into the content of your site and its semantic structure. How the site is organized, the quality of the content and “shelf-life” of the content all come into play.

Take a step back and analyze how your site is structured and organized. Search engines award more points to sites that are well organized by subject. This is your opportunity to send the right signals to Google et al by having a site organized by subject, and where all pages related to and supportive of one another.

Create a semantic map of your site. This is done by taking each directory by page and looking at the page title, meta-description, headlines, and subheads on each page and laying them out on a spreadsheet. This is a relatively simple way to understand how your site is structured and how the different pages relate to each other. Once you have this semantic map, take your keywords and insert them into the content on each page where they are likely to draw search engines’ attention. These areas include page title, headlines and areas on the page with visual emphasis such as a bulleted list, italicized copy and subheads. Be sure that the keywords you’re inserting really encapsulate the essence of each page on the site. This careful and systematic mapping of keywords will help to increase your search engine visibility.

Let’s look at a sample site and create a quick semantic map of the creative services sections of the site, specifically the email, direct mail and search marketing pages.

Figure 1: Semantic Map Example

Source: Beasley Direct Marketing

While having descriptive keywords in the right positions is valuable, nothing trumps having well-written copy in active voice that encourages the customer to take the next step in purchasing your product/service. Google actually cares about active voice, so take a close look at this. Search engines look at how long people stay on each page and it’s been shown that passive voice tends to make people bounce of the page faster. (Understanding the Impact of Dwell Time on SEO, Search Engine Journal, Patel, 6/11/14) Many companies that sell technical products tend to fall back into passive voice as a matter of habit, so if yours is a high tech business, take a good, hard look at your content for passive voice.

Be sure to include longer-format articles, not just descriptions of your products and services. Google wants to see that you are providing information to the market that customers will find informative and helpful. There are several formats that come under this heading, such as white papers, tutorials and case studies.

When you are describing products/services, good copy includes not just features but customer benefits. Tell people why they want to buy and show them that you have solutions to their problems.

Refresh your content if it ages. It’s best to have content that can maintain its value over a long period of time, but when content ages, keep your site relevant by clearing out the deadwood. Make sure that your site (which Google and others examine as a whole, remember) tells a coherent story, supported by strong content.

Of course, in the final analysis, you are writing primarily for the customer, not for the search engines. Keep your customer firmly in mind when writing website copy—but be mindful of that list of keywords and mapped content at all times.

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John Thyfault, VP Search and Social Marketing, Beasley Direct Marketing

This post was authored by John Thyfault, Vice President of Search & Social Strategy, of Beasley Direct Marketing. Contact John at jthyfault@beasleydirect.com.

John has more than 18 years of marketing, sales and product development experience, and he brings a proven track record of successful campaign, program and product development expertise. His knowledge of search engine optimization and marketing, combined with an in-depth understanding of customer identification, market analysis and segmentation, allows him to deliver high returns on our client’s marketing investment for both business-to-consumer and business-to-business markets.

Prior to working with Beasley Direct, John was Senior Client Services Project Director at ThirdAge.com, a first wave baby boomer lifestyle and community website. At ThirdAge he successfully led major client sponsorships for Fortune 100 companies in healthcare (Tylenol), financial services (American Century), technology (Intel & IBM) and consumer products areas (Revlon & Viactive). He was responsible for strategic and tactical goal setting, project management, new product creation and web site production. John previously worked in Channel Marketing and National Account Sales for IDG Books Worldwide, the publishers of the immensely popular “…For Dummies” book series. Additionally, he managed the wholesale distributor sales channel for Tor/Forge Books, an imprint of St. Martin’s Press.

John is active in local marketing associations, including the Direct Marketing Association, the Business Marketing Association and is currently serving on the board of directors for the Silicon Valley American Marketing Association.

John has taught search engine marketing fundamentals extensively. He has led workshops for the Silicon Valley American Marketing Association, Northern California Direct Marketing Association (DMAnc.org) and the Business Marketing Association. He also teaches Search Engine Marketing at UCSC Extension (Silicon Valley).

The post SEO Audit Part 3: Web Content Audit appeared first on Beasley Direct and Online Marketing.

News Facts:

• Beasley Direct Marketing, Inc. (www.BeasleyDirect.com) of Northern California has become a search engine optimization partner for Kane and Finkel Healthcare Communications. Work will focus on search engine optimization, including: keyword and key phrase research, content and layout strategy, website technical and architecture analysis, website link building, and social media optimization for Kane and Finkel Healthcare Communications clients.

