Most businesses have a vague idea of search engine optimization (SEO) and have an even more vague understanding of what can be done on a month-to-month basis to increase search rankings. Search engine optimization is ultimately an ongoing process that requires monitoring, tweaking, and the development of new, unique strategies to make your business and website standout from competition. There are some universally accepted SEO components that any good SEO company or business owner should follow including social media marketing and regular content production. By coming up with an individual strategy and adhering to it, you position your website or business to grow in visibility for months, even years, to come.

One of the most important components to any SEO campaign, by nearly all objective measures, is the production of new, unique content. The web is comprised only of content and if your website or business fails to contribute then one simply cannot expect to gain any visibility with the various search engines. Content, of course, can come in many different variations. For most websites, the most popular form of content comes in the form of the blog post. However, a website or company can also produce videos, podcasts, or a variety of media forms. It is important to remember, though, that when producing content it is vital to create content that will be consumed by actual users rather than search engines. There’s no real advantage and, ultimately, the severe risk of blacklisting in creating content specific for the search engines.

Another absolutely vital component to any monthly SEO strategy is the incorporation of social media. There’s tangible, non-SEO, benefits of using social media for your business and website which includes greater customer interaction, advanced brand awareness, and a viable audience to market. In terms of SEO, however, social media can provide necessary links to your website both in terms of your own posts but also in others sharing your posts. Social media also provides quality traffic to your website and, depending on your SEO strategy, can do so through keywords you are looking to optimize.

Another key component to any monthly SEO strategy is industry-specific forum participation. By this I mean establishing yourself as a forum member in many of your business’ or website’s industry-specific web forums. Often, these forums have high page ranks, with high traffic. These forums also allow you to demonstrate your expertise in a given industry and also present an ideal environment to create quality backlinks to your website.

These monthly SEO tips are just the tip of the iceberg. Make sure you and your SEO company have developed a sound strategy and make sure to consistently stick to what you have planned.

                                      

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaigns can be a very powerful marketing source if used intelligently. If left unchecked or improperly setup, however, these campaigns can be quite expensive and ineffective. Many business owners, for example, are perfectly capable of managing their own campaigns and yet time restraints and an often confusing interface makes hiring a PPC management company worthwhile. With a smart, strategic implementation, these PPC campaigns can direct targeted users to your website and make them paying consumers.

The start of any good PPC campaign is intensive keyword research. While many simply utilize GoAdword’s suggested keywords, it is nonetheless important to do one’s independent keyword analysis to ensure that you will be driving the right kind of users to your website. Without this research, you may fail to find the best keyword which occasionally comes at a low cost-per-click rate.

The second, and highly imperative, step to any good PPC campaign is to set a budget. Some set a high budget, ridiculously high at times, while others simply test the waters with a low budget. It is important to set a comfortable monthly budget, one that you are secure with pricewise but also one that is sure to bring in enough customers to make the price worthwhile. Additionally, it may be beneficial to experiment the first few months with your budget so that you can pin down an exact figure that works well financially.

Once the campaign is up and running, it’s quite advantageous to monitor everything daily. This way you can manually monitor the budget, turning on and off certain keywords when necessary. Furthermore, you can better grasp how consumers interact with certain keywords and which ones create the most paying customers. By doing this, you’ll be able to convert your PPC campaign into a viable marketing campaign.

For those looking at a more advanced PPC strategy, stagger the use of multiple campaigns. This is often particularly beneficial for businesses that offer a variety of products or services. In grouping these different products or services into different campaigns, you are better set to understand those industries that respond with effective internet marketing. Also, with different campaigns you can set different budgets per campaign, fine-tuning your overall strategy even further.

With an initial strategy that works within a budget, PPC campaigns can be highly successful and many businesses use only pay-per-click as their primary marketing tools. It is important, however, to be quite familiar with, say, Goggle AdWord’s interface and the overall process that underscores the entire operation.

