11 Jun

SEO Copywriting

Written by: Gary Horsman June 11, 2013

SEO Copywriting

It’s Complicated!

SEO copywriting is a complex skill and a very important one if you want to gain more than your fair share of online traffic.

SEO copywriting will often be categorized under “On Page SEO”, but it really deserves to be recognized as a far more complicated field than is usually acknowledged.

Done well . . .

It is compelling and builds a desire to read more.
It identifies and solves problems that need to be solved.
SEO copywriting entertains and delights.
It adds value to the people that read it.
SEO copywriting helps a company achieve its business objectives.
It increases the authority of a business. Full Story

Filed Under: Content Marketing, SEO & Blogging, SEO & Web Copy Tagged With: Copywriting, SEO, SEO Copywriting

4 Jun

On Page Search Engine Optimization

Written by: Gary Horsman June 4, 2013

On Page Search Engine Optimization

The Most Common SEO Service

(but only the tip of the iceberg)

On-page SEO is probably the most common SEO service. Also, as noted in a prior post the on-page SEO and the detailed work which is associated with this aspect of SEO is the most common perception of what SEO is as a service. While it is an important part of the overall SEO picture and set-up for your website it will not produce significant business building results if this is all that you do. Full Story

Filed Under: SEO & Blogging, SEO & Web Copy, SEO and Landing Pages, SEO Real Estate

1 Jun

Search Engine Optimization

Written by: Gary Horsman June 1, 2013

Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Many Focus Areas

Can You Find the SEO Gold?

Understanding what Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is can be confusing. There is quite a bit to it and it is practiced in many different ways. The scope of SEO services can also vary significantly as one SEO company will have a certain SEO philosophy and tools and focus on what they do best and another SEO company may have a very different philosophy and a different tool set and the two approaches may be very different.

There are basic components but the best performance results are when a tool set combines multiple aspects of SEO. Full Story

Filed Under: Content Marketing, SEO & Blogging, SEO & Web Copy, SEO and Landing Pages, SEO and Linking, SEO Favorites, SEO Real Estate

27 May

Content Marketing Challenges

Written by: Gary Horsman May 27, 2013

Content Marketing Challenges

Overcoming Content Marketing Challenges

Content Marketing Challenges Content marketing is a hot item right now. Also, as is often the case with a hot topic in the marketing world, there are also plenty of challenges that go along with it. This is certainly the case when it comes to content marketing.

Whether it’s coming up with ideas, writing newsletter articles, creating and maintaining a blog, or just thinking of material to share on Facebook, Twitter or Google + content marketing has challenges. Full Story

Filed Under: Content Marketing, SEO & Web Copy

14 May

Interview with Heidi White

Written by: Gary Horsman May 14, 2013

Blogging and Content Marketing

An Interview with Heidi White

Blogging has become a mainstream marketing activity and many consider it a necessity for online communication and engagement. It can also be used to develop and enhance a business’s brand and therefore is a very important tool.

This interview is with Heidi White. She is a communications specialist and copywriter. Heidi also helps businesses set up and promote their brand and message by offering a blogging tutorial to help people to get started with blogging. Here are some key questions and answers related to business blogging. Full Story

Filed Under: Business, Content Marketing, SEO & Blogging, SEO & Web Copy

9 May

Analyze Your Competitors

Written by: Gary Horsman May 9, 2013

Analyze Your Competitors

Gain Insights To Out-Perform Them

Imagine you can out-perform your competition in search and reap the benefits. The benefits are more traffic and if your content is designed well then this will result in more sales and more business. Full Story

Filed Under: Business, Content Marketing, SEO & Web Copy Tagged With: Search Engine Optimization, SEO, SEO TIps, Web Design SEO

6 May

Blog Improvement Ideas

Written by: Gary Horsman May 6, 2013

Blog Improvement Ideas

10 Easy To Implement Concepts

Here are 10 great ideas that you can use to improve your blog. Each of these blog improvement ideas can help your blog and I recommend using as many of them as you can. Full Story

Filed Under: Content Marketing, SEO & Blogging, SEO & Web Copy

29 Apr

Google Trends

Written by: Gary Horsman April 29, 2013

Using Google Trends

Keyword Research and Content Marketing

Google Trends allows us to see relative search volume as a function of time. In some cases, the data goes back as far as 2004. As small business owners or managers we all need to realize that we are also marketing managers. Many of you also know that I am a big fan of using the Google Database to conduct market research. It can be invaluable to us. Full Story

Filed Under: Business, Content Marketing, SEO & Web Copy

18 Apr

Real Estate Collaboration

Written by: Gary Horsman April 18, 2013

Collaboration and Team Work

Real Estate Blogging Collaboration

In the words of Henry Ford: “Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success”.

As operators within a business we need to find a competitive advantage. If we identify something significant then we need to do what it takes to realize this advantage. We need not put up barriers that prevent us from realizing the full potential of a advantage. Full Story

Filed Under: SEO & Blogging, SEO Real Estate

15 Apr

Real Estate Photography

Written by: Gary Horsman April 15, 2013

Real Estate Photography

Here are some thoughts to consider when photographing your wonderful real estate listings. In fact, to photograph a listing in a stunning way will also help you to gain more and better listings.

Full Story

Filed Under: SEO & Web Copy

11 Apr

Content Marketing and Images

Written by: Gary Horsman April 11, 2013

Image SEO & Content Marketing

Image SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

Images are very important to your content and content marketing in multiple ways.

Images have a multitude of uses on a website. Full Story

Filed Under: Content Marketing, SEO & Blogging, SEO & Web Copy, SEO Real Estate Tagged With: Image SEO, SEO, SEO TIps

10 Apr

Organic Link Building

Written by: Gary Horsman April 10, 2013

Are You Earning Your Links?

Organic Link Building

The quality of your website and your website materials have to be at a level where they are worthy of gaining in-coming links. Full Story

Filed Under: Content Marketing, SEO & Web Copy, SEO and Linking, SEO Penguin

28 Mar

Links to Your Website

Written by: Gary Horsman March 28, 2013

The Importance of Links to Your Website

A Website Needs In-Coming Links to Rank High In Search

This blog post will focus on the importance of links to your website. First off you need to realize that and estimated 75% of Google’s process looks at the links coming into your website pages from other websites. Google studies the link profile of your site and all its pages and ranks sites and pages higher that have a better link profile. Full Story

Filed Under: SEO and Linking, SEO Penguin Tagged With: Building Backlinks, Link Building, Linking, Website Linking

26 Mar

Digital Literacy

Written by: Gary Horsman March 26, 2013

Digital Literacy

It’s Vital for Business Success

Every business needs to learn how to react to external conditions.

Everyone in a business needs to be functionally literate and today this mean digitally literate. You have to understand the basic concepts and know what’s going on, why it’s important, what to do about, what’s expected, and so on. Full Story

Filed Under: Business, Content Marketing, SEO & Web Copy Tagged With: Content Marketing, Digital Literacy

20 Mar

2013 SEO News Update

Written by: Gary Horsman March 20, 2013

SEO News Update for 2013

Linking for Search Engine Positioning

Even people new to content marketing and SEO realized that content is king. They also know that links are vital for good search position of their valuable content. If you don’t have links then you content may not get much exposure and exposure of your delightful content generates business. Full Story

Filed Under: SEO & Web Copy

18 Mar

Content Marketing by Heidi White

Written by: Gary Horsman March 18, 2013

Content Marketing Post by Heidi White

Here is a nice post from Heidi White. She writes about content marketing and the concept of content marketing planning.

She covers:

The Content Marketing Target Market
Content Planning for Special Times or Events
Content Depth and Visual Appeal
How to Evaluate

In this last item, she brings up Google Analytics as a way to measure how effective (or not) your content marketing is and that it is always necessary to reevaluate and to look for ways to improve.

This is a solid post by Heidi and it captures the essentials of modern content marketing.

Also, if you want to learn more about content marketing then I invite you to take our tutorial series on content marketing. Here is a link to the Content Marketing Tutorial Introduction.

Filed Under: Business, Content Marketing, SEO & Web Copy Tagged With: Content Marketing, Heidi White

18 Mar

SEO and Over-Optimization

Written by: Gary Horsman March 18, 2013

SEO and Over-Optimization

There has been a great deal of discussion lately on the topic of over-optimization of a webpage. I have been looking into this diligently for a number of months and it is hard to get a definite handle on this. I have attended seminars, asked experts and read many articles.

Though often discussed in SEO circles as a concern, no one really seams to know exactly what is meant by over-optimization. Full Story

Filed Under: Content Marketing, SEO & Web Copy, SEO and Linking Tagged With: SEO, SEO and Great Content, SEO for 2013, SEO Linking, SEO TIps

16 Mar

Communications Skills

Written by: Gary Horsman March 16, 2013

Communication Skills

Communication skills – especially public speaking and presentation skills – are essential for business success. Public speaking and presentation skill is very valuable but also something that business people in general do not develop. For example, a great presentation, in terms of content, can be diminished if the presenter starts each sentence with um or ah-um. Full Story

Filed Under: Business

26 Feb

Website Design Mistakes

Written by: Gary Horsman February 26, 2013

Website Design Mistakes

Six Website Design Sins

Today, we examine six deadly sins that are often committed on small business websites.

Read through my list and then please take the poll. Let’s see what the SEO-Reading public thinks about these sins and what they see committed the most often. Full Story

Filed Under: Content Marketing, SEO & Web Copy Tagged With: Fresh Web Content, Web Design, Website Design Mistakes

25 Feb

Ideal Keyword Density

Written by: Gary Horsman February 25, 2013

The Ideal Keyword Density

Matt Cutts says . . .

A question I often get asked is what is the ideal keyword density for a given page on your website. For a question such as this, I often simply say that you want to write for humans. After all, Google and the other major search engines need to take proper care of their customers and their customer are humans. Google and the other major search engines actually try to emulate humans. That’s right! They actually try to emulate us. Full Story

Filed Under: SEO & Blogging, SEO & Web Copy, SEO and Landing Pages, SEO Panda Tagged With: Ideal Keyword Density, Matt Cutts, Web Copy

23 Feb

SEO Marketing Consultant Psychology

Written by: Gary Horsman February 23, 2013

SEO Content Marketing – The Psychology

Often, as an SEO Content Marketing Consultant I am asked to get involved with the SEO of a website at an advanced stage of website development. Design elements are already in place, graphics created, page structure determined, even the selling and lead generation processes have been finalized before the owner or manager invites the SEO Marketing Consultant to “do the SEO”. Full Story

Filed Under: Content Marketing, SEO & Web Copy, SEO Favorites Tagged With: Content Marketing, SEO, SEO Planning

11 Feb

SEO in 2013

Written by: Gary Horsman February 11, 2013

SEO for 2013

SEO Lessons Learned from 2012

The year 2012 was by far the most turbulent (and to many confused) year when it came to their search engine positioning. Full Story

Filed Under: Content Marketing, SEO & Web Copy, SEO and Linking, SEO Panda, SEO Penguin Tagged With: SEO, SEO for 2013

4 Feb

Blogging – Getting Started

Written by: Gary Horsman February 4, 2013

Business Blogging – Getting Started

How to Start Business Blogging

Business blogging has certainly emerged as an effective and inexpensive way to reach your clients and potential clients. In a study conducted in 2012 we can estimate that 57 million American adults read at least one blog on a regular basis.

Of these blog readers the same survey revealed that 52 percent of them also regularly shop online and conduct a purchase and 93% conduct research online before making a purchase even if the purchase is not conducted online. Full Story

Filed Under: SEO & Web Copy

2 Feb

Business Growth Ideas for 2013

Written by: Gary Horsman February 2, 2013

Business Growth Ideas for 2013 (Actually Any Year!)

Develop some aggressive ideas to help your business grow in 2013. These ideas can really be applied at any time.

Also, think about ways that you can integrate these ideas into your content marketing.

Full Story

Filed Under: Business, Content Marketing Tagged With: Business Growth, Content Marketing

28 Jan

My Top-10 Link Building Tips for 2013

Written by: Gary Horsman January 28, 2013

My Top-10 Link Building Tips for 2013

Link Building

1. Hire a Competent Copywriter

Don’t expect to get worthy links unless you also have great copy. All of your website content must be top shelf. Use words carefully and creatively. Make your copywriting delightful and this means to use a competent professional copywriter. Get your copy right. If you want some help with your copywriting then consider the services of Heidi White a Freelance Copywriter in Vermont. Full Story

Filed Under: Content Marketing, SEO & Web Copy, SEO and Linking Tagged With: Link Building, Linking, Links

10 Jan

Graphic Design – Interview with Cathy Meyer

Written by: Gary Horsman January 10, 2013

Cathy Meyer Graphic Design

Cathy Meyer is a Freelance Graphic Designer. She operates a Graphic Design Company located in New Hampshire. In this interview Cathy shares her insights into graphic content that can help to convey a message to your audience.

When it comes to content marketing content can take on many different formats and the graphical content of your materials is vital to ensuring high-impact content.

Enjoy! Full Story

Filed Under: Content Marketing, Interviews, SEO & Web Copy Tagged With: Cathy Meyer, Graphic Design

7 Jan

A Powerful Ranking Activity

Written by: Gary Horsman January 7, 2013

Backlinks – A Powerful Ranking Activity

Gaining backlinks is a popular subject. The bad feelings that people had with Google when they introduced Penguin last year have made many feel that while not as easy as before (not that it was easy) backlinks are still vital to essentially any effort to improve search position that achieves a high position.

Here are some basic tips when it comes to getting valuable backlinks for your website. Full Story

Filed Under: SEO & Web Copy, SEO and Linking, SEO Penguin

3 Jan

The Four Stages of Content Marketing

Written by: Gary Horsman January 3, 2013

Content Marketing

Four Stages

Content marketing, like most business functions can be thought of as a set of process steps. Get good at each step and streamline the approach and integration of the steps and you have an efficient process. This becomes a business system and the more you use the system and work to optimize it the better and more efficient it becomes. Full Story

Filed Under: Content Marketing, SEO & Web Copy

27 Dec

Thoughts for 2013

Written by: Gary Horsman December 27, 2012

Business 2013

Business 2013 - Looking Forward to 2013 Helen Keller once wrote:

“Character cannot be developed in peace and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired and success achieved.”

