If you are like me, chances are you’ve done some online shopping. If you are really like me, you make 80% of your purchases online. Why? For me it’s easier, quicker, often cheaper, and usually provides you with more options than traditional shopping. Of course there are some downsides of online shopping. Shipping charges, identity theft, return hassles, and the inability to hold the product in your hand are just some of the reasons why many people hate online shopping. Despite some of these inconveniences, I still prefer to conduct business on the ol’ net web.
Now with all of this experience, I’ve come across several things that completely ruin my shopping experience. I’ll narrow it down to 3 just for the sake of keeping this a short post.

1. Shipping and Billing Address – It seems so simple, yet many sites still require you to type in both your shipping and billing address. How difficult is it to add one of those little checkboxes that says “my billing address is my shipping address”? It saves time and frustration.
2. Saving Account Information – How many times have you filled out what seems like pages of online forms only to have missed the one little drop down that says “how did you hear about us?” only to have that annoying red line of text say “ooops, you missed something”? What’s even worse is how 90% of the time your information isn’t saved.  Yes, even I make mistakes but please don’t compound my embarrassment by making me enter my info twice.
   

   Say what???

3. Captcha – Ugh, this is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to filling out forms online or submitting personal information. I get why we have to do it but is it possible to make it just slightly easier to understand? Is that a “b” or an “l” and an “o”? Is that a “6″ or is it a “b”? And whats with all of the grid lines? As if deciphering this text wasn’t hard enough, you had to go and make it like one of those 3D posters popular in the mid nineties. Figure out a better system that protects my info but also doesn’t frustrate me to no end.

I’ve decided to take a break from my usual website critiques and bring you something a bit different. Yes, I know it has been a while since I’ve made a post but things have been busy, and frankly, I want you all to understand more about digital marketing.

One of that many hats I wear is that of a social media strategist. I am not going to call myself a social media expert because I think it takes more than 2 years to become an expert at something. I do, however, commonly hear discussions around what it takes for a business to succeed in the social media space. Is it “listening”? Is it “joining the conversation”? These annoying marketing buzzwords do come in to play when developing a strategy, but there are some very basic things that you have to understand while playing in the social space. I’ve listed below, in no particular order, five nuggets to consider.

1. Don’t make awkward conversation – If you don’t feel confident saying it, if it feels a bit awkward or forced, don’t say it. Just like having a real conversation with someone, nobody wants to be stuck hearing you stumble and fumble through something that isn’t all that exciting (like my neighbor Brian). It sucks for the person talking and it sucks for the person listening. Save that awkward conversation for the urinals.

2. Don’t be a robot – Don’t speak to your audience like a robot. Your interactions with your fans or followers should be natural, fun, and often spontaneous. Social media isn’t meant to be planned. Loose structure is fine, but don’t become too predictable or people will lose interest. Think about what keeps you engaged in conversation with someone and apply that to your social media strategy.

3. Don’t wast time – Who really has time to do anything these days, let alone listen to what us marketers have to say? So if you are going to attempt to engage with your audience, make sure what you are saying is valuable. If you are writing or posting just for the sake of doing it, you’ve missed the point. Worse yet, you’ve wasted your own time and your audience’s time.

4. Be funny! – People are more likely to share things online if they are funny. I mean really, who doesn’t like to laugh? When you are deciding what to say online to your fans or followers, make sure it’s fun or humorous. Don’t always joke but let the people you engage with feel as though they are connecting with a real person. I guarantee if you make a commitment to being funny, you’ll get a deeper commitment from your audience.

5. Let them talk – Let’s be honest here, people only want to talk about themselves. While it seems easy, opening up the lines of communication and actually “listening” can be harder than it seems. It’s imperative to to allow your audience to praise you, criticize you, share their concerns, and more importantly, share their experiences with your company or brand with their social circle. I mean, that’s really what social media is all about – talking, listening, sharing, caring.  Ask questions, respond to comments, and make it the whole experience for the user as easy as possible. If it’s too difficult to engage and interact, people simply won’t do it.

When you drive an ultra luxurious, touring edition 2001 Infiniti i30 with over 116k miles, you are sometimes forced to make slight repairs to maintain its elite performance. (No, I am not a balding 48 year old man in case you were only picturing that type of individual driving this car.) Since I have no loyalty to any repair shop in San Diego, I often find myself using the internet to find the best deals or highest rated mechanics. Now this critique is for an auto center that was actually recommended by a friend. I didn’t use the web to find details about their shop, in fact, I didn’t even find their site within the first 33 pages of Google’s listings under “san diego auto repair” or “san diego auto service”. After discovering this, I knew something must be seriously wrong. Something needs to be done so so beyond pointing out some simple user experience enhancements, I’ll point out some very simple SEO tactics that could help this site rank in the top 50 for some choice keywords.

