Leveling the Internet Playing Field

Messaging, Partnerships, SEO, Site navigation, Web Development

Industrial S for SEO

Duped by all the media hype saying that the internet levels your playing field?

Do you recall when it was widely published that the internet levels the playing field for small businesses? Media raved about how small business could not only one up their direct competition but also compete against big companies, which sparked a lot of small businesses to get on the website bandwagon. If you were one of these businesses but have yet to see the promised positive results, you might be feeling duped by all the media hype.

Well, the good news is that it wasn’t just media hype – they were right. However, the bad news is they forgot to tell you that there’s a process that must be followed to gain internet success. Just like developing new products or implementing new processes, if steps are missing, the results are poor performance or outright failure.

So what was the process I should have followed?

Outpacing your competition on the internet is a complicated process, but when broken down into manageable steps, the result is a website that meets company goals and expectations. The three critical steps: goal setting, navigation, messaging, and content, and monthly data monitoring are detailed below. But don’t despair if you didn’t implement these steps when first launching the site; it’s never too late to start.

Step 1: Goal Setting

Asking the simple question, “what do we want our website to do for us (the goal)?” The answer to this question helps drive navigation, content and call-to-action decisions.

Here are some goals that might apply to your business:

  • Grow my business by $900k within 6 months.
  • Establish creditability as one of the best sources for the unique value we offer.
  • Offer our market a one-stop source for equipment and repairs.
  • Acquire viable leads and avoid requests for products/services that don’t fit our business model.
  • Discover new markets for current products.
  • Provide easy to find technical data for my current customers.

Once goals are defined, you can move on to step two.

Step Two: Navigation, Content, and Messaging

Once you have your goals clearly defined, take a critical look at your site and ask, “how well does the site’s navigation, content and messaging help us meet our goals?” If you answered that it doesn’t meet 100% of your goals, then it’s time to get to work and decide what is lacking or missing and then assemble a web team to fix the problem. Depending on your needs, typical web team roles can include:

  • Someone who understands marketing; specifically messaging, brand building, and website optimization.
  • A content expert; someone with a strong understanding of your products and services to help develop a strong story and on-point messaging.
  • A graphics designer to elevate the look and feel of your site.
  • A programmer to implement necessary code that supports website parameters for appearance, functionality and marketing tactics.
  • Sales and service personnel that have direct customer interaction and know what customers expect.

In a small company, this team is often comprised of one or two internal people. Almost always, outside resources are required to fill any lacking skill sets. Your internal team should interview outside resources to confirm qualifications and fit with the team.

With your team in place, it’s time to create a clear project plan outlines activities needed to ensure the site meets its goals, and timelines and assigned resources to execute the activities. A project plan helps the team stay focused, so the project is completed on time and within budget.

Once the project is complete, now it’s time to protect your investment.

Step Three: Data Monitoring

With the goals set in step one, and the activities complete in step two, metrics can now be established that help you know if the site is meeting its goals, and defining the tools needed to track the metrics.

Monthly data monitoring is a must to stay focused on the results. Monitoring also helps to track trends and tackle any site issues proactively.

Examples of essential measurements are:

  • Customer search behavior – how do they find the site.
  • What do visitors do on site and how much time do they spend.
  • Your site’s keyword rankings.
  • Competitor rankings for your relevant and prioritized keywords and phrases.
  • Traffic trends and volume from your market’s region
  • Mentions in published articles.

The internet offers a level playing field, but the devil is in the details. Now you have a better grasp of to achieve website success.

As always, if you need help navigating search optimization best practices or redesigning your website so it meets its goal, give us a call, 1-360-834-2780.

AODD Pump Selection

Keywords, Search Engine Marketing, SEO, Site navigation, Web Development

Industrial S for SEO

What can AODD pump manufacturers do to help end users find the best pump for a challenging application?

The answer is simple; optimize product pages with the features, benefits, and specifications that end users need – let’s explore this further.