For a business in 2013, this can be translated into something quite simple; Just Do It! Full Story

Filed Under: Business Tagged With: Business 2013

20 Dec

What Is Great Content

Written by: Gary Horsman December 20, 2012

Content Marketing

What is Great Content?

If you read about content marketing you will see this phrase often repeated “create and publish great content” this sounds fine a first glance but it is sure to make you wonder about what exactly is great content.

This is a simple question with not-so-simple answer.

Defining great content depends on your point of view. What does it consist of, how is it used, and how to measure its value, are just some of the perspectives to be considered. Let’s take a look at how this breaks down. Full Story

Filed Under: Content Marketing, SEO & Web Copy Tagged With: Content Marketing

17 Dec

Blogging Makes You Better

Written by: Gary Horsman December 17, 2012

Expertise and Blogging

What’s In It for You!

An important aspect of blogging - that is often not considered - is that blogging makes you better. The act of blogging requires that you think up topics, research them, clarify them, promote your blogging posts and then observe the response. Each of these activities and the combined process makes you better at what you blog about. Full Story

Filed Under: Content Marketing, SEO & Blogging, SEO & Web Copy

13 Dec

The Economy and Fear

Written by: Gary Horsman December 13, 2012

Content Marketing and Fear

How can content marketing help in this economy?

The economy is what it is. Perhaps the recession is over. We may be in a recovery. Maybe the pain is behind us. I hope that Congress will make the right moves. Business marches forward even surround by uncertainty. No businesses proceeds certain of what’s going to happen. A business owner needs to move forward and operate in a business climate with a strong component of uncertainty about the economy and market conditions. Full Story

Filed Under: Business, Content Marketing, SEO & Web Copy

11 Dec

SEO Interview

Written by: Gary Horsman December 11, 2012

SEO Interview with Jim Carroll

SEO Expert

Jim Carroll is a search engine positioning expert and operates in Salt Lake City. In this interview Jim shares his insights on search engine positioning planning and provides some best-practice advice to gain position in search for website and blogs.

SEO is important for any business that want to gain exposure using the Internet.

Enjoy!

Full Story

Filed Under: Interviews, SEO & Web Copy

10 Dec

Why Worry About the Economy

Written by: Gary Horsman December 10, 2012

Content Marketing & The Economy

How can content marketing help?

A colleague of mine asked me for advice on how to operate in this bad economy. He seemed very concerned and perhaps uncertain about what to do. Being a bit uncertain is a perpetual state of the business mind. There are always many things to do – how do we prioritise? There are initiatives to develop – how will they turn out? Being in business is to live with uncertainty. However, we still must remain confident. We need to work with what we have. We cannot dwell on that which we cannot control. This colleague was concerned about the bad economy and it prompted me to write this post. Full Story

Filed Under: Business, Content Marketing, SEO & Web Copy

8 Dec

Blogging Ideas

Written by: Gary Horsman December 8, 2012

Keep your Business Blog Relevant and Fresh

Blogging Ideas and Why

It is vital to keep your blog up-to-date and to have it present fresh and interesting content.

You need have to keep your blog updated regularly to keep visitors interested.

Here are a few other reasons to keep your blog fresh . . . Full Story

Filed Under: SEO & Blogging, SEO & Web Copy

26 Nov

Analytics Goals

Written by: Gary Horsman November 26, 2012

Blogging Goals

Setting up Analytics Goals for Your Blog

If you have a WordPress website or blog then to add Google Analytics is easy and from within Google Analytics you can (and should) set up visitor-related goals. You should have website goals and blogging goals.

Full Story

Filed Under: SEO & Blogging Tagged With: Blogging, Google Analytics

23 Nov

Blogging Frequency

Written by: Gary Horsman November 23, 2012

Blogging Frequency

Advice on Blog Post Frequency

I get the question on how often to post from people that are contemplating a blog or just starting out that I feel it was worth some more research and thought. My answer to this question is still based on doing the best job for your audience.

Does this mean to publish monthly – maybe. Does it mean to publish multiple times daily – perhaps. Full Story

Filed Under: SEO & Blogging

19 Nov

The Twinkie – Content Marketing Lessons

Written by: Gary Horsman November 19, 2012

Twinkies

Content Marketing Lessons from the Twinkie

As we approached this up-coming Thanksgiving Holiday I wanted to write a blog post about how your content marketing needs to be like your holiday dinner. Then, a news event caused me to change course and I decided to write about how your content marketing and Twinkies.

Full Story

Filed Under: Business, SEO & Blogging, SEO & Web Copy, SEO Market Segments Tagged With: Content Marketing, Twinkie

17 Nov

Content Marketing Interview

Written by: Gary Horsman November 17, 2012

Content Marketing Interview

Heidi White Freelance Copywriter

Here is an interview I conducted with Heidi White. The focus of this interview is Content Marketing. Heidi White is a big advocate of content marketing and can help any company with their content creation plans. I expect you will appreciate her insights. Enjoy!

Full Story

Filed Under: Interviews, SEO & Web Copy Tagged With: Content Marketing, Heidi White

16 Nov

Website SEO

Written by: Gary Horsman November 16, 2012

Website SEO

Website Referrals

Being found in search is great for a business. It means that when someone is if actively searching for your business that they find you. This is extremely valuable as someone that is actively searching is motivated. Full Story

Filed Under: SEO & Web Copy

15 Nov

Real Estate Blogging

Written by: Gary Horsman November 15, 2012

Real Estate Blogging

Why Should Anyone Care?

Perhaps even a better question is . . . Why should buyers and sellers care?

Here are my reasons why a real estate blog is effective and why people should care.

Full Story

Filed Under: SEO Real Estate Tagged With: Real Estate Blogging

12 Nov

The Relocating Buyer

Written by: Gary Horsman November 12, 2012

Blog Postings for the Relocating Buyer

Content Marketing for Real Estate

If you want to attract an audience then you have to write and relate to that audience. How much thought have you given the buyer that is relocating to your area? This is a specialized niche if you are a real estate agent.

This niche could be a valuable one as you know that they are an interested and perhaps very motivated buyer. Full Story

Filed Under: SEO Real Estate Tagged With: Real Estate, Real Estate Blogging, Real Estate SEO

6 Nov

Content Marketing

Written by: Gary Horsman November 6, 2012

Content Marketing – Election Day

Does Your Content Get Votes

What does your online audience deserve?

It’s Election Day in America and this is a proud and great American tradition. Did you ever stop to consider that when you place content online that people who blog or who own websites or who you may be able to collaborate with have a chance to vote for it? How do they vote?

Full Story

Filed Under: Business, SEO & Web Copy, SEO and Linking, SEO Penguin Tagged With: Content Marketing, Election Day

2 Nov

Content Is King in Real Estate

Written by: Gary Horsman November 2, 2012

Content is King in Real Estate

Leverage Your Real Estate Blog

If you are a real estate agent then you need to deliver high quality content and deliver it online. The more successful you are at doing this the more successful you will be as a real estate agent. Content can be on your community and on the homes you want to present.

Full Story

Filed Under: SEO Real Estate Tagged With: Real Estate Content

30 Oct

3D Content Marketing

Written by: Gary Horsman October 30, 2012

3D Content Marketing

Desktop Manufacturing

If you ever had any doubt that online content is the king then doubt no more. With new advances in 3D printing technology and with lower prices on the horizon we can start to think about desktop manufacturing.

This is content marketing in the 3 dimensional sense. This adds a new dimension to online content (no pun intended).

Imagine . . .

You design a fine set of toys for children and never have to ship them. Full Story

Filed Under: SEO & Web Copy, SEO Favorites

25 Oct

SEO and Great Content Fixed My TV

Written by: Gary Horsman October 25, 2012

SEO and Great Content Fixed My TV

My wife was given a very nice (but used) Sony Flat Screen TV. The only problem was that it did not work.

It was out of warranty but the prior owner told her that it worked perfectly and had a great picture until it went black. I decided that I would do some online research to gain insights into potential paths to follow to fix it. I turned to Google.

Full Story

Filed Under: SEO & Blogging, SEO & Web Copy, SEO Favorites Tagged With: SEO and Great Content

22 Oct

Content Marketing – Be Specific

Written by: Gary Horsman October 22, 2012

Content Marketing – Be Specific

Try speaking to everyone and you end up speaking to no one.

Your content needs to be specific. There is less value in trying to speak to both dog and cat lovers. If you speak to and add value to only dog lovers then they will relate to you and your content more strongly. Next, if you then speak with dedication and have high quality high-value content for cat lovers then you will gain their attention and loyalty.

Try to speak to both simultaneously and you run the risk of not appealing to either. Full Story

Filed Under: SEO & Blogging, SEO & Web Copy, SEO Real Estate

20 Oct

Google Disavow Link Tool

Written by: Gary Horsman October 20, 2012

Google Disavow Link Tool

A New Google Webmaster Tool

Google is now giving us all the power to report on links that we do not want to have pointing to websites or blogs. Google calls this a power-user tool. However, since it is available via Google’s Webmaster Tools then it can be used by anyone. I suspect that there will be some misuse or even abuse.

Now, what does this mean for the most legitimate, trustworthy and proper website? What does this mean to you? Full Story

Filed Under: SEO & Blogging, SEO and Linking, SEO Penguin

19 Oct

Web Content – The Scalable Business Asset

Written by: Gary Horsman October 19, 2012

Web Content – The Scalable Asset

Online Content Scales Sooooo Easily

One of the big reasons you need to publish your content online is that it is so easy to reach an audience. If you create web content for one of your visitors then you have spent some time and effort. This time and effort is almost the same if the content is consumed 100,000 times. Content is and will continue to be a vital and essential part of marketing.

Content is not a fad.

High quality web content has always been a smart way to build a loyal audience. It also allows your audience to grow.

Full Story

Filed Under: SEO & Blogging, SEO & Web Copy Tagged With: Web Content, Web Copy

17 Oct

Reading in a Different Niche

Written by: Gary Horsman October 17, 2012

Content Marketing – Reading in a Different Niche

I do quite a bit of reading online and as you may imagine much of this reading is reading a blog. I am always looking for new ideas so I read blogs not necessarily in my area of expertise.

This results in me seeing some creative work and a different approach and style from what I see from the people writing in my niche.

I have been noticing some good blogging work and will highlight some observations in this post.

Full Story

Filed Under: SEO & Blogging, SEO & Web Copy Tagged With: Content Marketing

15 Oct

Blogging Lessons Learned

Written by: Gary Horsman October 15, 2012

Blogging Lessons Learned

Here are some key lessons that every blogger needs to learn. The sooner you learn these lessons the better off you will be.

1. Blogging – Keywords

It does not make much sense to write a great blog post – one that that you have worked hard on – that adds value to any potential reader if there are no readers. Search Engine Optimization is important for driving traffic to your posts and search engine optimization starts with keywords.

Full Story

Filed Under: SEO & Blogging, SEO & Web Copy Tagged With: Blogging, Blogging Keywords, Blogging SEO

10 Oct

Five Great A/B Test Experiment Ideas

Written by: Gary Horsman October 10, 2012

A/B Test Experiment Ideas – Five Great Ones

A/B testing is all about experimentation. You need to have a mindset that is not satisfied with the status quo. You also have to be willing to try an experiment knowing that you could make things worse. This is a way to learn. Full Story

Filed Under: SEO and A/B Testing, SEO and Landing Pages

8 Oct

Google Loves Authority

Written by: Gary Horsman October 8, 2012

Google Loves Authority

How Authoritative is Your Web Content

“We believed we could build a better search. We had a simple idea, that not all pages are created equal. Some are more important. “~ Sergey Brin, Co-Founder, Google

Full Story

Filed Under: SEO & Blogging, SEO & Web Copy, SEO and Linking, SEO Favorites Tagged With: Authoritative Web Content, Guacamole

5 Oct

Real Estate Blogging

Written by: Gary Horsman October 5, 2012

Real Estate Blogging

Real Estate Blogging Personalities You Must Avoid

If you write a Real Estate Blog, the bad news is that you may have some competition.

The good news is most of them don’t know what they are doing. Full Story

Filed Under: SEO & Web Copy, SEO Favorites, SEO Real Estate

3 Oct

The Blog Title Tag

Written by: Gary Horsman October 3, 2012

Blogging Tip – Blogging SEO

The Blog Title Tag

Your blog post title tag is the single most important place to put a keyword phrase if you want to optimize your blog post for the search engines. It is imperative that you set up the blog title tag properly for good blog SEO.

Full Story

Filed Under: SEO & Blogging, SEO & Web Copy

30 Sep

Blogging Tip – Blogging SEO

Written by: Gary Horsman September 30, 2012

Blogging SEO – Blogging Tip

Length of Posts

How long is an optimized post?

It depends. Optimized for what? Full Story

Filed Under: SEO & Blogging, SEO & Web Copy

27 Sep

Real Estate Blogging

Written by: Gary Horsman September 27, 2012

Real Estate Blogging

Community Engagement – Community News

Here is a great blog topic concept if you are a real estate agent that blogs. Consider creating a blog post each month that you can call “Your Favorite Community Story”. This could be anything. Full Story

Filed Under: SEO & Web Copy, SEO Real Estate

26 Sep

Important SEO Factors

Written by: Gary Horsman September 26, 2012

The Most Important SEO Factors

On-Site SEO Factors Full Story

Filed Under: SEO & Blogging, SEO & Web Copy, SEO and Landing Pages, SEO Favorites

24 Sep

Real Estate SEO – Blogging is Flexible

Written by: Gary Horsman September 24, 2012

Real Estate SEO – Blogging Is Flexible & Great for Real Estate SEO!

