Don’t Target Keyword That Make No Sense

If you are not a specialist then an SEO specialist should almost never just go ahead and try to rank your website for the search terms you request! Why? Because you most likely do not know which search terms to request to be the most effective. About 90% of the time my clients think they want to rank for one term, and I tell them why that is wrong. Often times the term they want to rank for has little or no search volume, and would not justify the cost of hiring an SEO specialist to get that spot. Ranking #1 for your brand will not do you any good. No one searches brand names online unless you are have been doing branding offline, or are a major corporation. As an example, most people would say they want to rank for florida real estate. That is great in all, but there is a lot of traffic that would not be looking for your services if you were a realtor. The high cost to rank for that term is not your best first objective. You want to rank for something the has high commercial intent. That means you want to target the people who are looking for a real estate agent, or who are looking to list their house. What keywords would those people be using? It is not florida real estate. It would probably be orlando realtor. That is a huge difference. That is why improper keyword research and targeting or no targeting at all is a major internet marketing mistake. This goes true for adwords too.

Why “Long Tail” Keywords Aren’t Worth Focusing On

Long tail keywords are keywords that several words long and receive little to now traffic. When you combine thousands of them they can make up a lot of traffic. They are also easy to rank for. So why not target them? That is easy. If you focus on a higher search volume keyword, even if it is more competitive, you will rank for long tail keywords anyways. It happens naturally. The trouble with targeting them is that you have to do a huge amount of work for the amount of searches you are getting. Go for the bigger or medium search and competition terms. You will pick up long tail search along the way. It is a good idea to have an idea of different long tail phrases, but you do not need full pages to get them. Just pepper the phrases into your normal pages that are attempting to rank for terms a little more substantial

Don’t Get Stuck On On Page Keyword Optimization

Three main things effect a web pages ranking in the search engines. It gets much more detailed than this but think black and white for a minute. Keyword theme of your site, the number of pages you have in your web page and how the links are structured, and how many quality inbound links you have to your site. The larger the number of the last two, the less the first one matters. You can make a site about purple donkeys rank high for credit cards without ever mentioning the words credit card if you have enough authority links pointing to the purple donkey site. Don’t get caught up to long in on page optimization. GO OUT AN BUILD BACKLINKS using anchor text.

We like to keep article fairly short so we will continue this list in another article. If you are looking for an SEO consultant or a Pay Per Click Consultant visit our website to contact us about helping you achieve a higher return on investment for your online marketing dollars.

The Most Important Thing In Search Engine Optimization

The most inportant thing you can do in SEO is go out and get backlinks to your website from other credible websites. It sounds to simple, but it works. Of course it gets deeper than that, but for the most part, that is SEO summed up in a nutshell. The trouble is that there are really only two ways to get links to your website online. The push methods, and the pull methods.

Push Method Of Getting Links

The push method is going out and begging for links, putting you site in directories, article marketing, forum posting, and blog posting. It does work, but it is extremely tedious and a constant uphill battle. Think of it as going to networking event where the only people in the room are realtors, stock brokers, and insurance agents. Not that there is anything wrong with those professions, but they are all their for themselves.

Pull Method Of Getting Links

The pull method of getting links works a little bit differently, and is rarely talked about by SEO companies except for the best. This is where you do exactly what you should have been doing all along, and creating extremely valuable, or interesting content for your target customers. It could be a blog post that comments on a hot topic asking people to join in the conversation, or a really good tutorial on how to do something. It could be a poll, or a contest. Whatever it is, make sure it is what the reader is looking for, and not a sales page. Those come later. Focus on providing great content for the sake of great content and getting it out there, and you will begin to drive more traffic.

We have recently seen a trend in the past six months of businesses becoming more aware of the necessity of using online marketing in some form or another in their marketing mix. The trouble with this new found awareness is the inability to distinguish where to spend their money. This lack of knowledge of the different potential ways to spend their marketing or advertising budget prompted us to right this article to help educate potential clients how to achieve their marketing or advertising goals using the online medium.

What Services Provide What Returns On Investment

We always explain to new customers the differences between their choices for marketing online in the return it will provide, and how that return will be realized. Not all business are best suited to use the same marketing strategy. For instance, if you have a highly ambiguous product or service that no one knows about, SEO will not help you a whole lot. The reason being is that on one is searching for your product or service. In the land of search, keywords are everything, if no one knows the words to search for your service or product, it won’t matter how good you SEO is. You would have to try and rank for a term that you market is aware of, but will eventually be penalized for not have a site about that topic. In this case, you are better served applying your budget to awareness using Press Release, Social Media, Internet Video, & Pay Per Click.

The difference between SEO ROI and PPC ROI

This part is simple. SEO provides a higher return on investment that PPC does if done correctly, but it takes a  lot longer to realize that return than PPC. Pay Per Click marketing (pay a set fee per visitor from search engines and sites such as facebook) can be seen the day it is implemented. The down side is that once your money is spent, it’s gone. Unless you were able to capture the information of that client during their first visit, the odds of ever seeing a return out of that money is slim. Pay Per Click can be very profitable if done correctly. The secrets to profitablility are taking the time to set up a campaign properly, and understanding the results of that campaign to adjust it over time.

SEO on the other hand can take a while to start giving a return. The difference is often that the return achieved is sustainable over the long term. I often instruct clients to think about listing the costs of their SEO development on land, plant, and long term assets, or whatever they choose to use as long term assets in their finances. The reason for this is that much like making improvements to a building or land, creating internet wide quality backlinks to your site over time holds a real value. Even if your business goes belly up, a high ranking website can be sold forhundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars.

Social Media ROI

Social Media Marketing can be a great brand building tool if used correctly. The trouble is that it has become the buzz word of 2008 and 09. Everyone has heard it, only some know what it really is, and even fewer know how to use it properly. Return On Investment can be difficult to rate in quantitative monetary terms for social media since it’s best use is to connect with a target audience. It allows large and small firms to engage in relationship marketing on a much larger scale then previously possible. Just know that if you are getting into social media to sell product, you will most likely be ill received unless you are approaching your prospects properly.

Firm Misrepresentation Issues

There is no getting around it. Internet marketing is still very much the wild west of marketing and advertising. Though it has grown from it’s infancy over the past 20 years, it still is cloaked in mystery for most businesses. This allow many firms to unfairly profit of unknowledgable companies for services which are often times drastically ineffective, or even detremental to the business seeking the marketing in the first place. SEO for example is one of the most sought after, and misrepresented service in the internet marketing business. Website design firms have become aware of how profitable the fad can be and tabs about search engine optimization have popped up on website design sites, across the net. Seeing our business grow is a great thing, but there is no regulating body to help companies determine whether or not the firm they are working with actually can achieve successful results. It is not just with the small companies either. Large firms are charging upwards of $150/hour to use parlor tricks to achieve mediocre results for clients.

How To Protect Your Investment

This one is tough for most people. The only way to really ensure  that you are getting your monies worth with online marketing is to become fairly knowledgable yourself. At the very least, you should know what the effects working with a successful firm will bring. Here are just some of the things you should see from an internet marketing firm.

Establishing A Benchmark & Link Profile

They should show you a benchmark for who you are trying to compete with for keyterms in the search results if you are using them for search optimization. This should include the top competitor, the size of their site, and how many backlinks that site has, how old the site is, and several other important factors such as your page rank compared to their’s and the competition in the market. Establishing this, while not perfect, gives you a finite way to measure results on a monthly basis. Since more competitive terms will take some time to reach the top, you should also recieve your websites ranking stats for the search terms you wish to dominate.

Tracking Analytics & Site Traffic

You need to be able to read the analytics reports from your website to see if your website traffic is increasing for the search terms that you are targeting. If they are not within 2 months, it is a fairly good sign that you marketing company has no capability of doing what they said they could do. Be careful not to read to much into the stats however. Search results traffic has a tendency to jump around a lot. Often websites will see a large dip in traffic about a month after they reach the top, only to be put back to the top again.  The point is that if you firm has done their job correctly from the start, you will begin to recieve TARGETED traffic from their efforts. If you do not, what are they their for. You have far less expensive friends.

If you have not heard of Evernote yet, you are about too. It is one of the most useful tools I have seen for productivity in a long time. Evernote allows you to file important information in an intuitive useful manner. Take clippings from web pages in a dash, or clip the whole thing. Use tags to remind you what it is about. Thats not all, it reads text in pictures so you can find that awesome picture of you in your favorite elvis shirt by searching elvis. Best of all, it is Iphone and blackberry friendly so that you can find your information from anywhere.

