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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"Wikify" - Pretty cool eh? Well, I thought I was being super original "in my own mind", but in googling the word I quickly realized that the term was spoken into life a couple years ago…However, the great thing about terms that have not yet hit the pages of Webster’s dictionary is that they are always open to personal interpretaion. So what do I mean by "wikify your business??

I believe to wikify your business is to strategically create wikis that build brand awareness and connect with users interested or involved in your particular market segment.

The first thought in creating a wiki for your business is that it needs to have content that is relevant, useful and causes people to return or bookmark it as a resource. In addition, it needs to be targeted to an industry that has a natural link back to your own business endeavors. Wiki Purists might not like the road I am going down here, as there are naturally some revenue generating motives:)

It is a known fact that Search Engines love wikis for their regularly updated and relevant content. Wikipedia consistently hits the top of Google’s listings given the sheer relevance of its content. My thought is that to create a wiki with industry-specific categories and content will ultimately create a nice natural stream of targeted traffic from the Search Engines. Of course, you will place your logo and business links in visible places in order to enhance your brand awareness and hopefully drive the wiki traffic back to your site.

Let me give you an example of how this works…. Take a look at the Wiki created by TextlinkBrokers: LinkBuilding Wiki. Textlink brokers have created a relevant and useful wiki that provides current insight, strategies and resources on the practice of Link Building.  You will see on the Home page that they have a logo on the left that says "Brought to you by Text Link Brokers" with additional links in their navigation menu and top of the text that direct users to their site and business. This is a non-intrusive way of building brand awareness and a nice targeted stream of traffic back to their site. Naturally, people interested in link-building might also be interested in accessing their related business services.

Now, I am not sure how long  LinkBuildingWiki.com has been around, but it has a Google Page Rank of 5 and is in the Top 30 in Google for the relatively popular keyword, Link Building. You might say, well a Top 30 placement is nothing to write home about, but it is important to also keep in mind that the Link-building gurus (Ie. Eric Ward and Andy Hagans) are also employing their masterful SEO strategies for this particular keyword as well.

I am planning on tracking down a couple more companies that are successfully using wikis to expand their business reach and I will let you know what I find out

Cheers! 

 

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I don’t know about you, but I have studied the most current SEO principles and practices quite extensively over the last many months and I still find it mind-boggling as to the evolving activities and analysis required to keeping our SEO efforts at an optimal level! I am a busy web entrepreneur with multiple things on the go, so it is virtually impossible for myself to continually implement new SEO initiatives.

As you also know, I am a HUGE proponent of outsourcing and the reality is even if I decided I wanted to try to hire an SEO guru in house, the likelihood of being able to find them and afford them for that matter would be rather challenging!

So, I firmly believe in having a team of consultants that tweak the various aspects of our SEO efforts as well as other areas. For example, I like to enlist a Website Analytics specialist, Affilate Marketing Consultant, Social Media Consultant and others that provide ongoing advice and strategies that help to leverage the potential of my web marketing efforts.

Lee Odden had a great post last  week on the Advantages of Ongoing SEO Consulting which I concur wholeheartedly - a good read!

The bottomline for me is that the the Internet Marketing Space is evolving at such a rapid pace that is easy to get lost in the shuffle and lose ground on your competitors. I believe Outsourcing is one of the remedies to keeping your Web marketing efforts as current and competitive as possible. This is one of the big reasons why we decided to create ESalesGuru.com, which is slated to go live this summer!

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The term Out-tasking is basically Outsourcing on a "micro level". So instead of outsourcing your SEO platform to a Search Marketing specialist or firm, you would continue to manage the SEO program in house, but out-task particular services to supplement and support the work of your in-house team. 

Now, while some of you may not be comfortable completely outsourcing the whole SEO platform, out-tasking of certain niche SEO services is a great way to dip your feet into the Outsourcing pool and closely evaluate the risk and rewards that go along with it.

Now, in my humble opinion, Out-tasking SEO services makes great business sense, especially since the Search industry is evolving at such a rapid pace and it can be very benefical to out-task certain elements to SEO specialists with current and cutting-edge knowledge and skills. Over the last couple years, we have seen the emergence of many specialty SEO companies that focus on certain functions and not necessarily the whole platform given this growing trend towards out-tasking.  

Here are some of the SEO functions that you might consider out-tasking on an as needed basis:

1. SEO Content Writers for Keyword targeted articles, newsletters and website content.

2.  SMO Specialists  - develop presence in Social networks and utilize social media strategies to bolster traffic and exposure

3. Site Optimization Specialists - Update and tweak meta tags, page titles and overall content and navigation to make it more Search friendly.

4.  Bloggers - Hire Blogger that can write relevant and keyword-rich content for your business blog.

5.  Manual Directory and Article Submission Services

6. Link Building or Baiting Services - Bolster your one-way links to sites with decent Google PR

7.  Online Press Release Campaigns - Using PRweb.com and SEO tools to increase your natural listings and grow your exposure.

