SEO

SEO vs Lead Generation

by Admin on April 11, 2011

Do you need SEO or lead generation? We often have clients come to us asking for SEO when what they really want is lead generation. Many businesses and website designers get SEO and lead generation confused. Many think they are the same thing. They are not. Clients will often say, “if I can just get more visitors, I will sell more.” While this may be true to some extent, it’s not the most effective way to use a website.

I believe this idea of more visitors equals more sales stems from old style interruption marketing. With interruption marketing, it is important to have a large audience because you are only going to gain the attention of a small percentage of that audience. You are interrupting what they are doing (watching TV, listening to the radio, reading a magazine, etc.), so you must distract them from that activity and get their attention focused on you.

With inbound (permission) marketing, you already have their attention, in fact, you have their permission. Visitors to your website are there because they were looking for your products or services. You don’t have to distract them from another activity. They are there because they chose to be. The question is “after visitors come to your website, what are you going to do with them?”

The answer should be, “turn them into customers or clients.” One of the most effective ways to do this is to first turn them into “leads”. Once they are leads, you can nurture them until they become customers or clients. In order for your website to be a serious lead generator, it must have the following:

calls to action
offers
tracking codes
a lead nurturing system

The best system we’ve found for lead generation is HubSpot software. We use it, and it has been very effective. So much so that we first became resellers for HubSpot and have now become certified HubSpot partners. HubSpot is an all in one marketing software that helps you attract visitors, turn them into leads and then nurture those leads. It helps you with your website, social media and blogging.

The folks at HubSpot are experts at inbound internet marketing, and they insisted that we be experts as well before we could be certified partners. There is no short-cut to becoming an expert. Believe me, we spend several hours a week on research and study to stay current and cutting edge to better help our clients as well as readers of this blog who come here to read our articles and get help with their internet marketing.

Key Take Away:

While SEO is important in getting visitors to your website, it is just as important what you do with those visitors once they get there. SEO is a tactic while lead generation is a process.
One of the best things you can do with website visitors is turn them into leads.

What to do next:

Interested in learning more about HubSpot software? Contact us to find out more. You can fill out the email form on the right or call us at 870.404.1985.

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Long Tail Keywords for Better Website Traffic

by blogmistress on April 6, 2011

What are long tail keywords? They are the specific niche phrases that help you reach a very targeted market as opposed to short tail keywords that are targeted at a broader marketing. In 2010, on Google, over 50% of searches had over 4 keywords entered. Long tail keywords allow you to better reach your specific targeted audience. This image from the Left Click Blog is a illustration of the long tail.

Let’s look at an example:

The words “Real Estate” get 1,000,000 monthly searches. If you are using the keyword real estate, it will be very hard for you to rank. In most cases, it would also not be effective to rank for real estate. If you are a local Realtor, it does not make sense to try to compete for the term “real estate” because you are competing for that phrase world wide.

The term “Real Estate in Mountain Home, AR” gets way fewer searches. If you are a Realtor in Mountain Home, Arkansas, that would be a better keyword phrase to try to rank for because it is specifically relevant to you. This is an example of a long tail keyword phrase.

You can take this example even further. While “Real Estate in Mountain Home, AR” is a good phrase, in this case, you still have a lot of competition because there are many Realtors in Mountain Home. An even longer long tail keyword might be, “Norfork Lake view home in Mountain Home, AR.” Of course, there will not be as many people searching with that phrase, but, if they are using those words and they find your listing for a Norfork Lake view home in Mountain Home, AR, you have delivered exactly what they are looking for. That kind of traffic is very valuable because you have exactly what they are looking for!

Think of long tail keyword examples for your business. If you have a static website, the opportunity to get long tail keyword traffic is limited. You should limit your keyword phrases to one per page. If you have a 20 page website, you have 20 long tail keyword opportunities. However, if you have a website that you can expand and add pages or even better a blog, you have limitless opportunities to rank for long tail keywords that will reach a more targeted market.

You can research keywords online with free tools such as Google’s keyword tool. You can also do research with paid tools such as Hubspot’s keyword grader that can be integrated with your blog and website and track your keyword traffic.

Key Take-Aways:

Use long tail keywords for better traffic. Reach your niche market more effectively.
The more opportunities you take to use long tail keywords, the more effective they will be.

Next Step:

Start a blog! It is one of the most effective ways to reach your target market.

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Blogging As An SEO Strategy

by Admin on March 30, 2011

Should blogging be part of your SEO strategy? The short answer is “yes”. We’ve talked a lot about how the more content (i.e. pages) you have on the internet, the better your chance of showing up in search engine results. And there is no better way to put more targeted content on the web than by using targeted blog posts.

When I say targeted blog posts, I mean blog posts that are targeted to specific keywords or keyword phrases. Have you ever looked at your analytics and found that visitors got to your website using search terms you never thought of? Well, do some keyword research on these and other phrases you think people might be using to search. Then write your blog posts targeted toward the keyword phrases that are getting the most searches. Each blog post should target a single keyword or keyword phrase.

While the pages of your website remain fairly static over time, you can easily add fresh, relevant content to the web through keyword phrase targeted blog posts. Search engines, as well as people, love fresh, relevant content. So give it to them.

Blogging as an SEO strategy and as a people optimization strategy (POS) will help you get found by search engines and people!

Key Take-Away

Blogging is a great way to optimize for search engines as well as people.

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SEO – It’s About Inbound Marketing!

by blogmistress on March 21, 2011

Unlike the early days of the internet, today’s SEO is about inbound marketing.

In the early days of the internet, SEO was about keyword stuffing and sex. Let me explain. In those early days, search engines used the “keyword” meta-tag to determine what a web page was about. Most marketers at that time were “old school” marketers (i.e. they used interruption or outbound marketing techniques).

Interruption marketing is more commonly known as advertising. It is where an advertiser finds an activity in which a large group of potential customers are participating (such as watching a TV show or listening to a radio station) and decides to interrupt (they call it sponsorship) that activity with their advertisement. They do this in the hope that someone who is participating in said activity will see or hear their advertisement and be enticed to buy their product or service.

When those marketers (or advertisers) moved to the internet, they used the same interruption marketing techniques. And since “sex” was the most searched word on the internet (i.e. an activity with a lot of potential customers, maybe), and since search engines used the “keyword” meta-tag to determine what a web page was about, these marketers put it in the “keyword” meta-tags of all sorts of sites. It didn’t matter if the website was about insurance or automobiles. They put did this in the hope that someone searching for “sex” on the internet would land on their website. And, after landing on their website would be so enticed by it that they would forget what they were searching for and decide to buy an insurance policy or whatever the site was selling.

Google understood that it needed to return relevant results to searchers, not irrelevant advertising. Over the years Google has evolved its algorithms to rely less and less on the “keyword” meta-tag and more on page content and connectedness. In fact, today Google no longer uses the “keyword” meta-tag to determine search results. It uses page content, links to the page, page connectedness to social media such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, etc., and other variables Google keeps secret.

So today, SEO involves a lot more than just filling in the “keyword” meta-tag for your web pages. In fact, it doesn’t involve the “keyword” meta-tag at all. Today’s SEO is about “inbound” or permission marketing. You must provide relevant content on your website and social media sites. This content will serve as a magnet to potential customers who are searching for what you have to offer. Don’t bait and switch. Present yourself as an expert in your field. Start a blog.

You can compare getting found on the internet with the lottery or trotline fishing. Using the lottery comparison, your web pages are like lottery tickets – the more you have, the better your chance of winning. Using the trotline fishing analogy, your web pages are like baited hooks on a trotline – the more hooks you have with the right bait, the better your chance of catching fish. So increase your number of web pages and bait them with good content!

Key takeaways:

Search Engine Optimization continues to evolve.
Content and social connectedness are more important than ever.

Next Steps:

Download our free SEO 101 eBook to learn more.

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Want a #1 Google Ranking?

by blogmistress on March 18, 2011

When you look for your site in a Google search, do you want to come up first? Of course you do, everyone does. However, the world of search has changed. If you have been reading this series of articles, you know that search engines are trying to personalize our searches. First we saw how Google has teamed with Twitter. How about Bing teaming with Facebook?

So now who ranks first? It depends on who you are and when you search!

What influences the results:

Browser history of searcher
Location of searcher
Social graph of searcher
Social authority of pages
Up to the second news/trends

So, a #1 Google ranking on a search term for you may not mean a #1 Google ranking on that same term for someone else. Whatever search engine you are using, social is definitely part of the mix and fresh content is imperative. Yesterday’s SEO just won’t work now and going forward.

On Monday, we will wrap up our SEO series with information about trends going forward and what you need to do to prepare.

Key Take Aways:

Search has changed and continues to change. Social and Content are important components of today’s search.
Where your site ranks depends on a number of factors that you do not control.

Next Steps:

Come back on Monday for the wrap up and some useful resources you can use going forward.

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What Are Your SEO Goals?

by blogmistress on March 16, 2011

If you have read this blog for awhile, you had to know that question was coming. We always talk in terms of goals and strategies around here. So let’s take a look at some SEO goals.

SEO Goals

Maybe your SEO goal is simply to drive more traffic to your site. That sounds good. Why do you want more traffic to your site? Want more opportunities to sell your product or service? That sounds good too. Now let’s take a closer look. Is any traffic okay as long as it’s traffic? Or would you rather have a little less traffic, but have that traffic be “quality” traffic? Let me ask that another way. Would you rather have 100 people visit your site who are not really interested in your product; or would you rather have 10 people visit who are really interested? What is your on-page SEO Strategy? What is your off-page SEO strategy?

Driving quality traffic takes a bit more research. You have to find those long tail key words that bring people directly to you. It may not get you as many “tire kickers”, but it may get you more people who are looking for your unique product or service. Something to think about.

If your SEO goal is to get more visitors so you can get more customers, you will also need to give thought to how you are going to convert visitors into customers once they hit your site. Do you have any calls to action or offers that would help you do that?

Of course, when you talk about goals, you have to talk about measurement. How will you measure your ROI? Do you have any analytics so you can see where you are starting? Can you tell what keywords people are currently using to find you? Do you have any idea what your visit to lead conversion rate is? What about your lead to customer conversion rate? You need to have a benchmark of where you are so you can meaningfully set goals about where you want to go.

There are free analytic tools that can give you some of that information. Google Analytics will let you know how many people are visiting you, how many unique visitors, what keywords are being used to find you and where your visitors are coming from. If you are just starting out with SEO and setting SEO goals, this may be all you need to get started. Paid tools such as Hubspot can give you the same information as Google Analytics plus it can tell you your visitor to lead conversion rate and your lead to customer conversion rate.

Now that you know where you have been, you can set goals about where you want to go. How many visitors do you have to convert in to leads and how many of those leads do you need to convert into paying customers to get to your goal?

Bottom line is, it is always important to have a goal. If you don’t care where you are going, anywhere you end is fine. Is anywhere fine for you?

Key Take-Aways:

It is important to set goals for your SEO so you can create strategies that will meet those goals.
Quality of traffic is more important that quantity of traffic if your goal is to convert visitors into customers.

Next Steps:

If you do not have any analytic data on your site, Google Analytics is a good place to start. It is free. You can get it here.
If you have been following your Analytics for some time and are ready to take it to the next level, contact us to see how to get started with a free 30 day trial of Hubspot.

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The Line Between SEO and Social Media

by Admin on March 13, 2011

The line between SEO and Social Media is becoming more blurred all the time, especially with the socialization of Google (discussed in our previous post Google Gets More Social) and the partnership between Facebook and Bing. In case you didn’t know it, there is a war going on between Google and Facebook over your “word search” business. This means that your future internet marketing plans will need to include both Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Social Media Optimization (SMO).

What should you do? My Title Guy says:

Easy. Get a Blog. Create dynamic, engaging content (video, pictures, audio, text) and distribute it through all of your social channels-Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Linkedin, Flickr, Vimeo, etc. Because writing content for search engines can be different that content for actual people-consumers, forward thinking professionals will create highly engaging, keyword rich, VALUABLE content that is worthy of being shared across social networks. Next time you create content on your YouTube Channel, Twitter, Active Rain, Linkedin, Facebook Fan Page (personal FB pages are not indexed in social search) ask yourself “Who am I talking to? Who is my ideal client? What is my message? Is my message valuable? Do I have a call to action? Have I asked the consumer to engage with me- to share my content, etc”. The goal of getting found online stays the same, the method continues to change.

A blog is the best way to keep your web presence up-to-date with relevant, engaging content. It can be the foundation of you Social Media Optimization Strategy. Small businesses, especially, need to stop focussing so much on their websites and start spreading their content around socially.

Key Take-Aways:

Both SEO and SMO are necessary for a good web presence.
A blog is a great way to integrate everything together.

Next Steps:

Start thinking strategically about blogging and get your own blog set up!

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5 SEO Strategies

by blogmistress on March 9, 2011

Even though social media is a great SEO tool, businesses still need to give some thought and attention to the SEO strategy on their websites. This is a great infographic from our friends at Hubspot:

SEO Strategies

Let’s take a look at each of these SEO Strategies.

