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I have a client that would like me to support them with SEO on a Wix.com site. I was hoping to get some feedback from the community to see if there were people who had experience int he following areas:

1. Supporting the day to day operation of a WiX site?  Specifically are there any issues I need to watch out for or be aware of if I choose to support this site?

2. From and SEO perspective is this platform OK or are there some issues I need to be made aware of?

I would sincerely appreciate any input or comments on this platform.

I had a client ask me a good question. When they pull up a search result they show up at the top but only with a link to their G+ page. Other competitors show their web address and G+ page.  Why are these results different in the same search group? Is there a way to ensure the web address shows up?

I do not believe adding a second landing page with zip plus city is a good idea.  i think you might even run the risk of a Google penalty. I think a better place to focus your efforts would be long tail key word sets related to the cities you are targeting.  I would include references to local landmarks as well as any video or photo content you have that support the desired key word set.

Graham,

I would just verify that they are actually from Google. There are some firms out there that represent themselves as Google when they are not. So verify and then trust.

Ron

Alec,

Glad to be of assistance.

Ron

Alec,

As stated above the length of time vs results depends on budget, key word difficulty as well as a host of other factors. I would suggest that you get them to let you know what they are doing as well as what their overall plan is.  If the SEO is not willing to tell you what they are doing I would suggest you run. If they are willing to discuss what they are doing and what their plan is, this is a good sign. I would find out what challenges they are having as well as how they plan to address these issues.  I would also ask them what they think is a reasonable time frame for results. This is usually at least six months. The other thing I would do if you have not done so is get clearly defined goals along with a clear definition from them of  what they consider a win. You may want to find out if any of these wins can be converted to measurable conversion events in google analytics.

If what the SEO firm is saying makes logical sense I would give them some time. If they are telling you to "trust them" and not disclosing the things mentioned above consider moving on.

Hope this helps,

Ron

Kata,

I would suggest the following. I am assuming you are using Moz Pro.  What i would do is work with your client on a key word list. I would have them list the searches that they want to show up on and then enter these search strings into the key word tracker.

I would then work with the client on a content plan that is closely tied to ranking on these searches.  This works well because the content that you or your client writes that ranks is then shown as the ranking URL in the key word ranking report. This visual feedback seems to really help clients see results form their work. I had one client go from 4 ranking URLs to 67 in under six months once they had this feedback look. This tool also had them go through the web site with the page grader and make sure they had pages on their main site ranking for their most important key word strings.

Hope this helps,

Ron

I am not totally clear on the question.  If you are talking about a shopping cart on a web site there are several things you would want to do. 1) Make sure you have good alt text on all photos. 2) Write full product descriptions integrating keywords naturally. 3) Make sure the site is fast as I believe the weighting is higher on an e-commerce site (this is a personal theory I am in the process of validating). 4) Develop a web site surrounding the shopping cart with standard SEO techniques and content strategy.

Hope this helps,

Ron

I noticed in a recent Q&A response that along with Bing and Google web master tools there was a reference to Yandex. What is the relevance of this webmaster tool set? Is there a cost associated with it?  If so is it worth it? I would love to hear what the community thinks.

I agree...these pages are totally annoying and I tend to go away when I see these. Are you running something like Crazyegg to see how users are reacting to this?  Have you tried an A/B test to see how users engage with your page with and without this page?  I don't think your issue is SEO it is Conversion. This is purely an opinion without test data.

In general terms the effectiveness and the SEO effect related to the pop up is all about how you implement it. As referred to in this article http://unbounce.com/conversion-rate-optimization/conversion-heroes-chris-goward/

A pop up is employed by the NYT newspaper that is on the side that draws you into something more interesting thereby increasing their chances of conversion without damaging the brand or upsetting the person experiencing the pop up. This is not likely to have an SEO impact as this will not cause traffic to exit the site as quickly as possible and the user is more likely to return.

The other end of the spectrum is what i'll call the "As seen on TV" popup.  These tend to be minor brands that do not care or even think someone will come back again.  They know they have one shot and they want to convert at any cost. This type of pop up is more akin to a thug standing in the doorway.  It is very invasive and makes it very hard to leave the web site without buying anything.  Some people may not mind this but most people will.  This type of approach is going to return a negative user experience which will track to your site performance and may affect your SEO.  If Google flags your site and does a manual check your site will probably be downgraded.

So in my opinion the trick is to figure out what the fine line is between being so unobtrusive that the popup is ineffective and being so invasive that you get what you want on conversion but lose a customer or referral.

Here are some things you may want to consider doing with the page and the pop up as you implement it.

1. I would use a tool like Optimizely to optimize the page itself before implementing the pop up. You may be able to get an acceptable conversion rate without implementing the pop up.

2. If you still need to implement the pop up I would set up several off line variations along with the optimized page without pop up.  I would use a paid service like Ask My target Market ( http://aytm.com ) to get feedback from a target group that fits your visitor profile.  If there is not a conclusive result or if there is a lot of feedback that initiates changes I would consider making modifications based on the first survey and running a second survey.

3. I would then use Optimizely again to set up a series of scenarios based on what you have learned so far to test on paid traffic.  I would set up a simple advertising campaign that will drive clicks to these off line pages. Again based on responses and conversion rates I would make a another set of modifications.

