Search Engine Optimization

If you do business online, chances are you have a contact form on your website. For many business owners, the goal of a website is to funnel visitors towards a contact form to take the relationship to the next level. From requesting a quote to placing an order, a contact form can be used for many purposes.

In order to increase conversions and prevent people from abandoning your contact form, make sure that the form is as user-friendly as possible. Below are some tips for optimizing the contact form on your website.

1. Clearly highlight required fields

It’s very annoying for users to submit a form, only to discover that the submission failed because they didn’t fill out the required fields. Make sure it’s obvious which fields users are required to fill out by highlighting them with an asterisk.

2. Include a statement about privacy

Include a statement about privacy below the contact form to build trust and increase conversions. Something like, “We respect your privacy,” will do the trick.

3. Avoid asking too many questions

Sure, you want to know a lot about your prospects and why they’re contacting you, but as with any relationship, take it slowly. Avoid asking too many questions, so you don’t overwhelm your website visitors or put them on edge. Only try to get the answers you absolutely need. You can get the rest of the data you need later on in the process of converting prospects to customers. The simpler and more concise the form, the better it will convert.

4. Make a versatile contact form

A good contact form will enable your customers to perform a number of tasks, from asking questions about your services, to talking to you about press opportunities, to requesting a quote.

5. Make your contact form easy to find

Make sure your contact form is as accessible as possible by making it easy to find. Your contact form should be in your main navigation and be accessible from all of your main product or service pages.

6. Avoid using CAPTCHA

CAPTCHA is about as user un-friendly as it gets. Many people decide not to fill out a contact form simply because it has CAPTCHA. Others give up after several unsuccessful submission attempts. There are other ways to prevent contact form spam besides CAPTCHA. For example, you can require users to answer a question like, “1 + 1 =” to verify that they’re human.

7. Use a call to action on the submit button

Submit buttons with explicit calls to action like “Get a quote now” or “Learn more about working with us” convert better than buttons that say “Submit” or “Click here.”

8. Include a contact form above the fold

Contact forms located above the fold in the upper right hand corner of a web page tend to perform the best. In addition to including a contact form above the fold, put one at the bottom of the page, as well, to emphasize the call to action and maximize conversions.

The web is becoming increasingly social, so it’s essential to build a social media presence in order to boost your business’s credibility. Benefits of building a strong social media presence include improving the way visitors feel about your website and reducing the amount of risk they sense when doing business with you.

Anyone can start a blog or website and do business online. That’s why it’s more important than ever before to build credibility and trust. Now that search and social are becoming intertwined, it’s especially important to get involved in social media. Here are some tips for boosting your business’s credibility factor through social media marketing.

Increase Your Social Authority

Increase your social authority by posting social media updates several times a day and interacting with other users on a regular basis. The more social authority you have, the more other users will trust you and the higher your site will appear in search engine results.

Network with Power Users in Relevant Niches

When using a social networking site like Twitter, network with power users in relevant niches. In social media, it’s not just about how many people you know – it’s about who you know. Engaging with power users helps to boost your credibility as an authority in your niche.

Encourage Sharing

Encourage social media users to share your content by including sharing options on your website and asking readers to share your content if they like it or find it useful. The more your content is shared, the more credible your site will appear in the eyes of users.

Be Personal

Contrary to popular belief, acting “business-like” in social media won’t boost your credibility. Businesses that have embraced social media in a personal way, such as Starbucks and Dell, have had the most success with the medium. Customers want to do business with companies that show they are real human beings. So, don’t be afraid to mix personal information and business information in your social media updates – let your customers can get to know the real you.

Be Picky about the Content You Share via Social Media

Reciprocity is important in social media, but don’t feel the need to share mediocre content just because that particular content creator always shares your stuff. Build your reputation as a social media user who consistently shares high quality content. Otherwise, people will start ignoring you.

In addition, don’t just promote your own content on social media sites. Become a respected voice in your industry by sharing the best content from other content producers in your industry. That way, people will come to see you as a trusted source of industry information.

Don’t Be Pushy

There’s nothing that’ll hurt your credibility more than using pushy sales tactics. People use social media to socialize, not buy products or services. Let your followers get to know you first before running promotions.

Establishing credibility via social media marketing takes time. You have to do all of the above for a long-term period in order to establish credibility and achieve worthwhile results. Just like in the offline, traditional business world, you can’t expect people to instantly trust your business. Building trust and credibility is a gradual process, but it’s well worth it in the long run.

2011 was a difficult year for the SEO world. From the Google Panda update to the removal of keyword referral data in Google analytics, the changes in search have made it all the more difficult to rank well for target search terms. But the New Year is upon us, and many SEO pros are gearing up for what is to come. Here are 5 SEO predictions for 2012.

1. Search and social will become inseparable

Google and other major search engines have continued to hint at the fact that social media plays an important role in search engine rankings. In 2012, it will become clear that no company can hide from the social web. Not only do social signals come into play in ranking algorithms, social media is becoming the primary method for users to discover and share new content online.

2. SEO will move towards content marketing and inbound marketing

SEO is becoming something broad and all-inclusive that incorporates content marketing, blogging, social media marketing, and web analytics. SEO companies will likely start focusing less and less on traditional SEO tactics, like link-building, site architecture, and keyword research to prioritize audience building and outreach. Increasing audience interaction with your content is critical because it enforces your brand’s authority, both in the eyes of search engines and users. The search engines continue to weed out sites with low quality content, so you also have to make sure that your content is engaging, informative, and useful. Keyword-stuffed articles you paid $5 for on a bidding site aren’t going to cut it anymore.

3. Google’s focus on paid search will back fire

Organic search engine results still get approximately 80% of all clicks, but that percentage is dropping, thanks to Google’s aggressive paid search ad displays that take up the first six positions. Nowadays, when you search for products, you’re bombarded with star ratings, reviews, prices, and product photos above the fold. While this is pushing more and more businesses to rely on paid search ads for traffic, Google’s strategy may end up backfiring in 2012 because people will become frustrated with being served so many paid ads and will start ignoring them in favor of organic results.

