Archive for SEO
Search Engine Optimization: Increase Your Chance of Getting Found Locally
Posted by: | CommentsAccording to Search Engine Optimization expert Gem Webb, Google had added geography to its search algorithms. What does that mean? If you’re searching for a company that makes widgets, Google will try to include companies that are close to your location, even if you don’t include a geographic term in your search.
For small business, particularly “bricks & mortar” businesses with a local customer base, this is very good news. When it comes to getting your website found on Google, you don’t need to beat out the big players to get found. You just need to be better than your local competitors.
But how can you increase your chances of getting found by a local audience even more? There are a few simple steps you can take, to improve your chances.
First, have you noticed when you go to a website, there’s often a description of the site along the very top of your web browser? Those are known as title tags. You can control and change those tags to include keywords you think people looking for your products or services would use. Including local geographic terms is also a good idea. There are also meta tags, which visitors to your site don’t see but search engines do.
If you are using Wordpress, you can use a plug-in to add or change these meta tags. I use the Platinum SEO plug-in. Once installed, it’s easy to add or change these tags. If you’re not using Wordpress, get your webmaster to edit these tags for you. Or, find the nearest teenager. Odds are you can find one who can whip this off for you in exchange for a gift card for their favorite store.
But there’s another strategy you can use that’s a little more radical than tags, but in the long run will likely be more effective. Try partnering with other local businesses and work together to increase your entire community’s profile. “It’s not just building an online business, it’s building a local economy,” says website marketing expert Ryan Wiseman.
The first part of this basic strategy is simple link exchanges. Contact other local businesses and put each other’s links on your websites. This interconnectedness will help increase all your profiles on the web.
And you don’t need to worry about including “competitors” in these link exchanges. “I don’t see other graphic designers a competitors,” says Jennifer Harris, owner of Keylime Creative. “I see them as sources of information, future employees, future partners.”
This is the radical part of this strategy. Small businesses, particularly in smaller communities, need to stop looking at other businesses as the competition. They need to work together to promote the community as a whole. When businesses do this, everybody wins.
Beyond link exchanges, local businesses need to talk about other local businesses online. When you visit other local businesses and get good service or good value, write about it on your personal blog, Facebook, Twitter. If everyone makes a conscious effort to help promote each other, everybody wins.
Andrea J. Stenberg
What do you think about this idea of banding together with other businesses to help increase everyone’s visibility online? Please leave a comment and share your thoughts or experiences.
Keys to Choosing a Good Domain Name
Posted by: | CommentsWhether you are just starting your business or launching a new product with it’s own url, choosing a domain name can be a scary proposition. Your url will be with you for a long time, so you want to get it right. On the other hand, domain names are cheap. For as little as $10 you can register a new one and redirect or link to your other site.
Length of Domain Name
While you can register a domain name of up to 63 characters, you probably don’t want one that long. Imagine trying to fit it on your business card or a customer trying to type it into their web browser. It’s annoying and has more chances for error. Trust me - every time I have to type out www.thebabyboomerentrepreneur.com, I curse having such a long domain name.
So how long is too long? Many experts suggest that staying under eight characters (not including the .com) is best. However, if you can’t find a shorter name, a longer one will work if it’s:
- easy to read
- easy to hear (no one is going to think you said something else)
- easy to spell
- easy to type
- easy to remember
Once again, www.thebabyboomerentrepreneur.com falls short. Trust me, no one can spell entrepreneur. And if they can, your fingers just don’t want to type it. Every time I need to enter that stupid word in my computer my typing speed slows down to nothing.
Keywords
Where possible, having keywords related to your business in your domain name is a plus. Having keywords in your domain will help with people looking in search engines find you. Read More→
Use Website Grader to Check Your SEO
Posted by: | CommentsIf you’re wondering how your website or blog stacks up against the competition when it comes to SEO, it’s time to stop wondering. Website Grader is a free tool that gives you a very comprehensive analysis of your website.
I learned about this tool from Boris Mahovac - Email Marketing Coach who left the link in his comment to my post How to Improve SEO by Getting Links. Boris will be my guest on the February 25th edition of Andrea’s More Effective Marketing Podcast.
This tool is easy to use and not only tells you your site’s page rank, inbound links and more, but it tells you what needs your attention.
For example, Website Grader told me my blog isn’t listed in the directory DMOZ. I had applied to be listed but apparently didn’t follow up to see if I actually got listed. Thanks to the report, I immediately went to DMOZ to reapply.
The report also commented on my meta tags, headings, images, the last time my site was crawled by Google and much more.
Not only can you get a report on your own site, you can get a comparison between your site and a competitor’s site. This way you’ll know where you need to improve to beat your competition.
Now this site is not perfect. The report tells me I have no inbound links. I know this isn’t true because I belong to a couple of blog carnivals who regularly have links to my blog. I also know several people have quoted me in their own blogs and included links.
In spite of this problem, I’d definitely recommend using Website Grader.
Andrea J. Stenberg
How to Improve SEO by Getting Links
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Yesterday while I was talking with head of SEO for Yahoo! Canada Darryl Peddle, he stressed how important links are to the search engine ranking of your site. The more links there are coming into your site, the higher you get ranked.
But how do you get those incoming links? It’s actually not that hard.
Online Directories
Listing your website or blog in key online directories is important. Two of the most important ones are Yahoo Directory and Dmoz. In both directories new listings are proofed by a real person to rule out spam sites so they both are considered very authoritative by search engine.
Demoz is free and may take you six months to a year to actually appear. Yahoo Directory will get you in faster but costs $299 per year. For some that’s a steep price, but the search engine ranking you’ll gain is well worth the cost.
Article directories
Submitting high quality, original articles using your important keywords to the main article directories really helps your SEO. At the bottom of each article you have a resource box which includes some info about you and your url.
How does this help? Whenever someone uses your article on their blog or website, they must include the resource box with the live link to your site. Assuming they used your article because it matches the subject of their site, these incoming links can really increase your ranking.
Darryl suggests writing 12 unique articles of 250 to 300 words and posting them to the article directories over the course of a couple of months.
Where do you submit articles? If you do nothing else, submit to ezinearticles.com. They are the most important article directory. If you have the time, you should also submit to goarticles.com, buzzle.com, articlealley.com and articledashboard.com.
Reciprocal Link Building
This suggestion by Darryl surprised me because everyone I know has been saying this is a big no-no. However, Darryl assures me this still has a positive effect, if done correctly.
You don’t want to trade links with just anyone. You must only link with people who are in your niche. If incoming and outgoing links are from sites on a related topic, the search engines see this as more authoritative. So if you are selling computers on your site, you would want to link with someone who sells computer software, not someone who sells cosmetics.
An even better way to exchange links is to trade articles or blog posts. Write an original article for the other person’s site and include a link to your own site. This is more powerful than being part of a list of links because search engines look at the total number of links on a page when calculating their worth. So a single link from a blog post is more valuable than a link on a page of fifty other links.
It’s also better from a reader point of view. A reader from the other website or blog is more likely to click the link after your article than if it’s just one link in a long line of links. And after all, getting people to your site is why you’re worried about SEO anyway.
Internal Links
Creating links within your site is also important. When you write an article, create links back to other related articles you’ve previously written. This makes it easier for the search engine spiders to crawl your site. It also makes it easier for readers to locate related content which may make them spend more time on your site.
Clearly building incoming links and therefore improving your search engine ranking is not all that hard or mysterious. It just takes a little planning and some time.
Andrea J. Stenberg
If you found these tips helpful, you really should listen to the rest of the interview. Darryl gave some great tips and advice around SEO, at least one of which is completely new to me and one I plan to implement ASAP. You can get the free recording of my interview with Darryl by registering for Andrea’s More Effective Marketing Podcast.
Free Search Engine Optimization Course
Posted by: | CommentsWhen deciding whether you should take the time to learn Search Engine Optimization (SEO) you may want to know a few statistics.
According to the NPD Group, 92% of online consumers use search engines to shop and/or purchase online. When using search engines like Google, users are 20x more likely to click on search listings rather than banners, titles or other paid listings.
Clearly, if you want to succeed online, you need to find a way to get to the top of the search engine rankings for your important keywords.
If you’re just an average person who’s not a technology expert, can you do this without paying large fees to an SEO expert? Yes you can.
One way to learn is to sign up for the free SEO Training by GNC Web Creations. J. Cricket Walker is the mastermind behind this online training course. Using Yahoo Groups to deliver material, this course will walk you through the basics of learning SEO.
Go to the SEO Training sign up page and you’ll be ready to begin. A new session starts tomorrow so this is a great time to start. I’m currently taking the course so if you decide to join you may see me there.
Beware, signing up for the course does you no good if you don’t actually do the work. However, the course is designed to be done at your own pace. So just schedule a couple of hours a week for SEO and you’ll be through it in no time.
However, if you’ve been wanting to learn SEO but have been scared by it, this is an affordable (free) way to do it.
Andrea J. Stenberg
