By not using them, they’re giving Google the responsibility of selling their site. Why would you do that? Google isn’t going to go out of their way to help you get customers. That’s your responsibility, not theirs. They’ve got enough on their minds trying to take on Facebook.

Find out where you could be going very wrong and how you can start talking to prospective customers directly starting right now. Read the article here:

The Search Engine Marketing Key

They’re being given statistics and reasoning that couldn’t be more wrong. And that’s why many companies are missing profits that are well within their reach.

Find out why the PPC skeptics arguments are wrong, even though they’re built on numbers that, technically, are right. This article could open your eyes to a huge missed opportunity.

Read it all here:

PPC Works Exactly Right

Plus find out the 2 things dishonest SEOs will do to make results look good without producing anything that’ll help your bottom line. Read it all now:

Your SEO Is Not An Office Supply, Pt 2

A Penn State study found that the TITLE tag counts for as much as 60% of the decision by a searcher to click on a particular Google listing. That includes yours. So you have to think hard about some things.

Your TITLE tag is the largest, most prominent element in your Google listing(s). It’s sometimes the only thing that’s seen as a person scans the Google results. So you have to grab their attention and do it fast.

You have to ask yourself – how does your TITLE appear to a searcher? Is it just a run on sentence of keywords thrown together? That might help with ranking, but it’ll do very little to convince your prospect to click on it instead of your competition. Those sounds you hear are customers going to  a site that isn’t yours.

Does your TITLE tag read like a limp description that doesn’t communicate what the page or your site is about? If it isn’t, your TITLE tag is letting you down. Hard.

Do a few Google searches and see what I mean. You’ll see listing after listing that just lays there. Some do even less than that, looking like they were written with the ‘shotgun’ approach. That’s when a dozen different keywords are thrown in end to end without rhyme or reason, sometimes making no sense at all when read.

Effective, targeted SEO is much, much more than keyword stuffing and spamming the comment section of blogs (You know who you are). The SEO you should be getting or doing is different. It sells. It advertises. It markets. Always with the aim of that Conversion box. Are you getting that kind of SEO right now?

    Yahoo has said that their (earlier) implementation of this left side menu increased ‘engagement’, which means more interaction by the searcher and, presumably, for a longer time. That can’t hurt a search engine if the visitor spends more time using it. Especially a search engine selling ad space.

     The left menu gives searchers the ability to narrow down their searches quickly and easily to categories such as Images to see related photos or News to get related news items & stories. The biggest menu option people are talking about in the search engine world, though, is Updates.

   Updates is the category for Google’s Real Time search entries like the latest tweets from Twitter. Social Media takes a new importance as Social Search is weighted more in the new Google search results. There’s also the Nearby option that should be taken into your consideration as a Local Business.

     This means if your local market is the source of most of your business, you need to make sure that you emphasize where you are in your listings and on your website. There’s obviously more to come from this, but Google is making it clear that they’re getting even more personalized in delivering search results. Even if they’re borrowing from other search engines to get it done.

SEOs should take note of how this will affect ranking their sites. It will be making a huge difference soon, if not already.

What can Hawaii businesses do? Some won’t be able to do much in this time of crushing upheaval. It’s not their fault, it’s the time and the conditions. Some, though, could be doing better. It’s my belief that SEO & Search/Internet Marketing could be a way out for some.

Search engine marketing – whether that’s organic SEO, paid search (Google AdWords, etc.) and/or marketing on and of the site itself – are the most cost effective marketing avenues out there. It pays off better than print and TV, hands down.

Search/internet marketing gives you the means to target your best prospects precisely. It takes time and effort, but it costs less than traditional marketing. Done right, online marketing gives you feedback so you can adjust your efforts to sharpen your aim more and more.

Hawaii businesses must work on finding their best prospects, the ones that bring the profits in consistently. That is what will see them through this difficult time. Search and internet marketing should be at the top of their list. If it isn’t they need to have a good reason for why it’s not there. It could save your business.

Tags: seo, sem, search, , engine, , marketing, optimization, , , hawaii, , business, , internet, , web, , online, , adwords, , paid, , search, , google, , site, , website

It’s SEO, circa 1998. Yet, somehow the belief persists that this is still key to SEO. It isn’t. It’s just one of those SEO ghosts that won’t go away. Here’s the reason why it doesn’t work in today’s Google dominated search world:

REASON 1 – Google and the other major search engines pay no attention to this tag today. They roll right over it without even a glance. Like it’s not even there. All that work for nothing.

REASON 2 – Those search engines that do even look at it have a rule. And that rule is this. Any keyword or keyphrase you have in that meta keyword tag must also appear in the page. Again, people are doing extra work for no payoff. They add all kinds of extra keyphrases they want to appear in the search engines for, despite the fact that those keywords aren’t actually on the page.

Even those keywords that are on the page – if you haven’t optimized the page well enough for them, it doesn’t matter that they are in the tag. Their appearance in the meta keywords tag gives no boost to you for them. It just tells the search engines to ‘consider’ the page for cataloging under those keyphrases.

Again, effort for no payoff. So what SHOULD you do?

It’s the same story as always. Do quality SEO on your pages and off. Choose targeted keywords and then use them wisely on the site. But don’t waste your time on the meta keywords tag. And if an SEO you’re considering suggests doing it, you’ll know to put their number in the round file. Bad SEO is often worse than no SEO.

Tags: seo, , search, , engine, , optimization, , marketing, , google, , tips, , web, online, , internet, , website, , site, ranking

On the other hand Google & Yahoo both reported growth during recent months. AdWords & Yahoo Ads both boosted their profits. So which is the real story? I believe that search marketing/advertising is still growing. Yahoo and especially Google have excellent search ad programs, so they’re just getting more business that the weaker ones (AOL & Ask) don’t.

In fact, there is a trend toward more search engine use by consumers during this economic downturn. They’re taking more time and putting more effort into shopping around. If they have less money to play with, they want to be sure it’s going to be spent wisely. That means research on Google, Yahoo, etc.

That means that search marketing and advertising is worth your money if you’re a business. It’s where the consumers and clients are going so you need to be there in front of them. It’s time to stop missing the party. Search marketing is the both the present and the forseeable future.

Tags: seo, , search, , engine, , marketing, advertising, , ads, , google, , yahoo, , adwords, , sem, , pay, , per, , click, , ppc, , paid, , web, , online, , internet

There are a few lessons to be learned here about your search marketing, but the one we’re dealing with here is the need to make it obvious what you do or offer to searchers. The yahoo url is not the only address searchers use – it is very common to see Google used to ‘search’ for web addresses the person already knows. People want the basics and they want it given to them simply and clearly.

Being obvious means using your SEO keywords and your page description to communicate precisely – and quickly – how you fulfill their wishes. If you’re selling something specific, you need to tell the searcher that immediately. Don’t get sidetracked talking about side issues or things that only matter to you.

Put yourself in the searchers place. When they do a search on Google and the listings come up, they need to know who has what they want. You might have it, but if you don’t tell them in the limited space provided, you’re losing potential business.

There are ways to do this, but we won’t get into them here. Instead, remember that valuable guideline we gave above. See things from the searcher’s perspective, then put what you’ve realized into your page titles and descriptions. It’s a part of SEO/Search Marketing that’s forgotten too often.

Maybe they didn’t understand the value of varying their page titles. Maybe they think that using the same titles will give them an extra edge in their chosen keyphrase. Maybe they got a little lazy. Whatever the reason, they’re missing a big SEO opportunity.

When the search engine spiders see the same title over and over, that says ‘it’s the same content on this page as all the others’, at least on 1st look. The spider will pick up the content on the page and change its mind, but the duplicate title is a strike against you.

The title also communicates something to the searcher. They see your title and a brief description, that’s it. Your title and description must compete and communicate in the midst of up to 9 competitors saying something similar.

That means your title must reflect the keyphrase entered into the search engine, not just your main keyphrase. One keyphrase does not fit all searches, even in a niche market. Remember all of this before you decide to keep the same title on every page because it’s easy to do so. Your SEO will think you for that

Tags: seo,, search,, engine,, optimization,, marketing,, sem,, google,, internet,, web,, online,, rankings,, positioning,, titles,, page,, listings,, yahoo