Why do older unoptimized sites sometimes rank better than younger optimized ones?

It’s a good question and I like the way she answered it. I’m going to give my own answer now even though she and I are in agreement.

The search engines have well over 100 criteria that they judge when deciding which sites rank for specific keyword phrases. The algorithms are such that no criteria is weighted so heavily that it dominates all other criteria. On-page optimization is just one ranking factor. Other ranking factors that influence where websites fall in the line up include:

• Age of the domain
• Relevance of inbound links to the domain
• Quality of inbound links to the domain
• Server neighborhood of the domain
• Registration history and future of the domain
• Web page load time
• Code to text ratio
• Link attributes and graphic alt tags
• Many, many more

There is more to website optimization than merely choosing the right keywords and placing them a number of times within your content. Internal links are important, site navigation is important, and there are a ton of off site optimization techniques that are looked at. If an older non-optimized site in your niche is outranking you, it is likely because it is doing enough things right that the one ranking factor (on-page optimization) simply isn’t enough to push it down and push you up.

The good news: Over time, if you keep doing enough of the right things, you should be able to bridge the gap.

Find out the 3 essential elements to ranking a web site well in any search engine.

The story is the perfect illustration of how exceptional service can lead to word of mouth buzz. It’s uncommon and this type of service doesn’t happen every day, which is what makes it worth talking about. And if you perform that kind of service for your customers then you’ll be talked about too.

Never deny the power of word of mouth advertising. It’s cheap advertising, but by cheap I don’t mean non-valuable. The value is immeasurable. It’s inexpensive because you don’t have to shell out dollars and hope it works. It is costly, however, because exceptional service requires some level of risk that must be managed. Still, it’s worth every ounce of it. There is no substitute for word of mouth buzz, even for a small business.

So this post will (almost) totally ignore SEO, and focus purely on some small changes I would make to the website of the Vhi, Ireland’s dominant private health insurance company, in order to improve UX by 100%.

Vhi - Voluntary Health Insurance (vhi.ie)

As a long-time Vhi customer I’m always delighted with the friendly customer-centric approach of their staff. Whenever I call their landlines the vibe and response of their call centre staff is quite inspirational. Seriously - I’ve never had a bad experience calling these guys.

But does that translate to a great online experience?

Replicating the Offline Experience to your Online Channel

Unfortunately for me the simple answer is no - I always find the UX on their website far less compelling. So I’ve put together 5 simple actions I would take to improve the online experience. My top tip is so simple, but incredibly the issue it fixes is quite likely losing Vhi sales. I’ll go in reverse order, keeping the best till last:

If it’s a button don’t tell me to ‘click here’…

I did say ‘if’. This is a pet hate of mine, but I think many people would agree. If you have to tell me to ‘click here’ so I know an element is a button then the element isn’t doing its job:

Click here.. oh it’s a button?

4. I’d love to talk…

These days there is real global push on business efficiency. And many companies are directing support and customer service to more effective communication channels. Judging by the Vhi site they must feel that email is more efficient than the phone line. How can I tell this? The phone number is buried 2 clicks from the homepage. Here’s what you see when you click the ‘Contact’ utility link in the header:

VHI Contact Page

Firstly - no phone number. Instead a form. Something that’s been borne out again and again through testing - users are put off by longer forms. I have a question about my policy and I’d like an answer now. Filling a (long) form doesn’t give me confidence that I’ll receive a timely and accurate answer. In fact, in my particular case I came to the site to find their phone number (as I’m sure many others do also). But I cant easily see any phone contacts. I’m certainly not being pushed into a phone session am I? (One thing I do like about this form is the ability to find my policy number - maybe I’m the exception to the rule, but my policy number is something I never have to hand.)

Without wanting to give away my next tip, there are in fact some further links to phone contacts. There not exactly screaming out however. Let me suggest a small change:

Using underline style helps links stand out

And again with some further styling changes:

Using conventional blue underlined links

And that leads me nicely to my next gripetip

3. Stick with convention - let the links be themselves

Over the past few years I’ve grown more and more convinced that convention is a good thing. When I land on a web page it’s great to easily and quickly identify either what I’m looking for, or how to get there. In the case of the latter using conventionally styled hyperlinks can be a real plus.

