Seed The Web Tips Blog

Optimizing Images for Search Engines

2008-07-15T08:10:00.000-07:00

I really like how simple and yet descriptive Matt Cutts from Google explains optimizing images in the video below. I wish everything about SEO was as simple to explain as the alt tag! For those of you who don't know - Matt is the head guy who understands how Google reads your site and ranks it for the results - he knows the inside variables that make your website search engine friendly. Matt will never hand over the full recipe to success in Google though (as it can open up black hats to cheat the system), but his tips will help you!

Optimizing Images - why?
When you optimize images within your pages with relevant keywords, your website pages are more likely to show higher in the ranks on search engine results pages. The higher your links show up on the results page, the more site traffic you will receive. The kicker is, that you must use relevant keyword terms to what your site and images are all about and terms that potential site visitors or customers would use to search for you.

To complement your overall search engine marketing efforts, you should already be naming the alt tag for every single image on your site. Also to take it further - Matt recommends that you name the image names with keywords that make sense (not "img1234.jpg"). Which I highly recommend as well- it wouldn't hurt!

How to Optimize News Releases for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Tips

2008-07-14T08:00:00.000-07:00

Traditional PR is getting completely redefined because of the Internet.

One subset of PR is News Release distribution. A news release, media release, press release or press statement is a written or recorded communication directed at members of the news media for the purpose of announcing something claimed as having news value. Typically, it is mailed, faxed, or e-mailed to assignment editors at newspapers, magazines, radio stations, television stations, and/or television networks (source: Wikipedia: News Release). It used to be a traditional tactic within the marketing department (in-house or outsourced), it was expensive and for the most part was ignored by smaller companies. Some companies really couldn’t afford to hire PR firms to help them with releases, and they couldn’t afford the fees for distributing them to media lists, which was also quite expensive.

Funny how the world evolves over time. Now, the distribution model has changed and is less expensive. Press releases are not only being pushed to journalists and media, they are also being served out on the Internet via blogs, news feeders, directories and aggregators – tapping into an enormous audience and in some cases talking directly to the consumer/customer. Also journalists, media and the end users may have subscribed to particular key word feeds which are more of a pull vs. push.

So what’s the big deal to a website owner?
Well, press releases are the new back door to high search engine rankings for popular and competitive search terms. Smart website owners and SEOs should seriously consider adding press release writing, optimization and distribution online into their online marketing mix. Ultimately the benefits of higher search ranking results on key word strings in the search engine results pages (SERPs) results in more site traffic and more site conversions (whatever that being: newsletter signups, product or services purchases, downloads, phone call or trials).

My favorite news distribution tool:
After doing some research online for news distribution providers, business wire and service shops, my favorite choice is http://www.prweb.com/. It is good for those who understand SEO and how to write a release, and it’s also good for those who don’t. You can add on editorial revision, drafting and optimization, if you are the latter. Depending on your news release length and additional services you choose, it can range from $80 to $1,000 for each one to go out. For Sitemasher, I personally choose the “Media Visibility” package at $360 for distributing our news releases, as it has more options for optimizing and distributing news. Sometimes I will upgrade with the business wire add-on – as it can reach an even larger media network. This is for very important releases though. Recently we distributed a news release about Sitemasher’s Blue Sky Award from Microsoft and we valued that as very big news.

Ten top tips on how to optimize your press release, increase search engine rankings and site traffic:
Some changes to the press release are relatively minor, but made major differences in the most critical spots. If you take the extra time to do the following you will see the benefits and your release can potentially be picked up by more sites, search engine results pages, aggregators and directories and also attract more media attention and bloggers who may write about your product or service.

Choose news distribution services that have the right features. Research self-serve online distribution services that offer features to optimize your releases (see points below on those requirements and just question if you can do it on their platform). Some don’t offer all the features to properly optimize your news. Not sure if they have the features by looking at the website? Then sign up for an introduction webinar if they are offering one to understand the tool more. Or ask them for a test account to log in and kick it around and actually see the features. Also, look for a service that gives you reports on readerships, downloads, and archiving (for longevity on exposure). Consider the geographic distribution networks and if you can upgrade to larger networks, language translation if you are a global company or plan to go global in future.

Optimize, add all important key words in the headline. Understand and define the most important key word strings that you want to be known by and try to incorporate them in your headline. Why? Because it will lift the possibilities of people finding your release or your release being picked up by key word queries in readers and directories. If you state “Sitemasher wins an award,” it is too vague and it will limit your exposure throughout the web that picks up releases via tags (also known as categorization and key word queries). Now if you used “Sitemasher wins Microsoft Canada Blue Sky Award,” you have more potential key words – the release can be picked up for any tags under “Microsoft” and “Blue Sky Award.” Also if people were to Google this exact word, they will probably find your release in one try in the results pages. I actually saw this work, just a few hours after we sent out our release, it was second in Google search results and was picked up by Yahoo and Google news as well as some top aggregators and financial aggregator sites that pull through all Microsoft’s feeds.

Optimize, use links, one for each 100 words. Try to follow a rule of one hyperlink per 100 key words. Some SEO experts believe that if you do many more than that, then the release can be over-optimized (also viewed as spam from the search engines) and possibly get penalized and show up lower down in the search engine results. To even take it further make sure the Important key word phrases are the ones hyperlinked (and never something like “click here”), it helps raise the release and possibly your website (if the link is to any of your WebPages), to show up higher in the search engine results pages (SERPs) for that particular key word or key word string.

Optimize, use alt tags. Just the same as defining key words, this tactic can also tell the search engines what is important and also rise up your release within the search engines. So if you have particular pictures that can be labeled with your important key words, do label them so.

Optimize, add anchor text. This is an advanced tactic and sometimes a little confusing or hard to find the instructions. However, the formulas are simple, and with a little practice (and by following a few simple rules), adding anchor text to your press release is quite straightforward.

Plain anchor link: http://www.sitemasher.com/cmssolution.htm [Sitemasher]. This will result in a link with the text “Sitemasher” pointing to “www.sitemasher.com/cmssolution.htm,” or whatever you substitute.

Anchor with Title tag: http://www.sitemasher.com/csssolution.htm [Sitemasher __title__ Sitemasher is a cms platform and more]. This is the same as the above except that if a reader hovers a mouse over the link, the text “title text” (or whatever you substitute) will appear.

Note: There’s a space before and after the underscore, which is a prerequisite.

Interact and optimize. Use Images, audio, video and PDFs – take it up a notch and make it a multimedia news release – you may attract eyeballs as some aggregators like to rank multimedia pieces higher up on the page. It also gives other bloggers additional pieces to pull through to their sites if they wish. To help with your most important key words in the search engine results, and are pulling in a YouTube video, make sure you also tag it with important key words within YouTube. Also within the news distribution service, you should have the ability to label and tag any images and PDFs with key words and increase your odds of getting even more exposure.

