Know, Understand, And Appreciate Your Readers And You Will Do Well
August 30, 2008
Often it becomes all too easy to lose focus in regards to the purpose of why we blog. Our reasons for blogging are as individual as we are. Our goals are as varied as the day is long. We who have chosen to write about internet marketing and search engine optimization have our own specific agendas as well.
I have embraced blogging with enormous enthusiasm. I use the blog as a teaching and outreach tool. I learned my craft plying SEO blog after blog for four straight months. I continued to this day to visit other blogs. I was able to freely glean from the wisdom of others. So when I write it is often with a sense of purpose and always with gratitude, that kind of gratitude that is difficult to express.
I think of it this way, “too him that much has been given, much is expected.” I learned from those who wrote for the shear enjoyment of sharing wisdom. I was exposed to various ways to monetize an industry specific blog. I read about what didn’t work but mostly I read about what did work.
It was a fascinating journey into an industry that I did not comprehend in the beginning. I love the mystery, the mystic, and the challenges of search engine optimization and its associated tools such as link building.
But the biggest joy for me is that I have a list of perhaps 125 blogs and forums that I visit on a rotating basis. These are my readers; these are the sources of many inspirations for posts I’ve created. I purposely visit the sites and blogs of my readers. They bring a freshness of thought into my life that is greatly appreciated.
I truly and strongly encourage you to visit those who have visited your blog and have taken the time to comment. Go visit their worlds and by all means do be social. One of the greatest joys that graces the days of my life are something called a trackback. The trackback being a notification from one blog to another that says “we’re talking about you.”
We have been blogging only since mid April. Since then we have received around 30 or so trackbacks and the feedback was all positive. I still find that I check the blog comments in the morning with a sense of expectancy and excitement on a daily basis. To me a trackback is a great honor.
Really, it still trips me out that we have done something and that someone else took the time to mention it on their blog and then linked to our website. Now, I will freely admit this is not an authority blog and most of the comments here are about our Do Follow List, but its free positive publicity from mostly industry related blogs.
We had studied the industry carefully before we embarked on creating this list, which is actually a small group of lists. We sensed that this Do Follow topic would begin to gather momentum again. We also saw that at the time we launched the lists there were no real quality lists available that were current and easy to use. So we set out to create a tool that would give back to the SEO community that had given us so much.
So know this, the message that I wish to communicate is this, get to know your readers, learn were they are coming from and what they are about. Do take the time to understand what they want and need, and then provide it as best you can. If you don’t take the time to know your audience then you may find that you are only writing for yourself and that is not a bad thing, but there is so much more available.
We invite you to join the conversation and leave a comment. We also invite you to continue the conversation on your blog or perhaps use a trackback, or maybe even social bookmark this article, give it a Digg it, or Stumble it.
To learn more about our services please check out these links:
Local SEO Solutions Small Business SEO Solutions Geo-targeted SEO Tucson Website Design
Niche SEO Phoenix SEO Tucson Search Engine Optimization Do Follow List
If your business is located in the US, Canada or through out Arizona and beyond and you would like to learn more about how your website can benefit from a blog or SEO please call Tucson SEO at 520-777-6479.
Tucson SEO… Solutions that create probabilities out of possibilities.
How Would You Like To Acquire A Free Do Follow Link From Google?
August 28, 2008
No, I have not been drinking any electric Kool-aid nor have I been smoking any wacky tobacco. I am actually reticent to let out this little secret for the Google Gods may realize their error and make adjustments to their site and correct this oversight. But if I don’t mention it someone else will. So here we go.
First off Google Knol stands for a measure of knowledge. It was developed to allow highly educated individuals to write about there areas of expertise. You simply register and begin to post. In many ways it is like the website Scribd.com. It seems to be a little bit of wiki and Blogger rolled into one.
Late last month Google quietly opened its Knol service to the general public. There hasn’t been a lot written about the subject lately. However, I was visiting another obscure blog when I saw a post about Knol. So I took the time to visit and to sign up and to start posting. That’s when I noticed something unusual.
The article that I had read noted that Google seemed to be giving a lot of authority to articles posted on Knol. It went on to state that Knol could be used effectively to acquire a first page listing in the Google SERP’s for niche keyword searches. Since Niche SEO markets are our bread and butter we figured that we should take a look around.
We surf the web most of the time with SEOQuake enabled so that it will indicate if a link is no follow or do follow. We noticed that links to the posters profile were no follow, but the permalink was a do follow link. This seemed odd to me so I dug a little deeper into Knol and started reading some of the posts.
Much to my amazement and shock I discovered that links imbedded in these Knol’s were actually “Do Follow” links. Google has forced no follow links on blogs and most major sites that are social media in nature. It has made life very difficult for many websites to gain links that pass link juice that affects their algorithm and thus the search results. So the fact that they are not applying these principals to their own website seems a bit hypocritical to me. I am certain that many others will agree with me.
Now here is where this discovery begins to go south. I have 2 choices to make here. I could simply re-write my hundred or so posts and place them in Knol and snag a bunch of do follow links from Google and wait until someone else brings this to everyone’s attention. Then watch this benefit dissolve or I can bring it to your attention and see how long it takes for Google to re-act. Well, if you are reading this then I decided to share what I discovered.
We invite you to join the conversation and leave a comment. We also invite you to continue the conversation on your blog or perhaps use a trackback, or maybe even social bookmark this article, give it a Digg it, or Stumble it.
We invite you to visit our other pages and learn about our services.
Local SEO Solutions Small Business SEO Solutions Geo-targeted SEO Tucson Website Design
Niche SEO Phoenix SEO Tucson Search Engine Optimization Do Follow List
If your business is located in the US, Canada or through out Arizona and beyond and you would like to learn more about how your website can benefit from a blog or SEO please call Tucson SEO at 520-777-6479.
Tucson SEO… Solutions that create probabilities out of possibilities.
Titling Blog Posts: Fact Or Fiction
August 27, 2008
Those of us who blog daily understand all too well, the importance of the posts title. We all exist in a very noisy blogosphere. For many of us our lives often seem to be running at an equally frantic pace. We scurry about our jobs, family, and life in general. It is a busy world.
