Contents
Introduction 1
Why Write a Book on SEO & Online Customer Service? 5
Internet Opportunity for Small Businesses 10
Part I: Optimizing For GOOGLE & Other Search Engines 15
Chapter 1
What is SEO and How Can it Help Your Business? 17
What is SEO? 20
Relevance 21
Example of Non-Relevance 21
What to Expect 23
Free Business Listing with Google 26
Chapter Action Steps / Notes 27
Chapter 2
How to Get Banned From Search Engines 29
Invisible Text and Other Deceptive Tricks 29
Link Sharing 30
Duplicate Sites (Severely Penalized) 31
Keyword Stuffing 33
Don’t use Special Characters or Punctuation 33
You Must Have a “Contact Us” TEXT Link from Your Home Page 35
Don’t use a “Splash” Page 36
NO Broken Links 37
Bottom Line on Upsetting the Google Search
Gods 37
Chapter Action Steps / Notes 39
Chapter 3
KEYWORDS KEYWORDS KEYWORDS 41
The Most Important Thing Regarding
Keywords 42
Naming Files 44
Example of a File Name with Keywords 44
Image File Names 46
Example on naming files 49
Text Links 50
Meta Tags and Keywords 51
Example of Meta Tag Programming Code 51
ALT Tags 52
Naming Your “Other” (Not the Home page)
Web Pages 53
If it’s not too Late, Start Out With A Main
URL That Contains Keywords 54
Launch Additional Websites with Your
Keywords in the URL 56
Chapter Action Steps / Notes 57
Chapter 4
Incoming Links to Your Site – “Backlinks” 59
Doing a Press Release 60
Writing an Article 60
Monthly Newsletter 62
Site Maps 63
Chapter Action Steps / Notes 65
Chapter 5
Content is King 67
First Two Sentences 68
Chapter Action Steps / Notes 71
Part II: Optimizing Websites For Customer Service Helps Google Ranking 73
Chapter 6
Great! You Have High Ranking – Now What
Do You Do? 75
How to Get Picked From the Results Page 76
Chapter Action Steps / Notes 78
Chapter 7
Then Once They Get to Your Website 79
Chapter Action Steps / Notes 82
Chapter 8
Generally Accepted Good Business Practices
for Internet Retailing 83
Chapter Action Steps / Notes 95
Personal Note from the Author 97
Speaking / Consulting Engagements 98
Useful Websites 99
Action Plan 101
Author’s Websites 103
Glossary 105
Introduction
“I thought a lot about my intended audience for this book and came to the conclusion that it was small business owners with little or no internet marketing nor web design experience.” – Greg Bright
My wife and I run our businesses, by ourselves. Technically, our businesses are Micro Businesses, also known as a Mom and Pop businesses.
With our businesses located in Austin, Texas, I tend to get caught up in the technical jargon and buzzwords thrown around in some of the networking groups I belong to ( Austin is a very “techie” city). I did not want to speak that same jargon to my audience, if they could not relate to it.
When I first circulated the rough draft of this book around to some of my networking contacts, the feedback I got was “Shouldn’t business owners hire out the things they don’t do well – like website design and search engine optimization?”
I realized then that my audience was not the recently “funded” venture that had a fresh infusion of cash to go out and hire a full time website designer. My audience was not the “techies” with their techno jargon, acronyms and buzzwords. My audience was Micro Business owners who has to wants to do everything themselves – just like my wife and I.
I don’t know about you, but in our businesses my wife and I share the responsibilities of Bookkeeper, Accountant, Salesperson, HR Director, Technician, Janitor and yes, Website Designer.
Small business owners (and charitable causes) need an easy to understand/easy to implement process for gaining an advantage over the corporate giants in the internet world. How did I come to realize this? When I first started this process for my own business twelve years ago, no such manual existed. Sure there were (and still are) books on the subject written by programmers, for programmers. These programmers had tremendous skills in programming but lacked the fundamentals of real world business practices, especially at the Micro Business level.
This book was intentionally written to help anyone at any level (or no level) of website design knowledge, whether you are just preparing to organize your start up business or your neighbor’s kid launched your website five years ago.
I am not a programmer, nor do I understand the basic programming language for website design (HTML) all that well. I am, however, very successful at getting my websites high ranking.
Truth is, you really don’t have to know the programming language of websites to know how to optimize your website for search engines and customers. That would be the same as saying that you have to know the programming code of Microsoft® Windows® just to turn on your computer, or the programming code of Microsoft® Word just to type a letter.
There are website design programs out there classified as WYSIWYG programs – “What You See Is What You Get”. This just means that as you type text on the web page, or insert a picture, the program displays (on your monitor screen) how the actual web page will look to users on the internet. Adobe® Dreamweaver® is one of these WYSIWYG programs. Dreamweaver® is very user friendly and intuitive.
This really isn’t rocket science here. Computers are just a tool to help you succeed. Utilize your tool in the most efficient way you can, without having to go through a huge learning curve.
I tried to keep the book brief, at the most basic understanding level, and to the point. I tried to put myself back into my own shoes, twelve years ago, when I set out learning how to build a website and I knew nothing – back then it was sink or swim for me.
Optimizing your website to get higher search engine ranking just takes a little research and a little patience. It goes the same for optimizing your website for great customer service. They both involve the basic marketing skills you are already doing in going about the every day promotion of your business.
I plan to place the feedback and up-to-date Search Engine Optimization information on the website for this book – www.get-top-ranking-on-google.com. I also plan to come out with a new edition of this book every year, since the world of SEO changes constantly. So, if you don’t understand something in this book, probably other people are asking the same questions and I will try to answer them on the website and improve the next edition of the book.
Please see the Website for Consulting / Speaking Engagements
www.get-top-ranking-on-google.com
Please visit my website for contact information – feedback is always welcome.
Define: HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) The programming language that most websites are written in.
By the way, I don’t see very many of those recently funded ventures doing most of the techniques that I will share with you here – probably because they are not doing their “due diligence” (jargon / buzzword). It’s easier for them to just hire one of the many amateurs out there who promise to get them “High Ranking”.
So, I direct this book to you, the Micro Business Owners/Mom and Pops who are the front line of our free enterprise system – the risk takers – the seed planters – the backbone of our economy. The best news (for me) is that there are a heck of a lot of you out there in the world. After all, I would like to sell a few of these books J
Why Write a Book on SEO & Online Customer Service?
When friends and acquaintances found out how successful I have been with my own websites, they asked me to help them get better ranking on search engines for their businesses. These friends knew I had attended the “SEO School of Hard Knocks” for the past twelve years, scratching and crawling my way up. Finally, I am at the top with numerous websites (see the end of this book). What started as a few notes to some friends kept growing until I had enough information for a small book.
I wanted the novice to be able to get some quick knowledge which could be implemented immediately without a lot of effort nor a steep learning curve. This makes my book unique.
My book also differs from other books on SEO in that my advice comes from a customer service perspective. After all, the ultimate goal is to build lifelong customers for your business. I have spent the last 33 years in customer service and had the ultimate retailer as a mentor – my father. Dad was very well respected in the Ace Hardware community – nationwide. Dad always put the customer first!
I also saw an opportunity to share some “insider” secrets and lesser-known techniques, which (to my amazement) are not utilized on most websites – even the corporate giants.
Define: SEO – SEO stands for “Search Engine Optimization” and involves designing your website to be search-engine-friendly with the goal of high ranking – so your website can be found on the internet through search engines. (more about SEO in the next section)
I highly recommend that all business owners take charge of their website and the constant updating of it. You don’t want to have to turn to a website designer every time you want to make a change. If you make changes and updates to your website on a regular basis (which you should do at least every week), then your website designer could end up costing a fortune! Furthermore, does a website designer really understand your business the way you do? Can they make recommendations based on looking at your business in its entirety? Does a website designer know your customers like you do?
If you do hire a website designer, find one that asks you lots of questions about your business. The website designer should rely on you for input for the design of the website – it should be a combined effort. Find one that will show you how to make subtle changes/updates yourself, and only rely on them for major updates.
You and your web designer must also consider the three main elements needed in order for a website to function. First you have to write a program that gives birth to the website (website design program). Second, you have to register a name for your website (www.yourname.com also known as the URL), and finally you have to have your website “hosted” on the hard drive of a server on the internet – more on this later.
You can start with any tip or topic in this book. Just pick one that makes sense to you, take some baby steps and then master the next tip. There is no order to it. Don’t worry if I mention a tip or talk about something that you don’t understand. Just keep going. You will pick up many ideas throughout. Don’t get “hung up” on any one particular topic.
Even if you don’t want to take charge of your website yourself, this book will help you talk intelligently to your website designer. It will help you separate the players from the amateurs.
No one knows your business like you do, and it’s up to you to keep it fresh. A fresh and consistently-updated website not only gets you higher ranking, your customers appreciate it as well, hopefully coming back for more.
Define: Spider – Search engines have programs (called Spiders or “Bots”) that go out and look at every single website on the internet. They “crawl” every aspect (including file names, text and the actual programming code), of every page of every website on the internet attempting to rank them by subject matter. They rank both the home page and the individual pages – mostly relating them to keywords that searchers might enter into the search box of the search engine. Again, the page being ranked could be the “Home Page” (the home page is the most important) or any other page within the website.
Internet Opportunity for Small Businesses
Etailing (online retail) was up another twenty plus percent as 2007 came to an end. Shoppers would much rather surf the internet than spend time in traffic and pay high gasoline prices driving all over the place. Even my wife bought all of our Christmas presents last year “online”. Now, that might not mean a lot to you, but to me it’s huge. It says a ton about the shopping habits of folks. We’re talking about a woman that loves the retail shopping experience and did not order any gifts online the previous Christmas! Don’t get me wrong, she still shops “brick and mortar” stores, but now she’s pre-shopping the items (online) before she hits the road.
Define: Brick and Mortar Business – a brick and mortar business is a business in the traditional sense. It has a physical location, verses an internet business, which only exists on the web.
Another opportunity for small business is that the internet is the perfect advertising / marketing vehicle. If you think about it, most advertising is intrusive. You’re reading a news article and you have to navigate through all of the ads. You’re watching TV and the commercials interrupt your experience. In contrast, internet shoppers are actually looking for your information. They are searching for your products!
I also feel that there is a paradigm shift going on out there in the “brick and mortar” retail store arena which will highlight the need for small business owners to have a better web presence. Back when my family and I owned our Ace Hardware stores (and also when I moved on to work for Ace Corporate in the early 90’s as a retail consultant), the experts said that there was simply too much retail square footage in the United States, for the population to support it.
Well, retailers just kept on building! There are some pretty large egos at work. (For example, you might have seen major home centers built right across the street from one another.) The bottom line is that there is going to be some fallout – which small business owners can take advantage of, if they are prepared, and if they can be found on the internet.
Compounding the “overbuilding” fact is that the “Big Box” stores have to draw from a very large market area, requiring some of their customers to drive quite a distance to get to them. With high gas prices, customers are going to start cocooning around their neighborhoods more and more, benefiting independently owned – local Mom and Pop businesses. To be sure, customers are becoming thriftier in their shopping escapades and doing much of the “leg work” of the shopping on the internet prior to hitting the road.
It’s not enough for Mom and Pop businesses to simply have a website on the internet. They have to be found through the search engines allowing the customer to “pre-shop” their store inventories, in preparation for stopping by the physical location for a purchase.
Internet retailing is much more than just making a sale on your website “online”. It’s about acquiring and building customer relationships that can turn into lifelong purchases at your “brick and mortar” location.
Furthermore, society is becoming “surrounded” by the internet. The “Low Cost” laptop market segment is gaining some unexpected steam. (I try to stay on top of the laptop market for my patented Laptop Stand invention at Keynamics® LLC www.keynamics.com.) This low cost laptop segment is good news for both you and I. Laptop manufacturers are talking about coming out with a laptop that costs under $100 in the near future. Talk about putting the internet everywhere! Market researchers are estimating that 145 million laptops will be sold in 2008. That’s up from 100 million units in 2007 and 80 million in 2006. Everyone will have a laptop eventually. Even people who already own one will be getting a second and third just to throw around, say in the trunk of the car, a gym bag, under the car seat. You can even get a pretty good version of the internet on cell phones these days. The point is that the internet is truly everywhere, meaning customers everywhere can have access to your business 24/7. Will you be found?
Whether you sell a product on the internet (etailing), offer a service, or run a charitable/worthwhile cause, it’s all the same. To be successful, it’s not a matter of ifyou will have a strong internet presence, it’s when. That when is now.
Before moving on to the main part of the book, I would like to mention a few programs that I personally use. I only point them out so that you know my perspective and my point of view from the various examples given. I use the Microsoft® Windows® (operating system), Microsoft® Internet Explorer® (web browser), Adobe Photoshop® (photo editing program), Adobe Dreamweaver ® (website design program) and Google™ (search engine).
Define: Micro Business – Technically, a small business as defined by the SBA has less than $5 million in sales and less than 500 employees. A Micro Business might have zero employees and can be run by one or two people (typically family members). I tend to view a Micro Business and a “Mom and Pop” business as one in the same.
