Marketers Must Integrate and Become Internet Experts to Survive

As business in general, and the internet space specifically, becomes more competitive, sophisticated and crowded, it is more critical than ever to understand and utilize integrated marketing principles, and consider the big marketing picture.

SEO (search engine optimization or organic search) and SEM (search engine marketing or paid search) have reached ever higher levels of sophistication in analytics, software, testing and benchmarking, and these have become well paid full-time positions in many companies. In fact, even those companies that outsource their SEO and/or SEM expertise are paying more and focusing more for the concerted efforts of these services.

Why? Because the web search space both paid and organic works from an ROI perspective, and it is becoming very competitive and professional. And all the research concludes that in order to create sufficient traffic and conversions in either paid or free listings, you must rank well. Which means in most search phrases you need to be listed on the first page of the SERP (search engine results page), as most search users do not venture past the first page or two of results.

Studies have found that if they do not find exactly what they are looking for within the first page or two, they are far more likely to change their search phrase and start again than they are to click on page 3 of the SERP.

So this brings up the topic of creating a comprehensive, integrated online and offline marketing strategy that encompasses sales, marketing, advertising, public relations, customer service, merchandising, packaging and collateral.

If you can think about every single customer and prospect contact point and impression, and use these existing opportunities to promote your website URL and drive traffic to it, you will create another, and often times more cost effective strategy for driving web visitors and conversions.

More and more however, I am observing the opposite. In other words, as internet marketing becomes more advanced and technical, it is increasingly being pirated by technical people working in silos, or the IT department, neither of whom are marketing experts, or interested in working with multiple stakeholders to integrate the campaign and messaging across multiple channels.

This means a loss of efficiency and effectiveness for the organization. So it is my battle cry to all marketers to become far more educated and skilled in all aspects of internet marketing, web design, web analytics, and web usability research, as well as integrated marketing philosophies and strategies, so as to better drive a synergistic and efficient marketing program for your company.

We can no longer afford to operate in departmental silos, and turn over the reigns of our internet marketing, infrastructure, navigation, metrics, tracking and reporting, site and file structure, authoring software, operating systems and server decisions to technical people alone. At least not without understanding ourselves how these decisions and tools interrelate, and hinder or support the overall marketing objectives, the user experience, search engine indexing and ranking, viral activity, site conversions, user feedback and more.

As marketing becomes more technical, marketers themselves must become more digitally focused to compete. My recommendations:

• Take the "Masters Certificate in Internet Marketing" course from the University of San Francisco. This $5,500 certification is an excellent six-month online advanced program to get you totally up to speed on SEO, SEM, internet marketing, viral and affiliate marketing, usability, analytics, content creation and web 2.0. I have taken these courses and personally recommend the program highly. Honestly I do. The staff, the support, and the online learning technology platform are all excellent, all being offered through and managed by the University Alliance, who manages the online learning for many of Americas top universities. And if you do take this program, I also recommend that you read ALL the recommended books. These are the top books by the leading experts on SEO, SEM, social media, usability and the like.
  
• For even more advanced and in-depth education and training in web marketing, look into joining the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO) for $299. The SEMPO also offers a series of online training and certification courses in advanced SEO and SEM ($1,120 each), plus several other courses on such topics as social media, branding and link building, and copy writing for the web for about $320 each.

• If you want to become an expert in metrics, tracking and web analytics, join the Web Analytics Association (WAA) for $199. And definitely consider the certification test and online advanced program offered by the University of British Columbia, (about $2,700) offered in conjunction with, and co-created by the WAA. There is a discount for WAA members, so join the association first.
  

• Also consider joining the eMarketing Association for $175 and taking their "Certified eMarketer" courses and exams which will cost you a total of $739 for your membership, 4 courses (1 basic and 3 advanced) and final exam fee and your certificate. Which by the way is a very good looking certificate.
  
