Over the years, I have seen many business owners struggle with their websites (including myself).

It’s rarely finding out how to fix problems, it’s finding what problems exist in the first place! There are just so many little technical elements to consider when optimizing your website for conversions and Search Engines simultaneously.

The key to striking a (profitable) balance between your visitors and the engines lies in knowing the highest-impact tweaks to make for each.

Of course this is much easier said than done, unless you’re using the proper tools…

Here are two of my favorite website analysis tools:

• Website Grader
• Nibbler

These are both fantastic tools for analyzing your website to determine what core factors you need to improve. It’s also nice to get credit for what you’ve done correctly!

While both tools provide a wide variety of helpful insights into website optimization, both have been created for quick reports, meaning their full analysis is part of a premium, paid service provided by the creator. Thankfully, in this case, both of these services are excellent (HubSpot & SilkTide), and I highly recommend them.

A while back, I referred one of my clients to these tools, and the response caught me off guard:

That’s all well and good, but I don’t know what half of this stuff means!

Now, he went on to say that they did do a good job of explaining each factor, but that it was difficult for him to truly grasp the power of the tools because of his lack of experience.

I realized there was a simple solution to this, but it would take a great deal of time for my clients: creating a crash course to help them lay a solid foundation on these key optimization factors. However, after discussing the idea, it’s clear that the people that benefit most from information like this are potential clients, who don’t want to pay for anything at this stage.

I racked my brain for weeks trying to figure out how best to convey this information on a per site basis, for literally zero cost to my visitors.

The tools cover a good deal of information, and their explanations are flawless for someone with a basic knowledge of SEO, but in order to help my potential clients fully grasp this information and use it to their benefit, I created my…

“Free SiteScore Website Analysis“

This is now part of my 100% free consultation, and it comes with a custom, detailed look into your website’s:

1. Current Performance (traffic, rankings & web presence)
2. Technical Details (performance, browser & programming compatibility)
3. Search Engine Optimization (On-site & Off-Site)
4. Conversion Process (marketing funnel analysis)
5. Competition (ranking and traffic comparison, key differences, and more)

All of this information is delivered to you, personally from me, in an easy-to-read 10 pg PDF, before our consultation.

This way, you can get a much better understanding of where you stand, and what will help you most to discuss in the free consultation session. Between this and the phone call walking you through anything you’re interested in, you’ll be in a great position to decide if my services are right for you.

So far, my clients have greatly enjoyed this free service, and I think you will too! Fill out a short form telling me about your website to get started today.

Yahoo! recently released a blog post entitled “You’re in Control“, which describes a huge step in the right direction for them.

One of the only issues I’ve experienced with Yahoo! Search Marketing is the fact that they’re not as transparent with your traffic data as Google. It always annoyed me to see referred traffic in my analytics & logs coming from really strange, sometimes spammy websites, when there was no way to control it. Thankfully, all that has changed…

Now, with Network Distribution, you can choose where your ads are displayed on the Yahoo! platform.

In the past, the only option was “Entire Network”:

Now, it’s possible to choose where your ads are displayed:

• Entire Network
• Yahoo! Search results pages only
• Yahoo! Search Partners only

This flexibility adds a great deal to the YSM platform, in my opinion, making it easier to control the quality of your clicks, thus improving Ad Quality and, hopefully, profits.

Not only that, but Yahoo! supplies you with data (based on the prior 30 days of your campaign) to help you determine which of the three options is right for you:

Overall, I believe this change will greatly improve results achieved through Yahoo! Search Marketing.

What do you think? Have you also been bothered by low-quality referring URLs in your analytics, as a result of Yahoo!’s Partners?

When people visit your website, they might not be seeing what you think they see.

You put all this effort in to make it look just right, but someone with a particular browser might see something so far off that they’ll leave in disgust. You don’t want this, do you? Then it’s crucial that you check your site for browser compatibility!

Many webmasters pride themselves on making sure their websites are compatible across all the major browsers (Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari, Google Chrome, Opera, etc.), but how do they know? They don’t literally download every single browser and open their site up in all of them, do they?

Most designers use a combination of various tools that provide screenshots of what your website looks like in different browsers, and manual checking (to make sure the functionality is intact too).

Luckily, you don’t have to do any of that, and there’s very little guessing, now that Adobe launched “BrowserLab“.

BrowserLab not only provides screenshots, but it allows you to scroll through and interact with your website as you normally would, mimicking any browser you want! It even simulates what your site would do with different Operating Systems (e.g. the dreaded Internet Explorer 6.0 on Windows XP, or Firefox 3.5 on Mac OSX).

