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November 6, 2013 by

LinkedIn SEO For Small Businesses

Thank you to Mike Kawula for the opportunity to contribute to his recent blog post about tips to help small businesses use LinkedIn.  There were some pretty interesting, and potentially helpful, tips in this post:

One thing I mentioned is how an optimized LinkedIn page (personal page or company page) can be optimized for the search engines.  Most people don’t know that it is possible for their respective LinkedIn pages (including a company’s product/service pages) to rank in the search engines for specific phrases.  Consider adding this strategy to your SEO efforts by using intelligent link building services to your LinkedIn page.

Feel free to contact me with your questions.

Filed Under: LinkedIn, SEO Tagged With: , , ,
November 5, 2013 by

Google Penguin Update Recovery Tips Podcast

The other day I was invited by JenningsWire/AnnieJenningsPR.com to be the guest on a podcast.  I was asked these kinds of questions regarding the recent Google update and what kind of Google Penguin update recovery tips may be useful to help businesses (both local and national) improve their search engine optimization (SEO) efforts:

  • Google had its Penguin 2.1 update in the beginning of October. What took place?
  • Why is link building still important? Shouldn’t people just be focused on social media now?
  • Some SEO professionals recommend to their clients that they build links in “tiers”. Why do you think this is the case?
  • What else is missing from most companies’ SEO efforts?
  • Researching keywords has changed recently as well. What recommendations do you offer that are unique and not commonly suggested?

You can listen to the podcast here or click the image below:

JenningsWire_Banner_LOGO_For_Bloggers_Jpg_Format_2013

 

The audio content is roughly 10 minutes long.  One of the topics we covered is about using intelligent link building in the upcoming months.  Click this link for more information to read a recent article about which types of links to consider for your new link building efforts.

Filed Under: Backlinks, link building, Podcasts, search engine marketing, SEO Tagged With: , , , ,
August 20, 2013 by

Reaching The Entire DFW Market

Some business owners throughout the Dallas Fort Worth region truly can serve the entire DFW market and even additional markets.  Unlike smaller services which can serve a realistic radius of 5-10 miles (or an even smaller radius), these businesses have a different vision such as:

  • there is enough profit margin in the transaction to justify the time and expense to travel to a small town across the DFW Metroplex and conduct business
  • the business is so unique, or perceived to be so specialized, that prospective customers across the region want the product, service or other benefits associated with the particular business
  • the business can ship products and/or already has representatives near to the smaller towns in DFW

One question is which types of businesses can justify marketing to a wider radius than just the regular small 5-10 mile radius which is common with many local businesses?  Another question is how to reach the smaller towns without having to become a member of each local chamber of commerce or placing ads in every newspaper or print publication across the region?

Types Of Businesses Which Qualify

Here is just a short list of the types of businesses which can pursue larger-radius marketing at the DFW level or even state-wide:

  • Corporate relocation services
  • Specialty legal and financial services
  • Industrial products
  • Higher end home improvement services (e.g. interior design, remodeling, etc.)
  • Custom home builders
  • Surveyors
  • Higher end home repair services (sewer line installation, etc.)
  • Etc.

How To Reach All Of DFW And Beyond

The first thing you need to know is that there are over 200 towns and cities which comprise the DFW region.  This is not just Dallas, Collin, Denton or Tarrant Counties either.  The neighboring counties also are included as there can be highly-qualified prospects in the small towns throughout every DFW county.

To narrow down the options of how to reach these people, and do so in a budget-sensitive manner you have a few options:

  • TV ads — obviously you must be hyper-vigilant about your budget and any tracking you can generate here
  • Same with radio ads
  • Classified ads are a great way to get exposure.  Be sure to optimize your ads to include the towns and cities which you serve; and be sure to play nice by the terms of service and posting rules for the various online classified ads you intend to use
  • Direct mail targeting specific neighborhoods in specific zip codes.  A good mailing list broker, who can highly target your prospects across the region, would be a very wise investment here
  • Paid press release distribution can be beneficial, especially if you mention specific towns in your content
  • Pay Per Click (AdWords) is a smart way to start.  You can target each specific town, but you want to send the traffic to optimized (town-specific) landing pages on your website.  Also, be sure that there is some sort of benefit easily visible to the prospective customer and a “call to action” (e.g. “call today” or “download this coupon”)
    • Note that there are other pay-per-click services besides Google AdWords, Yahoo’s advertising, and Bing’s advertising services.  Please contact us for these alternative options where your competition may not be advertising
  • For business-to-business (B2B) advertising in the Dallas Fort Worth region you may consider targeted advertising within LinkedIn
  • You can do demographic-based targeted advertising, especially town by town, in Facebook.  Just note that:
    • depending on the devices your prospects use, you may not get complete exposure on Facebook to those using mobile devices
    • you likely will have a higher conversion rate if you send the traffic to a page you control within Facebook.  Most Facebook users don’t like to be led automatically off of Facebook at first, so consider sending the traffic to Facebook page you control regularly which has consistently-updated benefit-laden content (coupons, discounts, helpful tips, entertaining videos, etc.)
  • Search Engine Optimization (SEO).  This is one of the trickier, but possibly soundest ways to get hyper-targeted prospects.  You can have created for you a multi-niche website (or a blog which resides alongside your website) which has town-specific optimized pages.  Ideally, the content on each of the 200+ towns is unique including article content, images, any embedded videos, etc.  Just so long as the combination of text/images/videos is unique you should be good, especially for phrases people type in which may have relatively low competition in the search engines.

The latter option (the blog/website with town-optimized pages) gives you additional benefit.  For example, here is a website which has town-optimized pages for varying business niches.  Here is one for a series of highly-related niches.  And here is a site with optimized pages for just one niche.

The benefits here are:

  • That you can control specific content for each town or city in which you want to market.  For example, if you want to give coupons in one town but not another you can do so
  • You have optimized pages to which you can send your pay per click (PPC) traffic such as traffic Google AdWords.  This increases the odds of gaining a higher “quality score” for your ads (assuming everything else is done right) and possibly saving money by reducing your per-click costs
  • The optimized page could rank well in the search engines for the times when the phrase is entered alongside the specific town (e.g. “your business Plano TX”)
  • You even go “deeper” than the specific towns.  For example, if you want to offer incentives to people in specific HOA’s or parts of a town then you can do so.

If you would help on any of these topics then you are welcome to contact us with your specific needs.  Thank you for your time and consideration to share this post.

Filed Under: AdWords, internet marketing, lead generation, local marketing, online marketing, pay per click, search engine marketing, SEO, small towns Tagged With: , , , , ,
June 3, 2013 by

Thoughts When You Want To Buy PR5 Backlinks

I have added an updated blog post on the various thoughts to consider, and questions to ask, when you are looking to buy PR5 backlinks or any other links on pages with “authority”.  There are many factors to increasing the odds of your ranking # 1 in the search engines, and they go far beyond backlinks.

Nonetheless, an intelligent strategy employed when you buy high PR links should be a consistently good move.  People have asked me why high authority links vary so widely in price, from both the permanent links as well as those which cost money each month.  Many of the reasons why are explained in this new service offered:

Your options include finding an already high-authority site in your niche and paying for the link.  Likewise, you can find a page with PR5 and put your link on that (with contextual content or without) for a monthly fee.  You also can own the PR5 page by purchasing a quality domain and configuring it to meet your audiences needs with valuable, unique content and then include the desired keyword in the anchor text of the link.

These pages can further be shared with social signals such as sharing the helpful page on Facebook or LinkedIn.  You even may want to include images and/or videos if you are allowed to place your own blog post on the site, assuming that the content will remain on the page with the PR5.

You also have to see how many links are pointing to the site where your link will show up.  If there are too few links then that page’s PR is on “shaky ground” and may lose authority during the next search engine update.

Again, there are several factors to consider when looking to buy a PR5 link.  Make sure that where your link ends up truly has authority and relevance in order to give the end user a quality experience.  Be sure to click the link above to find out more about we can help you with your specific needs and budget.

Filed Under: Backlinks, SEO Tagged With: , , , ,
May 30, 2013 by

SEO For Agencies

A marketing, advertising or online media agency representing large clients often are under the obligation to give their clients maximum exposure to first-time customers (or clients) or those who have not used the company’s products or services for a long time.  One such way is to help the clients their websites on top of the search engines.  While this is terrific, it may not be enough to help the clients ultimately get what they want:  more first-time customers or clients who are not already on their contact lists or social media pages.

