Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Saturday, April 23, 2011
10 Quick Tips To Convert Your Traffic Into Sales
So you've made the decision to start an online business. You have worked on making sure that your site is properly optimized and maybe have even done a few PPC (Pay Per Click Campaigns) but still aren't seeing any sales. 
These are both great steps to take to get the traffic you deserve to your site and definitely vital to your online success. But if you are not getting any sales, you must be asking yourself
These are both great steps to take to get the traffic you deserve to your site and definitely vital to your online success. But if you are not getting any sales, you must be asking yourself "AM I EVER GOING TO GET ANY ORDERS!!!"
At this day in age converting the traffic that you are getting to your site is very important to your online success. Without any sales, you may find yourself closing the website down that you have put so much work into.
No Need To Worry! Help is on the way!!!
Below are 10 tips that I use on a daily basis to convert traffic into sales for my clients sites as well as my own. These are not listed in any particular order : )
- Easy Navigation: Make sure your site is easy to navigate. Place all the important links at the top of your site i.e. Home Page Link, Contact Link, Policy Link etc.. If you sell products on your site, make sure your categories are easy to follow and preferably in alphabetical order. This will make your visitors shopping experience less stressful.
- Payment Options: Place a logo picture of the type of payments you accept in a visible area on your site.Some people like to know what type of payments you accept before they begin shopping on your site. If they can not find an image of the type of payments you accept or a note, you could risk losing a buyer.
- Promote, Promote, Promote: If you have any promotions going on, list a banner at the top of the website, right above the fold (the area that your visitors see when they first get to your site) that displays your current promotions i.e. free shipping, special sales etc.. That way visitors see immediately what type of sales your site is offering. Make sure the sales show up on every page. If they show up on just your home page, visitors who land on your other pages may not know about your specials. If you are not familiar with adding banners above the fold, consult with your designer or hire a professional that is familiar with adding these type of banners to your website.
- Phone Number : I know many sites are Leary about placing a number on their site especially if you work at home. Consider looking into a company that offers 800 services. These services usually allow you to get an 800 number that can be customized to your needs i..e you can enter in the times you want the phone not to ring, set up voicemail option only etc.. A phone number is a great way to establish trust and look professional to your online visitors.
- Checkout Process : A lot of online websites end up with a lot of abandoned carts. Make sure once your visitors have gotten to your checkout page, that it is as easy as possible. If a cart is to complicated visitors will abandon their cart. Top reasons why they abandon carts: shipping cost is way to high, to many pages or complicated wording that makes them nervous to continue their order. To eliminate confusion and abandoned carts, you can implement a flat rate shipping fee. For Example: Your entire orders ships for 9.99 (us residents only). I just opened two new sites and they both have a flat rate option, both have been online for 2 months and have already started to get orders in. If you can't offer flat rate shipping, try to set up a page that outlines your shipping charges and which carrier you use to ship your orders.
- Be Emotionally Appealing (Sorry this one will be a little long but worth it) : Let's face it. We all love to shop and shopping online adds a extra special touch when shopping. The thought of finding unique items that may not be available in local stores and getting a nice package at the door with all of your goodies is really exciting. What does that really mean? Online buying is an emotional experience. So your job is to tap into the emotions of your buyers. Get to know your market! Are you marketing to Moms, Dads, Pet Owners, Geeks, Electronic Gurus etc.? Whatever your market, their is an emotion associated with it. Don't be afraid to step outside of the box. The one thing I always do with all of my online retail sites that I set up is to pick out images that are appealing to my market. I always have images on the home page that show a model in one of the products or similar products. For instance: If your main target market is mommies. What do mommies love? Cute adorable pictures of babies, toddlers and kids in the items they are interested in. If you can capture their emotions with your images, then you are more likely to convert your traffic into sales. With most of my sites, I take a funny approach when it comes to images. I try to think of concepts that will make people want to buy just because the site makes them feel happy. Playing into emotions is definitely a great way to increase sales and gain new customers. Which is always a plus. You can find royalty images for your site by doing a search for Royalty Free images. Most images only cost 1.00 each but may require you to purchase 10 to 15 credits up front for their images.
- Best Sellers : Show case some of your best sellers on the site and use bold graphics that say BEST SELLERS or Customers Favorite Picks. If you have products that are best sellers, chances are, your new visitors may think they are pretty great as well.
- Products: Whether you sell your own items or offer vendors items. It's very important to make sure you have a nice selection of products for your visitors to choose from. Although this is not the case all the time and there are some exceptions to the rule. It's still very important that when your site is live that you have products available to your visitors. Make sure not to have a lot of categories that do not display any items. Visitors may get frustrated or may think your site is not professional. If you have categories set up that may not have products in them for a couple of weeks. Think about disabling them until you have some products in them.
- Social Media : Incorporate social media if you can. You can do this by simply adding a Facebook "Like" button to your website. The more followers you get the more you can promote your sales to. You can add a "Like" button to your blog as well. Social Media is a really great way to get new customers. So this is something that you definitely want to make sure you add to your marketing goals.
- SEO with long tail keywords: As you know it's very important to make sure that your site is properly optimized with your keywords but did you know that there is a way to get sales from choosing out the right keywords. Many online website owners look at targeting 2 word keywords that can be very competitive or that may take months or even years to rank for. Try focusing on the long tail keywords in addition to your 2 word keywords. Research your keywords and pay very close attention to keywords you find that are 3 words and longer. Research shows that buyers are most likely to make a purchase if they are using long tail keywords to land on your site. Make sure you are optimizing the proper page with your long tail keywords. There is not worst then when a visitor arrives to your site using a keyword phrase to find out that the page they land on, has nothing to do with what they are looking for. You lose a visitors and your Bounce Rate goes up!
I hope you can use some of the above tips to increase your sales!
Carla Phillips
My SEO Gal
http://myseogal.com
Got a Question or need help?
