if it’s in a blue-gray highlight, you can start it right now and at little or no cost.

FIRST THINGS FIRST – GETTING READY FOR TRAFFIC!

Before you spend a great deal of time, energy or money to generate traffic to your website, make sure your website is READY for traffic.

• Is your phone number VERY easy to see and at the top of the page?
• Is your website inviting and easy to navigate?
• Do you have a good ‘About Us’ page? Very important.
• Visitors decide if your site is relevant to what they’re looking for in only 2-3 seconds – they only spend time exploring sites that pass this first impression.  Make sure yours is a good one.
• Does your website have an effective call to action – one that actually increases the likelihood that your visitors will take that oh-so-important first step towards becoming a customer?
• NO thick bodies of text! Website browsers don’t read – they scan. You want short bodies of text broken into sections with titles making it very easy to get the gist of the message very quickly.
• Don’t be scared of white space

KEYWORD RESEARCH

1. Keyword Research is critical when starting out. This will allow you to understand where the greatest opportunities lie and focus your efforts. “Keywords” aren’t just catch-phrases – they reflect what’s on your potential customers’ minds, and from what angle you can best compete for those customers.  Start with this important step.

CONTENT

2. Create a solid body of original, quality content relevant to your readers that address their questions, needs and concerns. This is job #1. Without quality content the challenge of creating traffic (and rankings) turns a hill into Mt. Everest!
3. Come up with a plan to create quality, compelling, helpful, original content on a regular basis. Does somebody work for you that can update the blog on your new website twice a week around keywords relevant to your industry?

Want to find a good ghost writer to write for you? Wish you could jot down a blog post about your business in an email real quick and have somebody ‘clean it up’  and post it on your blog and on social media site? (We do all of these for our clients here at Saw Web Marketing)

Ways to create content:
– Contests
– Giveaways
– Controversy
– Humorous or interesting infographic

4. Once you start getting readers to your blog engage with them. Answer any questions and be grateful and always offer a lot of value!
5. Use tags on your blog posts
6. Make a list of friends, family and business associates. Shoot them an email or give them a call and ask them “what one thing they would suggest changing on your website to make it better?” Don’t feel like you need to change all 23 things but you might hear a common theme in their comments — and if nothing else they saw it and will hopefully refer others.
7. Add video to your site. This keeps visitors on your site longer and increases the chances visitors will take the next step.
8. Upload video from your business to Youtube and Vimeo and other video sharing sites to build links and generate traffic.
9. Comment on related videos on Youtube.

OFF-SITE CONTENT

10. Research the rich subject of guest blogging. If you put the time and energy into creating original, compelling content relevant to your industry I assure you there are other business owners in the same boat that would love to share your content with their readers in exchange for a link back to your site.
11. Participate on message boards, forums, and blogs that are relevant to your industry and well-known or authoritative. Comment, answer questions and help others.
12. Press releases handled well can be an excellent source of links and traffic. Have you started offering an additional service or moved or expanded your office? Made a significant hire or have news to share about your industry?
13. Don’t miss any opportunity to be interviewed in writing, audio, or video.
14. Funnel traffic from popular websites like craigslist, ebay, Wikipedia. Think of ways you can offer something of value and leave a link to your website
15. Put social media to work! Create account with the most popular social media platforms and use them to share the content you are creating for your blog.

ENSURE SEARCH ENGINES WILL FIND AND CREDIT YOUR CONTENT

16. Learn about the importance of ‘internal linking.’  This is important to make sure Google finds all your pages plus we all fall victim to somebody copying and pasting our content eventually. If they are lazy the content they steal from you will at least contain a link back to another page of your site.
17. Install and optimize your site using the Yoast plugin if you are using WordPress. This is a exceptional tool in optimizing the content on your site and making sure it is Google friendly.
18. On page optimization. To get the most out of your site, ensure that the search engines can crawl your site, and can identify what’s on ALL the pages and that there is enough original, quality content for them to index it properly.

(Indexing is essentially filing your site in the right place so when a visitor searches for something relevant to your industry Google knows right where to find it)

LINK BUILDING

19. Build Links! Build links! Build links! Ethically and naturally. Don’t pay for any kind of automated service. Don’t trade or exchange links. No matter what don’t BUY links! Here is a helpful article to start ethically and naturally build links to your site.
20. Add social media sharing buttons to your site and your blog posts and encourage your readers to share.

ATTRACT PEOPLE TO YOUR SITE WITH AN OFFER OF FREE INFORMATION

21. Put some thought into it. Do some research. Check out companies that do what you do in other parts of the country and come up with a powerful call to action to entice visitors to your site to exchange their email address for something of value. Give your best content away for free! 

