May 12
MikeGeneral Business Practices, SEO rss, SEO, social bookmarking
On many websites, specifically blogs, a range of miniature icons are placed at the top or bottom of pages of content. These icons enable you, as the reader, to share the content with a selection of other sites across the web. “Social bookmarking” is tool for Internet marketing and is a great way of promoting your site across the web.
Social bookmarking sites are plentiful and are a good way of applying SEO to your website without doing very much. By submitting your articles to sites such as Digg, StumbleUpon and Deli.icio.us on a daily basis, you may see an increase in website traffic. Sure, submitting every blog article or page of content to all of the social bookmarking sites can be very time consuming, although this process can be done in thirty minutes a day once you have created your accounts.
In addition to social bookmarking, RSS feeds are also popular. Unfortunately, many businesses fail to realize their potential and how they can utilize them in terms of marketing their business. Essentially, an RSS feed will notify subscribers each time you post something new to your site, making it the perfect way of keeping people up to date with what is happening within your business or on your website without having to check back every day wondering if new content has been published.
So what is the point to all this? Both social bookmarking sites and RSS feeds increase exposure to your content as well as creating more venues for new users to stumble upon your content. By simply integrating a standard social bookmarking set of icons, you can invite your readers to spread the word for you.
May 05
MikeGeneral Business Practices, SEO link building, SEO
Link building to improve your website rankings has become a well established technique in terms of Internet marketing. But there are right ways and wrong ways of going about it. Before embarking on an aggressive link building campaign, you should know the differences as the consequences for not following best practices can be severe and detrimental to your business. If you are not too familiar with the principles of link building then it can be easy to fall into the clutches of an unscrupulous “link building” firm who will tempt you with offers of massive numbers of links and improved search engine rankings in next to no time. Lately, I’ve been receiving dozens of emails per week of firms overseas promoting 500+ links for roughly $14 – don’t be fooled!
Link building used to be an easy process. Many websites offered to “exchange links” with you, by which you would enter their web address on your site someplace and they would do likewise. It was quite common to visit a website and see a page titled “Links” which would list any number of other websites for you to click on and visit. Typically, websites were exchanging links with anyone who asked, whether or not their site was related to their own. The effectiveness of this did really rely on you being able to exchange links with higher ranking sites.
Today, things are done differently. “Links” pages are no longer viewed in a positive light by search engines. Link building has become a weapon of mass marketing in Internet terms, leading to many SEO firms offering to take on a link building strategy for you and propel your site in search rankings.
Unfortunately, while there are many good SEO firms out there that will carry this out in an SEO legal manner, known as “white hat” techniques; there are also many more that will engage in so called “black hat” (the firms that I mentioned above) techniques when it comes to link building. It’s not just me, many business owners are finding numerous emails landing in their inboxes each day from sites offering thousands of links for just a few dollars and the guarantee that their website will be top ranking in a matter of weeks (or days in some cases). The old saying “if it sounds too good to be true…” comes to mind, purely because link building takes time, it takes good research and it requires a targeted plan. Also, remember no one other than the executives of Google knows Google’s search algorithm. Beware of any company that guarantees rankings.
Why is link building so vital to SEO? Search engines love links! It makes them think your website is uber popular and as a result they will place you higher in the rankings – think of it as a popularity competition! Unlike what most so-called SEO professionals will tell you (the “black hats” I mentioned a couple of times above), quantity IS NOT everything. It’s important; however, the quality and relevance of links needs to be your first consideration. If the search engine deems for your links to be non-relevant to your business, the links will be rejected and your site can even be removed from the search engine!
Black hat link building however, is simply another form of spamming, posting links to your website on pages that bear no relation to your site or business. Unfortunately, it is your site that will get penalized not the company that posted the links in the first place. Hence why you should be careful when selecting a link building partner – “black hat” link building may appear to be a great value but they will not only fall short on their promises but will increase your business’s potential for getting caught and banned from the search engines. After all, you get what you pay for.
May 03
MikeSEO keyword research, long tail keywords, SEO
Embarking on a targeted SEO campaign can make your head spin. Determining all those essential keywords, creating unique content and developing a link building strategy are all time consuming and for many quite confusing.
So when it comes to keywords what should you be focusing on? Well, there was a time when single keywords would probably get the job done for you and in the early days site builders would literally stuff pages with keywords to propel them up the page rankings. Today, it is not that simple. Google in particular has developed various algorithms and software programs to wheedle out those sites that still employ such tactics, allowing only quality content to filter through into the rankings.
Single keywords are important, but it is long tail phrases which can really make the difference. Here’s why: long tail keywords of three or four words will be more target specific, whereas single words will be more general. For example, let’s say that you manage a website that sells greeting cards. While [cards] may have a lot of search traffic, how many of those web surfers are actually looking for greeting cards? Targeted a very broad keyword in this case won’t result in many visitors or sales. Why? Because [cards] could mean “business cards”, “birthday cards”, “credit cards”, etc. The term is too broad to deliver viable customers to your website. By targeting longer-tail phrases like [birthday greeting cards], [cards for mom], [wedding anniversary cards], you will see an increase in “quality visitors” – those that are specifically looking for your product.
