Now, it may not happen a lot, but every so often an Internet entrepreneur comes up with a business idea that is so totally unique that it doesn’t fall into the usual search engine request categories. Particular startups, niche products or other distinctive items you might be promoting may easily make their way to the top of search engine results, but if consumers aren’t looking for them yet, that’s not really going to help, is it? So, what is a marketer to do?

Of course, there are ways to attract consumers that don’t depend on search traffic. Options like writing articles, social media marketing, email blasts, blog posts and so forth, can garner interest in a new product or service without relying on organic search engine requests. However, you shouldn’t give up on gaining traffic through SEO efforts –just realize that you have to be a little crafty about it.

When you’re selecting keywords for your new, unique product or service, try using those that apply to markets that are similar to yours. Although they may not correlate directly to what you’re selling, they’ll get you into search results for things that people are actually searching for and extend your reach to potentially viable consumers. Even if there isn’t already a product on the market that you can hitch your services to, most likely you can find something that is similar enough that you would still be relevant to the folks doing the searching.

In cases when you can’t really find a product or service out there that is similar enough to yours, change your focus and think instead of your target market. What other kinds of things are they searching for? Think of their demographic aspects – age, gender, income, location, etc. – and redirect your efforts toward relatable content that will attract their interest. Once you get their attention, you can then introduce them to your cool, one-of-a-kind product or service that they don’t even know they need … yet.

Don’t be discouraged if your product or service fails to amass a huge search volume. Think outside of the search engine box and use that clever brain of yours to come up with marketing ideas that are just as unique as your super awesome product.

You may recall our September 14th post on the launch of Google Instant, Google’s advanced search engine that returns search results with each letter you type, and our follow up post a month after its launch on how it had improved the likelihood of businesses connecting with their ideal clients. Well, it’s been another month and courtesy of the Google geniuses, we’ve got another update: Instant Previews.


Instant Previews is shaking up the SEO world once again as the concept of web design comes back into focus. Because Instant Previews allows Google users to get a sneak peek at the websites in their search results, now not only can they opt to skip or visit your site based on the value of your title and description, they can check out your design before they ever click your link.


Now, some may argue that content is key and that when it comes to a website’s value, design is secondary, and that’s ultimately true. (Clichés like “lipstick on a pig” come to mind.) However, people like pretty. Whether we want to admit it or not, we’ve all got a little magpie in us and we’re drawn to shiny, attractive things – and so are your clients and potential customers.


Think about it; corporations devote entire departments to creating, updating and maintaining their websites with a team specifically focused on making sure they’re attractive and user-friendly. Why? Because: design is important.


The thing is, when your ideal client does a search for your products or services, your competition comes up in the list of results with you. Thanks to Google Instant Previews, the deciding factor in which link they choose may very well be the design, especially if your site’s content is comparable in value to the others. It’s definitely something to think about. By the way, since the previews shown are not necessarily of the homepage, every page on your site needs to be taken into consideration. <br>

As always, Google has been hard at work trying to improve user experience and reduce the time it takes to complete a search inquiry. This time their efforts have paid off in the form of a new search enhancement: Google Instant. A new, advanced search engine, Google Instant returns search results with each letter you type, thereby helping you refine your search as you enter your term, rather than refining by trial and error.

 

Google Instant, not only suggests word and phrases as you enter your search term, actual results are shown on the page, and they change with each successive letter you type. Turns out, the biggest drain on turnaround time for a search inquiry on plain old Google was user-centric in that the person conducting the search had to type in a phrase, hit enter, evaluate the results and refine their term as many times as necessary to get what they were looking for. The innovation of Google Instant has solved all that.

 

So, how is this good news for SEO? Well, you’ve already done the research to select the perfect keywords and phrases to attract the clients who would benefit most from your services. Now Google Instant will help guide them to those keywords and phrases, even if they don’t come up with them on their own. As Google Instant helps users refine their searches to get exactly what they’re looking for, your chances of being connected to your ideal customers increases.

 

Another benefit is that the number of results a person will see based on a single search is going to multiply exponentially. Say with each letter you type, you see the top ten results. A five-letter word is exposing the user to 50 results along the way as opposed to the top ten they would have seen once they entered the entire word. The volume alone optimizes your chances of being seen.

 

Plus, for the countless number of people who use Google Instant while logged in, results are personalized which means your odds of connecting with your perfect potential client are higher than ever.