We are daily bombarded by tens of thousands a messages, images, and noise on an hourly basis. Thus standing out in a crowded may take a linkbait mentality. Linkbait by its very nature is about drawing attention to your website or blog. So that is what we are doing or you would not be reading this.
There is also another level of linking that can transform the dynamics of the conversation. This is where linkbait becomes a social exchange of ideas. So we ask, does your blog include a call to action? A call to action simply asks your visitor do to what you want them to do. It is that simple. If you want them to comment why not ask them? Do you want them to sign up for an RSS feed then ask. I mean come on; a blog is a conversation, and when you have completed writing then ask for a response.
This is where the magic begins. When you get individuals to respond to post now take the time to add a follow-up comment and then send them a short personal thank you. We are not talking about an auto responder here. After all a blog is social media in action, right?
You will be amazed by the positive response that you will receive. You also score bonus links if you answer the question that they asked in their blog comment in your reply. Another option is to respond to each compelling worthy comment in detail on the blog as well. If you want to have a conversation you have to be willing to be an active participant.
We have all seen blogs where the writer will post their thoughts, responses come in and the writer is never heard from again. Your readers will appreciate your attention to detail this builds up trust, a rare commodity on the Internet and it shows that you care.
I have on more than occasion developed dozens of links from people who linked to us and social bookmarked our pages simply because we took the time to personally respond.
Yea, I know this requires time.
So my reader was this fact or fiction?
Are you ready to put more fact then fiction into your Internet marketing efforts?
We invite you to join the conversation and leave a comment. We also invite you to continue the conversation on your blog or perhaps use a trackback, or maybe even social bookmark this article, give it a Digg it, or Stumble it.
To learn more about our services please check out these links:
Local SEO Tucson Website Designs Phoenix SEO Tucson Search Engine Optimization
Small Business SEO Solutions Geo-Targeted SEO Solutions Niche SEO Solutions Do Follow Blog List
If your business is located in US, Canada, or in the Arizona cities of Scottsdale, Tempe, Mesa, and beyond and would like to learn how your website can benefit from a blog please call Tucson SEO at 520-777-6479.
Tucson SEO… Solutions that create probabilities out of possibilities.
Beginners SEO - Quality Page Titles Rule
August 27, 2008
If you have been around the SEO ballpark a time or two this information is going to be redundant. However, this blog is geared towards the local entrepreneur that requires small business SEO solutions. Before we begin this post, we are assuming that you already have chosen your websites targeted keyword phrases.
After selecting your keyword phrases you will need to know what to do with them. This is where the page title becomes hugely important. First off you need to know that every website should have a page title, most do but some don’t. The page title is similar to a book title and it defines what your web page is all about for the search engines.
Get this wrong and everything else that you do is basically a waste of time and effort. You can locate any websites page title by looking in the uppermost left hand corner of your browser. If your websites url is listed in this area this is a really bad thing. It means that your web page has no title and will never be found in the search results unless you are specifically searching for your domain name.
The second greatest error related to page titles is this. Many websites are created using default settings provided by many website building programs. These default settings often label your pages as Home, About Us, or Contact. These are perfectly good navigation tags to describe your pages to your visitors. However, they are of little use to the search engines. Do a Google search for home and it will produce 7 billion results. Your site has little chance to be found this way. It also does not describe what your web page is about.
The page titles are part of the source code that the search engine reads that do not appear as content on your pages. Essentially each webpage has two titles. One is primarily used for navigating around your website by your visitors. The page title that appears in the source code is used to define your web page for the search engines. Technically, both page titles appear in the source code. It is the web page “title” that we are discussing today.
The page title is the SEO equivalent to location, location, and location used in real estate to describe the most important item in the real estate sale. The same is true for the page title if you want to be positioned high in the search engine rankings. There are a few things that you need to know about creating effective page titles.
You must begin to think of website page titles as book titles. You should also realize that you have two distinctly different audiences that will be reading your titles. They are the search engines and potential customers. You need to also know that Google limits that amount of characters that it presents in its search results to 65 spaces. Your title can go longer but that portion will not appear in the results.
When search engines deliver their search results they include three pieces of information. The first piece of information is the page title and roughly about 45% of searchers use this to decide if they will visit your website. The second or middle piece of information is called the snippet and another 45% of searchers use this information when choosing if they will visit a site. The final 10% will of searchers will use the web pages url as their determining factor. So your page title is your first and best opportunity to make a good impression.
You need to keep in mind that your page title does not need to read like a sentence. It is wise to avoid away words such as how, the, if, and so on. You also should avoid using commas and symbols such as @,$, or /. If you look up at the upper left hand corner of your browser you will see that we have titled this page Beginners SEO Search Engine Optimization Tempe Mesa Chandler.
What we have done here is to tell the search engines this is what this page is about. Now, this is where this all gets very interesting indeed. Any combination of these words may be used by a potential search engine user. If these targeted keyword phrases also appear on the web page, as well, your chances of appearing in the search results increase dramatically.
The above example includes 12 combinations that we might have a reasonable chance of appearing in the search results for. This is based on the number of websites that have these words on their pages. We have no reasonable expectation to place high in the search results for the terms search engine optimization or SEO. SEO alone produces 249 million results in Google and search engine optimization produces 27.6 million results.
The keywords beginners SEO, however produces a mere 1.26 million results. Now, if we wanted to go after this combination of words we would have a reasonably good chance of obtaining first page placement in the Google search results. You will ultimately want to target keyword phrases that do not have a lot of competition, but are words that someone might actually use to find your business.
Are you ready to create effective page titles?
We invite you to join the conversation and leave a comment. We also invite you to continue the conversation on your blog or perhaps use a trackback, or maybe even social bookmark this article, give it a Digg it, or Stumble it.
To learn more about our services please check out these links:
Local SEO Tucson Website Designs Phoenix SEO Tucson Search Engine Optimization
Small Business SEO Solutions Geo-Targeted SEO Solutions Niche SEO Solutions Do Follow Blog List
If your business is located in US, Canada, and through out Arizona and beyond and you would like to learn more about how your website can benefit from a blog please call Tucson SEO at 520-777-6479.
