Someone once said (may have been Guy Kawasaki), “Building a website and then not spending the time and money to do SEO is like creating a commercial and then not buying any television or radio airtime.”

I agree. A build it and they will come website strategy is, honestly, folly. Yet, time and again, I see companies build nice websites and then believe they’ve completed their work. Nothing could be further from the truth.

So, if you want to get some mileage out of your website, here are my Top 7 SEO recommendations:

1. Register your website with DMOZ, also known as the Open Directory Project, at www.dmoz.org. The Open Listing Mission is the most important and most complete directory on the Web. It is also the only one Google uses. Since Google tends to have between 60% and 70 of the search engine market share, it’s important that you make sure you’re your website is easily found by Google. DMOZ is also used to feed many of the other web directories as well. Note, DMOZ is an all volunteer organization so it can take months to get your site listed. So register your site today!
2. Manually submit your web site url address to Google at http://www.google.com/addurl. Once accepted, like DMOZ, it can take months, Google’s software will crawl (scan) your site (see bullets 4-6 below), determine what your site is all about, and, in most instances, begin including it in their search results. 
3. Yahoo is a little different. Yahoo asks you to pay $299.00 to be included in their official directory listing ($600.00 if your site includes “adult content).” But Yahoo can still find your site and include without your paying any fee. Yahoo also has a free submission page - http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/submit - you can use to improve your Yahoo search engine rankings. I’ve read that Yahoo’s Directory also drives results on Bing and AltaVista. But I wouldn’t count on that, so I’d also recommend submitting your website to Bing at http://www.bing.com/webmaster/SubmitSitePage.aspx. 
4. Make sure you are using the best keywords and keyword phrases in your Metadata and in your website copy. This is a biggee! Having the right keywords is critical in getting your site ranked high in the search engine results. There’s actually a metric, KEI, which stands for Keyword Effectiveness Indicator, you can track. Since almost every site has unique high KEI keywords, we won’t go into how to develop your high KEI terms here but we will encourage you to either take the time to learn how to develop high KEI keywords or outsource the work to a professional.
5. The more links you have to your website, especially if the linking sites have a high Google Page Rank, the more likely it is Google and the other search engines will rank your website high in their search results. Some effective ways to build links to your site are article submission, affiliate programs, sending emails to webmasters at sites you think your target audience visit, or hire someone to build links for you. We do not recommend hiring one of those firms that say they’ll get you 1,000 links in one week for $500.00+/-. The search engines may view that type of instant growth in links as “gaming the system, which it is, and punish you. Links need to be built over time.
6. Install Google’s free Sitemap code in your website. A sitemap is XML code that lists all the URLs (pages) in your site and makes them easy to read and understand for the search engines. Sitemaps enable the search engines to quickly crawl and index your site in an organized manner. They also allow your webmaster to include additional information to help the search engines find your site and keywords, when it was last updated, and other important information. Sitemaps complement the software, or crawl-based tools such as a robot.txt file, they do not replace those tools. Using Sitemap code does not guarantee your site’s search engine rankings will improve.
7. The last tactic is perhaps the most difficult; be patient. SEO is like farming. You plant seeds, nurture them along so they can grow, and then, one day, relax and enjoy the fruits of your labor. Note, conversely, Pay-per-Click, or PPC, is like hunting. Bang! Lunch. In other words, you shoot something (buy ads) and you get leads. Some good; some bad. Here’s another difference between SEO and PPC, once your SEO tactics have you at the top of page one on Google, it’s highly likely you will stay there for some time. With PPC, once the ads (expense) stops, the leads stop.

SEO is the best insurance available to earn a return on your website investment. It is what helps your website be found by existing and new customers and, even if you outsource the work, it’s simply not that expensive. Without SEO you are simply hoping your website is found and that’s not good business practice.

It is also an ongoing effort because the search engines continue to tweak their algorithms. In 2009 it was reported that Google made almost 300 changes. By implementing the tactics outlined in this post your website can become an amazing source of new business. Perhaps the best part about SEO, and digital marketing in general, if done right, is you can measure the return on every tactic.

This blog has always been about helping others. We report, offer free marketing tips and share best practices. Of course, it's indirect marketing done to promote goodwill. It's also good citizenship, done to improve the community.

I'm going to be selfish today. There's a lot happening at Aligned Marketing. Here's a partial update:

• We continue to sign up clients for search engine optimization (SEO) and pay-per-click (PPC) projects. We recommend both because SEO is like farming, it produces results (food) in weeks or months, and PPC is like hunting, Bang!, dinner. A friend of mine used SEO & PPC to grow a distributor’s online sales from $72K/month to an impressive $1.0M+ per month and counting. What recession? Smart companies are getting off the sidelines. There are still markets out there with unmet needs. Someone is going to serve them, why not you?
• We team up with other companies to enhance our capabilities without adding fixed cost. One of those companies just completed a landmark four year study in collaboration with the University of Michigan. Over 200 companies participated in interviews and surveys that included manufacturer and distributor sales reps as well as industrial buyers. They observed over 1,000 live sales calls. From that research they developed a new approach to selling, an actual best practice process. The field test data is compelling and, I believe, can be a game-changer with the right commitment from senior management.
• We launched a 10-day social media campaign for Aligned Marketing and increased visits to our website by 343% in the first week. Because of the way we structured the program visits will continue at the new higher level for several weeks and should remain well above our prior level into the future, assuming we don’t do anything stupid...stayed tuned.
• Gary Vaynerchuk is a top-5 Internet celebrity who has been on Fox News, The Today Show, CNN, Conan O’Brien and several other shows. He reads my blog…surprised me too. Anyway, on October 13 his new book, Crush It!, goes on sale and as part of his promotion tour I’ll be interviewing Gary using video over the Internet. I’m excited to finally communicate with Gary live, not through email, and the technology we’ll be using is very cool. More to come.
• My wife and I attended a convention for web-geeks in Orlando last week. There were over 400 people in attendance. While I didn’t get to speak one of the presenters put my picture up on a slide and recommended that everyone read my book. I didn’t know he was going to do that so it was a nice surprise, although seeing my face fill up two 20’ screens was weird…frightening, actually.
• As companies prepare for 2010, and what we all hope is a year of recovery, many are using outside resources to fill gaps created by the recession and gain specialized expertise without adding fixed cost. Our approach is, "Let us help you reach your business goals." It seems to have some appeal so go ahead and borrow it if you think it will help your business.
• This remains a very challenging time (obviously). The only way the economy is going to turn around is if we all pull together and work our collective butts off. That's what my friends are doing and that's what I'm doing. Sitting on the sidelines and waiting for things to improve will only get you left behind, it's a loser strategy. You get one shot at each day, so make the best of it!

All the best,
Steve

In 2004, the term "Long Tail" was used by Wired.com writer Chris Anderson to describe the advantage various business models, like bookselling at Amazon.com, music from iTunes, etc., have over traditional brick and mortar competitors. Their success is driven by deep catalogs that include both popular items and niche items.

For brick and mortar retailers there is a cost associated with local inventory. That cost prohibits them from carrying anything except the most popular items. Online retailers like iTunes can make more money than a traditional music store (are there any left?) because (1) the cost of carrying an item in electronic form is near zero and (2) they can sell and make money on 100’s of unknown (less popular) artists as well. As a business model, this is called The Long Tail Approach.

The Long Tail approach is also used in Pay Per Click (PPC) marketing and search engine optimization (SEO). In this instance, it means using keywords and terms that are less competitive than others to aggregate an equal, or almost equal, number of visitors and customers. The less competitive phrases have lower appeal to the more casual searcher, produce lower click-through rates and, as such, cost less to purchase for a PPC campaign. Lower competition and lower cost is the trade-off for slightly fewer visitors and clicks.

For example, the word “puppies” may have a higher click-through rate and cost than “beagle puppies,” which in turn may have a higher click-through rate and cost than “beagle puppies for sale Charlotte.” All three will be listed and ranked by the search engines for the word “puppies” but the competition will be reduced if someone also uses the additional search terms “beagle, for sale” and “Charlotte.” If you are in the business of selling beagle puppies in the Charlotte area, the benefits of using the less popular term are (1) it will cost you less money, (2) it will provide higher quality leads and (3) it better describes your business.

Adding additional keywords is a great way to lower the competition, improve search engine results and reduce PPC costs. The long tail is a great way to explain the trade offs you’ll need to make in your search engine optimization campaign unless you have an unlimited budget. 

 

Steve

When we conduct website evaluations for clients we usually have to spend time explaining what certain terms mean. That's too bad because these are terms, in my view, that every business person should know.

Just as someone had to explain to you what a website was in the 90's, you now need to know some of the other key terms surrounding websites and, specifically, terms associated with search engines.

Search engines are, after all, what drives traffic to your site. They are the first step in converting someone with an interest in your products and services into a paying customer.

Here are some of the more common terms and definitions.

Search engine: Search engines are programs that attempt to emulate human behavior as it relates to finding information online. There are 100's of search engines but Google, with 65%+/- market share is the proverbial 800 pound gorilla, followed by Yahoo with 19% share and Bing with 9%. Google users are more often male, older and wealthier. Yahoo searches tend to be younger and less affluent. Bing users tend to be female, older, and are most likely to convert from searcher to buyer.

Spiders, crawlers, or robots (bots): These are automated programs used by search engines to visit your website, analyze, and then index its content. You need to create and insert "Metadata" (see next bullet) and a "sitemap" to help these programs analyze your site and its content correctly. If the search engines are able to analyze your site accurately then they are more likely to deliver high-quality visitors.

Metadata & meta tags: Metadata and meta tags give the search engines a structured description of your website. They are invisible to the average visitor and appear at the beginning of the code on each webpage. Metadata must be keyword (next bullet) rich to help drive traffic to your site.

Keywords: Finding the best keywords for your site is part science and part art.The best keywords are the ones people actually type into the search engines when looking for your products and services. If those words have limited competition, so much the better. Generic terms such as "marketing," for example, are too broad and have tons of competition.

Search engine optimization (SEO): SEO is the process of editing metadata and website content to rank higher on the search engine result pages (SERPs). It has been reported that ranking at the top position (#1) on page one of Google, for example, will drive significantly more traffic (254%!) to your site than the next highest (#2) ranking position.

Natural or organic search: These terms refer to search results produced by a search engine's algorithm when indexing unpaid submissions.

Paid search or Pay-Per-Click (PPC): Paid search results are purchased (fixed fee or bid) by someone, usually the website owner or their marketing agency. They can appear in sponsor banners at the top of the search engine page or in ads that appear in the right margin of the page. They are typically highlighted with a slightly darker background so you can distinguish between paid and natural (or organic) search results.

Search engine marketing (SEM): SEM combines both natural and paid search activities. So if you are conducting both SEO and PPC activities, or campaigns, then you are actively conducting search engine marketing. In my view doing either qualifies as SEM.

Steve
800-707-9150