Fox Valley goes mobile
Pear Logic has built a mobile able to help update field conditions in real time. check the screen shot below.
Beyond SEO?
After your website has been optimized, what should the remaining content look like and do? By now, you have realized that to get any action on the web, you have to have your site Search Engine Optimized (SEO). The keyword and key phrases are inserted in all the right places by someone who knows how to write SEO copy; they are strategically sprinkled throughout your site in homepages, landing pages, etc. So, what do you do with the other 95% of the content? SEO means that your potential customers have found you. Now, how do you get them to buy?
Millions of pages have been written on marketing through all kinds of venues – the cold call, the sales pitch, advertisements, billboards, internet copywriting, website banners and a myriad of other avenues to pitch a product or service. Out of all that, there are three basic conditions that exist which every marketing venue needs to address – (1) the consumer knows exactly what she wants and finds your offer; (2) the consumer has a semi-solid-to-vague idea of what he wants, and goes searching for it over the web; and (3) the consumer has no idea that she wants your product or service, and it’s up to you to convince them that they want it at the price you’re willing to supply it. Overly simplistic? Maybe. However, these three concepts are worth keeping in mind as you develop the “Beyond SEO” web copy that is ultimately going to sell your widgets and services.
First situation – your buyer knows exactly what she wants and all you need to do is ensure that your website clearly advertises that you have it and it is for sale. Assuming your SEO brought the customer to your website in the first place, now all you have to do is be competitive and service oriented to meet a firm desire. How to do that? Be explicit that you have the item or service; that you can provide it expeditiously; that you can provide it at a competitive price (not necessarily the lowest); that you have a buyer-oriented return policy; that you make it easy to purchase (e.g., a solid, online order process and/or shopping cart); you have a contact number and email address for questions. If price isn’t the sole differentiator (and it often isn’t), then you draw in your customer through building a trust and reliability mystique so that she has a good purchasing experience the first time and every subsequent time.
Second situation – The client has “heard of” the type of product or service you offer, and is on an internet exploration to discover more. This is a quite common situation. Your product will allow a GIS tracker to be attached to the dog’s (kid’s) collar and accessed through your cell phone. Neat stuff, and you have the proper SEO to lead her to your website. Once there, the primary information she needs is some brief detail as to what your gadget will do and how it will benefit her (e.g., safety, avoiding the dog catcher, avoiding the kid catcher). Bullets with hyperlinks are ideal here. Quick one-line phrases on feature and benefits “hook” the reader. Capture her attention and then lead her to specific pages or paragraphs that describe functionality and the psychological benefits of your product. Create value in her mind, well above the cost she will pay for the product.
Third situation – A potential customer virtually stumbles across your website, and knows little to nothing about your product or service. He could have been looking for something vaguely related to what you offer, or something that you do offer, but he was unaware of other products or services in your inventory. This has to be the intriguing part of your website. [By the way, if you get a customer like this, you should try and find out what keywords he was searching on and add them to your SEO list.] Remember the 5-second rule – no, not the one where you drop a candy bar on the floor and hope that deadly bacteria don’t colonize it before you can pick it up and eat it. The 5-second rule is that you have a maximum of 5 seconds to make an impression on the client. If something doesn’t capture their attention in that time span, they’re history, and so is your potential sale. Make your landing page “yell” softly. Use attractive graphics and attention-grabbing web copy to make them go beyond the 5-second threshold and read more.
Of course, you should build in all of the above into your website, with emphasis on capturing people in the first or second scenarios. The ultimate key is to determine what they want through your product or service – convenience, profit, relaxation, excitement, recreation, expertise – and through your web copy, convince them you can reliably deliver. Don’t just meet or exceed their expectations – create their expectations and deliver!
Soldier Field re-signs with Pear Logic
We have continued to work with Soldier Field for the past 5 years. Please visit them at http://www.soldierfield.net.
