With Thanksgiving gone and the holiday buying season having bashed us square in the face this past week, I started thinking about how best a DIY shop owner can prepare and position themselves for the carnage this time of year brings. Thing is, I quickly realized that in regards to SEO, it’s essentially already too late to ponder such a question. If you want your site to organically rank for this season’s hot items you really need at least a two-month lead. Not only do the search engines need time to index your content, but you also must remember that if you’re targeting the Christmas rush, those people have kicked off their shopping spree already. Sooo, PPC campaign, anyone?

Regardless if you’ve been caught flat-footed and are scrambling to cobble together some PPC ads, or are, I dunno’, on the ball and prepping for Valentine’s Day, let me show you a handy tool that can help you position yourself for glorious windfalls no matter the occasion. Let’s check out Google Trends.

And let me quickly tell you that the graph and numbers are only relative to the, “average search traffic in the chosen time period,” which creates a baseline where the, “subsequent terms are then scaled relative to the first term.” Yeah, I stole that from their FAQ, but it usually seems to be the first thing that comes up when I show this to people, so I wanted to keep you from getting too excited.

Anywho, go ahead and type in, “long stem roses,” to see a terrific example of a powerfully obvious trend. You probably could’ve guessed the result beforehand, but let’s say you’re running a small toy shop and are wanting to gauge consumer interest in a couple items. I can tell you that the new Space Police Lego sets have been forced into a lot of conversations by my eight-year-old son lately, along with some kick he’s on with working on cars, so there’s an erector set in the mix as well. Using these as search examples, our imaginary shop owner can compare and contrast the old standby erector set with this new Lego line to see which is garnering the most attention from consumers.

Here we see an alien learning to respect crosswalks.

If you perform this search today you’ll see the Space Police are noticeably cooler at the moment, though both are on an upswing, clearly riding the wave of the holiday season, as shown by the previous years’ data. From this information our imaginary owner could pick a direction for a PPC campaign, use it as an additional way to forecast demand in regards to ordering product, or plan future SEO campaigns. This could allow our owner an opportunity to build some nice organic results for the timeless erector sets, while leaving a PPC budget for whatever the next super-awesome, super-cool, “all my friends have one, so I need one,” toy-thing of the season. So, go play with Google Trends and see how it can help you and your business.

My 8 year old wanted to know what I did all day besides, “type on a computer and talk on the phone,” so I started down the path of explaining SEO to my 2nd grader. We talked about it in terms of his lemonade stand and websites as they related to playing games online and his blog about Lego creations. Our conversation went something like this:

1. Ok, so you make awesome lemonade and you want to sell it to people
2. How do you want to sell it to them? What is your goal? You decide you want to sell it in a store (or on the lawn as it were) and talk about it on your website
3. So, what is so great about your lemonade? Tell the world on your website how it’s raspberry, fresh squeezed and you made it yourself!
4. Your store is sort of busy but no one brings in the coupon you have on your website. You start thinking “My site is really cool and it has pictures of my lego stuff too – why aren’t people coming to buy my lemonade?”
5. You work with an SEO professional (hey, like Adcuda) to figure out how people are finding good lemonade online.
6. Adcuda does lots and lots and lots of research to dig up the “keywords” that help you write about your lemonade with the actual words people use to find lemonade.
7. The words on your site help get your lemonade stand website in front of the people who want to buy lemonade (novel concept, huh?!)
8. These lemonade shoppers find your site based on your location, your flavors and that you don’t use the frozen stuff.
9. Your site sends them to our lawn with a coupon to buy 1 lemonade get 1 free, where they will buy your lemonade, sign up for your email newsletter and tell all their friends!
10. BONUS: You spend your increased earnings on more Legos!

