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Archive for the ‘SEO for Small Business’ Category
Friday, July 23rd, 2010
From time to time I run into someone who says they don’t need SEO, or who doesn’t want to take the time to learn about it. They claim they can be successful without it then point to their current level of success as proof.
While there’s no doubt that a person can be successful without SEO, to suggest that SEO isn’t necessary because you can be successful without it is to miss the point.
For those not in the know, SEO stands for search engine optimization. It’s the process of writing your website’s content so that it can be more easily found in the search engines. If you don’t do this then you are essentially shooting in the dark where search engine marketing is concerned.
You could just promote your website and business through social media and paid advertising models. Just forget about SEO. But when you consider the cost of running an SEO campaign and the potential benefits, why would you? Consider these:
- Every search engine ranking you achieve is free; no one pays to be at the top of the search engine organic positions.
- 80% of all web traffic for most websites comes from search engines.
- You can rank up to two pages on the same website for every search term you target. That means if you have a 100-page website and you have 100 key phrases that are important to you then you have 5,000 potential page 1 positions on each major website from which each of your potential customers may perform a search.
- A well-run search engine optimization campaign has a better chance of delivering targeted traffic to your website on a long term basis than the same level of competence in a social media campaign.
- PPC and social media marketing are considered short term marketing strategies. While effective and beneficial in the short term, if you want effective long term reach then SEO is the best approach no matter what business you are in.
I’m not suggesting you should drop social media or paid search strategies. On the contrary, keep them and don’t change a thing. But if you have not implemented an SEO strategy for your website or business then you should consider adding SEO to your online marketing portfolio. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain.
Tags: online marketing, SEO
Posted in SEO for Small Business | 3 Comments »
Saturday, July 17th, 2010
SEO for small business often falls into the ‘too expensive’ basket leaving small business owners to fend for themselves. In reality, a professional SEO for small business is not as expensive as you think, especially if the results can increase your bottom line. For many fledgling businesses, the budget just isn’t big enough to pay for professional services – if that’s you then you can do yourself a big favor by equipping yourself with the right tools.
Like all trades people, having the right tools is essential to getting the job done properly. SEO is no different and when it comes to tools, there are thousands to choose from. Some tools can be expensive to acquire, however, there are plenty of good ones available for free.
The Google Adwords Keyword tool is a good place to start if you need help in finding the best keywords and keyword phrases for your business. Google Trends is another tool you could consider and learning how to use the Google search window effectively is a must.
Firefox is the browser of choice by most in the SEO industry and it could pay to follow their lead. There are hundreds of add-on tools that you can obtain from Mozilla, the parent company behind Firefox. The majority of these add-on tools are free and most fairly straightforward in their use.
If you are undertaking your own SEO program, then find a set of tools that you are comfortable with and take a few moments to learn how to use them. With the right set of tools, you can be optimizing your web pages and checking on the competition just like a professional SEO consultant. Used effectively, you will find the result can boost the number of visitors to your website significantly – and with it, your profits.
Tags: Firefox, google, SEO tools
Posted in SEO for Small Business | No Comments »
Wednesday, July 14th, 2010
Matt McGee asks
My random SEO theory: Search engines (especially Google) will assign more value to sites/pages that continue to link out and provide them with this dying signal of quality.
Do you agree or disagree?
In truth, outbound linking has always been a good thing, but like a lot of Google algorithm inputs, its relative value fluctuates from time to time. I think Matt may be onto something here. For the past few years there has been a mad rush to gain inbound links and many webmasters have used some awfully tricky or spammy techniques in an effort to gain them. Even to the detriment of outbound links.
And many SEOs have even been preaching not to link out, but I believe that has just led to the degeneration of content. Linking out, if done correctly, will provide your site visitors with solid recognizable benefits. It brings in more traffic, more comments and more engaging site visitors.
Aaron Wall has written pretty heavy-handedly about this topic and there is good reason to believe that he may actually affect Google policy going forward. After all, Google doesn’t want a broken link graph any more than the rest of us.
Every couple of years Google creates a major change in its algorithm that turns the web upside down. The May Day update is an example of this. Many webmasters lost rankings while many more gained some. And all it did was reward websites with long tail keyword pages that weren’t doing so well despite some halfway decent SEO.
It is Google’s own policies that create the ups and downs of the Web’s economy. Outbound links were once considered a form of rewarding your site visitors with quality information about your niche. Then SEO best practices took over. Best practices came to mean seek out inbound links and ignore outbound links. I think some corrective action is in order to bring the outbound link value in line with the inbound link rat race. And it’s just a matter of time before Google figures that out as well.
But even if Google doesn’t figure it out, think of your visitors. What do they want? They really want you to be an expert source of information and you can’t be that if you horde all your content value for yourself. The only sure way to provide the best quality for your site visitors is to link out to resources that will help them. When you do that you help them, your link partners, yourself and the whole web community. It’s like being a good citizen. Everyone wins.
Tags: google, outbound links, SEO
Posted in SEO for Small Business | No Comments »
Thursday, July 8th, 2010
What do you do if you see you business in decline and your customer base is leaving in droves to pursue another avenue of advertising? If you’re the Chicago Tribune then you set up a business center offering services in the area of avenue to which you are losing your customers.
The obvious question is, What does The Tribune Company know about search engine marketing?
Well, probably not much and it probably doesn’t need to. It knows about small business advertising and that may be enough. So many other newspapers think since this seems to be the direction that traditional print newspapers are moving. But is that a good thing?
I think there may be some good come of it for some small business owners. But wouldn’t you rather do business with someone who knows about search engine marketing? Say, a search engine marketing company? Maybe it’s just me.
Tags: newspapers, search marketing
Posted in SEO for Small Business | 1 Comment »
Friday, May 28th, 2010
Who’s better qualified to sell SEO services than your local newspaper? Well, Wal-Mart started selling SEO in 2007. Now, your local newspaper is getting in on the action. I guess we could conclude that SEO is in very high demand.
If small business owners didn’t have a crooked eye on the SEO industry before, they should now. With local newspapers selling SEO services I don’t know what should happen next. In case you haven’t heard, newspapers haven’t been doing too well lately. They’re not selling a lot of advertising so I guess SEO services are in.
Now for the obvious question: What do newspapers know about SEO?
Anyone? Anyone? Anyone?
No, I thought not.
When you’re in the market for SEO services, why not go to an SEO specialist, someone who has actually done it and has proven their ability to do it again and again? This is one of those times when I vote for local punk kid with a hole in his jeans.
Tags: newspapers, SEO, Wal-Mart
Posted in SEO for Small Business | 2 Comments »
Monday, May 17th, 2010
There is a lot of information about search engine optimization floating around online. Much of it is misinformation. And a lot of that is by well intentioned people. Take it all with a grain of salt.
Professional SEOs, and many of them A-list SEOs with big name brand recognition, will often share their “secrets” – for a price. But their secrets will often contradict the popular techniques you’ll find in forums and back room conversations. Do you wonder why?
I have a theory:
- First, big name SEOs don’t really want you to do it yourself. They want your business so they have no incentive to tell you how to SEO your website – unless, of course, you pay them.
- In fact, professional SEOs of any caliber really have no incentive to see you SEO your own website. Therefore, any free advice you get is suspect.
- Your best free SEO advice can often come from other small business owners like yourself who have no interest in earning a living as a professional SEO. That’s because they’re too busy selling their own products and services to sell you an e-book or take your money for SEO consultations. So if you want free advice about SEO then your best bet is to talk to a small business owner who did it themselves. But do they have the time?
- Because professional SEOs don’t really want you to do it yourself they will often provide you incomplete information or pass off a myth as a fact so that you try to do it yourself before getting frustrated and calling on them for help.
- The rest of us just go about our business of optimizing our web pages.
That’s a raw theory, but if you think about it then you’ll realize that professional SEOs have one interest and one interest only – to sell you their services. Some of them are good SEOs; don’t get me wrong. Many others are just trying to get your money.
If you really want a well optimized website and you can’t afford to pay an SEO to help you do it then you’ll either need to befriend a successful small business person who is not a professional SEO or you’ll need to spend the time on trial and error. Do you have that time? If not then at least find yourself an honest SEO. One that will tell you the truth for the right money.