8. PPC/Bid Management Services - PPC experts can be worth their "weight in gold".

9.  RSS Services - Building RSS feeds of your content for syndication purposes.

Those are just a few that you might consider out-tasking from time to time depending on your business needs. If you have the resources to handle it all in house, then that’s great, but for many small and medium web companies, out-tasking SEO services has become a practical necessity.

 

 

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If I could be painfully honest, I would have to say that one of the biggest headaches I experience in my business is the ever-changing and highly unpredictable world of Search Engine Optimization. I am an avid reader of Search Marketing trends and still find it difficult at times to stay ahead of the curve.

As you know I am a huge advocate for the Outsourcing of Search Marketing Tasks, primarily because I have personally reaped the benefits of recruiting outside Search Marketing Experts to bolster the success of my campaigns. In 2006, Marketing Sherpa conducted SEO research with 2000 marketers whose sites had been optimized and it revealed the following:

• Marketers who use in-house SEO resources saw a 73% lift in overall traffic
• Marketers who outsourced SEO to an expert saw an average of 110% increase in overall site traffic.

Okay, I will stop preaching the virtues of outsourcing  your Search Marketing tasks!

Whether you choose to outsource or to keep your SE efforts in house, I would HIGHLY recommend an invaluable SEO resource I purchased the other day. SEOBook.com is a 328 page PDF that is full of many nuggets of wisdom for building a successful SEO platform for your business. The great thing about the  resource is that the author, Aaron Wall, updates the content on a regular basis. This is a major bonus, as I have purchased multiple hard-copies of SEO books, only to find that some of the content quickly becomes out-dated and not as relevant. I noticed that Aaron last updated the resource just in January.

For $79 US, you gain access to life-time updates of the SEObook, plus some very useful add-ons such as recommended SEO tools and interviews and resources from SEO and Internet Marketing gurus.

Now, although I outsource a lot of my SEO tasks, in order for me to effectively manage those specialists and projects, it is imperative that I remain in the know on current SEO practices. This is a KEY point when it comes to outsourcing… Some businesses fail to outsource effectively primarily cause they do not have an in-house project manager that has a good working knowledge of the outsourced project at hand - big no no!

I know that I certainly will not able to do all the tasks he includes in the book in-house, but by digesting this current SEO information, I will be in tune with the questions to ask and what to evaluate when managing my Outsourced Search Marketing Specialist.

I have to say that SeoBook.com will be the best $79 you will ever spend on your Search Engine Optimization endeavors… NO, I am not getting paid for this endorsement - this is just the plain truth!

 

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If you are an avid reader of our blog, then you will know that we are keenly interested in helping our readers to distinguish between the good, bad and ugly of SEO Firms on the Web. In fact, at ESalesGuru.com, we have specifically implemented a "Pre-Screening" process in our Outsourcing Portal to ensure that we are recruiting the best quality SEO and other Internet Marketing related specialists and firms in our marketplace.

Now, I am going to presume that not everyone is entirely familiar with the concept of White Hat or Black Hat SEO strategies. Quick Definitions….

Black Hat SEO strategies include particular methods of improving site rankings that are disapproved by the Search Engines and may involve deception. A few examples of black hat techniques include:

• Hidden text or links
• Cloaking or sneaky redirects (Cloaking is the process of delivering one version of a page to search engine spiders/bots and another version to human visitors
• multiple pages
• domains/sub-domains with duplicate content
• doorway pages with little or no content

On the flip side, White Hat SEO strategies include tactics that are approved by the Search Engines and do not involve any deception. White Hat practices are not just about following guidelines, but about ensuring the content a search engine indexes and ranks is the same content a user will see. White Hat SEO firms want to create content that is both user and spider friendly - key distinction.

Now, I am personally quite familiar with the use of black hat strategies as a couple of years, we had a super affiliate that was making killer revenues through a web of doorway pages. He had a good run for sometime, but eventually began to dip in performance as his cloak and dagger game with the SEs went south! Now, we eventually stopped working with this fellow as we recognized that these practices were not good for our product and ultimately could lead to us getting banned in Google. Google certainly does not discriminate who they ban from the SE’s as about a year ago, BMW Germany was black-listed by Google for using deceptive SEO Practices. BMW apologized and eventually was re-instated.

So, whether you are presently outsourcing your SEO campaigns or have plans to, it is important to ask yourself a couple key questions:

1. Is my SEO Firm employing BlackHat practices in attempts to enhance the performance of our campaigns?

2. If so, are you prepared to tow the line and risk the possibility that Google will eventually catch up and ban your site?

The reinstatement process with Google is not exactly a quick and dirty process, so I would think twice about being involved with a SEO Firm that appears to be employing Blackhat practices. Yes, Blackhat SEO experts are VERY smart and can potentially help you get some great rankings for sometime, but is that worth the potential ban of your site and the overall tarnishing of your company and image as a whole?

