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Is your SEO strategy on track? On Page Optimization & Keywords

Topic: WorkingPoint News | Comments Off on Is your SEO strategy on track? On Page Optimization & Keywords

Posted on October 21, 2010 by admin

A few days ago I was reading this really great article from Tech Crunch, “SEO at the enterprise level- A major flop” which talks about how large companies are failing to use the most basic SEO techniques to build effective websites. Spurred by the natural curiosity of an SEO junkie like myself I clicked on every link in the article (that’s where all the good stuff is hiding) and was amazed to stumble upon a free tool that shows you what your site looks like to Google.

I immediately entered in the WorkingPoint Website, as well as every website I have ever worked with, been involved with, or just liked a lot. It was so exciting for me to see exactly what keywords were really showing, and how the different sites looked compared with each other. In fact I was so excited by my findings that I had to share them with everybody I knew….

Here’s what my email looked like:

And this was his response:

Oops. I guess in my excitement I forgot that this tool might require some explanation.

This tool is a great tracking tool for your “on page optimization”.  On page optimization refers to those tactics which can be controlled by you. These are things you can build into or put on your website to make it easier to search. On page optimization for SEO is about making your site as friendly as possible for the search engines to read and use.

On page optimization typically involves elements of web design, coding, things like “meta tags”,  which is why I strongly recommend leaving it to web designers, specifically web designers with a background in SEO. This web designer will put your keywords in most of  the important places in the static part of the site, like the title inside the <head> tag.

If you’re thinking about engaging a web designer but what to understand more about what you need them to do, I recommend reading Ben Parr’s  article on “on page tactics” for website search optimization, or you can check out WorkingPoint’s intro guide to Maximizing Your Website which gives a thorough, but basic, overview of on page optimization.

Sadly, effective SEO doesn’t end with on page optimization. As much as engineers and web designers would love it to be true, the on page factors are important but only a small part of what determines your search rank.

Effective SEO strategy tends to permeate every element of your web presence. Once you have the keywords in all those important places in your web design, you still need to seek out inbound links which point to those keywords. It also helps to produce content, like blog posts and video, which contain the keywords in the title and body of the content.

I love this infographic on how Google works because it really does help to illustrate how search works. The first step? You write a blog post tweet, update a site, or otherwise add content to the web. This site shows you what your site “looks like” to Google. Meaning, what content the Google Crawlers (see step 2) are finding when they see your site. What should they be seeing in order to improve your search rank? Your keywords!

The SEO browser tool is helpful because it shows you what the crawlers are seeing when the come to visit your site, which means you can see in a very clear way if you are doing a good job of using your keywords on your website.

I decided to use the website from the  SEO Case Study as an example since his email made it seem like he was unclear about what the results were showing him.

You can see that on this page, they’ve done a great job of incorporating their keywords, the term “Foster Care” appears seven times a the top of the site.  However if you scroll down further to the blog content, which they update pretty frequently, there are none of the keywords. Since this is the freshest text and the most recent content being pushed to the web, it’s the part of the site which Google is going to “see” first.  Google’s crawlers don’t really differentiate between your “real” website and your blog when it comes to search, so it’s really important that this section of your website includes your keywords also.

Any tactic worth doing is worth doing right, which means utilizing tools to make sure you are meeting your metrics,  staying focused on your goals and getting the return on the time and money you are investing in this strategy. Try putting your website into the SEO tool. Are you are seeing your keywords on your site and in your blog? Are you seeing them enough? If not, consider engaging a web designer, or trying to write some keyword focused blog posts. Help the people who need to find you to find you!

Social Networking and Customer Service– Is It Important for the Average Business Yet?

Topic: Small Business Marketing,Tech Tools | Comments Off on Social Networking and Customer Service– Is It Important for the Average Business Yet?

Posted on October 20, 2010 by admin

Guest Post by Katrina Lake.

