The Internet Marketing Blog

4 phases of search engine optimization process

September 9, 2010 – 2:24 pm

This is a simple guide to search engine optimization process. I usually go throw all those phases then undertake a SEO project. Many clients have being asking me to define what exactly I am going to do to their website, so there you go. Enjoy!

Phase I - Keyword Research and Identification

First, I collect information on client’s nature of business and his (her) industry (what kind of keywords are we dealing with here?). Second, I get search volume of each keyword using statistics from search engines (how many times was a keyword queried per month?). And third, I define competition level for each keyword. Basically, the amount of web pages competing for the same keyword. This can be discovered by the number of results returned on a given keyword. After all of these steps are done and I have a list of keywords I let client pick top keywords that most relevant to his (her) business and with highest search volume meanwhile with reasonable keyword competition level (KCL).

Phase II - Competition Analysis

In phase 2 I identify WHO is competition WHY the competition is where they are and WHAT needs to be performed on client site in order to get to the same level with competition. I analyze on-site factors such as keyword/content page ratio; and off-site factors such as amount of backlinks and their quality. I relate everything to the top players, simply because what they got is the best, because they are first.

Phase III - Optimization Process

Phase 3 is there I have fun, because it’s all technical. This is there I execute all my knowledge and proven techniques. This is there the magic happening. I don’t want to give out my prestige, but just would want to share a general step I perform:

• Content generation
• Keywords insertion
• Content prioritization
• Image tags, link titles and link names optimization
• Meta tags implementation and modification (Title, Description, Keywords)
• Site map development
• Massive link development from all sources
• Social media optimization

Phase IV - Patience and Improvement

The final phase is dedicated to the monitoring of my SEO results and adjusting those steps done in phase 3 to improve website positioning. It usually takes a few months until client get to see first results, so this step requires patience. I also continue content growth and continuous link development depending on overall SEO performance.

Posted in Search Engine Optimization | No Comments »

Take over search engine search results

July 31, 2010 – 6:34 pm

Let’s pretend that you got your business’ website on the first page of search engine for important keywords. Do you think you’re getting maximum traffic from your SEO? No, for sure not! There is a room to grow and I will show you how.

If you want true results from your search engine optimization, you should not concentrate only on your website being listed on the first page of search engine. It is obvious that there are 9 more search results on the first page and every one of them has equal chances of getting a visitor. The truth is that the top traffic results come from dominating first page of search engine.

What are the benefits of dominating search engine’s first page?

You should definitely try to achieve more than just one listing for targeted keywords and the benefits of doing it are:

• Elimination of first page competitors
• Raise the authority of your brand or business
• Increase CTR (Click Through Rate)

How you take over search engine’s first page?

There are a few inexpensive advices you can follow to dominate search engine’s first 10 results:

Optimize your social profiles

Instead of just having your social network profiles stating your business name, why not stuffing it with important keywords. Not all social networks will allow doing that, but for the one’s that do, make sure you using the opportunity to your benefit.

Syndicate content in any ways possible

It is always the right thing to create fresh and interesting content, no questions asked. What else businesses must look at is syndicating their content beyond their websites. And there’s a plenty of ways to do it:

• Slideshows and Presentations
• Blogging and Article Writing
• Images, Video and Media Syndication
• Press Releases Distribution

Look for various types of content that is online and you should find some websites that give you opportunity to share it with the world. That again should create a possible search engine listing for your business. Don’t forget about putting the right keyword terms in title and description of content you sharing.

Create a directory and business listings

Another way to get listed in search engine is to create an online community profile or business directory listing of your business. Most of the directories will allow you to include targeted keywords in your title and description of your profile.

There are a lot of other ways to create search engine listings for your business. The more ways you try, the higher your chances are in dominating search engine, increasing traffic and overall SEO performance.

Posted in Internet Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media | 1 Comment »

Facebook becoming valuable to businesses

June 30, 2010 – 3:44 pm

Now businesses and retailers spending more of their marketing dollars on social media websites like Facebook to reach their target market. According to Morpace (survey research and consulting organization) people spend one third of their time online on Facebook.

People spend 7.3 hours on Facebook out of the 22.4 hours they spend on the Internet in total. People aged 18-34 spend even more time on Facebook making it 8.5 hours a week. Others who generally earn more than $100, 000 per year spend 9 hours a week on the Facebook website.

The Vice President in Retail of Morpace, Kirsten Denyes says that these statistics prove what an efficient device, such as Facebook could be for reaching the desired and targeted audience. Facebook can also raise the familiarity of the consumers with the products, events, and promotions. Studies also show that customers enjoy viewing Facebook pages on products and businesses, due to the displayed product details, deductions in price and coupons.

According to previous research, the people who use Facebook generally use it while at the same time doing other activates. 68 percent check email, 55 percent browse the Internet, and 47 percent watch television.

Posted in Internet Marketing, Social Media | No Comments »

Designing a website

May 31, 2010 – 7:01 pm

Designing a website is not a simple task, especially if you about to design a website or redesign one for your business. Having a website online these days is essential. You must at least have a presence on the web so that customers, possible employees, partners or even investors can quickly and simply find out more about your business and the products or services you have to offer.

It is not enough just to have a website. You must have a professional-looking commercial website if you aiming to be taken seriously. Since many consumers currently search for information online prior to making a purchase, your website could be the first opportunity you have at making a good impression on a potential buyer. If your website looks like it was designed by an armature designer, your chance at making a good first impression will be lost.

One of the best things about the internet is that it has leveled the playing ground when it comes to competing with the big boys. As mentioned, you have one opportunity at making a good first impression. With a well-designed site, your little maneuver can project the image and professionalism of a much bigger company. The inverse is also true. I’ve seen many large company websites that were so poorly designed and difficult to navigate that they completely lacked professionalism and credibility. When it comes to benefiting from a website, size does not matter. I don’t care if you’re a one-guy operation company or a 1,000 employee company, if you don’t have a website; you’re losing business to other companies that do have a website.

Posted in Web Design | 1 Comment »

How to improve you website rankings

April 30, 2010 – 3:53 pm

In this article I will explain how search engine works and how you can improve your search engine rankings without taking search engine optimization course or paying money to pro. Of course, if your online competition is too great, so you can’t beat it yourself and can’t get on the first page of search results - then you probably might want to call specialist to achieve these results, but the following steps is a good start and worth doing knowing, anyways.

First of all you have to understand how search engines work. Search engine finds the best match for what user wants and what’s offered on the World Wide Web and ranks result according to how well it matches and how popular the resource is. In another words search engine matches what user types with text offered on web page and ranks based on how often keyword appear and how many sites link to that page. Knowing this your tasks will be:

1. To understand what kind of keywords users type when they looking for your products or services online and create content for your website using these keywords, and
2. To build links pointing to your website

Keyword research and content creation

When you do keyword research you have to think of keyword synonyms, other variations and geographical area you want to target. Sometimes users search locally and they will type keyword with city name – for example “pizza delivery in toronto”. There are a number of free keyword research tools that you can find on the net. Try this famous Google AdWords research tool. It will give you monthly statistics of how many times the keyword has being searched along with suggested keywords related to your business. After you determine targeted keywords use them when writing content for your website, but do it wisely – do not speculate. Use only where it is appropriate, make sure you content is readable and avoid duplicated content, over wise your website will be penalized and deleted from search. When content is created it is time to start building popularity by attracting links to your website.

Link building procedure

It is good when a lot of links pointing to your website, but there is another very important factor – it is their quality. A good quality link is the link coming from related to your industry recourse. Avoid links coming from unrelated subject websites, as they will only damage your reputation. Find a few businesses in your area and contact them with a link exchange offer. Use social media websites, like Facebook and Twitter to tell users what’s new in your business. Write comments on related blogs with link pointing back to your website, but do not spam! Your links will build your website authority.

