What I’m talking about here is not an intrusive, spammy-style email blast approach from some marketing list, but rather implementing an automated email system to reach current customers and website visitors with pertinent information at their own whims. What I’m also talking about is making staying in front of your customers easier in addition to increasing your customer base. Newsletters, thank you notes, email coupons, promotions, etc. are often overlooked when businesses get busy yet they are important pieces to the marketing puzzle.

Let me demonstrate with a real-life example.

A man was recently seeking the services of a local chiropractor and had no idea which one to choose. One of the doctors had a form on his website asking the man to enter his first name and email address so he could receive a Free Report via email on how to choose the right chiropractor. The report was free and contained no bias towards the sponsoring chiropractor, yet it added value and left a great impression with the man.

Now this man could have used that report to shop around further but instead he chose to visit the doctor who sent him the report. Make note of the fact that this man gave the doctor his email address, he was not solicited through spam. Now this man is free to receive future emails, coupons, promotions, etc. but is empowered to opt out of such communications at any time with one simple mouse click. Sounds like a win-win for the both the customer and the business.

All this was made possible by an “email autoresponder.” The man may have put his information in at twelve noon or twelve midnight, but it didn’t matter. He received the report within minutes and via autoresponder was obviously impressed by this interchange.

It’s well known in the internet marketing community and the business community in general that providing value and quick responses are two key components to earning and preserving a consumer’s business.

I’ve worked with most email autoresponders around but greatly prefer the services of  Aweber.  Sure there are some cheaper solutions out there but timeliness, reliability, and great customer services are worth paying a fair price for. The free and budget solutions just won’t do. I’ve tried several and have gotten burned. Over 80,000 businesses use Aweber as do all the high achieving online information and affiliate marketers. Bottom line, Aweber works and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to set up and use the program.

Who wouldn’t pay only $19.00 per month to stay in touch with 500 customers and prospects or $29.00 for up to 2,500? I’m talking unlimited emails here not just a monthly newsletter here or a free report there. This can be used to send automated messages of any kind including “I’m on vacation” notices, thank you notes, apologies for an unexpected office closure, notification about updates to your website or blog, etc.

An email autoresponder strengthens your relationships by keeping you in front of your customer and prospect base on a regular basis. They become accustomed to opening your emails and weblinks which keeps driving more traffic to your website.

To learn more, visit Aweber today to learn more about how an email autoresponder can help you.

Next we’ll discuss the power of blogging. Creating and managing a blog may be foreign to some of you but a blog is a very powerful marketing tool and can help you stay in front of customers and prospects in a personal and consistent fashion.

First off, search engines LOVE blogs

So much so that they index blogs much quicker than traditional websites. I’ve heard that blog sites are picked up by search engines in just a few days whereas traditional sites can take up to 1-2 months for indexing. As you read about in a previous post, indexing is a key component to increasing your search
engine presence.

Blogs are inexpensive (or free) and are easy to use

Because blogs offer a user-friendly interface to post content or make changes you don’t have to be a skilled website designer to use them.

Blogs are personal, less “salesy” sounding, and can be jam packed with valuable information

…much more so than a traditional website. Due to the personal nature of blogs they tend to more interactive which keeps visitors coming back. Blog readers often turn into blog followers if the content is good. Users can actually post comments which adds additional value and credibility to your site. Also, if another blogger really likes your content they may even add a link to your blog on their blogsite.

Take a good look at my site which is actually a blog site with a handful of stand-alone pages but also tons of blog posts as well which don’t require individual pages to be created. Can you imagine if I’d created a “page” for each post you can access within the sidebar of my blog page? The site would be very messy and difficult to navigate. The blog platform enables you to post and organize content according to categories. This information is easily accessible to the reader by accessing the category links or post links in the sidebar of the page. I started the SEO Design Dynamics blogsite initially to serve as a journal for me to keep up with various methodologies and trends in my marketspace that have been helpful along the way. Now that you’re here, ask yourself this question. Would you have found my site equally as useful if it were merely a series of pages trying to promote or sell services? My guess is, probably not. Blog sites are more informative, less salesly sounding, and offer visitors valuable free information which increases your value proposition.

Information from your blog can be spread quickly and virally throughout the internet

It’s quite easy for blog material to spread through social networking medium and among the blogging community in general. Blogs tend to be updated much more frequently than traditional websites which means fresh content is always visible to your customers and prospects with one click of the mouse.

Blog content can be syndicated through RSS Feeds. RSS stands for “really simple syndication” and the feeds are included by default or easily added to any blog. Updates to your blog are blasted out across the internet in the form of RSS feeds to thousands of viewers. Pretty neat concept and quite valuable…but also pretty confusing I imagine .

You may be unfamiliar with RSS feeds so the best way to get familiar with what the reader sees is to hit the RSS feed link in the upper right hand corner of my website. Within a few seconds you’ll be redirected to the http://www.seodesigndynamics.com/feed/ page which shows a summary of several recent blog posts I’ve written. Many bloggers and blog readers have RSS feed subscriptions set up already to receive
these updates. After hitting my link you’ll see a dropdown box offering options for your readers to subscribe to the feed. I personally use the Google Reader which was very simple to register for through my Google account. The subscribe button allows a first-timer (you included if that’s the case) to subscribe to the feed. You can clearly see information about my posts in the lower section of the page.

This information is then fed into each subscribers feed reader which keeps you and your website or blog in front of the customer at all times. My guess is many of you will never take an interest in RSS feeds on a personal level but as an act of faith realize that thousands and thousands of blog readers do take interest and by having a feed on your blog you’re essentially getting “free advertising.”

In addition to RSS, blogs offer widgets and plugins which are basically special mechanisms included in the blog software, that allows readers to post links to your blog posts through social media such as Facebook and Twitter, and others as well. Take a look at the “Share and Enjoy” buttons at the bottom of each page and post on my site. With one click, any reader can post links to my content on his or her own social networking pages. Pretty neat huh? For the purposes of local business marketing I feel that Facebook and Twitter should be the primary social networking avenues you should pursue but it can’t hurt to have links to your content posted by others to stumbleUpon, Delicious, Tumblr, Yahoo Buzz, etc.

For setting up a blog I recommend one of two different methods.

Most web hosting companies will allow and provide for the easy installation of Wordrpress, the industry standard for blogging. The advantage here is that the blog will be included as part of your site, sharing the same formatting and imagery, making it congruent in terms of branding and causing additional influx of traffic directly to your site.

For example, take a look at www.celebratevitamins.com. You’ll notice a link in the lower left sidebar to the blog page. Click it and see how the blog appears within the site instead of redirecting you elsewhere. The Celebrate blog is very personal by nature and I am well aware that they’ve drawn in tons of new customers from the pool of readers that
visit this blog. WordPress offers a plugin which allows the blog’s author to notify all her Facebook friends when a new post is published and also contains an RSS feed as we discussed earlier. Setting up a WordPress blog will require some assistance from your web designer but once it’s set up you can manage all the content.

If  WordPress doesn’t appeal to you or you’re hosting provider doesn’t allow WordPress installations, don’t fret. Setting up a Blogger account is quite simple. Visit www.blogger.com to set up an account. Since Blogger is tied in with Google you can immediately log in to begin setting up your blog by using your Gmail or Google login credentials. Otherwise set up an account and create a blog using many of the pre-installed templates at your disposal. Although the URL of your Blogger blog is separate from your main website, it should contain the name of your main website in it (ie./ “www.yourwebsitename.blogger.com”). You’ll have the opportunity to post a link back to your main website within the blog plus all the widgets necessary to share your content with others through social media. Remember you should definitely post a link to your Blogger blog page on your main website.

With regards to blog content there are no hard and fast rules.

However I’d make it a point to post at least once a week if possible. If not, don’t sweat it. Just make sure you have 7-10 quality posts present before you start promoting your blog. For ideas on content you can do a search a Google search for blogs related to your industry for ideas. Just remember not to copy content verbatim because the search engines will pick up on this which will undoubtedly hurt your ability to rank well with the search engines and potentially get you in a legal pickle. Keeping an informative or personal tone to your posts is key and speaking of key…keywords should be included in blog posts whenever possible.

Thanks for visiting this post. There are additional ways to use blogging to your advantage even if you don’t have a blog. I refer to these methods in my Free Mini Course. For those of you who’ve progressed through the entire marketing blog series but haven’t signed up for the course, I urge you to now. There will be more details and explanations included in the course. Also there are additional posts and links you may find valuable in the sidebar to the right. Thanks for visiting!

Once a complete sitemap is created it can then be submitted to Google, Yahoo, Bing, Ask, and any additional search engines of your choice. When the sitemap is submitted, it helps ensure that more of your pages are indexed (recognized) properly which improves the quality and quantity of traffic driven to your site. Remember, by now each page within your site should be optimized for different keywords so you want all your pages to count!

If you’re unfamiliar with how to create a sitemap, you could download the free trial of Coffee Cup’s Sitemapper. But before going any further with the process of submissions once the sitemap is created, consider that manually submitting your website to all the major search engines plus all the secondary engines can be a tedious process to carry out on a regular basis. Relying on Google and the other search engines to index your pages with no intervention on your part puts you behind in the game. There’s no guarantee of any regularity to this method meaning that changes or additions (improvements) made to your site may not be recognized at all or in a timely fashion.