4. Finally I would test the winning scenario on your live page and monitor your conversions. based on how the traffic converts you may want to consider doing anther set of A/B testing on the page itself.

There are extra steps in here to avoid a negative impact to your target market. Based on the value of your brand, market size, and product price point you will need to evaluate how aggressive you want to be in each of these steps.

The main pice of input I would give is that it is important to test multiple scenarios and follow the measurable numbers. What we think the result should be is not what people actually do. Remember if you can't measure it; it is not true ;).

To have or not have breadcrumbs does not affect SEO directly it affects it indirectly.   Part or what is monitored when a site is ranked is the user experience.  The analytical way that this is monitored is through your bounce rate, exit rate, time on site and your visitor flow.  Anything that makes these stats better and improves your user experience is going to improve your rankings.   So even if you don't have breadcrumbs but have very good navigation that eliminates the need for bread crumbs you will have the same positive effect on your SEO.  So it is not this type navigation in particular that is important it is providing the best navigation for your traffic.  Happy traffic = good rankings

Hope this helps,

Ron

I think that nothing but good things can come from the kind of activity you are seeing.  The key is relevance and value.  It sounds like you have some posts that are helpful and relevant to others...This is the ultimate goal with social media. In my opinion this type of activity only sends positive social signals.

The trick is to understand that every post you make is not going to get this type of response. My belief is that the fastest way to get into trouble is engaging in tricks or spammy behavior to replicate the lightning you have created with these posts. Even though it is harder it is important to stay the course by slogging out future contributions knowing that many will not get a huge response. As long as these more minor posts are relevant to your audience you will slowly build up a base and over time your will develop a solid base that is engaged with your social media outlets.  This is the long term goal as well as the long term value you want to develop.

Enjoying lightning in a bottle when it happens is good Planning on it is not ;( Building an audience that is a constant power source is the goal

Hope this helps,

Ron

Personally I would not trade links unless I knew exactly who I was dealing with.  In general I am not a huge fan of trading links unless there is a direct relationship.

Graham,

I would just verify that they are actually from Google. There are some firms out there that represent themselves as Google when they are not. So verify and then trust.

Ron

Robert,

I see our interns as our top people down the road.  We use our internship as a way to support people as they save for or go to college. We want top notch people working with us who are engaged in building the business. It is hard to get most people real engaged unless you are compensating them in some way.

I think it is appropriate to pay them at or near minimum wage to start as the company needs to invest in them to get them up to speed. As they start to contribute more and learn more we structure their compensation so that they can make more.  In my opinion one of the best lessons you can teach someone is that,"you eat what you hunt and kill" in the work place.  I think a performance based compensation and a clear path of advancement encourages growth.

Anyway that's my two cents.

Ron

I think Chris had some good suggestions.  I would add the following comments.  1) I would encourage your CEO or a ghost writer to start doing blog entries.  I would add this as a blog category.  In this way it is not going to look bad or screw things up if he does not always get a blog out.  Once your CEO has built up a few blog entries it might be good to add a list of prior blog entries next to his profile.  This would be a good way for people to get a feel for how he thinks and what he believes in.

I do think it is a good idea to hire a ghost writer(I admit I am biased as that is one of the services my company provides). However I would strongly recommend that your CEO participate in the process and approve the final blog so that the blog has his voice.

Even though you did not ask about this I thought I would also mention that you might want to add a newsletter archive as a category as well.  This is a good way to keep old newsletters as a reference for those that are interested and increase your content at the same time.

Ron

Lily,

If your target market is localized you may want to consider doing some local off page SEO.  Getting these directories set up has created some dramatic results for our clients. A simple first step is to use the get listed.org tool to get the basic local directories set up.

Ron

Sarah,

I have been working on this exact same problem for another client.  As a disclaimer I am always going for the maximum traffic and conversion for my clients and on the aggressiveness scale I am an 11.

That being said here is what I would recommend.  1) Create a separate navigation for each sub branch.  This would include all the basic information you would on the main site except this should focus on the branch. 2) Manage a blog for each branch with Google authorship set up. 3) Create content about the branch that has the unique feel of the branch along with anything special about the branch or it's employees.  4) Do competitive key word research for each branch and make sure that you include any content that is needed to grab searches from the local competition. 5) I would reflect the unique navigation or location of the information on each branch specifically in your off page SEO.

This approach will get you more local traction while improving the experience and conversion for potential customers for each branch.  This also alleviates the "mega" company feel and helps the branch feel more local.

Ron

Well I would do a few things:

1. go to get listed.org and sign up for all the local directories.

2. I would use the Open Site Explorer tool to find inbound links on your competitors and sign up for any applicable directories and start following(and providing useful comments) on blogs that relate to what you are doing.

3. Utilize your G+ account to engage your client base in a Google Air web seminar and publish a recording of this to Youtube.

4. Use Presenter on the mac (or a similar program) to create a presentation with voice overs and export to video and upload to video.

5. Create an engaging infographic that people will share on the web.

6. Get 10 reviews on Yelp, google, and Bing.  These reviews create in bound links as well as improve your overall local search rankings.

What I am saying is that links are created by doing a variety of things over time.  You have to be creative, have fun with it ;)!

Ron