Keywords for Maximizing Search Engine Optimization

February 21, 2012 – 5:17 pm

Introduction to Title Tags

In HTML documents, the opening Title or <HEAD> section is the primary word string used by search engines.

The Title contains primary and secondary keywords and is no more than 70 characters in length. Brief descriptions of the article are important as the Title Tag describes the document’s text. The title appears in the browser, on the search results page and on external links and/or websites. Targeting specific Search Engine Optimization (SEO) words in the Title helps distinguish documents, increasing web traffic.

For example, if writing a document about Search Engine Optimization for Salt Lake City companies, it would be best to structure the Title according to the following format:

<HEAD>

<TITLE> Utah Search Engine Optimization </TITLE>

</HEAD>

The Title “Utah Search Engine Optimization” would appear in the browser, as this is the official Title of the document. This will also be the default Title when a reader bookmarks the site in a browser.

Title Elements

  • Precision is Key – The Title Element should reflect a precise summary of the document. A Title rich in keywords helps increase search engine results. Confirming a keyword-focused Title is simple and the results are constructive to the task – ensuring that SEO-focused content reflects within the document.
  • Length – If the Title exceeds 70 characters, search results will cut it off by indicating so with an ellipsis – “…”
  • Keyword Placement – The closer keywords are to the beginning of a Title, the higher ranking the document receives with search engines and the more likely readers are to click on the Title. In the aforementioned example of “Utah Search Engine Optimization,” the keyword is focusing on “Utah” which is why it receives strategic placement at the beginning of the Title.
  • Boost Branding – If marketing a popular, specific brand, it is best that this keyword reflects at the beginning of a Title.
  • Never Underestimate the Importance of Readability – Always remember that even if a search engine pulls the Title as relevant, if the readability of the Title is severely compromised, this will reduce the likelihood that the document will be read by human eyes. Ensure that the Title is concise, yet makes sense to a reader.

Browser

The Title of the document always appears at the top of the browsing software. Typically, this feature makes the reader feel the article is safe and from a reputable source, though it has little impact on a reader’s visible attention span.

Search Engine Results

When a reader searches for a term, for example, “Salt Lake City Search Engine Optimization” the matching word phrases will either be highlighted or appear in bold. For example, the document “Utah Search Engine Optimization” would appear as “Utah Search Engine Optimization” as these search phrases are identical.

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SEARCH ENGINE INFORMATION

February 17, 2012 – 5:19 pm

Search engines are tools that have been created to help people who are looking for information or services. To make sure that these searchers find what they are looking for, search engines are programmed so that the web sites with the most useful content will get ranked with more priority.

Search engines do not simply take a page that is loaded with the proper keywords and rank them. There is a definite process that search engines use to decide where a page should appear within its rankings. Some of the major factors include: keywords, incoming links, popularity (based on traffic), proper grammar in the copy, age of the site, and more.

When a search engine analyzes a website, it determines whether or not this page is going to be helpful for a searcher based on complicated algorithms. These algorithms are designed to evaluate a web site and to determine whether or not a searcher will be able to find what they are looking for. If the search engine feels that the site isn’t as good as another, it will rank with lower priority. These algorithms are constantly being tweaked and adjusted to improve the effectiveness of the search engines.

Search engines are designed for the benefit of searchers, not the businesses trying to rank. For this reason it is important to pay close attention to the layout of your site, well-written text, and an easy to use navigation for your pages. If a web site has grammar errors, spelling mistakes, and confusing text, the search engine will notice the flaws. This is one of the many reasons that SEO is about a lot more than just simply repeating your targeted keywords throughout your website.

Incoming links are necessary for achieving solid rankings. Incoming links tell search engines that a web site contains content that is worth linking to by another party. If a search engine sees a site with many incoming links (that aren’t from spam sources, but are from similar industries) it will be more likely to rank the site higher.

Fluctuation in rankings is normal with any major search engine. Rankings on search engines will climb and fall as a normal part of fluctuation. As the search engine algorithms are constantly changing, certain pages will rise and fall in the rankings. The overall goal in search engine optimization is to drive more traffic to the website and increase the overall number of conversions. While rankings are a nice way to gain new traffic, they are much less important than the traffic itself.

Borad keywords are much harder to rank for than specific or regional keywords.  Broad keywords are better left for pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns. If a new web site is going to offer computer tech support, it would be best to avoid choosing keywords that are generic. By choosing “PC tech support” as one of their keywords, this company is choosing to compete with literally millions of other web sites for rankings. Since most search engines only display ten rankings on their first page, achieving a first page rank is extremely unlikely, especially for a website that is newer and less-established. This company would be better suited choosing a keyword that highlights a specific product or service to optimize, such as “Utah PC tech support.” By choosing a specific keyword, a company can eliminate much of the competition for rankings while also finding their target audience easier.

Rankings take time to achieve. There is no method or trick to get a website ranked on the first page of a major search engine overnight. Search engines need time to index web sites and the process can take on average 90 days (in some cases longer). While it is possible that solid rankings will start appearing before 90 days, the majority of ranking growth will occur afterwards. A linking campaign is helpful for gaining rankings faster.

A well-optimized site will not only rank well on search engines, but it will also be mostly transparent. When a searcher arrives to a web site through a search engine, the last thing they want is to be confronted with a site that is unprofessional. A proper Utah SEO campaign should never interfere with the appeal of a web site. The average search engine user will judge a web site in less than ten seconds. Salt Lake City SEO can only help drive customers to a web site; once the customer arrives, the site must be appealing enough to maintain the customer’s interest long enough to gain a sale or conversion.

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Small Business SEO Tips

February 14, 2012 – 4:13 pm

Every small business needs its own website. This is a great way to let the world know what your business is all about. With today’s technology, it is often even possible for your small business to draw in clients from all over the world. For instance, if your online store sells office furniture, Obagi skin cream or rents self storage units, there’s no reason why you wouldn’t be able to sell your goods and services to someone in Miami as well as Dallas.

But how will potential customers find your website with so many out there? That’s the question many small business owners are asking themselves. One of the big answers is SEO, but there’s a lot more to SEO than just optimizing your text. Though many small businesses are currently having their website content rewritten to include valuable keywords for their site, that’s only the beginning.

Your business may be able to sell to consumers all over the world, but the first clients you should market to are local. It’s important to do a good job of optimizing for local searches. You can do a lot of the leg work yourself and you really should do this so that you know a little something about how keywords and search engine optimizing work. Below are a few great tips to help you get going in the right direction:

  1. Sit down with pin and paper and do some brain storming. What are the words or phrases that a user might type into their browser when searching for your business?

Example: Let’s say your business sells sports trading pins in Utah. A user might type:

  1. Sign up on Google Adwords. There you’ll find a wealth of information about how keywords work and how to generate your own list. Wordtracker is another good tool that allows you to generate keyword lists, but there is a monthly charge for this service.
  2. Type in the keywords you’ve come up with for your site and see who’s on that first page of the results. Study their META titles and descriptions. Sometimes people rewrite the content on their site but neglect to optimize their META titles and descriptions.
  3. Stay up to date on how SEO works and any changes Google or others might make that could affect your site.
  4. Hire professional copywriters to rewrite your text, titles and descriptions. Don’t try to do this yourself. Having professionally written content is key to looking like an expert to the world.

If you find that you just don’t have time to do all the research and stay on top of changing times, then you might consider hiring a Utah SEO expert like Adaptivity Pro. At Adaptivity Pro, we will optimize your site, titles and descriptions and even tweak your coding to ensure that your website ranks high with all search engines. Our customer’s websites traditionally rank very high on the SERP’s. Being on the first page of the SERP’s equates to more sales and bigger sales.

You’ve got a business to run and may not have time to post fresh content to your site each week. Adaptivity Pro works with a team of professional copywriters who give you interesting, well-written articles each week for your blog. This is a great way to draw in new visitors. Adaptivity Pro also gives you amazing high-end Utah web design. Let us help you grow your business to the next level. We offer friendly customer service and affordable rates.

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Quality Content = Higher Traffic? How article marketing works for SEO

August 2, 2011 – 10:40 am

On the Internet, content is king. More and more, people have access to information and indeed, the Information Highway is moving at dizzying speeds. How can you make this work for you? How can you use content in order to increase your presence on the World Wide Web and essentially, make yourself more easily found? How can you compete with all the information out there so as to make your presence felt, especially to people who matter – your potential customers?

One way is to gain incoming links to your website. Also called backlinks, these are a powerful method of increasing traffic to your website as well as increasing your page ranking with key search engines such as Google. Providing more information not just on your website, but on other places, increases your credibility and visibility. You can look into providing content for website submission sites. With these sites, you can submit articles that contain the link back to your website. If other people like your article enough and want to use it in their own website or blog, they may do so provided they also provide backlinks to your website.

The key, however, is to provide content that is unique. There is no sense in copying another website’s content – you may be penalized by search engines for doing so. Also, the content has to be interesting and relevant enough for the readers to want to read it or even scan over it so that they get to the end, where your credentials and website link are usually found.

The first step would be to generate content for your website. Once these are posted, you should wait until the search engines recognize the content. This is so that your website will be the one to get the “credit” for developing the content. Then, you can distribute these articles to article database websites.

Here are some places where you can submit or distribute your articles:

-          http://www.isnare.com

-          http://www.articledashboard.com

-          http://www.searchwarp.com

-          http://www.ezinearticles.com

-          http://www.goarticles.com/

-          http://www.hotlib.com/articles/submit.php

-          http://editorials.arrivenet.com/

Below are some tips for developing content and submitting articles:

Don’t:

  • Simply copy content from other websites and use it verbatim.
  • Write content only for search engines. Humans read it, too!
  • Pepper your article with too many keywords. As with actual pepper, just the right amount is key. The keywords should ideally comprise only 1.5% to 2% of the content.

Do:

  • Write unique content, that is, content found nowhere else on the internet.
  • Incorporate keywords into your articles, but do it in a way that it reads naturally.
  • Write articles that are 500 to 700 words long.
  • Link the “articles/resources” section in your main navigation in your website.
  • Distribute the content to article database websites after the search engines have finished indexing the article.
  • Regularly update your content.
  • Incorporate keywords into the title and make your title catchy and interesting.
  • Use subheadings and bullet-points to make it easier for users to read your articles.

Adaptivity Pro for SEO copywriting needs

Need help with Utah SEO or Salt Lake City SEO? Adaptivity Pro is your premier resource for services such as copywriting and article distribution. Adaptivity Pro also specializes in services such as Utah Web Design, E-mail marketing, Social Media Marketing, Pay-Per-Click Marketing and more. Call us for more information or check us out on the web.

 

 

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Creating SEO-Friendly URLs

July 19, 2011 – 10:35 am

What is a URL? And more importantly, how do I create the most useful and beneficial URL for my website?

Actually, URLs that are well-designed have a strong impact on your SLC Search Engine Optimization efforts. When a URL is designed so that it is easily found by search engines, then it can also be more quickly indexed in their records. This helps to ensure that the pages of your site are indexed (or “seen”) by the search engines and this improves your rankings.

Creating search engine friendly URLs for websites are usually more easily done on static websites than on dynamic or e-commerce websites.

When creating SEO-Friendly URLs, remember the following tips:

Don’t:

-          Use dynamic URLs

-          Use very long URLs

-          Change your URL if your site is already doing well

-          Use numbers or confusing symbols. Stick with descriptive keywords.

Do:

  • Keep it simple!
  • Use static URLs (ones that don’t change)
  • Use shorter URLs (no more than 3 to 5 words)
  • Use descriptive keywords in the URL
  • Use hyphens instead of underscores
  • Use URLs that are meaningful to your audience
  • Use fewer folders. Your structure should not be more than three or so folders deep. For instance, you have: http://websitename.com/About-Us/History

Google looks at your URLs. The longer the URL, the less weight Google will give to each keyword. Also, recent research has shown that short URLs (as per Google Search results) tend to receive more click-throughs than longer ones.

Using dynamic URLs may cause problems with duplicate content. When the search engine indexes a particular webpage and you get the same webpage named as a different URL, you can potentially be penalized with regards to duplicate content, even though the webpage does not actually change. Or, you may split your link value between the URLs that are used for that webpage. Static URLs remain the same and will give the search engine one specific URL for that particular webpage.

Adaptivity Pro for your SEO needs

If you need help maximizing your search results and getting more visibility for your webpage, let the experts help. Adaptivity Pro specializes in Utah SEO, Utah Web Design and other valuable services that help you shoot your way to the top of the search engine results pages. Adaptivity Pro has proven its professionalism and expertise for quite a number of establishments and businesses in the Salt Lake City and Utah area. Adaptivity Pro is also your partner for services such as Pay-Per-Click Management, Social Media Marketing, Email Marketing, E-Commerce Marketing and much more.

 

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A Checklist for Redesigning your Website for SEO

June 7, 2011 – 10:22 am

Ready for a website makeover? At times you may want to refurbish your website so you can maximize your search results. When planning a website redesign, it is important that you are aware of the must-haves to ensure that the redesign does not wreak havoc on your website and instead will produce welcome improvements to it.

Here’s a checklist when you are planning to do a website makeover:

  1. Ensure all SEO-critical content is moved over. Double check to make sure all high traffic pages are moved to the proper place and minimize ranking loss.
  2. Run weekly reports. Run weekly ranking, indexing, and link reports for 8 weeks to ensure no major issues arise and if they do, address them immediately.
  3. Send an updated XML feed to Google and Yahoo. This will involve generating a new fresh xml sitemap file for Google and a urllist.txt file for Yahoo and submitting them to the search engines so they pick up the new pages as quickly as possible and remove old pages faster.
  4. Check for dead links. Once the site is on the live domain, run a quick test for dead links to ensure there are none in existence.
  5. Update/review all title tags and meta descriptions. This will be a good opportunity to review and update all title tags and meta descriptions.
  6. Setup 301 redirects for key pages. As many people will be hitting old pages that are no longer live, setup custom 301 redirects for pages that had considerable traffic to them and redirect them to the new equivalent page.
  7. Fill in empty alt tags. Ensure there are no blank alt tags on the new website.
  8. Provide suggestions for canonical link tags. Provide suggestions for setting up an automatic head canonical link tag for indexing accuracy.
  9. Set up internal linking from subpages. Double check to ensure that you have a strong internal linking structure with the new website content.
  10. Set up custom 404 page not found webpage. Again, since many people will be hitting dead pages, you should create a custom 404 error page where they can quickly find what they were originally looking for.
  11. Setup a custom HTML sitemap page and link to it in the footer. Make sure there is a custom HTML based sitemap page that includes a link to all pages on the site to help the search engines index the new pages faster.
  12. Create custom robots.txt file. Create a robots.txt file to tell the search engines NOT to index any of the old page URLs anymore.
  13. Request manual deletion of old pages via Google webmaster tools. Once you have the robots.txt file up, you can actually tell Google directly to remove old pages permanently from their index.
  14. Ensure Google Analytics is working properly. Double check that Google analytics is functioning properly and still capturing data so you can compare statistics from the old website to the new one.
  15. Modify goal conversion tracking in Google Analytics. Since the URL structure may be changing, you need to make sure the conversion tracking for Google analytics is still functioning.

Adaptivity Pro for your Website Design and Redesign Needs

Adaptivity Pro is composed of a team of experts that can provide you with valuable services and advice regarding how you can design your website so that it will maximize your search engine rankings.

Adaptivity Pro specializes in Utah Web design, Utah SEO, and other web services such as Social Media Marketing, E-Mail marketing, Pay-Per-Click Management and much more. For professional SLC SEO services that produce great results, Adaptivity Pro is the premier source, not just for Salt Lake City, Utah-based businesses but for businesses across the country.

 

 

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High Performance Title Tags for SEO

May 31, 2011 – 10:21 am

A title tag is a shorthand description of the content of a webpage and is one of the key tools in Search Engine Optimization. If you want to improve your SEO rankings in a jiffy, strengthen your title tags. This is what the search engines will look at to understand the webpage’s contents. The title tag is also the first thing users will see and will more likely determine whether they will click through to the actual webpage.

With a strong title tag, you can enjoy improvements in overall traffic, as well as in search engine rankings and click-through rates. The key is in striking a balance between “searchability” for search engines and being catchy enough to capture the interest of human visitors.

Here are some tips for high-performance title tags:

Don’t:

  • Leave the title tag blank on any page.
  • Repeat the same title tag for different pages in the website.
  • String together a title tag composed of only keywords.
  • Have a title tag that is not relevant to the contents of the webpage.
  • Have a title tag written only for the search engine.

Do:

  • Make the most out of every single character. Title tags have character limits (70 for Google) so do make sure that all characters are optimized. Avoid words such as a, the, of, that and so on.
  • Use keywords at the beginning of the title tag.
  • Add action words to compel the user to click through to the webpage. Some examples include read, discover, learn, find, try, download, enjoy, buy or get.
  • Add secondary keywords or variations of the primary SLC SEO keywords.
  • Test your title tags by regularly measuring changes in rank.
  • Put your title tag as the first item under the <head> section.
  • Incorporate keywords into the title tag so that it reads naturally.
  • Stick to the 70-character limit. Think of newspaper headlines – catchy yet short.
  • Write the title tag for human visitors as well.  Convince them to visit your website.
  • Accurately describe what the webpage is about.
  • Include product names, manufacturers, services you provide, etc.

Adaptivity Pro for your SEO needs

For help in drafting high-performance title tags, you can count on Adaptivity Pro. Adaptivity Pro specializes in Utah SEO and Utah Web design. It has since partnered with businesses and establishments in Salt Lake City and other areas in Utah to provide great value services such as Pay-Per-Click Management, Social Media Marketing and E-Commerce Marketing.

 

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Google Maps Guide

May 9, 2011 – 7:27 am

Putting the location of your business on Google Maps can be very beneficial to you. It allows for your business to be discovered more easily by making it visible in anyone’s web browser. It will provide your potential customers with important information such as contact information, business locations, and driving directions.

Increasing your availability to potential customers and making it easy and convenient for them to find and talk to you or your offices means that you can do more business. Now that you have an idea of what a Google Map listing is and what it is good for, the only question now is to learn how to set one up for yourself. Below, you will find step by step instructions that will guide you through the process so that you too can start to gain from the many advantages that Google Maps can offer.

Checking for and Claiming an Existing Listing

1.       Find out if you are already listed – use the google.com or the Google Search tool bar on your browser and type in the name of your business. If you get results that show your business along with a small Google Map beside it, then you know that you are lucky enough to have already been listed.

2.       View your listing – if there is already a listing created, below it you will see a link saying “reviews, directions, and more.” Click on that in order to view more info about the listing. Look at the top right and if you see a link called “Business Owner?” instead of a name, you will know that the listing has not yet been claimed. You would be well advised to claim your listing as soon as possible so that another person cannot.

3.       Claim your listing – click the “Business Owner?” link and then select the “Edit my business information” option from the list that will be presented to you. Then click continue. From there you can begin filling out information concerning your business.

Creating a New Listing

1.       Your Google account – you will need to have access to an active Google account. Either you will need to create an account if you don’t have one, or you can log into the account that you already possess.

a.       Created a Google account – first of all, visit google.com and click the sign in link at the top right of the screen. Below the sign in box, there will be a “Create an account now” link. From there, simply fill in the required information.

b.      Log into your existing Google account – after you have created your Google account, or, if you already had a Google account, you only need to sign into it.

2.       Google Places – once you are logged into your Google account, visit the google.com web page. You will see your gmail address on the top right of the page. Click your gmail address. In the drop down list you will see the “Account Settings” link. Click on that and look down the page to the “My Products” section of that page. There you will see a link to “Google Places.”

3.       Add a new listing – On the right side of the “Google Places” home page, you will see a “List your business” option. Click it. This will take you to a page requesting your country and phone number information.

4.       Fill in the categories – After you have entered your country and phone number, you will be taken to another page that is full of many more information fields. You should fill in as many as possible. The more of these field that you use, the more information that will be provided to your potential customers and the higher the rating of your listing, which will go far in helping to get it recognized and ranked highly by the Google search engine.Basic Information– fill out the basic information so that customer get a general understanding about what business you are and where you are located. Your contact information is also included here so that they can get in touch with you.

Country

Company/Organization

Street Address

City/Town

State

ZIP

Main phone

Alternate phone

Mobile phone

Fax

Email address

Website

Description

Category

Service Areas and Location Settings – this information lets the customer know if you provide delivery or if you make house visits to customers.

Hours of operations – this lets people know on what days and at what times your business is in operation.

Payment options – you can let a person know what types of payment you are willing and able to accept.

Photos – you might find it rather helpful to provide photos of your business or building in order to give others a better idea about who you are

Videos – a picture is worth a thousand words, but a video is worth even more. You can give a visual description of your business and even give demonstrations of the services that you provide. This can be very effective in persuading potential customers in purchasing your products and services.

Additional Details–this section allows you to elaborate a bit more on the various services and products that your business has to offer. Here, you can name specific items and give brief descriptions to each.

5.       Verify listing – Having completed all the information fields, you may then click on the submit button at the bottom of the screen. You will then be required to verify that you are the rightful owner of the listing that you have just submitted. You can either do this by phone, or by postcard. Now you are on your way to marketing your business over the web.

 

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Online Classified Ad Marketing

May 4, 2011 – 9:25 am

Classified ads can both be online and offline. We will primarily be discussing online classified ads. These are small spaces of advertisements that use just a few lines. A potential customer can click on a link that will bring them to your website, sales page or to an auto responder page. The challenge of classified ads is that you have to catch the attention of the reader using just a few words. You also need to fit what you need to say in that small space allotted to you.

The great thing about online classified ads is that they are free and fairly easy to produce – you can even generate ads automatically and post it on classified ad sites. If used properly, online classified ads can be effective in directing traffic into your website and traffic into your store or sales office. After all, people go into classified ad sites because they’re looking for something. Also, it is easy to target local customers since they can easily filter their search down to the city where they are located.

Classified ads also allow you to provide updates and announcements, as well as tell customers about the latest deal. You can also use classified ads to gauge the reaction of your target market with regards to a new product. This allows you to “get your ear on the ground” before you decide to stock up on more of the new merchandise.

Targeting Local Customers: Do online classified ads work?

It depends on where you put your ads. Popular classified ad sites such as Craigslist.com, Gumtree.com, Webcosmo.com ad Adpost.com have shown positive results. However, due to the success of these sites, there is a tendency for your ad to be pushed out since there are more new ads coming in.

Designing your ad

With so much information bombarding us nowadays, it gets more and more challenging to come up with something that catches the eye and the attention. If you fail to grab your target audience’s interest, chances are, they won’t get to see what your ad had to say.

Here’s a few tips in designing your ad:

-          Know your target market. Before you hanker down to writing the ad, you should understand what your customers needs and wants. You should also be able to identify how your products can meet their specific needs. Get to know your customer’s profile – including his lifestyle, income, age and geographic location.