Tucson SEO… Solutions that create probabilities out of possibilities.
Small Business SEO Solutions
August 21, 2008
Tucson SEO Solutions offer affordable small business search engine optimization services and solutions nation wide and for Canada. We are marketing entrepreneurs at heart and understand the unique challenges that face all small business owners.
While you may know a thing or two about marketing you likely have not had the time or you may simply lack the inclination to learn Internet marketing and specifically website optimization. However, you clearly understand that your website it a major part of your marketing plan and it isn’t working or you would not be reading this.
What you need to understand is that the process of website optimization is never going to be a one and done situation. A well optimized website will gain you higher search engine ranking that correlates to increased website traffic. That’s the easy part from our perspective. It is maintaining those gains achieved through optimization is the more difficult part of the equation. It simply requires time to implement and maintain. The search engines change their algorithms over time as does your competition. You have to stay on top of all of this to succeed.
Maintaining a high search engine ranking requires frequent website updates and a sustained link building process. I would recommend you walk away from any company that tells you otherwise. Quite frankly, if you are not willing to do what it takes to be successful, if you are only looking to put in a minimal amount of effort, then you have come to the wrong website. We don’t sugar coat anything. We would rather you go to another vendor, if you are not truly motivated to succeed. We take a team approach to creating a winning website.
However, if you are highly motivated you will benefit greatly from our solutions. Your will also benefit from our whole website approach for the small business website. Not only will we provide your website with improved targeted website traffic, we will show you what needs to be done to turn a broken website into a champion. One sure way to tell if your website is broken is this. Does your website ask for the sale on every page? If the answer is no, then you have a problem that SEO alone can not solve.
Our local small business services and solutions work best if you have a geographic specific customer base or if you have a niche product or service. The process begins with a detailed website review where we clearly define what needs to be addressed to make your website user friendly. We are website marketing experts and we can assist you on how to create a selling environment on your website.
All services begin with a Comprehensive Website Review.
We invite you to join the conversation and leave a comment. We also invite you to continue the conversation on your blog or perhaps use a trackback, or maybe even social bookmark this article, give it a Digg it, or Stumble it
To learn more about our services please check out these links:
Local SEO Tucson Website Designs Phoenix SEO Tucson Search Engine Optimization
Small Business SEO Solutions Geo-Targeted SEO Solutions Niche SEO Solutions Do Follow Blog List
If your business is located in US, Canada, and through out Arizona and beyond and you would like to learn more about how your website can benefit from a blog please call Tucson SEO at 520-777-6479.
Tucson SEO… Solutions that create probabilities out of possibilities.
What Do You Want Your Website Visitor To Do?
August 21, 2008
When you talk with most website designers the first question that they ask is “What kind of look and feel do you want.” That is the last question that we ask our perspective design clients. The first question that we ask is this “what do you want your visitor to do on your website?”
This should not be overlooked. It comes down to this; is your website designer interested in your websites success or theirs. Website designers by whatever form of training that they have are not marketers. We have interns who are formally trained with MIS degrees and lack any marketing skills. Most web designers do not take an active role in the creation of the sites content.
We first define what the websites goal conversion is then we work back from there. Most websites have one basic goal that they want the visitor to accomplish for that visit to be considered a success.
Service based businesses primarily are attempting to generate a sales lead through a phone call or an email. They may have a secondary goal to sign up for a newsletter. The consultant or business coach may be after the newsletter sign up as their primary goal with a phone inquiry as a secondary goal. The blog owner may simply want you to make a comment.
As you can tell we left out the websites that are selling products online out of this discussion. The process is similar but since we don’t work with E-commerce sites we will not make any suggestion for this group, however, we believe that this group can benefit from this approach as well.
Once the ultimate goal has been established you can begin to construct your content to bring that visitor to a buying decision, even if that buying decision is only a phone call. How then do you accomplish this?
This is where you rely on a tried and true sales technique right out of sales 101. This process is known as a features and benefits presentation. You simply tell the visitor what you do and how it benefits them and then you ask for the sale. It’s really that simple. Now, let me ask you how many websites have you visited that have taken this approach?
You may be asking yourself why this isn’t done more often. The answer is basically this website designers are not generally marketers. They are skilled at code and not selling. We are first and foremost marketers who build websites and that give our clients a huge advantage.
We figure if the features and benefits approach is good enough for the automobile industry than its good enough for us. Think about it, when you go to the car dealer, what happens? They tell you about all of the cars new features. Then they explain how those features will benefit you, and finally they ask for the sale.
If your website has not been built with a features and benefits approach and doesn’t ask for the sale on each page then maybe it’s time for a change.
We invite you to join the conversation and leave a comment. We also invite you to continue the conversation on your blog or perhaps use a trackback, or even maybe social bookmark this article, give it a Digg it, or Stumble it.
To learn more about our services please check out these links:
Local SEO Tucson Website Designs Phoenix SEO Tucson Search Engine Optimization
Small Business SEO Solutions Geo-Targeted SEO Solutions Niche SEO Solutions Do Follow Blog List
If your business is located in US, Canada, or in the Arizona cities of Scottsdale, Tempe, Mesa, and beyond and would like to learn how your website can benefit from a blog please call Tucson SEO at 520-777-6479.
Tucson SEO… Solutions that create probabilities out of possibilities.
Pre-Launch Website Link Building: You Need This
August 19, 2008
Just about anyone and everyone who has anything to do with Internet marketing knows that Google’s algorithm is based on links. These links are commonly known as backlinks. The more quality relevant links that your website has the better that it will do in the search engine rankings.
So why, wait until your website is built to start building links? Link building for many website owners is an after thought. Heck, let’s be real honest the first time most website owners learn about links is about three months after their website was been launched.
They finally realize that the have little or no website traffic and start asking questions. Their website designer likely didn’t understand search engine optimization so the website was not optimized. So the designer rightly suggests that you need to start on a link building program. Better late than never.
