Internet Marketing Smarts.com

At this point everyone knows about the existence of search engine optimization. Or you should. Owning a pretty new website doesn’t guarantee that people will know it exists or even care. Search Engine Optimization or SEO for short is the process of making your site available to search engines like Google and Yahoo. This usually means that people will be able to find your website by entering a few keywords.

Is Search Engine Optimization Magic or Science?

Some think it’s both. Now Internet marketers and SEO practitioners will have you believe that SEO is some really complicated rocket science that requires a PH. D. to figure out. Some will give you the impression that it takes some black magic where you need to throw some chicken bones about to rank highly. This is far from the truth. SEO consist of some basic concepts that if followed will help you rank well.

The "Hard" Way To Learn SEO

You can easily learn about search engine optimization by reading a book like Aaron Wall’s SEO Book. But in this day and age of short attention spans, people find reading books as fun as getting a root canal without the laughing gas. So reading a book may not be your cup of tea. You can search through Internet marketing forums but you’ll quickly find that the information is contradictory to each other. Furthermore, isolating the information is like searching for that elusive lost sock in the laundry, which is nearly impossible!

Search Engine Optimization Made Easy By Software?

So if you find the above methods of learning SEO unattractive, tools like the Internet Business Promoter are looking to make your life a lot easier with a push of a button. Or so they claim! Internet Business Promoter (IBP) is a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Software Tool that basically helps your website rank in the top 10 by stealing, I mean copying from the best. No, this is not illegal or unethical. Companies borrow from each other all the time otherwise we wouldn’t have a free market. Instead having Coke and Pepsi, you would just have Coke. So borrowing from each other is just the nature of the business.

How Does (SEO) Search Engine Software Work?

It’s really very simple.

Step 1. You fire up a free SEO software tool like Internet Business Promoter and type in your website address.

Step 2. Enter some keywords you want to rank for or the website address of your competitor that is beating the pants off you in the search engines.

Step 3. Push The Button!

Step 4. Wait for the results. Depending on how many keywords or competitors you entered, this may be a while. So go and do something productive like reading an SEO Book perhaps?

Step 5. Read the results. The great thing about this is they put the results in plain English so a person that isn’t a witch doctor or a PH. D. can understand and implement.

Step 6. Take action. Make the changes to your website or have your tech person do it.

Step 7. Pop open the bubbly and watch as your website skyrockets to the top of the results.

The End! The tool basically examines key on-page (Title, content, etc.) and some off-page elements (external links coming in, anchor text, etc.) that make up good search engine optimization. It compares your page with these elements in mind to those sites that rank better than you. The report basically provides you with the discrepancies. Presumably copying what people on top are doing should help you rank well too.

The Limitations & Disadvantages of Using SEO Software Tools.

Now in principle this all sounds great and the solution to all your search engine optimization woes. And I’ll be the first person to admit that yes it does make it a lot easier for you. But there are some things to keep in mind when using software like this.
You have to take the SEO software recommendations with a grain of salt. There are certain aspects of SEO it may tell you to target.  But in my experience some of the recommendations has little relevance. For instance it will recommend a keyword density percentage you should use. Keyword density is a fancy term for how many times a given keyword appears on a page. The software may say, "Hey all the cool kids have a keyword density of at least 5 but no more than 5. But you’re a wild boy and have 20. You might want to drop that down a few notches to 5!"

This sounds like a good idea aft first. But sometimes doing this is totally contradictory to other suggestions that the software is making in respects to a different area of the page you’re trying to optimize.  This can become tired and annoying very quickly.   The other thing to keep in mind is that most SEO software focus on on-page optimization (Although IBP does include off page factors as well). On page optimization is basically the actual content of your page and how it is displayed. It’s sort of like the skeleton of your body. Search engines like Google have robots that read your page to figure out what it’s about. Back in the hay days you could just repeat your keywords a few time on your homepage and you would rank #1 but search engines have changed this.

How To Use Search Engine Optimization Tools Effectively!

