Calgary-Internet-Marketing

Archive for the ‘Internet Consulting’ Category

Congratulations to Mitch Reynolds of Life Guard Insurance for achieving Page1 Ranking on Google, Bing and Yahoo for his most important key word search phrases. He was able to do this within 8 weeks of launching his new WordPress CMS (click for definition) website.

Mitch works in one of the most competitive markets on the Internet today with over 610,000 pages to compete with. His competitors are big companies with lots of money to spend. They hire expensive website developers, pay expensive search engine optimization and link building companies and have expensive marketing experts who write their content for them. Mitch was able to do these things himself at very little cost. His investment was his time.

How did he manage it? By following a few simple instructions and investing his spare time doing some serious work.

With a little guidance from Millenium Consulting, persistent analysis and constant evaluation of his efforts, Mitch has been able to meet the criteria needed to establish his position on these 3 important search engines. He did most of the work himself.

The 4 most important phrases Mitch needs to drive traffic to his site are listed below. These phrases are researched locally 1000’s of times each month in his market. He is on page 1 or 2 in most cases.

Keyword                                 Google   Bing    Yahoo   Google.ca  Bing.ca Yahoo.ca

Life Insurance Calgary              4          4          3          4             7          16

Life insurance quotes Calgary    6          11        7          5             11        30

Calgary Life Insurance              9          14        6          9             7          13

Calgary Life Insurance Quotes   9          31        8          10           15        30

The reason for posting this information is simple. I constantly tell my clients that anyone can achieve top ranking on the search engines by fulfilling 3 simple requirements.

1. Add search engine friendly content and optimize your site for search engines.
2. Create some inbound links from other related sites and social media sites.
3. Create activity by updating pages, adding articles and advertizing with Google Adwords and other online advertising vehicles.

It is that simple but unless you do it all your results will simply not be all that you hope for.

Visit Mitch online at http://www.lifeguardinsurance.ca or http://www.life–insurance-calgary.com.

On a personal note, if Mitch invests10% of the effort in understanding his business as he did over the past few month learning how to manage his website, I think he must be an exceptional insurance agent.

Every morning, probably like most people who work in front of a computer, the first thing  I do is scan my e-mail to see if there are any important messages from current clients or potential customers. Having dealt with the urgent items, I like to sip my coffee and begin the process of evaluating all the other material to see if there are some additional news nuggets worth reading before hitting “delete”.

I have had to become more discerning as time passes because I continue to subscribe to newsletters from many professional Internet Marketers and SEO experts who blast out so much material  that it is impossible to actually read most of it.  So I scan the subject  lines, and maybe the first few sentences to see if there is anything offered other than another “hot method” to make a 6 figure income in 2 weeks using a new technique previously unknown to the masses.

Then there are the interesting tidbits from friends and associates about business or social events either local or more universal in nature. I received 2 such messages this week and was inclined to read and then follow up on them both to see if what they said would have any impact on me personally or professionally.

The 1st message was simply a link to a  1.5  hour long video documenting how the international movement to stop the progress of  global warming  was actually being driven more by a politically motivated agenda than a scientifically accurate one. I was drawn in by the first 10 minutes of this movie only to realize that I already agreed with some the opinions being offered  in this professionally done presentation and decided my time could be better spent elsewhere. You can watch it for yourself at if you like at http://tinyurl.com/yzwt2y8 to see how it aligns with your opinion.

The 2nd message sent me to a website that claimed to be sharing  ” The Web Design Trends for 2010“. I went through the list in detail making note not so much of the actual trends as they were being presented but by visiting the example websites used to validate the writer’s “opinions” to see who they represented and how they were being marketed. After all I am mostly concerned with Internet Marketing trends.  Unlike the author, I looked beyond the unique and exciting graphics she was focusing on into the business potential of what I saw.

You see the author is a graphic designer and like the corporations and the  politicians who are promoting the business of global warming to achieve their own ends, she can’t help promoting the trends that will generate more business for her.  Do I agree with her opinions?  I think I will keep my opinion about that to myself.

What I did see by going through this process was that the opinions of many Internet marketing experts whose e-mails I continue to  read remain relatively accurate. Blogs are in!

One trend was that almost every example presented  including her site  was that they were all  in blog format. Anyone who is getting eyes on the web these days is blogging.

Another trend was that these graphically designed websites were not effectively optimized for search. They didn’t need to be because they fell into several categories that the average website and small business owner doesn’t often achieve. They were owned by famous people,  or famous locations or possibly well known graphic designers and people the artist may associate with.

Some of these websites like the one owned by Matt Mullenweg who is one of PC World’s Top 50 People on the Web, Inc. com’s 30 under 30, and Business Week’s 25 Most Influential People on the Web have a higher than average page rank . Matt, who  is one of the developers of the WordPress blogging application has a page rank of 8. Others were ranked 4 and so on.

