Tag Archives | SEO

How To Game Google to Improve Your Search Engine Rankings

By on April 24, 2012 in Guest Articles, Melinda Emerson @SmallBizLady, Technology

Online, it’s the best of times, it’s the worst of times. Google seems to be a great partner one moment, and the next it makes a change that turns it into your worst enemy.

That’s the challenge facing today’s online marketers. bloggers, webmasters…whatever you call us. While we all want to be at the top of Google search results and for Google to be our BFF, we have to remember, it is a giant, for profit corporation, beholden to the almighty dollar and shareholder. We are at their mercy and there is really nothing you can do about that. Or is there?

Let’s back up 12 months or so. Prior to Google’s “Panda” update to its search algorithm, if you searched for almost any company, you were often presented with review and complaint sites. Companies struggled to deal with the negative publicity and, for most, the real problem was that minor complaints were ranking higher than their own site. Many companies went head to head with these sites by creating review sites of their own or by writing fake reviews that painted a more positive, and possibly more accurate, picture of their customers’ experiences. Reputation management was certainly a hot topic.

Then Google’s Panda update fixed many of those issues by degrading the PageRank of those sites. Now Google is reportedly making a new set of changes to how they rank sites. These would penalize companies for being “over optimized.” So while you put in tireless hours of refining titles, perfecting meta data and working on back link strategies…apparently now you can overdo it. Remember, it is Google itself that tells us how to optimize sites in its Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide.

So the real question is: what works? And, will it keep working next week, next month, next year?

The simple answer and the “Golden Rule of SEO” is to be authentic.

Google’s goal has always been to give you the most relevant recommendations but since day one everyone has been jockeying for the lead position, trying to game results. (see Googlebombing for a great example). Individuals and companies will do almost anything to gain an advantage over their competitors, at any cost. Google’s actions have been toward combating this type of activity.

Be authentic, be personal, be local and get others who like you to link to your site.  This is the best way to gain organic search referrals for your company. This not only puts you in line with Google’s own goal of providing relevant site recommendations, it also improves the overall economics of your site. How?

Think through the alternative. Imagine you sell specialized gold pencils and you optimize your site to bring all pencil traffic to your site. Seems logical right? Wrong! All pencil buyers are not your target. If a #2 pencil buyer finds your site, at best they are only costing you money as they utilize computing and bandwidth resources navigating through your site for good ‘ole #2s. At worst, they convert to a lead and you immediately have your top sales person call them up and spend time trying to sell them that coveted specialized gold pencil. No sale.

Authentic content will optimize your site and bring you the prospects searching for your product. Be an expert and highlight that expertise through your site content, social networks, videos and blog posts. Rally behind the specialized nature of your business to target the right buyers so your sales process is efficient.

So how can you increase exposure without being penalized? As mentioned before, Google is a for profit corporation and right now it is trying to combat Facebook, Twitter and others who are taking traffic away from Google properties. Your marketing methods should be in line with Google’s own corporate goals. Right now social is king at Google. So much so that its own  employee bonuses are geared toward success in social. So by all means use Google products, especially Google+ and YouTube. Help them move traffic back to Google properties by actively using and engaging in discussion on these sites. Do a Google search for almost anything these days and you’ll find results from Google + and YouTube at or near the top of the page.

About Russ Fordyce:  Russ is managing director of the BIG Awards, a business awards program, and a B2B marketing veteran with over 15 years of experience helping companies connect with buyers. As a veteran of the dot com boom and bust, Russ has learned first-hand how technology can improve the connections between business buyers and sellers. Follow him on Twitter @russfordyce or on LinkedIn.

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How to do Facebook Ads for Business

By on March 20, 2012 in Branding & Marketing, Grow Your Business, Social Media

 

On Facebook, 850 million people spend more than 350 minutes a month hanging out online. To some, it may be how they keep in touch with college friends, the way new moms share photos with family, or where sports fans go to cheer on their team and connect with other fans around the world. To businesses, it’s more than just a communication tool–it’s a goldmine. Businesses have the opportunity to create a Facebook Page where they can interact with their customers, provide product information, offer promotions, and gain valuable customer feedback. Facebook ads are becoming a major marketing channel for small businesses.

