One of the best ways to generate leads on the Internet is through SEO (Search Engine Optimization), i.e., increasing the quantity or quality of visits from search engines – Google, Yahoo & bing – to your website. These visits are called organic search or natural search visits, to differentiate them from paid search, or Pay-Per-Click.

Quantity of organic search visits is straightforward to measure, whereas Quality is a little harder to measure. We’ll address quality in a separate post. A quick & easy benchmark answers the question: “What is a reasonable increase in organic search for my website?”

We think the increase in organic search visits to a website – either month to month or year over year – compared to the growth in overall queries made on all search engines is a good benchmark.

This graph shows the total number of search engine queries in the United States by month (Compete.com and comScore provide this information for free – see Resources at the bottom of this post).

If the growth in organic search visits to your website is better than the overall growth in queries, your organic search engine optimization efforts are paying off.

The graph shows that an absolute decrease in organic search visits indicates something is probably very wrong with your website or your business!

We calculated a benchmark using data from comScore and Compete.com:

Growth in U.S. Search Engine Queries

The following monthly growth numbers for both providers shows that there’s quite a bit of variation between their estimates, so use these numbers accordingly (don’t tie people’s bonuses to outperforming these benchmarks).

Caveats

• Your business may be fairly different from the larger search engine universe which would make this benchmark less useful for your website.
• If your business is highly seasonal, you will want to compare year over year.
• This data is for the U.S. only.

Global numbers were made available by comScore for July 2009.

According to comScore, North America accounted for 22.2%, or about 1 out of every 5 searches, in July 2009.

Global growth did outpace U.S. growth. If the U.S. makes up a very small percentage of your website’s visits, this benchmark will be less useful. You can still use the numbers here as a benchmark – just know that if your website does not handily beat them, it is performing very poorly!

Growth varies by region. Global growth was 41% from June to July compared to 0% for “expanded search” (the number above) and a 3% decline for core search (as shown on our graphs above) in the United States.

By the way, Google accounts for 2/3rds of searches in both the U.S. AND the whole world!

To conclude, your organic searches should be increasing by at least 2% every month or 10% year over year, otherwise something is wrong!

[This post will be updated periodically. - Ed.]

Sources
comScore press releases
Compete.com press releases
Global Search Market Draws More than 100 Billion Searches per Month, August 31, 2009, comScore, Inc.

Themes are skins which are implement on top of WordPress installations. The way WordPress works makes it possible to switch from one theme to the other without affecting the content of a site.

The beauty about WordPress themes is that there are thousands available, both free and for less than $100.

We often tell clients that we can develop a custom theme from scratch, which we price at between $1,500 and $2,000. We also mention that modifying an existing theme can be done at a fraction of the cost and time, and it has the further advantage of being tested across browsers.

Here are some places where you can find free (open source) themes:

• http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/
• http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/01/08/100-excellent-free-high-quality-wordpress-themes/
• http://www.toptut.com/category/free-wordpress-themes/

And here are some fee-based themes we like:

• http://www.revolutiontwo.com
• http://www.woothemes.com/
• http://diythemes.com/

How to choose a theme?

Think about these two aspects when you are looking at themes: functionality and design.

Functionality is more important, because it defines the type of theme which will best fit your site. Is your site a content-heavy informational portal? Then go with a magazine-style theme such as Arthemia:

Arthemia from Indonesian designer Michael Jubel

Looking for a theme to run a fully-fledged blog? Then go for blog-friendly themes with blog functionality in the side columns such as Acamas:

The Acamas WordPress Theme

How about a simple business site? An elegant theme with a few links and information boxes on the homepage such as Several3 may be perfect:

Several3 WordPress Theme: it's clean

Once you’ve chosen a few possible themes, then look at the design. In particular, the color scheme and logo placement are important as they should fit your company’s look and feel. Let’s assume you already have a logo at this point.

Keep in mind that everything within the WordPress theme is flexible and can be changed: the banner photo, the placement of the columns, the height of the banner, the size of the headline fonts etc…

Last, here are a few sites which we have developed based on free themes:

• AshtangaNews.com, a blog about yoga
• HuangConsulting.com, a 10 page business site
• ForeclosuresIntel.com, another 10 page business site

The HTML tag – Title – is so important for search engine optimization (“SEO”) that we feel it merits its own blog post. According to search engine experts, using keywords in a well-crafted Title tag is one of the most important factors for both:

• Getting a site to rank accurately and prominently in search engine results, and
• Getting the user to choose your website from the search engine results page (“SERP”).

What Are Page Titles?
The Page Title is the content within the Title tag on an HTML page. Each page of a website should have its own unique Title tag.

You can see what a page title is by looking at the bar in the browser window and on the tab you happen to be on. In the browser Firefox, for example, the title is “An SEO & Web Marketing Blog: Scatterings”. (The search term we used was “web marketing blog”.)

