Bookmark article
Follow article
Email to a friend
Share 
Great article Marc! I have been learning more about search engine optimization lately and you have hit the nail on the head with this article. Plus you have made it simple and easy to understand, not always an easy task with this type of information.
Generally helpful
out of 10
51 votes
#1 in Google, Yahoo and Bing
How I did it and how you can too. No tricks, no gimmicks.
Written Apr 19, 2010, read 7808 times since then.
Who doesn’t like to be number one? Let’s face it, being number one in a search result is very cool. There’s nothing quite like seeing your name, or your company, sitting up there in the top spot. But for some, there’s more reasons to be number one than just ego.
If your business is dependant on web traffic, then being listed ahead of your competitors is more about survival than appearance.
And while many experts might downplay the importance of even having a web site, instead encouraging people to put their efforts into blogs and tweets, the fact is that a web site is still the backbone of your internet marketing.
No matter how much you tweet, blog, maintain your Linked In profile, or contribute articles to sites like Biznik, your web site is the ultimate destination. It is the place where you come clean with the reasons why anyone should be doing business with you. Your contact information, promotions, company history, and products and services are all showcased and presented on your site.
But this article is not about the merits of a web site in a Web 2.0 world. It’s about getting your site as high as possible – the reasons for it can be your own.
But before I get into things, a word to the wise. This article will walk you through the steps I took to make my site, marcgordon.ca number one in the top three search engines with a search for “marc gordon”. It took just under 60 days from the time I uploaded my site to the time I hit number one in Google. Yahoo and Bing followed about a week later. How long I will be at number is anyone’s guess. The last time I checked was April 16, 2010.
Your site might hit number one sooner, later, or perhaps never. The fact is that the search engines decide who should be number one, not you or I. And while you may be number one today, you may fall to number 10 tomorrow, all because someone else made a small change to their site that made it appear more relevant than yours. Or because the search engines just chose so see it that way.
These algorithms are unique from one search engine to another. Search engine companies are secretive about how they filter and sort queries. As such, be leery of companies who claim they can make you number 1 in just a few days, for a fee.
None of these methods will cost you money. None of them are sneaky. None of them are secretive. All of them are deemed acceptable practice by the search engines. And together, they’ve worked for me. Let’s get started.
Relevant copy
This is the most important element in getting a high page ranking. Search engines love rich, relevant content. If your site is about cars, then talk about cars in all shapes and forms. Name manufacturers, and models. If you sell clothing, describe styles, materials, colours, and brands. But remember, your site should be written for visitors first – not search engines. So avoid dumb tricks like using your company name in every sentence, repeating the same phrases, or making certain words bold. If your site is awful to read, people will leave it, never to return. And then it won’t matter how high you rank in Google.
Updates
Having a blog or an articles pages is great. Just remember to keep them updated with new content. This will get the attention of both the search engines and visitors.
Minimal flash
Sure, flash can be cool. Who doesn’t like animated titles, buttons and cool effects. But beyond the fact that most people do a lousy job of integrating it effectively into a site, search engines cannot read it. So text written in flash looks more like white space when the search engines look at the code. While html might seem boring, remember that a great looking site has nothing to do with the code and everything to do with visual style and functionality.
Minimal PDF files
While search engines can read PDF files, they don’t come through as clear as good old fashioned text. And if the text has been converted to a graphic prior to saving, then the file can’t be read at all. Combine that with the fact that most people don’t always feel comfortable downloading files, and you’ve got two big reasons to add another web page instead of creating a PDF document.
Page titles
I have found the most success by having a detailed standard page title for every page, preceded by the name of the specific page. For example, assuming your home page title is ABC Company: Makers of the world’s best widgets, then the title for the products page could be Find the widget that’s right for you - ABC Company: Makers of the world’s best widgets.
Alternate text (alt="ABC Company logo")
Back in the olden days, some browsers could not display graphics properly, if at all. So alternate text would be attached to the html code. That way, if a photo of a house could not be displayed, you could at least see some text that would read “photo of house”. Even though this is no longer an issue, I would encourage you to continue this practice. For every photo or graphic, insert descriptive text. A photo of you should have your full name as alternate text, product photos should have their full name and product number as alternate text, navigation buttons should have the name of their respective pages (see Page Titles), and so on.
Page Description (meta name="description")
The page description appears under your site listing when it shows up in a search. Your description should be an objective description of your company, or you, and written in proper sentence form. For example: “ABC Company, located in Long Island, New York manufacturers widgets for the automotive and aerospace industries. The company was founded in 1981 and has received numerous industry awards.”
Key words (meta name="keywords")
Many experts claim that meta tags such as keywords are no longer relevant as search engines stopped acknowledging them due to abuse by sneaky designers. Whether this is true is open to debate. But I believe that since they take so little time to insert, why not? Simply list every word you can think of that someone might enter into a search engine query, separated by a comma. You can also use what’s called long tailed key words. These are mini phrases that people might enter such as “widgets for cars”, or “widget supplier in new york”. Avoid sneaky methods such as inserting the names of your competitors, or URLs of other sites.