The problem here is that this link building effort has begun about 6 months too late. The website design process can easily stretch into 3 months and if you don’t understand the need to build links you can be missing an opportunity for a quick start.
You need to build inbound or backlinks simply because Google’s algorithm is based on the website inter linking relationship. So the earlier you start the better. Our first website was obtained through barter. So the designer took his good old time building the website.
The whole process finally was completed after four months. Once we had purchased our domain we started building links slowly everyday. When the website launched we had already build up 1400 links to our website. The website rocketed to the first page almost overnight.
I must note that we were not targeting a very competitive field. We targeted house cleaning services and cleaning services in Tucson, but it was our market and we were on the first page. If you are new to the link building process, this pre-launch period will provide you with time to learn the ropes. Believe me there is a lot to learn. Even if your designer does optimize your website you still need to build links. That is if you want search engine traffic from Google.
We invite you to join the conversation and leave a comment. We also invite you to continue the conversation on your blog or perhaps use a trackback, or maybe even social bookmark this article, give it a Digg it, or Stumble it
To learn more about our services please check out these links:
Local SEO Solutions Small Business SEO Solutions Geo-targeted SEO Tucson Website Design
Niche SEO Phoenix SEO Tucson Search Engine Optimization Do Follow List
If your business is located in the US, Canada or through out Arizona and beyond and you would like to learn more about how your website can benefit from a blog or SEO please call Tucson SEO at 520-777-6479.
Tucson SEO… Solutions that create probabilities out of possibilities.
Guest Bloggers Welcome
August 16, 2008
As I surf around the Internet I read lots of great blogs. Many of them are not directly related to SEO or Internet marketing, but many of them do touch on INTERNET marketing. Specifically, I see a lot of blogs writing about using a Do Follow plugin or how they have monetized their blogs. If this sounds like you then we will extend you an opportunity to speak out on our blog.
There is the potential to generate some blog traffic for your site and to acquire some exposure. We would also like to hear from those of you that have SEO or Internet marketing blogs and who would like to reach a different audience.
During the process of developing and maintaining our Do Follow Blog List we encountered lots really good writers that where toiling in vain. The material was often very well written but not marketed well and lacked comments. So if that sounds like you we would like to extend you the opportunity to be heard. Or what about you, do you have great ideas but you don’t want to bother to build a blog, well now you have an opportunity.
We would like guest posts to be at least 300 words in length. You are encouraged to provide a short bio if you wish and a link to your website if you have one. We are very much into hearing what you have to say. Here are some potential topics.
How did you get into Internet Marketing?
Absolutely anything about Internet marketing or SEO
Website reviews
Product reviews
Your blogging experiences
Websites that you hate to use and why?
Anything about WordPress or WP plugins
Local SEO
B2B websites
Web designs
Current trends
And good old rants will work just fine.
All you need to do is leave a comment here and we will email you and go from there.
We invite to you to join the conversation and leave a comment. We also invite you to continue the conversation on your blog or perhaps use a trackback, or even maybe social bookmark this article, give it a Digg it, or Stumble it.
To learn more about our services please check out these links:
Local SEO Tucson Website Designs Phoenix SEO Tucson Search Engine Optimization
Small Business SEO Solutions Geo-Targeted SEO Solutions Niche SEO Solutions Do Follow Blog List
If your business is located in US, Canada, or in the Arizona cities of Scottsdale, Tempe, Mesa, and beyond and would like to learn how your website can benefit from a blog please call Tucson SEO at 520-777-6479.
Tucson SEO… Solutions that create probabilities out of possibilities.
Flirting With The Big Leagues Of SEO
August 16, 2008
Our Business has had tremendous success obtaining first page placement in the Goggle search results for SEO related search queries. This has all been accomplished in just over 14 months. We first began to study search engine optimization back in October of 2006. Our website developer, who offers SEO, told us if we ever got onto the first page it would take six months. This is the standard line of many SEO providers.
The website that we are talking about was a local house cleaning service, Your Fresh Start. That website went to the first page within 3 days and has been there ever since. We have since closed that business and have been providing SEO services since we launched our site in May of 2007. We currently are ranked # 1 nationally on Google for 5 searches that include the word SEO in the query string.
It truly blows me away every time I think about our success. We tell you this not to brag, but to verify that we do know our business well. However, one keyword search has eluded me thus far and it is “Local SEO.’ Since local SEO is the cornerstone that this business is built upon we would like to be on the first page for this search.
We re-launched this website in mid April of this year using WordPress and we settled in a regular spot on the third page around # 35 and it stayed that way for two months. Then we re-evaluated the pages and tweaked our website. This adjustment had a positive impact. Then in June we started using forums that allows us to create Do Follow anchor text links that read Local SEO.
The website moved up the ranking for this keyword phrase and settled in at the # 17 position. Then in July we began to place links in every blog post that targeted our sales and services pages. Those anchor text links pointed to our other pages that we wanted to specifically target to increase there presence in the Google SERP’s nationally and locally.
Recently, we have actually flirted with the first page of Google landing temporarily at the #4 position. We eventually settled in at the #11. For our website to stay on the first page will indeed be a difficult task. It is because local SEO is written about often on authority blogs and Forums. These established websites have a huge advantage over a much newer website.
However, they are most likely not talking about proving SEO for local websites, as we do. When those in our industry talk about local SEO they are talking about free listings in the Google and Yahoo local business maps. This is a hot topic that when written about on authority blogs tends to bump our site down the list. So yes, we are flirting with the first page of results we are not there yet, but then we like a good challenge.
We highlighted the changes that we made in and effort to point out that SEO is never a one and done process. When we re-launched our website and did not get the results that we wanted we took another look to see what else could be done better. Some of what we tried was just fine tuning. Still other efforts were experiments based on knowledge that we gleaned from other SEO professionals.
This is why we recommend that you blog on other websites related to your industry. We consider it part of our continuing education. The placement of links in our blog posts was an adaptation of something that I read one day on Courtney Tuttle’s blog. I tweaked his suggestion to apply to our website and it has paid off. We have seen this effect across several keyword phrases in the SERP’s.
