Local SEM Has Changed, Have You Noticed?
Local SEM or search engine marketing got you confused lately? Things are certainly not the same as they were 2 or 3 years ago? The local search marketing game is changing folks and technology can be blamed on that. Chances are in the next three years it will change even more so don’t get too mad. Just hop on the horse and try to hold on. Let’s take a look at how the local SEM game has changed over the years: Local SEM Change#1 - Blogs Blogs have been around for a number of years but I still see many website owners trying to market themselves locally that still do not understand the concept of a blog. A blog is nothing more than a journal entry of your CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
How to Get Eyeballs to Your Article
There are lots of articles floating around online and some people think it might be a bit too much for everyone. Analysts say we are in a content overload period and they might be right but there are still ways to get people to see what you are all about when it comes to article writing. Here are some recommendations of how to get people reading your articles: Niche Forums Take your article and find some niche forum websites and start a new thread with it. You might want to reach out to the forum or possibly comb through the guidelines to make sure it is ok but if it is a well written article it will create some really nice discussion. Social Bookmarking Take the link the article sits CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
SEM Budget Planning Tips
There are a lot of people online and you know that it is crucial to tap some of them on the shoulder and let them know you are there. How can you do that with a limited marketing budget? What should your budget even be? Are you one of those people who have contacted several search marketing companies to help you only to get back widely different proposals? With so much differentiation in pricing how do you even set your budget correctly? As you look ahead to plan your search engine marketing budget for the next year, here are some helpful tips that might better help you allocate or re-allocate your SEM budget. Explore Your Competition What I mean by this is to conduct some CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
SEM Strategy: Less is Much More!
I still bump into website owners that think they need to dump an exuberant amount of content on a weekly basis in order to acquire “links” for their website. What these website owners sometimes have a hard time understanding is that less is often times more. In 1997 more was beneficial but the algorithms have gone through many changes since then that many website owners seem to forget or simply don’t understand. Article Marketing More: Writing 500 articles a month hoping it will make an impact on your website when in reality it most likely will hurt it. Less: Writing one or two strategic articles and targeting industry locations where they can gain high visibility is a less approach that could lead to greater visibility. Social Media Marketing Communication More: CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
Simple SEM Mistakes Can Decrease Business
I see some companies spend a great deal of money marketing their business online only to shoot themselves in the foot for missing out on some very important steps that can really help out the marketing and link building for a website. Here are some of those SEM related mistakes: Forgetting Links: I couldn’t tell you how many times I have been to a business fan page on Facebook or a Twitter profile where the field for a link to a website is blank. Seriously? That is one of the most important pieces of information you can leave behind besides your logo. A link should be capitalized on when or where ever possible. Even in YouTube descriptions there should always be a link visible for others to CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
Build a Website Right From the Start
I often times see a brand new website get published without any search engine optimization efforts built into it prior. When a website is being built that is the perfect time to really apply all SEO related efforts so you don’t have to add an additional step to the entire process down the road. Here are some areas that should be addressed while a website is being built: Keyword Research: Conduct keyword research prior to building the website or during so you can use the data as ammo through the building process. Once you determine your navigation and your pages you will then be able to isolate which keywords you want to target for each page. URL Structure: Once you have completed your keyword research you now CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
Future of Search Engine Marketing
What the future of search engine marketing holds nobody really knows but the signs are clear as to where things are going for anyone or any business looking to market almost anything on the web. The way people interact and communicate online is always changing and nothing stays the same for too long. We are obsessed with speed and things being quicker at all times and quality of life is about to change. How are things changing the search engine marketing landscape? 1. Local Search Engine Marketing: Local search engine marketing was once not very important, now it is crucial for survival. Whether you are a car dealership or a lemonade stand marketing yourself online is vital to bringing in new customers. Local marketing utilizing location based CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
Don’t Forget About Typos
It might sound crazy but when it comes to marketing yourself online you have to consider everything that goes into it. A search engine search field is filled with many different errors that people repeatedly will type in by accident when search for some of the largest brands in the world. I do it almost every day. Mix up characters, type in the wrong characters or completely misspell stuff. There are ways to really capitalize on this error. Pay Per Click: Since PPC allows you to focus in a certain keyword phrase and allow you to target it specifically you can get those visitors that might be misspelling your branded keywords. People do sometimes search like this: Bing wwwbing www.bing www.bing.com If you are a brand that is many different misspellings CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
Real Time and Image Search
An interesting thing that is occurring for Google real time search is the fact that images have seemed to make it into the mix. Real time search is something that has taken our industry by storm and is going to grow to be even more important in the future. Ever since the community has been able to update the public to what it is that they are doing at any given moment search engines have scrambled around to find a way to be able to index this type of information in order to provide it to the public. Real time search is one of those efforts that is still very young due to real time updates being an extremely young effort online that many search engines CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
Local Marketing Has Become Location Marketing
Location based marketing has made a huge impact on the way local businesses are starting to approach their marketing strategies. Within the last year we have had numerous companies and websites spring up that allow you to let others know what local business you are at and what you like or don’t like there. This GPS type of technology has created a whole new type of local social communication for your audience to participate in. Location marketing is quickly becoming the future of local search and will most likely play an even larger role for many businesses trying to reach out to their local audience. The great thing about location marketing is that you could actually entice customers to come to your store depending on CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
Predict the Future and Grow Your Blog
If you own a website or a blog at some point you have to try and predict the future. Yes, in order to really be successful online you might find yourself going to extraordinary lengths in order to really increase traffic and visibility for your website. Try to think about the largest businesses and events in your industry and take this approach. Product Launches: Try to isolate some of the biggest companies in your space and set up some Google alerts for all their news related chatter. Look out for chatter for new product launches that might have surfaced and start preparing blog posts surrounding their launch. If you can be one of the first to write a good blog post surrounding a product launch there CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
Wear Your Marketing Hat Often!
Optimizing a website is a craft that many acquire after going through the motions time and time again, and gaining the knowledge to do search engine optimization effectively. It is not about jamming keywords throughout your website with having the hopes of gaming the system along the way. Put all that nonsense aside bring some marketing to the table and watch your efforts work much more effectively. 1. User Experience: Think about the user experience for a minute. If you jam keywords all over each page where the flow of reading is disrupted then how is your audience going to respond to that? In order for them to pick up the phone and call you they need to be able to read your copy with no CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
Think Big as a Small Business
If you look around you it is clear that every business should be doing “something” online to spread their word and message about what they do as a business. I’m not saying you have to become a guru in your industry over night but if you have a loss of business or need more and you don’t think like a big business it might be time to start. There is a reason why businesses out there have gotten as big as they are, they think like a big business. When you think like a big business you start to think outside the box a bit and things start to unravel. Search marketing has allowed smaller businesses to go head to head with large corporations through search. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
Learn from Your Analytics Data
Whether it is Google analytics or some other technology (such as Go Stats) you use, it is always important to track what is happening on your website. If you have pages that need help your analytics information will become very important. Good analytics monitoring will also allow you to really leverage your online marketing efforts. Here are some things that I like to do when looking at my analytics information. Keywords: Take a look at what keywords are pulling in visitors to your website. If you are a freshly new launched business it might take some time for this area to start filling in but eventually you are going to see keywords and phrases that are pulling in your visitors. Search for those keywords and take CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
Online Marketing Testing is Essential
When it comes to marketing any business online people very rarely ever sit around and wait for things to just happen. If you are, it might be wise to start testing different efforts and approaches to get things moving a bit. Often times you really need to make some changes and perform tweaks to fully understand what is really working and what isn’t. This goes with every online marketing effort you could possibly think of to help start building your business. Let’s take a look at some web marketing efforts you should always be testing: 1. Your Website: Your website is something you should be testing all the time. You are always going to get people that respond differently on your website depending on how you have things CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
SEO Journal is Written by
Brick Marketing Founder,
Nick Stamoulis:
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