A concept that I find some clients have resisted is the use of long tail keywords and long tail copy in their website. The concept seemingly goes against common sense and intuitive interest in being found for some of the most desirable keywords.
But, effective SEO strategies are about creating winning strategies. In some cases (actually in many cases) optimizing for the most desirable keywords for a business can be quite challenging. Everyone wants to be on page one. But, often page one is filled with mature, keyword rich, link rich websites. Penetrating the page one list can be difficult at best and impossible in many cases. So, we must go after winning strategies.
How do we do that? Long tail keywords, that’s how…Consider this example in our industry.
If we want to be search engine optimized for “Internet marketing” there are more than 79 million results in Google! Considering the age of www.findandconvert.com and current content and link count, the reality of ranking even on the first three pages for “Internet marketing” is nill in the near future. Consider that we are an “Internet marketing company” and not everyone searching on “Internet marketing” is necessarily searching for an Internet marketing company like Find and Convert. So, if we optimize for “Internet marketing company” we’re still dealing with a very competitive keyword that has over 13 million results in Google. In fact, we rank on page 6 for “Internet marketing company” (at the time of this writing).
As I browse the results, there are many Internet marketing companies with geographic descriptors in their titles such as “Philadelphia Internet marketing company” and “Dallas Internet marketing company.” So, a winning strategy for us is to optimize for “Internet marketing company Florida.” There are only 635,000 results in Google for this phrase. Obviously, the search volume for “Internet marketing company Florida” is lower than the broader phrases mentioned above. But, the likelihood of someone who finds us for this phrase being a qualified opportunity for Find and Convert is pretty high.
If this “long tail keyword” stuff sounds a little like shooting with a rifle, or being laser focused (or whatever cliché you prefer) that’s exactly what it is. Consider that long tail keywords allow you to write copy to accommodate it with relative ease. It’s easier to write content about specific topics than it is about more general topics. It’s also easier to rank well for various combination of long tail keyword phrases such as “Florida Internet marketing company.”
Go for a winning strategy with long tail keywords supported with long tail keyword copy that will drive the most qualified traffic to your website.
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PPC results are displayed along the top and right side. The results are paid results.
Target audience for this podcast is for marketers who are spending $1,000 to $10,000 per month in paid search advertising.
Measuring for conversions, not clicks.
Paid search is not the answer to all Internet marketing goals.
Paid search not good for Brand promotion unless you have a big budget.
Paid search is all about lead generation or direct sales on the Internet.
Know the difference between Search and Content networks.
Search network is primary Google and select other search engines fed by Google, e.g., Business.com.
Content networks are comprised of any website which chooses to display Google ads.
Results can vary greatly between Search and Content networks.
Be selective in the use of keywords.
Mix it up between competitive keywords and long tail keywords.
Do your research to identify long tail keywords.
Long tail keywords increase your probability of winning in paid search marketing.
Use Campaigns to distinguish themes.
E.g., product families
Break down campaigns by using ad groups to distinguish products within a campaign.
E.g., individual products
Set up a limited number of ads in each ad group.
3 to 5 ads per group.
Set up a reasonable number of keywords per ad.
Make sure they are relevant to the ad group or you’ll compete with other ad groups.
Test keyword variations: broad, phrase and exact.
Don’t display all your keywords as broad keyword variation.
You can use broad version, phrase version and exact version of keywords. Test each version to see which variation can produce the lowest cost conversions.
Use dedicated landing pages!!! Good landing pages can make a PPC campaign.
Generate dynamic landing pages with headlines that match the ad.
Design landing pages which are,
Uncluttered
Supported with a strong headline
Has a strong call to action
Use graphics sparingly (don’t distract)
Track conversions
Tracking impressions and click through rates don’t mean anything. Track conversions.
Use conversion tracking (Adwords) to measure results.
Test, measure, revise and repeat.
Test variables which are measurable.
Geo target if appropriate. Display your ads in the geographic regions that you want to sell to.
Stretch your budget using the ad scheduler.
Review results often, print reports, study them, get input from others.
Sweat the PPC details for improved conversions.
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Our blog is focused on providing tips, ideas, best practices and advice on Internet marketing. My hope is our readers benefit from this blog.
The Find and Convert blog has just been recognized by Junta42 with the #7 rank on its top 42 Content Marketing blogs, out of a total of 118 total content marketing blogs. Our blog is recognized for Internet marketing content.
The press release from Junta42 provides more detail including their criteria for selection.
While the recognition for good marketing content is cool, the best thing about this is the convenient access to so many other great content marketing blogs on one list!
I hope you get value from the complete list of content marketing blogs and the Find and Convert blog.
