Internet Marketing Blog

Holiday remnants are being stowed away for next year, the New Year’s diet begins, and 2011 is officially here.  As we all get back to work this week, I want to give you a brief update on the world of Webtyde Internet Marketing so you’re aware of all our new services we are offering to help make your company more visible online.

Local SEO

Local SEO has seen a huge change in Q4 2010.  We saw the integration of Google Local Map results into the organic results.  This means that your Google Places page (formerly known as your Google Local page) can now place in the rankings even if you DO NOT have a website.  Most local businesses have a combination of a Google Places listing AND a website that is geo-targeted, so those clients are showing the top rankings.

As a result, Webtyde Internet Marketing now offers Local SEO package services, comprised of Local Business Listings (LBL) Management services.  You can get optimized local listings created in Google, Yahoo, and Bing for as low as $29.95 /mo with a $199 setup fee for our Local Basic package.  The next two packages up in our Local SEO Local Business Management services are the Local Advanced package, which consists of creating optimized Google, Yahoo, Bing, Yelp, Merchant Circle, and Superpages with monthly management starting at $39.95 /mo + $249 setup fee. Our most comprehensive Local SEO package is our Local Aggressive with Google, Yahoo, Bing, Yelp, Merchant Circle,  Superpages, Facebook, and Twitter optimized listing creations and monthly management for $49.95 /mo with a one-time $299 setup fee.

Included in your monthly management fees are monthly updates of your listings, including two Facebook posts and two Twitter Tweets per month.  Each of these packages help maintain the freshness of your listings, which we all know Google loves.  You will also receive valuable tips and recommendations which you can implement for your business to help rankings, such as requesting feedback from customers on your listings, etc…

National SEO

As we see local results taking up much of the shorter phrases in each geo-graphic location, one would wonder how you will be able to compete nationally against local companies.  It has become imperrative to have a current, well analysed keyword campaign as the base for your National SEO campaign.  Longer-tailed keyword phrases (ie: “fresh pecans” instead of  “pecans”, or “holiday candy gifts” instead of “candy”) and having more of these keyword phrases are the key to 2011 national SEO campaigns.  Plus, longer-tailed keyword phrases will send you more qualified traffic to really concentrate on getting that click-through and sell your products and services online.

We offer SEO packages with flexible initial and monthly payments to get you started without having to majorly invest your marketing budget, while seeing a great return on your investment.

International SEO

We are expanding this year into International territory.  Webtyde welcomes one of our new International clients, Profile Tyrecenter in Westland, located just outside of The Hague in Holland.  Our Local SEO and National SEO services can be applied anywhere served by major search engines.  We help create localized (or translated) content, work directly with websites of various languages, and optimized for your specific geo-graphic markets.  Because the United States is usually the first application of Google’s major changes, we offer cutting edge knowledge of search engines in most markets around the world.  Stay WAY ahead of your competition by contacting us today.  We offer conference calls via Skype.

eCommerce SEO

The eCommerce SEO website traffic and sales statistics are trickling in from our clients after the holiday eCommerce madness settles and they are looking like the best our clients have had.  Remember, folks, it’s not just about getting people to see your website, but to get them to act and purchase your products or services.  Webtyde Internet Marketing educates and empowers our clients to make the best of their Internet marketing campaigns.

Contact us today to get your campaign in full force by next holiday season.

Individual Internet Marketing Services

We now offer a variety of individual Internet marketing services for those people who just need a little help, are constrained by a tight budget, or just want to do one piece at a time.  No client is too big or too small for us to help.  Please let us know how we can help.

I have assembled an amazing team over 2010, made some strong partnerships with talented complimentary companies, and I’m looking forward to bringing you the best services so far in 2011.  Call us today to reserve your project since spaces are limited this year.  I look forward to talking with each of you.

Happy 2011!

Best Regards,
Allyson Seitzler, Principal
Webtyde Internet Marketing, LLC

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) recently wrote an article about how large rival websites are being greatly affected by loss of rankings in search results due to Google’s own versions of these websites.  Many businesses, such as WebMD and TripAdvisor, are being adversely affected by Google supposedly ranking their versions of these websites ahead of them.

