Ranking Edge is holding an SEO and Internet Marketing Workshop on June 4^th. Having a business to today’s world requires having a website. But we all know that is not enough. You need traffic to your website.

If you are looking online for something chances are you will “google it”. It has become a way of life. When someone searches for a product or service and your competitor comes up before you is not a good omen for your business.

Understanding your consumer’s online behavior is mandatory in your internet marketing strategy. You need to know how people in your market are searching. They want a solution and finding out how they are searching is key.

Optimize Your Website

Is your website optimized correctly? It amazes me how many websites to not make proper use of the meta data. I see more sites than not that having now headings and the same page title and description on every page. Clean coding and optimized site structure make a big difference.

Links are Gold for Google

One of the most important things you can do for your website is to have inbound links to your site. If you don’t know where to start in getting links we’ll show you how to find places and how to create those places. Getting links from relevant, trusted sites is extremely important.

SEO Mistakes

You may not even know that some of the things you are doing are not only not helping your website but are hurting. Find out at our SEO workshop what damage you might unknowingly be causing. It can make a world of difference.

Articles are being written by the thousands to create inbound links to websites; thus increasing organic ranking. The quality of some of these articles is appalling. Many are being written by “writers” whose first language is not even English. I’ve seen grammar mistakes, spelling mistakes, and just plain awful writing. Even articles written by writers based in the United States are being published online with content that would make my high school English teacher scream with disgust.

Quantity of Articles should not be at the Expense of Quality

The increase in the quantity of articles for internet marketing is often at the expense of quality. Writers rush to get their package of articles completed often ignoring the basics of good article writing. Keywords are slapped into content at inappropriate places. A well written article uses keywords in flowing content that begs the reader to want more. That’s the kind of article where you want your company to have its name. Do not settle for anything less.

Inbound Links are not the only Reason for Article Marketing

Although inbound links play a part in organic ranking it is not the only reason for your business to take advantage of Article Marketing. Your business needs to be the authority on whatever product or service you are marketing. Do you want the articles that point to your website to be worthless pieces of junk? No, no, and, no! Chances are that someone searching for your business online is going to see some of your articles. How embarrassing to find articles that appear to be written by a third grader.

Image is Everything

Your online image is often the first glimpse that people see before contacting your business. Your image needs to ensure that you are seen in a valued and professional light. Readers will certainly pick up on poorly constructed sentences and spelling errors. What will they do? Quickly click the next search result to find more appropriate information.

An eloquently written article will increase your professional image and gain you and your business the respect it deserves. Always make sure a professional editor reviews anything that goes online concerning your business. Mistakes in articles tell potential clients that you really don’t care. Viewers will think if you are that careless about your online content that you cannot be all that great at your business. The internet has trained us to quickly move to the next article for information that seems more qualified.

Badly Written Articles Equal Bad Advertising

The explosion of Article Marketing as a strategy for increasing website traffic and promoting your website gives you the chance to rise above the crowd. One bad taste of an article that doesn’t cut the mustard could mean the loss of a client that could have brought you much more in revenue than the cost of the article.  It is well worth it to pay a few bucks more and get the quality that can bring you clients.

Show the world wide web that the quality of your articles matches the quality of your business. The need to create inbound links (or backlinks) need not be a reason for a mass of poorly written articles. Show off your business with positive promotion through excellent articles.

Let me say a few things about video chat from a woman’s point of view. I would love to see statistics on how many men use video chat compared to women. I’ll bet you ten bucks it is more men than women that utilize this blossoming software.

Any women reading this most surely realize my profound reasons as to why us girls are not totally onboard with video chat. But just for grins, and for the benefit of the men folk, I will discuss here why I am not jumping on the video chat boat.

Business Casual + Video Chat = NO WAY

I usually work from my home office. “Business casual” has a whole different meaning when you work from home. Business casual usually means a break from the ties for men and some companies are even brazen enough to let you wear jeans. Not so when you work from home.

Business casual, for me working at home, means you can usually find me in front of my computer with old sweats or my favorite flannel pants and an old sweatshirt on. I’ve saved enough money to buy half of Google with the money I’ve saved on dry-cleaning. By the way, you will not really find me at home in this outfit because I will not be answering the doorbell.

No Make-up + Video Chat = GO AWAY

Make-up…not happening when I’m home with my dogs. They don’t seem to mind. I’m not putting it on just so I can video chat. I know some of you women out there venture out sans make-up but that is far too frightening a thought for me to even imagine. Might be a little scary for the world too. My before and after pictures are quite amazing, if I say so myself.

Video Chat at the Office

Even when I venture into the office I don’t think I would use it as often as the men there. I can see it now. The video phone rings and first I have to check my lipstick. By the time that task is over I most certainly would have missed the call.

Give me that Old Time Communication

I’ll stick with the regular old phone any day. As a matter of fact, just email or IM would work great for me. I can email in my favorite Cardinal shirt. I can instant message with my hair in a tumbled mess. I cannot picture myself using video chat on any type of regular basis.

Video chat has been around for quite some time now. Many new softwares will be implemented during the holiday season. They truly are an amazing creation by the techy gurus. But I bet they weren’t women!

SEO is an acronym for Search Engine Optimization. It is the process of promoting websites in search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo.

Search engines frequently crawl through websites reading text and determining where exactly to place a website in the search results. They decide what comes up when you enter certain words or phrases when searching for information on the internet. SEO plays a large part in this by optimizing web pages in order to make them search engine friendly. This can result in higher positions or organic ranking in search results.

Organic Ranking

 No, it’s not just for health nuts wanting to be positioned at the top of the food chain. Organic ranking is any website that is listed in the free section of search results. It is not a paid or sponsored listing. The vast majority of internet  searchers click on the organic results. People generally trust organic results and they usually offer many choices. They are considered the most significant results.

You might think of it like watching TV. The organic ranking is the program and the paid or sponsored lists are the commercials. Trusting what is said in the program  often comes more easily than it does to a paid commercial. Many people are skeptical of the paid listings, commonly known as PPC or Pay Per Click because they know those listings are there because a company was willing to pay the big bucks to get their message in front of them.

Organic search results are based on content and keyword relevancy.  That, my friends, is where the term “Content Based SEO” was derived. The number of inbound links from other websites also plays a role in your ranking. The amount and types of links coming to your site does make a difference.

Don’t think paying for a service that says they will post 1,000 inbound links for you will do the trick. These links need to be based in content from reputable websites that are actually about or similar to what you do or what your keywords are. This can be accomplished through articles, blogs, web 2.0 pages, comments on other blogs, and social media.

Web 2.0 Pages

Web 2.0 pages have been a buzz word for a few years now in the internet marketing world. Wikipedia gives one of the best definitions.

The term “Web 2.0” is commonly associated with web applications that facilitate interactive information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design and collaboration on the World Wide Web. Examples of Web 2.0 include web-based communities, hosted services, web applications, social-networking sites, video-sharing sites, wikis, blogs, mashups and folksonomies. A Web 2.0 site allows its users to interact with other users or to change website content, in contrast to non-interactive websites where users are limited to the passive viewing of information that is provided to them.

Is that definition a little too gibberish and techy? To give you an idea of some important Web 2.0 pages EBizMBA listed these sites as the top 10 Web 2.0 pages. They are ranked by a combination of Inbound Links, Google Page Rank, Alexa Rank, and U.S. traffic data from Compete and Quantcast.

1. YouTube.com
2. Wikipedia.org
3. Craigslist.org
4. Twitter
5. PhotoBucket
6. Flickr
7. Wordpress.com
8. IMDB.com
9. Digg.com
10. eHow.com

More Beginner SEO to Come

This brief explanation is just  the tip of the iceberg. There are so many more mountains to climb. I’ll be back with more fascinating SEO explanations. I’ll delve deeper into just exactly what is content based SEO.

If you have any specific questions or topics you would like covered just comment below…and if you really like this you can share it with your buddies right below here!

“When they ask for help or ask a sincere question, respond. When you have an additional question about a post you or someone else on your blog wrote, put it in the comments. When you have a thought about it, put it in the comments. The post should be the conversation starter while the comments are what get your blog community really rolling. You will build a reputation more quickly and people will value your blog all the more if you take the time to interact with them.”Rahil, 5 Ways To Add Value For Your Blog Readers, Dec 2009

Comments can be a real boost to your Content Based SEO strategy. Blogs are meant to be a conversation. What do you derive from a conversation you have with someone? You get a darn good idea what their personality is.

