Do you want your site to rank in the first page of top search engines and lure the best traffic in the online domain? Well, a competent Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) process can increase the chance of your site to achieve the top ranking.

In simple terms, SEO or Search Engine Optimisation is a process which improves the visibility of a site in various search engines through organic and paid search results. It is a major part of Internet Marketing and targets various searches related to image, video, audio or local searches. There are number of steps involved like site analysis, strategy framing, its implementation, result tracking and measurement. Optimization can be onsite as well as offsite. Onsite optimization includes the content editing with respect to the targeted keywords whereas the offsite involves link building and submission of the site to various directories of different search engines. The entire process can be overwhelming at times! To make life simpler, SEO activities can also be outsourced to a competent agency.

Keeping and maintaining track of the results is a bit time consuming and lengthy, but is necessary for framing the right strategies and sustaining your site rankings on a continuous phase. This measurement of the result is done through various tools such as Google analytics, Woorank tool or SiteReportCard tools. Lots of onsite, offsite and domain related parameters can be judged through them. Hence it takes lot of time for organizing such results. There are a number of SEO software tools that are available online and you have to make use of them accordingly. Some of the widely used tools are

• Ranking Checker
• Fiddler Web Debugging Tool
• SEO Analyzer
• SEO for Firefox
• XENU’s Link Sleuth,
• Keyword Density Tool
• Prominence Tool
• Google Ad-words tool

Starting from site monitoring, competitor analysis, keyword research, finding link partners to offering handy SEO advice, you can get an array of features from these SEO tools. In addition, these tools also help in deciphering the most popular pages that are being searched and visited, the Text to HTML ratio, the image detail, site w3c validation, site compliance to different browsers and many more. Certain off-site analysis of the back links can also be analysed, along with the site load time.

Based on your requirement, you have to make use of the features and benefits of the SEO software tools. The above mentioned tools can only serve a specific purpose at one time. Whereas if you are looking for a multi-dimensional tool that brings most of the things together and help you correlate things better, you need an integrated SEO software. We highly recommend AnalyticsSEO for this purpose.

Once you are able to get through, there will be no looking back. Your chances of getting the best traffic and excellent ranking will be enhanced. Let us know how did you get along!

By Santanu Mukherjee

Keyword Research is an important aspect of Search Engine Optimization and Internet Marketing. Keywords for your website should be chosen cleverly so that those terms define your site and at the same time are widely searched. Say you have a website on “online games”. Then “online games” seems the obvious keyword. It not only defines your site but has a huge search volume. However – though it seems apparent that this is the best keyword there can be few practical problems. For example:  it’s possible that many websites are trying to achieve a good rank using this particular keyword (this often happens with keyword that have large search volumes) and so the competition is increased. The higher the competition, the less chance your site has of achieving a good ranking. You need to be very careful when choosing keywords. This article will guide you on how to choose the right keywords for your website.

Brand Keywords (Brand epitomizes a company and helps build a strong sales base): Brand Keywords are usually a URL, a Company name, Company abbreviation etc. All these should be included in your keyword list as a matter of course. Brand keywords are vital in maintaining the reputation of your company. For example:  if you type “Samsung” into Google and get, instead of the company website, a dealer’s URL you’re not going to appreciate it very much, You won’t feel that the brand Samsung is particularly strong. In order for any company to keep the flag of its reputation flying as high as it should, its brand name or names should be taken into consideration while optimizing the search engine.

Already Ranking Keywords (use Google analytics to identify these): Say your website is already achieving a ranking through existing keywords. This means you are getting value from them already. Targeting new keywords and forgetting the terms that already rank is not a wise decision: that’s like throwing money away for no reason. While new key phrases must be researched and incorporated into your SEO drive, you should also devote some effort to these “already ranking keywords”. Maintain or improve their rank and your site will be that much more visible to potential customers.

Unique Product Name or Trademark Name: Let us consider a client who has launched a new venture. It will take some time for the venture to become popular. Initially, then, there may be no search volume for that particular term because the new service is not yet known to anybody. However – whilst optimizing the client’s website the new venture or the service must be considered in the list of keywords. Gradually, as the venture becomes popular, the improving rank will start paying the value.

Geo- Location perceptions (Search volumes for “produce” for US & India are different): Geographic Location is the next important thing to be considered. If you don’t understand where a client’s market is targeted then you can’t judge their culture. Hence, your choice of keyword may be wrong.  Geo-Location plays an important role in local searches.  If you’re dealing with a website for a restaurant, café or a departmental store, for example, then you should obviously consider their geographic location before you finalize the keywords you intend to use in their site.

Be aware, too, of search terms that have a high meaning or search volume in one geographic location but not in others, An example: the term “produce”, which means vegetable market in the USA, has a good search volume in America. There is almost no search volume for the term “produce” in India. You need to know that the keywords you choose have the right search volumes for the geographic location your website is targeting.

Services or Products (Get under the surface of the industry): Study the website in detail and try to find out what service or services the company offers. If necessary, speak to the client so you can get to know exactly what it is they do and sell. So, for example: if the product is “insurance”, then you have to understand whether the site owner is an insurance company or an insurance agent. If a company’s product or service is very niche then choosing a keyword or keywords is easy. There might not be many competitors but if the service is popular it should have a good search volume.

Competitors (Don’t re-invent the wheel): As I mentioned earlier, competition plays an important role in choosing the right keyword. If there is one apple and many people to eat, then obviously the probability of getting the apple for 1 person decreases. You can apply the same logic here. If many websites are targeting the same keyword then the probability of good rankings for any given website becomes smaller. This is why keywords that have a high search volume but a low competition are ideal targets.

Broad, Exact, or Phrase: A keyword may be categorized as “Broad”, “Exact” and “Phrase”. Let’s define these one by one.  Say you own a luxury hotel in Kolkata, which has an authentic continental restaurant.  Now: people coming to Kolkata and looking for Hotels may search with keywords like “Hotels in Kolkata” or Luxury Hotels in Kolkata”. These can be considered as “Exact” keywords.

Any variation from these exact terms may become either “Broad” or “Phrase” keywords. If someone searches with the term “luxury hotel in Kolkata with authentic continental restaurant”, the search becomes narrower and the probability of ranking for your hotel with this keyword becomes much higher.: because the searcher is looking not just for a luxury hotel in Kolkata, of which there are many; but for a luxury hotel in Kolkata that also has a continental restaurant. There are fewer luxury hotels in Kolkata with continental restaurants – but yours is one of them.

This falls into the “Broad” category. A “Phrase” is basically a broad keyword where the “Exact” keyword is in the right order. “Luxury hotels in Kolkata with authentic continental restaurant” is an example of a Phrase (it includes our Exact keyword string, “Luxury hotels in Kolkata”), while “Kolkata Hotels with authentic continental restaurant” is a Broad keyword. In the second example, you can see that there are terms like “Hotels “ and “Kolkata” – all of which are parts of the Exact keyword – but not in the exact order they appear in the selected keyword. We can always go for these variations to get better ranking and more authentic traffic whose conversion rate is higher.

Say someone is searching for hotels with continental restaurants: he wants to be sure there is a continental restaurant in the hotel he finds. So he chooses “hotels in Kolkata with continental restaurant” as his search term. If your website appears his chance of booking online is much higher because he is searching for something more specific. Someone who is just looking for a hotel to stay in and searching with a search term like “Hotels in Kolkata” is less likely to choose you because the search and keywords are not as directed.

Popularity:If your business is popular due to a specific product then that product must come into your keyword. Say your company is famous for making sports cars. You also manufacture other types of small cars for domestic use. Since you are known for “sports cars” then obviously that has to be one of your keywords. Go for some variations in “small domestic cars” and try to get extra rankings, too.

