Google Your Business Name

Google is one of the most popular search engines in the world. Potential customers and your current client base will be checking to see whether your “online” reputation is negative or positive on a frequent basis. This is why it is crucial to Google your business name on a frequent basis, preferably on a bi-monthly basis. This is a quick, easy and free way to find out what the world thinks of your business, and how you can improve your reputation.

Google will tell you which social networks are buzzing about your business. Is your target demographic more active on Twitter or Facebook? Are your customers spending a lot of time watching videos on YouTube? Has your customer base embraced location based tracking sites? Google will answer all of these questions for you, providing you with a lot of information backed by solid research. What should a business do once they have a good idea of what their social network identity encompasses?

Mainstream Your Social Network Identity

Once it’s been determined where your customers and potential customers are, it makes sense to focus your attention on these platforms. For example: 67% of your business spends more time on Facebook. They are commenting on posts, asking questions on your fanpage wall and sharing your content on their wall. They are pushing your business to become viral on Facebook with or without feeling pressure. They aren’t being paid to like your business or share your business with their friends, which will result in new customers. These new customers may be outside of the natural business circle of influence. With this knowledge, you are in a pivotal position to leverage this activity to ensure profitable results.

Businesses spend thousands of dollars to market their business in order to make a profit. Many of these dollars are spent in ineffective ways that do not yield optimal results. Using Google, a free tool, to discover where a businesses target market is spending their time is priceless. This information can then be used as a way to make sure that each marketing dollar is well spent. A business will almost always make a profit when they take the product to said customer. Effective marketing produces ideal results; Google will be a huge asset in achieving this outcome.

The key to SEO is creating good content, and knowing how to get your content seen by more people. To that end, we’ll look at links, and how to build powerful inbound links, as well as some of the keys to creating great content, and which types of content to avoid.

Links

Links are another extremely important aspect of SEO. There are two types of links, outbound and inbound. Outbound links are links from your site to another site. They do not really affect your search engine ranking. Inbound links are links to your site from another. They affect your site massively.

It can be relatively easy to modify your own site for SEO purposes. However, it is much more difficult to influence other bloggers and websites within your industry to link to your site. That is why search engines rate them so highly.

However, there are two extremely effective ways that you can build an impressive collection of inbound links – commenting and guest blogging.

Commenting really just means engaging with the blogging community in your particular industry. Start by reading and commenting on the blogs of other blogs in your industry. Do not spam links to your blog, but leave an occasional backlink. Search engines prefer inbound links built over a long period of time.

Guest blogging, on the other hand, requires a bit more expertise. Find a popular blogger who write about a similar subject to you, and offer to write a guest post for him or her. Popular bloggers are frequently very busy, and will likely take you up on your offer. If you write a guest post, it is acceptable to promote your own site with a link at the end.

Content

With all the focus on links, never forget that good content is the ultimate purpose of your website. The purpose of your site should be to provide content, and your users visit your site to access your content. You can add any number of frills on top of this, but the basic does not change.

So how do you optimize content for search engine crawlers? Simple. Just write for your users. If your users like your content, then will visit your site more often, link to it more often, and generally spread the word about your content. There is no more organic way to drive up your rankings than by having other people naturally promote your site.

What’s more important to keep in mind with content is what can de-optimize your site. The biggest threats to your site are duplicate content and filler content. Like in any business, you should always be looking for your site’s value-add. Look at it from your user’s perspective. If you’re just offering duplicate content, what value does your site add for them?

So make sure that you’re providing new, fresh, original content. It takes more work than linking to other sites, but the search engine crawlers will reward your site for it, and more importantly, your users will keep coming back for more.

1. Keyword Choice – People use specific search terms to find information, and you can maximize your responses with carefully targeted keywords.  Look at your site and the information and products it offers.  Then determine some broad industry terms that might lead seekers to your site.  Then research multiple search terms that people use on a monthly basis to find other providers.  Focus on terms that do not have a lot of competition.  The less competition there is for your search items, the easier it will be for your site to show up on the first page or results.
2. Quality Content – Search engines are more sophisticated than ever, and are able to black list sites based on content choices.  They look for sites that are poorly written, and automatically tag them as poor results.  Make sure that your content is grammatically correct, interesting and informative, and uses keywords thoughtfully.  Packing in as many keywords as possible is not a good way to improve your rankings.  Keep your density low for best results.
3. Incorporate Social Media – Social media is new to the scene as a search engine optimization strategy, but no one can afford to ignore it.  Search engines now use social media popularity as a way to judge the acceptability of a site.  Link your site to all of your social media activities as well, to enjoy both cross promotion and increased ranks on SERPs.  Consistent posting of new information and marketing strategies will keep people coming back again and again to find out what’s new.

