I was just thinking that it’s a great time to be in the following businesses:

• Gun shop
• Auto Mechanic/Auto Repair

I won’t go into the gun shop thing, but I just heard a report that people aren’t buying new cars, and they are hanging onto their existing cars.  Well… cars break no matter what the economy, right? So, if people aren’t buying new cars, that means they are getting them repaired, right?

Auto Repair shop owners… Look to the Internet for your Marketing!!!

If your shop is not listed in Google Local, Yahoo Local, and MSN Local, then I assure you that you’re missing out on a once-in-a-lifetime increase in business opportunity.

Yellow Pages doesn’t work anymore… the Internet is how people are finding products and services

Click Here! to learn how to use the Internet to get more business for your auto repair shop.

Think about it… this is like a Power Play in hockey! You’re one player up, but if you’re not taking advantage of Internet Marketing, you might as well just be giving the puck to the opponent the whole time!

Don’t know how to get your Auto Repair business traffic from the Internet??

Click Here! to learn how.

No related posts.

Here’s 5 quick tips for improving the marketing effectiveness of your website.  I’ve used these techniques successfully on almost every site I work on (including this site!)

1. Effective copy-writing

Here’s where most site owners fail to convert viewers into callers or purchasers. I use the following 3-step, persuasive copy-writing technique right on the home page:

1. Identify a problem your potential client is having
2. Explain how your services solve their problem
3. Display a simple, clear call-to-action

2. Make an offer they can’t refuse!

Offer a FREE 1st time consultation if you sell professional services. If you’re a persuasive sales person, then once you get them in the door, you can convert them into a client.  The hard part is getting them in the door!

Depending on your industry, you’ll have to think of clever, irresistible offers to make from your website to get people to call you.  You’re after the face-to-face meeting or phone call, so have your website channel people to call or meet with you.

3. Improve the readability of your site

People don’t read websites, they scan. Write small paragraphs with headers. Look at this post as an example… I use large, bold headers, and short paragraphs throughout. Typical behavior is to scan the headers, and if something catches your interest, to read the paragraph. Use this to your advantage!

4. Put your contact info on the home page!

You’d be surprised how many people think contact info should only be on the Contact Us page! Truth is, most people make instant judgments on your company from your home page. If you make them look around for your contact info, the more likely they’ll just click BACK. Make sure your address and phone are prominently on the home page, not just your Contact Us page.

5. People don’t care about you… they care about how you can help them

Okay, this is a little hard on the ego, but your website should not be about you. Make your website about your potential clients and how you can help them.

No related posts.

If you’re reading this, you probably searched on something to do with ‘recession’, ’seo’, and maybe ‘bad economy’.  This means that you are probably educating yourself on looking for the most effective marketing during the recession. Good for you. This post is to get some ideas rolling in your head to make your Internet Marketing more effective.

Small Businesses are feeling the pinch, so make your Internet Marketing more effective during the recession

The answer is not to pull out of your marketing strategy. You’ll go out of business if you do that. You just need to be more effective in your marketing strategy during a recession. Face it, during the good times, there’s a lot of wasted dollars on marketing. Most small businesses that I deal with wasted lots of money on print Yellow Pages, and even YellowPages.com, and they don’t even know what the return on their investment was!! (Yellow Pages ROI is pretty bad, by the way).  They didn’t need to track their marketing dollars because money was plentiful. Well that has all changed.

First things: Differentiate your business on customer service

This isn’t necessarily about SEO, but it’s SUPREMELY important. You aren’t going to beat the WalMarts of your industry on price. Stop trying! You can, however, keep your existing loyal customers, and attract new customers by providing excellent customer service.

Here’s an example… Every morning I make the choice to walk 100 yards to the corner 7-11 and get a coffee refill for $.99.  Or, I can make a 2 mile drive to Starbucks and pay $1.98 for my coffee.  I choose Starbucks.  Why?  It’s not because I’m brainwashed by Starbucks, or even because I think they have better coffee.  It’s because I take my dog with me and they give me a dog treat when I go through the drive-thru.  That’s excellent customer service! The ladies greet my dog (by name) every day. They give me a wonderful customer experience. That’s why I spend the extra time and money to get my coffee at Starbucks.

So, first things first… get your customer service in line. That means getting rid of the 20-something person answering your phones that is not nice to your customers. That means look for ways to go above and beyond and create a unique customer experience for your patrons. That means acutally being friendly and genuinely greeting customers as they enter your store. That means not letting your staff conduct personal conversations in front of customers (this one particularly annoys me).  You get the point.  There are plenty of people looking for work, don’t settle for staff that doesn’t demonstrate excellent customer service skills… there are 20 people lined up behind them with families to feed that can probably do their job better. You might have to subtly remind them of that point. Don’t let your business suffer because your employees aren’t nice.

Once you get your customer service in check, look for ways to make your marketing more effective. My business is INTERNET MARKETING, and I’ve seen plenty of businesses GREATLY BENEFIT from effective Internet Marketing.  I’m not saying that Internet Marketing should be your only strategy, but it should be part of your overall Marketing Plan. Here are a few ideas to think about.

Update your website: On-page SEO and persuasive web copy

Now’s the time to whip that website into shape that you haven’t updated in 5 years! Follow my tips for redesigning your website with SEO in mind. Your website communicates the image of your business. If you still have a 1990’s looking website, please update it.  It’ll be the best thing you’ll do this year.

Next, start thinking in terms of PERSUASIVE text on your website. There’s nothing worse than having a website where when people view it, their eyes glaze over because all you do is present them with dry information and facts. They tend to hit the BACK button.

Here’s a tried and true formula for turning website visitors into buyers or callers. Three steps to persuasive web copy:

1. Pose a problem that the person might have that you can solve. If you run a Plumbing business, your opening headline could be “Are you having plumbing problems and are looking for a Plumber you can trust?”  Note, I didn’t stop at “are you looking for a plumber”.  Most people looking for services are concerned with being able to trust service people. So, expand your thinking to consider what people really want.
2. State how your business solves their problem… but do it in terms of BENEFITS, not facts or features. A benefit explains how it helps the person. A feature is about you. A benefit is about them. So instead of just saying “We are XYZ Certified Plumbers”, say “You can be assured we know what we’re doing – we are XYZ Certified”.  Make sense?
3. Have a CLEAR call-to-action. “CALL NOW!!! (555) 555-1234″.   Or, “Fill in this web form now and we’ll respond within 24 hours!”.   Make sure the call-to-action is big, bold, and unmistakably clear to follow.

Monitor your competition: Re-evaluate your keyword phrases

If you are already doing some SEO effort, or are thinking about it, you should be aware of the importance of targeting keyword phrases on your site. This post is not about keyword phrases, but it is about re-thinking your SEO during the recession. So consider this novel idea about keyword phrases.

Some medium to large sized businesses are going out of business because of the economy. You should watch for openings for marketing opportunity. Are there some strategic keyword phrases that other companies used to dominate that aren’t any more? Re-evaluate all your keyword phrases and look where you can fill the gap and go after the long-tail search phrases.

If you’ve always gone after the most compeititve search phrases, you’re probably a small fish in a big pond. Try going after some phrases that pick up long-tail searchers. I’m not going into exactly how you do that in this post (Google it), but you can certainly experiment with some PPC ads to identify those search phrases. You might be surprised at how much traffic you can pick up.

Ride it out and set yourself up for the upswing

Those businesses that don’t use the down-turn to maximize the effectiveness of their marketing strategies aren’t going to make a killing once the good times return. Those that put in the effort right now will get an EXPONENTIAL pay off when things start picking back up.

On the flipside, those that don’t tweak their marketing right now will try to do so when the good times are back again…. but it will be too late.  Those that worked hard on their Internet Marketing strategy during the bad times, will already dominate the Search Engine Rankings, and there will be no easy entrances into those search query spaces.

Good luck! I’ll share more ideas as they come to me. These are hard times, but it forces us to think more strategically, and sometimes, that’s a good thing for business.

No related posts.

I don’t know what Google calls it, but I call it the “Google bump”.  That is when new pages soar straight to the top of the rankings.  The problem is that a week or two later, they sink right back into oblivion.