Google created Google Health in 2009 which, like WebMD, shows results for illnesses or medical related questions.  Google Places (formerly Google Local results pages) has been developed to compete with Yelp, TripAdvisor, and other local review websites.

Large companies are clearly seeing the value of Google rankings, and the impact of not having their websites rank.

What This Means For You

What this means for you is that anything related to your business and website must be properly registered and optimized for all Google products.  This doesn’t mean you should ignore your Yelp reviews, it means you need to make sure to keep your listings current and consistent as a major factor in your local SEO and/or national Internet marketing campaign.  For Local SEO, we offer monthly Local Business Listing (LBL) Management services.  Prices start at $19.95 for monthly management of your Google, Yahoo, and Bing Local business listings and review management.  With our monthly services, clients are notified when different actions on behalf of LBL owners are recommended, such as soliciting more online reviews from your customers.  This levels the playing field for local businesses to compete with their large corporate counterparts in their local markets.

While these huge businesses fight it out with Google, you should take this opportunity to optimize your website AND your local listings to make sure Google knows enough about your business to put it in front of potential customers.

The time has come: we are now that much closer to becoming Knight Rider, and K.I.T. is going to be doing our searches online for us while we drive.

For instance, Ford SYNC is an “in-car connectivity system that allows you to make hands-free calls and control your music and other functions with simple voice commands”.  Next thing you know, car manufacturers will be installing cellular antennas, like those on our smart phones and mobile broadband-enabled computers, and they will have data connections built-in.  With a built-in data connection and voice recognition software, automotive computers will then be able to surf the Web while you drive.

This is just another reason to get your local business website and map listings optimized for search engines.  People are now searching for your business on their laptops, their smart phones, and soon, their cars.

First generation automotive GPS systems, like Garmin and Tom Tom, offered business suggestions based off your physical location and type of product or service for which you were searching.  Soon, the new search results will be pulled from Google and Yahoo/Bing and include your business reviews, your ranking in search engines, heck…even what’s on your menu can be reviewed online.

Before it was okay just to get a Local SEO Maps listing and it would be a bonus to optimize your website.  Now, you really need to have an optimized website along with your Local SEO Map listings because of the need to get your information out there.  Information is the key to ranking because you are giving search engines AND your customers  every bit of relevant information you can in order for people to find you.

Just as it’s best to be as transparent and honest as possible in your business affairs, the same goes for your dealings with Google.  The complexity of Google’s algorithms will eventually catch up with those who are trying to defraud, manipulate, or misrepresent themselves by buying links from link farms, duplicating content, hiding keywords, and the list goes on and on.  A website’s  repercussions when caught by Google for fraud is to be thrown into the “Sandbox” or removed entirely from their indexes, depending on the severity of the violation(s).  To be “Sandboxed” by Google is to be ranking somewhere after page 5 or not at all.  Keep it honest, people, and will stay far away from the Sandbox.

One way to remain honest is to update your content as often as you say you will in your sitemap.xml.  There are options of daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly so the SEs know when to revisit your website. Even though they usually visit much more often, it shows Google that you are true to your word when you update according to what your sitemap.xml says.  Our clients show consistent ranking improvements due to monthly updates, versus our non-updated test websites.  Our non-updated websites show a steady downward trend in rankings depending on how competitive their keyword phrases are.

Just remember, Google loves fresh content almost as much as they love honesty.

Although our geo-specific and Local SEO clients have all shown very good, consistent rankings for the past several years, these last two months have been exceptionally successful.  I’m attributing the success for many of our clients to their geo-targeted website campaigns.  With Google now showing results for Local companies within the organic results, this has opened up a huge market for our clients.

We offer both Local SEO Map Registration and Local Website SEO.  Local SEO Map Registration is a service we provide that creates locally optimized Google, Yahoo, and Bing Map listings.  Businesses don’t even need a website with this service and is inexpensive to maintain with our new Local SEO Map Management service which starts at only $16.95 per month to maintain your Google Local map listing.  Our Local Website SEO service includes the Local SEO Map Registration along with optimization for your website, promoting the services you offer in your city/cities in which you do business.

