Blog Marketing Singapore – Business Blogging Optimization Strategies

Last weekend, I was intending to go down to a bridal studio to look at what they offer. I knew exactly which one I wanted to go to, and I just wanted to find out exactly where it was located.

So I searched the name of the Bridal studio, expecting our friendly GoogleBot will direct me to the right place. Guess what?

Did you see what is in TOP position? A page that says “You don’t have the latest version of Macromedia Flash Player.”

And you know what? Its not that I don’t have Flash player. I do have it installed in my browsers, and if I took off the “upgrade_flash.htm”, I could see a beautiful flash animation.

So, what actually happened?

The entire site was made in all so fancy flash. Most of the stuff in the flash was all in images – and I doubt there is even a mention of “Sophia” as text in the flash. The website also features a flash detection mechanism, so if flash was not detected, web visitors would be redirected to the “upgrade_flash.htm” page.

The designer probably used the same title for all the pages in the site – :: Sophia Photo and Bridal :: Even the upgrade_flash.htm had the same title.

So, when Mr GoogleBot went to take a peek at this site, there were three pages, and they had to pick one to be listed. Here is what they thought:

On Page 1 (root) – Title: OK, Content: 1 line, Lots of flash which I don’t understand!

On Page 2 (default-f.htm) – Title: OK, Content: none, Lots of flash which I don’t understand!

On Page 3 (upgrade_flash.htm) – Title: OK, Content: 2 paragraphs!

Comparing the three, since page 3 has some content, I’ll pick upgrade_flash.htm!

So they kicked the root page and default-f.htm out, and brought upgrade_flash.htm home to their index.

… that is why when I asked for Sophia Bridal, they brought upgrade_flash.htm out and tadaaaa! “You don’t have the latest version of Macromedia Flash Player.”

Unfortunately for them, “You don’t have the latest version of Macromedia Flash Player.” doesn’t help them to make any sales.

That’s why full flash sites are very bad for your ROI

1. They cost more to build.
2. They are more cumbersome to maintain.
3. They don’t get indexed well by search engines.

Yes. Bots can read the text you put in your flash, but the semantics you get is no where as near as what you can markup in HTML with all the HTML headers.

So, my advice if you want your ROI?

If you haven’t build your site, DON’T build a fully flash site. Small elements are ok. Full flash sites are a no-no.

And if you already have one, make sure all your text are actually text inside the flash. Not images.

… and if you already have one which everything made from images? Frankly, I’m sorry for you. First, ask your web designer to attend the SEO training workshop, and then get him to build an optimized HTML website for you.

Don’t throw away your current site, though. There are visitors that don’t come from search engines. Flash still works for them… if you animation is effective.

Oh… and BTW, this was not the bridal shop I wanted to go to. The one I went to wasn’t even in the first 50 listings keyword Sophia Bridal… and their website features a flash intro page as well.

Tags: flash, seo, sophia bridal

A couple of days ago, I met up with a friend. He had a website which he wanted me help him with.

Then, he told me that the firm opposite his office is offering him a very cheap rate for web design… and if I could match his prices, he’d give the project to me.

Frankly, I really didn’t want to do the project. There is no point competing on price.

Here are some things professional web designers do which you probably won’t get at cheapo web designers.

#1. Great web design is TESTED design

The design works for any browser, any platform. If you are in the web design trade, you’d know that there are HTML standards, and not all browsers follow that standard. Internet Explorer, in particular, tries to be “one of its kind” and never fails to meddle things up. Unfortunately though, because IE ships with Windows, many people use IE.

Here are five browsers that good websites need to work well on.

1. Internet Explorer
2. Firefox
3. Safari
4. Chrome
5. Opera

At bare minimum, your site should not be all messed up in the latest versions of each of these browsers. At best, it needs to look exactly the same on every browser, with legacy versions (1 or 2 versions back), on every platform.

