KEYNOTE NETMECHANIC TOOLS KEY TO KEYRELEVANCE SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING

"Who You Gonna Call?" As a search engine marketing (SEM) company focused on solving Web site marketing problems, KeyRelevance conducts solution-oriented research on the current state of customer sites. Resolutions must be quick, accurate, and sustainable. That, of course, means that KeyRelevance needs to use the best and easiest tools at its disposable to help resolve customer SEM problems. So, as customers call on KeyRelevance, KeyRelevance calls on Keynote NetMechanic.

"We signed up for NetMechanic HTML Toolbox Advanced the day it became available - two years ago. And, we've been using it ever since to help us succeed with customers," said Mike Churchill, Chief Technical Officer, KeyRelevance. "We use a number of the tools, but in our business, HTML Toolbox Advanced's Content Review is far and away the most powerful tool we can use for our customers, since it enables us to check every Web page for coding errors quickly and cost-effectively. NetMechanic's tools help us resolve many problems."

First, a few interesting facts: According to the Georgia Institute of Technology, more than 85 percent of Internet visitors use search engines to find information. Also, Jupiter Research reported that search engine use ranks as the second most popular Web activity after email. Yet despite the popularity of search engines, a 2002 Penn State study showed that more than half of searchers don't look past Page One of the search results. And only about 30 percent continue to Page Three. Considering the importance of search engines in converting Web browsers into buyers, it's imperative that Web businesses rank among the top three results pages. This is where KeyRelevance comes in.

A full-service SEM and usability firm, KeyRelevance improves customers' search engine visibility with both pay-per-click (PPC) listings to quickly drive traffic and search engine optimization to improve rankings in free search engine listings. According to Churchill, most clients recoup their professional search engine optimization investments within a few months

For a search engine to discern what a Web page is about, the page must be free of content problems. This is where NetMechanic enters the picture: KeyRelevance uses NetMechanic's HTML Toolbox Advanced Content Review for site compliance verification. Content Review ensures KeyRelevance that their clients' Web pages adhere to company policy with respect to Title tags, meta tags, copyright notices, and tracking codes.

HTML Toolbox's Link Check and Load Time are also extremely helpful to KeyRelevance and their customers. KeyRelevance uses Link Check to determine if a site has any broken links, while Load Time detects the sources of HTML "bloat" (such as inefficient HTML formatting and oversized multimedia effects) that lead to slow-loading pages. The GIFbot tool helps make a client's Web site images leaner and more efficient for faster loading.

"We had a hotel chain customer that was having problems with its traffic analytics," explained Churchill. "Using NetMechanic, we identified the problem within a half hour and solved it in less than a day. It made us look like heroes to the customer."

According to Churchill, analytics tracking codes were inadvertently deleted from the hotel chain's Web pages during a site redesign. NetMechanic helped KeyRelevance quickly identify the problem and solution, and now Toolbox continues to make sure that the problem doesn't recur. Automated periodic testing by NetMechanic confirms that the codes are no longer being inadvertently removed.

"We also recommend to clients NetMechanic's Browser Photo, which shows how Web pages appear when viewed in any major browser, revealing incompatibilities and display errors. It really helped one customer who was concerned about how pages were rendering on a Mac," added Churchill. "NetMechanic offers us really powerful yet affordable tools that help us succeed in making sure that our clients reap higher revenues from search engine marketing."