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!

Upcoming SMS Speaking Engagements

Systems & Marketing Solutions likes to stay active in the local community, and I am often asked to speak on Search Engine marketing topics or be a part of a panel of experts.

September 22nd and 23rd at the Embassy Suites in San Luis Obispo will hold its first ever Code Camp. The Code Camp is organized by Rob Hope CEO of San Luis Tech Consultants and an SMS client. The date and the time haven't been set yet, but I will be giving a talk on Designing for SEO and Adwords. The Code Camp is free, and you can register for the event online at www.centralcoastcodecamp.com .

I will also be speaking at the Santa Maria Manufacturer's Association meeting on September 25th. The SMMA holds a meeting on the fourth Tuesday of each month at 7:30 and is open to anyone interested in the advancement of manufacturing on the central coast. The meeting I will be speaking at is going to be hosted by Hardy Diagnostics (also an SMS client). My talk is going to be on Internet Marketing and how to get the most from Google Adwords.

If you have the opportunity, I encourage you to check out both groups and come meet some new people!

Focused Expansion, Controlling Expanded Search in Adwords

Personally I'm a fan of broad match and the ensuing expanded search feature in Google... now that I can track it. I can't say this enough ...I love the Search Query Report... it opens a lot of doors and shows you negatives you would have never thought of. Plus it has potential to save you money!

One of the reasons I like expanded searches is that no matter how hard you try, you will never be as creative/ridiculous as the general public. The way people structure their searches is really fascinating. The general populace's inability to spell is a little troubling too. But just because someone can't spell, or uses an awkward path to get to your site doesn't mean they don't have a credit card. As a search marketer you need to cater to everybody who could buy your advertised product.

Now the downside of expanded matching is that Google can get even more creative than the public. It's kind of scary that an algorithm is making leaps in logic to include you in queries that may be related to your objective. To give you a few examples of the mayhem that ensues: I searched 'buy a luxury bus' and some of the ads used the word coach, in position 6 was Coach.com the handbag maker. A word I use for a general contractor now has about 400 negative keywords to include 'Land Cruiser', 'foreskin', and 'hearing'. I've also seen a lot of celebrity name crossover, if you're not up to date on pop culture at least use derivatives of the word 'naked' as negative keywords (half of all celebrity searches seem to involve nudity, traffic I'm guessing you don't need). All these types of match drop click through rates and waste money.

Now that it is available, I can't stress enough the importance of running at least a monthly Search Query Report. This matched with the Adsense Placement Report are probably the two most useful features that Adwords has given us this year. Run the SQR report and sift through it by hand to extract all the most irrelevant searches. Then make a second pass looking for good words and phrases you don't have in your account that you should. Your first SQR report should be a PPC revelation, there's going to be some crazy stuff in there. Make sure you make the most of this new tool!