Internet Marketing

Are You Paying For Great Content?

Posted by Susan Hamilton
0

Do you write your own Web site and blog content? Your own articles? If you are paying to have your content written, consider the source.

There’s an old saying that still holds true – you get what you pay for. If you purchase from freelance writing boards and only offer low-ball pay, the odds are good that you may end up with regurgitated content that was previously written for someone else, or student work. Now, that may not matter to you when you get the great idea to stick a Web site up as a feeder and fill it up with inexpensive copy to pull the reader into another site, but a quality job of feeder site building can be done without sacrificing reputation.

Not that you can’t find good writers on a freelance job board, of course you can. But some writers who are willing to work for less may not believe your project is worth their best effort. If you do hire off of a job board, offer a decent rate of pay for the job to be done. This benefits everyone and gets you closer to the writer who knows what good content is worth and is willing to do a great job if paid fairly.

“Fairly” isn’t the lowest price. Fairly understands that a writer has to know style, grammar, punctuation, and often conduct research. Your writer may need to be capable of writing in your voice. You may need the material to be humorous, edgy, maternal or technical. All of these characteristics make up more than most realize when it comes to a writer’s competence. Some writers just can’t deliver creative, original, style-appropriate copy. The ones that can’t, often don’t understand what good writing is worth. Some offer their services on the cheap because after all, at least it’s money … and there probably won’t be much effort required for such a low-paying job. So do you want 20 inexpensive, somewhat usable, lower quality posts? Or do you want four, great, keyword-rich, insightful and professional sounding posts at a higher rate per post? It’s all in how you look at it.

If you don’t want to take chances, get your writing done by people who understand the writing business. Hire writers who have their work reviewed, and are knowledgeable about how to convey your perspective in the correct style to the right people in the right arena. At Zero To Sixty Marketing, that would be Shari Voigt and Susan Hamilton. Call us today for more information about how we can help you with all your copywriting needs, and be sure you’re getting the best copy for your money.

Category : Content Marketing | Outsourcing

I’m Guilty: 6 Social Media Sins

Posted by Susan Hamilton
1

As much as I know that social media forums like Facebook and Twitter offer brilliant free marketing for small businesses when used strategically, there are a handful of things I’ve begun to hate, I mean…er…strongly dislike when it comes to socializing on those platforms. They are, sadly, things I could have done better or understood more fully if I had made it my entire life for a set period of time. I couldn’t, and can’t, and I’ll assume that you don’t have that kind of time, either. I really do work, and because I write for my living, quiet thought is my friend. That means long hours of intense mulling over and reading (the one thing I love about Twitter, by the way – things I read and learn from what is posted there.)

Are You Building Your Twitter List Wisely?Please learn from my mistakes. I committed these social media crimes knowing full well what I was doing, and thought in time these problems would rectify themselves. They haven’t. And now I’m paying the price for poor planning.

Fan us on FacebookI wanted to name this article, 6 Things I HATE About Social Media, but my sister and mentor scolded me and told me I needed to speak more effectively about my calamity, and also that I should share with you problems I could have avoided, rather than just throw the fit I was intending.

I learned social media for business and accidentally realized it was a good hook up for long lost family. That was cool, but I’m not in there constantly typing about my life, and I haven’t talked myself into purchasing the $400 phone that would let me Twitter and Facebook the only time I really would, (out and about with my unique, humorous perspective:-) I should be ashamed, because I endorse social media for my clients and really believe that a local business can use these tools with some really kick-a** results. But for me, I’ve been in it just long enough to know what I hate…er…strongly dislike.

