The first month of 2010 flew by and the rest of the year is going to do the same. Before it does how much time will you dedicate to your search engine optimisation strategies? Well why not make some changes right now, yep today!
Here are 9 Traffic Boosting SEO Tips To Do Now
Structure your Title Tag – Put your brand/company name at the end of your title tags. The important phrases for search rankings should be at the front of your tags because search engines place more weight on the phrases at the start. Eg, I want this website to rank for Mt Tamborine Accommodation & Mount Tamborine Accommodation so my title tag will start with – Mt Tamborine Accommodation | Mount Tamborine Accommodation
Build Links – A quick way to build a few links to your website is to submit your site to authority directories, Eg, BOTW.org, Demoz.org (can take a long time), Hotfrog.com.au etc
No Follow or Consolidate Links – The chances are you have a “Terms & Conditions” and/or “Privacy Policy” or similar pages on your website and there is most likely a link from every page within your site to these pages, eg, from the footer. Placing a No Follow tag (rel=”nofollow”) on the link or consolidating them into one page will help reduce the authority each page is leaking from your more important pages.
Internal Linking – Linking to the important pages within in your site with the correct anchor text will help search engines determine the important pages within your website. Make sure you link to the correct address, eg, when linking to the home page you should link to www.sixthsensemarketing.com.au/ not www.yousite.com.au/index.html or some other funky combination.
Add Title & Alt Attributes – Make sure every product image, logo, navigation button and link has clear, descriptive ALT and/or Title text so search engines know what is going on.
Domain Trust – Search engines consider domain life (expiration date) of your domain as part of their ranking algorithm, if your site expires in 1 year you may not have the trust value of a domain that expires in 10. Go extend your domain life and rank higher!
Download Link Sluth – A cool tool that can do a few things that are very handy for SEO. Find any broken links within your site or have it crawl your site and create a sitemap to sumbit to search engines.
Use Yahoo Site Explorer – https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/ – Create yourself an account and submit register your website with Yahoo. Submit your site maps and rss feeds to help Yahoo find pages within your site.
Use Google Webmaster Tools - http://www.google.com/webmasters/ – Look at Diagnostics > HTML Suggestion – To help fix any duplicate title or meta description issues that search engines love to index. Also look at Crawl Errors > Not Found – To help find any broken links from sites or pages that have been removed and their incoming links. Now set up a server 301 redirect to the right/alternative page. This will now boost your link authority to current pages.
Facebook can be a tremendous source of traffic for your website and can produce foot traffic if you have a physical store. There’s a good chance that most of the people you know are on it, the ones who aren’t will be eventually. The social network is consuming more and more of people’s time, a major contributor to this is mobile devices, it is always accessible. If you don’t have a Facebook Page (Profile or Fan Page), you may be missing out on not only traffic to your website, but a chance to engage with customers and ultimately help your brand’s reputation.
Before you go and set up your Facebook page, remember you can not just set up the page and sprinkle some magic dust to have it deliver a massive increase in sales. It will take time, energy, you will have to promote it and engage in the community!
Some techniques you can use to promote your Facebook marketing campaign:
Prominent link on your site
Facebook Fan Box
Author Bio section on articles/Blog
Email newsletters
Other social media profiles
Google Profile (which is getting more attention now as a result of Google Buzz)
Business Card
Signage
Email Signatures
Advertisements
Does your Facebook page needs to be a little more exciting? A few handy tips:
Google Maps can be a great tool in marketing your business online. It can drive traffic to your main website where consumers can learn about your business/brand/products and also provide a physical store with foot traffic.
But consider this, Google Map listings do not provide you with security of your business listing!
What if your competitor moved your Google Maps listing to another country, changed the phone number to theirs or changed the link to their website instead of yours.
Read the following story:
A NZ florist changed an online map to steer business away from her competitors and into her store will have to complete 100 hours of community service.
The 40-year-old had confessed to editing the details on Google maps of six of her competitors on 100 occasions between November 1 and December 4 last year, telling police she had an ‘addiction’, agencies reported. (source)
What Can You Do To Avoid This Happening To You?
Be friendly to your competitors – if things get nasty on both sides of the fence it just creates an unhealthy business environment for you and your consumers.
Google Local Business Center – allows you to take control of your listings. Simply create an account and provide Google with your business name, address, and phone number and you will see a listing of businesses already listed in Google Maps with similar information. You will have the option of claiming one of these listings or you can add a new listing for your business. Go to Google Local Business Center
Google won’t just let you claim any business that you want (advantage over Google Maps). You will be required to validate your ownership of the business listing that you are trying to claim. Google offers two ways to validate your listing, either by post-card mailed to your business address or by phone. Both options will contain a PIN number that you will enter in the Local Business Center to make your listing validated.
Now that you have claimed your listing you should optimize your local business listing to help your business rank better in searches. The easiest place to start is with your business’s title. When entering your business name, try to use keywords in the title.
For example – Instead of using “Tk’s Wedding Photograpahy”, we used
This resulted in a listing on the first page of Google (within Google Business Map listings) and traffic to the website within hours of going live, but more importantly inquiries and bookings within days of creating the business.
It is also helpful to include targeted keywords in your business description.
Another thing to keep in mind is that Google will associate reviews of your business from sites like Trip Advisor and others. Having keywords in your reviews can really help boost your rankings as Google will associate the full text of reviews with your listing.
Following these tips and taking control of your Google Maps listing can really help boost leads for your business. While not every company can truly benefit from Google Maps, anyone with a brick-and-mortar location is crazy to not be taking advantage of this excellent (and free!) advertising opportunity.
After Matt Cutts made the comment that page speed could become a factor Google looks at for ranking search results. His comments received a lot of attention, because Google has never taken this into consideration for ranking websites in the past.
Despite the fact that Cutts never said that page speed would become any more important of a ranking factor than anything else, many people around the web and Blogosphere jumped to conclusions. While many more have remained sensible about the concept, not expecting page speed to trump relevant content, Cutts has now provided a video setting the record straight.
There you go, the record is straight, relevance will win!
Even with relevance as the main focus point, please keep in mind and plan how speed will play apart in your search engine optimsation and end user strategies. There is nothing worse than finding a website that will promises to provide the golden goose that takes an eternity to load!
Google Buzz is a new tool for Google, it is integrated with Gmail and other Google products such as Google Reader and Picasa, plus other sharing tools such as Flickr and Twitter. Google Buzz could be the missing link in tying Google together as a social network tool.
I personally really hope that Google gets this right and you can bring all the social media channels into one interface to allow for easy tracking of topics and what is happening in your social realm.
What Does Google Have To Say About Google Buzz?
Google says Buzz has five key elements:
1. Auto Following
2. Rich, Fast Sharing experience…
3. Support for public and private sharing….
4. In-box integration
5. Just the good stuff…
Google Buzz & Your Business
Buzz may benefit businesses as an orgnizational tool. The first thing that comes to mind is the expansion of communication with existing contacts. When you’re frequently seeing what your Gmail contacts are saying, it will not only keep those people fresh in your mind, but it can cultivate further communication.
The feature could possibly lend to better organization of your communication, which could in turn save time. Again, depending on how many of the possibilities (if any) mentioned in this article actually come to fruition, it could become a central place for that communication. The more services Buzz gets integrated with, the better it could become for organization.
Google co-founder Sergey Brin says he wrote an op-ed piece, posted it to Google Buzz, and quickly had 50 comments, and edited based on feedback. He finds it efficient as an editing tool.
The Future Of Google Buzz
Google says it wants Buzz to be as open as possible. That means there is plenty of room to grow and increase integration with different services. The company says it will be wired up to other parts of Google and other parts of the Internet. Facebook Connect integration is “something they’ll think about”, but it’s not happening yet. Google says it will bring Twitter content in, but will not yet let you push it out to Twitter…yett. That could change in time. Think about being able to do all of your social media and email communication from one place. That is something Mozilla is trying to develop with its in-progress Raindrop project. What if Google was able to do it with an established product like Gmail? Google says theyr’e “just getting started” with Buzz.
