Bill McRea

I see this question posted on forums all the time. The only honest answer to this question is “I don’t know”, but there are steps you can take as a webmaster that will help stabilize your search engine rankings (SEPRs).

First make sure your content is unique and that each page on your site, or bog post, has been researched and keywords have been selected that people actually search for. That said make sure those keywords are not HUGELY competitive. This is a great starting point as I see people post all the time that they are number 3 for some keyword and when I do research for the phrase there is no traffic. Do your work up front and you will have better results.

Second keep building QUALITY links. It’s okay to have links with a number of search engines, but it is best to pay for inclusion into the really powerful ones like Yahoo, Business.com and other niche directories. Also avoid link farms. I believe quantity of links is important, but I strongly believe quality is more important. Use a number of sources to get links. Do some link exchanges, do social bookmarking, submit to reputable directories and search engine, and most importantly do a well constructed Press Release. A link from Yahoo News has some credibility to it, so if you can get one by doing a press release at Prweb, then do it.

Third, don’t keep tweaking the same page or post. Once it’s done don’t feel compelled to change it unless it improves the readers experience.

Fourth, Unique Content. Why mess around with the same information as 30 other people…or 3000 other people for that matter.

Fifth, Do you have a TON of outbound affiliate links? Well they hurt your rankings so you should consider using “No Follow” or some sort of link cloaking to hide them nasty affiliate links.

Finally and this is a tough one… Time will help stabilize your results. If you have done everything above its time to write more articles, press releases and blog post and don’t worry too much about daily fluctuation in your SERPS. Good stable SE results can take a year to achieve so be prepared for the long run.

I wanted to follow up on my post about the cost of search engine optimization, and why people charge so much for these services. I’ve come to the conclusion that the real expense is spending time developing an online business without a “real” plan to succeed. An Idea or a simple business plan is just simply not enough, and the real reason most people fail. I recently read a blog post that talks about what internet marketers really sell is HOPE. This bothered me because I do not see this industry or this process as being so intangible. Hope is important for sure, but action created results. You cannot just sit around and hope you are successful.

And so it is with real Search Engine Optimization. I helped a company that was struggling to launch a new product (a tangible item). We created a website using the keywords in the domain name. We created content that reflected the keywords that were our target. The site was deployed with the correct title tags, h1 tags and all the proper onsite optimization. Next I did a series of 6 press releases on Prweb using the main keyword phrase and a few variations in the embedded hyperlinks to their site. I tossed in some social bookmarks, and build a few link exchanges to round out my search engine optimization efforts.

Within 2 months the site was already in the top 10 at Google for the keyword phrase “Instant Hot Water” and more recently it has been in the #1 or #2 spot. This company is now getting hundreds of leads a week compared to 10 a month for this product. Their sales have gone through the roof and they are making a ton of money.

So the moral of the story is search engine optimization may seem to be expensive, but for a few thousand dollars this company has increased their sales by over a million. The value is not what you pay for the service; it’s what you get as a result.

If you have small expectations then don’t spend your money on search engine optimization, but if you are serious about building a real business the investment into a certified SEO expert is really quite small.

bill mcrea

Banner ads, search engines and link exchanges. We’ve all tried them while promoting our sites and online businesses, some have worked more successfully than others mind you but just because you run an online business doesn’t mean you’ve to always promote it online. In fact on many occasions a websites marketing budget can be spent just as effectively using offline methods as it can be using online methods such as the ones mentioned above. Indeed website branding seems to be much more successful using offline methods such as TV and Radio. This article is your guide to promoting your website offline, I hope you enjoy it.

Your URL is very important

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The basis behind any offline promotion campaign for your website is of course to get your website visited more often and if your sales letter is good enough to get more sales from these extra visitors. This can only be done by getting the address of your site ‘out there’ and visible to lots and lots of people. It’s for this reason that your URL is very important, it’s your lifeline in the offline world, the amount of exposure it receives will make or break your offline campaign. It should appear on any material you send to customers or clients, others businesses you deal with and most importantly potential customers.

