JEM div. of A-BnC Parties and More, Inc.

Anyone who has ever sat with me or attended one of my workshops or seminars, knows I preach certain fundamentals. Generally I take a formula or step by step approach and teach the fundamental associated building blocks in a logical order.  I am left brained and that is the way I function.  (I leave social amenities to my charming bride.)

Note to G.G. (although he will never read this post I am sure):  Sorry, GenX or Gen Yers….cannot throw everything at you at once to sift out the relevancy.  I need to know you understand the “big” picture.

Perhaps that is why Web SEO marketing seems easy to me after 3-1/2 years of study.  It is based on math and logic.  The initial problem is wading through the information over load to determine who is right out there.  Too many charlatans and snake oil salesmen.  Do you have the time to spend as I do/did studying this process?

I will no longer work with Website owners who will not first insure their site is search engine optimized.  Just as this is a primary step for newbies getting their first site published.  For any E-marketing done with off-site SEO can not fulfill its potential without this vital step.  I have literally stopped campaigns because I felt business owners were wasting their money on my efforts.

After a site is optimized for search engines, I feel the first step to promote or market it is through a business blog.  And there is no finer blogging platform available than Wordpress.org for doing so.  You can read more about this on this blog’s Wordpress page.

I don’t pay much credence in Website statistics as long as business is good and continues to be.  However, I did some updating of our Websites over the weekend and through Monday.  Wow!  I was remiss in optimizing Judy’s main site.  Perhaps because her do-it-yourself sites are doing so well.

After the projects were completed, as well as I could (still having a problem with a page on the main DIYWEBJEM site), I checked our Web host statistics as well as Google Webmaster information and rankings. Robin would have said:  “Holy Blogging Batman!”

Since installing two on-site blogs, our visitor hits have doubled!  And Judy is again taking lead as #1 Google results for non optimized keywords.  This is a side benefit of rankings for keywords we optimize!

So for anyone wanting help getting started on a blog, whether Wordpress.com (free) or a self hosted Wordpress.org, please contact DIYWEBJEM.  I can also help teach you the nuances of blogging for business – it is not keeping a diary!   SEO and Social Media (i.e. blogs) is about generating traffic and sales comes from traffic.  Or, don’t you get it yet?

Any thoughts, comments or questions?

Anita Campbell ran an interesting article in Small Business Trends last Friday. She comments about an unofficial poll of small business owners’ resolutions for the new year. The findings are reported in “Small Business Goals: Fitness Conscious, Want Sales, Looking for Work-Life Balance”.

Among the top 10 results are finding a job, starting a business at home and learning about social media.  The first two may imply business is not exactly rosy.

Is your business geared to target market, and thus profit, by offering products or services is one or more of the areas she cites?

Read the rest of the story.

Content – Match Your Website’s Content to those Keywords and Optimize your Site for Search Engines

Content is the text information Internet search robots or spiders look for. They gather this information and Index it in large servers so they can match it to people generated queries. Think of Indexing as an extremely large card catalog or electronic library catalog.

So you must make sure you use these same keywords liberally within your Website in original and unique content. Each page should be dedicated to a specific or different keywords. Your title tags, meta descriptions, headlines, alternative text tags, etc. should also contain keywords. Please remember that each page needs separate title tags and meta descriptions so as not to confuse the Search Engines. Do not overdo keyword saturation however, since you will eventually be penalized by search engines for keyword ’stuffing’.

Also, avoid large concentrations of objects search engines cannot see. Videos, photos, art work, Java, iFrames, etc. Sites using these things predominantly cannot be Indexed. This is a special concern for landing or home pages. All that money spent on glitter goes down the tubes in that case.

Back Links – Use Free Social Media 2.0 Tools to Drive Traffic to Your Site which Should Increase Sales.

A back link is a hyperlink from another site to your Website. Think of this as a recommendation letter from an authority figure in your job search. Search Engines reward your efforts when done properly and ethically. This is referred to as ‘White Hat’ (or good guys as in cowboy flicks of old) Search Engine Marketing or SEM. Numerous ‘Black Hat’ (or bad) tactics are frowned upon and you actually are penalizes by search engines for doing them.

You can use article marketing, press releases, video and slide show sharing, blogging, commenting on forums, social bookmarking, social media sites, Craig’s List, local and national directories, etc., to gain back links pointing to your domain. However, purchasing links, farming, two way linking are some examples of ‘Black Hat’ techniques.

Note

I realize this is a time intensive approach for do it yourselfers. This is a shoe string way to market your Website if you are long on time and short on funds. If not consider writing checks for pay per click advertising (AdWords or sponsored clicks) and buying directory listing or links, banner advertising, etc.