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Search Engine Optimization Archives - Search Engine Marketing & Optimization
A blog for truly small businesses

Search Engine Optimization

Getting page one search results – the top 4 things you must do

Are you getting page one search results?Getting page one search results

  1. Remember your website visitors are more important than the robots/computers that read your content. Above all, make your content of value to the people looking to you for solutions, products or services.
  2. Place your primary key word phrase in your title. For example in this post my keyword focus is “getting page one search results“.
  3. Include your keyword phrase in the first 100 words of your main content.
  4. Use your keyword phrase in the Image title and alt tags. (move your mouse over the image below to see the words we used on this image)

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.

Steps to Search Engine Dominance – you really can do it yourself

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 to market your website – Hype or Value?

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.

Don’t spill all of your jellie beans in the lobby!

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….

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