Pet Internet Marketing: It’s a Dog Eat Blog world

A few blog posts ago, I talked about the incredible power and value of using a blog to market your pet business website. It really is true that blogs can move your web pages up in search results while also positioning you as a helpful guide in your business category.

That’s why I call it a “Dog Eat Blog” world. The pet businesses and veterinary practices that blog get more attention online (if they follow a few simple guidelines). And those who don’t… well… sell themselves short.

But don’t take my word for it.

Here are three strong reasons to look at blogging as a fantastic strategy for your pet business.

Quality Content Defined for Pet Internet Marketing

With the mission of helping you keep up with the challenging world of search engine optimization (SEO) and how pet web content works best today, I try to follow the latest guidelines, trends and events that make a big difference in search results.

Finding quality websites for searchers has always been the goal of Google and other search engines. But just what does “quality” mean?

Last year, several strides were taken to clamp down on “thin” pages that offered very little information, keyword-stuffed articles that offered nothing of value, and duplicate content you can find on dozens if not hundreds of websites. So one definition of quality has been “original, useful and highly relevant content,” which I talk about a lot.

Today I read this new definition of quality, and it helps clarify things for us further, to a point.

According to Google, “High quality content is content you can send to your child to learn something.”

Hmmm.

Here’s how I interpret that for pet-industry marketers, whether you’re marketing pet products, pet services, veterinary care, pet business consulting or anything else related to this industry.

Marketing your pet business with content in 2011

Today I’m featuring an important article from eMarketer Digital Intelligence. It’s only “open” to non-subscribers for a short time at this link: http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1008070. That’s why I’m passing it along in my blog. I especially like the questions because they reflect my content-writing focus: how can your pet business use content to solve your prospect’s needs in a unique and engaging way? 🙂

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:

Another testimonial tip for pet internet marketing: follow FTC Guides

One of my web clients asked me the other day, “Do I need to remove the wonderful testimonials from my website so I’m compliant with the new FTC Guides?” Well, that’s a good question. Last fall’s release of the updated FTC’s Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising were designed to crack…