How To Get Rid Of A Rip Off Report?

Unfortunately the only real way to get rid of a rip off report is to pay them to take it off. Given the price and extortionist tactics, this is far from the best option. If you are a search engine optimization specialist, your goal is to knock them down passed the first one or two pages of google for your keyword terms. Since over 95% of the people that use search engines never go past the first page.  This is not a cure all however, sometimes the issue requires other remedies. If for some reason (hope this does not happen) a well known blogger or a larger  website wishes to hurt your good name, you may be in for a little more than a monetary issue.

Often time we have seen companies try to bribe a blogger with money to remove a negative review. This is generally a road to disaster. The blogging community generally has a sense of truthfulness to them, and may feel the need to blast you further is they are offered monetary compensation. Usually the best thing to do is to ask them their opinion on the matter. Ask what they would like to see changed to remove the review. If they suggest money, then you can decide if it is right. The web is full of stories of companies who unsuccessfully bribed a blogger, and ended up be battered exponentially worse than the original review.

How Do You Know If There Is  A Rip Off Report For Your Business?

You can use Google blog search to scour the web for any new mentions of certain keyword phrase. For instance is did a Google blog search for “Orlando SEO” I would know every time the term is mentioned in a article. This is key if you are planning on improving your reputation online. A famous Dell case study explained the impact of this. Dell began looking for mentions of it’s name and would have Dell employee’s respond to comments to see if they help or what they could do better. Within six month negative mentions of Dell online dropped from near 50% of all comments being negative, to just over 20%. That is HUGE!

How Hard Is It To Knock Down A Rip Off Report?

If you are a search engine optimization consultant, it takes some time, but it is not that hard. If you are everyone else, it can be a daunting task. Instead of getting one search result to the top of  list, you need to get 8 or 9 up there ahead of the rip off report. This can be done by traditional SEO methods using link building, but it can take some time depending on how strong the rip off report comes out.

We hope you have found this article helpful. Please leave comment or link back to this page if you found it helpful. You may contact us at 727-410-6165 for help repairing your reputation.

Social Media | Pay Per Click | Search Engine Optimization | Organic Seo | Local Search Optimization | Law Firm SEO | Realty SEO

Social Media | Pay Per Click | Search Engine Optimization | Organic Seo | Local Search Optimization | Law Firm SEO | Realty SEO

How do your make your content helpful?

This requires two things and only two things. Your content needs to offer something the target visitor wants, is looking for, or would interest the visitor if they new it existed. The second thing is that it needs to be relevant to your target audience. For example, if you have a website that services manufacturers attempting to source products from china, you want to give them information that would help them in the process, but also can be understood by your target audience. Every industry has specialized jargon, acronyms, technical terms, etc. that are not understood by a beginner, but are common knowledge to anyone who has been in the industry for a while. Are your articles targeting those in an industry that already have substantial knowledge, or those looking to get into that industry? This is crucial because the two will result in drastically different content. Keeping this in mind when writing your content and it will go a long way. You will notice on this website, that most of our articles are written explaining concepts in pretty simple terms. This is because our target audience is not industry SEO professionals. We offer internet marketing management services such as SEO , PPC, and website conversion optimization. It would make no sense for us to write articles that are deeply technical for our target audience. Although many would find them helpful, and we do write them from time to time. Our main goal is to establish rapport with potential new clients. We want to be helpful to the person who know’s they need to become competitive in online marketing, but we do not need to overwhelm them with technical jargon. There are plenty of great blog’s for do it yourself SEO. I suggest Seomoz.org if you really wan’t to start the long process of becoming an SEO expert. We do like to give great information at Orland Search Engine Marketing. We just can’t help ourselves.

