The What's Your Game? Game

If you don't read Naomi Dunford's IttyBiz, you should.

While much of Naomi's content is Rated R (frequent adult language, near-constant sexual innuendo, occasional partial nudity), she tells it like it is and is a brilliant writer.
Brilliant I tell you. Like Einstein + Shakespeare + Shakira brilliant. Naomi rocks. End of.

(In case you were wondering, I am trying to convince Naomi to publish a guest post I wrote about pirates, billboards, and liquor. Hence the sucking up. But she does rock, I swear.)

Check out IttyBiz. Bookmark. Subscribe. Devour. Repeat. You won't be disappointed.

Anyway, once every two or three years, Naomi likes to dig up some cool thing she did two or three years ago, blow the dust off, and try it again. Today, she reissued her What's Your Game? game.

(Actually, she called it "What Do YOU Do? The Un-Meme Redux", but I don't know what that means, so I renamed it).

She challenged her readers (which in this scenario is me) to answer the following questions for their readers (which in this scenario is you). Buckle up.

What’s your game? What do you do?
"I'm all about helping the little guy. I see so many small business owners out there who are struggling to run their businesses, and don't have the time or the tools to market themselves effectively. It's like the internet is just passing them by, and there's a whole generation of consumers who aren't looking in the yellow pages anymore. I find it sad and frustrating and challenging and fascinating all at the same time. So that's what I do, I help local small business owners with their marketing. I do web design and SEO and press releases a whole bunch of other stuff, but I think the real value is in the relationship - having someone who is looking out for your business that you can bounce questions and ideas and concerns off of. That's me."

Why do you do it? Do you love it, or do you just have one of those creepy knacks?

"Lets face it, the knack and the love go hand in hand. It wouldn't do you any good to love marketing if you sucked at it. And it wouldn't do you any good to be great at marketing if you didn't love it. But I like to think I do have The Knack. For as long as I can remember, I've been fascinated by consumer behavior and how advertising drives and changes it, and I can often look at a billboard or a magazine ad or a website, or watch a TV commercial, and tell you with pretty decent accuracy whether it will be successful or be a total flop."

Who are your customers? What kind of people would need or want what you offer?
"Anyone who owns a small business and knows they should do something (marketing wise), but doesn't have the time or the inclination or the motivation to make it happen. My clients are overwhelmed by it all, and I help them bring some order to that and get unstuck."

What’s your marketing USP? Why should I buy from you instead of the other losers?

"I know what it's like to run a business and worry about how you're going to cover the payroll or fix the truck. I'm somewhat unique in that my wife and I own a couple of very successful small businesses that have nothing to do with marketing. We have a proven track record of success, and I have a unique perspective on owning and marketing a small business. I also focus almost exclusively on local businesses. The big marketing firm in New York doesn't know the difference between Dunedin and Pinellas Park, and that can make a huge difference as well."

What’s next for you? What’s the big plan?

"I'm always full of ideas, and my blog has really helped me put that energy to use. If I come up with some hair-brained new business or marketing scheme, I blog about it rather than launching a new venture, and that sort of gets it out of my system (and keeps my wife happy). So in the short term, I want to continue to grow my blog and my readership. In the long term, I'm planning a couple of e-books and courses of my own that will gradually replace some of my affiliate marketing products. I also have a day job and a business to run and two kids and a dog and a cat and a boat and all the other stuff that life throws at you, so I'm a pretty busy guy. But I'm having a blast!"

What the Heck is SEO? Series Post 5: The Power of Links

You've probably received an email recently with the title "Link Exchange Request". Or one from a company in India offering "Link Building Services". You probably deleted them, right?

The fact is, the world wide web was designed to be hyperlinked. Links are the power behind the web. So you should incorporate a systematic and regular linking strategy into your website (and you probably should look at some of those link exchange requests). Why?

If you've had your website up for a while, you know how difficult it is to get visitors or "traffic" to your site. You either have to advertise, or you have to have really good placement in the major search engines. In other words, when people go to Google or Bing and type in "Florida beach vacation rental" or whatever, you want them to find your page listed in the search results, right? Of course you do because this is the best way to get free visitors to your website.

