Rob Emmerson’s SEO Blog

There are always do-it-yourselfers in any business, so it should be no surprise that many successful web promoters are doing their own SEO. Many web guru’s started by fumbling around the internet until they found the right formula for success. The web itself has evolved as a result of individual experimentation and the sharing their knowledge.

The target for SEO continues to evolve, techniques that once worked, now are less effective. New types of promotion like social bookmarking are growing in importance. It is not necessary to be an expert in SEO to promote your own website, but you do need the basics of good SEO practices. So, if you are looking to start “doing it yourself” keep these points in mind as you develop your plan.

1.Unique Search Engine-Friendly Content

One of the most important aspects is your unique web content that is laid out in a search engine friendly way. Flash and text embedded within images are not read by search engines. Make sure your images have alt image tags and that you use your most important keywords in plain text on the site. Highlight these important keywords in titles, heading and hyperlinks. Use your keywords as anchor text in links rather than using images. Never try to stuff keywords on your site by making them too small to read, or making it the same color as the background. Instead use your SEO keywords frequently in the page copy, but keep it to 3-5% on the page.

Once you have your copy, check to see if it is being crawled by the search engines. On Google enter “site:://www.yourwebaddress” to verify if your page has been indexed. If your site is brand new it will take some time for it to show up in the index. There are many factors that play into being indexed including age of the site, duplicate content (copy and pasting content, or cookie cutter affiliate websites), Java script rather than HTML links, bad site layout (too many sub-directories),long dynamic URL’s with special characters (question marks or any other database characters, #, &, *, !, %) known as “spider traps,” or orphaned pages.

2. Do Your Keywords Homework Thoroughly

Keyword research is the most important step in the process. If you get this wrong you could be wasting all of your time and effort promoting your site. Start your research with the broadest terms to describe your product or service. Utilize the keyword research services that are available to narrow the terms and find variations of those terms. I like to use Google AdWords, Keyword Discovery, and Wordtracker.

Your goal is to find phrases that are highly searched and optimize your site like the top sites in those keywords. If the keyword is not used much, then you will not draw much traffic by using them. Remember to use the most focused keywords to optimize; because, general terms will be much harder to gain in rank, and the traffic you get will be less relevant.

3. Get In-bound Links to Your Site

There are many ways to get links to your site, some traditional and others not so traditional. This may be intimidating at first, but it is very important for your SEO and PageRank. Google counts a link as a “vote” for your website when calculating PageRank. The more links you have, the more votes you have, and the higher your PageRank. Much like any popularity contest, not all votes are equal, links from higher ranking pages count for more than lower ranked sites.

If you have taken the time to create unique original content, you are already miles ahead of much of the competition. If you are fortunate and create something very unique, you may get many links, however, most webmasters won’t just link to your site for no reason.

You can try trading links, but the effectiveness of link exchanges is decreasing, and if you are in a highly competitive market they won’t help much. Recently, paid links have been looked down upon by Google, so save your money. Volumes could be written on linking strategies, but for the beginner, stick to these techniques to start.

Issue a press release and include a link to your site.

Comment on blogs, public forums and articles with content related to your site.

Put links on your other sites leading to your new site, or have a friend link to your site.

Submit articles relating to your niche and include a link in the resource section to your site.

Use the many social bookmarking and social media outlets to link to your site.

4. Ride The Social Media Wave

Online communities developed for networking and socializing is at an all time high. Social bookmarking sites like StumbleUpon, Del.icio.us, Technorati and others allow members to store their favorite sites and share them with others online. These sites can also be used to create “buzz” about your own site.

If you are trying to generate sales from your efforts, then you should avoid promotional hype on these sites. The social sites are so powerful because they are based on the public’s interest. If you don’t have anything unique or interesting to share, these sites will not work for you.

Don’t be shy on the social sites about the site you are promoting. Network around with other users, share relevant content, be creative with your bookmark title and tell people you know in the real world about the content you have on the social sites. Quality content that you simply share with others will lead to your success on these sites.

Use these points as a general guide to plan your SEO. If you are established or are just starting out in your SEO efforts the advice will help, but remember that persistence and patience are your biggest assets when it comes to website promotion.