4. Brands that want greater search engine visibility will be forced to join Google+

It’s already happening. Google is encouraging more brands to join the Google+ network by making Google+ circles and +1s visible in their results. As more people join Google+, it will become easier for Google to link search and social signals. The downside of giving Google so much control is that they’ll obtain even more data about our online behaviors, which will make them an even more dominant force online than they already are.

5. Mobile search will become increasingly important

Optimizing your site for the mobile web isn’t just something to consider – it’s critical. Traffic levels to mobile websites are already significant, and they will continue to rise in 2012. Brands that do not have a mobile website and that don’t optimize their web presence for mobile users will suffer. Brands also have to manage content delivery effectively across various types of mobile devices, including smart phones, tablets, and game consoles, in order to maximize the value of mobile users.

Google has been getting a lot of flack lately in the SEO community for purportedly favoring big brands in its search results and kicking small businesses to the proverbial curb. According to critics, Google has managed to divert attention away from its questionable business strategies by publicizing projects like its self-driven cars and Google Plus, neither of which generates revenue for the Internet giant. Meanwhile, Google’s revenues have increased by billions of dollars this year and revenues from Google’s AdSense partner network have plummeted. What has Google done in order to grow so much, so fast, and why is its AdSense partner network suffering the consequences?

The Death of Organic Search Engine Rankings

Aaron Wall, a renowned SEO consultant and the founder of SEOBook, mentioned in a recent blog post that when he searched for the query “HD monitor” on Google, he could only see paid ads and links to Google pages above the fold. Based on his observations and Google’s sudden revenue growth, many critics suspect that Google is strategically directing search engine traffic to sites from which they can profit. This seemingly minor change has the potential to hurt many small business owners and affiliate marketers, who depend on high organic search engine rankings to generate traffic and sales. Google’s Matt Cutts even called independent affiliate marketers, “an unnecessary step in the sales funnel.”

Google is likely keeping the prime real estate in the SERPs for itself in order to boost profits. By becoming the largest affiliate, Google can quickly displace thousands of affiliate marketers and small businesses that rely on affiliate marketing income to survive. It’s a scary prospect, but Google will ultimately pay the price by killing the goose that laid the golden egg.

The Future of Online Marketing

People are bombarded with advertising and marketing messages on a daily basis, so they recognize ads quickly and tend to tune them out. Therefore, a good number of Google users are likely to head straight to the organic results when they perform searches. And if people continue searching for information on Google and realize that there is nothing but ads above the fold, they will probably begin to feel distrustful of Google’s search results and start using a different search engine. People use search engines to find relevant information, not ads.

Ultimately, it’s up to consumers to decide which search engine they’ll use, and if Google keeps this up, it’s likely that many people will seek an alternative. The world is ready for a new search engine, and Google’s making it easier for a competitor to take over the market by putting its own profits first.

Businesses that rely on the web for leads, sales, and profits can minimize their dependence on Google by building other sales funnels into their sites. From display advertising to social media marketing to email marketing, there are a variety of other effective online marketing strategies that you can implement. Other things that business owners can do to decrease Google’s power and influence in the online world is use a different search engine, avoid clicking on Google’s paid ads, and try other PPC ad networks besides AdWords.

In today’s economic climate, an increasing number of business owners have slimmer marketing budgets to work with. Furthermore, print advertising is on its death bed, so many are turning to the web to promote their products and services. Here are 8 solid tips for generating more leads online with a limited budget.

1. Make videos

Major search engines love video, and it’s a lot easier to get videos to rank well because there’s less competition. Create engaging videos and a YouTube channel with links back to your website to generate more targeted traffic to your site.

2. Build your list

In internet marketing circles, the power of having a “list” is well known. Email marketing is an extremely effective online marketing technique because people who subscribe to your emails are more likely to become your customers over time. To maximize the effectiveness of your email marketing campaigns, consistently provide immense value in your emails so that your subscribers look forward to getting emails from you.

3. Submit your website to directories

Make sure that your site is listed in all relevant business directories. Not only will listing your site in business directories help you build valuable backlinks to your site that improve its rankings, it’ll also enable you to drive targeted traffic to your website.

4. Create a targeted landing page

When you launch an online advertising campaign, don’t drive ad traffic to your home page – create a targeted landing page that reminds people why they clicked on your ad in the first place. Your landing page should deliver on the promise of your ad and have similar messaging and branding. You can perform split testing to maximize the conversion rates of your landing page.

5. Get active in social media

Social media activity correlates with higher search engine rankings, so make sure you build a presence on the social web. Social media also enables you to interact with your customers and send them promotional offers and discounts. You can also position your social media sites as a go-to resource for information in your industry by consistently sharing relevant, high quality content and news.

6. Share documents and slide shows

If you create white papers, reports, and power point presentations to promote your business, share them on sites like Scribd and SlideShare to ensure that they rank well in the search engines. Provide links to your site at the end of your reports and presentations, so people who engage with your content are led back to your website.

7. Update your site with high quality content

The search engines love websites that are fresh and up-to-date, so make sure you provide your site visitors with a steady flow of high quality content. Types of content that you can add to your site include videos, podcasts, and blog posts. If you don’t have time to create content on a regular basis, hire an online content specialist to help you.

8. Write SEO-friendly press releases

Write and distribute SEO-friendly press releases that are optimized for your target keywords. Press releases will drive targeted traffic to your website and improve your search engine visibility.

Building quality backlinks that point to your website is one of the top contributors to high search engine rankings. Links not only raise your rankings – they also bring you increased traffic and help to build your brand. What many online marketers don’t realize is that email marketing is an extremely effective technique for building links.

Link building is difficult and time-consuming because it requires you to build relationships with people who are inclined to link to your content. Email marketing simplifies link building since the people who sign up for your email list are obviously interested in your content and therefore more likely to link to it. The links you get from your email subscribers probably won’t be from major websites, but they’ll provide you with steady links over time that will gradually improve your rankings.

Some ways your email subscribers can share links to your content include through websites, blogs, forums, social networks, comment sections of blogs and websites, and social news sites. If you run a B2B business, you’ll probably have less potential linkers on your email subscriber list than a B2C business because to be able to link to your content, email subscribers must have the ability to publish to the web. Here are some tips for getting those email subscribers to link to your content.

Create Helpful, Informative Content

Create helpful, informative, and thorough content that your email subscribers will want to pass along to others. The more valuable your content, the more likely people are to share it with their community.

Share Embeddable Content

Share embeddable content, such as badges, infographics, and tools, with your email subscriber list. The benefit of sharing embeddable content is that you can control its anchor text and the page of your site that it points to, which is great for SEO.

Do Email Outreach

Take a look at the domain names of the emails on your list. Ignore emails with the domains of email providers, like Gmail.com, Yahoo.com, and Hotmail.com. Take note of the other domains. Do email outreach, contacting the websites with the highest domain authority. Since people from those sites are already subscribed to your email list, it’ll probably be a lot easier for you to obtain links from them.

Engage with Your Email Subscribers in Social Media

Using their email addresses, find your email subscribers’ blogs, Twitter accounts, Facebook accounts, and LinkedIn accounts, so you can engage with them further. It might take a while, but eventually, you’ll get links from those people because they’ll have a positive image of your brand and feel like they “know” you.

Give Something Away in Exchange for a Link

Send out an email to your subscribers, letting them know that they’ll receive a gift if they link to you. Items that cost next to nothing to give away include reports and ebooks. Alternatively, you could ask people to review your report or ebook (and link to it) in exchange for a free copy.

Ask People to Share/Spread Your Content

Make sure you add social media share buttons to your content, so people are more likely to share it/spread it. Better yet, explicitly ask your readers to share your content. Oftentimes, a strong call to action can make all the difference. Make it easier for people to link to your content by providing them with the URL you’d like them to link to along with the call to action.

There are many webmasters and unscrupulous SEOs who try to trick the search engines in order to achieve higher rankings. Their questionable SEO tactics, which are known as “black hat” SEO techniques, are often effective in the short-term, but they eventually get websites penalized or banned. Below are 8 common black hat SEO techniques that you should avoid.

1. Keyword stuffing

Keyword stuffing is one of the most common forms of search engine spam out there. It involves placing targeted search terms in your website content numerous times. Repeating keywords excessively is not only frowned upon by the search engines – it also makes your content read horribly. Your SEO success ultimately depends upon your ability to consistently provide people with engaging content, and keyword-stuffed content is anything but that.

2. Cloaking

Cloaking is a technique that involves designing your website so that the search engines see one thing and visitors see another. Cloaking can be done with programming or redirects. If one of your competitors figures out that you’re cloaking, you can be sure that your site will get banned.

3. Doorway pages

Doorway pages are web pages that are created to spam a search engine’s index. Doorway pages are optimized to rank highly for specific keyword phrases. As its name suggests, a doorway page serves as a doorway to your main website. Doorway pages are generally skimpy on content and provide little value to visitors.

4. Hidden text

Hidden text is text that is the same color as the background. Nowadays, the search engines can easily detect it when text is set to the same color as the background of a website. Some webmasters try to get away with it by creating an image file that is the same color as the text and setting it as the background. However, your website will quickly get banned if a competitor figures out that you’re using hidden text and reports you.

5. Buying links

The practice of buying and selling links goes against the guidelines of major search engines, but many SEOs still do it. Buying links is seen as a quick way to achieve higher search engine rankings because the more backlinks your site has, the higher it will rank. However, the practice is frowned upon by the search engines because many webmasters use it to manipulate their sites’ rankings.

6. Title stacking

Title stacking, or the practice of adding multiple title tags to a web page, can temporarily increase traffic to your website but it will get you penalized or banned if the search engines find out about it.

7. Interlinking

Interlinking refers to building several websites and then linking them together in order to build their link popularity. Interlinking is difficult to detect, but users may figure it out if several interlinked websites achieve top rankings for target search terms.

8. Article spinning

Article spinning is the practice of using a program to rewrite your content and create multiple versions of it. Every time you spin an article, approximately 90% of it remains the same. Many webmasters spin content and then distribute it to article directories. This tactic used to be an effective method for increasing a site’s search engine rankings and boosting traffic, but most sites that build links this way have been penalized since the Google Panda update was implemented.

Let’s say you create content that you’re sure will be a huge hit. But when you finally publish the content, you hear crickets chirp and see some tumble weeds roll by. This is actually a fairly common problem in online marketing, and it doesn’t mean that your content is bad. Lots of great content goes virtually unnoticed and it’s not the content’s fault – it’s usually the content creator’s fault. Here are some tips for ensuring that your content succeeds and achieves its full potential.

Write a Killer Headline

No matter how fantastic your content is, it is bound to fail if the headline sucks. The headline is the first thing that readers see, so it has to be enticing enough to get people to click through or continue reading your article. Great headlines contain your target keywords and are brief, clear, and interesting. Just make sure that your article delivers on the promise of your headline. Otherwise, readers might get frustrated with your content and move on.

Write Articles That Appeal to Your Target Audience

No matter how great your article is, it’s going to be a big flop if your target audience can’t relate to the topic you write about. Take some time to research your target audience’s needs and interests, so you can find a topic that is likely to resonate with them and get them talking.

Contact People in Your Network before Publishing the Content

Prior to publishing your piece, get in touch with people in your network to let them know about it. Email them, send them an instant message, or call them to inform them that you’ll be putting out a piece that would be of interest to their followers and ask them to help you spread the word about it.

Time Your Launch Well

Publish your content at a time when it will get the most views and shares. If you’re publishing content that’s meant for businesspeople, don’t publish it on 8pm on a Sunday night, when people are at home with their families – publish it at 10am on Monday morning, when it will get the most attention. And don’t hesitate to promote the same piece of content several times throughout the course of the week. For example, it’s a good idea to tweet content in the morning AND in the afternoon, so you can reach as many people as possible.

Post Your Content on an Influential Website

After spending hours conducting research, creating content, and fine-tuning it, the thought of having to post it on a site other than your own might seem disappointing. However, your content is likely to get far more links, attention, and traffic in the long run if you post it on an influential website that’s relevant to your industry. The more popular the website, the more attention your content will get.

Devise a Promotional Plan

Don’t expect your content to receive accolades if you don’t lift a finger after publishing it. It’s important to think not only about creating the content, but also about what’s going to happen after you publish it. Devise a content promotion plan that details how you’ll build links, attract the attention of influential people in your industry, and encourage people to share your content via social media.

Google recently announced the so-called “Freshness” update, which was introduced to provide users with more up-to-date and relevant search results. An extension of the previous Caffeine update, the Freshness update affects approximately 35% of searches. But what exactly does the Freshness update mean for search marketers and those of us who rely on high search engine rankings for revenue?

Understanding the Freshness Update

Google’s Freshness update prioritizes recent and timely search results. That means when people search for information about hot topics, the most recently published content will show up. Fresh content will even be capable of ranking higher than older content with lots of links.

According to Google, different searches have different freshness needs. For recent events and trending topics, searchers want to find the latest information, which is generally content that is just minutes old.

When searching for information about regularly recurring events, such as the World Cup or the presidential elections, most users want to find information about the most recent event. For example, if you were to search for information about the Olympic Games right now, you’d probably want to read about the London 2012 Olympics, not the Tokyo 1964 Olympics.

Even users looking for information about topics that aren’t trending or related to current events sometimes require fresh results. For instance, if you’re buying a new car, you probably want to find up-to-date information about the makes and models currently on the market. Google’s Freshness update was designed to provide you the most current information related to your query.

The Freshness Update’s Winners and Losers

The search visibility of many news, broadcasting, and prominent brand websites has improved significantly since the Freshness update was implemented. Some major websites that have seen improvements in rankings include Rate My Professors, Lonely Planet, Huffington Post, the Daily Mail, and Last.fm. It is difficult to classify the sites that have lost search engine visibility after this update since they are all over the map, but some specific examples include American Express, Jezebel, Comcast, and Gizmag.com.

Overall, it seems that the Freshness update has improved the rankings of sites with the freshest, most frequently updated content. It’s no longer just about being relevant. Being timely is also important! So, if there’s a hot topic brewing in your industry, don’t write a blog post about it and then schedule it for later in the week – write the post and publish it immediately.

Post-Freshness Update Content Creation Strategies

Having fresh website content has always been important in SEO, but the Freshness update has made it even more of a necessity. Ultimately, the more frequently you publish content, the better. Content that deals with recent trends or events in your industry will do particularly well.

The timing of your posts is also crucial. If you publish articles about hot topics, do so when people are likely to be online searching for information about it. For example, if you’re writing content that’s aimed at office workers, publish it during business hours, not at 8pm on a Saturday night.

Regularly tweaking the existing content on your site is also important. For example, if you run an ecommerce site, keep your content fresh by revising product descriptions on a regular basis. Old, static pages that haven’t been updated since you launched your site are likely to hurt your rankings, so make an effort to regularly review your content and ensure that it’s up-to-date.

In this day and age, SEO is no easy task. From the lack of Google keyword data in analytics programs to the infamous Panda update, a constant barrage of changes in the SEO world that have made the work of optimizing websites all the more difficult. One of the most challenging aspects of SEO is undoubtedly building links. But having a natural link profile is essential to your website’s success because search engines penalize sites with backlinks that weren’t “earned.” If you are actively building backlinks for your website, here are 7 ways to make them appear more natural to the search engines.

1. Use a variety of anchor text

It’s common for SEOs to build multiple links using the same keyword anchor text, but it’s better to use different versions of the keyword you’re hoping to rank for when creating anchor text for backlinks. For example, if you’re trying to rank for the term, “Omaha web design,” you can target related keywords like, “web design services in Omaha” or “Omaha web designer.” It’s also a good idea to use your website’s URL as anchor text sometimes because it will make your links look more natural.

2. Avoid purchasing backlinks

Never buy links because the search engines will penalize you if they find out about it. And besides, most of the links that are sold these days are of low quality and will only hurt your website’s rankings in the long run.

3. Build links gradually and steadily

Don’t build links too quickly because it will raise eyebrows, unless of course your site was featured on CNN’s homepage. To avoid arousing the suspicion of the search engines, build links to your site gradually and steadily. Remember: quality always trumps quantity when it comes to links.

4. Get many different types of links

While editorial links are generally the best types of links to have, you shouldn’t limit yourself to one type of link. Try to obtain links from various sources, including blog rolls, resource pages, high quality directories, social media sites, etc.

5. Don’t just build links to your homepage

While it’s important to build links to your homepage, it’s also a good idea to get links that point to internal pages of your site because it shows the search engines that other pages of your website are attracting interest.

6. Build your presence in social media

Social media isn’t going away any time soon and anybody who’s anybody online needs to have a social media presence. Links that are shared via social media aren’t as valuable as links from standard websites, but they still count towards your rankings, so you need to be sure to include them in your link portfolio.

7. Get links from sites in the same industry

Links from websites that are specific to your industry are hands down the most valuable. Perform competitive backlink analysis to determine what industry sites are linking to your competitors, and then try to get links from the same sources.

The SEO community is currently up in arms because Google recently announced that it would no longer share referral data from logged-in users. That means website owners can no longer find out what keywords visitors logged into their Google accounts are using to reach their sites. In the past, webmasters could see it in their analytics programs if visitors typed in phrases like, “black dress” or “Los Angeles plumber,” to reach their sites. Now, all they can see is “(not provided).”

