Do You Really Need an SEO Expert for your Local Business Website?

This article aims to provide valuable information that will help small business owners to leverage the benefits of launching their business online. Is it really easy for them to handle their business and online stuff together? Well… I would say it’s not that easy, though it’s not that much harder as well!

Starting a local business and expecting local customers from offline marketing techniques like word of mouth publicity, local daily ads and other offline stuff is understandable but running your business online and targeting customers and sales on the web is another thing and it requires special tactics. I am going to explain some of those tactics in this article that will give you immense knowledge, confidence and determination to get started with your business online.

Steps to put your business online:

1. The foremost step is to have a neat and clean website depicting your business specifications and services. Many a times I have seen people giving not much preference to the design of the website and that results in a shady image online. You can easily find information regarding how to create a website on Google. I would suggest that you hire a web designer to do that task for you. Just book a nice domain name for your website and book a hosting space from a credible hosting provider. This is a simple and common thing which many small business owners do not tend to focus on – so make sure you get your basics right.
2. Once your website is ready online, let’s get started with local SEO or in other words, local promotion within and nearby your area. To begin with, create an account on Google Places to list your business online. You can visit www.google.com/places and sign in with your Gmail account details.
3. Once you are on the listing page, you will need to enter information like company name, address, website URL, phone numbers and other things. Make sure you enter all the information correctly. Google will then verify your information through a telephone call before creating map listing of your company. This process may take couple of weeks. You can also do a basic yahoo directory listing as per your category and geographic location.
   
4. Once placement of your business on Google Places is done, it is your job to encourage your current customers to take out some time to visit your Google Places profile and provide honest reviews about your products and services. A Google Places account with customer reviews stands ahead of your competitors and also instills a sense of credibility and reliability in new potential customers.
5. The next step is to collate a list of local business websites wherein you can enter your company details. Some useful local business websites can be Yellow Pages, Craigslist, Super Pages, Insider Pages, and others. These websites will help spread your company’s presence online. Make sure you are mentioning your company address and phone numbers in all these local websites so that the potential customer can easily contact or reach you.
6. You should keep your website up-to-date with all the information you want to pass on to your customers. Outdated websites tend to get lost in the overcrowded online marketplace.
7. Do not forget to make your presence social through social media websites, as they prove to be a real destination to get targeted customers for your products or services. I would say this is the perfect platform to show the USP of your company and the products you offer. You can create your company pages on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter and other social networking websites and showcase your products and special festive deals, if any. Doing regular updates of your social accounts with special deals will attract hoards of people to like your page and to become your ultimate customers.
8. If you have a product-based business, then you can tie up with other e-commerce websites to list your products as such e-commerce or shopping websites have gigantic traffic that gives you a good chance to reap good amount product sales. This will further help in generating company awareness among the populace.
9. You can also leverage classified ad websites like eBay, Craigslist and others to sell your products. It may require more time than you expected to create and maintain these accounts and that could become a problem for you. Later on, you’ll be able to afford a dedicated person who will do the marketing for you through classified ad websites.

I do not think that the above mentioned points require much money and time to give a real boost to your online business. I haven’t mentioned any technicalities whatsoever such as On-Site Optimization, Search Engine Optimization, Paid Advertising and so on. Google can make things happen in two ways – simple way or the technical way!

Let’s first get started with the simple way and when you will get time and money for the resources, you can always go for the technical method.

Source : - http://www.searchenginejournal.com/do-you-really-need-an-seo-expert-for-your-local-business-website/60432/

How To Write Good Quality Content, Stay In Peace With People And Search Engines

Good quality blog content is the backbone of your online business. We all should have probably learned this lesson by now; especially after either getting slapped or watching our friends get slapped by the search God, Google.

Not just for Google, but the only way to please people and search engines is to have good quality blog content. It is the only way to tie both the ends.  Not keyword stuffing, not copy pasting posts from popular blogs and not building thousands of links to your 300 word rehashed (or spun) content  None of these will either please the search engines or people.
Well, I hope you get the idea of “why” good quality content matters a lot these days. Now let’s get to the “how” part, which is indeed the actionable part and also needed the most. Let’s dive straight in.
Decide the “point”

Every blog post or any form of content you create should have a “point” or a “message” in it. If not, why publish it? Make sure you start with the message when you conceive an idea for a blog post.
The moment you conceive the idea for a blog post, you should be clear (to yourself) about the end point or the message of that idea. Ask yourself this question: “What is the ultimate thing I want to tell people via this blog post?”

