It wasn’t long before the client started noting the “slow growth” of their pet keywords and wanted to know what else could be done about that. We started talking about Link Building and the investment needed in order to do it effectively. Unfortunately, all it came to was talk and no action.

Over the course of a year, we saw some very competitive terms move up in the rankings, but few hit the first page. With the budget we had, it was really an impressive feat. As the 12-month contract came to a close, the client again started talking about increasing their budget for the next year. We gave them a number of options, all significantly more expensive, but also options that we were confident would get results.

At this point the client also decided to shop around for some other SEO options. In that process, some of the communications were passed to me as an “FYI”. I found them fascinating. One response talked about how there was a problem with the implementation of the SEO if they were not getting rankings. Interesting theory, but quite a leap.

Our client used these emails to ask us to figure out why this other SEO thinks they should be performing better than they were. My response, each time, was to tell them that we also thought they should be doing better and that the new programs we outlined for them will deliver results more quickly than the current plan.

This happened several times over a few months. Each time we’d tell them that they chose a plan that they understood would have slower growth for the most competitive terms. Growth was happening, but the new options provide something more robust.

It basically comes down to what you can offer for the cost being paid. This is something that the SEO they were shopping around to just didn’t consider. Could the total campaign be more effective? Yes. Could it be more effective on the budget they were investing? Not so easily, and only with time.

I think the client realized this once they started getting quotes back that far exceeded any of the more expensive quotes we provided. Despite all the shopping around, our client ultimately stayed with us, as we weren’t “significantly” over their budget, and many of those they contacted were.

It’s nearly impossible to analyze the quality of the results of an SEO campaign without factoring in the budget. That’s not to say you can’t analyze work that has been done, you can. But, you can’t give an opinion as to how much SEO, Link Building, Social Media, etc. has been implemented unless you consider the monthly investment.

SEO results take big-mindedness and a willingness to budget what is needed to get the results you want. If you’re coming to an SEO with a limited budget, be willing to accept the fact that the results come with limitations. Lower budgets mean more time is needed to get results. In competitive fields, if you’re being outspent by your competition, a low budget may actually get you further behind.

That’s not to say budget is everything. In fact, in the wrong hands, big budgets can still be a waste of time, at best, and detrimental to your long-term success, at worst. But, in the right hands, a small budget can perform ok, a comfortable budget can get you some good results, and a large budget can dominate the SEO landscape.

So, stop thinking small when it comes to SEO. Think big, and do what it takes to make it big!

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You also know a big part of that strategy will be the building of back links which means one thing – blogging.

The regular production of blog posts relevant to your business is essential to:

• Boost your link building activities
• Drive traffic to your sales site
• Add value to your customers
• Position yourself as an expert in your field
• Increase your online exposure

Whether you are a writer, designer, plumber or manager you can utilise the power of blogging to drive targeted traffic to your website.

But there’s always one thing that holds people back from giving it a go…

What on earth do I write about?

A blank mind coupled with the idea that you don’t have time to blog usually means you don’t try.

But there’s so much you could write about.

If you’re a copywriter like me you can provide tips on sales writing, marketing and using social media. If you’re a web designer you can talk about new thinking in your industry, how to structure a website, or how to get the most out of your site.

But what if you’re a manager, or supplier? You can still blog about your core business. Give hints and tips – if you are an intermediary to source gardeners for people, for example, you can blog about garden related issues, what to look for in a gardener – perhaps you could even get some of your gardeners to guest blog for you.

As long as what you are blogging about is relevant to your business it will help drive traffic if you utilise your keywords as anchor text back links (in the way I’ve linked the word ‘copywriter’ above).

How to get your ideas

That all sounds fairly straight forward but even I will admit to getting writers’ block now and then.

So when your mind goes blank what do you do?

Well, here are 8 tips to help you banish the dreaded block for good:

1. Fresh air brain storming

Get out of the office and go for a long walk. The fresh air and change of scenery will do wonders for your blankness. Take a note pad or Dictaphone with you so you don’t forget your blinding flash of inspiration when it strikes.

