Times are. tough. The recession is here, money is tight, real estate is tougher. I feel for all Realtors. Those of you with web sites must consider doing all you can to achieve top organic placements so that business and clients can be obtained. Your purse strings may now be tight because of the economic situation, and as such, the last thing you may be considering is hiring a professional SEO consultant that can help get you those top search engine placements. I, as SEO professional consultant here your pain.
So, here is a link to Googles SEO Starter Guide. It is free. It is very basic, and has the basic elements that an SEO pro would do....not everything, but enough to help you improve your web site placements on your own. Those of you with a template web site will find some restrictions on all you can do, others may find your web site design will cause a hinderance, but....making some of the changes needed can help. It is free and takes only your time to complete.
From Google: Our Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide covers around a dozen common areas that webmasters might consider optimizing. We felt that these areas (like improving title and description meta tags, URL structure, site navigation, content creation, anchor text, and more) would apply to webmasters of all experience levels and sites of all sizes and types. Throughout the guide, we also worked in many illustrations, pitfalls to avoid, and links to other resources that help expand our explanation of the topics. We plan on updating the guide at regular intervals with new optimization suggestions and to keep the technical advice current.
This is written by: Bryan Eisenberg It really has some great info and links to seeing what your competitors are doing. Many I heard of, but some were new too me as well.
Have you ever wished you were Bond? James Bond? Here are 007+007 = fourteen ways to spy on your competitors' web sites, without breaking any FISA laws.
1. Statbrain - Using several sources, Statbrain's algorithm computes the number of visitors to a website based on offsite factors like backlinks, Alexa Rank etc. Statbrain does not have access to log files or any hit-counter information. Use this as a rough relative benchmark of your traffic to theirs. First run your website and compare the results given by StatBrain to your actual results to get a sense of its accuracy in your category. Figure out what the multiplier is and then try it on a competitor.
2. AideRSS - Find out which of your competitors' blog posts and topics are engaging people. This should provide you with a list of topics you should be covering. Engagement doesn't necessarily mean your competitor's opinion is right or even agreed with - but it does mean the engaged people are interested in the topic and therefore why not your opinion on the topic.
3. FeedCompare - If you use Feedburner to track your rss subscribers you can compare the size of your feed to others. Just like in #1 above, figure out your own multiplier and then compare it to the competition. 4. Xinu Returns - Xinu Runs a report from multiple sites to tell you how well a site is doing in popular search engines, social bookmarking sites and other technical details. How well are you stacking up against your 5 biggest competitors?
5. Google Trends For Websites - Enter up to five topics and see how often those topics been searched on Google over time. Google Trends also shows how frequently your topics have appeared in Google News stories, and in which geographic regions people have searched for them most. You can learn more on how to use this from our friend, Avinash Kaushik.
8. Microsoft's Search Funnels - Customers often perform searches by typing related keywords in specific sequences. This tool helps in visualizing and analyzing the customers' search sequences. Search Engine guru Mike Grehan explains the value of these query chains.
9. WayBackMachine- Go back in web history to see how your competitors' site has changed through the years. Look for the things that have stayed consistent, because those might have been the most successful. In the same vein, what have you changed on your own site during that time? It's easy to lose track, particularly of your own work, and to think of your current site as "how it's always been".
10. Web Page Speed Analyzer - Compare the download speed of your pages with those of your competitors to see which are loading quicker. Quicker loading pages tend to have an advantage at converting visitors. This analyzer provides a detail analysis of the page elements. For a rough comparison of two pages side by side try WebSlug. And, WebWait is great when you want to get accurate speed results from the visitors perspective because WebWait pulls down the entire website into your browser, so it takes into account Ajax/Javascript processing and image loading which other tools ignore.
11. Web Page Readability - By comparing the readability score of web pages you can optimize your writing and make sure that you aren't creating overly complex sentences and paragraphs for your audience.
12. Attention Meter - Attentionmeter gives you a quick snapshot comparing any websites you want (traffic) using Alexa, Compete, and Quancast.
13. Websitegrader - Website Grader is a free tool that measures the marketing effectiveness of a website. It provides a score that incorporates things like website traffic, SEO, social popularity and other technical factors. It also provides some basic advice on how the website can be improved from a marketing perspective. Also worth checking out Twittergrader to check on your competitors' twitter accounts.
14. Google Alerts - set up searches for your competitors, key employees, and keywords to monitor their activity.
Your mission, should you decide to accept it: Try some (or all) of the above techniques and report back on your intriguing espionage! This tape will self-destruct in 10 clicks. Shhhhh... care to share your spying secrets? What tools or techniques do you use?
According to the Twitter FAQ, Twitter is for staying in touch and keeping up with business, clients, friends no matter where you are or what you're doing.
Wikipedia says, Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to send updates via SMS, instant messaging, email, to the Twitter website, or any one of the multitude of Twitter applications now available.
Basically Twitter asks the question, "What are you doing?" and allows you to send a short update (your tweets are limited to 140 characters) to your followers (family, friends, colleagues, customers, potential customers etc).
Twitter allows you to send and receive updates (also called tweets) via your browser, email , instant messaging clients and SMS (using your cell phone). No matter where you are, you can tweet!
Remember, when you first join Twitter, it can feel like a lonely place. When you aren't following anyone and no one is following you, you may find yourself asking "what is the point?" I've heard so many people say they just don't get it.
The key is to find the Tweets you want to follow so you can keep your finger on the pulse of your niche. The next key is to start building your followers.
How can Twitter help your business?
The more contact you have with a potential customer, the more likely you are to get their business. You can stay "top of mind" through Twitter. Let them know what's new in your industry, in your company etc. You become a source of quick news flashes for them.
Here are just a few of the benefits of Twitter: It reminds people that you exist It shows people you have something to say It shows them that you are human It allows you to mention new offers, sales and breaking news immediately It allows you to form a more casual relationship You can use Twitter to promote your social bookmarking submissions. You can ask for referrals, suggestions, feedback and help, and people will respond.
Twitter is also fun and is contributing to the new language we are constantly developing. For example "Twitterference" the intrusion of twitter updates on your phone making it hard to have a conversation on your phone.
Finding Followers:
Start by reaching out to your friends, family, mailing list etc. You can also add your Twitter link to your email signature line; add links to your website and Blog. Mention your Twitter account in your newsletter. Search for people in you industry. For example, searc real estate or real estate agents and you will find a slwe of folks. or search for realtors in your area by adding your regions: phoenix realtors
Twitter Rules
One cardinal rule (that is in your best interest to follow): if you use Twitter as a pure sales tool, you will lose followers quickly. As with all forms of social media, it is about creating a conversation and sharing news it's not all about you shoving your sales message down their throats.
Tweets are limited to 140 characters. This is to allow them to be easily sent over mobile SMS systems.
You aren't able to embed HTML with the exception of hyperlinks. (But they are no-follow links, so they won't help you in your SEO quest for backlinks) Bonus: Twitter automatically uses the TinyURL service to shorten links.
Don't tweet too much, or too little. There is no magic number and it varies according to your audience. Some people say don't update more than once per hour. Others say not more than once or twice a day. I tend to be in the once or twice a day camp. If there is breaking news and some days you just have to update more often then it's OK. If your tweets are valuable information people will be more tolerant of frequent updates.
On the other hand if you are too quiet, people have nothing to follow so make sure you find that balance and tweet just enough to keep people informed but not annoyed.
Don't forget that your profile shows a history of all your tweets, so if a new person comes along and sees that you don't have many tweets they may decide you aren't worthy of following. Also if your past tweets aren't informative or interesting, you lose some potential followers.
You'll find that sometimes you get involved in personal conversation with someone. Try to avoid doing too much of this. Not everyone will be interested in your personal communications. If you do need to do this, put the @ symbol in front of somebody's name - this indicates that this message is for them.
And....if you use an iPhone, you can easily twitter with the iPhone twitter wideget.
If you're serious about increasing your website traffic and you want to do it the right way, you owe it to yourself to check out this online video.
The link below is a free online video which provides you with 10 really good suggestions on how to increase your web site traffic as well as some seo and marketing. It has a really cool opening, so hang in there as it changes. Hey, I may be an SEO pro for the past 15 years, but even I learned a thing or two:-)
Easy SEO Tips Online Video. SEO for Beginners Tips
Jefferson Graham didn’t just write an article of free SEO tips — he also brought his video camera along. The result is a five minute video interview with more easy, free search engine optimization tips. Again, this is targeted at beginner SEO and small business SEO instead of advanced marketers. You can watch the video below:
Source: http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/free-search-engine-optimizatio-tips/
The below article from USAToday is excellent. It is an interview Matt Cutts, known to the SEO world as The Google Guy. We SEO's follow Matt's blogs and teachings closely as he is, after all, Google.
