Themed SEO Content- Why You Need It

Everyone knows what SEO content is – choosing a few key words or phrases to strategically place in your articles and blog posts to help the search engines find them, know what they are about, and hopefully rank them fairly high in search listings. Even if you add secondary and tertiary keywords and phrases, no matter how high your article ranks, it will only be for that small handful of keywords and phrases. Themed SEO content, however, breaks all the barriers and allows your content to rank for a dozen words or phrases, or even more!

Themed SEO content still has its main keyword or two, but it also uses as many synonyms, related terms and terms with alternative meanings to those main keywords as it can. By choosing as many of the terms that Google finds important in relation to your chosen main keyword, you dramatically increase your chances for ranking on more and more terms. With themed SEO content, the additional words and phrases make for a much more interesting and enjoyable piece, both to write and to read. We’ve all read the SEO content article that used the same words over and over again – the keywords – where the repetition became boringly monotonous by the end of the 400 words.  Now, SEO writers no longer have to struggle to fit awkward keywords into something resembling a coherent sentence.

So, how does it all work? Google has what it considers an “authority set” of keywords and phrases for each topic. It ranks pages by how many of these authority terms are used, not just the one or two main keywords. Ever do a search for a really common topic, like “cheap car insurance?” You’ll get about 47,000,000 results. However, somewhere around page 8 (if you’re set for 100 results per page,) you’ll see this message: “In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the 780 already displayed. If you like, you can repeat the search with the omitted results included.” Google filtered out all the stuff that it felt was too much like the first 780 sites. Those first 780 included more of the authority set terms than the rest. Themed SEO content doesn’t rely on mere keyword density or placement of those authority set terms, either, but rather how high in the authority set they are.

This is all good news if you’re in the cheap car insurance business because instead of your site having to beat out the original 47 million other sites, you really only have to focus on steadily and consistently ranking higher than 780 of your closest competition. Themed content can give you that leg up as you begin to rank for not one or two, but for the dozen or two or three authority set terms you’ve used in your content. Choosing your authority set terms carefully and using them skillfully in your themed SEO content can make all the difference. Just ask the guys in the rest of the 47 million results.

I’m not exactly sure of the timing, but it seems not to long ago that Google started placing more emphasis on its map listings when you type in local searches. If you are a SEO company, you probably know what I am talking about because it was as if Google was putting more emphasis on local vs. their pay-per-click advertising. Not to mention, it didn’t take to long for local vendors to take notice and were asking “How do I get higher in the listings?”  Just check out this search below for “garage door repair minneapolis.”

If you are like myself, local search is no easy egg to crack and is not as straightforward as regular search engine optimization (SEO) is. In the sea of duplicate listings, salted reviews, and nasty competition lies a wealth of ROI to be had. But the question that keeps popping up is how do you climb to the top?

Well, one thing that most local businesses don’t know is that one major factor in how you rank is the sheer number of listings you have among all the local channels. But it doesn’t stop there, your listings need to be accurate and consistent. This among other factors, tells Google Maps that you have been around for a while and in their eyes is more trustworthy. But with so many local search sites, which ones are the most important and how do you get in as many places as you would like?

A good starting in my opinion is getlisted.org. Right from the homepage you can enter your business name and zip code to see how many of the top local engines you are found in. (BTW- this list has been growing) So as you can see from my personal entry, I scored a whopping 62% and am in all the channels except two.   Now I could just as easily just go to those two and manually submit, but there are drawbacks. First, it takes a lot of time. Second, waiting for verification can be a pain. Lastly, just because you are in these channels doesn’t mean that they all have the same data not to mention there are literally hundreds more. That’s where Yext comes in.

For a monthly or annual fee, you can grab a PowerListing which gets you into over 30 search destination sites. By creating one listing, Yext aggregates it to all the major local search destinations including your photos, products, and specials. In addition, these changes take effect much quicker than the manual method not to mention the time it would take you to do so. Yext also gives you the ability to track your performance with a dashboard filled with statistics. So to recap, you get better rankings, get into more places, and save a hell of a lot of time. Does it work? Yep, just one day after summiting a new listing, here is a screenshot of a status update on the dashboard:

Search engine marketing agencies will be glad to hear that they have a solid reseller program. However, I would jump on the bandwagon early because I think their entry prices will likely skyrocket as more people take advantage of their offer. Search engine marketing agencies and alike can sign up through their PowerListing Reseller Program.  Below is a screen shot I took of the easy to use Reseller Interface:

Again, the price for agencies is very attractive right now.  If you are not an agency, feel free to contact us at www.tmaemarketing.com or www.delmonteagency.com for immediate support. Happy local searching!

Making Your Small Business Stand Out

A recent (12/10/11) report from lead generating firm MerchantCircle/Reply.com states that in a survey of 2,500 US small business owners, SEO is the way they would go. The way they would go, that is, If they only  had one choice on which to focus their marketing.

The survey asked, “If you had to put all your marketing time and budget into only one channel, what would it be?” The participants were then given 6 choices of marketing channels: SEO, paid search, traditional media, social media, mobile marketing, or none of the above. Nearly 33% of the respondents chose SEO as their marketing channel of choice, if that’s all they had available. The closest second was traditional media, garnering 19% of the responses. Traditional media was defined for the purposes of the survey as radio/television, newspaper ads, Yellow pages listings, and direct mail. Newspaper advertising space and direct mail were the two traditional marketing channels identified in the survey as the most used by the small businesses participating.

Another surprising result of the survey was to see that Facebook, not Facebook ads, was the number one choice for social media marketing. It beat out Google by 15%, LinkedIn by 18%, Twitter by 38% and YouTube by a whopping 50%. (There were a host of other media sites to choose from, including Bing, Yelp, and Foursquare.)

So what does all this mean for you? Well, if you are a small business (just under 80% of the survey’s participants had 4 or fewer employees, so we’re talking small business here) and you’re not using SEO strategies in your marketing campaign, you may want to rethink that for the coming year. It would appear that your competition has already figured out that SEO marketing is the way to go for their small businesses across the country. You may want to consider adding a bit of social media marketing next year, as well. You don’t want to be the only shop on Main Street without a Facebook business page, do you?

I think this survey also shows that SEO marketing and social media marketing aren’t just for the big firms anymore, and need to be taken seriously by the small business owner. Granted, the ROI in both SEO marketing and SM marketing can’t always immediately be registered. Nor can you typically find good SEO marketing and SM marketing providers right around the corner like you can your local newspaper or print shop. It takes some time to find a SEO marketing firm that you’re comfortable working with. It takes some research and effort to find a good SEO marketing firm you can afford and see the results from their efforts. It also takes a real investment of money – you can’t get something for nothing, not even on the Internet. By looking at the results of this survey from November, it would appear that the savvy, strategic small business owner can’t afford to NOT invest some time, money and energy into SEO marketing and a social media presence. His competition already has.

How to Optimize Your Blog Using SEO

It seems like everybody and their cat has a blog these days. (Don’t believe me about the cat? Google “Mr. Puddy.”) How in the world do you make your blog stand out? How do you get it high enough in the rankings so as to be found by clients, customers or fans? The same way you let them find your site – by using good sound SEO strategies.

1.)    Good content – every web writer knows that content is king. And well-written optimized content is the High king. Don’t let your SEO work stop with the site, though, and treat your blog as a throw-away. Keep the content high quality. Keep it rich, keep it fresh and keep it optimized. Use keywords shared by your site. Use your business name as a keyword. Use all your best SEO tactics and strategies to keep your blog content ranking high in the search engines. And keep that content coming. Blogs have to be updated frequently, or at least with a standard regularity, or the search engines get bored and look elsewhere.

2.)    Use descriptive titles – We all know that keywords belong in the title of SEO pieces, but your blog may required some extra effort. Some blogging software actually makes your blog titles repetitious by insisting on inserting the blog name into the title – typically preceding the title. This constant repeating of “Joe’s Tangential Rantings and Ravings” before every new blog post’s title can send the search engines down the road, as they think it’s the same-old-same-old from you.

3.)    Be careful with anchor text – We all love to link from our blog posts – to others’ blogs, to interesting articles and news stories, to our own site even – and that’s a good thing to do from an SEO standpoint. What we need to be careful with is the linking text. If we simply put “here” or “there” the backlink will not be as strong as if we use a unique anchor text related to the post at hand. So instead of simply linking “here” we’ve linked from “Joe’s Latest Ranting That’s Not Quite a Raving.”

4.)    Categories – The categories in which you place your blog posts can act as extra keywords, especially if you use category names unique to your blog or keyword set. These repeated terms associated with your blog will help the bots find it again and again, ranking it higher for those category terms.

