Is Facebook’s Move Toward Hashtags Good for Businesses?

If you're already using Twitter, Instagram, Google+, or Tumblr, hashtags are just part of navigating from one public topic to another. Facebook, which has made a mantra of its mission to bring offline friendships to the web, with official “friending” requiring approval from both sides of the relationship, has now announced that it too will incorporate hashtags in a move that can change a discussion previously limited to friends on the network to one that invites the public to join in as well.

For individuals, the move to conversations linked to hashtags brings the potential intimidation of engaging in conversation with a more public and potentially less friendly audience. For businesses, on the other hand, the potential for public participation in searchable hashtags can expand the reach of published posts from friends/fans/etc. to a public audience that is exponentially larger.

The objectives behind the move to hashtags are two-fold; to move into Twitter’s turf as a resource for unfolding news events and to build a footprint in the “interest network” space occupied by the likes of Pinterest, Instagram, Thumb, Tumblr, etc. In both of these types of networks, organization and functionality is centered on a topic or interest as opposed to a network of friends, as is currently the case on Facebook. Facebook will incorporate the new hashtag tool in the search bar, which will enable the viewing of and participation in posts on Facebook and other social networks where the same hashtags are active.

While not the primary driver of the move to hashtags, businesses on Facebook will derive numerous benefits from the move by expanding their reach and growing their audience by incorporating their high value keywords into Facebook’s hashtag system.

Beyond Written Content

Keeping up with innovations in the alternatives to written content could be considered a full time job as website visits evolve from simple information gathering missions to full blown multimedia experiences. While the options have expanded dramatically, the ultimate purpose of any form of optimized content is to bring the visitor to the site and then keep the visitor interested while they move through the conversion process. That process may allow for one or multiple visits prior to the purchase of goods and/or services. Either way, the content must both engage the visitor and play a role in the conversion process. Going beyond written content can include any of the following:
* Videos
* RSS Feeds
* Webinars
* Live Chat
* Interactive Features
* Flash (Now that Google/Adobe are working to make it readable by crawlers)
Standing out from the competition has become much tougher as more businesses come online each day. Many of these businesses have a good grasp of what is entailed in winning keyword searches and driving traffic to their sites. If that knowledge base isn’t available in-house, or if there aren’t enough resources to execute a strategy successfully it can be outsourced to experienced web design and search engine optimization agencies.
Often the difference between businesses that succeed or fail on the web is their commitment to the execution of their strategy. A clear strategy, with measurable results and defined benchmarks is a great start toward running a successful operation on the internet. Any strategy will fall down when shortcuts start getting taken, distractions pull the plan off course, or patience is lost while the strategy is in its early stages.
With increasingly high expectations from visitors and an intensifying competitive landscape, websites require more attention, testing, and analysis to see that they are providing optimal results. It is at the web pages themselves where conversions occur and information is collected for future marketing efforts. Ultimately, those pages and content placed on them will determine the level of success of any online business.    
To determine what types of content will work best on your website; call The Gervais Group at 800-381-9358 


Call us today at 800-381-9358 or visit Gervais Group at http://www.gervaisgroupllc.com

Avoiding SEO Rip off’s

It’s a familiar story. A business owner gets a website built and, knowing he needs to drive traffic to the site to make it worthwhile, starts shopping for a company to do some search engine optimization. The bids that come in vary so much in price it’s like comparing apples and oranges. One of the biggest differences between the companies bidding for the owner’s business is that the ones with bids ranging from $100 to $200 all guarantee a page one ranking on Google, Yahoo, MSN, and the rest of the search engines in a matter of weeks. The bids that come in at $2,000 per month and above don’t come with any guarantees. Instead of guarantees, these companies give an estimate of hours doing link work, writing content, and doing press releases. “It’s a process, it can be done, and we’ll do all the necessary work to get you on page one”, goes the pitch. To make things even more confusing, the higher bids are more conservative about how long it will take to get to page one than the cheaper guys.

The business owner goes with the guarantees and low price of the cheapest bid. In real life, a nephew, a friend at the lodge, or his wife’s friend’s son just out of college can be substituted in place of the cheapest bid. At this point there are three possible outcomes for the endeavor:

1) Nothing – Either the winning bidder doesn’t have the wherewithal to deliver on the guarantees made or he does but ends up with a bigger, more lucrative project that takes most of his time. After dedicating long hours to the design, marketing, or whatever else the bigger project entails, there is just not enough time or energy to do what needs to be done on the smaller project. Both paths lead to the same destination; frustration, money spent, and no traffic to the site.
2) Something, but it’s not good – Trying to optimize a site by taking shortcuts and trying to trick the  search engines is one way to offer a labor intensive service for pennies on the dollar. Unfortunately, search engines are very good at detecting shortcuts and trickery and don’t take very kindly to either practice. “Black Hat” techniques, as they’re called, may be the only way to deliver on a guarantee for these types of companies but it also results in the site being black-balled from the search engines. The business owner is now put in a position where he has to shut down the original site and start from scratch with a new site.
3) The Business Owner Decides That Search Engine Optimization Doesn’t Work – Getting ripped- off with no results or getting them and then getting penalized for it, quite frankly, sucks. The bad experience convinces the owner that SEO simply doesn’t work and if there is going to be another website it will be one that people can find when they see its address on his business card.

