Out of the Fog Marketing

Chris Garrett wrote a fantastic post that outlines all the ways you can increase the Google authority (and thus the ranking) of your website. I especially like the visual Mindmap at the bottom of the post.

Labels: chris garrett, chrisg.com, google authority, Google ranking

One of the areas our clients often struggle with is frequently updating their blogs. More and more we are seeing the influence of frequent blogging on Google rankings--blogs are no longer just communication tools but important parts of search ranking efforts. Plus recent analysts studies have found that web visitors view a company's site more favorably if there's a blog.

You can turn to an agency to help write corporate blog posts or do-it-yourselfers can check out Mashable's 40+ Top Topics for Corporate Blogs.

Here are more topic suggestions:
1) Repackage content from a newsletter or ezine.
2) Summarize or comment on a technology or product changing the way your company does business.
3) Summarize a customer success story.
4) Summarize a customer failure with lessons learned.
5) Check out what your friends or peers are writing about in Facebook groups or Linked In. That's how I found the topic for this post!

Labels: blog ideas, blog topics, blogging, company blogs, corporate blogs, Google ranking, mashable

Get High Quality Links to Rank Well On Search Engines

Developing and maintaining high quality links to your web site is essential to ranking high on search engines. Google ranks web pages based on the number and the quality of incoming links if more than one web page is optimized for the same keyword.

Here are a few tips for building quality links:

1) So get listed on respected directories such as dmoz.org or Google Maps.
2) Issue quality press releases to get online publications to cover your story and link to your site.
3) Post blog comments with a user profile that also contains a link to your site.

Labels: Google ranking, Michigan SEO, SEO press release

Page 4 Google Still Counts

In the course of providing search engine optimization for clients, I invariably run into companies that think they will die if they can't get a particular keyword or keyphrase on page 1 of a natural search on Google. For firms totally reliant on the web for business, this may be true. However, for firms with many lead generation avenues, presence on page 1 is not always a necessity.

It's true that 60 plus percent of folks do not search past page 1, but that means about 30 percent do!

Here's a real life example on how being on page 4 worked for our company. When we moved headquarters from Seattle to Ann Arbor, MI last July we knew online marketing was going to be the fastest way to find Michigan clients. So we went to work trying to rank for a popular term "Michigan marketing". For the first 8 months we were on page 4 (we are now on page 1) However when we were on page 4, Vision Computer Solutions, a local IT company was looking for a marketing firm and found our site. We were the first firm in the search results that targeted technology firms, had a message that spoke to their needs and a site that was visually appealing. Now we have a business development partnership with this firm.

So don't fret if you are on page 2, 3, 4 or 5 and my all means don't give up on a keyphrase. Keep plugging away trying to improve your rankings and in the meantime you may get a surprise lead or two.

Copyright 2007, Clarity Quest Corp

Labels: Google ranking, Michigan marketing, Michigan SEO