Using search engines to connect with new local customers

Local Search Marketing provides you, the business owner, with the most targeted and cost effective customer acquisition opportunity.

Your customers are more and more often searching for businesses like yours on the Internet. Studies show that these customers have a serious buying intent. As a local business (online or off) you need to figure out how to cost effectively reach out to these “Local” customers and start the business relationship before your competition does.

Why should “local search marketing” be important to your business? The Kelsey research group found:

• 74% of households use the Internet as an information source when shopping locally.

• Approximately 45% of local searches had a buying intent.

• The percentage of respondents who used yellow page directories decreased from 75% to 62%. (If you have a yellow page ad, it is time to consider buying a smaller ad and shifting your marketing dollars to the Internet.)

As local business owners you need to take action now. You need to keep your existing customers, and gain new customers, so you need to be found where they are searching. Local Search Marketing is where your future clients and customers will come from.

So where do you start?

Most likely your customers will have a default setting on their computers and this will be set to one of these sites for search; Google, Yahoo, MSN or AOL. These search engines all index web pages and have some form of paid advertising referred to as Pay Per Click. This is fine if you have a website but what about many small and local businesses that have little or no web presence at all? And even if you do have a website, does it show up in the search engines above?

Okay, so what other choices have you got?

There are those folks, you know whom I am talking about, who will place you not only in a hard copy directory but also have services online. The challenge is in what the financial cost is, BIG, but hey, they have been around a long time and have deep pockets. The other issue is that they often advertise in the search engines and you will find them there BUT if you follow the link to them, you need to do your search all over again! What a pain.

There are other commercial "local search engines" and some of these are good value but many are not comprehensive. If there are only a few thousand businesses in a local directory most users will leave given the limited amount of content.

So what you need to do is use a search engine like Google and search for "local search directory", make sure you limit your search to the country you’re in. The results include Yahoo local search and a number of local directories. You should check these out and see what it takes to participate in the directories that make the first page of the Google search. By doing so, you’ll be able to get a feel for how they work and what is needed for you to get listed competitively

Search engines... what they love and how-to get them to come crawl your website

Search Engines... one of the MOST tricky marketing tactics of them all online simply because the SE's are forever changing the rules of Website Optimization.

Meaning... what used to work "Yesterday" might not work "Today".

Now, with that said, for the remainder of this article I want to let you in on what SE's 'LOVE' and will thank you for everytime you hand them over some.

It's really not much of a mystery to those of you who have been marketing online for some time But for those of you who haven't this is something you should seriously consider getting into for more reasons than ONE.

OKAY. Enough of the small talk. I'm going to dive straight in and get to the point Right Now on what SE's 'LOVE' and it's simply...

... CONTENT!

That's right, "Content" is what SE's 'LOVE' and are continually crawling the Internet for Day and Night 24/7/365 and will gladly pay your website a visit if you supply it on a Daily, Weekly or Monthly basis.

The more often you supply "Content" and post it on your website the more often SE spiders will come CRAWL and "index" your website pages.

The question is... "do you write Articles?"

If you don't, maybe you might want to consider it.

Now that you know what SE's 'LOVE', your probably wondering what the BEST way is to get the SE spiders attention to get them to come on over and CRAWL your website.

Well, first off I would recommend you submitting your Articles(whether you have some already or plan on starting) to 'Article Directories' simply because SE spiders are constantly CRAWLING these websites since they are SO full of content and are updated usually on a daily basis.

You can find them by simply typing in "article directories" into your favorite search engine's search field.

The other great thing about 'Article Directories' is they usually have HIGH 'PR'(Popularity Ranking) which is another KEY thing SE's take into consideration which means once you've posted your articles on that directory or directories, the spiders will eventually 'Find' your article, crawl that page within that Article Directory and follow the corresponding links within your "Resource Box" back to your website.

The more article directories you post to, the more chances you'll have at getting some SE spider activity on your website, crawling and indexing your webpages.

This is just ONE of the ways to get SE spiders to come visit your website and only ONE reason WHY you should submit your Articles to 'Article Directories' but that's another article within itself.

For the remainder of this article I'm going to share with you a way to get SE spiders to come visit your website within the next 24 to 48 hours to have a look around.

Are you ready?

BLOGS!

Blogs are simply the Fastest WAY to get the SE spiders attention to come and take a look simply because Blogs contain "Content" in the form of "Articles" and/or "Reviews or just general feedback from your readership.

The more often you post to your Blog the more often SE spiders will come visit.

The reason IS... everytime you post to your Blog it'll PING(Ping is simply a signal being sent out telling the SE that there's NEW content to come and index at your Blog) ...the SE's(Not all of them) ...to come take a look.

When they come visit, they'll spider your Blog and will follow all corresponding links within.

Remember the "Resource Box" located at the end of a article(you can use mine as an example) with all the authors website information and URL. This will come in handy so make sure You carefully think about what you put their with your articles.

Now, with that said, I wrote an earlier article explaining how to set-up a Blog to get Yahoo! and MSN to come visit. It's really quite simple, so don't worry yourself to much about it being difficult.

All you need to really focus on is supplying the "Content".

Here's the link if you wish to read the article:

internetwondersezine. com/article_13.html

I also wrote another article explaining what Blogs are for those of you who aren't very familiar with them yet.

Here's the link if you wish to read the article:

internetwondersezine. com/article_12.html

Now, there are many other ways to get SE spiders to come visit your website but these two methods I mentioned above are in my mind the quickest.

So, there you have it, "Search Engines... What They LOVE and HOW-TO Get Them To Come CRAWL Your Website", so go NOW and give it a try.

Search engine optimisation how accurate are keyword tools

In search engine optimisation, it is a crucial element to select the right keywords when optimising a website. The obvious reason being, if you have keywords with no search volume, you will not receive any traffic. Secondly, if you have keywords that are too competitive, you will find it very difficult (almost impossible) to win high ranks. So how do we find the in between balance for both obstacles? This is where keyword tools would come into place, but how accurate are they?

To start, the main keyword research tools that are found on the market today are Wordtracker, Overture Keyword Tool and Trellian Keyword Discovery. Now I bet many of you are pulling your hair out over which keywords are going to be suitable for optimisation. What makes it probably even more stressful is the varying results between the three different keyword tools i. e. one keyword tool may show a particular keyword to be very good, while another tool may suggest a whole different result for the same keyword. Well stop stressing right now! The truth is that we don’t really know how accurate these keyword tools are and we should only use their search volume figures as an indication as to whether a keyword is popular amongst search engine users.

Let’s say a keyword phrase, “dog products”, has a search volume of 5,000 searches per month on the Overture Keyword Tool. To make an assumption that “dog products” is a good keyword for optimisation, based ONLY on the Overture figure, would be a very bad assumption. However, it gives us a rough idea of the search volume for that particular keyword. The next step would be to use Wordtracker or Keyword Discovery to see if a similar amount of search volume is present for “dog products” (remember to convert searches for each tool to a common time frame i. e. monthly or daily). If we have a very low search volume in BOTH Wordtracker and Keyword Discovery, then I would be very skeptical about using “dog products” for optimisation. The whole idea is to get at least two of the three keyword tools to reflect reasonable / high search volumes before considering that keyword to be suitable for optimisation. If you have all three keyword tools returning reasonable / high search volumes for “dog products”, then the chances are that this keyword is reasonable / high in search volume and definitely worth considering for optimisation.

Once a good set of keywords have been agreed upon through the use of the keyword tools, you should then focus on the keywords that have a low / reasonable amount of competing web pages. There is no point trying to compete for a keyword that has 1,000,000 web pages in competition for it. If you are good at SEO then you could achieve high ranks for that keyword, but it would require a lot of time and investment which could be spent on better things. The lower the competition is, then the more chance of achieving higher ranks.

To recap, there is no indication to say that keyword tools are 100% accurate. Whilst the reseller of the tool may suggest otherwise, I highly doubt it. The results should be taken like a “grain of salt” as they are only useful to give you an idea as to what the search volume might be like for a particular keyword (high, moderate or low). With each tool obtaining its results using different algorithms, in some cases their results will not support each other. Provided you use two of the keyword tools to investigate the search volume for keywords, you should be able to make a good decision as to whether a keyword might be worth optimising for. With that in mind, it would also be wise to use your common sense to determine if a keyword is one that YOU would actually use in a search. Otherwise, what would be the point of optimisation in the first place?

