X SEO

Picturesque view of Lake Minnetonka from the TopRank Online Marketing office

Today marks my 4 month anniversary at TopRank Online Marketing and almost 5 years in the online marketing industry.  It has been a goal of mine to learn as much as I possibly can from those who know the industry best.  In this seemingly short amount of time I have received, and continue to receive a top notch education at an unbeatable price.

I would like to share some of my experience to give other marketers interested in breaking into Internet marketing or continuing their online marketing education an idea of what it looks like from one person’s perspective.

The Interview Process

Do Your Homework
Walking into an interview with no base knowledge of who the company is, what they stand for, and how they operate is a huge mistake.  Especially if you are an Internet marketer.  I would recommend reviewing the following information pre-interview:

• Company Website: This should give you a sense of the services they offer and who some of their clients are.
• Management: If you can find information about the management team be sure to do some additional research on them as well to get a sense of their background and accomplishments.
• Content & Social Profiles: At the bare minimum I would recommend looking at the company blog (if they have one), Twitter profile, Facebook page, and Google+ page.
• News & Press Releases: Do a Google search to see if the company has released any exciting news over the past few months.

If you are working with a recruiter be sure to ask as many questions about the companies services, their culture, and preferences as possible.  The recruiter will typically have spoken with contacts at the company and with other interviewees post interview.  This is a great opportunity to gain some inside knowledge before you step in the door.  These are all great ways to educated yourself before walking in the door and will allow you to have an intelligent conversation about the company during your interview.

Demonstrate Value
Depending on what position you are applying for take some time to identify what you believe to be areas of need or improvement for the company.  You should walk in knowing you may not be 100% correct but it will be appreciated that you made the effort.  If applying for a social media position I would take some time to analyze what they are doing currently, what the results appear to be, as well as some recommendations for increased customer engagement.

Spending some additional time to identify what you believe to be their competitors will also be a great source for gather information.  Perhaps you notice a competitors blog or social profile that has a lot of readers or followers.  Try to identify what they are doing and how the company you are interviewing with could do that better.

Asking questions is also a great way to demonstrate value.  If you can think quickly on your feet then this will allow you demonstrate immediate value.  Some questions you might consider asking are:

• What do you believe is your biggest area of need?
• What would you like/need to focus on but don’t have enough time to do?
• What personality traits are you looking for in a candidate?
• What does the typical day look like for this position?
• Are there any other areas of your business that you would like to grow?

Consider Each Interview a Learning Experience
Whether it is your dream job or not I believe that you should walk into each interview hoping to learn as much as you possibly can.  In addition to being a great networking opportunity it can give you a sense of what companies in the industry are looking for in a candidate, industry buzz words, and a chance to learn more from someone else in the industry.

Even If You Didn’t Get the Job, Ask For Feedback
As disappointing as it may be you will not get every job you interview for.  If you receive word that they have decided not to hire you don’t be afraid to ask why.  I recommend sending out a brief and polite email asking for feedback.  Thank the interviewer for the opportunity and ask if they have any recommendations on skills that would make you more attractive to a company like theirs because you are interested in constantly evolving your skill set.

Working for an Internet Marketing Company

There Will Always Be Other People Who Know More Than You
No matter how long you have been in the industry there will be other online marketers who know things that you don’t.  Instead of foolishly refusing to learn from these other influentials I would recommend keeping tabs on what they’re teaching and apply information that you find useful to your own strategy.  There may be tactics that you do not agree with but if anything it will give you a sense of what other respected members of the community are recommending to your potential clients.

Welcome Constructive Criticism
I for one thrive on feedback.  If I don’t know what I am doing wrong or how to fix it how will I get better?  I have a tendency to take some feedback personally because I put so much of myself into my work.  However, I’ve learned that you can’t consider it a personal attack but instead an opportunity to learn more.  Take the feedback that you’ve been given, add it into your process, and work to avoid the same mistakes next time.  Say perhaps that you don’t agree with the feedback provided?  I’ve learned that there is nothing wrong with having an opinion as long as you have data to back it up.  So, until you have that information do not present an argument.  An educated opinion is worth so much more than an emotional response.

