Digital Marketing News in the Tampa Bay Area and Vestal New York.

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It’s All Semantics: How Latent Semantic Indexing is Changing Google Search and SEO

We here at Sun Sign Designs have lately focused on general topics and techniques to assist your company’s marketing. The reason for this is that it is essential that you have an understanding of how the fundamental concepts work together before delving into the more technical aspects of web presence. Today we’re focusing on one of those technical pieces: Latent Semantic Indexing, or LSI. This feature of Google’s search functionality ties directly in with one of our previous content topics, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), and it is critical to understand how LSI affects SEO in order to fully maximize your company’s online offering.

One of the simplest ways to describe LSI is to point out what it’s not, or to be more specific, what it’s replacing. For many non-marketing professionals, SEO is synonymous with Keyword Density, the easily exploitable system where the number of times a certain word is mentioned on your website will affect the location of your webpage rank in search results. While this may have been effective back in the early days of Google’s world-conquering search algorithm, using keyword density is no longer a viable option, as Google has phased out its use due to its contribution to inaccuracy for results.

LSI is the system that takes Keyword Density’s place. It groups words together into semantic systems, letting Google know when the related words on a website speak to a specific search. It’s best to show in examples: say you’re searching for Rolling Stones. Google knows that “Rolling” and “Stones” combines together to form the band name, and will avoid giving you results of rocks rolling down hills, even if that happened to be randomly trending at the moment. If you’re searching for an Oracle Developer, Google will know that you are searching for someone developing an Oracle database and not landscapers for ancient Greek monuments.

LSI does the heavy lifting for a user’s searches, connecting the informational dots, allowing Google to give more pertinent results for its visitors. So how can you capitalize on this new system? Content, as usual, is king here. Having high value content in every corner of your website will allow you to stand out among the crowd so that Google can use its LSI to your advantage. You look at your website and see well-made content—Google will see it as the brightest Christmas tree on the block when all the semantically related content relates with each other, catapulting your site above the rest to the top of users’ searches.

That last description doesn’t have to be an exaggeration for you—it can be a reality! Google prides itself on finding high value content, so it’s a triple win for Google, its users and your company if you have that kind of content on display for its search to find. Reach out to Sun Sign Designs today so we can give you all the technical knowhow of how LSI can help your business come out on top!

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More than the Bottom Line: Understanding Online Marketing ROI

Tracking results is a critical piece to your overall business, and it is important that you’re watching the right results when investing in an unpredictable force like online marketing. It makes sense to look at the cost being put in to these efforts, along with the direct profits earned from what you rightly see as a financial investment. But online marketing has metrics that can be difficult to successfully track unless you are being mindful and diligent, such as overall market awareness and the timing of your measurements. By keeping these criteria in mind, you will be able to properly keep an eye on your businesses efforts so you’re getting the best bang for your buck.

Let’s say you have an electronics store, with a new marketing campaign centered on selling new computers. You advertise on your website that your $600 desktops are now selling for $500 for the month, and you watch in satisfaction as an influx of new customers arrives to your store. Marketing campaign success? Sure, more customers came, but how do you know your competition may have had to raise prices that month, or that you may have got more customers if you lowered the price to $475, or even better, used a more robust email follow-up campaign to reconnect with previous customers due for an upgrade? Business is always in flux, and monitoring just the direct profits of your marketing efforts may not be enough to tell you why you got more customers, or how you could have had an even larger number of people come to your store.

Timing your measurements correctly is a more controllable variable than knowing everything that is going on in your market, but it’s also potentially a harder concept to grasp if you’re not ready to think scientifically. Jayson DeMers explains in his recent column for Forbes that looking only at ROI forces a “skewed perception that slants toward short-term results.” In other words, it is human nature to attribute effects such as profits or losses to the most recent effort done by your marketing team, as opposed to the strategy and efforts put in during the history of the marketing project or website. Online marketing content has a long “half-life” on the internet – articles you publish today will remain there for years to come if left undeleted. Visitors may stumble across an article from 2013 from your website that happens to have topics trending in 2016, and decide to go with your services due to your wise advice. If your tracking is only measuring the visit without tracing it to the source, you may think those visitors were due to your most recent marketing efforts, therefore leading you to miss out on capitalizing on the new trend and the ability to connect with more prospects.

In either of these cases, it helps to have a team of professionals to handle the tracking so you can keep an eye on the bigger targets. Sun Sign Designs is staffed with experts ready to help you deal with these issues. We are able to conduct a full marketing strategic report for you so you understand the impact of your marketing efforts, along with a detailed of analysis of where you are getting your website visitors and how you can get more of them. Call us today to schedule your consultation!