Here are several things for any agency to consider when a client wants to “rank on the top of the search engines”:

  • SEO, by its nature, is a game of “leap frog”.  By being able to help the client outrank the current website at the top position, it is probable that one day someone may leap frog your client.  Many clients think that once they reach the # 1 position that they will stay there indefinitely.  This, obviously, is a myth and needs to be explained at the outset in order to manage expectations
  • The search engines, especially Google, are forever changing their algorithms to give THEIR users maximum experience.  Remember that each major search engine is, or is a part of, a publicly-traded company… and they have to make quarterly revenue figures!  They do this by taking “market share” away from other web properties so that the new fan of the search engine, ultimately, will one day start clicking the ads which generate revenues for the search engine.  This means that the client must provide enough dollars AND help to the agency (content, tips, images, videos, etc.) which give the agency and any SEO outsourcing firm it uses the tools needed to keep the search engine’s users happy
  • You must spend the time up front to choose the RIGHT keyword phrases!!  This means really getting inside the heads of the prospective customers & clients to figure out what they type into the engines, in some respectable quantity each month; and then you need to know the phrases which are indicative of a searcher who is close to taking action today.  While it is great to rank for a generic phrase like “weight loss pills”, it also helps your client to rank for a phrase such as “weight loss pills free shipping” as it is indicative of someone looking to buy today.  Obviously, an agency’s clients need to experience a ROI as quickly as possible so helping them get new customers and clients as soon as possible makes sense
  • There are other factors such as helping the agency’s clients with their on-page SEO factors.  These include giving the search engines more confidence to promote your clients at the top of the page.  Such factors include having the keyword on the page (but not too frequently!), page loading speed, lowering the “bounce rate”, making sure that all links work properly, all page redirects are in order, there is a visible sitemap, there is a privacy policy and terms of service and/or disclaimer which is unique to the client, etc.
  • Would the client be happy seeing something other than their website rank at the top?  For example, if the client sees his/her company’s LinkedIn page rank # 1 – while the website ranks # 8 – for the targeted keyword phrase would this be satisfactory to the client?  If not, what about optimized videos or a Chamber of Commerce directory listing or the client’s BBB page?  The reason why this discussion is needed with the client up front is that the search engines – to keep their users happy – are to favor websites which already have built-in “authority”.  All things being equal, the search engine’s end user would not have a problem (thus, preventing “defection” to another search engine and clicking on THEIR ads) if he/she sees legitimate and recognized authority sites ranking near the top for their desired phrases.  By promoting such pages which mention your client, it is possible to see those pages skyrocket faster because:
    • most of those properties have tons of quality links pointing to them
    • are mobile-friendly
    • have good page-loading times
    • tend to have lower “bounce rates”
    • etc.

All of this is a lot to consider rather than just promising a client that an agency will “rank his/her website at the top of the search engines”.  By taking the time to address these issues, both sides can have realistic expectations and then craft intelligent strategies to go after those goals.  Doing so, ultimately, should keep the client happy because everything is being done to help the client get more customers or clients through the search engines.

If you represent an agency and would like any help with your clients then you are encouraged to contact me.   Additionally, here are some of the possible link building services for agencies which might interest you.

Filed Under: agencies, SEO Tagged With: , , , ,
May 23, 2013 by

Next Best SEO – Presentation From McKinney Texas

I want to thank Debra Pope for the invitation to present to her Networking University members who attended the workshop. It took place in the area of McKinney and Allen Texas on May 14 2013.

During the presentation I covered what is known as “Next Best SEO”.  This is where business owners, who simply want the phone to ring with prospective customers or clients, have additional options besides just attempting to rank their respective websites in the search engines.  What many of the attendees didn’t realize is that their websites, or ones given them by a corporate office, may – in fact – be violating several of Google’s best practices.

We covered many of the ways in which a business can grow through the use of internet marketing, of which SEO (search engine optimization) and SEM (search engine marketing) were just a part.  We briefly reviewed other online marketing techniques such as video, pay-per-click, press releases, online classified ads, etc.

The attendees also learned that each major search engine is, or is part of, a publicly-traded company; and each wants to make ITS quarterly figures!  The goal, then, is to give each search engine’s users the best possible content in a way which is user-friendly, is authoritative and relevant.  One way to accomplish this is to rank OTHER web properties – in addition to the companies’ websites – in order to help get the phone to ring.  Several examples were included in the presentation.