Search Volume:Search Volume plays an important role in choosing keywords. If you choose a keyword that doesn’t attract visitors then no amount of SEO and site ranking for that keyword will do you any good. If you get a keyword that doesn’t have a search volume ranked highly in search engines, nothing will happen – because no one searches for it. There will be practically no visitors coming via any of the search engines and all that SEO time and expense will have been wasted.

Company’s Representative names (Eat Apple but Thank Steve): Apple cash in on the brand name of Steve Jobs: because Mr Jobs is so famous in his own right, having his name as a keyword ensures that searches related to him bring up Apple.Using company representative names as keywords associates the person with the organization thus increasing the overall credibility of both the employee and the company. Protect keyword reputations and you’ll grow good rankings for both person and organization.

If you choose your keywords considering all these factors, you will be able to choose the terms for which your site should be optimized, so that it ranks high, gets more visitors and finally generates revenue through web

I made the last post about the mental state of your typical web prospect. Go read it first, if you haven’t already and then come back to this article.

If you want to make money from your website (either directly or indirectly), you must only assume that you are dealing with uninterested, zombie – even if they typed in your keywords.

Assume anything else and you will achieve less than what you have achieved, or may be nothing at all.

A typical television surfer has an attention span of approximately 7 seconds. That means, the advertiser has got less than 7 seconds to grab and hold the interest of the person sitting in front of the box, failing which, the channel is simply be changed at the flick of “the thing” or, the zombie keeps tuned off, even though he is looking at the television.

The job is easier on the web. You got 2 seconds more to sell. The addictive nature of web browsing leaves us with an attention span of nine seconds – the same as a goldfish.

That’s it fellas ! 9 Seconds.

How you use the first nine seconds is the make or break thing. In these nine seconds, you got to get the attention of the zombie and jolt it to normal a state of conscious attentiveness.

The first step of all salesmanship/marketing is to get people’s attention. Examples would include dressing yourself up as a penguin and jumping in front of the every passing prospect, using proper headlines, focusing on content you present above the first fold etc

It is any method, technique, trick or basically anything to get attention. You can’t do anything to sell people if you don’t have their attention.

Here is a step-by-step experiment:

1) Buy a stop watch
2) Ask a volunteer to sit in front of you and look at your website
3) Give him exactly 9 seconds
4) Ask him what he understands about your business.

Now, Don’t jump off the building with the result!

Now you need to keep modifying the website or the landing pages until all you want to your prospect to know and understand about your business, is communicated in less than 9 seconds.

Happy selling!

-Mukul Gupta

In my last post about keyword psychology, I used the word “your zombie prospect”, with tongue in the cheek.  But, why do I think your and mine prospects are zombies? Am I a zombie too? Are you one too? , let’s do a quick test:

Can you remember which car was parked beside you in the parking lot today? Who was standing outside the door when you entered the office? Heck, can you even remember the color of the shirt the guy sitting right next to you?

Zombie! Zombie! Zombie!

If you are like 95% people on the planet, then you cannot recall any of the above. We dwell most of our lives in the zombie state of unawareness.

This preserves out mind to focus only on the things that interests us at the cost of ignoring everything else.  For example, if you are looking to buy specific model of a car, you suddenly start seeing more of those cars on the streets. If you want to buy an apartment, you suddenly start seeing “For Sale” signs everywhere.

Those cards and signs have forever been there. You have just started to see them now.

Why am I telling this to you?

If you craft your marketing message, or build your website, that assumes that attentive, alert, intelligent people are going understand whatever you are trying to communicate and make a buying decision – It won’t happen!

In order to sell, you must first wake the zombie up!  Keep reading to learn the art of getting attention.

- Mukul Gupta

Here is a pop quiz for all you people who are about to do a keyword research for your website or, next SEO project.

Let’s imagine for a minute that you (or, your customer) are an online hardware retailer that sells Laptops. I on the other hand, am your average zombie prospect – browsing the web rather mindlessly, searching for a Laptop. Can you tell the difference in my thought process when I type following different keywords?

