As we've mentioned before, the 2011 Midwest Social Media Summit is happening in Cleveland on November 17, 2011. What we haven't mentioned is that we have a special offer for Fathom guests: $295! All you need to do is contact Anne Hydock of Smart Business via phone (440-250-7041) or email (ahydock@sbnonline.com) after registering online. Tell her that you were referred by Fathom.
***
What: 2011 Midwest Social Media Summit, a one-day conference that shares practical social media applications for your organization.
When: November 17, 2011 | 8:00 a.m.–6:00 p.m.
Where: Executive Caterers at Landerhaven, Mayfield Heights, OH (Get directions)
Who:
- Mary Henige, Director of Social Media & Digital Communications, General Motors
- Jeff Rohrs, VP of Marketing, ExactTarget
- Alan Gaffney, Director of Global eBusiness, Parker-Hannifin
- Curtis Danburg, Sr. Director of Communications, The Cleveland Indians
- Paul Roetzer, President and CEO, PR 20/20
- Bill Balderaz, President of Fathom Columbus
- Kurt Krejny, Director of Online Marketing, Fathom
Why: Because if you don’t take part in the conversation about your brand, you’re missing out on revenue opportunities.
Cost (special rate) : $295 (mention the "friends of Fathom" rate)
Contact: Anne Hydock | ahydock@sbnonline.com | 440-250-7041 | Fathom Discount Registration
***
Update 10/11/11: New pricing for friends of Fathom.
No Comments yet, your thoughts are welcome. »Just as bricks and mortar provide a firm foundation for your home, the technical foundation for your website is critical to maximize rankings and conversions.
It’s no secret that major search engines are factoring user experience into their rankings. One method for search engines to determine if the user will have a positive experience is to see how much planning went into the fundamental configuration of your site.
That being said, here are 5 building blocks to a successful technical foundation for your site:
- Make sure you have a favicon.ico file. This is the graphic symbol that appears before your URL in your browser. This may seem trivial, but with a new website that we recently set up it was the first file that Google looked for! Browsers look for it too, so take a few minutes to create one.
- Do you have a robots.txt file? Every major search engine will look for this file to determine whether or not to index certain portions of your site. Be sure it points to your sitemap file, particularly if your sitemap is not named sitemap.xml.
- Have an up-to-date sitemap.xml file. Having this roadmap for the search engines to follow is essential to getting the maximum amount of your web pages indexed. Check Google Webmasters frequently to verify that you do not have errors in your sitemap. By eliminating sitemap errors, we recently had a site improve its “submitted-to-indexed” ratio by 25%.
- Clean up those broken links! Don’t send the search engines looking for pages that don’t exist. Broken links are a dead giveaway for a site that is poorly maintained.
- Does your site load in 5 seconds or less? You may not mind waiting for those cool graphics on your site to load, but this can seriously hurt rankings and conversions. A study by Amazon indicated that 100 milliseconds of load time equaled 1% loss of revenue. Speed up those pages!
Building your house on a shaky foundation is never a good idea, so make sure before you start adding content or driving PPC clients to your site that your technical foundation is solid.
Just as bricks and mortar provide a firm foundation for your home, the technical foundation for your website is critical to maximize rankings and conversions.
It’s no secret that major search engines are factoring “user experience” into their rankings. One method for search engines to determine if the user will have a positive experience is to see how much planning went into the fundamental configuration of your site.
Here are 5 building blocks to a successful technical foundation for your site:
1. Make sure you have a favicon.ico file. This is the graphic symbol that appears before your URL in your browser. This may seem trivial, but with a new website that we recently set up it was the first file that Google looked for! Browsers look for it too, so take a few minutes to create one.
2. Do you have a robots.txt file? Every major search engine will look for this file to determine whether or not to index certain portions of your site. Be sure it points to your sitemap file, particularly if your sitemap is not named sitemap.xml.
3. Have an up-to-date sitemap.xml file. Having this roadmap for the search engines to follow is essential to getting the maximum amount of your web pages indexed. Check Google Webmasters frequently to verify that you do not have errors in your sitemap. By eliminating sitemap errors, we recently had a site improve its “submitted-to-indexed” ratio by 25%.
4. Clean up those broken links! Don’t send the search engines looking for pages that don’t exist. Broken links are a dead giveaway for a site that is poorly maintained.
5. Does your site load in 5 seconds or less? You may not mind waiting for those cool graphics on your site to load, but this can seriously hurt rankings and conversions. A study by Amazon indicated that 100 milliseconds of load time equaled 1% loss of revenue. Speed up those pages!
Building your house on a shaky foundation is never a good idea, so make sure before you start adding content or driving PPC clients to your site that your technical foundation is solid.
