Long Tail Keyword Choice for Niche Marketing
05 2010 Thursday
27
By Dr. Christopher in SE Tactics
Long tail marketing consists of niche marketing to a great many niches, selling small quantities of many products or services to each. Customers are targeted with “long tail keywords.” What does the term “long tail” refer to?
Chris Anderson popularized the “long tail” in an October 2004 Wired magazine article. Long tail keywords and niche marketing go together on the Internet. To see the long tail, get a spreadsheet of related keywords with their monthly searches, sort the keywords in decreasing order by searches and make a graph of the searches. You should find a very few keywords with many searches and a long tail of the distribution with few.
Most of us can successfully compete only for keywords in the tail of the distribution. The questions are: Which keywords in the tail? And compete how?
You can divide the keywords four search bands: the super, the high, the medium, and the low search keywords. The border between low and medium searches can be set to somewhere around 500 searches per month; between medium and high around 1000; and between high and super around 10,000.
You can divide the keywords into four competition bands as well: the super, the high, the middle, and the low competition keywords. The border between low and medium competing pages — pages containing the exact keyword phrase — can be set to somewhere around 10,000 searches per month; between medium and high around 20,000; and between high and super around 35,000.
To use a metaphor, the number of searches is the quality of the fruit — the higher the number of searches, the more ripe, plump, and tasty it is. The level of competition is where the fruit is on the tree. The super competitive keywords are on the tip top branches. The low competition keywords don’t even require you stretch. There are two not perfectly consistent principles for harvesting the fruit: (1) harvest the best fruit you can, and (2) pick the low-lying fruit first. Here are some suggestions on how to do that:
- Remove the super high competition keywords from your list. You will not get that traffic.
- Remove keywords with too high a level of competition for the number of searches. Why bother competing for them?
- Do not target the high competition keywords first. Devote your time where it will do more immediate good.
- Usually it is worth optimizing web pages by hand only for middle- or higher-band keywords. An exception might be for selling products with a high profit per sale — provided also the searcher is intending to buy.
- You can devote web pages to low search and competition keywords if you generate the pages. That way, you only have to create the template once, but you get to reuse it for many keywords. It would not be worth your effort to write each one individually.
- You can use the high end of the low band keywords in alternative titles of ezine articles. When you submit the articles through a submission service such as Submit Your Article or Unique Article Wizard, those services submit randomized variations of a your article to hundreds or thousands of article directories and blogs. They permit many alternate titles. You can have many articles spread around the web with titles including the low band keywords, all with less than twice the effort of submitting a single article. All these articles invite interested people to come to your web site. For the low competition keywords, appearance in a page title and page name (both of which you typically get in an article directory) may be enough to get the article listed on page one of the search results. Many page-one listings with few searches apiece is in the spirit of long-tail marketing.
- There are a lot of searches for phrases the search engines have not seen before. You can devote a page as a destination for these very low frequency keywords. Create a page with a couple of thousand words of text filled with words and phrases related to your topic. When the search engine encounters some semantically-related but not yet indexed query, your page would be a good recommendation. You can also drop low-competition keywords into the text. They will bring a few searches themselves as well as contribute to the semantic classification of the page.
Divide your keywords by search frequency and by numbers of competing pages. It will help you plan your long-tail marketing.
For more information on using long tail keywords for ezine article marketing or to improve web site traffic, visit the web site http://ezinearticleshow.com/ created by Dr. Thomas Christopher, a Colorado Front Range public speaker.Understanding the Many Facets of SEO Consulting
05 2010 Wednesday
26
By Julie Ann Ross in SE Tactics
SEO consulting has become an integral part of Internet marketing success in today’s saturated web world. As corporate America inevitably shifts to a focus on online information and transactions, the reputation of a company can be made or broken in a matter of mouse clicks. As a result, the importance of being “found” online and being found the right way cannot be overstated.
Many companies understand the need for optimization of their webpages, but know little about how to make it effectively happen. Half-hearted optimization attempts or those created by employees who are untrained in the area of SEO can easily sink a business rather than help it rise above.
A certified SEO consultant can help a business design a plan for their website and their company, helping them to rank on the first page of search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo, in addition to any number of smaller and more specifically-focused search engines. However, SEO consulting is not simply limited to being #1 on every page. There are multiple facets to any solid SEO campaign, and every business would do well to meet with an SEO consultant to discuss which parts of keyword and website optimization would be most beneficial to their unique goals. Perhaps the best way to understand the impact of SEO consulting is to briefly examine five of the ways in which a consultant can help grow a business by effectively managing a client’s online presence.
First, SEO consultants can take a look at a company’s local presence. How well is the business known in the neighborhood and the community? If the answer is not at all and its target market is its immediate surroundings, then it may be best to undergo a consultation for a local SEO campaign. Specialists can help to get the business listed in multiple local directories, as well as the larger national directories, to get the process of positive recognition started. The most loyal and dedicated customers can be some of the best supporters of a business, both by word-of-mouth and online.
