3 Reasons to Choose SEO Over Social Media

In an ideal world, all companies would invest in both SEO and social media marketing.  However, tight budgets often force many companies to choose between hiring an SEO agency or someone to set up and manage social media marketing campaigns.  Here are three reasons why you might need to invest in SEO before social media.

1. Your Website is Well Established but Short on Traffic – Even if your website has been around for years, it may not be attracting enough lead-generating traffic.  A good SEO agency can leverage your website’s history to generate more leads by creating and implementing a strategy that marries analytics data with strong keyword research.  Doing so will increase your website’s visibility to potential customers who are searching for and ready to buy the products or services your company offers.
2. Customers Often Spend Time Researching the Products or Services That You Sell – Are there a lot of alternatives to the products or services that you sell?  Are you charging more than $25 for your products or services?  If you answered yes to either of these questions, customers will likely research before they buy.  Companies that sell products or services such as these can benefit in investing in search engine optimization.  Your SEO agency can optimize your site to engage potential customers throughout the research process, from broad searches to information gathering to searches for specific brands and models.  Connecting with customers during various points in the research process is vital to generating sales.
3. The Products or Services You Offer are in High Demand – Use a free keyword tool to search for the products or services that you sell.  If there is substantial traffic for these keywords, you could be missing out on leads if your site is not optimized.  Hiring an SEO agency to optimize your site for these keywords and others will ensure that potential customers will find you when they search for the products or services your company offers.

The Link Lowdown: 4 Reasons Why You Might Not Be Getting Links

1. Lack of Great Content – Your site may contain an in-depth company history, tons of product pages and killer promotional copy.  However, although this type of content may be good for generating sales, it is often not enough for link building.  Linkable content must be unique and relevant to your product or service niche.  Even if you feel as though you have nothing to add to what others have already said, it is worthwhile to offer your perspective on the subject or organize existing content from others into a searchable collection.
2. The Wallflower Effect –Sites that take a backseat to the network of sites on the Internet do not receive as many links as others simply because they go unnoticed.  Although it is time consuming, social media is a great tool for drawing attention to your site.  Investing some time in developing more Twitter followers and Facebook fans can work wonders when it comes to link generation.  Guest posting on blogs is another great way to add additional links so reach out to people in your network and offer to write a post for their blogs. 
3. Technical Problems –Technical issues can be a huge stumbling block to link-building.  No one wants to link to sites that are slow to load, have error messages or contain annoying pop-ups.  Cleaning up these errors can not only increase your chances of obtaining links, but also boost your site’s organic search engine rankings.
4. Poor Appearance or Usability – A poorly-designed or disorganized site can deter others from linking.  Make a good first impression on visitors by creating a clean, well-designed site that clearly identifies the purpose of your business.  Be sure to avoid using bright backgrounds, flashing text or hard-to-read fonts.

Small Business Search Marketing: 4 Must-Haves

1. Mobile Campaigns – Mobile devices such as Blackberries, iPhones and iPads have skyrocketed in popularity over the past few years.  More and more people are therefore using mobile devices to search for and buy products and services over the Internet.  Capture these potential leads by integrating mobile campaigns and click-to-call ads in your overall search strategy. 
2. Local Search Campaigns – Small businesses that service specific geographic locations should incorporate local search campaigns into their marketing plans.  Although the Internet has one of the broadest audiences of any marketing medium, it will be difficult for local customers to find your business unless you establish a presence in map and local search results.  Google Maps and geo-targeted pay-per-click advertising campaigns are excellent tools for attracting local business.
3. Presence on Social Networking Sites –With over 400 registered users, Facebook has taken Google’s place as the most visited website.  Small businesses can leverage the massive appeal of Facebook and other social networking sites such as Twitter and LinkedIn in several different ways.  Setting up company profiles is a good way to inform friends and followers about your products and services and advertise current and upcoming deals.  Many companies offer discount coupons and freebies to individuals who “like” their Facebook pages.  Additionally, Facebook and other social networking sites also offer advertising, allowing small businesses to target their ads to a specific subset of users.     
4. Integration of Online and Offline Marketing Efforts – According to Forrester Research, the Internet influenced the purchase of $917 billion of consumer goods in 2009.  However, consumers purchased only $155 billion of these goods online.  The Internet has been widely adopted by consumers as a research tool for purchasing decisions.  Consequently, small business must pay attention to the messaging of both their online and offline marketing campaigns.  Having consistent messaging across all of your marketing campaigns can help to drive more sales online and offline.