  1. I indiscriminately chose people to follow believing it was more important at the beginning to start a list and refine it later.  I thought it was O.K. to start my list with ‘who-evers’ but now I have to go in and fish through them to rid my list of them so I don’t accidentally get rid of someone I like. What a pain.
  2. I followed marketers just because we were in the same industry. B-a-a-aad idea. Only a handful are really interesting, the rest just abuse the twittersphere.
  3. I allowed strong political perspectives, but prejudice is prejudice, and I hate it. Republican, Democrat, Liberal, Conservative – whatever, why must you decide you’re one thing and someone else is another? I’ll choose for myself, thank you, but political party certainly doesn’t define me and shouldn’t make you angry.
  4. I don’t know how to get rid of the disreputable, vulgar and obscene people that for some reason decided to follow me. I report them, they come back. DON’T FOLLOW ME! I get updates in my email every once and awhile when checking my new followers. I look at their profile and see their updates and can’t for the life of me figure why they followed me. Yuck, go away. I’m not a part of any one’s harem.
  5. I allowed automated quotes. I should have stopped following those eons ago. Thought it might keep me positive. Some are actually pretty insightful. Know what keeps me positive? REAL conversations and feedback. I’m a positive person, really.
  6. I didn’t get that expensive phone so I can’t update when I’m out running errands. Trouble is, I really engage in conversations with people. Real people I can see. I talk to my favorite cashiers, neighbors, people waiting in lines, and just about anyone. If I’m zeroed in on my cell phone during those precious moments, I’m missing out in some rewarding interaction. That phone is a thorn in my side because I know for business, it would help me be more efficient. I don’t think it would help me as a person, though. Sometimes ya gotta make choices.

So, I guess that’s a shameful perspective for someone who thinks all small businesses should be represented on social forums. There’s only a handful of people I really enjoy, the rest I will delete soon, if I haven’t already. How I wish I had been more discriminating. It will easily take hours.

If only local businesses would represent themselves, they could completely tear up their industry giants. Marketers, on the other hand, seriously over-saturate.

Oh, there’s one more thing I strongly dislike...

I love God, and I’ll tell you all about it in person if our conversation ever goes that way. In no way would I ever publicly or otherwise disclaim God, I think that would be stupid because He’s been integrally involved in my life and I’m uber-thankful, but I really strongly dislike what’s happened to marketing-speak. Every time I try to forage new relationships with what I hope to be my peers, I end up with these people that scream Holier than Holy all over my Facebook page. Nothing wrong with inspiration, but what I’m talking about is over the top. Gonna have to thin that out.

I hope you’ve learned from my mistakes, I’ll try to do better, promise. For those of you who’ve stuck with me through the weird stuff, well…please accept my apology, and…thanks.

Category : Facebook | Twitter

Does Marketing Make You Want to Scream?

Posted by Susan Hamilton
0

5 Ways to Work Smarter

Ever feel like this? As a business woman, I admit that I sometimes do. Every once and a while I get the feeling that I’m surrounded by perfectly running businesses and I’m just not keeping up like I should. Times like that make me want to spin on my office chair and blow spit bubbles. average girl surrounded by Disney princesses

Crazy how we get into that mindset, isn’t it? We work and plan, and plan and work, and it just doesn’t seem to ever really get done. I mean…finished. I get done all right. I get done with projects, I get done with billing, I get done with tasks and errands; but I never get finished marketing. There’s always a better, newer, more persuasive way to get the message out there. It’s never ending.

You gotta’ love your job to live it, and I do. But how do those other companies make it look so easy?

The trick is, finding the easiest way to do the most in the least amount of time, and still build a quality empire. I’m a wife, mom, sister, and daughter–I don’t want to spend all my time working just to be like everyone else. So with that, here are 5 things I’ve learned to work smarter, and keep all my hair.

  1. Use quality systems to aggregate. It’s never worth doing extra steps in any marketing strategy that you can do in just one. Consider using Ping.fm your social media updates, and AWeber for getting your small business email marketing campaign off the ground. This saves me TONS of time for pennies a day.
  2. Give yourself permission to research competition, read about concerns, and update your brain files with new information. It may take longer than you think, but unless you put a priority on learning as an investment, you won’t be able to keep up with anything.
  3. Remember, slow and steady wins the race. Getting up to speed fast is great if you have systems in place to keep up. If you don’t, take the time to set yourself up for success by simply inching toward your long term goals daily. Life is NOT about living in a squirrel cage.
  4. Appreciate what the mentors in your market are teaching you, both by what they do, and how they do it. You can always learn the hard way, but isn’t it easier to learn from others’ mistakes rather than your own?
  5. Go ahead and do something different, in a different way, and take that risk that you’ll regret not taking. If you never step out, you’ll never know what could have been. You have amazing ideas in your head that need to come out. Don’t mistake that adrenaline rush for fear you shouldn’t tackle. It could just be the turn on you needed to kick the competition’s butt!

