Do It Yourself SEO, SEO, SEO Analysis Denver, Uncategorized

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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Denver SEO, Do It Yourself SEO, SEO

Do It Yourself Local SEO

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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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Social Media

Social Media Denver

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I asked Lisa Michaud, President of a Denver based Social Media company to write a blog for us on what small and medium business owners should know and do in Social Media. It’s a great post for all business owners interested in utilizing social media to grow their relationships and business.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Set It and Forget it? Not true in Social Media Marketing

So often when I am working with clients on their social media efforts, they comment “Well, I haven’t really looked at it lately.” I am always a bit amazed. While social media can drain time from your business if not done strategically, not looking at your social channels can also leave money on the table. One of the most important strategic exercises you can engage with daily is commenting on your channels and other people’s postings.

Just as a refresher, social media is not just about pipeline development. The overall goal for social marketing is to build relationships with your customers, clients, prospects, partners and vendors in order to:

  1. Increase revenue through direct communication to target audience
  2. Increase profit through deeper relationships with current clients = client retention and brand ambassadors
  3. Increased Brand recognition – Viral marketing effect
  4. Brand monitoring – understand what your market place is saying about you and/or your industry
  5. Marketing research – ask questions to understand your market place needs
  6. Pipeline development – create new clients through viral marketing & brand ambassadors.
  7. Ensure that you remain relevant and live within your industry
  8. Asset to company – ready to sell or find investors? Built in marketplace
  9. Generate site traffic – keywording, SEO links are incorporated into some social sites (LI, TW, FB)

Keep the pulse on the conversations daily or at least weekly to show your audience that you care about your network. If you don’t look at it, neither will your audience.

Lisa Michaud

President

The Startup Launcher

Social Media Systems Designed to Empower Your Voice

www.thestartuplauncher.com

 

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Denver SEO, Internet Marketing, SEO, Social Media

Digital Marketing Consultant Certification

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SEO in DenverDigital Marketing Consultant Certification:

Digital Marketing is one of the few industries expected to continue to grow in the next few years. Almost every business wants to have a strong on-line marketing presence that will bring in new customers. A part time or full time career as a Digital Marketing Consultant can be very lucrative for those individuals who have an entrepreneurial spirit, the training and network, to support a full portfolio of digital marketing services.

The number one skill needed for success as a Digital Marketing Consultant? It’s at the end of this piece, but first the 2nd most important skill:

Digital marketing consultants must have professional analytical skills to assess the needs of a client, and what services will bring an excellent return on investment.  There are so many opportunities, that this one skill, the assessment and recommendation ability, will be the foundation of their success, as well as their long term financial viability.

Let’s look at the basic areas a digital consultant must be familiar with:

  • Pay per click advertising
  • Face book advertising
  • Search engine optimization
  • Local search engine optimization
  • On-Line reputation management
  • Content development
  • Blogging
  • Web Site development
  • Email marketing
  • Public relations  (P.R.)

Each area is a business within itself, and few businesses or agencies possess the skills to do more than one or two.. Add to that the natural bias a business has towards the services they offer, and that’s where a digital marketing consultant can provide huge value. Business owners and managers can be completely confused by the number of options and the selection of vendors for each. A Digital Marketing Consultant can provide the expertise and services that make sense for their unique in bound marking needs.

The average cost (Based on the Denver Colorado area in 2011) for the services listed above for a small business vary a great deal, but here are some general guidelines for costs:

Search Engine Optimization: $400.00 to $1500.00 a month.

Social Media Programs: $275.00 to $2000.00 a month

Pay per click management: $99.00 to $500.00 a month (Or 10% of the spend which ever is highest)

Content Development: $100.00 per page

On Line reputation management: $99.00 to $1500.00 a month

Blog produced: (4 a month) can be included in other services or $275.00 and up per month

Web Site Development: $85.00 an hour. Average rebuilds $1000.00

New web Site: Average cost $1500.00 to $7500.00

Email marketing: $50.00 an hour.  Average 8 hours a month. $400.00

Public Relations:  $500.00 to $5000.00 a month.