Contact My SEO Gal Today for a FREE SEO Quote.
http://myseogal.com
Got a Question or need help?
Contact My SEO Gal Today for a FREE SEO Quote.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Things To Consider When Changing Hosting Companies
WOW! It has been a long time since I've posted. Sure I've sent newsletters, Facebook post, and even a Tweet here and there but my poor ole' blog has been neglected due to a super busy 2010 and a refreshing 2011 thus far.
So I wanted to take some time to address a question that I keep getting about what to do and what to expect when you want to change from you current hosting company to a new one.
Will switching effect your current keyword ranking, what should you expect to happen when you change hosting company as far as SEO is concerned and how long will it all of this take.
For starters before you switch over to any hosting company, please make sure that the company you are switching to is SEO friendly!! I know that's an entirely different post but it is very important to make sure the hosting company you are considering switching over to is SEO friendly.
Some features that you want to look for is the option to add individual meta tags to each of your pages, categories, sub categories and products. There's nothing more annoying than working on a site that only allows you add meta tags to your home page. Then find out that every single page has the very same meta tag. If you have the same meta tags on every single page, how in the world are the search engines supposed to know which page is relevant to a search query?
Next, it's also helpful to go with a hosting company that has search engine friendly urls, ones that list your keywords in the url.
Here is an example of a search engine friendly url:
http://www.yoursitehere.com/my-awesome-products.htm
Here is an example of a not so friendly url:
http://www.yoursitehere.com/?id4wkiithesloehtlsoe.htm
Although you can still rank for your pages if your keywords are not in the url, it still gives an extra added bonus to have search engine friendly url's.
Those are just a couple of features to look out for when choosing a hosting company for your site. I'll make sure to do a blog post next week on what features you should consider when choosing a hosting company.
Tip 1: Before you switch your hosting company, take some time to copy and paste the url's of your main pages, important pages, pages that are ranking high in the search engines and any on page content that is currently on your site and add all your information into a word document or excel sheet and save it.
Once you have saved all of the work on your site just copy and paste it into your new pages,categories, subcategories. The reason being, is so you can redirect your old pages to your new pages. That way your site is not returning a bunch of unwanted and unneeded 404 Page Not Found messages in the search engines. Too many of those can effect your ranking, because the search engines think that your site no longer exist or is not being maintained which brings down the quality of their search engine results. No search engine wants to send their searchers to websites that are returning blank pages, or websites that are constantly giving a Page Not Found message. So you want to make sure you take care of those redirects as soon as possible. As a matter of fact, make this your number 1 thing on your to do list once you have your new site set up.
Copy your url's to your main categories that are currently listed on your site.
Set up your new categories with your new hosting company. Then create 301 redirects from your old categories to your new categories. You can usually do this via your cpanel depending on which hosting company you switch to.
Tip 2: Make sure you have copied your meta tag information from each of your old pages as well if they have been properly optimized. If not, simply do some much needed keyword research and enter in your keywords into your meta tags and copy them to all of your new page that you have set up with your new hosting company.
Tip 3: Once you've done your meta tags, 301 redirects and you have all of your pages/products added to your new hosting company site. Create a new sitemap and submit it to the major search engines. This will allow you to let the search engines know about your new urls/website pages.
You can create a free sitemap at the following link. This site will create up to 500 pages for free:
http://xml-sitemaps.com
When you switch hosting companies you should expect to start to get broken links and 404 error messages. You can usually see these in your cpanel traffic stats information or in your Google Webmaster Tools account, if you have one set up. If you do not have one set up yet, please make sure you set this up before you switch. Your webmaster tools account with Google, gives you all type of great information about your site as well as any crawl errors. They even allow you to remove those dreaded broken links/404 pages that are listed in your crawl error reports.
As your 404 error (Page Not Found) messages start to come in, start requesting a page removal via your Google Webmaster Tools account by clicking on Crawler Access and then Remove Page. Google is pretty fast with approving the request.
The number of 404 error pages you get will be determined based off of the number of pages you have in the search engines result pages. Just keep an eye on them and request removal as soon as you can. The quicker you address any broken links or pages that no longer are going to exist on your site the better.
Keep in mind that you may drop in ranking after switching to a new hosting company but the drop should be temporary and you should be able to return back to your normal ranking position. To offset any drop in rankings, try to build some one way links to your site from high quality websites while you are waiting for the search engines to update their search engine directory with your new website pages. As the search engines are updating their directory with your new website pages, they may redirect your traffic to your home page. This redirect may be temporary.
So if you are considering moving your site to a new hosting company make sure you follow some of the tips above and do some research on other tips and suggestions that you can use when change hosting companies. If you are not familiar with creating redirects, requesting url removal make sure to consult with a SEO specialist, website designer, the new hosting company etc.. Any website professional should be able to assist you with making your switch as stress free as possible.
I hope you enjoyed my tips as much as I have enjoyed giving them to you! Stay tuned for the next tip coming soon.
So I wanted to take some time to address a question that I keep getting about what to do and what to expect when you want to change from you current hosting company to a new one.
Will switching effect your current keyword ranking, what should you expect to happen when you change hosting company as far as SEO is concerned and how long will it all of this take.
Below are some tips that you can use to smooth over your transition.
For starters before you switch over to any hosting company, please make sure that the company you are switching to is SEO friendly!! I know that's an entirely different post but it is very important to make sure the hosting company you are considering switching over to is SEO friendly.
Some features that you want to look for is the option to add individual meta tags to each of your pages, categories, sub categories and products. There's nothing more annoying than working on a site that only allows you add meta tags to your home page. Then find out that every single page has the very same meta tag. If you have the same meta tags on every single page, how in the world are the search engines supposed to know which page is relevant to a search query?
Next, it's also helpful to go with a hosting company that has search engine friendly urls, ones that list your keywords in the url.
