Webmarketing123 « Webmarketing123

Webinar Recap: Powerful Link Building Strategies That Work

February 4th, 2011 by Webmarketing123

In case you missed this week’s webinar with on Powerful Link Building Strategies That Work, here is a brief overview of why link building is essential for any business and the strategies a business can use to strengthen their link building.

Why is link building important? 3 simple words: Third Party Validation. Your site becomes more credible when you have other sites that refer to you. One way to think about this is in terms of votes. Each time a site refers to you, it’s a vote for your website as a source of authority on the subject.

Who needs a link building strategy? Every site needs a linking campaign. Link building is one of the most important components of SEO and if you want your site to be in the top results that searchers see, it is completely necessary.

How can I improve my link building strategy? There are 5 different link building strategies we discussed:

1. Diversify your links: You want to get your links from several different types of websites, including article syndications, press release sites, blogs, forums, paid listings and directories.

2. Set up a directory link: There are several different types of directories that are available. The first thing you want to do is make sure to Google the directory to make sure it has been crawled, ensuring traffic. Then you need to submit your website to be indexed. Directories, such as DMOZ, can reject your submission.

3. Creating good links: You preferably want the keyword you are optimizing for to be the anchor text, the clickable link, and it is extremely important to choose good keywords.

4. Link proportioning: Be sure to diversify the links in not only in number, but also the keywords you are targeting and the landing pages of the links. It is always important to have the landing pages tailored to the specific keyword you are targeting

5. Not all links are created equal: It is important to understand that all links are not equal. One important change is that reciprocal links (two-way linking) is no longer effective. You should always get one-way links to your website and target quality links rather than quantity of links. Linking from sites that have more credibility increases the link value for search engines. It is also important not to build all your links at once, but try and set up 30-50 quality links a month.

Don’t just focus on one of these strategies, but try and employ all of them in order to see the fastest results. Remember, Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither should your link building campaign. Although link building requires full-time resources, it is essential to the SEO process. Link building will increase your site credibility and ranking, which is the best way for your business to increase leads and sales.

-Ami

Tags: link building, link building strategy, Links, one-way links, reciprocal links, Search Engine Optimization, SEO, third party validation, Webinar
Posted in Links, Search Engine Optimization, Webinar Highlights | No Comments »

Social Influence on SEO

December 10th, 2010 by Webmarketing123

Yesterday, Ben Cheng, our SEO specialist and Barbara Dizon, our Social Media expert, presented an analysis of the Google and Bing revelation that social media does influence search. The majority of the webinar was spent discussing the different ways social media affects your search rankings, and what Google and Bing take into account when incorporating social media posts into your website’s ranking. Below are some key take-aways you probably won’t find on the slides .

Barbara reminds us that:

Social media engages with a community, not a specific generation. The point of Twitter, for example, is to give relevant information that will be helpful for your followers.

To continue the topic of Twitter, it is generally used for specific information and/or as a news filter. When people realize that you are consistently sending them to pages and links that they consider relevant, they start to trust your company.

Social authority does depend on the quantity of fans and followers you have, but they MUST be relevant and active as well! In other words, having 100,000 followers where 50% of them are irrelevant spammers will do no better than having 1,000 followers that are completely relevant, and actually engage with your content (RT, @ reply, etc.).

Social Media for B2B is less about marketing and more about thought leadership. The best way to get people on your brand’s bandwagon is to have great content that will make the ride much more pleasant.

Ben reviews:

The links you share on your Twitter or Facebook have a direct impact on your rankings. Why? Because they can be shared and Re-Tweeted, which impacts the level of authority you have.

With enough social/author authority, your company will be indexed. Getting your website pages mentioned on Twitter, for example, is synonymous link building.

Another important component of authority is not just the amount of friends or followers but also how often they visit your site, or ping it!

Make social waves through Bing and Google’s discussion tab. This allows real time tweets to be in the feed if you are well-followed and connected.

A product page can be crawled by Google spiders up to three times quicker if it is tweeted (tested in-house at Webmarketing123).