EMAIL MARKETING

22. Don’t let visitors to your site be meaningless clicks. Do some research into email marketing and put this incredible low cost marketing tool to work for you.

OTHER ONLINE TOOLS AND TIPS

23. Put some time into Google Webmaster Tools. This rich resource can help you submit your site to Google (free), understand how Google sees your site, diagnose potential problems, learn what keywords are sending traffic to your site and much more.
24. Use tools to improve the speed of your site! This is an important factor to the search engines. Visitors do not have the patience for a website to load.
25. Remember that TIME is an important factor with any new website. Patience is important. Take steps to spread the word and don’t get frustrated.  You are planting seeds, and they will grow.  Keep plugging away at the items on this list and your website traffic will go up!

OFFLINE NETWORKING AND PROMOTION

26. Join communities relevant to your industry.
27. Hold free classes or seminars teaching a particular skill that will interest your customer base.
28. Get your website address on all your marketing materials, sign on the street, business cards, your personal facebook page, phamplets, signature line of your email – even your vehicle, or anything else you can think of to get the word out. Google ‘guerilla marketing’ for ideas to spread the word at little cost.

One last tip:  Don’t believe ridiculous lies that involve you spending $$ and receiving server-crushing amounts of traffic – this will not happen and can result in your site being penalized by the search engines.  Keep it ethical, work at it.  There are no shortcuts.

Some additional helpful resources to grow traffic to your website:
Neil Patel at Quiksprout
Anna at Traffic Generation Café
DailyBlogTips

17 ways to start building links to your website!

Link Building… Time-intensive. Frustrating. Sometimes confusing. Yet Unavoidable. Because ultimately, it’s still the trump card for higher rankings. – Aaron Wall, SEO Book

Link building isn’t one activity.  Rather it is a common theme that runs through — and can be a measure of the success of — many aspects internet marketing.  For example, the positive effect on link building is one of the main reasons that great content, frequent blogging, activity in social media, etc., are so valuable.

Nothing will drive traffic and higher rankings on Google like a strong, diverse, rich list of back-links pointing to your website – period.

Check out the Link Building page on the Saw Web Marketing website to understand what link building is and why it matters (we included a pretty cool infographic at the bottom of that page that is quite helpful).

We are going to jump right into specific, actionable tasks you can perform to start building links to your website today.

1)    SIGNATURE

Get a link to your website or latest blog post in the signature of your email today!

Helpful resource on this subject
Step by step instructions using an iphone or ipad
Step by step instructions using Outlook

2)     CONTENT

1. Create a GREAT piece of content.  What does your customer NEED? What problems are your customers struggling with that your product or service fulfills? Speak to their concerns or questions and share it using your blog and social media. A top 10 list is always a good idea – lists are likely to get shared and create links back to your site vs. a body of text.
2. Add a blog to your site and share some articles relevant to your business! Having a blog is the single most important thing a business, person, charity can do to get ahead online. Need help writing, adding a blog to your site or with promoting your content? Give us a call, we would love to help!
3. Make a list of business associates, friends, family members who have a website, blog or active on social media and ask them to share, link to, like, tweet your new blog or piece of content!

3)    IMMEDIATE WAYS TO ADD LINKS TO YOUR SITE NOW

1. Create a profile for your business using popular social media platforms. You can find some advice and tools on this page.  Google + / Facebook / Twitter / LinkedIn / Youtube / Slideshare / Stumbleupon
   List of 101 social media sites from the pros at seomoz
2. Set up an account with Yahoo! answers and Quora and answer questions relevant to your industry. This can be a powerful source of traffic and leads!
3. Submit a press release to authoritative sites likes PRweb, prleap.  It’s important your press release is well written and compelling.  Have you started offering an additional service or moved or expanded your office? Made a significant hire or have news to share about your industry?
4. Commenting on reputable, high authority blogs or forums relevant to your industry can build links AND increase traffic.
5. Sponsor something! All business owners get the requests for help with different organizations, charities, etc. Get in the habit of asking for a link for anything you sponsor.

4)    GET MORE AUTHORITATIVE LINKS THROUGH NETWORKING . . . AND ASKING

1. Think about who you know in your industry. Look at their websites and social media profiles and blogs. See a list of partners or suppliers or sources they recommend anywhere? Ask for a link! (It doesn’t cost them anything.) Remember links from sites that are authoritative and in the same or related industry are the BEST!
2. Identify a list of authorities in your industry (we can help with this). Do you know them? Do they have blogs? Does their business have a Facebook page? Are they active on Twitter or LinkedIn? Reach out! Say hello. Have they done anything worth a compliment?
3. Industry associations, publications, safety or trade organizations specific to your industry can be extremely powerful links.
4. Join the Chamber of Commerce and actually GO to the free functions and events they put on!   This will provide a high value link to your site, give you the chance to spread the word about your business and meet people in the same boat as yourself.

5)    LEARN FROM YOUR COMPETITORS

1. Look at competitors websites (in your city and around the country) – what are they doing that is likely generating links for their site? This can be very powerful.
2. Hire the team at Saw Web Marketing to identify all the links pointing to credible, strong online competitors for your business and create a customized plan to pursue those links for your site!

6)    STATUS CHECK

Have the team at Saw Web Marketing compile a list of the sites linking to your site now. Are there sites that you thought were linking to yours missing?

You also might want to check out this resource:  131 link building strategies from Search Engine Watch. Search Engine Watch is an authority in the SEO industry. However, this article was written about 9 months ago, in 7/2012.  Most of the fundamental strategies discussed are still sound.  But always use caution before employing any specific link building strategy for your business – search engines change what they consider ‘best practices’ on a fairly regular basis.

We would love to hear from you!

Please leave a comment below if you have any comments or questions or a particular link building tactic that has worked for you.

If you need help implementing any of these ideas give us a shout! This is what we do and we are pretty good at it.

Great questions. There is no one answer that fits all clients. But for virtually every client, the goal is the same – 

Significantly improved results from your website:

- More Top 3 search engine rankings

- Increased traffic

- More conversions – conversions are when a visitor takes an action that your website is designed to get them to take. Conversions are the bottom-line results our clients are ultimately seeking, such as:

o Calls to your office
o Registering for updates
o Likes or shares on Facebook or other social media
o Requests for information
o Online purchases

Why does the time and cost needed to produce results vary from one client to another?

Don’t worry, we’re not saying that your budget has to be open-ended or that you’ll always be waiting for results sometime in the future. In fact, you can tell us the budget you have to work with, and then after we learn about your business, we can make a plan and tell you what results we can expect to achieve within that budget.

However, there are numerous factors that make a BIG difference in how long it will take to see the desired results.

For example, we would need to visit with you a little bit about your business and take a look at your industry and a couple of your competitors before we could accurately tell you how much getting SEO results would cost or how long it would take. Here are some examples to give you an idea what we mean:

– Producing results in an incredibly competitive industry like real estate, financial services, or insurance on a national level would cost a great deal of time, a focused team effort, and a very significant amount of money.

– Producing results for a car dealership on a local level in a smaller community, or producing national ranking results for a highly specialized website like 17th-century reed instrument, would be a totally different story,

So our first step is to gather as much information as we can about your business, your goals, your industry, your marketplace and your competitors, and then make sure we discuss what we’ve learned with you – and make sure we understand everything you need us to understand as well. A good meeting of the minds between you and your SEO professional is key from the beginning and all along the way.

All right, what are the factors that affect the cost and time needed for results?  

-          Determining the best keywords to go after is a MUST. We need to make the key words general enough to target enough potentially relevant search traffic so we can ultimately reach a worthwhile market-share. But we also need to focus the key-words with enough specificity or unique angle, so that your search results aren’t lost in a sea of general competition.

-          How aggressive is the competition with their Internet marketing and how long have you been marketing?

-          Does your company stand out amongst the competition and have a unique competitive edge? (Being one of 50 car lots in a city of only 400k people will not be an easy mountain to climb)

-          Is your website designed with SEO in mind? Are you open to making changes?

-          Do you want to see results on a local or national level?

-          Do you have a strategy to produce new content on a regular basis? Search engines LOVE fresh, original, relevant content – love it! Not many business owners like taking the time to write but somebody has to do it — farming this out to somebody who doesn’t know you or your business comes with challenges. We can work with you to find an effective middle-ground that is time-efficient for you but uses your expert input while generating consistent new content on a regular basis.

-          How committed are you to work towards ranking in the top 3 on Google? Will you act on the suggestions of your SEO professional and trust them?

We realize our clients want to see results TODAY (so do we – the sooner you start seeing a return on your investment the sooner you become a fan of Saw Web Marketing and tell your friends! If we take significantly longer than we expected or fail to produce the desired results we have failed you and that’s the LAST thing we want.

If you need a new website or interested in putting your existing one to WORK give us a shout – we would love to help!

If this article was helpful or interesting please comment below and share it with your friends (this is how we grow the business and allows us to keep sharing good content) Thank you!

Matthew (hire me)

Knuckleheaded mistakes I see ALL THE TIME:

- Thick, dense bodies of text – unless you’re writing for a highly dedicated and specialized intellectual market or something, this is a big no no.

- No clear direction as to what visitors to your website need to DO next

- Poor writing or writing not geared to the target audience

- It’s boring. Doesn’t clearly communicate a competitive advantage

- It is missing the most BASIC items that any site that ever wants to rank well needs.

My friends, your website is competing with millions of others – MILLIONS. The least you can do is make it easy for Google to understand what you do and I implore you, PLEASE, before you consider working with ANYBODY to build a website for your business or do any kind of marketing online you read this page and take a look at the factors below.

First of all, what is their core business?
Are they an I.T. company, design firm or advertising agency?

If building websites that are designed to rank well and bring you RESULTS isn’t their core business, I would keep looking. They might not be a bad choice to work with but it’s critical you ask questions and are comfortable that they understand and have a plan for your website to generate RESULTS (not just look pretty).

1) How attractive and user friendly is their website?

2) Is their site linked to Facebook, Twitter, Google and other social media?

If they aren’t, or they are but only have a handful of “friends” and “fans,” I would be highly cautious about doing business with them. In this day and age, there is no excuse for not connecting via social media. It speaks to their reputation and commitment to quality if they are willing to allow past customers and new customers interact.

3) They should be more than willing to share testimonials and references from long term, satisfied clients.

I would suggest contacting those references and politely asking them if they are happy with their results.(Make sure their testimonials aren’t 4 years old!) 

*** Another trick I fell for (trusting testimonials that were real but 5 years old)

4) How would your web site traffic be monitored and measured?  What type of reports will you get and how often will you receive them?

Ask to see a sample of a clients recent reporting. Very important.

5) Do they have detailed case studies to show you with verifiable results of search engine positions they’ve achieved for clients?

Ask to see a sample of a clients recent reporting.

They don’t have this? RUN. You are better off with an attractive, FREE website you can build yourself vs. one that doesn’t bring you traffic, help build your brand or puts money in the bank.  

6) Will they perform an analysis of your competitions’ websites to understand why they are ranking so highly?

This won’t be free but it can be incredibly helpful in identifying opportunities. Ask for a sample copy of a competitor’s report they produced for somebody else so you know what to expect. If they can’t or don’t know how to do this – find somebody else.   

7) Do they differentiate between “traffic” and “qualified” traffic?

Bulk unqualified traffic arriving at your site for irrelevant keywords does you NO good.

8) Never do business with anybody who claims to have a “special | secret | affiliation | relationship”  with Google in any way.

This is a LIE.  Worse than just losing your money, there is a good chance you may end up with your site penalized and possibly removed from Google all together.

9) Are they versed in email marketing, video marketing, social media? Can they help design an effective call to action that will appeal to your target audience?

My guess is you don’t just need a website, you need a website that HELPS you achieve your business goals, right? That means you need to work with somebody that knows how to deliver results.

10) Never do business with anybody that GUARANTEES a #1 ranking on Google or any other search engine. 

If ‘keyword research’, ‘qualified traffic’, ‘conversions’ are not words you hear PLEASE, give us a call at Saw Web Marketing!  The last thing you want to do is join the legions of business owners with websites that just ‘sit there’ doing NOTHING!

SEO takes time, patience and a determined, focused effort. You need somebody who is committed to your long term success.

If your website is not built with SEO in mind, then you might as well spend thousands of dollars on flyers with no phone number, and spend all month passing them out.

The only thing that a poorly designed website does for you is look good on a business card. That’s it. If you want a consistent stream of phones calls, leads, sales, subscriptions, and appointments, it’s critical your website has the tools to succeed.

We invite you to read more blog articles. Feel free to print them out and take them with you when meeting with website contractors. If they can’t discuss the subjects on this blog in a way that’s easy to understand Our number is 316-285-0729. We would love to partner with you.

If this article was helpful or interesting please share it with your friends (this is how we grow the business and allows us to keep sharing good content) Thank you!

Non-writers often think that writing is a casual hobby or something people are just naturally good at. It’s not. Writing effectively so that you get results is an exacting craft. Strong writing that specifically targets YOUR business’ target base truly makes a big, measurable difference.

WRITE TO YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE

It’s imperative the writing on your website is geared towards YOUR target audience.

If you operate a wood and metal design shop like my friend (and client) at Blake Clotia and your ideal customers are contractors who specialize in building casinos, hotels, or assisted living centers then write in a language that YOUR customers will understand. It doesn’t matter that only a small percentage of the population understand what Commercial Casework and Architectural millwork means – your customers do and that’s what matters!

SURFERS DON’T READ AS MUCH AS THEY SCAN

Visitors to your website don’t “read” your content like they read the newspaper or a book.

They scan the page, quickly reviewing headlines, titles, and links to help them very quickly get the gist of the page. Long, dense blocks of text turn off website visitors and do NOT get read.

When a visitor comes to your website, you only have a few precious seconds to grab their attention and help them understand they have reached a page worth staying on. That is the challenge of design (and great writing) and the first step we address with all our new clients – how do we quickly and clearly communicate TRUST to our website visitors.

