Google Bowling, the New Online Sport?!

Although it might sound like an online game to some, to others it's a nightmare that has devastating effects. Google bowling is the process of buying or acquiring hundreds of links to point to your competitor’s site, so as to get them penalized or even kicked out of Google.

It is no secret that Google has been in part basing ranking on the number of quality incoming links to your site. In turn they have also been penalizing sites for having too many links gathered at once or from poor or malicious sites. So it might seem pretty obvious that this could be manipulated very easily.

Small and large businesses alike are starting to see how devastating this can be. Just think about how much revenue could be lost if your rankings dropped from even decent to non-existent! This could potentially bring some small businesses to their knees.


Now before you go thinking about which competitors you could sabotage just remember Google will most definitely come up with a way to stop this from happening. You definitely do not want to be caught practicing this technique for the risk that your site could see the same fate as your competitors.

Stick to white-hat techniques and keep updating and expanding your site and you shouldn't have a problem placing well in the search engines. Knowing where you are acquiring links from and how many you have requested is key to making sure you have proof that you aren't participating in these practices.

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Posted by Vision Marketing
Search Engine Optimization - Website Design - Print Advertising

Inbound Links That Work...

Lets say you get an email that requests you to link to their site in exchange for a link from their site to yours. In other words, they want you to give them a reciprocal link. Sounds like a good idea, and what could the harm really be, right?

Wrong! A link is not just a link anymore. A link from another site can be considered a grade for your site. What I mean is, the better the site that links to you the more likely your site is to look better to the search engines. If you have a link from site A and site A is a highly respected website in the search engines eyes, any link they send to you will make your site look that much better.

But the same is true for a site that looks bad or participates in black-hat techniques. If you get links from a link-farm (a site setup for the sole purpose to send links to different sites, but is not a directory or search engine), you can almost guarantee yourself that Google, Yahoo!, MSN, and the like will count that against you.

When you get offers to exchange links, or if you are considering asking certain sites for links, be sure to do your research. A link is more then just a link today. Make sure the site is user friendly, has valid information, isn't just a doorway site to another company, and goes along with the general theme (or industry) of your site. Most times it is easy to spot the bad sites, but sometimes they can sneak past you and make you think they are worth the time.

You can save yourself a lot of aggravation down the road if you take the time right away to look into each and every site you are linking to and being linked from. Remember, your website is a vital part of your business now, and just like you wouldn't want to be affiliated with a company in the real world that wasn't up to snuff, you don't want your website to be affiliated with those either.

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Posted by Vision Marketing
Search Engine Optimization - Website Design - Print Advertising

Target Traffic is the Key...

Everyday we get calls from potential clients asking us how they can become number one under a given search term in Google, Yahoo!, MSN, etc. It takes time, research, dedication, and some flexibility on your current website. But will being number one or two under that search term drive any relevant traffic to your site?

A true SEO program will look more at the amount of qualified traffic being sent to your site and the rate of conversion then the total number one spots you have on the major engines. You could have 20 number one listings and be driving people who aren't going to buy your product or service, and in turn get very little conversion.

Making sure that you are targeting the correct group of people is what counts. Optimizing your site for the term "Pads" just isn't worth the effort. How many different industries, and applications can you think of that "Pads" would fit into, probably hundreds, if not thousands. A better phrase might be "Sanding Pads", or "Gripper Pads". These phrases are more precise in focus and will be more likely to attract the audience you are looking for.

Traffic analysis software is key to an overall internet marketing campaign. You can't truly see what is happening with your website and search engine rankings unless you are looking at who is coming to your site, from where and how they found that listing. Combine that with your in house sales figures generated from the website and you will have a very good idea of what is happening with your campaign.

The most important thing to remember is that your website needs attention. Don't think that just because your site is up there it's working. A website needs just as much attention and updating as your physical building, if not more.


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Posted by Vision Marketing
Search Engine Optimization - Website Design - Print Advertising

Is Pay-Per-Click The Answer?

Pay-Per-Click has many advantages, to natural search engine listings. The first and most obvious advantage being that you can almost guarantee that you will show up on the first page of Google, Yahoo!, etc. Another advantage is that you know which keywords people will and will not find the listing under.

But keep in mind, a pay-per-click campaign should be used in conjunction with natural search engine optimization as well as other marketing techniques. There area several occasions where pay-per-click should be your main marketing technique and other times when it should be used sparingly.

