SEO - the basics and a few tips and tools

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the fine art of getting your website ranked high enough by search engines like Google, so that when people do a search on your keywords, your site comes up on the first page. Sounds great. Though its not such a simple goal to achieve. The bottom line is that the search engines want the content and actual popularity of your site to be the determining factor of your rank, and they are always trying to adjust their methodology to encourage and ensure that.

Still a few basics to consider which can likely help you:

1. Page titles that start with and include keywords
2. Multiple folders (If your site is built in html) and the folders are named with key words - this helps
   
3. Text rich pages concentrated with keywords (but not so much that it turns off humans - they are in fact your primary audience!)
4. Use links with keywords when possible
   
5. Get as many people to (legitimately) link to your site - when your write an article online, or set up a blog - include your web link.
   
6. Link to other people - again keep it legit.
7. Keep the content on your home page fresh and new - this keeps the spiders (and the humans) coming back for more.
8. Of course meta tags and descriptions should also have keywords added.

If you have a great product or service, and great content which you make available for your audience, overtime your ranking will organically improve. If you want to give it a big boost, be prepared to pay - either in time or money.

SEO is a growing industry. You can pay companies to run SEO campaigns. Its often an ongoing process that takes time, frequent monitoring, trial and error, focus and patience. Web designers can incorporate some basic tactics to help boost your ranking, but this is making a site Search Engine Ready and not the same as SEO, which includes ongoing monitoring of results and tweaking the site until you have the results you want. You can do this yourself, but it takes time.

You can also consider SEM (Search Engine Marketing) and pay for a service like City Search, Reach Local or Context Web to run a targeted marketing campaign. Many of these services start at $400 p/m commitment level and that doesn't include the designing of the ads themselves.

Whether or not you're ready for such a marketing commitment, or not, be aware, the search engines are always changing their algorythms to thwart people trying to get their pages ranked higher through tricks. (Adding key words in tiny type that matches the background is one such trick.) These kind of shannanagans can get your site black listed and set your marketing back.

So what's a business to do?

Keep working on marketing your business and your site. Be mindful of SEO, but never loose site of your actual business. Content is what matters - to humans and spiders.

Below are a few tools that can help you

http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/ check out what key words get the most hits online in a particular category.

http://www.trackur.com/ Andy Beal is an ethical expert on SEO, and founded this company to help you track and monitor your brand and its reputation online. Check out his article on SEO (note: its a bit dated, but the content still quite applicable).

http://www.alexa.com/ - this site allows you to see who's searching your wesbite and which keywords they used to find you.

5 tools that help your business run better

I've been working over the past few months to systematize some of my operations. As a solo-entreprenuer, one of the best resources available to help increase my "free" time, are all the cool programs available online. So many to choose from! I thought I'd share some of the favorites I found, and hopefully save you some of the many hours I spent researching. I'm pretty sure most of the tools below come with a 30 day free trial - check the links to be sure. Enjoy!


1. PROJECT MANAGEMENT TOOLS
Hands down, I love Viewpath the best. Wrike.com comes in a close second. Also, I have a wiki - pbwiki.com - now called PBworks.com
What I was looking for:

• Accessible online
• Under $20 p/m
• Gantt chart with dependencies
• Could get a project set up in minutes (without having to read instructions)
• Could assign other people to tasks (without them having to sign up for the software)
• Could prioritize tasks
• Could enter a time estimates for tasks
• Could download the info in XLS as well as PDF
• Unlimited projects & tasks
• Integrated calendar

What each one does:

• Viewpath does it all and more - it is FREE!!! And it has tons of video and text tutorials. The calendar is not as integrated as I would have liked, but after further research - I think its the best choice for me. I don't need to collaborate with others so much. I use it mostly for internal purposes.
• Wrike.com was cool - but not cool enough. It was 20-30 p/m. I could assign people tasks, but it forced them to become wrike members. The cool feature, and I were collaborating on a big unwieldy project, this would sway me - is the intelligent email. You put the project name in your email subject lines, cc wrike.com on all your emails about a given project and presto - it automatically assigns it to the right folder. That was AWESOME. But like I say, I don't really need to collaborate. And no integrated calendar that was a deal breaker for me.
• PBWiki.com - I use this to track tons of information. Its like an intranet. I keep the login information for the gazillion accounts I have (each one wants something different, no letters, only numbers, 4-6 letters, 6-8 letters - so having one password is out the window). I take notes on projects and clients and keep it all there. I also track tons of personal stuff, vet visits with my animals for instance, a travel budget for an upcoming trip. Whatever you need to track, you can search the whole site so even if the organizational vision gets lost, you can still track important information easily. And you can invite specific people to look at or even collaborate on certain parts of of the site and not others. It wouldn't replace viewpath or wrike. I use it along with either one. Personal accounts are free.
  

2. INVOICING, ESTIMATES AND TIME TRACKING
cashboard.com won me over... though I might be reconsidering... or trying to really learn how to use it! I used to use BlinkSale - they don't have enough of the features I want,ed it was too simple. I wanted it to:

• be accessible online
• create estimates
• create duplicate estimates
  
• track time against them
• turn them into invoices
• branded estimates and invoices
  
• a time tracking widget
• time sheets both daily and weekly
• ability to pull various reports

I tried a few others, but this one had more of the features I wanted for a good price - $10 p/m.

3. PERSONAL FINANCE TRACKING
What I wanted:

• accessible online
• under $20 p/m
  
• syncs with all accounts
• provides a snapshot of all your finances
• provides a snapshot of networth
• has investment tracking
  
• could pull various reports for tax prep
• creates a budget
• tracks the budget against reality

Yodlee does it all - for FREE!!! Its perfect for our personal finances - my husband and I can both find all the info we need in one secure place. you can track EVERYTHING - mortgage payments, home value, investments, rewards, bank accounts, debts - you name it. Print reports, pay bills and more. We keep all the notes about our mortgage there, along with details of our insurance plans. And there is Mint.com, which is beautiful, though not nearly as robust. Its also FREE and perfect for a small nonprofit I chair. But it doesn't have enough power for our complex personal finances. Mvelopes was one I used for a year had high hopes for, but ultimately it just wasn't user friendly enough. And its NOT FREE!

4. REMOTE BACKUP
Jungledisk is perfect, especially if you're on a mac. I set it up in less than 5 minutes (UNPRESIDENTED!!) You can use it to drag and drop files while you work, have it back you up automatically on the schedule of your choice, and also access all your files from ANYWHERE. Great for people who work at multiple locations. And its VERY reasonably priced - just $2 p/m and 15 cents p/gig - no minimums, no maximums.

5. ENEWS LETTER
My favorite is still Constant Contact. Best bang for your buck.

THE MAGIC OF THE WEB - a marketing follow up

Earlier I talked about the magic of the web and the need to market your site if you're expecting visitors in volume. (Don't forget, when you meet someone in person, hand them your business card and brochure with your website prominently featured and tell them to visit your website. That's a solid marketing strategy, though not necessarily intended for high volume).

When it comes to online marketing, there are many ways you can go about it. And it all depends on your business goals and marketing strategies as to which way you go. For small business owners and smaller nonprofits, here are three basic ways to consider getting started.

1. Send out an enewsletter (I use constant contact)
2. Write a blog (I'm using blogger.com)
3. Advertise online (I don't do this, but I hear good things about google adwords)

One of the best ways ways to begin is by writing an enewsletter. You can send something as simple as a weekly or monthly tip, a case study, or something as complex as a complete old fashioned newsletter, with articles, interviews, and special offerings. They're a pretty simple, inexpensive, and effective tool. It allows you to stay in touch with contacts you already have and remind them of your products and services on a regular basis. Constant Contact is reasonably priced to meet any size organization's needs and has lots of reporting features, so you can see whose opening your emails and what they're interested in. You can use it to help drive traffic to your site on a regular basis or when you're running a special offer.

Another tool is a blog. You'll still have to drive traffic to the blog - but its way to position yourself as an expert in your field and give your prospects something for free. This gives them a chance to get to know you better and trust you more. One thing to consider, is that it takes time to write a blog. Make sure you're willing and able to spend the time doing it.

And the last marketing tip is to pay for online advertising. This can be very effective in terms of reach, and it can be expensive if you're expecting volume. You can run a banner ad campaigns and buy up targeted ad space. This will mean hiring a designer to design the ad, and then paying monthly to run the campaign. Alternatively you can pay a set amount each month to something like google ad words and slowly increase your traffic over time. Again, it depends on your expectations, needs and your available resources.

These are only a few examples of some of the least expensive and effective ways to start marketing on the web. So remember, first get clear on;

1. your business goals
2. the purpose of your website
   
3. and your ovearall marketing strategy
   

Then choose the online (and print) marketing tools that fit your needs and your available resources.