The Power of Local Branding

Where your business is housed is in essence your home, too. The community surrounding your business can be the main source of traffic. The people living in your community aren’t looking to travel far for particular servicing unless it is absolutely necessary. Just as you would rather go to the nearest grocery store than make the trip to another one miles away from your current location. Making your business locally branded gives people the incentive to go to your local business, which is what most people truly want. This is best done by a great marketing strategy like the team at SEO DALLAS.

Create an impeccable website and optimize it to the top. Market your business throughout the entire virtual world. Times have changed. You can no longer just flip on the open sign and expect business to rush in. People are spending smarter by who they do business with very carefully. The Internet has forever changed the approach in business. People are now searching for businesses local to them on search engines. There are hundreds of thousands of searches on popular search engines everyday. These people are reading reviews and searching for popularity. Harnessing the potential that the Internet has for you could make the difference between a busy month and an empty shop.

Get your name out there. Physically get yourself involved with the community. A cost effective method to local branding can begin with reaching out to your local community and providing services. Embrace the word local. Surround yourself with it and entwine your fingers within it. To be locally branded you must involve yourself fully within your community. Get involved with the local church, offer some charity to the local schools and provide something that would truly benefit your community. This proactive movement on your behalf will not only get the name of your business out into the public, it will make that name a great one.

When you use the potential of Internet marketing with physical marketing, you can truly experience all that local branding has to offer. Local branding creates your business an identity, a cultural tie to your community. That is something that your competition will have an extremely hard time replicating. Make your community your business’ permanent home by excelling in local branding.

Negative SEO Coming…Coming…..Coming HERE~?

Negative SEO Taking Over the WWW?

Like a breath of Cold Fresh Air, the endless hours of work and likely tens of thousands of dollars you have put in to your website over the years has paid off. You launched your website with “FRESH ORIGINAL AND UNIQUE” content. Your design is user friendly, and your visitors enjoy what they have found. In fact they like it so much, they have even shared it on social sites like Facebook and Twitter where their friends and family can find it. All is going GREAT with your website. Heck, you have even added a blog, to help the site perform,  to communicate new ideas and fresh content. Others have liked your work so much that they have not only linked to your website  and copied your content it was so good but they also have become loyal clients, “YOUR AN AUTHORITY NOW” Right,  …. You may be, but it seems Google may have another opinion…….. Your website has been good enough in their eyes to be at the top for a long long time for extremely tough rewarding terms.. Maybe you were just lucky, maybe blessed, maybe your placement was well earned..

The Spam Team Leader at Google “Matt Cutts” has spoke for years about the quality of search being paramount. Myself and many other SEO’s could not agree more. It is critical that when I search Google’s data base for a product or service, I get what I was looking for. And for it to be in the natural listing or Places.  Most people know full well, you can squeeze false ads into the adwords of Google, and people will find results they really did not want.

Though there are lots of theory’s, “miss spoken direction” that took a long time to address and Correct his error, one fact is clear…

We want answers! 

Google has stepped up over the years and has provided the largest most useful and friendly search tool the world has ever know. But, have they fallen to the side of greed given the condition of the worlds economy?

Lets take a look at this theory.

You built a wonderful website with original and unique content years ago, and have worked tirelessly in its development and promotion. You have built a wonderful client base, however with the fallen economy, have lost a few clients, gained a few… Needless to say, you have become reliant on the EARNED SEARCH ENGINE PLACEMENT Awarded by Google, Bing and Yahoo and the rest. However, under no control of your own, your content, videos, images etc have been so good they have been copied and reused by some spamming lazy joker who would rather steal your content than create his/her own, and BANG!! YOUR GONE…. In order for your business, your family and loved ones website you have relied on has been hit by a Google update you have NO CONTROL OVER..  You must have new leads, and new clients in order to continue your business and supporting your family. Leaving you the option of AD-WORDS……. hmmm…

EARNED SEARCH ENGINE PLACEMENT

I agree search engine placement should be EARNED based on the relevance and authority of a website. However, it seems Google has made a public statement BY ITS LATEST UPDATE that you can in fact POACH ANOTHER Website out of their earned placement WITH NEGATIVE SEO.

I did a few pretty basic searches this evening and found some CRAZZZZY results:

LET’S SEE IF THEY STAY THIS WAY:

SEARCH TERM: “SOMETHING”

DELIVERED WWW.SOMETHING.COM  NO WEBSITE, KEYWORD DENSITY IS 100% KEYWORDS CONTENT SPAM. “THE ONLY TEXT IS” (SOMETHING). GOOGLE CLAIMS THEY ARE CRACKING DOWN ON QUALITY, WHERE IS THE QUALITY IN THAT..

HERE ARE SEVERAL OTHER EXAMPLES OF THE SAME: WE WANT ANSWERS

Maybe I am missing something, but, is Google really that much smarter than YAHOO AND BING COMBINED, to be delivering such results to have ONE statement and more than 500 comments from Google webmasters looking for answers, with no response, other than ”

Comment deleted

This comment has been removed by the author.April 24, 2012 6:04 PM Clearly posts like this are being monitored and they know there are questions…. We want answers. Perhaps the answer is as I tell all my clients….. SEO is a Marathon, NOT A Sprint! BE PATIENT. Have another theory? DO SHARE!!

Put Your Media Company On the Spot

Put Your Media Company On the Spot

Ok, so I have been asked to put this together by a good friend who has been using the same “FULL SERVICE” Media company for about 4 years.

He claims to be getting leads BUT his cost is ridiculous…. We went over the monthly spend and he is clearly OVERPAYING, yet had no idea what to ask his “FULL SERVICE” marketing company. I OF COURSE ASKED IF HE WAS IN A LONG TERM CONTRACT, AND YOU GUESSED IT…. THEY SOLD HIM ON A 12 MONTH CON!!

“PUCKER UP BABY WE GOT QUESTIONS”

I posed he ask the following  :

1. WHERE THE HECK ARE THE Internet LEADS COMING FROM?
2. PAY PER CLICK or SEO
3. WHAT IS THE SPEND IN EACH AND IS THERE REPORTING OF ACTUAL SEO WORK BEING PERFORMED
4. What is the TOTAL cost per accusation and what is being done EACH WEEK to maximize the ROI
5. What is being done on a “REGULAR BASIS” for FREE leads from SEO?
6. WHAT “IF ANY” KEYWORD RESEARCH WAS PERFORMED BEFORE THE PPC WAS LAUNCHED, AND WHAT IS BEING DONE ON A REGULAR BASIS TO SAVE “HIM THE CLIENT MONEY OR INCREASE LEADS FOR THE SAME SPEND.

He has no idea where his investment is bringing results. So, I posed this question to him….. If you are paying per click, and paying per flyer and email and NOT investing in a product you actually own, how are you helping your business long term… He said, BUT IM PAYING THEM FOR SEO TOO…….. Hmmmm. SEO hu??

So, to better understand his situation, I suggested he get with his contract the marketing agency created, as in a contract there are usually two parts. The buy is the payer, and the receiver of funds is to fulfill certain obligations.

I urged “my friend” to bullet “outline” each obligation by the full service “experts” 1 By 1,  TO THE LETTER, leaving NOTHING unturned….

Then meet with the “experts” and compare notes.

So, as to HIS SURPRISE, there has been NO keyword research, the PayPer Click campaign was outsourced, There was NO SEO Going on at all, and the emails were created by the client “my friend” and auto sent by an auto email subscription. None of which was part of their agreement….. Hmmmm..

Are you being taken By your Media “EXPERTS”?? Tell me your story…..

What’s Blog Got To Do With It? How Blogging Helps SEO

Did you know that over 50% of the people who get online and use social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and Twitter, also read  blogs on a daily basis?  That’s a lot of people!  So, if you’re not utilizing a blog to promote your site’s services; you’re missing out on a lot.  Blogging not only keeps content fresh ( a Google brownie point ), it also keeps regular readers coming back for more.

Wondering How Blogs Help SEO Purposes?

There are several ways they help.  For one, they provide yet another place to put your keywords and links to tell the search engines what you’re all about.  If you’re blogging without taking advantage of the spaces where you can provide keyword rich data like the metatags, title, categories and headers; then you’re missing opportunities.  Blogging is a great way to reiterate over and over what your site is about and use your keyword phrase targets repeatedly in a ‘white hat‘ way.

Another way blogs help SEO efforts is they provide another piece for the link building puzzle.  There are several directories that are specifically designated to submitting blogs and RSS feeds.  This helps keep your content and links updated in a much bigger way.  The links in RSS Feeds are deep links that boost your relevance to the search engines and automatically update with your new content.