Here is an example of a search engine friendly url:
http://www.yoursitehere.com/my-awesome-products.htm
Here is an example of a not so friendly url:
http://www.yoursitehere.com/?id4wkiithesloehtlsoe.htm
Although you can still rank for your pages if your keywords are not in the url, it still gives an extra added bonus to have search engine friendly url's.
Those are just a couple of features to look out for when choosing a hosting company for your site. I'll make sure to do a blog post next week on what features you should consider when choosing a hosting company.
Now back to some tips you can take to make your switch a stress free one:
Tip 1: Before you switch your hosting company, take some time to copy and paste the url's of your main pages, important pages, pages that are ranking high in the search engines and any on page content that is currently on your site and add all your information into a word document or excel sheet and save it.
Once you have saved all of the work on your site just copy and paste it into your new pages,categories, subcategories. The reason being, is so you can redirect your old pages to your new pages. That way your site is not returning a bunch of unwanted and unneeded 404 Page Not Found messages in the search engines. Too many of those can effect your ranking, because the search engines think that your site no longer exist or is not being maintained which brings down the quality of their search engine results. No search engine wants to send their searchers to websites that are returning blank pages, or websites that are constantly giving a Page Not Found message. So you want to make sure you take care of those redirects as soon as possible. As a matter of fact, make this your number 1 thing on your to do list once you have your new site set up.
Copy your url's to your main categories that are currently listed on your site.
Set up your new categories with your new hosting company. Then create 301 redirects from your old categories to your new categories. You can usually do this via your cpanel depending on which hosting company you switch to.
Tip 2: Make sure you have copied your meta tag information from each of your old pages as well if they have been properly optimized. If not, simply do some much needed keyword research and enter in your keywords into your meta tags and copy them to all of your new page that you have set up with your new hosting company.
Tip 3: Once you've done your meta tags, 301 redirects and you have all of your pages/products added to your new hosting company site. Create a new sitemap and submit it to the major search engines. This will allow you to let the search engines know about your new urls/website pages.
You can create a free sitemap at the following link. This site will create up to 500 pages for free:
http://xml-sitemaps.com
When you switch hosting companies you should expect to start to get broken links and 404 error messages. You can usually see these in your cpanel traffic stats information or in your Google Webmaster Tools account, if you have one set up. If you do not have one set up yet, please make sure you set this up before you switch. Your webmaster tools account with Google, gives you all type of great information about your site as well as any crawl errors. They even allow you to remove those dreaded broken links/404 pages that are listed in your crawl error reports.
As your 404 error (Page Not Found) messages start to come in, start requesting a page removal via your Google Webmaster Tools account by clicking on Crawler Access and then Remove Page. Google is pretty fast with approving the request.
The number of 404 error pages you get will be determined based off of the number of pages you have in the search engines result pages. Just keep an eye on them and request removal as soon as you can. The quicker you address any broken links or pages that no longer are going to exist on your site the better.
Keep in mind that you may drop in ranking after switching to a new hosting company but the drop should be temporary and you should be able to return back to your normal ranking position. To offset any drop in rankings, try to build some one way links to your site from high quality websites while you are waiting for the search engines to update their search engine directory with your new website pages. As the search engines are updating their directory with your new website pages, they may redirect your traffic to your home page. This redirect may be temporary.
So if you are considering moving your site to a new hosting company make sure you follow some of the tips above and do some research on other tips and suggestions that you can use when change hosting companies. If you are not familiar with creating redirects, requesting url removal make sure to consult with a SEO specialist, website designer, the new hosting company etc.. Any website professional should be able to assist you with making your switch as stress free as possible.
I hope you enjoyed my tips as much as I have enjoyed giving them to you! Stay tuned for the next tip coming soon.
Carla Phillips
My SEO Gal
http://myseogal.com
Got a Question or need help?
Contact My SEO Gal Today for a FREE SEO Quote.
http://myseogal.com
Got a Question or need help?
Contact My SEO Gal Today for a FREE SEO Quote.
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Just Another Keyword Optimization / Ranking Tip!
Just wanted to do a quick tip on keyword optimizing. Okay it's not really quick but I think it's informative : )
Here are some simple rules that you can follow as far as trying to rank for your keywords.
When I optimize a site, I base all of my SEO packages or Custom quotes off of the competitive nature of a keyword.
If a keyword is competitive then I know the campaign has to be on a long term basis. If the keyword is low in competition, then I know that basic work will need to be done and not so much on a long term basis.
So here's somethings that you can jot down in your BIG THICK BOOK OF SEO ADVICE.
If your keywords are low in competition i.e. usually three to five words in a phrase.
Here's some things you can expect to do (of course there are other things but these are just quick tips):
Make sure your keyword is in your meta title and meta description.
Put your keyword in a Header tag.
Make sure it's in your on page content i.e. descriptions.
If your keywords are medium in competition i.e. Between 700K to 900K in competition for example purposes.
Not only do you have to follow the steps above, it will be a must to make sure, without a doubt that you are link building with your COMPETITIVE keywords.
Many think that by optimizing your onpage content or website pages that you should be on the first page of Google with no problem. WRONG!
What you will find is that your endless hours of searching for your ranking, will be wasted because 9 times out of 10 not only will you not be in the top pages, you will not be in the top 100 pages for a very long time.
Well unless the internet Gods are watching over you.
Here's what you want to do if your in a competitive niche or market and you want to eventually rank for one of your "competitive" keywords.
I know, you're tired of hearing those words, and I get tired of it too sometimes but the truth is, it's effective.
The section that states your KEYWORD HERE is going to be the part of your link that is clickable.
You always want to make sure your keyword(s) are in the clickable area of your link.
There are tons of ways to get links to your site, by link baiting (creating a fuss to get people to link to your site, whatever a fuss means to you, go for it), one way links to your site are the best, create blog post and link back to your site from your blog, and don't forget the internal links on your site. It helps to link from your own website pages to others. A great place to do this is from your home page, but don't go overboard. Linking to a few deep inner pages can help that page get indexed and may help with ranking as well.
