There are some problems with this mentality…

1.  New Domain Names = More Time & Money to Develop

Just because you have a new domain name, doesn’t mean you automatically have a website.  This is obvious, but you’d be surprised at how many people simply don’t understand this.  You are going to have to put something on that new domain name and that is going to take time and money.  Why do this when you already have a perfectly good website?

Some people buy domains only to have them redirected to the original website.  What is the point of this?  Why would you market a new domain name only to have it point back to a different site?  Branding comes into play with domain names like I talk about in reason 4.  Just because you have more domain names doesn’t mean you’re going to get more traffic to the original site.

2.  Multiple Domain Names Waters Down Your Search Engine Ranking Effectiveness

This is an important point.  Assuming you purchase multiple domains with the plan of marketing them individually… this is really going to water down your potential to build incoming links.    As you may or may not know, the number of incoming links to a domain is one of the most important factors in search engine ranking.  When you set up multiple domain names, and market them separately, those links are being spread too thin.  All that hard work you spent building 1,000 links spread over 10 different domain names should have been focused on building 1,000 for 1 domain name giving that one domain maximum effectiveness in the search engines.

3.  Multiple Domain Names Water Down Your Brand

Unfortunately, many people don’t understand the fact that a domain name is a branding tool.  Most businesses will use their company name in a domain name by default.  Which is good, unless you’re one of those companies that are just looking for a one time sale, branding is very important online.

Branding a domain name properly online is key to return traffic.  If people don’t remember your domain name, they probably won’t be visiting your site.  And even if they try to find you in the search engines, they will become confused at all your different domains (see reason 4).

They want to type in a search phrase in Google, and find the same domain name at the top (yours) every time.  It creates customer loyalty, it gives your customers peace of mind, and your customers will be alot more likely to remember it next time.

4.  Creating Multiple Domains is a Surefire way to Confuse Your Customers

Coupled with the idea of branding a domain name online…

You want to give your customers peace of mind.  It can truly become confusing for a customer when they can’t figure out which domain name is yours.  This is especially true on the search engines when a customer is trying to find your company on the search engines, but instead of finding your main website, they see instead all these other domain name variations.  It can quickly become very confusing for a customer.  With all the websites out there, customers want consistency, and this plays huge into your branding efforts online.

5.  Novelty Domain Names Don’t Work

We’ve all seen this… Mountain Dew will have some new promotion or contest and will create a novelty domain like:  www.DewMocracy.com  This comes from an old-school ad mentality, that assumes a brand can be built around a catch phrase.  In reality, this has only worked a handful of times.  It’s not necessarily a bad thing when it comes to offline marketing to build a slogan for brand awareness, but when you move into the online world, there is very little evidence of it working.  Every single time I’ve gone to one of these novelty domains, I find that they get little to no traffic, and all they do is confuse the customer in a huge way, and spread incoming links too thin.  A much better strategy would be to tie that new promotion into a directory of the primary domain, like this:  www.mountaindew.com/dewmocracy  That way, any incoming links that the catch phrase or promotion generates will still go towards building the overall authority of the main domain name.  I cringe whenever I see novelty domain names being used, they are such a waste and rarely produce results.

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Anyways… if you’re trying to come up with unique online marketing ideas, multiple domain names is not the way to go.  Give us a call and we can give you some ideas that do work.

There have been many articles written that try to debunk the review model, usually citing the large number of fraudulent reviews.  But whatever your view on the effectiveness of local business reviews, the fact of the matter is that reviews are becoming MORE important, not less as time goes on.

We are now seeing many sites giving special algorithmic boosts based upon number and quality of reviews.  Even Google seems to rank sites higher in the local results that have more reviews than others.

——————–

So what does this mean for your local business?  It means that reviews on sites like Yelp and Google, and a host of others will not only help someone make a buying decision, but also help you rank better on many sites.  I’ve seen a simple well devised review campaign launch a local business to the top of the results with a relatively small number of reviews.

Take a look at this map from the Local SEO Guide that shows the number of online reviews for restaurants around the country:

There are alot of great opportunities out there.  One of of the things Searching Solutions does for many local businesses is to work directly with managers and business owners to come up with creative ways to increase the number of reviews a business receives.

If your local ranking is suffering in the search engines, call us!  We can help…

Searching Solutions

Justin | 720.670.0742

More than 90% of consumers said they told at least one other person about a Web site when the original recommendation came from a friend, according to Jupiter Research

Advantages of Viral Marketing

1. Viral Marketing detours the cluttered mantra of traditional advertising. This allows marketers an advantage in more effectively reaching their audience.

