One of the most frustrating things for many small business owners, who are new to SEO, is all of the industry jargon.  In an effort to make things a little easier for anyone who is just getting into the arena, here are definitions to some of the most common phrases in our industry.

Algorithm – This is an intimidating sounding mathematical term that basically means using calculated steps to solve a problem.  What does this have to with SEO?  Everything.  Algorithms are how the search engines determine where your website will be listed when someone types in one of your keywords.

Adwords – This is Google’s “cost-per-click” form of advertising.  When you enter a keyword into Google’s search bar, you usually see results on the right, in addition to the ones you see on the left.  The results on the right have paid to be placed there.  They’ve gone through a sort of auction, and the price of their bid, the quality of their website, and a few other factors will determine their placement in that column.

Back links – Also known as “incoming links”.  These are links on third party websites that point to yours.

Conversion – A conversion occurs when a prospect either buys something from you, signs up for your newsletter, or takes some other action that gets them close to becoming a customer.

Spiders – These are automated programs used by the search engines to “crawl” over the World Wide Web.  They find and catalog the information found on websites worldwide.

Splash Page – A splash page is a homepage that doesn’t contain any actual content.  It’s usually a page created using flash or multimedia imagery that has a place where users can click to enter the actual site.

SERPS – Search engine results pages.  These are the pages that appear when someone searches for something on the Internet.  For example, enter the phrase “New York” into Google and you get over 7 million pages or SERPS.

This list is by no means exhaustive, but it should give those new to SEO a starting point for some of the common industry jargon.

Basic SEO Definitions is a post from: SEO For Small Business

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.

A Few Words About Content… is a post from: SEO For Small Business

One of the best ways to optimize your website is article marketing.  Article marketing starts with creating articles that relate to your industry and/or your specific products.  Then you get those articles out on the web through a variety of channels.  The two major benefits are 1) increased inbound links from reliable web sites and 2) letting web searchers know that you’re an authority in your field.

Most article marketing campaigns include writing a good, strong article and then submitting it to multiple article directories like www.goarticles.com, ezinearticles.com, and articledirectory.com.  These websites are trusted by Google and tend to get fairly high search results.  So, it’s quite possible that someone searching using your top keywords would find your ezine article listed on the first page of search results while your website is still listed several pages back.

To take maximum advantage of this, what most people will do is change their articles slightly by moving paragraphs around, changing the title, and replacing a few words here and there.  Then they’ll submit these articles to 50+ article directories.  The upside of this plan is that your article has the potential to rank on many article websites.  However, the downside to this plan is twofold.  First, these changes usually result in lower quality articles.  Second, searchers will most likely keep coming across the same article in different forms.  This will be frustrating to them and can hurt your brand.

While it takes a little more effort, it’s best to select between 5 – 10 directories and then to write original, unique and interesting articles for each of them.  It’s fine to utilize the same topic, even some of the same facts, figures, and research.  However, it’s best to take a different angle with each article.  Find a way to use the same information to glean different ideas and different meanings.

If you just don’t have the time or the interest in writing articles, you can always hire someone to do the writing for you.  Sites like www.elance.com and www.guru.com have listings for thousands of writers who could do the work for you.

No matter how you get started, a strong article marketing campaign should be part of every small business owners advertising plan.

The Basics of Article Marketing is a post from: SEO For Small Business

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.

SEO Practices that Stand the Test of Time is a post from: SEO For Small Business

Many of us have heard the common show business phrase: “There’s no such thing as bad publicity.”  Unfortunately, the same isn’t true for links.  It would seem that any traffic is good traffic, right?  As long as people are coming to your site, it doesn’t matter how they got there, right?  Well, yes and no.

As a general rule, it is great to have more and more traffic coming to your website.  But remember, that Google and all the other search engines, are working diligently to ensure that every website owner is getting authentic traffic either from organic SEO or legitimate paid search.  If something looks questionable, they’re going to notice.

What types of websites do you not want linking to you?  Any website that has a reputation for trying to spam the search engines, a website that seems to exist just to generate traffic, or known link farming companies are not good sites to have linked to yours.

Don’t be alarmed.  While there are times that Google will penalize a website for utilizing unethical linking techniques, they’re really good at sniffing out the sites that are just out to game the system.  If you have a legitimate website, with a legitimate business and only a small percentage of your links are bad, Google will usually not come after you.  Instead what they’ll often do is ignore those links.  They simply won’t use them when considering where to place your website on the results page.