• As for learning about Integrated marketing Communication, I would recommend looking at the traditional brick and mortar Master of Science in Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) program offered by Golden Gate University in San Francisco, or the online Graduate Certification program. I completed the one year brick and mortar Graduate Certification program at the University of Utah and found it to be excellent. The U of U program is now being offered for $1,500 (I think I paid $2,200 several years ago), and it's a real bargain for the high caliber of content and instructors (Tim Larson and Ken Foster).
• A good place to start at no cost, to see if you even have an interest or aptitude for any of this online marketing stuff is to take the online certification courses offered by the Inbound Marketing University, a division of Hubspot, a web marketing services company. After completing the courses and watching the 15 online videos, you can take the exam, and if you pass, you receive a "Inbound Marketing Professional" certificate in pdf format online. I enjoyed this process and the material is very good, current and relevant. You have nothing to lose here, and the professors are absolutely top tier authors and experts in their fields, including David Meerman Scott and Chris Brogan.
  
• Recommended Books: "Search Engine Visibility" Second Edition by Shari Thurow. "The New Rules of Marketing and PR" by David Meerman Scott. "E-Marketing" 5th Edition by Judy Strauss and Raymond Frost.
  

Four Components to Search Engine Optimization for Organic Search

There are really just four main things you need to consider when optimizing your site for organic search rankings. I will list them here in what I consider to be the order of importance to Google and their search algorithms and spiders that crawl and index your site for content and structure:

1. Content. Search engines, and especially Google and its search network that Google powers (AOL, Ask, Infospace, Metacrawler and Dogpile) are looking for those sites that have the most relevant, current, unique and highest volume of HTML text that most closely matches the users search word(s) or phrase. HTML content that all spiders can crawl and index is simply THE most important organic search optimization (SEO) component. All the tricks in the world are meaningless unless you have good, helpful, targeted content that readers and users want regarding the problem they are trying to solve. Creating fresh, unique and relevant content is a never-ending process of organic search optimization. By "relevant" I mean relevant to your audience and relevant to what your site is all about. Your content must be on task with what keywords and themes your site is selling, and what your audience is looking for.
   
2. Inbound links or "backlinks" to your site from other credible sites and directories. The more authoritative, credible, popular and notable these referring sites/links are the better. This is essentially a popularity contest. Google likes to serve up sites in their search engine results pages (SERPS) that are recommend sites by other popular sites for their authority on the topic or search term.
   
3. Site Structure. Your site structure or mechanics, including design, navigation, site map, programming language, file structure, URL and architecture all contribute to how easily and deeply a spider can index your sites content, and how the main themes, topics or keywords are indexed by the spider and displayed to the user. This also includes page title tags, meta description tags, meta keyword tags, H1-H9 or header tags, and Alt-tags for images. HTML is still the only fool-proof language that all spiders can read and index, so be sure to have at least secondary navigation and a site map in HTML, as well as hyper text links within keyword body text to send the spiders deeper into your site. Check for broken links, and code that may stop a spider. Use a spider simulator to crawl your site to be sure it is spider friendly.
   
4. Distribution. This may be the third most important element simply because content distribution is what helps create inbound links. So after you have created exciting and compelling new content on your key topic, you need to spread the love all over the web. Use social media channels such as Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, YouTube, Slideshare, Flickr and Twitter. Also use your blog, online news releases, Squidoo, and Delicious and Digg where appropriate, among many others. Add a viral marketing and bookmarking widget to every page on your site and blog such as "ShareThis" and an RSS feed. Creating and distributing content on a regular basis, while making it easy for people to share and tag your content will generate inbound links.
   

Optimizing Your Name with Long Tail Search Terms

I have found that when doing a organic search for name on Google and Bing, that Duane Sprague is a more popular name than I ever imagined. I also go by DJ Sprague, and found several of those all over the country.

Not wanting people get confused or lost when searching for me online, I decided to begin a long tail search term branding and search optimization campaign on Duane "DJ" Sprague. I wanted to own this search phrase in the search engine results pages (SERPS).