The main point in integrating social and search now lies in your social authority. If you are a trusted authority with decent amount of fans/followers that all repurpose & engage with your relevant content, your rankings will benefit from social media. Repeat after me: trust, repurpose, engage, relevancy, rankings. Therefore, get social to get noticed!

If you would like a copy of the slides from this week’s webinar, e-mail Mark Powers at mark@webmarketing123.com. Ask him to hook it up with that good social/search knowledge—he should know what you’re talking about .

Tags: Author authority, Barbara Dizon, Ben Cheng, Bing, facebook, Google, Highlights, link building, Mark Powers, Search, SEO, social, Social authority, Social Media, twitter, Webinar, Webmarketing123
Posted in Google Updates, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media, Webinar Highlights | No Comments »

Social Media Wishlist for 2011

December 8th, 2010 by Webmarketing123

Social media is such an adaptive space, constantly changing in form and functionality—lately we’ve been thinking about a few capabilities that we would like to see included on our various social platforms in 2011:

Better Facebook Analytics. We’re sure Facebook is working hard to improve their insights, but considering how much Facebook Pages has grown in the past year for business use, you’d think they’d get a quicker move on this feature! ‘Impressions’ is a start…

Facebook Video Chat. Recently, Mashable ran an article about how they’ve spotted references to Skype popping up within the coding framework of Facebook. This is definitely one thing that we would like to see from Facebook in the near future—video chat! We’re surprised they haven’t rolled that out already…

Embedded video within Tweets. The same way that you are able to watch videos hosted by Youtube and other such websites, directly from Facebook’s newsfeed/profiles, we would like to see Twitter incorporate this functionality into the display of Tweets that contain video.

‘New ReTweet’ Accommodations. Some 3^rd party Twitter applications (cloud and mobile) don’t display any RTs that use the new button, which might make you miss an opportunity to reach out. Other apps also only allow you to RT with the new button, leaving you no chance to add a comment on RTs *ahem Twitter for Blackberry*

Accurate Facebook Ads. More accurately targeted ads on Facebook’s display network. No, we’re not looking to “Meet Single Christian Girls in your (my) Area,” but thank you anyway.

iFrames—STAT! Not to discuss Facebook too much, but we’re interested to see how the new ‘iFrames’ (rolling out in January 2011) for business pages will compare to the old FBML structure—it’d be great if you didn’t need as much knowledge of web development to create a highly functional, and elegantly designed Facebook application. Anywho, we hope this really does roll out in January 2011.

Twitter Police. Can we find a way to put all the Twitter-using spam artists in check? We wish that people wouldn’t use Twitter to flood the world with, “get rich quick on the internet” schemes, and silly “get a million-billion followers in one month” advertisements—as marketers using social media, we would just like to say to all the spammers out there that what they’re doing isn’t effective, but good effort.

We think that’s it for now. Check back for more additions to our Social Media Wishlist!

–Social Media Team

@coachgoot | @barbaradizon

P.S. We’ve been good this year…

Tags: facebook, facebook ads, facebook analytics, facebook insights, fbml, iframes, new retweet, Social Media, twitter
Posted in Social Media | 2 Comments »

The Top 5 SEO Mistakes in B2B Marketing

November 15th, 2010 by Webmarketing123

Many businesses believe that: Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is one of today’s most effective marketing tactics. If done correctly, businesses can increase their ranking on search engine result pages as well as experience a boost in traffic to their site—resulting in increased lead generation and conversions. If your business is implementing SEO but you are still not seeing your site on the first page of Google, Yahoo or Bing, your execution may be off. In our November 10^thwebinar, Mike Turner, Search Marketing Executive discussed the Top 5 SEO Mistakes in B2B Marketing. Here is a recap in case you missed it:

1) Keywords are the most important aspect of SEO and if they’re not researched properly, they can be one of your biggest problems.