Jefferson Graham of USA Today stopped by the Googleplex a little while ago and talked about SEO tips for business owners that want to run their business, not live and breathe search 24 hours a day. The result is an article of search engine optimization (SEO) advice that you could hand to any friend that runs a mom/pop business who wants learn a little more about SEO. Experts won't be surprised, but Graham's article covers the basics for a general audience very well.
You have a website and can't figure out why it's not showing up at the top of Google's search rankings. You go to Google.com for some guidance but get lost trying to find answers.
Certainly, achieving visibility in Google's search rankings can be a mystery. To help solve the riddle, USA TODAY sat down with Google's Matt Cutts, an engineer and active blogger, who has five easy tips on how to "optimize" your site so Google (GOOG) and the rest of the world can find it.
More and more businesses are turning to the Web to find customers: $5.8 billion was spent on advertising in the first quarter alone, up 18.2% from the prior year, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau. Google's share of Internet searches continues to rise as well - to a record 61.8% in May, according to measurement service ComScore Media Metrix.
If you haven't "optimized" your site, here's how:
1. Spotlight your search term on the page.
"Think about what people are going to type in to try and find you," Cutts says. He tells of meeting a chiropractor from San Diego who complained that his site couldn't be found easily using Google search. The words "San Diego chiropractor" were listed nowhere on his site. "You have to make sure the keywords are on the page," Cutts says. If you're a San Diego doctor, Des Moines architect or Portland ad agency, best to let people know so immediately, at the top of your page.
2. Fill in your "tags."
When creating websites, Internet coding language includes two key tags: title and description. Even if you don't know code, which is used to create pages, software programs such as Adobe's Dreamweaver have tools that let you fill them in in plain English (rather than "<title>San Diego Chiropractor</title"). Tags are crucial, Cutts says, because what's shown in search results most often are the title and description tags.
If Cutts' chiropractor had properly tagged his Web page, a search would have returned something like this: "San Diego chiropractor. Local doctor serves San Diego community."
There's also a third tag, to add keywords, or search terms, but Cutts says Google doesn't put much weight in its rankings on that one.
3. Get other sites to "link" back to you.
Google says it looks at more than 100 pieces of data to determine a site's ranking. But links are where it's at, once your search terms are clearly visible on your site and the title and description tags correctly marked.
In a nutshell: Google ranks sites based on popularity. If authoritative sites link to you, you must be good, and therefore you get to the top of the list. If you can't get top sites such as USATODAY.com or The New York Times to link to you, try your friends. And what if they don't have a site? They probably do. Read on.
4. Create a blog and post often.
Cutts says blogging is a great way to add links and start a conversation with customers and friends. It will cost you only time: Google's Blogger, WordPress and others offer free blogging tools. With a blog, you can link back to your site and offer links to others. It's also a great way to start building content, Cutts says.
5. Register for free tools. Google's google.com/webmaster offers freebies to help get your site found. You can upload a text-based site map, which shows Google the pages of your site (create it at www.xml-sitemaps.com). Once that's done, you'll be registered with Google, where you can learn vital statistics - including who is linking to your site and how often Google "crawls" your site for updates.
Google's Local Business center (google.com/local/add) is the place for business owners to submit a site so it shows up in local searches, with a map attached. Savvy consumers who use Google for searches know that the first 10 non-advertising results often are from Google Maps, so if you have a business and haven't submitted it, you're losing out on potential customers.
Don't overdo it
When weaving keywords into a main page, Cutts says, some zealous Web publishers will use the term over and over again. That's called "keyword stuffing." It's a big Google no-no that can have your site removed from the index.
"After you've said it two or three times, Google has a pretty good idea - 'OK, this page has something to do with this keyword,' " he says. "Just think about the two or three phrases you want to be known for and weave that in naturally."
For blogger newbies, Cutts knows that writing (for example, posting new material) doesn't always come easy. He suggests finding ideas by visiting social news sites such as Digg and StumbleUpon, to see what people are saying about your particular topic.
Aside from that, Cutts says, new material falls into the common-sense category: It's all about your business. "If I'm a plumber in Iowa, I may want to write about some of the strange things that happen to me on the job, or the five most common ways to fix a toilet," he says. "That kind of content can get really popular, and it's a great way to get links." Folks will post your piece on one of the social media sites. And with links comes higher Google rankings.
Finally, Cutts says, there is one big misconception about getting Google visibility that he wants to clear up: In order to be found at the top of Google's rankings, you do not also have to advertise.
"One thing doesn't have to do with the other," he says
Do search engines care about the usability of your web pages? Does it make a difference whether your web pages are easy to navigate or not?
