SEO Best Practices: Page Titles, Meta Description, and Meta Keywords

When it comes to onsite optimization, you need to put on your SEO marketing hat. The following guidelines show you how to create optimized page titles, meta descriptions, and meta keywords. Don’t forget quality body copy! If you follow these specific guidelines, you’ll soar to #1 in Google in no time!

A page title holds greater weight over a meta description. Meta keywords aren’t as important as they used to be in the search engines. Keywords should be used sparingly throughout the body copy. Remember these SEO best practices– especially if you want to rank high and get thousands of links.

Page Titles

According to SEO experts, page titles are the MOST important element when it comes to SEO. Writing a dynamic page title can be difficult. It has to LOOK attractive so people will click on your listing (AND you need to include keywords too!) A compelling title needs to use 65 characters or less. Remember not to keyword stuff – this is considered an unethical black hat technique and you’ll either get bumped out of the search engines or lose ranking.

Example of a Good Title:
Los Angeles Sporting Goods – We HAVE What You Need – Kicks Soccer Store

Meta Description

Meta descriptions need to capture keywords but it also needs to look appealing (just like the page title). You only have 160 characters so be creative and make it sound compelling. If you go over 160 characters, your listing will be truncated and ellipsis (…) will appear. This is a “no-no” in SEO because search engines don’t like ellipsis – it will decrease your click-through rate (CTR).

Example of a Good Description:
The Biggest Selection on Sporting Goods in the Los Angeles Area. 50% off and FREE Delivery on All Sporting Goods When You Shop Online. Click Here to Order NOW!

Use active words that entice your visitors and make them WANT to choose and click on your listing. Make sure to include a call to action (“Click Here to Order Now!”) and capitalize the first letter of each word (increases CTR). Capitalize power words such as: FREE, NOW, TODAY, etc.

Meta Keywords
Meta keywords aren’t AS important as they once were in SEO. It’s not a complete waste of time but Google doesn’t identify them anymore. It doesn’t hurt to add them but be careful how you use them.

Warning: Your competition is going to look at the keywords you use. Don’t make your keywords too obvious. Don’t put your relevant/high search volume keywords here either. If you do, your competition will steal them.

Don’t forget to add keywords to the body copy. If you only use keywords in your title, description and meta keywords (tags), it’ll be difficult for you to rank those keywords.

• Use keywords between 3-10 times (for each 600 words).

• Don’t keyword stuff – copy needs to make sense and look natural. WRITE for your site visitors NOT for search engines.

• Remember that you want to get incoming links. If your body copy sounds like nonsense, no one will link to your site and there goes your traffic!

• ALWAYS add VALUE and quality when you write body copy. Sound like an authority/expert in your field.

• Your ultimate goal: to be a resource where people find information. If you keep that in mind, you’ll get high rankings and many links. Poor content will never get you anywhere in SEO.

This is a Guest Post by Zeke Camusio who is a serial entrepreneur, Internet Marketing expert and founder of The Outsourcing Company, an Internet Marketing agency with offices in Aspen, CO and New York. Let’s Do It!, his blog, is read by thousands of people all over the world.

The Best WordPress Plugins for SEO and Marketing

WordPress is one of the most widely used blogging and publishing platforms on the Internet. WordPress has a wide variety of plugins that gives sites a much-needed boost in the search rankings.

Plugins (or add-ons) are software modules that add special features or services to a larger system. These plugins are geared specifically for SEO and marketing functions.

WordPress is easy to use and is popular for its blogging features. Plugins are great SEO tactics but don’t forget to utilize other “on site” SEO techniques.

• Keyword Optimized Content – Pick a few keywords that will rank high in search engines. Don’t “stuff” keywords into your content or you’ll get low ranking or bumped out of search engines altogether. Keep posts to at least 250 words. Lengthy content will lose your readers.

• Find Your Niche – Pick a niche and stick with it. Another key SEO strategy is to keep your sites consistent – a niche blog covering ONE topic is going to rank higher than a “general” site covering hundreds of topics.

• Site Design – Make sure your sites are easy to navigate and are validated (get rid of bad code!) Search engines don’t like a lot of Flash or JavaScript so keep sites simple and clean. Get rid of dead links (update on a regular basis!)

The following sites feature BEST WordPress plugins for SEO and marketing purposes:

1. WP Post Ratings - Ratings filtered by different groups such as: popular by author, month, year, category, all-time, etc.

