Make Sure You Leverage Your Social Media Reviews

Is your business on social media?

Are customers leaving reviews?

What are you doing with those reviews? 

Every time someone searches for your business they’re not only looking for what you have to offer – but whether you are leaving a trail of satisfied customers. Those 5-Star reviews count not only when it comes to attracting new clients but Google actually shows them in your search rankings! 

Click Here and find out how to leverage your social media reviews!

Internet Marketing Secrets - What The World Wants!

What Does the World Want?

Last time we talked about making sure you narrow down what you do very, very well, and then to focus on that niche in your internet marketing. The next step is to make sure you know what the world wants when it comes to that niche. Think about it this way - you might sell the best upside down green widgets on the planet, but if nobody's typing "upside down green widgets" into Google, you're not going to get found. Instead, if people have a different way of searching - maybe they type "solve my widget problems"! If you know that, you can present your information in a way that meshes with search habits and also addresses their concerns in a very direct way. 

Learn more about focusing on what the world wants to rocket your internet marketing success upwards with this article.

What is Adwords? And Why Should You Use it?

Adwords is Paid Advertising on Google

Unlike organic search results, which are based on Google’s opinion of how well your website matches the terms of a search, Adwords results are paid ads. The ads appear above or to the right of Google’s organic search results, as well as on other sites.

You can pay per impression (when your ad shows up) or per click (when somebody clicks on the ad to visit your web page). For 90% of our clients, pay-per-click [PPC] is the best way to get a good return on your marketing investment. You only pay when someone clicks on your ads. Besides being instant (as soon as your campaign is approved, you can start showing up in search engine results), PPC ads can be limited to certain geographic areas, so you don’t pay to advertise to people who would never come to your business.


Who Should Use Adwords? 
Almost everybody! It used to be that if your organic search results were good enough, you could avoid PPC ads. However, the web has gotten so competitive that it really pays to have as many signposts as possible. So, the obvious reasons for PPC ads are that: (1) more ads means more potential listings on search results; and (2) more potential visitors to your site.

But there is another very important reason to consider a PPC campaign: to help narrowly define the keywords and phrases for your marketing efforts. Our experts can research what keywords are used to find products and services like yours, but the best specific data comes from the process of monitoring which keywords are actually driving visitors to your site. Ads and keywords that bring the most visitors are the ones you should be focusing your other digital marketing and SEO efforts on.

How Do We Do It? 
Our first step is determining what people are generally searching for when they’re looking for products or services like yours. One tool we use is the Adwords Keyword Planner. This allows us to enter a few primary description words (like “auto repair” or “family dentist”), and produce a lengthy list of what terms people in the US are actually typing into Google. We work through the first 50 or 100 of those terms to develop a set of words or phrases for your website.

Our second step is to review the list of core keywords with you. We determine the highly precise list to focus on and monitor for SEO. Depending on your account, that could mean as few as 3 keywords or as many as 20 or more. Together, we narrow down the longer list and come up with your “core” keywords. We use these in “4-in-1 optimization,” “link anchor text,” and in our social media and other efforts on your behalf. 
 
Our third step is to monitor your results. If you’re not using PPC ads, we monitor traffic to your site, the search terms used to find you, comments on your social media posts, blogs, and so forth. If you are using PPC ads, we monitor the click through rate so we know which keywords are getting the most interest. We constantly monitor your ad text to make sure it is compelling, truthful, and that it aligns with your market niche and your target clientele. The goal is to learn exactly what people are typing into Google to find you, and what to show them so make sure they know how wonderful you are. Even tiny changes in ad text can make a big difference, which is why we have to pay close attention to your results.

Our final step is actually not a single step, but a process. If keywords or phrases are getting you good numbers of visitors, we try to find more places to use them. We also try similar terms to see if we can get you even more good results! If some aren’t getting good results, we improve them ... if that doesn’t help, we remove them. Our SEO experts are never satisfied with “just good enough.” 

For truly meaningful results in today’s ultra-competitive marketplace, the process of test & measure, improve or remove should go on for as long as you stay in business. If you’re involved in the process, too, you can learn a TON about the mindset of your customers ... and that’s priceless!