So how does Google know that your site is about "Florida beach vacation rentals (or whatever)?" It knows by what you do both "on page" and "off page." The earlier posts in this series covered 'On-Page' SEO in great detail. But that was kid stuff.

Today, you're graduating to 'Off-Page' Search Engine Optimization!

The problem with 'On-Page' search engine optimization is it's relatively easy. Anyone can do it. And even if you've already done it, there's nothing to stop some snazzy upstart competitor from coming along and doing the same thing. That's why when you get serious about SEO, you have to start talking about 'Off-Page' factors such as links.

"The problem with 'On-Page' search engine optimization is it's relatively easy. When you get serious about SEO, you have to start talking about 'Off-Page' factors such as links."

Google and Bing consider other web pages powerful indicators of the content of your website. For instance, if I have a link on my site pointing to yours, and my linked text says Clearwater Beach Weddings, then I'm providing third-party verification that your site is indeed about Clearwater Beach Weddings.

Imagine the power of 50 sites pointing to yours with the same or similar linked text! No, don't imagine it. I'll show you the power. Right now!

You are familiar with Adobe Acrobat Reader, right? It's the free software that allows you to read pdf files. What would you search for to find the Adobe Acrobat site to download their software? Being a relatively normal human, you'd probably go to Google and type in "Adobe Acrobat Reader" or something like that right? And the site would be either number one in the search results or very close to it.

Proof of the Power of Links to Your Site:

Now try this: Go to Google or Bing and in the search box, type in "click here", and search for that keyword phrase. What website was number one for the search term "click here"? I hope you try this because this is very powerful. Go ahead, I'll wait...

Surprise! The Adobe Acrobat Reader download page is the number one search result for the term "click here"! Now go back and look at the page - notice that nowhere on the Adobe page will you find the words "click here". In fact, the page has absolutely nothing to do with the words "click here"!

So why is it number one in the search results, you ask?

On nearly every page on the internet that has a pdf file to be downloaded, you will find the following instructions: "To download your copy of Adobe Acrobat Reader, click here." The text "click here" is hyperlinked directly to Adobe Acrobat Reader download page on literally millions of web pages. Because the external links say the page is about "click here," that's what Google and Bing assume it's about!

"Google and Bing consider other web pages powerful indicators of the content of your website!"

Imagine the power of 50 or 100 (or 1,000) links from other web pages with your website's keywords all pointing to your site!

I just wanted to show you how powerful linking is so you will be eager to link and be linked to. As you can see, "off-page" links can actually be more powerful than "on-page" strategies. So when another webmaster sends you a link request, consider it carefully. It may be a great opportunity to improve your rankings in the search engines.

But don’t go out and start building links just yet – there are several pitfalls and best practices you should be aware of before implementing your own link-building strategy, which is why you need to subscribe to my blog and make sure you don't miss my next few posts about keyword research and link building!

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Special thanks to David McRee for his assistance with this post. David wrote the original version of this article for his own website several years ago, and was one of my first mentors in the often baffling field of SEO. David was into SEO long before SEO was cool, and is known throughout Florida as The Beach Hunter. He blogs about beaches in the Florida Keys and throughout the state at www.beachhunter.net!

Have You Ever Done a Press Release?

Press releases can be a great way to announce a new product line, store opening, community award, or other news related to your business. They can result in local press coverage, high quality links to your website, and "buzz" about your company.

I use PRWeb to distribute all of my press releases. They aren't the cheapest distribution service, but you get what you pay for, and their reach is unparalleled and they offer a great analytics package to monitor the success of each press release. They also have a great learning center with free press release writing and distribution tips!

While I offer press release writing and distribution services for small businesses, I also realize that many small business owners are do-it-yourself types, so I wanted to pass on a promotion that might save you a few bucks - PRWeb is offering a 10% discount through its affiliate network on new customers' first press release throughout the month of October:

Sign up today and get 10% off your first news release!