This is a very powerful way to verify that everyone who comes to your website is seeing what they should see.

Browser Market Share

In case you’re wondering, here’s the current browser market share :

1. Firefox: 47.0%
2. Internet Explorer: 37.7% (IE6: 11.1%, IE7: 13.3% & IE8: 13.3%)
3. Chrome: 8.5%
4. Safari: 3.8%
5. Opera: 2.3%

How to Get Started

If you have an Adobe account, you can sign in directly. If not, you’ll have to sign up (free), but it only takes a minute. Here’s what it looks like:

The website I tested in this example is DailyBurn.com (using Firefox 3.0 on Mac OSX). Let’s see what it looks like compared to IE7 on Windows XP:

It appears that DailyBurn is doing an excellent job keeping their design similar across the major browsers. However, BrowserLab offers something I’ve never seen with other browser compatibility services called Onion Skin View (one browser view over another):

Alright, so I know that’s not the most fun thing to stare at, but the point is that simply looking at a couple screenshots (like with the tools I used to use) just doesn’t do the trick!

This view shows us that even though things look similar, the design is shifted between the top 2 browsers, which could cause alignment or other design issues in some circumstances.

In this case, things are very close, but I’ve found a couple examples of my own that are quite far off. It’s best to check this sort of thing out instead of losing visitors due to things you never knew about, so give BrowserLab a try on your site.

An earlier post about the Top 5 Search Engine Ranking Factors covered the highest-potential impact elements to understand and take action to improve.

However, there are literally 100’s of factors that Google considers, according to Matt Cutts at PubCon.

Check out the list over at WebmasterWorld to get a better idea of how complex the Search Engine ranking algorithm really is. We have heard tales of website owners stuffing keywords in their meta tags and getting first-page rankings for competitive terms in mere days, but over time Google has refined its algorithm to include everything you can imagine…and then some.

A big focus has been filtering out the tricks & gimmicks that webmasters have tried to employ over the years. It used to be much worse, which was the reason Googlers would find themselves on pages with 500 links to spammy websites or with 100 words of content and 12 banner ads.

Thankfully, Google has pioneered the advancement of search results, eliminating the chance for (most) of these sites to exist. It appears to be their goal to continue improving the experience of their users as much as possible, and while many website owners have been crushed in the path of the mighty Google, most have been for the better.

The key here is to remember that the Search Engines are NOT our enemy!

It’s crucial that we work alongside Google, Yahoo! & Bing to improve the quality of results, by creating “Unique, Useful and Updated” pages.

What do you think? Are there too many “rules”, or is this the best way to improve search results?

For the last few years, some Search Engine Optimizers have claimed that one part of the ranking algorithm(s) is simply the percentage of people who click on the results. This was never known to be true in the public eye, and still isn’t…like everything in the closely-guarded algorithm that’s likely dozens of pages long if printed in 12pt font.

However, there are two factors that have made me revisit this concept lately, along with one that I’ve personally witnessed many times in the past:

1) Google Webmaster Tools includes Clickthrough data on keywords your site is ranked for.

2) They just released an update to Google Search Appliance called “Self-Learning Scorer“, which “…learns from employees’ searches to tune itself and improve over time. If employees repeatedly choose, say, the fourth result for a given query the GSA will learn that’s probably the most relevant one and bring it up to the top the next time the query is searched for. Over time, the GSA auto-tunes, serving up better and better internal search results without any extra administrative work.”

3) [Disclaimer: This is the part that is merely conjecture, based on things I've witnessed] Over the years of building my own Web sites, working with partners, and helping clients, I’ve noticed a Snowball Effect on rankings. There have been quite a few cases in which rankings were stagnant on the 2nd page of the results, but after attracting more quality backlinks, we were able to break onto the 1st page. The interesting part is that in many of those cases, without further effort (or very little), the rankings quickly climbed up to the top 5 or top 3, even though the pages they’re beating out were much more formidable foes than that of their 2nd-page counterparts!

What I’m saying here is that I personally believe that Google takes the percentage of people who click on a result into consideration for sorting rankings.

This makes perfect sense, considering they already compile and present the data to webmasters, and in doing so, they are increasing the relevancy of the Search results…their primary goal, with little ongoing effort. It’s like Crowdsourcing their ranking adjustments. Notice I say adjustments. This is because most users tend to stick on the 1st page, and only occasionally moves to the 2nd page.

