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Seeking Alternatives to Traditional Marketing

If you’re worried about the current state of the U.S. economy like most of us, it may pay off to invest in alternatives to traditional forms of doing business. One big change you can make is giving SEO consideration. Instead of investing in traditional marketing methods that now, of all times, seem to be a bit pricey, turning to less costly but very effective alternatives like SEO can really give you a jump on the competition.

Relaxing Your Marketing Budget with SEO

Search engine optimization, or SEO, does not require a huge investment by the client. If you’ve taken a look at paid search billing lately, it pales in comparison.  Unless you work with a top-tier agency, you’re not looking at spending too much. A great option to consider is to get a SEO audit. You can hire a consultant or some SEO agencies perform these audits themselves.

Why SEO Isn’t Commonly Utilized Now

The majority of companies today are still reluctant to invest in SEO because not much is widely known about this medium. Despite the entire market size, executives are still employing a reactionary take toward SEO. That is, they consider it when a competing company utilizes the strategy and sees impressive results.

The Future of SEO and You

SEO as a medium for marketing strategies could become very popular among companies in the near future as they look for budget-stretching alternatives like this. Get a head start and look into this young and lucrative approach to developing your brand online before your competitors!

Dealing with Server Response Codes

Whenever a connection is made between either a user or a spider and a web page, the page returns a code, which explains whether the page was loaded correctly, has been moved, has been deleted or is experiencing any other problems. If the web page returns the wrong code, you could have trouble with the search engines or the usability of your site so understanding these codes is a vital part of search engine optimization.

Common Server Response Codes

There are numerous codes web pages can return but only a few of them are common enough to be worth knowing. The following server response codes are the ones you should familiarize yourself with:

200 (Page Loaded Successfully)

This is the typical response most users come across, and they don’t notice it as they won’t see a server response code because the page has loaded correctly. This means the request was accepted and the page you asked for will load momentarily.

301 (Site Permanently Relocated)

This response means the site has been permanently moved to a different URL. If you are linking to this site, you will want to redirect all of your links to the returned URLs using 301 redirects. This will ensure that the keyword ranking or other SEO value of the page will be maintained after the move.

302 (Site Found But At A Different Address)

The site has been “temporarily redirected” and is at a new location. Search engines will cache the old URL and not the new one so that SEO values and rankings will be maintained. Users with outbound links to pages with 302 response codes should continue to use the old URL.

404 (Page Not Found)

The page cannot be found. This does not mean, however, that the page has been permanently moved or deleted. If that is the case, the server will return a 410 code. 404 server codes are used when the server either doesn’t know or won’t release the current status of the web page requested.

Google has branched out into even more new territory as of the beginning of this week. Chrome, which launched Tuesday, has given Google a share of the internet browser market, already capturing over 2.5% of the market in just days. Firefox 3 was launched in July, and with it, an attempt by Mozilla to break a Guiness World Record of most software downloads in 24 hours. Chrome may give the current record a run for its money.

Pros and Cons

The speed of the browser has not been the only feature attracting a wide audience of critics and Internet searchers everywhere. Have you ever had your browser crash and close all your active windows, resulting in loss of information and peace of mind? Well with Chrome, tabs isolate any problems, resulting in individual tab problems not spreading to the rest of your open windows.

But Chrome has experienced its fair share of blemishes as well. Due to the streamlining of the system, most toolbars and plug-ins are not capable of running successfully with the browser, resulting in some grumbling amongst the Internet community. The New York Times wrote, “…toolbars contribute 12 percent of search queries at Google, 18 percent at Yahoo and 42% at IAC’s Ask.”

Among other issues is the privacy and security factor. There were a couple holes found in the security of the browser and still in question is the matter of how much information is shared with Google advertisers. How much control will Google have over your online experience?

Google’s Internet Takeover

I guess we’ll see in the coming weeks what will become of Chrome. It could be the next Zunezilla or we could all find ourselves witnessing Google’s complete and utter coup d’état of the World Wide Web.

Quick SEO Tips

Quick tips are the best, since by their very nature, they’re the fastest to complete, thereby saving you valuable time. When it comes to SEO and SEM, you can get better results in less than 15 minutes.

Keyword Changes

Keywords change -- have you updated yours recently? See what kind of keywords you should be targeting depending on the season and compare them to the ones you’ve been focusing on. By changing your keywords, you can create relevant content that drastically affects your current rankings. Another way to optimize your keywords quickly is by changing the target terms on the home page. Choose competitive keywords over smaller ones, since your home page gets more hits.