15 TIPS FOR GREAT WEBSITE CONTENT

(1)    Briefly and efficiently tell your visitors what you DO.

(2)    Make it INTERESTING and down-to-earth. If it isn’t get some help – dry, boring content doesn’t inspire action. But that doesn’t mean you should fill your pages with hot air, hype and crazy adjectives – take a conversational tone that shows respect for your reader.

(3)    Use the word ‘you’ much more than ‘I’ or ‘we’ or ‘customers.’

(4)    Keep your website current with fresh content.  This gives visitors a reason to come back and search engines LOVE this!

(5)    Only one idea per paragraph – simple, easy to digest is the goal.

(6)    Use words that inspire action. Run some of your adjectives to describe your product through a thesaurus for a fresh take.

(7)    Use visuals for emphasis!

(8)    Write so people can scan pages quickly and easily.  Bullet points and short lists are best. If the content is excellent but lengthy, write a brief summary and link to the larger, downloadable file.

(9)    Delete content that isn’t relevant to what your visitors are looking for.  Likewise, re-read what you’ve written several times and delete words or sentences that aren’t necessary.

(10)  Use lists instead of paragraphs whenever possible

(11)  Give them a reason to trust you.

(12)  Make links part of your copy. They stand out and help readers stay interested so they know what the page is about.

(13)  Make it as EASY as possible for visitors to buy / subscribe / download / enroll / unsubscribe.

(14)  Always include a ‘home’ and ‘contact us’ page on every page of your site.

(15)  Use correct grammar and spelling. VERY important.

(16)  Re-read what you’ve written, or better yet, have someone else read it, to make sure that it’s clear and unambiguous.

HELPFUL ARTICLES WE FOUND ON THE SUBJECT:

• 10 useful tips for writing better web content
• Web content tips

Does the writing on your website need improvement? We have writers on staff at Saw Web Marketing who would love to help kick it up a notch (or give it a whole new take). Give us a shout if we can help!

Do you mind sharing the one thing that you took away from this article? We love comments from our readers!

If this article was helpful or interesting please share it with your friends (this is how we grow the business and allows us to keep sharing good content) Thank you!

Matthew

(Learn more about our team, see our proven bottom-line results, see samples of our design work, and more.)

Related articles:
What’s the real deal with ranking #1 on Google?
Don’t get ripped off on SEO

Let’s get to the good stuff:

MYTH #1 : You have to buy advertising from Google and other search engines to get a good ranking.

I have heard this one a lot and it’s not true. It’s an easy assumption to make. Google makes billions of dollars a year selling advertising by providing the most relevant websites possible (not the ones that paid them) Visitors aren’t looking for lists of websites that paid Google to be there.

MYTH #2: SEO is all about (insert buzzword or catch-phrase here.)

Effective SEO isn’t “all about” any one thing. Successful SEO campaigns depend on many factors: links matter a great deal, onsite optimization is critical, press releases and article submissions matter. A blog is an excellent way to provide new, fresh content on a regular basis (SUPER important).

MYTH #3: SEO is a one-time event you can do and be done with.

SEO must be actively maintained. Google results reflect what is happening with your web presence on an ongoing basis. Instead SEO is constantly changing and evolving to try and keep up with the constant updates that Google makes to the algorithm that determines the order of websites.

MYTH #4: Pay Per Click will hurt your organic rankings

We’re talking about paying for your company to appear at the top of the page for certain specific search terms, as a paid advertiser featured above the main search results.
Running such a Pay Per Click (PPC) campaign will not directly affect your organic ranking negatively or positively. PPC can be good for getting extra traffic. One of the benefits, especially to a new website, is you can come up at the top of the page as soon as tomorrow for very specific keywords. The downside is web users know this is a paid ad and it won’t get the same number of clicks as being at the top of the organic listings.
  

MYTH #5: Using a service that promises to register your site with “hundreds of search engines” is good for your site’s rankings.

If you believe that, then I have some ocean front property in Arizona you might be interested in.  Don’t fall for this one.

MYTH #6: Search Engine Optimization is a bunch of tricks to fool search engines.

“Real” SEO involves a lot more than disposable marketing “tricks.”  Keyword analysis, web design, excellent user experience, SEO copywriting, plus a well written and designed call-to-action are just a few of the key attributes of a good SEO plan.

MYTH #7: Keywords in meta tags is optimization.

Meta tags are written for people, not the robots that crawl websites indexing what they find for search engine information.

MYTH #8:  SEO content has to be a certain length.

There was a big rumor that proposed a specific number of words were needed in order to get indexed and to increase your position. Your content should be as long as it needs to be to tell the reader exactly what you need to.

MYTH #9: SEO firms are endorsed/approved by Google.

If you hear someone say they are “Google Approved,” “a partner with Google,” or “they endorse us as an optimizer” – hang up the phone!

MYTH #10: You don’t have to change your site to do SEO.

While it may not always be necessary, if your site isn’t designed to convert a high percentage of visitors into paying customers, then some changes will be in order. The ultimate goals of any SEO campaign is not to simply increase traffic, but increase traffic and ultimately convert that traffic into leads, sales, dollars, and subscriptions (whatever you goals are).

MYTH #11: Outsourcing link building to a far-away, hourly contractor with no knowledge of your business is a good link acquisition solution.

NO, it isn’t!

MYTH #12: SEO is a function of IT

Search engine optimization started out in the cubicles of IT, but has moved into the executive offices for many companies. The smartest companies today make it a business decision line item, like any other marketing expenditure. IT and Web Design/Development “buy-in” are critical for proper implementation. It’s important to understand that in larger organizations, SEO is multi-departmental.

If you need a new website or interested in putting your existing one to WORK give us a shout – we would love to help!

If this article was helpful or interesting please share it with your friends (this is how we grow the business and allows us to keep sharing good content) Thank you!

5 Myths About Google’s Algorithms

MOST IMPORTANT FACTORS IN HELPING OUR CLIENTS ACHIEVE SUCCESS

-     Excellent communication – Internet marketing, SEO, website design and development can be incredibly confusing. We work very hard to maintain a great working relationship with all our clients.

-     Clear goals – Getting crystal-clear goals on what the client want to accomplish in working with Saw Web Marketing is job #1.

-     Clear expectations – It works both ways. We are accountable for the work we are being paid for. At the same time, for you to achieve the highest level of success in turning your website into a highly valuable, income producing asset it takes a team effort. Part of our job is to make the input needed from you specific and easy to understand.

OUTSIDE FACTORS THAT NEED DISCUSSED

-     How aggressive is the competition with their Internet marketing and how long have they been at it?

-     Does your company stand out among the competition and have a unique competitive edge?

-     How competitive are the keywords you want to rank for?

THE COMPANY WHO HANDLES YOUR WEBSITE CURRENTLY  

-     Is your website designed with SEO in mind?

-     Are you and your current company open to changing your site to improve results?

-     For those aspects that we will not be directly handling for you, are you and your current company willing to implement our recommendations quickly so we can get the most results from our combined efforts?

-     We have NO desire to push whoever is handling your website currently to the side but we do have design, development, and hosting capabilities at Saw Web Marketing. If you are happy with who you are with currently that’s GREAT, You can trust we will play nicely with everybody on your team!

YOU’RE PIECE OF THE PUZZLE

-     Fresh, original, relevant content is a very important piece of any website ranking well, nobody argues that. Do you have a plan for this or somebody on your staff that we can train to produce this? Alternatively, if you or one of your staff can provide us with input from your expert perspective as we need it, we can provide a writer to work with you to produce regular fresh content.

-     How committed are you to work towards ranking in the top 3 on Google? Do you want quick results or do you want to build something strong that will stand the test of time? We will do our best to make it clear what the timeframe is and what kind of results you can expect in that time, so that you don’t get discouraged and waste your time and money by changing gears mid-stream if you don’t see a miracle in 2 months.

-     Are you committed to implementing the suggestions you receive from us?

-     Many clients will start to see some success from their SEO campaign and start ‘pitching in’ and trying to ‘help’. This can be great if it is tightly coordinated with us, but more often it can have disastrous effects on the effectiveness of our work. It’s important your campaign has a focused effort and clear vision.

-      Involve your SEO professional in changes in branding, marketing, new product launches, new hires or developments inside your business.

NOT KNOWING WHERE THE BODIES ARE BURIED

-     If you couldn’t resist and paid $50 bucks for 3,000 twitter followers or you paid $89 for an ‘exclusive’ listing at the top of Google by an ‘affiliate’ of Google, don’t be shy – tell us.

MONEY

-     What is the budget the SEO company has to work with? This will determine the hours that can be put into the campaign.

NO DIRTY TRICKS

-     It IS possible to play games with the search engines and every now and then produce quick results and cut to the front of the line but the consequences are severe. You can get your site pushed down into oblivion or removed from the index altogether! This will NEVER happen to our clients at Saw Web Marketing.

TIME – TIME – TIME is a huge factor when it comes to SEO. Search Engine Optimization takes time and nothing can change that – we are BUILDING TRUST with the search engines.
Imagine a young man you don’t know anything about comes to pick up your daughter for a date. Is there ANY way that he could introduce himself that first time that will make you TRUST HIM instantly? Same thing applies here. We are showing the search engines over time why your website is trustworthy, delivering value to users, and plays well with others.

Do you mind sharing the one thing that you took away from this article? We love comments from our readers!

If this article was helpful or interesting please share it with your friends (this is how we grow the business and allows us to keep sharing good content) Thank you!

Matthew (hire me)

Are you dealing with one of the ‘SEO experts’ that harass every website owner with ridiculous claims of making you #1 on Google and helping you realize untold riches for only $299.00? This article and the one linked above will provide you with enough confidence and clarity to run circles around their hype.

The ONLY starting point for a successful SEO campaign is doing some research first. If anybody EVER claims they can impact your rankings without doing at least a little homework first the ONLY thing they are interested in is YOUR MONEY!

What kind of homework?

-          What keywords provide the greatest opportunity for your website?

-          How much competition is there for the keywords you are targeting?

-          Is there sufficient demand to justify the expense?

It might be helpful to explain what SEO is:

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. This is the process of increasing the chances of your website coming up high in the search engine results.

What is SEO not?

It is not a trick. It is not a gimmick. It is not a game.

Step back and think about it this way

-          Search engines are in the business of selling advertising and they make BILLIONS of dollars doing this.

-          They are able to sell this advertising because BILLIONS of individuals all over the planet use Google every day.

-          Billions of people use (and trust) Google because they are incredibly good at producing the most relevant results that deliver a high level of VALUE.

-          One reason why it’s so incredibly involved and challenging to rank at the top of Google is because there are so many individuals (and companies) that try and game the results on the search engines and cheat their way to the top.

In summary the best way to prevent being ripped off on SEO is to understand it’s all about VALUE for the end user. This is what the search engines are looking for in literally more than 200 different ways.

A reputable SEO professional will help you deliver VALUE to your potential customers in such a way that will make the job of the search engines a little bit easier, thereby increasing your chances of coming up higher and higher.

If anybody ever tells you that SEO is all about “      insert the catchy phrase of the month here       “ just know they are going against the grain and the chances they are smarter than the engineers at Google is pretty unlikely.

Bottom line is it’s not easy or about any one thing.

Do you mind sharing the one thing that you took away from this article? We love comments from our readers!

If this article was helpful or interesting please share it with your friends (this is how we grow the business and allows us to keep sharing good content) Thank you!

Matthew (hire me)

Check out this image:

(As of 8/16/2012 Google was conducting 3 BILLION searches a day – that’s over 2 million a SECOND on average!)

I typed in ‘sports bar wichita ks’ and according to Google Heroes Sports Bar & Grill is the MOST RELEVANT result they could find. (Followed by Larry Buds Sports Bar and Grill – a client of Saw Web Marketing).

How did they determine the order of those results and which site deserves to be on the front page?

The order is the result of a complex formula called an algorithm; it is a combination of logic or rule-based methods and complex mathematical formulas. This algorithm calculates over 200 factors about each page on the web to determine which websites make the cut and in which order. To make matters even more difficult, there are other algorithms that govern what adjustments need to made to the search-order algorithm. The result is that the guiding rules and formulas change and evolve on a fairly regular basis.

So how will Search Engine Optimization help my business?  

At Saw Web Marketing we take a holistic approach to SEO and every clients needs are different.  (One thing we do NOT believe in is tricks or gimmicks when it comes to SEO. This can backfire and result in a website being penalized or removed all together).

Your website is a tool for your business to help achieve its organizational goals. Our goal at Saw Web Marketing is to help our client’s realize the maximum amount of value for their website, and SEO is one piece of that puzzle.

Some of the areas that we cover with every client (we are able to bring a great deal of SEO experience to this conversation).

-          HOW your website will bring value to your business?

-          HOW are your potential customers searching online for a business like yours?

-          HOW can we bring a great deal of value to the visitors to your website so they want to come back and share?

-          WHAT do you want your clients to DO once they visit your website?

-          HOW can we help guide them through that process with effective writing and compelling design?

-          What can we put in place to gain the contact information for your visitors or give them a reason to contact you?

-          WHAT is the best way to add relevant, original content to your website that your visitors will appreciate and share?

Once we accomplish the above half, the SEO battle is already won and the best part is it’s won the RIGHT way (vs. gimmicks and schemes to artificially and temporarily get traffic or improved rankings).

If you are giving visitors to your website a great deal of value they are more likely to stay on your site longer and either bookmark or share what they found (or both). If your website has clear, clean design with compelling writing they are more likely to take the next step (you MUST tell them what this is) If you are providing relevant, original content on a regular basis you are helping establish yourself as an authority in your field and increasing the chances others will link to your website.

