Common sense local SEO is what’s needed by most local businesses, not expensive SEO consultants.  Many local business owners have no idea what’s involved in ranking well in local search.

It can be very complicated just like regular SEO, but, like anything, there are a few common sense local SEO things you can do that will help a lot without paying large fees to SEO firms. Here they are:

1. Fix your title tags

Especially the title tag on your home page. A common mistake is to have too many keywords and to be written for search engine robots, not people. Keep it to no more than 3 keywords.

2. Make sure your name, address and phone number is on every page of your site.

This makes it easier for humans to find you and search engines like it too.

3. Make sure your contact info is the same and is on all the local directory sites.

This is the one of the biggest causes for poor rankings other than being delisted by Google. Sites like mybusinesslistingmanager.com or expressupdate.com can help.

4. Make sure to have reviews and have a plan for getting more.  

Since Google has made it much easier for people to post reviews so you need to be asking your customers, clients and patients for them. customers, clients or patients. The most important place to have reviews is on Google + (we’re talking about Google rankings after all . . .)

5. Have a separate page on your site for each product/service you offer.

This will help you in that some of these pages may rank on their own in addition to your home page.

6. Take the time to make your listings on local directory sites more complete.

These are called “citations” and should include info on all your services, not just your name, address and phone.

7. Be careful of duplicate content or too many links on one page using the same keywords.

If your content does not read well or “flow” for human readers, it will not rank well either.

8. Do not try to “trick” Google!

They are a lot smarter than either of us, so how about focusing on giving your visitors what they were looking for when they searched instead?

Google makes their billions on ads, not search. So, in order to make sure people continue to prefer Google over other search engines (so they can sell more ads), it makes sense that Google pays close attention to how relevant a search is for their users.

Two of the ways they do this you can see for yourself in your Google Analytics data. (you do have Google Analytics on your site, don’t you?)

If someone comes to your site, then promptly leaves and goes to another search result, Google rightly figures that means they didn’t find what they were looking for. They measure this with two metrics, “time on site” and “bounce rate”.

If your “time on site” stat is a couple seconds, Google will figure you need to be ranked lower than another site where someone stays for 5 minutes.

Another sign of “engagement” is “bounce rate”. A high percentage on bounce rate (bad) means people did not click to go to other pages on your site, they just left (“bounced”).

A low percentage on bounce rate (good) means they went from the page where they landed on your site to another page on your site.

If you’d like some help with all this common sense local SEO stuff, give me a call at 720-890-8760 or email joemcvoy@gmail.com and let’s talk.

One of the things you can do to get ranked on Google and get more clicks is to change your “meta description” text.

Your “meta description” text no longer counts for SEO purposes, but it’s what people see under your title in the search results.

What I just learned today, is that after 155 characters, it will get cut off. What you want is a well written description along with a “call to action” that gets the searcher to click on your link, not someone else’s.

In a survey reported in the SEmoz newsletter you can see only 34% of all companies are doing this correctly!  They either don’t even have a “meta description” or it’s too short or too long.

To see the complete article, go here.

Getting ranked high on the search results is only step one – then you need to make people want to click your link!

What you put in your meta description is for that purpose and that purpose only.  It does you no good for SEO, but can do you a lot of good with the real people who see your listing!

So, make sure to include a call to action and give people to click your link.  Offering something free can be good.  Think of it like a classified ad in a newspaper where you only have a set number of characters/spaces.

Write your meta description as though it was an ad, because that’s what it is!

If you have a WordPress blog, it’s easy to fix – just go to your admin login and look for the section called, you guessed it, “meta description”.

Any easy way to count characters is by using Word, Pages or any other editor that does it for you.  That way, you optimize your use of the available space.

It’s amazing to me that only 34% of the listings that show up in search do this right.  If you do, you can leapfrog over your competitors.  This is a lot easier to fix than page authority, quality backlinks or any other issues to get you ranked higher – at the end of the day, it’s all about clicks and leads.

The best training for learning all this stuff is here.  Or, get ranked on Google and get more clicks the easy way by calling me and I’ll do it for you!  720-890-8760.

Please “like” this post on Facebook, Google + or Tweet it if you find this info helpful!  I will stop posting this “geeky” stuff if no one wants it;)

 

The first step to rank better on Google with the free Google keyword tool is to understand how to use it.

to find it, the first tip is to make sure you have a Google AdWords account. Setting up an account is free, you don’t have to spend anything, but doing this allows you to bypass the “captcha”  – that awful test to see if you are human that I usually fail . . .

