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An easy way to increase your WordPress site’s speed and potentially your site’s Google rank. Smushit for WP!

November 30, 2011 by Marc Leave a Comment

For the almost two years now Google has used site speed as a factor in your site’s search results position.

If you want to know more about that here are some links:

An informational post from Matt Cutts explaining Google’s rationale for using site speed as a factor.
A detailed article from Google Webmastercentral on using site speed in search ranking.
More from Search Engine Land on site speed as a search ranking factor.

But most important is just this, install Smushit on your WordPress site. It is easy with the WP Smushit Plugin from the free WordPress repository. WP Smushit should be part of every WP site that uses photos and images. Using Yahoo’s service, it lossless-ly reduces the size of images files making your site load faster by;

optimizing JPEG compression
converting certain GIFs to indexed PNGs
stripping the un-used colours from indexed images

It does this to both your existing images and new images you upload. Making the file size of images smaller causes your site to load faster, improving visitor experience and potentially increasing your Google search ranking.

After you install the plugin, go to your media library and have it smush all the images already there, which, depending on how many you have, can take some time. After the initial smushing, it will perform the optimization for you automatically upon each upload.

Getting on the first page of search results is often the result of many small differences and improvements. WP Smushit is an easy way to gain a helpful improvement.

Filed Under: Internet Marketing, Search Engines, SEO, Tools and Tips, WordPress Tagged With: Internet Marketing, search engine optimization, search marketing, search optimization, WordPress

The end of Flash? It is for Flash Mobile on smartphones and tablets.

November 28, 2011 by Marc Leave a Comment

Earlier this month Adobe announced in an email to developers that it was ending Flash Mobile. Kevin Lynch, Adobe CTO, explained the strategy as follows:

We believe that HTML5 is a significant catalyst for growth for Adobe. And it’s a multi-year vector of innovation for most of our products. HTML5 is great for Adobe and great for the industry.

The key phrase I just used, and I people to make sure we all recognize this, is that most of our products – absolutely HTML5 is going to result in the substrate of the web undergoing a major overhaul – but it’s much bigger than just web pages. It’s the foundation of how content is going to be delivered in the years ahead.

Web, video, publishing, gaming are all going to increasingly rely on HTML5 across PCs, phones, TVs, and tablets. That is the foundation that we’re building toward and that’s the foundation we’re going to take a leadership position in.

A couple of days later Flash developer Mike Chambers expanded on the reasons for ending Flash Mobile and the future of Flash in general. He noted that:

Finally, given the growth of HTML5 on both mobile and desktop browsers, we decided to more evenly balance our resources dedicate between Flash and HTML5.

Halting development on the Flash Player for mobile devices frees up resources for HTML5 development (tooling, frameworks, browsers).

So the future at Adobe calls for less Flash and more HTML5. Contemplating Adobe’s increasing investment in HTML5 development tools and at the same time terminating Flash for mobile devices and what it means regarding Flash overall brings to mind the following quote from Winston Churchill; “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” Can it be that in a few months or a couple of years that as Flash Mobile went, so will Flash? To learn more regarding the problems and performance of flash on mobile devices read this analysis by GigaOm on why Flash Mobile did not work out.

Give it some thought when you make an investment in your website. With site visits by mobile devices quickly climbing towards 15% to 20% of the total site visits, according to IBM, it is a very important marketing consideration. For your website and marketing it seems that “to Flash or not to Flash” is the question. With Adobe putting its money on HTML5 for its future shouldn’t you?

It seems time to revisit some of the basic issues. Do you remember April 2010 and Steve Jobs’ thoughts on Flash? particularly concerning security, reliability and performance?

Symantec recently highlighted Flash for having one of the worst security records in 2009. We also know first hand that Flash is the number one reason Macs crash. We have been working with Adobe to fix these problems, but they have persisted for several years now. We don’t want to reduce the reliability and security of our iPhones, iPods and iPads by adding Flash.

