SEO Fort Lauderdale

Raven Tools (our current favorite SEO app) has compiled a very useful list of other very useful lists for anyone involved in SEO, Search Engine Marketing or Internet Marketing.

The Ultimate Tools has great resources for:

• Professional Blogging
• PPC advertising
• Social Media Advertising
• Online Public Relations

Great websites, tools and ideas to spread the word about your products and/or services online.

Check out their post at the link below:

raventools.com/blog/ravens-ultimate-lists-for-internet-marketing/

SearchEngineLand.com is a wealth of information for the SEO professional as well as the small business looking to compete (and maybe even the enthusiast?). Last month they posted a list of the top SEO articles written for 2011. I am reposting here for quick indexing so that I can find these and reference them in the near future.

While I admittedly have not read through all of these (or even glanced at some so far), my understanding of Search Engine Land lends me to believe that there are many great take aways waiting to be had in this list. And knowing how quickly things change in the world of Search Engine Optimization, these articles have a limited shelf life so get to them quick.

Many advertisers delve into the world of Pay-Per-Click (PPC) marketing (sometimes known as Cost Per Click or CPC) without realizing the analytical data available to them. And thus not realizing the simplicity to finding the correct amount of money to place on your bids. With the simple equation listed below, you will never have to worry about overspending on your campaigns again.

A client once said to me, "It is not the cost of any marketing that concerns me, it is the return that I receive for the cost. That is the important part." It doesn't matter if you spend $5 or $50,000, if you are not getting your expected return, it is wasted money no matter how much or how little is spent.

A very common scenario that many marketers do is to look at what their top competitors are bidding and aim to beat out their bid. And others set their aim on the number 1 position and want to be there no matter what the cost.  Number one is a great place to be… but not when you are losing money for the effort. Do the numbers before you begin:

This week, Google announced the availability of real time data tracking through Google Analytics . Google's Real-Time Analytics will provide reports that display what’s happening on your site while it actually is happening.

According to the team at Google,  the new Real-Time reports can be very useful. Some of the applications are: 

Well summer is almost over and I noticed that I have not had a chance to post much on this blog lately.

Maintaining several personal blogs and several business blogs tends to be very time consuming. Not to mention client work (that keeps getting in the way).

As usually in the internet business, we have been experimenting with different publishing platforms. Our most recent over the past year or so have been:

• Drupal
• WordPress
• Weebly
• DevHub

We are experimenting with these right now because of the access we have and of course the knowledge gained over the past few years (particularly with Drupal and Wordpress).

We have been busy launching some new websites on all of these platforms and we are really enjoying Wordpress at the moment. www.hollywoodmargaritaville.com was launched in about 2 hours. Analytics, Adsense and all other site configurations included. This was just not possible in the past. And the ability to grow and scale the site is huge. Maybe not as much potential as Drupal, however to setup everything that was done on the Hollywood Margaritaville Beach Resort website on Drupal would have taken at least 5-8 hours. Huge difference there.

Back in March of 2011, Google announced their new +1 button which would show up in the search results. This new button would allow you to "like" a web page that shows up in the results and thus give it a vote in favor of the search term you are querying.

More recently however, Google has announced that the +1 button can be used on any website. They have some code that you can add to your page and the button will appear for your visitors to vote in your favor. This can be another signal that Google will use in their coveted and complex ranking algorithm to display search engine results pages (SERPs).

Evan Gilbert from Google states:

Adding +1 buttons to your pages is a great way to help your content stand out in Google search. By giving your visitors more chances to +1 your pages, your search results and search ads could show up with +1 annotations more often, helping users see when your pages are most likely to be useful.

Considering more methods for getting links from sites that may really pass substantial link juice? Just in case you’ve overlooked them you need to consider sites with .gov and .edu extensions. Observe that while a great number of .gov and .edu sites rank very well the extension doesn't guarantee good link juice, hence, it's still smart to choose among the .edu and.gov sites you need to target to get back links. Generally though these websites rank pretty much simply because they get top quality links and therefore are of institutes which are trustworthy.

How do we get .gov and .edu sites to connect to your website?

Post comments on their blogs – Many blogs make use of the “no follow” attribute which may diminish the value of the links. So determine which blogs to sign up in and comment on those that preferably do not use “no follow” but additionally enables a hyperlink for your site. Be careful and tactful as you don’t want to link drop this way and get censored for this irritatingly obvious tactic.

Many other web sites automatically aggregate news and information based on your friends likes or shared information such as Digg, Reddit, Facebook and many more. So the technology is not new, but the implementation on LinkedIn is new. This makes it very relevant for Business to Business marketers.

What does the launch of LinkedIn Today mean for the B2B marketer?

LinkedIn is a massive social network and has a robust following among b2b users and companies. It is the largest business focused community in the world. If your business sells to other businesses, or even to individual business people, you should be getting the most out of LinkedIn Today that you possibly can.

Be active on LinkedIn. Now that they have implemented a news curation service, it is even easier for your message to spread virally throughout your industry on LinkedIn. Continue to build your relationships on Linked. Regular status updates as well as participation in Groups and Answers will help you along this path.

Add LinkedIn share buttons to your website. This is a new addition to LinkedIn and was launched late in 2010. Working similar to the like button for Facebook and other widgets for services like twitter, etc... LinkedIn's button will appeal to the B2B crowd that prefers a more professional approach to their shared content.

Why do I need a blog for my business?
A business blog is a great way to market your services and engage your customers. It is not always the cheapest but it is very cost effective, especially if you do it on your own.

What should I write about in my business blog?
Blog about what you know, what you are passionate about, blog about your industry. Be a leader in your community. If you’re going to create regular and meaningful content, you will need to blog about a topic in which you’re knowledgeable, thoughtful and passionate. If you do not meet all 3 of these criteria for your industry then you most likely have a larger problem that blogging will not solve.

How do I get started?
There are many systems to get you up and running from WordPress, Tumblr, Blogger, etc... Choose one and run with it. They all have pros and cons. We use Drupal because we like the flexibility that it brings if we want to expand our site beyond just the blog and build a community. WordPress has an easy install and tons of free plugins to get you started and can easily manage a very advanced blog as you grow.

How do I get vistitors to my blog? 
Share your posts on social media like Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. Comment on other blogs. Cover topics in your industry. Network online.