Site map
Search engines love sitemaps. A sitemap is simply a text based file that lists all the pages in your site, when it was last updated, how often it changes, and how important each page is in relation to other URLs in the site. The file format of a sitemap is generally XML. There are lots of free sites that will create an XML sitemap file for you that you can simply upload to the same directory your site is currently hosted. The one I use is www.xml-sitemaps.com.
External links to your site
If a lot of people link their sites to your site, it must mean you are pretty important. And search engines like important people (or at least their web sites). While you can always pay others to link to your site by placing ad banners on their pages, I always like to encourage people to do it for free. This can be done by reciprocating with links to their site, or having content relevant enough that people choose to link their sites to yours on their own.
Search engine submission
Search engines have what are called web crawlers. These are little programs that scour the net looking for new sites. If you upload a site, eventually these crawler will find it. But if you want to speed up the process, you can submit your site directly to the search engines. This is free to do and takes just a few minutes. I would encourage you to concentrate your efforts on Google, Yahoo and Bing. Then hit the others when you have some time to kill. Here are some links that will get you started:
http://www.google.com/addurl
http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/submit
http://www.bing.com/webmaster/SubmitSitePage.aspx
Patience
The most important part of getting a high ranking is patience. Search engines do what search engines want. Popular sites like CNN, ESPN, and Playboy will always get noticed first because they are relevant, popular, rich in content, and continuously being updated - just like what we talked about. In the mean time, plan your marketing program, refine your services, and even try working the phone. Remember, there’s a whole lot of marketing tools available to you outside of the internet.
One final note, to see how I’ve implemented these tool into my own site and select View>Page Source in Firefox, or View>Source in Internet Explorer. Good luck!
Marc Gordon is a professional speaker and marketing consultant based in Toronto. Learn more about Marc at http://marcgordon.ca or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/MarcGordonDotCA
Learn more about the author, Marc Gordon.
Comment on this article
-
Posted by Pam Johnson-Bennett, CCBC, Nashville, Tennessee |Apr 19, 2010 Marc. Thanks for breaking this down so simply for those of us who struggle with these concepts. Great article.
-
Posted by Mark Craemer, Seattle, Washington |Apr 19, 2010 Thanks for the tips Mark. I will use many of them immediately.
-
Posted by Andrey Rozmaity, Kent, Washington |Apr 19, 2010 I just did a search on Google and your site is on page 4, 4th result, but your Biznik profile is on page 3, 4th result.
Your search term is part of your domain name which is a SEO bonus (of course you will come up in search results for "marc gordon" if you are indexed search engines and the keywords appear in your domain name...)
I find your article to be a self promotion and a violation of: "All published articles must have a real photo of the author on his/her profile. We DO NOT ALLOW SELF-PROMOTIONAL LINKING in articles we publish, so please do not include links to your own site! Also, please do not include self-promotional footer, bio, or copyright notices in the body of the article - we automatically provide links to your profile at the top and bottom of your article, and your copyright is protected by Biznik's Terms of Service. "
I'm not discrediting your SEO information. To me this is one huge advertisement.
-
Posted by Howard Howell, Seattle, Washington |Apr 19, 2010 Marc... You know I like you. Your article has some good basic tips, but I must say that getting a Google organic search result for your personal name is not difficult. I'm surprised it took you 60 days.
... number one in the top three search engines with a search for “marc gordon”. does not mean anything unless of course a marc gordon is some kind of great widget which the whole world is already familiar with and looking for.
First page ranking for your name is good AFTER someone knows you. If they're searching for a solution, they probably don't know you yet.
The real challenge is getting on the Google first page for the keywords and search phrases representing the solutions you provide. Then the people who DO NOT KNOW YOU will find you as a potential solution provider.
If I search "Toronto Marketing Consultant", I do not find you on Google page one today.
If I search "Toronto Professional Speaker", I do not find you on Google page one today.
What exactly should I be searching for to find you?
...Howard
P.S. In no way, do I mention this as critical or to discredit you, but rather to initiate some practical dialogue for the readers of your article. It's good to be found on Google but new sales will only result if your solution can be found and it leads back to you.
...Howard (some example search phrases)
"Seattle Sales Consultant" teaching about "selling using social media" which involves a "new sales process" which is really "sensible selling"
Pick YOUR keywords and go after them. You will know it works when people start calling you.
-
Posted by Andrey Rozmaity, Kent, Washington |
Apr 19, 2010 It is now a common practice for those in need of your services to first Google you before doing business with you. More likely than not, they will google your business name (in your case its your name).
The people that would Google your business name already heard about you or already found you somewhere. They are verifying that you are in fact a business, what is said about you, your ratings, etc. If you don't come up in the search results, then you don't exist.
To reach people that haven't heard about you through organic search engine traffic, you'd have to do what Howard mentioned. Focus on search terms such as "Marketing Consultant Toronto." (I'm sure you already know this. "#1." always looks good no matter how great/small of an achievement. No offense of course and good luck.)