DISCLAIMER: Keep in mind the word "competitive" exist for a reason. Ranking will be harder to achieve and requires patience and determination because this is not something that is going to happen overnight, expect to wait at least 6 months to a Year before you start to see some real ranking results in the search engine result pages.
Not a patient person? Consider Adwords for quick traffic for your keywords, while your waiting on your SEO work to take effect. The two tactics can compliment each other very well.
If you choose not to do any link building. You'll have to wait until the age of your site becomes a ranking factor for you. Sorry to sound harsh, but GOOD LUCK WITH THAT : )
Hope I didn't make your head spin to much with all of this wonderful and exciting keyword ranking and link building!
Just take it one page at a time and you will be okay!
Got a question or just confused. Leave me a comment and I'll try to ease the confusion.
Here are some simple rules that you can follow as far as trying to rank for your keywords.
When I optimize a site, I base all of my SEO packages or Custom quotes off of the competitive nature of a keyword.
If a keyword is competitive then I know the campaign has to be on a long term basis. If the keyword is low in competition, then I know that basic work will need to be done and not so much on a long term basis.
So here's somethings that you can jot down in your BIG THICK BOOK OF SEO ADVICE.
If your keywords are low in competition i.e. usually three to five words in a phrase.
Here's some things you can expect to do (of course there are other things but these are just quick tips):
Make sure your keyword is in your meta title and meta description.
Put your keyword in a Header tag.
Make sure it's in your on page content i.e. descriptions.
If your keywords are medium in competition i.e. Between 700K to 900K in competition for example purposes.
- Follow all the steps above
- Start link building with your keywords i.e. add your site to directories, other related websites, blogs.
No Sir-E
Not only do you have to follow the steps above, it will be a must to make sure, without a doubt that you are link building with your COMPETITIVE keywords.
Many think that by optimizing your onpage content or website pages that you should be on the first page of Google with no problem. WRONG!
What you will find is that your endless hours of searching for your ranking, will be wasted because 9 times out of 10 not only will you not be in the top pages, you will not be in the top 100 pages for a very long time.
Well unless the internet Gods are watching over you.
Here's what you want to do if your in a competitive niche or market and you want to eventually rank for one of your "competitive" keywords.
LINK BUILD, LINK BUILD, LINK BUILD
I know, you're tired of hearing those words, and I get tired of it too sometimes but the truth is, it's effective.
- Link Build using your keywords in your link i.e
YOUR KEYWORD HERE
YOUR DESCRIPTION HERE
Your URL HERE
YOUR DESCRIPTION HERE
Your URL HERE
The section that states your KEYWORD HERE is going to be the part of your link that is clickable.
You always want to make sure your keyword(s) are in the clickable area of your link.
- Make sure to change up your Keywords and Descriptions. Natural link building is important. It's not so natural for each and every site to have the same exact linking information to your site. So switch it up here and there.
- Submit your site to directories. YES, this still works. There are still some great directories out here that are being listed in backlinks everywhere.
- Create great articles and submit them to articles directories like Ezine.com or GoArticles.com. These are also great ways to create backlinks with using your keywords.
- Contact blog owners and see if you can get listed in their blogrolls. Blogrolls are an excellent way to help with backlinks and ranking.
- Do a quick search for the keyword phrase you want to rank for. Take note of who is already listed on the first page for that phrase. Contact them and try to get listed on their site. Their current ranking can help you out as well.
- Check and see which pages you are currently listed on the first page of the search engines for and add your keyword phrase on that page that you are ranking for. Simply place your keyword phrase on that page somewhere in the content. Link that keyword phrase to your page that you want to rank for and repeat with other pages that may be indexed on the first page.
- Last but not least. Try getting your website on high quality websites. Site with high page rank may be a bit harder to get a link from but it doesn't hurt to try!
There are tons of ways to get links to your site, by link baiting (creating a fuss to get people to link to your site, whatever a fuss means to you, go for it), one way links to your site are the best, create blog post and link back to your site from your blog, and don't forget the internal links on your site. It helps to link from your own website pages to others. A great place to do this is from your home page, but don't go overboard. Linking to a few deep inner pages can help that page get indexed and may help with ranking as well.
DISCLAIMER: Keep in mind the word "competitive" exist for a reason. Ranking will be harder to achieve and requires patience and determination because this is not something that is going to happen overnight, expect to wait at least 6 months to a Year before you start to see some real ranking results in the search engine result pages.
SO BE VERY PATIENT, IT COULD DEFINITELY PAY OFF IN THE END
Not a patient person? Consider Adwords for quick traffic for your keywords, while your waiting on your SEO work to take effect. The two tactics can compliment each other very well.
If you choose not to do any link building. You'll have to wait until the age of your site becomes a ranking factor for you. Sorry to sound harsh, but GOOD LUCK WITH THAT : )
Hope I didn't make your head spin to much with all of this wonderful and exciting keyword ranking and link building!
Just take it one page at a time and you will be okay!
Got a question or just confused. Leave me a comment and I'll try to ease the confusion.
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Holiday Optimization Tips : Getting Your Ecommerce Site Ready For The Holidays
The holidays are right around the corner. Is your site ready for the holiday shopping season?
If not now is the time to start focusing on getting your site ready for the holidays.
I get a lot of questions from website owners like yourself, wondering when they should begin optimizing their holiday categories and products for the holidays. My answer to them is always, YESTERYEAR!
As I know you are already aware that holidays are competitive and the sooner you began optimizing your site and products for the holidays the better.
Here are some examples of when you should start optimizing:
If you have any products that are holiday specific like Halloween, and Thanksgiving you should have already begun to optimize your site months ago.
If your products are Christmas related you should begin to optimize your products and categories Today!
