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Tag Archive: search_engine_optimization

Up Your Ranking: Six ways your website can move above competitors’ in a Google search

Up Your Ranking: Six ways your website can move above competitors’ in a Google search by Cindy Waxer.

Have you ever conducted a quick Google search of your company’s name? You might be shocked to discover that your website doesn’t even appear in the first few pages of results. In fact, according to a 2012 study entitled “Small Businesses Just Don’t Get SEO,” conducted by Online Marketing Coach, a whopping 62 percent of small businesses don’t even rank on the first page of Google for even one keyword or phrase.

That’s because many entrepreneurs simply don’t understand how Google rankings work. Simply put, a ranking is a series of algorithms Google’s search engine uses to find the most relevant documents for a user query. Results are based on everything from locally relevant content and page links to keywords and authority.
Unfortunately, getting outranked or, even worse, stuck on a page behind your competitors can cost your business hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost revenue and prospects. Luckily, there are ways you can optimize your small business’s website to earn top ranking without having to break the bank on technical bells and whistles.

Just ask Lourdes Balepogi. President of Chispa Marketing, an interactive marketing firm in Miami, Florida, Balepogi says there are a few simple and cost-effective ways growing businesses can boost their company’s Google ranking. Here’s how

1. Don’t judge a website by its cover

Just because your website is appealing to the eye doesn’t mean it’ll earn a high ranking within Google. In fact, a website’s aesthetics have very little bearing on its overall search positioning. Instead, variables such as fresh content, page titles, and navigability are far more likely to influence where your website will surface in a search. “There are sites that are absolutely hideous that make millions of dollars on a monthly basis,” says Balepogi. “In the end, it’s not about how beautiful the site is.”

2. Consider content

The right keywords—words that best describe your business’s products and services—are critical to your website’s ranking. But rather than focus on single keywords, Balepogi believes in the value of selecting keyword phrases. Adding relevant titles to each page on your website can also help as Google displays search results as a link using the page’s title description. Plus, adding a title might just give you a leg up on the competition: an Online Marketing Coach study reports that only 51 percent of small business web sites use home page titles for strategic keywords.

3. Shop for domain names

Purchasing unused domain names can be a cost-effective method for driving more traffic to your site and boosting your search engine ranking. “For example, if you’re a marketing firm in Miami, find out if “www.miamimarketing.com” is available as a domain name,” recommends Balepogi. “If so, I would purchase it and reroute any traffic to my actual marketing company. Repurposing domain names with special keywords is a great and inexpensive strategy.”

4. Embrace social media

By starting a blog that offers consumers everything from tricks of the trade to educational resources, you can significantly increase traffic and boost your Google ranking as a subject matter expert. “If you’re a carpenter, blog about places to find the best wood or teach customers about the different types of wood,” says Balepogi. “These keywords play just as much a factor [in improving a site’s ranking] as a big search engine optimization campaign that you would be paying thousands of dollars for.”

5. Make the proper connections

Google looks at links both to and from a site to determine page rank. That’s because Google considers the words a website uses in its links to help determine the content of Web pages. For this reason, Balepogi recommends that small business owners introduce a healthy number of links – two or three per page – to related sites. Exchange text links with other relevant websites or make a point of including hyperlinks in each blog posting on your site. Just remember: no matter how you choose to incorporate links, make sure you keep them current.

http://smallbusinessonlinecommunity.bankofamerica.com/community/growing-your-business/internetecommerce/blog/2012/09/19/up-your-ranking-six-ways-your-website-can-move-above-competitors-in-a-google-search

September 21, 2012 Today's Business, , , , , , , , , 5 Read more >

Your Online Storefront: Launching an E-Commerce Site to Increase ROI

Your Online Storefront: Launching an E-Commerce Site to Increase ROI.By Iris Dorbian.

Over ten years ago, e-commerce was still an emerging channel. Now it’s become a worldwide phenomenon racking up sales in the stratosphere. According to a new report by the market research firm Forrester, online retail sales in the U.S. are poised to tap $327 billion by 2016. Furthermore, overall online consumer spending is expected to increase to $1,738 per person by 2016 in contrast to $1,207 per person in 2011. For 2012, the forecast is for $226 billion, a 12 percent jump from $202 billion in 2011.