SITE: http://rayfreyautocenter.com/

Look up here, okay, say "cheese"

Upon landing on the site, you are greeted with an image that really doesn’t paint a pretty picture of the auto center.  An aerial shot of Ray Frey’s Auto Center with a handful of employees posing awkwardly isn’t necessarily the first thing I’d like to see when browsing for a new mechanic. When someone lands on your site, it shouldn’t take more than a couple of seconds to understand what the site is about.  When I land on Ray’s site, I am not sure if they are a classic car repair shop because of the logo featuring cars from the 1920s or a lube shop.  To clear up any confusion that may arise when first entering the site, I suggest replacing that main graphic with one featuring a collage of the cars they repair (or even move those logos at the bottom to the top) with some of the core services offered (also tucked away at the bottom, unfortunately out of sight).  Maybe even make that “free car wash with every service” special a little more…well, special.  It is a nice bonus for those deal seeking shoppers like myself.

Beyond not being able to easily browse the services offered and prices charged, I notice there is only one review under the review page. Not to make an overly generalized statement but people are influenced by others. Look at Yelp for example. How often do you go to once restaurant over another based on recommendations from people you don’t even know? My guess is every time. Reviews are powerful. If you only have one positive review on your site, it either shows nobody likes your shop or you aren’t popular enough to warrant a review, neither of which is good for your reputation. Spend some time gathering reviews from your current customers and post them on your site. You’d be surprised how much this impacts a consumer’s decision.

My biggest issue with the site isn’t necessarily the user experience or the quality of the content; it’s the site’s absence in any search results for highly relevant keywords.  Why does Ray Frey not show up for searches like “san diego auto repair” or “san diego auto service”? There are a number of contributing factors but below are three main reasons why the site isn’t ranking and a quick ways to help fix the issue.

1. Title Tags – The title tag currently reads “Family owned and operated, Ray Frey Auto Center services the surrounding area.  Kearny Mesa, Clairemont Mesa, MCAS Miramar, Miramar, Pacific Beach, Mission Valley, Mission Beach, University City”. Phew!!! That was a long one. The title tag is the most important on page element when it comes to a search engine optimized page and this one just plain sucks. It is long and doesn’t describe what the page is about.  Pick 3 keywords that are: (1) extremely relevant to your business but are somewhat specific, and (2) have a decent amount of search volume. Check out Google’s new keyword tool for some help picking keywords. If I were to write the title tag for this, I might choose something like “Best San Diego Auto Repair and Mechanics | Ray Frey Auto Center”. Write new title tags for every page on your site, each with 2-3 keywords that best represent that page.
2. Keyword Usage in Body Copy - Many home pages have zero or little text for the search engines to read and decide what the page is actually about. Ray’s site actually has a nice body of copy but has no real keyword density. In order for the search engines to help decide what the page is about, it’s important to take the keywords used in the title tag and repeat them in the body of the page. There are no hard and fast rules but a good practice would be to use each keyword 2-3 times for shorter pages and 4-6 for longer ones. Get those keywords in that first paragraph and Google will start to see your site as an authority for whatever keywords you select.
3. Linking - This site lacks quality internal and external linking, but since internal linking is much easier to fix, we’ll focus on that.  Boiled down, the more links that point to a specific page, the more important it is to the search engines. One would argue Ray’s auto repair services would be the most important content on the site and therefor should be the page with the most inbound links. The best place to put a link to these interior pages is in the top navigation. Links in footers and within the content are good too but navigation links hold the most weight. Currently there are no links to the “Services” page. Actually, there isn’t even a page listing all the services with descriptions. If someone is looking for brake repair, it would be in the site’s best interest to have a page dedicated to brake repair, or at the very least a page with some of the core services. Once this page is established, links from other pages should direct to this page. If you have a huge site with lots of pages, you’ll want to link pages with similar content to create a tightly themed linking strategy. The home page has the most authority and it can pass that authority to other pages via links (sometimes called “links juice”).  For Ray, he needs to link to the most important pages on his site from your home page using keyword rich anchor text.  This will help both the readers and the search engines in understanding the important pages on the site.

SEO is not something you implement and instantly see results. SEO takes careful planning, execution, and time. The three tactics listed above are just a few of many ways to optimize your site for search engines. If done properly, you can expect an increase in site traffic and hopefully customers. On the other hand, bad SEO can drastically impact your website in a negative way so it is important to consult with an expert before attempting to do the work yourself. Wow, I sound like a mechanic don’t I?