Virtual Competition. SEO is no longer optional if you want your business to survive. 1st Edition.

Transcription

1 Virtual Competition SEO is no longer optional if you want your business to survive 1st Edition

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3 Contents Chapter 1: Why is everyone talking about SEO? Chapter 2: But how do I use SEO? Should I just hire someone? Chapter 3: Isn t my great product or service enough? Chapter 4: Why do I feel like search engines are always one step ahead? Chapter 5: Doing it wrong / How to avoid SEO mistakes Chapter 6: Not to worry, there s still hope

4 History? Anyone who has put together a website has probably heard about SEO, or search engine optimisation. If you re reading this book, you re doing so because someone told you to, or because you re just trying to wrap your head around the many ideas encapsulated by that single acronym. Perhaps you understand that SEO is more than just using keywords, or you re freaking out because people keep talking about mysterious things like the penguin update or the panda update. What? Endangered species SEO? The real challenge we all face when attempting to draw attention to a website is the way search engine optimisation techniques are changing constantly. Perhaps you ve heard that the Google search algorithm is a complex and mysterious thing? It turns out it s not all that mysterious, but it is complex and it is constantly being updated. It turns out that Google, and other search engines, want their users to find meaningful content, products, and services. So SEO today can t just be a simple strategy that grabs the attention of search engine bots. At one time in Internet history you really could just jam keywords in anywhere even behind the scenes and search engines would put you at the top of the results list. Ever heard of metatags? If you have, you know that they were the first form of search engine optimisation. If you haven t, that s because search engines now react to meta-tagging by black listing your site meta-tags are over. The Basic Challenge Let s get back to the idea that the Google search algorithm has meaning. When you go online to search for something, how do you decide what keywords to use? Let s say you need an electrician. And you live in London,South West. Do you pose your search as a question? Where can I find a good electrician in London, South West? Or do you something simpler: SW1 electrician, or electrician London SW1? When you enter those words into a search engine search field, you want a useful, trustworthy result. You want the first thing that pops up to be an electrician with great reviews from

5 real clients, and you want them to be available for emergency service or maybe you just want them to have an office nearby that you can visit, so you can meet them face to face before you decide to hire them. Search engine algorithms are trying to give you, the person searching the Internet for answers, the right search results. Sit back and think about that for a minute. Really. That means the Google search algorithm is designed to benefit you, the user. And surprise! Bing is just an interface that uses Google to search for results. Before you start to design an SEO plan for your website, before you look into SEO prices and SEO packages that claim to offer techniques to combat the penguin or panda updates, remember who your audience is. You are not just trying to combat some amorphous, evil search engine algorithm. You want people to find your website, and you want search engines to identify your website as a great search result for users. The Real Battle The real battle is going to be against websites that use and abuse SEO, but don t offer content, products, or services that users are searching for. How often have you searched the Internet and come up with results that were not useful? Happens all the time. It s likely that when you search for electricians London you ll get some interesting information about how to find a good electrician in London, but there won t be a phone number to call. Instead, you ll be looking at links to advertisers or to other services that might actually provide you with a real business. These kinds of sites may be helpful, but if you re the electrician with a small, local business that doesn t advertise on that site, you re going to get left out entirely. So now we come to you as the business owner. You are reading this because you want to know what search engine optimisation is and how you can use it to increase your business. You may never have even wondered whether you have enough traffic coming to your website, or it

6 may already be your number one priority. Regardless, if you ignore SEO basics, your business will fail online, and today that is analogous to failing outright. Scary! Yes, it is kind of scary. The Google search algorithm is trying to decide what is important to people searching around. Thousands of websites are using search engine optimisation to attempt to get the attention of the Google search algorithm. Many of them don t even have a business besides attracting attention online, so they are devoting all of their resources to getting to the top of the search results list. What can you do!? First of all, don t panic. Yes, the news is grim and probably makes you want to give up entirely. But there is still hope. SEO is a set of tools that allows your website to be found by the target audience that is looking for you. Most SEO packages include things like keyword research and implementation, backlinking, social bookmarking, blog discussions, web 2.0 blogs, and profile links. Every tactic and strategy has a history either because they work or because SEO providers have been researching what search engines are looking for, both the good and the bad. You can really over-do search engine optimisation if you re not careful. Remember meta-tags? No, you don t, because they re obsolete. Today s SEO techniques may go the same route in the future. But without an SEO strategy, you will definitely be left behind.