This is a huge blow for SEO professionals and webmasters because it makes it all the more difficult for them to determine what keywords to focus on in their SEO campaigns. How are we to know which keywords have the highest ROI and whether we’re maximizing the effectiveness of our SEO campaigns if we don’t have access to information about user intent?

Google’s So-Called Privacy Concerns

Google claims that it made SSL Search the default encryption protocol because it wants to protect the privacy of its users. However, Google is still providing query data for paid search listings. So, basically, Google is only giving referral data to advertisers. Some folks in the SEO community take this to mean that Google doesn’t actually care about their users’ privacy and just wants to force more companies to use AdWords.

Another reason why Google’s recent move has upset SEO pros and webmasters is that many of them rely on search intent data to customize their sites’ content. If Google wants webmasters to improve the user experience that their websites offer, they need to continue providing them with search referral data for logged-in users. Many marketers rely on search intent data to customize their sites’ content.

If Google truly cared about user privacy, it wouldn’t offer query data to advertisers, either! But hiding query data from advertisers would clearly be bad for business because it would make it impossible for advertisers to measure the ROI of their PPC campaigns.

What Comes Next?

There’s no denying that losing referral data is a huge setback, but it doesn’t mean that your SEO campaign will crumble. There are a few things you should do. First of all, track the quantity and percentage of lost keyword data. Google has said that they expect the percentage of lost keyword data to be less than 10% for most websites. It’s important to keep track of that information, so you can determine whether the figure increases or decreases over time.

Meanwhile, you can continue relying on the keyword data provided by Bing and Yahoo, which probably account for around 10-20% of your organic search referrals. You can also access existing Google data from users not logged into their Google accounts and users clicking on your paid search ads, if you’re an AdWords customer. Although it’s not complete, such data will prove invaluable when you’re deciding which keywords to target and figuring out how to optimize your site’s conversion rates.

The popularity of the mobile web is exploding. In fact, it has been estimated that there will be more than 1.7 billion mobile web users by 2013. Don’t want to be left behind and miss out on sales? Then building a mobile-friendly version of your site is an absolute must.

Google has a separate index for mobile content and it is far smaller than Google’s index for standard websites. Therefore, competition in mobile SEO is minimal right now, but that’s sure to change once more people build mobile versions of their websites. To get your mobile website to rank well in Google’s mobile index while it’s still easy to do so, start building a presence on the mobile web right away. Below are some tips for optimizing your website for mobile users.

Simplify

Mobile devices have a restricted amount of screen space, so it’s essential to prioritize content. Eliminate all non-essential content and make it easy for your site visitors to find their way around. Remember: mobile users have even shorter attention spans than desktop users because they’re typically on the move when they access the web. With that in mind, design a simple website that focuses on just a few key areas of your standard site that would be of interest to mobile users, such as your contact page and a site search feature.

Resize Images

Avoid using heavy, desktop-sized images on your mobile website. Small images are appropriate for the small screens of mobile devices. Resize images on the web server, so they take less time to load on mobile devices.

Use Automatic Mobile Device Detection

Rather than communicating to users that you have a separate mobile website and asking them to visit that site, use automatic mobile device detection so that the mobile version of you website is automatically triggered when people access it from a mobile device. One of the most reliable automatic mobile device detection tools is User Agent detection.

Make It Easy for Users to Visit the Standard Version of Your Website

While it’s a good idea to take mobile users directly to the mobile version of your website, make it easy for them to visit the standard version of your site because they might not find all of the information or features they’re looking for on the mobile version of your site. You can put a footer link on every page of your website that leads to your “Full Site,” so users can easily go there when they need to.

Incorporate Brand Elements of Your Standard Website

Although your mobile website should be far simpler than your standard website, it’s still important to incorporate brand elements of your standard website to create a consistent, familiar user experience. For example, you can use the same color palette and iconography on your mobile website that you use on your standard website.

Don’t Use Flash or Java

Many phones do not support Java and Apple products do not support Flash, so avoid using Flash or Java on your site. Otherwise, a good portion of smartphone users will be unable to access your site’s content.

The mobile web is new to many website owners, so the process of designing a mobile compatible website might seem overwhelming at first. But if you follow the simple rules outlined above and keep mobile users’ needs at the forefront of your mind, you’re sure to succeed in building a user-friendly mobile website that maximizes traffic and sales.

If you’re investing in online ads of any kind, including pay-per-click ads and banner ads, it’s essential to use split testing to measure the effectiveness of your landing pages. Landing pages are the pages where visitors land when first visiting your site after clicking on your ad or link. With the help of split testing data, you can tweak your landing pages and improve their conversion rates, ultimately padding your bottom line and lowering advertising expenses.

It also makes sense to use split testing for landing pages that receive a steady amount of organic search engine traffic because it can help you improve your website’s overall conversion rates. It’s a good idea to promote the landing page heavily with advertising during the testing period, however, to ensure that the amount of traffic your landing page receives is statistically significant.

How It Works

Split testing, also known as A/B testing, is the process of comparing one variation of a landing page to another. Some elements of a landing page that you can test include the following:

• Font styles and colors
• Price changes
• Effectiveness of discounts
• Prices shown with or without tax
• Headlines, body copy, and call-to-action
• Photo and graphic usage
• Background color
• Location of opt-in box
• Badges from credible organizations, such as the Better Business Bureau
• Testimonials

Poorly designed landing pages are the leading cause of lost conversions for business websites. Your landing pages must be relevant, build trust, and make an offer your prospects can’t refuse in order to be successful. Moreover, your landing pages should have a clear call-to-action so that visitors can figure out what they are supposed to do next in a matter of seconds. If your landing page is unclear and hard to decipher, visitors will inevitably click away and head to one of your competitor’s websites instead.