Most top SEO firms and specialists are commited to WhiteHat Practices, but closely evaluate those specialists that boast top rankings in a unusually short period of time as they might just be using deceptive practices that could hurt you in the long run…

Food for thought……

 

 

 

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Well, I wanted to hold off on publishing today’s post until after the Canada/Russia World Junior Hockey Final, so I could say a BIG “YIPPEE” for Canada’s Gold Medal Win today! Great job guys - Way to make your country proud!

As you can probably tell, I am a bit of a hockey nut being a Canadian and all eh?:)

I digress….On to the topic of the day.  A couple weeks ago, you might remember a post I wrote titled, Red Flags To Watch For When Recruiting a Search Engine Marketing Specialist of Firm. Well, I came across a very informative ebook that certainly compliments my initial post… More

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Happy New Year everyone! Hope you had an awesome holiday with your family and friends!

Well, I want to let you in on new SEO strategy that I am rather excited about….

As many of you know, our business, esalesguru.com, is presently in “Pre-launch mode” with the upcoming launch of our Outsourcing Portal slated for the last half of this month! In the first week of December, we ran a Press Release campaign through PRweb to kick-start the Pre-launch of our site. We optimized the content of the release with targeted keywords as anchor text linking to our homepage.

Well, last week, I checked the status on my keyword listings and was rather pumped to see one of my keywords crack the top 10 at Google with other popular keywords hitting the top 20 in a couple of the other major SEs. Through this targeted Press Release campaign, we were able to get a top 10 listing for one of my keywords in Google in about a 2-3 week period! These listings have resulted in an increase in organic traffic to our site, leading to more signups. It is important to understand that before the first week in December, ESalesGuru did NOT exist in the SEs!

You may be already making good use of Press Releases in your SEO endeavors, but I wanted to briefly give you a snapshot of the steps we took to effectively optimize this Press Release campaign. More

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Well, I have to say I am growing weary of shovelling snow here on the west coast of Canada! It is cutting into my early morning blogging time:)

In finishing out our “mini-series” on Outsourcing in the Search Marketing Realm, I would like to discuss the important practice of “Out-tasking” in your Search Marketing Endeavors. Now, quick definition: Out-tasking involves the outsourcing of certain tasks within a particular business process. So, Out-tasking your Search Marketing endeavors would involve contracting out certain elements of your Search Marketing Platform, while retaining core tasks in-house.

For those new to the “Outsourcing Game”, I actually highly recommend that you begin with Out-tasking a non-core task or two and closely evaluate the success before ramping up to a Full-Service Outsourcing program. This gradual process enables you to test out the potential of outsourcing without having to make many adjustments to your in-house roles and functions.

Now, Out-tasking is becoming a very common practice for many ebusinesses give the wide range of current SEO activities and development of niche firms that specialize in specific SEO functions. These emerging niche firms might concentrate on such tasks as:

• One-way Link Building Partnerships
• Website Page and Copy Optimization
• Pay Per Click Management
• Blog Content Writing and SEO Optimization (Credible Blogging and Pinging Strategies)
• Keyword Rich Articles and Press Releases
• RSS Feeds

Of course, there are also many reputable full service SEO firms that could provide one or all of these services as well. Personally, I believe that the practice of “Out-tasking” is a sensible way to keep your Search Marketing Platform fresh and competitive in a cost-effective fashion.

It is evident the SEO trends are moving at a meteoric pace and it is hard to keep up, so out-tasking certain functions to those experts “ahead of the innovation curve” might give your ebusiness an edge over some of your competitors. Out-tasking will also free up internal resources to invest more time on the core-competencies of your SEM platform (ie. PPC Management).

In my own experiences, I have enjoyed working with a small group of niche SEO specialists that I can continue to add certain tasks to the mix as my confidence grows in the outsourcing partnership. There is some wisdom in diversifying your SEO outsourcing endeavors to at least a couple different companies, so that you don’t hold all your SEO initiatives with one firm.  There might be some differences of opinion on that one, but that has been my experience!

Have a great weekend everyone!

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In continuing with our “mini-series” on Outsourcing in the Search Marketing realm, I would like to discuss a couple of the key markers or red flags to watch for when recruiting a Search Marketing Professional. In reviewing a few of the industry sites like Sempo and Topseos, I am amazed at the unprecedented number of new Search Engine Firms continuing to emerge daily. It is like visiting Baskin Robins Ice Cream shop as a kid for the first time and being overwhelmed with the many ice-cream flavors to choose from! So, the question is, how do avoid the nasty flavours of the Search Engine Marketing industry? (like the Black Licorce and Watermelon kind - Okay, I will stop with the Ice Cream analogy - it is dying quickly:)

In recruiting a outsourced Search Engine Marketing Professional or Firm, it is essential to have the right knowledge and insight to effectively separate the Good, Bad and Ugly of the Search Marketing Space. With approximately 84% of Internet users finding the websites they frequent and shop from through the Search Engines, that is all the more reason to make sure you are choosing the right SEO professional/firm for our outsourcing endeavors. Here are a couple key red-flags to keep on the look out for: More

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