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So now you have your business website. OK, that’s good. Now what? Wait for someone to fill in their contact info and then click submit on the contact us form? Wait until somebody calls the phone number listed on the website? Wait for someone to click the email link? Well, you could, but why not submit your website to Google to expedite the inclusion of your website in the great and mighty Google database, and by extension, in the Google search results.

The process of Submitting your website to Google is quite simple.

1. Navigate to the Add your URL to Google
2. Enter website address in the URL input field
3. Enter comments in the comments input field
4. Enter the optional characters in the image which is a mechanism used by Google to distinguish between sites submitted to Google and by individuals and those submitted to Google automatically through software. Note that this input field is optional
5. click the submit button

Only the top-level page of your website needs be submitted to Google and then the Google web crawler will discover linked pages that collectively comprise your website. According to Google, the comments entered in the add your URL to Google form do not affect how your page is indexed or used by Google once submitted.

If you are a procrastinator, fear not as new domains, once registered, generate what is called whois records that include the domain name and name servers which get communicated to Google who adds the new domain information to the queue of web address to crawl. That is not to say that submitting your URL won’t expedite the process getting your website listed on Google faster to bring more natural search traffic sooner.

Google does have the following disclaimer listed on the Add your URL to Google page: “We do not add all submitted URLs to our index, and we cannot make any predictions or guarantees about when or if they will appear.” In my experience, it is rare that Google will exclude any unique and useful content from its database but like most things in life beyond death and taxes, nothing is guaranteed.

As the next step in managing your website positioning within Google, navigate to the Google Webmaster Central and login to learn more about tools and techniques to enhance your search positioning and Google search referral traffic.

While performing a search for “Interent Marketing Services” on Google, in addition to the top sites that have dominated that keyphrase sinse eBiz ROI began tracking last year, a funny thing happened. On the first page of the search results were labeled Latest Results for Internet Marketing Services which included Twitter Tweets containing the words Internet, Marketing and Service, broad matched, integrated into the first page of the Google search results.

Google search results with tweets integrated into first page results

I have heard about this coming and maybe this is old news, but this is the first time that I have noticed Twitter tweets integrated into page one search resutls for Google searches. This could certain alter the role that Twitter plays in search engine marketing and SEO. Since terms like interenet marketing services may not lend themselves well to video and image references being included in blended search results, maybe integration of tweets with those keywords in the tweet could provide another dimension of relevancy and timely information. This new approach provides savvy Internet marketers who use Twitter to promote their business, to get on the first page of Google, much like the opportunity that integration of the Google 7-pack does with the integration of local search results triggered on search of keywords likely to have location based intent.

Oddly enough, Google searches in the past would include Google 7-pack local search results, but in the instance of search results for Internet Mareking Services captured by the image above, it appears not to be the case as no local search results were included in the results. Does this meant that Google is mixxing things up in this regard, making sure to provide only one back door at a time (i.e. Twitter Tweet integration vs. Google 7-Pack) to the search results at time so as not to overly disrupt the delicate balance of the PPC-SEO-ecosystem too much at one time? Only time will tell.

Readers are invited to comment on whether this is old news or whether this is a new opportunity and incentive for search mrketers to step up their investment in Twitter to promote their businesses and their clients.

When evaluating your target market and by extension, your marketing options, its good to align your sales and marketing strategy with the average lifetime value of a client. Take a lawyer for instance, the average lifetime value of a client for a good civil litigator could be six figures or more, depending on circumstances of their cases. On the other hand, if selling $1 per piece widgets, then the average lifetime value of a retail client will be low, limiting the allocation of marketing funds available for each new client acquired.

Each scenario has its own needs. For the lawyer looking for 6 figure clients, the cost of customer acquisition can be high. For example, lawyers and businesses selling leads to lawyers, bid for $25 per click from mesothelioma searches providing ROI (Return on Investment). Let’s do some quick back of the envelope math. Assuming a very conservative click to conversion rate of one in a hundred clicks resulting in lead captured. This would be $2500 per captured lead. A more aggressive assumption might be one captured lead per ten clicks which translates to $250 per captured lead resulting from clicks purchased from sponsored links on mesothelioma
searches.

Now taking it a step further, lets assume that a sales close rate of 1 in 4 leads. If we take the conservative click to conversion estimate of one in a hundred, with a close rate of 25% yields a cost of client acquisition of $10,000. If we assume the more liberal click to conversion rate of 10%, which is entirely possible with a well optimized and tested landing page strategy, the cost of acquisition drops to $1000.

