Online Marketing for Local Business
Posts tagged search engines
Increasing The SEO Visibility Of Your Blog – Part I
14 years
by jhaynes
in Uncategorized
A keyword focused and well written, keyword rich blog can naturally attract search engine traffic to your site for a variety of reasons.
Most blogs already have an “optimized” site architecture for the search engines, and have clear navigation options and links that go back to the homepage and other main pages of your site. They are also a simple way to keep your website content updated with fresh and relevant information for your readers, as thousands of readers of our Hat Trick Associates blog already know – increasing not only your search traffic, but you conversions and sales revenue, too.
So what are some of the other ways you can the SEO value and effectiveness of your blog?
Blog Directories
Links that “aim” back to your site can be very valuable to you in the eyes of Google and the other search engines, since they help prove that your content is valuable and relevant to readers. “One way” links, or non reciprocal, are the most valuable…the premise being that “two way” links (from two sites linked to each other) could simply be part of an agreement to boost each other’s SEO score.
One great way to provide some of these great one-way links back to your website is through blog directories. There are thousands of relevant blog directories online, of many different sizes and specialties or importance.
Adding your own blog to the right ones can be a fantastic way to share your web content while raising the search engine visibility score of your website.
Knowing which ones can be difficult for many folks, however, and without the right subscription software, the process of submitting your own blog to each directory can be quite time-intensive.
But not only do we write blogs and write web and social content here at Hat Trick Associates, we also have the automated tools needed to easily submit your blog to the hundreds and thousands of blog and web directories out there that matter, and which can really boost the SEO of your website content.
If you would like to find out more about using this valuable, convenient service for your own website and professional blog, please contact us here at Hat Trick Associates.
But before you head out to start submitting your website, there are steps you should take to optimize your blog even before you promote it. You want your site to get the best keyword placement in the major search engines, but for the right keywords…the ones that not only bring in but convert traffic.
Blogs Keywords
With blog content keywords, you can choose to target a generalized, high-traffic keyword, but you often have little chance of ranking well for this keyword, and might not receive much in the way of additional traffic. The better option is to shoot for a keyword that gets a more moderate level of traffic – targeted traffic – which can result in more subscribers and sales.
These more lucrative keywords are important not because they bring the most eyeballs to your site, but because they bring the most profit to your organization.
You might even be surprised to learn that there often is NOT a great correlation between high traffic and high sales.
Many of the most profitable Internet sites on the globe actually get more modest traffic – but their lucrative keywords result in a much higher ratio of Visitors to Buyers, i.e. they rank for the right terms and keywords for the right subset of people who are suitable customers.
A good example of this phenomenon can be found right here on the Hat Trick Associates website.
We have a particular post on How Many Blogs Are There? This post has become a favorite of Google, Bing and Yahoo search, with thousands of visitors a month who find and read it.
However, much of this traffic comes from educational institutions or from other places in the world. In other words students conducting research or folks on the other side of the globe. High traffic, low conversions.
We are happy to share this information with whoever can use it, but this popularity and web traffic don’t actually bring in business. So focusing on the right, most lucrative keywords is critical for your organization.
If you don’t know what the best keywords for your organization’s website, that is another area that we can help with here at HTA.
Up next: Part II – Length of Search Query and Keyword Placement
Want to learn more? Contact us to ask any questions you may have, or to discuss your current web and social content programs and how we might be able to work together!
Google's Instant Preview Feature Joins Instant Search
014 years
by admin
in Uncategorized
Google wasn’t content with just having Instant Search, now it has introduced a new feature called Instant Previews. Searchers and web users can now browse a large instant “preview” of a site’s content by placing the cursor over the small magnifying glass displayed beside each listing. These previews are large and Google sometimes highlights a major paragraph or quote from each displayed site.
Searchers can get a general look at the layout and design of a site, with graphics and bold headlines usually seen from the preview. However, small print and the general content of the page can’t be read, so searchers will have to click through to your site if they want to read your information. Assuming of course, they don’t find what they’re looking for in the headlines or bold print!