However, local optimization is often not enough for many companies – merely an excellent first step on the long road to online success. SEO consultants can also examine a business’s national footprint, and determine how to most effectively increase their online profile. Using the latest Web 2.0 technology, a solid SEO consulting program can drive the right kind of traffic to a company’s website – the kind that is interested not simply in “window shopping”, but that has a strong chance of converting and re-visiting.
SEO consulting can also take the form of customized packages, such as a focus on individual product submission to search engines for companies that are heavily involved in E-commerce. For these companies, hiring a consultant to enter each of their products individually into engines such as Google can dramatically increase sales volume.
While SEO consultants typically focus on ways to drive traffic to a company’s webpage and to make sure that information about the company is easily available, there are situations in which reverse SEO consulting can be useful. In these instances, incorrect or damaging information about the company may have become public or highly ranked, and an SEO consultant can help to ensure that this misinformation is pushed to the far recesses of major search engines, and supplanted with updated and corrected data.
Search engine optimization and the submission of the relevant details to major search engines are practices that require planning and research. Finding the right SEO consultant to provide effective services at a reasonable price can vastly improve a company’s Internet presence.
With 20 years in marketing, 10 in online marketing, Principals of Rostin Ventures are on the cutting edge. Combining Social Media Optimization with more traditional SEO and SEM methods, Rostin Ventures is a consulting firm specializing in enhancing clients’ online presence and managing their public relations online. SEO, SEM and ORM, Online Reputation Management, are combined in this successful formula. http://www.rostinventures.comDo Not Make These 10 Common SEO Mistakes
05 2010 Saturday
22
By Martin Sejas in SE Tactics
The time has come to list the top 10 SEO mistakes committed by website owners worldwide.
If you are not too happy about your website’s rankings on the search engines, then look through this list and make sure that the website is not committing any of these mistakes.
I’ve decided to divide this article into 2 sections: on page SEO and off page SEO mistakes. As you read through this article, you will realise that the mistakes covered here are all based on my previous articles about SEO.
On Page SEO Mistakes
This section refers to SEO mistakes made on your actual website.
1. Not Targeting 1 Keyword Per Page
This is the most important facet of on page SEO yet so many people are either unaware of its importance or forget to do it. It’s heaps easier to target a single keyword per page than to target 10 keywords per page. At the very maximum, you can target 2 keywords but you should try to keep it to just one. Focusing your efforts on 1 keyword per page will get greater results quicker. I can guarantee it.
2. No Keyword In URL
The URL of each page should have the keyword you are targeting for that page. If it doesn’t, then it’s just going to be harder for you to get that page ranking for that target keyword. Fix up your URL if you have to because this is crucial to SEO success.
3. No Keyword In Title Tag
I cannot count the number of pages I’ve been webpages not have their target keyword in the title tag. Just in case you’re not aware, the title tag is what appears at the top of your browser when you’re on a webpage. This is the one mistake I see the most because it is so obvious when I visit a webpage. It’s amazing how many home pages of websites have the word “Home” in their title tags. You MUST have the target keyword in your title tag because it will make a huge difference to your SEO efforts. This is certainly one of the top 10 SEO mistakes out there today.
4. Bad Use Of Meta Description And Meta Keywords
The most common mistake regarding meta description is people not using it at all. Just in case you weren’t aware, the meta description is a short description which is used to describe your website in search engine result listings. You should use it to encourage people to visit your website when they find you on the search engines. It’s also doesn’t hurt to have your target keyword there.
Regarding meta keywords, the most common mistake people commit is putting too many keywords there. You should limit yourself to a maximum of 5 to 8 keywords because putting more will only get you punished by the search engines for keyword spamming.
5. Bad Keyword Density
Unfortunately, many people are still committing this grave SEO mistake. Some are mentioning their target keyword as much as possible on their webpage to try and get it to rank highly. It used to work in the early days on the Web when engines were not intelligent but these days it can only guarantee your websites getting punished or even banned.
On the other hand, there are also people who do not use their keyword enough on their webpages. This is equally bad because it means that the search engines have no idea as to what keyword your webpage is trying to rank highly for.
When it comes to keyword density, your goal should be 3% which is not too much and not too little for good SEO results.
Off Page SEO Mistakes
This section refers to SEO mistakes made outside your website, but which hamper your website’s ability to rank highly on the search engines.
6. Bad Keyword Research
Keyword research is the basis for SEO success. If you target keywords with a high level of competition, then your ability to rank highly and get traffic will be diminished in the short term. On the other hand, you should not simply target keywords because of low competition because there may not be enough people searching for that keyword. It’s all about finding a balance between the number of searches and the number of websites competing for that keyword. Using tools such as Google Keyword Tool can help you achieve that objective.
7. No Keyword In Anchor Text
Off page SEO is all about building backlinks aka links back to your website. Nevertheless, while doing that, most people forget to put their keywords in the anchor text of the backlink. For example, if “computer repairs” was the primary keyword of your website, then you want to be sure that computer repairs is in the anchor text, just like in the following:
“Visit the best computer repairs service in town.”
Please note that the above is just an example.
This must be one of the most simple top 10 SEO mistakes committed today.
8. No Anchor Text Variety
While it’s great to use your target keyword in the anchor text of your backlinks, you must also mix and match with other keywords. In other words, if you use the same keywords in the anchor text of 100 links, then the search engines will regard this as suspicious and will punish your website. For this reason, you should find about 5 other related keywords and use them in your anchor text too. The greater the variety, the better your SEO results will be.
9. No Link Source Variety
There are plenty of ways to get backlinks, however, one of the top 10 SEO mistakes committed by people too often is by using only a minimal amount of link sources. For example, some people simply use article marketing to get their backlinks. Others just use social media. You need to be using a large range of sources to get your backlinks. The reason why this is the case is that the more sources you utilise, the more natural the backlinks will appears to the search engines, and the higher it will rank.
10. No Natural Build Up Of Links
Building on the previous mistake, you have to make sure that the amount of backlinks your website gets takes place in a natural, human-like manner. For instance, getting 300 links in just a single week will certainly grab the attention of the search engines and as a result, they will punish your website accordingly. However, if you get 300 links over the course of a month, then that will appear to be more natural and they will more than likely than not reward you.
Fix Them And Then Avoid Them
I suggest that you go through all of your websites and see whether they are committing the SEO mistakes covered in this post. After correcting them, it’s all about avoiding these common SEO mistakes so that your website get the rankings and traffic they thoroughly deserve.
Martin Sejas – If you are looking for an SEO consulting service based in Sydney which can guarantee results for your website, don’t forget to register for your free consultation.2010 SEO Checklist
05 2010 Monday
3
By Debbie Everson in SE Tactics
2009 saw a lot of exciting changes and additions to the world of online marketing and search engine optimization. Some important events that took place were the launch of BING, announcement of Google Caffeine, the merger of Yahoo and Microsoft search. 2010 will see real time web emerging which will become more popular than the traditional methods of optimization.
Following is the list of pointers to get your website on top, reach out to potential customers and ensure brand visibility in 2010.
- Decrease Webpage Load Time. Google’s Matt Cutts recently hinted that the load time of a website may affect its ranking in the search engines. That is, the faster a website loads, the better its chances to rank well for its niche keywords. Website load time is touted as the next big step towards improved rankings. The pre-requisites to a good webpage load time are; reputable web host and fast internet connection.
- Get Listed in Google Local Search. Getting listed in Google Local Search ensures brand visibility in front of visitors from the nearby places. It has been proven that the number of visitors to a website increase exponentially when listed in local search results. The reason being, a customer will always prefer to purchase a quality product which is easily available in his or her vicinity rather than order it from another unfamiliar city or state.
- Get Involved in Social Media. Social Media is the flavor of the season and in 2010 organizations are going to actively engage in conversation and social networking and reach out to their potential customers. Social Media Marketing is a must for every organization as it helps create brand awareness and build relationships with consumers in the highly competitive market. Micro targeting and Personalization will be the keywords in 2010.
- Optimize Your Website Mobile Users. With and ever increasing number of people tweeting and using Facebook from their mobile devices, a lot of organizations are now finally paying attention to how their websites appear on mobile phones. You can have your website appear on the mobile under the same URL or have a special domain for the same. The most common way is to have the domain name as mobile.websitename.com.
- Apply Web Analytics to its full potential. There are hundreds of web analytics tools in the market which provide a mountain of data pertaining to the visitor’s usage. Some of the most well known web analytics tools are Omniture, Google Analytics and Yahoo! Web Analytics etc. Web Analytics tools can answer the “how” but not the “why”. That is, you can find out how many visitors checked the product catalogue webpage, but not the answer to, why the visitors didn’t place an order for the product. Organizations need to dissect the data from web analytics tools and successfully apply its learning’s to enhance their visitors experience and in turn increase sales revenues.
In 2010 companies must go beyond organic search engine optimization by integrating social media marketing and optimizing their websites for mobile users.
Debbie A. Everson is the CEO of SearchMar.com, experienced SEO Consultants and Search Engine Optimization Agency to over 2,000 small businesses. Read my SEO Blog for hints and tips. Follow me on Twitter @searchmar. Call 1.866.885.6263 to speak to one of our SEO Consultants and receive your free consultation.Tips For Forum Posting
04 2010 Thursday
8
By Karen Thomson in SE Tactics
Posting on forums is one of the cheapest and fastest ways in which you can advertise your affiliate products on the Internet. However, in order to do this successfully, you must do a number of things with care. You cannot simply start a thread which contains your affiliate link straight away. You will almost definitely get banned from that forum board and you certainly won’t get any sales from it.
The general procedure involves making multiple posts on a forum board before you even setup a signature file, which includes a link to your site. Even if the particular forum you are using does not specifically mandate this, you will want to do this, anyway, as it will increase your credibility – which is your real goal.
