Online Marketing and Search Engine Optimization Tips for Small & Medium Businesses

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Google’s Fluid Rankings

July 19, 2009 By 1 Comment

Google provides several free services – ranging from Gmail, Google AdWords, Google Webmaster, Google Analytics, Google Maps, etc. If you have any of these services and are logged-in to your Google account, you will find your website listed very high for your site’s keywords when you do a search on Google. You would be glad that your website made it to the top overnight.

The fact is, these are not your real rankings, and you are the only person who whould is seeing these results. This is because; Google has gathered your search behaviour, your click patterns and your stay longevity on a given site, and returns those sites much higher the next time you do a similar search. As a site owner you have obviously done lot of searches for your keywords while being logged-in to Gamil or any of Google services.

You will not see any improvements in your search traffic as, except you, your prospective customers can’t find your website for those keywords. To find your real rankings, just sign out of your Google account and do a search again. This time, your website won’t show up unless you are truly ranked higher for those key terms.

This will give you some idea of Google’s prowess, and motivate you to work on your SEO for natural higher rankings to generate good organic traffic for your business.

Filed Under: Blog, Search Engine Optimization Tagged With: ,

Keyword Targeting and the Long-Tail Keywords

March 9, 2009 By 2 Comments

Keyword or key phrase targeting is one of the most important aspect of any search initiative, be it paid (SEM) or organic (SEO). As single keywords return too many irrelevant results, people are using longer key phrases to find what they want on the Web.

Two and three word key phrases are the most common search queries on the Web. You must, therefore, target 2 and 3 word key phrases in your Search Optimization strategy. The longer the key phrases, the more powerful is visitors intent on doing something on your Web site. Therefore getting ranked higher for relevant long-tail key phrases will produce significantly higher returns per search visitor.

So how would you go about finding the right keywords for your business? Let’s say, you are a dentist in Toronto. It is not worth targeting dentist as part of your SEO strategy for two simple reasons:

  1. the competition would be too fierce for that key phrase, and
  2. you will draw far too many irrelevant prospects who can’t visit your clinic because they are living 1000 miles away.

What you would like to rank for, instead, is

  • Toronto dentist
  • Toronto dentists
  • dentist in Toronto

Depending upon your business it would be wise if you focus on your niche areas as well, say, cosmetic dentist in Toronto, and so on as in above example.
50 Kick-Ass Keyword Strategies

Filed Under: Blog, Search Engine Optimization Tagged With: , , , ,

Optimizing Your Internal Link Structure

March 9, 2009 By 2 Comments

Having a robust link structure is very important for search engine optimization (SEO) as search engine spiders discover pages following your URL’s and index them accordingly. Putting right anchor text on the links not only improves your search rankings but also help visitors guess the content of the landing page. Follow these guidelines to improve your overall link structure:

  • Put right words that describe the page you are linking to in your anchor text (putting “click here” on the anchor tests will not bring much SEO value as compared to backgammon sets, backgammon games, or backgammon boards for the linked pages, even though they lead visitors to the same destination)
  • Links must be encoded in plain HTML even if pages are dynamically generated to help search engine spiders understand that the page will be there with the same content next time when a visitor comes looking for it
  • Put more links to your main pages than the less important ones to increase their placement is search rankings

If you are interested in learning more about this exciting area, Jim Boykin has a nice post on Optimizing Internal Link Structure.

Filed Under: Blog, Search Engine Optimization, Website Optimization Tagged With: , , , , ,

Using Pay Per Click (PPC) Campaigns to Identify Right Keywords

March 8, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Search Engine Optimization is a long drawn battle with tremendous rewards. However it may take several months, maybe years, before you are able to get the benefits, and should you find that you are not getting higher rankings on chosen keywords or you were targeting wrong keyword phrases, you have to start all over again – a long painful battle once again.

What are your options then?

Google AdWords PPC is an effective acquision tool besides being important for keyword research.

Google AdWords PPC is an effective acquision tool besides being important for keyword research.

Pay Per Click or PPC as it is commonly known, is an ideal weapon you can employ to identify the right keywords for your business at absolutely nominal costs. Google AdWords and most search advertisers provide highly effective keyword research tools for free to help find the keywords that work for your business. You can immediately find which ones work and which don’t by setting up PPC campaigns and tracking their performance on your website.

Filed Under: Blog, Search Engine Optimization Tagged With: , ,
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