I started with buying all the domains that pertained to my name: duanesprague.com, djsprague.com, and duanddjsprague.com.

Next I created several blogs at several URL addresses using my name including DuaneSprague.com called "Advertising In Today's Economy" and at DJSprague.com called "Duane DJ Sprague Integrated Marketing Strategies" and at WebMarketingSprague.blogspot.com called "Internet Marketing and SEO."

I also created blogs on my agency web site at VortexPlan.com and my speaking web site at ProfitAcademy.net.

Five blogs in all. In addition, I established a Squidoo Lens at Squidoo.com/DuaneSprague, as well as social media channels on:

• YouTube
• Slideshare
• LinkedIn
• Plaxo
• Xing
• Spoke
• Twitter
• Flickr
• Facebook
• Insightory

All using my name in the the sub-domain for SEO purposes.

Next I started creating my unique long tail brand by using Duane "DJ" Sprague in all my articles, blog posts, signatures, etc.

On Slideshare I posted 18 slide shows, 5 on Insightory, and 13 professional and video portfolio videos on YouTube.

As of this writing the 3 multi-media channels alone have collectively received 5,108 views, not to mention 11,600 blog views and dozens of tweets and re-tweets about my blogs, mentions and links on other blogs, inbound links and quotes on national and international websites, international business magazine websites, corporate blogs and more.

When creating the slide titles on Slideshare, I placed my name into the slide title and at the end of each slide show, and into the keyword meta-tags. I also started signing my name "Duane 'DJ' Sprague" at the bottom of my blog posts as one more method of increasing the keyword density on the blog.

At this point my long tail name Duane "DJ" Sprague and my short tail names duane sprague and DJ sprague all dominate the top of the search engine results pages (SERPS) and they are all my sites, blogs, social media channels and content. I have now created a brand around my name, and own the SERPS for my name online.

It took about 2 months to get there, and another 2 months to really dominate the search, and it will require an ongoing effort to maintain it, but it can all be done by simply following the SEO plan of generating lots of quality content on the topics you are passionate about, distributing that content far and wide across the Web, and optimizing the long and short tail keyword names and/or phrases you want to own.

Obviously the more competitive the keyword phrases are that you want to own, the more effort, attention to detail, site structure and attention to meta-tag content and time it will take.

And by the way, I was reading David Meerman Scott's book "The New Rules of Marketing and PR" last night, and he mentions that he uses his full name for the same reason that I mentioned here. He found many other prominent people that had the same name (David Scott), so by adding his unique middle name he was able to optimize his own long tail full name better and own the online search results. You absolutely must read his book if you are at all serious about online marketing, PR and SEO.

David's book covers everything from online promotion, PR, newsrooms, blogs, podcasts, social media, content creation, buyer personas and SEO.

Now, think about what we just talked about here in terms of owning and optimizing for a long tail phrase. In this example it was a persons name, but it could just as easily be a business, product, place or service.

In other words, let's say you have a women's boutique in Boca Raton Florida. There are several long tail phrases you can own that would give you a dominant space above the fold on the search engines. This would require some keyword research of course, but here is where I would start looking:

• Boca Raton women's boutique
• Boca Raton women's fine fashions
• Boca Raton designer fashions
• Boca Raton (brand label here)
• Boca Raton's fine clothes for women
• Finest women's fashions in Boca Raton
• Boca Raton designer women's clothing sizes 2-10 from (brand label here)

You get the picture. By adding more detailed and descriptive keywords you are narrowing the search criteria and lengthening the search terms into long-tail searches. This will generate more qualified traffic AND give you a better shot at top organic placement above the fold of page one.

By using the location or community you will automatically have a better chance in the local search results because you are only competing against boutiques in Boca Raton. And you will be listed in the Google local search results.

You will also need to build the proper long-tail keyword phrases into your website structure, navigation and content, such as the title-tags, meta-tags, meta-descriptions, meta-keywords, alt-tags, H1through H9 tags, HTML navigation, hyperlink text, XML site map, and the HTML content or body text.

