Google Local Can Help You Gain Marketshare in Your Business Today

Small businesses need to wake up and get a website and market online.  Even if you don’t have a website or aren’t ready for one, you can still use online marketing to boost your business.  Google Local, also known as Google Maps, is a great way to get started.  Index your business with Google, that way someone in your neighborhood looking for your products and services can easily find you. –  WST

By:  Laura Lake, About.com

When people search for the specialty that your business represents, do you show up in Google? Have you tried Googling either products that you sell or services that you offer lately? Did you show up on the front page of local search within Google? If not, you won’t want to miss this tip.

Filed under: Uncategorized, Google, google local, google maps, marketing tips, Online Marketing, register with google, Search Engine Optimization, small business websites

Writing Content for Small Businesses Online

Search taxonomy is becoming very important in search engine optimization.  Using a recent study, Bill goes into detail on the types of searches that are done and how to implement them in your content.  Knowing how users find your business and what they are looking for can help with ad and SEO campaigns.  Marketing is a key factor for any online business.   If you are starting out or need to revamp your website check out our new Solopreneur Package. –  WST

By: Bill Slawski

There are creative ways that a small business may use to help visitors find them online, engage those visitors and customers, and keep them coming back. The Small Business Administration has a article that describes some ways that many businesses can use to promote their business in 15 Foolproof Ideas for Promoting Your Company. The article offers ideas like holding contests, or publishing a newsletter, offering demonstrations and seminars and more. Many of those ideas can work well in an online setting.

When you create content for an ecommerce site, it also can help to think about more than just how you may present the products or goods that you offer on your pages. Many ecommerce sites on the web simply break products own into categories, and provide very little beyond a listing of those products and brief descriptions about them.

Understanding how people may search for what you have to offer can be really important, especially if you hope to have visitors find you through search engines. It can be a key to finding creative ways to bring people to your site who might be interested in what you have to offer.

Different Intents Behind Searches

It can be helpful to understand that when people search, they often have different purposes in mind. When someone from one of the major search engines writes about these different purposes, they often refer to them as “user intent.”

Some people may want to learn about a topic, or to buy something, or to learn how to do something for free. Since many visitors may arrive at a web site through a search engine, it helps to know about different types of queries that a searcher may use to find your site. So, an important way of thinking about queries is to consider the intent behind them.

A convenient way of breaking down queries into different types is described in a paper written by search engineer Andrei Broder, who classifies the intent behind queries down into navigational, transactional, and informational, in the paper A taxonomy of web search (pdf)

Informational Queries – The web is much more than just a commercial space, filled with marketing and commerce. It’s a medium where people can communicate with each other, share ideas, learn about a world of topics, find and offer advice, and explore other countries and cultures and communities. Many people who do go online with some kind of commercial intent do so to save money rather than spend it, often looking for ways to do things themselves. People who may want to buy something may be looking for information that can help them make an informed decision before they decide to make a purchase.

Navigational Queries – A navigational query is one in which a searcher is attempting to find a specific page or site that they have visited before, or have assumed likely exists on the Web. For example, if I want to visit the pages of the American Psychological Association, I might type [apa] into a search box, hoping that the top search result might be the home page for the organization. The major commercial search engines have even been trying to help people who perform navigation type queries by attempting to associate certain query terms with sites that may be ideal destinations for those queries. The search engines may even offer additional links under a listing for those sites, referred to as site links or quicklinks, which may help lead searchers to pages within a site that they may be interested in ending up at on those sites.

Transactional Queries – Transactional queries are ones in which a searcher may not have a specific site in mind, but they want to perform or complete some kind of task online, such as accessing and searching a database about a topic, being entertained interactively, downloading a video, making a purchase, or interacting with the site or others in some way. If you offer goods or services to consumers or to other businesses, you’ll want to be found by the people who are looking for what you have to offer and want to interact with you.

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SPECIAL: Solopreneur Package – Jump Start Your Business
The Web Success Team’s Solopreneur Package includes a 5-page custom direct response website fully branded and optimized for Search Engines with 6-months of online marketing, social networking, blogging, article marketing and much more. Lock in your special pricing now before the rate goes up! Contact the Web Success Team at 818-222-5643 or email bob@websuccessteam.com. To your web success!

Filed under: Content, Online Branding, Online Marketing, SEO, SEM, Keywords, Direct Response W, Search Engine Optimization, SEO Expert, Web Content, branding, Branding and Marketing, Keywords, Online Branding, picking keywords, Search Engine Optimization, search queries, search taxonomy, seo, small business content, small business websites, writing web content

Advanced Search Operators and SEO

For those with an understanding of search engine optimization (SEO) and its importance, here is a comprehensive explanation of a new “SEO” called search engine operators.  These operators allow you to see specific details about your keywords and can help with researching new and more effective keywords. – WST

By: Ivan Strouchliak

In this article we’ll share with you a couple of cool hacks to use in search engine optimization called advanced search engine operators. To use this article you must already be aware of your core keywords (the main keywords for which you’re trying to rank). If you’re not sure which keywords you want to target, use the Google Keyword Tool or Wordtracker for some research.

Using Advanced Search Operators – Intitle, Inurl, Inanchor

First, go ahead and open Google.com or Yahoo.com in a new window. Just follow the steps in the article and you’ll learn some new, helpful tricks. Use both to compare their usefulness.

NOTE: Keep in mind that Google doesn’t share much data with SEOs, while Yahoo is more open. Google is well aware that mainly SEOs use the commands described below, so it limits results on purpose. Take this information with a grain of salt.

Intitle: Command

intitle:keyword

intitle:”keyword phrase”

With this command, you will only see search results with your keyword phrase in title. The title tag is a crucial SEO element, and all pages targeted to a particular key phrase have targeted keywords in the title tag. With this command you can estimate the approximate number of competitors fighting over a specific keyword. Search both Google and Yahoo to get an average number.

As an example, a regular Google search for mortgage broker gives 7,440,000 results. A search with intitle:”mortgage broker” gives 251,000 results, which is a better representation of your competitors.

Search in Yahoo with this command gives 1,250,000 results. Yahoo’s results tend to be three to five times bigger than Google’s.

Inurl: Command

inurl:keyword

This command shows websites that have your keyword phrase in their URL. The keyword may be located in the domain name, as with http://www.examplekeyword.com, or in the filename (URL), as with http://www.example/yourkeyword.com.

For example, if you search with inurl:”mortgage broker” you’ll see 102,000 results for sites that have “mortgage broker” in their URL. Chances are, the sites on the first three pages are your competitors.

Yahoo shows 408,000 results.

Inanchor: Command

inanchor:keyword

inanchor:”keyword phrase”

inanchor:keyword1 inanchor:keyword2 inanchor:keyword3

With this command you can see websites that have a specific keyword in anchor text pointing to the domain. Usually this means that the site did link building with this keyword phrase. Google shows 7,020,000 results for inanchor:mortgage inanchor:broker, which is not likely to be a real number, while a search for “mortgage broker” gives 7,450,000 results. As mentioned above, Google distorts this data.

Yahoo is a little bit better when it comes to the inanchor command. Its index shows 118,000,000 for “mortgage broker” and 982,000 results for inanchor:mortgage inanchor:broker, which is a more accurate. You’ll notice that Google’s search count is a lot smaller than Yahoo’s, so don’t trust those numbers too much.

The inanchor command is very important, but unfortunately search engines don’t share this information with SEOs for obvious reasons. Linkscape and Majestic SEO keep their own indexes of the web and allow SEOs to see the anchor text of links. You need to pay for both, but it’s worth it.

Also, keep in mind that Google is now putting a lot of weight on domain trust, rather than anchor text. Anchor text is still an important factor, but domain trust is just as important.

Combining Intitle and Inanchor Commands

By combining two commands you can get results that list real SEO savvy competitors. When you use this command you will see results that have your keywords both in the page title and as anchor text for incoming links. . . Again, take the information with a grain of salt and use both Google and Yahoo. Let’s see the results.

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SPECIAL: Solopreneur Package – Jump Start Your Business
The Web Success Team’s Solopreneur Package includes a 5-page custom direct response website fully branded and optimized for Search Engines with 6-months of online marketing, social networking, blogging, article marketing and much more. Lock in your special pricing now before the rate goes up! Contact the Web Success Team at 818-222-5643 or email bob@websuccessteam.com. To your web success!

Filed under: Google, Search Engine Optimization, SEO Expert, Web Analytics, Yahoo, google search operators, inanchor commands, intitle commands, inurl commands, more analytics, search engine operators, Search Engine Optimization, seo, seo hacks

When Should You Fire Your Website Designer

A website can be an effective marketing hub, driving traffic and sales to your business.  However, there is much more to a website than a fancy design.  Search engine optimization and marketing are key points for any successful website as well as a comprehensive design that is well branded and easy to use.  You need all of the above to maintain a successful business online. Many web designers do not know how to market the beautiful websites they create.  So be careful when shopping for a web designer. – WST

By Ajay Prasad

Your online business is not a wild crazy idea, but a source of your income. Trust the right people to design your website. Your 17 year old nephew may be able to create your website or you can get a free one from several services…they might even be kind of pretty. In my research and experience, less than 2% of businesses that have websites have planted the seeds to online success. Many of them are your competitors.

The problem is web designers’ focus on the technical aspects of the site. They don’t have a clue how to build a website that makes you a ton of money, drives floods of traffic, and gets you top placement on search engines.

Why Do You Have a Website?

The reason you have a website for your business, no matter what business you are in, is you want to rake in bundles of cash. Maybe not now, but definitely later, it should be bringing returns on your investment.

Your Website is Like Your Business

Make sure that your web designer owns a successful online business and knows how to run it.

Your sole purpose in having a website should be to use it as a marketing and communications tool. It is not there to be pretty. It should not be there to win awards. It is there to make you money. Even if you have a better product or service than your competitor, the one who attracts more prospects and customers – wins! Being the best at marketing is all that matters.

Online Marketing Is Completely Different Than Marketing Offline

All of the tools, techniques, communication, etc. in the online world are different than those offline. A very common mistake is to think because it works offline you can just put it on your website! It’s important to realize the reader of offline copy thinks and processes information in a different way than someone reading online copy. What works offline may be a complete flop online.

They are two different worlds. For example, online marketing REQUIRES you to know how to get your site ranked high, very high, in the search engines like Google and Yahoo….so you routinely appear on the first page for the optimal search terms for your business.

Of course, this assumes you know how to find the optimal words for your business, your marketplace, your niche, etc. Just so you know, the “include all words” strategy has proven to be a total failure.

And, most designers and businesses do not know that SEO (search engine optimization) is not SEM (search engine marketing). If you do one and not the other, you will probably be very disappointed with your results.

Studies have shown that you need to be on the first page of search engine results to get enough people coming to your site. SEO and SEM are not optional for online success – they are mandatory!

Increase your ROI: Only Work with People Who Know Website and Online Marketing

Filed under: Direct Response Marketing, Drive Traffic, Search Engine Optimization, Uncategorized, Web Design, Web Development, increase roi, Online Marketing, online offline marketing difference, Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, seo and sem, successful business online, Web Design, web design company, web designer, Web Success, Web Success Team

Why Get Press Release Writing Services?

by Sunita Biddu

For most SEO service providers, press release writing services are some of the most neglected of all that they offer. It’s not something that people often get, with many preferring more ‘mainstream’ services like link building. But press releases can be just as effective as any article, and can tie in just as well to your online marketing strategy – if you know how to use it, that is.

What’s a Press Release?

Press releases are essentially short informative articles. Think of your typical marketing articles, make them a bit shorter, add a dash of journalistic writing styles and you’d get a pretty good idea of what press releases look and sound like.

