You’ve worked hard to build your website, sales funnel and you are ready to enter the world of SEO for massive traffic. Play your cards right, and you will be rewarded with tons of steady passive traffic from organic searches. Mess it up, you’ll be penalized and slapped by the Almightly Google. That being said, here’s 6 SEO mistakes you must avoid at all costs.

SEO Mistake 1 – Overuse of keywords. I can’t stress the importance of this enough. Having too much keywords sprinkled throughout your site can lead to your site coming off as “spammy” by Google and you will be punished.

SEO Mistake 2 – Link farming. Getting a bunch of low quality back links from other sites only says one thing – Your site is of low quality. Always strive to get high quality back links from authority sites.

SEO Mistake 3 – SEO Software – These are the banes of SEO. Google does not approve of any dodgy software that claims to boost SEO, get you a bunch of backlinks or write articles for you.

SEO Mistake 4- Blackhat SEO techniques. These stuff have been coined in the early internet marketing days. Back then they were useful, now they have been shunned by Google and anyone caught using it will be severely punished and be banned from being found on the search engines.

SEO Mistake 5 –No social interactions. The world is interconnected now, and the almightly Google recognizes this by now rewarding people who include social interactions into the mix. Get people to connect with you via blog commenting, social sharing and other stuff if you want good SEO.

SEO Mistake 6 – Too little content. Typically, you need at least 100 blog posts before your website can be found on Google significantly. If you lack the content, it’s time to get your mojo on.

What is SEO?

SEO Scotland – Search engine optimization is the technique of getting higher placement in the natural search results of Google, Yahoo and MSN. The search engines that matter the most are Google with a 62% marketing share Yahoo with 20% and MSN floating around with about 10% in market share ‘that means the search engine you should choose is Google cause Google obviously has the highest percentage of people are searching on the internet.

What you can see on the screen of your PC when you open Google is a display of local search results, organic search results and paid advertising results. Paid advertising has really nothing to do with the organic search results even though they are really the same. Today were just going to be talking about organic “natural” search engine results and how you get higher placement.

The goal here isn’t just to get higher placement but to get more traffic to your website. By getting higher positioning for keywords that have the most value to you. You’ll see over time by adding fresh content targeting specific keywords that you’re trying to get traffic from.

Having higher replacement obviously is the goal if you can get into these top 5 positions you can drive a lot of traffic into your websites assuming you targeting terms that actually drive traffic.

Over time the SEO isn’t as fast as overnight and quick fix over time you can expect to get a lot of traffic from the search engine results as long as you nurturing a long-term campaign or search engine optimization. If done right you’ll see your traffic increase from Google and Yahoo that’s the exiting part imagine one day you getting no traffic and the next day you do a search engine optimization campaign by adding keyword targeted content and doing a few other things ill mention in a minute.

Your traffic will increase naturally without having to pay virtually anything and that’s only gone grow as long as you set the right landscape.

What’s involved in search engine optimization?

There are 2 pieces…

Content and structure & website visibility.

Search engine visibility which is really about getting mentioned on other websites and about links going to your site. Takes time and shouldn’t be done all at once.

Doing it all at once basically raises a flag to the search engines that you’re trying to manipulate through search results. Done over time and getting into the right web directories such as Yahoo and open directories project can result in higher placement in the search results.

Press release is also payroll as long as you got mentioning here and hopefully some links. And also getting links from similar related websites can make a huge difference.

An example of how powerful online visibility can be from links alone is Adobe website. Adobe website comes up number 1 for the search term “click here”. Which if you read in the Adobe website page you’ll see that there’s absolutely no reference of the search term “click here”. It just doesn’t exist…

So why does Adobe website show up number 1?

That’s simple.

Google is powered by how many people are linking to the websites that the phrase that people use when this first exposed was “Google booming” and basically having hundreds of websites that are linking to a webpage with a keyword that you targeting and Google eventually figured it out that people were trying manipulate that rhythm and now they’re coming up with more synchronizing criteria.

So Adobe is still ranked 1 because there are 100′s of 1000′s of websites linking to Adobe with the term click here to download Adobe apps. But click here is a link text that actually dries that powerful search engine ranking and as it looks like one billion search results and Adobe has the 1 ranking for that search term.

I’m sure that doesn’t have value to their campaign but it shows you how power of links. Get enough links to your webpage and you can have high placement for just about any search term you’re going after.

So let’s talk about website content and structure…

There are several different things that you can do to optimize your website.

Your search engine optimization team should understand that the core fundamentals of building a website that not only has valid source code but also offers engaging content such as video imagery and so forth and directly links Google to every single page on the website almost instantly so without have to wait for Google to index your website you can actually create in terms of structure and data feeds you can actually create a list for the search engine and say please index this content that doesn’t necessarily help you in terms of ranking higher for key words but it does help to get those pages indexed right
away.

The next thing that you can do here to optimize at the site level is to validate to broken links…

So run a program just to make sure that there’s nothing broken on the website cause Google’s crawling through we want to make sure that they don’t hit any bad links otherwise they’ll drop of the page and discontinue.

Striping out excessive source code from your website such as java scripts and styles and formats and using what we call table less and cascading style sheet based html code makes a huge difference in not only the low time of your webpage providing a better user experience but also makes the websites more intuitive to Google as its reading through all of the links on the website hopefully were using a static and textual based navigator rather than using images which can’t be read as well by the search engines, same thing with flash.

We have to provide links that are made up of real words such as “marketing” or “promotion”, again you want to have engaging content such as video cause it has people choose your result in Google search results I choose your listing they want to make sure that their on your webpage and there engaged in your content and if the bounce back Google will record that and recognize that it is not being relevant of a website and perhaps someone with the other search results.

Then there’s something called page level SEO…

We don’t do SEO only at the homepage, there’s several different SEO vocal points that I’m going to care about at rest of website’s pages. We are going to care about not being explicit to the search engines…in other words we don’t just put the keyword we are targeting in the title.

We are going to put some called action and we are a put some value proposition to compel the person who finds this particular link in Google to be more relevant than the other listings that show up. We are also gone try to use descriptions on each page that include the introduction and that talk about the keyword theme other than just exploiting the page with keywords.

Heading is also an important role in what you’re trying to do with your page level optimization for example there’s a tag called H1 or hitting tag each heading tag on each page should be unique in other words I don’t want every page on my website with H1 part of my overall heading.

Some templates online create a template with H1 that is the exact same for every page your basically telling the search engine that every page on my website has the exact same heading so using new headings on every page will help your search engine optimization person insure that that’s one of the criteria that their optimizing for.

Speaking of optimizing for search terms one of the things that your SEO especially should be doing is excessive keyword research…

Understanding the strongest most powerful keywords in terms of people who are actually searching and then creating categories around those search terms and then pages around those keywords that drive the most traffic.

Let’s say I have the content tracing sheet about “remodeling”. I’m gone have particular client write-up content around each of these keywords “home remodeling” so I’m going to have a page marked “home remodeling” and I’m write unique content. Probably 400-500 words of content with the image.

Next thing is looking at overall website visibility…

So in website visibility what we’re talking about is having mention and links from websites that make a difference. Such as the chamber of commerce and just other websites around the internet that relate in one way or another to the website that were trying to get placement for. I’m not going to get a link to homeland assistants from an auto website I’m going to get one from websites that talk about remodeling in the title.

So your internet search engine visibility specialist or link specialist or link building expert their job is to try to get you the best links from websites that have the most relevant to you.

One of the ways that we do that is simply by asking those websites that we find that could be a good place for us to get a link from to please add a link to our site.

We don’t do that by creating a reciprocal links or three-way links or any kind of manipulation we simply incentivize them and we say if you’re interested because your terms valuable to use well buy you a cup of coffee or send you a gift card.

The search engines don’t see that as a pain for influencing links your simply going to go out to websites where it makes the most sense for you to get a link for your websites to get on.

People are busy so by thanking them you buy them coffee or something like that is a way to obviously get a very affordable like to your website from a page that has the most relevantly for you so your link building specialist should be doing this day and night until they’ve discovered every single link that they need to get only from and try to engage in a conversation with that person who owns the page.

If done correctly SEO will both on the content level by having structured or organized ballet content, keyword optimize web pages having really good internal linking structure for keywords that were searching for.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6180051

What are Facebook Fanpages?

Pages are for organizations, businesses, celebrities, and bands to broadcast great information in an official, public manner to people who choose to connect with them. Similar to profiles, Pages can be enhanced with applications that help the entity communicate and engage with their audiences, and capture new audiences virally through friend recommendations, News Feed stories, Facebook events, and beyond.

You can create and manage a Facebook Page for your organization from your personal account. Click here to begin. Please note that only the official representative of an organization, business, celebrity, or band is permitted to create a Page.

The changing face of website design

Website design in Scotland is changing.  If you are small company there is now no need to fork out thousands of pounds to get someone to design a bespoke website for you.  There are thousands of websites which have been built using templates, which are then modified to suit the individual business needs.

BradLewDesigns believes in offering a quality, affordable way for small businesses to get their business online.  We use a template structure with a powerful Content Management System (CMS) as the backend, which is easy for the customer to learn.

Using a CMS makes it easier for the customer to change the content of their webiste without having to pay extra costs for their website developer to do it.

What is video Marketing?

Video marketing is not new but as a powerful marketing tool its importance to help you grow your business is now only becoming clear. Online or Web video marketing has been written about for a number of years and it is an area of marketing that still continues to evolve over time. Technologies for video production, video email and video streaming that allow businesses to add videos to their marketing mix are also maturing, making it even more important to consider video marketing no matter what your line of business.

Advantages of video marketing?

Proven - Video marketing started in the form of television commercial ads—and remains one of the most utilized methods by many companies. Although expensive in most cases, television ads have proved to be effective at getting a point across through constant exposure to the audience.

Internet - Video marketing can be applied to more than just television commercials. It can be adapted to various forms on the Internet. Video marketing is most notably used on websites to get a point across. Many companies pay to have short video clips made and placed upon websites or mass video distribution sites, such as YouTube.com, in a bid to increase sales.

Reading – Video marketing takes advantage of people’s lethargic natures. Most people prefer to “watch” something, rather than “read” something because it requires less effort. When used in marketing tactics, video can help retain and influence potential customers who might not have otherwise stayed and read the marketing materials.

Trust – Because it takes more effort, or at least “appears” to take more effort, to create a video than what it takes to post text—especially on the Internet—video signifies trust to the audience. Internet videos are rarely as high quality as TV ads. Many companies utilize professional videos to set them apart from homemade videos, such as those created with webcams.

Search Engine Optimization – Another advantage to businesses that utilize video marketing is the way search engines “read” videos on the web. Major online search engines give more priority to videos than text on websites. Companies having difficulties ranking their websites through search engine optimization, or SEO, can improve rankings by adding videos.

Disadvantages of video marketing?

Time – It can be time consuming to make your own videos and post them to video sites.  There are shortcuts, and you can hire someone else to do it for you.

Cost – A lot of businesses think it is going to cost a lot to buy the equipment.  Although the cost has been reduced dramatically over the years, it can be costly if you are on a budget.

Effort – Again this is about time spent versus return on investment.  The truth is video marketing is only part of the mix, and it can be worth the effort if you do it right.

What is e-mail marketing?

Simply put email marketing is using the power of email to market to your customers and potential customers.

The most popular form of email marketing at the moment is using a newsletter, filled with tips in your niche to help your customer.  Along with tips you send out marketing messages with products that might be of interest to you customer base.

As well as your own list of tips to readers and potential customers, Email Marketing can also cover advertising on email newsletters or follow-up emails to your own customers.

While you could include these other wider definitions, most people when talking about Email Marketing are mainly using the term to describe building a list with a view to growing reader loyalty and making sales.

What are the Advantages of Email Marketing?

As just mentioned, a good email list, well run, can grow your reader loyalty. Hearing from you again and again with good content reminds readers of your value, especially if they take your advice and find it works for them. That said, the obvious reason why most people try email marketing is because it is profitable. This is because of the following attributes:

1. It’s cheap – Communicating via email has many of the advantages of traditional direct mail but with much lower costs
2. Speed – You can a message out to thousands of customers with one email.
3. Ease (both for you and the reader) – For your marketing to be a success it has to be easy for the recipient, but it helps that email marketing is easy for you too as it means you can do it yourself
4. Push Marketing – While websites and RSS are “pull”, in that the visitor have to come to you, with email you can send your messages out, reminding and re-engaging readers
5. Personal – The more information you collect, the more messages can be tailored and personalized. Email also has the particularly special ability to segment, meaning you can split people off into smaller, more focused lists.
6. Viral – It’s so easy for people to forward your message on to others, spreading further than you could alone.
7. Tracking – Everything from how many emails were opened, through to each individual link click can be tracked, meaning you can hone your techniques and improve performance
8. Testing – Along with tracking, you can test different subject lines, calls to action, use of images, and so on, to further improve your results
9. Complimentary – Email, while an excellent tactic, does not replace your other marketing activities but compliments them extremely well. Combining multiple tactics can build very profitable marketing campaigns.
10. Opt-In – Perhaps most important, the best email lists are always opt-in, meaning you have permission to contact the person. This permission is very powerful and should not be underestimated.

