KM Websol is Web design, database and e-commerce solutions provider based in Melbourne providing Web Design services in Australia.

Services include web design packages and ecommerce solutions. The company has a very clear objective as described in their mission statement:

To become the dominent local player in providing cost-effective and innovative web development solutions to small and medium sized businesses in Australia.

Sometimes I wonder why people think that a catalog of products online is the magical solution to richness. Yet, there are tons of sites out there that are nothing more than a list of products,.. catalogs basically.

So when the sales don’t come, the SEO starts,.. Pages get optimized but the increase of traffic isn’t as expected. So link building follows… and traffic goes up a bit more. But what about sales?

Often the increase in traffic doesn’t result in a equal amount of sales. So the next step gets implemented,.. A new, more professional, design. That helps, now many visitors at least don’t get scared away by what they´re looking at. But sales still doesn’t go up that much.

Then you would expect people to take the next step,… which is: Selling! But funny enough, that´s the last thing people want to do.

An ecommerce website needs to sell its products. You can present products in the most beautiful and creative ways, but if you don’t do anything to actually sell them, it´s all in vain.

But what does that mean, selling products?

This is the difficult part for most people. Often without even realizing it, people have the “my product sells it self” syndrome. People love their products so much they think everybody else does too and therefore want to buy the products no matter what. But nothing could be farther from the truth.

What do people often do? They state all the advantages of the products in the website. Why it is such a great product, etc. But that´s just trying to help the products selling them selves.

Products don’t sell them selves! You need to sell them!

But how do you sell your products? There are many ways but I prefer the focus on understanding the buyer’s need (and showing this) and giving a solution. After that the convincing starts which can be done in various ways and actually each way should be present on the website because different types of people require different types of convincing. It also depends on the products of course.

Some people are convinced by testimonials (text / images depending on the product). Others want to be convined by lots of information. Another group simply wants to make sure they´re not doing something stupid while others want to be respected.

In the end, what matters is that you actually try to sell your products in the website.

Discuss Why Does My Ecommerce Website Not Sell??? at webproworld.com

This may sound strange but there are many people that believe that SEO doesn’t work. Webdesigners often seem to have this opinion for some reason. But that may simply be because many SEO consultants aren’t that happy with the work of webdesigners.

The reason for not being happy with webdesigner work is that it generally looks great, but is impossible to index for search engines. Sites in Flash are still pretty common for example while the last thing you would want for your website is to use flash only. Search engines simply can’t index the content of a flash file.

But there are many other creative ways to not allow search engines to find the pages of your website. Dynamic websites for example are often impossible for search engines, or search engines simply refuse to index your pages if their URL’s are long and full of variables.

Then there are still sites out there in frames. Often pages in frames do get indexed, but what gets indexed is the content of the frame, not the page as is presented to the visitor. So somebody that may actually be very interested in your website finds a content page of your website, but the menu and other links in the other frames won’t be shown. There goes your visitor, off to another website.

Another creative way to not allow search engines to index your pages is to put your menu in flash or javascript. Impossible for search engines to follow these links, they won’t find any of your pages. A simple site map would actually solve this problem parcially, but the real solution is a menu in CSS that visually will be similar or even the same as the flash or javascript file.

What many people forget is that most visitors want something from a website. If they want to admire beautiful graphics they will go to a museum or hang a poster on the wall. Graphics should always support the objectives of the website, not be the actual objective it self. (some exceptions may exist)

“SEO doesn’t work” people say when they can’t get a site to rank high. It’s kind of funny sometimes.

I got an offer of $2000 for seo-works.com. Not unwilling to sell the site because I am very busy building up a new company (www.i-brane.com/ www.brane.com.br(brazilian site)) I thought about this offer and found it to be kind of low. (considering the paid directory, the reviews I have to do, the fact that it actually makes (some) money, etc.) $2000 would not really cover it all,.. but I am open to other offers.

So if you´re interested, post a comment with a value. Also let me know if you want it to be a silent offer, because then I won’t publish your comment.

By the way, my ebook “SEO In A Nutshell” is still in the planning for the end of this month. It just will be offered from another website.

Cheers,

Have you heard that before? That the rules of SEO continuously change? That´s a bunch of nonsense. In most cases people think this because their knowledge of SEO is improving. They learn something new and then think that it’s something new in the way search engines determine the rankings. But all that it really means is that it is new to them.

Another reason that people think that SEO rules change all the time is because search engines change their algorithms sometimes. But what are search engines really doing? Changing their algorithms, or trying to improve their algorithms?

Obviously, there is no such thing as the perfect algorithm that will work for ever and doesn’t require any upgrading. Even if it is perfect when it is created, after a while people will find ways to bypass the algorithms to get unfair high rankings. (yes that is possible, but not smart to do as it is a very short term solution and often means as much, if not more, work as normal SEO).

What are the reasons to put a site high up there in the results?