2. Write what you like

The best way to get the creative juices flowing is to write about something that interests you. You will already have the knowledge so no research is necessary and your passion for your subject will shine through.

3. What if…

Reading around your subject is a great way to spark ideas. Take a look at other blogs in your industry and see what other people are saying. If you find their writing interesting think about the subject from a different angle – that’s where the what if comes it.

4. Outline

It’s not very often someone can sit down and write an article straight off. If you have ideas buzzing round your head but can’t quite form them into an article list them as bullet points. This visualisation of ideas can often help you flesh them out into an interesting blog post.

5. Put it away

If you have managed to get a few ideas down but somehow it still doesn’t seem to gel, put it away for a day or two. Fresh eyes can often help craft it into an interesting and thought provoking post.

6. Magazine time

As with number 3, reading any sort of material can help the creative process – they don’t even have to be from your industry. An article in a magazine or newspaper can trigger an idea especially if a topical event can be seen to affect your industry.

7. Fancy a coffee?

Relaxing your mind will refresh it. Meet up with some friends for a coffee and a chat. Again you never quite know what will come out of your conversations; they could stimulate a great article idea. But if not, at least you’ve had time to recharge your batteries before returning to your desk and trying again.

8. Swipe file

No, I’m not talking about plagiarism! Your swipe file can be electronic or paper and should contain items you find of interest. As a writer, if I come across an effective sales letter I’ll save it, if I receive a brochure that’s particularly eye catching, I’ll save it. If I read a great article, I’ll save it. All of this is great information that can be used for inspiration when I need it.

Blogging is a great business tool and one that shouldn’t be ignored. Everyone can blog regardless of their industry or skill set. So give it a go – once you get the hang of it you’ll find that you really enjoy it.

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I’ll be recapping Jason Spero’s presentation, “The Time for Mobile is Now.” Jason Spero works with Google as the Head of Mobile Ads for the Americas. You can follow him on Twitter at @Speroman. You can also follow the hashtag #thinkmobile to catch more information filtering through from the Think Mobile event.

Google stated that 79% of the top 800 brands that advertise with Google do not have a site that is optimized for mobile.  So if you haven’t jumped on the opportunities that mobile offers yet, you definitely aren’t alone.

“It’s not too late to be early.” -Google thinkmobile

Jason Spero provided 5 great things to do in the next 90 days to improve your mobile efforts:

1. Create a mobile-specific site.

If you are thinking about a mobile strategy for your brand, most likely that means you already have a website. Whether you take a long time developing it, or simply re-purpose your website content to throw a mobile site up pretty quickly, get one up as soon as you can.  That way you can already be testing and making adjustments as you pull in more data. In time, you’ll want a mobile site that is easy to navigate, and pulls visitors in rather than frustrate them and push them away.

2. Find out how mobile impacts your business.

Whether you are a small local business, or a major brand like Best Buy, you should take a second to think, “how does mobile impact my business?” For many, comparison shopping is one major hurdle you have to overcome with your customers.  Nowadays, your customers don’t have to spend an entire day shopping around at different stores to find the best price.  Anyone with access to the internet on their phone could just do a quick search and find the product cheaper somewhere else, and either buy it right there on their phone or make the trip to the local store with the best price.  Best Buy has trained their employees to handle this with price matching. Find ways that mobile could be impacting your business, and plan for it.

3. Get personal.

A mobile phone is one of the most personalized items a person can own.  You can choose the style, the plan, your background, apps, ringtones, etc. Phones are almost always within arm’s reach, and we typically don’t share them with others.  When developing your mobile strategy, be sure to think about this personal aspect of our phones. Adidas did a great job with running an ad campaign on a more personal level.  It involved allowing high school basketball players to click-to-call from their phone to leave voice messages for their favorite professional basketball players.  Kevin Garnett received about 33,000 messages, and 18% of the people calling dialed in more than once.  What they discovered is that a few people were calling everyday after practice, to let the pro players know how their practice went, and also things like how that player inspires him or her.  This campaign worked well because it was based around click-to-call actions; these players called on their way home from practice; many would not have waited until they got home to go on the computer, and then take action.

