SEO: 8 Easy Steps to Rank Better on Search Engines

Search Engine Optimization companies are making a fortune by doing the menial work that is overlooked by many designers. It is ridiculously easy to do most of the work done by most SEO companies, all you have to do is create good habits.

★★★ Digital Marketing Ninja ★★★

There are 8 main points you should focus on:

• Keywords
• URL Text
• Description, Meta tags
• Title tags
• Image Names
• ALT tags
• Content
• Hyperlinks

The focus of these 8 steps is to load your pages with as many "keywords" as possible.



Keywords:
Keywords are the most important aspect of good SEO, this is where you tell the Search Engines what your site is about. Search Engines use an algorithm to determine the "Keyword Density" of your site. Therefore, choose keywords that best relate to the information, products or services that you are offering. For instance, if I am designing a site about "Cloud Transformation Services", I want my site to include the words "Cloud Transformation" as many times as possible.

However, most people don't just search for just one word, they type phrases, so you should consider the phrases that best suit your sites target market. For example, if I am creating a site about "Web Design" in Los Angeles, I would include "Los Angeles web design" in my keywords. Another way around this is to not separate my keywords with commas, just use spaces, and the Search Engines will make the phrases for you.

The most important thing to remember is that the content of each page is different, so only use keywords pertaining to that page.


URL Text:
When you name a new page you have the option to call it anything you could possibly think of, why not use a keyword? After all, the URL address is the first things a search engine comes across when indexing your pages. You have to remember content doesn't come easy to everyone, so you gotta slip in your keywords when the process gives you an easy one.


Description / Meta tags:
These tags are dwindling in importance since Search Engines are now looking at content, but every little bit counts. Optimize your meta tags to match your content, products, and services, and the Search Engines that still look at meta data will reward your efforts.


Title Tags:
Title tags are the tags that tell the Search Engine the title, or formal description of the document or page. This is the word or phrase that is seen at the top of the browser window. The most important rule about title tags is, "don't put anything in the title tags but keywords". Once again this is an easy time to slip in your keywords, so don't miss out.


Image Names:
As I said before, content doesn't come easy to everyone, so slip in your keywords whenever possible, this applies to image names. If you are saving a picture of an "iPad running Microsoft office" for your web site offering BYOD solution, don't call it "image009.jpg", call it "ipad_running_microsoft_windows_office.jpg" or "run_microsoft_office_on_ipad.jpg". The Search engine will look at the code for the site and see the image pertains to the content of the site and this will be another relevant element on that particular page. You have to take the easy ones when you are given a chance.


ALT tags:
Alt tags are keywords that you can attach to images, giving more weight to the image since Search Engines can't analyze the content of the image itself. Here is a chance to slip in more keywords without writing great content - so always try to use it.


Content:
As every expert will tell you, "Content is the King." Each web page should have at least 350-500 words on it, and the more the better, but keep in mind the formula for keyword density. You don't want to fill a page with 1500 words of jibba-jabba and only 5 keywords in it. Some people get hung-up on how browsers display text, and use images with text in them because they want a cool font, but browsers can't read the text embedded in images, so this content adds no weight to the page in a Search Engines eyes.

"Linkbaiting" is the new trend among high ranking sites. Linkbaiting means writing quality content, or articles that other web sites can display on their pages as long as they give credit, and a link to your site.

You don't have to be an expert content writer to write good web content, just be thoughtful of how you word things and incorporate your keywords.


Hyperlinks:
Hyperlinks aka. anchor tags are text links to other pages on your site. The rules of SEO and hyperlinks are easy:

• Use hyperlinks so the Search Engine will have a text link to follow to the next page
• Don't use one word links, use long link phrases, preferably keyword phrases
• Make sure that the other page your are linking a keyword phrase to, contains that particular keyword in the title and/or page content.

Keep these 8 aspects in mind when designing a site, and you are sure to have a leg up on the competition.



[Follow me on Twitter]

What is the Best Time to Send Emails

Boost Your Campaign's Opens and Click-Throughs - [Infographic]

 

To find out what times during the day are best for email opens and click-throughs, email marketing software provider GetResponse analyzed 21 million messages sent from US accounts during the first quarter of 2012.