An example of our Local SEO Map Registration and Management service is for a local children’s clothing store in New Orleans.  I met Karen from Mignon for Children last summer and she signed up her business for our Local SEO Map Registration services.  Her niece is in the process of finishing her website and with their limited marketing budget, our services fulfilled her business’s needs nicely.  Mignon for Children now shows on the first page in Google for many terms including “children’s clothing New Orleans”.  She signed up for our Local SEO Map Management service and never has to worry about remembering to monitor her listing.

Another big success story even before the recent Google algorithm changes was Dennis Daum Tile.  Dennis is a tile contractor located in Rocklin, CA, about 30 minutes outside of Sacramento.  Since we recently added a very affordable payment plan to help our small business clients, Dennis was able to spread out the cost over 12 months of optimizing his website with our Local Website SEO services.  We created a custom keyword campaign to target the greater Sacramento area for tile repair and installation.  Dennis chose our Starter SEO Package which includes optimizing five website pages for 15 keyword phrases.  Dennis shows in Google Local for his city of Rocklin, CA and in page one of Google for organic results pertaining to Sacramento, CA for many tile related keyword phrases.  He says he is getting several inquiries per week from his online exposure due to his successful Internet marketing campaign.

Google, Yahoo, and Bing are constantly changing in order to give the people who use their search engine to find things the best results.  Webtyde is here to help Google and other search engines find your useful information clearly and easily.  It’s all about being clear, ethical, and informative.

Please contact us if you would like to start gaining customers by getting found on the Internet.  We would love to help you.

I’ve been noticing the results in Yahoo and Bing from my clients’ ranking reports showing very similar ranking placement for almost all keyword phrases we are targeting.  They seem to be getting closer and closer together in the past two months.  It’s been a slow progression, but this week seems almost exact except for a few standard variations.

Neither engine appears to be taking on the others’ exact rankings, but rather a marriage of both sets of algorithms have come together to make one happy search engine (at least happy with most of my clients).  It looks like there are just two big players in the game at this time.

Many of you already know how important it is to have your Google Local listing optimized for your targeted keyword phrases.  For those of you local businesses who have websites, you should be very happy if you’ve optimized them for local results because Google is now showing you in the organic rankings as well.

The listings shown by the Google Map are considered Google Local results.  Many search terms don’t end up showing a map, they just show the organic results.  If you don’t have a website and you just have a Google Local Places listing, then you’ll be missing out.

Google knows what city you are in when you perform a search on a computer.  If I’m in New Orleans and I search the phrase “coffee shop”, Google will return results for coffee shops in New Orleans.  Not only does this show organic results, it also shows the Google Local results with the map.  If you search for “coffee gifts” which is a more vague term, it will not show the local map, but it will show results related to New Orleans coffee gifts in both the sponsored results and the organic results.  This is why it is important to have a website when you are a local business.  You attract more visitors because your website has more content than just a Google Local Places page.

Our Local SEO Map Registration and Management services are great places to begin your Web presence locally if you do not have a website, but with so much of the world online, it’s vital to have as much information about your company online as possible.

Yesterday, at around 10pm PT, Google officially announced it is launching Google TV.  Google TV has a fully functioning browser that you use from your television in your living room or bedroom.  So now, not only will you be able to roam most streets of this planet with Internet access from your mobile device, you get to surf the Web from the comfort of your couch or your horizontal office when you’re just too tired to make it out of bed.

This is a great advancement for technology, connectivity, and laziness, but for those of us who create and market websites, this adds a totally new variable we must consider when creating and marketing those websites.