-
Posted by Marc Gordon, Toronto, Ontario Canada |Apr 19, 2010 Andrey,
You have a lot issues. So let me address them the best I can in this small space. First, when I did a Google search, I came up as #2 on the first page, so not sure what’s up with your search methods.
Second, you have confirmed the portion of my article about page titles. Thank you.
Third, this is not self promotion. At no point do I mention my services, offer a promotions, or list the benefits of doing business with me. I refer only to my site as an example of my recommendations put into practice.
The fact is that I use my web sites as a support tool for my other marketing efforts which include networking, speaking, and WOM. I do not depend on my sites to draw new clients on their own.
As we all know, there are hundreds of possible search queries that can be made to find a site. And hitting them all is almost impossible. A search for “emergency PC repair” brought your site up as #1, but a search for “pc repair” did not show you in the first 10 pages. What search term would most people use in search of PC repair? Only Google knows for sure.
-
Posted by Marc Gordon, Toronto, Ontario Canada |
Apr 19, 2010 Howard,
As always your comments are well thought out. Keep in mind that this article is meant to be light. This is not an SEO course as you know. As for key words, I could not agree more. FYI, when I did a Google search for "Seattle Sales Consultant", you came up as #1, under your Biznik profile. However I was not able to see your site on the first 5 pages. Key words can be a real crap shoot sometimes.
-
Posted by Andrey Rozmaity, Kent, Washington |
Apr 19, 2010 My website is relatively new and I'm focused only on local traffic. (Searches such as "pc repair" bring up global results. I do well in the map portion of those results if that person is searching locally.)
You're probably on the first page for google.ca. The IP (location) address is a major factor in map search results but regular search results are based off your country (domain sufix). Here is the screenshot of what I see: http://emergency-pc-services.com/images/marc-gordon.jpg
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal is a great tool for seeing what people search for online (how many searches were done locally and globally). Also, look into: Long Tail SEO
It is what it is... "We DO NOT ALLOW SELF-PROMOTIONAL LINKING in articles we publish, so please do not include links to your own site! Also, please do not include self-promotional footer, bio," (http://biznik.com/articles/new)
-
Posted by Howard Howell, Seattle, Washington |
Apr 19, 2010 @Marc... Thank you for searching for a "Seattle Sales Consultant". I'm impressed that you even went past the first page. Most people don't. ;-)
One's occupation is such a large demand and general phrase that I teach people the only way you can ever get on first page of Google with your occupation is with a well-crafted Biznik Profile.
To get relevant results for your services, one should work on niche phrases regularly like the others that I cited as examples in my previous post.
Another approach is to work on capturing very infrequent possible searches such as "how do i sell my expertise?".
As you have said, it takes time and patience, but they all add-up. ...Howard
-
Posted by Marc Gordon, Toronto, Ontario Canada |
Apr 20, 2010 Howard,
Great tip about having a Biznik Profile.
Andrey,
I'm allowed to have a bi-line after my article. It comes with having a PRO membership. As a PRO member yourself, I'm sure you know that.
-
Posted by Andrey Rozmaity, Kent, Washington |
Apr 20, 2010 "Marc Gordon is a professional speaker and marketing consultant based in Toronto. His firm, Fourword Marketing, helps businesses create a brand identity and develop effective marketing campaigns. Marc can be reached at..." - this sounds to me like a "self-promotional footer, bio,".
I'm not going to keep going in circles about this, I pointed out the facts and Biznik staff can do whatever they want with it (if in fact it is a violation of the code of conduct).
Good day to you sir.
-
Posted by Lara Feltin, Seattle, Washington |Apr 22, 2010 Clarification from the editorial staff. You're both right. Biznik does not permit self-promotional linking in articles we publish. We request that authors do not include self-promotional footer, bio, or copyright notices in the body of the article - we automatically provide links to your profile at the top and bottom of your article.
But it looks like we've failed to ADD that a benefit of ProVIP membership is an additional bio field at the end of the articles you publish. The bio field includes your profile photo and should contain a biography and an outbound link. That's one of the benefits of ProVIP membership.
I'll go figure out where this information is misrepresented and correct it. Thanks for bringing it to our attention, Andrey!
Update: We've added some language about the bio field and the powerful benefit it provides to ProVIP members. Check it out and let us know if we got it right!
-
Posted by Wesley LeFebvre, Seattle, Washington |Apr 22, 2010 Hi Marc,
Howard and Andrey already said everything I was going to, so I'll just confirm it. You also show up on page 4 for me. You probably have personalized search on, or it could be geo-targeting or a combination of the two.
Either way, if your domain name matches your keyword exactly, you don't need to do much of anything to get top rankings. For example wezley.com (my parked site) is #4 or 5 on Google for "wezley", and I don't have any content, nor do I have any links pointed at it.