What the Heck is SEO? Series Post 4: Content and Headers

In our last post in this series, we talked about the importance of meta tags when it comes to SEO. In today's post, we're going to get to the heart of the matter - content.

So back to our story in the airport bookstore...

You've got two books in your hand. The titles caught your eye, and the descriptions look equally appealing. How do you decide? Most people at this point will open up the books and scan the content - maybe look at the headings and a paragraph here and there to see if the content of the book catches their attention. Google and Bing do the same thing, except they read and save (index) every word of text on your site!

You may have heard the phrase, "Content is King", but what does that mean? It means that the actual text content of your website is given by far the most weight out of all the factors Google and Bing consider when deciding where to rank your page in their search results!

"The actual text content of your website is given by far the most weight out of all the factors Google and Bing consider when deciding where to rank your page in their search results!"

So what are the secrets to writing good content? They're actually much simpler than you might think:

• Your content needs to contain your keywords. If you want your website to rank on the first page of Google and Bing for the phrase "Dallas wedding photographer", and the text on your page does not contain the words "Dallas wedding photographer", it's probably not going to happen!
• Your content needs to be well written. You can't just repeat your keywords over and over. They need to be sprinkled throughout your content in a natural way. 

Note: There is a metric called keyword density, which measures the number of times a given keyword or phrase appears as a percentage of all other words on a page. Don't worry about it - it's an obsolete metric, and there has never been a set standard for it anyway. If you give a draft of your content to your grandmother or a 10 year-old and they can read it and then tell you what the page was about, I assure you Google and Bing can do the same!

• You need to use variations of your keywords throughout your content. If you're trying to rank for "Dallas wedding photographer", then sprinkle in words like photography and Texas and bridal, where appropriate.

Note: For those of you who just have to know the nitty gritty details, this stems from a search algorithm called 'latent semantic analysis', in which search engines look for semantically related words in addition to your keywords as a signal that strengthens their confidence in your content.

"The secrets to writing good content are much simpler than you might think!" 

Header Tags

Your keywords should also be used in your header tags. Remember in high school when you had to write that dreaded "research paper"? Before you even started writing the paper, you had to turn in an "outline" of your paper to your teacher, right? 

Header tags are very similar to an outline. They are designated by HTML markup and ranked according to importance, as in H1, H2, H3, H4, H5, etc. Accordingly, header tags should be used to break up your content into meaningful sections. It only makes sense that if your page is about Dallas wedding photography, then the sections of the page should be broken down into concepts or ideas that are related to the theme of the page, right? For example:

---

Dallas Wedding Photography (this is an H1 tag)

Susie Smith is an award winning wedding photographer in Dallas, Texas...

Engagement Portraits (this is an H2 tag)

Susie offers engagement portraits throughout the Dallas area as part of all of her packages...

Actual Engagement Photo Sessions  (this is an H3 tag)

Click on the links below to see some of Susie's recent engagement portraits...

---

So it stands to reason that Google and Bing will look closely at your header tags when trying to determine what your page is about. Thus, you should use them appropriately (and sparingly). Generally, I recommend having only one H1 tag per page, leaving no doubt in Google and Bing's "eyes" as to what each page is about.

If you've read the other posts in this series, by now you're probably starting to see a pattern and realize that consistency is one of the keys to search engine optimization. Your keywords need to be sprinkled consistently throughout your title tag, meta tags, content, and headers.

"Consistency is one of the keys to search engine optimization." 

But there is one other place where your keywords play a crucial role in what Google and Bing think of your website. Stay tuned for the next few posts in this series (or better yet, subscribe to my blog and get them delivered to your inbox), which focus on one of the most misunderstood and misapplied principles of SEO - link-building!

Taking the Long View

Is it just me, or are we running our businesses and our personal finances and our country into the ground because we all want instant gratification?

I'm not saying we shouldn't be aggressive and nimble and quick to embrace change when it comes to business and marketing and even politics. I'm asking, where do you want to be 10, 20, or 30 years from now?

Let that be your guiding light and you'll have a much better perspective on just about everything.

There's nothing wrong with getting rich slowly, and you might even make a few friends along the way.