For entrepreneurs marketing an Internet business, understanding and implementing the basics of search engine optimization, as well as general marketing strategies, is an essential part of creating a successful online presence and a positive balance in your company’s bank account.

The ultimate goal of any marketing effort, SEO based or not, is to widen your reach and increase your audience. If your company’s name isn’t the first one potential clients think of when they need the service you provide, it’s your competition who will get their business. So, how do you make sure that doesn’t happen?

Last week we began a two-part series on the do’s and don’ts of small business SEO, offering a list of 5 do’s for successful Internet marketing strategy. This week we offer the don’ts:

1. Don’t Spam. Not now, not ever. Spam includes bombarding customers and potential clients with unsolicited emails and materials, as well as inundating unrelated blogs, guest books and the like with links to your site.
2. Don’t procrastinate on implementing SEO efforts. No matter whether you’re launching a brand new site or upgrading an existing one, it’s never too soon to think SEO. Early on, develop a process to manage, monitor and upgrade your SEO efforts and stay up to date on current Internet marketing practices. Keep in close touch with the needs and wants of your client base so that you can focus your SEO efforts on what matters the most.
3. Don’t let an SEO company fully take the reins. In many cases, hiring a professional SEO company to manage your marketing is your best bet in maximizing the potential of your SEO efforts. However, don’t assign the task and consider it “handled.” Participate in the process and stay in close contact with your SEO advisors. They may know Internet marketing, but you know your clients. It is your job to make sure their needs and interests are kept at the forefront of every strategy implemented.
4. Don’t over-Flash. By now you are well acquainted with the search engine robots commonly known as spiders. Spiders are the ones in charge of assessing your site’s content and reporting it back to the search engines to establish your ranking in the results. If your website is completely designed in Flash or Java, the spiders won’t be able to read it and all the keyword research in the world won’t help you.
5. Don’t forget the importance of keywords. If you use overly general or inappropriate keywords, your site will be incorrectly assessed by robots and placed in the wrong search engine results lists. Also, remember to use keywords with an emphasis on buying over research-based ones. For example, “plumber” implies as search for someone to do plumbing tasks, “plumbing” implies more of a do-it-yourself search. (For more on this, see our post Target Potential Clients Using Keywords)

In an industry as complex and individualized as search engine optimization, there are literally thousands of specific strategies and practices to maximize your marketing efforts. Hopefully this list of don’ts, as well as last week’s list of do’s will get you started on the right path to your Internet business’ ultimate success.

These days, people are treating social networks as a legitimate part of their lives. People take their online profiles seriously, and a lot of time is devoted to updating and maintaining their information. They devote even more time to browsing the networks and checking out what other people are up to. And, that’s why you have to make sure your business is there for them to check out.

Now, we’re not promising that having an active business profile on any social network is going to get you as much exposure as a spread in Time Magazine or an interview in the Wall Street Journal. It will, however, get you an expanded contact list, increase your presence and status in your market’s online conversation and keep your business in front of your friends (Facebook), followers (Twitter) and contacts (Linked-In).

Social networking has moved beyond its early days of being an online amusement to becoming a way of life.  For a lot of folks, Facebook is now their primary form of communication. Social networks are also turning into a top go-to for information on things like which restaurant has the best Chinese food in Dallas or where to hire the coolest wedding singer in Topeka. Rather than Googling for the best (fill in your business) in all of (fill in your locale), your potential clients are going to LinkedIn. Are they going to find you or your competition?

Being an active participant on networking sites is a great way to put yourself in the online conversation and establish your business as part of your market’s community. Here are some ways to increase your online presence using the top three networking sites:

 Twitter: Follow people who have similar businesses as yours and invite people who list an interest in your market to follow you. Send regular tweets but make sure they’re not all sales pitches.  Offer your followers helpful hints or valuable tips to establish credibility in your area of expertise while keeping your name at the forefront of your followers’ minds.

Facebook: Create a page for your business and invite your clients to become fans. Increase your fan base by inviting potential clients from your target market. You can search for people by location, age or interest to help you pinpoint whom to invite. Having a Facebook page gives you an easy way to keep your business’ fans up-to-date on all the latest happenings in your company and a vehicle for reminding them that your services are available when they’re ready for them.

LinkedIn: The top professional networking community, LinkedIn, helps you maintain contact with past business associates and develop relationships with new ones. You can also join groups with similar interests to connect to peers in your arena. By participating in their online conversations, you create a name and a presence for yourself, all while expanding your reach to more and more potential clients.

