SEO – Page 4

Increasing Blog Traffic Through Comments

How To Blog, How to Use Twitter, Online Consulting, SEO, Social Media Advisors, WordPress Tutorials

We all know that one great way to increase traffic into your site is to visit other people’s sites and leave valuable comments on specific topics. Leaving those comments shows that you care about whatever the topic might be, or you are able to share your knowledge answering a question that someone posed in a blog post. The other benefit is that some will allow you to get a backlink to your site which can help with the SEO end of things on your site.

So how can you find new blogs that are sharing information that will be helpful to your business or be great to connect with? One way I like is using Google Blog Search. I can quickly type in any subject I care to read about & find some of the most recent posts on that topic. Here is a brief video that will show you just how easy it is to find plenty of great blog content to read as well as some really awesome bloggers to connect with:

So get searching for other blogs and start connecting today. The power of these types of connections can be great for your business while also being a wonderful source of knowledge. The best part of this technique is that it only costs a little bit of time and energy to accomplish which is wonderful if you are optimizing a blog on a budget. I know when I started into social media a few years back I would start each morning by reading anywhere from 1-2 hours other people’s content. I would make a dedicated effort to leave valuable comments that would encourage the writer to want to connect with me.

After doing this for just over 6 months I had over 400 people subscribed into my old blog with great amounts of traffic coming daily from those subscribers. In addition, the posts were averaging around 20-30 comments. These people were not just finding me in the search engines, but they were mainly coming from the comments I left on their site.

Engaging the writer and other commenters

This part can be rather difficult at times. You have to be creative in thinking of ways to get the original writer of the blog as well as those who are commenting on the post to want to first read your comment and then secondly want to either reply to you or visit your site. This is a very delicate line to walk. If you go overboard in your comment, you might offend the originator of the post. One thing I would never do is leave a link in a comment, unless the writer asks specifically for that. If you think you have something that could help, send them a quick email with the link. Adding a link is widely recognized by most bloggers as a non accepted practice as well as highly discouraged. The writer has worked hard to get a reader to their site and they don’t appreciate someone trying to push them away to another site.

You also want to keep from sounding like a giant sales pitch. The minute someone feels that, they will automatically categorize you as a spammer which could result in being banned from a site completely. The final thing you want to skip are canned generic responses like: “Great post I really enjoyed it and look forward to future posts of yours.” This shows lack of interest and that you are only there to hopefully get exposure for you and your blog.

So what should you do? Start by adding value to the conversation. This might mean that you need to spend some time reading through all the comments before posting yours. If you can either answer a question, or supply additional information on a topic the commenters and writer will pay attention to you. The most effective thing you can do when commenting is to leave a genuine caring response that shows a level of interest on the subject. When you read about someone’s question about what is the best Twitter Application for a Blackberry and you can share what app you are using, they are more likely to come over to your blog and read your post on Twitter Applications.

So give Google Blog Search a try and start connecting with great blog posts on just about any subject you wish! And let me know in the comments below what you are searching for!

Increase Blog Traffic Through Organic Search Engine Results Webinar August 9th, 2010

How To Blog, SEO, Social Media Advisors

Increasing blog traffic through organic search engine results is one of our most popular classes that we teach here at 210 Consulting. The reason this is subject is so popular is that many understand the importance of their blogs showing up well in the search engines, but are not exactly sure what it takes to accomplish this. As I have shared in the past, businesses who blog receive 55% more online business than those who do not according to Hubspot.

I’ve also shared a few basic principles to increasing blog traffic like the importance of writing consistently, labeling your photos properly, and even how to optimize a blog on a budget. These are some great starting points on how to increase the traffic to your blog, but in order to really optimize things, there are a few basic principles & concepts that need to be used each time you write a blog. This webinar on August 9th, 2010 at 1PM will walk you through step by step on how to write the best possible posts for search engines.

In addition to teaching you how to optimize things, we will also teach you how to write posts that are appealing to consumers. Many times people get focused on SEO that they forget about the importance of writing something that is of interest to a consumer who is visiting the blog. You only have one chance to wow that potential reader and if what you write isn’t interesting, then they will move on to find the information they need from somewhere else.