Email Marketing Risks

Doing email right can be a fantastic addition to your marketing mix, but do it wrong and you might be better off not doing it at all.

The main risks are:

• Branded a spammer - Without singling out any particular instance, even the best lists will get marked as spam occasionally because some people can’t be bothered to use the unsubscribe links. Also some people have a … strange … definition of what spam is. Darren and I were called spammers for sending messages about our book … to our ProBloggerBook.com list. So a small amount of this is to be expected. What you have to be careful of though is an accusation that sticks. Always make sure people know what they are signing up for and that they confirm their subscription so you can point to clear and fair opt-in.
• Burning out your list – A certain amount of churn is to be expected. People leave lists all the time through no fault of yours. Too many messages, too often, or bad content to sales ratio and you could find your email list becoming used up and burned out. Be careful to always make your list valuable to your readers, not an irritation.
• Breaking the law - Be aware that due to nasty spammers there are very strict laws around the world and it is easy to break them. For example, collecting email addresses without the owners consent, even not including your postal address in emails to USA residents. Using a reputable email service provider like Aweber will help you through most of these issues.
• Alienating readers – It never ceases to surprise me how many people get carried away with email marketing and go way over the top. Your messages do not have to read like snake oil, and every email does not have to carry a “absolutely must buy now before ____” urgency call to action. Remember your list members are human beings and all should go well though.
• Delivery issues – As people become more and more sensitive to spam there are more and more innocent messages landing in junk mail folders. There are techniques to help your message get through, but the main way is as mentioned above, use a reliable email provider like Aweber.

What is social Media?

You’ve probably heard about social media, maybe even used it yourself.  What a lot of business owners are now asking themselves is whether or not they should ignore it or utilise it to their advantage.  I mean after all, how the hell can a facebook ‘like’ or a Twitter update telling others what I had for breakfast help my business?

Well, hopefully this short intro will help you understand what social media is, what it isn’t and how you can utilise it to help your business grow and more importantly interact with your potential customers.

So, what the hell is social media?

Social Media is The start of Your Relationship with Your Customers

One of the ways to connect with anybody online: friends, family, colleagues, customers, is to use social media by using sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Google +, and Foursquare to name but a few.

As a social media user, you’ll be ready to build relationships with others that share your interests, whether it is another cafe owner who shares your insistence on selling the best coffee possible or the customer who absolutely cannot survive one additional day minus the product you are marketing.

Social Media is How Small Businesses Boost Their Revenue and Brand

It’s hard to argue that additional profit streams are more important for website owners and small businesses. A good way to use social media is to boost the reach of your branding. You’re no longer restricted to audiences in your region or area. Social media web sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, can help you spread your brand from Buffalo to Brussels. Social media is how those big companies stay competitive.

Consumers use social networks and sites to check out and discuss product reviews, hunt for solutions, and interact with businesses. Major firms that want to always keep a competitive edge know the importance of using social media networks as an integral of a very focused campaign that will connect with followers. For example, one of the ways to use social media might include a competition for followers to create a jingle or a logo with the goal of generating buzz for your next hot product.

Social Media is How You Promote Your Business to Get the Message out To The Masses

Do your clients spread the word about your brand new iPhone App? Do your customers stand in line for hours just to get  into your nightclub? One way to use social media is to make it easy for your biggest fans to share their enthusiasm with other consumers.

Social Media is Not Just a Passing Fad, It’s How We Market Our Business

It is exactly how forward thinking individuals and online businesses are choosing to collect and easily share information. Using social media to market to consumers is not just a trend for the young: statistics show that more than one-quarter of women and men over 50 years old are using social networking sites, according to a 2010 AARP report. So even if you think social media will fade away like the Pet Rock of the ’70’s, you still need to have a presence because social media is is exactly where your customers are right now.

What are you procrastinating for?

Now that you know the answer to the question “What is social media?” the time is now for your business to get on board. You are leaving potential customers on the table by not taking advantage of this free and engaging form of marketing.