Improvements in mobile devices, coupled with myriad online promotions, may be driving the growth. In the same Forrester survey, conducted in partnership with Bizrate Insights, approximately 75 percent of shoppers polled during last year’s Black Friday and Cyber Monday said they made their holiday purchases online simply because the deals were better. Clearly, for small business owners looking to increase their profits, launching an e-commerce site is not simply a key best practice anymore—but an imperative.

However, if you don’t have an e-commerce site (and you don’t have unlimited capital), how do you start? What should be on your to-do list?

PQ_Ecommerce.jpgFind an inexpensive, user-friendly e-commerce provider

If you don’t have the funds to outsource this (and chances are more than likely you do not), then ask for recommendations among trusted colleagues regarding the e-commerce provider they are currently using. Also, do some research on your own. Make sure that whatever provider you choose for your inaugural site, they offer the most bang from your buck—meaning they offer an affordable price plan in line with the volume of products you would like to sell.

Ask yourself the following questions: Does the e-commerce platform you’re considering require monthly fees? Can they link in directly with any PayPal or bank account? Make sure before you partner up with them that they don’t take a percentage of your sales revenues. Examples of some e-commerce solution providers that small business owners might want to check out are Shopify and Big Commerce.

Check out the competition

What are your rivals doing in this space? Review their sites. What they are offering? What are their payment plans, target audience(s) and their Google search rankings? What can you do to distinguish yourself from the competition and seize a sizable portion of the market share? Offering improved customer service, expedited shopping, or the ability to speak to product experts on the phone may be what distinguishes you from online titans like Amazon.com and eBay.

Make your site search friendly

By leveraging customer service and search marketing, Bill and Lauren Elward were able to position their online store Castle Ink, which sells recycled printer ink cartridges and toners, as a formidable contender against heavyweight competitors such as Hewlett-Packard and Epson. Launched in 2005 by the husband and wife partners for $5,000—a sum culled from their savings—Castle Ink generated $1 million in revenue last year. This is in stark contrast to its first year when the site didn’t quite crack sales of $50,000. Not bad for a venture initially viewed by Lauren, a former high school English teacher, as a way to supplement family income while on maternity leave.

Bill credits search engine optimization (SEO), which he honed as the director of web analytics, digital strategy, and online marketing at the College Board (a day job he continues to hold) as the number one factor behind Castle Ink’s success. “I think that’s been the key to everything,” he explains. “To have our site findable on Google where almost 100 percent of our traffic comes from [has been critical]. We’re able to outrank some of the super large companies that have much deeper pockets than us simply by having a better organic ranking.”

Don’t sacrifice quality for pricing

Another challenge that Castle Ink has had to tackle is pricing. Larger competitors, says Bill, offer low price points as a way to draw in the most customers. But that doesn’t presuppose the quality is up to par. “Because there’s a false sense of inferior products out there, it has turned consumers off to the whole idea of using a recycled product,” he says. “That’s been a battle for us. One of the things we’ve done to overcome that is to give people a 100 percent satisfaction guarantee. We pay for return shipping so basically they can try our products for free; if they don’t like it, they can always send it back.”

Hire staff and make sure they’re qualified

Even if your business does not have the funds to hire a full complement of staff to get your e-commerce site running, it’s still a good idea to bring on someone, even if temporarily, whose sole responsibility will be to launch this component. This is especially true since it might end up yielding more revenue for your company than your other platforms. Take it seriously and don’t treat it like a sideline hobby.

In this vein, make sure you find someone who is qualified. “Don’t go with someone’s nephew who just graduated from college and can program a site,” cautions Julian Barkat, founder and director of e-commerce at Egg to Apples, a Philadelphia-based marketing agency. He adds that one client hired a niece to set up an e-commerce site simply because she “liked colors and studied that in college.”

Barkat, who has managed e-commerce operations for large and mid-sized companies in the past, currently acts as a consultant to small businesses looking to overhaul their site or launch one. Recently, he had a success story with Rescue Rittenhouse Spa, a luxury spa located in Philadelphia. Barkat started working with them in 2010, following the client’s earlier failed attempts at online sales.

After streamlining its SEO efforts, Barkat and his colleagues built out the spa’s e-commerce site via a new platform, Magento. After launching the site in November 2011, the client saw an immediate impact on revenue, while relevant search terms rose up in rankings. For 2012, Rescue Rittenhouse Spa’s year-over-year revenue forecast (which encompasses both the spa and the online store) is up 150-200 percent.

