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The Magic Of Backlinks for Mobile SEO

March 3, 2011 By

Links are the heart and soul of the internet. When the internet was first created, it was comprised of two things… web pages and links.

As there were no search engines, the only way you could find other web pages was to follow a link. Each webmaster linked to pages they liked and as a result, ascribed authority to the pages they linked to.

This effect still occurs today. The search engines view each link as a “vote” cast by a website/webmaster that the page is relevant to the piece of linked text.

This linked text has many different names including “text link,” “hypertext link,” “anchor text link,” “text ad” and probably a few others.

In terms of Mobile SEO, the more links that point “back” to your site/pages, the better. For optimum results you should work hard to ensure that your backlinks include the specific keyword phrases you are optimizing for.

Although there are many ways to build quality backlinks, you’ll find these three to be quite effective:

Website Directories

There are hundreds of website directories that will allow you to list your business. Some will give you a listing for free and some require payment.

In addition to the listing, most will allow you to link to your website.

Article Marketing

Article marketing is a powerful link-building vehicle and should not be overlooked. You can submit your article content to hundreds of online directories and most will allow you to create three links per article.

Online Press Releases

Submitting an online press release is similar to article marketing except that the content is written a bit differently. The goal is to attract media attention in addition to giving content of interest to your target market.

Most press release distribution sites will allow you to “drop” a link but some will require additional payment for “anchor text” links.

If you need to have a mobile site designed or optimized for SEO, contact us for a free phone consultation.  For mobile web design or mobile website SEO, email us at jeanette@page1marketinggroup.com

We are located in Wilmington NC but handle clients internationally.

Filed Under: What's Hot in Mobile Marketing Tagged With: , , , , ,

SEO Basics For Small Business Owners

March 2, 2011 By

SEO is short for “Search Engine Optimization.” It’s a collection of tactics designed to help your web pages rank better for the keyword phrases you’re targeting.

The main difference between SEO and say, Pay-Per-Click advertising, is that the visitors you receive from your listings will not cost you anything. These free listings are also called “organic listings” and there are usually ten such listings per page.

Your listings are triggered whenever someone searches for a particular term (aka keyword phrase) using a search engine. The search engine does its best to return the most relevant web pages for the search performed.

Your goal, then, is to help the search engines understand what your web page content is most relevant for. The clearer you communicate your relevance, the more likely it is that you’ll receive good search engine rankings.

Generally speaking, there are two main SEO techniques to perform to each page of your site. They are:

On Page SEO

On page optimization includes anything that is done to your actual web page. As each page is under your control, you can ensure that it is optimized for the keyword phrases you believe are most relevant to your content.

Off Page SEO

Off page SEO is more challenging as you can only control so much. Any webmaster can link where they please and if they’ve linked to your site using an undesirable bit of text, you may suffer the consequences.

However, you can control the majority of the off-page work to be done and it’s important you do. Linkbuilding is generally considered to be the most important “off page” factor and ignoring it will hamper your ability to rank well for the terms you are targeting.

SEO also needs to take place for your Google Places listing. This is an entirely different set of criteria.  To be sure that both your website and Google Places Lising are optimized, contact me for a free 15-minute consultation.  Email   jeanette@page1marketinggroup.com

Filed Under: SEO Tips Blog Tagged With: , , , ,

Total Google Domination for Small Businesses

February 27, 2011 By

Okay, my post title is a little “over the top” but you’ll understand what I mean in a minute. Most of my clients ask how much it will cost to get a “first page ranking” for a particular keyword phrase they are targeting but few ask…

“Is it possible to get multiple “organic” rankings on the first page? If you are a small business, this could be a major windfall for your bottom line.

While it may surprise you, the answer is a resounding “YES!”

Generally speaking, there are ten organic search engine listings on each page for a particular term (aka keyword phrase). There may be more than this if the results include listings from Google Places or listings from Google’s Universal Search.

Most website owners get excited when their site is found on the first page of Google. However, aggressive marketers/SEOs know that it’s possible to occupy more than one of the organic listings for a term. SERP – or the Search Engine Results page – can be affected by what you do on your own website, but more importantly what you do elsewhere.  The role of publicity and news releases can not be underestimated.

This is great news for the site owners that understand this and not so great for those that don’t. It’s pretty simple to understand… the more “real estate” you occupy on page one, the more likely you are to increase your targeted website traffic and build your brand.

