Explore how to analyze web data to determine if your category pages, detail pages and checkout process are performing up to par and discuss best practices to help improve performance and increase revenue.

More on Sage Island Speaking Engagements Here

We’re proud to announce the launch of three new websites!

McGraw Hardscapes came to Sage Island to update the look and feel of their website and to increase the functionality of the site.  Sage Island developed a fully editable site that allows for updates to the text, photo gallery images and press releases.  The design was customized to showcase the beautiful designs of McGraw Hardscapes.

The newly redesigned Flow Sciences website launched on August 14th.  The client sought our services to redesign their existing website and develop an interactive site that allowed visitors to register and login to access technical product information.  The new site includes a flash header to showcase the different product areas of Flow Sciences.  The site was developed utilizing a content management system and gives Flow Sciences the ability to edit text, images and documents contained within the site.

Nalley Properties launched their new website on August 21st. The new Nalley Properties website includes the ability for the client to enter in available properties and allows visitors to search by property name and location.  The site includes a Google Maps application that maps the available properties and display them on a state by state basis.  The site also features a maintenance request form that allows tenants to contact Nalley directly with any issues they may have.

Surf Expo – Orange County Convention Center
Orlando, Florida
Friday, August 21 at 2:00

ECOMMERCE STRATEGIES FOR MULTI-CHANNEL SUCCESS
In this seminar you will learn everything from the state of retailing online to driving web traffic, search engine marketing and POS integration. The digital channel is retail’s new growth engine and you must master this domain in order to be a successful retailer. Learn ten things that you can do to improve your ecommerce website.

Extensive keyword research is the first step to any search marketing campaign. Keyword research is the framework on which your entire campaign is built, whether you’re using search engine optimization, pay-per-click advertising, or both. If you don’t get your keywords right, your efforts will be wasted.

If you’ve started on the wrong foot, there’s still time. Good keyword research is an evolution. The world of search is constantly changing, and your keywords should, too. The terms that people are using today may not be the most successful six months from now.

Whether you’re putting together your first keyword list or adapting your current list, here are some tips to get you started.

Don’t use the same keyword list for your SEO and PPC campaigns.

SEO and PPC are complete different, and they require different keyword lists. In fact, most of the keywords you use for SEO probably won’t even end up on your PPC list. PPC keyword lists are highly targeted — you’re looking for keywords that will target a very specific audience to ensure you’re not spending money on clicks from tire-kickers. For SEO, your keywords should be relevant, but much broader to reach a larger search audience.

Never build a keyword list based on assumptions.

No matter how well you know your target audience, the truth is that as a business owner you think differently than your consumers. Many marketers and business owners create keyword lists based on their knowledge of the business instead of search volume. They’re surprised to discover that consumers are searching for a completely different list of terms. Your technical knowledge may be preventing you from finding the laymen’s terms for which your customers are searching. While a good knowledge of the terminology in your business is a great place to start your research, you need metrics to back you up. Use a keyword research program like Keyword Discovery or WordTracker, Google AdWords’ Keyword Tool to ensure that the keywords are the right ones.

Break long keyword phrases into pieces.

For SEO, try breaking your keyword phrases into smaller pieces to maximize your reach. For example, while “new houses for sale” may have a decent search volume, you might have better results with something like “new home listings,” because it works as a stand-alone keyword phrase, two separate shorter phrases (new home and home listings), and home has a higher search volume than houses. Create power phrases by ensuring that each and every word in your keyword phrase packs a punch.

Choose your keywords wisely.

Once you’ve built a long list of potential keywords, it’s decision time. For PPC, you can test a long list of keywords to find the most successful. For SEO, you need to be a little more selective. The most successful optimizations use a very short list of keywords — no more than 3 for each page. Don’t just choose the keywords with the highest search volume. Look deeper to create longer keyword phrases that will garner search volume without being too competitive. Find a balance between search volume, competition, and relevance.

Constantly update your keywords based on analytics, conversions, and traffic.