-
Posted by Shannon Evans, Bainbridge Island, Washington |Apr 22, 2010 Ok...I am going to venture into the abyss and respond to some misconceptions put forth in the world of Biznik on the topic of SEO...sit tight and I will annoy some, irk others, and hopefully make all think for a minute!
I sure hope to heck you show up first in search for Marc Gordon...but in reality...who cares? Only your mom really cares about your name...customers who have never met you and don't know you exist and yet need your goods and services could care less what your name is! Think like the customer who has never met you...what are they searching for? What are their needs?
"Toronto Marketing" is more likely to be searched than Marc Gordon. Search engines are driven by keywords. A clear understanding of those keywords is how to be found. It is essential that you know what are your keywords and how to use them effectively on EACH of your web pages. Make sure you carefully research your keywords and the related keywords and how they are searched. You want to know what are the right words to sprinkle in your content to corral the more unpredictable potential customers.
There are lots of keyword tools to use to research your keywords:
Google Insights
Google Sets
Google Trends
Keyword Elite
WordtrackerWhile Google has stated they do not put a lot of stock in metakeywords because other search engines still place weight on them. You want to optimize each page...not just the landing page.
There are two ways to make your site stand out and be noticed and improve your PageRank: on page efforts and off page efforts.
On page is pretty clear...headings, tags, web page titles, etc...but off page is now an incredibly powerful way to rank in search.
When done correctly press releases, article submissions, testimonials, endorsements, local search listings, hub pages, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, videos, and images can all bring you to the top of search engines. The more you submit fresh relevant content with links to your site to social bookmarking sites the greater the likelihood of attracting a steady stream of qualified leads and customers to your site.
Remember, maintenance of your site is an ongoing process. Don't complete this and forget about things for a year. Add content on a regular basis and the gains you make will last.
So how do you know how your site is optimized? Websitegrader.com is a great overview tool to compare sites and see how you, and your designer fair. It is a free tool that analyzes your website for the completeness of your SEO efforts. Just like school...you want to score in the 90's. Look at the feedback and the components of the analysis to see what you might need to revise or add to so you can fair better in search.
Know where you stand and know what your developer or web designer can deliver.
-
Posted by Bill Hoffer, Bothelll, Washington |Apr 22, 2010 Good article again Marc. Seems as though you have a knack for touching nerve endings. It's good to know that both of you were right. Now lets pass the peace pipe and have a great weekend.
-
Posted by Aaron Savage, London, Greater London United Kingdom |Apr 22, 2010 Marc
I have a feeling that you are going to get quite a bit of stick from quite a lot of SEO professionals for this. Whilst your advice is more or less correct, it doesn't scratch the surface of SEO and as such is unlikely to deliver on the promise you make
"How I did it and how you can too. No tricks, no gimmicks."
The most important thing that anyone should consider in SEO is the keywords you want to be ranked for (please note this is different from meta keywords).
Anyone can get ranked for a word or phrase that nobody else uses such as using your name if it is distinctive (as mine is), or simply inventing a word that doesn't exist but sound as if it should do.
It’s a lot more difficult to get to number one using a term that a lot of people want (for instance "SEO consultant")
Your choice should be informed by looking at Google's traffic estimator so that you have an idea of the amount of traffic that your hard effort will produce.
As an example I might try very hard to corner the market for promoting "three legged Episcopalian goats", but a quick look at the traffic estimator will tell me that the traffic levels I can expect from this are nonexistent.
If you currently do a search for "Interactive Marketing London" my company ranks number 2. If you add in the word agency my company is number 1.
I have taken advantage of the fact that one of the keywords is used in my URL, and that the others are used with good density throughout my site. It also gets me reasonable amounts of quality traffic that I can convert to business.
The biggest no no I saw though was your encouraging to enter into reciprocal links. You are aware that reciprocal links all but cancel each other out aren’t you? A one way link counts a lot more, and there are many techniques you can use to achieve this, whether it be article marketing, social media activity, promotion, or simply publishing content that people want to point their friends at (my personal favourite).
Online marketing has surely moved on from this. We should now be looking at how to create strategic marketing solutions.
If you had titled your article "the basics of SEO" I wouldn't have had too many issues, but the billing you gave it, and the tips you have given are so far apart that I feel a bit like a guy on prom not whose date promised him she was going to put out and then passed out.
Aaron Savage
-
Posted by Audeliz Angie Perez, Monmouth Junction, New Jersey |Apr 22, 2010 I love being on Biznik for the discussions that follow on the articles. Of course, the articles are great too!
Initially, I had the same thought as Howard in terms of how hard is it to rank for your name? As Andrey pointed out, if someone is searching for your name or business, they already have a referral from someone or he/she wanted to research you, your company and possibly disregard you depending on what he/she finds.
Targeting specific keywords shouldn't be a crap shoot right. . . especially if you are looking to capture search traffic. (I'm somewhat surprised you said that!)
Marc, I think you are bigger than the keywords that you are targeting. What I mean by this is you are the brand. Your name is what people think about when they are looking for speakers and internet marketing services having stumbled upon you on the net. Your videos are driving traffic back to your site. I'm surprised twice that you didn't mention video marketing as an element that contributes to your SEP for your name!
