Promote U Guru Blog

Posts Tagged ‘SEO’

7 Ways to Improve the Stickiness Of Your Website

April 21st, 2013

Hi All!

The following article is a Guest Post written by Michael Fleischner, an Internet marketing expert and the President of MarketingScoop.com. He has more than 12 years of marketing experience and had appeared on The TODAY Show, Bloomberg Radio, and other major media. You can visit MarketingScoop.com for further details and more marketing articles including tips on how to improve search engine rankings for your web site.

Check out this great advice from this seasoned pro!

7 Ways to Improve the Stickiness Of Your Website

Today more than ever, consumers are overwhelmed with choices, and distractions. The cost of attracting users to your website continues to increase and keeping them engaged is more important than ever.

Engagement doesn’t end with an individual browser reading content or clicking on an ad. Rather, engagement is an ongoing process that results in loyal customers who come back again and again, becoming more vested in your web site.

How can you make sure you’re engaging and keeping customers?

In order to create a loyal following, there are some basic principles you need to consider. From first impressions to life-long membership, put yourself in the shoes of your browsers and make their experience a valuable one.

  1. Reduce Clutter. How many times have you visited a website only to be overwhelmed and confused? What is this site about you may have asked yourself. Or perhaps you found yourself asking, ‘Where is the information I’m looking for?’Don’t ask your browsers or potential customers to figure this out. Make your site clutter free and create a visual priority that emphasizes the information, resources, or actions your browsers want. By reducing obstacles you build trust among new web site visitors and allow for simple decision making – which benefits everyone.
  2. Make Navigation Intuitive. There are many ways to navigate a web page but intuition rules the day. Don’t try to get fancy with your navigation or overuse java script. Basic navigation that follows current convention is the best way to lead individuals through your web site to the information they’re looking for.
  3. Make The Initial Site Interaction Relevant. When a browser reaches your web site, you have less than seven seconds to get them engaged. Making your initial site interaction relevant to what individuals are looking for is essential for keeping them interacting long term.If you are promoting your web site with Google Adwords, or any pay per click advertising for that matter, be sure to create customer landing pages that are truly relevant to the individual who clicks-through your ad. Once you’ve established relevancy, you can move them deeper into your content, tools, and resources.
  4. Ensure That Your Content Is Up-to-date. Web site content that isn’t up to date does not serve your audience and browsers are likely to move on. One way to ensure that information is timely is by providing a feed of relevant news or information. If including static text on your web pages, try not to include specific dates. However, if you must publish dates, be sure to update this information on a regular basis.
  5. Start An Interaction With Your Users. Each time a browser views your web page, you have an opportunity to interact with them. Don’t let this opportunity pass you by. One great way to interact is to offer something of value at no cost. This can be a white paper, access to an exclusive list, or simply a 30 day free trial. Be sure to capture an individual’s valid email address and include them on your mailing list. An auto-responder is best if you wish to engage these individuals on an ongoing basis.
  6. Provide Plenty Of Support. Don’t hesitate to offer support right from your home page. Prominently display your 800 number, support email address, and additional information for your prospects and customers such as mailing address. This information is viewed favorably by search engines and also creates a sense of legitimacy. Contact information builds trust among prospects and elicits interest in your company.
  7. Make Sharing Easy. Once you’ve made your web site easy to use, don’t hesitate to offer browsers the ability to share your web site with others. This can be in the form of a simple widget that allows users to bookmark your page, subscribe to an Rss feed, or submit your content to popular news sites like Digg.com.Individuals are much more likely to visit a web site based on a friend’s recommendation versus some other type of marketing initiative. Leverage the power of viral marketing with easy sharing tools.

Your web site can be your greatest asset. Unfortunately, many marketers and website owners are so focused on increasing traffic that they lose site of the audience that’s already visiting their web pages but are simply not converting.

Don’t make the same mistake. Improve the quality of you site through relevant content that is up-to-date and easy to find. Once you’ve engaged users, encourage them to share. Doing so will make your site perform better, increase conversions, and deliver value for all involved.

Thank you, Michael, for sharing that great info! And I hope all of you found it helpful for increasing awareness and respect for your personal and business brands!

Cheers & Happy Marketing!

Lisa

Share

Google: Solid Strategies to Rapidly Increase Your Search Engine Ranking

March 30th, 2012

Hi All!

The following article is a guest blog post courtesy of Kelly Marsh, a freelance writer and blogger. You’ll see that she provides great strategies to improve your search engine rankings on Google, so if you want to get on page one of a Google search, keep reading!

Here is the blog post Kelly provided:

If you are a small business owner, or own an online business, you know the importance of first page ranking in the Google search engine. Some believe that well done SEO can bring the desired result. However, this is not the only thing that helps one to get the top ranking. Moreover, Google maintains a top-secret and complex algorithm to decide on the websites to be displayed on top. No one has the exact information about the ways in which search engines give priority to websites. Still, it can be said that the well optimized and highly relevant web pages would get good ranking. Find out the easiest ways to get top page ranking in Google below:

Keyword Research

Start with keyword research. Find out the keywords relevant to your webpage that have the highest number of searches. You can do keyword research in the Google Adwords Keyword Tool. Choosing the right set of keywords is half work done.

Proper Optimization of Meta Tags

Use the keywords in your description tag, title tag and keywords tag. You can also use the keyword phrase in the image ALT tags. In this way, Google shall be redirecting traffic to your website. However, ensure that the webpage is relevant to the keywords searched.

Keyword Density

Always maintain the keyword density of 1-5%. If you exceed this limit, it would be considered as spam as per the rules of search engines. Hence, keyword stuffing should be avoided at all cost.

Domain Name

The domain names that have the keyword phrase have more chance to get a higher ranking than those without the same. However, this can only happen if your website is properly optimized and possesses high number of quality backlinks.

Backlinks

Create as many backlinks as possible to redirect traffic to your website. Video marketing, article marketing, social media and social bookmarking are some of the ways to create backlinks to your website.

Anchor Text

Use of anchor text is also another way to get backlinks to your website and high page ranking in Google.

Video Marketing

This is also a great way to redirect traffic to your website. You would have to make small videos about your business or products and upload in several video sharing websites. Google would surely put your website in the top rank if it has a video. However, ensure that the video is relevantto the item searched.

Social Media

This is the fastest growing way to get traffic to your website. MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, etc. are some of the social platforms from where you can expect traffic to your website. This is because once you share your url on your profile, your fan and followers would re-share the same with their friends. In this way, you would get traffic to your website.

Article Marketing

Article marketing is also a great way to attract traffic to your website through search engines. You need to submit articles relevant to your business to several article directories with a brief bio about your company at the end of the article and backlink the same to your website. The work is as simple as that.

Google Map Listing

This is the best way to get visible on the first page of Google. Google would surely keep you at the top spot if you use Google Map Listing. Moreover, this favors you from your customers’ base as well. They get to know about your location in an instance that helps both of you in several ways.

These are some of the ways to increase your page ranking. The more techniques you use, the more your chances to get top position in Google search engine. Using all of these would make you dominate the first page leaving your competitors perplexed.

About the author: Kelly is a blogger by profession. She loves writing on technology and luxury. Beside this she is fond of gadgets. Recently an article on trek bicycle attracted her attention. These days she is busy in writing an article on landscape architecture.

Share

Ten Easy and Affordable SEO Tips for Small Business Owners

August 24th, 2010

Hi All!

Many new clients who come to me have spent a significant amount of money getting their websites designed and developed by a webmaster. Or, they have designed it themselves using many of the templates available. But regardless of “how” their website was done, one thing MOST of them have no clue about is SEO (search engine optimization).

The excitement for their new website quickly fades when I have to coach them about SEO; explaining that without an optimized website (or blog) their chances of being found in online search results are greatly reduced…by a TON!

Personally, I look at SEO as a science. So I outsource my SEO work to a specialist. However, if budget is an issue for you, and you handle your own SEO, or plan to, here is a great article I recently came across with 10 great tips you can easily implement without breaking the bank.

The title is: “10 Quick and Affordable SEO Tips”. It was written by Karen Scharf, the Small Business Marketing Consultant, and her company, Modern Image Communications, also offers affordable SEO services.

Here are the FIRST FIVE TIPS she shares:

1. Submit to Search Engines

You want to make sure that your website has been submitted to search engines. SEO is all about optimizing your position in various search engines, but this is only relevant if you are actually listed in the search engines. When your website is brand new and it has no incoming links yet, it can be difficult for the spiders to find it, so it’s a good idea to hand submit your site to the search engine.

