Posts Tagged ‘Organic SEO’

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Opt-Out Emailing as a Website Marketing Strategy: Acceptable or Not?

Monday, August 9th, 2010

In a recent article in BtoB Magazine, writer Karen J. Bannan discussed the many Website marketing professionals who have begun sending emails out to prospects without getting opt-in permission. According to the article, many upper-level executives have been pushing for opt-out e-marketing and many are giving it a serious try.

Email addresses are easily obtained from social networks such as LinkedIn and online business directories and in the U.S., there’s nothing legally stopping anyone from sending unsolicited emails as long as they comply with CAN-SPAM regulations.

According to the article, one email expert said that e-marketers who are sending emails without an opt-in are even more careful about email relevance than those who have an opt-in. It is suggested that just because you have permission to send someone an email, doesn’t mean it is a good email that people are happy to receive. Successful e-marketing makes sure the emails being sent are filled with relevant, interesting information that prospects want to read. Also the frequency at which you send emails is important because too many in too short of a time period can become annoying.

Website marketing professionals who do decide to send emails without opt-in should follow certain guidelines. First, do not email everyone at a particular company and never send messages to general email boxes such as info@companyname.com. Emails that go out to people who have not opted-in should also focus on branding and have clear “opt-in” and “opt-out” links. Also include testimonials or anything that would help your company look trustworthy.

Although sending emails to people who have not opted-in is not recommended, if the Website marketing professional includes clear headlines that aren’t misleading as well as relevant and interesting information, it is possible to receive some opt-ins. Overall, the article states that although opt-out emailing may be gaining some level of acceptance, it doesn’t mean it’s right. Email marketers who are acting without permission will always be a step behind those that do have permission.

For more information, read the full article on BtoBOnline.com.

Tags: , ,
Posted in Ethical Search Engine Optimization | No Comments »

3 Steps to Getting Ranked With Natural SEO

Tuesday, August 3rd, 2010

In a recent webinar entitled “The Perpetual Traffic Formula,” speaker, Ryan Deiss discussed the 3 key steps to getting your Web site ranked in the search engines with natural SEO. He explained that free traffic rather than pay-per click campaigns is the best way to go because of the increased competition with PPC as well as the decreasing amounts of people clicking on Google ads (only 2-5% of all clicks are on PPC ads according to Deiss).

There are three key steps to getting ranked in Google. Deiss calls these collective natural SEO steps, “The Ranking Triad.” These steps must be completed in the correct sequence to ensure a site’s success.

1. Content: Quality content is the first step to achieving an organic Google ranking. The site must have relevant, quality content (content IS king) that contains appropriate keywords without stuffing them. Also the site should have a domain name and meta tags that has a good SEO-friendly structure. Deiss suggests people to write or have someone else write at least 12 original articles containing 12 of the most valuable keywords to your site. Then post these articles in a WordPress blog as pages instead of blog posts.

2. Links: A site must have natural inbound, outbound and authority links for successful SEO. To start, drive 10-20 quality inbound links to your site, preferably from .gov and .edu sites. These are seen as the most trusted to the search engines. After completing step 3, drive 300-400 more links back to your site with blog comments, link directories and social media profiles.

3. Activity: This is the most important step that is often overlooked. Activity comes in the form of site traffic, RSS feeds, subscriptions, comments and updates. Deiss said Google is paying more attention to site activity than ever before. In order to get site activity, Deiss suggested to send some paid traffic to your blog, “dare” site visitors to comment, drive auto responder traffic back to your blog and encourage RSS subscriptions. Once your site is ranked, activity should take care of itself; however, a good way to keep encouraging activity is to send some social media or PPC traffic to your page as your site begins to get more attention.

Following the “Ranking Triad” will ensure that your site gets ranked in the search engines permanently. Following these steps in the correct order will help your site’s rankings and surpass your competition. The higher your site goes, the more revenue it means for your business. Natural or organic SEO is best in the eyes of the search engines and following these 3 steps is the best way to achieve a high ranking and stay there.

Tags: , ,
Posted in Natural Search Engine Optimization | 1 Comment »

Top 4 Things an Organic SEO Firm Would Never Do

Monday, June 21st, 2010

Many people are unaware of the fact that there are two kinds of SEO firms. Organic, white hat SEO firms, follow Google’s terms of service, don’t spam and don’t endanger your Web site of getting blacklisted. White hat SEO firms organically raise your Web site’s page rank by using keywords, submitting articles and press releases, creating traffic with blogs, social media links and many other techniques. However, there are black hat SEO firms that boost your Web site traffic unethically. These are SEO firms that put your site in danger of being blacklisted on Google which will guarantee that it is never found by anyone. To spot which SEO firms are organic, white hat firms and which are black hat, read the following list of 4 common techniques of black hat SEO firms.

Hiding content. Many black hat SEO firms hide content within the HTML coding of your Web site. One way they do this is to use comment tags to stuff keywords. This will be invisible to the site visitor but not to the search engines, which do not like keyword stuffing. Keyword stuffing is one way to get your site blacklisted and if you don’t check the HTML coding your SEO firm is providing you with, you could be in danger.

Keyword Stuffing in META tags. Organic SEO firms never keyword stuff because they know how many keywords they can use without overdoing it. However, black hat SEO firms will keyword stuff to get your site ahead at first, but eventually you’ll get caught. The META title, description and keywords should each contain a certain amount of keywords, and any more can hurt your site. The META title should contain one keyword that describes your site overall. The META description can contain one or two keywords that describe why your site is online. The META keywords section should have 3-5 keywords that you want your site to be found for. Any more than this amount of keywords in the META tags can be seen as unethical and can put your site in danger of the blacklist.

Link farming. Link farms are pages that have no other purpose than to list links of unrelated Web sites. They won’t provide any more traffic and if you participate in link farming you run the risk of getting blacklisted. Having a resource page is a better idea, this is where you can list links that are related to the content of your site to provide more information to the visitor. If the sites you link to agree to link back to you, that is an example of honest, ethical, organic SEO.

Doorway/Gateway Pages. These are pages that are designed for search engines. They’re fake pages that are stuffed with keywords and are highly optimized for 1 or 2 keywords that link to a landing page. The typical visitor will never see these pages because they’re automatically redirected to the target page, however the search engines can see them and will flag your site as spam and ban your site from appearing in the search engine results.

Tags: , ,
Posted in Ethical Search Engine Optimization | 2 Comments »

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »