How to Choose an SEO (search engine optimization) Firm in Minnesota.

Posted by admin

SEO (search engine optimization) is something that every website should be conscious of but selecting an SEO firm is difficult as there are infinite options and everyone claims to be ‘the best’.  While there are thousands of “SEO experts” and every day there are more and more SEO experts in Minnesota, here are 7 questions to ask in your first meeting with them.

Who is Matt Cutts?

  • If they don’t know – run.  This is guy is basically THE guru for SEO

Who are your current SEO clients?

  • Get the SEO firm’s clients phone numbers and call them. Asks for specifics like increased conversion rates, traffic increases, do they produce, responsiveness, etc.

How do you gauge ROI for SEO?

  • The SEO firm should be able to provide ROI models based on your current traffic levels, sale size, margin, current conversion rate, etc.  Basically, they should be able to tell you how they’ll earn their pay.

How do you select keywords that will target my customers?

  • As the whole point of SEO is to increase traffic to your site based on the keywords that best describe your company, this is very important.  If the keywords you target are either unwinnable, have no traffic volume, will provide unqualified traffic (too general), etc. you will be very disappointed in your results.

How do you report your progress?

  • SEO is pretty boring so the last thing any client wants to do is have a monthly call to talk about what happened. At Irish Titan we provides clients’ with a very clean 6-10 page monthly SEO report that clearly shows traffic levels, bounce rates, conversion rates, search only traffic levels, SERP ranking (the rankings of your targeted keywords and the difference from last month), social media summary  and a short monthly summary of what happened and why. As this is how you will evaluate the SEO firm over time you will want to see a sample report.

What is black hat SEO and do you do it?

  • Black hat SEO (in a nutshell) is buying and renting links.  You should never do this as you can be delisted or kicked off Google all together if they catch you.

How do you think the Google Panda update has effect search?

  • They should touch on the following subjects when discussing:
  • Spun, repeated content has been devaluated
  • Social media is starting to matter more
  • Low PR links and link farm links have been devalued (more than before)

These 7 questions should help you pick a great SEO.  As with all things, you typically get what you pay for so while Irish Titan might not be the cheapest SEO company in Minneapolis we can produce.  Call us today for a free SEO snapshot to see if we can help you achieve your SEO needs.

I have a website, now what?

Posted by admin

We get a lot of calls and referrals from potential clients and the story usually goes along these lines – “We spent $X and a few months getting our new website up and running and we love the way it looks but no one is coming to it and we’re not making any money”.

The days of building a website and customers magically finding you are over.  In the hyper competitive online world, having a great site and superior/original product is simply not enough.  While the specific tactics to drive traffic (and customers) to your site varies greatly depending on your online goals (e commerce vs. brochure sites, etc.) but here are a few that should be at least considered by every company.  We should note that this is a very, very simplistic way to look at this but feel free to call us for a free consultation.

SEO

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is something everyone with a website should do.  While SEO is a buzzword, the simple truth is that it works. At a minimum everyone should complete a keywords analysis and implement relevant keywords on their site.  If you don’t do a keyword analysis (KWA) you’re just guessing at the words your customers will use to find you and that’s dangerous.  For a few thousand you can at least make sure you’re in the neighborhood you should be in, keyword wise. 90% of all clicks are on the first page results so how you rank for keywords matters. When is the last time you used Google to look up something and went to the second page? Here’s a quick breakdown on how SEO works in a very simplistic way.

Paid Search

Paid search (SEM) is not for everyone but it’s a good way to get traffic to your site immediately.  Paid search is pretty easy to set up on your own via Google Adwords.  You know the ads that come up first when you use Google – this is how to get there.  You pay each time a customer clicks on an ad and you bid on how much you’re willing to pay per click (varies greatly depending on marketing but usually between $1 – $5) and it’s easy to set a daily cap on the most you want to pay each day.  Paid Search can get very expensive and if you’re in a mature market with large players (real estate?) this may not be a viable option but it’s worth taking a look at. You can also buy paid ads on Facebook Ads which allows you to hyper target niche markets.  Want to have your ad appear to women 22-45 who live in Minneapolis and are engaged – you can do that.

Social Media

If you have a website you should at a minimum reserve your company’s name (or some version of it) on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.  Depending on your industry and interest in utilizing this medium may be a good idea.  It’s free and extremely easy to do.  If you’re spending more than 10 minutes on this a day you’re not doing it right. Again, social media marketing is not for everyone but it’s a great way to communicate informally with clients and potential clients.

Affiliate Marketing

This is only applicable to e commerce sites.  A very basic breakdown of this is that other people (affiliates) drive traffic to your site and you pay them ONLY if the customers they bring to your site buy something.  Sounds good right?  Well, it’s not that easy.  Not all affiliates are equal and the elusive 1% or super affiliates can be difficult to recruit.  Typically a little wining and dining is in order but it’s worth it.  It’s kind of like having a really good sales person – but you only have to pay commission.  There is a lot of very inexpensive software to help monitor this program so all you need to do is recruit affiliate and count your money.  It’s hard to get going on affiliate marketing but if you have an original product this is perfect for you.

This is obviously a very brief and simplistic way to look at how to make money online but feel free to comment on other tactics or reach out to us and we’ll help you evaluate the online marketing landscape for your industry and create a personalized plan for driving quantified, qualified traffic and or course, making money.

Should I have click-to-chat on my website?

Posted by admin

Adding a click-to-chat or instant message feature to your website is a very inexpensive (free) and easy way to improve your website.  We recommend this for most clients (at least on a trial basis) and below are some of the main benefits.

1.       It’s free!

You can try click to chat for a short trial period to see if it’s a good fit for your company.  It’s VERY easy to install and the benefits greatly outweigh the cost.  Olark is a leader in this industry and we’ve have a great experience with them.

2.       Improve customer satisfaction

Web customers want things NOW.  Calling is a turn off as most users don’t want to sit on hold and sending an email is less than instant. Let customers reach out to you in a way their comfortable. Instant gratification and easy access to information is what customers want.

3.       Increase sales

Someone might log on to your site and have a very specific question prior to purchase.  If they can get an answer in 30 seconds this is a great user experience and will increase your conversion rate.

4.       Monitor operations

Most owners don’t deal with day to day operations but owners love /need/desire to know what’s going on.  With click to chat you can get a daily/weekly summary (or watch in real time) all the conversations your site visitors have had with your team.  This will help you identify common questions and eliminate sales barriers. Sometime this is as easy as adding verbiage to a product.  You can also monitor your operations team via reviewing their chats.  We had a client whose sales person (who monitored chats at night) would hang up on customers or tell them to call tomorrow if they weren’t looking to buy, or had an operations question.  Not a good user experience (to put it mildly) but at least the owner was able to identify and address the issue in real time.

5.       Reduce operations costs

If you have a team in place to answer phones they can multitask and have click to chats with multiple users at the same time.  3 years ago I saw a sales team member for a client on the phone selling a product while carrying on 5 chats – I have been a huge proponent of click to chat since.

5 things to consider when redoing your website

Posted by admin

As a Minneapolis based web development and design company we take a lot of first meetings with prospective clients and it’s always interesting to see where companies are coming from.  There is such a wide array of needs, web history, knowledge, urgency and budget.  To help with this process we thought we would top line 5 things firms may want to consider prior to going into a web project. Based on our history, when firms know these things projects seem to go smoothly.

Obviously, this is a very simplistic look at this but it may help as a starting point on your next project.

1. Know your audience. Be sure that your new website is designed for the end user and not your internal staff. The personal preferences of your CEO or other executives should not dictate your design. Your brand identity and user experience should drive the design. Example: acronyms are great, but does your audience really know what they mean?

2. Avoid the design by committee approach. Choose one point person to ‘own’ the project. This person should solicit feedback but filter accordingly. However, make sure all decision-makers are in the room during approval meetings. If everyone is in charge, no one is in charge.  Example: one day (a long time ago) 7 different people from one client emailed our account person with conflicting feedback.

3. Start interviewing web firms instead of writing complex RFPs. RFPs can sometimes lead to an over-complicated vendor selection process and inaccurate pricing. Start by talking to qualified web firms and see what their processes are like. Example: most firms bring a lot of ideas to the table in terms of functionality that may expand on your original concept which will alter you RFP anyway. Unless you really, really know what you want and have a technical background we can help guide you through this process.

4. Choose an awesome website design and development firm. There are thousands of web firms (a search of ‘Minneapolis web development firms‘ provides 3.6 million results) that claim to be ‘unique’ and offer ‘solutions’.  We recommend choosing a firm that meets your needs and fits with your personality.  You’re going to be spending a lot of time with these people, so you will want to pick someone you enjoy.  Also, look at their work and talk to their clients.  Have they done what you’re looking to do before?  Look at that site, talk to that client, navigate the backend CMS to judge if this is what you really want.

5. Don’t skimp on copy and photography. Great copy and professional photography can make or break a design. Remember, most website visitors look at your site for 3 seconds and make sweeping and long lasting assumptions about you and your company. This is the one area that gets marginalized as everyone can take pictures and write – the thing is that it’s usually not that good and saving a few bucks on this is very short sighted.

Should I Use Magento for my eCommerce Website?

Posted by admin

There are a lot of platforms to use for building out your ecommerce store. Here are a few of the most popular:

  • Magento
  • Volusion
  • WooCommerce
  • osCommerce
  • OpenCart
  • Spree Commerce

In addition to those above there seems to be an ever expanding list of web development platforms.

While some of these platforms are good for very specific needs we highly recommend Magento to almost all of our clients for a variety of reasons. Here are 5 reasons why we recommend Magento as an eCommerce platform.

  1. Integration with Other Systems  Magento has 1000’s of plugins that allow you to integrate with many of the 3rd party sites needed to run an effective eCommerce website, including SalesForce.com, Google, Constant Contact as well as open-source databases like MySQL, major payment gateways (Authorize.net, PayPal, Stripe, etc.), and freight services like FedEx & UPS.
  2. Special Tools and Features  Magento allows you to operate several stores from one interface panel. Among other advantages, Magento comes with built-in SEO (search engine optimization) features, recognizes foreign currencies and updates currency rates in real time.
  3. Multi-Store Capacity  Magento does not limit you to using a single online store. Instead, you have the capability to run multiple stores from the same backend panel, with all of the information for all of your stores available on the same admin panel.
  4. Advanced Customization Capabilities  Magento allows for a high level of developer customization. Unlike other platforms that limit you to templates and any customization can be very difficult (i.e. – cost you a lot of money), Magento is very easy to modify.  
  5. Consistent Updates    As an open-source platform, Magento is updated regularly, which means you’ll continually get new features and speedy bug fixes, as well as support from the larger Magento web community.  Need a custom plugin?  It probably exists for a small fee as opposed to weeks and thousands of dollars in custom development time.

Stripe Payment Gateway – a good solution for ecommerce?

Posted by admin

We have used Stripe for a few websites we have done recently and have had a really good experience. We get a lot of questions from companies getting into ecommerce for the first time about gateways so I thought I’d break down Stripe gateway based on some of its key features.
1. No upfront fees! Authorize.Net charges $100 – $200 (depending on your bank) before you get going which is annoying to any lean start up.
2. Easy to understand pricing. 2.9% & $.30 for every successful charge. Authorize.Net and PayPal have fees all over the place based on everything from address authentication and card type (looking at you AMEX) to if you’re going to store the card for return purchases. This makes financial modeling difficult for any start up. The easy financial model is one of Stripes key benefits.
3. No mysterious and unexpected fees. No annual fee, monthly minimum, failed charge fee. These don’t seem like a big deal but they’ve been known to give customers sticker shock when they get their first statement.
4. Accept all cards right away. No additional monthly fee just to accept AMEX which is $30ish a month for most gateways, which is a small amount, but is still an unexpected monthly fee.
5. No PayPal authentication needed. A very common issue with using PayPal as your store’s gateway is if a customer uses an email at check out and that customer has ever had that email tied to a PayPal account they need to sign in to PayPal. Besides an awful user experience, this will increase your stores’ abandoned shopping cart (and just when they were about to pay!) at the worst time and drive you crazy.
6. They can handle subscriptions. Not all gateways can handle these and those that can don’t offer the best functionality when altering subscribers plan.
7. No contract and no cancelation fee.
8. You can get up and running in under an hour. Unlike PayPal and Authorize you don’t have to give blood (and a few days of your life) to sign up. Sign up is incredibly simple and all you need is a bank account and tax ID number.

While Stipe is not a solution for everyone (subscription functionality is just OK, limited international capabilities) but if you’re a startup running as lean as possible this is a great solution and something we would recommend. Check them out at Stripe or call us and see if we can help you navigate the waters of Minneapolis Web Development.