5 Ways To Waste Your Time On SEO
With consumers spending more and more time on computers and mobile devices, while using Google as a primary tool to find products or services that they need or want, having a prominent position in search engines is an increasingly important part of effective marketing for small businesses.
While hiring an SEO firm is often a desired luxury, most small businesses choose to learn and do SEO on their own.
There are an abundance of free resources that provide instruction on how to plan and execute effective SEO like SEOMoz’s Beginner’s Guide to SEO and blogs like Search Engine Land.
However, this do it yourself approach can lead to many mistakes by small business owners who do not have a full understanding of the latest updates by Google which can make an effective tactic obsolete overnight. Here are some of the biggest time wasters in SEO that produce small or no improvements to your site’s rankings.
1. Commenting On Blogs
While commenting on relevant blogs can be a good way to build relationships with blog owners, it is a horrible way to improve your SEO. From a pure traffic standpoint, very few people tend to click on your comment link.
From a linkbuilding perspective, you are getting a minuscule to zero link juice going back to your site. Since 99% of blogs automatically no-follow comment links, they send zero link juice to your site. No-follow communicates to Google that the site owner does not endorse the link and therefore it does not count as a vote for your site.
If you can find blogs that take no-follow off their comment links, it can pass a small amount of value. But typically there are tons of comments and your link juice gets divided between the other links on the page.
2. Manual Link Requests
This is equivalent to a brute force attempt to solve the link acquisition problem. Some site owners think that if they email tons of sites, that they will get a few of those people to send a link their way. However, linking usually doesn’t work that way.
People link to content that they find very interesting or compelling. They typically don’t link to something just to help out a random person who emails them. Most site owners are too busy to even read these emails and often times there is not a compelling reason given for why they should take the time to add a link to their site. Why not spend the time that you would have spent emailing a hundred people and create a piece of content that will be incredibly helpful or fascinating?
3. Submitting your site to Numerous Directories
Submitting your site to directories is extremely easy. Often times you just have to fill out a form and you’re done. However, most directories send so little link juice to your site that they are not even worth 5 minutes of your time.
There are a few good directories like Yahoo directory, Business.com, and Best of the Web that are known to send you good value and also cost hundreds of dollars per year. Local directories can also be a good value if their editors are careful on who they allow in. But most smaller directories allow anyone to be included, even poor quality spam sites and have little SEO authority to share.
4. Requesting link exchanges
The SEO community believes that link exchanges are devalued by Google, even to the point where they don’t count. So emailing a lot of site owners offering to link to their site in exchange for a link back can be an extraordinary waste of time.
The exception is if you are exchanging links to similar sites in your industry. Google views it as natural for sites within the same niche to link to eachother, so there is likely to be link juice passed in these cases. However, exchanging links indiscriminately probably adds little value since this is considered an attempt to manipulate the engines.
5. Building another site and linking to yourself
At first this may seem like a brilliant idea. If you create a blog with some quality content and maybe a few links, you can send links directly to your main site and even control the keywords used in the links.
However it often takes a huge amount of time to build a separate site and fill it with content. Additionally Google recognizes when sites are linking to other sites you own. Even if you host the site on a different server in another state, Google can often determine when networks of sites are just linking to eachother by detecting unnatural linking patterns and sometimes checking the domain registration data.
Additionally, Google considers domain diversity, or the number of different domains that link to you as an important signal. Therefore it is much better to have several different sites link to you than to get a lot of links from a single site. If you already have different sites, it is okay to link them together, but it is not recommended to build a site just to get links from it.
About the Author: Charles Sipe is an online marketing manager at Criminal Justice Degree Schools, a resource for students seeking information on justice degrees, schools, and careers in criminal justice.
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Blogging for Small Business Owners & SME’s
Imagine if you could listen intently and get up to the minute information, like a fly on a wall to millions of people as they talk about your business? That’s what type of power blogging for small business owners can promote.
Now imagine if you could take that information and translate it into exactly what your customers want, how they want it and what they will ultimately buy and not to mention, what they will pay for it.
The Many Benefits Of Blogging
Blogging is a tool that businesses are using to make actual decisions on customer feedback and market intelligence. It’s the smartest move businesses are making today.
Blogs expand the ability for companies to operate and create growth. And blogs are taking this communication a step further by using mass marketing and transforming the old-boy way of one way dialogue into a two way dialogue. If you haven’t invited this type of marketing tool into your business, believe me your competitors have.