Tips for Effective Split Testing

You can create two different versions of a landing page on your site, directing one half of the visitors to one page and the other half of visitors to the other page. Once you determine which landing page has the highest conversion rate, you can perform multivariate testing, or in other words, test multiple element changes against one another. The elements with the highest click-through rates should make it onto your final landing page.

Split testing is a time-consuming process, but it is well worth the effort. The more time you spend tweaking your landing page, the more money your website will make. There are several free and paid split testing programs to choose from. For example, if you use WordPress as your website’s content management system, there are plug-ins available that allow you to perform split testing with ease. Google also offers a free split testing program called Website Optimizer.

Never assume that your website doesn’t need split testing because it has a great design and compelling copy. All websites can use some improvement. Be willing to test various elements of your website’s landing pages in order to maximize conversions and sales.

In SEO, there are just as many myths and misconceptions that can damage your rankings as there are effective techniques that can propel your site to the top of the search engines. Because the search engines’ algorithms are kept secret from the general public, it’s common for misconceptions to flourish. One inaccurate blog post, forum post, or article is enough to spread a damaging SEO myth. Below are 5 of the most common myths in the industry and the truth behind them.

1. Toolbar Pagerank is important

Toolbar Pagerank is the Pagerank that appears in the Google Toolbar. Note that Toolbar Pagerank is not the same as a site’s internal Pagerank that Google uses in its algorithm. In the early days of SEO, the higher your Toolbar Pagerank was, the more valuable the search engines considered your site. Therefore, when webmasters built links, they only sought links from sites that had a Toolbar Pagerank of 4 or higher. Many people continue to follow this link-building strategy, even though it’s been proven that the Toolbar Pagerank no longer plays a role in a site’s rankings.

2. The META keywords tag affects your rankings

The META keywords tag will not help your rankings. It won’t do your site any harm, either, but creating them is just a waste of valuable time. Google publicly announced years ago that they were no longer using the META keywords tag to rank websites. Don’t confuse the META keywords tag with the META description tag, however. While the latter isn’t used to determine rankings, it is used as a snippet for your site in the search results, so it can help to increase your site’s click-through rates.

3. You have to submit your site to the search engines on a regular basis

Many unethical SEO firms mislead their clients by charging them to submit their sites to search engines multiple times. In reality, once your site is launched, you only need to submit it to the search engines once and doing so is free. There’s no need to pay an SEO company a hefty fee to do it for you! In fact, you don’t have to do it at all because the search engines will find and index your site on their own, as long as it gets a few links and visitors.

4. Nofollow backlinks are worthless

Backlinks from sites that use the “nofollow” tag are widely considered to be worthless, but many SEO professionals are starting to believe that the search engines consider nofollow links in their algorithms to some extent. Many authoritative sites, such as Wikipedia and Digg, use nofollow links. And links from those sites are still highly regarded. Furthermore, regardless of whether a link is nofollow, it will still refer visitors to your site. Even traffic you attract via nofollow links is valuable because those visitors may eventually become your customers.

5. You shouldn’t link to other sites on your site because it’ll decrease your rankings

Many webmasters try to keep outgoing links on their sites to a minimum because they believe that linking out will cause their own sites’ rankings to decrease. The truth is that linking out to other sites will not decrease your rankings. In fact, if you do it right, linking out to other sites could even improve your rankings. Google, the world’s most popular search engine, aims to highly rank sites that offer the best possible user experience. And linking out to relevant, useful content on other websites improves your site’s user experience. On the other hand, Google considers it unnatural for sites to have no outgoing links whatsoever. The only outgoing links that may hurt your site’s rankings are links that point to spammy, irrelevant, or malicious sites.

Attention online retailers: it might seem too early to begin preparing your website for the holidays, but it’s important to keep in mind that people start their holiday shopping online sooner than they do at brick-and-mortar stores because of the time it takes to receive items in the mail. Even if they don’t actually plan to buy something online, people like to use the internet to compare prices, read reviews, and look for special deals and promotions. You can monetize this kind of behavior if you present these prospects with the right content at the right time.

Now is a great time to start improving your site’s SEO, so it attracts more natural search traffic when the holidays finally roll around. Outlined here are 7 essential holiday SEO tips that will help you maximize sales this upcoming holiday season.

1. Promote specific items as good holiday gifts

Many prospects use the search engines to get ideas about what gifts to give to their friends and loved ones. Increase the chances that your products will show up when people search for gift ideas by describing each of your products as good gifts for men, women, children, moms, dads, travelers, etc. in tags and descriptions.

2. Offer a free shipping deal for holiday shoppers

Entice potential customers by offering them free shipping on all orders. Many shoppers search online for retailers that offer free shipping, so optimizing your site for the keyword, “free shipping,” will help you generate more traffic and sales.

3. Write about gift ideas on your blog

Publish gift idea lists on your blog that promote your products, so you can help your customers select appropriate gifts while encouraging them to purchase something from your store. Articles with titles like, “Top 10 Gifts for Her in 2011” and “5 Gifts for the Traveler in the Your Life” tend to get a lot of traction in social media.

4. Ask prominent bloggers to review your holiday gift items

Get valuable backlinks and promote your products to potential buyers by requesting prominent bloggers to review your holiday gift items.

5. Refresh your XML sitemap

If you’re like many online retailers, you probably carry certain items only during the holidays. Make sure that those holiday gift items are included in your XML sitemap by refreshing it. Another option would be to set up a special holiday XML sitemap.

6. Optimize images

An oft-overlooked SEO technique is to optimize website images by adding captions and alt text to them. If you optimize your images for relevant keywords, you may be able to attract more traffic and sales via image search since many people search for pictures of the products they’re thinking of purchasing.

7. Improve your website’s mobile shopping experience

Mobile commerce is expanding significantly. In 2010, there was a 300% increase in shopping-related searches during the holiday season. To take advantage of mobile commerce’s growth, optimize your website for mobile search and create a mobile version of your ecommerce site.

