Small Business SEO

Affordable Small Business SEO Packages

As a small business owner, you are looking for every edge you can get, and using the endless possibility of the internet is one way to feed your pipeline with sales leads. And while most internet marketing agencies require a retainer to work with you, most small businesses don’t have the budget to pay for their services each month. Webbed Marketing, winner of a shelf full of small business awards, feels your pain.

We offer small business SEO packages with business owners like you in mind. The packages are project based and vary based on the level of involvement that you’d like after the research and analysis phase.

• Our Basic SEO Package offers the research and analysis of your site, along with some on-page recommendations for your site pages.
• The Advanced SEO Package provides the Basic components along with off-page work to promote your newly optimized pages.
• the Custom SEO Package is designed to implement all of the Basic and Advanced components as well as start a Local Search presence for your business. We’ll need CMS or FTP access to your site if you select the Custom package.

And all of our small business SEO packages include access to our Webbed Marketing University, SEO101 online course.  The material will take you through the basics of on-page optimization and show some of the technical aspects of SEO that can adversely affect your site.

To learn more, contact our team of SEO Experts to learn more about our affordable small business SEO packages.

Tags: search engine marketing, search engine optimization, SEO, small business seo, webbed marketing

Quality Score in Paid Search

It seems like everyone is dabbling in Paid Search these days. With free advertiser credits from Adwords, free DIY webinars, and countless Paid Search Blogs, there is a ton of information and resources to get started with online advertising. Plus unlike an SEO campaign, your Paid Search campaign can be up and running in as little as 30 minutes, and you can receive instant traffic to your website.

But after the easy campaign setup process, figuring out what to do next can be difficult.  What can you do to optimize your campaign, compete on your keywords and keep your costs down? Working on your quality score is a start.

The “quality score” was created by Google to analyze the relevance of keywords in your campaign.  It is benefit advertisers who create highly relevant campaigns, online Google searchers and of course Google’s own business.  It helps advertisers achieve an overall lower cost per click when they choose the right combination of keywords, ad copy, and landing pages.  The optimized campaigns then in turn help the search users by displaying highly relevant ads and landing pages for their given search query. And Google does well when ads are clicked (revenue) and users gain confidence in Google’s ability to provide relevant search results.

Running campaigns that are not highly relevant can hurt an advertiser over time.  Google doesn’t shut down campaigns that are not relevant, but rather charges a premium cost-per-click that will help “punish” bad advertising practices and push lower performing ads down in display order.

There are a number of components that go into calculating the quality score:

• Historical Click-Through-Rate (CTR) – This includes the CTR of the keyword and matched ad, CTR of the account, CTR of the display URL, and CTR of results in the searcher’s geography.
• Relevance – This is based on the searcher’s behavior.  Does your keyword and ad copy combination entice a searcher’s to click on your ad?  This includes how well your keyword and ad copy addresses the intent of the searcher.  For example, keywords can have multiple meanings or be used at different points in the buying cycle.
• Landing Page Quality – Until recently you only had to worry about the content on your landing page for your own business purposes – to generate leads, sales, or meet your business goals.  Now, Google is starting to take your website content into consideration when calculating your quality score, which makes sense.  It helps line up the searcher’s and the advertiser’s best interests, which in turn makes Google a better search engine.

Overall, quality scores help align everyone’s interests.  Higher quality scores lead to lower costs-per-click for the advertiser, a better user experience for the searcher, and a better search reputation for Google.

Tags: google adwords, paid search, ppc, sem

Meta Keywords for SEO

The meta data variables of a web page are arguably some of the most important pieces of your website. The meta data variables include the Page Title(<title>), Meta Description (<meta name=”description”…) and Meta Keywords (<meta name=”keywords”). For years, search insiders have been saying that the only two of these variables are still relevant – Page Title and Meta Description.

The Page Title (1) is a critical part of your page. It is the content that the crawlers read when they crawl your page and determine the theme of your content for that page. The Page Title is also your organic search Title that is displayed to users when they to a search query. The Meta Description (2) is the 150 character piece of content that describes your page content.  The meta description as it is defined will also be used for the organic search ad content as shown in section 2 below.

