The Three Key Elements of Irresistible Email Subject Lines

Email is back.

Despite repeated proclamations of its extinction, rumors of the death of email marketing have been greatly exaggerated — especially since email and social media are a powerful combination. You might not reach the average college freshman, but for slightly older types (you know, the ones with the money), email is still the way to go in many lucrative mainstream niches.

You must first, of course, get your emails read. And it all starts with the subject line.

Email subject lines are a form of headline. They perform the same function as a headline by attracting attention and getting your email content a chance to be read.

So, headline fundamentals still apply. But the context is different, with the email space having its own funky little quirks that need to be accounted for.

Here’s the good news — email also implies a special relationship with the reader; a relationship that will get more of your messages read, even with subject lines that wouldn’t work in other headline contexts. Let’s take a look back at headline fundamentals, the specifics that apply to subject lines, and the “secret sauce” that makes email your top conversion channel.

1. The Fundamentals:

When you’re writing your next subject line, run it through this checklist, based on the Four “U” Approach to headline writing:

• Useful: Is the promised message valuable to the reader?
• Ultra-specific: Does the reader know what’s being promised?
• Unique: Is the promised message compelling and remarkable?
• Urgent: Does the reader feel the need to read now?

When you’re trying to get someone to take valuable time and invest it in your message, a subject line that properly incorporates all four of these elements can’t miss. And yet, execution in the email context can be tricky, so let’s drill down into subject-line specifics for greater clarity.

2. The Specifics:

Beyond headline fundamentals, these are the things to specifically focus on with email subject lines:

• Identify yourself: Over time, the most compelling thing about an email message should be that it’s from you. Even before then, your recipient needs to know at a glance that you’re a trusted source. Either make it crystal clear by smart use of your “From” field, or start every subject line with the same identifier. For example, with our own Internet Marketing for Smart People newsletter, every subject line begins with [Smart People].
• Useful and specific first: Of the four “U” fundamentals, focus on useful and ultra-specific, even if you have to ignore unique and urgent. There are plenty of others who work at unique and urgent with every subject line — we call them spammers. Don’t cross the line into subject lines that are perceived as garbage. But do throw in a bit of a tease.
• Urgent when it’s useful: When every message from you is urgent, none is. Use urgency when it’s actually useful, such as when there’s a real deadline or compelling reason to act now. If you’re running your email marketing based on value and great offers, people don’t want to miss out and need to know how much time they have.
• Rely on spam checking software: We all know that certain words trigger spam filters, but there’s a lot of confusion out there about which words are the problem. Is it okay to use the word “free” in a subject line? Actually, yes. All reputable email services provide spam checking software as part of the service or as an add-on. Craft your messages with compelling language, let the software do its job, and adjust when you have to.
• Shorter is better: Subject line real estate is valuable, so the more compact your subject line, the better. Don’t forget useful and ultra-specific, but try to compress the fundamentals into the most powerful promise possible.

3. The Secret Sauce:

Getting someone to trust you with their email address is not easy. Twelve years ago when I started in email publishing, people would sign up for anything remotely interesting.

No longer.

But if you do gain that initial trust, and more importantly, confirm and grow it, you can write pretty lame subject lines and people will still read your messages. Just as with that ditzy friend from high school who nonetheless always has something interesting to say, trust and substance matter most.

Don’t get me wrong, writing great subject lines combined with the more intimate relationship email represents is much more effective. And you have to get your initial messages read to establish the relationship in the first place. Regardless, your open rates will improve based on the quality of your subject line.

But there’s something special in this jaded digital age about being invited into someone’s email inbox. You just have to over-deliver on the value to ensure you’re a treasured guest who gets invited back.

The inbox can be a stressful place. How do you make it brighter?

About the Author: Brian Clark is founder of Copyblogger and co-founder of the writer-friendly Scribe SEO software. Get more from Brian on Twitter.

P.S. Have you checked out Internet Marketing for Smart People, the Copyblogger email newsletter? It features a free 20-step course with solid email marketing tips, so click here and subscribe today.

Qualitative Web Analytics: Heuristic Evaluations Rock!

Every believer in Web Analytics 2.0 knows that awesomeness comes not from answering just the “What” question but from also answering the “Why” question.

What comes from Google Analytics, Adobe Site Catalyst, WebTrends, CoreInsight / NetMetrics and more.

Why comes from lab usability studies, website surveys, “follow me home” exercises, experimentation & testing, and other such delightful endeavors.

Why gives context to the What, and delightfully helps you not have to overlay your biases when you try to infer visitor intent form all the What (clickstream) data.

I know that you agree Why is important.

I know that you even realize Why is ever easier to accomplish (usability studies are economical, surveys and testing platforms start at the sweet price of free!).

Yet your site stinks like a skunk.

The reasons are complicated.

You are smart, so that is not it. Maybe it is internal politics. Maybe it is the agency you have outsourced the site to, the agency whose only competence seems to be gratuitous use of flash. Maybe it is that it is not your job, you are the “quant” guy or “GA girl”. Maybe even after taking one of the team and going out on three dates the IT Dude still refuses to put Website Optimizer tags on the site. Maybe the well meaning but “never met our real customers” HiPPO dictates site design.

Bottom-line: Your site stinks and you need to fix it.

Allow me to introduce you a User Centric Design that is, I think, the solution you have been waiting for: Heuristic Evaluations

I love heuristic evaluations because they are cheap, fast and you probably already have resources you need in your company. A large part of my adoration also comes from the fact that heuristic evaluations are us going back to the basics in an attempt to create un-stinky websites.

What Are Heuristic Evaluations?

A heuristic is a rule of thumb. In as much, heuristic evaluations follow a set of well established rules (best practices) in web design and how website visitors experience websites and interact with them.

When conducting a heuristic evaluation a user researcher (or an HCI expert) acts as a website customer and attempts to complete a set of predetermined tasks related to a website’s existence. For example: Trying to place and order, or looking to find out the status of an order, or the solution to an error code, or decide which of many products on a site are optimal for a specific customer persona.

But here is the lovely part, and why almost anyone can perform heuristic evaluations. in addition to best practices the researcher (or you!) will raw from their own experience, knowledge and common sense.

Heuristic evaluations are best when they are used to identify what parts of the customer experience are most broken on your website. They can be very beneficial if you have not yet conducted any usability tests or when you would like to have a quick review of prototypes that the designers might be considering.

In either case, you can quickly determine the lowest hanging fruits in terms of “broken” parts of the customer experience. With this feedback there can be iterative improvements to the customer experience. You’ll probably already have connected the dots and realized that this is a fantastic way to identify ideas for A/B or Multivariate experiments on the live website.

[I Heart] Group Heuristic Evaluations

There is one more thing, a way to amplify the impact and get even better results.

Get everyone involved!

Heuristic evaluations can also be done in groups!!

Invite people around you with key skills, such a designers, information architects, web analytics professionals, that girl in accounting you really like, other analysts in the company (and their quantitative understanding of site data), search experts, the intern who only communicates via Posterous, and so on and so forth.

The goal is simple: Identify flaws by attempting to mimic the customer experience (if possible under the stewardship of a User Researcher, if not then under the gaze of your haunting brown eyes) by completing the tasks on the website as a custom.

The great benefit of the group heuristic evaluation method is that you can tap into the “wisdom of crowds”. This is especially powerful because the web is such an intensely personal medium, and the group members can offer different points of view that highlight issues quickly.

The process that worked optimally for me was to send an email to 10 or so folks (a diverse set!). Invite them to a noon meeting in a largish conference room and order lunch for them (best $50 I ever spent). Once everyone was settled (by 1205!) project the website on the screen and try to complete the most common customer tasks.

I (or you) have to do a good job of moderating the discussion and ensure everyone participates. There is no such thing as a bad opinion, diversity is good. Collect all pertinent feedback.

Heuristic evaluations can provide valuable feedback at a low cost ($50 in my case) in a very short amount of time (an hour in my case) and identify obvious usability problems. Hence they are best for optimizing work flows, improving user interface design and for understanding the overall stinkiness (or lack thereof) of the website.

Here is another subtle benefit of the group evaluations: improved communication and, dare I say, camaraderie between different groups in your company (big or small).

There is nothing that quite brings people together like a,  pardon the expression, bitchfest. Everyone contributes, everyone commiserates, everyone loves it. Next time they are doing something they’ll know what you do. Next time you need help, you’ll know who to call (and they’ll pick up the phone!). It is a great way to bring a sense of common purpose and a sense of ownership to improving the website experience.

Conducting A Heuristic Evaluation (The Glorious Process!).

You’re excited right?

Here are six steps to conducting a successful evaluation process, either when you do it or you are doing it as a group:

1. Write down the tasks that customers are expected to complete on the website. If you are using surveys on your site (even a simple site level survey like 4Q from iPerceptions or page level survey like Kissinsights) then that is a fantastic source of this information. You should also, if possible, talk to the site owner. Here is what you might end up with on your list:

• Find information about the top-selling product on the website.
• Locate a store closest to where the customer lives.
• Place an order on the website by using PayPal. (If the website doesn’t accept PayPal, how easily and quickly can a customer find that out?)
• Sign up to show up at a protest march against taxes on the richest Americans.
• Successfully contact tech support via email.
• Pick the right product for customer profile x (where x can be a small business owner or a family of four or someone who is allergic to peanuts).

2. This is sometimes hard but try to establish success benchmarks for each task. For example success rate for placing an order for the best selling product = 80%, signing up for the protest march = 99%, contact tech support = 90%, etc etc.

3. The fun part. Walk through each task as a customer would and make note of the key findings from the experience – everything from how long it takes to complete the task to how many steps it takes to the hurdles in accomplishing the tasks to how profound your embarrassment was that this was your own company’s website.

4. If you were using a best practices checklist (more on this below) then make a note of the specific rule violations.

5. The hard part. Create a report of the findings. You can use PowerPoint with a screenshot of the webpage and clear call-outs for issues found. Or you can use Camtesia / a screen recording software to capture the session (and the group discussion). This can be distilled to a “the best of the bitchfest” collection for your superiors.

6. The hardest part. Categorize the recommendations into Urgent, Important and Nice to Have. We all get swept into emotions fervor. It is also possible that when you present your findings to your Sr. Management they might be a bit HiPPOish (not that there’s anything wrong with that).

You want to go in with the Urgent, Important and Nice to Have based on impact on the customer experience and the company bottom-line. This helps drive a “what we should do” discussion rather than “I think we should do that” discussion.

That’s it.

The process, as always in web analytics, is important and I hope the above six steps help you create a process in your company that is repeatable and yields impactful results.

I want to stress again that this is a great way for you to get into the customer’s shoes, for your to build camaraderie, involve the cross-functional team of people, and finally find the lowest hanging fruit for sure and perhaps even some big ones.

The Cheapest Heuristic Evaluation Exercise.

I have hinted about the cheapest possible heuristic evaluation exercise a couple of times in this post.

It is: You sitting down with your common sense and a list of “best practices” and checking how well, or badly, your website does against that list. Then do steps 5 & 6 above.

This is fast and impactful. Even in the worst case you identify the most broken things / annoyances.

I have used lots of website best practices usability checklists over time and have settled on using Dr. Peter Meyers’s 25-point checklist. It is simple, effective and quite expansive. You can download it here. [If you' have Web Analytics 2.0 then you'll also find an "extended edition" on the CD that is attached to the back cover of the book.]

The usability checklist has four sections. Here’s a brief summary:

Accessibility

1. Site Load-time Is Reasonable
2. Adequate Text-to-Background Contrast
3. Font Size/Spacing Is Easy to Read
4. Flash & Add-ons Are Used Sparingly
5. Images Have Appropriate ALT Tags
6. Site Has Custom Not-found/404 Page

Identity

7. Company Logo Is Prominently Placed
8. Tagline Makes Company’s Purpose Clear
9. Home-page Is Digestible In 5 Seconds
10. Clear Path to Company Information
11. Clear Path to Contact Information

Navigation

12. Main Navigation Is Easily Identifiable
13. Navigation Labels Are Clear & Concise
14. Number of Buttons/Links Is Reasonable
15. Company Logo Is Linked to Home-page
16. Links Are Consistent & Easy to Identify
17. Site Search Is Easy to Access

Content

18. Major Headings Are Clear & Descriptive
19. Critical Content Is Above The Fold
20. Styles & Colors Are Consistent
21. Emphasis (bold, etc.) Is Used Sparingly
22. Ads & Pop-ups Are Unobtrusive
23. Main Copy Is Concise & Explanatory
24. URLs Are Meaningful & User-friendly
25. HTML Page Titles Are Explanatory

Seems simple right?

I bet your website currently breaks 10 of the rules above. It is hard to believe. Set up a quite hour aside. Go through the checklist. But first go download the detailed checklist at Dr. Pete’s website.

When you are done remember to do steps 5 and 6 of the recommended heuristic evaluation process outlined above.

Benefits of Heuristic Evaluations.

In case you somehow made it here and were not convinced of the value doing heuristic evaluations here is a quick summary of the benefits:

• Heuristic evaluations are extremely fast to perform, with a very short time to insights.
• They leverage existing resources in your company (what could be awesomer?).
• You’ll identify the most egregious customer issues on your website (often all the low and medium hanging fruit, quickly).
• They can be used very effectively early in the website development process to find potential customer hurdles / deal breakers.
• If you have an existing UCD program or hire an external company/agency. heuristic evaluations can reduce the cost of full usability tests by helping fix the obvious problems. The $900 an hour charged by the Agency can then be focused on hidden / really tough challenges.

Thing to Watch For.

It should be clear that I am a fan of the heuristic evaluation process. And it is every fan’s duty to also highlight things to watch out for. Here they are:

• Both single person led or group evaluations contain company employees, and sometimes usability experts, but none of them are the actual customers. Despite using best practices and our wisdom we might miss some subtle problems, even as we identify the obvious ones. Be very aware of this.
• [It follows from the above point that.]  The better you are at step #1 outlined in the heuristic evaluation process, the better your outcomes will be.
• When there is disagreement in recommendations from the heuristic evaluations there can be great value by doing live website tests or usability studies (whatever is faster, usually experiments).
• Heuristic evaluations are best for optimizing work flows, larger more obvious parts of website design and the overall usability of the website.

In summary: Not quite God’s gift to humanity, but rather the best thing you could do to identify the low and medium fixes to your site that will significantly improve the experience of your customers.

Don’t spend your day immersed in Google Analytics and just the “What” analysis. Understanding “Why” is the key, use it to unlock actionable insights.

Ok your turn now.

Have you done heuristic evaluations for your website? Who leads them in your company? Do you have a list of usability best practices that you use on your website? What other methods of of listening / collecting voice of customer / answering “Why” do you use in your company?

Please share your feedback / critique / questions / answers via comments.

Thanks.

PS:
Couple other related posts you might find interesting:

• Overview & Importance of Qualitative Metrics
• Eight Tips For Choosing An Online Survey Provider
• Measuring Success for a Support Website: A Point of View
• Is Conversion Rate Enough? It’s A Good Start, Now Do More!
• Multiplicity: Succeed Awesomely At Web Analytics 2.0!

Qualitative Web Analytics: Heuristic Evaluations Rock! is a post from: Occam’s Razor by Avinash Kaushik

If you want to add video marketing to your own small business marketing program, it doesn’t have to be a huge challenge.  It can actually be fun and easy.  While there are a variety of companies that are willing to help with this sort of production, it is so simple you will probably be able to pull it off yourself.  After all, you aren’t trying to make a blockbuster here; you’re simply trying to create a relationship with prospects and spread the word about your product or services.

Creating Your Online Video

Make sure your video is “real”.  Customers are not interested in hearing a tired sales pitch.  They want to get to know the human behind the business, so give them what they want. Instead of hammering off rote information or giving a lot of buzzwords, just be you.

Use a good quality camera.  It doesn’t have to be that expensive.  These days, digital recorders have become less and less expensive.  Find a decent camera that has good reviews (check with the online review sites and be sure to read the opinions of actual users). Then try a few practice videos to see what sort of quality you actually get.

Keep the video short.  Three or four minutes is the norm for small business marketing videos. Think about how short commercials are on TV.  You don’t want to bore or overwhelm your viewers.  If you do, they will simply click away and go somewhere else.

Your first video should simply be an introduction to your business and to you. However, at some point it is important to provide customers with a call to action.  You can include your phone number or website address verbally or through a back link, or offer a coupon.  Remember the ultimate goal of your video marketing is to find prospects, so don’t forget to mention how you can be located.

The Power of VSEO

You have probably heard of SEO before.  This term stands for “search engine optimization” and it refers to the method of optimizing textual content to rank higher on search engines like Google. The newest term being kicked around the marketing world is VSEO.  This is “video search engine optimization.”

Ranking first on Google is any web-savvy small business owner’s dream. It turns out, that VSEO is a lot more likely to get you there than SEO.  This is because your chances of having a video rank number one on Google are up to 50 times higher than having text rank number one on Google.  That’s right 50 times higher!

So obviously, VSEO is something you want to be concentrating on in your video marketing program.  It works basically like regular search engine optimization.  It includes methods such as posting links to your new videos on social media sites, promoting your videos through back links from other reputable sites, and optimizing the search terms and tags associated with your videos. Since video creation is generally a bit more time consuming than simple article or content publication, be sure your time and efforts are not wasted by ignoring VSEO.

Where Do All the Videos Go?

So you’ve followed all the steps and you’ve created your first video.  Now where do you put it?  There are actually several different avenues for publishing your videos on the internet and you probably want to use all of them.

For starters, you can publish your videos on social media sites like Facebook.  Chances are, you already have customers and prospects on your friends list, so it’s a good idea to capture their attention with your new video. And be sure to encourage them to share your videos with their friends list also.  Now, you are in a million more places with very little work on your behalf.

YouTube is a given.  You have to get your video on YouTube.  This is the number one place that internet users go to watch videos.  Since online video is quickly replacing television, you want to get to the top places and stay there.

You can also add your video to your Google business listing.  This makes for a great visual representation of your business and adds to your professional reputation.  This is a great way to advertise.  It is like a business card that talks!

Small business marketing with video might seem a little confusing and time consuming at first, but it’s actually quick and easy once you get into the swing of it. Since online video is growing so quickly, you definitely want to add this tactic to your marketing plan.

The task of search engine optimization for your website can seem overwhelming at times. You have enough work to do just running your small business, so it’s easy to put SEO at the bottom of your priority list. However, without proper search engine optimization, your website is very unlikely to be much of a success. This can mean the money and time that you spent getting your website designed and developed becomes wasted.
There are several ways that you can improve your SEO without spending tons of time or tons of money. Here are 10 of the quickest and most affordable SEO tips out there.

1. Submit to Search Engines

You want to make sure that your website has been submitted to search engines. SEO is all about optimizing your position in various search engines, but this is only relevant if you are actually listed in the search engines. When your website is brand new and it has no incoming links yet, it can be difficult for the spiders to find it, so it’s a good idea to hand submit your site to the search engine.

2. Clean up Your Site

Make sure your website is organized and clear. It is especially important to clean up any dead links. Fix any errors that may appear on your site and double check to make sure your entire site’s html is up to par. There are online services that can help you do this. Since search engines primarily work and rank websites through the use of robots it is important to make sure all of the technical aspects of your website are in good working order. This helps ensure that the robots can quickly and freely crawl through your site and they won’t encounter any errors or roadblocks that force them to abandon your site too soon.

3. Use Good Keyphrases

If you’re trying to optimize your brand new website for a single keyword, you’ll be fighting an uphill battle. Try longtail keyword phrases instead (a phrase that is four words or longer) because they are less competitive and easier to get started with. Be sure to research the phrases that your target market is actually searching for, and then do the competitive research to ensure that you actually have a chance of ranking for those phrases.

4. Create Good URLs

Creating readable URLs is especially important if you’re using a content management system or otherwise generating dynamic URLs. While evidence suggests that Google’s new algorithm does not apply much weight to keyword rich URLs, other search engines do. And since it’s such an easy step to create relevant URLs, it’s worth the few seconds of extra time it might take, if only to make it easier on your human site visitors. Make sure that your URLs are indicative of the kind of information that your visitors will encounter on that page.

5. Improve your Title Tags

Title tags are still an important aspect of search engine placement, and since they are so extremely easy to update this is a step that definitely needs to be included in your affordable SEO plan. Make sure that your title tags are keyword rich and appropriate to the subject matter of the particular web page. And make sure you use a unique title tag on each and every page in your site.

6. Check your ALT Tags

Make sure that your alt tags are clear and keyword rich. While Google does not take into account alt tag text for ranking purposes, some other search engines still do. But the key issue to keep in mind with alt tags is that they are meant for usability. They are designed to aid website visitors with visual impairments navigate through your site and understand all of your content. While Google may not take the content of the tag into account, it couldn’t hurt to show Google that you are running a professional website that caters to all users.

7. Get Backlinks

Getting relevant links coming into your website can be tedious and time consuming. So this isn’t exactly considered a “quick tip”. But there are a few things you can do to help speed up your link building program. First, take advantage of industry groups or trade associations that you belong to. They usually have online directories where you can include a link to your website in your membership profile. Join a forum that is related to your niche and include your website address in your profile and signature. Submit a press release announcing the publication of your new site and include a link to your URL. Keep in mind that none of these are considered “high value” incoming links, but they are all quick and easy ways to get your linking program off the ground.

8. Create and Update Regularly

Keep your website or blog fresh and relevant.  You don’t have to go overboard, but be sure to make small updates regularly.  This ensures that the search engine spiders will return often. Use unique content, avoid private label right articles, and keep information as current as possible.

9. Generate a Site Map

Creating an XML sitemap makes it easier for the search engine bots to crawl through and navigate your website.  This is especially true if your site is rich in script and flash. The structure of your sitemap does matter, so if you’re not sure how to create one, check with your webmaster. Chances are, he or she will have software that will simplify the process.

10. Use Social Media

Social media sites like Facebook and Twitter are quickly becoming the new search engines.  Make sure you are adequately represented on sites like these. Set up a page for your company and post regularly.  Have friends, family, customers and fans sign up for your page and encourage them to advertise to their friends, family, clients, and fans.  This is a great way to build up your reputation and yet another way to quickly multiply reputable backlinks to your page.

Search engine optimization can be intimidating for many small business owners, and it’s true that a full-fledged optimization program will take time. But by following these quick and easy steps, you’ll be able to create an affordable SEO program that gets your new website off the ground in no time.

Photo by Adrian EdenThe basic premise of SEO is built on keywords.  Keywords or key phrases that are likely to be searched for are used throughout your website content.  This tells the search engines what your web pages is about so the search engine can lead web surfers back to your site more effectively.

Choosing the right keywords for your website is the first critical step in your affordable SEO program. Here are some tips on choosing the right keywords.

Don’t Overdo It

The most important tip that many new SEO converts have to learn is not to over use their keywords.  Using the same words over and over again on one web page greatly affects the quality of the content itself.  For the most part, when writers try to squeeze in a thousand keywords in a 1,500 word article they end up with something that makes very little since. Search engine robots have become attuned to this method of trying to sneak your way to the top of the rankings with a bunch of gibberish.  Sites that practice this technique are often kicked off of popular search engines.  This black hat SEO method is now referred to as “keyword spam” and is a kiss-of-death for your website.

When it comes to keywords, most experts would advise that you use a keyword density of 1.5-2% at the maximum.  Some even argue that less than this is fine.  It is OK to use several different keywords in order to make your site more readable and keep your keyword density at an optimal level.

If you don’t want to count up all the words on your web page and then to do the math to figure out your keyword density, there are a variety of tools available that will do this for you. Simply enter your URL or paste in your body copy and the tool will do the calculation and figure out your keyword density.

Use the Best Keywords/Phrases

Using the best keywords that you can find is one of the most effective ways of creating optimized content.  But defining the “best” is not always easy. Just because a keyword or a keyword phrase has a ton of monthly searches, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a good match for your web page.

There are other things to take into account other than monthly searches when choosing your keywords. For instance, how many competing web pages are also vying for this keyword? What is the strength of the competition? How many back links do they have? How well connected are these competing sites? Are these keywords “buying” words or “research” words? What is the goal of your particular web page? What is the overall goal of your website? How does this key phrase fit into your goals?

