Crown Point Design Blog » SEO

SEO is only 1 Component of Internet Marketing Success

CPDScott — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 00:41:54 +0000

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is one of the big buzz words in internet marketing, but the truth is that SEO is only one component of creating a successful web presence. Yes, search engines like Google are the most common tool that people use to try to find a business and showing up on the front page of organic searches is very important. Does this mean that you should spend your entire marketing budget, time, and energy toward SEO? NOOOOO! Here is why…

There are multiple resources available on the internet to drive users to your website. Social networking sites are now becoming very mature and offer even more capabilities than their early years. Sites like Yelp, Kudzu, StumbleUpon, and Delicious encourage user interaction which makes for a great user experience. Being involved in a community based site has more value than a paid advertisement, because you can let your clients advertise for you and often times these services are free.

When you search for your company on a search engine how many results do you show up in? A successful internet marketing plan will have your company listed in multiple resources making you look like an established and professional business.

Other components of a successful internet marketing strategy include email marketing, blogging, and search engine marketing (also referred to as SEM, PPC, or CCP advertising). Utilizing multiple resources is the best strategy for gaining users from across the web. Simultaneously, while taking advantage of these tools you will in turn be helping your search engine rankings by increasing you inbound link activity and establishing a better web presence.

When designing your website, it is vital to take advantage of white-hat search engine optmization – SEO – best practices, but don’t overlook these other areas or think your job is done once the on-page SEO components are taken care of. SEO is only the beginning of how you can achieve internet marketing success.

You Don’t Need SEO You Need Internet Marketing

CPDScott — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 07:30:51 +0000

Many small businesses with a new or small web presence get stuck in the trap that investing in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) will solve their web problems and drive traffic. As a search engine optimizer I can say that is not the case. Small businesses are better off investing in an Internet Marketing strategy that incorporates many aspects of web related marketing.

If you have a new website launched on a new domain and you are in a competitive industry, it is going to take a long time to gain competitive search rankings. Likewise if your website is small (5-15 pages) and is rarely updated with fresh content, you are going to have a hard time gaining results overnight.

Internet Marketing strategies are unique to every business. Here are some of the components to how an internet marketing strategy may improve your web presence:

Email Marketing
Providing your prospect and customer databases with information is a great way to stay on their radar screen. Your email campaigns should be filled with helpful content and not loaded with sales pitches on your company, product, or service. Providing free information goes a long way. With that said, combining special offers and promotions are a great addition to your email marketing.

Search Engine Optimization
SEO is not an area that you should poor your entire budget, but certainly an aspect of your overall strategy. SEO is a long-run approach to increasing your web traffic overtime. Take care of the essential aspects of SEO early on and then continuously improve your web content.

Social Networking
Having a presence on LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter is critical in today’s online environment. Many of these platforms are free and are a great way to make noise and reach customers outside of your own website.

Blogging
Find the places online that your target market visiting on a regular basis. Locate blogs that get high traffic already and contribute content to them. Providing links to your website on industry related blog posts is also excellent for SEO.

Paid Advertising
Google Adwords, Yahoo Search, and other online forms of advertisement will drive traffic to your site in the short term. Create a strategy around this that will work with your overall budget.

These components and others are what will help make a successful Internet Marketing strategy. If you are a small business, don’t get married into an SEO plan that won’t result in short term gains for your business.

San Diego based Crown Point Design (CPD) can help you develop an internet marketing strategy. For more information call (858) 352-6292.

5 Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Techniques Tutorial

CPDScott — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 20:39:14 +0000

This tutorial outlines 5 simple On-Page SEO strategies. Anyone that has experience surfing the web should have an understanging of the topics covered.

sitemap.html Vs. Sitemap.xml

CPDScott — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 05:56:30 +0000

There are two types of sitemaps that you can create to help search engines crawl your website. The first is an HTML file labeled sitemap.html. This file provides the links to all the pages within your website in a simple list fashion and usually categorized. They HTML file helps search engines figure out how all the pages on your site are linked together so that it does not miss anything as it crawls your site. This is also helpful to users who may be looking for a page in a paticular category or section of your website. The sitemap.html file should be linked from the most important areas of your website (usually the home page).

The second type of sitemap is the XML file refered to as the Sitemap (capital S) and labeled Sitemap.xml in the root of your website. A Sitemap is a list of the pages on your website, but has some other benefits to search engines like Google. You can provide Google with additional informaion about your pages including:

How often pages on your site are updated. (ex. your Products page or News page may be updated daily, while your Contact and About pages are only updated periodically)
Last modified info on each page
The relative importance of each page on your site. (ex. your Home page may have an importance of 1.0, category sections have an importance of 0.8, and blog entry pages have an importance of 0.5) *Note this does not impact the rankings of your pages within search results

Sitemaps allow Google and other search engines to crawl your website faster and more effectively. As you know, we want to keep Google happy:) It is also important to know that sites are never penalized for submitting a Sitemap.

There are also other types of sitemaps for Video, Mobile, News, Code Search, and Geo.

More information can be found on the sitemaps.org website.

Using Video to Improve your SEO

CPDScott — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 18:24:11 +0000

Google recently announced its plans to discontinue the services of Google Video. This comes as no surprise to many as rumors have gone around for a while about Google’s plans to increase the use and relevance of YouTube videos.

: YouTube

Google purchased YouTube in Oct. of 2006 for a lofty $1.65 billion. YouTube is still seeing daily video uploads in record quantities. So how can utilizing YouTube video help your SEO? Because video will become a broader part of Google’s search plans, if optimized correctly, videos that you include on your website may have more visibility in searches than those on YouTube. Here’s how…

Each video that you create in YouTube should have its own landing page on your website. This page should include a title and description. Along with other best practices on your website, these videos will begin to gain traction with Google as they push Youtube videos.

What about videos that are not yours? You can use videos that you have not created but want to display on your website. The same SEO principals apply and you may even see these videos get better placement in searches than the actual YouTube clips.

Video and multi-media are very important for the next generation of the web. But remember, don’t ignore the SEO… Happy Hunting!

3 Tips for SEO: 1) Patience 2) Patience 3) Patience

CPDScott — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 21:52:23 +0000

All companies are competing for the same landscape… to be on the first page of search results. Perhaps you have done everything right and your site follows all the white-hat SEO guidelines. So, why are you still buried in the mix of competitors? The answer may be as simple as patience.

The best strategy for SEO is to consider it a marathon, not a sprint. Google and other search engines work like spiders, crawling your website looking for updated content, relative links, and a flurry of additional best practices. Eventually, if you constantly prove to Google that you are providing up-to-date information and additional resources; you’ll build credibility. As time goes on, search engines recognize your efforts and increase your page rankings.

In addition to best practices, one of the top criteria for increasing your website’s page rank and traffic is by incorporating inbound links from other credible resources. As search engine spiders crawl the web they’ll come across your link and notice where it’s from. The spiders then store your site in the bank and continue on their way. Over time, as the spiders find your site in several places, they begin to realize that it must be pretty important and therefore increase your page rank. The underlying theme here; however, still is patience.

Another criteria for page rank is the tenure of your website. Google, as well as other search engines, recognize a website’s longevity. Simply put, the longer your site has been up… the more credibility it gets. This is a major advantage to companies that have had a longer web presence. Additionally, search engines reward companies that have invested for the long haul by registering their domain names for extended periods of time. Instead of spending $5.99 per year on your web domain; why not spend an extra 10 bucks and have it registered for five years? Coughing up the extra money will help your SEO!

All SEO techniques and strategies share a common theme, ‘patience is a virtue.’ Invest in your website SEO now to build web traffic for the future!