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Most manufacturing websites with e-commerce capabilities, or a product catalog, need to be very careful in how they handle their on-site SEO. Good on-page optimization can yield major returns and expand the horizons. On the other hand, sloppy work can lead to disappointed searchers and bad impressions – of your site and of your business. Designers of manufacturing websites need to take a hard look at on-page factors and develop targeted strategies to build up good SEO practices. Below are some on-page SEO factors that can be improved on many manufacturing e-commerce websites: Content Depth: Manufacturing companies usually have shallow content on their websites, especially the category pages. A typical category page will list all the products in a particular category. Usually the page is devoid of any other content. This creates the ‘thin content’ problem which is usually not a contributor to SEO success. It’s very important to have a healthy amount of content for a page to rank … Continue reading
Posted in: E-Commerce SEO, seo agency for manufacturing
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At Elliance we are in the process of overhauling our clients’ monthly SEO reports – an effort which involves sifting through the mountains of data we collect on a regular basis, and identifying which metrics are most interesting and most valuable to our search clients. In this process, I realized that there are really three distinct actors in any SEO campaign, identified by three sets of interconnected activities: A) Our clients’ marketing efforts B) Our own SEO efforts C) The impact of external forces It turns out that during the course of an SEO campaign, and in our SEO reports, we define success by measuring the blending of these three efforts in four different ways: A) Elliance-Client Outcomes B) Elliance-External Outcomes C) Client-External Outcomes D) Elliance-Client-External Outcomes Since each of our SEO metrics measures a portion of one of these outcomes, we can place each metric at the intersection of two or more actors’ efforts. Take a look: SEO Metrics … Continue reading
Posted in: Analytics and Metrics, Search Marketing
Over the last few months, I shared some important factors to consider when writing PPC (pay-per-click) ads: What’s in an Ad? Writing Effective PPC Ad Copy, Part 1 What’s in an Ad? Writing Effective PPC Ad Copy, Part 2 Today, I want to wrap up this short series, and conclude with some of the successes we’ve seen specifically with higher education paid search ads. So far we’ve discussed using these best practices to ensure successful PPC ad performance: Include keywords in your ad that relate to the search query Include brand name in your ad Use numbers – pricing, dates, percentages Use strong call to actions Call out specific deadlines Use a phone number dedicated to PPC for tracking Emphasize that your ad is yours with “official site” Highlight rankings (e.g. “top ranked by the Princeton Review”) The last thing I want point out for consideration with higher education paid search ads specifically: location, location, location! Include the actual city … Continue reading
E-commerce optimization is the most challenging out of all kinds of SEO. Why? First, e-commerce websites are usually large, sometimes with hundreds or thousands of products. Second, the product related content (such as product descriptions) used on these websites tends to be manufacturer specific. This means that every reseller of a product will have similar content on its site. Being unique among a multitude of firms offering very similar products (with nearly identical descriptions) is a daunting task. When working with e-commerce websites, it’s important to have a strategy before blindly charging forward with SEO. At Elliance, when we work with e-commerce websites, we think of SEO strategy in terms of a mountain range: high peaks, mountains and hills. Visualize a mountain range in this case. High peaks are few and far between, surrounded by numerous smaller mountains which in turn are surrounded by even more, smaller hills. #1: Claim Your Peaks In terms of SEO, high peaks are your … Continue reading
Posted in: E-Commerce SEO
With over 700,000 international students heading to the US in 2012, the race is on to attract the brightest and most financially well-off students. Instead of relying on expensive international recruiting agents who demand portions of college revenues, here is how we are recommending colleges and universities recruit international students: 1. Build language specific or country specific microsites to target students from specific countries. Build microsites for large countries (e.g. China), and build language website for country clusters (Latin America). Provide comprehensive information such as academics with featured programs, admissions, reputation hallmarks, financial aid (scholarships, international funds transfers, etc.), student experience, and full campus support for international students. 2. Optimize the microsites content and meta-data around keywords local prospects are typing. In sharp contrast to the US search engine results, the number of search results for academic keywords is very low – which shows the large opportunity for US colleges and universities in the international markets. 3. Apply SEO best … Continue reading
