In the cut-throat competition for first page search engine rankings, having a competitive edge is more important than ever. Most companies with a website understand the importance of online marketing, but too few of them know how to tell whether their website itself is efficient. Efficiency makes a difference in many ways, including faster load time and faster indexing time by search engines. There is no way of being more efficient than by creating a table-less, CSS based website. It is the perfect platform on which to build your organic search engine optimization campaign.
CSS (cascading style sheets) is the term referring to a file type and coding style. It’s a way of programming that allows you to add all of the styles of your website, including fonts, colors, backgrounds, and even layout on a separate .css file. This leaves your html document clean of style code that slows down your website, and only leaves your content for search engines to see.
Faster Search Engine Indexing with CSS Website Design
When someone performs an online search, the search engine looks through its internal index, not the Internet. This is done for speed and performance; it’s the only way of getting immediate search results. Different websites get indexed at different intervals. News sites, for example, may get indexed daily–even hourly–while small company sites may get indexed every 2-4 weeks. If you are in this majority, you can understand the importance of getting indexed quickly. Missing out on being properly indexed can mean weeks of search engine invisibility. It is important to cater to these search engines in order to be found. Providing them the most useful information as quickly as possible, in the most organized way possible, will ultimately benefit your website SEO and will help improve your rankings. Consider CSS as one of your first steps in improving your search engine optimization efforts.
When your site is being indexed by search engines, they deploy bits of code referred to as “bots” or “crawlers” that scan your website code and rank your site according to the website’s content. These bits of code will scan your website code from the top down, ultimately reaching the content and links, which allow it to also index other pages within your site. It is within every website owner’s interest to allow these bots or crawlers to find this information as fast as possible. Depending on the complexity of your website, removing all the styles from your html document can often reduce the amount of code by more than half. This means that a search engine bot will only have to do half the work on each page, reaching the important content faster and increasing the chances that each page within your site will be fully crawled and indexed.
Bots and crawlers will not always scan an entire website. If your site is too heavy in code, the bot may only scan half of your page before leaving and reporting back to the search engine index about your site content. If your important content is low on your site, the likelihood of it being indexed drops significantly. This problem can be solved with CSS.
Two Different Presentations of Your Site
There exists two different presentations of your website. The website design that the human visitor sees and the website presentation that the bots see. CSS layout allows you to place the important content at the top of the code, regardless of where it appears on the viewable page. This ensures that the important content is a priority where it counts, in your search engine rankings. Additionally, your visitor will enjoy a faster load time, reducing your website bounce rate and helping your visitors stay as long as possible.
Cross Browser Integration
Creating a CSS based website will not only help your loading and index time, but will also help with your user experience. CSS is fully integrated by most search browsers such as Firefox, Safari, Chrome and the most recent versions of Explorer. CSS is also capable of rendering websites equally throughout each one of these browsers in most instances, reducing debugging time. This means you can avoid cross-browser glitches and special coding “hacks” to make a website look and work the same across multiple browsers.
If you own a website, find out whether you can benefit from CSS. Contact Incitrio at 858.202.1822 for a free website analysis. We are a San Diego marketing agency focused on short and long term client success through integrated marketing, website design, advertising, email marketing, search engine optimization, social media, and CSS programming. Visit our testimonials page to take a look at what some of our happy clients are saying about us.
May 10th, 2011
As more businesses begin to realize the significance of online marketing in today’s economy, it becomes increasingly clear that the fast growing social review site, Yelp, cannot be ignored. Yelp can help a small business gain a foothold in a competitive online world by providing business owners direct access to their customers. This marketplace of opinions can help a business gauge customer sentiment and allows a business owner to interact on a one-to-one basis, addressing their customer’s needs and concerns. By using Yelp, a business can find out what customers are saying about their service. Additionally, a business owner can easily track trends, helping them to modify their service to better serve their client base. In order to succeed with Yelp, a business owner must first be willing to routinely spend the time updating, and responding to both good and bad reviews. It’s all a matter of joining the conversation.
Many business owners are hesitant about joining Yelp because they fear that bad reviews can hurt their business. However, one does not need to add their business in order to be featured on Yelp. Virtually anyone can add any business and can begin reviewing it. Chances are that your business might already be featured and several people have already expressed their views about your service. It is absolutely necessary to take the first step and claim your business as the business owner. This will allow you to join the conversation, helping you to quickly address both the bad and good reviews. Being proactive in your approach will allow you some control in what is being said.
Responding to a Bad Yelp Review
It is often difficult for a business owner to separate their personal feelings from business as their business is often regarded to as their “baby;” reading a bad review can hurt. One’s natural inclination is to defend the company. Taking a defensive approach will only hurt your reputation by making you look out of touch, and will likely earn your company additional bad reviews. The only real solution is to be honest and transparent in your online marketing efforts. If you have screwed up, and a passionate reviewer brings it to your attention with a bad review, rather than taking offense, try admitting your mistake. Then, assure the reviewer that you are doing everything possible to prevent the mistake from ever happening again. You will often be surprised by the response. The bad reviewer may see your honesty and may change the bad review, and you may impress future visitors who will be amazed that the owner cares so much by taking the time to participate. Remember to also include those who have sent you good reviews in your response. If a visitor is very happy with your service and writes an extraordinary review, be sure they come back to visit you. For example, consider offering them a group discount on their next visit. This way, you can be sure that they will bring their friends and more potential positive reviews. Also, remember to add them to your friend list in order to populate your account with happy and satisfied customers.
Become an Active Member of the Yelp Community
In order to get more exposure for your company on Yelp, become a valuable community member. Be sure to participate by routinely reviewing other businesses. Be clear and honest in your review without being mean or overly friendly. Be sure each review you post is useful and informative. This will benefit you in the long run when the community begins to see you as an authoritative figure, helping attract visibility to your page and more positive reviews.
Integrate Your Marketing Efforts
In order to get the most momentum with your Yelp account, be sure to integrate your online efforts. Link your social media profiles, like Facebook and Twitter, to Yelp; doing so will make sure each of your posts will get the most visibility. Include a link on your website and email signature and tell your clients about your Yelp page. Focus on those who have had a positive experience with you, but do not solicit a review as Yelp discourages this practice. Yelp will routinely filter reviews that have the telltale signs of having been solicited. This includes glowing reviews by members with incomplete profiles, good reviews from members with little to no history of reviews, and good reviews posted all in a short period of time. For this reason, it is best to first target your clients with existing Yelp accounts. Search for existing clients who are already Yelp members and request to join their friend network. Then, you can send them a friendly message asking them to visit your company profile, while avoiding soliciting directly for a review.
Post Offers and Announcements
Special rates and discounts are a great way to gain attention. Posting special rates and announcements of company anniversaries, press releases, media spots, etc. will also improve your chances of getting found locally, while also improving your chances of being featured locally in Yelp’s monthly newsletter. If you have integrated your social media accounts, each announcement has the potential of being seen by a large number of people.
Developing an entire Yelp or other social media campaign can be beneficial to any company in today’s market. It can help you grow and expand your business in a way that traditional marketing never could. Be sure you are working with a knowledgeable integrated marketing company to ensure that your online efforts pertain to your long-term business goals. A marketing strategy that provides you with greater access to your clients, while focusing on your long-term goals, will ensure that your business continues to grow online, without sacrificing your brand. Call Incitrio today to set up a free consultation about your online marketing efforts. We can help you develop the perfect strategy for online growth.
May 6th, 2011