Open Source Design Tools for Business Owners

As promised I wanted to cover some tips tricks, opinion and on occasion some facts in my posts. This weeks is an arsenal of software every designer and small business owner should have installed on their computer… Little disclaimer I’m a avid PC users and most if not all of my focus will be catered to that platform. So to start off

Gimp, nothing new but a shockingly powerful photo editing alternative that is free! (most of my recommendations will be) I also carry around a portable version on my jumpdrive / phone. Never know when you need to do a quick fix for a client or spruce up your own site. But Gimp gives you the power of the more advanced photo editing without the $$ price tag.

inkscape this application is an alternative to Adobe Illustrator (R) and is also a must for small business owners. When creating your logo, its imperative to make sure its in vector format and not created with paint, photoshop, or any other pixel based editing software. When creating a logo in vector form it allows you to create a file that can be easily changed and scaled to nearly infinite sizes without pixelation or distortion.

Filezilla is an FTP client that allows you to upload/download your site to and from your web-server. I keep this application as a portable app on my phone so again never disconnected for the inevitable melt down.

I was having a conversation with a friend recently about creative ways to re-purpose old phone books. She wanted to know what to do with 14 phone books of varying shapes and sizes. We discussed coffee tables, turning them into flip books, booster seats for the kiddos, using the pages as gift wrap and the list goes on. Then I finally thought to ask why she had 14 phone books. I mean, that’s a heck of a lot of phone books. She explained that she inherited them from her predecessor in a new role at work and that they were covered in thick layer of dust and left to rot on a shelf (right behind her desk). She immediately wanted them out of her space because they served no purpose to her or anyone else in the office. She then mentioned that she only searches for things online. At the time I remember thinking it was odd that she would mention how she searched for things and that it was sort of an obvious statement. Doesn’t everyone just Google for it?

That thought sent me off on an internal tangent and I started thinking about my own online search habits. Often I search for a phrase or keyword without having a planned destination or website in mind. If I am looking for a recipe for “white chicken chili” I hope to find several options to browse. Yes, it might be faster for me to go directly to a site like allreceipes.com or epicurious.com but that isn’t my intention. In my mind I need the options to alleviate the fear that somehow I will miss out on some secret award-winning recipe. But if my husband were to conduct the same search he might approach it differently.

Over the last year, user behavior has become more widely addressed in building quality SEO. Search behaviors can be very simple. For example, I want to buy a new bike so I search for “bikes in Kansas City”, open first site that comes up, find a bike, put it in my shopping cart and make the purchase. I’ve got a bike, yay for me; easy; done. But what if it wasn’t that easy?

Search behaviors can also be much more complex. There are a multitude of behavioral factors such as gender, language, age, comfort with technology and searcher goal(s) that can affect how and why people search. As your SEO partner we not only want your web pages to rank well, but to be geared towards the way people search for your product.

More on this topic next week.

Oh, and by the way, I am now the proud owner of 14 phone books. Leave your creative sugguestions in the box and there might be a prize in it for you.

Persuasivity: The word I just made up (ARGH!…nevermind, it’s all over the ‘net already) to describe what your writing needs to be to sell your possibly not very exciting product. No, not you lion-tamer-for-children’s-birthday-parties, not you pyrotechnics college, not you monster truck rental service; I’m talking to the vacuum cleaner sales and repair shop, data management software vendor, the cardboard box suppliers of the world.

If you’re selling a product or service that’s unique to your business then you should have no issues with cobbling together all your unique selling points and working the simplest angle: “This is the only place you can find this, the choice is obvious!” For the majority though, you likely offer something readily available, if not locally, then at least elsewhere online. In this case you need to give your product descriptions a bit of a pop, not bashing the reader over the head, not being too cutesy, but something that gives the reader all the necessary information without being too bland. I don’t think I have the space to put together a comprehensive writing class in this post, *ahem* nor would you want to sit through it, so let’s take a quick look at some of the biggest traps and simplest solutions for your product descriptions:

1. What does your cool thing do and to what awesome end does it do it?

It doesn’t get much more basic than this. Let’s say you’re selling running shoes – what is there to say about these shoes? Without getting into the hyperbolic we can safely say, “They cover your feet.” That’s a solid description, but will it shift many pair of these sweet shoes? How about we change it to, “They cover your feet in style.”

Boom, you just sold some shoes!

Explaining that a feature of your product saves time, saves money, turns a sandwich into a banquet, whatever it does, no matter how obvious you think it may be, is a nice reinforcement of what a terrific product it is.

