A marketing resource for the small business owner
Cumming Marketing Company
You MUST Use Your Keywords to Link Back to Your Website – No Questions Asked!
May 3rd
You have heard that doing keyword research is essential to website, video, and article success. Virtually every piece of content you put out on the Internet must leverage good keywords. It’s crucial to learn how to properly use the keywords that you’ve compiled. There are two types of keywords that are in your list – the first is a shorter type that is 2-3 words long. This type of keyword phrase is one that you would like your website to get a high ranking for. In other words, when your target customers type this phrase into Google, you would like for your website to appear high up in the results list, ideally in the number one position.
The other type of keyword phrase is called a “long-tail keyword.” Those are longer phrases, usually 3-8 or more words long, and they’re ideal for using as part of your title and as the subject for your articles. These longer phrases are ones that you’d like an article, report or video to rank for (instead of your website).
The Title
Each article, blog post, video or other piece of content that you have “external” or “off-page” of your website must have an attention-getting title that must include your keyword or keyword phrase.
The Description or Resource box
Each piece of content will typically have a description or resource box, as well. Make sure your are leveraging this area with a good sentence or two that includes again… your keyword or keyword phrase. Very important. The resource box is usually the area you put in information about the author. This is also where you would feature your keyword as “anchor text” that has a link back to your website. So instead of writing something like – “for more information on “keyword”, click here” (where “click here” is the link)… you would write – “if you would like more information on “keyword”, just follow the link (and have the keyword itself linked to your site).
Body Copy
In the case of an article, blog post or special report… your body copy must also feature a few sentences about your keyword or keyword phrase. Here again you would want to have the anchor text of the link be your keyword.
Linking back to your website with your keywords is an excellent way to help Google associate your keywords with your website. When Google and the other search engines can see the association – it helps your website get a higher ranking when people do searches for that keyword term.
Video Marketing in 5 E-Z Steps…
May 1st
Video Marketing Rocks!!
Ok, so you’ve created this great marketing video about you, your company or the problems you solve for your customers. Now what?
Well… it’s time to get it out on the wires!!!
Here are 5 steps to effective video marketing
1. First and foremost – use a dependable hosting service
When you are marketing your video, the last thing you want is an unreliable hosting service that ruins your efforts. It’s important to use a provider that will offer you consistent quality and give you the assurance that your video won’t be spontaneously taken down at any point.
Websites such asYouTube and Vimeo are traditionally pretty reasonable at providing such a service; if you want 100% peace of mind, then investing some money into a host such as Brightcove or Bitsontherun might be a good idea. In many instance I use Viddler – it’s solid, you can customize the look of your videos to include your branding and host a ton of them for $50/mo at their premium level.
2. Remember to OPTIMIZE your video for the search engines. SEO, SEO and more SEO!
Video is a great SEO (search engine optimization) booster, and using sites such as YouTube can greatly aid your SEO efforts. Just as in any SEO strategy, your main aim is to allow your video to be found by online users who are searching for content related to your video.
When marketing video, making your video findable by search engines is your top priority. It’s essential, therefore, to fill out all of your video meta-data on all the video sharing sites it is hosted on, and to write as much information as the sites allow you to include.
3. Harness the power of social sharing
Cracking social media isn’t always easy, but the power of a social share is unquestionable. Sharing online video on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, and other social sites allows you to reach an almost limitless audience. Time consuming, YES. But necessary.
One share to your primary audience could generate further social shares within that group, thus reaching audiences you’ve never interacted with before and spreading your video’s message way beyond your current online reach.
4. Interact on your platforms
No matter what platform you are using—your website, social profile, video-sharing site, or blog—as the home of your online video, you will need to embrace and interact with the communities there. Time consuming? Yes. But, necessary.
Engage with commenters and other users, Like or comment on their content, video-respond to them, share their work, and generally participate in the discussions taking place in those locations.
Doing so will encourage other users to do the same, in turn, with your content and will generally create good marketing karma for you.
5. Measure your success / Track your efforts
Always remember that measuring success creates success. Whether you’re looking to improve your video views, social following, Likes, conversions, website visits, or bounce rates via online video… you need to regularly check the success of your strategy and tactics.
Try to check on your success monthly to allow for an appropriate amount of time to have elapsed. Upon checking your results with tools such as Google Analytics, SEOmoz, HootSuite, and the like, sit down with your team to work out how to strengthen your campaign further.
Remember – Video marketing is huge in today’s Internet-focused world. Don’t take this lightly. Videos engage, plain and simple. We offer a pretty good service for video marketing. If you need help, let us know.
Local Search Gets Promoted Again
Dec 5th
Google has done it again with local search this month by adding more information on the right side of the search results. From what we can tell – this is something they’ve been testing off and on earlier this year, but not in a serious enough way for anyone to cover it. However, last month – they rolled out this service in the U.S -> check it out.
Now when you search for a place on Google you’ll see a large part of the screen on the right side taken up by what is essentially the entire Place page for that business. This includes the typical information like the map, prices range, hours, pictures, menu and reviews. But now notice the street view and store view windows readily available. These are both indicated by the little street view mascot “pegman” over the thumbnail picture shown. When you click on these images it will jump to the street view or store view page in the format you’re used to.
A Very Cool Feature
… especially if you’re looking for a single place, or if someone is specifically looking for your place, but what if you don’t know what place exactly you’re looking for? Well now if you’re searching for places in an area, Google will include this exact information in the Instant Preview feature for any place. Just clicking the “>>” button next to a place’s result will overlay the same information to the right side of the results.
Local Searching Just Got Easier
This definitely makes finding information about places in your area a lot easier and faster. Keep in mind that the information which shows up on the right side is limited by what’s available on that company’s Place Page, so if you want to take real advantage of this – include as much information about your company on your Place Page. Also since it also gives links to other review sites like Zagats and Urban Spoon right there, you should be building reviews on those types of sites as well.
Your Reviews in Lights
Another addition to Local Search is the addition of places that you have reviewed showing up as small icons over the Google Map. Under these icons is 1 to 5 dots indicating the rating you have given the location. Hovering your mouse over these icons brings up a bubble showing its average rating, the brief details and what you rated the place. Also included will be icons of places that Google recommends and thinks you may like based on what you’ve reviewed. As of right now, places your friends have reviewed seem painfully absent.
How Much Content Do You Have On Your Home Page? Is It Enough?
Sep 27th
I have spoken with and have engaged in relationships with clients whose home pages aren’t highly ranked in the search engines. The first thing I typically look at is the amount of or lack of content. Instead, they have of lots of images and links to products. The truth is – having a content-rich site these days is good for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is better SEO rankings. It’s a well known fact that it’s much easier to rank a site competitively when there is actual content on the page for Google to algorithmically score.
A couple of side notes: Not only do excessive images impact site speed (which can decrease customer usability and lead to higher bounce rates), but they don’t look as attractive.
But the question remains – if content on your home page is a good thing - how much content is enough? In our opinion, enough content is that which easily and effectively communicates your product and service offerings to your audience and the search engines.
Is this a quantifiable figure? Probably not. For some of you with shopping sites you may want to take the Zappos.com focus and provide less direct information but more linking text and contextual content around the breadth of features and products they offer. However, for those of you with blogs or information-focused sites, you may want to emulate the sites of Dave Taylor and Jim Boykin. Both provide a TON of content in the form of blog posts, industry links and customer testimonials that Google is clearly using to effectively place them at the top of the search engines for dozens of competitive queries. Just “google” them and you’ll see what I mean.
What Does Google Say?
As for Google’s stance on this question, check out the below Google Webmaster Help video from Matt Cuts:
In the video Matt addresses this exact question but doesn’t give a clear answer. He does say that you wouldn’t want to have a home page containing 20MB of data since that would clearly be too much. He then continues to relate the following:
“But in general, if you have more content on a home page, there’s more text for Googlebot to find, so rather than just pictures, for example, if you have pictures plus captions – a little bit of textual information can really go a long way”
In the end, only you can decide how much content is enough for your home page. In our opinion though, it’s always better to have too much content as opposed to not enough.
Yahoo Sends More Traffic to Web Sites
Sep 3rd
Which search engine sends web sites the highest percentage of their search traffic…? According to Experian Hitwise, Yahoo leads Google and Bing at sending more traffic to sites listed within their index. Yahoo’s Advertising Blog posted up the news from Hitwise on August 16th. The report is really a breakdown of which engine steals the least amount of traffic from organic search. It’s no wonder Yahoo was eager to share the news and hopefully become your new best friend.
The Experian Hitwise search success rate report revealed that Yahoo sends 81% of their traffic on to Web sites, as compared to 80% for Bing and only 68% for Google. These percentages show how effective Google Places & Google Maps is at keeping local search traffic on Google’s site, as compared to the current similar offerings from Yahoo and Bing.
Need to Find a Quality PPC / ADwords Agency? 5 Questions to Ask!
Aug 3rd
Are you in need of professional assistance on your Pay-Per-Click (PPC) accounts, specifically Google AdWords? Not sure where to look or what questions we should be asking? Can we help? Answer: Choosing a good Pay-Per-Click (PPC) provider is not something to take lightly. As you would with an internal hire, finding the right PPC company involves both time and patience and a clear communication of expectations by both parties.
Whether you hire a single PPC consultant or go with a larger firm with dozens of certified specialists in PPC campaign management, there are certain places to look AND certain questions to ASK that will make the process go much easier.
Since your current need is primarily Google AdWords, our first recommendation is the Google Partner Search. This simple search engine is maintained directly by Google and lists all those who have been certified by Google to manage AdWords campaigns. With the ability to search providers by your projected campaign spend, locally within your area, or by industry focus, this is the first place you should look to find and generate a list of qualified Google AdWords PPC management professionals.
Note: The Google Partner Search also includes a handy Search by Partner Name field which allows you to check the certification status of any company who “claims” they have a Google AdWords Professional Certification.
Once you’ve generated a list of possible PPC candidates, it’s time to interview them. Understanding their level of expertise, their cost structure, past results, and approach to your accounts is IMPERATIVE going forward.
Here are five suggested questions to ask any potential candidate:
1. How long have they been doing PPC campaign management? Look for at least five years of experience and ask for a DOCUMENTED history of success. Request at least two examples of past and current clients who are willing to speak with you directly.
2. Who is running your campaign? Are you getting a dedicated representative who is a GAP (Google Advertising Professional) or certified by Google as an expert in Google AdWords campaign management?
3. What reporting should you expect? What metrics will be given “on-demand” and will you have full access to reporting functions? What type of reports will you receive on the status of your account daily, weekly, monthly? Make sure you discuss transparency so nothing comes as a surprise down the road.
4. How do you measure success? What metrics do you believe are the most important in determining the success (or failure) of a PPC campaign? Will you be provided with detailed assistance fleshing out goals for this campaign and adjusting them as necessary?
5. Who keeps your accounts? The worst thing you can do is hire a firm who sets-up and manages PPC accounts for you, then KEEPS these accounts when they are done or you decide to go in another direction. Make sure you confirm that these accounts are YOURS once you part ways. Otherwise, keep looking for a provider.
This isn’t an exhaustive list and for those of you with suggestions or additions to this list, please feel free to use our comments below. But from a bare bones standpoint, doing the above will insure you get off on the right foot as you look for a quality PPC vendor.
With the average CPC on Google surpassing $1.24 in 2010 and expected to rise between 5-8% in 2011, getting ALL you can out of your current accounts is vital. Make sure you choose your next PPC manager wisely. Mistakes are costly!
Looking for SEO Tips in Cumming and Alpharetta – Great SEO Tool for Optimization Help
Jun 28th
Want to get a some ideas for optimizing your web site? This is a very thorough tool. You can check out your competitors, too!
Just type in your URL to get some ideas. Tells you what you’re doing right and what you’re doing wrong. Check it out.
