Source: SiteProNews.com Newsletters
I read an article titled "Should Small Businesses Invest In SEO During A Recession?" written by Mike Tekula. I have listed down few interesting points from the article...
1. Unparalelled ROI
A 2006 MarketingSherpa survey of 3,053 client-side marketers determined that SEO was viewed as the most valuable marketing solution in terms of ROI, even higher than email marketíng to in-house email lists. ROI is everything - especially in uncertain economic times.
2. Targeted Traffíc
Traditional "push" marketing/advertising options often have you publishing an advertisement in a place where you're hoping it will get a lot of eyeballs. That's great, but the real question is: who owns those eyeballs? Are they the right people? Do they want or need what you're offering? With SEO, up front keyword research can tell you a lot about your market and what kind of language they're using. When you choose your keywords and optimize for them, you're addressing an existing need or desire - and you know that at least a good portion of visitors referred from search engines through your target keywords are looking for exactly what you're offering. In short, SEO helps to drive high quality traffic to your website and gets your message in front of the right people at the right time.
3. Precise Tracking
Web analytics allow you to track your users with a great deal of granularity. The most basic and easy to set up analytics platform is Google Analytics - and it's free. Out of the box, Google Analytics will tell you where visitors are coming from (including what search engines and keywords), what pages bring in the most users, what keywords have the lowest bounce rates (the measure of users who immediately leave your site after viewing one page), what keywords drive the most pages per visit and average time on site and a lot more. With basic conversion tracking you can even tie keywords to conversion rates - an incredibly valuable way to identify the most valuable keywords and focus on them. Bottom line: with web analytics you can identify the dead wood in your campaign and focus on better opportunities to optimize your marketing budget in real time.
To read the full article visit SiteProNews.com
About the author:
Mike Tekula is the President and Founder of Unstuck Digital, Inc., a Long Island SEO company that provides clients with effective and affordable search engine marketing strategies.
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Monday, December 1, 2008
Join the Social Media Revolution - SEO Tip #4
The last tip from John Metzler article
The collaboration between Internet users and the development of online communities is at an all-time high. Social bookmarking sites such as Del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, Furl, Reddit, and Technorati provide users a way to store their favorite pages and media online, and share it with others. These services also provide a way to promote your content or create a buzz over a product or service. Creating a Myspace page or Squidoo "lens" is also a way to network and share information.
However, if your goal is to generate sales, then you must provide something without the promotional hype. The reality of social media is that popularity is based almost entirely on public interest. If your information or media isn't unique or of interest to anyone, you cannot force success using social media communities.
The key to using social media and bookmarking sites to your advantage is to not be shy. Getting your entries and content to the popular pages on these sites requires some hard work. Network with other users, bookmark and share useful content, create eye-catching titles for your entries, and tell your friends and co-workers about the content you have on these sites. However, don't force your employees to vote your entries up - this is social media fraud. If you have great content and simply share it with as many people as you can, it will see success naturally.
The four tips are a general guideline to follow for SEO. Search engine optimization experts and firms are a good outsourcing option in competitive markets, while the DIY attitude can yield great results for web site owners with smaller marketing budgets. If you're in the latter group, hopefully this helps get you started.
About the author
John Metzler has held executive positions in the search engine marketing industry since 2001. He is the Founder of FreshPromo, a Canadian-based search marketing firm and updates his blog regularly
The collaboration between Internet users and the development of online communities is at an all-time high. Social bookmarking sites such as Del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, Furl, Reddit, and Technorati provide users a way to store their favorite pages and media online, and share it with others. These services also provide a way to promote your content or create a buzz over a product or service. Creating a Myspace page or Squidoo "lens" is also a way to network and share information.
However, if your goal is to generate sales, then you must provide something without the promotional hype. The reality of social media is that popularity is based almost entirely on public interest. If your information or media isn't unique or of interest to anyone, you cannot force success using social media communities.
The key to using social media and bookmarking sites to your advantage is to not be shy. Getting your entries and content to the popular pages on these sites requires some hard work. Network with other users, bookmark and share useful content, create eye-catching titles for your entries, and tell your friends and co-workers about the content you have on these sites. However, don't force your employees to vote your entries up - this is social media fraud. If you have great content and simply share it with as many people as you can, it will see success naturally.
The four tips are a general guideline to follow for SEO. Search engine optimization experts and firms are a good outsourcing option in competitive markets, while the DIY attitude can yield great results for web site owners with smaller marketing budgets. If you're in the latter group, hopefully this helps get you started.