Furthermore, your major competition may very well be submitting on a monthly basis which means their sites will carry more clout with the search engines.

A good quality automated program will detect and and help correct errors (bad links, etc.) within your pages, and will create a sitemap and what’s called a robots.txt file to ensure that your the pages within your site are properly re-indexed with the search engines on a regular basis.

I prefer and use the services of Search Engine Blaster
which effectively indexes your site to all the major search engines plus thousands more every 4-6 weeks. Check it out but give the page a few moments to load. The $14.99 monthly fee I find to be quite reasonable for such a service. There are no long-term contracts but I recommend trying the service for at least six months at minimum.

It’s been my experience that regularly having pages re-indexed properly with the search engines maximizes the SEO process. This activity is often overlooked yet it’s a simple and effective way to enhance SEO and flow of targeted inbound traffic. An investment of
$15 per month for automatic submissions is well worth the money, not to mention the time savings. I’ve personally seen the improvements in search engine ranking within a month or less from the time automatic submissions have started for my clients. For anyone looking to increase their position in the search engine listings I highly recommend automatic submissions as a way to stay atop your competition.

If you’ve been progressing through our series of “do it yourself” blog posts,  I suggest moving on to the online business directory post at this time. There is a cost-effective way to have your business listing blasted all over the internet to heavily trafficked business directories.

Benefits of Social Bookmarking Directories

The benefits of submitting your website to social bookmarking site are quite simple to explain and submitting to them is one of the easiest things you can do, yet many site administrators overlook this simple step.

First off, let’s cover the SEO and marketing benefits.

Number one:  you attract traffic to your website from the hundreds and thousands of visitors to those directories.

Number two: from those directories with “dofollow” capability in place (more on this later), you typically receive an inbound link to your website.  As we’ve stressed in earlier posts, inbound links play a major factor in SEO.  I might add that these are “one way links” meaning you receive a link but are not giving one away.  Not that this will make much sense but, each time you put an outbound link to another site, you’re giving up some of your linking power.  Therefore one-way links are always best.

Number three: submitting to the social bookmarking directories is free if you do it manually. one by one. The only drawback is the time it takes to register with each directory.  For convenience sake there are some reasonably priced automated services that will do massive submissions on your behalf to save time, but you must be careful to choose a reputable one.  I’ve learned the hard way that most of these services show little discretion and will submit your site to some shady directories which inherently creates bad press for you in my opinion.  The last thing you want is your site showing up in a porn directory or a directory about gambling.  Later in the post I’ll refer you to an automation site that connects to only reputable social bookmarking sites. Best of all, it offers a free option…and free is always good!

I’d like to discuss two types of directories. Those with the “nofollow” tag deactivated (“dofollow” directories) and those with the nofollow tag in place but inherently draw in a ton of traffic.  Both are worth your time and effort submitting to.  Remember we are looking for backlinks AND traffic.  Before registering with and submitting please read the tips at the bottom of this page.  Here are two lists of directories I personally recommend.

“Dofollow” Social Bookmarking Sites

1. Digg
2. Folkd
3. Spurl
4. Kwoff
5. LinkaGoGo
6. SpotBack
7. MyLinkVault
8. A1 Webmarks
9. Tagza
10. Plime
11. Searchles
12. DoFollowDigg
13. Feedmarker
14. Memfrag
15. MySiteVote
16. OldRec
17. Wagg It
18. Otherwhirled
19. OYAX
20. TeDigo
21. MyPIP
22. Yattle
23. Kabulis
24. Bukmark
25. Ciudadlaberinto
26. Cool Search
27. Gozoof
28. Tamilers
29. Ziki
30. Agroots
31. Best of India
32. Promote Your Website Free
33. Zobbed
34. Dizzed
35. Yomash News
36. Bookmark 24
37. 180 Blog Network
38. 180 Blog Network
39. Yoo Submit

High Traffic Volume “nofollow” Bookmarking Sites

1. Delicious
2. Diigo
3. Mister-Wong
4. Blinklist
5. NetVous
6. Simpy

Tips for submitting your site for Social Bookmarking

1. Submit no more than a few links per day.  Google and the other search engines will detect spamming if you go crazy.  I typically submit one or two per day to my site and certainly no more than 5-10.

2. Use keywords in the tags and description fields and write your descriptions in a human-friendly manner.

3. If you’re a locally focused business, definitely include your city and state in the description.

4. Mix it up a little. Link to different pages within your site and make sure your keywords align with the general theme of the specific page you’re linking to.   One day you may link to the home page of your site and then the next you may go to a different bookmarking site and link to your products page.