Optimize, take the time to tag the release itself. Services like PRWeb have an additional feature where you can define Technorati tags. Technorati looks at tags that authors have placed on their websites or news releases. These tags help categorize search results, with recent results coming first. If you overlook this feature and don’t use it, you can miss out on thousands of readers who may be subscribed to or directories and aggregators that are pulling through feeds from these tags. PR web allows you to tag your release with multiple tags, so I choose the most important tags.

Optimize, run a key word density check. Some services like PRWeb may have an analysis tool that runs through a test and gives you feedback on key word density and where the key words are. Try to make sure you have at least the two to three most important key words in the title, short description and within a hyperlink and its anchor test. If this test gives you feedback that you’re weak or lack your important key words in some areas, go back and tweak the release.

Have a strong call-to-action and landing page on your site. Depending on your message, I’m sure that you can incorporate some sort of call to action or incentive to read more on a special landing page. Maybe it’s as simple as asking interested parties to sign up to your newsletter, read more on your company blog, sign up for a webinar, download a white paper, or sign up to qualify for substantial discounts on purchases. If you have a unique landing page for this release, you can also track how many people clicked through by viewing your site analytics.

Provide good content. And finally, add meaningful content. Keep it short and get rid of the adjectives, the first, the best, the paradigm-shifts, trend-setting verbiage, 14 quotes, world-famous, etc. For website owners and SEOs, this may be a matter of educating and retraining yourself or writer to get away from traditional news release writing (hyperbole) that used to just talk to media and journalists. Releases via the web are being picked up by other bloggers, being pulled through and aggregated on other sites, so it’s more important to get down to the meat of it.

If you’re looking to do your press release yourself, here are some good tips on how to write it and the anatomy of a news release:

Want to learn more about online PR and marketing?A recent book I read is “The New Rules of Marketing and PR How to Use News Releases, Blogs, Podcasting, Viral Marketing, and Online Media to Reach Buyers Directly.” I highly recommend it!

Or would you rather hire a firm to help you with your SEO and PR? Recently, I talked with Deborah Collins at a BCAIMS Seminar from Soya Marketing (www. soyamarketing.com ). She is an online marketing PR and social media expert. We had a great discussion on how PR and SEO have merged. Debbie advises her clients to be very careful when choosing a PR firm, as not all PR firms (especially traditional ones) understand or have invested in the time to learn SEO and online PR and how they work together.

Do you have a specific question about online marketing? Send an e-mail to shannon@sitemasher.com , and we'll try to post a blog on the topic in the future (and possibly do the research for you, if we don't know.) If you want to share similar experiences on this topic, I encourage you to leave a comment!

How Twitter Can Help Online Marketing and Tips

2008-06-25T13:57:00.000-07:00

Twitter has been around and popular in the U.S. for more than a year with millions of users. The iPhone is coming to Canada in a few weeks and I am sure Twitter will become more mainstream and adopted in Canada. Why? Because the iPhone can host the already popular Twitter application, it can be integrated with your Facebook and your blog, and it is very accessible to input your tweets anywhere, anytime.

More than a year ago, I went to a conference in San Jose and was introduced to Twitter. I was initially not sold on it, nor did I understand why someone would use it. I wasn’t convinced because I didn’t see the relationship and benefits with other social media spheres myself. Recently I integrated it with my Facebook , iPhone and Seed the Web blog and I discovered that it is a great way to get the word out about yourself, company or blog. It is a good medium for expressing yourself and networking with others with common interests. I now see how beneficial it is, if Twitter is fully integrated with other mediums, you can see better results in a whole (synergy).

How I have my Twitter set up:

So what is Twitter?

It’s a micro blog that allows you to send updates (aka “tweets”) to the Twitter website, similar to the Facebook status (with a limit of 140 character input). People want to tell the world what their likes and dislikes are and what they are doing “right now.”
It helps you find people with similar interests. You can follow them, and others can follow you.
It’s an instant-messaging-meets-social-media-networking tool.
Twitter is one of the most popular applications on the iPhone.

What Twitter can be used for:

Pull marketing tactic vs. push.
Quick answers to random questions – you can throw a question out and anyone can answer you.
Telling others about breaking news within the industry.
Promoting your company’s name, sharing your blog posts or news.
Saying weird stuff (with your company’s name mentioned for a subtle plug of course!).

Samples of real-life opportunities:

From my experience so far at Sitemasher, we’ve had potential customers contact us and tell us that they found out about Sitemasher via Twitter. Others have given us feedback that they found us on Facebook, saw the tweets about Sitemasher on our status and clicked through on our blog links to find out more about our website builder/content management platform (CMS). Sitemasher has also seen increases in its blog traffic, Twitter followers and friends requests in Facebook. In the end, it increased the communities that we’re involved with, which can also increase new customer leads as we’re tapping into a larger audience with the same likes.

10 key takeaways to integrate Twitter with other tactics to get better results.

Show full transparency and authenticity. Open an account at Twitter.com with a real name – use your name and not an alias, so people can search and follow you. Also, when you use a real name and picture, people will trust you more.
Lurk and learn before you leap. Watch how others interact, post links, and ask questions – learn from them.
Interact and give value. You can be funny, educational, on-the-know and down-to-earth.

Sample tweets:

Have a library of tweets. Make sure you have a bunch of tweets before you really start to find followers, so others can view your tweets and know your personality and the value of your feeds – they’ll make that decision to follow you back or not.
Try to follow those who you ultimately want to follow you back. Anytime you “follow” (which is like becoming a friend on other social networks like MySpace, Facebook, or Digg), it sends a notification to that user. And they may follow you.
Track and search tweets for key words that you’re interested in. I will go to Google Custom Search (in Beta) or summize.com and search for tweets on topics that I’m interested to or related to my business and start to follow those people. The people I look for are the ones with the same likes/dislikes as mine and those who give great links to tips, new technology services and who also do updates on a continual basis. This is a good way to keep up on your reputation management to see who is twittering about your company, and if it is positive or negative. Also gives you a chance to react and fix situations that may be negative.

Sample search on Summize.com:
Integrate with other tactics. I discovered that if I integrated Twitter with other social media realms, my reach increases and I save time. I have my Twitter feed automatically update my Facebook status (you need to download the application in Facebook to your profile). I posted my feed on my blog to show visitors what I’m doing or saying at the moment, and I downloaded the Twitter application on my phone, so I can tweet on-the-go.

Sample Twitter feed on blog:

Subtly promote your company. Don’t do all business speak – not a hard sell – take your suit off! Start casual conversations with the people you like or have something in common with. Don’t sell them – make acquaintances only. Get familiar with inappropriate spam.
Make a commitment. At first you may feel like you’re talking to no one, but you’ll gain followers in no time – don’t get disheartened – nothing good is easy!
Advertise your Twitter feed and let people know you are Twitter friendly. They also may find you through Facebook, blog, search results or other advertising medium (business cards, e-mail signature). Insert it on your e-mail signature or even write it on the back of your business cards.

Sample email signature:

Additional Twitter reading: Guidance, Tools and Resources at Website Magazine.

Social Media Strategy – Running a Customer Contest via Flickr or YouTube

2008-06-13T22:20:00.000-07:00

I want to share a good example of how to run a photo/video contest through a social media site like Flickr or YouTube and how it can work for your company’s online marketing strategy. I think this is a brilliant example to get your customers involved. It is also an easy way to implement with very little IT investment - a matter of copying and pasting a code snippet from Flikr on your site. A few years back I did a similar contest with an online store and it was high maintenance (manual process) as I had not thought of this method, nor were the social media sites as friendly to execute such a campaign.

Here’s how you can use social media site for a contest and tips:

Host the contest on a video-sharing (like YouTube, Vimeo or Viddler) or photo-sharing site (like Flikr).
Advertise the contest details on your website with simple and clear instructions. Give the link for where to upload the media piece for the contest. Is it a video or photo contest? Be clear on what they should tag the video or photo so you can review them and pull them through your site (like a mashup).
Define a specific tag or channel that can be used for your contest - making sure the tag is not so generic that it could accidently be used for other photos or videos.
Use the top favorites is an indicator of finalists - no need to collect votes via a form on your site. YouTube or Flickr does all the work and tallying for you!

Entice the contestants to send out the link of the contest on your site to their friends and family to vote for them. This is where it can become very viral!
Advertise your contest everywhere you can. If your company has a blog, Facebook or twitter account – make sure you cross-promote the contest and link to it! Try sending out a press release if it is a big contest.
Use a mashup to advertise and show off your contest. A mashup is a mini application that combines the submitted videos or photos that were defined under a particular tag on the social media site (i.e., YouTube or Flickr). You can obtain the code snippet from the host site and display the mashup on your website, blog etc by simply copying and pasting the html code. The mashup is dynamically (shows up right away) updated whenever anyone submits a piece to that category.
Define a deadline date and use three to five top votes as finalists and send out a message to all participants asking for votes on the finalists. You can obtain longevity and more interactivity when you include your customers with the final voting!

This is a continuation from my “How Social Media Can Help You With Your Online Marketing Strategies” blog after attending Darren Barefoot’s The Many-Armed Starfish: Social Media Marketing 101. He mentioned a case study that is similar to above idea.

Social Media Strategy – Tips for Attracting Influential Bloggers

2008-05-30T10:00:00.000-07:00

Enticing influential bloggers to blog about your company can be a very successful online marketing tactic. This is such an exciting topic that I wanted to share some examples of social media strategies and tips to help you execute them.

This is a continuation from my “How Social Media Can Help You With Your Online Marketing Strategies” blog after attending Darren Barefoot’s The Many-Armed Starfish: Social Media Marketing 101. Some key take-aways are incorporated below.

This is a great tactic if influential bloggers write about you or your company, it can reach a large network of people (potential visitors to your site), help with your search engine optimization and page rank, and your overall company branding and awareness.

How can it reach so many people?
Large influential bloggers may have their blogs fed into a huge web network that is tapped into subscribers, aggregators (dynamically pulled through sites that serve posts in real time), directories, search engine results and social tagging sites. If it is a high-traffic blog, it can literally tap into hundreds, thousands or even millions of readers!

11 tips on how to entice bloggers to write about your company:

Pitch a story in an unusual way – I would not be surprised if a site like TechCrunch gets at least 25 pitches per day. So don’t send the same kinds of pitch the others are, or you won’t be given a second.
Show your creativity - Send something creative, yet relevant. Don’t send a press release or dry marketing fluff.
Make sure the story you are pitching is newsworthy – Pitch an event, product/company launch, something innovative, or something that is time-sensitive.
Don’t send a blanket pitch - If it is evident that you blasted an e-mail to a bunch of bloggers, it will be ignored. Customize it and be personable and down to earth. Know the author and talk to him/her. Corporate sales tactics won’t work.
Try to offer exclusivity – Bloggers may want to be the first to blog about a story if it is a huge. They want to be on the cutting edge of their topics or expertise.
Make sure you understand and relate to the blogger - Research the author and question yourself if it is a complementary blog to what your story is about. Sometimes you can read the blog author’s biography or understand the objective or theme of the site just by reading a few posts. Know whom you are talking to and talk his or her language.
Give schwag – Some bloggers like to receive free giveaways and I bet that something that comes via snail mail or Fedex can possibly receive more attention than e-mail.
Beware - Understand a journalist vs a new-age blogger. Some journalists can get freaked out if you are too personable and creative.
Pay it forward - If you have a blog of your own, post or comment on the blog. You can use this tactic to return the favor (after they blogged about you) or use it as a tactic to get their attention before sending them your pitch. If you have a fair amount of traffic and first blog about them, they may be aware that you sent them traffic if they watch their server stats or have a reputation management service (like Google Alerts). So when you send in the pitch they may want to return the favor. Note: this is usually with smaller blogs as the larger ones cannot review all the server stats and may not notice you. You can also send them a quick e-mail saying “Hey I blogged about you, check it out here…”
Be persistent – Don’t get disheartened if you were turned down or not noticed. Try following up, but be courteous with the timeline and your persistence – don’t stalk them either.
Make connections before you need them. Mediocre marketers try to befriend bloggers when they need them. Good marketers befriend bloggers before they need them.

Other tips on getting bloggers’ attention:

How to Get in TechCrunch - http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2006/11/how_to_get_in_t.html
Top Ten Things You Can Do To Get Blogged - http://www.techcrunch.com/2005/09/08/top-ten-things-you-can-do-to-get-blogged/
Blogger Relations 101 - http://www.toprankblog.com/2006/10/blogger-relations-101/
How to Suck Up to a Blogger - http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2006/02/how_to_suck_up_.html

If you want to share similar experiences on this topic, I encourage you to leave a comment!

How Social Media Can Help With Your Online Marketing Strategies

2008-05-27T14:50:00.000-07:00

What is social media?

Looking back to the ‘70s or before, some marketers recognize that hanging around the water cooler at work, talking about happenings and experiences was a form of social media. So, technically, we can say that social media has really been around for decades!

Wikipedia equates social media as the newer age interaction with regards to technology and the Internet:

"Social media is an umbrella term that defines the various activities that integrate technology, social interaction, and the construction of words, pictures, videos and audio. This interaction, and the manner in which information is presented, depends on the varied perspectives and "building" of shared meaning, as people share their stories, and understandings."

