Search Engine Optimization

A non-branded visitor is someone that finds your site by searching for a general keyword in the search engines, as opposed to searching for your brand or products by name. Depending on your industry and niche, someone that finds your site via a non-branded keyword might not be ready to convert the moment they land on your site. Especially in the B2B world, it’s hard to build that consumer confidence from one interaction with a potential customer. However, just because it might take a while to turn that visitor into a lead and then into a paying customer, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to drive more non-branded traffic to your website!

I was recently pulling together an annual SEO visitor report for one of my e-commerce SEO clients. Having a year’s worth of data really gives me the opportunity to look for emerging trends and have a better idea of where opportunities for their ongoing SEO campaign might be. I noticed that there had been a steady uptick of visitors throughout the year, even if some months showed slight dips (part of the seasonality of the business.) But what I was really glad to see was that the amount of non-branded visitors coming to their site was through the roof compared to last year. This is a fairly established brand offline, but online they hadn’t been competing well for important keywords against their top competitors. Branded searches had always been strong, but non-branded was where the real opportunity for growth was and I was pleased to see our SEO campaign had capitalized on that.

Why should increasing non-branded visitors be so important for SEO and your online marketing efforts in general? First and foremost, when non-branded searches go up, it’s a good sign that your SEO is working incredibly well; your site is ranking well for your top keywords AND is attracting the right audience! It also means that your online brand presence is increasing. People are finding your website in more and more places, even when they aren’t actively searching for your company. This could mean a social networking profile, blog post or video or internal page is showing up in the SERPs for a related search and is driving targeted visitors through to your site. You want to attract people to your site that have never engaged with your brand before! Even if they don’t convert right then and there you have established the first touch point in their buying cycle.

Of course branded visitors (the ones that search for your company by name) are valuable. In my experience, someone that searches for a company by name is nearing the end of their buying cycle and is looking to convert. That is why I like to focus my PPC efforts on branded keywords as opposed to non-branded keywords. I’d rather pay for someone that I’m fairly confident is going to become a lead. I’ll leave the driving of non-branded visitors to my organic SEO.

H tags are like the headlines of your site’s content. They tell readers what that page is about and help break up the content into manageable chunks. Not only are H tags a great place to target your most important keywords and help your SEO, they improve the overall user experience of your website by making it easy for visitors to find the information they are looking for.

Watch this week’s SEO video lesson here!

For more onsite SEO tips and lessons from Nick Stamoulis, check out the Brick Marketing onsite SEO video lesson archive.

I came across this great article on Search Engine Land a few weeks ago that explains why search rankings and SEO ranking reports no longer matter—something I have thought for a very long time. It’s nice to hear other SEO professionals agree that search rankings are too inconsistent and inconclusive to be used as a SEO success metric.

Here are a few reasons why website owners shouldn’t be so focused on where they rank:

1. The search engines personalize the search results.
I don’t know about you, but I am constantly logged into my Gmail account. That means that whenever I search for something online, Google is able to see and remember my search activities and preferences. Google also has the luxury of being able to see your computer’s IP address, and is therefore able to tailor the search results to your location. You’re more likely to see local businesses and news in the search results that way. As time passes, the search giant starts to personalize the SERP I see based on what it knows about me. My search results for a certain keyword might be completely different than the results you would get for the same search simply because Google is trying to offer the best individual results for each user.

2. Social signals impact the search results.
If you were to search for “SEO” in Google, chances are you would see a “People and Pages on Google+” box on the right hand side of the search results. By including Google+ pages in the search results, Google is placing a lot of importance on social signals. Other social signals in Google include the +1 button, which lets you know which pages have been given the “thumbs up” by people in your social circle. Bing and Facebook joined forces back in May 2011 to create the “Friend Effect,” which would essentially rewrite the search results if you were logged into your Facebook account to reflect the pages/websites that your Facebook friends had liked or share. All of these (and other social signals) factors mean that search rank is subjective based on the preferences of your friends and how the search engines use that data.

3. Websites aren’t the only things listed in the search results.
Go ahead and do a Google search for “Chinese food.” What kind of results do you see in the SERP? For me, everything above the fold is local business listings for Chinese restaurants in my area. I have to actively scroll down to see any websites about Chinese food, and even then the results are broken up by pictures and videos and even a few news results. So even if your website is ranked #1 for a certain keywords, it may actually be placed halfway down the results page. There are a lot more things for searchers to click on than just the top 10 websites, and rank is no guarantee of a click-through.

In my opinion, rank is not the most important SEO metric; visitor growth is. The search results are going to change day-by-day, maybe even minute-by-minute, because of a combination of 200 ranking factors used by search engines. Some of these factors are completely beyond your control! It’s more important to focus on visitor growth because this is a much better indication of how well your SEO is working.