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Keeping an Eye on Growing Cyber Security Threats in 2016

When considering taking your business online, internet security is an issue that for some is a huge point of concern, and for others maybe it should be a bigger one. Owning an online business puts you at risk for virus attacks, malware, and malicious hacking attempts. And being a small business is no defense, and can actually be a bigger weakness—according to the International Data Corporation, small businesses account for 71% of the cyber security threats. Assaults on larger firms make for bigger headlines in the news, but no matter the size of your business, it is critical to decide how your company can handle the developing security dangers out there.

Back in January, Sun Sign Designs reported on the Internet of Things and the growth of previously non-online physical objects, including vending machines, umbrellas, biofeedback wristbands, etc. Given the potential for expansion in this field, it’s no surprise that independent inventors, small tech firms and global companies alike are looking to cash in on the possible smart object that will be the iPhone’s successor. But as Apple’s recent brush with the FBI shows, data encryption and security for your handheld phone is no lightweight matter, and it’s no accident that malware threats are increasingly targeting smart objects as the way to get into your precious files.

Up to now, most internet devices have had technology that included a processor that could handle connecting to the internet along with standard computing functions – think personal computers and laptops. As smartphones, e-readers, and gaming systems also went online, for the most part, they had a large firm such as Apple, Amazon, Microsoft or Sony backing the technology, so it was a logical step to imagine these firms handling thesecurity threats to these new types of internet-ready hardware. But the Internet of Things offers the opportunity for  any electronic device to connect to the internet with its function. It’s this inherent deregulation of the concept that is the cause for alarm.

For small businesses, being aware of the potential threats is part of the battle. As Site Pro News reports, small businesses “are easier targets” for hackers to take on than global firms. They recommend an “ABC” approach to establishing a security presence:

Assess: Know what assets, resources and risks need to be protected; Build: An organizational security policy to be prioritized through leadership; Control: Establish the tools and control systems most suited to your organization and security blueprint; Deploy: Implement the tools; Educate: Ensure employees and executives understand the policy and are aware that security is everyone’s responsibility; Further: Continue to assess new security trends, conduct tests, and further integrate more powerful tactics in cyber-security.

Knowing the right approach to cyber-security involves having both the experience and the resources necessary in order to protect your valuable work. That’s why trusting the experts at Sun Sign Designs is the right call. We provide a full range of services that can be tailored to the specific security needs of your business. Reach out to us today!

Avoiding the Spam Folder: How to have Stronger Email Communication with Your Customers

Email is a critical piece to the puzzle of reaching and holding onto the attention of your customers, but often this powerful mode of communication is wasted. Email spam has become an accepted reality for most information age consumers, however that doesn’t stop some from employing heavy filters on their incoming mail to avoid having to deal with the garbage that is sent their way. Your company’s ability to establish a meaningful conversation with consumers will help keep you out of the snares of these filters so you can maintain your connection with your customers.

In many ways, email is one of the true equalizers in terms of communicating with a different party. Anyone can have an email address, and send email to and from that address. This is different than, of course, regular mail, which requires a physical location someplace to house the mail and actual postage being paid to deliver your message. One of the fundamental facts of email is that it’s free – a gift and a curse, as many companies and other nefarious entities choose to exploit email to send all kinds of nasty and pointless communication. And it’s the pointless communication that actually does email as a whole a disservice: we expect our filters to screen out the nasty stuff, but what of the generic cookie-cutter messages large corporations or well-meaning small businesses send out as a puny attempt to connect with thousands of consumers at once? The truth is, if these messages aren’t targeted or personalized, they do more than bore the consumer—they risk turning off the customer completely and lead them to find a new source of services.

The first step to writing effective emails is to just stop abusing the ability email provides where you can send a mass amount of messages at once. Sure, there’s nothing stopping you from sending out emails to every address collected by visits to your website, but you need to pause, take a breath, and ask yourself why you’re doing such a thing. You certainly don’t want people to regret having visited your website, as the wrong kind of word-of-mouth can spread faster than you can say “Kanye West Twitter feed.” Instead of doing this kind of easily avoidable damage to your brand, consider how identifying key issues for your prospective consumer can help establish that initial foothold to build a relationship going forward. They took the time to visit your website—do they have one of their own? Maybe a social media presence that’s open to the public could provide a few clues to writing the best message to them. Doing a little research on your end so that you can craft something meaningful for that person is simply a better strategy than firing away random messages into the wide expanses of the internet, hoping for a response that, in reality, has to be earned.