4. Track mobile independently.

Once you launch your mobile efforts, be sure to track mobile traffic and activity just like you would any other traffic source.  Tracking mobile activity independently will help you make faster, more informed decisions to make adjustments on your mobile site.

Match.com launched their site a while back, and began tracking. At the time of the launch, the registration process was not set up very well, resulting in very few mobile registrants.  In January 2011, 2% of the registrations occurred on mobile, while in January 2011 they rose to 8% of total registrations.  In a few years, Match.com says mobile will most likely be the main source for registrants.  By tracking activity on mobile separately, you will be able to make site adjustments, and see how it impacts performance.

5. Iterate, iterate, iterate.

If you don’t get it right at first, no worries. Track and keep at it, you’ll be constantly working towards the best possible experience for your mobile users.  Be sure to get your app out there and track and refine when you know.  Pay attention to how your customer responds and adjust as needed.

Even if you haven’t taken advantage of dramatic mobile growth, it’s not too late.  In fact, even if you feel like you’re late to the game, you are really still pretty early to start putting together a strategy specific to mobile.

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What’s a back link?

The best way to get people to find your website is to have loads of arrows point to it – back links are arrows.

Look at the third sentence in this blog post. You can see there’s a link – search engine optimisation – which points you to a blog post on my other blog (www.freelancecopywritersblog.com) . If I were to write about being a copywriter who would be able to boost your businesses visibility and sales by producing eye-catching sales writing that inspires customers to buy, that is a link to my main website.

How do you get back links?

Encouraging people to link to your website takes work and requires the generation of a lot of high quality content. By providing great information regularly, people will want to link to you. Creating hints and tips in your chosen field will also help elevate you to expert status, and with that comes more links. 

But there are ways you can also generate links yourself.

Blogging and article marketing are two very effective ways of building back links, especially the most sought after type – the keyword hypertext link.  When you post an article and insert a keyword hypertext link into your text, you are effectively funnelling a bit of link juice to your website. That might sound a bit strange, but this is how it works:

Using an article site with a high Google Page Rank (e.g. ezinearticles) and you add a hypertext keyword links (a follow link as opposed to a no follow link), a little bit of page rank is also passed along the link. Therefore the more links like that, the higher your chances of increasing your own website’s page rank.

You can also generate back links by guest blogging, using social media and social networking sites. There are some sites out there that will let you create your own micro-site which gives you even more exposure. 

Although back links are very important to your SEO strategy, you mustn’t forget about the other elements of SEO – you must also consider your website’s structure and content.

As the diagram above illustrates all three elements are essential if you want your website to be found online.

But you must remember that SEO is an on-going process. Your strategy must be constantly reviews and tweaked to generate the most traffic and conversions possible.

Your competitors will be doing all of this, so if you stop you’ll gradually become invisible to online customers.

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Either way- if you have a target market in a particular locality, your company should have a Google Places page. A Google Places page allows you to specify all sorts of information about your business- the address, hours of operation, services offered, reviews, awards, etc. And this Places page can show up in search results, alongside a map showing your location. It can be a great way to reach a local audience.

What to Consider?

1. Define Your Local Market(s)- Do you have multiple locations or serve two different markets? You can specify multiple locations on your Google Places page. Or you can create two separate Places pages if each location offers a slightly different set of services. Also be sure to determine which keywords apply to each location.

2. Know Where You Rank Now- You’ll want to have some idea where your Places page ranks now so that you know where to focus your optimization efforts. Do a few searches for your keywords of focus- and be sure to either include a geographic qualifier in your search (like “in charlottesville, va”) or actually be located in the area of interest. Note whether you appear in the Local Listings. To be sure you’re looking at the right results, click “Places” on the left-hand side of the results page.

3. Optimize Your Google Places Page(s)- If you’re not ranking well for a local search on one of your keywords of focus, then work that keyword into the content of your Google Places page. Be sure you list your business under the best “category” available. Encourage your loyal customers to review your business with a star rating.

