Just remember that every other business and individual is also feeling the pinch. They want to find the right items to fill their needs without wasting money or time on irrelevant or non-vital products or services.

In order to survive and even thrive in this economy, a business needs to become essential to its customers. Small businesses have the advantage of being able to change course quickly to adapt to changing circumstances, where large businesses may take a long period of time to implement any reasonable change. So are there ways your business needs to adjust?

Examine the services and products that you offer. Can they be adjusted or improved to appeal to those on a tight budget? Can you offer an introductory value service to let people see what you have to offer? Do you cater to a specific niche or to a well-off audience? In that case, you may not feel the same pinch that other businesses do.

No matter what product or service you offer, you’ll need to get the word out to potential customers. Wise marketing is one important key to differentiating yourself from the crowd. While other businesses are pulling back from marketing efforts, you can step in to fill that gap.

Use SEO – search engine optimization – online advertising for a relatively inexpensive, organic marketing method, giving you value for your dollar and introducing potential customers to your products and services. SEO marketing through techniques such as article placement, directories, social networking links, and refreshing your website with fresh, SEO copy will raise your placement on SERPs – Search Engine Return Pages – and send more customers to your website.

Once customers reach your website, be sure you provide excellent, persuasive reasons for them to use your product or service. Let them see why they need what you have to offer, and you’ll find the way to thrive despite the tough economy.

There are a number of strategies through which one can optimize their own website. Of these, the one that is worth mentioning is the “Cloud”. Many of you might have this question in your mind as to, “what is a cloud?” and “what does a cloud has to do in SEO?” Well, let me throw some light on this. Clouds can be of many types, such as, profile clouds, link clouds, content clouds and so on. However, the most commonly, or rather the only form of cloud used or discussed in the SEO works is the tag cloud. When you are looking in some website page, you must have come across a section headed “Tags”. Under this head you will see a bunch of words, placed one after another, some appearing small in size, whereas, some big and bold. The difference in the size is dependent on the number of times each word or tag has been associated with an item. This whole section is called ‘word cloud’ or sometimes called ‘tag cloud’. In general, the tag cloud helps a visitor to have an idea about the well-liked tags that are present in that particular site. The individual word or tag is actually linked to a page where you will get contents related to the tag you clicked.

This has been a very useful tool for search engine optimization and is gaining widespread acceptance by websites who want to optimize their keywords for search engines. Actually, the whole idea behind a tag cloud is to help you “visualize” content that is most relevant to a websites based on certain keywords or the keywords you searched for.

However, I am sure, you might have come across a funny situation where you have seen a website having certain keywords in its tag cloud in the boldest forms and yet it does not contain any content related to that keyword! For those of you, who have not, watch out!

The most popular search engine spiders cannot read JavaScript or images, just as they read and process plain text. However since having a tag cloud requires some logistic optimizations on keyword history, such clouds are represented by either using JavaScript code or images. This accounts for a cloud that contains misleading tags. The answer to this problem is simple; pictures alone DO NOT best define your website. No, they are not at all friendly to search engines. They may be professional enough to attract the solitary attention of a friendly customer but they are like alien material for crawlers and spiders!

The best practice is to make good use of the “alt” and “title” tags for your images. This will allow the web spiders to crawl your web page in the most efficient manner and mine information from the content of your website. Identify your perception of the tag cloud; for example, which keywords should be bolder, and then compare it with the actual results. Modify or edit the “alt” or “title” tags accordingly.

If you spend some time on this, you will soon come up with satisfying results. Yes, “Tag” is the new SEO language that is creating waves, why shouldn’t you capitalize?

Marketing through search engines can be done in usually two ways, namely organic SEO and inorganic SEO. Organic SEO, as the name suggests, is nothing but the natural way for optimizing a website in the search engine pages. Since, this does not involve any sort of monetary transaction, good content of the web page full of creativity and relevance is of utmost importance. Another thing that one should keep in mind while using organic SEO is that, the content should continue to advance according to the need of the people searching the net. Moreover, optimization of this kind helps the websites to achieve a higher order of ranking for a longer period of time. This means that organic SEO has a natural, long-term impact.  However, the only shortcoming here is that one might have to wait for over a month or so in order to “see” the desired results i.e. to get one’s website ranked higher in the search engine pages for a particular search criterion.