Finding a forum related to your niche is relatively easy to do. Simply type the name of your interest followed by the word ‘forum’ into your favorite search engine i.e. if your niche is golf, type in ‘golf forum’ into your browser and you will likely get a list of active forums on the return page. Alternatively there are a couple of URLs that you can use to obtain the same information. They are “big-boards.com” which is currently the largest forum directory on the Internet or you can use “board123.com/forum_directory.php” which has some lesser directories but does contain some forums that the first doesn’t list.
Once you have chosen a few forums that you are interested in, you will need to find out what their rules are when it comes to signature files. Some don’t allow links and others do but may not accept these links to be of a commercial nature. It’s vitally important to stick to the rules of these forums or you will find yourself banned pretty quickly.
Once you have your list of forums that allow commercial links, it’s time to start posting! Right from the beginning, make sure that you post messages that are meaningful and relevant. Set yourself up as an expert in your niche and try to give value to the group by posting useful articles and lists that others will appreciate. Only once you have developed a good reputation on these forums which will take approximately one to two weeks of regular posting, you can begin advertising through your forum signature. If it is allowed, make your signature eye-catching by using an assortment of colors, words and symbols. Link your signature to an affiliate product or an auto-responder course purposefully designed to capture email addresses.
Repeat this process throughout all the relevant forums that you discovered earlier but ensure you pick forums that have high traffic, are used regularly and are audience specific to your niche. Not all forums are created equal and you do not want to waste time on those that are just too quiet to drum up any attention. Remember to add a memorable signature file so that you draw people to click on your link and you will find that this method will pay off considerably and much faster than other methods.
Karen Thomson is a successful Internet Marketing Consultant. If you found this article useful, claim your free social media for business e-book and more goodies, available at =>http://simplecashblogbonus.com
How to Find Long Tail Keywords for Niche Marketing
03 2010 Wednesday
24
By Dr. Christopher in SE Tactics
Long tail keyword tools are essential for small web entrepreneurs. You cannot compete for the most searched keywords — by now they have insurmountable competition. You must put together collections of micro niches which you can dominate. Each niche needs keywords by which people can find it. You need to do long tail keyword research to find those niches of low-competition keywords.
You need to find a large number of keywords, the number of searches for them per day or month, and the amount of competition for the keywords. The competition, at minimum, consists of all those web pages containing the keyword. More detailed information would include the number of pages optimized for the keyword. You can get all this information for free on the web, from Google; although, there is software available that automates the process for you.
You can use the Google keyword selector tool at https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal as a long tail keyword generator. It suggests a large number of keywords with low search volume but low competition.
When you type in a keyword into the Google keyword selector tool, it suggests related keywords and gives you a downloadable spreadsheet of their search frequencies, and AdWords competition.
Sort by declining numbers of searches and delete those keywords with too few. They are not worth optimizing pages for. What’s too few searches? That is up to you, but I have heard people say they set the limit somewhere between 200 and 300 searches per month (7 to 10 per day).
If you wish, you can reserve those keywords with too few searches to sprinkle into ezine articles. Keywords with low competition may bring the article to page one of a search engine’s results.
Next you use the Google search page. It is not usually thought of as a long tail keywords tool, but you use it for two competition searches. Do a Google search for the keyword in quotes to find the number of pages containing those keywords as a phrase, that is, adjacent to each other. The first page of the results gives an estimate of the number of pages containing the phrase. Do not search without quotes — that counts all pages containing all the words in the keyword phrase even if they are not close on the page.
You can cut the keywords with too many exact matches from your list. Your pages will be lost in the clutter if you try to compete for them. What’s too many? Everybody has their own limit, but I have heard recommendations of somewhere between 25,000 and 35,000.
The next step of long tail keyword research is to find the number of pages optimized for the keyword, and you can find the number of pages optimized for a keyword by a Google search. A page is optimized for a keyword if (1) the keyword is embedded in the URL of the page, for example in the domain name or in the page name, (2) the keyword is in the page title, or (3) the keyword is in the anchor text of one or more links pointing to the page.
You tell Google to return the pages with these optimizations by searching for intitle:”keyword”, inurl:”keyword”, and inanchor:”keyword”. Delete the keywords with too many competing, optimized pages, more than 50 or 100, say. (You can find information on advanced Google query operators at http://www.google.com/intl/en/help/operators.html )
Pages simultaneously optimized for the keyword in title, URL, and anchor text indicate that someone is intentionally trying to compete for the keyword.
If you want to sell to the people searching with these keywords, it would help to know if those people intend to buy. You can check their “online commercial intention” (OCI), at least estimates of their OCI, from an algorithm that some people at Microsoft have trained — there are questions about the methodology and assumptions used in this tool. Give the tool a keyword and it gives you a fraction between zero and one. Zero means the search seems to have no commercial intent whatsoever, and one means the people searching seem intent on buying NOW. The fraction indicates a kind of confidence level in the answer. It does not indicate a fraction of the people intent on buying. In experiments, the average value returned for non-commercial keywords was about 0.2, and the average for commercial keywords was about 0.83. Fractions near 0.5 had a high rate of incorrect classifications. Many people who intend to sell delete those keywords with an OCI less than 0.6 or 0.7. The calculator is on page http://adlab.microsoft.com/Online-Commercial-Intention/
By using the Google keyword selector tool, the Google search page, and optionally the MSN online commercial intention page, you can do your own long tail keyword research for free.
