Recently in SEO/SEM Category
For the past few months we seen a heated debate rising as to which is better - organic search engine optimization or pay per click. Both organic search engine optimization (SEO) and pay per click (PPC) search are important just as public relations and advertising co-exist. It really isn't an either/or situation for both of these methods of creating awareness about your company. The relative sucess of public relations and advertising is different for every company. Similarly the mix for SEO and PPC varies from marketer to marketer.
So what is Organic SEO? It's making sure your site is optimized to aquire link popularity to gain more view results. This translates into a higher ranking on search engines related to your choosen search terms and keyword phrases.
What is PPC? You are buying clicks or site visitors from a search engine. At the end of the day PPC is a broad market place where you are buying and selling eyeballs for any given website. Pricing varies on what you pay per click. It really depends on how popular your category is such as real estate, fishing and automobiles. The more popular the category the more you will pay per click through to your site. The higher the margins of profit you have on a product will allow you to determine how aggressively you will be able to dominate your market. The more money you have to bid for placement will speed your results.
No matter if you use Organic SEO or PPC you need to be able to get access to your site statistics, analytics and metrics in order to know what sort of return on your investment you are getting on both methods. It really boils down to how soon do you need results? While getting your site ranked nationally through organic methods will take time, you should consider local search engine rankings since often times your competition hasn't. Right now over 20% of the searches being conducted online are local in nature. That number will rise in the next two years significantly.
One fundamental question you need to ask yourself is how soon do you need results? Understand that organic results will take 2-6 months to get the sort of results you want. The more resources, time and money you can spend on either will increase the number of eyeballs coming to your site. It should be noted that organic results are felt to be more trustworthy by your potential visitor.
Next week we will discuss some of the factors that will effect your success or failure in growing your sites traffic. See you then
So what is Organic SEO? It's making sure your site is optimized to aquire link popularity to gain more view results. This translates into a higher ranking on search engines related to your choosen search terms and keyword phrases.
What is PPC? You are buying clicks or site visitors from a search engine. At the end of the day PPC is a broad market place where you are buying and selling eyeballs for any given website. Pricing varies on what you pay per click. It really depends on how popular your category is such as real estate, fishing and automobiles. The more popular the category the more you will pay per click through to your site. The higher the margins of profit you have on a product will allow you to determine how aggressively you will be able to dominate your market. The more money you have to bid for placement will speed your results.
No matter if you use Organic SEO or PPC you need to be able to get access to your site statistics, analytics and metrics in order to know what sort of return on your investment you are getting on both methods. It really boils down to how soon do you need results? While getting your site ranked nationally through organic methods will take time, you should consider local search engine rankings since often times your competition hasn't. Right now over 20% of the searches being conducted online are local in nature. That number will rise in the next two years significantly.
One fundamental question you need to ask yourself is how soon do you need results? Understand that organic results will take 2-6 months to get the sort of results you want. The more resources, time and money you can spend on either will increase the number of eyeballs coming to your site. It should be noted that organic results are felt to be more trustworthy by your potential visitor.
Next week we will discuss some of the factors that will effect your success or failure in growing your sites traffic. See you then
If you were to go the web now and search on your name you may get bits and pieces about who you are, your professional successes and what your business is all about. But the information is often time fragmented and often time not quite accurate.
Have you ever wanted to just add a line or two to a posting on the Internet about you related to you to make it sound better but were unable to to get in touch with the one that posted your information to make some changes?
What if you could have complete control of what you want the web to say about you? In your words and with your facts! By having control of what the Web is saying about you it is the only way I know you can build your own personal brand the only other way would be to go through the time and expense of building your own personal website. as busy professionals we don't necessarily have the time or the knowledge to create such a site. Now that has all changed!
Cornerstone Media Group and qAlias have team up to provide you with a way to get your name number one in Google and Yahoo that combined is being used over 75% of the time by people wanting to know more about you before they do business.
A real advantage of qAlias is that you can send a personalized bulletin that presents a focused, effective message to your family, friends and more importantly customers right from your profile about anything you want, as often as you want. This is a great way to stay in touch with your customers when your business has an announcement. Depending on the size of your company (50 person minimum) we can even customize the background to reflect your brand and company's image. From your own personal bio to your business card online you are taking control of what the Web is saying about you at qAlias.
If you are a soon to be college grad or looking for a new job you can post your resume for downloading 24/7 from your profile on qAlias. It can be downloaded by anyone searching for innovative people they are looking for to fill some of the best jobs in the world.
For more information visit the qAlias website. Hey! Just Google me, Mark Treager to see just a small sample of the sort of personal results you can achieve using the amazing technology from qAlias.