That’s what works for me. How do you handle the occasional frustrations that stem from a busy environment? Do you ever feel caught up in the mundane while everyone else looks like they’ve accomplished their goals with ease? Hang in there!

Photo Credit: kevindooley on Flickr

Category : Internet Marketing | Local Marketing

What Are Words For, When No One Listens Anymore…

Posted by Susan Hamilton
4

When no one listens, there’s no use talking at all.

Do you hear me, do you care?

Remember the lyrics to the popular 80’s hit? I just got back from a dinner with a client and it’s all I hear in my head after the conversation we had tonight.  I’m really listening closely to what my clients understand about their message, and in a more ethereal sense, their words.

Keyword Relevancy More Important Than Flash / blue-hair girlIn my head, the lyrics are, “What are words worth, when no one listens anymore? No one notices, I think I’ll dye my hair blue.” As a chic, I get it. I don’t think that’s so different from a desperate small business point of view. When we’re young, like the song suggests, we’d do anything to get attention immediately, to be noticed – even bizarre to border line nuts.

Let me explain to you exactly why keyword research and word relevance are more important than flash and hype.

Keywords Are Powerful

Online, your words couldn’t be more powerful. You can have all the graphics and keywords, and even a fair number of readers, but to be found by the maximum number of people who need you, it will take more than that. You’ll need a small business marketing strategy. Could you use more customers? Better (paying) customers? More business?

Case in point:

Out of curiosity, I used one of the companies I represent as a model for some basic SEO and Page Rank experimentation. I’ve been doing their media releases and fliers, but not the Web site.  This company has believed that their Web site was optimized. Since competition in their field is minimal, they were easily found on the first page of Google search if you knew what to look for. I learned that not only were they absolutely not searched on for their most prevalent keyword phrases, they weren’t showing at all for the phrases people actually look for.

That blew my mind, because with a Page Rank of 3, you’d assume the keywords were working for them. But they weren’t. Zero traffic on the terms used.

So what to do? Is this a problem? Well, for one thing, if the words you think your customers use, aren’t in fact, the words they use, how will they find you if they don’t already know your specific Web site address? If your business presence online is new, will your market know your exact address?

Long Tail Optimization
Zero To Sixty Marketing decided to use this company as an example to see where we could improve our customer discussions. Using Market Samurai for keyword research, we ran the currently used keywords against long tail options that sounded more reasonable for searchers to use. Long tail keywords are words that are run through a system based on the original keywords and determined to have market merit based on the level of traffic and competition for that word or phrase.

What a difference. We realized the words we ran through Market Samurai, that were not used before, had huge amounts of traffic and very little competition.

What does that mean? It means that many people are surfing the net searching on terms and keywords that apply to this business, but the words weren’t used in tags, bullets, headers, and titles to cause that searcher to find the site. What’s more, very few other companies represented in that niche were using that term to promote their own business. Can you say ‘goldmine?’

What Are Words Worth To You?
So think about that. You may not be an SEO believer, but there’s undeniable merit to a case study like this. The advice I gave this company was to start using those keywords effectively in  posts to blogs, comments, and high authenticity sites. Working outside of the site (link building) to improve keyword strength for the term you want to use while you’re using the words that are already proven, strategically can – over time, cause your unused terms to become more common place, and therefore used. This is a very effective link building exercise, well worth the effort.

Take the time to develop relationships with high authority sites via comments and linking strategies. Use the keywords in such a way that the reader stays on the page to learn more about your quality information, interesting related links, and possibly – hopefully, comment and leave their link so that a relationship does in fact develop. That takes time. And that’s okay, because as in real life relationships, they will matter and become relevant to your business reputation.

So I don’t think you need to dye your hair blue, or anything, that’s just a song.

Picture Credit: danielleblue from Flickr

Related Posts:

Very Basic SEO 5 PT Series,

SEO: Where Do You Find Your Keywords PT 2,

Using Keyword Research Tools PT3,

How Do We Use Those Keywords PT4,

Where Are Keywords Most Effective PT5

Category : SEO

Facebook Business Pages: How YOU Doin’?

Posted by Susan Hamilton
2

Connect with Zero To Sixty Marketing on FacebookFacebook has a neat way for small businesses to interact via Facebook Business Pages. A page won’t cost you anything, and may very well be a terrific way to build a following and interest in your particular company. That’s what we’re counting on, anyway!

