An often overlooked technique for small businesses is tooting your own horn. It is important for you to let the world know about important things that happen at your business. The simplest way to get this information out is by creating press releases. These are usually very short, and strictly fact based. Once these are circulated, the recipients can write a full article or reprint the press release.
There are many resources online for both writing and distributing press releases. Some press release distribution outlets can cost a fee, so be sure to figure out if you want to spend the money to get your word out there.
Articles written from you press releases will provide more exposure for your business, and more links from electronic versions of these articles. Best of all this costs nothing. Local, and state newspapers are always looking for information like this. Many of the magazines that promote the types of items you sell could be interested in your press releases. Additionally you could use the contacts you have made through your link-to-campaign to build your press release contact list.
Additionally, with the rise of the blogging culture, it is important to include bloggers on your press release distribution list. Be sure to start with friends and family, and expand from there.
Examples of press releases would be new products or product lines, new hires, personnel changes, big sales, volunteering, sponsorship or non-business related events in which you participate.
Another way to get your company name and website out onto the web is to apply for awards both online and elsewhere. Many of the contestants, qualifiers and winners will receive press coverage, and links from the contest’s website and the press. That coverage could grow exponentially if you were to win an award.
Monday, September 14, 2009
Monday, August 31, 2009
Part IX - Link to Campaign
As we discussed earlier, your site’s PageRank is a major contributor to where you appear in search results. The best way to increase your PageRank is get links to your site from other sites. Not only do links on other sites increase your PageRank, but will also increase the traffic to your site.
Since you do not have control over other people’s sites, you have to devise a strategy. Not only is it important to generate links on other websites, but to ensure that the text in these links work best for your needs. This will involve traditional sales techniques and public relations strategies. The web also offers many emerging means of adding links to your website, including shopping indexes, social bookmarking sites, and social networking sites.
How Does a Link to Campaign Work?
Google provides a tool to see how many sites link to a particular site. Type "link:yoursitename.com" into the Google search function. For example, Thunderbird Supply Company would search for "link:thunderbirdsupply.com". Google will provide a list of larger website that link to the site specified. You could also use this tool to see who is linking to your competitor's sites.
How Do You Generate Links?
The process of working a link-to campaign is very similar to the sales process. First you contact the people you know, or websites that already link to you. Then you generate leads through those contacts for more links to your site. Contact these leads and try to get links to your website, and more leads for people to contact. This process can continue infinitely, or can be cut off at any point.
Is your company a part of any associations? If so, insist on having a link to your website from any association website. Many association websites already have their member companies listed on the association website. Make sure that your company is listed, that there is a link, and that the link is worded properly.
Another source of potential links to your site is your vendors that you purchase from. Many of these vendors are happy to provide publicity for their customers, because they know the more you sell, the more you will buy from them.
Non-product vendors have websites, and are happy to showcase customers to help improve their image. These vendors could include software vendors, business machine vendors, etc. Contact these vendors about placing a link to your site on their site. There are other companies that you may work with that would be willing to place a link to your website on their website.
There are other means of getting links to your site through newsletters and blogs. This user generated content, and potential links are invaluable, not only to generate links to your website, but also to increase visibility to potential customers. You need to contact these newsletters and blogs, introduce yourself, and solicit links to your site.
The current customer base is another valuable asset. These customers that come back to your store could be a large generator of links to your site. You need to engage your current customers to see if they have websites, and if so, if they would be willing to link to your website. You would then ask for references from these customers.
A valuable source of links can be found through your competitors. Create a list of websites linking to your competitors’ websites, and add them to your leads list.
Create a “Link to Us” section on your website to make the process of linking to your site simple. This section should include materials that webmasters can use to create better links to your site. These items include images, suggested link text, colors, and general instructions if people want to link to specific areas of your site. Having these items available makes it easier for webmasters to link to your site, and increase the odds of getting those precious links.
Since you do not have control over other people’s sites, you have to devise a strategy. Not only is it important to generate links on other websites, but to ensure that the text in these links work best for your needs. This will involve traditional sales techniques and public relations strategies. The web also offers many emerging means of adding links to your website, including shopping indexes, social bookmarking sites, and social networking sites.
How Does a Link to Campaign Work?
Google provides a tool to see how many sites link to a particular site. Type "link:yoursitename.com" into the Google search function. For example, Thunderbird Supply Company would search for "link:thunderbirdsupply.com". Google will provide a list of larger website that link to the site specified. You could also use this tool to see who is linking to your competitor's sites.
How Do You Generate Links?
The process of working a link-to campaign is very similar to the sales process. First you contact the people you know, or websites that already link to you. Then you generate leads through those contacts for more links to your site. Contact these leads and try to get links to your website, and more leads for people to contact. This process can continue infinitely, or can be cut off at any point.
Is your company a part of any associations? If so, insist on having a link to your website from any association website. Many association websites already have their member companies listed on the association website. Make sure that your company is listed, that there is a link, and that the link is worded properly.
Another source of potential links to your site is your vendors that you purchase from. Many of these vendors are happy to provide publicity for their customers, because they know the more you sell, the more you will buy from them.
