Yes, that Social Bookmarking thing still works

Posted by seo_writer_kvn as Social Websites Marketing

If you go to Wikipedia and search for the keyword “social networking websites” you’ll be presented with a list of 342 of them, none of which are dating sites. These are what are considered the “majors” in the social media world. Many will be familiar to you. Facebook, MySpace, Digg, Linked In, they’re all there. Flickr and YouTube are there (yes, YouTube is a social network), and so is Google+, so you know the list has been updated recently. One thing they all have in common – social bookmarking potential.

Social bookmarking works, but not quite the way you think it does. If you sign up for each of these 342 websites and post a link in your profile, you will have – 342 links. They won’t grow and you won’t get credited for more than that number – unless someone talks about you and sends your link to a friend. Then you could go viral and end up with a bunch of links. It happens. Just ask Tiger Woods. Post a link about a celebrity scandal and the whole world will see it in a matter of hours.

Another way to benefit from social bookmarking is for others to bookmark your site. Say you come across some really cool information in the course of researching for your next round of blog posting. If it’s valuable enough people will want to keep it, so they will bookmark it. How-to lists and recipes are generally considered great for attracting bookmarks. Obscure facts and good jokes aren’t bad either. Be creative and you’ll be surprised at the social media results you can get from a good blog post.

When creating new blogs for our clients we generally include “share” buttons for social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. These allow readers to instantly submit a link to a blog post to their social network friends and followers. You’ll see icons for some of these below this post. Please use them. As a leading Los Angeles SEO firm we know the value of social media and we’re happy to be the beneficiary of it whenever possible.

Why would you want to pay for PPC Management? Why wouldn’t you?

Posted by seo_writer_kvn as Internet Marketing

There are those who still believe you need to make a choice between SEO and PPC management. We subscribe to that school of thought. Look at our service menu and you’ll see that we offer organic SEO and PPC management. They don’t compete with each other; they compliment each other. One of the variables in the Google algorithm is traffic, which PPC can give you. That traffic can be a benefit to you in more ways than one. Going in 2012, it may be one of the most important factors in your success.

PPC provides instant traffic, the kind that will give you instant dollars. History tells us that having that extra money to invest in your business at the beginning of an election year will pay off for you at the end of the year if you make the right choices between now and then. It’s particularly true when an incumbent president is running for a second term. You can expect lower interest rates and minimal fuel prices during the campaign months, making it a great time to expand, both on and offline.

Run your PPC ads, collect the profits from them now, and let us do some link building for the future. Invest in custom blog creation while your overhead is low and spend a few dollars to add new pages to your website. Regardless of who wins this falls election you can bet that prices will go back up soon after the inauguration. That too has been proven by history. We encourage you to take advantage of your temporary windfall while it’s still available to you. We’ll help you spend it wisely.

Politics aside, organic SEO is an investment. PPC is an expense. You can expect to turn a quick profit off the latter, but the former provides long term sustainable results that will carry you into the future. This year is going to be one of ups and downs, trial and tribulations, triumphs and tragedies. The economy should rebound, at least for a while, but will it be a substantial enough comeback to bring long-term prosperity? Time reveals the answers eventually. It has for us. SEO works with PPC. Let us show you how.

Ever find yourself legitimately listening to a web presenter?

Posted by seo_writer_kvn as Website Design

Where’s the mute button? You know that’s your first thought when you see a web presenter walk across the screen. No one really wants to listen to those animated sales presentations, right? Have you ever found yourself legitimately paying attention to one of them? Here at Webwise Media, we’ve done studies and found that most folks tune out after a few sentences, unless those sentences catch their attention and the web presenter is in the form of an attractive woman or man. Both work far better than the cartoon characters a number of companies have tried and failed with.

There’s a lot that goes into the creation of new elements for a client’s website. We don’t just pick a web presenter out of the box and program it with a canned script. The first few words, the tone of those words, the posture and facial expressions, all are critical to capturing a visitor’s attention. Those times when you have found yourself actually listening to the web presenter? Those are the times when the marketing company has put their time and energy into doing it right. Chances are you were looking at one of our client’s websites that day.