Ever wonder why some real estate professionals always seem to be properly presented in search? The main factor is related to marketing and specifically the timing associated with their marketing. Full Story

Filed Under: SEO & Blogging, SEO & Web Copy, SEO Real Estate

23 Sep

SEO – Page Load Time

Written by: Gary Horsman September 23, 2012

SEO Page Load Time

Another consideration for optimized content is the SEO page load time. This is the impact on SEO (either positive or negative) related to the time it takes for your page to load when a request is made to display your website pages. The reason page load time is a factor in search engine optimization is that the major search engines want their searchers to have the best experience that they can possibly have when they (the search engines) present a set of website pages in their search results. Slow page load time have a negative impact on the user experience. Full Story

Filed Under: SEO & Web Copy, SEO Real Estate

22 Sep

Real Estate SEO – Blogging Ideas

Written by: Gary Horsman September 22, 2012

Real Estate SEO – Blogging Ideas

I have noted many times in that a real estate blog is great for content in general and extremely valuable for fresh content. Content and indeed – fresh content – is essential for high search position. Full Story

Filed Under: SEO & Blogging, SEO & Web Copy, SEO Real Estate

15 Sep

Real Estate SEO – Blogging

Written by: Gary Horsman September 15, 2012

Real Estate SEO – Blogging

6 Great Reasons to Blog

1. Expert Content

A blog gives you a great chance to display your expertise on your topic. As a real estate agent people looking for a home in your community expect you to be an expert on the community. They expect you to be an expert on real estate and you may even have some additional and related expertise that you want o display as a way to differentiate yourself and your company.

A blog is one of the best ways to demonstrate your expertise. This is valuable for you and your business. Full Story

Filed Under: SEO & Blogging, SEO & Web Copy, SEO and Linking, SEO Real Estate Tagged With: Real Estate SEO

15 Sep

Great Real Estate SEO

Written by: Gary Horsman September 15, 2012

Real Estate SEO – Content and Linking

Real Estate website owners need to think about and create great content for strong real estate SEO. Then they need to create internal links to their content to help develop the internal link profile of their pages. The last item they need to think about and acquire are external links from relevant content be acquired to show the search engine that website owners external to your site view your content as valuable. Full Story

Filed Under: SEO & Web Copy

12 Sep

Blogging Is Fun!

Written by: Gary Horsman September 12, 2012

Blogging Is Fun

Blogging is fun!

It’s one of the only forms of writing that really offers true choice, flexibility and creativity.

True writing freedom! Full Story

Filed Under: SEO & Web Copy

10 Sep

Natural Link Profile

Written by: Gary Horsman September 10, 2012

Mixed Phrase and Natural Linking

Build a Natural Linking Profile

In the past few months we have been asked over and over again what to do about the Google Penguin algorithm. We have a simple answer; when it comes to backlinks the linking profile needs to be natural. Full Story

Filed Under: SEO & Web Copy, SEO and Linking, SEO Penguin

8 Sep

Blogging and Teaching

Written by: Gary Horsman September 8, 2012

Blogging and Teaching

A great attitude to have when you blog is to teach. This attitude helps in many ways. First, if you have this attitude then you have an attitude where you want to help and add value. This is important for our society and for our community.

It is also important to learn something well enough to teach it. To learn something to be able to teach it means that you have done your homework and have given your subject some thought. You have considered how to explain it to others and have thought out how to make your materials interesting and engaging. A good teacher is an interesting and engaging teacher. Blogging and teaching are a perfect combination!

Writing blog posts and articles helps to organize your thoughts and review the knowledge you’ve already acquired. Also, it usually requires some research and examples, which can even lead to knowing the topic deeper and better.

If you dedicate yourself to teaching others about your topic you are making a larger contribution than otherwise. This is a clear benefit to your audience. If you can add valuable benefits to your audience then you keep them coming back for more and this not only helps you to maintain your readership but also helps you to increase your readership.

Blog to Gain Backlinks

Last of all, your value added teaching content will enable you to gain in-coming links to your materials and this will help you to gain search position in two ways – one the content will gain search position in and of itself and will gain search position by attracting in-coming links. Off-site optimization (gaining back links) is an essential part of gaining search position. Read more about on-site and off-site search engine optimization here.

Filed Under: SEO & Blogging, SEO & Web Copy, SEO and Linking

6 Sep

Backlinks and Web Content

Written by: Gary Horsman September 6, 2012

Backlinks and Web Content

How to get more backlinks with Web Content?

There are many different ways you can get more links pointing to the pages on your website.

First off, think about when you last shared a web page with someone else. You shared because you thought that it was:

Click on any of the above links to see an example. Each of these links to the source is valuable in some manner in my opinion.

The page that you shared was well done. It had something to offer.

Therefore, a great the 1^st step to getting some great backlinks is to create some excellent content that people will value.

Create web content worth linking to and the backlinks will come without you having to beg for them.

Filed Under: SEO & Blogging, SEO & Web Copy, SEO and Linking, SEO Panda, SEO Penguin

2 Sep

Consider Your Internal Link Network

Written by: Gary Horsman September 2, 2012

Link Network – Consider Your Internal Link Network

Build Page Rank by Building & Developing Your Internal Link Network

You need to help your search engine ranking cause by developing the link network of your pages.

You can control a certain part of your page’s link network as you can control the internal (within your own site) linking.

For example, do you have some links from your home page going to deeper internal pages as part of your link network made with some important keyword text? If you don’t then you should.

Here are three key internal link building activities to help your pages gain page rank and search position:

Build links from your home page to your most important Tier II or even Tier III pages.
Use keyword phrases in these links.
Create internal linking loops to build up the page rank of multiple pages and to increase the value of the in-coming links to any of the pages in the internal loop.

If you create an internal link network you will help to let Page Rank flow freely throughout your site. If you have an internal blog then don’t add nofollow on your links to your category or your archive pages allow these pages to be found and to enjoy an increase in page rank as well.

There are some pages where you may want to add the nofollow attribute. For example you do not need to show the search engines your subscriber login page as a search engine spider is not going to log into your site. You also do not need to have them detect your RSS feed page as the search engines do not want to display RSS feed pages in their search results. There may be other links that you do not want the search engine spiders to follow – think out and plan out your internal links well.

As a final comment you should always give some good thought to which external pages you link to. I know many people that feel that they do not want to make external links because it will bleed page rank. While this may be true consider that Google respects and encourages you to make links off your site to content that it has high regard for. The major search engines view this as positive as you are adding value for your visitors. Therefore, you can still gain some credit from Google for linking to other high page rank pages.

Filed Under: SEO & Web Copy, SEO and Linking, SEO Penguin Tagged With: link netwok

29 Aug

Blogging SEO

Using Post Categories

I use WordPress for both the SEO Notebook Blog and this website. WordPress allows the use of a blog feature known as “Categories”. All good blogging platforms have this feature.

This feature provides some excellent blogging SEO benefits. To set up your blog in this manner will help your blog and website to perform better in search.

The reasons are as follows:

By placing your blog posts in multiple related categories you increase the chance that the blog post will be found by the search engines. Therefore, you increase the chance that links in the blog post will be found and the pages that these links point to. This helps the individual blog to be found in search and all pages that are links to from the post to gain a higher position in search. Remember that the search engines consider a link to a page to be a vote for that page in terms of its value and authority.

My recommendation is to use logic category names that also provide SEO benefit by using keyword phrases as category names.

By placing your post in multiple categories you help people find your materials. To have logical and interesting blog categories that are also based on search phrases that people use helps the exposure of that category and all the blog posts in that category. Some people may be attracted to a particular category and others to another category. Multiple categories help you to attract readers.

Blogging SEO – Keep Your Blog Relevant

Also, by putting your posts in categories you will also be able to gain insights into which categories are more popular and which are less popular. Publish more to the more popular categories to keep these people interested and study how to improve the popularity of less popular categories or redefine or eliminate the least popular categories. This will help to keep your blog relevant.

When setting up your blog use all the advantages that you can and this means to use categories and to post to multiple categories.

Filed Under: SEO & Blogging, SEO & Web Copy

20 Aug

Real Estate Blogging – Are You An Expert

Written by: Gary Horsman August 20, 2012

Real Estate Blogging

Are You A Real Estate Expert?

I feel that I have to write a bit more on the immense value that blogging can provide to you to demonstrate your expertise if you are a real estate agent.

Today, buyers and sellers can gain “facts” by going online and conducting research. However, gaining these facts does not make these buyers and sellers an expert in real estate. For a buyer to make an informed decision about a home, a community or a region of the country they need a “local expert”. For a seller to make an informed decision about the value of their real estate and how to market it they need a “local expert” If you are a real estate agent and blog about your community then you will be perceived as a local expert – a local real estate expert – which is great for you and your business.

In reality, you are a local real estate expert if you are a real estate agent with some experience in the community. If you blog you will become even more of an expert and with your real estate blog you will be able to project that expertise.

As a real estate agent you sell homes. You sell a community. You sell yourself and the value that you add and a big part of the value is your expertise on the local real estate market.

If you demonstrate that you are an expert on the local real estate market then both buyers and sellers will seek you out for your value-added expertise. Every home buyer or seller needs advice and with your blog you can be the one that presents valuable advice and when it comes time to buy or sell then your blog will help them to realize that you are a great choice to work with because of your local real estate expertise.

Real Estate Blogging – Be The Local Expert

Real estate blogging Let can help you to create leads for your real estate business. Leverage your blog to support your ability to get a listing or sell a home.

Download our Real Estate Blogging Guide which will provide you with some great ideas on how to generate great attention-grabbing content for your real estate blog and also help you to generate some ideas on real estate blogging.

Filed Under: SEO & Web Copy

18 Aug

Web Content Experiments

Written by: Gary Horsman August 18, 2012

New A/B Testing Tool

From Google Analytics

As a website owner you have goals that you want to accomplish with your website. Actually if you really think about it you have goals that you want your visitors to accomplish.

A visitor goal may be to:

Sign up for your newsletter.
Fill out your “contact agent” form (if you are a real estate agent).
Download your white paper or e-book.
Click though to a particular page.
(Need I forget) . . . Make a purchase.

You want your visitors to achieve the goals that you (the site owner) have set for them.

If you are a website owner then you need to conduct web content experiments that allow you to test how well different versions of your website pages work in getting your visitors to accomplish specific goals. With the new Web Content Experiments tool from Google you can test up to five variations of a page.

Content Experiments is a somewhat different approach from either standard A/B or multivariate testing. Content Experiments is more A/B/N. You can test up to five full “experimental” versions of a single page, each delivered to visitors from a separate URL.

What can you do with Web Content Experiments in Google Analytics?

With Content Experiments, you can:

Compare how different web pages perform using a random sample of your visitors
Define what percentage of your visitors are included in the experiment
Choose which objective you’d like to test

Web Content Experiments

An example of using experiments to improve your business

Let’s say you have a website where you present house-cleaning services. You offer basic cleaning, deep cleaning, and detailed cleaning. Detailed cleaning is most profitable of the three, so you’re interested in getting more people to proceed with this option.

Most visitors land on your homepage, so this is the best page to use to initiate your content experiment. For your experiment, you create several new versions of this web page: one with a big red headline for detailed cleaning, one in which you expand on the benefits of detailed cleaning, and one where you put an icon next to the link to learn more about detailed cleaning.

Web Content Experiments

Once you’ve set up and launched your experiment, a random sample of your visitors see the different pages, including your original home page, and you simply wait to see which page gets the highest percentage of visitors to take the action you require (the goal) which is to contact you about detail cleaning.

When you see which page drives the most conversions, you can make that one the live page for all visitors and watch your conversions grow.

Designing new website pages which are more effective has never been more fun and more profitable.

Filed Under: SEO & Web Copy, SEO and A/B Testing, SEO and Landing Pages

14 Aug

Web Content – Consider an eBook

Written by: Gary Horsman August 14, 2012

Web Content – Consider an eBook

Build Your Brand (and Establish Your Expertise)

If you hang out with me or if your have taken one of my classes then you know I am a big advocate of web content. I always push to get clients to create content that delights their visitors.

I also push to get clients to create great depth and variety of content.

So how about taking a big step up and creating a very worthy eBook.

An eBook on your topic demonstrates your expertise and your willingness and ability to make a contribution on your topic.

Do you have a special product or service that needs some explaining to help make a sale? Do you need images and graphics to get your point across when explaining your product or service to a prospect? Do you need to be able to send something to a potential client to help them solve their problem?

If you can answer yes to any of these questions then you can consider writing an eBook to help your clients and potential clients and help establish and enhance your expertise as well.

Create an e-book to educate and

keep customers engaged with your brand.

A New Twist on Traditional Brand-Building

An eBook can be significant in helping you to close a deal with customers interested in buying online, since it increases their comfort level and trust in your product, service or business. An eBook can be an important part of your strategy to educate and sell directly to a consumer.

According to the Book Industry Study Group, one in four Americans reads eBooks, and small businesses are starting to take advantage of this trend as a supplement and enhancement of the traditional brand-building activities.

As with all marketing efforts, however, execution is everything. With content-based items such as white papers and e-books for free and for purchase being presented on websites that sell Ant Farm kits to SEO and Landing Page services (that’s me!) it’s very important for a small business to think carefully about why and how to add eBooks and other forms of online content to its web content marketing mix.

Start by considering whether your target audience will be served better by a white paper or an informational eBook. A white paper has traditionally been a short document of between 5 to 10 pages. It defines aproblem and the parameters that define the boundaries of the solution and then defines the solution. It is more than an article and significantly more than a brochure but has elements found in both an article and a brochure. A white paper often is persuasive and attempts to lead the reader towards a solution based on the author’s product or service. It is an informational and specific sales pitch.

An informational eBook can be used to help promote a brand and the expertise of the business and will provide more how-to information rather than what was done as in a White Paper. An eBook can show and tell the what, why and how of a problem. It can put the reader in the picture as the who and when as it gives the reader the information to solve a problem and the reasder can decide (once they have donwloaded the eBook) as to when they will implement the solution.

An eBook can (should) have great informational graphics to help explain the materials. Graphs, charts and examples are the hallmark of a good eBook.

An eBook is also longer than a white paper and often will be 20 pages or more. I have read some eBooks that have been 80 pages or even longer.

If a small business can package content a customer or potential customer will find valuable in a PDF file — the most commonly-used e-book format — then it has value as a brand-building tool.