What’s with that, anyway?

Rank Better On Google – With An Adwords Account

When you have a “Google AdWords” account, you can login to the free keyword tool with your account and avoid those annoying “captcha” forms and also get up to 800 results instead of 100.  Usually your login will just be your gmail login, so if you don’t have a gmail account, get one of those too – they’re free.

Do we have any questions about why Google is dominating the world?  Offering lots of free stuff gets us hooked, and then they get us to spend money for ads that make them billions every month . . . but I digress . . .

There are three kinds of searches you can do using their tool.  A “broad match”, a “phrase match” or an “exact match” search.  Here’s what each of those mean:

Rank Better On Google – “Exact Match”

The “exact match” choice means Google will return only the traffic counts on keywords that have traffic for exactly that phrase. An example we’ll use as our phrase “dog training”.

Rank Better On Google – “Phrase Match”

“Phrase match” will return a larger search volume because Google is looking for any search phrases that include your phrase no matter what comes before or after it in the search string.  So, with this option Google will give you counts that include phrases like “Golden dog training”, “Dog training my terrier”, “Dog training for dummies”, “German Shepherd Dog Training”.

Rank Better On Google – “Broad Match”

“Broad match” is now looking for any search phrase that includes these terms in any order, with any other words before, after or in the middle of the phrase.  Phrases like “training my dog to sit”, “why does my dog pee in my house – I thought I was done with training him?”  Will show up in the search count.

Rank Better On Google – “The Secret”

Normally, SEO experts tell you to focus on the “exact match” searches to define your market.  But, what they are missing is that the difference between the “phrase match” results and the “broad match” results are an indicator of how many “long tail” searches are being done.

“long tail” searches are those with phrases from 3 – 10 words long.  Although the number of searches on any specific “long tail” term may be low, if you target correctly, you can get found for thousands of long tail phrases which will, in total, amount to a lot of traffic.

Rank Better On Google – “How To Use This Secret”

When you see search results for a phrase that has many more “broad match” listings than “phrase match” listings, what you need to do is include many of those lesser trafficked terms in your post.  Make sure they make sense, but by including 10 – 20 other phrases in your post, your post will get ranked for all kinds of obscure phrases.

Hope you found this helpful and, as always, call me anytime at 720-890-8760 or go to my blog at joemcvoy.com for more info

 

 

 

 

 

You don’t know all there is to know about Affiliate marketing. Website marketing is constantly evolving, and there will always be much to learn. Within this article are tips to help your efforts in marketing on the Internet.

Customers should be able to provide a rating for products in your listing. Additionally, at your discretion, you can allow them to write a review of a product they have purchased. By having a system in place for product review, you will be providing both you and your customers with important information. You can determine which products to hold in stock and perhaps adjust your pricing or marketing accordingly. Customers will also have more trust in both your service and the product they intend to purchase.

Regular blogging can really infuse your affiliate marketing with success. Frequent blogging is a great way of keeping your potential customers informed and up to date about your business. Blogs also give your website a lot of extra content, which appeals to search engines and will improve your rankings.

Increasing the traffic to your site and improving your visibility to search engines means that you need to provide unique and useful content. Online retailers with common products should especially note this, as there is more competition in the search engine. Writing your own product descriptions and including appropriate keywords can help you blow past your competition.

Try giving away stuff from your site. For instance, you could offer up a free and informative article. A download like this may get a lot of people interested. For example, if you are in the construction industry, your customers may find home improvement tips valuable. Besides enhancing your reputation for knowing your subject, this also demonstrates your willingness to share your knowledge and help your visitors.

Give site visitors the option of signing up for your newsletter or e-zine. This can be a smart technique to help you maintain an interactive relationship with your website visitors and prospective customers. Include personal family photos of yourself or your employees. Try adding short humorous inputs about home life and employee relationships. Keep the reader curious by having an eye catching subject line that will grab their attention.

Submit free materials to the various online directories who will list them without charging you. Several directories, for example, have free e-zines. These sites include free site directories, article directories, e-book directories and dictionaries, as well as many others.