Good keyword research can create a pretty powerful initial list, but you’re not finished. You need to make constant adjustments. With PPC, the changes will most likely be daily, especially in the beginning. Watch your click-through rates and conversions to ensure that your keywords are driving relevant traffic without costing too much, and keep an eye on your analytics to find negative keywords.

SEO is a long-term process, so you’ll want to give your site some time to collect data before making changes. Monitor your analytics constantly to determine which keywords are driving the most traffic to your site. If you’re not getting the results you wanted after a month or two, it may be time to make some changes, shift your focus, or find new keywords.

There is a ton of useful information in your main AdWords campaign summary pages, especially now that they’ve released the new interface (still in beta).  However, on these pages and even in Analytics, you don’t get to see the whole story. To most accurately target the keywords, ads & budgets of my AdWords accounts, there are several reports that I rely on which fill in the gaps that are missing from the main performance data.

Search Query Performance Report

Most likely, your ad groups are composed of keywords set to broad, phrase, and exact match (and if not, they should be). With broad match keywords, your ad is triggered when a user searches on a term that Google determines to be similar to your keyword. The Search Query Report lists the exact search queries which triggered your ads and resulted in clicks.

By looking at the report, you can determine new keywords, or even ad groups, which you hadn’t originally included by seeing which terms are receiving the most clicks and/or conversions. I’ve also found the Search Query Report to be extremely useful in determining negative keywords for my campaigns, especially with short-tail terms. The report identifies variations that don’t match the original intent of my keywords.

Account/Campaign/Ad Group/Keyword Performance

Depending on how specific you are looking to get, you might use these reports to see an overall view of your data for any amount of time.  However, I’ve found the best thing about these reports to be their customizability, from a unit of time, to a date range, to specifically what type of data I am looking to see (CTR, conversions, etc.).

I have often used these reports to show the historical success of my campaigns over each day of the week. By selecting “day of week” from the drop down menu and choosing a relatively large amount of time, I can often determine the best days to focus our clients’ PPC budgets, which can be extremely beneficial, especially for smaller ad budgets. A similar report can be used to determine peak hours of the day (choose hourly from the drop down menu). By taking advantage of AdWords’ ad scheduling feature, you can focus your budget only during the hours of the day in which you receive the heaviest number of clicks.

Geographic Report

Whether you are a large nationwide operation or a small local company, geotargeting is an important tool. The Geographic Report is an excellent way to determine areas in which you have the most success (or the least). The report can be customized to show as broad of an area as entire countries, or as narrow as a single city.

If you find that your ads are especially successful in a certain area, it might be worthwhile for you to allocate a certain amount of your budget to specifically target that region (just make sure to exclude that area from any other campaigns which might overlap those targeted regions). You may also find areas where your ads are far less successful. In that case, it may be wise to exclude these areas in an effort to focus your ad dollar on those regions which are most likely to convert.

These are just a few of my favorites. There are plenty of other reports in AdWords that are also highly beneficial, and I encourage you to dig around and explore this often underused feature.  No matter your PPC advertising budget, each of these can help you to allocate your budget in the most efficient, targeted way.

Usability is one of the most important (and often overlooked) elements of search engine optimization. If your website is designed for the end user, you’ll reap the benefits in your search engine rankings and your customers will be more likely to interact with your website in the way that you desire.

Keep these usability best practices in mind as you design your website to ensure a good user experience and better search engine results:

Navigation

• Include a clear navigation bar that links to every page on your website and appears consistently on each page.
• Link to pages on your website internally throughout the copy using relevant, keyword-rich anchor text.
• Use breadcrumbs to show users where they are and where they came from.

Accessibility

• File sizes for your pages should ideally be smaller than 200KB to optimize loading time and search engine crawling.
• Place copy in the first 100KB to ensure that your keyword-rich content is being crawled and indexed.
• Keep pages as close to the root as possible. Users and search engines should be able to reach each page on your site from the homepage in two clicks or less.
• Utilize permanent 301 redirects for known deleted pages to land users on a similar page and maintain links.
• Use a custom 404 page to redirect users and search engines that have reached a page that no longer exists on your site back to the most useful content on your site.