Non-product vendors have websites, and are happy to showcase customers to help improve their image. These vendors could include software vendors, business machine vendors, etc. Contact these vendors about placing a link to your site on their site. There are other companies that you may work with that would be willing to place a link to your website on their website.
There are other means of getting links to your site through newsletters and blogs. This user generated content, and potential links are invaluable, not only to generate links to your website, but also to increase visibility to potential customers. You need to contact these newsletters and blogs, introduce yourself, and solicit links to your site.
The current customer base is another valuable asset. These customers that come back to your store could be a large generator of links to your site. You need to engage your current customers to see if they have websites, and if so, if they would be willing to link to your website. You would then ask for references from these customers.
A valuable source of links can be found through your competitors. Create a list of websites linking to your competitors’ websites, and add them to your leads list.
Create a “Link to Us” section on your website to make the process of linking to your site simple. This section should include materials that webmasters can use to create better links to your site. These items include images, suggested link text, colors, and general instructions if people want to link to specific areas of your site. Having these items available makes it easier for webmasters to link to your site, and increase the odds of getting those precious links.
Monday, July 13, 2009
Search Engine Optimization - Part VIII - Spelling Mistakes
One possibility that many websites overlook is the ability of searchers to misspell what they are searching for or search using a different spelling of a word (i.e. jewelry or jewelery). For instance many people that search for your site may search for the terms “jewerly” or "jewlry".
Create “did you mean” pages with these misspellings/alternate spellings intentionally placed on the pages, especially in the title. This will help your site appear higher in searches for these misspellings/alternate spellings.
Once you have these "did you mean" pages make sure that you have links to these pages on your site. The more links you have in your site to these pages, the more visible there will be to search engines trying to index them.
Create “did you mean” pages with these misspellings/alternate spellings intentionally placed on the pages, especially in the title. This will help your site appear higher in searches for these misspellings/alternate spellings.
Once you have these "did you mean" pages make sure that you have links to these pages on your site. The more links you have in your site to these pages, the more visible there will be to search engines trying to index them.
Monday, June 22, 2009
Search Engine Optimization - Part VII - News
Keywords can be included in your site through news stories. These news articles can take the shape of press releases from other sources, internal press releases and links to articles on other sites.
Many of your suppliers and other strategic partners can generate press releases to inform the general public about what is happening with their company. These press releases could contain useful keywords for your website purposes. They could be copied word for word, or have some aspects paraphrased to meet your purposes.
It is also important for you to generate press releases about your company. This will help to gain links from other websites, but I will discuss that in another post. These press releases can contain more of the keywords that you want on your site.
Many of your suppliers and other strategic partners can generate press releases to inform the general public about what is happening with their company. These press releases could contain useful keywords for your website purposes. They could be copied word for word, or have some aspects paraphrased to meet your purposes.
It is also important for you to generate press releases about your company. This will help to gain links from other websites, but I will discuss that in another post. These press releases can contain more of the keywords that you want on your site.
Monday, June 15, 2009
Search Engine Optimization - Part VI - Target Market Sub-Pages
Due to the nature of many businesses, your website caters to several different types of customers. You need to figure out what different types of customers you have. If you have the ability to create your own web pages, create pages that target these different customers. Pages that target specific products and customers can be packed with specific keywords, and are more likely to show up higher in searches. These sub-pages are very easy to set up. It is the research that will take most of the effort.
Remember, Google does not calculate search results by website, but by individual web pages. So the more specific you can be on one page of your site for a target audience, or product, the more likely that page will appear in search results on Google.
Remember, Google does not calculate search results by website, but by individual web pages. So the more specific you can be on one page of your site for a target audience, or product, the more likely that page will appear in search results on Google.
Monday, June 8, 2009
Search Engine Optimization - Part V - Outgoing Links
Links to external websites can help a site target its keywords and customers. External links also will cause a site to lose some of its PageRank, so there is an important balance that must be considered when putting external links onto a website.
External links help to create keywords on your site that would not otherwise exists. Perhaps your site does not contain any content on items that you would like on your keyword list. Find other sites on the internet that do offer this content, and would be beneficial for your users, and link to them. Make sure that the words you use for the link contain the keywords that you want to promote.
When you link to an external site, the portion of the linking page’s PageRank is lost to another site. This loss of PageRank forces the search engine conscious to remove any links that do not provide needed keywords for the site. All links to external sites should be carefully considered.
External links help to create keywords on your site that would not otherwise exists. Perhaps your site does not contain any content on items that you would like on your keyword list. Find other sites on the internet that do offer this content, and would be beneficial for your users, and link to them. Make sure that the words you use for the link contain the keywords that you want to promote.
When you link to an external site, the portion of the linking page’s PageRank is lost to another site. This loss of PageRank forces the search engine conscious to remove any links that do not provide needed keywords for the site. All links to external sites should be carefully considered.
Monday, May 4, 2009
Search Engine Optimization - Part IV - Redesigning Your Site
How Does Google See My Site?