Have you ever wanted to just add a line or two to a posting on the Internet about you related to you to make it sound better but were unable to to get in touch with the one that posted your information to make some changes?
What if you could have complete control of what you want the web to say about you? In your words and with your facts! By having control of what the Web is saying about you it is the only way I know you can build your own personal brand the only other way would be to go through the time and expense of building your own personal website. as busy professionals we don't necessarily have the time or the knowledge to create such a site. Now that has all changed!
Cornerstone Media Group and qAlias have team up to provide you with a way to get your name number one in Google and Yahoo that combined is being used over 75% of the time by people wanting to know more about you before they do business.
A real advantage of qAlias is that you can send a personalized bulletin that presents a focused, effective message to your family, friends and more importantly customers right from your profile about anything you want, as often as you want. This is a great way to stay in touch with your customers when your business has an announcement. Depending on the size of your company (50 person minimum) we can even customize the background to reflect your brand and company's image. From your own personal bio to your business card online you are taking control of what the Web is saying about you at qAlias.
If you are a soon to be college grad or looking for a new job you can post your resume for downloading 24/7 from your profile on qAlias. It can be downloaded by anyone searching for innovative people they are looking for to fill some of the best jobs in the world.
For more information visit the qAlias website. Hey! Just Google me, Mark Treager to see just a small sample of the sort of personal results you can achieve using the amazing technology from qAlias.
Television ads are often prohibitively expensive for small businesses to produce and air. Magazine and radio ads are less expensive but still require a sizeable investment when part of an ongoing campaign. Although you can spend a lot of money on an Internet campaign, there are many ways to leverage the Internet and gain free advertising for your business. Following are 20 ideas to consider.
Increase your visibility on search engines: Insert keywords that describe your business into the HTML < META > tags on your Web site pages. Repeat these keywords in the text of your Web site's homepage. Strategic use of keywords can put your business name at the top of customers' search results. For more information, see our article "Optimizing Your Site for Search Engines and Directories."
Put your URL on everything: Maximize your advertising efforts by listing your Web site address on everything you do. Print the URL on your company's letterhead, on your business cards, on the front of your building or the door to your office suite. Use the URL in your e-mail signature. List the URL on any print advertising that you do, including phone books, brochures, flyers, and direct mail pieces.
Submit your site to every directory, specialty listing, industry organization, and yellow pages you can find: No matter what industry your business is in, there are online directories, such as Yahoo! Yellow Pages, that you should register with. Many business and industry associations allow you to list your business on their Web site. In addition, there are individuals who maintain popular lists of resources; use Web search engines to find these lists, and then create an entry for your business.
Utilize evangelists: Channel the energy of your most enthusiastic staff and encourage them to promote your company's product as they surf the Web.
Blogs: A Weblog, or blog, is a collection of short articles, essays, or loosely-formatted thoughts, usually written by one individual. Since the 2004 U.S. presidential election, blogs have become extremely popular as both a medium to get your message out and a vehicle for paid advertising. Blogs also encourage reader comments, making them a valuable tool for gathering customer feedback. Companies such as Blogger will host your blog for free. You can also install a blog on your own Web site with free software such as MediaWiki.
Podcasting: Podcasts are audio files recorded in a radio talk show format. By posting podcasts on your Web site and other sites like Apple's iTunes (www.itunes.com), customers can subscribe to your podcasts, download them as soon as they are available, and then listen to them on their computers or portable MP3 devices. The software to create podcasts is free; for more information visit www.podcastingnews.com.
Join online communities: No matter what the topic, there are thousands of people discussing it passionately on the Internet. By contributing to these discussion groups, you can inform your customers and advertise your business..
E-mail lists: Cultivate a list of your customers' e-mail addresses and send them new product announcements, coupons, special offers, and useful information. See our article "Introduction to E-Mail Marketing" for more information.
Get the attention of the press: Pitch news ideas about your industry to local newspapers, radio stations, and television stations. Pitch ideas to Web news sites. Propose that one of your employees be the expert interviewed in the news piece.
Win awards: Research organizations that give awards for the products or services you provide. Apply for these awards and take the process seriously. When you win, make the most of the publicity.
Donate time or resources to a charity: Encourage charitable organizations to promote your business' donations and involvement. Try to get media coverage for the organizations and community causes you champion.
Publish information and reports about your industry: Provide consumers with free information about your business' industry. Invest in potential customers and they will invest in you.
Reciprocal links: Companies such as LinkLeads (www.linkleads.com) help businesses by facilitating an exchange of hyperlinks. By allowing a company to insert links to their products on your site, a company will allow you to insert links to your products on its site.
