Onward Internet Marketing, Inc.

Category: SEO

  • 7 Things: Reasons to Have a Business Website

    1. Credibility

      You have a business card don’t you? Can you image introducing yourself and your business without one? You have a business phone, right? Can you image trying to gain new customers without one? The same is now true of websites. Without a professional website you look small; you look temporary.

    2. Save Time & Money

      The cost of getting a website can be a little overwhelming sometimes. Dirt cheap websites start at $500; the best move quickly into 6 figures. Once you have it, though, it costs very little. A website built on a current CMS (Code Management System) like WordPress, allows you to update the site, adding your news, coupons, whitepapers, product pages, without calling in expensive professionals. You should rarely pay more than hosting costs, and those should be cheaper than your monthly phone line.

    3. Find a Wider Audience

      There are people looking for you. And in your wildest dreams, you would never think to look for many of them. Your website lets them find you. It lets them find out about you, without being invasive. They can begin to familiarize themselves with your business offerings in a way they feel comfortable. Once you make a real sales or marketing contact with them, you already have the beginning or a relationship. Now a site optimized for the search engines will do better at this than others, but all sites offer outreach to potential customers that previously eluded you.

    4. Be Available

      Websites ushered in the “24/7” world. Your customers can look up product information on their schedule, not just during your business hours. Your website doesn’t take breaks, it doesn’t sleep, its there. A contact form allows visitors to send you a message anytime, opening up a new communication channel. Posting news provides a mechanism to get product announcements and news out to your customers with minimal cost.

    5. Support Your Customers

      Let your web visitors find the product information they want with photos, graphics, videos and text. Allow them to find out the place and times of events without having to call and ask. Give them photos and images so they can understand your business and its advantages.

    6. Interact with Your Customers

      Provide a contact form so you customers can comprehensively communicate with you, even allow them to upload RFPs, their images, documents, and bid requirements directly in a way that you and your staff can easily find and share.

    7. Measurable Marketing

      What other marketing medium allows you to know exactly what people looked at, how long they took to look? No other marketing medium allows such immediacy in learning what people found appealing and to what they responded. Website marketing metrics are comprehensive and immediate, allowing you to quickly respond to the fluctuations in your market.

  • The Most Important SEO Technique

    The single most important action you can take to make a web page rank with the search engines is to create the right title tag. The title tag is in the <head> section of the HTML. It is contained between the <title> and </title> HTML markers. Making sure that the page title is correct for the page will have a profound impact with the search engines.

    Many webmasters will just allow this tag to contain the name of the business. If your entire site has been designed and built correctly, the search engines will already rank your web site #1 for your business name. If you do not rank #1 for your business name, you have bigger problems and need to do the work to make sure that the website for your business ranks #1 for the name of your business.

    The second mistake that is made with the title tag is to have too many word and/or multiple keywords and phrases included. Although the search engines accept as many as sixty (60) characters in the title tag, less is more. Hone your title down to the bare minimum that includes your key phrase and is reflective of the content of the page.

    The third mistake that is frequently made is to only stuff keywords and phrases in the title tag. The title tag should genuinely reflect the content of the page. While it is important that the title contain your key phrase, it should act as a title to the page, uniquely identifying the actual content of the page.

    Finally, the page title is different than the main headline for the content on the page. The main headline, often between the <h1> and </h1> tags, should be the headline for the content. Now it may seem that the two are one and the same; they are not. If you spend some time, you will think of two distinct things, the title and the main headline. Both should contain you key phrase, and both should be different.

    Let’s look at this from the other side.

      Your page title should

    1. be short- definitely not longer than 60 characters
    2. include your key phrase
    3. be unique too your web site
    4. be distinct from the main heading of the page
    5. be true to and reflective of the content of the page

  • Outline of the Perfect SEO page

    The outline of the perfect SEO page has a lot in common with a high school essay: Tell ’em what you’re going to tell ’em; Tell ’em what you’re telling ’em; Tell ’em what you told ’em. That’s what you should be doing in the three section of an essay: the beginning, the middle and the end. The beginning and the end are shorter than the middle, in a high school term paper both are probably just a paragraph. The beginning and the end use the words of the theme of the term paper more often than the middle.