Therefore, it’s as if the rankings can be fine-tuned by the masses, after Google has presented those truly armed for battle.

Whether this is completely accurate at this point or not, it only makes sense that the Search Engines will move in this direction in the near-future.

So what should we do about it? Learn to write fantastic Title tags and Meta Descriptions so users are attracted to our listings, which will in turn create a snowball effect and increase rankings and traffic even more!

Any thoughts? Disagree? Ideas for this concept? Leave a comment below:

Because of Google’s overwhelming Search Engine Market Share, the vast majority of webmasters are aware of “Google Webmaster Tools“.

This is an excellent resource to find out what Google thinks of your site, keep an updated submission of your XML sitemap file, examine crawl errors, see where you’re ranked for popular keywords, and even analyze the percentage of people who type in a keyword phrase then click on your organic search result!

This is all extremely valuable information, making Google Webmaster Tools an integral part of every website’s task list.

That said, I want to take a moment to mention two other very important Webmaster Tools accounts to sign up for: Yahoo! & Bing.

While these Search Engines get far less search volume than Google, it’s important to understand that by simply adding and validating your website with these other services can increase your odds of achieving better rankings in both engines, which can be a substantial boost in organic traffic for very little effort. This is not always the case, but in some markets (primarily depending on the demographic) this small change can have a massive impact on profits!

Take a moment to setup your website in Yahoo! and Bing. It’s worth it…

Marketing is conceptually defined as the “Management process through which goods and services move from concept to the customer.”

However, in terms of what matters practically, it’s all about AIDA.

AIDA is a “formula” that represents the simple flow of events that drive business transactions:

• Attention
• Interest
• Desire
• Action

The classic example of this process is a customer purchasing one of your products or services. You catch their attention (on TV, as they walk by your store, online, etc.) first. Then, something about what you are showing them piques their interest. Now they’re actually considering purchasing from you. Next, they look more into it, and the presentation you’ve given them makes them want what you’re offering. Lastly, their desire takes over and they give you money.

While this is a simple example, it’s quite profound really. This process explains how people react to PPC advertisements as well. They type something into Google, Yahoo! or Bing (a keyword phrase you want your ad to show for), then your highly-targeted ad catches their attention. As they scan through the other results, they become interested in your ad compared to the other search results. Once they read your ad copy, they become curious, and want to see your website (in hopes that it’s what they’re looking for). So, since you caught their attention, got them interested, and created some desire based on their needs, they take action and click over to your site.

The AIDA principle can be applied to a wide array of specific elements of your business, or the process in its entirety.

Consider this simple formula (Attention, Interest, Desire, Action) in every decision you make across your business, relate to your customers’ perspective(s), and boost profits.

Of all of the resources online that discuss optimizing your website for the Search Engines (to get those coveted top 10 rankings, and an increase in profits with little to no cost), I trust very few of them due to the fact that it’s rare that the theories being tossed about are more than just that…theories. Most self-acclaimed SEO experts have not even tested their theories, or the ones they spread on forums, and it’s been the reason for a great number of failed websites!

That said, there are a group of 72 true SEO experts, widely known in the space for years now, that all come together once every two years to discuss (and update) the most vital “Search Engine Ranking Factors“. This year’s list was just updated, and the top 5 ranking factors are as follows:

1. “Keyword Focused Anchor Text from External Links”
2. “External Link Popularity (quantity/quality of external links)”
3. “Diversity of Link Sources (links from many unique root domains)”
4. “Keyword Use Anywhere in the Title Tag”
5. “Trustworthiness of the Domain Based on Link Distance from Trusted Domains”

These ranking factors are, according to the aforementioned 72 SEO experts (courtesy of SEOmoz.org), the most widely-accepted specific aspects of achieving high rankings.

Let’s break each factor down…

1) The most important element to great rankings for a particular term is the anchor text used in backlinks. What does this mean? It’s simply this: What text is used in the hyperlink on pages that link to your page?

e.g. Say you have a landscaping website, based in the Miami area, and you want one page to get ranked for “best landscaping company in miami”. If there are 500 other websites that are linking to that page of yours, but the text they use to link to you is “click here”, you will not receive nearly the boost in rankings for “best landscaping company in miami” as you would if some of them used the anchor text “best landscaping company in miami”, or even something similar such as “miami landscaping company”.

2) The 2nd crucial ranking factor is link popularity, which boils down to two simple things: how many links are pointing to the page, and how powerful are those links?