Optimize Your Web Pages

Speaking of web pages, updating different pages is a good way to get fresh rankings. Take down last month’s specials and put up new discounts, or adjust any pricing changes. Rewrite your PPC ad campaigns and add new keywords that give a better focus on what the user is looking for. Establish a sitemap if you don’t already have one, and keep it updated, since you’re likely to make constant changes by adding new pages.

Optimize Local Search

Going for local search? Update your Google Maps listing by verifying in the listing and adding the correct address and phone number, along with links to your site. Better yet, if you’re trying to improve SEO on a brick-and-mortar store put your address and phone number on every page. This will help increase your visibility in local searches.

You may think you don’t have enough time to finish any of these, but these only take up a tiny portion of your day. Completing one of these tiny tasks is going to yield you greater results.

Building Links for SEO Through Customers

One of the best ways to build links for SEO is through customers, since they already know about your product or service. Creating a relationship with these customers is an essential part of link development. Think of it as grassroots campaigning, which costs next to nothing. You don’t want to look at the customer as another transaction, but as a lifetime partner that will help you boost your business.

Using Word-of-Mouth in Link Building 

How do you get these people to promote your products and services in the first place? Exceptional customer service is crucial for local businesses like restaurants and online retailers. Another way to spread the word is by data mining registrations, profiles, newsletter sign-ups and blog comments. This information is valuable because you can use to prioritize where to get links from, such as someone who has a top site in your industry, not a random blogger.

Invite these customers to give you feedback on how you did and to talk about you through social networking, review websites, blogs and forums. One of the reasons Yelp is such a powerhouse is that people are more willing to trust a nonpartisan party that truly likes the business as opposed to an advertisement, which obviously has an agenda. Building links starts with building relationships with the people who support your business the best.  

Pitching clients as an SEO firm inevitably generates a lot of questions, mostly because the industry is still so young. The most common question is always the one question that there is no real answer to: “How much will this work increase my website’s traffic?”

Gauging traffic increases is a noble ambition but efforts generally lead into the proverbial “wild goose chase”. Clients are usually a bit on edge when it comes to SEO proposals because there is no educated guess or traffic prediction equation that can give them an idea of what the end product will be.

The reasons behind these failed attempts at finding a solution to this question can be narrowed down to four roadblocks: click measurements by ranking, social media, and implementation by clients.

Clicking Through by Ranking

Engines don’t publish the click-through percentages of top search results. Your brand may rank at position 13 for a given keyword and through SEO efforts, that position may become number 5. However, there is no way to measure how much that increase in ranking will affect your traffic.

Adding Social Media to the Mix

Lastly, it’s impossible to determine how social traffic will factor into the metric. Del.icio.us users may tag an article, but traffic after the initial spike would be impossible to determine. How much of an impact will it have on SERPs and how long will that impact last?

Client Execution of Proposed Changes

SEO firms can provide clients with a full list of actions that need to happen to optimize their webpage, but implementation of these line items is in the client’s hands. If a forum section is set up, but the client doesn’t moderate or respond to posts, the forum’s potential won’t be reached. If not all recommendations were implemented, a prediction of traffic increases would be meaningless.

Catching the Wild Goose

As you can see, an accurate estimation by SEO firms at this time is impossible. However, if search engines continue to release more and more information and statistics and SEO firms continue to strive for new ways to add legitimacy to their proposals, the dream of answering this question may still live and one day be realized.

Content is king. That’s not just our slogan here at CKMG but the most important part of our operations for developing internet brands. It’s about time that we’ve sat down and reviewed what new and unique content can offer different types of websites.

Developing Content by Site Type

Affiliate sites and e-commerce sites need a heavy amount of content to differentiate themselves from their competitors. These sites typically add content generated by the distributor and find themselves using duplicate content found elsewhere on the web.

In order to stand out from the pack and add some sort of value to their visitor’s experience, these sites can use content to provide extra information, tips and advice that is unique to that site only.

Sites that are heavy in graphics and flash images but light on content should look to developing content options for visitors requiring a screen-reading program to view.

Using Content for SEO

Instead of basing your entire SEO campaign on manipulating search engines to achieve the desired results, consider going back to the basics and developing content that will not only help with SEO but will also enhance the user-friendliness of a website and offer something compelling to outstrip your competitors.  

Remember that there are many varieties of content available for production – news, guides, contests, services, videos, etc. It’s vital to keep any sort of content you post interesting so it not only keeps readers attention but allows an opportunity to be linked to by those that find it useful.   