The Best Internet Marketers are Passionate About What They Do
In a field like Internet Marketing I think it is essential that you care about your work.  Care not in the sense that you like the paycheck, but that you actually have a interest in what you are doing.  Companies and clients can tell if you are not invested in marketing their product and getting results.  Social media engagement is a full time job.  You must be willing to connect even when it may not be convenient to answer the questions and address concerns of your customers and potential customers.

Adaptability & Process Are Extremely Valuable
In an industry that changes from one day to the next those that are not adaptable will be left behind.  Once you find tactics that work be sure to document them and make them part of your process.  This process will clearly evolve over time but it will help maintain order for yourself and the rest of your team.  If each team member is taking a wildly different approach to online marketing you will not be able to truly measure the success of your efforts or provide a best practice approach.

What Next?
I don’t consider what I do a job.  It is a journey and an education that I am extremely thankful for.  Through my experience I have learned what should be done, as well as what not to do.  I know that I have shared some of my personal experience but I am curious to know what helpful tips other readers in the industry might have.  If you could tell everyone one thing that you’ve learned while working in this industry, what would it be?

Are you interested in working for a company like TopRank Online Marketing?  If you would like the opportunity to work with us we would love to hear from you.  We are currently looking for Account Managers, as well as Search and Social Strategists to join our team.  Our Careers page on our website provides some more detailed information on our current openings.

Gain a competitive advantage by subscribing to the
TopRank® Online Marketing Newsletter.

© Online Marketing Blog, 2012. |
Getting Your Internet Marketing Dream Job: How to Interview & Succeed at a Top Agency | http://www.toprankblog.com

Many businesses have joined Facebook under their business name instead of the business owner’s name.  For example:  John Doe set up a “personal profile” or “timeline” as John’s Coffee Shop.  It seems logical, but taking this route is not your best option.

There are a number of dis advantages to this, the biggest of which is it is against the Facebook Terms of Service.  In addition, personal profiles are not public and in some cases not searchable. You run the risk of not being found or even worse, having your account shut down. It’s OK though it’s not too late to fix it.

Transferring your personal profile to a business page is fairly easy, but here’s a checklist of things you need to do first:

1)      Create a personal profile under your real name

2)      Add another admin to any page or group you administer, you will lose those rights when you switch over.

3)      Download a copy of your Facebook data to your local computer.  Your friends and subscribers will be converted into likes and your profile photos will be moved to the new page, but all other data will be lost, so back it up.

•     Click the account menu at the top right of any Facebook page
•     Choose Account Settings
•     Click on “Download a copy” of your Facebook data
•     Click the Download button on the following page

Once all of your data has been backed up and you have ensured your groups and pages have admin access, click this link:  https://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php?migrate

The process is a tad clunky, but it’s doable and in the end it in your best experience for the long term.

Have you tried this yet?  What was your experience?

by Mike Moran

I don’t know a lot about robotics, but I have read a few articles recently about the biggest problem that robot manufacturer have in entering the home. They need the robots to behave differently so that people know how to interact with robots. For example, if a robot needs to open a door, it moves to the door and then must scan the door to locate the doorknob, identify the kind of doorknob, and then begin moving its robotic arm to open the door. Sometimes it takes a little time to do all these things before starting to move its arm, which to a person looks like it is frozen. But when designers began having the robot move its head up and down while scanning, people realized what it was doing. Having robots signal what they are doing to watching people is called “readability,” and it is important for your marketing as well.

Be sure and visit our small business news site.

by Mike Moran

If you are in this business long enough, someone will come up and ask the question. To some of them, it is the most important question in their lives: “How do I break into SEO?” I honestly get this question several times a month.  And each person that asks me is ready for my answer. Some seem ready to take notes. They expect that I am going to rattle off some kind of canned answer that will unlock the secret to their future career. But I don’t, because it isn’t that easy.

Be sure and visit our small business news site.

by Mike Moran

Do you have a shopping cart on your Web site? For most of us, the answer is no. For the average company, phone sales are the biggest way that new customers cross over from the Web to an actual sale. The question is whether you track those sales back to the Web or not. The big guys have been doing this for a long time. They track every phone sale back to SEO, PPC, or whatever marketing tactic led to the sale. Why do they do this? Because without knowing which tactics are leading to sales, you have no idea how much to invest in each type of marketing.

Image by Pete Prodoehl via Flickr

When I worked at IBM, they created a new way to track phone calls, the “Call Me” button. Instead of waiting for customers to call the phone number on the site, they allowed Web visitors to press a button on the page that gets the right person at IBM to call them within a few minutes. It was better for customers (no hold time and no explaining where you were on the site), but it was also better for IBM because they could track that phone call from the Web visit that caused it and they could track it through to an eventual sale.

But you’re not IBM, right? That solution required some interesting technology and a high-margin product line to pay for it.

You might relate more to ice.com, the online jewelry retailer that several years ago developed a way of putting different phone numbers on its site depending on where the traffic came from. So, the site would display one phone number when PPC searchers came to the site and another one when they reached the site based on SEO, for example. That way, they could track sales by tactic, so they knew which tactics to spend more resources on.

But you’re not ice.com, right? Perhaps they seem more accessible than IBM, but it still seems a bit difficult. If you are bold and ready to do this yourself, this technique is called Dynamic Number Insertion, and there are a few techniques that can work, such as reverse proxies and JavaScript codes.

But maybe you aren’t interested in developing anything. If someone had a package that did this for you, and it wasn’t too expensive or too difficult, maybe that would work. Those kinds of packages are starting to gain in popularity. Companies such as IfByPhone and CallSource are available that can do exactly what you needed to code yourself just a few years ago.

If you still don’t know what made a prospective customer call you, what are you waiting for?

Be sure and visit our small business news site.

Are you a newbie thinking about starting the next great ‘make-a-million-online-overnight-at-home-while-you-sleep.com’ blog to rake in big bucks from the Internet marketing business opportunities niche? Think again!! PLEASE think again. I’ve had numerous discussions with my colleagues throughout the many years I’ve been involved in the Internet marketing space — and we’ve all talked about ditching [...]

by Mike Moran

I’ve been spending a lot of time recently looking at local search, and discussing its importance with dozens of small businesses at the events I speak at. One discussion keeps coming up that I believe is terribly misguided. Small businesses think that their only competition in local search will come from other small businesses. So, as long as they stay ahead of their local competition, they are fine. I don’t believe that viewpoint will turn out to be correct in the end.

My belief is that the biggest competition that small businesses will face in local search will be large businesses. What local hardware store is not viewing Walmart and Sears as big competitors? Why don’t you think that will play out online, too? And from the viewpoint of what’s best for the searcher, why shouldn’t it?

I know, I know, you aren’t seeing that now, so why worry about it? My answer to that is: By the time you do see it, it will be very hard for you to fight back.

Image via Wikipedia

It reminds me of a situation a few years ago in a different kind of marketing. You youngsters probably don’t remember how critical directory links were in a pre-social world. They are still somewhat important today, but back then, they were the best links you could get to your site and #2 was a trailing by some distance.

Anyway, I remember how Yahoo! Directory and Open Directory both had hard-and-fast rules about being directories of sites, not pages, so they had a slew of small sites that each landed in their particular categories of the directory. Each of those small sites looked at its competitors as other small sites. Then, something changed.

WebMD, the huge medical information site, made the argument to both directories that they should not have only one link to the home page of WebMD. Rather, each of dozens of WebMD “sites” on medical conditions (heart disease, diabetes, etc.) were easily the equal of all of these small sites, and they deserved links from all of those categories to each of their “sites.”

