Search engine optimization is a broad field of study, one that many people approach incorrectly in local search. While global keywords (like “pizza restaurant”) will often trigger local listings based on the searcher’s location and search history, it’s best to … Continue reading →...
During the 1990s Internet boom, search engines (and thus organic traffic) hadn’t quite taken hold of the market yet. Business owners passed out pencils and mouse pads with their websites emblazoned across the front, so it’s obvious that the name of the game back then was building a brand — similar to the Amazons and YouTubes we have today. While branding is still an important consideration, organic SEO is the name of the game for now.
That being the case, choosing good keywords for your SEO marketing campaign is vital to being successful online. Click here to read last week’s Part I of this article.
One of the first steps to marketing any website is to research appropriate keyword targets for link building, on-page optimization, and social media exploits. Of course, it’s also one of the areas where most new SEO professionals make the most (and the biggest) mistakes. Many new web developers simply state that they’d like to “rank number one.” My first question is always “for what?”
It should go without saying that keywords are what drive search engine rankings. Your site could rank rather well overall for multiple keywords, but the main focus is on intelligent keyword targets with adequate traffic to secure visitors, and little enough competition to give you a chance to compete with other websites trying to rank for those same keywords.
So how do you determine the right keywords for a SEO marketing campaign? How can you use the Google Adwords Keyword Tool effectively to nail solid keyword targets for your website?
It’s human nature to want to fit in. In our day-to-day lives, we’re constantly trying to fit our ideals and personalities into the little sub-groups that society has built for us. We want to be comfortable among our fellow humans, to be regarded as “one of the guys or gals.” But this attitude also pervades the Internet content world. It’s easy to go with the flow when it comes to creating web content. You can simply pick a title that makes sense for your needs, check what other people have done, and make your ideas just different enough to pass a Copyscape check and not inspire the wrath of the duplicate content gods.
But while I’m not suggesting that you show up to your next parent-teacher conference meeting in a cape and top-hat for the mere sake of looking different, it is important to set your content apart from the rest. To bring new and unique ideas to an Internet sadly lacking them. If your content is suffering from an identity crisis, perhaps it’s time to consider your own.
In today’s digital world, no business can afford to ignore the internet and the many opportunities for growth that it offers. Establishing and maintaining a strong digital presence is key to remaining competitive and attracting new customers. Here are eight ways to use the internet to...
Blogging is critical to the online success of your business. Is that a surprising thing to hear? Some of the small business owners we’ve spoken to are skeptical when we tell them something to that effect, but it’s true.
Small businesses that do their thing out of a brick-and-mortar store or location often get caught with their pants down when it comes to their online presence. If they have a website (and a surprising number of Seattle businesses don’t), it’s outdated, doesn’t convey their image well online, and is rarely – if ever – updated. That kind of ‘web presence’ isn’t really a presence at all; it’s more like a forgotten sock under the bed, since it’s there but it’s not doing its job or bringing you any benefit.
With small Seattle businesses, and businesses everywhere, content marketing – or Content-onomics as we call it here at Marketeering Group – can be relegated to the lower levels of your business priorities. However, content is crucial to the success of your business online. It drives more traffic to your website, by attracting search engines and human eyes, than anything else.
Content marketing really matters. Why?
In the world of webology, or search engine optimization, business owners who are new to the science of SEO generally think that SEO mastery is a quick, one-time effort that puts you at the top of all the right search results. We wish it was that easy, but frankly, it’s not.
Regular emails sent to your past customers are a great way to keep your brand on their minds. You can remind them of a great experience, or get them excited about something that’s coming. But email marketing can be tricky; it’s hard to tell how effective it actually is, unless you’re looking at your click-through rate.
Search Engine Optimization – or SEO as it’s commonly known since the full term is such a mouthful – can be a complex concept to grasp. Once you get the terms down, like keywords, organic search, link building and so on, then you get to the actual stuff of SEO.
We know it takes a lot of expertise to get it right, but there are a couple of things that you might be doing to make it even harder to get good SEO … and you might have no idea! Here are the top three ways people hurt their SEO when they think they’re helping it, so you can stop the damage before it takes you down: