Make sure everyone can see your pet website content!

I rarely use exclamation points in my tips, but this topic is becoming a biggie because of changing technologies.

First, a little story. Last week, I was meeting with a pet Internet marketing client and I saw the Apple iPad up close for the first time. It was swell and I thought, how cool is this?

Until the client showed me how her doggie day care website appeared on it. Ouch.

A big portion of the text was invisible because the website was originally designed in Flash. So instead of seeing company information, there was a lovely orange box with nothing in it. No headline, no inviting messages, no nothing.

The iPad hasn’t been supporting Flash technology. And even though a September 10 Wall Street Journal article reported that Apple has “loosened its control over” mobile phone and iPad software development, millions of iPhone and iPad users will still not see sites using Flash.

I’ve seen this happen with search engines, too. If the text is all within a graphic block or in Flash, it can’t be “seen” very well by search engines. All the content that could potentially help with search rankings is invisible.

Yikes! This could become a huge problem if your competition’s web content is visible and yours isn’t.

What’s a web marketer to do? Here are 3 tips that may help:

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What is pet seo and why is it important for online success?

Recently I was asked to explain the difference between SEO (search engine optimization) in general and SEO Copywriting for the pet industry… and why it matters so much.

There are a number of things that SEO means for any web site, including pet web sites, and copywriting is just one of them. I’ll try to explain concisely:

SEO is anything related to helping websites achieve decent rankings and traffic via organic search (not paid search results). If your pet web site is not being found in search engines, you’re missing huge opportunities for sales. Any of the following factors could be the problem:

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Pet websites need an ongoing content strategy for search engines

What the heck is going on with search engines these days? You may not have heard, but dramatic recent trends could be giving your web page results a search smack-down. For example, it used to be that pet-related website owners could expect a Google algorithm change every year or so. But in 2010, three major … Read more

Money-saving tips in Pet Business magazine… plus a few more

How exciting! Just saw my pet-retail email marketing advice appear in the latest issue of Pet Business magazine. Check it out under “Cutting Communication Costs” 🙂 http://lnkd.in/732Gx2 That article includes all kinds of free and low-cost tips for running a super-efficient pet retail business. Plus I have a few more suggestions regarding pet internet marketing … Read more

Make sure your pet website content is worth SHARING

Did you hear that thunderous rumbling on July 23rd? It wasn’t another rainstorm. It was the sound of the buzz created by Apple’s unveiling of Flipboard for the iPad. Here’s a Website Magazine article about it, with the Apple video announcing it. In the web content world, nothing stays the same for long. Or does … Read more

Avoid this pet peeve of your pet website customers: confusion!

Just about every week, I come across someone who asks what I do for a living. When I tell them I help pet businesses (marketing to pet owners or veterinarians, etc.) improve their website content and results, suddenly they get very animated. They say things like, “I wish I could find a pet product or … Read more

i-Vertise your pet internet marketing efforts to find more web customers

  if the content works. Advertising legend Stan Rapp was recently featured in a YouTube video that captured his speech about the death of advertising. Take a moment to watch it. Stan makes a terrific point. He says that smart, thriving companies are shifting from advertising to “i-Vertising” — which means that all marketing efforts … Read more

What is a quality website when marketing pet products?

If you’ve always wondered why some pet-industry websites show up higher in Google results than others… or even yours… today I’m going to reveal what Google considers to be a quality website. You see, when a person uses Google to find websites that meet his or her needs, its algorithm for finding the best, most … Read more