                                      

Building websites has two different components to consider: the experience of the front-end user actually visiting the website and the experience of the individual maintaining the back-end of the website. What often gets lost is the latter of the two. When developing a complete website, it’s often necessary to make an easy interface for someone to maintain without too much technical difficulty. One way to overcome the issue is to utilize the WordPress platform as your website’s primary back-end. There are a few issues that one should consider, however, before joining the millions who use WordPress daily for their websites.

First off, WordPress is a great open source and free platform to use. It is easily flexible for the experienced developer and is intuitive for those with minimal tech experience. Essentially, there’s nothing you can’t do with a standard website that one couldn’t do with a WordPress website. The back-end is instinctive, easy to use, and has a well-documented knowledgebase.

Despite these inherent advantages, however, there remain some core changes one has to make to WordPress in order to make it a truly viable option. The platform operates based upon themes, which makes perfect sense for those who do not know how to build a site but which have their own shortcomings. Themes typically have their own little quirks, a strict layout (without tearing the code absolutely apart), and security issues. At our website design house, we always use child themes as a way to fully customize the front-end, while adding additional security to the overall site.

Another issue with WordPress that any developer must deal with is security. Because of its widespread popularity, the platform is inherently the target of malware and other nasty security concerns. One of the easiest ways to combat this is to subtly change the fields in the WordPress database and rename the core files. Of course, to make many of these changes the technical expertise needed rises a bit and a familiarity with mySQL is strongly encouraged.

Finally, plugins are often essential components that make a site unique and modern. But it’s imperative to use them sparsely and only when absolutely necessary. Delete old, inactive plugins which pose a security threat. It’s easy to overlook plugin usage as your site grows, yet they can slow down your site’s performance and add a bunch of junk to your site’s code.

Overcoming these basic obstacles should position your WordPress website to grow and flourish for some time. The platform itself is great for SEO, makes the transfer from a website design company to a client a breeze, and provides a suitable design platform to work within.

                                      

Individuals and business owners can find it quite frustrating when it comes to choosing a reliable website designer, webmaster, or web service company. For whatever reason, many have had a bad experience with certain developers or companies. Part of the problem is the lack of knowledge those hiring a web service provider have when it comes to evaluating a developer or company. When you do find the right web service provider, however, it can be quite rewarding in terms of their responsiveness and customer service.

I often find it very intriguing when a new client comes to us in the middle of a specific project. In these instances, the client has been through a handful of webmasters or web designers and, for whatever reason, they have not worked out. Simply from anecdotal experience, clients come to us because their current “web guy” is not returning calls, giving vague completion dates, or other unusual business behavior. I can’t speak for other industries, but this problem at times seems absolutely chronic in the web design or website maintenance industry.

Why is it so hard at times to find a reliable and responsive web designer or webmaster? There are a couple of reasons which may, inadequately, explain the situation. First, the nature of web development is geared towards a more youthful demographic. Not to demean my entire generation, but a young and inexperienced designer or webmaster just doesn’t have the business communication skills that naturally comes with industry and real-world experience. In this situation, it’s absolutely vital that you ensure that the designer, webmaster, or web services company you choose has (1) experience and (2) a customer-first approach that ensures constant and transparent communication.

Another cause of frustration for many site owners with their website providers is the fact that they selected a non-registered business to handle their services. This comes in many varieties: “My nephew is quite good with the computer” or “A friend of a friend has done websites”. In these cases, there is absolutely no legal responsibility on the developer to honor their word and complete a project on-time or within budget. Additionally, many times these individuals just lack the professional expertise to complete certain projects. When in doubt, it’s always best to go with a reliable website designer, webmaster, or website company which provides transparent terms and a fairly rigid project schedule. You may have to pay more upfront but, in my experience, it will often save you from having to start all over.

But what differentiates website design or website maintenance companies from one another? Again from anecdotal experience, the companies that are most likely to drop the ball with your website are those which either (1) have a large client base with your site low on the totem pole or (2) companies with owners who do not have a strong foundation in web development. Not to pigeon-hole, but these type of companies place their emphasis on sales and not on the customer relationship and very little goes into consulting with actual developers regarding the best approach and/or what’s even possible.

