Jonathan's Web Marketing Blog

It's been snowing all day here in Golden, Colorado. Supposedly there is even more snow further south in town, in Denver, where I live. It's going to be a beast of a drive, but I'm not focusing on that. Page 1 is a great place to work because we're busy and we have a lot of fun working together. We celebrated the birthdays of two terrific members of our team, Nigel Wackett and Michael Barrow. Check out the photos!

Labels: The Page 1 Team

I frequently encounter professionals who rely heavily (and often entirely) upon directory websites for their web presence. Here are some key questions to ask yourself when you're trying to figure out whether or not a directory website fits into your web marketing strategy.

1. Is the directory well-placed on the search engines for the most important phrases in my industry?

If the directory doesn't show up on the search engines, then people won't be able to find the directory, and consequently, they won't be able to find your listing. It's a waste.

2. What is my web marketing budget?

If your web marketing is pretty limited, a directory may still be an option, but most directories charge a large yearly fee. If you can find a somewhat inexpensive directory that is placed well on the search engines, then a listing there might be a good fit, but I would caution strongly against putting all of your web marketing dollars into a directory listing. The main reason is that a directory listing is an advertisement, and we all know what happens when you stop paying for an advertising slot - the advertisement goes away. Unlike search engine optimization that builds your website's online equity, there is little-to-no lasting benefit from having a listing on a directory. You would probably be better served by funneling a smallish web marketing budget into a pay-per-click campaign with Google or Yahoo.

3. Does the directory offer a link to my website that can be followed easily by the search engines?

If you're paying a sizable fee to be listed on a directory, it's not unreasonable to expect a link to your website. Most directories do offer a link, but many times the link is created to register each click in a click-counting program. The problem with this is that the link is hard for the search engines to follow. Look at the difference:

Direct link to website:
http://www.sanfranciscocosmetic-surgery.com/

Link processed through click-counter program:
http://www.directorydomain.com/cgi-opt/go.cgi?sys=1&site_id=341
&ser=6511&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sanfranciscocosmetic-surgery.com%2F

The search engines see the click-counter link as a link to www.directorydomain.com. The search engine benefit from a direct link adds a lot of value to a directory listing, so be very precise about requesting a direct link to your website when approaching a directory vendor.

4. How many clicks would/does it take to get to your listing?

How do you use the web? If you're looking for information, what do you do? You probably use a search engine, do a search, and sample several websites until you find what you're looking for.

Consider the scenario below. This is what you're banking on with a directory listing. It will vary by directory and how it is placed on the search engines, but this is a fairly accurate depiction of how directories work, plus or minus 1 or 2 clicks.

The statistics show that a website is doing well if people click through to two or three pages of the site. The vast majority of people aren't going to click through five pages of the directory site to find your site. When and if they click to your site, they typically are going to end up on your home page, forcing them to click at least one more time before they find a page about what they're looking for. It's very likely that by click six or seven, we're looking at a frustrated visitor, and a frustrated visitor isn't very likely to contact you.

I'm not really trying to vilify directories. At Page 1, we have three directory websites, and we list our clients on them at no cost. We use these listings to complement the other web marketing that we do for them. I've also recommended JustBreastImplants.com to my cosmetic surgeon clients that specialize in breast augmentation. That directory is reasonably priced and offers terrific value for their yearly fee.

As with so many things in life, balance is crucial in web marketing. When you are weighing what role a directory might play in your online strategy, ask yourself these important questions to make sure that your Internet marketing dollars are getting the maximum impact.

Labels: Directory Websites, For Dentists, Visitor Conversion

During the Website On a Mission series, I touched on the importance of Calls to Action. I want to elaborate on that.

I recently bought a pair of socks, and I purchased them because of a call-to-action. I didn't buy them because I noticed the call-to-action as such, but because the call-to-action worked. The package of socks had a sticker on it that simply said, "Feel This!" Brilliant! Get the consumer to touch the product, and the socks have a good chance of staying in their hands and making their way into the consumer's shopping cart. That's exactly what happened, and I couldn't be happier with my purchase.

People in search of your service are faced with the same situation. I was looking at a rack of sixty-some different options. When someone is looking for a service online, they see a minimum of ten options on each page of the search engines (usually more like twenty), and they will visit several of those. Your challenge is to differentiate your site from those of your competitors and prompt the visitor to act on your site.

Don't make the mistake of being overly confident or arrogant about your web marketing. It never ceases to amaze me when I hear doctors and lawyers say something along the lines of, "If they can't figure out how to use my site, then I don't want to deal with them." What!? Is their money not as good as the next person's?! Your ideal client may pass you by if you don't make it easy for them to understand why and how they should act on your site.