7 Chapter 2: But how do I use SEO? Should I just hire someone? Strategies That Work At the same time as search engines are trying to weed out the websites that users are not going to find helpful, they are looking for the good stuff. The Google search algorithm isn t public knowledge, but Google does want you to know what you should be doing. And what is that? Provide useful, relevant content, services, and products. If your business is service related such as the neighborhood electrician using search engine optimisation techniques to bring potential clients to your website is completely legitimate. Google wants those potential customers to find you, because those potential customers are looking for you. So before you hop in and buy an SEO package from anyone, remember that the primary thing that Google is looking for is a real website with real content for real people. That said, all of those strategies mentioned at the end of the last chapter are tried and true SEO tools. Keywords and keyword phrases still matter. How you use them is even more important than it has ever been before. Over-use certain keywords and search engines will get suspicious, possibly ranking your site lower as a result. Don t use them enough and search engines won t notice you and what you offer. Finding the right keywords for your website will make a big difference, too. Are people searching for electrician London or London electrician and does that matter? Google wants to know a few things about your website, and it turns out you can provide those things with a little planning, research, and skilled implementation. Starting blog discussions about your services or products will create some important clues for the search engine bots that

8 are logging your activity. If a blogger, who has been online for a few years and gets a lot of traffic to their site, writes a post about your business, your traffic will increase dramatically. And an increase in traffic and interest on related websites will get the attention of search engines. You can do all of this on your own, but there s a good chance that your competition will have advantages over you. Most likely, the other electricians in London, and the people setting up advertising sites for electricians in London, are professionals in search engine optimisation. And the London example is just silly, because most people are trying to market to a much broader audience. If you offer advice, online services, or products that can be shipped nationally or internationally, the pool of competitors only gets deeper. To Hire or Not to Hire an SEO Service Search engine optimisation is complex and getting more complex all the time oh, and it s changing pretty steadily. With the panda update, many people are going to have trouble with their web 2.0 blogs if they don t make some changes to strategy. The more refined the Google search algorithm gets, the more refined the SEO packages get. Today some SEO packages include something called the SEO groundswell technique an organized and thorough press event that mimics everything about Internet buzz which happens naturally. That s a pretty good idea, and one of the newest and least likely to be dinged by a search engine bot. Why People Hire Because there is a lot to learn in a short amount of time, and by the time you learn it some aspects may have become obsolete, DIY search engine optimisation may not be the best use of your time. Think of SEO as similar to taxes. On the one hand, hiring an accountant means spending money to save money. On the other hand, you gain more than just accurately filed taxes by hiring a professional accountant. You get to spend all your time on the nuts and bolts of your business. Your time is probably even more valuable than the price of hiring an accountant, especially if you are running your own small business. If you hire an accountant to handle your taxes just during tax season, you ll end up spending a

9 bunch of time getting them up to speed. However, it might be a bit cheaper to get it all over with at once, in a stress-filled hurry, than if you have an accountant managing things all year long. Then again, if your accountant is on board more consistently and can watch your progress, that yearend filing will go smoothly, quickly, and mistakes will be less likely to occur. The same is true of hiring someone to handle your SEO needs for your business website. To make the most of SEO, it s best to have consistent updates, keyword relevance tracking, frequent blog posts, and an eye watching for changes like the panda update. However, you may only need or want to do a real push, like the SEO groundswell technique, once or twice a year. If you can afford to spend your time on these strategies, you are incredibly fortunate. Most small businesses rely on a professional SEO service that has competitive SEO prices and flexible SEO packages. Dangers of Hiring There are a couple of things to be aware of before you pick a search engine optimisation package based on price. First of all, how does the SEO company rank when you conduct your Google search? Try searching for SEO groundswell technique and see what companies come up on the first page. Those companies apparently know what they are doing, right? Their SEO packages are working for them already. But don t get too excited too quickly. There are plenty of people out there who are good at SEO but who also don t care whether your business succeeds. They may suck you in with great SEO prices and reasonable sounding SEO packages, but then once they ve got your money they ll do the minimum amount of work possible. The worst case scenario is that you ll pick an SEO package and the work will be done on your website, and then you ll realise that the company has no idea what they re doing. When SEO is misused, search engines are quick to notice. The panda update changed the way SEO companies approach web 2.0 blogs. You can still get a lot of mileage out of a blog, but the content better be good. In the past, you could get away with writing a blog with very repetitive information, as long as the sentences were complete and the keywords weren t too densely packed. The panda update makes that strategy look a bit more obvious to the Google search algorithm, and bots will downgrade sites with poor quality content.

