Tag Archives: search engine optimization
Let’s face it – everyone loves cookies. From double chocolate chunk to plain old oatmeal, cookies just make you feel good. It’s kind of similar to how good SEO can breathe life back into a boring website. This weekend I spent hours slaving away baking some Christmas cookies, and between the mixing and eating I came across a weird discovery. Baking cookies is an awful lot like optimizing a website for better rankings in search engines (albeit not nearly as tasty). The following are five fun similarities:
1) You Need to Prep Properly
Have you ever tried to cream a rock solid block of butter together with sugar? Trust me, you don’t want. All you get is a mound of butter that looks like it’s been dropped into a snowbank. Recipes include detailed preparation instructions in order to help you avoid these sorts of lumpy situations, and so too should your SEO strategy. Preparation is key in the early stages of an SEO campaign, so don’t go jumping the gun. Make sure you take your time and perform plenty of research on your industry. Do you know which keywords to target? Should you be focusing on building more directory backlinks or will citation site submission be of more use? Taking the time to prep your optimization ingredients will help save you time and disappointment down the road.
2) You Need to Have the Right Ingredients
You can’t make a great cookie with just one cup of flour. You need to combine a number of different ingredients in order to create a batter that’s worth bragging about. The same goes for SEO. You can’t just insert keywords into your content and assume that search engines will immediately love your website. A strong SEO campaign requires equal helpings of content development, link building, and code-level optimization. One ingredient isn’t more important than the other – they all work together to create a finished product that’s capable of attracting plenty of attention.
3) You Have to Keep the Oven at a Steady Temperature
Cranking your oven up to 500 degrees won’t help bake your cookies faster, it will just cause them to burn. Trying to cut corners by speeding up the process doesn’t work – you need to bake your cookies slowly, and consistently in order to ensure they’re properly prepared. Similar instructions are necessary for an SEO campaign. Trying to speed through the optimization process will only cause you more harm than good. SEO is all about constant and continuous optimization. Cranking up your keyword optimized content production for one month may help boost your rankings today, but the effects will quickly wear off once you stop. Constant optimization is what will benefit your website in the long run.
4) You May Burn the First Batch When You’re Starting From Scratch
Testing out a new recipe requires patience and practice. The same can be said for working on a new SEO strategy. Somethings might work, others might crash and burn. But you’ll never know until you try. Mix up your optimization strategy and try something different – you could come out with a winning recipe!
5) You Can Never Have Enough!
Whether it’s cookies or content, one thing is for certain – there’s always room for more! Your small business website can never be over optimized. Just remember: there’s always another company out there looking to take your spot in search engine results. Keep them at bay with a clearly defined optimization strategy.
Want to make your next SEO strategy a delicious success? Then don’t forget to add CIK Marketing as one of your main ingredients! Contact us today to learn more about our SEO services.
Today’s CIK Blog post is another guest contribution – this time from James Adams of Catridge Save! Are you interested in gust blogging on the CIK Blog? Send us an email, we’d be happy to hand over the reigns for the day.
The internet has changed the way that people do business. It has revolutionized the way that sales are made and products are advertised. Newspapers and other print sources are no longer the best way to find the things you are looking for, and everyone knows it. The internet is just vastly larger in terms of what is available, is so much more convenient, and offers an easy alternative. However, there are a number of things that the print industry got right, things that have been forgotten on the internet, and so there are a number of lessons that you can learn from print newspaper ads that will make your website more popular and successful.
10. The importance of bold headlining
The first thing to know is that headlines are still what generate sales. These are the things that people see, and they are just as important on the internet as they are in a newspaper – perhaps more so, since the internet is so big and there are so many headlines vying for the same attention. They must grab the reader’s interest and hold on.
9. Expertise and knowledge sell
The next thing to know is that expert advice is still extremely valuable. Just because anyone can write on the internet does not mean that everyone should. Experts should still be brought in to write about certain subjects, as then your website will be able to gather a reputation for intelligence. People still want to know they are getting the best information. Note that many big advertisers in mainstream media will include accreditation in some form from highly authoritative third parties.
8. An optimised design
Ideally your layout should be altered depending on what content is being run. Newspapers do this all the time, moving pictures and text around, altering the size of text, or running different sidebars, headers, and footers. A website can do the same thing, keeping it fresh and interesting, not letting it become a sterile, unchangeable format.
7. Only publish awesome content
The best content, and only the best, should be published. In this highly competitive market a newspaper must be beyond reproach, so the top papers are notoriously picky in the stories (and to some extent what ads) they run, and websites should be as well. Work should be carefully edited and altered until it is flawless and only then should it be published. Getting information on a website is easy, but the same care needs to go into the process.
6. Make your website look good
Graphics are still an essential part of the process. They should not be cast aside, certainly, and they should be used tastefully. The internet does not usually run the risk of under-using graphics, but of using them badly. Graphics are essential and should be very good, should be the best that they can to fit the theme and the content.
5. Use easily understood language
Another thing to remember is that the language should be simple and easy to scan. This gives your website the best reach to the highest number of readers. Some of your readers may be doctors, but if you write in a way that only doctors can understand, you will lose much of your audience. Keep it simple, and everyone can enjoy what you have to say. Newspapers have done this well in the past, as they are marketed to everyone.
4. Brevity
Any website can also take the lesson of brevity from a newspaper. The wide open space on the internet may seem unlimited, and may in fact be unlimited. However, if you treat it that way, most people will never read everything that you write because it will be convoluted and time consuming to consume. Try treating a website like a newspaper, setting a limited amount of space and filling it as well as you can.
3. Innovative design
The eighth rule is that clever design is still very important. Newspaper ads use cutting edge design to catch people’s eyes, the same way that they would use headlines. Internet ads are often the same all the time, not clever and creative. A bit of clever work should be used to make your website stand out.
2. Use humor appropriately
Another thing to focus on is using humor correctly. Advertisers have done this for years; despite their commercial and branding content, they would use humor to spice things up. A website should tastefully use humor as well to add character.
1. Interactivity
The final lesson is that interactivity should still be used. More recently this has become a more normal part of advertising in the mainstream (advertisers offer encourage people to write in, like them on Facebook or visit their website). Websites are generally good at this as well, and should strive to stay that way. Readers like to be able to contribute!
Overall, websites should take all of these lessons from print newspaper ads if they want to be successful. Whether this means that ads are funny, interactive, clever, well-designed, or some combination of them all, they should follow the guidelines that have been set down by print media. This will ensure that they do not stray too far away from the things that have made print great, and they will enjoy the most possible success.
James Adams works for Cartridge Save where is their in-house tech evangelist. James also writes detailed reviews of new Lexmark supplies and products for printers.