Here are a few other best practices for entrepreneurs to employ when launching an e-commerce site to bolster ROI:

View your e-commerce site as a way to deepen your relationships with your existing customer base rather than pursue new customers already.

Link all of your marketing efforts to your site.
Use Google analytics to track and monitor the visits to your site, particularly your repeat visitors. This will give you a keen sense of what is working on your site and what isn’t.
And finally test your site out before it goes live. Before Bill and Lauren Elward launched their e-commerce site, they spent considerable time and energy testing it and working out the kinks. “In the online space, it’s easy to try something and to wholly invest a small amount in it to see if it’s going to work,” says Bill. “Launch a pilot before you fully embark on a huge display advertising campaign or a huge search marketing campaign.”

April 14, 2012 Today's Business, , , , , , , , , 5 Read more >

Your Online Storefront: Launching an E-Commerce Site to Increase ROI

Your Online Storefront: Launching an E-Commerce Site to Increase ROI By Iris Dorbian.

Over ten years ago, e-commerce was still an emerging channel. Now it’s become a worldwide phenomenon racking up sales in the stratosphere. According to a new report by the market research firm Forrester, online retail sales in the U.S. are poised to tap $327 billion by 2016. Furthermore, overall online consumer spending is expected to increase to $1,738 per person by 2016 in contrast to $1,207 per person in 2011. For 2012, the forecast is for $226 billion, a 12 percent jump from $202 billion in 2011.

Improvements in mobile devices, coupled with myriad online promotions, may be driving the growth. In the same Forrester survey, conducted in partnership with Bizrate Insights, approximately 75 percent of shoppers polled during last year’s Black Friday and Cyber Monday said they made their holiday purchases online simply because the deals were better. Clearly, for small business owners looking to increase their profits, launching an e-commerce site is not simply a key best practice anymore—but an imperative.

However, if you don’t have an e-commerce site (and you don’t have unlimited capital), how do you start? What should be on your to-do list?

PQ_Ecommerce.jpgFind an inexpensive, user-friendly e-commerce provider

If you don’t have the funds to outsource this (and chances are more than likely you do not), then ask for recommendations among trusted colleagues regarding the e-commerce provider they are currently using. Also, do some research on your own. Make sure that whatever provider you choose for your inaugural site, they offer the most bang from your buck—meaning they offer an affordable price plan in line with the volume of products you would like to sell.

Ask yourself the following questions: Does the e-commerce platform you’re considering require monthly fees? Can they link in directly with any PayPal or bank account? Make sure before you partner up with them that they don’t take a percentage of your sales revenues. Examples of some e-commerce solution providers that small business owners might want to check out are Shopify and Big Commerce.

Check out the competition

What are your rivals doing in this space? Review their sites. What they are offering? What are their payment plans, target audience(s) and their Google search rankings? What can you do to distinguish yourself from the competition and seize a sizable portion of the market share? Offering improved customer service, expedited shopping, or the ability to speak to product experts on the phone may be what distinguishes you from online titans like Amazon.com and eBay.

Make your site search friendly

By leveraging customer service and search marketing, Bill and Lauren Elward were able to position their online store Castle Ink, which sells recycled printer ink cartridges and toners, as a formidable contender against heavyweight competitors such as Hewlett-Packard and Epson. Launched in 2005 by the husband and wife partners for $5,000—a sum culled from their savings—Castle Ink generated $1 million in revenue last year. This is in stark contrast to its first year when the site didn’t quite crack sales of $50,000. Not bad for a venture initially viewed by Lauren, a former high school English teacher, as a way to supplement family income while on maternity leave.

Bill credits search engine optimization (SEO), which he honed as the director of web analytics, digital strategy, and online marketing at the College Board (a day job he continues to hold) as the number one factor behind Castle Ink’s success. “I think that’s been the key to everything,” he explains. “To have our site findable on Google where almost 100 percent of our traffic comes from [has been critical]. We’re able to outrank some of the super large companies that have much deeper pockets than us simply by having a better organic ranking.”

Don’t sacrifice quality for pricing

Another challenge that Castle Ink has had to tackle is pricing. Larger competitors, says Bill, offer low price points as a way to draw in the most customers. But that doesn’t presuppose the quality is up to par. “Because there’s a false sense of inferior products out there, it has turned consumers off to the whole idea of using a recycled product,” he says. “That’s been a battle for us. One of the things we’ve done to overcome that is to give people a 100 percent satisfaction guarantee. We pay for return shipping so basically they can try our products for free; if they don’t like it, they can always send it back.”