There will now be a “10 foot UI” (UI=User Interface) which means that viewers will be about 10 feet away, or sofa-to-TV distance, and the images will need to be optimized for this new medium.  Some of what “Optimized for TV” means:

• Text will need to be large enough for “10 foot UI”
• Site navigation can be performed through button arrows on the remote, more like tabbing on your laptop computer, rather than by using a mouse pointer
• Selectable elements need to provide a visual queue when selected

There are MANY new recommendations and requirements Google is outlining for websites to be more user friendly on Google TV.   As for now, I’ll be awaiting my test version of Google TV to give you a full review.

Predictions

I’m predicting Google TV to take a while to catch on if it does.  If you have an extremely aggressive Internet marketing campaign, and already have a dedicated mobile site created for users of mobile smart devices, then I would recommend you jump now to create another Google TV version of your website to accommodate new Google TV users.  For those of you without the time, budget, or desire at this point to make custom changes, I wouldn’t worry about it until you start seeing laptop sales drop and Google TV devices flying off the shelves at your local electronics store.

For your next updates on your website, I would recommend making sure you have CSS navigation with a link hover state added if you do not already have this.  If you are an existing client of Webtyde’s, you would already have been urged to have CSS navigation installed.  The CSS navigation will enable Google TV users to navigate your website.

Here is the official Google Webmaster Central Blog entry:

Optimizing sites for TV

Wednesday, October 20, 2010 at 9:51 PM
Webmaster Level: All

Just as mobile phones make your site accessible to people on the go, Google TV makes your site easily viewable to people lounging on their couch. Google TV is a platform that combines your current TV programming with the web and, before long, more apps. It’s the web you love, with the TV you love, all available on the sofa made for you. Woohoo!

Because Google TV has a fully functioning web browser built in, users can easily visit your site from their TV. Current sites should already work, but you may want to provide your users with an enhanced TV experience — what’s called the “10-foot UI” (user interface). They’ll be several feet away from the screen, not several inches away, and rather than a mouse on their desktop, they’ll have a remote with a keyboard and a pointing device.

For example, here’s YouTube for desktop users versus what we’re calling “YouTube Leanback” — our site optimized for large screens:

YouTube desktop version on the left, YouTube Leanback on the right

See our Spotlight Gallery for more examples of TV-optimized sites.

What does “optimized for TV” mean?

It means that, for the user sitting on their couch, your site on their TV is an even more enjoyable experience:

• Text is large enough to be viewable from the sofa-to-TV distance.
• Site navigation can be performed through button arrows on the remote (a D-pad), rather than mouse/touchpad usage
• Selectable elements provide a visual queue when selected (when you’re 10 feet away, it needs to be really, really obvious what selections are highlighted)
• and more…

How can webmasters gain a general idea of their site’s appearance on TV?

First, remember that appearance alone doesn’t incorporate whether your site can be easily navigated by TV users (i.e. users with a remote rather than a mouse). With that said, here’s a quick workaround to give you a ballpark idea of how your site looks on TV. (For more in-depth info, please see the “Design considerations” in our optimization guide.)

1. On a large monitor, make your window size 1920 x 1080.
2. In a browser, visit your site at full screen.
3. Zoom the browser to 1.5x the normal size. This is performed in different ways with different keyboards. For example, in Chrome if you press ctrl+ (press ctrl and + at the same time) twice, that’ll zoom the browser to nearly 1.5x the initial size.
4. Move back 3 x (the distance between you and the monitor).
5. Check out your site!

And don’t forget, if you want to see your site with the real thing, Google TV enabled devices are now available in stores.

How can you learn more?

Our team just published a developer site, with TV optimization techniques, at code.google.com/tv/web/.

Written by Maile Ohye, Developer Programs Tech Lead

I would like to introduce two more partners Webtyde Internet Marketing works with to help bring our clients the best solutions possible.

Mirliton Media, LLC – eCommerce Website Development and  Custom Software Development.
Studio 1936 – Website Development, Enterprise Solutions, Infrastructure, Consulting.

We work together to bring you professionally developed, custom SEO eCommerce website solutions that help bring visibility to your business.  Our powerful team gives your company the most cutting-edge online shopping cart to sell your products nationally or Internationally in worldwide markets.  Please contact us today for a free consultation.