Don't wait until October or November to try to start ranking for Christmas baby outfits or Holiday themed photo cards. Get started on your optimization today.
Holiday products especially Christmas themed products are very competitive and difficult to rank for if you wait until the last minute. By knowing this here are some tips that you can do to help with ranking:
1. Go through your site and pick out all of your holiday related products whether that be Halloween products, Thanksgiving Products or Christmas products.
2. Start working on your keyword research now. You will find more Halloween related search terms now since October is right around the corner. Make a long list of keywords that are being searched for. You can use Google's free keyword tool at the link below or Wordtracker's tool. Whichever you prefer. Narrow down your list of keywords to low to medium competition keywords.
3. Take those keywords and start optimizing your holiday themed category. If you don't have one set up yet but have holiday related products. Set one up now. Actually set one up for each holiday. You can have a main category that says Holiday Products and the sub categories can be Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas etc..
4. Next use those low to medium keywords in your product's title, your product's description (very important), your product's meta description and meta title (if your hosting company has separate fields for meta tags), and your product's images. Make sure that each product has it's very own unique meta title, on page description etc..
Examples are always fun, so here's an example:
You have two products that are similar. One is a red and white holiday dress and one is a red, white and green holiday dress. Here is what you can do to separate the two:
Meta title: Red and White Holiday Dress
Meta Title: Red White and Green Christmas Dress for Girls
Always differentiate your products by including the colors, who it is made for and any other specifics to help with creating unique content for each product.
5. Once you have optimized each holiday themed category and the products within the categories, now it's time to start doing some off page optimization. Start taking each one of those categories and start link building with them. Submit your categories to social bookmarking sites for the quickest exposure. Some sites would include Stumble Upon, Kaboodle, Mom Faves, Fave it.com and others. Create a blog post based off of each category. Once you create each blog post, submit your blog post to Stumble Upon, Digg, Delicious, Share it on Facebook and Twitter. Ask other's to pass it along.Create articles or Squidoo lenses (MY FAVE!)
Contact blog owners to see if they can do a product review and or add your link to your holiday category from their blog roll. This can be achieved here at the Circle. There are many members who would love to add your site to their blog roll.
6. Last but not least, invest a little money in Adwords especially for Halloween items, since that is right around the corner and steadily creeping up and even Back to School items. I know Adwords is intimidating but it's not impossible. Sign up for an account and set your daily budget to something you feel comfortable with. You can pause your ad campaigns whenever you want to. Keep an eye on your ad suggestions that Google makes and keep an eye on keywords that aren't preforming so well. Make sure that each ad you place has keywords in the ad that are related to the page that your visitors will see. Direct your visitors to your holiday pages, not your home pages. You have a higher chance of converting a sale that way. The less your visitors have to click to find what they are looking for, the better.
If you follow those tips, you have a great chance of benefiting from being listed on the first page of the major search engines.
Holidays are big money makers and there is no reason why you shouldn't be getting a piece of that holiday pie too!
So start on your holiday optimization right away, especially any Halloween or Thanksgiving related products. Don't wait until the last minute to start!
When all else fails, consult with a search engine optimization specialist to help you get your site prepared for the holidays.
Good Luck to you all and I hope to see you at the top!
Here are your resource links:
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com
For all of your Holiday SEO needs visit My SEO Gal
http://www.myseogal.com
Contact Us to find out how you can get 15% off our services for the holidays.
If not now is the time to start focusing on getting your site ready for the holidays.
I get a lot of questions from website owners like yourself, wondering when they should begin optimizing their holiday categories and products for the holidays. My answer to them is always, YESTERYEAR!
As I know you are already aware that holidays are competitive and the sooner you began optimizing your site and products for the holidays the better.
Here are some examples of when you should start optimizing:
If you have any products that are holiday specific like Halloween, and Thanksgiving you should have already begun to optimize your site months ago.
If your products are Christmas related you should begin to optimize your products and categories Today!
Don't wait until October or November to try to start ranking for Christmas baby outfits or Holiday themed photo cards. Get started on your optimization today.
Holiday products especially Christmas themed products are very competitive and difficult to rank for if you wait until the last minute. By knowing this here are some tips that you can do to help with ranking:
1. Go through your site and pick out all of your holiday related products whether that be Halloween products, Thanksgiving Products or Christmas products.
2. Start working on your keyword research now. You will find more Halloween related search terms now since October is right around the corner. Make a long list of keywords that are being searched for. You can use Google's free keyword tool at the link below or Wordtracker's tool. Whichever you prefer. Narrow down your list of keywords to low to medium competition keywords.
3. Take those keywords and start optimizing your holiday themed category. If you don't have one set up yet but have holiday related products. Set one up now. Actually set one up for each holiday. You can have a main category that says Holiday Products and the sub categories can be Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas etc..
4. Next use those low to medium keywords in your product's title, your product's description (very important), your product's meta description and meta title (if your hosting company has separate fields for meta tags), and your product's images. Make sure that each product has it's very own unique meta title, on page description etc..
Examples are always fun, so here's an example:
You have two products that are similar. One is a red and white holiday dress and one is a red, white and green holiday dress. Here is what you can do to separate the two:
Meta title: Red and White Holiday Dress
Meta Title: Red White and Green Christmas Dress for Girls
Always differentiate your products by including the colors, who it is made for and any other specifics to help with creating unique content for each product.
5. Once you have optimized each holiday themed category and the products within the categories, now it's time to start doing some off page optimization. Start taking each one of those categories and start link building with them. Submit your categories to social bookmarking sites for the quickest exposure. Some sites would include Stumble Upon, Kaboodle, Mom Faves, Fave it.com and others. Create a blog post based off of each category. Once you create each blog post, submit your blog post to Stumble Upon, Digg, Delicious, Share it on Facebook and Twitter. Ask other's to pass it along.Create articles or Squidoo lenses (MY FAVE!)
Contact blog owners to see if they can do a product review and or add your link to your holiday category from their blog roll. This can be achieved here at the Circle. There are many members who would love to add your site to their blog roll.
6. Last but not least, invest a little money in Adwords especially for Halloween items, since that is right around the corner and steadily creeping up and even Back to School items. I know Adwords is intimidating but it's not impossible. Sign up for an account and set your daily budget to something you feel comfortable with. You can pause your ad campaigns whenever you want to. Keep an eye on your ad suggestions that Google makes and keep an eye on keywords that aren't preforming so well. Make sure that each ad you place has keywords in the ad that are related to the page that your visitors will see. Direct your visitors to your holiday pages, not your home pages. You have a higher chance of converting a sale that way. The less your visitors have to click to find what they are looking for, the better.
If you follow those tips, you have a great chance of benefiting from being listed on the first page of the major search engines.
Holidays are big money makers and there is no reason why you shouldn't be getting a piece of that holiday pie too!
So start on your holiday optimization right away, especially any Halloween or Thanksgiving related products. Don't wait until the last minute to start!
When all else fails, consult with a search engine optimization specialist to help you get your site prepared for the holidays.
Good Luck to you all and I hope to see you at the top!
Here are your resource links:
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com
For all of your Holiday SEO needs visit My SEO Gal
http://www.myseogal.com
Contact Us to find out how you can get 15% off our services for the holidays.
Carla Phillips
My SEO Gal
http://myseogal.com
Got a Question or need help?
Contact My SEO Gal Today for a FREE SEO Quote.
http://myseogal.com
Got a Question or need help?
Contact My SEO Gal Today for a FREE SEO Quote.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Twitter Tips ! : 7 Tips For Using Twitter For Your Business
When it comes to using any social media site, forum or any online community. There's a right and wrong way to do it.
Below are some tips to get you moving in the right direction, if you are thinking of using Twitter to get more exposure for your business or if you are already using Twitter for your business and are just looking for some refresher tips, then this post is for you too!
Tip 1:
Help out your fellow follower: One of the really great benefits of being part of the whole social networking movement, is you have the ability to help those in need. If you see a post that ask a question that you are knowledgeable about or know something that may help. Respond to it. When responding you can use the persons id in your response to let them know that you are replying to their message. You do this by using the @ symbol then their user name. By helping someone out whenever you can, you will start to establish trust with your followers. They will start to remember you and your brand and you can become an authority figure in your industry. Helping is a great way to make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside and others too! So contribute when you can.
Tip 2:
Update on a regular basis : Okay, this one is easier said than done and if anyone knows that having time to post updates on a daily basis is just sometimes not possible, I know oh to well. So what I recommend doing is to put aside a couple of minutes out of your day to drop by your Twitter account and post something informative. Now don't have a cow if everyday isn't possible. Take a deep breathe it's okay if you don't have the time. I would recommend posting at least three times a week. It's a great way for your followers to get to know more about you and your business. The more they get to know you the better your chances are in establishing a relationship with your followers and maybe gaining a customer and friend.
Tip 3.
Be informative and Professional : I'm quite sure we've all seen the Twitter post by some that we follow letting us know about their everyday events. From updates about what they just had for breakfast to what time they woke up. It's okay to let people know about personal things and I even encourage it. Your followers can get to know you on a personal level which is great , but I have something that's even better when speaking about getting exposure for your business! Be informative, you only have 140 characters that you can use, so keep it simple. Keep your followers informed about things that are going on in your industry, special deals you may be having or events that will be going on. I don't think they will mind hearing about something that is going to benefit them. Not to sure if knowing that you just had your teeth pulled is going to be something that they are going to look forward to knowing about. Then again, it depends on which industry you are in.
Tip 4.
Show some Retweet Love : If you see an update made by someone else that you think will be a benefit to others, Retweet it! What is a Retweet you ask, well a Retweet is when you take a post made by someone else and copy it into your updates with the following : RT @theusernamehere. It's actually even more easier than that, with a simple click, you can choose to retweet a post.
You can also add a Retweet button to your blog or website like I have here. You can get the code to add to your website at the following website : Tweetmeme
Tip 5.
Follow , Follow, Follow : So you've noticed that you have some new followers. Great! Now you must return the favor and follow them. WRONG! Just because someone follows you, it does not mean that you have to follow them back. Follow those that you have interest in. If you do, you'll just get annoyed quickly, if those you follow post a ton of advertisements and nothing that interest you and those that really interest you will be left behind quickly due to the large amount of updates you will be getting.
Tip 6.
Be Grateful : If you notices that someone took the time to Retweet one of your post or a blog post or your website. Thank them, it's the right thing to do. Although the Retweet may have been done out of pure like, people still like to be appreciated and maybe even caught off guard by your appreciation.
Tip 7.
Don't over market your business : Last but definitely not least. DO NOT, I repeat DO NOT over market your business on any social networking site. Advertising your business is great and to be expected by those that follow you, but there comes a point in Social Networking when enough is a way to get people to unfollow you. Post about specials you have going on, new products or services, freebies etc.. Just don't do it in excess. Post sales and specials here and there, around once or twice a week. I would say 10 to 20% of your updates can be advertising related, others can be about other things going on in your industry or terrific resources or even a shout out to a fellow business owner. A little promotion for others goes a long way!
So get your tweets together , make a list about what you want to discuss and what you think will be of benefit to your followers and get to Tweet, Tweet, Tweeting away!
See you on the Twitter side.
Below are some tips to get you moving in the right direction, if you are thinking of using Twitter to get more exposure for your business or if you are already using Twitter for your business and are just looking for some refresher tips, then this post is for you too!
