Archives For SEO

Off Page SEO

April 4, 2013 — Leave a comment

Creating quality content is a key component of your overall online marketing mix. And if that’s all it took to get people to your website, then it would be easy. Unfortunately, having quality content and keywords and all the other things that go into creating a solid SEO strategy are not enough.

And that is where off page SEO strategies come in. By “off page” SEO strategies, I mean anything you use that is outside of your website, such as video, social media, etc.

Let’s talk about a few of those now.

Video is one of the driving forces of online marketing today. YouTube, Vimeo, Metacafe, DailyMotion are just a few of the places where you can post videos. Post short 2 minute (or less) video clips of you talking about your area of expertise. You do not need a huge production studio. A simple home video camera or even your smart phone will suffice to get started.

Social media is one of the best places to share information about your industry. The key to making this work is to post shareable content, such as article links, video links, new trends in your industry, your thoughts on industry trends, etc. Just ask yourself this question before you post something – “Is this information something my followers will want to share with their friends and peers?”

Creating a newsletter is a great way to start building one of the most valuable assets in your business – your list (or database). Communicating with your list on a regular basis will help you maintain top of mind presence with your target market and drive visitors to your website if you are consistently producing quality content that your readership wants to receive and share. Constant Contact is a great place to get started.

Article sites, such as ezinearticles.com provide a valuable outlet for you to share your expertise by writing articles that are pertinent to the people you want to serve. It’s great for search engine optimization (SEO).

Press releases - both online and offline – are a great way to drive traffic to your website. Check out onlineprnews.com and helpareporterout.com (HARO). Do a search for online press release sites and you will find both free and paid versions.

Also, contact your local newspaper. For example, if you are having a seminar in your local area, contact the local newspaper to let them know. See if they would be interested in covering the event. I did this for one of my seminars and a reporter from the paper actually attended. It was local front page news.

Just remember, you need a good mix of both online and offline strategies to market effectively.

In SEO , ,
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Get Social For SEO

August 14, 2012 — Leave a comment

With the recent updates to Google’s search algorithm (Panda and Penguin), the focus has been placed more on your brand, your reputation, and how well you engage your followers than on how well you can “tweak” your site for SEO (search engine optimization).

Don’t get me wrong. It’s still very important to do everything you can to properly optimize your site for the major search engines doing all the regular SEO tasks. But the SEO game is changing.

Social media (Google+, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn) is becoming more relevant when it comes to ranking well in search results. And it’s not just about you posting pictures of your cousin’s wedding on your Facebook page.

It is about engaging your audience and managing how your brand is perceived by Google and everyone else. It is about having conversations and discussions with your followers, friends, and contacts on a regular basis.

So how do you do this? How do you engage your audience in discussions that are interesting enough for them to want to post a comment or retweet something you have posted?

The key is to post things that are relevant to them and the people in their circle of influence. To do this, you have to know the demographics and psychographics of your followers.

Just as you have to know this to sell to a specific market offline using traditional marketing methods, you now have to know these things to post information that is interesting enough and relevant enough for them to share with their friends.

When you think about your clients and prospects, think about the questions they ask on a consistent basis. Post things geared towards solving their problems and education. Post links to articles, videos, or other interesting things that will be beneficial to your target market. Constantly promoting yourself or telling everyone how great you are is not the approach to take if you want to engage your audience and rank well in the search engines.

It takes a little work to learn what you need to know and to come up with appropriate posts, but the time you invest in doing this will be well worth the effort. The marketplace (and Google) will appreciate and reward you with more business and better search engine rankings.

Do your part and retweet, comment on other people’s posts, share their newsletters and YouTube videos. Get involved in others conversations by participating in discussion groups on LinkedIn.

In a nutshell, Google wants to be sure your brand is relevant to whatever someone is searching for and that you are creating engagement around your brand.

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What Is A Penguin?

May 29, 2012 — Leave a comment

Think you have the Google algorithm figured out? Did you think you had the Panda trained and it would be nothing to handling the Penguin? Think again!

For those of you who are wondering what the %$(#$ I’m talking about, Panda and Penguin are updates to the Google algorithm. Panda came before Penguin. Penguin is the latest in a series of updates done by Google over the past year.

The thing about SEO (search engine optimization) is it takes constant research and reevaluating your website to stay on top of all the changes taking place and to rank well in the major search engines.

Many websites were impacted negatively by the series of Panda updates and there are some being impacted by the Penguin updates.

So, what do you do? First, don’t panic. It’s really not a big deal. Nobody knows everything Google is doing now, but there are a few things you can do to decrease your chances of being impacted by these updates.

According to Google’s Matt Cutts, if you focus on creating a high quality website that creates a good user experience, then you have no worries.

