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6 Reasons Why You Need a Business Blog
Posted Mar 8th, 2010 By Mirna Bard in Blogging, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) With | 4 Comments

If you don’t currently have a blog for your business web site, it’s high time you set one up. Even businesses with no writing staff can manage by hiring ghostwriters or inviting guest bloggers. You can also work on posts ahead of time and schedule them to run over time. I schedule a writing day when I feel focused and try to whip out at least 15 – 20 blog write-ups and then schedule them to post over a few weeks (shhhhh, that’s a secret! ).

So, why is a business blog so important? There are several reasons to set up a blog for your business (of course, not limited to these reasons).

1. Company Announcements. A blog gives you the perfect platform to launch your products and services. You can also use it to let your clients know about any changes that have been made to the business, including the hiring of new employees, corporate events, and other news.

2. Google and others love blogs. Since a blog is regularly updated with fresh content, you’ll find that your search engine rankings go up quite quickly. The more often a site is updated, the more the spiders (search engine robots) will check it. You can really build up your visibility and visitors with a blog..

3. Get more links. Often people are reluctant to link to a website, but they will happily share or link to a blog post they like. You’ll get a lot more backlinks by providing regular, useful information in the form of blog posts. And, more backlinks equals higher rankings in the search engines.

4. Build authority. Trust is vital when it comes to sales and many people who shop online are quite wary about new companies that they haven’t bought from before. You can help them decide to purchase from you by showcasing your expertise and offering consistent information on your blog. The regular posts will allow visitors to learn more about you and your knowledge while they decide if they’re going to buy or not.

5. Become more approachable. The truth is that businesses tend to be slightly intimidating to the individual. Through blogging, you can show people that you aren’t just a corporation, but a business made up of real people. Humanizing your brand can do wonders for sales!

6. Give something back. Whether you offer exclusive information on your blog or provide coupon codes to those who read it, you’ll find that by giving something back to those who come visit your blog, you are actually gaining. People will not only trust you and see you as an expert; they will pass your posts on and let others know about your content.

It really is worth having a business blog. Without it, you will be missing out on a lot of interaction with your target audience. Blogging doesn’t have to be difficult, so there’s really no excuse not to do it.

If you do blog, I would love to hear about how it helped your business. Please share in the comments below.
5 SEO Scams to Avoid
Posted Jan 28th, 2010 By Mirna Bard in Internet Marketing, Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) With | 7 Comments

As a business owner, you know that search engine optimization (SEO) is important. Without it, your website will languish in anonymity. It can be very easy to get obsessed with getting higher rankings and more traffic, something that everyone wants. Unfortunately, there are many unscrupulous people out there who prey on those desires to make your website the best that it can be and they set up scams to trap unsuspecting website owners.

It’s easy to be lured by a site that offers extra traffic or better SEO and while there are certainly plenty of legit operations out there. Here are five scams that you should be aware of.

1. Submitting to thousands of search engines.

This is a scam that has been around for quite some time. You pay a sum of money (usually astonishingly low for the service) and your URL will be submitted to not 10, not 50, but hundreds or even thousands of search engines. It sounds great because you figure that you’ll be covered no matter where people are searching, right?

Wrong. Most of the sites your website is submitted to are actually spam sites that may even pay the scammer for your site. You’ll be getting hundreds of spam emails from them which are a waste of time and energy and certainly not worth paying someone for.

2. Your URL submitted to 500 directories.

We all know that getting backlinks is very important and can raise our value in the eyes of the search engines, but just how smart is it to submit to 500 directories? Not very. The reason for this is because first of all, there aren’t that many good directories. The vast majority are link farms (yes, they still exist) which can actually lower the value of your URL. Google in particular notes when your URL shows up in “bad neighborhoods”. The second reason this is a bad idea is that Google gets suspicious when a brand new site abruptly gains 500 backlinks within 24 hours. You could end up in the sandbox or otherwise penalized for your “SEO” techniques.

3. An insider.

You’ll actually find that some SEO companies claim to have someone inside Google. This can be pretty appealing for several reasons, but it is 99.9% unlikely to be true. Even if someone were spilling the secrets of the search engine giant, it is an every changing algorithm, meaning that it would be virtually impossible to keep up with the changes. The algorithm is also far more complex than most people imagine, making it virtually impossible to crack completely and actually implement everything.

That being said, having someone on the inside could be useful in making sure your site is in the top results for your chosen keyword, but what happens when the mole is discovered, as they always are? Play it safe and stick to real SEO tactics.

4. Guaranteed top spots in Google.

Every website owner dreams of seeing his or her site in the top results for their chosen keywords, but the truth is that this is just not always possible. It’s quite ridiculous for anyone to promise it, since they can’t actually guarantee anything when it comes to Google. Even the masters move up and down in the rankings on a consistent basis and that is totally normal . . . but unpredictable.

Something else to look out for is which phrases they are guaranteeing top ranking for. Often these will be long tail keyword phrases that no one is actually looking for. You could easily rank for these on your own with minimal effort, but what’s the point?

5. Trade Secrets

Run away from anyone who claims it’s too complicated to understand and they fail to fully disclose and explain everything that is being done to your site. They tell you these are trade secrets; they can’t discuss their proprietary technology, or speak in quasi-mystical jargon and non-specific terms.

Real SEO experts have a true interest in their field and enjoy educating their clients about the details. They don’t hold anything back and more than willing to share the whole process with you.