There are almost 500 million blog readers daily and it’s a continuous conversation, 24 hours a day. Part of the conversation may be about your company, good or bad but this gives you the opportunity to get leverage because you hear what your customers like or dislike; and you can make changes instantly based on that information.
Some Unique Challenges
But as good as blogging gets it has created a unique challenge; how do you keep up with the demand? You see blogs are an open door. They enter your customer’s home and office at any time and offer a transparency. If used correctly you get to use an authentic and authoritative honest voice to sustain real relationships. But can you imagine real relationships with millions of people 24 hours a day?
Many small business owners realize what blogging can do for their business but don’t have the manpower to take on this initiative. Some start out strong creating a blog but then fall short once they realize the commitment it takes.
Big businesses have learned to use outsourcing as an advantage; outsourced tasks, such as blogging gives small businesses the freedom to concentrate on other daily tasks and focus their attention on expansion.
What Exactly Makes you a Successful Blogger?
- You must listen to the conversations
- Disseminate what is being said by your customers
- Evaluate and Value the conversation
- Contribute to the conversation continuously
- Listen some more
As you become more aware of how the blogging process works and how you can benefit from it you’ll also make note to check on your competition via blogging sites. This not only gives your company a chance to sway some customers away from your competitors but it keeps you abreast of what you’re up against.
The point of blogging is to contribute some valuable information and listen to the results you get. Whether good or bad, the results will tell you what your next move is. But this is a continuous process and can become overwhelming for a small business owner. This is why businesses, whether big or small are outsourcing this marketing task.
The easier thing to do is hire specialist that gather and disseminate all the information and provide feedback to you. Outsourcing specialists for blogging can also see how blogger conversations grow and keep track of emerging trends.
Blog marketing has become a core fragment of every business. Blogging keeps your company visible, creates a stir among the marketplace and it builds trust within your customer base that you never realized before.
Author Bio: This article has been contributed by Nick. Nick blogs for Offshore Ally; a virtual assistant and outsourcing company for SME. Nick has been blogging since 2007 and has an entire team working on his blogging ventures. You can read more articles by him by subscribing to RSS from his blog or at twitter.com/offshoreally.
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4 Ways to Run Your Business from Anywhere, on Anything
There was never a time when a business could be successful while remaining stagnant. However, with the quickly moving world of technology, the need for fast paced solutions has become even more crucial.
One way in which business management has gotten one step closer to the speed of light is through mobile applications on the Microsoft, Android, and Apple networks. As the most successful network, Apple’s iPhone provides a number of innovative business solutions. Here are some of the best.
Google Apps
Google has been providing a number of fantastic solutions for business owners, allowing them to customize their workspace and provide the most professional public face possible. This includes secure servers for email with massive storage space, mobile synchronization with individual and group calendars, cloud computing solutions like Google docs, and more. To add even more oomph to an already impressive lineup, Google Apps guarantees a 99.9 percent uptime.
Microsoft Exchange
Exchange hosting through Microsoft allows some of the most secure and reliable email server solutions to date. This precision platform allows for collaborative projects between mobile devices, the computers in your office, and anything else that you want to integrate.
Worldcard Mobile
If you’ve been networking in the business world, it’s likely that you have a large collection of business cards from people who may be useful to contact in the future. In order to make the process of adding them to your contacts smooth and simple, Worldcard provides an automated business card to contact solution. You simply take a picture of the business card with your built-in camera, and the software takes care of the rest. Beyond simply adding the name and number of the individual, other information like business name, fax number, and email are also noted.
Additionally, the software provides solutions for contact organization and management which allows you to group and retrieve the contacts more easily. Credit Card Machine The credit card machine app literally works to replace a payment processing unit while you’re out in the field. This allows you to accept payments from any major credit card, take signatures, gain gateway approval, and more, all from your iPhone. This application comes at a much lower cost than a standard credit card processing gateway, is simple to use, and has 24/7 support in case you run into any problems.
Box.net
Most word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation groups didn’t design their software with the mobile platform in mind. Luckily, there’s a mobile app that designed itself to remedy that problem. It’s called box.net, and it allows you to view, organize, and share your .doc, .xls, .pdf, and other files of many other major format types.
Due to the need to meet clients in their home territory, go to conferences, and stay up to date on your business from every location, mobile applications now play a pivotal role in your business’s success. These are just a few of the great applications provided on mobile networks. Be sure to check out your own application store for other great solutions, including a wide variety of free apps.
