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Author: Dave Wheelock
You Can Do SEO Too!
Web site owners can begin their SEO efforts well before contacting an SEO professional even if they don't have access to the site backend or tracking software. These are a few professional steps you can take to understand your current placement and SEO standing.
By no means is this a complete list of SEO services from an SEO professional, but the idea is to provide some simple steps to get your Google PageRank up before you call and SEO professional. Every website owner should know and understand these key ideas as things that they can do themselves to start on their web marketing before a professional is called in.
Search for yourself
Look for your own site on the search engines. You may know what your keywords are or you may not, but you should try to find your product and services on the search engines. How would your perspective customers find your services? What keywords or terms would they use to find your products and services? Can you find yourself without typing in your business name? Is your web site being found in the product categories you feel that your business offers?
Doing this search for yourself should give you an idea of how well your current site and SEO is working for you. If you can't seem to find your own business on the search engines, you may need to rethink the keywords you used and try again. Try using keywords that might help you find your known competition. Be ready to take notes while you view the results. An SEO professional will take the same steps.
Submit your Site
If you aren't able to find your web site on the search engines at all you may need to submit your site directly to the search engines for the first time. Each search engine does their best to provide relevant pages for a site search result, but if the search engine doesn't know your site exists then it won't include it in their search engine results.
Each search engine has a simple process to submit your URL. Follow the directions they each provide. It will typically take weeks to months to get your site crawled by their spiders, so don't hold your breath while you wait. Some search engines don't accept submissions and others simply use the results provided by the big guys, so start with these three:
(requires membership)Identify Competition
While searching for yourself, be sure to write down all the sites that come up ahead of you in the search engine listings. You may know some of these businesses already and you may not. You should be able to identify your known competitors quickly, and you probably will find a list of competitors that you didn't know existed. Take a look at each of the competitor's websites that you find. How are they marketing their products and services?
Study the competitors closely that are at the top of the search engine rankings under your keywords. What are they doing differently than your site? While you don't want to copy what your competitors are doing, you may want to build on some of those successful ideas. Content changes, keyword optimization, page optimization, conversion paths modifications, and more are typically suggested by an SEO professional.
Industry Directory Listings
Chances are, while you search for yourself and your competitors, you will come across one or two professional industry directory websites. Directories tend to do well in search engine rankings for several reasons and are typically well managed by an SEO professional. These industry directories are a great place to submit your URL.
Be sure your business is listed in any and all relevant industry directories. This doesn't require an SEO professional. You can easily submit your site or request to have the site add your business on your own. Links back to your site help build up your page rank with Google. Some websites have thousands of back-links, so the more the merrier. An SEO professional will do the same type of URL submission to build up your back-links.
Main Directory Listings
Aside from the industry directories you've found, there are a handful of main directories that the search engines use to help rank your web site. Being listed in the proper categories is essential to your web site rankings. An SEO professional would take a look at these listings in preliminary site evaluation. There are lots and lots of directories, so continue to find relevant ones. Be sure to visit these sites and submit your URL:
Links, Links, and more Links
Over the last couple years, a change in professional SEO techniques has declared social networks as prime targets for back-link placements. These are effective places for information about your business and to begin managing your reputation online. Blogs and forums are simple places to get links placed as well. The more links the better. However, the best links will be those that have your specific keywords placed in the link anchor tags, so you'll need to work with bloggers to get those powerful links.
If you are planning on contacting an SEO professional, you will want to collect some of this information first. A professional SEO will ask what you feel your keywords should be and the product categories that you should have results in. The professional should ask about your known competitors and more about your past SEO efforts as well. If you've already done these steps and you feel that your website needs professional SEO services, please contact us today!
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It's also a good idea to submit your project to bing.com - microsoft project
Recent Blog Posts
Being an SEO professional in Michigan provides a unique experience and offers us the opportunity for diverse projects. Michigan businesses aren't just automotive manufacturers. There are a wide variety of small through large businesses based in Michigan offering products and services to the global marketplace.
The Michigan population is extremely proud of our local manufacturing plants. Dozens of our local communities here in Michigan are built around various manufacturing and assembly plants. There is a symbiotic relationship between a plant and its local community.
With our roots in these small Michigan communities, we strive to provide affordable and effective alternatives for marketing and advertising needs to Michigan companies. We also provide our clients with solutions and services that offer a high ROI. We are doing our part in helping these local businesses stay local to Michigan.
Okay, so what can a manufacturing business do to prevent catastrophic failure in the current economy? Most are tightening belts and budgets to reflect lower sales and profits. Many are looking toward Lean or other manufacturing technology that will save resources, equipment, and time to save money overall. Some manufacturing companies are trying to differentiate by utilizing the equipment and resources they currently have in new markets. Others are simply closing their doors.
As you slash your advertising budgets and reduce marketing staff, where will new customers come from? Can you rely on manufacturing trade organizations full of other businesses who are in the same sinking ship? Are business directories able to share your complete manufacturing expertise to potential customers? Are your traditional forms of advertising getting out to new potential customers? What has your website done for you lately?
This is a landing page - or at least an example of a landing page if it doesn't rank well. The concept of using a landing page in SEO terms isn't new, but still provides an excellent way for you to capture leads from the search engines.
Essentially, a landing page is one page on your web site optimized for just a few specific keywords. In this case, we're using 'landing page' as our main keywords and we'll try to focus on a couple other keywords to capture leads on the long-tail searches as well. Landing pages are sometimes referred to as 'lead capture pages' for the obvious reason that they are intended to capture leads.
Landing pages are used to grab leads from the search engines through excellent ranking on specific keywords. Not every page on your site can be optimized for your preferred keywords. This is what has made landing pages such a successful strategy.