This is a story that gets repeated on a daily basis which is unfortunate because search engine optimization/marketing, when done properly, can do exactly what it’s supposed to do. Doing it properly takes experience, creativity, and time. How much of each depends on the size of the market the business plans to address and how much existing competition there is in that market. A company in the business of supplying side view mirrors for ’55 T-Birds, for example, will require less search engine optimization/marketing than a company trying to get on page one for cell phone accessories.

Prior to starting a project, a responsible SEO firm will be able to determine keyword traffic, competition, and whether doing search engine optimization/marketing makes sense for the company. A viable project may take 100 hours of work to get started and 100 hours of work per month to achieve the desired end result of getting listed on the front page of the search engines. That works out to about $2 per hour for the guys bidding $200 per month for your project. As the saying goes, “If it seems too good to be true…”  
 

Algorithm Changes and Over-optimized Websites

As Google continues the follow-through on its mission to surface the sites that deliver the highest value information to its users, the king of search engines appears to be increasingly focused on penalizing sites that are over-optimized. There are several web design characteristics that can factor into a determination that a site has been over-optimized. If your site has any of the following, decreasing the optimization of your site may help to avoid being penalized and either preserve or improve its rankings on the search engine results pages (SERPs):

• Titles that are so heavy with keywords that they don’t make sense – Increased sophistication at the search engine level means that stuffing titles with keywords will probably work against you. Instead, compose your titles so that they read logically for the people that visit your page and convey what the page is about.
• Cramming footers with links – These types of links were once used in web design to score in search engine algorithms but not any more. Search engines now see this practice as designed to manipulate, which doesn’t make them happy at all. Instead, only put links in footers that will add value for visitors.
• Useless content blocks – These keyword stuffed blocks are stuck on site pages to increase keyword density, adding nothing to the user experience. Instead, produce content for your site that is relevant to your related keywords and adds value for your visitors.
• Links from farms and low-ranked non-relevant sites – It used to be “The more, the merrier” with backlinks, but no longer. As a caveat, losing these links will take a lot of work but it will be worth it. Instead, seek to build links selectively from relevant sources and authority sites.

The risk/reward ratios of all these practices are now heavily skewed toward the risk side of the equation as search engines target and penalize sites that use them. The second issue is that recovering from the penalties that are incurred can be a long and arduous path. With no upside potential and a very real possibility of disappearing from the SERPs these over-optimization practices no longer belong on your website. For more information on web design that aligns with the objectives of the search engines, visit: http://www.gervaisgroupllc.com/

Gervais Group

Gervais Group LLC is a full service IT consulting company with global reach. Our company has been designed to provide state of the art results across a broad array of products and services. In our partnership with your company we only measure our performance by the success achieved by your business. We work for that success first by taking the time and effort to assess how your business operates, its objectives, and the IT solutions required to reach the full potential of your company. We’ll also provide solutions for the improvement and optimization of overall operations in the most cost effective manner possible.

Gervais Group’s analysis and implementation can then be applied to specific areas such as website design, search engine optimization, and search engine marketing. This combination of our proven search engine marketing techniques with your newly optimized website means increasing visitors that also want to leave their contact information or purchase products and services.

We will also implement solutions across your company’s infrastructure including full spectrum IT services such as consulting, strategy, governance, and process/service management. Additional services include programming, software customized to your business’ needs, information risk management, forms processing and database management. In all cases we provide ongoing solution management, allowing you to focus on running other critical elements of your business.
Gervais Group LLC is an Atlanta IT consulting company that partners with you to innovate and continuously improve. We help you to stay competitive, and our level of customer satisfaction is unmatched. Our consultancy model begins with a thorough study of your business model. Then we bring our best ideas to the table.

As your strategic partner, our work involves not only identifying the requirements but also coming up with unique strategies that will drive the work we do for you. Our success is based on a solid and repeatable process, which leads to our success and the success of our customers.

From change management to program management our consulting service covers a wide spectrum:

• Business Consulting, including Business Process Management
• IT Strategy and Governance
• Outsourcing
• IT Consulting, including Architecture and Technology
• Information Risk Management, Infrastructure Services, Master Data Management, Quality Assurance and Testing
• IT Process and Service Management, Business Solutions, including E-Channel
• Business Research, Litigation Support Services, Forms Processing, Database Management

Custom Web Design, Search Engine Optimization, SEO, Internet Marketing

Partnering with Gervais Group LLC will provide a key component in the long term success of your business. Call us now at (770) 529 2262 for an initial assessment to maximize the potential of your business.