The user information that Facebook provides is data that businesses and marketers have dreamt about for decades. All of the information that determines a business’s demographic is being handed out on a silver platter when a Facebook account is created. Name, age, gender, geographic location, birth date, political opinion, religious view, marital status, place of work, college, college major, high school, friends, likes and interests are the advertising treasures that make the Facebook Ad’s platform unique. As business owners we are able to target campaigns to any and all of the profile characteristics that pertain to our specific target customer. This allows for more quality leads.

Facebook Ads operate using the cost per click (CPC) model, similar to Google AdWords. When running ads in Facebook you have the option to direct people to a business brand page within Facebook, or to an external website. When using ads within Facebook, you have custom opportunities that you can only take advantage of within Facebook. Opportunities include running a sponsored story, an ad for a Facebook Event, a specific post, application, contest, or video. This allows for marketing creativity and the use of an ad to coincide with a current social promotion.

There is also a major value here that a search engine can’t provide- the social reach. This is a feature that associates ads that run with users that have interacted with that brand or business on Facebook. The social reach brings us to the value of a friend’s opinion and word of mouth recommendations in 2012 purchasing. Those features are the clear picture of two marketing mediums working together for a better user experience.

Paid Ads + Social Intelligence = Smarter CPC

 

The above images display the social feature that Facebook incorporates into their ads and the role that a friend referral for a business plays in Facebook marketing

5 Areas to Focus on When Setting Up Facebook Ads

  • User Destination: Figure out where you want to send the users that click on your ad. There is a strong benefit to sending people to a Facebook Business Page, as well as sending them to a company website. It all depends on the marketing goal you are hoping to achieve. Costs per click will also vary based on where you direct people to go. A CPC landing page can make or break an ad campaign, but the landing page doesn’t necessarily need to be offsite. Facebook Business Pages allow for creative opportunities for landing pages including a contact form or a Facebook store among other options.
  • Ad Type: Determining which ad type to choose can directly impact the success of a campaign. Facebook Ads are a common ad type that is structured most similarly to traditional CPC ads. Sponsored stories, event, post, and application ads can also be successful for brands but focus on more specific content. There is a strong social advantage for running ads that highlight a brand’s status update or event because they show “likes” and shares associated with that post. These ad types often see increased click through rates because of the social association.
  • Targeting: You not only have the opportunity to target your current demographic, but can also connect with an audience that you would like to target as customers. Facebook allows you to target users based on every profile feature that they enter. Likes and interests are a feature that businesses need to take advantage of. If a business sells fitness products they have the opportunity to show their ads to anyone that “likes” fitness, health, working out, yoga, etc. The specific targeting allows for leads from a very qualified user group, which makes the Facebook Ad conversion rates much higher than traditional CPC campaigns.
  • Reporting: In addition to the basic reporting that Facebook offers, there are other ways to track your user’s activity after they click on your ad. You can setup goals and conversion tracking in Google Analytics that can assist in determining the success of the ad campaign.
  • Optimization: Continuously managing your ad campaign is vital to its success but knowing how to optimize it is what can really drive results. Knowing which ads are performing and why is what you’ll need to know to carry that success to the other ad campaigns.

As a marketer, Facebook Ads have been a revolutionary tool for driving success for clients. The dream-like targeting capabilities set Facebook apart from all other ad platforms and deliver quality results. Unfortunately, at the current time Facebook reporting doesn’t compare to the capabilities and functions of Google AdWords. Facebook offers basic features of budgeting, bidding, and reporting with a major opportunity for improvement as ads continue to grow and be a major financial driver for Facebook in 2012.

Do you want more tips for how to use social media to grow your small business? Register today for  Melinda Emerson’s webinar teaching social media, direct mail and email communications techniques March 29th 1-2pm ET http://www2.pbsmartessentials.com/how-to-better-communicate-with-your-customers

About the author:

Lindsay DeFeo is the Director of Social Marketing at Teknicks, a well known Social Media Agency in New Jersey. Lindsay utilizes her education and experience in both marketing and design to provide valued services to Teknicks’ clients. After working across several interactive enhancement marketing channels, Lindsay quickly saw the value for businesses in social and has built the Teknicks Social Marketing department from the ground up. She now manages a hard working and innovative team, working with many of Teknicks clients to improve their social presence online. Connect with her on Twitter at @Teknicks.