I’ve been studying this effect for a couple of years now. I can repeat it consistently. Within a week, I can get a page ranked within, or near the top 10 for my targeted keyword phrase. Within two weeks of that page hitting the top ranking, it sinks back, sometimes several pages!

Check your expections, and scrutinize your SEO firm!

First of all, the reason for this post is to inform small business website owners to be aware of this pattern. An SEO firm can (if they know what they’re doing) get your page to quickly rank for a search phrase.  The temptation is for them to send you this ranking report saying “look what we did… you’re #3 for [insert search phrase]!”     The problem is that they don’t follow up two weeks later with “your page is now #89 for [search phrase]“.

So, just be informed that you will see quick results from optimization efforts, but those efforts will last about two weeks, then die off quickly.  These are expected results… it just happens that way.  But don’t let your SEO give you some hokie explanation for the up and down.

No related posts.

I recently discovered a company called LotusJump that I will be partnering with to refer Do-it-yourselfers to for link-building efforts.

Are you a small business owner who works on your own website?

Some of you are savvy enough to work on your own websites… I’ve bumped into many of you. Unfortunately, some websites lock you into features that may restrict exactly how much control you have over the 5 Most Important Elements in Designing your Website… such as an eCommerce software site, or a turn-key website solution.

In these circumstances where you don’t have the detailed control over the On-Page SEO elements, you must turn to Off-Page SEO strategies to influence the rankings of your site.  Enter LotusJump!

LotusJump, in a nutshell, takes the trial and error out of link building. Their software does the back-end research and creates a task-list of link building efforts you should follow.  You can pick which tasks to execute and ignore the ones you don’t want to do. LotusJump builds your task list according to your preferences.

Click the banner and get started on Link Building Today!

LotusJump has a 14 day trial, so you have nothing to lose!   Get started today!

No related posts.

Eventually, every small business should update their website. Maybe you have a new logo, or you finally coordinated all your marketing materials on a single font style and color palate. Maybe you just finally wanted to breathe some new life into your website that was last updated in 1998!  Whatever the reason, it’s time to update your site.  Here are some quick requirements that you REALLY SHOULD require of your web designer so that you don’t suffer in your SEO efforts.

For all the following examples, let’s go with the case study of a plumber. So the site we are re-designing is for a small business owner running a plumbing business. These are the requirements that the owner MUST pass onto his/her web designer.

Please note: Business owner.. you may not understand some of the things I talk about below… that’s ok.  It doesn’t matter.  However, your web designer SHOULD know and just follow the advice.  If he/she doesn’t know, then fire them and get a designer who does.

1. Name your pages strategically

First of all, your home page must be index.<something>.  I would HIGHLY recommend you name your pages with a .php extension, even if you don’t have any PHP code in your page.  It does not hurt your site any for a page to be named index.php even if there is no PHP code running… however, it will be difficult later on if, say, you wanted to add a contact form on your home page.  Then you’d HAVE to rename the file from index.html to index.php (which causes problems later).  So just start with a .php extension for all your pages. (Note: this is assuming you are on a Linux web server… if you are running your website from a Microsoft IIS web server, then I’m truly sorry) 

Secondly, you should have a few keyword phrases in mind for how people will find your site.  In our example, we’d want to go with “plumber”, “plumbing”, and then also your county and city name.  There are others like “bathroom plumbing”, “kitchen plumbing”, or others, but that’s a job for your SEO, not your designer.  For now, stick with the basic industry and geography.

So, name the pages of your website with some keywords, where appropriate. For instance, if our plumbing website had a service area page, then why not make several!  Name one www.example.com/[county]plumbing.php    I live in Pinellas County, Florida, so my page would be www.example.com/pinellas-plumbing.php, and then fill in some content that is unique about my Pinellas county service area.

To sum up point one, strategically name your pages with .php and plug your main keywords in the filename of the page when appropriate.

2. Title Tags – Unique and keyword plugged

Every page should have what’s called a Title Tag. This dictates what is displayed in the title bar of your browser, and usually what is displayed in the link in your search results. Your title tag should plug a keyword or two. So, instead of your Contact page just saying “Contact Us” in your title tag, you should say “Contact Pinellas County Plumber – Joe’s Plumbing, (800) 555-1234, joe@example.com”. Don’t you think that’s a better title tag than simply “Contact Us”?