Direct Industry lists over 55 manufacturers. Each of these manufacturers’ claim unique benefits in their directory listings, but does this help end users find the best pump for their application? The truth is, not really. Directories are middlemen in the search process. Wouldn’t it be more efficient and cost effective to eliminate the middlemen and drive end users to a page on your site that is the perfect product for their application? By doing so, you will help save the end user time by quickly giving them what they need. You are probably asking, sounds great, but how do I make this happen? Read on.

Optimize for the search savvy

Search engine technologies have reached the point of providing excellent matches for user search terms. For search engines to rank your products well, they must clearly understand what your products have to offer. Web pages must concisely communicate product specifications, features, and benefits, and they must be easily navigable – no crazy, illogical URL structures.

Like search engines, end users have become more search savvy; they now typically use long tail searches (keyword phrases) to help narrow down their search instead of a single keyword search. Long tail searches that contain application challenges or required product features help produce the ideal pump in a search result. It’s much like dating sites where couples seek the perfect partner. The best match is out there, but if your website doesn’t illustrate user solutions in the way people search, results fall short.

It sounds so simple, and you are probably thinking, “I do a good job with that so why are my company and products not ranking high on a search results page?” But if your product navigation is complicated and your product pages don’t clearly communicate specifications, features, and benefits, search engines will not understand your site structure and products, and you won’t be able to outrank the competition.

Let’s see what we are talking about

Let’s demonstrate how it works. Try entering the following into a search bar or click on the following link, AODD, ½” ports, 20 psi, 5 GPM, Polypropylene, PTFE, stall proof, efficient, food grade. Notice that the search engine struggles to find the perfect match, but offers some good results. What got these pages top ranking? What can you do to outrank the competition and make the end user happy by providing them with an ideal match? Easy, make product pages relevant to the phrases people search for and simplify site structure, especially if you have many product categories. Do a thorough job of describing the value your products offer so search engines can make accurate matches and present the searcher with ideal results.

How does your site stack up?

Search engines are doing their part, now if you do your part as an AODD manufacturer, everyone wins (you, customer and search engine). Who is going to be the first manufacturer to take the lead by communicating properly with search engines, win new business and give customers a delightful search experience?

As always, if you need help navigating search optimization best practices, give us a call, 360.834.2780.

What the Search Engine Said to the Website

Search Engine Marketing, Uncategorized, Web Development

Website Conversation

Ever wonder what the search engine said to the website?

Wonder no more and learn what you can do to make the search engine find your site.

Website: Are you looking at me?

Search engine: Please give me your full attention. It’s in the best interest of your customers and your company to get this right. My job to help people looking for your type of product or service find you, but I’m confused by the information you provide me.

Website: no response, just a puzzled stare

Search engine: For me to match your site’s content with the search terms people are using to find your products and services, I need to understand the relevancy of your site’s content to their search term. I also want to know just how credible you are.

Currently, I am at a loss when I visit your site. I have a protocol that I follow to determine site relevance and credibility to rank your pages well on my search engine results pages. Your site is riddled with illogical navigation, few internal links, and your content is very light. Additionally, it seems that few other industry sites are linking to your site, and the visitors that do land on your site don’t spend much time there. All of these issues affect my ability to rank your pages well.

Website: What are you talking about? Are you saying you have a hard time finding information on my site? My information is in plain site — I think it is detailed and easy to locate.

bubbles115Search engine: Well, I can see you, but I need to see more than your pretty face to determine who you are. I want to learn more about the friends you keep; are relevant industry sites linking to your content? And all those images, you don’t tell me what they are or how they relate to your content. Speaking of content, I need more of it on each page to help me determine what you do and the products and services your offer. There also needs to be better internal linking, which helps me navigate through the site and ensures each page on the site is properly indexed. A good site structure also helps site visitors locate the information they need, which in turn can improve the amount of time they spend on your site exploring and researching what you do.

Website: I still don’t understand.

