SEO Rants and Resources

7 steps to quickly generating traffic to your site

What is more important to your Business?

 Long term relationships or long term traffic?

In marketing online there is a difference. Social media marketing is about being in a conversation. You have to engage your customers. This is a long term commitment that will pay off long term dividends as you establish yourself as an expert in the field and network yourself into relationships. Stop working it and you are quickly forgotten.

Search engine optimization builds Long term traffic but it takes time to get established and work to get good rankings.

 

With this article I will try to give you a jump start to the types of activities you can do to increase traffic and to increase your rankings in the SERP’s.

SEO is based on 3 principals.

1. TOPIC: Every page must have a singular topic with copy that supports the topic. This includes related keywords being used on the page. The title of the page is what establishes the topic.
2. REPUTATION: Each link from within your site must use the keyword that defines your topic when it links to the page. If you link using the wrong word you confuse the engines.
3. CONFIRMATION: Links from 3rd party sites must use the same keyword topic when linking to a page. This confirms for the search engines what the page is about.

• Spend the time needed to get the right keywords. Write titles, descriptions and related keywords for each page.
• Install a text link at the bottom of each page linking to a site map. On the site map link every page topic to the appropriate page.
•  
• On all links that go to password protected pages or pages that don't need to be found: IE contact us, search and terms and conditions, put a <nofollow> tag from every page. This stops the engines from giving the Google juice to them.

Now the work begins.

1. Set up and make a commitment to blog. Something like blog.yourdomain.com Add at least 2-3 posts per week. Here are the minimum requirements for writing a blog post.

Match the SEO plan pages/keywords to the topic of the post.

1. The post must have a title that includes but does not start with the keyword phrase.
2. The post must be at least 100 words.
3. The keyword Phrase must be included in the post.
4. The keyword phrase can not start or end any paragraph.
5. Must be conversational.

2. Set up a linked in account. Use the links in it to link back to your site. Use a keyword, not just the default my website. Here is a sample - mine. http://www.linkedin.com/in/terrylmickelson  Download the toolbar. Search your contacts from the tool bar and invite everyone. In a week or 2 you will have a decent size network. Start searching for people in the businesses you want to connect to. Want to reach the CEO of ReMax or Intel? Search and ask.

3. Create a Facebook page and invite friends/family to be your friend. Add your blog's rss feed so that every time you post to it, it appears on Facebook. Makes it "in your face" book.

4. Search for blogs at http://blogsearch.google.com/  Make a comment on related blogs. Where it asks for your name, use a keyword and link back to your site. If you make good intelligent comments that get you in the conversation webmasters have no problem with this. Spam them and you are wasting your time.

5. Sign up for twitter. Put your twitter address in every email sig file. Search for others in the industry. Follow them. Tweet frequently letting your personality come out. Don't try sell anything or put links to your site in all of your messages. Set this up on your phone and tweet a couple times per day. This is about building relationships 140 characters at a time.  http://twitter.com/pageviews

6. Post to Craigs List http://www.craigslist.org/about/sites  Pick a county, pick a city write an ad. Make it fun. Tell people about what you have to offer. Post in the appropriate section(s). Make each ad unique or they get flagged and you get banned.

7. Rinse and repeat. Depending on how fast you write, you should be able to start driving a bunch of traffic and links to your site within a couple of weeks at no cost other than 10+ hours per week.

These instructions are not meant to be all inclusive of every site and were originally written for a company that is in the business of Real Estate Auctions.

Expert Tips For Correct Link Building

Links are more important than ever for your web site, but it is a challenge getting links that can actually help you.  Many people are worried what the search engines will “think” of their links, that they are going to get caught buying, trading or in some way artificially inflating them.  Others fear getting banned from Google, which can happen if you get greedy or don’t use common sense.

At PageViews Interactive, we want to show you the truth about building links. Once you are more educated you can either get links on your own or let us help you. Either way, you will know more about the process and appreciate it just a little more.

Building incoming links is vital for your site but must be done correctly.  It is important to use the keywords and phrases that an individual page is optimized for in your anchor text, the “click-able” words that link back to your site.  People often make the mistake of naming the web pages they create for a specific keyword.  For example, if the key phrase is “Buy Microwaves Indiana”, the page name might be: domain.com/buy-microwaves-indiana.html.  When using the popular keyword research tools, the results are often key phrases that aren't correct English.  Whether outsourcing the above post or writing it yourself, you are trying to work in a grammatically incorrect phrase.  While these tools tell you this is how people are searching, your main concern should be what the Google spiders are looking for.  Google tries to detect natural language patterns, and this phrase is simply not going to look natural.

If a keyword tool or keyword research tells you a good key phrase, be sure to ask yourself how you would use that in a sentence.  The correct way for the above phrase would be 'buy microwaves IN Indiana' or 'where to buy microwaves in Indiana'.  What you perceive you are losing by not using the exact key phrase, you are more than making up for by using text that appeals to Google's LSI (Latent Symatenc Indexing) technology.
Whether you’re using LinkVana's outsourcing or writing the posts yourself, remember to make certain the keywords appear natural.  I'm sure you've seen sites generated where the menu down the side has lots of phrases that are incorrect English. They don’t realize they are leaving a giant footprint for Google and other search engines that they are 'over optimizing'.

As long as the main words you want to use as your keyword anchor text are part of the actual anchor text you use, you will be fine.  Not only will your blogs look more natural, so will your post.

Tool of the Month

For over 10 years, the sales team at Page Views have been using one form of CRM – Contact management software or another. We started with Act! And through the years grew through a couple of other products that are hosted online – service as a software. One we really like, especially for small businesses is Zoho CRM.

Zoho CRM provides the sales force, executives, and management with sophisticated sales management functions such as: lead generation & qualification, sales pipeline analysis, sales stage & probability analysis, competitor analysis, real-time sales forecasting, sales quota management, sales reports & dashboards and other useful metrics. These functions give a business an opportunity to completely focus on customer life-cycle (lead generation - acquisition - conversion - retention - loyalty) rather than the sales process, thus increasing sales revenue.

Zoho CRM has sales force automation modules such as: leads, potentials, accounts, contacts, and sales-forecasting. You can accurately track all business opportunities and close more deals in less time. In addition, you can identify bottlenecks in the sales process in advance, thereby effectively utilize existing customer data for future cross-selling and up-selling opportunities. Best of all, the price is right for ZoHo CRM Free for the first 3 users and only $12. per month for each additional user. Check them out at: http://crm.zoho.com/crm/login.sas

Page Views and On Top Interactive Merge

In April of 2008, Page Views celebrated its 10th year of being in business.  It has been a great 10 years of researching, experimenting, implementing and measuring what works to get sites found in the organic search engine results pages.  Thank you to all of our loyal customers, vendors, employees and friends who have been there with us.

In January of 2008, Page Views was introduced to a company by the name of On Top Interactive. OTI is a young competitor of Page Views with an outstanding management team in place. Joseph Johnson, CEO, has started /owned /operated 23 businesses in his career and as VP of Sales, Aaron Lewis has over 8 years experience in Search Marketing Sales.  OTI contacted us while actively looking for a company that they could outsource overflow work. 

After careful analysis and long days working out details, we are pleased to announce that Page Views and On Top Interactive have merged to create a larger, stronger company called Page Views Interactive.  Joseph Johnson had stepped into the roll of CEO and Aaron Lewis is our new VP of Sales. Terry Mickelson is our COO/VP of Search Strategies, focusing his talents on managing all aspects of client search engine success. Lisa Hosman continues as Project Manager, interfacing with our team of Search Engine Optimization experts and valued customers.

The importance of Site Maps

A very useful but often overlooked element of a website is the site map. If your site is less than 20 or 25 pages you may not need one. However, larger sites and sites that have problems getting indeed by the search engines can benefit from a site map.

1) Navigation purposes

A site map literally acts as a map of your site.

2) Conveying your site’s theme

Visitors get the "big picture" of your site at a glance.

3) Site optimization purposes

This allows your site to get crawled by the search engines.

4) Organization and relevance

A site map is an easy way to follow your sites structure when you add on new sections.

For a quick read, check out The Importance of a Sitemap by Kayem Chow

Cold Calling by SEO Firms

Well meaning people in the SEO industry sometimes go off on tangents about things that they really haven’t thought through or are just picking up on topics that have been written about many times.

Take for example the nice article I reference in this post. This well meaning person wants to advise people to never hire a SEO that made a cold call.

I beg to differ and here is why. As web marketing gets more and more specialized we have to look at the resources available to us. As we start to specialize in specific industries we are able to use some resources for more than one client without having to re invent the wheel. This increases productivity and reduces costs to our clients. This is especially true when it comes to linking and web 2.0 research; posting and developing industry specific relationships.

By the way, this is a well written article that makes excellent points. It is worth taking the time to read. The article has also turned out to be good “link bait” as several of us have commented, wrote about it and posted the article to Digg etc. 

You can read the article titled, .6 Tips To Not Get Ripped Off When Buying SEO Servicesspan>

The Secret Sauce of Google Success

What do you need to get top rankings on Google? There are many ingredients in the mix, but here are three of the most important that you need to concentrate on.

1.) Keyword relevant copy and content

 Whatever the keywords you want to get ranked in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs), be sure that you have enough copy and content about those specific words. Which would give Google a reason to rank you in the first place.

If for example, one of your priority keywords is "virtual assistant software". Create a separate page or section for this keyword (at least a few paragraphs) using the keyword in the headline, the first sentence, the last sentence as well as wherever it makes logical sense in order to achieve the keyword frequency and "density" that search engines are looking for. Ideally, each page will only have one or two keywords and will be very focused on that specific topic.

Additionally, by including on this specific keyword page either articles, pdf files or news items about your keyword, will help you improve your chances of a better ranking. Give Google a reason to rank you at the top. He with the most relevant copy wins …so make it rich and deep.

2.) Can the search engines read and "crawl" all the pages and content on your site?

Probably the biggest surprise to most marketers is that the search engines are unable to either navigate or read most of the content on their website. If they can't read your copy, then it's not surprising that you're not getting the rankings or traffic to your website that you aspire to.

The only thing a search engine can read is words. Sites that are dynamic, or created in other formats such as Flash or Java often can't be read by the search engines. Even if they can read the content on your site, many times they can't navigate it properly or just bounce "off the walls" as there are no specific links or site map to tell the proper sequence or where to go next

Want to see what Google is indexing on your website? Go to Google and type in: site:www.yourdomain.com This will show you the title and description of the pages of your site they know about. If they are all the same or they don’t have a title or description listed chances are very good that your site is invisible to your target market.

3) Links... why they are so important?

Link popularity is one of the most important factors search engines use in determining where you will rank in the search engine for your keywords, and phrases, as it helps them to determine how important or popular your site is and what it’s reputation is.

In essence the search engines are saying "we're going to give top ranking to pages that have important and relevant sites linking to them".

Link Building is the process of finding related/relevant websites and receiving a link from them to you. Natural linking occurs when a site has good content that others will link to. But to get these links people have to know about you. It is a catch 22. Building links has gotten sophisticated in the last couple of years. Today you need a mixture of links from many sources including articles, press releases, social bookmarks, directories and social media sites.

How many links do you need to have? It depends on the individual keyword or phrase you want to be found under and how the links are structured. The search engines look at inbound links as a popularity contest but more importantly, they are looking at the quality of the pages that are linking to you and the “anchor text” - the "clickable link" and what it says about the page that it links to. The key to linking is to have the right anchor text on a link that points to a page that has content using the same keyword phrase.

You do not want to increase the overall number of links by more than 10-15% each month for an established site with history as this may trigger a filter from the search engines as an indicator of artificially inflating the link popularity. New sites have an advantage since there has not been a history established and the link building can be done at a faster rate.

Linking is critical not only with your search engine placement but it helps stabilize you positions in the search engines and delivers traffic directly from the sites that link to you. But linking is not a once and you are done process. Generating new links is an ongoing process.

In Summary, successfully implementing the above 3 strategies either through your own efforts or through employing search engine promotion specialists will deliver the "triple punch" and the knockout punch you need to get top rankings on Google and the other search engines as well.

Article by Terry Mickelson Founder of PageViews.com, one of the foremost search engine optimization companies specializing in B2B search engine optimization and link building programs. For further information as well as a free ranking report on your website, contact Terry Mickelson at 480-556-9752 or email tmickelson - at -pageviews.com.

SEO/SEM firm Pageviews Releases B2B Search Engine Optimization and Marketing White Paper

Everyday more and more people turn to the internet to research products and services prior to making a purchase. This is great news for the companies whose web pages are found in the top search engine results pages. But for millions of business to business companies this is not happening. Too many times, searchers are not finding the best product or service and are making decisions for their company based on the product or service they find rather than the best available solution. This leaves both the marketer and the searcher with less than desirable results.

 For many B2B marketers this is not acceptable but many do not understand how to improve their search positions. B2B companies spend money each year on traditional marketing only to loose new customers to competitors just because the competitor is easier to find in a search.

 There are two ways to get ranked high in the search engine results pages. Companies can pay search engines like Google to be listed in ads at the top of the results pages. The more popular the ad the more often it is shown. Each time the ad is clicked on, delivering a visitor to the advertiser’s site there is a “pay-per-click” charge. The cost of these clicks range from a low of $.10 per click to over $50. per click. While not complicated to set up, management can be time consuming and the cost of clicks can add up quickly.

 Search engine optimization is the process of modifying an existing web site to make it easy for the search engines to read and to index the pages. By changing certain elements on pages it clarifies the exact topic to the search engines.  Working hand in hand with these on page modifications are the search engines definition of reputation and popularity of the page. The reputation is defined by what the page is about and what the links that point to the page say about it. The popularity is defined by the number of relevant links that point to the page.

 According to Terry Mickelson, President of Scottsdale, AZ  based Page Views, “There are many challenges to reaching the B2B buyer at just the right time. For example understanding what words will be searched for at different times in the buying cycle. When a B2B prospect starts researching for solutions to their problem, they may initially search for something like; organize sales leads. The person who has a better understanding of the market may search for customer relationship management or even do a brand specific search; SalesLogix customer relationship management. If you do not have the right words selected you may generate additional traffic but it will not convert to leads or sales, wasting time and money.” 

 Page Views, Inc. a leading search engine optimization firm  The paper details how to overcome this challenge using 10 proven techniques developed for the competitive B2B online marketplace and is available at no cost. To download a free copy of B2B Search Engine Optimization and Marketing go to: www.pageviews.com

Google’s latest Round of Penalties

Over the past couple of weeks some popular and notable sites have taken a hit in the Google Page Rank pocket. I say pocket because these are sites that were selling links. Who got hit? Some very popular sites including Forbes.com, searchengineguide.com and problogger.com. So why the penalty? Google does not like sites that sell links to artificially inflate their link popularity.

After an initial round of penalties a lot of SEO companies were crying the blues because their client’s sites were penalized and lost Page Rank. Just when they were starting to think that the storm had passed Google slapped a penalty on another round of sites. This time Google went after sites that are involved in blog linking schemes.

This is what Google’s Webmaster Guidelines have to say about it.

“Don't participate in link schemes designed to increase your site's ranking or PageRank. In particular, avoid links to web spammers or "bad neighborhoods" on the web, as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links.”

So why do SEO companies put their client’s sites in harms way? Because buying links and doing massive blog posts are the fastest and easiest way to generate links.

The truth is that it takes time and effort to create a solid linking campaign. No site should be totally dependent on one or two sources for links. A mixture of blog posts, social bookmarks, articles, press releases, directories and even reciprocal links are a among a best practices plan for long term success.

Using Google to reach your Target Market

If all it took was a good idea to make a web site successful, millions of web sites would not fail in the first couple of years. 

In reality, the web site is a very important component in the marketing of a business. For most of us who are selling B2B it is not the only tool in our marketing toolbox.  However, most businesses are under utilizing this tool simply because they are not getting found by the people who are searching for the solutions they offer.

Most ad agencies and corporate marketing departments take the time to carefully plan who they are trying to reach and painstakingly craft what their message is. They detail why their company is the right choice to provide solutions to the potential client's challenges. Many have a good grasp on when they want the customer to act by creating a call to action such as downloading a white paper or scheduling a demonstration.

Where many miss the mark is in the How to reach their on-line target market.  They drive people to their sites from Trade Shows, mailings, trade publication advertising, public relations and other largely offline methods. Where many come up short is in getting the free traffic that is available to them from the search engines like Google.

Search engine optimization is the science/art of getting your site found on the search engine results pages when they search for the words that are related to you or your offerings. The search engines do not charge for this traffic.. Search engine marketing is buying ads on the search engine results pages IE: Google Ad Words to get listings.  The price for ranking is as low as $.10 per "click" but competitive terms can cost several dollars per "click". Many web sites have not been optimized and they are not utilizing the tools or making the adjustments to the site that allow the search engines to send them free traffic.

Below is a quick 6 step assessment to determine if your site could benefit from Search Engine Optimization.

1. When the content of the site was created, were the words and phrases that are important to be found by customers and prospects woven into the copy of the pages?              Yes  No
2. Does the URL of your web site contain one or more of the keywords that are important for your site to be found under? (IE: www.yourcompany.com)                                   Yes  No
3. When you look at the pages of your site do the words displayed in the title bar (blue bar across the very top of the page) accurately describe the topic of the page, and do they change from page to page?          Yes   No
4. Do you have an online press release optimization plan in place?          Yes   No
5. Can you find yourself in the top 3 pages for the five search terms, excluding your company name, that are most important to getting found by your potential customers?          Yes   No
6. Do you use a tool to measure where traffic came from and the behavior of site visitors including conversion?            Yes   No

0-3 Uh Oh, you need help and you need it now. The longer you wait the deeper your competitors - anyone who comes up higher than you do for your search terms, gets entrenched and takes more business from you.
3-4 There is a lot of room for improvement and your site can most certainly generate more leads by getting found by the people looking for your solutions.

If you scored 5+ Congratulations! Chances are that your company is doing very well and has a well thought out site that is keeping hr pipeline filled with quality leads.

About: PageViews, Inc. PageViews, Inc. is a professional search engine optimization and marketing SEO/SEM firm specializing in achieving high rankings for their clients on the Internet's major Search Engines. PageViews, Inc. has the search engine optimization experience and implements best practice methodologies to achieve top placements for client sites. PageViews, Inc. is based in Scottsdale, AZ.  For more information, visit http://www.pageviews.com or call 1-480-556-9752  inquiry@pageviews.com