Another VERY important factor is that every page has a UNIQUE title tag. Google wants to see every page have a unique title tag.  Just do it because that’s what Google wants, and what Google wants gets ranked highly.

3. Description Meta Tag – Unique and keyword plugged

Just like you should have keyword plugged and unique Title Tags, you should also have unique, keyword plugged Description Meta Tags!

The description meta tag should be unique because Google wants them to be unique. Just do it. No two pages should have the same title or description meta tags.

Also, you should plug your important keywords in the description meta tags. Continuing our Plumber case study, we might end up with the following for our home page.

<title>Pinellas County, FL Plumbing - Joe's Plumbing - Tampa Bay, FL</title>
<meta name="description" content="Joe's Plumbing for your Plumbing needs in the Tampa Bay, FL
area, serving Pinellas and Hillsborough Counties. A Certified, Licensed Plumber" />

Notice the sprinkling of the keyword “plumbing” and the city and county name. You don’t want to overdo the keyword plugging, then it becomes “keyword stuffing” which is considered spam and you’ll get penalized by Google.

4. Page Hierarchy – Proper use of H and P tags

Ok, here’s what I’ve learned about web designers. They are more concerned with design than practicality, and they are lazy. Web designers may disagree with this statement, but it’s been proven to me many, many times over. I’ll bring this full-circle in a moment.

Alright, to my point. Page hierarchy is very important to search engines. It communicates the structure of your page to know what content is most important, in a hierarchical structure.  The HTML specifications use H and P tags (mainly… there are more but we’re sticking to the basics here) to communicate hierarchy. An H tag stands for Heading. P tag stands for Paragraph. It should be obvious that Headings carry more content weight than a Paragraph. So, when you’re creating content, use Headings to kind of summarize what the following paragraph will be talking about.  I used that principle in this article, as a matter of fact! Each of the factors are H3 tags and the paragraphs below them are encapsulated in P tags.

Here’s the reason… if you correspond your keyword plugging in your H and P tags, you’ll communicate to search engines what the focus, or relevance of this page should be about.  So instead of letting Google just try to figure out what this page is about, you’ll be gently ’suggesting’ what keywords this page should rank for by properly using effective page hierarchy, H and P tags.

Finally, (this is arguable, and just my preference) I think you should only use a single H1 tag, a couple of H2 tags, and an appropriate number of H3 tags.

One more thing… DO NOT use H tags for things like Menu headers. That is a complete waste of an H tag if it just says “Menu” or “Navigation”.   So, only use H tags to communicate content relevancy.  If you have to style a Menu header, use a CSS class, like <div class=”menuheader”>Menu</div>.

Full circle… web designers are often lazy and they mainly care about style over content. They want your site to look cool, or pretty, so they blaze over these things like effective page hierarchy. So hold your designer to the fire and make sure they practice good content hierarchy. If they try to argue that style is more important, pull a Donald Trump… “You’re Fired!”  Your website’s visibility for the search engines is far more important than how cool the page looks.

5. Use CSS Style Sheets – Separate Design and Content

Finally, you should insist that your web designer uses valid XHTML + CSS standards.  If the person you are going to hire does not know what XHTML + CSS is, then don’t hire them!  Seriously!

In a nutshell, XHTML + CSS is a way of keeping the style (or look) of your website separate from the content of your site.  The best way to explain this is to show you.  Visit CSS Zen Garden for a perfect example. Click Select A Design to the right and notice how the entire look and style of the site changes… however, it’s the same HTML and content.  They simply changed the CSS style sheet attached to the document.

Why is this important??  I’m glad you asked. Say two years from now, you want to redesign your site AGAIN. Instead of hiring and paying someone to start from scratch, all you need is someone to design you a new CSS style sheet!  You can leave the HTML (content) alone.  If your HTML is properly separated from your style to begin with, you can completely change the look of your site simply by changing one line of code.

