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By Matthew Meyer in Featured

spn_exclusiveGoogle Place Search (formerly known as Google Places) rules local search. Just try it. Go to Google and type in “Personal Injury Attorney Your City.” The first seven listings in the “natural search listings” are all Google Places pages. Since 20% of searches are local and the majority of their over $30 billion in revenue comes from small businesses, Google has decided to go hard after local small business advertising.

They started by creating 50 million Google Places pages using aggregated data from online directories and the Yellow Pages. These pages are mobile optimized and attached to Google Maps.

Only about 8% of local businesses have actually claimed their Google Place Search page. Even less have fully optimized their pages. However, this is changing fast. Local businesses are getting hip to the importance of Google Places pages. If you have a local business, the first place potential customers will start to find you is on your Google Places page from their smart phone. You want to make sure you are at the top of the list for your category. Here is how you get a jump on your competition in local search:

1. Stake Your Claim!

Google made the Google Place Search Page now you need to claim yours. You need to claim it because it is possible that the information listed is not correct and the more completely you fill out your page the higher it is ranked in searches. In order to be able to add information to your page you need to claim it first. Google verifies your claim to the page by sending you a postcard by snail mail with a confirmation code or by sending you a message on your phone.

By Bryan P. Hollis in Featured

spn_exclusiveGenerally I will not lead an article by stating the intended reader(s) or target audience. However, I decided that I would clearly state that this article is targeted primarily to website owners. At the same time, I am hoping that all online businesses will take note of this. These include advertising companies, web host providers, web designers and programmers, and even my own field – Search Engine Optimization.

Many online businesses (especially those in the marketing field) are plagued with bad reputations. I mean the field as a whole. A clear example is my very own category of online marketing, site management, and search engine optimization. The term “Black Hat SEO” wasn’t pulled out of thin air, nor was the idea to combat this “label” by clearly stating (or in many cases) professing to be above-board, or “White Hat”. For those that are unfamiliar with these terms, you can go with the sound…”Black Hat” having an almost evil connotation, while “White Hat” is seemingly “angelic”. This example applies to other online service providers as well, including web host providers, web designers, programmers and advertisers. I was prompted to finally write this article after my blood had boiled over in dealing with dirty, underhanded companies (again, including my very own field).

About two months ago, I was approached by a “Brick and Mortar” company that had been online with a simple site for about 3 years. The client of course wondered how I could help get her site on page one. I was up-front with her in saying that “Brick and Mortar” was a hair trickier than a business with a large online presence (or even strictly online). Nonetheless, I assured her that we would give it our all. Her site, like you would expect from a strictly “Brick and Mortar”, was not very interactive, and contained very little content. From face-value appearance, this site was “ok”. Behind the scenes was a different story.

When checking a potential new client’s web or blogsite, the very first thing that I do is really quite simple. I use the tool on most browsers by right-clicking and selecting “view page source”. This is perhaps (in my past experiences) the fastest indicator of simple site factors like the meta title, meta description, and keywords – first for the home-page. Is the title too long? Is the description poor, spammy, or too long?
Are there too many keywords? Is a particular keyword used too often (spam)? This two minute drill can really tell you a lot. By asking the owner who “described” the site, you’ll know even more. Was it the web designer? A third-party, outsourced content writer? All important to know. Now I dig deeper.

After running a full site analysis (broken links, ranking details, keywords statistics, etc.) I then use what I truly believe to be the single most important SEO tool available…Google it! By doing a search engine query using numerous keywords, you’ll find out exactly what you’re stacked-up against. What is the SERP count? Are the top SERP results articles or the actual site home-page?

Ok, right about now is when you should be asking me, “So what’s the deal with policing my site and becoming a webmaster?” We’re getting there…I promise!

So you give your potential client your facts, your theories, and your hopes. They accept your proposal. Now what do you need? You need site access, file manager access, database access, and website log-in (with administrative) access. Depending on what needs to be done and the degree of your programming or coding skills, you may need a programmer on your team. I happen to have been blessed with the knowledge and know-how to do just about everything that needs to be done to correct site issues.

Regardless of the content management solution (CMS), somehow or another me and my trusty code editor seem to plug away until we get all the “kinks” worked-out. Now comes the policing and loss of respect that give others a bad name in such a competitive area. I won’t name companies, web designers, or advertisers. My goal is not to expose or “call them out”, but rather to raise a website owner’s awareness that they exist, and what to look out for.

While I am only going to use one example, please be aware that I have encountered this on numerous occasions, and always with a unique twist or seemingly “organized” way of accomplishing their mission. I am going back to the recent “Brick and Mortar” company, as this one simply disgusted me the most.

At first appearance, the site consisted of a landing page, an about the company page, a contact page, and an FAQ (frequently asked questions). All things considered, this was ample for establishing an online presence (although I have since added a blog!). So what are we looking at, a four, five page site? Also keep in mind that this site is a simple html only site. No php.

Not even a database. Accessing the Control Panel and file manager should show me very little, right? Wrong! Unbeknownst to her, there were dozens of “hidden” files in her site. Provided by? Her web hosting company. In viewing these files (and I viewed them thoroughly), I found page after page that promoted her web hosting company’s site with countless “dofollow” links. Let me cite one example:

Her site is delivered from the folder “public_html”, meaning that the files directly from this folder are the next page, post, or folder directly from her domain, like example.com/ contact-us/. In her case there were odd file names like /Fbq573s.html. Of course no-one will EVER know to view this page and it isn’t linked-to. However, it is VERY much alive, crawled and cached by search engines, absolutely sapping this paying customer of any potential of being exposed for anything. Bottom line, she would NEVER see page one. Why? Why do this?

Don’t you want to see your customer succeed? My hosting company uses no dirty tricks. I want my web host user’s site to flourish, to expand. That is true credibility.

Lesson – even if it’s the basics, learn some basic html, view your website’s file manager, and if you have to, get a second opinion. To your success.

Bryan P. Hollis is the founder of Mid Carolina Freelance, LLC – A Complete SEO and Online Marketing Firm. He started the firm about 5 years ago and has progressed into many areas including affiliate management, social media marketing, web hosting and Linux server development.

By Johannes Selbach in Featured

linksDo you want to know how your website compares to the big players in your industry? Do you want to learn how to compete with these sites? This month, SEO analysis provider SEOprofiler.com has published a list of the websites with the most backlinks in November 2011.

Comparing the backlinks of these websites with your own backlinks can help you to improve the position of your website. The necessary three steps are explained below.

Backlinks are the cornerstone of successful search engine optimization. The more high quality backlinks a web page has, the higher it will rank in the search results of Google, Yahoo and Bing.

Which Websites Do Have the Most Backlinks?

The published backlink statistics are grouped by country and the top 10 websites in the USA come as no surprise: Facebook and Twitter lead the group, followed by WordPress, YouTube, Google, Google Maps, Wikipedia, Digg, Amazon and Flickr.

All of these websites are major players in their category and it’s no wonder that many websites link to them. The websites with more backlinks in other countries often show unexpected results.

By David Jackson in Featured

SEO2The two most important elements that qualify companies to promote themselves as SEO experts are competence and professionalism. And the way you find out if a company is competent and professional, as well as legitimate, is to do your due diligence and check their credentials thoroughly, by exercising good old common sense and following these steps:


1. Verify Their Contact Information

If the company provides a street address, Google it to see if it’s a real address. If they provide a telephone number, call the number to see if it’s answered by the company or an answering service. If they don’t provide a telephone number, walk away. SEO is serious business. You need to have the ability to talk to whomever is going to be handling your account. You need to be able to ask questions, and you have a right to expect your questions to be answered in a professional manner.

2. Talk to Previous Customers

If the SEO company publishes testimonials on their website, contact a few of their customers and get their feedback. If the company can’t provide testimonials, walk away, or if the testimonials don’t have contact information, they’re probably bogus. Walk away.


3. Visit Reputable SEO Forums

Visit reputable SEO forums like Jill Whalen’s High Rankings Forum to find out what forum members have to say about the company. If an SEO company has a bad reputation, it will race across the Internet at warp speed. Conversely, if a company has a good reputation, you will find that out also.

By Steve Shaw in Featured

contentWhen you first get your website up and running, your first thought may be to implement some article marketing strategies to get the traffic pouring into your site. Your sole thought may be to do something “out there” in order to produce the results that you want on your site.

There is one step that should happen prior to that though, and it’s one that a lot of site owners overlook. Before anything, you need to develop the content on your website. You see, in order to attract readers, you need to have some reason for them to be at your website.

What sort of information are you providing?

What problems are you solving?

How are you helping your readers?

You may attract readers when you submit articles, but if you don’t have any “stickiness” on your site, then the increased viewers don’t do you much good. They just show up at your site and immediately click away because they haven’t found the information that they’re looking for.

Before starting to market your site, go to the effort of adding content that will make readers want to stick around. Here are some ideas for you:

1 – Create a Blog That is on Your Website

With a blog, you will be creating a regular stream of content that is fresh and helpful to readers. New content gives readers a reason to keep on returning. Sites with regularly updated content tend to rank better in search engines as well.

You can do this by simply setting up a WordPress blog. After your blog posts are published for the month, then you can rewrite them and submit them as free reprint articles. Making the content you create do double duty is a great time saver and helps you maximize your time.

2 – Create a Page on Your Site That Addresses “Frequently Asked Questions”

Now, it depends on what type of business you have as to the appropriateness of this idea, but if you have a service based business, a list of FAQs can be a really helpful bit of info to offer. This also saves you time, because potential customers can find answers to their questions immediately and there’s no need for you to answer the same question repeatedly for each individual person.

3 – Create a List of Helpful Sites and Link to Them

It may seem counterintuitive to link to other sites (won’t that make people leave your site?), but actually the opposite is true. Your job as the site owner is to provide information that is helpful to your readers. Many times there are websites that provide complementary services to your own that people would benefit from (let’s say you’re a real estate agent, and you provide a link to a mortgage calculator). When you compile these resources for your readers, you are creating a more valuable website.

4 – Add a Web Page That Tells About Your Niche

Some people arriving at your website may have very little information about what you do or what your niche has to offer them. It is worth your while to compile some basic information that will act as an introduction to your field.

5 – Create a Web Page That Catalogs Your Articles

When you start publishing articles, they will be very helpful to your readers. Why not let the readers of your website know about the articles you’ve written and give them an easy way to find them?

You can separate your articles into sub-categories to help your readers find the information they need. This “library” of your articles can be a web page containing the title of the article, a short description and a link to the article.

If you want to create a site that your readers love, anticipate their needs and put content on your site to satisfy them. Really, the more you create a website that your readers appreciate, the more you’ll be pleasing Google as well. Google just wants to send their search customers to websites that offer the information that they’re looking for. You can put your website in position to satisfy that need by creating a website full of helpful information.

Steve Shaw is a content syndication specialist. Do you own a blog? Need content? Join thousands of other blogs and get free high-quality, niche-focused, human-reviewed content from quality authors sent on auto-pilot – and it’s all 100% free! Go to http://www.autoblogit.com for more information.

By Hannah Du Plessis in Featured

webdesign4Is your website bringing in at least five new inquiries per day? If not, you need to look at its functionality.

Your website acts as a “storefront.” You should put as much thought and care into your website as you would to the display in your store’s window. Your website needs to attract customers and keep them coming back for more. The following should give you a place to start and a guideline of what a good website should have and what it should do:

1. Where Do Your Eyes Go First?

You only have a few seconds to catch a visitor’s attention. That means you need to make sure that you capture their interest immediately. You need a headline that stops them thinking whatever they’re thinking, and think instead: “hey, this looks interesting! I need to read this.”

2. Do You Know Right Away What This Website is About?

Don’t have any distractions from the message you are trying to get across. If you start talking about how great your company is instead of what the visitor is interested in, you lose them.

By Ian D Spencer in Featured

SEO-TipsThere are plenty of SEO companies and consultants on the Internet that can help you out and plenty of free forums and guides that will give you the basics. Even if you do decide to use the skills and expertise of an SEO firm, it is still important that you at least know the basics of SEO so that you can also work with the company to make the results even better.

There are loads of things that you need to be doing within an SEO campaign, but there are also some things that you REALLY must avoid and we take a look at some of these below with our top ten things to avoid when running an SEO campaign.

Waiting Too Long - One of the biggest mistakes most people make is waiting too long to even begin an SEO campaign. If you have a website you should be running some kind of SEO, no matter how young the site is because a good campaign can help to get a higher ranking in the early days.

Targeting Competitive Keywords - If you sell houses then the chances of you getting to the top of Google for the keyword “houses” are going to be slim, to say the least. If you are working in an extremely competitive market, then you need to look outside of the box and start looking at easier keywords that you can rank for, because realistically, it is going to take a lot of time, effort and a little bit of luck to top the charts for the most competitive search terms.

Ignoring Long tail Keywords - Many people think that they should always go for the most popular keywords, but these often tend to be the most competitive, so you need to look at the long tail keywords. If you targeted 5 long tail keywords that all attracted 200 searches a month but were less competitive than one that attracted 1000 searches a month, you stand more chance of getting the traffic you want in a much shorter time.

By Derek Jansen in Featured

business1So, you’ve decided that your concept will work well as an online business. Now you just need to set up your “virtual showroom”, the hub from which you will conduct your operations. The good news is that establishing an online presence in the form of a website is relatively simple, and new tools are constantly popping up to make the job simpler. What would have required a skilled website designer (at a hefty price tag), is now achievable with a basic understanding of the internet, some creative thinking and a minimal cash investment.

Step 1: Secure your domain name and hosting

The very first step is to register a domain name for your website. Your domain name should ideally reflect your business name, but this is not always possible due to the high demand of domain names and cyber-squatting (people who buy domain names simply to sell them for a bundle down the line). For local businesses, a .co.za address is ideal, whilst international businesses should try to secure a .com address to ensure the broadest possible appeal. Aim to keep your domain name as short as possible to avoid typos, and make sure it’s easy to remember.

Domain registration and renewal should cost between $15 and $30 per annum (note that some providers roll this into a monthly fee instead). To find potential domain registrars, your best bet is simply to visit Google.com and search for “domain registration”.

The next step is to secure hosting for your website.

Hosting is the actual space that your site occupies, whilst the domain is the address. In simpler terms, the domain can be seen as the residential address, whilst the hosting can be seen as the property itself (a rented property in this case, as you never actually own your hosting).

There are many options when it comes to hosting, but I always suggest going with the smallest option first, and then upgrading if necessary. Importantly, make sure that your hosting is Linux based (as opposed to Windows based) as – if you follow our guidelines – you will install a CMS (content management system) in step 2 that requires this.

Hosting packages are priced from as little as R20 per month, and can be upgraded at any time, so there’s no need to “go big” from the start. Unless you are expecting tens of thousands of visitors per month, you’ll be safe with a small hosting package.

Note that many providers offer domain registration and hosting as a combo deal, so be sure to do your homework and compare apples with apples. As with so many things these days, providers tend to mix up their offerings making it difficult to compare one against the other. So make sure that you understand exactly what they’re offering. Many times you won’t require half the “extras”
they try so hard to sell to you.

Step 2: Choose a content management system

A CMS allows you to easily make changes and additions to your site without needing a degree in HTML and coding. The core benefits of CMS systems are:

- They are easy to use (compared to designing in raw HTML)

- They are generally free (compared to pricey design software)

- They offer great support through community forums and FAQ/Help tutorials

- They offer plug-ins (discussed in step three)

WordPress, Joomla and Drupal are amongst the most popular CMS systems available. I generally recommend the WordPress CMS system for new site owners. While some professional web designers may consider WordPress a little too basic (which it is for them), it is perfect for beginners and intermediates alike. The WordPress system is 100% free and is usually offered as a “1-Click Install” by hosting providers. Once installed, you can choose your theme (there are thousands of excellent free themes available, or you can purchase a premium theme for a few dollars), edit your content and create pages with ease. There is also a very comprehensive instruction manual and Q&A community available online should you get stuck. For more information on the WordPress system, visit http://www.wordpress.org.

Step 3: Select your plug-ins

While all CMS systems offer plug-ins, I will focus on the most popular plug-ins for WordPress. Plug-ins are essentially free add-ons to the standard system that allow your website to do more, without you having to employ the services of a developer to create something from scratch.

The essential plug-ins that I recommend for WordPress are:

All-In-One SEO – This plug-in provides you with all the tools you need to ensure that your website is optimized for Google (search engine optimization). It is essential for anyone looking to benefit from the rapidly growing search market.

Contact Form 7 – This plug-in provides you with a simple and easy to use contact form for visitors to your site. A contact form is an essential element of any website as it allows users to submit a message/request to you without having to open their email client (Outlook, etc.).

Convenience and ease of use are essential online, and this plugin does just that.

Sexy Bookmarks – As edgy as the name might sound, this is an essential plug-in for any serious marketer. What Sexy Bookmarks does is allow users to share your site on various social media portals (such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and more) at the click of a button. The easier you make it for visitors to share your site, the more likely they are to do so.

Ultimate Google Analytics – Statistics about your website, your visitors and your traffic sources are the most valuable information you have when marketing online. This plug-in links your site to Google Analytics (you will need to register a free account for this) and automatically ensures that all traffic data is captured. No need for tricky codes and scripts…

Google XML Sitemaps – For fear of getting too technical, I’ll try keep this one simple. Essentially, what this plug-in does is create a map of your site (i.e. all the pages, images, etc.) and submits it to Google, thus maximizing the chance of your pages getting listed in Google. Once again, you will need to register an account with Google (which is quick, easy and free) to gain this functionality.

Step 4:Load your content

The final step is to populate your site with content. A typical website should include the following:

- About Us Page – This includes information about your company, history, people etc. Keep it short and informative.

- Contact Us Page – Include all your contact details (numbers, postal address, physical address, etc., even if you are operating as an online business) as well as the contact form (using the above plug-in). I also suggest displaying your basic contact details (i.e. phone number) on every page.

- Products/Services Page – These pages should contain as much information as possible about your products and services. Visitors to your website want to get as much information as possible without having to phone or email you (once again, the convenience factor). In addition, the more info you provide on your site, the more likely it is that the resultant enquiry will be a hot prospect, as they are further into the buying cycle when contacting you.

- Testimonials Page – This should contain honest testimonials and/or reviews from previous client of yours. I also suggest displaying snippets of testimonials throughout your site so as to inspire buyer confidence.

Following these four steps, you can easily establish an online presence for your business with minimal capital outlay. Of course every business is different, and the above steps are simply meant as an introduction. They should, however, provide a strong foundation for your online success.

By Derek Jansen – The Founder Of Nitch Marketing, an internet marketing company based in Johannesburg, South Africa, that specializes in SEO training and implementation. For more information, visit http://www.nitch.co.za.

By Tinu AbayomiPaul in Featured

googlelogoGoogle’s always coming out with new fangled gizmos. It’s amazing how many new, updated, or overlooked tools you can find during routine research.

Of course, not all of these are completely unknown. There are probably a few on this list that you know, and a couple you’ve heard of but may not know much about.

Let’s look at a few of them.

1 – Google Reader Sharing

This has been around for a while, but I’m still surprised at how few of my peers are using it.

If you have Google Buzz turned on, you’ll notice when you next log into Google Reader that there’s a section for “People You Follow”. In this section, you can share links – or random thoughts, with all the people who are following you, or a select group, and they can share with you.

Those links also show up on your Google Buzz page. I enjoy getting suggestions from people who know and understand me, and what kind of news I like or need. I also like being able to split my audience into targeted groups of people so I can send them updates just on things they would want to know, instead of the whole fire-hose. Accessing Google profiles from within Google Reader has helped me get to know a lot of people better as well.

By Neil Holley-Williams in Featured

8SecondsResearchers have found that when people arrive at a website, at least 50% of them will leave that website within 8 seconds.

We know this because it’s worth a lot of money to huge corporations to know how people use the internet. They want to know what people like and dislike, and what they do and don’t do. These huge corporations have spent millions on research so that they can figure all this out.

All of this information is in the public domain and we can access it. The best bit is that the information these corporations have funded is just as valid for knowing how your website visitors behave.

To repeat, researchers have found that when people arrive at a website, on average 50% of them will leave that website within 8 seconds.

In other words, if your website doesn’t do something WITHIN 8 SECONDS to keep them there, at least 50% of them will leave. For you, it could even be 60% or 80%.

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