Search Engine Optimization is a tricky game with an infinite number of variables to consider for the best results from your website. Ignoring search engine guidelines for crawling and ranking is a recipe for disaster. When it comes to proper procedure for effective SEO, knowing what to do is as important as knowing what not to do.

Here is a list of five common SEO mistakes so you know what to avoid:

1. Underestimating Titles

Titles are hugely important for effective search engine optimization. They are the first thing search engine spiders see when they visit your site and are the first indication as to what your page content is. When spiders scan your page to assign rankings, they view your title as the topic of your page and their assessment is based on how well your content relates to it. When writing titles for your web pages, remember to start with your most important keyword; the farther to the left your term appears, the more weight it will be given by the search engine’s spider.

2. Using JavaScript

As far as search engine spiders go, JavaScript is worthless. Spiders can’t read JavaScript, so instead of gathering information to assess and index your page, they simply skip over it. It’s okay to use JavaScript for navigation -- just remember there’s a language barrier and design your web pages accordingly. While we’re on the translation tip, it should be noted that spiders can’t read Flash sites either. If you use Flash, be sure to have an HTML version as well so all your keyword research doesn’t get wasted.

3. Duplicating Material

According to Google, duplicate content is defined as “substantive blocks of content within or across domains that either completely match other content or are appreciably similar.” Making sure that your website’s content is unique and relevant is key in raising your search engine ranking. Bringing in copied or plagiarized material is not only un-ethical; it significantly decreases your chances of moving to the top of search results.

4. Keyword Abuse

We all know that keywords and key phrases are essential in communicating your page’s content and focus to search engines. In most cases, hours are spent researching and developing the exact, perfect words and phrases to use to describe and identify your page. A common misconception is that the more you use your keywords, the higher your page will rank in search engines. In reality, overuse of keywords is the quickest way to get penalized. Spiders are smart; they can see when you’ve thrown in blocks of “pink stuffed rabbit slippers, pink stuffed rabbit slippers, pink stuffed rabbit slippers”, even if you think you’ve hidden it behind images or in a font color that doesn’t show up on your page. Simply put, overloading your page with keywords doesn’t work. Don’t do it.

5. Lack of Patience

Perhaps the most common mistake people make with SEO is being impatient. For some reason, folks expect that you should be able to wave some magic SEO wand and create the perfect content and design for skyrocketing to the top of search engine results and driving the masses to your website. Sure, it would be nice if there were an enchanted “optimize” button that could take care of everything for you, but there’s not. SEO is an ongoing process that requires constant editing and updating to stay current and relevant. So, if you want to create the best possible site and get everything out of it that you want, be ready to dig in your heels and stay vigilant for the long haul.

SEO success not only means generating lots of traffic to your site, it is about developing your website to suit the needs of your end users, thereby increasing your chances for organic traffic flow to your page. Keeping track of your keyword performance, adjusting your terms and updating your site as necessary is mandatory for creating optimal pages for your users. Once you’ve optimized your site to work for your ideal consumer, your chances for reaching your goals skyrocket.

Using an analytics tool such as Google Analytics, you can get feedback on pages visited, inbound links, daily traffic, average time on site and more. Monitoring traffic and adjusting your site’s content to better serve your end user is key in creating a successful and profitable website.

One way to monitor your SEO success is to keep track of your search engine rankings. Keeping an eye on your position in search rankings, as well as that of your competitors, allows you to closely watch your campaign’s progress. Use the information on your keyword performance, position changes and trends in your placement to guide you in updating your keyword choices and further developing your site to identify and attract your ideal client base.

Bounce rates are another factor to consider in analyzing your SEO efforts. For example, if you are selling organic dog biscuits and people who come to your page through doing a search for “organic dog biscuits” quickly leave without taking any action, the search engine will take note and start sending future traffic to your competitors. Using bounce rates data on your keywords and phrases, you can figure out what your users are looking for and optimize your site to create the best experience for them once they arrive. That way they’ll stick around and take action instead of hitting their back button.

Keeping track of your SEO efforts’ performance and updating your site accordingly is a time-consuming operation but when done well, the payoffs are more than worth it.

