SEO School
May 26, 2009 by Melissa Donovan · 2 Comments
The Introduction to SEO explained how search engine optimization (SEO) can increase traffic to your website. But how does one implement SEO? How do you know which keywords to use, and what do you need to do with those keywords to increase your rank on search engine results pages (SERPs) and draw more traffic to your site?
And if you’re thinking about hiring an SEO consultant, how do you begin to understand what you’re paying them to do?
In short, how do you learn SEO?
If you want to learn about search engine optimization, you can spend weeks or even months perusing the Internet, gathering free information. Eventually, you’ll pick up enough knowledge to launch your own SEO campaign.
Or, you could just buy a copy of SEO School, spend a couple of hours reading, and then launch your SEO campaign. With the information in this ebook, you can optimize your website and see real results – in both your keyword ranking and your overall traffic.
In less than a month, I was able to apply the information I learned in SEO School and test it on one of my websites. And what I found out was that it works. Plus, I was able to learn SEO quickly and easily!
Learn SEO
Over the last few years, I studied SEO at a distance. I paid attention to articles and blog posts that covered SEO, and I had a basic understanding of how SEO worked. From everything I gathered, it was a complex, convoluted field – one in which there were no guarantees and in which the rules were constantly changing.
Last summer when Naomi Dunford of Itty Biz launched her ebook SEO School, I was intrigued enough to buy it right away. The price was right (about half the cost of most other SEO books), and I knew Naomi’s writing style was witty and obscenely engaging, so it was sure to be an informative and entertaining read.
After breezing through the entire ebook in just a couple of hours, I knew one thing for certain: I was going to learn SEO and then optimize my websites.
The thing about SEO is that it’s not that difficult. It’s just extremely time consuming – though even the amount of time you spend depends on the number of keywords you’re optimizing for and how competitive the keyword field is.
SEO School: Enroll Today
SEO School is a perfect introduction for people who want to learn SEO basics and who want the nitty gritty details on how to actually optimize a site. It’s ideal for website managers who want to start optimizing, and it’s a fantastic resource for small business owners who are thinking about hiring an SEO professional but want to understand what’s involved in the process of search engine optimization before they shell out the cash.
The book kicks off with a basic introduction to SEO, and explains how search engines work and what their motives and goals are (remember, search engines are businesses too!). Next, there is a discussion about selecting keywords based on a variety of factors, such as search frequency, competition, and how well a given keyword relates to your site.
About halfway into the book, you’ll start learning exactly how to tweak your site’s code and content to gain higher search engine rankings. You’ll also learn about off-site optimization. There’s even a section just for bloggers.
Naomi’s style matches her blog, so if you’re an Itty Biz reader, this book will delight you. And if you’re not an Itty Biz reader, then head over there and subscribe right now to get some of the best online marketing tips around. However, if you are a puritan, beware – Naomi is liberal with language and her blog posts as well as her ebook are peppered with words that could get a child’s mouth washed out with soap, which is part of what makes it such a blast to read.
Case Study
I launched my own SEO campaign after reading SEO School, and the results were impressive. For the purpose of this case study, I will share my results for two keywords. Keep in mind that I was in the early, testing phase. My approach was to optimize a few pages and see what would happen. Once I could assess the test results, then I would be prepared to launch a full-scale campaign.
The main thing I wanted to know was: does SEO work? If I learn SEO and then optimize, will I actually see an increase in my rankings and my traffic? The answer was yes, and my full-scale campaign is now underway.
The case study below outlines the steps I took to determine whether SEO School would pay off.
Case Study
The site I was working with was over a year old and had almost 200 pages of content when I started. I decided to optimize the archives rather than create fresh content.
Keyword #1
I found that a keyword that generated almost 30,000 searches per month had sent 23 visitors to my site in 2008. I couldn’t even find my site in the first 200 search results on Google, so it was no wonder that I was getting such a small fraction of the search engine traffic.
After optimizing one page in December, my site leaped to position #130, and almost immediately, I noticed a spike in traffic. Over the next few weeks, I optimized four more pages on the site for the same keyword. Each time I optimized, I noted the current rank and followed up a few days later.
| DATE | RANK | ACTION |
| 01/04/09 | 130 | optimize another page |
| 01/22/09 | 53 | optimize another page |
| 01/24/09 | 36 | optimize another page |
| 01/30/09 | 34 | optimize another page |
In less than a month, I had optimized five short pages and increased my rank from practically off the chart to page four. At the time this case study was written, my site was at position 32, so it’s still climbing – and I’m not done optimizing. I probably spent 15-20 minutes proofreading, editing, and optimizing each page.