An increasing number of local business owners understand that they need search engine optimization (SEO) to succeed online. And it doesn’t take much research about SEO to figure out that the success of any SEO campaign depends upon its link-building strategy.

The challenge of link-building is that it is a long-term process that requires both manpower and financial resources. Since most small, local businesses have limited marketing budgets, they must develop ongoing link-building campaigns that require a minimal investment. Here are 5 link-building tips that small, local businesses can use to propel their websites to the top of the search engines.

1. Get listed in local directories

Although directory links are nowhere near as valuable as they used to be in SEO, they still dominate local rankings. The first place to start looking for links is on local directories. To find these local directories, search for your city’s name plus terms like “business directory,” “web directory,” and “local business links.” Big-name local business directories where you can have your business listed include Yelp, Google Places, YellowPages.com, and MerchantCircle. Other websites where you can get your company’s site listed include the local Chamber of Commerce website, business association websites, and company directories, like Manta.com.

2. Offer Online Coupons

Offer online coupons on local deals websites, so you can get featured on those sites and generate tons of traffic and links. In addition to getting a link from the deals site, you’re also likely to attract links from users of social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, which will give your site even more link juice.

3. Distribute Online Press Releases

Whenever anything press-worthy is going on in your business, such as the launch of new products and services, a new hire, or a big project, announce the news to the local company by writing and distributing a press release. Email the press release to local media outlets and groups who might be interested in the news, so you can earn additional links.

4. Submit Content to Local and National Blogs

Find relevant blogs at both the local and national level and submit guest posts to them that include a link back to your website. Your time may be better spent writing and submitting content to other blogs rather than maintaining your own blog because of the valuable links you can build doing the former.

5. Organize Contests

Organize a contest with a prize for the winner at least once a year, so you can spread the word about your business and attract a slew of links from bloggers and social media users. Don’t give a prize away that’s irrelevant to your business, however. For the best results, give away your own products or services as prizes, so you aren’t just attracting freebie-seekers who have absolutely no interest in your business.

The effort you put into link-building will pay off in a big way, but it could take as long as 6-12 months to see the fruits of your labor. As long as you set some time aside each month to write, network, distribute content, and strategize, your site is sure to accumulate valuable links and achieve greater search engine visibility.

Creating and distributing linkbait is a popular link-building technique. When done correctly, linkbait can build your authority, attract relevant links, and boost your online visibility. Although creating linkbait can boost your online presence, it can also damage your brand if you aren’t careful. Outlined here are some of the most common linkbait mistakes and how to fix them.

Creating Linkbait without a Promotional Plan

Don’t wait till after you’re done creating linkbait to come up with a promotional plan because without a solid strategy in place, there’s a good chance your linkbait will fall flat quickly. Prior to creating linkbait, approach some influential figures in your industry to see what they think about your concept. If people dig the idea and you’re able to secure around five promising links, start working on your linkbait.

Using Misleading Headlines

One common mistake that people make when creating headlines for their linkbait is that they create catchy headlines just to grab people’s attention, but the headlines are only loosely related to the topic at hand. Don’t mislead your audience because if your linkbait doesn’t deliver on the promise made in your headline, people will be disappointed and won’t share it. It’s possible to write a compelling headline without lying.

Being Controversial Just for the Sake of Being Controversial

You can’t deny the fact that controversial content makes good linkbait, but there’s a thin line between compelling, controversial content and empty rants. If you want to create a controversial piece that helps you build your brand, reputation, and authority, you need to make sure your argument is valuable and thought-provoking. Otherwise, your linkbait attempt could end up hurting your brand rather than helping it.

Not Understanding the Social Media Landscape

In order for linkbait to spread, it has to do well in social media. So, unless you’re deeply familiar with the social networks where you plan to share your content, consult with an expert. The preferences and behaviors of social media audiences vary widely from one social network to the next. For example, some types of linkbait may do exceptionally well on Twitter, yet fail miserably on Digg. Study the type of content that does well with your audience and then determine which social media networks your audience use the most, so you can create linkbait that’s right on the mark.

Using Unreliable Hosting

Make sure that your website’s hosting service is reliable, so your server doesn’t crash if your linkbait is successful and your site receives tons of traffic. Remember: all of the effort you put into creating and promoting your linkbait will go down the drain if your server crashes. A good hosting service is well worth the investment.

Creating Irrelevant Linkbait

Whenever you create linkbait, make sure that it’s relevant to your industry and your audience’s needs and interests. A silly video about cats may spread like wildfire and attract a slew of links, but it won’t help you grow your online presence if it isn’t relevant to your business.

One of the things people tend to struggle with when starting out in SEO is building links. There are several ways to build high-quality links to your website, but one of the most effective ways to do so, especially if you’re a beginner, is through guest posting. But there’s a whole lot more to guest posting than finding blogs that you like and submitting articles to them. In order to devise an effective guest posting strategy, you need to outline the goals you hope to achieve, define the purpose of each and every blog post you submit, and measure the results of your guest posting campaigns.

Define Your Target Audience

Who buys your products/services? What types of blogs do those people read? Find the most popular blogs that your target audience reads and submit posts to them.

Secure Guest Posting Opportunities

Once you decide which blogs you want to target, find out if they accept guest posts. If there are no clear instructions for guest writers on their websites, email them to ask if they accept guest posts. Prior to contacting blogs to pitch guest posts, make sure that you have some writing samples to show them, as well as a tentative title and description of the article you’d like to submit. Keep in mind that some bloggers don’t accept pitches and require you to submit completed posts for their consideration. Just make sure to follow each blogger’s instructions carefully because not following directions when submitting a guest post is a surefire way to get your work rejected.