The truth of the matter is that almost every website on the World Wide Web has links pointing to it from questionable sources.  There is usually no rhyme or reason to these bad links.  However, this doesn’t mean that the search engines are even remotely soft on unethical link building practices.  If they notice that your website’s bad links are coming in from companies that are known for selling and/or trading links, or if they notice that all of the questionable links point to a page on your website that you’ve been trying to optimize, then they will dig deeper to find out what’s going on.

There are lots of ways to find out who’s linking to you.  Here’s a short list of websites and companies that can help: http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps, https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com, and http://wholinkstome.com/.

Do You Know Who’s Linking to Your Site? is a post from: SEO For Small Business

Last week we talked about why you should implement social media marketing into your SEO plan, this week we’ll talk about how.

Social media marketing can be a huge undertaking.  There are hundreds of social media sites and if you don’t have a clear plan you can waste away countless hours without seeing your desired results.  Follow these steps to get your social media marketing plan off the ground.

Define your audience. Think about who you want to reach, the best way to reach them, and what messages you want to convey about your company.  It’s important to understand your target demographic and then to utilize the types of social media that are most likely to reach them.

Get a crash course in the most popular social media channels. Once you know who you want to reach, you need to know which channels will provide the best way to reach them.  For instance, many people see Facebook as being something for kids to keep in touch.  While 18-24 year olds still make up the lion’s share of Facebook users, the fastest growing age demographic on the site is the 35-54.  Most likely you’ll end up using a variety of channels to reach your target demographic, but this will still keep you from aimlessly creating social networking accounts with no clear objectives.

Think about content development. Social media allows you to use blogs, videos and social networking sites to create content about your company and its products.  However, if you have a product that’s quirky, shocking, or solves a commonplace problem then it’s possible to have consumers themselves generate a good amount of online content for you.  The makers of Vibram Five Finger shoes understand this concept.  If you Google them you’ll see results for their website, blog posts reviewing the shoes by independent consumers, a link to their Wikipedia page, and links to retailers selling the product – all on the first page of search results.  You’ll get similar results with the keywords “five finger shoes,” “individual toe shoes,” and “finger shoes”.

Keep track of your progress. Companies like Context Optional provide solutions that allow you to keep track of your social media campaigns and measure their effectiveness.

Get going. The best way to sink your social media marketing plan is to not get started at all.  Follow these steps to create a comprehensive plan and then get in the conversation.

Social Media Marketing for SEO: Where to Start is a post from: SEO For Small Business

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.

Why Social Media Marketing Should Be a Part of Your SEO Plan? is a post from: SEO For Small Business

According to BusinessWeek, “videos are 53% more likely to appear on the first page of search results than text pages.”  Clearly, online video is a fantastic way to increase your traffic, propel your brand, and optimize your website.  Here’s a quick rundown of what to consider when creating and posting video for your company.

Video isn’t just about the big ideas. Don’t think that in order to record a video about your business that you need to have something amazing or groundbreaking to say.  In reality, video is just one more way to communicate with your target audience.  What are the questions your clients ask the most about your industry?  If you own a restaurant then make a video of your top chef creating your special dessert or appetizer.  If you own a body shop you can make a video explaining how quickly and easily your shop gets out the most common dents.  Here’s a good example by NYC dermatologist, Dr. Neal Schultz, who releases two to three new videos a week on various skin conditions.

Stay on point. Your video shouldn’t be longer than 10 minutes.  Videos that drag on and on just don’t work.  If you have a lot of information you’d like to cover then do a video series.  Remember that your video is not supposed to replace actual contact with the client.  You don’t need to reveal all of your secrets or tell your prospects how to build their own version of whatever it is that you sell.  Your video should provide a bulleted overview of one your products, services, or update people on what’s happening in your industry.  The key is to add value – inform, educate or solve a problem.

Come up with a title that ranks and gets people to watch. When creating a title for your video make sure that it’s catchy enough that people will watch it and remember to utilize your keywords so that it can rank appropriately on Google.

Consider third party hosting. You can either host your video on your website or through a third party like YouTube or Metacafe.  Hosting on YouTube or any other 3^rd party site offers you the easiest way to upload, share, and promote your content. You can also take the “embed” code from these services and paste the video on your site.

The bottom line is that online videos are another great way to market your company online.  So, get your camera ready and get in the game.

Online Video and SEO: Where to Start is a post from: SEO For Small Business