Where To Start With Small Business Internet Marketing

One of the first questions we often get from our workshop members is “Where Do I Start”? While each answer differs based on their business (which we are able to help out with for members) we generally push them in this direction…

1. Define your goals (sales, leads, etc)
2. Create a hub with WordPress
3. Design a landing page based on your goals
4. Start with search advertising

Why search advertising over social media, email marketing, etc? Honestly, it has the best ROI and least amount of time to implement and manage… Granted – we think community building and other internet marketing efforts are must-haves. But if you are looking to do one form of internet marketing to start, search advertising is our recommendation.

A recent study from Advertise.com and SEMPO concurs saying search advertising provides the highest ROI. Their findings…

The forms of online advertising which provide the best ROI include:

• Search – 70.7 percent
• Cost-per-action (CPA) – 14.6 percent
• Email – 6.1 percent
• Social – 3.7 percent
• Other – 2.4 percent

The only drawback to this form of internet marketing is the cost associated – it’s not free like social media. But in a world where time is as big of currency as money we still think search advertising is your best bet to get immersed in internet marketing for your small business.

Low time investment + higher ROI = win

Have a question? Jump into the forums or leave us a comment!

The Long Tail Of Search Keywords Visualized

These charts from SEOMoz are based on research from Bill Tancer of Hitwise called “Sizing Up The Long Tail Of Search”. The basic idea is that the long tail of search generates exponentially more traffic than the most popular keyword phrases out there. From Bill’s research…

• Top 100 terms: 5.7% of the all search traffic
• Top 500 terms: 8.9% of the all search traffic
• Top 1,000 terms: 10.6% of the all search traffic
• Top 10,000 terms: 18.5% of the all search traffic

This means if you had a monopoly over the top 1,000 search terms across all search engines (which is impossible), you’d still be missing out on 89.4% of all search traffic. There’s so much traffic in the tail it is hard to even comprehend. To illustrate, if search were represented by a tiny lizard with a one-inch head, the tail of that lizard would stretch for 221 miles.

Does that make sense? The basic idea is that more people search for obscure, multi-keyword phrases than they do popular keywords. This has a lot to do with search users becoming smarter over the years to where most people search by phrase rather than by keyword – because they’ve been trained this behavior narrows results.

What does this mean for your business? Well you should start targeting long phrase, long tail keywords in both your content and SEO strategies. Using this method you can target multiple long tail keywords and still have a better chance at generating more traffic than optimizing for a single, popular keyword.

Here’s an example… A couple weeks ago I was talking to my good friend TJ about optimizing his e-commerice site RIPTApparel (cool t-shirts by the way). We were discussing keyword targeting. My advice was to quit targeting the keyword “t-shirt” and start targeting long tail, multiple word keywords such as “cool graphic tees” and “limited edition t-shirts”. Not only do you increase your chances of being found by targeting the long tail – there is much less competition for those terms in both organic and paid search results.

So if you find that you aren’t “being found” online, try some long tail and localized keyword targeting to increase your chances… Look at the keywords coming through in your web analytics to see what long tail keywords people are using to find you and start optimizing for those. And if you have any questions at all on targeting keywords – jump into the forums and ask away!

Charts via SEOmoz | Illustrating the Long Tail.

Products In Ads – Google Integrates Shopping With AdWords

Google integrates product listings for featured advertisers in Google AdWords

Click Images To Enlarge

What Does The Yahoo and Microsoft Partnership Mean For Your Web Strategy?

As you have probably heard about 100 times – Microsoft and Yahoo have partnered on 10 year search deal making Bing the primary technology behind Yahoo’s search engine.

What this means is Bing’s market share just jumped from around 8% to around 30% – which means you need to pay attention to this. Ironically the day before this announcement we posted two Bing related optimization posts:

Bing SEO Tips

Bing Website Optimization Guide

We were just as irritated as you with this announcement because it adds another item on our plate to optimize and analyze – but the results will be worth it. Here are some other posts from around the web that you can use to understand what this partnership means to you.

SEOMoz – Top 10 Things the Microsoft/Yahoo! Deal Changes for SEO
#1 – SEO for Bing is Worth Your Optimization Effort
#4 – Bing’s Webmaster Tools Are Important
#5 – Yahoo! & Bing Local Become More Essential
#7 – Bing Will Get Lots more Data

SearchEngineLand – What Site Owners, Web Developers, And SEOs Should Know About the Yahoo/Microsoft Deal

The big question is will this partnership significantly change market share percentages? Depending on whose numbers you use, Google has either 65% or 74% share in the US (more in some European countries). That puts the combined Yahoo/Microsoft share at 28% or 25.5%. That’s substantial traffic, sure, and worth paying attention to

Do you have any questions about this partnership? Let us know in the comments!

[image via SEOMoz]

Keywords

Keywords are a list of words and phrases that helps search engines index your website. Targeted, relevant keywords are key in a successful Search Engine Marketing campaign.

Google SEO Starter Guide

Google recently released their SEO Starter Guide, which is a great introduction into Search Engine Optimization tactics straight from the horse’s mouth.

From Google’s official announcement:

“Our Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide covers around a dozen common areas that webmasters might consider optimizing.”

Google SEO Starter Guide Tips

1. Create Unique, Accurate Page Titles
2. Make use of the “Description” Meta Tag
3. Improve the structure of your URLs
4. Make your site easy to navigate
5. Offer quality content
6. Write better “Anchor” text
7. Use “Heading Tags” appropriately
8. Optimize your use of images
9. Effectively use your “Robots.txt” file
10. Promote your website in the right ways
11. Use free webmaster tools
12. Use free web analytics

I know – that’s a lot. We are here to help though! Stay Tuned!

Download (PDF)

Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is the strategy of combining your Search Advertising and SEO efforts to achieve a high level of visibility in search engines for your targeted, relevant keywords.

See Also: Search Engine Optimization, Keywords

Web Search Strategies – In Plain English

Becoming a good “searcher” is key to being productive on the web. Whether you are doing research or trying to find a new vendor – it’s easy to get swallowed by the vastness that is Google search results. These techniques will shine some light on a productivity secret that we web gurus have coveted for years – the art of actually finding something on Google.

The other advantage to becoming a good “searcher” is that it helps you to understand how search engines work. Since SEO and Search Engine Marketing are such a huge part of an effective web strategy – knowing how to search will shed light on how you can optimize your site for the keywords that you are targeting.

via CommonCraft

Search Engine Optmization (SEO)

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the art of increasing a website’s visibility in search engine rankings by using various tactics including relevant keyword targeting. SEO is a cornerstone of an effective web strategy as it increases your “findability” on the web.

See Also: Search Engine Marketing, Keywords

Resources:

• Beginner’s Checklist for Learning SEO
• SEO Training
• SEO Tools
• Official Google SEO Starter Guide (PDF)