Steer Clear of Sales Talk

It’s common for people who are new to guest posting to assume that they can submit thinly-veiled sales pitches as guest posts. But if you want your articles to get accepted and achieve optimal results once published, you need to remember that the point of your articles is not to sell your products/services, but to provide solutions to your readers. Make an effort to write the most helpful posts possible for your target audience. Sure, you want to get your business mentioned and get a link back to your site, but the article itself should educate readers. Besides, if you position yourself as a knowledgeable, helpful authority, people who read your article are far more likely to click on your link. On the other hand, if you try to sell, sell, sell in your guest articles, you will turn off readers and make them stop reading.

Measure the Results of Your Guest Posting Campaigns

Whatever it is you hope to achieve through guest posting, make sure you measure the results of your campaign. Building links is obviously one of the most important benefits that come with guest posting, but guest posts can also help you in several other ways, such as by building your authority, driving traffic to your website, attracting new blog subscribers, and growing your audience on social media networks.

Running out of Blogs to Post on? Find Blogs about Indirectly Related Topics

If your company sells shoes and you run out of shoe blogs to submit guest posts to, don’t fret. You can find many new blogs to submit guest articles to if you consider blogs about indirectly related topics. For example, you can write articles about shoes for fashion blogs, mommy blogs, sports blogs, or travel blogs. Obviously, your writing voice and angle will be different, depending on which type of site you write for.

Keyword research is one of the most important aspects of SEO, yet many people fail to do it properly. Making keyword research mistakes could cost you money because not all traffic leads to sales. In order to drive more profitable traffic to your site, avoid the following 7 blunders.

1. Targeting keywords people don’t use

This sounds like a no-brainer, but you’d be surprised to learn how many companies out there brainstorm to come up with keywords without determining whether people actually search for those terms. For example, some businesses use insider jargon as keywords. While these terms might be familiar to someone working in the industry, they are probably foreign to searchers, who tend to use different terminology. If you hire an SEO company to do your keyword research, make sure that they’re not targeting obscure, easy-to-rank-for keywords on purpose, just so they can guarantee rankings.

2. Targeting only high-competition keywords

For many business owners, targeting only high-competition keywords is simply unrealistic because there’s a good chance that they won’t be able to rank their sites for those keywords. Take your site’s authority and age into consideration when choosing keywords because targeting keywords you can’t rank for is a waste of time and money.

3. Not considering user intent

A keyword reveals a lot about user intent. Why did the user enter that particular phrase? What do they want? When doing keyword research, try to get inside the minds of users to figure out exactly what it is they want when they are using certain keywords. For example, a keyword that includes the word, “buy,” is more likely to convert into sales. On the other hand, a keyword that includes the word, “free,” probably won’t convert to sales because the searcher’s intent is to find something free of charge — not actually purchase something.

4. Selecting overly broad keywords

Ranking for overly broad keywords is pointless because broad keywords are far less likely to bring you targeted traffic and sales. For example, it’s better to rank for a specific keyword phrase, such as, “website development firm Canton, Ohio,” than a general phrase like, “website development.”

5. Failing to review keywords on an annual basis

Keyword research isn’t a set-it-and-forget-it process – it’s an ongoing endeavor. Consumer search behavior evolves over time, so reviewing your keywords on an annual basis is essential. During a keyword review, you can determine which keywords are performing poorly and need to be eliminated, as well as which keywords are performing well and show opportunities for growth.

6. Ignoring conversion rates

High levels of traffic don’t matter to your business’s website if that traffic doesn’t convert into sales. Ranking for certain, high-profile keywords might bring you droves of traffic, but financially speaking, your business would be far better off if you targeted keywords that actually translate to sales, even if they aren’t as glamorous as the former.

7. Rushing the keyword research process

Good keyword research, as with anything that’s worth doing, takes time. Rushing the keyword selection process could cost you money in the long run. Taking the time to select relevant, high traffic/low competition keywords that demonstrate purchase intent will bring you a high return on investment (ROI).

An increasing number of people have smart phones these days. Furthermore, according to mobiThinking, half a billion people accessed the mobile web worldwide in 2009. Within five years, usage is expected to double.

Although it’s possible to view regular websites on mobile devices, creating a mobile version of your website is recommended to ensure that it’s viewable on a wide range of devices and that it loads more quickly. In order to be mobile-friendly, your website must be HTML, not Flash. Additionally, it must fit the size of a smart phone screen.

Easy Navigation

The desktop version of your website probably features several links in the footer, header, and sidebar, but offering mobile users so many options isn’t recommended because they have such short attention spans. Only include links to the most important pages of your website, and make sure that the navigation bar is located at the top of your site, so visitors don’t have to scroll down to access content. Typing on a mobile device is difficult, so the idea is to make it easy for mobile users to find the most important content on your site.

Use Fewer Images and Graphics

Graphics and images are a must in web content, but on the mobile web, you should limit your use of them because they will make your website load more slowly on mobile devices. When you do use graphics and images, resize them, so they take less time to load and so that users don’t have to zoom in to see them. Furthermore, make sure they’re in .JPEG, .PNG, or .GIF format because those formats are lightweight.

Use Automatic Mobile Device Detection

Telling users that you have a mobile website and then getting them to visit the mobile version of your site can be a hassle. You can make it so that your website automatically detects mobile devices and triggers the mobile version of your site. One way to do this is through User Agent detection, which is when a server makes a decision about which website version to display based on the capabilities of the browser that the visitor is using.

Cut Down Content

Since most people who use the mobile web are on the go, consider cutting down your content into digestible chunks and providing links to the full articles for anyone who wants to read them in their entirety.

Use a Mobile Emulator

Use a mobile emulator to determine what your website will look like on different mobile browsers. Some helpful tools include the Blackberry Web Development Page, which gives you access to Blackberry simulators, and the Android SDK, which shows you what your website will look like on Android devices.

Put Your Contact Information in a Prominent Place

Many mobile users look for a business’s contact information, so make sure that your business’s phone number and address are displayed on a prominent part of your website. If you have a local business, including a map of your business’s location and directions that explain how to get there is recommended because it will make it easier for customers to find you.