Recently, I attended a British Columbia Association of Integrated Marketers (BCAIM) luncheon seminar and wanted to share useful insights when considering social media for corporate goals and implementations. The topic was "The Many-Armed Starfish: Social Media Marketing 101 with Darren Barefoot and Julie Szabo of Capulet Communications.

So why is there such a buzz with social media with marketers?

Because it really works.
Many online marketers have found that they can leverage social media to get the word out about their company, product or services at a larger scale.
If executed right, it can have a great return on investment and be an integral part of growing a business online.
Social media has much more impact and can scale up easier than traditional advertising tactics.
Social media has lower costs than traditional marketing tactics – with barely any technological setup or subscription costs attributed to it. Beware though, a major misconception is that social media is 100 percent free. That is totally incorrect, social media needs the human factor to massage, tweak, and invest time in. It is an ongoing project that will need love and attention, which in return can be employee salaries or outsourcing costs to manage such campaigns. If you really think it is magic and it’s only a matter of setting up a Facebook or blog account and walking away from it – you’re mistaken!
More people are participating and hanging around social media because the tools are more assessable for the average person (cheaper laptops, cameras and camcorders) as well as the free or cheap delivery forms available (blogs, wikis, forums, podcasts, video and image-sharing portals, micro-blogs [like twitter], social networks like Facebook and MySpace).
These social mediums allow users to communicate with the masses and more important with silo communities (people with the same likes and dislikes as you). And these silos may not be obtainable within your physical community, so the online availability just snowballs and allows you to reach audiences you never had before.

Julie and Darren shared with us that social media can help your company with:

Media relations
Customer engagement
Market research
Advertising
Competitor intelligence
Word-of-mouth
Public relations

How social media helps with your corporate goals may depend on what mix of forms you choose to participate in. These forms are changing and new ones will always be introduced. Keeping that in mind, you may need to adapt to the protocols for each medium.

If you follow some of the basic tips (some are from the seminar I attended and some are also from my own experiences and other readings); you should be able to reap the benefits of social media:

Be authentic and transparent - Don't try to hide behind anything or a customer persona (like a fake happy customer). You'll always be found out and it will harm you. If you don’t agree, read more about the Wal-mart fake blogs; also known as “Flogs” .
Listen before you leap - Understand how and why others use the medium. Feel comfortable first before jumping in. Lurk and check out how others are using the medium. Once, I was pressured by my boss to jump in and comment on the blog sphere and I sort of spammed it (didn’t know the rules yet). I was called on it right away by another comment and they were appalled. That is a great sample of what not to do! I realized that I had to learn more on how to better interact in the blog sphere.
Monitor the web - Keep track of who is talking about you and what they are saying. Use tools that help for your company’s reputation management. I use Blogpulse and Google Alerts, they are both free tools. If you are a larger company global company you may consider a reputation management service that is more robust and a subscription service (like Meltwater News or Sentiment Metrics).
Participate in the conversation - Jump in and get involved, especially when it is negative. If you don’t participate or own up to negative comments, it will not leave a good impression and you cannot rectify and turn the situation around. In the social sphere, negative comments can be embedded everywhere. If you show some sincerity and honesty when responding to a negative comment, you will be respected – everyone knows you are human. Don’t ignore negative situations or it will snowball. Kryptonite Lock did exactly what not to do, read more about it here on how it harmed them.
Try different forms of social media and integrate them - Try at least two to three different forms of social media tactics and cross-promote each of them. For example, have a Facebook group and cross-promote your company blog. Twitter about your new blog posts. Connect your twitter to your blog and Facebook status Feed.
Commit to social media and be realistic - It takes more than just opening an account with a tool and waiting for people to come find you. This is the hard part, only commit to ones that you can really nurture and spend time with. Book time every day or week to participate, massage and learn from it. Make a true commitment.

I really think Social Media should be a part of your online marketing strategy, read my blog on “Multi-dimensional Online Marketing.” At Sitemasher, I have found some effective tactics with Facebook, blogging, social tagging and micro-blogging. I still have lots to learn as this is such an evolving medium, so I may also pick up Barefoot's new book to learn more from an expert, once it’s published (probably early 2009).

If you want to share similar experiences on this topic, I encourage you to leave a comment!

How to Advertise on Facebook to Increase Website Traffic

2008-05-12T13:13:00.000-07:00

I tested out Facebook Ads recently and thought it was an effective strategy as well as very easy to set up and maintain. If you ever want to test out online advertising to increase your website traffic and get more customers, I’d recommend starting with Facebook Ads.

Facebook advertising is an effective way to attract targeted customers. That is, if it complements your business and you can segment out your target audience (your ideal customer) within Facebook. Compared to Google, MSN and Yahoo paid advertising, it is more simplistic and less time-consuming. Facebook can be a good way to get your feet wet and test the waters and also be on the forefront of online marketing.

Getting Started
You can set up your Facebook ad campaign within minutes. All you need is your personal Facebook account and a credit card handy. Log in and select on the left-hand side of your profile page “Ads and Pages” and then select the green button “create an Ad”. The wizard will take you through the steps.

First Step – Define Your Landing Page:

If you want to advertise on Facebook to drive traffic to your website, you don’t need a Facebook page or a Facebook group. You can specify the ad when clicked, to go to your URL (i.e., www.sitemasher.com) or alternatively you can link it to your Facebook page or group. You can use a Facebook page as a company microsite, blog, news, or even forum. For my campaign though, I thought it made sense to go directly to our corporate site and not our Facebook group.

Second Step – Choose Your Audience:
Facebook advertising can be filtered by personal profile interests with its advanced targeting feature. For example, I ran an ad to recruit web designers and developers to join our pilot program. I was able to serve the ad to both Canadian and U.S. members who had web design and/or developing stated within their profiles. Since that is our target audience (developers as well as web designers), I was able to really filter who can see our ad and not waste our budget. So anyone who is logged in with those interests may see our ad served on the left-hand side of Facebook.

You can also target by age, gender, and location. Facebook has more than 70 million active users, so it is highly recommended to filter your ad serving unless you have very deep pockets or a product or service that everyone will love.

Third Step – Create Your Ad
Write a short and sweet compelling text ad and title. I recommend having a very concise call to action (i.e, sign up, buy or win) so that your audience gives you the desired results; or if they are not interested, they don’t click on your ad. You have a choice to add a graphic element, which I highly recommend – so that it catches the member’s attention. You can simply use your logo or have a graphic designer create a graphical ad to complement your message/and or campaign. The graphic needs to be a size of 110 by 80 pixels. Sometimes you will see long skyscraper ads in Facebook, but I couldn’t figure out how you can submit one that size. I believe the longer skyscraper ads are being served by a third-party advertising program and not available through this Facebook ad signup process.

Fourth Step – Set Your Budget:
Facebook advertising offers two choices: One is CPC based (cost-per-click – you bid and pay for each click on your ad) and the other is CPM based (cost-per-thousand – you bid and pay for every thousand impressions/views your ad shows up on Facebook). Bidding is how much you are willing to pay for the ad; it doesn’t necessarily mean that it will be that – most times, it is less. I bid on the cost-per-clicks; I personally find that CPM is not the most ideal way of controlling a budget or understanding the true value.

It’s important to realize that Facebook advertising will have a lower click-through rate versus Google Ads – so don’t compare it apples to apples. On Facebook, people are not really looking actively for anything specific like they may be on Google Search. They may click on your Facebook ad because they may be interested as it targeted to the profile and they may want to wander off of their profile page.

Also, don’t be disappointed that your click-throughs are low, take a look at the Facebook analytics, your impressions may be high (how many times your ad showed up), which can be good for your brand awareness.

What I think about Facebook Ads

Although I do give Facebook thumbs-up for its ease and profile targeting, I think it does have room for lots of improvement. I think the analytics can use some work, it would be nice as an advertiser to see what key words in the profile promoted the ads, which key words had click-throughs and what were the matching average demographics (i.e. ages and sex) of the profiles that had the ad triggered for their pages. I also find the billing a little quirky; I get billed $15 here and there and it would be nice to have one billing invoice per month and ability to have multiple accounts. It would also be nice if the ad sizes could be longer like the skyscraper ads that are being served within Facebook but somehow are not accessible through Facebook ads.

If you want to share similar experiences on this topic, I encourage you to leave a comment!

How to Discover Key Words for Search Engine Optimization

2008-05-05T09:54:00.000-07:00

First let’s understand why we need to research key words.

It is commonly known that many businesses try to improve the key word density within their website. They are optimizing their site for the search engines. In the end, they expect to get more site traffic and customer conversions.

From my experience, you cannot assume or guess how people search for your product or service, and leave it at that. If you do, I am sure your website traffic will be limited and you may have a hard time growing site traffic and your customer base. The most surprising key words can actually get you site visitors who convert to customers. Each business is unique. I have been through the key word discovery process a lot and have constantly been surprised at some of the key word strings that can bring website visitors. Once you discover some search strings, you can ultimately optimize one page within your site and receive even more customers.

The trend is that people don’t really search by one key word anymore. The focus should be on multi-word key words – which are also known as key word strings. For example, who would think that someone would be looking for an anti-aging skincare product by the search term “How to Treat Hyperpigmentation?” A few years ago, people new to the net would likely search by one key word. Now we understand search better and we are aware that if we type in a more focused search string (multi-words), the more likely we will get relevant search results on the first try.

These key words will ultimately help you with your search engine optimization and in the end your website will receive more relevant traffic that may convert into a customer or give you the desired results you are looking for from your website visitors.

How to discover key words:
The following are great starting points to discover and validate key words that you can focus on:

Use your existing key words in your sales collateral, website or press release as a starting point.
Run searches for alternates and plurals in key word tools online (like Wordtracker, Google Keyword Tool or Webmaster Toolkit to discover alternates that you may not have known.
Check out competitors’ websites
o Read their website body copy.
o View source and check out their title tags, meta key words and descriptions within each of the main pages.
o Run a key word analysis report on your competitors site.
Ask your customers how they’d search for you on the net (what key words).
Review your website analytics under the “Referrals” area, it can tell you some key words that are leading people to your site.

So, what the heck do I do with these key words?
So you have a large list of key words – what the heck do you do with them now? Below are some best practices for implementing key words. If you follow some of these rules and processes, it will be easier for you to implement and understand how to optimize a site for search engines. You will also start seeing increased traffic and potentially more customers within a month because you are following some of the things that the search engines love about the so-called key-word-dense sites.

Try to use Excel spreadsheet and sort key words by themes and then match up each set to every page on your site that is appropriate to the messaging for each page.
Focus on a small set of key words for each individual page. These small sets of key words should be theme-based or complementary to the message that is in the body of the particular page you are optimizing. Don’t ever try to insert all possible key words within an inside page or even your home page. Try to focus on three to six key words or one to three key word strings max for each page.
Implement these key word sets within all elements of your chosen page including your title tag (shows up in the browser title), meta tag description (hidden text that is usually the search results description), meta tag key words (hidden text), image alt tags (hidden text – but can see it when you roll over an image) as well as the content writing of the body (the visible text).
Choose the theme set of key words that are most important for your company and try to use them for your home page.
Each page should have a good mix of matching key words within the body text, hidden tags, title and image alt tags. Do not stuff key words within the title that are not within the page content – trust me, that will most likely not bring you traffic!
If you choose a small set of key words for each page – you are optimizing that page for the search results, so make sure the meta description sums up the description for that page.
If you found that some very important key words are not implemented within the content writing of the page, try to incorporate it or suggest it to your boss or your content writer to do so.
Try to link any key words or key word sets within your site to the relevant page (hyperlink and cross-link pages within your site – Google gives you more brownie points for this).
Try to incorporate key words within any outside links to your website.
Don’t try to focus on one general key word for a page – if it is too general, everyone else is most likely going after it.

Key word density is one of many search engine strategies. Read more on “What is Search Engine Optimization,” if you implement a few strategies, they will all help with growing your website traffic.

If you want to share similar experiences on this topic, I encourage you to leave a comment!

Comparing Website Optimization to Search Engine Optimization

2008-04-28T10:46:00.000-07:00

It is important to note that website optimization is different than search engine optimization. I sometimes hear people interchange them - thinking they are the same thing. If you search on the net for website optimization, you will also get results that equate it to SEO. Guess what? I think they are wrong! Many larger online retailers know the difference between the two, and it was clearly dissected for me at last year’s Internet Retailer Conference in San Jose. I really think all website owners have a lot to learn from multi-channel merchants online as they already have this down to a science.

Search engine optimization is a strategy to get more site traffic by having more exposure on the search results; website optimization is a strategy to enhance your website experience to avoid that traffic from abandoning your site. For website optimization, it is all about raising your conversion rate (your desired reaction, like a sale or interaction) once visitors are on your site.

My definition of search engine optimization (aka SEO):
In most simplistic terms, search engine optimization (SEO) is a combination of tactics to make your website show up in the search engine results pages (and for the most part the first page or top 10 organic results) This process is to raise your website traffic with relevant visitors who may convert into customers or give you the desired interaction with your website or with your business. For a snapshot of some strategies for SEO, read more on my blog “What is Search Engine Optimization?”

My definition of website optimization (aka WSO):
It is making your site better once you have the site visitor. It is the little changes and tweaks to landing and inside pages, usability considerations and overall site architecture that make the site visitor to most likely convert better.

Website owners spend so much time and investment on website visitor acquisitions (SEO and SEM) and barely any efforts on optimizing conversions and retention. If you had a website with 10,000 visitors per month and 1.5 percent of the traffic actually converted into a sale or a lead form, would you spend more time to double your traffic? You’d probably answer yes. But what if you had some way to double your conversion with the same traffic? Which way would be more effective in the long term and give you a higher return on investment?

