SEO for Atlanta Businesses

December 4, 2011 Leave a Comment

SEO for Atlanta businesses is about getting to the top of the search engines. A top spot in Google for the right keywords can dramatically improve the bottom line of just about any business.

Let me ask you a quick question: How many times have you spoken to someone, and may be this has happened to you, and they’ve spent money on their website and it just hasn’t done anything for them? Many business owners are underwhelmed by the return on their investment.

To be honest with you, you’re not alone. I run into a lot people who are doing their business plan and are putting together their website and think that their website is the “end all be all” of their online marketing. What we do at RedHotRankings.com is work with business owners who are looking to get more visitors, generate more revenue and impact their bottom line.

I was recently discussing this with a client. He had used a lead source that sent leads to him and three of his competitors. If you run a service
company you may have tried this, too. His success depended on whether he was the first to call, and then it was about how many times he had to keep calling to connect with the prospect. With a low success rate, he was looking for a better source of leads.

With SEO by RedHotRankings.com, his Atlanta based business is now #1 in Google for his primary keyword and in one of the top three spots in Google for several other high traffic keywords. Now he gets a fresh batch of leads calling him directly every day. His success rate in closing the business is much higher, close to 100% in fact. If he can speak to prospect directly on the phone, he can usually get the business, which is what quite a few business owners tell me.

Another huge benefit to his business is that most clients are much closer to his business because of his highly effective listing in Google Places from RedHotRankings.com. Instead of driving all over Atlanta, most customers are now within about a 15 mile radius. Wear and tear on his service vehicles has been reduced and the money saved on gas alone pays for his monthly SEO service.

If you are throwing good money after bad with ineffective marketing, contact us today at 678-520-9925 for a free website review and get the leads that will improve your bottom line.

Filed Under SEO Tagged With atlanta google maps, atlanta google places, atlanta seo, seo atlanta

SEO For Web2.0 – An Integrated Marketing Approach

March 17, 2011 Leave a Comment

Web2.0 is a term that describes the evolution of the web that now includes social media. SEO for Web2.0 requires an integrated marketing approach. An Atlanta SEO company has developed a unique approach called “Advanced Integrated Marketing”. If you are ready to embrace the power of Social Media with SEO for Web2.0, you will gain a competitive advantage today and in the future.

Social Media sites have begun to dominate the internet to the point where Google introduced a new search algorithm in August 2010 called “Caffeine” to account for Social Media Buzz.

Social Media consists of many popular sites, such as Facebook, Delicious, Digg, StumbleUpon, YouTube and others. The problem? Effectively promoting your business using Social Media is very time consuming. It requires creating entertaining, enlightening or interesting content, promoting it on multiple networks and then getting others to take notice and promote it also.

What is SEO for Web2.0? To get ranked highly in Google, you need SEO, good content and backlinks. Everyone knows this. But now there is one additional ingredient required as a result of the Caffeine update: you also need traffic. This is a real “Catch 22″ situation for anyone trying to promote their website online. After all, how can you get traffic if you do not rank? But now Google won’t rank a site without traffic? Seems like a trap until the power of social media is taken into account. If other people like your content on social media sites and vote for it, Digg it, Like it, etc., you will begin to get traffic to your site.

But this gets back to the problem of the time required to promote your content on social networks. Does this mean the web is now only for big corporations with the resources to hire teams of professionals to promote their content on social networks? Not necessarily, but a more advanced and integrated approach is needed for effective online marketing. Have you heard of content syndication? It is the most effective way to harness the power of the social media, social voting and social news sites. And it’s not just for big companies. Anyone can plug-in to an effective content syndication network and begin to see just how powerful social sites have become.

To ignore the power of social networks is simply ignoring the evolution of the web. But you can take advantage of this relatively new phenomenon to increase traffic to your site and grow your online presence.

Filed Under SEO Tagged With atlanta seo, Atlanta SEO company, google caffeine, seo, social buzz, social media, web2.0

Google Over-optimization Penalty!

April 19, 2012 Leave a Comment

Recently, Google identified a number of blogger network sites that existed purely to build links to websites. Google targeted one of the larger blogger networks called “Build My Rank”—the site was de-indexed, along with an overwhelming majority of its posts. Businesses that were over-reliant on the links from Build My Rank (and other blog networks that may be facing de-indexing) saw a significant drop in rankings.

Businesses that used Build My Rank but also acquired links from a variety of other sources fared much better. The more you diversify, the less impact a Google update will have on your rankings. We have always stressed that SEO and marketing overall needs diversification. Links should come from as many different sources as possible and be relevant. Diversity coupled with relevant and useful content is what builds value.

Maybe you’ve heard rumors about the impending Google “Over-optimization” Penalty? Google’s concern is that sites with great content and little or no SEO are up against sites with lesser quality content, but have done a better job with SEO. The penalty for over-optimization is designed to “level the playing field.” Again, great content (i.e., relevant and useful) and backlink diversification is key!.

Contact us at 678-520-9925 to get to the top of Google for keywords your customers are searching for.

Filed Under SEO

Online Reviews Impact Your Customers Buying Decisions

December 30, 2011 Leave a Comment

Online reviews are part of many consumers “due diligence” process when making a buying decision, and the reviews impact all types of businesses beyond the online retailers. Like it or not, online reviews have become your reputation. People share reviews on popular sites such as Yelp and Google Places in addition to postings on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, forums and many other social sharing and social media sites. Buying decisions are impacted by what other people say about your product or service.

How is your online reputation impacting your business? Do you know what others are saying about your business online? Customer reviews can enhance your business, but bad reviews can be ruinous. This may seem intuitive, but let’s move beyond intuition and into facts. Here are some statistics complied by Search Engine People about the impact of online consumer reviews.

Traffic to the top 10 review sites grew on average 158% last year (Compete.com)
97% who made a purchase based on an online review found the review to be accurate (Comscore/The Kelsey Group, Oct. 2007)
92% have more confidence in info found online than they do in anything from a salesclerk or other source (Wall Street Journal, Jan 2009)
90% of online consumers trust recommendations from people they know; 70% trust unknown users, 27% trust experts, 14% trust advertising, 8% trust celebrities (Econsultancy, July 2009, Erik Qualman, Socialnomics)
75% of people don’t believe that companies tell the truth in advertisements (Yankelovich)
70% consult reviews or ratings before purchasing (BusinessWeek, Oct. 2008)
7 in 10 who read reviews share them with friends, family & colleagues thus amplifying their impact (Deloitte & Touche, Sept. 2007)
51% of consumers use the Internet even before making a purchase in shops (Verdict Research, May 2009)
45% say they are influenced a fair amount or a great deal by reviews on social sites from people they follow (46% say reviews in newspaper or magazine influence them.) (Harris Poll, April 2010)
34% have turned to social media to air their feelings about a company. 26% to express dissatisfaction, 23% to share companies or products they like. (Harris Poll, April 2010)
Why do they share? 46% feel they can be brutally honest on the Internet. 38% aim to influence others when they express their preferences online (Harris Poll, April 2010)
Reviews on a site can boost conversion +20% (Bazaarvoice.com/resources/stats ‘Conversion Results’)

When deciding where to spend your marketing dollars, consider the impact of online reviews. Online reputation management is key part of any business strategy. Contact Us to discuss how we can help you manage and improve your online reputation.

Filed Under Reputation Management Tagged With atlanta seo, consumer reviews, online reviews, reputation management

Google Places and Your Online Reputation

December 22, 2011 Leave a Comment

Google Places can have a big impact on your online reputation. Fortunately, there are pro-active steps you can take to ensure you have a good reputation. However, many businesses fail to pay attention to their online reviews and their business can suffer as a result. Worse yet, businesses often know about the bad reviews but don’t know what do do about them. In this blog post, we will look at a couple of business listings in Google Places and discuss the options for improving and managing your online reviews.

What are Google Places Listings?

