The Click Depot Blog

One of the top priorities of every single web master is to make sure that his web page gets top page rankings on the different search engine on the Internet. It is only then that he can consider his page to be in the “successful” category with the right and proper search engine optimization.

Nobody really has the patience to go to page number 236 of the search engine results, hoping against hope to find the data he has been looking for. For that matter many searches rarely go past the first page. That is the reason why every single website owner and webmaster Online is jostling for Top 5 rankings on the search engines. That means that a large number of traffic is going to visit your website, browse through it, and possibly buy some of your products and services.

Nevertheless, there are 3 major things that can kill your page rank stone dead. One of the most fatal of these things is loading up your webpage with a number of links going to bad or invalid URLs.

Mistake #1
Many people are under the impression that the more reciprocal URLs they have on their page, the more popular the page is going to be. However, just imagine you with a well designed and properly search engine optimized webpage. You find a page on the Internet that has relevant content pertaining to your own niche. You link your page to that particular page, without first doing your do diligence and checking out its page ranking and antecedents. It is only later that you discover that particular website was stuffed with keywords or had URLs that take your own page ranking down.

Over enthusiasm on your part to get your page in the top of the listing without proper follow through in the shape of stuffing your page with a number of URLs will lower the credibility of your page, both with the audience and with search engines. This is not what you want to do.

Mistake #2
Another common mistake made is that website owners think that they will get noticed without submitting their link to Google. You need to submit the site map that has been properly search engine optimized and with all the meta-tags in place to the webmaster tools present in Google.
If you find that after being in the top 5 your page ranking has dropped drastically, you want to submit a request for re-inclusion with Google. They will respond and let you know why your ranking has dropped. When they do respond you need to rectify the mistakes they have noted as soon as possible to regain your spot.

Most times this is because you have stopped keeping live and fresh content on your page. That may mean getting fresh keyword rich content, putting in the right meta-tags, and using other legal White hat search engine optimization methods to get a good page ranking.

Mistake #3
Another thing that is definitely going to kill your page ranking is a number of links pointing to the same boring content on your website. Just imagine a number of links including author pages, tag pages and archives pointing to the same repeated content. This may look good from your perspective, however GoogleBot is going to find itself confused, especially when it has to index all those archive pages and tag pages.

K.I.S.S. is the best acronym to use when thinking about keeping your page ranking from being killed. By avoiding the three mistakes listed here you can keep your top ranking intact!

Image Courtesy : http://contactdubai.com/tag/ranking

Thanks to one man’s initiative in which he decided to use the social media for business purposes and began marketing his product and services extensively on social media websites, a large number of businessmen have begun using this excellent marketing strategy for getting in touch with their potential clients on the Internet. That is the reason why Facebook, YouTube, Multiply Gather, Twitter and Friendster are being used by farsighted businessmen for marketing their products to visitors online.
If you have full intentions of doing the same thing you would want to develop a social media strategy, which is not only effective, but manages to give you profitable returns at the end of the day. You start the strategy by signing in on a number of social media websites.
The point is to introduce yourself to the general public and show that you have a face behind the company. After that, you are going to start a methodical download or upload of a number of videos, photos, as well as music; any sort of media which includes information about your product, company and services comes under the social media network marketing strategy.

Even though the services are free and thousands of blog posts are entered on these websites every single day, a businessman is going to have a much better chance of having his blog read, by people who are interested in his particular products. This naturally is a much better way of marketing and advertising than spending lots of money on ads in journals and newspapers.
That is the main reason why many marketing firms have begun using social media websites in their marketing campaign.

To begin your social media strategy and marketing campaign, you need to set out one particular goal. What is the name of your company and which target market are you interested in? Which particular social media site caters to that particular target market? You are naturally going to be doing a little bit of research on these sites.

Your job is to make new connections, and to tell your already existing clients and connections that you are alive and ticking. This is at the top of your priority list, especially when you are building a new marketing strategy which includes social media.

Social media has taken the old marketing strategies of using market surveys to find out the opinion of general consumers, regarding some particular product, to the new stage of free discussions on the product quality, online. That is why you have to keep in touch with the pulse of the general public and that can only be done by looking at the reviews, views, and discussions going on in forums.
You need to go out amongst your clients and general public and become visible. You need to make sure that the customer service is so perfect that any problem is solved within 24 hours.

