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!

Comments

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.

Comments

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.

Comments

• Page Headlines and Ad Copy
• Clear and Concise Headlines
• Impeccable Grammar
• Taking Advantage of Trust Indicators
• Using a Strong Call to Action
• Buttons and Calls to Action Should Stand Out
• Go Easy on the Links
• Use Relevant Images and Videos
• Keep it Above the Fold
• Always be Testing

Click image for larger view.

Comments

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.

Comments

Using the free version of WordPress will allow you to perfect your writing style and also get you into the habit of blogging on a regular basis.

But if the blogging bug gets you and you want to monetize your blog and customize its look, you’re severely limited using the free WordPress.com version. Any advertising that might appear on your free WordPress blog is placed by WordPress themselves, so you won’t make any money, WordPress will.

And while they have hundreds of free themes to choose from, your selection is limited. You’re not able to add plugins (such as those for SEO or social bookmarking) and you have to purchase a yearly Custom CSS Upgrade if you want to change any of the coding of your chosen theme.

Making the Move

But all is not lost if you’ve started your blogging career using WordPress.com! If you’ve written some great articles and if you’ve gotten relevant comments and have some regular readers, you’ll want to keep that content and move it to your self-hosted blog.

The content will help you gain search engine traffic to your new blog (and your own domain) if you’ve used your keywords properly and the number of comments will show new readers that you have a following and that you know your stuff.

If you decide to move your free blog to WordPress.org, here are the first things you’ll need to do:

1. Purchase a domain name and hosting account. I recommend BlueHost, here’s why.
2. Install WordPress to your hosting account.

Now, log in to your Dashboard of your free WordPress.com blog. Scroll down the page and click on Tools – Export in the left column.

Do you want to export ALL your content? Only certain authors? Only certain dates? This next screen is where you can choose these options from the drop down boxes. Then click the Download Export File button.

Save the file so you can find it easily. I like to keep it on my desktop so I don’t have to search through a million folders when I need it.

Log in to your self-hosted WordPress dashboard and scroll down to find the Tools – Import link.

Choose WordPress at the bottom of the list.

Locate the xml file that you just EXPORTED and click the Upload File and Import button.

Now you can assign a new author for these posts, if you want. They can be linked to your current user name, another author’s user name, or you can create a new user name just for these posts. If you have photos attached to any of these imported posts, be sure to check the box that says Import Attachments. Otherwise the photos will NOT import.

And the last box you’ll see is the status box where you should see that the files were imported successfully.

If you have problems importing your files, check with your web host to see if they can do this for you. Sometimes, depending on how many files you have to import, you might exceed maximum file size limits. There’s no need to give up; simply check if they can import the files for you or if they can temporarily lift the maximum limit.

Honestly, it will take you longer to read this post about moving your content than it will take you to actually complete all the steps. Moving your content to a self-hosted WordPress blog is easy and will prevent you from losing valuable content. There’s really no need to reinvent the wheel when moving from a free blog to a self-hosted blog.

Comments

SEO can be a complex task that involves several essentials to get the best search engine rankings. However, there are some webmasters who are misinformed of various techniques and facts about SEO and its power to increase website visibility on the SERPs.

Consider the following SEO myths and their corresponding facts:

Myth 1: Search engine optimization is the only means of promoting websites

SEO is merely a portion of the SEM (search engine marketing), a form of Web marketing for promoting websites in the SERPs. The other SEM processes include paid inclusion, contextual advertising, and paid placement.

Myth 2: SEO is an activity that is done just once.

It is rather a continuing process, as you struggle with keeping your site high up the rankings that change almost every time.

Myth 3: PPCs damage your ranking.

Pay Per Click is a form of paid placement SEM that has neither negative nor positive influence on a website’s actual ranking. While some believe that you can only choose either a paid or unpaid method to promote your site, you can actually do both.

Myth 4: SEO service providers assure high site rankings.

This is not always the case. There are even those that can hurt your site and may damage its reputation. Thus, choosing the right SEO company/companies to work for you is essential.

Myth 5: Having high ranking is everything.

While getting high ranks is good, without high conversion rates, your site’s revenue generation capability would still be shaky. Without buyers, clients, or subscribers, the huge traffic that your site makes is basically useless.

