Well, I am happy to report that my main homepage for our Online Marketplace, ESalesGuru.com jumped from a Google PR of 3 to 5 this week! Yes, I know, Page Rank is not everything, but a 2 point jump in a week is a positive step towards Search Engine Supremacy in my market segment!
With the Page Rank jump, I spent some time this week reflecting on the SEO tasks and activites we had performed over the past few months that might have helped the cause here. Now, before I share my "Simple Truth" (and I mean simple), I must make the disclaimer that I am not a Search Engine Optimization Guru in any way, shape or form. Yes, I read a lot of Search Marketing blogs, ebooks, ezines etc…, but am really just trying to keep up with this rapidly evolving industry like every other business.
Now, as I reviewed our many activities, it all came down to this one simple truth: A steady steam of relevant and keyword-targeted content was the cornerstone to our Search Engine Optimization success! You are probably saying to yourself, "Craig, you are a rocket-scientist, this is revolutionary - NOT! Everybody knows that "Content is King". Yes, content is king no doubt, but what separates the successful SEO campaigns from the medeocre ones is the ability to produce the RIGHT content with the RIGHT keywords via the RIGHT distribution channels. This is where certain web companies leave others in the dust! Not to say that we have arrived with our own SEO efforts, but we are certainly starting to reap the benefits of our content creation and distribution strategies.
I would say right now that 70%+ of our content distribution has occurred via a multitude of Social Media channels, such as Scribd, Digg, Squidoo and Delicious. The other 30% has been focussed on Article Syndication using such tools at ArticleMarketer as well as manual submission to industry-specific article directories. In looking at our recent results, we have big plans in 2008 to escalate our content writing and syndication via powerful new social media outlets such as Hubpages. There is definitely a Big Web 2.0 Wave that each of us can ride for a time that will be instrumental in improving our SE results.
For those of you that are still trying to ascertain what keywords you need to be optimizing your content for, I would suggest a couple quick strategies:
1. We started regularly using Word Tracker to find those long-tail keywords that saw the best volume but had the fewest competitors. It does take some some time to separate the wheat from the chaff, but well worth it! You can also use other tools like Keyword Discovery and SEOdigger to help the cause as well. Also, I had featured Hittail a couple weeks back - another great tool that idenfies those long-tail keywords (3-4+ keyword phrases) you might consider using in your blog posts, articles and website content.
2. I would run a PPC campaign via Google (and possibly Yahoo and MSN) and identify those particular keywords that are converting at the highest level over a period of time and start to optimize those in your website content and syndicate articles and such based around those keywords. This can take 2-3+ months to determine, but again, well worth it in order to target the most relevant keywords for your site and user audience.
In my next post, I am going to outline the most effective traditional and Social Media channels for distributing your relevant content. Have a great weekend everyone!
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