Whether searchers will use this new feature remains to be seen, as even Google doesn’t hit a home run every time (Google Buzz, anyone?) but these instant previews could have some ramifications on who gets the “click through” to their site. One would also reason that getting the top spot in the rankings have diminished somewhat, if searchers can quickly preview all of the top 10 listings and then make their decision. So they might not click the top listing, but decide one lower down is worth clicking. This could make any listing on the first page more worth having, not just the top one.
This doesn’t really affect any of your SEO strategies and you should be optimizing for the search engines as usual. After all, getting those top rankings for your targeted keywords in the major search engines is what brings in the quality traffic to your site. In this regard, it’s business as usual.
However, Google’s Instant Previews does change the whole nature of SERPs or rather Google’s search results in that webmasters and marketers have another hurdle to get past before they get that final click. Searchers might click your top number one ranking preview and decide your page is not up to standard or it’s not what they’re looking for, and can quickly try out the other listings instead.
From Google’s perspective these previews could improve the “overall” quality of their results because searchers will come away happy, especially if they have not wasted their time clicking on a link, only to find it’s not what they’re looking for. Now they can easily find the right results more quickly and efficiently.
For the online marketer or webmaster, Instant Previews can be seen as another chance to get that all important click. They must make sure their page design is of high quality, and that pages feature a catchy headline which will draw visitors to their website. Highlighting a well-worded summary could also help attract more quality visitors. Placing your main keyword phrase in bold print so that it can be read from the preview is also a good idea going forward.
Needless to say, web marketers must still always keep their targeted keywords front and center. Highlighting them on your page in the main title is a given, but now you should make sure they can be read from the preview. This could possibly give you an edge with it comes to getting that click from Google!
On a more general note, these previews also add to the time searchers will spend on Google’s results pages. Google has been steadily focusing on this factor in recent months. Why? Because the longer a searcher stays on your page, the more likely they are to click your paid ads. Which makes perfect sense, if the searcher can’t find what they’re looking for in the “free organic listings”, they will look to the Adwords listings.
According to Alexa, the average time spent on Google in 2009 it was about 7 minutes…and today in 2010 that average has jumped to 14 minutes or more. And these numbers don’t include the full impact of Google Instant Search and Instant Previews yet, of course. That number should go even higher in the near future. And while this number still can’t touch Facebook’s average time of 30+ minutes, Google has still doubled the time it had only a year ago.
Previews will no doubt improve the effectiveness of Google’s SERPs, as searchers find what they are searching for more quickly, and leave as happy, more satisfied customers. However, for the webmaster and online marketer, keeping Instant Previews in mind when creating webpages is now a must. Here are some tips you can follow:
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Improve Your Graphics – These can really grab the searcher’s attention in the preview so it’s vital to have eye-popping graphics right next to your important information.
Create Great Headlines – Good headlines quickly capture the searcher’s attention and draws him/her to your page; just make them bold enough to be seen in Google’s previews.
Write An Informative Summary – Place your important information in a short summary which also captures the viewer’s attention. Entice these viewers to visit your site or page.
Take A Multi-Layered Approach – Just don’t aim all your marketing towards free organic search, but try video listings, news listings, image listings… to get other ways onto Google’s first page.
Pay Per Click (PPC) Advertising – This is probably not what you want to hear, but paid listings through Google Adwords is another option. Besides, for extremely lucrative keywords, as more and more major companies throw major funds into SEO and Keyword Link Buying, organic search is not really free or even available to everyone for the most competitive keywords. For the small-time web marketer, paid listings in Google may be your only option, an option that is also quickly becoming quite costly for many.
Of course, how Instant Search and Instant Previews play out in the near future is still wide open to speculation.
