Don’t Forget About These

Google Maps here at your finger tips is literally the power to put yourself on the map. Select the appropriate category and complete your listing. This should help increase your site activity especially if there multiple business’ in your area. Pick a category that will result in better placements.

Beware of including too many keywords. You might notice a drop in ranking by trying this trick. A few keywords are acceptable but don’t go overboard. Trying to hit up every variation in search terms gets spotted by the googlebot and may not have the desired results.

Whether you like it not social media promotion is here to stay. Not only will a presence improve your local search results but the social interaction may drum up some business. It may not necessary contribute directly to more hits but with so many companies investing in this area it is hard not ignore the elephant. It may not benefit you immediately but it certainly will pay dividends going forward.

Good luck.

Easy steps for SEO

While I always say content is king there are easy steps for search engine optimization (SEO). First take a look at your keywords. Make sure you are using the right ones and if you are not sure, take a look at your competitors. Next, meta tags and description text. Again you want to make sure these match your keywords and target the market you are aiming for. Basically if you can ensure that you are coding your site correctly then these are simple steps and are part of the design process. URL text is another thing that can help snag incoming links and search results. Being descriptive and accurate is key. While pictures and flash animations are nice, not all browsing will occur with an up to date browser. Take the time to enter alternate text for those image files and fancy animations. This will also help those who are still living with IE6 (or Netscape). Even robots will pick up those tags so every bit helps.

Tips for the content challenged

Snappy headlines – will probably amount to your most clicks. Outrageous words and fantastical trends will get clicks just for the hell of it. Time for an exercise in creativity.

Short and sweet – don’t beat around the bush, get to the point. People are busy and there are so many other things that can easily distract your readers. Don’t ramble, stay on topic.

Tags and meta – useful for when you aren’t ranking. Keywords and search terms will get the rest of the traffic to your site. Stay awhile, click on a few links.

Images – a nice picture always helps to brighten the look of your site. Just make sure it is related to what you are writing about. Use your own photos whenever possible. You don’t want someone sending you a bill at some point.

Content matters – in the end keeping them coming back will always be content. Compelling stories, unique writing style, opinionated perspective will help to attract and keep readers. While it’s hard to write original posts you can always put your own spin on trending topics. Good luck!

SEO is just the beginning

A proper SEO campaign need a few things to succeed. Having a good site designer definitely helps. Presentation is your foot in the door. If it looks the part then you have a chance to show potential customers what you have to offer. Is it easy to navigate? Is the layout clear and concise? Is the message short and sweet?

Content is the next draw. Got linkbait? Are people hitting your site because of search engine keywords? If so do you have to goods to back it up? Will people stick around and click on a link or 2? It’s more than keyword density and meta tags. Rounding up the average web surfer and keeping them coming back is the key to long term growth.

Links and ads. You can avoid them. Helping strengthen partner relationships and generating side revenue helps pay for those new shoes. Just remember to keep the outgoing and incoming links balanced. This ain’t no link farm. Quality of the link helps point loyal readers to sources you go to and trust.

Keyword Worth

Some interesting stats here. Taking a look at the value per click it might be a good idea to fill up your content posts with, smartphone ($2.03), cell phone (1.95), laptop ($5.45), computers ($3.74), desktop ($5.32), fitness equipment ($3.57), weight loss ($2.37), earrings ($4.65), mattress ($3.45), time machine hot tub ($2.54). OK, so the time machine thing isn’t a high ranking keyword, but seriously did you see that movie? It’s hilarious.

The number also show just how competitive some keywords can be and how much money you can make by filling your blog full of content. Just giving you some ideas for posts and hopefully making you money at the same time.

Be wary of SEO “experts”

A few things to know when going the SEO consultant route, there are many fish in the sea however, few of them are actually sharks. Be wary of who you decide to go with. Red flags should be catch phrases as “#1 ranking” and “guaranteed results”. Nobody can stand up to those claims without knowing the search battleground for the keywords your specific company is competing on. Some markets are more competitive than others. For example the arena for “viagara” is probably much more difficult to invade than say “pumpkin farm”. Yes, extreme examples but this is what I’m talking about. A true SEO consultant needs to ask some qualifying questions & do some research before giving you a proposal and projected results.

Don’t be fooled by big promises because the SEO game is constantly in flux. What works today most definitely will not work tomorrow.

In content links

Placing links within post content is probably one of the safer routes to go when commencing a link campaign. For one the content will attract clicks, secondly the link will be keyword focused traffic. It’s a much slower way of building “natural” looking links and it will take some time and dedication but the rewards are definitely worth the trouble. Of course this requires a bit of quality on the part of the writer and good writers are hard to find. Don’t equate a good writer and a good blogger. They are both different animals.

Buying run of site links can be successful in limited quantities. Having a well placed link on a trusted site on the blogroll can push traffic to your site. However having too many run of site links creates a large influx of inlinks has often raises the red flag with the Google police. When a site all of a sudden gets a ton of inlinks that’s not natural and a Google engineer is going to take a closer look at where the links are coming from. Buying links isn’t wrong … so long as your buying them from Google. Just be careful. You don’t want your link count to jump from 100 to 10,000.

A few questions to ask yourself …

If you’re ranking in the top 10 then you can ignore this list. However if you’re competitors are ranking ahead of you, perhaps the answer to your ranking issues lies in these questions.

Is your website cluttered with pictures or text? Is there a balance?
What keywords have you targeted vs the keywords your competitors have targeted?
Does your domain match your market?
How many inlinks do you have?
What Meta tags are you using?
Is your body text longer than 600 words?
What’s your page rank?
Is your site easy to navigate?

Answering some of these questions will help you better understand your competition. Analyzing your competitors and their sites will help you integrate some of those ideas into the theme of your site. Simply copying the competition is not the answer. Putting a different spin on a subject, offering great content, and building links will get you to the top.

Common elements of good websites

If your website is missing one of these items this could explain why its not living up to it’s potential.

1. Navigation bars – header/footer. It’s a good idea to have them both just for simplicity. Try to give every incentive for the user to visit another one of your pages and potential use your services.

2. About page – with useful information. Sure you have an about page, but is there anything unique in there which personalizes you or your services? Anyone visiting your about page wants to check up on you and get a better feel for your company. If you provide good info and background that could be enough to seal the deal.

3. Updates. Having the option to subscribe to a newsletter or blog feed keeps your visitors in the loop. This takes the guess work out of the equation and gets new content to your visitors as you produce it.

4. Browser compatibility. Not every visitor is using IE7 (or Firefox, or even Safari). From a visitor’s point of view a web site that does not display properly in the browser “I’m” using never leaves a good impression. It takes a bit more of an effort but I’m the the user visiting from their iPhone will appreciate it.

5. Search. Maybe you haven’t created a page for every topic but you certainly have covered it on a few other pages. Sometimes a search feature will provide the answer for the user who doesn’t fit into the standard category.

Tips for internal links

Setting up your internal links will help your external links. It’s going to point new visitors to where you want them to go and help them navigate your site. Make sure you pick the right keywords and titles. Meta descriptions also go a long way. Writing good content will develop page rank which will start bringing traffic to your site. Make sure you don’t duplicate content, this might confuse the googlebot and discount any pages you create. Stay consistent when linking internally. Use nofollow for pages with duplicate content and partner sites that you do not want to pass page rank to.

Take a look at competitor sites, pick out the things you like and incorporate them into your style. Keep your navigation bar clean and limit the number of links. Less choices = simpler navigation.