The Customer is King and never more so than when he is sounding off online. One unhappy customer is quite capable of losing you more than a 100 prospective customers in the future. So when you go online and manage to talk to your customer about his problems, it shows that you care.
This marketing strategy is not only going to make your social media presence quite strong, but it is going to do wonders for your future business prospects. This also includes taking part in a number of forums online and explaining queries and FAQ’s to any prospective client, who is interested in buying your product in the near future.

Extensive research needs to be done so that you know exactly who your customers are and where they can be found. You could use Technorati, through which you can find blogs and websites related to your product, through a search query. You would also want to try out the marketing scope of Twitter. It has a really good search and monitoring tool called Twitscoop.

Once you know about the specific needs and requirements of the customer, you would want to tell them that you are capable of giving them a product, which deals with solving that particular requirement and need.
You would need to measure The Traffic with Google Analytics, Social Mention and Tweetreach. These free tools give you a broad idea of how positive your participation in the discussion was and you can base your communication strategy using the data obtained by these tools.
Once you have found a good social media strategy, which works, stick to it!

Image Courtesy : http://ictkm.cgiar.org/2009/07/29/social-media-the-next-revolution/

By this time of your online career, you have heard of page ranks based on Google’s little tool. You may even have heard about hundreds of pages a website must have in order to get that leverage. Well, the shocking truth surrounding page ranks lies in the ability to create outstanding content as well as build inbound links from reputable websites. It sounds simple, but you need to have enough confidence in your business to invest the time in establishing a presence online. One of the biggest mistakes taken by online business owners is jumping into SEO head first with no understanding; you can overcome this flaw by learning three easy steps in building page rank.

Create a Content Plan

Content is king across the web. In fact, content can determine the strength of your company as well as your website. People want to learn new facts, information, and have a way to share it with others. By constructing a solid content plan, you can cut out the interference of not providing up-to-date reviews or information in your industry. You can begin my writing evergreen content to build a foundation on your website then focus on specific issues that are affecting your industry now. These issues can be submitted as whitepapers, articles, or blog topics on many websites.

You have to find a place to publish your information to your target market; consider the advantages of working closely with a publishing company or an SEO company with publishing abilities. The more content you produce the better return on your inbound links as well as page rank in the future. Remember, the search engine loves to find new information in order to provide it to the readers online.

Build Links with Reputable Sites

Link building with government or reputable websites can shoot your page rank into a frenzy. Sometimes it will take a very, very long time to get in touch with influencers in your industry but the wait is well worth it. It is also vital to get certified by the Better Business Bureau if you want prospects to believe in your offers. Some online business owners make the mistake of claiming outrageous offers with no proof; you can back this kind of shadow into the light by establishing a strong reputation online. Remember, it is important to create a trend or develop loyal followers who come to your website. Your content and links have to offer insight in order to increase page rank in an ethical manner.

Improve Online Reputation

Reputation can determine the possibilities for sales, losses, and eventually lose of interest to customers. How well do you rank against the competition? There are thousands of companies that want to offer the same products/services at a reasonable price - what more do you have to offer? Quality service, testimonials, inbound links from customer sites, reviews, and articles can improve your company’s reputation while increasing page rank overtime. You have to remain steady in order to leverage the competition in search engines, but you have to do it smart. Focus on one step at a time instead of attacking ten different angles at once. Once you establish your place in one sector, move on into another one with more focus.

Image Courtesy : http://bloghob.com

Okay, so you’re spending a lot of time searching for various keywords, but the SEO just isn’t coming out the way you hoped. It happens all the time and no matter how you put it, the truth of the matter is you just aren’t using the right keyword research tool. Most people don’t want to spend the money on an expensive software tool, so they’re left with the free versions.

We decided to take a little time out of our day and tell you about the top 5 keyword research tools out there. Obviously you’re going to have to put up a little money, but you should expect to, considering everything you’ve done up to this point hasn’t made you hardly any money at all. Plus, all the time you’ve had to spend for basically nothing.