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If you’re not familiar with Twitter, it is thee dominant micro-blogging service. The only other player is Jaiku. They were acquired by Google, and we’re still waiting to learn more about Google’s plans for them. We know it has something to with their mobile strategy….
Twitter users type message to each other (known as tweets) in short sentences (140 characters max) what they are doing right now. The early Twitter adopters were people with time on their hands twittering about lunch plans, restaurant experiences, bad dates, and just whatever they were doing in the moment. Since tweets are accessible through SMS and MMS, the tweets have become prolific among the tech savvy crowd.
But wait! Twitter isn’t just for the Silicon Valley types. Anyone with a desire to connect with others in a quick way, while reinforcing their name and brand, will find it useful.
Twittering allows us to understand people better. Twittering is a form of a conversation. Is any conversation with your customers bad? Twittering can open dialogues which may not otherwise open up because they are “in the now” and “about the now.” Twittering with customers can strengthen customer relationships, build trust and lead to new opportunities.
Have you noticed that we’re calling micro blogging Twittering. This is like saying I’ll Google a keyword. But, I digress…
I’ve always defined micro blogging as a multi person IM chat. Micro blogging is real time like IM but it’s one to many. You invite people into your Twitter group(s).
So, here are some business applications to consider for Twitter.
A product manager Twitters with the people in a beta program to get real time feedback of the product and allow real time interaction with the Twitter group.
A customer service manager Twitters with a select group of customers around a certain topic to get real time feedback on the topic.
A sales manager twitters with a geographically distributed sales force to get real time feedback from the field and assist in real time sale situations.
Are you starting to get the picture?
This sort of reminds me of the iPod. When the iPod was launched all the advertising showed hip people dancing to music. I have had an iPod for almost one year now. I am not that hip and I don’t listen to music with it. But, I do listen to a lot of podcasts which I subscribe to in iTunes. So, the “product extension” factor is evident here.
So, do you get the picture now? Twittering has real business value. You just have to give it a whirl. Now, if that doesn’t sound unhip, I don’t know what is. I told you, I’m not very hip.
Below are show notes from this podcast. Click the play button, or download it or subscribe to hear this podcast.
Sweat the SEO Details
Target Audience: SEO for marketers with websites with less than 100 pages of content.
Content is still king
The more content the better
Search engines crawl your website to learn what your site is about
Commit to writing more content
Google measures who is linking to your content
A foundation of content is needed to get the full value of external links
Add sections to your website dedicated to content for search engines, e.g., Resources
Add “how to,” “faq,” “tips”, “best practices,’ “things to avoid.” Etc.
Links are important but content is the foundation of a good SEO plan
Great content will attract links
Add video with a text summary of the video
Home page is very important!
Has the greatest PageRank (PR)
Share home page content with other pages selectively
Don’t give away all your Google PR
Use Anchor text to link to other pages Think SEF
Search engine friendly architecture
Good URL structure using keywords in the URL string
Use dashes to separate words in the URL
Clean, light and fast loading code
Put javascript files into a separate file and make a call to it
Meta data
3 components: Title, Description and keywords
Description very important: it’s what people read in the search engines
Test to see how your rankings are displayed.
Header tags (H Tags)
Tells the search engines which headings are intended to be noticed by them Sitemap
Give the search engines something to crawl with links to every page in your website
Google sitemap
Give Google an XML based sitemap so they can score your site’s pages, links and other valuable statistics
Also lets you see how Google sees your website
You can fix problems like broken URLs you didn’t know existed
Google penalizes sites with technical problems
Think local
Set up a local listing in Google and Yahoo even if it’s only for your home office
Use a Google map on your contact page
Think multi media
Google and other search engines index images, videos and maps.
This outside the box
Outside links from authority sites, e.g., directories, blogs, syndication sites
Final thought
Remember that organic traffic is the most valuable traffic
More time spent, more pages viewed, lower bounce rates
Content is still king!
Links are important but must be supported by good content
Use SEF URLs
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Bernie appeared as a guest on the CEO Lounge radio show on March 29, 2008. Following is an excerpt of the interview.
What is Web 2.0?
Analogy: the world was once considered flat. When the world was discovered to be round the flat world became obsolete. Web 1.0 is like a flat world. Web 2.0 (coined in 2004) is like a round world….In Web 2.0 people can subscribe and get involved in communities. The value to marketers is the collective influence of these communities.
Important for businesses to understand Web 2.0. Marketers can harness the power of the collective influence of communities in Web 2.0.
Blogosphere: You can be a speaker or a listener. Visit or participate or both. People subscribe to blog conversations. blogs are two way conversations. People subscribe to the blog (the conversations).
