Posts Tagged ‘google.com’

Search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the most discussed methods for improving traffic to your website.  Search engines, such as Google.com, Yahoo.com, MSN.com, and others are all trying to help web surfers find what they are looking for.  This is harder than it sounds.  Search engine companies are always working on their advanced algorithms in order to produce better results for web surfers.  It is a very competitive industry.  SEO experts work very hard to keep up with the changes in the search engine industry.

I strongly recommend you use a professional SEO consultant for all of this.  It is a lot of work and there are special tools that make all this much easier.  You can do it yourself, but is it worth your time?  Only you can say.

Know your baseline – Make sure you have statistics enabled on your site.  I recommend Google Analytics.

Know your objectives – Are you selling something?  Looking for phone calls?  Or do you want people to sign-up for your newsletter.

Keyword Analysis – Keyword research tells you what keywords you should target in your SEO strategy.  These should be consistent with your objectives.  I recommend Word Tracker

Competitor Analysis – Search the major search engines using the keywords from your analysis.  Learn who your competitors are.  You will want to out-perform them with better keyword densities, more inbound links, etc.  I recommend Web CEO.

On-Page SEO – There are a number of on-page things to do.  Here are the most significant areas to optimize:

• Pages should have keywords in the filename. These keywords appear in the address bar.
• The page TITLE should have keywords. These keywords appear on top of the browser.
• META Tags (keywords and description) should have lots of keywords in them as well.
• All graphics should have ALT tags with keywords in them as well.
• Page content should include heading tags and emphasis tags to draw attention to key words and phrases on the page.
• Page content should have a high density of critical keywords.
• All links on your site to other pages on your site should have keywords in those links. Avoid using [click here]. Use keywords in the link.
• Create additional site content if necessary. Make sure you have all your keywords optimized somewhere on your site.
• Update your site regularly. The more updates the better. This is why blogs are so popular.

Off-Page SEO – There are many off-page SEO techniques.  We can only cover a few here:

• Write keyword-rich articles and submit them to free article sites. Write a lot of articles. Use an article submission service to get your articles out to more websites faster.
• Write comments on blogs and social networks and include links back to your site. Make sure your links always include keywords.
• Post ads on craigslist.org, ebay.com, and anywhere else you can place ads promoting your products or services.

Your ultimate goal is to have as many pages on your site as possible and for those pages to be keyword optimized.  Then you want as many links to your site from other sites and those links should have keywords in the clickable part as well.   This is a never-ending process.  Always add more content.  Always produce more inbound links.  It is a lot of work but it can pay off big.

It can take a while for your SEO efforts to be fruitful.  Just keep at it.  Watch your website work its way up the rankings.  You will thank me when you are #1.

Desirable domain names are a hot commodity and the prices are going up, up, up!  Have you tried to register a domain name just to find out it has already been taken?  Desirable domain names, also called Premium Domain Names, are being marketed more aggressively than ever and people are paying a fortune for some of them.  We are not talking about the multimillion-dollar domain names here, we are talking about every day names that you might want to use for your business.

If you have a company name or product name and that name is available already, that is an obvious choice.  This article is about what to do when your first choice brand name is not available.

What Makes a Good Domain Name?

There are two important goals for most websites.  First is to be memorable to visitors.  Brand recognition and stickiness is very important.  Second is to help train Google.com in order to get more visitors redirected from the search engines.   To be clear, your domain name is a very small part of your overall search marketing strategy, but it is an important one.

To train Google.com, your domain name should include useful keywords.  If you are an attorney that specializes in divorces, some of your keywords would be:  divorce, attorney, lawyer, custody, settlement, alimony, etc.  You could choose a domain name by combining good keywords, such as: DivorceAttorney.com, DivorceLawyer.com, etc.  Those are very memorable and include great keywords.  Of course, someone else already registered those names.  What happens if you use more keywords, such as DivorceAttorneySettlementChildCustodyLawyerSpousalAbuseAlimonyFamilyLawOffice.com? That has many keywords in it, but it hardly solves our first objective of being memorable.  Well, it is very memorable, but not easily memorized.

What Variations Should I Try?

If you have decided on an one or two ideal domain names and they are no longer available, what do you do?  The first thing to do is to try a few variations.  Try and stay with .com style names.  Avoid adding dashes.  Add things like "Houston", "Texas", "My", "Your", "Offices", "Blog", "Store", etc.  This gives you a lot more options.  Using our example domain, DivorceAttorney.com, we have a lot more options: HoustonDivorceAttorney.com, MyDivorceAttorney.com, DivorceAttorneyOffices.com, and so on.

There are many alternatives to the .com extension.  These are less desirable for several reasons.  Mainly that your customers will probably go to the .com version.  It is not as big of an issue as it used to be, but .com names are still considered the premium choice with .net, .us, .biz, and .tv as decent second choices.  Do not choose .org unless you are a non-profit because that is what people expect from a .org site.

How do I Buy a Premium Domain Name?

You can easily determine who owns an existing domain name using a service called "WHOIS".  The "WHOIS" data is available from many places including most companies who provide domain registration services.  Send an email or call the official contacts associated with that domain name and see if the domain is for sale.

Many domain names are registered for the purpose of being resold at a profit.  You can usually tell from what happens when you try to visit the website.  The site looks strange and there is a link to inquire about purchasing the domain name.

Once you contact the domain owner, they will either say "not for sale" or they will give you a price.  Negotiate that price.  I’ve talked down every domain I’ve ever purchased.  One domain was offered at $5000 but I paid $1000.  Another domain was $1800 and I paid $800.

You can also purchase a domain name appraisal from GoDaddy.com for a few bucks and that will give you negotiation ammunition if someone’s asking price is too high.  There are a number of factors considered in pricing a domain name.  Use of popular keywords, extension, and many other factors influence the price.

How do I Pay and Not Get Ripped Off?

Never pay someone for a domain name without protecting yourself.  Many domain sellers are overseas and taking legal action against someone in another country will not be worth the trouble.  If you are buying from a reputable company such as GoDaddy.com, then there is little to worry about.  But if you are buying from an individual, you MUST use an escrow service.  I suggest www.escrow.com .  They charge about 3% and they manage the transaction.

An escrow service takes your payment, but will not release the payment to the seller until the domain name is properly transferred.  It also protects the seller because you cannot get your money back very easily either.  There are dispute resolution processes if necessary.  Generally both parties feel safer with an escrow service holding the money during the domain transfer process.

Transferring the Domain Name

Finally, there are some administrative headaches in transferring a domain name.  This takes an attention to detail and a little experience is helpful.  You should get the help of someone technical just to make sure everything is properly transferred and to confirm you have 100% complete control of the domain name before releasing escrow.  There may be several steps to the process.  The exact steps will vary from registrar to registrar. It is usually a process.

In case you have not noticed, video is exploding over the internet.  YouTube.com is one of many sources that have made video simple and affordable to produce.   We have all seen the skateboard accidents and other funny videos.  Have you also noticed the number of commercials and information videos?  Have you noticed how many video blogs are out there?  Yes, video is here and it is time for you to get in on the action.

Your First Video

Video is a big topic if you want it to be.  How do you reach your customers?  How do you make it interesting?  Should you hire a professional?  Can you do your own thing with a webcam?  These are all great questions and all have the same answer, "it depends".

If you are already accustomed to giving your "elevator pitch" about your company, that’s a great start.  You can also prepare a quick elevator pitch for each of your products or services.   If your business is centered around you and your personal credibility, then do your own videos.  If your business is built around the products and services, then at least consider using someone attractive with a captivating personality to represent your company.

For most companies, your video should be focused on marketing and not too educational.  No showing off!  Tell people that you can help them and focus on what they need and why they need it now.   No video resumes.  Focus on your client’s needs or on your differentiators.

Shoot several versions and change them up a bit.  Then ask your friends and colleagues to help you choose the videos that work the best for your business.  You can have several.

For web video, any camera will do.  Take the time and trouble to work on sound quality, lighting quality, etc.  You do not need special equipment, but you do want your video to look fairly well done.  It is not necessary to focus on high definition or tricky special effects.  Just get a video online and then upgrade it when you are ready.  It you want something really fancy or if you are producing a companion DVD, etc., then spend the money on professional help.

Publishing Your Video

Your video should be from 30 seconds to five minutes in duration.  These are easily hosted on YouTube.com.  Upload your video to YouTube.com and they will provide you with the codes to help put it on your website.  It is very simple.  Put a different video on each page of your website and make sure the YouTube.com descriptions include keywords, product names, or whatever else.  Google will read the YouTube.com descriptions and use those to drive traffic to your videos and to your website.

If you do not use YouTube.com for your video, there are easy ways to have your video placed on your website.  The important thing to do here is to create the XML required to teach Google.com what the video content is so Google.com can send you search engine traffic.  Google calls this XML file a "Google SiteMap".  To create a Google SiteMap, go here:

http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=80472

I am sure that Google SiteMaps are generated by some video editing software.  There are probably other tools to help you do this as well.

Great Video Commercials

If you go to YouTube.com, you can search and find all sorts of videos.  One of my favorite examples are the videos from the BlendTec blender company.  These videos are built as a cross between a video blog and an infomercial. Search youTube.com for "Will it blend" and you will see well made videos of a guy grinding up all sorts of crazy things in his BlendTec blender.  These videos are designed to do several things:

Create a viral marketing buzz.

Demonstrate the quality of the product.

Sell blenders.

These commercials do all that well.  It is worth a look to get some ideas on how to do it right.