Search Engine Visibility is based on the quality of your website content – Here are some tips to help
You have probably given up on the phone book.
Pay per click marketing sounds complicated and too expensive.
Social networking takes so much time and doesn’t make sense anyway.
However, your business depends on finding new customers and building long-term relationships. So what should you do?
Internet marketing is not easy, cheap or fast. But, when done correctly, is very effective. In this post I’ll focus on what is most important, your content and its purpose.
Tip #1: Write content to solve customer problems.
As a business owner, you are caught between expenses and income. The problem is when expenses and income migrate to marketing we narrow our focus to sales and ignore relationships.
Provide the information about your product or service that addresses the primary problem faced by your prospects and encourage the first action to be a personal contact. Zig Ziegler calls this a “Trial Close”. If your sales copy is focused on the solution to the prospect’s problem, then any prospect who takes action has self-qualified.
Tip #2: Include photos, videos, testimonials and downloadable PDFs that help the prospect draw their own conclusions.
Don’t use tricks, bait-n-switch or gimmicks to try and encourage a contact, those who fall for the trick will waste your time because they were not properly qualified.
Tip #3: Limit the number of topics on each page to one.
When a search engine is reading your website, they are looking for the main points and weighing those points against the volume of content supporting them. Main points are your page titles, headings and on-site links. If the content on your page is weighed primarily towards a solutions based presentation, then your quality score for that topic will go up.
Search Engine Immediacy – How to gain traffic fast
Organic search engine optimization takes time. If your service or product additions to your business website needs immediate attention, then your only choice is paid internet marketing. Here are a few options to consider:
Banner Advertisement
Buying space on another website to place your business ad with a link to your website. Traditional fee arrangements are based on a monthly charge.
Some of the more traditional banner ad opportunities are:
- Chamber of Commerce
- Business Networking Websites
- Complimentary Business Websites
- Local Business Directory Websites
When considering banner advertisement you must consider the audience who uses the website you are advertising on. Similar to advertising in print media, you must pick your advertising partner wisely.
Other blog sites are potential banner advertising locations. Software is available to website managers that can place your ad only on blog postings that have the keywords you choose.
Affiliate Marketing
Similar to banner advertisement, affiliate marketing is the process of placing your ad on high traffic websites with links back to your website, the big difference is fee structure. Affiliate marketing fees are typically based on a commission. The common term for this approach is (CPA) Cost Per Action.
E-Mail Marketing
Tried and true and still works. An effective eMail marketing campaign can drive traffic to your website and general new leads; BUT the keyword is “effective”! What no longer works is direct marketing “sales” pitches. Today’s consumer is already inundated by mindless direct marketing sales pitches and most have software that automatically deletes the message before it even reaches a person.
Using an education based presentation built on personal relationships is a more effective approach.
There are legal considerations in eMail marketing and thus you should use third party services to help manage your eMail campaigns–refer to CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 for details.
These are by no means the only ways to market on the internet and we’ll explore more options in the coming months. In the meantime, if you want to do some research, you can get a good jump start on Wikipedia–search phrase Internet Marketing.
Gary Russell Interviews Ed Bejarana on the Topic of Search Engine Optimization
Today’s Business Brand Is Your Personality
Try to imagine nature with just a single color flower. Besides being boring, if all flowers looked the same, it would be impossible to tell one from the other. Turning this idea around, if your competitions are all competing for similarity, you should seek to differentiate your business and stand out from the crowd.
In today’s market place, the low hanging fruit in differentiating your business is to lead with your personality. Your personality cannot be duplicated and when all things are equal, people prefer to do business with people they know and like. Easy concept, but you are probably asking how?
We’ve all heard marketing and brand consultants chant “brand, brand, brand.” Use your logo, slogan, colors, fonts, etc. on everything. My suggestion goes beyond the brand idea and suggests you also lead with your personality. If you are analytical, then blog about analytical topics. If you are jovial and comical by nature, then use your sense of humor at networking events.
Adding a human factor to your brand identity will increase the sticky factor of your marketing effort. In today’s market we no longer have the competitive edge when it comes to location–today we can get anything from anywhere, shipped directly to our homes. With tens of billions of searches taking place each month, your need for capturing vast audiences is less important. Today you need to capture the right market. Including a glimpse into your personality will give you a competitive advantage that cannot be duplicated.
Search Engine Optimization in Plain English – Getting Found?
