Internet Strategies

We assist clients in making the most of their web presence. Internet strategies are more than putting a website online and hoping for the best. Internet marketing includes web site design, communication plans, branding, search engine optimization, e-commerce solutions, pay per click and integration with existing business tools for inventory control and financial reporting. We emphasize content driven web sites with the latest search engine optimization techniques to target your customer base.

SF Internet strategies

Understanding Keywords

If you are like me, you’ve subscribed to the “if you build it they will come . . .” approach to web marketing. You’ve built or paid for a pretty website. You’ve made your global debut and now you sit and wait. And wait!

One of the key elements to search engine optimization (SEO) is developing keywords. Simple you say. Maybe not.

Recently I was working with client and we were discussing what keywords she wanted for her website. “Bookkeeping,” she boldly replied. We searched bookkeeping on Google (it has 65% of all traffic, so we tend use it as a barometer for search) - 20,900,000 responses for bookkeeping. Ugh – that’s a lot of web pages to try to compete with for attention.

“How about SF bookkeeping?” 1,060,000 responses for SF bookkeeping – better, but that’s still a lot of folks fighting for a top spot on Google.

“How about Noe Valley, SF bookkeeping?” 10,800 for Noe Valley, SF bookkeeping. So, instead of competing with 20 million users of a single keyword, we build “keyword phrases” to target our customers and increase our chances of being found on Google.

Targeted keyword phrases can include references to locale (Noe Valley), community (gay, hispanic) or whatever else distinguishes your business from all the other bookkeepers (or what ever it is that you do) out there.

99 Tips for Web Startups

You launched the business, you’ve built the website – and now you wait for the sales. And you wait. And you wait.

Then you are introduced to the wonderful world of Search Engine Optimization - Meta Tags, Keywords and Pay Per Clicks (Need a refresher? – Internet Search Engine Rankings). Trying to buy visibility on the Search Engines can be an expensive, if not futile, process.

The folks over at Aviva Directory have come up with a comprehensive list of tips using viral and guerilla marketing tactics to create brand awareness on a tight budget - "Little Known Ways to Brand on the Cheap: 99 Tips for Poor Web Startups" While many of these tips have some cost associated with them, the article provides a good overview. With this guide you can selectively pick and choose the option that works best for your site and your budget.

Optimizing Your Own Website

Now that you are ready to begin work on fine tuning your own website, here are some final words of encouragement and advice: Before you change anything, use your favorite search engine and type in some search words that you would like to be indexed under. If you come up, great! If not, don’t be discouraged, but look at the sites that do come up and try to see what they have in common in their description, keywords, title tags and content. You can do this by clicking the “View” link in your browser and then “Source” to look at the source code. This should provide insight on how your website should strive to blend the different tags with your website content. Making the changes is easy; if you follow the basic rules outlined in the examples above.

Rule #1: Use text from your homepage content as your Meta Description Tag and vice versa.

Rule #2: Use Keywords to Your Advantage
• Add additional “key words” that customers might use to describe you business

or services to your Meta Keyword Tag
• To effectively implement Meta Keyword Tags be sure to:

1. Include common misspellings of your company name, website or employees;
2. Limit your list to no more than 25 words;
3. Separate the keywords with commas; and
4. Never repeat the same word more than a few times.

Rule #3: Effective use of Meta Keyword Tags widens your net for potential customers.

Rule #4 Don’t forget the Title Tags
• Keep Title Tags short
• Include descriptive words your customers are likely to use in their searches
• Don’t forget to include your business location or city

SEO 101

SEO 101 - Why Doesn’t Anybody Visit My Website?

Using Meta Tags and Search Engine Rankings to Make an Impact
By Chris Freise

So, you’ve built a website and posted it for the world to see. Having launched your global marketing campaign, just sit back and reap the rewards. Sounds too good to be true? That’s because it is.

A successful website must be accessible to customers. So, unless customers can find your website, it doesn’t matter how amazing it is or how good your product is. In January 2003, there were more than 40 million commercial (.com) websites on the Internet, and the number is growing. With all that spam and cyber noise, how will you lead your customers to the treasure on your site?

Source: Internet Software Consortium (http://www.isc.org/),

Distribution of Top-Level Domain Names by Host Count Jan 2003

You have to leave clues (search words, Meta Tags, and computer language markers) so search engines can recognize the value in your site, and lead your potential customers directly to you. Your clues must be clear so that customer web searches by key “search words” will return your website first in the list of results, at the top of the customer’s “search engine ranking”.

But what if this is the first you’ve heard of Meta Tags, search word and search engine rankings? Do you need to hire a specialist to optimize your Internet website? Or do you take the time to develop another skill that you can easily add to your expertise as a self-sufficient entrepreneur? Often businesses do not have the budget to hire an outside firm expressly to increase their site’s search engine rankings, and many who do have the budget will find it useful to learn the ins and outs of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Below, are some basic techniques to enhance your website’s visibility on the Internet. Welcome to SEO 101.