Search Engines, (Such as Google, Bing, or Yahoo) use backlinks as a way to tell whether a website is popular.  Imagine trying to determine what websites should be in search results for the phrase someone just typed into their search bar! Let me give you an example we all can relate to about popularity.

Go back with me to your high school days. (Yes, I said your high school  days! ) Popularity contests occur all the time in high school.  If you had popular friends, it made you popular. If you had half of the freshman class like you, it really didn’t help you out. The popular friends (other well-known websites) you become friends with and get backlinks from, the more valuable your website appears to search engines! This is one way search engines measure your importance from the millions of sites on the internet.

♦ It’s good to build a website, but unless you create backlinks, your hard work building a site will be for nothing. ♦

Here are 5 areas you can start getting backlinks from:

• Clients or Business Partners
• Quality directories or backlink sites like Links Do Matter
• Social Media profiles
• Articles and Press Releases
• Video sites

Don’t let this step of search engine optimization get lost in the scheme of work to be completed.  Need more information or direction? Contact us and get started today because backlinks are important!!

If you look at Google search results, you will see results for whatever you type into the search bar. In my example I typed in the words “iphone 4.”

Note the different types of results you get! If you want to find your website on the first page of Google, you will need to have an understanding of SEO and internet marketing.

5 types of Google search results:

1. Paid Advertising – Also known as pay-per-click. This advertising costs money each time a user clicks on the ad. This can cost a lot of money if you are not certain what keywords are best to use.  You can get a great ROI if marketed correctly.
2. Organic – Organic results are free and results can linger.  It takes knowledge, detail and expertise to comprehend the 200+ variables of search engine optimization. (SEO) Outsource this type of internet marketing to a reliable SEO company.
3. News - These results are primarily newspaper sites and blog that follow specific criteria to be considered in the news category.
4. Images - Add an image to your website and optimize your images with correctly added keywords to enhance the ability to have your images appear in image results.
5. Video – Take advantage of video marketing! It’s smart to add optimized videos to Youtube.  (Although there are many other video websites.)

If you are a small business with a physical address, make sure to take advantage of all the internet marketing available to you! How do you market your business? Do you know how many ways you can promote your small business?

There are many factors that make up Google concepts and internet marketing.  Google’s information is free! Make sure to use good SEO concepts and internet marketing concepts to make your web business a success!

Here is one of the 1930 commercials. Spanky McFarland (from Our Gang: The Little Rascals) is the star in this promo.  Here are a few things to pay attention to while you watch this short clip.

1. Note Spanky’s total disinterest in the bike and in the promotion.
2. Spanky is being noticeably coached.
3. After Spanky holds a brochure, he throws it on the ground!
4. There doesn’t appear to be any editing in this promo! Remember what it was like before spell checker or Microsoft Word? Before picture editors or even before we could edit our blog posts after it’s published?

This promo was created for Speed-O Bikes!

Marketing has changed through the years! It’s been more then 50 years since 1930 commercials. If you still haven’t created a website for your small business, it’s time to get out of the past and hit the fast forward button!

Let me list a few of the areas you can get your potential clients for business:

• Internet Marketing
• Search Engine Marketing (paid or free)
• Word of mouth (WOM)
• Email marketing
• TV advertising
• Radio advertising
• Soliciting (door-to-door or phone)

Now I’m going to dig a little deeper into the huge possibilities of internet marketing:

• Social media (Facebook, Linkedin, My Space, etc…)
• Videos (Youtube is the biggest website and it’s owned by Google)
• Articles
• Press Releases
• Directories

When working to find potential clients through internet marketing you need to implement search engine optimization to maximize the possibilities! Otherwise, in a world where millions of people search for websites, your business will get lost in the shuffle of all the other businesses trying to market themselves.

When you choose to use internet marketing for your business, you can also benefit from word of mouth and gain potential clients for business by successful internet marketing and search engine optimization; potential clients from WOM can come along without any added work!

I hope this helps you with some new ideas as you look for potential clients for your business! Send us an email  or comment on our SEO blog if you have questions about internet marketing or search engine optimization.

What is a blog and how does it work?

Asking people on the street you get all kinds of answers! Take a look at this video. Would you respond like one of these people?

Blogs (originally called web logs) are new to technology compared to traditional websites.  Blogs are normally written in chronological order.  Each “journal” (which can be compared to a news article or a diary) is categorized by date or field and normally appears with the newest written blog on top.

Each new “journal” is called a post and each post becomes a new web page. Blogs tend to create more traffic due to their ability to add new posts easily and quickly through a content management system (CMS). There are many CMS brands that range in cost and function.  A CMS allows the layman to create their blog post  without knowing a basic computer language such as HTML.

The differences between traditional websites and blogs have become increasingly blurred.  Blogs tend to be less expensive then a regular website.   Many local small businesses can use a blog instead of a website for a fraction of the cost of a traditional website.

Websites, on the other hand,  can use ecommerce tools so customers can purchase products online.  Blogs can work hand in hand with a traditional website if that is needed.  Still uncertain what you need? Tell us about your small business and we’ll help you make the best decision!

SEO Does Matter, Inc. usually uses WordPress blogs.  We teach people how to use their blog and how to update their blog. Many times when people ask how does it work, we compare the CMS side of the blog in WordPress to a Microsoft Word document.

I hope this gives you the simple answer to the question, “What is a blog and how does it work?” Watch this video and afterwords, contact us with your comments or questions!

Facebook has grown tremendously in the last two years! There are now over 400 million active users! You probably have a personal profile on Facebook.  But what about your business presence in Facebook?

I’ve seen many who have incorrectly created a “personal profile” to represent their business.  That’s not good! Here are 5 reasons why:

1. It’s against Facebook rules – Facebook wants profiles created for individuals ~ not an organization. (Ex.  Profiles ask for first and last name, siblings, etc.) It’s not too late to correct this problem. Ask us how to make a smooth transition.
2. Businesses should create Facebook pages – Facebook Pages are customizable to market your business! For search engine optimization, make sure to add good keywords where ever possible and click-able links that will help give value to your website.
3. People can “like” your Facebook Page without requesting a friendship -  This saves you valuable time and stops giving the impression that your business alienates any friendships. How does a person feel when they have to wait a week for confirmation? Compare that to Facebook pages that automatically approve a friend.
4. A Facebook Page has analytic reports – This helps you have a better understanding of who are your fans and supporters, how they respond to your business, and how well you are doing with the Facebook page.
5. A Facebook Page shares administration rights – You can make more then one person an administrator.  This means updates can be distributed to several persons. This is very important for any business organization!!

Personal profiles, group pages and business pages share information, upload videos, pictures and can link to other websites. That’s why it can be very confusing since it may not seem any different at first glance.  There are also aspects that can not be changed once you create it. So, be careful if you plan to create a business page on your own!

Creating a Facebook Page for Business is a great step toward integrating social media into your marketing plan.  If you haven’t taken this step, what’s stopping you? Need  some help? Contact us today!

]]> http://www.seodoesmatter.com/blog/2010/05/26/creating-a-facebook-page-for-business/feed/ 8 http://www.seodoesmatter.com/blog/2010/05/11/what-are-meta-tags-used-for/ http://www.seodoesmatter.com/blog/2010/05/11/what-are-meta-tags-used-for/#comments Tue, 11 May 2010 15:48:40 +0000 Melodie http://www.seodoesmatter.com/blog/?p=1452 Are you learning a little about web development and trying to make sense of HTML? Perhaps you are wondering, “What are meta tags used for in web development and search engine optimization?” That’s the question we are going to focus on in today’s post!

There are many different meta tags in HTML. When creating a web page, meta tags are typically used to tell search engines what your web page is about. Just as a term paper has titles, a synopsis and headlines, meta tags in HTML do the same.

Some primary meta tags include the following:

• Title tags
• Descriptions tags
• Keyword tags

Search engines use robots to “read” websites to determine what information is on your website. When meta tags are filled out correctly, it can help your website appear higher on the list of  search results because it helps categorize your website among the millions of websites that exist.

Although there are many other factors involved with search engine results, some meta tags are essential to search engines like Google. Search Engine Optimization (the art to getting your website on the first page of Google) uses good keywords in the meta tags to enable better search results for your website.

Many factors structuring your website are fundamental to search engines. If you are considering having a website created,  create a good foundation before you buy your domain name.

Many people build a website without realizing what is needed and spend thousands of $ dollars $ when it isn’t necessary to get the results you want!

“What are meta tags used for?” I hope you know the answer to this question and will implement this factor into your website development.  If you would like to know more about search engine optimization (also know as SEO) and want to learn how to accomplish this, contact us today!

In short, SEO is what gets your website on the first page of Google. In this post, I will go into a little more detail for the layman who wants a better understanding and how it’s relevant to their business.

With millions of people searching the internet for information, any business should desire to get their product or information out there on the web. Are you aware that in North America alone, there are 260 million internet users. This figure has more then doubled in the last 10 years! In the world, the figure is over 1.8 billion!

When you go to Google, Bing, Yahoo or other search engines, you typically will see a list of website results. There are often named “sponsored links”  on the top of this list and on the side and another list of results. These results come from two types of marketing. Pay-per-click (PPC) and Organic Results.  PPC marketing (sponsored links) costs you money every time someone clicks on your ad. With the best keywords, it can be successful. But today we are going to focus on organic search engine results.

Organic results are formed by search engines looking at over 200 different factors of your website. Some factors have greater significance then others, but the more you have conquered, the greater your site will be seen as a valued result. That is where SEO comes into play.

What’s SEO? It’s the skill set of looking at the different variables and developing or revising a website that will achieve high ranking search engine results.

Can a business person take care of SEO themselves? Sure, you can do it yourself!! There is a lot of information out there from all of the primary search engines.  We have found it depends on your personality whether you choose to learn SEO or hand it to a creditable SEO company like ourselves. Many times we teach business owners how to maintain their own websites.  Many times, business owners prefer not to learn and to focus on their business while we provide results.

The bottom line is,  are you implementing SEO into your business website? If you are not, why not? Are you trying to understand what’s SEO and it’s value to you? If so, contact us today.  In this economic time, we want to see your business bloom and grow!

So, what is deeplinking? Linking to webpages further down in the structure of your website. Here is an example. Many times, a person will add a link to their site such as website.com. The structure of your site can also take you deeper within your site as with this example.  (website.com/about/person)

Instead of linking to the homepage (website.com) you should add the link to a web page in a deeper folder.  (website.com/about/person) Search engines will be directed deeper within your website which will also help give more pages propensity to be indexed.

You might be thinking that XML sitemaps guide the search engines to find these webpages. Yes, XML sitremaps are created to guide Spiderbots to your webpages but deep linking provides additional help.  Adding your deep link to the more valued web page from another site will promote your web page and give that page you are linking to added value.

This third factor of this series on the different types of linking in search engine optimization is probably the less common method used. If you are wondering about the first two types of linking, take the time to read our previous posts on internal linking and external linking.

With time, you will reap the benefits of deeplinking! I hope this answers the question, “What is deeplinking?” Got SEO questions?  Contact us and let us help you get on track so your business website can be a success!