I think it’s safe to expect Buzz integration with a lot of other Google features. Google has already said that it places Wave as “high on the list of things they can do” as far as integration.
Google could potentially integrate the feature with any product it chooses (and it has a lot to choose from). What if it became available with the click of a button on the Chrome browser (which is gaining popularity)? What if it were integrated with the already social Google Reader? Google Docs? Wave? There could be a Google gadget, for users’ iGoogle home pages. There are a lot of ways tha Google could potentially get people using Buzz. Google says Buzz will be launched as an enterprise product eventually as well.
On a sidenote, it’s pretty interesting that Google and Yahoo both now have products called “Buzz.”
(Source)
For anyone that has used Google Adowrds the chances are you have probably burnt a lot of cash very quickly on the Content Network by not understanding how to master the system. Well the cool cats at Google have put together a series of video instructions for you, this will help you get more out of your Google Adwords advertising campaigns, both search and content network. Take a look at how to optimise and become a Yoda of the Google Content Netwrok with your Google Adwords.
1 – Content Network Campaign Set Up
2 – Content Network Ad Group Set Up
3 – Content Network Keyword Set Up
4 – Content Network Ad Text Set Up
5 – Content Network Setting Up Bids
6 – Content Network Conversion Tracking
All the best for making the most of the Google Content Network with your Google Adwords!
Targeting your Google Adwords ads to Gmail users can provide you with some high quality traffic at very low cost per click (CPC), but it is about to get even better. Google has implemented new improvements to the relevancy of ads that will show to Gmail users. With these changes, your ads will be shown to Gmail that are now even more interested in what you are advertising and less of what you’re not.
There will several Google Analytics Training Seminars held in Sydney and Melbourne over the next two months, I suggest if you can make it, do it! Sets are limited so register quickly!
If you are undecided, here is a quote from a past attendee:
Whilst I’ve been using GA for years and have also run AdWords campaigns I was becoming increasingly frustrated that there was newer functionality which I didn’t have either the knowledge, skill or confidence to leverage in full. Above all, I’ve left the course hugely inspired, with a range of ideas which I’m keen to implement ASAP. This course has given many of the agencies we’ve dealt with a ‘run for their money’ and provided me with the confidence to not only demand, but do a lot more!
Sumi Triggs Olsen, eMarketing Executive, CPA Australia
Google Analytics – Introduction and User Training
Melbourne, Australia: Thursday, 25 February 2010
or
Sydney, Australia: Thursday, 11 March 2010
This introduction provides a complete overview of Google Analytics and available reports. Learn to identify the best reports for your role and make decisions that deliver results. Topics include:
Introduction to Web Analytics
Google Analytics Interface Features
Sharing and Customizing Reports
Understanding Visitors, Traffic Sources, Content and Goals
And Much, Much More…
Google Analytics – Advanced Technical Implementation
Melbourne, Australia: Friday, 26 February 2010
or
Sydney, Australia: Friday, 12 March 2010
The advanced day will show you how to use the full range of advanced features and reports within Google Analytics. Learn how to get the most out of Google Analytics with tips, tricks and technical setup options. Day 2 topics include:
Best Practices for Setup and Configuration
Using and Creating Filters
Setting and Configuring Goals and Funnels
E-commerce, Site Search, Event Tracking, Custom Reports and Advanced Segments
And Much, Much More…
Google Website Optimizer – Landing Page Testing
Melbourne, Australia: Monday, 1 March 2010
or
Sydney, Australia: Monday, 15 March 2010
Learn how to conduct landing page testing with Google Website Optimizer to identify, measure and improve key design elements and calls to action on your website to increase engagement and conversions. See how you can continually increase your conversion rates with testing by setting up and running A/B and multivariate tests. Topics Include:
Introduction to Landing Page Testing
Best Practices for Increasing Conversions
How to Run an Experiment
Understanding the Data and Running Follow-up Experiments
2010 is going to be your year of dominating your market with some easy to follow ideas for your e commerce website. Don’t have an e commerce website? No problem! You can still apply these to any website and business model!
1. Stop using Flash
The positives are tediously obvious – it looks great and your marketing dept will love it. However, the negatives are immense: it doesn’t rank in search engines, it breaks all navigation and usability web conventions, it’s expensive to edit and alter and almost impossible to perform any sort of AB testing. Get your design and layout even slightly wrong from the word go and you’re pretty much stuck with it. It simply isn’t worth it, and with advancements in Javascript and CSS 3, it’s also pretty unnecessary.
2. Test, Observe, Learn & Test
We’re all guilty of not prioritising testing enough but there really is no better way to find out the truth about your online store. Usability guru Jacob Nielsen has carried out some fascinating studies that show 85% of development or design flaws will be picked up by just five separate usability tests. FIVE! That’s it! So get five willing (or bribed) stooges and get them to run through basic functions of your platform – purchase a product, contact customer service, etc. The results are always illuminating and often shed light on previously hidden flaws and unforeseen problems.
3. Develop a social media strategy
If 2009 was the year brands were switched on to the potential of social media, then 2010 must be the year they start to realise they can’t just launch into it blindly with no tangible objectives. Social networks such as Facebook and Twitter are now a derelict wasteland littered with the e-corpses of poorly executed fan pages and feeds promoting retail brands or products. Just ‘getting on there’ isn’t enough – you need to have something to say and be prepared to invest in saying it. You also need to ready to hear criticism and ready to respond positively. Above all else, have some idea of what you want to achieve and set tangible objectives. You can’t hit your targets if you have no idea of what they are. Remember, social media marketing is NOT FREE, it takes time, effort and dedication. Start thinking strategically about your presence on the social web and you’ll see far more success.
4. Increase your range
You will sell more products if you stock more products. This should be tattooed on every e-commerce manager’s eyelids. It is great to be a niche business/website, but be the biggest supplier of goods to your market within that niche! This will give you a better understanding of what your market wants, not want you want to sell!
5. Develop a proper email strategy Email marketing fascinates me! It’s basic, it’s simple, but a well planned an intelligent email marketing strategy is without doubt, the single most effective way of driving revenue and customer loyalty. It amazes me to see businesses with a customer database that don’t do anything with them! Know I don’t mean just blanket spamming your database, but carefully targeted messages based around buying habits, demographic information and personalised content will deliver your business a healthy ROI. Using this to engage customers in a personal way via email will reap huge rewards for you this year.
6. Get it done!
For all those who haven’t entered the e commerce world yet, now is the time to do it. Don’t hesitate, stop procrastinating and ‘planning’, get started and you’ll learn more about your brand and your customers in months than you would do otherwise in years. Make 2010 the year when you actually keep to your resolutions by making resolutions which will bring real, genuine, tangible rewards so you are celebrating this time next year with a nice, fat annual bonus poolside in the Caribbean!
The first month of 2010 flew by and the rest of the year is going to do the same. Before it does how much time will you dedicate to your search engine optimisation strategies? Well why not make some changes right now, yep today!
Facebook can be a tremendous source of traffic for your website and can produce foot traffic if you have a physical store. There’s a good chance that most of the people you know are on it, the ones who aren’t will be eventually. The social network is consuming more and more of people’s time, a major contributor to this is mobile devices, it is always accessible. If you don’t have a Facebook Page (Profile or Fan Page), you may be missing out on not only traffic to your website, but a chance to engage with customers and ultimately help your brand’s reputation.
Google Maps can be a great tool in marketing your business online. It can drive traffic to your main website where consumers can learn about your business/brand/products and also provide a physical store with foot traffic. 
Google Buzz is a new tool for Google, it is integrated with Gmail and other Google products such as Google Reader and Picasa, plus other sharing tools such as Flickr and Twitter. Google Buzz could be the missing link in tying Google together as a social network tool.