Search Engine: I’m not human, but I am learning human behavior, and I do my best to match the information on your site with what people search for. For me to do this with your best interest at heart, I need certain elements placed on the back-end of your site in computer talk; this is called metadata or code. I also need you to help me understand the flow of your content and how it all relates. If I don’t have these things, I get lost and have to leave your site immediately because I have millions of other sites to tend to. When I leave before my indexing job is complete, I won’t be able to give your site a good search page ranking. I need you to tell me about yourself in ways that I understand, and I’m not good at guessing.

Website:  How do I do that?

bubbles115Search Engine: I use about 200 factors in my search engine ranking algorithm, but I’m going to tell you about the 10 most important ones (courtesy of Backlinko).

 

 

 

  1. Your page title. I give you 2 places to put a page title, 1) at the top of your page (H1 Title Tag), and 2) in your metadata (Page Title tag). Best practice for titles is to place your primary page keyword at the beginning of the title; each page on your site needs a unique title. Both titles should tell what the content is about but for your metadata title, I only I give you about 60 characters to describe page content before I cut off the text. Best practice is to put keywords at the front of the title and your company name on the tail end.

  2. I like page content; it helps me know what your site is all about. I consider sites with page content that is at least 1500-2000 words best. But, make sure your content is focused and utilize your primary, secondary, and tertiary keywords strategically and thoughtfully (see 4 below).

  3. Page load speed is a biggy for me. If I have to wait for your page to load, I get bored and leave your site, just like your customers will. I even give you access to a tool  to check the speed of your site; it’s just that important.

  4. You must include your primary keywords in strategic places on your page, specifically in the page URL, within the first 100 words of your content, in your H2 & H3 tags, and front-loaded in the page’s H1 (title) tag.

  5. Have awesome page rank authority, and by awesome, I mean really, really authoritative. You show your authority by having quality inbound links to your site. Quality means links to your site from high authority websites within your industry — this could be industry publication sites, manufacturers, distributors, etc.

  6. You also want domain authority. Domain authority is built by having stellar content — content that is specific, informative and educational.

  7. Link relevancy is critical to me. I mentioned this in #5, but it is worth its own bullet because I pay a lot of attention to this. Make sure your links come from sites with similar topics as your site.

  8. I’m really paying attention these days to what people do on your site and how long they spend on your site. If someone lands on your site and immediately bounces off, that tells me that your site lacks the content the searcher was expecting. Make sure your pages are highly targeted to one subject topic, keep them clutter-free, and the most important information should display above the fold.

  9. You must have a responsive website design, I repeat, must! People use all types of devices to search the web these days. If your site does not display well on smaller screens (think cell phones), then you apparently don’t care much about your customer and I, in turn, don’t care much about your site.

  10. Another must is eliminating thin or duplicate content pages. I want to see robust, original content on your site. So, if you have older pages with thin content, enhance them or get rid of them. Same with duplicate content pages. If I see a lot of duplicate content, I think you are trying to trick me into thinking that you have great content.

Website: I’m beginning to understand. I didn’t realize we needed to pay attention to this stuff. My web developer said they implemented my SEO for best rankings, but you are saying they did not. What do you suggest?

bubbles115Search Engine: Web developers are ideal for making your site function the way you want but typically, they do not address search engine expectations. Now you are better informed. Seek out professionals, those well educated and practiced in internet marketing, with the same care you would for an attorney or CPA. As with other professionals, make sure they have considerable experience in your particular market. They must get every detail right or performance suffers. Hiring experts will yield the best return on your company’s investment.


Search Engine: Let me give you one more tip — have an excellent, unique page description for each page on your site. I don’t use this as a ranking factor, but the page description is what entices searchers to click-through to your site — it is the snippet of text that displays under your page title on my search results pages. I limit you to about 135-160 characters for the page description so choose your words wisely and incorporate your target or primary keywords in the description and have a good call-to-action.

bubbles115Website: Oh, wow. What helpful tips. Guess my company needs to start paying more attention. I will pass this on our marketing manager.