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Rob Emmerson is a leading expert in SEO and has written extensivly on the subject in articles and eBooks. He offers a free step-by-step SEO Course. In addition he writes a daily SEO Blog where he shares tips and tricks to improve your SEO.

When you are trying to develop your backlink strategy it is important to understand the different ways to gain links to your site. The easiest way to get links to your site is by doing a link exchange.

Link exchanges are done with similar sites with both sites placing a link to the other. Link exchanges have been penalized by search engines because of heavy spam but there still benefits to doing a link exchange, so don’t be afraid to try.

The best links to get our inbound one way links. These links are sometimes difficult to get because there is no exchange. It requires the other web site to link to you without you linking to them. Gaining one way links should rank near the top of your off-page optimization strategy.

In order to get one way links you have to get noticed. Getting noticed online is not a whole lot different than getting noticed off-line.

In order to get other sites to link to your site you have to provide unique original content on your site. One way to develop this content is to add a blog, Forum, or other method to regularly add content to your site. If you have a static web site it will be much more difficult to gain links.

Applying SEO techniques such as the above can bring great benefits. As an example if you are trying to optimize a site that sells vitamins. The first step would be researching highly ranked competitors. After analyzing their sites you can use their blog or forum to determine what topics are hot. Typically in these community sites hot topics will draw quite a bit of traffic and comments from readers.

One method of gaining their attention is to look at the topics on their site that are creating the most commotion. After you determine the hot topic, go to your own blog and do a review of that site. In your review concentrate on the hot topic, but don’t just talk about their services. Remember you’re trying to gain attention so argue about what they’re missing or things they don’t have. The key is you’re not trying to advertise for them rather you want to establish yourself as an expert.

Many times your review via a blog will be noticed by the other site. It’s not automatic, so you may have to bring it to their attention. One way to visualize this is to imagine that you’re in a crowd of people and everyone is talking to each other. If you enter the conversation you must make sure to say something relevant. If you speak up and say something unrelated or meaningless people in the crowd will quickly dismiss you.

Here’s the trick to this technique, when you comment about a site or bring up a controversial point they have to link to you to reply to your review. Remember to position yourself as an expert when you do this. Don’t be rude or obnoxious, but make meaningful comments and reviews and you’re bound to get noticed.

Most Blogs track links to the site, so rest assured that if the blogger read something that needs to be addressed by them they will comment.

Don’t just leave it up to the whims of fate, after doing your review leave a comment on the site. You could excerpt a small portion of the review, just enough to draw attention and raise interest. This will serve two purposes, first it helps establish you as an expert, second you will benefit from their readers following the link in your comment to your site. The key is to do this on popular active sites. If the site doesn’t have an active community, reading and commenting, you will get the benefit.

Over time this strategy will help increase traffic your site and build one way links to your site. If you do it right you’ll see the numbers jump in your traffic from other readers visiting your site to get the rest of the story.

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Rob Emmerson is a leading expert in SEO and has written extensivly on the subject in articles and eBooks. He offers a free step-by-step SEO Course at http://www.theseosecretrevealed.com . in addition he writes a daily Blog on SEO at http://www.robemmerson.com

There are many different ways to promote a product or service online, but the results from each method can vary greatly. Some may give you an instant rush of targeted traffic, while some will produce a small but steady stream of prospects. You will find that most online promotion tactics will result in a steady stream, while only a few methods will produce a large instant surge of web site visitors. But how can YOU become a web site promotion expert?

The most important thing to learn regarding web site promotion is that no one method will make your product launch or promotion successful. Promoting a product using 10, 15 or even 20 different tactics is the magic formula to turning your product into an online success. Most of these methods may be more time consuming to apply than buying advertising, but the investment of time will pay off greatly for you later on.

Understand that web site promotion is a step by step process. Each method, once set up, can continue to promote your web site 24/7 with only minimal maintenance. Learn one tactic and apply it, then learn another. The combination of many web site promotion methods working as one is a powerful and effective way to generate leads or make sales for any product or service online.

