But, what is inbound marketing?

At its core, inbound marketing is a series of processes which include individual tactics we marketers know (and love/hate) such as SEO and PPC which lead buyers into your sales funnel. In this article, I want to try and keep it simple without digging too deep into the individual processes, by just giving a basic overview of what inbound marketing is.

Inbound vs. Outbound Marketing

Traditional marketing is what is referred to as “push” marketing, whereas marketers are pushing a message and hoping it will gain traction with prospective buyers. Inbound marketing is referred to as “pull” marketing, whereas the marketers message is positioned before prospects when they are already actively searching for solutions that solve challenges they have. Positioning your business in the prospect’s mind while they are researching allows you to draw them into your sales funnel and soft-market to them until they are ready to buy – from you.

Inbound marketing doesn’t interrupt you at dinner time with a sales pitch, steal moments from your favorite TV show with a song and dance or compete with several other visuals on a page for your attention. In fact, to a consumer, inbound marketing doesn’t feel much like marketing at all; because it’s providing information when and where they are looking for it.

From searcher to buyer, your website is where it all starts

Leveraging the many tactics available to get traffic to your website to view your content is where the process of inbound marketing begins: with the searcher. The “searcher” is the prospect that’s out there right now looking for the products or services you offer, they just don’t know yet that your business is the perfect fit for them. Placing great content in front of them when they are searching can position your business in their mind as a thought leader.

From there, you can offer them additional great content that’s just too tempting to pass up, in exchange for one little piece of information: their email address. It’s at that point a conversion takes place; A visitor is transformed into a prospect. They have raised their hand and said “I’m looking to buy” because they filled in a simple form to download a piece of content that will help them better plan their purchase.

Once a visitor is transformed into a prospect, the lead is nurtured over time by sending informational emails that not only help your prospect with their planning, but also warm them up to your service offerings and your company as a whole. When they are ready to make a decision, it’s not hard for them to decide what company to go with — they have a helpful contact who they feel they can trust. And your company in turn, has a prospect that’s ready to hear your sales message.

In a nutshell, the process of inbound marketing follows this methodology:

1. Drive traffic – Using various methods of internet marketing, drive traffic to your website (preferably organic traffic, as it’s “free”)
2. Convert traffic to leads – Create and offer specialized content for various personas and intents which allows prospects to provide you with a bit of information in exchange for the information they receive
3. Nurture leads – Create a specialized series of emails that is sent to prospects over time. This allows you to create a conversation with your prospects before they are ready to make a buying decision and helps you grow trust in your brand.
4. Analyze results – Analyze the results of each campaign and capitalize on the successful ones while culling “dead weight” campaigns that aren’t producing high quality leads.
5. Repeat – Using ongoing knowledge obtained through analytic tools, repeat steps 1-4 focusing mainly on successful campaigns. Test new campaigns to continue to grow successes in the most cost effective way possible.

This process means your online marketing efforts are not only more effective than offline marketing, but that your efforts are more efficient. Each individual marketing campaign that drives traffic is accountable for its own ROI which allows marketers to analyze results and maximize return on the most effective method of driving qualified leads.

The post What is Inbound Marketing? Accountable, Efficient & Cost Effective. appeared first on PIXSYM: Web Design & Internet Marketing Company.

Ensure that your new website gets the results you’re aiming for by planning your content in advance of building a new website

If traffic were the only indication of success, wouldn’t you rather have your traffic analytics looking like this example vs. the one above? Both images cover the same time frames – one company took planning and ongoing content creation seriously, the other did not. They both started out with sub-100 visitors per month.

While you are still in the planning and budgeting stages of designing or redesigning your website, develop a plan that includes answers to these questions:

• Who will write/design/implement new content?
• What content will your new website cover (at launch and beyond)?
• Where on the new website will each type of content reside?
• How will you measure the success of individual pieces so that you can maximize on the knowledge of what works and what doesn’t?

Most importantly, plan how your content will help you reach your overall goals.