Some of the other websites didn’t rank as well. In case you don’t already know this, the more traffic you get to your site, if it doesn’t bounce, the higher your page rank will go. Also, Google no longer positions you for search based upon page rank like it used to.

Ultimately for the less famous there is one truth that becomes obvious. If you want to get more traffic and attract new business through your website it has to be found and effective SEO is needed to achieve a good position on the search engines.

There are really only a few ways to effectively get visitors on your website. You can advertise outside the virtual world like in olden days.  You can use Pay Per Click ads, develop connections with extensive social media networking and links from other sites or you can apply effective organic search engine optimization methods.Actually. they are all helpful.

And this is not a trend or based upon an opinion. It’s a fact.

I keep getting e-mails on behalf of companies who are notifying me that one of my websites has just been added to their long list of on site links. It happens a lot. About 4 or 5 times a week.

Each message is similar. They tell me that a link has been placed on their website and that they would like me to reciprocate by adding a link to their website on mine. They inform me that it will be mutually beneficial and help improve my page rank as well as increase traffic.

Correct me if I am wrong, but reciprocal linking was removed by most search engines as a determining factor for the value of websites a couple of years ago because it was obvious that companies were selling the service to anyone who would buy it with no consideration of  a website’s quality or actual  value for searches. I have read that Google actually sees reciprocal linking as a negative.

For a while I would reply back telling the contact my theories on reciprocal linking and suggesting some more creative  linking approaches. To date only one has ever replied and agreed to a more effective linking strategy. They generally do not reply at all and that makes me suspicious. I always reply to everyone who contacts me with important news or responds to an email I have sent to  them.

Who are these people?

I think they are representatives for so called professional SEO companies who must still be selling the old reciprocal link scam to unsuspecting website owners who don’t know that it is outdated and not benefiting them at all.

So, if you are getting messages from people who have added a link to your website to their websites and want you to reciprocate, you need to check them out. Here are a couple of things you can do.

1. Find out the page rank of their site and the page you have been added to.  If it is lower than your current page rank, it is of no value for you to be added to their site.
2. Email them asking them why they are looking for reciprocal links when they are of no value. Ask if there are other sites you can add instead to create a 3 or 4 way link arrangement.
3. Make certain the page you were added to is connected through links from their main pages and not hidden with no connection to the site. I have seen this as well.

Or simply ignore them.

If you would like to find out how to effectively run a link campaign that will benefit your page rank and search engine performance feel free to contact us for as free evaluation.

The Hype

I subscribe to newsletters from several “online marketing guru’s” whose main focus is selling products about how to become an “online marketing guru”. These people claim to and may truly have achieved phenomenal success at making millions online.

The Bait

They offer ultimate Internet Marketing training courses, fantastic tools and even free websites for unrealistically low prices with the guarantee that I will be be able to make a fortune through Internet marketing myself if I just sign up for their monthly subscription for the amazing ” Internet Marketing Secrets“  they have to offer.

The Hook

Today I received an offer for a Free List Gathering Website which would ultimately provide me with 1000′s of email addresses that I could put into my e-mail marketing program to increase sales of my services. The benefit of this is to reduce the time needed to get an email blast our to 10,000′s of interested readers immediately instead of building my own list from the traffic that visits my website naturally.

Caution Required

While I am not going to offer an opinion about the Free Website I am going to caution anyone thinking of using any method to send large quantities of emails to a large list they have purchased to beware. I learned this the hard way some time ago.

If you normally send a few emails a day and then send 1000′s to a list you have of  “Opt In Subscribers” you may find that you get listed as a spammer even though you aren’t. This is because your email service tracks and reacts to large variations in your email patterns.

The Solution

Release your emails in smaller sends evenly over time and slowly build the numbers so that the fluctuations are less dramatic.

If you send 10 one day and then 10,000 the next you may be shut down and placed on the blacklist.  However, if  you build to 100 per day, then 250, then 500 over a period of time you can promote a seminar or special product offering in a major blast when you have reached the point that your large numbers are not red flagged by the software looking for major variations. It will be assumed that you have increased the number of subscribers over time and that they are not the result of some email gathering software program or purchased email list .

It is interesting how much impact a simple error like a broken link can have on your potential to reach your business’s Internet marketing goals through your website.

The Numbers

One of my clients and I were reviewing traffic statistics with Google analytics recently and were surprised that the new traffic was way up but the number of conversions was not. With an increase of about 20% of new visitors, it only follows that the number of conversions should increase at about the same rate. This was not the case. In fact there were no new conversions at all.