I learned some tips and best practices about website usability at the Internet Retailer Conference on website optimization. I wanted to test this theory and did some minor enhancements to an online store I managed. Before the changes, the site had a consistent 1.8 percent conversion rate that became orders online (compared to overall site visitors). I implemented some usability tweaks to optimize the website like incorporating bread crumbs (navigation hints), location hints for the checkout, toll-free and guarantee blurb on every page. Believe it or not, we watched the conversion rate increase to 3 percent the very next month! We could have doubled our pay-per-click budget to make more money, and we didn’t. But these minor website optimization changes allowed us to get more money from the existing traffic. We have now doubled our sales without putting any more budgets into online advertising or SEO. These combined enhancements lowered our shopping cart abandonment because it enhanced the user experience during the shopping experience.

Website optimization can include a mix of the following:

Enhancing website performance: Sometimes websites are slow and the site visitors will bounce off the site if they experience it. You can use online tools to measure how fast your website reacts to requests (I use http://www.websiteoptimization.com/services/analyze/index.html ). Switching hosting providers can solve this issue. Making sure you are not on a shared server with other sites that can slow your website down. A decent hosting company will have burstable solution where you are not capped or affected. Or there are software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies that have a great scalable solution, like Sitemasher has. (Disclaimer: I work at Sitemasher as the Online Marketing Manager). Also, make sure that your website is built on a good platform (online store, or Content Management System that is scalable and does not have issues with bloated databases that will hog the server memory) or find out how to clean up your databases to make your site run faster, if that is the case.

Advertising to and linking to relevant landing pages: Making sure whatever pages you are linking to from external campaigns on directories or banner ads are relevant and have the same messaging. Don’t direct all campaigns to your home page. If you have a banner ad for widgets, then link it to the widget page and not your home page. The more you leave your site visitors to hunt for the info, the more likely the drop-off will happen. Tim Ash, author of “Landing Page Optimization” is a huge advocate of optimizing your website landing pages. He delves really deep into this one strategy and articulates this practice so well that you will be sold that this alone is one of the best strategies and something that you should work on every day.

Tweaking usability and design: Look at the tiny details and try to get into your customers’ minds to determine what they want on your site. Learn what others have learned. Incorporate best practices for usability, for example: the checkout button is on top right and search bar on every page. Don’t try to be “different” or “cool” and let the site visitor guess at how to interact with your website. Keep the common-sense stuff consistent.
Enhancing experience and navigation: Help your site visitors find information and navigate back and forth. Use bread crumbs stating how deep the site visitors are in the site and give them ability to go back to first level with one click (non-linear), add hints to where they are on checkout (i.e. “you are on step 1 of 4”) and also have a sitemap link and search on every page.
Encouraging interaction for help: Have multiple points of contact available for your users for support. Online chat is a good one (like HelpOnClick or LivePerson). People want answers and support instantly, and will most likely not want to wait for an e-mail response later or the next day. Have a phone number, help topics and e-mail contact as backup. Having multiple help and support mediums might save you from losing a customer. I have found that for some small online stores, may have first-timers calling in orders or asking live chat questions – they only want to check out if you respond and are actually legit. In those cases, they will probably not ask for support the second time, as they may trust you from the first experience. Also, inquiries and concerns from such customers can actually give you ideas how to optimize your website further, so welcome every one of them. Some will most likely be issues you never even thought of!

There are many more ways and best practices to optimize your website and above are some good starting points. The important thing is that you start to analyze your website metrics and review the small changes as you go to see if they have made an impact. I would not recommend doing many changes at once, and if something does not have beneficial impact, you can change it back. Your website can and should get better when you understand the impact – it is an evolving process!

If you want to share similar experiences on this topic, I encourage you to leave a comment!

What is Search Engine Optimization

2008-04-21T10:43:00.000-07:00

In most simplistic terms, search engine optimization (SEO) is a combination of tactics to make your website show up in the search engine results pages (and for the most part the first page or top 10 organic results). This process is to increase your website traffic with relevant visitors who may convert into customers or give you the desired interaction.

Those visitors will use certain key word strings (two to three words and most likely not your company name, unless you’re Nike or Sephora). You will need to somehow figure out what those key word strings are and tweak your SEO strategies constantly to get the desired effect.

Sounds vague to you, right?

You are not the only one! The reason it is vague is that there are many search engine optimization strategies and tactics, and they are constantly evolving; because the heavyweights like Google and Yahoo change the rules and will not share the formula with you. The reason they keep it all a secret is because they want to bump out the spammers and black hats (online marketers who try to trick the system). Remember the days when you typed in “Britney Spears” and you got directed to a sex site? Google now serves relevant pages for search terms, and it is all because its algorithms are more complex. Algorithms are basically a mix of variables that is hard to count for one factor being the result.

I like how William Flaiz articulated SEO in his blog: Standards? We Don't Need No Stinkin' Standards!

"The goal of SEO is to increase the search rankings of a client for specific terms. No matter how you rationalize it, whether you think you're increasing a pages relevancy, optimizing a site to search engine standards, or ’building connections,’ we're manipulating search results. The point of a search engine is to provide the most algorithmically relevant pages to a user. "

“SEO is a discipline of balance, and careful mixture of human and algorithmic input is necessary to create truly helpful listings. "

SEO strategies that help your business grow online:
The following are just a few samples of different search engine optimization (SEO) strategies that make your website search engine friendly and that, in the end, increase relevant traffic to your site:

Key word discovery and enhancements: Using tools and competitors’ websites to find out what key word strings to focus on. Also using your analytics or even your pay-per-click campaigns (if you are doing any) for some key word ideas. Looking at each page as an opportunity to focus on a theme of a few key words. This strategy can always be tweaked and enhanced as you learn more about your target audience and how they arrive at your site.

Content-rich copy: Writing your web copy with key word strings that your potential customer or site visitor will search for you.

Making sure site architecture is crawlable: Having html pages that can be read by the search engine robots (not a Flash site), having pages that are not dynamic (choosing the right CMS or e-commerce platform), having navigation links that are readable from home page, constantly tweaking and cross-linking pages throughout your site. Linking to sitemap from your pages, and having a robots follow in header (not a “no follow”).
Posting fresh content on a continual basis: If you have a website that has fresh content, the search engines will come back and index your site more in the results pages. Also more new content means you will also have more key word strings and potentially more traffic. Having a blog is a great way to add fresh content, and the search engines love how crawlable they are.
Rolling out the red carpet for the search engines: Includes having a robots.txt and a sitemap.xml with all your pages listed and ranks. The search engines also need you to pay attention to and label every inside web page with unique title tag, meta description, key word tags, image alt tags that match or complement the content within that page. Read my blog on “Why Use Google Sitemaps.” (also, check out Danny Dover's SEO Cheat Sheet - I think it is quite handy!)
Link building: Have complementary sites link to your site. The more relevant and complementary key words the linking site has to your business, the more it will so-call lift your rankings.
Social media tagging: Get your site listed by tagging (which is kind of like getting yourself categorized by key words in directories). This can include digg, del.icio.us etc.
Universal search: Optimizing and labeling/tagging images, video and news with key words. More and more you will see these popping up in the results page versus just text links.
Local search listings: Getting your company listed in local search, also making sure you put your full address with zip/postal code in text in the footer of your pages or contact page, Google picks that up as well.
Using website statistics: Analyzing, interpreting and looking for opportunities and ongoing tweaks for key words.
Avoiding black-hat strategies: This is a bad-guy strategy. Avoid using duplicate doorway pages, cloaking multiple sites with same content, stuffing key words in same color as your background and in invisible Div’s. You can maybe trick Google for a short while, and it would be very hard to get relisted in the index, if they find out and penalize you for it. Follow rules stated in Google Webmasters area and you should be fine.

Each of the tactics above warrants further explanation in separate blogs and you can really invest more time dissecting individual areas and tactics. The more you work on SEO best practices, the more likely it will grow your website traffic. I also like to term SEO as a full-circle process and not linear – you can learn from one SEO tactic that can further help another. SEO is all about research, analyzing, interpreting and tweaking - definitely not a one-time project!

Complementary to search engine optimization (SEO) is search engine marketing (SEM) strategies and for the most part are online marketing campaigns that may have some hard costs (outside of someone’s time to implement). For example: pay-per-click advertising, cost-per-acquisition initiatives, paid directories, banner advertising, e-mail marketing. Read my blog on “Multidimensional Online Marketing Tips” – it will give you some ideas on having a mix of SEO and SEM strategies.

If you want to share similar experiences on this topic, I encourage you to leave a comment!

Multi Dimensional Online Marketing Tips

2008-04-04T14:42:00.000-07:00

Recently, I went to Vancouver's Massive Trade Show and Conference. Two conference tracks I attended are the Online Marketing 101 track (with Chris Breikss from 6s Marketing, David Scott from Entellium, Fred Vallaeys from Google, and Joanne Acri from Yahoo) as well as the New Media track (with Monica Hamburg, Warren Baxley from InterCall, Rebecca Bollwitt from E-xact Transactions, Linda Bustos from Elastic Path). They all had great suggestions for website owners, as well as beginner and advanced online marketers!

What I learned personally overall, I would say that online marketing should be multidimensional and you need to test the waters on the proper mix for your business. Whatever tactics you use online; try, test, measure and tweak your mix constantly - you'll be on the way to online success. The presenters had summed up some points quite well (better than I could have explained). Below are just a few of the many pointers and tips the speakers shared with the attendees.

Tip #1 - Any site owner should not depend on one tactic at a given time, or it will be one-dimensional and ineffective. Know your consumer and figure out your mix. Have an integrated marketing program. Your mix can include a combination of any of the following:

E-mail marketing.
Social Media - Can include blogging, participating in forums and other social media tactics, there are so many now, it is hard to keep up (Facebook, MySpace etc.).
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) - Trying to show up on the search engine results without paying for ads. This can include making sure your site is crawlable, having outbound/inbound links, good site architecture, and a key-word-rich website. Keep in mind that it is evolving to universal search with images, videos and external pages you have on the social networks as well. Make sure your pages have the proper key words and multi-media are tagged appropriately.
Search Engine Marketing (SEM) - Paid advertising via the search engines (Google, MSN and Yahoo). These usually show up in sponsored search results as well as on ad placements within the content network. Can also include text, image or video ads served through Universal Search.
Banner Ads being served via third-party or portal-site sponsorships.
Cost-per-Acquisitions (CPA) - This can include referral program (or even affiliate marketing), where you pay other sites that give you leads or conversions (signups or paying customers). This can include new CPA programs, which will be evolving.
Traditional Advertising - Any traditional advertising like print, magazine and video should be complementary or enforce whatever you have online and tie in to either convert or track on landing pages.

I am a huge advocate of this Multi-dimensional Marketing, but in the past I have had a hard time trying to convince my clients on the different tactics (before I was with Sitemasher as the in-house marketer). It was hard to convince my clients and explain the "halo" effect and how all the chosen online strategies will sooner or later snowball and show results. Unfortunately most marketers (or business owners) either ignore MDM or simply aren't aware of the possibilities. I am happy that others (like the presenters at Massive) are advocates of MDM and are trying to educate business owners that there is potential.

Tip #2 – Multidimensional marketing should be looked at as longer-term online exposure versus a one-shot advertising effort. Also, a mix-and-match approach should be adopted at the same time to get the "halo" effect.

So what is the "halo" effect? David Scott explained it as a situation where you use multiple media and tactics to reach your customers and you have "lift" with branding. Chris from 6S marketing mentioned "brand equity." You should look at efforts as a full campaign and complementary. If you are not Nike or Apple, it may take potential customers to see your brand multiple times (also known as impressions) in different areas (i.e., e-mail marketing, in a forum or on the search results) before they include you into their "consideration set."

Tip #3 - Multidimensional marketing demands some patience and transparency when it comes to the social media tactics. Be persistent yet very careful when you venture social media.

Take your time and learn how to interact within the social sphere and don't rush it. Learn how others use this medium properly. Observe and learn the right etiquette for posting, tagging and interaction with others.
Don't expect results right away, this tactic does take time to earn brand equity.
Be transparent and don't try to fool members of the community - they are smart consumers. Don't try to pretend you are a customer of your company and post spam comments on how great you are. They will find out sooner or later (most likely sooner), and you'll be banned or negatively advertised by the community. Try to add value to the community by participating in the topics and giving value with tips. You will gain trust and credibility from the community and they will sooner or later visit your website or e-mail you for more help or advice.
If you are blogging for your company, try to focus on building thought leadership before trying to get customers. Customers will see that you have a good knowledge network and will contact you for your product or service after you’ve built trust and credibility.
Be open to negative and positive feedback. Linda Bustos suggests, "If something falls apart, own up to it and turn it around." Respond to comments in a timely and honest way. If you screwed up, state how you are going to fix it and you'll probably win them back.
Consider a reputation management tool to use and track good or bad comments that are being posted on external blogs (for example: Blogpulse).
Lightly brand media and widgets, if you overdo it with brand and sales tactics, it probably won't be distributed by the community.

