Search Marketing Consultant

Since the introduction of Google Instant last month many website owners have reported an increase in traffic from long tail keywords.  This is probably due the they way Google search now makes suggestions as you type your search string.

To take advantage of Google instant, type in your main keyword and then make a note of the 5 suggestions.  These long tail phrases will probably be seeing an increase in traffic and should be easier to optimise your website for.

Use the technique along with your normal keyword research and pick up some extra easy traffic.

Search engine optimization is so popular because it enables webmasters to get a great return on investment. High rankings for the right keywords can have a big impact on your revenue.

The following instructions make it clear why it is so important to choose the right keywords for SEO. You can make a lot of money by choosing the right keywords.

How to find the financial value of your keywords

1. Start a Google AdWords campaign for the keyword, select “exact match” and point the ad to the page on your website that is most relevant to the keyword.
2. Track the impressions and the conversion rate of the ad. To get useful data, you should track at least 500 clicks. With that data, you can make a guess about the value of a visitor that finds your website through that keyword.

Here’s a concrete example

• Your ad might have had 10,000 impressions during a week and 200 visitors have clicked the ad to visit your website.
• 6 of these visitors purchased something on your website and the total profit was $500.

The keyword delivered 200 visitors and 6 buyers to your website. As the total profit was $500, the average single visitor who finds your website through that keyword is worth $2.50 to your business (200 visitors created a profit of $500: $500/200 visitors = $2.50/visitor).

What does this mean for your search engine optimization campaigns?

The average number one ranking for a keyword has a click-through rate of 40% (according to several studies). In the example above, your ad was displayed 10,000 times.

While your ad was only clicked 200 times, you would get 4,000 visitors per week if your website was listed in the regular results on the top position.

As the average visitors adds $2.50 to your profits (see above) you would earn $10,000 per week with that keyword.

That is $520,000 per year with a single keyword! That is why businesses love search engine optimization.

This sounds unbelievable but search engine optimization makes it possible. It’s simple maths and it really works.

Resource:
Our popular tool IBP helps you to get your website in the regular top 10 results on Google’s result pages for the keywords of your choice. If you haven’t done it yet, test the latest version IBP 11.7.5 now!

If you run a local business or some of your target market is local then you should have a listing on Google Maps.  It free and your business could be listed on the first page of Google along with your phone number.

To get listed on Google Maps submit your website through Google’s Local Business Center.  If you already have a Google Account Login and click  “Add New Listing”  and enter your company information.

To get the best results and position in Google Maps make sure you enter as much information as possible about your company.

• Include important keywords in your description. 
• Choose the best possible category for your website
• Add information about opening hours, payment types, etc. 
• If possible, include images and videos to help your listing stand out.

The more information you provide, the better.  If your business location is in the center of the town, it is more likely that it will appear at the top of the list but this is not necessarily the case. 

When choosing categories don’t just select categories from the list provided, choose your own. This can really improve your position, so use your five best keywords.

Submit your website to other local directories. Google Maps compiles its local results by crawling and parsing data from other online directories and databases. A good position in online yellow pages can cause your listing to be placed higher on the list.

Once you have entered your information your listing can appear on Google maps in about an hour.  By making small changes you can check again an see if you have improved your position.

You can also improve your position on Google local search by gaining citations. Look at your listing and you will see a section called “more about this place”. Google will search the Internet and find websites that metion your business and add some to this list. By adding your business to local business directories such as FreeIndex and Hotfrog you can gain citations and improve your positon.

Other directories that can help are:
bview
touchlocal
findtheneedle
yelp

Even if the directory links to your website with a “NOFOLLOW” it may still appear as a citation while not helping your natural listing it will help your local listing.

Read my next article in my ‘Search Engine marketing’ series about keyword research.
Click here

Would you like to make more money from your website? 
Silly question really – of course you would.

One of the easiest ways to make more money from your website is to increase the number of visitors. You can either spend more of your valuable time working on this, pay for more advertising or employ an SEO company.