Not to mention your blog posts, email signature, online news releases, social media channels, white papers, and online customer testimonials (just add your community location to the customer testimonial).

This is the short version of optimizing your name or business using long-tail keyword phrases.

Good luck!

--Duane "DJ" Sprague

Creating a Search Optimized Integrated Wed Site

According to Sharri Thurow in her excellent book entitled "Search Engine Visibility" she states that: "Very few web developers and search engine optimizers have education, training, or experience in user-centered design. Likewise, very few usability professionals have a background in search engine optimization. As a result, both groups feel that search engine optimization and web usability are at odds."

And she goes on to say: "Very few web site owners, developers, and even usability professionals focus on building a strong search friendly foundation. Regrettably, many professional search engine marketing firms focus more on tricks and gimmicks than building a strong foundation."

This is a classic problem that results from the lack of approaching web design, content, architecture, navigation, objectives and marketing from an integrated perspective.

I have been involved with dozens of web projects with large and small companies, and the primary hurdle to creating a top shelf, search engine optimized, high converting, user friendly site lots of traffic and inbound links is almost always the same. Either too many people are involved with divergent opinions, agendas and reporting structures, or all the wrong people are involved who do not have the experience, education or skill sets required to make the entire process work.

In the case of too many people, think about all the possible titles and skills required to design, build, maintain and analyze a top tier site:
Site Owner
Information Architect
Creative Director
Designer
Navigation Expert
Developer/Programmer
Search Engine Optimizer
Content Manager
Content Providers
Copy Writers
Usability Professionals
Analytics Experts
Animators
Multi-media Content Creators
Bloggers
Social media Experts
PR Professionals
Pay Per Click Experts
eCommerce Expert
Landing Page Experts
Database Experts
Legal
Link Manager
Link Bait Expert
IT/Hosting Department
Affiliate Marketing
Viral Marketing Expert
Brand Manager
Marketing Manager
Advertising Manager
Sales Manager
Email Expert

Naturally, the smaller the company or the budget the more consolidation of these roles and skill sets will be required. A typical small business site may have from one to three people involved in the design, programming, architecture, content creation, analytics and optimization, if they even address all these basic considerations. Which explains why the average site (actually about 94% of all web sites), perform very poorly in organic search results for their topics, and have low ROIs and low gross revenue.

It takes more expertise, education, skills and time commitment these days to compete in the highly competitive and very crowded world wide web, which I have read that Google recently crawled its one-billionth web site. I have also read from another web indexer who has indexed nearly 109 million sites. Either way, it's a lot of sites.

So now more than ever, a serious web development team needs to be lead by an integrated marketing professional who can organize and pull all the assets and skills together, and who also possesses a serious education in web design, analytics, user persona's, usability research, search optimization, conversion, and web marketing. And I can guarantee you its not the IT Department or your Web Designer.

These days a it takes a much broader understanding of all the variables and all the moving parts of an effective web site and eCommerce to integrate the various objectives and skill sets.

The Secret to Link Building

Creating inbound links to your site is a critical component of a good SEO strategy. Most experts agree that 75% of your sites search ranking on Google is based on the quantity of quality inbound links from reputable sites.

You absolutely MUST have an ongoing inbound link building strategy.

In addition to building links, you must also satisfy the Google spiders appetites for fresh keyword focused content on your site. About 25% of your Google search rankings come from your on-page HTML content, keywords, hyperlinks, site structure, navigation, and meta and title tags.

Which means that whether you are trying to build links or spider food, you need to be creating content. Content is king.

So if you want an optimized site that spiders and viewers alike will feed upon, follow these tips:

For link building, create content for wide distribution on the web that can link back to your site:
1. Create lots of interesting content frequently over a long period of time.
2. Place hyperlinks in keywords back to your site.
3. Distribute your content as fast, far and wide as possible.
4. Ask other sites to link to yours when appropriate.
5. Comment and participate on other blogs, tweets and forums.

