Author Archive
Should You Be Concerned About Duplicate Content Penalties?
There are few subjects in the world of search engine optimization (SEO) that case more fear and confusion than the dreaded “duplicate content penalty”. According to popular legend, if you post content to your site that too closely resembles articles on other web pages (whether unintentionally or purposefully, through the misuse of PLR content, manufacturer’s product descriptions and other stock text), the Googlebot will tag your site as a scammer, …
Balancing SEO and Branding on Your Website
At a basic level, both branding and SEO are important elements in ensuring your website’s success. Getting your website ranked highly in the SERPs for your target keywords through SEO is an important part of generating a steady stream of free visitors back to your pages. At the same time, establishing an effective brand is vital to helping your website stand out from your competitors and developing the staying power …
Building Effective Calls to Action into Your Site
No matter what type of website you’re building, you likely have some type of goal in mind for the visitors who arrive on your pages. Maybe you want your readers to purchase your products or maybe you simply want them to share the information they find on your site with others who are interested in the same topics. Whatever the case, if you want your visitors to take a certain …
Creating Effective Product Listings
Too many people selling online these days think that creating good product listing pages is a nuisance – in fact, it’s a golden opportunity to deliver a tailored, highly effective sales message to potential buyers! So don’t simply copy manufacturer product descriptions onto your pages or upload product images that look like they were taken with your cell phone camera. Instead, invest time in learning to create the effective product …
Why You Need Real-Time Analytics
There’s no arguing with the fact that Google Analytics provides a wealth of free information. Truly, if you were only going to take one single action to improve your website results, it should be to install Google Analytics and make decisions about your website’s future based on the data the program generates. That said, Google Analytics has one major weakness – its data is reported on a daily basis, not …
The Top 7 Split Tests You Should be Running on Your Site
We’ve said it before on this site and we’ll say it again – split testing is a “must do” if you want your website to be as effective and profitable as possible. There’s simply no substitution for running tests that generate data about your visitors’ behavior on your site and then using that information to drive improvements to your website. But just saying, “You should carry out split tests on …
Elements of an Effective Online Brand
These days, the internet marketing world is abuzz with the power of “branding”. Really, this isn’t surprising – in a digital world that’s so full of clutter you can barely click on a link for fear of a scam, it’s natural for people to seek out websites that make them feel safe. And chances are if you’ve gone to all the effort to establish yourself as a known, reputable brand …
Site Speed: Why It Matters and What You Should Know
From a personal enjoyment standpoint, you know how frustrating it can be to wait around for a slow-loading website. You’ve clicked through a new page because you’re interested in the content posted there – so every second spent waiting makes you less and less interested in what the site has to offer. If it’s your site that’s slow, you could be losing tons of impatient visitors who aren’t willing to …
The Top 7 Website Marketing Mistakes (And How to Avoid Them)
Website marketing is a complex practice, but it’s one that’s crucial to master in order to get the most out of the website you’ve invested so much time and effort into building. So as you go about improving your web marketing skills, keep an eye out for the following mistakes. They’re quite common to new website owners, but can easily be avoided if you know what to watch out for. …
Should You Be Concerned About Content Theft?
In a perfect world, the content you write and post to your website and business blog would be considered sacred. After all, you’re the one who wrote it – why would anyone else feel free to help themselves and plagiarize your hard work for their own websites? Unfortunately, this mindset is all too rare in the digital world, where content theft is a rampant problem plaguing many websites. In some …