TechCrunch recently wrote about this RightNow study that asserts that customer service is especially important since the advent of social networking. While I agree with this assertion generally and have personally benefited from the trend (see my HauteLook post), I’m not sure if this trend is substantiated yet for most businesses, or if this data really supports it even if it is.

The main crux of the article is that “82% of US Consumers Bail on Brands After Bad Customer Service”– meaning, 82% of customers have had at least one customer service experience bad enough to lead them to bail on a brand. But is this really an impressive statistic? Using my Foursquare as a proxy (and I certainly don’t check in at every brand experience I have), I’ve checked into 55 businesses in the past months. 48 were new businesses. Even if you conservatively haircut that by half, that’s 25 new businesses in an average month, 300 businesses year– Is it really impressive that of 300 annual experiences, and over 10K businesses in a lifetime, that 82% of people have had one bad enough to never go back again?

I actually think the more interesting side of this is that a whopping 12% of consumers have NEVER bailed on a brand after a bad customer service. How many brands does the average consumer interact with in a year? A lifetime? And 12% have never bailed? Now that’s amazing.

And what about the link to social networking? The anecdotes– Dell, Delta– can be compelling that big brands should be aware of the potential impact of social networking, but what about for the average business? What % of customers even use social networks for customer service? The study doesn’t say (I suspect because it’s a very small number) and I don’t think the data is there yet to support such broad claims about the impact of social networking on customer service for US businesses as a whole.

That being said, I would love to see data that effectively shows this study’s claim. And even if they can’t support that claim for general populace of businesses, it would have been interesting if this study identified those businesses that have been most affected and be prescriptive to those types of businesses on what they can do to improve their customer service. Clearly, not every business (imagine the only supermarket in a 50 mile radius) is susceptible to customer attrition due to customer service– in order for a customer to be able to be driven away, there have to be reasonably convenient alternatives available for customers to drive away to. It would have been interesting if this study highlighted specific types of businesses with low switching costs and many alternatives that might be at risk—restaurants in urban areas or online retailers, for example– and how they could use social networking to improve their customer service.

I’d love to know– is social networking making it more important for your business to maintain a high customer service experience?

About the Author: Katrina worked at Polyvore, Leader Ventures, and The Parthenon Group before becoming a student at Harvard Business School. She is currently working with a group researching how SMBs use Twitter.

3 Reasons why you should be using a CRM Software

Topic: WorkingPoint News | Comments Off on 3 Reasons why you should be using a CRM Software

Posted on October 19, 2010 by admin

This article, written by our very own Community Manager, Dena Stern, first appeared in SmallBizBee.com.

Customers and vendors are a small businesses most valuable resource. Do you use a paper address book? Do your business contacts live  in a paper rolodex? Do you search by hand for client details, flipping through sheets of paper on a call trying to find the answer to someone’s question while frantically flipping through pages of notes? When was the last time you had a paper cut? Well those days should be behind you.

With the rise of the age of technology, your clients and customers expect you have instant access to their detailed information. Lost pages and delays are not good customer service and they reflect poorly on you and your business. The good news is that customer relationship management (CRM) is now cheap, easy to use and accessible.

Most small businesses just don’t need something big, expensive and complicated. Your biggest priority for your CRM should be to quickly and easily access up-to-date information about the people you do business with. Small business contact management software should do two things: help you organize and track information about your contacts and  help you track your interactions with them.

3 Reasons you should switch to a CRM for your Small Business!

Reason #1: An  address book just stores information on how to reach a contact, a CRM  track your interactions with your contacts. An address book just doesn’t allow you the ability to really include thorough, easy to find notes about  your clients. And a paper address or filing system really isn’t easily sortable.  Having this data stored with your contacts information makes it searchable, sortable and easier to deal with. It allows you to track not only the contact information, but when you talked, what you talked about, when they were billed, when payment was received and any other data that you learn while you are talking (birthdays, complaints, how those complaints were resolved).