In other words, if you are a legitimate business delivering high value content either through your website, your blog, or whatever online methods you choose to use, then don’t sweat these updates.

If you are using keyword stuffing (using your keywords excessively on your site or in your HTML) or using shady link building tactics, then you should probably worry. But if you have the right keyword density on your site and the backlinks you have that point to your site are quality links, then you should be okay.

Another thing to be aware of, and this is nothing new, is having duplicate content. Don’t create pages or other domains/websites with substantial duplicate content. With the Penguin update, this is something that should be addressed again with all your sites to make sure this is not happening.

Duplicate content also applies to your blog, social media, and other pages you are using to promote your business. A lot of people repurpose their content from their newsletter to their blog and then to article submission sites or into their social media. Make sure all this content is not duplicated across these platforms. Make sure your content is unique on each of these platforms.

There is a lot more I could write on the impact of the Google updates but this should give you a high level overview of things to be aware of when performing SEO for your site.

In SEO ,
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Google Wants It Easy

April 24, 2012 — 2 Comments

SEO, (or search engine optimization, to increase their chances of being found in the search engines, but there is a lot of confusion as to how Google reads a web page.

If you read what Google has to say about the topic, it is relatively simple. When you do a search, Google reads thetag first. This is the line above the URL of your web page.

The second thing Google does is read the meta description tag located in thearea of your HTML. The meta description is a brief description of what your page is about. Google has said they no longer read the meta keywords tag, but they do still read the meta description tag.

Then the search engine will check the images fortags. This tag contains a decription of the image. Google cannot read images but they read the ALT tag instead.

The other things that can impact your Google ranking are your keywords and your navigation. Think about how someone would find your site. What keywords would they use? And use these words on your page. Make sure you check your keyword density. You want to keep it around 2% – 5%. This means for every 100 words of copy, you want to use your keywords 2 – 5 times.

The navigation should be very well planned and you want the user to click as few times as possible to get to the page they are looking for. Generally 2 – 3 clicks from the main navigation bar.

Another thing you can do to help your search results is to create great content. Remember to write for humans first and then write for the search engines. Your content should make sense and clearly describe what the page is about.

Backlinks are a huge factor in how your page ranks in the search results and social media is playing more of a role. But that is a topic for a future article.

If you do all of these things, you should start seeing your search engine rankings improve. Of course, this is an extremely simplified version of the big picture for SEO, but it will give you a good start.

What I just gave you is the tip of the iceberg. It takes constant research to keep up with the latest SEO strategies because Google and Bing are constantly changing their algorithm. There are new things to learn about SEO almost everyday, so it takes a considerable time commitment.

Keyword research and all the other tasks attached to improving your SEO are very time consuming and require very intense research to do properly. But with a little patience and a lot of time, you will see results.

In search engine optimization, SEO, small business , , ,
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Your Website

March 8, 2012 — Leave a comment

Over 200 billion dollars was spent online last year. In the next few years, online spending is expected to rise to over 300 billion dollars. Are you getting any of this money from your website or are you still living with an outdated website that no longer serves you or your business?

It may be time to take your website seriously. It’s time to stop thinking of it as a necessary expense and start thinking about it as an investment in your business. There are many cost effective ways to build a website, so there is no excuse for not having a great one.

But if you want to get the most bang for your buck, don’t just hire a “web designer”. Hire someone who knows how to design a good website AND knows how to market online.

In order for your website to be effective, it has to be combined with an internet marketing strategy that works and shows a return on your investment. Too many people have fancy websites that are generating zero dollars for their business. And you can measure the ROI for your website. That is another reason for hiring someone who is well-versed in the ins and outs of internet marketing.

And rather than focusing on a fancy website that does not make you money, focus on having a website that generates dollars for your business. If you have colors, text, and graphics that keep your user clicking through your site. If you have navigation that’s simple and easy to use. If the copy on your site keeps the reader engaged and interested while gently guiding them to a strong call to action so they don’t leave your website without leaving behind an email address. If your website can be found by the major search engines, then you have a great website.

So review your website today and ask yourself a simple question. Is the website I am currently using helping or hurting my business?

In internet marketing nashville, SEO, website design nashville
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Blogging For SEO

February 20, 2012 — Leave a comment

When considering the design of your website, it’s very important that you integrate your blog with your site. One of the best tools for doing that is WordPress, because it’s very easy to integrate your blog into your site since WordPress is a blogging platform … and your site will look like a “regular” website if it’s designed properly.

Once you have your site developed using WordPress, it’s important that you post blogs using keywords associated with your business. This will help your SEO (or search engine optimization) and increases the chances that you will be found by the major search engines.

Here is how you do that. Go to Google and do a search on “google keyword tool”. Click on the link to the keyword tool. Once you are on the keyword tool page, type in a term related to your industry. For example, if you are an insurance agent, you could type in “auto insurance” or “home insurance”. You will be presented with a list of related keywords. Go through this list and find words you may be able to use in your blog posts or words that you may be able to write an article around.

