LotusJump Blog

We’d like to give a special shout-out to Smiledog.ca for taking a few moments to answer some questions for this week’s Friday Spotlight. SmileDog is a small-medium sized business service provider that specializes in virtual answering services, virtual receptionists, as well as helping to create an effective virtual office. Their company has been around for over 4 years now and is looking to increase their success via effective online marketing campaigns. Here is a quick background about their company:

1. What was the inspiration/background behind your company?
Starting Smiledog was a personal challenge to see if I could start and successfully grow a virtual service business from scratch, after having some success with owning two successful franchised companies.

2. What company achievement are you most proud of?

I am most proud of our company name. It is a unique brand in our industry and customers love it since it easily represents the philosophy we are trying to promote. The name is based on Dale Carnegie’s original customer service concept “You should smile when you answer the phone.” The dog part of the name represents a loyal, friendly service.

3. Why do you think internet marketing for your business is so important?

When we started this business most of the web tools available today did not exist. We can service any business in North America and there is only one viable way to reach them, and that is to make sure our website shows up in the search engine results.

4. Would you like to share a creative marketing tip for other small business owners?

I use Stumble-upon to find a lot of technology-related sites that I can use to help grow my business - check it out!

Millions of businesses throughout the world rely heavily on traffic generated through the major search engines (Google, Yahoo!,  Bing) to generate traffic and sales, which is why the latest Google Panda(monium) update has led to chaos around the web. The update, designed to improve the overall search quality for users, was said to have affected over 12% of website rankings. This figure could be on the rise as newer (but smaller) updates seem to be released monthly.

• Original Content - High-quality, unique content has been (and always will be) the way to go when publishing content on a website. One of the biggest reasons sites were penalized was due to a lack of original, unique content. Spend the necessary time to ensure you don’t violate this website “code of conduct” and strive to have at least 500 words of content on your homepage, as well as the rest of your product/service sub-pages. If you are using content that is found on a different site, be sure to link to it and give credit to the source.
• Relevance - This one may sound like a “no-brainer” but you’d be surprised at how many sites there are that don’t match up the title tags/header tags with the content on the page. For example, if your site has a product page about dog food, make sure that the title tags, meta description, and headline tags contain the words “dog food” (hopefully a little more descriptive than that) in them.
• Backlink Profile -Search engines still rely heavily on a website’s link profile to determine how well the keywords rank. Strive to build a diverse backlink profile - don’t try and build all of your links from the same type of source. If you need help finding relevant places to build links, there are a few quality SEO softwares out there that can help. Also strive to integrate social media (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn) into your business since any mentions of your brand via these mediums can lead to positive outcomes.
• Keyword Density/Variation - Don’t try and abuse or manipulate the system by spamming your keywords throughout your site’s content - search engines grow smarter by the minute and can almost always detect this. Instead, shoot to use your keyword (in different variations) about 2% of the total content. So if you are targeting a search term such as “weight loss pill”, use phrases such as “pill that can assist in weight loss” or “losing weight is a problem we all face. Fortunately, there are pills…”.
• Professionalism - Or in other words, make sure that the written content is grammatically correct without any misspellings, sentence fragments, or run-on sentences. To ensure that your site maintains a high level of professionalism, consider having 2-3 people read over each page of content to check for any of these errors. Yes, search engines can detect grammatical errors and may have an adverse effect on your keyword rankings.
• User-friendliness - Is your site easy to read and navigate, and does it offer insightful information (or helpful links)? High bounce rates are suspected to have a negative effect on rankings, so be sure to provide engaging content that will keep the user on the page for as long as possible with a desire to visit other pages of your site. Broken links are never a good thing. Be sure to update or 301 redirect them to their respective pages.

Keep in mind that having just 1 bad or irrelevant page of content can negatively impact the other pages of your site. Don’t get careless! Take some time to give your website a thorough review or get help from a professional SEO company and make sure you are keeping up to date with the latest SEO practices.

We’d like to thank ShopKirDeVries.com for taking the time to answer a few questions for this week’s Friday Spotlight. Kir DeVries is a unique gift store that specializes in selling products such as kitchenware, serveware,  lunch supplies, and wine totes. This online store has been around for a little over 3 years now and is excited to be featured in this week’s Spotlight.

1. What was the inspiration behind your company?

As a former niche brick and mortar store owner (and current foodie and wine aficionado) I was inspired to combine my skills and interests in the more flexible online e-commerce format. I believe very strongly in the homespun traditions of gatherings, dining and entertaining and wanted to provide a unique collection of goods to inspire people to enjoy entertaining at home.

2. What company achievement are you most proud of?

Kir DeVries has has evolved beautifully in our first three years of operation. As a bootstrapped company with a very limited marketing budget I am most proud of our exponential revenue growth year after year. It shows that we are really connecting with and serving our customers in a fun way that not only keeps them coming back but inspires them to spread the word about Kir.

3. Why do you think internet marketing for your business is so important?

Being an online retail site, we must constantly stay in our customers line of sight. So whether that is through SEO, banner adds or social media, it’s important to constantly remind shoppers of who we are and what we are doing in the medium in which they are spending most of their time.

