Category Archives: Do It Yourself SEO

How Your Blog Helps Your Sites Ranking.

How Your Blog Helps Your Sites Ranking.

There is so much buzz on the internet about how writing a blog can help your sites ranking on search engines. All of this is true, but, I don’t see bloggers explaining really why a blog helps your sites traffic and ranking, and without that information, you will have limited results. In fact, you will probably end up, as so many bloggers do, with three of four months of twice a week blogs and then the great void. Nothing for months, notta, a silent voice in the mass structure of the digital word, speaking to no one, having no purpose, aimless and alone…

But be of good cheer! (Wow am I weird today) Must be the holiday thing…

Your blog may help bring traffic to your web site through these means.

  • Google likes fresh content. But this alone won’t do much for you.
  • Good content is picked up by other sites, giving you a link from their site. Google and search engines base a lot of your rankings on how many sites link back to your site. This is far more important than just adding fresh content. You can add fresh content (new blogs) until the proverbial cows come home, (proverbial cows sounds like a really odd name for a football team in India). But it won’t do much until other sites link to it or use it with a link.
  • (Sorry lost my train of thought as my 5 year old daughter just walked in and announced she had found the elf on a shelf this morning, you know, they magical move every night, and she gets really excited when she finds them)
  • You can tweet and add your blog to your social media. That’s a good link and good mention for the search engines! It also gives you something to say on your social media which is clearly a problem for many of us. I can hear the thought process as we all think, what should I post on facebook today? The weather? My recent IRS audit results? Another discount offer? Oh gawd how I HATE this. A blog is a great thing to post. And, it gives your web site a little love from the search engines.
  • Search engines seem to love word press. (That’s the platform many blogs are written on.)
  • I hate to sound all SEOie here, but really, use your important keywords in the title of the blog, and use the categories and all that stuff built into your blog. I don’t use any seo plug in, but I don’t think they hurt.
  • And finally… your blog will help your traffic and ranking only if your web site, and then blog, have a good SEO ranking, A blog will help you build some ranking, but having a domain that already has links to it is really important! Work on getting links to your main site.

So there you are.

    1. Write good content that others will link to (there are a million blogs and articles on how to write good content on line, clearly I haven’t read many)
    2. Post it on your social media pages
    3. Use word press
    4. Use keywords in your title
    5. Work on getting your domain ranked before your blog.

If we can help you with getting your site ranking moving the right direction, please call me. Our starter SEO program may be an affordable and great way to jump start your site visits and get your blog noticed. http://www.salesjumpstart.net/weboptimizersstarterSEO.html

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Google Ad Words Pay Per Click Problems

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It seems like I get a call a month from a client or prospect that have been running pay per click on Google and getting terrible results. Once I look at the campaigns I consistently see the following three BIG problems.

First. So far this year with only one exception, the campaign is set up using broad match keywords.

Google gives you 4 options of the way you can run your keywords.  Here is their explanation:

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You can set each search-targeted keyword to have one of those four settings. To use a keyword matching option, just add the appropriate punctuation to your keyword:

  1. Broad match: keyword
    Allows your ad to show on similar phrases and relevant variations
    (The broad match modifier may also be used to further refine your broad keyword matches: +keyword.)
  1. Phrase match: “keyword”
    Allows your ad to show for searches that match the exact phrase
  1. Exact match: [keyword]
    Allows your ad to show for searches that match the exact phrase exclusively
  1. Negative match: -keyword
    Ensures your ad doesn’t show for any search that includes that term

With some options, you’ll enjoy more ad impressions, clicks, and conversions; with others, you’ll get fewer impressions and more narrow targeting. By applying the appropriate matching options to your keywords, you can best meet your ROI goals.

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So as an example, I have seen a House painter show up in the search Basement Finishing. Why?  Because they are using Broad Match, and when someone searches Basement Painting, they have “painting” as a broad match keyword.  You can imagine how many searches the ad shows up for that have little or no relevance to house painting.

The natural thought is, so what, if no one clicks on the ad under a non relevant keyword, it doesn’t cost you a thing. Well…. Wrong.  Your keywords quality score, which I will blog on latter, is lowered when your ads click through rate (number of times the ad is cliced on divided by the number of times the ad is served)  and the lower your quality score, the more your bid will need to be to get higher placement.

So… use phrase and exact match!

Two. I also see the client or prospect has added all of their keywords under on ad group and possible one ad.

Your keywords should be divided into very specific groups, where the keyword matches the ad you use for that ad group.

Using house painting again,  here is  a brief example.  You should have diiferent ads for each of these and the ads should use the exact keywords in it.

House painting

House painter

Exterior House painting

Painting contractor

In a perfect world you might see a new ad group and ad for each keyword.  Lot’s of work, but well worth it. Your cost will be lower and your conversion rate will be higher.