Phrases are Better

Though people often use the term “keyword” in relation to affordable SEO practices, it is a rather outdated term.  This term implies that web designers need to seek out only single words for their content.  This is not true at all.

People rarely look for one word searches, and when they do, they are usually at the very beginning of their searching process. Besides the fact that getting a decent ranking with a one word key is like winning the lottery, prospects who are further along in their buying cycle typically use multi-word keyword phrases. You’re better off optimizing your site for phrases rather than single words.

For example, if you use “dogs” as a keyword, you are going to be competing with a billion other sites and attracting searchers who are very early on in their searching cycle.  Searchers who use such a broad term as “dogs” are usually still in the research phase of their searching. They haven’t quite figured out yet how to search for exactly what they want.

However, if you use “mobile dog groomer Naperville Illinois” as a key phrase for your site, you are narrowing down the competition and attracting prospects who are closer to knowing exactly what they are looking for.  In other words, quick, specific phrases work a lot better for affordable SEO and website optimization than single words.

Place Your Keywords Properly

Sprinkling well written phrases throughout your website content is the basic method of keyword optimization.  There are some places where these terms are worth a little bit more, however.  If you use terms in titles, headlines, subheads, and the opening paragraph, they are worth more points in a sense.  Keep this in mind when writing the copy for your website.

While it often seems as if you’d have to pay a king’s ransom for search engine optimization service, it is possible for a small business owner to perform his own affordable SEO without breaking the bank. Just follow these simply keyword tips and you’ll be well on your way.

Facebook (FB) is so much more than a “chat session” as one of my clients recently described it. Facebook marketing has become an excellent tool for getting your content in front of millions of web surfers and for driving traffic to your website.

In fact, according to comScore’s recent data, there were 621 million Facebook search queries preformed in June 2010. That’s a 63% increase from the number of  FB search queries performed in January 2010, and it’s almost half the searches performed on Bing. Facebook users are actively searching for specific content and information; why not make sure your content is presented?

There are more than a half billion registered FB users around the world, which presents an obvious opportunity for spreading your small business marketing message. And, with just a little bit of effort, the information you present on Facebook can actually appear on the “real” search engines, such as Google, Yahoo and Bing.

Ready to add this marvelous (and growing) tool to your small business marketing arsenal? Here are a few tips for optimizing your Facebook efforts for the best possible search results:

When creating a Facebook fan page or business page, put some serious thought into your page name and URL. Remember all that keyword research you did for your website? Well now is the time to pull out that file folder and review the words that are relevant to your target audience and your service offerings. You’ll want to incorporate these keywords into your About Me box and the Overview section of your page.

By utilizing the relatively new Facebook Markup Language (also known as FBML) you’ll be able to add your own images, graphics, and text that also make use of your targeted keywords. (Not familiar with FBML? This might be a job you want to pass on to your web master.)

Keep your list of targeted keywords handy. You’ll want to refer to these every time you add photos, create a discussion topic, even write status updates. And when linking to your FB updates from off-site pages, you’ll want to incorporate these keywords into your anchor text.

Be sure to review the new Facebook Questions feature. Here’s another chance to rank well in FB search for your chosen keywords, as well as present yourself as an expert (which, after all, should be part of your small business marketing plan). Popular questions are ranked more highly, so put some thought into the questions you create; make them alluring and engaging. And remember, there’s no rule against answering your own question; just be sure to use your keywords.

Want to get your “regular” website listed in the FB search results? Make sure you’re listed well in Bing since the Bing search engine powers Facebook search. Don’t forget to add the Facebook LIKE button to your website; early indications show that this technique does affect your Facebook search results.

And remember, it’s OK to link to your Facebook page from external sites. Be sure to use relevant anchor text, and give off-site users a reason to take the extra step of visiting Facebook to see what you have to offer. Keep in mind, for many web surfers, having to log into FB with a username and password may be a drudgery that just isn’t worth it at the moment, so be sure your linking efforts are extremely enticing.

Optimizing your Facebook efforts for better search performance is very similar to optimizing your website for better search engine rankings. It takes a little time, a little know-how, and a little work, but in the long run your efforts will surely pay off.

The problem with creativity is that it’s – well, creativity. It’s not something that you can just stop and start at your will. It’s not the same as a learned skill that has systematic steps to follow.

Creativity, even when it comes to small business marketing, is an artistic process with ebs and flows. Most small business owners say they have to “be in the mood” to be creative; and as a result of not being in the mood, their marketing tactics usually stall.

If you’ve ever been in that position, you need to check out the 10 Mental Blocks to Creative Thinking presented by Brian Clark. He offers 10 “kicks-in-the-pants” to get your creative thinking (and hopefully your small business marketing plans) off the ground.

I especially like number 1 and number 4, but I’m very interested in hearing your thoughts on the subject. Do you recognize yourself in any of these tips? Which one sounds the most like you, and which ones do you find the most helpful?

Leave your comments below and let me know what you think.

Whether you’ve been tweeting for awhile or just getting started, chances are you just aren’t sure how to effectively incorporate Twitter into your small business marketing.  Maybe you aren’t getting enough responses, or any retweets, or your number of followers has stagnated.

Regardless of where you are at in your Twitter campaign, here are some tips to make your tweeting a more effective piece of your small business marketing plan.

Getting it All In

The thing about 140 characters is that it is direct; it is short enough that even skimmers are going to read it.  So it is great way to get your message out there.  The bad thing about 140 characters is that as a small business owner you have to pack as much information in those 140 characters as possible in order to get the maximum benefit from this marketing technique.

One of your goals is to keep people retweeting your message.  This gets your message out there over and over again in a viral way and this is really what makes Twitter a valuable small business marketing technique.

One of the best ways that small business owners use this site is to gain publicity and traffic for their website by linking to recent articles, blog posts or reader comments. Unfortunately, the URL for your blog post or web page will probably take up a good portion of those 140 characters. But there is a solution.

URL Shortening

There are a variety of websites that will turn your long URL into a short one.  These sites are known as URL shrinker sites and most of them are free. They take your long address and create a tiny one, generally around 20 characters.  You’ll no longer have to devote half of your tweet to a URL; using a shortened URL leaves you with 120 characters left to dedicate to your message.

Retweet Code

Once you have your long URL shortened, you’ll need to keep in mind that you’re trying to get retweets.  In order to allow other users to retweet your message without having to edit or fuss over it you will need to leave enough space in your original message for the retweet code.  That means other Tweeters need enough space to add RT @YourNameHere. So, if you want to encourage retweeting, make sure there are enough character spaces left in your original message. And, if you haven’t yet created your Twitter account, keep retweeting in mind when you register at the site and make your username as short as you can.

Creating Your Tweet

So now where does that leave us?  You are dedicating about 36 characters to the shortened URL and retweet space (depending on how long your username is).  You still have a little over 100 characters to get your message across.  Believe it or not, a 100-character message can actually say a lot.  For example “The House is on Fire” can be said in only 20 characters.  So imagine what you can get across with 5 times that much space.

Make sure your message is intriguing, so people will be tempted to click your link. Use benefits whenever possible – what will the reader learn if he or she decides to click through? Consider your typical audience. While your Twitter followers (those who read your tweets) can be from any industry and/or any walk of life, if you’re using Twitter for small business marketing, chances are you are trying to reach a particular audience. What does your target audience want to hear? What would they be interested in?

Make sure your tweet is interesting and pertinent.  If you can tie your message into current events some how, you’re almost guaranteed to get an increased number of click-throughs. For instance, when promoting a young entrepreneurs business plan competition for a client recently, we created posts such as “Tired of hearing about Lindsay Lohan? Look what these young adult are doing: link-to-web-page” and “Think the economy is bad? This kids are taking matters into their own hands: link-to-web-page”.

Twitter is an excellent tool to add to your small business marketing toolkit. The key to using it effectively is creating tweets that are brief, benefits-laden, and as current. Before incorporating Twitter into your own small business marketing plan, why not spend a few hours on the site and take a look at what others are doing? Then be sure to model the best of the best.

Master Twitter in 10 Minutes

If you’re brand new to Twitter, you can master it in under 10 minutes with this free resource>>>

1. Checker Your URL

First, type your web address into your browser with and without the “www [dot]”. You should be able to pull up your website with and without the www, however, both versions should take you to the same web address. In other words, if you type in your domain name without the www, you should be redirected to your www.your-domain.com, with the www. Google sees the www version and the non-www version of your site as two different web pages. If they don’t resolve to the same address, you could get hit with a duplicate content penalty.

2. Don’t Use “Home Page”

Once you log into your site, check the title that is listed in the upper left hand corner of your web browser. Make sure it’s an actual title and that it contains your keywords. Hint: “Home Page” is not a very effective title tag.

Many small business owners use their company name as the home page title. And while you can incorporate your company name, your keyword phrase should be given priority. For instance, if you manufacture pillows and mattresses and your company name is Slumberland, a good title would be Pillows and Mattresses by Slumberland instead of just settling for the title Slumberland.

3. Use Keyword Rich Titles

After checking your home page title, click through to the other pages in your website and check their titles in the upper left hand corner of your browser. Each page should have a unique title tag. You also want to incorporate your keywords into each of the interior pages title tags. Google does consider your title tag when determining the subject matter of your web page.

4. Make Sure Your Page Loads Quickly

Next, clear out your browser’s cache (on your browser’s menu bar, click Tools, Clear History). This will take all of your web pages out of your computer’s “storage” and ensure that you load a new, fresh page. Once your history has been cleared, reenter your domain url into your browser, but this time, pay attention to how long it takes for your home page to load. And then visit some of your interior pages and pay very close attention to load times.

Google’s new algorithm takes page load time into account, and if your page loads slowly, it can be penalized. Ask your webmaster to remove any unnecessary images, to consolidate style sheets and reduce DNS calls to speed up your web page. If you’ve designed your site yourself, make sure your images have been reduced to 72dpi and, if you want to change the dimensions of a graphic on your web pages, you’ll need to resize the graphic in your image editor (i.e. Photoshop). If you simply change the height and width measurements in the image tag, the entire image will need to be loaded and then resized by the web browser, which will actually slow down your page load time.

5. Use Image Alt Tags

And while we’re on the topic of images, make sure all of your images utilize ALT tags. Now I’ll admit, this is purely speculation on my part, but since Google’s new algorithm seems to be looking at the “professionalism” of websites, taking advantage of usability techniques can only help. Remember, your image ALT tags are meant to aid in usability and not aid in keyword stuffing.

6. Publish Original, High Quality Content

Take an honest, unbiased look at all of the content on all of your web pages. Is it something your target market truly wants to read? Do each of your web pages provide useful, high quality information? Avoid regurgitating the same PLR content you’re your competitors are using. Google’s new algorithm gives preferential treatment to high quality, unique content.

7. Find Relevant Links

Try to build up as many links into your website as possible. But put the vast majority of your link building efforts on getting relevant links. You’ll get a better SEO advantage from 4 incoming links from relevant websites than 40 links from off-topic sites.

And here’s a final bonus tip. Take a look at how your page will display in the Google search results page. It’s easy to do – just copy a complete sentence from your web page and paste it into Google surrounded by quotation marks. With any luck, your site should come up as the first listing. You’ll be able to see exactly how your site is listed in Google. Take a good look at the description. Is it compelling and enticing? Would it make you want to click through and read the rest of the web page? If not, make any necessary changes to your description tag. Then repeat this process for each of your web pages.

According to the Mozilla definition, “JavaScript is a small, lightweight, object-oriented, cross-platform scripting language.” In plain English, Java Script is a simple programming language that basically enables a more interactive website. JavaScript code can be used to validate form fields before they are submitted. It can be used to make images bounce all over the web page. It can be used to open new browser popup windows. And all sorts of other creative things.

But perhaps the most popular use of JavaScript is the creation of website menubars. With JavaScript menus, a lot of links can be presented in a small amount of space by making the menu pull down or fly out to reveal additional links.

The benefits of a JavaScript menu are:

1. it takes up only a small amount of space on the web page
2. only premium products or categories are initially displayed by default
3. when a user hovers over a premium product, sub category info automatically displays

Although JavaScript menubars are popular and useful, there is also a downside to using them on your website. Web crawlers or “search engine spiders” can not read or interpret the subcategories of pure JavaScript menus. If the spiders can not read the menu, they also can not follow the links to the web pages on the menu, which means those particular pages will not get crawled and indexed. If a web page is not indexed, it will not show up in the search engine results pages.

To put it plain and simply: if your JavaScript menu links to a page about dog food, and the spiders can not crawl your menu, that means they will not be able to visit your page about dog food. If they don’t visit your page about dog food, they will not be able to add that page to their search engine index. So, when someone goes to Google looking for dog food, your page about dog food will never show up. (Please note, this is an oversimplification of the search engine optimization process. There is more to SEO than using the correct menu format.)

How can web surfers benefit from JavaScript menubars?

The reason JavaScript menus gained such widespread popularity is because although pure JavaScript can not be seen by internet crawlers, it definitely makes online shopping easier. Pull down or fly out menus allow you to categorize your website menu, making it easier for your website visitors to navigate your site and find the products they are looking for. It’s similar to grouping the products in your brick and mortar store into departments.

You wouldn’t walk into a department store and expect to see kitchen blenders with men’s slacks. You’d want the men’s slacks grouped with the men’s shirts and ties and belts; and the blenders grouped with the food processors and hand mixers and toaster ovens. And a pull down menu gives you this same functionality for your online store.

Introducing: SEO friendly pull down menus

Fortunately, there’s a way to take advantage of the much-needed functionality of a pull down menubar while keeping your web pages search engine friendly; and that is by using a CSS menu in combination with JavaScript, or a pure CSS menu alternative.

By using a CSS-based menubar, you’ll have the ability to create a pull down menu that the search engines can crawl. Since a CSS menu uses very little markup, your web pages will use less bandwidth and they will load faster than they would with a pure JavaScript menu. And, when you use an external style sheet, you can easily change the entire look and placement of your menu across every single one of your web pages by changing only one file.

How do you know if your website menu needs to be updated?

If you’re not sure how the pull down menu on your website was created, here’s an easy test for you. Simply hover over one of the menu links on any of your web pages, then take a look at your browser’s status bar. If you don’t see the hyperlink path in your status bar, chances are your menu is pure JavaScript and can probably use an update.

But have no fear – you don’t have to lose the pull down functionality. Just replace your JavaScript menu with a CSS based menu (or request that your webmaster o it for you) and you’ll have a search engine friendly and highly functional website menu in no time.