SEO: Strategic Primer for a No.1 Rated Blog

 

For a popular blog, you must understand the process — important basics in search engine optimization (SEO).  If you’ve been blogging for awhile, you know success doesn’t keep come automatically. SEO is arduous work.

You must have a strategic blogging goal. Is it to promote your business or e-commerce? A consultancy? Is it an advertising business model?

Whatever you decide, there are certain SEO tips to keep in mind.

They include:

Keywords. Decide your keyword niche, and in what categories you want to be found. Pay special attention to key words, as they are the first step in determining whether you are successful. If properly implemented in search engine optimization, they will help determine when your site appears when users are looking for content. Insert them throughout your text, but don’t go overboard. Use 10 or fewer key words for each topic.

Page headers and titles. The words you use in page headers and titles will be the first read by the spiders and users of your site. So, first impressions are important in describing the value of your pages. Short action verbs should be included.

Bots and spiders. Spiders are important to your success because they crawl your site to view your content and collect data. The spiders determine what pages appear on search engines when users are surfing for a topic.

Ostensibly, the most-sophisticated is Googlebot, which looks for your new and updated pages. Google uses an algorithmic process.

It’s helpful to understand Google’s reasoning for best Web site rankings and how to be optimized for Bing (in some ways, my sense is that bing is more logical). If time constraints prevent you from mastering both, focus on Google because of its 66-percent market-share dominance. If you’re successful on Google, chances are you rank well on Bing and Yahoo. Above all, quality of content rules – Google speaks out about frequency vs. value.

Sitemap. You can improve your odds for success with a Sitemap, which is a list of pages on your site. That’s to insure Googlebot and other spiders can detect your links on pages.

Google says Sitemaps support your cause, if:

• Your site has dynamic content.
• Your site has pages that aren’t easily discovered by Googlebot during the crawl process—for example, pages featuring rich AJAX or images.
• Your site is new and has few links to it. (Googlebot crawls the web by following links from one page to another, so if your site isn’t well linked, it may be hard for us to discover it.)
• Your site has a large archive of content pages that are not well linked to each other, or are not linked at all.

Images. Many people believe images are helpful to make a site interesting to users. That’s true. But they can’t also hurt you, if they’re not inserted properly. You see, spiders can’t detect images. Spiders can read a text description on your images, if you insert an ALT tag.

Flash pages are hip and attract users, but they serve no purpose in maximizing the impact of crawling spiders.

Videos are good. As you might expect, videos continue to surge in popularity.

Format. Keep your site’s format simple. Make sure it downloads fast, keep in mind Google’s continuing quest to increase page speeds because in SEO, your site’s download speed matters to Google. Update content frequently. But don’t insert multiple topics on a page; instead insert links to other pages. Links from one page to others helps your time-spent-viewing. The longer you keep a user on your site, the better off you’ll be.

It’s preferable to make the blog part of your Web site – don’t separate the two. Otherwise, you’ll have to work twice as hard to make sure both rank well. Further, search engines don’t like even the appearance of duplication.

Links. With one caveat, encourage other sites to link to yours. However, make certain the inbound links have a higher Google page rank than your site. If you can persuade a bonafide reporter to insert a link to your site from an authoritative media site – congratulations. If you need tips, here’s how to leverage the news media.

Another strategy is to submit press releases to online press release firms. Some are free, but again check their Google page rank. Quality of links is paramount. Always avoid weak links to you.

Minimize the number of your outbound links. Your site will be penalized.

Social Media. If you want a strong business brand, leverage these social mediums: LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Google+.

Bear in mind these tips aren’t all-inclusive. But if you put them to use, you’re on your way. Good luck.

From the Coach’s Corner, note achieving strong results on Google is now easier with social networking. Here are 25 best practices for better business writing.

“…the time has come to ask yourselves does your blog suck … and what are you doing to change it?”

- Michael Gray

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Columnist Terry Corbell is also a business-performance consultant and profit professional. Click here to see his management services (many are available online). For a complimentary chat about your business situation or to schedule Terry Corbell as a speaker, why don’t you contact him today?

Internet Marketing Lessons Via Rick Santorum’s Campaign

 

Jan. 5, 2012

Unintentionally, Rick Santorum’s presidential campaign — with inadequate branding — is providing business with Internet marketing lessons.

Perhaps you’ve noticed the inflammatory results in searching the Web for him. When you search for “Santorum,” the deprecating site of “spreadingsantorum.com” is first on Google, Bing and Yahoo. For curious voters interested in the campaign, it’s an especially disappointing search.

The derogatory site was created in 2003 by a part owner of The Stranger publication in Seattle, who was annoyed by then-Sen. Santorum’s comment about a U.S. Supreme court ruling that was favored by the gay community.

Understandably, Mr. Santorum complained to Google about the rankings – after all there are precedents. Indeed, it can be argued that Google could do something about it.

You might recall Google penalized the derogatory monkey-face depictions of Michelle Obama. There are countless security examples from when Google and the other search engines have issued a warning about a Web site when it believes a site is a security risk to users.

Until and unless Google and the other search engines take corrective measures, the Santorum campaign must focus on what it can control.

However, the campaign fails to use best practices in Internet marketing.

Its salient shortcomings:

1. Failure to use SEO techniques
2. A call to action without giving the right incentives – branding and value propositions
3. Poor organization – lack of preparedness

Failure to use SEO

As a result of his strong showing from largely grass roots efforts, Mr. Santorum’s campaign is attracting an unprecedented number of voters who are now curious about him. They can find the right site easier when they search using the key words, “Rick Santorum.” But if they search using “Santorum,” they get the derogatory site.

In effect, however, the campaign has allowed Mr. Santorum to become a victim of political sabotage sans common SEO procedures.

Yes, the Santorum campaign has options to effectively to eliminate the adverse impact of the sarcastic site. Curiously, “spreadingsantorum.com” only has a Google page rank of 5. That’s not insurmountable for the Santorum campaign, if it employs proper SEO techniques, and understands how to win on Google.

Hint: If you can win on Google, you will on the other search engines, too. So start with how Google details its new reasoning for best Web site rankings, and successfully understand the 23 key questions Google has about your Web site.

As for the Santorum campaign, it needs to develop and focus on one site – just one site dedicated to the candidate. But it mistakenly directs Internet users to a donation form – one of two duplicate content sites (supportricksantorum.com and ricksantorum.com).

Premature call to action

The Santorum donation site sets a poor example. It only asks for money. There are no stellar branding and value propositions. Visitors aren’t readily able to learn anything about him – neither his policy positions nor his background.

All of this means the right sites show up twice – but they’re below the fold on Google.

Moreover, duplicate content hurts the cause. Two different domain names containing similar content defeat the purpose. The two sites effectively insure his Web presence is diluted – the search engines don’t know which is paramount for users.

Poor organization – lack of preparedness

With such a confusing marketing approach, the campaign inadvertently sends two unintended signals.

Firstly, it shows poor organization and lack of preparedness — note the verbiage in this Santorum tweet:

“Your great support has caused some unexpected downtime on our website! You can still support us at our temp page: ricksantorum.com”

Because the campaign instituted some redirects – the tweet sent people to the donation site. That’s a violation of best practices in marketing – never assume the voter has enough incentives before you ask for a vote or beg for donations.

Secondly, such strategies — unbranded donation page and desperate-looking tweets — leave users with the impression that he’ll fail because he’s desperate for donations.

Further, as an example of over-reaching, the campaign constantly changes the tag line that appears on the search engines. The candidate needs to be consistently repetitive with his branding and Web presence. Aside from the duplication issue and failure to imbed the donation page in one site, he needs to attract thousands of new links from good Web sites.

Whether he realizes or not, failure to take such precautions adversely impacts his credibility as a viable candidate. After all, even if he could win his party’s nomination, he’d be facing a Democrat who long ago demonstrated extraordinary Internet expertise.

Good Internet marketing lessons for business from Mr. Santorum.

From the Coach’s Corner, here’s a checklist: 14 strategies to rock on Google.

Additionally, for more resources see this portal’s marketing and tech archives, which are packed with solutions.

“Don’t blame the marketing department. The buck stops with the chief executive.”

-John D. Rockefeller

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Columnist Terry Corbell is also a business-performance consultant and profit professional. Click here to see his management services (many are available online). For a complimentary chat about your business situation or to schedule Terry Corbell as a speaker, why don’t you contact him today?

Google Details its New Reasoning for Best Web Site Rankings

 

Nov. 14, 2011 

The world’s most popular search engine has released detailed information on how it evaluates and ranks Web sites. Obviously, the information is critical for domain success.

Ordinarily, for proprietary reasons, Google is a bit guarded when discussing its algorithm processes. But a blog post by engineer Matt Cutts was unusually informative. 

It’s fair to say Google has been forthcoming about its search ranking methodology, such as reported previously on this portal in Google insights – 23 key questions about your Web site and Google’s continuing quest to increase page speeds. 

Research companies routinely peg the search engine’s market share at 66 percent or more in the U.S., and higher around the world. 

One wonders whether the new transparency is the result of the FTC probe of Google. My sense is that the FTC Probe isn’t warranted in Google’s business practices.

Google’s dominance has actually improved user experiences on other search engines. It forced Bing, for example, to make enlightened innovations.

From the Coach’s Corner, for Internet success, here are more resource links:

10 Tips to Optimize Your Web Site for Higher Sales

Startup Toolkit – How to Make a Hit on the Internet

Best Practices to Optimize Your Brand, Manage Your Web Reputation

The Key to Internet Dominance: Think Integration

“Obviously everyone wants to be successful, but I want to be looked back on as being very innovative, very trusted and ethical and ultimately making a big difference in the world.”

-Sergey Brin

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Columnist Terry Corbell is a business-performance consultant and profit professional. Click here to see his management services (many are available online). For a complimentary chat about your business situation or to schedule Terry Corbell as a speaker, why don’t you contact him today?

 

Checklist: 14 Strategies to Rock on Google

 

Updated Feb. 2, 2012

Periodic changes in Google’s search criteria and algorithms have indeed hurt many Web sites. But it’s possible to bullet-proof your site’s prominence on Google by taking 14 precautions, which is worth your time and energy.

Google has perennially owned about a 66 percent search-market share in the U.S. and a 90 percent share worldwide. Combined, Bing and Yahoo have about 30 percent in the U.S. Most of the other search engines are also powered by Google.

Now, there’s talk that Google might bid for Yahoo, which would mean another double-digit increase in market share.  (True, such a merger would be impacted by the Yahoo-Microsoft search partnership. The implication: Google would then have to buy out Microsoft for the remainder of the 10-year Yahoo-Microsoft partnership.)

So, obviously, it will behoove you to take full advantage of strategies to maximize your presence on Google.

Here’s a checklist:

1. Make frequent changes on your home page. But be sure it’s all about quality and relevance to Internet users.
2. For content marketing, regularly blog about relevant topics (see Google Speaks Out About Frequency vs. Value).
3. Interact with your target audience using the salient social mediums: Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and Google+. Here are 8 Tips to Optimize Sales with Social Media, But Beware of a Red Flag.
4. Be very careful about what you post – keep it professional and on business. Don’t assume that your professional profile can be separate from your personal life. Did I say be careful?
5. Be aware that Google is influenced by links from the news media, quality online press releases distributed by authoritative firms, and other sites with a strong Google page rank (PR).
6. Be careful about your other links. Do not allow weak Google PR pages to link to you. Minimize your links to other sites, as Google will perceive you as being manipulative.
7. Make certain your profile or bio is professional and consistent throughout. Use the same picture.
8. Insert relevant videos.
9. Check your Internet reputation on a frequent business. Here are Best Practices to Optimize Your Brand, Manage Your Web Reputation.
10. If you have employees, develop and implement a social media policy regarding your business reputation.
11. Change your passwords frequently – make sure they’re strong. 6. Separate business and your personal life. Avoid posting compromising photos, text or videos.
12. Accelerate your site’s download speed, which is important. See Google’s Continuing Quest to Increase Page Speeds and In SEO, Your Site’s Download Speed Matters to Google.
13. Understand what matters to Google – see Google Insights – 23 Key Questions about Your Web Site.
14. Despite what you might read, pay close attention to your use of meta tags and key words. They will influence Google and the other search engines.

By the way, don’t be fooled by the incessant hype about Facebook. Your Web site and prominence on Google will always be more important than what you do on Facebook. (See Winners and Losers in Facebook’s Invasion of Google’s Turf.)

My only regret about Google: That it hasn’t found a way to restart its real-time feature with Twitter. If you use the 14 recommended strategies, and if Google and Twitter get back together for real-time results, you’ll really rock.

Oh, here’s more good news — surprise — these strategies work on Yahoo and Bing, too.

From the Coach’s Corner, here are two more resource links:

10 Tips to Optimize Your Web Site for Higher Sales

Startup Toolkit – How to Make a Hit on the Internet

“The only thing Google has failed to do, so far, is fail.”
-John Battelle

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Columnist Terry Corbell is also a business-performance consultant and profit professional. Click here to see his management services (many are available online). For a complimentary chat about your business situation or to schedule Terry Corbell as a speaker, why don’t you contact him today?

 

Google’s Continuing Quest to Increase Page Speeds

 

July 30, 2011

Here’s a valuable limited time offer from Google.

For higher performance, Google might complementarily evaluate your Web site for download speed and will enter new code that will make your site faster for enhanced user enjoyment. Google’s service is temporarily being offered to a select number of Web sites.

This process will enhance your site’s prominence on the No. 1 search engine, and it will enable Google to operate at a faster rate for users.

Google’s goal is to enable sites to download more quickly by as much as 60 percent.

“Page Speed Service fetches content from your servers, rewrites your pages by applying web performance best practices and serves them to end users via Google’s servers across the globe,” according to Google.

“The extent of speed up depends on a variety of factors such as content on your pages, browser, geographic location of access, bandwidth, etc.,” Google explains.

On its page-speed service page, Google also provides a link for you to test your site’s speed. Most tests take less than five minutes.

“The test involves rendering your website on the selected browser by directly visiting your site, and repeating the same test by proxying your site through Page Speed Service,” Google says.

Again, better hurry, soon there will be a charge for the accelerating the speed of your site’s download.

“Pricing will be competitive and details will be made available later,” Google adds.

For all the details in Google’s offer, visit Page Speed Service.

From the Coach’s Corner, here are resource links to help your site’s Google presence:

In SEO, Your Site’s Download Speed Matters to Google

Google Insights – 23 Key Questions about Your Web Site

The Key to Internet Dominance: Think Integration

“The Internet is the Viagra of big business.”

-Jack Welch

 

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 Columnist Terry Corbell is also a business-performance consultant and profit professional. Click here to see his management services (many are available online). For a complimentary chat about your business situation or to schedule Terry Corbell as a speaker, why don’t you contact him today?

 

 

Is FTC Probe Warranted in Google’s Business Practices?

 

Updated Feb. 4, 2012

So, instead of solving important budgetary and other policy issues, Congress has launched an investigation in Google’s privacy policies.

In other ways, Uncle Sam has set itself up as the digital-age czar. You’ll recall the Microsoft antitrust case in which it averted a breakup. Only this time it’s the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) instead of the U.S. Department of Justice persecuting Google. It’s unwarranted.

Google is being targeted because it has acquired enemies en route to its huge Internet success with free services. Adversaries include cable and telecom companies, competing advertising firms, content and media publishers. Oh, let’s not forget Microsoft. The software giant is chagrined, in part, because Google has overwhelmed it despite entering search in 1998 – after Microsoft’s MSN. MSN failed as most of us initially used AOL or Yahoo. Now, two thirds of Internet users prefer Google.

Ironically, the purpose of antitrust suits is to protect millions of consumers – not competitors. History shows two large companies faced with antitrust suits – AT&T and Microsoft – became sidetracked, which hurt businesses and consumers. More on that later.