Despite the differences in style, press releases are very similar to good old articles when it comes to using them for marketing. Both are great mediums for informing people about something, both can be used as a context for link building and – most importantly – both can be used to beef up the content on your site.

Not Your Regular SEO Copywriting

Style is the fundamental difference between regular article writing and real press release writing services. There’s a particular template and feel to be achieved for press releases, and that can only be had if the writer knows what he or she is doing. That said, you have to be a little pickier with the professional SEO company you’re working with if you want to incorporate press releases in your SEO.

If you’re the type who regularly requests for sample writing from potential service providers, don’t stop now. Ask specifically for samples from the company’s previous press release writing projects so that you can see how its writers work with a real case. That’s because some companies don’t make much of a distinction between regular marketing articles and press release writing, and that could spell a wasted investment on your part.

When you’re considering press release writing services from different professional SEO companies, look at the style and feel of the writing first. A well-written press release should use concise language, a mildly impersonal tone and more journalistic than usual style. Most professional SEO companies who have been in the business for some time should know how to pull it off for you.

Making the Most of Press Releases

Press releases are also used in a slightly different way than regular marketing articles, and you have to make sure that this is something your service provider knows about. Directories are commonly the default destination for marketing articles; after all, that’s the main purpose of the directories. A press release, meanwhile, would look awkward and out of place in a regular article directory.

Most of the time, your press releases would better fit the context of a news site or a news aggregator that really deals with news from all over the Internet. Remember, part of the rationale behind a press release is to make your company look important and newsworthy. Getting your press release on an actual news site only strengthens that impression.

There are a good number of differences between regular article marketing and promotion with the use of press releases. Quiz your service provider about the difference to see if you can expect quality output from them.

Article source: http://www.articlebots.com

TeamWork Builds Web Success

The Web Success Team specializes in building and marketing direct response websites that take full advantage of the latest developments on the Internet. The Team has an arsenal of effective web strategies, online tools and proven techniques to promote your products and services. And we’ll show you ways to increase the amount of qualified traffic to your site through the expanding “social web” and how to convert visitors into buyers at a high rate of return.

Your website can become an effective marketing hub for your business. To learn more about the power of Direct Response Web Marketing, log on to Why Direct Response.

Contact the Team today for a complimentary consultation at Contact Us or email Bob Speyer at bob@websuccessteam.com. To your web success!

Filed under: Online Marketing, SEO, SEM, Keywords, Direct Response W, Press Releases, Online Marketing, press release, professional seo, professional writing services, Search Engine Optimization, seo, seo services, writing a press release, writing services

One of the Best SEO Articles I Have Read

Hi readers,

This blog is dedicated to the business of online marketing and web success. We aim share quality and informative articles to help our readers surf through the maze of information. This article by By: Ivan Strouchliak covers all Search Engine Optimization aspects. He includes excellent information for both newbies and seasoned web developers and SEOs. Please read on.

Search Engine Optimization, Website Development and Search Engine Spiders
Do you have some experience with HTML and web site development, but haven’t really gotten your feet wet with search engine optimization? Keep reading, because you’re in luck. In this article we’ll cover some of the more important aspects of SEO, focusing on the changes that you should find easiest to make to your web site. After you read this, you should know where to concentrate your efforts now and going forward.

Filed under: Direct Response Marketing, Online Advertising and Marketing, Online Marketing, SEO, SEM, Keywords, Direct Response W, Organic Search Results, Organic Searches, Search Engine Optimization, SEO Expert, Web Development, Web Success, Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Spiders, Web Site Development, Web Success, Web Success Team

Matt Cutts answers Google questions: – Which is more important: search engine optimization (SEO) or end user optimization?

Filed under: Search Engine Optimization, Google, Matt Cutts, Search Engine Optimization

Why Use an SEO Expert?

A website is like a finely tuned engine. It should be built to generate maximum exposure on search engines, drive traffic to the site and make its owner money. It’s not enough to put gas in the tank (content, graphics, links, etc.) and expect it to take off!

You are not a (web) mechanic and not expected to know all the nuances of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). But to get the most mileage out of your website you need to have a SEO expert fine tune it. So instead of seeing red with SEO, the Web Success Team’s optimization strategies and techniques will help put your site in traffic’s fast lane.

For example, not many website owners know about the “nofollow” tag. But it is important for your website optimization. There are certain pages, content or links you do not want the search engine spiders “to follow.” It is intended to reduce the effectiveness of certain types of search engine spam, thereby improving the quality of search engine results. By putting the “nofollow” tag in the code will tell the Google spiders not to follow your designations.

There are other SEO tags (i.e. meta, title, anchor and description tags) that need to be built into the coding for the search engine “bots” to find. These tags are taken from the keyword rich content in your website. When done correctly and according the Google guidelines, it will help get your page ranked and make it easier for people searching for your products and services to find your site. Remember the more traffic, the more viewers, the more leads and sales.

The devil may be in the details of SEO but optimization should be in your website and be an important part of your marketing efforts. The Web Success Team can tailor an SEO package to your website and your budget. Contact the TEAM today for a site review at 818-222-5643 or bob@websuccessteam.com. We’ll have you seeing black in no time!

Filed under: Drive Traffic, Search Engine Optimization, SEO Expert, Website, Website Optimization, Search Engine Optimization, SEO Expert, Web Success, Web Success Team

What is SEO?

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via “natural” (“Search Engine Optimization” or “algorithmic”) search results. Usually, the earlier a site is presented in the search results, or the higher it “ranks”, the more searchers will visit that site. SEO can also target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, and industry-specific vertical search engines.

Since Google is the most popular search engine, many webmasters have become eager to influence their website’s Google rankings. An industry of consultants has arisen to help websites raise their rankings on Google and on other search engines. This field, called search engine optimization, attempts to discern patterns in search engine listings, and then develop a methodology for improving rankings.

• Algorithms/ Google Guidelines (change in Google search results on how it tags your website) — In mathematics, computing, linguistics, and related disciplines, an algorithm is a definite list of well-defined instructions for completing a task; that given an initial state, will proceed through a well-defined series of successive states, eventually terminating in an end-state. The transition from one state to the next is not necessarily deterministic; some algorithms, known as probabilistic algorithms, incorporate randomness.

• Organic Search Results — Google indexes and caches HTML and 13 other file types, which include PDF, Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, Flash SWF, plain text files, among others to return search results. Users customize the search engine somewhat. They can set a default language, use “SafeSearch” filtering technology (which is on ‘moderate’ setting by default), and set the number of results shown on each page.

• Web Traffic — SEO increases web visitor counts by ranking very high in the results of searches using the most appropriate keywords describing the content of your site — along with a myriad of optimizing techniques and strategies. Driving web traffic is not just technical, nor copywriting, nor links, nor just search engine submission, but an intricate blend of over a hundred variables into the fabric of a website.

• Page Rank — Page Rank is a link analysis algorithm that assigns a numerical weighting to each element of a hyperlinked set of documents, such as the World Wide Web, with the purpose of “measuring” its relative importance within the set. The algorithm may be applied to any collection of entities with reciprocal quotations and references.

These tips are meant to be used as a guideline to improve traffic to your site, Increase your conversion rates, help turn visitors into buyers, and keep you ahead of the competition. Turning to a web marketer can ultimately save you time and money and increase your success online. The Web Success Team has many proven marketing strategies and techniques that can be viewed at http://www.websuccessteam.com. The Team would be happy to discuss your web marketing needs with a complimentary consultation and web marketing assessment of your current site. Simply mention this article when contacting Bob@websuccessteam.com or call 818-222-5643 for an estimate. To your online business success!

Filed under: Algorithms, Organic Search Results, Organic Searches, Search Engine Optimization, Uncategorized, Web Traffic, Keywords, Organic Search Results, Page Rank, Search Engine Optimization, Site Content, Web Traffic