Although it is only October, you’re going to start seeing Christmas decorations spring up from store to store. It seems each year it starts earlier and earlier; but it’s never too early to get your e-commerce site ready for the holiday season.
Today we are continuing our e-commerce mini series with Fathom’s e-commerce expert, Matt Messenger. In this episode, Matt talks to us about the importance of having a good shopping cart platform and what to look for when choosing one.
Thanks for checking out this week’s episode. Stay tuned next week for more e-commerce tips as we continue our mini-series “Gear Up for the Holidays.”
No Comments yet, your thoughts are welcome. »
Google recently launched a new feature aimed at helping customers find the most high-quality ecommerce sites that offer the best shopping experiences: Google Trusted Stores.
The program is still in the pilot stages now with only a few merchants participating (O.co, Wayfair, BabyAge.com and Beach Audio), but those who are interested in getting involved as it expands can sign up online to try their chances.
So what exactly is this new program supposed to accomplish?
- The goal of Google Trusted Stores is to help online buyers shop with more confidence and complete their purchases with greater ease. It’s also a way for online stores to let potential customers know that their site is a great place to shop.
- Merchants who meet the standards Google has established will be allowed to display a badge on their websites that attests to their ability to serve customers well.
What kind of information will the badge display?
- The badge allows customers to see the store’s track record for both shipping and customer service performance. In order to continue displaying the badge once it’s earned, merchants have to ship a high percentage of orders within the guaranteed time, maintain a low average shipping time and meet customer service standards. No specific numbers have been given in regards to these metrics, but that will come in time.
Wait, there's more?
- Sure is. Customers who shop at stores that have earned the badge also have the option of selecting free purchase protection from Google for up to $1,000. If a problem arises, Google will work with the merchant on behalf of the customer to address the issue. It’s not a product warranty, endorsement or form of insurance, but it’s still Google sticking its neck out there for the stores that earn this badge.
So what does a store have to do to get Google to award this new badge? Well, in standard Google style, the full details are not being released, but here’s what we do know:
- Participating sites have to share shipment data and allow Google to collect customer service metrics when shoppers seek help with a purchase problem.
- Google has not released exact metrics for how high a store’s shipping and customer service rates must be to earn a badge.
- The badge will display a grade for “reliable shipping” and “excellent service” and will show specific numbers and percentages to justify that grade
- Google will be expanding the program over the coming months and is currently accepting applications from any online store
Based off that information, here's what we're assuming:
- Google will probably want a good amount of data before they are willing to award a badge, which means smaller stores may have trouble earning one.
- If Google is sticking out its neck to offer the $1,000 purchase protection, there’s a good chance it is going to be difficult to earn a badge. The company isn’t going to risk its reputation on stores it isn’t confident in.
- This program has the potential to make a pretty big impact in the world of ecommerce. If online shoppers begin giving a lot of credibility to the Trusted Stores badge, stores that are unable to earn it could have trouble attracting new business and inspiring consumer confidence.
But, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. As with all new programs and features released by the search engine giant, only time will tell how great of an impact it will have, and whether or not it will really be the next game-changer.
No Comments yet, your thoughts are welcome. »
We all resist change. Change normally means learning new things or just a different way to do the same thing. And who wants that? WE do. Change usually means growth; and growth, especially in paid search, is a great thing.
Unless you live under a rock (or you REALLY love MySpace), you’ve witnessed the new layout changes for the Facebook homepage. And like most people, you probably hate it. That is until, like most people, you give it about 2-3 weeks and get comfortable with it.
Well, get ready for a completely new look for your profile page as well; the Facebook Timeline. I was lucky and got developer access to the new look and I have to say, I really like it. Not only has Facebook made your pages upon pages of status updates “stories” readable in a nice, new format, but they have successfully managed to keep you on someone’s Facebook profile page for extended periods of time with the seemingly never-ending scrolling page. Here is an example of what the new page will look like:
What does all this have to do with paid search you ask? Think about it; currently there are a set number of ads listed on your profile page (between 2 and 4) and they are static. With the new Timeline layout, Facebook could allow the paid search ads to continue from present day all the way to your BFF’s birth if they wanted to - and all the glorious pictures, notes and updates in-between. This could potentially be 10, 20, 30 or more ads on a single page, increasing the likelihood that your ad will be seen and potentially clicked on.
The new Facebook Timeline view is currently only available to developers and beta testers and should be rolling out to all profile pages within the coming weeks.
Check out our previous post on the basics of Facebook Advertising for more information on how Fathom can help you branch out into advertising on the world’s largest social network.
No Comments yet, your thoughts are welcome. »
