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SEO-What’s more important?

November 16, 2008

What’s more important? Creating sites for users or the engines? The answer is both.


Your favorite thing about having a blog may soon be this – they naturally attract search engine traffic. Blogs already have optimized site architecture. Most are set up with a clear navigation, where every page is set up to link back to the other main pages. They also have the inherent potential to be well-linked.

Primarily a site should be designed for the user, with search engines in mind. Google tends to talk out both sides of their mouth when they say, “Don’t do anything special for the engines”. Yet, they create a webmaster tool center where you can submit a sitemap, and get information about how the engines see your site, errors and what key phrases your site ranks for. That gives new site owners a little bit of confusion.

I like sites that are easy to navigate, pleasing to the eye and that help sell whatever it is you need to. Pages should be set up as landing pages. The great thing about your blog is that it can get so well-indexed that you have the potential to show up for any number of four word phrases that are relevant to your industry. This way you can give the visitor everything they need to make a purchase or fill out a form. At the same time you can optimize these pages for the engines and use the pages for your PPC campaigns. I believe in doing sites this way. It brings the visitor a much better experience.

The perfect site is not only user friendly, but optimized for the engines. You need to target where people go to in order to provide them with the information or product they need. There is nothing worse than having people landing on a page that is optimized for a phrase but offers no information about it… It brings the user a bad experience and you a missed sale or lead. You have a choice. You can target a general high traffic keyword you have little chance of ranking well for and get barely any traffic. Once you have a page optimized, you can streamline the transition from viewing what you have to offer to facilitate a purchase. You can also provide related content and links. This, in turn, will help with you PPC because Google is now checking to see how relevant your landing pages are to the keywords you buy.

As an Internet marketing strategy, SEO considers how search engines work and what people search for. Optimizing a website primarily involves editing its content and HTML coding to both increase its relevance to specific keywords and to remove barriers to the indexing activities of search engines. Sometimes a site’s structure (the relationships between its content) must be altered too. Because of this it is, from a client’s perspective, always better to incorporate Search Engine Optimization when a website is being developed than to try and retroactively apply it.Make a good quality site that will attract natural links to it in order to obtain any form of long term presence within the search engine results page.Make a good quality site that will attract natural links to it in order to obtain any form of long term presence within the search engine results page.

Posted in Links, SEO, Traffic | 25 Comments »

Successfully Marketing Your Blog with Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Techniques

November 10, 2008
This is part 4 of a 4 part series on Marketing your Blog.

The final method you can use for marketing your blog is through the use of search engine optimization, or SEO, techniques. Search engine optimization involves taking steps to make your blog more attractive to the search engines so the search engines will provide your blog with a higher ranking on the organic search engines results page. Obviously, the higher your blog is ranked on the results page, the more likely it is that people will visit your site. And, since these search engine results are completely free, you don’t have to worry about paying every time someone clicks on your link.


Getting your blog to rank naturally high on the search engine results is possibly the best way to market your blog. Not only does it cost nothing, but many people don’t bother to look at the sponsored links that are brought up from a PPC campaign. In addition, simply having your site ranked high on the list automatically makes your blog appear to be more relevant and reputable in the eyes of those who are searching for a particular keyword phrase.


There are numerous ways you can get your blog to rank higher in the search engine results pages. One method is to incorporate certain keyword phrases into your blog posts. In order to give yourself the best chance for success, visit a site such as Google Adwords and look at the popularity of various phrases that are related to your site. Ideally, you should target those phrases that are searched often but that do not yet have a great deal of competition on the Internet.


Creating links within your blog also helps increase your search engine standing. By linking various relevant posts to one another, the search engines are better able to crawl throughout your blog and analyze what it has to offer. It is also beneficial to build up your incoming links, which are links coming to your blog from other blogs and websites.


There are several methods you can use to increase your incoming links. If you engage in social networking, you can build your incoming links by leaving a link to your website at forums, blogs and other social networking websites. You can also increase your incoming links by guest blogging on other blogs and by submitting articles to article directories. If your article is good enough, it may go viral. This will help increase your incoming links while also improving your overall reputation within your target market.


