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Posts Tagged ‘SEO’
Sunday, February 5th, 2012
The business world can be brutal, and the online business world is even more so. Name me a product and a price and I daresay I could find a handful of offers that beat yours either on price, service or reputation. That doesn’t mean the millions of shoppers who search online could, though a fair proportion of them will. Are you a small business owner who is trying to survive online by doing it all yourself? There is a good chance your business is going downhill, and possibly your health as well.
There is only so much a person can do. You have a choice, you can work on the periphery of your business, managing a website, keywords, content, marketing including a social media marketing campaign, and perhaps even a PPC campaign as well – and we haven’t touched on the business side of things, the stock control, money management and growth of a business. The alternative is to work longer building your business, increasing turnover and profitability. There are some small business owners who can manage this full time, however, their stress levels are high and their interaction with family and friends low.
The alternative is to engage professionals to work on specific areas of your business. Are they expensive? Despite popular opinion, generally not – although expensive depends on your own personal opinion. There are very competent web designers, content writers, marketing consultants and SEO professionals, just to name a few, who can help you build your business. The key to their success is your ability to let go.
We can often identify one common trait amongst those who insist on a DIY approach to an online presence – they really do go it alone. The best recommendation we can make is to stop – and network. You don’t have to give away business secrets, although you’ll be surprised with what you’ll learn once you start networking, and that includes reliable information on who best to engage to help with your online presence.
Small businesses with a DIY mindset often fail, or at best, remain static and fail to grow. The time will come when your business will need a professionally produced website, aggressive SEO, and perhaps a strong marketing (particularly social media marketing) campaign to survive in this brutal online world. Networking is one approach to breaking the DIY cycle, and to obtaining information that will help your business grow – are you networking? Are you doing it all yourself? It’s time you broke free and found professional help for your online business.
Tags: online professionals, SEO, social media marketing
Posted in Tools for Small Business | 7 Comments »
Wednesday, February 1st, 2012
One of the platforms behind search engine optimization is content. “Publish useful keyword content regularly” has been the mantra for over a decade now, however, one wonders if that is all about to change and that content on websites could become defunct. I know that will raise eyebrows, but then, we do know that Google, the number one source of traffic for many websites, is trying to escape the inbound link component of their algorithm.
There’s an interesting article on TechCrunch which, while discussing privacy issues related to Google+ and Facebook, also had this to say:
Google’s PageRank algorithm is seriously out of date. It promotes pages based on the number of links to it. Today, pages are no longer the unit of publishing. Far smaller items than a page dominate our senses. And those smaller messages are produced in huge quantity and in real time.
Those smaller messages are references to Facebook, Twitter and many other social media sites, forums included. This raises the question of content on websites – will it become defunct and replaced by short messages? I for one hope it never comes to that. The content on Facebook and Twitter can never really adequately answer a question. Forums are a different story, questions are answered, often in depth, and with a lot of input from a range of users. You are more likely to find an answer in a forum than you will on Facebook or Twitter. Interestingly, most small messages on those two sites generally include links to more indepth answers often on blogs.
Logic would then suggest that the indepth answer is more relevant and more important than the smaller message on a social media website. Keith Teare, the article’s author, is right when it comes to the privacy issues facing social media. However, when it comes to content, I don’t think we’ll be losing that anytime soon. Yes, Google will find a way to reduce the effects of links in its search ranking algorithm, but that will be because they have found a better way to measure worth, and yes, social media mentions will most likely lead that change.
I wouldn’t be tearing down content or reducing the amount published in too much of hurry. Rather, I’d be concentrating on content that individuals find important enough to share with others. Blogging for small business is still one of the best ways to communicate with the rest of the world, and that won’t be changing anytime soon.
Tags: content, search engine optimization, SEO, social media marketing
Posted in Blogging for Small Business | 3 Comments »
Thursday, January 26th, 2012
Google has become mean concerning web sites and display advertising. If the advertising on your web page pushes the content down below the fold, then your site may receive a ding in the search rankings.
Why do I say “mean?” One poorly designed page could affect your whole site, not just that one page. If you’ve recently suffered a serious drop in search rankings, check your pages for advertising, have you overdone it?
There is a logic to Google’s approach. Google wants to present searchers with the best content. If a web page has more ads than content, and if a user has to scroll down below the fold to find that content, then, in Google’s humble opinion, that page is not quality. Furthermore, if that page is not quality, then neither are any of the other pages on that site. What isn’t clear is whether or not your own display advertising has the same effect – logically, it would since the emphasis now is content and having it readily available to users.
If you do have a lot of advertising on your pages, there are a number of approaches you can take. These include:
- reducing the number of ads,
- redesigning your web page so that content appears above the fold,
- using sidebars for display advertising,
- ensuring ads are relevant to the pages’ content.
Google is not anti-advertising. In fact, Google does encourage website owners to include Adsense ad units on their sites although they do suggest you follow their guidelines when it comes to quantity and placement. The rules related to SEO are constantly changing and so it always pays to stay on top of the latest news.
Tags: advertising, content, Display Advertising, SEO
Posted in Display Advertising | 3 Comments »
Wednesday, January 25th, 2012
Search engine optimization (or SEO) is often made out to be some strange and scary beast that only professionals dare go near. In reality, SEO is a tame beast. In fact, it’s a beast that you have a lot of control over. Sure, once you get past the basics, SEO can be time consuming, and perhaps even frustrating at times, but in reality, it’s still a simple concept.
For a web site to rank well, it’s necessary to understand what goes into the ranking process. SEO is the process of optimizing your pages (and web site) to gain the best position possible in search rankings. And that process is, as I have mentioned, fairly simple – there are only three steps:
- Discovery – search engines need to find your content, however, I wouldn’t leave it to their efforts alone. Search engines need help and that help comes initially in the form of sitemaps that are submitted. You can expedite this process by creating a Google Webmaster Tools account – there you can submit your sitemaps encouraging the search engine to visit and crawl through your website.
- Indexing – the second step in the SEO process is to have your pages indexed. You could submit a sitemap with 100 pages, and still find that a search engine has only indexed half the pages. External links to your pages can help as can social media mentions. It also helps if your web pages are easy to find, and easy to crawl. Pages that are deep within a website often fail to get indexed. Search engines will often only travel three or four links deep into a website. Your web pages should be easy for a search engine to read – that means ensuring your content is as close to the top as possible (of the root index file), and that Java and Flash are limited and SEO friendly as well.
- Ranking - the hardest step in the process is ranking. This is where a page is compared to other pages and ranked for search terms. You can increase a page’s ranking by building inbound links and by gaining social media mentions. This is one area where website owners make life harder for themselves. The real key to ranking well is to create content that others find useful, that others will reference on their sites (inbound) links, and that people will discuss on social media sites (social media mentions).
SEO is the sum of those three activities and you will never succeed if you skimp on one area. You can have the best content in the world, however, if a search engine can’t find it, or finds it impossible to read when it does find it, then it won’t rank. Likewise, poor content will not receive the external support that is so vital to rank a page highly.
In a nutshell, build your site, tell the search engines where your content is, and make sure it easy to find and easy to read and that the content is worthy of ranking. Get that right and you have created a great SEO platform to build on.
Tags: search engine optimization, SEO, sitemaps
Posted in SEO for Small Business | 3 Comments »
Friday, January 20th, 2012
Have you taken a moment to check out Google’s latest offering to the general public? Is has the simple but apt title of “Good to Know” and has been well packaged with both text and graphics on the opening screen. It is, to a certain extent, a repackaging of content that Google has published over the years. It’s generally related to Internet and data security for users, and the tips are well worth reading. The whole concept is an excellent piece of public relations bordering on a public service announcement. I won’t go into the actual information published by Google, I’m sure there are many others who will – what interests me more is the concept, and whether or not it could be replicated on other websites – and I think it can.
Most websites, whether it’s parenting, photography or pets, for example, publish advice. The ‘Good to Know’ concept is a great way to bring all of that information together, and you don’t need just one ‘Good to Know’ article or page. Most websites could break their content into sections; for example, we could have a ‘Good to Know’ series that covered SEO, social media marketing, branding – I could go on, however, I think you get the idea.
By publishing pages that link to this information, you are helping your readers find information quickly and helping to link related content for SEO purposes. This kind of content, especially if you can utilize graphics in a similar way to Google, is also easy to promote through social media. It’s certainly a novel way to present content to your visitors and certainly worth considering for your own websites – it could also be a great PR tool for your business.