About the Author: Elysabeth Teeko spends her time stalking technology, social media news and interior decorating. She loves to spend her time writing on new topics and broadening her expertise. You can follow her at @Elysateek.
Photo Credit: Cappellmeister
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Want to Rank Higher in Searches? Use Keyword Phrases for Your Business
Everyone who owns and operates a website wants their site to be ranked higher and to be seen when people search for their business/industry.
How can an owner of a business rank higher and be seen when people are searching for their product or service? The answer is to begin to use keyword phrases.
Focus on the Long Tail
In SEO (search engine optimization) the technical term for this is “Long Tail Keywords”. Just what is a Long Tail Keyword (phrase) and how can a business owner take advantage of this for their website?
It seems like most people are only concerned about individual keywords for their website and blogs. Why is this?
When the internet was in its infancy and the media was a much smaller, we were taught to use certain keywords related to our product, service or business. Today, if you are to use single keywords, you will never rank very high in anyone’s searches, as the competition for certain words is overwhelming!
However, if you were to use keyword phrases related to your business when you are describing or writing for the internet, you will have a much better chance to rank higher. Let me show you why a phrase is better than a keyword in order to help your website to rank higher on the internet than your competitors.
Take for Example…
If you were to put the word “art” into a Google search, it will tell you that there are 1,400,000,000 web pages for that word. Yes, that is B, as in Billion!
That is a heck of a lot of competition.
However, if you continue and add the word marketing to the word art and make the phrase “art marketing” there are 67,000,000 web pages. That is 40 times better then the single word of art.
Now if we put into the search the phrase “art marketing strategy” the number of web pages comes down to 3,440,000 or about 20 times better again. The phrase “art marketing success strategy” yields 2,330,000 web pages. Finally, the phrase “art marketing success strategy ideas” yields 1,170,000 web pages. Our last phrase produces the least amount web pages yet.
Research Phrases for Better Ranking
What does all of this mean for you and me? It means that we can improve our page rank by using carefully researched phrases for our keywords, titles and descriptions. This should be done for each page of your website, each title and post that you write.
In addition, this applicable to each meta word and each meta description that you write as well. As you can see from the above example, just placing single keywords related to your business is just not enough to compete.
Also, remember, a majority of all internet searches are now being done by a phrase, rather then by single keyword.
A Tool to Help
Researching keywords is a whole science that I do not profess to have as I leave that to professional SEO firms. But, you can do a lot of research on your own with keywords and keyword phrases with Google’s Adwords. You will need to have a Google account, but the account is free.
Google Adwords will suggest certain keywords and phrases in your area of interest. They also will provide you with data on the overall competition for those keywords too. Finally, Adwords will show the amount of global searches for that keyword or keyword phrase.
You will need to play around with the Google keyword tool in order to find how it all works. But once you become familiar with how to use the keyword tool it will help you to discover those key words and phrases that will get you ranked higher and higher in the search results.
I use the keyword tool for tags, article content, press release content, image tags, meta descriptions and meta tags. This may sound technical to some, but really it is something that you need to be aware of in everything you post to the internet in order to stand out and be found.
About the Author: Art Marketing Strategies provides to new and emerging artists who want to be successful with the vision, roadmap, tools and support to market their art successfully in today’s competitive marketplace. Art Marketing Strategies was started by John R. Math, a successful art photographer based in Florida.
Contact John R. Math at Art Marketing Strategies
Tel: 888-490-3530 or by Email: jmath@artmarketingstrategy.com
Visit Their Website: www.artmarketingstrategy.com
Photo Credit: Danny Sullivan
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4 Ways Small Businesses Can Creatively Cut Technology Costs
Out with the old and in with the new. The philosophy we often apply to spring-cleaning works just as well for starting or maintaining a successful small business.
More often than not, small businesses come to a point when its time to leave behind old business practices to stay on par with budget. And chances are, your small business needs to get creative at finding ways to cut back monthly operation costs.
So reconsider practices you thought you needed, and take a closer look at what is necessary for the business’ success. Make room for new best practices that can reduce costs, without reducing your ability to work successfully or service your customers properly.
Out: Leasing office space
In: Virtual offices
There is something thrilling about having an actual office to go to; nothing says “legitimate” like an office. But if you’re trying to conserve cash, pass on leasing office space in favor of some thrifty alternatives.
