Archive for February, 2011
SEO Takes Time
Here are some reasons why SEO takes time and requires an ongoing investment:
Many people think that ranking properly in the search engines involves some big secret that can be manipulated – if only we knew what it was. Unfortunately that is not the case and the secrets and tricks that we’ve used in the past are becoming rarer. To get started ranking in the search engines there are many, many things to do but they involve work, knowledge, experience, research and experimentation – not tricks. That work includes (but is not limited to) keyword research, setup of a sitemap, solving domain name and hosting concerns, website design and coding concerns, architectural/navigation concerns, content optimization and creation, analytics setup and integration, reporting, meetings, consultation, planning etc. (Just to name a few) Just the initial start of your SEO campaign can involve months of planning, research, setup, improvements and content creation just to get you ready to roll.
2. Search engine optimization must happen gradually and look natural
Google can be suspicious and easily spooked. For example, one of the most important parts of an effective SEO campaign is growing the number of high quality relevant links pointing to your site. Getting links to your site is important, but you can’t get them all at once. Manipulative link building is often temporary, while high quality links are hard to get and stand the test of time; Google knows this. If your site suddenly comes on the scene and immediately has hundreds or thousands of links, Google may sideline your site for an indefinite period of time. But, if your links grow organically and over time, your growth will look much more natural in the eyes of Google. Plus, to gain quality links it really does take time and a lot of effort. Link building is a very hard part of the SEO process to manipulate and Google likes it that way.
3. New sites don’t show up right away in the SERPs
Google and other alternative search engines can reward older websites with higher rankings in the SERPs. If you have a brand new site it’s rare that you will rank immediately. There may even be cases when your site will be placed in what has been called the “Google Sandbox“. This is a place in Googleland where sites go to await their birth on the scene. Google may do this to control the quality of their search results and to ensure that new sites are high quality before they show up in the results – although this is only a theory. Doing things that look unethical and unnatural can also get you banned to the Sandbox so there is no value in trying to do things that are not natural and organic to get a “jump” on the competition. The words “natural and organic” themselves describe a process that requires patience.
4. Older sites tend to rank higher in the search results
As mentioned previously, there might be times where – if all things are created equal – you simply can’t initially rank above the competition because their site was created in, say, 1998 and your site came on the scene in 2008. Not to mention that chances are good that they’ve spent more time creating content, getting links etc. and it just takes time to catch up. Overcoming this obstacle can be one of the toughest hurdles insearch engine optimization and it requires a big investment in time, research and experimentation.
5. Local, national or global?
Depending on your target market, your SEO campaign goals might be much broader than another site; therefore taking more time to achieve results. Does your website target local customers or national? How about a possible world-wide audience? Do you have one niche product or hundreds of unrelated products or services? The answers to these questions will decide how much work is in involved, how much competition you’ll have, and ultimately, how difficult it’s going to be to rank. The more competition, the longer it’s going to take to overcome everyone in the rankings and rise to the top.
6. SEO Involves ongoing analysis
There are millions, possibly billions of total searches every day on the internet and Google has said that a majority of those searches are completely unique from day to day. That means that people are always finding completely unique ways to reword their searches and find what they’re looking for. Part of SEO involves analysis of how people arrive at your site. What words are they using? Are there ways that people are finding you that can be capitalized upon? Integrating analytics software into your site and constantly reviewing the results is essential to finding ways to improve your rankings. Taking the time to really digest what’s going on and then making the necessary changes or improvements takes time.
7. It takes time to develop content.
10 pages is not enough content to provide value and authority on any given subject and Google knows this all too well. So, by default, Google loves sites that are continually updated and improved. Many sites are basically online “brochures” that contain a certain number of pages and that’s only going to get you so far. This is one of the big reasons why blogs are so popular since they allow you to continually – and easily – add new content to your website. Developing new content takes creativity and skill and you can figure about 2 hours for every 500 word page that’s created on your site. Then, once the content is posted there is time involved with waiting for the engines to re-crawl your site and index the new content.