A recent patent application from Yahoo indicates that search engines might take a look at your web page design. The document includes a long list of factors that search engines can consider to determine the usability of a web page.
Why can usability be important to search engines?
The patent application contains a short paragraph that explains why search engines might consider the usability of web pages:
"It can be important to make web pages easy and pleasing to use, which can be particularly important for web pages it is desired to monetize.
If such web pages are not easy and pleasing to use, the money-making potential of those web pages can be jeopardized. One conventional indication of whether a web page is easy and pleasing to use is called 'clutter.'"
Web pages with good usability usually have a higher conversion rate than cluttered web pages. Web pages with good usability often have a higher quality than other web pages and search engines try to return high quality web pages in their search results.
Which factors can search engines analyze to determine the clutter of your pages?
Yahoo's patent applications provides a list of 51 web page elements that can be analyzed to determine the clutter of a web page:
Total number of links Total number of words Total number of images (non-ad images) Image area above the fold (non-ad images) Dimensions of page Page area (total) Page length Total number of tables Maximum table columns (per table) Maximum table rows (per table) Total rows Total columns Total cells Average cell padding (per table) Average cell spacing (per table) Dimensions of fold Fold area Location of center of fold relative to center of page Total number of font sizes used for links Total number of font sizes used for headings Total number of font sizes used for body text Total number of font sizes Presence of "tiny" text Total number of colors (excluding ads) Alignment of page elements Average page luminosity Fixed vs. relative page width Page weight (proxy for load time) Total number of ads Total ad area Area of individual ads Area of largest ad above the fold Largest ad area Total area of ads above the fold Page space allocated to ads Total number of external ads above the fold Total number of external ads below the fold Total number of external ads Total number of internal ads above the fold Total number of internal ads below the fold Total number of internal ads Number of sponsored link ads above the fold Number of sponsored link ads below the fold Total number of sponsored link ads Number of image ads above the fold Number of image ads below the fold Total number of image ads Number of text ads above the fold Number of text ads below the fold Total number of text ads Position of ads on page
According to the patent application, Yahoo might also consider the presence of animated and flashing ads and the average ad luminosity.
What does this mean to your web pages?
Good website usability can greatly improve the conversion rate of your website. If your website gets many visitors but only a few sales then it might be that your web pages are too cluttered and that you have to improve your website design.
Google has a similar patent application with the name "Detecting and rejecting annoying documents" so it seems that good website design becomes more and more important if you want to get high search engine rankings.
The HTML code of your web pages must make a good impression to search engines. If search engines find that your web pages don't have the right content then these pages cannot get high search engine rankings.
If you didn’t attend Web 2.0, you can watch Matt Cutts, the Google Guy ten-minute keynote about “What Google Knows About Spam” (and several other keynotes) on blip.tv. I’ll embed the keynote below as well
So if you want a great introduction to "What Google Knows About Spam" then spend 10 minutes watching Matt's Web 2.0 keynote video. It will be the best 10 minute investment you make all week.
How focused is your Web site to your customers' needs versus your needs?
Remember that your Web site should be built for your customer with words spoken just for your customer.
In every bloggers life comes a special day - the day they first launch a new blog. Now unless you went out and purchased someone else''s blog chances are your blog launched with only one very loyal reader - you. Maybe a few days later you received a few hits when you told your sister, father, girlfriend and best friend about your new blog but that''s about as far you went when it comes to finding readers.Here are the top 10 techniques new bloggers can use to find readers.
To get more information about Blog Mastermind click here now
These are tips specifically for new bloggers, those people who have next-to-no audience at the moment and want to get the ball rolling.
It helps if you work on this list from top to bottom as each technique builds on the previous step to help you create momentum. Eventually once you establish enough momentum you gain what is called "traction", which is a large enough audience base (about 500 readers a day is good) that you no longer have to work too hard on finding new readers. Instead your current loyal readers do the work for you through word of mouth.Top 10 Tips
10. Write at least five major "pillar" articles. A pillar article is usually a tutorial style article aimed to teach your audience something. Generally they are longer than 500 words and have lots of very practical tips or advice. This article you are currently reading could be considered a pillar article since it is very practical and a good "how-to" lesson. This style of article has long term appeal, stays current (it isn''t news or time dependent) and offers real value and insight. The more pillars you have on your blog the better.