If you’re a B2B or B2C company, how will the content help you make more sales?  If you are a non-profit, how will the content help you get more donors and volunteers? If you are a city or government agency, how will the content on your new website help you raise awareness and reduce support requests?

Begin planning your content with the end in mind and make sure that its goal driven. If you plan to blog, make sure that blog posts are of a unified voice and that they speak to the different personas that you are targeting.

Content is not only important to search engines, it’s also important to your users – copying content from other sources and/or creating lackluster content will not cut it anymore if you hope to rank in search engines or get visitors to share your content with others. Having a content plan in the beginning will help you stay the course and make ongoing content creation easier.

The post When Your Website’s Content is an Afterthought, Results Are Too appeared first on PIXSYM: Web Design & Internet Marketing Company.

Focusing on the end result and how great it will look is fine and will keep you motivated, so long as you’ve taken the time to plan the important pieces of the process. In order of importance, I’ve listed 7 key areas to think about before getting into discussions with a web design firm. All of these points are all critical components in a successful website design:

• Competitive Analysis:  What is the competition doing (right and wrong) online?
• What is your value proposition?: Why should I do business with you vs. your competition? (Read more on the importance of value proposition)
• How will you measure success? What analytics tools do you have available and do you or your staff know how to analyze success?
• Conversion Tactics (if your a B2B/B2C Business): What types of offers will you include on the new site upon launch (and after) to increase sales?
• Content: What content will you include on the website? How will it be grouped together and organized for ease of consumption?
• Site structure & Navigation: How will the layout work towards your goals and how will users navigate to each area of your site?
• Look & Feel: What image would you like the website to portray to visitors about your company?

Notice that I’ve listed the look and feel of the site last. While the look is an important factor, it’s not nearly as important as knowing where you’re going and how your website will pay for itself before you start thinking visually.

Solution: Work with a web design firm that can help you through the planning process. Begin scoping out companies early on and interview them by asking specific questions about how they can assist you in planning your project.

Most design firms offer a discovery process as an early deliverable in the web design process. During the discovery and research process, they will very likely uncover important facts that you may not even be aware of in the competitive landscape that will help you in planning your website. Consider this process as a valuable investment in your website’s future and a plan that’s focused on helping you to visualize your website less as a digital billboard, but moreso as a revenue stream that you have the ability to influence and grow.
photo credit: klynslis

The post Want a New Website Fast? Why You Shouldn’t Rush the Web Design Process appeared first on PIXSYM: Web Design & Internet Marketing Company.

During my search I found an old forum thread where someone recited a saying popular in his circles. “How long is a piece of string?” Now of course, this is a question with either no answer at all or thousands of answers depending on how you look at it. Perhaps that’s also true about pricing websites.

Why is a ‘simple website’ $100 to one developer, and $1000 to another? Assuming their skill is the same and their expenses are the same, perhaps where they begin holds the answer.

Maybe the developer that would charge $100 sees the request as a simple one that deserves a solution that, at a minimum, qualifies as a ‘simple website’. He’ll scratch together 15 minutes of time and have a few html files ready to deliver the client. Done.

In contrast, the developer that would charge $1000 understands the request as a desire for a website that does something. They believe that the client seeks a site that works, is secure, follows web standards, and will not be obsolete the second it goes live. And for that, the minimum this developer is willing to charge is 10x the amount of the first developer.

How is the client supposed to know the difference? Is there a “how-to” book for buying websites?

Confusing isn’t it?

Hopefully these next few paragraphs help make it slightly less so.

If we were all to look through the eyes of the first developer, we’d all talk about web design like it was easy, anyone can do it. Perhaps that’s true, especially if your standards are low. I know a guy that would probably build you a site for free. He’d probably say he could sell your house and give you a tattoo for free too, but would you let him? We can sum this one up by saying, if you’re not expecting much, you can afford to go with the $100 (or Free) option.