Three: Scheduling.  Your product or Service has peak days and times that prospects will look for it on the Internet. You know what these are, just track back to when prospects call you the most.  When was that last time someone called you on a Saturday?  For home improvement companies, Mondays and Tuesdays are peak, and Friday and Saturday (generally) are dead.  Why show your ad on day’s no one is really looking?  Instead, up your bids on the peak days and lower your bids on off days and hours.

And I do need to mention a 4th. Geo Targeting!  Google has great options for you to serve your ad just in the cites you want, or a specific radius around your business.  Don’t advertise across n entire metro area, if in reality you are not going to get sales more than 15 miles (or 7 or whatever) from your business.  The natural tendency of customers is to have a preference for a company closer to them, no matter what you sell.

I will go into some other areas and more detail on future blogs.  Pay attention to these 4 areas in an account when you set up an Ad Words campaign.  We do offer very affordable PPC management and set up, so if you just don’t want to go through the learning curve, and need to see better results, call us!

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Pay for links, Yes or No?

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Should you pay for a link?  Yes, and no.

This answer was once a 100% no for us.  But as SEO has become more and more competitive, we see many more sites in the top of the Search Engine results that are paying for links, and appear to getting better rankings because of it.

The type of links I am referring to here are directory links, not text in blog link farms, or anything developed for the sole purpose of getting your rankings to increase, with very little or no real readership.

A good link should have the potential to bring you more traffic, on its own, period.  There are a ton of directories that are free, and do show up high enough in the search engines, or do their own advertising, to bring real prospects to our site.  It does take some research to identify them, and the directories you choose should be dictated by the industry and location you are in.

It’s logical that a directory charge if the edit and review every submission, and have the expenses of keeping the site running.  Although we are a big fan or organic natural ranking increases through great content and relationships, now and then paying for a directory listing does make sense.

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Google Places Changes October 2011

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Google Places Changes October 2011

Big changes for Google place accounts this week.  In a nut shell, Google will be allowing the general public to edit and make changes to your Google places account.  They also will be updated your places information based on what they find on the Internet which may be information they think is more current.

You can read details on Mike Blumenthals blog at http://blumenthals.com/blog/2011/10/14/google-places-now-updating-your-listing-automatically/

Google will send out an email before they make any changes, but that assumes you have a verified listing, and you check your emails. I have already had several emails forwarded to me from clients from Google.

We can all see the good and bad in this.  What concerns me the most is the black hat SEO’s or competitors who submit bad categories or just misleading information on a competitors places account.  I have seen some SEO’s

submit bad reviews in Denver on competitors, so submitting incorrect information on purpose is not only a possibility, but likely!

What a business owner needs to do if their Google places account is important to them.

  • Make sure you claim your business listing with Google places
  • Make sure you read any emails from Google, and respond if the information they have is not correct!
  • Make sure you check your places listing weekly.

I recently had two businesses contact me because they both had bad reviews posted on Google. One had no idea who the person was, and the problem they described was not familiar to them.  Could it have been a case of mistaken identity? Could it have been a real complaint?  Maybe it was a competitor?  With the current system (not likely to change) all you can do is look at the reviewer’s profile, and that rarely will help.

The only solution is to monitor your listed, report incorrect information, respond to Google if someone does try to change your places account, and get great reviews on Google by asking your current customers to review you on your places account.  Provide each customer with your Google places url… !

We do provide on-line reputation monitoring, with a focus on Google places, major review sites, and Search engine results.  With the most recent changes with Google places, it’s more important than ever to know what your on-line reputation is.

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First Page Rankings On Google Guaranteed Is A Farce

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First Page of Google Guaranteed is a Farce.

I have received three emails over the last month from companies that will “Get your site on the first page of Google and not accept any payment until you are on the first page”. They do require you submit the keyword you are trying to rank for of course, and after they research it, they will let you know if you qualify for the no pay until first page program.

Two things. One, and this is very important, being on the first page in the 4th through 10th position isn’t going to bring you much traffic. Maybe less than a percent of all the searches. Remember the first position gets 38% or so of all the clicks.

Second. If they need to qualify what keyword you want, they are only going to accept the easy keywords, which are easy to optimize because they get very little traffic and have very little competition.

So here is my offer: If any of our readers are tempted to proceed with such an offer, please send us the proposal and we will do the same thing for 50% less of whatever their price is. Guaranteed.

However, what will really get you where you want to be is our Custom SEO Programs:

http://www.salesjumpstart.net/Searchengineoptimization.html

 

303 500 3053 Ext 1

http://www.salesjumpstart.net

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Do It Yourself Local SEO

GoodSearch home page

Do it yourself local SEO.

As promise, here are the key tactics to make sure your local business is visible for local searches.

First, make sure your web site and business is listed in the major search engine local directories. A great resource for this is www.getlisted.org.  This will allow your site to come up on the Google local maps, and the yahoo and Bing local directories for search terms that relate to your business.

Make sure to completely fill out your local directories. Pay careful attention to the categories you choose. Each directory offers different opportunities, so take your time and fill them out with all the information they request. This process should take about 90 minutes all together, and it’s the best 90 minutes you will spend on local search engine optimization.

Second, make sure your local address is prominently displayed on your home page, with your phone number. Add it to your contact page as well.  Also, you may want to search on Google for your business to see if you have any old listings online with an old address or phone number.  If so, do contact the site or directory and ask then to either changed it, or delete it.  Search engines hate conflicting information. Only use an actually physical address.  Google doesn’t accept P.O. boxes.

Third, make sure (as in all SEO), your title and description meta tags have your main keywords in them.  Also add your keywords to your headline of your home page.  Don’t over do this, make it natural.  It’s important that the search engines understand what your site is about.

Now you have a good start!  It’s time to get “votes” for your site with the search engines. Votes are when other sites link back to, or mention your business on their sites. As search engine optimization becomes more and more competitive (lets face it, more businesses are paying for it then ever) and there are only 10 or so sites listed on the first page of a search, and the top three get the vast majority of the traffic,  in many cases you are going to need a lot of high quality votes.

The first place to look is with associations you belong to.  The B.B.B. is a great link, and so  are many chambers and associations. Check and see if your listing has your web site on it.

After that, add good local directories.  Go to Google and search  Your City Directories.  You will find a ton, and many will have categories that fit your company well.

Plan on spending about 30 minutes a day linking for a few months, and maybe a lot more.  Yes, that’s what it’s going to take..  I could write a book about link quality (the type of links that pay off)  and how to research for them, but if you are doing your own  SEO, this is a great start.  If you want several excellent researches you can subscribe to www.seomoz.com , or SEObook.com

I do want to leave you with two additional thoughts.  A great start for back linking is www.metasocialweb.com You can add your site,  plus your blog, and all your social sites.  It’s a powerhouse SEO, Social media tool. Yes it does cost money,  but you may find that many valuable sites do, because they are human edited (A big plus) and they have to pay to keep the site up and running.  We  built Metasocialweb.com to help small business with Social media, and it turns out to be great for SEO too!

If you want a jump start on links every month you can subscribe to our Do It Your Self SEO package that provides the information on  20 quality links we have already researched.  Or our starter SEO packages where we do the linking for you.

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The Difference Between First and Third in Rankings

Google

The most recent studies show that a web site ranked first for a keyword on a search engine will receive about 38% of all the clicks. The site in the third position gets about 8%.  Many  businesses are happy with rankings below the first or second position. If you are one of those, think of the revenue value of just moving up a few positions! You could increase your Internet sales 400%  by going to the next level.

How to move up in the rankings.

Moving from fourth to second can be a much greater move than even moving from the tenth page to the first.  Those top two positions are generally very competitive, and the site owners in many cases have an SEO firm working every month to keep those positions.

One of the most affordable ways to make that move is using our starter SEO plan if you are a local business.  Or if you are in a hurry to triple your on line sales and revenues, a custom SEO assessment and program.

Subscribe to our Starter SEO package, even if your on the first page!  We guarantee your rankings will improve.  More Information here Starter SEO packages.

Just subscribe today to get started or call us at 303 500 3053 ext 1 for a free ranking assessment. We are  A+ rated on the Better Business Bureau!

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DIY Search Engine Optimization Lecture

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DIY Search Engine optimization Lecture

Transcript from a recent DIY Search Engine Optimization lecture by Professor Optimizer.
The presenter had just arrived from his SEO laboratory…  The first question got the clearly mad scientist Rolling!

Audience participant: Professor, can you define SEO in a simply way we all can understand?
Professor: Well sir,  there are really 3 main ingredients in SEO  ( Holding up 4 fingers )
As I have outlined on the board….  the first being
1.)  Relativity.

The more relatives who 1+ plus your site, the higher your site will rank. (Slaps knee)

No…no…  Here’s the theory….

Your web sites ranking will in fact rank in different ways depending on the input of user’s of a search engine….

If , for instance your site is about dog food, (Starting to scribble on the board)  and the user enters dog food, and your site says Dog Food and it’s url is dog food and it’s title is dog food, and its description is dog food and your copy has dog food in it , and your navigation pages have Dog Food in them, and your you tube account has dog food video’s and your pictures (know as graphics) are tagged dog food, and other sites “related ” to Dog food, link back to your site, and your are a well published writer with many blog’s about … Dog food,  and your Face book business page says “dog food: and your twitter bio and tweets say dog food, and all of your social media profiles say DOG FOOD… and your official business name with the your secretary of states office is  Dog Food Inc, and your BBB page …  talks about dog food.