Another way to see the title is to select View -> Source from your browser’s menu. Towards the top of the page you will see the HTML title tags surrounding the actual title:

Here is how the webpage associated with this Title tag appears on Google’s search results page:

Notice that the Title is in a bigger typeface in the first line of the results and that our search term, “web marketing blog”, is bold. Because Google accounts about 2/3rds of all Internet search traffic, we think that tailoring Title tags for Google is very important.

UPDATE (November 10, 2009): Google Webmaster Central announced that Google may use text other than the Title in its SERPs – particularly when a website has duplicate Titles. This doesn’t mean you should not write unique, descriptive Titles. If you do that, you won’t get the SEO benefit that unique, descriptive Title tags provide.

How to Write Page Titles
Each page should have a unique Title tag that simply describes its content, similar to the title of a newspaper article, i.e., something that tells people what is on the page and makes them want to click on your site’s link.

Good webpage titles incorporate the following factors:

Accurately Describe the Page’s Content
Write a title for each page on your site that simply and accurately describes the content of that particular page. The search engines may discount a page whose title does not reflect the content on the page. Also, making a Title that is pleasant and informative for human readers will increase the likelihood that human readers will choose your site from the long list in the search engine results page. Enter one of your target keywords into Google and see how your competition looks on the SERP. This can give you a good idea of how to create a Title that stands out on the SERP.

Writing an individual Title for each page of a site is labor intensive so many sites do not do this, which means that sites that contain accurate titles for each individual page have a key advantage.

Use Keywords
Whenever practical, use keywords. Keyword research indicates which keywords are more important for a site. However, it is more important that the Title accurately describes the pages contents – with or without keywords.

Place Important Words Early in the Title
Search engines and people seem to believe that links that most directly reflect what they’ve searched for are the most relevant. So it makes sense to put what search engines and people are looking for first this makes finding easier for them. Both are trying to find specific information.

The tendency is to always have a company name, followed by the real page title. This is usually counterproductive, since the user is probably not looking for a company name. For example, think about newspaper articles. They do not typically contain the name of the publication, as in

New York Times: Wayward Humpback Pair Moves Toward Ocean

Here’s how the Title for the Wayward Humpback article on NYTimes.com looks in Google’s SERP:

In our first example, the website actually is an SEO and web marketing blog, and that is what the website owner puts first in the Title, and the name of the site, Scatterings, appears at the end of the Title.

Formatting the Title Tag
It’s a good idea to capitalize most of the words in the title because it’s good grammar.

Also, remember that Google only displays the first 65 characters of the Title tag. Additional characters can help for SEO, but don’t ever stuff keywords – i.e., make webpages verbose for the sake of SEO – in your Title tag or any part of your website. Also, if your Title is longer than 65 characters, people will see only part of it on the SERP, which means the Title may not make sense on the SERP (the omitted section will be replaced with “…”).

[Thank you to Tracy Rabold for this article - Ed.]

The landing page is the first web page a visitor sees on a website. This means it is a very important page. For this article, we are specifically referring to the first page she sees when she clicks on an AdWords ad (the little text-only ads you see on the right hand side of a search results page). The web address for this page is sometimes called the “destination URL” or the “clickthrough URL”.

Since the idea of placing AdWords ads is to generate an action from your website’s visitor, the landing page should help the visitor continue on the path to completing the action. She already has initiated the action by clicking on your ad. You don’t want to lose her after that – you want to “convert” her.

The best landing pages consider the visitor’s intent when she clicks on an ad. You should consider your keywords and ad’s text on that page. Ask yourself, “What information does the visitor need next in order to (fill in this blank)?” The whole point is to give the visitor what she wants and don’t make her hunt around your website for it. The best thing would be for the visitor to land on a page that gives her the most useful and accurate information about what she’s just clicked on.

The landing page may or may not be the same as your homepage. There are a few different ways to think about this:

• If you’ve advertised about a specific product or service, the landing page should prominently feature that product or service. Maybe that product or service is the only one on the page. For example, if you’re a shoe store advertising yellow boots, take the visitor to the yellow boots page, not the homepage.
• If you’re have a special offer, your landing page should make the special offer very obvious. The special offer might be the only topic on that page.
• If your ad references a section of your business, such as “cat boarding” in a veterinary hospital, you would want the user to land on the cat boarding services page of your website (not the homepage).
• If your ad advertises your whole business, for example “cat boarding”, your landing page would probably be your home page.

Another reason to provide quality landing pages is that it could end up costing you less. According to Google:

“As a component of your keywords’ overall Quality Scores, a high landing page quality score can affect your AdWords account in three ways: Decrease your keywords’ cost-per-clicks (CPCs), Increase your keyword-targeted ads’ position on the content network, Improve the chances that your placement-targeted ads will win a position on your targeted placements.”