Make content users desire and will want to share. Content is so important for SEO. When you think about what your target market is looking for, think in terms of what words they might use to find you. Those words are what will become your keywords. However, you may have more than one product or service so you will need to have different keywords for each of those and a separate page on your site for each. When you are writing content for your site, use the keywords you have researched for each page in a natural manner. In other words, don’t stuff keywords in to every sentence. Just make your page interesting and informative and easy to be read.Keep your content fresh. Nothing is worse than coming to a site and finding that all of the information is 3 years old. A great way to keep fresh content rolling out is through a blog.
Build usability and high quality design into your site. Make sure that when people do find you, that you are delivering the information they seek on an easy to navigate site that is pleasing to the eye. Avoid the use of too many rotating pictures and flash elements. Think about how your site will look on a smart phone. Clean and simple is best. Make sure your pictures and other graphic elements are optimized to load fast. It is frustrating to people who visit your website to have to wait for you pages to load.
Make sure spiders can parse all content and duplication isn’t an issue. This kind of goes back to high quality design. If your site is created entirely (or even mostly) in flash, then you are making it very difficult to be crawled by search engine spiders. Keep those flash elements to a minimum or eliminate them entirely. Be sure all of your pictures and graphics have alt tags that accurately describe them. Search engine spiders can’t “see” pictures, but they can see the alt text behind the pictures.Look at your pages and see if you are duplicating content. Search engines may discount duplicate content. Try to keep the content on each page as original as possible and make sure your content is original to your site.Be sure to include an XML Sitemap on your site. This allows spiders to know the location of all the pages on your site, when they were last updated, as well as other information about your site.
Make it easy to reach deep pages with as few clicks as possible. Your navigation is a very important part of your site to consider. Try to keep the number of clicks to get to any page on your site to a minimum. For pages deep in your site, try to keep it to less than 3 clicks.
Use keywords that will garner traffic. Use judiciously in your content. Research your keywords carefully. There are free tools available like the Google Keyword Tool. There are also some wonderful tools integrated into paid solutions like the Keyword Grader in the Hubspot Inbound Marketing Software. As we said in the 1st strategy, use the keywords judiciously.

Use these strategies to get your website found and indexed by search engines and drive traffic to your site!

Key Take Aways:

Businesses should pay attention to the SEO on their own websites as well as using social media to drive traffic to their sites.

Next Steps:

Use one of the keyword tools to research possible keywords for your site and see if you are using them well. Keywords change over time, so remember to do this on a regular basis.

If you would like to learn more about the Hubspot Inbound Marketing software, contact us at Wharton Website Design and Marketing.

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10 Facebook SEO Strategies

by blogmistress on March 7, 2011

In the next couple of weeks, this blog will be discussing SEO (search engine optimization). Today, lets look at Facebook SEO Strategies.

Google is still an important part of the search engine optimization puzzle, but more and more Facebook is just as important if not more important for search. Google uses algorithms to determine what relevant information to return for a search. A Facebook search is more social and subjective because it gives its users the opportunity to highlight what interests them. More than 2.5 million websites have integrated with Facebook adding even more relevancy to optimizing your Facebook page to get found.

Here are some key strategies for Facebook page optimization.

Activity – when you post updates on your page, your updates show up in your fans’ news streams. While you don’t want to be spammy and post hundreds of times a day, you do want to be visible.
Be remarkable – that is, get people to comment on, and like, your posts. Post informative, relevant information and invite people to comment. This is important for Facebook optimization as well as search engine optimization. According to Inside Facebook:

When fans comment or like content in your Facebook Page’s stream, Facebook links their name back to their Facebook profile page. As a result, when the profile stubs of those fans who have posted comments and likes on your Page are indexed, Google will see more reciprocal links between your Page and your Page’s fans (in a way that grows organically over time), which it will see as a stronger bond. This creates a virtuous cycle of improved link weight from the indexed profile page stubs to your Page, and vice versa.
Get more Facebook internal inbound links by attracting more fans. When someone likes your page, Facebook adds a link to your page to the information page of the fan’s profile page.
Add a like box for your page to your website to give people who visit you an easy way to like your Facebook page.
Create custom pages in Facebook with iframes (where you used to use FBML, Facebook is changing to iframes). On your custom content page, you can write keyword rich information that can be found both in Facebook and by Google.
Post links to your website or blog in your status update. Make sure when you are linking to your website, your website is up to date and relevant. A blog is a great way to keep your information updated. Post links are a great way to help your business get found on the web. Again, just make sure you are being informative and relevant.
Add events with keyword rich descriptions.
Add pictures with keyword rich captions.
Create discussions that use your keywords.
As always – be consistent and be relevant!

With consistent, continuing effort, you will start seeing results for being found on both Facebook and Google. Now, of course, the question is, what will you do with those new visitors. We’ll be discussing that in a later post. But for now, keep in mind, it does not matter how many visitors you get if you do not have a strategy for turning them into customers. Stay tuned!

Key Take-Aways:

Facebook has become an important part of the SEO equation.
Using Facebook SEO strategies is a great way to help people find your business online.

Next Steps:

The Facebook for Business Checklist has been revamped! Download it now for free and go through the 10 easy steps to making sure your have all the basics covered on your Facebook business page.