Sitemaps were first introduced by Google in 2005, since then they have been implemented by all major search engines including (Yahoo, Bing and Ask).  Sitemaps allow you to inform search engines about content on your website.  The information you can communicate includes: when it was last updated, how often it changes, level of importance and related URLs.  Sitemaps allow search engines to intelligently crawl your site without exhaustively scanning every page for changes.
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At the end of another week of riveting client meetings that have posed many great questions about a variety of topics, these questions are my inspiration for this week’s blog – WEBSITE COPY – What Makes It? What Breaks It?

Many of SALESWORKS’ clients are concerned about how their website copy represents their business. Is my website copy too long? Why isn’t my website traffic converting to leads and sales? Is my website copy too product focused? Continue Reading…

First impressions do matter, especially when potential customers are visiting your website. Your prospective customers will start making assumptions about your organization at the first glance of your website. If your website has an unattractive user interface or poor navigation, potential customers will immediately leave your website in search of something better.

So what factors do prospective customers evaluate on your website to decide whether or not it’s worth their time? Is all the content on your website relevant to your business? Do you think it’s time for a website redesign?
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I had the pleasure of attending SMX Advanced, the premier Search Marketing Expo, earlier this month. SMX Advanced is recognized as being the go-to event of the year for Search Engine Marketers and all the big names in the industry are in attendance.

Let’s take a look some of the information that was put forward that business software resellers can use in their inbound marketing strategies. Continue Reading…

Mobile devices target a more specific audience than that of the traditional web.  These days the majority of executives use smartphones and companies are still spending on mobility and productivity tools for small to medium-sized businesses.

According to a Nielsen report in 2009 more than half of the smartphones on the market today are used for business.  Apple recently announced selling 50 Million iPhones/iPods and Google has announced they are making 100,000 activations per month of new devices.  With only those two statistics combined you have a HUGE emerging market of business users to target.

While executives are using their phones for business, they are also using them for pleasure, installing games and applications.  Ignoring this advertising channel is eliminating an emerging revenue stream. Continue Reading…

After an enlightening client meeting this week, I realize there are a number of outlying questions about blogging – especially when blogging B2B.

How often should we post a blog? How many words are too many words for a blog? What topics should we blog about? What value does a blog bring to my website?

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If you haven’t heard about the Open Graph announcement yesterday, it’s a huge game changer in the online marketing/advertising/privacy space. Facebook (and Microsoft) now have the ability to track people as they visit all sorts of 3rd party sites through the web and tie it back to your demographic details/contact details within Facebook and other websites.

What does Facebook’s Open Graph mean for businesses who use Pay-Per-Click advertising? Continue Reading…

A quick, linkable reference of the most common terms used in Search Engine Optimization.

Domain Authority (DA):

The level of legitimacy for a given website in the eyes of a search engine. Based on the quantity, quality, and diversity of inbound links. Continue Reading…

We have all seen it. Surfing online, whether it’s for a business software solution or the perfect bed and breakfast, poor spelling, incorrect use of punctuation and overall bad grammar is out there.

When you are writing copy for your website or company blog, you need to take care that you are leaving the right impression on potential buyers. Your online presence can make or break a sale. I often research my purchases and make final decisions, at least in part, based on a company’s website. And I know I’m not alone. Continue Reading…

Why should you worry about how long it takes for your website to load?

From a user experience point of view it is never good to have your users waiting for your website to load.  Also as all good SEO firms know, Google has hinted that they might just incorporate page load time into their page rank algorithm sometime in the future.  If you want to keep your page rank at the top of the Google search, your best bet is to have a fast-loading site. Continue Reading…