Honor Thy Father
Well, I was feeling pretty bad about it until I was able to find a rationalization. The website I put together for my Dad's ophthalmology practice was created using a WordPress theme. In my opinion, WordPress themes were still amateur looking two or three years ago, but today they rival websites designed by professionals. The alternative was to have a website built from scratch or maybe on a platform like Expression Engine. In fact, at Aidan Taylor we built a ton of those types of websites, and our clients paid $20,000 to $40,000 on average. Also, we paid our developers and designers to get it done. It wasn't something I could just do on my own.
The bottom line: up until recently, it was just too expensive for most physicians, where the ROI of a website was unknown.
Now for a quick SEO tip using my Dad's practice as an example. Like I said, he's an eye surgeon. The majority of his surgery involves cataracts (when your natural lens gets cloudy leaving you with reduced or complete loss of vision). My Dad is also located in Joplin, Missouri. So, the best keywords for my Dad's practice include "Joplin", "Cataract", "Cataracts", and "Surgery". Since this is a brand new website without an existing domain, my Dad had the luxury of securing a domain name (web address) that contained these keywords: JoplinCataractSurgery.com. Notice how it has several keyword phrases "Joplin Cataract", "Joplin Cataracts", "Cataract Surgery", and "Joplin Cataract Surgery".
This is like my old standby example: if you search Google for "credit cards", the number one natural result is "creditcards.com", followed by Visa, Mastercard, and the rest of them. The reason CreditCards.com wins is largely the fact that the exact search query is contained in the domain. I do want to point out that a large majority of my colleagues at SEOmoz believe that exact keyword match domains will decrease in effectiveness going forward.
Now, new people are more likely to find my Dad because of SEO performance - and this domain is really going to help. However, to those who already know him, his practice is called "Dixon Eye Center". So, we just forwarded the domain DixonEyeCenter.com to JoplinCataractSurgery.com.
Dad - I should have got it done sooner!
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WTF is Microdata?
Microdata uses simple attributes in HTML tags to assign brief and descriptive names to items and properties. Google developed this standard with their competitors, Bing and Yahoo, in an effort to create a standard, rather than proprietary structures. The standard is maintained at Schema.org.
This is important because it will allow the search engines to better classify information. Here's a quick example: Today, if a person searches for the keyword "Tacoma vehicle", they'll get results for both trucks by Toyota and a city in Washington. Microdata would enable search engines to only provide those results for Tacoma Trucks, increasing relevancy.
This is also an indicator that your company is paying attention. A website containing microdata is likely to be viewed by Google as more sophisticated, and possibly more believable than competitive sites without it. That means that when Google attempts to provide the most relevant search results, you're in a better position to ascend to the top of the list!
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SEO: It’s a Cinderella Story
Not all keywords are equal, and those with great potential should be given every opportunity to shine!
One of the most important things we can pay attention to is the ability of your high-ranking keywords to deliver traffic. The first step is to get as many targeted keywords ranked on the first page of Google as possible (with the Top 5 being the ultimate goal). However, just because a keyword with great traffic potential reaches page one, it doesn't always result in traffic. Sometimes, we have to adjust the landing page for a particular keyword to increase traffic flow.It's like Cinderella! First, we have to get her to the Ball, but if she's dressed in rags with dirt on her face, she's not likely to get asked to dance by the Prince. She has to be dressed, cleaned up and looking good to attract his attention.
To carry out this metaphor, getting each keyword on page one is like getting them to the Ball. Having compelling Title and META Description Tags (optional pieces of HTML code) for each landing page is like getting your keywords cleaned up and dressed for the Ball. Those tags are what Google shows to people searching for your keywords. They make up the Google "Result" - like creating an advertisement for your keyword. Each qualified prospect is a Prince. When they click through, it's like asking your keyword to dance. And, we want lots of dancing.
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20-Point Pilot’s Checklist for Sending a MailChimp Campaign
“Pilot’s Checklist” for MailChimp
MailChimp like any other email marketing system, while not difficult, has some complexity that can become dangerous when part of a routine. That’s why pilots have a checklist. It’s to make sure the pilot actually checks everything before hopping in and taking off. Sending an email campaign is like taking off. If you forgot to check something, it’s too late once push the send button. So, to help out those and myself who use MailChimp (or any other email marketing system), I thought I’d provide a 20-point checklist for email marketing management:
- Check Form Data for your list to make sure all non-recipient facing segment questions are hidden (otherwise these will be exposed when they click the “update subscription preferences link in the standard MailChimp footer)
- Create the appropriate list segment to ensure relevance
- Create a unique campaign name that will help you remember what it was about in the future
- Check the reply-to-email - is this the correct email address (the typical issue is sending a campaign to a large list with a personal email for replies - not good)
- If target segment is greater than 500, create an A|B Split campaign (2 versions of the subject - one with most opens wins) - 20% for 24 hours is recommended
- Check Merge Tags - (for first name, use *|TITLE:FNAME|* to ensure Title Case (first letter capitalized)
- Check “add Google Analytics tracking to all URLs”
- Determine whether campaign should be communicated socially (e.g. general announcements are good candidates for Twitter)
- Select best template (if creating from scratch - be sure to save to templates for future use and time savings)
- Make sure “Monkey Rewards” are set appropriately
- Spell Check HTML version of message
- Check Header Message (the short message above the header and body)
- Check Social Media Links for accuracy
- Send Test to yourself and stakeholders
- Get acceptance from other stakeholders
- Check that HTML version has been copied to Text-Only version
- Re-read your HTML email one more time looking for grammatical errors and opportunities to improve. If any changes are made, I recommend re-reading again until no changes are made.
- Re-check the list - are these the appropriate people to receive this message. Have you forgotten any one? Are there people who should not receive this message?
- Re-read subject lines
- Send your campaign
I hope this saves you some day!
If you want to learn more about pushing the limits of MailChimp - read this post
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When a Company gets TOO Big (like Google)
I couldn't believe my eyes - "We're sorry, but Google Toolbar is only available for Internet Explorer and Firefox". How does that ever happen? Well, I'll tell you how - it happens when a company gets too big. The real question is how does a big company keep itself coordinated and smart? Any ideas out there?