Aaron Warner of Good News Training - eBook and Branding Here is an example. I know a Personal Trainer that works here in the Upper Valley. He owns and operates the well established Personal Trainer Business called Good News Training. This summer he created an initiative. He wanted to establish himself with local schools and athletic coaches and decided to offer Speed and Agility Training Clinics to this special audience. First, however, he decided to write an eBook.

Writing this eBook did a number of worthy things:

Aaron needed to think clearly about his Speed & Agility Program.
He needed to create and present his materials in a logical and thoughtful manner.

These first two items helped him to be better and set the foundation for him and these clinics. He also accomplished something else of significance.

He created a nice complimentary item for his clients that take the clinic as the eBook is now part of the clinic package.
He established his expertise and authority with this audience (and others).

These second two items help him establish his brand. Brand building is an important part of business building. Aaron has risen above the local competition by creating this Speed & Agility Training eBook.

This eBook adds value to the community Aaron wishes to serve. Aaron has done more than what is typical and this enables him to stand out from the crowd within his marketplace.

The value of an eBook can be enormous. However, it is slow going getting most small businesses to understand the significance of it.

An eBook creates immediate credibility and can be an important part of how you can help convert someone who is “thinking about it” to a paying and happy customer.

If you are thinking about new forms of content to present your ideas, your products and your services (translation = your solutions) then consider how an eBook can factor into the mix.

The skills required to build a successful small business are often the opposite of those required to succeed in a big organization. Giant corporations regularly reward predictable, risk-averse behavior. Small businesses, however, often succeed or fail based upon their ability to stand out in a crowd. Aaron Warner of Good News Training has taken the risk that must be taken to be successful.

Producing an eBook that breaks the mold and takes risks can be provocative and be exactly what is needed to get a business noticed. It gives a small business such as Aaron’s the chance to craft an exciting, value-added effective message and to establish itself as an unbeatable source of expertise.

Filed Under: SEO & Web Copy, SEO Market Segments, SEO Panda

12 Aug

The Philosophy of Panda

Written by: Gary Horsman August 12, 2012

Web Content – The Philosophy of Panda

Web Content and SEO

The thinking behind the Google Panda algorithm changes are fundamentally based on the input from Google’s human Quality Raters. Google found that they could put websites into two main categories which were sites that their Quality Raters liked and sites that they did not like.

The questions that Google asked their Quality Raters to think about when viewing a website were questions such as:

Would you trust this site with your credit card?

Do you like the design of this site?

Is the content on this site well written?

Do you want to remain on this site looking for other valuable, entertaining or notable content?

Google then replicated the ability to place sites into these 2 main categories by using an algorithm. The Google Panda Algorithm was introduced.

The introduction of the Panda Algorithm and the iterations of this algorithm over the past 1.5 years do change the way we need to think about website layout, web content and the website SEO that goes along with these items.

Prior to Panda, SEO Work could follow this step-by-step approach.

Conduct key word research
Write great content and lace the important keywords from the research into the content
Make the content accessible to the search engines
Get links to the content and the website in general

However, now a key differentiate for high search placement is “the user’s experience” and Panda’s ability to judge the user’s experience.

What is the main factor to define a great user experience? It still all relates to Content. However, now a specific aspect of content is judged based on other factors not related exactly to that specific web content item. You could have a great article and bad or confusing navigation and the quality of the article is diminished. You could have some great images and web copy on a page with a broken link and then that specific item of web content will have less positive impact. You may have spent significant time on your home page but much less time on the quality of other pages and the home page will not carry much weight in search because of the low quality of other pages on the site.

What does it mean to have great content?

Great content means to have content that delights people. It means that people love the content. They love the content so much that they indicate how much they love it in some of or many of the following ways:

They blog about it
They share it by passing it on to others.
They bookmark it
They stay on the page
They look at multiple pages on the same site.
They click through to the page when it is presented in search.
They do not immediately return to the search results after visiting the page.

To create great content you need to have original content that makes people say “WOW!”. The tools to create great content are now readily available. There are people creating some great and amazing content on the web. Are you one of them or is your content boring? Does your website have a modern design and easy-to-use navigation? How would you judge the quality of your photos and graphics?

Do you have a proper content mix that relates to your target audience? The content mix is the combination of text, photos, internal links, videos, etc that you can place on your site to attract people and the search engines and get them to stay on your site and recommend your content to others.

Do you have authoritative content that has depth and variety? If your web content is shallow and without authority then this works against you.

Of course, Google is not disclosing the actual ranking signals used in their algorithms because they don’t want folks to game their search results; but if you want to step into Google’s mindset, the questions Google provides as guidance to their Quality Rankers can provide guidance to us as well.

If you want to view the entire list as it is presented in Google Webmaster tools then click on this link – Web Content Guidelines from Google.

Filed Under: SEO & Web Copy, SEO Panda

9 Aug

A Business Lesson from the Olympics

Written by: Gary Horsman August 9, 2012

A Business Lesson from the Olympics

As you may imagine I meet with many people that have an idea for a business and they want to market it online. A successful idea for a new business, product, or website usually exists in a niche of its own. In this niche the competition is well defined. However, there is sometimes a competitor that is not thought of as such that is often the biggest competitor of them all.

Do you have this competitor in your business?

“The only victory that counts is the one over yourself.”

Jesse Owens, American Sprinter and Long Jumper 1936 Olympics

What is often not perceived as competition is the competition within yourself.

Do you have the drive and the attitude to get the job done? Conversely do you let your idea languish as you do not follow through to get the essential tasks done? This is sometimes the case with the approach people take creating content and making key decisions with their website for their business idea.

You have to be like and Olympic athlete and have the drive and fortitude to stay with the task and to get the job done.

A great deal of online marketing is about creating great content. These means that you have to think about and define a content plan. Once the content plan has been defined then the action is to create the content and this only happens with a bit of work.

A fine lesson that we can learn from the Olympics is that the dream of competing has to be coupled with the work to be in a position to compete. With online marketing you need to have the idea and drive to follow through and get the job done! This drive needs to be also tied directly to your online web content creation plan and the actions necessary to implement your web content plan.

Filed Under: SEO & Web Copy, SEO Panda

8 Aug

Leveraging Your Blog

Written by: Gary Horsman August 8, 2012

Leveraging Your Blog

Blog SEO

We have heard that Content is King when it comes to attracting the search engines and gaining high search position. This begs another question. How do you regularly add fresh content to your website?

In terms of adding fresh new content on a regular basis to your website you simply can’t beat having a blog integrated into your website. If you already have a blog but it is not integrated within your site then move your blog so that it is a integral part of your website.

If you don’t have a blog then install a new blog within your site. Integrate links within your site to your blog and from your blog to your website. Then then publish new posts at a rate that is competitive. Keep adding fresh content via your blog that is of interest and value to your visitors. It is important that when doing this you make sure that you aren’t just adding content for the sake of it, since this could easily fall foul of Google’s web spam algorithms.

Give some serious thought to links from your blog to your website pages. Also, publish your posts to logical search engine optimized categories as this will help both people and the search engines find this content. This will help your website with both the Panda and Penguin updates from Google. Your blog can be a powerful SEO tool.

For every blog post follow blog SEO best practices to further leverage your blog. Stay tuned to the SEO Notebook for some up-coming tips on blog SEO.

Filed Under: SEO & Blogging, SEO & Web Copy, SEO Panda, SEO Penguin

7 Aug

Web Copy SEO

Written by: Gary Horsman August 7, 2012

Web Copy SEO

The Perils of Duplicate Content

I recently studied a website and soon discovered that its content was essentially identical to many other websites. These websites were all part of the same franchise and the owners of the individual franchises – though capable business people – probably were not aware that the individual websites were working against each other. The issue was the duplicate content.

As defined by Google . . .

Duplicate content generally refers to substantive blocks of content within or across domains that either completely matches other content or is appreciably similar. Mostly, this is not deceptive in origin and examples of non-malicious duplicate content could include:

Discussion forums that can generate both regular and stripped-down pages targeted at mobile devices

Store items shown or linked via multiple distinct URLs

HTML and Printer-Friendly versions of web content

If your site contains multiple pages with largely identical content, then you may want to make some adjustments just to be on the safe side. There in no need to be penalized by Google for legitimate duplicate content.

Here is more from Google . . .

In the rare cases in which Google perceives that duplicate content may be shown with intent to manipulate our rankings and deceive our users, we’ll also make appropriate adjustments in the indexing and ranking of the sites involved. As a result, the ranking of the site may suffer, or the site may be de-indexed.

Here is my Web Copy SEO advice:

Google tries hard to show pages in their search results with quality unique content. Create high quality unique content even if you are the owner of a website that is a member of a franchise.
If you own a franchise website then consider how you can expand the content of your website. Break up a page were multiple services are described into multiple pages describing each service. This way you can increase your depth of content and avoid the issue of duplicate content as well.
If you are a franchise website owner do something creative and different with your content. Add a photo gallery to the page or a video. Craft a compelling offer and match it with a strong call to action. Offer some free advice via a download link that no other franchise website has.
Get to know a good copy writer. I use the services and work with Heidi White. She is a Freelance Copy Writer. She is a great writer and also has a very respectable handle on search engine optimization from a copy writer’s perspective. If you struggle with writing or perhaps do not have the time to create high-quality web copy then Heidi can be a great service provider for you.

If you are interested in an SEO Audit then feel free to contact us (802-457-9799). Our SEO Audit will also provide you with insights as to whether your site could be perceived as having duplicate content as well as providing you with insights on other SEO related aspects of your website.

Filed Under: SEO & Web Copy, SEO Panda, SEO Penguin Tagged With: SEO, Web Copy

6 Aug

Fresh Web Content and SEO

Written by: Gary Horsman August 6, 2012

Blog SEO

Fresh Web Content

How much fresh web content do you need for your website? This is a complicated question to answer as it depends on a number of factors. The proper answer also means that you need to have good information on your competitors as search engine positioning is significantly based on being better than the competition. This is always the case when it comes to SEO. You do not have to do things perfectly you just need to be better than your competition.

Here are some key questions to ask:

How much fresh web content do your top competitors produce?

You should monitor your key competitor. In this case define your competitor not as the competitor right down the street but rather which competitors are in the search position that you want to be in.

How often are there updates or events that focus on your industry?

You need to be on top of news on your industry. If your industry has weekly updates on key information or on events and you update your website once or twice a year then your website is not keeping pace with your industry. This will make your site appear to be static compared to your industry.

How often is fresh content included in the results for your keyword searches?

From time to time – based on the rate of updates within your industry – do a manual search using your important keyword phrases and see if the major search engines are including fresh content in the search results. If you see content that varies much more frequently than the frequency at which your create new content then again you could have a site that appears to be static,

How much quality content are you and your team/resources capable of creating?

After establishing the rate a which you think you should be creating new content ask yourself whether you and your team can match the rate of content creation necessary to be placed in a category where your site is considered as being fresh.

Researching the answers to these questions for your market will give you good understanding of the volume and frequency of content you need to produce to meet your search engine optimization goals as they relate to the search engines.

Always keeping your capabilities in mind you can estimate whether you need daily, weekly, or monthly updates to include in your search engine optimization plan and stay fresh in the eyes of both the search engines and your website visitors.

Even if your business does not have anything going on in any of the categories above, it is important to publish something new at least on a monthly basis, growing your site and visibility for your products and services and anchoring your search engine optimization efforts in great content.

Fresh content needs to be part of your search engine optimization planning.

Filed Under: SEO & Blogging, SEO & Web Copy, SEO Panda Tagged With: Blog SEO, Fresh Web Content

3 Aug

To Blog or Not to Blog

Written by: Gary Horsman August 3, 2012

To Blog or Not to Blog

Working to find materials for your blog can be very good for you personally! You have to conduct research – which provides you with information and insights.

You have to think about what you have just researched. This provides you with greater insights and helps you to “own” the material.

You have to write about it making you to think even more about the topic. To be able to write about your topic makes you better. You have to ratchet it up a bit to be able to explain what you just researched.

Therefore, the simple act of doing the research and writing about a blog topic causes you to improve.

Also, when you are writing you are in a creative zone and this is valuable for your brain. The creative zone is a time when you brain is not preoccupied with mundane items such as getting through your e-mails or paying your bills or washing the dishes. These things have to be done for sure but you do not have to be so creative to do them.

To set aside quality time to blog is good for your soul.

If you have a blog or think that you should then you have to set aside time to blog. I suspect that the most common reason, explanation, justification excuse for not blogging is that you are too busy.

I am sure that you are busy. However, are too busy to grow your business, educate your clients and potential clients, educate yourself and invest in your online community by providing your expertise with your Blog?

Perhaps you really have nothing to say. If this is the case then you cannot call yourself an expert. Blogging helps to present yourself as an expert. After all you have done the research, you have thought about it and now own it and if you blog then you are explaining your expertise to others.

Perhaps you have nothing to say because you are just not all that interested in your topic. Perhaps you feel that no one will think your blog posts are worthy. Maybe you don’t really know your audience and then do not know how to please them with interesting and valuable blog posts. Maybe you do not believe in your company so why waste the time.

This is all self-defeating noise in your brain. It can be paralyzing. It can keep you from blogging.

Guess what? We have to work at inspiration just like we do anything else.

You need to understand the value you can offer. You need to understand the business case for blogging. You need to see how it benefits you, your readers and your business. Blogging is good for you personally, good for your customers and potential customers and good for your business.

Look for more posts on blogging and its value. I have been thinking about this quite a bit of late and see great opportunity in blogging. Let’s see if I can convince you of the value of blogging for your business.

Filed Under: SEO & Blogging, SEO & Web Copy Tagged With: SEO Blogging, Web Content

2 Aug

Real Estate Blogging – Some Great Reasons

Written by: Gary Horsman August 2, 2012

Real Estate Blogging

Real Estate Blogging I have a large number of good reasons for you to blog if you are a real estate company. It is work but it will help your business in multiple ways.

Here are more than a few good reasons that you should consider if you are “on the fence” about blogging within your real estate business.