We will teach you how to make your posts visually appealing as well as share several ideas for writing that can help you generate virtually an unlimited number of blog posts.

At the end of this course you will know:

How to write a successful blog post that consumers will read
How to get your blog posts showing up well in the search engines
How to garner traffic into your blog by sharing on other social networks.

This 2 hour session is a must for anyone who is new to blogging, or to anyone that feels they are not optimizing their efforts with their blog at this time. The cost for this course is $50. In addition to the live webinar class, you will also receive a copy of the presentation after with a copy of a recording of this class for review whenever you need a refresher. If you are interested in this class but are unable to attend, feel free to contact us to purchase a recording.

Online Ticketing for Increasing Blog Traffic through Organic Search Engine Results powered by Eventbrite

You Don’t Order Steak at a Seafood Restaurant, So Why Buy a Website From Postcard Companies?

Custom WordPress Sites, Online Consulting, SEO, Social Media Advisors

One of the things that we at 210 Consulting love doing is helping new businesses get their online marketing started in the right direction. Unfortunately unless you are always working in the web development, SEO, and online marketing industry, it can be overwhelming to a new company. Also, since you are just starting your new business, money is usually very tight. So, when you go to purchase business cards, accounting software, or a domain name and they offer to get your site up in running in less than 10 minutes for under $100, you are ecstatic to do so because you can now say you are on the internet.

Usually within 10 minutes of a conversation with a new prospective client I can tell if they have one of these types of sites. Why because they have only 5 pages of content, on a standard layout with zero ability of customization, and the adding of plugins or a blog is impossible! When I ask them why they chose this as their website company, the response every time has been this: “Well, I didn’t have a bunch of money to go buy a fancy site and didn’t want to put that much money into something. Once this site makes me some money I will upgrade. Besides my new site looks pretty and will be fine for my online marketing strategy.”

This is when I finally ask the client, Would you order a steak if you were eating at a superior seafood restaurant? No! Because they aren’t known for their great steaks. They are known for serving some of the best fish on the planet. This same principle holds true when you purchase a website from an online postcard company or an accounting software company.

These types of websites are designed to be simple, easy to set up, quick to activate and are inexpensive. But the limitations they possess are huge. My sister-in-law set up a website the other day for her new business and was very excited when she emailed me a link to look at the site. I pulled it up and called her within 2 minutes to tell her to stop wasting her time and that we needed to do something different. We then made a call to one of my connections that was able to create a WordPress Blogsite for her in just under a weeks time, she hired me to do some graphic design work and for under $1,000 we had her an awesome and amazing new site up and running.

So what made her new site that much better & worth the expense? Here are just some of the big differences:

Unlimited Pages of Content versus only 5- The original page had a total of 5 pages of content available. She had maximized that in her first 10 minutes of setup. She could add more, but there was a fee each time she went to add more pages. On her new WordPress.org blogsite, she can now add unlimited number of pages with pictures, videos, links and more. The reason the number of pages is so important is that it is a big factor in how search engines rank your content. More pages make you look more like an authority on a subject and thus the page goes up in the searches.
Power of Plugins- Plugins and widgets are awesome additions to any site. Unfortunately her template 5 page site did not offer any of this. She could not add simple things like a Facebook share button, or a ReTweet button. With a blogsite like WordPress she has the ability to do all these things and much more that not only make it easier for people to share her site with others, but some that also help her with her Search Engine Optimization.
Online Ordering- The template 5 page site also prohibited the addition of any types of online shopping carts or purchase online buttons. Which as her business continues to grow she wants to start offering these features to her clients so that they can purchase her items online and ship them around the world.
True Ownership of Her Content Forever- Unlike the other company, the information is now on her own site. She owns it and nobody else. She does not need to worry about if they decide to raise the price up. Or if they go out of business, or if they move servers and crash things for weeks at a time. The other nice thing is that she has a home base to direct customers to that only her content & products. The customers will not be finding her competition there. While online forums are great sources of online business, you do run the risk of your customer that found you there clicking a link to your competitor that is on the same platform and losing the business to someone else. The same holds true for those those that “have their website on their company site” which is nothing more than just a profile there that drives traffic to your organization and not you. All it takes is one accidental click on a company site and once again your co-worker is getting the sale instead of you.