-          Sign up with the popular classified ads sites and also to social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Digg and StumbleUpon.

-          Design many eye-catching headings. It should provide one concrete and exciting benefit for the customer. Observe: “This facial cream has anti-wrinkle properties.” vs. “Look forever young and flawless with this facial cream!”. The second one has more appeal because it showed a benefit that the customer can get from the product.

-          You should have several versions of the headings so that you get variations of your ad to be seen in the classified sites. Use strategic keywords to drive more traffic not just for the ad but for your website as well.

-          Write different texts for your ad. The main goal is for you to convince them to click on the link pointing them to your sales page or auto-responder page. If you can, add pictures. Remember that if your ad is badly written and designed, chances are, no one will read it and no one will be interested in what you have to offer.

-          Put out a varying combination of headline and inside text – mix and mix and match! The reason why you can’t use the same headline and text is that most online classified ads sites don’t allow duplicates within a certain period. You can only get more ads into a site if you create more unique ads.

-          Read the guidelines of the site and be sure to follow these guidelines. There are some practices that are not allowed in some sites – such as the posting of affiliate marketing links. Violating the rules may result in your being banned from the site.

-          Tag your URL whenever you can – this will result in your link being visible in a number of social networking pages. These back links are useful in driving traffic to your site.

-          Put your ad in the right category. Ad sites are classified according to category. To make more targeted approaches to your local customer, you should also put the ads where your customer is more likely to be looking for them. Or, be on the lookout as to where your customers are searching and direct some of your ads there.

-          Make sure you have auto-responders. In today’s Internet age, people expect answers the moment they ask their questions – even if they ask it while you’re offline. Auto-responders allow you to provide basic information and a sales pitch to those who were interested enough to click on your links.

Checking the Success of Your Online Classified Ads

Of course, you don’t just product ads and leave it at that. You should also measure the success of these ads. It will help you formulate your strategy with regards to these classified ads as you become more aware of which ads your market is responding to.

-          Try a Google image search on your picture which is tagged with a niche keyword. This tells you that the free ad is doing what it’s supposed to do – making you easier for people to find in the internet.

-          Track the responses to your ad. Identify which ads are bringing in the inquiries. This helps you point out the keywords that are effective with your target market.

-          Retry and retest. For those ads that generated a positive response, modify the texts and then send it again to test.

-          Try new niches/categories and see how effective each of the categories are.

Other online strategies

Using online classified ads is just one of the strategies to increase the level of traffic to your website and ultimately, to your cash register. Other ways to drum up buzz and increase Google search results would be Search Engine Optimization, sending articles to known article submission sites and marketing through known social networking sites such as Facebook.

Adaptivity Pro is your expert when it comes to online marketing strategies. We are a Salt Lake City, Utah web design and SEO firm that will work to drum up more attention to your website and more business for your added growth. Adaptivity Pro also provides content writing for websites and blogs.

 

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Boost your Website Traffic with Article Distribution

April 13, 2011 – 9:22 am

The equation’s pretty simple. You write interesting, relevant and unique articles and then post them in article distribution websites (also called article marketing). You take every opportunity to add your website URL to these articles. With the use of strategic SEO keywords, you can actually increase the traffic coming into your website.

Why Use Article Distribution?

We do business in the World Wide Web – big emphasis of the “wide”. With so many businesses and entities fighting for attention and getting more people to visit their websites, you need to have a strategy where it’s easier for people to find you (or the product or service you provide) in the internet.

Article distribution has some distinct benefits:

-          Cost effective. With the right tools, you can generate a lot of unique yet relevant articles that people will find interesting to read. Also, some article distribution sites charge only a minimal amount – with some sites allowing you to post for free.

-          More backlinks. With these articles, you can have backlinks that point people to your website. Effective articles are known to have been able to generate some 150 to 200 backlinks. Although a more realistic result is set at around 50 backlinks per article.

-          Increase Google visibility. With more backlinks, your Google results will increase for strategic keywords.

-          Targeted traffic. Since people are already reading your articles because they have an interest in the topic being discussed, this means that the people you reach are more targeted.

-          Establish your reputation. With article distribution, You can show yourself as an expert in a particular topic and people will want to look into what you have to say once you have established your credibility.

Article Writing Tips

To help you make the most of article marketing and article distribution, take note of the following:

-          Focus on one topic. Don’t go off-tangent. Be sure that the article covers a major topic.

-          Keep your articles relevant. First, to what people want to know about. It’s no use coming out with an article on a topic no one is interested in. Secondly, the article should relate to what you’re selling and what the people can find in your site.

-          Know and follow the guidelines for article submission. Each distribution site will have its own set of rules – and if you don’t follow these rules, you run the risk of being banned from the site. One important thing to remember is that spam and affiliate links are usually banned from the articles or even the resource box.

-          Use a catchy title. This is the first thing one sees when he first opens your article and it will indicate to him whether your article is worth his time. If you don’t grab his attention with the title, more likely than not, he won’t read the article. One way to catch a person’s attention is to show him one major benefit to his reading the article. For instance, “Get Gorgeous: Makeup tips that Bring out Your Beauty” is more interesting than “Taking a look at various kinds of makeup”.

-          Keep it short and sweet. The fact is, no one really has time to read your article in full! What most people do would be to just scan the article to get the pertinent facts. Also, keeping the articles short will make the readers want more information – and that will get them to visit your site. The rule of thumb is to write articles that are no more than 1,000 words in length.

-          Check for mistakes. Ensure that your article is free of grammatical and spelling errors. Errors will undermine your image as an expert in the topic.

-          Write for the readers. Remember, readers are not there because they want to learn more about you. They’re there because they want information on a certain subject. So, be sure to provide that information. Also, your writing should be in the active voice – as if you’re there talking to them. To make the articles more interesting, you should also use anecdotes and stories related to the topic.

-          Don’t forget your URL and call to action. Be sure that your URL is easily seen (for some article distribution sites, you are allowed to insert URLs only in the Bio portion of the article). Also, drive the people into doing something after reading the article – a call to action that point them to the website. Examples would be “Click to avail of this one-time offer – visit my website!” or “Know more about ___________. Click here.”

-          Spread your articles. Don’t just post in one site, get your articles in as many places as possible.

-          Look for opportunities to write as a guest blogger for a reputed site. By far, this form of “articles distribution” is one of the most effective ways to improve visibility, recognition, and of course, traffic to your website.

Article Distribution Sites: Our Top Picks

Here are the more popular article distribution sites you can submit your articles to:

-          EzineArticles. This is one of the most effective distribution sites in the Internet. It has proven its effectivity in the noticeable increase in traffic after one posts here.

-          Buzzle.com. Good site for back links and SEO. The review of your article may take time, though. Also, if your article does not pass muster, there are no notifications stating such.

-          IdeaMarketers. This is primarily for aspiring writers, as well as e-book authors. People can also ask to reprint your article if they like it, on the condition that they have your permission and that your full bio and contact information are attached.

-          GoArticles.com. This is one good site if you are thinking of spreading your articles across the internet.

These are just some of the article submission sites available for you. Other sites include articlecity.com, selfseo.com, articlebiz.com and articledashboard.com.

The way you go about your articles will depend on what you want to accomplish. If you are going for traffic alone, you can try submitting a number of unique versions of one article (commonly called article spinning). However, if you are going for building a strong network of back links and increasing your reputation (as an expert), you should look into popular article submission sites that have consistent page rank.

For quality SEO-rich articles, you can go to Adaptivity Pro for help. Adaptivity Pro is a Salt Lake City, Utah SEO as well as Utah web design provider. We also provide content for websites, blogs and article submission sites.

 

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