Tag Archives | SEO

SEO Success Tips For Small Business

By on December 4, 2012 in 31 Ways to Boost Your Small Business, Guest Articles, Technology

Success with search engine optimization can seem elusive, but success does exist. Working towards that success is more crucial today than when Google, Yahoo, and MSN Search – now known as Bing – were first introduced.

The secret to SEO enhancing your site – and your business – is to schedule regular checks and implementation over time. The most effective improvements usually occur from several changes over time, instead of the one silver bullet.  Here are a few tips to strengthen the effectiveness of an optimization program.

Use analytics to determine the website sections that are attracting traffic

I wrote a great way to start developing a keyword list in How to Optimize Search Engine Traffic on a Time Budget. A web analytics solution can take that list further through reporting which website pages are receiving organic search traffic.  Use tools that allow you to click on landing page to view a page alongside the data.  Also, some search patterns take a long timeframe to develop. So review data over different time periods (30 days, 60 days, 90 days, etc.) to determine hard to spot trends and patterns.

Review mobile traffic

You can use analytics tools to review mobile site traffic. Keywords that consistently attract mobile-related traffic can be used for mobile specific marketing such as mobile pages or mobile ads.

Invest in additional keyword tools and combining data with other segments

Keyword details can be a challenge in Google Analytics – Organic traffic is usually reported by keywords, but in 2011 Google encrypted data for users who arrive to a tagged site while logged into a Google account (Gmail, Google Docs).   So your reports would display a “not provided” phrase for those visits instead of the keyword used.

To view more keyword details, many businesses investing in online tools that examine search traffic from several search engines, compare page ranks of your page against competitor sites, and to examine backlinks.  These tools include CognitiveSEO, SEOMoz Open Site Explorer, and one that I use, Searchmetrics Suite.

Plus you can filter organic traffic in your reports – a few segment ideas are in the post How to Use Web Analytics to Support Your Small Business.

Insert keywords into your site structure

Make sure page names include keywords.  The biggest mistake I see in websites is the use of the given page names, instead of inserting a keyword that relates to the product or service.  So if www.anysite.com is selling apples and oranges, it’s better to have a structure such as www.anysite.com/apples or www.anysite.com/florida-oranges depending on the general search traffic for the keyword and page content. Review your services against the site structure to determine whether the site needs optimization or new site to best display content.

Review anchor text and backlinks

Anchor text – words that represent a hyperlink – should be related to the associated link. Know which sites are connecting to your site – review links and make sure that they lead to site.

The search tools I mentioned are terrific at maintaining a comparison list of links against each site page – saving you time to locate links in a site.  Also consider using Google’s new disavowal tool that tells the search engine to ignore bad links (although removing them outright is the best idea).

Avoid Black Hat Measures

The simplest way to avoid black hat practices – steps to manipulate how a website is viewed by search engines – is to question extreme methods used repeatedly rather than evaluated in context of the site’s purpose. For example, some SEOs insert large numbers of bought links, claiming that search engine rankings will improve. But many times these links connect to unrelated sites and not relevant sites that search engines prefer. So avoid extreme tactics like keyword stuffing and hidden text, and avoid being rendered invisible online because of a search engine ban.

Stay up to date

Stay up to date with sites dedicated to search. Search Engine Journal and Search Engine Watch are two of the top sources with the latest techniques and ideas.

These tips well help ensure that your site success will lead to your business success.

pierre debois headshot2 SEO Success Tips For Small BusinessAbout the author:­  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.

 

Day4 SEO Success Tips For Small Business

This article is from the SmallBizLady special blog series: 31 Ways to Boost Your Small Business in 2013. #Boost2013

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How To Game Google to Improve Your Search Engine Rankings

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

search 150x150 How To Game Google to Improve Your Search Engine RankingsOnline, 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.

russ fordyce How To Game Google to Improve Your Search Engine RankingsAbout 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

 

iStock 000019542106XSmall1 300x300 How to do Facebook Ads for BusinessOn 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

FB PPC1 How to do Facebook Ads for Business

 

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 pic 3 150x150 How to do Facebook Ads for Businessto 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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