Four (4) action steps were given at the end of the presentation to help any business begin to improve the chances of receiving a call, e-mail or walk-in from a first-time customer or client by SEO efforts on other web properties.  These were labeled also as “promote the promoters” strategies.

Feel free to download this PDF from the workshop:

If you are interested in getting help to promote your website or other web properties which mention you favorably (or otherwise give authority) then you are welcome to contact me.

Thank you again to everyone who attended!

Filed Under: internet marketing, lead generation, local marketing, online marketing, Presentations, search engine marketing, SEO, Tips, Training Tagged With: , , , , ,
May 9, 2013 by

May 14 2013 Workshop – SEO For Properties Other Than Your Website

Next week (May 14, 2013) I will be leading a portion of an afternoon-long workshop regarding a rather unique element of internet marketing.  The topic will cover search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM) for web properties OTHER than your own website!

Here is the breakdown of information:

  • Who:  Steve Smillie (Lynx Search Marketing) will be talking about your website’s design and your e-mail marketing + Mario Wilson (Market With Mario) will be talking about social media marketing.  I will talk about SEO for your other web properties (LinkedIn page, YouTube videos, etc.)
  • What:  3 events will take place that afternoon:
    • Luncheon
    • Workshop
    • After Hours Event
  • Where:  Holiday Inn Hotel & Suites (Fairview/McKinney).  3220 Craig Dr, McKinney, TX 75070.  Hotel desk phone is (469) 952-2044.  The hotel is on Craig Drive, south of Eldorado Parkway and west of Highway 75/Central Expressway
  • When:  Luncheon is 11:30 and the Workshops begin at 1:00
  • Why:  The common goal for each of the 3 speakers is to help any business owner or executive discover new ways to reach unknown (as of yet) prospects and convince them to contact the business for more information
  • How:  You can sign up at the event registration links here:
  • Price:  There is a fee for the lunch and another for the workshops.  All fees go to Networking University
  • Discount Codes:  Early1 is the code for the luncheon.  Member 1 is the code for the workshops.

Questions about all of the events are welcome to be directed to Debra through her contact information  at Networking-University.com.   You are welcome to contact me with questions about my portion of the workshop that afternoon.

Filed Under: Event, local marketing, SEO, Training, workshops
July 10, 2012 by

Getting More Out Of Any Chamber Of Commerce Membership

An Online Marketing Strategy To Leverage Your Local Chamber Of Commerce Membership

In the upcoming weeks I will post more about how any small business or medium-sized business owner or executive can boost his or her online presence through the business’ chamber of commerce membership.  Obviously, most of the benefits from any chamber membership comes from the “real world” participation:  weekly or monthly breakfasts, attending ribbon cuttings, going to quarterly or annual luncheons, and any opportunities to meet new people coming into the area through chamber events.  The ability to gain online marketing benefit, however, is not often as obvious.  In a moment you will learn one of the many strategies you can employ to get more online exposure through your chamber of commerce membership.

This blog entry helps three parties to benefit:

  • The prospective customer or client benefits because he or she is able to find products or services in the local market which have the possibility of meeting some sort of minimum standards
  • The business owner or executive wins because he or she feels that the membership paid to the local chamber of commerce is providing extra benefit above and beyond what was promised initially; and the business has the potential to grow through acquiring new customers or clients who never heard of the business previously nor were referred in any manner
  • The local chamber of commerce wins because its website gets more exposure and, therefore, can help the chamber gain more credibility and (passively) the possibility of attracting new members

First, you will want to know why your receiving calls about “SEO” services are so prevalent.  The underlying assumption is that by ranking at the top of search engines for a phrase which have some degree of consistent demand (number of searches each month) you will receive a good degree of pre-qualified prospects to a web PROPERTY.  Please note that this does not necessarily mean that the property must be your website.  It could be an online video on your YouTube channel, a press release, a local newspaper article about your business or a page on your website other than your home page.  Also note that ranking first does NOT mean an automatic number of new customers or clients.  This is because many elements have to be in place for someone to call or e-mail you out of the blue.  Such elements include price, guarantees, reviews, your promises, ease of finding contact information and several other factors.

Next, you have to know that the search engines want to give its users the very best possible results.  This is because each major search engine is part of of, or entirely, a publicly-traded company… and they need to meet analysts’ quarterly earnings expectations!  Therefore they want you to use that one site for ALL of your “who, what, when, where, why, how” questions.  This is because they know that out of every 100 queries made through their engine a certain number of people will click one of the paid ads where the search engine earns revenue from the advertisers.  Therefore, the more queries made through that particular engine equals more revenue for the parent company!  It is a “market share” game for the search engines, and therefore each engine always seeks out the best ways to return quality results so that you stay loyal to it and not “defect” to another search engine.

Remember that in any local market, the chamber of commerce’s website tends to be “authoritative” to these search engines.  One of the reasons why is that you cannot “spam” the chamber website very easily, if at all.  If a web property which you control appears on the chamber website then it likely had to go through some sort of human approval process (assuming a degree of human control) before it can be read by the search engine robots/spiders.  This type of control process lends itself to making each link on the chamber website more “trustworthy” than most other links in your local market, and you can begin to use this your advantage.

Finally, let’s cover a trend at the time of this blog post in the world of search engines. Many people now have easy access to “spammy” links in large volume.  What you want is to never have anything deemed spammy touching your website.  Ideally, the only links you want actually pointing to your website are located on web properties which the search engines respect.  These could include helpful videos on video-sharing sites, links to your site on press releases, local newspaper websites pointing to your home page, local directory websites, endorsements from happy customers on their social media properties, and similar types of links.  One of these types of quality links is a link from the local chamber of commerce’s website to your website.

Remember earlier that you read about ranking web PROPERTIES, not just your website’s home page.  Here is where your chamber of commerce membership begins to pay off in terms of helping you in the search engines.  Let’s take a look at an example for this website on the McKinneyChamber.com website, although it applies to anyone who has a membership in most chambers of commerce around the U.S.:

Internet Marketing Services McKinney Tes

Internet Marketing Services On The McKinney Texas Chamber Of Commerce Website

Note the website link (URL) which is http://www.mckinneychamber.com/Internet-Marketing-Services/MORETHANSEOCOM

Now take a look at the query in Google for “online marketing services McKinney TX”

McKinney Texas online marketing services

Chamber of commerce sub-folder (directory) appearing in the search engines

You can see that the sub-folder (directory) for “internet marketing services” on the McKinneyChamber.com website is ranking # 2 for this query.  The first three listings are paid ads, and the Chamber’s website is the second in the “organic” results.  Odds are that the Chamber has not spent a lot of time or money (if any!) promoting this specific sub-folder (directory), yet it still ranks near the top of the results.  This is just one of many examples of where a chamber of commerce’s website has authority in the search engines.

Even though my website’s listing is not directly showing in the results, the directory listing category page on the chamber website where my listing appears is ranking well.  This is fine to me as it gives authority to this website as well as anyone’s business who meets the Chamber’s minimum standards for appearing on that page.

In order for your business to gain more exposure, you can further boost your chamber page listing in the search engines with quality links.  For example, if you write a press release and are permitted to use up to three links then consider a strategy like this:

  • a link to your website’s home page (or another page on your site which best serves the interests of the press release’s readers)
  • one of your social media properties (Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, etc.)
  • the specific listing for your business on the chamber website

Please refrain from buying “spammy” links and sending them to your local chamber’s website as that will not benefit you in the long run (and maybe not even in the near term either!); and buying those links won’t help your fellow chamber members either as there likely will be no search engine reward for doing so.  Instead, whenever you have an opportunity to promote your page on the chamber website then do so.  Roughly 5-10% of your link building efforts can go to your business’ chamber website listing.  You can dedicate the other 90-95% to building quality links to your home page, “inner pages” on your website, articles, local directory listings, social media properties, videos and other helpful content you have produced for prospective customers and clients to find you.

I hope that this strategy begins to help you change how you look at your membership in any chamber of commerce around the country.  There are many more ways to leverage your membership in order to gain new customers or clients online.  If you cannot wait until the next blog post to discover these methods then you are welcome to contact me for more information; and we can discuss your strengths to increase the chances that your chamber membership will produce more customers through strategic online marketing.

Filed Under: chamber of commerce, internet marketing, local marketing, search engine marketing, SEO, Tips Tagged With: , , , ,
September 23, 2011 by

How A Good Search Engine Marketing Service In Dallas Will Help You

What A Search Engine Marketing Service In Dallas Should Explain To You

Many local Dallas area business owners complain that they get calls, direct mail postcards, and other solicitations from people “promising to rank them number 1 on the search engines.”  These owners often complain that they don’t believe any of what is said, and they stick with (what they believe is) “tried and true” marketing in local Dallas area magazines, chamber of commerce meetings, and TV spots.  Sadly, these owners are mistaken because the internet marketing solicitations they receive are not “apples to apples” and, therefore, the owners get denied good, quick education on what the search engines can do for them.  Here is a quick list of what a good search engine marketing service in Dallas can provide.