Keyword #2
As it turns out, the second keyword occurred organically. In SEO, there is something called a long-tail keyword. There are plenty of different definitions of long tail keywords. For the purpose of this study, the keyword that started generating traffic wasn’t one I optimized for at all. In fact, it was a combination of two other keywords I had optimized for.
For example, let’s say you optimized for the keywords “red” and “shirt,” and then found you were gaining traffic for the keyword phrase “red shirt.” Well, that’s what happened with my site.
The long-tail keyword that started drawing traffic gets between 3000 and 5000 searches per month. That’s not a lot, but if you ranked for several such keywords, you would see a nice spike in traffic. Also, keywords with lower search frequency are good for cutting your SEO teeth and learning the ropes.
In 2008, I received a grand total of 23 hits for this keyword phrase – that’s over the course of a whole year. After optimizing about five pages for portions of the keyword phrase, I received 182 hits from the keyword phrase in January alone. In a single month, I had increased my traffic for just one keyword phrase over 700% of what it had been during the course of an entire year.
I can’t wait to see what my stats show in February.
Summary
If you want to learn SEO on your own, Scribizzy recommends SEO School by Naomi Dunford of IttyBiz. This SEO book is a quick and easy read, and it will give you all the basics of SEO plus the actual steps you need to take to optimize your site.
Buyer beware: SEO School may contain language that is not suitable for children. But it’s really fun to read.
Want to optimize your website? Check out Scribizzy’s SEO services, including SEO copywriting, or just go ahead and get a quote online.
Web Content Development Step One: Brainstorming
May 19, 2009 by Melissa Donovan · 3 Comments
Have you ever heard of the five Ps?
Proper planning prevents poor performance.
This saying is simple and easy to remember, and it conveys an important message: The best results come from a well-laid plan. That’s what smart web content development is all about — proper planning.
If done right, a good content development plan will ensure a stellar performance, one in which your website plays the starring role. This all starts with a blueprint, a map that you can follow to take your website from concept to completion.
Every good plan kicks off with a brainstorming session.
We’ve already explored the basics of web content development. The very first step in developing web content is to establish the concept for your website. In this step, you brainstorm all of your options. Later, you’ll develop a streamlined list of content that you will build and launch over time. This becomes your plan.
In the picture above, you can see a man working at a board laden with sticky notes. This is a great way to brainstorm. However, a few large sheets of paper will serve just as well. In any case, you need to set up a workspace where you can jot down all your ideas and notes.
Make sure you have your computer handy too. As you build your list of possibilities for web content development, you’ll need to conduct research at almost every step. Keep this in mind as you go through the rest of this list — for example, if you’re not sure what all your social media options are, you’ll want to conduct a search.
Web Content Development Brainstorming Tips
- List your core web content — this includes your website and its most essential pages (Home, About, Products or Services, and a Contact page). This content should contain information that is absolutely necessary to communicate your offer and message to the online community. Don’t forget that images, video, and links are content too!
- Create a list of additional pages that could benefit your website. These could be articles, sales pages, or individual products and services pages. Remember that you’re in the conceptual phase, so write down anything and everything that comes to mind.
- Remember that web content is any content you own on the web. This goes beyond your website and expands into countless opportunities for online exposure, such as social media. While your content may exist in various places on the web, its core purpose is to drive traffic to your site. Brainstorm beyond your website.
- List social media sites. What kind of content will you need to set up a presence on those sites? For example, if you set up a Twitter account, you’ll probably want a custom background and maybe even a few pages of potential tweets to kick-start your Twitter campaign.
- In a sense, your website advertises your products and services. To drive traffic and potential customers to your site, you’ll have to advertise the site itself. That means listing your website in directories, posting ads, or buying advertising space on other websites. You might want to try a Google AdWords campaign as a way to drive traffic and customers to your site. Compile a list of online advertising channels that you’d like to explore.
- Check out the competition. Visit sites that offer goods and services similar to your own and check out their web content. This is an excellent way to get ideas. You can also conduct reverse searches to find out how your competitors are getting inbound links.