The study found that 23.63% of all email opens occur within the first hour after delivery. Within the second hour after delivery, the results drop by half.

The top engagement times for email are as follows: in the mornings, 8 AM to 9 AM both for opens and click-throughs; and in the afternoons, 3 PM to 8 PM for opens, and 3 PM and 4 PM for click-throughs.

Time zones are also a consideration: Email marketers should keep in mind local times and work routines around the world, and stagger their mailings accordingly, keeping in mind the best times of day for engagement, according to GetResponse.

Check out the following infographic for more results from this study:

Questions? Leave them in the comment box.

How to increase your website's Google Page Rank

Google PageRank (PR) is a measure from 0 to 10 of how important Google thinks a webpage is. Google's search engine, [www.google.com], uses a variety of methods to determine which pages are displayed first in the results. Though their exact formula is a secret, but there are a few things you can do to improve your positioning. The term for this is Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

SEO is not a rocket science, just need to focus on certain elements on/off your webpage. Let's be realistic, the following tips may not make your website the first one to appear in the list, but they will definitely help you move up a little in Google search results:

#1: Page Content: Focus on quality over quantity

Most online marketers talk about using blogs to increase the number of pages indexed in Google. And while it still holds true that more pages indexed for a given search term gives you a better chance of achieving a high Google rank, it isn’t enough just to publish text optimized for keywords. The quality of the content is now a key factor.

Since the Panda update, Google has attempted to screen out those publishing high-volume, low-quality content. Now, in the eyes of Google, it’s better to have fewer high-quality pages then lots of low-quality pages.

Blogging is still one of the best ways to move up the search engine rankings as it is a good way to add high-quality information to a website. However, web pages or blog posts offering little of value can now negatively impact a website. Removing these pages might actually help a website move up the rankings or recover from a drop in ranking.

Also, not to mentioned that tuning-up your webpage's meta tags (i.e. title, description, keyword, alt, etc.) will also help gaining a better ranking in search results.
 

#2: Single Word vs. Keyword Phrases

Instead of focusing on a single word, try adding a few words to make a keyword phrase. If you were searching for your own website, what keyword phrase would you type into Google for each page? Would you look for super fast widgets? Would you look for cooking with widgets? It may be helpful to get a different perspective [in fact, a prospect's perspective].

Try to stick to one subject per page, and stick to one keyword phrase per page. That doesn't mean you should write stilted text or use odd phrases. Clear writing is both easier to search and easier to read

#3: Keyword Density

One of the things Google looks for when it catalogs pages is the density of the keyword usage. In other words, how often the keyword occurs. Use natural phrasing. Don't try to trick the search engine by repeating the same word over and over or making text "invisible." Frankly, it doesn't work. In fact, some of that behavior even get your website banned. [Warning!]

#4: Quality Links

Incoming links have always looked good in the eyes of Google. As a result, one way to move a site up the search engine rankings was to generate a high number of incoming links all pointing to a given web page.

Many online marketers suggest that press releases were a good way to generate incoming links because distribution services often generated back-links as articles were placed on various press release syndication websites. This link-building strategy has also changed post-Panda update, as these links are not as highly valued as they once were. However, a well-written press release can still be very effective when picked up and reported by a journalist or major publication.

Bottom-line is: Focus on getting high-quality links from high-quality websites.

#5: Submit Your Site to the Right Directories

Submit your website to the open directory project, if possible. Google considers this directory to be an important link. 

Note: Submit your site to specialized directories. For example, a work at home mother owned business (WAHM) should submit her site to WAHM directories. A site on butterflies should be sent to biology or entomology directories.

Don't get too submission happy, though. Google, in an effort to combat click fraud, often filters out websites linked from link farms, or pages with nothing but links to other websites. This is one reason why free services to register your website may hurt you. Stick to specialized directories and organizations. They're more likely to help and not hurt your rankings.

#6: Social Sharing and Social Search

Social networking sites can be a good way to promote a site, but not all of them will affect your rank directly. Digg and Del.icio.us are social linking sites that could potentially have the most impact. 

Do not forget that efforts made on SEO take 3-6 months in order to show their ideal results. Therefore, patience is the key [do not keep modifying the page every day or week]. Ignore spam and websites that offer to submit your website to hundreds of search engines. At best these are wastes of time or money and at worst they can actually hurt your ranking.