Horizon Hospice Launched
They are the first hospice in Chicago and here is a little bit about their mission:
“Horizon’s mission is to provide comfort and to preserve dignity at the end of life through hospice and palliative care. We deliver comprehensive care to seriously ill patients and their families throughout the Chicago area, primarily in their homes or residential facilities.”
Our Circle of Care services range from pain and symptom management to grief counseling-all delivered by skilled, compassionate healthcare professionals and well-trained volunteers. Established in 1978, Horizon brings more than a quarter-century of experience and expertise in end-of-life care to people facing serious and life-limiting illnesses.
It’s official.. I’m a nerd.
I just added a mobile version of my site, I then
posted it via the web and if I wanted toi I could have post to Facebook and twitter too! All this technology…what next a car that drives itself?
Winning the Upcoming Race to Market
Where are you and what are you doing to rev up your marketing to take advantage of the eventual resurgence in consumer and business spending? Are you still shell-shocked over the carnage that occurred in markets over the last two years, or are you gearing up your marketing forces to catch the wave of spending that is not only poised to take place, but to potentially become sustainable for years to come? Here are some suggestions to give you some actionable items to think about.
Reconnect with old customers and ask them where they see their opportunities. Perhaps they see things that you aren’t aware of, and some good ol’ market intelligence from those who are closest to the ultimate customer may yield untold benefits. For example, we know of one web design company, which specializes in dental websites, that is seeing strong demand from their clients for marketing copy on sleep appliances to control sleep apnea and snoring. Consumers are tired of using the semi-suffocating CPAT machines, and want a simpler, more comfortable solution to sleep apnea. This sort of marketing intelligence is priceless.
Connect with potential new customers and let them know you’re here to provide them goods or services. This may seem a blinding flash of the obvious, but in some cases, you may not even know who might be your new customers without some real digging. With the swell of recovery will come entrepreneurs with new ideas and intentions to penetrate new markets. Even if it’s not blindingly obvious, pick up the phone and call a business that would seem that it might only have the most tenuous connection to your market. You might get a surprise (and maybe a customer!).
Do you know what your competitors are doing? Have they already got a step on you because they recognized the resurgence in your markets before you did? Or, maybe they’re still resting on their laurels, waiting for the next set of economic data to come out before they commit new marketing dollars. In many ways, the words “business” and “risk” are synonyms. Even if the economy is throwing out false signals now, that won’t last. A modest commitment of marketing dollars now may be just the thing to get that few steps on the competition and win the long-term race down the line.
Is your website fresh and ready to draw in new customers? One of the key factoids about search engines is that they love new content! If yours hasn’t been changed for a couple of years (or a couple of months!), you’re going to fall onto page 18 of a Google or Yahoo! search, because the search spiders will just see the same old thing they’ve always seen. One simple way to tell if you’re going to make it to the first or second page of the search engines is to Google what you consider the key words that a customer would search on if s/he was looking for your products or services. If you don’t pop up on the first or second page (preferably the first), you’ve got a problem.
Finally, is your brand fresh? Two years of economic malaise is a long time. Does your brand need a shot of reinvention? Can you reinvigorate it so that past customers dredge up fond memories of when they were regular buyers of your products or services before the financial tsunami overtook us all? Think carefully of where you were and where you would like to go, and assess whether your brand is up to it as it now stands. If not, call in some cavalry and breathe some new life into it!
Drupal 7.0 released
Many of you could care less, but it’s a great tool that’s open source and used by 1% of all websites. Check out the article below:
Version 7 of the PHP-based Drupal content management system (CMS) was released on Wednesday. Improvements include, the removal of barriers in the back end and in the generated pages, a Render API for simplified theming, automated tests for modules and patches, database abstraction and user-defined fields for various types of content. Drupal 7 can be expanded via more than 850 modules.
With the release of the new version, the developers have discontinued the support of version 5. Drupal 5 users are advised to switch to a newer version as soon as possible; upgrading is only possible to the next main version number. Additionally, Drupal 7 will no longer run on obsolete database and PHP versions: It requires PHP 5.2 (the previous version could still be made to work with the outdated PHP 4) with PDO extension for database abstraction, as well as MySQL 5 or PostgreSQL 8.3. Alternatively, version 7 of Drupal is the first to cooperate with SQLite; other database products can be used via modules.
