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High Rankings Advisor: Increase Conversions - Issue No. 108August 11, 2004 ~~~IN TODAY'S ADVISOR~~~
*Introductory Comments: ----> Advisor List Move *Search Engine Marketing: ----> Search Engines and Rollover Navigation *This Week's Sponsors: ----> SEO Copywriting Kit ----> IBP Award-winning SEO Software *Guest Article: ----> Increase Conversions by Analyzing Your Server Logs *Stuff You Might Like: ----> High Rankings Boston SEM Seminar *High Rankings Forum Thread of the Week: ----> SEMPO *This Week's Sound Advice: ----> Using Duplicate Content and Mirror Sites for SEO *Advisor Wrap-up: ----> Conferences, Vacations and Work, Oh My! ________________________________________________________ ~~~Introductory Comments~~~ Hey everyone! If you read all the way through the last newsletter, you probably figured that the Advisor email list had been moved to the new server by now. Unfortunately, we've hit a few snags along the way and it appears as if we are going to have to go to (yuk) double opt-in. This means that all of you current subscribers will need to be SURE you reply or click on the link in the confirmation email that will be sent to you this week. I'm sure I will lose tons of subscribers, but the stinkin' sp@mmers have made it impossible for the rest of us to get our newsletters delivered. So if you want to continue receiving this newsletter, please be on the lookout for your confirmation email. It may very well end up in your delete/trash/bulk folder as these things often do. All I can do is send 'em, but you've got to confirm 'em! The good news is that this should help those people with certain ISPs that have blocked the newsletter erroneously. The idea is that all those who *want* to receive it are easily able to receive it, while all those who don't want it won't receive it. We'll see how it goes! If you don't confirm, you may get additional emails to remind you. Sometimes if the first one gets inadvertently filtered, the second (or third) might get through. I'll keep my fingers crossed! Enough administrative junk...time to get on with the good stuff! - Jill ~~~Search Engine Marketing Issues~~~ ++Search Engines and Rollover Navigation++ Hi Jill, If our navigation buttons are rollovers, I understand that search engines can't follow the links. Do you recommend repeating them as text links at the bottom of the page or is this unnecessary? Best regards, Marla ++Jill's Response++ Hi Marla, Some rollovers are search-engine-friendly, and some aren't; it all depends on the code used to create them. There are many rollover scripts that are "crawler-friendly" and can be followed by the search engine spiders. Usually, if you view the source code and see that there are <a href>-type links in your code, the links can probably be followed. However, not all JavaScript menus are created equal. Many do use certain coding that some search engine spiders still have a hard time following. Moreover, some rollover navigation menus are designed with a Java applet and not JavaScript. These may be even less crawler-friendly! Regardless of the type of navigational menu you use, it never hurts to put the same links at the bottom of the page. Many users expect there to be links there and they look for them when navigating your site. Of course, if you have tons and tons of links in your rollovers, it will probably look silly to list them all at the bottom of the page. Definitely don't do anything that looks silly to your human visitors. Here are two alternatives you can try: * Put the links from your rollover navigation into a <noscript> tag in the HTML code. (View the source on my site to see this in action.) * Create a site map page that is accessible from all pages of your site via a text or image link which lists all the pages of your site. Before going to any trouble or making any drastic changes to your site, do a search for your site's pages at the major search engines such as Google and Yahoo to see if they are having any problems crawling your site. To do this in Google, type this command into the Google search box (substituting your own site for "yoursite"): inurl:yoursite.com. One of the results that shows up should be a page from your site that also has a link with the option to click on "more results from this site." Click that link and you should be presented with a nice list of all the pages from your site that Google has indexed. At Yahoo type site:yoursite.com, and as with Google, you should then see some pages of your site and the option to view more results from your domain. Click that link and see which pages show up. Many times we assume the engines won't crawl certain pages or links, but they actually do crawl them fine. The search engine techies are always working on ways to improve their engines, and they've come a long way from the old days of following only simple text links. Sometimes, however, you will find that Google may crawl your site fine, but Yahoo doesn't, or vice versa. When in doubt (or even