Good Luck!

[Follow me on Twitter]

Do you know what Social Media is?

Everyone’s buzzing, Social Media this, Social Media that. What is social media and what’s the deal? Can you be using it in your business? Should you be using it in your business?

I will answer all of these questions by the end of this article, and while I can’t tell you whether or not it’s for your business, certainly I can help you get a pretty good idea.

To understand exactly how Social Media came to be such a driving force in the business industry, you must understand how it started changing over time, both how Social Media adapted to people and people to Social Media.

What Is Social Media?

Social Media in its simplest form, refers to a platform for people to discuss and participate socially with one another. In fact when Social Media started it had almost no business applications at all. Social Media sites mainly started up in order to allow friends to better communicate with friends over the Internet.

Websites like MySpace and Facebook quickly became popular among friends and social groups alike and started setting the pace for what is social media as we know it today. At first it was just friends and people talking with friends and people online. But eventually businesses and other organizations realized that they could get some of the action and greatly benefit from it.

As a result companies started building Facebook pages. This was (and is) brilliant, because it gave companies a lot of flexibility and options when it came to getting customer feedback and adapting their business strategy to better meet customer needs. For example NBC could create a Facebook page for some popular sitcom, and then leave a post saying “Did you like last night’s episode of such and such?” Instant feedback.

Some companies are able to take it a step further than that, not only getting feedback but using that feedback to craft perfectly matched marketing messages. For example a pizza parlor could easily set up a Facebook page, and then make a post saying “What is your favorite pizza?” and then using the results (say people voted that pepperoni was their favorite) make the following post “Use this coupon code in order to get a %10 discount on your next pepperoni pizza.” Instant cashflow.

Some companies are able to take it even another step further. Say you’re in the golf market; you could make a post asking “What is the one thing about Golf that frustrates you the most?” Say a majority of people come back saying “developing a consistent swing” you could then go and create an information product that serves that need, perhaps a video course or an EBook about developing a consistent golf swing and sell it online from your website.

When it comes to Social Media the possibilities are nearly endless, if your company could benefit from being able to better communicate with your prospects (and what company wouldn’t?) as well as being able to gather quick and useful data in order to make educated decisions, then your company can be benefiting from Social Media.

By now you should have a good idea of what is social media, so go sign up and make an account on Twitter and Facebook. If you are nervous when it comes to actually using these platforms, then watch and see how some other organizations use it and then try to follow in their footsteps and emulate their success.


[Follow me on Twitter]

What is a Blog and Why Do You Need One?

One of the biggest buzzwords for businesses lately has been blogging. It’s supposed to be the latest “wonder tool” for attracting hungry prospects for your business. But what is a blog and how do you know if you really need one?

What is a Blog and Why Do You Need One?

A blog is a website that has posts (articles or entries) that are arranged in chronological order from most recent at the top to oldest at the bottom. They can be written by one person, or by teams of authors and they cover almost any topic you can think of.

Blogs have grown in popularity in recent years because it’s an extremely easy way for people to publish their “voice” or opinions on the Internet. Some people will simply write about whatever is on their mind, while others will act more as a reporter and deliver the latest information on specific topics.

The great thing about blogs is their ability to connect people with similar interests and allow people to develop relationships and build online communities. They way that they do that is by allowing readers to comment on the article or post and share their thoughts. Then the author will go back and comment back, and eventually conversations about the topic will begin.

As more and more posts are created, the newer ones are placed at the top and the rest shuffle down. As posts fall off the front page, they will go into an archive. Most blogs will allow you to search archives by the month the article was published, or by the category the post falls under. This allows for an easy way for readers to find articles relevant to their topic of interest.

Also becoming more and more popular is a video blog. Video always captures more attention than the written word does because it is more engaging. For many people, building a personal brand is important, and it’s much easier to build rapport and give people a feel for who you are when you’re on their computer monitor speaking to them face-to-face.

So why is a blog important for business?