European Union competitors have also targeted Google. The French firm, 1plusV, has complained about Google’s AdSense. That’s because AdSense prevented 1plusV from advertising its legal search engine from 2006 to 2010. Others include an Italian case, and Microsoft going abroad to complain.

AT&T breakup

Antitrust actions have long intrigued me. A Hollywood script-like drama was building for months in 1974. Finally, the intrigue was over. On Nov.21, 1974, the Justice Department filed the biggest antitrust case in history as it sought the breakup of AT&T. The legal war lasted nearly eight years.

The government argued that the vertically integrated company, which provided both long distance and local services, was a monopoly and caused unfair competition. AT&T’s long-distance rates had been subsidizing the local residential service rates. AT&T was forced to break up its Bell system of local-exchange telephone companies so that it could go into the computer business.

This was heady stuff for me as a journalist, as it followed the end of the Vietnam War and Watergate. The economy was in bad shape, even a few years after President Richard Nixon imposed wage and price controls. Middle East oil shortages exacerbated inflation. The lines at the gas stations were sometimes very long.

All the case did was to accelerate the company’s demise. Such legal action drains company resources. They become distracted, which hurts consumers who no longer benefit. Indeed, AT&T could no longer innovate.

AT&T’s looming divestiture coincided with changes in how the TV and radio networks distributed their news and other programs to affiliate stations. Before the AT&T breakup, TV broadcasters used the company’s microwave relay and coaxial cable systems. Radio networks used the company’s “leased lines.” New satellites, Satcom 1 and Westar 1, provided competition with higher audio and video quality with lower costs.

Many stations, however, still had contracts with AT&T or they didn’t have big enough budgets to buy expensive earth stations in order to get the network feeds. I worked at two such stations, including one owned by the legendary Dick Clark.

Microsoft’s antitrust precedent – and a disclosure

Many analysts have noted that this FTC-Google issue is, of course, reminiscent of Microsoft’s war with the Justice Department. The federal antitrust lawsuit lasted from the 1990s to the early part of the 21st century. Microsoft finally emerged from government oversight in May of this year.

Although I empathized with Microsoft, I understood firsthand why the company was sued. Microsoft’s legal department was very busy.

Disclosure:

In 1992, I purchased a firm, MSN – Marketing Services Northwest. The financial and human resources needs of my new clients prompted me to expand my consulting services.  Three years later, to reflect my services, I updated the firm’s name to MSN – Management Services Northwest. I spent a small fortune on branding and collateral materials. Then, considering its software/digital age dominance, Microsoft entered the search-engine competition rather late with its MSN. As my business exploded, I neglected to fully protect my company’s name.

Unexpectedly, I encountered two issues with Microsoft:

1. The company apparently used the MSN moniker without any regard to precedent (mine).
2. MSN had accounting problems and its customers mistakenly telephoned my firm nonstop, 24/7 to complain.

When I contacted Microsoft about my two concerns, I was marginalized. A company employee told me: “Join the crowd…this would be lawsuit du jour.” Frustrated, I contacted two noted attorneys who empathized but declined to take my case. They knew we’d be outgunned by Microsoft’s vast resources. In the late 1990s, I was stuck with a big tab for new collateral and marketing.

However, I freely admit Microsoft’s behavior was a factor in my strategic planning. Thankfully, it included becoming a news media columnist – a full-circle return to my career roots.

A few years later, when I was the Biz Coach columnist on Belo Web sites, cybercrime regularly raised its ugly head. I wrote that Microsoft was not performing adequately in security. Like AT&T, it seemed as though Microsoft failed to innovate – it was not using best practices in security.

However, a decade after the legal war, it’s worth noting that Microsoft is now serious about security and is better serving business and consumers. The company provides a free service, Microsoft Security Essentials. It does a credible job of providing real-time protection against viruses, spyware, and other malicious invaders.

FTC’s antitrust allegations against Google

The FTC is investigating whether Google is an abusive monopoly – a predator that unfairly exploits competition and is harmful to the public interest in its search-advertising business.

Not only do Internet users count on Google in 66 percent of all search results, the search giant helps in comparison shopping, e-mails, mapping and travel. It’s also in mobile phones, television and videos.

Competitors – such as Expedia, TripAdvisor and Microsoft – allege Google is disingenuous. Microsoft, in particular, has been rather vocal. The competitors claim Google directs Internet users to its own interests and basically hides competitors’ links – at the expense of its rivals.

The antitrust subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee is exploring such allegations. So are the Texas attorney general and the European Commission.

This is Google’s second hassle with the FTC this year. You might recall Google agreed to settle FTC complaints of deceptive practices and violations of consumers’ privacy after it launched Google Buzz, a social network, in 2010. Google was also accused of lying about its treatment of European Union (EU) users’ personal information – in violation of the U.S.-EU Safe Harbor privacy framework. For the next two decades, Google will have to submit to privacy audits.

“When companies make privacy pledges, they need to honor them,” said FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz on the agency’s Web site. “This is a tough settlement that ensures that Google will honor its commitments to consumers and build strong privacy protections into all of its operations.”

Meantime, Google took another shot at success in social networking with a new product, Google+, which connects its users – a direct challenge to Facebook.

Google’s response to new FTC probe

A Google blog post stated “it’s still unclear exactly what the FTC’s concerns are.” Google also said “our success has led to greater scrutiny.”

The search giant asserted that the majority of complaints stem from disgruntled competitors who feel angst over inferior search rankings.

“Since the beginning, we have been guided by the idea that, if we focus on the user, all else will follow,” the company said in its blog post.

“We make hundreds of changes to our algorithms every year to improve your search experience,” it added. “Not every website can come out at the top of the page, or even appear on the first page of our search results.”

Plus, here’s more on Google’s strategies: Google taps former Microsoft prosecutor amid probe.

Conclusions

Yes, Google is aggressive and innovative. It adapts to consumer preferences. It hasn’t behaved perfectly, but all businesses are aggressive if they want to survive.

During all those months when Microsoft was in its advertising-search merger talks with Yahoo – their quest to overtake Google – no one complained about the two companies’ prospects in ganging up on Google to achieve search dominance. In fact, I recall many times when using Yahoo, I wanted to search on Bing, but Yahoo refused to let me. A popup question appeared – asking me if I really wanted to leave Yahoo for Bing. It was annoying and Yahoo’s defensiveness was a sign that it was desperate. But I wasn’t going to complain to the FTC.

Has Google been a monopolistic predator operating against the public interest? No. I have found Google to be innovative, responsive, and transparent about its goal to be known for relevant content. It provides a bevy of blogs and videos to help publishers.

Furthermore, its success forced Bing to become more innovative. My sense is that Bing now competes well with Google in delivering relevant results. That means Yahoo does, too. The three account for 96 percent of Internet-search market share. As a result, all Internet users have benefited.

The Internet has become so big and so fast, what makes the federal government qualified to be the final arbiter of what services should be made available to consumers? Why not let the markets be the final say?

Google’s success is largely from developing a unique algorithm system that’s enabled it to become the most popular among Internet users. Without giving too much information to spammers and cybercriminals, Google has been transparent by frequently providing tips to publishers on how to succeed for better rankings.

So, is the FTC probe warranted in Google’s business practices? No. The Internet competition has benefited consumers and businesses, alike. We’re all benefiting from Google’s leadership. The complainers need to stop whining. It would be more productive for them to better satisfy their customers – by analyzing their companies’ strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Then, innovate for the benefit of Internet users. That’s how I dealt with the adversity from MSN, and it’s why Google triumphs over its competitors.

Let’s hope the antitrust probe doesn’t distract Google from its mission. Millions of consumers will be hurt.

From the Coach’s Corner, here’s this portal’s case study for success on Google:

As publisher of this business-news portal, I haven’t always been enchanted with Google.

By way of explanation, for nine years, I wrote Biz Coach columns for Web sites of three media companies – Belo, Fisher Communications and Cox. With such a history, I hoped it would give me a competitive edge when I launched this portal in July, 2009. I worked hard to develop what I believed were contemporary thought-leadership – business-coaching columns with proven solutions for maximum profits – coupled with business-news videos. I thought a business-news portal with good content would be successful.

But success was slow in achieving Internet prominence using biz coach, as the key words. I was impatient with all the search engines, especially Google because it was No. 1.

In addition, for publishers, its AdSense program proved to be impotent – users in most demographics stopped clicking on ads, which meant little revenue for Web sites. Google has responded with improvements and regularly emails tips to publishers. (Disclosure: This portal uses Google AdSense in addition to other advertising.)

Meantime, I didn’t invest funds in Internet marketing, nor did I worry about Google’s vaunted search-advertising business. I focused solely on best practices for organic growth and content. I did my best to translate my portal’s analytics into strategic actions to meet users’ needs.

This meant I added thought-leadership opinions from select contributors. I studied the authoritative trades for insights. Using high page-ranked search-engine press release sites, I wrote 150 press releases to promote columns. I encouraged links from prestigious Web sites, but refused to let weak sites link to this portal.

Finally, this portal cracked the top 10 in search results after seven long months.

By Feb. 2010, emerging competition from social media sites proved to be formidable for all the search engines. Increasingly, millennials relied on social media for information. That meant search engines were forced to incorporate presence in social-media as a decisive factor in ranking Web sites. After writing about the trend, I realized that I wasn’t capitalizing on it. I started to include my shameless self-promotion of all content for my niche on the three dominant social networks – LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.

Not to be gauche, admittedly, I smiled as The Biz Coach crept to No. 3 and soon jumped into first place on all the search engines, including Google with its more than 40 million search results for the key words, biz coach. I intend to keep smiling.

Thank you for visiting. I look forward to more of your visits.

Resource links for Internet success:

Google Insights – 23 Key Questions about Your Web Site

Web Publishers: Are You Optimized for Bing?

10 Tips to Optimize Your Web Site for Higher Sales

Google Speaks Out About Frequency vs. Value

Startup Toolkit – How to Make a Hit on the Internet

In SEO, Your Site’s Download Speed Matters to Google

“Your brand is created out of customer contact and the experience your customers have of you.”

-Stelios Haji-Ioannou

 

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Columnist Terry Corbell is also a business-performance consultant and profit professional. Click here to see his management services (many are available online). For a complimentary chat about your business situation or to schedule Terry Corbell as a speaker, why don’t you contact him today?

 

Google Insights – 23 Key Questions about Your Web Site

 

Google has unveiled more vital information about what it considers important for Web site ranking. Without divulging proprietary information, Google emphasized it’s all about value – quality for Internet users. In other words, there are no shortcuts for success.

There’s been a lot of buzz about Google’s 2011 algorithm update called Panda, and how it’s affected Internet sites. Many sites have benefited and others haven’t fared well in their Google ranking. Well, Google has made it clear what it considers important. It issued a formal statement on May 6.

“Our advice for publishers continues to be to focus on delivering the best possible user experience on your websites and not to focus too much on what they think are Google’s current ranking algorithms or signals,” wrote Amit Singhal on the Google Webmaster Central blog.

“Some publishers have fixated on our prior Panda algorithm change, but Panda was just one of roughly 500 search improvements we expect to roll out to search this year,” the spokesperson explained.  In fact, since we launched Panda, we’ve rolled out over a dozen additional tweaks to our ranking algorithms, and some sites have incorrectly assumed that changes in their rankings were related to Panda.”

“Search is a complicated and evolving art and science, so rather than focusing on specific algorithmic tweaks, we encourage you to focus on delivering the best possible experience for users,” wrote Mr. Singhal.

“Our site quality algorithms are aimed at helping people find ‘high-quality’ sites by reducing the rankings of low-quality content,” he added. “The recent ‘Panda’ change tackles the difficult task of algorithmically assessing website quality.”

He indicated that Web site publishers will benefit by evaluating its page or article quality by asking specific questions – the type of questions that Google asks to analyze a site’s quality.

Here are the questions:

1. Would you trust the information presented in this article?

2. Is this article written by an expert or enthusiast who knows the topic well, or is it more shallow in nature?

3. Does the site have duplicate, overlapping, or redundant articles on the same or similar topics with slightly different keyword variations?

4. Would you be comfortable giving your credit card information to this site?

5. Does this article have spelling, stylistic, or factual errors?

6. Are the topics driven by genuine interests of readers of the site, or does the site generate content by attempting to guess what might rank well in search engines?

7. Does the article provide original content or information, original reporting, original research, or original analysis?

8. Does the page provide substantial value when compared to other pages in search results?

9. How much quality control is done on content?

10. Does the article describe both sides of a story?

11. Is the site a recognized authority on its topic?

12. Is the content mass-produced by or outsourced to a large number of creators, or spread across a large network of sites, so that individual pages or sites don’t get as much attention or care?

13. Was the article edited well, or does it appear sloppy or hastily produced?

14. For a health related query, would you trust information from this site?

15. Would you recognize this site as an authoritative source when mentioned by name?

16. Does this article provide a complete or comprehensive description of the topic?

17. Does this article contain insightful analysis or interesting information that is beyond obvious?

18. Is this the sort of page you’d want to bookmark, share with a friend, or recommend?

19. Does this article have an excessive amount of ads that distract from or interfere with the main content?

20. Would you expect to see this article in a printed magazine, encyclopedia or book?

21. Are the articles short, unsubstantial, or otherwise lacking in helpful specifics?

22. Are the pages produced with great care and attention to detail vs. less attention to detail?

23. Would users complain when they see pages from this site?

“We’ve been hearing from many of you that you want more guidance on what you can do to improve your rankings on Google, particularly if you think you’ve been impacted by the Panda update,” added Mr. Singhal. “We encourage you to keep questions like the ones above in mind as you focus on developing high-quality content rather than trying to optimize for any particular Google algorithm.”

Mr. Singhal also indicated a site’s rankings can be affected by “low-quality content” or “low-quality pages” on just some portions of a site.

“We’re continuing to work on additional algorithmic iterations to help webmasters operating high-quality sites get more traffic from search,” he added. “As you continue to improve your sites, rather than focusing on one particular algorithmic tweak, we encourage you to ask yourself the same sorts of questions we ask when looking at the big picture.”

My sense about Google’s announcement: Amen. It confirms that value counts. There are no shortcuts for ranking success – only high quality content. These are salient questions to ask about your site.

From the Coach’s Corner, if you want to stay current with Google’s webmaster updates, see: Webmaster Help Forum – Google. 

“A prudent question is one-half of wisdom.”
- Francis Bacon

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Columnist Terry Corbell is a business-performance consultant and profit professional.  Click here to see his management services (many are available online). For a complimentary chat about your business situation or to schedule Terry Corbell as a speaker, why don’t you contact him today?  

 

How CRM, SEO Strategies Can Lead to Higher Sales

 

True, there are shortcuts you can take for Internet prominence en route to higher sales. However, implementing those dubious tools will ultimately land you in Internet oblivion. Such shortcuts aren’t worth the risk.

The first smart move: It’s important to lay a strong marketing foundation – build your brand equity brick by brick. A rushed job might lead to success, but it’s only temporary. Marketing is a never-ending process. It’s a race – a marathon – not a dash or sprint.

What’s the secret to success? Well, that requires an easy-to-understand set of answers, but it’s laborious to implement for strong results.

Let’s start with strong customer-relationship management. No, not merely CRM software, but it’s important to develop stronger skills in literally managing your customers. In essence, that means developing strong-enough relationships to persuade customers to become effective online brand ambassadors to write reviews for you.

Online reviews have become important. Many sites have become successful partially thanks to customer reviews.  Here are 20 User Review Web sites Critical to Small Business. More on reviews later.

Further, strategies with a full complement of SEO – search engine optimization tools – work best.

Much has been written and said about Google’s Panda, which is making SEO more difficult for many businesses. The algorithm upgrade in Feb. 2011 was designed to provide better relevant search results by filtering out content farms and other Web sites of questionable value. But Panda has its critics. Publisher and author Morris Rosenthal depends heavily on the Internet for his survival, and Panda has hurt him badly prompting him to air his criticisms.