A keyword is typed in by a potential client so be sure you’re using consumer vocabulary and not company jargon. Another point is that the best keywords to invest in are usually phrases, as illustrated by this graph:

Shown above, the one-word phrases are likely to have high competition from other sites and a high search frequency. The more descriptive phrases that are upwards of five words long are going to have low competition and a lower search frequency.

At Webmarketing123, we have found that the Keywords with the best ROI will be three to four words in length. These more descriptive terms will have a higher conversion rate than the single keyword searches. People who search using three to four word key phrases will generally be further along in their sales process, more informed and therefore more likely to make a purchase.

2) Missing Keywords in content and text links.

Once you have the correct keywords, you want to make sure that they’re visible to Google spiders. Including Keywords in more places than just the written content of your site will improve your raking for those keywords. Here are a few places to include your keywords:

Title tags
Headings
Paragraph titles
Keywords in body copy
Anchor text in links
Image alt text

Pages can have as little as one to two keywords but should not have more than seven to ten. Too many keywords on one page will overload the user. Pages should flow nicely and make sense. You need to decide what the preferred landing page for a given search term will be. These could be called the blueprints of your site.

3) Using content that search engines can’t read.

This is a common mistake because Google bots cannot read certain content and thus cannot give your site credit. Flash and images are not variables that go into a search engine’s algorithm.

4) Not creating fresh content.

If Google bots don’t see any new content they’re not going to visit your site regularly. An easy way to avoid this, especially for B2B companies, is to have a blog and regularly post keyword-rich content with links back to the primary website.

…and make it easy for others to link towards your site by utilizing some of these tools:

RSS
Twitter
Facebook & LinkedIn status/groups
Networks & Media
Digg
Delicious
StumbleUpon
Flickr
YouTube

5) Being Activity-focused, not outcome-focused.
Set goals for keywords with high conversions. Google analytics and Webtrends are just two of the programs that you can use to determine conversion rates on your different keywords.

Be outcome-focused, not activity-focused. Focus on what matters—outcome!

Finally, here is a graph to help you keep your site SEO Friendly.

This Wednesday from 11:00 a.m. (Pacific) to 12:00 p.m. we’ll be hosting our next webinar, How to Succeed with SEO During the Holidays–click here to register!

Tags: B2B Long Tail SEO, B2B marketing, Bing, Blogs, content silo, Conversion Rates, E-Commerce, facebook, Flash, Google, Google analytics, Google spiders, Highlights, inbound links, Keyword Phrases, keyword selection, keywords, long-tail keywords, Meta Content, qualified leads, ROI, Search Engine Optimization, SEM, SEO, Webinar, Webmarketing123, Yahoo
Posted in Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization | No Comments »

How to Sell SEO to Your CEO

October 11th, 2010 by Webmarketing123

At Webmarketing 123, we use ‘Search Marketing‘ as an umbrella term that covers both PPC (Pay Per Click) and SEO (Search Engine Optimization). The majority of B2B companies that implement SEM (Search Engine Marketing) do so to increase sales and lead generation. One of the biggest obstacles in implementing SEM is selling the idea internally, within a company.

In our latest webinar, How to Sell SEO to Your CEO, Travis Low (Director of Search Marketing) discussed questions that many CEO’s may ask in regard to Search Marketing. Here is a recap of Travis’s method for convincing your boss that Search Marketing is a great investment:

Question 1: Why SEO? What’s the Point?

Search Engine Optimization is the process of structuring a website so that it can be found more easily and indexed by search engines in the most effective way possible. SEO ensures that your website will rank as high as possible in organic search results. There is a third party validation that occurs when you conduct a search. Based on the keywords that are used, the search engine will retrieve a set of links that it has deemed relevant to your needs. Searchers are inclined to click on the most-relevant links, those that are found at the top of the results page.

A paid result (PPC) means that you are selling a product or service within an advertisement. PPC results will appear to rank above the organic search results. Some people may have doubts about PPC’s effectiveness but companies spend millions of dollars on PPC campaigns because they deliver positive ROI. Research shows that if your website does not appear on the first page of search results, you are essentially invisible because most visitors will not click beyond page one. If your site ranks number one on the first page of search results, you will have a ten times better chance of getting clicked on, than someone who is ranked number ten (42% vs. 3% click-through-rate, respectively).