4. Would you like to share a creative marketing tip for other small business owners?

One marketing strategy that has been working out surprisingly well for me is simply to ask my customers for help in spreading the word. With every customer service or follow up email I ask the customer to spread the word in a way that is unique to him or her. For example if someone bought a certain brand of product I’ll put a PS on the email that says “oh also remind your friends to like our facebook page so they can help pick our next round of Shinzi Katoh products”.  They are excited to be engaged and more than happy to help!

Thanks Shop Kir DeVries for letting us spotlight you this week! Leave a comment if you think you’re worthy of a Friday spotlight, and tell us why!

We’d like to thank Policehow.com for taking the time to answer a few questions for this week’s Friday Spotlight. Policehow is a career-helper website that teaches people interested in law enforcement jobs the types of things (such as education, experience, useful skills, etc.) they should be working towards in order to successfully land that type of job. Policehow has been around for almost 2 years now and is excited to be featured in this week’s Spotlight.

1. What was the inspiration behind your company?

Ever since I was little I have always wanted to become either an FBI agent or a policeman. Just the thought of being able to run around chasing  bad guys and help make the community a safer place sounded like a dream come true. So I told myself that if I was serious about landing a job in law enforcement, I had better find out everything there was to know about getting hired. I figured since there was going to be a lot of research involved on this topic, why not record this helpful information and share it with others on the web.

2. What company achievement are you most proud of?

I think it’s always nice getting emails from people interested in a law enforcement career expressing thanks towards my site for guiding them in the right direction. As far as a marketing achievement I am most proud of… ranking on my primary targeted search term “how to become a police officer”, which is currently in the 5th position of Google (thanks to LotusJump and it’s endless list of SEO tasks). Ranking this well for any keyword is awesome and drives a significant amount of traffic to my site. I am excited to start using LotusJump for my newly launched sites, FirefighterHow & FBIhow.com, in hopes of achieving the same kind of results.

3. Why do you think internet marketing for your business is so important?

Internet marketing is the key to success for any website; without SEO or other marketing efforts, no one will be visiting your site, and that tends to make it irrelevant. The way to move up on the search engine rankings and get more people visiting your website is to continually build high quality links, and fortunately for me, LotusJump makes that part easy.

4. Would you like to share a creative marketing tip for other small business owners?

I think one great way to gain more valuable links from related industries is to simply ask other website moderators if they would be willing to link to your site. When you send them an email, be sure to thank them for their site or a post you enjoyed, point out something you liked or learned by visiting their site, and then ask if they wouldn’t mind linking to your site. Be willing to link back to their site as well so they don’t think you are trying to get something for nothing. This link building technique has helped me to acquire tons of valuable links which have helped pushed my rankings to the top.

Thanks PoliceHow.com for letting us spotlight you this week! Leave a comment if you think you’re worthy of a Friday spotlight, and tell us why!

LotusJump is currently seeking partnerships with businesses related, but not limited to online marketing & PR, search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click (PPC), web hosting, web design, content generation, social media marketing,  SEO tools, bloggers, and more. LotusJump is an affordable web-based  SEO service that shows users how and where to build relevant back-links, which will help improve the overall search engine rankings for their chosen keywords. Find out how you can become a LotusJump partner or affiliate and start generating a lucrative residual income today!

For those of you out there who consider yourselves deal-hunters, we now have some new price-saving options for our LotusJump Pro and Basic accounts. Instead of paying the normal monthly fee, users now have the option of pre-paying for either 6 months or a year, which can lead to a savings of  up to 25% off the regular cost. See the links below to learn more:

LotusJump Pro account - Discount pricing

LotusJump Basic account - Discount pricing

For many e-commerce companies (including us!) it can be difficult and extremely frustrating trying to rank on the first page of Google for our targeted keywords. SEO can take time (months, even years) depending on how fierce the competition is, as well as many other factors that determine where exactly a site will rank in the search engine results pages (SERPS). To help increase the odds in how favorably Google lists our site, here are some SEO techniques (from the SEO experts) that you should consider doing:

1) Content - Make sure the homepage of your website has content (not just images or flash) that contains your targeted keyword(s). Aim to have at least 500 words of unique content, preferably more. Be sure not to keyword spam in the content and a good rule of thumb is to use keywords (and keyword variations) between 1-2% of the total content. Here’s an example to help clarify: If you have 500 words of content on your homepage, don’t use your keywords (and keyword variations) more than 5-10 times.

2) Title Tags - The title tags are very important when it comes to having Google determine what your website and content are all about. It’s extremely criticalto use your most valued keyword(s) in your title tags. A good rule of thumb to follow is to only use your top 2-3 keywords on your homepage title tags. Anything more may be considered spammy and could dilute any link juice allocated towards the keyword rankings. We also recommend that each page of your website have different title tags, and that the title tags relate to the content written. (For those of you who aren’t sure what the title tags are, look at the very top of your computer screen and examine the words written on the dark blue bar - those are your title tags)

3) Article Tasks - The article and content tasks listed in your LotusJump SEO software accounts are the most important tasks - so don’t ignore those! Freshly written articles that are unique and catchy not only help improve your overall SEO keyword rankings, they can also drive direct traffic to your site, especially if the article goes viral. The easiest way to capture a large audience of readers for your articles  is to write about something that is either funny, helpful, controversial, or causes fear, while relating to your product or services. Sure sex sells, but it can also be quite distracting to readers since it won’t relate to the product or service at hand.