It’s good for Real Estate SEO.
Your blog should be part of your real estate website and therefore your blog posts represent fresh content.
Blogs can offer great link bait.
Blogs attract visitors (both buyers and sellers).
Blogs will help generate leads.
Your real estate blog can provide you with inbound links.
Inbound links are of huge value in calculating Google’s PageRank.
Blog posts will help your website rank for specific keyword phrases.
Blog post are like new pages and this adds to the depth of content on your site increasing your authority with the search engines.
You can write content and save drafts and set the drafts to publish at a later date. This helps you with time management. You can even schedule a post to be published while you are on vacation and no one will know the difference.
You can have multiple people within your real estate office write for you, or someone else all together if writing is not your thing.
You have to conduct the research and then think about what you research and then write about it. This makes you more knowledgeable. This makes you better!
Experts blog. Blog to demonstrate that you are an expert in your field.
Help to educate and solve the problems of your clients and customers by blogging.
It is yet another way to present you and your company.
It is a great way to get others involved. If you ask the other agents what they are passionate about in your real estate niche then this is a great focus for their blogging contribution.
Blogging is cost effective.
You can do a special expose on a new or unusual listing in your blog.

Blogging equates to fresh content which helps search position. Blogging results in more inbound links which adds authority to your website/business. This leads to more traffic.

People, now more than ever, are looking for that trusted resource – that trusted expert. They do research online prior to engaging. Blogging enables you to be that trusted resource and expert. Simply by blogging people will be able to read your materials and gain insights about you and your company that they would not be able to get if you do not blog.

Download our Real Estate Blogging Guide that will provide you with some great ideas on how to generate great attention-grabbing content for your real estate blog.

Filed Under: SEO & Blogging, SEO & Web Copy, SEO Panda, SEO Real Estate Tagged With: Blogging, Real Estate Blogging, SEO Blogging

1 Aug

Write Like an Expert

Written by: Gary Horsman August 1, 2012

Write Like an Expert

You probably know already that by writing quality articles and blog posts your website is a sure and steady path to becoming an “expert” in you’re the eyes of your audience. If you write well for your target audience you will look far better than the competitor that does not write.

One way that you can write like an expert – and this works for any business or industry – is to take a process that you do and explain how and why you do it to your customer. Show them the value it provides to them as you explain this process.

It’s very easy to do and by communicating this to your audience, you show your audience that you:

Know about interior design, or
Know how to run a pet shop, or
Know how to install satellite dishes, or
Know how to search engine optimize a website

It’s the difference between someone who tells you they’re a good cook, and someone who can give you a step by step recipe (with tips from experience) that elevates the recipe and their expertise to a new level.

Do not be concerned that you are giving away your trade secrets. You will not make yourself redundant in the eyes of your potential customer. Telling your customer how you do something and the value it brings to them will not prevent you from being hired. When a customer is researching how to get something done . . . researching how to solve a problem they are really looking for someone that can solve the problem for them. They are not looking to do it themselves.

On the other hand they will be more likely to trust and select you if you have a number of articles or blog posts that demonstrates you know what you’re talking about. If your competitors are not demonstrating their expertise then you have the advantage.

Here are some ideas on how to write and demonstrate your expertise:

Write About Details

Pick something very small and specific that you can examine in detail. Do not worry about selecting something too small. Perhaps the smaller the better as details demonstrate that you know the material well.

For example if you eliminate pests from homes you could write about how to protect a home from pests. However, this is very general. You could be more specific and write about how to protect a home from wasps or go even deeper and write about how to protect a lake house from wasps when you are not there. This is how experts write. They do not write in generalities. They write specifically.

Focus On the Process – Leave Your Specific Talent Out of the Article

Here is an example. Let’s say that you are an Interior Designer. You have certain skills that may be very difficult to explain. These skills may be more like instincts. You may have an “eye” for color combinations but would have a tough time explaining how you get the colors just right. This may be too difficult to explain.

You could instead write about your favorite paints for certain situations or your favorite fabrics and why you like them.

If the explanation of a process is not the best for you then you could explain your best tool for doing something and why you like it. If you are an Accountant you may have a favorite piece of software and you are truly an expert in the use of this software. Explain to your reader why you like the software so much. Demonstrate to your potential customers how well you know the software and how this enables you to do a better job for them.

Give Your Readers the “why”

If you really want to seal your “expert” status then give your customers a “why” after explaining each step of your process.

For example:

We often use brand X paint for a child’s room. It never leaves an odor, is very durable and once dry you can wash it clean better than any other paint we know.

Your expertise comes shinning thought with insights such as this. You are more credible in your potential customer’s eyes.

I encourage you to add content to your website by blogging on topics that add value to your customers and potential customer and that also demonstrate your expertise.

Filed Under: SEO & Blogging, SEO & Web Copy Tagged With: Blogging, Expert Writing, Web Content

31 Jul

Blog Improvement Ideas

Written by: Gary Horsman July 31, 2012

Blog Improvement Ideas

12 Easy To Implement Concepts

Use a well designed graphically pleasing Blog Theme

There are many places to find a great Blog Theme or be willing to spend a small bit of money to have one designed or an existing theme customized for you.

Link to Your Other Posts and Pages

Blog Post to Post Linking and Blog Post to Page linking is good for your Link Network (Blog SEO and Website SEO) and makes it easier for your readers to get to other relevant materials.

If you do cross link post and pages then you may want to download a free piece of software to check your links. Broken links are not good and hurt your SEO. I use link checking software called Xenu Link Sleuth.

Use at least one interesting Graphic in each Post

Spending a bit if time to create a graphic that meshes with the message of your blog post is worth the time and attention. It makes your blog more attractive and interesting and your readers will enjoy the added impact of a well thought out graphic.

If you’re someone who can produce graphics, take photos, illustrate or even just create funny doodles in MS Paint, you should leverage that talent on your blog.

Search Engine Optimize Each Post

Set up the Title Tag, Description Tag andMetatags for each post. I also optimize the image file names and alt text. I work to get a respectable keyword phrase density but I do not obsess over this. I also try to work important phrases into the H1 and H2 tags. If you make it easier for the search engines to find your post then you will be rewarded with more blog traffic.

Put a Link To Your Blog in Your E-Mail Signature

This is so simple to do – just do it!

Every Now and Then Survey Your Readers

This is a nice engagement tool. People often will be very interested in taking the survey if the survey results are then displayed to them once they take the survey. You will gain special insights as well.

Install Analytics and Use It

Use analytics to see which posts are the most popular. Use this information to give your readers more of what they like.

Also, track what matters. If you want readers to click on a link then track this. If you want them to order a product or download something then track this. Casey Henry’s post on Google Analytics’ Event Tracking will provide a thorough walkthrough.

Publish “The Best Of” Lists with Your Comment or Reviews

People love the “Best Of . . .” Lists and you will have fun doing the research. You will gain some great information by doing this research and become more of an expert in the process.

Anywhere You Have a Profile Set Up a Link to Your Blog

facebook
LinkedIn
Bio Pages

Be Consistent & Don’t Give Up – Get Better!

Many people that start blogging give up too early. They make statement such as “I tried blogging for a couple of months and nothing happened so I stopped.” They may not have waited long enough and may not have blogged well enough to see good results. Don’t give up – get better!

Write more. SEO your Blog, Include great graphics and conduct research and write on what people are interested in. Conduct keyword research on your blog topics to help you to understand this.

Think of Ways to Engage

Always think about how you can engage your audience. I discussed surveys or polls above but you can give something away as a free download. Make people aware of the content on your Free Articles page. If you offer a demo then blog about this. Run a contest or an event. Set up some worthy video content. Ask for feedback or ask your readers what they would like to see. This can be a poll as well.

Filed Under: SEO & Blogging, SEO & Web Copy, SEO Favorites Tagged With: Blog Improvements, Blog SEO, Blogging, Web Content

30 Jul

Blogging Tips for Real Estate

Written by: Gary Horsman July 30, 2012

Blogging Tips for Real Estate

Here are some tips for you if you are a real estate agent or broker and are blogging or are considering blogging. It is fun and can be very rewarding.

1.) Establish Goals and Track Them

You need to have goals for your business activities and blogging for real estate is a business activity. Take a minute to think about where you are trying to go with your blog and what statement you want to make. Here are some possible goals that would work for a real estate company:

Build your brand
Increase your brand influence
Increase the number of leads
Increase the perception of you as a real estate expert
Be the voice of your real estate niche
Develop the perception as the superior local real estate resource

Your goals will shape your blogging strategy. Define your goals and then develop your blogging strategy and performance metrics and then blog to achieve them.

2.) Organize Your Resources

Identify your resources. Are all your agents expected to be a blog resource or just you? If you don’t have a blog yet, start small and test-run a blog for 6 months to see how your business benefits. Redefine your resources if you have to.

3.) Define Your Real Estate Blogging Niche

As with almost any business it is much better to be focused on a special niche. The same applies to your blog. Be targeted in your blog posts. The less targeted your message the less targeted your audience will be. Think about your target market and what they want. Think about their problems and how you can help to solve them.

4.) Listen to Your Clients – Listen to Your Customers

Blogging is one of the best ways to assert yourself as an expert in your real estate niche. Think about the problems of your clients and customers. Be an educator and help them to solve their problems. There are great “listening” tools such as Google Alerts and Google Trends or research RSS feeds on your niche real estate topic. After researching your blog topic make is relevant to your niche marketplace.

5.) Be Interesting

Many people (real estate agents and brokers included) are not really writers. The content of your blog may then reflect this. It may be worth bringing in some fresh perspective with younger agents. Interview them to see if they have an interest in writing and if so then ask for examples of their work. New young talent will help to stimulate interesting blog ideas and provide your company with different angles to blog about.

If you think about it stories are everywhere. Interacting with buyers and sellers can become insightful. A local sporting event can become a real estate story as well as a trip to the local market. You can lace in recent local news or news on a real estate market development. The more timely you are with these blog posts the better.

Develop a well defined and committed point of view. Use a great headline and then provide some key advice if you can.

6.) Use Your Voice – No Easy Republishing

Write in your voice and use genuine stories. I once visited a home with one of my areas prominent real estate brokers. The homes kitchen was very outdated but was clean and neat and well preserved. He explained that a kitchen such as this would be very hard to duplicate. He explained that to get appliances in the condition of the appliances was just not possible even on eBay. This is a story from the distant past about 10 years ago but I remember it well and have tremendous respect for this real estate broker.

When you are writing your blog tell a story. Be humorous. Speak from your experience and provide your insights. Your blog is not the place to a rewrite of a press release. Be creative. Be true to yourself. Remember client and customers prefer to work with “real” people.

7.) Develop A System

Consistent blogging is very important important. You will need a system. Start by monitoring relevant and trending topics. Organize materials into categories. Publish to your schedule (perhaps this was a stated goal) and then measure with your analytics software as to what is popular (and what isn’t) and provide your readers with more of what they want.

Block out time to do this well.

As you continue to blog you will become more efficient.

8.) Write a Strong Conclusion

Remember when your 10^th Grade high school when your teacher told you to write a captivating conclusion. She was preparing you for your future blogging. Pull it all together and if you have a call-to-action then use it.

If you want to gain additional insights into how to blog for your real estate business then we invite you to download our free guide – Real Estate Blogging Guide. Blogging is a great way to gain more exposure. I believe that once you start you won’t want to stop!

Filed Under: SEO & Blogging, SEO & Web Copy, SEO Real Estate

27 Jul

Botching Your Search Engine Optimization

Written by: Gary Horsman July 27, 2012

Botching Your Search Engine Optimization

Take some Search Engine Optimization Action Today!

You need to pay attention to your website’s SEO.

Your website enables people to conduct research on you and your business.

Your website enables you to present to potential customer when you are not around. Your website in theory can talk to as many potential customers that can find you, talk to them as long as they want to listen and at any time of the day or night.

That is IF they can find your website!

If you are the website owner then you can change how and how often people find your website. You have the power!

You can change it by cleaning up the mistakes yourself or by investing in SEO consulting services to help you do it quickly and efficiently.

Here are some common SEO mistakes that I see every day. If you make these then you are hurting your business. That’s the bad news. The good news is that you are reading this so that you become aware of these SEO mistakes and you can fix them.

Not Using a Unique Title Tag

Every page on your Web site should have a unique title tag. The title tag is one of the most important SEO elements. The title tag needs to be descriptive of the content on the page, engaging and a keyword phrase. This is a tall order for something that should be on 66 characters long but it can be done.

The title tag of a page is very significant. Your Title tag is what a user will see when they see your content in the search results. If they bookmark your page then it is displayed in their bookmarks and it will often be displayed when someone links to your site.

Finally, the search engines frown upon a title tag that is common for all the pages on the site. This may end up in the search engines thinking that you have many duplicate content pages (a big no-no). Also, do not use up too much of the 66 characters with your company’s name. Use your title tag intelligently by lacing in a page-specific phrase and a related keyword phase.

Also, if you blog then create a unique title tag for posts and articles you write. It’s a good way to tackle both the user and the search engines’ needs.

Allowing Ugly URLs

Ugly URLs look bad. For some they can be a big turn off when they see these ugly URLs in the search results. If you can use keyword phrases in you URLs then do so. Separate the words with dashes. Do not make them too long.

Requiring a PhD in Website Navigation

Make your navigation simple. Everyone will appreciate this.

Use text in the content of your website pages to help people to navigate. This is helpful to people and the search engines love this.

Do not use a Flash menu. Flash cannot be easily understood by the search engines. You are doing your site and the SEO a disservice by designing a Flash navigation menu. Also, for that matter, do not use a Flash website design as Flash content is almost invisible to the search engines.

Use some footer navigation for your most important pages. Footer links can be helpful for people and they enable you to make links to your other content at the bottom of a page and therefore help a search engine spider to find more of your content.

Optimizing for the Wrong Keywords

You need to do keyword research. There are no ifs ands or buts to this. If you are going to optimize your website then optimize it for the right set of keywords.

Your SEO activities will be a waste of time if you do your SEO without first doing the keyword research.

Use some free tools to get started such as the Google Adword Keyword Tool and Google Trends. There is also software and online services that you can pay for that can provide you with even more insights.