Just make sure to do your homework first because it does take a lot of effort to secure multiple listings. It won’t do you any good to get all ten spots for a term that brings little traffic or for a term that brings the wrong type of traffic.

If you want to find out what is possible for your small business, contact us at jeanette@page1marketinggroup.com   We supply SEO services in Wilmington NC but also have a national clientele.

 

Filed Under: What's Hot in Mobile Marketing Tagged With: , ,

Mobile Trends for 2020

February 25, 2011 By

Mobile Trends 2020

If you are ready to see what mobile marketing can do for your business, contact us for a free consultation. Mobile is here now – is your business ready for customers who are trying now to find you on their mobile device.

Email us at jeanette@page1marketinggroup.com to set up a free 15 minute consultation.

 

Filed Under: What's Hot in Mobile Marketing Tagged With: , ,

Isn’t My Web Designer Supposed To SEO My Site?

February 24, 2011 By

This post isn’t likely to make me many friends from those in the Web Design community but you know what they say… “sometimes, the truth hurts.”

The problem is that the “left hand” generally has no idea what the “right hand” is doing and as a result, important details are left undone. In this case, the left hand represents the web designer and the right hand represents the client.

Most client’s assume that their web designer will be SEO’ing their website. Most web designers assume that the client will hire a specialist to handle the Search Engine Optimization tasks.

Do you see where this is going?

After the web designer has finished their part, they put the site live. The client reviews the work, marvels at the beauty, and makes the final payment. The problem is that the site has not been SEO’d at all and the client is completely unaware of this fact.

I’ve seen sites that have been live for years that still have “meta titles” that read, “Untitled Document.” This is a sure sign that no SEO work has even been done and the site’s traffic rankings are usually hideous.

Now, I’m not blaming the web designers of the world because I don’t think it’s their place to SEO the sites they build in the first place. I do, however, believe that they should communicate that fact with their clients. Some web designers perform basic SEO to the sites they are building and some outsource the work to a SEO Consultant.

Regardless of what is done in terms of SEO, the topic should be discussed with the client. This way, the client will understand what it is they’re paying for and will know to look for a SEO Consultant if that work isn’t being performed.

Filed Under: SEO Tips Blog Tagged With: , , ,

SEO Myths Video – What is Really True about SEO?

February 21, 2011 By

Have you heard of that TV show, Myth Busters? Well, this short video discusses three common SEO Myths and their corresponding truths.

If you need help with getting your website on Page 1 of Google, then send us an email or give us a call. We provide SEO services  and reputation management services for Wilmington NC in a face-to-face manner, but we service clients around the globe.   Call 910-233-9517  or email us at support@page1marketinggroup.com.

Filed Under: Video SEO Tips Tagged With: , , , , ,

SEO Basics Video – How to Make Your Webpage Rank in Google

February 18, 2011 By

Do you have a WordPress-run website or are you thinking of creating one?

WordPress is a great platform for building both blogs and websites but there a number of things you can do to improve the on-page optimization.

SEO is critical for your mobile sites as well, so be sure your web designer is getting this right.

If you need help with getting your website on Page 1 of Google, then send us an email or give us a call.

We provide SEO services for Wilmington NC in a face-to-face manner, but we service clients around the globe.   Call 910-233-9517  or email us at support@page1marketinggroup.com.

Filed Under: Video SEO Tips Tagged With: , , , ,

SEO Terms Video – What is SEO, SERP?

February 17, 2011 By

Do you find SEO jargon confusing?

As Search Engine Optimization is highly technical, there are many specialized terms used when discussing this topic. As most of my clients are confused by these terms, I decided to write a blog post that explains a few of them in plain English.

Filed Under: Video SEO Tips Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Keywords – The Foundation Of SEO

February 14, 2011 By
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Every successful SEO Plan is designed around the keyword phrases that will be targeted.  Whether you are doing SEO for national websites or SEO for mobile websites,  you need to know about keyword research so you can help you website rank in the search engines.

Do this right and you’ll likely get the results you are looking for… improved rankings for the terms you’ve optimized for and an increase in targeted traffic.

Do this wrong, however, and you will have wasted a whole lot of time (and possibly money too!)

Keyword research is what separates novice SEOs from true professionals. Most anyone can find keywords using a tool like that provided by Google but few know how to sift through the junk to find the treasure.

It would be impossible for me to teach you the intricacies of keyword research in this short blog post but I will give you a “top level” explanation of the three main aspects.

