Search Engine Optimization – A Beginners’ Guide (part 1)
“How do I make my site show up in Google?” “How do I drive traffic to my website?” “How do I increase my page rank?” These are questions we get a lot and they all ask the same thing – how to get greater visibility in Google to draw more traffic to your website. The two best ways to have your website displayed in Google search results are to purchase advertising through Google AdWords or to improve your site’s “organic” search ranking. “Organic” search ranking is how Google places your site within search results based on how relevant it is to a user’s search compared to similar sites.
We discussed Google AdWords in a previous article so this two-part article will focus on “Search Engine Optimization”. Called “SEO” for short, Search Engine Optimization is the practice of optimizing a website to improve its ranking in Google based on keyword searches relevant to your line of business. Good SEO engineers teach their customers best practices that include both technical implementation guidelines as well as a particular style of content creation. A complete guide to SEO best practices would fill volumes but in this two-part article we’ll cover some simple techniques you can use to start moving your page rank upwards. First up? The technical side of SEO. Please keep in mind that this blog is created for a non technical audience so we’ll avoid any techniques that involve more than minimal coding. We’ve included as many links as possible to provide further explanation of each tip but if you’re unclear about something please leave a comment or write us.
SEO Technical Tips
- When considering an online identity for your business, strive for uniformity. For example, avoid registering “Denton Solutions” on one service and “Denton Business Solutions” on another. Before you begin registering accounts do some due diligence and make sure your desired profile name is available on all the major social media platforms (see below).
- Offer as many ways for your customers to reach you as possible. Maintain as many online profiles and services as you can, including Twitter,Facebook, LinkedIn,YouTube, blog directories such as Technorati, industry and local directories, etc.
- Create an XML Sitemap of your site and submit it to the major search engines including Yahoo! Site Explorer, Bing WebMaster Center, and especially Google WebMaster Tools. This ensures the search engines “know about” each and every component of your site. For help with this, read this Google article about how to create a Sitemap.
- Create an RSS feed to syndicate your content. If your site uses a Content Management System (“CMS”) like WordPress, Drupal, or Joomla there are plugins to do this for you; otherwise check out this guide.
- Link said RSS feed to FeedBurner. This provides your readership lots more ways to get timely content updates from you. Additionally, it allows you to automatically notify other social media outlets when you publish new content.
- Register your business for Google Places to ensure potential customers can find you when performing searches for a particular geography. With Google’s integrated search results (web pages, images, videos and locations appear in one search) this could jump you way ahead of more well-established competition. Paid Tags on Google Places can quickly identify your business to potential customers.
- Create unique HTML page Title and Description meta tags for each page of your website. This is an opportunity to tell Google and potential readers what the page is about. Google may use these fields as the title and description that are actually displayed in search results. Don’t worry too much about the “keywords” meta tag as Google doesn’t use it for page ranking.
- Use meaningful webpage URLs (filenames). For example, rather than naming the files in your webpage “page1.html” and “page2.html” try “About-My-Company.html” or “Products-and-Services.html”. Google is smart enough to “read” page names so make them something descriptive!
- Build “back links” to your site. In other words, find websites that will place a link to your site somewhere on their site. Often times you may need to offer a “link exchange”, where you both link your sites to each other. Good places to start looking for link exchanges are professional societies, chambers of commerce, or local/community-based websites. Other large business directories you can list your business in include Yelp, CitySearch, YellowPages, or MerchantCircle.
- Lastly, sign up for Google Analytics. It will provide you with amazing insight into the people visiting your site, where they live, how they found your site, and more.
And that covers our top ten technical tips for optimizing your site for better search engine results. Keep in mind that these changes will not rocket your site to the top of Google searches overnight but with some diligence you should see some improvement in your site’s search rankings in just a couple months. If you have any questions or think we’ve left something out feel free to contact us or just leave a comment below. Thanks for reading and keep an eye out for Part 2, where we’ll discuss optimizing your site’s content for Search Engine Optimization!
Read More
How to monetize your website with Google AdSense
Have you ever noticed those tiny little ads in GMail? What about the ones that pop up all over the pages of your favorite blog? And last but not least, the infamous “Sponsored Links” on a page of Google Search results? As we briefly explained in “Stretching your Advertising Dollar“, Google’s paid advertising (called “Google AdWords”) is not only how Google makes most of its money, but it’s also one of the most efficient advertising programs in the world. The way it inherently prequalifies a consumer before showing him your ad is really hard to beat with traditional advertising methods, the tracking analytics that come with it are first class, but… I digress.