8. Do you want to rank for niche terms or broad terms?
Just like your target market, there are also concerns about your goals when ranking for broad terms or long tail niche terms. Let’s say that you sell exterior lighting and you ship your products world-wide. Everyone in the world is a potential customer, every lighting site is a competitor and the possible keyword combinations that you can rank for when targeting a broad category like this are endless. Now, lets say that another company sells Tiffany lamps instead of every type of lighting possible. You might still have a world-wide target market and many competitors, but now you’re operating in a specific niche that is much more targeted. A targeted niche campaign will yield faster results than a broad product or service campaign. It all depends on your goals. The bigger your goals, the longer it will take.
9. Competitors are always popping up and improving
I truly believe that SEO is a GREAT investment. As I’ve said before in my posts, you can equate PPC and SEOto renting vs owning ahome. If you invest in improving your organic SEO rankings, you’ll be investing in a position in the search engines that will stand the test of time – you’ll own that position. That said, things are always changing on the internet. New and old competitors are always appearing and rising and falling and there is no guarantee that you’ll always keep your current rank. Over time, competitors will force you to raise the bar higher and keep improving. Just like we try to rise your site to the top of the rankings, other competitors are trying to do the same so we always need to keep working and improving.
10. The web is constantly evolving
The competitive landscape is always changing, but, the world of search engine algorithms and SEO is changing even faster. I personally spend many hours each week trying to keep up and keep learning. It’s a never ending process to keep up with the news, tactics, changes and theories that surround the science of SEO and why sites ranking better than others. What might work this month, might not work at all next month so the way we practice search engine optimization must evolve as well.
Contact Lorri Antioch @ CI Web Group: lantioch@ciwebgroup.com www.ciwebgroup.com
February: Internet & Social Media Marketing Training Events … http://conta.cc/g1Wp4l via #constantcontactSMEI Dallas Presents: Fusion Marketing System with Jennifer Bagley http://goo.gl/yLBaeFebruary Internet & Social Media Marketing Training Events -… http://conta.cc/eYHYpM via #constantcontactCome join us here. 12:00 – 1:00 pm CST, 641-715-3200 – 591320# SEO Stategies with http://www.JenniferBagley CEO of www.ciwebgroup.comFebruary Internet & Social Media Marketing Training Events -… http://conta.cc/dIMQ4W via #constantcontacthttp://t.co/ul1UtSFFebruary Events and Tony Jeary’s Top 50 Things Learned at 50 http://conta.cc/ijEMBh via #constantcontactCheck this video out — 1994: “Today”: “What is the Internet, Anyway?” http://t.co/v5DtyX1 via@youtube
- <a href=”http://www.ciwebgroup.com/blog-2/training-opportunities/seo-takes-time/”>SEO Takes Time</a>
Why Startups Are Still Better at Attracting Rock Star Talent
Maybe it’s the lack of a fully entrenched, overly conservative, business as usual HR departments.
The memorable and engaging tweet was just the beginning. The position description for their Client Services Associate opening starts off like many others, but continues to set the stage both in terms of the speed of your motor and your ability to fit with their culture. I particularly love the “Willingness to work harder than you’re working now” personal requirement and “Non-crappy taste in music” nice to have.
Will they land a rock star? Time (motorhead) will tell. But regardless of the outcome, in a few short paragraphs and bucketed, bulleted lists, Argyle was able to inject their culture and personality into what could have been an otherwise sleeper of a job description.
Find Shawn Graham at CourtingYourCareer, on Twitter @ShawnGraham or via email at shawn(at)courtingyourcareer.com.
6 Quick & Easy Tools To Measure ReTweets
How to Measure Retweets
It’s said that on Twitter it’s not the number of followers you have that counts, it’s how many times you’ve been retweeted. And there’s some truth to that. While follower counts can be tricked, inflated or simply represent the number of people actively ignoring you, retweets show people actually engaging with what you’re putting out there. Having your content retweeted by your network means adding exposure, additional authority, and, more importantly, that people like what your brand is doing or saying. And that’s a pretty big metric to keep an eye on while participating in social media.
Last month I wrote about 5 ways to track Twitter sentiment. After that post, SmallBizTrends reader Mark Harbeke emailed me looking for tools to help him track retweets. I was able to offer him couple early recommendations, but it made me want to dig deeper to see what was available for SMB owners looking to track retweets.
Here are some of the most valuable tools I stumbled across to help SMB owners measure influence.