Reason #2: In addition to contact and billing info a CRM stores miscellaneous details about your contact that you can refer to later. With detailed notes, plus all of their billing/receiving info at your fingertips, the information you need is at your fingertips. Telling someone, “Hold on, let me look that it up…” just does not have the same impact as “Of course, last time we talked you mentioned your birthday was this week, happy birthday! I know your last bill was sent out on 8/17… how can I help you?”.  Not only does having searchable, detailed notes save you time, it enables you make your customers feel important! Using a CRM allows you to seem as if you “remember” their account information and to avoid leaving out important details when you are interacting with people.

Reason #3: Using a CRM which links to your bookkeeping syncs your billing/ordering and inventory to your contact records and allows you to easily aggregate important business metrics, like sales volume. Tracking this data gives you invaluable access to data about your customers purchasing habits, allowing you to study patterns in ordering, predict and meet future demand, pull reports automatically and automate processes that would otherwise be tedious and time consuming. You’ll be able to pull out trends from the data in ways that would never be possible with other filing systems including insight into your customers’ purchasing habits. This data is organised in your CRM so you can look for and capitalize on  sales trends by product, location or season. Identifying these trends can also be a valuable tool to refine your marketing to reflect these trends!

WARNING: Twitter Owns your Photos! Read the fine print

Topic: WorkingPoint News | Comments (2)

Posted on October 18, 2010 by admin

Today I was briefly glancing at my beloved Twitter feed when I happened to see a provocative tweet by one of the world’s preeminent experts on New Media, Brian Solis.

The tweet linked to this article “Twitter can do WHAT with your photos?” from the  Combined Arms Research Library Blog. The article goes on to explain that in addition to all those great new features being introduced with the New Twitter there have been some changes to Twitter’s Terms of Use.

Apparently, if you share photos on Twitter, Twitter owns them. And can do whatever they want with them. Including sell them to advertisers or the AP. The person who shared them, would  of course get nothing…

As Carl from the Combined Arms Research Library Blog puts it:

Check out Twitter’s Terms of Use. It’s OK, we’re librarians, we know no one actually reads words any more. Here’re the juicy parts:

By submitting, posting or displaying Content on or through the Services, you grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, reproduce, process, adapt, modify, publish, transmit, display and distribute such Content in any and all media or distribution methods (now known or later developed).

OH WAIT. THEY GET TO USE MY STUFF FOR FREE? What if I don’t want photographs of Aunt Edna’s 80th birthday party used commercially? I mean, I was wearing a very ugly hat that day, and I had stains on my shirt.

But wait, there’s more!
You agree that this license includes the right for Twitter to make such Content available to other companies, organizations or individuals who partner with Twitter for the syndication, broadcast, distribution or publication of such Content on other media and services, subject to our terms and conditions for such Content use.

THEY CAN SELL IT TO THIRD PARTIES, LIKE THE AP, AND I GET NO REMUNERATION, BUT TWITTER DOES? So, like, if I just so happen to be at a major event, snap some pictures as it unfolds, and Tweet them from my phone for my friends to see, they could end up being sold to CNN or the Associated Press, and SOMEONE makes money off of my good luck (or hard work) and it’s not me? This is really going to mess up my job as a freelance artist/photographer!

I’m a huge advocate for the use of Social Media, but I don’t like the idea that by choosing this medium to share I give up my rights to that content. Facebook tried to do the same thing in 2009, and was met with a firestorm of controversy which began with this post from the Consumerist. Facebook responded and eventually decided to reverse the decision and ownership terms.

Now Twitter is attempting to do the same thing, will they face the same heavy criticism? This article is the first I have heard of the new terms of use, but it feels alot like the tip of the iceberg. The subject of copyright ownership of uploaded material is a big one, and users of Social Media need to be aware of the terms they sign on for to protect themselves.

How do you feel about the Twitter Ownership Policy? Help us to spread the word about the fine print!