#2 Great web design is OPTIMIZED design

While we have broadband connections everywhere now, it is still important that your page loads quickly. Images need to be optimized. File sizes need to be minimal.

For a start, here are two very simple guidelines:

1. Photographs need to be JPEGs
2. Graphics need to be in GIFs or PNGs. (Preferably PNGs for transparency)

How bad can things get? Here’s an example. Once I was doing a revamp of a website for a company. The contact page featured a map and a photograph of the building which the company was located.

The original web designer combined these two photos into one. Making a bigger graphic, and its was over 80KB in size. When I split up the two images, and optimized each accordingly (the map as a gif and photo as a JPG), the file sizes combined reduced to less than 20KB. Imagine this one image loaded 500 times a day, 365 days a year… that is for ONE image.

How much bandwidth (and loading time) can you saved if you have 10 of such images?

#3. Great web design is USABLE design

The concepts behind usability are really common sense, but common sense are not common. But web usability does affect your ROI. Smacking a huge and useless image on the first fold of your webpage makes it look pretty, but it does not help the reader much.

These are teeny weeny little things that make great websites great. Some people may argue that the time spent is not worthwhile… but if you look at your web stats, you might be amazed how many people you might be “turning off” with these little things not fixed.

Tags: web-design

I just find it very amusing to see the stark difference in the level organizations embrace web marketing… particularly in the military.

On one hand, we have the flopped PPC campaign for RSAF… and on the other hand we see the US Air Force taking social media so seriously that they even have blogging guidelines laid out.

By the way, if you are thinking about this: Yes, it is a good thing to do if you are in charge of a corporation. Publish corporate blogging guidelines for your employees. Let them know where the line is. That is important. Get Debbie Weil’s corporate blogging book for a comprehensive list of best practices.

Thanks SleepyBlogger for the Hat Tip!

Tags: air force, blogging guidelines

Wow! Three weeks since my last post! Time really flies when you get busy eh?!

Hope everyone had an awesome Christmas, had your goals and action plan set for this year, and are well on your way to achieve your first set of small goals! If not, do watch Derek Gehl’s Goal Setting Video if you are dealing with Internet Businesses. That will give you a headstart.

Anyway, let’s have a bookmarks explosion to explode into my first post in 2009!

1. Are you learning to be a better blogger? Stop it, because that is a total waste of time. At least that is what Jonathan says.
2. Doing an SEO project? You have to know your keywords! Here’s how. Check out this awesome Keyword Strategy Flowchart and Search Traffic Growth Profile Guide, both from SEO book.
3. … and as you are building links, do check out this link building tutorial by Saad Kamal and this awesome list of 75 link building techniques.
4. In Web Usability, Drop down list are no good, because they don’t allow your readers to see what is available immediately. However when you clients insist, do give them an SEO friendly CSS enabled drop down list. This is one great example. And if you always feel “something is missing in your designs”, check out these 10 tips to improve you UI designs.
5. I’ve always wondered why they didn’t allow the links widget in WordPress to be customized to display only one category of links. Here’s a widget to workaround that. Talking about WordPress, we all know WordPress 2.7 is the hottest babe and coolest hunk in the blogging world now, don’t you? Here’s an essential guide on mastering your WordPress 2.7 theme and admin area.
6. WordPress Plugins – love them of hate them. But if you love them, check out these first 9 plugins to love, first.
7. Oooh, you’ll love these from Copyblogger: The big secret to sell anything, and The Millionaire’s Secret Trait That Attracts Crazy Amounts of Success. Awesome reads.
8. Social Media Marketing is big thing, and in 2009, its only going to be bigger! If you are going into social media, you gotta check out Moon Loh’s tips on the important things you need to know and apply for Social media.
9. Did you know Google was a spelling mistake?, no wonder Ian said search engines aren’t smart.
10. Is Corporate Blogging taking off yet?! Forrester says consumers don’t trust corporate blogs… but here’s what the corporate blogging guru has to say about it.
11. Go Drupal! I think it’ll beat Joomla soon.
12. PPC advertising is a good way to bring in fast traffic… and fast cash. If you follow the right way to use it. Check out these 7 tips to save money on PPC.
13. Will SlideRocket beat Slideshare? Try it to find out.
14. Wanna get your site up in 10 mins and you’re missing a logo? Try this Web 2.0 logo creator
15. If you are getting traffic from Twitter, consider a Twitter landing page!
16. HTML 5 looks awesome, but that’s 3 years to come. Hopefully by then I’d be lazing on the beach with an enterprise of web developers doing the coding though.
17. Camtasia Studio and Camstudio. Mix them together, and you get uTipu. Awesome free video capture software.
18. Now you have Google docs on your desktop. I really wonder what Microsoft has to say about this, and their plans for Ms Office.
19. Doing business? Watch this number. Its the most important number in business. Don’t watch it and you’re dead.
20. Going into video marketing? You should. Check out this awesome video marketing tool, and also these tips on how to make your videos work for you.
21. I still want to write a book. Its been 2 years. Argh. Maybe I should follow these 8 tips. Do you wanna write a book too?
22. I’m half a geek, and I love it when I get the opportunity to dive into tonnes of code. But if you are not like me, check out common craft – they’ve got awesome videos to explain everything.