Search Volume

Behind each keyword phrase, there is an associated “search volume.” The search volume is an approximation of how many times the keyword phrase is searched upon in an average month.

So, if you optimize a page around a term that has a listed search volume of 100 searches per month, you can’t expect a first page ranking to bring you much traffic. After all, you should never expect your site to receive all of the available “clicks.”

Keyword Intentionality

When choosing keywords it’s important that you try to get inside the mind of the person doing the search. You may think that the keyword phrase clearly conveys what the searcher is looking for but this is not always the case.

There are many sophisticated techniques used to determine the “intentionality” of each keyword phrase but here’s a simple tip… enter the keyword phrase into the search engine you care most about and look at all of the results.

Are there a number of sponsored ads on the page? This can indicate that the keyword phrase has a “commercial intent.”

Are the organic listings what you expected to see? If most of the listings are relevant to your business, you’re on the right track. If they’re not, you probably don’t really understand the intentionality of the keyword phrase.

If you search Google.com for the keyword phrase, “how to save a life,” you might expect to see listings on first aid, CPR, the Heimlich Maneuver, etc. Instead, however, you will find information on the song, “How To Save A Life,” by The Fray.

Determining Your Competition

This may sound a bit harsh, but it’s true… if you want to rank on the first page for a particular keyword phrase you are going to have to kick one of the current listings off!

Because of this, it’s important you know what it is going to take to accomplish this before deciding to optimize for the term. In some cases, you will find that the work will be easy and in others, near impossible.

There are many factors that come into play when determining your competition. It’s not just about the strength of the competitor’s website/web page, but also your strength in comparison.

This topic is a lengthy one but here are some of the questions you must ask:

•    What is the domain age of my competitor and how does that relate to mine?
•    How well optimized is their page and how does that relate to mine?
•    How many links does their page have and how does that relate to mine?

While there is more to it, the answer to these three questions will give you a general idea as to whether you can compete or not and what you must do to improve your chances.

Yes, this is complicated but help is always available.  Page1 Marketing Group specializes in getting your business to rank highly in organic search.  If you would like to discuss your particular situation, just contact us at

support@page1marketinggroup.com

Filed Under: What's Hot in Mobile Marketing Tagged With: , , ,

WordPress SEO Basics

February 14, 2011 By
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WordPress is a great platform for building both blogs and websites but there a number of things you can do to improve the on-page optimization.

If you only concentrate on improving three things, these top the list:

Permalinks

The Permalink structure controls how WordPress dynamically creates the url to your Pages and Posts and the default structure isn’t that great.

Here’s an example…

Let’s say you publish a Page named, “Contact Us.” By default, the generated url would look something like: YourDomain.com/?p=2

Do you see the “?p=2″ portion after the main domain name?

That portion is called the “Permalink” and is generated dynamically by WordPress as soon as you publish the Page. The “?p=2″ looks a bit strange to human visitors and doesn’t tell the search engines anything about the on-page content.

While there are a number of Permalink structure options, I prefer using the custom “/%postname%/” structure.

After making this change, the “Contact Us” Page would now get a website url structure like this: YourDomain.com/contact-us
This makes more sense for visitors and will improve the relevance for the keyword phrases contained in your Post/Page titles.

Improving Your On Page SEO

The most popular SEO Plugin for WordPress is called the “All In One SEO Pack,” by Michael Torbert.

Installing it will give you a number of benefits including:

•    The ability to control the “meta title” for your homepage and for every Page/Post you create.
•    Control over the “meta page description” for your homepage and for every Page/Post you create.
•    Control over the “meta keywords” for your homepage and for every Page/Post you create (if you’re still in the habit of entering meta keywords).

Website Performance Improvements

The “WP Super Cache” plugin, by Donncha, will help your pages load faster for visitors and search engine robots (aka bots or search engine crawlers).

How it does this is a bit technical but I will do my best to explain…

Instead of serving up the dynamic WordPress pages the plugin generates static html files. After it generates the files, your webserver will serve those files instead of the WordPress PHP scripts (which are heavier and slower loading).

As this criteria now plays a role in the search engine algorithm, you enhance your ability to rank in the SERPs.

If you need a website designed or optimized for the search engines, be sure to contact us as

support@page1marketinggroup.com

We serve Wilmington NC and surrounding counties “face-to-face” but we work with clients nationwide.

Filed Under: SEO Tips Blog Tagged With: , , ,
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