LotusJump Blog

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.

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.

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.

A BIG thanks to Consupo, a hip up-and-coming consumer reviews site, for today’s Tuesday Tip!

As a site that provides an outlet for consumers’ voices to be heard, we understand the power that comes from customer reviews - both positive and negative.  All companies, whether big or small, should understand the significance that customer reviews can play in increasing your customer base, boosting sales, and as a marketing tool in general.  By encouraging customers to voice their opinions on your company’s customer service, products, and experience, you will gain a great insight into how your business is run, it’s strengths, and its weaknesses.  When it comes to negative customer reviews, don’t be so quick to take measures to get them taken down.  Negative customer reviews can sometimes be just as effective as positive reviews in that they give you a chance to learn valuable lessons, increase customer loyalty, and can actually lead to future sales.

Never underestimate the power of customer reviews.  By responding appropriately you will not only help build your company’s online reputation, but word of mouth buzz will increase and you’ll not only earn the loyalty of existing customers, but you’ll earn the loyalty of future customers as well.

Thanks Consupo for your awesome insight into the significance of customer reviews.  If you’ve got a great marketing tip, leave a comment with your tip and we’ll consider publishing it with a link to your website in future Tuesday Tip editions!

A special thanks to Qualtrics Online Survey Software for today’s Tuesday Tip!

If you haven’t heard of Squidoo or created your own Squidoo lens, do so today!  For those not familiar with Squidoo, this site is the brainchild of world famous marketer Seth Godin, the father of both Permission and Viral Marketing and former CMO of Coke USA.   Squidoo is a a FREE social networking site that encourages you to market yourself as you build lenses about your business, special interests, etc.  Lenses are interactive, and can contain Flickr photos, Google maps, blogs, Amazon items, eBay auctions, YouTube videos, polls, slideshows, and other links.  If you keep your Squidoo lens updated and and loaded with great content you’ll probably see traffic to your lens increase and maybe even make a few bucks off of the items that you can choose to advertise on your lens.  Over time your Squidoo lens can achieve Page Rank and we’ve even seen some lenses rank on the first page of Google for their keywords.  You can check out our Squidoo lens or make your own Squidoo lens today!

Want to get your brilliant marketing tip published? Leave a comment with your tip and we’ll consider publishing it with a link to your website in future Tuesday Tip editions!

A special thanks to WISEOZ.com for today’s Tuesday Tip.  WISEOZ is a free contest-based social community where people win prizes, collaborate, socialize, and connect through moderated play-as-you-please games called “WiseWits”.

Last week we talked about how social media is for everyone and this week we’d like to highlight how WiseOz has successfully used social media as a way to market their company.

WISEOZ has accounts on several of the big hitting social community sites and we do what we can to push our content out to those sites as frequent as possible. Everytime we release a new clue or award a winner, we Twitter. Everytime we publish a new WiseWit, we blog and bulletin it to MySpace and Facebook and dig it to Digg. Additionally, we have a SHARE feature on our WiseWit pages that easily allows users to do the same. We’ve gotten many new members from this approach and it keeps viral engine running.

Figuring out your own social media schedule may seem like a daunting task, but the benefits will far outweigh the hassle!  Start by joining all of the major social media networks and start building your profiles one by one.  As you familiarize yourself with each one, you feel more comfortable putting yourself out there and getting involved.

Leave a comment with your tip and we’ll consider publishing it with a link to your website in future Tuesday Tip editions!