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I run a small business myself at Chess Media Group, and we work on developing social customer strategies for much bigger companies, so I can identify with the challenges that small businesses (and larger companies) are faced with. I decided to put together this little social customer toolkit to help small businesses get started with engaging the social customer.

Customer Relationship Management system (CRM)

You need something that stores all of your customer (and other) data, and e-mail is not going to cut it.  A CRM system will allow you to set up tasks, find all of your account information, follow up with prospects, build a pipeline, and much more. You can even run your e-mail marketing campaigns from a CRM platform. I’d recommend starting with something like Salesforce; packages range from $5-$125/person/month (for the enterprise version).  You can also check out Infusionsoft which is a bit of a marketing automation suite at around $200-$500/month.

Social Channels

This is the mix of the social channels you are going to be using. I can’t speak to exactly what those channels are going to be since I don’t know your business, but more often than not it’s going to involve a combination of Facebook, Twitter, Blogs and Linkedin (and hopefully a third party community solution like Lithium or perhaps Jive). The information you get from these social channels should all feed into your CRM system. No cost here except for your time unless you decide to go with a fancy community platform, but if you decide to do that then things must be really going well, so no point worrying about it (yet).  I’m also assuming of course that you have a website which you will want to integrate the social channels into.

E-mail Marketing

Again, you can run this directly from your CRM system with some basic integration, but you’re most likely going to have to use something like Vertical Response, Mail Chimp or Exact Target. The cost here will be around $0-$100/month (Mailchimp for example has a freemium version for anything under 500 people in your list).

Monitoring Solution

You’re going to need something that monitors the web for you with relevant conversations and discussions that are taking place online. You can try some of the basic free tools such as Google Alerts, but eventually you want to move to something more advanced (and again something that integrates with your CRM system) such as an Attensity or Radian 6. Costs here can vary quite a bit, but you’re likely looking at around $200-$1k/month.

Technology Integration

Finally, you need someone to connect all of the pieces together for you. The vendors mentioned above should be able to help you out with pretty much everything, but it may be worth hiring a technology person just to help you sync everything up if you’re having trouble. This should really only take a few hours so it just depends on the person’s rate and the complexity of the integration. You can start to do some really creative things on the technology, but you need to understand what you want.

Overall, the total cost annually for a small business should be around $5k-$15k, which isn’t too bad to get started. I’m also assuming that you have thought of some strategy here, otherwise this all falls apart. Of course there are other things you can add to your toolset, but in my opinion these are the essentials for getting started. Most people focus only on the “social media channels” and forget about everything else (along with the integration into a CRM system that lets you track everything!).

If I were you, I’d start planning and researching various vendors and start making the investment. You might have a better mix of things you are using so please feel free to share below!

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1. Make sure your content is focused on your area of expertise

The more focused your content is, the easier you make it for people to position YOU in their mind, as the person they need to speak with or email, when it comes to whatever your area of expertise is.

Equally, the more focused your content is, the more likely you are to get targeted traffic from Google.  Google is always looking for the most relevant results.  A great way to show Google what your site is all about, is to provide lots of great focused content.  Speaking of Google…

2. Be as easy to find as possible

Learn the basics of good SEO (search engine optimisation.)  I recently wrote about Google’s free seo ebook, which covers a lot of the basics and tells you what Google is looking for, from your site. It’s well worth a read and it’s free, so check it out!

3. Be easy to contact

In order for you to be easy to contact, there are 2 things you need to consider.  The first and most obvious, is to give all your contact details on a dedicated contact page.  Equally important is the second element, which is for you to make it as comfortable as possible, for your readers to get in touch with you.  Let your readers know that you genuinely want to hear from them and that you welcome their emails or calls.

I always make it as clear as possible that I really love hearing from my readers and that they can ask me anything about my services, with zero obligation on their part.  Guess what?  I get emails every day from people all over the world.  These range from “thank you” emails, where my free advice has helped them, to inquiries regarding how we can work together on the development of their small business.

Be approachable, friendly and grateful!

4.  Give more than you think you should

Put your best foot forward on your site if you want to get more inquiries.  Many people offer just a diluted version of themselves online, because they fear that if they give too much away for free, they will get less paid work. 

That is the 180 degree, polar opposite of the truth!

The kind of people who are only interested in your free stuff, were never going to become a client.  Equally, the people who are actually looking for professional help are MORE likely to hire you, if you show them you know your subject, by providing genuinely useful information to them via your site, up front.

I have given away thousands of marketing and business development ideas via this site, yet my clients still called me to work with them.  Why?  Because they knew that there’s a massive difference between what they can achieve from reading my blog, and the kind of results they can enjoy with me mentoring them.

Of course, by giving better quality information, you also encourage more people to link to you and share your work with their friends on social networks.  That helps you grow a bigger, targeted readership and generate even more targeted inquiries.

Finally, make sure you ASK people to get in touch with you.  A simple call to action is often a great reminder that you are open for business and keen to help.

I also practice what I preach: So, if you would like to discover how I can help you, as your marketing and business development mentor, get in touch with me here. I look forward to hearing from you.

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Why you might be scratching your head at my analogy(and they are not always the best), there is quite a lot of validity in this statement considering that organic traffic increases can be much like that shiny car, pretty on the outside and hollow on the inside. For the most part, any SEO firm at some point can perform enough basic SEO and content creation to lift a site’s traffic simply because at some point you will drive so much long tail traffic that referrals will likely increase. What so often looks like a great report should have additional questions posed.

A review of your site analytics and these factors in mind can paint a better picture of whether your SEO program is targeted appropriately.

What site sections are driving traffic?

       -   Site sections such as a blog can drive a lot of traffic for a blog but often are virally motivated and this traffic can result in a 80+% bounce rate. Your traffic should be landing on your homepage or key pages that are a starting point for your conversion funnel or a page along this pathway.

How do organic visitors consume your content?

       -   Only in a perfect world does someone stumble upon your site and immediately become so enthralled that they instantly perform the intended action you are attempting. From an organic-wide view you need to ensure that page views, pages-per-visit and time on site are gradually increasing. This is also a way to show that site content has been developed for search engines but also for human visitors as content is compelling and there are links and calls to action to help propel visitors throughout the site.

Are organic referrals branded or non-branded?

       -   Every time you go all out on an offline effort or social promotion you are building your brand. And while not every offline viewer picks up a telephone and not every social user follows a link these web users search for company through a branded term. It is very important to parse your SEO reporting by branded and non-branded segments. Non-branded development should most often be your focus as a common SEO goal is to gain visibility across popular brand/service related terms.

How well does organic search referral s convert?

       -   Yes, I know, this is obvious. However, I am still surprised at how many people do not even think about this factor but more so with the climb in traffic. A thousand visits that do not convert at all are not as important as one visit that converts (brand identity freaks excluded). Analysis of these conversion metrics will allow you to figure out the most important goal of whether visitors are doing what you want them to.

Asking these questions of your SEO firm or analyzing these areas for yourself will help you to identify if your SEO campaign is successful or if the traffic numbers are misleading. Rankings are great but if they drove hollow traffic there is no importance for having a listing in that position and driving meaninglessness traffic. Who knows, if your site is a likely candidate for the conditions above, hopefully after a little work your traffic will drop next month…and your conversions will increase.

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The Asian contestant, Alex Wong, is a ballet dancer. Yet for his challenge, he had to do a hip-hop routine with all-star dancer hip-hop dancer Twitch. Something completely out of Alex’s comfort zone, but as you can see from the video and crowd/judges reaction, he nailed it. He took a chance, knew what had to be done, and nailed it.

Now think of you and your business, and how this can relate to you.

Comfort zones are funny things. On the one hand, they keep us safe because we don’t expect any surprised. On the other, they stunt our growth because they keep us safe.