Now, talking about inorganic SEO, the first thing that I would like to mention here is; this type of optimization involves a substantially larger amount of money from the respective website owners. The website owners, who aim to attain maximum popularity of their website within the shortest time period, are advised to exercise this artificial form of optimization. In this form of SEO, the website owners pay an amount for making their ads appear on a prominent part of the search results page. Consequently, substantial amounts of inbound traffic are drawn to the website. Compared to organic SEO, this is a bit expensive, and hence, inorganic SEO is best suited to those who can afford an enormous “flow of funds” to be paid for the optimization. Unlike the organic way of optimization, inorganic SEO can bring in the desired results much quicker, but the impact or the effect of such optimization is not that enduring.

People have their own reasons and opinions regarding the debate that which one of these two forms of SEO is more effective. On the basis of the evaluation made on search engine marketing services, both Organic and Inorganic SEO have their own shares of advantages and drawbacks. You can choose any of these services, which you feel suits best with your requirements, strategy and budget. In my opinion, I would say that a balanced combination of both the services could bring in the desired results, wherein, your website can be seen at the highest position of the search engine pages for a longer period of time and also, draw inbound traffic faster.

The traffic in search engines like Google, Yahoo or MSN is massive. You will have to go that extra mile in order to break through this traffic, and make your passage smooth. I will now discuss some of the points in brief that you should keep in mind when you plan to optimize your website for search engines.

With the increase of web traffic in large amounts on the information superhighway, listing of your webpage with a higher rank on any search engine involves a lot of research and to some extent, expertise. So make sure that apart from this post, you look around some other, similar posts so that you are very well acquainted with the process of SEO. I would advise you to get suggestions from an expert if your website involves a niche list of viewers and you are very particular to move up the ladder faster.

While optimizing your website for search engines, most often you tend to snazz it up with a lot of graphics and flashy animations. What you forget in the process is that your website will take more time to load compared to others. This may lurk off visitors from your site. Avoid the use of images and graphics that take time to load. Have an easy to load design for your website to increase the hits for your site.

Another important thing is that; make sure you study the existing competition. First, make a list of keywords that defines your product (or service) the most. Additionally, come up with as many keyword combinations as possible. Think from a viewer’s perspective. Think about the process in which viewers will use keywords to gain information about a particular product or a service from a search engine. After you have prepared an exhaustive list, use them in different meaningful combinations and search those words using the most popular search engines like Yahoo, Google and so on. See the number of matches you get for the keywords you are interested in to judge the competition. Always keep in mind that your website must have content which matches the keywords, because ultimate content of your website is what the search engines give priority to.

So, is there anyone who wants to optimize his or her own website for the search engines? Well, do not waste any more time and start with your SEO plans immediately, as, the higher the ranking of your website in the search engine pages, the better the prospects you will see in your business!

However, all is not dark, and the nervousness that consumers are feeling right now may be tapped to effectively help improve one’s business right now and for the long-term. I’ve got a marketing tactic that can help with search engine optimization while simultaneously bumping up sales and even store visits for local brick-and-mortars. Read on!

My secret local search engine optimization tip du jour is exquisitely simple: coupons!

It’s unsurprising that consumers are searching for coupons more than ever, since they feel the need to cut back on expenses. Google Trends is showing a really sharp increase in searches for [coupons] as we approach the end of this year:

The potential for tapping into this consumer hyper-interest is remarkably clear!

Local businesses should provide a special coupon page on their websites for each of their local outlets. The page should be accessible to search engine spiders, and it should clearly state what the coupon is for, using all the classic SEO signals. You should particularly frame the title of that page with keyword-rich, targeted text. For example, something like:

“Blue Widgets in Anytown, State Coupon – Blue Widgets Discount”

People are going to more effort right now to research deals, discounts, rebates and coupons before they make purchases, so if your business site has content of that sort, you may be able to achieve additional sales.

Even better, the coupon content can be a good magnet for obtaining external links, so having coupon and other discount pages can help with your search engine optimization. Getting good quality links from other sites helps to increase your PageRank and will therefor help improve your pages’ rankings in all search engines.

