Jay Leonard
Internet Marketing can seem like a daunting task to most business owners. It can be time consuming and feel downright tedious. Many business owners start out marketing on the internet only to slowly forget about it or give up when they are not achieving the results they hoped for. Internet Marketing is crucial in your businesses success. The numbers don’t lie, the most successful businesses use the internet to attract new business or improve their brand. I will simplify what it is search engines are looking for in 2013 to help you get to the top of the Search Engine Results Page (SERP).
This is the first in a series of blog posts that will help you understand what you should focus on when marketing your website, product or service using the internet today and going forward. In this post I will give a broad overview of 6 key areas important to ranking well in search results. Each of the 6 areas will be broken down further in future posts.
While there are numerous search engines Google still holds almost 70% of the search traffic on the internet today. Because Google is still king I will focus primarily on what Google wants however I would strongly encourage you to consider that 30% of search traffic comes from other sources including Yahoo and Bing and should not be ignored.
- Authorship-Google will soon being using Authorship as part of their algorithm for search results. Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Google, has stated those with verified Google Authorship will get top rankings in search results. For more information on how to set up Authorship click here.
- Social Media-Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram and Google+ just to name a few. It is increasingly important to have a presence on these social media sites. They provide a method of interacting with potential clients. It is not as simple as just creating a profile and occasionally sending an update. There is a science behind social media that involves attracting and keeping your audience’s attention.
- Link Building-In the past SEO Experts would tell you to get as many links as possible. It did not matter where the links were coming from, the quality of the link or how many links you had. Today this can get you into trouble with Google, and even removed from the search results. Today you need quality links related to your site.
- Content-Content is king. We have heard it and it has never been truer than it is now. Google will tie authorship into content. It will also be critical to ensure your content is unique and belongs to you. Copying someone else’s content or having the same content across multiple sites can also hurt your search results.
- Digital Media-We all know that no two people learn the same way. Some learn by reading, others by audio and still others through visual means. The same applies to getting the attention you are looking to get on the internet. Using video, podcasts, infographics and related written content will improve your audience’s retention and help you move up the search results.
- Keywords-Keyword stuffing used to be standard practice. This involved adding every possible word you could think of to your websites description and content. I don’t want to overstate the theme here but again Google will view this negatively and this will impact your search results in a less than desirable way. The best practice for Keyword usage is to research very specific keywords and use a limited number of keywords.
In the coming days I will elaborate and expand on each of these methods of improving your search results. Until next time…
This article was written for Business 2 Community by Jay Leonard.
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I totally agree with all of these. These are all very essential for a successful internet marketing.
Content is king – have very important in this day and age. I’ve just set up my Authorship so here’s a new leg to the mix.
I totally agree on those six things. These are all important and useful for internet marketing which has a great impact on social media.
These are some great tips, I will definitely follow all of your future posts. The fact that internet marketing is on the rise and will continue to rise has been great for many smaller businesses that might have had a hard time getting recognized without the usage of search engine tools. Back then it was only word of mouth, television, radio and newspapers and that was about it. Now with the way people are using the Internet these days, a lot of things that you may not have heard before you will be aware now because of something you saw online. Internet marketing can only continue to grow even more.
I agree with every point that you point out but I still believe you can still uses traditional marketing. Direct mail can also bring quality traffic to your site. Add QR codes or Purls that drive leads to you site and if you’re using inbound marketing you’ll have a certain Call to Action to start the funnel process. What are your thoughts?
Aaron, I agree that traditional marketing efforts can still be effective. I attend face to face networking events in my area all the time and my business card has a QR code on it. My company specializes in local marketing and advise our clients to get out and meet people as part of their networking plan.
I have a hard time even maintaining my website. Though I agree on all those 6 things to focus on, I hope that my company would grow fast and big enough for me to assign a permanent employee to make sure he follows all your recommendations. Can’t wait for the next follow-up article of yours.
Raymond, you may want to consider outsourcing your website and internet marketing. It will cost less than hiring a full time employee and hiring the right expert can improve your results and reduce your stress.