I’ve been doing this for many years and I’ve learned a few things. Some of them are important and some are not so important. But one thing I have learned is that SEO has a lot more to do with design than people usually admit. I even forget this rule myself sometimes–or–maybe it’s so ingrained in the way that I work that things just happen automatically during the process.

In this six part series of posts I’d like to take a look at a few of the design considerations you should make when you’re learning seo friendly design concepts. I hope we can touch on at least a couple nuggets that you haven’t thought of before.

Part 1) Crawlability and cross linking

Part 2) Organization and research (Coming Soon)

Part 3) Navigation (Coming Soon)

Part 4) Text design and Page Elements (Coming Soon)

Part 5) Readability and coding issues (Coming Soon)

Part 6) Your goals and consistency (Coming Soon)

Pay attention to the crawlability of your site.

This process is also referred to as web crawling or spidering and it includes designing your navigation so it’s easy for the search engines to index, cross linking throughout the site and the construction of a comprehensive site map.

Crawlability

Crawlability is essentially how well a search engine can find all the pages on your website. It’s also the engine’s ability to properly document what the pages are all about.

One of the biggest problems that sites face in this regard is the use of graphic images as navigation and (worse yet) informational content as graphic images on the page. Yes, back in the day I too was guilty of this massive SEO blunder. If you have any interest in ranking well in the search engines you have to be polite and guide the search engines and give them easy access to all of your content.

Think of search engine spiders as young children that need strong guidance or a rich snob that’s crazy busy who let’s the door slam in your face after a meeting. Search engines are not going to stop and ask questions. They take what you give them and they move on.

The first step in the process is to build your navigation links so they can be easily followed. Text links on the homepage are obviously best but you may use graphic images if they’re properly labeled with alt tags.

You can also help the engines find their way around by including text links in your page footer to the main sections of your site. (More on this later) This practice is also an added bonus for content heavy sites where readers end up at the bottom of a long article and need navigation to move back to the main section or another section of interest.

Cross Linking

Cross linking or deep linking will help you direct search engines to content that might not be linked from your homepage as a top level category.

An example of this is the article you’re reading. It might be featured on the homepage but eventually it will be mixed among all the other articles on this site so it will help if you can link to it and reference it from other articles. You can simply write your content as you usually would and include inline links to the article.

The goal here regarding design is to improve your user’s experience and add value to your content by linking to additional sources of information.

Linking in your content will also help guide your user through your site and help them discover other nuggets of information that they might have missed without the link. Obviously the same theory stands regarding the search engines. Deep linking helps search spiders find their way to all the great content on your site so you ensure that they’re thorough. Linking pages on your site also helps the search engines determine the overall subject matter of your site, therefore helping to improve the rankings for your core keywords.

Sitemaps

The last thing you can do is build a sitemap (or site map). A sitemap is essentially one page that is organized in a systematic way to present a link to every page on your site. This can be cumbersome for large sites and it shouldn’t be necessary to link directly to every single post or page.

The goal is to make every page on your site 2-3 clicks from the homepage. So if the spider can get to the homepage, link to the sitemap, continue to a main section and then find a deep link to an article you’ve done your job.

Sitemaps can be broken up into multiple pages as well, if the need arises. The most important point is that the search engine spiders can find the pages from the homepage within a click or two. Sitemaps can be built manually or through an XML sitemap generator.

Next… Organization and research.

If you haven’t learned that your punctuation and grammar guides are your friends and that picking up a good book on how to write better, more personable and interesting copy is a good idea, then it’s time to get intimate and cozy with this advice: quality copywriting is critcal to successful SEO. If you want a successful blog, website or SEO campaign you need to improve your writing–or die trying.

Continuing our discussion of copywriting, let’s look at some of the tried and true rules of writing for SEO. I’ll also try to reinforce some of the new rules of SEO copywriting 3.0 and the future.

1. Know your words and where they live

As we’ve discussed previously, there is one rule of effective SEO that you must follow: research your keywords before you start an SEO campaign. The specific combinations are critical.

In addition to knowing which keywords are important, you need to know where to place them on the page.

