Hello everyone!

First off, hope you had a fantastic holiday and start to the new year. Also, a HUUUGE thanks to everyone that made it out to our party on December 16th -- it was such a blast! We hope you had fun as well. To those that couldn't make it: you really missed out, but you were there in spirit. Thank you all for the love and support you've given us. Bonsai wouldn't be where we are today without it. We're hoping for even bigger and better prospects, clients, contracts, and consequently, parties in 2012 =D

Does it ever seem like I'm the only that posts in here, by the way? I guess we're the only department at BMG to do anything noteworthy... Or maybe I just like tooting our own horn. Regardless, another site has been designed by our awesome Creative team and developed in Umbraco by the development team. 

We've worked with Seattle Nutritionist Michelle Babb for a while on SEO, but to really push her rankings and conversions to the next level, she had to get a new website. Below is a screencap of the before- and after-shot of her website.

BEFORE

AFTER

We modernized the look and feel of the website with more color and interactivity. Plus, with the website in the Umbraco, Michelle can update the content at will. This website should last her for the next three to five years. So, if you are looking to upgrade the design of your website OR want to convert it into a content management system, contact us or give us a call -- we'd be happy to help in any way. If we can't meet your needs, there are lots of people in our network we know and trust that can help. Thanks and to a great 2012!

"Today, Google announced a change to its search algorithm that the company says will impact 35% of Web searches. The change builds on top of its previous “Caffeine” update in order to deliver more up-to-date and relevant search results, specifically those in areas where freshness matters. This includes things like recent events, hot topics, current reviews and breaking news items." - According to Tech Crunch.

The Caffeine update was focused on site speed and user experience. A slow loading website is a bad user experience. Google wants searchers to get to the information they are after as quickly as possible. A better total user experience means happy searchers who will continue to use Google.

Who will this latest update effect?

This latest update appears to focus on recognizing keywords that are news oriented where results that are more recent are more up to date and should be more relevant to the user. Therefore the latest update will surely effect news related sites, and event based SEO, like the Seattle Interactive Conference I'm currently at. For search terms where recency of information is not a relevance or quality factor like Seattle Plumber or Banana nut muffin recipe will not be effected. That being said creating freshness on your site or page is ALWAYS important and recommended, as it's just good marketing.

What can you do?

Here are some strategies for ensuring your website is not negatively effected and instead is actually positively effected:

1. Utilize a content management system - I am still amazed by the number of small and large business alike you cannot update the content on their site themselves.
2. Update your blog - If you have a blog, write regularly (note to self  )
3. Feed your blog into your homepage, and product and services page. 
4. For each of your "Top Content Pages" in Google Analytics get creative, how can you make them more engaging and a better resource?
5. Update your published meta when you make updates to your pages so that Google knows you've updated your page/site.
6. Enable customers to leave reviews - what's better than having your site visitors keep your site fresh? And remember if your scared what they'll say, remember they're gonna say it somewhere, at least you'll have be able to moderate it on your site. It's kind of like, if your kids are gonna party, which they will, maybe it should be at your house where you can ensure it's done safely... I know it's a stretch for many of you but it is this non conventional thinking that will really enable you to garner much greater informaiton about your users than those who run away from their customers.
7. Leverage Social Media - If you or your fans are constantly updating your social media profiles add social media widgets to get your feed into the pages of your site.  

If you're a Bonsai Media Group client, do not worry your site already leverages many of the above and if there is an opportunity to add any we will get right on it for you. 

This post is for the local, Seattle businesses that still think Yellow Pages is the best marketing and advertising channel. Did you know that people now can opt out of receiving them? Advertising in the Yellow Pages wasn't very efficient in the first place -- people having to find the book, then search for the service, but then what? There could be potentially hundreds of companies competing against you, but no way to differentiate yourself from them. Sure others might have the money to pay for an advertisement, but that doesn't necessarily mean they are the best candidate. Step into marketing in the 21st century. Not only can we create a brand and website that will be more eye-catching and interactive than some text on funny-feeling paper, but we can also help you get in front of prospective clients like Yellow Pages, with the differentiation that will make them choose you over your competition, with our local SEO packages. Contact us and we'll get you on the right track to start marketing in the tech age we live in today

Have a great weekend!

Hello World!

Today, we launched Alchemy Collections at alchemycollections.com! Alchemy came to Bonsai wanting to add SEO value to their website and one thing we noticed right away was the URLs' jumble of query strings. Not only is it not human-readable, but it's not SEO-friendly. We suggested a complete overhaul so they could design the site to better reflect the company and then we could start optimizing for search engines from the group up. We researched and settled upon AspDotNetStorefront (ASPDNSF) as their new e-commerce platform -- it is very customizable and SEO-friendly. Case in point: urls for products contain the product name without too much extraneous characters while a few other elements are customizable, like the page title and meta description. Alchemy designed the whole site themselves while we developed it -- we made their vision happen, which makes us feel awesome. For now, the site serves as more of a showroom of their available products, but whenever they do decide to sell online, it'll be ready for them.

If you are looking to sell products online and need a new website or even update to your current one, let us know. We can determine a course of action tailored to fit your business goals and needs, whether or not it involves ASPDNSF. Until the next launch ;-)

Phil

Google Vs. Facebook: Converting Visitors

Which is more valuable? a Facebook vistor or Google Visitor?

Accourind to a Chitika study of 70 million  impressions, " Google does a "much better job" at driving traffic and making sure it converts."

While Google Adwords (PPC) Click Through Rates can be roughly 2% compared to .3% for contextual advertising (ie facebook), Search cannot drive the number of impressions contextual advertising can. Therefore if your goal is brand awareness related you may consider focusing more on Facebook. If you're focus is on Clicks and Conversions you may want to focus on Search. Remember Adwords or PPC advertising CTR's are typically 2% the #1 organic ranked site can get CTR's of up to 42%! PPC = good, organic SEO = Better! when it comes to clicks, visitors and conversions.

Thanks for checking in!