Search Engine Marketing
Information to help you understand and leverage Search Engine Marketing tools.
A blog for truly small businesses
Keyword rich content – do the right things and win the search engine optimization game
When you are adding words to your website, whether in a blog post, an article, your home page, product descriptions etc, you are creating “content”. You will often hear me talk about “keyword rich content” – what I mean is, use the keywords you want to get listed in the search engines for as many times as appropriate – but don’t use them so much that your readers will be irritated.
If you use this as a guide you will insure long term success. Here are some basics about letting the search engines know what keywords are important on the particular article (product description, blog post etc):
- Use your keyword phrase in the title
- Use your keyword phrase at least once in the first 100 words
- Highlight the keyword phrase at least once using bold and/or italics and, if you know how, make sure your keywords are used in <h1>, <h2> and <h3> tags.
- If appropriate, use the keywords to link to another relative article or product on your website
Use Title Tags and Alt Tags on your images and links – include your keywords (if it makes sense) but don’t use the same title and alt tags over and over again on the same page. (I’ll talk more about title and alt tags in a future post)
As the search engine computers get programmed for more and more accurate analysis of the millions of pages they are indexing and listing, it will become more and more important to “do the right thing” on your website and not just use your keywords a gazillion times.
Inbound links from relative, authoritative (meaning the search engines see those sites as consistently offering valued information) are becoming critical. The way to get these inbound links is to provide content on your website that makes people that have relevant (complimentary) websites (blogs, review sites etc) want to link to you.
Another way to get these quality inbound links is to provide the tools for people to share them on “authoritative” websites. My earlier post about the Facebook “like” button is one way to do this, but there are others I will discuss in future posts.
Another way to use Facebook instead of letting Facebook use you…
While the big boys are spending big money to set up shop and keep visitors on Facebook, spending money for ads on your Facebook Fan Page and Facebook Profile pages you can be driving traffic away from Facebook to your website!
At least until Facebook figures out that we’ve got their number :-D. The beauty is, you don’t even have to have a Facebook account (at least not yet) to do this!
How? It’s pretty simple really… add a Facebook “Like” or “Share” button to your site.
How easy this is will depend on how your website is built but a “Like” button can be added to just about any website if you are allowed to add html code to your pages.
If you would like to do this for your own website you can create the button here: http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/like. You can create one button that is a link to your primary URL and insert it in all or any pages on your website or you can create a button for each link you want people to share on your website.
If you have one of our dynamic content sites, we can add a feature to your website that will automatically add “like” and/or “share” buttons to your blog posts or pages.
Need more help? Give us a call at (888) 595 3098 or visit our Contact Us page.
We’ve stated the “social shopping” problem now we’ll share the solution
With companies like Best Buy “setting up shop” on Facebook my clients are in somewhat of a panic to compete. First of all, as I’ve said since the beginning, you cannot compete with big business on their level. If you could you wouldn’t be a “truly small business” any more – and wouldn’t need my advice.
Instead, be the best you can be and win because you are a small business that knows people buy from you because you offer better service and truly care about each individual customer. (We all know that at Best Buy and other stores like them we’re just a telephone number :-D). People shop at big stores because they are looking for the best deal. As a small retailer you are not going to have that. Instead you will have the best selection for your customers!
“Social Commerce” is going to happen – there is no way to avoid it. But instead of using the tools that are provided to “make you dependent” on Facebook (or any other social site) do the work yourself and drive your customers to your website to browse and then encourage them to “chat you up” on FB via their own profile. You can also put a “post a review” link on your site that takes them to your Google Places page and lets them post a review. Where else are you listed where people can post reviews? There are tons of local shopping sites where you can have a free listing and people can comment on your service etc – make sure you’re leveraging these free services. Granted, your site may not yet have the “rate this product” feature but you can still generate buzz on Facebook and other sites about it by introducing it as a post on your Fan page – people can still comment on Facebook about it but the link takes them to your website and doesn’t keep them on Facebook like the FB “shop” tab is designed to do.
Again, I’m not saying ditch FB – just don’t let them own you.
The old marketing and PR rules don’t work
I’m reading a new book that is helping me put words to my own experience as a search engine marketing expert and I’m excited about sharing the information with you. The book is titled: The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use Social Media, Blogs, News Releases, Online Video, and Viral Marketing to Reach Buyers Directly, 2nd Edition
So far my favorite phrase is “interruption advertising”. That is his term for those awful, loud, obnoxious TV ads that we have all grown to hate so much. He talks about how those big companies (and the PR companies they are paying the big bucks to) are trying to stick with those old rules of advertising in this new world of web marketing and why it doesn’t work!
I agree 100% !- Interruption ads are those God awful ads you get on your Yahoo Mail and Facebook – you’re not there to buy anything but the big companies with bottomless budgets are there SHOUTING at you – “Buy Me and you will be special!”
This is the first time in history that the little guy (you and I) get to thumb our noses at the Madison Avenue crowd and win by doing what is right instead of what is expensive. Wahoo! I’m in are you ready to come along?
If so, watch this blog for more tidbits and guidelines.
Coburn Enterprises becomes official
There are still a few more things to add to both of our websites http://www.coburnenterprises.com and http://www.sitebuildernow.net (which will soon be found at http://www.betterwebsitebuilders.com) but it’s official, we are now operating as Coburn Enterprises.
I’m excited about our re-launch and the upcoming announcements about our new Search Engine Optimization and Marketing products. For years we have helped our clients get first page listings. However, it was a lot easier when we started in 2001 than it is in today’s competitive web space.
For a long time we didn’t think we wanted to jump on the “search engine optimization and marketing for a fee” bandwagon, but as more and more clients asked us to review the bombardment of sales pitches from companies all over the world promising to get their websites on the first page …. for a fee… we found ourselves more and more involved in this aspect of each client’s business. After extensive research I came to realize that I am a search engine optimization expert – and I can do a better job for my clients than some company out of India – and, based on what my clients tell me, – for a fair price.
If you would like to learn more about how we do it you can check out our SEO / SEM productson the new Coburn Enterprises website at http://www.coburnenterprises.com
True first page (non-paid) listings are gained by doing the right things. There is no magic pill, no magic list you can get your site listed on. The only way to come up on page one for your chosen keyword phrases is to create and maintain a website that is truly beneficial to the person searching for those key words, do good business and get links to your site from other sites that share similar interests and clients. This is only done by investing the time it takes to do it.