This gets a bit more complicated than it sounds, because the quality of a link is more subjective than sheer quantity overall. For instance, if the page linking to you has the same theme (i.e. a page about landscaping), the link is worth more than if it came from an unrelated page. Another example: if there are 100 links to all different pages from that URL, and yours is one of them, should that “vote” for your page be weighed as heavily as if the link to your page was the only outbound link coming from that page?

There are many factors that contribute to the quality of a link, but overall link popularity is crucial, so it’s imperative to understand that getting themed, relevant links from naturally-occurring pages with as few links as possible, is a sound strategy for getting better rankings. Combine this with many more links and relevant anchor text, and your page is almost unstoppable.

3) Next up we have link diversity. There was a time that people could create a single 100,000 page website in 5 minutes using spam software, and put links on each page pointing to pages they want to improve rankings for, and all those backlinks would boost rankings at lightning speed. Thankfully, Google stepped in and introduced link diversity to combat this.

In the end, getting a lot of links is great, but it’s vital that the links come from as many different websites as possible.

4) This is an easy fix: put the keyword in the Title of your page! The title (what you see at the top of your browser when you’re on a webpage) is a key element to the Search Engines, as it tells them directly what your page is about. An added benefit to writing a great title is that it’s typically what searchers see when they land on the Search Engines’ results pages. If the phrase they searched for is in your Title, it will show up bold in the results.

Word of warning: Do NOT stuff keywords in your Title. While it’s useful for the Search Engines (and potential visitors) to know about the content on your page, it’s better to say something natural, with one instance of your keyword phrase included.

5) The 5th ranking factor is about Authority: if the links coming in to your page are from websites (or specific pages) that are seen as important, their “vote” is liable to influence your rankings more heavily.

In summary, more links are better, but getting them from many different websites, preferably with authority and trust in the eyes of the Search Engines is best. Including the keyword phrase you’re targeting in the Title of your page and in the anchor text of some of the links pointing to your page is essential, and with these aspects combined, ranking in the top 10 is easy for the vast majority of profitable keyword phrases out there!

Over the last 5-10 years, countless people and firms have worked as hard as possible to “trick” the Search Engines into believing that their content is worth ranking for keywords people search often, all so they could attract more visitors and make more money.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with this concept, except for one crucial element: attempting to trick the Search Engines is the worst thing a business or consultant can do when trying to boost rankings!

In the beginning of Search Engine Marketing, the engines were so primitive compared to today, that website owners could literally get ranked for profitable keywords by simply stuffing the phrase on their page repeatedly, meaning anyone could tackle keywords that have the potential to make $100,000’s, or even millions of dollars every year!

Thankfully, Google stepped in to improve the algorithms, factoring in popularity (incoming links, treated like votes from other websites). Over time, their process became more and more complex (and thus, true to the core values of the Internet), which has improved the way consumers and researchers can find what they’re looking for as quickly as possible.

Unfortunately, there are far too many SEO “experts” out there who believe that optimizing websites for the Search Engines is only a matter of gaming the system with code.

After learning a great deal from Aaron Wall, I have found that quite the opposite is true:

Turning your attention to visitors (and potential visitors, for that matter), is a much better strategy than focusing on what the Search Engines are looking for. The code can provide a solid foundation, but the structure itself is meant to reach much higher, and can only do so by building something worth talking about.

While SEO may sound like HTML, PHP or CSS to someone new to the online World, it’s important to note that Search Engine Optimization goes far beyond the code:

Build a strong foundation with the code, then create something of value on top. It’s all the Search Engines want, and it’s the best way to capitalize on the traffic they’ll send you.

Thanks to Tim Ferriss for this:

“Advertising is the tax you pay for being unremarkable.” -Robert Stephens

While push marketing is necessary for getting your business in front of potential customers, it’s actually much cheaper (and easier, many times) to create a fantastic product, service, freebie, etc. that applies to your business.

Creating something worth spending some time using (or using regularly), or even sending to a friend, is actually much easier to do than business owners realize. You know your business better than anyone, so I’d be willing to bet that you know your market well enough to create something that they’ll be happy to spread for you.

Looking for ideas to get the brainstorming session moving?

• Create a simple, free tool your potential customers will be interested in (map, calculator, etc.)
• Make a “viral” video that pertains to your market (funny, shocking, etc.)
• Pay extra for amazing website design (if your market is interested in this)
• Hold a contest with a reasonable prize to have your customers participate in promotion
• Create a Top 100 list that people can vote on within your niche
• Hire a programmer to make a free web-based tool that saves time for your customers

The key is to save time & money getting the word out about your business by creating something worth talking about.