Tip 1:
Help out your fellow follower: One of the really great benefits of being part of the whole social networking movement, is you have the ability to help those in need. If you see a post that ask a question that you are knowledgeable about or know something that may help. Respond to it. When responding you can use the persons id in your response to let them know that you are replying to their message. You do this by using the @ symbol then their user name. By helping someone out whenever you can, you will start to establish trust with your followers. They will start to remember you and your brand and you can become an authority figure in your industry. Helping is a great way to make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside and others too! So contribute when you can.
Tip 2:
Update on a regular basis : Okay, this one is easier said than done and if anyone knows that having time to post updates on a daily basis is just sometimes not possible, I know oh to well. So what I recommend doing is to put aside a couple of minutes out of your day to drop by your Twitter account and post something informative. Now don't have a cow if everyday isn't possible. Take a deep breathe it's okay if you don't have the time. I would recommend posting at least three times a week. It's a great way for your followers to get to know more about you and your business. The more they get to know you the better your chances are in establishing a relationship with your followers and maybe gaining a customer and friend.
Tip 3.
Be informative and Professional : I'm quite sure we've all seen the Twitter post by some that we follow letting us know about their everyday events. From updates about what they just had for breakfast to what time they woke up. It's okay to let people know about personal things and I even encourage it. Your followers can get to know you on a personal level which is great , but I have something that's even better when speaking about getting exposure for your business! Be informative, you only have 140 characters that you can use, so keep it simple. Keep your followers informed about things that are going on in your industry, special deals you may be having or events that will be going on. I don't think they will mind hearing about something that is going to benefit them. Not to sure if knowing that you just had your teeth pulled is going to be something that they are going to look forward to knowing about. Then again, it depends on which industry you are in.
Tip 4.
Show some Retweet Love : If you see an update made by someone else that you think will be a benefit to others, Retweet it! What is a Retweet you ask, well a Retweet is when you take a post made by someone else and copy it into your updates with the following : RT @theusernamehere. It's actually even more easier than that, with a simple click, you can choose to retweet a post.
You can also add a Retweet button to your blog or website like I have here. You can get the code to add to your website at the following website : Tweetmeme
Tip 5.
Follow , Follow, Follow : So you've noticed that you have some new followers. Great! Now you must return the favor and follow them. WRONG! Just because someone follows you, it does not mean that you have to follow them back. Follow those that you have interest in. If you do, you'll just get annoyed quickly, if those you follow post a ton of advertisements and nothing that interest you and those that really interest you will be left behind quickly due to the large amount of updates you will be getting.
Tip 6.
Be Grateful : If you notices that someone took the time to Retweet one of your post or a blog post or your website. Thank them, it's the right thing to do. Although the Retweet may have been done out of pure like, people still like to be appreciated and maybe even caught off guard by your appreciation.
Tip 7.
Don't over market your business : Last but definitely not least. DO NOT, I repeat DO NOT over market your business on any social networking site. Advertising your business is great and to be expected by those that follow you, but there comes a point in Social Networking when enough is a way to get people to unfollow you. Post about specials you have going on, new products or services, freebies etc.. Just don't do it in excess. Post sales and specials here and there, around once or twice a week. I would say 10 to 20% of your updates can be advertising related, others can be about other things going on in your industry or terrific resources or even a shout out to a fellow business owner. A little promotion for others goes a long way!
So get your tweets together , make a list about what you want to discuss and what you think will be of benefit to your followers and get to Tweet, Tweet, Tweeting away!
See you on the Twitter side.
Carla Phillips
My SEO Gal
http://myseogal.com
Got a Question or need help?
Contact My SEO Gal Today for a FREE SEO Quote.
http://myseogal.com
Got a Question or need help?
Contact My SEO Gal Today for a FREE SEO Quote.
Monday, May 17, 2010
6 Tips on How to Increase Your Blog Traffic
I know that I have been away for a while and haven't been posting that much this month and I truly apologize for not providing you with your weekly SEO fix, but rest assure that there will definitely be some great tips, and resources to come.
To start off the tips, I have decided to do a blog tip about getting traffic to your blog.
I got a question from one of our members at the Network Circle about driving traffic to a blog and I thought that this would be a great topic to blog about.
The great thing about blogs is that when you are a frequent poster, the search engines fall in love with you and will reward you by listing your blog post in their top search engine result pages.
Search engines love fresh content and blog posting is a great way to give them what they want.
Here are a few quick tips that I have used for my blog and other's to get some traffic to your blog:
1. Post, Post, Blog Away: The key to your blog success is to post and post frequently. When you are posting on your blog each week. Visitors will see that you are dedicated to providing your readers with up to date content as well as the search engines and you will find that your blog post are being pinged or indexed right away. I would recommend posting at least 1 to 2 a week.
2. Be informative: Make sure you are providing your readers with market related information. This can be how to's , or how not too's, tips, specials, reviews etc.. If your readers see that your blog is a benefit to their daily lives, they will come back to your blog and even follow it!
3. Post contest or Giveaways: A great way to generate traffic to your blog is sponsoring a contest or hosting a contest directly on your blog. The best contest are those that give away a bunch of items from numerous companies. The growing trend is to post your contest on Facebook, which has a promotions app now available I think there are some rules that you have to follow in order to post contest there, but you can always team up with other blog owners to help you promote the contest and contact store owners or niche specific sites or stores to see if they would like to donate a prize in exchange for some free publicity. Who can turn down that! We have some amazing blog owners her that can help you out. Just visit our blog section.
4. Have a newsletter sign up box on your blog. There's nothing better than being able to keep in touch with your fans! So why not take advantage of those that love you and have them sign up for newsletters so you can keep them informed of any events, important information in your industry etc.
If you dont have an email campaign company yet, you can check out a list of them here:
http://myseogal.com/weblinks.htm?page=1&linkCat=4
5. Submit your blog to blog directories: Another great way to get traffic to your site if I haven't mentioned it yet, is to submit your site to blog directories.
