semApex.com

SEO for local businesses is a totally different ballgame than non-localized SEO. Its often very difficult to rank well locally on common phrases because there is so much national competition. The standard Google search rankings do not differentiate locally for phrases like “car wash.” This is why it is important to make sure that you are listed in Google’s local business results.

Make sure that you get your business listed. You can provide your customers with valuable information such as contact info, hours, directions, descriptions, and your website. And most importantly, you will appear on Google’s pages locally when someone searches for a “car wash.”

Want to rank higher on google local search? Check out David Mihm’s excellent article “Local Search Ranking Factors.”

What is the difference betwee SEO and SEM?

SEO typically refers to optimizing a site to appear in “natural” or “organic” search engine rankings. SEM, on the other hand, refers to paid search engine marketing like Google Adwords or Microsoft Bing’s Adcenter.

Each marketing strategy poses a unique set of challenges and each should be approached differently.

I typically start with an SEM campaign. Why? Because it gives you a more immediate response and you can determine what keywords actually get decent traffic and also what keywords convert for you into sales or leads.

SEO vs SEM should actually be SEO and SEM. The two strategies should find some way of working together and complimenting each other.

SEO campaigns require a lot of time and labor, and typically take longer to see a payback on your investment. Before you invest that time, use a google adwords campaign to find out if a keyword is even worth pursing. If it produces sales in adwords, it will likely do the same in “natural” search engine rankings. Wait until you are confident in the performance of the keyword, then you can invest the time and effort into SEO. Ideally, customers will find you in multiple places on the first page on any keyword search.

How do you find an effective link building service? Is it worth paying for?

Link building can be one of the most critical elements of an effective SEO campaign. It is difficult and time consuming. Link building also varies by industry. A manufacturing company would want an entirely different set of in-bound links than a medical company would want. There is no one-size-fits-all link building strategy. This is why it can be so difficult and time-consuming.

The key to link building is building trust in the eyes of the search engine. Search engines use in-bound links to measure your sites authority for a particular keyword. If you write a tech site, a link from a site like Engadget can provide a significant boost in both traffic and “search engine authority” because Engadget is one of the top tech blogs on the web. The anchor text used in the link also lets the search engines know that your site is an authority on that particular keyword. For example, the link lower your bounce rate is much more authoritative than semApex.com because it tells the search engine more about your site. The more authoritative in-bound links you obtain, the higher you will rank on Google’s search results for your keyword. You do also have to be careful too because paid links and spammy links can actually get you delisted by Google.

Of course, you can’t overlook the importance of quality content. An authoritative website is unlikely to link to you if your site is poorly designed and doesn’t offer much. The more valuable your content, the more likely you are to receive links.

If you don’t have the time and don’t want to learn the skill of link-building from the ground-up, then you may want to consider hiring a professional link building expert. But these services do not always come cheap. You need to evaluate your individual business model and decide what strategy is right for you.

Even though its often referred to as the World Wide Web, the Internet is a powerful tool for promoting your business locally. Many sites, including Google and Yahoo, cater to localized businesses and provide local maps and business information directly within keyword searches. This list covers 10 essential strategies for promoting your local business online.

1. Submit your Business to Local Search – Google, Yahoo, and Bing all offer a free service that allows you to add your business to local searches. You will need to fill out your business information and then verify your business using a pin number that is sent to your business address. Bing even allows you to use an arial map to pinpoint your exact location. After the business is verified you will appear in local searches. You may also want to consider submitting your site to CitySearch and Yelp. Make sure that you properly categorize your listing and add as much information as possible, as this can influence how well you rank in the local search results. Depending on the site, you will be able to list a website, email, business address, business description, and even payment methods accepted.

2. Ask your current customers to give you reviews – Customer testimonials can be a powerful factor in convincing new clients to hire you or buy your products. Ask your current customers if they could provide a testimonial that you can post on your website. Also, customers can review your business on certain local sites including Yelp and Google local. These reviews can be an important factor in how well you rank on local search listings.

3. Get your Business listed on Community Websites – Local websites including the chamber of commerce not only give you an opportunity to promote your site locally, but often provide an opportunity to gain a credible link that benefits your ranking in search engines. Also look at local trade organizations or local business directories where you could list your business and add a link. For example, if you are operating a fitness center, search to see what local directories may be available for fitness and exercise centers and try to get your business linked on those sites.

4. Run a Localized PPC Campaign on Google Adwords - Adwords allows you to place an advertisement directly within search engine results pages for a specific set of keywords. Although many of these keywords received worldwide searches, Adwords allows you to localize your campaign by only showing your ad within a certain geographic area. You can limit your ad campaign to a specific state, city, or metropolitan area in order to target only local business. Depending on the keyword, you may still be competing with national advertisers, but you are able to specifically target the market that you currently serve.