Here’s a page from Vhi’s Mutlitrip Insurance section:

Vhi Multitrip Insurance Homepage

And here’s another page one click deeper, the ‘How to Contact/Claim’ page:

Vhi Mutlitrip Insurance Contact and Claim Page

So can you tell where the hyperlinks are? OK - I did shrink the page to fit my blog, but even at that size you’d easily be able to see a blue underlined link. Here’s the last page, but this time using conventional styling on the links:

Example using conventional hyperlink styling

Did you notice that both original images used bulleted lists? But did you realise that one of those lists was actually live links while the other was not? That, in my opinion, confuses users. And confusion, or to be more correct, avoiding confusion, is one of the primary reasons I’m a convert when it comes to convention styling on links.

I know that occasionally blue links wont fit with the theme of your site, but I don’t think you should ever use purple non-underlined text hyperlinks. This is doubly confusing because, by convention, purple is the colour conventionally used to signify a visited link. It appears however that the styling used on Vhi.ie is purple non-underlined for links the user has already visited (did you notice that on the ‘Phone’ link in Point 4. above?). Not ideal in my view, and trivial to fix even for a large site like Vhi.ie (the joys of CSS!).

So there’s Tip #3 - within body content use conventional blue underlined text for hyperlinks, purple for visited links.

2. Show me where I am

Here’s the Vhi’s Multitrip Insurance page:

Multitrip Insurance Page - where I am within the site?

But if you landed on that page would you have any idea where you were on the site? Can you see any indication of your location within the hierarchy? There are some relatively simple ways to do this:

1. Use a current class on primary and secondary navigation - active class styling on the Products link in the main navigation, and similarly, on the ‘Multi Trip’ link in the secondary navigation.
2. Use a Breadcrumb to indicate current location - simple but effective tool that helps ‘ground’ users, and assist with internal navigation (and search engine optimisation)

Here’s what a breadcrumb device might look like on that page:

Use a breadcrumb to indicate current location

So my pen-ultimate tip - give adequate indication of current location. It helps ground the user, and facilitates vertical navigation.

1. Where are you vhi.ie?

Here’s the biggest flaw, and also the easiest to fix. It still stuns me when I find this flaw, even more so for a large corporate site which is a profit-center in its own right. I’ve written about this issue previously for nch.ie, and here it is again. (And just in case you don’t think this is widespread - for months http://iedr.ie showed the same behaviour. This has since been fixed though.)

Requesting http://vhi.ie (non-www) resolves to a blank page

Here’s the link - try it for yourself

Now generally I would advise serving content on either www or non-www, but not both. If you do serve on both then you should ensure that each is the same.

This case however is the worst possible schenario - consider the number of Internet users who do not know the technical difference between www and non-www. Many less-savvy web users will not know to re-try www.vhi.ie when they see that blank page, and it should be a simple configuration change to ensure that both URLs resolve properly.

Given that www.vhi.ie is a transactional site fixing this issue will increase sales for Vhi.ie. Absolutely no doubt in my mind.

So there’s my #1 tip - don’t serve a blank page on http://vhi.ie

So there you have it - how in 5 quite simple steps I think Vhi.ie could improve their UX (and perhaps their SEO also) by 100%.

[Postscript: I first started writing this post in December 2007. It has sat in my drafts since then collecting dust. Luckily (for me anyhow) the VHI have not changed any of the behaviour I discuss above. I hope that might change shortly however.]

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However what gets me more excited is the splattering of advanced web technologies that are now in millions of people’s hands courtesy of the Apple and the iPhone. Technologies like CSS3 and sqlite that have only been implemented in the tiniest slice of browsers are now able to be taken advantage of on the iPhone.

Safari performance in iPhone OS 2.0 has been dramatically improved, and this is important because it will continue to allow developers to create great web applications instead of simply going the native Cocoa route. One of the beautiful things about creating applications for the iPhone is that you get to pick which technologies you want to use and implement them where they make the most sense. With the advanced layout rendering capabilities present in Safari, you can create some seriously powerful design logic just by using CSS3 selectors to manipulate your content.

Safari and Firefox have implemented many parts of the CSS3 specification, but the problem is if you’re releasing an application to the masses, you have to support the big ugly dog in the corner, Internet Explorer. All the cool things you can do with CSS3 don’t matter if you’re still supporting older browsers, but on the iPhone you’re only supporting one browser and it happens to have fantastic standards support.

So go ahead and bust out your shadows, rounded corners, and background images, Safari on the iPhone can take it.