5. Lastly, ensure that your links are set to “public” before you hit save.  This allows other directory users to see your links.

6. Consider using IMAutomator, a free and reputable source for submitting bookmarks for you.  It will submit to Mr. Wong (listed above) and a ton of other directories not listed here.  Also the tool allows you to spread your submissions out over a period of days automatically.  I highly recommend using the tool and was lucky enough to become a subscriber of the limited pro version which is now closed.  In the near future I’ll be sure to let you all know when it opens back up.  Sign up for the free version of IMAutomater but still take the time to enroll with and submit manually to as many of the sites above as you can. Let me make one final note about bookmarking and links in general. Submitting to general directories like the ones described here and included in IMAutomator is fine, but you do not…I repeat do not want to use a spammy style service that submits to thousands and thousands of bookmark directories. Why is this? Because such services tend to include many not so reputable “subject specific” directories such as gambling, sports, and even porn directories. The more of these recognizably subject specific directories your site appears in, the more likely Google will become confused as to what the theme of your site is – this will actually do you more harm than good. Unfortunately I’ve learned this lesson the hard way. So the rule of thumb is, stick with bookmarking sites that are either known to be general by nature or strictly related to the subject matter of your business in some fashion.

Social Bookmarking is a great way to generate traffic and backlinks to your site for free!  Don’t be crazy enough to pass this opportunity up.  I guarantee many of your competitors are not doing this so it’s your opportunity to have a leg up.

For those of you following the marketing posts in succession we are nearing the finish line. But let us not forget about email and the ways it can help drive your business. Let’s move on to the topic of email to learn more about a valuable solution.

Curious about internet marketing for small businesses but not sure where to begin?

You’ve come to the right place for help whether you’re a newbie or someone with experience desiring some structured guidance. The best part about this blog is you can learn all you need to know about internet marketing but still have the freedom at any point to request a complimentary analysis of your website or learn about our services by visiting the tabs at the top of the page.

Below is a concise overview of the most important subject matter you should know as a small business online marketer. Within this series of “do it yourself” style blog posts I present the exact steps I use to perform successful SEO & Internet Marketing Campaigns for businesses just like yours. Along the way I’ll discuss many of the valuable tools that make my job more effective and easier to perform. Making your website truly perform relies heavily on incorporating keyword rich content and proper design technique into your website.

You’ll find even more valuable information in my free Mini Course which many are benefiting from already. I highly recommend this because the material is more robust and is presented in PDF files you can save to your computer as an ongoing reference.  Within both the blog series and course I’ve included just the right level of detail for anyone who’s serious about doing SEO or for those simply wishing to learn more about the process before deciding whether or not to hire it out. My recommendation is to stay on course and perhaps print this page off as a reference if you decide not to register for the course.

It should be noted that before taking any steps to optimize your site, it is vitally important to first determine the best keywords to base your optimization around. Failing to do so completely negates or at least greatly minimizes your SEO efforts.  This will be discussed in the very first blog post following this one. Be patient with yourself and read through each post as many times as you need to.

On Page SEO

Keyword Optimized Title Tags

Each page’s title should be keyword rich and target keywords you could really rank for. You can have as many as 70 characters in your title; so, utilize it without trying to ‘overstuff’ it with keywords.

Keyword Optimized Meta Tags and Meta Description

Do your best to stay within 10 Meta Keywords per page. It’s best to go for Meta Keywords you can actually rank for.

Meta Description is still one of the important elements for your site. If you don’t have a description, you’re only hurting yourself. For most sites, it is best not to include the domain name unless it is a keyword term. Google displays up to 163 characters, but most experts go for 150 or 160 to be safe.

Using keyword-rich header tags (h1, h2, etc.) instead of images or Flash as section headers.

Create keyword-rich content and make your image files count with the search engines by assigning them “alt” tags, or alternate text that includes keywords and are relevant to the page content.

Use keyword-rich anchor tags for links to both internal and external pages.

Off Page SEO

Domain Age

Age is an important factor in search engine marketing. In fact many feel this is the number one factor contributing to high SEO. You can’t change the age of your domain however there are still many ways of increasing traffic and improving your ranking positions shown below. I do recommend extending the registration of your domain out to as many as 5-10 years. This shows Google and the rest of the search engines that you’re planning to be around for awhile.

Inbound Links (Backlinks)

The more sites linking back to you, the better your site will rank for particular keywords. You need high PR (page rank) sites linking back to your website. This can be accomplished through the use of social media sites, forums, blogs, link directories, business directories, and more. It’s said that having a high number of quality backlinks is the number two contributor to high SEO. I’ll discuss quality backlinks in more detail later in this series and in the Mini Course.

Site Mapping & Search Engine Submissions

Understand that the more page content you have indexed the better chances of ranking you will have for multiple keywords. Creating a site map and submitting your sites to at least all the major search engines on a regular basis is important.

Social Networking

In addition to providing backlinks, Social Networking (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) allows viral spreading of information reaching readers you’d stand no chance of reaching simply by having a good website.

Social Bookmarking

Social bookmarking sites allow millions of people to share the bookmarks openly. This will also allow search engines to crawl and give ‘link juice’ to the target link. This in turn will help you obtain more backlinks to your site and ultimately improve your rankings.

Blogging

A lot of companies are unfamiliar with blogging or view it as an inconvenience rather than a powerful marketing tool. The reason for its power is due to the fact that a blog can generate new and unique content, which Google loves and will reward you for in the search engine rankings. Furthermore, by utilizing a blog, you are allowing visitors and customers to comment on your entries and spread the word grassroots style much like with social networking. Blogs can also be used to increase your presence on social networking platforms and vice versa.

Online Business Directories Such as Google, DMOZ/Yahoo, and Bing Directories

The most prominent online business directories are heavily searched by potential customers much like the paper Yellow Pages were in the old days. Plus the popular directories will create quality backlinks to your site.

Without further ado let’s move on to the most important subject matter related to internet marketing, keywords. This will equip you to search for and compile a list of the most popular keywords in searched for in your marketspace.

Facebook Facts

Most Facebook users have already graduated college and the fastest growing demographic of Facebook users is those 35 years and older.

Businesses with a Facebook Fanpage can very easily get found by people who are searching for the products or services you offer.

Creating a Fanpage is Easy.  Simply log into your Facebook account and from the “Home” tab you will see a link on the left that says “Ads and Pages.” From there you will see a link that says “Create a Page” and you are off to the races.

Just like with your personal page you can add content to your Fanpage wall and also have the ability to include pictures, information about your business, and even have”discussion” area which allows you to start your own little mini-forum.

A Fanpage is great for creating community around your business and promoting other content you create, including webinars, blog articles, or other resources. Recently for my clients I’ve created “Facebook only” web coupons or promotions, and have placed links on the Facebook Fanpage.

Unlike the approval process with personal page friend requests, anyone can become a fan of your Page without by simply hitting the “like” button. This requires no response from you.

How to promote your page

This may sound obvious but don’t forget to do it! Put an easy to find link to your Fanpage on your main website. Also include a link to your Fanpage in newsletters and emails sent to current or potential clients. If you have a blog there are plugins available to all your readers to share an interesting post with their Facebook friend in the click of a button.  This can indirectly draw  more fans to your Fanpage.

Promoting your page is easy. As the administrator you’re able to suggest your page to the people on your personal page friend’s list by clicking a simple link on the leftsidebar. I highly suggest, just as I did in the Twitter post, that your staff promote your Fanpage within their own friend’s list on Facebook. Your staff can do the same thing by first searching for the Fanpage on Facebook and then clicking the suggest to friends link once the page comes up.

The suggest to friends method is great to reach many people in an instant however just as I mentioned in my Twitter post I recommend sending a personal email (on Facebook oroffline) to key people or people you’re close to to personally request the add. It’s easy to simply copy and past the URL for your Fanpage in the body of the email. Experience has shown me that sending a personal email in addition to suggesting the page through Facebook proves most effective.

You should strive to create an engaging Page. Use the discussion board and make it a point to post pictures or even YouTube videos. Give users a reason to become a fan of your Page and engage with you. Offering discounts or other incentives can be effective.

There’s even an “Events” tab which enables you to promote Facebook exlusive events (ie/and open house, party, or a free service offering on a specific day).  The prominent benefit of creating an engaging page is that every time a fan engages with your page, a link is published to their “news feed” which is then visible to all their Facebook friends.

Lastly, Facebook offers a paid advertisement service.  Ever notice those ads in the right sidebar of your personal Facebook page?  You too can appear there by simply clicking the “Ads and Pages” link on the left and setting up your own ad.   This may be a good option for you to quickly boost your following or promote a specific easy-selling product or service you reference within your Fanpage.

SEO Design Dynamics can help you set up or maximize the effectiveness of your Facebook Fanpage.  But my guess is you can make a good go of it on your own by following the steps presented above.  Don’t hesitate to ask us any further questions by simply completing and submitting the general inquiries form.

One last and very important piece of advice….keep your Fanpage clear of negative sounding comments or profanity…anything that will not be a good reflection of your business. Occasionally I’ll have a less than savory friend post comments about “how much partying they did this past weekend,” etc. You can delete these from your wall and even hide all future postings from a specific user by hitting the little “x” off to the right of the comment. This is a practice I put into place for my own personal page as well.

Like Facebook, Twitter is a fantastic tool for generating free traffic to your site and for quickly getting short messages and promotions out on the fly. Let’s move on to learn more about Twitter for small businesses.

1. Figure out what you wish to do on Twitter. Do you wish to send out weekly coupons? Perhaps you’d rather Tweet out a link to your bi-weekly newsletter or to offer free services or discounts on the fly during a slow day. Be honest with yourself about what you and your staff can take on with Twitter and map out what you wish to accomplish with it. This can always change later but it is important to have a starting point and to take action.

2. After you set up your account, start following people. On Twitter you’re not able to email someone directly on Twitter who’s not already following you. But the more people you add chances are some or most of them will follow you back. You can also seek out businesses and organizations to follow which may be able to benefit from your services.

3. Have your staff members who are already on Twitter send out Tweets asking their friends to follow your business. I suggest they also follow up with direct emails either through Twitter, traditional email or Facebook to each of their friends with the request. It’s been my experience that a personal email goes alot further than the Tweet which often gets lost in the shuffle. I make a special attempt to reach out to Twitter users who I know have alot of followers already. Having such users follow you and eventually sending out Tweets of their own promoting your business can be huge.

4. Begin Tweeting immediately but resist the temptation to bombard your followers with spam or constant promotions for yours business. It’s been said that 15-20% of your tweets should actually have anything to do with promoting your business. Perhaps you can tweet about an interesting local news story or something interesting you read online or even a great YouTube video you’ve seen. But remember to be tactful and represent yourself well. You don’t want to gain the reputation of a pushy sales person so mix in your promotions with unrelated tweets judiciously. Sharing information about your niche but not directly promoting your business is also a good idea. Remember you can include a weblink to any interesting site or article you’ve read online in your tweets.

5. It’s been suggested that the best times to send tweets are between 9 AM and 3 PM with perhaps the optimal time between noon and 1 PM. I’ve also seen research that shows Thursday, Friday, and Tuesdays are the top three days to tweet on and additional research suggesting you to tweet frequently (as many as 100 times per day if you have 100 followers). To me, such a frequency of Tweets is completely unrealistic however don’t be bashful about sending out 6-8 tweets per day with 1 or 2 of the tweets promoting your business in a tactful fashion. Better to be conservative than go completely overboard in my opinion. Just make your tweets count!

6. This is very important. Put up a link to your Twitter page on your company’s website and make sure to include a link in any emails you send out to customers. I’ve found that providing an incentive for customers to follow you (ie/ “we’ll be sending out coupons or special promotions through Twitter”) can be quite helpful. Also if your site contains a blog, there are plugins which you can add to your blog to give readers the ability to tweet your blog posts to their Twitter followers with one mouse click.

7. If you read an interesting Tweet, reply with a Tweet of you own asking a question about it or giving a word of encouragement. Often the user will respond with a tweet including your Twitter username. This can encourage others to follow you if they happen to find the interchange interesting or are curious about your business.

8. Respond to all replies and direct messages on Twitter. This lets people know you’ve paid attention to what they’re saying and creates stronger community. It’s also a good idea to respond to new followers with a short direct message thanking them for following you. Also, I make it a point to follow most people who follow me if I’m not already
following them.

9. Consider using a software tool to help find new Twitter Friends such as Twitter FriendAdder. Other services such as Socialtoo can be used to automatically thank new followers for following you.

10. Consider using the free web-based Twitter console Tweetgrid to search for tweets and Twitter users by keywords. I like this service because for any keyword you type in it will show a real-time snapshot of tweets and users logged on related to you search term. This will give you the opportunity to follow new users and respond to tweets related to your niche.

Using these tips will help you build a following and communicate with your audience in an appropriate manner. Building quality community on Twitter will make promoting your business easy and fun!

SEO Design Dynamics would be happy to help you with any of your Twitter needs but we sincerely hope you find this article helpful.  The important thing is to take action and get started on Twitter right away!

Keywords are the ‘foundation on which the house is built.’ So please read through this post carefully before moving on.

Many of you may have already read our introductory post about internet marketing for small businesses. Keywords are the one and only basis for making each additional part of a successful campaign work.

So what exactly is a keyword?  A keyword is the word or phrase someone types into Google or any search engine in search for information on any particular topic.  A search-engine-friendly website should always contain quality keywords related to the site’s theme and the context of the business or organization it represents.   A ‘quality keyword’ is one with high search volumes and the least competition possible.  We’ll discuss more on finding quality keywords later in the post but the point to understand here is that we want to optimize our site’s placement in the search engine listings for the highest quality keywords – keywords that are most often searched and ideally the easiest to compete for.

Let me give you an example. If you run a local tennis pro shop that sells both tennis shoes and tennis bags, you’ll obviously feature both on your site. However as far as keywords are concerned, you discover that both terms have high search volumes but that tennis shoes is a much easier term to place highly in the search engine listings for. Assuming you’re happy to sell either product, then you should make darn sure you consider tennis shoes first before concerning yourself with tennis bags when it comes to optimizing your content.

It’s important to include keywords whenever and wherever appropriate however let’s not be rigid about the number of times you should do so. Inline with the typical nebulous nature of Google’s overall SEO algorithm, the details surround the metric of “keyword density,” better known as ‘the percentage or number of times a specific keyword appears on a page,’ is quite a mystery.

Nevertheless, it’s common knowledge that choosing and including relevant quality keywords should be your number one priority for increasing your site’s SEO and marketability online – it is the bedrock of your online success and should be given ample consideration on the front end of your marketing campaign.

For example, if you’re a chiropractor, your services page should include the keyword terms “spinal decompression” and “chiropractic adjustments.”  A keyword density enthusiast may perform his or her analysis using a number of of free keyword density tools like the one found in the sidebar of our blog. However most tools do a poor job accounting for ‘multi-word’ key phrases like “chiropractic adjustment.” This means that if you insist on holding yourself to a certain keyword density metric you’ll be doing the word counting and percentage calculations manually should you decide to get serious about keyword density – sounds like a ton of fun, right ?

Given the ambiguous nature keyword density metrics I will, once again, simply instruct you to include keywords when you can in a fashion that sounds natural and/or adds value to your contact. Just for kicks, let’s look at the inconsistencies within statements made by reputable internet marketing gurus regarding keyword density just to make sure you’re finally over it ….

If you overdo it, Google will punish you for “keyword spamming.”
You should never include any word more than 7 times on each page.
Shoot for 8% density on your most important words.
Your goal is a density of no more than 10%
Don’t exceed 5%
Keyword density is unimportant. Keyword-rich anchor text, page titles,   header tags, and URL’s, along with the presence of long tail keyword variations (multi-word keyphrases) and lengthy content (500+ words) are more important.

In my opinion, we should not obsess over the exact keyword density, but should make it our first priority to include keywords in our content as much as we can without affecting the quality and flow of our content.  The most common theme resonating amongst all the gurus as that your content should sound natural, interesting, and consistent with the theme of your site.  I completely agree!  Take note of the following “K.I.S.S” guidelines for developing keyword-rich and reader friendly content.   By following my instructions your content will end up sounding interesting and will ultimately include a nice mix of keywords.

Golden Rule: Let your writing do the talking. The best approach is to write interesting and valuable content for your readers. They and the web-crawlers also will reward you for this.

It all starts with brainstorming and keyword research….

Step 1: Review your current content and  jot down any words, phrases, or short sentences that best describe the products and services you offer.  Obviously you can read through your current website content for ideas.

Step 2: Using both keyword tools described below, do keyword research  on your market space, starting with the basic one-word keywords from your brainstorming list then expanding to compound words or phrases based on the output of your keyword tools which will show related keyword suggestions and search volumes.  Remember, you can always hire us to produce a high-quality keyword report for you however I feel that if you’re willing to invest some time into using my two favorite keyword tools you can take this on yourself. Learning to do it yourself isn’t that difficult and allows you to re-vamp in the future if your business changes or expands without having to pay an outside company like ours. It just takes some time on your part to assemble the list.

The ultimate goal through brainstorming and using the keyword tools is to have a list of 10 primary keywords for each page on your site and then a much larger list as secondary keywords for secondary usage in page content.

Below are the two keyword tools I’m Referring to – TO DO THE JOB RIGHT AND WITHOUT SPENDING AN ETERNITY DOING SO, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND USING THEM BOTH. I will discuss the use of these in greater detail in the Free Mini Course (see menu bar up top) so if you get confused here, the course is available to you at no charge.

The Google Adwords Keyword Tool is an excellent free tool for finding keyword volume and a general listing of how competitive each search term is on a global basis.  It allows you to export the list of keywords you find to an Excel spreadsheet.

For all you local businesses out there, Google provides a column that best estimates ‘local search volume’ in your area versus the worldwide searches.  This is nice to know, but I’ll address the concept of “local searches” later in this post.