How to Install Google Analytics

Google Analytics is widely regarded as the industry standard for tracking website traffic. This powerful free tool will tell you things like:

• How many people visited your website in a given time period
• Where these visitors came from (i.e. search engines or other websites)
• Which keywords these visitors searched for when they found your website (if they found it via a search engine)
• Where these visitors were located, geographically speaking (as in country, state, city)
• What web browser your visitors were using when they viewed your site
• How long they spent on your website
• Which pages of your site they visited and for how long
• Which pages they entered and exited your site from
• How many visitors completed a "conversion" (as in did something like buy your product or fill out a form or visit a contact page - this is defined by you)

Given that Google Analytics does all this and more, and for free. I find it surprising that only 26% of the websites out there actually use Google Analytics. I figure at least some of the other 74% are small business owners who maintain their own websites and never knew they needed Google Analytics or were intimidated by the process of setting up a Google Analytics account and installing the Google Analaytics tracking script on their website.

Installing Google Analytics is actually a fairly simple process, and I dug up a couple of easy to use resources with step by step instructions:

• For those who need something you can print out and read, try the Google Analytics Installation Guide.
• For those of you who like to be shown how to do it, try this video:

 

Stay tuned or subscribe to my blog for my next post in this series , where I'll talk more about how to actually use Google Analytics!

If you need help figuring out how or where to install your tracking code, feel free to leave a comment below.

Monday Morning Quote: Overnight Success

"Overnight Success doesn't sleep in. Overnight Success doesn't watch a lot of TV... When you're wondering about the glamour and the wonder and the beauty of being an 'overnight success',...pay real close attention to what time an overnight success gets up and starts!"
                                                                                                                        Chris Brogan

What the Heck is SEO? Series Post 3: Meta Tags

In my last post in this series, we talked about the importance of title tags. Now we're going to continue our story in the airport bookstore...

So you've narrowed it down to two books based on their titles. What is your next step in deciding which one to buy and which one to put back on the shelf before you head to your boarding gate? I don't know about you, but I read the inside flap which provides a description of the contents of the book.

So do Google and Bing! The description of each page of your website is contained in the description meta tag, which is a snippet of HTML code that looks like this:

<meta content="description of this web page" name="description">

There is some disagreement over exactly how Google and Bing index and serve your description meta tag, and how much weight it is given. But published guidelines suggest that Bing gives at least some weight to the description meta tag, and we know for a fact that Google at least reads it, indexes it, and serves it in its search results.

"Your description meta tag is often the first 'ad copy' search engine users see."

The real importance of the description meta tag comes into play in search engine results pages (SERPs), because more often than not, your description meta tag is served as the description of your web page in the search engine results (below the hyperlinked title tag):

Thus, your description meta tag is often the first "ad copy" search engine users see. It needs to be compelling, engaging, and to the point, and it should paint a clear picture of what your business does and why someone should click through to your website! Published guidelines suggest your description meta tag should be less than 150 characters in length (anything longer is snipped anyway, as in the City Search example above that ends with an ellipse).

One final note on the description meta tag - if it is left blank, the search engines will just grab a snippet of text from somewhere on the page and show this in the search results. Sometimes they do this anyway if their algorithm suggests some other content on the page is more relevant, but having a well written description meta tag is the only way to exert some control over what search engines display in their results.

"Having a well written description meta tag is the only way to exert some control over what search engines display in their results."

Do It Yourself Tip: Many small business owners use a template based website or an online web editor, and it's not always obvious which field in your web editor fills the description meta tag. So here's a handy Meta Tag Analyzer to check yours right now!

Another meta tag you may hear of is the keyword meta tag. Your keyword meta tag is a snippet of HTML code in each page of your website that looks like this:

<meta content="keywords associated with this web page, separated by commas" name="keywords">

Now you may be thinking, "that sounds too easy!". It is, and the keyword meta tag is disregarded by Google and given little weight by Bing and other search engines. Adding a few keywords to your keyword meta tag won't hurt anything, but it probably won't help either.

"The keyword meta tag is disregarded by Google and given little weight by Bing and other search engines. Adding a few keywords to your keyword meta tag won't hurt anything, but it probably won't help either."

There are several other meta tags that can be used on each page of your website, but none of them has much of an impact on SEO, so I won't get into the weeds here.

Instead, let's back to the bookstore! So you've read the descriptions, but they both sound good and you still can't decide which book to buy. What would you do next? How about open the book and flip through the content to see if it looks interesting?

BING-O (no pun intended!). Stay tuned for my next post on Content and Headers! Better yet, subscribe to my blog to get an email when it gets posted!

How to Get 30 Loyal Customers for $150

Just follow these simple steps:

1. Get a pen and paper
2. Write down the names and addresses of your 10 best customers
3. Write down the names and addresses of your 10 newest customers
4. Leave 10 blank spaces for your next 10 customers
5. Go to Starbucks and have a grande mocha-java-nonfat-decaf-fufu-latte
6. While you're there, purchase 30 $5 gift cards
7. Send a hand written thank you note and a gift card to each of the 30 customers from your list above

Here is a great example:

We just got the above note and gift card in the mail yesterday. My wife recenlty ordered some photo packaging supplies from a new supplier called Tyndell Photographic. We didn't have any particular reason to change suppliers. We weren't unhappy with our old supplier, and their prices were about the same. We were just trying something new. Tyndell followed up with the thank you card above.

Who do you think we'll order our supplies from next time?

Is Your Blog Better Than Your Website?

I have spent the past several years investing both time and money in SEO and marketing for the website of our destination wedding planning company, and I always saw our blog as a redheaded stepchild that existed for the sole purpose of driving traffic to our website (where we make money). I suspect many entrepreneurs make the same mistake.

But in the last few months, I've had sort of a slow-burn epiphany, and realized that a company's blog is at least as important as it's website, if not more so. So I've spent the past few weeks updating and upgrading my blogs.

Which do you think is better?

Blog / Website

• Simple Weddings Blog vs Simple Weddings Website
• Tampa Bay Search Blog (this site) vs Tampa Bay Search Website

How do yours stack up?

Monday Morning Quote: The Other Eight Hours

"Want to lose weight? Start a business? Earn a degree? You succeed or fail at these things not in your sleep or at your job, but in your spare time."

This quote from an article by Mike Zimmerman in this month's issue of Men's Health really jumped out at me. It refers to the book The Other Eight Hours by Robert Pagliarini. The book posits that you spend about 8 hours per day sleeping, and about 8 hours per day working. It's what you do in the other 8 hours that sets you apart:

Sunday Funny

From Charlos Gary via the Denver Post via Seth Godin:

If I Only Had $30 to Spend on SEO...

Well that changes things entirely. In that case I'd borrow $10 and spend it all on Ninja SEO School!

(seriously)

What would you spend it on?


Jeff

If I Only Had $15 to Spend on SEO...

I'd borrow $5 and spend the entire $20 on SEO for Dummies by Peter Kent!
(Actual advice I shared with a potential client via email today)

What would you spend it on?

Jeff

The Power of the Dare

I dare you to click on this link:

Link to mysterious undisclosed web page which you now can't resist clicking on because I dared you to.

I double-dog dare you with a cherry on top. Go on, do it. What are you waiting for? I dare you.


For those of you who clicked the link and checked out Naomi's blog (and don't think you can just lie about it, I have analytics and heatmap tracking!), welcome back. As you noticed, her post was about the power of what she calls brand conscious words. I found it interesting, and I thought you might too.

(I also know that Naomi watches her analytics data like Rain Man watches Wapner, so I'm hoping when she sees a few click-throughs, she'll check out my blog and maybe give me a link or a mention or a tweet or a thank you card, any of which would be a big deal to my infantile blog!)

But I digress...back to the matter at hand:

1. Did you click on the link? If so, why? If not, why not? (leave your answer in a comment)
2. What could you dare/challenge/battle/duel your customers, or better yet your employees, to do that might help your small business grow?

What the Heck is SEO? Series Post 2: Title Tags

Welcome to the second post in my What the Heck is SEO? series on Search Engine Optimization for small businesses. You’ve probably never asked anyone “How’s your meta data?”, but I assure you that you will after reading these next few posts!

In my kick-off post titled “What the Heck is SEO?”, we talked about the definition of Search Engine Optimization, search engine market share, the difference between Push and Pull Marketing, and the critical importance of ranking well in the search results on Google and Bing.

This week, we’re going to roll up our sleeves, pop the hood, and start tuning up your website!

Search engines like Google and Bing work by “crawling” the internet with programs called bots or spiders that read the content of a website, taking a snapshot of each page of the site (called indexing or caching), and saving it in an index (a giant database of websites) each time the site changes. Then when you search for something, the search engine compares your search term to the sites in its index, decides which web pages are the best match, and ranks them in its search results.

The actual algorithms used by search engines to make these decisions are closely guarded trade secrets. But search engines publish their standards and guidelines, and search engine optimization professionals are able to make judgments and infer certain factors using these guidelines and good old-fashioned trial and error.

The purpose of this series isn’t to get into the nuts and bolts of how search engines work; it’s to help you improve your website using language and concepts that are easy to understand. So, close your eyes and imagine for a second that you’re going on a business trip...

You’re in the airport waiting to board your flight, and you just realized you didn’t bring anything to read! You wander into the airport bookstore and start browsing for a book to read. You find the section you want, cock your head to the side, and do what?

You read the titles, of course!

Guess what? Google and Bing do the exact same thing! The first place Google and Bing look when trying to determine what a page on your website is about is the Title Tag! The title tag is a snippet of HTML code in each page of your website that looks like this: <title>Title of This Web Page</title>

The title tag is only visible in the header of your browser when you are viewing a particular page, so it is often overlooked by small business owners and web developers when designing their site.

"The first place Google and Bing look when trying to determine what a page on your website is about is the Title Tag!"

The other place your title tag is visible is in search engine results - it becomes the blue hyperlinked text for each search result listed.

So now that you understand the importance of your title tags, what do yours say? If you have never given them any thought or you use a template based website, chances are they say “Home” or “Welcome”, or some other generic term. Obviously, your website has absolutely nothing to do with “Home” or “Welcome”, yet this is the number one mistake that small business owners make when designing their own websites! These generic title tags are just wasted space.

"Generic title tags are the number one mistake small business owners make when designing their own websites!"

Good title tags should reflect two things: 1) What your business does, and 2) Where you are located. They should be concise (no more than 60 characters) and get straight to the point. Here are a few good examples:

• Tampa Wedding Photography by Suzy Brown
• Wedding Cakes in St Petersburg, Florida
• Joe's Plumbing in Clearwater, FL

And keep in mind that each page of your site has its own title tag, so if you have one page about wedding cakes, and another page on your website about cake toppers, make sure the titles reflect this!

"Remember each page of your site has its own title tag!"

So, now that you’re armed with this knowledge of the force, get to work on those title tags (and keep in mind it can take Google and Bing anywhere from a few days to a few weeks to update your site in their index).

Now back to our story in the airport bookstore. You’ve narrowed it down to two books that look promising based on their titles. How do you decide which one to buy and which one goes back on the shelf?

Find out in my next post in this series post on Description Meta Tags, and subscribe to my blog to make sure you don't miss any of the awesomeness!

What the Heck is SEO?

Welcome to my first post in a series on Search Engine Optimization for small business owners.

There is a lot of confusion over Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, and there are a lot of shady characters, spammers, and telemarketers in the SEO business. Unfortunately, this has resulted in many small business owners being skeptical and tuning out as soon as they hear the term “SEO”. This is a shame, and a crucial mistake from a business and marketing standpoint.

Think about it – Who are today’s consumers? Baby Boomers have completely embraced the internet and email, and are heavy users of search engines, and many younger consumers have never walked across the living room to turn the “knob” on a television set, have had a computer with internet access in their household for as long and they can remember, and have never touched the Yellow Pages. Thus, the first place today’s (and increasingly, tomorrow’s) consumers go when shopping around for a small business is an internet search engine.

Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is the process of planning (for a new website) or revising (for an existing website), a website’s structure and content so that it adheres to the guidelines expected of the major search engines and ranks well in their search results for a particular set of search queries or “keyword phrases”. Nothing more, nothing less.

Now that we’ve clarified that, it bears mentioning just who the major search engines are. In a word, Google! Google currently enjoys about a 70% market share of online searches in the United States. Google’s only real competition is Microsoft, who recently acquired the Yahoo! search engine and is in the process of merging Yahoo! with its own search engine, known as Bing (formerly MSN Live Search). Bing (when combined with Yahoo!) now boasts a 25% market share. All other search portals (AOL, Lycos, Ask.com, etc.) have a market share in the single digits, and many serve search results that are actually from Google or Bing. Thus they really aren’t a factor when it comes to SEO.

“You really only have to worry about Google and Bing!”

So the good news is you really only have to worry about Google and Bing! Furthermore, Google and Bing tend to serve fairly similar search results, so if your site is well optimized for Google, chances are it will also rank well in Bing, and vice versa.

Being ranked highly in the search results on Google and/or Bing is one of the most powerful marketing tools available to today’s small business owners. And here’s why: Almost every other form of advertising in the world is based on what I call “Push Marketing”. In other words, you “push” your message in front of a potential customer’s eyes. Whether it’s an ad in a magazine or newspaper, a brochure or business card, or a billboard or sign, the effect is the same; The customer is usually not seeking your product or services at that
particular moment, so they are much less receptive to your message and subconsciously resent having it “pushed” on them.

"Being ranked highly in the search results on Google or Bing is one of the most powerful marketing tools available to today’s small business owners."

Search engines turn this process around 180 degrees, and use what I call “Pull Marketing” – the customer is actively searching for your product or service and is trying to “pull” your message in front of their eyes. And once they find what they’re looking for, they usually stop searching and contact the business that seems like the best fit. At that point, all of the more traditional marketing techniques apply. You have to answer the phone when it rings and be responsive and professional in e-mail messages, and you have to have a high quality product or service in order to complete the sale. But the search engine did its job and delivered the customer to your door, telephone, or inbox!

But how do you make sure your message is the one that the customer pulls?

Most people are surprised when I explain to them that Google and Bing want your site to be on the first page of their search results. Why is that? Because Google and Bing must return relevant search results in order to keep users coming back to their search engines.

"Google and Bing want your site to be on the first page of their search results!"

Let’s say your website is about Tampa Wedding Photography (and you are in fact a wedding photographer in Tampa). If I go to Google or Bing and search for “Tampa Wedding Photographer” and your site is not there, then Google and Bing have failed!

However, if I search for “Tampa Wedding Photographer” and your site is one of the top results, and I click through to your site and find exactly what I was looking for, we all win! I’m happy because I found what I needed, you’re happy because a potential new customer found your website, and Google and Bing are happy because next time I need to search for something online, I’m more likely to return to their search engine. That’s how it’s supposed to work.

But how do you let Google and Bing know that your site is about Wedding Photography in Tampa or Plumbers in Clearwater? That is exactly what this series of blog posts will teach you!

The remainder of this series will focus on teaching you what the search engines are looking for and how to optimize your website to rank on the first page of Google and Bing. Subscribe to my blog to make sure you don’t miss my next post about Title Tags!

How to Grow Your Blog by by Guest Posting

You might have heard of blogging guru and consultant Chris Garrett. He wrote the Problogger book with Darren Rowse.

Well he has a new ebook out that tells you everything you need to know to get quality authority links and a boost in traffic, all through a quick and easy approach to guest blogging. I highly recommend both the practice of guest blogging and the ebook (which I paid $17 for and thought was worth every penny). It details the process and reasons for guest blogging in step by step, easy-to-read language.

Right now he is offering it for a low introductory price of only $17. The price has already increased twice, and is sure to go up again as the content increases and reviews and testimonials start to pour in, so make sure you grab your copy and check out all the bonuses fast!

Check it out here.