as a safety net) use the <noscript> tag and/or a site map. Redundancy never hurts in this type of situation! Jill __________________________________________________ MarketingSherpa's SEO Copywriting Kit Featuring Jill Whalen __________________________________________________ Includes Jill's "Nitty-gritty of Writing for the Search Engines," the audio CDs and transcript of Jill's recent teleseminar with Anne Holland, PLUS a bonus copy of Karon Thackston's new "How To Increase Keyword Saturation Without Destroying the Flow of Your Copy." The teleseminar CD and transcript portion include Jill's verbal reviews of a ton of sites belonging to the seminar participants. A *steal* at only $99! </seowritingkit> __________________________________________________ ~~~Guest Article~~~ ++Increase Conversions by Analyzing Your Web Logs++ Dianna Huff writes today's guest article. Dianna is a B2B marketing communications consultant and copywriter. She is also the author of the e-book "25 Ways To Grow Your E-Newsletter List," which can be found here: <http://www.growalist.com>. Let's give a nice warm Advisor welcome to Dianna! - Jill Increase Conversions by Analyzing Your Server Logs By Dianna Huff Most people now understand the "front end" of search engine optimization (SEO): compiling keywords and optimizing content, page titles and meta descriptions in order to increase rankings on search engines. Yet, judging from my experience with clients, few people pay much attention to the "back end" -- analyzing their server logs. Either they don't look at them at all -- or worse yet, they don't have any! Effective SEO is based on real data: number of unique visitors, the keywords and phrases people used to find your site, the pages that are downloaded most frequently, and that all-important metric -- conversions. The easiest place to get that information is from your server logs. If you haven't looked at your logs and don't know where to begin, the first step is to contact your hosting company. Many ISPs and Web hosts such as Earthlink, Readyhosting and GoDaddy offer Web analytics as part of their monthly hosting fee -- all you do is log on to your server's control panel and type in your account password. If your site sits on your own server and you don't have server logs, purchase a Web analytics program such as Urchin or WebTrends, pronto! Once you have your server logs in hand, you want to pay particular attention to the following data: Number of Unique Visitors and Page Views Don't be swayed by the number of "hits" to your site. This is a misleading indicator as it is simply a measurement of every downloaded image and file on your site. Instead, pay attention to the number of unique visitors and conversion rates. To determine simple conversion rates, take the number of unique visitors and divide by the number of people who took the desired action, e.g., downloaded a brochure, submitted your contact form, signed up for a newsletter, purchased your e-book, etc. Top Pages The "Top Pages" metric can give you a wealth of detailed information. You'll see which pages are most popular on your site, which in turn can help you plan future content. Pay particular attention to the page or pages you want people to click on -- for example, I want people to click on my newsletter sign-up page. Using the number of "unique visitors" to my site, I can determine how many actually went to that page, and then measure that against how many actually signed up for my newsletter. I can also quickly see how many click through from my newsletter to special offers or landing pages. Top Keywords Analyzing your keywords will show you which phrases people are using to find you, and which ones they aren't using. Remember, just because you think your prospects should use specific words to find you doesn't mean they are using them. I learned this the hard way a couple of years ago. I had always assumed my top keyword phrase was "freelance copywriter." It's what others and I used to describe what I do. But, it wasn't until I started analyzing my server logs -- and purchasing Overture search phrases -- that I learned with a jolt that my number-one keyword phrase was "marketing communications." I have since revised my page titles and content using variations on this phrase -- significantly increasing traffic and conversions. Top Referrals Sites that rank highly in search engines also have a number of sites that link to them. You can quickly see which sites are sending you traffic by looking at your "Top Referrals" metric. Most of these referring sites will be search engines -- but if you drill deep enough, you'll get some meaty information. For example, I paid $250 last year to be in a marketing database. Not one person has clicked through from this database to my site, which means I won't be purchasing a listing this year. Top Domains or Robots/Spiders While you're reading your logs, do a quick check to make sure the top search engines are visiting your site. Some programs will show this information as "Top