The google adwords keyword tool

If you want to run an effective Google Adwords campaign, you'll find it necessary to learn to use the Google Adwords keyword tool. This handy little tool allows you to select keywords and establish how much you are willing to pay per click for ads that appear on web pages and search engine results pages that contain the identified keywords.

Choosing the right keywords is very important to your success in operating an Adwords campaign. You want to reach an audience that is likely to want and need your product or service so that, once they arrive at your website, they will convert to a sale or lead. Having people click on your ad does nothing but cost you money unless you maintain a high conversion rate.

When choosing the keyword or keywords that you want to target, keep in mind the keywords that your website is based upon. Those are, at least in part, the keywords you will want to select for advertising. However, you may have keywords on your website that are much broader than those that you want to use for your Adwords campaign. Whereas a person selling classic car parts online might use "auto parts" as a keyword on their website, it would certainly be a very bad choice for an Adword keyword. Driving traffic that are seeking auto parts for late model cars will simply leave the website as soon as they see what is offered and, since you choose the keyword, the click would still cost you money. Instead, focus on keywords that are very directly related to what you offer such as, in the case here, "classic car parts", for example. That way, only those people searching for and visiting websites related to classic cars and parts for those cars will see your Adwords campaign.

The Google Adwords keyword tool allows you to add and remove keywords at any time you choose. You aren't tied to using keywords that aren't working for you for any specific length of time. If you find a keyword you have selected is working very poorly, go to the keyword tool and remove that keyword from your campaign. You might replace it with a better keyword, or simply drop the keyword and not replace it at all.

The greatest thing about Google Adwords is the flexibility. You can change anything about your campaign at any time you want. Keywords that prove effective can be changed to a higher price per click while those that offer little traffic can be changed or removed. Find keywords that drive traffic that converts and stick with those keywords.

A great alternative , even better than the google adwords tool is the new keyword elite which has more options and will give you the exact adwords pricing for each keyword and per search engine as well as competition, adsense high paying keywords and so on.

Manual directories submissions your key to high rankings and more traffic

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Getting inbound links to your website is a great way to boost your search engine rankings and the most effective way to do it is by submitting your website to directories. This gives you more links pointing back to your website and a higher status in the search engines. However, getting listed with directories is a skilled job, so manual directory submission is the way to go.



Directories are like indexes or libraries of links to web sites with appended descriptions or summaries. By searching through categories, searchers can find websites covering the topic they're interested in. While this is one way to get traffic, the real benefit of being listed in good directories is that you will get a link (or links) back to your web site. The search engines see these links as a vote for your site.
So the more links you have, the higher your page rank (PR) and the higher your ranking in the SERPS. And the higher you rank, the easier is it for people to find you.




However directory submission is a complex procedure. For one thing, the better directories often ignore automated submissions and your site may be banned. Plus there are thousands of directories of varying types, standards, and procedures for requesting inclusion. There are many different steps in manual directory submission. For one thing, you need to place your web site in the most suitable category and subcategory of the directory. If you get this wrong, your request will get rejected.




In addition, directory submission requires knowledge of search engine optimization (SEO). For example, the choice of anchor text is important in determining the weight which the search engines give to the link. Specifically, the text that the directory uses to describe the link should include the keywords that you wish to rank for. Automatic submission can crop this text to fit the space, and effective keywords may be lost.




Then it's important to consider to which pages on your web site the links in the directories point to. If all the links are to your home page, it looks unnatural. So getting a range of links to other pages in your site (deep linking) is a sound strategy, but one that requires an expert's touch. Plus it's a good idea to vary your link title and description for each submission.




For these reasons, manual submission is the only way to go and it makes sense to outsource your linking campaign to a firm offering manual directory submission services. Manual link submission is a labor-intensive, time-consuming procedure that requires specialist knowledge of the prevailing policies of the directories. A quality firm will handle the whole procedure for you and leave you free to get on with activities that are more productive.