5.)    Write with the reader in mind – Most readers seem to prefer blog posts about the same length as a typical SEO marketing article – 400 – 500 words. They aren’t going to wade through 1500 word essays when there are other blogs out there to read. If you have something to say that’s longer than that, they’ll want you to write a follow-up post, or turn it into a series of posts. On the other hand, if you know your readers prefer to sink their teeth into your long-lasting juicy entries, go for it. Just keep the SEO writing going, whatever the length. If you’re not sure, try varying the length of your posts and then track to see which are the best read.

Optimizing your blog isn’t difficult, and doing so can make all the difference in the blogosphere between a once-read and a royal win.

SEO Trends for 2012

With Google changing its algorithm somewhere between 350 and 500 times in 2011 (that’s more than once a day!) it’s sometimes difficult to know what to stick with and what to toss out when it comes to your SEO content. What’s relevant today may not even score with the bots tomorrow. In SEO’s ever changing landscape, the best SEO provider needs to stay on top of what’s working now, to ensure that they can switch strategies in midstream if need be to continue flying high in the rankings. With that in mind, let’s look at a few of the SEO trends working really well right now.

1.)    Social Media – How many Tweets, or Facebook shares or mentions, or the number of Plus Ones from Google Plus you receive can have an effect on your SEO. Setting up a profile on Twitter, Facebook or Google Plus is a hot SEO trend right now. By keeping the content relevant and consistent, you can greatly improve your reputation with the search engines and in doing so, dramatically improve your rankings.

2.)    Linking Frequency – Watch out how many backlinks you create in any one day. More than five and many of the bots see it as a manual manipulation in an attempt to improve your standings. Likewise the same number of links built every day. Vary the number, the type and the time of day you create your backlinks. This lets the search engines see you as more legitimate and organic.

3.)    Backlinks – Long a mainstay of SEO strategies, so how can they be a new SEO trend, right? Well, it’s all in how you use them nowadays. You have to remember to vary the sources of your backlinks. You can’t just rely on article directories or social media alone. The search engines like to see a wide variety of sources – blogs, articles, social media, and your fans/followers/commenters sites, too.

4.)    Outbound links – We all know that backlinks – inbound links – are worth their weight in gold as far as search engines are concnerned. A commonly overlooked but highly effective SEO strategy that’s turning into a hot SEO trend is outbound linking. By linking to high-ranking, high quality, well thought of sites, you add authority and reputation to your content. Make sure the links are to sites relevant in your niche or to the topic of the blog post for maximum effect.

5.)    Content – Content is still king, and I’m sure if it can accurately be described as an SEO “trend” or not. Without regularly updated, high quality, high interest content though, you might as well not even bother with other SEO strategies. Without good offerings of interest to them, your readers, followers and fans won’t bother either. And without them, what’s the point? Besides, the bots still love finding fresh new goodies on your site. Keep writing and updating. It still matters.

Whether you are just starting out with SEO or have been at it a long time, it never hurts (and usually helps to keep the trends in sight. Knowing what’s hot and what’s not can make all the difference in the world!

Using SEO in Your Social Media Marketing Strategy

Social media marketing is everywhere, and if you listen to the “experts” it’s the new face of the marketing world. What then, is an SEO marketer to do? The simple answer is to combine the two. SEO and social media marketing are really just two powerful weapons in the marketer’s arsenal, after all.

SEO and social media marketing are two forms of so-called “inbound” marketing. For those readers who aren’t familiar with all the technical terms of the marketing world, inbound marketing is anything that the customer goes to, as opposed to outbound marketing that goes out to the customer. So, SEO articles and other optimized content such as web pages are part of the inbound marketing crowd. Social media marketing also runs with that crowd, as customers find blogs, Facebook and Twitter accounts, YouTube videos and all the other boys in the band that is social media marketing.

SEO is used in conjunction with social media marketing then to pack a double power punch. Not optimizing social media content is like loading the gun with rubber bullets. If a customer or potential client can’t find your great social media content via search engines, what good is it? If a customer or potential client doesn’t realize that the great social media content they are reading or watching or following is your brand, what’s the point? Using SEO tactics along with your creative and awe-inspiring social media content is putting the hollow-point, full metal jacketed shells in the gun. It says you mean business and you intend to blow your competition away!

Using SEO with blog post content is relatively easy. You simply use all your best SEO strategies when writing the post – keywords, density, themed SEO content, backlinks, etc. Optimizing other social media content may take a bit more work and creativity. Strategically building a social web presence that promotes sharing of content and audience participation isn’t an overnight operation. You have to begin by knowing your client base and what types of social content they prefer using. Once you get your customers playing along, joining in and generating some buzz, your battle is half over, as the search engines will pick up on all that chatter and name dropping. Then, your rankings will start to climb.

Using SEO strategies without some sort of social web presence isn’t too smart in today’s marketing world, either. Your wonderfully optimized content isn’t much of a tour de force without the power of social media behind it anymore. The inbound links from all that sharing, voting and commenting literally can’t be bought! Your devoted fans generate more and more fans as they unknowingly target other members of your audience just like themselves. The exposure and traffic they can provide is invaluable to your marketing efforts – it’s word of mouth marketing at its finest.

SEO and social media marketing shouldn’t and really can’t, be seen as separate entities. One without the other is leaving half your troops in reserve. Combining the two makes the best sense in today’s tough marketplace minefield.

Have you ever thought to yourself, “Wow, what a coincidence. I just visited Company X’s website and now I’m seeing ads for them all over the place!” Well, it’s not a coincidence and it doesn’t mean that that company has millions of dollars to spend to place ads everywhere. These ads were strategically placed via retargeting. Retargeting is a form of internet marketing in which the advertiser “cookies” visitors that view their site and then continues to target that visitor across the web by showing them banner ads whenever they visit websites that are in the display networks that they are running ads on.

For some, retargeting is a great strategy. It’s a way to get your company and brand back in front of the eyes of a website user that was, at one time, interested in the products or services that you have to offer. It serves as a quick little reminder and says, “Hey, remember me?” People browsing the web can have short attention spans. Just because they left your website once without converting, doesn’t necessarily mean that they hated your website or thought that your products were useless. It’s entirely possible that they thought of something else that they had to do and figured that they would just return later. Giving them a little nudge in the right direction by displaying a banner ad where they are guaranteed to see it can result in getting that visitor back to your site which will hopefully result in a conversion that didn’t happen the first time around.

For others, retargeting isn’t such a seamless strategy. Some website visitors may find this little reminder to be annoying, and maybe even creepy. Essentially, displaying banner ads on multiple sites that potential prospects visit is a little bit like stalking them and can be considered an invasion of privacy. Retargeting is similar to cold calling and other forms of “interruption marketing”. The advertiser has little to no control over the sites that the banner ads show up on and a potential prospect may not appreciate seeing your ad while they are attending to personal business online.

So, should you do it? A big determining factor is who your target audience and demographic is. If you are targeting a mass consumer audience or operate an e-commerce site, it makes sense. Retargeting is a quick way to get a visitor back that may have initially abandoned their shopping cart for a variety of reasons. On the other hand, retargeting might not be the best approach if you are a B2B service provider that is targeting business and marketing people. Think about the target audience. They know what you’re up to and don’t want to see you everywhere they go. In B2B, the sales cycle is often much longer and there is a lot more taken into account than whether or not today is the right day to buy that pair of shoes. If you are a serious contender for their business, they’ll remember you.

About the Author:

Nick Stamoulis is the President and Founder of Brick Marketing, a Boston SEO company. For more information please call 781-999-1222 or visit http://www.brickmarketing.com.

Many businesses, especially in the B2B sector, spend a lot of time and money promoting their services at trade shows. In addition to the benefits of attracting potential clients or customers at the actual event, trade shows can also help your search engine optimization efforts. You may wonder, “How can an offline event affect my online marketing?” Smart marketers understand that marketing doesn’t operate in silos. Each marketing initiative should be integrated with the others.

Here are 4 ways to get an SEO boost from your trade show appearance:

Social Media
Social media is a great place to promote your presence at a trade show. Before the event, post and tweet the trade show information a few times a day. Include your booth number and information about what you will be demonstrating or providing. This builds up your social signals. During the event, post and tweet about the trade show. Discuss your experience throughout the day. Share the wealth and promote others that are also attending if you’ve been impressed by their booth or presentation.

Blog
Blogs are great because they are updated frequently, ensuring that the search engines come back to index the page. Sometimes one of the hardest things about blogging is coming up with ideas of quality topics to blog about. Well, if you will be exhibiting at a trade show, the hard part is done! Presto- topic! Write a promotional post before the trade show and include all relevant information that people would want to know. After the trade show, write a follow-up post and recap the event. Include video of a presentation that took place, especially if you were the one giving the presentation. Trade shows can be expensive and not everybody can attend that may have wanted to. If you provide them with a well-written recap, people will share it with others.

