Your website position in the search engines will fluctuate and needs regular monitoring to make sure what you are doing is appropriate. Below are some of the most common search engine optimization mistakes. Website Title If any part of a website was of the highest priority it would be the title of each individual page. [...]
Long gone are the days where you can have your nephew create a website for you and hope that all goes well and you get business leads. Technology is evolving at such break neck speeds that you need to have a perfect website instead of a “good enough” website. If a user comes to your [...]
Keyword research is undoubtedly the most important part of SEO. If you try to implement a search engine optimization strategy without doing keyword research you might as well be shooting yourself in the foot. You need to research what it is that people might be searching for to find your business. For example, are they [...]
Landing pages are a very important puzzle piece with search engine optimization and are essential in funneling and engaging your customer. However, you can’t optimize landing pages for the search engines…you have to optimize them for your readers because the search engines aren’t going to be the ones to use your service or buy your product. [...]
Whether you are a website owner or a business it’s imperative that you are involved in both search engine optimization (SEO) and social media marketing (SMM), also known and social media optimization (SMO). SEO and SMO go hand in hand and you need to be sure that your strategies work together to accomplish the same [...]
Improving site quality from the user’s perspective is the best way for sites negatively impacted by Google Panda to recover. According to Google, “high quality content is content that you can send to your child to learn something.” By raising standards for producers and driving progress in terms of content quality, Google Panda will increase [...]
In part 1 we discussed the importance of navigation, usability, functionality and quality content. A perfect website won’t be complete unless you also incorporate social media networks, search engine optimization and some form of tracking or analytics. Unless you distribute your content, services and/or products through social media and search engine optimization your are losing on valuable business. The only way to know if your SMO (social media optimization) and SEO (search engine optimization) campaigns are working is through some form on analytics. Continue reading for further details on what exactly all this means.
Social Media Marketing / Social Media Optimization - Social media marketing is useful for every business that has customers who are using the internet and those who don’t use the internet. Even if your business serves the elderly who statistically don’t use the internet as frequent or those that don’t have internet access can still be influenced through social media. How? In current times technology is no intertwined with each other that everyone has at least one friend that uses the internet or social media so they might make mention that they saw something on your Facebook page and then show those who don’t use Facebook. You can always reach people through the internet even those customers not using internet. You have to do research and determine what your target demographic is and go from there with deciding how to pursue social media marketing.
My business isn’t online, can I still use social media marketing for my business?
Social media is just a communications channel, so in the same way that you aren’t closing people via a radio ad or postcard mailing, you can use social media even if you have nothing to sell online. Focus your efforts on leading people toward the sale – whether that’s a phone consultation with you or a visit to your store. The internet is the most used form of communication so why not claim your landscape in the virtual world in all forms possible.
How can a local business use social media marketing?
Social media marketing can be used to increase the familiarity and trust factor with your business. Build relationships, make friends with customers and clients while letting people know what your business is all about. Send out content that lets potential customers and clients get to know your philosophy, values, products, services and offerings.
Your website position in the search engines will fluctuate and needs regular monitoring to make sure what you are doing is appropriate. Below are some of the most common search engine optimization mistakes.
Website Title
If any part of a website was of the highest priority it would be the title of each individual page. The title needs to be relevant, proper length and unique to every page. Many web designers don’t understand search engine optimization, or claim they do, but they don’t optimize even the simplest of areas on the web pages.
Website Description
The description tag is important because it’s what Google can use to give a brief synopsis of your web page. It’s not guaranteed that Google will use it, but it’s a highly percentage rate that they do.
Website SEO Keywords
There are hundreds of articles that say search engines, including Google, do not use the keywords meta tag. I will disagree with them 100% because I have tested the theory. Even if it was a “fluke” it doesn’t hurt to use the tag and I have seen results that contradict the articles saying it’s not valued.
No Relevant Keywords on a Page
If you page doesn’t mention your product or service you aren’t going to have good ranking within any search engine. With this being said it doesn’t imply that you should stuff the keyword all over the page to make it work, that will actually have a negative impact on your page. You need to be sure that you have mention of the page specific keywords on the page but that the page still makes sense to read.
Number of Back Links
Do you know how many other websites link to your website? Search engines do. The more links to your website from trusted website, the better. The quality and source of the links are highly important to search engines. You can have thousands of links from other websites to yours but if they are from sites search engines classify as controversial you will have a negative impact. If you suddenly gain hundreds of links overnight, this can also trip the alerts at the search engines and you can end up worse than before.