Some might say that’s all about increasing the experience for the user not about SEO. Actually it did both, by improving the experience for the visitors to your website and the results your business is taking to the bank it also covered no less than 6 EXTREMELY important areas in any SEO campaign.

Is that all there is to SEO?

No, there are certainly very important pieces of the puzzle, some very easy and others very time consuming but if you are going to start somewhere doesn’t it make sense to start with what will bring your visitors the most value and dollars in the bank for your business while we help you climb the rankings?

How does this differ from how you understood SEO? Please comment below if you have any questions, we would love to hear from you.

If you need a new website or interested in putting your existing one to WORK give us a shout – we would love to help!

If this article was helpful or interesting please share it with your friends (this is how I grow my business and allows me to keep sharing good content) Thank you!

Matthew (hire me)

SERIOUSLY.

Keywords are just the words that people type into Google and other search engines when they’re looking for something on the internet.

Your keywords are the optimal search terms that Keyword Research determines you should concentrate on – those that have the most potential to bring the highest number of the most relevant users to your page. Once those keywords are chosen, the idea is that when people type those words into a search engine, your website appears near the top of the page.

If you go about the journey of designing and developing a website without Keyword Research you are setting yourself up for failure. With Keyword Research you are starting out on a path to a successful website that actually helps your business!

HOW IT USUALLY STARTS
We worked with a client last year, a spine surgeon here in Wichita (who wishes to remain anonymous). He wanted a website for a new practice. Let’s imagine (like many small business owners) he worked with your average company that doesn’t understand the difference between a website and a website that is designed to WORK and produce leads for its owner.

Let’s imagine the client elected to skip keyword research or, more likely, the ‘website designer’ or IT company that was building their website never even brought it up. What would they have likely built that website around?

Spine surgery? Certainly.
Back surgery? No doubt.
Disc degeneration? I’m sure.
Cervical spine? Definitely.

Welcome to one more website relegated to a dusty corner of the Internet and one more frustrated business owner who you hear saying “my website hasn’t brought me a single piece of business”. (We hear this a lot at Saw Web Marketing).

WHAT WENT WRONG

Take a look at the Keyword Research Report we did for this spine surgeon (right here in Wichita).

This report shows us that building a website around spine surgery would have not been wise because while that particular term gets an enormous amount of traffic (165k searches a month in the U.S. alone) it also has enormous competition. (647 sites with a combined 15 million, 300 thousand pages) that have an average PageRank of 3.2 which is very high.

Back surgery also has incredibly high search volume, approximately 165,000 searches a month but like spine surgery it has 661 sites competing for that specific term with over 5 MILLION pages all competing for the keyword ‘back surgery’ with an incredibly strong PageRank to boot.

This is not a mountain a new website can climb.

THE RIGHT WAY TO BEGIN YOUR WEBSITE PROJECT

We help our clients identify keywords (these are just terms people use when searching the Internet). with MODERATE / HIGH SEARCH VOLUME with LOW / MEDIUM COMPETITION!

Shouldn’t every website about spine surgery be optimized for high value keywords like ‘spine surgery’ and ‘back surgery’, of course, but here’s the magic – what ELSE can we optimize for to increase your chances of getting found? Take a look again at the keyword research again and let’s find some pieces of true gold to help make this website worthwhile.

Sciatic nerve exercises gets over 22,000 searches a month in the U.S. (granted that’s not sexy like 165k but it’s still respectable.) but it also only has 330 pages competing for it which a LOW PageRank of only 1.9 on average.

Scoliosis in adults gets 6,600 searches a month with only 355 competitors with an average page rank of 1.8

Spinal stenosis exercises gets 4,400 searches a month with less than 300 competing sites with a VERY LOW PageRank.

Those 3 keywords alone represent 27k searches a month and have very low competition.

Is it realistic that a spine surgeon who has a rich, full site would have pages that cover sciatic nerve exercises, scoliosis in adults and spinal stenosis exercises? Of course, but narrowing down exactly what to cover and how is a question best guided by competent Keyword Research.

Is it feasible that if somebody is searching Google for one of those terms they are a good candidate for our spine surgeon – absolutely!

ALL KEYWORD RESEARCH IS NOT CREATED EQUAL!

Ask to a see a recent sample report they provided another client before committing. Shortly after starting Big Sky Party Rentals years ago we made the mistake of wasting $250.00 dollars on ‘keyword research’ from a company here in Wichita. This is what we got – don’t let this happen to you!

Click here to visit Google Adwords tool. This is another incredibly powerful FREE tool from Google.

Was this article helpful? Please share your comments below (even if you don’t agree I would love to hear from you, this is how I learn)

If this article was helpful or interesting please share it with your friends (this is how I grow my business and allows me to keep sharing good content) Thank you!

Matthew (hire me)