An example for winery websites

One of the most overlooked ways in which you can optimize you winery website for search marketing is to create effective website “page names”. In addition to the domain name you choose to host your website, your website page name choices can have a big impact on how consumers find your site. Traditionally, website page names were created by web programmers. Today, the process of naming web pages should be in conjunction with your marketing department and web development firm.

A simple test is to search for a vintage of a particular wine and see what Google displays as the search results. For example, go to Google and search for this phrase 2005 Keever Cabernet. You will see that my wine blog is the #1 listing in the USA. One of the reasons why my review of the 2005 Keever Cabernet Sauvignon is at the top of Google search results is because I saved the review to a page called “2005-Keever-Cabernet-Sauvignon.htm”. I took the time to use the year and name of the wine as the page name to optimize search results for years to come.

You can see that the Keever website is also shown on page one. The web pages that are search engine optimized, like my wine blog, rank ahead of the winery. The Keever Winery page that describes the same wine is called: www.keevervineyards.com/keever/catalog/view_product.jsp?product_id=1006

This page naming convention is called a “dynamic web page” and it is formatted with “gibberish” because it is part of an ecommerce package that is NOT optimized for search marketing. An example of a dynamic page that got it almost right is: http://www.whitehalllane.com/our_wine/facts/fact_06_Chard.php  

This page describes the 2006 Whitehall Lane Chardonnay, unfortunately the web designer got only half way there. The page should have been called “/our_wine/facts/2006-Whitehall-Lane-Carneros-Chardonnay.php”. There is no need to repeat the word “fact” and the phrase “06 Chard” is not something anyone will type into Google. Whitehall’s web designer get a “close but no cigar” score.

Choose the Right Platform

My recommendation is to avoid website platforms that have outdated dynamic page names since newer packages have intelligent dynamic page names. If you don’t want to boot your current ecommerce system then at least create static pages on your site for each wine outside of the shopping cart.

I’m writing about this technique to demonstrate that if wineries would like more direct to consumer wine sales or just to increase their mailing lists, they should have an optimized web page for each wine they make in each vintage. So, if a winery makes five different wines a year the directory structure could look like this:

- www.wineryname.com/wines/2005-Cabernet-Sauvignon.html
- www.wineryname.com/wines/2005-Cabernet-Franc.html
- www.wineryname.com/wines/2005-Bella-Vineyard-Cabernet-Sauvignon.html
- www.wineryname.com/wines/2005-Trailside-Cabernet-Sauvignon.html
- www.wineryname.com/wines/2005-Block-16-Merlot.html

You can also the winery name into the page name for extra reference, but that would depend on the winery URL and the names of the wines.

Make It Common Practice

By separating words with dashes, and spelling out the specifics of the wine name, there is a very high probability that the winery website pages will be at the very top of Google search results when people search for a specific vintage of a wine. By ignoring this optimization technique, wineries will lose consumer sales to online retailers and will also have lower mailing list registrations.

Every page on a winery website should have well thought out page names. The pages name should be c based off of keyword research and common sense. Taking time to revise your website page names is a great long term investment. Once the website pages are renamed, you should recreate your sitemap.xml and rssfeed.xml files and tell Google and Yahoo to reread the files.

There are some other caveats about renaming names that you can discuss with your website developer. For example, make sure the old page names are redirected to the new names so during the transition and re-indexing, you don’t have any broken links.

Need some more examples of how powerful good page name are? Go to Google and search with these phrases 2003 Scarecrow Cabernet and 2005 Ghost Block Cabernet.

You will see that in the first few search results on Google Page one, I have articles shown from my wine blog that follow this intelligent page naming convention. This technique in conjunction with good HTML page titles and good page content will deliver optimal search results.

Cheers,

Brian Pasch - CEO, Pasch Consulting Group

brian@paschconsulting.com

732-842-4720

www.paschconsulting.com

Our last Internet Marketing Seminar was such a big hit, we decided to schedule another one in June.  So, mark your calendar for June 17, 2008 and regsiter before May 31st to save on registration fees.  Seating is limited.

If you are serious about growing your business on the Internet, we encourage your attendance at our next Search Engine Optimization and Internet Marketing Seminar which will be held at the Molly Pitcher Inn in Red Bank New Jersey. 

If you are serious about getting your website ranked highly in the search engines, you need to attend.  This is a great value and opportunity to learn from an SEO expert; Brian Pasch founder of Pasch Consulting Group.

Date:Tuesday June 17, 2008

Location: Molly Pitcher Inn - Red Bank NJ 07701

Seminar  Schedule:

• 9:30 - 10:00 Registration
• 10:00 - 12:00 Morning Session
• 12:00 - 1:00 Lunch Served
• 1:00 - 3:00 Afternoon Session
• 3:00 - 4:00 Casual Wrap-up overlooking the Navesink River

Cost:  $150 per person if registered before May 31, 2008.  $200 per person after May 31st

Payments: All payments and registrations must be done in advance.  You can send a check or use PayPal for credit card registrations. Seating is limited.  Seminar attendees will receive a CD of all materials discussed and demonstrated in the seminar.

  (Seminar Value: $1,000 if purchased as a private consultation).

The Pasch Consulting Group now has a new home base for its national Internet Marketing and Search Engine Optimization consulting company.  The new PCG website is http://www.paschconsulting.com and will be the default URL for all new articles and case studies for the company.

The websote located at http://www.seonj.com  will still continue to operate and be used for education, coaching and news events.  The blog will continue to remain active on this site.  The reason we changed the URL name is to reflect our national client base on not to imply that we only operate in New Jersey.

