Last month we discussed onsite SEO which, if done right, goes about 40% of the way to overall optimization. The rest is accomplished by implementing a comprehensive linking strategy that includes Social Media (i.e., links to your Face book & LinkedIn profiles, YouTube videos, Yelp! and Google Places), Directories, and blogging, to name a few.
A recent study showed that for internet marketing effectiveness, SEO ranked highest (53%) compared to other devices such as e-mail/e-newsletter (39%) and pay-per-click (43%). Keep in mind the primary purpose of all this is to have your business listed at the top of the “organic” (i.e. non-pay) section of a Google, Bing or Yahoo! Search results page. In doing this, there are often conflicts between pleasing the search engine “bots” and your customers. For example the bots love inbound links, while discounting outbound links. Your customers, on the other hand, might be better served with some well-placed outbound links. A link from an .edu site may have the most value; and a link from an “authoritative” site, such as an association or government agency in your market is excellent. There are services, such as www.backlinkwatch.com/, www.conductor.com/, and http://www.link-assistant.com/ that will help improve your links.
Directories: You can “Increase Your Google Ranking By Quickly Getting Hundreds Of High Quality, 1-Way Links To Your Websites In Record Time”, according to http://directorysubmitter.imwishlist.com/ . Also get listed on DMOZ at http://www.dmoz.org/, and yahoo directory at http://dir.yahoo.com/ . You can find links to your competition with www.Link-assistant.com . Contact their “high value” links and ask them to link to you.
Other ideas for creating links: write “white papers” and online newsletters. Write an article: www.instantarticlewizard.com/ claims you can “create top-quality unique content from scratch in minutes even if you know nothing about the topic”, while http://thebestspinner.com/ and www.articlemarketingrobot.com/ allow you to “Quickly Generate Hundreds Of Unique Versions of Your Articles”. If that’s not enough, www.articleranks.com/ promises to syndicate your article to thousands of sites. For more ideas and information go to YouTube and search “SEO Tutorial”.
Measuring results: To determine if your efforts are paying off, sign up for Google Analytics. It will tell you:
1. Number of visits
2. Average number of pages viewed during a visit
3. Average time on site
4. New visitors
5. Full URL of the site from which the user came
6. The Keywords used in the search engine; and
7. “Conversions” i.e. the number of times the visitor did something on your site, like taking a survey, requesting info or buying something.
Once you have your strategy in mind, spend an hour a day on it and expect results in three to six months.
Join Keith and dozens of other Murrieta area business owners at a FREE monthly Business Roundtable, held 3rd Wednesdays from 7:30-8:30 AM at the Murrieta Public Library. To make a counseling appointment, send an e-mail to k.larson@cox.net . or visit the SCORE website at http://inlandempire.score.org/