We invite you to join the conversation and leave a comment. We also invite you to continue the conversation on your blog or perhaps use a trackback, or maybe even social bookmark this article, give it a Digg it, or Stumble it.
To learn more about our services please check out these links:
Local SEO Tucson Website Designs Phoenix SEO Tucson Search Engine Optimization
Small Business SEO Solutions Geo-Targeted SEO Solutions Niche SEO Solutions Do Follow Blog List
If your business is located in Flagstaff or through out Arizona and beyond and you would like to learn more about how your website can benefit from a blog please call Tucson SEO at 520-777-6479.
Tucson SEO… Solutions that create probabilities out of possibilities.
SEO And Word Of Mouth Advertising
August 16, 2008
We attend lots and lots of business mixers here in Tucson to promote our business. At almost every event the conversation will turn to blogging and why you should provide free advice on your website. The usually refrain is “Why would you give away free advice?” Keep in mind that these are business owners that we are talking with about business.
I am still dumbfounded every time I hear that question. For, us it’s all about the golden rule in action. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Or perhaps, “What goes around comes around.” Some get it when put in this context, but many don’t. These are what we would call the “what can you do for me crowd.”
They are so blinded by their own wants or needs that they can not believe there is an actual benefit to helping others for free.
They don’t understand that an educated consumer can be your best client or your best word of mouth advertisement. I talked extensively with a business coach at one of these mixers. I had me laptop and gave him a quick SEO 101. We covered simple Page Title and Page Descriptions and the need for him to geo-target for Tucson.
I meet him two months at another large mixer where he joined our table. He explained how he implements what I had told him. He stated that he was now #3 and #4 on Google for the keywords that he had targeted. He then looked around the table of seven stating to each “This guy knows what he is talking about.”
He then turns to me, and he asks “now how do I get to #1 and #2?” I wryly replied “for that, it’s gonna cost ya.” I stated that since I gave so freely to him that it was now his job to go tell others.
I was retelling this story later in the evening when a friend from the table pointed out that that’s exactly what he did after leaving our table. She told us “I’ve been watching him every since we left our table, and he has been telling everyone about you and how you helped him and that he even pointed me out in the crowd.
I was blown away, I only jokingly suggested that we go tell others. Apparently he was so grateful that he felt obligated to tell others about “this guy who knows what he’s talking about.” You simply can’t buy this kind of endorsement.
Are you ready to capture the power of a WordPress Website?
We invite you to join the conversation and leave a comment. We also invite you to continue the conversation on your blog or perhaps use a trackback, or maybe even social bookmark this article, give it a Digg it, or Stumble it
To learn more about our services please check out these links:
Local SEO Tucson Website Designs Phoenix SEO Tucson Search Engine Optimization
Small Business SEO Solutions Geo-Targeted SEO Solutions Niche SEO Solutions Do Follow Blog List
If your business is located in US, Canada, and through out Arizona and beyond and you would like to learn more about how your website can benefit from a blog please call Tucson SEO at 520-777-6479.
Tucson SEO… Solutions that create probabilities out of possibilities.
How Do You Create Content On A Static Website?
August 15, 2008
This is a question that we hear often at our SEO and website training seminars. A static website is a site that was not created to be updated. These sites suffer in the search rankings because they have nothing new to offer the search engines. You see, search engines like fresh content.
It is much easier to obtain and maintain high search rankings if you update your website on a regular basis. The easiest way to provide fresh content is to place a blog on your website. However, many small business website owners don’t want anything to do with a blog. They either do not understand what a blog is or does or they are unwilling to manage a blog. Blogs do require time to implement.
One solution is already available to website owners who use a newsletter to market their business. Let’s say you have a monthly newsletter and you write the articles for this newsletter over a one month period and then email this your readers.
What we suggest is that you place these articles on your website as they are written. Then pull these articles into your newsletter when you are ready to email them. Then you start the process all over again. Depending on how you have your web hosting set up this could be a simple or a very difficult process.
Most quality web hosts allow you to readily edit your web pages through a file manager. Whenever, you are editing websites files first copy them into a text edit such as notepad, in case you experience a problem when saving your files. Once you have saved your updates then visit your website to view the changes. You may need to refresh your browser first. If you experience a problem you will have a saved copy in notepad to copy back into your file manager.
Some web host companies require that you use an FTP client to load your updated files. If this is the case then this process is best left to an experienced webmaster.
We invite you to join the conversation and leave a comment. We also invite you to continue the conversation on your blog or perhaps use a trackback, or maybe even social bookmark this article, give it a Digg it, or Stumble it
To learn more about our services please check out these links:
Local SEO Tucson Website Designs Phoenix SEO Tucson Search Engine Optimization
Small Business SEO Solutions Geo-Targeted SEO Solutions Niche SEO Solutions Do Follow Blog List
If your business is located in US, Canada or through out Arizona and beyond and you would like to learn more about how your website can benefit from a blog please call Tucson SEO at 520-777-6479.
Tucson SEO… Solutions that create probabilities out of possibilities.
Paid Links Our Point Of View
August 15, 2008
As you most likely know by now, Google finally has begun to enforce its long standing position on the buying and selling of link’s in 2007. It’s official position was first outlined back in 2003 on their webmaster blog. Here is a more recent update: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2007/12/information-about-buying-and-selling.html
We are very pleased that they have finally taken action. As they say better late then never. We have always thought the ability to buy links gave deep pocketed companies a huge advantage over the small website with limited resources.
Some say Google is the biggest link seller in the world with their AdWords program. We would agree but it’s their service and they can do what they deem most effective for them.
The sad part about this is that a whole lot of websites took huge hits financially over Google’s decision to enforce these rules. Thousands upon thousands of website business models were built on the ability to sell links. This has effectively shut down many of these operations.
Taking four years to enforce a company policy and then forcing businesses to completely alter their business practices doesn’t seem very fair to us. Now, don’t get us wrong we are big fans of Google. We just wish this had been handled a little better.
We invite you to join the conversation and leave a comment. We also invite you to continue the conversation on your blog or perhaps use a trackback, or maybe even social bookmark this article, give it a Digg it, or Stumble it
To learn more about our services please check out these links:
Local SEO Tucson Website Designs Phoenix SEO Tucson Search Engine Optimization
Small Business SEO Solutions Geo-Targeted SEO Solutions Niche SEO Solutions Do Follow Blog List
If your business is located in US, Canada or through out Arizona and beyond and you would like to learn more about how your website can benefit from a blog please call Tucson SEO at 520-777-6479.
Tucson SEO… Solutions that create probabilities out of possibilities.
Blogging For Links, Profit, And For Continuing Education
August 14, 2008
It is the opinion of Tucson SEO Solutions that the blog is the single most important marketing tool available. This business was built on the expertise gleaned from scouring the SEO/SEM blogging community.
I often tell the tale of cleaning houses during the day as a one person cleaning service. Then studying SEO and SEM and for 8 to 10 hours a day every day for four straight months. I visited thousands of websites along the way. Back then (18 months ago) when we started website marketing blogging for links was easy, time consuming, but easy. That was before “No Follow’ ruined the legitimate white hat practice of blogging for links.
By the time our house cleaning website launched in January 2007 we had already gathered 1400 industry specific links. We combined the power of these links with our new knowledge of Page Titles, Page Descriptions, Geo-targeted SEO and fresh content into a winning combination.
That website landed on the first page of Google several times over within three days of launching! It has been there ever since. Its eco friendly house cleaning tips blog has been first page ranked for nearly as long.
The blog is essential for providing fresh content for the static website that the search engines crave. A blog, when used frequently can help your website obtain and maintain high search rankings.
When you blog you can:
* Still acquire links
* Learn a whole lot
* Share with others
* Profit in many different ways
* Obtain and maintain high search ranking
* And maybe even have some fun!
We simply would not be here today, if it where not for blogs. It still blows me away when I visit a website marketing business’ website that doesn’t have a blog. We believe so much in blogs that they are standard issue on every website that we build. We also include training to use the software as an effective marketing tool. We believe a blog is useless if the website owner doesn’t know how to use it effectively.
We simply will not build a website that doesn’t include a blog. We feel that strongly about the subject. It is too powerful a tool to be missing, especially if you have a static website. The blog also provides a vehicle for your customers to interact beyond normal business channels.
Many of website visitors to a service website will be doing research for a future purchase. The blog allows you to educate this group, share your expertise, and experiences. When done properly the blog can communicate a certain level of trust.
Trust is critical when the businesses service requires coming to or entering someone’s home. Dependability, reliability, and safety are paramount to this group. Again, the blogs can easily allow you to address different segments of your customer base.
We, often refer to blogs as stages, or sounding boards. If you love what you do your blog readers will easily see this; and the bonds of trust can begin to be established.
The blog also is a great tool when used to create inbound links. That is why we are working on our own “Do Follow Blog Lists.” These lists have turned out to be a great link building tool for us. When we visit SEO/SEM sites to verify their linking status, we leave a comment, pick up a link, and let the owners know that they are on our list.
It still blows me away when I visit SEO sites that haven’t implemented a blog on the own site. But then we clearly understand, that we are here today because others blogged, we read, learned, and applied what we had learned. The rest they say is history.
The only real drawback is that blogs do require a lot of time and attention to be successful.
Are you ready to start blogging ?
We invite you to join the conversation and leave a comment. We also invite you to continue the conversation on your blog or perhaps use a trackback, or maybe even social bookmark this article, give it a Digg, Sphinn it, or Stumble it
To learn more about our services please check out these links:
Local SEO Tucson Website Designs Phoenix SEO Tucson Search Engine Optimization
Small Business SEO Solutions Geo-Targeted SEO Solutions Niche SEO Solutions Do Follow Blog List
If your business is located in US, Canada or through out Arizona and beyond and you would like to learn more about how your website can benefit from a blog please call Tucson SEO at 520-777-6479.
Tucson SEO… Solutions that create probabilities out of possibilities.
With SEO Or Any Service You Get What You Pay For!
August 14, 2008
We have previously written in the past we use Craigslist locally a lot to market our services. We have very little competition locally. However, we see lots of ads placed from across the country. Most often these folks don’t have an SEO web site to link to in their ads nor do they provide a phone number to call.
They usually ask you to email them you domain name and they’ll get back to you. We from time to time contact them to see if they actually know anything about SEO. What we usually discover is they got lucky with a keyword phrase in a Title Tag and have landed on the first page of results.
We ran into a gentleman from the 206 area code that had done this using “Affordable Nike Drivers.” He landed in the #1 position, but that was it. That was the extent of his SEO experience and knowledge. But that didn’t stop him from offering his SEO services for $400.00. He pointed to his #1 position as proof of his skills. To the unknowing small business owner this would be impressive.
This is another classic example of you get what you pay for. This also shows the downside of using Craigslist to see professional services. Just about everyone using Craigslist is looking for a bargain ourselves included. So it is more difficult to acquire leads from potential clients who are willing to pay for results. Craigslist for us is more about branding for us then lead generation and sales.
We often find when attending networking events that we encounter someone who has seen us on Craigslist. This was a much more valuable tool for link building before they implemented their “No Follow Policy.”
We invite you to join the conversation and leave a comment. We also invite you to continue the conversation on your blog or perhaps use a trackback, or maybe even social bookmark this article, give it a Digg, Sphinn it, or Stumble it
To learn more about our services please check out these links:
Local SEO Tucson Website Designs Phoenix SEO Tucson Search Engine Optimization
Small Business SEO Solutions Geo-Targeted SEO Solutions Niche SEO Solutions Do Follow Blog List
If your business is located in US, Canada, and through out Arizona and beyond and you would like to learn more about how your website can benefit from a blog please call Tucson SEO at 520-777-6479.
Tucson SEO… Solutions that create probabilities out of possibilities.
Geo-targeting SEO Is Catching On Slowly
August 13, 2008
Geo- targeting is slow getting the attention that it deserves. We have offered this service since this business opened. Tucson SEO Solutions business model is based on location of the websites market. Like many small business owners their market is local. So they have much less competition than those that play on a national or international stage on the Internet.
Since search engine optimization is a numbers game the website that uses Geo-targeting vastly improves their odds of success. Having less competition offers you the opportunity to reach high search rankings, if you optimize your web site. There is a very good chance that your competition has not optimized their web sites. Almost any web site can be optimized, but usually this is the arena of the larger serious players. When the small business owner optimizes his web site he usually goes to the front the line.
Many web designers only think of GIS software when they here the words Geo-targeting. GIS is the acronym for geographic information software. This software is used on information and on e-commerce sites to assist you in finding information by city.
When we apply Geo-targeting in the optimization process, we are asking the search engines to index your website by a geographic area and by your products or services. So if your website provides carpet cleaning services and you live in Tucson, then we would optimize your website for carpet cleaning in Tucson.
This is a simplest form of optimization available today. It is also the most overlooked aspect of the SEO industry. When you optimize your website by the location that you actually serve you place your business in a winning situation. You can finally use the leverage the Internet to grow your business.
Before you begin any optimization program you need to evaluate your website to make sure that everything works. It doesn’t do much good to bring traffic to a broken website.
We invite you to join the conversation and leave a comment. We also invite you to continue the conversation on your blog or perhaps use a trackback, or maybe even social bookmark this article, give it a Digg, Sphinn it, or Stumble it
To learn more about our services please check out these links:
Local SEO Tucson Website Designs Phoenix SEO Tucson Search Engine Optimization
Small Business SEO Solutions Geo-Targeted SEO Solutions Niche SEO Solutions Do Follow Blog List
If your business is located in US, Canada or through out Arizona and beyond and you would like to learn more about how your website can benefit from a blog please call Tucson SEO at 520-777-6479.
Tucson SEO… Solutions that create probabilities out of possibilities.
Slow Loading Pages - Are They Costing You Business?
August 13, 2008
Does your website load quickly? Many a potential customer will never reach your website because of slow loading pages. We have all experienced this. You do your Google search and you see a promising website. You then click onto that link and wait and wait some more. Then you simply give up and try another site.
A slow loading website will drive potential visitors away long before your website ever opens. You have about two seconds to accomplish this. I call it the Google effect. Web surfers are so used to Google providing search results instantly. They then expect this quickness from all websites all the time.
The problem isn’t limited to small business websites that may have been home built. They actually often load very quickly because they don’t have many people visiting at the same time or they are loaded with a lot of graphics. Retail e-commerce sites are notoriously slow loading for a variety of reasons. There are literally Billions of dollars lost annually due to slow loading pages.
A general rule of thumb is that you have about two seconds maybe three for your site to open. If it takes any longer your potential visitors leave quickly to try another option. The more web savvy your visitor the quicker they leave. Imagine if your website is slow loading for a cable connection, and then imagine how slow the process is for DSL, dial-up service, or for someone using a notebook and using a Wi-Fi connection.
The moral of this story is, don’t loose your visitor before they actually see your website. We will discuss slow loading pages in depth another day.
This problem may require a bit of website redesign to resolve.
We invite you to join the conversation and leave a comment. We also invite you to continue the conversation on your blog or perhaps use a trackback, or maybe even social bookmark this article, give it a Digg, Sphinn it, or Stumble it
To learn more about our services please check out these links:
Local SEO Tucson Website Designs Phoenix SEO Tucson Search Engine Optimization
Small Business SEO Solutions Geo-Targeted SEO Solutions Niche SEO Solutions Do Follow Blog List
If your business is located in US, Canada or through out Arizona and beyond and you would like to learn more about how your website can benefit from a blog please call Tucson SEO at 520-777-6479.
Tucson SEO… Solutions that create probabilities out of possibilities.
WordPress Developers Needed
August 13, 2008
We are recruiting for dependable WordPress developers to work as sub-contractors on a regular basis. The two main requirements are experience and dependability. We prefer Tucson based vendors.
Experience doesn’t do us much good if you are not dependable. We work on tight schedules and require that you be able to perform as required. We have a no excuses policy. If you are given a project and you can not successfully complete it on time you will not be given a second opportunity.
We currently have more projects in the pipeline than we have available WordPress developers. You can work as much as you can realistically handle. We do not work on an hourly rate and all projects are provided based on an agreed upon bid. You will receive payment two weeks after the work has been placed onto the customer’s web host and they have signed off on the project. The two week wait is to cover any bugs that migght need to be addressed.
We operate on an under promise and over deliver process. That means that we exceed the customer’s expectations. If we tell the client the project will take 8 weeks we will deliver the project in 6 weeks. So we need realistic time estimates from our developers. If you tell us that you can have the work done in 3 weeks and it takes you longer. It will be the last project that you will work on. Our clients are not paying for excuses.
We are about to launch a national campaign going after the cleaning services industry and other services industries. We will be producing very clean and straight forward websites that sell. Our focus is not so much on the look and feel, but making sure that the content sells. We are marketers first and developers second.
We have recently acquired over 20 domain names that we plan on developing. We are currently looking to develop at least one new website per month for the remainder of this year for ourselves. We have begun marketing the Phoenix market.
We have a 5 year growth plan with visions of entering the top 100 markets. We only offer services to local website using Geo-targeting SEO (not GIS). We also offer service for niche product websites. We will consider small E-commerce sites where we can easily use WordPress plugins.
All website will include 6-10 plugins each. The most time consuming aspect of these sites might be the header. We prefer to use horizontial navigation bars with drop down menu’s. For SEO purposes we have the blog excerpts loop onto the corresponding pages.
We have a five year and exit plan. Then it’s early retirement for us. There is a tremendous opportunity for the right highly motivated individuals.
Grad students will be given first consideration, but if you are highly skilled and motivated that will not be a problem.
If you are interested we will need the following.
A resume delivered in the body of an email and not as an attachment. Pay attention to this requirement over 90% of respondents send attachments. We figure that they can not follow basic instructions then you have eliminated yourselves.
If you have done paid work before we will need the links to that work and reference contact information.
If you haven’t done paid work we will need links to what you have done and someway to verify that this is your work.
A real big plus will be if you have developed WordPress websites. Please do not call, if we are interested we will contact you for an appointment.
We are not interested in using any other CMS.
We also will not outsource outside of the US and Canada.
Thanks, for your time and consideration.
We invite you to join the conversation and leave a comment. We also invite you to continue the conversation on your blog or perhaps use a trackback, or maybe even social bookmark this article, give it a Digg, Sphinn it, or Stumble it.
To learn more about our services please check out these links:
Local SEO Tucson Website Designs Phoenix SEO Tucson Search Engine Optimization
Small Business SEO Solutions Geo-Targeted SEO Solutions Niche SEO Solutions Do Follow Blog List
If your business is located in US, Canada or through out Arizona and beyond and you would like to learn more about how your website can benefit from a blog please call Tucson SEO at 520-777-6479.
Tucson SEO… Solutions that create probabilities out of possibilities.
Google Fumbles AOL Ball
August 8, 2008
This is from Cnet. Google has recently files papers with the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) that it may be taking a charge against its investment in AOL. Back in December of 2005 Google invested 1 Billion for a 5% stake in AOL. It was an attempt to thwart AOL, its biggest ad partner from switching to Microsoft’s MSN unit.
In the SEC filing Google calls its investment in AOL impaired. This basically is an omission that they expect to take a charge on this investment which valued the company at 20 Billion dollars. It is currently believed that AOL is valued at half that amount.
This will allow Google to demand that Time Warner must act to spin off its AOL investment in an IPO or buy back its stake in the business. This would mean a half a Billion dollar loss for Google.
What I find missing from this story is how much money did Google make by preventing AOL from defecting to MSN. While they did loss stock value they benefited greatly from the continued revenue stream from AOL. Perhaps, I can find that answer for an update post later.
We invite you to join the conversation and leave a comment. We also invite you to continue the conversation on your blog or perhaps use a trackback, or maybe even social bookmark this article, give it a Digg, Sphinn it, or Stumble it
To learn more about our services please check out these links:
Local SEO Tucson Website Designs Phoenix SEO Tucson Search Engine Optimization
Small Business SEO Solutions Geo-Targeted SEO Solutions Niche SEO Solutions Do Follow Blog List
If your business is located in US, Canada or through out Arizona and beyond and you would like to learn more about how your website can benefit from a blog please call Tucson SEO at 520-777-6479.
Tucson SEO… Solutions that create probabilities out of possibilities.
Google Alerts Us To New Competition - Thanks Google
August 7, 2008
This post is a response to a new competitor in the Tucson SEO market. That company is Search Engine Internet Marketing, SEO. I discovered them because of a Google alert. I have an alert sent to my email every time Tucson SEO is indexed by Google.
It is simply a wise business practice to be monitoring the Internet for the appearance of your business name, or variations of your businesses name. You never know when someone may be using your businesses name without permission. You also want to protect yourself from jilted lovers, former employees, or even dissatisfied customers who may want to bash you and ruin your reputation. Yes, Google alerts is the first line of defense.
When you use Google alerts it serves as an early warning defense system. It will alert me to any page that appears in its index that has those targeted words in the content. Most of my alerts are generated by us through the use of sites like Craigslist or Digg.
However, if a competitor, like the new kids on the block I mentioned earlier suddenly appears in my market and uses our targeted words we are notified. I visited the blog that we were alerted about and made a comment and asked to meet the owner for coffee. It is our policy to meet all of our competitors. If I like them I will be glad to send them business. We are very selective when choosing clients and what markets that we target. A good example is Pay Per Click, since we offer only organic SEO it is nice to have a trusted company to refer PPC businesses to.
What really caught my eye was that this company went “Niche SEO’ on me and targeted “Tucson SEO packages.” So this post is targeting that phrase. It is our shot over the bow, a warning shot, to let them know we meet all newcomers head on in our market. I am committed to take this post to the #1 position for this keyword phrase.
We don’t believe in packages because we favor a Holistic SEO approach. We had not targeted this phrase, but we are now. We never offer stand alone SEO services. Our observations have shown that every website that needs SEO also has other problems related to usability or lack a sales presentation. We believe it is a waste of time to bring traffic to a broken website.
We will follow up and inform you and how this all plays out.
We invite you to join the conversation and leave a comment. We also invite you to continue the conversation on your blog or perhaps use a trackback, or maybe even social bookmark this article, give it a Digg or Stumble it.
To learn more about our services please check out these links:
Local SEO Tucson Website Designs Phoenix SEO Tucson Search Engine Optimization
Small Business SEO Solutions Geo-Targeted SEO Solutions Niche SEO Solutions Do Follow Blog List
If your business is located in US, Canada, or through out Arizona and beyond and you would like to learn more about how your website can benefit from a blog please call Tucson SEO at 520-777-6479.
Tucson SEO… Solutions that create probabilities out of possibilities.
WordPress Is Offering 24/7 Support
August 4, 2008
As may of you know I do a lot of blogging away from this website as part of our Internet marketing, and promotion . I try to position my browser towards at least 5 blogs that are website marketing related everyday. It is a way to acquire valuable industry backlinks. It is also part of my continuing education process. This business was built from what I have gleaned from other blogs so why stop now.
Today, I visited a blog that I only recently discovered, web tools collection. This is an absolutely must visit blog if you are using WordPress. They gave me a heads-up about the 24/7 tech support and I am very grateful.
So do give them a visit and let them know that you found them over at Tucson SEO. They are really worth the visit.
We invite you to join the conversation and leave a comment. We also invite you to continue the conversation on your blog or perhaps use a trackback, or maybe even social bookmark this article, give it a Digg, Sphinn it, or Stumble it.
To learn more about our services please check out these links:
Local SEO Tucson Website Designs Phoenix SEO Tucson Search Engine Optimization
Small Business SEO Solutions Geo-Targeted SEO Solutions Niche SEO Solutions Do Follow Blog List
If your business is located in Flagstaff or through out Arizona and beyond and you would like to learn more about how your website can benefit from a blog please call Tucson SEO at 520-777-6479.
Tucson SEO… Solutions that create probabilities out of possibilities.