Consulting: $150.00 an hour.

In our experience the average small business will have a $500.00 to $3000.00 monthly budget. You can see the challenge. The planning and implementation process is the key success strategy for the business. Utilizing the right services in the right order is essential with these limited budgets.

Most Consultants make their income through either an hourly fee, combined with a monthly agreement, or by providing one of the key services and out sourcing the others. Accepting commissions from the vendors they recommend is unacceptable. A consultant must be unbiased, and therefore will earn there keep through the management of the entire program.

If a consultant can provide one of the key services, and has a disciplined prospecting program (sell to the right businesses) they can expect to earn $500.00 to $1500.00 a month per client.  Managing up to 10 accounts a month is about as many as one person could do, but is possible in a full time effort.

Some consultants will evolve into an Internet Marketing Agency and provide the services by outsourcing each one, and making a certain margin on each account.  Much like a General Contractor in construction, they are the manager, and responsible for the success of each component. Nothing wrong with this business model, it’s just important to call it an Agency, and not claim to be a consultant.

The number one skill needed to be a successful Digital Marketing Consultant, or Inbound Marketer.

What most “certification” programs miss, is the number one skill to be successful, that being how to sell digital marketing services. It’s a highly competitive unregulated field, and if you can not sell, you will starve. Depending on your individual financial goals, you will need to spend up to 70% of your time selling in one form or another, or outsourcing that process. That’s the big difference between this certification program, and all the others. We have been sales consultants for over 20 years, and specializing in Internet Marketing since 2003. This program, unlike all the others, will give you the process and training to bring in customers.

If you are interested in becoming a Digital Marketing Consultant feel free to contact our partner company Bayes Squared llc for information on their on-line 6 month programs, which include one on one consulting as you grow your business, or their in person classes combined with Internet webinar training, for a faster start.  Prices start at $2499.00. for the fast start program, which can get you selling in two weeks. You can add new skill sets on a menu basis starting at $750.00 each.

Contact Bayes Squared llc at  bayessquared@gmail.com

www.facebook.com/5StepSalesJumpStart

 

 

 

 

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Denver SEO, Do It Yourself SEO, Internet Marketing, SEO, SEO Analysis Denver

The Difference Between First and Third in Rankings

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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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Denver SEO, Do It Yourself SEO, SEO

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, SEO

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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Contractor Marketing

Leads for Contractors and Value of Leads

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One of the reasons that sites like Service Magic, and in Denver, Team Dave Logan have managed to survive, and perhaps prosper, is they provide a significant value in credibility for a contractor who has not established that on their own.

Service Magic brings a huge amount of advertising budget, history, and customer base to the marketing field, and Logan brings name recognition and local trust. A single local contractor has a very long road to doing the same for their company with out help.

There are alternatives to using on line co-op lead generation services, and the more experienced and success home improvement companies will work hard at establishing their own  brand and local presence through investing in a strong web site, and then using Internet Marketing to get the visibility they need. Both cost more than buying six $50.00  (give or take) on line leads per month, generated through co-op providers,  but in the long run can provide a much greater return on investment for their advertising dollars.

For clients I work with , in most cases, I will  recommend they use both co-op  and individually branded leads.  Frankly, if I am a home improvement company with a unique product and excellent service, I want any lead there is (until proved low value for the investment)

On the scale of quality the Best leads are always referrals.  And we can use closing percentage as a basis.

Best Lead sources for a contractor:

1. Referrals  ( Close 50% or higher). Referrals are limited to the size of your customer base, and your ongoing communication with them. Rarely will this one source bring in enough new business to sustain a contractor.

2.) Individual Leads generated through a good web site. ( Close 35% or more). This lead source saw YOUR work, and liked what YOU had to say. They is going to be a better connection.