Because keyword stuffing can be easily abused, on page optimization only accounts for a small percentage of why a site might rank. So if you don’t have a decent page rank (3+ and above), a site that was online before 2000 and viewed as an authority in your industry, the SEO software may do very little in helping you rank better. But if you don’t go after really competitive keywords like "shoes" and use the tool for less competitive keywords like "Brown rubber sole shoes" the software will prove very useful.

Sure, you won’t get a lot of people searching for that long tailed keyword, but you’ll certainly rank extremely high. And if you’re smart you’ll create a lot of pages using these long tailed keywords which you can find using keyword research tool like Word Tracker. Having several of these long tailed keyword pages ranking high is like the equivalent of ranking high for "shoes" but with less competition.

Conclusion

If you use search engine software like Internet Business Promoter (IBP) for long tailed keyword as I described in the paragraphs above. You can do very well with it. But it’s not a cure all for more competitive one or two word phrases especially if you’re a brand new site with little authority. So keep that in mind when use or review SEO software. You can download a free version of one of the best SEO software tools Internet Business Promoter here.

Everyone says that content is king. But I feel like no one really gets into what that means. If I write about how my wife takes up all the bed covers now that she’s pregnant. Is that an example of content being king? I went to a search engine conference in 2007 and some folks from Google were present. A question about search engine optimization and content was asked and the Google rep said the following. "Don’t worry about search engine optimization (seo). Just write good content!"  What the f! What kind of answer is that? We all had to chuckle because Google was being as elusive as secret government agent.

Well screw that. I’m going to let the cat out the bag. I have 3 steps that have helped me secure top rankings in Google for various long tailed and regular keywords. Chances are you’ve heard some of these but I’m going to put some twists to them. So be patient.

Step 1:  Write good content first!
Huh? Didn’t I just make fun of the Google guy for saying that? Yes I did. But he is right, you should write really good content first. You should actually know about whatever you’re writing about. Otherwise people will know that you’re just babbling on and will leave your site. (more…)

There is a very interesting story on how I came about this topic of customer retention. It happened this past December when I was readying myself for the holidays. Making my list, checking it twice, you know the deal. As I was doing this I received an email from blockbuster.com

Well it was a little before Christmas day, so I figured like so many other retailers that Blockbuster was sending me some sweet coupons or a promotion to entice me to buy some stuff. Well imagine my surprise when it was a notification of a price increase. Ain’t that about a b@#tch? I couldn’t believe two days before Christmas this was Blockbuster’s idea of a gift. Talk about awful timing and coal in your stocking.

Needless to say I was livid. So I did what any other self respecting American would do. I wrote a letter whining and complaining.  I basically told them that this increase was not merited considering that they weren’t adding any new value to my membership. Especially when you consider that their competitor Netflix did just the opposite and is now offering movie downloads included in their existing memberships. Needless to say that my email fell on deaf ears. I received the traditional corporate response about their cost rising, blah blah. So at this point I was seeing red and it wasn’t Christmas red!

The Survey That Changed It All!

I took myself right over to blockbuster.com and logged into my account. (more…)

Many virgin bloggers face two issues when they first venture into blogging. The first, is lack of content inspiration and the second is getting comments on your blog posts. We’ll cover writer’s block on another post. Today I’d like to help you with the comment aspect. Having a new blog with no comments is like buying and driving a brand new range rover and no one to show it off to! What’s the point?

Okay, it’s not exactly the same thing. With blogging you should be writing because you’re passionate about what you’re blogging about. So that a lack of acknowledgment will not dissuade you from pursing your writing. Although this is important, the whole point of web 2.0 and blogging is the idea of a community and interaction. I don’t know about you but a community of 1 "ain’t" much of a community to me.  So what’s a newbie to do about getting more comments?

There are some obvious things you’ve probably read such as: Write good content, Get Your SEO skills up,  Be a celebrity and blog about nonsense. But that may not always be practical or even available to all bloggers. So here are some other ways to get more comments to you your blog.

1. Write incomplete articles.

As human beings we’re all pretty much trained to create an ending for any of the stories we tell.  That’s the whole point of telling a good story, right? That may be great when you’re reading a bed time story to junior. But (more…)