I'm in NJ and I searched for: professional speaker Toronto ca You weren't there at least not on page one.
I search for Toronto Marketing Consultant Not I didn'f find you not even on Biznik's member directory: http://biznik.com/toronto/marketing-consultant, which was on page 2 of google for this search result.
I don't mind the bio by the way. If you are going to write, educate and provide info, a mini commerical is fine by me.
And, lastly, I love a healthy debate. Don't pass the peace pipe just yet.
-
Posted by Audeliz Angie Perez, Monmouth Junction, New Jersey |
Apr 22, 2010 Question for you: Are you on the directory sites for CA speakers like: http://www.torontospeakers.com/
You didn't mention directories and I know you were just providing a few surface techniques.
Just curious.
-
Posted by wilder baker, darien, Connecticut |Apr 22, 2010 This is the first thread of commentary on a BizNik article which has bored me and overtalked to the point that I can not retain any of the sound information which is burried beneath this plethora of verbiage. One lesson I have absorbed over the years is "less is more". This thread, unfortunately, proves this point in spades.
-
Posted by Mike Pickett, Lethbridge, Alberta Canada |Apr 22, 2010 It is so funny when debates like this go on and on and ON....
Although this article is well written and does touch on some of the key points for SEO - most of the posts from people "showing their prowess" when it comes to SEO miss the mark. Those of you, including Marc, that don't know why the results are different when you perform your searches need to research Google a bit more - Google performs, tracks and stores your search history on your computer in the form of a Cookie. They use this combined with their algorithm and your location to determine the results that are returned. You can have 2 people on the same system using different browsers and they will get totally different results.
As for the domain name issue - yes this is the number one thing that most companies overlook when signing up for a URL - they are normally so stuck on "I need to have my company name as my domain name" (even I fell prey to this) - start to think in terms of "what will my clients be searching for in order to find me?" and then register that.
This is a good overview of some of the things that can be done to improve your search rank - but the claim of it being simple and getting guarenteed results is a bit misleading.
-
Posted by Rex Chapman, Santa Monica, California |Apr 22, 2010 Dang? There are a lot of haters commenting. What ever happen to if you don't have anything nice to say don't say it at all? Thanks Marc, you helped me out.
-
Posted by Heather Hernandez-Reja, Encinitas, California |Apr 22, 2010 I thought this was a great article. Some of the ideas I was already doing without already knowing and if you google Baby Yoga, Encinitas I on page 1! This is how my first two clients found me and who just started classes with me yesterday! (And I only opened up a week ago!)
I am now going to go through your list and try the other ideas! Thank you! It was easier to read than this 110 page book that I got but have not had time to pick up!
-
Posted by Donna Duncan, Haverford, Pennsylvania |Apr 22, 2010 I personally appreciate an educational, civil and healthy debate. That said, the article will not deliver on its promise (as others have pointed out) unless your name is something along the line of "A. Very Unique Name" and your domain name mirrors it ("www.a-very-unique-name.com").
-
Posted by Tony Moon, Green Bay, Wisconsin |Apr 22, 2010 Search engines have been able to index content from flash files for quite some time now.. http://www.yourseoplan.com/google-flash/
Sitemaps haven't been proven to help your ranking, they just help the search engines crawl our website if it is large and complex. Most websites don't have the need.
Most of your tips were good though, nice work. I always wanted to start writing articles about web, I just don't have the patience. I don't even think promoting your own website is a bad thing, nothing is free in this world.
-
Posted by Kamau Jackson, Chicago, Illinois |Apr 22, 2010 Thanks Shannon, I agree w/your take on this. Another thing I'd add is the $ value of a keyword counts in a major way. What is the buyers intent when they're searching is something we need to stay focused on.
Intuitively, you can guess that someone looking for "emergency pc repair" is closer to a purchase than someone who's just looking for pc repair folks in the area. (Ask any dentist, plumber or locksmith. ) You still have to do your keyword homework. Then, TEST; don't guess.
Of course you want to cover every segment of your sales funnel and establish relationships w/ prospects throughout the cycle, but all these things take time. They'll never happen without a sound strategy to begin with.
I do agree with Marc that we need to get our own website houses in order and not rely on sites outside our control (like Ning, for example). I think that point got buried in the presentation tho.
Since folks are doing rank checks as credibility indicators, feel free to do so.
Chicago marketing consultant(s) Chicago small business marketing consultant(s) Chicago small business marketing services Chicago small business search engine marketing services Chicago local search engine optimization services ...and so on
And thanks Marc for getting the discussion going. Where there's light, there's heat.
-
Posted by Liam Scanlan, Bellevue, Washington |Apr 22, 2010 Marc- appearing at the top of search results with a search for your own name is usually a no-brainer, unless you share your name with some famous person (e.g. Al Gore), or your name is very common (e.g. John Smith). In fact, you may appear several times on the first page of search results (depending on where you did the search from). When you appear at the top of search results for search words relating to your business, like "Ontario area marketing services", we'd be very interested in hearing how you did it.
