Search Engine Marketing & Optimization

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.

After nearly 10 years of “helping small businesses compete on the world wide web” we have come to realize that our roll is much more than being a website builder or web design company. What we have discovered is that we are actually small business advisors.

It is not uncommon for a client to contact us for a website and, through our initial questioning process, discover they are not really ready to launch a website. This is because the market we service - the “Truly Small Business” or “TSB” – consists mostly of individuals or a small team of people that have a great idea for a product or service but limited life experience in starting or expanding a company and launching their product. Unlike the well know “Small to Medium Business” or “SMB”, a TSB is usually a self-funded, self-managed company that is not looking for venture capital and/or large start up loans. I find it ironic that I read about “small businesses” and they are companies with 50 employees generating a few million dollars a year in revenues. Whereas, a truly small business generally has less than 10 employees (if any) and often generates just enough revenue to pay their expenses – on a good day. Yet, this sector of business is what really makes up the majority of “small businesses” in our country. Thus, at Coburn Enterprises, we have decided to promote the phrase TSB – Truly Small Business – to help this market sector gain recognition in the marketplace and gain a voice in our society.

With these ideas in mind, we are relaunching our company under Coburn Enterprises. This is the name we have been using for a few years now for our EIN number, merchant services account and other critical business activities. Although we will keep the branding of SiteBuilder Now for our “do-it-yourself” product group, we feel that Coburn Enterprises is more fitting for our current services.

Coburn Enterprises helps truly small businesses compete – not just on the world wide web. As small business advisors, we help companies, and individuals hoping to start or grow a company, ask themselves critical questions and make educated business decisions. We help our clients match their short and long term goals to available products and solutions – from what type of website to start with or upgrade to, to merchant service providers. We help them understand how these decisions will effect them today and in five years. We also help our clients filter through the bombardment of opportunities that come their way as soon as they register their dba or domain name.

Depending on the type of business and where they are at in their development process, we can help them with marketing channels, finding vendors, public relations and content development. We help companies determine revenue channels, pricing structures and new marketing strategies. For our clients that are at that crossroads between “staying small” and “taking it to the next level” we help them look at the advantages and disadvantages of their choices and opportunities.

When necessary, we also help our clients find outside consultants and resources. We help them write policies, hire employees and find the best accounting solutions for their needs.

And, of course, we are experts in website marketing, search engine optimization and search engine marketing.

In the coming weeks you will see some exciting announcements including an introduction to our new product set and the official launch of our new websites. CoburnEnterprises.com and BetterEverything.net (http://www.bettereverything.net) a blogging system that will be part of our web marketing solutions and SMS – Social Media Synergy concepts.

Questions? Ideas? Fears? Don’t hesitate to contact us.

Having been in the website building business for more than 10 years now I’ve seen a lot of things. In the early days, when many hosting companies were still being run out of garages, it was not uncommon for people to call me ‘desperate’ because their website was down and the hosting company had “vanished”. To my amazement many of them didn’t have personal backups, and most of them weren’t listed as the owner of their own domains – which made it extremely difficult to reclaim it and theyoften had to start from scratch.

Surprisingly, I still get those calls today. Fortunately – most of the time we can at least build a new site on their original domain name. However, a recent experience reminded me that many people, including my clients, simply trust their webmaster to manage that information for them. But you should also check this yourself. Like I tell my clients it’s my “drop dead clause – If I drop dead these are the things you need to know”.

Often, it is not your web master’s intention to put your domain under their ownership – it’s just that we have all these tools that we use to support you and if we forget to make some edits – suddenly we find that we are the owner of your domain and not you – which is all fine and dandy until something happens to the webmaster (or you get really mad at them). So, here is what you need to do – check your records – do you know where your domain is registered? Do you know who the underlying wholesale provider is – for example I sell domains to my customers for convenience. But I purchase them from a wholesaler called Enom – so if something were to happen to me, my customers could actually go out to Enom and manage their domain. As a courtesy, I provide my clients with the information they would need to access that resource should something happen to me.