- Conduct searches. Use Google to see what’s buzzing in your industry. Try a wide range of search terms, including terms related to your industry, products, and services. You could spend hours doing this, possibly all of eternity. Keep track of the search terms you enter in search engines and make notes about anything interesting that comes up. Read the articles, check out the images, and visit sites that are related to your own. They don’t have to be competitors; be sure to look for sites that offer products and services that complement rather than compete with your offerings.
- Take your search to social media. Here’s where you’ll really see what’s buzzing. Want to get your finger on the pulse of the universal water cooler? Just take a look at Twitter’s trending topics. Enter your most condensed search terms in social media sites like Facebook and Twitter to see how folks are treating your subject matter and what they’re saying about it. Tip: Don’t forget to search YouTube (you’ll find some really interesting stuff there).
More Brainstorming Tips
Here are a few bonus tips that deal with any type of brainstorming session:
- Start with your primary objective. Whether you’re selling widgets or trying to build a readership for your newsletter, know what your main goals are. Let every aspect of your content development contribute toward achieving those goals. I recommend writing this objective in big, bold letters and keep it visible during your brainstorming sessions. If you have more than one goal, then identify your core goal and note lesser goals as well.
- You can always add to your list. Keep your brainstorming materials accessible (or transfer them into a computer file) so you can add to them whenever that light bulb goes off in your head (and trust me, this will happen). You also may want to revisit your ideas later, which is another good reason to keep your brainstorm on file.
- Remember that brainstorming and research can take time. You might need to spend several hours or days on this phase. If you put a lot of sweat into brainstorming, conceptualizing, and planning, then all the other phases of your web content development will go smoothly.
Next Steps
Once you’ve got a massive list of ideas for web content, your next step is to prioritize, eliminate, and explore further. If you’ve done your legwork, then you should have a good idea which content should be developed first. You will also have some ideas that don’t look like a good fit for your specific business offerings. Finally, there will be some ideas that are unclear or require further research.
Keep working at your list, refining it until a concrete plan starts to emerge. You can always get started building your web content before your plan is completely finalized. For example, you may be trying to figure out just how much you can squeeze into your budget in a single year and aren’t sure if you can do social media sites and an ad campaign. But you know you need to get those core pages on your website underway. Multi-task, and if you’re too busy, then try delegating or hiring out some of the work.
Web Content Development
Web content development can be a lot of fun for creative types who like to plan and brainstorm. If you’re internet savvy, brainstorming will come a lot easier. If you’re not very familiar with the many marketing outlets available on the web, you might need to spend a lot of time researching — to get a list of possible sites where you’ll feature your content and then to hone that list down targeting only those that are a good match for your business offerings.
If web content development doesn’t sound like fun to you, then you can always hire a professional. Scribizzy offers web content development services and can help you put together a comprehensive plan for the future of your website. We can also help you execute that plan! Find out more by getting a quote online.
Five Great Business Blogging Ideas
May 12, 2009 by Melissa Donovan · Leave a Comment
Have you ever thought about adding a blog to your business website? The benefits of business blogging can be great, but there are obstacles that you must overcome, problems you must solve, and challenges you must face before you can launch a business blog.
For starters, you need to have a solid content development plan. What topics will your blog cover? Just news and announcements about your business or industry? What else could you possibly write about on a business blog?
Fortunately, there are plenty of areas to explore in terms of topic. The main ingredient you need for any blog is a good writer – someone who can produce compelling content. A clever and talented writer can make the dryest subject in the world juicy and interesting.
Business Blogging
Business blogging is really no different than most other blogging endeavors. Business bloggers are often working to grow their subscriber base, readership, and traffic. Businesses are looking for ways to grow their customer base and doing so through an effective online presence can be highly beneficial.
Business blogging provides a number of opportunities for improving your online presence and increasing your online success. You can grow traffic to your site, gain rank on search engines, and publish quality content that other websites will link to.
But how can you also leverage your blog to grow your business, increase sales, and connect with your customers?
Five Business Blogging Ideas
From lengthy blog posts that feature your products and services and describe them in great detail to shorter posts that showcase photos or videos that depict your merchandise in action, business blogging offers ample opportunites for sharing news and information about your business offerings. Here are just a few ideas for how to use your blog to promote your business:
1. Products and Services
Write posts with images and descriptions of your products and services to help people better understand what you offer. Be sure to include a mix of newly launched products along with your core or staple products. And don’t forget to highlight the benefits of your offerings!
2. Customer Service
Every business has tons of stories about customer service. Good service, bad customers, and vice versa. Use business blogging as showcase to demonstrate how your business has helped customers. Offer a question-and-answer format that invites customers to send in questions, which you then answer on your blog. Or, encourage customers to send in brief letters or testimonials and post these on your blog.
3. Specials and Discounts
A blog is one of the best places to inform customers about specials or discounts that you’re offering. You can design promotions especially for your blog readers or subscribers, or you can offer open specials and simply promote them on your blog.
4. Features and Benefits
Do more than describe your products and services. Explain the features they boast and the benefits they offer for those who use them. A business blog is a great place to go into greater detail regarding how your product or service will improve people’s lives and solve their problems. Use examples. Tell stories. Compel people to buy.
5. Multimedia
You can post a wide range of media on your blog – images, audio, video, and text. This means there’s no limit to the content you can create and share on your blog. Did you recently do a radio spot or TV commercial? Make sure you post it on your blog. Have you run an ad in the local paper? Post it.
Blogging for Business
Once you sit down and start brainstorming the material you can share through business blogging, you’ll be surprised at just how much fodder for blogging a business actually provides. There are great benefits to be had through a business blog, so what are you waiting for?
Not sure where to start? Need to hire a professional blogger? Scribizzy offers a full suite of blog services, including business blogging. You can even get a quote online!
12 Website Design Tips for Small Businesses
May 5, 2009 by Melissa Donovan · 1 Comment
If you’re running a small business, you’re probably pretty busy. You’re managing a team of employees, generating leads, balancing the books, or simply doing whatever it is that you do best.
Maybe you’re a plumber. Or a piano teacher. Maybe you run a boutique or a roller skating rink. Whatever it is that you do, you know your field of expertise, and website design is not it.
But you have to hire someone to design your site, right? How can you make smart decisions about your website design if you’re not an expert in websites or design?
If you’re a small business owner, it pays to learn a little about the inner workings of the web. If you understand a few basics about website design and online marketing, it will be much easier for you to choose a website designer and work with your designer to build a site that will achieve your business objectives.
Website Design Tips
This guide provides website design tips for small businesses that need to establish a web presence and launch an online marketing campaign but have no background in online marketing or website design. Always remember this: Your website should be designed to further the progress of all these aspects of your business:
1. Define your business
When you started your business, did you write a business plan? If you did, then you have already defined your business. But many people who are self-employed have never bothered to write a business plan because they never required a loan or any type of financing. They just hung up their sign and started selling their wares. Here are a few points you need to clarify before getting a website:
- Company Mission – What is your primary purpose?
- Business Philosophy – What is your business approach?
- History – What are your credentials and how did you get started in this business?
- Products and Services – What are you selling?
- Features and Benefits – How do your offerings improve customers’ lives?
- Customers – Who are your customers?
- Image and Branding – What image do you want to project and what tone do you want to convey?
A website designer can use this information to create a site that accurately reflects your business. Some of this information will be used directly, but mostly it will inform the sensibility that your site conveys. All of it’s helpful — for you, your website designer, and any other web content services provider that you work with.
2. Build Your Brand
A website is really an extension of your brand, especially when we’re talking specifically about website design. Your brand is your image, the tone and flavor of your business. It has a distinct attitude and a message. It’s memorable and catchy. Think about the GE light bulb and the slogan “We bring good things to life” or the Apple brand, which communicates a tone of elegant but functional simplicity and minimalism. You need to define your business personality for a website to be truly effective.
3. Develop an Online Marketing Strategy
Once you finish building your website, what are you going to do with it? You’d be surprised how many abandoned websites are collecting dust all over the Internet. People keep paying their annual domain registration and hosting fees, but their websites have zero visitors on any given day. Why even bother? The goal of your website is to attract traffic and then convert that traffic into paying customers. How are you going to get people to come to your site? That is the question that all good online marketing strategies answer.
4. Create a Content Development Plan
Let’s face it — getting your first website is cool. It’s super cool. Even your second and third websites are exciting. Each redesign is an opportunity to make your business stand out. I myself have been seduced by the awesomeness that is slick website design. The first few websites I designed had absolutely no written content. But I was just trying to learn how to make a website. I didn’t have a business back then.