Still, you listed some other good tips there. It all adds up.
-
Posted by Kamau Jackson, Chicago, Illinois |
Apr 22, 2010 Thanks Shannon, I agree w/your take on this. Another thing I'd add is the $ value of a keyword counts in a major way. What is the buyers intent when they're searching is something we need to stay focused on.
Intuitively, you can guess that someone looking for "emergency pc repair" is closer to a purchase than someone who's just looking for pc repair folks in the area. (Ask any dentist, plumber or locksmith. ) You still have to do your keyword homework. Then, TEST; don't guess.
Of course you want to cover every segment of your sales funnel and establish relationships w/ prospects throughout the cycle, but all these things take time. They'll never happen without a sound strategy to begin with.
I do agree with Marc that we need to get our own website houses in order and not rely on sites outside our control (like Ning, for example). I think that point got buried in the presentation tho.
Audeliz, you're on point about industry directories. This falls into the category Shannon referred to as "off page". In all fairness to Marc, though, I think he was concentrating on a basic on page checklist.
Since folks are doing rank checks as credibility indicators, feel free to do so.
Chicago marketing consultant(s) Chicago small business marketing consultant(s) Chicago small business marketing services Chicago small business search engine marketing services Chicago local search engine optimization services ...and so on
And thanks Marc for getting the discussion going. Where there's light, there's heat.
(Tony Moon: you might want to add some caveats about Flash a la both the Google and Bing Webmaster Guidelines)
-
Posted by John Huddleston, Bellevue, Washington |Apr 22, 2010 Marc, You have mastered one SEO skill that is not mentioned in your article. Controversy makes for great SEO.
-
Posted by Reid Peterson, Boulder, Colorado |Apr 22, 2010 Marc,
Not too difficult to rank for your name when your domain name is the same as the keyword...
In fact, there are an estimated 2900 searches in Google for your name on a monthly basis. That's not that much.
Most business owners want to optimize for the keywords that best match their services or products. Your success story is a poor example for most of the readers here.
For anyone reading these comments, know that the more specific you can be, the better your SEO will be.
The "long tailed keyword" is what you want, and you'll find a good one, if you do your keyword research.
-
Posted by Danielle Parsons, Ventura, California |Apr 22, 2010 I also use Google Keyword alerts either for a weekly summary or daily depending on search terms I want to rank for SEO.
-
Posted by Michael Hartzell, Seattle, Washington |Apr 22, 2010 Marc,
Toronto. That's a long ways away.
Here is a couple of offerings to add to the arsenal of those interested.
Biznik Event Polish Your Profile: https://biznik.com/events/polish-your-profile-1
It covered the in's and out's of SEO, maximizing Biznik and Pete, John and Richard did great. (And Lara was the bonus)
Inbound Marketing University http://inboundmarketing.com/university/classes
This free resource will make your head spin for how to tackle the adventure of getting found.
Warning. Yes it is free but they are deep with information so be ready to take notes. You can watch the videos without taking the test.
While there is no perfect tool, take a look at SEOBookToolbar at http://tools.seobook.com/seo-toolbar/
It has many options for keywords analysis, traffic, etc. all in one. Plug your site into the SEMRush on the toolbar and see what pops up. (again.. nothing is perfect but it does give more info than zero)
Not sure if this is the best platform to create an extensive conversation about SEO or getting found on the internet. In the old days when we learned accounting, everything was finite, defined and balanced and the definitions stood out as a priority In the new culture, definitions are wavering and there is more gray area. Everything is so fluid.
OPINION: (worth a chocolate nickel) Any business that can take both the dirt world and the virtual world and create a synergy is the business that will not only survive but thrive. (Biznik is one example and eBay conquered this years back)
I am spoiled a bit since I use Hubspot software which integrates the many tools into one. That is not a pitch. Just sharing my joy. :)
Hope the tools help a bit.
Have a great week end.(by the way... I would be curious as to where http://www.michaehartzell.com shows up when the phrase "free restaurant forms" is Googled in Toronto. #4 over here... have to wonder ....)
:)
Mike @michaelhartzell
PS
by the way...
check your site out with www.websitegrader.com and see what it says.
-
Posted by Jonathan Velasco, Guelph, Ontario Canada |Apr 23, 2010 Wow, one of the longest threads I've ever read on Biznik! Before i can reach to the bottom to write this comment, everything i want to say is already said.
The lesson i learned though is that if you are not a real expert on a topic, don't pretend to write, especially about SEO. You will be swarmed with "gurus" all eager to correct you and at the same time promote their names by doing so.
There is only one main reason why we are all spending time on threads, to promote ourselves and our websites.
Marc, you have written a good article. But you missed a good point that even a beginner like me can spot. If your domain name is the same as your search keyword (like your name), it will most likely show up as #1. But if your name is Barack Obama or Tiger Woods, you will have a lot of challenges to be on the first page!