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The Nuts and Bolts: Code Implementation in Mobile SEO Performance

Whether you are starting a website from scratch or revising previous design situations, the way code is implemented on your website can have a big impact on the performance of your site on mobile devices. The words “code implementation” may make some non-technical professionals want to turn in the other direction to find a cute puppy or kitten video on YouTube, but it’s still an important decision for your website regardless of your level of expertise in the IT field. The reason for this is the growing presence of people’s use of mobile devices to access the Internet. If you’re not reaching these people, you are losing out on a growing segment of the marketplace that could one day easily replace desktop users completely.

For those who still feel that we’re speaking a foreign language when it comes to coding, the simplest solution is the best one for you in this instance. When Google released its new rules regarding coding implementation last year, they suggested what is known as “responsive design” to be the preferred choice for its browser. As ClickSeed explains, “Responsive design delivers the same code to the browser on a single URL for each page, regardless of device, and adjusts the display in a fluid manner to fit varying display size.” Easy enough—make responsive design the way your website implements coding, and both Desktop users and Mobile users will see the same content, just in a different manner given the screen size. So why would you choose something different? Two things: responsive design may create a slower experience for the mobile user if the webpage load is too big, which is a big no-no in the speedy world of mobile. In addition, responsive design discards the opportunity of designing a truly mobile experience for your visitors.

There are two other methods to try other than responsive design to give your visitors a more diverse field of options. For those not afraid of higher maintenance costs, separate URLs (website addresses) for Desktop and Mobile is an option. In this case, the mobile site is in a sub-domain of the main site (or some other kind of similar configuration), and this allows for more customization of the mobile platform. The drawbacks are obvious – the aforementioned higher cost along with the increased difficulty of monitoring for duplicate content on both sites. Those choosing this route are accepting higher upkeep for a richer overall experience for mobile users.

The final option is a hybrid choice between responsive design and separate URLs: dynamic serving. In this case, you are using the same URL for Desktop and Mobile, but the server knows to deliver different content depending on the device. At first this option seems like the best of both worlds: you’re able to customize the mobile experience while also keeping everything on one URL. However, the cost here comes in the dramatic increase of technical resources needed to operate dynamic serving. You will want someone who absolutely knows what they’re doing to implement this, and the upkeep is comparable to having separate URLs. In the future, dynamic serving may become an increasingly popular option as the cost and technical requirements for advanced computing continue to decline.

So which implementation is right for you? Do you have it all figured out, or are you still reaching for your YouTube bookmark to get a cute animal video fix? Regardless of your level of technical expertise, it’s still a very good idea to connect with web development experts in order to make the best decision for your business. Sun Sign Designs has been studying Mobile SEO before it became the phenomenon it is today, and we are ready to help you in this growing development in the online marketing field. Reach out to us now!

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Making the Grade: Google’s Quality Content Rating

What if we asked you to grade your website? Would you give it an A out of beaming pride, a B as an acknowledgement of a future business project, or maybe a C with a shrug and a smirk, silently saying to yourself, “who cares?” Well, none other than our friends over at Google care. Google employs “Search Quality Evaluators” to monitor individual websites in order to rank them in their search engine algorithm, and if your website doesn’t meet their criteria, any previous attempts you have made to boost your ranking could be made pointless. Google recently updated their evaluator guidelines, and it is vital for the continued online growth of your business that you have an understanding of these new rules.

For some, it may come as a shock just to realize that there are actual real life people ranking individual websites for Google. What about those fancy keyword algorithms and automated web crawlers it uses to decide search rank? (Actually it will likely be more comforting for some to know that real people are taking over for the robot spiders.) Google is well aware of SEO marketers attempting to “game” their algorithm and automated features, finding loopholes in the system through cheap Black Hat SEO practices. And while you may really feel that you are helping the broader population by boosting your website’s rank with standard SEO – making sure to prioritize popular search terms in your articles, and providing answers to commonly asked questions – Google has its own opinion on what meets their criteria. And that opinion can be boiled down to two words to remember: expert content.

By employing human readers to judge for expert content, Google is able to bring a silent sense of certification and rigor that is often lacking in the darker corners of the Internet. Site evaluators are tasked with following a simple acronym E-A-T to determine expert content: E for expertise, A for authoritativeness, and T for trustworthiness. In a sense, these are all self-explanatory, but it is essential for you to know that Google is grading you on these items. It’s worth taking another look at your web page (see, we are asking you to grade it after all) and check if you measure up to these standards. Would you say that a sense of expertise and authoritativeness shines through the text and images? What other sites does your website link to that show it can be called a trusted source of information? And most importantly, how would a complete stranger rate you in these areas? It’s this last question that you have to be able to answer satisfactorily in order to rest assured that you’re making Google’s grade.

