Darling Online Marketing

Niche Traffic: 5 Steps To Creep Up In Search And Conquer ANY Niche

Posted on 10. Feb, 2012 by Darling.

There is a way to capitalize on niche traffic.  As I usually say… there is always more than one way to skin a cat.  Shhhhh….  I really do like cats.  

The point is, there is always more than one way to get something done and that includes getting to the top of search for whatever it is you do best and love the most.  Whatever niche market you are in, there is a way to get more than your fair share of the profits no matter how competitive.

There are slow ways, there are faster ways, there are paid tactics, and there are monetarily free methods.  I say monetarily free because you are going to invest something into this.  There are no ifs, ands, or buts about it.  If you want to get to the first page of search to stand out and Be The Obvious Choice Online you are going to either invest your limited resources of time or you are going to invest some cash. 

I have one way for you to get to the top of search in virtually any niche.  This method is monetarily free.  This method takes time.  It takes time on your part with effort involved and it takes time to begin to see the results.  But, when applied methodically, deliberately, and consistently, you will eventually conquer any niche.

Here are the 5 steps to rank and conquer for niche traffic.

1. You must have a blog that you write consistently for.  Best case is to write every day.  Yup!  Every day!  Worst case, once per week.
    
2. Each blog post should be optimized for a different keyword phrase that gets around 1,000 searches per month.   Simply use the Google Keyword Tool to help you locate the phrases that get around 1,000 searches per month.
    
3. If you want to really ensure that you have an edge up on everyone else, take your keyword phrase and place it in quotes in a Google search.  Example:  “my targeted keyword phrase”

   Look under the search box to see how many results there are.  If your phrase gets less than 100,000 search results, that is a gem indeed and should be pretty easy to rank for unless it’s super duper competitive. 
   

   Do this every time you write a post for your site and blog.  Identify a new keyword phrase for every post that fits this criteria.  After awhile, you will see your site traffic increase.  Your visitors will stay on your site longer.  If you are running Adsense ads, you will see an increase in ad revenue.   And, if you have that great foot in the door offer on the sidebar of every post with a clear call to action, you will see an increase in the amount of opt ins which will grow your list.

4. Use the power of your own growing and authoritative site and do some internal link sculpting.  Simply link from each post to other relevant posts within the content of your post, not just in the navigation.  This Wikipedia style internal linking improves the visibility of all of your content. 
5. This step is for those that really want crush everyone else and have the extra time and money to invest in this, start building links to every blog post from other places on the web. 

   Why?  Approximately 70-80% or your ability to rank well in search depends upon factors outside of your website.  Those factors can be lumped into 2 categories:  Social Signals and Back Links.

 So, get busy on these 5 steps and lets touch base in a few months so you can report on the improvements you have seen in your niche traffic!

Please leave your comments and feedback below on this topic.  

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Local SEO Keyword Strategy Part 2

Posted on 27. Jan, 2012 by Darling.

Here is the second part to the recent interview with Chris Darling and Matt Coffy, a local SEO expert across the bridge in New Jersey.  I do hope you get some decent insight from it.

Get your free local ranking report to see how your business is doing in local search.  Not only that, if you have some traction in local search, the report will tell you who is getting all of your business when you don’t show up! 

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Local SEO Keywords

Posted on 20. Jan, 2012 by Darling.

Matt Coffy, this local SEO guy in our neighboring state of NJ, recorded a little discussion we recently had about local SEO keywords.  What in the world does that mean to you?  I know, most of the time, people don’t quite know what all this SEO stuff means to their business.  Basically, it comes down to keywords.  What words are people entering into the search field when they go online looking for your services?

Keyword research can get a little complex but for those operating a local business, it does not need to be that difficult.  Watch the video below to get just a little insight.  We mention some free software tools and resources you can use to find phrases to get your site found for.   There are also some premium ones to work with.

In this video, I mention one premium tool that really is for more advanced keyword research; SEMrush.com.  There are other ways to find out more about your local competitors and the phrases they are using.  

If you want to get your hands on a free report, showing you what people are searching for and who is getting most of the business (a.k.a. Your Competitors), check out THIS video. 

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3 Very Important Questions To Ask Yourself When Evaluating A Keyword Phrase

Posted on 30. Dec, 2011 by Darling.