Woohoo! That’s quite a list eh! Enjoy! Happy New Year!

Tags: bookmarks, Bookmarks Explosion

Yesterday I was doing some reading up on what are the latest Netbooks and what to look out for in getting one. I was nudged by a friend to check if there are any models with 3G modems integrated in them. So I was doing some searching…

Knowing that the MSI Wind is a popular model in Singapore, and not knowing the website to find the specifications, I searched for “MSI Wind”. Yes, I got to the site which answered my queries… but guess what Google Ads turned up?

RSAF (Republic of Singapore Air Force) Careers!

What the?!

Why would someone searching for “MSI Wind” be a looking for a career in the Air Force?

After reading the ad copy, which says “Pilot The Latest Technology. Find Out About Air Force Careers Now!” I understood how they linked up.

They must be thinking … MSI Wind => Gadget => Technology => Air Force => Career.

That’s a looong string of thoughts! If this works, an ad for “teddy bears” can be probably selling rare Italian bred spiders!

I seriously doubt they are getting any good targeted traffic for that ad.

But that’s not all. I went on to investigate this further. I took out the “MSI” word. Guess what? The ad STILL appeared! Wind. What has “wind” have to do with careers in the Singapore Air Force?

I thought… okay, let’s try to catch them doing something right.

I searched “Pilot”.

Yes! Phew. Finally something relevant. But apart from “pilot” and “air force” – I really couldn’t find other relevant terms. Note though, that “pilot” and “air force” are very broad matches. I can search for “How to date a pilot”.. and the ad still shows!

Will dating a pilot secure me a career in the Air Force!? Or will a career in the Air Force give me a higher chance to date a pilot?

Arrrrrrgh!

I tried searching for more specific terms… long tail keywords, and keywords that will bring in a more targeted audience. No ads.

Some examples which I think would be highly targeted:

“Aircraft Technician Career” – No Ads

“Career in Singapore” – No Ads

“Career in the Military” – No Ads

How to be an air traffic controller – No Ads

Either Google is playing tricks, or their keywords are really really messed up big time. Either way, we all now know how effective this ad campaign is going to be in recruiting people.

That’s just the ad, that’s not all. Do you what you get when you follow the URL on the ad?

You get directed to full flash page with an intro.

The words appeared slowly, saying “I am the Wind…” and things like that and a helicopter flying in slowly… taking a full 15 – 20 seconds.

Frankly… I don’t care if you are the wind or I am the wind! I want to find my career!

Guess where are the advertised “careers”?