Tags: SEO, small business
Posted in SEO for Small Business | 3 Comments »
Friday, May 14th, 2010
Rich snippets are becoming the new tool when it comes to SEO and local business listings. While they are not limited to local business, they do offer a few advantages to that sector. Rich snippets provide information that the search engines may, and I emphasize may here, show in search results.
This information can include review ratings, price ranges for products, opening hours and shop front addresses. The code is place within the body of your page (although hidden to viewers). If you use Google’s own PageMaps structure, this is placed in the Header region of your page.
Rich snippets will not increase your position within search results, however, search engine optimization is not just about search placement, it should also incorporate best practices that can convert its current placement into clicks. This is where a well written description meta tag may help, and to boost that tag, well written rich snippets.
In search results, your page generally only gets one chance to win that click. This means your search listing needs to woo the searcher and the best way to do this is by including relevant information that sells your page as being the most appropriate in relation to the search term used.
Check out the pages on Google related to rich snippets – they take no more than five minutes to set up yet they could have a significant effect on the number of click throughs you receive.
Tags: google, local search, Rich Snippets
Posted in SEO for Small Business | No Comments »
Tuesday, April 20th, 2010
SEO techniques that come to be known as blackhat SEO are very common, but many new small business marketers would have no idea how to conduct many of these techniques. That doesn’t mean you couldn’t be guilty of it, however. You can unwittingly make the mistake of engaging in blackhat SEO and have your website banned or lose your search engine rankings.
The most common form of blackhat SEO, or spam, is called keyword stuffing. This one is so common because many people who do it don’t realize they are doing it or that it is wrong. But the search engines do not like this technique.
In a nutshell, keyword stuffing is the practice of overusing your keywords on your content pages. SEOs and content managers do this in a number of ways, including:
- Adding unnecessary keywords to the meta keyword tag
- Using the keyword too many times in the content of your page, making it read awkwardly
- Stuffing it into alt tags, title attributes, h tags and anywhere else you can think of “just to get another one in”
These are the most common ways that SEOs or content managers engage in keyword stuffing. To avoid this spam tactic, which is considered blackhat SEO by the search engines, write in a natural language way and avoid the keyword stuffing.
Tags: keyword stuffing, SEO
Posted in SEO for Small Business | No Comments »
Monday, April 19th, 2010
An interview with patent guru Bill Slawski had this little gem stuck at the end of a segment concerning search engines producing queries that are more social nature:
As far as optimizing a site when search engines may be considering user behavior more, it still helps to know something about the audience for your site, what they are interested in, and what words they will likely choose to find your site.
That’s always the bottom line, isn’t it? If your site is about weaving baskets and you know that your users are more interested in hand-made wicker baskets than Longaberger then it is important to optimize your site for “hand-made wicker” and related terms and not for “Longaberger”. Searchers will use the terms that are related to their interests. Your job is to use the terms on your site that match those terms. You can’t get any more “user behavior” than that.
Tags: SEO, user behavior
Posted in SEO for Small Business | 1 Comment »
Thursday, April 15th, 2010
Search Marketing Standard published an article suggesting that website owners might update their content. I was delighted to see that one of the ways to do is to rewrite it so that it follows semantic language rules. Here’s what it said, specifically:
Google has been feathering in synonyms for some time now, but it has stepped up its schedule over the past few months. We have noticed several cases where sites with synonymous phrases have worked their way into SERPs where they would not otherwise have the SEO credentials. When you rewrite your content, make sure you consider all the related words and phrases that could potentially sell your product.
I would say that for about five years now Google has been playing around with some kind of semantic language indexing. Yes, during that time they have gotten better at it so you are going to see more websites getting ranked for their synonymous phrases and for using synonymous phrases. That’s a good thing.
If you’ve notice that your website content has fallen in the rankings then it may mean that it’s time for an overhaul. Rewrite your content to fit the modern web and see if that gives it a boost.
Tags: content, semantic language
Posted in SEO for Small Business | 2 Comments »
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