There are a number of coupon directories sites out there which love to list deals and may link to you. While some of these may only list coupons if you pay them as an advertiser, there are sites out there which may list your coupons for free. Consumer blogs seem to be springing up all over, focusing on reporting best prices and discounts — some of these are even local city or regional blogs, specializing in particular geographic areas. If you put up a coupon page, do some searches in regular web search and blog search to find sites which might list your coupon and link to you, and report your coupon to them.

Don’t be afraid to ask various organizations and blogs which report on deals to link to you. You could even research local clubs and associations which post their newsletters on-line, and you could offer their members a special coupon with a link to a specific info page on your site, outlining the deal.

Even advertising on some of the coupon directories could be useful to you, depending on what your product or service is, although some coupon directories are not accepting further partners at the moment.

Additional coupon optimization tips:

• Link to the coupon page from your homepage. Promote it on your homepage, even — display a small thumbnail of the coupon, and have linked text below that reiterates the coupon’s title.
• Make the coupon “meaty”! There’s nothing more irritating than coupons for the stuff that no one buys, or coupons that are so insipid that they only bring your price down to what everyone can get at the corner discount store.
• It’s hard to tell whether a blog is essentially a “sham blog” made up of all paid article content. So, some blogs which appear to be on the level may come back asking you for money in return for posting your coupon information. Pay-for-blog posts of this sort can be frowned upon by search engines, particularly if they’re not clearly labeled as sponsorships. I’d recommend avoiding these, since the search engines may have discounted the worth of their links anyway, and I think they typically have fewer subscribers/readers.
• Always include expiration dates in your online coupons. Just to keep them live through this holiday season, you could have them expire on January 1. Or, have them expire more frequently if you’re planning to put up new promotions — churning your promotions could result in more links.
• Ask people to print and bring in the coupon — this will let you get an idea of just how effective this promotion is.
• Provide links to the top most popular items you might sell on your site, below the coupon information. The coupon might draw people into your site, but don’t waste the opportunity to show them a few other things they might also buy. Limit to only two or three items, though!
• Ask people to rate your business or your product at one of the big ratings sites out there, such as internet yellow pages, in order for them to qualify for the coupon. Positive ratings can help your site to rank in local and regular web search! State outright that the review doesn’t have to be positive, but that you’d appreciate honest feedback in order to represent your business well and to obtain input in how to make improvements. You could ask them to write on the coupon the name of the site where they reviewed your business in order to validate the coupon. It’s not a good idea to reward people for only good ratings, or the host sites might take a dim view of the promotion — but, incenting people to give objective ratings should be acceptable. Also do not require that they write their usernames on the coupons.
• Always include your URL on print advertising, including printed coupons.
• To further engage holiday sentiment, offer to make a donation to a well-known charity for each coupon purchase, and outline that deal on the coupon webpage as well — and invite people to email the page link to others they know. Consumers will be more supportive of businesses which are supportive of their communities, and this can also help to attract more links as people report on the deal. When doing charitable tie-ins of this sort, it’s also worthwhile to coordinate an optimized press release announcing the program and linking back to the coupon page.
• Offer a “serial coupon”, such as if the consumer makes purchases on three successive visits, they qualify for increased savings each time. This could really pump things into overdrive!
• Don’t make the fine print of the coupon so extensive that no one can comprehend the exclusions. People know what “bait and switch” is, and they really hate it. Avoid anything close to that such as luring people in by ambiguous language and stuff. Do this wrong and you can turn people off and lose potential longterm customers.
• Be darn sure you have enough product for everyone who might bring the coupon by your store! There’s nothing worse than getting excited by a coupon only to find the store ran out. The economic crunch has caused many businesses to keep much smaller inventories, but try to be prepared to rapidly reorder product if your coupon promotion appears to be working.

Using a good coupon strategy this season can allow you to take advantage of the hot consumer interest in discounts. Use this opportunity to get some great inbound links for your longterm SEO benefit, while also pumping up your short-term sales.

We know that timing and layers all play their role, but knowing when to do something and how are the true qualifications of developing results that transcend just being a part that ultimately serve the whole. Building and leveraging website authority is on of such things which is why we encourage you to follow the links to these posts from the past for further elaboration on the topic.

