Three Quick And Easy Ways To Make Google Juice In Your Business

In our world of constant advertising and marketing, more and more of our small business clients are researching for new ways of attracting their ideal clients. Electing to attract the right type of business versus spraying the market place with message after message that in some instances maybe falling on deaf ears.

One of the mechanisms gaining in popularity among business owners is search engine optimization. The art of creating relevant or pertinent inbound links to your business marketing website is the goal for most business owners looking at increasing their rankings with the search engines. Link building is one on the key focus points with any Google Search Engine Optimization campaign.

However, before you run out and drop your hard-earned dollars on a professional search engine optimization campaign here are some basic things you can do to help with your inbound links to your main website.

A word of warning first, stay clear of any search engine optimization guru’s who promise overnight success, quick results or guaranteed rankings. The search engine world is a blood-red battlefield in some industries and it takes efforts, persistence and the right professional to help meet results not overnight guarantees or fancy software applications. SEO takes hard work to do correctly.

The first step is gaining insight and understanding how your target market searches and the keywords or terms they are using for to find what they are looking for. It is crucial that you make no assumptions and you do your research. Let me repeat! Do not make any assumptions during this phase. The Google Keyword Research Tool provides an excellent representation of what terms the average online searcher uses to find your products and services.

Once you have determined the search terms you wish to use, pick your top three terms and get to work on these first. There will be plenty of opportunity to revisit any other search terms in future campaigns.

Here are some areas you can immediately make an impact with:

Your LinkedIn Public Profile provides the ability to create custom keyword rich links to your marketing website, blog and other online services. LinkedIn Public Profiles get Google’s attention and like any other websites they receive ranking within the search engines. Do you have “My Company” or “My Blog” listed for your websites, if you do then changing your website references to “other” and then adding your search terms will help with inbound links. Have your entire team do this within their LinkedIn profiles.

Next, your company blog offers a “link rich” strategy. Blogs are an essential part of any corporate marketing strategy. A well optimized, keyword rich blog are natural traffic magnets and with the correct focus can create a wealth of new followers and potential fans for your business. The biggest challenge for those businesses looking at generating natural “Google Juice” to their business blog revolves around attracting human readers and optimizing the blog for the best search results. For your business blog achieve maximum results is straightforward. Where you host your business blog is critical, having your business blog on an independent domain and hosted away from your main corporate website will aid in your overall linking strategy.

In addition to your business blog visiting other relevant industry blogs and leaving comments can also help generate inbound links to your business website. The key to a successful blog commenting strategy is to find relevant and high performing blogs that you can engage with. Blog commenting when done correctly serves two key purposes within marketing strategy. The first is to engage in conversations with the blogger you are commenting on and for you to offer your insights with the community and the second is to give a source for links.

Building an effective inbound linking strategy for your business takes work and it must include all members of your team. Link building starts with your business and marketing plan and works back from there. Determining your target audience and the message you are looking to share with aid in a successful link building strategy.

If you need help, our team at Ulistic can offer real-world advice and recommendations to make sure your activities are successful. Call us today at 403.775.2205.

Stuart Crawford is a strategic online communications and IT marketing professional with Ulistic. Ulistic focuses on empowering small business owners globally through education and training. Stuart has worked in the managed services arena for over 15 years as a service professional. Recently changing gears to focus on coaching and mentoring his peers on the strategies he employed as a technology professional. You can learn more about Ulistic at http://www.ulistic.com or through Stuart’s blog at http://www.stuartcrawford.com.