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Long tail keywords are the keywords phrases that usually utilize more than a few words and are therefore, more specific.  For instance, someone might search for “laptop” this is a very generic search term.  “Dell laptops” is a little more specific.  However, a keyword phrase like “Dell Latitude D520” is quite specific.  When people search for very specific keywords it’s clear that they know what they want.  They’re not looking for generic information.  Oftentimes, they are ready to buy.

To be clear, phrases at the top of the graph like “shoes” are being searched for millions of times a month.  Phrases like “men’s shoes” that appear in the middle of the graph are generally searched for tens of thousands of times each month.  Phrases that appear in the long tail represent phrases that are searched for between 0 – 10 times per month.  However, the long tail makes up the bulk of what people are searching for.  If you need a pair of running shoes, which of the three above keywords would you search for?

The problem that many businesses run into is that they put so much time and effort into common, simple keyword phrases.  While ranking for those phrases is very possible, it can often take 6-9 months of diligently building a strong SEO portfolio of blogs, links, viral marketing, and much, much more.  You could spend hundreds of man hours trying to rank for 4 or 5 common keywords.  On the other hand, if you spend those same man hours trying to rank for dozens or so long tail keywords, you’d see a drastic increase in your ROI.

If long tail keywords have not been a part of your marketing strategy they need to be.  You’ll convert more prospects while doing less work.  What makes more sense than that?  For a look at how SurchSquad used long tail keywords to get a #1 listing on Bing, check out this post.

When websites first came out, many companies put up static websites.  Their goal was to simply have a spot on the World Wide Web, but the site didn’t really add anything to their business model.  Fast forward to today and everyone’s got a website with a home page, an about us page, a contact page, and maybe even links to their products.  The problem is that this recipe is the new “static” website.  It’s a simple, safe formula that really doesn’t do much for your business or your brand because everybody else is already doing it.

Today’s consumer wants to visit websites that have interesting and original content.  The real winners in today’s market are websites that are interactive with diverse and ever changing content.  Your website is about more than simply letting customers know you exist, it’s your chance to shine, it’s your opportunity to sell yourself, your brand, and to convince potential customers that you are far better than the competition.  An added bonus of diverse and detailed content is that the more content you have, the more likely it is that your website will receive a higher ranking on Google. 

An often untapped space for quality content is the products page.  Many companies have web pages with pictures of their products, the price of the product, and a button that says, “add to cart”.  However, some consumers are still researching and may need a little bit of convincing.  Below the photo and the “add to cart” button, you can include a few short bullets or sentences about the product or even a short vide that explains just how to use it. 

Another great way to get quality content on your website is to blog.  Each post, especially if they include your keywords, will help to improve your placement on the search engine results pages.  Lastly, user generated content is free and doesn’t even take any of your time.  Discussion forums, user reviews, and a comment section on your blog are all great ways to get users to increase your website’s content.

Whatever path you take, make sure that your website is not stale and dated.  It should include interesting images, video, and writing.  One more thing, be sure to update your website with something new at least once a week, this will increase your placement on the search engine results pages.

As business owners we’ve all been there.  An employee makes an honest mistake.  We do all that we can to rectify the situation, but sometimes we simply can’t get back for the customer what they lost, be it time, a special occasion, or a hard to find product.  The truth of the matter is that being willing to bend over backwards to please customers isn’t always enough. 

Years ago, small business owners didn’t really have to worry too much about one dissatisfied customer.  The customer might tell their friends and even their family about their disappointment with your company, but they probably weren’t going to take out a full page ad in the New York Times or find some other way to share their woes with the world.  Until now…. 

Fast forward to the new millennium where consumer generated media is all the rave.  People use their blogs, twitter accounts, and customer feedback sites to seek their revenge on companies they feel have done them wrong.  According to Wikipedia, “if a company website has a negative result directly below it then up to 70% of surfers will click the negative result first rather than the company website.”  Ouch!  A full page ad in the New York Times might actually do less damage than an angry blog post with consistently strong SEO.  

Now, let’s talk about the good news.  While you can’t erase blog posts that paint your company in a negative light, you can work to ensure that those posts do not appear on the first page of search results when people search for your company name.  

First and foremost, you need to know what’s being said about you.  A simple way to do this is to sign up for Google Alerts or use Trackur.  Either of these programs will alert you when something gets posted on the web about your company or even your key personnel.  

Second, do all that you can to get high rankings for your company name, best blog posts, press releases, and news stories that mention your organization.  For the basics on how to get high rankings, check out our free guide, “6 Tips on How SEO Can Help You Grow Your Business.” 