Finding a reliable web designer, webmaster, or other web service provider can be quite frustrating. Ask for references and the potential provider’s technical experience. Make sure they are a registered business and offer terms and conditions that hold both parties responsible. And above all else, use your judgment when it comes to evaluating a company’s customer service because that should be the most important element to your website project.

                                      

The biggest search engine trend of the past few years (and one of the biggest web trends in general) is the move towards more localized searches. This presents a challenge for many businesses as they are typically marketed for the specific city that they are in and not, for example, for other cities surrounding the business. For businesses in major cities, the predicament is how to market their website for the suburbs. For those businesses outside major city centers, the question becomes one of marketing in the surrounding area. As a worthwhile strategy, “City Pages” are ideal for those businesses who want to market their website or business in a number of cities.

Take a look at any search query you perform with Google and in the left margin you will see your location. Google determines this based upon your IP address, which can often change depending upon your provider. Recent changes in Google’s search algorithms have placed a greater value on this location in determining the search results for any query. The concept is fairly simple to understand: rather than receiving results for a search for a “dentist” from all across the country, Google will use your IP location in order to provide a list of “local” results. For the end-user, this is great and replaces a lot of the weeding a user had to perform in order to get to a quality, relevant result.

For the business owner, however, it can be quite frustrating because you could hypothetically have a high search ranking for one town and in the next city over be nowhere on the search results. One way to combat this is to develop city pages for specific geographic locations you want to market. Understanding city pages though requires a little understanding of what actually gets indexed on your website.

A handful of code snippets have a great deal of value in terms of indexing your site. A webpage’s title, header (H1 & H2), and content all have top billing. Typically and even if a site has good SEO, most businesses only market to the main city that they are located within. What this means, then, is that specific city develops a strong relevancy to the business and website. But what about the surrounding cities? This is where the concept of city pages comes in handy.

With city pages, a developer creates custom pages on the backend which are suited towards an individual city and there is ultimately no limit to the number one can create. What changes from page to page is the specific city listed and the content, so as to avoid the nasty problem of duplicate content. When in place, city pages typically have a high success rate and drive your search engine visibility through the roof for a particular region.

City pages can be great supplements to a general marketing campaign. Be advised, however, that if they are not implemented properly than you do run the risk of being penalized for duplicate content.

                                      

For many, search engine optimization (SEO) is a confusing and often maddening concept. While many typically have a broad and general idea of what is good for optimizing one’s website (a generalization that’s been acquired by just a few moments of web surfing), this knowledge typically has its limit in terms of application. Understanding SEO is much more complicated than we give it credit for, both in recognizing the basic components of good SEO and in responding to changes to the industry.

We recently had a client who came us to us when they dropped a little bit in their rankings for Google Maps. After a few days it became clear that something was afoot, something which had to be tweaked. It subsequently became obvious that Google had updated their map search algorithm and that this update resulted in changed results.

These Google updates would come to be known in the industry as the “Venice” and “Panda-flux” updates and underscores the volatility that is inherent in search engine optimization. One day you can be sitting pretty on page one of a search result, and the next day you’re fighting for survival on page four. In my experience, it’s this component that absolutely drives business owners who handle their own marketing wild.

In the anecdotal case I mentioned, what’s important is that we were able to catch the drop in rankings in a matter of days and make necessary adjustments to the client’s Google Maps account and website in order to generate greater local relevancy, which the updates had placed a greater value upon. While they’re not ranking as high as before the shift, our client is seeing daily progress back up in rankings and it’s only a matter of time before they see a return to search engine ranking prominence.

Aside from underscoring the sheer volatility of SEO rankings, what this case also highlights is the importance of having an inside-man in the industry. For our client, we were able to pinpoint why their rankings took a hit and readjusted their internet marketing strategy to fit within the new confines of Google’s search algorithms. As a business who primarily markets on the web, we understand that it is absolutely vital to ensure quality search engine placement. More to the point, we have the industry and technical knowledge to react in real-time to modest or even extreme changes to search behavior. Without this kind of insight, our client would be wallowing in the nether regions of a search query.

While search engine optimization is an inexact science, there is nonetheless a rhyme and reason to where your website is ranked. The key is responding in such a manner so that you keep in place your vital and necessary SEO components while enhancing the parameters that have changed.

                                      

(ZT5MEDZ86WHS) Many have a lack of understanding when it comes to setting up an e-Commerce website. For some, the hope and allure of setting up a successful e-Commerce site masks the tasks necessary to actually create the framework for the site to work and flourish. As part of the site overall, one has to consider their merchant account or payment gateways. There’s also the design component that is vital to encouraging purchases. Consequently, while creating a site for you to sell your products online may seem like a great idea, and it is, it nonetheless requires foresight and a great deal of planning.

Let’s get down to some of the technical details. If you are planning on selling products online, you need a way for users to actually make a purchase. This is ultimately called a payment gateway. These gateways can be something as simple as PayPal or something integrated with an actual bank account. Each payment gateway is similar but has different technical necessities in actually setting up the online shopping cart. Do beware, however, as any payment gateway will cost a monthly subscription, a percentage of the transaction, or a combination of the two.

One thing that is typically required, and universally recommended, is for your domain to have a Secure Socket Layer (SSL) or Transport Layer Security (TSL) certificate. These protocols encrypt certain data elements (such as a credit card number) for secure communication over the net. A security certificate is absolutely necessary if you use API development to actually host a shopping cart on your domain.

One of the most overlooked aspects of any e-Commerce website is its design. While there are a number of template-based programs to help establish an e-Commerce website, these templates often have little to no customization and you are at the mercy of the software developers. The first and most important aspect in designing a website to sell products online is its backend. One has to ensure that the backend is easy to navigate so that products and the inventory can be easily updated. Again, without such a feature you are entirely reliant upon the person(s) who created the software you are using.

Another design element one has to consider is the front-end. A user should be able to easily purchase a product without much searching. This means that products need to be categorized and should be presented in a clean manner. Users typically do not have much patience particularly when it comes to finding products online. You have to make the purchasing option easier than your competitors which means that each product needs to have specific details in addition to the option to purchase right there.

An e-Commerce website is a great compliment to any actual storefront and is absolutely necessary without one. However, it is a complicated affair and requires due diligence. When you get it right, though, you will see your investment payoff.

                                      

Marketing your website on the web is based around a handful of key concepts. One of the most notorious and important considerations is the keyword. The implementation of targeted keywords goes much further than the simple META tag. Furthermore, a great deal of time and energy has to go into keyword research in order to find those phrases which will give you the best ROI. When you find the right set of keywords, however, your website SEO will pay great dividends.

To begin with, keywords are individual words or phrases that you hope your website will rank well in with the various search engines. This is ultimately how you are going to drive traffic to your website. What keyword research aims to do, then, is find those phrases which (1) are popular search terms and (2) which there is little competition.

Say you are a plumber. Of course, you could target the actual term “plumber” but it is such a broad and general term and, furthermore, you would be competing with every other plumber in the world for rankings. In this instance, you have to delve a bit deeper and into the specifics. Say as a plumber, the vast majority of your work is kitchen work and say you primarily work out of Orlando, FL. Consequently, a more appropriate keyword phrase is “Kitchen Plumber Orlando FL”. While this isn’t necessarily the best example, it nonetheless shows that the importance of keywords lies in there specificity and geo-targeting.

Those in internet marketing and website SEO ultimately rely on a figure known as the KEI indicator. This is a statistical number that takes how often a word or phrase is searched for and divides it by the number of competitors for that phrase. Those words or phrases with a higher KEI are the keywords you want to target as, with a smart marketing strategy, you can come to dominate the keyword term.

When you have a set of specific and geographically pertinent keywords, the next step is to integrate them into your website. This aspect of website SEO is fundamental. Keywords need to appear in the title of pages, in header tags, in links, and in the actual content. What this ultimately does is establish relevancy between the keyword and your website. It does you or your website no good whatsoever to target keywords which have nothing to do with your business, service, or goods.