In addition, Flash has not performed well on mobile devices. We have routinely asked Adobe to show us Flash performing well on a mobile device, any mobile device, for a few years now. We have never seen it. Adobe publicly said that Flash would ship on a smartphone in early 2009, then the second half of 2009, then the first half of 2010, and now they say the second half of 2010. We think it will eventually ship, but we’re glad we didn’t hold our breath. Who knows how it will perform?

In retrospect Steve Jobs had reasoned answers, before hardly any of us had even thought of the question.

Filed Under: BluDomain, Business Planning, Internet Marketing, SEO Tagged With: Flash, Internet Marketing, mobile devices, search engine optimization, search optimization, SEO, smartphones, tablets, website marketing

New website for custom woodworker and cabinet maker Don Ragland of Austin Texas

August 18, 2011 by Marc Leave a Comment

I enjoy creating websites for small business. These websites provide the business owner a competitive advantage and fairly quickly result in increased business. One of my most recent is a website for Austin, Texas based custom cabinet and furniture maker Don Ragland. Don is a successful craftsman and woodworker creating custom cabinets and furniture in Austin for over 20 years. His marketing was basically the yellow pages. But with dramatic reduction in use of yellow pages (search engines and smart phones have almost replaced yellow pages) and increase in cost of advertising Don had come to realize that he needed a good optimized website in order to be found and reach today’s prospective clients.

Because of the great business results a relative of Don’s has with one of my custom websites, Don asked me to create an effective website for marketing his upscale woodworking. Over a just two week period working with Don, and for much less cost than even a small yellow pages ad, you can now visit the website we created.

Online now for less than a week, we have already gotten the brand new site and domain name in the search indexes. All that is just the beginning of the SEO and search engine marketing that comes with the website.

If you would like to know about the cost and return on investment of my small business websites like Don’s, please call, send an email or leave a comment.

Filed Under: Client Websites, Internet Marketing, Search Engines Tagged With: Internet Marketing, search engine optimization, search marketing, SEO, SMO, website marketing, Websites

BluDomain mobile and improved SEO with WordPress

August 3, 2011 by Marc Leave a Comment

When WordPress is added to your BluDomain website, it not just a blog, it also covers the need for site visitors to have mobile and HTML versions. There are even options that can make your WordPress installation way more mobile friendly making sure that smart phone users will always be able to see and use your website. And the SEO advantages of WordPress are well respected, (heck … BluDomain even uses WordPress for the blog on their own website).

WordPress just works! If you like your BluDomain website, it can be even better and give you more reach and visitors with WordPress.

Here are some free plugin resources that can take a WordPress improved BluDomain website mobile -

WPtouch: A simple, powerful and elegant mobile theme for your website. WPtouch automatically transforms your WordPress blog into an iPhone application.
Wapple Architect Mobile Plugin for WordPress is a plugin that allows you to mobilize your blog in minutes.

Not only is WordPress fully mobile, it even has free apps to make it easy to edit and update with mobile devices.

WordPress for iOS easily edit your WordPress website with iPhone/iPad.
WordPress for Android easily edit your W0rdPress site from Android smart phones and tablets

WordPress is the best Bludomain add-on. Let me help take your current BluDomain website to the next level of SEO, social networking and mobile accessibility. Just send me and email or leave a comment.

Filed Under: BluDomain, Internet Marketing, SEO, WordPress Tagged With: BluDomain, search engine optimization, search marketing, SEM, SEO, SMO, WordPress

Target your website’s SEO to your target customers

August 2, 2011 by Marc Leave a Comment

Most SEO articles just deal with SEO and don’t focus on the real reason that should be driving any SEO effort .. your target customer. All your SEO efforts should initially be directed by an understanding of your target market and its different customer search personas. Then using that “ground work” to effectively attract the customers you want through well conceived SEO optimized content.