Tip #4 - Go after the Long Tail. Focus on consumer fragmentation for your multidimensional tactics online. Whatever you choose for your mix, try to focus on areas where you can find fragments of your customers that will have a higher conversion rate. Check your website analytics and know where people are coming from to your site. Find them on other places and look for other opportunities to have a better impact to the "halo" (read my blog on "Web Analytics - Simply Reviewing Referring Sites for Opportunities" for some ideas). They may hang out in communities that are complementary to your business or vertical or they may be a type of customer (persona) who uses certain key word strings to find you on the search engines.

Do you have a specific question about online marketing? Send an e-mail to shannon@sitemasher.com , and we'll try to post a blog on the topic in the future (and possibly do the research for you, if we don't know.)

If you want to share similar experiences on this topic, I encourage you to leave a comment!

Search Engine Submission Budget for Small Business

2008-03-25T14:29:00.001-07:00

My experience suggests that, as a new site owner you may need to be cautious with regards to search engine submission companies. Once a published e-mail address is on your website, you can very likely be bombarded with sales e-mails like: "Get your website listed on hundreds of search engines for only $49.00!"- Seriously, run very fast, and don't respond to those messages- you'll get 10x the amount of spam in your inbox if you sign up with them. And the promises of such offers are exaggerated. It is not as easy and fast as they claim!

A more legit search engine submission program is where a service provider (typically a search marketing firm) offers to manually get you listed in the top search engines and main business/vertical directories applicable to your business. Some search marketing firms will also suggest a cost-per-click program as well to complement it, which is a very fast way to show up on the engines. For both initiatives - the budget may range from a few hundred dollars to thousand of dollars - depending on how aggressive you want to be in the local, national or global online market place. A firm that is well trained in search marketing will recommend the correct mix for you.

Tip for you: Reputable search marketing firms won't be begging you for their business and spamming your in-box! You'll probably have to contact them as they are in high demand.

Alternatively, if you have a limited budget and some extra time on your hands, you can do it yourself and get listed on the search engines on a small budget. Go ahead - test the waters!

Search Engine Submission Budget and Program for Small Business

The following is a program that incorporates four areas to focus on that I recommend any business to start out with if you have a limited budget. Factor in at least $550 to start with. Once you realize the benefits of traffic/leads to your site, you may decide to spend more time and money on other in-house or outsourced search engine marketing areas.

1) Submit to the Freebie Search Engines

Free search engine submissions are out there and you should take advantage of the ones that are applicable to your business and demographics/location. The big search engines may crawl your site at one point (sooner or even later), but you can speed up the process in some situations. Look at links at the bottom of the search engines that may read "submit site"- I also recommend that you go to Google Webmasters area and submit a Sitemap to Google and to Yahoo Submit for a URL list. Read more about "Why Use Google Sitemaps" below.

If you have a physical office or store location, sign up for Google local and you can show up on Google maps. It's free too! Some search engines need a manual request and will not automatically list you. Free search engine submissions can include DMOZ (http://www.dmoz.org/). (Note: This listing can be hard to get on- you may have to resubmit a few months later- sometimes I think the editor has a subjective reason to refrain from adding your site. It is worth your time, though, because it is a good directory.)

Tip for you: Did you also know that some of the smaller search engines actually pull in results from the bigger search engines like Google?

2) Submit to the Freebie Directories

There is a slew of directories out there that may be applicable to your business. Hunt for general business directories, local directories and vertical directories. A directory is basically a portal site or a database with listings of businesses that can also show up in the search engine results pages. Some directories will have a two-to three-tier program with the first tier being a free directory listing. Ultimately you will be solicited to pay for the premium listing. If you are unsure whether it's a good directory, sign up for the free level and wait to see from your web analytics if they bring you traffic and leads and question if the paid listing would get you more business or not. Don't feel pressured to upgrade though. Stick with the free listing until you're convinced on the paid one would add value to your business.

Tip for you: in Google/Yahoo/MSN search for "business directory" + "your city" and you'll get some ideas. Another thing you can do is a reverse look up of your competitors site and see what directories they show up on by typing in Google "link: http://www.competitorsurlhere.com/ " and you can fast track your directory submissions.

3) Pay for Selected Directories

Any site owner (small, mid-sized, non profit, personal) should consider paying for a few search directories. I would recommend any small business to sign up to the following directories:

Yahoo Directory (http://dir.yahoo.com/) - $299 USD/year
BOTW Directory (http://botw.org/) -$79 USD/year
BOTW Blog Directory (http://blogs.botw.org/) - $39 USD one-time review fee. If you have a blog within your site.

Tip for you: Sometimes if you submit to one of the BOTW directories above, they will send you a coupon code via email or their newsletter. If you need to sign up for both directories, use the coupon code for the second one!

4) Pay For and Set up a Mini Cost-per-Click Advertising Program

I am totally into -instant gratification- (and yes I am a female, not a male!) and this would be my first choice if I had just published a brand-new site. There are some search engine marketers that favor organic tactics (numbers 1-3 above) over a cost-per-click (CPC) program, but I truly believe that you can learn from CPC advertising for advanced website and search engine optimization in the future (that is another topic in itself!).

I recommend that you leverage a mini CPC program, and then you can decide to take it to another level and learn advanced CPC strategies or hand over to a professional CPC managers/ search engine marketing firm.

Here are some recommendations for your mini CPC program. Keep in mind that CPC programs can get quite complicated (believe me, I've managed complex accounts with multiple campaigns with hundreds of keywords and budgets of a few thousand dollars per month), don't deviate too much or you'll be scared away and wonder where your money went - learn slowly first!

Let's just assume that you want to start with a $5-per-day budget

Open up a Google Adwords account - There's no minimum spending requirement-the amount you pay for AdWords is up to you. You can, for instance, set a daily budget of $5 and a maximum cost of 10 cents for each click on your ad.
Set up one or two campaigns and avoid guesswork - Google provides keyword traffic and cost estimates so you can make informed decisions about choosing keywords and maximizing your budget. Use it.
Choose your geo-targeting properly or your budget will be wasted. If you own a pizza restaurant in Vancouver, only choose Vancouver. Don't waste it on people in Toronto!
Choose only a small list of keywords and include your business name! If your site isn't showing up on the search results yet, bidding on your business name is most likely only going to cost you 8 cents per click, which is cheaper than a decent business card!
Craft up two to three ads under each campaign - Google will start to serve the best ad that has click troughs.
Use phrase-match option only when you start out. It is the best way to drive qualified traffic to your site without a huge budget. I would only recommend broad match if you have a large budget and know what you are doing.

Keep in mind that the above are only some guidelines if you only had $550 to start with for the first month and to keep your Cost-per-Click program going it would be $150 per month.

Once you 've gone through the process of setting up a basic search engine submission program, consider taking one of two routes:

Learn more and push the limits of search engine marketing - this is just the tip of it.
Hire a firm or a search engine marketer. They can get results faster and you can feel more relaxed if you open up a larger budget.

If you want to share similar experiences on this topic, I encourage you to leave a comment!