Five Things You Should Know About SEO

1. SEO Takes Time – Many companies expect to see immediate results when they hire an SEO agency.  However, it takes weeks (and sometimes months) of research to become successful in SEO.  Keyword research, content development, and page structuring are time-consuming tasks that often cannot be accomplished in short periods of time.
2. SEO Includes More Than What Appears Onscreen – Although onpage factors like links and keyword density play large roles in SEO, offpage factors such as coding have a major impact upon search engine rankings as well.  Your SEO agency may charge additional fees to correct website coding errors.  However, investing in these corrections now will pay off over time because problems with your website’s code can damage your rankings.
3. Keywords Must Appear on Pages – It is nearly impossible to rank for keywords that do not appear on your website.  If you ask your SEO agency to target specific keywords, be prepared to add text containing these keywords to relevant pages on your website.  Furthermore, be sure that your pages contain a sufficient amount of text.  Your SEO agency can help you to determine how much content you should include on each page.
4. Links Are Not Equal – Link building is a crucial element of SEO.  Although search engines rank pages based on the number of links pointing back to those pages, leaving as many blog comments and forum posts as you can may not be the best strategy for elevating your website’s organic ranking.  Why? In addition to quantity, search engines also analyze the quality of inbound links.  SEO agencies are experts in link building, generating links back to your site from trusted and relevant sites. 
5. The Top Spot Does Not Always Generate the Most Sales – In sports, the winner is the team who comes out on top, but in the world of SEO, the #1 spot does not necessarily translate into a win when it comes to sales.  Although your website may rank #1 for your targeted keywords, searchers may not purchase your products and services if you have a poorly designed landing page or the page takes too long to load, among other factors.   

Online Reputation Management: How to Survive a Bad Review

Although the Internet is a great outlet for promoting your business, it also creates ample opportunities for critics to speak their minds.  Customers can post their thoughts about local businesses on sites such as Citysearch, Yelp and even Twitter and Facebook .  Unsolicited comments from customers on these sites can be beneficial if the reviews are good: 35% of small business owners say that they have acquired new customers from positive online reviews.  However, a few negative reviews can deter potential customers.  According to Opus Research, 84% of consumers use online reviews when making purchase decisions.  What should you do if your business receives negative reviews?  Follow these four online reputation management tips.

1. Verify Your Online Listings – Review your listings in local online directories to ensure that your address and phone number are correct.  Frustrated customers who cannot locate your business or reach you via phone may post negative reviews online. 
2. Listen to Your Customers – Customer complaints may not be 100% accurate.  However, a disgruntled customer’s online review can help you identify areas in which your business may need improvement.    For instance, a customer’s complaint about “waiting 2 hours for a table” suggests that you may need to hire more staff to bus tables or review kitchen processes to increase efficiency.
3. Participate in Online Communities with Your Customers – Providing a response to a customer’s negative review can go a long way in preserving your online reputation.  Show your commitment to providing your customers with quality service by issuing an online apology.  Be sure to include a statement about how you intend to prevent these mishaps from occurring in the future.
4. Use Customer Feedback When Making Decisions – Incorporating customer feedback into your decision-making process can help you retain current customers and attract new ones.  Although you may not be able to give customers exactly what they want, using their suggestions to make changes shows your customers that you are receptive to their needs and desires.

5 Reasons Why Your Website May Need a Makeover

Many companies invest hundreds or even thousands of dollars into designing websites to impress and engage their customers.  Although these websites may be eye-catching, many fail to appear on the first or second page of search engine results for related keyword queries.  Here are five common reasons why your website may not be getting the visibility it deserves:

1. Drop-Down Navigation Boxes – Search engine spiders do not have the capability to fill out forms.  They therefore cannot read pages that utilize drop-down boxes for navigation.  If your site contains drop-down navigation boxes, be sure to include an alternate means of navigation to allow search engine spiders to access all of the pages on your site.
2. Excessive Flash Design – Flash may be appealing to website visitors, but it is not always search engine friendly.  It’s fine to use some Flash on your site.  However, make sure to write all of your section headings and page titles in text instead of graphics to facilitate search engine indexing.  If you decide to embed most of your content in Flash, include an alternate text version so that searchers without Flash plug-ins can read the text on your site.
3. URLs Containing Session or User IDs – Search engine spiders do not utilize cookies.  Therefore, sites that contain session or user IDs will generate a new ID for each page that the spiders visit.  As a result, spiders may skip over pages from your site.  Even if the spiders do index your pages, your PageRank score may go down, lowering your rankings.  Why?  There will be fewer links pointing to pages with a session or user ID in their URLs than those without IDs.
4. Pop-Ups – In addition to annoying most searchers, pop-ups do not provide any SEO value.  You may be wasting your time if you put important information in pop-ups because search engine spiders do not index pop-ups constructed with Javascript. 
5. Use of Frames – Web designers use frames to keep parts of a page stationary will allowing users to scroll through other parts of the page.  However, Google warns against using frames because they “tend to cause problems with search engines, bookmarks, emailing links and so on, because frames don’t fit the conceptual model of the web (every page corresponds to a single URL)”.  Furthermore, frames that do get index often generate error messages. 

Capturing Clicks: How to Turn Leads into Sales

PPC agencies can be beneficial for maximizing leads from their PPC campaign.  However, many organizations have difficulty managing agency-generated leads and converting them into sales.  Use these five tips to get the most from your PPC leads:

1. Invest in Customer Relationship Management Software – Stop recording leads on post-it notes or scrap sheets of paper.  CRM software is an affordable and easy way to get organized.  There are many CRM software packages on the market, including Salesforce.com, which provides subscription-based services with monthly payment plans.  Excel spreadsheets are another (less costly) alternative.  After you organize your leads with CRM software, call or email potential customers and ask them to join your mailing list or follow you on Twitter or Facebook.
2. Be Proactive – If you cannot afford to hire someone to manage your leads, set aside some time each month to maintain your database of leads.  Spending a few hours creating coupons or writing newsletters and distributing them to your list of leads can go a long way in growing your business.
3. Be Consistent – Decide which information is most vital to your business and aim to collect it from every lead.  Establish a phone “cheat sheet” with all of the questions that you want your employees to ask callers.  Additionally, utilize forms on your website to collect needed information from web leads.  Each form fill generates an automatic email, sending information to your inbox.  You may also be able to add form fill information directly to your CRM software database.
4. Remember to Follow-Up – Focus on following up on all leads, whether they are generated through emails, form fills or phone calls.  If you cannot get in touch with someone via phone, send a follow-up email.  Establishing multiple lines of communication makes it easier for potential customers to contact you.  For instance, including your email address in voicemail messages provides another way for leads to send questions and comments to you after hours.    
5. Review Your Results –CRM software and free tools such as Google Analytics can provide valuable insight into the performance of your PPC campaign.  Use these resources to track the number of phone calls, emails and form fills that you receive, as well as analyze how many leads turned into sales and the average value of each sale.

Search Stats: Why You Need an Agency

The world of search is constantly evolving.  It is therefore crucial to have a well-informed agency on your side to optimize your site and manage your paid search campaigns.  Here are three reasons why you should use an agency to manage your campaigns:

1. 20% of Daily Searches are New or Haven’t Been Used in the Past 6 Months – This statistic is astounding, considering that just 2 years ago, 20% of search queries each day were new or had not been used in the past 90 days.  Searchers have become more sophisticated, using more well-defined and specific keywords to find what they are looking for each day.  Agencies are equipped with the latest tools and technology, enabling them to uncover new trends and select keywords that you might otherwise miss.
2. There Are No Exact Match Keywords for 70% of Searches – You cannot encapsulate most search queries with exact match keywords.  When you use exact match keywords, your site will only appear for queries that contain keywords in the same order without any additional words attached.  For instance, if the exact match keyword “tennis shoes” is included in your campaign, you will not appear in results for searches for “women’s tennis shoes” or “Nike tennis shoes”.  Although exact match keywords are not useful for these types of searches, they can be beneficial for eliminating traffic from irrelevant searches: a used bookstore would want traffic for people searching for “Shakespeare plays” but not traffic from searchers looking for “tickets for Shakespeare plays”.  When it comes to keyword match types, it’s often best to leave this task up to the experts.  Agencies have extensive experience selecting keywords and can customize a mix of broad, phrase and exact keywords to produce optimal results.
3. 54.5% of Searches Contain More Than 3 Keywords – As search queries become longer and longer, you will need to invest more time in the keyword research process.  Outsourcing your SEO and PPC campaigns to an agency can save you hundreds of hours of work and the stress of having to keep up with the latest search trends.  Your agency will constantly monitor your campaigns, adjusting them to meet the constantly changing demands