Dr. Christopher, a Colorado Front Range public speaker, has set up a web site devoted to ezine article SEO at http://ezinearticleshow.com/ where he has gathered videos and other information about finding long tail keywords.How to Research Keywords for your Internet Marketing Niche
03 2010 Friday
19
By Jay Allyson in SE Tactics
Keyword research is the cornerstone of your business success. Effective keyword research is what enables you to generate highly qualified prospects from your website traffic.
Whether you’re promoting a business opportunity or selling tools and services from a sales page, you cannot hope to be profitable unless people visit your website.
However, you must attract not just anyone, but visitors who are interested in the product, service or opportunity you are marketing. The better the match, the more targeted your visitors and the higher quality they are as prospects for your business.
Why keyword research is important to your business success
Your best strategy will be based upon driving targeted visitors to your website. Keyword research is partly about exploring your niche ‘target’ market and partly about forcing the search engines to find your pages and rank them highly.
Getting on the first page of the search results is important to your business, since this is where the majority of people will find you. 70% of web searchers never look past the first page and the ‘hottest’ area on page one is upper left side where the top five sites are listed.
So how does keyword research help you target your visitors? Well, first, it can help you identify what words or phrases people are typing into their search engine, especially those most predisposed to your offer – in other words, highly targeted prospects equals high quality traffic.
What do people who are seriously interested in starting a home business on the Internet, for example, actually search on? What exact terms or questions are they searching on? This tells you where they are in the decision making process – are they ready to buy or apply or are they still browsing?
Second, how often (to a degree) your page uses certain words and phrases will determine how a search engine values it. All major search engines use ‘algorithms’ to decide how highly to rate any page they analyze. Such algorithms are essentially little programs, called spiders, which scan the text on your page and then index it based upon what the words and phrases tell them the page is about.
A properly constructed webpage should focus on one particular keyword or phrase you are targeting. Placing your main keywords at specific locations across your page means the search engines will ’see’ them. These are the page title, description, meta tags and body, even the alternative text ‘tags’ for your images and videos. This is partly what search engine optimization (SEO) is all about doing.
How to identify your best keywords
The first step in your keyword research process is to find keywords that best match your most targeted visitors’ searches. Get into the minds of your prospects. What are their hopes, fears, desires, dreams?
Can you recall what your search was when you were exploring starting a home business? What are you main issues, needs, concerns?
As Perry Marshall says: “What’s the conversation that’s going on in their head?” The more you can step into your prospects shoes, the more targeted and specific you can make your keywords.
You are not looking for one golden shot here. You should identify a range of keywords and key phrases, come at it from all angles, test them out and see what converts best for your particular business.
First go after one niche you can relate to personally. For example, moms looking to work from home around the kids or people who want to own a franchise business. Either may have an entrepreneurial spirit. People’s initial search may clue you in on where they are coming from.
The second stage is to identify keywords that are profitable. It’s important not to go after the obvious or most popular keywords, like home business or Internet marketing. These are far too broad and it will be either too expensive or take too much time to rank high for these in either the natural or the paid search results.
The focus of your keyword research must be on identifying longer more specific search phrases, we call “long tail keywords”, that give you a good chance of appearing in the top 5 results on the first page of Google, Yahoo or MSN.
How to use free tools to identify long tail keywords
There are many different ways of undertaking effective keyword research. Many actually make use of free or low cost tools. I’d advise starting with the free ones.
The simplest method is just to brainstorm. Write down every phrase or term you can think of that could possibly relate to your business opportunity, product or service.
Another way is to use Google itself. Type in a broad phrase like home business and you’ll see it returns millions of pages relating to that keyword.
But watch what happens as you are typing. Google will create a short list of popular searches that start with that broad keyword, so you can then type in these, and get more suggestions again. You’ll also find related keywords at the bottom of the results page for any search you do.
You can also use the free keyword research tool at Wordtracker.com to drill down in much the same way.
Although these “long tail” keywords will generate lower volume, they are usually far less competitive. For example, look first at home business, then you might drill down to “home business opportunities in Denver” or “best home businesses in UK”.
A good rule of thumb is to identify a keyword that comes up with around 5000 searches for its specific exact match search (i.e. when you add quotations round it). E.g. “how to start a home business”.
Once you have a list of potential keyword phrases you believe are a good match for your business, you can move on to more detailed research based on actual search volumes and potential CPC (cost-per-click).
Use Google’s own free keyword tool, which can be found under Tools in your AdWords account. SEOchat.com, QuantCast.com and Spyfu.com also have some free tools you can use to spy on your competition.
It’s certainly getting more competitive out there on the Internet. Check out Google Trends (Google.com/trends) or NicheBot (nichebotclassic.com) to review the competition. Be on the look out for new terms coming up that match your business then test those out using the free keyword research tools again.
