Do Onsite Search Engine Optimization Updates.

This one-time activity will transform your website from whatever it is presently to a search engine optimized version that is much more attractive to web crawlers. This is extremely important in getting your website ranked as high as possible on the search engine results.  The things that are appealing to a search engine are not the same as those things that are esthetically pleasing on a website. In many cases such fancy programming on a site is a negative for search engines.
Analyze What You Have
First you will need to begin by analyzing your current site, so look at these things:

• The look and feel of the site
• Is the site optimized for visitors?
• Is the site optimized for search engines?
• Does the site work for multiple browsers?

Critical Components of a Good Website

In most cases, websites are lacking in some of these areas. In order to make your website appealing to human visitors and search engines, and be effective in its purposes, you will need to go through and make sure the following things are in place. If they are not, you need to include them for the best results possible.

• Easy navigation: Make sure the site is easy to use and straightforward.
• Most important info “above the fold”: Make sure all the important information is visible when a visitor first arrives at the home page. A good number of people will not scroll down to find the important information.
• All links working: Don’t frustrate visitors or the search engines with broken links.
• Home Page, Products Page, Service Page, Testimonials, About, and Contact Form.
• Lead visitors through the site: Make sure you are taking visitors exactly where you want them to go on your site.
• Specific instructions.
• Multiple calls to action: Call now, buy now, etc.
• Pictures used correctly: This includes proper sizing of pictures as well as using captions to explain what the pictures represent.
• Non-distracting design: This goes for a background that is too distracting as well as crazy fonts, italics and underlines.
• Centered layout that has dark text on a light background.
• Multiple ways to contact with the phone number on the top right, side and bottom, and the address only at the bottom.
• Trust factors like BBB and awards clearly on the front page.
• Testimonials on the front page.
• Personal branding: This includes pictures of you and your staff, branded vehicles, audio and video messages, and links to any social networking site like Facebook or Twitter.
• Optimization for keywords: Using good keywords is huge for search engines and you must take some time to do keyword research before you can determine if keywords are optimized properly.
• Relevancy: Search engines love websites that show relevancy. This is done by starting broad and then drilling down in themes. Always optimize for one keyword per page instead of multiple keywords per page.

·         Make sure that your keywords are in your title tags, meta tags, the URL, the headers and description of a web page.

·         Good content: Ensure that all text on your website is search engine optimized with strategic use of keywords and avoid duplicate content.

• Avoid Flash and frames. 

With the onsite SEO updates completed, your website should naturally move closer to the top of search engine results. However, you cannot rely on this alone. You must also continue with your online marketing plan and maintain a blog, do other Web 2.0 applications and submit articles with links back to your website in order to increase traffic and quality one-way links that will help you get to the very top of the results like you want and need.




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Add a Lead Capture System to the Website.

By adding a lead capture system to your website you are taking the destiny of your business into your own hands. No longer are you simply a passive participant who casts a line and waits for the fish to come to you.
With a lead capture system you have the opportunity to get the names and contact information of people who visit your site for any reason. This means that you can now build a database of potential customers that you can market to. When you need more business you market to those people and you can create cash on demand.
All types of sales are dependent on leads. Therefore having a lead capture system is a wise move in your online marketing strategy. It gives you something tangible to work from when you need more sales. And who doesn’t need more sales?
Lead Capture Systems Defined
A lead capture system is simply an opt-in box that offers more information, an e-newsletter subscription, a free report or some other freebie in exchange for simple contact information. Typically the information requested is just a name and email address, but some systems do ask for a mailing address and/or a phone number. Try to refrain from requesting too much information.
Because these people have actually come to your site and then opted to get on your email list, you can feel confident that they are actually interested in your products or services. This makes them likely customers.
Once the lead capture system is in place on your website, you will need to do lead nurturing. This means you must stay in contact with these people.

-          Send newsletters regularly, but not too frequently.

-          Keep them up to date on new offerings and sales.

-          Offer special deals for those on your email list. This is a very good way to generate business when things are slow.

As a part of this process you will need to do some of the things that were mentioned in the “5 Things No One Is Doing” section. You will need to put autoresponders in place, so that as people opt in, they are greeted, welcomed and introduced to your products or services through a series of letters. If you haven’t used a free report to get them to join your email list, offer it now.
By building your email list and marketing to it regularly with useful information, you will get the power of having a bigger customer base and being able to generate cash on demand. 






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Do Personal Branding Changes

By doing one-time personal branding changes, you can effect the kind of change you want in the results you get from your website. You want your website to have a certain kind of feel to it so that you give the impression to visitors that you are indeed a trusted expert in your local market. By tapping into the unique resources the Internet offers, you can help do that and increase traffic and buying customers at the same time.