More details about the release, including a short video, can be found on the Drupal 7 web site and in the official release announcement. Drupal 7.0 is available to download from the Drupal web site and is licensed under the terms of the GPLv2 Licence.
Feed Thyself
You’re on the road to one of your usual destinations, or you are in some strange city where you’ve never been before. After an endless stream of meetings, it’s time to chow down and have a cool one at one of the local restaurants. Do you start phoning every restaurant in the area using the list from the hotel? You don’t have to because through an I-Phone app from OpenTable, you can check local dining availability, make reservations and get directions and leisurely cruise off to a welcome meal.
OpenTable for I-Phone allows you to . . .
- Check the real-time availability of restaurants in the local area
- Make free reservations
- Check the restaurant’s location
- Get directions to the restaurant
Diners can specify their group size, cruise a selection of restaurants, confirm a reservation and send their guests an email giving date, time and restaurant location. Or, it doesn’t even have to be last minute. You can plan and make your reservations before even leaving on your trip. No multiple phone calls looking for a meal – everything is done from the OpenTable app.
Need help finding building a mobile application? Call Pearlogic at 1-773-789-7327 and we would be more than happy the help add mobility to your business.
On-Page Keyword Optimization in 4 Steps
On-page keyword optimization is a lengthy process that involves multiple steps. Right from selecting a keyword, writing meta data to the optimization of the content, you have to go through various process in on-page keyword optimization. Adding right keywords on the webpage plays a crucial role in search engine optimization. So, here are a few guidelines:
Selection of Keywords
Keyword selection is the first and most important step. After doing an extensive keyword research, you next step should be to select the most relevant ones for your site.
- Optimize every webpage for 2-3 targeted keywords and phrases.
- Make sure that these keywords are related to the content shown on your page.
- Also ensure that these keywords are similar to each other. For example: If one keyword is baby clothes, others could be a) baby cloth b) kids clothes.
- Use all the selected keywords across the single webpage. And always make sure that the primary keyword should always be used in the url of that page.
Always make sure that keywords assigned to one page should not be used for the optimization of another page. If these will be repeated, multiple pages of your website will fight against each other to get ranking on search engines.
Meta Data
Meta data describes the characteristic of a resource. In simple words, it is a meta title that contains up to 70 characters including targeted keywords and the name of the company. For example:
<title>Descriptive Page Title | Company/Brand Name<title/>
When you are writing meta description, make sure it should have 150-160 characters and gives a brief description of the content on the page. Every page title should have meta description written with 2-3 keywords and in a totally different manner.
You should not be worried about meta keywords because most of the search engines don’t recognize this tag anymore.
Header
Give SEO boost to your webpage by optimizing the headers with right keywords. Keep the most important keyword as you <h1> header tag. If the page has more than one header, add keywords in other headers also. A site owner should always keep in mind that any page should have only on <h1> header. In case you need to have multiple headers to optimize the website, use <h2> tag.
Body Content
Once you are through with meta data, meta title and headings, the next step is to include relevant keywords into the body of the page. Here are a few things to keep in mind while doing keyword optimization:
- The first two important keywords should be included in first two sentences.
- Keyword stuffing is something one should not appreciate. Avoid the inclusion of keywords in every sentence because search engines can penalize your site for this.
- Add a keyword only if it makes sense in the sentence. Including a keyword just to optimize the page and overlooking the grammar errors will hamper the credibility of the website.
- An easy way to incorporate keywords is to write the copy without focusing on the keywords. Re-read the content and then try to include keywords. It will make the work easier and content more relevant for readers.
Other than the above discussed elements, anchor text, internal linking and link building are a few more important steps for on-page keyword optimization. Always design an effective strategy and look for the right keywords to make the SEO campaign work for you.