About us:

Beasley Direct Marketing, Inc. (www.BeasleyDirect.com) is known for bringing the latest marketing strategies to online and direct marketing. Beasley Direct provides services in email marketing, search engine optimization, social media, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, website design, media planning, direct mail marketing, lead generation and nurture campaigns, and database management. Beasley Direct Marketing, Inc. helps clients in both B2B and B2C marketing. Beasley Direct Marketing is privately held and headquartered in the Silicon Valley suburb, Morgan Hill, California. For more information, go to www.BeasleyDirect.com or call Laurie Beasley, President, at 408-782-0046 x21 or email lbeasley@beasleydirect.com.

Kane and Finkel Healthcare Communications was one of the largest independently owned and operated global healthcare marketing and branding firms. The agency was formed 15 years ago and continues to rank among the top healthcare communications companies, serving clients throughout the US, Asia, and Europe.

Contact:
Laurie B. Beasley
Ph: 408-782-0046 x21
Fx: 408-782-9604
lbeasley@beasleydirect.com

The post Beasley Direct Marketing, Inc. Becomes SEO Partner for Kane and Finkel Healthcare Communications appeared first on Beasley Direct and Online Marketing.

By John Thyfault, Vice President of Search & Social Strategy, Beasley Direct Marketing

Nothing arouses more alarm—even panic—in a web-intensive business than to get a manual penalty for “unnatural inbound links” from Google. If you have never received one of the warning messages shown in Figure 1, count yourself fortunate. But, don’t get too complacent; it could happen to you, too. When Google places a manual penalty on your site, your search traffic plummets along with the leads and revenue generated by search.

Case in Point

Figure 1: Recent Example of a Google Manual Penalty

In this case, there were a number of links to the site that Google viewed as suspicious. That is, pointing to the possibility of the company having engaged in what Google calls “unnatural link building.”¹ An unnatural link is one that Google views as having no relationship to your site, or is from a suspect site. Furthermore, it exists probably because the site owner has engaged in buying links, participating in link exchanges or creating thin, poorly written articles/content and engaging in a paid content network. All of these practices are called out specifically in Google’s Terms of Service (TOS) as forbidden. Figure 2 is an example of a link exchange site that posts your articles, with links back to your site. This might seem like a dandy idea, except that these sites don’t care about the quality of the content. They care only about the links. Google, on the other hand, cares primarily about content quality and penalizes sites that have links from link exchanges.

What about Link Exchange Sites?

Figure 2: A Link Exchange Site

Usually, the “articles” on these sites are of minimal value, largely aimed at advertising products and services. They are often poorly written and riddled with typos and other mistakes. If you or your SEO consultants have been link building through such sites, rest assured you will eventually receive a warning and a penalty from Google.

However, links to your site are not 100% within your control. There may be links to your site from others trying to boost their search ranking by linking to your site and requesting a reciprocal link. Whether or not you reciprocate, the link may still be there. If you are selling graphic design services and the link is from, say, a machine shop, Google will view the link as bogus.

Consequences of Receiving a Google Warning

OK, so Google doesn’t like the links to your site and tells you to clean up your act. What difference does that make? Google isn’t exactly Interpol.

As it turns out, it can make a huge difference. A Google penalty removes you from the Google search results in full or in part. In one case that we know of personally, a company relied heavily on its web site for business development. They lost 82% of its traffic from Google during the penalty period¾about 62% of their overall traffic. This was the result of a limited manual spam action/penalty. This can be a tremendous blow to a company’s revenue stream when it relies on the web for leads, sales and revenue.

Other companies have received full manual penalties. This is when they are pulled out of the index completely and NO traffic is driven to the site.

How Can You Regain Google’s Approval?

When you receive a warning, it can deeply hurt your company’s business and you need to attend to it immediately. In our next blog post, we’ll tell you exactly how to go about fixing the problem and negotiating with Google for reinstatement.

¹ For more detail on how to build links organically (in a Google-approved manner), please download our free white paper, “Link Building: Staying Current in a Shifting Landscape.”

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About the Author

This post was authored by John Thyfault, Vice President of Search & Social Strategy, of Beasley Direct Marketing. Contact John at jthyfault@beasleydirect.com.

John has more than 18 years of marketing, sales and product development experience, and he brings a proven track record of successful campaign, program and product development expertise. His knowledge of search engine optimization and marketing, combined with an in-depth understanding of customer identification, market analysis and segmentation, allows him to deliver high returns on our client’s marketing investment for both business-to-consumer and business-to-business markets.

Prior to working with Beasley Direct, John was Senior Client Services Project Director at ThirdAge.com, a first wave baby boomer lifestyle and community website. At ThirdAge he successfully led major client sponsorships for Fortune 100 companies in healthcare (Tylenol), financial services (American Century), technology (Intel & IBM) and consumer products areas (Revlon & Viactive). He was responsible for strategic and tactical goal setting, project management, new product creation and web site production. John previously worked in Channel Marketing and National Account Sales for IDG Books Worldwide, the publishers of the immensely popular “…For Dummies” book series. Additionally, he managed the wholesale distributor sales channel for Tor/Forge Books, an imprint of St. Martin’s Press.

John is active in local marketing associations, including the Direct Marketing Association, the Business Marketing Association and is currently serving on the board of directors for the Silicon Valley American Marketing Association.

John has taught search engine marketing fundamentals extensively. He has led workshops for the Silicon Valley American Marketing Association, Northern California Direct Marketing Association (https://www.dmanc.org/) and the Business Marketing Association. He also teaches Search Engine Marketing at UCSC Extension (https://www.dmanc.org/) in Silicon Valley.

The post Bouncing Back From A Google Manual Penalty (Part 1) appeared first on Beasley Direct and Online Marketing.

News Facts:

• Beasley Direct Marketing, Inc. of Northern California has become a search engine optimization partner for Kane and Finkel Healthcare Communications. Work will focus on search engine optimization, including: keyword and key phrase research, content and layout strategy, website technical and architecture analysis, website link building, and social media optimization for Kane and Finkel Healthcare Communications clients.

About us:

Beasley Direct Marketing, Inc. (www.BeasleyDirect.com) is known for bringing the latest marketing strategies to online and direct marketing. Beasley Direct provides services in email marketing, search engine optimization, social media, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, website design, media planning, direct mail marketing, lead generation and nurture campaigns, and database management. Beasley Direct Marketing, Inc. helps clients in both B2B and B2C marketing. Beasley Direct Marketing is privately held and headquartered in the Silicon Valley suburb, Morgan Hill, California. For more information, go to www.BeasleyDirect.com or call Laurie Beasley, President, at 408-782-0046 x21 or email lbeasley@beasleydirect.com.

Kane and Finkel Healthcare Communications was one of the largest independently owned and operated global healthcare marketing and branding firms. The agency was formed 15 years ago and continues to rank among the top healthcare communications companies, serving clients throughout the US, Asia, and Europe.

Contact:
Laurie B. Beasley
Ph: 408-782-0046 x21
Fx: 408-782-9604
lbeasley@beasleydirect.com

The post Beasley Direct Marketing, Inc. Becomes Search Engine Optimization Partner for Kane and Finkel Healthcare Communications appeared first on Beasley Direct and Online Marketing.

Technical SEO Audit Overview

There are three main aspects of a technical SEO audit site review: architecture, technology and source code. The combination of these three elements being optimized for search will allow the content on your site to stand out from your competition. We’ll look at how to do a content review on your site in our next post. This posting discusses how to do a technical SEO audit review on your site.  

With the burgeoning importance of Internet marketing, the Marketing Department and IT find themselves increasingly thrown together to achieve their goals. This is particularly so in search engine optimization (SEO). Optimizing sites for search engine discovery requires Marketing understand some of the boiler-room workings of Internet sites. Merely understanding how to use keywords isn’t enough any more. Performing a technical site review requires the participation of both Marketing and IT in a true partnership. Marketers need to understand the elements and tools used to make websites sing. They need to know what can make a site hard to crawl, resulting in a loss of search engine traffic.

The review should examine the site as others see it. Keep two key audiences in mind. First, search engines and directories (“spiders”). Secondly, people (prospects, customers, vendors, partners, shareholders, etc.). The purpose is to uncover anything that might block search engines, and result in Google reducing its evaluation of the site’s value. Or, result in site users being unable to do what you want them to do on your site.

Architecture

The site needs a consistent layout and structure that emphasizes the content where you want visitors to focus. Where are the logical “buckets” of content? Sometimes it appears logical to have content in more than one place on the site. For example, if you are selling motorcycles and motorcycle accessories. It may make sense to you to have the information about Harley-Davidson T-shirts in the Harley-Davidson section of your site. Then, repeat this information in your apparel section. However, Google doesn’t want to see the same content repeated in different areas of your site and will ding you for it.