Also, do not mistake PR (PageRank) with search engine rankings, as they are two different factors of determining a site’s value.

Myth 6: Using Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) or having white text on a white background to hide keywords improves ranking.

For a short period, this method might work. However, once search engines detect it, your site might get penalized.

Myth 7: There are techniques in SEO that can improve site rankings faster.

For reasons that are apparent, the search engine algorithms are complex by nature and are zealously guarded by the companies that made them. No one can crack them. Moreover, search engines algorithm take into account myriad factors and the processes they use change continuously.

No one can predict the preferences of search engines, hence there are no fixed and reliable SEO techniques that can “magically” boost online rankings.

Myth 8: The use of meta tags can help your site ranking.

The purpose of meta tags is to provide details to a search engine about the contents of your site. It does not make your rank better.

Myth 9: Usage of image links for SEO.

While text links can do well for your site, image links are not suggested as crawlers cannot read image texts. However, if you include the ALT attribute or ALT tag to an image, they can read them and can then contribute to your site ranking.

Myth 10: You need to submit your site to directories and search engines.

The search engines can actually find your site, whether you submit it or not.

By separating SEO facts and fallacies and practicing good optimization, it should not be long before your site garners higher rankings in search engine result pages.

Comments

However, search engine traffic by itself is a small part of the story. Understanding traffic from other sites can sometimes be more indicative of a website’s overall success in its field, and can provide valuable information about a site’s total footprint on the World Wide Web. An oft-repeated piece of advice from Google is to design a site as if search engines did not exist. If you consider that sites once relied on reference traffic from each other, you can understand the potential for developing traffic between sites. Secondarily, you can improve your link popularity by cultivating relationships with other popular sites in your industry.

Monitoring other sources of web traffic can help you uncover positive and negative references to your business. With the rise of social media, it is easier than ever for people to comment on your store and your services, and even an unhappy reference will often link to your site. Tracing the link back to its source lets you do some low cost reputation management, where you can either refute the person’s point of view or thank them for their kind words.

You can also develop relationships with sites that are sending you good traffic and leads. We have seen a couple of cases where sites are referenced in a list of resources, and that list is used by interested shoppers. Not surprisingly, some of these sites will move your name to the top of their lists for a certain amount of money, but even then you can be the “top” site in your field, which is akin to the old phone book trick of adding “AAAA” to your name to make it to the front of the business listings.

Another aspect of checking referring sites relates to click fraud and misuse of your website. To detect click fraud, you can usually see pages on your site that are getting referenced from shady looking sites, and the fraud is easy to spot because you will have a bounce rate that is close to 100%, or a visit time averaging one second. Basically, a site is misusing content match or search match in combination with automated clicking tools. If you detect this type of behavior, and you are the one buying the PPC, then you may want to alert your search engine directly and/or shut off the portion of the campaign that resulted in phony clicks.

It may seem counter-intuitive, but referencing (and getting traffic from) a competitor can be a win-win situation online. As long as you aren’t selling identical products, some cross-linking between sites can improve the user experience and may even give window shoppers an opportunity to choose your site. From our own standpoint, we have noticed competitor traffic coming to our website, and if someone else in the field has an interesting tool or article then we aren’t afraid to make a reference to it on our own site. Search engines prefer a collaborative internet; a certain amount of professional courtesy puts you on the high road, even when you’re going after the same customers.

If you’re seeing a lot of “direct” traffic coming to your site, you are either experiencing brand loyalty, lots of return customers, or there are a lot of people who keep your site bookmarked. Some of the bigger “dot com” companies will see direct traffic because people just type the site name into the browser bar. As a side note, a heavy amount of “direct” traffic can also indicate that Analytics code is not loaded on every page of the site, so if your direct traffic numbers don’t seem credible you should ensure that you have tracking code placed on every page.

Knowing where your non-search clicks come from can provide you with a wealth of information about how people get to your site, how they use it, and which demographics are the most profitable. You can even model user behavior by each referring source, which may offer you a chance to improve certain site features that would drive up your conversion rate. The ability to spot traffic trends from outside sites also provides you with opportunities to expand your web traffic beyond SEO and PPC, which is a stealthy path toward increased profitability that your competitors may not even be trying. No matter how you use the information about outside click sources, a better picture of your audience is always beneficial in the dynamic world of websites and the internet.