Optimizing a Website for SEO/Social Media: A Case Study

Topic: Small Business Marketing,WorkingPoint News | Comments Off on Optimizing a Website for SEO/Social Media: A Case Study

Posted on October 14, 2010 by admin

The other day I came across a website for a non profit.  Their mission, to change the narrative about foster care, is relevant, touching and powerful. I was shocked by how little I understood about the complex and dynamic web of issues surrounding foster care and how well made, touching and informative the videos were. But I also couldn’t turn off the part of my brain that looks at every website with an eye to how that website could be better optimized for SEO, and how they are using Social Media in their overall strategy. After spending some time with this website, these are my take aways, which I believe could really help you to make your business website better.

Things This Website Does Right

1) Having incredibly dynamic, high quality content. Never forget the fundamentals of website success, offering really good, useful content. In this case, the incredible videos that the site hosts.  From an SEO perspective, many people believe that video content has more impact than written content. From a Social Media perspective video is ideal; engaging, dynamic, incredible “viral potential”. Social Media platforms are a delivery method for content. Good content will communicate your brand, or message. It will help you to build relationships. If all you have is your product, without content that works in Social Media platforms, your efforts with these platforms are just not going to deliver the ROI that you want to see.

2) Placing this dynamic content “above the fold”. Like newspaper, websites tend to be scanned before they are opened (or scrolled down if you want to be technical). The term “above the fold” refers to the initial view when you first visit a website, without scrolling or manipulating the window. This is where you have your chance to engage people. Grab them here or lose them. Fostering Media Connections places their best content (the videos) front and center above the fold. In fact even if you look at the research, even where you place the content above the fold is important.  Studies have been done on how the eye travels when looking at a web page and the top left quadrant is your prime real estate, the first place the eye travels to when you look at a box with information in it. This is where Fostering Media Connections puts their videos, and it’s exactly where that content should go.

3) Making it easy to connect. Fostering Media Connections has all of their  “connectors” (like us on Facebook, join our newsletter, donate, etc) in a prominent and convenient location above the fold. Now that you have them on your website, how do you capture them so you can start building a lasting relationship? Your “connectors” are the various ways you engage with your community, and the easier you make it for people to connect the more likely they are to do so.

Room for Improvement

1) Optimize Twitter Messaging When I click the retweet message the resulting tweet just says “Fostering Media Connections” with a url. No explanation. No messaging. This is a huge wasted opportunity for branding, expanding your network and reaching new people.  Studies show that people just don’t click on links, they retweet without reading. This means you must include something engaging in addition to your name and URL in your automatic twitter messaging. Tweet Meme, and all the other sharing tools, are so popular because they make sharing easier. Most people don’t edit what is automatically generated.

You have 140 characters to get your message out there.  Every time someone uses their social capital by pushing your content to their networks, you should be making the most of it. Tim Ferris’s  article “Blogging by Numbers: How to Create Headlines That Get Retweeted” does a great job of explaining why this push is so important, and how to make excellent effective headlines for twitter.

Last, but definitely not least, don’t forget to include @yourname in the text for the retweet, both for tracking analytics and to increase your visibility.

2) Get a Twitter Account and Include a Twitter Follow Button Even if you don’t have any intentions of developing a twitter strategy at this time, you should claim your name (and any names you might want) before someone else does. Like the great rush for URLs there is a finite number of Twitter handles available, make sure you have the ones you need. Once you’ve created a twitter account,  make it as east as possible for people to follow you by including a one click button on your web page.

3)  Blog Posts Should be at least 300 words long and include images. Ideally between 500 – 1500 words. If your post is less than 300 – 500 words SEO experts believe that the search engines wont “find” or “count” them towards your ranking. Too long and people wont read them (blogs are supposed to be quick bites, not full course meals).

I also like to include both images and videos in posts. These days, most of the sharing tools (Facebook, StumbleUpon etc) include a thumbnail. Having an image makes the articles more appealing and results in more clicks and opens.