This is a guest post from Amanda DiSilvestro of ResourceNation.com

It is no secret that SEO is crucial to the success of a small business, but what many do not realize is that there are different ways to fulfill this crucial need. Many new business owners work with SEO on their own; meaning they decide which keywords to target, focus on getting back-links and have worry about Google rankings and penalties. However, many more established companies choose to use an SEO agency. Consider some of the positives and negatives to each:

In-House SEO

1.In-House SEO Advantages

Control – You have complete control, so you will be able to change things instantly if you ever change your mind. Sometimes it can be time consuming to create an SEO strategy and then have to go back and change it, but if you do it yourself you know you will have it the way you want it right away.

Experts – You will be able to hire the SEO expert who you think knows your target audience and industry the best. Agencies sometimes worry about a lot of different types of companies, but bringing someone in-house will help keep them focused.

2.In House Disadvantages

Risky – There is a chance that you could get SEO wrong. Sometimes SEO can be confusing, and it takes a long time to master. If you don’t hire an expert or you hire someone new, there are places where you can make mistakes. It’s important that you understand HTML, keyword research tools, and keyword tracking tools and much more.

Expensive – Some people are swayed into giving SEO a try on their own because they think it is inexpensive, but the truth is the right tools will cost you. It is important that you have the right software to complete keyword research and tracking, and this can sometimes cost up to $1000.

Time – It takes a great amount of time to master SEO, but it also takes a great amount of time to see results. This means that if you’re making a mistake, you probably won’t realize it until a good amount of time has passed.

SEO Agency

1.SEO Agency Advantages

Fast and Simple – The agency will do all the work, so all you will need to do is look it over and make sure you agree with the approach.

Stay Focused – If you hire a SEO agency you will not need to change the focus of your business in any way. You will not need to use any office resources for a new employee. The agency will work for you without disrupting business.

2.SEO Agency Disadvantages

Cost – Although this is a disadvantage to in-house SEO as well, it’s still a part of hiring a SEO Agency. The cost of an SEO agency varies depending upon your expectations and workload, but in general it will cost approximately $200-$5,000 per month.

Miscommunication – You run the risk of miscommunication when working with a SEO agency. You will be in charge of telling them your internet marketing goals, objectives, budget, and giving them deadlines. Therefore, it is important that you are organized and comfortable talking with people. You need to make sure you know what you want, and then make sure that the company follows through. It’s also a good idea to do a full background check on the company to make sure that they have had success and will be offering you real experts to help your efforts.

The most important thing to remember is that SEO is important—very important. You want to make sure that you know exactly what you are doing and that you are not cutting corners when it comes to SEO. If you’re starting a small business and just getting your feet wet with SEO, it is going to take some time before you see results. However, once you do start seeing results you will also likely begin seeing an increase in online traffic.

About the Author
Amanda DiSilvestro is a writer on topics ranging from social media to credit card processing. She writes for an online resource that gives advice on topics including medical billing software to small businesses and entrepreneurs for one of the leading b2b lead generation websites, Resource Nation.

What is your “magic number” of success? How many orders shipped, new clients signed or dollars earned would it take you make you jump for joy in your office? Success, even when applied to our businesses, is a very personal definition. For instance, having a sufficient (and steady) workload to justify hiring a new employee might be how you judge your success. Or maybe you are looking to cross the million dollars in revenue mark. Success might even come with a better work-life balance. Just like our definitions of business success vary, so do our definitions of SEO success. However you define SEO success, here are three things to keep in mind.

Don’t be so afraid of negative results.
A slight dip in visitors from day to day (or even month to month) isn’t the end of your website. As a site owner, I know how easy it is to get lost in the overwhelming pages of data available and see doom in every number. Relax. It’s more important to take a step back and look at the big picture. What overall trends are you seeing? These are a much better indication of your SEO success. Sure, there may be outliers that you can’t easily explain, but one blip shouldn’t derail your entire SEO campaign.

“It should be more.” – compared to what?
I’ve had several full service SEO or SEO consulting clients in the past look at the results of their SEO campaign and say “it should be more.” More what, exactly? More visitors? A better conversion rate? More qualified leads? A better rank in the search engines? Too often site owners don’t have a clear idea of the goals they are trying to accomplish, which means they can’t recognize a successful SEO campaign when it happens. They only see what isn’t happening, not all the great results that are. Don’t let yourself or your SEO get so focused on a missing element that you can’t see the positive growth. SEO success doesn’t happen overnight, nor does it happen all at once. Like a complicated puzzle, a strong SEO campaign will come together with time.

Be realistic with your definitions of success.
If you own an e-commerce site and only dream of being the next Amazon, you’re never going to be happy with the results of your SEO campaign. In my opinion, comparing yourself to megalith game changers like Amazon or eBay will only set your site up for failure. While it’s possible, the odds of your site getting millions upon millions of visitors each day is highly unlikely. Instead of stacking your success against the competition and seeing how you measure up, compare your own small successes over time. Take a look at the past year and see how your business has grown or evolved. That’s real success.