To find out if you are truly the registered owner of your domain (and where it is registered) you can go to DNSStuff.com – they have a tool called “who is” type your domain name in there (just the domain.com part) and you will get something back that looks similar to what I’ve posted below (scroll down for further explanation). Unless your domain was registered with Network Solutions – in which case you will be told to go to Network Solutions to look things up – but once you find the place to look it up you should see something similar to this:

Registration Service Provided By: Coburn Enterprises dba SiteBuilder Now
Contact: *******@sitebuildernow.net
Visit: http://www.sitebuildernow.net/hostmanager

Domain name: yourdomain.com

Registrant Contact:
   
   Your Name ()
  
   Fax: 
   12345 NE 162nd Ave
   Vancouver, WA 98682
   us

Administrative Contact:
   
   Your Name*****@yourdomain.com)
   +1.608967449
   Fax: 
 12345 NE 162nd Ave
   Vancouver, WA 98682
   us

Technical Contact:
   
   Harmony Coburn *****@sitebuildernow.net)
   +1.608967449
   Fax: 
  12345 NE 162nd Ave
   Vancouver, WA 98682
   us

Status: Locked

Name Servers:
   NS1.COBURNENTERPRISES.COM
   NS2.COBURNENTERPRISES.COM
  
Creation date: 20 Nov 2004 02:27:00
Expiration date: 20 Nov 2012 02:27:00

The most important part of what you see here is the Registrant’s information – as long as you are / your company is the Registrant – you can recover management of your domain even if you don’t know how to access it – it’s work but a website consultant could help. If your webmaster or hosting company is listed as the Registrant, you have no legitimate “rights” to your domain so you need to get in touch with them and get that changed as soon as possible.

For convenience I am often listed as both the Administrative and Technical contact for my clients – that way I can manage the tasks that are required to make sure the “internet” knows where to find their website – as long as you are the Registrant you’re ok. However, you should also know where and how to access your domain so that you can change things at any time – if you get mad at your webmaster, it is best to make sure they no longer have access to your domain and that you have full control before you notify them that you are leaving them – all hosting companies and webmasters are not necessarily as ethical as one would hope.

A final thought on this subject – LEGITIMATE REGISTRARS DO NOT SEND RENEWAL NOTICES IN THE US MAIL!If you get a notice in the mail that your domain is going to expire – contact your registrar or your webmaster or your hosting company and ask them about it – do not send money. Although most registrars have a default setting of “locked” these days, which prevents the  transfer of your domain from one registrar to another without your permission, if yours was not locked, you could inadvertantly give your domain to someone who would take it over and put spam links on it or worse! In most cases, you will just be out the (ridiculous) fee they tell you to send.

As a small business advisor, specializing in helping truly small business determine the most effective use of their marketing dollars, including their website, I have helped many clients recover from unexpected losses of their website and domain. But it is difficult at best. If you don’t understand this or your have more questions feel free to contact me. I’ll be glad to help.

If you haven’t heard, Facebook has announced a new application that website owners can install on their websites that will “personalize” their site visitors experience by using the information you’ve made public on your facebook profile. This means all of the posts that your friends post and your photo gallery and everything else you share. Facebook’s is not offering this as a “free” tool out of the goodness of their hearts – the goal is to “own” your information and share it with people that are willing to pay for it – think about this – you will turn on the TV and go to your favorite show and see ads that say “Hi Harmony, we have selected to advertise these items to you because other 51 year old women have purchased them”. Oh, by the way, since you’re a woman and 51 you probably will see ads for things like Menopause vitamins, bladder control, anit-aging cream etc etc etc – is this the world you really want to live in? The worst part of this is that Facebook has made your info available by default – they didn’t ask you if you wanted to share this information – instead, you have to realize that they are giving it away freely and go into your facebook settings and “uncheck” the box that says “Yeah, tell the world about me”.

This guy has done a very nice matrix to help us understand the latest announcements by Facebook: http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2010/04/21/facebooks-crusade-of-colonization/

I don’t know about you but this is over the edge for me I strongly recommend you read this and take action immediately:

FACEBOOK is at it again…violating your personal information: As of today, there is a new privacy setting called “Instant Personalization” that shares data with non-facebook websites and it is automatically set to “Allow.” Go to Account > Privacy Settings > Applications and Websites and uncheck “Allow”. Please copy & repost.

Truth be told, if I weren’t in the business of assisting people to be found on the web I would cancel my account on Facebook altogether and use the newly available “social suicide” tool to remove all of my data permanently. Unfortunately, I live in a world of followers, which means that I have to help my clients navigate the waters and if their customers are using facebook they have to participate in facebook – for now. Ultimately I hope that Google will quit supporting Facebook by no longer sending their bots out to search their posts -this would immediately eliminate the “power” facebook has gained – in fact, if Google does not take this action they will help Facebook kill Google. Google is not perfect but they have built a successful business by trying to be ethical and allow us to maintain our privacy while providing tools to find the information WE CHOOSE. Sure, they sell ads and make a ton of money doing it but you ONLY see those ads when you are looking for something that they relate to. I don’t like the idea that I might come to your website looking for a saddle blanket and have an ad for Adult Diapers thrown in my face!

I just received an email in my inbox that I suspected so I checked it out and sure enough the link would have lead me to downloading a virus!

