PPC Spending

Ok, by now and by looking at the title of this blog you’ve probably figured out that I am somewhat partial to SEO.  But I do think that PPC (Pay Per Click) whether it be Adwords, MSN Ad Center, or Yahoo’s PPC program, can be beneficial to your business…if used properly!  Its not hard to find a website owner who has lost a lot of money with PPC and in fact, you’ve probably lost a bit yourself!  So heres a couple quick tips for how NOT to get ripped of with PPC!

First of all, and probably most important is to track everything.  What is your Quality Score?  Do you even know?  What is your click through rate?  Do you even know how to find out?  I’ve run into way to many business owners that can’t answer those basic questions.  One way to prevent that is to install analytics, become familiar with it, and monitor it.  Now most people probably already have this covered, but if this is you, make this a priority!  I just talked to a business owner that had a monthly AdWords budget of $10,000.  But he had no way to track his ROI!  There was no way tot ell if this was working or not!  So he quit adwords.  When he quit, his opt-ins dropped by 70%!  Now I would say that was a fairly decent adwords campaign, but again, he had no way of knowing that!  So watching your conversions, paying attention to your tracking can save you a whole lot of money.  While that guy had a decent campaign going there, there was no way to know if he could have been doing better, so he just quit!

Second, and this is important for new business owners and if you are using PPC for Keyword Research, pick a budget…and stick to it!  The easiest thing to do is to blow through your budget, and then keep on spending!  Don’t spend more without seeing some conversion.  If you do you are just wasting more money!  If you are doing it for Keyword Research, you definitely don’t want to be blowing huge amounts of cash on just research!

PPC does not have to be hard.  Yes it may take some learning and experience, but its not the hardest thing to do.  But it can turn into a mess if you don’t follow some really basic principles in order to protect yourself, and your hard earned money!

Essential Link Building

20. Video that links back to you

Essential Link Building

Essential Link Building

Link strategies have come to be an integral part of successful internet marketing.  And from the looks of it, that is not going away any time soon, if ever.  So how do you jump in?  Where can you get the benefit from Link Building?  A while ago I was involved in a discussion that led to us building a list of 100 ways to get links.  THis included everything from article marketing, to developing Wordpress themes, all the way to hosting your own TV show!  So while not everybody has the capacity to use all of them, there were still some really good nuggets there.  So I figured I’d give you some of them! (For those of you in Stompernet you can get the entire list here and if you are not in Stompernet I strongly encourage you to join!)

So here it is – 20 ways to get links to your site.  ya I edited out some of the more Geeky stuff like Proxy servers and software creation – but I’m sure this will spark some imagination and ideas!

1. Directories

2. Article Marketing.. submitting to ezinearticles.com and other article directories

3. Web 2.0 .. creating a subdomain on wordpress and adding an article with links to it that links to your sites.

4. Blogs .. creating a blog and posting articles that link to your site.

5. Blog commenting and Forum commenting

6. Social Media Profiles Marketing. Creating profiles and putting links in the profiles back to your site.

7. Video Marketing

8. Guest Blog Posts… offering a guest blog post in exchange for links back to your site.

9. Recip link exchanges.. still works if done right.

10. Art. exchanges.. exchanging articles with other websites.  (different than guest blog posts)

11. Trackback urls … Posting on your blog and citing sites that have trackback urls enabled.

12. Authority Site Article Marketing.. writing quality content you submit one time to sites such as ehow.

13. PR Pumper sites.  Creating mini sites of 5-20 pages that have articles on them that link back to your sites.

14. Press Release Marketing.. writing a press release and distributing it for link purposes.

15. Twitter, Facebook, Social Media Marketing… entering into the conversation on these sites. Other sites can pull the rss feeds and these when published sometimes count as actual links

16. Bookmarking

17. Hubpages, Squidoo type of sites.

18. Syndication of your RSS content (with e.g Webpronews or without permission splogs, blog networks etc)

Content distribution

19. PDFs

20. Video that links back to you

So there you have it!  Hope it helps!  If you’ve got another great way to get links be sure to let us know!