We started working on ours a couple of months ago, along with updates to all of our media campaigns, just to see if it really is all it is cracked up to be. Why not, right? Well, simply stated, I can tell why we’re not all jumping out there to do it! Facebook navigation can be time consuming and confusing. Thing is, I believe in the potential. We’re going to figure out exactly how to promote ourselves on Facebook because we strongly believe in what it can do for small and home-based businesses. Meanwhile, here’s a few things we’ve ironed out that we’d like to share with you.

To Publish, or Not To Publish:
It’s nice to work on your page without the scrutiny of public view during the process. We suggest that you remain unpublished until you’ve got some of the technical understanding worked out. To begin with, your logo needs to be on your page, and although it shouldn’t need to be said, so does your COMPANY NAME!! I was perusing the FB search box for companies we should be targeting, and lo and behold–so many companies listed on a group page or category failed to list their company name. Truly, why bother? It takes some time to set up your page, so please take the necessary steps to be able to be found. It’s unwise to publish your page without both company name and contact info easily found and linked back to your Web site.

So What SHOULD Be On Your Business Page?
You’ll have some options about how to ‘feed’ your wall posts. First, you need to decide out loud just what you want to accomplish. Seriously. Do you just want a static presence? Because if that’s all you’re after, a social business page will be pretty meaningless. Remember that the point of having a breathing presence on social sites is to invite curiosity and conversation, divulge helpful tidbits of information, and to get feedback. We’re better when we have feedback from our audience. Many times what your viewers have to say can be helpful both to the way you do business, and for future topics that you will learn already interest them.

Your ‘feed’ can be manually entered posts to your wall, or automatic updates from your blog to your wall. We thought it would be easier to keep our Facebook business page current if we used the blog feeds from our Web site to automatically post for us. Ideally speaking that might be true, but now we don’t believe we could interest anyone like that because doing so left our wall space obnoxious–our company name was repeated too frequently to promote interest, and our blog posts alone looked like a public RSS feed, leaving little to inspire interaction. Once we decided to break it up by manually entering our status updates instead, the page came to life. Now our viewers can see other things that interest them, as well as questions that inspire feedback and conversation.

As we keep breathing life into our FB presence, we’ll be updating our photos with pics from our photographer, Gerald Voigt and uploads from our graphics designer, Scott Alberts. Keep in mind that your photo section should be business related. No boob shots.

How Does Your Page Grow?
Make a habit of searching and inviting followers to your business page. Encourage them to be fans. We decided to devote 10 minutes every day to inviting small business and home based business owners to visit our site and become fans.

Make sure your Facebook badge appears on your company Web site or blog. This is one part I really dig. You’ll have the option to include within your badge (depending on how much space you can support), both your ‘feed’ and followers. They will appear on your actual Web site. That means that when they comment or fan your Facebook Business Page and leave their link, their link will show up on your company Web site viewable through the badge. That turns into an outbound link for you with the potential of a new relationship, and an inbound link for them because the link comes in from your site. Its a win-win!

Good luck with your Facebook Business Page (we hope you’ll ‘fan’ Zero To Sixty Marketing), can’t wait to see you there! What have you learned about your Facebook Business Page promotion?

Category : Facebook

Where Are Keywords Most Effective? PT 5

Posted by Susan Hamilton
0
I gave away a little of today’s post in my last one when I addressed how to use keywords. Remember, I asked you if you could:
Use them effectively in your H1, or header title.
Use them in your H2, or header for a bullet or numbered list.
Use them in the body of your short, opening paragraph.
That’s a start. Choosing one keyword, and using it like I showed you in my last post is very important. Using too many keywords can often take away from the quality writing you want to share with your readers. That one primary keyword should be used as described above, and it should be used in the opening lines of text under your title.
More Keyword Effectiveness
Another important placement of your primary keyword is in the anchor text of a link. Here’s why:
The anchor text, or the different colored wording used when linking, provided the links connect (and you must always check), adds good authority.
Anchor text used for linking outbound to another, possibly higher ranking site, may naturally turn into an inbound link once a relationship between authors is established. Keyword-rich anchor text coming in on an inbound link is good for authority.
Anchor text using effective keywords for your internal linking between pages of your website is also good for your reader, and by default, you.
Posting comments on relevant blogs and forums will also bring links in from other sites, so you want to include good keyword-rich anchor text when you leave them.
You’re not completely limited to one keyword for all your content. If used too frequently, you can actually hurt your site, not help it. Shoot for using your primary keyword naturally 2-3 times on a page in the places we’ve talked about. Then, go back and see if another word or phrase that you’ve researched can be used as a subordinate, worked into the text of your content. Don’t use it more than a few times.
It’s imperative that you write for your readership; your potential customers, your existing customers, and others, such as information gatherers and peers in your business to business relationships. If you can do this fluidly, and maintain the quality of your content, you’ve got the basics of a recipe for success.
One more thing as I wrap up this series. Be a good steward of your site. Make sure to reply to comments and return links to readers who have helped you link. It’s not going to hurt your company to complement or agree with a competitor’s comments or product lines, and doing so can actually be helpful for more than just linking. Once relationships are built, and that takes some time, you may very well find yourself in a situation where you may be offered extra work. Sometimes a company finds it better to send extra work to someone they trust than to risk turning down work with no alternative for their customer. That could only be possible with effective link strategies.
We’d love to hear from you. Be sure to leave your comments or questions with a link to your company along with your name below. Here’s to your small business success!

I gave away a little of today’s post in my last one, where I addressed how to use keywords. Remember, I asked you if you could:

  • Use them effectively in your H1, or header title.
  • Use them in your H2, or header for a bullet or numbered list.
  • Use them in the body of your short, opening paragraph.

That’s a start. Choosing one keyword, and using it like I showed you in Part 4 is very important. Using too many keywords can often take away from the quality writing you want to share with your readers. That one primary keyword should be used as described above, and it should be used in the opening lines of text under your title.

More Keyword Effectiveness

Another important placement of your primary keyword is in the anchor text of a link. Here’s why:

  • The anchor text, or the different colored wording used when linking, provided the links connect (and you must always check), adds good authority.
  • Anchor text used for linking outbound to another, possibly higher ranking site, may naturally turn into an inbound link once a relationship between authors is established. Keyword-rich anchor text coming in on an inbound link is good for authority.
  • Anchor text using effective keywords for your internal linking between pages of your website is also good for your reader, and by default, you.
  • Posting comments on relevant blogs and forums will also bring links in from other sites, so you want to include good keyword-rich anchor text when you leave them.

You’re not completely limited to one keyword for all your content. If used too frequently, you can actually hurt your site, not help it. Shoot for using your primary keyword naturally 2-3 times on a page in the places we’ve talked about. Then, go back and see if another word or phrase that you’ve researched can be used as a subordinate, worked into the text of your content. Don’t use it more than a few times.

It’s imperative that you write for your readership; your potential customers, your existing customers, and others, such as information gatherers and peers in your business to business relationships. If you can do this fluidly, and maintain the quality of your content, you’ve got the basics of a recipe for success.

One more thing as I wrap up this series. Be a good steward of your site. Make sure to reply to comments and return links to readers who have helped you link. It’s not going to hurt your company to complement or agree with a competitor’s comments or product lines, and doing so can actually be helpful for more than just linking. Once relationships are built, and that takes some time, you may very well find yourself in a situation where you’re offered extra work. Sometimes a company finds it better to send extra work to someone they trust than to risk turning down work with no alternative for their customer. That could only be possible with effective link strategies.

We’d love to hear from you. Be sure to leave your comments or questions with a link to your company along with your name below. Here’s to your small business success!

Photo Credit:   Flickr’s danielle_blue

Related Posts: Very Basic SEO 5 PT Series, Where Do You Find Your Keywords PT2, Using Keyword Research Tools PT3, How Do We Use Those Keywords PT4

Category : SEO

How Do We Use Those Keywords? PT4

Posted by Susan Hamilton
2

Now its time to put forth a little effort. I’m going to ask you my favorite question:

What do you have to say to your customers, viewers, and peers?

Notice I never asked you what you had to say to a search engine. Your content is king, and if you ever start filling your web pages, press releases, articles, and blogs with randomly placed keywords, they will no longer be keywords. They will then be useless, lifeless gobbledygook that will only make you look uneducated, and there’s absolutely no authority in that.