Getting listed in Google is essential in any Affiliate marketing strategy. Although there are other search engines, Google is hands down the most-used engine out there. A failure to advertise with Google might just mean your business will fail. If your company comes up near the top of the list, you can dramatically improve your visibility.

One key part of your Internet promotion strategy should be keeping tabs on your competition. Investigate what your competitors are doing, and assess both the strengths and weaknesses of their strategies. There is much that you can learn by watching the actions of others. Obviously, focusing on how the competition is doing can ultimately help you to become a better, more efficient marketer.

See what people are saying about your brand, then use them for future website marketing plans. This allows you to establish a rapport with your customers using their vocabulary. By using the right language, you will be able to reach the right audience.

Try adjusting content and content delivery so that customers feel like they’re in control. This is essential to today’s online world of unwanted opinions and spam. Be clear that their participation is optional and you will increase your credibility.

Try and make your marketing campaign personal. Try using your name in ads or your picture. It might be a good idea to have some sort of handwritten statement that welcomes your visitors to your site.

Luckily, there is no shortage of great information out there to help you improve your Internet marking strategy. You don’t need to study intensively. These simple acts are just a start. There are plenty of informational sources online that are simple and easy to understand that will help you become a better Internet marketer. Continue to learn as much as you can and you will see the results with your Website marketing rising to new levels.

A lot of people today want to get their presence known online and to a lot of people. Building up an audience is crucial to having a successful online business or community. A great way to establish your voice and to attract an audience is to to start blog posting; if you would like to know how blogging might help you do this, keep reading this article.

Trade links with other bloggers to build up web traffic. Ask other blogs that post about the same topics as you if you can trade links. Link exchanges which aren’t topic-specific are a waste of time, so avoid those sites. Instead, focus on getting good traffic to your blog so you will show up higher in the results of search engines.

Know what your competition is doing with their blogs, and make sure you are doing all that and more. Remember that the other bloggers writing about the same topic are competing with you for readers. You need to know what they’re doing, so that you can stay ahead of them. Also remember that while you are looking at their sites, there is a good chance that they are looking at yours.

Start developing your blog’s mailing list as early as possible. The earlier that you begin, the longer amount of time that you can grow your list. This list can make you lots of money down the road. If you don’t start a mailing list from the beginning, you may realize you made a mistake.

You can attract visitors to your blog by giving items away for free. Nobody will pass up the opportunity to get something for free, even if the free item is small. Give away as much as you can, and it could pay off greatly. If people believe you are giving away free items, then they’ll more likely view your blog more often.

Search Engines

To spread the news that you have written a blog, use the social medias sites where you already have an account. Let your followers know that it’s there, ready for them to check out, and that you’d love it if they shared it with their followers. This can help you gain an audience that knows you personally. People are more likely to read your blog if they already know you.

Use a theme that won’t make it hard to optimize for the search engines. This will assist your blog in ranking higher with the large search engines, and this will help it run fast and effectively. Nowadays, speed is everything, so your readers won’t appreciate having to wait for graphics or plug-in laden blogs to load. If they have to wait too long, they’ll exit your blog and search for another one without ever viewing your content.

Whenever you are dealing with longer posts on your blog, proper construction of the article is crucial. Make good use of subheadings to organize your thoughts. This will make your blog much easier to view. It is simple for you to do this, and will really raise the quality of your running a blog.

Take opportunities to gain knowledge from expert bloggers through a class, a website, or even a running a blog conference. Going to these conventions will help you learn things that will make your blogs more interesting and effective. You will also find opportunities to network with successful bloggers, which might just motivate you to become one of them!

Use surveys, polls or other interactive content to spice up your blog. This will increase the traffic in your site and it will give your visitors a great way to communicate with you. After your survey has been up for a while, you can blog about the results and your opinions about those results. The level of participation you get in your polls or surveys can help you determine whether you are accurately tapping into interesting subject matter for your readers.

Let your readers comment and then respond to these comments. This way, your readers are actively involved in your blog, and you get the chance to create a strong relationship with the people who read your blog. If people know you respond to the comments, chances are they will return to view your responses to their comments and those of others.

With all that you have acquired from this article you should now have a solid understanding of blog posting and how it can help you. Get to work on utilizing this information and reaping the rewards. However, allow your efforts some time to start producing results. Soon enough, you’ll develop a base of avid followers who look forward to reading your latest blogs.

Everyone, from authors to reviewers to businesses, has a blog nowadays. It seems there are bloggers and writing a blog everywhere you turn. Creating a good blog takes time, planning and big decisions. With some hard work and using the tips presented here, you can see your little blog grow from a small, loyal band of readers to a readership in the thousands.

Only include videos in your blog posts that are easy for your readers to view. Many people are still surfing on slower connections. A video that loads slowly or fails to load will drive viewers away from your site.

It’s key for blog integrity that you are on a regular schedule. There are tons and tons of blogs out there, if you are not consistent with your postings, your blog’s readers will simply look elsewhere. There are exceptions, such as holidays, where there is some forgiveness, but there is no substitute for regular, consistent posting.

Make your blog unique. Unique and interesting content will help you gain more readers. Information that isn’t easy to come by will make people read your blog too. Turn your unique experiences and interests into blog content. Give specific details on how to construct widgets. Ideally, you should provide readers with a good reason to click through to your blog, instead of your competition, when they’re looking for certain kinds of information.

While writing a blog can be fun, don’t let it consume your life. If you don’t take time to step away from your computer once in a while, you are likely to burn out. Make time for walks, visiting friends, or just a five minute break. Taking this time away from the computer will allow you to return refreshed so that you’ll be prepared to produce excellent content.

If you are writing a religious or political blog, you need to make sure that you are not letting any bias that you have show. It may be tempting to use heavy handed moderation to keep out ideas that you don’t agree with on your site. However, some of your readers may be offended by any perceived censorship of ideas.

Ensure that you use links wisely on your blog, including in your content. Doing so helps to keep your site clean and easy to navigate. It is always disappointing to come to a website only to have difficulty locating the right material.

Do not use a simple approach when it comes to writing a blog. You need to always be researching, learning and working it like a business. Learn from other bloggers with more experience, and use the different methods and strategies as you learn. Continuously improve and learn about new writing a blog methods that will help you move forward.

Make sure you choose a blog theme that’s SEO friendly. Not only will you be able to increase your search engine rank, but your site will also run more efficiently. Nowadays, speed is extremely important. Readers do not like waiting for graphics and other plug-ins to load. They’ll leave your site and visit another blog.

The most important content on your website should be clearly visible the moment a visitor loads the page. Doing this will allow visitors to navigate your site with ease.

Always strive to be real. Avoid displaying yourself as the absolute expert in everything. Honesty, transparency, and openness are critical qualities to convey. Always try to do this. Your blog should be an expression of your individuality. Strive for improvement not perfection. It’s okay to be wrong about something, even in your blog. Remember, you are not infallible, but you are unique.

Don’t focus on the money. It is true that you can make some nice money through advertising or affiliate marketing on your blog. That said, chasing money and nothing else will end in failure. Building a successful blog takes time and dedication and if your only interest is making money, your readers will quickly lose interest. Blog about something that you absolutely love to talk about, and your readers will see and appreciate your enthusiasm.

Search Engines

Steer clear of packing your blog with keywords. Keyword selection is crucial, but you should choose quality over quantity. Search engines are much better at separating the wheat from the chaff than they were even five years ago. When your site is overrun with keywords, it is a flag to the search engines that quality is not your priority, and your rank will drop accordingly. Choose your keywords based directly on traffic generation.

Provide easy access to social media links on your blog, so your viewers can follow you. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and many others social networking sites are highly advantageous to your success and author recognition. You can easily reach more readers and followers with these web portals.

Decide what your goals are before you begin to blog. Would you like to gain recognition as an expert and create a reputation for yourself? Maybe you’re trying to earn more money. You might have several goals in mind. It’s very important to keep your goals in mind while you build your blog.

Various social media networks can be useful in promoting your blog, but make sure you maintain the quality of your content with the use of them. For example, if every tweet you post on Twitter gives a link to the blog, people will start to ignore them. Surrounding your links with some interesting content will make you look like less of a spammer.

As was said earlier, blogging is very popular. While blogs are started for a variety of reasons, they all have the goal of getting their message across to their readers. Use the suggestions and advice from the preceding article so you can design and develop a blog to get your message out there to those people you want to reach.

Be patient when trying to build a readership. It takes everyone some time to develop a loyal readership. You also have to build up the amount of content on your blog before there is enough to entice a large audience to visit. As your blog becomes more established and you build up a sizable amount of content, more people will come to visit it.