The more effort you put into your search engine optimization strategies the more quickly you will see results.  Because search engines are the primary way people navigate the Internet, your rankings on SERPs are crucial for long term business success online.  Use the best “white hat” optimization strategies to promote organic search optimization.  Do not simply create pages that are nothing but keywords.  It may temporarily increase your hits, but in the long term it will simply result in your page being blacklisted and forgotten.  Plus, a page that gets hits using those strategies will not successfully convert hits into sales.  The only way to consistently enjoy increasing sales numbers is to provide valuable services and top notch content.  You can be successful at online selling if you put in the necessary time and effort.

Historically, one great method for improving your placement in a search engine results page (SERP) was to use an exact keyword match phrase as your domain.  Exact keyword match phrase domains are purchased domain names that exactly match a phrase that is one a company would like to be ranked for.  An example of this practice would be a company that is seeking to advance for the phrase “best accommodations Chile” would then purchase the domain with those keywords in it. This practice has helped many websites improved their position on SERPs, but it is no longer showing the same strong results.  This SEO method is not effective any more.  What this means for businesses that employ this tactic, is two pronged.  One, they can stop buying additional domain names that are not directly related to their overall business, resulting a small monetary savings.  Two, businesses must focus on other SEO methods to maintain their rankings.  For those that have never used this practice, enjoy the suddenly level playing field.

We’ve discussed what won’t work, so let’s take a look at things that will work to improve your SERP positioning.  Today, it is all about social media.  SERP position will be directly affected by the number of times your page is shared, liked or tweeted.  However, it looks like currently Facebook results are more highly respected than other social media sites.  This means that your position on SERPs will be more affected by likes on Facebook than by tweets using Twitter.  This could change at any time, so it is not a good idea to focus all your efforts on Facebook to the exclusion of other social media opportunities like LinkedIn, MySpace, YouTube and more.  Building a presence on social media sites takes time and dedication, but with the added importance given new SEO techniques, it is more than worth the effort.  These sites represent a direct marketing opportunity as well.  Not only will your business be working to improve its SERP using social media, it will also be building customer relationships.

Businesses that do not adjust to changes in the online market place, fail quickly.  The Internet is fast paced and constantly changing.  Things that are incredibly popular on Monday are old news by Wednesday.  Never focus all SEO efforts on one method.  Broad application of a number of tactics is the key to success with organic SEO.

1. Get More Hits on Your Website

When you perform a search online, it is common to get a video result on the first page.  When you produce videos and incorporate them on your website with appropriate keywords, you can improve your search rankings even more.  People are much more likely to open a video link versus a text link.

2. People Stay on Sites Longer When Engaged by a Video

Reading walls of text, no matter how attractively laid out, is not as interesting as content that includes pictures and videos.   The more interesting your content, the longer people will stay on your website.  The longer they stay the more likely they are to make a purchase.  Ergo, videos can increase your sales.

3. Videos Generate Trust

How to videos that are carefully filmed create the idea that your company is expert in their field.  These videos add value to your site and increase link back opportunities.  When consumers perceive your company as expert, they are more likely to trust you to provide the services they need.

4. Customers See a Face to Go with the Product

All sales are generated by selling the people rather than the product or service.  When people like the sales people they are more likely to make a purchase.  Online, you can’t sell directly, so using video to let people get to know your company is a great idea.  People want to get to know the companies they use, by using video you give them that opportunity.  Relationship building is incredibly important for sales.  Customers that feel connected to a business are more likely to show loyalty and make continued sales.

5. Give Customers Better Information

A video can be used to provide customers with additional information about products.  Sometimes a demonstration is exactly what is needed to propel a person into making a purchase.  Actually seeing the product in use can be the motivation that a browser needs to become a shopper.

Acknowledging the necessity of video is easy, actually producing the videos can be more difficult.  The promotion of the videos is practically free using the internet, but producing them will have some costs.  If your company doesn’t have the necessary equipment you will need to either purchase it or rent it.  Sometimes, a production company will need to be involved to create videos that are user friendly.  Your text web content needs to be high quality, and so does your video content.

First, research the keywords that potential clients or customers are likely to use to find information or providers of your products and services.  A little research before developing website content can go a long way.  As Mark Twain once said “The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between the lightning and the lightning bug.”  Choosing the right keywords for you company is critical.

Second, use Meta tags wisely.  A well written Meta tag will allow search engines to find your website and display information coherently to users.  For those unfamiliar, Meta tags are the descriptions that search engines display on their results pages.  These tags are usually around 150 characters.  A Meta tag should incorporate your chosen keywords in grammatically correct English that also describes your company’s services. 

For example: Enjoy tasty Italian cuisine at Market Place’s best regional restaurant 123.  Italian food offers all the comforts of home cooking in a relaxing atmosphere. 

If you own an Italian restaurant located in Market Place this tag provides all the information people need to understand the services you offer.  It will pop for a variety of keyword searches including Italian cuisine, Italian food, Market Place restaurant and of course the restaurant name.  Including all of these items allows you to ensure that your business will be found when a search is performed.

Another important technique for SEO is local business listings.  There are many listing services, including SuperPages.com, YellowPages.com. Yahoo, Google and many other search engines also offer local listings.  Companies that list their companies with local listings are given higher page rankings on searches.  Local businesses are automatically listed first in search results.

Article submission is another way to bump up your ranking.  Publishing articles with backlinks to your website is a great way to generate increased traffic and gain additional exposure on search engines.  Articles can be posted on a variety of topics using several different keywords.  Using keywords that are too niche to be used for your general web content is a great way to capture a small, but solid, percentage of the market.

Search Engine Optimization is all about making sure that a customer can easily find your business.  If your company doesn’t turn up on the first page of results, it won’t get much in the way of web traffic.

The most popular and acceptable methods of driving traffic are pay-per-click advertising and traditional search engine optimization. But although both methods are effective and highly doable, they also have innate disadvantages for the small business owner on the internet. The reason for this is both pay-per-click and traditional search engine optimization could cost a considerable amount of both money and time.

For example, running an effective PPC campaign would require hundreds of advertising dollars on a monthly basis. Opting to implement an SEO campaign could mean spending money on outsourcing activities such as content creation, web services, and professional fees for SEO experts. Plus, traditional SEO is more of a long term method to driving traffic, and it could take months before a web marketer experiences any noticeable results.

The solution is to employ a simple strategy that generates more traffic in less time, using the less budget as possible. In fact, this traffic tactic you are about to see can be done with no cost, and if you decide to accelerate it further you can spend a bit of money on the tools and services that make it work. This would involve some basic SEO knowledge but the application of the principles need not be applied in the traditional setting. Here are the steps that you should rinse and repeat at least once or twice a week:

1. Write your SEO content. Every traffic generating tactic online that doesn’t implement any form of paid advertising needs to start with creating SEO content. In this step, just create a short 500 word article which is optimized for the keywords you are targeting. Make sure the topic is of remarkable interest to your target audience.

2. Post your content on your own website or blog first. This is where most marketers get lost. Many make the mistake of submitting to article directories first. This invalidates their own website in search engine placements. There is a long explanation for this, but for now, you have to understand that you should post on your own site first before anything else.

3. Submit your article link to social bookmarking sites. Now that your SEO content is posted on your site or blog, submit the article link on bookmarking sites such as Stumbleupon, Digg and other similar sites. You might get additional direct traffic from these sites, but the main intention for bookmarking is to get the search engines to quickly notice your content and “index” it (include in search engine results). Without bookmarking, it could take days or weeks before the search engines index your page.

4. Once your content is indexed, submit your article to top article directories. Now is the time to submit to article directories so you can benefit from the direct traffic from those sites. Ezine publishers subscribed to these article directories might find your article and republish it on their own sites, creating a chain reaction effect. Not only that, you don’t need to worry anymore about the “duplicate content” violation because your content is already posted on your own site.

The most essential step in keyword research is to search for keyword phrases in your market that have high search volume and low competition. This is the backbone of all keyword research, and yet people who do SEO frequently neglect it. The average marketer would usually pick a popular keyword phrase with the highest search volume and then spend the rest of his life optimizing for that phrase. And the reason why that method doesn’t work 98% of the time is because of fierce competition.

The only marketers who can handle that type of competition in the search engine arena are the big companies with thousands of dollars in their pockets for hiring SEO analysts, content writers…and those who control multiple blogs or websites. The average stand-alone marketer cannot thrive in the game of popular keyword, high competition game.

So what’s the solution?

The only solution is to search and opt for keyword phrases in your market that have medium to high search volume, with relatively lower competition. This would mean that you have to leave the popular, mainstream keywords to the big internet players and focus on finding some obscure keyword phrases in your market. These keywords are often ignored by other marketers but are constantly searched by people in your market.