SEO Firms Using Advertisemens to Lay Claims as Best

The Olympics come once every four years, bringing the world’s best athletes and a highly competitive, nationalistic spirit into one arena. Overall, these athletes are finely honed machines, flexing each muscle and straining every limit of their body as they smash records, defy gravity and tear through the finish lines.

Then, there are those that think, “Sure, why not cheat just a little?”

These sorry excuses for athletes sadly walk among all fields of sports such as cycling, baseball and track and field. Even though drug testing has become even more stringent, athletes and science are still managing to find ways around it.

A similar predicament goes for SEO and Internet marketing. There are those of us who use customer testimonials and sheer hard work to distinguish ourselves from our competitors.

Then there are those SEO firms that pay for the honor of being named a dependable search engine marketing firm. This may not seem like a big deal, since they are just wasting their money. However, paying over $5,000 to be called one of the best in your industry is just downright deceiving. Plenty of clients walk through our doors without a clue as to how SEO and SEM work. We patiently explain the basics of SEO and provide customizable service that fits their needs. When you pay for a title that was never awarded by industry peers or an objective judge, you give the client a skewed outlook, convincing them that your advertising space is something award-worthy.

If you earn an award from someone else, then by all means, tout it around like a gold medal. Those SEO companies out there who are masquerading advertisements as awards need to stop. Otherwise, Internet marketing will end up as tainted as sports has become, where anyone who succeeds is doubted. Give the client and your company more respect and do the job right instead of trying to trick clients into thinking you are a “top SEO firm.”

Google has just launched a new metric tool, known as Google Insights for Search. The new tool is similar in purpose to Google Trends but offers a plethora of new features to modify your results.

Basically, the tool works by typing in a keyword or phrase you would like detailed search information on. The breakdown provides the top related searches to the term(s) provided and recent “rising searches”, or related searches that have increased in popularity more dramatically on a more recent time scale.

Tracking Search Popularity Over Time

A chart is also provided showing the popularity of that search term over time. You can also enter multiple search queries to compare the popularities of two or more search terms over that a time period.

Tracking Search Popularity Across Regions

Another potentially useful feature is incorporation of regional interest into the analysis. You can narrow down your results to only searches by country or even further into subregions of that country.

Search Headlines & More!

News headlines that are related to the search term are also included. These articles contain the search term and related terms or phrases and are most likely imported from the Search Engine’s News Search Tool.

This tool is a great step forward for search engine analysis, with Google sharing more detailed search data with users. While this tool mostly consolidates a lot of current Google tools, with the new features and easy to use/understand interface, the tool should become quite useful for search engine analysis. Go try it for yourself!

Wikipedia gets a lot of attention. From users of the internet scowering its pages and absorbing the content as if it were a credible encyclopedia, to the search engine spiders coming across so many wikipedia entries because of the sites huge amount of links, Wikipedia comes up a lot in regards to the web. Its popularity makes sense in that Wikipedia has much to offer in both its appeal to users and to search engines, but should this site be so overwhelmingly favored by search engines considering what else out there on the web that Wikipedia greatly overshadows.

Because Wikipedia is a user updated, and the content user's ad is virtually all text, Wikipedia has grown into the 13th most popular website in the world. A bulk of the added content includes links to outside websites, and because of the amount added, Wikipedia is considered one of the heaviest site in terms of links. A search engine like Google gives rank to sites that have the greatest link weight, this considered, it's no surprise that Wikipedia gets 70 percent of all its traffic only from search engines. In many regards, Wikipedia is, by nature, one of best optimized sites to get traffic organically from search engines.

So naturally, Wikipedia will come up ranked usually within the first couple of pages for any topic included, if not as one of the first few results, but does this page deserve such a high rank considering the pages content? Wikipedia is a site that relies on the "wisdom of the crowds", and is an open forum where anyone can post any content on any topic. The content will get edited if its disputable, but because anyone can add content, its credibility comes into question. Just because the site is used widely and is immense, does not mean that the content is well informed, well written, or even necessarily true.

If you ask me, the fact that there is no amount of credible authority in most Wikipedia's pages is valid criticism, but it isn't doing the site justice for how great of a web resource the site has become. There is something truly valuable about a public forum where any one can voice their account. I would actually rather trust a group individuals who constantly evaluate one another rather than one appointed authority. Doesn't this sound more democratic anyways? Nowadays, I often find myself doing web searches just so I can find a wikipedia page and this is because the write ups are usually pretty damn well written and informative. Even though these are 'everday' people writing here, it seems that the quality of writing is usually above par.

I think because Wikipedia has become a valuable site to people, where for the most part people care about what they write about it really deserves all the attention it gets.