Reciprocal banner ads: Companies such as 123Banners (www.123banners.com) help businesses by facilitating free banner advertisement swaps. By allowing a company to advertise on your site, they allow you to advertise on theirs. Be sure you retain control over what Web sites carry your ads, and what ads you post on your site.
Coupons: Make coupons available on your Web site and e-mail them to your customers. Encourage them to give the coupons to friends and family.
Free samples of your product or service: Offer free samples of your product or service. Distribute these samples as widely as possible. Register your giveaways with Web sites such as A+ Free Stuff (www.aplusfreestuff.com) that act as a clearinghouse for free products. Before giving something away for free, ask customers to provide their e-mail address or fill out a short survey.
Free classified ads: Use services like Yahoo! Classifieds to post free ads for your products and services. Also consider posting offers for free samples of your products, sweepstakes, and other giveaways.
Excellent customer service: There's no advertising like personal recommendations made between friends and family. The best way to encourage this type of "viral marketing" is to provide excellent customer service. Take the time to properly train and motivate your sales people and do what is necessary to satisfy your customers' needs.
Business alliances and partnerships: Build partnerships with businesses that offer complementary products and services, and then promote each other. Make joint press statements about your industry, your partnership, and your products and services. Make sure your partners provide links from their Web sites to yours.
Ezine: Write an e-mail newsletter, called an ezine, with articles about your industry, your products and services, and related news of interest to your customers. Check out sources such as goarticles.com and ezinearticles.com, which provide free articles you can use in your ezine. Advertise your ezine for free with directory sites such as www.ezine-dir.com.
Not all these ideas may be appropriate for your business. The important thing is to think creatively and experiment. The Internet is an extremely flexible tool that gives your business many avenues for advertisement and enables you to react quickly to customer feedback.
Increase your visibility on search engines: Insert keywords that describe your business into the HTML < META > tags on your Web site pages. Repeat these keywords in the text of your Web site's homepage. Strategic use of keywords can put your business name at the top of customers' search results. For more information, see our article "Optimizing Your Site for Search Engines and Directories."
Put your URL on everything: Maximize your advertising efforts by listing your Web site address on everything you do. Print the URL on your company's letterhead, on your business cards, on the front of your building or the door to your office suite. Use the URL in your e-mail signature. List the URL on any print advertising that you do, including phone books, brochures, flyers, and direct mail pieces.
Submit your site to every directory, specialty listing, industry organization, and yellow pages you can find: No matter what industry your business is in, there are online directories, such as Yahoo! Yellow Pages, that you should register with. Many business and industry associations allow you to list your business on their Web site. In addition, there are individuals who maintain popular lists of resources; use Web search engines to find these lists, and then create an entry for your business.
Utilize evangelists: Channel the energy of your most enthusiastic staff and encourage them to promote your company's product as they surf the Web.
Blogs: A Weblog, or blog, is a collection of short articles, essays, or loosely-formatted thoughts, usually written by one individual. Since the 2004 U.S. presidential election, blogs have become extremely popular as both a medium to get your message out and a vehicle for paid advertising. Blogs also encourage reader comments, making them a valuable tool for gathering customer feedback. Companies such as Blogger will host your blog for free. You can also install a blog on your own Web site with free software such as MediaWiki.
Podcasting: Podcasts are audio files recorded in a radio talk show format. By posting podcasts on your Web site and other sites like Apple's iTunes (www.itunes.com), customers can subscribe to your podcasts, download them as soon as they are available, and then listen to them on their computers or portable MP3 devices. The software to create podcasts is free; for more information visit www.podcastingnews.com.
Join online communities: No matter what the topic, there are thousands of people discussing it passionately on the Internet. By contributing to these discussion groups, you can inform your customers and advertise your business..
E-mail lists: Cultivate a list of your customers' e-mail addresses and send them new product announcements, coupons, special offers, and useful information. See our article "Introduction to E-Mail Marketing" for more information.
Get the attention of the press: Pitch news ideas about your industry to local newspapers, radio stations, and television stations. Pitch ideas to Web news sites. Propose that one of your employees be the expert interviewed in the news piece.
Win awards: Research organizations that give awards for the products or services you provide. Apply for these awards and take the process seriously. When you win, make the most of the publicity.
Donate time or resources to a charity: Encourage charitable organizations to promote your business' donations and involvement. Try to get media coverage for the organizations and community causes you champion.
Publish information and reports about your industry: Provide consumers with free information about your business' industry. Invest in potential customers and they will invest in you.