Online PR
Online press releases should be written and distributed whenever your business is involved in anything newsworthy. Before the trade show, write a press release that provides information about the event and information about your company and what you will be doing at the event. Include keyword anchor text links. If it’s a well known trade show in a certain area, it will be picked up by news sources which will improve your link portfolio.

Whitepaper
Create a whitepaper with content that is exclusive to the tradeshow. Create a landing or download page that includes share buttons. People will link to it, which will help promotional efforts of your company and of the trade show itself.

The best search engine optimization strategy is to integrate link building into every aspect of your marketing. Almost any marketing or business initiative can have SEO benefits if the strategy is implemented correctly. Many companies forget this and miss out on some great link opportunities.

About the Author:

Nick Stamoulis is a Boston SEO consultant and the President and Founder of Brick Marketing, a search engine optimization and search engine marketing company. For more information please visit http://www.brickmarketing.com.

SEO is the name of the game when it comes to bringing relevant search engine traffic to your website.   However, for many businesses, there is a sea of options that exist to execute a SEO strategy such as hiring a SEO company, a link builder, or copywriter.  This article focuses on the latter, because in my sincere opinion content is king, and if you build a site and community based on quality content,  the other two are quite easily executed.

The first step in looking for a good SEO writer, is deciding the kind of writer you want.  Do you want the content writer to focus on blogs, websites, landing pages, or just articles? Generally speaking, a good SEO content writer can usually do several of the above, however some specialize in some forms that others.  In order of importance, I believe that you need a solid writer for your website first, your blog second, and articles third.  My rationale is that website copy is designed to sell, while blog content is more of an indirect sell as well as link bait, and blog posts can easily be turned into articles.

Simply put, a good SEO writer can help you immediately get your quality content in the search engines fast and reward you with visits, pageviews, and ultimately leads / sales, thus building your online presence quickly.

What to Look for in Hiring a Good SEO Content Writer
Getting professionals to effectively write for your business can be a challenging task.  Experience is everything, and if you run along an SEO copy writer that either has experience within your industry or is willing to research it is a big plus.  SEO copywriting like everything else on the web is an art.  And as they say, you generally get what you pay for.  While some SEO writers and consultants charge $100 or more an hour, there are many talented ones working for less. However, hiring one writer to write your entire website for $100 is surely a course for a disaster.

You can also hire an SEO firm that has writers on staff, however proceed with caution because they typically write a lot of generalized content or may be one of your more costly options due to their hourly fees or resource structure. But on the other hand, if that is the same SEO firm that is building your website, blog, and integrating all of your marketing communications, there is a ton of value in that too.  So weigh your options carefully and don’t forget to ask for references, testimonials, and work experience.

You’ve learned how to leave your ego at home by not advertising to your audience and providing them with interesting content. Keep your audience interested in your content and continuously coming back to your site by following these simple steps.

Engage Your Audience
The next step would be to ask questions or post comments that your audience can respond to. You could say things such as, “Listen to ((Band XYZ’s)) track and let us know what you think!” or “The singer from ((Band XYZ)) used to be the lead singer in ((Band HIJ)). Which sound do you prefer?” Engaging the audience is a key part of social media. Let your followers know that you care about their opinion and give them a chance to voice their thoughts. Using your social media sites to spark conversation may set you apart from others in your industry.

Listen & Respond
After you ask questions of your followers, don’t think that your job is done. There is one key step that many companies can forget, and that’s responding to the answers your followers are giving to your questions. Just like in conversation you don’t want to ask a question, get a response and leave it, this would kill the conversation and doesn’t make your company seem interested. Once your audience has given an answer to your question, respond back. Let them know you are paying attention and genuinely care about what they think.

Frequency is Key
After these steps have been implemented, repeat. It’s important to keep updating your content, providing new information and keep your site current. These are the things that keep your audience coming back and commenting on your posts.

Remember you can give information about your company, after all people are following your company because they like you, but just be careful the content you’re providing doesn’t sound like a sales pitch. Rather your content should be informative, but also include a place for people to learn about your industry, voice their opinion and carry on conversations with you. Having all these components may create a well-rounded social media campaign that could keep people checking your site and responding to your questions.

How to Use Social Media in Network Marketing without Involving Your Ego– Part 1