Google Places listings show up on a map on the search results page when you are looking for a business or place with a physical address. If you are looking for dresses in your town, the map will show the location of up to seven places to buy dresses. Click on the Place Page or Google Reviews and you will be taken to the Google Places listing for that business. A business can create it’s own listing or Google will gather information on it’s own.

You can see some listings have reviews and some don’t. The listings with reviews are more likely to be seen by your prospective customer so it’s best to have reviews if they are good reviews.

Being included in the Google Places listing box can be very valuable since it increases your visibility. But lets look at some potential problems.

Google Places Reviews – 2 Examples

Reviews in Google Places can have a big impact on a business. Would you go to surgeon without finding out what other patients have to say about him? Most people check a business’s online reputation before doing business with them. Let’s look at an example of a hotel in Atlanta.

Lets say you are looking for a nice hotel in downtown Atlanta and you see there is a Marriott nearby. While Marriott has a great reputation, you decide the check out the reviews on this hotel and this is what you see:
Wow, that is probably not what you expected to see for reviews of a Marriott, so maybe you decide to check out the Hilton next door. Do you see how powerful bad reviews can be? Certainly Marriott could do a few things to improve their online reputation, but perhaps they don’t now what to do.

Lets look at another example. If you were to search for dentists in Atlanta, you would see this listing in the Google Places “7 Box” and may decide to look at the reviews before making an appointment.

What To Do About Bad Google Places Reviews

Here are some Do’s and Don’ts for your Google Places reputation:

Do’s

Get a Google Places account. If you are not listed in Google Places, the first action item is to create a listing.
Update your listing with photo’s, videos or new information.
Monitor your reviews – have you checked yours lateley? Are your reviews good or bad?
Make adjustments to your business to improve the customer experience. Reviews are great sources of feedback – use them to get better!
Respond to reviews – you’ll have to be loggin in to your Google Places account to do this.
Solicit reviews from happy customers.

Don’ts

Fake reviews: This can be tempting, but don’t have friends or employees make up fake reviews. Google can track IP addresses and flag mulitple reviews from the sample computer. Plus, fake reviews are lies, so let’s not go there.
Don’t leave a nasty reply to a bad review. Write a reply and leave it on your computer. Have someone else read it. Sleep on it, think about it. Revise your reply with this thought in mind: “What would I think of this if I was a potential customer reading this”. Make it professional and don’t take a bad review too personally.

Conclusion – Manage Your Google Places Reputation

Many business owners are too busy running their business to focus on managing their online reputation. We have a comprehensive online reputation management program to make sure your company has the best possible reviews. If you have satisfied customers, wouldn’t you like their reviews to show up in your Google Places listing? Contact us today for a free consultation about how to manage your online reputation.

Filed Under Google Places Tagged With google places, online reputation, reputation management

Facebook Changes: 6 Updates In Facebook This Week

September 21, 2011 Leave a Comment

So far, for each of the following Facebook changes announced on their blog, about 20, 000 people have posted responses complaining about the changes. That sounds like a lot until I tell you that 748,980,000 people didn’t complain. In other words, it’s this all over again.

So here’s your quick and easy guide so you can catch up with Facebook and get on with your day. Click “Click to Continue” to get updated in under 5 minutes…

1. Top Stories and Most Recent now in one News Feed

Facebook’s own blog summed up this change nicely: “When you visit Facebook, you should see the things you’re most interested in…” So they are trying to make sure you do by ditching the old Two-Option News Feed, which made you choose either Top Stories (popular stuff in order of popularity) or Most Recent (chronological order).

That is SO yesterday…

Replacing it is a single News Feed which shows you both with Top News show at the, you guessed it top, and Most Recent underneath. If you haven’t visited Facebook for a while, the first things you’ll see are top photos and statuses posted while you’ve been away. They’re marked with an easy-to-spot blue corner.

: Don’t you feel hipper already?

If you check Facebook more frequently, you’ll see the most recent stories first. Photos will also be bigger and easier to enjoy while you’re scrolling through.

: Hey look, photos just got a butt-load better too. Literally a butt-load. It’s a technical term.

2. Ticker becomes official

The ticker is a live-feed area that sticks to the upper right corner of the screen and gives you a running play-by-play of what is happening literally right now. Facebook has been playing around with the Ticker in various forms for a while now on a small scale, but now it is rolling out to everyone.

Click on anything in ticker to see the full story and chime in – without losing your place. Seeing it move in real time is a little distracting and more than a little creepy if you think about it too long. But we predict like all other Facebook changes people will hate it for two weeks, and then be unable to remember Facebook without it afterward.

: I be creepin’ on your Ticker, yo.

3. The Subscribe Button

The Subscribe button allows you to set just how much you want to hear from a person. In fact, Facebook will now allow you to subscribeto someone even if you’re not friends (or let others subscribe to you). The latter only works with posts set to public. You’re already getting your friends’ posts in News Feed. With the Subscribed button, you can choose how much you see from them:

All updates: Everything your friend posts
Most updates: The amount you’d normally see
Important updates only: Just highlights, like a new job or move

You can also decide what types of updates you see. For example, you could see just photos from one friend, no stories about games from another, and nothing at all from someone else. You set it by visiting the person’t profile and hovering ove the Subscribe button.

: No one wants to admit that Facebook can figure this stuff out for us… but they totally can.

Don’t want to set each one of your friends individually? Well, by default, all of your friends have been set to “Most Updates” which covers the majority of what you’re interested in. You can then just reset the firends from whom you want All Posts or those from whom you want Only Important. You can also use…

4. The New Friend Button with Smart Lists

Now whenever you friend someone – or if you hover over the Friend Button on their profile – you have a few options you didn’t before. At the top of the list, you can easily set someone to “Close Friend” or only an “Acquaintance.” The former will automatically set their Subscription button to “All Posts” and the latter automatically sets it to “Only Important.”

: Don’t kid yourself, you are one smelly sock from moving to the acquaintance list.

Also, Facebook has anticipated (correctly in my case) that the hardest part of Friends List (or Google+ Circles for that matter) is that you have to curate the lists. So now, you’ll see smart lists that create themselves and stay up-to-date based on profile info your friends have in common with you–like your work, school, family and city.

Facebook analyzes your work history, school, family and location to determine who will be added to your Smart List.

: Yes, I went to California State University, Fullerton. You want fries with that?

You will also see the Friend and Subscribe buttons also work from the user’s hovercard when you mouse over their profile pic or name.

5. “Profile” disappears

The old right-hand corner trifecta “Home,” “Profile” and “Account” have parted ways. Instead of Profile, you now have a small thumbnail and name of the user you’re logged in as – that should make things clearer when you are using Facebook as a Page. Also, the “Account” has been replaced by a simple down arrow so you can access all your account, privacy and logout settings.

Yes, I know the ferret has more hair than I do.

6. Last but not least…

There are several smaller updates that are also rolling out:

You no longer need 25 likes on a business page in order to grab a custom URL
Facebook will try to not choke your inbox by emailing you a daily summary of the “less important” notifications instead of individual ones. If it makes you feel more alive to have a full inbox, you can change it back to individual emails on the notifications page .
Posts or comments in another language prompt the appearance of a “translate” button.
Posts that have been shared will now include a link you can follow to see who has shared them.

What is your most favorite update?

Kevin McNulty is co-founder and president of NetWeave Social Networking. NetWeave provides social media managed services for a wide range of clients in Tampa Bay and across the country, including the SUN ‘n FUN Expo and Fly In where their live social media coverage during and after an EF1 tornado was showcased by the Lakeland Ledger.

Kevin is active on most social media platforms and has been a guest lecturer for USF, Leadership Manatee, Leadership Lakeland, and the Tampa Bay International Society for Performance Improvement. Kevin received his degree in Psychology from California State University, Fullerton, served in the US Army, and worked for over 20 years in corporate training and communications.

Filed Under facebook Tagged With facebook changes, facebook updates, social media updates

SEO Guru Atlanta On the Radio!

September 1, 2011 Leave a Comment

I was recently invited to be on Ron Comacho’s “Business Hour” show on America’s Web Radio. A theme of the show is career transitions, so much of the show is about how skills from previous experiences were applied to become the SEO Guru Atlanta. Enjoy!

Listen to the Business Hour interview here!

Filed Under SEO Tagged With atlanta seo, seo expert atlanta, seo guru atlanta

Tony Robbins SEO Guru?

April 6, 2011 Leave a Comment

Is Tony Robbins motivating? Sure. SEO Guru? Not so sure. Actually, I’m positive he’s not. In fact it sounds like Tony Robbins is running a really big SEO scam.

I’ve had two calls asking if I know who Tony Robbins is (of course I do), and if I’ve heard he’s offering to get you on the first page of Google for 300 (yes, three hundred) keywords in something like 3 days. The cost is anywhere from $3,600 to $25,000. Wow! Not cheap, but people trust Tony Robbins… I used to, but not anymore.

To get on the first page of Google for some long, obscure, even good-sounding keywords that nobody searches for, and therefore have no competition, is no big feat. You may be able to get there just with linking, but so what? You won’t have any traffic to your site since nobody searches for those keywords. $3,600 for that? How about $25,000? No thanks.

Getting on page one of Google for a keyword or search term that people are actually searching for usually requires good content, a bit of on-page SEO, link building and possibly some social buzz. But before you even start, you need to know much competition there is. If the competition consists of big, established, highly optimized sites with really good SEO, it will take more than 3 days to rank higher than they do.

But Tony Robbins doesn’t promise you will rank higher than the “big boys” for competitive keywords, he just promises a page one listing for 300 search terms. For the uninitiated, the difference may not be obvious until you find out that being on page one isn’t really all that helpful. Being in the top 3 on the search engine results page is what matters. Listings 4 – 10 get less than 25% of the clicks – combined. Is it worth paying $3,600 to $25,000 to be in positions 4 – 10 for obscure keywords with zero search volume?

Positional click-through percentage

The following graph shows the percentage of click-troughs the first 10 results of the Search Engine Listings receive:

So should you fall for Tony Robbins scam? Business owners need good advise and guidance to be successful. Fleecing them for $3,600 to $25,000 can wipe out the marketing budget of a small company. They eagerly anticipate the phone ringing, but nothing ever happens. I’ve seen too many business owners get ripped off and it limits their potential to grow, affects their employees, service levels, salaries, and everything else related to their business.

Resist the lure of a quick fix. A good SEO company starts with market research and develops a plan that includes a focused list of target keywords that have the highest potential to deliver the best ROI for their client. Good content should include the keywords, and the site requires links from good sites, not sites that could be banned as a span site next month causing you to lose all your links (something that happens all too often).

It won’t take a good SEO too long to get good rankings for keywords with significant traffic, but 3 days is crazy talk. If your SEO can explain what is needed and why, and it sounds reasonable to you, then you may be in good hands. If they say anything about 300 keywords in 3 days, hang up the phone quick as you can.

Filed Under Search Engine Optimization Tagged With scam, search engine optimization, search engine ranking, seo, tony robbins

Top 3 Reasons 92% of Businesses Fail Online

March 28, 2011 Leave a Comment

Time and money are two things, none of us, especially business owners, can afford to waste. But after consulting with hundreds of businesses, I have found enormous amounts of time and money wasted which erodes productivity (usually of their best employees), and adversely affects their bottom which limits the possibility of future growth.

I have defined the Top 3 Reasons Most Business Owners Fail Online to help businesses avoid these common mistakes. This information is really tailored to brick-and-mortar “offline” businesses, but can be applied to online businesses, too.

1) A Goal Was Not Clearly Defined.

Before you start creating a website, the goal must be defined and the competitive landscape analyzed. It is critical you know what needs to be done to achieve your goal in terms of website site, SEO, link building and social media.

Many businesses feel they need a website but are not quite sure what to expect. The website gets created so their customers can see they are online, but without a roadmap or plan, the goal is never achieved.