Selecting the proper keyword phrases to target in your online marketing activities is one of the more important and valuable skills to master if you want to see a huge return on your investment in time and money.

This process has a science behind it that could literally set your mind into a spinning mess of numbers, words, data, directions, and information overload.

The biggest problem with that is that many people end up paralyzed and just don’t get started.  This leads to a significant delay in their progress with SEO and online marketing. 

It does not have to be that crazy difficult and involved in order for you to just get started!

I have three very important questions that you should ask yourself when beginning the process of selecting keyword phrases.

1. Is the keyword phrase that you want to rank for relevant to your website and what you have to offer?
2. If someone finds your website or web page based on searching for that keyword phrase, will they find the answer they were looking for when they click through to your site?
3. When you search for the term, look at the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages), do you see others advertising or paying for clicks to their website?

The answers to the above questions must be a definitive YES before moving forward. 

If your site is not relevant to the search, you don’t even have a chance to walk out on the playing field of SEO and Online Marketing.

If you do get to the first page for a certain keyword phrase and your visitors do not find the information or answers they were looking for, that back button is just a click away! Eventually, the mighty search engines will compile all of their data on search and visitor behavior to your particular page and purge the less than worthy results for certain keyword phrases.

A YES to question #3 is important because that will give you an indication right away that there is profit to be had in your keyword phrases.  Others are paying to show up for those phrases because they return them high valued visitors and paying customers.  Ideally, you should run your own PPC campaign to determine the real value of those phrases in relation to your website.  Take that data and work it into your ongoing SEO and Online Marketing plan for 2012.

If there is no one advertising on the SERPs for your keyword phrase then it’s likely it’s not a very profitable phrase to pour your time and money into.  You could just end up sitting there on the first page of search for it looking all pretty like a Freshman at their high school prom.  (Imagine braces and no date, just chillin’ by the wall, waiting for someone to notice you. )

Once you have established answers to the above questions, the next thing to do is find out exactly how competitive the phrases are and if you have the stamina and budget to withstand the journey to page one.

Take all of this information and work it into your ongoing SEO and Online Marketing plan for the next year so that you can see results. 

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Seo Friendly Ways To Play Nice With Corporate Bureaucratic Bull

Posted on 02. Dec, 2011 by Darling.

Who else gets annoyed with corporate bureaucratic bull?  It is a pain in my side AND a huge motivating force that brought me to this point of building up this business Darling SEO and Online Marketing. 

My mission to help small to medium size businesses get found in the top spots of search, get over those technological barriers, attract high quality traffic to their sites, convert that traffic into subscribers, and ultimately stand out to Be The Obvious Choice Online for what it is that they do best and LOVE the most.

All of that equates to more revenue in your business so you can continue to live the life you choose, free from corporate bureaucratic bull! 

But, today I was so frustrated with bureaucratic bull stemming from an ongoing issue we are experiencing with a horrible accident a year ago that I suffered a major mental block preventing me from writing a decent blog post for you.  I found a solution though.  A pretty good solution that I think you will enjoy for yourself as well.  I promise to share that solution with you.

There is this website that you can use to find decent content written by good writers.  You can search or browse for specific topics that suit your needs.  As long as you follow the licensing rules, you are good to go.

The following article caught my eye since I was feeling so frustrated.  If you are someone that works for a large corporate conglomerate that runs into road block after road block (a.k.a. bureaucratic bull) and your role is to understand what an SEO friendly website is and help progress the corporate site in search, the following article may help. 

Three Ways to Make Your Corporate Website SEO Friendly

There is a slight divide between the corporate world and the online business world. No, it is not the suit-and-tie divide, which has seen corporate attire absent in dotcom start-ups since the 1990s, and it is not the difference in business plans or funding sources between the two worlds. It is the difference in website design and development, and it is a divide that is putting the bootstrapped online business world far ahead of its corporate rivals.

The problem is relatively clear when you visit a big company’s website. There’s content — lots of it — but there’s relatively little effort put forward into converting that content into anything. There’s a ton of information, a list of contact details that puts the Yellow Pages to shame, and massive potential for SEO work. However, very few big businesses put their SEO muscle to work, and more than a few settle for websites that simply do not sell their services.