10 A badly designed SEO package will get your website the wrong kind of attention. Search engine optimisation walks a fine line between being helpful and harmful, so read as much as you can about any SEO company you are considering hiring. There are great services out there, in fact there are some SEO companies that offer incredible SEO packages at reasonable prices. You could find yourself pleasantly surprised at the increase in traffic after paying low SEO prices. But do your research so you don t get burned.

11 Chapter 3: Isn t my great product or service enough? To some people, SEO sounds like hocus pocus that only the bad boys of the web use to get attention from search engines. If only that were true. Unfortunately, marketing has changed so dramatically that just being good at what you do is no longer enough. Websites used to be something you invited others to look at. Your web address was like a paperless informational pamphlet that you could give to anyone with an Internet connection. In those first days of Internet use, a website was one more marketing tool, but not something you expected would actually generate new customers. The sense was that you now had the space to really sell your business to potential customers and clients, but that you d have to send that potential business to the website if you wanted anyone to see it. Today, a website can be used in the opposite way. Of course it is still an excellent way to share a lot of information in a simple and easy-to-edit manner. Give someone your business card with a web address on it and they might actually check it out and see if they want to do business with you. But more and more, your business website should serve as the source of new business, too. Viral Marketing: What it Once Was and What it Has Become Before technology made instant information possible, the success of your business depended entirely on your reputation with actual human beings. If you ran a florist s shop and customers found your selection to be lacking, they would tell their friends and then more friends would be told and pretty soon business would dry up. Back to the electrician example: if your bad wiring burned down someone s house, no marketing technique available was strong enough to

12 put you back into business. And for good reason. Of course, life is not so simple anymore. Viral marketing is a term we use to describe the way that your reputation travels as fast as a virus. We used to call it word-of-mouth, but that is no longer a literal description of the way things work we re still having those conversations, but they happen much more quickly and efficiently. Today your business needs a Facebook page, a Twitter account, a YouTube channel, and search engine optimisation on every page of your website, just to get noticed. The reason that viral marketing is so different today has everything to do with technology. Instead of telling your friends over your once weekly tea together, you can instantly tell every acquaintance you ve ever friended on Facebook about your good or bad experience with a business. Then they tell their friends. Thousands can be reached in seconds. A single negative blog post on a popular and established blog can become the first thing that anyone doing an Internet search will learn about your business. But the opposite is also true. A single positive blog post on a popular and established blog can launch your business to the first page of a search engine result list. Well, maybe it won t happen that quickly but you can see how the speed of news and information is changing the way businesses think about marketing. You Still Have to be Good Yes, you must have a good product or service. Yes, you have to make your customers happy, whether they walk into your shop front because a product doesn t work or their online order didn t arrive as fast as promised. Customer service is still almost as important, if not more important, than offering high quality products or useful services. These are the kinds of things that can create good or bad buzz. Any press may be good press for movie stars, but for your business things may not be as simple. So What s the Problem With Allowing Good Buzz to Create Itself? The problem is that good buzz doesn t create itself anymore. Or, it doesn t create itself fast enough to be relevant and helpful.