Some call-to-action tips:

• Make your website easy to navigate.
  
  
• Place your phone number prominently, multiple times throughout your site.
  
  
• Throughout your copy wherever it makes sense, and especially at the end of each page, include a deliberate call-to-action such as, "Contact us today for a free consultation!" - Be sure to make the call-to-action a clearly clickable link so that the visitor can follow your directions and actually contact you.
  
  
• Use graphic calls to action in your design that drive people to important pages of your site such as an online evaluation form or an e-newsletter sign-up.
  
  
• Place your full address and phone number at the bottom of every page just below your closing call to action. This reminds people of who you are at the bottom of your site so that if they don't care to scroll back to the top, they still see whose site they have been reading.
  
  
• Include "Print This Page" and "Email This Page" links/icons on the important pages of your site and tell people to use them in the copy of your site. Printing the page is important because it leaves a tangible reminder of their visit to your site.

The key thing is that if you don't tell people what to do on your website, they'll stay in cruise-control, web surfing mode, and just blow past your website. Even if you have great, informative copy, you'll lose prospective customers if you don't ask them to contact you. You've spent significant money to create your website and market it on the search engines. Make it easy for your visitors to become clients.


Jonathan Fashbaugh
Internet Marketing Consultant
Page 1 Solutions

Call me today at: 1-800-916-3886
or email me here.

Labels: Call-To-Action, Visitor Conversion, Web Design

Welcome to Miami! Dan and I are at the American Association for Justice convention today. It's going well. We've spoken with a lot of great attorneys and hope to start working with a few of them. We also had lunch with Ira Sherman of Chaikin & Sherman, and Dan had lunch with some of the attorneys of Colling, Gilbert, Wright, & Carter.

Check out a couple AAJ photos here.

Labels: Conventions, For Attorneys

Your domain name has online equity. Like equity in the financial world, this equity can go up and down, but in general, it builds slowly over time. With every day that your website is online, it builds that equity with the search engines. The more that you promote your domain name using organic search engine marketing, the more quickly you'll build that equity.

Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising and directory listings are different in that, in general, they don't add to your domain's equity. PPC advertising is just that: advertising. Organic search engine marketing is actually online public relations. With PPC, when you stop paying the search engines for your listings, there is no residual benefit to the listings that you used to have. They have not built online equity for you.

Directories can help in building domain equity if the search engines can see a direct link to your domain name, however, that's fairly uncommon with big directories. They either do not offer a link to your website, or the link that they do offer is masked from the search engines' view by a click-counting program or because only humans can get to the link by filling out some sort of online information form (i.e. select your state, zip code, # of miles you're willing to travel, etc.).

Knowing about domain equity is important because it has a direct effect on your listings with the search engines. If you don't have a website yet, and don't own a domain name, it will take longer for you to show up on the search engines when you begin your organic search engine marketing efforts than it would for someone who purchased their domain five years ago.

We know from the Google patent that Google factors in a domain's age when evaluating a website. If the domain is older, Google assumes that it may be a more worthwhile website because it has stuck around for so long. Likewise, if a domain is just purchased for one year, Google factors in the possibility that this may be a fly-by-night, even spam-driven website.

Your domain can lose its equity overnight if you allow it to expire. Be absolutely certain that your domain will never expire without your knowledge. Domain expiration tells the search engines that they should start over in evaluating your website and is therefore catastrophic for a search engine marketing campaign.

The bottom line is that equity is not an easily manufactured commodity. Do everything that you can to build and safe-guard your domain's equity.

Labels: Domain Names, For Attorneys, For Dentists, Link Popularity, Online Equity, Optimization

Keeping your website update goes beyond being accurate. The goal is to be a growing source of information. By adding content on a regular basis, you will eventually become a resource on the web.

By adding a blog to your site and posting to it on a regular basis, you can show the visitors to your site that you care about your website and that you're passionate about what you do. That's the kind of person that they want to help them.

Use your blog to comment on topics that you wouldn't necessarily devote an entire page of your site to, but that you'd like to have mentioned on your site. The media is filled with fads. When you see one that related (even distantly) to your industry, blog about it.

These concepts are also crucial for search engine positioning, and of course, without good search engine positioning, you won't have many visitors to convert into clients/patients. Still, beyond the search engine benefit, when you offer depth in your content by adding to it regularly, you will appeal to a wider audience and answer more questions, thereby inspiring confidence and converting more visitors.

Labels: Blogging, Content Freshness, For Attorneys, For Dentists, Visitor Conversion