As our reptutation grows, the need to present a national website with an easy to remember URL name. Visit our new website which is in its infancy but it will continue to evolve in the months ahead.

Most websites have a "Home" button or "Home" link as part of the main navigation and often also in the footer  links on each page.  Normally, web programmers will link this button to the physical file that is the home page.  The file could be called:

• index.html
• default.html
• index.asp
• index.aspx

Whatever you call your home page is not important for this tip.  The key is to change the hyperlink on your home page links to point to your DOMAIN NAME and not these physical home page.  So, on my site, the home page links point to http://www.seonj.com and NOT http://www.seonj.com/default.html.

Why should you do this?  There are some expert theories floating around, and I see the possibility of this concern, that having two naming conventions for the home page can dilute the potential page ranking your home page gets.   I have not tested it, nor would a test be quick to execute, but it's so easy to fix that I recommend you make the change.

Since Google and Yahoo list the main URL in the SERP more often than the physical page, it makes sense to keep your home page naming consistent.

March 18, 2008 - The Internet Marketing and SEO Seminar scheduled for April 2, 2008 in Red Bank New Jersey is nearly sold out.  There are only a few seats left so if you are planning to attend, please register online at http://www.seonj.com.  The seminar fee is $200 per person and it includes lunch.  Registration starts at 9:30 am and the seminar starts promptly at 10:00 am.

The seminar will provide all attendees with tools to go back to their offices and immediately impact the visibility of their website on Google and Yahoo.  Seminar attendees are encouarged to bring a laptop computer and a press release that is ready to be published on the web.

If you have questions, please call 732-842-4720.

We encourage all readers to attend our next Search Engine Optimization and Internet Marketing Seminar which will be held at the Molly Pitcher Inn in Red Bank New Jersey.  If you are serious about getting your website ranked highly in the search engines, you need to attend.  This is a great value and opportunity to learn from an SEO expert; Brian Pasch founder of Pasch Consulting Group.

Date: Wednesday April 2, 2008

Location: Molly Pitcher Inn - Red Bank NJ 07701

Seminar  Schedule:

9:30 - 10:00 Registration

10:00 - 12:00 Morning Session

12:00 - 1:00 Lunch Served

1:00 - 3:00 Afternoon Session

3:00 - 4:00 Casual Wrap-up overlooking the Navesink River at the Bar (optional)

Who Should Attend: All business owners, marketing executives, sales managers and anyone in your organization that has a desire to grow the business through Internet marketing and Internet lead generation.

Cost:  $150 per person if registered before March 15, 2008.  $200 per person after March 15th

Payments: All payments and registrations must be done in advance.  You can send a check or use PayPal for credit card registrations. Seating is limited.  Seminar attendees will receive a CD of all materials discussed and demonstrated in the seminar.

  (Seminar Value: $1,000 if purchased as a private consultation).

I hate to see the SEO consulting industry get a bad name from companies "spamming" website owners to get a quick fix for search engine optimization.  On February 1, 2008 I received an unsolicted spam email from SEO Traffic Labs (www.seotrafficlabs.com)  which I have listed below.  After you read their email, take a look at my response:

Subject: I visited your site and have a question

Researching Google for the keyword "seo consultant", I came across your site.  So congratulations, on making the effort to create an attractive website.

Unfortunately, your site appears well below the top group that take the lion's share of the traffic.  Because most searchers don't venture beyond the first page of results and almost none beyond the third.

Other indicators like Page Rank and Alexa Ranking confirm that you are not getting much traffic to this site.  So commiserations that you are not getting the visitors you need to fulfill your site's potential.

The cruel fact is that you will continue to miss many, many potential new clients so long as you remain pushed out of first page by other websites.

Happily, this missed opportunity is readily correctable.  You have an interesting and useful site.  With your website structure and content it is perfectly reasonable to target a page one (and feasibly a top three) ranking for this keyword, and several others.

You need significantly more one-way back-links with anchor-text incorporating your site's major keyword phrases.This would boost marketing ROI, by generating more sales leads AND reducing acquisition cost per client. 

If you're interested I can help you with this...

I'm talking about getting you ranked for ALL your keywords. Adding new back-links on a steady and consistent basis from high PR, quality websites is what produces the rankings you are looking for.  The right kind of links are critical for achieving top ranking....and we can hand deliver these quality links.

My partners and I own several thousand websites and offer private linking to hundreds of site owners just like yourself.

Any proposition we make is demonstrably self-liquidating from the start.

We have a very simple way to prove that this solution works and it's risk free for you to try it and see the results for yourself.

I am currently reaching out to a shortlist of your "keyword competitors" in similar situations close to search engine traffic breakthrough.

You were selected for our approach in your area as both needing, and able to monetize, the targeted lead traffic our system delivers.  Would you prefer to explore this opportunity further by phone or should we go elsewhere?

NB - to avoid conflicts of interest we only conclude one traffic partnership per industry/geographic sector. First-come, first-served.  Miss the bus and we become your competitor!

You can read more about our service at our website http://SeoTrafficLabs.com.

There you will also find on-line forms to :

a)  Request our sales rep to call you by telephone with further information OR

b)  Book a 30 day f*ree trial slot to prove our claims for yourself.

Alternatively, just email me with "CALL ME BACK "in the Subject line and your name and telephone number in the message body.

Sincerely,

Steven Henderson

www.SeoTrafficLabs.com