Podcasting: it is a media file (audio or video). People subscribe to a podcast as a series of episodes. Study: July 2006 Knowledgestorm & Universal McCann surveyed 3900 business and IT professionals. They are increasing using podcasts. 73% listened to business podcasts more than once. More than half want more podcast content for white papers, case studies. Their biggest frustration is scarcity of content.
Post podcasts to a blog with show notes which are indexed by search engines. Post podcasts in podcast directories such as iTunes. Plus the search engine indexing of show notes can drive traffic to your website.
Search engine optimization and Internet Marketing is much more than it was ever before. With the advent of Web 2.0, many more avenues are available. But, it takes more strategy and effort. But, the results can be awesome!
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What I love about this industry is that anyone with knowledge can become an authority. For SEO website design guidelines, listen to what Chuck has to say. Below the video is a far less entertaining summary…
Directory structure: Use a shallow directory. Keep the most important webpages on the root.Use of CSS: The site should ideally be styled using CSS as much as possible and designed in div ids. Alternatively, we should be able to edit/create/deploy CSS in the existing site/CMS. If using tables, we should be able to add to the table summary.
Flash Alternative: Provide an alternative text version of the content used in Flash.
Robots.txt: We should be able to upload/modify robots.txt file.
Sitemap guidelines:
1) Site should have an XML Sitemap for Google stats tracking (not for users), e.g.,http://www.khameleonsoftware.com/sitemap.xml
2) Should have an editable site map for user navigation and search crawlers, e.g., http://www.findandconvert.com/site-map.html/Custom 404 Error page: We should be able to customize a 404 error page, e.g., http://www.findandconvert.com/404-error.htmMeaningful URLs Create/edit pagenames:
1.No underscores – use hyphens instead.
2.No special characters
3.Should be able to use keywords in URL structure – should be independent of Webpage title tag, Page Name etc.
E.g., http://www.findandconvert.com/link-building.html/No frames!!!
No session ids – use cookies.
Embedded CSS: CSS should not be embedded on the webpage.
IP based content delivery: Don’t deliver content based on IP detection.
Avoid a deep directory structure so engines can crawl the site easily.
Dynamic URLS: If pages are being generated dynamically, avoid too many parameters (special characters) in the URL
Java Scripts: Call all java scripts externally from a separate .JS file. Don’t embed them in the code.
Images guidelins:
1. The site design should not be made with extensive image usage. Search engines cannot read text embedded in images. There should be no use of any splash page or graphic intensive home page
2. Should be able to upload images
3. Should be able to edit image names
4. Should be able to add alt text
5. Should be able to add title attributes (if hyperlinked) Content guidelines:
1. Should be able to give heading tags to content (H1 – H6), bold, italics, underlines, etc.
2. Title attributes to hyperlinked text
Footer Text navigation is a must.
Meta Tags: Should be able to add/edit Title tags and meta tags (keywords tag, description tag, abstract tag etc).
Validate HTML: Should validate your website using w3c validator.
Redirects: If at all the site needs to use a redirect while programming, make use of 301 redirects. There should be no use of any 302 redirects at all.
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I talk every day with clients and write often in this blog about the importance of links in any SEO strategy. Anyone who has spent more than ten minutes reading about SEO knows that back links are critical ingredient for organic search engine rankings.
One point I make often is that a good link strategy will yield limited results or no material results without a strong foundation of content. In fact, we say that (in round numbers) 30% of a website’s SEO success is based on “on page” factors. On-page factors refer to well-optimized content with good use of keywords, meta tags, header tags, search engine friendly URLs and optimized source code.
The math is obvious. We like to say that about 70% of a website’s SEO is based on off-page factors. Primarily, this refers to the extent to which others think your content is good. At first, this sounds very strange. How can others determine how good my content is? And, how can Google (and other engines) determine what others think?
Consider a comment made by a Google engineer at the Online Marketing Summit conference I attended last October. He said this: “Google doesn’t care about your content. Google cares about who cares about your content.” What he means, is when other content (on other websites) link to your content, they are “casting a vote.” for your content.
The Google technology explanation describes how this works. Essentially, other web pages link to your content and Google considers that a “vote” for your content.
To accentuate this point consider how Google’s origin as Backrub, is based on this concept of keeping score of the popularity of your content.
So, if creating links to content is so critical to SEO success then why don’t we just go out and buy a g-zillion links to our content? Well, some do. First, consider that if you pay a site to link to you, that is frowned upon by Google and the other major engines. We don’t condone it.
