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In the last couple of years it seems like every where I turn I come across another SEO expert. A few years ago the popular thing to become was a Consultant. Seems like everyone who was laid off from a corporate position became a Business or Management Consultant while they were looking for a job. Same thing, sort of, with SEO consultants.

I know a number of people who take a class with one of the many self proclaimed internet marketing experts that abound and after taking the class they hang a shingle and start selling services. The other day I ran across someone who tried to tell me that they were Google SEO Certified. Google does not offer a certification process for SEO.

My point is, this is a market where the Buyer Must Beware! Without any licensing or regulation required anyone with a good sales pitch can become an SEO expert.

So… how do you know who really knows their stuff and who doesn’t? How do you protect yourself against charlatans and scam artists? Simple… educate yourself. Know what questions to ask. Ask the questions and know what are reasonable answers.

 Here are some Terms that you should know the meaning of:

Page Rank

• The Google Page Rank is a score ranging from 0 thru 10 which indicates the overall importance that Google has assigned to that webpage. The scoring system is logarithmic such that a score of 5 is approximately 10 times more valuable than a score of 4. (actually the value is about 8.5 vs 10 but 10 is much easier to grasp).
• All websites start out as a 0 then move up the ranks based on a variety of measurements. The primary metrics that move the score are inbound links and traffic from other websites.
• Increasing the Page Rank is a target of many website SEO specialists, however, Page Rank alone is irrelevant. More important is the quality of the content and the quantity of content.

SERP

• Def: Search Engine Results Position
• The SERP is the absolute position of a particular listing on a Search Engine. Most Search Engines use the formula of providing 10 positions on Page 1 that are not paid for. This is called the ‘Organic Content’.
• A SERP of 1 means that the site is found on Page 1 Top Position.
• A SERP of 2 means that the site is found on Page 1 Second Position.
• A SERP of 10 means that the site is found on Page 1 Last Position
• A SERP of 11 means that the site is found on Page 2 Top Position… and so on.
• SERP and Page Rank are not the same.

SEM

• Def: Search Engine Marketing
• Often used to describe the process of purchasing Pay-Per-Click advertisements.
• Can also mean all activities that are designed to elevate a website on the SERPs.

SEO

• Def: Search Engine Optimization
• All content creation and website modification activities that are related to getting content found on Page 1 of a Search Engine. Includes writing articles, keyword research, keyword strategy, keyword placement, meta tag management, and related activities.
• Also similar to SEM in that almost anything that can be done to increase the SERP of a website can be called SEO in a general sense.

Landing Page

• A webpage without any navigation elements that allow the visitor to leave without hitting the back button.
• A webpage designed to encourage the visitor to take a specific action.
• A webpage with a single focus of leading the visitor to a Call to Action (CTA).

Blog

• Def: Weblog… Blog for short.
• Originally limited to text and designed as a self publishing tool.
• Current state of the art Blogs are full CMS (Content Management System) sites making it very easy to publish text, pictures, videos, audios, and have a variety of interactive elements.

Website vs Webpage

• A webpage is any individual page on the Internet. It can be a simple ‘About Us’ page or a Catalog Item page in an e-commerce website.
• A website is a series of webpages all under a single domain name.

Video Blog

• A blog with a video on it. It may also have text and photos, but those are not required.

Keyword

• Any single word that someone would type into a search engine when looking for a product, service, business, or other sort of thing.
• Ex: Laptop

Keyword Phrase

• Any combination of keywords that might be typed into a search engine to help find a specific product, service, business or other sort of thing.
• Dell Insperion Laptop

Long Tail Keyword Phrase

• Typically three (3) or more keywords that are typed into a search engine by someone with a highly specific need to find a product, service, business or other sort of thing.
• Ex: Dell Insperion 1545 laptop video card adapter
• As you can see, the longer the search phrase the more specific the item is that is being sought.

Beware: There are plenty of SEO Experts who will demonstrate their capabilities by creating a marketing campaign for very long tail search phrases. This process is very misleading and is the kind of thing that should cause you to be cautious when making a decision about who is your SEO provider.

If you would like to know more about how a comprehensive Digital Marketing Program can help your business please call 214-772-6854 and ask for me… Lee Thurburn. At NetOffer we are passionate about Digital Marketing and we would love to help you if we can.

Thanks. Lee Thurburn – President of NetOffer, Inc.

The post SEO myths and secrets. Basic Terms and Concepts for Business Owners. appeared first on NetOffer Daily Deals.

In the beginning there was DARPA and the Internet was born, but it was very geeky and only people with advanced degrees could play with it, but it was good.

Then along came AOL, Prodigy, Mozilla and Netscape and they provided the first networks and browsers, at about the same time as US Robotics provided the 33.6 k-baud modem, and it was better because now less geeky people could play with the Internet, and it was good.

Then along came Yahoo and 56K and masses of people and the people responded with Ebay and Amazon and similar goodness, and the age of Exuberance was born and people with powerpoint presentations raised millions of dollars, and the people said it was good.

Then came the Google… and the Google changed the face of the Internet forever with an algorithm that made sense and imposed order on the millions and millions of webpages, and it was good.

Then came the Age of Social Media with Myspace, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest and others and confusion reigned over the land and the Google struggled to make sense of it all so the Google started changing the Algorithm with beasts called Panda and Penguin and confusion reigned yet more so.

During the Age of Social Media webpages proliferated to become billions and billions, soon to be trillions upon trillions, and commerce exploded along with spam and cheap content and all kinds of abominations and it was not good, except for people wearing black hats and covered faces.

Finally the modern times arrived and some sense of order has begun to rise up again, but the landscape is still wet with the flood of the confusion, and finally we have received the dove of hope from the Google… Google+ integrated with YouTube and Hangouts. And things are becoming good again.

A great series of blog posts explain the above in more detail can be seen at Joshua Berg on Google+ inspired my biblical tone above. Joshua did his own version, a worthy read. Here is where you can find it:

• Pt 1: Is Google+ Page Rank the culprit behind the current … http://goo.gl/R4TZM
• Pt 2: How PageRank in Google+ is Earned. G+ Link Myths… http://goo.gl/0YcDp
• Pt 3: Why PR in G+ Matters To You & Your Connections. http://goo.gl/zHKhx
• Pt 4: PR in G+ – PageRank is Still Guts of Google Search. http://goo.gl/uMcuo
• Pt 5: PageRank, Link Juice & SEO for Google+ Communities. http://goo.gl/ViToc 

The post A Short History of The Internet and SEO appeared first on NetOffer Daily Deals.

It is said that a picture is worth 1,000 words. Probably true.

Videos run approximately 30 frames per second, equal to about 30,000 words per second.

Doing the math that means that a 60 second video is equal to about 1.8 million words. That’s a lot of words!

More importantly, video tells a story that is, potentially, rich in emotive content. That means, that it is much easier for someone to pick up your emotional state from a video that it is from traditional text with photos.

Why is it important to pick up emotion?

People purchase based on emotional factors more than on logical factors.

People purchase because you convinced them that they want what you have, not that they need what you have.

People purchase because they feel vs think that they will be better off with your thing than they will without it.

Last, but not least, Google loves video and is much more likely to put you on Page 1 if you include video than they will if you do not include video.

Given the above it only makes sense to start using video.

Video does not have to be expensive. In fact, a decent quality video is very inexpensive. You can capture a decent quality video with your laptop camera and you don’t even need editing if you are careful with your recording.

The biggest tip to keep in mind with making a video is… make sure that you have a good quality light source (preferably a north facing widow) in front of you (behind the camera) and speak to the camera like it is your best friend. Practice till you get it right. It is actually very easy.

Upload the finished video to YouTube and make sure you have your own Channel. YouTube includes editing tools that you can use to clip the leading and ending bits and you can even add some limited text to the finished product to display your phone # and website. You don’t need expensive editing software to get started.

Go ahead, start telling your story using Video.

The sooner you get started the sooner you will become an experienced veteran and you will get the benefits of improved SEO performance.

If you have questions about how to use video as a marketing tool please give us a call at 214-772-6854. We look forward to visiting with you.

The post How Videos magnify the results of your digital marketing efforts. appeared first on NetOffer Daily Deals.

Knowing the searches that your customers are using is the critical first step to SEO success. Writing stories that tell the consumer how you solve the problems that they have is the next step. You must write the story is such a fashion that when the consumer reads the story they want to take an action that you want them to take. That action is usually to pick up the phone and call you, or to fill out a form online so that you can send them something. Telling the story is critical otherwise, being on page 1 does you no good.

Getting onto page 1 is really pretty simple. That does not mean that it is easy, but it is pretty simple. Make sure that you package your content (your story) with the right keyword phrases, with the right keyword density, and in the right manner so that your content becomes attractive to Google. Pretty simple. Then, repeat the process until you are on Page 1.

I recommend you follow what I refer to as the Monte Cristo Recipe. Like making a Monte Cristo Sandwich. Here is the recipe:

Basically, a Monte Cristo Sandwich, according to my recipe, is two layers of toast, covered with melted cheese sauce, and with meat in the middle between the toast. If we use that analogy for creating a BLOG you can think of the BLOG this way:

1. Cheese on Top = BLOG Title
2. Top Layer of Toast = 1st Paragraph in the BLOG
3. Meat in the Middle = the topical content about which you are writing.
4. Bottom Layer of Toast = Last Paragraph

Cheese on Top: The BLOG Title must be a maximum of 70 Characters, including spaces and punctuation, and must contain one Specific Search Term for Google to properly index the content.

Top Layer of Toast: The 1st Paragraph must be a maximum of 160 Characters, including spaces and punctuation, and must be bold. In the 1st Paragraph you must repeat the Specific Search Term exactly as presented in the Title. The Specific Search Term must be a link to some additional information on the web. It would be preferable if the link address URL contains the Specific Search Term within the URL.

The Bottom Layer of Toast: The Last Paragraph must contain the Specific Search Term, again exactly as presented in the Title. The Specific Search Term must also be a link, as in the 1st Paragraph, however, the Specific Search Term does not need to be bold. The remainder of the Last Paragraph may be boilerplate which is replicated each time you create a BLOG article.

The Meat in the Middle: This is where you present your content that the reader will find interesting enough to want to pick up the phone and call you to start communications. This is also where you could add photos and videos if you wish.

If you follow the recipe above on each BLOG Article that you write you will find that your BLOG Articles will get much better Google Page Ranking than if you vary from the formula.

If you do the above often enough you will get onto page 1 of Google. How long that will take depends on the competition you have for the limited space on Page 1. We will talk about that in future articles.

The post The Secret Recipe for SEO Success. Page 1 Here I Come! appeared first on NetOffer Daily Deals.

I have been involved in digital marketing since 1995. In fact, I sold my very first thing online in July of 1995… it was a database of Mexican companies that I sold to a company in Europe who found me online and purchased the 7 floppy disk set by wire transferring money into my Texas bank account. I have been actively involved in internet marketing since that time.

In about 2000 a major change occurred in how the internet worked… not a networking technology type of change, but a change in how people used the internet. That change was Google. Now, 13 years later, Google is the dominant online presence, challenged by Facebook and a few other system, but nonetheless Google is dominant. In fact, Google is so dominant that many people think that typing a search into Google is the only way to find anything. I see this all the time. I am often on the phone telling someone to “type this address into your browser… XXX.com”… and then they tell me that they do not see it and upon further questions I find out that they typed into Google to perform the search… not into their browser address line… and they got the wrong result. The point I am making is that many people go to Google by default to find things. To them Google is the Internet.

Being visible on Google, preferably on Page 1, is critical to many businesses. A whole industry has sprouted and matured with the sole purpose being to help companies get onto Page 1 of Google. It is called the SEO industry. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization.

SEO is a term that has a specific meaning to those of us in the business, but has a much more generalized meaning to people outside of the industry. Specifically: SEO means creating content that specifically targets selected search phrases that people use to find the services or products that they are searching for. Further, SEO means that as you create the content for the searches being performed, all of the content creation process is focused on two things, getting onto page 1 of google and getting the visitor to take an action that leads to a purchase after visiting that page of content.