Happy Tuesday,

Jon Neubauer

Blogging for Business

One of the most powerful mediums to reach your customers, and also to build links, is a blog. People love blogs, Search engines love blogs, You win!!
In a recent book about the changing face of Media Ken Aulletta noted that much of the traditional medias concern over slumping sales and viewers is attributed to blogs and Social Media. Why? – because we are dealing with people. If you can get the story from your best friend instead of some nebulous reporting mechanism, you probably will! Never mind that your friend got it from his friend, who got it from the mailman who read it on a magazine. And don’t worry about all the years spent going to school for journalism to become a reporter in the first place. As humans we tend to trust those that we know, and thats where blogs come in.
Blogging, like Social Media, is not meant to be a direct advertisement to get people to buy. While it can serve as a point of reference shoving people in the right direction, blogging is more effective when it is used to build repor with your audience and to establish the fact that you really do know what you are talking about. What does this do for you? – two things:
First, it sets you out as an expert and a human. Now instead of going to the ecommerce store or trusting someone on live chat who is most likely stationed in Kenya, readers can get a first hand account and advice right from you! This establishes your expertise. Give them good advice, and they will come back. Give them junk, and you just lost a valuable reader.
Second, Blogging starts a conversation that can hopefully end up in sales. So you write a great article… thats only the beginning. Involve your readers in conversation, ask questions in the post that you want answered in the comments. Reply to your readers comments in a comment. Keep a conversation going to get the reader back and eventually get them to your business.
So blogging is not selling a product. It is selling you. You have to be the expert, the sales rep. and the customer support guy all in one. But in the end, it represents another cost effective marketing strategy that can grow your business.

Happy Monday,

Jon Neubauer

• Ezine Articles – Undoubtedly one of the most influential directories out there, Ezine has become the preferred directory for readers and SEO value alike.  This is probably the first place you want to submit an article.  Ezine allows 2 links in the resource box and you can embed your text with links creating an all around powerful article.  Ezine does prefer unique content.
• Article Base – Similar layout to Ezine, and also allows links in the resource box and in the article itself.  Here is a popular one for syndicated articles. (We’ll talk about how to mine the value of syndicated articles soon)
• Go Articles – Another Great Directory.  Has over 1 million articles and also gives rss feeds for blogs making this directory another go-to place for great value.
• Article Dashboard – another valuable resource for syndicated articles both to give and to get.  Article Dashboard makes my list of top 5 directories your articles should go to.
• The Free Library – Almost as big as Ezines and even has similar visitor numbers.  The Free Library also has fast approval times and is usually crawled within 24 hours of approval making The Free Library a great place for fast results.

There you have it.  My list of the top 5 article directories to submit articles to on a regular basis.  I’m sure there are a ton more that are good ones, and I even use more directories than what is listed here, so if you found another great on let us know!

Happy Wednesday,

Jon Neubauer

So where do you start with article marketing?  Well, probably best to start at the beginning, so lets start with the article itself.  Unlike your on-site content, the purpose of article marketing is not to sell within the article.  These articles should be informational articles whose purpose is to get the readers attention enough to persuade them to click on your links and go to your site.  So no “salesy” stuff.  In fact, many high quality directories do not even allow sales articles!  Also, as has been stressed over and over, no keywords stuffing.  Again, most high quality directories will not publish an article with an inordinate amount of keywords in it.  Best advice? – be natural!  If you give your readers a false impression in the article they probably won’t buy when they go to your site and are disappointed anyways, so just give it to them straight.

The next thing to consider is where to put them?  There are the obvious directories to put them such as Hubpages or Squidoo, but make sure you also scope out your market and make sure you aren’t missing anything.  Markets like the auto industry always have special directories just for them that your die-hard auto fans will always prefer of the general directories, so make sure you are not leaving a valuable resource out of your directories list.