Messing Up Your Internal Links

All the internal links on your site that you make with text should use a keyword. This is so easy to do as you are making the link anyway why not make it with a keyword. The search engines are always looking for links and when they find a link they look to see what text is being used to make the link.

Text such as “click here” or “read more” or “learn more” could be crafted better to use your high-impact commercially valuable keyword phrases.

When you build you link network you put effort into this. It is not easy. We want the majority of the links to be done using our well-researched keyword phrases. The links on your site are 100% within your control. Build them with care.

Not Using Analytics

Your own analytics can provide you with very significant information. Moreover, performing search engine optimization without the insight of your analytics is like navigating an unfamiliar environment in the dark. An SEO professional will be able to talk with you about keyword research, traffic, on-site traffic patterns and conversion.

You need to understand the activity on your site, what terms actually convert for you and your traffic or page hubs. The more information you know about your site and user behavior, the better you can optimize it for searchers. And the more money you’ll make. But you can’t improve anything if you’re walking around in the dark. Let your analytics help you to understand what is going on when people visit your website.

If you want to learn more about SEO for your website then give us a call 802-457-9799. We are sure that you will learn from and enjoy the conversation.

Filed Under: SEO & Web Copy

26 Jul

Real Estate SEO – 8 SEO Tips

Written by: Gary Horsman July 26, 2012

Real Estate SEO – 8 SEO Tips

Search Engine Optimization of a real estate website is critical for success.

If you site is not optimized then no one will find it. Sellers when they evaluate who to list with will not be satisfied if they try to find your site using keywords for real estate in their geographic area.

If you have a real estate website then it is essential that you are property utilizing search engine optimization (SEO) to its fullest. Here are six SEO concepts that should be applied for strong SEO and the search position that comes along with strong SEO.

Real Estate SEO Tip #1: Do Your Keyword Research

When creating (or promoting) your real estate website, it is essential that you pick the most effective keyword phrases. You can use the Google Adwords Keyword Tool to do this.

Make sure that you log into your Google account as this will make it easier for you to conduct this research.

Effective keywords are those that have sufficient search volume to make them commercially valuable and that have relatively weak levels of competition. These keywords are golden for you but no matter what select keywords that have search volume associated with them

Real Estate SEO Tip #2: Effectively Utilize Your Keywords

Now that you have your primary keywords use these keywords effectively. Use these keywords in the following locations:

Title Tag
Description Tag
H1 Tag
H2 Tag
URL for the page
Use them at a 1-2% density in the page copy

If you use them in this manner then the search engines will pick up on this SEO content and move your website higher in search position.

Real Estate SEO Tip #3: Include Internal Links

This is a SEO tip that is often overlooked but is incredibly important for search engine optimization. When you create blog posts (or website pages) that are related to other content on your website, include an internal link back to that blog post or website page.

The Search Engines love keyword phrase links that link to relevant content.

Real Estate SEO Tip #4: Increase Content

Consistently create great content for your website and blog. Do not stop once you have attained a strong position in search with many keyword phrases.

Without fresh, relevant high-quality content you run the risk of losing search position. Effective real estate SEO means creating fresh content.

Real Estate SEO Tip #5: Intelligently Set Up Internal Links

It is important to include internal links in your blog posts and website content. It is also essential that you do not over link. Just like having too high a keyword density can raise a flag with search engines so can too many internal links.

I think that to play it safe do not create more that two links per blog post and perhaps no more than one link per paragraph on your website pages.

Real Estate SEO Tip #6: Utilize Images

This is a great leveraging opportunity for a real estate website.

Make your images name keyword phrases and put them in a folder with a keyword phrase. Use the image alt tag function as well and if all three items are the same phrase then you are clearly indicating to the search engines what that image is about.

This is a great way to receive a search engine reward which will be higher search position.

Real Estate SEO Tip #7: Obtain Backlinks

One of the ways that search engines determine the quality of your website is by the number of authoritative backlinks you receive to your website from other quality websites. Keep in mind that not just any link to your website will work; instead, they should be from quality websites that has relevant content to real estate.

Real Estate SEO Tip #8: Be Patient

It is essential to realize that it takes time and effort to increase your search engine ranking; therefore, patience is required. Your website will not go from nonexistent on search engines to the #1 spot without some time and effort.

Stay with it and you will be rewarded with higher search position and the traffic that will make a difference to your business.

Filed Under: SEO & Web Copy, SEO Real Estate

26 Jul

Link Velocity

Written by: Gary Horsman July 26, 2012

What is Link Velocity?

This is the speed at which you acquire links to your website. This is important as you always want to acquire links in what appears to be a natural way.

I have seen small websites that have acquired 200 links in a single day. I have even seen a small local business site gain 200 links on New Years Day. I have a hard time thinking about how a small local website could get 200 link in a single day and on New Years Day as well.

Another factor associated with the natural look of link velocity is that if a website has gained 20 links over a 6-month period and then over a 3-day period gains 100 links then this may raise a red flag at Google. The Link Velocity associated with the 3-day time frame does not look natural for that specific website. There may be many sites that gain 100 links over a 3-day time frame but this is not natural for this particular website based on their history of link acquisition.

Link Velocity can also look fishy when there is very little new content being produced. A website that creates fresh content and then also has a link velocity profile that meshes with the content creation profile has two component that mesh and that look natural. Th link acquisition and the fresh content coincide. This looks natural.

What looks natural is based on the specifics of the website. Items such as age of website, historical rate of link generation, content creation rate versus link velocity all mesh together.

Another factor could be the type of links that a website has historically acquired versus a new type of link. For example if for 2 years it can be seen that links have come from blogs and the total is 250 links (essentially all from blogs) and then for two months you gain 100 additional links but none of these links come from a blog then this may raise a flag.

Link Building has to be an essential part of your SEO Strategy and we can help devise a SEO and Link Building Strategy.

Filed Under: SEO & Web Copy, SEO and Linking, SEO Favorites Tagged With: Link Velocity, Linking, SEO Linking

25 Jul

Landing Page Guide

Written by: Gary Horsman July 25, 2012

Top-Performing Landing Pages

An Easy To Read and Implement Guide

Do your landing pages include:

Compelling offers?
Arresting headlines?
Appealing designs?
Strong calls-to-action?
A crystal clear next step?

Your landing pages are where your marketing campaign dollars can turn into measurable results. This qualifies them for a starring and primary role in the process of campaign creation. However, this is rarely the case. In fact, they are often overlooked even by experienced web designers and Internet marketing managers.

Campaign-specific landing pages need to be created and this is a smart investment in your marketing. But before you make that investment, you should have a fundamental understanding of what constitutes a successful landing page. We offer you a Guide to Top Performing Landing Pages. In this easy-to-read guide you’ll discover best-practices concepts and ideas.

These include:

Including an offer that delivers real value to your visitor
Presenting a single, clear call-to-action
Making transactional elements easy
Designing for visual impact and appeal

Download our Top-Performing Landing Guide and learn how you can assess and improve the performance of your landing pages, and ultimately, the ROI of your marketing campaigns.

Filed Under: SEO & Web Copy, SEO and Landing Pages Tagged With: Landing Pages

24 Jul

Why Real Estate SEO is so Challenging

Written by: Gary Horsman July 24, 2012

Why Real Estate SEO is so Challenging

There are many factors that make SEO of Real Estate a bit more challenging for a SEO Professional. In many cases – even within a given local real estate company – the real estate agents compete against one another, yet they are united as “team members” under a larger brokerage (like Remax or Century21). Individual agents rely on the combination of brand recognition of their parent brokerage, personal branding, and team branding to acquire business. Real estate agents will often target specific locations or regions, and try to differentiate their services based on certain needs or demographics. For example: first-time home buyers or luxury real estate.

Real estate brokerages have to manage and promote the individual agents while marketing their brand. They want their agents to differentiate themselves, to have success within their demographic and to bring in business to the company. But the company also needs to create and maintain consistent marketing of the brand. The goals of a real estate company organized in this manner can be in direct opposition of one another.

As you can see, real estate SEO becomes very complex due to the very nature of the industry. Moreover, real estate websites are often large and complex due to the high level of home search and display functions that are needed to appeal to home buyers. This is especially the case with larger multi-area real estate companies. These real estate companies need to have content on multiple geographic areas and regions to perform well in search and real estate websites need to appeal to multiple demographics as well.

Real Estate SEO is further complicated by the fact that many Multiple Listing Service (MLS IDX) solutions providers have not designed their IDX feed with search engine optimization in mind. To have so much content (IDX Home offering content) poorly optimized makes the task of real estate SEO even more difficult.

To add more challenges, keyword competition in real estate can be extremely high as real estate companies and their individual agents are all competing for the same targeted keywords (usually “location + real estate” or “location + homes for sale”). I know of many examples of disreputable search engine placement companies that try to convince real estate companies to enter into expensive monthly programs that promise high rankings for obscure keywords that will not result in appreciable traffic to their website.

A real estate company always needs to be certain of their keywords before initiating a search engine optimization program.

Given that real estate web design and SEO can be so difficult and complicated, I recommend that real estate companies and large real estate teams hire an experienced SEO consultant to design and implement a comprehensive SEO strategy. From what I have seen, many firms rely on the expertise of their IT departments for SEO advice. While many IT professionals have a working knowledge of standard SEO techniques, they are not always able to spot key site structure or content issues that will affect rankings. Again, I have seen this first hand.

It is also good if the SEO professional has some manner to work on gaining high-quality in-coming links. This is often the missing ingredient in the quest for high search position for a real estate company.

Filed Under: SEO & Web Copy, SEO Real Estate

23 Jul

Are You Ready To Blog

Written by: Gary Horsman July 23, 2012

Are You Ready To Blog?

Before you start your blog you need to determine if blogging is right for you. Here are some questions to ask before you start.

Do You Enjoy Spending Time Surfing the Web?

To blog you need to conduct research. You will do much of this online. To keep you blog post relevant and up-to-date you need to be up-to-date. This takes some time and effort. If you enjoy conducting research online then you have an important characteristic of a successful blogger.

Do You Like to Write?

If you dislike writing or if writing does not come easy to you then blogging might not be for you. Building a successful blog requires frequent and meaningful updates. This requires you to write. To be a successful blogger, you must be able to write easily enough to write often. You need to satisfy your readers and this means to write well and often enough to keep them interested and to provide up-to-date insights.

Have You Defined Your Overall Blog Topic and Do You Have Passion For It?

Successful blogging requires that you write frequent and interesting posts about your blog’s topic. You need to have topic that enables you to be prolific and you need to be genuinely interested in your topic to truly enjoy the research and then to have passion for writing about it.

If you do not have a passion about your topic then I will predict that you will have a hard time keeping your interest and the interest of your visitors.

Conversely, if your make sure that you select a topic that you have a passion for then it will be easier for you to conduct the necessary research and then to write about it (with passion). If you have a smile on your face when you are conducting your research and writing about it and can’t wait to the next time you can research and write about your topic then you are in a great spot to blog.

Can You Commit The Time?

To be successful at blogging you need to commit to the time to do it well. You need to be motivated and have self-discipline. You need to fit blogging into your schedule and be committed to sticking to your schedule.

Are You Comfortable Publishing Your Thoughts, Opinions and Ideas?

As a blogger, you will be publishing your opinions for anyone to read. Are you comfortable with this? Can you take criticism if someone comments on one of your posts in a negative way?

Are You Comfortable With Technology and Are You Willing to Learn?

To operate a successful blog requires some knowledge of the Internet and simple software. If you often struggle with your computer, then blogging may not be for you. If you are willing to learn, you can blog. Blogging and the Internet as a whole are ever-changing, and successful bloggers are committed to learning. To promote your blog you will also need to have an understanding of search engine optimization and web copy.

Are You Ready and Willing to Take Risks?

Much of successful blogging is related to taking risks with your topics, your posts and your opinions. To be a successful blogger, you have to be willing to try new things explore topics in new ways and try various ways to enhance and promote your blog.

If you are a real estate agent then we have written a Blogging Guide just for you. However, almost any business could benefit from the advice. Click in this link to download your Blogging Guide. If you are blogging now or just thinking about it you will gain some practical insight from this guide.

Filed Under: SEO & Web Copy, SEO Real Estate Tagged With: Blog, SEO and Blogging

22 Jul

Real Estate SEO – Keyword Research

Written by: Gary Horsman July 22, 2012

Real Estate SEO – Keyword Research

Keyword Research is the building block of any Real Estate SEO strategy. You do not want to define your SEO strategy blind and this is what you would be doing without adequate keyword research.

If you do not set up your website and linking SEO with a knowledge of the keywords that people actually use when they search then you will miss a great deal of valuable traffic.

Upfront Keyword Research – Optimize your Real Estate SEO

First, realize that the target audience you want to attract night not use the same terms to describe things as you would – they may not be aware of industry terminology – hence they will not use industry language when they conduct a search.

Second, with the right keywords defined, you can optimize your website by using these keywords in your link building, your web copy and in your on-page real estate SEO. These 3 factors need to be optimized for your real estate website to achieve a higher search engine position.

How to Research Keywords

Good keywords have the following characteristics:

They are associated with sufficiently high search traffic
They relate well to your business
The competition level allows you to be competitive

To do this keyword research is a fun task and also often an eye-opener.

By conducting keyword research you will be learning more about your market and this is always good for business.

A way I often start is to write down some phrases that I feel are relevant and that I think have search volume. Once you have this list go to Google Adwords and use the Google keyword tool to confirm your ideas and to get more (and perhaps better) ideas.

Google Adwords Keyword Tool

The Google free keyword tool is a good place to start to associate some numbers to your keywords. Enter your core keywords and run the search…

When the search has run I like to observe the following:

Competition: The relative number of advertisers worldwide bidding on each keyword. It is purely quantitative. It says nothing about the “quality” of the competition nor does it have to if you will enter into the auction. Since the focus of this post is organic (non auction) search positioning we do care about the quality level of the competition.

Global Monthly Searches: The approximate 12-month average number of search terms matching each keyword. This statistic includes traffic in all countries and all languages.

Local Monthly Searches: The approximate 12-month average number of search terms matching each keyword. This statistic is specific to your targeted country and language.

If you have logged into your Google account you will also see approximate CPC (cost per click). In the adwords program this is a number averaged over all the ad positions. It does tell you about the monetary level that competitors are willing to pay for a click.

Now it is time to focus your research a bit more and move away from more generic terms. You can select three options for specific match types based on broad, exact and phrase.

Broad: This is the sum of the search volumes for the keyword idea, related grammatical forms, synonyms and related words. For example search results for commercial real estate would show up with any searches including commercial or real estate.

Phrase: This is the sum of the search volumes for all terms that include that whole phrase. Therefore if your targeted phrase was commercial real estate anyone who typed in commercial real estate with or without additional keywords would be counted.

Exact: This is the search volume for that specific keyword idea. It means these exact words in this exact order.

It is difficult to get high position for generic terms. These terms may also be of little value as more specific phrases indicate more passionate searchers who really know what they are looking for.

Narrow down your real estate SEO keyword list to 10-15 terms that make a great deal of commercial sense for your optimization project.

Look for additional posts on keyword research as this is a very important topic.

Filed Under: SEO & Web Copy, SEO Real Estate Tagged With: Keyword Research, Real Estate, Real Estate SEO

21 Jul

Web Copy – Long vs Short

Written by: Gary Horsman July 21, 2012

Long Copy versus Short Copy

Soooo Controversial

This is a classic debate and I will answer it with the classic answer of a fellow website developer – it depends.

The real way to determine this is to create two versions – one long and one short and then perform an A/B Test. Note that many higher priced products and services may require more detail. Some target market segments may require more rather then less information before making a decision to purchase. A target market segment may be of a nature to require more research and in this case perhaps a landing page is not the best choice to satisfy this need. Anyway a short copy page will not suffice.

Therefore, the debate on long versus short copy will continue to rage. Do not worry about this too much but continue to think about it for your products and target audience. The more you know about the nature of your audience the better off you will be. You need to think like your audience. You may think that they will be bored with your long copy but if your write long copy and make it entertaining, informative and engaging then it will not bore your audience. You may think that you need to keep it short and sweet but if your audience desires more that they will not be satisfied at your attempt to keep it short.

Ask this important question – what is the goal of the page? Then work to achieve that goal. If it is lead capture then provide enough incentive on the page with your copy (long or short) for someone to complete your download file form or subscription form. You may need to tell a story (short or long) or perhaps you need to offer a gift in exchange for their name and e-mail address.

Do the right thing for your target audience and perhaps do an A/B test (or two) and you will create effective web copy whether it is long or short.

Filed Under: SEO & Web Copy, SEO and A/B Testing, SEO and Landing Pages Tagged With: A/B Tesing, Long Copy, Short Copy, Web Copy

20 Jul

A/B Testing – What to Test

Written by: Gary Horsman July 20, 2012

A/B Testing

What to A/B Test?

Your choice of what to test in an A/B Test will be dependant on your objectives.

Define your objectives and then define factors that have impact on achieving them.

For example, if your goal is to increase the number of sign-ups, then you might test the following:

Length of the sign-up form
Types of fields in the form
Display of (or not) your privacy policy
Displaying (or not) “social proof
Bullet list of reasons to sign up versus paragraph wording
Image and what image

The goal of A/B Testing in this case is to figure out what enhances visitors to this page to sign up. Is the form’s length intimidating? Are visitors concerned about privacy? Or does the website page do a bad job of convincing visitors to sign up? Does one image help and another hurt? All of these questions can be answered by testing these elements of the webpage design. Even though every A/B test is unique, certain elements of the web page design are usually tested:

The call to action’s (i.e. the button’s) wording, size, color and placement
Headline or product description
Form’s length and types of fields
Layout and style of web page
Product pricing and promotional offers
Images on landing and product pages A
Amount of text on the page (short vs. long)

If you have a worthy product or service then it makes a great deal of sense to test which version of your website page delivers the information and offer for this product or service the best. This is the essence of A/B Testing.

Filed Under: SEO & Web Copy, SEO and A/B Testing, SEO and Landing Pages, SEO Market Segments

19 Jul

Market Segmentation – Know Your Market

Written by: Gary Horsman July 19, 2012

Know Your Market

Everything that you do with your website, your web copy, your offer and call to action will work better if you construct a message and an offer to your specific markets. To define your markets properly is one of the most fundamental concepts in marketing and your choice of which approach to use needs to be considered in terms of the specific market segment you want to reach. This is fundamental for your business and needs to be reflected in your website.

Market segmentation is about understanding the needs of your customers and how they decide between one offer and another. This insight is used to form groups of customers who share the same or very similar value criteria. A company needs to determine which groups of customers it is best suited to serve and which product and service offers will both meet the needs of its selected segments and also outperform the offers of the competition.

The primary objective of market segmentation needs to be focused on how to win and retain the customers you want to serve.

As a business you need create a great match between benefits sought by customers and those offered by your business. You need to obtain a marketplace advantage within the market segment. To create differentiation consider the appropriate mix of product features, price, promotion and ease of use to do business with you. For the customer, this enables them to understand benefits, cost (or value), perceived value to doing business with you and convenience; in other words, a customer value proposition.

A customer’s view of market segmentation simply means — meet my needs!

When choosing between competing products and services, customers select the proposition that meets their needs better than any other. To win a customer and market share a business must ensure that their offer meet these needs better than any other at a price they perceive as providing superior value for money (which does not necessarily mean it has to be the cheapest).

Know your markets . . . know your customers . . . this will provide you with invaluable insights into how to win a customer’s business and how to reach them. This is crucial. By really understanding your customer’s situation your will gain insights into their motivations. You will know what language to use, what offer to make and will close more business and have more fun doing it.

Filed Under: SEO & Web Copy, SEO Market Segments

18 Jul

A/B Testing – and Your High School Science Class

Written by: Gary Horsman July 18, 2012

A/B Testing

and Your High School Science Class

At its core, A/B Testing is exactly what it sounds like – it is an experiment. You have two versions of an item (A and B) and a metric that you define that defines success of the experiment. To determine which version is better, you subject both versions to experimentation simultaneously. You measure which version was more successful versus your success metric and select the better version for real-world use. You can do this with pages on your website. You can even push this concept further and apply it to an entire contact path.

This is similar to the experiments you did in your high school science classes. You may remember the experiments in which you tested various substances to see which supports plant growth and which suppresses it. At different intervals, you measured the growth of plants as they were subjected to different conditions. You measured and tallied the height of the different plants which were subjected to the variations in conditions. Your success metric was height but it could have been another metric (color, number of leaves, seed production, etc.). You defined a metric and then measured against it. The results told you which conditions were optimal for performance versus your success metric.

In the case of a website page, you define a goal metric (a sale, a booking, a new subscriber . . .) and then measure how well the A version of the page performs versus the B version. You let the data define the best performance.

Consider how A/B Testing can help the performance of your website pages.

A/B Testing – What to Test

Filed Under: SEO & Web Copy, SEO and A/B Testing, SEO and Landing Pages, SEO Market Segments Tagged With: A/B Testing, Web Copy, Web Design

17 Jul

SEO – Deep Linking

Written by: Gary Horsman July 17, 2012

SEO –Link Building

Three Reasons Why You Need Deep Links

One reason you should deep link is that it enhances the users experience. Sending a user to a deep page will probably better relate to his or her goals than having an inbound links go only to your home page.

Also, remember that it is not possible for your home page to rank for every single keyword you want to be 0ptimized for.

Let’s look at three great reasons to acquire deep links – authority, relevancy and visibility. How is deep linking related to these important marketing factors?

SEO Authority

Deep linking raises the authority of your entire site. If all you did was optimize and send traffic to your home page then you might have a home page with a high authority rank but the other pages on your site would have little or no authority. When search engines looked at your site then those low-authority pages lower the authority of your home page. Deep linking can help you increase your entire site’s authority.

SEO Relevancy

Because you can’t optimize your home page for every single important keyword you must use internal pages. When the pages you publish contain those keywords in the meta data (URL, title tag, image attribute, etc.) and the body copy, then when search engines crawl you’re your will gain higher marks and therefore position for that keyword phrase. Because the keyword is relevant to the page and you have links made with keyword-rich anchor text from another page, the search engines consider it an authority page and rank it higher.

SEO Visibility

Large sites suffer from too many pages not getting indexed because of their sheer size. This is where good SEO skills such as deep linking come into play. These deep links which can come from your own site as well as other sites help search engines follow the path through your site to your “deep” pages. It makes these pages more visible. Visibility is a vital factor when it comes to search engine marketing.

Watch for future posts on how to acquire deep links.

Filed Under: SEO & Web Copy, SEO and Linking, SEO Penguin

17 Jul

Blog Top

Written by: Gary Horsman July 17, 2012

SEO Notebook

The SEO Notebook is filled with ideas on how to improve your website SEO.

We can help you get from where you are now to a higher performance level.

Filed Under: Blog Top, SEO & Web Copy

16 Jul

Why Hire a SEO Professional

Written by: Gary Horsman July 16, 2012

Why Hire a SEO Company?

There are any number of well-founded reasons for hiring a professional SEO service.

It’s well-known that the lion share of website traffic originates with a search engine query. Also, it is well known that most people seldom venture past the first or second page of the search results.

The difference in traffic between being on the 1^st page of the results and on the 3^rd page is dramatic and may even be the difference between being in business or being out of business if your business depends upon web traffic. The importance of search engine position becomes immediately self-evident. For industries where a single new customer can represent thousands in revenue, competition for search position online can be significant.

Most business owners have neither the luxury of time nor the inclination to learn, master and apply SEO themselves. With the huge potential for search engine ranking to attract customers, this is a situation where businesses will want to hire an SEO professional rather than rely upon an amateur or gain (or lose) position only by chance.

An SEO professional will have a well-defined strategy. He or she will also have the requisite experience to understand the importance of keyword research. A SEO professional knows how to weave topic sensitive keywords into webpage copy. Moreover, it is vital to know how to add the keyword phrases into the HTML of the web page. The web copy and the HTML must support each other to emphasize its subject. A SEO professional will also have the attitude to monitor position changes and traffic and tweak the website for improvement.

Top search position professionals will also have tools available to them to understand competition and linking networks to better understand what must be done with linking to reach a high search position.

Filed Under: SEO & Web Copy

15 Jul

Lead Capture

Written by: Gary Horsman July 15, 2012

Lead Capture & E-Mail & Testing

Make OPT-IN to Your Subscriber List a Great Option

The enduring value of opt-in email lists to eCommerce efforts is one of the longest Running success stories in digital marketing. Email is still going strong as a channel for delivering traffic and sales, even as other channels continue to emerge, such as social media, SMS, and mobile apps.

The implication is clear: You should acquire a name and an email addresses whenever you can.

Presenting an email signup box for visitors who are not yet on your list is a best practice that can pay dividends for years. Also, email lists are one of the assets by which companies are valued these days.

There are numerous ways of presenting an email signup box that are both effective and inoffensive. You can use some form of light box and you might include some sort of incentive (like a discount coupon or one-time reduced shipping charge).

Deciding on the best approach for a specific website calls for testing. Whenever you test options make sure that your decision metrics include other important conversion events such as product purchase. A well planned series of A/B tests can help you quickly achieve the right balance.

Filed Under: SEO & Web Copy, SEO and A/B Testing, SEO and Landing Pages, SEO Market Segments Tagged With: A/B Testing, Lead Capture, Web Copy

14 Jul

SEO & Market Segments

Written by: Gary Horsman July 14, 2012

SEO Market Segments

How well do you know and your best clients and potential client market segments?

Many targeting and personalization best practices are based on three simple truths:

Different visitors respond to your website in different ways.
Visitors with shared characteristics constitute segments.
Matching content and features to segments pays dividends.

You need to define and then understand the differences in your websites visitors. If you are a B&B and near an international border does your website have a way to appeal to people from both countries? If you are a company based in the United States your product could appeal to visitors from the UK and you can see that people from the UK visit your site then it is wise to match your web copy to this market segment.

Consider what happens when you open an online store on the World Wide Web. Even if your marketing focus is domestic potential customers from around the world will eventually visit your site and, depending upon what your site is selling, they may want to buy from you. This is an international segment and it may be more lucrative than you think.

To find out how lucrative, first check your site metrics to see how much international traffic you have and how it is converting. If this segment is converting below average, consider targeting some of your site content to the top 1 or 2 countries in the international segment.

For example, let visitors from the UK know that your business is happy to sell and ship to the UK. It could be a simple as that to boost conversion.

International traffic is but one example of visitor segmentation. Do you know your markets? Have you considered how to speak to your segmented markets and how adding certain customizations could help key segments convert? Give this some serious thought and increase your conversion rate.

Filed Under: SEO & Web Copy, SEO and Landing Pages, SEO Market Segments Tagged With: Landing Pages, SEO, Web Content

11 Jul

Fishy Links – How Do We Tell if a Link is Fishy?

Written by: Gary Horsman July 11, 2012

What is a Fishy Link?

Penguin is a new version of the Google algorithm. It is intended to sniff out and then trash “fishy” links. This begs an important question. How does Google define a fishy link? How will Penguin catch these smelly fishy links?

I want to help you to understand what is the thinking behind a fishy link.

Here are some concepts:

If you have too many unnatural or spammy inbound links pointing only to your home page then this is cause for concern. Have the links point to multiple relevant pages as much as possible.
If all of your links a perfectly worded exact match text links then this may not look natural. Be careful overdoing it with exact keyword phrase links all going to the same page. Gain some non-keyword phrase in-coming links.
If your have a large portion of your links coming from the comment sections of blogs or forums. Get links from a variety of sources.
If you have a large number of links from the same IP address with the same keyword phrase. Get as many links as possible from as many relevant sources as possible.
If a large percentage of your links come from low quality sites. Get as many high-quality sites to link to you as you can.
If a large portion of your links are from low quality directories. Again, establish variety in your link network.
If you have links from link farms and get caught then this is trouble. Just don’t do it.
If you have too many unnatural footer links then this could be considered fishy. Avoid SEO companies that employ this kind of link building.

