So you want to be found on the search engines?

I can hear all the excuses now running through your head…

• I don’t understand SEO.
• I’m not a tech geek.
• I don’t write code.
• I can barely turn on my computer.
• My website sucks!
• and on and on and on…

The big reasons most website owners don’t do SEO very well is that they over complicate it. Here’s the simple, easy non-technical way to do it.

But first let me get you up to speed…

Clue #1

How other website link to you in the anchor text is very important. Anchor text just in case you were wondering is the word that you click on to view another website. As an example you can read about me here <== that’s anchor text.

the words that are highlighted that create the link are what you want other website owner to use your keywords in. If you have enough webpages linking back to your site with that keyword phrase you will be #1 in the search engine.

Here’s a little test for you. If you type “click here” in the search box in google the number 1 listing is for Adobe. But Why? Adobe doesn’t have anything to do with click here. However, website owner provide their users with pdf documents and for them to be able to view it the put verbiage such as this. “To Download your free Adobe Reader Click Here” and then they link click here to Adobe.

Just remember if you website is about “search engine optimization” then make sure your keywords are part of the link.

Clue #2

Have your title tag match your anchor text.

Now wait a minute…What is a title tag? I know I promised I wouldn’t be technical but consider this a bonus.

Here’s what the title tag looks like in the code.
<title>your keywords go here</title>

In your internet browser

(click image)

In the Search Engine Results Page

(click image)

So let’s take a look at the two clues and how you can use them.

First get people to link to you with your keyword phrase in the anchor text and then make sure your anchor text matches your title tag as closely as possible. If these are the only things you ever know and really understand about SEO everything else from there is just gravy.

Now that you know how easy it is ask your difficult question below

Is your marketing in order? With some of the biggest shopping days of the year just a few days away have you considered some of the other aspects to marketing online to have your best year ever this holiday season.

Black Friday: November 27, 2009  it’s the Friday after Thanksgiving this has been in years past the largest single shopping day of the year. If you have a retail location have you integrated your specials for that day in all your marketing and advertising?

Cyber Monday: November 30 2009, in the past few year the Monday after Thanksgiving has been the mega day for online shopping as people start to look for those special deal or those hard to find items that eluded them at the store. Send your emails early so people have them first thing in the morning.

Shipping Deadlines:Everyone wants their gifts delivered by Christmas so make sure you know the last day you can send your goods. Email reminders with incentives and if possible include free shipping (a big deal around the holidays)

• Wednesday, December 16, 2009 – USPS Parcel Post
• Thursday, December 17, 2009 – FedEx Ground and FedEx Home Delivery
• Monday, December 21, 2009 – FedEx Express Saver, USPS First Class Mail, and USPS Priority Mail
• Tuesday, December 22 – FedEx 2Day
• Wednesday, December 23, 2009 – FedEx Overnight, UPS Next Day Air, and USPS Express Mail

The biggest thing to remember with customers is that they will always procrastinate. Keep them informed about shipping deadlines and remember in make adjustments on times to include your processing time. You will always have an influx right before the deadline be prepared and everyone will be happy. A happy customer knows what’s going on especially around the holidays.

Photo by: Premier Packaging

I just watched this video from a presentation Seth Godin from O’Reilly Tools of Change for Publishing Conference, New York City, NY, February 11, 2008.

Seth made some very interesting points. My take away from watching this video is simple…

When you are giving something away for free (an idea) people want a souvenir to take as a keepsake. That’s when you can sell them something like a book or t-shirt. Make sure your idea can spread as easily and quickly as possible and you will be able to sell more souvenirs.

Watch the video yourself and see what your take away will be.

I am sitting at a Starbucks right now waiting for a friend of mine to call me so I can get him. Over this past weekend he got into a terrible car accident. He was going through an intersection when a guy (who I believe was speeding) hit him. The speed limit is 25 mph. Take a look at this picture of his car and tell me if you think the guy that hit him was going 25 mph.

I had a similar accident 12 years ago that changed my life. (I was hit by a semi-truck) After my accident I had to re-evaluate my life and what I wanted to do. It was extremely painful to walk for almost 4 years! It took me a few years of  pain and searching before I figured it out, but when I did I totally emmersed myself in my new profession…commissioned sales!

I was an egar student learning everything I could from all the “Old dogs” and quickly became the #1 sales guy for the company I was with. Fast forward a few years and I was now doing Internet Marketing.

Then it happened!

Another life changing event…

I was following some of the Internet Marketing Guru’s when everyone was talking about this “new” product coming out. They were all raving about it saying how it was going to change the way we did business online.

Man were they right. The product was called Butterfly Marketing. As I tallied up all my savings and bought the product I knew that when I could get it to work it was going to change the way I did business online.

In the home study course (Here’s Mine) Mike Filsaime talks about a couple of key concept

• Using Upsells
• Getting others to promote your product

I know what you are saying… these concepts are not new. I learned those years before when I first started selling. What was different was his application of it and how he did it online. Mike had automated almost the entire process.

Wow!

Everything I had been trying to do online putting together different software packages spending countless hours trying to make them work together had been done for me. I’m sure you can imagine my frustration of not being able to put all my sales and marketing knowlege to work for me online. I had been trying in vain to put together a system that I knew from my experience would work. Arrrgh! The agrevation of it all.

I made my payment to Mike and eagerly awaited my package to come in the mail. When it arrived with a big **Thud** at my doorstep I tore into it and didn’t stop until I was done. It took me almost 3 days of reading, watching videos and listening to interviews over and over again to realize that this was going to be another life changing event for me.

This Changed My Life.

Fast forward a couple of years later and I closed my brick and mortar office and do everything from my laptop sitting at Starbucks or where ever I decide to do business.

Why?…

Because I can! Thanks Mike

Do I have a point to all this?  Ofcourse I do…

Mike Filsaime has done it again. But this time he is giving away the new, updated version of what I payed $1500 for!!

Well, I am a little upset about it, but I am happy at the same time. I know this will be better that the first Butterfly Marketing product without the $1500 price tag, which is even more now! (What is Mike thinking?)

I don’t know what kind of things motivate you but for me changing my life for the better and making a sure my daughter is taken care of motivates me.

On March 24th @ 1pm EST exactly (or sooner if you are on his earlybird list) Mike will be giving out 5,000 copies of his Butterfly Markeing 2.0 ( I know what I will be doing)

To join me in this life changing event go to the Butterfly Marketing 2.0 web site and watch the video then sign up for the early bird waiting list on the right hand side.

Don’t forget Spread the word and share this moment with a friend after all this is the Butterfly Marketing way.

Tweet This

]]> http://www.micaljohnson.com/blog/407/this-changed-my-life/feed/ 0 http://www.micaljohnson.com/blog/367/google-valentines-day-2009-webinar/ http://www.micaljohnson.com/blog/367/google-valentines-day-2009-webinar/#comments Fri, 13 Feb 2009 19:12:16 +0000 TampaSEO http://micaljohnson.com/blog/?p=367

If you’re in SEO consulting you possibly have been drawn towards using of various seo loopholes.

Maybe you’ve gone grey on more than one occasion.

No doubt often there are arguments over what is grey-hat, white-hat, blue-hat, or black-hat. I’d think there’s a bit of heated conversations about the quick launch of the MSN ranking loophole infoproduct concerning whether the system is really as white-hat as the authors claim.

The 1 page sites actually do in fact appear to be truly white hat. I should warn you that that to claim a particular part of the linking techniques as white-hat is completely ridiculous.

Of course it’s not white hat. There’s nothing grey, white, or blue about it.

It should be said though you don’t have to use that strategy to get the ranking you want in MSN. It is merely a exploit for optimizers who are not afraid of the possible risks it might engender – which seriously – because it’s targeting MSN – really are not that significant seeing as the MSN search engine is quickly losing ground now

No doubt it is tough to pass up an opportunity to rapidly load up basic one page microsites that have great possibilitiies for ranking in the top 3 spots for almost every single keyword phrase you try to get rankings for on a regular basis – and getting those rankings rapidly.

Simply one more may way for acquiring low-cost visitors from MSN in addition to AdCenter.

If you choose to use search engine ranking exploits you are obligated to go over them with your client and detail what you are thinking of doing and the likely risks they create. If you do not, you you might lose not only your repuation, but also your career. And I would think that’s not what you you want to happen.

Bottom line:

If an SEO Consultant wants to use grey hat (marginal) or black hat (against search engine TOS) they shouldn’t use it on a clients web site. If you are doing something like that you are risking your clients hard earned dollars on something that will most likely only work for a little bit but doesn’t add to the long term value of the clients business…DON’T DO IT!

Your Email Marketing Working?

This is a question which is on the mind of all business owners who participate in an email marketing campaign for the purposes of promoting their business. In fact questions regarding the effectiveness of any type of marketing endeavor should be asked regularly to ensure the marketing efforts are producing the desired results. Asking these questions on a regular basis and continually evaluating the effectiveness of the email marketing campaign will help to ensure the email marketing campaign is working well and remains effective whenever changes are made to the marketing strategy. This article will highlight why it is so important to evaluate your email marketing strategy often and will also provide a few tips for evaluating your email marketing strategy.