Question 2: Do people in my industry search online?

Currently, over 75% of North American’s use the internet. This means that there is a high likelihood someone is looking for your product or service on the internet. So how do you know if people in your industry are searching online? You can use software to analyze your market segment with tools such as Google Adwords, that determine which keywords people are searching for, on sites like Google, Yahoo and Bing–imagine the ranking opportunity if your site was optimized for 40 of your industry’s top keywords! Regardless of your industry, chances are that your target audience is searching. If you’re well optimized, the power of your website and your company’s growth could be immense.

Question 3: Are my competitors doing SEO?

First, you have to identify who your competitors are. Your competition (in our world), is the companies that rank above you in search results. If they rank above you, they are taking away valuable clicks from your website. To determine whether or not your competitors are doing SEO, look for these easy to spot signs:

Figure out the keywords your company should rank for.
Look at the site content. Do your competitors have some of the keywords you are optimizing for, within their site? If they are ranked above you, they probably do.
Check out their Meta Content. Do their page titles also incorporate keywords you are bidding on?
URL’s. Are their keywords in the site URL?
How many inbound links does your company compared to your competitors?

These are things you can find right away. Not just by analyzing their website, but also using tools like Yahoo and Google.

How to Stay Ahead of the Competition?

1) Target the right keywords

2) Include keyword rich content on the site

3) Have a lot of relevant one way inbound links (links from other websites to your website)

Question 4: How long does it take?

Many people assume that once they rank well on the search results page, the job is done—but this is wrong, it takes a lot of work to stay on top. Because the web is constantly evolving, your competitors will force you to implement new strategies to keep improving your marketing efforts. It’s important to continually develop your marketing tactics because SEO is an endless process. It takes about 6 months for your company to get first page rankings. With consistent optimization, keyword research and planning, your company can make its way to the first page.

Question 5: How can I measure ROI?

Follow these steps:

1) Set up goals

Set a goal value (make a sale, filling out a form, etc)
Define conversions
Analyze which keywords are leading to more conversions
Observe where visitors abandon the goal path

2) Use analytics to measure ROL-Measure Trends

Compare metrics, present and past (How was your site doing before you implemented an SEO campaign?)
Observe seasonality
See progress by analyzing non-paid, non-branded traffic trends.

Search Marketing is becoming one of the most used marketing tools in industries and companies across the board. Below are a few takeaways to convince your CEO to being an SEO campaign:

• SEO is a medium that drives results for a fraction of the price of other marketing mediums

• There are many tools that provide insight into your industry’s online search behavior

• Engage in SEO now because the web is constantly evolving

• ROI is transparent with the proper analytics in place

• Increasing visibility on search engines is the most cost-efficient way to get more sales and leads to your business

Posted in Search Engine Optimization | No Comments »

Google Instant–Will it Affect Your SEO?

September 17th, 2010 by Webmarketing123

The biggest question from our webinar yesterday (held by Travis Low–@TravisLowSEO) was: Will Google Instant Affect SEO?

Before we get into the details, we want to make sure we define a few key terms that will be used throughout the post:

Short-tail/Head Match Keywords – a general 1-2 keyword search term. For example, with keywords such as “black running shoes size 12,” “nike running shoes for women” or “light running shoes” the head match is “running shoes.”

Long-tail Keywords – at least 3+ keyword search term. For example, “business process management software solutions.”

