I sent an email off to a business acquaintance who had some questions about his web site this morning.
Some things that you can do to help get targeted traffic:
Write in your blog frequently – link a short blog post describing a product to the item in your shop. The post contains valuable keywords for search engines to get ahold of and if the blog is updated frequently, Google will come back and index your site frequently. This is probably the most important thing you can do – 2-4 times a week at a minimum – you have a topic and products that online consumers are searching hard for.
Put those videos from YouTube on your site, embed them directly from YouTube – this is simple to do – just put them right in a blog post. It’s great content, establishes credibility and encourages the visitor to stay on your site longer.
Submit your RSS feed to FeedAg.com: this will distribute your Blog content around the web via RSS-the more spots you can get this, the better.
Hook your RSS feed up to a fan page in Facebook – this will make your facebook page look updated, and will automatically update every time you update your blog. Social Networking and gaining friends via this method is a great medium for your store – it really helps that customer relationship.
Submit your product list to Google Base: This will get your items into Google’s comparison shopping engine. You’ll need a plug in for OScommerce or whatever shopping cart you are using to generate an XML product list that can be submitted – you’ll want to regenerate on a monthly basis, or as often as you change your shopping cart and submit it every 30 days to Google.
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These are just some of the things that you can do, all simple, but require time spent on your site, working on it. But this is what will separate your site from others, in terms of traffic.
This is an excerpt of an email I sent to a friend about SEO on their Wordpress site. They had the XML Sitemap Generator installed, and the All In One SEO pack, so the assumption is that you start with this.
1. Make sure you go to Google Webmaster tools and acutally submit the Site Map. I can expand on this if you need me to, it will require a small amount of technical knowledge to complete it.
2. Make sure you fill out the All In One SEO pack info by: 1. Setting the default Title, keywords and Description for the home page – you should do some key word research to find out what people of this demographic are searching for on the theme of your site, ie. if the key phrase is “Christian Child Rearing” you should be including that phrase in your posts on a regular basis. For the Title, use only 90 characters, For the description, use only 160 characters, for the Key Words, use only 6 to 10 of the most important ones, nothing extraneous, the second part of this is, for each post, do the same thing, by clicking on “All In One SEO Pack” at the bottom of the post page, and fill in the information using key words specific to your post.
3. Make the title of your post contain key words, and repeat them in your post.
That’s the “On-site” optimization.
Off-site:
Submit your RSS feed to FeedAg.com and other RSS feed aggregators – if you google you will see many of these.
also, you can use a service called Pingoat.com – do it after each blog post.
Join Technorati and BlogCatalog – these are pretty good ones.
Send your feed to your Facebook profile – each new post gets put up for all your friends to read.
Leave Comments on other people’s blogs with a link to your own within the key words that you are trying to optimize for – ie if you were trying to optimize for “baby devotions” you would link the words “baby devotions” by using <a href=”http://www.excellentbabyblog.com”>baby devotions</a> – Do this as often as possible – it really does work.
That’s the quick rundown – it’s not easy, and I don’t know what kind of traffic you are getting now, but if you do all that you should see an increase. Also, consistency in your blog will get you a following, especially if it is a niche topic – lot’s of times a broad topic will not attract loyal followers – try picking 6 topics, rotate between them – if you post 3 times a week you will write about each topic 2 times in a month – continue with the same 6 topics (which – if researched to find out what people are searching for-say “baby strollers”) you will start to see the site come to the top for those specific topics, rather than if you only write one post every 6 months on any given topic. Keep in mind that “Content is King” in the internet world and it does mostly come to that. Frequent updates (3 times a week is good) and 300 words or so per post are good.
Lots and lots of blogs have been written about this medium of marketing – I really don’t know where to begin.
I recently helped a non-profit ministry get started with a Facebook profile, and helped them start a group. One notable problem – the gentleman had not taken other advice about being consistent with e-mail newsletters, blogging and other types of on-line presence. He was thinking that Facebook would be the “silver bullet” so to speak.
Well…suffice it to say, it still takes consistent effort to gain friends and update your group page, etc. Not something that this person is willing to commit to, unfortunately. If you want to do some of this type of marketing, you must be willing to put effort into it and grow your online reach by working it several times a week – it is a social medium that builds relationships. If you, as the principal of your business can not commit to this, you should consider appointing an employee to do it, or hiring it done. Facebook, LinkedIn and other social networks can be a very powerful medium for your marketing without a lot of expense if implemented properly. I know of several local Omaha businesses who are doing this very successfully.
Hope everyone has a great week!
Right now I am offering an Search Engine Optimization Package that is Available for a Limited Time Only.
For Just $599…
You get:
- A 1 hour Face to face meeting
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- Entry into Google Maps
The above steps will drastically improve your site’s overall “search engine friendliness” as well as letting the search engines know your site even exists!
It will also help drive quality, targeted traffic to your site – which turn into quality, targeted leads!
This is a trial promotion that I am offering to only a select few and it is available through Friday, March 6th!