5. Take advantage of Craigslist – Craigslist is a localized classified directory. Although you can’t add a direct link, you will be able to advertise for specific products or services and get responses via phone or email. Craigslist gets good traffic and many of the listings are free so it doesn’t hurt to place a listing and increase your local exposure.

6. Advertise on Local Media Sites – Check with your local news and magazine websites and see what rates are available for an online ad. Sometimes these ads can be bought at relatively inexpensive rates and can drive local traffic to your landing page.

7. Optimize your Site with Local Keywords – If your site is targeting local traffic exclusively, make sure that you include local keywords on your webpage. For example, if your site focuses on Indianapolis, make sure you include the keywords “Indianapolis”, “Indy” and “Indiana”. This will give your page an opportunity to show up on searches for “Your industry” + “Indianapolis.”

8. Search Your Own Keywords and Examine Your Competition – Find out what the local competition is for your particular keywords. Is your industry competitive? Make a list of all of the competitors that appear on the first page of google rankings for the keywords that you are focusing on.

9. Use Yahoo Site Explorer to Find Potential New Local Links – Once you have examined your competition, plug their websites into Yahoo Site Explorer and find out who is linking to your competition. This is a great way to find new sites that could potentially link to your site as well.

10. Use Twitter – Certain businesses have developed quite a following on Twitter and have been able to drive business daily using Twitter updates. For example, an LA Taco truck company uses Twitter to inform its followers of daily location updates. Followers can check Twitter daily to find out if the truck will be in there area.

I have always found that my sites that are built around blogs are consistently the most successful. Blogs are fresh, keyword rich, and can easily produce hundreds or thousands of pages that search engines are more than happy to index. Typically, the more fresh and original content you produce, the more you are rewarded with quality traffic. I’ve also found that this traffic can sustain itself for years, even if you neglect your blogs….which I sometimes have. I have one particular blog that I have not written an article for in over 16 months. Yet, traffic levels over that period remain virtually unchanged for my most popular posts.

For that reason, I recommend that you include a blog in almost any website that you are creating. I’m sure there are situations where a blog is not appropriate, but there is no reason not to include a blog on most websites including corporate websites or an e-commerce website. Not only will you attract new customers, but you will also build loyalty from customers who continue to look to your blog for quality content, advice, tips, and updates. I am a regular reader of Google’s gmail blog because its a great place to find new features or learn new ways to use gmail. The blog adds value to my experience as a regular gmail user and reinforces the gmail brand as fresh and innovative.

Having hundreds of indexed blog posts gives potential customers a much better chance at stumbling upon your product during a search. Make sure your blog clearly links to your main webpage or landing-page to give visitors a chance to explore your site further and purchase your product or inquire into your services. The more quality blog posts that you produce, the better chance you will have to appear high in the search rankings for long-tail keywords. I typically try to focus on a few keywords in my blog posts, but I’m often surprised that I will end up ranking highly for certain keyword combinations that I never predicted.

Blogs also add a sense of credibility to your site. If a user has a chance see that you have produced a significant amount of quality content, they will be more likely to trust you when you offer them paid products or services. They may also get to know you better by reading your blog and develop a greater comfort level with you or your company, which may lead to a “conversion” in the future.

Make blogging a part of your overall Internet strategy and you won’t be disappointed. Its hard work, but its a great way to provide fresh content for your current customers as well as giving future customers a better opportunity to find you and get to know your brand.

Bounce rate is an important metric to focus on when you are studying your sites statistics. Technically, the bounce rate refers to the number of single page visits to your sites landing page. A 90% bounce rate would mean that 90% of your visitors are leaving your site without visiting any other page on your site.

The importance of bounce rate is that is measures relevancy. A high rate means that your site is not relevant to your visitor. In other words, your visitor didn’t find what they were looking for and moved on. This could occur for a number of different reasons including:

• The ad text for your site doesn’t match your landing page well
• You are targeting a keyword that is too broad.
• Your landing page isn’t designed to funnel visitors to another page.
• You have a poorly designed or organized landing page that doesn’t clearly tell the visitor what to do next.

The most effective strategy for lowering your bounce rate is to narrow your keywords and tailoring your landing page for each keyword. Also, test different variations of the same webpage to determine what the most effective page is for your particular campaign. A lower bounce rate likely means that you are doing a more effective job of engaging your visitors and guiding them to a particular action.

Twitter is a micro-blogging site that has exploded over the past year. Its a fantastic social-networking site, but does it also have value for your business?

I believe it does, but the key is to harness it correctly. Twitter has some limitations including the amount of characters allowed per tweet (140). So there is a limitation to how much you can communicate to your followers at any given time.

One of the best uses I have seen for Twitter as a business model is the LA taco truck. This traveling taco vendor uses twitter to update its 50,000 followers on the location of the truck each day it is in service. Each time it parks it draws 300 to 800 people for tasty korean bbq tacos.

The key to Twitter is gathering a critical mass of followers and providing those followers with valuable periodic updates. The more valuable the content, the more likely you are to attract and keep followers. As with any other form of marketing communication, be careful not to over-saturate your followers or you risk becoming spammy and losing followers. If you eat at the taco truck regularly, or you want to find out if they are in your area, you will have no problem receiving regular updates on the trucks location.

I can see a lot of uses for this in the restaurant industry. Twittering daily specials or soups of the day may be enough to snag a few extra customers on a given day. Happy hour specials can be announced and updated regularly to attract additional store traffic. Be creative and make sure you advertise your presence on Twitter to your clients. Gather followers and keep them updated with changes, specials, or other valuable information.

Here is the other great thing about Twitter……….its free. It doesn’t cost anything to let your followers know that they can get Miller Lite for $.99 a bottle from 4-6pm tonight. Pretty cool. Don’t be afraid to advertise your presence on Twitter and find creative ways to use it and provide additional value for your customers.

Google URL Builder allows you to create custom tracking URL’s to track various ad campaigns in Google analytics. If you are running a Google Adwords campaign, you can set your URL’s for autotagging within your adwords campaign. But if you are running a non-adwords campaign via Yahoo, Bling, a banner ad, an email ad, or any other ad, you will need to manually tag your URL in order to track it in analytics.

This is easy to do using the Google URL builder. Just enter the following info:

1. Campaign Source
2. Campaign Medium
3. Campaign Term
4. Campaign Content (optional)
5. Campaign Name (optional)

Once you have entered these into the URL builder, you can automatically create a link that you can use for your banner ad or other ad in order to track its effectiveness within Google Analytics. Remember, always track every ad that you place on the web and test its effectiveness. This is the only proven way to continually squeeze more profits from your website.

One of the best ways to develop your strategy for moving up to the top of the rankings for your primary keywords is to study your competition. Here’s how to do it.

First, perform a Google search for one of your keywords. I’m going to use the keyword “search engine marketing.” A very competitive keyword but it will help me to illustrate a couple of key points. The search brings up the following results.

From this list I am going to skip the top result from wikipedia because they are not a direct competitor. The next result on the list, searchenginewatch.com, looks like a great site to analyze. First, take some time to look around the site to get familiar with it. Then, plug the site into yahoo site explorer and click explore url. The result will show you both the number of indexed pages as well as the number of in-links. Searchenginewatch.com currently has 375,592 in-links. This is a huge number, which tells you a couple of things. One, is that this is a highly competitive keyword and you will likely need a huge number of links to come even close to appearing on the front page of the Google search results. Second, it will take you a huge amount of time to explore all of these in-links. Third, you may want to do some more keyword research to find a keyword that has less competition.

That being said, lets explore some of the quality in-links that link to searchenginewatch.com. You will want to look for quality in-links, and then try to get those sites to link to you. Depending on the site, this could require just a simple email asking for the link. Here is a seo site that lists some recent stories from some of the top search engine blogs. Looks like a potential candidate. Add there url to a list and keep exploring.

Once you have put a list of sites together, you will need to have a unique strategy for each potential in-link. Take some time and customize your requests. Don’t just send out a spammy, canned email to each potential site. This will lessen your chance of receiving  a link and waste all of the time you have spent doing research.

Get the idea now? Good, go try it!

Depending on what keywords your a targeting, your site may a significant seasonal trend for search engine traffic. I am an avid fantasy football player and I also have a fantasy football blog. The peak season for fantasy football traffic lasts for about 3-4 weeks before it falls off a cliff.

Here is a Google Trends search for the keyword “fantasy football”

As you can see, every year the traffic for the keyword “fantasy football” spikes in August and September then dramatically drops off for the rest of the year.

I find it useful to do a quick Google trends lookup for any keywords that you are targeting to identify these trends. It can help you to decide when and where to focus your resources for your marketing campaign. For fantasy football, you would want to focus all of your energy into the peak months of July-September, peaking just before the NFL season starts in early September. It can also let you know when you will need to ramp up support for high traffic and sales volumes.