The Problem With HitCounters

One of the simplest reasons hitcounters don't actually work is that they let other people know how many visits you've had!  While that isn't a problem if the person watching is you, but do you really want your clients or competitors to know that you've only had 20 visits so far this month?  Particularly when that may have little to do with your website's effectiveness, as a hitcounter usually only works on a particular website page.  Like many things, this is obvious once you're aware of it. In 2010, people often use Social media icons (Facebook, Twitter, etc) to assess the "savviness" of a website – if you have those icons on your site it often means you're up-to-date with the more recent web technologies.   The problem with hitcounters is that they act as a "reverse savviness" indicator – they're essentially a thing of the past and if you have a hitcounter it usually means you don't understand how the web works, and may in fact put many people off!

Google Analytics – the new best practice hitcounter

The good news is that there is a wonderful free tool called "Google Analytics".  Provided at no charge by Google, it allows you to track and count human visits privately – and it only registers visits by humans, ignoring automated visits which can actually amount of a lot of confusing traffic over time.  Even better, Google Analytics can not only track the number of visits but also how long visitors spend on your site, how many pages they visit and whether they have recently visited the website or not – in effect, how many actual unique visitors that you have had. Talk to use if you'd like us to install Google Analytics on your site, or check out the various articles on the web on how to install it.  It can give you some amazing information that can make a real difference in helping your website bring you new business!

We sometimes have clients contacting us in desperation when it comes to SEO – either because they have no idea who to trust, or worse, because they’ve been ripped off by what’s know as ‘black hat’ SEO fly-by-nighters. Black hat means they are the ‘dodgy brothers’ of the SEO game and best avoided.

But how do you know who’s honest Joe? And who’s going not only rip you off, but may also get your site black banned on Google, or worse, destroy your good name and leave your online reputation in tatters?

Let’s start with how to recognize the bad guys… the ‘black hats’…

How do you know if an SEO Company is ‘Black Hat’? They will try to out-smart Google by various unethical and ‘illegal’ tricks, they…

• Send you email ‘spam’ out of the blue. Actually I never trust anyone that sends me spam – of any kind. Spam is evil, and spam must die. It usually reads like this:
  
• Won’t explain what they do – usually because they’re using illegal techniques that could get you blacklisted from Google results pages altogether. And being blacklisted from Google is bad – your site won’t show up even for your business name or URL address. The only solution being to get a new domain and website, and start all over again.
• Will promise to register you on “1,000’s of search engines” – so what? Google has almost 90% market share, so why bother?
• Will promise you ‘thousands’ of links to your site, often on poor quality sites known as ‘link farms’. These are the sites that you stumble upon that are just full of links and nothing else, these sites are known as search engine spam. Google is savvy to these sites and if you have a link on one of them, your ranking may actually suffer.
• Use ‘blog spamming’ – this means to create links by various ‘spamming’ techniques like posting your domain name to hundreds of blogs comments fields. This makes your business look REALLY BAD, and will kill your online reputation. Imagine if you had to try to clean up hundreds of spam links to your website? Where would you start? You’d be better off starting all over again with a new site. Read last month’s case study of one of our clients who had this happen to them.
• Guarantee you a number #1 organic ranking on Google, by either claiming to have ‘cracked the Google code’ or that they have some kind of ‘special relationship’ with Google. No one can truly promise you a #1 ranking because the Google algorithm is top secret, and only a handful of people actually know it. Want to know more about how Googlebot works? Check out this article on Wikipedia.

Okay, so what about the good guys? (AKA the ‘white hats’… )

A ‘white hat’ SEO plays by the rules. And they should be able to…

• Show you examples of their previous work & success stories: They should have some real-world examples to show you wherein they have improved a site’s Google ranking, and also show that this has had a positive runoff in terms of real-world sales conversions. That is, their efforts have directly improved the client’s bottom line.
• Show you real client testimonials… from real people, not made up ones!
• Display honesty and transparency – explain exactly what they do, and how it affects site rankings.
• The proof is in the pudding – their own site should rank well for top keywords and exemplify their efforts and SEO skills.
• Keep up to date with the latest developments in SEO, e.g. how Twitter or Facebook might improve your SEO efforts.
• Play by the rules and follow Google’s Webmaster Guidelines: If they play fair everyone wins out in the end. Read the Google Webmaster Guidelines.

Want to know more? Contact Meri Harli, SEO and Social Media Specialist, on 0408 369935, or email: meri@whitedoggreenfrog.com.

You may have set up Facebook, Twitter, maybe even an RSS feed of blog posts, but don’t discount what a newsletter can do for your business – and for your customers.

When your visitors sign up to your mailing list via your newsletter sign up form, you are in control of what you send and when you send it; and email newsletters cost almost nothing to send compared to paper newsletters – these being distinct advantages!  By the way – your newsletter should provide valuable and useful information, and don’t forget the ATTENTION GRABBING HEADLINE!

It’s important not to be annoying or self-serving in your newsletters;  I always recommend only very subtle selling, if any, especially in the first 2 – 3 newsletters, then perhaps add a special offer in the fourth newsletter. Obviously it depends on what industry you are in as to what the right mix is.  You should, of course, have links to your blog posts that are relevant to the content in the newsletter.  Also, don’t discount the value of getting people to sign up at your counter or in your office on paper for the newsletter – you can get a lot of people via old fashioned techniques!  If you do that, one important thing is to make sure you do add them to the newsletter in the next few days so they remember you.

Mailing lists are simple to set up and maintain, if you would like a consultant to contact you to assist you in setting up a contact form and mailing list, give us a call.  Mailing lists are a thing that builds up over time; if you start today, you could surprise yourself by how quickly you build up a big list – and that can be a valuable asset to your business.  After all is said and done, business is about human contact, and a quick note with some helpful and friendly information can be one way of staying in touch that costs very little.

Contact us today and get 15% off the setup of a newsletter mailing list.

Well guess what? You need to make the time, and here’s why…
Like it or not Social Media is the future and the future is already here, and your customers and competitors are already savvy. Some futurists are even saying that Social Media will eventually take over from email – in fact, it’s been shown that many Generation Y’s are not using email at all – they do all of their connecting, and eventually all of their business, over social media.

Here’s the skinny from a recent Fast Company article about why should you care about Social Media for your business:

“The Nielsen-Community Engine 2010 Social Media Business Benchmark Study released last month found a total of 63.5% respondents agree businesses should no longer ask “if” they should enter social media, and should instead be asking “how”.
- Read the rest of the article here.

Here’s how to get started in Social Media for less than 15 minutes per day:
It really doesn’t take too much time to get your Social Media groove on – about 15 minutes a day over your morning coffee. Maybe take one of the following steps per day over a 7-day period? So by the end of the week you’ll be up and running.

Step 1: What is Social Media anyway?
I’ve done the first step for you. When I want to know about something I often type it into Wikipedia to get the overall ‘big picture’ definition of it. Wikipedia is a great resource also for any other links to do with any subject. Here’s the link to read over your morning coffee.

Step 2: Facebook
Like millions of other people, you’ve probably already got a Facebook personal account. Now you’re going to open a ‘Fan Page’ for your business. Open up your normal ‘Home’ section – that’s where you read posts from your friends etc. Now go to the top right hand corner and click on ‘Account’ > ‘Help’ > ‘Pages for businesses’ > ‘Facebook pages’: ‘Creating, administering and editing your page’ – now click on ‘How can I create a page?’ and create an ‘Official Page’. If you want a shortcut, you can also click here.

Step 3: Twitter
If you’ve been living under a rock for the last 18 months and don’t know what Twitter is go here.

If you want to get started, go here, and click on the big yellow button that says ‘Join Today’. It’s super-easy, just follow the steps, but remember to put your website link into your profile, as well as some keywords relevant to your business. Then start following people in your niche. TIP: Go to ‘Find People’ and start searching for people who inspire you the most, authors, speakers and other specialists in your field.

Step 4: Linked In
Go to linkedin.com, and let’s go for a definition first, so click on the top menu: ‘What is LinkedIn?’. This section explains mostly everything, then click on the big yellow button ‘Join now’. Follow the steps and then fill in your details with as much information as possible. The power of LinkedIn really comes into play when you upload your email contacts and start connecting with people. Very powerful stuff.

Step 5: Post to all of your Social Media accounts with one click with a Social Media Management application
There are a plethora of new applications coming out that let you post to all your accounts with just the one click; they even post to your web blog or RSS Feed. Here are a few of them:

• twitterfeed.com
• sendible.com
• hootsuite.com – my favourite because it’s so easy to use!

Step 6: Explore, Play Around, and Join in Discussions and Interact
Take 10 or 15 minutes a day to just ‘play’ around on Social Media. This is the best way to learn. Take a look at other peoples’ profiles, see who they’re following, see who is following them. Make comments, interact, send messages – don’t be shy, join in the conversation. Social media is all about connecting with other human beings, and also with those lovely folk we all love – your customers.

Step 7: Follow Social Media blogs
Want to know more about how Social Media can help your business? Follow Social Media blogs, and don’t forget you can follow these same guys on your Facebook, Twitter etc. Here’s a few of my favourites:

• mashable.com
• socialtimes.com
• socialnetworking-weblog.com

Want to know more? Just Google ‘top social media blogs’, or you can contact White Dog Green Frog on 1300 760 850 and chat to our Social Media and SEO Expert Meri Harli or feel free to leave a comment below.