These are just four of the many reasons why I said she needed to change her site before even really starting. Luckily, she listened to me & took my advice. We worked together with a web developer and built her an awesome looking & highly search engine optimized blogsite. She then did a few training sessions with me to develop her targeted audience and keywords to write about. Since then she has written a few blog posts, added some great content to her site & seen an explosion of traffic. Without this, she would not have known the first thing about what to write about or what types of things people are searching for. Remember, she wants to bake cakes, not become a online marketing expert.

So what are the results?

Well, take a look for yourself. This was an email conversation I had with her today:

Hey Jeremy,

Just got 3 cake orders today for a word of mouth referral! So far since the website has been up I have actually collected about 450.00! Its quite a bit for cakes and chocolate covered yummies….

My response:

Awesome! So how many cakes have you sold in the first 2 weeks now? 5? 6?

Her Response:

8 actually

a gift basket

and 50 chocolate covered pretzels!

As you can see, she is well on her way to regaining the money she spent on building her website and the beauty is that she will continue to profit from the site for a long time thereafter too! So before you sign up for a website through one of these other companies, stop and ask yourself, Would you order steak at a seafood restaurant? Then why am I buying a website through a postcard company?

If your small business needs assistance getting started with your online marketing plan and would like to see this type of results, feel free to contact me to develop your online marketing gameplan. Also, if the picture above has you interested in some delicious chocolate covered pretzels, make sure you visit Vie Bakery. Lastly, if you are wondering what we suggest for a website, we believe you should go with a custom WordPress Site.

290 Million Photos Labeled IMG- Online Consulting Tips to Optimize Your Photos.

Online Consulting, SEO, Social Media Advisors

Whenever I am doing online consulting with a client, I always like to start with the base of any online marketing plan, the blog. When it comes to the blog, one of the things that so many clients overlook are the details. One detail in particular that gets over looked is the labeling of images. I once wrote a simple post titled: My 4th of July Festivities in Myrtle Beach, SC. What are you doing?!? In the article, I shared a few photos that I took of me cooking some steaks on the grill to celebrate the holiday with the in-laws. For fun, I decided I would label my photos “Best Steaks in Myrtle Beach” Are they the best steaks in Myrtle Beach? I thought they were pretty good and so did my family. However I labeled the photos like this on purpose to prove a point.

In my post, that phrase is used nowhere other than just the labeling of my pictures. I just ran a Google image search and I wasn’t really surprised to find them in the top spaces on Google. I know what many of you are thinking, “Who Cares if your photos rank high in google image search? You are an online consulting company.” Well, if you haven’t paid attention to this before, you may want to now, because there is a tremendous amount of Google Juice involved involved in your image labels. When Google searches your site, they are no longer just looking at the text. They are also reading your images & any text associated with the image to help categorize the web page.

Peter Linsley, a product manager for Google Images did a great video on google images search. He explains why images are important to SEO & also why consumers are using image search. The video gets very technical & geeky, so I will warn you ahead of time. Even though I live this stuff all the time for my online clients that I consult, I didn’t understand it all. Nevertheless, it has a few good points.

Three Reasons to Appeal to Google Image Search for Consumers.

1. Your Blog can get more traffic from properly labeled images than from Twitter & Facebook combined! Yes, I did say that! One of my blogs that I always try to add 2 photos to each post receives twice as much traffic as it does from Twitter & Facebook combined. Whenever I share this with a client I am consulting, they have a hard time believing me. Trust me when I say the first time I saw this stat, it really blew me away and made me go run my analytics again.

2. Images have a very broad exposure. By labeling your photos properly, you are increasing your exposure tremendously. In the example above, if I was searching for the best steaks in Myrtle Beach, I would use the regular Google search, but since I am very much a visual person, and would want to actually see the results instead of just reading about i, I would also look at the images to see actual photos of the steaks.

Before you say it, let me extinguish this complaint: “But this has nothing to do with online consulting, so who cares?” You are correct, this doesn’t have a thing to do with online consulting. But, how many times do you visit a website from Google in search of one thing & end up noticing something else? I always recommend to think with a Walmart Mentality when it comes to your blog. Share more than just your business things. Some personal content can be a good addition. If nothing else, this is extremely important to use when writing posts because it helps to increase your keyword density when writing content.

3. People Search More than Just #1! When someone is doing an image search, they are going to look at more than just #1 on the list. In Fact, many times, they will search through several pages to find the photo that catches their eye. So even if you are not lucky enough to get your photo landed in the #1-5 spots, the importance of labeling the photos is still present because if you have the most visually appealing photo, the consumer will visit your page faster because their eyes will be drawn to your image over another.

290 Million photos Labeled img.

That is right! There are over 290 Million images on Google that have never been labeled properly. That means there is such a huge amount of photographs out there that may be some of the most amazing pieces of art that nobody will ever be able to search. Most blogging platforms make it very easy to label your photos.

Under the Image URL box you will notice the Image Description or Title. You can set these to be whatever you wish. The Image Description/Title is what Google will read & associate with the photo. It is important that you use thought when labeling photos though. Labeling it something funny or silly may not benefit you from a SEO perspective because consumers aren’t going to be searching for that term. But, if you use applicable keywords that consumers are searching, you can really bring additional traffic to your blog.

If you leave these fields empty, both Google & consumers may not know what your pictures mean. Also the search engines cannot find you. Implementing this simple & easy step takes only a few extra seconds while writing your posts, but the benefits from it can be endless. So, if you have been contributing to the 290 million, it is time to stop & contribute some SEO to yourself!

5 Tips to Handling Difficult Phone Calls

SEO, Social Media Advisors

While the days of text messaging & mobile phone apps seem to be at an all time high, some would argue that actual phone skills don’t seem that big anymore. There are now mobile apps for just about anything you could possibly imagine. Everything from restaurant reviews, paying bills, and more can be done on the right types of phones. Even though these new apps & ideas are are streamlining the amount of time we may spend talking on a phone there are still times you will need to speak to an upset customer.

Proper phone skills are crucial to any type of business that exists. It is imperative that you handle angry clients properly when on the phone. If a person becomes displeased while on the phone with you, you just lost their business forever. Plus, they will probably then pick up the phone and call all their close friends to complain as well. You have now not only lost the business of that client, but also their entire sphere of connections.

That being said, here are 5 Tips to Handling Difficult Phone Calls with consumers.

Tip #1

When on the phone with an angry person, let them do the talking. Sometimes they just need to blow off steam and get what has been on their chest for the past week out in the open. If you begin cutting them off you will just increase their anger about the situation.

Tip #2

Don’t Argue! No matter how wrong the person may be, if you begin challenging what they are saying and arguing with them on the phone, you will never make any progress at solving the problem. Instead you will just intensify the situation until they probably hang up on you never to be heard of again.

Tip #3

Show sincerity and concern. I think the age old saying “People don’t care how much you know until the know how much you care” is key to problemsolving. They want you to realize that their problem is a major issue to them and that they don’t just want you telling them what you are gonna do.

Tip #4

Don’t Patronize! Don’t behave towards someone in a way which is kind and friendly but nevertheless shows that you are being condescending. People hate that and can pick up on it almost instantly.

Tip #5

Lead them to the answer. My father tells me constantly that it is not always right to be right. When dealing with difficult people on the phone, if you can lead them to the answer and allow them to discover it on their own, it will make them feel better. You may have to eat a piece of humble pie when they tell you that they figured it out and you didn’t, but at least they will end the call feeling good instead of upset and wanting to end the business relationship. Besides remember, it’s not about you, it’s about them.

I hope these 5 tips help increase your business. If there are other tips you use that work effectively, leave them here!

Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tudor/255272612/