© Copyright 2009 SEO Badger
Dec
22
by Charles Lumpkin
Check out our small business news site.
Dec
19
by Jeff Howard
Dear Santa, I've worked hard this year, I served my clients with dedication, and provided value to every organization I've touched. However, I still need better tools to help justify SEO practices. Please have your best elf programmer develop this hack so the value behind SEO becomes more transparent in 2010.
All this year I've been striving for better rankings, as my rankings climb I see more visitors, and it's rewarding. But, I want to know my keyword performance for each organic position. For example, when xxx keyword was at position xxx how many times did someone land on my website.
I've seen others try to develop a hack that helps with this, but it doesn't do the job well.
Build me a tool that helps fill this chart.
Check out our small business news site.
Dec
18
by Manoj Jasra
Last week I caught up with Stephen Woessner, the author of The Small Business Owner's Handbook to Search Engine Optimization. In his book, Stephen outlines a 15-step process to help improve the performance of your website in organic search. In our chat, Stephen gave me some insight into his latest SEO book.
[Manoj]: Your book is targeted at Small Businesses, talk to us about the importance of small businesses understanding the foundations of SEO in order to really kickstart their website(s)?
[Stephen Woessner]: A small business owner needs to take advantage of every possible competitive advantage, especially during this challenging economy -- and having an effective Web presence is one of the best strategies to increase sales. SEO is a proven, low-cost strategy for increasing Web site traffic, and a business owner does not need technical skills to get substantial results. By following the 15-step process in The Small Business Owner's Handbook to SEO, business owners will see a dramatic increase in rankings within 30 days or less and a doubling of Web site traffic in 90 days or less. SEO provides any business owner with measurable results and proven performance.
[Manoj]: If small businesses could focus on just 2 or 3 main strategies in your 15 step process what would you want those to be?
[Stephen Woessner]: Great question! My advice would be to focus on Steps 3-6 initially. Step 3 teaches business owners how to select keywords that are proven performers so no time is wasted on words that don't matter. Step 4-6 teaches business owners about the three most valuable pieces of real estate on any content page: 1) Page title, 2) META keywords, and 3) META description and how to optimize these fields using the keywords selected during Step 3. However, the power of my 15-step SEO process is using all the steps in unison, but if a business owner did nothing else, they should absolutely take advantage of Steps 3-6.
[Manoj]: This book has a lot of great information and can be digested in very little time - is this what you envisioned before you started writing?
[Stephen Woessner]: I am glad you think so and absolutely! My goal in writing The Small Business Owner's Handbook to SEO was to make it very practical and tactical. I wanted to include a specific step-by-step process that any business owner could sit down, read, and begin using right away. I wanted to take a no-nonsense approach and provide a handbook that delivered efficient and effective results.
[Manoj]: Do you think SEO still provides one of the best ROIs compared to other online strategies?
[Stephen Woessner]: Definitely! I cannot think of another online promotional strategy that is as effective as SEO with a little to no-cost investment. SEO should be the promotional foundation to any Web site.
[Manoj]: You mention article submissions in your link building chapter, how effective is this strategy?
[Stephen Woessner]: Writing and submitting articles to the free distribution sites that I highlight in my book is the single most effective strategy for building high-quality, in-bound links to a Web site. The articles also demonstrate a business owner's expertise in their given industry. The link building strategy I explain in detail within Step 15 will generate hundreds of new, high-quality, in-bound links within 90 days or less. The additional links will also increase a Web site's site popularity within Google, and as a result, the site's rankings will go even higher.
Check out our small business news site.
Dec
17
by Stoney deGeyter
Ever see one of those movies where some secret government agency has a super high-tech office in an old, dilapidated building in some rundown part of town? The camera starts on the outside, looking over a ghetto as it moves down the street. It zeros in on a rundown building that a squatter would be embarrassed to live in. Then, as the camera moves inside we are shown a state-of-the art facility worthy of a Manhattan high-rise office in the 22nd century.
Sometimes SEO is just like that, but the opposite. A lot of time and energy is spent on the "exterior" (search engine rankings) while ignoring the interior (building a great website.)
Imagine yourself driving through a newly renovated area of town. The asphalt is freshly laid with bright yellow lines down the middle. Young, budding plants have been planted along the sidewalks between the street and newly stuccoed office buildings that look to be full of leather bound books smelling of rich mahogany. Now imagine walking into one of those buildings to find torn up carpet, water-stained ceilings, crumbling sheet rock on the walls, and someone doing their business off in the corner.
Imagine the change of emotions you'd feel. Stepping up to the door you feel confident that you're walking into a place that's going to meet your needs. But as soon as you open the door, you're hit with a stench that is the forebear of whats to come.
Focusing on search engine rankings while ignoring the quality and usability of your website may be a great way to get visitors in the door, but what will they find once they get there?
Putting your money where it counts.
When you're on a budget, as many businesses are today, you really want to spend your money where you're likely to get the greatest benefit. Unfortunately, money isn't always spent on what is actually the most beneficial, but rather what is perceived to be. While SEO can help you gain exposure and drive traffic to the front door of your website, if what's behind those doors isn't up to expectations, all the money getting them there is simply a waste.
A couple years ago I had my wisdom teeth removed, had a root canal and then a cap put on one of my teeth all in a couple of months time. I had to see several different dentists, each a specialist in a different area, so I got to see quite a few dentists offices, noticing a stark contrast between them.
Most of the offices were roomy and full of nice furniture, but one stood out as a genuinely scary experience, especially for someone who suffers from mild claustrophobia. The receptionist's desk was two and a half feet wide and piled high with about a years worth of "stuff that can wait."
I was placed in one of the procedure "rooms" looking right at someone else being examined by one of the nurses. As I laid back in the chair to get some X-rays, the nurse had to duck repeatedly around overhanging equipment while stepping over a small office trash can to get out to the hallway. It was like trying to perform an operation in a closet.
This is what many business websites are like when they focus on SEO and ignore their website design. There is nothing wrong with investing in SEO to drive traffic, but SEO is not the end of the story.
Conversions matter
A while back we had a long-time client undergo a major site redesign. They had held their rankings pretty solidly over the years but the site was design was getting stale. We had also been prodding over the previous months to address their site's many inefficiencies. Because their business had been growing significantly since we started working on their SEO campaign, they were never in a real hurry to make any changes. But finally they made the move.
The client invested in a major redevelopment of the site and rolled it out to the public. Almost immediately something amazing happened. Their conversion rates jumped by 30%!
This jump wasn't the result of new keywords optimized, or previously optimized keywords suddenly moving up in the rankings. The increase in conversions was directly tied to making their site more appealing and user-friendly.
The new site design cost them about what a years worth of SEO cost them. With a much more user and search engine friendly site, the efforts we were able to shift the efforts of the SEO campaign from creating band-aid solutions to being able to invest in a far more focused keyword targeting campaign.
With the additional revenue the client began talking about expanding the online marketing efforts; and why not? With a newly polished, high-tech interior, why not do all that you can to drive even more traffic to the higher-converting site?
No one can deny the value of getting first page placement for relevant keyword phrases. But many small businesses still need to be convinced that there is more to marketing than rankings and traffic. Bringing traffic into the slums isn't all that difficult to do. Getting someone to buy from you while they're there is. Lucky for you, it's not too great of a distance to go from trash to cash. Conversions do matter. And in the end, conversions are what matter most.
Check out our small business news site.
Dec
17
by Charles Lumpkin
Check out our small business news site.
Dec
16
by Jennifer Laycock
Earlier this week I made a post about why companies need to add a social media strategy budget to their 2010 marketing plans. The first reason on my list was the ability social media gives a company to listen to their customers.
Listening to the unfiltered thoughts, complaints and praises of customers via social media carries a huge benefit for the companies who know how to leverage it. That said, it's also one of the most terrifying aspects of social media for many brands. Fear of what will be said is still one of the biggest reasons companies are afraid to dip their toes into the social media waters.