Every website needs a comprehensive content development plan. On more than one occasion, I’ve been hired to write website copy for a client only to find out that the site design was already commissioned and imposed strict limitations on the copy. “We need a 50-word blurb here, and about 250 words there, a ten-line something or other across the top.” That’s all fine when design is your priority, but as you delve deeper into the project, there are pages where 250 words may not be enough (like on a terms and conditions page).
The written content and the design must work together toward a common purpose: to market your business. All the fancy schmancy designing in the world is meaningless if it can’t hold the message that you want to share.
5. Identify Your Web Content Needs
Speaking of web content development, who’s going to be providing the website copywriting for your site? Have you thought about hiring an online marketing expert to help you draw traffic? Do you have time to manage the site and track its performance or will you be hiring that out as well? Lots of small business owners do nothing more than hire a website designer and then forget about the rest, creating a wide gap between their business’s online performance and potential. If you thought this through while you were writing your business and marketing plans, then great. You’re golden. If not, then now is the time to think beyond the design.
6. Establish Your Budget
You can spend a few dollars on a website or you can spend thousands of dollars. And everything in between. Spend some time researching website designers. Get a few quotes, and then set a realistic budget. Don’t be so cheap that you end up with an amateurish website, but don’t get too extravagant either. If you’re a small business just starting out or trying to grow into your next phase, know that you can find excellent website designers who offer affordable rates and turnkey solutions. You might not be able to get all the bells and whistles, but you should be able to get a solid, functional, and aesthetic design. And remember, you can always rehire your website designer later to make changes.
7. Find the Right Website Designer
If you’re going to hire a website designer, make sure you look at their portfolio before you sign the quote or issue your deposit. Design can be highly stylistic, and if your designer’s style doesn’t align with the style you want for your business, then the project is doomed. This is especially true if your design project will include creating a logo or any kind of illustration. The more complex and involved the design, the more essential it is that you find a designer whose work you like.
8. Understand Your Web Designer’s Services
Website designers often offer services exclusively in design. Website design is a specialty, not an all-inclusive online marketing service. Do you need written content or help with online marketing? Your website designer may offer these complementary services or may be able to refer you to other service providers. You might luck out and find yourself at a one-stop shop that provides the whole kit and caboodle. But do understand that website design is just one of the many services you may need to launch your site.
9. Let The Designer Do The Designing
There’s nothing wrong with injecting a little personality into your site, but overrunning your business site with photos of your pets, your kids, and your car is both unprofessional and distracting. Sure, it’s acceptable to mention a few of your hobbies. Use a family photo in your bio. Customers like knowing there are real people behind a small business. But remember that your website is not the place to hawk your coin collection (unless your business is a coin agency). The same goes for color schemes and other design elements. Florescent pink and lime green may look hip to you, but that doesn’t mean they are ideal colors for your law firm’s website (although there are always exceptions!). When in doubt, consult your designer, and trust their professional opinion since that’s exactly why you hired them in the first place.
10. Promote and Market Your Site
Once your site is done, you’re ready to start promoting it. Make sure you add your website URL to your business cards and other stationary. Add a signature to the bottom of your email with a link to your site. Put links in your social media profiles. Start publishing a newsletter or a blog. Purchase ad space on relevant sites. And launch a full-blown online marketing campaign to start driving targeted traffic to your website.
11. Track Your Website Performance
Once your site is live and your marketing campaign is underway, you should start actively monitoring your website performance. This can be done weekly, monthly, or even quarterly. Website performance reports will tell you whether your site is doing its job well. How many visitors are coming to your site? Where are they coming from? How long are they staying? Are they taking the desired actions? These are just a few of the questions that a website performance report will answer.
12. Perform Regular Website Maintenance
A website is like a car. It needs regular maintenance. Some websites run on a content management system, and when the software updates, so must your website. Browsers also get updated, providing new functionality and sometimes rendering old designs obsolete. Try to keep your site fresh and all software current. This is especially true for sites with a lot of written content. Check regularly to make sure the text on your site is still valid and current.
Summary
These days, a website is essential for any small business that wants to make its products and services accessible and available to more customers. So take your time and take these website design tips to heart. With proper planning, your website will be a smart investment that promotes and grows your business.
Find out how Scribizzy can help you build a more effective website by visiting our services page, or if you know exactly what you need, go ahead and get a quote online.
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