Google Adwords Keyword Tool

If you’ve tried to take on the pay per click arena, you came across this keyword tool a time or two. It doesn’t cost you anything to use it, but just remember that you have to spend the time doing it yourself. Finding the right keywords can take hours, even days depending on the criteria you’ve put in place.

Word Tracker

You’ll find that most people turn to the Word Tracker when they don’t want to spend money on a true keyword research tool. The only problem with Word Tracker is it isn’t entirely accurate. In fact, if you compare it to Google Adwords, there are several contrasts between the two of them. Plus, it only gives you the searches, and they’re on a daily basis instead of monthly.

Utilizing Others

When we first started to give out the top 5 keyword research tools, we planned on listing all of them. Unfortunately, the more we thought about it, there isn’t #1-#5 and all of them have pretty much the same benefits and downfalls. Well, all except one. The only difference is it’s not your average keyword research tool. It’s a place where you can find all the best ones in the same place.

What they do is offer you everything from Google Adwords Keyword Tool, Word Tracker, SEODigger, and all kinds of other tools for your marketing pleasure. Sometimes it’s just a lot easier to look in one place for all the answers, then try searching all over the place. When you get to this point, we highly recommend looking into the Click Depot. It should help you get what you need from the top keyword research tools.

Image Courtesy : http://www.kortia.com/keyword-analysis.html

OK, you have a hundred bucks and want to get the biggest online marketing bang. What should you do? Unfortunately, here goes the answer that you did not want to hear - it depends. And here’s why.

Depending on what site you have and who your target audience is, this answer is going to be different. So let’s say you are Joe The Plumber in Raleigh, North Carolina. And say you have a website that does not get any sales for you at present. Then, fortunately, you don’t even need $100, you just need your own time to get started.

Go to maps.google.com, maps.live.com and claim your business. Fill out as much information as possible on your profile and then send your business’s link in Google Maps to each customer that you interact with, requesting a review. You might even want to include it in your email signature. Soon, you’ll find people that search the internet for plumbers calling you. $100 can buy you this as well. Just call any good small-medium online marketing company and they can do this for you. Or just hire a college student and most of them will know how to get that done. Once you are done with that, seriously, consider revamping your website and getting a nice-looking, fast-loading, effective, simple website. That’s easier said than done, but is guaranteed to take your business to the next level. Once you have that website, call the marketing company and ask them to optimize your website for Google. You are on your way to online fame.

Now, if you are a small business that already has a useful good useful website, then the best use of $100/month is to buy a listing with YellowPages.com or even better, a few niche directory in your domain that get a lot of hits. Some other generic sites are superpages.com, infousa.com, Etc. A good way to find how many visitors these sites get is by going ot compete.com and comparing such sites. Listings in good directories are useful in 3 ways. First, people visit these sites directly to search for businesses. Secondly, these sites often have print publications and you can buy space on that as part of the overall contract. Finally, the category pages on these sites often rank well on Google and other search engines. That’s possibly the maximum that you can get from $100 in this situation.

Finally, if you are a small business that’s already popular and on Yellow pages and directories, then the best use of $100 is possibly to get a good online marketing company to optimize your website for keywords that your potential visitors are searching for. This is more like a $100-$500 per month kind of expense, but if they build a sufficient number of quality links pointing to your website, your site will rank well on Google driving targeted traffic to the site. This is an ongoing cost, but also guarantees a good healthy supply of NEW ongoing leads. If you’ve been in business you know that there is always a cost for acquiring a new customer. Doing is this way is possibly the most cost efficient if done correctly.

Hope these tips will help you take your small business to the next level.

We see websites all over the place that sell something or the other. Anything that’s available in a real world store (well, almost) and more (digital assets) are available online. If making money from Ecommerce or other ways online sounds thrilling to you, then you might have taken a few minutes to search on Google for phases such as “make money online” or “online website business” or “sell shoes online”. Try any of these searches and you’ll find thousands of websites and programs that claim that making money or selling online is the easiest thing to do. Many will even show you pictures of their checks and some will go as far as giving you a 110% money back guarantee to buy into their money-making idea. So, given all that, here’s the million dollar question - Are all of them really making money?