Keep your posts around 250 – 300 words and keep your keyword density around 2% – 5%. This means do not use more than 5 of your keywords for every 100 words in your blog post. For a 300 word post, you would want to use your keywords 15 times or less in your post. Also try to use your keywords in the title of your blog post.

Blogging is a very important part of your overall SEO strategy. A great blogging SEO strategy leads to people finding you online … which leads to more clients … which leads to more revenue.

Have fun!

In internet marketing nashville, marketing, SEO
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Meta Description Tag

February 5, 2012 — Leave a comment

Do you want to get more visitors to your website? You may be on the first page of Google, but if you don’t have something that either has a strong call-to-action or something that makes a visitor want to click on your link to go to your website, then you have nothing. So how do you make sure you have these vital components in place? With a META Description tag.

The META description tag is located in the HTML of your website. And for those of you who are not technically savvy, pass this information on to your web designer.

Here is what it looks like: meta name=”description” content=”descriptive content about your the page or your call to action goes here”

Here is how you can view your META description tag using the Firefox browser. If you don’t have Firefox, download a copy and install it. It’s much better than Internet Explorer or any other web browser I’ve used.

After opening your browser, click on tools, select Web Developer, and select Page Source. This will display the HTML source code behind your web page. Next find META in the HTML code being displayed. Look specifically for META description. Whatever is in the description is (usually) what is displayed on the search results page for the description.

For example, when you do a search on “meta tags” in Google, you will see the main search result and then a description underneath each search result. That is (usually) populated from the META description tag.

I keep saying “usually” because sometimes the information may be pulled from elsewhere on the page. But it you populate your META tag with a great description, you will increase your chances of someone clicking on your link from the search results page.

The META description tag will not necessarily help you with search engine optimization, but it may increase the number of visitors to your site.

In internet marketing nashville, marketing, SEO
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Internet Marketing In 12 Simple Steps

December 20, 2011 — Leave a comment

Only one more week left in this year. Are you ready to start an internet marketing business in 2012?

This week I am giving you the 12-Step program for starting an internet marketing business:

1. Register a domain name with Godaddy.

2. Set up a hosting account with Hostgator.

3. Build a website using WordPress.

4. Write great copy for your website.

5. Set up an account with Constant Contact for your newsletter campaign and autoresponders.

6. Set up a Google Places account.

7. Shoot a few 1 – 2 minute videos and post them to YouTube and on your website.

8. Set up your social media accounts (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn)

9. Create a custom Facebook Business Page.

10. Create an information product (ebook, audio CD, etc.) to sell on your website.

11. In addition to placing your product on your website, create a one page landing page for your product.

12. Implement SEO (search engine optimation) strategies so you will be found by the search engines.

That’s it … well, almost. I have given you the basic steps you need to take to get started. Everything is here. Of course, there is a lot of research and work that goes into implementing each step, but everything you need to do is somewhere in these 12 steps. If you do everything I just mentioned, you will be well on your way to becoming an internet marketer.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.

In business, Google, internet marketing, SEO
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SEO Tips

August 22, 2011 — Leave a comment

SEO or search engine optimization is the process of increasing the amount of traffic or clicks you get to your website from the search engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo!, etc.) It’s portrayed as this mystical, difficult thing that only a select few have the ability to master.

But the reality is that anyone can get started on improving their rankings in the search engines by implementing a few of the tips I have listed below.

1. Your page title. When you display a website in your browser, you will notice at the very top of the page, above the URL (or the address you typed in), there is a line that displays either the title of the page or it displays keywords related to the topic of the website. Make sure this is populated with relevant keywords.

2. Your “ALT=” tag in your HTML code on your website is another often overlooked area for SEO. The “ALT=” tag displays the text for an image. You will find it in your HTML code close to the image name. Simply fill in the ALT tag with a description that contains keywords related to your business and describes the image.

3. Keywords used in the headlines and copy of your website are very important to the success of your website, and to how it will be ranked in the search engines. You can use Google’s Keyword Tool to find keywords related to your area of expertise. Just do a search on “Google Keyword Tool”, and you’ll find the link.

4. Local search is becoming more and more important due to the advent of mobile applications in the marketplace. Make sure you are set up in Google Places.



5. If you have videos on YouTube, make sure your website address is the first thing displayed in the description for your video.

What I have just given you are the very basic steps to get started and just scratches the surface of what’s possible with SEO. It takes everything I’ve listed above, along with a commitment to learning about the latest, ever-changing trends in SEO to improve and maintain your site ranking in the search engines.

In internet marketing, marketing, mike coleman, search engine optimization, SEO
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