It took a while, but eventually both directories agreed, granting dozens of individual directory entries to WebMD. This one action forever changed the competition among those small medical sites—now WebMD competed directly with them. Further, the precedent was set for other large sites to follow. Nowadays, directory listings have faltered in significance, but you need to pay attention to the point here.

It isn’t hard for me to imagine how local search might take the same path. Sure, it starts with local businesses, but it quickly moves to chains of stores that compete in that category. If you have a local auto parts store, you’re just waiting for the day that Pep Boys decides it is rolling out local search to all of its stores. Believe me that they will make sure their Google Place page is optimized for every single retail outlet they have.

But I don’t think it stops there. Why wouldn’t Costco trumpet its automotive department as every bit the equal of Pep Boys? They even install your tires for you, if you want. I don’t know how this plays out–perhaps they need to get a unique phone number that calls directly into each store’s automotive department. Perhaps they need a unique mailing address. Maybe they need neither—just petition Google the same way WebMD spoke to the directories.

I already see some of these chain stores in the listings, but I don’t think the big box stores (such as Costco) have really optimized their local presences at a department level yet. You’ll see sporadic stores pop up, with a few departments, but the day is coming when every department of every big box store has optimized its Place Pages and garnered Yelp reviews and is going after local search with single-minded intensity. Just so you know, I speak to a lot of large businesses, too, and this is already starting to happen.

The search engines want this, because it makes their results better. There is too much money for the search engines in local search for them to sit idly by while only small businesses participate. A searcher wants to see where the products can be bought nearby, from a big company or a small one. If you are expecting local search to be the bastion of Mom and Pop shops, I think you’ll be disappointed.

What’s a local business to do? Don’t be complacent about your “place” in local search. You might be happy about your listings now, even if you haven’t done that much work, but that is likely to change as more of your larger competitors get into the game. If you haven’t claimed your Google Place Page listing, run to do so. If you haven’t focused on collecting online ratings and reviews from satisfied customers, start. If you have never even checked the accuracy of Internet Yellow Pages listings, what are you waiting for?

And if you are a large business with many local outlets, I think you can guess what to do, too. Many people are finding your smaller competitors in local search today, either because you are missing from the results or your results don’t look all that compelling. It’s time to get cracking.

Be sure and visit our small business news site.

by Stoney deGeyter

There was no commercial internet in the 80′s, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t reach into the recesses of our past to see that, everything we know now about SEO, we already knew back then. How? From the greatest, most magical music of all time: 80′s hair band glam rock!

They just don’t make music like this anymore, and it’s a shame. The sweet sound of rock’n'roll has never tasted better. All it takes is a reflective look at some of these song titles to realize that these guys knew their online marketing! (Though I’m sure they were all too wasted to even know it!)

SEO Requires Knowledge and Skill

I always seem to run into people who read a little about SEO and think It’s So Easy (Guns N Roses). Throw in a few meta tags and a title, and you’re all set, right? Actually, there’s more to it than that. What It Takes (Aerosmith) to perform SEO correctly is more than just a basic understanding of how search engines work. In fact, you have to be something of a Modern Day Cowboy (Tesla) if you want your pages to rank above the competition. A good SEO will Rock You Like A Hurricane (Scorpions), making sure you get the results you want.

Beware of Spammers Masquerading as SEOs

SEO has a pretty bad history with spammers. Heck, I think just about any SEO who has been in the business for more than a decade has spammed at least once! Back then we were Runnin’ With The Devil (Van Halen), but we really weren’t Foolin’ (Def Leppard) anybody but ourselves. When Google came on the scene, they gave us more than Looks That Kill (Motley Crue), they gave a hardcore Shout At The Devil (Motley Crue) and combated spam like nobody’s business.

Spammers today are a different beast than ten years ago. You could say back then it was just our Youth Gone Wild (Skid Row). Everything was new. Today, there isn’t so much ignorance going around. Every spammer is a Wanted Man (Ratt), not just to Google, but to all legit SEO’s out there.