Our experience (and several studies, btw) show that it’s not as easy as it seems. Take Ecommerce sites for an example.

Ecommerce websites: Putting up a website with valid products might not be an easy task by itself but if you are tech-savvy or know someone who is, that part can be done. Which is why you see thousands of sites selling stuff. Are they making money? We know for a fact that many aren’t. We get approached by Online store owners that have a site that does ZERO sales after months of promotions. It truly is not easy to sell online. On the other hand, we have promoted many sites that do thousands of dollars in sales every day. What separates the profitable ones from the others is mainly 2 things.

a. Smart Online Market Research: There are several tools that help you analyze what people are searching for. Google Trends, Google Keyword Tool, Ebay Keyword Analyzers such as TeraPeak, and many more. Analyzing online consumer behavior is key to selecting a product that has a chance of succeeding.

b. Product differentiation: Choosing a product that differentiates itself from the competition is a time-tested marketing concept for success. It applies online even more so. Online, why would someone buy from maryselectronics.com when the exact same item is available, often cheaper, at amazon.com? On the other hand, if you were maryspinkelectronics.com, now you stand out and may be you’ll have an audience that is looking for your products.

c. Intelligent Marketing: Offline, location is critical. If you have a store on a busy intersection, you will probably find people stop by without any marketing. Online, there is no such thing. There are over 3 trillion web pages and yours is just one of them. Promoting your site at the right places and targeting the right keywords for search optimization are ESSENTIAL.

Keeping these three principles are likely to ensure a much better chance for success for your website or online store. Now go online and look at stores out there. How many of these do you think are doing all three? You willl be surprised - not even one out of 10. There are too many domains out there that don’t have a site on it. There are many sites that have no visitors and many visited sites that don’t make any money. It’s not an easy thing, which is why if you really think you have a good product to offer online, consult with a good online marketing company to help you sell it. Making money online is possible and thrilling, but that does not make it easy.

Search Engine Optimization and Internet Marketing are established businesses these days and there are dozens of such firms in every major city in the US. Well, there are many many more online that don’t even have an office or a registered company. These so called Internet Marketers operate from home and some don’t even have a website. Nothing wrong with any of that, except that many of them also end up scamming you. Long story short, they don’t know what they are doing, claim things that aren’t true, make promises that they can’t deliver and overall, end you up in a mess. Unfortunately, many SEO firms are the same way too.

So, how do you know if your Internet Marketer or SEO firm is scamming you?

5. Do they have a website? Is their website optimized for Search Engines?

You will be surprised how many Internet Marketers operate without a website. A company’s website says a lot about how much time and effort they’ve invested into a business. Especially for an Internet business, their website will reflect what they know about the business too. For instance, if their own website is optimized for search engines and is ranking well for their key search term, then that says that the company couldn’t have been formed yesterday and probably has a good track record. That doesn’t guarantee that they will do a good job for you, but at least gives you one more reason to believe that they are real and professional. An easy way to tell if their website is optimized for search engines is to look for the basics - Are their page URL’s full of giggerish or do they have user-friendly words in them? Do their pages load quickly or do they take forever? Take the first few words from the page title on their home page and search using those terms on google. Do you see their website?

4. Is the firm registered with BBB?

BBB - Better Business Bureau is a good place to look for compaints against a company. If your SEO firm has a whole bunch of complaints, they are obviously not a good choice.

3. Do they have “too many” good reviews?

Back in the day, to review any service, all you had to do was go to Google and type <Service name> review. Not anymore. These days, there are tons or sites that write paid reviews. So, chances are that your SEO firm used some of those paid sites to get good reviews. In fact, if you see too many “too good to be true” reviews or testimonials, I would actually take that as a negative.

2. Do they use good SEO and Internet Marketing practises?

Do they use black-hat SEO techniques such as keyword stuffing, cloaking, Etc.? Do they buy email lists and spam them? Important - where do they stand on SEO ethics? Do they think that it’s OK to get to the top of the search engine by hook or by crook or do they stand by their morals. The reason why this is important is that most long-lasting SEO companies understand the importance of ethics to thier business. There will always be a gray area, but the ‘whiter’ you are, the better your chances of success. The good SEO companies know that. A good way to find out is to suggest to the company that you WANT them to use black hat techniques. If they agree, you’d know.