As easy as it is to blame the lack of SEO on established buying practices — in store orders, online stores, and resellers — it’s not the total problem. Much of it is simply the fact that a lot of corporations simply are not well educated on the ultra-competitive SEO world, and view search as something other than a major priority. If your company is sounding similar, it is time to take a different approach, and to embrace search for the incredible sales and lead generation machine that it is.

These three suggestions could be the difference between an unknown business website and a conversion-powered one. Implement one, two, or all three and you are sure to see a world of difference in website traffic, online sales and orders, and noticeable online PR.

#1: Add a blog to your company website.

Blogs are great for SEO, and they are even better for grassroots PR efforts. By adding a blog to your company website, you introduce a human element to an otherwise stale website. Even a simple blog can add some massive SEO power to your website, and if it attracts attention it is easy to convert that readership into a massive SEO resource.

#2: Experiment with dedicated SEO.

External SEO firms are often a waste of money, especially for small businesses. However, when your online presence has the potential to sell millions of dollars worth of services, products, or coverage per year, it is in your best interests to open yourself to as many channels as possible. Search is the biggest online referrer, and the small cost of retaining an SEO company is quickly paid back in the incredible order boost that you’ll receive.

Note: External SEO firms can be of great use for businesses of all sizes.  They are actually quite empowering to small companies that need to save on employee and education/expertise costs required to help you compete with the big boys in the corporate world.

#3: Use in-house SEO to lower costs and boost awareness.

Hiring a full time SEO for your company is less expensive than you would expect. While contractors are good for temporary assignments and one-off SEO boosts, if you want a dedicated SEO presence it is best to invest in someone that can work for you full time. Experiment with contract work and temporary SEO at first, then decide whether it is worth the expense of a full SEO team.

– Author: Goes by raphael.da911 on Constant Content.

So, there it is, a pretty good article to help further you along this week.  If you need help sourcing decent content check out Constant Content.

Please leave your comments and feedback below on this topic.  

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Darwinian SEO Theory: How to Evolve and be a Survivor of the Fittest Online

Posted on 21. Oct, 2011 by Darling.

If your business is fairly new to the online marketing world, chances are when you create a website or write an article or blog post, no one ends up finding it.  This is when it is time to take strategic and assertive steps so that you can get your new site and content in front of the traffic. 

As the online market becomes more competitive, you may find it frustrating to get some traction in search even if you meet all of the SEO 101 requirements and implement all recommended strategic and assertive traffic generating steps.

Even some old hats in natural search may be trying to figure out what the heck is going on these days!  Why has traffic plummeted? 

Using sustainable SEO methods are extremely important to getting your content found online.  As an SEO Specialist, I help client’s get their content found in the major search engines. Not only do I dedicate my time to getting them found and increasing traffic but I help them build up that customer base for future online business growth.  We work on conversions and building up an asset in their customer email subscription base.  This process helps them stand out and Be The Obvious Choice Online and one of the relatively few to survive during the ultimate natural selection day.

The World Wide Web (www) and search is shifting from a landscape similar to the Wild Wild West (www) to one more like Jack London’s White Fang and the Darwinian theory of Survival of the Fittest. 

So, what can you do in this new shifting landscape to get your newbie website, article, or blog post in front of that hungry traffic to be gobbled up by starving searchers?

1.)    Evolve:

Your business, website, and online visibility is evolving and changing over time.  This is happening whether you are active in the process or not.  Being active in the process will work to your advantage as you will see with the other Darwinian SEO theoretical ways. 

In being active online, first write or create good content and then create a good title.  In writing your content and crafting your titles, think of how you can help your reader evolve and progress.

There are 2 main ways to structure a title.  One is for SEO and the other is for Traffic.  AND, it is possible to meet both needs in ONE title for your article or blog post.  Even for an article that gets sent out to another authoritative content sharing site, you can adequately touch on both the needs of SEO and those of traffic generation. 

For SEO, structure your title like this:  “Keyword Phrase”: Motivational Headline.  Example:  Lose Weight:  How to Burn Fat without the Work  

For traffic, there are many ways to put together a good title.  Just be sure to always include the keyword phrase along with your motivating, traffic attracting copy.  Take the above SEO title and tweak it to: 5 Easy Ways to Burn Fat and Lose Weight.  An entire article can be written on this and I will write one soon too but for now, check out How to Craft Titles That Attract Readers.

