Social Media Tracking
For those of you who have a social media presence, you know how it can sometimes be time-consuming generating new content. That’s why it’s important to know what people are actually looking at on your social media profiles.
Mashable recently worked with EyeTrackShop, a company that runs eye-tracking studies for advertisers, to find out what users look at on different social media sites. You can check out the study here.
A couple of takeaways we learned from this study:
- On Facebook, profile pictures and recent content are king. However, Google+ users are less inclined to study profile pictures as they are to spend time looking at your recent content and your circle of friends.
- Recent content is extremely important on Facebook and Google+, but Flickr and Twitter users are more likely to browse through your older posts in addition to your newest content.
So I Have a Website. Now What?
This is a question that many business owners and organizations ask themselves once they’ve launched a new site. Or maybe you’ve had a website for a while but it isn’t quite performing up to your expectations. It’s about time in familiarize yourself with two acronyms: SEO and SEM.
We've optimized our website around "Kansas Web Design" as one of our top keywords. We're now the ranked #2 in Google for "Kansas Web Design".
SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is the process of optimizing your website around specific keywords so search engines rank your website higher than other websites. SEM, or Search Engine Marketing, is the process of building online advertising campaigns around search engine results (Google AdWords is a great example of a popular SEM vehicle).
If your website isn’t quite drawing the number or type of visitors you’re looking for, there’s a good change SEO and/or SEM services may be your answer. By starting an SEO campaign, you can increase your website’s organic (free) search engine rankings for specific keywords related to your website. This will draw in new, high-quality visitors who are more likely to fill out a contact form on your site, give you a call or make a purchase.
When designed and managed properly, CPC advertising campaigns, like Google AdWords, can effectively draw new high-quality visitors to your website.
However, there are also times when you may not be able to rank in the first page of search results for some of your top keywords. This can often be the case if you’re in direct competition with many larger companies or organizations. This is when SEM can come into play. With well-built SEM campaigns, you can get your website featured on a search engine’s first page of search results for just about any keyword you like. And unlike traditional advertising, you only pay when someone clicks on your ad and visits your website!
If you’re interested in increasing traffic to your website, ranking higher in search engine results for your keywords, or even marketing a new service or product, visit our SEO / SEM page to read case studies and learn more about our search engine optimization and search engine marketing services.
The Next Step in SEO
Here’s a great video explaining the basics of Google’s latest search engine algorithm update (Panda).
I think the general direction Google is headed in is great–as designers we’re happy to know that our sites will not only be judged by their technical aspects but their aesthetic appeal as well. I’m sure there will be some rough patches as they work to figure this out, but I like the direction they’re going!
