Tag Archives: market leadership

The only way to win at SEO (part 2)

Posted on September 15, 2011 by in SEO and Traffic

In part 1 of this series I covered what Google is looking for (authority for the keyword) and the first 2 levels in my ’5 levels of SEO sophistication’ chart seen below. In this article I will cover the last 3 levels and will explain the 1 and only 1 way you will rank in Google.

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The only way to win at SEO (part 1)

Posted on September 14, 2011 by in SEO and Traffic

As a small business owner I bet you have heard it all when it comes to being ranked in Google.

“Put your keywords in your title and headings”

“Just create lots of great content and Google will love you for it”

“Get loads of backlinks”

The truth is, there is 1 and only 1 way you can possibly rank on the front page in Google (we are talking about natural listings here if you don’t know the difference between paid and natural listings start here).

By the end of this 2 part article you will know what that is and you will be able to make a start towards making it happen.

First it’s important to know what Google wants.

What Google wants

If you are a small business owner trying to make sense of the hazy mess of SEO advice out there start with this one simple piece of information

“The front page of Google for your keyword will be filled with the results that Google decides have the most authority for that keyword”

This will make more sense as I go so with that in mind let’s move on for now.

SEO Strategies – The 5 levels of sophistication

Next it’s important to understand that there are a lot of ways of going about ranking in Google (called SEO from now on) and they vary in terms of their level of sophistication. Some of them do not work and will never work anymore (like adding keywords to your meta tags). I will focus here on the methods that do work, including doing nothing.

I think it’s helpful to group them visually into 5 levels as I have done here. Read More…

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The other C words – Conversions and?

Posted on May 27, 2011 by in Website Design

website design - dan Hi all, this post takes some of the concepts from my next ebook that will be on the features of great small business websites, hope you like it.

You will hear a lot of web developers subscribing to the idea that:

“Websites are about traffic and….Conversions“.

But marketing people understand that not every person is a potential sales target right there and right then. In fact they know that often you will need to be seen by the customer 5-7 times or more before they will consider buying from you. So if they are visiting your site 5-7 times before being ‘Converted’ (them visiting the site of course is a good thing) then what is this doing to your conversion statistics!

Who are your real potential customers

Think about who is visiting your website. This chart (which contains made up numbers) might help you understand it a bit better.

At any given time you might have:

  • spammers, competitors, general haters, people who thought it was something else etc – let’s say it’s 45%*
  • People who might refer one day if they still remember – 20%
  • People who might buy one day if they still remember – 30%
  • People ready to buy right now – 5%

If you focus only on converting visitors who are ready to buy right now, look at the chunk of people you are missing!

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