4) Pick Keywords Imagine what people would enter in a search box if they were looking for you. Think of a scenario where someone searches for something, finds your website and is ecstatic that they found you. Understanding how people search is real  SEO and it’s sustainable. Your keywords are the root of that understanding.  Using only your keywords, could people understand what your mission is/what your business does?

5) Use your Keywords Let me start by saying that I am not advocating tricks or schemes.  I am not advocating for black hat tactics like hiding gratuitous keywords in white text all over your web page. I firmly believe that the search algorithms are way too smart to be fooled.

That said, you should have keywords, and those keywords should be on your website. In fact, and I cannot emphasize this enough, there are some places that you must include your keywords.

#1 on this list should be in the title inside the <head> tag. In case you don’t know what the title inside the head tag means (aka you are not a web designer or SEO professional or engineer) these illustrate all the ways you see the text that is your title inside the <head> tag:

I’m going to say this again because I can’t emphasize enough how important this is. YOUR KEYWORDS SHOULD BE IN THE TITLE INSIDE THE <HEAD> TAG.  In fact, according to our expert SEM manager/web designer this is the most important text on your entire website.

Google’s SEO Guide has a whole section on the title in the <head> tag. It’s the first section in the whole 32 page guide. Google made the decision that if you were only going to read the first two pages of their SEO guide they wanted you to read about the title in the <head>tag. Google released this  SEO Guide because they want to make search better. Google makes a lot of money off of search being good. Following their guidelines is how you can help them to find you better. In exchange, you get found.

Be genuine, but use those keywords in a genuine way to optimize your website for search. Put them on your front page. Put them in your blog posts. Put them in the titles of your videos.  Put them in the title in your <head> tag. This is not devious, it’s just helping the people who want and need to find you to do just that. Maybe the library has the best book ever on how to make banana bread, but you’re not going to find it if it ends up in the home improvement section.

SEO & Social Media work best when you have something great to share, a genuine intention to build relationships and the time and energy to understand how your community is really using the technology. Operating from that foundation, your strategy should stay true to your mission and brand.  You have something great, you want people to be able to find it.  There is no magic formula for Social Media and SEO success, despite what people say. But understanding how it works will help you figure out a way to use these tactics that will work best for you.

Letter to Our Users: The Pricing Changes will not Affect You

Topic: WorkingPoint News | Comments Off on Letter to Our Users: The Pricing Changes will not Affect You

Posted on October 13, 2010 by admin

This is a letter that we will be sending out to our existing users on 10/14/2010 to explain the changes to our pricing plan which will go into effect on 10/14/2010. This letter explains what happens to people who were customers on or before 10/13/2010. These plans and options will not be available to anyone who signs up after 10/13/2010.

Dear Valued Customer,

You have been with us since the beginning. You believed in us, and we love every second of helping you to run your business better. Our community of subscribers has grown 1700% in the last year!

Because we value your business so much we wanted you to be the first to know that we are changing our pricing plan. Your existing plan price will NOT change. If you are on the Premium Plan you will continue to receive all of the premium features for $10 a month (as opposed to the new $19 a month Thunderstorm plan). Forever. As long as you have an account in good standing you will keep the same features and price. You can still downgrade to the free, limited feature plan that was available when you signed up. However, if you choose to downgrade to a Free account, the existing $10 Premium Plan will no longer be available to you as an upgrade. You will not be able to sign up for the $10 plan again if you choose to leave it.

We also want to give our existing Free users the chance to upgrade to the Premium Plan at the $10 rate that was available to them when they signed up. This option will be available until 11/11/2010.  Your free account will continue to exist but once our new plans are introduced, will not be allowing any new free subscribers. Should you choose to upgrade after 11/11/2010 the $10 plan will no longer be available.

We will launch the new plan tomorrow and you will be able to view the new pricing options from within your account.