There are many different reasons why a blog is important for business, but the biggest thing to keep in mind is that each post you make on a blog is actually a new page on your website. The more “real estate” you own on the Internet, the more likely the traffic will end up on one of your pages than one of your competitors.
When coming up with your Internet Marketing strategy, the blog becomes your “hub” for almost all other activities that you will perform. All of the online tactics and strategies can be greatly leveraged when you have a blog incorporated on your website because it helps you to increase your traffic, and getting targeted traffic to your website is one of the objectives of a successful internet marketing strategy.

For example, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can be greatly improved using a blog because you can write specific posts that target specific keywords that your prospects or customers are searching for in the search engines. When your page comes up in Google and your prospect sees your listing, they can click through and end up on your website. As well, each time you add a post, you’re changing the content on your website, and dynamic websites with changing content always rank better than static websites that never change.

With Social Media Marketing, your blog posts and articles can be broadcasted through all of your social media channels and include a link for people to return to your site to read your post. (By the way, if you’re not using Social Media, you’re leaving money on the table.

If you utilize email marketing, you can send out emails to your subscribers and inform them of your new blog posts. If you publish to your blog regularly, this gives you a reason to contact your subscribers on a regular basis (that’s not a sales pitch) to provide them with valuable information that may be of interest to them.

So now that we’ve talked in depth about all of the advantages of having a blog for yourself or your business, what are the disadvantages?

Well, the only real disadvantage is that it does require a certain level of commitment. It’s recommended that you post fresh content to your blog a minimum of 2-3 times per week. For some people, this can be a daunting task. As entrepreneurs, we’re commonly faced with a lack of time to get everything done that should be done.

But don’t fret, there is a solution. There are many services available that can write content for you to publish to your blog. A word of warning however, you’re always better off to write your own posts because as your prospects read your articles, they begin to get a glimpse of you and your personality or a taste of your business style and culture.

How Does a Search Engine Work?

As many of us are only too aware, the internet is an extensively large resource which allows us to tap into information covering every subject under the sun. Since its beginnings, the internet has grown to such a scale that it was recorded in 2007 that the World Wide Web held over 29.7 billion pages. In order to find what we’re looking for amongst that many pages, we need to rely on search engines. But how do search engines work and accurately give us the results we’re looking for?

As the Internet is an extremely popular resource-one of which is being used frequently by businesses all over the world, it is possible that this number has increased by millions more within the past three years. Now, in order to come up in the search rankings, your website must utilize Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

How Do Search Engines Work?

For those who are looking to obtain information, no matter what subject they may be searching for, there is the advantage that there are hundreds of millions pages to help them find what they need. Unfortunately, this adds as a disadvantage that there are hundreds of millions of pages which are mostly titled in regards to the author; this then throws up the issue to the user of which pages they need to read when looking up about a particular subject. This is where Internet search engines come into play.

Search engines are specially designed sites on the World Wide Web of which their main purpose is to help web users find information which is stored on other websites. Each search engine site will work in a way which differs to the other, but they all perform the same three basic tasks which are:

• Searching through the internet or specified areas within the web, based on important keywords
• Creating an index of the keywords they are searching for and where they find them within the web; and
• Allowing web users to search for words or a combination of words that have been found within the index

In its beginnings, search engines were able to hold an index of a few hundred thousand pages and would typically receive around 2,000 queries a day. Today, the most popular search engines can index hundreds of millions of pages and will respond to tens of millions of queries each day.

Before the World Wide Web was truly established as the most visible part of the Internet, search engines were already in place in order to help users find information. Using different programs such as “gopher”, these programs would keep an index of the files which were stored on servers connected to the Internet, and would reduce the amount of time it took to find programs on the web.

In order for a search engine to identify where a file or document is, it must firstly find it for you on the web. In order to do this, a search engine will employ a specific software robot known as spiders, to build lists of the different words which are found on various websites.

When these spiders build these lists, this is known as Web crawling. For a list to be filled with useful words, a search engine’s spider will be required to look at a wide variety of pages in huge quantities, but how exactly does a spider begin its list building on the web?

The beginning of the list building will usually start by listing all heavily used servers and the most popular pages on the web which are related to your chosen words. The spider will start with the most popular site, indexing the words on the pages within this site, following every link which is found within the particular site. Whilst doing this, the spider will travel quickly through the Internet, identifying the most widely visited areas of the web.