Once you’ve got an article and found exactly where you are going to put it, the last thing is to get it there is a way that will attract readers.  Make sure you fill everything out.  The author box or bio. box can be very very powerful as readers look to see what type of person they are getting their advice from.  Be sure to include links there as well as in the text.  Target your keywords.  If you put an article in a directory and do not use some of your keywords as anchor text to pages you want to rank, you’ve just wasted your time!

Hope this helped, and let me know what you think!

Happy Tuesday,

Jon Neubauer

Like I said before, with the infinite possibilities out there, choosing which ones to focus on can be a challenging task.  So one cardinal rule that MUST be kept for any website owner is to stay focused.  Not every strategy is for you.  Not every idea will fit your market.  Hopefully you have done a little bit of research in your market and have a general idea of what people are looking for and what they want to see.  So while I will cover a lot of topics over the next few weeks, just know that nobody expects, or advises you to follow each one.  Just think about them.  Does this fit my Niche?  Are the people I want to reach looking for something like this?  Will this be effective?  All these questions are things that must be answered before you settle on a strategy.  The worst thing you can do is to attempt to do everything you see. All that accomplishes is to divide your attention so that you cannot receive the maximum results from any one strategy.  Also, some of these strategies cost more than others.  But there are still a lot of ideas out there that cost nothing more than your time.  So don’t look at this and see your prices going through the roof.  There is still plenty you can do without spending a dime!

Last of all, ask questions!  Nobody expects you to know everything.  I don’t even know everything there is to know about marketing!  So feel free to ask questions.  There are a lot of people out there with some awesome answers that will be more than happy to help you out.

Ok, so on that note, it looks like we will see everybody tomorrow for a quick look at one of the most cost effective, and powerful marketing strategies, Article Marketing!

Happy Tuesday,

Jon Neubauer

For today’s topic, I figured I probably needed to do another post on on-site optimization to hopefully clear things up.  One post really couldn’t do this topic justice, so today I am just going to give out a short list of tips for on-site optimizing to hopefully help webmasters out.  These are things that I look for when we look at a new client’s site and stuff we change when we first sign a contract, so hopefully you can get a boost from this without having to pay a dime!  So here goes:

• Do NOT force keywords!!! – We usually see this in someone who has tried SEO on their own and really got in with the wrong crowd.  Yes keywords in your site copy are important, and yes we want them relevantly placed, but we do NOT want it looking obvious that we are optimizing for them!  Why? – One word… CUSTOMERS!  While SEO is geared towards search engines and rankings in the SERPS are very important, ultimately we are after the customer and their money.  Nothing will turn off a customer faster than having your whole site be one huge advertisement!  When a customer comes to your site, they are looking for value, something that will help them, something that will ultimately benefit them, so give it to them!  Make your content interesting, engaging, and profitable!  THEN you can sell them.  So make your site natural.  Everything should fit together nicely without having to drastically rearrange everything just so that every third word will be a keyword, bad idea!
• Graphics are important! – Where are your pictures?  What message does your picture send?  Do your graphics compel the visitor to buy?  If not, change them!  Graphics are a very helpful tool to a webmaster.  We all know by now that people connect with people, and what better way to cater to that than by allowing the viewer to connect with a person right there on the page!  So look at your graphics, are there any humans in them?  If not, then include some.  Are the humans that are there selling your product?  Ok maybe not actively, but are they showing the benefit of your product?  If not try to find a graphic that will send the message you want.

Ok so that is a really short list, but I picked those two things because those are the two things we see mistakes in the most.  One, people try SEO on their own and end up alienating customers due to over-optimization, and two, webmasters under-value their site by not engaging the viewer with appropriate graphics.  Fix those two things and you are well on your way to an optimized site that is primed to sell!

