But I want to be first on Google!!!

You and me both! For a new webmaster, trying to run your own SEO campaign can be a daunting task. What words do I pick? Where should I put them? I should use them an unnatural amount and have at least 50 Meta keywords right...? (no, by the way) There are a lot of questions and very few answers out there (plenty of speculation however). Sure someone from Google like Matt Cutts might let a little something slip and send the SEO community into a frenzy every once and a while, but that is like giving you one piece of a 500 piece puzzle and saying "Go!" So where do you start? With a solid footing in the common sense basics because they can do a lot of good for you and your web site.

Pick a Keyword

Don't come up with a list of 50 keywords and phrases and decide you're going to own all of them... with 1 page of content. If that's what you want to do save yourself a lot of trouble and sign up for Adwords and forget about SEO completely. In fact you should sign up for Adwords anyways (SEO & Adwords are part of a balanced breakfast), because you can use the data collected from it to see how popular your keywords are. Remember just because you're first on Google for something it doesn't mean anybody searches for it.

Title Your Page Appropriately

A good title makes both the search engine and the searcher happy. Don't stuff it full of keywords to create an unintelligible string of garbage. A short focused appropriate title will do the trick.

Support Your Title

When you are formulating headings and writing copy make sure it relates to the title you made earlier. Don't go crazy repeating your keyword over and over and over, that's not going to do you any favors. But if it is a natural appropriate spot drop it in. A well optimized page shouldn't look optimized. Remember you don't want to make them read unintelligent sounding keyword stuffed copy.

Write Good Content

This seems to be the part that everyone wants to get out of. Creating content is hard work, no doubt, but it is worth it to you for a few different reasons:

1. Search Engines love good content
2. People love good content
3. Good content gets links

Good Links to Your Site are More Important Than the Code on Your Site

If you meet someone that is going to magically send you to the top of Google by only manipulating the code on your site, the desired result is unlikely. To really boost your rankings you need to gain authority in the form of links. Not all links are worth the same, a link from a site with a high authority will have more positive impact on your site. In general the more good links you have to your site the better. However Google will not give you credit for purchased links and when they catch you it's going to hurt!

To see who is currently linking to you go to Yahoo and do a search that looks like this:
linkdomain:yourwebsite.com -domain:yourwebsite.com

Wow, Is It Really That Easy?

Nope. It's fair to say there is a lot more to it; these are just some common sense basics. But by employing a strong set of fundamentals you can practice by gaining rankings for lower traffic words, and eventually you can take what you've learned and chase the high traffic words and phrases. Also I would like to stress that taking a more holistic approach to Search Engine Marketing using PPC, SEO, Social Media, Print, etc will drive more traffic over time than picking just one tactic.

Brown Bag Business Dialog in SLO

Good afternoon everybody,

Rob and I just got back from our presentation at the San Luis Obispo Mission Community Services Corporation's Brown Bag Business Dialog event and I think it went really well. We ran out of chairs and had a lot of good questions from the audience!

The talk today was about Search Engine Marketing (SEM) in general, and Google Adwords in depth. We hope you all learned a lot, and we look forward to working some more with the MCSC in the future.

We've already had some requests for the PowerPoint presentation used in the class and we've made it available as a .pdf at www.smsrd.com/mcsc.pdf

Thanks again for coming out to see us and we hope you learned something that you can apply to your growing businesses!

Web-slaughter: The Unintentional Killing of a Visit with a Bad Landing Page

Personally I think a lot of what makes a landing page good is a balance of intentions. The web surfer intends to find the information they were searching for and the website visited intends to convince you to perform an action (lead, e-mail, call, purchase, etc.). Most people see the value in a good landing when it involves gymnasts, divers, and the red eye to Cleveland, but miss its importance to web traffic. A good Adwords Campaign mixed with bad landing pages is just a fancy way to set your wallet on fire. By designing a page that satisfies the intentions of both parties, you have a better shot of turning a surfer into a conversion.

So the first order of business is matching the landing page to the actual intention of the web surfer. Remember, if your ad matches the query you're more likely to get a click. And if your page matches the query, your visitor is more likely to stick around and do something... so give the people what they want. If they searched for boots don't send them to a department store homepage, send them to the boots page in the shoes section. They had a simple request and you provided a simple answer, congratulations you are now the proud proprietor of a good visitor experience.

Now that we've addressed the needs of the people, you have to get yours too. The biggest mistake I see in most landing pages is that they make it too difficult to perform the desired action. If the lead form or a buy it now button can't be found in a few seconds you might have just bounced your visitor in the name of aesthetics. Make sure your actionable items are obvious & easy to use! There's a good chance your web designer may fight you on this one because if messes with his flow. I agree looks are important, I generally won't do business with a really ugly web site, but I'll take slightly less attractive over completely ineffective any day.

Applying these simple steps can save you a lot of money by not killing an unreasonable number of visits that you have to pay for irregardless of how long they stay, and you'll improve the user experience offered by your site in the process.