Over the past few years, Google has made changes to its algorithms for landing page quality in AdWords and Google’s guidelines have changed as well. We recommend reviewing Google’s current guidelines on Quality Score. What’s useful to know here is that Google is looking at your website the same way a potential visitor would.

Real Examples

I googled “acupuncture for headaches”. Here are the Google search results:

"Acupuncture for Headaches" on the Google Search Results Page

Here’s what happened when I clicked each of the four Sponsored Search links on the right side of the screen:

Moss Acupuncture took me to this San Francisco clinic’s homepage. The list of commonly treated conditions on the homepage includes “headaches” and contact information. The website also includes a web page with a longer list of commonly treated conditions.

Acupressure took me to the home page of the National Holistic Institute with 5 locations in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Migraine Relief lets me sign up for a clinical study in California about migraine headache relief run by PRI Research.

Acupuncture Walnut Creek is an acupuncturist in Walnut Creek. Notice that the clinic’s actual address is listed (and the advertiser lists its phone number right in the ad text). The landing page is the “Services” page, which gives the acupuncturist’s biography, a list of commonly treated conditions and contact information.

If you were an SF Bay Area acupuncturist specializing in headaches and used local AdWords search, you’d be one of three advertisers for this keyword that accurately matched the keyword used, and you could do a much better job with your landing page just by reading this article.

Landing Page Content
Figuring out and answering the questions your visitors will have is the key to an effective landing page which results in conversions.

Taking the above example, some of the things I might want to know if I were to land on an Acupuncture clinic page include:

• Is the acupuncturist licensed or accredited? Is this the industry standard?
• Is the acupuncturist experienced? How many years has he been practicing? Did he go to a good school?
• Does he specialize in particular conditions?
• How long does treatment last? How will I know that this treatment is going to be effective?
• Can I use my medical insurance?
• I want to feel comfortable about the acupuncturist, the facility and the acupuncture process.
• Does he have referrals from Western doctors or other clients?
• Does he give well-thought out and useful information on his website?
• Does he know a little about a lot of alternative therapies or a lot about acupuncture?
• Can I get sense of what sort of person the acupuncturist is? Are there photos?
• How do I make an appointment or ask questions?
• If I had a specific condition that I had typed into Google, I would want to know if he treated it and about his experience and knowledge of treatment of that condition.

When setting up or refining your AdWords, ask yourself what the intent of a visitor typing those keywords into Google might be and how well does your landing page serve her needs. This will increase your Quality Score, and more importantly, increase the likelihood of your visitor “converting” when she reaches your website.

References
Wikipedia entry on landing pages
Seth Godin on Landing Pages
Google AdWords Landing Page & Site Quality Guidelines
Inside AdWords, the Google AdWords blog
Pay Per Click Search Engine Marketing for Dummies, Peter Kent, 2006.

[Thank you to Tracy Rabold for this article - Ed.]

Some logos from thelogocompany.net: creative and cheap

There are many affordable ways to get a corporate identity. Wired Magazine recently conducted a test of some cheap logo providers. They invented a company and asked online shops to create a logo for them. Unfortunately the online version of the article Grading the logo shops does not show the logos they came up with.

The top 3 were these (all comments are from Wired):

- The Logo Company
Service: Three business days; $75. Fast and easy. Ordering was a breeze, and they gave us four decent, relevant designs.
[You can see examples of their work here on the left.]
Grade: B+

- The Logo Loft
Service: Four business days and four options; $99. Sue, the customer service rep, called – called! – to clarify our order.
Grade: B
UPDATE 4/07: A client has had a negative experience with this company recently

- Logo Design Creation
Service: Overnight; $69. Placed the order at the end of one day and got three logos to choose from the next morning. Hey, we are living in the future!
Grade: B-

Gotlogos which I mentioned in the post Making small business look big, cheaply, only got a C+ because

Can't call customer service. Charged an extra $50 for a hi-res digital file of our logo.

A few months ago I posted on the 3 fundamental skills of web writing. I re-read that post and realized it needed a real life example to truly be useful. So let's recap.

Writing for the web is different because people read differently on the web. In fact, they don't read but they scan, so everything you write needs to be scannable. These are the web writing guidelines:

- bolded, italicized and hyperlinked keywords
- lots of lists
- meaningful sub-headings (not “clever” ones)
- short paragraphs with one idea
- always start with the conclusion, giving readers what they are seeking upfront
- use lots of captioned photos, diagrams and graphics to illustrate your points
- make it less formal and more personalized

The following is a paragraph that appears on one of my clients' homepage:

At the Mind Wave Institute we use a unique and effective combination of Medical Hypnotherapy, Guided Imagery, Mindfulness Meditation and Life Style Coaching, to help you achieve optimal health and vitality using the natural healing power of your mind. Your mind has a powerful healing influence on your body, however most of us are not trained to access it. The mind body techniques taught at Mind Wave Institute allow you to access the full potential of your mind. Giving you the tools you need to create a life you love, free of pain and anxiety. Specialties include weight loss, pain management, anxieties, phobias, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, stress related medical issues and hypnosis for childbirth preparation – HypnoBirthing.