Create Link Building Content that’s Interesting or Helpful for your Buyer Personas:
Blog posts
Editorials
Newsletters—current and archived
Podcasts
Videos
Photos
Articles about other companies
Product reviews
eBooks
Featured clients or vendors
Resource guide with links
PowerPoint Presentations
White papers
Surveys
Top 10 lists—funny, stupid, unique, smart
How to tips
News releases
Checklists
Emails that you turn into blog posts
Testimonials
Games
Contests
Glossary of terms

Content ideas for news releases or blog posts:New products or services
Research results
New clients
New locations or markets
New employees
New technology
Trade shows
New sponsorships
New applications
New pricing structure
Breakthroughs or benchmarks
Case studies
New publications
Speaking or teaching engagements
New vendors or suppliers
New promotions

Six Search Engine Friendly Navigation Tips

If you want to build a deep site that is rich in content, than you need to consider these SIX SEARCH ENGINE FRIENDLY NAVIGATION TIPS.

These navigation tips are both user and search spider friendly. User friendly because they offer a variety of navigation options in various locations within page, as well as provide a sense of place within the site.

Spider friendly because they are HTML text based links, which every search engine can read and index quickly and accurately. They also provide spider access to deep internal pages both vertically and horizontally.

Note: ALL text and headlines on your page should be HTML. Use text as graphics sparingly in images only. The more HTML text on the page the better. Google prefers 250 to 1,000 words per page on a single topic or theme. Focus on one to three keywords per page. 250 words for topic relevancy, and up to 1,000 because that's where it stops crawling/indexing the page.

So here are the SIX:

1. Place text links as secondary navigation at the bottom of every page.

2. Use breadcrumb links/navigation at the top of every page.

3. Place hypertext links embedded in the main body text. Best to use keywords as links to more content on the topic.

4. Provide text links to internal pages from: framesets, HTML site map, body text, HTML navigation at bottom of page.

5. Submit interior pages to search engines and directories to be indexed.

6. Provide and encourage links to interior pages from other sites, white papers, press releases, articles, blogs, twitter, Facebook and other social media channels.

These tips will help your site rank higher on organic searches and drive more traffic deep within your site where you have lots of great content waiting to be discovered.

Bing Rocks the Search World

I have been using Bing side-by-side with Goggle these past few days, testing and comparing each using the same search terms. And I must say, I llike the new Bing. It seems to serve more targeted, relevant and fresh content than Google. And it does so in a cleaner, crisper, more appealing SERP design.

But the biggest benefit to Bing, is the cool little mouse over that allows you to preview the main copy points of the web page before you click on it and waste 4 seconds waiting for a page to load to decide if it’s what you want. Try mousing over just to the right of the listing and see what I mean.

I ran an experiment to test my theory that Bing was serving up more current content than Google. I published a new site and URL 10 days ago. I did not submit it to any search engines or directories. Within 12 hours Bing had crawled, indexed and served up the site at the top of the SERP. To this day Google has yet to index the site.

Social Media Optimization

I have been trying to coin a new term I call "Social Media Optimization" or SMO. SMO represents what I feel is the 4th leg of organic search engine optimization, and one of the most important and easily executed.

This chart from blogjournalistics.com by Jeremy Porter is fitting for this topic, as it shows the power of social media influence.

The first Search Engine Optimization (SEO) leg is "on-page" optimization, such as: site structure, HTML navigation, breadcrumb navigation, keywords, HTML text, Meta and Alt-Tags, keyword placement, selection, density and proximity, keyword anchor tags, Title-Tags, above the fold HTML, RSS feed, on-page newsroom with RSS feed, sign-up and opt-in forms, site map, URL and file names, user reviews, etc. etc.

The second SEO leg is "off-page" optimization such as: inbound link building strategy, click-through popularity, web directories, Digg, Wikipedia, and and search engine submissions.