Reciprocal links: Companies such as LinkLeads (www.linkleads.com) help businesses by facilitating an exchange of hyperlinks. By allowing a company to insert links to their products on your site, a company will allow you to insert links to your products on its site.
Reciprocal banner ads: Companies such as 123Banners (www.123banners.com) help businesses by facilitating free banner advertisement swaps. By allowing a company to advertise on your site, they allow you to advertise on theirs. Be sure you retain control over what Web sites carry your ads, and what ads you post on your site.
Coupons: Make coupons available on your Web site and e-mail them to your customers. Encourage them to give the coupons to friends and family.
Free samples of your product or service: Offer free samples of your product or service. Distribute these samples as widely as possible. Register your giveaways with Web sites such as A+ Free Stuff (www.aplusfreestuff.com) that act as a clearinghouse for free products. Before giving something away for free, ask customers to provide their e-mail address or fill out a short survey.
Free classified ads: Use services like Yahoo! Classifieds to post free ads for your products and services. Also consider posting offers for free samples of your products, sweepstakes, and other giveaways.
Excellent customer service: There's no advertising like personal recommendations made between friends and family. The best way to encourage this type of "viral marketing" is to provide excellent customer service. Take the time to properly train and motivate your sales people and do what is necessary to satisfy your customers' needs.
Business alliances and partnerships: Build partnerships with businesses that offer complementary products and services, and then promote each other. Make joint press statements about your industry, your partnership, and your products and services. Make sure your partners provide links from their Web sites to yours.
Ezine: Write an e-mail newsletter, called an ezine, with articles about your industry, your products and services, and related news of interest to your customers. Check out sources such as goarticles.com and ezinearticles.com, which provide free articles you can use in your ezine. Advertise your ezine for free with directory sites such as www.ezine-dir.com.
Not all these ideas may be appropriate for your business. The important thing is to think creatively and experiment. The Internet is an extremely flexible tool that gives your business many avenues for advertisement and enables you to react quickly to customer feedback.
Search Engine Optimization is an enormous topic and one of the most effective tools that can bring a prospective customer to your website. It can be a very time consuming process and can have disastrous results if not done correctly.
Before you begin to develop your own strategy and implementation plan to optimize your website for improved rankings in the major search engines you need to be sure you consider these twenty tips and techniques that will improve your rankings.
1. Make sure your site is fully operational and all your content is in place before you have it submitted.
2. Be sure to submit the domain or URL in the correct format ( http://www.mydomain.com - some directories accept it without http:// )
3. Do NOT submit domains that redirect to another site under any circumstance. This is an attempt to deceive a search engine and could get you removed.
4. Create a website for users, NOT for search engines. Do NOT present different content to search engines that you display to your users.
5. Select the most relevant category for your site when submitting. Don't make the mistake of selecting the category too fast without checking if there would be a more relevant category.
6. The links should ideally be optimized for the keywords that you want your site to target. Search engines utilize keywords or key phrases to identify web pages which are relevant to these terms.
7. Take the time to research your keywords. It may not be worth your time and money to target words where the competition is established and overwhelming.
8. Your title text for each page should be clearly defined with relevant keywords.
9. Don't use generic terms to optimize your website. It is important that you select keywords which are not overused and aptly describe (in a few words) what the site is about.
10. Select words or phrases that target a niche segment. Create a list of relevant keywords which do not attract too much competition in your niche segment.
11. Check for broken links, correct HTML and avoid hidden text or hidden links.
12. Try to use text instead of images to display important names, content, or links. The Search Engine's crawler doesn't recognize text contained in images.
13. Include the email address of your site domain NOT a free account like Yahoo, Hotmail or Gmail.
14. Using relevant keywords in your title text and anchor text can improve your search engine placement.
15. Don't repeat keywords to the point that your text becomes incoherent. It's more important to make sure your message is understood by users than it is to stuff your keywords into as many sentences as possible.
16. Don't create multiple pages, sub domains, or domains with duplicate content. Provide unique, relevant and fresh content to your users with good grammar, correct spelling, and sentence structure.
17. Do NOT submit sites that install viruses, trojans, or other malware.
18. Submit your site to premier search engines and in the top directory such as the Open Directory Project, Yahoo!, Google
19. Double check your information submitting your site to directories. Once your site has been accepted, it may be extremely difficult to change any of the information that is submitted.
20. Be patient and continue to research what your competition is doing online, what keywords they have targeted and what campaigns they are running so you can evaluate and make intelligent decisions.
Before you begin to develop your own strategy and implementation plan to optimize your website for improved rankings in the major search engines you need to be sure you consider these twenty tips and techniques that will improve your rankings.
