Archive for the ‘ppc search engine marketing’ category
Getting Started with Spanish SEO
The market for your products or services among those who speak Spanish is potentially massive. And chances are very good that you are completely missing out on that market. This is somewhat of a complex subject, but I am going to give you a bare-bones strategy for promoting your business to the Hispanic market.
1. It goes without saying, but if you are going to promote your business in Spanish, you need to be prepared to speak to someone in that language. So you are going to need someone on your staff who can do that.
2. Use Google’s external keyword research tool to perform keyword research, but set the language preference to Spanish. The seed keywords should also be in Spanish:
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
3. Create content for your web site, or create a new web site altogether, written in Spanish and optimized for the keywords from step 2. However, you should avoid any kind of automated translation software or web site. You need to hire a real human being to do the translation work. If you’re going to do it, do it right.
4. Generate keyword links to your Spanish language pages just like you would your English pages.
That’s it! Easy, right?…
Well, not really. English language SEO is time consuming and has many moving parts. But doing it in a language that you are not familiar with adds a whole ‘nother level of difficulty. If you are already fluent in Spanish, then you’ve got a big advantage over the rest of us.
Another consideration is whether you are promoting to a broad, global Spanish-speaking market or to markets in particular countries or to specific groups of people. There are many variations of the Spanish language, and what works and is acceptable language to one group may not be understood or considered rude by another group. In general, the best strategy is probably to take a high level, global perspective and try to avoid using language that is specific to any particular group.
So preparing yourself to do business with Spanish-speaking people will require some effort and resources, but it will open you up to a whole new market.
Google Shakeup: Just Stick to the Basics
Google has been doing some things lately with its index that have caused quite a bit of shuffling of rankings. However, what we are finding is that, in general, in a few days things get restored to something like what they were before. So if you have high rankings that have suddenly disappeared, chances are pretty good you will get them back in a few days. The main thing is: stay calm!
We have been checking a lot of our clients’ rankings in the beta version of the new Google algorithm which is to be released in the near future. We are actually seeing improvements for many of our rankings with the new release. This validates our theory that, if you stick to the basics and work it, you will be fine.
So…what does that mean exactly?
First off, make sure the copy of your web site (including page titles and headers) is optimized for specific keywords, and not all on the same page. Spread your keywords out!
Make sure you have a keyword-rich internal linking structure. For example, if you are a law firm and your number one keyword is “Huntsville injury lawyer,” then you should have lots of links throughout your site pointing back to your home page that incorporate that keyword.
Next, make sure you systematically build up a heavy catalog of external links to your site. And spread it out. If you do reciprocal linking, that is fine, but that should not be your only linking strategy. Submit articles to article directories. Add your site to general directories. Look for lots of places for your links, and add new links regularly.
Also, we have seen some evidence that Google may now be giving preference to sites that have been updated recently. So if you don’t do a blog, set one up! Stream or publish it to your blog and update it regularly. Pepper your blog with keywords, links to your own content, as well as useful content from other web sites.
In other words…if you want to maintain or improve your search engine rankings, stick to the basics! It would also be an excellent idea to mix in some social media marketing, but that is another discussion.
New Direction for Work Media
Work media is enjoying our new office located in downtown Dickson. Our productivity is up and our travel time is way down. We can all get to the office in 15 minutes or less, which uses more time to spend researching Internet Marketing strategies and applying them to our clients accounts. If any of you ever find yourself in Dickson (about 1/2 hour drive west of Nashville), we invite you to stop by for a visit. We are in the old Ragan arcade on main street.
We’ve been getting really heavy into social media and video. We have begun recording a lot of video footage, including short 12 second video four 12 seconds/twitter. Of loading videos to 12 seconds has a definite SEO advantage, in that it can result in the creation of a lot of web pages with a keyword links pointing to your main site. This is somewhat of an advanced strategy that could have a powerful long-term impact on a search engine optimization campaign.
Combining video, social media, and content distribution is definitely the state of the art in search engine marketing. We invite you to contact us today to talk about creating and implementing this type of marketing campaign for your business.
By the way, if you’re into Twitter, you should check out our Twitter blog, http://twitterforbusiness.blogspot.com.
By the way one more time, I invite you to check out our 12seconds page, http://12seconds.tv/channel/lawfirmseo. As the name implies, this particular channel is intended to discuss law firm marketing, but it pretty much all applies to any type of business.
Twitter: Don’t Bore Your Prospects
Today I begin Twittering with renewed enthusiasm. Last night I even updated my profile and image. I’ve got a yellow post it note stuck to the side of my monitor to remind me to update Twitter. If you don’t update, then the whole exercise is pointless.
Are you on the Twitter yet? It may seem like an unproductive use of your time, and I can’t really blame you. But if you ain’t on the Twitter, you got a problem.
Here’s the lowdown. Twitter really can help you build up an online network of people who are interested in what you have to say; who can influence events in your life; who can recommend your products or services to others. It is a legitimate business tool. And it’s free (not counting the time you spend actually doing it).
So start today. Go set up an account if you don’t have one, and make your page look interesting. Upload an image of yourself so you don’t have the default brown loop-looking thing as your image. Fill out the fields on your profile page. People want to learn who you are.
Your Twitter posts should: contain relevant keywords; be industry specific; and be interesting to read. If you can make them funny, that’s even better. You want to entertain as much as possible.
I’m a professional search engine marketer, but I’m a newbie at using Twitter. But if I’ve learned anything in the short time I have been using Twitter, it’s that you’ve got to be interesting!
By the way, you can look me up on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jwork.