The goal is that when people search for your company name, they get several pages of positive results.  If the negative results are on page three or four, chances are that few will ever find them.  In a world where anyone can create media that’s read by millions, it’s important to take an active approach to managing your online reputation.

If you live in Los Angeles and you want to get your car washed, you may go to Google and type the keyword “car wash” into your Google search bar.  Which result would be more useful?  Getting random listings for every car wash from here to Switzerland or getting listings for car wash shops that are down the street from you?  Obviously, the latter would be most useful, unless of course you’re doing some sort of cross continental car wash research.

People search the entire World Wide Web to find businesses that are in their own backyards.  Google understands this.  As a matter of fact they’ve understood this for quite some time.  That’s why over the last year Google has been stepping up their local search results.

In the past, to search for car wash shops near you, you’d have to enter your zip code, the name of your part of town, or some other piece of information to let the search engine know that you wanted to narrow your search to a specific area.  Now, Google assumes that people are intending to search locally for certain keywords, even if the user doesn’t specify a geographic location.  Google uses the searchers IP address to narrow down their location to a broad geographic area.

So, if you go to Google right now and type in “car wash”, you’re likely to get listings for car wash companies in your area.  The same goes for “McDonald’s”, “spa services”, and many other businesses that tend to cater to clients face-to-face.

Why is this so important?  The local results will often appear before the top listings in the organic search results.  So, if you’re at the top of the SEO game and your company has one of the top slots in Google’s organic search results, Google may actually list ten other businesses before yours because of their proximity to the searchers location.  That’s right, ten other businesses!

Check out next week’s blog to learn how to get listed in Google’s local results.  We’ll also talk about how utilizing Google’s local business tools can help your company grow.

We all know that search engine optimization is not a one-time event like coming up with your company name or selecting the first location for your storefront.  Nevertheless, there are a few things you can do to ensure that some of your hard SEO work is not lost tomorrow.  That’s right, there are a few things you can do today that are almost guaranteed to pay off regardless of what shifts and turns occur in the SEO world tomorrow.

Take the time to ensure that your website is well designed, and highly efficient. Your website should include a good amount of internal linking.  People should be able to find good content on your site without drilling down through countless pages.  Keep things easily accessible and you’ll keep your audience.  Utilize your keywords effectively and strategically not just in your on-page text but also in your tags, URLs, etc.  Include sitemaps, both XML and HTML.  Sitemaps help visitors and search engines navigate their way through your content.

Even in SEO, content is king. It’s easy to get wrapped up in the technical side of SEO, but at the end of the day if you’ve developed a website that stands out in your industry, then you really are halfway home.   Your content needs to be a dynamic wellspring of good, quality information.

You must provide real value.  This is something that we talk about a lot here at SurchSquad and that’s because it’s critical.  Today’s consumers are savvy.  If you’re content is a rehashing of everything else that’s already out there, your readers will know it.  So, think outside of the box.  Offer up industry news and information that your competitors are keeping under wraps.

Remember, many of the people who search the web are actually in the research phase.  That means that a good number of the people who stumble upon your site are simply looking for answers.  A website with your photo and phone number is not going to cut it anymore.

Viral is the new word of mouth. Make sure that your content is easy to share.  What if someone reads something on your website that completely solves a problem their friend is having?  A person is much more likely to forward a blog or video link than an entire FAQ listing.  Or even worse, if they have to read through 20 paragraphs to get to “the good stuff” they will probably find an easier way to send the information to friends, like getting it off someone else’s website.

Get the word out. Regular marketing of your website is critical.  However, there are some marketing techniques that you can do today for a continued pay off tomorrow.  The first is to build a community.  If you do the work today to get a strong following for your website and your Facebook page, then every update and every blog is free mass marketing.  If you’re not email marketing, then get going!  Everyone’s doing it, it’s cheap, and it doesn’t annoy your client base.  Plus, if you aren’t doing it, you can be sure that your competitors are.  Take the time to build a quality email list and then use it to deliver high quality content.  You’ll get more and more people signing up for your newsletter without even trying.

Is SEO an ongoing job?  Yes.  However, that doesn’t mean that the hard work you do today will be worthless tomorrow.

Social media marketing is one of those things that sounds complicated and high tech.  The truth is that, while there are several things to consider when developing a social media campaign, getting started is actually fairly simple.  As a matter of fact, the best way to fail at social media marketing is to not try it all.

In this week’s post we’ll talk about what social media is and why you should be doing it.  Next week we’ll address the steps you should take to implement social media into your SEO campaign.