• Authority Sites and Authority Site Building (how to leverage website authority)
• Phrase Rank and Trust Rank (Looking beyond just links)
• Don’t Just Build Links, Build Trust
• How to Improve Search Engine Placement (and Develop Authority) for Your Site
• Combining SEO with Time and Authority

It’s not just about code, links or content it’s all about building website authority and gaining the trust of search engines.

Once authority is attained, all of the SEO techniques and tactics you glean from other facets of search engine optimization work that much easier. Particularly when targeting moderate to competitive phrases since most of the keywords you simply mention on a page become low hanging fruit and rise to the top of the SERPs (search engine result pages) based on the virtue of the reputation your site has accrued.

It’s not always the tip of the iceberg that matters, its what is beneath that you should concern yourself with. They always say age before beauty. Well in this case it’s build authority and trust before trying to scale competitive rankings.

There is no shame in being where you are at, you just need to know so you can gauge the impact your website has, so you can condition it into a website capable of attaining the lofty goals you establish, despite how competitive the arena may be.

I would be pleased to buy some text links on your website. Let me know if you are interested so we can proceed for further negotiations. I can really offer you a smart and competitive package.

Smart and competitive package? This guy had to be kidding me, right? Anyone who knows me can reasonably assume that I will respond to most search engine optimization (SEO) and/or link buying pitches with one of the following responses: (a) Hit the delete button, or (b) Report search engine spam. Of course, the delete-button decision would have been more efficient. But I was in one of my moods. I really hate CSS browser incompatibilities.

Thank you for getting back to me. I am interested in placing paragraph somewhere in the middle or bottom of the internal pages of your website. For that, I shall pay you accordingly: [amount] for each of the internal pages where you can easily add small paragraph with links below the post. My recommended pages are as below…

I was quite puzzled at his page selection. This person selected pages where the last thing any savvy website owner would want is to distract site visitors from their desired goals.

Then it dawned on me — this person was completely serious in his intent. He did not label himself as black hat, white hat, red hat, blue hat. He did not view his internet marketing as search engine spam. In his mind, I imagined, he was trying to enter in a perfectly legitimate business transaction — building high-quality links to his site. Which brings me to my first point….

“Ethical” Is In The Eye Of The Beholder

Plenty of SEO professionals consider themselves to be ethical search engine marketers. Labeling a company as an “ethical search engine marketing (SEM) firm” is a great sales pitch as it implies credibility in this industry. The label communicates knowledge and expertise, that the SEO/SEM firm understands all search engine guidelines. The label communicates that the SEO/SEM firm is trustworthy.

Additionally, being an ethical SEO/SEM often depends on circumstances. One SEO professional’s circumstances are not the same as another SEO professional’s circumstances.

For example, I know some in-house SEOs whose job it is to optimize Flash sites and/or sites with a horrendous content management system. I know people who are told by management to make their sites number one, but they cannot change the appearance of the site at all (no keyword/copywriting changes — nothing). Their job is to optimize web sites under these circumstances. Management, or the powers-that-be, do not want to hear their excuses about search engine guidelines. They just want these in-house SEOs to do their jobs.

What is the ethical solution to that problem? Are these in-house SEOs less ethical because of their circumstances?

My circumstances are quite different. I am the company owner. I can decide which search engine strategies to implement or not. Whenever I hear unreasonable expectations from clients and prospects, I gently try to let them know that their expectations are unreasonable. Optimization almost always means making changes to a website. Some changes are simple text changes. Some text changes are not so simple. Information architecture modifications can be a long-term project, one that people wish to solve artificially.

I understand that people don’t want to change their websites. That’s when I might mention search engine advertising. If a client or prospect has no interest in search engine advertising, sometimes I state:

So, you would like me to sprinkle magical fairy dust on your website and miraculously make it appear number one all of the time for all of your keywords? Okay…hold on…I have to make a note that I have to change my job title on my business cards to say: Shari, the SEO Fairy.

I wonder if fairies are ethical, but I digress. I understand that it is probably easier for me to follow all of the search engine guidelines due to my circumstances and knowledge. Others SEO/SEM professionals are not any more or less ethical because they do not share my circumstances. The person who tried to negotiate paid links with me did not perceive himself to be a search engine spammer.