2.)    Find Your Common Descents:

Find your common interest groups and influencers in your industry online.  Share your article or blog post with them.  There are better ways to go about this than others.  The ways that will lead to survival will take a little effort.  In other words, avoid spamming groups, forums, or annoying your influencers with petty requests.

Use LinkedIn Groups, Facebook Groups, and Twitter Chats.  Create a presence in those spaces and connect with the influencers whenever possible.  Again, an entire article and even huge courses can be created and have been created on how to do this. 

In a nutshell, get into those common interest spaces and share your new article or blog post.  But do it in a way that adds value to the conversation. 

3.)     Multiply Your Efforts: 

Multiply your efforts by installing social media share buttons on your blog posts so that others can easily share, retweet, or like your content.  Many article sharing sites already have these social sharing buttons installed and available.  Be sure to fill out any author profiles with your relevant contact information and other places the reader can find you

On your website, have an RSS feed available so your readers can subscribe.  Submit your RSS feed to directories that will syndicate your content further.

Set up a Blog Broadcast inside of your autoresponder so that each new blog post goes out to your email subscription base automatically.

Share your article or blog post on your own Facebook page.  Tweet out your article or blog post to your followers.  Also, install a handy little plugin on your WordPress blog that will Tweet out your old posts according to how you set it.

Repurpose your article or blog post into a video and even a podcast.  Submit them to the major video sharing sites and podcast directories.  Think about Slide Shares too. Be sure to include a link back to your main site.

Repurpose your article or blog post into another quality piece and publish it on a highly traffic content sharing site specific to your niche. (Think SelfGrowth.com, HubPages.com, Squidoo.com)

Note: When I say repurpose, I don’t mean spin.  Spun content really looks horrible.  And, in the evolving World Wide Web, your spun content will not make the cut in the final natural selection phase.

4.)    Gradually and Consistently Build Up Interest: 

Unless you have just published the next viral YouTube sensation or you have a huge network of extremely influential Tweeters, Facebook’rs, LinkedIn’rs, expect to build up you audience gradually.  Often times, falling for the hype of the overnight sensations and floods of traffic will just leave you discouraged.  But, with consistent work, you will gradually build up a loyal following.  

That gradual following and build up of authority is what helps you with the next Darwinian way of SEO and driving traffic.  This won’t be just any old kind of traffic either but extremely targeted traffic.  You will get visitors that are actually interested in what it is you have to offer.  They will be people hanging on to your every word because you hold the answers to their most pressing problems.

Gradually and consistently building up the links, shares, and followers comes with time but only if you implement a plan of creating good content and engage with others online.

Keep this in mind too: if getting a vote, tweet, share, bookmark, friend, follower, or reference to your web properties is as easy as pushing a button where a piece of software can do it robotically or lower wage off shore workers can implement it, that means it’s something that can be gamed.  If it can be gamed then it is not sustainable.  If it’s not sustainable, then, well, keep an eye out for one of the most formidable creatures on the World Wide Web today… the Panda!!! 

5.)    Avoid the Panda for Natural Search Selection: 

It is survival of the fittest online.  If you want to survive the wrath of one of the most influential search engine’s constant algorithm changes, then quality content, shared through influential channels, multiplied by leveraging technology, and practicing consistency and patience with building up an audience will have you rising to the top of search all over the World Wide Web, not just in Google but in every relevant search engine that you work to get found on. 

Yes, Panda is a creature of the Behemoth Google so if you avoid Google, you won’t have to worry about that danger but really… even if you could avoid Google why would you try?  They still have the overwhelming majority of search market share.

There are also the casualties of Panda wrath to consider.  If you are simply concentrating on other major content sharing sites for syndicating your content this does not make you immune.  Those large content sharing sites lose big bites to Panda when your content sucks.  Natural selection does not work inside of a vacuum. 

Author’s Note:  What I find very funny here is that I hate theory.  I’m a do-er!  Most people that know me know that I am one of the first people to run from a theoretical debate and go do something worthwhile.  But, knowing theory behind how things work does carry some value. 