Twitter Search
All things start here. If you’re simply looking for a way to track retweets, then setting up a Twitter Search for [RT @username] and subscribing to the RSS feed will give you a very low maintenance way to do so. Of course, that’s also all you’re going to get with this option – no stats, no history, no nothing. But for some SMB owners that may be enough or even preferred. To be honest, while it’s not incredibly sexy, using Twitter Search to create an RSS list of terms I’m watching remains my preferred way to track mentions on Twitter. But I’m kind of boring.
This is one of my favorite retweet tools because it offers a lot of functionality for SMB owners looking to track their own Twitter success, as well as do some competitive intelligence on others. Daily RT allows SMB owners to see account follower numbers, how many RTs a user has made, how many times that user has been RT’d and the most popular content tweeted from that user. It’s that last statistic that I find especially valuable. Knowing what content your competitors are tweeting and what they’ve seen success with gives you insight into your own editorial calendar and what your community likes to hear about. It’s a breeding ground for strategy and new content ideas. I see Daily RT as much more of an all-round Twitter competitive intelligence tool than simply a tool for tracking RTs, but you can use or ignore as much of its functionality as you’re comfortable with. This is probably my favorite one of the bunch.
Tweet Reach
Tweet Reach takes a different approach with things and aims to measure how many people could have seen your tweet/link based on who retweeted it, how many people follow them, and how many followers you share between you. Once all that’s been calculated, you’re presented with a graph of your results.
Here’s a representation for my personal Twitter account, @lisabarone.
I often hear Tweet Reach being talked about by SMB owners, though I don’t think it’s the most powerful tool of the group. As is, Tweet Reach will only search through your last 50 tweets, so it may be somewhat limiting depending on how much you tweet. You can buy their $20 report in order to access your “full” results.
BackTweets
BackTweets is a great way to find out how many people are RTing or passing on a certain link that you tweeted. What makes it so valuable is that BackTweets will “count” the link regardless of how it was tweeted so you don’t get fragmented results based on URL shorteners. For example, one search for [yourdomain.com/title] will show all mentions of that link, regardless of whether they used bit.ly, tinyurl, owl.ly, etc. This helps to make monitoring considerably easier. You can also sign up to get email alerts so you don’t have to keep checking back with the site. Though I don’t use it to track retweets, BackTweets has long been my preferred way to track links passed through Twitter.
Retweetist
Though the look of this one is a little less refined, the functionality is surprisingly good. Enter in your username and ReTweetist will populate a list of your recent retweets and the users that retweeted them. You also have the option to enter in a URL instead of a username to see the same data (though that seems to be a bit wonkier). I like this one for SMBs looking to do some competitive intelligence because it also notes how many followers a particular account has and how often they tend to get retweeted, which is handy information to know. If you see that a competitor is being retweeted 500 times a week and you’re only being retweeted 100 times a week, you may want to take a closer look at their Twitter strategy and what’s working for them. Or go back up and use Daily RTs to get a sense of their content ideas.
Retweet Rank
Retweet Rank is different from the others in that it attempts to rank users by how often they’re retweeted and assigns a numerical score. If you’re looking to benchmark how you do against some of your closest competitors, that feature may make this tool more useful other some of the others.
Retweet Rank also breaks out your most recent retweets and suggests other users you may be interested in following and/or checking their stats. Once set up, there’s also an option to get your search via RSS so you don’t have to keep referring back to the site.
Coincidentally, Retweet Rank was one of the initial tools that I mentioned to SmallBizTrends reader Mark and he was kind enough to write a primer for SMBs looking to get set up on Retweet Rank. I recommend you give it a read.
Those are my favorite ways to track retweets on Twitter. Any great tools I’ve missed?
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About the Author
Lisa Barone is Co-Founder and Chief Branding Officer at Outspoken Media, Inc., an Internet marketing company that specializes in providing clients with online reputation management, social media services, and other Internet services. She blogs daily over at the Outspoken Media blog.
Connect with Lisa Barone:
Lisa Barone is Co-Founder and Chief Branding Officer at Outspoken Media, Inc., an Internet marketing company that specializes in providing clients with online reputation management, social media services, and other Internet services.