Page by page, start writing your quality content. Remember your audience. Some will be looking for information, some will be looking at their competition, and some will be looking for your services or goods. Write to them, and although a call to action on every page is a good idea, you want to spend more time expressing the benefits to the customer than the blatantly over-done, hit-them-over-the-head sales pitch.

Pick one keyword phrase. Pick the best one for your landing page. Most times your landing page will be your home page, but sometimes it’s your services page. What page is your customer coming to first? That is where you use your primary keyword. Hint: Its not in the drop-down menu. Current logic is that every page a person lands on must be considered a landing page.

Ask yourself these questions:

  • Can you use the word or phrase in your title header, naturally? 80% of all SEO results are from the page title and anchor text.
  • Can you mention the word or phrase in its entirety within a natural sentence, and will that sentence work in a 2-3 sentence paragraph?
  • Can it be used naturally in any H2 bullet or numbered list?

If you believe those conditions apply, see if they work into the text you’ve written. Read it out loud.

  • Does it flow?
  • Did it lose meaning?
  • Will your customers, viewers, and peers find value in what you’ve said?

If not, then try again. If your writing doesn’t meet those conditions, you’ve wasted your time on keywords. Trial and error, my friend. In the end you’ll be glad you put effort into the quality and style of your website copy.

Is SEO Just About Keywords?

ABSOLUTELY NOT. You also need to consider and address:

  • The number of pages on your site. You want several pages of good content, including drop down 2nd and 3rd tier pages.
  • The age of your site. Even when it’s built right, time improves rank because familiarity will bring necessary clicks and comments, and links.
  • The frequency of updated, quality content. Blogs, calendars, and product reviews all add quality content if updated regularly.
  • The internal linking strategy, and quality external links. Quality external links will build your inbound links, and we’ll be talking more about that in our next post.

Our next and final post in this series addresses where those keywords will be most effective. Did you find this helpful? We’d love to hear from you, please leave any questions and comments below, and be sure to use your name (not your keyword phrase) in the name box, and a link to your blog or website in the URI box. We’ll explain why that’s so important in our next post.

Photo Credit: Le Petit Poulailler on Flickr

Related Articles:
Very Basic SEO – Pt 1
SEO Where Do You Find Your Keywords – Pt 2
Using Keyword Research Tools – Pt 3

Category : SEO

Using Keyword Research Tools – PT 3

Posted by Susan Hamilton
0

We’ve been giving you the nuts and bolts breakdown of SEO, and we want to make sure you have access to some of the easiest keyword research tools out there. We’ve been using Wordtracker for several years now, but I’ve only recently started using this tool myself. A couple of years ago I had tried it and thought it difficult, but then again I had very little working knowledge about how to use the tool, and they’ve improved the experience for the researcher (you) by leaps and bounds. Anyone can figure this out.

You need to a flashplayer enabled browser to view this YouTube video

First, make sure you take the tour. I don’t remember taking the tour, if they offered one on my first try years ago, but I’ve taken the tour since then and now think that it’s very helpful and can’t imagine trying to use it without taking the tour. I like things spelled out.

Wordtracker Tour

Very basically, there are four steps that you’ll be walked through in more detail:

  • Enter a keyword (one you’ve chosen off of the list we worked on in the last post)
  • Find the actual search traffic volume for your keyword
  • Evaluate competition for the word
  • Export results, and
  • Research again from your list

While you’re there, take a look at some of the blogposts in the Wordtracker Academy. I thought Lyndon Antcliff’s post on social media was a really great breakdown for any business owner.

Using Market Samurai Keyword Research Tools

Another keyword research tool is Market Samurai. The 30 Day Challenge kicked off on August 1, but you can still get in. Shari and I have both taken the 30 Day Challenge, consisting of video tutorials and introductory versions of several Internet marketing venues, and have come away inspired and empowered. Neither of us has been able to complete it, however, and it’s pretty time intensive alongside a busy work schedule. We just keep going back! Give it a try, tell us what you think.

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With this tool, you have access to every level of SEO information; link strategy comparisons of your competition, and a rank tracker tool that does exactly that, tracks your rank and so on. Complete introductory information is available with this system as well.

I don’t want to give too much away with either of these tools because I’d really like to see your unbiased comments on both.

In our next posts, we’re going to show you where and how to use these keywords that by now are excellent choices. Was this post helpful? Have you used Wordtracker.com or Market Samurai? Tell us what you think of these tools in the comments below!