 

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Do It Yourself SEO for Small Businesses

By on March 6, 2012 in Grow Your Business, Guest Articles, Social Media, Technology

SEO for small businessNo matter how you approach a search engine optimization or (SEO) project, the ultimate goal is to increase your brand’s online visibility in the search engines. This visibility will help increase traffic, conversions and sales.

Leveraging the possibilities of internet marketing can be overwhelming for small business owners who are already wearing many hats within their company.  Over the past few years I’ve seen SEO evolve into many shapes and forms.  On-site content optimization, link building, local search optimization, mobile search optimization, social media optimization are some of the forms it takes today. If hiring a professional SEO agency doesn’t fit into your company’s current budget, there are still some things you can do on your own to jumpstart your website’s online presence.

On-site optimization – the foundation of all things SEO

The foundation of any SEO effort should be your website’s content.  On-site SEO is the process of analyzing a combination of elements that affect your site’s search engine visibility, usability, navigation and content.  In its simplest form, this means focusing on the primary content types of your site such as:

  • URL filenames
  • Page title tags
  • Meta description and keyword tags
  • Header tags
  • Internal linking
  • Image alt and title tags
  • Videos and other rich media content types

Before you can get started with SEO you need to understand what words people are using in search engine to find your website content.  We call them keywords. It’s best to identify 3-5 keywords that will be used through your site to attract your best target customer.

Conduct keyword research

Keyword research is one of the most crucial tasks in any on-site optimization project.  Not only does it help build the foundation of on-site optimization, it helps you better understand the behavior of your customers and clients.  You need to identify your target audience and determine how they search for your site.  Finding the right keywords is a balance between search volume, competition and most importantly relevancy to your business.  Most of the time, you’ll be surprised by what you find when conducting proper keyword research. Usually, the keywords that you thought would be key traffic drivers to your site are not what prospective customers and clients are actually searching.

The most well-known keyword research tool is Google’s very own AdWords Keyword Tool. Google AdWords Keyword Tool gives the information you need to choose the right keywords for your website

Use this tool to gather valuable information needed in order to choose the best keywords for your site.  You can start off by simply typing in a few words that relate to your business’s services and see what keywords Google serves up.  Remember, you’re looking for keywords with high search volume (small businesses should focus on Local as opposed to Global) and low competition, but you really want to focus on the ones that make the most sense for your business.

Use your keywords to optimize your content

After spending several hours hunting down the right keywords for your SEO efforts, you will need to figure out which ones to use on each page of your site.  Avoid excessive “keyword stuffing” and focus on no more than 3-4 keywords per page.  You’ll want to designate a “primary” keyword, which should be used as the main focus of each page during your optimization efforts.

Now for the fun part!  Use the 3-5 keywords you’ve assigned to each page to re-write each pages’ tags and content.  Here are some quick tips to get you started:

  • URL filenames – When rewriting URLs to include your keywords, it’s a best practice to separate each word with a dash (or hyphen) to help the search engines clearly depict the separation.  An example of a properly written URL for a page showing “red tennis shoes” products would be http://www.example.com/shoes/red-tennis-shoes.
  • Page title tags – Page titles should always include the primary keyword as close to the beginning as possible.  You’ll also want to avoid writing page titles any longer than 65 characters, as any page titles longer than that will most likely get truncated in the SERPs (search engine page results).
  • Meta description tags – Although it’s crucial to plug your keywords into your Meta descriptions, make sure your descriptions read naturally and that there is a strong call-to-action that will draw searchers to visit your site.  Similar to page titles, be aware of the length of your descriptions and try to keep them under 165 characters.
  • Header tags – Use headers to better organize your site’s content.  Not only does this help give site visitors a better understanding of the content, but by plugging keywords into your header tags (H1, H2, H3) you give the search engines another element to analyze when determining what your site is all about.  It’s important to also point out that your header tags should follow a hierarchy similar to when writing an outline for an essay.  For example, the H1 tag should be used first, then the H2 tags, then the H3 tags under each H2 tag, and so on.
  • Internal linking – One of the biggest signals that search engines use when ranking webpages in their search results is the amount of links pointing to that page and the relevance of those links.  To help increase the relevancy of your site’s pages, be sure to include your keywords in the clickable text (called “anchor text”) of links pointing to any pages on your site.
  • Image alt and title tags – Search engines have a tough time crawling and identifying the content of an image.  Alt tags and title tags take care of this issue.  When writing the alt and title tags for an image include your keywords, keep it short and use the same text for both the alt tag and title tag of a given image.

Although keywords are an important piece of the puzzle, it’s not just about plugging them into your tags (page title, description, headers, etc.) and hoping for the best.  It’s about creating content that’s interesting and useful for your visitors.  It’s essential that your site’s copy content is optimized to include your keywords in a natural and understandable manner.

Ongoing SEO efforts

SEO is not a “set it and forget it” type of project.  As search engines constantly change their algorithm’s ranking factors (Google makes 500-600 changes a year) it’s important to keep your site up to par with best practices and any new ranking factors that may affect your site’s web presence.  It’s also essential to continue to grow your online reach by constantly expanding your keyword universe and adding resourceful content.  The more good content your site has, the better.

Measurement of your SEO efforts

Measuring your SEO efforts’ successes and failures is critical in building more efficient ongoing optimization strategies and processes.  Review and analyze key statistics such as:

  • Recognizing which URLs get the most traffic
  • Identifying which keywords are bringing in unqualified leads with high bounce rates
  • Keyword search result ranking increases and decreases

These are all valuable assets in identifying any missed opportunities and where further SEO work may be required.

Do you have any SEO tips?

Joe Douress is the SEO Manager for Teknicks, a well known SEO agency in New Jersey. He brings 5 years of search marketing and technology experience to provide valued service and consultation to both the client and agency side. With his expertise in on-site and off-site search engine optimization, local search, usability and analytics, Joe is involved with all aspects of search marketing, providing quality advisement and appreciated support.

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How to optimize search engine traffic on a time budget

By on November 22, 2011 in Branding & Marketing, Grow Your Business

Websites can require a considerable amount of time to be optimized. The inclusion of social media into search results means a website will probably go unnoticed without a marketing or social media campaign.  Creating a marketing effort is easy if you have a team. It can be daunting for small business owners that do not have a lot of time.  But with patience, a small business can gather some keyword ideas quickly, then decide how to implement them over time.

Audit and compare your keyword terms

Go into your web analytics account and examine visits and time-on-site data of your keywords. You are gaining a sense for what has (and hasn’t) attracted visits.   Note trends for increasing visits, a reasonable time on page/site (1-2 minutes is pretty good for a page), or a repeated appearance of a keyword.  Trends are preferable to sudden spikes.  Download the keywords you have gained over a past period. 90 days of data is a great starting point (but not an absolute). If you are not sure how to get started using Google Analytics, here’s an interview I did with Melinda Emerson earlier this year.

Now go into Google Adwords Manager or Microsoft Adcenter Manager.  Both platforms can scan your site and return a query list of words based on the site content.

Next compare this generated list to the keyword report you have examined – you are now looking for scanned words that appear on your analytic list but really did not generate significant search traffic.  These identified words are now the keywords on which you can focus your improvement efforts.  A keyword density check can give further refinement, useful for a very long list.

An additional check is a site search, applicable if your site has a search window.  Site search reports differ from search engine reports.  The keywords in a search report are the content phrases used in a search engine; In short, a visitor saw the phrase and arrived on the site.

A site search report differs by showing keywords searched by visitors in the search box on your site.  A site search analysis can reveal terms repeatedly sought but never found, leading to visitor loss.  Site search reports are particularly useful for blogs, e-commerce, and sites with a considerable amount of content.

You can compare the site search reports against your search keywords results. Are there words or phrases that draw people initially the exit the site?  Do these words appear consistently month after month? Repeated appearance means that your site is overlooking a topic or time that visitors expect. In short you are leaving money on the table.