You are trying to appeal to a sophisticated audience. They are savvy to the things marketers throw at them. They research purchases much more than ever before. However, their attention spans are relatively short and they make decisions quickly. They are not completely at ease doing business online yet and question whether or not they should trust what they find there. When they come across your website they want to be sure that it is the right source for what they are seeking. They want to know about your company, your commitment to service and your trustworthiness.
By putting the right content on your site you can build your personal brand and reassure your clients that you can offer what they are looking for. You want to personalize the process for new clients. They want to know about you and your business. Therefore, get personal and let them know who they are doing business with.
Stay away from the “stuffy” corporate sounding websites. No one wants to do business with a big company. They want to do business with neighbors they can trust. Some tweaks to your site can give that impression and help increase sales for you.
Some of the things to include on your website to help you create this personal touch include:

·         Photographs of the owner and staff and information about them

·         Expert articles you’ve written

·         Reviews

·         Awards

·         Professional associations

·         Business groups you are a member of

·         References from other businesses

·         Audio or video message from the owner

·         Audio or video testimonials from clients

You and your business need to be perceived as friendly, not stuffy. By taking the time to invest in personal branding, you will attract more and more buying customers. You will be gaining the trust needed to succeed in the online marketplace. 

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Article Marketing

Article marketing is simply the writing of approximately 500 word articles on a subject that is somehow related to your business or industry. These content-rich articles are then published online through a variety of article submission sites. The resource box typically found at the bottom of the article is how readers find your company information and are directed to your website. Article marketing is so simple that many people overlook its power and effectiveness.

The Importance of Article Marketing

Article marketing is one of the absolute best ways to put Internet marketing to work for your business. By strategically writing articles that are relevant to your industry and submitting them to online article submission sites you will create a direct path to your website for anyone who does a search for information that relates to your business.

Remember that an article is not a sales pitch. It needs to be full of relevant information that is actually useful and/or entertaining. It must also be written using Search Engine Optimization techniques. Be careful not to keyword stuff your articles. Never plagiarize content from anywhere else.

Once you write good articles that actually teach your customers something while establishing yourself as a go-to expert in the industry you will need to get the articles published in a variety of places. EzineArticles.com and Squidoo are two excellent locations for publishing such articles, but ideally you will want to submit your articles to hundreds of websites. Article submission sites can help you do that. Be sure to avoid using duplicate content from your website as this may affect the ranking of your article and your site.

Articles are vital to your Internet marketing plan. Therefore you will need to produce them regularly. This is where those seeking your keywords will stumble across your company, thanks to the resource box that is always included at the end of your articles. However, they actually have to get to the bottom of the page to get that information. That means you had better have a captivating article written to keep their attention!

Regular article publication will set you apart from many of your competitors, but you must be consistent. You must create multiple articles each month in order to keep traffic flowing to your site. Luckily, this is a very easy task to subcontract out.

Articles are meant to attract people to your site. They are published on other websites with backlinks to your site, creating an added bonus for you, because as discussed before, the more backlinks to your site the better.

Use Articles to Create Interest and Reach All Potential Clients

To pique the interest of a wide variety of different possible clients, you will need to write a variety of articles, targeting a variety of subjects. Make sure you write articles that touch on every use of your product or service. Some great article ideas are listed below.

Write about

-          tips on the use of your product

-          reasons why someone would want to use your service

-          unconventional uses for your product or service

-          frequently asked questions

-          individual products and services

-          how to choose the best provider of your type or service or product

-          things to look out for when purchasing

-          the advantages of using your product or service

-          the disadvantages of not using your product or service

-          how to…

-          things you shouldn’t do

-          evaluations of different options

-          steps for using your products or services

-          how your products or services help people

-          little known facts

-          explanations

-          how to avoid a problem

-          tips on responding to a challenge

Once you have chosen a subject for an article, it should be in the 400-750 word range. Make sure it is well-written and flows naturally, in order to keep people reading. Nothing turns a reader off faster than poor grammar and confusing sentences.

The simple formula for article writing as an online marketing technique:

• Do your keyword research
• Get your content written
• Submit it to article directories

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Report Generation, Testing and Tracking

Report generation must be done regularly in order to stay on top of the performance of your online marketing plan. Through testing and tracking you can effectively and clearly see what is working and what is not. So then by doing more of what is working and less of what isn’t working, you’ll grow faster at less cost. This is a very important part of your business and must be done at least quarterly, unless you are functioning at beyond full capacity. As you are implementing or even prior to implementing your new marketing strategies, take the time to test and track so that you have a baseline to compare against.