Category : SEO

SEO: Where Do You Find Your Keywords? PT2

Posted by Susan Hamilton
0

SO you need keywords, but if everyone in your service industry is using the same words, how will that help you? With that logic, how do the right words help you? First of all, you’re not completely wrong! Random words aren’t going to be the Holy Grail you’re looking for. Second of all, start your list already! We’ll discuss where you use what words and how you use them later.

Your keyword list should include:

  • Brainstorming the words and phrases you think people use when looking for your company or service.
  • Look at your competitors sites, what words are they using?
  • What problem does your service solve?
  • What names are used in your product lines?
  • Your list should be extensive, a couple hundred to start.

What words are we supposed to be using?

Now that you’ve compiled your basic list of keywords and keyword phrases, how do you know which will perform best? After all, if everyone else is using them, how will they help you more than your competitors? This is time consuming, but remember, you could pay to have it done.

  • Check out your competitors that outrank you on the search engine pages. Pay special attention to the top ranking positions.
  • Can any phrases or wording be altered just enough to be similar, but not exactly the same, and still get the point across? Circle.
  • Wordtracker.com and Market Samurai have excellent keyword/phrase analysis tools that will help you decide what words will have the most impact. Both have free versions for a temporary basis, and I think that’s great for comparison sake.

Now, using your new tools, plug in your keywords and phrases. You’re looking for:

  • High volume of search traffic, preferably over 30,000 searchers.
  • Low volume of competition, under 300 is optimal.
  • Relevant words and phrases that can be used conversationally and fluidly. Remember, you’re not writing for a spider, you’re writing for your readers at all times.

You need to know this information because you not only want to stand out, you also want to be able to “answer the cry” of your market. If people are searching on certain terms, but few of those terms are actually being used by your competition, you’re on to something. Obviously, meeting needs that aren’t being met is a huge benefit for your company.

Remember, SEO is an ongoing, constantly updated science involving not only keywords and their use, but also effective linking strategy, number of pages, and even length of time your site has been updating new quality content. You may want to revisit these tools occasionally if you see your rankings start to slip over time.

In our next posts, we’ll be covering a little more about Wordtracker and Market Samurai, and show you where and how these words you’ve discovered will help you the most. Was this post helpful? We’d love to hear from you! Leave your questions and comments below.

Photo Credit: jurvetson on flickr

Category : SEO

Very Basic SEO 5 Part Series

Posted by Susan Hamilton
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Shari does a great job explaining what SEO is not, a very important read I strongly recommend. This is a very basic synopsis broken down for the small service company that is just now learning that their site can do more for their company than just hold a place for chance visitors.

Search engines are not as hard to understand as it can seem to a smaller, service website owner. Most businesses understand by now that they must have a website so their company information can be easily accessed by prospective clients, but just having one doesn’t guarantee that.

The major search engines are Google, Yahoo, and Bing. Whenever you look for something online, these engines have a search box that you can type information into, and then click on ’search.’ The engine then goes through its data, and pulls up information from sites that correlate exactly with what you’ve entered into the box. I told you, very basic.

So what gets entered by the searcher matters very much, but so does the wording on your site or blog. You want your site to be accessed by a person or business who is already looking for you. The art of causing that to happen, is SEO.

You want the wording you use on your website to produce the most favorable result possible, and that would be for your website to exist on at least the first Goggle, Yahoo, or Bing search page, hopefully the upper third, and optimally the first listing for what your customers are typing into the search box when they are looking for you.

The wordsmithing part of SEO simply combines the science of researching what words are best for you, and then weaving those words naturally into the sentences, titles, links and phrases used throughout your website. It also involves the number of pages and links you’ll be using, and how you’ll be using them.

Small service companies of America, stand strong. I encourage you to learn from these pages and the excellent information available on ExpressMarketingMemo.com so that you can adopt practices that will keep you in the running through this economy. We not only offer services, but  consulting as well. Many of you are working very hard and are finding yourselves stretched to capacity. We can get you back up to speed, so you can enjoy the business of doing your business again.

Was this helpful? Is there any specific information you would like us to elaborate on further? Leave your comments below.

Photo Credit: Ambient Damage on flickr

Category : SEO
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