Epicenter Network Blog

In search marketing, getting your message saturated into the market is the best way to gain control and ensure that as many people as possible are viewing your page or product. This gives you more creditability and increases the likeliness that the user will click on your link.

When a user enters a search query, Google will present them with 10 organic and about 11 paid listings, presenting you – the marketer – with about 22 chances to win them over. The goal is to gain as many of those spots as possible and to achieve a stronger presence for your targeted keywords than your competitor.

There are many ways to go about saturating your message and becoming successful with organic and paid search takes time and a lot of testing. