Roy Hunter

www.MyMarketingCompany.com

I have written a few articles about the specifics of SEO techniques but I still get a lot of emails from people asking me what all the things are they can do to get their Internet website  to rank higher in search results and become a more effective marketing tool, so I created this list of “tips” to be a guide for someone taking a hands on approach to optimizing and promoting their website.

I would suggest you “grade” your site before you begin and try these tips, you can follow your progress toward improvement of your sites SEO by using the web site grading tool found at websitegrader.com.

Assuming of course you have created a good website with useful information and unique content, these are your next steps.

1.  Verify the code in your page using the W3c validation tool and fix the errors.

If a crawler can not easily navigate through your site due to errors in the code you could have some problems. A few errors are probably OK, but if you have 10 or more, you are probably asking for trouble. W3c also has a link checking tool so while you are there, verify your internal links to make sure everything functions properly. A broken link will stop a search engine crawler in its tracks and return an error to the search engine.

2.  Optimize your keywords for the most popular keyword terms if you feel you can compete, if not, optimize for the “mid level” keywords or the ones used some of the time by searchers looking for your goods and services.

Keywords are very important, these are the search terms that people are going to use to find you. Optimize your keywords in your title, H1 and H2 tags and have a variant or two mentioned in your first paragraph as well as the “meta title” and “meta description” in the HTML code. The “mid level” terms will be the middle-ranked keywords using the Google keyword tool. If your main keywords are very competitive, it is better to be seen by some, then not seen at all. You can use an Adwords campaign to be seen in the difficult keyword categories.

3.  Create a blog so you have something to submit to Digg, Blog Catalog, Technorati, EzineArticles, etc. Wordpress is best for the platform, make sure to use the SEO plugin for Wordpress and fill out all the SEO options for an article. (tags, keywords, descriptions, etc.)

Blogs are a good way to be found. The more sites you submit to the better your chances are that you are going to be found and get your site linked to. The more quality links you can create, the better.

4. Submit a sitemap to Google, Yahoo, and Bing (search “sitemap generator” for a free online tool that will create one for you)

With new websites, submitting a sitemap to the search engines helps to expedite the indexing process. Rather than just submitting a site, show the search engines your sites structure.

5.  Write another article for your blog.

The more content you create, the better your chances are of getting linked to.

6.  Participate in forums where the links in the posts have been tagged “index” in the metadata of the forum page.  Post comments and questions and make sure you include links to your website so people and search engines can see you outside your web page. Your posts will help to create vital links to your website which will help with your page rank value over time.

7.  Write another article for your blog

The more content you create, the better your chances are of getting linked to.

8.  Build a Squidoo lens for your website

Squidoo is a neat little site for creating a mini web page and this also helps your website get linked to.

9.  Advertise your business in local magazines.

Most local magazines will also publish links to their advertisers websites on their own page. Not only is the local publicity good, you also get a link the search engines live to see, a one way link from a quality site.

10.  Submit your website to the DMOZ directory.

Though the quality of the DMOZ directory has gone down hill a bit as it is maintained by volunteers, it is free to submit to and if you get in the directory, it certainly will not hurt. Others to consider are:  JoAnt, AboutUs.org, and the Yahoo directory.

11.  Comment on some blog articles related to your business.

Go where your target market hangs out and you will be seen. Don’t forget to hyperlink your name to your website. Don’t just post an http link, use your company name and hyperlink your name to your website. Your company name will give some relevance to the link, create brand awareness, and Google will find the link by the hyperlink you created with your business name.

12.  Get all your friends to bookmark your site in Google Bookmarks and in Yahoo’s Delicious, at least 20 of them.

But make sure you tell them to tag the bookmark with a keyword. For example if you have a jewelry store tell them to tag the bookmark with the word jewelry. This will help other bookmark searchers find you and if you get enough bookmarks it is possible to end up on the popular bookmarks page and this will drive more traffic to your site.

13.  Promote your website on Twitter and Facebook.

Try to get people that run businesses similar to yours to follow you. Tweet your URL on Friday as that is the day most people follow their tweets. It is possible to get a good link this way. Facebook has groups that will be made up of people in your target market.

14.  Write another article for your blog

The more content you create, the better your chances are of getting linked to.

15.  Make sure you have updated all your accounts in Technorati, Digg, Blog Catalog, and EzineArticles

Pretty self explanatory, you need to keep your sites updated for the most impact.

16.  Make some more comments in forums.

Again, hang out where your target market does. It is possible to get some good links this way.

17.  Write another article for your blog

The more content you create, the better your chances are of getting linked to.

18.  Pay PR web for a press release

One of the good things with PRweb is your news release is guaranteed to be shown in yahoo news. A good chance for someone in your market to find you. If you are curious how good your press release is, there is a handy tool located at:  Press Release Grader it will give you some tips on creating a good press release for your business.

19.  Make sure you get a listing on the Yellowpages or Superpages website.

These sites place high in search results so it makes it easier for your customers to find you. It is free to submit your business, though I would opt to spring for their basic package. You can find them here: Superpages and Yellowpages

20.  Pay Yahoo to be listed in their directory

Yahoo is being purchased by Microsoft so it is anyone’s guess what will happen to the directory, for the time being a listing in the Yahoo directory gets you in the yahoo search results. At $299 it is a little pricey but it will get you seen and create another link to your website.

21.  Build a web page on MerchantCircle

I think this is one of the best things a new company can do to be found at the top of the search results. Keep focus on optimizing the keywords in your MerchantCirle site as this is what will determine where your MC listing will be found in search results. I would not invest in their Pay-Per-Click advertising, 80% of the money you pay will go to promoting the MerchantCircle website, not yours. Send connection invitations to the local businesses in your area, you will be able to send coupons to the businesses that accept you invitation.

22.  Write another article for your blog

The more content you create, the better your chances are of getting linked to.

23.  Submit your website to the ZoomInfo  directory.

24. Did I mention you need to write another article for your blog?

25. Include your domain name in any advertising you do. Also, if your domain name is hard to remember, this will hurt you in the long run, a good domain that is easy to remember can be much easier to brand and it also will have some SEO benefit. For example my company domain; www.MyMarketingCompany.com, is much easier for a business owner to remember than the name my company.

A great domain name can become a big part of your website and company “brand awareness”, a business owner that can remember your website domain name will contact you first when they require your goods and services.

___________

Different businesses will have different SEO and marketing requirements, this list of tips will be a good place to start and steer your business in the right direction.

One thing so many business owners forget, in order for your website to be an effective marketing tool, you need to market your website. Focus on getting as many people as you can to see your website, if they like it, they will link to it. The more links to your website you have, the higher your website will place in search results.

If you are looking for a new forum to participate that is new which is a good place for you to be the topic creator rather than a reply poster, you can find it here:  Free Marketing Forum with “follow links”

I created this tool specifically to help people just like you so please take advantage of it, it was a lot of work!

If you are looking for links to business development information (probably the biggest directory of its kind) you can find it here: Business Development Directory

It is also something our company created to help you as a business owner.

You can start your SEO process this very second by posting a comment to this blog. Looking for other articles you can reply to that relate to to this subject? You can find them here: Florida Marketing Consultants Blog

So go ahead, what are you waiting for! Promote your website!

Roy Hunter

July 27, 2009

www.MyMarketingCompany.com

I have been following a lot of forums lately and one of the things I have noticed is many posters, and surprisingly some SEO providers, really do not understand what Page Rank is.

The common misconception seems to be that Page Rank is your placement or ranking in search results. Page Rank does have an effect on ranking higher in search results but not the location of your website within those results. Page Rank is the overall value placed on your page by Google and that value gets passed to the pages you are linked to. It is still possible to achieve high placement in search results with a Google Page Rank value of zero.

Over time Google will place a value on your page based on its popularity and perceived authority. This value is is then used to determine the value of pages you are linked to. The theory is; quality sites will link to quality pages and this is how Google differentiates quality websites from questionable ones and assists them in removing spam sites from the search results.

I saw a blog post by Danny Sullivan in reply to a post made by Matt Cutts. Mat Cutts is the head of Google’s Web spam team and he  basically sets the standard for what Google indexes and deems valuable content.

In Matt’s blog, Danny Sullivan provided a very simplistic example how Page Rank works by defining it as a $ value. Each web page has a value, maybe $5, maybe $10, etc. If you have 5 links on your page and your page is valued at $10, each link has the ability to spend $2 of that value and transfer it to the page it is linked to. The linked page now gets a value of $2, if that page has 4 external links, each link is worth $.50 and transfers that value to the linked page and so on.

That is an overly simplistic definition of sharing Page Rank value as Google ultimately determines the value of the link based on the type, location, some links are worth more, some are worth less. But you get the general idea.

To get Page Rank you need to have links to your website on Page Ranked sites, when websites with Page Rank link to your site and “share” some of their value, the Page Rank value of your site will increase. Page Rank is also given by Google as a result of the number of  inbound links to your website regardless if they are from Page Ranked sites or not. You can gain page rank from links in social sites,  forums and blogs, as well as links from media companies such as local magazines that are promoting your website as a result of advertising with them. The more links you have pointing to your website, the more Page Rank your website will receive from Google.

Consider your Page Rank as money in the bank. Choose to spend it wisely. Each page you link to will get some of the value that has been placed on your page. A good rule of thumb is to only link to quality pages with a trusted authority. If you are not sure about the quality of the website you are linking to, you should define in the HTML code of your website instructing the Google bot to not follow that link. If you are confident the page is a authority, or quality website then by all means link to it. Google likes quality websites to share their value with other quality websites.

Here is an example of a “nofollow”  link for an untrusted link within a web page you can use to adjust your code:

<a rel=”nofollow” href=”http://www.THELINKSWEBSITE.com” target=”_blank“>Anchor Text</a>

That will open the page in a new window, use _self in place of _blank if you wan the link to open in the same page.

Now I am sure some of you SEO savvy developers who have used link sculpting in the past to enhance the value of interior linked pages to preserve Page Rank may disagree with me about sharing page rank freely between worthy sites, if you have been paying attention, Google has made a fundamental shift from it’s stance on “link sculpting”.

If you would like to learn more about the update that Google has implemented and learn more about the practice of Link Sculpting do’s and dont’s you can read Matt Cutts blog here:

Matt Cutts Blog

If you would like to begin a forum discussion on the subject you may do it here:

Free Marketing Forum

Roy Hunter

Florida Marketing Consultants

July 27^th, 2009

http://www.mymarketingcompany.com/

I love that joke!

The sad thing about it is, for the most part, the promise of search engine optimization and the companies that provide that service, really are a joke.

Granted, there are some legit SEO companies out there, don’t get me wrong, but the ones that really get results are VERY few and far between.

I recently did a search in a directory for SEO companies nationwide and sent out nearly 700 emails of which I received about 100 or so responses at the time this article was written.

I made a simple request. I was willing to bookmark their website on all the social bookmarking sites I submit to (17 of them) if they were willing to do the same for me.

Of the hundred or so responses, NOT ONE SEO company at the time this article was published had bookmarked my site in any of the social bookmarking sites on the internet today. The main bookmark sites that come to mind are Blinklist, Delicious and Google Bookmarks.

But here is where it gets really funny!

I bookmarked every single company’s website that had sent me a reply. Over 100 of them. When I logged into my Delicious account to see how many times my site was bookmarked, (and discovered no one bothered to return the favor) I looked at all the SEO company websites I had bookmarked to see what the average number of bookmarks my competitors had.

Ready for the punch line?

75% of the SEO web pages I bookmarked had NEVER been bookmarked on Delicious before. NEVER! I was the first person to bookmark their site! 20% of the companies had less than 5, and the remaining sites had more than 5.

5% of the nationwide SEO companies understand one of the most basic SEO techniques available to get sites some exposure!

That is 1 out of every 20, or 256 companies out of every 5,120 for you number nerds, that actually get what social bookmarking can do for your website, let alone theirs, or even has any customers willing to bookmark their website! One out of Twenty!

One of the simplest things that can affect your page rank and placement in organic search results is how many “links” there are to your site on the internet and the quality of those links.

If an SEO company is promising to get you higher placement in search results and can not even get their own site up the search engine results list, what are they REALLY going to do for you? If the owner of the SEO Company can not even take the time to get links to his own site, does he really know what he is doing when it comes to Search Engine Optimization?

Before you hire a SEO company I am going to tell you the easiest way to know if that company will do what it says…

First, check their placement in the search results for your area. If they are not in the top 10, dont bother. If you have a google tool bar, check to see if their site has any page rank.

Sign up for an account on www.delicious.com and bookmark the page of the company you want to hire. You will then be able to see how many Delicious.com members have bookmarked that company’s website. It gives you a hint to their popularity.

If it is more than ten, you probably have found an SEO God.

If they have 1 or less, stay away, you are going to get burned. It is what we call in the marketing industry “SEO Malpractice!” Anyone can provide SEO services, but few understand what SEO really is.

And when you think about it, it really is not that funny…. Websites can actually be hurt by black hat SEO tricks and owners of those websites will be up against some huge losses for the privilege. Both financially, and from lost revenue previously generated by the website.

My next article will define Page Pank as this is another conversation you can have with your SEO, if they do not understand page rank and how it works, then you will really know you have a bum steer!