• Information the searcher was actually searching for
• Products the searcher was actually searching for
• Services the searcher was actually searching for
• What ever the searcher is actually searching for

It really is as simple as that. Give the searchers what ever they´re searching for. The only way to be a successful search engine is to give the searcher what ever he´s searching for. The goal is always the same, no matter what upgrades or “changes” search engines make in their algorithms, the end goal remains.

So you build yourself a site that is actually what the searcher is searching for when using certain keywords and you´re set for high rankings, right?

Nope!

You also need to promote your website. All search engines give some kind of importance, each in their own way, to how much a website is being promoted. And it makes sense. Suppose there are 1000 sites doing the same thing, each in their own way of course. You can’t determine which 10 of those 1000 is going to be in the top10, just based on their content. Imagine,. the top 10 will have relevancy scores like: 99.998; 99.994; 99.979; 99.936; 99.924; 99.922; etc. There is no relevant difference between those scores. Non at all.

So what do you do as a search engine? You need something else to make a more relevant determination of what the differences are between those sites. A good way obviously is to check what other sites say about these sites and how many people actually bother to link to it. That gives you (the search engine) a much bigger variation in relevancy scores. Something useful.

So they use links. There are a couple of factors related to links, all of them have their importance. And over time search engines may choose to vary the importance of certain factors, even add new factors (not just to links of course, but also other factors) but those changes don’t change the SEO rules.

Implement the basic SEO rules (and when your SEO knowledge grows you will be able to be more detailed in this work) and you will have high rankings. Sure you have to do better than the competition, but that´s not a search engine or SEO rule, that´s life!

Sometimes I hear the strangest SEO Myths. The most popular I always hear is “PR Doesn’t Matter“. The reasons always are:

• PR is just 1 of the many factors
• Lower PR pages rank higher than higher PR pages
• Toolbar PR is not used in the algorithms

There are a bunch more of them. But these 3 are most famous. (If I forgot one, feel to post them, )

PR is just 1 of the many factors
Yep, that’s true. But just keep in mind that SEO is a chain of factors that need to be done right. And how strong is a chain? As strong as the weekest link! So no PR means you have very few important backlinks which means nobody tells Google what your site is actually about.

Lower PR pages rank higher than higher PR pages
I love this one! It makes absolutely no sense, but many people seem to think that this proves PR doesn’t matter. As mentioned before, PR is just 1 of the factors that are used in the algorithm, so a page can rank higher than a much higher PR page because other factors are giving it more reasons to rank high! But think of it, why is that high PR page ranking high between many lower PR pages? The answer is simple: Because it does have a high PR. Likely this page is less relevant that the lower PR pages, but because it does have a high PR, it actually is sitting there in between lower PR pages. If this page would have the same PR as the other pages, it wouldn’t have been there in the top 10. I don’t know how to explain this any simpler than I just did.

Toolbar PR is not used in the algorithms
I think that´s partly true. PR in the algorithms is not used the same way as it is presented in the toolbar. That´s why Google calls it a representation of PageRank. But you can use Toolbar PR very effectively to determine some basic factors like link popularity, and more importantly, how the page/site is doing in relation to other sites in the same SERP.

PR is a real factor, important to a certain degree. I will always agree that people that are focusing everything on PR have little chance succeeding in SEO, but to say that PR doesn’t matter, is the dumber way of looking at it.

Is there an SEO Formula? Something that just works, as long as you follow the formula? Yes there is. It took me a while to put all the factors together, but after over 3 years experience in SEO I think I can say I have the SEO formula figured out.

Actually it´s not so complicated. The biggest problem with implementing the formula is that it´s not really possible to put all the skills necessary into one person. Simply said: You can’t be a good project manager, copywriter, HTML programmer and marketeer at the same time. Nature simply didn’t design the brain to be good at all those things. 2 of the 4 is about the best you can have, so implementing the formula requires multiple people, at least 2 of them, but more likely 3.

You can read all about the actual formula in my e-book that´s comming up. SEO In A Nutshell. It will be available by the end of may I think. Maybe a bit sooner, it simply depends on how much time I have available.

In any way, the SEO Formula will be in there, and implementing it will help you get the results you desire.

In this post in WebProWorld about site indexing problems which I found through the WebProWorld newsletter, someone is complaining about Google not indexing his pages. A solution he found was to add Google’s Adsense search tool and what do you know, the home page got indexed…. 3 times.

3 times with 3 different URL’s!

Actually I found there´s even a fourth URL that contains the exact same content as the homepage.

You’d think that is the cause of the problem to begin with and that he’d want to fix these problems before even thinking of other things to do. But no, the whole thread continues with questions and answers about 404 and 301 status codes. Though these things are also important, I can never really understand why people don’t start at the beginning of a problem, but rather continue with trying to fix symptoms of a higher level problem.

Maybe it´s just me,..