But what about the Meta Keywords section? Most site CMS’s still have a field that is used for keywords, so why keep the fields if the industry insiders are saying that it is not important any more?

The Meta Keywords field sits behind the browser and can be used to support the keyword themes found in the Page Title and Meta Description.  At Webbed Marketing, we advise our clients to use the field if possible, but to limit the number of keywords you use to 3-5 keywords.

This week, Search Engine Land published an article stating that Bing still evaluates the Meta Keywords field – to catch spammers! They look for pages that have an excessive number of keywords (keyword stuffing), featuring keywords that do not match the page content theme.  A comment from Bing insider, Duane Forrester stated:

“The main thing people need to keep in mind if they decide to use the tag is to follow the known best practices. Ultimately, it’s the overt keyword stuffing that gets noticed and makes us want to look a little closer. If you’re willing to stuff pointless keywords into the meta keywords tag, what else might you be inclined to do?”

Translation: Use the field, but limit the number of keywords and keep the keywords relevant to your page theme. If you are keyword stuffing your meta and content zone, the Meta Keywords field is a tipoff to BING to take a closer look at your page content as well.

If I were writing the Meta Variables for the page above, for the keyword ‘baseball card dealer”, here is what the three fields would look like:

<title>Baseball Card Dealer | Shop Sports Cards, Memorabilia, and More</title>
<meta name=”description” content=”Shop Dave & Adam’s Baseball Card World and find sports cards, memorabilia, and more from a reputable baseball card dealer. Free Shipping on $150+ orders.” />
<meta name=”description” content=”baseball card dealer, baseball cards, sports cards, baseball memorabilia” />

Tags: google, internet marketing, search engine optimization, SEO

When to use Branded Keywords

At a recent meeting with our client Elmer’s, the subject of branded keywords came up in the discussion. What role do they play in SEO and should you optimize for them? Good questions!

Branded keywords are those keyword phrases that include your company name and product (i.e. Elmers Glue, Elmers Glue Sticks). Since the search query includes the name of the company, most sites will naturally rank very well on keyword searches that involve the company name as a modifier. So should you optimize site content for keywords using your company name as a modifier?

In the example below, the term ‘glue sticks‘ has a large volume of searches each month with nearly 15,000. The branded version, “elmers glue sticks’, has a lower volume with an estimated 170 searches each month. Both keyword phrases have a high competition factor as indicated by the competition column.  Since the site is more likely to rank well for the branded phrase, we’d recommend that you optimize your site content for both.  The branded keywords are an easier sell to the search engine crawlers, which means you’ll compete for that smaller traffic volume in the short term while the crawlers ramp up indexing the non-branded keywords.

As with all keyword phrases, you should test these on your site and see how your visits and engagement metrics react. In the end, the more good keyword-rich content you feed the crawlers, you’ll help them quickly find keyword themes and associate your brand name with your non-branded keywords.

Tags: keyword research, keywords in search, search engine optimization, SEO, webbed marketing

Why Keywords Still Matter

There are a number of blogs and industry experts who provide tips on improving the SEO of your site.  And many of them provide solid ideas for building your online presence through search engine optimization.  That presence will increase your online credibility within the search engines and increase the quality of the traffic that you’ll see from the search bucket.

But if you boil everything down, the basic foundation for a solid SEO plan is still keywords.  Every on-page and off-page SEO tactic revolves around keywords and keyword themes that you define throughout your site.  Here are some SEO tips for creating a cohesive SEO plan focused on keywords.

