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Is There a Marketing Baboon Loose in Your Neighborhood?

Thursday, August 19th, 2010

The big news in Saint Louis today is that there appears to be a baboon on the loose.

But what’s worse than a monkey running around your back yard? A business owner that is letting monkeys market his business.
Get that monkey out of your neighborhood!
Don’t let some monkey run your marketing campaign, telling you that you need to be on the radio, on billboards or even on the side of the Metro.  Where you need to be is on page one of Google for your main search term.

And there’s only one guy in Saint Louis that can do that – me.

I’m the number one SEO in Saint Louis (Search Engine Optimization) guy for a reason – because I get your business to the top of Google, Yahoo!, Bing and many other search engines.

Don’t waste any more money on untargeted shotgun marketing schemes.  Get that monkey out of your neighborhood and hire someone that can get you targeted traffic that’s ready to buy.

Your Hosting Company Can Affect Your Rankings

Wednesday, July 28th, 2010

Recently I picked up an SEO client which has a pretty good web presence, a nice domain name and a great product.  But when you searched for their brand, they were no where to be found.

After doing a little research, I discovered that they were using a hosting company that was based out of Canada, giving them a Canadian IP address for their domain. Ouch.
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Microsites & Micropages

Thursday, May 13th, 2010

Earlier this week I met with a potential client who sold personalized gifts.  He’s got a really terrific product line, something that I’ve never seen anywhere else.  In fact, I’m probably going to get me a Tshirt next week, even if he doesn’t hire me.  It’s that cool.

During the meeting, he was telling me how he had control over each page footer, how he could build out each footer to be different, link to different pages, etc.  That’s cool, could help with his internal linking.

But then he started telling me how he could build different pages for slightly different terms, and them link them through the footer, thus creating an entire network of pages.  For instance: Mother’s Day
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Google Adds Brand Searches to SERPS

Friday, April 30th, 2010

There’s a new change out to the SERPs today which I really like.  When you’re searching for a generic product, say a dryer, you’ll now see that added to the SERP pages is a link to several related brands.

serp for dryers
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Page Two, Spiders and SEO Contracts

Wednesday, April 14th, 2010

What percentage of searchers go to page 2 of any Google result?

Sometimes I meet a business owner that has done a little research, changed a few things on his/her website, and is really proud of being on the second page of Google for one of their industry’s terms.  But how many Internet searchers actually go to the second page of a Google result?
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Business Owners and Google’s Algorithm

Tuesday, April 13th, 2010

How many different things does Google measure when deciding where to rank your website in their index?

Many business owners are surprised to find out that changing just a few things to their website can result in a decent raise in their overall site rankings.  What they may not realize, however, is that there are more than just a few things that Google measures when ranking their website against their competition.
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I Need SEO, Now What?

Thursday, February 11th, 2010

I’m having a blast with the free Internet Marketing series I’m teaching here in Saint Louis.  The room has been packed at each session and the one I’m teaching tonight is no doubt going to be the same.

Tonight will be the final of three awesome classes.  Of the three, I enjoy teaching Marketing Your Business Website the most.  It’s basically a ten thousand-foot view of Internet Marketing, including pointers on good domain names, design and of course SEO.

I’ve been teaching this particular class for over four years now, and the expression of people’s faces as I close out the curriculum is nearly always the same.

Shock.  Surprise.

“We had no idea there was so much involved in getting our site to rank.”

“This is a ton of work and we’re already busy running our business.”

“We’ve got to do this but can’t believe all that’s involved.”

The realizations are always about the same.  There’s a lot to do to get your site moving towards the top.  There’s more than just coming up with a list of twenty keywords that you think are important (because your web guy asked you for them).  Lots more.  Not to mention social media, PPC or blogging.

So what do you do from here?

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Waiting Out the Results

Tuesday, January 19th, 2010

I was in the room for all four of our kids births, so I can’t exactly relate to the all-too-often scene on TV where the Dad and family is sitting in the waiting room anxious to hear the news of their new son/daughter.  Yet I feel the same way at times with some of my SEO accounts.

Waiting is part of the process.  It’s a painful part for most clients, because while they’re waiting, they’re still writing checks to me for SEO work.  Their level of trust with me is incredible, and I’m appreciative of it.  I’ve done my part to sell my trust to them, and now they wait to see if I can deliver.  Which I do.
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Are Bing Results Older Than My Mom?

Thursday, June 4th, 2009

This week Microsoft launched Bing – their latest attempt at search – ahead of schedule.  I’ve been playing around with it just a little bit, and have seen some interesting results.

In particular, it seems that the results that Bing is providing are about 4-6 months “behind”.  By this I mean, certain links to their results are from older page titles, ones that were changed around 5 months ago.

What does this mean?  Well, not a lot if you’ve got a nicely optimized site that has been around for a while.  But if you’ve got pages that are newer than say 5 months old, they may not be showing up correctly, or at all.

And if you have a page title or meta description that you’ve changed in the last 5 months, it may be displaying incorrectly.  It is in several instances for me, at least.

But don’t worry – I’m sure the BingBot (is that what they’ll call it?) will be around soon enough to re-digest your newer content and changes.  In the meantime, you may want to keep an eye on your visit logs to see just when it decides to finally stop by your place.

Mobile Twitter Coupons

Thursday, March 5th, 2009

I think the power of social media has yet to begin to peak.  The potential out there is just incredible.

Today I met with a potential client who owns several Italian restaurants here in the St. Louis area.  They are (just like every other restaurant) wondering how they can tap into the search engine and social media fields to gain new clients.  With the down economy, people are being more and more select about where they spend their money for dining.  Here’s where Twitter can come to the rescue.

I don’t want to go into the whole explain-twitter-to-me thing, but here’s something cool that many people may not know – twitter can link up to your cell phone, and you can receive updates about whatever it is you choose to see updates about.  You can see what friends are saying, or you can get notified anytime someone uses a certain phrase, etc.

So let’s say I’m looking for a good Italian restaurant in St. Louis and I post a quick note to Twitter via my cell. (Just a note here – if you don’t use your cell phone to do that, don’t think others don’t.  A *lot* of people are using their phones for this and a lot more.)

Using their API and search tools, Mr. Restaurant Owner can watch for phrases like “italian food” and “st louis”, “saint louis”, etc.  Anytime one of those phrases come across twitter, Mr Restaurant Owner immediately (or through automation) sends out a coupon for a free drink at his restaurant.  Or a free appetizer.  Whatever.

Using social media, getting clients that may have otherwise never known about you will get easier and easier.  But if you don’t know how to use the social media platforms to do these things, you’re going to be stuck standing on the front porch hoping customers see your sign.