9. Write one new blog post per day minimum. Not every post has to be a pillar, but you should work on getting those five pillars done at the same time as you keep your blog fresh with a daily news or short article style post. The important thing here is to demonstrate to first time visitors that your blog is updated all the time so they feel that if they come back tomorrow they will likely find something new. This causes them to bookmark your site or subscribe to your blog feed.
You don''t have to produce one post per day all the time but it is important you do when your blog is brand new. Once you get traction you still need to keep the fresh content coming but your loyal audience will be more forgiving if you slow down to a few per week instead. The first few months are critical so the more content you can produce at this time the better.
8. Use a proper domain name. If you are serious about blogging be serious about what you call your blog. In order for people to easily spread the word about your blog you need an easily rememberable domain name. People often talk about blogs they like when they are speaking to friends in the real world (that''s the offline world, you remember that place right?) so you need to make it easy for them to spread the word and pass on your URL. Try and get a .com if you can and focus on small easy to remember domains rather than worry about having the correct keywords (of course if you can get great keywords and easy to remember then you''ve done a good job!).
7. Start commenting on other blogs. Once you have your pillar articles and your daily fresh smaller articles your blog is ready to be exposed to the world. One of the best ways to find the right type of reader for your blog is to comment on other people''s blogs. You should aim to comment on blogs focused on a similar niche topic to yours since the readers there will be more likely to be interested in your blog.
Most blog commenting systems allow you to have your name/title linked to your blog when you leave a comment. This is how people find your blog. If you are a prolific commentor and always have something valuable to say then people will be interested to read more of your work and hence click through to visit your blog.
6. Trackback and link to other blogs in your blog posts. A trackback is sort of like a blog conversation. When you write a new article to your blog and it links or references another blogger''s article you can do a trackback to their entry. What this does is leave a truncated summary of your blog post on their blog entry - it''s sort of like your blog telling someone else''s blog that you wrote an article mentioning them. Trackbacks often appear like comments.
This is a good technique because like leaving comments a trackback leaves a link from another blog back to yours for readers to follow, but it also does something very important - it gets the attention of another blogger. The other blogger will come and read your post eager to see what you wrote about them. They may then become a loyal reader of yours or at least monitor you and if you are lucky some time down the road they may do a post linking to your blog bringing in more new readers.
5. Encourage comments on your own blog. One of the most powerful ways to convince someone to become a loyal reader is to show there are other loyal readers already following your work. If they see people commenting on your blog then they infer that your content must be good since you have readers so they should stick around and see what all the fuss is about. To encourage comments you can simply pose a question in a blog post. Be sure to always respond to comments as well so you can keep the conversation going.
4. Submit your latest pillar article to a blog carnival. A blog carnival is a post in a blog that summarizes a collection of articles from many different blogs on a specific topic. The idea is to collect some of the best content on a topic in a given week. Often many other blogs link back to a carnival host and as such the people that have articles featured in the carnival enjoy a spike in new readers.
To find the right blog carnival for your blog, do a search at http://blogcarnival.com/.
3. Submit your blog to blogtopsites.com. To be honest this tip is not going to bring in a flood of new readers but it''s so easy to do and only takes five minutes so it''s worth the effort. Go to Blog Top Sites, find the appropriate category for your blog and submit it. You have to copy and paste a couple of lines of code on to your blog so you can rank and then sit back and watch the traffic come in. You will probably only get 1-10 incoming readers per day with this technique but over time it can build up as you climb the rankings. It all helps!
2. Submit your articles to EzineArticles.com. This is another tip that doesn''t bring in hundreds of new visitors immediately (although it can if you keep doing it) but it''s worthwhile because you simply leverage what you already have - your pillar articles. Once a week or so take one of your pillar articles and submit it to Ezine Articles. Your article then becomes available to other people who can republish your article on their website or in their newsletter.
How you benefit is through what is called your "Resource Box". You create your own resource box which is like a signature file where you include one to two sentences and link back to your website (or blog in this case). Anyone who publishes your article has to include your resource box so you get incoming links. If someone with a large newsletter publishes your article you can get a lot of new readers at once.
1. Write more pillar articles. Everything you do above will help you to find blog readers however all of the techniques I''ve listed only work when you have strong pillars in place. Without them if you do everything above you may bring in readers but they won''t stay or bother to come back. Aim for one solid pillar article per week and by the end of the year you will have a database of over 50 fantastic feature articles that will work hard for you to bring in more and more readers.
This article was by Yaro Starak, a professional blogger and my blog mentor. He is the leader of the Blog Mastermind mentoring program designed to teach bloggers how to earn a full time income blogging part time.To get more information about Blog Mastermind click here now
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