Therefore, I believe the perception of “ethical search engine marketer” is in the eye of the beholder.

White Hat SEO Is SEO 101

Many black hat SEO practitioners get characterized unfairly. Many white hat SEOs share that unfair characterization. And the discussions that go back and forth can get quite heated and colorful. I asked Erik Dafforn, executive vice president of Intrapromote, about this:

“We do our very best to stay out of the fray …. we used to really toot the “white hat” horn, but it became so morally charged that we just tried to gently excuse ourselves from the conversation. It’s frustrating to be considered ‘out the loop’ or less technically savvy than other crowds, but to be quite honest, we’re not, and people can believe or refute that at their leisure.

“Chasing the current loopholes just doesn’t cut it for the clients we’re going after,” Dafforn continued. “I can’t imagine telling a large client, ‘Remember the re-architecture implementation that we recommended that cost you $40,000 eight months ago? Well, let’s do it all over again before this loophole closes.’”

As Erik mentioned, one common characterization is that white hat SEOs are not SEO experts because they lack sophisticated technical skills. When, in fact, coming up with an effective information architecture with wireframes and prototypes often involves considerable technical skills. Here’s what Adam Audette, president of Audettemedia, told me about that:

“There is a lot of misunderstanding about what ‘white hat’ SEO entails …. you often hear that black hats are cutting edge; white hats are not. Or that black hats are more sophisticated than white hats.”

“White hat SEO does not mean SEO 101,” he continued. “There are advanced, very sophisticated search marketers doing white hat work. And there are very advanced people doing black hat work. The big differentiator for me is that white hats work with the user in mind. They don’t necessarily have to always agree with what the search engines dictate — but they do have to keep relevance at the fore and a user-centric viewpoint. To me it’s the most long-lasting way to deploy search marketing campaigns, rather than always trying to out-maneuver a search engine.”

White Hat SEOs Are Search Engine Patsies

White hat SEOs have been characterized in many ways. We’re holier-than-thou, goody two shoes, search engine whipping boys, and a number of other colorful descriptions. All of these descriptions can be a great source of entertainment.

I think many people confuse following search engine guidelines with agreement. White hat SEO practitioners do their best to search engine “boundaries” but do not necessarily agree with all of their guidelines. Ask any white hat SEO what they dislike about Google, and you will probably get an earful.

For example, I am not a big AdSense fan. I understand why it exists. I understand its income-generating potential. I also dislike the “AdSense magnet” websites that are more common than I care for them to be. In fact, during many of my usability tests, I have actually observed an initial negative impression of a website when test participants see the “Ads by Google.” The response is often a look of disbelief followed by, “Google approved this site?” How am I supposed to respond to that question as a Google supporter?

I certainly do my very best to follow all of the search engines’ terms and conditions and will continue to do so. But I do not always agree with them. To be honest, I believe many white hat and black hat SEOs share the same opinions about some of the search engines’ terms and guidelines. Ask us at the next Search Marketing Expo. You might see how much we have in common.

I am very interested in what others have to say about this subject. What opinions do black hat SEOs and white hat SEOs share? Personally, I would love it if a creative search engine marketer wrote a play with this colorful cast of characters. I want to be Shari, the SEO Fairy. How are both groups unfairly characterized? What character would you play?

A big reason for the confusion is the misuse of industry terms. This wouldn’t be so bad if it was just the general public using incorrect definitions. What makes the problem serious is that it’s primary cause is people in the SEO industry who use words incorrectly.

Here are some common reasons terms get misused and why it’s important for people to get them right:

No standard definitions

Many of the misuses of SEO terms happen because people simply don’t agree on their definitions. The most extreme example of this is the phrase “search engine optimization.” Much of the bad reputation in the SEO industry stems from the fact that ordinary folks are confused by what search engine optimization actually is, how you do it, and what its purpose is in the larger scheme of things. While company A will tell you that SEO is “submitting websites to the search engines” (blech), company B will tell you it’s “manipulating search engine results to provide a more favorable listing for a specific website” (also blech).

I’m tired of hearing that.

Budgeting your internet marketing project may seem like a crap shoot. But I can simplify things for you:

1. If you’re building a new site, expect to spend 2X that amount again in the year after the site launches. Unless you want it to sit there, all alone, with no traffic.
2. If you want a site built by a single untrained individual who ‘learned how to use Dreamweaver’, expect to spend less than $2000. Also, expect to build a new site within 3 months.
3. If you want a site built by a 5-10 person, boutique-style agency, expect to spend, at an absolute minimum, $10,000. These are experts, and they deserve to be paid as experts.
4. If you find a 5-10 person, boutique-style agency that’ll build you a site for $2000 or less, expect something that looks like they had a sneezing fit during the design phase.
5. If you expect to get a #1 ranking on Google for $99, you’re insane.
6. If you hire a smart individual with a proven track record to optimize your site for search engines, expect to pay at least $5000, one time. Unless they’re your friend, or they’re willing to work hourly.
7. If you hire a big agency with all sorts of fancy tools, an army of copywriters and other expertise for search engine optimization, expect to pay, at an absolute minimum, $50,000 for a one-year engagement.
8. If you want to double your sales this year, you are going to have to pay more than $1000 to do it.
9. Reliable hosting costs more than $9.95 a month.
10. If you’re spending $250,000 to build your product and get it to market, don’t tell me you can’t spend $15,000 to give it a decent web site, unless you want to watch my eyes bug out like I’ve been suddenly depressurized.

]]> http://www.webdatasource.com/2008/09/10-rules-for-setting-your-internet-marketing-budget/feed/ 0 http://www.webdatasource.com/2008/08/headsmacking-tip-6-test-with-paid-search-before-you-target-with-seo/ http://www.webdatasource.com/2008/08/headsmacking-tip-6-test-with-paid-search-before-you-target-with-seo/#comments Mon, 25 Aug 2008 23:23:46 +0000 randfish http://www.seomoz.org/blog/headsmacking-tip-6-test-with-paid-search-before-you-target-with-seo Posted by randfish

This may seem like old hat to many SEOs, but it's a tip that never fails to get an "oh yeah!" during client meetings. The concept is simple - in any given search engine optmization campaign, you are naturally going to form a list of high-traffic, (perceived) high value keywords that are an idealistic goal for your site to dominate. For a site like SEOmoz, those might be the highly competitive terms like "SEO" or "Search Engine Optimization," while in a field like BuddyTV's it might be "tv shows" or "tv news."

The problem is that while these keyword searches seem like no-brainers, ranking for them can take a remarkable amount of effort on both the content and link building side. To warrant that investment, you need to know, from a business perspective, that financial returns will accompany the rankings. One great way to do this is to use paid search to investigate the likely ROI of visits from those keywords. Buy the keyword traffic for a few weeks or a month and measure visitors via a segmented tracking campaign (check out this post on action tracking to learn more). If the visits that arrive via those searches convert well and produce value, you know that a serious investment is warranted. If, however, they turn out to be tire-kickers and have a low propensity to produce returns, you can re-focus on higher ROI targets.

There's just a few valuable tips to bear in mind when you're pursuing this process:

• Paid search traffic can behave differently than organic traffic, so don't take the figures at 100% accuracy. Build in some room for error, and you'll create far better expectations.
• When crafting your PPC campaign for test purposes, make sure to narrow to exact match so you don't accidentally measure traffic that's coming in for longer tail or modified versions of the search query. It's great to do this and measure response in a PPC campaign, but with SEO, you won't be able to naturally rank for those same variants unless you identify and target them individually.
• Make sure to narrow to a geographic area, especially if your keywords contain any potential local intent or local modifiers. Otherwise, you can seriously over/under-estimate.
• Keep seasonal variation/flux in mind. Use Microsoft's Keyword Forecast or Google Insights for Search to help out. Volume fluctuations usually indicate shifting intent as well, so purchasing keywords in a down period can hamper the accuracy of your forecasts.

That's it for this week's headsmacker. I've got a very personal post I worked on during my plane flight back from LA this weekend coming soon (hopefully tomorrow), and we're also launching our new blog etiquette guidelines and some explanations this week, so stay tuned!

BTW - If you somehow missed it, go back and check out Danny's brilliant post from last week on analyzing the Top 100 Blogs. It flew under the radar a bit, but is worth a thorough examination.

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