As with most things involving the internet, this article doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of the intricacies involved with meeting Google’s new content standards. That’s why reaching out to Sun Sign Designs will be a great help to your business. We’ll be able to provide you with all the information necessary to meet these new demands so your company can continue to grow. Contact us today!

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Mobile Marketing and SEO: Increase the Eye-Hand Device Coordination of Your Customers

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As mobile devices increasingly become a part of our daily lives and routines, smart marketers know that the fastest growing way to reach consumers will be through their phones. Is your online strategy suited to connect with consumers in this fashion? The rules of website development change when your consumer’s viewing space is less than 3×5 inches and there are literally hundreds of possible distractions available on the same device, let alone the world around them, to keep your customers’ attention away from what you’re trying to say. By following the below best practices that are geared towards Mobile Marketing and Search Engine Optimization, your company will be well-positioned to take advantage of this market as it continues to grow.

Just as mobile operating systems caused application developers to rethink their approach to design, mobile web rules are forcing marketers into adapting to the new platform. First and foremost, your company’s web page loading speed is essential—mobile devices are built to give consumers’ access to all their favorite applications with a touch of a button, and if your website can’t compete at that same pace, it might as well not exist as far as the consumer is concerned.  This also means that content in Flash and Pop-ups should be used very carefully in your mobile site, if at all. Not every phone is optimized to use Flash, and a failure to load content, or to have it blocked by a distracting pop-up ad will be a surefire way to lose a good portion of your consumers.

In fact, the way consumers interact with mobile devices may cause you to reconsider your entire internet marketing strategy altogether. It’s no coincidence the rise of social media’s ability to drive web traffic has correlated with the wider use of mobile internet devices. Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are ideal for consumers to quickly view items, favorite them, and to leave a comment for others to see. A robust social media presence for your company will allow you to appeal to these users. And depending on your company’s bravery and how much money you have budgeted for it, you can take the plunge into mobile application development itself, much in the same way that Nike, Under Armour, and even food services such as Taco Bell have done. It’s true that these are all examples of large companies who have the massive budget available for this kind of expansion, but the rapid success and growth of a firm such as Uber demonstrates how the right mobile application can remake an entire industry into one company’s favor.

The mobile platform is here to stay for the foreseeable future. Given that, whether or not your company will be here for that long will depend on no small part on its ability to be appealing to consumers on mobile devices. This is advanced level stuff—your digital strategy, social media, regular SEO, email follow-up, website conversions, website analytics, namely everything needs to be on point before you can dream of dominating the mobile device field. And Sun Sign Designs is here for you. By handling the infrastructure and essential components of your marketing strategy, we’ll help you optimize your site so you can capitalize on this necessary platform. Don’t hesitate—reach out now!

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Your Business is Never Too Small to Have a Website

The start of a business is one of the most momentous occasions in the lifetime of any company. And when you’re at the beginning, you make the decision relatively early on if you’re going to have a website for your customers to see. It can be a yes-no decision, or an item where you’ll get to it “someday.” Once the decision has been made, you move on to more pressing matters, and if the website plan has been kicked to the curb, it’s possible that you never went back to it. Many small companies feel that they are unable to afford a website or even handle the positive growth effects it can bring to their businesses. By leveraging the right resources and partners, your company can move beyond such limitations and take advantage of the huge opportunity provided by owning a website.

If you’re in the business of producing media, having a website may seem like a no-brainer, as it offers a cost-effective solution to showcase your products. However, if you’re not producing media that can be digitized easily, then the appeal of a website may not be as obvious. You may feel your product or services speak for themselves, so the idea of relying on images or videos may feel off-putting to your cash-strapped company. It’s this second group that needs the current pep talk.

Having your own website is a critical and necessary driver of revenue in our current market. An increasing number of customers and leads are found online, and not having a website means there is no way for interested parties to find out more about you, and you have no way of controlling your brand online. A random disgruntled customer could write a review of your company on Yelp or the Better Business Bureau website, which may become the first result that comes up from Google when people search for you. Translation: not good. Also, as internet savvy millennials continue to enter the workforce, gain access to company budgets, and become heavy-hitting corporate decision makers, it is vital for your company’s continuing existence to reach this escalating market of untapped potential.

Uncontrolled growth is another concern besides cost that holds back some companies from taking the crucial step of going online. Having a website will without doubt increase the demand and scrutiny upon what your company has to offer, and many small businesses may not wish to participate in the unorganized chaos that sometimes correctly describes the internet. Uncontrolled growth can be just as damaging as rapid decline for some companies, and cautious firms may wish to stay off the radar to avoid the pressure of being in the public eye. In this case it’s important to consider how your website can be constructed so that customers are directed to the information that matters, as opposed to how messy sites look when they were made by a team of unpaid interns. Less is often more in business, and having a beautiful, elegant site can appeal to your own tastes and allow customers to feel like they are working with truly professional partners.