Now… go get busy and create some good content, make great titles, publish it online, share it with your mother, your sister, your brother, but more importantly, share it with your interested and growing audience.  Help your readers, your customers, and your future clients evolve! 

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1 Minute Of Video Playtime Is Capable Of Getting You Hit By A Train

Posted on 14. Oct, 2011 by Darling.

Website Traffic Generation With Video

If you play on the tracks, you will get hit by a train.  It’s inevitable.  I have heard this saying in a variety of settings.  Most of the time, it is used when people are trying to stay out of trouble, clean up their act, stop hanging around bad influences, and stop drinking or smoking.

The idea is that if you continue to hang out in those environments, you will inevitably adopt the same thought processes and find yourself making bad choices again which lead to getting hit by this bad life altering train!

What if getting hit by a train is actually something you want?

I help businesses use SEO or search engine optimization to drive traffic to their website so that they can grow their customer base and make a lot more money from their online marketing efforts. 

The thing is though… I don’t really drive traffic.  The traffic is already there!  Really what we do is figure out how to get you in front of the traffic.  You know, help you go out and play on the information highway tracks so that you can inevitably get hit by the good money train!  Who doesn’t want to get hit by the good money train?

The only way to get hit by the money train online is to build up your visibility.  The Internet is a lot bigger than a couple of train tracks running in parallel and there are tons of shiny things to distract you off of your course.

Build up your visibility by understanding what your customers are searching for (keyword research) and create content around those searches (articles, videos, blogs, etc.) and get that content ranked in search engines right smack dab in the middle of where all the traffic already is.

Awesome Traffic Generation Method:  Use YouTube to your advantage.  YouTube is the 2^nd largest search engine right now.  It’s owned by Google.  The traffic is already there.  YouTube videos get more than 3 Billion views a day.  Read that again okay.  Do you realize how many zeros are in 3 billion?

You just have to figure out how to go play in the middle of 3 billion views on YouTube so you can get hit by the money train.  Then, once you get there and start getting hit with views, simply direct people to your website so that you can add them to your marketing and follow up list.

Creating videos, placing them on YouTube, and then promoting them is one of the many ways that you can use to drive traffic to your website to grow your customer base and make more money from your online marketing activities.

Promoting that video is important.  Remember, YouTube is the 2^nd largest search engine and is owned by Google.  Promoting that video means doing things that will increase the likelihood of it showing up higher in search results for related keyword phrases that people are already searching for.

Your goal is to not only get it ranked in YouTube’s search engine but to also get it ranked in the other major search engines.  Often times, it is easier to get your video to rank in the major search engines for competitive keyword phrases than it is to get your website to rank.  The whole idea here is to hook the viewer and then direct them to your website.

SEO – Optimize the Video:  First making sure that the actual content is relevant to what you want to get found for.  Make it interesting and valuable.  People love to watch videos mostly for the entertainment value.  If you can’t make it entertaining, be sure to make it educational.  Seriously, if you can add some decent value, it increases the likelihood that others will share it, reference it, and send more viewers.  This will cut down on your promotional efforts a lot too.

Optimize the video further by placing your targeted keyword phrase at the beginning of the title for the video.  Add all relevant tags and keywords.  In the description field, be sure to list your website address first, and then add the description with the call to action.

Inside the video itself, be sure to have your website link and call to action so that there is no question where people should be going for more information.

Length:  Keep the videos around 1 – 2 minutes if you can.  Attention spans are short. 

Promotion:  Get the video up on your YouTube channel for starters.  Grab the link to it and start sharing it everywhere that it is appropriate to share it.  Build links to it.  Get it bookmarked by power users.  Build links, shares, votes, tweets, and any other thing you can possibly do to spread the word about your video.  When you build links to it, use your keyword phrase in the anchor text of the link whenever possible.

Now, go for it.  

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4 Reasons Your Business Should Avoid SEO!

Posted on 30. Sep, 2011 by Darling.

Are SEO consulting services are really worth the money they cost?  Well, if your business has website, then search engines should find it shouldn’t they?  