Impressions – (defined post-Google Instant)

1) User begins a search query and clicks anywhere on the page

2) User chooses a particular query by clicking the search button, hitting enter, or selecting an auto-complete suggestion

3) User stops typing and results are displayed for a minimum of 3 seconds

An example of seeing impressions through Google Adwords can be seen below:

Impressions on Google Adwords - KW: "bpm software" with 1,600 Impressions

Now that we addressed key terms, we can discuss how Instant has changed. Google Instant displays the predicted query—unless searchers continue typing or click on the search button. What is important to know is that Google Instant is changing the overall experience for the user, and now it is even more important that your website ranks on the first page, preferably within positions 1-3. Here are a few things to keep in mind:

Keywords should be in your site content, meta content, inbound links, hyper text links, URL, and content silos
Focus on your title and meta descriptions
Short-tail keywords will get a lot more impressions, but the quality of search terms will improve over time as users are given more long-tail suggestions
You need to start focusing on optimizing for the long-tail keyword suggestions Google provides

For example:

Keyword “BPM Software” - Google Instant Predictive Text

Google captures what are the most searched queries on certain topics. If one of your keywords, for example, is “bpm software” (seen above), you want to start optimizing for the long-tail keywords that Google suggests. Frequently check to see if there are newer keywords Google suggests, or if the ones shown above remain to be the top searched queries on “bpm software” and optimize for those.

Keep in mind that with Google Instant, there is no change to the organic algorithm. If you ranked #1 prior to Google Instant, then you remain #1. The significant affect of Google Instant is with user experience.

Key Takeaways:

1) Google makes no changes in ranking algorithm, it’s primarily just changing the user ranking

2) Too early to tell how user behavior may change, but first page rankings and auto complete suggestions are more important. Essential to optimize for these suggestions.

3) Impressions for head match terms will definitely increase. The quality for the search terms will improve as we are starting to give more long-tail suggestions.

4) Important that your SEO campaigns focus on your return on investment. What are your overall marketing and business goals? Once these are defined, it’ll be easier to optimize.

We will keep you updated on the progression and/or any changes with Google Instant, and how or if it will affect your Search Marketing efforts–so keep checking back! To download a copy of the slides, click here.

Tags: Google, Google Adwords, Google Instant, head match, impressions, long-tail keywords, organic algorithm, PPC, ranking, Search Engine Optimization, SEO, short-tail keywords, Webinar
Posted in Google Updates, Search Engine Optimization | 1 Comment »

4 Ways to Increase Your Blog’s Effectiveness

September 2nd, 2010 by Webmarketing123

Blogging is definitely becoming a company-wide effort, so make sure you take note of how to participate effectively in this activity–whether it be for personal or professional reasons!

Update Blogs Frequently

It might seem obvious to update a blog regularly, but many blogs suffer from a lack of fresh content. There are many reasons to produce new content regularly for your blog, and, given the nature of blogs, they are much easier to update than a website. One of the biggest reasons to update is to keep your readers coming back. If a blog is never updated with new posts, readers will start to lose their incentive to check back for new content. Additionally, if the blog is hosted on your website, search engines will look favorably on all of the new content being added to your site on a consistent basis.

Provide Useful, Informative Content

It might be tempting to write a blog post hyping your newest product or promoting your company, but blog readers are looking for informative, sincere content. Most readers can tell the difference between a blog with useful information versus a blog that sounds like a marketing campaign or advertisement. Take this opportunity to connect with customers and provide them with honest information about new products, industry trends, or even job openings. However, stay away from blog posts that seem like they have a hidden motive; provide a real and honest voice on your blog that customers can relate to. A great way to get sincere and also fresh content is to encourage employees to write blog posts. This is often the best way to come up with new content and give more employees a personal voice in the company.

Utilize Keywords in Blog Posts

Many of our clients understand the value of keywords, as they are the basis of search engine optimization, but the importance of using keywords cannot be overstated. Keywords are search terms that customers use to find your site, your blog, or your product. Not using keywords within your blog content underutilizes a valuable resource. It is possible to use keywords as many times as it makes sense to in a given article, but make sure to not throw keywords in excessively. This is called keyword-stuffing; search engines consider this “spammy” and downgrade your rankings accordingly. A good baseline is to use all primary keywords two to three times each in a 250-300 word article, and any secondary keywords once in an article.