Keywords should be prominently placed within the title of your page and within the H1 tag. If you’re a blogger, this is usually accomplished automatically for you. This placement of your keywords shows the search engines that this is the subject of your page.

Plus, part of copywriting for SEO is about creating compelling content that generates links. If the title of your page contains important keywords and it’s compelling and interesting, it will make others want to link back to you.

Use variations of your core phrases within your subheadings. These are the H2 and H3 tags that show importance but slightly less than your main page title.

Lastly, using your keywords in a compelling way will encourage people to use that text when linking to you; a very important part of the SEO process. A link back to your content is good. A link back that has your key phrase in the link text is highly valuable.

2. Let your keywords welcome your readers

Start off the first sentence of your content with your top keywords. This will reinforce the subject of your page and help the search engines to learn what your page is about.

Search engines will also use the first part of your content in the results underneath the link. So try to summarize your page in a compelling way when you’re writing this very important introduction.

3. Know when to be “strong” and when to be “standard”

When appropriate, you should try to “bold” your keywords in your content with the “strong” tag. Don’t overdo it because the contrast between regular text and bold text can be distracting if you do it too frequently.

Bolding your most important keywords further places emphasis on the keywords and reinforces the subject of the page. This will be effective if you use this technique on your most important keys.

4. Link within the family

Whenever possible, try to link to other content on your site and from within your pages. This will improve your reader’s experience and make your content more valuable by extending the experience of your subject.

Linking within your content also reinforces the subject of your page when the search spiders see that links out to additional content are related to your page subject.

Make sure to use your keywords as the link text as well. Never link out to content with the words “click here”. This does nothing to reinforce your relevancy compared to the users search inquiry.

5. Link out to friends

You must also realize that search engines now prefer links that appear within content because–to be honest–these are the hardest types of links to acquire.

Linking out to friends and useful information will improve the users experience but more importantly it will let others know that you appreciate what they’re doing. The goal being that they’ll also visit your site and return the favor of linking back.

Linking out to related sites and content is becoming an important part of SEO as it further reinforces content–but more importantly–it begins the process of building relationships and friendships that are becoming more and more critical to successful SEO.

6. Focus on readability

As mentioned in item #3, you don’t want to do anything that reduces the readability of your content. Mixing bold and standard weight fonts for example is hard for the mind’s eye to scan and it’s distracting. Multi-colored text will accomplish the same substandard result.

When you’re writing, use your keywords but focus on the real humans that will ultimately read your content. Write naturally because your first goal is to provide high quality, highly useful content. It used to be a popular practice to work your keywords into your content as frequently as possible – even at the peril of your readability. The focus now is to work your keywords into your content naturally because your goal is to gain readership and attract links. If you can do this you’ll have a successful SEO campaign as well.

7. Get creative

As you’re writing your content, ask yourself if you sentences read naturally. If not, then you need to get creative. Instead of ending a sentence and then starting a new one with the same key phrase, try to break up the keywords in a creative way.

For example, a sentence about the 10 golden rules of seo copywriting could end with “…let’s continue our discussion about the 10 golden rules.” The next sentence could begin with “SEO copywriting starts with keyword research…”

Also consider sprinkling your keywords and phrases throughout your content by using their synonyms and trying different mixtures of words. This will help you on your way to covering more of your key phrase combinations.

8. Keep it useful, keep it brief

As a general practice you should try to edit your content and keep it brief. I am notably bad at this because I tend to blabber on about a subject. Being your own editor is a tough job.

You should shoot to keep your content concise and limit your page length. A good practice is to keep your pages limited to around 500 words. (Yea, we’re way pat that!) Keep it short and break up your content into multiple pages. A summary page with links to related pages is a good way to accomplish this.

9. Check your spelling and grammar

“I have a spelling checker
It came with my PC;
It plainly marks four my revue
Mistakes I cannot sea.
-Janet Minor

Your goal is to write content that’s high quality. Part of the “high quality” equation is spelling correctly, using appropriate grammar and utilizing the appropriate words to describe what you mean. Knowing how to use punctuation properly is an added bonus too. This will ensure that you’re respected and considering a good source for information and advice.

Do you know when to use the words “their” and “they’re”? How often do you read your content again to double check your work? Do you have a spell checker installed to catch blatant mistakes?

Google is getting better at judging content based on spelling and proper sentence structure too; take the time to read your content again and make sure that you don’t have any spelling mistakes or sentences that read poorly.

10. Create compelling content that’s highly useful.

Nobody is going to return to your site or subscribe to your RSS feed if your content is fluff. Nobody is going to link to you if they don’t find value in your content. Google is not going to rank you well if your text is all poetic metaphor. Your content has to have some meat on it’s bones.

Your goal with SEO is to get people to link, bookmark and stay engaged with comments on your posts and interaction in your forums. To do this you must provide content that’s compelling and useful. If you’re not a wordsmith–or at the minimum–you aspire to improve, then you need to find someone who can get the job done. At the minimum you should find someone to critique your work and offer ways to improve. We can help.

Summary:

SEO copywriting is not easy. It takes time, talent, knowledge, concrete goals and a strong command of your language. Copywriting is one of the most important–if not the most important–part of SEO and you need to at least know the basics. Hopefully this tutorial will help you get started on the right path.

If you’re looking to learn more about copywriting for SEO–or writing in general, please check out Copyblogger.com and a new blog by one of my favorite bloggers: WritetoDone.com.

photo credit: tosaytheleast

What can I say about viral marketing online. There is no specific formula and the whole nutty business is ran by people that are ultra-creative, and when I say ultra-creative I mean WAY beyond what most people consider really creative. Wicked, wild and crazy creative! I love it.

But today I ran across something that literally stopped me in my tracks because the level of creativity and, to be honest, utter sleaziness has gone unsurpassed in all my years of web experience. I don’t mean sleaziness in a bad way or in a demented way. I mean “sleazy” in a GREAT way that puts a good name on all that is creatively dirty and downright cool to the bone.

I was so ticked off when I finally realized that this was viral marketing, yet so pleased with how incredibly well perpetrated it was.  Here’s how it went down…

A friend of mine emailed me a link today and said “Hey, this is really amazing”. This woman that we went to school with and had not heard from in years was listed as co-author of a new book authored by best selling author Donald Miller. We were extremely surprised and delighted to hear the news because we had no idea that she was such an accomplished writer. We both read the article posted on topsellingauthors.com about the new book and the surprising new literary genius of our long lost friend.

The site looked professional, the cover of the book was there with her name on it, there was a link to buy the book and even a nicely designed advertisement in the sidebar that, yes, had her name on it as co-author. We were so excited. My friend so much that he immediately posted the news on Facebook. I told my wife, I did a search for the author and read all about his books and considered purchasing the book. The news was spreading… Below is the page that details her story and rise to stardom:

Then it all came crashing down.

You see, when you finish reading the article there are various other links on the page like “Read more” or “Visit the official Kristi L. Ullman website”. Well, when you click on any of these links you’re presented with a huge surprise. It’s all bogus! But for us it was too late. My friend had bragged all over Facebook, people were making comments, my wife probably made phone calls and I spent valuable time learning about a new author on a busy Friday. I would have posted it on Facebook myself if my friend didn’t get to it first and I was about to start emailing people when he pointed out that we had just been duped. What an amazing trick though. Our friend simply wanted to promote an admired author’s new book and boy did we do our part.

So keep this in mind when you’re marketing online. There is always more than one way to spread the word and you can NEVER be too creative. In fact, push the boundaries because once a virus starts to spread, it’s very hard to stop it’s momentum.

Well, since I’m not a Google engineer and nobody outside the labyrinth of the Google campus (Googleplex) is privy to that specific information, there is one good way for us to get a good idea of what criteria search engines use to rank websites higher or lower in the SERPs (Search engine results pages) and that is collaborative analysis. The concept is simple. By collecting a wide range of opinions and experiences, the truth will rise to the surface and the answers will become clear – or at least clearer. Actively working to increase your rankings in the search engines (commonly called Search engine optimization or SEO) is one of the most effective, yet least understood methods of internet marketing. It is confusing and time consuming to learn and keep up with the search engines, but there are some solid factors that we know are very important by collectively compiling information and learning from each other over the years.