-
Posted by Mike Peak, Cleveland, Ohio |
Apr 23, 2010 I agree with Reid's comments -- the keyword is supposed to match the services. Top two articles in the Biznik hotlist, but nothing much learned. (No wonder this article has a 6.5 rating ...)
-
Posted by Danny Martinez, Rancho Cucamonga, California |Apr 24, 2010 Great tips on how we can improve our search engine ranking...
Obviously we all want to be #1 or on the 1st page of a search term but even if you are on top, the basic business fundamentals still have to be there. Having numerous views/hits to the website but no product or service will essentially make that #1 spot worthless.
Plus being #1 with a “generic” term, in my case, “divorce, divorce documents or documents for divorce,” will yield a better result in your ROI as you know that the potential client was looking for that specific service or product.
Documents For Divorce
“No matter what decision you make, always make it an informed one…”
-
Posted by Massimo Paolini, Cupertino, California |Apr 24, 2010 Marc thanks for a great article, clearly written in plain English.
This is why, in my humble opinion, SEO is not a science nor an art but a combination of both...
The only point nobody has talked about, and IMHO the most important: -- is the new SEO traffic producing the desired results for you? You may be getting 2000 new visitors a day, an hour, or even a minute, but if nobody is converting to insert your desired outcome, what's the point?
SEO is not the holy grail but an important step in the process. If you ignore the rest of the process, you are throwing good money out the window and for the DIYs in the crowd time = money.
Now looking to the future, because Google could be yesterday's search engine.
Is anybody paying attention to what Facebook is doing to search?
What about the fact that it's now a major competition to Google?
It's also a closed system, you find someone with the expertize you need and you can email them without leaving the browser window. Very convenient...
How do you SEO for Facebook?
How do you get and stay on top of that search engine?
What about the changes announced in the last couple of days, how will those affect the search results both within FB and with it's partner Bing?
When someone figure this out and becomes the first SMSO (Social Media Search Optimizer) the point I made above is still valid. Without Web Intelligence you only have, at most, half the equation.
Thanks.
-
Posted by Gabriella Sannino, San Francisco, California |Apr 24, 2010 I was not going to jump on this thread but, after seeing so many people guffaw at your post I have to... Not in your defense but to compliment your efforts.
Everything you stated above is true, some may be a bit over the top but everyone has already made that point. Ranking for your name is easy, ranking for keywords that no one is looking for is also easy. Ranking for popular competitive word is hard work and yes, takes years of experience IMHO.
An SEO, SEM, SMO strategy is fundamentally what everyone is missing.There are a lot of SEO companies out there that will give you all the keywords, analysis, meta tags or someone called it once "mumbo jumbo" but without Web Intelligence, hard data, and a strategy you are throwing pasta on the wall to see if it sticks.
-
Posted by Reg Charie, Courtenay, British Columbia Canada |
Apr 24, 2010 I am sorry Marc but IMHO some of these things you have said are just plain wrong.
I have been doing SEO since Google appeared in Sept 1998.
SEO is a science once it is understood. Build enough pages and it will become clear to you what is needed in terms of page and code elements. "Hindsight is 20/20".
I congratulate you on getting your name up there in the engines but this is due to your domain name and not much else. (I see you as #3 on the main US data center). If you wanted to promote your business more you should setup www.toronto-marketing-consultant.ca
Anyway, let's look at the things I see as wrong.
Looking at your website it is obvious that you do not understand how a search engine ranks pages.
The ONLY content search engines will see on your home page is
download marketing articles
Copyright 2010 Marc Gordon. All Rights Reserved.
Marc Gordon is a professional speaker, author and marketing consultant specializing in innovative marketing tools and ideas for business. (This last is down in the footer in the smallest text on the page.)
The rest of your content is in flash or graphics and has little to convey in terms of relevant information.
Lets look at your statement: And while you may be number one today, you may fall to number 10 tomorrow, all because someone else made a small change to their site that made it appear more relevant than yours. Or because the search engines just chose so see it that way.
This would never happen. The most that could happen is one position drop as the page that made the change replaced you.
As for the search engines dropping you 10 spots this is not going to happen if you are following the rules and spirit of SEO. It could happen if you are pushing the limits of something like keyword stuffing or link buying.
To have this happen the search algos would have to be changed considerably and this will NEVER happen. The big 3 engines will be making small refinements in some of the elements but the days of major shake ups are long gone. Jagger in 2004 was the last one.
As for any company promising you to get you in #1 in a short time, it only took me 4 days to nail a #1 position with a new site for a term which had 19,000,000 competitors. I documented this so if you would like to see the screen shots please contact me.
Your Relevant copy is good advice. The Updates too. You should take your own advice about Minimal flash. Your own site is just an image and a flash.
Minimal PDF files While search engines can read PDF files, they don’t come through as clear as good old fashioned text. Where did you get that idea? If you look at SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages) a good percentage are PDF files. This would not happen if PDFs were not read properly.
