Category: Internet marketing Page 4 of 14

Google Penalty For Repeat Offenders

On December 16, 2013

Decmember 16, 2013

Being penalized by Google can be a major setback for website owners, with revamping your entire website and SEO strategy seeming to the only situation. However, this is not always the case, as is evident from the infamous Interflora example, where the website was back in Google’s good books just 11 days after being penalized. In the recent video by Google’s distinguished engineer, Matt Cutts, Google explains how this works, and how Google has a stronger penalty for repeat offenders than for a one-time spammer.

The bottom line is that if you receive a spam warning from Google once, you need to be extra cautious from that point on, ensuring that you do not tread close to the black hat SEO territory again. It is also important to keep a close check on other details of your SEO strategy, which could lead to your blacklisting. Once you decide to disavow links that are getting you into trouble, there are two approaches that you can follow. The first and more aggressive one is to disavow all links basically scratch from scratch, leaving only those that are obviously harmless. The other approach is more subtle, tackling one link at a time, eliminating only the ones that are definitely dirty, and going on until the penalty is lifted.

According to Matt Cutts, the first approach is the better one for those who want to bring their website back into the index immediately. This approach works well to resurrect a site that despite having a good domain name or great content has been killed by spam. Even though going the route of every single link the website got over the past year or year and a half may seem as too large scale an endeavor, that is the kind of impact Google is looking for when reassessing a penalized website.

Thus, if you are willing to recover from a bad backlink penalty, the best approach to follow is to simply disavow all the links that you got to your website during that particular frame of time. If you feel that disavowing all the links is too radical an approach, you must at least remove every link that seems suspicious. This could be your gateway to get back to into the index quicker- if you are lucky enough, within 11 days, just like Interflora managed to.

How To Convert One Time Customers Into Repeat Customers

By centexitguy

On December 12, 2013

In Internet marketing

December 6, 2013

The holiday season is undoubtedly an exciting time for online business owners the world over, with the sales peaking at an all-time high. However, the inevitable reality that follows this thrilling period, is the slump that is sure to follow. Business persons are increasingly focusing on how to work their way around the valley that follows their seasonal peak, and break the trend of their sales cycles. Aptly referred to as a “hangover cure”, the basic goal of this strategy is to find a way to convert possibly one-time customers to repeat customers, or even better, lifetime customers.

The first step to achieving this goal is understanding the potential scenarios through which these one-time customers could be encouraged to make a repeat purchase. Considering the fact that the mentality of customers shopping during the holiday season is usually one of purchasing a one-time gift, these scenarios could include:

Buying again for themselves- It could be possible that while buying a gift, they could like something for themselves, which could prompt them to revisit your website to make the purchase.

Buying another gift– If they have a positive experience while buying a gift from your website the first time it is possible that they would want to return later during the year to buy the same gift, or something similar, for someone else.

Recommending the website to others: Finally, if the holiday shopper is impressed with your services, there is a strong chance of them telling others about it, which could result in more customers for you.

So how exactly can you keep in touch with these customers and prompt them to take one of these actions? Some of the most effective channels to do this include:

Email marketing: Design an email marketing campaign with a personal touch exclusively targeting customers who made a purchase during the holiday season.

Social media: If you find a way to make these customers follow you on social media channels like Facebook and Twitter, your job of being able to get back to them is half done.

Special offers: Considering that a special holiday offer is what first brought them to your website, presenting them with more exciting offers could be just what is needed to tap on their mentality.

New products: Launching new products and announcing them through emails and social media is a good way to maintain your brand’s visibility and encourage one-time customers to revisit you in the low-tide months.

Tips For Promoting Your Travel Website

By centexitguy

On November 29, 2013

In Internet marketing, SEO Marketing

November 29, 2013

Like all other niche businesses, travel websites also have to face immense competition, making it important to adopt an industry-specific strategy while promoting these websites. With the number of travel websites growing by the day, it is important to adopt aggressive marketing tactics to ensure that you not just stay in the competition, but also rise to the top of it. Considering that more than 70% of people look up information on flights, travel destinations, hotel bookings, and other travel paraphernalia online, a travel website, when promoted correctly, has great scope.