Evaluating your email marketing strategy on a regular basis is very important because failure to do so may result in your efforts being essentially a waste of time. Email marketing may be a cost effective way to advertise your business but there is some time, money and energy involved in planning and executing an email marketing campaign. If the campaign is ineffective and nothing is done to attempt to make the email marketing campaign more effective your business is wasting resources by continuing to invest in this type of marketing strategy when it is not generating profit for your business or even interest in your products or services.

It is important to regularly evaluate the effectiveness of your email marketing strategy but it is even more important to set goals before you begin the process of evaluating your marketing efforts. This is important because without these goals it can be difficult to determine whether or not the email marketing efforts are effective. For example your goal may be to increase the number of sales you make per month. Evaluating whether or not you are generating more sales each month is a fairly simple process. However, if your goal is to generate more interest in your products you would use website traffic as opposed to sales to evaluate the effectiveness of the email marketing campaign.

Once you have determined how you intend to evaluate you progress you should be able to easily determine the effectiveness of your current email marketing strategy as long as this is the only marketing you are currently doing. This is because if you have more than one marketing strategy in use at once you cannot be sure which strategy is driving customers to make purchases or visit your website. When you decide to evaluate your email marketing strategy according to specific goals you should take care to ensure you are not currently running other types of marketing in conjunction with your email marketing effort. This will help to prevent confusion about which type of marketing is producing the desired effect. It will also help to prevent business owners from mistakenly believing email marketing is producing a desired effect when it is actually another marketing strategy which is helping to product the desired effect.

Customer surveys are very important for evaluating the effectiveness of an email marketing service provider. Asking customers how they heard about your products or services is an excellent way to determine whether or not many of your customers are being enticed to make a purchase based on your email marketing efforts. Additionally, these surveys can be used to obtain more detailed information about the email recipient?s reaction to the marketing management. Customers can provide valuable feedback about topics such as the layout and appearance of the email to the ease of readability of the content included in the email. All of this information can help a business owner determine how to design future emails to achieve a desired effect. Armed with this information the business owner can design subsequent emails which incorporate many of the qualities previous customers found to be useful and avoid qualities which were viewed as useless in the past.

Gary Vaynerchuk (@garyvee on twitter)gives some great insight on how to be successful in business. His “in your face”  style and blunt frankness will mystify your mind on how simple it is to make it happen.

Way too many people worry about huge scores and making BIG THINGS HAPPEN, well that is why they don’t make anything happen, watch this and get it!

The Search Engine Optimization industry evolved from the exploding commercial and social Internet development movement of the early ‘90s. Just fifteen or so years ago, at the time of the World Wide Web boom, businesses were only beginning to understand the increasing need for developing a marketable website – what is now the realm of the search engine optimization specialist. No one seemed to talk much about what made for the best web sites – outside of easy page navigation, cool design, and fast-loading pages. That’s because few seemed to fully understand the depth and grandiosity of the opportunities. And most new web development companies were more than busy enough just building web sites without needing to care much if those sites were actually performing for their clients.

Let’s fast-forward through a brief Internet history. As the ecommerce boom rippled out globally, hundreds of thousands of companies were literally online within days. Or maybe millions within months. Let’s just say it happened so fast, nobody could keep track! (I’d be more than willing to revise this statement if anyone out there has a reputable source for factual data on the matter!) Anyway, it’s safe to say that today, there are millions upon millions of web sites out there. And today, if your business doesn’t yet have an online presence, you already know that you can barely exist outside the range of your own home community.

Significant Industry Growth

Back in 1995, the United States had less than a thousand web design companies. Now, there are more than 40,000, and the affordable SEO industry is widely expected to grow another whopping 20 per cent over the next two years. This is encouraging news, despite recent speculation among governments, small and large recession. Fueling the incredible growth in the industry, essentially, is the relatively fast development of smaller web design companies, and the continued automation of medium and large business selling virtually any sort of service you can imagine around the globe. Yet another contributor in the success in the field is the steady decline in the cost of web development fees.

The past decade has seen an incredible transformation in commerce, with the Internet driving e-commerce, led increasingly by more and more sophisticated web design. With the rise in e-commerce comes a natural curiosity about how to host web sites that can track visitor activity and report on commercial advertising results in much the same manner as other forms of marketing. In addition, web site owners also want to increase numbers of random searchers easily targeting their web site.

When a potential visitor goes to Google to find, say, a screwdriver, Bill’s Hardware wants to be the first listing that comes up on the search engine list. This is where organic search engine optimization comes into play. Search Engine Optimization is the science of establishing, for any given website, a higher ranking in the search engine results than their competitors.

A web consulting firm can help small, medium, and big companies improve their search engine rankings, traffic, sales, and overall profit. These firms can develop professionally customized SEO campaigns that guarantee results.