The way your blog is set up can also have an impact on your search engine ranking. If your blog is full of broken links, for example, the search engine spiders will not be able to comb through your blog properly. As a result, the spiders may think your blog has less to offer than it really does. Therefore, if you are not comfortable with the technical aspect of maintaining a blog, it may be worthwhile for you to hire an expert to help you with the initial set-up. That way, your blog will be attractive and easy to navigate for search engines and for your readers.

Posted in Advertising, SEO, Traffic | 11 Comments »

Successfully Marketing Your Blog: An Overview

November 2, 2008
This is part 1 of a 4 part series on marketing your Blog.

So, you have decided to get serious about drawing traffic to your blog and hopefully making some money in the process. If so, you probably already know that marketing is the first major step toward building a successful income with your blog. At the same time, understanding how to successfully market your blog is a completely different animal. In fact, it can be downright frightening and even costly if you don’t know how to go about it the right way.


There are three major ways you can go about marketing your blog. These include:


  • Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising

  • Social Networking

  • Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Techniques


Within each of these categories, there are numerous techniques and methods you can use to successfully draw more traffic to your blog. At the same time, it is important for you to complete some market research before you begin using any of these methods. Otherwise, you can waste a great deal of your time and money on marketing techniques that do not yield any real results.



Conducting market research involves getting to know your target audience in order to provide your audience with what it needs. In other words, you need to “get inside the heads” of those people you are hoping to reach with your blog. You can accomplish this by conducting surveys and polls on your blog as well as by visiting other blogs and forums that are frequented by your target group.


During the market research stage of marketing, you should not focus on participating in blog and forum discussions. Rather, spend some time as a “lurker” who simply reads the posts of the community members. This way, you can get a better idea of the personalities of your target group as well as the problems they are facing.


Getting to understand the needs of your target audience is the key to building a successful marketing campaign. After all, if your blog will only be successful it is able to fulfill a need. This need may be social in nature or it may provide information to the reader that helps the reader in his or her relationships, career, hobbies or other area. For example, if you are writing a blog about being a single father, it is important for you to understand the concerns and problems that single fathers face. That way, you can gear your blog posts toward addressing those needs.


Once you have successfully created a profile of your target audience, you will be able to better determine how to market your blog in a way that will bring targeted traffic to your site. In that way, you will be better capable of monetizing your blog or simply creating a meaningful community for your target audience if that is your goal.

Posted in Blogging, SEO, Social Media, Traffic, marketing | 16 Comments »

How can I Increase Ranking and Website Traffic?

June 10, 2008

Here are few simple ways to increase website traffic and search engine rankings.

 

First Create a site with valuable content, products or services.

 
Place Your most important keywords within the first 25 words in your page content and spread them evenly throughout your site.
 
Next do the research and use the right keywords/phrases to attract your target customers.
 
Place your keywords in the right fields and references within your web page. Like Title, META tags, Headers, etc.
 
Important, Keep your website site design simple so that your customers can navigate easily between web pages, find what they want and buy products and services. Too Many websites have too much information like too many banners,bad colors, music etc. Personally for me if I go to a website and music starts to play, I immediately Leave.
 
Submit your web pages and not just the home page, to the most popular search engines and directory services.  You Can also hire someone to do so, if required. Use a manual submission. Try not to use an automated submission service.
 
Keep track of changes in search engine  and  modify your web pages so your search engine ranking remains high. You can use online tools and utilities to keep track of how your website is doing.
 
Monitor your competitors and the top ranked websites to see what they are doing right in the way of design, navigation, content, keywords, etc. But please do not try and copy them, be unique.
 
Analyze your traffic see where your traffic is coming from. It is  important to know how visitors are finding you.  i.e. Google Analytics
 
Make your customer visit worthwhile and give them plenty of ways to remember you in the form of newsletters, free reports, contests, etc.
 
Write and submit articles for your website so you are perceived as an expert in your field.
 
If you are selling products online, use simple payment and shipment methods to make your customer’s experience fast and easy. i.e. Paypal
 
If you need help, hire professionals. It might  cost you, but it might be lot less expensive than spending your money on a website which no one visits.
 
Don’t look at your website as a brochure. Take care of it, continue to update and treat it as a dynamic, ever-changing sales tool and location, just like a real store. Your customers will love it and keep coming back.

Posted in SEO | No Comments »