Think about it this way – in the real world you would not try to promote your greeting cards via advertisements in a bicycle magazine! Reaching your target audience is the key to success in any business and in any type of marketing campaign. So you need to identify what your targets are looking for and how they are doing it.
It sounds simple enough, but so many people still don’t get it when it comes to developing keyword campaigns. Essentially you need to be clever and proactive when it comes to keywords. Don’t be seduced by the large numbers of visitors a single keyword will attract each month – you will not receive the same numbers and instead, you may be wasting your efforts by developing a lack of “quality visitors”. Adopt long tail keywords and apply them to the content on your website to target certain areas of your business and bring in visitors who are specifically looking for what you have to offer.
Apr 26
MikeGeneral Business Practices, SEO, Web Industry SEO, small business, social media, social networks
Although they have been about for a few years now, social networks have been the big buzz in Internet marketing circles. Everyone, especially businesses, are busy trying to figure out how to get the most from them. The fact is social networks like Twitter and Facebook give you the potential to reach thousands if not millions of customers, depending upon your business. Truth is, many businesses hear of Facebook, Twitter, etc. and deem it necessary to join in. First, every business should consider which ones are most appropriate for their individual businesses instead of following others.
Think about it, you have your brand, you have your products or services, you have set up a great looking website, but now you’re missing the customers! In terms of Internet marketing, social networks are worth their weight in gold, providing a cost effective (if not free) means of reaching out and telling people you are there. But before you rush off and open accounts on every site you find, you need to take a moment to consider what you want to achieve and how social networks can help you do it. A look at your target audience should help you to determine which social networks are the most viable, for instance Facebook are generally used, although not exclusively, by a younger demographic, students, young parents etc. On the other hand, Twitter has become popular with many businesses, politicians, celebrities and various agencies, in addition to the same market that Facebook serves.
Not every social site will be of benefit to you and a quick tour around them will help you to determine which ones are right for your particular business. While all of the popular social networking sites have millions of users, finding potential customers among them can be difficult if you do not use the features and tools of the site effectively. For instance, Flickr offers a means of sharing photographs, ideal if you manufacture products, but not so well for service industries that would probably find Facebook or Twitter a better choice. Before embracing social media, know your audience. For example, companies whose target market is the federal government may want to research which social media applications the government allows its employees to use. If employees aren’t able to use the technologies at work, is there a point to launching that particular social media application?
Social networks offer additional methods of improving your web presence and elevating your business in the search engine rankings. Creating profiles on various social networking sites will give potential customers plenty of scope to find out more about you and ultimately be directed to your website. But you need to maintain these sites, ensure all links are active, profiles are up to date and information is current and accurate. This has created a need for staff to be able to use various social networking sites and know how to update them as necessary, and this in itself can be a crucial factor in your choice of site.
Social networking websites have become the way forward for increasing web presence and when combined with other Internet marketing techniques they can be very powerful tools in increasing business and attracting customers. In essence there has never been an easier way of spreading the word so quickly and on a global scale.
Apr 09
MikeClient Spotlight, SEO, Website Launches redesign, SEO, spilled milk catering, Web Design
A few months ago, Washington DC catering company, Spilled Milk Catering, contacted us for help expanding their clientele and reaching a wider target audience. Although the site redesign and preliminary SEO took place back in February, we haven’t had a chance to sit down and tell the world about this exciting project. Actually, it worked out for the best — since a couple of months have passed, we’ve been able to get a good glimpse of how our optimization and content restructuring efforts have helped Spilled Milk.
During our analysis of the website, we noticed that there was limited content on the site and all of the search traffic was coming from brand name keywords, not a single local targeted or service specific keyword. Unless the prospective customer knew “Spilled Milk Catering”, the DC catering company was invisible. To address these concerns, we:
- Improved the site structure. Geographic pages were added to speak to each of Spilled Milk’s target markets (Maryland, DC, and Virginia). Additionally, specific service pages were added to maximize the search engine exposure of each of their individual service offerings.
- Researched and analyzed keywords. Keywords were researched and analyzed to capitalize on the high local search volume and catering-specific keywords.
- Optimized the web content. Using the keywords identified, keyword density was improved to build credibility and relevance in the eyes of the search engines.
In a short ten week span following our efforts, we’ve accomplished quite a bit.
- Improved total website traffic by 163%
- Improved the number of unique visitors by 207%
- Improved traffic coming from referral sites by 234%
- Improved the number of landing pages in which users entered the site by 120%
- Improved the number of page views by 146%
- Placed 24 keywords on the search engines radar that were not previously ranking
- Improved the ranking of the #1 desired keyword by 94 places in Google
It’s been a pleasure working with the guys over at Spilled Milk. Since SEO is an on-going process, we haven’t completed the job yet but the results are headed in the right direction. Lastly, if you have an event coming up, give them a shout. Tell them I sent you and try the Three-Cheese Puff Canapes – you won’t regret it. Yummmmm………
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