Tags: SEO, social media marketing
Posted in PR for Small Business | 2 Comments »
Thursday, January 19th, 2012
There is an interesting infographic that Dan Zarrella has published that reveals the days that his content receives the most social interaction. What is interesting is that different social media react on different days – for example, Saturday and Sunday are more fruitful for Facebook whilst Friday is the best day for re-tweets. He concludes that, on some days, there is less clutter so his content has less to compete with. From a business perspective, he may be right. From a social perspective, Friday through Sunday are often the busiest days for socializing, and that includes online.
It does raise an important question. Do you know when you receive the most attention through social media, either on an hourly or daily basis? Some marketers insist on publishing at certain times of the day because they receive more attention then than at other times. It is well known that some days are quieter than others as well.
The next question relates to the value of this knowledge. Is it worth measuring? Two years ago I may have said maybe not; today, interaction with social media is becoming such an important SEO metric that website owners do need to grab every ‘plus 1′, ‘like’ or ‘retweet’ they can get their hands on. If publishing at certain times on certain days delivers more of these ‘votes’, then that knowledge could give you the edge you need over your competitors. It becomes even more useful if you can see that some days are less important than others. You can either not publish on those days, or publish content that, while useful for your customers, is designed more for SEO purposes.
Small business owners have a lot to do in today’s online world. Analytics can often be useful for measuring what is and isn’t working, even in social media marketing. This helps a business owner concentrate on what is working whilst dropping or rethinking what isn’t working. When it comes to social interaction, knowing when you receive the most attention can help you fine tune your own activities.
Tags: SEO, social media marketing
Posted in Tracking & Analytics | 7 Comments »
Tuesday, January 17th, 2012
One mistake that many website owners make is to assume that every customer speaks English. In the U.S., the predominant language is English so a website in English is natural. There are, however, over 28 million people who speak Spanish as a first language. That’s almost 13% of the U.S. population. The question then is whether or not to create an online presence published in two or more languages.
I wouldn’t recommend a multilingual website for everyone, however, there are certainly situations where a multilingual website could be more profitable. It’s fairly easy for brick and mortar businesses. If the neighborhood where your shop front is located has a high population who speak a certain language, then it makes sense to market to that language. Almost every major city can point to ethnic enclaves within their community, and most businesses put together marketing programs aimed at everyone in that community.
The online world is different. If you are targeting a world wide market, then it doesn’t make sense spending a lot of time putting together a web site in several languages. However, if your online presence is only targeting a local market, you need to determine the language make up of that market. Would a Spanish translation of your website increase sales – with 13% of the population being Spanish speakers, that could be a sizeable chunk of the market you are missing.
Multilingual websites do come with a few SEO issues. Fortunately, Google has several guidelines that are well worth reading in order to gain a better understanding of these issues. When creating a multilingual website, never take anything for granted. Having a flag doesn’t always clearly indicate another language. Landing pages with language options are popular, however, English users seem to be less tolerant of these pages and this could lead to drop-off in visitor numbers.
Having a multilingual website can provide some businesses with a real boost in traffic. However, they can be high maintenance with every major article published requiring a second copy that has been translated. You then need to ensure it isn’t marked as duplicate content by the search engines. This is where a good SEO program is a must – if you have a customer base that is from a different ethnic background, consider creating a multilingual website.
Tags: multilingual websites, SEO
Posted in website development | 4 Comments »
Monday, January 16th, 2012
To be successful at anything, you need discipline. When it comes to the online world, discipline is what separates the successful from the unsuccessful. In its broadest terms, marketing is the single most important aspect of an online business. I say broadest since SEO, PPC and many other activities could come under the marketing umbrella. Why is discipline important?
Discipline affects your mindset. If you are sitting down to write PPC ads, then you need to have the discipline to follow your planned approach. A lack of discipline could see you easily swayed to change your mind – that’s never a good idea without research. The same can be said for a blog or a social media campaign. If you have planned your approach, then stick to that plan.