Panda appears to allow online reviews to influence its search results.

However, you won’t believe this: One problem with Panda is that a business with poor reviews gets a high Google ranking – yes, even negative consumer reviews are counted as positive results. One would think the opposite would be true.

But let’s congratulate Google on its efforts. It will get better once Google understands the issue.

There has been countless buzz about SEO – search engine optimization, key words and meta tags. It’s mostly accurate. Ultimately, businesses will succeed on the Internet by generating links and search results via marketing.

But to maximize sales, it’s a complex matter.

You have to generate clicks from quality Web sites to yours. Google assumes your Web site is getting a vote from another site when the Internet user visits your site. The more visits you get from quality sites, the more important your site becomes.

You also need to garner telephone calls and attract customers to your place of business for facetime. That means you have to become an orchestra leader of sorts by synchronizing all your marketing efforts.

Historically, you’ve had to start with the right drivers to your Web site, including the right message on the right mediums whether it be TV, radio, newspapers or Internet press releases and ads.

But since early 2010, there have been salient changes:

• In Feb. 2010, I wrote social networking, Facebook and Twitter, had joined the ranks of drivers. For professionals, LinkedIn works well, too. The right social strategies represent 50 percent of the factors implemented by Bing, Yahoo and Google.
• The following month, I wrote: Surprise? Facebook and Twitter Increase Odds for Sales.
• Best- practices in customer service began taking on increasing importance with social media, hence this column: Invigorate Sales with Customer Retention, Referral Strategies.
• During the debate over relevant content, I wrote: Google Speaks Out About Frequency vs. Value. Fresh content was deemed important, but if a publisher has to decide between frequency vs. quality, quality was the most-important. Nonetheless, I advised publishing valuable content but do it as often as possible.
• It’s important to evaluate your social media efforts, as I indicated in this column: Is Your Social Media Working? Here’s How.

Incidentally, in a key word search for your site, don’t be surprised if your social-media mentions – such as LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter pages – rank higher than your site. They will likely continue to have a higher page rank until your site improves in page rank. But that’s OK, if you do it right. It’s all about brand equity.

Good luck! Master these ideas. Your CRM and SEO strategies will lead to higher sales.

From the Coach’s Corner, here’s a tip about the value of a press release to promote your successes.

Pick a press-release company with a strong Google page rank. Every time you achieve a goal, write a good press release. Not only will you generate productive direct links but others will blog or tweet about your press release. That’s when the multiplier effect kicks in. For every good press release, you’ll generate 15-20 times the number of links.

One of my favorite examples:

In June of 2010, I wrote a column and press release quoting security guru Dr. Stan Stahl about the WIFI security issues at Starbucks. It generated about what I expected in visitors to my column. But months later, a blogger who was writing about Starbucks on Yahoo Finance spotted my press release and linked to it. In just a few hours, more than 20,000 of his Yahoo readers read my PR, and at least half of them visited the column on this Web site.

If you promote a lot and your marketing budget is tight, I’d recommend the free online press-release company, www.prlog.org.

It provides at least nine benefits:

1. You get to select 10 key words appropriate for your Web site
2. Your logo
3. Picture
4. As many as three live links
5. Your contact information
6. An archive which it calls “Press Room” – it shows up online with all your press releases
7. Your business profile which also links to your site
8. It provides user data – readers of your press releases
9. Within minutes of publishing a press release, it shows up on Bing Search as well as Bing News with your picture

The only downside is that the complementary press releases indicate they’re free and they contain Google ads. My sense is that the benefits outweigh such factors. Prlog’s $49 option doesn’t include the Google ads and you’re guaranteed to be inserted in Google News.

Note: Don’t use the same headline for your press release as you do in your blog. Otherwise, your article won’t be indexed – just your press release. Not all readers of your press releases will visit your Web site.

“The success of a page should be measured by one criteria: Does the visitor do what you want them to do?”

- Aaron Wall

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Columnist Terry Corbell is also a business-performance consultant and profit professional. Click here to see his management services (many are available online). For a complimentary chat about your business situation or to schedule Terry Corbell as a speaker, why don’t you contact him today?

Analyses: Are You Up-to-date to Capitalize on Major Web Events?

Updated – Feb. 27, 2011

 

February has been an eventful month for the Internet and marketers. Developments include the major players – Bing, Facebook, Google, and Twitter. Are you positioned to capitalize?

Here’s an update:

Google. Because it’s the longtime mega search engine, let’s consider Google first. Depending on which research firm you prefer, such as ComScore or The Nielsen Company, Google has about a 66 percent search market share. So whatever innovations it makes, it’s important.

Google has made a major change in how it ranks search results probably because it’s been under siege for being manipulated by certain Web sites.

The vaunted Google algorithms – its tools that determine how it ranks Web sites – have been fine-tuned to reward publishers of original content. Unique valuable information, if you will. That certainly includes in-depth thought leadership. Google says it involves about 12 percent of search queries. That might not sound like a lot, but 12 percent of millions and millions of search queries is meaningful.

You might recall numerous recent news stories: JC Penney, for example. The 2010 $17.8 billion retailer was chastised for dubious Internet practices. The retailer denied it approved spam-like behavior by its search-engine optimization company, SearchDex. But right after the story broke, SearchDex was fired.