Submit your blog to these sites below then after that you can ping your blog by using http://www.pingomatic.com. It's very easy, you just enter in your blog url, name of your blog and RSS feed url if you have one and click submit and your blog post will be updated in some popular blog directories.
Blog Daisy
WAHM Blog
Blog Wise
Blog Catalog
Bloggernity
Bloglines
Daypop
Feedster
Syndic8
Technorati
Blogdex
Blog Street
Boingboing
We Blog Alot
Globe of Blogs
Blogarama
Feedburner
Blogrolling
Ice Rocket
6. Last Tip but definitely not least: Market, Link Build, Market.
Make sure you are getting your blog the exposure it needs. Add your site to as many niche related directories. Top 100 sites have become a great traffic generator, so I would suggest adding your site to as many of them as possible. Team up with other blog owners and see if you can get listed on their blog rolls. If you do, then your latest blog post will show up on their blog for their readers to see. Take some of your blog post and revise them a bit and create a Squidoo lens, once you create your lens, share it with your facebook fans, twitter followers etc. Include a link to your blog in your lens.
Make your blog post into articles and submit them to popular article directory sites like ezine.com or goarticles.com. This is a great way to generate traffic and backlinks to your blog.
Submit your blog to blog directories and Digg and Stumble upon. These social bookmarking sites can generate a lot of traffic for you.
The more you get your name out there the more you will start to see an increase in traffic and readers for your blog.
Just remember to always be consistent. Keep your logos the same, so you can start creating brand recognition and stay in the spotlight without being annoying. Meaning, keep your blog name out there by constantly posting on your Twitter account, Facebook account, blog etc. Remember that humans are forgetful unless you keep your name out in the open. If someone is constantly seeing your blog name, they will start to look for your post and want to know what the fuss is all about.
If you own a blog and have been successful , make sure to chime in below about what has worked for you as well.
To start off the tips, I have decided to do a blog tip about getting traffic to your blog.
I got a question from one of our members at the Network Circle about driving traffic to a blog and I thought that this would be a great topic to blog about.
The great thing about blogs is that when you are a frequent poster, the search engines fall in love with you and will reward you by listing your blog post in their top search engine result pages.
Search engines love fresh content and blog posting is a great way to give them what they want.
Here are a few quick tips that I have used for my blog and other's to get some traffic to your blog:
1. Post, Post, Blog Away: The key to your blog success is to post and post frequently. When you are posting on your blog each week. Visitors will see that you are dedicated to providing your readers with up to date content as well as the search engines and you will find that your blog post are being pinged or indexed right away. I would recommend posting at least 1 to 2 a week.
2. Be informative: Make sure you are providing your readers with market related information. This can be how to's , or how not too's, tips, specials, reviews etc.. If your readers see that your blog is a benefit to their daily lives, they will come back to your blog and even follow it!
3. Post contest or Giveaways: A great way to generate traffic to your blog is sponsoring a contest or hosting a contest directly on your blog. The best contest are those that give away a bunch of items from numerous companies. The growing trend is to post your contest on Facebook, which has a promotions app now available I think there are some rules that you have to follow in order to post contest there, but you can always team up with other blog owners to help you promote the contest and contact store owners or niche specific sites or stores to see if they would like to donate a prize in exchange for some free publicity. Who can turn down that! We have some amazing blog owners her that can help you out. Just visit our blog section.
4. Have a newsletter sign up box on your blog. There's nothing better than being able to keep in touch with your fans! So why not take advantage of those that love you and have them sign up for newsletters so you can keep them informed of any events, important information in your industry etc.
If you dont have an email campaign company yet, you can check out a list of them here:
http://myseogal.com/weblinks.htm?page=1&linkCat=4
5. Submit your blog to blog directories: Another great way to get traffic to your site if I haven't mentioned it yet, is to submit your site to blog directories.
Submit your blog to these sites below then after that you can ping your blog by using http://www.pingomatic.com. It's very easy, you just enter in your blog url, name of your blog and RSS feed url if you have one and click submit and your blog post will be updated in some popular blog directories.
Blog Daisy
WAHM Blog
Blog Wise
Blog Catalog
Bloggernity
Bloglines
Daypop
Feedster
Syndic8
Technorati
Blogdex
Blog Street
Boingboing
We Blog Alot
Globe of Blogs
Blogarama
Feedburner
Blogrolling
Ice Rocket
6. Last Tip but definitely not least: Market, Link Build, Market.
Make sure you are getting your blog the exposure it needs. Add your site to as many niche related directories. Top 100 sites have become a great traffic generator, so I would suggest adding your site to as many of them as possible. Team up with other blog owners and see if you can get listed on their blog rolls. If you do, then your latest blog post will show up on their blog for their readers to see. Take some of your blog post and revise them a bit and create a Squidoo lens, once you create your lens, share it with your facebook fans, twitter followers etc. Include a link to your blog in your lens.
Make your blog post into articles and submit them to popular article directory sites like ezine.com or goarticles.com. This is a great way to generate traffic and backlinks to your blog.
Submit your blog to blog directories and Digg and Stumble upon. These social bookmarking sites can generate a lot of traffic for you.
The more you get your name out there the more you will start to see an increase in traffic and readers for your blog.
Just remember to always be consistent. Keep your logos the same, so you can start creating brand recognition and stay in the spotlight without being annoying. Meaning, keep your blog name out there by constantly posting on your Twitter account, Facebook account, blog etc. Remember that humans are forgetful unless you keep your name out in the open. If someone is constantly seeing your blog name, they will start to look for your post and want to know what the fuss is all about.
If you own a blog and have been successful , make sure to chime in below about what has worked for you as well.
Carla Phillips
My SEO Gal
http://myseogal.com
Got a Question or need help?
Contact My SEO Gal Today for a FREE SEO Quote.
http://myseogal.com
Got a Question or need help?
Contact My SEO Gal Today for a FREE SEO Quote.
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