You can also capture the traffic for long tail keyword terms with blogging subjects more easily.  If you are trying to be #1 a term like credit repair, there are inevitably going to be some longer, less frequently searched, but still valuable variations of your keyword phrase.  Here’s your chance to include those in your optimization efforts.

Do You Struggle with New Subject Matter for Your Blog?

You might find yourself stalling on the creativity front when coming up with fodder for your blog.  Here’s the good news, the most important thing about a blog is consistency, not necessarily quantity.  So, even if you blog only once or twice a week; you’re still doing your site a favor.  The best thing about a blog is that you can write about, rant on, teach or just highlight pretty much whatever you want.  As you write more, the ability to tie in your subject matter with your product, service or target will get easier.  You can always call the pros at Absolute Placement Today to help out as well!

 

Still Need More Motivation to Blog?  Here it is:

BECAUSE PEOPLE READ STUFF

 

Speaking of blogs, now that you’re already here, please take a moment to explore our SEO Services blog.  If you see something you like, share it.  If you don’t, please email me with questions or requests at jen@absoluteplacementtoday.com.  I’d love to hear from you!

 

 

 

Link Building is a Slow and Steady Science

I will admit it, I’ve become a little obsessed….  I have been looking at options on a daily basis and almost by the hour for different ways to assist in many different levels of Link building.   I feel like a MAD SCIENTIST digging and studying the best options in development and results.. At the end of the day does it really matter what we have LOOKED FOR or what we have actually developed?  Google does not see that we have emailed our buddies asking for link exchanges, only that the link is there and proper or NOT… Results and relevance!

However, this is EXACTLY what it takes to build QUALITY.  Quality links, quality content, substantial ranking improvements… TIME and patience…

Google is changing the game all of the time, so link building that worked last year or maybe even last month is just not ok…..

Here are some tips I have gathered in order to build an effective link building campaign:

Directory Links:

SEOMOZ offers a HUGE list of both tracking tools and direct links to the resources for the submission of your business to the directory..

Press Releases:

Be real careful not to fall into the same trap most do and begin spinning your stuff out of control. Keep it unique and submit your press to reputable resources. PR Web, for example, has many different pricing options and they help with moderation for those that want to get their word out but lack the skill set of a professional writer.

If you’re feeling frisky, there are AUTO LINK CAMPAIGNS out there.  But you run the risk upon using that they will beat you up and load you down with garbage links that will cost you more to get rid of than it did to get them! The old saying “ if it sounds too good to be true; IT IS” rings true.

So again, patience and consistency is the name of the game.  If you’re digging for the ever elusive golden link pile that will rocket your site to the stars, you’re better off following the rainbow to the pot of gold with the little Green Guy…

Do you have a Pot Of Gold? Natural Link Building Tips?

Labor Day in the Internet Marketing World

For many, Labor Day marks the end or the start of many things….  To most children’s disappointment, it ends the pool season and marks the real start of school.  For some it indicates the start of football season, cooler weather, the end of weekend barbeques and wearing white ( for people who pay attention to that sort of thing ).  In the world of internet marketing, it marks the start of a different ‘season’ of traffic.  A lot of people use a completely different strategy in the their SEO efforts and Adwords accounts that they wait to launch over the long Labor Day weekend.  Being aware of the seasonal spikes in traffic that are associated with the product your website provides is a good thing to keep up with.

With the start of school and upcoming season for holiday travel, ski trips, cooler weather gear and the like; you might want to start thinking about a few new ways to capitalize on that market.  Here are a few tips for keeping your traffic up and optimal:

1. If possible, start tuning your content efforts and blogging topics to the interests of the people who are active online during the season….  ‘I’m thankful for ________’, ‘Prices So Low It’s Spooky’, ‘Deck the Halls with _____’…..  See the pattern?  All of those titles evoke the thought of a certain time of year and the types of products that go with it.
2. Add new content that keeps up with current events and trends.  If there’s a new term peaking that is at all related to the product you offer, it’s time to start campaigning for attention around it.  You can do this by opening up a certain page of your site to commission based affiliate offers.  Let’s say you have a website that offers sports memorabilia> think tailgating season>think beer.  Perhaps partner up with a company that offers team themed koozies, beer coolers or a kegerator.  Marketing for a kegerator helps you associate with a term that is searched 14,800 times!
3. Launch new types of online marketing efforts.  If your traffic generally starts to dip during the cooler weather seasons, consider ramping up newsletter, email marketing, press release and blogging efforts.  The key is to keep your website and what it offers fresh in the minds of past, current and potential customers.
4. Lastly,but certainly not least; we highly recommend partnering up with ( if you haven’t already ) the expert SEO Services team at APT!  We can help explore different ways to maximize your target audience and your ROI.

