Out of the Fog Marketing

You gotta love when the web teaches you a new lesson. We had a call yesterday from a great Michigan-based prospect and when I asked him where he found us, it wasn't Google. Gasp. It was a very long tail search term on Yahoo! organic results. A term I didn't even know our firm was ranked #1 for on Yahoo! Gasp again.

Yes, this was a very tech-savvy individual. Yes, it was a technically sophisticated company. Then I remember the early adopters all used Yahoo! first. My first web-based email account in the mid-nineties was a Yahoo! account which I own to this day.

So Yahoo!, I'll give you your due from now on. Yes only 15% of technology buyers search on you vs. Google, but that's still a really big number.

Oh and by the way, that Yahoo! ranking was due to the fact we wrote great text and coded our site properly - amazing how that works.

Labels: link building for SEO, long tail search, Michigan SEO, yahoo search rankings

Site Maps Point the Way to Better Search Rankings

One of the simplest things you can do to improve your company's natural search rankings is post a well-constructed and properly coded site map on your website. Site maps are a great way to be found by the search engines. A properly-constructed site map provides anchor text links to pertinent pages throughout a Web site.

For small sites below 100 pages, you can provide links in the sitemap to every page. Larger sites should categorize the site and provide links to only the most relevant pages throughout the site.

Google's Webmaster Guidelines page has several tips for creating and then submitting your website's sitemap.

Labels: Michigan SEO, search engine optimization, sitemaps, web site maps, website development

Free Website Evaluation Tool

Website Grader is a free tool that performs an analysis of the online marketing effectiveness of your website. It analyzes your website in a detailed way and gives you a score. What's unique is that it measures your website on a relative basis compared to other site. It also gives you some very detailed information on how to make your site more effective.

Labels: Internet marketing, Michigan SEO, web marketing

Get High Quality Links to Rank Well On Search Engines

Developing and maintaining high quality links to your web site is essential to ranking high on search engines. Google ranks web pages based on the number and the quality of incoming links if more than one web page is optimized for the same keyword.

Here are a few tips for building quality links:

1) So get listed on respected directories such as dmoz.org or Google Maps.
2) Issue quality press releases to get online publications to cover your story and link to your site.
3) Post blog comments with a user profile that also contains a link to your site.

Labels: Google ranking, Michigan SEO, SEO press release

Google Unveils New Analytics Tool

Google today released a new version of its popular internet marketing analysis tool Google Analytics.

Upon first review, the date selection tool is vastly easier to use and the dashboard interface is much more appealing to the eye. I'll post more info as we use the tool more over the coming month.

Labels: google analytics, Internet marketing, Michigan SEO, online marketing

Page 4 Google Still Counts

In the course of providing search engine optimization for clients, I invariably run into companies that think they will die if they can't get a particular keyword or keyphrase on page 1 of a natural search on Google. For firms totally reliant on the web for business, this may be true. However, for firms with many lead generation avenues, presence on page 1 is not always a necessity.

It's true that 60 plus percent of folks do not search past page 1, but that means about 30 percent do!

Here's a real life example on how being on page 4 worked for our company. When we moved headquarters from Seattle to Ann Arbor, MI last July we knew online marketing was going to be the fastest way to find Michigan clients. So we went to work trying to rank for a popular term "Michigan marketing". For the first 8 months we were on page 4 (we are now on page 1) However when we were on page 4, Vision Computer Solutions, a local IT company was looking for a marketing firm and found our site. We were the first firm in the search results that targeted technology firms, had a message that spoke to their needs and a site that was visually appealing. Now we have a business development partnership with this firm.

So don't fret if you are on page 2, 3, 4 or 5 and my all means don't give up on a keyphrase. Keep plugging away trying to improve your rankings and in the meantime you may get a surprise lead or two.

Copyright 2007, Clarity Quest Corp

Labels: Google ranking, Michigan marketing, Michigan SEO