Choose Effective Titles and Calls to Action

In addition to keywords, there are many other opportunities in a blog post to be very specific in word choice. A catchy, attention-getting title might be the determining factor in whether someone clicks a link to your blog post. A great technique is to ask or answer a question in the title of your blog, prompting your readers to want to find out more about your subject. Examples might include “10 Tips to Increase Search Engine Rankings” or “Why isn’t my website ranking where it should be?” Now that you’ve gotten people to your blog post with a catchy title, where would you like for them to go next? Would you like them to click over to your website and do some research on your products? How about signing up for a newsletter or becoming a member of your blog? Whatever the goal of your blog, make that clear. A great place for a call to action is the footer of your blog. Here, you can provide a value proposition or call to action with a link to the next step.

I hope this information helps you and/or your company in writing upcoming posts, as well as providing structure to your blog as a whole!

-Alex

Tags: blog posts, Blogs, call to action, increase rankings, keywords, SEM, SEO, Social Media, useful content, Webmarketing123
Posted in Search Engine Optimization, Social Media | No Comments »

Cookies or Chocolate Chip Cookies? Which Keyword is Optimal for SEO?

May 28th, 2010 by Webmarketing123

Yesterday’s webinar was all about the ABC’s of keywords optimization. Or as Travis puts it: “How much is that keyword worth to you?”

KEYWORDS are the FOCAL POINT of your SEO efforts. So naturally, identifying your highest impact keywords, and then strategically incorporating them into your site are crucial to your SEO success.

Keywords fall into two buckets: Head match and long-tail match. Head Match keywords are general searches, like “shoes” or “cookies”, whereas long-tail match keywords are more descriptive searches, like “women’s dress shoes” or “chocolate chip cookies”. Because long-tail keywords are more specific, they are better matched to the searchers needs, have less competition than generic head match keywords, and therefore can produce a high volume of impressions.

The first step in maximizing sales from: SEO is setting the right keywords. This means focusing on a short and ideal list of key phrases your sales prospects and customers use to find you.

On May 5th or 6th 2010, depending on where you live, Google changed its search results page. One of the changes included the Google Wonder Wheel, a keyword expansion tool which shows related searches to your current search inquiry. The Wonder Wheel is an incredible tool and particularly helpful with finding other options for keywords.

Using the example that Travis used during the webinar, let’s say your company is in conveyor services.

In Google, search “conveyor systems” and on the left side of your screen click on “Wonder Wheel”.

Here, you can see other keyword options, to help narrow your search. Since you are in the industrial sector, click on “Industrial Conveyor Systems”.

Boom! Now you have six other keyword options to help optimize your search. We’ll go with “belt conveyors”.

Other Key Tools and Highlights:

Google Insights – diagnose keyword search trends & its popularity in geographical regions
Google Analytics – helps you understand what your customers are typing in to find your website, and which keywords you need to push to optimize, or if you need to start a PPC campaign
Make sure that your company‘s terminology is in line with your customer’s terminology—the keywords they search for should be the ones you’re optimizing for!
Keyword selection is your foundation for optimization. Keyword selection takes 2-3 weeks, in order for the account management team, analysts, and engineering teams to understand your keyword selection base.

Choosing the right keywords are the KEY to success—wow, that was cheesy…but you get the point. See you at the next webinar!

Tags: Google, Google analytics, Google insights, head match, Highlights, keyword selection, keywords, long-tail keywords, SEO, Webinar, wonder wheel
Posted in Google Updates, Search Engine Optimization, Webinar Highlights | No Comments »

Google at it Again…

May 11th, 2010 by Webmarketing123

Something that brought a smile to our faces today…second time we’ve seen this!

Google did it again.

google_bing

Who else has gotten this? Or thinks it’s as hilarious as we do?

Tags: Adwords, Bing, Captcha, Google
Posted in Google Updates | 1 Comment »

Webinar Recap: Powerful Link Building Strategies That Work

The Top 5 SEO Mistakes in B2B Marketing

How to Sell SEO to Your CEO

Google Instant–Will it Affect Your SEO?

Cookies or Chocolate Chip Cookies? Which Keyword is Optimal for SEO?

Google at it Again…

Categories

Recent Posts

Archives