The best part about learning web site promotion is that you will be able to apply what you learn to virtually any product or service. Ever thought of doing online marketing consulting to offline businesses? Once you take the time to learn effective web site promotion, you Read the rest of this entry »

If there’s one thing that really irritates a lot of readers it’s getting a print ad or any other copy that has so many misspelled words and grammatical errors that you would want to get a red marker and edit and then send them back to whoever wrote the content.

If you want to repel your clients, then a copy that is full of errors would do it. In fact, misspelled words and grammatical errors in your print ads such as your custom booklets reflect an unprofessional attitude and non-expertise in your business. Hence, it is of vital importance that you proofread your booklet printing copy for instance, before you send them out to your target clients.

The main reason why proof-reading is important to your advertising campaign is because with a clear and concise copy, your ad can provide a clear picture of what your business can actually do. When you send your clients and potential customers your color booklet for example, do they understand completely and without any uncertainty your business and what you do? Does your copy clearly describe your business?

It is a fact however, that despite all the suggestions and advice both online and offline regarding how to improve on your ad copy many still have difficulty providing a clear description of their business. What’s more, most ad content often has errors in them that you would have a hard time understanding what it is their saying.

When after reading your ad your target clients still have no idea what product or service you are actually offering, then I believe it’s time for you to look at your copy and make changes to it.

First of all, you have to understand that using jargon on your ad copy doesn’t make you look good. In fact, it only confuses and annoys those who are not actually jargon-proficient. Avoid using these words then. You have Read the rest of this entry »

RSS is THE popular catchphrase, creating waves in today’s Internet world. But exactly what is RSS feed ? RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary, and is a very cost effective method to bring your information to your clients and potential clients.

When you as a marketer/businessman/company, decide to promote your business through the marketing strategies of the Internet, it’s time to take full advantage of this interactive medium. It pays to know what is RSS feed.

RSS has numerous advantages over the other existing methods, to turn it into the most sought-after, powerful, dominant tool, which will take over the Internet world soon.

Beyond just knowing what is RSS feed, this is how RSS can help you:

* Your website is the gold mine of information on how the public respond to what you say. RSS provides an unbelievable platform to discuss the views of the public without wasting time. Instead, you can spend your time on crafting quality contents. RSS has many special features such as dialog facilitators, RSS radars, and automatic responders to enhance the significance of conversational marketing.

* Your search engine ranking reflects how good your website is! Knowing what is RSS feed and harnessing its power properly will increase the search engine ranking remarkably well, and this helps develop your business.

* What do the visitors get on visiting your website? Interview customers for their feedback, do a research and make changes to your website accordingly. The last part can be done easily by knowing what is RSS feed and using them effectively.

* Read the rest of this entry »

Website promotion is a vital area in internet marketing that you should learn to master immediately. Your website is your HQ on the web, and as such, should be made prominent at the soonest possible time. The more people who would know about your website, the more visitors you would have.

Increased web site traffic would mean more potential sales and an expanded customer base. Here are ten useful ways to increase the volume of traffic of your site:

1. Get Your Own Domain Name.

People will never forget catchy domain names. Getting your own domain name will provide familiarity and recall. Be sure to choose a short and easy to remember domain name that is appropriate to your business.

2. Upload New, Original and Useful Content.

Blatant ads such as banners and pop-ups only irritate visitors. Give them information they can’t find anywhere else, and give it to them for free. Always think benefits when posting a new article or feature. Thinking of ways to get your visitor what they want will establish respect and more importantly trust.

3. Submit Your Site to Search Engines.

Search engines bring more than 75% of traffic to most web sites. Search engine submissions means serious work. This involves search engine positioning and Meta tag placements. It doesn’t end there because you need to test this with a number of search engine tools. This process involves constant monitoring of website competitors, and continuous
editing of pages.

4. Pay For Top Spots.

The best way to get website traffic without trying too hard would be through paid advertisements. These advertisements would be posted on prime locations or banners of websites. Popular websites like leading newspapers and search engines would provide immediate recognition and visibility to their customers. Of course this entails some substantial
advertising budget, but it is a good recourse for those who could afford it.