2. Viral Marketing doesn’t require a product with a wow factor in order to raise awareness,
generate buzz, and kick-start peer-to-peer spread. Instead, the viral campaign’s communication agent is the element that needs a wow factor or element of interest .

3. Unlike traditional advertising viral is not an interruptive technique. Instead, viral campaigns work the Internet to deliver exposure via peer-to-peer endorsement. Viral campaigns, whether ultimately liked or disliked, are often welcomed by the receiver.The focus is on campaigns with material that consumers want to spend time interacting
with and spreading pro actively (MindComet Corporation, 2006).

Viral marketing is a term used often in the online community because news and information can spread so fast! This marketing phenomenon is similar to the spread of organic and/or computer viruses. Venues through which Viral Marketing information can spread: Social Networks like MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and Squidoo. Viral marketing takes on many forms like video clips, Flash games, advergames, ebooks, brandable software, images, or even text messages.

The basic form of viral marketing isn’t very sustainable for the long-haul but is very effective in creating a “buzz” around a specific product, service or promotion.

How can Viral Marketing help your business?

You can leverage so many tools on the web to help generate a “Viral Marketing Buzz” around your business. Do you have a new product or service you want to promote but know were to start? Creating an explosive Viral Marketing campaign may provide the results you are looking for.
-Searching Solutions

So, I thought I’d share something that has helped me quite a bit. There is a great seo link building tool put out by SoloSEO (of which I’m a happy customer). It was built a while back based on a post by my hero: Rand Fishkin.

I highly suggest you try it out if you are looking for some link building help. I’ll also post some of the queries that it uses here for your reference. Just take any of these examples to Google, and it should really help you to find some good quality links.

Thanks again SoloSEO for a great tool!!!

Add/Submit

your keyword “add url”
your keyword “add site”
your keyword “add website”
your keyword “add your site”
your keyword “add a url”
your keyword “add * url”
your keyword “add * site”
your keyword “add * website”
your keyword “submit url”
your keyword “submit site”
your keyword “submit website”
your keyword “submit your site”
your keyword “submit a url”
your keyword “submit * url”
your keyword “submit * site”
your keyword “submit * website”
your keyword “suggest url”
your keyword “suggest site”
your keyword “suggest website”
your keyword “suggest your site”
your keyword “suggest a url”
your keyword “suggest * url”
your keyword “suggest * site”
your keyword “suggest * website”

Advanced

allintitle:your keyword
allinanchor:your keyword
allinurl:your keyword
allintext:your keyword

Directories

your keyword directory
your keyword * directory
directory * your keyword
intitle:directory “your keyword”
inurl:directory “your keyword”
“list of your keyword sites”
“list * your keyword sites”
“list * your keyword * sites”
“recommended links” your keyword”
“recommended sites” your keyword”
“favorite links” your keyword”
“favorite sites” your keyword”

Blogs & Forums

your keyword forum
“your keyword forum”
intitle:your keyword forum
inurl:your keyword forum
your keyword blog
“your keyword blog”
intitle:your keyword blog
inurl:your keyword blog
“add comment” your keyword
“post comment” your keyword
your keyword members
your keyword join
your keyword tag
intitle:tag your keyword
intitle:post your keyword

I’ll also add a couple of my own to this list:

• site:.edu inurl:your keyword

• site:.edu inurl:blog “your keyword”

• site:.edu inurl:forum “your keyword”

• site:.edu intitle:blog “post a comment”

You can also replace “.edu” with “.gov” to find those types of links, or replace “inurl:”, with “intitle:”

Have fun. Let me know if there are any other special operators that you use to find links!

enjoy…

Blogging Statistics

• 28% of all visits to blogs in 2007 resulted in some kind of action (email signup, contact form, etc.)
• There are currently about 15.5 million active blogs (blogs updated within 90 days)
• Total blogs tracked by technorati: 74 million
• There are 120,000 new blogs being created every day
• 3,000-7,000 new spam blogs (splogs) created per day
  
• Total blog posts created per day: 1.5 million
• 36% of those blog posts were written in English
  
• The Japanese language now boasts more blogs than another language (37%)

Search Engine Statistics

• 75% of Americans use search engines on a regular basis
• 56% of Americans use Search Engines every day
• 40% of all search engine searches are for local businesses and services
• 54% of Americans regularly use the internet instead of the phone book to find local services
• 92% of all local searches will eventually convert into a sale
• Roughly 10 billion search queries made per day
• Google’s share of search queries: 59.2%
• Yahoo’s share of search queries: 22.2%

But one thing that we have universally found is that each company we talk to is really excited about the fact that we are local. There are so many faceless marketing and seo company’s out there, it can be overwhelming when trying to decide who to use. But one thing that can make that decision easier is knowing that there is someone that can work with you in person.