This is why a website needs to be built to be navigated easily by both humans and spiders. Utilizing Search Engine Optimization on your website will communicate to the spider if a page is important or contains valuable information.

One of the most widely used search engine sites in the world is Google, which is perceived as being one of the most intelligent search engines on the World Wide Web. Within Google, the site uses multiple spiders, sometimes up to three at a time and each spider has the capability to keep up to 300 connections to different web pages at all times.

At its most capable period, Google is able to use four spiders, with over 100 pages per second being crawled through. This can result in around 600 kilobytes of data being found every second. Being able to keep this system working effectively means that Google’s system needed to be built so that it could feed the required information to the spiders.

When Google’s search engine looks at a web page, it will look at two main characteristics: the words which are on each page, and where on these pages that the words are found. In order for the owner of the site to be able to show up high in search engine results, they can use specific words within their webpage titles, subtitles and meta tags.

Meta tags allow the website owners to choose specific keywords for each indexed page. This is extremely beneficial in the case that words on each page have double or triple meanings as the meta tags can easily guide the search engines in the right direction of selection.

However, it is important that web owners do not rely on these tags as if you include meta tags which have no relevance to the content which appears on the site, this could severely damage your search engine results or not include your site within the results at all.

With these developments in Internet technology, the World Wide Web has opened up new possibilities to businesses that are looking to sell products or services both locally and online by carefully and thoughtfully selecting the correct content, titles and meta tags within each page.

Not only does this allow for businesses to take full advantage of the great benefits which stem from using the internet, thus search engine sites for the growth of their business, but in today’s society, it also helps to keep up with competitors and display yourself as a reputable and professional business.

Gone are the days where people look up local services in the Yellow Pages. Gone are the days where local businesses ranked in order of the size of their advertising budgets. Even locals now use the search engines to look up information on local businesses. Using search engine optimization will lift your website to the top of the first page or search engine results for a fraction of the cost of Yellow Pages advertising.


[Follow me on Twitter]

Do You Have a Successful Social Media Strategy?

Did you know that more than 65% of business owners plan to use social media even more in 2012 to help grow their business?

Every business will have a different social media strategy. While the basics remain the same, there are different methods that can be used depending on what your niche is. When you develop your social media strategy, always remember to:

1.     Create and understand your goals
It is important to pre determine what you want to get out of your social media efforts. Your first step is to always engage the user and work on building your following. The end result should always be to either increase sales, increase branding, or build your database.

2.     Stay engaged in the conversation
Before investing a lot of time and resources into social media, it’s a mandatory to engage and stay engaged with your followers. Relationships will build and your brand will spread.

3.     Design a Content Plan
Pre-determine what your content and what your aim will be, and design alike. How many messages do you want to send out every day? These are the types of details that should be outlined in your social media strategy. You never want to bombard the user with messages, so it is recommended to keep it limited and always put thought into your posts.

4.     Employ the “free give-away” tactic
This is a great technique for brand awareness and to build your following quickly. Everyone wants something for free, and they are willing to “follow” you or “like” your content to have a chance to win something. You can also use the free giveaway in other advertising you may do.

5.     Use an Analytics program
As you build followings on the various social networks, you will also see an increase in traffic to your website. If you are doing other forms of advertising like Pay Per Click (PPC), it can become more difficult to determine what’s bringing you the results and what’s dead in the water. Using an analytics program will streamline the process and make it tons easier to see where your traffic is coming from…it will show you what is working and what is not. Analytics can save you time as well as money.

As you can see, there is a lot that can go into ones social media strategy. Developing your strategy should not be taken lightly. You need to take everything into account here and the number one recommendation is to do research!

Even a simple Google search can give you insight and help you develop your marketing strategy and plan. It is also recommended to employ some type of A/B Split Testing so that you can see what pages and graphics give you the best conversions.

The most important thing to remember when you’re developing your social media strategy is your goal. If your goal is to build your following, employ relationship building techniques and if you’re trying to sell a product, run a promotion!

Hot Tip:
If you use Facebook, the Events feature is great to broadcast a promotion! You can send out an event invitation to all of your fans with your promotion simply by clicking Event!

Good Luck!

[Follow me on Twitter]