Besides the ease of redesign, I believe that properly using XHTML + CSS standards helps your SEO effort as well. Most XHTML + CSS websites are very “lean and mean”.  This means that there is MUCH less actual code in your page. This means it’s easier to use effective content hierarchy, and ultimately, there’s less characters that the Google Bot has to sift through to find the relevant content on your site!

Final note: insist that your web designer NOT use tables. If you see a <table> tag anywhere in your site, you should dump the designer.  One exception I would make to this rule is for contact forms, or web forms. Sometimes, the only way to make a form look good is using tables. The only other exception to this rule is tabular data. If you’re displaying rows of information or data on some page, then that’s ok too.  Otherwise, designers need to stop using tables. That’s so 1990’s

Summary

To summarize… If you are a business owner and thinking about redesigning your website, make sure your designer follows these 5 requirements.

1. Page naming strategy
2. Unique and keyword plugged title tags
3. Unique and keyword plugged description meta tags
4. An effective page hierarchy
5. Use CSS to separate design and content

If you follow these recommendations, first of all, you will be on your way to your page being ranked highly, as is. Secondly, should you pursue professional and in-depth Search Engine Optimization services, you’ll minimize the time and struggle your SEO pro will have to take on. Who knows?  They might even cut you a break in the price if all the basics are handled on your site!  Often, the first several months of an SEO taking on a new client is simply making these basic changes.

When you hire your web designer to redesign your site, insist on following these 5 simple recommendations and you’ll save yourself time, effort, and money in the long run.

No related posts.

Here’s a business secret… when the economy is down, that’s the perfect time to work on your marketing. Those who give into the economic down-turn and panic are doomed to be affected by it negatively in the long-run.

Think about this for a second… right now, every business owner is tightening spending, which probably means they are drastically cutting their marketing budget. Now is not the time to panic!!  Now is the time to spend your marketing dollars strategically and effectively and boost your website while everyone else is retreating.  If you firmly establish your business and your website in the search engine rankings while everyone else is panicing, then when the good times are back, your business will be in a better position than everyone else.

Here’s a good example… Real-Estate Agents. Every yahoo across the country got their real-estate agent license when the housing market was booming. Now that the market dried up, did you notice all the Johnny-come-lately real-estate agents go find other jobs?  So, when the housing market bottoms out and starts swinging back up (which it will because housing is simply a business cycle, just like any other market that operates on cycles) those agents that stuck it out and worked really hard during the downswing will end out on top when the good times come back again.  And guess who’s going to rake in the profits when housing shoots up again??  Yes, those agents who stuck it out through the down-turn.

So, now’s the PERFECT time to focus on your website and your Search Engine Optimization strategy.  Because, when things start picking up, it’ll be too late and everyone else will be more competitively placed in the search engine rankings than you if you wait until the down-turn is over.

No related posts.

As a business owner (especially small business owners), you need to be aware of what you can expect SEO to accomplish for your business. Some people think SEO is the magic bullet for increasing sales. For some industries, it is.  Others, not so much. Let me pose a few scenarios and help you make informed business decisions on use of SEO consultants.

If your business is suseptible to business cycles, then you should be aware that the effectiveness of your SEO campaign will also be suseptible to those same cycles.

First off… reasonable SEO expectations

SEO is Internet Marketing… a branch of your overall marketing strategy. I believe there is a growing buzz that SEO is the be-all, end-all of business marketing. For some very niche industries, this is a true statement. But for the vast majority of businesses, SEO should be one component of your overall marketing strategy.

So, that means that you need to set reasonable expectations for the results of your SEO campaign. Further, if you are seeking an SEO consultant, DO NOT buy into the common lies of dramatic increased sales, and all that mumbo-jumbo. Any SEO consultant who ‘guarantees’ increased sales is a shiester and should be avoided at all costs.  SEOs who know what they are doing will talk to you about what you expect to achieve with your SEO campaign.

Back to business cycles…

External influences of Business Cycles on SEO

If your business is affected by the economy, or any other external factor, then your SEO campaign effectivness will probably also be affected proportionally.