About the author
John Metzler has held executive positions in the search engine marketing industry since 2001. He is the Founder of FreshPromo, a Canadian-based search marketing firm and updates his blog regularly
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Get Others to Link to Your Site - SEO TIP #3
Here goes the 3rd tip:
In theory there are countless ways, some traditional and some quite innovative, to get other web sites to link to yours. In practice, it can be easier said than done. Google defines a link as it pertains to rankings and SEO as a "vote" from one site to another. The more quality votes your site receives, the greater chance you have of ranking well. If a well established site links to yours, that link carries more weight than one would from a mom & pop shop or less reputable page.
If your site has useful content and is doing something unique, you're already ahead of much of the competition. People need a reason to link to your site, as very few will do it out of the goodness of their heart. Trading links can work, but link exchange networks have decreased in value and won't be of much use in competitive fields. Buying links, if you haven't heard, is a big Google no-no. While entire articles could be written on this topic, here are a few popular methods of acquiring incoming links:
John Metzler has held executive positions in the search engine marketing industry since 2001. He is the Founder of FreshPromo, a Canadian-based search marketing firm and updates his blog regularly
In theory there are countless ways, some traditional and some quite innovative, to get other web sites to link to yours. In practice, it can be easier said than done. Google defines a link as it pertains to rankings and SEO as a "vote" from one site to another. The more quality votes your site receives, the greater chance you have of ranking well. If a well established site links to yours, that link carries more weight than one would from a mom & pop shop or less reputable page.
If your site has useful content and is doing something unique, you're already ahead of much of the competition. People need a reason to link to your site, as very few will do it out of the goodness of their heart. Trading links can work, but link exchange networks have decreased in value and won't be of much use in competitive fields. Buying links, if you haven't heard, is a big Google no-no. While entire articles could be written on this topic, here are a few popular methods of acquiring incoming links:
- issuing company press releases with a link back to your site
- submittíng to reputable business directories such as Yahoo! and Business.com
- be active on related blogs by commenting and exchanging ideas
- if you have clients with web sites, ask if they would mind adding your link in a "partners" section
- participate in relevant forums and discussion boards with a link in your signature
- write and submit original articles to web publications in your field with a link in your bio
- get involved in social media and bookmarking
John Metzler has held executive positions in the search engine marketing industry since 2001. He is the Founder of FreshPromo, a Canadian-based search marketing firm and updates his blog regularly
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Choose Your Keywords Wisely - SEO Beginners Tip #2
Here goes the second tip from John Metzler article
One of the first steps of SEO, this one needs to be done properly the first time or all your future efforts and promotion could end up being wasted. Start by writing down general terms that describe your products, services or web content. Use keyword research services to investigate word and phrase variations. Wordtracker, KeywordDiscovery, and the Google AdWords suggestion tool are good starting points. The goal is to find those niche phrases that your target market uses to find sites just like yours and optimize your site for them. If the phrases do not get enough use by searchers, your profíts from ranking for them will be low. At the same time, stay away from general terms that are tougher to rank for (ie. like "art", "computers", "business", etc.) as a great portion of the traffic will be irrelevant and you'll break the bank attaining such competitive phrases.
About The Author
John Metzler has held executive positions in the search engine marketing industry since 2001. He is the Founder of FreshPromo, a Canadian-based search marketing firm and updates his blog regularly
One of the first steps of SEO, this one needs to be done properly the first time or all your future efforts and promotion could end up being wasted. Start by writing down general terms that describe your products, services or web content. Use keyword research services to investigate word and phrase variations. Wordtracker, KeywordDiscovery, and the Google AdWords suggestion tool are good starting points. The goal is to find those niche phrases that your target market uses to find sites just like yours and optimize your site for them. If the phrases do not get enough use by searchers, your profíts from ranking for them will be low. At the same time, stay away from general terms that are tougher to rank for (ie. like "art", "computers", "business", etc.) as a great portion of the traffic will be irrelevant and you'll break the bank attaining such competitive phrases.
About The Author
John Metzler has held executive positions in the search engine marketing industry since 2001. He is the Founder of FreshPromo, a Canadian-based search marketing firm and updates his blog regularly
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Tips for SEO Beginners - #1
I recieved a newsletter from SitePro News in July 2008. The newsletter had an article on checklist for SEO Beginner's written by John Metzler. The article had good tips for SEO Beginners. Good Luck Beginners.!