Long gone are the days where you can have your nephew create a website for you and hope that all goes well and you get business leads. Technology is evolving at such break neck speeds that you need to have a perfect website instead of a “good enough” website. If a user comes to your website and has any issues or any concerns they will immediately leave. Studies show you have approximately 15 seconds to capture a user and keep their attention. With this being said how do you know you have a perfect website?
First you need to ensure you have a captivating and fully functional web design that truly represent your company and the image you wish to provide. If your web design is mediocre or has limited functionality the user will find that out quickly and bail on you. Your web design needs to include several key features including navigation, usability, functionality and quality content.
Website navigation is the central nervous system of the website. If you don’t have a functioning and consistent navigation throughout the site your user will surely become frustrated and leave. The hierarchy of your website should be such that “parent” pages should be within a single click from anywhere from your site. Secondary pages should only be two clicks away, tertiary and below pages should only be three clicks away. If a user has to click more than three times, you have lost them.
Usability is just as important as any other portion of web design. If your user can’t easily use your website without being frustrated then it’s guaranteed they will leave. A user will not put up with frustrating websites especially when you have hundreds of competitors that might have an easier website.
Functionality is also a very important aspect of web design because without any functions your user won’t feel like they are benefiting from using your website. Your website might only be a news portal, but you still need some sort of functionality so the user is intrigued and wants to come back or stay longer.
Quality content is one of the most important features in a website. You can have great navigation, superb usability and excellent functionality but if your content is a copy of someone else your users will find that out and you will lose trust. Users want unique content with the company perspective and not just cookie cutter information they can find anywhere.
Stay tuned to learn about how social media, search engine optimization, tracking and analytics are also crucial to a perfect website.
There are many different ways to build quality and quantity links to your website without using black hat or purchasing links. With this being said, you have to put in some effort so be prepared to work for link building.
Guest blogging is one the best ways to have quality links to your website. If you have limited time to spend on link building, it would be best to invest your time in this avenue of link building. Guest blogging has some of the best ROI based on time input and value gained.
Forums are full of spam links, we all know this and so do search engines. This doesn’t mean go join 10,000 forums and post 5 things then leave. This means be active in a forum that is related to your industry and have a link in your signature that goes to your website you want to promote. You don’t have to get crazy with it, so make it professional looking, concise and to the point.
The other bonus to being active in a related forum is you can post information about your site, services and any coupons or special offers you have. This will get you the desired exposure in your industry.
In relation to the forum signature idea make sure to fully utilize your profile that is provided for those forums.
On most well structured forum profiles there are places that you can put bio information, website link, contact information and other related information. People that find your post interesting or want to know more information about you will read your profile information. Make sure you fill it out
These are not the only link building tactics out there, obviously there are hundreds. These are some of the most basic ones that can help get you started. If you don’t see immediate results don’t give up, link building takes time and persistence.
This article is focusing on adding new content to a website instead of optimizing pages already there. You want to do both, but we have already focused on optimizing existing pages so now we need to discuss new pages to help with your search engine optimization.
When doing keyword research you look for search queries on questions that people will ask relevant to your website.
For example, while working on a website for a hotel association our keyword research showed that many people were searching for activities, events and restaurants in the area.
So we suggested they develop a search engine friendly directory of area events, activities and restaurants, kept up to date on their website. People who click through to these listings in search results also learn about the hotel association.
It has been beat into the ground that every business needs to have a blog. Blog articles add new content to your site that incorporate your business views on certain articles. Not only will people find your blog interesting as long as done correctly, but the blog will also help with your organic search optimization.
Like stated in the first idea, when doing keyword research you will find search queries of questions that people ask about your website, industry, product or service.
For example, if you sell soda products people might ask questions about aspartame or high fructose corn syrup and what kind of health effects they have. You can make an article/page that answers that question and link to trustworthy resources backing your article for validity.
If you define a industry terminology in an un-biased fashion you can not only be found in the search engine on that terminology but when people read the article they have trust in what you are saying. It’s very important to NOT sell yourself on this page. People came to this page to find a definition, not a sales pitch. You won’t convert every person that views this page, but you gain trust which leads to exposure.
For example, we created a page for search engine optimization terminology. SEO is home to some of the most acronyms so we created a page for it.
If you see competitors offering how to articles, videos or self help information it’s a good idea to offer a similar service. We don’t recommend just copying your competitor but you need to offer a similar service.
You also need to evaluate if you see search queries for “how to …” then you should be targeting that otherwise you are losing potential conversions. This becomes difficult though if you provide a service because you don’t want to share your knowledge that allows people to not use your service. If this is the case, consider charging and offering a “subscription”.