Call me at 402-210-3283 for this special package – Steve
Hope you all had a great year on, and off the web! If you have not already stopped to reflect on 2008 and ponder some goals for 2009, it’s not too late. You should write a quick plan for each web site you own and plan to dedicate time to seeing the plan through. I am doing it today, even though I have significant work that needs to be completed for clients. I feel that this activity is an important part of my online success for the year. Also, I want to put many of the things I have learned, and the ideas that Chris – a colleague of mine at CGMTechnologies.com – have come up with, to work. We are truly motivated to lose the day job, and help others along the way do the same thing.
If you are an internet marketer, or you have a brick and mortar store, setting these goals is good – they help you evaluate where you wish to focus your resources.
If you have a desire to learn Adwords, need someone to help you implement an SEO strategy or need consulting to help make any of your goals happen, I am in Omaha, and happy to help. As you think about your marketing for 2009, think of a a few outside the box strategies – here are a few that I am thinking of for the new year:
- Opt-in Text Messaging.
- YouTube videos – I can help you produce these and place them on video submission sites.
- Content Writing for SEO for local businesses.
- Directory submission for local businesses.
Call me if you would like info on how any of these strategies can work for you – on or off the web. Steve 402-210-3283
Many times I get asked what the best way to get links from other sites. Do Follow comments provide some of the best links back into your site if done properly. Here’s a quick rundown:
Find some blogs or forums with high page rank that are do-follow (meaning the code is written such that the search engines will follow the link to your site)
Leave a comment or post with a link to your site, preferably in anchor text.
Things to do to ensure effective backlinks:
Leave valuable comments – there is NOTHING a webmaster hates more than spammy comments.
Comment on relevant posts to the content on your site.
Build slowly – Google looks at backlinks over time, if you all of a sudden have 500 in one day it looks fishy-spread them out over time.
How to find these links – I have launched a brand new site called SEMAddict.com – we have a free instructional video outlining a method on how to find the best pages for backlinking.
Many of my customers who have tried Adwords with little success question me as to why they are not successful. Usually, it is the landing page.
A Landing Page by definition is a page on your domain where you land people from your adwords campaign or from an off site advertiser like ComCast – you can then measure the effectiveness of the ad or write copy specific to what the ad talks about. This results in a higher conversion rate for your visitor. Conversions might mean different things to different marketing campaigns. It might be a sign up, a page view, or an actual sale on an e-commerce site.
If you don’t send your visitor someplace specific, you run the risk of 1. Confusing the visitor, 2. Wasting your visitor’s time, because you don’t give them the SPECIFIC information that they are searching for.
If you would like to set up an Adwords Campaign, I am available for assistance, and I can give you $50 towards your first Adwords campaign if you set up a new account. sm (@) messagedirect.info
P.S. Another benefit of a good landing page is that it actually will decrease your Adwords cost per click! Almost always my services will pay for themselves in the cost savings you receive from my expertise – plus, you won’t lose sleep at night over your Adwords!
I write a lot about back links in this blog, because they are vital to your ranking. However, it may surprise you that not all links are good. Google can penalize you for your link being in a “bad neighborhood”. You can actually lose page rank when you link to too many lesser ranked sites, sites with content that has little to do with your content, or even paid linking.
So, as you attempt to get those back links, be careful, do your research and then look for the links!
If you need assistance with this, we have lots and lots of creative marketing ideas for how to garner those links. Just give us a call!
Do you belong to a forum or similar online community? If you have not added your website or blog to your signature, you are missing out on a great marketing opportunity. If you are a mechanic and you belong to an enthusiast site for your favorite sports car, you should, without a doubt, add your website to the signature of your profile – when you leave a comment on the forum, you are leaving a link back to your web site, something for people who are curious or who like the info you have provided to follow back to your site. This may seem like the most basic of tips, but you would be shocked at how many people miss out on this great opportunity.
In tech terms, this is a “back link” – a link from a site with relevant information to your site. Google and the search engines love back links, you should too! Make getting back links a priority.
I have talked in the past a bit about the importance of a good domain name, however, this post may even be a bit off subject for this blog. Keeping your domain name in your possession.
Recently, I have taken on 2 new clients who hired someone several years ago to build their site, and then let the site just sit there(a whole other blog post). Long story made short, we are looking at revamping their site, changing servers, etc, and they can’t get to their domain name to make the required changes.
One of the domains has page rank, has been around for a while and is getting very good traffic. We are looking to add ecommerce to it, and the current host can’t do what we need it to do. Getting in to the domain to change the name servers is proving to be a tricky task since the web guy who originally registered the domain for this client is difficult to get ahold of.
Business Owners, you should know that keeping track of your domain is very easy, and if you don’t have control over it, you should do so immediately. If someone besides you has control, you could have a difficult time getting to it the next time you need to, and think of all the items associated with the domain – your advertising, yellow pages, and most importantly, your email address. You don’t want to spend your time having to inform customers and associates of a new domain name – this could result in uncountable lost business.