For example, if you are in the weight loss niche, it is almost close to impossible to rank number one in the search engines in the next 48 hours if you are optimizing for the keyword phrase, “weight loss”. That keyword is popular and it is used by millions of other websites already. So what you do is search for other keyword phrases still related to weight loss, which are less popular but also have lesser competition. These are called “long tail” keywords. They are somewhat longer than the mainstream keyword phrase, they have lower search volume, but they also have little to no competition!

A good way to start researching for long tail keyword phrases is the Google’s search based Keyword Tool. All you have to do there is to type in the mainstream phrase in your market, and the keyword tool will generate the top 100 keyword phrases related to that main keyword phrase. The beauty of this is that you get to see the amount of monthly search volume of each long tail keyword, and also see how much competition are you dealing with. Usually, I pick five to ten long-tail keywords, create SEO content about it, and post to my blog. This allows me to get a constant trickle of traffic to my site.

When you make a habit of picking long tail keywords and optimizing for those phrases, you will have more results and traffic from the search engines in the long term. Yes, the traffic is somewhat smaller from each long-tail keyword phrase, but you are getting real visitors to your site on a constant basis. This SEO keyword research technique is much better than spending months and years trying to rank for more popular keyword phrases in your niche.

Shotgun advertising was used for several generations, as companies sent out thousands upon thousands of ads hoping one of them hit an interested customer. With social media, customers who choose to become ‘friends’ with a business can be targeted through direct content on the site or through a targeted email campaign, effectively putting an advertising target on the backs of all of the company’s new internet ‘friends.’

To attract people to their social media sites companies often have contests with which they offer prizes for someone chosen, for example, as their ‘friend for the day’ and randomly select one person from their list of friends to win some sort of prize. Some even offer special discounts to their friends on the social media site as a reward to them joining them on the social media site, which adds to their email mailing list and provides for engagement with their target audience.

Social networking has brought business networking to a whole new level for companies being able to communicate directly with the public, enabling them to target those who are already aware of what they do and what they sell. This communication allows for companies to instantly respond to questions and complaints and can be an especially useful tool in explaining any changes the company plans to make.

No longer do businesses have to rely on several different timed methods to reach their target audience. Coordinating advertising, marketing and networking can be combined into one or all available social media sites communicating within minutes instead of weeks or even days as they had in the past. It is this instant communication and being able to target their communications to a specific audience in record time that makes social media the ideal medium for businesses to network with their customers.

Another huge plus to social media connections is the ability to offer video to their friends on the site. Advertising messages can be sent by way of these sites, offering more than simple textual or graphics to send their message. With any video presentation there is also the opportunity for the video to go viral. Viral marketing involves having one user finding the message interesting or compelling enough to send a link to that video to all of their friends…at no additional cost to the business. Social media allows companies to step up their game and reach more people faster than ever before.

Keywords are those most likely to be entered into a search engine and websites that contain the relevant keywords are most likely to succeed. That being said, it’s important to understand that today’s search engines aren’t stupid. They can preview the site and see if the site builder has stuffed various keywords into the site to attract visitors. Search engines will determine not only the keywords that are on the site, but also if the information surrounding the keywords is relevant and informational.

When deciding to use article marketing to enhance your site’s search engine optimization the articles have to first, be totally original, meaning the articles can not be found anywhere else on the internet. By using software into which as article is inserted, the software can search the internet to determine if it has been previously published online. Sure, there are bound to be certain phrases that all article writers use and they will show up, but an article that includes as little as three percent similar material may be rejected as having been copied.

The article keywords must also be relevant to the information contained on the site, or if you’re selling merchandise, they need to relate to the merchandise. For example, if your site sells luggage the article published on the site needs to contain information relevant to people who might need luggage. Information about a brand of luggage would be good. Even information about travelling by train or plane could be useful but an article extolling the virtues of motor bikes would have no relevance and not be picked up by the search engines.

Additionally, the keywords need to flow properly and used in the proper context with informational articles. There is also the density of the keywords to consider; that is the number of times the word or phrase appears in the article. A density of one to three percent is generally acceptable. More than that could be considered keyword spamming and less that that may be considered useless. To calculate that divide the number of times the keyword or phrase appears in the article and divide it by the total word count of the article, not including the title.

The flow of the keywords must sound natural when used in the proper context. Not only must they read naturally, they also need to be relevant. For example, going back to selling luggage the keyword luggage is obvious but the key phrase packing for a trip could also be acceptable. Phrases also should not be broken up by punctuation marks such as commas or apostrophes, as they are not likely going to be paty ofthe entered search term and will be ignored by most search engines.