I have created a simple calculator to help you decide if hiring an SEO company would be cost effective. Enter a few figures and you can imediately see how much  money your website could be making if it had multiple page one rankings in Google.

Click on the link below and download my free website profit calculator.

Website Profit Calculator

I would be interested to hear any comments and ideas for improvements so give it  a try and send me some feedback.

The key to getting targeted traffic to your website is simple.  Optimisation your website for the ‘right’ key phrases.  Choose phrases that are too competitive and you will not be able to gain high enough rankings to bring in any traffic. Choose key phrases with a low number of searches per month and you may acheive top rankings but very few visitors.

Finding the right keywords is very time consuming, but this should not be rushed.  A mistake in keyword selection and optimising your site for the wrong phrases could cost you a lot of time and money.  I’m not going to go into ways to find the best keywords here but I have just started to use a tool that I should have bought years ago.  It has saved me so much time as all the information I need for keyword research is in one place.

So if you’re serious about SEO and need to do extensive keyword research in the quickest possible time than take a look at Keyword Elite.  Another great product from Brad Callen.  I have been using SEO Elite  for a few years for back link analysis.   If you click on this link you can get both products for price of one. Keyword Elite and SEO Elite
With an 8 week money back guarantee what have you got to lose?

Online advertising spending in the UK has overtaken television expenditure for the first time, a report has said.

Outlay grew 4.6% to £1.752bn between January and July, according to the study by the Internet Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers. Read More…

The Internet has always been a very cost effective form of advertising so if you are looking to start advertising your business online and need some help why not give me a call on 01303 849329

Yahoo is planning to scrap their search engine and paid ads next year and join forces with MicroSoft using their Bing search engine.  If you don’t already optimise your website for Bing, now is the time to start. Bing is predicted to have a market share of at least 15% but probably more next year.

Yahoo Site Explorer curently provides a great free tool for analysing incoming links but this may disappear next year. There are a number of tools available that we currently use to analyse backlinks, I recommend: IBP and SEO Elite.

Why not get a professional to carry out all you SEO work and free up your time to run your business and concentrate on doing what you do best.

For a free keyword analysis report contact Sytec Web Design.

The best way to increase your website profits with out increasing your traffic is to improve your conversion rate.  Say your website gets 1,000 visitors per week and your conversion rate is 1%, this means you make 10 sales per week.  By improving your conversion rate by just 1%, to 2% you will double your sales from 10 to 20 per week.

So, how do you improve your conversion rate? I did speak about various ways to improve your conversion rate in a previous post but today I would like to talk about choosing keywords.

The most important part of SEO in the keyword research, but how do you know which keywords are going to give you the best results or conversion rates?

If you use keywords that are too generic and highly competitive you will find it very hard to achieve high rankings and even if you do get a top 10 position you will more than likely find the keyword does not convert very well. This is normally the case with one word key phrases or posibly 2 word key phases.

It is a good idea to consider what your prospective visitors are actually searching for.

In most cases people searching using one or possibly 2 word key phrases are simply researching and are very unlikely to buy or contact you on the first visit to your website.

Examples are golf, mobile phones, insurance etc.

Searches using 2 – 3 word phrases are normally used by people who are narrowing down their research and maybe looking to compare products or prices.

Examples are golf clubs, cheap mobile phones, car insurance etc

Its not until people start to use 3 or more words in their search phrases that they are getting ready to buy or make an enquiry.

So the best and easiest keyphrases to target are normally 3 – 5 word phrases.

By using more specific keyphrases (sometimes known as long tail keywords) you can increase your conversation rate and these phrases are normally less competitive or cheaper if you are using Pay per Click.

A new report shows 62 percent of small U.K. businesses are not investing in SEM, although 76 percent of those doing so report an increase in sales. Read more..

If you want to find out how to increase your sales using Search Engine Marketing contact Sytec for a free keyword analysis report.