So, What Should You Do? 
Even if your website frequently appears at or near the top of the organic search results, we recommend using a PPC campaign. It’s an important part of a well-balanced marketing plan, and the only way to get instant search results. Contact us today to discuss whether a PPC campaign* makes sense as a part of your marketing plan!


*By the way, there are PPC ads available on Facebook, Yahoo! and a variety of other platforms. Depending on your marketing goals and budget, many of these may be a good fit for your business!

I WANT A NEW WEBSITE!

I Want a New Website!

(And, oh yeah, I also want to be number on on Google…)

We actually get this kind of request fairly often, both here at SEO Ann Arbor, and at our sister company, Network Services Group.* New clients, or potential clients who’ve just decided they want a new website, often seem to emphasize things in a way that’s almost exactly opposite to the way we would emphasize them.

The typical conversation is all about the design and the bells and whistles these clients want on their new website – “I want a white background, be sure to use mauve and chartreuse on the sidebar, and I definitely want a slide show of photos on the home page where I can feature all the ideas I have about my services.” We spend an hour or two making sure we understand the outline of what they want so we can get our designers to rough out something for them. Then, usually near the end of the meeting when everybody’s standing up and maybe even halfway out the door, the new client says something like this: “oh, and by the way, people are going to find my new site on Google, right?”

Whoops, what did you just say?

Folks can’t be blamed for this approach. After all, we’re the website and SEO professionals, and the people we meet at work are usually very good at the things they do to make their own companies run. But we’re here to tell you (and explain why) you should take a few moments to understand why the conversation should probably be fundamentally the opposite of what we normally experience. It should go something like this:

“I Want to Be Number One on Google!”

“What’s it to going to take to get there?”

and…

“Do you think I need a new website as part of the process?”
Here’s why: the process of designing and building most websites is relatively simple, involves a limited amount of data, can usually be accomplished within 90 days or so, and usually has a specified, finite fee.

On the other hand, the best website in the world has very little chance of becoming prominent on Google without some serious SEO and other sustained efforts. The process of getting a client’s website or web pages to appear prominently in the search engines – and then at or near position one on Google – can be very, very complex, can involve many different kinds of effort, cannot be accomplished in a set period of time, and requires lots of work by professionals on a continuous basis (which means there’s a recurring monthly fee).

It's more than just a website, it's all about a "healthy online presence"!

Besides those points, it’s important to realize that simply getting to a top position in Google and the other search engines is not a guarantee that your business will get a lot of traffic, leads, or sales. At least two other things have to come together before you start seeing real results. The first is what we call a “healthy online presence.”** That means you have compelling content that truly appeals to the kinds of visitors you want, posted in relevant places, with a sufficient number of links back to that content from other website, blogs, and social media.

The second is that you have to have a way to engage your visitors so they either come back again, stay in touch with you, contact you, or actually make a purchase or use your services. That means a high percentage of people who visit your website should get real value out of the experience. Ideally, you give them a way to share their contact information so you can continue to add value to their lives. That way, when the time comes to meet with you or to actually buy your products, they’ll have already developed a good idea of how helpful you are.

One of the hardest jobs we have (and you can get a huge jump on your competition if you make this leap with us), is helping our clients learn to think like their customers, not just sometimes, but continuously and continually in the course of doing business. It’s so much easier to think about what we’re doing and what we offer (heck, we’re often guilty of it, too) than it is to truly think about what our customers need and how we can offer it in the most helpful manner possible. And yet, we have to engage in exactly that process to be effective on the internet. There are so many options for almost every idea, product, or service that if we fail to communicate in a truly customer friendly way, we’re almost guaranteed to lose out to our competition.

Don’t make this mistake! If we end up working together, or even if you end up finding other website or SEO professionals you prefer to work with, remember to do everything in your power to figure out what your ideal customers want, how they want it presented, and how you can provide those things better than anybody else.

So here’s a quick summary:

Ask not what it takes to build that new website you want. Instead, let’s sit down and figure out together what makes your ideal customer tick. We’ll determine what to offer, how to offer it, and figure out if there’s anything you’re not already doing that you could be doing to really hit it out of the park. We love success and we have a pretty good idea of how to get most businesses there. If that’s something we can work on with you and help you achieve your dream of a successful, growing business and an abundant life – which would mean you do well, we do well, and your customers are very well served – then you may be a good fit for our professional services!

There’s only one way to find out, and that’s to get hold of us. Don’t wait … we’re very busy and we’d hate to find out that you’re losing business to your competitors … who happened to call us first!  Feel free to email or call today at 877-815-6974. We promise not to yell at you if the first thing you say is “I Want a new website!”



*By the way, both companies design and build websites. Network Services Group (NSG) typically gets website requests from the companies that are already using its I.T. services. Here at SEO Ann Arbor, people are more likely to call us specifically because they’ve heard we build websites and do extremely effective S.E.O. There’s a lot of crossover between our two companies because, basically, when you find people who are incredibly good at what they do, it makes sense to stick close to them.

**Actually, our friend Charly Caldwell said that before we did. Charly’s one of the pioneers of internet marketing and has helped us tremendously as we’ve built up our abilities to rock out success on the internet!

Katie Rocks it at SEO Ann Arbor!

We love the people who work at SEO Ann Arbor, and we love to tell you about them! Katie Kazda rocks it out every day, somehow balancing all her work - at the front desk, on the phone, and most importantly, helping to make your online presence more and more robust every day! She knows SEO (search engine optimization) takes consistent hard work over the long term, and she simply knows how to grind it out, day after day, with a smile on her face!

SEO Ann Arbor specializes in helping get the word out about businesses and what they do best. Whether it's website design, digital marketing, social media management, search engine optimization, or content that lives in the "sweet spot" between what you do best and what the world really, really wants, together with the great people who work at SEO Ann Arbor, we can help!

Do You Know How to Succeed on Yelp? We Do!

Are you struggling to retain visibility on Yelp?


Do you log into Yelp on a regular basis?


Are you finding it a challenge to get reviews?


Do you communicate effectively with your clients?


Knowing the best search engine marketing practices when it comes to Yelp is always a good tactic so you can be one step ahead of your competition. Many people have heard of Yelp, but don’t know what it takes to succeed there. We have the inside scoop, so we’re going to tell you almost everything we know ... and more!

According to Yelp.com, there are numerous things you can do to succeed, they include:

•     Track how many people view your business page. You can use the info gathered here to inform your decisions on things like “When is the best day of the week to run a special?”
•     Add photos, a detailed business description, up-to-date information, history, and specialties.
•     Recommend other businesses.
•     Put a badge and link to your Yelp listing on your website.
•     Put a "Find us on Yelp" sign in your place of business, on the front counter or window.
•     Include a link to your Yelp business listing in your email signature with the words, "Check us out on Yelp!"
•     Allows you to communicate with your customers.
•     Respond to positive and negative reviews.

All these things have been tested and proven, so you know you’re getting the good stuff from experts who use Yelp firsthand. If you start using Yelp on a regular basis and still don’t see a lot of activity on your analytics page, you may need to consult with an SEO expert or online marketing expert.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much time must I commit to my Yelp listing?


It depends on how much success you want! If you want to be successful, at least 1-2 hours weekly would be sufficient as a minimum.


Can I designate Yelp tasks to someone on my team?


Yes, you can designate Yelp tasks to someone on your team who is knowledgeable about your business. They will need to implement a description, history of the company, coupons, pictures, and more.


Is Yelp user-friendly?


Yes, Yelp is user-friendly. If you need help for any reason and can’t figure out the answer, Yelp has a business support section that answers common questions.


At SEO Ann Arbor, “We believe in helping people achieve their dream of a successful, growing business and an abundant life…starting today!” Feel free to give us a call to talk about what you’d like to achieve for your business. We’ll even take a quick look at your website and share our impressions without charging you anything. Even if you don't end up hiring us to do your search engine marketing for you, we like to think we can help educate and inform you. If your website is not on Page One of Google, contact us today!