Have everyone work virtually from home. There’s no cost for the space, and you can use online services to store and share documents, creating a de facto network for the organization. You’ll also save on many of the things you don’t think of at first, such as office furniture and decorating expenses.
If you feel you need an office that’s separate from your home, see if you can sublet space from another company in your area. With all the downsizing that’s occurred recently, especially in service-oriented businesses, many companies could be paying for empty space.
You can also look into common office space – the type where several organizations share certain resources, such as a common lobby, conference rooms and admin support – while occupying different offices.
Out: Business phone systems
In: Smart phones and virtual phone services
Smart phones are rapidly replacing land lines among consumers. In fact, a recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows 25 percent of U.S. households are cell phone-only homes. And now the technology exists to move business phones in the same direction.
Virtual phone services for small business allow businesses to overlay an entire business phone system on top of any working phone number – including a mobile number.
When you sign up for a virtual phone service you are assigned a phone number (which will become your “business” number). Usually you can choose between a toll-free or local phone number. The service provides business-oriented features such as a virtual receptionist to greet callers and direct them to the right people, the ability to assign extensions to different people in the company (even if those people don’t work in the same building), enhanced voicemail, smart call forwarding and more.
Each of the extensions can be linked to your employees’ own mobile and/or home phones, saving on the cost of phone equipment. Anyone on the system can initiate a conference call, and in some cases bring in as many people as they want. All of this functionality comes for a monthly fee that’s often less than the price of one land line – and with no added cost for equipment or technicians to run it.
Out: New computers
In: Used or refurbished PCs and laptops
OK so this one’s more “out with the new and in with the old,” but it’s an idea that can save your small business money up-front. While everyone loves a bright, shiny new PC, most small business owners really don’t need all that processing power. Take a look at what you want the computer to do. If you’re planning to use it with basic office applications such as word processors and spreadsheets, send and receive email, and surf the Internet, a used or refurbished PC will likely work just fine.
You can purchase used or refurbished computers online at a significant discount. Many of these computers are units that have come off-lease from large corporations, so you know they should have the core capabilities and speed you need.
If you need to share files or resources with one or more co-workers, you can build simple file and print sharing networks with used wireless routers or low-cost devices available at local retailers. Or you can use an online file storage service that allows you to access files from any computer, anywhere you can get an Internet connection.
Out: One-task wonders
In: Multi-purpose tools
Look around your office or through the applications on your computer. How many things do you own that have only one function? Can that function be performed by something else?
A fax machine is a good example of a piece of office equipment that is only capable of performing one task. All it does is send and receive faxes. Yet there it sits, costing you money for a dedicated phone line, paper, toner, even the power to keep it running and ready to receive an incoming fax.
You can eliminate almost all of those additional costs by moving to an Internet fax service that allows you to send and receive faxes on your PC or smart phone. Not only will this keep a little more green in your wallet, it also adds convenience since you can send and receive faxes anywhere you can get an Internet connection.
When it comes down to the software you are using to run your small business, consider a pay-as-you or Web-based service model – also known as the “cloud.” With this model you pay a small monthly fee rather than buying the software up-front, and you still gain access to feature-laden applications that are normally found only in expensive packages.
For example, for roughly $10 per month you can access services that help you design, manage, send and track promotional emails to your customer and prospect lists. With these services you can build high-value email campaigns that look like they were created by high-priced professionals, but were actually created by you.
Cutting costs doesn’t have to mean compromising on quality or usefulness. In fact, the ideas above will actually help you work faster, better and more efficiently.
Take a look around your office and see how a little “out with the old, in with the new” thinking can help you work smarter – and keep more cash in your coffers.
About the Author: Steve Adams is the vice president of marketing for Protus, a provider of communications tools for small-to-medium-businesses and enterprise organizations, including the MyFax internet fax service; my1voice, a virtual phone service; and Campaigner, an e-mail marketing service. He can be reached at sadams@protus.com.
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Why Leadership and Team Building Exercises Should not be Ignored by Small Businesses
What the Large Companies Do
Large corporations for many years have invested heavily in leadership and team building programs, including seminars, debates, outdoor activities and sports. Some take the more ‘military’ route and utilise stressful and challenging situations in order to assess and improve their workforce.
The majority of these activities have shown to be so effective and beneficial that the percentage of human resources budgets dedicated to them has increased steadily for several decades among almost all larger businesses.