The Problem

After discussing recent changes to the site we discovered that the most important call to action contained a link that was supposed to send visitors to the registration page was directing them to no page at all. All they were finding was an error message.

It wasn’t just that they were not finding the registration page quickly and conveniently which is necessary for success when you have only a few seconds to convert an impulsive action to sign up for a service or buy a product. Credibility for the company and their ability to deal with customers effectively was being lost. Many people who encounter this type of mistake will see it as a major flaw in the company’s ability to deal with details and will simply leave never to return.

Not only that, if people are finding bad or broken links, so are the Search Engines and bad links can have a negative impact on your positioning results.  Working links are important in every way to your success online.

It Gets Worse

Another business site I visited worked fine in Internet Explorer, but I prefer Firefox to do my web browsing. It loads faster than IE and has lots of handy plugins that I like to use. When I landed on the home page, all the links in the menu had not been programmed or optimized for Firefox and simply did not work. This is a major failing created by the website developer.

About 25% of Internet users use Firefox and  the many millions of Mac users (the numbers are increasing daily) use Safari which comes loaded on the system. If your website isn’t designed to function on these web browsers you are loosing business.

The Solution

1)     Make certain that all your links are pointed at the pages you want them to go to.

2)     Check that your website is displayed properly on as many web browsers and the many versions of each those web browsers or have your website developer verify that for you.

3)     Check to be certain that you website functions and displays properly on cell phones and other new media devices.

With Internet marketing, the smallest details can make a very big difference in your results and ability to achieve you business goals.

Most ads try to club you over the head and beat you into submission. Search engine marketing is a completely different form of advertising because rather than trying to tell you what to do, the searcher requests to see the ads and views them as relevant to their wants, needs, and goals. Advertisers bid to show up where they are relevant – when they are irrelevant. If they bid for irrelevant keywords they lose money on every click.

Read more…(Click here)

posted from SEOBook

The Scenario:

You hired an SEO company 2 months ago and “Lo and Behold”  you just did a search on Google for your best keywords and there you are – on page one.  Or are you?

I just checked my own website on Google for “Calgary Internet marketing” and was suddenly number 1 in the search results. “Wow!” I thought, ” I am good! Yesterday I was only number 10 or 11.”

Unbelievable Results:

Then I was on the telephone to a client in Toronto who said I was number 11 on his Google search. So I used my Rank Tracker software and sure enough I was ranked number 10.

Recently I was informed that Google is now using search patterning and site visit counts to adjust individual search results to make them more “user friendly”. So if you visit the same website a lot while on your computer and use Google to search with the keywords that the website you keep visiting is optimized for, it will get better positioning than other potentially better websites might get.  Not on other computers – just on yours.

It’s like adding it to your favorites or bookmarks automatically. It’s like Microsoft Office “helping you” correct grammar mistakes you haven’t even made.  Remember! Computers are not smarter than people.

Who Can You Trust?

Experts who understand SEO and the ever changing realities of Internet marketing could use this to their advantage. Those who trust and pay them might be convinced that the results they are seeing on their own or their service provider’s computer are the results everyone else is seeing, and be greatly mistaken.

I recommend you get a search engine page ranking tool like Rank Tracker. It is easy to use and tells you exactly how effective your search engine optimization expert really is at positioning your website. Or make certain your search engine optimization expert is using a similar software tool.

When should you hire an Internet Marketing Consultant?

Many website owners go through the process of hiring a web development company and building or upgrading their website before obtaining the assistance of a professional Internet marketing consultant.

This approach is based upon the misconception that many professional SEO companies are only able to provide their specialized services after the website is launched.  However,  most companies that offer search engine optimization or pay per click services understand that correcting mistakes made after the development of poorly planned websites is far more lucrative than elminating them in the first place.

If you are considering a new website or upgrading your current one, we recommend you hire your professional Internet marketing adviser before any web development takes place.  You should also hire outside of the website design company as you can avoid paying twice for services needed to achieve your goals.

Hire your internet marketing consultant before you hire your web development experts and you can be certain the initial website planning and design will be done right.

An experienced Internet marketing professional can help you eliminate  costly errors before they are made, reducing your need to pay later and pay twice for an effective marketing website design.

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait… Rank: wait… Traffic: wait… Price: wait… C: wait…

You simply have to read this book if  you want to understand the marketing revolution that is ocurring in the world today. Your business depends on it.

The New Rules of  Marketing and PR by David Meerman Scott

I recently encountered a new product that I simply have to recommend to WordPress users who want to create an effective membership site.

The program is provided by WishList and here is an interview by Internet marketing expert Chris Garrett co-author of “Secrets to Blogging Your Way to a 6 Figure Income” who talks about making money with membership sites.

Listen to it here.