13 Search engine optimisation is one way to create the kind of good buzz that you deserve in a market that is otherwise too huge to notice you. As sad as that may seem, it is the absolute truth. Internet marketing has flustered many a good business. My website is the new face of my business? Can t I just throw up a phone number and address and tell them to get in touch or stop by? Nobody uses the Yellow Pages in print anymore? Most of the world gets information via the Internet. Electricians, florists, writers, and even SEO providers themselves have to have an online presence if they want to succeed. And not just because everyone is online, but because the competition is already out there, working as hard as possible to get all the attention from potential clients and customers. There is a very real battle going on in the virtual world and it is having very real results for both the winners and the losers. Your potential clients and customers are looking for you, and they do so by using search engines. You want them to find you using search engines? Optimise your content for search engines so that you get noticed and get ranked higher than your competition. That is SEO. It s Not Even About Being the Only Winner Getting set up with a nice website and all the social networking tools you need is a good start. Employing SEO techniques to help get focused attention to your website is essential. But not because you need to be the only business on the first page of search engine results for every possible relevant keyword and keyword phrase. You just need to get noticed. And the only way to get noticed is by using search engine optimisation. Without good SEO, nobody will be able to find your website if they don t know about you in the first place. You will be reaching only the audience you have already reached. Even if that is the only goal of your website, you should still put on a good face for those repeat clients and customers.

14 However, the way to grow your business and experience success is to entice new clients and customers. To really get a stream of steady interest in your business, you need to market your business, and you already know that. The problem is that today s marketing standards are rapidly evolving and a key component to success is your online presence. There is no way around this reality. Marketing today is Internet marketing, and Internet marketing requires search engine optimisation.

15 Chapter 4: Why do I feel like search engines are always one step ahead? The amazing thing is that no matter how hard you work to get your website search engine optimised, someone else is willing to work harder. When any keyword or keyword phrase gets particularly popular, a number of quick-built websites pop up just to draw traffic from the folks using those keywords. Everyone is searching for something, let s convince them that that thing can be found on our website! What Do Search Engines See? An example? Every time a new version of the iphone is released, the Internet goes bonkers. Apple sends out their press release, the news media, gadget blogs, Apple-phile blogs, and everyone who owns a current iphone model has something to say about this release. Stock markets will react, so financial blogs and websites weigh in, too. This kind of instant Internet popularity is what you want, too, right? SEO groundswell technique uses the same ideas to power the same kind of reaction to your product, service, website, or press release. The next thing that happens when the iphone buzz hits the Internet? Anyone who is thinking of buying an iphone, has ever bought an iphone, or wants to write about the new iphone is searching for information using search engines. Google tracks these searches carefully and the Google search algorithm takes into account every time a user searches for iphone X and notices just where those searchers spend their time. That search term is now gold. Hundreds of thousands of consumers are searching for that single search term. So hundreds of websites are trying to cash in on that action. Even if your website has nothing to do with iphones or technology, if you use sophisticated SEO packages you can get some of those iphone searchers to come to your site.

16 You might be wondering why you would want people to visit your site, looking for information about iphones, when you don t normally provide that information. You don t want that. But there are plenty of people out there who do, because traffic means money. Advertisers look for high traffic sites to advertise on. If you can generate a lot of traffic even misdirected traffic advertisers are willing to pay to advertise on your site. This is why search engines seem to be one step ahead: because they are and they have to be one step ahead. The iphone example is pretty dramatic and not exactly typical. There are also plenty of sites that take advantage of the popularity of movie and musical stars. Imagine how many people have searched for Brad and Angelina engagement ring, or something similar. There are probably millions of potential keyword phrases that are used all the time by consumers, and are then used by websites trying to attract traffic and advertising revenue. Keeping Pace is Enough Search engines have a job to do. They find things for us. They try to find the things that we want to find, helpful things. They are not always successful. When they are unsuccessful, they work to figure out why. The whole purpose of a search engine is tied up in figuring out new ways to rank websites and differentiate between the good stuff and the bad stuff. That s why they are one step ahead of you and everyone else who is building a website and hoping to increase traffic. To get the attention of search engines, your website has to be optimised for search engines. Hence, SEO exists and is used widely and is constantly evolving to match the evolution of the Google search algorithm. You don t have to get ahead of search engines, you just need to keep up. Your website is not fighting search engines, it is fighting competing websites. For all those websites that use and abuse popular keyword phrases, Google and other search engines are doing the work of identifying and eliminating. Your only responsibility in this field is to stand out as a real source of the information, services, or products that consumers are looking for. These are the small battles, but they are no less important. Search engine optimisation is