We wanted to be very clear with you about our plans to change the price so that you understand exactly what is going on. You are the most important part of our business. If you have any questions at all about the pricing changes please don’t hesitate to contact me and I will help you figure out exactly which option is best for you.

Sincerely,

Dena Stern
Community Manager
dstern@workingpoint.com
@workingpoint
www.facebook.com/workingpoint

Take a Short Survey to help Twitter help Small Business!

Topic: WorkingPoint News | Comments Off on Take a Short Survey to help Twitter help Small Business!

Posted on October 12, 2010 by admin
One of my friends over at Harvard Business School is working on a study to help identify best practices in social media for small and medium sized business.  They’re collecting information from SMB business owners and marketers.

Can you take 5-10 minutes to fill out a quick survey on your Twitter experience?

They promise the survey will be short, painless, and anonymous and are happy to share their high level findings on how to improve your social media campaigns at the conclusion of the project!
That’s right, participate in a quick survey and a team of the best and brightest business minds from Harvard Business School will  share their conclusions with you about how to improve your social media campaigns!

Find the Survey Here

Some additional information about the team can be found here:
Thank you in advance for participating! Happy Tweeting!

Ryan Park of the Adventurous 500: Social Media for Small Business

Topic: Small Business Marketing | Comments (1)

Posted on October 12, 2010 by admin

“Local businesses are suffering and can not afford traditional advertising. ”

In the Fall of 2010, Ryan Park will launch The Adventurous 500.  This company seeks to support local business in their advertising endeavors by providing an incredibly cheap, social, and effective way to connect with students – through social media.

Beginning on November 15, The Adventurous 500 will be touring Colorado to discover the best, worst, and most adventurous people and places that it has to offer. The entire adventure will be caught on camera and posted online at www.Adventurous500.com. Along the way, they’ll do countless amounts of giveaways through social media platforms – YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter.

The focus of the Adventurous 500 is to support local business – large and small – while providing entertainment, gifts, and social value to the Colorado community. By selling advertisements at low cost, The Adventurous 500 hopes to provide an opportunity for companies to continue to advertise, despite the bad economy. Many companies are on social networks, but few actually know how to create a strategy, captivate an audience, and engage potential customers.

Ryan Park, the young entrepreneur behind the Adventurous 500 points to a recent Mashable article about Facebook strategy for small business:

“If you build it, they won’t come. There is an assumption among many marketers that Facebook is a free medium that will deliver hundreds of thousands of new customers. That’s not the case. It has a massive audience, but that audience isn’t necessarily on the site searching for brands. There are few brands out there with the clout to spontaneously generate an audience, so you need to think about how you’re going to proactively build your fan numbers.”

The Adventurous 500 seeks to be the type of story that brands can attach themselves to and use a part of their proactive social strategy online. In addition, a portion of the revenue from The Adventurous 500’s ad sales will be given to a local charity-  Ryan will donate 10 Cents for every person who “Likes” his Facebook page.

Want to sponsor a day? Daily sponsorships will be sold at “face value.” Day 1 starts on November 15 and increases $1 every day, until Day 500 on March 30, 2010 when the sponsorship price is $500.  In addition, companies who purchase a day before November 15th will receive 10% off their purchase. To book a day, please contact Wade@adventurous500.com.

The Adventurous 500 is an online story that helps local business and charities, and we were lucky to talk to Ryan about the motivation behind this unique locally focused endeavor.

WP: Why you decided to create this opportunity for small business?

RP: Small businesses simply don’t have the resources (personnel, money, time, knowledge, etc.) to run effective social media campaigns, so they settle for traditional media outreach like newspapers and coupons. I wanted to create an opportunity to integrate new media into their marketing efforts without costing them too much. It is my hope that the many people who “try The Adventurous 500 out” get more involved in social media – it is the most effective way to reach people on their time. I decided to create this opportunity for small businesses because I strongly feel they should use social media in a way that is effective. I’m passionate about social media and support local business, and this seemed like the natural path for me to take as an entrepreneur.