While $1000-$10,000 seems like a lot for client acquisition, for a lawyer averaging fees in excess of six figures, the strategy of bidding $25 for mesothelioma provides ROI.

Like two out of three Americans, eBiz ROI procurement relies on the Internet as the primary souce of local product information. Recently we found a local product search opportunity for a large, national office supply retailer. This short story starts out with the need for two large whiteboards for the eBiz ROI main office. Having a savvy procurement department and needing to procure these whiteboards fast, the procurement team went to their favorite local search engines and selecting everything from web to product to local search, but were unable to find a local (Capital District, NY- Albany, Schenectady, Saratoga, Troy) supplier of whiteboards using Internet search. The eBiz ROI procurement yellow pages were not available to aid in the local product search as they had all been used to prop up computer monitors to proper viewing height

Local search was perfect for the task of finding affordable whiteboards since finding a local supplier meant avoiding the prohibitive cost of shipping two large whiteboards. In fact, the shipping costs in almost all quotes received were more expensive than the purchase price of the whiteboards themselve. The only relief from the shipping cost is to buy wholesale and pick up your shipment off the back of a truck. Since eBiz ROI only needed two whiteboards for the office, wholesale purchasing was not an option.

To provide the reader some persepctive, the eBiz ROI procurement team is comprised of determined web surfers from back in the days when Archie, Gopher and FTP where the hottest things since Commadore Commuters, Atari and 1400 baud dial-up bulletin boards. They searched way beyond local product search engines including searching the three biggest search engines and then proceeding to navigate directly to the websites of several national retailers who with comprehensive websites and robust ecommerce functionality and a local brick and motar presence. Surely these large national office supply retailers, with stores serving local markets in the 100 of thousands of consumers would have large whiteboards in stock locally. For heavens sake, eBiz ROI operates in the Capital District of New York State with faily substantial population centers in – Albany, Schenectady, Saratoga, Troy not to mention New York State government offices.

Long story short, local product search yielded no options for the methods employed. The eBiz ROI whiteboards were purchased at a brick and mortar store of one of the national office supply retailers who has several stores in the Albany, Schenectady, Saratoga, Troy sales district. The whiteboards were found only during a visit to one of the physical stores. Whiteboards that were not found usling local product search. The opportunity stems for the fact that this company has a great website and tons of qualified traffic, but there is no doubt that they would move more whiteboards in their stores nationwide if they could somehow integrate that large ticket item with their website and local product search strategy.

Granted, no one, including eBiz ROI, expects there to be a run on large whiteboards in the Capital District anytime soon, but with a fresh crop of entreprenuers popping up everyday, who knows? If you are going to invest in shelf space to inventory large whiteboards which are a medium to large ticket item among your available inventory, whny not efficiently market to your thousands of loyal Internet customers searching for your products online. Sounds like there is a local product search pony in there somewhere.

backlinks

Hmmmm, this is a immersive concept and I need to emphasise it’s not clear cut. But here is what I know in my research at the Backlinks clinic:

Authority – simplified

The more authority your site has the better you will rank on Google. Authority means that people trust you and your information. The good news is that authorities trusted by people are also trusted by Google. A great example is the .edu and .gov domain extensions. These domains imply they are authoratitive sources of information and it’s a proven fact that in the eyes of Google backlinks from these domains to your site will send authority to your site. Another great example is Wikipedia as the web pages here are largely authored by by tribes of people as opposed to a single source.

So it follows that authority is very heavily influenced by the source of your backlinks and if authoritative content link to your site then you receive their influence and as far as Google is concerned you become more authoritative and so the trust in your site by Google increases.

How Google determines what is and isn’t authoritative is a guarded secret for solid reasons and aligns with Google’s thinking of “Do no evil”. The last thing the web needs is someone exploiting the formulae that Google employs in its efforts to try and bring some order to probably the most important technological asset of this period in history.

How not to get Authority and Backlinks

In the same vein it’s valuable to state some ‘black hat sources and methods of acquiring backlinks that Google not only disapproves of but appears to be moving aggressively to ‘classify’ as negative authorities. In no particular order of severity, the common examples are:

• Paid backlinks – places where people buy and sell backlinks
• Comment spam – entries that contain links on blog pages that are just not associated to the main theme.
• Low quality and *duplicate content – ‘scraped’ or otherwise
• Rapid backlink growth – there are a myriad of ways that this is achievable, Google isn’t dumb. Any sudden rise in the number of backlinks is going to register on Google’s monitoring systems, specifically if it’s a brand new domain.
• Backlinks from unscrupulous sites – these are particularly henous as you are guilty by association – need I say more.