Use the following types of data in your analysis of your marketing:

• Rankings
• Links/backlinks
• Traffic sources and volume
• Visitor data
• Visitor actions and behavior

Rankings

You will need to track the main site rankings for the different keywords. This will tell you where each keyword ranks, so you can get an idea of the ranking possibilities for the content you put out there using that keyword. You can use rank checker tools to assist you in tracking rankings for keywords. Check those of your competitors also.

Links/Backlinks

When testing your backlinks of your site, you need to find out where links are coming from. This is simultaneously a test to make sure that links are actually working. Track how many backlinks your site has and how many are recognized by Google. Do the same for your competitors, especially those who already have a good degree of online domination. This will give you ideas of where you need to link from. You can access link and backlink tracking tools to facilitate the process.

Traffic Sources and Volume

Traffic sources and the volume of traffic need to be tracked and optimized. This will tell you where your visitors are coming from and the number of visitors you are getting from each source. It is important to know if they are direct visitors, referred through natural search engine results, referred from other sites or referred through paid search engine ads. This type of tracking will also reveal the keywords that are working to get visitors to your site. There are traffic tracking tools available for this.

Visitor Data

Visitor data should also be tested, tracked and optimized as a regular part of your marketing program. You want to know where they are located, which web browser they use, the type of operating system they use, connection speed and if they are a brand-new visitor or a repeat one. This will help you create the best visitor experience possible for those who come to your site. The same tracking tools that provide traffic data will also help you track visitor data.

Visitor Actions and Behavior

You will also need to track visitor actions and behavior information. Details like the page of the site the visitor entered on and exited from will divulge the relevant information they were looking for. With such information, you will learn how well your landing pages and other content are working for you. You can also find out how long they stayed on your site, which will help you come up with ways to keep them there longer.

Record the links that get the most click-through traffic, so that you know what information attracts visitors most. The most important feature of tracking visitor behavior is the fact that you can find out the number of people who took action and what they actually did. There are a variety of technologies that allow you to track such information.

By regularly testing and tracking your site by the collection of important data, you will be equipped to optimize it so you get the best results possible. You will know what is working well and what needs to be changed. Discern what the data actually means, so you can change content or make site adjustments if necessary. This will help you improve your business by getting the right people to your site who will then convert to sales. 

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Blogging

Blogging can be one of the most effective ways to get yourself to the top of the search engine results for your chosen keywords. Google and other search engines regularly visit blogs and re-index the content found there because they love such applications. Therefore if you regularly blog, your site will get increasingly better results in search engines. As more and more backlinks are built, the traffic to your site will increase.

Shorter than an article with fewer guidelines than a press release, blogs can be quick and easy to produce. However, they must also meet SEO criteria for maximum effectiveness. This means you should focus on keywords, specifically long-tail keywords, when you blog. However, be sure to not stuff keywords into the text. It should have a natural flow so people keep coming back to it, actually want to read it and subscribe to your RSS feed.

Some tips for blogging.

-          Keep blogs short – under 400 words.

-          Use keywords in the title and throughout the blog.

-          Add an image for visual interest.

-          Schedule the appearance of a new blog about every 3 days or even more often depending on the industry you are in.

-          Make blogs relevant to what is happening in the news.

-          Don’t use a blog to rant about something. Keep it informative.

You can also use offsite blogs to increase traffic to your website by using Web 2.0 and offsite blogs such as:

-          Squidoo.com

-          Hubpages.com

-          Xanga.com

-          Vox.com

-          Blogger.com

-          360.Yahoo.com.

-          Wordpress.com

-          LiveJournal.com

-          Zimbio.com

-          Spaces.Live.com

Create even more backlinks by submitting your offsite blogs to social networking and social news sharing sites. 

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Adding Testimonials Create Validity and More

Testimonials are an excellent way to build consumer confidence in your products or services. Visitors to your site witness actual clients and their level of satisfaction with your company. They see how your products are put to use and get ideas as to how they can use them also.

You can add video testimonials for maximum impact, as they appeal to everyone even those who typically don’t take time to read websites and create a type of social proof that helps your personal branding. Alternatively you can post a testimonial in text form with accompanying pictures of the client and even the client using your company’s services or products. You can also use simple audio clips for testimonials.

Some tips for the use of testimonials:

-          get testimonials from both genders

-          if your product or service is used in a variety of different ways or industries, get testimonials from various areas

-          put some diversity of age and ethnicity in your testimonials

-          feel free to use just a portion of a testimonial if it is too lengthy

-          ask customers for testimonials that you can use

New customers feel more confident about their decision to purchase from you if you have testimonials on your site. They get the impression that they are a part of a group and that they are not just another sale.

In every testimonial, you must include:

·         customer’s name and title

·         city and state

·         credentials

Encourage them to talk about the way your business helped to solve their problem. Always get permission from the person to use the testimonial and information in it before publishing it. Keep a copy of the permission for reference. 




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