First, you want to make sure that a good Dallas search engine marketing firm explains to you the difference between search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM)!  Knowing the definitions of what you are being sold is the first step!

SEO refers to getting your website’s pages (not just your home page) to rank well in the search engines for keyword phrases which have actual quantified demand.  This latter part will be discussed in a moment.  SEM refers to getting your company’s name and/or message on the first page of the search engines for the same phrases, but this also includes getting your other web properties (e.g. business directory listings, YouTube channel or specific videos) to rank well in addition to getting listed on the Maps/Places listings.  SEM also includes the pay-per-click (PPC) placement for the same phrases.

The “takeaway” is that Search Engine Optimization is a sub-set of Search Engine Marketing, and many Dallas small business owners have not yet been properly educated on this difference.  No matter which Dallas online marketing firm or consultant you choose, please be sure to understand this difference!  Make sure that you are getting a good amount of value for your marketing budget.

Next, a good Dallas SEM service will help you with thorough keyword research.  This means getting you ranked for phrases which people actually type into the search engines with some sort of decent monthly volume (i.e. “Demand”).  From there, the firm should provide you with at least some form of figures on the competition against that demand (i.e. “Supply”).  This will help you to choose the specific phrases for which to optimize and create content; and you can further refine which phrases on which you will spend time and money to be indicative of a likely customer who will buy, join your e-mail newsletter, walk into your store, etc.

For example, if you are a plumber then you would love to rank # 1 in the search engines for “Dallas plumber”.  That phrase, however, might be too competitive for you to rank well based on your current content, number of people linking to you, and your budget.  Instead, you may wish to pursue ranking well for a phrase which still has some demand such as “24 hour plumber Dallas”.  If you rank well for that phrase, chances are that you are going to get some late night calls to fix the problem right away!

A good search engine marketing service in Dallas also will provide you with options so that you get a customized strategy.  For example, you may be sitting on some really helpful “how to” or “tips” videos you recorded last year but they are still applicable to the end viewer.  Your SEM firm can help you optimize your videos, your video channel, and the descriptions of your videos when you decide to upload them to a video-sharing site.  The SEM service can then help you optimize the video content for specific cities and towns and turn them into titles such as “Dallas Plumber Shows You How To Shut Off The Water In An Emergency.”

The next element of a helpful search engine marketing service in Dallas is to explain the benefits on-page and off-page optimization.  The “off page” component is the creation of helpful, quality content which is used to drive traffic to a web property you control (e.g. your home page, Facebook page, YouTube channel) to encourage the website visitor to take your desired “call to action” step.  You should be advised on how to change that destination page(s) including adding the keywords to the various “tags” on that destination page.  This is known as “on page SEO”.

Another trait of a helpful SEM firm is one which will help you understand that a website’s aesthetics (appearance) is NOT the “end all” when it comes to web marketing.  The appearance primarily affects what is known as “conversion rate”, and it is possible that a very pretty, fancy website actually could HURT your intended call to action.  This is because your DFW audience may expect content on a consistent basis.  If you invest most of your money on the website’s appearance, yet leave little for content generation then you may alienate your audience.

The “takeaway” is that you must get into the heads of your primary audiences, whether they are current customers or prospective customers.  Your SEM firm should explain ways in which you can better identify these elements if you are not yet familiar with them.

Should you decide to pursue online paid advertising, of which pay per click is only one method, then the Dallas SEM firm should explain your options.  For example, if you want to appeal to people in Frisco then you might consider a few things which a traditional SEO firm wouldn’t explain to you:

  • You have the ability on Google’s search network (ads which appear on Google.com) to restrict your ads to certain zip codes and a geographic radius around them
  • You can modify your ad to have the keyword in the ad
    • From there, you must send the “click traffic” to an optimized page for the same keyword.  If not, you risk incurring a form of “surcharge”
  • Google has a “display” or “content” network on which you can place your ads on websites OTHER than the Google.com search results
    • These can be targeted for specific keywords such as “Frisco TX” or specific websites which accept Google ads
  • You could skip the search engines entirely and pay for ads on sites which rank well in the search engines for the city-specific phrase
    • For example, you could buy ads on Frisco-online.com if you specifically want to target Frisco
  • You might be able to pay for certain advertising in your Google Places listing
  • You could pay for advertising on the Yahoo and Bing search engines, although their rules are slightly different than Google’s
  • You could pay for advertising on the lesser-used search engines, but the quality of traffic might be better.  This is a case-by-case basis

Finally, a good search engine marketing firm in Dallas will help you track results.  Whether it is something as basic of based on the improvement in your rankings all the way to advanced split-testing for landing pages, make sure that you get at least some form of measurable results.  In addition, do whatever you can to make sure that the SEM firm accounts for mobile phone usage in addition to desktop and laptop users.

I hope that all of these elements help you better choose a professional search engine marketing service in Dallas.  If you have any questions, or need clarification on anything presented, then you are welcome to contact me.  Thank you.

 

 

Filed Under: internet marketing, online marketing, search engine marketing, SEO Tagged With: , , , , ,
March 28, 2011 by

Why Backlinks Are Important To Dallas and Fort Worth Businesses

Having helped many businesses in the Dallas and Fort Worth area over the past 3 years, I have noticed that most of local businesses do not know what a “back link” is; and they have no idea why it is important.  With the recent Google updates (Feb/March 2011), the search engines are doing what they can to make sure that they give their users the results which they believe are the most:

  • Trustworthy
  • Authoritative
  • Relevant

Why do they do this?  Because the major search engines are all significant properties of publicly-traded companies… and they don’t want their users going anywhere else!!  They want you to trust each implicitly, so that at some point you will click on one of the ads somewhere in their network of web tools & properties.  This is how they can justify spending millions of dollars to develop algorithms and tools which they can give away for free.

With that understanding, and assuming that you know that “X” number of people use a tool like Google to search for a particular phrase (i.e. “keyword”) each month, then the next step is to play by their rules in order to be considered the most Trustworthy, Authoritative, and Relevant result which is given “free exposure” on the search engine results page (SERP).  This is how you get free, qualified traffic without having to buy it on their respective paid advertising networks (e.g. Google AdWords, etc.).

Since Google, at the time of this post, has the largest percentage of search engine users then focus on what it takes to “play nice” by their terms so that you increase the odds of getting first-page exposure for a keyword phrase which:

  • has quantifiable monthly number of searches (i.e. “demand”)
  • has relatively low competition for the phrase, on a number of levels (i.e. “supply”)
  • is indicative of someone who is ready to engage with your business or the business you are promoting (e.g. “Emergency City Plumber” is a phrase indicating that people need plumbing help and are probably willing to pay to solve the problem quickly!)

In traditional business terms, think of such a keyword phrase as an “under-served market.”  There is demand, and the supply meeting that demand is low and probably under-delivering.  The art of “keyword research” and “keyword competition analysis” comes into play here; and whenever you pay for those services you should be able to gain insights into your market which you never knew previously.

Assuming that you have found several keyword phrases which meet those parameters, then you need to optimize the content you control for those phrases.  The “content you control” could be:

  • all of the pages on your website
  • your YouTube channel
  • your Facebook business page
  • a profile on a local forum on which you participate
  • your LinkedIn profile
  • “web 2.0” pages you create
  • online press releases
  • business directory listings (e.g. Superpages.com free listings or a Dallas-specific online business directory)
  • etc.

These properties can be optimized for local keyword phrases (e.g. “Emergency City Plumber”) or for national (non-geographic-specific) keyword phrases if you sell nationally (e.g. “online plumbing supplies”).  Now that the online web property content you control is optimized “on page”, the next step is to optimize the “off page” content.

In the ideal scenario, every business and prospective customer would link to your web properties – with the keyword phrases you desire in the text of the link – from all sorts of places online.  You would love to have the Chamber of Commerce link to your main website with the keyword phrase of your choice in the text.  Then you would love to have 2000 people on a popular local (or national) forum posting your link on that forum plus dozens of related ones.  Finally, you would love to have thousands of people share links to your YouTube videos from Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and dozens of blogs.

If this were to happen then you, likely, would dominate the search engines for that keyword.  This is because you would have optimized content on the page to which thousands of people would be “endorsing” with their links to it.  Even better, instead of just “http://www. whatever…”, these people would be using your desired keywords in the actual text of the link (called “anchor text”).  This would be phenomenal!