What other SEO scams have you heard of?
3 Ways to Use the New Google Descriptions
Posted Sep 29th, 2009 By Mirna Bard in Google, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) With | No Comments

Google has just rolled out a new feature that makes the descriptions shown under each search result title more useful. You can now search within a page right on the search results by clicking on a link below the description. It’s essentially a search within a search, something that can make it far easier for users to find just what they are looking for.

According to Search Engine Journal, these snippets are only appearing for wikipedia at the moment, because most webpages aren’t correctly optimized for the search feature. So how can you ensure that your website gets full benefit of the new description search feature?

1. Create subheadings. A good webpage will include subheadings anyway, if it is over 300 words long. This can help search engine spiders find out more about a page and accurately catalog the information. It’s also useful to human users who prefer content to be broken up into more manageable pieces.

2. Optimize, optimize, optimize. We know that search engine optimization is valuable, but if you haven’t optimized your subheadings and titles on a page, you can’t expect Google to provide accurate searches within the page description.

3. Set up a table of contents. One of the best ways to make your site friendly for both humans and search engines is to add a table of contents for any page with a number of subheadings. This will allow people to jump quickly and easily to the section they want. It looks like this will also help Google set up the search within a search function for your site.

Search engine optimization is becoming more and more complicated now that there are more players in the field. Everyone is working hard to be the best and while that is a good thing, it does mean we need to pay more attention than usual to how we optimize our websites. Staying on top of the latest developments can help boost your site in the search engine rankings, so it’s worth following SEO news.
Google Caffeine: A Desperate Attempt at Competition or Something Worthwhile?
Posted Aug 17th, 2009 By Mirna Bard in Google, Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) With | No Comments

The brand spanking new version of Google Caffeine is about to be launched, but the internet is already buzzing about it. Last week, a developer’s version was released and the testers have been reporting some excellent results. So just what can you expect from this new and improved search engine when it finally makes a full appearance?

Faster Searches

That’s right. Preliminary testing shows that the new Google search is roughly twice as fast as the current version. That’s excellent news for anyone who likes their info fast and let’s face it, who doesn’t? This could prompt searchers to refine their searches a little more, as well, resulting in more targeted results.

More Results

While Google has been the leader of indexing pages in the past, more recently it has fallen a bit behind. This may be because of so many sites winding up in the Sandbox or simply because Google is not that great at finding new pages on old websites. At any rate, Google Caffeine is showing up with hundreds of thousands of new results, indicating a drastic change in how its spiders check new pages.

This is great from the SEO side of things, since it means your site will be completely indexed faster.

Better Optimization

Keywords are extremely important in the new version of Google’s search engine. It looks like keywords used in titles are now particularly useful and that is great news for anyone who has been using proper SEO from the start. If you still haven’t optimized your business site, now is the time to get on that!

Google Caffeine isn’t just a slight upgrade to the current version, however. It is a full-blown, brand new way to search. From the looks of things, it is also going to change the way we do business and improve SEO.
Social Media: What’s Buzz’n on the Web?
Posted Jun 21st, 2009 By Mirna Bard in Social Bookmarking, Social Media, Social Networking With | No Comments

Are you on Facebook or are you on Friendster? Twitter or Yammer? On LinkedIn anyone? Do you Digg or Delicious it? All of the above?

The most important question: Do you know what all this means or are you confused? In this article, we hope to clear the confusion and help you understand the importance of using these sites for your business.

All the above sites mentioned are called social media sites. Social media is defined as:

The use of Internet destinations to connect with people socially and generate publicity through online communities.

Social media is the most effective way to publish and promote content in the form of press releases, PowerPoint presentations, viral videos, articles, podcasts, photos as well as whitepapers and ebooks.

If you visit and connect with people on these virtual destinations, you are social networking. For business owners, social networking is similar to a business networking event without constraints of time and space. We call it networking on steroids because you can rapidly connect with people globally 24 hours a day.

Social networking is about:

• Building relationships
• Starting conversation & creating word-of-mouth or buzz
• Answering questions/helping others
• Asking questions/trusting recommendations or advice from others

If you share interesting content on social media networks, you will get a bunch of fans and friends who will comment on it, share it, blog about it, tweet it (Twitter lingo), Digg it. Sites like Delicious and Digg are what we call social bookmarking sites. These web sites allow you to nominate and bookmark web pages or information that you think are worthy of attention.

How is this important to your business? By sharing your content, you are going to provide a link back to your hub (a blog or web site). Thus, increasing your visibility, boosting web site traffic, and ultimately growing your business.

It is no longer enough for your site to be visible on search engines such as Google. The key to any Internet marketing is ubiquity: being everywhere across a multitude of web sites. In today’s virtual world, if your business is not transparent online, you do not exist. With perseverance and patience, you will be able to create buzz and soon your online friends will start sending leads and referrals your way.

In summary, how does social media marketing benefit your business?

• Manage your reputation online
• Build recognizable identity or branding of your products or services
• Establish yourself as an expert in your industry
• Create “Buzz” or online conversations about products or services
• Form relationships with customers, prospects, employees, business partners, investors, colleagues, or friends
• Invite positive or critical feedback, dialogue, and discussion
• Speak directly, openly and honestly with your customers
• Articulate your viewpoints, knowledge & expertise pertaining to your industry
• Reach millions of people globally who could potentially become customers
• Set yourself apart from competition

Social media is here to stay so you can no longer afford to ignore it for your business. You can jump on this OPPORTUNITY or sit back and watch your competitors take all the fame and fortune. What steps are you ready to take?

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