Posted in Search Engine Optimization | 1 Comment »

Website speed is now affecting Google’s ranking

March 30, 2010 – 6:56 pm

In the beginning of this year Google webmasters made a couple of updates in Google search engine results ranking algorithm. Now, if you own a website that has huge java script code or heavy pictures, that takes time to load, most likely you will find it go down few more pages. On the other hand if your website is fast and website speed is optimized it will gain more positive points and probably will end up ranking high above your competition.

Posted in Internet Marketing, Search Engine Optimization | No Comments »

Creating a winning website design for business

February 9, 2010 – 3:37 pm

A 21st century business owners and entrepreneurs must understand, the worth of winning web design and its part in marketing of the website.

Designing a winning website is not a simple task, especially for someone who is new to website development. With the help of web development applications, like Photoshop and Dreamweaver many individuals can create a professional website. Professional looking websites in some cases do not mean a winning website from a traffic or commercial point of view. Let’s look at critical website development components that any website designer must focus on in order to create a website that is valuable to its visitors and winning for your business.

Search Engine Optimization

Number one step to a winning website is SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Before you even start website development you must understand the basics of SEO and how it fits into the design of your website, and of course the benefits for getting free traffic to your website. The main part of a website SEO is to select relevant keywords that will be implemented into website design - the keywords that have high search volume and at the same time low competition. Those keywords will be attracting free traffic from search engines to your website. You must definitely pay more attention to this one! I will write more about this topic later.

Web Content

In my previous article How to create a successful website? I talk about importance of the content and the role it plays in website marketing. Quality of the content is an important feature of any website. Remember, content is the king! Visitors come to your website to find services or products they are looking for or for solutions to their problems. The content on your website must be valid and give the visitor all the necessary up-to-date information.

Website Usability

Design easy website navigation. Once someone landed on your website he/she must be able to find desired information quickly, usually within 3 clicks maximum, otherwise visitor will close your website and move to a competitor’s website. Some essential components that simplify website usability are:

• Search tool - If your visitor in a hurry this is an excellent tool to navigate your website fast! Internal site search scripts can be found on internet, but make sure that it is not slowing down your website loading time, since recently the speed of the website became a ranking factor for Google.
• Site map - Site maps are very common component of winning websites. They provide users with hierarchy and list of all pages on the website. The site map can be submitted to search engines for fast indexing of website content. There are many websites online that provide free site map generation. I personally prefer to use http://www.xml-sitemaps.com.
• Internal links - Internal links definitions and web page names must be logical and simple to understand. For example, if you want to create a page about "web design services" the page name should contain the same keywords, so you name it something like this "webdesignservices.html". That will give users (and search engine robots, which are crawling your website for content indexing) a clear message of what they will find behind that link.

The above tips will defiantly make your website navigation much friendlier to both users and search engines and will result in more returning visitors over time. One last message - just keep it simple.

Web Graphics

Website graphics, such as images and illustrations plays another important part in website design. You can have an advanced and usable website without graphic elements, but if there is any similar website to yours that uses graphics, you risk of losing the battle is high. Use graphics to support the theme of your website and to deliver a visual message to the viewer of your web page. Most of the visitors don’t have much time to read the content, so they start scanning through your content, looking for highlighted areas and illustrations that could possibly answer their questions. So why don’t you please them and be a winner? Online business has become a very competitive place, so you have only a couple of seconds to grab visitor’s attention and give them what they are looking for! Today web graphics became more 3D, more glossy, more shiny and more juicy and we call it WEB 2.0. I suggest you to search Google Images for this one - you’ll see what I am talking about.

Posted in Internet Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Web Design | No Comments »

How to place your business on Google Maps and get listed in top ten?

January 11, 2010 – 9:34 pm

The Google Maps tool is becoming a more and more popular place to advertise for business. Just like any other search engine it provides the most relevant results to the given query. It is free for all and anyone can get their organization listed on Google Maps free of charge, but not everyone can get their listings on the first page of Google Maps. Here is some tips on how you can optimize your Google Maps listing and improve its rankings.

1. If you are new to Google Maps - claim your listing first by simply going to Google Local Business Center.
2. Create your Google Maps listing by adding a title, description, images, videos, hours of operation, driving directions, method of payment and local coupon discounts. The more you describe your business, the higher the chances are that your listing will be closer to the top of Google Maps search results. Make sure you put important keywords in the title of your listing and description as well.
3. Synchronize your company description on the website with your Google Maps listing description using the same types of keywords, terms, mentions and location names. Make sure to put your business address and phone numbers on every page of your website.
4. Get links from local websites back to your site with local keyword phrases in the anchor text. For example, the link to your website should say "Affordable web design in Toronto".
5. Get reviews on your Google Maps listing. Anyone can add a review directly into your profile and Google appears to give profiles with reviews higher positionings. You should really pay attention to this one!

Following these 5 steps above, will help you to improve your ranking on Google Maps and bring some customers to your door.

Posted in Internet Marketing | No Comments »

How to create a successful website?

December 14, 2009 – 10:36 pm

With today’s technology anyone can build a website. There are many web site designer companies that you can find out there, some of them are good, some of them are excellent and some of them are just a complete waste of time, but getting a nice website is just the beginning of the story. I can bet there are millions of commercial pages online that will never get found and will never serve their sale purpose. Some of them might be attractive, but the truth is that website owners have never paid attention to one simple proven process which you might already know. It is:

content   >   traffic   >   sale

These are proven steps of making your website successful on the net. Now let’s look at each of them closely.

Content. On the Internet high quality content is the king! Your website must have unique and relevant content on your site to attract first of all visitors and second - search engine traffic. People are always looking for solutions and information that leads to solutions. They use search engines to find the most relevant answers to their questions. Your job is simple - provide those answers! But be careful, do not just stuff your website with someone elses content and wait for results. Take your time, make an effort and be original. Provide good quality information that will get visitors interested and satisfied, then you will be rewarded. The content you are offering must be well written without any grammatical and spelling mistakes and also highly related to the theme of your webiste. Do not forget to add more fresh content over time and grow your website with a number of pages.

Traffic. There are two ways to get traffic to your website. One way is through search engine optimization (SEO), to appear under organic search results, which is also known as natural results. Those listings appear on the left side of the search engine result pages (SERPs), they take time to get well recognized by search engine and are free listing. The search engine optimization is usually performed during the creation of the website, basically building your website search engine friendly. That will lead to high natural positions in organic search results, leading to free traffic flow to your website.

Organic Search Results vs Sponsored Links

The other way to attract traffic to your website is through paid advertising, which is also known as Pay Per Click advertising or PPC. That form of advertising appears at the top of SERP and on the right side of SERPs and marked as sponsored links. This form of advertising can provide an instant stream of targeted visitors to your website. This type of advertising model has been used by many search engines, like Google, Yahoo and Bing, where advertisers are billed when a web surfer actually clicks on the ad. Every advertiser has to enter into a keyword bidding competition and setup a campaign budget.

Sale. You have done a great job by creating a quality, content rich website and by optimising its pages for indexing by search engines. People start coming to your website directed by their search engine results and you are ready to make a sale.. but wait, don’t sell - pre-sell! This is very good method of converting your visitors into customers. Pre-selling is a warming up process, where you build trust and confidence in your offerings. It is clear that people are more likely to buy from a trusted and respectful source. By giving relevant and high valuable information, by providing solutions without forcing customer to buy, you will create an atmosphere that inevitably leads to sales. Pre-selling construct an ready-to-buy state of mind that efficiently prepares your visitors to buy. This is where you make your sale by introducing the benefits of your product or service and telling exactly how it provides the answer to their question. Your call to action should be strong and telling your warm lead what they need to do to order. Let them know exactly how they will benefit by ordering from you.. today!