I read this article in the entireweb newsletter and I liked it so much I wanted to publish it here in my blog… Values, that´s what it’s all about. Without values you´re not recognizable, you might as well not exist.

The Value of Values

One of the toughest jobs a leader has to perform is to act as guardian of an organisation’s values.

An organisation’s values are the things that are really important to it.

In the early days of an enterprise, the values are sometimes the only thing that keeps the business going. When other factors make the chances of survival doubtful, such as funds, markets, and technology, it is the set of beliefs held by the original founders which pull the business through. The beliefs of the organization are almost always the beliefs of the original leaders.

These beliefs are intangible. Think of Unilever’s belief in co-operation, or Mars’s belief in efficiency, or IBM’s belief in innovation, or Hewlett-Packard’s belief in “plain hard work”, or Levi-Strauss’s belief in empathy with its customers. It is the high value placed on these beliefs that ensure these organizations survive in the first place and continue to survive.

As the years go by, and the organization changes its technology, its products and its leaders, there is a danger that it may abandon its original set of beliefs or relegate them in importance or forget them. To do so is to risk corporate suicide. If original values have to change - often a difficult step - then new values must replace them and be as meaningful, relevant and important as the original ones.

As custodians of the organisation’s values, leaders have to know the values, live the values, and preserve the values. John Maxwell tells the story of how John Wooden, head basketball coach at the University of California, put values before expediency. Wooden had spotted an outstanding young basketball player whose skills would be an asset to his line-up. Everyone urged him to sign the youth. But Wooden was unsure. Something in the young man’s demeanour bothered him. So he arranged a home visit, with the contract all prepared in his inside pocket. When he took tea with the family, he couldn’t help noticing a disrespectfulness in the youth’s attitude towards his mother. One of the key values in Wooden’s team was respect. And it was a value he intended to maintain. As a result, the contract stayed in his pocket.

Values are not just important for the organization. They are the touchstone that determines whether people succeed in the organization. When the chips are down, it’s not what you do that counts, but whether you stay true to the values. As Christel Brown says, “People do things because of their values. People rob banks because their values include greed, more money and maybe recognition. People die on the battlefield because their values include love of their country and patriotism.” Values are the ultimate people motivators. In organizations where values matter, people may be dismissed for violating the rules; they should always be dismissed for violating the values.

John Maxwell says that values are at the heart of everything an organization does, hence the use of the phrase “core values”. “Values are like glue. They hold an organization together. Values are like a ruler. They set the standard for a team’s performance. Values are like a compass. They give direction and guidance. Values are like a magnet. They attract like-minded people. Values provide identity. They define and identify the team.”

One last example. Few people today have heard of Phil Knight, Bill Bowerman and Steve Prefontaine. But these three were the driving force and inspiration that created Nike, the footwear and clothing colossus. And what drove them? A passionate belief that things could be done. The stories of Bowerman’s endless experiments with the family waffle iron into which he poured rubber to create the best running shoe sole are legendary. So are Prefontaine’s battles to make running a professional sport. Today, Nike actually employs executives as “corporate storytellers” to remind their staff of the values of the original founders and that their business is about getting things done.

In business, as in life, beliefs can move mountains. Without belief, without a positive set of beliefs, and without action to act on these beliefs, we achieve nothing. Our beliefs and values drive us and our businesses. As Alvin Toffler says, “Every business has a belief system and it is at least as important as its accounting system or its authority system.”

About the Author: Eric Garner, ManageTrainLearn.com
For instant solutions to all your management training needs, visit www.managetrainlearn.com!

Matt Cutts explains he works on improving quality of the search results at Google. For Matt Cutts this seems to be mostly about keeping spam out of the search results.

But is keeping spam out quality improvement,…. or quality maintenance?

While it is very necessary to keep spam out of the results I am dissapointed at the way Google seems to be doing it. The first way is by using historical data. Now a site needs to be at least so many months old before it even has a chance on high rankings. What does this mean?

It means that Google results are only showing older sites. Anything new doesn’t show anymore. Of course this keeps out some sites that are focused to spam only. But it also keeps out any other site that has good intentions. I very much doubt you can find any site in Google that isn’t at least 1 year old. That´s kind of sad I think.

And the worse part,… it’s been like 2 years that they started this ranking based on historical data and the sad result is that the spammers now work with older domains and subdomains. It may have helped in the first year, but that´s over now.

Why do search engine have such a problem with keeping spam out? all the obvious spam is easy to detect. And the lates popular business of scraping the internet to create new content that seems ok to a search engine but isn’t really making sense to a human,… even that is detectable if you ask me.

Once the general public starts to realize that Google only shows old sites (I don’t say old pages) Google may regret the historical data algorithms.

I think I should build a search engine some day, one that can’t be spammed.

Matt Cutts’ spam hunt (he uses sprite as his weapon) for spam will never improve Google’s quality. It will maintain it at the most. I wonder how long it will take before a new search engine is born that creates the next leap forward (like PageRank did).