Search Engine Optimization (or SEO) is truly key to helping people find your business when searching for the product or service you offer. Google and other search engines are the prevalent modern way that people look for products and services.
With the right marketing strategy in place, today's Internet technology allows even very small businesses to make it on a global scale, without spending a lot of money on big advertising.
While the science of search engine optimization and internet marketing are a vast fields, here are James Enterprises' Top 10 quick and free steps that every business can take to immediately improve visibility naturally on the web, without paying per-click and other advertising fees.
Before getting started, be sure to keep a “cheat sheet” of the web sites, blogs, media resources and social networks on which you place content so you can be sure to re-visit them, know your login and password information, and post new content on a regular basis.
1. PRESS RELEASES & ARTICLES
Issuing regular press releases and writing articles is a powerful way to increase your visibility and increase your credibility at the same time.The beauty of press releases is that they end up on all sorts of web sites, dramatically increasing your exposure and your results during Internet searches.
Start by searching for and compiling emails of media contacts to whom you will send your press releases and articles, and prepare, maintain and regularly update these contacts for emailing your releases and news. Generally you are looking for editors and can usually find them on the contacts pages of the entity's web site.
The more contacts, the merrier! It's truly worth spending a significant amount of time developing and maintaining a list of industry magazine editors, local, national and international media editors (including multi-national news agencies).
Once you have your list, share your news with these contacts on a regular basis. Make it a part of your weekly or bi-weekly routine to write press releases and articles about your products, services, company news, and almost anything you can think of about what you're doing. You'd be surprised by how much of what you do is news worthy. Did you buy new equipment? Write about it and how it is helping you expand your services. Land a new customer or project? Share it with the world (with permission). Learn a new technique to employ in your business? Let the world know!
And, if you have written articles or news in the past that is still relevant, consider updating and re-publishing them. If you have long articles, break them up into smaller segments, and release each one separately.
Very importantly, be sure in your press releases and news to use all the buzz words for your industry, including your company’s name and links to your web site, blog, photos, Twitter, etc. (See #10 below.)
2. YOUTUBE
YouTube, which is owned by Google, is a great way to promote a business. It's simple and free to create one or multiple YouTube channels for your company and then uploading videos related to your product or services and educating people on topics in your field.Even simple videos of presentations you've prepared in the past, as well as other short videos showing your products, discussing tricks of the trade and sharing your expertise.
Our advice is to keep your videos short. If you have videos of more than a minute or two, post them, but also break them up into smaller segments on discreet topics. This accomplishes two goals:
- it makes viewers more likely to watch the entire video (people get bored quickly and tend not to watch long videos), and
- it allows you to present a larger number of videos, which is much better for your search engine optimization.
When making new videos, you should always aim for information that will appeal to the broadest segment of your target audience. Make them fun and interesting.
Be sure to include comprehensive descriptions of the video, being sure to use all the "buzz words," including your business name, web site, product and brand names, key individuals and/or author related to the video, and links to other videos, articles, news stories of yours on topic.
3. WEB SITES FOR EACH OF YOUR TARGET MARKETS
Developing industry-targeted web sites for each of your target markets is a great way to market your services to that industry, while also serving to further enhance your search results.Consider your target markets. Many businesses either already actively seek to penetrate multiple markets or can if they think of new applications for their existing products and services.
By having a separate web site tailored for each industry, you can not only increase your chances of being found but also help bolster your credibility to prospects seeking products or services for that application when they see that your web site is devoted to what they’re seeking.
Each web site should ideally employ best practices in SEO, including cross links to your other sites, blogs, web albums, news, press releases, etc.
4. BLOGS
Blogs are a great way to regularly and relatively easily post your articles, press releases, business activities, news, videos, photos and other media.There are many good, free blog resources on the web. Consider using multiple blog services to which to post your content on a regular basis. Note also that there are services available that post to multiple blogs and other social media simultaneously (e.g., ScribeFire, Ping.fm, Facebook’s Blog It, and others). Such services are powerful tools to make your efforts much more productive and efficient.
As with all other methods discussed here, be sure to always include buzz words for your industry and target market, as well as your company name, links to your sites, photos, video content, and other web activities as discussed.
5. REGULARLY UPDATING THE NEWS SECTION ON YOUR WEB SITE
Keeping your web site updated frequently with new content about your products or services helps keep your search results higher.Any time you write an article or press release about what your companies activities (see section 1 above), increase the power of that by adding this news to your web site’s news section and/or other relevant section of your site. Moreover, post it also on your blogs.
As with all the other strategies set out in this blog, it is key to including relevant terms, names, links, photos, video clips and/or any other cross-referencing materials possible.
6. LINKED-IN, FACEBOOK, & SIMILAR NETWORKING SITES
Posting content to and participating in social networking sites such as Linked-In, Facebook, Twitter, and many others are very helpful in terms of maximizing your search results.If you haven’t already, spend some time creating free profiles on social network sites. Many social networking sites have industry-related groups you can join and participate in, which can help build your reputation as an expert and help increase your visibility on the web generally. It is helpful to keep your profile updated and as complete as possible.
You can reach many of these services with a single click of the mouse by utilizing multiple posting services (see section 4, above).
7. PICASSA, PHOTOBUCKET & OTHER PHOTO STORAGE SITES
There is a number of free photo album resources on the web that allow you to upload your business-related photos to, which will significantly increase your search results.They include Picassa, Photobucket, MyPhotoAlbum, Jalbum, and many more.
The most important aspects of posting photos is to be sure that they are good photos representative of your work and that they include a plethora of tags and descriptions that make finding your photos easy.
8. TWITTER
Twitter is a great way to quickly get word out about what you’re doing at present to a very wide audience.Because Twitter only allows a sentence or two to post and has a very simple small window for posting, it is very quick and easy way to post “headlines” of what you’re up to.
Just posted a new blog? Tweet it (posting a message on Twitter is called “tweeting”). Just updated your web site? Tweet it. Just issued a new press release? Tweet it.
A key element of making this work for you is to have a large yet tailored target audience. They key to building such a base is to follow businesses and individuals who may be interested in your tweets. They are then informed that you are following them and they then often follow you. It is worth spending some time on a regular basis visiting your Twitter account, finding new people to follow, reading their tweets, and posting your activities.
9. TAGS
Tags are metadata that describe with key words content that you post, such as photos, videos, blogs, bookmarks, etc. Tags are used in part by search engines to help identify and display relevant content to searches.Typically, when you post a photo, blog, video or similar content, there is an area for adding not only a caption and/or description, but also a line for “tags”. Add words here that describe the file but also include your company name, web site domain, competitors’ names, competing product brand names, and any words you can think of that people might search for which you want to be found.
10. LINKS, LINKS & MORE LINKS
Cross-linking is an important way to help improve your position in search results.Get in the habit of adding relevant links to your web site and other company files, news, blogs, etc. to each of your other relevant web site pages, blogs, videos, social networks, photos, tweets, posts, articles, press releases and news.
11. URL SUBMISSION & WEBMASTER TOOLS
Last, and most importantly, you need to be sure that all the content you have generated is found by the search engines.
Submit all your URL's to Google, Yahoo, Bing and other popular search engines, and set up Webmaster tools and use them regularly. This process takes time, but it's time necessary to generate your results. Contact me for more information and assistance.
CONCLUSION
Performing the above 11 activities on a regular basis does take time and effort. The payoff, however, is that you will see your company’s position in search results come up substantially. The more effort you put in to this, the better your results.
For more information on this topic, contact James Enterprises (www.james-enterprises.net).
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