Category: SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

If you have ever read a blog post by someone from design luck. They always end with a sentence that starts with “The internet is noisy…” This is very correct, the internet is a noisy and jumbled up space. It’s littered and clogged up with the good, the bad and the ugly. The good- honestly useful stuff created by honest people to help or teach other people, sell some goods or render some services. There is the bad- harmless but not so useful content put up there. Masqueraded as useful stuff with the sole intent of attracting traffic and making a few quick bucks. The ugly… well malicious content by unscrupulous elements who don’t care about anyone else. There’s a lot of gray areas in between too.

Snap question: “How do you get your stuff to stand out among all of these?” What can you do to ensure that the people who need your content actually find it? Here are a few quick pointers to guide you in making your website more visible.

Develop Solid Content

Here is the most important place to start from. You can’t make people listen if you don’t have something solid to say. First of all, ignore all the ads and Search Engine Optimization and ranking and just develop some really strong content to go with your website. It is important that you learn your craft and you know your material. For some time now, I’ve read articles using the pocket app. I’ve come to realize that many articles and blogs out there are actually just from blog title generators. You go on to read the body and you realize it’s the shoddy job of some non-native speaking English kid freelancing with a laptop and modem. Nobody wants to read crappy stuff like that, the big companies won’t link to your website with that. Take the time to learn your material and really know it well. If you’ve not had the time to research, don’t bother putting anything up. The quality of the blogs on your website- even if they are short- will naturally attract traffic. I’ve experienced getting increased traffic simply from people sharing the link to a blog on my website through social media. read more

A guy named Charles F… has come out with an ebook on internet marketing warfare. He is only something like 18 years old but according to him he has accomplished quite a bit in his life. He says that the ebook will show how to make war and win the war in internet marketing. But he admits that not all of it may be ethical. This gives us pause since that may be a winning strategy short term, but may not be the best strategy long term.

One thing he seems to be saying is that in certain down and dirty niches, people will do link attacks where they link spammy sites to competing sites. We agree with his statement that it doesn’t seem very ethical. Yet, at the same time, he has said he has been the subject of such attacks once he has made it into the top 20 for some keywords.

He says that many attacks don’t work because they look like attacks. Too much, too fast and Google discounts it. He said it needs to be done over more time and mixed in with other things so it looks like a normal SEO campaign that is incompetent or being stretched a bit. Use SEMRush to see what pages are ranking and what keywords they rank for. Then use ahrefs to see what link building has been done. read more

Different niches can be very different to rank in the same location depending on competition. For instance, real estate is going to be tough almost anywhere you want to rank for it. Used appliance stores selling used washers and dryers and other appliances don’t have that much competition and don’t seem to be that internet savvy, making it much easier to rank quickly.

How to Read Search Results

How do you know how much competition there will be? Do a search in Google or Bing or Yahoo. (Granted Google is the dominant one and has more searches done on it than probably the second and third place search engines combined.) What shows up on the first page of searches? Are there any companies that show up on the map?

Mix of Organic Listings Important

Don’t bother to look at the ads, but look at the organic results. In Google there are usually 10 results. What is the break down of these 10 results? Is it mostly local businesses? If so, there will probably be a lot of competition. If there are a number of national companies or directories, that is much better. At least currently, (it can always change) the search engines would prefer to show local companies. There are some companies/websites like homeadvisor and angieslist that list companies all over the US and sell leads based on the response they get on their website. Then there are directories like Yelp and Yellowpages. read more

It is ranking that isn’t paid for. There, that was an easy post. Done.

Ranking

If you would like a more in depth explanation, keep reading. First, what is ranking? That means the position you are listed in when you do a search online. So if your website shows up at the top of the list on the first page, then you are ranking number one.

Page Organization

We will talk about a Google search since the majority of searches are done on Google. The top listing on the page does not have the number one ranking. If you notice, in a small yellow box, it says Ad. So that company has paid the highest amount of the advertisers on that page. There are 3 ads above the organic listings and another set of ads in a column on the right side of the page. The ads in the right column are less expensive to buy.

Not always, but generally there will also be the map listings. The map and the map listings move around somewhat. Sometimes it is between the top ads and the first organic listing and other times it is further down. The map used to have 7 marks on it and 7 listings below it. Now the map usually has more dots on it but only 3 listings below it. However, you can click on More at the bottom of the 3 to see others. read more

What is SEO or Search Engine Optimization? It is the idea of doing things that will help get your website ranked and found when someone does a search for a product or service that your provide. Who cares? You should because it can mean a huge difference the number of leads and closes you have.

Like they say with the lottery, you have to play to win. Well, the first most basic thing you need is a website which many small businesses don’t have. If you don’t have a website, no one will find you on the internet. (There actually are a couple of ways but if you don’t have a website it makes the chance of your being found very unlikely.)

So you may say, great, I made it over that first hurdle, I have a website. But, how good is your website? But wait, before we get into that, let’s step back and take a look at the search engines for a second.

The biggest of the bunch of course is Google. Then you have Bing, Yahoo and others. They want people to come to them to search for what they want. If you do a search and you don’t find what you want, you might try some other search engine and not come back. So they have an incentive to give you the best results possible. How do they do that? They look for certain indicators. read more