Getting found on Google, Yahoo and Bing in today’s search market is more a product of human-craft than techno-craft. The more you craft your language for visitor consumption the better. Trying to use complicated formulas, expensive SEO subscriptions, or elaborate link building tools has lost favor of the small business operator and the search engines alike.
Pull out a blank sheet of paper and write a detailed answer to this question: Who is your ideal customer?
The most common answer I receive when consulting my clients is “concerned people seeking to get more for their investment.“ My favorite answer is “everyone.”
Neither answer is sufficient to create visitor optimized content that will rank. Why? Because there are only ten first page organic spots available and over 27 million businesses competing for internet visibility in America (2007 US Census).
Getting found means narrowing your topic focus to a small sub-segment of your client base. In days past, creating a business website was an expensive and complicated process; but today small businesses can build free websites that are business professional and search engine effective with no limits on size. Without the size limits of the past, a small business owner can divide and capture more traffic and increase visitor to client conversions in the process.
Improve Your Search Rankings By Doing The Math
I may have just lost half my audience by suggesting a math equation, but bear with me for a moment–this math is easy. I’ll use the Portland Metro area for this example. Wikipedia said there are 2.2 million people living in the metro area. The US Census said population is divided roughly in half men to women. Last number, the US Census said roughly 17% of the population is under the age of 18.
If your target market is adult women in the Portland Metro then we can assume there is approximately 924 thousand potential customers.
Most small businesses are only capable of serving a few hundred customers per year (for our example let’s go big and say our business can serve 1,000 clients per year). 1000 divided by 924,000 = .001. That means our example business only needs 1/10th of 1% of the potential market to be successful.
Be Specific and Succeed in Organic Search Results
What type of adult women? Married women over 40 who like to garden is a much easier market to identify. Now we can create a highly targeted web page or business blog article content that uses language that resonates with the intended audience. We can also use keywords that are specific to that particular hobby or identify with problems that specific type of woman is likely to struggle with.
Moral of the lesson: education based business marketing works only if you understand the specifics of your intended audience.
What is Google Plus and why should I care?
As an internet marketing consultant, I am asked this type of question every time a new social networking system gains popularity. Ordinarily I advise my clients to wait before jumping in. In the case of Google + I am suggesting my business friends jump in as soon as possible.
What is Google Plus?
Jamie Turner describes Google Plus as, “… a project aiming to make sharing on the web more like sharing in the real world.”
From my vantage point, Google+ is a search engine integrated real time cloud based communication medium for sharing all types of media.
We have all heard the term cloud computing, but few know what it really means. Put simply, cloud computing is using server based resources for user level computing. Some may argue this description is over simplifying the process, but I’m keeping it simple for now–please bare with me.
Why is cloud computing important?
Proprietary software has kept the advancement of computing capabilities in check. Rightly so, when you invest large sums of time and money developing software, one expects to get paid. Millions of programmers creating dozens of different protocols (ways of doing things) meant sharing data between different computers/programs was difficult (if not impossible). Using a cloud based solution brings all the software together in a manner that it can be easily shared.
The problem with cloud solutions is providing complete solutions to business and personal needs. Until recent years, no one company had enough computing power / resources to provide all the necessary computing tools. Right now there are only two companies on the planet capable of accomplishing the vision of fully integrated cloud based computing solutions; Microsoft and Google. (I suspected I will get lots of comments on that last statement…)
With all the communication tools built-in to Google+, they have taken a quantum leap ahead of Microsoft (who is working very hard to rollout Microsoft 365, their counter to Google+). Facebook was suppose to be a part of Microsoft’s cloud solution (note, I have one one source on this info so take it with a grain of salt), but it would appear corporate negotiations have prevented the two entities from getting their act together. Microsoft and Facebook’s failure is Google’s gain. In business being first is a HUGE advantage.
I’m still not getting the point, WHY use Google+?
As consumers, we all use search engines to find information. Having your communication and business resources fully integrated with the most popular search engine in the world means your business can capitalize on more efficient communications.
Integrated your customers and prospects together with your search engine optimization effort will give your business a leg up on the competition. Since Google+ is still new and in limited access beta testing, being an early adopter will give your business a three to six month head start in improve the information flow for your business.
Over the coming weeks tens of millions of users will jump into Google+ and the sooner you get involved the further a head of the game you’ll be.
If you need an invitation to Google +, please send me a contact request with your eMail address and I’ll send you an invitation.
Ed Bejarana
Zenith Exhibits, Inc.
How does Google’s new Panda Algorithm affect my business blog site?
If you currently buy content from a content farm, then your website is going to be punished.
If you write your own content and keep focused on providing quality information for your visitors, then Google’s Panda will be a boost for your search engine visibility.
If you are already one of my clients, you have heard me say this dozens of times; Google does not owe you anything! Google is in business to make money and they make money when people use their search engine more than Yahoo and Bing (and occasionally click on a pay per click link).
Google’s mission is to “qualify” good content and present to their customers.
When business blogging; your mission is to write quality content. I suggest using an education based model and leave the “selling” for your web-pages.
Consistency Wins The Day
Business blogging consistency is more important than keyword selection. By consistency I am referring to voicing; not frequency.
- First person or third person
- Education focused or sales focused
- Length
- External links
My suggestion is be yourself. It is always easier to remember. If you build your business blog in a manner that is not consistent with who you are as a person, then the strategy will fail.
Business Blogging is just ONE Marketing Strategy
Most Marketing Programs Work
This is a myth put forth by some marketing consultants and debunked in the book “Marketing Myths that are Killing Business”, by Clancy & Shulman. Truth is it is hard to tell if a marketing program is working. Well, that is until the internet and business blogging.
Enter Google Analytics
When we blog for business, we keep our topic focused. That topic gets good initial visibility on the search engines and using the FREE Google Analytics software, we can measure the effectiveness of the posting. If people are digesting your content AND visiting another page on your company website, then your business blog marketing strategy is working… However, if the phone does not ring then one might conclude that the effort failed.
Business Blogs Gather Traffic
Your website makes the case for people to call.
- Use your blog to capture keyword focused search engine visibility
- Provide value to the reader in the form of knowledge they can use
- leave the selling to your other Web Pages
All to often we, as business owners / operators, panic when we see lots of web traffic but not phone calls. This is a business matrix. Find the most common page visitors read next, after your business blog posting. Have a trusted friend read the second page and ask them this question:
What, if any, action are you inspired to take?
If the answer is none, then you have found the failure in your marketing program. Modify the page and repeat the process. In business, we improve that which we measure. Use Google Analytics to measure your marketing effort and keep adjusting until your phone starts to ring.
Business Blogs are not Business Cards
The new Business Blogger often starts by writing very detailed sales pitches. Think “long winded elevator speech” and you are getting close to the most common mistake.
Business blogs gain preferential treatment by the search engines. If the content of your article is not focused and well crafted, then the preferential treatment will be the cold shoulder.
Starting at the beginning, ask the question why do search engines care if your blog article (or website) is listed? The more users who use the search engine, the more advertiser revenue they will collect. If Google sent their users to web sites that did not meet the searchers’ needs, then the searcher would stop using Google.
Business card data or quick elevator speeches usually fail to gain positive search engine listings because they are too broad in topic scope. Your business certainly does a lot, but don’t try to write about everything you do in a single article.
Single Topic Focus
The more specific the better. For exampling, writing about printing is too broad. Writing on tri-fold brochure printing is much better.
Time Sensitive
Since blogs are news type communication mediums, take advantage of it. Write articles that have a sense of now. For example, writing about your staff is not time sensitive; writing about the person you just hired is time sensitive.
Informative
Your readers are giving you their time. Respect it. Give the reader value for their visit. Sales pitches are not informative, no matter how sweet the offer. The information value is very low. Make offers on static web pages, write about benefits on your blog site. For example, write about the benefits of using a content management system for your company web site, rather than the new deal your company has on web site design.
Ed Bejarana
BusinessBloging.net
a division of Zenith Exhibits, Inc.
Zenith Exhibits, Inc. specializes in face-to-face and internet based marketing. Exhibiting on the trade show floor or in the worlds largest trade show, the itnernet, we are you marketing solutions provider.
Building Your Small Business Internet Marketing Plan Part 3
Write it and they will come is not a good business blogging strategy. A better approach would be:
- Write it
- Bookmark it
- Comment on it
- Link to it
- Ask friends to read it
- EMail others about it
Your blog site tells the major search engines every time you publish a new article. If you’ve kept your article to a single topic, written good support information for your title, and avoided the direct sales pitch, then the search engines will reward you with a high natural search result. In some cases that might be enough, but why take a chance? Let’s tell a few hundred thousand people about the article…
Social networking is the online equivalent of attending the local Chamber of Commerce. If you have attended a chamber meeting then you have witnessed social networking first hand: The mic is passed around the room for everyone to make their elevator speech and then it happens… Someone says, “I’d like to give kudos to…”