Comments

My motives were both business and personal. When I hear people talking abut link building software, they almost always focus on the time such software saves. What they don’t talk about as much is the impact (or lack of) it has on either click traffic or search rank.  Over the years I have probably tested and used over 100 different programs that in one way or another assisted with some aspect of the link building process. Many are long gone. Some are wonderful and incredibly powerful, others should be taken off the market. 

The reason so many link building tools and programs exist is because of the gold rush mentality many link builders have. Anyone can create some type of linking related software, slap it on the web, and sell it.  My hunch is that 95% of all linking related software programs, whether client based or in the cloud, are useless.  In fact, it was becasue they were all so useless that I ended up creating my own.

“My hunch is 95% of all linking related software programs, whether client based or in the cloud, are useless”

Link Building Software – What to Avoid
First, if the software gives you an option to send email automatically to a supposed link target site, run for your life.  This part of the link building process can never be automated and implemented correctly.  This is not to say all automation during the link building process is bad, but rather that there are certain aspects of the process that should never be automated, and email is at the top of that list.

Second, any software that uses Google’s Pagerank as a key part of their process is doomed.  I could write 500 pages about why, so you’ll have to trust me here.  Letting Pagerank dictate your linking strategy is foolish, and any software that gives you any other impression is trying to scare you.  Pagerank is a very useful metric, in certain ways and in certain situations, but I would never pursue a link target because of it’s Pagerank, and I’ve sought links from hundreds of sites that had none.

Third, if the software queries a search engine that no linger exists, you might be suspicious.  I’m not kidding. At least two programs that help identify link targets include search engines that no longer exist.

Fourth, just because some link building software provides a module for creating and managing a links directory does not mean you should implement one, or use that software to manage it.  If you want to hear a few horror stories about why, contact me privately. 

Link Building Software – What to Seek
This one is so obvious most people overlook it.  What company created the software? Do they have a good reputation? Do they have a successful history you can research.  Do they provide names of people who work at the company? Are they trying to be a one trick pony and claim expertise in link building when they have never actually done any link building themselves?  And just because a tool ranks well for the term link building software does not mean that software will be effective.  I remember several link building software programs that stamped a sitewide link on every page of the auto-generated directory pages they created.  Once upon a time sitewides were thought by some to be clever.  Now, siteswides are largely devalued.

I’ll close with a more philosophical question.  Most people agree that publicity, links, and awareness within the right vertical are the key to success for any web site.  Links play a role in nearly every type of online marketing activity, from a plain vanilla links page to a Twitter tweet.  At the same time, at the end of these billions of links is a mouse poised to click, and a person is holding it. A Person.  The web is about people and passion and interests and curiosity and having a voice if you want one.  People.

Do you really want to put the most important part of your online strategy in the hands of something created by someone you don’t know, and who doesn’t know your business?

Link Building Software – Who Does It Right
If I you are in charge of link building, research and pick from these tools. Consider using more than one.

Link Insight (disclaimer – I am co-creator)
Buzzstream
Ontolo
Open Site Explorer/Linkscape
Majestic
SEO Book
Raven

Link well!

Comments

We often forget that no every speaks, or reads, English. The US, Canada, Australia, UK, Ireland and Guyana are the only areas that speak English as the main language. There is a handful of other countries that speak English, but not as their primary language. Then there is everyone else.¹ There are billions of people who don’t read English, yet few blogs offer translation options on their site.

To easily translate your blog from one language to anther you can add a Google Translate menu to your site and let Google handle the translations on the fly. They may not be perfect, but they are better than having none.

I like the Google Translate option as it’s easy to install and doesn’t cause any duplicate content issues. Plus it will work on any blog or website.

Another option is the Global Translator WordPress plugin. This one adds flags into your sidebar and creates sub-directories for all the translated content. All these sub-directories are then indexable creating a lot of additional pages on your site. They are duplicate content, yet in different languages, so I guess it’s up to the search engines to figure out how to handle that.

No matter how you do it, offering up your content in different languages opens up your site to a larger audience.

Comments