 

 

 

For help with any or all of the above points, give us a call, 360.834.2780 or send us an email, info@pumpmarketingsolutions.com we’d love to help your site satisfy search engine requirements.

 

SEO or PPC

PPC, Search Engine Marketing, SEO

SEO vs PPC

SEO vs. PPC

What’s the difference and where should industrial firms spend marketing dollars?

We see a lot of our industrial clients struggling with the question, “where do I spend my marketing dollars, on search engine optimization (SEO) or search engine advertising (like Google AdWords)?” The answer to that question, like so many other things, is not an easy either-or decision — SEO is essential for a site to be found by prospects, it improves the customer’s experience, and it helps improve search engine advertising results.

Before we discuss how to determine what is best for the company, let’s look at both options in greater depth and explore some of the pros and cons of each — this knowledge will save money and avoid disappointment.

What is search engine optimization (SEO)?

SEO, also known as organic search is, according to Google, “the process of maximizing the number of visitors to a particular website by ensuring that the site appears high on the list of results returned by a search engine.” Search results are ranked based on algorithms that closely match the searcher’s intent. First page rankings increase your probability that searchers will click through to your site, and are even higher when your site ranks 1, 2 or 3 on the first page.

To rank well on a search engine result page (SERP), a website must be properly search engine optimized. It is imperative that a company optimizes individual web pages for their most important keywords with highly relevant content and a host of other factors (see our detailed blog posts on On-Page SEO and Off-Page SEO for additional information).

Let’s look at the pros and cons of SEO.

Pros

  • Trust and credibility. High search rankings carry the perception of credibility; they imply authority, which generates trust.
  • Click-through Rate (CTR) studies show that CTRs are always better for organic search results for informational searches.
  • Organic search is less costly than paid search to achieve results.
  • SEO practices yield a superior human experience leading to superior results.
  • Works for your company 24/7 – everlasting.
  • SEO creates the foundation for long-term success.

Cons

  • Organic search can take months to rank highly; it is a long-term strategy that requires resources to apply SEO tactics and develop and maintain content.
  • Maintaining organic search results relies heavily on fresh content and building authoritative backlinks.

What is search engine advertising? 

Search advertising, also known as Paid Search or PPC, are advertisements that companies place with search engines to have their ads displayed when a searcher enters specific keywords. Companies bid for keywords and only pay for the ad when a searcher clicks through to their site from the ad.

Keyword bidding and the ad’s quality score are used by search engines to determine ad placement. Keywords are used in the bidding process to match your ads with what prospects are searching for. You choose how much you are willing to pay for a keyword — you pay for each click on your ad. Quality scores are variables based on the ads expected Click through rate (CTR), ad to keyword relevance, and the ad’s landing page relevance to the ad. High-quality scores can lead to lower ad prices and better ad positions.

Now, let’s look at the pros and cons of PPC.

Pros

  • If ads are properly bid and have high-quality scores, paid advertising can propel search rankings to the top of the search results page.
  • PPC can be tailored to target specific audiences, for example, industry, locations, product users.

Cons

  • Ads won’t rank well unless ads and their respective landing pages are highly relevant to each other and the searcher’s query.
  • Competitive keyword PPC ads can be expensive.
  • PPC ads require close monitoring to avoid excessive clicks by unqualified traffic.
  • For informational sites, there is some level of distrust by searchers for paid ads.
  • Informational sites, PPC ad CTRs are lower than organic search CTRs.

When is PPC beneficial?

The perfect time for industrial companies to run an AdWords campaign is when the company needs to:

  • Jump start organic search results for a new or redesigned site or a new web page — organic SEO methods can take months to show results.
  • Launch new products, promote a new service or inform your audience about an upcoming event.
  • Quickly gain brand recognition.

The question, “should we spend marketing dollars on search engine optimization or PPC advertising?” is more of a question of how can I get the best bang for my buck to achieve my marketing goals.