Search engines exist for to deliver their customers; the searchers, indexed results of web pages relevant to what they are looking for.  Those at the top are found to be most relevant to meeting the search query.   If they fail to do their job effectively, the searcher will not return and advertising dollars will disappear.  This fact alone has resulted in a huge industry called search engine optimization.  

But, does your website really need search engine optimization (SEO) in order to be found?  Maybe you don’t.  Here are four reasons you may want to pass on SEO services.

1. Avoid SEO If: You don’t mind being buried in the search results pages by your competitors.

   Search engines will eventually find your website regardless of your SEO. Of course, websites with effective SEO make it to the top of the list while everyone else gets pushed down to the bottom. Most people don’t go past the first couple of search engine results pages (SERPs) when they’re looking for a business.

2. Avoid SEO If: You have plenty of business and never have to worry about alienating half of the country’s population.  

   People can’t carry a phone book in their back pocket, but they do search for businesses using their mobile devices. Google estimates that by the end of 2011, 50 percent of all Americans will own a smart phone. All of these people are mobile web searchers. 

3. Avoid SEO If:  You don’t mind losing a potential referral customer because they can’t find you online during their initial evaluation.  

   Businesses use their websites as a way for people to tell others about them. Most people are more inclined to check out a business’s website before they call or visit. Many of the SEO elements that please search engines are also the same things that people find attractive about a website – which is why search engines rank websites with effective SEO so highly. 

4. Avoid SEO If:  Your site is like a non performing employee and you don’t mind dumping thousands of dollars into development to not show any improvement in your bottom line. 

   Businesses spend hundreds to thousands of dollars to have their websites designed. They also pay monthly hosting fees and often pay someone to maintain the website as well. Implementing high-quality SEO that draws people to your website only provides a better return on your investment and increases sales. 

In today’s digital age, SEO is a necessity.  Businesses can’t stay competitive without investing in SEO & online marketing. Simply having a website isn’t enough.   Businesses need a website that people can find easily.  

SEO is about more than just making it to page one of search though.  It includes your overall strategy to driving traffic to your website, helping it to stick around at the top of search, and converting new visitors to subscribers because your site is accessible, engaging, and providing your targeted market exactly what it is they are looking for:  the solution to their problems.

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How to Capture Traffic From Search Results

Posted on 23. Sep, 2011 by Darling.

When engaging in SEO or optimizing your site for search, think about the visitors or the people you want to reach.   Thinking of your visitor and the searcher will help you capture more traffic from search results.

As a site owner, it’s easy to get wrapped up with what you would like things to look like or say.  Sometimes you may think it’s not necessary to have a bit of contact information in a particular place because it might take away from the aesthetic appeal of the site.  Or, you might want to get creative with your navigation and layout.   Let’s not make things difficult for your visitor though. 

On the other side of the coin is a site owner that thinks in order to rank for a particular phrase, it needs to be everywhere possible on the page, in the title, in the headings, in almost every sentence, in the alt tag, and in your face!  To add insult to injury, the site owner may surround this phrase by other useless filler content.  Let’s not insult your visitor’s intelligence here.

There are quite a few variables in SEO that result in getting your pages, content, and site to show up higher in search results.  A typical checklist will usually only address the basics and you can find thousands of those types of checklists all over the web.   Beware of what you put your faith into though.  Most of that stuff is outdated or incredibly basic.

I found a great example on how to handle one  particular SEO tactic in a way that meets the human visitor’s need.   It describes how to write Meta tags so that you look way better in search results, increase that likelihood for a click through which all leads into your properly set up marketing funnel.

This is just one small thing I work to improve upon with my clients.  The Meta description and title tag are not something you will see on your web page.  But, when someone does a search in Google, Bing, or Yahoo, it is what will show up alongside every other web page or site that is also optimized for that search term.

While this is good practice today, do not be alarmed when the next big search algorithm update totally ignores these items and decides to start pulling data from some other place within your site.  As I said, there are many variables to search and it tends to change frequently.   This is one reason to have a good SEO specialist working with you.

For now, writing title tags and descriptions for your visitor is good practice and will enhance how you stand out on the search results page and attract the click thru because you are a more obvious choice in the midst of all other results on the page.