Click on the "Google Webmaster Tools" link in the "Helpful Web Tools" toolbox to the right. Once there, click on the "Statistics" link, then click on the "What Googlebot sees", and scroll down down to the "In Your Site's Content" section. This will tell you, based on the content of your site, the keywords that Google uses to rank your site in priority order.
Your goal over time will be to make this list look very similar to the keyword list you have come up with.
Re-Categorize Items
Look through the categories you currently have on your website. They may appear to make sense to you, but they need to make sense to your customers, and more importantly, they need to help searchers find your site.
Take a look at your keyword list. As I said before, this list will help you throughout the rest of this process, so make sure to put a good amount of time into developing it. How do the categories that you use on your site correspond with your keyword list? Most likely your categories will be on every page in your site, so make sure they are items near the top of your keyword list.
Reformat Your Pages
As we discussed previously, Google gives more prominence to words that appear closer to the top of your pages, and words that appear more frequently. This can explain why Google has ranked certain keywords very high for your website that do not match your keyword list goals.
For example, if you show shopping cart information on every page of your store, Google will give more weight to those words, such as "cart" or "quantity". Those are not the words you want Google to recognize your site for. Be very careful about what you put on your site, and where. Everything should have a purpose.
Given Google's keyword list for your site we retrieved at the beginning of this article , you can begin to see the types of changes that need to be made, and you can start giving priority to certain words over others. You will also want to add some items to your site, and remove others.
An important concept to keep in mind is that Google cannot "see" your web page, it can only read the HTML code that makes up the page. Web pages allow us to put elements visually at the top of the page, but these same elements do not have to be a the top of the code. If you are able to edit your HTML code, you can put the most important elements at the top of the page code, but place them visually wherever you want them to be.
Since you will want to promote some keywords, and demote others on your pages, it will be important to have a structure that will allow you to separate the order of the information in your HTML code, and the order of the elements visually on your screen. If you are able to edit your HTML code, you can do this using cascading style sheets (CSS). See the "HTML Tutorial" and "CSS Tutorial" links in the "Helpful Web Tools" section above to the right.
If someone developed your site for you, have a discussion with them about how you can move those elements of your page that are more important to the top of the HTML code without moving their visual placement. However, if it does not matter where your elements are visually, than you can just order the information on your site the same visually, and in the HTML code.
If you cannot edit your own HTML code, don't worry. There is still a lot you can do. I suggest that you familiarize yourself with how to create HTML code. Then, go to your online store and select the "View Source" menu option. This will show you what the HTML code for you pages looks like. From there you can experiment with the type of information you put into your ecommerce solution and how it affects your HTML code.
Click on the "Google Webmaster Tools" link in the "Helpful Web Tools" toolbox to the right. Once there, click on the "Statistics" link, then click on the "What Googlebot sees", and scroll down down to the "In Your Site's Content" section. This will tell you, based on the content of your site, the keywords that Google uses to rank your site in priority order.
Your goal over time will be to make this list look very similar to the keyword list you have come up with.
Re-Categorize Items
Look through the categories you currently have on your website. They may appear to make sense to you, but they need to make sense to your customers, and more importantly, they need to help searchers find your site.
Take a look at your keyword list. As I said before, this list will help you throughout the rest of this process, so make sure to put a good amount of time into developing it. How do the categories that you use on your site correspond with your keyword list? Most likely your categories will be on every page in your site, so make sure they are items near the top of your keyword list.
Reformat Your Pages
As we discussed previously, Google gives more prominence to words that appear closer to the top of your pages, and words that appear more frequently. This can explain why Google has ranked certain keywords very high for your website that do not match your keyword list goals.
For example, if you show shopping cart information on every page of your store, Google will give more weight to those words, such as "cart" or "quantity". Those are not the words you want Google to recognize your site for. Be very careful about what you put on your site, and where. Everything should have a purpose.
Given Google's keyword list for your site we retrieved at the beginning of this article , you can begin to see the types of changes that need to be made, and you can start giving priority to certain words over others. You will also want to add some items to your site, and remove others.
An important concept to keep in mind is that Google cannot "see" your web page, it can only read the HTML code that makes up the page. Web pages allow us to put elements visually at the top of the page, but these same elements do not have to be a the top of the code. If you are able to edit your HTML code, you can put the most important elements at the top of the page code, but place them visually wherever you want them to be.
Since you will want to promote some keywords, and demote others on your pages, it will be important to have a structure that will allow you to separate the order of the information in your HTML code, and the order of the elements visually on your screen. If you are able to edit your HTML code, you can do this using cascading style sheets (CSS). See the "HTML Tutorial" and "CSS Tutorial" links in the "Helpful Web Tools" section above to the right.
If someone developed your site for you, have a discussion with them about how you can move those elements of your page that are more important to the top of the HTML code without moving their visual placement. However, if it does not matter where your elements are visually, than you can just order the information on your site the same visually, and in the HTML code.
If you cannot edit your own HTML code, don't worry. There is still a lot you can do. I suggest that you familiarize yourself with how to create HTML code. Then, go to your online store and select the "View Source" menu option. This will show you what the HTML code for you pages looks like. From there you can experiment with the type of information you put into your ecommerce solution and how it affects your HTML code.
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