*There is another factor where I may be on shakey ground, but major press portals seem to get a lot of authority and I have definitely seen significant numbers of the same article over and over again on different portals with no penalties, I am still monitoring this, only as a percentage of the results I am seeing go against the consistent behaviors I usually expect to see. More on this is in a future article….

According to an annual TMP Directional Marketing (TMPDM) local search study announced earlier this month, there were 21.9 billion searches across all media platforms in June 2009, up 31% from a year earlier. Among other things, the study commissioned by comScore, measured the primary sources of local business information.

The data from 4,000 respondents showed that 31% of those surveyed rely on search engines as their primary source of local search information, with search engine share flat year over year. Print Yellow and White Page Directories were the second most common primary source of local business information for 28% of those surveyed, down from 30% a year earlier. So no, contrary to popular belief in certain circles, print is not dead. Coincidentally, the Internet Yellow Pages share of 21% grew share by 2% up from 19% last year, the same as the loss of share by print. Local search sites were primary source for 12% of respondents, up 1% from 11% in 2008.

Search by Mobile Internet users grew to 22 million in June 2009. This was up 127% over June 2008, a much steeper growth rate than search overall at 31% , In perspective, mobile search still a small percentage at .1% of overall search share. This will change as more and more users become equipped with smartphones (can you say iPhone) and wireless broadband data becomes ubiquitous. Imagine the location based advertising opportunities, where Starbucks ads can be sent to GPS-enabled mobile users within eyeshot of a Starbucks. As a consumer, this means the option of receiving coupons while in line waiting to get a coffee you were going to buy anyway.

According to the study, of the 22 million mobile searches, 32% were for local business information. The most sought after local content for mobile users included online directories (42%), followed by maps (41%), restaurant information (37%) and movies (30%). Mobile search will continue to grow and can present some interest local advertising opportunities for local entertainment.

A good way to boost local search traffic is to create listings on popular local search directories. This is especially relevant if you sell an in market-delivered service and your target and only market is local. The best part is that you can list your business in local directories for free including your website URL, phone and address. The investment is a little time to build profiles on these sites, but once you are listed, you can rest assured that potential customers utilizing local search for your products and services will see your business, not just your competitors. The free backlink to your site from your local directory listing doesn’t hurt your site’s SEO either.

It is important to capture the local search traffic in your target markets. The users of local search, in many instances, are actively in market for the products and services that you and your competitors offer locally. Some of these local search users are poised to buy and would prefer a local supplier for immediate delivery to avoid shipping or a local place of business to address any critical issues should any arise.

For certain service professionals such as landscapers, cleaners, construction companies, doctors, dentists, lawyers, reactors and others, this is especially important because of their local target markets, which are by their nature, limited in number of potential customers. You can imagine the opportunity cost of having potential customers, who rely on local search to find needed suppliers, be connected directly to the local competitors whose businesses are visible via local search while not considering yours because it was no returned in local search results, and therefore, not even considered as an option to the potentially interested buyer.

Some of the more popular sites include Yellow Pages, Google Local and Yahoo Local. There are a number of other free directories that you can find and starting with a few big ones should show results.

With an estimated 74% of the US population using the Internet today and over 64% relying on search as their primary source of local business information, it is a must for businesses to make sure that they are found when people are looking for products and services in their local markets. Check out the Guide On HowTo Get Your Business Listed On Major Local Search Engines, Yellow Pages Sites and Social Local Networks for more information.

How can you claim to have a solid search engine marketing plan if you don’t do the necessary keyword research around your niche? In other words, if you want define keywords to purchase in a paid placement or to optimize your pages for organic search (i.e. natural search), you need to understand the search terms used by your target market.

Solid keyword research is the difference between delivering just any traffic and delivering qualified traffic. For example, if you are promoting a product for fading tattoos, you may want to purchase the key phrase “tattoo regret” but pass on the individual keyword “tattoo”, as that would likely deliver a lot of traffic at a higher cost per click, but not drive qualified traffic for your product.

Solid keyword research should include generating a list of long tail key phrases that can be purchased at a lower cost per click and while delivering higher conversion rates. The trade-off with long tail key phrases is that you will have to manage more keyphrase as each will deliver only a fraction of the traffic volume you require.

Whether your search marketing plan includes natural search, paid placement or both, solid keyword research is the cornerstone to your search marketing success and with free tools publicly available, there is no excuse to shortchange keyword research and by extension, your return on search marketing investment.