2. Google XML Sitemaps – Informs search engines (Google) about pages on sites that are readily available for “crawling.”

3. All in One SEO Pack – Automatically optimizes titles and meta descriptions for search engines.

4. Twitter Tools – Integrates Twitter accounts to WordPress blogs

5. FeedBurner FeedSmith – Track stats, clickthroughs, subscribers, etc.

6. Easy Tube – Takes control of video content (YouTube, etc.) by using one tag

7. Lightbox 2 – Changes settings (background colors, etc) and add “lightbox” effect to blog posts

8. Google Analytics for WordPress – Tracks and segments links from posts; tracks image search queries and Adsense clicks

9. Wordpress Global Translator Plugin – Automatically translates your blogs into 41 different languages (includes 4 translator engines such as Babelfish)

10. WP-Cache 2.0 – Efficient page caching system that makes your site FASTER and more responsive.

11. WP-PageNavi 2.20 – Adds advanced paging navigations to blogs

12. Spam Karma 2.3 – Automatically blocks spam on blogs

13. Subscribe2 – Notifies subscribed members each time a new post is made

14. Target Blank In Posts And Comments – Opens links in blog posts and opens comments in new windows – keeps visitors on your pages

15. cforms – Powerful form building plugin. Allows you to have multiple forms on same page

16. Popular Posts – Lists “most popular”/most visited posts on blogs – usually found on the sidebar

17. Subscribe To Comments – Commenters can sign up for email notices of entries– allows them to unsubscribe to certain posts or change notifications

18. Yet Another Related Posts Plugin – Gives lists of pages or posts related to current entry – subscribers are directed to other related entries/content

19. ShareThis – A simple way for users to add blog posts to social bookmarking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Digg, etc. or share via email

This is a Guest Post by Zeke Camusio who is a serial entrepreneur, Internet Marketing expert and founder of The Outsourcing Company, an Internet Marketing agency with offices in Aspen, CO and New York. Let’s Do It!, his blog, is read by thousands of people all over the world.

Put on Your Marketing Hat: Strategic SEO Link Building That Works

You can spend hundreds of hours hunting down ways to build links. How does that help your company at the end of the day? Link building can turn into a wild online goose chase AND you waste a lot of time and energy in the process.

It’s time to put on your marketing hat and think about SEO link building from a strategic point of view. Go beyond just the basic elements of SEO and think about the bigger picture with your marketing goals.

It’s All About Unique Content
Strategic SEO link building centers around CONTENT - not just any content - but unique, quality content that provides valuable information to your readers.
Why is this important? Unique content is one of the easiest ways to build credibility within your niche. It makes you a viable resource to readers. As a result, they will link to your site because they trust you and look to you as an expert.

Focus on Marketing Tactics
Strategic SEO link building focuses on a marketing and public relations perspective: HOW will you get users to link to your site? Think about your audience, branding and remember to keep messaging consistent.
You can use all the fancy “mechanical” SEO tricks but you can’t solely rely on that to increase search engine ranking. For SEO link building to be successful, your strategy needs the best of both worlds. Here are a few tricks that can help you along the way with link building.

Marketing:
• Think about ALL the “off-line” promotional opportunities your company encounters. Special events are a great way to build links. Do you sponsor the annual celebrity chef food event each year? Ask the charitable organization to link your site as part of your sponsorship/advertisement to their website. Charitable organizations will cross-promote links on their sites as “thank yous” to their sponsors.
• Utilize your local resources, colleagues, clients and contacts. Do you belong to trade associations, the Chamber of Commerce, or service organizations? These organizations usually have websites and online newsletters. Ask for a direct link.
• Include links in your online press releases and promotional materials such as annual reports and case studies. Use job listing and event sites. Optimize keywords in these listings. Always ask for a DIRECT link to your site so users can find out more information about the event and your company.

Public Relations/Media Relations:
• Whenever you email journalists or bloggers media pitches, always include a link. If you find out that you will be featured in an online story (especially if you are interviewed directly), ask the writer to include a link to your company’s website and/or blog.
• Train company representatives (presidents, marketing directors, etc.) in SEO-specific media relations. Use consistent keyword phrasing in media messaging. If your story is published online, keywords will be picked up in search engines and linked back to your site.
• Because your link is tied with credible online media sources, your search rankings increase and your company receives MORE publicity! A win-win marketing success!

This is a Guest Post by Zeke Camusio who is a serial entrepreneur, Internet Marketing expert and founder of The Outsourcing Company, an Internet Marketing agency with offices in Aspen, CO and New York. Let’s Do It!, his blog, is read by thousands of people all over the world.