Look again! Its at the top right, in feint colors and teeny weeny fonts. And all they showed was a row of “gravatar” sized pictures. You had to hover on them to find out what each picture actually links to.

Didn’t notice them on the first look, did you?

If there is one thing that reminded me of, it would be the control panel on Red Alert or Command and Conquer (the strategy computer games) to build a new trooper!

Haha! Maybe that’s what they want people to think.

With all due respect to the technological advancements we have in our military, I think the our Air Force Recruitment Center has totally missed the point when it comes to search marketing.

The advertising campaign might have been great for branding if done offline – if they wanted to relate “Wind” to the air force and that air force personnel are “swift like the wind” and things like that. But this is a classic example of applying conventional marketing practices on search marketing – gone terribly wrong.

Whoever managed this Google Adwords campaign should better have a good reason why they are doing this, or better go and work on their keywords. If not, this campaign is going to be simply A LOT of money wasted of serverely untargeted advertising.

Tags: air force, broad match, google adwords, rsaf

Over on the Gmail Blog, they announced the release of something new in their labs. You can now convert your Gmail into a Google Docs in 1 click!

Here’s how to activate it.

1. Login to your Gmail (on the web silly!)

2. On the top right, click on settings. You will see a few tabs.

3. Click on Labs.

4. Scroll down till you find an item like this. Enable it and save (at the bottom of the page)

Done! The next time you view a message you can convert it into Google Docs in 1 click!

More about this at the Gmail Blog.

Tags: gmail, google docs

Over on the TIMMGuru blog, Shi has posted an excellent article about Online Reputation Managment.

As more people are using Google as their primary source of information and reviews, it is now critical that every single company in the world at least have a website (it doesn’t have to be a self hosted site at all!) which is search optimized for their company name.

… if not the consequence are very severe. Because of the proliferation of blogs and social media, the situation is more real that you think.

Some advice from TIMMGuru:

Even if your business do not have any online marketing campaign or advertise aggressively online, you still have to manage your online reputation… Because you cannot control what people write in their blogs.

… Don’t wait for negative publicity to surface on the Internet before you take action… Because that can be too late and costly.

And I feel this does not only apply to companies, but to professionals as well. For one, have you bought a domain name which corresponds to your name? If not invest in $10 and get it NOW.

This is something you should do immediately. Even if you have nothing to put up, just get the domain name first. Don’t wait.

Tags: online reputation management

… and monetizing them with Adsense!

Photo Credit: yomanimus

Over on the Adsense blog, announced that you can put Adsense ads for your unused domains.

According to Google, these ads convert well.

Here is the Google Adsense for Domains page, and the quick start guide.

Well, I’m supposed to see the option to select Adsense for Domains from my Adsense Setup tab. But I’m not seeing it yet. Maybe later.

But its a good thing yeah?

Tags: Adsense for Domains

Just 100 days after the release of Google Chrome and 15 revisions, Google has decided to take the “beta” word off the new lightweight browser for the Internet.

Its a contradictory… Gmail has been in Beta since 5 years ago, and it still is.

Its also amazing how powerful Google is – 10 million active users within 100 days. That’s 100,000 new users a day!

In just 100 days, we have reached more than 10 million active users around the world (on all seven continents, no less) and released 14 updates to the product. We’re excited to announce that with today’s fifteenth release we are taking off the “beta” label!

While I have Chrome installed, I still don’t use Google chrome. I am kinda used to my Firefox. I like my Firefox plugins, and I like the Portable version of Firefox, which allows me to bring along all my plugins with me.

But Google say they will look into developing extensions for Chrome. So that’s tempting.

Will you switch to Chrome?

Tags: google chrome

Web analytics software can be daunting, giving you lots of figures and percentages. However, careful analysis of these figures will help you to draw conclusions about your marketing campaigns, so you can improve on them.

Here are 5 steps you can use to measure your success in your marketing campaigns, with the help of web analytics.

