That’s why having someone conduct an audit when you have no idea what is happening is extremely important. It’s also much better for a real “live” person to do it so they can “see” what’s happening on the page; navigation, content, etc. I say this because there are companies that charge a fee to do an audit and all they do is run your website through a program to find keywords, density, links, etc. While all this is good stuff to know, I have yet to find a program that can help you with navigation, content, structure and strategy. That’s not to say that it won’t happen someday; but it has not happened yet.

Just last week I sat with a client that had no idea that the bots sent to the website couldn’t get past the front page. Everything past the home page was not being seen by the search engines. All of the page rank and page strength (a.k.a. juice) was coming from links that were going to the individual pages, which was good. However, they were not indexing the entire website because they couldn’t get in through the home page even though by looking at the home page one would “think” they were getting in because the visitor could.

This is just one of the things that could really impact a website and if you don’t have people looking at it that can connect the dots then you could spend a lot of unnecessary money to find the answer and correct the problem. Getting a website audit is well worth the cost to get your site working for you and your business.

It’s no different here at Harkins Creative except for the fact that we HAVE to stay on top of the changes in Google for our clients as well as ourselves. It is a part of our business and we spend time and resources making sure we find out as much as possible about what Google is doing. The reason we pay so much attention to Google is simple; they control more search traffic than the other search engines combined! When someone else comes along and knocks Google off that mark, and that could theoretically happen one day, then we will start watching the new king of search. Until then we will all have to learn how to “dance” with Google and try to follow its lead; like it or not.

It wasn’t long ago that the two big SEO (search engine optimization) choices businesses had to make online was Pay Per Click (PPC) and Organic Search. PPC would cost you money right out of the gate but had the potential to bring you immediate business if you could bid right and get on the front page in the Google PPC ads. Organic SEO would take longer but, once you got on the front page, you were on your way to making some real money. It was the old question; what did you have more of, money or time.

However, in Google’s world, the one constant thing is that changes are nonstop. That’s why it is imperative to stay on top of what’s going on at Google.  And what’s been going on for the last few months is all about local. In fact, it has been said that about 90% of everything Google is doing these days has to do with local search. The reason is money and Google goes where the money is.

It won’t take you very long to find out that it is estimated that between 75 and 85% of all searches are done for local businesses and services. That means that if you have a local business or service and thought that being on the internet wasn’t that important, you may want to rethink that position.

Also of local importance is Google Maps and Google Mobile. Working with someone who understands what each of these are as well as how best to optimize them is more important than ever before. Simply put, this is why you might want to think “local” when you think about why you should have an online presence.

I’ve been studying up on keywords lately. I used to be fairly haphazard about what keywords or key phrases I used in blog posts and pages. I didn’t really understand how search engines used these words to help people find my content. When you think about it, you can write the greatest prose since Shakespeare, but if no one finds it, it’s not really that useful.

When search engine spiders crawl your site, these keywords and key phrases help them decide the relevance of your site. So, if you want people to read your great article about your favorite restaurant in Montreal, Canada, then you want to be very specific with your keywords. What part of town is it in? What type of cuisine do they serve? Are there other identifying characteristics about that restaurant? Answering these questions will help you know what keywords to use.

While there are several aspects to good SEO, mastering the keyword and key phrase concept is a solid first step. You’ll have your website seen by the web browsing masses in no time!

For those who would like to follow along with the notes (there won’t be any slideshow for this one) you can download the PDF here.

But not just any run-of-the-mill marketing activities. After all, marketing dollars have to be stretched too. The holy grail of recession marketing is figuring out how to separate the most expensive, least profitable prospects from the prospects who are eager and willing to do business today, perhaps even at a premium. So how does this happen?

Stand up and be the expert in your market.

It is generally accepted that recognized experts make more than others for the same basic work. It is also generally true that experts stay busier, with fewer recession-related dips in business.  With such compelling reasons to demonstrate your expertise, what steps can you take today to begin doing just that?  Here’s our list:

1. Start Podcasting. A simple, sustainable, 5-minute podcast production every week with one central point that touches on your area of expertise; that seminal item that you get paid to know or do for your clients. Use the podcast as a teaser to demonstrate the many solid reasons your prospects should be calling you today.
2. Release regular Video Tutorials that address the most painful problems your prospects face. If done artfully, the unspoken conclusion of these short, pointed video productions is that you are capable of providing the solution they desperately need.
3. Create a Blog. If you do either or both of the items above, then you will be using a blog to do it, anyway.  A blog post twice a week builds a record of authority, both for human visitors and (perhaps even more importantly) for Google.
4. Get your best customers to go on the record by testifying to the value of your expertise. A written testimonial, or better yet, a video testimonial can be a compelling badge of expertise.
5. Begin Publicly Speaking. Anywhere. Anytime. In front of any audience with your market’s focus. This is a long-play strategy, however.  If you signed up today to speak for a group, it might be 5-6 months before the actual engagement.

Expertise is currency. And those that can demonstrate it to their market stand to reap rewards far greater than money alone.

From PubCon this week, there have been some interesting speculations about the future ranking of sites that do not contain any video. Bruce Clay predicts the rapid shift toward heavily favoring sites that employ video and other Engagement Object Level tools during the first quarter of 2009. All the more reason, during challenging economic times, to make sure you aren’t finding your site becoming irrelevant to Googlebot.

To that end, we are making a shift in our basic assumptions of web site design, and will be focusing much more on making SEO decisions from the beginning, partnering for much of this work with Taylor Hill, a consultant with a good and growing track record for helping new and existing sites fare better under the omnipotent rule of Google.

It has been our observation that a video production does an amazing job of converting visitors, and getting them to sit still on a site, engaged in a brand message for much longer than they normally would be inclined (as much as 70% click rate!). But the fact that search engines seem to actually be looking for pages with video makes this content strategy all the more appealing.