Sadly, this isn’t going to happen for most businesses on either a local or national level.

This is the reason WHY you need back links.  Backlinking is a process of building links to your web content (the properties you control) which builds trust, authority, and relevance in the eyes of the search engine “robots” AS WELL AS the end user who may see the link.  The more “back links” which the search engines see pointing to your web properties, especially more than just the home page of your website, then the more “votes” you get.

But there is a catch.

It is not simply a matter of overall “votes”.  Like high school popularity, the algorithms also factor in the “quality” of those votes.  Like in high school, if you want to be deemed “popular” then it is better to get the “endorsement” of the 5 most popular kids than 50 endorsements from the lesser-popular kids.  What the search engines want to see, in addition to relevant content which is trustworthy, is:

  • Links to your web properties from a variety of types of content, not just social media
  • Links to your web properties from sources which the search engines ALREADY DEEM TRUSTWORTHY.  For example, a link from the Chamber of Commerce is good because the Chamber’s website (usually) is deemed a trustworthy site; and the search engines know that it is tough for someone to get a link on that site due to the need for human approval (endorsement) to put the link on the site
  • Content which has your link IN the main content, rather than just the sidebar or footer.  Even though sidebar & footer links are helpful, having a link in the main content is indicative of an outside side endorsing (voting for) you
  • Links from different I.P. addresses.  This reduces the likelihood that you set up a “link farm” to be self-serving.  It is deemed “untrustworthy” by the search engines when you have the majority of the links from one or two I.P. addresses… and they all point to a site on the same I.P. address!
  • A mixture of “do follow” and “no follow” tags
  • Links to promote your content on a staggered schedule.  This looks natural to the search engines, instead of 50 links appearing to your site every Monday morning!
  • Content, with your links in it, which appears to be shared freely by others because the content is good.  This is why “how to” and “tips” articles, videos, and podcasts get good rankings.  Free content that has your link in it, which is not riddled with “hard sell” messages (at least 90% good, useful content), and which gets passed around and posted on various blogs, social media pages, and forums is considered more “trustworthy and authoritative” then other types of content
  • Content, ideally, that is unique.  The search engines do what they can to reward the original creator of unique content, even if it later gets passed around
  • Content which has a mixture of straight URL’s (http://www.whatever.com) and those with the keyword phrases as the text for the link.  Again, that is called “anchor text”
  • Coming in the second half of 2011, content which appears to be shared, re-tweeted, or otherwise passed around on social media sites.  The sharing component makes the content with your links embedded in it deemed more “trustworthy”

As an example, let’s say that you are a pizza shop in North Dallas.  You have enough time to set up your website once, make one small blog post a week, and offer daily specials on Facebook and Twitter.  You also have a few links from the organizations for which you pay each month/year, such as the chamber of commerce and some sort of Texas pizza association (assuming there is such a thing!).

How on earth would you get links to help you beat out the competition for terms like “North Dallas pizza” and “North Dallas pizza restaurant”?!?

Assuming that your website, Google Places/Maps, Facebook business page, and YouTube channel are optimized properly then you will need backlinks to promote these pages.  These would come from a variety of places on the internet to help you take good content in your head, factual information about your business (e.g. address, phone number, and website), and currently-produced photos and videos which can be re-packaged to give value to the end user who sees your information for the first time.

There are dozens, if not hundreds, of places to put the following content somewhere online for your business, in this case the pizza restaurant:

  • Helpful information (e.g. learning the types of specialty pizzas)
  • Your current pizza coupons
  • Your business address and phone number on GPS, mobile, and 411 directories to help people find your restaurant
  • Photos from the restaurant’s most recent event
  • Videos derived from those photos
  • Reviews from happy customers to appear on your Google Places/Maps listing
  • Local business directories
  • Press releases

Virtually all of these third-party places online can contain a back link to a page your website.

Hopefully you can understand the value that a firm or service that offers intelligent backlinking for your business.  No matter whether you do it yourself or hire someone, be sure to develop links based on the factors I mentioned earlier.  Hopefully the links are made intelligently and any helpful content (e.g. tips and helpful videos) are quality enough to offer the viewers a reason to share the content.

Thank you for reading this far!  Good luck with your business and future links.

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