We hope you enjoy this last hurrah of all things summer! Happy Labor Day from the Absolute Placement Today team!

SEO Explained

This past weekend I had the great fortune of getting to go to Denver, CO for some business.  I also got to get out and play.  It was in my play time that I was made aware of the lack of understanding the general public has for what SEO actually is….  still.  I used to get the glassy eyed, I don’t know what you’re talking about looks back when I first started in this business.  But I guess I just thought that everyone had sort of ‘caught up’.  Turns out I was wrong. So, I thought I would take a time out to explain it on our fabulous SEO Services blog!  What better place than that, huh?

SEO Explained in Non Techy Speak:

• SEO is short for Search Engine Optimization.  There are many different search engines, but the main three are Google, Bing and Yahoo.  Optimize, by definition, is to make as perfect or efficient as possible.  So, we optimize sites for the search engines….  This means we try to get a site to the top of the first page of organic or non paid search results. This takes a lot of behind the scenes work on our part or the site owner’s.
• A website is launched on the internet and of course is looking for lots of traffic, purchases of product x, requests for more information or overall ‘conversions’. A conversion can be something as simple as filling out a newsletter form to a bigger gesture like booking your next family vacation.
•  There are many steps a site must take to be successful online.  First of all, it needs to be found.  So, the owner or operator usually seeks out someone specializing in SEO Services ( if they’re smart ) to help them get going.  From there, the SEO provider goes in and figures out how to best optimize the site for success.  This means the product and site are evaluated, keywords that are associated with the product offered are targeted and the site gets an overhaul to make it marketable to both search engines and consumers with those goals in mind.
• Still don’t get it?  Here’s the explanation I give when people ask me what I do.  If you do a Google search for Braces, it’s my job to make my client’s site come up first.

I hope that helps some of you better understand just what the heck an “SEO” does!  What job do you have that you constantly explain?

Patience is a (SEO) Virtue

SEO is a Marathon, Not a Sprint

I can’t tell you the number of people I’ve encountered in my experience as a SEO professional who still think that long lasting, traffic increasing,  revenue generating organic rankings can be achieved overnight.  Perhaps it’s because there are some in the world of SEO Services who still, despite all the evidence to the contrary, promise this very thing just to get the account.  These ‘salesmen’ capitalize on the client’s request of results right this very minute!  Which, to be long lasting and effective is almost always impossible with true ‘white hat’ practices.

Your Rush for Results Could Land You in Hot Water

And here’s a huge red flag- If your site goes from non existent to topping out in all the search engine rankings within 30 days, beware.  I’m working on an account right now that had this very thing happen.  They were in the top 3 for all of the terms they were targeting, it was great; life was awesome and then BAM!  They dropped back to page 5.  ( Which, in my opinion, was a mercy placing that isn’t often offered by the Google gods. )  They could have easily been pushed back to page 200 for what we found.  They quit with the ‘SEO’ they were working with at the time and came to us seeking help.  Here’s what we found:  hundreds and hundreds of links that were obviously built by a machine.  Links to pornographic sites, completely irrelevant, horribly placed and mismanaged links.  While they did have the anchor text that the site is targeting, they hurt them in the long run.  The truth is, if you do something shady to gain rankings; Google WILL figure it out.  Even if they ‘reward’ you for it at first.  Then, you have some making up to do.  BIG TIME. Google becomes your jealous and distrusting girlfriend and the links you build become highly suspect.  You have to work hard to earn the trust back and to regain a good working relationship with the search engines.

That’s not saying you won’t gain results from link building.  It is arguably the most important element of good SEO.   Just not the ‘dumpster’ type of link building that a lot of companies engage in.  If it’s not relevant to your product or site or page from which you’re trying to link; it will more than likely hurt you.

They’re Experts for a Reason

Still think you can get really quick results that last from your SEO Services company?  Here are some thoughts on the virtues of patience from some of the experts:

Tom Bates, owner and founder of Absolute Placement Today says, “Quick and easy doesn’t always get it done.  If it did, you’d find do it yourself SEO Services kits in the aisles of your local Walmart.”

Internet Marketing Consultant, Dave Conklin gave his two cents as well: “While SEO requires patience to get going, the snowball effect that takes place over time is so well worth the time and investment.  As your site continues to grow, you’ll generate more and more revenue and/or leads from more and more keywords.”