1. Laptops
2. Intel Core 2 Duo Laptops
3. Latitude XT2

No – That’s not the right answer! Think again… harder… focus… Okay… I’ll give it to you.

These keywords represent where in the sales funnel they I am at the moment. I will explain -

The keywords like “Laptops” , “Dentist” , “Carper Cleaner”, “Web Designer”, “SEO Company” tells me that the people searching for these are in “Browse” mode.  They don’t know specifically what you they want.  As a marketer, if you focus too much time and attention on them, you will end up wasting a lot of money because they are mostly non-buyers.  I would term them as ‘Suspects‘ and not ‘Prospects‘

On the other hand, keywords like “Intel Core 2 Duo Laptops”, “Photoshop Web designer”, “SEO Company London” represents a just ripe audience. The people putting these keywords in the search engine are in “Compare” mode.

They have a slightly better defined idea about what they need and this means they have given more thought to it and hence they are more serious. I would term them as ‘Prospects‘ and not ‘Buyers‘.

In most industries, you will find yourself working with these bunches of keywords and this is where you should focus your time, money and energy. Heck, I would even suggest, your website should only serve people who know what they want but are in ‘Compare‘ mode. Sell them on why you are better.
Finally, keywords like “Latitude XT2″ or anything else with brand name, part numbers, price or narrow geographic location represents a “buy” audience.

They are “Buyers” because they know what they are looking for.  It’s low hanging fruit and if you find yourself lucky to get keywords like “Latitude XT2 Repair East London” – by all means pounce on it.  Typically, you won’t find a lot of these keywords very easily and when you do, it’s prudent to run specific PPC campaigns and build specific landing pages for each such keyword.

Take a look at your keywords now. Can you identify the “Browse”, “Compare” and “Buy” keywords?

- Mukul Gupta

Hello Friends,

We have set up our booth @ SES London 2009. Looking forward to a great day today. Got a quick preview photograph of our booth for you. Will upload better resolution images once the show is ON.

See you there.

Hello Friends,

We will be exhibiting (Stand no. 207) at Search Engine Strategies London 2009 on 17th and 18th February. Feel free to drop in for a cup of coffee and free Internet marketing consultation for your website.

It is the definitive event for UK and European marketers, corporate decision makers, webmasters and search engine marketing (SEM) specialists, including pay per click (PPC) advertisers and search engine optimization (SEO) consultants.

The conference will be from 17th February till 20th February 2009. Check out the complete event agenda at http://www.searchenginestrategies.com/london/agenda.html

The event will take place at:

Business Design Centre
52 Upper Street, Islington
London, N1 0QH
Tel: +44 (0)20 7259 3535
Fax: +44 (0)20 7226 0590
URL: www.businessdesigncentre.co.uk

If you wish to drop in, feel free to use our invite to get a 20% discount off the conference fees or a free entry pass to the expo. You can download and print the e-invite http://www.submit2please.com/seslon09_20p_indus.pdf

I look forward to see you at Search Engine Strategies and help you with more SEO/SEM success in 2009.

Abhishek

It gives me immense pleasure to announce that Submit2Please.com has been reloaded!

And this time, it has been loaded with a new look and new ways of generating permanent one way links. We have launched 5 new services, to compliment the already popular Directory Submission & Article Submission services. The new services on offer are:

• Social Bookmarking
• Niche Directory Submission
• Pay Per Link Services
• Press Release Writing & Distribution Services
• Search Engine Submission

We have also redesigned Directory Submission & Article Submission Services. These changes have been carried out keeping in mind the latest trends in Link Building and Organic Search Engine Optimization and how they can create more value for our clients. We encourage you to go ahead and try out these services. They will definitely work wonders for you!

Thank you!

What’s more, as a mark of our appreciate for our client’s continued support and trust, we are currently running a ‘Thank You’, wherein you get a flat discount of 20% on the listed price of all the services, if you place your by June 20th, 2008. If you think you don’t have any present requirement of the same currently, but would love to utilize our offer later, then you can buy credits from us. We will maintain a separate credit account for you & will adjust it every time you place an order.