Here goes the tip on creating Search Engine Friendly Content and tomorrow's tip will be on "Choosing Right Keywords"
1. Create Search Engine-Friendly Content
Unique web content is your most valuable asset, and ensuring search engines can read it is crucial. Text embedded in images or Flash cannot be read, so make sure you use important keywords, headings, and hyperlinks in plain text form. Instead of using images as navigation links, CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) makes it easy to format those links to look more like 'buttons', thus creating powerful anchor text as well as making it visually appealing. Use heading tags properly and don't try to hide keywords or text by making it the same color as the page background or shrinking it so it can't be seen. Make sure the keywords you wish to rank high for are used frequently in the page copy but within reason.
Now that you've created good content, is it actually being crawled? Copy and paste a page's URL into a search engine to see if it has been indexed. If you've just created the page, it may take a few days to show up. Aside from age, many factors can lead to web pages not being indexed by search engines, such as duplicate content (ie. a printer-friendly version of a page might be indexed and the normal version not, or vice versa); links generated by JavaScript instead of HTML; poor site architecture (ie. using too many sub-directories); lengthy, dynamically generated URLs using special characters; and orphaned pages.
About The Author
John Metzler has held executive positions in the search engine marketing industry since 2001. He is the Founder of FreshPromo, a Canadian-based search marketing firm and updates his blog regularly
Here goes the tip on creating Search Engine Friendly Content and tomorrow's tip will be on "Choosing Right Keywords"
1. Create Search Engine-Friendly Content
Unique web content is your most valuable asset, and ensuring search engines can read it is crucial. Text embedded in images or Flash cannot be read, so make sure you use important keywords, headings, and hyperlinks in plain text form. Instead of using images as navigation links, CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) makes it easy to format those links to look more like 'buttons', thus creating powerful anchor text as well as making it visually appealing. Use heading tags properly and don't try to hide keywords or text by making it the same color as the page background or shrinking it so it can't be seen. Make sure the keywords you wish to rank high for are used frequently in the page copy but within reason.
Now that you've created good content, is it actually being crawled? Copy and paste a page's URL into a search engine to see if it has been indexed. If you've just created the page, it may take a few days to show up. Aside from age, many factors can lead to web pages not being indexed by search engines, such as duplicate content (ie. a printer-friendly version of a page might be indexed and the normal version not, or vice versa); links generated by JavaScript instead of HTML; poor site architecture (ie. using too many sub-directories); lengthy, dynamically generated URLs using special characters; and orphaned pages.
About The Author
John Metzler has held executive positions in the search engine marketing industry since 2001. He is the Founder of FreshPromo, a Canadian-based search marketing firm and updates his blog regularly
Monday, November 24, 2008
Why Realtors need a website?
I published a couple of posts explaining the significance of having a website for your online business.
Many realtors run their business offline. However the research and facts show that 85% - 90% of home buyers starts their search online.
Realtors need to have online presence to take advantage of these numbers during economic recession. The key is to create a website with valuable information and content. Optimize your website for search engines to increase your visibility.
Let's take a quick on the topics that will be blogged this week.
Many realtors run their business offline. However the research and facts show that 85% - 90% of home buyers starts their search online.
Realtors need to have online presence to take advantage of these numbers during economic recession. The key is to create a website with valuable information and content. Optimize your website for search engines to increase your visibility.
Let's take a quick on the topics that will be blogged this week.
- Why Search Engine Optimization is important?
- Should small businesses invest in SEO? - Article
- SEO tips and tricks
- SEO resources
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Email-Lead Grabber - A Perfect Tool To Increase Your Conversion Rate Of Online Leads
A recent survey concluded that 90% of all real estate agents don't respond to their online inquiries.
Prospective online clients generally collect information for a potential purchase. They are accustomed to collect information freely but reluctant to provide valid contact information. Because of this many real estate agents get frustrated and they consider online leads as a waste of time.
This is a huge mistake as a Forrester Research shows that “The Realtors who respond promptly to an online inquiry, have 10 times greater chance of signing the prospect as a client.” The startling truth is unless you are constantly following-up on prospects, you are literally throwing away your rolls of money!
Now the problem is how to follow continually-up with interested prospects?
It is not practically possible to call or email every single lead.
Imagine, a simple yet powerful, automated tool that would work for 24 x 7 turning your online prospects into lifelong, loyal customers. Fortunately eGrabber has developed email-Lead Grabber to make your dreams come true.
email-Lead Grabber process the email leads. It automatically downloads email leads submitted through online forms and various 3rd party websites, extracts specified information and transfers it instantly to your contact manager. It also schedules activities and sends auto response emails.
To know more about the product, Click here
For a free trial, Click here
To purchase it online, Click here
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