Happy Monday,

Jon Neubauer

First of all is Content Creation.  This is more along the lines of what a website owner thinks of when he decides to start a site.  Everything from text to slide shows to videos and testimonials fall under this category.  The content on your site needs to follow that fine line between marketing and SEO.  Yes we need the content to help rank your site, but all that effort is no good if the readers don’t buy!  So while keywords and internal linking are important and can help your rankings, don’t go overboard and alienate your potential customers, that defeats the purpose.  But on to what you CAN do for SEO.  First of all, go ahead and put keywords in!  Your keywords should obviously be related to your business so they should naturally fit within your site copy.  Don’t be afraid to put them in there, they should already slip right in there without forcing them.

The second area of on-site optimization we can do is linking.  This is more internal linking rather than getting external links, but internal linking is very powerful.  What pages do you want to rank?  Within your site you can throw some links to them.  Lets give an example here.  I own a sports store and sell equipment in five sports:  Football, Basketball, Soccer, Tennis, and Baseball.  Within my sites home page, and even on the actual product pages, in order to bring people from the “Tennis” page to the “Basketball” page, a link is needed.  By putting keyworded and appropriate alt text behind that link, I have just created a link that increases the relevance and authority of my “Basketball” page.  By doing that throughout the site strategically, I can easily rank my five main category pages for those keywords!!  Why does this benefit me?  If someone is searching for football gear, I do not want to take them directly to my home page, that defeats the purpose.  If I can rank my football page for those keywords and they go directly here rather than to the home page, I have just eliminated a step in their buying process and hopefully just gotten myself another sale!

So on-site optimization is not as hard as it seems!  Be natural, don’t force your keywords in your text.  Then think through what pages on your site you would link to rank and for what keywords, and form your internal linking around that plan!  You’ll be surprised how much just some basic on-site optimization can do for your rankings!

Happy Friday,

Jon Neubauer

SEO is more of a mindset or strategy concept than it is something that can be put down on paper and sold en masse for general use.  Your market is unique!  Why?  Because your market involves humans, humans that I really don’t have to worry about in my business.  Combine that with ever changing trends and fashions and you come up with a dynamic market that is constantly updating itself!  So the first thing any business owner needs to do (and this is for online, as well as offline business) is to pinpoint his market.  Study it, talk to people, find out what they are thinking, and then build your business around your customers, don’t build a business and wait for them to come, they won’t.

With that in mind, there are three main areas of SEO.  Different people may delineate their market a different way, but strictly speaking, there are three areas here that we need to concern ourselves with, and we’ll look at each one really quick.

First of all, and probably the most obvious is your website.  What is on your website, how you link together the pages on your site, how you name these pages is very important.  But what is more important is what is behind your website, the stuff that lies just below the surface.  Title text, alt text, link text, these play a vital role in how well your site is ranked.  More often than not, when a new client comes and wants to increase their ranking, we can increase their rankings by several pages if not right up to page 1 or 2 just by correcting and properly adding text to their site code.  Yet so many webmasters overlook it all together!!

The second area of SEO is external linking.  This is the HUGE monster that forms the bulk of SEO.  In general, no matter how good a site you have, whoever has the most high quality links to their site wins!  Now that does NOT mean I am going to go get 10,000 links right now, you are shooting yourself in the foot!  There are guidelines to follow, things definitely NOT to do in order to get the best links the right way so you don’t get penalized by Google.  I’m pretty sure we will have a few posts covering that coming up here, but definitely don’t just go get 10,000 links today, you are really hurting yourself.

The last area of SEO, and this one ties the other two together, is content creation.  Whether it be videos, articles, blogs, whatever it is, Content is King!  As you will see later, content automatically increases your visibility and relevance, and linking within that content can give you a lot of authority.  But in the end, content creation is a crucial and necessary part of any SEO strategy, I don’t care who you talk to!

So there we are.  Three main areas to look at for your online business.  Within those three areas are literally hundreds of sub-topics, but they are all tied to these three ideas.  Tomorrow I think I will jump right into more On-Site Optimization but until then…

Happy Wednesday,

Jon Neubauer