SEO and your content

Now the you have the right content, it is time to get it seen. SEO to most people is a lot like Golf. If you play Golf you will understand this. Most people become self taught at Golf. They learn how to swing wrong, but then make little adjustments here and there so that they are able to still hit the ball. If you are going to train them the right way they are going to get worse for a little before they get better. Search engine optimization is just like Golf. Most people learning a couple things, hear about long tail keywords, and then go stuff them everywhere they possibly can. I know because that is what I did! Experience can be really helpful.  They then end up getting hit with an over optimization penalty from google. This is where Google decides you are trying to game the system, and you see your website fall out of the index for the terms you were trying to rank for.  After a period of this “over optimization” they get past the glass ceiling and then can use SEO in a helpful way. Organic SEO if done correctly, looks like it was never done at all. There will be no awkward sounding sentences. The keyword phrase will not appear 80 times in one article. Usually for the beginner less is more. Just shoot for using you keywords in your articles a couple times. If you need a tid bit of technical information, add on modifiers to your keywords phrases throughout your articles. Modifiers are those terms that people are most likely to search for along with your main phrase. For example, when it comes to “SEO”, people will use organic seo, cheap seo, affordable seo, orlando seo, seo for small business. Make sure that you get those variations into your articles. Just make sure that your keywords fit the topic.

Great content ideas

I want to make sure that I do not take credit for these, as the ideas have been rewritten all over the net. I just wanted to make them easy to find. If you have another great idea, please feel free to add it in a comment. If it is a good one, I will take it out of the comments, put it in the article and give you a link back to your site.

Top ten lists

People love lists. They always have, and always will. How many times do you think a womens magazine comes up with truly new news, compared to how many headlines about a new way to bust 10 pounds before spring break. They use these things to get you interested. Lists are quick, effective, and people love them. Take some time to make a great top ten list and you are on your way.

Question and answer format

Q and A’s are a great way to get keyword phrases in without sounding akward. On top of that, they provide for a more laid back structure to how the article develops. People find them easy to read because they scan the questions to see if what they were looking for was asked.

How to or tutorial

Everyone loves a free how to. This is one of the strongest forms of content. If you had a problem doing something and have been able to figure it out. Tell people how you figured it out in a step by step tutorial.

Asking a thought provoking question

While the tutorials are there to answer questions, asking a question can be a great way to stir up conversation. Some of the main ongoing conversation in our industry are whether to use white or black hat SEO tactics. White hat SEO is when you play by the rules. Black hat is exactly the opposite. If feel I should put a disclaimer here. Using only white hat is a no brainer if you intend for your website to be around for any length of time. Often times, the people that use black hat tactics have thousands of sites that are used like scrappers. They do not care if a site gets banned. YOU DO! go White Hat. We use 100% white hat tactics.

Feel free to read through our articles and find more great information. If you liked the article, take an action. Leave a comment, link to it, or digg it.

Social Media | Pay Per Click | Search Engine Optimization | Organic Seo | Local Search Optimization | Law Firm SEO | Realty SEO

So What Is Twitter?

Twitter is a micro-blog. Relax, I am not stopping there. A micro-blog is essentially a blog but in a highly condensed form. Twitter gives you 140 characters to express what you are trying to say. Basically, it has finally put an end to long winded journalist that feel compelled to fill an entire half page of the wall street journal with a story that could have been condensed into a paragraph. The interesting thing about Twitter is that it is not just a micro-blog. It is also an instant up date service, combined with a social network. If you put those three things together you get one thing. That things is word of mouth that has been sped up to the speed of light.
Twitter enables important information to ripple through the tweetosphere much faster than any other service could even dream. In fact, if they could figure out how to keep it secure, I would recommend the U.S. armed forces use Twitter to communicate instead of the system they are trying to develop. It is simple, its effective, and it works.

What Is Twitter Not?

Twitter is not a platform for going into great detail about your company, or about who you are. It is merely a cliff notes to whom you are, and what interests you. With the information overload that most people are facing in the current environment, it is no wonder why Twitter has become a safe haven. You say something simple, maybe post a link, and you done. If someone wants the full story they can go find it.

How To Benefit From Twitter?

Twitter is about at that point where Facebook was about 3 years ago. It is no longer a kid, but is not yet a grown. If you can establish yourself as a first mover, or second, or third in the Twitter ranks for your industry, you can reap the benefits of a captive audience. To find out more about how being on Twitter can help your business (It definitely can) check out this great how to book. It is loaded with great secrets. We highly recommend it for the beginning and intermediate tweeter. Happy tweets.

Learn More About Twitter

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