1. What does their Internal setup look like?

There are way too many “SEO firms” out there that actually have ZERO employees. The one person shops outsource everything. There’s nothing wrong with that, in fact, it could be a smart business move. Do they have any sales people? How many dedicated resources do they have internally? Do they offer a timeliness guarantee? These questions will help you determine whether the company can meet your SEO and Internet Marketing expectations.

Do not hestitate to ask these questions to your prospective SEO company. Better safe than sorry, right?

Apple, Microsoft and Google inevitably end up locking horns with each other. Apple and Microsoft have been rivals for over 25 years now and it can be said that, for the most, part, Microsoft won the battle of the computer titans. Apple re-invented themselves with their i-vision. ipods, itough, iphone, imac, macbook pro, Etc. and before you knew, Apple was hot again - how many Apple devices do you and your family together have (including old versions that you upgraded)? You might be surprised to see that most families now have more Apple devices than any other hardware manufacturer. But is all that about to change with Google Android and G1? Well, we think YES. And here’s why.

Search is important to Google and we all know that. They are a $100 Billion market-cap company and 95% of that is from search-related revenues. The mobile business is taking off, we know that because in Europe and Asia, which is generally behind the curve on innovation compared to the US, but when it comes to the use of mobile phones, they are way ahead. As US catches up, there is a huge market here that Google will want to tap. Internal sources in Google  bloggers reveal that they are taking this mobile thing VERY seriously. It’s obvious, as people switch to using the mobile phone for more and more of their general internet browsing needs, searches will move to that area and that’s where the money will be as well.

The PC operating system market went to Microsoft, Google wasn’t even born then. But here’s their second chance, and possibly bigger than the first one due to the ready availability of a huge market with limited competition, compared to Microsoft’s challenge of creating a market for their products 20 years ago. This time Google’s biggest competitor is not Microsoft though, it’s Apple!! Yes, iPhones are amazing and are arguably the most advanced cell phones for entertainment purposes out there. Google is releasing the Andriod operating system which takes that to the next level. It packs entertainment features alongside with great search and easy emailing features. Things that most people also want in addition to just pictures and music. They now have it all - the #1 search engine in the world, ($$$) a great mobile operating system (OS) and the G1 phone (Hardware). Sounds like a winning combination to me. Iphones are great, but when search the ‘net on them, you really don’t feel like clicking on ads like you do when searching on the PC. G1 is optimized for Google Search more than any other device.

So, as I saw the new G1 phone advertised on the Google home page and on the Tmobile phone upgrades site, I was forced to think - is this it? Is this going to change everything. If Google ends up capturing a few million people that are G1 fans and can’t stop talking about it and actually start clicking on ads, this could change a lot of things in the search and mobilie advertising market. And we think it will.

So, if you are a small or even large business and like to stay ahead of the curve on markteing, here’s your chance. Invest in mobile and search advertising today..

Whether or not you have a brick and mortar store, it is vital to ensure your web site is ranked well in searches for your local area. What does this mean? What matters is that your website has organic visibility across multiple search engines when searches are conducted for your most prized keywords and key phrases. We wrote a post about this recently - raleigh internet marketing

With millions of companies competing for top 10 placements for their products and services, local search engine optimization provides a competitive advantage as well as allows consumers to conveniently shop locally as a result of using the web to locate the best deals.

In addition, local internet consumers are prone to shopping locally and prefer working with local businesses. The advantages are options like (a) checking their references (b) performing due diligence (c) establishing trust or (d) meeting in person to finalize deals are easier compared to a national organization.

For example, if you own a dry cleaning business, potential customers want to not only see your prices; they want directions and a map to get to your store. Even in the face of a global economy more and more people are realizing the importance of community and want to give their business to local merchants.

Here are some ideas to improve Organic Ranking of your site on web.