NOTE: Google does NOT have an Accreditation Program for SEO. There is NO SUCH THING as an SEO Certification or SEO Verification or SEO Autorization (etc,) process offered by Google. Anyone who claims to be Google SEO Certified/Verified/Authorized/etc. is misleading you to make you think they know something that others do not know.

Digital Marketing is another term that is much broader and includes SEO. Digital Marketing embraces SEO but also embraces other technologies such as Video Production, Content Based Marketing, Pay-per-Click Marketing, Database Building, Graphical Design, and Marketing Automation.

To be good at Digital Marketing means that you need to have mastered the SEO process. This is not to diminish the SEO process, but just to state that SEO is a part of Digital Marketing, not the other way around. SEO ends at the point where you get onto page 1 of Google. Digital Marketing does not end there, it continues as you capture the visitors information, add that to your database of prospects, and then start the process of communication with the prospect that will hopefully lead to that prospect becoming a customer. Then, digital marketing continues with you communicating with the customer to keep them coming back and help them become a referral partner to grow your business even more.

Digital Marketing is life-cycle marketing when done correctly. SEO is actually pretty simple and is one of the first steps in the process of Digital Marketing.

If you would like to know more about how a comprehensive Digital Marketing Program can help your business please call 214-772-6854 and ask for me… Lee Thurburn. At NetOffer we are passionate about Digital Marketing and we would love to help you if we can.

Thanks. Lee Thurburn – President of NetOffer, Inc.

The post SEO myths and secrets. What every business owner needs to know. appeared first on NetOffer Daily Deals.

How many of these things do you do to grow your business?

1. Annual Website Review
2. Blog Regularly
3. Be Active with Social Marketing
4. Regularly Contact your Customers
5. Automate Email Marketing to your Prospects
6. Send Direct Mail to New Prospects

Did you know that NetOffer:

1. Builds great Websites
   
2. Creates blog content
3. Has a social media marketing service
4. Has a built-in Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system
5. Has a built-in Marketing Automation system
   
6. Offers Premium Direct Mail Marketing services
   

Give us a call at 214-772-6854. We are here to help when you need it.

Thanks. Lee Thurburn

The post Six Things You Can Do That Will Grow Your Business. appeared first on NetOffer Daily Deals.

NetOffer… the source for SEO and Quality Content.

The post A shipment of Videos for SEO headed to the East Coast. appeared first on NetOffer Daily Deals.

1: Subject Line – Short is Best

Keep your Subject Line short and to the point. Maximum length should be 49 characters because longer subject lines may get cut short in the viewers email inbox.

2: Subject Line – Sexy Sells

The Subject Line may be the only thing people see and if it is not intriguing enough to get them to open the email you have lost the game.

3: Logos – Top of Page

You must display your logo prominently. It should be the first thing people see. It must be consistently used every time you send an email.

4: Fonts

Use fonts like Arial, Verdana, Tahoma, or Times New Roman. They are universally available and they are familiar. Keep sizes and colors to a minimum. Multiple sizes and colors are confusing and detract from your CTA.

5: Images

Keep images to a minimum… a Logo and maybe a CTA button and maybe a graphic that sells an emotion… that’s it… minimal. Use ALT Tags and Descriptions in case the images are not downloaded by the reader’s mail service.

6: Message Length

Keep your message short and too the point. Provide a link to another page where more details can be found. I recommend about 100-150 words… with a link for [... more info]

7: Key Selling Points

Use a maximum of 4 bullet points (3 is better) to list your Key Selling Points. Keep them short

8: CTA: Call-to-Action

Your CTA should be clear and clean. Easy to see. Easy to understand.Your CTA should be easy to take action on… ex: Click This Button… Call This PH#. Don’t make them search… make it OBVIOUS.

9: Make It Mobile Friendly

Design your message to be Mobile Friendly. Over 20% of Emails are opened on a phone and that # is growing daily.

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