4) Link Exchanges - If you have business partners who own websites, it would be a good idea to ask them to link to your website, preferably with 1 of your keywords as anchor text. This can provide a nice boost to your keyword rankings, especially if they provide a link to you on the homepage of their site. You can offer to do the same for them to help increase their likelihood of doing so.

5) Blog - If your business still doesn’t have a company blog, now would be a good time to get one. By creating a company blog, you can generate a new source of traffic and easily direct them to your company’s website. The nice thing about this type of online traffic is that it should be highly qualified, which should translate into higher conversion rates. Aside from providing an additional stream of visitors, blogs can also help improve keyword rankings through fresh content and imbedding links throughout the content.

* If anyone has their own suggestions or methods for improving keywords rankings, feel free to share them in the comments.

LotusJump is now accepting Paypal as a method of payment. This is particularly good news for users located out of the United States who may have had issues using a credit card over seas.

The month of June has been exciting for us here at LotusJump. One of the highlights was the Internet Retailer Conference Exhibition 2010 show, held June 8-11, in which we were able to exhibit our new SEO Designed for E-Commerce product. Our proprietary “Keyword Opportunity Engine” by LotusJump is designed to help e commerce companies maximize the value of existing, yet unknown, keywords rankings. We’re excited about this new and innovative product and the value it can provide for new clients as well as existing customers.

There are 5 powerful advantages to the Keyword Opportunity Engine:

• Intelligent, Automated Keyword Research

• Find and Focuses on the Most Profitable Keywords

• Supports Large E-Commerce Sites

• Analytics Integration

• Powerful Keyword-Level Ranking Reporting

Not only were we able to debut our latest product, we also had the opportunity to meet many partners and users of LotusJump. The show was a great opportunity to see how like minds are paving the way for better business opportunities. We felt eagerly accepted at the show and hope to attend IRCE 2011 to follow up with the latest LotusJump improvements.

LotusJump attending the Internet Retail show in Chicago

Some LotusJump users have asked questions such as “Are certain task types are more important than others?” or “Should I focus my efforts on any single task?”. While such a questions are hard to answer with precision,  generally it’s best to mix things up and do a little bit of everything, that way you can monitor your incoming traffic (with Google Analytics) and see which techniques are bringing in greater amounts of traffic. [However, as a side note, this does not mean that because a certain link on a page is not bringing in traffic that it does not serve a purpose. Some links do not directly bring in traffic, but they can still help boost website visitors indirectly by helping to improve your keyword rankings in search engines]. So, with that being said, here are some reasons as to why you should balance your SEO tasks and put in time for each of the following tasks:

1) Content/Article Tasks - As the popular search marketing saying goes - “Content is king!” - so it’s extremely important that you dedicate time to creating new content that appeals to readers. The article/content generation tasks generally provide greater benefit (than other task types) to your search engine rankings, assuming that you can write a quality article that is unique and grammatically correct. Search engines love fresh content and since most article submission sites give writers the ability to choose customized anchor text (with a link back to your website), it makes this a win/win situation. Yes, articles can be painful to write and do take some time, but the value they provide for your website and search engine rankings is far too great to pass over.

2) Buzz Tasks - Buzz tasks are great tasks to work on because they direct you to blogs that are talking about your products/services in real time (almost). Aside from leaving a relevant comment with a link to your site on these blogs, you also have the opportunity to interact with the blog owner and potentially develop a relationship that could lead to bigger and better things, such as a guest post or even sidebar link. You’d be surprised as to how many bloggers out there that are willing to help people out, granted you show them some respect/praise and add value to their site.

3) Q&A Tasks - The Q&A tasks are probably one of the best tasks that can lead to conversions. People have questions about certain products & services and if you can point them in the right direction and offer them some useful advice, they are usually more inclined to make a purchase or, at the very least, investigate what your company has to offer. Since most Q&A tasks are time-sensitive, be sure to stay on top of these and answer them as soon as you can, especially if it’s to prevent other competitors from stealing potential clients.

4) Social Profile Tasks - Social media tasks are very important in these latter time since this is the new direction taken by modern day communication. More and more people are getting involved on sites like Facebook, Linked-In, etc. and there are just too many eyeballs to pass up by not creating things such as a company Facebook page. Social profile tasks may not provide the best SEO juice, but they do help promote branding and can even go viral, particularly with comical material or generous giveaways.

5) Directories - Directory tasks are nice because they hardly take any time to complete and some of the more prominent directories (such as Yahoo’s & BotW) can help boost search engine rankings. Even though there aren’t a lot of people who use directories nowadays, they are still worth spending a few minutes to knock them out and help increase your online visibility.