One of the best definitions for social media can be found on Wikipedia where they define it like this: “Social media is media designed to be disseminated through social interaction.”  Things like blogs, Facebook, Twitter, podcasts, bookmarking sites and even wikis are all forms of social media.  Each of these provides an opportunity for anyone to publish and/or promote their ideas online.  In a sense, social media platforms provide a way for everyone to participate in water cooler chatter from the comfort of their own laptop.

Why include social media in your SEO plan?  When businesses participate in social media, they’re joining a conversation that is loose, relaxed, and far less direct than traditional advertisements.  Is your blog going to be the next dooce?  Probably not.  But your social media accounts may be the perfect space for you to connect to those prospects who like to remain on the fringe.  The ones that don’t want to get your newsletter, won’t sign up for an RSS feed, but every now and then they may check out your blog or even follow you on Facebook because they have the power to turn that off.

Not only is social media marketing something you can get started yourself, it’s free.  It costs your business nothing to set up accounts on social media sites.

If you’re still not convinced, consider that these social media sites are considered to be highly reliable by Google.  So, if you use your keywords in your social media site and in your profile, then when people search using those keywords they may find your Facebook or LinkedIn page listed on the results page long before they’d see your actual company website.

Tune in next week for a detailed description of how to get your social media marketing campaign off the ground.

The world of sales and marketing has changed radically over the last several years.  Today’s consumers are now being asked for permission to advertise to them.  Small business owners are in a unique position to benefit from this shift in marketing, and the email newsletter is one of their most effective tools.

What is email marketing? Email marketing is a form of direct marketing.  Most email marketers utilize a service like Constant Contact to create HTML emails that have the look and feel of their organization’s website.

The goal of email marketing is to build trust and to educate. When people get to your website by clicking an online advertisement they’re in new territory and their guard is up.  They don’t know you and they don’t know your company.  Email marketing provides you with an opportunity to nurture these leads, to build the relationship and to turn them into paying customers.

Be sure that you’re attracting the right prospects. In your keyword research you’ll find that some keywords don’t necessarily lead to sales.  These are the keywords used by people who are still in the research phase; they aren’t ready to buy but they’re eager to learn.  This is your target audience for an email newsletter.

Don’t waste the sign-up page. Your sign-up page should include a sampling of the type of quality material that consumers can expect to receive in your newsletter.  Many newsletter sign-up pages contain a promise of what the newsletter will deliver, a box to enter an email address, and nothing more.  Use your sign-up page to showcase some of your best blog entries, include links to guides, charts, and more.  Use it to convince consumers that your newsletter is one that’s really worth signing up for.  Always be sure to offer a freebie to seal the deal.  A free guide, a consultation, and a sample of your product are all good possibilities.

Deliver a high quality newsletter. Email marketing is not about smoke and mirrors.  It’s about delivering interesting and useful content.  Consider the keywords that these people originally used to find your company.  Tap into what interests them and use your email newsletter to answer their questions.  Don’t push your own products too soon.  They’re expecting high quality, free information.  Give it to them.  This will build trust.  After the first 4-5 emails, then start subtly pointing them back to your products.  Let them know how one of your products provides a solution to a common problem in your industry.

“Paid Search” is one of those phrases that gets thrown around a lot in the search marketing world.  If you’re not quite sure what paid search is or how it works, then this article is for you.  Let’s start with the basics.  What is paid search?

Paid search is an advertising strategy that involves the purchase of web traffic from search engines.  Paid search listings or advertisements appear in the “PPC Advertising” section shown above.  Clicking on the advertisement will redirect web users to a landing page on the company’s website.  Google’s version of paid search is called Adwords.  Paid search also refers to banner ads when they’re purchased directly from a website owner.

Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, a form of paid search, is a method used for purchasing online advertising.  With PPC advertising a company pays for a listing on the search engine results page, but they’re only charged when a web user clicks on the listing.  Since hundreds or even thousands of companies are interested in paying for placement for the same keywords, Google created a service called Google Adwords which functions like a keyword auction.  Companies can create Adwords accounts, select the keywords they’d like to bid on, and then select their per-click price.

However, Google doesn’t simply give the highest placement to the highest bidder.  Google gives a quality score to each paid search advertising campaign that a company is running. Keep in mind that a website’s quality score is an ever changing variable.  It’s something that website owners need to manage and continually work to improve.

Quality scores are determined by three major areas.  The first is click-through rates.  Click-through rates are the percentage of people clicking on your advertisement divided by the total number of times it was shown.  So, if your ad appears a million times in search engine results pages, but only one person clicks on it, then you have a low a click-through rate for that specific set of keywords or keyword campaign.

The second area that Google assesses when determining your quality score is relevancy.  If you’re trying to purchase placement for keywords that don’t directly relate to your business offerings or your services, this will lower your overall quality score.