Page titles *I have found the most success by having a detailed standard page title for every page, preceded by the name of the specific page. *
Each page title should reflect the content of the page with the primary keywords in the leading positions and separated by a pipe ( | ) from the trailing business name.
Remember shorter is better. The REASON for the title is to give a concise description of the content. This is not a place for a sales pitch. The more words in the title the less each counts. The closer to the beginning the more weight is attributed. The tile for the widgets home page should be Widgets | ABC Company
The title for their products page should be Widget Models ABC company is not needed. This has been established.
Alternate text (alt="ABC Company logo") Good information but one should not forget that the name of the image file counts. instead of main_pic.jpg it should be marc-gordon-marketing-consultant-toronto.jpg
Even better than using alt text is to use css image replacement as you can specify text formatting in the code. A good place to use this is on the logo. A CSS image replacement could put your primary keyword phrase in <h1> tags.
Page Description (meta name="description") Again this is not the place for a sales pitch. You want to capture the searchers attention and nothing does this as well as mirroring the title of your action page. Widget Models
Key words (meta name="keywords") While Google has come straight out saying they do not use the keyword meta I believe it is used as a sort of a "cross check".
The words in the meta tag should ONLY be the words used on the page and the fewer the better. Putting in every combination, spelling, separate and distinct phrases is most counter productive. If you search for Mark Gordon (as you have in the kw tag) you do not come up in the top 100.
In looking at your kw meta I would consider that 9 repetitions of the word "marketing" is stuffing. Experience also shows that the fewer the words in this tag the more importance each receives.
Commas should NOT be used as this separates words that could be combined in phrases. widgets for cars, widgets for bikes could be combined into widgets for cars bikes.
Site map Site maps are crutches. If your site has navigation that can be read by the search engines and is well organized for people then a site map is redundant.
External links to your site *This can be done by reciprocating with links to their site, *
Reciprocal links are only of value if the content on both sites is relevant. You linking to a sewing machine site as a business consultant and them linking back to your is not recommended by Google. Link only to relevant content.
Search engine submission If you upload a site, eventually these crawler will find it. But if you want to speed up the process, you can submit your site directly to the search engines.
This is practically guaranteed to put a new site in Google's sandbox. The initial ranking process depends highly upon relevance and Page Rank (PR).
Relevance between the linking page and the landing page and the Page Rank of the linking site modified by their link modifier, (.85 PR transference), and divided by the number of links on the page.
If you place your FIRST link on a PR 5 website whit 100% relevant content to your landing page, and you are the only (external) link on the page you would receive an initial PR of 4.25
If you use the google.com/addurl your page will receive a PR of 0.
Patience is not really much of a factor (anymore) as if you do it right, your pages will show up in a few days.
The most important thing is understanding what people and search engines want to see and how they see it.
Best of Luck. Reg
-
Posted by Kate Phillips, Seattle, Washington |Apr 26, 2010 I also searched and found your biznik profile on page 2 of google, and your website page 3. I suspect you're coming up #1 for you has something to do with the IPO you're searching from (your location), as someone mentioned above.
I also have a fairly common name, and lately my biznik profile is coming up #1 for "Kate Phillips." Not so my website, so fortunately people can find that through my profile! But I suspect I wouldn't be #1 searching from your computer, maybe not even first page.
I think if this article (and the responses) prove anything, it is that SEO is not as simple as it might seem at first. And while I'm sure this article as been a huge learning experience for you, perhaps there is no such thing as bad publicity.
-
Posted by Barbara Rogers, Golden, Colorado |
Apr 28, 2010 Great article Marc. Literally the methods I utilize while designing a website as well as communicating to my clients. When I explain some of these elements to them, often they do not think it's important. However when I show them the potential results, the light bulb goes on! I too stress the patience factor and to be leery of companies that make crazy promises about being getting them #1 on Google the next day.
The other thing I have noticed is how many folks buy a template, throw up some random text & photos yet there is NO SEO whatsoever. And they wonder why no-one is finding them. Many of them still with the word HOME for the page title!
-
Posted by kash mughal, Plano, Texas |
Jun 04, 2010 Nice Article Marc!
I had two questions/comments
-I have read that video marketing is the next frontier when it comes to SEO. Do you agree?
-Also I was wondering about using external links on your site using proper Anchor text. I have had some success on this on my website, however this methods seems to have conflicting arguments.
Thanks Kash
marcgordondotca Tweets
Marc's current promotion
-
Updated Feb 05, 2010
Biznik Member Promotion - 1000 Colour Business Cards
New to Biznik or a seasoned pro? Let me start by saying welcome to my profile. As you took the time to visit, the least...[more]
Article tags
- marketing expert
- marc gordon
- seo
- search engines
Marc's other articles
Related Articles
Bizniks are talking about 
Bizniks are talking about 
Hosted by 
About:
Cities:
Member categories:
- Copyright ©2005 - 2013 Biznik business networking
- Terms of Service
- Code of Conduct
- Privacy Policy
- Membership Contract