Last week Zane Safrit pointed to an interesting article over at Business Week that examines corporate fear of social media negativity.
Zane hit the nail on the head when he titled his response "Shooting the Social Media Messenger" He wrote:
The most interesting part of the paragraph warning readers of the perils in that bottle of elixir titled social media was its encouragement to shoot the social media messenger. Don't like the message being shared about your brand on twitter, facebook, blogs, etal? Shoot 'em. Shoot the social media tools.
Zane offers some great insight (so make sure you go read his post) and it got me to thinking a little more deeply about the root of corporate social media fear.
On some level, companies seem to have this idea that if they keep their heads low and stay quiet, they can pass, unnoticed through the era of social media and go about their business. Unfortunately, the likelihood of ignoring social media and staying a successful company is becoming about as likely as ignoring the Internet and staying a successful company. It can be done, but it's unlikely. There's a mistaken idea that the collective voice of social media and NOT the company itself will be the source of negative commentary.
From Business Week:
...with one misstep, one clumsy entrée, companies can quickly find themselves victims of the forces they were trying to master. Thousands of bloggers attacked Motrin last year because of an advertisement from the Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) brand they found demeaning to mothers.
Ok...back up a minute here.
Thousands of bloggers attacked Motrin because of something Motrin DID, not because they COULD...and there's a big difference there.
There was a time where companies could launch an ill-fated or poorly targeted or even a downright offensive campaign to the world and remain mostly protected from backlash. There might be a slight dip in sales or even a few angry letters and phone calls, but unless some angry consumer had a mainstream media connection, things mostly got ignored. These days, a stay-at-home-mom can have an online network of millions she can access with a few keystrokes. The voices and opinions haven't changed, they've just been given reach.
That's a hard pill for some companies to swallow. It's far easier to "blame" social media and the "angry mobs" that form than it is to admit the angry mob never would have formed in the first place if the company hadn't done something dumb.
But That's Not the Point I Want to Make
The commentary I've seen on this article so far pretty much stopped there. It points out the fear companies have of engaging with consumers because consumers might react poorly to their ideas. There's a bit of irony to be had here when you realize some social media types are jumping on the article because of it's shoot the messenger mentality. Why? Because the article goes on to make some very good points that really need to be addressed by our community.
The problem, according to a growing chorus of critics, is that many would-be guides are leading clients astray. Consultants often use buzz as their dominant currency, and success is defined more often by numbers of Twitter followers, blog mentions, or YouTube (GOOG) hits than by traditional measures, such as return on investment. This approach could sour companies on social media and the rich opportunities it represents.
Let's read that last sentence again...
This approach could sour companies on social media and the rich opportunities it represents.
And THEREIN lies the problem...
While I'm a social media strategist for small businesses, my background is in organic search engine optimization. In other words, I come from the "original" snake oil of online marketing. Social media, for all it's hype and loyalists STILL hasn't broken through the mainstream marketing barrier. It's where SEO was half a dozen or more years ago. It's fighting to define itself, to justify itself and to legitimize itself.
It's not going to be an easy battle.
We're Going to Have a Big Mess to Clean Up
Sure, we can point out how many companies are devoting dollars to it. We can give case study after case study of companies both large and small who have seen glorious success with social media. Guess what? We could do the same thing with SEO, to some degree we could demonstrate success more concretely.
It's still a new industry with undefined rules and a million and one consultants out there blazing new trails. The sad reality is, more companies will be burned by social media "experts" than will be helped by them this year.
To this day, I still talk to companies who have been burned time and time again by search engine marketers. Small businesses who have invested thousands, or even tens of thousands of dollars into search engine optimization strategies that were outdated, ineffective and totally untargeted.
And THAT is what will happen with social media as well.