SEO Outperforms Print Media

In times of recession, one of the first things that corporate bean counters tend to reduce is their spend on advertising and marketing. Of course we know that this should be one of the last things to go! In some instances, though, it appears that a new trend is emerging. Companies appear to be shifting away from traditional media and increasing their focus on Internet marketing and search engine optimization. Many companies appear to be voting with their checkbooks that SEO will outperform print media, especially during a downturn.

The current decline of traditional media outlets, such as print and radio, can be seen in the mid-2009 Clients – Agency Economic Outlook Report by Reardon Smith Whitaker. 32% of clients surveyed said they had increased spending on SEO this year, some quite significantly. Agencies seem to be accelerating the trend with 50% saying that their SEO spend was considerably higher than last year. Other studies seem to agree that a majority of companies are maintaining or increasing their spending on search engine marketing.

SEO has some significant advantages over traditional media. For example, a newspaper ad can have a very short shelf life – a day or less, whereas a correctly constructed website can be visible for months or years. The traditional yellow page ad, for example, could cost tens of thousands of dollars per year and yet studies now show that a majority of consumers tune in to Internet search engines for information as opposed to thumbing through the telephone book.

Online marketing is definitely the cheapest way to tell the world about your business and people who find your site through SEO tend to be much more educated and more motivated to buy from you.

Most advertising in traditional media is traditionally not very focused, whereas advertising online, such as through the use of pay-per-click marketing, can be very highly focused indeed. In short, if you run your PPC campaign well, you’re only paying for qualified leads who visit your primary portal to – hopefully – purchase your product or service. With traditional media, such as a newspaper ad, you are paying no matter who sees your ad and a very considerable proportion of these people will have no interest in your wares, whatsoever.

As the draw of the Internet continues to grow at a pace, the effects of the recession will only help to increase the focus of company marketing executives. The proportion of funds spent on SEO and Internet marketing versus traditional media is likely to continue to grow.

Is there still a place for print media in modern marketing?

Adam Toren

Double Your Sales: Boost Your Conversion Rate with Google Website Optimizer

Have you recently seen a decline in your online sales orders and don’t know why? If you are looking for a website optimizing tool that improves lagging conversion rates, it’s time to take that next step with Google Website Optimizer.

Conversion rate is the percentage of visitors to sites who take a “desired action.” Your “desired action” really depends on your online marketing goals: i.e. are you trying to sell products, boost membership, or increase newsletter registrations?

Google Website Optimizer works in the following ways:

Creates dynamic, high-converting pages
• Tests and optimizes both design and content for websites and landing pages
• Uses Google Analytics for its tracking

Utilizes both split testing and multivariate testing
• A/B split testing – If you can’t decide which headline to use on the home page, Google Website Optimizer can run an A/B split test. For example, one group of visitors view “Headline A” and the other group views “Headline B.” You then tally the numbers of orders you received with “Headline A” versus “Headline B.”

• Multivariate testing – You don’t have to wait to run one test at a time. While you test your headlines, simultaneously test out web page elements such as content, images and sales pricing. Site visitors are shown different combinations of pages. Google Website Optimizer calculates your average of what combination of elements that works the best when viewed.

Why should you use split and multivariate testing?
The answer comes down to test marketing. You wouldn’t throw a product on the market if you hadn’t tested it out first. How will you know if customers like or dislike your product? This same theory applies to Google Website Optimizer. By testing out what visitors like or dislike, you will be able to improve upon your site and maximize conversion rate.

How can Google Website Optimizer increase your bottom line?
If you can figure out what works and doesn’t work on your site, then you are one step ahead of your online competitor. Increased conversion rates equal higher sales, new members and increased newsletter sign-ups.

Remember that a beautiful-looking website doesn’t necessarily mean you will draw traffic or instantly sell products and services. There are more factors involved than just design and that’s where Google Website Optimizer comes in handy.

Easy Fix-It Tricks
If you don’t get it right the first time with testing, these easy fix-it tricks will point you in the right direction. You may have to try multiple split and multivariate test runs. Remember that even small, subtle improvements to your site will hit the mark with testing. Your ultimate goal: fix the problems and increase your conversion rates!
• Don’t make test runs complicated - Limit changes 2-3 per page. You don’t want to run hundreds of test variations which can be confusing and counter-productive.
• Headlines - Change the color of main headlines.
• Fonts - Increase or decrease size. Change font style.
• Content and Images – Add more bullet points. Re-arrange sub-headers and paragraphs. Test content with or without images.

This is a Guest Post by Zeke Camusio who is a serial entrepreneur, Internet Marketing expert and founder of The Outsourcing Company, an Internet Marketing agency with offices in Aspen, CO and New York. Let’s Do It!, his blog, is read by thousands of people all over the world.

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