If you can answer that question, you can start writing the post; else you need to wait until you find a proper hook or a point for that post. All search engines (yes, not just Google, but all search engines) want to offer a great user experience to their users; after all it is their business. If your content helps the search engines deliver that, you’ll be golden from them.

And think about people. If they click through your blog post from a searchresult and leave with a great message you’ll be golden to them as well. Simple, right? It’s not rocket science.

Perform keyword research
I know what you’re thinking. You think that I’m going to tell you a shortcut or a black hat secret to find money making keywords and stuff them into your content so that you can enjoy traffic and money.
Not even close. With all the nasty smell of spam around the internet, “keyword research” is a word that has translated into “spam” for most people.  But it isn’t. Keyword research is a very important part of creating awesome content to please BOTH people and search engines.
Why? Because keyword research will help you find out the following:

(i) What keyword phrases are mostly searched by people – if you look into the global or local monthly search volumes, you can find what people are hungrily looking for. What is the use of finding those keywords? Those keywords are the “language” people use to find what they want. Those are the search terms they put into the search boxes if they are desperately looking for an answer.
(ii) What keyword phrases are hot – again, the global or local search volume will tell you which keywords are most sought after or most popular. This way you will not only be able to address people’s problems but also make it nice for the search engines by writing on popular topics.
(iii) What keyword phrases are profitable – okay this is not directly related to the purpose of our post, but still profitable keywords could mean (i) and, you know, some more…. money ;)

Write the post with clarity
This is where most bloggers fall short of. Even when you pick up the very best topic to write on, if you cannot keep your visitors on your page for long this will send a bad signal to the search engines. Do you know about (or remember) the metric called “bounce rate”? It actually measures how many people jump off your site without staying for more page views (in percentage).  If your post misses the point or is totally off the the track, then your readers will surely jump off as soon as possible.
Don’t beat around the bush thinking that you need 700 or 1000 words for a successful blog post.  It’s not about the words. It’s about the point or the message you’re delivering. Nobody is conducting a contest here. So don’t compete with your competitors in words.  Let your posts clearly get the message out in as many words it needs. Do not either restrict yourself in words or beat around the bush.And, more importantly, don’t be boring! And, don’t be annoying either.

Takeaway

Remember, the more interesting and search engine friendly you are, the easier it will be for you to:
(i) be visible in search results, and
(ii) keep your visitors longer in your site.
And, (ii) is not only to please people but it is also a good metric in the eyes of the search engines.

Source: - http://www.searchenginejournal.com/how-to-write-good-quality-content-stay-in-peace-with-people-and-search-engines/60307/

Google Penguin Tightens the Noose on Manipulative Link Profiles

Portent, a Seattle-based Internet marketing agency, has released a report offering new insight into Google’s Penguin algorithm. The report, based on primary data gathered by the agency, suggested that Google has been “applying a stricter standard over time.”

In part, the report reads:

In the initial Penguin update, the only sites we saw penalized had link profiles comprised of more than 80 percent manipulative links. Within two months, Google lowered the bar to 65 percent. Then in October 2012, the net got much wider. Google began automatically and manually penalizing sites with 50 percent manipulative links.

Although the report refers to Penguin a penalty, Penguin isn't a penalty. A penalty is a manual action taken against a site.
Yes, the Penguin update has demoted the rankings of sites, but as Google's Distinguished Engineer Matt Cutts has explained, Penguin is an algorithmic change, not a penalty. We explain this more in "Google Penalty or Algorithm Change: Dealing With Lost Traffic."
If Portent's findings are correct, then Google is likely becoming more confident with the accuracy of its Penguin algorithm in terms of minimizing false positives.
What does this mean for webmasters and SEO professionals? Continue to diligently clean up your inbound link profile.
Identify bad inbound links, then remove them or disavow them. Google’s next iteration of Penguin could lower the tolerance level for spammy inbound links even further; this might even be what Matt Cutts was referring to when he stated at this year’s SXSW that the next Penguin release would be significant and one of the more talked about Google algorithm updates this year.

Source : - http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2257040/Google-Penguin-Tightens-the-Noose-on-Manipulative-Link-Profiles-Report