Make a plan to put those words to work

With these overviews compiled into one list, you now have a set of words on which to focus your traffic building strategy. This makes the effort a bit daunting if the list is long. But the good news compared to years past is that social media has added to the ways you can go about increasing the discovery of your site. Here are a few ideas:

  • Create a paid search campaign (or PPC) that includes your target words.  You can review competitiveness and plan a trial budget in your ad manager.   Using paid campaigns can increase click through in many cases when a word appears on a search result in the organic and paid search results.
  • Are some words beyond your paid search budget? See if any of the words are used as a Twitter hashtag, then use these words in a Twitter strategy.  You can try a specialty search engine such as 48ers to see Twitter-related query results.  If the target word is a broad topic, consider joining a twitterchat based on that word.
  • Does the list spark a few ideas for new articles?  Try writing new blog posts that incorporate these words in the title and text (Note: make sure your blog is hosted at the same service as your website to gain search benefits).
  • Consider if the title, meta description, H1 tags, and anchor text in your webpage code can be updated with the words you have selected.  You can use the word in image descriptions as well.

Optimization takes time, but using a working plan, you can keep your website up to date until the next redesign.

Pierre DeBois is the founder of Zimana (www.zimana.com), a consultancy providing strategic analysis to small and midsize businesses that rely on Web analytics data.

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The New SEO for Small Business Owners – QA with Chris Bennett

By on September 1, 2011 in Branding & Marketing, Q & A Interviews, SmallBizChat

Every week as SmallBizLady, I conduct interviews with experts on my Twitter talk show #SmallBizChat. The show takes place every Wednesday on Twitter from 8-9pm ET. This is excerpted from my recent interview with Chris Bennett @chrisebennett, the CEO of Central.ly. Chris and his Co-Founders created website builder http://www.Central.ly so small business owners all over the world can build their own websites that integrate with the social and business tools they are using.  Chris is a Wharton graduate, a decendant from a small business owning family and is passionate about helping small business owners manage their presence online to improve business.

 

SmallBizLady: What is the biggest problem small business owners face when it comes to websites?

Chris Bennett: Small business owners typically are passionate about their business and love running them. With that said, they do not have strong design or technical backgrounds so creating websites is tricky for them .

You can sum their problems up with four things.  Small business websites do not have the correct information for the consumer, they do not leverage social integration, they are not mobile ready, and their sites are not visually unappealing. If you are looking for a small business and you are out and about on your smart phone, if you cannot access the company’s website than you are less likely to do business with them. If you can’t find their address, you are less likely to visit. If their website is poorly designed then you are less likely to patronize because their message is that they do not care about their image, so they likely do not care about their product or service.

Also the lack of education, people do bad things because they don’t know any better.
SmallBizLady: What should a small business owner have on their website?

Chris Bennett: You need to clearly state what your business does: What service or product do you provide. If you provide a service, share your portfolio, if you provide a product, give screenshots and descriptions of the product. If you are local business, it’s imperative that you have your address and your phone number readily available. For a restaurant, a menu with store hours is very important.

Looking professional is important so you definitely want to start by having a custom domain name. The same goes for email. It looks unprofessional when your business email is name@gmail.com, what you want is name@yourbusiness.com. Continue Reading →

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Small Business SEO Basics

By on April 29, 2010 in Branding & Marketing, Grow Your Business, SmallBizChat, Social Media, Solopreneurs, Your Small Business

Every week as SmallBizLady, I conduct interviews with experts on my Twitter talk show #SmallBizChat. The show takes place every Wed on Twitter from 8-9pm ET. This is excerpted from my recent interview with @WayneHurlbert. Wayne is a well known SEO and internet marketing consultant. He is also a highly regarded speaker and business book reviewer. His advice on business blogs and social media is sought after by leading companies worldwide. Wayne blogs at  http://www,blogbusinessworld.blogspot.com Blog Business World. Wayne also hosts the twice weekly internet radio program  http://www.blogtalkradio.com/WayneHurlbert Blog Business Success

Smallbizlady:  What is SEO and why is it important for small business?