We’re here to talk about making money with AdSense, not spending money on AdWords. AdSense is the global advertising network through which Google displays the paid advertisements of Google AdWords customers. Included in Google’s advertising network are all of Google’s own websites/services, (relatively) minor search sites such as EarthLink, Netscape, and Compuserve; affiliate advertising networks in the Double-Click Exchange, and last but certainly not least, you.
That’s right – you can become a part of Google’s global advertising network. The question is whether AdSense is right for you? If you recall from the AdWords article, Google displays ads that are useful to the webpage viewer so it finds ads relevant to what the viewer is already looking for. That means that if you run a website about microwavable organic dog treats, you can be reasonably sure the Google Ads on your site will also be about or closely related to dog treats. If you’re a blogger devoted to sharing “Pupcake” consumption with the world this could be a great way to support your site, but if you’re running a business selling the afore-mentioned products you will more than likely end up displaying competitive advertisements!
If you’ve thought about it and decide Google AdSense would benefit your site/business, head to http://www.google.com/adsense to begin the account setup process. All you have to do is supply Google with the most basic of information: web address where your AdSense account will be used, physical mailing address, etc. and Google handles the rest. After completing the application form, a Google employee will review your site to make sure it is complete (not under construction), easily navigable, and that is has some valuable substance to it. If everything looks good and your site conforms to the AdSense Terms of Service you will get an e-mail welcoming you to the AdSense program two or three days after your submission.
Once your account has been approved, you can insert ads pretty much anywhere – unused domains, alongside results of searches performed within your site, on iPhone or Android applications, or even in your YouTube videos. The possibilities are endless and there are more being added every day.
Google AdSense, applied correctly, can be a great way to monetize your website. When deploying AdSense across your site keep the following pointers in mind to maximize profitability:
- Create a site with great content and a growing loyal following, then gradually sneak in the AdSense. Build a site that is useful and engaging to its visitors – one that visitors will return to several times and suggest to friends. If your has high traffic and some strategically placed ads, the revenue will come. Just be patient.
- DO NOT click on your own ads. Google calls that a “fraudulent click” and they will not hesitate to disable your AdSense account for doing so. Don’t try to be sneaky and figure out ways around the system – Google is sneakier. Seriously, just don’t do it.
- Maintain the aesthetics of your site. No one liked the neon flashing banner ads of the 1990s. Place ads that match your site’s color scheme and are tastefully located. If you place ads in obnoxious locations you’ll frustrate users and decrease your readership.
- Stay current with AdSense policies and best practices. There is a wealth of information available for free on the AdSense website and if you’re not making use of it you’re missing out!
In summary, Google AdSense can be a great revenue generator for a popular website, but unless you already have a sizable readership you won’t see overnight results. Keep working at building great content and eventually you will start seeing some paychecks. But for now, stay tuned for our next article, “How can I make my site show up in Google?”.
To keep up with this and other DBS articles written specifically for small businesses, follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and/or FeedBurner.
Read More
Stretching your Advertising Dollar with Google AdWords
How are you marketing your company today? How much are you paying for advertising? Is it performing to your expectations? How much does your marketing cost for each new customer gained?
Consider a new way to advertise. A way that allows you to control exactly how much you spend every day on ads. A way that allows you to market your products only to people who live in your target geography. A way that pre-qualifies customers and will only show your advertisements to people who want what you’re offering. Does this sound too good to be true? Fortunately it’s not too good to be true. It’s Google AdWords. Watch the video below for a brief introduction then read on.
As the video explains, Google AdWords allows a company to place text-based online ads within Google search results. But that’s just the beginning. When an advertiser partners with Google AdWords, they also gain access to the Google Display Network, which allows ads based on rich media, images, or video rather than a “plain” text ad. This network contains over one million websites of every flavor imaginable, including every site running Google AdSense (See “How to Monetize your site with AdSense“), YouTube, Google Maps, Google Finance, and the rest of the Google family; as well as the entire DoubleClick network and more. Within Google AdWords advertisers can even buy a TV spot… for as little as twenty dollars!
But how does it work? Basically, when you place an ad you enter a bid for how much you’re willing to pay for that ad to be displayed a single time. When a user searches for something related to your ad, Google compiles a list of all the relevant ads and displays the ones that have a combination of the highest cost-per-click (CPC) bid and the highest relevance to what the user is looking for. Google always strives to improve the end user experience so rather than dispalying only the highest paying CPC bids Google will reward advertisers with more advantageous ad placement for writing accurate ads and providing users with the content they’re actually looking for once they “click through” to your site.