Your company is never too small to have a website. And while there are many cheap solutions online that will allow you to slap together something in a hurry, is that really how you want to appear to the masses of new customers waiting to utilize your services? Turn to Sun Sign Designs for help, where we will allow you to create the website of your dreams while keeping within your budget. Reach out to us today!

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How Google’s New Rules Will Change the Way You Manage Your Content

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One of the realities of managing an online web presence is that the factors that contribute to your overall strategy will always be changing. Seemingly minute adjustments to Google’s algorithm can send your once popular website to the depths of pages 13-14 in the results. For 2016, Google is establishing a new method of ranking content, making expert content a premium influence on your page’s relevance and ranking. Your company’s ability to leverage expert content will ensure its placement in the top of Google’s results this year and ones going forward.

So what defines expert content? It depends on your business and your audience. Google is going to look closely at your website to decide if the content matches your field. If you happen to be in the health care field, for instance, and you are giving medical opinions to patients online, your content must be written by a certified expert (in this case, a doctor or something similar) in order to be ranked high by Google. However, if your content is geared to where your advice is sought on a more casual basis, Google is applying a more informal definition of expert, and won’t penalize your page for not having a certification.

The benefits of having expertly written content extend beyond the compliance with Google’s rules. As Julia Spence-McCoy, the CEO of Express Writers explains, the versatility of expert writers can anticipate reader questions in advance, utilize unique sources of data, enlighten readers with new knowledge, focus on what’s most relevant in a sea of data, and provide a unique charm that their years of experience gives them.

In addition to the expert content stipulation, Google is cracking down on keyword density approaches to Search Engine Optimization. In general, loading your page with repetition of keywords is to be avoided. Besides appearing sleazy to website visitors, there is now a tangible reason for doing away with this practice. Google has employed what is known as a “Hummingbird Algorithm update” to its search methodology, which is causing the need for websites to be more sensitive to what are known as semantic searches. Semantic searches look beyond the mere repetition of keywords to the intent and relevance of the user query. This circles back to our advice about using expert content, as now, more than ever, having content geared to what users are actively searching for is paramount.

Sun Sign Designs can help you further understand the importance of expertly created content, and how to leverage the resources you currently have available along with those we will provide in order to create powerful material that appeals to your audience and ranks high with Google.  Reach out to us today!

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Video Marketing Will Continue to Grow in Importance in 2016

Online video is set to remain a powerful media phenomenon going into 2016, and many companies are contributing to the trend. According to AOL research, advertising budgets are shifting away from TV toward digital platforms. This trend is in line with the viewing habits of Americans, as they are watching less as many television channels than ever despite the increase of viewing options, and there are an increasing number of viewers “cutting the cord” of cable and moving to online only viewing, watching Netflix and Hulu while saving money on the overall package. As mobile technology becomes increasingly prevalent, businesses are making sure that any media they create is able to be accessed online to reach potential customers. By utilizing online video, your company can also maximize its value with its marketing and advertising, allowing you to stay ahead of the trend.

How prominent is video on your company website? Cisco has projected that over 80% of consumer web traffic will be video by 2019.  Now, this doesn’t mean that websites will be 80% video—video streaming alone uses a lot more data than just text on a screen—but it does show just how dominant video will continue to be for the remainder of this decade. If your website does not feature some form of embedded video, customers may form a judgement on your services as not being able to either afford or care enough to go the extra step to connect with them. Another advantage is that on mobile technology, video takes up the whole screen, allowing consumers to focus exactly on the content that you have to offer.

Many small businesses shy away from video marketing, thinking it would be too costly an expense for their marketing efforts. But the impact of video more than outweighs the cost, as your company is 53% more likely end up on the front page of Google  search results just by having it featured. As long as your website landing pages and Call to Action buttons on your website are organized correctly (Don’t know what we mean? Click here!), a higher Google ranking should immediately cause more profits to head your direction. While video does create a positive impact, you want to make sure it creates the most bang for your buck as well. Remember to keep your videos short (less than 2 minutes is ideal to maintain customers’ attention) and to create a link back to your website so consumers know where to find you.

Still not sure what’s the next best step? You can reach out to Sun Sign Designs today, and we will explain all the benefits and opportunities that video marketing can bring. Don’t get left behind on this important trend, as it is here for the long haul!