This is a great article “5 Steps to Building a Search Persona” by Erez Barak which works through how to develop a search persona that you can use for SEO efforts to increase your online sales. The article provides excellent how-to steps and examples. Put it in practice and it will help you increase traffic and sales.

If you have any questions or want assistance leave a comment or send an email. I am happy to help.

Filed Under: Internet Marketing, SEO Tagged With: Internet Marketing, keywords, marketing, search marketing, search optimization, SEO

Search optimizing a basic BluDomain Flash website How-To

July 26, 2011 by Marc Leave a Comment

This is a quick two part video tutorial review of how to setup the SEO elements of a BluDomain Flash site and splash page for the maximum SEO possible. I work on many different standard BluDomain based websites weekly and it is unusual when all the SEO related elements are already completed and optimized as I show you below. BluDomain does not have the robust possibilities of using WordPress for the splash page and blog, but you should take every opportunity presented to craft your site to present your search marketing keywords.

Part 1 – Maximizing the standard BluDomain splash page’s SEO

Part 2 – Maximizing the typical BluDomain Flash website template’s SEO

More on the death of meta keywords and why you should skip using them

If you have any questions, would like to know more about the additional SEO options included in using WordPress or would like an SEO analysis and quote for enhancing the search marketing and SEO of your current BluDomain website … please send me an email or leave a comment below.

Filed Under: BluDomain, SEO Tagged With: BluDomain, Internet Marketing, search engine optimization, Search Engines, search marketing, SEM, SEO

Our Bludomain SEO package provides a 300% plus increase in website traffic for Jen Carver Photography

July 21, 2011 by Marc Leave a Comment

A few months ago Jen Carver, an amazing children’s photographer from Pittsburgh, engaged us to do provide the full restructure and SEO for her website. There were only two restrictions, we needed to keep the Bludomain core and a splash page similar to the typical Bludomain splash page. As you can see the splash page appears much like a Bludomain splash page, but it is all WordPress, with all the possible WordPress SEO juice, and is fully part of her WordPress custom blog and related pages.

With Jen’s help in design we were able to put together a smashing site that has almost perfect SEO attributes, and is easy to use and modify. And best of all it has great organic search results for her keywords.

In general we created the new splash page with a special template WordPress page and we were able to easily include sufficient content, links and attributes to work much better than the possibilities using the standard Bludomain splash page. From there we designed and styled the blog and other pages with templates that best suited their respective purposes.

Additionally we imported Jen’s existing blogs from WrodPress.com and Blogger. Configured needed 301 redirects. Copied her contact information and such from the Bludomain site where it is difficult for search engines and mobile devices to access. Polished all the content for greater use of her search marketing keywords. And integrated her Facebook business page and Twitter account into the WordPress functions.

In the future Jen can easily modify the blog and other pages using the point and click design settings which allow her to change the style and appearance of almost every element of the site with just a mouse click or two. We also provided hosting for her new site, both the BluDomain and WordPress with OptimalHosting so that the site would be faster and more reliable.

But what really counts is the results, right. Since April when the new site first went live, the number of visits per day has now climbed to well over a 300% increase in less than 90 days.. For more read Jen’s recent comments on the new site and our work.

If you would like to know if we can do the same for you, please leave a comment or send an email.

Filed Under: Blogs, BluDomain, Client Websites, SEO, Social Networks

Replacement BluDomain SEO splash page now with WordPress widgets.

July 18, 2011 by Marc

Besides low SEO potential one of the issues with BluDomain splash pages is the lack of flexibility in adding new elements to increase your interaction with site visitors.

One of our approaches to improving BluDomain SEO has been to replace the standard BluDomain splash page with a WordPress based splash page, but it did not have the easy capability to add extras like Facebook friends widgets. Well, it does now! We have added three easy to use widget areas across the footer of our BluDomain replacement splash page. This means you can now add any WordPress widget to your splash page. Flickr, Facebook, Google, Social media, Twitter Feeds … what ever you want. It will increase site visitor interaction with your splash page and provide potential SEO enhancements. Below is a video of how it works -

If you want to know more about improving the SEO and search marketing of your Bludomain site, feel free to leave a comment or send me an email.