Indeed, it must have been an eye-opener to the search giant to be labeled as the “tropical paradise for spammers and marketers” by a U.C. Berkeley scholar, Vivek Wadhwa. Hence, its algorithms upgrade.

Another search development: The Google Chrome Web browser now permits sites to prevent other sites from appearing in their results. (Its competitor, Blekko, does the same.)

So, Google has taken action to disallow Web sites, with little or no unique value, to dominate in search results.

My sense: The jury is still out on Google’s changes. In my sampling, I haven’t seen a positive noticeable change, especially in its key word results. Otherwise, if successful, Google is to be commended for dealing with a crisis confronting its quality of relevant search and its image. (Candidly, as a business-performance consultant, I’ve always advised clients on the importance of frequent, strong informative content.)

Bing – social search. Bing grew to a 13 percent market share at the start of this month. But it’s created new buzz by adding Facebook “likes” that allows Internet users to see the results that their friends like.

Here’s how it works: Pictures of your friends appear when you search after you connect with Bing with your Facebook account. You can disable it easily if you choose.

Bing now includes related Twitter features (so does Google).

My sense: The new development in the Bing-Facebook partnership is unique and it affects word-mouth-marketing – as businesspeople and consumers make buying decisions. This helps to make marketing fun. It’s also a reminder that content, search-engine optimization and social media should be synergized and orchestrated in your overall marketing.

This includes:

1. Listening to Internet-user preferences
2. Interacting with them to maximize your opportunities
3. Continually measuring results
4. Fine-tuning your approach

From the Coach’s Corner, Bing’s partnership with social-media giant Facebook should remind you to capitalize on Bing search.

Here are valuable tips: Get Busy With Bing Webmaster Tools.

Winners and Losers in Facebook’s Invasion of Google’s Turf

The world has been buzzing about Facebook’s achievement over Google. Harness the power of Facebook, but don’t let it make your Web site irrelevant. 

 

Sept. 13, 2010

It seems the world of marketers and net users – cyber citizens – have been buzzing about Facebook’s achievement over Google. That being the comScore data indicating cyber citizens spent more time on Facebook than the Google sites in August.

Cyber citizens spent an aggregate 41.1 million minutes on Facebook — 9.9 percent of their search-time. That beat the 39.8 million minutes, or 9.6 percent, on all of Google’s sites.

It’s noteworthy because Google, of course, is the leading search engine and has Google News, Buzz, Gmail and most-importantly, YouTube.

With more than 500 million cyber citizens, Facebook’s achievement was over-shadowed by the unveiling of Google Instant, an innovative new feature, which speeds the pace of search.

However, it would appear there are other questions to consider:

1. How does Bing profit as Facebook’s Web search partner?
2. What should businesses do in marketing on Facebook?
3. What precautions should businesses take to make certain their Web sites are not obliterated by Facebook?

Facebook’s time spent viewing can only mean increased search share for Bing vs. Google.In 2008, for $240 million, Microsoft bought 1.6 percent of Facebook. (You might wish to read Why Facebook May Be Inching toward An IPO.)

To maximize the marketing investment, businesses should consider establishing a Facebook page.

For a Facebook presence, Website Magazine’s Linc Wonham recently published some basic tips:

• Set goals for your Facebook page and monitor your progress
• Make your page interesting and informative, and update it as often as you can
• Promote your Facebook page on your business website and elsewhere; add a Find us on Facebook button wherever you can
• Reward your Facebook Fans with discounts and special promotions
• Create a Facebook user group that will be of interest/useful to your audience
• Join other Facebook user groups that pertain to your industry or niche
• Take advantage of Facebook’s tools; track your success with Facebook analytics

“Businesses can add a Facebook Place to their Facebook Page, or the two can be combined,” according to the Website writer. “The result of either option is getting your company’s address, map, phone number and other data in front of Facebook’s massive user network and giving them a way to share the information with friends.”

Mr. Wonham specifies the benefit: “The result of either option is getting your company’s address, map, phone number and other data in front of Facebook’s massive user network and giving them a way to share the information with friends.”

His tips for Facebook ads:

• Be as specific as possible with your keywords and demographic selections
• Use compelling images, titles and copy in your ads
• Make your ads as interactive and engaging as you can
• Frequently update and refresh the images and copy for better results
• Be vigilant about testing your ads and monitoring the results
• Bid high to get your ads approved faster by Facebook
• Start with CPC ads if you have a very small budget, otherwise CPM is the better bet
• Use Facebook Ads Manager, which can be downloaded and installed on Firefox

However, it’s important to take precautions – there are two dangers to Facebook marketing:

1. Facebook tends to supersede the importance of your Web site in the minds of cyber citizens.
2. The most successful companies achieving success on Facebook have done it by slashing prices and offering coupons.

For more on this angle, see this column: Aside from Privacy, Security Issues — Facebook is a Threat 2 Ways.

But always remember what drives cyber citizens to your Facebook page and Web site — broadcast advertising and strong PR – the ultimate keys to your marketing mix. To target credit-worthy or high net-worth customers, broadcast news is your best bet.

So, harness the power of Facebook, but don’t let it make your Web site irrelevant. You want to dialogue with consumers on your own turf. Use these measures and you’ll be a winner in Facebook’s invasion of Google’s Turf.

From the Coach’s Corner, in view of the news reports that burglars have used Facebook to target victims, syndicated columnist Kathy Kristof provides these privacy tips:  6 Things You Should Never Reveal on Facebook.

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