Once the content is organized, you need to look at directory names. Every directory name has the ability to be scripted with keywords such as Motorcycle Helmets>Full-Face Helmets>Bell Helmets. Don’t let these descriptors get too long; you need them to communicate crisply. Longer descriptors may confuse or mislead, and usability is the guiding principle. The longer people spend on your site, the greater the value assigned by Google.

There are tools you can use to crawl the site and look at it the way Google sees it. One excellent tool is Screaming Frog, which has free downloadable versions for Windows, Mac OS and Ubuntu. The Screaming Frog SEO Spider is a small desktop program you can install on your PC or Mac. It crawls websites’ links, images, CSS, script and apps from an SEO perspective. Screaming Frog will tell you where it has crawled and the pages it has found, reports 404s (missing pages), redirects, broken links, duplicate pages, and more. Moz.com is another great tool. These programs will allow you to gain a good top-level understanding of architectural issues, including how pages related to one another (or don’t).

Technology

There are hundreds of content management systems available, from WordPress to Joomlah! Most of these systems incorporate SEO best practices. They have a default set of built-in options that can help or hurt SEO. So these need to be carefully examined before implementing on your site. You particularly want to be able to look at and modify the page titles and meta descriptions. For example, the generic installation of WordPress—one of the most popular content management and publishing systems—does not allow this. But, a plug-in from Yoast allows you to categorize WordPress pages with unique titles.

META Data

Title tags are good drivers of SEO rank if they are composed well. Title tags get picked up immediately by crawlers and help the search engine to rank your page in comparison to others. In addition, a well written meta description that is concise and has a benefits statement in it, will help to increase the click-through rate when your site comes up in the search results. A standard but not very useful meta description might say, “Full-face motorcycle helmet.” While, an effective meta description might say, “Full-face motorcycle helmet meets highest safety standard.” Do research around your content and make sure the metadata relates to it closely. 

FLASH vs HTML 5

Some of the technologies used in building websites can prevent the site from being effectively crawled. FLASH technology for movies is fine, but sites built on FLASH cannot be crawled thoroughly. Spiders can read only the links, and search results are poor as a consequence. Also, some FLASH pages can have one URL, but have three or four content pages associated with it. You need to be aware of this and associate one page of content with one URL in FLASH.  A best practice is not to rely on FLASH to build your entire site. Only use it on a page-by-page basis to enhance sections of the site that will benefit from the interactivity of FLASH. Additionally, many of FLASH’s features can be offered in a much more friendly HTML 5 format. HTML 5 doesn’t raise barriers to search engines as FLASH does.

AJAX

AJAX is an acronym for asynchronous JavaScript and XML. AJAX is a group of interrelated web development techniques used on the client side to create asynchronous web applications. They allow great interactivity, such as mousing over a photo for more detail. They also allow information to load in the background. This is great for user experience. But, unless you code the page correctly, it can confuse and block search engines from fully indexing the content. Search-engine friendly AJAX is well understood and can be implemented by most competent web developers. However, it often must be listed as a specific requirement when building a site.

The lesson here is to use these technologies as an adjunct to your main content, and only where they achieve a useful purpose, such as usability.

Source Code

The average site has a code:content ratio of 80:20. This means that one in five “words” on each page is user-friendly content. The rest is “spider junk food,” and it doesn’t help SEO. Offload code segments into cascading style sheets (CSS) and Javascript, including files. Aim for a code:content ratio of 55/45 or better.

Incorporate key phrase-rich names for files and directories that mirror the content of the pages. This will increase Page Ranking by increasing relevance. (Remember, anything that makes Google’s search results more accurate will help your ranking.) Key words and key phrases should be used throughout the copy, including headlines, subheads and copy. They should be repeated about five times per page (taking care not to sacrifice the quality of your content). Make sure they are used in page titles, file titles, link text, ALT tags and metadata within the media files. (Content creation programs have a means of embedding key words and phrases within the files they produce.) This will assure that when users perform a Google search, the right words and phrases will be included in the brief description search engines provide for each site.

Be aware that search engines—Google in particular—take into account where your site is hosted. If your site is hosted on a server where your virtual neighbors are undertaking dubious activities like phishing, living in a bad neighborhood will taint your site ranking. Your hosting server should be above reproach.