1. Research your keywords.  Look for keywords that best describe your products/services. Using a keyword research tool will help you expand the keywords that you find because not all searchers are the same.  There are many different ways to describe your products/services.
2. Refine your keywords.  Sort your keywords in order of volume from highest to lowest. If you used the Google keyword tool, use the competitor factor combined with the volume to find the sweet spot of keywords.  If your average volume is 4,000 searches/month, find the keywords that have a competitive factor of less than 50%.
3. Redefine your site meta data (page title, description, and keywords) by page,  incorporating your keywords.
4. Rewrite your page content. Using 200-250 words to each page, incorporate the keywords from the meta data in your page content.
5. Redirect text from other pages within your site as a hyperlink to your page using the keyword as anchor text.
6. Request links to that each individual page using keywords that were used to optimize that individual page.
7. Review your analytics by keyword. Follow the traffic that you receive from each keyword and identify the keywords that result in the best traffic (i.e. engagement, conversions, volume). Then you can create additional site content that focuses on those winning keywords.

If you use these basic tips when optimizing your site, you’ll provide the search engine crawlers with the content they need to properly index your pages, and you’ll reinforce the on-page keyword themes with internal site linking and external link building.

As the leading SEO agency in Columbus, Webbed Marketing has been testing these theories out with our great base of clients. Running keyword focused campaigns for our clients has produced some great results that align with our client goals. If you’d like to learn more about using SEO strategies on your site, sign up for our upcoming ‘webucation’ series from Webbed Marketing University.

Tags: internet marketing, keyword research, keywords in search, search engine optimization, SEO

Flight PPC09, You are Cleared for Landing

One of the core products that Webbed Marketing offers is Search Engine Marketing through Pay-per-Click (PPC) advertising.  This is the piece of WM business that I manage, consisting of clients from the software, healthcare, services, and marketing industries. It is an interesting business because you learn so much from the daily interactions that users have with your ad campaigns.  You learn pretty quickly what works vs. what works really well.  I recently had a PPC "booyah" moment that I thought I'd share because it really worked well.

One of the hardest parts of my job is to convince our clients of the importance of landing pages.  When we consult with a new client, we ask them to describe their goals, to which most clients respond with the standard lead generation aspect that PPC provides. They are usually open to suggestions on target markets, keyword strategies, budgeting, and even message and tone within the ad copy.  But bring up the topic of landing pages, and that's where the IT department has to get involved, which makes most marketing managers cringe.  (No offense IT people; It's your world, and we marketers just live in it).

I have one client (your know who you are, Mr. December Client of the Month) who is willing to try anything.  The client has a very successful campaign that has produced 82 leads for an online certification program.  I pitched the idea of creating product specific landing pages with an obvious offer (a product demo in this case), in exchange for user information.  He created two versions of the page, one long and the other short, but both with a form and offer.  We uploaded the pages to the campaign last  Thursday, and since then have seen some significant results.  Here is a brief overview of the effect these pages had on this campaign:

So in 6 short days, the landing pages produced 27% of the web leads that the campaign has produced YTD.  Using the same ad copy and the same offer with a different landing page, the conversion rate was nearly 10.5% higher with a click thru rate that was actually lower than the YTD average.

Now these results are not typical, but even if your campaign produced a quarter of these numbers, how sweet would it look when you show your CMO a 7% increase in leads at a 3% conversion rate? 

Looking for PPC help in 2009?  Contact us to discuss your marketing goals in 2009.

Tags: A|B testing, landing page analysis, Landing page consulting, landing page design, Ohio SEM Agency, pay-per-click advertising, PPC agency, search engine marketing

Twas Two months before Christmas…..

For the first time in as long as I can remember, the Christmas season has officially started well before the traditional day after Thanksgiving. I was in the local Giant Eagle, picking up some candy the day before Halloween, and saw Christmas candy and decorations already stocked in the shelves. I was at the gym 2 weeks ago, where the overhead radio is normally set to 93.3 (easy listening and thoroughly unlistenable while working out). Much to my surprise, the station started playing Christmas music. You see a new report every day, indicating
that retailers are expecting their worst holiday sales season ever, and they
will be slashing prices on mostly everything. Today, Yahoo’s Buzz section published a story titled “Black Friday Sales
Arrive Early this Year”.

I can’t help but see the power of suggestive marketing
waving its hand in a jedi–like fashion in the faces of retail shoppers, hoping to lure them into the stores early. This is a strategy that has worked for years,
and retailers are hoping that this oldie but goodie from the retail playbook
just might save their fiscal butts. If consumers see the Christmas products on the shelves, they are more likely to purchase early with a desire to save time and money (especially the early adopters or impulsive buyers). If people hear the music in the stores, they will be transported to nostalgic realms of Christmases past, breaking out their wallets early to get all of the hot gifts that will make this Christmas as special as the ones they remember. If consumers are bombarded enough with the doom and gloom of the economic times, and yet they still have a fully stocked holiday fund sitting at the credit union, how can they resist sticking it to the retailers who desperately need to unload their inventory?

If consumer confidence continues to tank, we may start seeing
Christmas sales in August, or maybe one of the local radio stations will go “all
Christmas all the time”. Or maybe someone will get the brilliant idea to open a Christmas themed department store that sells Christmas items along with other every day bargains – Say the Christmas Tree Shops (ok, so that idea is already taken). Or maybe congress will issue a new Christmas
stimulus package making Christmas a year round holiday where we are full of
good cheer, decking the halls, jingle belling our economy back to health.

Retailers, cue the maniacal laugh….Now!

-Rob Ament is a member of the Webbed Marketing collection of
marketing brilliance and proficiency and has no pre-conceived qualms or negative feelings towards Christmas.

Tags: black friday, Christmas shopping, holiday shopping, marketing, retail shopping, webbed marketing

Hints, Allegations and Things Left Unsaid…About Brendan Fraser

I was sitting in my favorite chair the other night (7 days after seeing The Dark Night) and an ad for one of the local news stations came on the air.  The 10pm anchor was doing a promo for the upcoming news cast, and, as you know, they like to tease your interest in order to keep you tuned in.  The promo said, “A new summer blockbuster set to release may slow down Batman or at least give him a serious run for his money”.   Having seen and loved the new Batman, I was intrigued by the tease.  I finished up some WM work and settled in to watch the news to find out what movie I would have to see next. Ladies and Gents, I was severely disappointed when, after watching 36 minutes of news, they finally revealed the aforementioned slayer of the Bat. 

It was Brendan Fraser.

Give me a break! The third (and hopefully final) installment of The Mummy movie series, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, was launched on August 1st. According to Yahoo Movies, the first two movies in the series grossed $155 million and $202 million, respectively, for a combined $357 million. That is $37 million less than The Dark Knight grossed in its first 3 weeks.  Yolanda and Gabe from Fox 28 were successful in teasing me with their viral hook, which had me on the internet the next morning to research their claim. 

So let me demonstrate the “viral effect” that took place here.  After hearing the tease from the newscast, I decided to research the claim, utilizing the endless resources of the internet.  I first hit Yahoo Movies homepage to see if any of the critics had posted their reviews of the movie.  I regrettably watched a trailer or two on Y! Movies, and then moved on to the websites of some reputable movie critics.  At this point, I hadn’t seen or read anything spectacular about this movie, so I went to YouTube and found the ReelzChannel video channel.  Reelz does exit interviews with movie goers who attend the opening night of a movie premier.  The people on the street had some not-so-nice things to say about The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor.

“The last time I saw a movie of that quality was Revenge of the Nerds 5.”

“It was horrible, just horrible.”

“I was expecting it to be a lot worse, but was pleasantly surprised.”

“The welfare version of Indiana Jones”

“Brendan Fraser, stop with the movies.”

With all of these “glowing” reviews, the “viral effect” has resulted in negative press for this movie; it has definitely registered with the box office.  The movie has only grossed $40 million during the opening weekend, and the critics, both professional and amateur, have not been kind to this movie with their reviews. 

So what does this say about how the “viral effect” can move your business?  Using this case study, it can absolutely kill your momentum.  Your future customers will research your product, talk to friends and family, read about your company, search for product reviews, etc.  The “viral effect” can either work in your favor or decidedly against you.  You have to make sure that you’re ahead of the viral curve to keep your business on track and keep people talking about you in a positive light.

-Rob Ament

Tags: buzz, movies, the mummy, viral