Here is a screen shot from the article I have referenced on writing these title tags and descriptions:

Let’s get to the logistics here.  If you are using a WordPress built site and installed the tried and true All-In-One SEO plugin, then this is as easy as telling your Facebook friends on Friday that it is in fact Friday and you are so happy that it is Friday and if they didn’t know…..  Friday means the weekend is about to begin!  Please don’t do that by the way… it’s annoying.

Back to the topic at hand; on each page and post of your site, simply fill in the title and description fields of the All-In-One SEO plugin with the proper data.  The plugin even tells you how many characters are recommended along with how many you are using up.  It’s kind of a no brainer!

The more challenging part that takes more thought and research is coming up with what should go in those fields.

Start with your keyword research.  Keep to the idea of one main keyword phrase per page.  Work that one phrase into your title and into your description.  Make it readable, sensible, and actionable.  Ask yourself, what is this page about?  What is the shortest way to describe what is on this page that will make a searcher want to click through to learn more?

When you nail this down, the exact result of doing SEO for your visitor is that  you effectively capture more traffic from search results with a click through and convert that visitor to a new subscriber, follower, or customer.

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7 Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Website

Posted on 19. Aug, 2011 by Darling.

This past week, I gave a presentation on 7 Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Website.  Even with just picking out 7 ways, it was a lot of information indeed.  There are dozens of methods you can use to increase website traffic.

7 Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Website:

1. Articles
2. Blogging
3. Videos
4. Podcasts
5. JV Partnerships and List Building
6. Social Media
7. SEO

Each of those methods could easily be broken down into other step by step processes taking hours to cover.  One thing I did not get to really illustrate during the presentation is how you can take one really good piece of information and funnel it through each of these 7 ways to drive traffic to your website so that you can actually save a little time.

Start with your great piece of information.  Let’s say you are a plumber and you have 10 things that you know plumbers are not telling people.  This example can apply to just about any industry.  If you are a Real Estate agent and you know there are 10 things that most agents will absolutely not make common knowledge to their clients.

First, create a great “foot in the door” free report that you can give away.

Then, take a couple of those secrets that people just don’t share and expand on them in an article.   At the end of the article, be sure to put an author box that tells people where they can go to learn more or to pick up your free report that tells all.

Then, write a short blog post about a couple other secrets.  Publish that post on your blog and include a link or sign up form at the end so your readers can subscribe to your list and receive the complete report.

Along with blogging, go to more well known blogger’s sites and engage in the conversations they are having that are relevant to what you do.  Contribute to that conversation and include a link back to where readers can learn more about you and receive that awesome free report you just wrote.

Then, take one of those great secrets and make a video about it.  Syndicate that video and promote that video.  Be sure your video tells people where to go for more information and how to get the entire free report that tells all about it!

Along with the video, convert it and distribute it to Podcasting directories.  That is pretty neat because people could download your content to their iPod and listen to you when they drive or workout!

Something super powerful is to build upon your referral marketing partner relationships and enter into a JV partnership.  Ask them to send out an email on your behalf.  They can give your free report to their subscribers!  If it is someone in a related field but not in direct competition they will be happy to do this since your free report is good information.  They will look good for giving it away and you will build up your subscription list of targeted followers.  Those new subscribers can then be directed to your website in the future to learn more about what you do.  As you build upon that relationship, you will make more sales for what you do.

All of these articles, videos, and podcasts can be shared and promoted on social media sites.  Re-purpose it and publish them on social content sharing sites.  Tweet, bookmark, vote, and share those links on social networking sites.

All of this content should be created and completely optimized for search engines.  When done correctly, it will increase how often your content is found on highly traveled sites which will drive more traffic to your site.

Implementing SEO on each piece of content increases the ability for it to be found in search engines.  The other thing is each piece of content includes a link back to your website.  Those links in conjunction with proper SEO on your site will help your website appear higher in search results for the keywords you are targeting.

One great piece of content can be repurposed and used in 7 different ways to drive traffic to your website.  Once you get the hang of this, create another piece of content.   Remember, SEO and driving traffic to your website is not a one-time gig.  This is stuff you must do on a consistent basis to continue to build up traffic to your website.  When you use the SEO methods effectively with every single thing you publish on the Internet, you will continue to build upon your results while everyone else is still scratching their head trying to figure out what to do and actually get started doing it!

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