Spammers: you’re not making the internet better. You’re cluttering it with your crap. People want to fall in love with websites, but You Give Love A Bad Name (Bon Jovi). And for that, well, you can just Burn In Hell (Twisted Sister).

But, the real problem with websites that use spam techniques is that, while they may rank well for a while, eventually they’ll go down in a Blaze of Glory (Jon Bon Jovi).

Your Audience Matters

In online marketing, there is such a thing as love at first site. Every first time visitor comes to you with the Eyes of a Stranger (Queensryche), and you have just fractions of a second to answer the question: Is This Love? (Whitesnake). If you give them love at first site, you’ve got a convert and a customer. If not, you lose.

For too long, the needs and wants of visitors have been ignored. Instead of falling in love with your site, they come thinking, “Please, Don’t Treat Me Bad!” (Firehouse). Your audience is more than just a traffic count or a conversion rate. They are your customers, your evangelists, your survival! You need to look at each and every customer in the eye and say “Oh, dear Sweet Child O’ Mine (Guns N Roses), there is No One Like You (Scorpions) in all the world.

You have to take the time to know who your audience is and what they need. Then build your SEO and marketing strategy around meeting those needs.

SEO Is More Than Rankings… Conversions Matter

If you think SEO is just about rankings, Welcome To The Jungle (Guns N’ Roses) of online marketing. While businesses may tell you they want rankings, in reality, it’s conversions that are Wanted Dead or Alive (Bon Jovi).

A lot of SEO’s Runaway (Bon Jovi) from talking about conversions. They just want to bring you traffic, traffic, and more traffic. But, what’s the point of traffic without sales? You want your visitors to think of your site as Home Sweet Home (Motley Crue) and to be Still Loving You (Scorpions) from the time they land on your site through the end of the purchase process.

Content Matters

If you already know the importance of having strong SEO and conversion friendly content on your website, then you’re definitely Nobody’s Fool (Cinderella). Unfortunately, too many website owners still don’t get it. If you want your visitors to come Back for More (Ratt) then you have to give your content a Reason To Live (Kiss).

Content provides the justification your visitors need to complete the purchase. If you could hear your visitors thoughts, they’d say “Tell Me! (White Lion), Why are your products better? How is your service is more thorough? Can you meet my needs? Why should I trust you over your competitors?” In short, they’ll say, “Talk Dirty To Me (Poison), and tell me why I need you!”

If you can’t do that with great content, you’ll have a site that’s just like any other. Nothing special.

We All Need a Little Link Love

If you have a great website but nobody is linking to it, you’re Alone Again (Dokken). You might as well tell all of your grand marketing plans to “Kiss Me Deadly” (Lita Ford), because a new site without links might as well not exist.

When your sales-less website is asking you to “Pour Some Sugar On Me” (Def Leppard)… you better take heed. Your website just needs some lovin’. Good link marketing plans are not easy, nor are they cheap, but they are essential for new websites to be successful.

There is No Such Thing as Overnight Success

New websites are Too Young to Fall In Love (Motley Crue) with Google, or for Google to fall in love with them. And, even existing websites won’t see success in the Still of the Night (Whitesnake).

Good SEO takes time. Not just the implementation of a solid SEO strategy, but for the engines to translate all that hard work into good rankings. Once you have optimized your pages, you’ve got to have Patience (Guns N’ Roses). But, don’t just sit back and Wait (White Lion) for the magic to happen. Be proactive and continue to look for opportunities to improve your site for search engines and visitors.

You Can’t Set It and Forget It

SEO and website marketing is an ongoing process. Sometimes you feel like you’re going Round and Round (Ratt), but there is really more to it than that. It’s about continuously finding new keywords to optimize and fixing ongoing site issues as they are discovered.

Don’t Stop Runnin’ (Y&T) to your analysis tools to assess the on-page optimization, architectural, and usability issues. You may think to yourself, “Here I Go Again” (Whitesnake), but revisiting your SEO regularly is an essential part of achieving and maintaining SEO dominance.

Test and Analyze

The great thing about SEO is that it doesn’t always have to be a Shot In The Dark (Ozzy Osbourne). Routinely looking through your analytics software to see if you’re visitors love you, hate you, or are In & Out of Love (Bon Jovi) with you is important. Sometimes you make a change to help improve search engine rankings, but it turns into Bad Medicine (Bon Jovi) for conversions. You don’t have to ask each visitor to “Tell Me What You Want” (Zebra), you can let your analytics do the talking.

You Can’t Always Be #1

In the world of SEO, Every Rose Has It’s Thorn (Poison). Sometimes there is a very delicate balance between top rankings and better conversions, or rankings for one keyword vs. another. You simply can’t expect to be #1 for every keyword, or that your #1 ranking will produce as many conversions as a better targeted #2 ranking!

Everyone wants to be on the first page. But, sometimes you have to accept being Seventeen (Winger) for one keyword if that helps you improve another keyword that drives more traffic or conversions. Some keywords are better as a Fallen Angel (Poison) if they don’t contribute to profits.

Good SEOs Thinks Outside the Box

Good SEOs will have a bit of a Wild Side (Motley Crue). They are always on the look out for The New Thing (Enuff Z’Nuff) that is going to help their clients gain profits. Notice that I didn’t say better rankings! That’s a part of it, but profits matter most. Anyone telling you otherwise is involved in some Monkey Business (Skid Row) and can go Jump (Van Halen) off a cliff. Outside the box SEO is usually results driven SEO!

There Are No Guarantees

If you’ve been around SEO long enough, you know that, ultimately, you’re just Livin’ On a Prayer (Bon Jovi) that Google doesn’t screw with their algorithm so much that you lose all your rankings. There is nothing worse than getting figuratively tossed aside like a Rag Doll (Aerosmith) while Google is Bringin’ On The Heartbreak (Def Leppard). It makes you want to Bang Your Head (Quiet Riot) against the wall while screaming out, “Somebody Save Me!” (Cinderella), as the Tears Are Falling (Kiss).

But, that’s the risk we all take. This is why having secondary online marketing strategies is essential!

Sweet, Sweet Success

Properly implemented SEO and additional online marketing strategies will, ultimately, bring the sweet flood of success as you see rankings, conversions, and sales pushing their way upward. When all your online marketing efforts are going well, you’ll think Heaven’s On Fire (Kiss) while you’re living in Paradise City (Guns N’ Roses)!

Be sure and visit our small business news site.

by Stoney deGeyter

There are a lot of different ways to say the same thing. Anyone who has performed keyword research knows that people search for a lot of the same things using very different phrases and terminology. For example, if you’re looking to build your online business, you could search for: internet marketing, website marketing, online marketing, website promotion, search engine optimization, search engine marketing, SEO, and a dozen other variations.

Or if you’re a physician looking to manage health records online, you could search for: EHR, EMR, electronic health records, electronic medical records, medical software, personal health records, practice management software, and so on. One of the problems many business owners and SEOs come up against is how to optimize their site for each of these variations that all potentially mean the same thing.

Quite often, your website will have different pages on your site that can be (or already are) focused on different aspects of your service that cover each of these topics as separate entities. In other cases, your similar phrases can be (or are) used interchangeably throughout the site.

The problem comes when each of these similarly defined terms is extremely competitive, and using them interchangeably won’t allow you a strong enough SEO focus to achieve rankings for any of them. You need pages that focus on one (or just a couple) phrase(s) at a time if you want them to be successful.

Optimize Similar Keywords on Existing Site Pages

Ideally, you want to target keywords that are already a natural fit for any given page. But, when several keyword phrases essentially mean the same thing, there is no clear distinction to be able to say definitively which keywords fit where. For example, “keyword research” is pretty clear while “keyword optimization” can mean the same thing as SEO and all the other phrases.

One easy solution is to find a content page relevant for any group of similar meaning phrases, choose the highest volume phrase and target that. Since each phrase basically means the same thing to the common searcher, changing all instances of various phrases to the single phrase you’re targeting can be done without changing the meaning of the page in any way.