Wayne Hurlbert: SEO  or search engine optimization is all about your small business website becoming easier to find by the major search engines including Google, Yahoo, and MSN Bing. Small business websites can compete successfully with their much larger competitors by becoming more search engine friendly. For a search engine, the size of the company is not important. What matters is that the site be most relevant for a search for a specific keyword phrase. SEO is not about tricks, but about providing good relevant content for people searching for information.

Smallbizlady:  Should a small business owner think in terms of target markets with SEO?

Wayne Hurlbert: Yes. Just as a small business marketing plan seeks out its ideal customer, SEO efforts should be targeted toward potential customers searching for solutions to their problems, as consumers or business people.  This means a combination of SEO for raw rankings on the search engines; SEO for e-commerce; SEO for branding your company,  products and services; SEO to generate leads for later sales: and SEO to maintain your company reputation. The good news is people will be searching for all of these types of information, and by providing relevant information on separate pages on your site, you can achieve high rankings for any or all of them.

Smallbizlady:  How do I know what keywords and phrases to target on my site?

Wayne Hurlbert: You must do some keyword research. First of all, write down all of the phrases that you believe fit your site, in 1 to 4 word phrases. Try them in different combinations. Ask your trusted employees, customers, and vendors what phrases they would use to find your site. You can also use Google’s Adwords Keyword Tool https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal or Google’s Search Based Keyword Tool  http://www.google.com/sktool/ Both will give you additional ideas about heavily searched keyword phrases relevant to your site.

Smallbizlady:  Are links into my site important and how can I get more links?

Wayne Hurlbert: The first step is to provide link worthy content. Your site should be much more than simply a brochure site. That type of site doesn’t rank well as it contains little real information to attract links, and links provide the power to boost your rankings. Be sure to provide informational pages that show expertise in your industry, provide tips to help customers solve real problems, and additional specialty pages of possibly product reviews, industry news. useful tools and downloads, and other ideas suitable to your site. All of these pages can attract links. A blog page on the site is very powerful. Bloggers are free and generous linkers who will readily link to information and posts of interest to their readers. Blogging platforms like WordPress provide ease of blogging, as another set of pages, within a website. The blog posts provide many more relevant keyword phrases, that also rank well in the search engines.

Smallbizlady:  How do I start to optimize my site for the search engines?

Wayne Hurlbert: Start with your domain name. If it’s not already determined, attempt to create a site domain that is relevant to your product and service. This is, of course, not possible for the main domain name if it already exists, but keywords can be added to the URL of each interior page, giving them URL domain power. A critical area on any site is the title tag. That is the wording that appears in the blue bar at the top of your browser. This is the title of the page, like a book title. The interior page title tags are like the chapter names in a non-fiction book. They tell the search engine what is the topic of each page. The title tag should contain your most important keyword phrases for that page. The company name doesn’t have to appear in the title tag, and if it does, place it to the right of the page. Search engines consider the most left placed keywords the most important. Don’t use the same tag on every page. Every page is distinct and needs a separate title tag.

Smallbizlady:  How many keyword phrases should each page contain?

Wayne Hurlbert: Don’t fall into the trap of writing for the  search engines. Write for your customers. If a page is difficult to read, or looks artificial and badly written, no one will stay on your page anyway. Those are customers who are lost. When writing copy on a page, keep it relevant to the topic of your site, and write for real people. There is ample evidence, especially from blogs, that writing good informational copy will rank highly, as well as being easy to read. As you write, your important keyword phrases, in various orders and combinations, will appear naturally anyway. Never write for the search engines. Always write for people. Be certain to include your company contact information including street address, and any relevant and frequently used local or regional location terms, to build local search.  A local focus in the title tags will also boost your rankings for customers seeking your products and services in your city, state, province, region, or country.

Smallbizlady:  How do I create links that work better for SEO?

Wayne Hurlbert: When you create a link within your site, to another page on the site, never use words like “here” or “click here” on the clickable link line. The wording on the clickable link line is called link anchor text and is very important to the search engines. It also tells the search engine what the page being linked is about, as the link anchor text is like a mini-title for the page. Use the keyword phrase, most relevant to the page being linked to, that you want to raise in the rankings. Don’t use the same link anchor text all of the time though, as that looks spammy to the search engine. At the same time, it misses the opportunity to use alternate but still relevant link anchor text to boost yet another keyword phrase.