Hire staff and make sure they’re qualified

Even if your business does not have the funds to hire a full complement of staff to get your e-commerce site running, it’s still a good idea to bring on someone, even if temporarily, whose sole responsibility will be to launch this component. This is especially true since it might end up yielding more revenue for your company than your other platforms. Take it seriously and don’t treat it like a sideline hobby.

In this vein, make sure you find someone who is qualified. “Don’t go with someone’s nephew who just graduated from college and can program a site,” cautions Julian Barkat, founder and director of e-commerce at Egg to Apples, a Philadelphia-based marketing agency. He adds that one client hired a niece to set up an e-commerce site simply because she “liked colors and studied that in college.”

Barkat, who has managed e-commerce operations for large and mid-sized companies in the past, currently acts as a consultant to small businesses looking to overhaul their site or launch one. Recently, he had a success story with Rescue Rittenhouse Spa, a luxury spa located in Philadelphia. Barkat started working with them in 2010, following the client’s earlier failed attempts at online sales.

After streamlining its SEO efforts, Barkat and his colleagues built out the spa’s e-commerce site via a new platform, Magento. After launching the site in November 2011, the client saw an immediate impact on revenue, while relevant search terms rose up in rankings. For 2012, Rescue Rittenhouse Spa’s year-over-year revenue forecast (which encompasses both the spa and the online store) is up 150-200 percent.

Here are a few other best practices for entrepreneurs to employ when launching an e-commerce site to bolster ROI:

View your e-commerce site as a way to deepen your relationships with your existing customer base rather than pursue new customers already.

Link all of your marketing efforts to your site.
Use Google analytics to track and monitor the visits to your site, particularly your repeat visitors. This will give you a keen sense of what is working on your site and what isn’t.
And finally test your site out before it goes live. Before Bill and Lauren Elward launched their e-commerce site, they spent considerable time and energy testing it and working out the kinks. “In the online space, it’s easy to try something and to wholly invest a small amount in it to see if it’s going to work,” says Bill. “Launch a pilot before you fully embark on a huge display advertising campaign or a huge search marketing campaign.”

March 24, 2012 Today's Business, , , , , , , , , 3 Read more >

Three Ways to Create Great Social Media Content

Steve StraussWhat is it that separates those small businesses that are very successful with their social media efforts with those that are not? Let me suggest a one word answer: Content.

The phrase is not “Content is prince” or “Content is duke.” No, they say, “Content is king” for a reason. Because it is. Offer your folks great content and they will pay attention to you. Don’t and they won’t.

So what is great content and how do you create or offer it for a small business?

The first thing to understand in small business owners about social media content is that it has to be far more about your audience and much less about you. Your job is to become added value to their day – you do that by posting content that your targeted audience finds interesting and useful. On the other hand, if all you do is post what you have on sale that day or “company news,” you will not go far.

A study by the technology company Roost looked at how small businesses can best engage their social media audience. The survey found that the following types of content offer maximum social media value:

Photos: Publishing photos on your Facebook page generates 50 percent more impressions than any other type of post. Photos are great because they are friendly, engaging and easy to upload. Pictures of your business, your products and your employees would all work.
Questions: Posting a question on Twitter, Facebook or your LinkedIn page is an excellent way to engage people and start a dialogue. The survey found that questions generate almost two times as many comments as any other type of post. Added bonus: Questions that foster discussions equal comments full of keywords that can boosts search engine optimization (SEO). In today environment, smalll businesses need to engage, understand and invest in SEO – this is a small business friend.

Quotes: The study found that quotes drive an average of 54 percent more retweets than any other type of tweet.

This is just for starters. Other things to post: Articles of interest, free e-books, resources, links and contests.

Let’s drill down and take Facebook as an example since that is the social media site most small businesses use. One of the easiest ways to get more people to “like” your page and engage with you is simply to update your status consistently. Share tips, ideas, post pictures and hold contests.

Another way to make your Facebook site valuable is to offer specials. But the secret here is not to offer just any old special, but a special that is only available to your Facebook friends. This serves two purposes.

