Inside Line to More Business

Using Keyword Research Tools – PT 3

August 18, 2009 by Susan Hamilton Leave a Comment

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.

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.

SEO: Where Do You Find Your Keywords? PT2

August 12, 2009 by Susan Hamilton Leave a Comment

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.

Very Basic SEO 5 Part Series

August 11, 2009 by Susan Hamilton Leave a Comment

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 or product 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.

Link Strategies Will Improve Rank Issues

July 23, 2009 by Susan Hamilton Leave a Comment

Sharing links is a pretty common way to show interesting, fun, or informative sites to friends, associates. We don’t usually think about how that helps the website we link to, we just do it. Some research on a site we’ve been slowly upgrading revealed another common situation. The website wasn’t ranking.

As I shared what I had learned with the small business owner, I realized that all my words were falling on deaf ears. It can be hard to wrap your head around what it takes to be found online.

I wanted him to know that smart linking strategies can offset costs associated with marketing a company. Yes, you can, and should, hire a company to help you build links, but you can do some of it yourself and increase results while saving some bucks.

Does Your SEO Expert Know What He’s Talking About?

June 22, 2009 by Shari Voigt 6 Comments

Search engine optimization (SEO) is probably one of the most misunderstood terms by small business owners. It’s a huge topic; many things go into optimizing a website for search. Unfortunately, nearly anyone can pass himself off as an SEO expert, and many small business owners are taken in by “experts,” only later to discover that there were some serious holes in the actual expertise.

SEO is an easy upsell for the web developer. When the benefits of SEO are spelled out clearly, no business owner in his right mind will say they don’t care about a search engine optimized website. Clearly, there’s a financial incentive to the developer to sell SEO services, but not every website developer has enough of a grasp on the basics for it to be of any real benefit to you.

Likewise and for the same reasons, SEO on existing websites is an easy sell for the search engine marketing firm. Either way, you want your website to be found prominently online, not as #106 in the search results. You’d think a firm that specializes in SEO would know what they’re doing, right? Many do, but others engage in practices that will actually hurt your website’s rankings … and it can be hard for the untrained eye to know the difference.

What Is Content Marketing?

June 19, 2009 by Susan Hamilton Leave a Comment

Content marketing is not sales and it’s not advertisement. It is, however, the most effective way to promote yourself online. Share your expert opinion on a product or method, teach others how to look at something more deeply or offer a differing point of view through well-written material you then share through online environments. Depending on the content’s usefulness, you may even be able to get it picked up in local magazines and other print publications. [Read more…] about What Is Content Marketing?