5. Link to Local City Searches

List your company with CitySearch. CitySearch is a major provider of local information for sites including MSN.com, Ask.com, Expedia.com, Ticketmaster.com, and many others. Also consider listing on http://www.superpages.com, http://www.infousa.com, http://www.yellowpages.com, http://www.magicyellow.com and http://www.directorym.com

4. Add Contact information on your site

Have a physical address and phone number within an address tag at least on your contact page and one other page; the best option would be the homepage. By far the best option is to have your address on all pages of your site. Such information builds trust rank value for your web site too.

Search engines pay particular attention to proximity as well as keyword density (the number of times the keyword appears) as well as proximity to other keywords or qualifiers. A qualifier is a term like services, company, professional, expert, affordable, specialist, etc. and are used specifically to (a) add relevance to your keywords or (b) assist your positioning when people use them in search queries.

3. Use the city name and abbreviation of the state in the title or description tag

Pages are interpreted and indexed with the in title, in anchor and in text so understanding this provides one more unique opportunity to construct your pages in accordance to standards which are known to affect how search engines rank and respond to your content.

2. Submit your company’s listing

Submit listing to some top directories like Yelp, Insider Pages, City Squares.com, and MojoPages.com. Submit to Internet Yellow Pages like SuperPages.com, Yellow Pages, Info Space, and Switchboard.com. Submit to Local Search Engines like Google local Business Centre, Yahoo! Local Merchant, and Ask Business Search. Submit your company to Data Providers like Geosign Corporation, Info USA Sales Solution.

1. Add the qualifiers or specific geographic terms

This rule applies if you have qualifiers in the title, description and page, then solidifying the affect of the collective goal of the page for the sake of word density can be accomplished. For an added kick, hyperlink the main terms in the footer on every other page and point them to your about us page, which usually has the highest concentration of local and geographic information.

Bonus Tip: Hyper link the city and function of your web page

When employing links, the less the better for the strength of the link, also the higher up on the page a link is placed, the higher relevance it garners.

The big news this weekend seems to be the insider news leak about the possible launch of Google Android on Tmobile handset in September. This source reported a nice story about Google Android.

OK, now, why is that important to you? Here’s why:

1. 3G is just getting to become a huge phenomenon in the US. This is the new generation wireless communication protocol that will make sharing videos and large data files much easier. This has the potential to explode cell phone usage for Internet access. The iPhone already started this trend in a big way earlier this year. Google Android will make it bigger. Other countries in Asia (Japan) and Europe are already into this stuff and US lags behind. But we have the largest volume of consumers and the most amount of online spending and Internet users. If 3G takes off in the US, things can change for marketing firms very quickly.

2. Today, the big change seems to be people moving from using the Yellow Pages to using http://maps.google.com to find businesses. This shift was quite big. People had to learn the use of computers and know the ways of the Internet. Even then, this happened in less than a decade. People already use cell phones and when the same applications such as Google Maps and Google Android will be available on the cell phone, people will transfer much quicker to using cell phones instead of going to their PC’s as much.

3. You can stay ahead of the curve in the following ways.

A. If you have a budget for marketing that you can spend on mobile marketing, then talk to a mobile marketing firm. They can get your ads and brandname on multiple mobile applications.

B. Get yourself listed on Google Maps and other online mapping applications such as Yahoo Maps. MapQuest.com and others. These are getting used on the mobile phone in a big way already.

C. Add a “Send me an SMS” feature on your website. Encourage your website visitors to contact you via sms on your cell phone. http://smseverywhere.com/webmasters.htm. Now, this will have to be done with caution. You might have to keep a separate cell phone line for this purpose alone. I haven’t seen too many people try this but I can see it happening in the near future. Of course, 5-10 years from now, everyone will have cell phones than can handle email very well and sms will slowly become almost extinct or at least slow down in usage. Until then, this might be a good idea to grab the attention of your visitors. Who is more likely to contact you? Someone that just sees a regular contact us form on your website or someone that sees a “conctact me via sms” box and knows that you will receive his message immediately and may even respond to it in the next 30 seconds via sms to his cell phone?

There are many more ways, but I’ll leave the rest to your imagination. In marketing, as in business, staying ahead of the curve is important. Don’t do it after everyone else is doing it. Read the signs and get in early.