When your website is just starting out and you aren't seeing any results from the search engines, you should seriously consider a pay-per-click campaign. At this time you are offsetting the fact that your site is new, and probably small in content with a campaign that will give you immediate traffic jumps.

Another good time to implement a pay-per-click campaign would be during the introduction of a new product/service or area of your website. The search engines will take time to index and list your website in their results. In the mean time you can start driving qualified traffic through a well-planned pay-per-click campaign.

Keep in mind that with every campaign, there are more effective times then others to run that specific campaign. If your website is doing very well in the search engines, a pay-per-click campaign should be trimmed down to only those areas that are still suffering from poor indexing.

Management of a pay-per-click campaign is vital. Just picking a bunch of terms, putting a lot of money up there, and hoping for the best will result in wasted money. Researching terms, modifying your ads, and making decisions based on other factors of your website and marketing plan will result in a profitable venture.

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Posted by Vision Marketing
Search Engine Optimization - Website Design - Print Advertising

How Do I Expand My Site?

Lets say you have a website, and it's 10 pages. The first pages being the home page, and then you probably have a contact us, about us, and sitemap page. So that is 4 pages that more or less cannot be expanded or changed. The other 6 pages are most likely product pages, with several products per page.

There in lies the answer. Those product pages can be broken out to separate pages per product. So you have product A, B, C, and D on one page. Now you can make a landing page (much like a home page for those products) that describes briefly each product and then allows you to click for more information that brings you to a page solely dedicated to that particular product.

What does this do for your site? It does a number of things. For one it expands the size and content of your site. You now have gone from 10 pages to possibly 15 or 20. It also gives the website visitors and search engine spiders a better idea of what each page is about.

When a person gets to product page A they are presented with information for product A only. The only mention you would have of another product (besides the main navigation links) would be if that product went along with another one and you wanted to direct the visitor to that page.

Breaking out your site this way can also help when it comes time for a linking campaign. You now have specific pages devoted to each of your products and therefore can have links go directly to the product page that is relevant to the site that the link came from.

A well organized, easy to navigate website will stand a much better chance of not only ranking well in the search engines, but also converting visitors to customers. No one wants to go to a website and have to figure out where the information they want is. Overwhelming a visitor with too much information is just as bad, if not worse then putting too little information there.

If you feel your site could use a little help in restructuring and/or expanding contact Vision today. We will work with you to ensure that your site is as easy to navigate as possible.

Yet Another Broswer!

Flock, as it is called, is the newest browser to try to offer a better experience then Internet Explorer, Netscape, and Firefox (the big three). This browser focuses on the "social browsing" experience, which is a far cry from what IE and the like do.

One of the many features of this browser is the ability to create blog posts from within the browser and use the "Shelf" to drag and drop pictures, text, documents etc. The "Shelf" is a so-called holding area for your blogging content, at your disposal when you need it.

Flock, much like Firefox, is an open source browser that will allow outside developers to add their own creative features and integrations. This has some coders very upset that the Flock developers didn't just create extensions for the existing Firefox browser.

Flock claims that its developers did not want to simply create extensions, they wanted to give internet users a whole new experience for the web. This "social browsing" could revolutionize the browser world.

If Flock can get its feet sunk in for long enough, they may just have a shot at creating a whole new arena for the internet community.

How Important is SEO?

I was reading through one of the newsletters I receive and found an article that really makes clear how important a good search engine optimization (SEO) campaign is.

57 percent of business leaders surveyed said they generate monthly revenue through online purchases or offline purchases that were influenced by their website.

78 percent report their business is healthier - has a competitive advantage or stronger economic footing - because they have a website, and 76 percent say their website generates leads for their business.

Surprisingly, only 54 percent are using search engine optimization...

- Sally Falkow
- Webprobusiness - October 21, 2005

This quote clearly shows that people are gaining sales, and improving business by marketing their websites. Websites are no longer just something to have; they are a vital part of everyday business.

Just imagine how many potential customers you could be missing out on right now because your website isn't showing up in the search engines! The general searching public is not going to go out of its way just to find your site. If you are listed (and not just in Google) then you aren't in the game.

Don't be fooled by those companies that say they are going to submit you to thousands and thousands of search engines. That's an old trick that used to be used to get people to buy the service. True SEO professionals will carefully go through your site, make revisions, updates and suggestions and then submit your site to the appropriate search engines.

Now is the time to get your website out there for people to see. The longer you wait, the harder it is going to be to get found. Don't wait and see, because your potential customers are certainly not going to wait and see if you get your site up there. Those people are long gone if they don't find you when they want it.

For more information on search engine optimization, contact Vision Marketing today.

Apple Rolls Out Another...

Nope, I'm not talking about the iPod, although they do have a new one of those out too. Apple has unveiled its most powerful desktop computer to date. The Power Mac G5 Quad as it's called, is the new mega-machine for MAC users.

This impressive machine boasts a 2.5 GHz dual processor. That's a split processor to share the workload that a user may demand of it. They come standard with 512MB of memory and are expandable up to 16 Gigs!!

For a while there it seemed like Apple was getting away from the desktop and laptop world, with the release of 3 new iPods over the last 6 months. Apple has made it very clear that the desktop and laptop portion of their business are still very important and continue to be developed and supported.

Apple seems to be on a roll this past year. Keeping up this pace could become hard on the already pressured company. With competition coming not only from Microsoft, but also the music device industry and video/gaming industry, they certainly have their hands full. It will be interesting to see which path they continue with and how they hold their own.

For now, you MAC users out there have some pretty impressive new toys to play around with. Hope you enjoy, and would love to hear some reviews.

Blogs Many Faces...

As blogs become more and more popular it is interesting to see the many types that are out there. Blogs originally started out as basic journal / diary entries in a web format. But over the last year or so they have really taken off.

You can find blogs that discuss what someone has done with their life from day to day. You can also find blogs about politics. As a matter of fact, in our last presidential race John Kerry used a blog to try to gain support for his party.

Blogs have also made it into the business world. Companies are using blogs for everything from internal company message boards to publicly accessible information regarding their industry or specific company happenings.

A blog can be a very powerful tool for some companies. They are relatively easy to update and maintain. They can be customized to look and feel like the rest of your website, or be a completely separate entity. Blogs can have links going to sites that relate to what you are writing about or to links within your own website. You can even upload pictures to give people a visual of what you are talking about.

Blogs are an evolving technology that can be leveraged to increase traffic and stickiness to your site. People enjoy going to a site and seeing updated information.

If you are considering a blog for your business, give Vision Marketing a call and let us discuss with you what the best approach would be.

WiFi Going too Far?

I subscribe to a lot of different posts and each morning when I come in to work I read through a bunch of them to see what the top headlines are. This morning as I'm reading a post from Slashdot.org I found the headline that reads "Nintendo & McDonalds Providing WiFi"!!

Now Nintendo providing WiFi is not so bad. They are after all a technology-based company that has seen better days, and should be doing something to boost their image. But McDonalds? Do we really need to be online while we are scarfing down a Big Mac?

How often have you sat in a McDonalds long enough to even think of opening your computer? I actually don't even remember the last time I sat in a McDonalds; Most times it's drive through on my way to a meeting or some other event.

Don't get me wrong, I love WiFi and feel that some places should definitely offer it. But there are also some places that it just seems odd. Starbucks, Panera, places that are more sit down, take a break for a while, go study, cafes seem more realistic then a fast food restaurant. But who knows, I could be wrong and we could start seeing people sitting in McDonalds with their laptops out surfing the web.

When is going digital, just going too far? Should we have WiFi in every corner of the globe? Before you jump to say of course, think about the implications of going out to dinner, or for breakfast and having to sit next to the person who is writing a 10-page paper. The keys tapping away, and the rustling of papers as they search for their information.

There is always a downside to what seems like a completely positive idea. Before we put WiFi antennas on every rooftop, we should really consider the implications.

A Simple Change...

Is your website not converting sales or leads? Well perhaps your site just needs a simple change. People react to different colors, shapes, and sizes in different ways.

Lets say you have a button on your site that says "Click Here for More Information" and is in the color orange. The problem is no one is clicking the button and you aren't getting the leads you thought you would. Have you tried to change the button, add more buttons, or change the wording?

Each of those things could increase your sales / lead conversion. Perhaps "Get Yours Now" and the button in red would work better. Testing, changing, testing, modifying are all part of the marketing process.

Sometimes it's a larger change like laying out the pages so they read easier, or changing the background color so it's more soothing. Don't think that just because your site was built one way, with certain colors that it should stay that way.

Don't be afraid to try things out. The best part about the web is that you can make a change in a relatively short amount of time. It's not like print where you have 1000 or so catalogs done one way and are stuck with them until the next printing. You could change the colors and buttons every day of the week if you wanted (I wouldn't, you need some time for the changes to take hold and start converting).

Take a look at your website, and your stats, and really try to figure out if your site is doing what it should, or could be doing.

The Value of a Link

Links are a common thing on the internet. They are how most people get from point A to point B on a website. But did you know that links that come from other websites to yours are extremely important?

Inbound links as they are called, is one of the keys to driving qualified traffic to your site. Not just any inbound link though, some can be very bad. Inbound links are meant to be from sites that are within the same theme/industry as your website.

For example, let’s say that your site talks all about gears, and sells all types of gear parts. You wouldn't want a link from a site that talks about plants and fertilizer, because they don't go together. The search engines can see what site A is talking about and figure out if site B (the one it's linking to) is relevant to that information.

How do you find these relevant sites? Well look at your competitors. Who are they getting links from and what are the sites talking about that are linking to them. Most likely they will have links from industry specific directories and information pertaining to their products/services.

Linking can greatly improve the amount of qualified traffic a website gets, if done correctly. It takes a lot of time and research to find the right sites to link to your site, and to make sure that the links don't die. A linking campaign from an internet marketing company (like Vision Marketing!) is usually the best way to go.

Content is King...

It used to be that you would create your website with whatever material you had, put it online and left it there. If someone came along, or you were lucky enough to come up in the search engines you were thrilled. Well it's not a matter of being lucky anymore, it's a matter of updating and improving your website so the search engines will rank you higher.

One of the best ways to help your rankings is to regularly increase the size of your website. That may sound like it's a lot of work, but really its not. If you ad one page of new content to your website very week, over the course of one year you will have added a minimum of 40 pages to your site!

I'm not talking about putting up a page that has two sentences and a picture. The new pages should have a minimum of 200 words (to put it in perspective this article is just over 300) Ideally the page would be about a new product or service, company happenings, industry news, etc. Putting up a page about Aunt Sally's new apple pie isn't going to help your site be seen as an authority in your industry!

Some of you are probably thinking, well how do I get this one page every day or week. There are a number of ways to do it. You can re-publish free online articles that deal with your industry. You can put up a blog and update it daily, or weekly. You can add your entire product catalog one product at a time. The possibilities are limitless.

The one thing you want to try to avoid when putting up more content is doing too much at once. What do I mean by too much? You don't want to take your site from having 5 pages one day to having 500 the next. The search engines may look at that as spam, and drop your rankings for a while until they realize that it was quality information. Steady, constant growth is the key.

As always Vision Marketing is here to help you drive qualified traffic, and increase the quality and size of your site. Contact us today for more information.

eBay Acquires VeriSign...

eBay has acquired one of the largest and well known payment processing companies in the world, VeriSign. The acquisition, said to be for $370 million dollars, will allow eBay to integrate VeriSign with its PayPal division.

eBay has been on somewhat of a buying spree the last couple of months. After the purchase of Skype, eBay was in a bit of a hole, but hopefully the VeriSign purchase will offset the costs of that deal.

The merger of the two companies should help to make PayPal one of the preferred methods of payment for e-commerce businesses. The security that VeriSign provides will enhance the already powerful and easy to use PayPal experience.

VeriSign has become so recognizable, that eBay can only prove to profit from this acquistion. Hopefully they will make the integration as seemless as possible!

Google's New RSS Reader...

Google is at it again, with the creation of the Google Reader. This new RSS reader is a web based program that allows the user to search for whatever type of RSS feed they want and subscribe at the click of a button.

With this latest product Google is showing the world that RSS is more important and worth while then just as a blog reader.

Microsoft seems to think so too, with the development of Microsoft Vista, which has plans to include RSS as part of its core programming. You will have live RSS feeds right on your desktop, and be able to subscribe and find new feeds with relative simplicity.

Google isn't about to wait until Microsoft gets Vista out to the public before it starts its RSS push. They know that in order to stay on top of the internet, they need to be on top of their game.

Check out the Google Reader now, and see what you think.

The Customer You Already Know...

How often do you dream about getting new customers and building your business? How many times a day do you wonder how you can get those new leads and generate new business? Well why not look at what you have at your fingertips already?

More then likely you have a list of your customers either as a spreadsheet, word document or some other form (if not, you should!). When was the last time you contacted some of those customers? Do you even remember what some of them do or what they bought from you without looking it up?

There have been studies done that have shown on average 79% of the customers on your list have not been contacted within the last year or so. That 79% could represent another 10 or 20% increase in business. Why re-invent the wheel when you already have the spokes lying around?

Don't contact them with a sales pitch though. The last thing they will want to hear from a company that they haven't spoken to in years is "I've got a product / service for you". Tell them about your company, and what you have been doing over the years. Then ask them what they are looking for, and if there is anything that your company could possibly help them with. Get re-acquainted with them. Form a relationship and build on that.

Every company has something that they need fixed, upgraded, improved, etc. It's a matter of figuring out what the need(s) is and seeing if your company is a fit to fill it. Figuring out that need takes some time. It’s not going to be a quick email, and reply back with a purchase request, or a phone call that automatically leads to a sale.

The more you get to know your customer and their business the better equipped you will be in helping them out. And don’t be afraid to tell them you can’t help them with a certain aspect of what they need. Even go as far as referring another company that you know could help them. They won’t just run away and never go back to you. They will remember that you have built this professional relationship and will come back to you over and over again (sound like Miracle on 34th Street! It is and it works).

The goal is to keep customers and make them feel like they are getting more then just a product or service from you. They need to be able to trust you and feel like your company is there for them should they need it. This has become even more important now then it ever was before. With customers being able to figure out who you are by going to your website without you knowing, you need to work that much harder to please each and every existing and potential customer.

Yahoo! to Unveil Its Own Blog Search!

Yahoo! is almost ready to release its own blog search! That's right, move over Google, Yahoo! is stepping up to the plate. While Google may have been the first one to release a blog search they certainly are and will not be the last.

The Yahoo! blog search could outdo Google right from the get go. They now have had a couple of weeks to review what Google has done and make some modifications to their own system. There have been rave reviews about the ability to search Google for blogs across the web. At the same time there have been many people who have been a bit more cynical towards the still beta version of Google's blog search.

One of the main complaints about the Google blog search is that it allows a lot of spam into its results. Do a search for any blog and you are almost guaranteed to get a handful of spam blogs on the first page of results. This is not only frustrating but also a bit odd, since Google has spent so much time on its algorithms for regular searches to keep spam out. You would think that they would have implemented some if not all of that work into how results are brought up from a blog search.

Yahoo! will definitely have a different approach to this feature and it will be interesting to see if they learned anything from Google’s first attempt.

Yahoo! Faces Off With Google in Print to Web Race...

It's has been widely publicized that Google has been undergoing a major project to scan in and make available to the general public a searchable index off books. Well Yahoo! has decided to join the race to get books online!

At first glance the companies seem to be competing with each other on who can get the most books in and how well the searches on those books will be. But take a step back for a minute and look at the bigger picture. Let them race each other, because when it comes down to it, the internet user (you and me) will only prove to benefit from this.

One day you will be able to open up your web browser and search for any book, article, and/or publication that you need or want and have it available to you right there. This would make research and studying for students a lot easier. It would make a parents hectic day of running around, a little less stressful when they can just print the children’s book or recipe that they were looking for.

Yahoo! has partnered with the Open Content Alliance, which is a newly formed organization that has its goal set to offer PDF documents of books to the public for no charge. The idea is to be able to search the database of pdf documents and download any work that has been scanned on that particular subject, author, title, etc.

This is one corporate battle that will definitely benefit the general public!

Internet Sales Tax to Come!

That’s right; e-tailers may have to start charging sales tax in the coming years. As of right now the tax structure is too complicated for online retailers to have to charge tax for products sold in different states. That is all set to change with the formation of the Streamlined Sales Tax Governing Board, which is setup to make collecting and charging sales tax online a lot easier.

In 1992 the US Supreme Court ruled that online retailers could not be held responsible for collecting sales tax because it was too complicated. The court has ruled that in order for them to be required to collect the tax a simplification of the sales tax structure needs to be implemented.

Even after the structure is simplified there needs to be at least 10 states joined together that make up more then 20% of the US population in order for the sales tax to be required. As of right now there are 18 states that make up about 25% of the US population that have joined together to make the Streamlined Sales Tax Governing Board.

It is not likely that regulations and laws requiring e-tailers to charge sales tax will go into effect this year, but come next year we could start seeing the beginning of internet taxable items for all purchases.