So what are you waiting for. Contact your account manager right away!

That’s Not All

The other new features at Submit2Please are:

• SEO Knowledge Base
• A Few Stories of Success
• Free SEO Tools

With our hearts filled with optimism, we look forward to keep serving you as we have be doing so far and create more value for you in future!

‘META DESCRIPTION’ tag lost its shine after the emergence of off-page factors (like link popularity) for rankings in SERPS. In fact it lost its purpose to a great extent when Google started using contextual content from within the page as the description of the URL in its SERPS.

However in an interesting turn of events, ‘META DESCRIPTION’ is back in business!

Most search engines, including Google are now using the ‘META DESCRIPTION’ content as the description of the URL in their SERPS. The page ’TITLE’ is now being shown as the listing title with ‘META DESCRIPTION’ as the description of the URL. If you compare it with Google AdWords, you can consider the ‘TITLE’ as the Headline and ‘META DESCRIPTION’ as the Description. Therefore, you must use it to outline your strength, your unique selling proposition and if possible your offer.

Loren Baker of Search Engine Journal mentioned cited this interesting Meta Description used by NextStudent.com in his article,

Looking for federal or private student loans for School? Get up to 40k Fast: Call 877-680-9879. Student loan consolidation? Call 800-299-4639. NextStudent- College Funding Made Simple.

You can also include your phone number (as cited in the above advertisement – description) for the prospect who is in a hurry! May be you will end up prospecting without having the visitor hit your website! In fact, with the latest version of IE and the FireFox plugins, the phone numbers listed in this description become hot-links, which a visitor can simply click and get connected on a voice call through Skype. And you can close a sale!

And yes, many SEO specialists believe that higher CTR on your SERPS listing (due to improved ‘TITLE’ and ‘META DESCRIPTION’) can help you further improve your rankings.

BTW, I forgot to mention that some expert copywriters may like to even put in their headlines and teasers to pre-sell the product / services!

Lisa Ditlefsen says:

Basically if you think about it the meta description tag is your FREE ad! If you have experience in running a pay per click campaign I’m sure you have put a lot of thought into what the PPC ad says. The ad is what distinguish you from all the other PPC ads right? So why should it be any different in the organic SERPs? The title tag is your free headline and the meta description tag is your FREE ad, this is where you have a chance to ad hook someone in. How many times have you searched for something, got to the results and been put off by the description, it can’t possibly be what you were looking for!!?

May be people do not give so much importance to this FREE ad, because it is FREE! It is never late. Give proper attention to your website ‘META DESCRIPTION’ tags and turn your organic traffic to a highly targeted FREE traffic.

 

The bids on AdWords are soaring to new heights everyday. Some advertisers are even shelling out up to $10 per click. So, naturally the question arises – Is this complete madness or is there any logic behind such aggressive advertising?

To me, it does make some sense to bid aggressively if you have the right strategy in place. And if you are bidding for the right keyword. It does not make sense to bid for “web design” if you offer web design service in Texas! In that case your keyword should be “web design texas”.

Considering, you have done enough research, let us consider two scenarios:

1) Every client you acquire, on an average spends $15000 with you in a year. In this case, you do not mind spending 10% of the revenue as customer acquisition cost. Therefore you can comfortably bid $10 per click (provided you have a site which can convert 1 out of 150 visitors). Thus, looking at a lifetime value of a customer makes it a good investment.

2) If you have mastered the art of persuasion (or have hired a master of persuasion), and have come up with a website with converts well (visitor > customer conversion), every visitor you are driving to your website is equivalent to revenue . So go ahead, rock the boat and bid out all your competitors. You will get more customers and will also have lower customer acquisition cost. What more do you want?

So, expensive keywords bidding do work, if they are backed with high lifetime customer value and/or higher conversion on the website. And yes, those Internet marketing experts are not insane! In fact most of them are very smart.

So bid smartly!

And, if you need help, contact our SEO team. Reach them at info@submit2please.com!