PPC advertising can be used to help quickly gain search engine traffic for a new site, new web page, or new product. If it is imperative to rank well for highly competitive keywords, AdWords might be the answer, but remember, if the keywords are highly competitive, a substantial budget is needed to bid enough to rank well for those keywords.

SEO optimization, on the other hand, should be part of the company’s long-term strategy. The goal of SEO is to rank on page one of a search results page for the page’s most important keywords. You can think of SEO as an investment in the future — if website ranks well organically for relevant keywords, then a PPC campaign might not be necessary allowing you to spend marketing dollars elsewhere.

We can’t stress enough the importance of a developing a clear marketing strategy and marketing plan that deploys tactics that make sense for your business. Search engine optimization should always be part of that plan to ensure high-ranking, long-term, sustainable organic search results. However, activities like creating a company blog to position the company as industry experts or using email marketing to target your audience with a particular message might be money better spent than launching an AdWords campaign — let your strategy and data drive tactical decisions.

Still need help deciding the best course of action for your company, give us a call to discuss your unique situation — 360.834.2780.

Distributor Guide to Website Success

Keywords, Search Engine Marketing, SEO, Site navigation, Strategy, User Testing

Distributor Website Success

What is website success?

Website success means your site achieved its goals. For the purpose of this article, we’d like to focus on success that is measured by qualified lead generation – a goal 99% of our clients use – sounds simple right? Well it can be, but 3 things need to happen first:

  1. You have implemented Search Engine Optimization (SEO) best practices. Meaning:
    • Your site is found and indexed by search engines.
    • Search engines rank your web pages on page 1 of a search results page.
    • Your search snippets (page description) entice searchers to click through to your site.
    • Your site provides searchers with product and service information relevant to their search inquiry.
  2. You’ve user tested your website. Usability testing means your site meets the navigation and information needs of your prospects and customers.
  3. You analyze website and competitor data on a consistent basis allowing you to make data-driven decisions about the site to ensure it meets set goals.

Website success: What it does for your business.

  1. It generates a generous ROI.
  2. It helps you better understand your target audience. Search engines provide gobs of very focused usage data, but it also gives your insight into:
    • Human behavior as it applies to your business – this is important. What search patterns do site visitors use? What keywords do they use when looking for your products and services? How do they navigate your site? How long do they spend on the site? What are your most visited pages? Where did the visitors come from? And so much more.
    • Competitor data that reveals their success in ranking for specific keywords, which ad campaigns they run and how successful they are and other internet tactics they deploy.
  3. It pulls in leads that can be highly filtered to minimize and simplify response priorities.
  4. It establishes company creditability and authority.
  5. It warms up the customer experience by humanizing your website.
  6. It provides you with market trends applicable to your products/services.
  7. It builds and maintains brand recognition. And when accompanied by various marketing tactics and practices, will propel revenue.

What’s the process for developing a successful website?

  • Develop clear marketing goals – goals that are aligned with overall business goals. Ensure your website developer, graphics specialist, and internet marketing firm understand the goals and carry out their respective jobs with the intention of meeting those goals.
  • Understand customer expectations and develop your site based on their feedback. Searches have two sides; input and output. Search engines are becoming better at monitoring and understanding user behavior, and they are becoming very sophisticated at matching website content to searcher intent.
  • Understanding the keywords and phrases that drive qualified searchers to your site and ensuring all elements of your site (backend and frontend) are optimized and in synch. A search engine’s ability to match a searcher’s inquiry with relevant results depends on how well they understand a website’s content – this is where a lot of websites fail. If search engines can’t determine how to navigate your site and understand the information well enough to index and rank your site, prospects won’t find your site. How sad, since getting it right is a win for all players and the cost is low.

Get started.

So you may be saying, ‘this is all good for the big guys, but small distributors don’t have that kind of money,” which is a big fallacy. Optimizing your website, creating the ultimate user experience and analyzing the data does not require deep pockets.