And here is (almost) the same content, but modified according to the web writing guidelines:

Are you suffering from:

• Being Overweight
• Smoking
• Teeth Grinding (Bruxism)
• Stress
• Anxieties and Phobias
• Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS)

At the Mind Wave Institute we use the proven techniques of Medical Hypnotherapy, Self Hypnosis Training, Guided Imagery, Mindfulness and Guided Meditation and Life Style Coaching to help you achieve optimal health and vitality.

These techniques tap into the usually unaccessible subconscious and allow you to use the natural healing power of your mind to its fullest potential.

Which one would you rather read?

Millions of people use Internet photo-sharing services such as Kodakeasysharegallery (formerly ofoto.com – what were they thinking with that new name?) and Snapfish to share their photos with friends and families.

I have used Ofoto for some years and found that there are many disadvantages:

- the thumbnails and full-size photos are too small

- you can't see which are the most popular photos

- you can't have multiple albums from different people for one event

- you can't subscribe to updates so that you are alerted when new photos are published

- the whole purpose of these sites is to sell you prints, so there is a lot of annoying “calls-to-action” and advertising

Thankfully there is an Open Source (freely available) solution to sharing photos on the Internet, and it's called Gallery. I recently set up it up for a wedding, and the experiment was surprisingly successful. Within the first few weeks of the Gallery going live, friends who attended the wedding in Antigua had uploaded more than 800 gorgeous photos (see the sample below). Most of these were uploaded in their original full size format (files from 2 to 7 MB) and so can be printed from any color printer.

The happy couple

A beach in Antigua (photo courtesy of Dino)

Even though Gallery is a wonderful piece of software, it still has a few drawbacks:

- installation can be tricky if it's your first time

- easy to use is not exactly the best way to describe it

- the look is not easily customizable

Gallery 2.0 is allegedly coming soon so these issues maybe resolved with that release. I'll keep you updated.

I already talked about how you can keep track of blog updates by using bloglines.com in a previous post, How to read blogs. Apart from reading blogs, there is another powerful way to keep track of news on a topic which is often faster.

This is done through search feeds and news alerts. I first discovered search feeds through eBay. Imagine you are looking for something specific which is not currently listed on the site. I really enjoy typing on ergonomic keyboards, and went through a period where I would regularly spill some green tea on my keyboard, rendering it useless (I really like green tea too). So I resorted to eBay for finding a replacement, and started using what they call favorite searches, which sent me an email every time someone posted an ergonomic keyboard for sale. I went through 4 or 5 keyboards during my spillage period, and this feature saved me from having to go to the eBay site to check if anything new had come up. Happily the epidemic has abated.

Here’s my favorite keyboard! About $12 if you’re lucky on eBay.

Other sites have similar services. Bloglines (they call it a search feed) and Technorati (keyword watchlist) allows you subscribe to searches for words which appear on new entries on blogs. Google News calls it news alert and sends you an email as it happens, and Yahoo News allows you to create your own RSS feed with your keywords of choice. With PubSub, you have a subscription stack, and you can download their toolbar to be alerted straight away in your browser of a match to your search keywords.

Services such as PubSub’s are called persistent-search; they like to describe themselves as prospective, or geared to the future, rather than retrospective which is how search services such as Google are described. And they can make their users money. Here’s a Wall Street Journal article with an example of an investor acting on persistent search tip.

If you are working to be the recognized expert in your field, this way of tracking news allows you to always know what is going on.

Here’s one “old” way to read blogs:

1. Find a blog you like
2. Bookmark the page
3. Frequently remember to check that bookmark to read the new entries

If the blog which interests you has an email subscription box (see top right for this blog right here), you may be able to enter your email. In which case, every time there is a new post, an email will be sent to you which you will ignore because you are already getting too much email.

When you start to track dozens of blogs, neither way works well.

Here’s the “new” way to read blogs:

1. Go to bloglines.com
2. Create an account (believe you me, it’ll be one of the most useful websites you’ll ever find)
3. “Subscribe” to the blog(s) which you want to keep up with. You can create folders to categorize them.

Advantages:

1. No more email inbox clutter
2. It becomes much easier to track many blogs, as next to each of the blogs there is a number which lets you know how many new entries there have been since your last visit.
3. Very efficient: by scanning the summary of the listed blog entries, you only need to go to the actual blog page if you want to read the full entry.