This is it, as easy as 1-2-3. A basic formula of a successful website - create a high quality content website, drive traffic to your website, warm-up (or pre-sell) and only then, sell.

Posted in Internet Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Pay Per Click | No Comments »

Corporate website as business identity online

November 7, 2009 – 8:28 pm

The emergence of the Internet era provides firms and companies to expand their reach to its target audience as well as serve their existing members and loyalists in a far effective manner.

Posted in Internet Marketing, Web Design | No Comments »

Search engines is a great place to advertise

October 16, 2009 – 3:59 am

Let’s say that you have the most advanced and the most attractive website. You’ve spent thousands of dollars on development and you believe that it is the perfect online "selling machine". Now, you are expecting to get a return on your investment, and would like your website to start making money sooner than later. But for some reason are you not receiving any phone calls and are not seeing a line up outside your door. What’s wrong?

How can your website start bringing money?

Your website becomes profitable only when it can easily be found online. The best way get noticed is through Internet search engines, like; Google, Yahoo and Bing (Bing is a new substitute for MSN). Millions of people search daily for products and services on the Internet and choose to go to a search engine for fast and convenient search results.

Any business or firm wants to see their website on the first page of Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs), simply because first page means business. In reality, all internet traffic falls onto the first few pages of SERPs (about 80%). You would probably agree that no one would go through hundreds of SERPs to get what they want. Search engines are simply designed to get you the most relevant and most optimized results for the given query.

The image below shows the first page of Google Search Engine and heat map of "eye moments" and clicks on the page. As you can see, people pay more attention to the top left corner of the page. This is the place to get the most out of search engine advertising.

Go to Google Image Search and search for "Google’s golden triangle"

How I can get on the first page of a search engine?

There are two ways to get on the first page. First, is Search Engine Optimization for organic results, which is also referred to as "natural results listing". These listings appear in the main body of the SERPs and bare NO costs per click (free listing). The second way is paid advertising that usually appears on the right side of SERPs, and is highlighted as sponsored links. It is an marketing model used on various search engines where advertisers are billed when a web surfer actually clicks on the ad. Every advertiser has to enter into a keyword bidding competition, must setup a campaign budget and Pay Per Click. An advertiser must maintain a high Quality Score in order to pay less for every click he receives.  

By using either one of the above techniques your website will be easily found online and can start bringing traffic to the door. In today’s online world, search engines are the place to advertise your business.

Posted in Internet Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Pay Per Click | No Comments »

What is Internet Marketing?

October 7, 2009 – 7:06 pm

Nowadays, every business owner must be aware of the fact that over the past 10 years Internet has changed the way organizations execute in both, business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) environments. It is certain that more and more businesses are switching from traditional marketing techniques such as telemarketing, trade shows and direct mail, to new media marketing or Internet Marketing.

What is Internet Marketing?

Since "Internet Marketing" is one of the most commonly used buzz words in today’s business world, it is important for every enterprise owner to understand the exact meaning of this term. This article will explain, in simple terms, what Internet Marketing is all about.

Internet Marketing is an on-line based method of marketing, through which potential customers are found and informed of new and existing products and services provided by businesses and firms. Internet Marketing is also known as online marketing, web marketing, i-marketing or eMarketing.

Today, an effective Internet Marketing strategy consists of three major creative and technical components. They are Development, Advertising and Sales of products or services over the Internet. In other words, for any on-line business to be competitive within its own industry there should be a well established on-line presence. This means that any organization that is serious about their business, must have an eye catching website that brings in a continuous stream of quality traffic, as well as on-line tools to capture and convert that traffic into buying customers. Furthermore, the above steps must be monitored and analyzed on a regular basis in order to improve online marketing efforts, which are Web Design and Development, Search Engine Marketing and Online Reputation Management.

Now you know what the basis of Internet Marketing is and what steps you need to take in order to market your business on-line. Bottom line - build a website, promote it and keep on improving.

Posted in Internet Marketing | 1 Comment »