Social media is evolving at an ever increasing pace. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Digg, FriendFeed, Flickr, MySpace, Yelp, Google Maps, LinkedIn, Blinklist, del.icio.us, Furl, Reddit, Mixx, LiveJournal, tumblr, I could go on and on and on and on. (Heavens knows the list of social media sites does...)
Right now, there are boatloads of social media consultants who promote and measure success by getting a company signed up with a million accounts and building up a million followers.
Who cares?
Social media isn't a one size fits all solution. Every company will need a completely different strategy for success and guess what? Not all of them need Twitter, or Facebook or even a blog. Finding (or being) a social media strategist isn't about knowing how to build a presence or set up an account, it's about knowing how to set goals, establish a way to track those goals and then having the marketing knowledge needed to leverage conversation to reach those goals.
There are lots of great and effective social media strategists out there who can do this. Unfortunately they are severely outnumbered by the ones who can't. And THAT is what will make the next few years challenging for this industry. The social media strategists who "get it" are going to need to do a lot of educating and expectation setting with clients. They'll be doing a lot of clean-up as they come in to business relationships with companies who've been sold a bill of "get a lot of Twitter followers" goods. They'll have to work harder to change minds and prove themselves than they would have if they'd gotten there first.
I still see my friends in the world of search doing this. More and more often, they're the second (or third, or fifth) search agency a client has come into contact with and they have a lot of reeducating and reassuring to do before they land the contract. I fully expect those of us in the social media space are going to quickly find ourselves in the same position.
Social media may be on the rise, but it's popularity will attract those who are in it just to make a quick buck. That's going to leave the rest of us playing clean-up. On the bright side, it's also going to make it easier for the ones who build true and trackable strategies to differentiate themselves and rise to the top.
Check out our small business news site.
Dec
15
by Mike Moran
I realize that to some, this is a dumb question. I mean, if you have a Web site, why would you NOT optimize it for search? Organic search is the cheapest way to bring people to your site and paid search is the easiest, so it's a no-brainer for you to recommend that every blessed Web site on the Internet dive right into search marketing, right? Wrong.
So, as you stare into the distance, wondering how to figure out if you are ready for search, what you really want to know is if your site is ready for customers.
Suppose you are opening a small shop on a busy street in town. What's the first thing that you'd do? You'd order the best merchandise you could find. You'd make sure it was attractively laid out. You'd be positive that you had helpful employees to answer questions and to run the cash registers. In fact, you'd do absolutely every one of those things before taking out a big ad in the local paper, right? You'd never take the ad out if your store wasn't ready.
Image by LaPetiteTwinkie via Flickr
But too often, that is what I see on the Web. Folks approach me every day asking for help with search marketing when the simple truth is that their Web sites aren't ready for customers. The sites might be hard to use. Or have little information. Or have no way for customers to actually buy anything--no online buying and no easy way to move offline.
But still, they want search marketing. They are convinced that the problem isn't that their Web site stinks on ice, but rather that not enough people are visiting. Trust me folks, if your Web site is awful, you want as few people to see it as possible. Not only won't they buy from you, but they won't come back. They might even tell other people how bad it is. That's not the kind of word of mouth you are looking for.
No, don't let this advice paralyze you. Some of us are our toughest critics. We see all the blemishes on our sites without noticing what's positive. Your site doesn't need to be perfect, but it does need to be good. If your Web site is no good, then sending more people to it won't be the answer.
So, take a hard look at your Web site. If you can honestly say to yourself that folks arriving at your site can find what they need and figure out how to buy what you are selling (online or offline), and you have the sales to prove it, then you are ready. For you, search marketing really is a no-brainer.
But if your Web site causes customers to faint dead away, or call you on the phone to complain how they can never find anything, you have a bigger problem than search marketing that you need to solve first. Once you do solve it, then search marketing will bring you far more impact than you'd ever dreamed.
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Dec
15
by Stoney deGeyter
Over the past few months I've been working on a personal hobby site. I have to say, it's been a lot of work. It's been a while since I've built a new site, I've spent most of my time over the years working on my main business site and already-built client sites. Even when we are brought in for consulting in new site planning, it's someone else that does the work, not me.