17 a set of tools, right? Perhaps they are a set of weapons that you use against your competition. And, to some degree, you use them to support the work of search engines. By continuing to distinguish yourself with high quality SEO, you are ensuring that when search engine bots crawl your website, they see what they are expecting from a site that should be highly ranked. Search engine optimisation is pretty complex in many ways, because it requires that you understand what search engines are looking for as well as what they are prepared to see, based on what they are looking for. What? Let s try that again: search engines know that you are trying to use SEO, so if you use SEO incorrectly they will spot it and downgrade your site. But if you use SEO correctly, search engines will identify your site as a site that should be ranked highly. This complexity is one reason why SEO providers have popped up all over the place. On the one hand, it pays to have an expert to handle your accounts, marketing, and SEO. On the other hand, people are fighting to get the attention of businesses like yours, because everyone knows that businesses need and are looking for SEO packages and good SEO prices.

18 Chapter 5: Doing it wrong / How to avoid SEO mistakes Search engine optimisation can do wonders for your business. Consider how nice it would be if more people saw and liked your website, and then decided to visit again and again. That is the result that SEO packages are working toward for you. With that kind of boost, what would your business look like? The more traffic you get, the higher the likelihood that visitors to your site will purchase your products or services. When SEO is done right, the people who find you will be the people who are looking for the products or services you offer. But when it is done wrong, things can go downhill in a hurry. Badly written content that is stuffed with keywords is obvious to everyone who reads it. Content providers are getting better, but for the most part you can tell when someone has dashed out a series of articles that all provide similar information and use an exact phrase or word repeatedly. And if you notice overkill SEO, imagine how obvious it must be to a computer program that is designed to find people who are trying to abuse SEO techniques. While your regular readers or new customers may forgive a little keyword overuse, search engine bots are programmed to make a single, definitive decision. What is this website really about? Bigger Picture: Google s Got It Another thing to keep in mind is the way Google s search algorithm has a broader view than you can even imagine. The way ranking really goes up is with success; when searching users find your site and actually stay on it and click through the pages, your ranking will go up. If trustworthy sites post links to your site and traffic to your site increases, your ranking will go up. And if positive conversations are happening about your site in forums, your ranking will go up.

19 Google s search algorithm, and presumably the search algorithms for other search engines, takes into account a whole array of factors. By combining the way your website is viewed and treated by others, along with a scan of what your website contains, a determination is made about how relevant your site is to people searching for specific search terms. So doing it wrong takes on a whole new dimension. If your site is associated with a backlinking service that does things less than legitimately, you could be essentially blacklisted. Every step that is taken to promote your website should be incorporated in a way that makes sense considering the product or service you provide. There are many small mistakes that can be made which will not help you and could do serious harm to your credibility with search engines. But for the most part, you ll be able to identify those practices if you keep in mind how widely search engines can see. Since you are relying on the big picture vision of search engines, it shouldn t be hard to keep in mind that you won t be able to fool them for long, if at all.

20 Most Common Mistakes Just a few examples to help you along your way, and to ensure that you know what kind of techniques are now considered mistakes. Never post your link to forums or blogs that are unrelated or might consider your post spam. If you get marked as spam by the blog owner, that s a pretty big mark against your website. Don t overuse keywords. Keyword stuffing has already been covered but you may be asking yourself: how much is too much? 2-3% is often more than enough, and with shorter blog posts and articles, that might be too much. Read your content carefully and make sure keywords don t stand out as repetitive. Make your web 2.0 blog content realistic. In fact, just keep a blog. One SEO technique that is incredibly popular is to put fresh content on your site by adding blog posts that contain relevant search terms. The panda update to Google s search algorithm will identify redundant, repetitive, and nonsense blog posts. Not long ago, most of these SEO mistakes were commonly used SEO strategies that aimed at making the most of Google s search algorithm. SEO prices were focused on how many backlinks were provided or how many web 2.0 blog posts were written and posted. SEO packages were monthly subscriptions that required you continuously pay for updates. Today you can still find SEO packages that include poorly designed SEO strategies. An easy mistake to make is to trust SEO companies to be doing the best work, even if they aren t updating their strategies consistently. It s easy to trust the experts. But rather than allowing yourself to be convinced, take a step back and see if the SEO company is offering something flexible and interesting, or if they are trying to draw you in with SEO buzzwords. The best SEO providers will be offering things like SEO groundswell techniques and SEO packages that can be scheduled for the times that make the most sense for your site. Having a big sale and want to make sure it s promoted widely? That s when you should use SEO groundswell techniques to generate online buzz. Users should be directed to your site for a reason even if it s just because you are offering something that they are looking for.