Most exciting for me is that my company is a small business, so my audience will have the opportunity to see my company grow online – as the video quality will get better and so will the adventures! It can feel overwhelming at times, but then the excitement comes in and I get pumped to be able to grow my small business and support other local companies too.

WP: What about small business or local business is important to you?

RP: Small businesses drive our economy. They will rebuild our economy, and they will continue to provide jobs for a majority of the population. Why wouldn’t small business be important to you?

WP: Why do you think they need to be capturing people through new media?

RP: According to numerous sources 97% of Generation-Y (born between 1980-1993) are using social media. Watch this video, and then tell me if you think not leveraging social media is a good idea. Social media isn’t JUST a medium, it’s a fundamental shift in the way we communicate with each other. Companies HAVE to utilize it correctly.

Want more information about Ryan and the Adventurous 500? Check out this great video:

Google Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide 2010- Plain Speak on SEO

Topic: Growing Your Business,Marketing,Tech Tools | Comments (1)

Posted on October 11, 2010 by admin

Recently Google released a brand new, 32 page SEO Starter Guide. It’s incredibly detailed, very easy to read and thorough. Incredibly detailed. 32 jam packed pages of information, steps and strategies. And it has a handy page by page glossary footnote because there are about 6 words on each page that you may or may not understand if you are not a webmaster. Let’s just say that maybe you don’t really have time to read a 32 page Google Search Engine Optimization Guide. Or maybe you are not a webmaster. Or maybe you don’t even know what SEO is…. Fear not! It’s really not as hard as it sounds. With the right help, you could be on the way to ranking without costly pay per click campaigns. These steps below will break down SEO in a way that is accessible to those of us not fortunate enough to have a degree in computer science.  Really don’t know what SEO is? Check out this introduction to SEO and maximizing your website.

Step 1: Hire a Web Designer to do On Page Optimization

Any tactic worth doing is worth doing right. Over half of Google’s guide is dedicated to on page optimization, those factors for SEO that live on your website which you can control. Things like meta tags, URL structure, site directory navigation, and anchor text. These are not simple concepts to implement in a web page design. People go to school and get degrees in computer science and engineering to be able to build websites. When it comes to the internal structure of your website, it will pay off to make the initial investment in building a solid base.

One complaint I hear over and over again from web designers is that people build a bad site, then bring in a web designer to “fix” the old site, which these web designers describe as layering new code over the existing “bad code”. This cycle repeats over and over again and the website becomes a mess of bad code (in plain speak: bad website development) layered on top of each other, which calls for a complete and costly overhaul (on top of the cost of each fix). Doing it right the first time saves you money, it saves you time and it prevents all your other search engine efforts (social media, outreach, pay per click) from going to waste on a poorly build site which Google can’t “crawl” effectively.

Step 2: Choose Good Keywords

Search Engine Optimization is about helping people find you when they search for you using a search engine like Google, Yahoo or Bing. Understanding how people are actually searching for you is essential to developing an effective search engine strategy.

Imagine you are a random person, looking for your business on the internet. What words would you type into that little white box to try to find you? Those are your keywords. Those are the terms you want to rank highly for. That is what you put in your website titles, and get people to link back to. Spend some time thinking about how people are searching for you, and remember that shorter is better, people are always in a rush and web searching is all about quick and easy access to information.

You can have more than one keyword, in fact the more you have (and the less competitive those are!) the better. You can check how competitive a keyword is here. The more searches, the more competitive they tend to be, but the ideal is to find a keyword that makes sense for your website, which is also high in searches and low in competition.