For example, let’s say you have a pool service company (or alarm monitoring, IT support, etc.) with 70 clients that pay you for a weekly or monthly service. Your goal is to build the business to a point where you can retire someday, and you and your accountant figured your business needs to be three times as big. So our goal for the first year is to double the business, or gain 70 new clients in one year. Once a prospect calls, you know you have a 30% conversion rate, so you need 210 prospects to call you. But the business is seasonal so we only have 7 months or 140 work days, so you need 1.5 good qualified leads to call you per day. Now we know what needs to be done, and we track and measure our progress based on the roadmap we created and make adjustments as necessary.

2) Mistaking a Web Site for a Web Presence

Businesses often pay thousands of dollars for website that looks good, has their branding, logo, phone number, email address and maybe a contact form, and even some good content and a strong call to action. Most would think they are done. After all, the website designer said it was SEO optimized. What more could possibly be needed?

No offense intended, but I have yet to meet a website designer who was proficient at optimizing a site for the search engines. In my experience, website designers are creative people who make beautiful graphics, appealing layouts and have the technical skills to but it all in a website format. But SEO requires data and detailed analysis, things not very interesting to the more creative mind.

The result is your website is online, but you guessed at the target keywords (instead of using data to choose the keywords) and really don’t know if that keyword is far too competitive or if anyone is really searching for that particular term or phrase. And nobody is tracking the website statistics to determine how visitors found your site and then using that information to make adjustments. It is just a website on the internet.

To have a presence online means when someone types a phrase into Google that is relevant to you business, you are the first, or at least one of the top listings, in the “natural” search area of the search engine results page. Basically, this is the area where listings are shown, not ads or paid listings.

To get that top listing requires not only on-site SEO, but also off-site SEO which includes other sites linking to your site, geo-targeting with Google Places, and social media sites. For more, see our blog post on advanced integrated marketing here. Here again, the road map comes into play. We need to know what kind and how much off-site SEO is needed to rank higher than the competition for your targeted keyword. Without all of this information, you may as well be shooting in the dark.

3) Spending Advertising Dollars in the Wrong Places

Spending advertising dollars in the wrong places is not only a waste of money, but it is also a huge waste of time since it can take months before you realize your mistake. Those months could have been spent on effective online promotion. Signing a contract guarantees you will spend your money in the wrong place for a long time and allows your competitors to gain an advantage in the market.

Offline directories, such as the phone book yellow pages, are all but dead. Almost everyone searches online when looking for just about anything. So the phone books have moved online. Listings here mostly result in solicitations from other businesses. I’ve conducted informal surveys and have yet to meet anyone that went to an online phone book to search for a business. To make matters worse, the phone book listings generally are not shown in the search engine results.

Lead providers for service companies often provide the same lead to multiple businesses. Business owners have told me the quality of their leads has deteriorated over time, but the quality of leads to their own sites have increased dramatically. There was a time when these companies provided an invaluable service, but it seems their time has passed.

Local online directories can be tempting to a local business owner. It seems like being in a local directory would eliminate the need for SEO, social media and the rest since the local directory will create plenty of exposure to your target market, right? The truth is local directories pose no competition to a company with a goal, a road map, a plan that is being executed. A local directory listing is along side all the other local companies, and more importantly, nobody uses local online directories.

Here is the market share for the popular search engines according to hitwise.com. It equals nearly 100%, meaning local directories are largely ignored.

Google.com 72%
Yahoo.com 14.96%
Bing.com 9.43%
Ask.com 2.18%

If your company is in a local directory, the listing for your company, and not your competitors, would have to show up in the search engines and rank higher than a highly optimized website. This rarely, if ever happens. Signing a long term contract for thousands of dollars with a local directory is one of the biggest wastes of time and money a local business owner could make.

To summarize, businesses that are successful online have a clear roadmap, we call it the Market Research Report, an online presence that includes effective SEO and Social Media marketing, and spend their marketing dollars where the ROI can be measured, adjustments can be made, all without expensive long term contracts.

Filed Under Search Engine Optimization Tagged With business fail, define your goal, goal setting, google, local directories, seo, social media, why businesses fail