So, over at SEOMoz.com they have done exactly this regarding what factors affect rankings as of 2009. They’ve provided a simple list of where we should start when effective internet marketing and SEO is your goal. For the full scoop please visit their 2009 search engine ranking factors study.

What I take away from this can be summarized in two simple statements: High quality, relevant links to your site and within your own site are king. Search engines love fresh, keyword-rich content that is specifically on topic regarding the users search query terms. This is SEO in a nutshell in 2009.

What’s good about this (at least for the person searching) is that these factors are not easily manipulated.  Creating great content takes talent and time. Getting links to your site takes a lot of time – especially if they’re high quality links. SEO and improved search engine rankings simply takes time. So, now we have our to-do list and our work cut out for us. We know what factors influence rankings, now we just have A LOT of work to do.

Top Ranking Factors: (A loose priority order)

1. Keyword focused anchor text from external links (if the link to your site has your keywords in it)
2. External link popularity (How many links you have pointing to your site)
3. Diversity of link sources (How many different sites link to you)
4. Keyword use anywhere in the title tag
5. Existence of substantive, unique content on the page (all pages on your site should be unique)
6. Recency (freshness) of page creation (Search engines like your site to be updated often)
7. Iterative Algorithm-Based, Global Link Popularity (PageRank)
8. Topic-Specificity/Focus of External Link Sources (whether external links to this page come from topically relevant pages/sites)
9. Keyword-Focused Anchor Text from Internal Links (links on your site should use your top keywords to link to other relevant pages on your site)

Top Negative Ranking Factors:

1. Cloaking with Malicious/Manipulative Intent
2. Link Acquisition from Known Link Brokers/Sellers (search engines like things to be natural)
3. Links from the Page to Web Spam Sites/Pages
4. Cloaking by User Agent
5. Frequent Server Downtime & Site Inaccessibility

At Sanctuary Media Group, we specialize in website design and online marketing. This is all we do and we’ve been doing it for a long time. As the president of the company I built my first website in 1994 – back in the stone age days of the web. Over this period of time I’ve seen a lot of things come and go, change and evolve, and to say the least – I’ve learned a thing or two. I’ve learned how to provide solutions for my clients that help them succeed online – not just a web address and some fancy buttons.

When hiring a web design company, there are some things that you should consider. You need a company that can not only give you a website but you need to make sure that they know HOW to make it work for you.

The following is a list of 10 things that separate a web design company from the pack:

1. Experience. When I say “Experience” I don’t mean that you know how to work in Photoshop and upload files to a web server. I mean that you have experience doing a wide array of things on the web, you know how things work (and shouldn’t work), you’ve experienced how the internet has evolved and what it is today and where it’s going, you understand what CAN be done on the internet so you can suggest solutions, and you’ve had time to learn and make mistakes on your own so you don’t make them on behalf of your clients

2. A high quality and diverse portfolio. High quality design skills are important. This alone does not make one a good website designer but being able to provide a high quality “look-and-feel” for your clients will go a long way to make that all important first impression. A quality presentation establishes your business with the customer and gives you instant credibility over your competition. Creativity in design is also important so your website doesn’t look like everyone else. Constantly trying to break the mold is a mark of a great designer.

3. Knowledge of effective navigation design. Great web design involves properly organizing and presenting the navigation of the site (the information architecture) so it’s consistent and clear. Just as the “look” of your site is important, equally important is it’s usability – how do people get around your site. Knowing how to take control over the user’s experience through design will allow you to lead the client/customer through the site and get them to do what you want. (buy, sign-up, call, subscribe, etc.)

4. An understanding of how to work with an existing marketing plan. Great web design involves knowing how to design a site that meets the clients needs and compliments their existing marketing plans. Knowledge of what they’re trying to accomplish will guide the design of the site. Knowledge of what’s possible, what works and how to present information in a way that will accomplish the client’s ultimate goals.