The third SEO leg is driving direct URL type-in traffic using traditional and offline marketing, collateral and PR, as well as online pay for inclusion and pay per click to create traffic, possibly inbound links, bookmarking, and leveraging viral marketing widgets such as "Share This" (assuming you have a good sight designed to leverage the traffic).

And the fourth leg is social media optimization (SMO), and I include blogs and forums in this category since a blog usually incorporates and encourages unique, current, two-way, less formal communication. Your social media channels should have widgets and links that drive traffic back to your site, as well as RSS feeds and viral marketing tools like "Share This" wherever possible. Also, include hypertext links linking to appropriate pages in your web site within your body text when using Twitter, blogs, etc. where possible and appropriate.

The world is connected to through social media channels, and search engines love social media tools, so why not use them to connect the world to your site.

Remember, spiders love fresh unique content, and that's what social media, newsrooms and blogs are all about. So use them, leverage them, and tie it all together for better overall SEO results.

As the web space becomes more competitive and crowded, you need to be thinking well beyond your site alone, and leverage every possible avenue and touch point to promote your site and index your keywords with the search engines.

How to Market with SlideShare

SlideShare can be used effectively as a powerful marketing tool if you execute these basic tips:

1. Place your name and/or company name in the slide title that you enter into the title bar after you upload it, or before. For example: "Integrated Marketing Strategies--Duane Sprague." This will optimize your name in the search engines, just like placing a title tag on each of your web pages.
   
2. Break your large presentation into into several smaller snackable presentations. Each one treated like a chapter in the larger theme. Make each presentation a stand-alone with it's own title, subject, and keywords. This gives you several smaller presentations to optimize for on more targeted and specific keywords, which casts a much wider net on the web. Think of it as creating several specialized micro sites.
3. Create your ebooks in PowerPoint or Keynote and convert to PPT, and then export them to PDF and post on the web as it's own domain, plus post it as a PPT file on SlideShare. This allows your ebook to serve double duty.
   
4. Place links to your SlideShare channel on every blog and site and social media channel you have.
   
5. Blogger and SlideShare both have very easy Widgets that allow you to plug your SlideShare channel into your blog post using an RSS feed for automatic updating.
   
6. Use as many appropriate keywords in the SlideShare keyword bar as you can. Think of this as meta-keywords on your site.
   
7. Write a good and focused description of your presentation. Think of this as your meta-description tags.
   
8. You can easily embed a video from YouTube into any one of your slides once it's imported. Very cool!
9. Publish often.
   
10. Use a eye grabbing graphic or image on your title page. It's just like creating an effective ad. You need to entice your audience.
    
11. Use a provocative or attention getting title. Or state a big benefit. But ALWAYS speak the truth and don't deceive.
    
12. Use the last slide or two to provide your bio, contact info, links, call to action, offer, tagline or unique selling proposition.
13. Provide great value, information, tips, how to, insights, etc. The more you can help or inform people, the more traffic you will get.
14. Create your company brochure/presentation in PPT and post on SlideShare.
15. Blog and Twitter about your new SlideShare presentations, and provide a link directly to them by cutting and pasting the URL.

If you have any other ideas, please share them with me. Happy Sharing!

Many times I have advocated the importance of using a variety of social media channels as a search visibility strategy for your targeted keywords, because it works.

I have successfully used LinkedIn, Facebook, SlideShare, YouTube, Squidoo, Twitter, Blogger, WordPress and others to generate top of the fold page one search placement.

Recently I have conducted an extensive test to see which tools are more search friendly and timely for providing search placement for my name. Here are the results in terms of best to worst search visibility over a 72 hour period for an individual name:

1. Zoom Info
2. LinkedIn
3. WordPress blog
4. SlideShare
5. Squidoo
6. Blogger blog
7. YouTube

I prefer WordPress over Blogger because it provides an automatic XML site map submission to Google every time a post is made. It works well and it works fast. WordPress is also far more flexible and customizable. You can do virtually anything with it.