Well, let me just list the top microblogging sites:

• Twitter (the most popular of all)
• FriendFeed
• Plurk
• Jaiku
• Pownce
• Identi.ca
• Kwippy

The last two on this list - Identi.ca and Kwippy - are the two newest microblogging sites to the list. The point behind these sites is to allow social media marketers and others who own websites the opportunity to market themselves in short bursts throughout the day.

While I don’t do any microblogging myself, I do see where it can be helpful. But microblogging is best done as an adjunct to regular blogging, not as a replacement. Most of these sites have word limits (Twitter’s like 140 words, or something) and you can’t write messages longer than those. That isn’t much space to include a blog post like this one that is full of information. Instead, what it does is allow you to shoot out quick promotions and if you have a lot of products and services to promote, or a lot of clients to promote then microblogging can be a great way to get your quick messages out there for the world to see.

Get the scoop on blogging today.

The BIGLIST update of SEO blogs comes to you this week on a Monday because, hey, that’s the way we like to change things up here at Online Marketing Blog. This edition of the BIGLIST Update is chock full of blogs that offer SEO how to’s and practical insights as well as a good showing of social media topics. Enjoy!

• Tim Nash - Very nice UK SEO blog from Information Architect Tim Nash on topics ranging from advanced SEO to programming with several good articles on SEO basics, snake oil SEO tricks to watch for and SEO training courses.

• seogadget - London based Richard Baxter’s Ubuntu, SEO and geek stuff blog with plenty of screen shots and how to posts.

• Social Media Club - Official blog for Social Media Club written primarily by Chris Heuer and Kristie Wells for the social media community and those seeking to learn more about social media. Promotes sharing best practices, establishing ethics and standards, and media literacy.

• Conversation Marketing - Long time internet marketer Ian Lurie pulls together search, design, development and more with this compliment blog to the free online book, Conversation Marketing.

• ClickEquations Blog - Craig Danuloff writes this insightful paid search product blog from Commerce 360 on PPC, analytics, and internet marketing in general.

• Google News Inside - Jonathan Dingman covers all things Google with his personal perspective.

• SEOWorld - Strategies and tips on SEO from Jon Rognerud at Entrepreneur.com who has written a book on SEO in conjunction with Entrepreneur Press. It says he’s a “recognized SEO expert” and past employee of Yahoo/Overture but to be honest, I’ve never heard of him.

• Smackdown! - Michael VanDeMar tells it like it is or at least how he sees it in the search marketing world.

Congrats to those search marketing blogs that made the list. Let’s hope you can keep up the good work and keep earning the BADGE. (link back optional)

Sponsored By: SES San Jose 2008 - Sign Up Now Save 10% with this code: SJ10TR

What you do is create some kind of content that others will find attractive to link to. You are “baiting” their links. But not just any link bait will do. The No. 1 rule for link bait is to make it relevant.

You want the people who link to your site to be people within your niche. They will be people who own websites or blogs about your topic. Your link bait will attract their links and that translates into a higher PageRank and eventually higher rankings for you. Sounds simple, right?

Well, it is simple enough to understand. The hard part is creating the content. You have to predict what people will like, which requires having some understanding of human nature and what people within your industry want. If you can nail that down, you can create some awesome link bait.

Erica’s survey doesn’t say what size companies responded to the survey. I suspect that larger businesses would have responded differently to the survey than smaller businesses, but the results are interesting:

60% of the respondents said they currently outsource their e-mail marketing but 50% of the respondents said they’d prefer to keep it in-house. Erica’s survey results don’t say what the crossover is among that 60% and 50% of survey participants (Are they the same people? Is there only a 10% overlap? A 25% overlap? That would be interesting to know).

I would have to slightly disagree with some of Erica’s conclusions, specifically about saving money and branding. It might seem like it will be less expensive to hire someone to manage your e-mail marketing, but that really depends on how much e-mail marketing you do. If you don’t do a lot then it might actually be less expensive to outsource it depending on your agency’s fees. If you hire a full-time campaign manager then you’ll have to pay salary and possibly benefits. You do need to factor perks and benefits into the cost equation of your marketing expense (Do you provide vacation and sick days? Insurance and medical benefits? Other perks? All of those are a part of your expenses so include them in your figuring). You won’t have to pay outside agencies any benefits or provide insurance, which could reduce your expenses.

On branding, an outside agency that specializes in e-mail marketing can be just as adept at taking your branding and including it in your e-mail marketing efforts. A marketing agency that does this full time knows how to work with companies in that manner and can be just as effective as an in-house marketing manager.