Internet promotion, when focused on Company goals, provides you with the biggest bang for your buck. If you are still spending on exhibitions, print ads and paid directories, maybe rethink those activities by analyzing just how much business you acquire from each. You might have to reallocate marketing dollars, but you won’t be disappointed – the internet allows you to speak directly to your prospects and customers without excessive spending – the internet truly does level the playing field.

Off-Page SEO

SEO

Industrial S for SEO

SEO: The importance of off-page optimization.

In our last post, we talked about the importance of on-page search engine optimization (SEO), or the elements applied to your website’s front end content and back end code to improve its findability. In this article, we discuss off-page SEO — the marketing factors that play into findability improvements. Let’s get started.

What is off-page SEO?

Off-page SEO are the promotional tasks and campaigns executed to improve a site’s organic search results. Off-page SEO helps you market your website and build brand awareness.

An often forgotten but important element to building a successful off-page SEO program is the creation of an editorial and scheduling calendar. Editorial calendars help ensure you consistently post relevant, quality content (think blogs & social media) and meet your promotional marketing schedules.

Off-page SEO elements

Listed below are the promotional techniques that you should consider when developing your off-page SEO plan.

Blogging

Creating a blog on your site is an excellent way to strut your stuff and build authority. Blogging is a fantastic way to get your employees to participate in promoting your business by sharing their knowledge and expertise. Blogging can also provide the content you need for a successful social media program. Two essential elements to blogging are one, consistency — if one blog post per month is all you can handle, then schedule that. One post each month is more meaningful and keeps your target audience engaged and interested in what you have to say than posting sporadically. And two, sharing your posts. Sharing is especially important when you first start blogging — if no one knows about your posts, they won’t be read and shared. A simple email message to your customer and prospect database is the perfect way to spread the word. Also, mentioning a new blog post on your social media channels will help to broaden your reach.

Social media

It’s time to get social, but only on the channels your customers and prospects participate (and contrary to some popular belief within industrial markets, your customer base does use social media). Social media is about forming relationships with your target audience by engaging them in two-way conversations — it is also an excellent way to share your content. Channels could include Google+ (which is also very helpful in improving your Google page rank), LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. Photo sites like Instagram or Pinterest are excellent sites to showcase your products and services, company functions, and employees.

Link building

One of the best ways to improve your ranking is through high-quality link building. Link building should be a deliberate practice — it is always better to have a few links to reputable, authoritative sites than many links to sites that have nothing to do with your business. For industrial companies, reputable and authoritative sites would include suppliers’, distributors’, manufacturers’, and industry relevant online publications and associations.

Participating in industry forums and groups

Commenting and contributing to the conversation in industry groups and forums showcases your expertise, helps build your authority and establishes your company as industry experts. For example, if you are in the pump industry, you can join a pump group on LinkedIn.

Sitemap Submission

You always want to submit a sitemap to all search engines, and any time that you add web pages, your sitemap must be updated. Sitemaps tell search engines how to navigate your site to improve indexing, which in turn, can improve search engine page rankings. Most content management systems, like WordPress, have plugins that can automatically do this for you.

Local SEO

If your business depends on local customers, this should be on top of your list. Local SEO provides search results that are relevant to a searcher’s current location. You should claim your Google Places for Business page, complete all necessary information, and then link your Google Places page to your Google+ Local Page. One important factor to remember when submitting company information to Google is consistency. Choose an NAP (name, address, phone number) format and stick with it — search engines get confused when your listings are not consistent.

Directory submissions

Directory submissions can be free or paid, but you should focus only on submitting information to directories that are relevant to your business. Like local SEO, NAP consistency is important.

Press release promotion

Press releases are an excellent way to share broadly company information and product and service news. There are many press release submission sites, but don’t forget about industry association and publication sites. These sites typically better target the audiences that are important to your business.

Need help with any of the above off-page SEO elements? Give us a call, 360.834.2780, or send us an email, info@pumpmarketingsolutions.com — we’d love to help.