When it comes to Internet marketing, the most important aspect of your online business is its visibility. You might have a flashy website and brilliant copy, but if potential customers can’t find you, there’s not much hope for financial success. Proper keyword usage is a huge part of improving your ranking so that when your potential clients or customers go to a search engine like Google or Yahoo, they have a chance of finding your website.

In

Sitting down and making a list of keywords is often harder than it sounds. You may know the rules about being specific and using “buying” terms, but sometimes it’s tough to come up with a comprehensive list. Even if you do come up with an extensive number of keywords and phrases to use on your site, in your blogs, and throughout your social media, how do you know they’re the ones your potential clients and customers are entering into search engines?

Luckily, there are a number of great online resources to not only help you come up with scads of keyword options, but to research and analyze those keywords to make sure they’re optimal for driving traffic to your site.

Here’s a list of a few online tools to check out:

Wordtracker Free Keyword Suggestion Tool

http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/

Google Adwords External & Internal Keyword Tool

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Google Sets

http://labs.google.com/sets

Trellian Free Keyword Suggestion Tool

http://www.keyworddiscovery.com/search.html

Don’t forget to update your keywords as necessary. Over time, as your site and your customer’s needs change, so will your optimal keyword choices. Monitor trends so you can stay on top of your game and ahead of your competition.

Discovering how well fresh and original content will boost your SEO is one of the most profitable lessons you’ll learn about doing business online. Original content (while not fully “original”) is typically content about topics that haven't been overdone by other writers, and if they have, they haven't been written about in the same way that you write them.

For example, the Internet is filled with articles about SEO. Few of those articles, however, discuss the importance of fresh content rather than the strategy of layout, keywords, etc. Most of them deal with where to put your keywords, how many keywords you should use, what kind of keywords are best, or tracking keywords. Few articles deal with the importance of original content in your SEO strategies.

Writing fresh content becomes a problem when trying to find a good topic. Writer's block is so common, and it hinders the writing process so badly that it takes superhuman effort just to write 300 words, let alone fresh ones. Here are ideas to help you get past writer's block and get back to real writing. Adapt them, or use them as they are. Consider writing about...

• an article you thoroughly enjoyed

• a post on one of your favorite blogs

• a post on a blog you found annoying

• a book in your niche that you just finished

• a recent news item

• organizing your workspace

• helping your readers make your website better meet their needs

• a lesson your favorite TV show can teach your target audience

• several links to popular resources you use regularly

• a quote from a movie that inspires you

• an order you received from a new client

• a pet peeve as it ties somehow to your niche

• something that motivates you continually

• a repeat client

• money saving ideas for your niche

• a funny thing that happened on the way to your office

• top 10 sites in your niche

• top five articles you found

• a local or national trade show you took part in

• a website you wish you owned

• the lousiest website you've ever seen

• your most recent project

Always put your own slant on any topic you write about. It’s your ideas, insights, personality and knowledge that will make your writing the most original, and that will improve your SEO efforts more than anything else you can do.

The World Wide Web has millions of sites all competing for traffic. It doesn’t matter what sort of business you operate, you can stand out online with good SEO to help visitors better find your site. If you ignore this aspect of your website creation, you’re defeating your own purposes being online and making it much more difficult to succeed.

A successful site is dependent on many different things. To attract highly targeted traffic you should use long-tailed keywords for instance. However, don’t go overboard. That’s regarded as spamming by the search engines and will only cause you unnecessary problems.

Creative title tags are a necessity for websites as well, so use them for the best possible optimization. The design of each webpage relies in large part on the correct keyword density. Keywords can be used once per paragraph (depending on its length), and in the title and heading tags for best results.

Blogs are an extremely popular component of your site since they keep the website alive with constant, dynamic activity. Through the creation of high quality content on a regular basis, your keywords are used far more often. This prevents stagnation and assists in increasing your page rankings.

As you use good SEO to become more popular in the search engines, be careful that you never attempt “black hat” techniques such as hiding text on a page by making it the same color as the background, shrinking it down so it virtually can’t be seen, using bogus, irrelevant links just to grab visitors who won’t stay, and other, similarly questionable, tactics. Such tricks will tarnish both your reputation and your website when they’re discovered.

Instead, swap links with other relevant sites which is mutually beneficial in terms of traffic and rankings. Use your blog for added traffic. Submit comments to other blogs. Post on relevant forums. In other words, use proven methods to get new visitors to your site. Doing so will not only attract visitors, but will bring them back again and again. That’s what you inevitably want to happen, after all.