5 Ways to Ruin Your SEO

July 27th, 2010

SEO is a complicated game that requires dedication and finesse. To help you easily avoid falling into common traps that will ruin even the best SEO efforts, we’ve come up with a list of the five most common mistakes people make when developing their SEO strategies so you can learn what not to do. Search engines provide guidelines for crawling and ranking, and ignoring them is a surefire way to create a huge negative impact on your site’s status. Don’t let it happen to you.

Here are five common mistakes to avoid:

1. Not Giving Titles the Respect they Deserve

You should know that titles are incredibly important for effective SEO. When spiders crawl your page to assign rankings, the first thing they look at is your title. They then use your title to analyze your content and base your ranking on how well the two relate to each other. Think of your title as the topic of your page and write your content accordingly. Also, when writing your title, be sure to use your most important keyword at the beginning. The farther to the left your term appears on the page, the more weight it will carry for search engine spider assessments.

2. Using JavaScript

If there’s one thing search engine spiders can’t do, it is read JavaScript. When spiders come across a page with JavaScript, rather than doing their usual job of gathering and assessing information, they skip it. Using JavaScript for navigation is okay as long as you understand this and design your pages accordingly. We should also mention that this language barrier applies to Flash sites too. When using Flash, be sure to have an HTML version as well so the spiders can do their all-important work and get your ranking where you want it.

3. Copying Material

Ensuring that your content is unique and relevant is key in upping your rankings in search engines. According to Google, duplicate content is defined as “substantive blocks of content within or across domains that either completely match other content or are appreciably similar” and when found on websites, garners a quick penalization. Copying or plagiarizing content from other sites is not only un-ethical, it’s a rocky shortcut straight to the bottom of search engine rankings.

4. Overusing Keywords

Hours are spent researching and developing just the right words and phrases to use to optimize your search engine results, so why would you want to render them powerless? A lot of people believe that if one mention of your keyword is good, a million mentions must be a million times better. The fact is that this couldn’t be farther from the truth. Search engine spiders are smart little buggers and are quick to spot keyword abuse and penalize sites accordingly. Although it seems like filling a block of space with repeated keywords would garner a higher ranking, it’s the quickest way to ensure just the opposite.

5. Impatience

We would all love it if there were some magical “OPTIMIZE” button that would create the ideal content and design that would drive masses of traffic to our websites and push us to the top of every search engine. The thing is, magic buttons just don’t exist. SEO is an arduous, long-term process that relies on strategy as well as persistence. In order to optimize your site and get the SEO results you want, you need to prepare yourself for a long road of vigilant analysis and updates. The only way you’re going to make your way to top search engine ranking and website success is through diligent, hard work. Make the commitment; it’s totally worth it.

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Keep Track of SEO Success

July 20th, 2010

Monitoring your keyword performance, adjusting your terms and updating your site as necessary is a time-consuming game of strategy, but its payoff is well worth the effort. A successful SEO program is not only about bringing a lot of traffic to your website, it is about developing your content to be of optimal value to your end user. The better your site works for your clients, the better your chances are of generating organic traffic flow to your page. As you progressively optimize your site to work for your ideal consumers, your chances for reaching your goals will skyrocket.

You can get feedback on data such as pages visited, inbound links, daily traffic, average time on site and more using analytics tools like Google Analytics. That way you can monitor the traffic on your site, adjust your content to better serve the people visiting your pages and ultimately increase your site’s profitability.

A good way to monitor your SEO success is to look at your search engine rankings. You should regularly check your position, as well as that of your competitors, so that you can keep track of your progress. The information on your keyword performance, position changes and trends in your placement can be used to guide you in updating your keyword choices and further developing your content to increase your chances of attracting your ideal client base.

Analyzing bounce rates is another way to monitor your SEO efforts. Let’s say you sell hand-tied fishing lures. If users make their way to your site by entering “hand-tied fishing lure” into a search engine, but quickly leave before taking any action, the search engine will notice. It will identify your site as not being a good “hand-tied fishing lure” link and will send future traffic to your competitors. Looking at bounce rate data for your keywords and phrases will enable you to figure out what your users are looking for. Then you can optimize your site to create the best experience for your customers so that they stick around and take action rather than bouncing off of your page.

Creating the optimal site for your users is not an overnight job. Monitoring and updating your site is an ongoing process that requires work and strategy. But, if you put in the time and effort, you’ll receive amazing results.

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Build a Professional Business in Internet Marketing Webinar July 22, 2010

July 16th, 2010

Are you looking to start a home-based, white-collar business that will allow you to achieve personal and financial independence? Would you like to secure the assistance of a large franchise organization to get you started?

WSI can help.

Kevin Dean, WSI Owner and Franchisee, presents the Professional Business in Internet Marketing webinar. This one-hour webinar will provide you with examples of how, like Kevin, you can leverage the WSI systems daily to provide high-value Internet-based marketing solutions to help your clients achieve their business goals. Learn how in only four years Kevin moved from his 20-year corporate career as a semiconductor manufacturing executive to attaining financial independence in a recession-proof industry.

The Professional Business in Internet Marketing webinar will provide you with the inside information you need to start your new career in this high-growth, cutting-edge industry. Don’t miss this opportunity to learn first-hand how you can operate and make money with a WSI franchise.

Space is limited. Reserve your seat now!

WSI is the largest Internet marketing consulting company in the world with over 1,500 franchise offices in 87 countries. For 10 years, Entrepreneur.com has ranked WSI as the #1 franchise in the Internet Services category; WSI is proud of their record and it’s one from which you can learn.

Join us for this one-hour webinar on Thursday, July 22, 2010 at 12:00 PM PDT.

Please visit https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/770557240 to reserve your spot. You won’t want to miss this!

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Cool Tools for Keyword Research

July 13th, 2010

When it comes to online visibility for optimal Internet marketing, it’s vital that you use the right keywords so you can drive traffic to your website. A brilliant design and clever text are inconsequential if your potential customers and clients can’t find you. Using the right keywords and key phrases is a huge part of getting your search engine ranking higher. And, the higher your search engine ranking, the more likely people are to discover you and your services when they go to Google or Yahoo.

Seems simple enough. You know what your business is and you know what your services are, so making a list of proper keywords should be a snap, right? Think again. You might know all the proper rules for keywords, like using “buying” terms rather than research words, but coming up with an extensive list can be daunting and produce some severe writer’s block. Even if you can come up with plenty of keywords and phrases, how do you know they’re the ones being plugged into search engines by your potential customers?

No worries! There are a great deal of cool online tools that provide assistance, not only to generate plenty of keywords and phrases, but also to analyze them to ensure they’re the right ones to use to attract the clientele you want.

Here are some great resources for you to check out:

Wordtracker Free Keyword Suggestion Tool

http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/

Google Adwords External & Internal Keyword Tool

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Google Sets

http://labs.google.com/sets

Trellian Free Keyword Suggestion Tool

http://www.keyworddiscovery.com/search.html

Also, be sure to stay on top of your keyword list. As time goes on, your site and your customers’ needs will change. Make sure your keywords change with them. Monitor trends and update your list as necessary; stay current and stay relevant.

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Using Keywords to Hit Your Target Market

July 6th, 2010

Most people believe that the way to a successful Internet business is to attract as many visitors as possible to their website. They flood their web pages with keywords that lead to tons of hits, but they’re not necessarily focusing on visitors who are in the market for their particular product. Sure, it’s great to bring in 500 hits a day to your website, but if only 50 of them are from potential clients, that means 450 of those people probably hit the back button as soon as your page loaded. What’s the point of that?

When you’re choosing which keywords to use for search engine optimization, it’s good to think of it like fishing. For example, let’s say you’re fishing for fluke. If you cast a wide enough net in the right waters, you’ll get a fluke or two, but you’ll have to dig through a ton of other fish and sea life that you’re not interested in to get to them. However, if you do some research so that you can use the particular bait fluke like and fish in the specific spots where fluke hang out, you’ll be a lot more successful.

Here are some tips for identifying your target market and pinpointing which keywords will attract your ideal clients to your site:

  • Be specific. Rather than using “cooking classes,” use “baking classes for pastry chefs.”
  • Identify your niche. If you’re a singer, what kind of singer are you? Using “a wedding singer who specializes in 80s dance hits” will attract people looking for your particular services and not someone who wants to hire a new lead for their opera.
  • Use keywords that indicate “buying”. A person searching for “electrical” might be doing do-it-yourself research; a person searching for “electrician” is looking for a contractor.
  • Check the competition for ideas. What keywords do they use?
  • Don’t go overboard. Repetition of keywords and phrases comes off “spammy” and repels potential clients and search engines alike.
  • Do use your keywords in titles, links, meta tags and headlines. Give your clients and search engines a way to find and identify you and your specific services.

Be sure to use the proper keywords for your particular market and pay attention to your keyword density. Keyword density is the percentage of times your keyword or key phrases show up in comparison to the total number of words on your page.  Most expert recommendations hover between the 1-6% mark, but you don’t need to get overly formulaic about your keyword usage. Just use common sense and keep your target market in mind.

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WSI Seeking Candidates for Internet Marketing Services Business Ownership Thursday, July 8, 2010 12:00 Noon – 1:00 PM PDT

June 30th, 2010

If you’re interested in a white-collar home-based franchise business that will help you build financial independence, we can help!

Invest one hour to learn about Internet Marketing Services Business Ownership in this free Webinar that will give you an inside view on how a current WSI Franchisee owner (Kevin Dean) walked away from over 20 years as a semiconductor manufacturing executive in the corporate world, and in four short years, gained financial independence in a recession-proof industry.

Discover how Kevin successfully leverages WSI’s distinguished Internet marketing-based solutions every dau basis to help his clients reach their business goals.

Looking for a new career in a rapid growth industry? Then don’t miss this opportunity to see how a classic WSI franchise operates and makes its owner money.

WSI is the largest Internet marketing consulting firm in the world with over 1,500 franchise offices in 87 countries. For the last 10 years WSI has been ranked by Entrepreneur.com as the #1 franchise for the Internet Services industry category. That’s a record to be proud of, and one from which you can learn!

Space is limited, so reserve your Webinar seat right now at https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/533273529 and plan to join us!

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Using Fresh and Original Content for Effective SEO

June 29th, 2010

One of the best online strategies you’ll find is using fresh and original content for effective SEO results. Fresh content includes articles about topics that haven’t been run into the ground by other writers and that—even if they have been covered (which is likely)—haven’t been approached in the exact manner you plan to approach them.

For instance, the web is loaded with articles about effective SEO. But how many of them discuss the content of your articles as opposed to the layout, strategy, keywords or other aspects of the articles? Most deal with where to place keywords, how many keywords to use, what kind of keywords to use, or how to track keywords. Few deal with how important fresh and original content is to your SEO as this one does.

The problem with writing fresh content is deciding what to write about! Writer’s block often creeps in and hinders the creative process so severely that it’s a chore just to churn out 300 words, let alone original ones. Here are several ideas to use when writer’s block hits your writing muse. Use them as they are, or adapt them to better meet your needs. Write about…

• an article you wish you had written

• a blog post you found informative

• a blog post you found irritating

• a book you just read in your niche

• a current news story

• how you’ve organized your workspace

• how your readers can make your website better for themselves

• a lesson your target audience could learn from your favorite TV show

• links to resources you use every week

• a movie quote that inspires you

• a new client order you received

• one of your pet peeves as it relates to your niche

• one thing that motivates you every time

• a long-term client

• saving money as it relates to your niche

• something funny that happened on the way to the office

• the top 10 websites in your niche

• the top five articles you enjoy

• a trade show you participated in

• a website you would love to own

• the worst website design you’ve ever seen

• your latest project

Be sure to put your own spin on whatever topic you choose to write about. Your personality, your insights, your knowledge and ideas… that’s what will make any writing you do truly fresh and original. And that’s what will boost your SEO efforts more than anything else.

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Use SEO To Stand Out From The Crowd

June 22nd, 2010

There are millions of websites vying for attention. Regardless of your niche, you can use SEO to stand out from the crowd and attract visitors to your site in order to be successful. If you don’t use SEO, though, all your hard work may simply be a waste of time.

There are various elements which are critical to your online success. For instance, using long-tailed keywords to attract extra visitors that are specifically looking for what you have to offer. It’s vital that you don’t overstuff your site with keywords, however, because the search engines consider that spamming and it affects you negatively in search engine results.

Create inventive title tags using your main keywords. This is one of the most important aspects of website optimization and every site should use it. The ideal keyword density for a webpage is to use the keywords once in the title tag, once in the heading tag and once in each paragraph (depending on paragraph length).

Using a blog is one of the easiest ways to keep your site active and it enables you to use keywords more often which will boost your ranking. Valuable content is extremely important to your success and will help you attract more visitors while keeping your site from becoming stale.