Even if a keyword has incredibly high search numbers and very low competition, if it’s not going to relate to your business in a real, relevant way then it is a waste of time to try to rank for it. SEO is about understanding how people search and making it as easy as possible for people to find you. Tricking people into visiting your site isn’t going to convert the way you want it to (into actual business, or repeat visits) so forget about trying to manipulate the system. The algorithm is smarter than you…

Step 3: Get inbound links

The heart of search engine optimization is understanding that Google wants to provide the searcher with the best results for their search query.

How do they decide who’s site is “the best”?  If I write a graduate thesis and you write a graduate thesis, and in the next year mine get’s referenced 1,000 times and your get’s referenced 10,000 times, who’s is the best? Yours is. The one referenced the most is better, more relevant, higher quality etc.  Google was created by two Stanford grad students. The foundation of their search engine is the idea that the one gets referenced more is “better” and should therefore rank higher for that search term.

Now that you have your keywords, you need to focus on getting inbound links which point from that keyword to your website. This is quite possibly the most important  step people miss when they start looking for links. If possible you want that outreach to get you a link that looks like this: accounting software… not this: Workingpoint (you should hopefully already rank for your own name!).

It’s still a really good thing whenever someone else links back to your website but what terms they link to are almost as important as the link itself because your goal is to rank for those keywords. The good news is if they link to something else (like your name), if you have all the proper on page optimization stuff right for your keywords, that link should still count towards your rank.

That is SEO in a nutshell. Does it makes sense to you? Is it worth it to have a website if it you don’t “rank”? Let us know what you think!

Best of Small Biz Survival: “How a Small Town Photographer Survives in a Crowded Field”

Topic: Business Management | Comments Off on Best of Small Biz Survival: “How a Small Town Photographer Survives in a Crowded Field”

Posted on October 8, 2010 by admin

Posted by Becky McCray on Small Biz Survival on Monday, July 26, 2010

Reposted Courtesy of Small Biz Survival the definitive online resource for rural and smalltown business.

Photography is a crowded profession. And it’s getting squeezed to death by a glut of amateurs. When everyone can afford a “pro” camera, how can a professional photographer make a living? Mike Klemme’s answers hold some lessons for people in all types of professions being squeezed.

Mike KlemmeMike Klemme is a professional photographer from Enid, Oklahoma (population 47,000). He’s making his living at a time when the general freelance photography business is being squeezed to death in a race to the bottom. One dollar pics at iStockphoto have meant the end to the routine but profitable $300-500 stock photos Klemme used to sell over and over.

But Klemme found an answer. He built his business on the Red Adair model: be the one to call. Starting with his skills as a landscape photographer, he became the first pro photographer to specialize in golf courses. There is a ton of competition in general landscape photography. But once Klmme became the go-to-pro for golf courses, he was called on to travel the world to shoot courses from Miami Beach to Kenya.


Find a niche, fill the niche and kill the niche, Klemme said. Pick a niche without an existing specialist, one that capitalizes on your skills and abilities. Start learning all you can about it. Network, read the trade publications, meet everyone involved, know the industry players and become a guru in your specialty. Get beyond the obvious shots; develop your own perspective and your own style. Slam the door on that niche by being the absolute best.

Good photo niches are the subjects people are passionate, even crazy about. To prove his point, Klemme listed off a bunch of potential photo niches, ones where he did not know of an existing photo specialist.

  • cigars and tobacco
  • swimming pools
  • emerging destinations in travel (pick one emerging destination, and be all over it)
  • western and cowboy
  • green tech
  • rowing and boating in Oklahoma City
  • fireworks
  • architecture
  • construction
  • oil business (big business in Oklahoma)
  • Native American
  • agriculture
  • manufacturing
An audience member added another: industrial safety training. She knows because it’s her job to find photos for her company’s industrial safety training materials.

Once you have your niche, find your tribe of people who are passionate about the topic. Communicate directly with them.

Build great partnerships. Find a compatible graphic designer, and grow your work together.
Bottom line: You can survive in a crowded field by finding your own niche.

Based on Klemme’s presentation at Picture My Weekend 2010, in Alva, Oklahoma.
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