The value here is that the core message of the page hasn’t been changed or the sales message diminished. It’s simply a matter of talking about “online marketing” as opposed to “internet promotion”, or “search engine marketing” vs. “website marketing.” I should note that you don’t always want to change every instance. Some variety is a good thing.

Reduce Site Clutter… Blog Instead

The strategy above works great, but it can become problematic once you run out of pages and still have a number of phrases left to optimize. Most people will just go about creating new pages of sales content to target the remaining phrases. The problem here is you’re going outside your core marketing message to do this and creating site/navigational clutter as well.

Usually these new pages offer nothing new that is substantial or relevant that can’t be found elsewhere on the site. Your site then becomes over-run with pages of content that were built for the sole purpose of getting keyword rankings. That may help with rankings, but not for converting visitors once they arrive.

This is where blogs can come into play. Putting together keyword focused blog posts can help you optimize for additional keywords, while not worrying about adding additional “optimization” clutter to your main site.

But before you rush out to create some generic content to get your keyword on a page, think it through. Your blog isn’t your sales content. So don’t go creating another sales page. Think of a way to present new information in a new, unique, and informative way.

Once you have this awesome piece of standalone content written, place it on your blog, but not as just any other blog post. Instead, you can create a standalone “article” that is linked from your blog navigation. This keeps that content timeless and prevents it from getting buried with the rest of the stuff. Be sure to update this information regularly as necessary.

Be Selective When Optimizing Your Phases

Undoubtedly, when performing keyword research, you’ll find a number of phrases that are similarly themed. Usually these are phrases using a single core term (say, “internet marketing”) that add additional qualifiers (such as “internet marketing services”, “internet marketing strategy”, “internet marketing consultant”, “affiliate internet marketing”, and so on.)

One of the worst things you can do is to try and target all of these phrases on a single page. The better strategy is to organize these phrases into supporting themes and then build pages around each theme. Think of it as building in sub-categories for your product and services.

When going this route, adding new pages to the site (rather than the blog) is actually a good idea. You’re building strong, relevant content that targets the specific needs of your visitors using language that addresses that.

Building Strong SEO Content

When keywords are applied correctly throughout your site, whether to existing pages, new pages, blog posts, or wherever, content can be written naturally without feeling forced or being noticed by your visitor. The end result will be a robust site, targeting dozens, if not hundreds, of keywords, all effectively optimized to bring in targeted traffic while still increasing sales.

Be sure and visit our small business news site.

by Mike Moran

Image via Wikipedia

Up until now, the appearance of your Web pages had nothing to do with your success in organic search, but that time might be coming to and end. Lots of stuff matters, of course, ranging from page titles to inbound links to dozens of other factors in each search engine’s ranking algorithm. Also important is the title and the snippet that helps searchers decide which search result to click on. Once clicked, your visual design matters a great deal as to whether your new visitors decides to buy or not, but will it have any impact on your SEO?

Preview functions have been toyed with for years, but it is big news lately because Google has been spied testing a preview function. A few years ago, Ask.com allowed searchers to mouse over the search result and see a pop-up that showed what the page looked like:

For the first time, the visual design of your page mattered to SEO. An ugly-looking page, or at least one that didn’t look like the right one, would get fewer clicks than another—at least for Ask.com searchers.

Last year, Bing introduced a preview function, but it did not show the page image. Rather it showed the key content from the page, so design still didn’t matter.

But all that might be changing, if Google decides to follow through on a concept they are experimenting with, as reported by TechCrunch. As with so many other pieces of SEO, you have a choice. You can decide to ignore your page design until the search engines implement this kind of function, or you can decide that anything that helps Web users is worth investing in, and go for it now.

I believe that version of this change will eventually become permanent, so I suspect there is no time to lose. If your pages don’t look very good, it’s only a matter of time before that starts to hurt your clickthrough rate the way it already hurts your conversion rate.

Be sure and visit our small business news site.