SEO, Search Engine Optimization, is a way to write content, format web pages, and optimize your website architecture so that more organic search results - connecting to your website - are displayed, on the first page of search results, when people are searching using terms related to your products and/or services. "Only 5.7% of pages will rank in the top 10 search results, on the first page of search resutls, within a year of publication." ~ Ahrefs Over 90% of websites never receive any organic search listings displays in Google search results because they fail on quality content and few to zero inbound links to their site. Every website owner wants to achieve success, and the key indicator to being a successful website owner, is having organic search results without using your business name. ... read more

What Is The #1 Goal of Any SEO Effort? We always hear about SEO will get us more website visitors, but what is the best measurable result of SEO dollars? The first goal os any SEO effort is creating sustainable organic listings on the first page of search results (FPSR). Today, in 2018, Google/Bing have made great strides to display local businesses on search results pages to improve local results. Those local results are produced at the whims of algorithms. Being an organic results on the first page of search results (FPSR), using proper SEO techniques, is a highly sought after achievement and considered a marketing success. For example, the Google Local Business maps and the Bing Local Business maps display local business results at top of FPSR. But, we know that those maps do not show all local businesses today, And, Google/Bing continues to make efforts to improve those local business results. On a national basis, when searching for a product or service, the websites tha...

Three Lethal Myths Of Web Sites There are  three crucial languages of every web site . Without an understanding of those you won't grasp the three lethal myths. Protocols There are certain practices that must be followed in order to exhibit your wares on the web and in online marketing channels - such as Facebook and Google+. These protocols are not complicated, they are as simple as learning the rules and regulations about driving. Education Quality content is #1 in the online world. Content that is informative, more than just a sales pitch, is proven to have deeply-rooted endurance to readers and search engines. Marketing Building a reputation for your products and services is more than glitzy graphics, responsive designs, and/or product features/benefits. For example, correct web site architecture will enhance how marketing channels can recognize and distribute your content - creating a sphere of influence. ________________________...

Five consistent SEO (Search Engine Optimization) mistakes and suggestions on a a good fix. #1 Page Title Does Not Use and/or Target Realistic Keywords A foundation of SEO is that your should should contain som of your key words or a key word phrase. Remember, the whole point of a search engine is to categorize your content so it can match people looking for your services with your page. The target of your key word is what you want to show up on the search results page for.  For example, if you are selling red wagons, and you want to have your web site displayed to people looking for "wagons for children" then that is your target phrase: wagons for children. In this case, an example of an unrealistic key word phrase is "red wagons made for kids".  This is a super specific phrase and searches tend to be done on vague terms. Be sure to avoid unnecessary descriptive words in your page title, because users don’t search for those. Carrying this one step further,...

Google is saying “users will find it easier to get relevant, high quality search results that are optimized for their devices,” from their update being launched in April, 2015. While Google has announced this search engine software update early; it hasn’t exactly been spilling the beans with all the details. The big takeaway from this early notice about the launch date is that if your site is not mobile-friendly, get to work now on it. If 50% of your traffic from Google comes from mobile devices, it sounds like if you are not mobile-friendly that virtually all of that traffic from mobile is at huge risk. Preparing for the Update Google has been prepping webmasters understand mobile computing. Thanks to the announcement of the Mobile Search update, many webmasters now have a compelling reason to take action. If you find yourself scrambling to be mobile-friendly and can’t decide between a dedicated mobile or responsive design, it makes sense to weigh the pros and cons o...

Online marketing is simply using proven techniques to increase traffic at your web site and/or blog pages. With a certified marketing plan, you can easily measure results, thus learning how to improve your marketing efforts. Discover the methods of online marketing for your situation, receive free specific information - click here .   Every month there are more than 10.3 billion Google searches, with 78% of U.S. internet users researching products and services online. December 2014 . (CMO Council) Starting April 21, Google will be expanding use of mobile-friendliness as a search engine ranking signal. This change will affect mobile searches in all languages worldwide and will have a significant impact in our search results. Consequently, users will find it easier to get relevant, high quality search results that are optimized for their devices. You can easily receive a free site review, with a written report, to evaluate the mobile design of your site or blog -...

This is a simple, straight to the facts video telling you the most important pieces of an SEO strategy . Who is Matt Cutts? Matthew "Matt" Cutts (born 1972 or 1973)leads the web spam team at Google, and manages the search quality team on search engine optimization issues.

What follows are good questions I  received from readers on the Data Sharing post yesterday.  Thanks for taking the time to send 'em, intending my answers help you along your way in our digital world. 1.  Where is a good place to start with my online marketing? I would start with the most popular - and most accepted - tools. Today those are Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, PinIntrest, and Google+. And, those tools are going to change over time. In a month, six months, a year there will be new tools. For example, today Google+ is predicted to outpace Facebook as one of the hottest tools. A year ago G+ was almost invisible. In previous posts I described how you can connect your blog to publish your posts to most of those free tools.  Also, different age groups use different social marketing sites. Depending on what age group you are targeting, you will use the appropriate site/tool. A video presence, youtube or vimeo, is a great marketing tool for any age group. ...

Put discovery marketing to work in your online marketing and keep pace with developing trends. Web Site Design and Search Engine Optimization .... The marketing skills you have applied to your web site, or blog, quite literally will make or break your online reputation success.  It used to be that a web presence (site and/or blog) supplemented the promotion of your business. Not any more. Even if you only want to be recognized as a viable business, pretty much you need a web site. Last Friday, the Huffington Post reported that SEO, Search Engine Optimization, is the most sought after skill by all sized companies for their online marketing, second only to email marketing. Successful SEO is more than icons on a page A valid SEO strategy requires content that is built and maintained to meet specific marketing objectives. If you want to produce local geographic results your content is presented one way. To reach a national audience, or global audience, your content must be ...

Background One significant feature of social marketing is distinguishing how many people like your content. The trend was started back with FaceBook with their iconic "thumbs up" image. Nowadays the ability to "like" something on any page, post, or article is standard fare. This ability to "like" something is so much a part of viewing the web that is has, in a way, become a sort of reputation builder. Think about it, when you go to a page and see a lot of "likes" you probably enter a silent judgement ....  the content is interesting, at the every least and maybe even informative. Plus, this business of "liking" is an easy way to engage viewers/readers, which is fundamental to defining a web presence. It may not be a reliable stat as to the value of the content, but it does show traffic and engagement, two important pieces of every web presence strategy. Issue With G+ Likes Disappearing On almost any page or post you visit, y...

Matt Cutts joined Google as a software engineer in the very beginning of Google. He is currently the head of the Google webspam team.

If your online presence is in need to a boost, review these three focus areas. Most Search Engine Optimization (SEO) experts will tell you that SEO is not an exact science. And, those who have been doing this trade for a few years have the results to back up their claims: there are specific, proven, practices that will boost your online presence.    With the right practices, anyone can see improvements in their web site reputations within 90 days. Here are three easy steps that you can implement, with some sweat equity, to boost your SEO - starting right now.   1. Research Key Words These words and phrases are going to describe characteristics of your business products and services. In other words, this will be how people find you. Make sure your phrases are not attached to your business name since 1) potential new customers probably don't know your name anyways, 2) by default a decent SEO effort will naturally promote your business name, a...

Social Media (SM) is an important tool in marketing any business when it's done right. And, SM is here to stay so this is the first post in an ongoing series of SM. SM can go wrong is you are not careful. In the paper today there's a story of a news station that asked viewers to tweet what they are glad is over in 2014, since today is the last day of the year. It backfired. Viewers ended up mocking the station and the news casters too. ( read story ). What is Social Media (aka social networks) There are a slew of social media providers. The top ones in USA are Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+.  Those four are also free to use. There are many social networks that started free but now you must pay. For example Ning.com; however, there are no ads in that one like you see in Facebook or Linkedin. Click here to view an entire list of social media sites in Wikipedia. How Does Social Media Work? The old school  term is networking. Nowadays, it depends on what SM t...