The email tells you you need to update your Blogger (or blogspot) info but clicking the link will download the Storm Worm. If you want to deal with the Pop-ups I checked it out on snopes and you can read more here: http://www.snopes.com/computer/virus/storm.asp. 

Bottom line is this virus is making it through the spam filters because the email from address used is no-reply@google.com(of course if you look at the headers in options you will see the originating ip is something like: 41.208.189.3 which is Africa and has now been blocked by our Advanced Spam filtering system but this email could also arrive in your Yahoo or any other mail service. 

As always, if you get something from a company (even us) that asks you to click a link and go fix something don’t do it – instead go to your account with that company as you normally would and see if there are any real notifications in your personal admin area.

As always, although I love making money doing what I love, I want to always hold true to my core values. I started this business with the goal of empowering other small businesses by helping them navigate the (sometimes overwhelming) information highway and find their place on the World Wide Web. Yes, I sell the services to do this for you – but I try very hard not to offer a service without reminding you that you can do what I do for yourself if you are willing to.  So I generally don’t announce a new product or service without first putting together a “how to do this for yourself list”. So, here is my answer to the latest trend in search engine marketing (we have branded this Search Engine Dominance):

1. Make sure your site is up to par. Know your customer, know how they will look for you if they don’t know you exist and create content, page titles, alt tags and image alt tags that help them find you.
2. Make sure your website is up to par! Driving traffic to a website that can’t stand on it’s own in the search engines is not a smart move – because when the search engines figure out that everyone is using “social media” to build up “inbound links” to their site (and many Search Engine Marketing companies are charging customers big bucks to leverage this current trend) – you will find yourself back down in the bottom of the “ranking barrel”.
3. Set up a good blog. Post good, usable information on the blog consistently (at least twice a week). Use your key words and link back to your site when appropriate. (Hint – if you make “click here” a link then the search engines will think that you consider “click here” key words!). Also link to other sites that might be of interest to your customers (but not direct competitors).
4. Set up a Facebook Fan Page – make sure you check the settings and allow ANYONE to view the page (the default is age 13+ – if you don’t change this your site is not viewable to the public – therefore, only people logged in will “find” it in a web search. Include your Logo / Branding using the limited tools they offer. Fill out the info about your company/self. Set it up to get a “feed” off of your blog – this way you don’t have to post in both places – just post on your blog and the info will reach your “fans”. Add a “follow us on Facebook” link to your website.
5. Set up a Twitter page for your business. Link your Facebook posts to it – this will auto feed your blog posts into your Twitter page.
6. Set up a LinkedIn Profile – again, fill in all the blanks and brand it as much as you can with our logo etc.
7. Set yourself up to receive Google Analytics reports
8. Take “ownership” of and update your Google, Yahoo, Yelp, SuperPages and any other “free directory” listings
9. Create a link on your website to your Google local “reviews” page so people can post great reviews about you.
10. Create a link you your Google Map on your site.
11. Send a notification to all of your “friends” to become a Fan of these pages…
12. Add links to all of your “social media pages” to your website
13. Make up post cards directing people to “post a review” about how awesome you are and providing a link to your Google Local write a review page and hand them out/include them in orders to existing customers.
14. Did I say post on your blog at least twice a week?
15. Make sure you also add/update content on your website at least 2 times a month – once a week is even better!

Too tired or too busy actually running your business to do all of this – no problem, we can do it for you . Learn how Coburn Enterprises helps customers win the Search Engine Dominance challenge!.

Social Media refers to sites where visitors can interact with each other in one way or another. Also referred to Web 2.0 (a term I still haven’t seen fully embraced), Social Media is not a new product, in fact it’s been around longer than I’ve been on the web (and that has been since dinosaurs roamed the lands and AOL was the be all and end all of “you’ve got mail” connections.

I actually gained the foundation of the knowledge that has allowed me to make a business out of my love for technology from a guy that my Mom met in an “online forum”! She posted a question about something and this guy had a great answer – so she emailed him and thanked him. They started “chatting” via EMail and he introduced her to ICQ – this was pre-Instant Messaging from AOL.

So, social media is definetely not “new”. What is “new” is the attention it is getting from the search engines and the hype it is getting from the media – all of this is driving traffic to sites like FaceBook, LinkedIn, Twitter and, oh, let’s not forget MySpace (although oddly enough I haven’t heard MySpace be mentioned in the media outside of cyber bullying in almost a year!).