Top PPC Myths

If You Have Good Organic Rankings, You Don’t Need PPC.

Good organic rankings are certainly effective for boosting your business.  However, PPC provides additional opportunities for improving brand visibility, increasing chances for potential customers to see and remember your business.  Additionally, PPC enables you to target a larger group of keywords than SEO, enabling you to reach more people. 

PPC Agencies Exist Only to Drive Traffic to Landing Pages.

PPC agencies do more than just drive traffic, helping you to increase profits.  In addition to managing your PPC account, your agency can also help you to increase leads by optimizing your landing page and providing suggestions about how to improve your website.

You Don’t Need A PPC Agency to Manage Your Account.

Unlike some advertising mediums, PPC requires ongoing management in order to be successful.  At a minimum, you should analyze your PPC campaigns on a weekly basis.  Why?  Keywords could become inactive due to changes in quality scores or the engines could decline your ads because of editorial violations.  If you are not monitoring your campaigns on a consistent basis, you could miss potential leads.  PPC is constantly evolving so it is often helpful to delegate the responsibility of keeping up with changes in technology and search engine requirements to an outside source. 

The #1 Position Will Generate the Most Profit.

Spending more money to gain the top spot on the search engine results pages may not always be a smart move.  Although the #1 position does give your ad the most visibility, it can negatively affect your conversion rate.  Why?  Searchers who are not yet ready to buy often click on the first few ads while they are researching their purchase options.  Alter your bids to test your ads in several different positions in order to find the spot that drives the most conversions for your product or service.

You Should Only Advertise on Google.

Google may be the biggest and most well known search engine out there, but it is definitely not the only engine that is worthy of your advertising dollars.  In fact, some advertisers find that search engines such as Yahoo and Bing actually generate higher conversion rates and ROIs than Google.

Paid Search Basics: 5 Frequently Asked Questions

1. What is Search Engine Marketing (SEM)?  Search engine marketing uses search engines to generate leads, increase sales and drive traffic to websites.  There are two basic types of search engine marketing: search engine advertising and search engine optimization.  Search engine advertising refers to any type of advertising utilizing a search engine platform.  Examples of search engine advertising include banner ads and mobile ads.  Search engine optimization refers to tactics used to improve organic rankings.  SEOs use strategies such as link building and meta tags to propel websites higher on search engine results pages.
2. What is the Difference Between Paid and Organic Results?  Organic results are generated by search engine algorithms, which use factors such as keyword density, page speed, and relevancy to rank websites.  Paid results appear above and to the right of organic search results and consist of ads with four lines and a link back to the advertiser’s website. 
3. What is Paid Search?  Also referred to as sponsored results, sponsored listings, and paid listings, paid search is a type of search engine advertising.  To advertise using paid search, advertisers must submit ads and bid on keywords that are relevant to the products and services that they sell.  Search engines use these bids, along with other factors, to trigger ads and determine their placement on the results page. 
4. What is PPC?  Although there are a number of fee structures for paid search, the pay per click (PPC) model is the most common.  Advertisers that utilize PPC do not pay a fee every time their ads appear in the search engine results: PPC advertisers pay only when searchers click on their ads.  PPC can be used as a fee structure for not only paid search listings but banners, mobile ads, video ads and affiliate links as well.
5. Why Should I Use Paid Search for My Business?  Paid search is effective, generating higher return on investment rates than most types of online and traditional advertising.  Why? Paid search is extremely relevant.  Because search engines serve ads based on keywords from search queries, paid search presents ads only to audiences that are actively searching for the products and services that represented in the ads.