Let’s go back to the comment by the Google engineer. In fact, Google does care about your content. He went on to say that the more relevant, keyword-rich content you have (along with a search engine friendly architecture), the more links your content will naturally attract.
Then, if you pay someone to build legitimate links to your website (not pay the website to link to you), those links will be well supported by your content and provide good SEO value.
Now, let’s go back to the 30/70 ratio although, this is admittedly hearsay, not a statistic backed up by Google. The point to this ratio is this. If you build a strong foundation in your SEO plan with great, relevant content, then the links you get will carry weight in SEO value.
Of course, the Google PR value of the source of the links counts as well. The point here is that links without content are not effective.
So, it comes back to this - content is king!
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I often talk with marketers about the difference between SEO (search engine optimization) and PPC (pay per click advertising). I remind myself that, unlike me and my team at Find and Convert (and others in our business), most marketers don’t spend their days thinking about Internet marketing strategies as we do.
So, when we look at the difference between SEO and PPC, it goes beyond the costs. After all, most marketers understand that PPC can cost a lot more than SEO. But, for so many marketers PPC (also known as SEM) is the path of least resistance.
Many marketers believe they can measure results from PPC easier than from SEO strategies. But, let’s examine some of the facts.
We spend a lot of our time producing reports for clients. These reports summarize (usually in painstaking detail) many statistics. For the sake of this blog post I’ll hone in on the most telling stats which really point to the advantages of SEO over PPC.
Time and again we see that visitors to our client’s websites which come from organic searches spend more time on the website, visit more pages and have lower bounce rates than paid search traffic. The first two stats mentioned here should be self evident. A bounce rate refers to someone who visits a web page on your site and does not visit another page, essentially “bouncing” off your site.
Moreover, when we provide reports on our PPC plans for clients, we track the cost of conversion (the desired action for the client). Such conversion costs are tracked for the ads and for the keywords. The most telling conversion cost is for the keywords we track. This metric really tells us the cost to produce a lead for the most desirable keywords.
All too often we see marketers show the most interest in the most competitive keywords. They wind up paying dearly for these keywords simply because they are competitive.
In SEO strategies, we are able to (with a lot of hard work) build optimization strategies for select keywords which are less competitive (long tail keywords). For example, we work hard for a client to rank on page one for “project accounting software.” But, the software client we represent has a product that runs only on Oracle. So, when someone searches for “oracle project accounting software,” we hit a home run in ranking and in a qualified website visitor.
So, the message in this post is to think long term with SEO strategies. Do the hard work which will require ongoing care and feeding, but can have long lasting and cost effective sales results through organic search traffic. And, don’t be afraid to target lower searched, less competitive and long-tail keywords.
I’ve always said I’d rather be found by the 10 people who are a perfect fit, than targeting 1000 people who may be a fit but are harder to reach and therefore a higher risk search strategy.
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I’ve written before about the importance of merit based link building. I talk about it everyday with our clients. So, here I go again writing about it.
Wait a minute - the title of this post says it’s about press releases. Right….
Too many marketers have a one dimensional view of their press releases. They think a press release is an announcement designed to produce some public relations (that other “PR”) value. Once upon a time, I hawked press releases in a previous life, working the editors and analysts hoping to get ink and win kudos from my boss and my sales counterparts.
Marketers should think of their press releases as content for their website. Even more, they should think of press releases as content that can be syndicated across the web. And, it is a great opportunity for merit based links back to your website, ie., SEO, ie., Google juice!
Those of us in the Internet Marketing business refer to “Google juice” as any content which helps us get indexed by Google. The most powerful Google juice is content which has valuable links anchored from our desirable keyword phrases on a web page of relevant content.
Another term for this simply is an optimized press release. If we optimize our web content for search engine optimization (SEO), then an optimized press release is just another form of optimized content.
The difference is that an optimized press release can get distributed over a search engine friendly wire service such as PRWeb and BusinessWire. And, it can produce valuable and juiced up links, anchored from some of your favorite keywords.
Understanding this should inspire marketers not to limit press releases to the most newsworthy stories in their company. A good marketer should be thinking of press releases as a key component to their SEO strategy. That’s because a good marketer understands that in SEO content is king, and press releases can make for great content. And, great content produces merit based links. This is the SEO circle of life!
Take for example this press release. In this release we announced a client engagement. Regardless of your opinion of the news value, note the anchor text linking in this press release. By optimizing it for keywords such as “SEO strategy” with links back to our website, we are producing valuable one-way links from news services such as PRWeb: http://www.emediawire.com/releases/2008/3/prweb774424.htm.
So, juice up your press releases by optimizing them and creating great content and great links for SEO value. It’s not too hard to do it and definitely worth the effort.
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