And how much does it cost? Merely a one-time activation fee of $5 USD and whatever you would like to budget for ads. There is a minimum cost-per-click bid of $0.01 USD and a minimum cost-per-(thousand)-impression bid of $0.25 USD. Aside from those pricing guidelines the cost is completely up to you. Raising your bid will raise your ad’s visibility and lowering it will decrease visibility. Google actually does try to keep advertising costs reasonable though – as the Google Adwords support pags describe, “the AdWords discounter will automatically reduce your actual CPC so that your winning ad is charged only what is necessary to maintain its ranking above the next-highest ad.” And don’t worry, you’re not on your own in determining how much you should bid – Google offers serveral free tools to help you.
And that’s really just the beginning of Google AdWords. Doesn’t that seem much more economical than more traditional advertising? We certainly think so. Do you have a success story or a question about Google AdWords? If so just leave a comment below!
Read More
OpenOffice vs. Google Apps as a free Office Productivity Suite
If you’ve ever bought a Microsoft product before you know they’re far from free. A quick search online reveals most versions of Microsoft Office cost between $200 and $500. Obviously this puts the world’s most popular productivity suite out of reach for most small businesses. How then is a small business owner to create professional documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and more? Luckily there are a couple great options available, and both of them are FREE.
A screenshot of OpenOffice's word processor
The first is OpenOffice, an open source software package available for download at the OpenOffice website. Compared to Microsoft Office’s estimated 500 million users, OpenOffice recently celebrated its 100 millionth download. It includes a word processor, spreadsheet program, presentation software, desktop publishing, and more. By default all files are stored in OpenOffice’s own proprietary formats, but they can easily be saved as Microsoft documents instead. OpenOffice is laid out very similarly to Microsoft products so the learning curve for current Microsoft users is virtually non-existent. Additionally, there are a plethora of support options available, including FREE community-based (peer) support, and a directory of local OpenOffice consultants.
Screenshot of GoogleDocs' word processor
The second option is Google Docs, which offers the same four basic software programs (word processor, spreadsheet, desktop publishing, and presentation) as the other suites, and also a “Form” tool that creates custom web surveys that one could embed into a website or blog. All Google documents are stored on Google’s servers and accessed and edited in the owner’s web browser. Thanks to its internet-based application delivery, Google Docs allows users to share documents with any other person with an e-mail address with just a couple clicks of the mouse. Unfortunately, the overall feature set is very light compared to more full-featured suites like Office or OpenOffice. Casual Google Docs users may not take notice of anything missing but more routine or power users will probably be unable to use Google Docs for anything other than minor edits.
While Google Docs is a great light-weight office productivity suite that can perform quick edits of a document from anywhere with an internet connection, it is lacking too many features to be considered a true desktop replacement. On the plus side, Google Docs offers secure sharing and collaboration, which OpenOffice does not. What OpenOffice DOES provide is a full-featured office productivity suite for FREE. Until Google beefs up the features of its Documents suite, OpenOffice will remain Denton Business Solutions’ productivity suite of choice.
For an in-depth comparison of Microsoft Office 2010 and OpenOffice 3.1, look here.
Read More
Google enhances Analytics tracking code
Google announced yesterday that it has finally released Asynchronous Tracking for its Analytics product. Asynchronous tracking has been in beta testing/development for almost six months now so Denton Business Solutions is pretty excited that it’s finally out of beta testing and approved for general use.
According to Google the new code offers the following benefits:
- Faster tracking code load times for your web pages due to improved browser execution
- Enhanced data collection and accuracy
- Elimination of tracking errors from dependencies when the JavaScript hasn’t fully loaded
Essentially, this “Google Analytics 2.0″ will give your business a more accurate depiction of its website’s actual statistics, as well as increase tracking code stability and page load times. Ever since Google announced that it now includes website load times into its page rank algorithms, every little bit of speed one can squeeze out of a page load helps. If you have any questions about Analytics or how to upgrade to its new tracking code drop us a line!
Read More
Now taking instructional video requests
Faithful readers, as you already know, Denton Business Solutions, LLC (DBS) is really keen on sharing the power of internet marketing with its clients. To that end, we are going to begin building a library of (FREE!) instructional videos over the next few weeks that will help you begin to use and understand the most basic web marketing and site optimization tools out there. We are here to help you so we would really like for you to tell us what videos or articles you would like to see us create.
Is there a certain tool or feature of a tool you’d like to hear more about? Do you have a “to-do” list of things to research but you’ve never gotten around to finding the information for yourself? If you have ideas about what we should post either leave a comment here or fill out our site contact form, selecting “How-to video request” as the subject.
Thank you in advance for your help. Look for the first video to appear in the next week!
Read More