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.

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

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

Writing articles is one of the best ways to share what you know and to get your name out there at the same time.  Sharing valuable information with readers will help you establish yourself as a knowledgeable source on certain matters and will give credibility and strength to your own website.

Writing original articles can have great SEO benefits as well.  When you leave natural, contextual links back to your site within an article, you are showing the search engines that your site is relevant to what is being said in the article.  If search engines are frequently seeing links to your site surrounded by relevant and accurate content, they’ll give greater authority to your website in regards to those keywords.

Now the real question: What do you write about?

Answer: Anything!

• Are there any current events that can relate to your business?
• Do you have any upcoming company events?
• Are there any community events that you could tie into your services?
• Do you have a flagship product that you could spotlight?
• Search for your keywords on other article submission sites and see what other people are writing about.
• Anything with a human interest angle - bizarre, interesting, heartwarming, out of the ordinary.
• Set Google alerts for your keywords and company name and monitor what’s going on in regards to your business, products, or field of work…write about it!

And Remember….

• Keep a pad of paper handy for those moments where you read something, hear something, or see something that would be good to write about - you’ll be surprised how quickly your list will grow!

When using LotusJump you’ll find that there are a myriad of content building sites suggested as outlets for the original content you create.  While we have a handful of favorites, a useful and easy to use content building site is Knol.  Knol is a Google project that launched a few years ago and consists of user-written articles on a range of topics.   It’s almost like Google’s version of Wikipedia, but with an option for contributors to allow, or not allow, the public to edit their page.

Knols can be on just about anything - create a company profile, an article about your services, a topic relevant to your industry… the sky is the limit.  You can work off a previously created template, or get creative and start from scratch.  Once you’ve written your Knol make sure to add pictures, links and charts to make it even more enjoyable for your readers and then publish your page for all to view.

Writing your own Knol entry is easy and can be fun- especially when you’re writing about something that you enjoy!  So, what are you waiting for? Write your own Knol today!

This guy has taken the Pogo Stick to an entirely new level! His tricks are unbelievable!
Now, if only I could master a flip on the trampoline…

[Every Wednesday LotusJump highlights a Jump of the Week (JOTW). It can be any kind of jump (over tall things, in search engine rankings, through hoops of fire, whatever). Submit your favorite Jump via comment and we'll consider it for future Wednesday JOTW's!]

Want your website to become a top online resource for a certain keyword phrase?

Try building a page on your website specifically for it!

An optimized landing page is a tried and true PPC principle, but not many people have recognized its value for organic SEO as well. If you know that a certain keyword will drive traffic to your site, why not give that keyword its very own page? To illustrate the point, let’s imagine you’re a search engine trying to return the most relevant result for the search term “safe baby crib,” which would you pick–Result A, B or C?

Result A:

URL: www.cribs-r-us.com
Title Tag: Cribs R Us, Online Baby Crib Store, Largest Baby Crib Selection
Meta Description: “Your online resource for the largest selection of baby cribs!”
Opening sentence: “Welcome to Cribs R Us - Browse our huge inventory of different kinds of baby cribs”

Result B:

URL: www.crib-factory.com/baby-cribs
Title Tag: Browse our Cribs - Cute Baby Cribs, Safe Baby Cribs, Sturdy Baby Cribs
Meta Description: “We offer many kinds of cribs–cute baby cribs, safe baby cribs, etc”
Opening sentence: “View the images below to learn about our many types of baby cribs.”

Result C:

URL: www.cribs-r-us.com/safe-baby-crib
Title Tag: Safe Baby Crib, Safety Crib | Cribs R Us
Meta Description: “Consider our safe baby crib product line for your infant’s needs”
Opening sentence: “Sleep well knowing you’ve purchased one of the following safe baby cribs from Cribs-R-Us.com”

If you were picking the result based on on-page SEO factors alone, Option C would be chosen as the most relevant result due to the prominence (not density, mind you) of the keyword phrase on the page. Check back for next week’s post on how to create your own optimized subpage.

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