For example… I often work on a friend’s site who is a home inspector. He is ranking in the top 10 (if not #1) for terms like “<county> home inspector”, or “<city, state> home inspector”.  However, people simply aren’t looking for home inspectors right now! The housing market is bad, and people aren’t buying like they used to, therefore, they aren’t hiring home inspectors like they used to either.

Another industry that I’ve briefly worked with is beading eCommerce. Beading… as in the hobby where you make things, like jewelry, out of beads.  Beading is a hobby, and when the economy is down, people make choices to reign in spending, and hobbies are one of the casualties of a tight budget. So, no matter what we did, the number of people searching for beads was simply not there.

Non-Economic examples of Business Cycles and SEO

Another example of business cycles affecting SEO, but not necessarily tied to external or economic factors, are seasonal businesses.

It should be obvious that no amount of SEO is going to increase sales dramatically of fireworks…. except near July 4th.

Another example is tax preparation. I’ve represented tax shops who have greatly increased in new clients directly as a result of an effective SEO campaign. But it only happens after the first of the year, and only lasts until taxes are due. The rest of the year is flat.

Summary

The point of this article is to simply bring to your awareness that SEO, like all elements of business, is subject to business cycle influence. Keep your expectations reasonable. SEO is not the magic bullet, in most situations. However, SEO is a powerful supplement to your overall marketing strategy.

No related posts.

I’ve seen a lot of REALLY bad shopping carts. Today, I saw the worst shopping cart of all.

First of all, let’s talk about effective shopping carts. An effective shopping cart (from an SEO perspective) has the following features

• The ability to uniquely edit the title tag and description meta tag of every page, every product, every product category.
• URLs with product names, and/or category names. Parametrized URLs are not good. We want keywords in our URLs.
• Bonus: some sort of linking feature, such as Related Items, or Shoppers who bought this item also bought these items.

I run into website owners almost weekly who are stuck with really bad shopping cart software. Most of them suffer from parameterized URLs, therefore, not able to get their product pages indexed well.

Today, I saw the grand master of bad shopping carts. This was an ASP shopping cart software that used frames, therefore, never changing the URL, nor the title tags or description meta tag!

I think I’m going to make it my purpose in life to try to educate people how not to get trapped in bad web page purchasing decisions. I’m seeing it happen too much lately, and it’s giving the whole web/SEO industry a black eye from all the swindlers out there.

Oh, I won’t simply complain about bad shopping carts without giving you some advice… if you’re considering a shopping cart for your website, Magento gets my vote these days. Check it out.

No related posts.

Here’s a topic close to my heart… Small Business Marketing.  I’m becoming more convinced that Small Business Owners need to take advantage of Internet Marketing. We’re seeing drastic declining use of traditional marketing, such as Yellow Pages/Yellow Book. So, what are people using to find products and services these days?  Google.

I understand that most Small Biz owners are focused on running their business, doing their billing to increase cash-flow, and all those other important recurring tasks. However, I really encourage Small Business owners to take some time to look at marketing.

Here’s a recent story… I finally visited my local Submarina California Subs shop, and let me tell you… these are the BEST subs I’ve ever eaten.  Anyway, the shop near my house is a pilot location.  While I was munching on my tasty Triple Play sub, I decided to look up this location in Google Maps.  Low and behold, Submarina was no where to be found! How will people find your restaurant if you’re not in any of the Local Map directories?

So, here are some easy things you can do. Enter/Update your business in all the “Local” services. Those would be: Google, Yahoo, and MSN. This ensures your correct business information shows up on Map searches.

If you do not have a website, I HIGHLY recommend having one built. If you have a website, I recommend updating it, and make sure your web person includes the following elements to make sure the search engines like your site.

• Enter your keyword phrase in your Title Tag. i.e. if you’re a plumber, make sure your Title Tag says “Tampa, FL Plumber” (insert your own city/state and business type).
• Have one prominent title for every web page, and plug those same keyword phrases in it.
• Have a sitemap and enter it into Google Webmaster Tools.
• Use Google Webmaster Tools to diagnose your site for errors.

Just these few simple things will go a long way to getting your site ranked highly for your LOCAL customer demographics.

Stay tuned for more Small Business SEO tips.

No related posts.