GUARANTEED PLACEMENT ON GOOGLE

Why You Should Watch Out for Offers that Seem Too Good to be True!

We see this all the time - a customer gets an email or call from someone telling them that they searched Google and couldn't find their business.  They may even guarantee results or offer low fees to get you hundreds of links. 

So we get asked, how do we respond to that? Do we offer low fees for a guaranteed number of links? No. Do we guarantee our results? No. A far more important question is, why not?   

Let's start with the fact that you’re responding to an unsolicited email or call.  Who do you think you’re talking to on the other end of the line or through email? Someone who really knows SEO ... someone who has your best interests at heart? 

No, you are talking to a spammer - the same type of person who regularly fills up your inbox with spam and otherwise makes a nuisance of themselves, and now you want to trust them with your business? In most cases they haven't even bothered to do a Google search for you – they’re sending you a form letter that just assumes you aren't showing up in search engines. 

They've even called and emailed us and told us that we weren't listed in the search engines! Gee, you sure about that? When they actually checked they were like "Oh, you guys actually are in the SEO business." 

But why not give them a try and pay them $100 or some other ridiculously low amount of money? After all, you think, they promised to get me 200 links, and you guys at SEO Ann Arbor said that links are good, right?

Wrong. Relevant links from high quality sites are good. Hundreds of links from low quality and non-relevant sites ... not so much. Especially when the sites are all from Hong Kong, India, and other foreign countries. They didn't mention that part, did they?  Not surprising. After all, they're spammers. They probably also didn't mention that non-relevant links from low quality sites will not do you any good whatsoever, and might even be harmful to your rankings. Ever hear of Google hell? That’s where Google puts sites that try to cheat the system, and trust us, you’ll be far from page one if you wind up in Google hell.

While you’re pondering that, think about how hard it will be to get those hundreds of links removed, especially when most or all of them are in foreign countries. If you find yourself in that situation, you'll have a real mess on your hands. Also consider this ... if getting your website listed on page one of Google was really that easy, why wouldn't everyone pay some spammer $100 and do the same thing? Remember, there are only ten available spots on page one, so it just can't be that simple. 

But they guaranteed me results!  What about that?  Let us let you in on a little secret. It’s not that hard to get listed on page one of Google for insignificant, non-competitive keywords, keywords that people hardly ever search for, keywords that won’t generate a significant amount of traffic for you. Who cares if you’re on page one for terms that nobody’s searching for?  So much for that guarantee.

Just in case we haven’t made enough of an impact yet, here are a few examples. Let’s say you own a business called Bob's Insect Removal. Wouldn't it be great if when people searched Google for “Bob's insect removal,” your site would show up on the first page?  Of course it would, but it turns out that that isn't too hard. After all, if people search Google for the name of your business, they already know who you are. It's great that those people can find you, but you aren't going to grow your business that way.  To get a wider audience, you need to attract new people – those who don't already know about you, but who are searching for the types of products and services you offer.

Ok, you think, what you’re saying makes sense, but they guaranteed me results for "insect removal" which is one of the services we offer. What about that? We agree, that sounds pretty good ... unless you find out that no one is searching for "insect removal."  Instead, it turns out, they may be searching for things like "pest control" or "exterminator" and other terms that actually generate traffic. Not all keywords are created equal, so if you find yourself on page one for terms that no one is searching for, it won’t help you much.   

A reputable SEO company will spend time researching your keywords to make sure that you’re focusing on high quality keywords that will actually generate results.  Getting listed on page one for high quality keywords would be something to crow about, but it’s going to take a lot of effort, and will likely cost far more than $100.  Remember, if it was that easy, everyone would be doing it!  Sometimes you really do get what you pay for.

Check adwords keyword tool

Once you've developed your list of key words and phrases and gotten the big picture with Google Trends, you're ready to find out what the millions of internet users are actually searching for in your subject area. One of the best ways to do that is to use the Keyword Tool offered by Google's Adwords. Because it's offered by Google, and because Google is by far the most-used search engine, you get up to the minute results showing every imaginable search term. It even includes mis-spellings and words you may not have thought of. Most importantly, the results show what people are actually searching for rather than what you may think they're searching for. This is truly helpful ... we think it's better to be rich than to be right.

Right?

For most topics, the keyword tool will give you a huge list (around 800 results). You can sort the list by most searched, local searches (this is the one we use most often, because it shows what people in the US are searching for), and several other very helpful criteria. It's easy to download this list into Excel or some other data management format to help you collate the results.

So how are you ever going to optimize your site for 800 words and phrases? You're not. Almost nobody has the resources to optimize that many terms, and the good news is that most of us will do very well by focusing on the top ten or so words and phrases (more about that in a future post).

By the way, opening an Adwords account is free. Just Google "Adwords." You'll find the Adwords site in the organic listings at this address: https://accounts.google.com/  Pretty neat, huh?

At this point you should have a better idea of which keywords to use, based on the amount of traffic that each one is generating.  Another tool to evaluate what keywords and phrases you should use is the Traffic Estimator within Google Adwords.  We'll talk more about that in a future post.

I should be doing this today!

I was talking to a client the other day who had just seen a presentation about SEO. He had been vaguely aware of SEO before, but the presentation really hit home. He was all excited afterward and had a bunch of questions for me, which I was more than happy to answer.

After answering his questions and explaining a bit more about how it all worked, he told me his big realization was that “I should be doing this today. If I don’t, some of my competitors will, meaning that I lose business.”

Exactly. So, are you on page one of Google? If not, then SEO is something that you should be doing today… Questions? SEO Ann Arbor can help!

What is Search Engine Optimization?

And Why Your Ann Arbor Business Should Care ... A LOT!

Basically, Search Engine Optimization [SEO] is the art of making sure that when people search for products and services related to your business, your site appears on or near the first page of results.

The Basics of Search Engine Optimization

There are a few basics that have a big effect on where your site shows up. For example, every business owner in Ann Arbor should have a good HTML programmer review their website to make sure the source code is efficient and that there are no obstacles to prevent the search engine robots [sometimes called “spiders”] from finding all the key information on the site. You should also do a careful review of what words people are typing into Google and the other search engines to find businesses like yours. There are many free tools that you can use to make sure your website contains the most important keywords, but an SEO expert will have access to some tools you may not, and will also be able to better analyze the data to help you decide which keywords to focus on. You will also want to find ways to get as many related websites as possible to link back to your site.

101 Tips That Will Rocket You to Page One of Google!

There are countless smaller tasks that can add up to big results for your website. SEO Ann Arbor uses a punch list of 101 action items that we apply to our clients’ sites, and if you have enough time, energy, and money, you could probably do the same. Not all of the action items are strictly SEO-related – we also focus on making sure visitors to our clients’ websites find something that makes them want to do business with our clients. A few of the areas used by SEO and web-marketing experts like SEO Ann Arbor are:

• Include location information on the home page
• Include descriptions of potential client categories
• Include a prominent call to action
• Employ social media to get more links and more traffic to your site
• Write a blog to get current information in front of your web visitors

You Need to Get to Page One

SEO is critical for every serious business in Ann Arbor, and everywhere people search the Internet. Did you know that according to some experts, 95% of real traffic to websites comes from the results on page one of search engine results? That means if your business appears on page two, you are competing for the leftover 5% of potential customers. If this seems extreme, think about the last few times you searched for a product or service on the Internet. Like most of us, you probably went to Google and typed in a word or words that you thought would get you to the businesses you wanted. When you found one or two likely listings, did you keep scanning through the results? We don’t either, and most people who use search engines (which is almost everybody these days) click through to the first likely listing they see.
Here’s one last example to show you how powerful being atop the search listings can be. After we did a complete search engine optimization on one of our Ann Arbor client’s websites, a new customer called to arrange a visit to their business. At their first meeting, the customer said, “We were looking for your service, and when we searched Google, your website came up number one. I guess God meant for us to do business together.”
You can’t buy that kind of marketing power ... actually, you can. Our client had us use every resource at our disposal to make sure their website was number one on Google, and it created the most powerful impression possible on that particular customer. Three years later, 90% of that client’s business comes from search engine results. They tell us it was the best marketing money they have ever spent.

The One Minute Google Expert

By Nick Suino - SEO Ann arbor

As featured in the Oxford Property Management Newsletter

Business owners need to know the key concepts of marketing online. They are critical to making good decisions about how to spend your marketing dollars.
Google — if you understand nothing else about the internet, understand Google! Google is the largest search engine, and 80% of the world uses it to search for information, shopping, or leisure activities. When you search using Google, using a single word or a complete sentence, the results are often divided into three parts: organic search, Google Local, and sponsored search.
Organic search results appear on the left side of your browser window, occupying about four-fifths of the visual real estate. These are websites and documents that closely match your search. If you typed "commercial real estate ann arbor" you’d see a list of real estate and management companies. Websites closer to the top have more content related to your search.
Google Local results appear in the same results list. They usually contain the address of the business and a small balloon that corresponds to a location on a map. If you include geographic information in your search, Google provides results for that area.
Sponsored search results appear on the right side of and sometimes above the organic search results. These are ads businesses pay for in Google’s Adwords program. Th ey show up based on the match between your search terms and the advertiser’s keywords. When you click on an ad, the business is charged a fee from one cent to a few dollars. Next month, we’ll explain a bit about how you can improve your website’s position in the organic search results!

What is Web Marketing?

By Nick Suino - SEO Ann arbor

Marketing on the internet is often called web marketing, online marketing, webvertising, or e-marketing. Promoting your product, service, or company on the internet is web marketing, and this usually includes not only websites and social mediea, but also email campaigns and other wireless media. Some web marketing companies can also assist you with obtaining and managing digital customer data.
A good web marketing or internet marketing company can bring together the creative and technical sides of presenting your image in the Internet, providing solutions for designing and building websites, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), market analysis, and client targeting. Some of the forms of customer engagement involve the placement of your message in many different virtual locations, including banner ads, email, mobile advertising, and physical ads with ties to mobile or internet such as QR codes. Types of Internet marketing
Web marketing can be loosely divided into these categories:

• Display advertising: banner ads on third-party websites or blogs to lead viewers to your website.
• Search engine marketing (SEM): promoting your website by increasing its visibility in search engine results either by paying for placement or by optimizing your site for the search engines.
• Search engine optimization (SEO): improving the visibility of your website or web page by boosting its “organic” search results.
• Social media marketing: getting you traffic or visibility by using social media websites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
• Email marketing: marketing to a group of people using email.
• Referral marketing: promoting your product or service through word or mouth
• Affiliate marketing: your business rewards its affiliates for each visitor or customer sent to you through their website.
• Inbound marketing: creating and sharing content to bring viewers to your website or business

Advantages and limitations of Internet or Web Marketing

The ROMI (Return on Marketing Investment) can be substantially lower than older, traditional forms of advertising. You can reach a much wider audience for a tiny fraction of “old media” such as magazine ads, billboards, or television commercials. Buying on the internet can be much more convenient for the customer than traveling to your location. Because you can often get quick results for a new product or service, and get detailed measurements of who is visiting your site (and where they came from), marketing on the web allows you to adjust your advertising on the fly to account for consumer preferences.

Limitations

There are many products and services offered on the internet (sometimes called “the interweb” by techies) that turn out to be scams. Because it is easy to create a website, there may be a lower barrier to entry, so some unscrupulous business people target unwary consumers. This seems particularly true for websites offering “get rich quick” schemes or systems purported to help you make money on the internet itself. Be sure you look for reviews or check with your friends before you buy from an unknown business.

What Should you Look for When You Consider Marketing on the Web?

First, do your research and find a company you can trust. We’ve heard many stories from small businesses who have either hired a web marketing company overseas or else hired their sister-in-law or a college student to build their website and “market” them on the internet. Make sure your company is a professional one and that they have the knowledge needed to properly build you a website and promote it.
Many of our clients like the fact that we’re located in Ann Arbor. We serve all of Southeastern Michigan, and our clients say they like being able to pick up the phone and call us, or ask for a meeting and sit across the desk from us to talk about their marketing goals. As long as our business relationship with you continues, we NEVER give up on trying to get your website featured prominently in the search engines and making sure you get conversions (people contacting you to purchase your products or services).
We’d love to discuss your web marketing goals. Feel free to give us a call to talk about what you’d like to achieve for your business. We’ll even take a quick look at your website and share our impressions without charging you anything. Even if you don't end up hiring us to do your web marketing for you, we like to think we can help educate and inform you. If your website is not on Page One of Google, contact us today!

Five SEO Tips You Can’t Live Without!

First, find the best keywords!

There are two things that the average business website does that are NOT very helpful to SEO. First, they choose words that only a person who already knows about their business would type into Google. For example, a local heating a cooling business we know optimized their site for the word “mechanical.” Now, an educated person might know that “XYZ Mechanical” would repair and install home furnaces, but someone whose furnace just quit will probably type in “furnace repair.” You have to make that kind of calculation for all your keywords.
Second, they choose keywords that very few people are searching for. If you have limited space on your site (and you SHOULD limit the number of words on your homepage, at least), then you want to focus on the keywords that most people are searching for. There are a number of good tools to find out, including the keyword tool on Google Adwords, and many free services offered by the search engines. Make sure the keywords you select are actually ones being commonly searched in your area of specialty.

Second, check your successful competitors!

Find out how many incoming links your competitors have, and their top five keywords. This will give you very specific guidance as to (1) how many links you’ll need to compete, and (2) what keywords they deemed important.
You’ll have to dig a little deeper to make this information meaning, however. The quality of incoming links is at least as important as the number, so you can use of the many free back link checkers to find out the Page Rank of your competitor’s incoming links.
You’ll also want to go further with your analysis of your competitor’s keywords. Review them just as you do your own – make sure they’re keywords that are widely searched, and figure out how to incorporate them into key phrases that generate sustained search interest.

Third, add great content!

This is the thing Google is trying to get you to do, anyway. You want to include actual content that inspires people to visit your site and share it with others. If you aren’t a great writer, find someone who is. In the large context of your advertising budget, freelance web writers are often very affordable. Here are some of the qualities of good online content: originality, usefulness, worth sharing, accuracy, detail, excitement. One way to learn more about shareable content is to visit one of the free sites that allows you to search for most shared articles. Study those articles and you’ll figure out some of the things they do that make them so shareable.

Fourth, make sure you optimize your page titles and meta description.

Page titles are those words that appear at the top of your browser window, usually in the gray or blue space above the URL (uniform resource locator). Make sure your page titles contain as many of your top keywords as possible while still reasonably indicating the purpose of the page. There’s a lot of evidence to suggest that Google only considers the first 66 characters of a page title, but many SEO experts still advise including as many words as you think are necessary to adequately describe the page.
The meta description is a phrase or list of keywords that aren’t seen by the human viewers of your site, but are read by the search engines. It’s sort of a “second chance” to point out what your page or site is all about. As part of what we call “four-in-one” keyword optimization, we like to be sure our most important keywords are included in the page title, meta description, headers, and text of our home page.

Fifth, be sure to use title and ALT attribute

The title attribute is included in the html of a link. Though the viewer won’t see it (unless she’s looking .. or actually, if he or she is blind. Browsers for the visually impaired often read the title and ALT attributes) it tells the search engines more about where they will end up if they click the link. Since this isn’t meant to be a technical article, we’ll just say here that the link will not only contain the URL of the destination page, but also a short description of it. Once again, this is a good place to employ keywords.
The ALT attribute is also for the search engines and those who use browsers or readers for the visually impaired. It gives more information about an image, which otherwise wouldn’t have any value to the search engine.
This is far from an exhaustive list of SEO methods. But it will help get you started. If you’re not inclined to do this kind of work for yourself, or if you’re too busy, give us a call at 877-815-6974 .
We’ll do a quick FREE evaluation of your website, and let you know if we can help get you to page one of Google!