First, it is a way to reward them for liking your page.
Second, it is a very specific way to measure the success of your page and plans. One challenge with social media is that it is often difficult to quantify the return on investment of your social media efforts. By creating and offering a unique special only for your Facebook fans, you can very specifically quantify the success (or failure) of your page. You can measure how many people respond to the promotion and how much money it makes you.

Additionally, remember that on Facebook, your content should be light, breezy even. Videos especially are a great way to engage this audience. Now, why is that? Well, think about Facebook for a moment. Most people who go there are going to connect with friends, see what is going on, that sort of thing. It is a casual place, a friendly place. So you have to be casual and friendly there too if you don’t want to be ignored. As such, videos and other easy-to-digest content fit the bill; they dovetail with the tone of Facebook.

Of course it also works to post articles that you think your audience will find interesting, funny, useful or otherwise worthwhile. Posting those things you find on the Web that you think people will like makes you a valuable resource.

Finally, a blog or articles written by you in your authentic style is another, and important, way to get your voice heard. Don’t think you have to be some type of wordsmith to succeed – you don’t. All you need to do is share your knowledge and passion in a friendly way and before you know it, viola! You have created great social media content. How do you go about creating social media content? What have you found that works well? Or, what doesn’t work so great?

Here is a great internet radio show to listen to about Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Here is the link! We at Apple Capital Group will give you the tools and knowledge to help you launch your small business successfully.

Thinking of a small business loans, check out Apple Capital Group, Inc. Give us a call! This article is a courtesy of Apple Capital Group, Inc., if you like the articles, please share it to friends and PLEASE click the google+1 so we can measure how it is helping this small business community! Thank you!

January 17, 2012 Today's Business, , , , , , , , 0 Read more >

4 Ways to Branch Out from Your Core Business

Team on Dec 30, 2011 9:02:00 AM

White-in article.pngIs the market you currently serve reaching a saturation point? Are you tempted by offers to blend your company with another synergistic small business? Do you see untapped opportunities in other countries? Have you gotten bored with selling the same set of products to the same narrow market?

If you’re asking yourself any of these questions, you may be thinking about branching out from your core business. There are many ways to accomplish this. For example, you can create a subsidiary business; sell into a peripheral market merge with another company; or move toward taking your business global.

The following is a roadmap to the different paths you can take to grow as a small business owner:

Discovering a new audience

There are multiple approaches to reaching a new audience. Some examples include; repackaging existing products and services for a younger or older market, expanding to an adjacent geographic area, or selling via a new channel such as mobile and social media. If your focus is on expanding geographically, make sure you analyze the size and buying preferences of the market, as well as any geographic barriers that might affect your transportation costs or store traffic. Similarly, if you are considering expanding to the web, ensure your brick-and-mortar business complements (rather than cannibalizes) the e-commerce site. Further, you should educate yourself about search engine optimization and web site analytics so you can be sure that your site will reach a prominent position in web searches.

Finding a strategic business partner

Rather than constantly looking over your shoulder to see what your closest competitor is doing, you may want to consider a temporary strategic partnership or, if all the stars align, merging your companies. In addition, you might consider gaining more control over your supply chain by buying a key supplier. In either case, don’t forget to blend potentially disparate corporate cultures and technology systems; retain customers and employees; and to proactively perform due diligence audits of any legal or environmental issues you might be inheriting.

Pull Quote.pngEmbarking on a global adventure

You may have a product or service that has even more earning power in overseas markets than in the United States. If so, you may want to consider a gradual global expansion. Don’t hold off for fear of excessive costs. Selling overseas requires a minimal investment at the outset, particularly if you start with only one or two strategically chosen countries. You may want to consider hiring a local manager or work through a distributor, particularly in countries where English is not the primary language. Conversely if you have a web-based business or the budget for frequent airline travel, you may be able to manage by yourself.

Heading off the beaten path

Although it is not practiced as often today, true diversification still has a place in today’s business world. You may find that you are interested in more than one type of business, all of which can be branded under the same basic name and housed under a holding company. Another way to diversify is by creating an add-on business, e.g. teaching classes, writing articles or giving presentations related to your products or services.

Expanding your business can take months or years, depending on the path you choose and how large you want to grow. Remember though – it’s not only about the destination. Make sure you enjoy the journey and learn along the way.

December 30, 2011 Today's Business, , , , , , , , , 0 Read more >