Domains" or "Robots/Spiders." Make sure you see listings from "googlebot," "MSIECrawler," "Inktomi Slurp" and other spiders or bots. Good search engine optimization practices include regularly analyzing your server logs and giving visitors the content they want by: * analyzing top downloaded pages, * researching and continually tweaking keyword phrases, * building a solid external link structure (and making sure it's working). If you are continuously doing these things, you'll see a steady rise of site traffic and conversions over time. Dianna Huff 25 Ways To Grow Your E-Newsletter List http://www.growalist.com _________IBP Award-winning SEO Software_______________adv. High search engine rankings in Google and the new Yahoo! __________________________________________________ IBP is an award-winning software program that helps your web pages get top rankings in Google and in Yahoo's new search engine. Reach 94% of all Internet users! Thousands of satisfied webmasters all over the world swear by IBP. Why? Because it just works. Recommended by many experts. Free trial: <http://www.axandra.com/top-google-and-yahoo.htm> __________________________________________________ ~~~Stuff You Might Like~~~ ++High Rankings Boston SEM Seminar++ We've finalized the details of our September seminar in the greater Boston area (Natick, MA). Here's some of the info: When: Thursday and Friday, September 23 and 24, 2004 Where: The Crown Plaza Natick/Boston The cost will vary depending on whether you choose just Day 1 or both days. Day 1 will be a similar program to our past seminars, and Day 2 will be all-new hands-on workshops. To attend Day 2, you must attend Day 1, or have attended one of the previous High Rankings seminars. (Contact me directly if you are looking at this option.) The early-bird registration fee for attending both days is $999 and the early-bird fee for *just* Day 1 is $575. (Early registration ends on August 31st, so sign up soon!) Please see my seminar page for more details and pricing: </108seminar>. The registration form will be ready shortly -- hopefully by the time you receive this newsletter or very soon thereafter. I'm still playing catch-up after a short vacation, and am a wee bit behind schedule! ~~~High Rankings Forum Thread of the Week~~~ </forum> ++SEMPO++ I've actually been off the forum for the most part while I was on vacation, and haven't had a chance to find a good thread for the newsletter. However, Mike Grehan wrote a great article regarding SEMPO (Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization) which may be of interest to many of you: <http://www.netimperative.com/in_depth/Who_needs_SEMPO_Part_deux>. In case you're wondering, I wholeheartedly agree with everything Mike says in this article. We do have a forum thread where we have been discussing SEMPO as well as a previous article Mike wrote on this topic. You can read that one here: </forum/index.php?showtopic=8234>. ~~~Sound Advice~~~ ++Using Duplicate Content and Mirror Sites for SEO++ </soundadvice> (This audio recording changes each week.) ~~~Article Follow-up~~~ To follow up on Lorelle Smith's Wordtracker/AdWords experiment which she wrote an article about in the last newsletter </issue107.htm#guest>, it turned out that Wordtracker had mistakenly classified the word "chic" as an "adult" word. At some point WT had set everyone's Adult Filter default to "on," causing the skewed results Lorelle found in Wordtracker for "shabby chic." If you use WT and are getting strange results, you might want to set your filter to "off." Be sure to notify Wordtracker if you run across a word being filtered that you believe shouldn't be in the "bad" list. It's good to know that it was just a filter problem and that Wordtracker wasn't as far off the mark as we had originally thought! ~~~Advisor Wrap-up~~~ Last week's conference was as fun and informative as usual. It was great to see my old friends and meet many new ones. My sessions seemed to go really well! After being in San Jose at the SES conference all last week, I came home for one night, and then headed out with the family to Lake George in NY. I just got back last night to find my forum was giving database errors, my email was clogged with over 3,000 sp@m and people had been wondering where the heck I'd been all this time. Not to mention that I had to put the finishing touches on the seminar registration pages, and try to coordinate the newsletter platform move. Oh well...I'll be caught up by tomorrow or Friday... I think... I hope. At any rate, both trips were a lot of fun. Scottie put some great photos from the conference online here: </photos/thumbnails.php?album=9>. I've been so out of touch that I had to learn about these photos from Robert Clough's Search Engine Guide newsletter! (You should sign up for that one too, if you aren't already on the list: <http://www.searchengineguide.com>.) Catch you next week -- assuming you double-opt-in as necessary <grin>! - Jill    |
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