So, if you are in Colorado and are looking for an internet marketing company that can help with search engine optimization, pay per click management, and local brand awareness, let us know.  We’re here to help and promise to give you the personal touch you’re looking for.

We love what we do, and we hope that this blog will be useful for you in your journey towards running a successful small business.

Please feel free to leave a comment anytime, and if you like what you’re reading, please subscribe to receive future blog posts delivered to you via email. Enjoy!

Sincerley,

Searching Solutions

Jay Clark ~ Justin Smith

Mary wrote an interesting post on why she believes that the long tail does not work well for real estate bloggers. I found it to be an interesting read… but like so many of the “how to” real estate marketing blogs out there, I found it to be too one sided and unbalanced. It reminds me of the argument that has become classic in the real estate blogosphere: should you write for the search engines or write for readers? The answer is BOTH!!

By the way, Mary: you know I love ya, and I’m not trying to start an argument here, just wanted to share my opinion on the subject.

I strongly believe in the concept of the long tail. It is a sound principal, and it works for many different industries including real estate. By the way, if you don’t know what the long tail is, try this link. Does this mean that everyone should be going after the long tail keywords? Not necessarily… let me explain:

The Problem With Targeting Long Tail Keywords

An example of a long tail keyword for a real estate blog would be something like this: “Seven Meadows community pool hours Katy Texas”. As you can see, it’s very long and specific, and it is probably only searched for a handful of times per month (if at all). I’ve seen many people that will write posts like this thinking somehow that they will really get some great targeted traffic from it. That may be… but there are a few simple problems with that idea. First of all, there are very few people searching for this phrase on the search engines. Even if you get top positioning, you may only get 1-2 visitors per month. Secondly, is this search phrase related to real estate? The answer is no, which means that chances are extremely slim that any traffic coming to the site will convert. I’ve seen many well intentioned RE bloggers try to target phrases like this, and I’m sorry to break it to them, but they will probably never convert into a customer. There is nothing wrong with posting helpful community information, but with the relatively low number of search queries for that phrase you will likely never see anything out of it.

The Problem With Targeting Short Tail Keywords

Targeting the short tail keywords is what Mary is suggesting as the best way to target customers with your real estate blog. As I see it, there are a couple problems with that view. An example of a short tail keyword would be something like: “Katy Texas real estate“. The first problem is that everyone and their mother in the Katy market is trying to target this same keyword phrase. The competition is fierce, and you need to have an authoritative well written, and well optimized site to rank well. It’s not necessarily a problem if you know how to get a site to rank well and have the time to spend on it, but many people have a difficult time achieving this.

The 2nd problem is that the phrase: “Katy Texas Real Estate” is extremely generic. Just because it receives many search queries per month does not necessarily mean that everyone searching for that phrase is looking to buy/sell real estate. Many studies have shown that the short tail phrases do not provide the best ROI (Return On Investment). This is because of the fact that many of them are too broad and do not convert well.

Thirdly, as a blogger, it’s simply not practical to keep targeting the same 5-10 keyword phrases over and over and over… Can you imagine if you used one of your top 5-10 keyword phrases in the title of every single blog post? You’d be arrested by the spam police! LOL (that may not happen, but it will really turn your readers off, and it won’t help your ranking)

So, as you can see, there is a problem with both views. Which is why I present the third view…

The Money Tail

Ok, I know it’s a corny name, but it was better than “medium tail”. Here’s why you should be targeting the “Money Tail”:

These would be keywords like: “katy texas condos for sale” or “real estate listings in Katy Texas”. The benefit of targeting keywords like these is that they are searched fairly often, but are specific enough to not have a high level of competition.

The side benefit of targeting the Money Tail is that the keywords usually have a very high ROI. They are specific phrases targeting real real estate consumers, and they convert extremely well. “real estate listings in Katy Texas”, will always convert better than “katy real estate”. The Money Tail Keywords aren’t too generic like our short tale example, and they aren’t too obscure like our long tale example.

So, in my opinion… a balance must be struck. Target those money tail keywords, and you will see a higher ROI, better rankings, and a higher conversion rate.