Blogging with Personality

That’s right! Put your personality in your Social Media. I’ve said it before; it is how you present yourself through your blog that brings people back for more. Not only do readers want to see you as an authority, but they want to feel like they know you. If they like your personality and know what you are talking about you will have blog traffic for life.

If your personality comes across as a kind of person that is easy to talk to you will encourage comments and dialogue. What a great way to keep your content fresh. What a great way for search engines to see your site. Search engines love new content so you are also pleasing the SEO gods.

Continue on blogging soldiers. Have some fun when you write. Comment on your own posts when you think of something new. Always respond to reader comments and watch your organic ranking soar…oh, and don’t forget to leave a comment here!

Ever since last Christmas you would not believe how good I have been. Yes, it has rather amazed me too. I’ve done everything the right way and have been a good little “white hat” SEO girl. My content based SEO work has been impeccable. My internet marketing techniques are beyond reproach. I’ve done everything by the book and anticipate a great year ahead. I don’t think there is anyone in the whole world wide web that has behaved any better.

My list is really not much, and I know you can easily get me all these items on my list. If you do I promise I will stay at my computer and not bother anyone…not even the cat when he foolishly tries to walk on my keyboard. That last time, I swear my hand just slipped.

1. 500 links a day from .edu and .gov websites. All my comments to be praised and honored by presidents, governors, senators, and deans.
2. Keywords: I really don’t have that many and if you could find it in your heart to rank my website at the top of the SERPs for all of them I would greatly appreciate it.
3. Please, I don’t care how you do it, eliminate all those nasty “black hatters” that have bombarded the internet marketing world. Perhaps an anonymous phone call to the FTC is in order. You know their new ruling went into effect just in time for the Christmas season.
4. Digg.com:  Please place my website and my blog on the first page of Digg. I’m certain everyone will enjoy them so it will sort of be like a Christmas present for everyone.
5. Technorati:  Please see #4 above.
6. Inbound links:  This, dear Santa, is kind of a double present. As mentioned in #1 I would like to have many inbound links from .edu and .gov websites. But let’s not stop there, let’s get inbound links from every single website that has anything to do with what I do. Part two of this double present is that if something  mysteriously happens to my competitors inbound links that might really help things along.
7. Meta Schmeta: I’ve become a little bored with all the meta tags, meta data, meta descriptions and all that silly meta stuff. Would you please take care of that for me and optimize my website for me?
8. A nice shiny robot: I would like my websites crawled on a daily basis and a personalized robot that I can command to crawl at my whim would fit the bill.
9. Website domain registration:  Please backdate my domain registrations back to the year 1846. I think that should be sufficient to show that my sites are committed to their domain name.
10. Directories: I’m getting a little weary submitting to applicable directories so if you could have some of your cute little elves take over this tedious task for me I would have more time to concentrate on doing my nails and hair.
11. Articles: I could really use some more articles. I think about 2,548 articles a day would be just fine…and don’t forget the keywords.

Just to remind you again; I have been extremely good this year. I have even helped old ladies cross the street. I’ll be waiting patiently Christmas morning sitting at my computer waiting for my organic rankings to skyrocket. Thank you in advance!

That’s about it for now Santa. Your milk and cookies will be here waiting.

Sincerely,

Eliz

So Many Gadgets, So Little Time

Gadgets are applications you can insert into a wave.  Anyone who is following that wave can use them with you.  The three that come pre-installed on Google Wave are the Yes/No/Maybe, Map, and “Ribbit” Conference gadgets.

The Yes/No/Maybe gadget is a great polling or RSVP tool.  The Map gadget lets you use Google Maps with multiple users at the same time (instead of both parties having to type in addresses, etc. from separate browsers).  It allows you to create paths and landmarks that are shared between everyone on the wave.  I haven’t used this one much yet but am geekily excited about it.

And then there is the Ribbet Conference gadget.  This one can start a phone conference directly from your wave, so that you don’t have to have to use any other conferencing site or software.  I know a lot of you will like the sound of this in theory–but what if not every business associate you have (which at this early point in the game, is very likely most every associate) doesn’t have Wave?

Not a problem.  This gadget also lets you ring people who haven’t gotten their invites yet.  It also lets you mute, disconnect, and put people on hold.  Currrently, it allows anyone on the wave to perform these administrative functions; I’m guessing Google will fix this by allowing the wave’s originator to distribute or restrict administrative authority as he or she sees fit, though.