Beyond this Penguin wants to see links built up over time. If it detects a large number over a fairly short time frame then it may pay closer attention and if you violate a few of the above items then with the extra scrutiny your search position may not improve.

Filed Under: SEO & Web Copy, SEO and Linking, SEO Penguin Tagged With: Link Building, Linking, SEO

11 Jul

Does the Google’s Link Operator Tell You Anything Meaningful?

Written by: Gary Horsman July 11, 2012

Does the Google’s Link Operator Tell You Anything Meaningful?

The simple answer a NO! Typing link:www.yoursite.com into Google’s search box often won’t even show you any links. It certainly will not show you all your links. When it does show you some, they’re usually not the best ones.

Don’t bother to use this command because it is mis-leading at the very best. While there are some helpful tools that can find some backlinks, there is no foolproof method for finding out about all the links that point to your site or to your competitors’ sites. The good news is, just because you can’t find them all doesn’t mean they don’t exist. Keep making a great site with great content that delights your visitors and also continue to create fresh web content. Then work to get the word out in as many ways as you can.

Keep building your link profile and link network. Do not worry too much if you cannot generate an accurate list of all your links. As you create great web content and gain in-coming links you will see your site rise in search and you will see your traffic grow and this will be proof enough.

Filed Under: SEO & Web Copy, SEO and Linking, SEO Penguin Tagged With: Backlinks, Linking, Search Engine Optimization, SEO, Web Content, Web Copy

11 Jul

Can A Small Business Survive Panda and Penguin?

Written by: Gary Horsman July 11, 2012

Can A Small Business Survive Panda and Penguin?

To me the big factor with Panda was a major attempt by Google to define authoritative content.

Penguin was clearly a major attempt by Google to refine it algorithm as it relates to in-coming links to a website.

Can a small business properly deal with this heavy scrutiny?

Let me discuss Panda. The entire issue is related to the quality of your on-site materials. If you have “thin” content or duplicate content then you may be affected negatively by Panda. It is natural for Google to want to present the most authoritative content to its searching audience. If your content is thin and of little value or depth then you run the risk of being penalized. If your content is not original and Google can detect the original source then your page (or site) can be negatively impacted. If you have duplicate (but non-original) content then your page is clearly not the authority.

The lesson is to create (and to continue to create) high-quality web content that delights your website visitors. Google wants to present websites that delight. If you are a small business then you have the ability to delight and you should make every effort to do so.

In my next few posts I will explain more of what Google is doing with the Penguin and how to not get penalized.

Filed Under: SEO & Web Copy, SEO Panda, SEO Penguin Tagged With: Google, Panda, Penguin, Search Engine Optimization, Search Position, SEO

9 Jul

Is There Platonic Website Copy?

Written by: Gary Horsman July 9, 2012

Is There Platonic Website Copy?

Pluto, a great philosopher, has a following of contemporary philosophers that construe “Platonism” to mean the proposition that universals exist independently of particulars.

What does this mean for website copy? Is there universal web copy? I strongly argue that the answer is no. Universal web copy does not exist. If you are writing website copy then you need to consider some important particulars to make your web copy effective.

Here are some particulars:

Specifics of product or service
Specific of target audience
Timing
Keywords as they relate to both the specifics of the product or service as well as the target audience.

Therefore, there is no universal copy where one page of copy for a given product or service works effectively for all. There is no “universal”. Do not fall into the trap of trying to write perfect universal copy. It will never happen. Write great copy and be willing to experiment and measure results. Also, consider A/B testing of key website pages to help you to decide upon more effective copy versus less effective web copy.

Your willingness to experiment, measure and modify is a fundament factor to your success.

Filed Under: SEO & Web Copy

9 Jul

Your Best Communication Tool – Your Website

Written by: Gary Horsman July 9, 2012

Your Best Communication Tool – Your Website –

Are you a tech-savvy business owner? Do you use your website as a high-performance communication tool? Your website can be your best communication tool. You only have to learn how to use it and then do it. What high-value materials can you add to your website that is designed to help and create high value for your target audience? If you think about ways to help your target audience with great problem-solving materials then you have a great mindset to be a top communicator using your website (or blog).

Also, add web copy materials to your website that are optimized for search. Good content is search engine optimized. Optimize your materials for search to give your content the best chance it has to be found by your target audience. Properly search engine optimized web content is good for the searcher and good for you. Everyone wins.

Learn the technology you need to learn to be a top communicator. Use your website to capture and hold the attention of your target audience with search engine optimized high value content.

Filed Under: SEO & Web Copy Tagged With: SEO, Web Content, Web Copy, Website Content

7 Jul

Create Valuable Content That Delights Your Visitors

Written by: Gary Horsman July 7, 2012

Web Content – Create Valuable Content That Delights Your Visitors — The best way to get other sites to create relevant links to yours is to create unique, relevant content that can quickly gain popularity in the Internet community. The more valuable your web content, the greater the chances someone else will find that content valuable to their readers and link to it.

Before making any single decision about your content, you should ask yourself the question: Is this going to be beneficial for visitors to my website. Always think of ways to add web content that adds value and the will delight your target audience.

The number of links you have pointing to your site really matters when it comes to search position. The quality and relevance of those links also matters. Creating good content pays off by helping your website to gain in-coming links. Links can be thought of as editorial votes, given by choice and after a review by a human. The better your content the more links you will gain and the higher your site will move up in search position.

Filed Under: SEO & Web Copy Tagged With: Search Position, SEO, Web Design, Web Design Copy, Website Linking

7 Jul

Don’t Freak Out When Your Search Position Drops

Written by: Gary Horsman July 7, 2012

Search Engine Position – Dont’ Freak Out! –

If you go onto any internet marketing forum you will see this every time. People freak out when they see their search engine position drop. There is no need to panic but rather there is every need to think about the situation and map out a plan. There are many factors that cause a site to move in search position. There are algorithms changes. There is the new site “honeymoon” period where their websites rank very well at the beginning, but after a couple of weeks they settle in the search results… usually at a much lower ranking, again, this is natural.

Also, never underestimate your competition. They may have taken some search engine position building action. To move up in search position means that you must dislodge someone else. They may not simply throw in the towels and give up.

If your website have age and have dropped in rankings, you may need to work harder to get your position back. You may need to update your content more often, you may need to build more backlinks or you may need to re-evaluate your SEO strategy. Google’s algorithm is changing frequently these days so it’s important to find out what they want, and go give it to them.

Search Engine Position – Have a Plan and Implement It!

With a good plan and then the implementation of that plan you can achieve good search engine position and maintain it.

Filed Under: SEO & Web Copy, SEO Penguin Tagged With: Building Backlinks, Search Engine Optimization, SEO, SEO TIps, Web Design SEO

6 Jul

Create Great Content – Do So Regularly

Written by: Gary Horsman July 6, 2012

Web Design – Create Great Content – Do So Regularly –

The more high quality backlinks pointing to your content, the higher your search engine rankings will be. You will then get lots of free traffic. While this is the basic approach that everybody uses to gain position in search. However, there is another effective way.

Google loves websites that update often. I have worked on website content creation projects where we have defined a specific content creation plan. This plan called for more content on a regular basis. We did no focus on in-coming links but I will admit that because the content was the focus and we created good content that we did gain some links anyway.

The site did very nicely in search and the reason for this is because there were frequent updates to the content.

Many website owners spend a great deal of time building backlinks to their websites. This is important of course, but if they also spent an hour each day writing a new post for their website, they would also generate good position in search. This approach works

With all the Panda’s and Penguins about these days, it is a good idea to create great content and to add this great content to your site on a regular and frequent basis. It helps!

Filed Under: SEO & Web Copy Tagged With: SEO, Web Content, Web Design

2 Jul

Proper Keyword Density for Good SEO

Written by: Gary Horsman July 2, 2012

Proper Keyword Density for Good SEO –

If you produce copy for your website then you may have some ideas on how to write the content so that it will attract the search engines. It is wise to keep this in mind but the ultimate objective should be to write valuable content for your human website visitors. If you have any doubt about how to phrase something then decide upon this by considering your human visitors.

This is one of the biggest mistakes I see being made day in and day out. People (or perhaps their webmasters) write terrible content that is keyword stuffed for the search engine bots. It is important to have a certain keyword structure within your content so that the search engines know what your content is about. However, it is very important that you write for your the human visitors first and foremost. A good rule of thumb is to include your important keyword phrase 1 or 2 times for every 100 words. If you create a 500 word page then your target keyword will be presented from 5 to 10 times. This will result in a proper keyword density that will sound nice and help your search engine position.

You can read your page out loud before publishing it. Ask yourself; does it sound natural? Do not overdo it with the insertion of your important keyword phrase – this is not good SEO.

It has also been reported by many SEO experts that Google is clamping down really hard on over optimized websites. Your basic position for SEO on your website is to always write with your target human visitor in mind.

Filed Under: SEO & Web Copy Tagged With: Keyword Density, SEO

2 Jul

Content Updates and SEO Value

Written by: Gary Horsman July 2, 2012

Content Updates and SEO Value –

Google loves websites that update often. I know of many websites that do not have many backlinks pointing to them. However, they still achieve good search engine position on niche-phrase because they update their content relative to their niche target markets. Google and the other major search engines love high-quality fresh web content.

Building backlinks consistently is important of course however do not neglect the SEO value and importance of great and fresh content. Write a new post for your website. This will help to get position and traffic. This works!

Content is still king when it comes to attracting search engines. It has worked in the past and it works now.

With all the Panda’s and Penguins about these days, you will find that your website can gain higher search rankings, simply by creating high-quality fresh content. Perhaps you do no want to write everyday but schedule an hour to write something every week. Your site will be rewarded with improved search position and your visitors will also like the new content and the value it provides.

Filed Under: SEO & Web Copy, SEO Panda, SEO Penguin Tagged With: SEO and Content Updates

11 Jun

SEO Copywriting

Written by: Gary Horsman June 11, 2013

SEO Copywriting

It’s Complicated!

SEO copywriting is a complex skill and a very important one if you want to gain more than your fair share of online traffic.

SEO copywriting will often be categorized under “On Page SEO”, but it really deserves to be recognized as a far more complicated field than is usually acknowledged.

Done well . . .

It is compelling and builds a desire to read more.
It identifies and solves problems that need to be solved.
SEO copywriting entertains and delights.
It adds value to the people that read it.
SEO copywriting helps a company achieve its business objectives.
It increases the authority of a business. Full Story

Filed Under: Content Marketing, SEO & Blogging, SEO & Web Copy Tagged With: Copywriting, SEO, SEO Copywriting

4 Jun

On Page Search Engine Optimization

Written by: Gary Horsman June 4, 2013

On Page Search Engine Optimization

The Most Common SEO Service

(but only the tip of the iceberg)

Filed Under: SEO & Blogging, SEO & Web Copy, SEO and Landing Pages, SEO Real Estate

1 Jun

Search Engine Optimization

Written by: Gary Horsman June 1, 2013

Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Many Focus Areas

Can You Find the SEO Gold?

There are basic components but the best performance results are when a tool set combines multiple aspects of SEO. Full Story

Filed Under: Content Marketing, SEO & Blogging, SEO & Web Copy, SEO and Landing Pages, SEO and Linking, SEO Favorites, SEO Real Estate

27 May

Content Marketing Challenges

Written by: Gary Horsman May 27, 2013

Content Marketing Challenges

Overcoming Content Marketing Challenges

Filed Under: Content Marketing, SEO & Web Copy

14 May

Interview with Heidi White

Written by: Gary Horsman May 14, 2013

Blogging and Content Marketing

An Interview with Heidi White

Filed Under: Business, Content Marketing, SEO & Blogging, SEO & Web Copy

SEO Copywriting

It’s Complicated!

On Page Search Engine Optimization

The Most Common SEO Service

Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Many Focus Areas

Can You Find the SEO Gold?

Content Marketing Challenges

Overcoming Content Marketing Challenges

Blogging and Content Marketing

An Interview with Heidi White

Analyze Your Competitors

Gain Insights To Out-Perform Them

Blog Improvement Ideas

10 Easy To Implement Concepts

Using Google Trends

Keyword Research and Content Marketing

Collaboration and Team Work

Real Estate Blogging Collaboration

Real Estate Photography

Image SEO & Content Marketing

Image SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

Are You Earning Your Links?

Organic Link Building

The Importance of Links to Your Website

A Website Needs In-Coming Links to Rank High In Search

Digital Literacy

It’s Vital for Business Success

SEO News Update for 2013

Linking for Search Engine Positioning

Content Marketing Post by Heidi White

SEO and Over-Optimization

Communication Skills

Website Design Mistakes

Six Website Design Sins

The Ideal Keyword Density

Matt Cutts says . . .

SEO Content Marketing – The Psychology

SEO for 2013

SEO Lessons Learned from 2012

Business Blogging – Getting Started

How to Start Business Blogging

Business Growth Ideas for 2013 (Actually Any Year!)

My Top-10 Link Building Tips for 2013

Link Building

Top Ten Social Media Marketing Questions

Answered by Social Media Marketing Expert Jason Robie

Cathy Meyer Graphic Design

Backlinks – A Powerful Ranking Activity

Content Marketing

Four Stages

Business 2013

Content Marketing

What is Great Content?

Expertise and Blogging

What’s In It for You!

Content Marketing and Fear

How can content marketing help in this economy?

SEO Interview with Jim Carroll

SEO Expert

Content Marketing & The Economy

How can content marketing help?

Keep your Business Blog Relevant and Fresh

Blogging Ideas and Why

Blogging Goals

Setting up Analytics Goals for Your Blog

Blogging Frequency

Advice on Blog Post Frequency

Twinkies

Content Marketing Lessons from the Twinkie

Content Marketing Interview

Heidi White Freelance Copywriter

Website SEO

Website Referrals

Real Estate Blogging

Why Should Anyone Care?

Blog Postings for the Relocating Buyer

Content Marketing for Real Estate

Content Marketing – Election Day

Does Your Content Get Votes

Content is King in Real Estate