    The theme of the high school term paper translates into the key phrase of the SEO’d page. Use the key phrase more at the beginning and the end of the “content” of the page: give it a greater key phrase density than the middle of the page.

    Title and Headings

    The term paper has a single title. The perfect web page has a page title and a main headline. Both should include the key phrase for the page. The title and the main headline – though slightly different contain the key phrase close to the beginning. The page title would be the shorter of the two. Stripped of adjectives and adverbs, the title is short and concise. The page title is at the top of the page, inside the <head> </head> of the HTML file.

    The page has only one main headline, though it may have several sub-headings. The main heading is in the <body> of the HTML file. It is enclosed within the <h1> and </h1> tag. Like the page title, it should include the key phrase for the page. Placing the key phrase closer to the start of the headline is best. The headline can be a little more flowery using adjectives, adverbs and additional phrases.

    Usually the middle of the high school term paper has a couple of sections, and those sections might be separated by sub-headings. A web page uses sub-headings as well. Sub headings like the main headline are enclosed between the appropriate tags. These tags h2 .. h4 are of decreasing importance, and usually of decreasing size. Use these tags liberally, but with purpose.

    Underlining, bolding, italicizing your key phrase will also highlight important concepts for both the reader and the search engine. Use these typographical techniques as well, in moderation.

    A web page that is more about the use of these techniques than the content you really wish to be presenting will be ignored by your readers and the search engines.

  • Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has Outstanding Results – Increasing Sales.

    Search engine optimization can turn listless response into targeted high-volume traffic, the definitive milepost to increasing leads, sales and profits. Increasing the visibility of YOUR web site is NOT a one-size-fits-all proposition. Each web site is unique. Let us show you how to use search engine optimization to make your web site gain more visibility, build brand recognition, generate more leads, make more sales and drive profits ever higher. With 8 Billion competing web pages your site needs to stand out not just to your customers, but also to the major search engines from where over 84% of all first time visits start.

    Tap into thousands of customers who start their journey from search engines. These customers know what they want. Make sure they find your site! High listings with Google, Yahoo, MSN/Bing, and AOL bring more qualified customers to your web site. There is no single secret to attracting those customers. Rather search engine optimization identifies the keywords and search phrases that will be used to find your web site, and use them to bring top placement in the search engine result pages (SERPs).

    There are probably thousands, if not millions of web sites competing for the same search phrases as yours, each hoping to break onto the first page of search engine results. Make sure your web site stands out! Even with the highest quality products and services, and rock-bottom prices, without placing well in the search engine return pages (serps), no one will ever know you are there, and no one will ever find you.

    For considerably less than a traditional advertising campaign, traffic to your web site can be increased up to 300% with careful search engine optimization. In as little as 3 months you can see your investment returned.

    Unscrupulous experts tout web marketing books for $49.95, and if these ebooks really could tell you how to make tens of thousands of dollars a month, why I’d be selling one here. But the ‘secrets’ they describe are already overused, and with millions using these same secrets they have been rendered ineffective. Other search engine experts would have you believe that submitting your web site to the hundreds of search engines out there is enough. Really? No longer will this move your web site to the top.

    What phrases do people use when looking for your products and services? Follow the link below to request a report on where your web site is positioned, your competition is positioned and what search engine optimization can do for you. This analysis is valued at $199, and can be yours, without charge or obligation. In addition, request a search engine optimization quote for your web site and Onward Internet marketing will also send you our five-point analysis of your web site’s overall effectiveness, an overall value of $500. Get this now from a premier Internet Marketinng firm located in Minneapolis, Minnesota.