1. Make sure your site is fully operational and all your content is in place before you have it submitted.
2. Be sure to submit the domain or URL in the correct format ( http://www.mydomain.com - some directories accept it without http:// )
3. Do NOT submit domains that redirect to another site under any circumstance. This is an attempt to deceive a search engine and could get you removed.
4. Create a website for users, NOT for search engines. Do NOT present different content to search engines that you display to your users.
5. Select the most relevant category for your site when submitting. Don't make the mistake of selecting the category too fast without checking if there would be a more relevant category.
6. The links should ideally be optimized for the keywords that you want your site to target. Search engines utilize keywords or key phrases to identify web pages which are relevant to these terms.
7. Take the time to research your keywords. It may not be worth your time and money to target words where the competition is established and overwhelming.
8. Your title text for each page should be clearly defined with relevant keywords.
9. Don't use generic terms to optimize your website. It is important that you select keywords which are not overused and aptly describe (in a few words) what the site is about.
10. Select words or phrases that target a niche segment. Create a list of relevant keywords which do not attract too much competition in your niche segment.
11. Check for broken links, correct HTML and avoid hidden text or hidden links.
12. Try to use text instead of images to display important names, content, or links. The Search Engine's crawler doesn't recognize text contained in images.
13. Include the email address of your site domain NOT a free account like Yahoo, Hotmail or Gmail.
14. Using relevant keywords in your title text and anchor text can improve your search engine placement.
15. Don't repeat keywords to the point that your text becomes incoherent. It's more important to make sure your message is understood by users than it is to stuff your keywords into as many sentences as possible.
16. Don't create multiple pages, sub domains, or domains with duplicate content. Provide unique, relevant and fresh content to your users with good grammar, correct spelling, and sentence structure.
17. Do NOT submit sites that install viruses, trojans, or other malware.
18. Submit your site to premier search engines and in the top directory such as the Open Directory Project, Yahoo!, Google
19. Double check your information submitting your site to directories. Once your site has been accepted, it may be extremely difficult to change any of the information that is submitted.
20. Be patient and continue to research what your competition is doing online, what keywords they have targeted and what campaigns they are running so you can evaluate and make intelligent decisions.
A sitemap can come in many forms. It can be used in an Information Architecture document at the beginning of a project to provide a visual display of how the pages of a site link together. It can be an html page that exists on a website to show the user of the site all of the pages that are available to them. It can also be an xml document that is created and submitted to search engines.
These last two are the ones I will focus on.
HTML Sitemap
An html sitemap will usually live in the root folder of a website (www.mysite.com/sitemap.html). If a user wants to quickly find a page in a website but isn't sure where to find it in the navigation then they can go to the sitemap.html page. This page will have all of the links for the site organized by how they are arranged in the navigation. You can see ours at http://www.csmediagroup.com/sitemap.html From a Usability standpoint this is an important page to have.
It is also important from a Search Engine Optimization perspective. Having an html sitemap ensures that Google will be able to find all of the pages of your site. Our corporate site has its navigation in Flash which means that Google can't see it. Including an html sitemap provides Google with a way of indexing all of the pages in our site because Google will follow all of the links on a site to see where they go.
XML Sitemap
An XML sitemap is an even better way of making sure Google sees all of the pages on your site. There are many automated tools out there that will create an XML sitemap for you. All you have to do is give them your url and they will do the rest. Once the document is created you can submit it to Google. Again, this is important to do to ensure that Google sees all of the pages on your website.
A sitemap is something that is often overlooking when developing a site but it is an essential part of good SEO and Usability.
These last two are the ones I will focus on.
HTML Sitemap
An html sitemap will usually live in the root folder of a website (www.mysite.com/sitemap.html). If a user wants to quickly find a page in a website but isn't sure where to find it in the navigation then they can go to the sitemap.html page. This page will have all of the links for the site organized by how they are arranged in the navigation. You can see ours at http://www.csmediagroup.com/sitemap.html From a Usability standpoint this is an important page to have.
It is also important from a Search Engine Optimization perspective. Having an html sitemap ensures that Google will be able to find all of the pages of your site. Our corporate site has its navigation in Flash which means that Google can't see it. Including an html sitemap provides Google with a way of indexing all of the pages in our site because Google will follow all of the links on a site to see where they go.
XML Sitemap
An XML sitemap is an even better way of making sure Google sees all of the pages on your site. There are many automated tools out there that will create an XML sitemap for you. All you have to do is give them your url and they will do the rest. Once the document is created you can submit it to Google. Again, this is important to do to ensure that Google sees all of the pages on your website.
A sitemap is something that is often overlooking when developing a site but it is an essential part of good SEO and Usability.