Keyword research is the solid foundation for your marketing and therefore your business, so using some ingenuity and persistence to find gaps in the current competition in your niche can really pay off.
Ranking high for your keywords
Once you have your list of potential long tail keyword phrases, you should check out the competition in terms of what websites and other content is already out there. This will allow you to create unique content around your keywords that stands out in the market place.
Put each keyword into your favourite search engine and review what comes up. If one of your keywords generates search results for a lot of authority sites or sites with a high page rank, you may find it hard to get your domain website ranked high.
However, you might have good success with a blog page, an article or a video tagged with that keyword phrase, since the search engines love web 2.0 properties like these. But if there are lots of videos out there already, just make sure you create a different web 2.0 property, e.g. a Squidoo lens or hub page, or podcast maybe.
If you develop content that is both unique in type and keyword-rich for your chosen niche, you are putting yourself ahead of the game. Both the search engines and your human visitors will love your stuff and hopefully pass it on and jump start the social viral marketing process.
Testing how well your keywords convert
At the end of the day, all the keyword research in the world will only give you an indication of likely success. The real proof of how effective your keyword research has been is in the testing.
It’s important to track your keywords against conversions rather than click through rates. This is the only true test for whether you’ve hit a profitable niche for your business.
In summary:
- The ability to conduct effective keyword research is a fundamental skill that any serious Internet marketer or business owner must acquire.
- Create content based on those long tail phrases that is of value to your niche and your visitors, checking that there isn’t already a tonne of stuff out there on that topic or issue. The aim is to rank your content on the first page of the major search engines.
- Without a profitable keyword list, you will pay dearly for each click in the paid search advertising and there is little chance that you will ever be able to generate targeted, focused leads from free organic traffic.
- Effective keyword research should therefore be the cornerstone of your marketing and your business.
Jay Allyson Top Master Marketer & Internet Home Business Coach Just getting started with Internet Marketing? Follow our professional blueprint for success: GetRichLifestyle.com Pro Marketing for EntrepreneursThree Simple Words that Push People to Part with Their Cash
03 2010 Tuesday
16
By Jay Allyson in SE Tactics
I was on a call with a top copywriting expert yesterday who talked about the three words that will always make people give you their money.
It really made me think hard about the headlines I’d been using in my ads, email and even on twitter. This guy was talking about using curiosity as a driving force in your marketing.
Let’s name it curiosity marketing.
Before I give you the three words, let me explain a bit more about curiosity marketing, how people decide to buy things and how your headline and buyer keywords can tap into each step along the buyer’s decision making process.
Killer Headlines
For curiosity marketing to work really well, your headline is the one of the entry points into your sales funnel. Your sales funnel should mirror buyer decision-making processes, which we’ll talk about in a bit.
The headline needs to hit a number of buttons. It doesn’t always have to hit them all, so don’t make your headline needlessly complex. It needs to grab attention first and foremost.
If you were marketing on dog training, you might use a headline like “7 Free Tricks to Stop your Dog Barking”.
What makes this an effective ‘killer’ headline?
- Intrigue. The headline is kind of intriguing since you don’t say what those tricks are so people get curious and want to find out what those tricks are.
- Incentive. The information is “free”, which could remove one obstacle to someone taking a look. If you hook people up with a great deal, they like you and trust you more.
- A Solution. It offers a solution through use of the question “how” and the answer “tricks”.
- Tangible. The number ‘7′ adds something tangible and definite about what you’re offering.
- Targeted. The headline is focused on one specific problem, undesirable dog barking, so people searching specifically for help with this one problem, will be highly targeted prospects.
If you were into dog training or were a dog owner searching for a solution to why your dog won’t stop barking, you’d probably click on this, right?
Thus the point of your title is what? To take your visitor to the next step, which is to click your ad, open your email, visit your blog post, read your article.
What you do after they get to your page or blog or whatever comes next in your sales funnel, is partly on how you satisfy the original curiosity and sell them on the next step. (It’s kind of funny to think how the marriage analogy would go in those terms!)
The Buying Decision Process
At this point, you are not expecting someone to buy straight out. People buy from someone they know, like and trust.
Would you ask your girlfriend to move in with you after one date? You’d wine and dine her a few times, and ask after the relationship has developed over time. So now when you pop the question … she may surprise you – your most wanted response!
In marketing, your most wanted response at the start of the buying process is simply that targeted prospects click on your ad, open your email or click the link you give in twitter.
OK, so that got me thinking about what would work in our industry – marketing to the home business opportunity seeker. I’ve always known the importance of researching your buyer keywords.
In other words, you have to identify what people who are looking for a home business are actually looking for … and then draw them in using curiosity.
Identifying Buyer Keywords
The killer keywords are always the starting point of course. What is it that people looking for a business opportunity might be searching for – what solution are they looking for? What’s the problem or situation they want to resolve? What’s their most wanted outcome?