Well…  Sir, what do you think Google and Bing will think your site is about?

Audience participant…  ummm   Dog food?

Professor, YES, YES!  Dog food.

Participant. So, when a person doing a search enters Dog Food, your site will come up first.. Right?

Professor…  Maybe, maybe not.  Comme ceci, comme cela

it’s still relative… you see.  But your probability of coming up number 1 2 or 3 (*Holding up 4 fingers) is far greater, than if your site was about dog food, but 50% of the signals I mentioned above say… K-9 Nutrition.

Participant…  So I should not use k-9 nutrition in any of those many signals you spoke about?

Professor…. Maybe,  Comme ceci, comme cela
In fact,  you may want to use k-9 nutrient as it may be the course of least Resistance for your searchers to find you!   Which is Point number three…, but first here is point two.

E  equals mc2 or

“Does the inertia of a body depend upon its energy-content?

Well Sir?  Does it?

Participant: umm

Professor: Yes!

Your site is a big blob of digital mass.  Unless something acts upon it, it will stay where it is.  Just like you Sir, your site only moves when energy of some sort is activated.

Got it?????

Participant: Ummm.. So…what “energy” will we need to move my site up???

Professor:  Exactly!

Participant:  Exactly what?

Professor:  In the world of SEO you need to have a special “view” of the Internet as a large interwoven universe of it’s own all connected through “strings” of energy.  Or what you call “Links”.  Every web page is it’s own existence, or world if you like, and it has it’s own amount of energy on that world. Every link it has on it to your site, or to other site or page, transfers a part of that pages energy to the new page.  So, the more links going to your page, the more energy transferred and the more acceleration your page will have in an upward ranking direction.

If no energy acts to move your page, it will stay where it is. If enough energy is transferred, it will move, and a page in motion has a tendency to stay in motion… right?

Once your little page is moving, the search engines know what “worlds” to rate it highly in by all of the relative things we discussed in the beginning!

To be continued……

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Do It Yourself SEO (DIY SEO)

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Do It Yourself SEO

Do it yourself SEO use to be a lot easier before the Google Panda updates and all the new algorithm changes. Many of today’s better search engine optimization companies really learned through the Do it your self process.

The big difference between a few years ago and today is the complexity involved for a site owner, or web design firm in the SEO process.  We do offer DIY SEO help, so feel free to check out our web optimizers club if this is your intent, or if you are a SEO looking for a little edge.

Here are the big basics for organic SEO. I will cover Local SEO in the next blog.

(Before we start… one point. You optimize a page, not your site. Chose the page you are going to work on. Generally the home page is good, but it can be any page on your site)

The first, and absolutely most important part of search engine optimization is know the keyword or Keyword phrase that will produce the most amount of good traffic volume to your page.  Use Google keyword tools to find out the volume of searches for your product or service. (https://adwords.google.com/o/Targeting/Explorer?__u=1000000000&__c=1000000000&ideaRequestType=KEYWORD_IDEAS#search.none )

Just type in your service or product name, and watch the results. Spend some time playing with it. This is important.  If you hit the mark here everything else in SEO is easier.

Once you know your keyword, the following three points are huge. And just taking a page that may be missing these areas, and changing two of them can make a big difference in rankings.

1.)    Your sites Meta Title should have your keyword or keyword phrase as the FIRST words in the Title.  And add any “like” words after that.

2.)    Your sites Meta Description should have your keyword phrase as the first words in the description, and repeated if possible. No longer than 70 characters.

3.)     Your web page URL should have the keyword phrase in the URL if possible. If you are starting a new site, get a domain with the keywords in it. If it’s to late, either skip this and understand you will need to have more back links than other sites with all of the above in the page, or optimize a new page on your site that you include the keyword in the URL.  Example www.yoursitename.com/bagelshop ( If you are optimizing Bagel Shop)

Those are the big ones.  I am assuming your page will have well written copy that uses your keyword phrase a few times, it might even be in the BOLD or in the first heading and paragraph on the page.  That would just be natural.

If you don’t understand some of this, any web firm can help you, and it takes about, umm, 10 minutes for them to do the actual Meta work, and change a page name.

After that, you have to move on to back linking and some social media links.  I will cover that in another blog.  I do need to mention, that in DIY SEO and all SEO most Search Engine Optimization companies will agree, that the Back links (Links from other sites to your site) are by far the number one factor in your ranking. So why didn’t I put that above the 1,2 and 3.? Because, if you don’t get the Meta and URL stuff right, the back link work and promotion won’t do you a lot of good.

Feel free to email me questions, and do check out our web optimizer club if you want to do your own SEO. It can talk as little as 15 minutes a day with the right tools.

My email info@myonecall.com

Mike Bayes

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