When it comes to e-mail marketing, an in-house manager might work for you, but outsourcing can be the best option for some as well. You have to do the research and make that determination for your business.

You’ve probably picked up that this week is about SES San Jose from Dana and Ashley’s “15 Things Not to Miss at SES San Jose” followed by Jessica’s “Do You Know the Way to San Jose” post.  I am also headed out to sunny California next month. There’s plenty to take in on a trip to the Golden State including the beautiful weather, celebrities, good wine, and, of course the Search Engine Strategies Conference.

Here are a few of the sessions I’m planning on covering:

More Customers, Fewer Costs - Why Marketing to the ‘Long Tail’ Makes Sense
Who doesn’t want more customers and fewer costs? Isn’t that a business’ dream? This session will be interesting as there have been recent stories on how the long tail is not as effective as we once thought. I still believe in the long tail though.

Semantic Search: How Will It Change Our Lives?
What? Change my life? That’s a pretty big promise. However, that’s what search does. It works to give the best results, which continually improve based on users needs. Just think back over the past few years; there has been blog search, universal search and local search all up and coming. Sounds like semantic search is next. Wouldn’t you agree?

Storyteller Marketing: How the Art of Storytelling Matches Up With the Business of Marketing
Ahh, story time. Everyone enjoys a good story, but where does that fall into play with SEO and online marketing? I can tell you a story about most anything, but throw in some package testing and spigot lingo and it’s a bit more difficult.

7 Proven Ways To Get Your Website On Page 1 Organically Then Convert
If it was only that easy right? I’m a bit skeptical here. If there are 7 proven ways, then as soon as they tell us, everyone will use them and, well, you can only have 10 on page 1. I hope this isn’t to high level and just about content, links and the stuff we already know.

Identify, Analyze, Act: SEM by the Numbers
Analytics is huge to a site’s success. How your visitors get to, and interact with, your site is extremely important and the stats hold all the secrets. But finding all the bits of gold that is buried in analytics can be tough to find. Hopefully they’ll show some secrets and insight into the best places to be looking. A little sad though that analytics based on Star Trek doesn’t appear on the schedule.

Google Dance
After a few refreshments Thomas will also be getting his groove on at the Google dance; even if he doesn’t know how to groove well.

Getting Vertical Search Right
Yes, it’s the world wide web, but you don’t have to compete with everyone. Being the best in your vertical is all a site needs to do. But how does one target some, but not everyone?

SEO Rehab & Intervention
Let me grab by celebrity attitude and I’ll be ready to go. I know none of my site’s have issues, but I’ll be sure to find issues in your sites.

Advanced Paid Search Techniques
PayPerClick is like the black sheep in SEO. It’s not organic or social, but it is a proven method for generating traffic and conversions. These paid links are OK! Just be careful not to blow your entire marketing budget in a few days or get a bunch of unqualified traffic. There has to be a happy medium.

SearchBash
More groovin and movin and networkin’ with ya’ll!

With all those sessions, the California palm trees and happy cows may not get enough attention. However, with all the knowledge poring in and great networking, there will be more than enough to keep busy.

If you’re going to SES San Jose next month, what sessions are you planning on attending? If you’re not sure, check out the full conference schedule.

Sponsored By: Search Engine Optimization

It dawned on me that the typical user of the Internet who has no interest in running a business online and who may never run a business online has no idea how to get their website ranked in the search engines. They, first off, probably have no interest since they aren’t running a business. I guess that’s just the way it is.

But if you do run a business and you do want to establish a Web presence, the first myth you need to get out of your mind is that you have to pay to be listed in the search engines. You don’t.

We live a pay your way world. You have to pay for all your basic needs - food, shelter, clothing - well, I guess you don’t have to pay for self actualization. But some people do. They have therapists to help them get there. Others just take up yoga.

Online, however, the economy is different. You don’t have to pay to be No. 1. You just have to learn how search engines work and build a website that does all the right things. But that’s not as easy as it sounds. It does take work. Like mowing the lawn. It’s virtually free. You pay for the gas in your mower, but if you do it yourself your only expense is your time. Or you can pay the kid down the block $25 to do it for you.

When it comes to making sure that you achieve respectable rankings for your website, you can do it yourself - if you have the time. Or you can pay someone to guide you. But Google doesn’t need your money.