I think it was Perry Marshall who said if someone is out shopping for a drill, they are not searching for a drill they want a hole.
If someone is out searching for dog training, they most probably have a specific and immediate problem they are trying to resolve, like “my dog keeps barking every time we leave him alone in a room and it’s driving us mad, not to mention the complaints from the neighbours!”
Your headline still needs to be relevant to your target audience, but curiosity marketing is about taking people to the next step. How can you entice someone to take the next action step in your sales funnel and ultimately towards a buying decision?
Creating Your Sales Funnel
One approach I have found works really well for creating your sales funnel is to mirror the decision-making processes in your buying chain. In my game, I try to identify probable steps that someone looking for a home business would take.
Once you are clear about what is your ‘most wanted response’ from them at each step, you should be able to more easily identify both headlines and buyer keywords according to where a person has got to in making a decision to buy.
The first step in the sales funnel is to get people INTO your sales funnel. And this is where curiosity marketing to a targeted audience can be really effective.
You’re at the top end of the sales funnel where there is the most competition usually so you’re ad or email has to stand out in the crowd – in the search engine advertising or email inbox.
Throw in an incentive on the back of a curious headline and your click rates will soar. Offer your visitors valuable information – the 7 free tricks – and use curiosity to sell them on taking the next step into your sales funnel.
This next step might be to give you their contact details in exchange for your newsletter and/or a free report so you continue to provide them with useful information. As a follow up, you could offer a low cost product like a training guide or video bootcamp or perhaps a basic subscription.
There’s no limit to the length of your sales funnel. People who have bought on one step are your prime prospects. They are buyers.
Upsell – offer them your next product or an upgrade or extra related product. They are now buyers who like your information or your products and trust its value to them.
A buyer is a buyer is a buyer – Not sure whose quote that is (maybe Russell Brunson told me).
So curiosity marketing is all about taking people to the next step in the buying chain.
My headline on this article (and I’ll tweet and email on this too cos it’s fun!)
What three words will always make people give you their money?
Question: Who would I target this one at?
Answer: People looking for buyer keywords, marketing strategies, conversion tactics, sales training.
Oh, and I guess you want to know what are the three words, yes?
STICK ‘EM UP!
Jay Allyson – Online Entrepreneur & Home Business Coach – GetRichLifestyle.comReverse SEO: Restoring Online Reputations
03 2010 Friday
5
By Julie Ann Ross in SE Tactics
Reverse SEO fits seamlessly within the context of your online reputation management (ORM) program.It is the quickest, most effective solution for dealing with bad press that has surfaced on the search engines about you or your company. By pushing negative listings from the front page of Google, Yahoo, and Bing, reverse SEO shields you from the damaging commentary of others.
Negative publicity online has become one of the most frustrating challenges for companies. It is typically anonymous. Names are often unattached to forum threads, blog posts, and even entire websites. Therefore,it is difficult to track and address the source of the complaint. Moreover, the growing popularity of social networking platforms has made it easier than ever for anyone with a mild grievance to give weight to their grudge. If you or your company have been the target of bad press online, it may be time to launch a reverse SEO campaign.
In this article, we’ll clarify how negative publicity gains traction within the search engines, and how it can lead to a public relations nightmare. We’ll also provide a working blueprint for executing a reverse SEO campaign and controlling the damage.
Controlling Bad Publicity With Reverse Search Engine Optimization
To appreciate why reverse SEO is effective, you should understand how negative press takes root within the top search listings in the first place. Google, Yahoo, and Bing rank pages based on a large number of criteria. If a website and its individual pages satisfy the most important of those criteria, those pages will rank well.
A lot of the bad press that targets companies (possibly even your own) is placed on websites that meet key ranking parameters in the search algorithms. That means the negative publicity can climb into the top positions and gain exposure. When people search for you or your company, they’ll see the bad press. That damages your reputation.
Reverse search engine optimization is an ORM strategy that pushes negative publicity from the top search positions. By moving the bad press off the first page of listings, reverse SEO limits its exposure and stifles its impact.
Ingredients For An Effective Reverse SEO Campaign
Like search engine marketing, reverse SEO uses a methodical, multi-pronged approach to protect your online reputation. The first step is to identify the sites and pages that contain negative publicity about your company, and are ranking for important keywords. Those keywords might include your name, that of your company, or key employees.
The second step of reverse SEO is to analyze those sites and pages for their respective ranking authority. That will help you determine the effort and tools you’ll need to use in order to move them from the first page of listings within Google, Yahoo, and Bing. A negative PR blitz that is spreading across the social networking sites is more difficult to remove than a single blog post that is on a non-authoritative domain.
The third step is to gather the necessary tools and execute your reverse SEO campaign. Utilization of optimization tools such as press releases, a new network of competing sites and blogs, social media profiles, and social bookmarking programs. Reverse SEO may also include heavy content syndication to build high-quality links. A search engine marketing specialist will have these tools at their disposal.
Reverse SEO Begins Before Negative Press Emerges
The best time to launch a reverse SEO campaign is before bad publicity appears in the search engines. This is due to the way that the pages link. A page will rank well within the search engines if there are enough thematic links pointing toward it. However, once it ranks, it will gain exposure. That exacerbates the problem.
Negative press can spread rapidly as people attach the press to their own blogs, sites, forums, and social media accounts. That creates a growing portfolio of links pointing toward the damaging press, cementing its position in the top listings. It becomes more difficult to address. By launching a reverse SEO campaign upfront, you can prevent the negative publicity from gaining exposure in the first place.
Protect Your Online Reputation With Reverse SEO
Reverse SEO should play a key role in your online reputation management program. It is far too easy for unsatisfied customers, resentful employees, lazy journalists, and malicious competitors to tarnish your name. And when it happens, it is usually done under the cover of anonymity. Anonymity makes the complaint or grievance impossible to address in private.
Launch your reverse SEO campaign now – before trouble strikes and the damage begins to gain momentum in the search engines. In a year’s time, you’ll be glad you did.
Rostin Ventures principals have extensive experience in restoring reputations online, using Reverse SEO among other tactics to provide positive Online Reputation Management Services (ORM Services). When an individual or company name is being searched in Google, Yahoo, Bing and an undesired page or website appears, Rostin Ventures can push the negative page back in the search results where it will rarely, if ever be found.How You Can Use News Releases and Announcements to Promote Your Business
03 2010 Wednesday
3
By Mark Shapiro in SE Tactics
Press releases are no longer just for the press. Here is how you can use Press Releases to promote your business and web site.
Press releases and news announcements serve many different functions in addition to being source material for journalists to write about. Yes, it is good to have BIG news that will motivate a writer, editor or journalist to write about your company, product or service, but that is no longer the only reason to create a press release. You don’t need big news just a good hook.
Whether or not you use a Public Relations Agency or do it yourself, here are three good reasons why you should try to write and distribute at least one press release every month.
1. Its Good SEO (Search Engine Optimization & Press Release Optimization) – One of the most important components to getting top Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc., search page results – appearing high up or number one when someone searches for your product or services is the number of external web sites that link to your web site.
Your news release appearing on an online or industry news site, at a social networking site, on a newswire such as BusinessWire or PR NewsWire, or even at a directory of press releases, helps improve your site’s overall SEO. In addition to that posting and SEO results, many other sites and blogs may pick up that release and print it on their pages as well, further increasing the Search Engine results for your web site and business.
A good news announcement could show up on hundreds or thousands of different sites!
You need to post new releases on a regular (monthly) basis. As most major news sites only keep their press releases online for about a month or so, you need to keep posting new press releases and news announcements every month to maintain your SEO rating and web page search results positions.
By SEO optimizing your new release and by embedding hotlinks in it that link to specific landing pages on your site, you can further increase how high up your web site will appear in the search results.
You should also make sure your press release also gets posted on your own web site. (You will be amazed by how many businesses neglect this obvious step). By posting your press releases on your own site, you increase the amount and quality of content on your site. As you probably know, most search engines heavily weigh the amount and quality of content on a site when assigning search results. For most search engines, the two of the most important factors towards getting a high search page result is the amount of quality links pointing to your web site and the amount of quality content you have on your site. News announcements can fulfill both.
2. Your news announcements and press releases can inform potential customers about your company, its products, services and areas of expertise. No longer targetted to just the press and media, good press releases and news releases also function as marketing documents for your organization.
Most people and businesses now rely on a web search as an integral part of their search for products, and services. Seeing your news announcements all over the web – at the magazines they read, at various blogs, and as a result of web searches, can greatly help boost your company’s brand and product awareness in their mind. It is also useful to have news announcements that inform current and past customers of what is new and that you are still successfully in business.
3. Press may be interested in your “small” news and may want to include it as a standalone announcement or as part of a trend article or column. They may be doing an industry overview or product round up. Also, it is also useful to occasionally inform press that you are an expert in your industry area and are available for comment as needed. If they don’t see press releases from you or your company on a regular basis, you will drop off their radar screen. You need to show ongoing, consistent news and growth or the press will forget about you.
Better Search Engine results and great SEO, direct out reach to your customers and potential partners, and ongoing contact to the media are the three main reasons why you and your company need to develop and distribute an ongoing series of press releases. They don’t have to be big news. Small news is fine. A new hire, updated web site, and upgrade to your software, new partnership, maybe speaking at a conference or industry event.
Mark Shapiro is a professional writer with over 17 years experience in public relations and media relations. Mark Shapiro has worked with hundreds of companies throughout the world, promoting their products and services. He has written thousands of press releases and news announcements. He has hundreds of articles published covering a wide range of subjects including media relations, public speaking, internet marketing, web video, digital imaging, etc. SRS Tech Public Relations provides a wide range of public relations functions, from big picture strategy planning to writing, distributing and following up on press releases and contributed articles, pitching products, services and solutions, and setting up and hosting show/phone briefings with editors and analysts
SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources » SE Tactics
Posts
0 comments:
Post a Comment