We've had a busy week, including launching a new responsive website for Greensynergy Consulting!

What we love about this site, apart from the organic look and feel, is how the site architecture simplifies a complex series of services, making it very easy to understand what the offerings are, and where to find everything. Check it out!

http://www.greensynergy.com.au

Not to point out the obvious but it's been way too long since I last blogged. But I've got a good excuse. We moved home and office to Sydney. It was a brutal move. Despite our best efforts to cull our belongings, we STILL couldn't fit everything into a 10 ton moving truck. 10 ton people! We had to rent yet another truck (this time a 2 ton), do the 12 hour round trip drive all over again, and load and unload without the help of movers… Oh and our furniture got damaged.

I think I'm still recovering.

Before this painful exercise one of the projects I put my hand up to work on was beta testing Guy Kawasaki's new book APE: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur - How to Publish a Book.

Let me just get this out of the way now. I LOVE Guy Kawasaki so ya didn't have to twist my arm to get me involved! Secondly, I thoroughly enjoyed the book. Having gone through the publishing process with a few clients, I know first hand how "maze-like" the process can be - from formatting the book file to publishing and beyond.

If you are thinking of self publishing do it! Get the book and save yourselves heaps of time and effort.

And if you are thinking of moving, hire the more expensive moving company and damn the cost! You'll have more time and energy to work on your book.

:-)

I would like to share a video I watched last weekend. It came recommended by Susan Cain, the author of The Power of Introverts, whom I revere.

The video is a TED talk by Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of Eat, Pray, Love. In this video Elizabeth muses about the unrealistic expectations we place on artists and "geniuses" and shares the radical idea that instead of the rare person "being" a genius, maybe all of us "have" a genius.

You may be thinking, "Where are you going with this Karen? This has nothing to do with online business."

Well, actually for me it does. The way I see it, it takes commitment to show up every day and give 100% of ourselves, whether we're in a job or run our own business. Results don't always come quickly, and sometimes we all need a bit of inspiration don't we?

And I for one really connect with having a "Dobby!" :-)

Watch the video. It will inspire you! I promise.

Did this inspire you? Share!

Many of our new clients come to us because they need help with an existing website which isn’t ranking well in search and they don’t know what steps to take to improve its performance.

If this sounds like you, and your website isn’t achieving top rankings in search engines like Google, you need to make sure your website is fully optimised with nothing holding it back. 

1.)  Organise a website “health check” in the form of a Website Structural Audit to uncover any technical issues such as broken links, html code errors, missing meta data or any other issues that could interfere with your website's ranking. 

2.)  Today's consumers looking to buy a product or service start the process by using a search engine to find vendors and product information. So, using the right keywords on your website can make the difference between being found on the web or being invisible. Organise a Page Optimization Audit to see how well are your web pages are optimised for your keywords (the search terms people use to find you). 

3.)  Is your website set up for multiple viewing platforms? In other words, will your customers be able to view your website no matter what device they are using (mobile phone, iPad, desktop computer)? If the answer is no, this needs to be addressed as a priority.

4.)  Are your web pages converting? Do you have effective calls-to-action? Lots of traffic to your website doesn't really mean much if your marketing efforts are not converting visitors into customers. Calls-to-action can get your visitor’s attention and direct it to your offers and help you generate leads.

5.)  Do you blog? Blogging has become a powerful business tool, allowing companies to engage in a 2-way conversation with customers and at the same time improve their search engine rankings. Companies that blog have 434% more indexed pages (Hubspot). The more indexed pages you have, the greater your leads. To blog effectively, you will need to develop a communication strategy so you will know what to write, promote your blog via social media and other channels, and be able to measure the success of your blogging efforts.

6.)  Are you leveraging social media on your website? Together, social media channels and your website should work together seemlessly to promote your products or services. 

• Include visible social media buttons on your website that link to your social media accounts. 
• If you use social media to update your customers and clients on a daily or weekly basis, you should also showcase your twitter feed or facebook posts directly on your website. 
• Also include share buttons so that your visitors can share your content with others.

7.)  Are you using marketing analytics to measure your marketing? While web analytics can give you lots of insights and data into the technical performance of your website, you need much richer data to understand the performance of your marketing campaigns. Marketing analytics include data from your website and other sources like email, social media and offline events.

While Google's search is algorithmic and automated, there are some ways you can create compelling listings for your online business that users are more likely to click.

Create compelling listings.

The image below is an example of a website listing in search. To make your listing compelling, follow the steps below:

CREATE USEFUL PAGE TITLES - Make sure your page titles are unique, descriptive, short and relevant. Avoid keyword stuffing!

CREATE READABLE URLS - The web address of a page is seen below the title, with words from the user's search in bold. Your urls should be simple and readable. e.g.:

• RECOMMENDED - http://www.realestateview.com.au/real-estate/sydney/
• NOT RECOMMENDED - http://www.rogerburnsrealestate.com/default.asp?PageID=363E5F93-A1BE-485D-9036-9795D4687F85

PROVIDE RELEVANT PAGE DESCRIPTIONS - Page descriptions are found under the url, and are usually taken from the metatags of your webpages. Your descriptions should run no more than 1 complete sentence, make sense to humans and be unique. When you write your page descriptions, also think about how you would like to differentiate your website from your competition and appeal to your target audience.

Manage your site links.

Using Google Webmaster tools, you can ask Google to demote site links you don't like.

To demote a site link URL:

• On the Webmaster Tools Home page, click the site you want.
• Under Site configuration, click Sitelinks.
• In the "For this search result box", complete the URL for which you don't want a specific sitelink URL to appear.
• In the "Demote this sitelink URL" box, complete the URL of the sitelink you want to demote.

Once you've demoted or undemoted a site link, it can take a little bit of time for search results to catch up. Also, per Google, you can demote up to 100 URL's and demotions are effective for 90 days from your most recent visit to the Sitelinks page in Webmaster Tools.

Add your business to Google+ Local.

Google displays local business information in their search results. It's free and you can sign up here:  http://www.google.com/+/learnmore/local/

As always, if you need help with any of these tips please do not hesitate to contact us.

I get asked alot about backlinks. What are they? Why are they important? How do you get backlinks? That sort of thing. So... here's a quick overview of backlinks and what you need to know about them.

What is a backlink?

Backlinks, also known as incoming links or inbound links are incoming links to your website or a web page from another website.

Why are backlinks important?

Backlinks were originally important as a primary means of web navigation. Today backlinks can be an indication of how popular or important a website or web page is.

Not all backlinks are created equal. There are several factors that determine their value.

Backlinks to your website or web page from an "authoritative" website on a given topic is what you want, as they tell search engines that your website has relevant, good content which will also be useful for people looking for information on that given topic.

What are some effective ways for building links organically?

Here are some recommendations from Matt Cutts himself on how to build good quality backlinks:

• Create controversy
• Create content with lists - 50 ways to do...
• Participate in the community. Answer questions.
• Do original research
• Create newsletters
• Participate in social media
• Blog! Establish yourself as an authority
• Create "How to" tutorials
• Run a service people find really useful or make a product and give it to the community for free
• Create good site architecture so your website can be crawled, bookmarked etc.
• Create video content

You have to wonder sometimes if technology helps or hinders. In this case I think it's the latter, and it's happened to me! Hilarious!

I'm posting a brilliant talk given by Guy Kawasaki on "The Art of the Start" at the Informatics Forum, in Edinburgh because now, more than ever, is a great time to create an online business. Or, if you've already begun a new venture, you may be looking for inspiration to help you keep going.

For those of you who have never heard of him, Guy Kawasaki is a Silicon Valley Venture Capitalist, best selling author and former Apple employee originally responsible for marketing the Macintosh in 1984.

In his talk, Guy speaks of his experiences as an evangelist, entrepreneur and venture capitalist who found, fixed and funded startups. He encourages entrepreneurs to "make meaning, make mantra, and get going."

Here are the main points of his lecture and book:

• MAKE MEANING - create a product or service that makes the world a better place.
• MAKE MANTRA - Forget mission statements. Take your meaning and make a mantra out of it.
• GET GOING - Start creating and delivering your product or service. Don't focus on pitching, writing and planning.
• DEFINE YOUR BUSINESS MODEL - You have to figure out a way to make money. The greatest idea, technology, product or service is short-lived without a sustainable business model.
• WEAVE A MAT - Compile 3 lists: Milestones (3 or 4), assumptions (eg. sales calls/day) and tasks (e.g. rent an office) to create an organisation.
• NICHE THYSELF - Provide a unique product or service that brings value to a customer.
• HOW TO PITCH TO VENTURE CAPITALISTS:  20 minute presentation with 10 slides, 30 point font:
  Title
  Problem
  Solution
  Business model
  Underlying magic
  Marketing and sales
  Competition
  Team
  Projections
  Status/timeline

And lastly don't let the "bozos" grind you down! Rich and famous parses to lucky, not smart!!

Buy The Art of the Start on Amazon.

Is your social media campaign not getting any traction? Try the following:

Change your approach.

Write as if you were chatting to a friend. This will help you come across as being more authentic and less of a marketer. The more authentic you are, the more likely your posts will be shared.

Keep your posts short and if possible entertaining.

People don't want to be bombarded with long, heavy messages when they log onto social media. The posts and feeds that get shared the most are the ones that are engaging in some way, and have a variety of text, video and interesting images.

Interact with your followers.

Social media is just that… social, so take the time to interact and respond to your customer's comments. Re-tweet interesting tidbits in your industry you find with others. You've got to build relationships in order to succeed with social media.

Want to see an example? Check out a Facebook page that we manage for one of our clients. Wendy's number of followers is growing daily!

http://www.facebook.com/CelebrantWendyHaynes

During his panel at SXSW Matt Cutts announced as a side note that Google will be releasing an algorithm update specifically targeting sites which have been uber-optimised and SEO'd in an attempt to level the playing field between web masters that build quality content vs web masters who are aggressive SEOs.

"What about the people optimizing really hard and doing a lot of SEO. We don't normally pre-announce changes but there is something we are working in the last few months and hope to release it in the next months or few weeks. We are trying to level the playing field a bit. All those people doing, for lack of a better word, over optimization or overly SEO - versus those making great content and great site. We are trying to make GoogleBot smarter, make our relevance better, and we are also looking for those who abuse it, like too many keywords on a page, or exchange way too many links or go well beyond what you normally expect. We have several engineers on my team working on this right now."

Per Matt Cutts, the changes to Google's search algorithm would take place over the next few weeks.

As we know, each time Google makes significant changes to their algorithm there are winners and losers, and it can significantly alter the traffic and revenue to commercial sites.

We shall wait and see...