Why Your Small Business Should Have a Blog

On July 23, 2010, in Business Website Tips, Online Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Marketing, by Chris Edwards
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Many small businesses as well as large companies are starting to create business blogs. You may be asking yourself if your small business should have a blog. The answer is almost always “yes”.

First and foremost, the blog is to compliment and not replace your business website. A blog will help your business website grow in both viewers and in creditability.

One of the main reasons to create a blog is to show that you as a small business owner knows your industry and your product. It shows that you also have passion for your business. Blogs are more personal as many are written in first person. When your customers see you blogging about your industry, they realize that you are the real thing. This gives you one up on your competition showing that you are ahead of the curve and a true authority in your industry. (more…)

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Search Engine Friendly Navigation

On July 22, 2010, in Search Engine Optimization, by Chris Edwards
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Many web designers want to create a spiffy web site with flashy navigation. This is great on the user’s end but when it comes down to search engine optimization, this will kill all of your efforts.

Search engine spiders crawl the web following every link they can find.  Most spiders can not read complex flash menu systems. If you are using one of these types of menu systems then its possible search engines can not find your sub pages.

To solve the issue of menu systems you can do one of two things. The first thing you can do is create a separate navigation that is based of text links. This should be listed somewhere on your homepage such as at the bottom of your page. You can also just place a text link to a site map that list links to all the sub pages within you site. Although this will help all sub pages be found I highly discourage the use of any Flash menus. (more…)

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Coming Up With Keywords

On July 22, 2010, in Search Engine Optimization, by Chris Edwards
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I have learned that coming up with keywords is the most difficult part of doing search engine optimization. There is no way for me to teach you how to come up with the best keywords on the internet but I will try to assist you.

The first and easiest part is coming up with the obvious keywords. These would be the keywords that are related to your site, product, service or anything else you have on the site. With this information it will be easier to develop the rest of your keywords.

Once you have picked out the keywords that aver obvious then its time to do the related terms. These related terms are important when trying to theme your site and also when you are trying to work with link popularity and link relevance.  Related terms should be words that are similar to your website. This may not be your main content but may be something your site touches on. Going back to our “Lava Lamp” example, you may want to include in your related terms “novelty lamps”. This term is similar to your site. Be sure not to forget to develop some content around these related terms. (more…)

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Search Keywords That Work

On July 22, 2010, in Search Engine Optimization, by Chris Edwards
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There are different types of keywords I would like to cover. I will cover these in the order of importance. Keywords are the main meat of your website. You can have all the pictures in the world but without keywords your site will not show up in the search engines. A common mistake I have found with many of my clients if they want to focus on the design and pictures in a website and not on textual content. The truth is pictures will help to sell your product but only after someone finds your site. Since search engines run off text searches, you must use text to be found by the search engines.


Major Keywords

I wanted to point out that the title says “Major Keywords” and not “Major Keyword”.  The reasons for this is you don’t want to make one of the most common mistakes, using only one keyword. The reason to use multiple keywords is so that your site is not based off just one keyword. If you build your keyword strategy off just one keyword you will actually be limiting your potential visitors and buyers. Most websites offer several services and you want to push all of your services. I would suggest around 5-7 major keywords. If your site is large and offers many different services you may want to push a few more but I would recomened not to exceed 10. Your major keywords should be single words or very short phrases. On average when someone performs a search they do not search for more than 2 words. (more…)

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