More on where you can put your URL offline a little later, but for now here’s a little paragraph or two regarding things which you can do online to help your offline marketing efforts. First off your website should always have a banner (a standard 468 x 60 or larger banner works best) at the top of every page with your website address clearly visible on it.

The reasoning behind this it that many people prefer to print out larger webpages with articles, stories, tutorials and the like to read later and then keep for reference rather than read them online as they’re surfing. Without your URL on your banner people may re-read your content but never revisit your site due to them simply forgetting your website address and you may have lost a customer.

It’s also a good idea to make available online any recent press releases you may have issued. This is due to the fact that many journalists and editors surf the web, if they like your company and product they might be inclined to let their readers know why. A press release will provide them with the latest information regarding your company helping them to do this.

Now we’ll go through where you can promote your site offline.

Put your URL on all day to day business items

In the day to day running of your business you’ll use many document type items. By these I refer to invoices you send, faxes you send, checks you send, product packaging, business cards etc. Your URL, email address and an attractive website slogan which makes people want to visit should all be present on each of these items either in the form of a banner used with faxes, invoices or other letterhead paper items or simple text which is generally used for business cards and checks. You could even include your URL and if space permits your website slogan on all the simple letter envelopes you send out.

Television

Next we’ll talk about the big one – TV. This may well appear to be financially out of reach of all but the biggest websites with very large advertising budgets, but no this is not true. OK admittedly you probably don’t and never will have the financial capability to run ads on mainstream Cable such as Fox in America or Sky in Britain and Ireland, not to worry though as such advertising is usually targeted very generally and is useful only to sites with broad appeal such as amazon.com or Yahoo.com.

Local cable television advertising is much more feasible and effective for the more ‘ordinary website’. This type of advertising appears to be very reasonably priced at the moment and is particularly effective if your product or services is oriented toward a specific geographic target market, for example imagine if you were a Detroit web design company, simply advertise your company and URL on a local Detroit channel. Contact a Sales representative from your local cable company to find out more. You should of course mention your URL on numerous occasions within your ad spot.

Radio

Radio advertising can be very effective in advertising your URL if your domain name is short, catchy and easy to remember. Creative webmasters could develop short scripts themselves whereby their ad incorporates their slogan which in turn incorporates the benefits of visiting their URL. As with TV advertising radio ads work best when targeted towards a specific demographically segmented market such as a certain cities residents. Again price wise you mightn’t be able to compete with the big boys and have ads on very popular stations, but local stations offer good prices. Keep in mind however that prices all depend on when and how often your ad is run.

Newspapers, classifieds and related magazines

The print media which includes newspapers, journals and magazines is another avenue where your can have your URL exposed for everyone to see. It’s best first to start advertising your products, services and URL in local newspapers and then if successful continue onto regional and national publications. If you can’t afford the common graphical advertisement as seen throughout newspapers and journals related to your industry don’t worry as most of these publications have classified ad sections. Classified ads allow you to reach a targeted audience very cheaply with a simple short message and of course your URL is included in there somewhere too.

Company vehicles

We all see vehicles with company names and telephone numbers on them driving our streets and motorways. This is a great idea as it gives potential customers the chance while out and about to learn about the company and also learn about how to contact them should they need the service or product they offer at some stage in the future. I often wonder why more websites aren’t promoted in this way by simply adding the company website URL also, you definitely should do this.

If your business is an exclusively online entity then your URL should be large and very visible to anyone who glances in the direction of your vehicle. Again many people would be driving or walking by as your vehicle drives by and wouldn’t be able to write down a long website address so it would be an advantage to have a short, easy to remember URL.

A word of advice before we move on, if you do choose to brand your personal or company vehicles with your URL have it done professionally, if your design looks poor people might be inclined to believe your site and products are poor too. Check a local business directory to find out who can do this for you.