The gist is this: If you’re looking for really quick results in Organic web placement to be the foundation of your website success, you’re already failing.  Slow and steady wins the race.  Just ask the tortoise.

 

 

 

Why the Right Keywords are Essential to Your SEO

By now, you’ve probably heard people talk about your keyword targets in regards to your SEO efforts.  And you may think you know what your targets should be.  This is not a time for a good guess, this is an excellent time to consult an SEO Services company to help.  It would be a huge waste of time and money if you spend it optimizing your website for terms that are not being searched for.  Getting top placement for a broad keyword phrase is great!  But only if you’re going to get traffic from it.  If users are not searching the term, then it is useless to you.  Worse, if it’s a term unrelated to your website content or product; Google will track the number of times that your site was passed over in it’s results and you’ll start sliding down for the term if it’s not bringing you traffic or if searchers are immediately returning to their results.

It really pays to have expert SEO consultation when you’re trying to find your target keywords.  The right keyword phrases are the foundation for how you build text links, how you optimize your site and create your content.  Having the right targets turns searches into leads or sales.  If you choose to do your keyword research yourself, there are some tools available.  Some are even a product of the search engines themselves.  Here are a few things to keep in mind:

• Start off with more broad terms – this will give you the guide on how to get down to the more detailed terms.
• Create categories as you go and keep drilling down to make silos of relevant keywords.
• Check out the suggestions that the keyword tool you are using prompts.  You may be surprised to find terms that you had not or would not have thought of otherwise.
• Use long tail keywords to get higher ranking for more competitive terms.  Using the long tail version, not only targets that phrase; it also usually incorporates the desired keyword phrase.  For instance, if your keyword target is ‘credit repair‘; ‘do it yourself credit repair programs online’ is a long tail associated keyword phrase that includes your #1 target.  If you gain placement for the long tail version, it will give you a boost in your campaigns geared toward ‘credit repair’.

 

I hope these tips help you in your quest to find the right keywords.  If you have more questions or would like to inquire more about our SEO Services, please contact the Absolute Placement Today team!

Behavioral-targeting and using Long Tail Keywords are an excellent way to get higher ranking quickly for keywords that generate sales, and will have longevity to them in the search results. Poor keyword examples would be: kindle, nike shoes, roommate new york. Here are some examples of keywords that are ideal for SEO:

Fun! Easy! Popular! – Social Media Marketing Tips

I had the pleasure of getting to attend the latest AMA meeting ( American Marketing Association ) and pick up a few pointers from one of the best in the business.  Chris Forbes, co-author of Guerilla Marketing for Non Profits, shared his vast knowledge of all things Social Media in regards to successful marketing campaigns to a group of about 55 members of the AMA.   While Chris normally promotes things of the non profit sector and political nature; there was a point he made that sticks out in my mind.

Fun!  Easy!  Popular! – It’s such a simple concept, that I almost feel like it could go without saying.  However, there’s a reason marketing people like me have the jobs we do.  Because concepts such as, Fun!  Easy!  Popular! are tough for a lot of companies to grasp.  So, how does this apply to you?  Well, I think that the majority of today’s successful campaigns in any facet- whether it be tv commercials, print ads, online marketing to name a few; are capturing the very essence of this ‘simple’ concept.

How can you apply this to your company’s marketing efforts?  Ask yourself what the best commercial is that you have seen lately.  Why does it stand out?  Did it make you laugh?  What was the product?  Sometimes in marketing of the Social Media sort, companies get too wrapped up in an overload of ‘helpful’ information.  While the intentions are good, your target audience may feel overwhelmed.  So, lighten it up a bit!  Make your tweets fun, if not downright hilarious.  Talk about things that are mainstream today to build up your following.  And don’t make people think too hard or read too much.  If you’re trying to build up a Facebook Fan Page following, consider a fun contest of some sort.  Give a good prize that is desirable to your target demographic to the winner.  Overall, people respond better to things they are interested in or that humor them.  Everyone has that one person they follow on Twitter who is a steady stream of boring statistics and information.  Don’t be them!  Engage your audience with humorous blog posts.  Share a little bit of the human side of yourself.

Remember, when it comes to marketing on search engines like Google; it really is a popularity contest.  Google is the high school and you’re running for class president!  Be charming, funny, informative and give back to people.  It will get you everywhere!