Smallbizlady:  How can I add links into my site from offsite sources?

Wayne Hurlbert: One of the best techniques for adding additional inbound links is articles. Submit your articles to the many article sites on the internet. Be sure they link with appropriate link anchor text to the most relevant page on the site. Some article sites permit a second link to the home page as well. Be sure to use both if available. Offer to write articles for other sites and blogs. Many webmasters and bloggers will be happy to add your article along with a link back to your site. Be sure to add your site to legitimate internet directories, but avoid at all costs link farms and other linking schemes. You can drive traffic, but not much link value though, from forum signature lines, Twitter profiles and post links, Facebook pages and LinkedIn profiles. Having a YouTube page can also help your rankings, and it too can be optimized.

Smallbizlady:  Should I worry about being penalized and banned from Google?

Wayne Hurlbert: Google is not out to get you. They want to eliminate spam from their rankings. As long as you follow Google’s Webmaster Guidelines http://www.google.com/webmasters/, and never use any dirty tricks or “black hat” SEO, your site will remain penalty and ban free. Don’t let yourself be fooled by anyone offering quick rankings through questionable means. Those rankings may never even materialize anyway, but Google could penalize or ban your site for using them. You can indeed rank well in the search engines with ethical “white hat” SEO techniques. There are no quick fixes. Good theme relevant content on your site will win out in the end.

Smallbizlady:  Can I optimize the photos and graphics on my site?

Wayne Hurlbert: Yes. In fact, optimizing your site photos and graphics serves more than one purpose. To optimize a photo or graphic, you have really two optimization opportunities. One is the caption line below the photo or graphic. Use a descriptive version of a relevant keyword that is suitable to describing the picture. Use a mouse over alt attribute tag to describe the photo or graphic as well. Use a short relevant keyword phrase different from the caption to double your phrases. For people who surf with graphics off on their browser, the mouse over also tells the visitor what is in the photo or graphic.

Smallbizlady:  How soon can I expect results from my SEO work?

Wayne Hurlbert: Google and the other search engines send their spiders, the little computer bots that crawl your site, out all of the time. Results can appear quickly if good relevant changes are made. Some results may take longer. Some keyword phrases are much more competitive than others, and are much more difficult to optimize for higher rankings. As a result, SEO is a process, not an end in itself. SEO is a continuous work in progress, as you add more pages, fine tune your title tags, rewrite your copy, and add more links. Before starting your SEO program, check the rankings of the existing site for your keyword phrases to create a base line. With that base in place, you can monitor your improvements, as they happen, on a regular basis. Don’t be alarmed by short term blips downward. They happen. Instead, optimize for the long term, using sound ethical SEO techniques for the long term. You can then ride out any ups and downs that can happen in the search engines.

Smallbizlady:  Are number one and page one rankings in Google enough for success?

Wayne Hurlbert: SEO is only one marketing tool in your internet tool chest. Top rankings are of no value if no one who visits your site becomes a customer. Note the real value of writing for people, and not the search engines. The purpose or purposes of your site go far beyond the vanity of ranking on the first page in Google. Those rankings are only one part of your marketing plan. Be sure the copy on the page speaks to the customer, provides valuable information, and generates leads and sales. Note that well written copy ranks well, and builds your customer base, helping your business to grow. SEO is a tool, but it’s not a magic bullet. Use SEO wisely, however, and your small business will compete successfully on a global basis, against much larger competitors.

If you found this interview helpful, join us on Wednesdays 8-9pm ET follow @SmallBizChat on Twitter.

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Melinda F. Emerson, also known as Twitter’s SmallBizLady is a seasoned entrepreneur, professional speaker, and small business coach whose areas of expertise include small business start-up, business development and social media. She hosts #SmallBizChat weekly on Twitter for emerging entrepreneurs.  She is the founder and CEO of Quintessence Multimedia, an award-winning strategic communications firm. She has created productions for such companies as Johnson & Johnson, Verizon, Enterprise Rent-A-Car and Comcast. Her first book Become Your Own Boss in 12 months; A Month-by-Month Guide to a Business That Works!” was released in March 2010 by Adams Media.

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