Blogging For Links, Profit, And For Continuing Education
It is the opinion of Tucson SEO Solutions that the blog is the single most important marketing tool available. This business was built on the expertise gleaned from scouring the SEO/SEM blogging community.
I often tell the tale of cleaning houses during the day as a one person cleaning service. Then studying SEO and SEM and for 8 to 10 hours a day every day for four straight months. I visited thousands of websites along the way. It was so easy back then (18 months ago) when we started website marketing. Back then, blogging for links was easy, time consuming, but easy. That was before “No Follow’ ruined the legitimate white hat practice of blogging for links.
By the time our house cleaning website launched in January 2007 we had already gathered 1400 industry specific links. We combined the power of these links with our new knowledge of Page Titles, Page Descriptions, Geo-targeted SEO and fresh content into a winning combination.
That website landed on the first page of Google several times over within three days of launching! It has been there ever since. Its eco friendly house cleaning tips blog
Has been first page ranked for nearly as long.
The blog is essential for providing fresh content for the static website that the search engines crave. The blogs, when used frequently can help your website obtain and maintain high search rankings.
When you blog you can:
Still acquire links
Learn a whole lot
Share with others
Profit in many different ways
Obtain and maintain high search ranking
And maybe even have some fun!
We simply would not be here today, if it where not for blogs. It still blows me away when I visit a website marketing business website that doesn’t have a blog. We believe so much in blogs that they are standard issue on every website that we build. We also include training to use the software as an effective marketing tool. We believe a blog is useless if the website owner doesn’t know how to use it effectively.
We simply will not build a website that doesn’t include a blog. We feel that strongly about the subject. It is too powerful a tool to missing, especially if you have a static website. The blog also provides a vehicle for your customers to interact your customers beyond normal business channels.
Many of website visitors to a service website will be doing research for a future purchase. The blog allows you to educate this group, share your expertise, and experiences. When done properly the blog can communicate a certain level of trust.
Trust is critical when the businesses service requires coming to or entering someone’s home. Dependability, reliability, and safety are paramount to this group. Again, the blogs can easily allow you to address different segments of your customer base.
We, often refer to blogs as stages, or sounding boards. If you love what you do your blog readers will easily see this; and the bonds of trust can begin to be established.
The blog also is a great tool when used to create inbound links. That is why we are working on our own “Do Follow Blog Lists.” The list has turned out to be a great link building tool for us. When we visit SEO/SEM sites to verify their linking status, we leave a comment, pick up a link, and let the owners know that they are on our list.
It still blows me away when I visit SEO sites that haven’t implemented a blog on the own site. But then we clearly understand, that we are hear today because others blogged, we read, learned, and applied what we had learned. The rest they say is history.
The only real drawback is that they require lots of time and attention to be successful.
If you have found this blog useful, educational, or entertaining we would kindly ask you to link to us… Thanks, so very much!
Tucson SEO… Solutions that create probabilities out of possibilities.
KISS My Website!
KISS My Website
I was reading an article today about website usability. When it struck me that what they were saying was the equivalent to Keep It Simple Stupid. I thought, Wow, this really sums up our approach to building websites that convert website visitors into customers.
When I encounter a website that was way too much information crammed onto a page I leave quickly wondering “what were they thinking when they built this site.” These sites often have multiple navigation menus and way too much information. This creates information overload. These websites have very high bounce rates and are not very effective.
Many websites overload you with too many options on the home page. This makes finding anything difficult. They often include flashing avatars to get your attention. They fail to understand how the eyes track when you visit a website. Eye tracking studies have shown that any movement, picture or graphic on a web page actually makes concentrating on the written content more difficult.
This is why we only use simple clean designs that do not overwhelm the visitor. That is why we focus on turning the website visitor into a customer, before we concentrate on “The look and feel” of the website.
As part of our KISS approach we use a hub and spoke system of website design. Our home page hub provides snippets of information about the other pages and provides a link to this detailed information. These links act like spokes that lead away from the hub.
We specialize in building websites for service industries. Visitors to these sites are transactional searchers. The transitional searchers are looking to complete a transaction. They are active and highly motivated to find a service provider who can fulfill there needs. They respond well to clean straight forward websites that clearly define the service and how it will benefit them. The final touch to our KISS approach is that we ask you to pick up the phone and call Now! We do this on every page.
We often remind clients that vanilla ice cream is by far the largest selling flavor of ice cream world wide. We dish up vanilla websites day in and day out. The reality is that the service website visitor is looking you to solve a problem or fulfill a need. That is why we KISS with our websites.