Staying within our comfort zone means we don’t have to worry about taking chances; we’ve found our niche and success level and we’re happy to stick to it. That’s fine, and if you just need a certain level of success to achieve the results you first started your business for, then comfort zones will absolutely work for you.

But if you’re looking to really push your business buttons and stand out in your niche or industry, comfort zones will only take you so far. The real success only comes from taking risks.

Push yourself mentally and creatively. Look at everyday things and see how you can take that to the next level. See beyond the simple.

There’ll be a lot of stumbles along the way, and it won’t be easy to take off your comforter blanket and take the steps into new directions. But think of it this way – your customers aren’t standing still. They’re always looking for the best for them, not just the best full stop.

Comfort zones might make you the best; but they don’t necessarily make you the best for your customers. There’s a difference – step outside your zone and you’ll have a better view of what that is.

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Although the field of SEO is probably one of the most open when it comes to giving out tips on rankings, there is often so much contradictory information out there that you will see people trying to settle small differences of opinion with links to various forum posts.

What kind of advice should the amateur (or up and coming) SEO practitioner look for in the world of Search Engine Optimization?  Here are a couple that might

• Someone Already Tried That Trick. In many cases we work with clients who try to do something that was already discovered (and filtered) by search engines a long time ago. For instance, people seem to come up with “tiny text that blends into the background” on a frequent basis without being prompted. It is always good to see people thinking logically and creatively, but it pays to run your idea by someone who has been around the block a few times.

• SEO Jobs are often given to those who don’t know much about SEO. We often see webmasters arguing that the site has “great SEO” because they added 500 phrases to the meta keywords tag. Don’t be afraid to ask questions, or seek out a second opinion. When in doubt, it pays to get a little self-education to see which “expert” is the most up to date.

• The Landscape Changes All The Time. Although this can be said for many technological fields, SEO is probably a lot more dynamic than programming or product development trades. This is because optimizers have to react to today’s update in Google or Bing, while keeping an eye out for the next search engine or social media trend. The best SEO consultant might be one that tells you to scrap the project he recommended to you yesterday because Google changed its mind!

• You Have To Become An SEO Historian. A programmer does not have to know anything about Charles Babbage or Blaise Pascal to build code for your site, but an SEO expert should have an advanced knowledge of yesterday’s SEO. This is especially true because there have been so many “black hat” tricks used in the past that your current SEO project needs to avoid even the appearance of impropriety. (If you’re in the Gray Hat realm, you also need to know the appearance is avoided while the impropriety moves forward.) Many innocent techniques could get mistaken for Cloaking, Keyword Stuffing, Hidden Text, Duplicate Content, Doorway Pages, and Link Buying. If your SEO expert is unaware of these outdated tricks, your site may be traveling through an optimization minefield.

• You Don’t Need Experience To Get Started. Even though the above tips counsel the use of an expert, you can still begin your SEO project by yourself with minimal SEO knowledge. There is no substitute for experiencing optimization firsthand, and many of our best clients would make for above average optimizers in their own right. Knowledge of how search engines work, and what they are looking for, can guide you in DIY SEO processes, and help you find a consultant who can take your site to the next level. Until that point, you can begin sprucing up your site (carefully!) and see how the search engines react to better titles, upgraded content, and readable code.

Everyone in the SEO field started somewhere, and is usually guided by their initial experiences. People who have been around long enough may have used techniques that were perfectly acceptable (or very successful!) for a time before they fell into the “black hat” category. The more agile SEO experts have moved toward standard best practices that include turning the site into a resource and creating linking campaigns that fall within the realm of acceptability for Google and Bing. The difference for seasoned experts usually involves more involvement in the SEO community when it comes to discussion and information sharing, plus a continuous educational process. Unlike most other specialties, the need for constant learning in optimization can be the difference between success and failure whether you are looking to improve your own site’s rankings or get a job in SEO. While there may be more challenges and knowledge needed before you can consider yourself a true “SEO Expert” there are also a great deal of opportunities for people who can prove themselves on Google’s playing field, and plunging head-first into search engine optimization is the best way to start.

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