Posted in: Recruiting International Students
You’re getting sloppy, SEO people! Let’s talk fundamentals. I’m sick and tired of hearing your excuses, about how the game has changed, and you’re caught standing there flat-footed like a kid who just hit his first tee ball. Shape up! I’m busting out the playbook. The following are inexcusable excuses: 1. “Search has changed dramatically and we’re still learning how to cope.” Search algorithms change all the time, each day in fact. Some changes are minor, and some are massive. You are allowed some leeway to rethink your strategy after a major algorithm change, like the Panda updates or Penguin, when those changes require a dramatic shift in link building techniques, content optimization, social messaging activities, etc. But you must not use this as a crutch, or throw your hands up in the air and blame Google. It’s like blaming the refs, people! Adjust your game plan! 2. “Demonstrable results are hard.” If you can’t show a client actual, tangible, … Continue reading
Posted in: Analytics and Metrics, Search Marketing, Social Media
Last month, I shared some important factors to consider when writing PPC (pay-per-click) ads Part 1. Today, I want to share some thoughts about writing effective PPC ads that are industry specific — particularly for higher education paid marketing campaigns — and ensuring that they fit into your competitive mix. 1. Use strong call to actions. Here are a few that are definitely worth testing: > Phone number to request information (ensure the phone number is dedicated to only inquiries coming from your PPC ads so you can track back to your PPC campaign and overall marketing totals) > Dates of info sessions (consider testing months vs. exact dates to see which convert best for you) > Application deadlines 2. Emphasize that your ad is yours. For higher education paid marketing, particularly with all of the lead aggregators out there, it’s important that prospects know that your ad really leads to you. > One particular phrase that has always performed … Continue reading
Anyone who has ever spent more than a few hours in Pittsburgh has probably seen it: the view from Mt. Washington. Rising above the city on the south side of the Monongahela, Allegheny and Ohio Rivers, the steep hill provides a breathtaking view of Pittsburgh’s skyline. Far below are the city’s many modern and historic buildings, bending streets and colorful bridges. Boats glide up and down the rivers, trains wind through the hills, a million lights twinkle as far as the eye can see. When you stand on Mt. Washington, you are looking down on one of America’s great cities, nestled in some of the most dynamic terrain in the country. (In fact, USA Today named the view from Mt. Washington the second-most beautiful view in America!) This past weekend, I had the pleasure of taking a friend from Germany up to Mt. Washington. This was her first trip to the United States, and she knew almost nothing about Pittsburgh. … Continue reading
Posted in: Search Marketing, social media campaigns
If you’ve ever written a pay-per-click (PPC) ad, then you know how hard it is to cram an eye-popping, attention-grabbing, conversion-cranking message into a tiny, little space The 25-character headline and 70-character description space doesn’t seem so small until you try to insert your text into Google and run over the character limit! Writing successful ad copy is one of the most important factors of a successful PPC campaign. Here’s a few things that I have found to be the most effective from my experience with PPC marketing, especially within the higher education PPC advertising space: Include keywords in your ad that relate to what was searched for – a person expects to see results relevant to their search query If your brand is well known, try to include branded terms if they don’t take up too much space A strong call-to-action such as “sign up now” or “learn more” are classics that never stop producing results Utilizing time sensitivity … Continue reading
You’ve probably been through this before. The status reports you prepare (regularly or by request) are well-researched, carefully detailed… and they’re going right over the heads of less SEO-minded people at your company. Your boss, your marketing folks, your IT team: they want the highlights, and they want to know that everything is going ok (or not). But spare me the details, please, because I have another call at noon. Call it lack of time or bandwidth on their part, but in the truth is, these internal “clients” just don’t speak your language. It’s not that they aren’t interested in performance, but everybody has a full plate of his or her own. They just want to get a high level survey and move on to the next thing on their busy agenda. So let’s talk about your SEO reports. What can you do to streamline some of your more arcane data points and help surface your most valuable information? Reset … Continue reading
Posted in: Analytics and Metrics, Search Marketing