Humans are emotional creatures and we have a tendency to look at what others are doing and then trying to replicate their actions in our lives. For small businesses, that can have some limited success in the offline world, however, the online world can be very different. This is where discipline becomes an important attribute. Before trying to replicate what someone else is doing, you need to be able to examine and perhaps measure, or predict, how that action will affect your online business. We often see “fads” in the SEO and social media marketing world that work very well for one business but do absolutely nothing for another business. Sometimes they backfire and cause more damage than good.
Small business Internet marketing requires a well planned approach. Once you have that plan, you need to have the discipline to follow it through. That doesn’t mean your plan is stagnant – you still need to measure, review and make changes where necessary, however, that too is a disciplined approach that takes all the variables into account before making a move.
If you are disciplined in your approach, you are giving your business the best chance of success. Of course, discipline will do little if your marketing plans, products, or service are rubbish to begin with. If they too are spot on, then a disciplined approach should lead to high success rates – and that normally means more profit.
Tags: blog writing, marketing, PPC, SEO
Posted in Small Business Internet Marketing | 4 Comments »
Saturday, January 14th, 2012
Internet users generally have one thing in common: they want more information. In particular, they want information that answers questions, and the proof of this is in the popularity of a wide range of question and answer (Q&A) websites. As a small business owner, you can use this thirst for information to your advantage since Q&A sites often provide an inexpensive (as in free, apart from your time) way to communicate with potential customers. The most difficult task is to find a Q&A site that best suits your business and your expertise.
Q&A websites take three formats – general questions and answers, specialist (as in genre) and the newish kid on the block – local question and answers. General sites include Yahoo Answers and Quora, and they do receive the bulk of the traffic. However, specialist Q&A websites are appearing in search results in increasing numbers and it won’t be long before the local sites join them. One of the easiest ways to find a suitable Q&A website is to use both Google and Bing – enter in a range of questions related to your field to see which Q&A sites appear in the search results.
Finding a Q&A site is one thing; using it effectively is quite another. If you are able to build a profile, make it as professional as possible. Users need to be able to see that you are an expert in your field, and not just an amateur who’s shooting off at the mouth. You can further develop your standing by answering questions in a professional way, no matter how mundane they appear. Always bear in mind that, to the asker, the question asked is very important to them. You should also try to answer the question is non-technical ways, often difficult, however, you are generally talking to potential customers, not fellow experts.
Specialist sites are generally much smaller and don’t receive as much traffic as general sites. However, the traffic they do receive is often more targeted and more likely to visit your website. If using a specialist site, you can become a little more technical, however, you will need to assess the questioner’s knowledge based on their question – if they use technical information correctly, then use a technical answer.
Local Q&A are an interesting development. Askalo, CrowdBeacon and LocalMind are three that are becoming popular. These sites allow users to ask questions related to specific areas; for example, “where can I get a pizza at midnight in Wayzata?” These are as useful for businesses too – still, some questions go unanswered for several hours.
Q&A sites allow you to develop your brand and build a reputation whilst also working to funnel traffic to your website. They also have SEO benefits delivered through any links you include. Just remember to link to related content on your website, and not to a sales page – that will drive visitors away as soon as they land.
Tags: reputation building, SEO
Posted in Branding | 1 Comment »
Friday, December 30th, 2011
We talk a lot about Search Engine Optimization or SEO. That is one of the most important things a small business website needs. Optimized search engine results. It’s all about content and keywords.
Not only do you need your content about your business on your website, you also need regular content updated often. This means maybe add a blog to your site. Then add articles, or blogs to that section of the site. And, don’t forget back links. Link to other content on your site so that you can keep readers on your site.
Whether you write them or you use content providers (contract writers) it’s important to have content added at least three times a week. Even better if you add content every day. It does need to be something relevant to your business and not something that will make people think you have lost your mind.
Keywords are just as important. Your keywords need to be words that people will use in a search. Use keywords that mean something to your business and your products if you have that for sale on your site. You don’t have to use a ton of keywords for each content article or blog you post, but you do need to mix them up and use about 4-6 for each post. That way you have a few, it doesn’t look like spam and you will get people coming by using different keywords.
It’s a very simple concept and one that anyone can do. It just takes a little time and effort and everyone knows that it takes time and effort to run a small business in the first place.
Tags: blogging, business, content, keywords, online marketing, SEO
Posted in Blogging for Small Business | 5 Comments »
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