After spending dozens of my free-time hours just getting this new site set-up, I can totally see why people would just rather pay someone else to do it for them.
Starting from scratch
I went the easy route and I found a $25 Wordpress theme that gave me most of the functionality I wanted with some extra cool features I liked. I spent the first week customizing it; adding plugins and tweaking the code. I don't know a whole lot of code outside of HTML but I can sort my way through it. I found some widgets to add and removed some that I didn't like.
Every now and then I came across an issue that I couldn't fix. A email to the theme developer and almost all my problems were quickly solved. I spent some time fiddling with a logo until I got it just how I wanted it.
Next I had to start building the site structure. How were my pages going to be categorized with both blog posts and the directory I was building? I did some tinkering along the way and I keep making improvements as I go, but finally got the basic structure in place.
Perfection never comes, so roll it out now
What I found most interesting during this process was the SEO elements. This took me far longer and was much more work (and a work in progress) than I anticipated.... and I haven't even started going through my optimization checklist.
But I realize that some things you have do to quickly so you can get moving forward. I don't have time to make it perfect, otherwise I'd never get the site done. I've spent countless hours tweaking this, that, and the other, but only after the site has been live and generating traffic.
In fact, that's been one of the most frustrating things: There is always something more to do. Put aside the actual content generation of the site (I write reviews of restaurants and other things to do in Canton, Ohio,) I have an ever-growing list of things that I have to do in order to promote the site.
Let's see:
And it seems every time I get an item knocked off my things-to-do list I add two more! And I still have to write reviews of the places I go, which means I can't spend every evening in front of the computer working on these things, I actually have to go out and experience something to review.
All said and done, this little hobby site of mine has occupied just about every bit of spare time I've had and there is always somethign more, more, more to do.
The Client's vs. SEOs perspective
Now I understand why people hire SEO firms... this is a lot of work! Arguably I know a thing or two about SEO, yet I can't imagine trying to do all this without the knowledge base that I have.
Many people in this just-starting-out position jump into a new project without realizing just how time consuming this web stuff really is. Those that know enough to know that they don't know enough often times don't know quite enough to realize that even those of us that do know enough about what we are doing can't wave a magic wand that makes results appear overnight. (That was a mouthful!)
Client's want results and, rightfully so, but to some once they right that check, the results are supposed to be delivered like a pizza on game night. But in reality, it doesn't happen like that at all. There is a lot of details that have to be planned, implemented, and followed through on, otherwise the site won't go anywhere.
*Participation not included
Why have I been so successful with this project over the past few months? (I'm using that term relatively.) It's because I have been engaged in the marketing of the site, beyond the SEO and development. Had I handed the SEO and development of the site to someone else it probably would have been completed, but the site would be stagnating with very few visitors. Some things just can't easily be handed off with a check. Those that can still take active participation by the writer of that check.
I have to be engaged in twitter as often as possible. I have to join conversations and establish relationships. I could pay someone else to do this but guess what? It would take just as much time for someone else. I just have to decide where my time is most valued. Do I run the business or do I market the business?
Every business owner has to decide how they will proceed. Hire some or all of the marketing out or do it themselves. Those who don't do it themselves honestly have no idea what's involved. Heck, I do this for a living and sometimes I have no idea what's involved.
One of the best things about doing this is that I'm learning quite a bit. Some of this is old hat to me while other portions of it are brand new. Through this hobby site I'm learning valuable skills that I'll be able to bring to the table for my clients. That right there makes it all worth it.
Check out our small business news site.
Dec
14
by Jennifer Laycock
As a small business social media strategist, I'm very happy to see so many companies finally beginning to recognize the need to invest some of the marketing dollars into social media. I'm ever more happy to see how many of them are willing and able to dedicate some internal staff to the matter. On the other hand, I'm finding that many of these companies have absolutely no idea WHY they need a social media strategy. They just feel the pressure to get involved and hope something will come from it.
Unfortunately, that's no way to build a strategy. What good does it do to invest time and money into a blog, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or any other number of social media outlets if you have no goals, no measurement and quite frankly, no idea why you're there.
What companies need to do is embrace the benefits of social media while very carefully thinking through the goals of their outreach efforts. Different goals will require different strategies. Taking a shotgun approach of simply trying to "get out there" will rarely result in a solid payoff. It's far better to sit down and carefully consider what your company's goals are and to build backward to create a strategy that's most likely to meet those goals.
2009 is coming to a close and most companies are already deep in planning with their 2010 marketing budgets. With that in mind, here are four key reasons why your company needs to consider planning and launching a social media campaign next year.
Reason #1: Social Media Gives You Unprecedented Ability to Listen to Your Customers
For companies that don't already have some type of social media strategy in place, this is usually the best place to start. While it takes a little bit of common sense and guidance to create an active and vocal outreach plan that will deliver results, pretty much anyone is capable of listening to the existing conversation.
The goal here is threefold.
Basically, companies need to view social media as a sort of endless focus group they can tap at any point in time. For companies that invest in listening and really sit down to consider how this information impacts them, there's amazingly valuable information available. Using this information to impact all forms of marketing can make this specific strategy perfect for companies who don't have time to invest in a social media voice, but who want to reap some of the benefits.
Reason #2: Social Media Gives You the Chance to Build or Introduce a Brand
Sometimes, the entire goal of a social media strategy is to create awareness about a new product, a service or a brand. Consumers are heading online in droves to have conversations and thanks to the explosion of interest in microblogging, social networks and blogs, they're talking about more topics and reaching more people than ever before.
Getting a customer to talk about your product used to mean they mentioned it to a handful of friends or co-workers. These days getting them to talk about it might mean they share it with hundreds of friends on Facebook, thousands of contacts on Twitter or even tens or hundreds of thousands of readers on a blog. That's a massive amount of potential exposure.
Let's take a look at three different ways of approaching this one:
Reason #3: Social Media Gives You a Unique Way to Gather Feedback
Another excellent reason to turn to social media is the ability to gather feedback from your target audience. While this may sound similar to the concept of listening to the conversation, there's a strong difference in the two goals. Listening is focused purely on listening to the existing conversation without trying to influence it's direction. Using social media as a feedback channel is all about actively soliciting input, ideas and even complaints about your products or services.
The thing to remember with this type of social media strategy is that it takes some serious investment. You can't just show up on a popular social media channel and ask people to tell you what they think. You have make a heavy investment into building relationships first.
There are several different ways to do this:
Reason #4: Social Media Gives You the Chance to Demonstrate Personality
One of the single greatest advantages the Internet and social media has given small business owners is the ability to once again go head to head with their big box counterparts. A decade ago, this was because web sites gave no indication of business size. The small mom and pop shop could have a site that looked just as good, was priced just as good and carried just as much inventory as a company like Sears or Walmart. These days, smart small businesses are using social media not only as an equalizer, but as a competitive advantage.
You don't have to look far to find a story of a consumer who feels unappreciated or ignored by a larger brand who has made them unhappy. No one likes to sit on hold for 2 hours trying to lodge a complaint or have a product replaced. Smaller brands who sell the same product at the same price but actually answer the telephone have the chance to differentiate themselves and bring in loads of new customers. Beyond that, small companies who establish a voice via their blog or social media outlets have the chance to build credibility by building relationships directly with consumers.
Here are a handful of ways to use social media to do just that:
To be honest, there are dozens...maybe even hundreds of reasons to get involved with social media next year. These are just some of the strongest. What it all boils down to is this; your customers are online and they are using social media to communicate. If you aren't, you're business is missing opportunities. No one says you have to master every use of social media all at once, but you're doing yourself (and your bottom line) a disservice if you don't at least give some thought toward creeping into the social media space next year to do a little listening.
Check out our small business news site.
Dec
14
by Sage Lewis
Check out our small business news site.