Will searchers even use these added features in their daily searches? Or will users opt–out and go back to a more gentle, less hurried Google? Only time will tell. But one thing that all of us can be sure of, Google will be constantly rolling out new features and innovations just to make all our lives a little more interesting. And of course, we at Hat Trick Associates strive to always be a close to that cutting edge – to take advantage of the new rules, options or features being rolled out – so contact us today if you could use some web content and distribution assistance, to keep YOUR business ahead of the curve…and you competition!
5 Steps To Create Content That Converts…& Increases Your SEO
14 years
by admin
in Uncategorized
Getting “found” online is the end goal of your content and SEO initiatives, in addition to the conversion of your web visitors into customers too, of course.
And it really wasn’t all that long ago that you could effectively grow your business or share your ideas online by “interrupting” prospective customers with Push methods such as banner advertising, unsolicited email messages, or other off-line (and old school!) methods like cold calling. But business people grew weary of being targeted by outbound marketing and promotions long ago, and the technologies in use today have become far better at blocking these methods.
Businesses and people in general have also changed the way that they shop and learn, primarily utilizing search engines, social networking sites and blogs to find the information that they need. “Pull” or inbound marketing helps companies take advantage of these shifts by helping them get found by customers in the natural way in which they shop and learn. Here are five tips that you can use to help yourself “get found” online:
1. Start with an extraordinary idea
The days of needing a huge advertising budget to spend on marketing and PR to promote your ideas are long gone. Today, truly unique or extraordinary ideas can find many ways to spread like wildfire on their own online, without any significant expenditure. And by comparison, those ideas that are not extraordinary usually languish unfound – regardless of how much advertising or public relations that you do. Make sure you have a unique, remarkable offering and it will spread like wildfire online, if it’s truly unique and innovative.
2. Create LOTS of content
Once you have found an extraordinary service or product, you need to create lots (and lots) of quality content about it. There are many ways to distribute your content – social media accounts, blogs, article marketing, tweets, videos, podcasts. Great content about a great product or service will attract the links you need from other sites. These links generate traffic, which in turn tells Google and every other search engine that YOU should be ranked more highly.
(Need some writing help to keep up with your publishing schedule or additional resources to help you distribute what you are creating? Contact us for your many cost-effective options!)
3. Optimize your content
All of your content should be “keyword optimized,” both for search engines like Google and also for users of social networks like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Flickr etc. who will be spreading it.
Be sure to include some of the most important keywords within the title (or Title Tag) of your piece so it will be easy for the engines to find and identify it. But you also need to make the titles enticing for human eyes as well, with a subject line that will elicit responses. Something that arouses the curiosity of readers such as” “Everything you need to know about…” or statements that can only be answered by reading all of the content, such as “How to”, “What can” or “Why do”.
Lists are very popular as well, like “10 things you must do on your website” or “5 easy steps to…” Provocative titles such as “7 things your bank doesn’t want you to know” or other even more sensationalized titles such as “5 financial decisions that could RUIN your retirement” or “8 Mistakes that cost you money, every month” also often work well.
People often respond as well to avoiding negative consequences as they do to potential positive outcomes.
4. Share your content
After you have created a remarkable piece of content and optimized it, now you need to spread the word. Email it to your E-Newsletter subscribers, post the content on your blog, tweet it to your followers, update your Facebook page and LinkedIn profile with it, then share it with article directories.
If your content is truly extraordinary, others will share it online for you. And as your content spreads, you will have more people subscribe to you or Follow you, so that the subsequent content you publish in the future will have an even greater audience.
5. Measure the results
If you cannot measure your results, you’ll never truly know which methods or channels work best for you. For example, you should compare your results for Google organic search (both branded and non-branded), Google paid, your E-Newsletter and Twitter feed, Facebook, LinkedIn or other social media, Forum postings, and any of the myriad campaigns you could be conducting right now.
You should track visitors, leads and customers over time, for every campaign. Then increase resources spent on campaigns that are working, and discontinue or scale back the ones that aren’t.