Monday, September 21, 2009

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:

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

Saturday, September 19, 2009

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.

Friday, September 18, 2009

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

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