5. Form an Online Community.

An online community can be a message board, email groups, discussion list, and even a chat forum. Actively participate in these Read the rest of this entry »

When I was referred to Tony Comenzo to get the window tinted on a 2008 Mazda RX-8, it was the last place I would have gone. I am not a fan of fleamarkets, but on the advice of a friend, who had one small window tinted, I decided to give them a try. What follows is my experience and opinion formed from it.

I am a fan of small owner operated businesses, and will avoid chain stores when I can. usually I find a much better customer oriented service this way. Unfortunately I cant say the same for Tony and his fleamarket tinting business.

After being told I did not need an appointment for tinting, and driving to his hole in the wall outlet twice. Once to find that he decided to open late, and once to be told to come back in a couple hours. I decided to book an appointment, after all it isn’t his fault that I picked busy times to show up.

As a bit of background here, I have owned and operated a business or two, and I have found that customer service is the most important aspect of being successful. Close behind would be keeping appointments and honoring quotes in a service business. Tony had no intention of  doing any of that…

when I went to my appointment, I arrived a bit early. there was another vehicle being worked on, and apparently on the final window. after several minutes in what I will call the waiting area, though it is not much more than a dirty couch behind a makeshift wall. I was greeted as an intruder with a perturbed “what do you need” to wich I replied “I have a 10:30  appointment.”

That seemed to break the ice, and without so much as a have a seat, I was told that the job would cost 25% more than what I was quoted. I reminded Tony that he quoted me a substantially lower price to which he responded, “well that price isn’t good now it  is more.”

Ironically, I got a quote from a reputable window film installer that was only a few dollars higher than Tony’s original price. from a well established business, with regular hours, friendly customer service, and a building to do business out of.

So if you are looking for window tinting in the Tampa Bay area, especially in Hudson. I would avoid Tony Comenzo, and his USA Fleamarket Window Tinting. Maybe he didn’t think he could not fit his rather rotund self into the back of the RX-8, maybe he over booked his day and thought he would up the price to free up some time. Or maybe he regularly uses bait and switch to supplement his income.

either way, I will be taking my business to someone else, and I strongly recommend you do too. Thankfully I was turned off, and walked out prior to spending any money with this scammer.

Before Pioneer Marketing Strategist & Founder of Imperatives LLC Scottt Glatstein started submitting articles, the only online exposure he had was his own website. A Google search term for his name only returned 8 hits. Two of the 8 hits were for his cousin. None of these hits linked back to Imperative’s website. And they were all unrelated to his current business.

By the end of the second article submission, a Google search for “Scott Glatstein” yielded over 2,000 hits. A Google search for “imperatives” returned the website in the #6 position on page one.

I’d say this is a huge success to get excited about!

But guess what?

When I told Scott about this success, I didn’t get the emotional response I was expecting.

Why?

Because, he understood this concept…

Article Marketing is Not Just About Gaining Link Popularity

You will automatically get links when writing and submitting articles. The increased search engine optimization is a bonus. But links don’t put money in your pocket. So it should not be your top priority.

Article marketing is about getting the right messages to the right audiences and delivering measurable results that absolutely, positively impacts your bottom line. Scott understood this and that’s why he didn’t get excited about his article marketing results until:

• He saw his articles on top online publications his audience is reading such as CEO Refresher, CEO Online, and Chief Marketer.com
• His website traffic quadrupled
• He started getting targeted leads from all over the globe (including Australia and the Kingdom of Tonga)

That’s when Scott jumped up and down with excitement. You should have heard the excitement in his voice when he called to thank me.

Here’s How You Too Can Get the Right Messages to the Right Audiences That Will Positively Affect Your Bottom Line:

1. Identify your audience in the headline, within the article, and in your bio box. Not only will this help you identify your audience, but it will also help you get published more. For example, if I didn’t change Jill Lublin’s title from: “Networking: Connecting is the Key to Magical Networking” to “Networking for Women Entrepreneurs: Connecting is the Key to Magical Networking”, her article would never have been published by a new women entrepreneur publication. Most likely, they would have skipped right over the article, because they would have never of know that the article was perfect for their audience without taking the time to read the complete article. Something, most publishers don’t have time for.

2. Tell a story within your article that your audience can easily Read the rest of this entry »