So, you've had a website for a while! Your website builder may or may not have mentioned that, for your prospective customers to see it, it has to be ranked on Google (and other search engines)! You may have already used an SEO company that promised you first page ranking, but after months and months your site is still not found! SEO is Search Engine Optimization and not doing it or having someone that doesn't do it right or completely will leave you with frustration over lost funds and an un-ranked website.
So, if your website is not ranked, check the following things or ask your SEO person what they are doing to improve these crucial items! Most of these you can check yourself and I'll give you the resources to do so! Website Responsiveness
Informative Content
Google Business Listing
Listing Your Site With Directories.
Backlink Building
If I've described what you've been going through with your website, and you want somebody that takes your success personally, call us at Carpe DM Products. We want to build a long term business relationship with our clients. You'll talk to us personally, the people actually doing the work. We can tell you exactly where we are in the process after we get started, send you updates and give you ranking reports to show progress. Again, Carpe DM Products 864-621-8068 or visit www.sptbgwebdesign.com to check us out and then call!
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So did you see that Walmart is quietly changing their name? Yep, it is known formally as Walmart Stores, and they are dropping the 'stores' from their name! Why? Because they are the largest company in the world in terms of sales and they want to stay that way! Amazon just jumped into the grocery business, so Walmart wants to increase their online sales because they know the buying online trend is not going away! All the traditional department stores are going more and more to online sales. Once big names like Macy's, Sears, etc., are closing brick & mortar stores and moving to online sales. Malls are quickly becoming a thing of the past, with anchor stores shutting down! Why does this matter? Why am I telling you this? I am proving that, as more and more consumers and more and more companies are competing for the NEW top location (not the corner lot at the busy intersection), the Google ranking is going to become even more important than ever. But you won't get there by accident! 89% of consumers now search online before making a purchase of a product or service! That means that only 11 people out of every 100 will pick up the phone and call without searching. If you don't have a website or have one that is not ranking on page one, your business is probably not doing very well. Not only that, but when was the last time you saw a phone book? Even if they are looking for a phone number, they are going to do a search. Here's another shocker, 96% of searchers never go beyond page one of the results page! That means if you're on page 2, you're not getting a lot of visits to your website. The NEW CORNER lot I mentioned earlier is the top spot in the Google map! 33% of consumers pick the business that is in the number 1 spot. If that's you, you're getting 33 calls or visits for every 100 searches. Big DEAL? #2 gets 18%, #3 about 11%. If you take the 4% away that will continue on to page 2, you're left with 34% distributed among the rest of page 1. But there's more, of that 34%, most will have picked their company before they get to the middle of the page, which is about the 5th or 6th listing! I promise you ONE thing, most of the time, the company at the number 1 spot in the map, has an SEO person or company optimizing their online presence! They understand that SEO is the bill that pays the bills. Generally, one or 2 sales a month will pay for their SEO costs. SEO is not a one and done activity, this is a dog eat dog world and if you become the #1 business on page 1, you knocked somebody out of that position and they WILL see a hit to their sales. You become the target, so your SEO person or company will have to fight to keep that position! Just as you have a manager for a brick & mortar business, so too do you need a person or company to manage your online presence. That's SEO!
If you are using a blog to promote a business, enable comments. Many businesses leave their comments turned off to avoid spam. If you allow site visitors to leave comments on your articles within your blog, though, it provides new content for your blog that is unique and free. Since search engines love content that is unique, the comment section can help your search engine rankings increase on your blog.
When creating the URL for your website, use a keyword phrase. Search engines will place more value on your URL when searches are done for those keywords. By using a keyword phrase that is popular, your URL will show up more frequently in the search engines.
Any website owner can benefit from the process of search engine optimization, or SEO. For your business to thrive, your website needs traffic. Making your website search engine friendly to bring in traffic takes some effort. In this post, we will help you learn more about optimizing your website to make it search engine friendly and bring in more traffic. When working on the meta-tag section of your webpage, do a little research on your keywords so you can include every variation and misspelling on your list. This will increase your visibility as the search engine bots analyze your meta-tags and include them on your website. Even though there are several search engines available, your focus should be on the big ones. Google is the main search engine available, with Yahoo and Bing following behind. As you optimize your website, research what these three search engines look for and customize your site to get their attention. It’s not worth your time and money to optimize your site for MSN or Ask, or any of the other smaller search engines.
Look over every page of your website to ensure it has a META description. If not, you will need to add one by editing the page. Since the description of the page typically shows up on the search engine, use attention grabbing statements to grab the interest of the searcher. Use strong keywords in this area as well. It is best to keep the number of characters under 155 in the description.
Search engine optimization is imperative for any website. In fact, SEO can make or break your website. Use the advice you have read here to get your website optimized for search engines with just a little time and effort. Once you learn to optimize your website for search engines, your website will be on the path to success. To learn mor about our SEO services visit our home page! Google announces next phase for mobile |
It is my firm belief that results will ensure your client retention. As I said earlier in this post, setting realistic expectations up front will also help with client retention. But alas, inevitably you will have the antsy client that, although you told them it would take time, they want faster results.
It is because of this that if I have a client that has used several SEO companies in the past, I will propose a results based plan. I start them out at one rate, then as their site ranks for a keyword or phrase, the rate goes up to the next pre-defined rate, then again with the next keyword, and so forth until we reach the final pre-determined rate. This does a couple of things. It helps to ensure the client that you're going to work harder to get to the next level of income. It helps boost the clients confidence that you know what you're doing because you wouldn't make the offer if you didn't think you could deliver. And it incentivizes the SEO company to actually perform. Now this plan, in all honesty, is completely tilted in the clients favor. Most of the work and expense of SEO is done on the front end of the campaign, which is why I don't do this all the time ( I gotta eat)! But, I will propose this to a prospective client that is on the fence or reluctant to believe that I will deliver. |
If You Are A Hopper
This paragraph it directed to you, the Hopper! When you are shopping for an SEO company, please make sure you find one that will educate you on the process. Not the technical stuff that will bore you to sleep, but a step by step plan for ranking your site. If they can't give you or won't give you some details as to what they plan to do, beware! If they promise you page 1 in a couple of weeks, beware! We cannot control Google, and some niche businesses take more time to rank than others. If they set the expectations and give you a reasonable gameplan, and you make a deal, give them time to deliver.
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Hop To It!
If you like what I've said in this article and you want to hire your LAST SEO person, hop on over to any page on my website and fill out the form, or better yet, call 864-621-8068. I would love to chat with you about what you're trying to accomplish for your business! I look for clients that are serious about building and maintaining growth and I want to be their SEO person! Long term results come from long term business relationships!
#spartanburgwebdesign #seospartanburg #carpedmproducts |
When figuring out what it takes to rank a website, you have to take into consideration who is the standard. Everybody knows that Google is the search king! So when you want to rank a site, you have to ask yourself what is Google's ultimate goal? Google's goal is to satisfy their customers, just like every business.
Who is their customer? Well, anybody that has ever conducted a search using Google! Pretty close to everybody on the planet!
So, what's their plan? Google wants to give searchers (their customers) what every other business wants to give their customers; the best experience possible! The way they do that is to give them the absolute best information on the internet for the search topic.
How do they do that? Glad you asked! They constantly crawl the internet for information. They use that information to form the search results. They put the best results at the top of the list, which in Google's case is in the map section and on page one of the organic listings (listngs below the map).
So now ask yourself, what gets you to the top of that list?
Well, we said Google wants information! So, if you have the most information in your field, who do you think will be at the top?
But information is not enough. The information has to be relevant to the topic searched. Luckily people won't search for underwater basket weaving if they need a plumber, so that makes it a little easier.
What does Google look at?
Google looks at hundreds of criteria when ranking a site. But, there are 3 main things that business owners and SEO analysts need to consider.
1. Content - The best way to become relevant is to show Google you are the authority on your topic. The more informative your site is, the higher it will rank. If your competitor has little content on their site, this is an easy fix. If not, keep adding content until you have more!
2. Citations - This is simply putting your business information on directories throughout the internet. The more times Google finds your business info, the more relevant your site becomes.
3. Backlinks - Backlinks are like votes for your website. However, you need to be careful and make sure the backlink comes from a relevant site and the more noteable the site, the better. (for example, if your site is for home construction, you'll want links from sites that have to do with this topic. A backlink from a bakery site has no relevance to home construction). Now, all links don't have the same power! Think about this, if you're running for some local office, and you get endorsed by Jim Bob, nobody cares. However, if you get endorsed by the mayor, suddenly eyes start looking at you! Backlinks are the same way, if you get a backlink on Home Depot's site and you're a home builder, how powerful is that? This was just used as an example, so don't go running to Home Depot asking for a link, they'll send you to the fence department or they'll just look at you funny!
This is just a few of the things and a big over-simplification of the SEO process, but it should give you a better understanding of why your website is not ranking or what to work on if you're a budding SEO person.
Make sure to share this if you found the information helpful!
Who is their customer? Well, anybody that has ever conducted a search using Google! Pretty close to everybody on the planet!
So, what's their plan? Google wants to give searchers (their customers) what every other business wants to give their customers; the best experience possible! The way they do that is to give them the absolute best information on the internet for the search topic.
How do they do that? Glad you asked! They constantly crawl the internet for information. They use that information to form the search results. They put the best results at the top of the list, which in Google's case is in the map section and on page one of the organic listings (listngs below the map).
So now ask yourself, what gets you to the top of that list?
Well, we said Google wants information! So, if you have the most information in your field, who do you think will be at the top?
But information is not enough. The information has to be relevant to the topic searched. Luckily people won't search for underwater basket weaving if they need a plumber, so that makes it a little easier.
What does Google look at?
Google looks at hundreds of criteria when ranking a site. But, there are 3 main things that business owners and SEO analysts need to consider.
1. Content - The best way to become relevant is to show Google you are the authority on your topic. The more informative your site is, the higher it will rank. If your competitor has little content on their site, this is an easy fix. If not, keep adding content until you have more!
2. Citations - This is simply putting your business information on directories throughout the internet. The more times Google finds your business info, the more relevant your site becomes.
3. Backlinks - Backlinks are like votes for your website. However, you need to be careful and make sure the backlink comes from a relevant site and the more noteable the site, the better. (for example, if your site is for home construction, you'll want links from sites that have to do with this topic. A backlink from a bakery site has no relevance to home construction). Now, all links don't have the same power! Think about this, if you're running for some local office, and you get endorsed by Jim Bob, nobody cares. However, if you get endorsed by the mayor, suddenly eyes start looking at you! Backlinks are the same way, if you get a backlink on Home Depot's site and you're a home builder, how powerful is that? This was just used as an example, so don't go running to Home Depot asking for a link, they'll send you to the fence department or they'll just look at you funny!
This is just a few of the things and a big over-simplification of the SEO process, but it should give you a better understanding of why your website is not ranking or what to work on if you're a budding SEO person.
Make sure to share this if you found the information helpful!
Mike Hall
Owner: Mike Hall
Carpe DM Products Web Designer
SEO Specialist
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