What you may not know is “social media” also refers to things like Blogs, Forums and other online communities. When you are getting “hyped” about the importance of Facebook and other social marketing sites, keep in mind, Facebook wants you to be hyped because they want to sell ads to people that want to know everything about you (which you provide when you set up your profile). Facebook is not your “friend” it is a business designed to bring traffic in so that they can provide statistics to potential advertisers that say “Hey, I want to sell to 50 year old women – can you help?”.

Do I still think you need a Fan Page – absolutely – but don’t think that a FaceBook Fan page is going to give you long term success. View it as only one tool in your tool box. Especially keep in mind that if you are making money off of that fan page and Facebook isn’t getting their share of it – the program will change.

When I “sell” a client on an SEM (Search Engine Marketing) program I do the things listed in my post Steps to Search Engine Dominance - but you can do these things for yourself!

One of my clients called today because his “boss” just got back from a Search Engine Marketing seminar and this prompted a lot of questions – of course – I LOVE these phone calls because part of my goal with my business is to empower each client (all small business owners, most like me struggling to make a living doing something they love). We did a quick review of his website and I gave him some instant homework that, if he does it will make an immediate impact on his “search rankings” – basically I walked him through the points I list on my Search Engine Dominance article on my website.

But what prompted me to write this post was his question – “are there any books you can recommend to help me understand this?”. My answer was, yes there are thousands. Then I followed up with an email stating the following:

As you read the books and articles or even websites you will find on this subject, keep in mind that 9 out of 10 sites that are telling you how important Search Engine Marketing and Social Media have become are really “selling” their services. I guess in a way I am too but I have a different take on the whole thing – my perspective is that the only thing a site owner can be 100% sure of is that the search ranking criteria WILL CHANGE – so the “quick fix”  that works today may not work in 6 months or a year  – therefore, the most important thing any website owner can do is make sure their site says what it does and does what it says.

Today it’s “social media” – the concept of using online communities to hype your website,  filling your profile and fan pages with ”key word links” and tons of borderline useless content and links back to your website. But bottom the reality if you tell the search engines your site is about Purple Widgets and you put enough key words in your page titles etc to come up number one for Purple Widgets but then Purple Widget shoppers get to your site and find out  you really offer only Green Widgets – you’re going to lose in the long run.

Moral to the story – do the right thing, provide the information that people that you want to be your customers are looking for, edit that content to include the phrases, page titles and key word links (to pages within your site as well as quality complimentary sites)  that they will search for and you will have success.

This is a friendly reminder to my friends and followers that Web Marketing does not give us a license to intrude on the very busy lives of our customers. Please review the guidelines established in the Can SPAM act of 2003 and make sure that your company is never accused of being a “spammer”. Please share this with anyone you know that likes to do “email marketing”. http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/business/ecommerce/bus61.shtm.

Being an internet marketing pro – I am in full support of email marketing. However, I provide my clients the tools to comply and help them navigate these verysensitive waters with care. My company pays almost $400.00 per month to “filter spam”. Wouldn’t it be great if that wasn’t a necessary expense? Play nice – there are lots of people that do want to hear from you – manage your lists and make it EASY for people to opt out any time without a hassle.

A hundred years ago, when I first decided to make my “profession” sales, I took a Dale Carnegie class. One of the things I carry with me to this day is that statement. The point the instructor was making was – don’t go into the sales presentation so excited to tell the customer all the reasons YOU think your product is great. Instead, give them just enough information to make them beg you to make the sale.

Years later, I applied this same principle in resume writing and job search coaching. I helped my clients sort out their skills and capabilities and decide which ones would make it so the person reading the resume couldn’t stand it – they just HAD to meet you! I would remind them that the resume was not supposed to get you the job – it was supposed to get you the interview. The ones that “got” this did extremely well.

I have found this theory applies to websites too. The goal with (most) websites is not to close the sale. The goal is to encourage the visitor to want to do business with you. Of course, if your intent is to sell products on line you might think this isn’t really the case… but it still is – they may come to your site looking for one thing but why not make them interested in learning about the rest of what you have to offer?

Don’t try to be all things to all people on your home page. Instead, provide “grabbers” and insights that will interest the variety of customers you may have and make it easy for them to drill down into the meat of what they are looking for – on ecommerce sites this is pretty easy – you can use product categories as a navigation system – but that idea can cross over to any website. In fact, this is one of the reasons blogs are so popular – it’s easy for the blogger to create navigation tools for their visitors. For example, the title of this post is Don’t spill all of your jellie beans in the lobby – but I gave it tags like “Getting people to your website is only the first step”, “How do customers find my product or service”, “Design Vs. Function” etc etc. This is becaues different people look for answers in different ways.

Upcoming posts…

What do we need to tell our customers right way?

How do we support our the claims we make about the products or services we deliver?

Create a call to action….