#1 Know your whole sales process

The first step is to know your sales process, of sales funnel, whatever you call it. You need to know what each customer or prospect is brought though once he lands on your site. Importantly, you need to know what products or services you are offering to your customers and how much each purchase will mean to you.

Lets take a example to explain this. Lets take it that you have planned your sales funnel like this:

1. A visitor comes to your site and opts in to get your free ebook.
2. Then you follow up with 7 email messages, one a day, promoting your membership site, which the visitor will pay you $50/month for.
3. After that you will continue to upsell to your customers your face-to-face coaching program, which is $1000 for the whole package.

#2 Know what to measure

After you have mapped out your sales process, the next step to take is to identify the key elements to measure.

Along the sales process, these are essentially your customers decisions – conversion rates, continuing a monthly subscription etc.

Based on this scenario, the key metrics you need to measure are:

1. What is the opt in rate for each visitor to your site?
2. What is the conversion rate for your 7 emails promoting your membership site?
3. How long do people stay on your membership site? How many months?
4. What is the conversion rate for your upsell to coaching program?

#3. Put in those figures!

After you have identified these elements, you need to put in your current figures. Tracking your web analytics need to start from day one. There is no “good” rate of conversion because every market is different. The goal is just to keep improving!

Let’s put in some dummy figures. Lets say:

1. You have a 5% opt in. That is, for every 100 visitors, you have 5 signups for your ebook. However, note that the “goal value” is $0, because you don’t sell anything at this point.
2. Your 7 part email course converts at 10%. That means, out of 100 free ebook signups, you have 10 people signing up for your membership site.
3. On average, each member stays on your membership program for 6 months (that is, on average, they pay you $50 x 6 = $300
4. And you have a 2% conversion rate for your face-to-face coaching. That means, out of 100 visitors, you have 2 people getting to you for your coaching program.

#4 Work out the cost per visitor

Now you have all the figured filled in, you need to work out the cost per visitor. I find it easier to do this by using a large number. For example. If you start with 10 visitor and your conversion is 1%, you’ll end up having “0.1″ visitor converting. If you have long sales process, you’ll end up with little decimals which might get confusing.

Start with a number like 100,000 or 1,000,000.

Here is how you need to work this out for our scenario.

Lets say you drive 10,000 visitors to your site. Of that, you will have at 500 opt-ins (5%). From this 500 opt-ins, you will have 50 (10%) membership site signups. From the 50 signups, you only 1 will pay you for your coaching program.

So, for 10,000 visitors, you will make:

1. 50 memberships x $300 = $15000
2. 1 coaching x $1000 = $1000

A total of $16000!

Now you have it. 10000 visitors will give you $16000. Dividing this up, each visitor to your site is worth $1.60!

#5 Work within the budget, or do something about it!

This $1.60 thing is very important. Why? Because if you are spending more than $1.60 for each visitor, your business will collapse… sooner or later!

Its like getting a paycheck for $5000 a month and putting $5500 on your credit card bill every month. You might dig into your savings to fork out the extra $500 for some time, but someday you’ll go bankrupt!

Of course, if you ARE already spending $1.60 per visitor, that is not the end of the world. Some things you might want to think about would be:

1. How do I get more customers, spending the same budget?
2. How to make more from each customer

Specifically, for our example, you might want to think and work on:

1. How do I increase conversion for my free eBook?
2. How do I increase conversion for my membership site?
3. How do I increase conversion for my coaching program?
4. How do I get people to stay longer in my membership site?
5. Can I extend the sales funnel to sell more products?

There are so many things you can do. You could work on your sales copy, reposition your website elements, add a video, improve customer relations, add more products to your sales process, extend your email campaign to 10 messages instead of 7… and this is just the tip of the iceberg.

… and even with all these, it is yet to touch the “soft” side of analytics, about how prepared and targeted the visitors are.

This is the world of Internet marketing from the web analytics point of view. Interesting eh?

How else do you use your web analytics?

Tags: web-analytics