2. Clean up Your Site

Make sure your website is organized and clear. It is especially important to clean up any dead links. Fix any errors that may appear on your site and double check to make sure your entire site’s html is up to par. There are online services that can help you do this. Since search engines primarily work and rank websites through the use of robots it is important to make sure all of the technical aspects of your website are in good working order. This helps ensure that the robots can quickly and freely crawl through your site and they won’t encounter any errors or roadblocks that force them to abandon your site too soon.

3. Use Good Keyphrases

If you’re trying to optimize your brand new website for a single keyword, you’ll be fighting an uphill battle. Try longtail keyword phrases instead (a phrase that is four words or longer) because they are less competitive and easier to get started with. Be sure to research the phrases that your target market is actually searching for, and then do the competitive research to ensure that you actually have a chance of ranking for those phrases.

4. Create Good URLs

Creating readable URLs is especially important if you’re using a content management system or otherwise generating dynamic URLs. While evidence suggests that Google’s new algorithm does not apply much weight to keyword rich URLs, other search engines do. And since it’s such an easy step to create relevant URLs, it’s worth the few seconds of extra time it might take, if only to make it easier on your human site visitors. Make sure that your URLs are indicative of the kind of information that your visitors will encounter on that page.

5. Improve your Title Tags

Title tags are still an important aspect of search engine placement, and since they are so extremely easy to update this is a step that definitely needs to be included in your affordable SEO plan. Make sure that your title tags are keyword rich and appropriate to the subject matter of the particular web page. And make sure you use a unique title tag on each and every page in your site.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE FINAL FIVE! You definitely need to know ALL 10 of the tips Karen suggests!

Cheers & Happy Marketing!

Lisa

Share

4 Ways to Sabotage Getting the Media Coverage You Want

May 14th, 2010

Hi All!

I recently wrote a blog about “How to Write a Killer Press Release & Where to Deploy It Online“. This is an impromptu follow-up to that topic, and was prompted by a consulting session I had with a client this week.

My client is a (new) book author, so we wrote and distributed her first ever Press Release a few weeks ago. We deployed it online, and it was also sent to a targeted list of specific media we identified (newspapers, magazines, radio/tv shows and blogs). Fast forward to this week…she is very unhappy that her phone hasn’t been ringing off the hook with interview requests.

I clearly explained that if it was “that easy” we’d all be featured in the Wall Street Journal or on The Today Show whenever we wanted. It takes effort! Here are the key tips and strategies I told her to do right after the Press Release went out…and as of this week she had NOT done any of them…hence the “not getting much coverage” issue.

And, by the way, this is where most speakers, authors, small business owners and entrepreneurs drop the ball when it comes to getting media coverage through their PR efforts (so it’s not just her):

1. They Don’t Follow Up: When you send a Press Release to a targeted list of media, you have to follow up with them. And sometimes you have to follow up quite a few times. The media is bombarded daily with news, so you have to be the “squeaky wheel” to get their attention. Yes, it’s like doing sales calls, and it’s not the most fun thing to do in the world, but unless you have a Publicist to do it for you, it’s a task you must take on. It is critical!!!!

2. They Don’t Share With Their Social Media Communities: Once your Press Release is done, share the link to it on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. First of all, you don’t know who may see it and share it. Secondly, you have no idea who are all the followers your followers have. For example, on Twitter, I had someone retweet a tweet of mine about a Press Release. One of her followers is the host of a very popular BlogTalk Radio show, that reaches my target audience, and that person contacted me for an interview. I also was contacted by a reporter from the NY Times, and have been interviewed by her several times, because of a retweet.

3. They Don’t Post On Their Website: When you write a Press Release, create a page for it, optimize it with keywords and phrases, and upload it. Not only can it get found in search results for on-going traffic generation, but it’s important to share the news on your website. And even when the Press Release becomes “old” it can still drive traffic to you and attract media interviews for you.

4. They Don’t Post It On Their Blog: Use your Press Release as a blog post. It’s okay to occasionally promote news about yourself there. And if you’re on WordPress, and have added the All in One SEO Pack plug-in, this will also help get your news found online.

So, there is your crash course in what to do AFTER your Press Release has been written and distributed. It takes EFFORT to get media interviews (unless you have truly earth-shattering news or you’re fairly well-known). But, the media is always looking for news, they have a lot of air time or pages to fill, so you can get your share of coverage if you’re consistent and persistent!

Cheers & Happy Marketing!

Lisa

Share