3.) Co-op marketing on Line with a credible local provider. (Close 20% or higher). Lets face it, they don’t know you, and you will be competing against  some young overly aggressiveness pricing models at times.  Many of these leads are price shoppers, and the worst part of this lead is the soft cost involved in providing proposals and presenting your service and only winning 1 in 4 or 1 in 5. It’s a cost few contractors understand.

4.)  Other.  Print,  TV, Radio.  In most cases (and there are exceptions) these media types are poor return on investment.

There are plenty of other factors that effect all of this. If you are the low price leader you can live on co-op leads because your closing percentage will be higher.  If you specialize in providing high end services, you will not do well with co-op leads! And in either case, and all in between, if you are not a good sales person, it won’t matter.

Contractors with less than 2 years in business are still in the process of what we call, buying customers. It’s a natural and important process for most start ups. You have to earn your reputation. You have to earn your market share, and the most important thing a new company can do is get as many happy customers as possible.

That’s one of the reasons a company with 5 or more years experience is a good choice for many home remodeling projects. Nothing replaces experience, and they a much lower risk in having issues with your project.

As you can see, there is far more to lead generation than just buying a lead, or building a web site. Successful contractors spend a lot of energy on branding and advertising, and must become excellent sales and marketing companies to prosper in 2011 and beyond.

Feel free to contact My One Call LLC. We have been building and partnering with contractors for 8 years, and understand what works, and what doesn’t work. 303 500 3053 ext 1 (Sales) Web Site

 

 

 

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Denver SEO, On Line Reviews, SEO, SEO Analysis Denver

Google Places Reviews and Rankings

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There is far more to Local SEO in for Google places than just the ranking of your web site. The reality is, even if your site is in the first or second position for three of four keywords, you will still end up in the 3rd or 4th position for other relevant keywords.

 

Take our Friends At Vivax Pro Painting. Their site is ranked in the first or second position for just about every search you can imagine related to house painting ______ < add a city around Denver. But for a few searches they fall to 4th or so.

They still will get a high percentage of the clicks for one reason They have 6 reviews  and therefore have the “Stars”  on the SER places listing. This will draw people to click. If they had 2 reviews, or none, they wouldn’t stand out, and would lose about 75% of the possible clicks to their site because they are in the 4th position. The first three listings will get about 85% of clicks in a all things being equal situation. But by providing the searches with something that clearly makes your listing stand out, you can pick up a larger share of clicks, and therefore customers.

LOCAL SEO’s who focus only on rankings are not doing the best job they can… and their clients may be losing out on revenue.

That’s way we provide a turn key system to clients to get their customers to go to and review their services on Google and other important sites. It’s not SEO, it’s PR  and conversion tactics.

 

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Uncategorized

E Discovery Services and SEO

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E Discovery services are not a mass market product. E Discovery is in fact a highly specialized field that it utilized by law firms and Attorneys in the discovery process of a law suite. Our Client I-legal is one of the country’s better providers of these services, and was founded by a Denver Attorney.

It’s defined as :

discovery in civil litigation which deals with the exchange of information in electronic format (often referred to as Electronically Stored Information or ESI).[1]

Law suites with a great deal of discovery involved can be very expensive, and take an enormous amount of time to short through the mountains of paper work that is often involved.

The e discovery process takes all that paper and coverts it into a digital format, which then can be searched using I-legal software.  An Attorney can search by names, dates titles, and just about any search they need.  E discovery also can make the difficult task of sorting through huge email files much easier.

Search visibility has been a success for I Legal.  Even though the volume of searches is small, the value is very high.  In our experience this type SEO program often has great results.

Today if you are a law firm looking for a local provider of                   e discovery services in Denver, there is a good chance you will use the Internet to find Denver providers, and will find I-legal as one of the top ranked sites on Google and Bing.

Just another example of how search engine optimization can help even the most unique services and businesses. See more about our SEO here

 

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