Warning:  Like most, this tool takes each keyword you plug in and spits out a list of many (up to hundreds of) related keyword suggestions for you to consider.  Resist the temptation to consider keywords that don’t best represent the services or products you offer simply because they  have extraordinarily high search volumes.  Again, my recommendation is that you whittle your list down to 10 primary keywords per page in total based on how well they represent your business and the level of search volume each yields.

For the best results possible,  I highly recommend Traffic Travis, my absolute favorite time-saving, easy-to-use  keyword & SEO tool which aids tremendously in the keyword searching process and will save you hours of SEO research time on the back end.  The inexpensive pro edition is the only way to go…it actually allows you to quickly generate valuable Keyword and SEO data and save your work, providing value well beyond its price.  For starters, as a supplement to the Google keyword list, you’re able to produce a list of up to 2,000 quality keywords per search by using a daily search-volume algorithm across Google, Yahoo, and Bing/MSN, plus it saves you 10-20 or more hours of time by showing exactly how competitive each keyword is amongst your competition.  These competitive analysis highlight the most important elements of SEO showing you precisely what you need to do to compete.  Consider this software your trusted “SEO in box.”  It’s like having a high-paid SEO professional working right alongside you.

Since both Traffic Travis Pro and Google allow you to export to spreadsheets you should copy and paste your favorite keyword choices from both tools into a combined spreadsheet for consideration and subsequent SEO analysis through Traffic Travis.

Let me demonstrate what I’m talking about in this short slide show (opens in separate window)

Notice how I append each keyword with a “local city modifier” when working in the Traffic Travis SEO module. This is key for local businesses looking to evaluate only local competition.  The output displays an easy-to-read list of your top local competitor’s websites for each keyword along with a useful keyword ”difficulty rating” indicator based on a number of different metrics which are conveniently highlighted for you within each report’s snapshot.  Finding keywords with relatively high search volumes and a difficulty rating of “relatively easy” is a big plus.

I recommend you visit your high-ranking competitor’s websites for and content ideas.  As any savvy business person knows, understanding your competition can be extremely valuable.  No other software or subscription service out there makes it this easy.

Reminder: Imitating your competition is smart, but copying content is not – this will get you punished.

Bar none, of the dozens of free and paid tools I’ve tried Traffic Travis is the best keyword and SEO tool available.  It’s direct competitors offer less value and often cost significantly more based on the monthly fees – this product typically runs only 2 payments of $47.   I only ask people to spend money when it’s worth spending…this is one of those times.  If you’re serious about doing your own marketing this software will do 75-90% of the work for you while saving you hours and hours of time.  Check it out by clicking the image below….

Up to 2,000 keywords with full analysis of how your competitors rank – best of all you can save all your work and hours of time with Traffic Travis.

Step 3: Consider the top 10 keywords you chose during your research as possible changes to page titles (ie/ “Pedicures | ABC Salon | Earl, MS”) for each page, category headings, and topics to write about in your website content.  Again it’s ideal to find ten top keywords that have a difficulty rating in Traffic Travis of “Relatively Easy.”  But the first order of business is to choose keywords that truly represent the forte of your business, then consider search volumes and competition secondarily.  The remaining keywords can be used freely in re-writing your site’s content at your discretion.  Obviously you’ll want to use the stronger keywords as much as possible, but not at the expense of straying away from the theme of your site or disturbing the natural flow of your content.  If  a keyword of “medium difficulty” or “difficult” sounds good in a particular spot, then use it.

FYI – Reviewing the websites of competitors Traffic Travis uncovers can be very helpful gathering ideas for fine-tuning your site’s design and content.  This is one of the reasons I save each of those SEO reports generated by Traffic Travis.

Lastly, please don’t feel tentative about overusing a strong term.  For example, if you’re working on the home page for a chiropractic office, then don’t be bashful about including the word “chiropractic” in the content 5, 10, or even 15 times. Working on the services page you’ll take a different approach with terms like “chiropractic adjustment.”   I’m a firm believer that there are no hard and fast rules on keyword density but I do feel you should let your strongest keywords shine.

Remember to include your top keywords in your first paragraphs, site URL’s, anchor text, page titles, header tags, as well as in the meta description.  The search engine crawlers look at all these areas first to determine the theme and relevance of your site.

For more valuable advice on this subject of titles, headers, page content, etc., please go on to read our SEO Friendy Design post. Also, it may pay to read through the keywords post a few times to really get the hang of it. If you decide you’d like our assistance in producing a list of quality keywords, this would be inclusive in the reasonably priced “marketing report” option described in our services page.

I use it myself and strongly suggest you do the same.

The modest annual $30 fee allows you to:

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If your like most of us, you hear about Facebook and Twitter every day but there are some ways to set your business apart on each by generating free viral traffic to your site.  Let’s move on to learn valuable Facebook tips for small businesses.