The third major area that Google assesses when determining quality score is your landing page.  This is the first page visitors see on your website after clicking your advertisement on the search engine results page.  Essentially, the landing page needs to deliver on the promise put forth in the advertisement.  For example, if your ad refers to an online special that your company is having, then when web surfers click that ad the first page they’re taken to on your website should be one that deals with the online special.

So, the company with the highest combination of keyword pricing and quality score will win the bid or get the highest placement on the search engine results page.  The company in second place will get the second listing and so on and so on.

What does all of this mean for today’s small business owner?  Serve your customer.  If you’re creating landing pages that meet the needs of your users, Google will reward you with a higher quality score and therefore lower pricing per click.  It’s as simple as that.  With paid search, even small business owners can compete with the big guys.

Search engine optimization is not simply about getting high results on search pages.  SEO can also be a powerful way to build your company’s brand or identity.  Regardless of how big or small your company is it has a brand.  In other words, your current and many of your potential customers already have an impression about what your company stands for.

One of the biggest challenges in building a brand is finding ways to deliver your company’s message to your target demographic.  When you use high search rankings as an advertising tool you’re much more likely to reach your target demographic than you are with almost any other form of advertising.

When you optimize your site for the keywords that best represent your company, you know that you’re advertising to people who already have an interest in your industry and your products.  To put it plainly, they’re actively looking for you.  They’re not trying to watch a football game when your company’s commercial comes on.  They’re not scanning their favorite magazine when they flip past your advertisement.  When you use high search rankings as an advertising tool, you’re marketing to people who are actively looking for information about companies just like yours.

When potential customers see your company listed in search results, they’ll be reading your title and meta tags.  While it’s important to optimize your title and meta tags for keywords, you can also use them to communicate messages about your company and your brand.  Title and meta tags are a great place to include your company slogan or key phrases that illustrate what your company is all about.

Remember that people trust their search engines.  If your website consistently gets high results for the most common keywords in your industry, it communicates to the consumer that their favorite search engine trusts your company.  Furthermore, most consumers will begin to think that your company is a leader in your industry.

The bottom line is that search engine optimization should be a part of every company’s marketing budget.  SEO is about more than clicks and conversions; it’s also a powerful yet simple way to keep your company in the minds of your target demographic.  If you’re looking for a way to get the most bang for your advertising buck, don’t overlook search engine optimization.

Here at SurchSquad we spend a lot of time helping businesses achieve first page rankings for their websites.  At the same time, we’re always working to increase our own rankings on the major search engines.  Late last week we achieved the top place position on Bing for the search keyword phrase “SEO for small business.”

Our #1 ranking on Bing is a terrific example of the SEO process at work.  These results didn’t happen overnight.  We achieved them by using the proven SEO strategies that we talk about on this blog and in our Small Business SEO guide.  They’re also the tools we use for our clients every day.

One of the most effective tactics we used was to think outside the box when it came to exploring our keyword options.  The most obvious keywords for our business are phrases like “SEO” and “SEO companies.”  However, the competition for these keywords is fierce.  Ranking for them could literally take a year or more.

So, we got creative.  By focusing specifically on three and four word phrases, we were able to come up with keywords that worked for our business, but had a lot less competition.  Don’t get me wrong, there was still a lot of work to do in getting to that #1 position.  Bing lists almost 4 million results for the keyword phrase “SEO for small business.”  Getting to the top meant consistently using tried and true SEO tactics like taking the time to conduct extensive keyword research and building a comprehensive link building campaign.

We can’t stress enough how crucial it is to know which keywords to focus on when you set out to optimize your website.  Here are a few ideas of what you can do to determine which keywords you should emphasize to increase your results with the search engines.

1. Get creative with your keywords. We focused on three and four word keyword phrases that had less competition than our main keywords.  Utilize keyword research tools like Google’s Keyword Analyzer to find relevant modifiers to your main keywords that will be most effective for your company.
2. Get more bang for your buck by focusing on specific geographic locations. Geography is a great modifier for companies that sell and operate locally.  For example, focus on a keyword phrase like “New York City Plumber” instead of “Plumber.”
3. Examine how most people navigate to your website. Google Analytics or your server logs can help you determine which keyword phrases people are using to navigate to your website.  You might be surprised at the keywords on your website that drive your traffic.
4. Use Paid Search campaigns to analyze conversions. One of the best ways to know which keywords are the most profitable is to run Pay-Per-Click or Paid Search campaigns and focus on the keywords that have the highest conversion rates.  Use these high converting keywords to build your SEO campaign.

Getting a #1 ranking on a major search engine is not impossible.  Decide now that you will take the time to implement proven search engine optimization tactics.  You will see better results and you will see your business grow.