The web presenter service is one of many that we offer as part of website SEO and design packages for small businesses. It may be the right choice for you and it may not. When it comes to presenting a welcoming and informative message, there are few better ways to do it, but if your approach is more technical you might want to go with a content driven method. You could also try video if your product or service lends itself to that medium of communication. We offer all three methods.

A specialist from Webwise Media will walk you through each of these mediums, web presenter, content, and video, and answer any questions you might have. We offer each as a stand alone service or you can bundle them together and take advantage of one of our small business SEO packages. We’ll customize one specifically for your needs and make it affordable no matter what your budget is. Call today to learn more.

Forum Posting has to be more than just Spamming Links

Posted by seo_writer_kvn as Blogs

There are two schools of thought on forum posting. The first, and unfortunately most common approach, is to just “get a link and post some keywords”. We call that the Spam Approach. You’ve seen it. Someone will comment on one of your forum posts with a generic statement like “This was very informative” followed by a grammatically incorrect sentence or two with a link embedded in there somewhere that has nothing to do with the subject matter. Those who monitor their forums delete these.

The second, and far more effective approach, is to actually engage in a forum discussion on a subject that is relevant to your industry. Those who have been following the latest changes in algorithmic page rank calculations know that these are the only forum links that count. Posting links on any random site will not help you climb the page rank ladder. In fact, it might just get you knocked off. Link building is a task that requires planning and research. It’s no longer a matter of how many links you post, but where you post them that counts in search engine calculations.

The rules for forum posting are the same ones we covered in our last post about directory submissions and social bookmarking. They also apply to blog posting on sites other than your own. Sure, the content makes for a better link, but where did you put it? Google has blacklisted a number of blog sites, and some have even been taken offline for using too much duplicate content. When posting blogs, make sure there’s an author or email verification process of some kind. Sites that don’t have some type of identity confirmation or spam prevention in place are not worth posting on.

Another area you can apply these guidelines is article writing and distribution. Like forums, directories, social media, and blog sites, article directories are assigned an authority score by Google. If you’re still mass submitting articles and wondering why the links don’t count, now you know. Submit manually and submit original content. That’s how we do it. Call us to learn more about this and other link building techniques.

Have you noticed that your directory submission list is shrinking?

Posted by seo_writer_kvn as Directory Submissions

A few years ago you didn’t hear terms like “authority site” or “PR5 and above” when people talked about directory submissions. You certainly didn’t consider “niche specific” to be a category you had to pay attention to. Today, all of these are relevant, and the list of directories that will actually give you link juice is shrinking rapidly. Try submitting to the wrong ones and you’ll see your page rank drop, not increase. Submit to enough that are blacklisted and you might just disappear into search engine oblivion.

Forget the Bing and Yahoo rankings for now. If you do an analysis of them along with your Google page ranks you might think you’re actually in good shape. Neither has made the algorithmic changes Google has yet, so you can still rank high with bad links. Unfortunately, Google accounts for over 90% of search traffic, so it’s their rules we have to play by. If they say a directory is blacklisted, don’t submit your site there. If you don’t know which is which, don’t submit anything. Let us do it for you.

The same rules apply to social bookmarking. The social media platform hasn’t been new for almost a decade and there are now thousands of them out there. You can easily build one yourself using content management systems that have been developed specifically for the task. Don’t think that, just because it looks like Facebook, it’s a good choice to link to. There are social media sites out there that are either too new or have already developed a bad reputation. Linking to either will decrease your page rank.

How do you keep track of it all? You don’t. Many of our clients have tried to do their own SEO and found that they continuously went backwards, not forward in search rankings. We keep track of the good sites and the bad, the algorithmic changes, the evolutions and revolutions that affect our industry, and we apply that knowledge to get the best results for you. The list of quality directories is shrinking because poor quality and link farms have been exposed. It’s actually good for business, as our clients have learned to their benefit. Call us anytime and we’ll explain why.

Search the term “Los Angeles SEO”. You’ll find Webwise Media

Posted by seo_writer_kvn as Search Engine Optimization

How good are we? Search the term “Los Angeles SEO” and you can find out for yourself. What is the goal of any organic SEO firm? To get you to the top of Page One, right? That’s where you’ll find us, consistently. We’ve been in business for over a decade and the times we have not been on the first page of search results can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Simply put, the most competitive keyword in the largest SEO market on the planet belongs to us. Imagine what we can do for you.

The proof is in the results. We ask new clients all the time where they found us and the answer is invariably always the same – through search. If you’re looking to hire a company to improve your page rank, wouldn’t you want that company to have a high page rank of their own? We do, and we use the same SEO approach to our own firm that we use with our clients. Dedicated link building efforts, consistent blogging, and website SEO from the top designers in our industry are just a few of our techniques.

Have you considered adding video or a web presenter to your site? We pioneered a lot of the technology that’s behind the indexing and scripting of these elements. If you’re going to add something new to the website that’s your business lifeline, don’t you want to work with the small business SEO firm that started it all? We were around when Google was still in its infancy and we’ve watched them grow, taking note of each move they make. No one knows search marketing better than Webwise Media.

Anyone can claim to be the best. How many can actually present evidence to prove it? Our search page rank for “Los Angeles SEO” is just one of many Page One listings we can present to you. We also have a number of them to show for our clients and we can work our magic to attain one for you. SEO is no longer a mystery service only performed by faceless companies with shady reputations. Work with us; you’ll know each member of your team on a first name basis, you’ll pay less, and you’ll get much better results.

Blog Posting at least Once a Week will put you on Page One

Posted by seo_writer_kvn as Blogs

Does this sound like a common theme to you? If you’ve been reading our blog, it should. Nothing secures a high page rank better than the addition of fresh, dynamic content on a regular basis. The best way to add that content is to have our custom blog creation team add a blog to your site and post regularly, at least once a week. We’ve been using this formula for almost a decade now and it has worked every time. Our clients who have taken advantage of our blog writing services are all on Google Page One.

The changes in the Google algorithm early last year, known as Google Panda or Google Farmer, simply reinforced what our philosophy has been all along. Relevant, quality content is the key to higher page rank. When a web surfer is searching for a specific product or service, the job of the search engine is to find the site that most accurately answers their inquiry. Meta tags were once the sole method of doing this, but tags can be modified. Search spiders today look for the content and url that best match the search inquiry. For best results, you want to make sure both are industry specific.

Why once a week? Many companies have sign-up options or “subscribe to blog” boxes built into their site. Connect these features to your blog RSS feed through an email program and you can automatically send out an email blast whenever you post. You don’t want to do that more than once a week. Targeted email marketing works best when your subscribers opt in. You don’t want to alienate them after that by over-saturating them with too many posts. Post regularly but not excessively.

Another good reason to post once a week is that search spiders will be forced to come back and re-index your website every time you put a post up. Dynamic content is by far the best way to move up in page rank. You’ll find that every time you add content you’ll see a little upward movement. Include keywords that are relevant to your industry when you write those posts and incorporate anchor text to increase your internal link count. Need help? Contact us here at Webwise Media and we’ll take care of the entire process for you. You’ll start seeing more traffic in no time.

Top Five Tips for Organic SEO in 2012

Posted by seo_writer_kvn as Organic SEO Marketing

Did you know that Google publishes many of their algorithmic search changes to help small businesses attain better page ranks? Far too many folks have been viewing the search giant as akin to the “Evil Empire” depicted in science fiction movies when their sole purpose in recent years has been to improve user experiences on the web. Changes in page rank calculations are designed to give the searcher the most accurate results possible. Legitimate organic SEO firms make it a point to understand and work with these changes, not attempt to circumvent them.

Last week, in a blog post by Google’s Matt Cutts titled “Ten Recent Algorithm Changes”, we gained some insight into what to expect in 2012. Google makes over five hundred of these changes every year, so we look for common themes and then base our SEO decisions on the tendencies they are showing us. It’s not too difficult to see what direction search is going in. Quality content, as always, is valued above all else. Next on the list would be your website SEO, and then a stronger emphasis on images and video. Here’s our Top Five for Organic SEO in 2012:

1. Post regular content on your blog
2. Make sure summary and title tags are more descriptive
3. Don’t be afraid to add video
4. Freshen up or delete old or stale content
5. Eliminate redirects, squeeze pages, and pop-ups

We’ve been talking about the value of content for years, so there’s nothing new there. On the tags, there has been a rumor going around that they’re no longer relevant. Don’t believe it. Website SEO is an important part of the process. Not having title and description tags counts against you, as does simply spamming keywords as Meta descriptions. With video and static images, HTML5 and other tools have made these elements visible to search spiders now, so pay more attention when creating them.

Items 4 and 5 are new on our list this year. The trends we see from Cutts’ latest post tell us that stale content will be shelved and fresh content gets the higher page rank. Consistently posting to your blog will help you with this, but freshen up or delete older, stale content and you’ll see an even bigger boost. While you’re at it, get rid of the redirects, squeeze pages, and pop-ups that hold visitors hostage. If you want your customers to come to your site and stay a while, give them something valuable to stay for. You’ll find if you do that they’ll actually come back again.

Why Your Lack of Backlinks is Killing Your Website Search Engine Rankings

Posted by seo_writer_joe as Search Engine Optimization

SEOmoz.com, a leading developer of SEO software, estimates that incoming links are one of the two most important factors impacting small business SEO (the other factor is onsite link metrics).

What are backlinks, anyway?

Backlinks are links from other sites that are directed to your website. Google estimates your Pagerank partly by evaluating the number and quality of your backlinks.

Google is on a never-ending search for quality content.  It counts each backlink as a “vote” for your content. The more votes, the better your Pagerank.

How do you get more backlinks? First, create high quality content that people want to share. It is the best long-term strategy. Good content will endure Google updates better than any other factor.

There are some additional tactics you might consider to help speed the acquisition of backlinks:

• Reciprocal Linking- approach websites in your industry or related industries to see if they would be interested in reciprocal linking with your site. This is also known as a link exchange. Be careful, though. The links must be pertinent. If you link your dog-training site to a car wash site, it will actually hurt you.

• Anchor Text- the actual highlighted words in a hyperlink are known as the anchor text. Google looks at the anchor text of incoming links to help it determine what a site is about. If every incoming link to your dog-training site has the anchor text “dog training,” Google sees a consistent pattern and will boost your site in the search results for the phrase “dog training.” The trick is to get that actual hyperlink phrase you want on most or all of your incoming links.

Quality content drives the web. People get on the internet for many reasons but mostly to find answers to a problem. When you provide in depth information that helps people, you are going a long way to increase backlinks and build your Pagerank. And that can only help your small business SEO.

How To Use Targeted Email To Recapture Lost Clients

Posted by seo_writer_joe as Email Marketing

In a tough economy, it’s more important than ever before to stay to maximize sales from all customers. Targeted email marketing is a great way to contact customers that have not done business with you for a long while. You can reignite their passions using these keys:

•    Make Customized Offers- remind customers how important they are to you and make an offer to encourage them to spend money again. You can use a free coupon for a special item, a free “service review,” or free sneak peak at upcoming sales.

•    Initiate A Customer Loyalty Program- map out a 12-month series of client communications. This can come in the form of email newsletters, real newsletters, postcards, birthday wishes, humorous cards, etc.

•    Capture Client Details- many businesses cannot start a client loyalty program because they don’t have any client contact details. Begin immediately to capture client data including emails. If the date is already in the computer system, get it out and use.

•    Provide Pass Alongs- help current customers reach out to dormant customers. Encourage them to bring in friends and family that have not stopped in your establishment in a while. Use “pass-alongs” like brochures and newsletters to help them remind other people why you are great.

•    Check Your Analytics- Web analytics can help indicate if there is fall off for any particular products, sales or promotions. Double your efforts to refresh tired merchandising efforts that no longer “motivates your base.”

•    Prevention- is your current marketing mix forgetting about your current customers? This is common. Many businesses spend a lot of time and energy getting new clients when they can make more profit by simply attending to current customers more.

•    Consider Customer Lifetime Value- once you look at the average value of a customer over the entire scope of what they spend with you during their lifetime, you can see how much you can spend to profitably return them to the fold. If they will spend $1200 over 5 years, a $20 investment to get them to return is worthwhile.

Studies show that up to 40 percent of a business’s list is inactive at any time. Employ these targeted email marketing strategies and you’ll go a long way toward preventing “lost customers.”