21 Chapter 6: Not to worry, there s still hope In many ways, the risks of getting a bad SEO package are intimidating. You are probably wondering whether or not you are better off just taking your chances with traditional marketing strategies. But don t be afraid to expand your business. The best way to avoid risks is to know everything about them and learn what it takes to avoid them. You can plan accordingly and be more successful, without taking huge risks. Good News to Keep in Mind Have you ever heard that a consumer needs to hear about something 7 times before they will be convinced to buy? This is an old marketing rule called the Rule of Seven, demonstrating that not even marketing professionals are always creative. There is some historical evidence that shows that this is a pretty accurate way to think about marketing, but of course it is more complex than that and seven may be more than is necessary these days. There are a few main reasons why consumers don t buy from you the first time. They don t trust you because they don t know you. They don t have price context so they aren t sure if you offer a good deal. They are completely overwhelmed by constant marketing. They don t need your product or service yet. For a moment, let s imagine that all you need to do is reach consumers a handful of times and they ll buy from you. What that means is that your brand or name needs to come up more than once when they re looking for what you offer. If they see something about you in an online news outlet or on a blog that they like and trust, you re earning big points. Perhaps they don t

22 need you now, but they will in the future and now they recognise your name as one they can trust. From that third party site, they might decide to look around your site, just to see more. If you ve got an informational blog that includes your musings on relevant topics, they ll get a feel for your stance on things. Hopefully, they ll like what they read and feel even more confident that you are who you say you are. Then, when they do finally use a search engine with the relevant keyword phrase and your name comes up, they ll remember it. One of the main reasons that it takes seven times for consumers to buy from you is that they don t recognize or trust your brand the first few times and overcoming that barrier could be the only one to worry about. Now imagine that they look for reviews or feedback on your product or service and come across a forum where people have discussed the experience working with or buying from your business. If the information in that forum is positive, they ll be encouraged yet again. They will start to view your service or product as something more mainstream, something they can trust and rely on. It turns out that this is how people go shopping these days. Many people stick to the names they know anyway, whether out of comfort or brand loyalty. But if they are looking for something for the first time in other words, when they are using a search engine to find something they need consumers are going to want to see your name or brand in more than one place. Consumers search for reviews, news stories, and third party opinions on the things they buy because they can. Bringing it All Together Search engine optimisation is a broad term used to describe a whole host of strategies, techniques, and requirements for reaching a broader online audience. SEO is also constantly evolving, as you may have noticed. Search engines are also trying to figure out what consumers want, even though they re not doing it to sell more than the service a search engine provides. If a huge, successful company like Google can come up with an algorithm that identifies both what consumers want and the fakers out there, your business cannot afford to ignore Google s hard work. But it turns out that SEO packages from good SEO providers are going to include a lot

23 of things that make perfect sense from a marketing standpoint. SEO isn t just a way to get a search engine s attention, it s the way that we market in the modern world. Search results ranking isn t just a competition for the top spot, it s the way that your business grows and becomes a recognised and respected business. The modern world presents a lot of challenges if you feel overwhelmed by the prospect of incorporating SEO into your website and business marketing plan. But it s time to stop thinking of SEO in that way. There are incredible opportunities open to you because of the advances in technology and communication that we ve seen even in just the past 20 years. You can reach a much bigger audience. SEO is the way that you reach out to that audience. Consider it part of successful business management, because that s what SEO is today. And if it sounds like a lot of work, that s because it is a lot of work. You always have the option of hiring an SEO professional to help you come up with a plan that will make you feel both comfortable and confident. Ignore SEO tools and your business will probably be overwhelmed by the competition. Use the Internet as the tool that it is and you ll see the kind of business growth that you want to see.

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