More Source Code Ranking Factors

Search engines also take into account how fast your site loads and how quickly it can be browsed. Consider if your host server is optimized for your site. For example, if your server is in Connecticut and you are selling surfboards to Californians, images and media files may take longer to load for users. One way to test this is to use Google’s PageSpeed Service. Enter any URL and Google will give you a ranking for it and offer suggestions to make it load faster.

Make sure all images are optimized for compression. Have scripts load content first and interactivity second. If you have audio or video files, host them remotely to make the site loads faster without them. As they are large chunks of code, they can seriously slow down a site. Use a content delivery network to load these files quickly.

In conclusion, most websites tend to grow organically. Things are added over time. Website managers  come and go, and sometimes the “rules” you started with get lost in the shuffle. I recommend doing a technical SEO site review at least at least once a year or whenever you are undertaking major revisions to your site’s structure or content This will assure that broken links, 404s, misdirected links, orphan pages, old content and other detritus gets cleaned up regularly. It also assures that, like your car, your site gets a regular tune-up to continue to perform at optimum speed.

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About the Author

This post was authored by John Thyfault, Vice President of Search & Social Strategy, of Beasley Direct Marketing. Contact John at jthyfault@beasleydirect.com.

John has more than 18 years of marketing, sales and product development experience, and he brings a proven track record of successful campaign, program and product development expertise. His knowledge of search engine optimization and marketing, combined with an in-depth understanding of customer identification, market analysis and segmentation, allows him to deliver high returns on our client’s marketing investment for both business-to-consumer and business-to-business markets.

Prior to working with Beasley Direct, John was Senior Client Services Project Director at ThirdAge.com, a first wave baby boomer lifestyle and community website. At ThirdAge he successfully led major client sponsorships for Fortune 100 companies in healthcare (Tylenol), financial services (American Century), technology (Intel & IBM) and consumer products areas (Revlon & Viactive). He was responsible for strategic and tactical goal setting, project management, new product creation and web site production. John previously worked in Channel Marketing and National Account Sales for IDG Books Worldwide, the publishers of the immensely popular “…For Dummies” book series. Additionally, he managed the wholesale distributor sales channel for Tor/Forge Books, an imprint of St. Martin’s Press.

John is active in local marketing associations, including the Direct Marketing Association, the Business Marketing Association and is currently serving on the board of directors for the Silicon Valley American Marketing Association.

John has taught search engine marketing fundamentals extensively. He has led workshops for the Silicon Valley American Marketing Association, Northern California Direct Marketing Association (DMAnc.org) and the Business Marketing Association. He also teaches Search Engine Marketing at (UCSC Extension in Silicon Valley).

The post Use a Technical SEO Audit to Boost SEO, Traffic, Leads and Sales appeared first on Beasley Direct and Online Marketing.

News Facts:

• Beasley Direct Marketing, Inc. (www.BeasleyDirect.com) of Northern California has become a search engine optimization agency for Cloud Cruiser. The initial work will focus on keyword and key phrase research, content and layout strategy, website technical and architecture analysis, website link building, and social media optimization.

About us:

Beasley Direct Marketing, Inc. (www.BeasleyDirect.com) is known for bringing the latest marketing strategies to online and direct marketing. Beasley Direct provides services in email marketing, search engine optimization, print advertising, social media, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, website design, media planning, direct mail marketing, lead generation and nurture campaigns, and database management. Beasley Direct Marketing, Inc. helps clients in both B2B and B2C marketing and is privately held and headquartered in the Silicon Valley suburb, Morgan Hill, California. For more information, go to www.BeasleyDirect.com or call Laurie Beasley, President, at 408-782-0046 x21 or emaillbeasley@beasleydirect.com.

Cloud Cruiser (CloudCruiser.com ) offers an innovative cloud financial management solution that was built from the ground up for the cloud economy. It maximizes freedom of choice for our customers, as they transition to the cloud, by providing dynamic financial intelligence across heterogeneous IT environments. Our solution is used by finance and IT professionals within enterprises and cloud service providers for achieving the low cost promise of the cloud and maximizing profitability.

Contact:

Laurie B. Beasley
Ph: 408-782-0046 x21
Fx: 408-782-9604
lbeasley@beasleydirect.com

The post Beasley Direct Marketing, Inc. Becomes Search Engine Optimization Agency for Cloud Cruiser appeared first on Beasley Direct and Online Marketing.