Ah, yes. The wonderful world of online search and SEO. I’ve said it a million times and it’s worth repeating: it is no longer okay to put a website together without optimizing the site for local search results! With the economy the way that it is, business owners are forced to be smarter with how they apply their funds to generate leads and sales. Phone books are dead, and with billboards, direct mail, print & newspaper advertising, it is hit or miss at best and even then it’s nearly impossible to justify those advertising dollars with analytics / metrics that show what type of response, if any, that was generated. That’s the beauty of Internet marketing, and where we come in as developers to help these business owners and companies that depend on increasing web traffic to keep money coming in! (more…)
Archive for the ‘SEO’ Category
Using Long Tail and Short Tail Keywords when Blogging
Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010When writing your posts around predetermined keywords and phrases, remember to use long-tail keywords for better search traffic to your website or post. For example, on a post about IT content relating to “Data Recovery,” instead of using “Data Recovery” for the title of the post, since you have an opportunity to use a valuable local search phrase in a title and file name, “Oklahoma Computer Data Recovery” would be ideal and more likely to become a search term by a consumer than the shorter keyword. This is easier to do in the title (or name) of your blog post than in the body content, obviously, because it doesn’t require any sentence or grammar / structure rewriting. (more…)
Paid Search Vs. Organic Search Results
Sunday, May 2nd, 2010What’s the difference? I think many web content developers and SEO (search engine optimization) professionals assume that our clients know what the difference between paid and organic / natural search results are. You know what paid search results are….they are the ones that no one clicks on LOL! I do sometimes, like maybe 2 times a year, and everything I do I pretty much do in a web browser. Soooo, that leaves the rest of the search results…the ones that are there naturally simply because of the content of the website that is being listed. These natural, or “organic” search results were carefully planted in a garden and no pesticides or steroids of any kind were added throughout the search process. Oh, wait, that’s the other kind of organic. It reminds of the line from “Bee Movie” with Jerry Seinfeld. The bee is told, “it’s organic!” and he responds with, “it’s OURganic!” (Crickets chirping….chirp….chirp) (more…)
More Businesses Going Digital in 2010?
Thursday, April 29th, 2010
The next trend in corporate marketing is going to be relying less on traditional advertising and marketing agencies, according to the latest State of Marketing Report from the Chief Marketing Officer Council. Continuing to build online awareness and generating higher digital demand were the top initiatives reported for 2010 by the global affinity network of senior marketers.
Nearly half of the members surveyed (46%) reported that their companies are presently undergoing a “digital marketing makeover” or will be sometime in 2010. Fifty-eight percent said they were going to train and develop existing staff specifically in this area, and 36 percent expect to hire new talent with digital marketing skills. Forty percent of corporate marketers will be adding or expanding their support from agencies that specialize in digital marketing while an all-time low eight percent plan to conduct advertising agency reviews. (more…)
Your Homepage No Longer Does the Heavy Lifting
Monday, January 25th, 2010
Gone are the days of the homepage. True, every website has one, but the days when website owners expect their homepage to do all the heavy lifting are gone.
Thanks to the evolving science of search, the search engines have made our lives easier by providing the consumer with relevant search results for specific keyword queries. Visitors now stream directly into websites via side doors and back doors. They can magically teleport into a website without ever seeing the homepage; they are practically flying through the windows to land directly where they want to be.
For a consumer looking for a specific product or service, this is fantastic, but for site owners and operators, the importance of optimizing each and every individual page you would potentially want a searcher to visit is magnified considerably. When visitors can enter a site and land anywhere, there are brand implications. If it’s not immediately apparent where they are, and why, they might not stick around. The same thought and energy you put into the homepage of the site to brand the product or company must be put into each page that you intend to be searchable for the consumers that you want to be on your site. (more…)
Tulsa SEO & Internet Marketing
Saturday, January 9th, 2010
Search Engine Optimization is the foundation, the bedrock of online marketing. It is the foundation of all Internet marketing.
Launching a website without actively marketing it properly (and professionally) is like buying a new car, never putting gas in it, and then complaining that it doesn’t work. The potential for leads and sales certainly exists, but without some direct focus on Search Engine Optimization and Internet marketing, you’ll never see those leads.
You see, search engines have taught consumers how to search. They have redefined how people shop and find the services that you offer. And when someone types a keyword into the search box and presses that search button, there are only two possible outcomes:
- They will find you.
- They will find your competitors.
You can’t afford to allow your competitors to hog all of the search results in Google, Bing, or Yahoo while you spend advertising dollars on avenues that cannot justify a positive return on investment. (more…)
Web Developers Stand Up
Saturday, December 19th, 2009While eating some chocolate donuts this morning with my son, it dawned on me that each miniature donut was identical. All the same size, shape, taste, etc. I thought to myself, “what if all web content developers put ample, and equal time on each web project dedicated to search engine optimization for the site?” Well, it would definitely make the fight to get on Google’s first page much more difficult. The content online everywhere would be so relevant and the searches would be so close together in similarity that one listing would not stand head and shoulders above the other searched results, as it does now.
Well, the truth is, most web designers do just that – they design websites. Developing a website entails much more than just throwing some files on the server and invoicing the client. Proper SEO practices are not followed by all. One firm that we took over a website at the request of the client put together a really nice site, but even after it was launched for over a month, there were no title tags, no descriptions or key words; just nothing but some text and some graphics. When I asked him why they didn’t do any of it, his reply was, “We kinda ran out of time.” 2 weeks after we optimized the site, it was all over the first page of Google and the other major indexes. That company is no longer in business. (more…)
The Internet Professional
Friday, October 23rd, 2009The Internet Professional
The Internet has come a long way in the little over a decade it’s been part of daily life. Not only do some 25% of the world’s population now have ‘net access [Internet World Stats, June 2009], but it’s easier than ever for those users to contribute to the Web rather than just passively consuming its content.
Only recently the field of Web design emerged as a hot new profession. Every business wanted a presence on the Web, and in the days of the dotcom bubble investors were lining up to throw money at Web startups. Someone had to build those sites, and that someone was the Web designer.
The profession lost its sparkle after the 2000 crash left too many Web designers chasing too few jobs. But the technology that’s arrived since has virtually killed Web design. That technology includes blogs, social networks, cell phones and everything else that allows anyone to establish a fancy Web presence with just a few clicks and update it just by typing in a box. (more…)
Guaranteed Search Engine Placement?
Friday, August 24th, 2007There are a countless number of companies that promise top 10 or even top 5 placement in the search engines and larger indexes such as Google, MSN, Yahoo, etc. if you pay them “x” amount of dollars. Let me dispel this myth: no one can promise and deliver those types of results. Don’t get me wrong – it is possible to achieve good search engine placement for new and existing sites – we do it every month for our clients. But to guarantee this type of thing is wrong, and that’s how you can tell the difference between those that just want your money and honest web developers that know how to perform this service, and are willing to sit down and take the time to do it. (more…)