In contrast, the developer charging $1000 or more probably doesn’t look at web design quite so casually. I’d bet that he or she would even talk about their work as a service as opposed to a product, because part of what the client is paying for is their expertise and constant development of their skill and education. Someone that cares about their craft is continually trying to get better, they’re never satisfied with what they know. That constant pursuit for better processes and more knowledge on behalf of their clients isn’t cheap and so the client ends up paying a bit more.

There is another group we haven’t talked about yet.

Big Business, Corporate Giants, Website Factories.

The reason I’m not talking about them in the same context as the $100 or $1000 developers is because they fundamentally look at clients differently. The first two developers still see the client as a person, with specific needs. Big business, Corporate website factories see numbers, not people. The CEO doesn’t care what the client’s name is or why they need a website, he or she just cares that the money comes in. Usually the business model for these giants is to create a solution that can be sold over and over again to as many customers that will buy it. Whatever keeps them viable in the market is their goal. It’s all about the Benjamins.

Most companies have sales guys from these companies knocking on their door, direct mailing or email spamming their in-boxes. We’ve all seen the ‘Get your own professional website’ commercials on TV, you know who I’m talking about.

In my opinion there are two categories of giants. The biggest ones ‘serve’ everyone, and the slightly smaller ones ‘serve’ specific verticals. Some popular ones are Real Estate, Attorneys, Restaurants, Contractors, and so on. The trend isn’t stopping either, the number of industry specific website factories out there grows bigger every day. It’s good business because so many people like the sound of an instant solution to their website woes. Having a website up in 48 hrs sounds pretty sweet, even to me.

Are industry specific web design firms bad?

First let’s be clear. There is a BIG difference between a website factory and a web design firm. Some small firms grow their knowledge to serve a specific industry and narrow their focus to be targeted and efficient. I love that idea and applaud those firms that decide to do that. What I don’t like is when those firms grow to a size that causes them to forget the clients are people and begin treating them like numbers, the factory mindset.

So, to answer the question, no, not all industry specific web design firms are bad. It’s just unfortunate that the good ones seem to be getting harder and harder to find.

So what should a website cost?

I haven’t really answered that yet, have I…Well,…

You can have your nephew in high school crank one out for a school project for Free. Meanwhile, your cousin can practice their tattoo skills on your arm.

For a bit more, you can get a basic site from someone that ‘does it on the side’ on a regular basis. At least you’re not the first site they’ve ever done.

For slightly more than that, you can have someone install a diy template from a website template site and fill in the words and pictures for you.

And finally, for a fair price (in-line with the value of having a successful website) you could have a professional firm sit down and figure out what your business needs to truly be successful. A team that will ask you questions like:

• What do you plan on sharing with the web that will attract visitors?
• How do plan on turning those visitors into leads?
• What’s an average sale worth to your business, and
• How many new sales a month would you need to justify the expense of having a website built?

Hashing out the tough questions that are important to your business’s bottom line helps to ensure the finished website will be in alignment with your financial goals. These questions will also help your website firm build in a manner that’s scaleable, growing with your business. Think about the money you’ll save not having to redo your site year after year. Silly me, nobody thinks about that.

So, the short answer is…

Websites are not products with price tags, they’re a service offered by a wide skill-range of people. If you do your homework and ask tough questions of your prospective designer/developer, the old adage will finally be true, ‘You’ll get what you pay for.’

photo credit: 401(K) 2013

The post What is The Average Cost of Designing a New Website? appeared first on PIXSYM: Web Design & Internet Marketing Company.

Don’t get me wrong, blogging will increase your traffic, but what good is that traffic if you are talking to people who live in other states and you don’t ship or if your business physically serves one area in one state and your traffic is coming from all over the globe? Not much.

Local businesses, ideally, need traffic coming in from prospects in their area.

I’ve seen this scenario more times than I can count: A marketer was able to increase traffic to a local business’s website many time over by blogging regularly – which is awesome. However, what’s not so awesome, is when taking a deeper dive into their traffic analytics it’s easy enough to see that 95% of the traffic is coming from people who can’t do business with them, even if they wanted to – because they are located outside of the business’s service area.

How to blog successfully with a local focus to get more sales ready traffic

Keep in mind, that no matter what you do, there is a local focus. Think about the most common questions you are asked. Many of them may be general, but think about how you could put a local spin on them. For example:

A plumber is asked frequently how to keep pipes from freezing. But, let’s say this plumber is located in Southern California, where it very rarely gets cold enough to freeze. It wouldn’t be too difficult to drum up some ideas that speak to your local area, such as “How to Protect Pipes in Southern California and Avoid Emergency Repairs” or “Keep Pipes Safe from Rare Southern California Freezes”. Start by taking those common questions that the business is asked and think local.

Using the location in your title will help keep the focus local and will also help people in your area who are searching for information related to their specific problem find what they need. Most importantly, keeping a local focus will give your business a chance to make a great first impression with people who can actually do business with you.

Now you have two, really great things going for you: Trust and Location.

People prefer to shop locally when they can. It’s easier to trust a business that they can walk into or meet with face-to-face if they needed to.

Other ideas, such as searching the web and using Q&A sites such as Quora are a great place to go to get ideas about topics you can cover. Even if a topic has already been covered on a national basis, there is no reason why you can’t bring it home and put your local spin on it. As long as you can cover a localized topic fully and provide helpful information, you will see gains in organic local search traffic.

Lastly, make sure you have social sharing buttons on your site that make it easy to share your blog’s content. Most people have a large local circle of friends that they have connected with on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ etc. Having content that’s helpful to a local audience will also boost the potential for sharing to more local people within your reader’s circles. This will further extend your branding potential – all from your blog.
photo credit: JSmith Photo

The post How Local Businesses Can Blog Successfully About Anything appeared first on PIXSYM: Web Design & Internet Marketing Company.

Small to medium sized businesses struggle in this crucial area

Unfortunately, many small and medium sized businesses have not defined a unique value proposition (or UVP), because they either don’t know how important it is or because the cost of hiring someone with expertise seems too costly. However, not having a UVP makes it extremely hard on your marketing department or marketing firm to market your services and products. In addition, businesses without a UVP tend to waste money on trial and error marketing.

Crafting an effective unique value proposition is no easy task.

A unique value proposition is a short, succulent, and concise statement about your business which targets your preferred demographic and states simply what makes you the best choice. In other words: Who do you want to do business with? What is it you do better than your competition? And why should your ideal prospect choose you?

Those questions should create a whole bunch of ideas about why you’re better than the competition and why your ideal prospects should choose you. The hard part is narrowing it down to a simple and effective statement. We suggest the following principles for developing an effective value proposition :

Characteristics of an effective value proposition:
Value proposition is the primary reason why a prospect should buy from you.

• This requires you to differentiate your offer from competitors.
• You may match a competitor on every dimension of value except one.
• In at least one element of value you need to excel.
• In this way you become the best choice for your optimum customer.
• There is a difference between the value proposition for your company and for your  product. You must address both (see below).

Principles for expressing a value proposition effectively:

1. Ask yourself: “Why should my ideal prospect (the group you intend to serve) buy from me instead of a competitor?”
2. Compare your answer with the claims of your main competitors.
3. Refine your value proposition until you can articulate it in a single, instantly credible, sentence.
4. If you had just 10 words with which to describe why people should buy from your company instead of someone else, what would you communicate?
   (Credit for spelling out these principles goes to Marketing Experiments)

Starting with your core business, you should craft a UVP that covers what you do better than the rest. Downloading this helpful worksheet from Marketing Experiments can also help you craft your business’s UVP .

Product lines and services each need value propositions

Once you’ve crafted a UVP for your business, ideally, you should create a UVP for each of your key services or product lines. Each of your key offerings should be able to stand on their own in a competitive marketplace. You know why a prospect should choose you over the competition, now you need to make that easy for your prospect to understand.

Consider what your ideal prospect cares about:
Put simply, there are four main types of benefits that people care about and your offering should fit into one or more of these categories:

• Highest quality - You don’t need to be the Rolex of watch makers to fit this category, but your standard is set by ensuring what you deliver is consistently high-quality.
• Best value - This doesn’t necessarily mean the cheapest. Think JetBlue, they aren’t the cheapest, but for a modest sum a passenger gets frills that even some travelers in first class on other airlines don’t get.
• Luxury or “the in-crowd” factor - Think Apple or BMW. People will pay more for sexy or trendy if it means they can show it off.
• Necessity - Your prospect needs your product/service to get by. It’s not a discretionary purchase, they need it to do their job or survive.

Having a unique value proposition will allow you to convey your message quickly to your website visitors and help your marketing team get the message across on various marketing channels effectively.

If you need help crafting your business’s UVP, we offer affordable, hourly consulting to help you brainstorm and provide valuable feedback which will save you time and money.

The post How to Make Your Business Stand Out in a Crowded Online Marketplace appeared first on PIXSYM: Web Design & Internet Marketing Company.

Put simply, Facebook has an algorithm that automatically attempts to weed out posts that their users likely won’t care about. How do they tell what their users care about? By monitoring what profiles and pages they regularly interact with by liking, commenting, sharing, etc. So, as a fan of your page, if I don’t ever like or comment on anything you post, the likelihood of me seeing your posts will become less and less over time.

How do you combat low engagement? Believe it or not, the answer can be as simple as simply asking your fans to “Like” or take other action on your post. Studies show that when you post an update and ask a question at the end, people are almost 50% more likely to interact with your content. But, that’s not the only way to get fans to interact with your content. Have fun with it and think of new ways to get people to engage with your posts.

Different types of Facebook calls to action:

• Fill in the blank: Ask your fans to fill in the blank for a statement relating to your industry. For example, if I sell women’s shoes I might ask: “Fill in the blank: My go-to shoe for the office is __________________”
• “Like” if you agree: Make a statement that might resonate with your fans and ask them to like your status if they agree with the statement.
• Caption this photo: Post a funny or interesting photo and ask people to add their caption to the comments.
• True or False: Ask a simple question that your fans might surprisingly not know the answer to and ask them to state whether it’s true or false in the comments.
• Ask a question: Engage fans by asking a question. You can either ask a question as your status update or ask your question at the end of your post. Try to avoid placing questions in the middle or beginning of a longer post, as it tends to get lost in the message and won’t receive the same level of response as questions asked at the end.
• Please share: Okay this is a little bit like begging, so use it sparingly. However, when you post something that you feel would be valuable to people beyond your initial circle of influence, such as a coupon or offer – ask people to “Please share”.

Those are a few ideas we’ve seen work well and help increase engagement overall on Facebook pages. Remember, the more comments, likes, and shares (engagement) your page gets overall, the more opportunities you will have for people to see more of your posts (reach). Sometimes, if you want something, you just have to ask for it.

Do you have any “calls to action” that have worked for you on Facebook? Let us know in the comments below, we would love to hear about it!

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Some of the things you see as mundane everyday tasks can easily be spun to serve as great content. For example: Frequently Asked Questions. You know best what your current customers ask you about most often. Chances are, many more people are Googling the same questions. Thoroughly answering questions can put you in a role of authority and will help you win the trust of prospects.

Now for a couple of real world FAQ to Blog examples:

Clothing boutique: Your clothes are your pride and  joy. You (or you and your team) spend ages pouring over designs you sell. The thought involved in this process could spurn some really great ideas for a blog post. You know how clothes fit specific body types, what trends are up and coming and how certain looks just flow together beautifully. Try putting some of the knowledge in a series of articles as if you were talking to customer who has never been to your store, but has questions like: What kind of pants fit my body type best? Does this belt really need to match my shoes? What kind of shirt can dress up a pair of jeans? Make sure to include photos of your clothes in your articles.

Law firm: Legal advice is at a premium and so is your time. But consider this, many people who are looking for a law firm are looking for reasons to trust you – online. Thought leadership is a great way to help people see that you are helpful, oh and that you happen to know a thing or two about what you’re talking about. Circle the wagons (or your marketing team) and brainstorm some of the most pressing questions you are asked regularly by clients. Thoughtfully craft articles that helps prospects understand how your firm works. Don’t be afraid to conclude with If you need help with ____________, please call ______________. We are _____________ experts” or something similar.

Contractor: Your expertise is your mainstay. Prospects who come to you have to fully trust that you know what you’re doing, because chances are they don’t know the in’s-and-out’s of the project you are going to undertake. Use your experience with past customers to help ease fears and apprehension. Jot down a list of the top 10 questions you are asked and write down the answers just as if you were explaining it to them. Be thorough and include photos / videos to illustrate your point. Using your own photos will earn you extra credit because most people can tell a stock photo a mile away. Using your own photos, even though they may not be perfect, will show prospective customers that you have real world experience with their specific needs.

To get the most search engine traffic in return for your time investment: Make sure that you write each answer as an individual post, as this will help search engines rank each page individually with relevance to an individual topic.

Using frequently asked questions is just one way of brainstorming topic ideas. There are many more ways to come up with great blog topics as well. But, in most cases I recommend that my clients start with answering questions, as it’s easy to speak to readers in the same way you have answered questions many times before.

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It seems that so many internet marketing evangelists are telling businesses to blog, but where does one start to make sense of whether or not it will actually work for YOU and YOUR business?

Hopefully, this post will provide some insight.

Why Blogging Works for Businesses

Blogging extends your reach on multiple levels across the web. It allows you to publish content that conveys your unique ideas and business principals. Each individual article has an opportunity to rank in search engines for various phrases that people might be searching for. As your content is seen by people, they might share it with others and give you further exposure via social networks, email or the archaic “Hey, come over here and check this out”.

In a nutshell, the return on investment is much higher for businesses that put a good amount of effort into their blog. This is because traffic obtained is free and the content that’s in your blog lives on your domain (important note: your blog should be on your domain) until you unpublish it. What that means is that your articles have the opportunity to get free traffic for a very long time in search engines. One article could pay for itself many times over.

It Takes Time to Get Traffic to Your Blog (and see a ROI)

Depending on how old your website is and how much credibility you’ve already gained without a blog, will help determine how quickly you might start seeing a return. There are always exceptions to the rule, as we’ve seen cases where a new website publishes something groundbreaking and instantly gain traction. However, the norm is that blogging creates a steady increase in visitors from organic traffic. How fast the increase happens, is directly related to how often you publish new and useful content to your blog.

For example, blogging once a day vs. once a week will significantly increase your traffic acquisition rate, but may put strains on you and your staff to generate that much quality content. I stress “quality” because garbage content won’t get you anywhere.

Point being: focus on generating as much useful, well thought out content as often as you can. If it’s once a week, know that you won’t see your traffic increase as fast as if it were once a day, but your audience will thank you for saving only the best for their consumption and your return will likely be higher.

Know Who Your Prospects Are and Plan What to Write About First

Deciding what to post on your blog can be daunting, but it’s much easier when you know who you are talking to. Start by listing your best prospects, whether they became a customer or not. Brainstorm questions you hear asked regularly prior to making the sale. Knowing this, can help you craft content that answers your prospect’s questions, provides useful information and most important gives your brand exposure to the right people. It’s alot easier to write, when you can picture who you’re talking to and why.

With all of the above said, deciding whether or not start a blog for your business comes down to a few key points:

• Are you willing to stick with it long term? It can take time to get traffic to your blog if you are just starting out (especially on a new domain). Are you willing to push forward even if you don’t see instant traffic gains?
• Can you define your key prospects? If you can’t do this, it will be hard to develop a voice that will get you measurable results.
• Are you able to dedicate time or staff to your blogging efforts? Without this, your blog will sit dormant and traffic generation will plateau. Remember: As you add new content, you have more chances to get traffic.