The following tips guide you on how to promote your travel website and make the most of it:

Content is definitely the king when it comes to a travel website. You want to make sure that your visitors get useful and accurate information when they visit your website. The information should be precise, easy-to-navigate and comprehensive. Users should view your website as their single resource for all the travel information they need, which is not a mean task to achieve.
Adding a travel blog to your website is a great way to keep users updated with the latest information from the world of travelling, and to interact with the network of fellow travel bloggers. Have experienced travel bloggers sharing content and images on your blog, and commenting on other blogs, to generate quality inbound links.
Web 2.0 properties are a valuable asset for building an online brand image for your travel website. Make the most of all these resources, right from blogs, forums, and article marketing sites, to Squidoo lenses and other social media sites like Pinterest and Instagram. Make sure that you have a well-planned and systematic social media strategy in place. Your goals should be to increase the visibility of your brand name among your audiences, to the greatest extent possible.
If you haven’t yet adopted responsive web design, do it now. The last thing you want is people opting out of your website because they cannot view it on their mobile devices.
The key to a successful travel website is to have consistent marketing efforts. You might have a great idea today, and apply it to spread the name of your brand, but it is of no use unless you keep coming up with such great ideas, and make sure that people associate your brand with reliable travel guidance.

We at Centex Technologies, provide internet marketing solutions to travel websites. For more information, call us at – (855) 375-9654

Responsive Web Design And SEO

By centexitguy

On November 23, 2013

In Internet marketing, SEO Marketing

November 23, 2013

Mobile websites have gone on to become an indispensable part of SEO, which makes it essential for business owners to have a mobile version of their websites, specially adapted for small screens, and with fast load times. Responsive web design offers business owners the advantage of having a website that is tailored to small screens, without actually having to create a separate website.

The first question that arises when business owners consider responsive web design is what exactly it is and how it differs from a mobile site. Responsive web design simply means a web design that works totally fine whether you load it on a desktop or through a mobile browser. With responsive web design, your website automatically rescales as per the required page size. A mobile website on the other hand, despite being a lightweight version of the site does not have most of the elements included on the actual web page.

Another common doubt is whether opting for responsive web design over a traditional mobile site leverages a high SEO value in the eyes of Google. When both these options are compared from an SEO point of view, responsive web design scores above a mobile website. This is primarily because of the multiple issues that can possibly arise in the SEO strategies of your website when creating a mobile version of the page. This could happen if you do not apply the rel=canonical and other such technical aspects on your mobile website correctly.

On the other hand, when it comes to a website that adopts responsive design, you have a lot less to worry about from the SEO perspective, since the website retains the same URL on all devices. This is contrary to a mobile website which has a different URL, such as mobile.example.com or m.example.com, which increases the chances of the PageRank getting divided between those two URLs. With responsive web design, you are working with the same URL all through, eliminating the possibility of the PageRank getting divided.

As a conclusion, it is evident that there are fewer chances of having to face SEO-related issues when adopting responsive web design, as compared to opting for a lightweight mobile version of the site. However, having said that, a website’s mobile version can work just as well, without impacting the SEO strategies of the business, as long as the webmaster applies the tools provided by Google for mobile websites, to ensure that they are safeguarded from issues like duplicate content and split PageRank.

Google Hummingbird And Website Content

By centexitguy

On November 18, 2013

In Internet marketing, SEO Marketing

November 18, 2013

The Google Hummingbird update has made people rethink about the authority of content, and redefine strategies for keyword relevance and link building. The basis of this update is that Google wants to produce more relevant and informative results to its users, which makes it obvious that the emphasis for high SERP ratings on Google is content that is relevant and informative. The following tips guide you on how to create new website content, or modify your existing content after the hummingbird update:

The first step is to peruse your current content, keeping in mind what your target audience is likely to be searching for and thinking of. As opposed to thinking in keyword phrases, start thinking in conversational phrases. See if using complete titles instead of keyword-rich ones can improve traffic to your website. Also, emphasize on long-tail keywords with a key understanding of your target users’ search patterns.

Create standalone content. Make sure that each article has its own central concept, and has something unique to share. This is opposed to the conventional SEO technique of creating multiple articles with the same theme and then linking them to a tent pole article.

Lay special emphasis on headlines. Ideally, you should name all the digital content on your website, right from blog posts and videos to info-graphics. Use numbers whenever possible. For instance “11 great ways to…” Also, try using action words over nouns. The focus should be on the action resulted from the content, instead of merely describing what it is about.

The key to creating successful website content from a Google Hummingbird standpoint is making sure that every piece of content is a well-balanced mixture of sales, customer support, company information, and education.

Links remain the consistent SEO authority signals amidst all of Google’s updates, which emphasizes on the need to have a natural link-building program in place. Working on building a strong social media presence through your website content is a good way to do this. Even though this is not likely to generate links directly, but it can go a long way in building an audience for your brand, which can in turn help to generate high-quality links through relationship building and asking.

Follow this content marketing plan consistently, and make sure that all the content you update on your website is fresh and relevant.