The new field of social media search optimization is as of yet, still very undefined. I think it’s the continued merging of your web site and your social media properties.
In the beginning you used your web site to drive people to your face book. Now most social media uses their Social media (Twitter, Linked in, and Face book) to move people to one of their web properties depending on the message they are trying to deliver.
I think SEO (search Engine Optimization) ties into the overall strategy. Having your web site highly ranked and more visible (more targeted traffic) will bring more people or prospects to your Face book. I think you should see a somewhat equal flow between the two. In addition to that, if you add your blog into the social media mix, its success will have a lot to do with your web sites ranking as well.
So, I see the world of Social media promotion and SEO becoming very much partners in Marketing a business.
Any one using SEO to boast their Social Media? Remember Google has started adding some Social media mentions in your search results.
Here are a couple of things you can do for your rankings today if your interested in doing some of your own search engine optimization in Denver.
One of the better “links” you can have to your site is from the Better Business Bureau. If you are a member, call them
today and make sure your listing has you web address, not the BBB site address for your company. I have seen pretty big ranking gains just based on this. Will it put you on the first page? Doubt it, but its a good start.
Now, check with all the other associations, lead groups, business associations you belong to, and do the same thing.
More to follow about search engine optimization in Denver. Until then feel free to check out our site for sales and seo information.
We get asked what should be included in an SEO analysis. The first thing is to understand that their are three large buckets to getting good rankings in Google and other search engines.
The first is your “on Site” SEO. A good SEO company will do a fairly detailed report on how search engines view your site, and make suggestions on changes to improve it. Those will include your navigation strategy, Your page load times, your graphics, your copy, your page names, your page name structures, and other meta tag details.
The second bucket a good Denver SEO company will look at your current back links. How many, how trust worthy, how relevant, and their over all strength.
And the third bucket will be how competitive your keywords are. In other words, how strong are the sites that all ready rank highly for the keywords you want to rank highly for.No way of understanding how much work they will need to do unless they (and you) know what they are competing for.
On a local basis I would also add a fourth bucket. That being your listing in Google places , Yahoo and Bing local.
So if you get a Denver SEO Analysis done, make sure they give you all the information above. And as always ask for 3 recent references. The world of search engine optimization changes quickly, so a reference from more than 6 months ago isn’t very important.
Most SEO companies offer a free analysis, just make sure it is not only free, but also is good.
I just got off the phone with one of our Denver SEO clients. It’s a business coach who we have been working on their Denver SEO for about a month.
She shared with me that she had just signed up a new client based solely on her ranking under Denver Business Coach on Google. That was the keyword phrase we started with to get her company more visible.
That one client will pay for the optimization program 10 times over. And that’s just the start.
We did Denver SEO for a linen rental company late last year (2010) and the owner told me he gets about two new clients a month from the Google listing.
Each client bills over $12,000 a year. So, at that rate he would have an additional 24 clients a year billing $288,000.00 in annual gross billing just based on his SEO program. I may have to go to a percentage of sales on these Denver SEO programs! 😉
That’s why I really love SEO. When done correctly, it’s the best R.O.I. a company can have in advertising.
Denver SEO is changing again with the news this week that Google is now including some of your friends social media links in with your search results. I tried it myself yesterday using several keyword searches I knew I had tweeted about, and there they were, first page under my Google search results.
So Denver SEO andNational SEOpractices need to change again, and start to consider how a company is “optimized” or visible on Twitter, and other social media properties. For the moment Google can not include face book mentions, as face book has a deal with Bing.
With the Google results, it will only show social mention and links from your friends on Google. So for this to have any effect on your results, you will need to have added a lot of friends to your google accounts. But the main point for all of us is how focused the search engine world is on finding the right balance to bring social media into the search engine results. It also means that search engine optimization continues to become more and more complex.
So what should a local business be doing about this? For Denver SEO you need to make sure you have a twitter account in your company name and use it. Tweet about the services and products you want to promote, and include the URL of your site once and a while. Make sure write blogs (and make sure the blog is on your URL) and tweet about your blogs as well.
A Google spokesperson said this is just the beginning of social integrated results. SEO’s in Denver should pause for a moment and understand what this means.
We spoke about our conversion meter system in the last blog, and I promised to write some more information about it. It’s simple, and if you apply these tactics to your product, your sales conversion rate will increase fast.
People and companies buy based on a lack of fear of doing so. Some people call it trust, but you can trust a service or product and still have substantial fear about buying it.
Let me give you an example. Assume I have an old car I don’t use much but keep it around as a backup car for the family, kids, and guests. One day it starts leaking all sorts of fluids. I may trust the company that I am asking to fix my old car that they can fix it, but my fear may be, will paying for the repair be worth the money, or should I just buy a new car. I am not going to hand over the keys unless my concern is addressed. The car isn’t worth all that much any way.
So it’s not about trust, it’s about getting rid of the fear.
A really smart auto repair company would not only convince me I could trust them (using testimonials, and certifications and all that) but they also would be prepared to “step into my shoes” and let me know that even after I spend the $1500.00 to fix the car, that I could still sell it (fixed) for $4500. If I don’t fix the car it’s only worth $1000. So it’s a net gain of $2000.00.
Now I am ready to get it fixed.
So step one in increasing your sales conversion is identifying what prospects fear when they buy from you. This can be tougher than it sounds. And if you are smart you will ask people who bought from you in the past to tell you what they feared, instead of just winging it.
When it comes to SEO (search engine optimization) services the fear is pretty easy to figure out. Clients fear that 1. It won’t work. 2. It will work but they won’t get many new sales to cover the expense. And 3. that they don’t have enough money in the budget to do the program.
So lots of SEO companies guarantee that the site will be on the first page of Google… what ever that means. (You always have to ask, “or what” with a guarantee. Is it all your money back? Is it they will do more work until it is? And if so what time period are they talking about? And then again, or what?”)
But that only helps with the smaller fear. If you want to eliminate, or greatly reduce all the fears you may need to do a performance based pay model, they pay you based on what actual sales come through the program), and a payment plan that fits the clients budget.
The interesting thing about doing all of that to address and get rid of fears is, you will usually make more revenue and profit when you go the extra mile. We charge more on performance based programs, and we charge more on payments plans. So over time, you end up with a higher margin.
Addressing a clients fears will bring up your closing percentage as much as 50%. It’s worth the thought process and time to figure it out. Feel free to email us if you need some help with coming up with these fears, or just want to run then by us.
The next big thing in your improving your closing percentage is talking and presenting the stuff your clients WANT! Selling what they need will kill your sales fast. I will write aboyt that in the next few blogs.
We get asked about using pay per click by our search engine optimization clients pretty often. In most cases they are asking specifically about Google pay per click services.
Image via Wikipedia
We have been running ad words campaigns for 7 years for clients and our own services and have found them to be effective in generating new clients.
Like all advertising and marketing, you need a well thought out program. With Google’s ad words program you have choices on where to advertise (Geo location specific) who to advertise to (demographic choices) when to advertise (Day’s, times), Daily budget and what key words to focus on.
We suggest (as does Google) that you start with a very narrow group of keywords, and once you get enough history make changes and add more.
It’s very important that the ad you write match closely to the keywords you choose, and the landing page it is sent to needs to match as well. All of these factor into what you end up paying per click. It’s called a quality score, and you can read more about Google quality score here.
One of the best parts to PPC is you can “cover all your bases” on possible searched for your service or product. A good SEO campaign can get you well ranked for some keywords, but rarely will it give your site visibility on many of the secondary terms. That’s where PPC services come in. Or while you are in the process of search engine optimization.
One of the challenges we face in business is a clear description of what a business does.
We are a sales acceleration firm. As such, we do a lot of SEO in Denver, as it’s difficult to find a business who can not benefit from a strong SEO program.
That is why you will find so much information on SEO on this blog. Scroll down to find that most of these blogs are about search engine optimization and Internet Marketing.
But, we also offer sales coaching for business owners and senior managers. Sales coaching is not sales training. It is a process to accelerate your businesses sales through a proven system.
I coached two of Denver’s fastest growing companies (as named by the Denver Journal in 2010). And we still do the SEO work for both. But I can tell you that the SEO without the sales coaching would have been far less effective in what every business really wants. It’s not about higher rankings, it’s about more revenue.
If you want to see more on our sales coaching you can view it here.
We see so many web design, and to some extent, social media companies offering SEO (search engine optimization) services in Denver.
In most cases, they are just not going to be very good at it. I am sure there are exceptions, but SEO is a skill set that takes not only experience, but on going study and research.
Several of our clients moved to us after long periods of waiting for their web firm’s SEO to kick in. After reviewing the work they were doing, they would have had to wait forever. Some Web design firms seem to think that by completing the basic search engine friendly work on a site it will some how magically appear on the first page of Google. Most experts agree that around 25% of your SEO success is based on your on site SEO., leaving the vast majority of your rankings to the off site SEO. That’s the stuff most web design firms don’t know how to do.
If you are looking for a good SEO firm, ask them these questions.
Who developed the Google ranking algorithm (Page rank) And who is the patent assigned to?
Answer, Larry Page, co founder of Google. And Stanford university
Ask, how important is a pages PR rank in SEO these days?
Answer: Not very!
Ask them the value of Google web master tools for SEO?
Google web master is a free, and highly important tool for tracking how Google views your web site.
Ask them how they will research Key words to use, and how they will use the keywords to attract more visitors.
If they plan to just dump the keywords into your text, thats bad.
Ask them the difference between Dynamic URL’s and Static URL’s on a site, and which is better for SEO.
Answer: The important part is they can describe the difference, and communicate the use of each.
Ask them what they do to stay on top of Google and other Search Engine changes that could make a difference for your rankings.
You would like to hear how they track all of the changes they make with SEO clients, as well as all the off site SEO practices to establish the value of each, and that they subscribe to several national SEO sites and associations, as well as track changes through the Google blogs.
And ask them if Face book, Word Press, and Blogger.com are follow or no follow links.
Answer, Face book: no follow, Word Press is No Follow, Blogger.com Follow
If they can get through those questions, it’s time to do one more test. Ask them for three sites they have done the Denver SEO on that are currently ranked on the First page, and the keywords. And make sure these are recent!
Local SEO should be more than getting your site ranked well on search engines. You need to also think what your web site ranking will look like!
Given the choice of being first for a category with no reviews, or third with 10 great reviews I would go with the third spot, and the reviews.
Which one would you look at?
Reviews bring positive attention, and will more than likely bring more clicks to your web site.
There are several other factors that will affect how Google displays your web site. You need to manage all of those to get the right people to your site.