In this article I offer guidelines on how to measure SEO, search engine optimization, or SEM, search engine marketing, services for your website or blog. At one time or another you will be pitched to hire someone. Now you are gonna know what to look for in hiring someone. It’s the century old story. You can buy a dress shirt at the box store for a lot less than at the men’s store. But, the shirt at the men’s store is custom fit to your shape and the actual shirt material is a different quality.  You always get what you pay for. Hopefully, after reading this article, you will have a better understanding of the characteristics being offered to you for SEM and SEO work. Make no mistake, SEO and SEM are critical to the success of any website or blog. There are millions of web sites and blogs out there You must consistently provide quality SEO and SEM to your pages in order to stand out from the herd; show up on the front page of the search engine results. I have covered the six common ...

In case you haven't heard yet, Amazon is now getting into offering local services to local markets.  The BIG PIECE of this is that they are going to be selling services too. Amazon is know for physical products (books, CDs, movies) so seeing them get into offering local services is a major step. There are already similar services out there now. For example,  Angie's List offers a local business rating service and hangs it claim to fame on being a place to find reputable referrals for just about any type of service in any community. IMHO, this new Amazon service will probably knock Angie's List out of business.  Don't forget Angie's List charges a fee to both users (people like you and I who want to view the local business directory) and to businesses (folks who want to have their businesses rated by people using Angie's List). But, don't expect this to shake out overnight. A few days ago I was on Amazon Services to examine setting up how to use one ...

Organic links  are the bread and butter to expanding your web site traffic. They are not a quick fix like the golden arches, but the rewards are very significant. Organic linking  is the development of  hypertext  links between web sites with or without an explicit agreement to exchange links. Organic links are more likely to appear in a context relevant to the subject of the target document, which makes them useful for  search engines  like  Google search  that rank pages according to their links. In my opinion, one of the best ways to measure to overall success of your SEO campaign is to look at your organic SEO traffic. Rank just isn’t a good SEO metric for a variety of reasons including the increased personalization of search, the impact of social signals on the search results, the effect of local SEO on search results and more. A site’s rank changes too frequently to be a viable method of measuring your long tern SEO succes...

Pricing a web site is not as easy as going to  shopping for products at your local grocery store or box store. In my web reputation consulting business I am regularly asked, “How much will it cost me to get a web site going?”  That question is similar to the question what is the best type of coffee to drink; there is not really a simple answer. Here are the five reasons why a simple, concrete answer is difficult. 1. Web site design and development is a service and not a product. A quality web site is something that grows over time. Technology is always changing, which means that in order for your web sit to stay current it needs to be modified. While it may be hard to believe, a web site is a service since it will require an ongoing effort to maintain. 2.  Building a successful web site is a complex undertaking. There are the obvious parts of a web site like written content, images, store products, and the freebies you offer to entice visitors to connect...

This is the nine step program that defines a five-star SEO program. We agree that it’s an oversimplification, so just know going in that there is much “doingness” underneath each of these steps. 1. Fine tune and tweak page content keywords with meta tags (title, descriptions, author, and description). 2. Produce and maintain all page content descriptions to include trending high search volume keywords 3. Build and establish organic link building , along with submitting site to high ranking directories, forums, blogs, and review sites. 4. Write and submit blog articles to various directories. Plus, using keywords in those articles. 5. Produce changes in page structure, heading tags, internal links, image alt tags as needed. 6. Manage YouTube video titles and descriptions to include keywords and appropriate links. 7. Analyze crawlability of site pages and take the lead on fixing errors and suggesting solutions to spider or analytic issues. 8. Integrate social med...