With keywords in place comes monitoring. It’s necessary to track your keyword placement. If you go down in certain keywords, it may be necessary to create content that specifically targets those phrases. It’s also important to consistently search for new phrases to target as your industry and competitors adapt.

                                      

In recent years, the web has dramatically changed to a mode of interaction. Not surprisingly, Facebook has led the way in getting users to interact with one another. This change has made having a social media presence an absolute must for any small business. Having a presence on sites such as Facebook and Twitter, however, means a great deal more than having a profile and updating it periodically. Your business must spur interaction and this, in turn, drives traffic to your website and garners your business greater attention on the social networking sites.

Just a few months ago, the key for a small business was in establishing a fairly large following to which you could inform of latest blog posts, deals, and other relevant information. Recently, however, Facebook has introduced the new “talking about this” feature. This new development tracks other users and other applications (such as Twitter) which mention your business. This is extremely important in that it is a good gauge for your overall social media presence and whether or not your marketing efforts are fruitful.

One essential component to maximizing your “talking about this” status is to have your social media accounts all interlinked. Currently, there are applications that connect your Facebook account to your Twitter account in addition to your Yelp profiles and other vital networking sites. By having everything linked, your interaction on these other sites is reflected onto your Facebook profile. This interlinking has a pragmatic benefit: users on Facebook are easily directed to your other social media profiles. It also has the added benefit of encouraging others to interact. In other words, if it appears that your business is willing to interact frequently with customers, then users are much more inclined to follow you and interact themselves.

One simple way to optimize your business on Facebook is to develop a custom Facebook canvas or series of landing pages. Facebook Developers allows a user to create custom tab pages which distinguishes your brand and, hopefully, encourages more interaction from users. Increasingly, individuals are finding businesses on Facebook itself and it is important to ensure that you have as much relevant content on your profile as possible. Custom Facebook pages give you that added tool to inform and reach out to potential clients.

Of course, the recent social media revolution is greater than Facebook. Google + will soon be an absolute necessity (it perhaps is already) and will require just as much attention in optimizing and monitoring. Whatever the future brings, however, one thing will remain the same: social media is here to stay and the sooner your business reaches out through Facebook, Twitter, and the like, the better off you will be in the long run.

                                      

There is a general rule of thumb that internet marketers and web designers live by: content is king. In the modern era of search engine marketing, nothing delivers more bang for your buck than original, useful, and engaging content. While Web 2.0 design standards emphasize clean and flowing graphics, the motor running everything is content.

Google’s Webmaster Guidelines explicitly state, “Create a useful, information-rich site, and write pages that clearly and accurately describe your content.” Content, in other words, is a top priority in terms of what a search engine looks for when they visit your site.

Content, of course, comes in many different varieties. There is actual static page content. This is the information that is relatively stable on your website and which is fairly easily indexed. There is also what we call articles which frequently come in the form of blog posts. In terms of maximizing your internet marketing, I have found that a site must strike a balance between stable content and dynamic content. To a search engine, this shows that a site is consistent and stable, yet continuously adding content and improving its engagement.

For content to be most effective, however, it has to be optimized. This means including all your standard SEO code techniques and making sure page titles and headers are included. Additionally, the art of content production is about targeting a handful of keywords for which you are optimizing.

Content does no good, however, unless people actively read it and respond to it. This is why the other half of content production is content publishing. We have a list of sites that are great for publishing your blog (some automatically updated with a blog feed). There are also a handful of article publishing websites that we utilize. The point of all that is to distribute the content and extend your authorship to sites that you wouldn’t normally publish.

Furthermore, producing content does you no good if the content is of a poor quality. As a general rule of thumb, any piece of content should be at least 400 words, should not be keyword heavy (3-5% is the recommended figure), and should be produced primarily for, and this may seem odd to some, humans not the search engines.

For your website to be optimally indexed, then, it needs a vast amount of quality content. Frankly, the more content the better as it should foster users going deeper into your site and staying for greater periods of time. While design gets all the attention, remember that your site is nothing unless it has readable content.