Blogger on the other hand is a lot easier and faster to set-up. I have also found that if you host a Blogger blog on your own URL it will be crawled almost as fast as WordPress.

SlideShare appears to be more effective at creating instant and higher search visibility than YouTube. I have also taken note that with 13 advertising videos on YouTube vs. 15 advertising slide presentations on SlideShare, the videos received 114 downloads in a week compared to 1,556 slide downloads, and the videos had a 3 day head start.

The "Conversation Prism" represents the multitude of conversation channels, but it also represents the many opportunities for search visibility, idea exchange and concept proliferation. Social media channels therefore really serve multiple purposes, and are the perfect enhancement to an online integrated marketing strategy.

For a full size version see the source: http://theconversationprism.com/1280

Keyword Placement in Title Tag

Although copy in meta-tag description and meta keywords have less relevance in SEO these days due to the abuse of keyword stuffing, the proper keywords in the Title-Tag is still critical for SEO visibility based on the need to match user search words and phrases with the appropriate web pages. This chart is provided by SEOMOZ.org and provides great insights into the placement keywords.

In fact, it has been said by many SEO experts and authors that the Title-Tag id THE most important piece of meta-data on the page. The search engines typically give the most weight to the meta-data in the Title-Tag.

The above graph represents the weight given by Google to the keywords (no more than 2 per title/page) and their position (far left) in the Title-Tag.

Collectively, meta-data (title-tag, description attribute, and keywords) is still important for SEO, about 15% of total on-page and off-page weight when combined with matching and supportive HTML page text, so don't ignore it.

Increasing Your Search Visibility

The best method of increasing the search engine visibility of your web site or your brand, is to engage in a multi-front campaign.

This may include utilizing as many of the social media channels as you can, including YouTube for videos and commercials, SlideShare for documents and PowerPoint presentations, Squidoo for a very fast and easy web page, a blog or two on Word Press for versatility or Blogger if you like simple and fast, and Twitter for a micro blog. Also look at social and professional networking sites like LinkedIn, Plaxo, Spoke, Zoominfo, Xing and Facebook. All with links back to your main site of course.

A must have is an online newsroom with an RSS feed for publishing and distributing all your news releases and announcements. May I suggest NewsCactus as a very low cost and easy solution. These are very SEO friendly tools.

And don't forget about specialized micro sites, ebooks and white papers on their own dedicated URL, and lots of on-page copy and anchor text optimized with your keywords.

And the obvious, but so often overlooked, Title, Description and Keyword Meta Tags that are written custom for each and every page. The Meta Tags musty be highly focused and specific, and based on the topic, the one or two keywords used, and the content in each page. Not to mention brief but descriptive Alt Tags for each and every image and photograph, assuming the images support or explain the product or the benefits.

I see so many sites these days that are built in frames that have no meta data, or they have the same meta data for every page. This is a highly unprofessional and lazy way to build a site.

Google Off-Page SEO

Google SEO is a convoluted affair. These days SEO includes 3 main components; on-page, off-page, and social media optimization.

This post is going to cover just the highlights of off-page SEO for Google.

By looking at the chart from SEOBlog.com, it's clearly evident that inbound links from other sites into yours are a critical component to the Google ranking algorithms, of which there are over 100.

But inbound links are not all created equal. Google ranks the quality of the inbound link based on the quality of the site in terms of subject or keyword authority, and traffic to the site and the page where the link resides (22% of weight), and the relevancy of the linking text used, known as "anchor text" (20% of weight).

In other words, if the site in which the link comes from is a higher traffic site and/or page than yours, and the anchor text in the link matches exactly the keyword or phrase that is in your meta tags for your title page, keywords and page description, you have a very high ranking link.

You also want your URL owned for at least 5 years in advance, and hosted by a reputable company. These are indicators that you are not a spammer or illegitimate (25% of weight).

So there is 67% of your SEO weight. And that's just the beginning. Because Google changes its algorithms monthly, and the on-page and social media optimization is also very important to be seen in a crowded field.