Filed Under: BluDomain, SEO, WordPress Tagged With: BluDomain, search engine optimization, search marketing, search optimization, SEO, splash page, WordPress

The wholeness of Google+ has the spirit of the moment.

July 13, 2011 by Marc 1 Comment

Or said another way, Google+’s gestalt is the zeitgeist! I think that small business marketers using the web will find competitive advantage through early adoption of Google+. Seems, over the last few months, for there to be a malaise regarding Facebook and since the June 28th’s “release” of Google+ a lot of excitement and evangelism. The “wholeness” approach to Google’s making the web a social network versus using a site as a social network, like Facebook, is new. Although small it is growing exponentially, Google+ is estimated to have now, as of this week, reached 9 million users (according to Search Engine Watch). And perhaps even more telling as to the general spirit swelling around Google+ are the pwns animated gifs like these -

So what can you do now to begin learning and gaining in Google+? Two quick suggestions:

If you haven’t already, sign up for a personal profile Google+ at the Google+ home page. There is also a good Google+ FAQ on that page. I am finding, right now in the limited Beta, that after 10pm PDT is most likely to be successful in signing up.
Add a Google+1 button to your business website. If you have a WordPress based website it is as easy as installing a plugin. I like this one - http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-plus-one/. If you haven’t adopted WordPress for your website platform, or want to do it “old school” here is the Google+ code link – http://www.google.com/webmasters/+1/button/

Filed Under: Search Engines, Social Networks Tagged With: Facebook, Google, Internet Marketing, SMO, social media, Social Networks, trends

Measuring the SEO of your site, your competitors’ sites and the people trying to sell you SEO services

January 30, 2011 by Marc Leave a Comment

There are a lot advantages to having a website with strong, positive, active SEO properties and structure. The search marketing opportunities from excellent SEO may dramatically increase your business income and significantly reduce expenses.

Many website owners will pursue trying to improve their site’s SEO but have little in the way of methods to measure progress or change. Before you spend a lot of time and/or money on SEO it is very helpful to have “baselines” to measure your own site and how it “stacks-up” against your competition. Also before you buy any SEO services I suggest measuring the site of the SEO company. Doesn’t it seem reasonable that if they are selling the service shouldn’t their site(s) demonstrate some of their SEO ability?

So how to measure a website’s SEO? There are a lot of tools, but there are two I use everyday. These provide a quick snapshot of a site’s SEO potential and can be refreshed to show the results of any changes that you make. This means you get an idea of your progress without having to wait possibly weeks for Google’s index to reflect your changes.

They are:

the Website Grader website and,
Vladimir Prelovac’s SEO Doctor add-on for Firefox (you will need to use Firefox)

Both of these tools will provide you a numeric percentage type score and some summary evaluations of important site structure, elements and assets. It is important to understand that these tools cannot measure the outcome of your SEO efforts. (After all you can have great SEO but have it poorly targeted to your potential market. ) But even if you have the best content it will likely fail in the search engine results against your competitors if your site does not score well.

And what is a good score? Glad you asked. In a competitive market I think you need to be above 95 (or work towards) in the SEO Doctor and above 90 in the Website Grader, for meaningful organic search marketing. Because successful search marketing can provide such lucrative results to a business “winning” is now a matter of very small percentages. The difference of 1-3 percent in either of these tools can mean your site will not appear high enough in organic SERPs to gain any visitors. The race is not between sites that score 80% and 90% neither of them maybe winning, it is between the sites at 94% to 99%. So if you want the benefits of organic search you can’t settle with being better than 80% of websites. You need to be better than 95% percent of them.

Finally, just one note of caution in using the tools, don’t follow the tools blindly. Sometimes there is a good reason to vary from their offered guidelines. Just know your purpose in doing it.

As always, if you have a question send me an email.