2. Hmmm, how is your price so cheap on this item?

Especially when it comes to online sales, unless you’ve really built trust in your brand, people are skeptical of noticeable price breaks. It might not hurt to explain that you ordered too many, maybe the manufacturer had a closeout for that model and you’re passing along the savings, maybe your car dealership is too close to a baseball field/driving range – it’s worth mentioning this to ease any kind of customer concern.

3. Oh, cool, I didn’t know that.

If your particular item has any interesting background your average customer may not be aware of, throw it in. A good friend and former client of mine manufactured carbon fiber components for a wide variety of industries: everything from satellite components, to racecar bits and bobs, and hush-hush “defense contract” business. They also happen to produce barrels for paintball markers… now do you think their background might, just maybe, be a bit of a hook for the paintball market?

4. This Potatoes-In-A-Box mix reminds me of Mom…

If you’re up for it, consider latching onto your readers’ emotions. Now, watch it, you don’t want to get disingenuous with some over-the-top rhetoric about how if every household were to buy your blender, terrorism would end; maybe you want to start simple with something like, “Now you too can make margaritas like Grandma used to make with our stainless steel Blend-A-Whirl.”

Something to that effect…

5. PROOFREAD!

Oh yeah, it might not hurt to go back through once more to make sure the price you have listed is current, maybe the color, sizes, whatever it is the customer will want to know before adding to their shopping cart. Finding a listing that does contain the information they’re searching for is only a mouse click away after all.

Now, go out and write my pretties! Sell! SELL!

This is my first entry on the Adcuda blog. My name is Jennifer (though much to my dismay everyone seems to call me Jen) and I am the Accounts Director at Adcuda. In my role I collaborate with companies to develop a targeted plan to sell more online. One of my favorite things about my job is to hear other peoples stories. I am a sucker for a good story. Tell me about how you named your company after your great, great grandmother or how your dog’s smelly breath inspired your new line of luxury pet mouthwash and I’m in. I’m hooked. Lucky for me people love to tell their stories. Good, bad and indifferent people want to tell their tale. They are talking about their experiences everywhere — in line at the grocery store, at the little league game and online.

Social media is making it so easy for people to share their opinions, musings and outright rants with the world.

You have probably read about the “United Breaks Guitar” debacle in which United Airlines repeatedly refused to accept responsibility after damaging the guitars of Sons of Maxwell’s Dave Carroll. Dave ended up writing a song and creating a video (link below) about his negative experience and after some 6 million views the damage to United is immeasurable.

These days instead of calling your mom in Florida everytime you get upset about something you can post it to your blog, tweet about it and or produce a video that 6 million people watch.

Before you get too down on this “social media stuff” there is an advantage to all this talk — when we do something well people will want to sing our praises. Positive consumer experiences are amplified and often become the basis for our buying decisions. Amazon reviews are the perfect example this. If ten people have something great to say about that camera or newest gadget I’m probably going to buy it.

This idea reminded me of post on The Consumerist about a college kid whose $30 Adidas backpack and contents were ruined after being stuck in the rain. He contacted Adidas customer support and was able to provide a picture of the bag via email in place of the original receipt. He later received a big happy box that contained a $75 backpack. And what did he do? He told people about it. Good on ya, Adidas.

So I guess the take away is that your clients are talking about you whether you are listening or not.

Video

Consumerist Article

Value Brand vs. Archers Farm Design Difference

Graphic design can/will define the “quality” of your product, perceived or reality. It will influence the dollars in your customers’ hands. My best example I can conjure up is Archers Farms from Target. I’m not knocking Target in any way, but what’s inside those well designed and articulately engineered packages are the “Store Brand”, nothing different than Kroger or Hy-Vee. Because Target spent a fraction more on design, which returns ten-fold their products, has the perception of quality, which in return can bring in a high price tag. It could be argued that the packaging costs more because it’s “fancy” but the additional $$$ retail cost versus other store brands doesn’t justify the additional markup for nicer papers and full color prints.

For small business owners, this becomes extremely important because money is already tight but spending the time now will pay off. If you’re a do-it-yourselfer stay tuned each week, I’ll be posting my ideas, thoughts and resources that may help most of them for free.