Starting a business blog has real benefits and can make an impact on your ability to generate traffic and gain visibility without having to pay for it long term. However, starting a blog without proper planning will mean a long learning curve and lower returns. Ultimately, the decision you make regarding whether to blog or not should be focused on the long term and not a quick return.

The post Deciding Whether or Not Your Business Should Have a Blog appeared first on PIXSYM: Web Design & Internet Marketing Company.

People are desperately trying to figure out why, suddenly, in the past month their traffic has dropped off. The answer from what I can surmise is that many have been hit by Google’s over optimization penalty. After a few minutes of looking through the backlinks of sites that have recently lost rankings, it’s easy to see that almost all of them have purchased many site-wide links from other sites and have other classic signs of a “link building” effort (ie: purchasing links with very specific keywords linking to their website) in addition to other semi-spammy (borderline rule breaking) on-page SEO tactics.

In a SMX session over a month ago, Google’s web spam engineer Matt Cutts was quoted as saying the following, when discussing what was then an impending penalty for “over optimization” (emphasis mine):

“We try to make the Google Bot smarter, we try to make our relevance more adaptive so that people don’t do SEO—we handle that—and then we also start to look at the people who sort of abuse it, whether they throw too many keywords on the page, or whatever they exchange way too many links, or whatever they are doing to sort of go beyond what a normal person would expect in a particular area. So that is something where we continue to pay attention and we continue to work on it, and it is an active area where we’ve got several engineers on my team working on that right now…”

Today, we are seeing this penalty take effect and from what we’ve seen so far, its consequences are far reaching and affect many small business websites that may have hired an “SEO” to get them to “rank on page one” by using poor link building practices along with questionable on-site tactics.

Small businesses are especially vulnerable to this update if they’ve bought links or had their sites “optimized” for specific keywords due to the ratio of trust / links that small business websites usually have. Larger brands have a huge variety of links coming in and may have a better ability to mitigate this penalty.

It’s important as a business owner or marketing professional that you know what you’re getting into before diving into the latest and greatest SEO tactic, because a nasty search engine penalty could lie on the other side. Google’s always said that of all things, it’s most important to focus on your visitor and giving them what they want. As I mentioned a few months back, amidst the Google Panda update, it’s increasingly important to keep your focus squarely on the quality of your content and not the latest SEO gimmick.

I hope you aren’t amongst those hit by the latest penalty, but if you are there are things you should be focusing on in hopes of recovery.

1. Content: Does each page offer unique and thorough content? And does your content fully answer your visitors questions or completely address a specific need?
2. Links: Incoming links to your website should be acquired naturally. In most cases, buying links isn’t worth the risk. If you’ve clearly bought links, you will want to devise a new plan to obtain links naturally and ensure that the linked keywords are natural in appearance.
3. Social Sharing – Do you have share links or buttons on your pages that allow others to share your content? This can help Google see that humans appreciate your content.
4. Site structure & accessibility: Are all of your pages accessible to robots? Do you have a sitemap? Both HTML and XML sitemaps are recommended. (You can find this out in the next step)
5. Google Webmaster Tools: Have you setup a Webmaster Tools account to see if there are any issues noted there? In some cases Google might have even left you a note regarding your penalty in this account, so it’s important to have this.
6. Humans vs. Search Engines: Is your site created for humans first? Is it easy to read and understand or are there keywords stuffed in places you wouldn’t normally place them in hopes of making a search engine happy?

There are more things to add to that list, but I see those as the main points to focus on first. The only way to begin to recover from this penalty is to increase the website’s trust. Get rid of purchased site-wide links (blogroll, footer, etc.), low quality backlinks from questionable domains,  make sure anchor text is varied and begin building high quality natural backlinks.

Update: Since posting this, this update which was first referred to as the over optimization update is now referred to as “Google Penguin” – not to be confused with “Google Panda”.

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