KEYWORD RESEARCH
Keywords are Building Blocks
Keywords are the building blocks of search engine optimization (“SEO”). Strong copywriting and keyword placement can be the difference between you and your competition ranking high on the search engines.
Keyword research basically involves researching the words people are typing into the search engines for a particular product or service.
For example if you own a restaurant in Buffalo, you may want to target “ Buffalo restaurants”. If your restaurant sells hot dogs, you may want to target “best hot dogs in buffalo”. Keyword research is a very important and should include a variety of keywords specific to your industry.
Finding and selecting the right keywords for your site is called keyword research. This involves time consuming investigation to determine what keyword phrases people are typing into the search engines. Keywords should not be chock full of your industry jargon. They should be words that people would actually type to find you.
There is a strategy behind keyword research and the goal is to determine not only what people are typing into the search engines to find your services, but specifically what keywords people are using to find your site.
There is no shortcut to proper keyword research and it shouldn’t be a guessing game. The best keywords for an individual website should be relevant to your business.
Keywords are not only important to your ad copy, but they are equally important to be placed in the tagging of your pages, such as the title tag, the meta description tag, in the page copy, page headings, in navigation and anchor links, and alt text for images.
COPYWRITING
Copywrititng Is King
Copywriting is the use of words to promote a person or business. When we say copywriting is King, we mean it. Your web pages need to be written to please your readers, not the search engines.
How a page is written is another important factor to search engine optimization. Some SEO companies try hiding or cloaking content which is sneaky and will get your site banned by Google. A good SEO will write or help you write keyword rich content, which will make sense to the reader, but will also be search engine friendly.
When you begin writing your pages, you should always have your researched keywords in mind, but that shouldn’t be the initial focus. Once you have completed writing your pages and you are happy with the content, then you need to go back and tweak your copy to incorporate the keywords you previously researched.
If your website is not ranking well on the search engines, there is a good possibility that people are not interested in what you are saying. You need to grab their attention immediately. Most users only stay on a website for an average of 8 seconds. If you’re site is written poorly, you will lose them.
COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS
What are Your Competitors Doing?
Competitive analysis is the investigation part of search engine optimization. We will take a look at your competitors’ websites and compare their rankings to yours, review their keywords and placement and begin our attack to take advantage of their weaknesses.
We know it’s important to do quality keyword research and to write good ad copy, but understanding what your competitors are doing can give you a real boost.
Why are your competitors ahead of you in the search engines? What are they doing to market themselves that you are not? These are important questions.
Fuel The Web will take a look at what your competition is up to and beat them at their own game.
Are they blogging? Sending press releases? Twittering? Are they on FaceBook, MySpace, LinkedIn? What do their inbound links look like?
All these questions are important and can give you an advantage over your competition.
LOCAL SEARCH (MOBILE IMPORTANCE)
Local Search – Mobile Importance
In addition to the natural search results, your company should be optimized for people searching for a local company. For example, go to Google and type in “ Buffalo car dealer”, you will see the Local business listings at the top. A #1 listing in the Local search can be just as important as being first in the natural listings.
Local search results usually appear directly under the sponsored (paid) ads on Google. A properly optimized local listing can give you a very important boost and generate more traffic to your website.
A webpage that has been optimized well can appear at the top of the local search listings as well as the natural search listings. This can make a huge difference to your traffic.
Recent reports have shown users prefer the local results to the sponsored (paid) results. You need to be in the local search listings.
Another important reason to optimize for local results is the popularity of mobile devices. Mobile devices only allow a small space for viewing. Because of this, when someone is looking for a restaurant or church, they tend to limit their search to the first few they see, which are the local results.
SOCIAL MEDIA OPTIMIZATION
Social media optimization (SMO) is the process of promoting your business on social media sites. Social media optimization includes adding RSS feeds, social news buttons, blogging, adding images and videos across the web.
- Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter are the most popular social media sites on the web today. The opportunity to network on the social media sites is endless. We will help you develop a plan to capitalize on your investment and create you presence on the social media sites.
Social media optimization mainly focuses on driving traffic to your site from sources other than the search engines.
Social media optimization also includes social bookmarking to sites such as Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon and more. Not all social bookmarking audiences are the same. You will learn which sites work best for promoting your business.
BLOG MARKETING
A blog is a great way to get your message out there. Fresh content added to your blog is the best way to get Google and other search engines to return to your site. This will help to build links and increase your rankings on the web
As web marketers, our goal is to determine how a blog can influence your business.
Blog marketing is simply the promotion of your blog by adding daily or weekly posts, usually specific to one topic at a time.
Building links to your blog and leaving comments on other blogs is one way to enhance you marketing strategy. Search engine optimization is also very important part of blog marketing. You should optimize your blog just as you optimize your website. Doing so will reward you with higher blog rankings in the search engine results.
LINK BUILDING
Search engine optimization also involves link building. Part of Google’s algorithm takes into consideration how many high quality leads you have pointing to your website. We will help you understand the best links to look for and can help you develop a linking campaign.
Building links to your website is an important part of search engine optimization. We understand that link building should be a slow and gradual process. You shouldn’t add hundreds or thousands of links to a new site at the onset. This could get your site banned by Google.
The best way to get links to your site is the natural way. This is done by attracting people through good content.
Another way to create links is by writing articles and submitting them across the web. Your articles should have keyword rich links. These articles will remain on the web for years in various archives.
WEBSITE ANALYTICS
Website analytics is a tracking system that collects data from visitors to your website. Website analytics will help you learn more about where your visitors come from, what pages they visit, how long they stay and whether they converted into a sale or lead. Understanding what keywords people use to find your site and comparing that to other keyword data will keep you ahead of your competition.
Website analytics is a very important part of search engine optimization. It helps you understand what your visitors are doing on your website. It helps you determined what pages are important to them, what information they are interested in, but more importantly once you analyze the data, you can determine where the problem areas lie and address those accordingly.
Website analytics is a tracking system that collects data from visitors to your website. Website analytics will help you learn more about where your visitors come from, what pages they visit, how long they stay and whether they converted into a sale or lead.
Understanding what keywords people use to find your site and comparing that to other keyword data will keep you ahead of your competition.
PRESS RELEASES
Press releases are a great way to get your message out across the web and are a powerful link building tool.
Properly optimizing a press releases is just as important as optimizing your website. Keyword rich text and linking to your website will help your press release appear in the search results, along with your blog, website, social media sites, and more.
When writing a press release you want to avoid placing keyword phrases in every sentence. They should be placed strategically throughout the release.
Using press releases to get the word out about your business will prove to be a very rewarding venture.
PAY PER CLICK (PAID SEARCH MARKETING
Pay Per Click (“PPC”) are ads that appear in the search engine results at the top and to the right of the natural (organic) listings. When a consumer clicks on your ad, you are charged a specific amount per click. We will walk you through the process and let you know when you should use pay per click, when you should increase your budget and when to hold back.
The cost of PPC varies widely and is based on the keyword phrase you have chosen. PPC ads can range from 20 cents per click to $20 per click and higher.
Search engines such as Google, Yahoo and MSN list their pay per click ads in the sponsored section of their search results.
At Fuel the Web, we believe PPC can help enhance your marketing strategy, but it needs to be monitored closely.