Why Small Businesses Often Do Not
As a small business, employing a small number of people, there are many reasons why carrying out these type of programs might seem to be unnecessary or extravagant. Firstly, they appear to take a lot of time and money to organise, and without adequately trained personnel to design a program and monitor the results, the benefits may not be as much as anticipated.
Small businesses also tend to have a much more personal relationship between all the staff, and between management of the company. As a result, ‘team building’ can appear less necessary than in a larger workforce. The majority of small business types are usually less concerned with staff assessment on a formal basis, either because the managers believe they know their staff well enough, or because the structure does not allow for the same promotion opportunities that larger pyramid structured firms may have.
Why They Should
It is simply not true that small businesses would not benefit. All successful businesses, regardless of size need to evaluate staff on a regular basis, small businesses more so in most cases as it is rarely done formally.
Only with the sort of increased knowledge of your employees that can be gained from these programs, can their skills and talents be properly utilised. An increased understanding of the dynamics within a small firm, even one of only three or four people can make marked differences to productivity, job satisfaction and in many cases innovation or just ‘giving a damn’.
How They Can
One of the main reasons stated by CEOs and managers of small companies not to carry these activities out is money, but it only takes a small amount of research and imagination to come up with low cost options that can be equally worthwhile and fun.
For example, one of the more obvious options is a session of paintball or laser tag – ideal with small teams and if you are short of numbers, friends and family can be involved. The majority of sports can serve the same purpose cheaply, although care has to be taken not to exclude physically less able employees. If you can get hold of some rope, some planks, a couple of barrels and a scaffold pole or two, it is simple to design small leadership puzzles for a group to carry out. Safety can be a concern, but sensible planning and keeping it simple will reduce any risks. A basic treasure hunt, or a business ideas competition can work usefully – as a CEO or manager you should be able to come up with a myriad of ideas that will serve the purpose cheaply and effectively.
The Benefits of Fun
Above all, a small business staff can carry out these kind of activities without the pressure of ‘promotion evaluation’ that is found among large corporation staff members, so they can have fun while carrying out whatever you decide to try.
No experienced manager can dispute the benefits of a workforce having fun together as a group, as this carries over into the workplace. This makes the work environment much more pleasant and productive, plus, you get to know your team better and they get to see your better side!
About the Author: Patsy works for Go-Gulf.com, a Kuwait based web design company that provide web design solution in Middle East.
Photo Credit: http://www.lumaxart.com/
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4 Things You Will Need to Leave Behind in Order to Make it Big
Naysayers
First and foremost you will have to detach yourself from those people who do not believe in you, criticise your efforts or don’t support you when you need them. This may be your work colleges, your friends, or even your family or partner.
People have all sort of reasons for acting negatively when they see you want to better yourself, but nothing will bring you down with greater force than entertaining their efforts to keep you the same person they have always known. As harsh as it might sound, anyone who is not happy for you and your success does not deserve your time. A plant that wants to grow cannot live amongst the weeds forever.
Regrets
If ever there were a pointless and destructive emotion, it is regret. Regret cannot change anything. It cannot turn back time, it cannot repair relationships, and it cannot earn you back all that money you lost on a bad investment.
What regret can do however is rob you of confidence, make you an angry person and force you to live in the past at a time when it is more important than ever to keep your eyes on the future. That is not to say you shouldn’t learn from every mistake you make and remember all your loses along with your wins, but leave regret behind, you don’t need it.
Greed
Lots of people think that greed will drive them forwards and be their motivating resource when times are hard. It won’t.
Greed is defined as an “excessive” or “rapacious” desire, and anything in excess is never good. Indeed, excessive is defined “more than or above what is necessary”, thus greedy people are never successful people. They may make money, drive fast cars and have nice holidays, but as greed is an emotion that cannot be satisfied, they will never be a ‘success’. Instead, that greed will consume them and it will end them. Be ambitious, have dreams, but don’t let greed drive you.
Free Time
Few people realise just how hard you have to work to make a business succeed. In fact, I would say that it is only those people who have given it a go who truly appreciate the time you have to commit, let alone the blood, sweat and tears.
It is of course very important to give yourself breaks and still maintain a healthy work/life balance, but don’t expect to maintain your daily squash session or evening catch-ups with old school friends…at least not for a while anyway.
Author Bio: Duncan is a small business owner and blogger representing a poor credit credit cards company in the UK
Photo Credit: Mykl Roventine
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