Posts Tagged ‘Pole Position Marketing’

When making changes to my website I always take the time to view them live on the web before closing up my editing software and patting myself on the back in self-satisfaction of a job well done. Even with minor changes, I like to view them one last time to make sure my changes didn’t cause any shifts in on-page display, or I didn’t inadvertently create an error somewhere that inadvertently jacked everything up (believe me, it’s happened more times than I can count!) But regardless of how careful I am to double check my work, there is one thing I almost always overlook; verifying that my site looks good in the “other” browser.

At any given time I have three FireFox browser widows open, each with their own number of open tabs. So it’s natural for me to check and verify my changes using my browser of choice. Sometimes, I even think to check my changes in Internet Explorer. Admittedly, I don’t regularly check IE when the changes are relatively minor, but always when the changes effect formatting. But that’s not the other browser I’m referring to.

We get so accustomed to our own way of surfing the web that we forget that there many other browsers and browsing experiences that may be foreign to us. Now most web designers will do their due diligence and check a site in multiple versions of FireFox, Internet Explorer, Netscape and Safari. Heck you might look at a half of dozen other browsers that most people, including myself, have never even heard of. But those are not the browsers I’m referring to either.

There are four primary “other” browsers and browsing experiences that are typically overlooked by site owners, casual webmaster and, yes, even by the average web designer. But with more and more users moving to these alternate browsing experiences, it is even more important to check your websites to make sure that they function properly for these users.

Click here to keep learning

When providing SEO advice on the topic of website design, we often warn against placing important content into images. This is because search engines can’t read images like a person can. To them, an image with text is just an image. They really have no idea what the image is or if, in fact, it says anything at all. So when optimizing sites, anytime we are dealing with keyword optimized content, we want to make sure it’s standard HTML text. This includes headers, benefit lits, and even normal body copy.

While the search engines can’t read actual images, they can read what we say about the image. This information can be gleaned a few different ways:

• Image file name (image1234.jpg vs. mustang-gt.jpg)
• Text immediately surrounding the image
• The overall content of the page the image is on
• Image ALT attribute in the image tag

When trying to optimize images for image search, all of these can provide important indicators the search engines use to produce the best set of image results. In terms of traditional optimization and website usability, the ALT attribute plays an important role.

Click here to keep learning

Google has been spidering the new URL for the (EMP) blog so I thought I’d do a few vanity searches to see if it’s showing up in the search results. Not yet, but I did see something cool. It looks like Pole Position Marketing has gained some site links:

Click here to keep learning

Over the next few weeks we’ll be in the process of rolling out some pretty significant changes. First, I’ve been named Pimp McFly Associate Editor at Search Engine Guide. What this means exactly, I still haven’t been told. But I think it has something to do with blogging.

So seeing that I’ll be doing 90% of my blogging over there, we are going to change our focus over here at EMP. A new design has been in the works for the past couple of weeks and we hope to have that rolled out shortly. With the new design we’ll be moving the blog back to the Pole Position Marketing domain and turn it into a local company blog.

Click here to keep learning

SEMpdx Searchfest

Ok, this one has come and gone but I wanted to provide a short debrief. I have to say that I had a fantastic time. Searchfest marked my one-year anniversary speaking at conferences. They opened the door for me at Searchfest 2007 and were kind enough to invite me back this year. Boy, am I glad they did.

I have to say that I was really surprised by the marketing power they were able secure for each session was amazing. I felt severely out gunned on both panels I was on. I was amazed at the quality of the information provided and the overall environment established by the SEMpdx team.

Click here to keep learning

I’m big on reputation management tracking. I have well over 50 Google alerts set up at any one time. I track my own name, company name, blog name, names of my employees, names of my competitors, company names of my competitors and even my articles. All via Google Alerts.

So you know I had to be interested when I got an email about trackur, a new reputation monitoring tool from Andy Beal.

Click here to keep learning

In the never ending effort to improve the success of the current campaigns, I recently spent some time going back through our AdWords history to see which ad creatives had been successful, as well as to see what keywords had converted strongly. I went back a year, prior to my employment with Pole Position Marketing. Sometimes I feel like my creativity has been tapped out, so I was hoping for some inspiration.

Looking at the campaign level, I found some paused and deleted campaigns with healthy Conversion Rates, leading me to wonder why that campaign had ever been paused, much less deleted. A quick glancing at the CTR and my questions were answered. Sometimes it is best to just dump what isn’t working and begin again. Ad group quality score certainly reflect that.

Click here to keep learning

Audio feed[audio:http://www.polepositionmarketing.com/emp/blog-audio/accessibility.mp3]

As more and more users gain access to the web, it becomes increasingly important to ensure that your website is accessible to all, not just a few. Just as businesses must comply with the American Disabilities Act to ensure proper access to customers with disabilities, businesses should do all they can to make their websites accessible to all users regardless of the means in which they access the site.

And of course not all accessibility issues involve meeting the needs of the disabled. What must be considered is the growing number of users that now access websites through non-traditional means, whether it be mobile phones or with images turned off. These users can still be your target audience, and ensuring your site can be used through alternate avenues is essential to capturing that audience.

Click here to keep learning

Every year as the entertainment industry gears up for the Oscars, movie studios, directors and producers put out “For Your Consideration” ads in attempt to influence the voters. OK, maybe influence is the wrong word here. No, it’s not.

But before I put out my own For Your Consideration blog post/ad for my fellow teammates, let’s talk about what the heck The SEMMYs are. The SEMMYs are the brainstorm of our buddy M². While there are plenty of awards already for the blogging community, most honor the blog in total, rather than individual blog posts.

Mr. McGee has created the following award categories:

Click here to keep learning

Audio feed[audio:http://www.polepositionmarketing.com/emp/blog-audio/usability-guidelines.mp3]

Sites that are designed to sell products and/or services must go the extra mile to enhance the visitor’s engagement with the website. Shopping cart abandonment (shoppers abandoning their carts before deciding to pay for the “items” they’ve added to their cart) can result in a significant loss in potential sales. But much of that can be reduced when the shopping process is streamlined and geared for shopper satisfaction.

The selling process–from initial interest to the very last checkout page–must be able to grab shopper’s attention and proceed to drive them through to the finalization of the sale. But even after the sell, you must deal with customer service issues in order to keep the sale finalized. Good customer service will bring your purchasers back for another and another and another. Here are fourteen general usability guidelines that will enhance your shoppers overall experience on your site.

Click here to keep learning