5. An understanding of your client’s goals. Great web design involves knowing your clients goals and designing the presentation of their content and image appropriately. Understanding the goals of a website will result in a website where visitors will instantly know what the site is about and how to accomplish what they came for. Knowing the client’s goals will also guide the look-and-feel of the website as well.

6. The ability to validate and optimize code. Great web design is equally important under the hood (the code). Making sure that the code is written properly and validated to current industry standards is important for proper long term presentation but also important for other reasons such as search engine optimization.

7. Deep understanding of Search Engine Optimization. Great web design involves a deep (and current) knowledge of SEO (Search engine optimization) best practices. Building a website that is not properly optimized for the search engines is a missed opportunity.

8. An ability to improve load time. Great web design involves a knowledge of how to optimize the load time of a website and it’s graphics. It can also involve knowledge of the server environment and databases. There are still a lot of people who use dial-up access or mobile access to view a website. Optimizing your site and your code is important to ensure that all visitors have a great experience. For high-volume websites, developing a highly optimized website from the ground up is extremely important to ensure that the website is responsive and the visitor gets the information they need without delay.

9. An understanding of Color and style. Great web design involves knowing how to use color appropriately. Equally important is when NOT to use color, fancy design elements and how to properly utilize white space. More color and more “stuff “on the page is not always the answer or the mark of a great design. Sometimes a simple presentation can be easier for the mind to digest and therefore be more effective. I can’t count the number of times that I’ve been looking for something on a page and the designer made a big, fat, colorful button on the page – thinking that it would be the most obvious thing on the page – and I never saw it. Color, style, white space and many other tools of the designer are important in designing an effective and attractive website. Not just the ability to design a glossy button.

10. The ability to “connect”. Great web design involves ways to make it easy for potential clients to contact you and stay connected. A core job of a web designer is to help the client get connected and STAY connected with their customers/clients. Make it easy for them to subscribe to the client’s blog, newsletter or mailing list. Make it easy for the user to link to their content and spread the word via services like StumbleUpon and Digg.com. Integrate social media feeds into the site like Twitter and Facebook. Provide ways for the customer to subscribe via an RSS feed, email content to a friend, suggest ways to improve customer service with live chat, email, phone, on and on… Great design involves integrating ways to help your client grow and fully utilize all of the possible options available to grow their business using the internet.

In the end, a designer’s job is to make the customer succeed online. Ultimately it involves much more than a computer, some fancy software and a hosting account.

I realize that this post is going to be a little technical for most – actually most people won’t need to read it – but I thought it might be useful for those who are seeking advice on this subject around the web.

I had a need for a Wordpress client site where we needed to actively manage two columns of content on the same page but we needed to do it from within the Wordpress admin. (No modification of the HTML directly or direct customization of your theme like you normally do in a sidebar, etc.) In addition to this requiring a low tech, no programming/ftp knowledge solution, I needed it to be completely code based. There may or may not be good plug-ins available around the web to accomplish this task but I’m a Wordpress plug-in phobic. I don’t like to use plug-ins if I don’t have to because you have no idea about how well they’re written or exactly how well they’ll work in the future as you update to newer versions of Wordpress.

I originally saw some posts within the Wordpress forums and one in particular provided an easy hack to this problem. Why Wordpress has not integrated this into the standard software is way beyond my understanding. The solution got me 90% of the way and it was dirt simple. Well, it’s now dirt simple after I spent an hour trying to hack the solution myself and then brought in my programmer for a final consultation. For the life of me I can’t seem to find the original post again to update everyone on my solution so I apologize now profusely. But I will provide the solution below for anyone that needs it.

1) Create your page template

Basically all you need to do is create a new template file for your page. If you’d like to apply this code to your entire blog or site that’s obviously fine as well. Simply duplicate the page.php file and put the following at the top if you’d like to keep things flexible and retain the standard one column default template:

<?php
/*
Template Name: Custom-Template
*/
?>

This will ensure that the template you are building shows up as an option when you’re building a new page. All you have to do is select it before publishing your page.

2) Paste this snippet of code

Second, to create the second column of content, simply paste the following into your post content BEFORE the second column of content starts: ”[--column--]“

Below is the code that you need to put on your page. Feel free to modify as needed. Enjoy!

<?php if (have_posts()) : ?>
<?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
<div id=”post-<?php the_ID(); ?>”>

<h1><?php the_title(); ?></h1>

<?php endwhile; ?>

<?php
if (have_posts()) : while (have_posts()) : the_post();
$page_columns = explode(”[--column--]“, $post->post_content);
endwhile; endif;

print ‘<table width=”950″ border=”0″><tr><td width=”650″ valign=”top”>’;
print apply_filters(’the_content’, $page_columns[0]);
print ‘</td><td width=”40″>’;
print ‘&nbsp;’;
print ‘</td><td valign=”top”>’;
print apply_filters(’the_content’, $page_columns[1]);
print ‘</td></tr></table>’;

?>
</div>
<?php else : ?>

Well, I’m here to help you change that way of thinking. Up until now we’ve provided discount options to non-profits and companies that we appreciate, but I’ve always been too, well, busy to even consider it. But I think that donating your services every once in a while might turn out to be a good thing on several levels.

Here are some ways that donating your services can help you grow your business AND help you do some good in the process.

1) Personal fulfillment

We’re in business to make money of course. We have to pay the phone bill and put food on the table after all. But every human being has a deep need to feel fulfilled at the end of the day. It doesn’t matter if you fold a pile of laundry or close a $20,000 business deal, we all need to feel like we’ve accomplished something at the end of the day. One way to do this is to feel a sense of fulfillment by helping someone or an organization by donating your services. I can almost guarantee that you’ll feel better about your place in the world after the deal is done.

2) Free advertising

Beyond the good feelings that you’ll get – and the ultimate benefits that will come from you donating your services – there are some tangible benefits that you can get as well. Depending on who and how you donate your services it’s quite possible that your donation will be announced or advertised to the public. Even if the gesture is posted on the client’s website or in a newsletter, you’re company name will be attached to your good deed and word will be spread to others that might be in the market for your services.

3) Networking

Similar to free advertising, donating your services to an individual or organization will connect you to their network. For those who understand the power of continuous networking, this one is a no brainer.

4) Opportunities to trade

Donating your services doesn’t have to be a one way street. You may offer to donate your services and then talk to your new client about the possibility of how you might be able to get some tangible results from the deal. Maybe they guarantee you an advertising spot on their website or their newsletter. Maybe they offer to provide their services to you for free in the future if there is a need. Maybe they agree to help promote your business to their network. The possibilities are endless and they don’t have to involve money or time, just a creative agreement to help you or your business in some way.

5) Future profits

If you donate your services you’ll usually put a limit on what you’re offering. So in the future there might be an opportunity to turn them into a paying client. Approaching business like this is a good way to get the ball rolling if you’re just building your business. Offer your services for nothing or maybe for a deeply discounted rate if you’re able. Then as you begin to gain a foothold these clients that you’ve helped in the past will hopefully be coming into their own as well and they won’t mind paying your usual fees. Again, another great way to tap into the network of others and grow your business.

6) Tax deductions

Now, this is an area that I’m not going to go into detail about because I’m not qualified, but consider the possibility that you can write off your donations. For example, I recently donated a complete website and hosting to a local Rotary Club auction. The complete value of the donation is completely tax deductible – Not a bad added bonus to giving to an amazing organization.

Really, if we have the time we should always consider donating our services. Even if it’s not attached to our business dealings. I plan to do this as much as possible in the future and involve my family. But there are personal and tangible business benefits of doing this on a regular basis when the fit is right. Give it a try sometime.

So as I reminisce about our trip, a constant theme runs through our adventures: “Be creative with what you’ve got”. What I mean by this (and how it applies to your business) is that you need to find new and creative ways to be successful. Think outside the box to grow and improve your business and try to utilize the tools that you have available to you already.

Since this blog is about growing your business online through online marketing, a good example would be, well, this blog that you’re currently reading. I also utilize Twitter, Facebook, search engine optimization, pay-per-click advertising and many more tools available to me for free. All of these tools require a little effort and creativity but they’re affordable ways to market my business online. They just take a little effort and creativity.

See, I come across a lot of people that tell me “I can’t afford to market my business online” or “I don’t know anything about the internet”. Well, that may or may not be true but all I know is that marketing your business online is the most affordable way to grow a business and if you own a business you’ve already proven that you can learn. You can spend as much or as little as you want and still get results. In the case of the online marketing examples I just gave, you can do it for free if you feel the need. Our trip was a huge success and we had a great time just by trying something different and stepping outside our comfort zone.

Let me give you a couple of other “offline” examples related to our trip that emphasizes how others have stepped outside their comfort zone to improve their business with a little creativity.

The amusement park that we visited in PA called Idlewild is billed as a kids amusement park. It’s old but very nostalgic in my opinion. I’ve heard people say that they didn’t like it at all, but I loved it and so did my kids. Well, except for storybook land or whatever that was. Scary. Anyway, what I liked about this park is that they know their place. They’ve found a niche and they’re now considered the #2 kids park in the world. Not bad for an old amusement park. So the point to take away from this is, again, work with what you’ve got. Idlewild has a couple small roller coasters, the usual amusement park rides, but they’ve found their niche and they don’t try to compete with the big boys. Because of this they’re successful.

The next example that I want to give is a place we stopped in Vermont called Bromley Mountain. It’s normally a ski resort but since Vermont does have a few sunny summer days, they started to think outside of the box and turn the mountain into a summer fun park. The place would be an amazing destination just to go and stand on top of the mountain but they looked at what they had (nothing but a big grassy mountain and some ski lifts) and succeeded in building a new and exciting destination. They constructed massive 4000 foot slides down the hill, adding a million dollar zip line, huge trampolines, a huge swing contraption – and of course fun bouncy houses and water slides for the kids. It was a blast and it’s something that I haven’t seen anywhere else.

Anyway, the point of this post is simple. Be creative, try new things, find your niche, use the tools and people that you have available to you and find your way to a larger world of success. Since we’re an online marketing company we’d like to help you find affordable ways to step outside your comfort zone and try new things. Please contact us for a free consultation.

When we take on these projects we usually work with an existing website design, we don’t create new content, we don’t go above and beyond, but we do perform some fundamentally important improvements to the website that create a very solid foundation. It involves research, using that research properly, improving the code on the website and generally “optimizing” the existing site so it’s, well, optimized for the search engines who have to digest what the site is about and then turn around and determine how relevant the site’s content is to thousands of search queries. The results we can get by having our clients make a small investment in their website can be extraordinary.

The search engine optimization client that I’d like to feature here is Whitmer’s Lighting in Akron, Ohio. As you can probably ascertain, they deal with lighting (residential, commercial, outdoor, etc.), basically any type of lighting that you might need – and much more than you’ve probably never thought of. They are a huge Ohio lighting store that has few peers.

So what they hired us to do was take their existing website and get some results. The budget was limited and the expectations we’re low but we came through with results that went through the roof. Remember, with a basic website optimization our goal is to get the client on the radar for their key terms and locations. In this case our goal was to have the client show up for searches that showed someone searching for a lighting store in Akron, Ohio.

As you can see from the results snapshot below, they are definitely on the radar. They’re ranking for many of their top search phrases and when this happens there are many more long tail key phrases as well. (Long tail key phrases define the non-competitive, usually 3-5 word keyphrases that site visitors use to find websites. There can be thousands of combinations and they drive a lot of traffic to your website when the total traffic volume from these searches are added up.)

Below is a snap shot of the basic search engine optimization for Akron, Ohio:

So consider it. You don’t have to spend thousands a month to compete and have a presence online. You can get yourself on the radar with with a basic website search engine optimization with a relatively small investment. Then, after you see the results, let us take it to the next level. Please call us today for pricing and a free consultation.