Here Come the Robots

Robots are a lot like gadgets in that they let you do new and different things with your waves.  They are different from gadgets in that they are actual participants in the wave, updating them automatically and seemingly with “minds of their own”.

Sound a little freakishly science fictional?  It gets better: you add bots to your wave account just like you would add another person.  You add bots to the contacts section of your dashboard, and even do it in the form of robot@website.com, just like an email address that you’d use to add a person.  You can add a bot to your waves just like you add human participants.

Wave Robots can read and even modify what a wave says, create new waves, add or remove participants on the waves.  Google tells us more about robots: they can also be set to synchronize a wave’s information or contents to other waves and even non-wave media, as well as access, modify, or otherwise interact with a third party.  For example, they can add data to a database or send a wave’s contents to be published on a Blogspot blog.

Robots can even modify gadgets.  Google’s robots vs. gadgets explanation says that, while robots can modify gadgets, gadgets can’t modify robots because they don’t know that robots exist. Which implies that robots, as you might expect from the name, have a bit of awareness going on.

While there are plenty of computer programs that have focused awareness (anti-virus programs and firewalls being the first that come to mind), something about this seems both scary and thrilling to me.  Maybe it’s because I read so much science fiction growing up…or maybe it’s because we’re all going to be interacting with self-aware, semi-intelligent programs on a regular basis in the near future.

That’s Not All, Folks.

In a few days, I’ll come back and tell you about a few more gadgets that might be useful in a business environment.  But the next article in our Google Wave series will be about how some companies are developing their own branded versions of Wave.  Don’t miss it!

What it Means to Have a Conversation-Centered Protocol

This blog is a communication with its readers.  Insomuch as you can respond to me by commenting on these posts, and I can respond back, it is also a direct conversation (as opposed to the broader conversation anyone with a blog takes part in).

Wave takes this kind of communication and put it in “real time” (i.e. makes it instant) and, just as importantly, makes it horizontal instead of vertical.

With Wave, you don’t have to wait for your commentary on someone’s idea to be approved.  Just like with internet chat, you can respond when you want, how you want, and on more or less equal footing.

There’s one thing that makes Wave very different from chat, however (aside from the hundreds of applications).  That’s the ability to respond to a message on totally equal footing–as in, you can even go back and change the original message!  This is one reason you may be using Wave as a conferencing, brainstorming, or other meeting tool in the future.

(While it’s great to be able to evolve an idea like that, there will have to be some kind of restrictions & authorizations for this to be useful as a business tool.  That shouldn’t be a problem.  By the time Wave is out of beta stage, there should be applications for this–as well as about 1,000 other things.)

This is good for business meetings in a world where more and more often, collaborators on a project don’t live in the same physical space–or even on the same continent.  I don’t think anything will replace what we get from face-to-face interaction.  But Wave and the popularization of XMPP in general will give us the ability to be in different places and yet still work very much like we are all sitting in the same boardroom, making things easier and flights less necessary (sometimes).

Google Wave Sends You to the Conversation (Conference, Brainstorm Session, etc.) With Everything You Need

With Wave, you and your team don’t all have to get logins for a new website each time you want to do some different kind of collaboration.  So it doesn’t matter if you want to have a multi-person conference with yourselves or different clients and just talk, or hash out the details of a proposal, or meet with your partners, investors, and marketing company to look at a proposal or make a choice on new graphics and logo for your company and have them modified as you go along.

Normally, it’s very possible you’ve have to get on a new website for each of these.  At the very least, you’d probably have to pay for some service and make sure that each time you brought somebody new on-board, you’d have to get them signed-up with your service–kind of a pain if you’re constantly courting new clients or taking new proposals.

Wave eliminates this step.  As long as everybody has Wave they can show up and participate without having to jump through any hoops.  If anyone needs to add extensions, gadgets, or other applications, they can have them recommended directly by other people in the conversation/meeting.  This makes coming into a Wave a lot more like just walking into a physical space for a conversation, and less like meeting on the Web as we’re used to it.

And Speaking of Wave Applications…

Tomorrow, I want to talk about what wider use of the XMPP protocol, and Wave in specific, will mean for applications (hint: they’re going to start talking to you).  I’ll also list some of the apps you’re most likely to find useful for a business environment.