There are many “black hat” techniques that should be avoided when you use SEO to stand out from the crowd. Their usage can destroy your site’s credibility. These include invisible text that can’t be seen against the background, tiny text, irrelevant links, using keywords in creator tags, etc.

Also ensure that all incoming links use simple keywords and phrases. Search engines prefer simple, appropriate links to your site and rank them higher. Reciprocal links to other relevant sites are useful since your keywords are utilized more often and that increases your rankings and lets more people know you exist.

It’s easy to get bogged down with technical details when you use SEO to stand out from the crowd. But keep your site easy for readers to understand and visitors to find. Doing so will keep them happy and keep them coming back for more of what you offer.

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Using a YouTube Channel for SEO

June 15th, 2010

A lot of people have YouTube accounts so they can keep track of videos they enjoy. Have you ever thought about using your YouTube channel for increasing your SEO? If you haven’t created a video for your business, it’s time to get busy.

Internet users search YouTube on a regular basis for all sorts of things. Take advantage of this trend and improve your business, sales, conversions and returns. You can record a video on just about anything related to your business. A welcome video, business tips, product information, or a thank you for visiting are just a few ideas to consider. Anything that will inform, entertain, instruct or inspire can make a good video.

Grab a camcorder (one may have even come with your computer), sit down and share some information. There are a number of freeware programs available that will let you polish your video when you’re finished. Use one to ensure your efforts are top-notch.

After you’ve made the video, sign in to YouTube and upload it to your account. Remember to use proper SEO techniques in your title, tags, and description when you’re setting it up. It will make a difference in how many people can find it.

A good description is key because it gives viewers an idea of what they’ll see. It’s important to use applicable keywords and choose your words carefully so you know you’re using terms your target market searches for.

YouTube comments will be helpful to your SEO efforts. Encourage comments on your videos by inviting friends and subscribers to view them. Many more people will visit your site when they read the comments left by others. Even negative comments can garner visits, so don’t worry if you get some. Once someone arrives at your site, it’s up to you to provide them with reason to stay.

Your website is a valuable tool for your business. While you can earn money online without one, it’s much more difficult, especially if you want to grow a business. Make it work for you by applying valid search engine optimization, one of those being starting and using a YouTube Channel for SEO.

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Don’t Let a Lack of Links Defeat Your SEO Efforts

June 8th, 2010

The purpose of search engine optimization (SEO) is to improve your site’s rankings in the search engines. If your website isn’t linked to relevant, high ranking sites, you can lose your rank in search engines and directories. A lack of links can defeat your SEO efforts.

When other sites link to yours, you’ll begin to notice your pages ranking higher in search engine results. Instead of your link showing as the 25th result, it will move up to 10, and then—if you’ve done your job well—up to five, or one! Links from relevant sites that rank high on their own are key to developing a strong search engine ranking for your website.

Once you realize this, the issue then becomes how to get links from such sites. Here are a few ideas to get you started:

Write an article. Submitting an original article to a site from which you’d like a link is a great SEO strategy. Not a reprint, but a unique, one-of-a-kind article that you submit only to that website. You’re not asking for anything from the webmaster. Instead, you’re offering something of value. Free.

If you can write even reasonably well, you can churn out an article in an hour or two. If not, you can hire a writer for less than the cost of a dinner out for two. Either way, it’s worth every penny, and then some, for the benefit of being published on a top quality site and having them link to your site in the resource box.

Write a blog post. Again, a great idea. And this one will get your link into Google quickly. Blogs are indexed almost immediately so if you’re wanting fast results, this may be your best bet.

Comment on a blog post. Visiting blogs that match your website’s topic area or niche and leaving appropriate, thoughtful comments on blog posts can gain a valid backlink for you in record time as well.

Be sure the blog you comment on is a do-follow blog. This means they have modified the blog to allow comments and removed the no-follow attribute. Do-follow blogs encourage more visitor participation and give you link credit for commenting, which helps your SEO results.

Another aspect of commenting on a blog post is to comment often. Some blogs have a little widget installed that ranks the top commentators each month. Being in such a list can double your backlink results with every post. What’s not to love about that?

These are just a few of the least expensive and simplest ways to build relevant links to your website so that you don’t let a lack of links defeat your SEO efforts.

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