Readability

• Don’t use fancy fonts for your body copy. Simple fonts, preferably sans serif, are easiest on the eyes and most likely to display properly on all browsers.
• Write clear, concise content for each page. Web users get overwhelmed with huge blocks of text, so limit the amount of text on each page.
• Break up large blocks of text into bite-sized pieces with headers.

Simplicity

• Keep your on-page code as clean as possible by moving JavaScript and style sheets into external files.
• Use animation and Flash sparingly. Too much animation can be distracting for users, and while search engines are getting better at indexing Flash, it’s not perfect yet.

Optimization

• Focus on one page at a time in your optimization, and optimize it for no more than three highly relevant keywords. This will tell users and search engines what the page is about quickly and easily.

Finally, be sure to test run usability tests with several user types likely to visit your site to catch problems that normal users may encounter. Be sure to run tests on all of the major browsers (Internet Explorer 7 & 8, Firefox, and Safari). What works on one browser may not work on another.

This morning Sage Island CEO and creative director Mike Duncan participated in a panel discussion hosted by the Greater Wilmington Business Journal on leveraging the power of the Internet for business. More than 500 community members and business leaders attended. Mike and the five other panel members — including Chip Mahan, president of Live Oak Bank; Brett Martin, president of Castle Branch; Fred Meyers, president of Queensboro Shirt Company; Justin Queen, president of Blu Zeus Interactive; and Debbie Elliott, president of Talk Inc. — answered questions from the audience about online marketing and social media.

For those of you who couldn’t attend the event, here are the CliffsNotes:

Talk to your customers, not at them.

Social media has changed a lot about the way that businesses market themselves online and offline. But most of those changes can be summed up with one simple idea: the practice of talking at your customers through your marketing has been replaced by conversation. Talk to them through social media, blogs, and other interactive sources. The conversation is happening with or without you. Your customers are probably already talking about your business, reviewing your services, and recommending you (or complaining) online. By participating in the conversation, you’ll build a stronger relationship with your customers and put yourself in a better position to control your brand.

User generated content is the new king.

According to a recent Forrester survey on how technology decision makers in business utilize social media during the buying process, 69 percent of the 1,200 respondents “read blogs, forums and reviews, keep track of podcasts, and watch video from other users” before making purchasing decisions. People trust these sources, because this content is coming from users just like them.

Becoming a participant in blogs, forums, and review communities where your customers are likely to partipate can help stimulate conversation. Seek opinions about your business and your services, and listen carefully to what they’re saying about you. Monitoring the conversation allows you to respond quickly to complaints and make the situation right with the customer — and potential customers who may see the negative review. But remember, transparency is essential. Be clear about who you are, and seek engagement with your customers honestly.

In social media, you are your business.

In order to succeed at social media, it’s essential that you put a human face on your company. People talk to people. Be prepared to get personally involved in your social media campaigns. It’s important to remember, though, that you’re representing your business. Don’t get too caught up in the personal aspect of social media. Many users have gotten into trouble for various degrees of oversharing. Think carefully before you post anything, and remember that the Internet is forever. Would you shout it or share it in front of a roomful of people at a professional networking event? If the answer is no, then don’t post it on your social media profile.

Adapt early for maximum benefit.

By the time an online marketing method has gone mainstream, it’s already old news. Early adapters reap the most benefit from new methods, because they have more time to learn about it and test new ideas. By the time it reaches the mainstream, the early adapters are already pros with a solid grasp of how best to utilize the latest technology. Stay up to date with new ideas, work with interactive marketing professionals who can guide you in new technology, and stay ahead of the curve.

Be innovative.

Mike Duncan closed the panel discussion with a word of advice: “Be innovative.” The world of online marketing is changing so rapidly that there’s no telling where it will go next. If you want to stay ahead, you have to be open to new ideas and willing to try new things. Emerging technologies and interactive marketing methods may seem foreign, but marketing hasn’t changed. The tools are just a little different now. It’s impossible to predict where online marketing will go next, so the best way to stay ahead of the game is to be ready for anything.