eMarketing Strategist Blog » seo http://emarketingstrategist.com/blog Use the Internet to Your Advantage Tue, 07 Sep 2010 22:32:02 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 How NOT to Use Articles to Improve Your Rankings http://emarketingstrategist.com/blog/2008/06/how-not-to-use-articles-to-improve-your-rankings.html http://emarketingstrategist.com/blog/2008/06/how-not-to-use-articles-to-improve-your-rankings.html#comments Sun, 01 Jun 2008 23:26:00 +0000 Elge http://emarketingstrategist.com/blog/?p=58 The company that ranks #1 for “internet marketing articles” has quite a few articles on the subject. I’m sure it took a lot of work to write all those articles but I’d be willing to bet all that work hasn’t paid off. Why?

First, consider the words used buy people looking to buy a service versus people looking for information.

When people want to find a service provider, they use words like:
Consultant
Consulting
Strategy
Expert

When people are looking for information, they use words like:
Articles
Case studies
Examples
Information
Data

Second, the articles tell you how to do something but they don’t show you why you should hire this search engine optimization firm. The author could argue that the purpose of the articles is to build the perception of expertise. Providing good information is one way to do it but these articles aren’t particularly well written or all that helpful.

If you’re going to try to improve your website’s rankings with articles make sure your articles demonstrate your expertise AND subtly show the reader why they should hire you to do the job. Otherwise, you will just wind up with a bunch of looky-loos and no customers.

(*I’m giving them a link for “internet marketing articles” as a consolation prize for being my “how not to do it” example.)

]]> http://emarketingstrategist.com/blog/2008/06/how-not-to-use-articles-to-improve-your-rankings.html/feed 0 SEO Basics: Every Page Is Your Home Page http://emarketingstrategist.com/blog/2008/04/seo-basics-every-page-is-your-home-page.html http://emarketingstrategist.com/blog/2008/04/seo-basics-every-page-is-your-home-page.html#comments Fri, 11 Apr 2008 00:53:00 +0000 Elge http://emarketingstrategist.com/blog/?p=53 Business owners tend to assume that when a potential client does a search on Google or Yahoo and clicks on their website, they wind up on the home page. Sorry. That’s rarely the case.

While your house might have one front door, each page of your website is a front door to your business. Why? The search engines don’t really care what page you want people to land on. What they care about is what page on your site is most pertinent to the searcher. NEWS FLASH! Many times the most pertinent search result page is not your home page.*

So if each page of your website is a front door, what information do they need to have?
• Each webpage needs to be able to get to the main areas of your site. Make sure you have basic navigation on each page.
• Each webpage needs to indicate to the visitor who you (and your company) are.• Each web page needs to make it easy for people to contact you.
• If your customers are local, you need to have your address on each page.

So how do you make each page your home page? Look at each page of your website individually and ask yourself “If a first time website visitor landed on this page, would they get the information they looking for?”

Looking at each page as if it were your home page will go a long way to making your website more user friendly, help your website rank better and will help make it easier for people to contact you.

* Not sure what your home page is, it’s the one you land on when you go to www.yourdomainname.com.

]]> http://emarketingstrategist.com/blog/2008/04/seo-basics-every-page-is-your-home-page.html/feed 0 How to Use Webrings for eMarketing http://emarketingstrategist.com/blog/2007/08/how-to-use-webrings-for-emarketing.html http://emarketingstrategist.com/blog/2007/08/how-to-use-webrings-for-emarketing.html#comments Mon, 06 Aug 2007 21:00:00 +0000 Elge http://emarketingstrategist.com/blog/?p=14 What is a webring?
A webring is a group of websites and/or blogs linked together by topic or interest. In each webring, member websites band together into linked circles.

So far they’re used primarily for hobbies and special interests but as is the case with social networking, they will quickly catch on in the business community. Personally, I’m thrilled because they fit right in line with my business philosophy of “Let’s be successful as a team.”

Webrings Can Drive Traffic to Your Website and Improve Rankings
When a visitor lands on another website in the webring, there will be a link to either the next website in the ring or a link to the list of websites in the ring. Visitors are more likely to explore the other websites in a webring than explore a typical list of links because they know that the other websites are going to be on the topic they’re interested in.

My guess is that a link to your website from the webring would be considered a high quality link by the search engines and would help your website’s rankings.

How to Use Webrings to Your Advantage
To use webrings effectively, you have to have valuable information on your website such as articles and other resources. When submitting your website to a webring, I suggest that you don’t submit your home page but instead submit a link to your newsletter archive, your blog or a resources page. Remember, webrings are about information first and promoting your business second. Keep in mind that providing helpful information is the best kind of promotion on the web.

How to Find Webrings
There are a couple of ways to access a webring Some are displayed in list format while with others when you land on a page that is part of a webring there is a link to the next website in the ring. I started by using the search phrase “webrings” in Google and came up with tons of results.

Visit eMarketingStrategist.com for a list of webring directories and systems.

Let me know if you start a webring. I’ll be glad to promote it here on my blog.

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