Tucson SEO… Solutions that create probabilities out of possibilities
SEO And Word Of Mouth Advertising
We attend lot and lots of business mixers here in Tucson to promote our business. At almost every event the conversation will turn to blogging and why you should provide free advice on your website. The usually refrain is “Why would you give away free advice?” Keep in mind that these are business owners that we are talking with about business.
I am still dumbfounded every time I hear that question. For, us it’s all about the golden rule in action. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Or perhaps, “What goes around comes around.” Some get it when put in this context, but many don’t. These are what we would call the “what can you do for me crowd.”
They are so blinded by their own wants or needs that they can not believe there is an actual benefit to helping others for free.
They don’t understand that an educated consumer can be your best client or your best word of mouth advertisment. I talked extensively with a business coach at one of these mixers. I had me laptop and gave him a quick SEO 101. We covered simple Page Title and Page Descriptions and the need for him to geo-target for Tucson.
I meet him two months at another large mixer where he joined our table. He explained how he implements what I had told him. He stated that he was now #3 and #4 on Google for the keywords that he had targeted. He then looked around the table of seven stating to each “This guy knows what he is talking about.”
He then turns to me, and say’s now how do I get to #1 and #2? I wryly replied “for that, it’s gonna cost ya.” I stated that since I gave so freely to him that it was now his job to go tell others.
I was retelling this story later in the evening when a friend at the table pointed out that that’s exactly what he did when leaving out table. She told us “I’ve been watching him every since we left our table, and he has been telling everyone about you and point you out in the crowd.
I was blown away, I only jokingly suggested that we go tell others. Apparently he was so grateful that he felt obligated to tell others about “this guy who knows what he’s talking about.” You simply can’t buy this kind of endorsement
I Don’t and I Won’t Twitter.
I did grow up learning the readers digest version of story telling or sending an email. I don’t have or need a BFF. Since I’m in my fifties I run with the sight challenged crowd. So staring at a little screen just isn’t high on my agenda.
Learning the whole new language of texting does seem like to good use of my time. Many of these new social media tools and options can be effective for the right demographics.
This is also why I’m not likely to endorse using a blackberry. I like my email delivered to me while I sit in the comfort of my home or at the coffee shop, my office away from home. I might also add that I seldom bring my phone with me when I leave home.
I am well connected to the Internet because I am a website consultant. I have no desire to carry my work with me in the form of and electronic device. It’s highly unlikely that I will ever adapt to the Twitter and blackberry ways of business. Since I work from home, I don’t have the luxury of going home to get away from work. So the thought of bringing work with me when I leave home seems insane.
Yes, I will miss calls and opportunities and I’m ok with that. I’m also cool when I look out my home office’s window to view the wonderful bursts of color that my garden provides.
Do Follow List Of Lists
We know that we are a little late to the game of providing our “Do Follow List.” We just thought a fresh list would help every out a little how blogs for links. We have been taking a look at many of the list that we produced in October 2007 and found that they were out of date. Many blogs listed as “Do Follow” are now “no Follow.” We also found that many lists included Blogger blogs that do not pass link juice to a website. Your assistance in keeping these lists accurate will be appreciated.
SEO/SEM “Do Follow” Blogs
SEO/SEM “Do Follow” Blogs
406 Not Acceptable - http://www.406notacceptable.com
A Better Website http://better-website.officebinder.com
Affordable Internet Marketing - http://www.affordable-internet-marketing.com
Alister Cameron - http://www.alistercameron.com
A List SEO - http://www.alistseo.com
Amplify-Interactive http://www.amplify-interactive.com
An Internet Journey - http://netjourney.us
Antigua Web Solutions - http://antiguawebsolutions.com
Article Snatch - http://www.articlesnatch.com
ArtKaufman.com - http://www.artkauffman.com
AskaX World - http://askax.net
Bill Hartzer - http://www.billhartzer.com
Big Oak Inc - http://www.bigoakinc.com/blog
Biznology - http://www.mikemoran.com
Blizzard Internet - http://newsletter.blizzardinternet.com
B P Wrap - http://blog.cre8asite.net
Bloggers Journey - http://bloggersjourney.com
Bloggingtips. - http://www.bloggingtips.com
Blograters - http://blograters.com
Blog That Outside - http://blogthatoutside.com
Bluejar.com - http://www.bluejar.com
Blizzard Internet Marketing - http://newsletter.blizzardinternet.com
BP Wrap - http://blog.cre8asite.net/bwelford
Communityspark - http://www.communityspark.com
Computer Chit Chat - http://www.computerchitchat.com
Conrad Hees’ Blog - http://www.conradhees.com
Daggle - http://daggle.com
Daily SEO- http://dailyseo.org
E Marketing Performance - http://www.emarketingperformance.com
E-MoneyMarketing - http://emoneymarketing.com
Ecomm Tips - http://www.ecommtips.com
Geeky Speaky- http://www.GeekySpeaky.com
Getblogged.info - http://getblogged.info
Hamlet Batist - http://hamletbatista.com
Jade Hat - http://www.jadehat.com
Ja Kel - http://jakeldaily.com
Joe Dolson - http://www.joedolson.com
Kelsey Group - http://blog.kelseygroup.com
Learning SEO Basics http://learningseobasics.com
Local SEO Guide http://www.localseoguide.com
Manilla Freelancer - http://www.melovillareal.com
Marketing Blagger - http://www.marketingblagger.com
Me Myself And I - http://www.memyselfandiblog.com
Neomeme - http://www.neomeme.net
Newspaper Girl - http://www.newspapergrl.com
Our Monmouth Blog - http://ourmonmouthblog.com
Out Of My Gord http://outofmygord.com
Pajama Professional http://pajamaprofessional.com
Performancing - http://performancing.com
Pimp My Page Rank - http://pimpmypagerank.com
Post-Click Marketing - http://blog.postclickmarketing.com
Randa Clay Designs - http://randaclay.com
Reviewer Of Sites - http://www.reviewerofsites.com
Riggie Freyer’s - http://www.freyer.com
Sandossu - http://www.sandossu.com
Search Any Way - http://blog.searchanyway.com
SEO 101 - http://podcast.neo1seo.com
SEO By The Sea - http://www.seobythesea.com
SEO Copy Writing - http://www.seocopywriting.com
Site Logic Marketing - http://www.sitelogicmarketing.com
Sugarrae - http://www.sugarrae.com
TechiePortal - http://www.techieportal.com
The Lonely Marketer - http://www.lonelymarketer.com
The PPC Book - http://theppcbook.com
Tobsy Says - http://www.tobsy.de
VotanWeb- http://blog.votanweb.com
wTricks - - http://www.wtricks.com
Your Website Profit- http://blog.yourwebsiteprofit.info
Webicy Blog - http://blog.webicy.com
Webatlantis - http://webatlantis.org
Zen Zoomie - http://www.zenzoomie.com
Business
Big Bright Bulb - http://bigbrightbulb.com
Be My Accountant - http://www.bemyaccountant.com
Dawud Miracle - http://dmiracle.com
Flyte - http://www.flyteblog.com
Leveraging Ideas - http://www.leveragingideas.com
Lonely Marketer - http://www.lonelymarketer.com
Rotten Bananas - http://www.rottenbananas.com
Simon Chapples - http://marketingasolicitor.com
Trade Macro - http://trademacro.com
Wealth And Lifestyle - http://girlswhonetwork.com
Woman Start Your Business Now - http://womanstartyourbusinessnow.com
Entertainment
Celebrity Scoop - http://feverishthoughts.com/celebrity
Layercake.net - http://www.layercake.net
JonesPC - http://www.jonespc.com
Popcorn Ninja- http://www.popcornninja.com
Simon Chapples Blog That Bites - http://marketingasolicitor.com
Don’t Fear The Truth.com - http://dontfearthetruth.com
Talk,Don’t Run- http://www.talkdontrun.org
Food – Cooking
Blog Chef - http://blogchef.net
By The Sea - http://hterry.com
Bits Of Dust - http://www.bitsofdust.com
Cooking Recipes and Kitchen Tools - http://tagskitchen.com
My Home Recipe - http://msaufong.com
Gardening & Outdoor Decorating
020114 Best House On The Block- http://www.020114.org
Green Belles - http://gardening.condobelles.com
Lights In The Dusk- http://www.lightsinthedusk.com
Rainy River - - http://www.rainyriverfieldnaturalists.org
Magical Rose Garden http://www.magicalrosegarden.com
Health & Beauty
Advance Wellness Solutions - http://advancedwellnesssolutions.com
Body Fitness Info - http://www.bodyfitnessinfo.com
Chris Hoyte - http://chrishoyt.com
Doc1Vitamins - http://www.doc1vitamins.com/blog
Fat Lady Singz - http://fatladysingz.com
How To Wake Up Early - http://www.howtowakeupearly.com
Living Life Abundantly - http://marenda.biz
Self Hypnosis Program- http://selfhypnosisprogram.com
Three Sticks - http://www.mosesedwardmilesiii.com
To Your Health! - http://www.seroweb.org
Visualized feel Abundance - http://secretofunlimitedprosperity.com
Woman Tribune - http://womantribune.com
Home Improvement
Yhumc Young Hip & Urban - http://www.yhumc.org/
Insurance
Delta Fund - http://www.deltafund.org
Military
Aloha Team - http://alohateam.com
Miscellaneous
Accepted To College - http://acceptedtocollege.com
Army Mom New Jersey - http://armymomnj.name
A Slice of Life - http://www.artkauffman.com
A Mothers Horizon - http://www.arcskyline.com
Big Pond- http://www.chatbugkaren.com
Bpmonaco - http://bpmonaco.com
Brian Pratt - http://www.brianpratt.net
Chilli- http://chilliphilosophy.com
Crayon Writer - http://crayonwriter.com
Dear Dr.MOZ - http://www.deardrmoz.com
EricSocia - http://ericsocia.net
Her Family Blog - http://her-family-blog.com
Hybrid Jungle - http://www.hybridjungle.net
Just Not Martha - http://www.justnotmartha.com
Life Is Risky - http://lifeisrisky.com
Marisa’s Dandelion Patch - http://www.mydandelionpatch.com
Mom Gadget- http://momgadget.com
Mom Reviews - http://momreviews.net
More Than Scratch The Surface - http://www.scratch99.com
Mothering Many - http://www.motheringmany.com
Pixel Head Online - http://pixelheadonline.com
Revellian Dot Com - http://revellian.com/
Simple Kind Of Life - http://www.simplekindoflife.com
Simple Randomness - http://www.simplerandomness.com
Simple Curiosity? - http://www.simplecuriosity.com
Skeet’s Stuff - http://skeetsstuff.skeeterbess.com
Step Into The Nexus - http://www.missnexus.com
Table For Five - http://table4five.net
Take Men Nowhere - http://takemenowhere.org
The Sassy Southerner - http://www.thesassysoutherner.com
Too Much Sexy - http://www.toomuchsexy.org
Wander’s World - http://wandersworld.fourleafhosting.com
Music
Axplay - http://www.axplay.com
Nature
Angs Chicken Coup - http://www.angschickencoop.com
Real Estate
Agent Heaven - http://www.agentsheaven.com
Brandon Real Estate Blog - http://brandonrealestateblog.com
Bloodhondblog - http://www.bloodhoundrealty.com
Tucson Real Estate In The News - http://www.barbaralasky.com
Science
Curious Cat Science and Engineering Blog- http://engineering.curiouscatblog.net
Shopping
Buy Me Blog - http://www.buymeblog.com
Dragonfly Footbags - http://blog.footbagshop.com
Great Prices Here - http://www.greatpriceshere.com
Londoner Life - http://www.londonerlife.com
Saving Money - http://savingmoney.iblogger.org
Saving Money - http://savingmoney.iblogger.org
Sports
Easter Road - http://hibs.easterroad.com
Fish Hunt Explore - http://fishhuntexplore.com
Life In The Rough - http://www.lifeintherough.com
Travel
A month in Venice - http://www.amonthinvenice.com
Brilliant Cheer - http://www.brilliantcheers.co.uk
Camping in the Sierra Nevada Mountains and Yosemite - http://www.campingsierra.com
Londoner Life - http://www.londonerlife.com
Niagara Falls Blog - http://www.niagarablog.com
The Buffalo River - http://thebuffaloriver.com
Turn The Screw - http://turnthescrew.com
Writing
A Writers World an Edits Eye - http://lillieammann.com
Tucson SEO… Solutions that create probabilities out of possibilities.
SEO Nation Let’s Stamp Out Hunger Saturday May 10th 2008
SEO Nation Let’s Stamp Out Hunger Saturday May 10th 2008
Please remember USPS will be picking up dry food donations this Saturday. We got our brown paper grocery bag today announcing the event. After a short discussion we found ourselves scurrying through the cabinets and pantries looking for items to share with others.
Recently, I had the opportunity have a conversation with a representative of a large local homeless services organization. Since then, I have been contemplating and brainstorming doing something for the homeless community. I was mapping out how we could perhaps do some kind of fund raiser with the internet services community to benefit the homeless. I realized something this grandiose who take a huge amount of time and it might not be practical due to our time commitments and other projects.
When the opportunity to participate in this food drive arrived in the mail today we seized upon the opportunity to do something. We talked about how fortunate we were and how it was cool to help others. While we scoured the recesses of the cabinets it occurred to me to blog about the project. Just maybe someone will see this and set out some food for strangers. How cool is that helping strangers… It was a temptation that we could not resist.
It sure does feel good helping the hungry. I remember a time when arm injury caused me to lose my job and my home. I still remember very clearly having to turn to food banks and the goodness of strangers. So it is with great joy we have chosen to provide food for others. When you’ve been there and done that, and the “that” is hunger you don’t forget easily.
In fact, for many of us who have hungered for the satisfaction provided by food, we now hunger to be successful business entrepreneurs so that we might be able to assist many others along the paths of life.
We are real big at buying in bulk when things are on sale at the grocery stores. We always over buy something that we eventually tire of and it gets lost in the back of the cabinets. Looking for food was like a treasure hunt. There was the lasagna noodles that wouldn’t get used until winter because it’s already to hot to use the oven much in Tucson for a long while.
Then there is the “Super Bowl snack pantry” which was still loaded with Frito’s, Wheat Thins, and Lay’s chips…. Really… Still we had another closet filled with Gatorade from when a local Fry’s had all you want for .67 cents. I would stop by daily and pick up 3 or 4 cases.
We eventually ended up with a very large pile of mostly snack stuff. You’d be amazed how special and good snacks are to someone who is down and out. They are very, very grateful. So SEO nation we ask you to please give some food and help “Stamp Out Hunger.”
We finally have a blog!
We finally have a blog… Yea!
We started our SEO service a year ago. We didn’t have money to buy a designed website, but we knew you couldn’t sell SEO without having an SEO website. We tried for two months without much success.
I am a firm believer that if you need something Internet related you can most likely will find it for free. Whenever, we need something we always include the word free in the search phrase. So I entered the search query “free website.” The top sponsored ad was from Microsoft.
It took me to OfficeLive.com where I could acquire my free website, free domain name, and free web hosting. It included a basic WYSIWYG editor and limited templates but it was free. What made this so much better than most free website tools is that it allowed you to use SEO techniques on your website. You could actually name your page title, keywords, and page descriptions.
I couldn’t believe my good fortune. The only drawback was that it did not include a blog. Since we recommend a blog to all of our clients, this made things a bit awkward for us. We overcame this obstacle by creating an industry update page. There we could express our view but it was a one way conversation.
We saved the good material that was still relevant and have used it to fill in our blog. We also created a list of about 60 or so topics that we would like to discuss. We are daily working on our version of a “Do Follow List, by far our biggest undertaking. We have already put in over 30 hours on this project. We consider it our way of giving back; after all we are in business today because of what we have learned on other blogs.
So if you have a “Do Follow Blog” we would love to list your site.
Website 101 - Don’t let someone else register your domain name!
A warning to the wise about picking a domain name and having it registered! One of my websites was down for four days. The registration has expired thus causing the website to be unavailable to the public. You can not make money when people can not find your website!
The problem started a year ago when we had our web designer register our domain. He registered it in his name. When we discovered this we requested that it be placed in our name. This was done very quickly, or so it appeared on the surface. However, our designer northstewart.com never created another account for our domain.
So even thou it appeared that we owned the website in the whois.org registry directory, he still had control of the domain in his account. You can not extend the registration of a website that is not in your account. This problem took four days to resolve.
The whois directory showed a company named Enom had registered the domain. This was incorrect; it was registered by one of their resellers, namecheap.com. So when we contacted them we could only leave a message and email their support.
This was a major hassle, but they stepped to the plate to resolve the problem for us, in part anyway. They got the site registry renewed; however, the web designer still controls the account. This is not a good situation for someone when that they do not possess complete control over their domain.
I tell you this story to make you aware of the risks of turning such a simple task over to someone else. At one point in my relationship with this man, I considered him a friend. Since this was my first registration of a website I trusted someone else to handle the process. I have since registered 24 domains by myself and have found it a very simple process.
So be very cautious, this is your business… Beware, wolfs can come in sheep’s clothing.
A 12 Step Program For Link Buyers - Sellers Anonymous
1. We admitted we were powerless over links that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than or ourselves, (Google) could restore us to our SEO sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of Google as we understood their SEO logic.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves, our links, and our hats.
5. Admitted to Google, to ourselves and to another SEO being the exact nature of our link buying and selling.
6. Were entirely ready to have Google remove all these defects of character and SEO practices.
7. Humbly asked Google to remove our Page Rank.
8. Made a list of all websites and clients we had harmed by buying and selling links and become willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to Google and our clients wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10.Continued to take link inventory and when we were wrong in our SEO practices promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, Google , and the universe, as we understood them to be, praying only for knowledge of Google’s will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of Google, we will carry this message to all SEO’ers, Black Hat and White, and to practice these linking principles in all our SEO affairs.
Older Internet Entrepreneurs Rule
This post is based on a Wall Street Journal article dated 05/06/2008. The story goes onto to take a look at the true image of an Internet entrepreneur. Despite the success of a college dropout like Bill gates, this is not the true image of the Internet guru.
It is often seen that the Internet has been built around a bunch of 20 something college dropouts. However, the Kauffman Foundation recently altered this view. They surveyed some 600 or so entrepreneurs who started businesses over the decade from 1995 to 2005 and who has revenues that exceeded a million dollars.
There report concluded that the average age was 39 and that 24% where over 45. The report noted that only 8% didn’t earn a college degree. It also noted that almost 16 and a half years had passed between college graduation and when they started their business. Of this group only around 37% had college degrees.
Well, he haven’t made our millions, but our business training began when I was 52 and this business was launched when I was 53! We haven’t got there yet, but we have a written business plan that says that we will.
Does your service website meet the “Needs Factor.”
It is fair to say that many buyers of website services and many designers don’t understand that service website visitors are “Need Buyers.” They as a group often want to provide the “Wow Factor” on their websites. <p>
Believe me, when my vehicle AC wet out on April 14th in Tucson, I wasn’t buying “Wow” when I did my Google search for “auto AC repair Tucson.” I needed my AC fixed, as of yesterday. I was a “Needs Buyer.”
All I cared about was, could you solve my problem (Need) today? (Benefit) During my Google search if I clicked towards your website and it loaded slow because of flash on the site I would click away.
If you didn’t make it easy to determine that you could solve my problem I would leave. It’s fair to say that most service purchases are accompanied with a fair amount of stress. This is especially true for purchasing for buying website services. The consumer generally isn’t sure what is best for their needs. <p>
Our websites are designed to clearly define what your website is offering. We also define the benefit for the consumer. The benefit here is that you are the business that best can fulfill their needs. We also assist you in providing what is known as “a call to action.” This is the part where you actually ask for their business.
The service business website needs to create leads and appointments, so there primary goal of their is to create an inquiry by email and preferably by phone. If the designer that you are choosing doesn’t understand how to build a website for the ‘Needs buyer” you should probably find one that does.
Think about it…. If your homes roof is leaking or your car will not start, do you really care about a websites look and feel? No, you want to know this, “Can you solve my problem, and now? Does your website offer solutions?
Tucson SEO… Solutions that create probabilities out of possibilities
Pizza and Beers SEO
Pizza and Beers SEO
Yep, one of our standard recommendations to our clients is that they practice Pizza and Beers SEO. When you’re building a website keyword list you should gather a diverse group of friends, family, and business associates for pizza and beer at a local hot spot. A group of ten or so should just fine.
Once you have the group together ask them all to make a list of words that they might enter as a search query to find your business on the web. Then sit back and enjoy your time together over pizza and beers. Then after and hour or so repeat this process.
Now, your website keyword research kicks into high gear. Now, you will need create a database and record all of the information that you have gathered. You can now comb through your data to see what the common trends are and glean the gems that you might have easily overlooked.
The food and alcohol will affect each person differently and these changes will be observable in a different set of keywords that are developed. Another factor that comes into play is simply the passage of time. The longer that each person has to think about it the more likely that they will choose words that they hadn’t the first time.
It’s actually like having two different groups for market research for the price of one! Not only is Pizza and Beer SEO an effective keyword development strategy, you also save 50 % of the cost of surveying two separate groups. It also will cut you time cost in half.
You see, we understand that all successful websites are a collaborative effort between designer and client. The client does their keyword research and we do ours. Then together we combine this palette of words to paint a well defined and highly targeted website for both the search engine and the customer.
Since we specialize in local SEO no keyword phrase would lack a geographic qualifier. Now, go forth to conquer the SERP’s in your market.
Can Google’s search results be trusted?
We just did a search Google search for “niche SEO’ where we are usually in the number # 1 or #2 position bouncing back and forth with Aaron Wall’s seobook website. To our surprise another website www.seosearchbot.com was in the #1 position. So we visited the site.
The website lacked for content and was easy to read, as it is one of those link directories. We used the Ctrl f command and discovered that the word niche didn’t appear on the page.
We then ventured to check out the pages source code. We did another Ctrl f search and again we came up with no results. So why did this website appear in the search results? Does anyone have a reasonable explanation?
Well, before this even got posted the site dropped to the #4 position. I just don’t know how it ever ranked for niche SEO when the word niche never appears!
Niche SEO – What a concept
We live in Tucson, Arizona, which is a website marketing backwater of sorts. Most business owners that I speak with at my many networking events have little knowledge of the services that we provide.
I ran a local SEO meet-up group but we were lucky if 5 people showed up. So it’s not easy to find a group to talk shop with. Desperate to mingle with others in the industry I traveled the 125 miles north to Phoenix to attend an SEO Meet-up group there.
It was run by a woman from New Mexico. She holds the Arizona franchise for a training academy and travels here monthly to provide training and to market herself through this group.
I was especially thrilled by what I had learned at this gathering. The focus of the meeting was to share our favorite SEO tools and website. It’s always nice to come across useful resources, especially the ones that are free.
In a private conversation after the meeting I discovered that this woman had been providing SEO services and training for seven years. Which is to say, a way long time in this industry.
I mentioned that we specialized in niche SEO and she expressed amazement at what she just heard. The concept of Niche SEO seemed about as far away as Yuma, or her native New Mexico. She explained that she had never heard of niche SEO before today. Actually, I wasn’t sure who was more surprised me or her.
Our version of niche SEO is exactly what the name implies. We offer SEO to niche industries. It’s merely a more focused approach to SEO. We simply go where the competition isn’t. After all, isn’t this what keyword search and long tails are all about? It’s about finding niches that are related to our client’s products or services that others are not using.
Does your business have niche products or services? Then we are your SEO Solution in Tucson.
Tucson SEO… Solutions that create probabilities out of possibilities.
The best SEO blog in the world!
The best SEO blog in the world!
We are not even close… We are but a tiny speck on the SEO Blog radar screen.
This post genesis occurred as part of a conversation with my business partner about our obtaining a #1 ranking for an SEO related search nationally. The interesting thing was that I was in the middle of writing a post about our #1 ranking. That search on Google is for the search “Geo-Targeted SEO.” We have been #1 ranked for “Tucson SEO” for the last 6 months or so.
She laughed and mentioned that she was just on the blog Pimp my Page Rank. She pointed out that they had written that they are #1 ranked “the best SEO blog in the world.” I checked it out and it is true.
We continued to discuss how not all #1 rankings are the same.
So we did a Google search for “the best SEO blog in the world, a very long tail, and found 76 references. Not bad at all, this blogger has marketed their blog well.
We then did a Search for “Tucson SEO” and discovered 1,710 references. Yes we have been very busy marketing ourselves over the last year. Actually I was very surprised by this result. The last time I checked it hovered around a thousand. We then checked out a search term were we ranked #1 that was SEO related and not part of the business name. Our search for “Geo-targeted SEO” it revealed 2,650 results.
It just goes to show that not all search #1’s rankings are the same , or of equal value. In the case of “Tucson SEO” and “the best blog in the world” we should be #1 because the search included a business and a blog Title. If you are not showing up #1 for your business name then you defiantly could use SEO assistance.
Your Fresh Start .us obtains a Page Rank of 4
To our clients and potential clients Page Rank is not something that they know about or care about. It seems like the only people who care about Page Rank are webmasters and alike. I will freely admit for me it’s an ego thing. Our website had a PR of 4 and dropped to a three in October of last year. However, at the same time our blog went from a 0 to a PR of 3.
Since we were winding down the cleaning business down as we began our SEO business we were not giving it much attention and were loosing links as time went by. So I was a bit amazed today to discover that both the website and its blog were given a PR of 4. Maybe, it does pay off to voice an opinion or two in support of Google’s position on buying and selling of links. Ya’ just never know!
Actually, this PR change comes at a very good time for us as we begin to market the website differently. Instead of creating cleaning business customers we are using the site as example for our website design and redesign services. We believe it is a good example of how cleaning service website should be.
We observed that most cleaning service website were very unattractive. They were often displaying workers cleaning or wearing cleaning attire. We thought that a premium service needed to display not the tools or workers performing cleaning but the end results of these efforts. So our website scattered about pictures of clean and orderly homes and offices.
We also clearly detailed our services and asked for their business and to contact us now. This is known as a call to action. All of these are very simple techniques but missing on most websites. Our website set an expectation of quality. It portrays our message very effectively.
The Your Fresh Start website is the standard that we use when selling our website design services to our potential web site design service clients.
Craigslist Launched An SEO Career!
Craigslist helped launch our SEO career, yes it’s true. We had had a lot of success using Craigslist to marketing our organically grown plant business back in 2005 and 2006. However, we could not overcome a severe drought that has gripped the desert southwest were we live for several years.
We closed that business and took the summer off to rest and reflect on our future. With a new source of income needed, as the autumn months approach, we called upon our past experience running a janitorial business, to launch our new endeavor. We knew that commercial services were not the route that we wanted to take.
We choose to open, or I should say “I” choose to open a professional house cleaning service. What we experienced using Craigslist was a race to become the lowest priced vendor cleaning home that hadn’t been cleaned in years. That was not my vision for our business.
I observed that none of my Craigslist competitors had a website to link to in their ads. That’s when the lights went off… So to speak, in my head… “If only I had a professional website that I could link to in my ads” So I thought, I could explain how dependable that I am and why my services were worth a premium price.
The problem was that there was no money for a website. Like any good entrepreneur I realized that bartering was my only option. Finally, a designed agreed to exchange his services for mine. However, this might take a while and I needed a website now.
My solution was a one page free geo-cities website from Yahoo. The site was up in an hour or two. Now, it was time to visit Craigslist to place a free ad that included a link to the new one page website.
My phone rang early the next morning, the caller explained I am on your website and I would like to set up an appointment for a consultation. We agreed to work together and this couple became my most lucrative client. This is my story of Craigslist launching my SEO career? I knew that day that this Internet thing was for me! The rest is history!
Thank You Google For A PR 4
Thank You Google For A PR 4
We just discovered that our Page Rank was gone from a 3 to a 4. We are rightly proud of this accomplishment. The website has only been in existence for a year. We never used any link bait to create lots of traffic.
Well, that is until after we obtained our current page rank. We have embarked on our version of link bait with our “Do Follow List Of lists.” This actually was created as a public service and a thank you to the blogging community.
We are in business today because other Bloggers shared their perspectives and knowledge. We used blogs almost exclusively to gain our links and Page Rank. We read early in our SEO career that relevant site links was the way to linking success. We also read that slow and steady growth was the best way to build links.
Our goal has been 5 links a day every day seven days a week. Well, we have fallen short of that goal with about 950 links over the past year. At one link at a time that’s a lot of blogging.
We tell clients, friends, and seminar attendee’s that this is part of our continuing education. We build links while building our knowledge base. Then of course the “No Follow” rules have made blogging for links much more difficult.
So recently we started exploring “Do Follow Lists.” We were surprised that so many of these lists were not kept up to date. So we have started our own compiling our own lists with the idea of keeping them current. This is a huge time consuming process.
The process was not made any easy when we were transferring files from one computer to another and 8 hours of work disappeared. We downloaded some recovery software to no avail, but we will not be deterred. The blogosphere has given freely to us and it is our time to return the favor.
SEO Is A Numbers Game, Do You Play To Win?
SEO is as much a numbers game as anything else. Good basic SEO will only get you so far in the search rankings. We believe almost anyone with enough time and resources can obtain the first page of results for any search query. However, most companies do not have unlimited funds or staff for such an undertaking. There are still many opportunities to reach the coveted first page of results.
Any successful SEO provider knows that if you go where the crowds aren’t you will be successful. That why so much effort goes into Keyword research. Keyword search, after all, is a Billion dollar industry. You can look for long tail or obscure keywords to be successful. This places you in a less crowded environment.
The huge benefit here is that using long tail search you have less sites competing. The biggest benefit is that your visitor is now highly targeted. A god example would be the search for “increased website traffic Tucson” There is no doubt that the person using this search query wants more traffic to their website and that it has a Tucson customer base.
Do you plat the numbers?
Geo-targeted websites for the cleaning and services related businesses.
Tucson SEO Solutions is excited to announce that we are offering affordable websites that are specifically built for the house cleaning, cleaning services, and other service related businesses that have a local customer base, such as Tucson.
These websites meet the unique demands of lead generation required by all service industries. We have chosen to use the open source platform, WordPress to build these sites.
The choice of WordPress allows us to include the following with our websites.
The actual website that specifically designed to generate leads using the features and benefits presentation that includes a “call to action.” We also include all aspects of good basic Geo-Targeted SEO, or Search Engine Optimization. This is the process of creating high search ranking and website traffic.
We also provide Search Engine Marketing which is designed to provide search engine and visitor traffic.
We are able provide all of these services and create winning websites all for about the price of most design services.
We invite you to visit the Web Sites For Service Providers
Tucson SEO… Solutions that create probabilities out of possibilities.
-
Categories
-
Archives
-
Links
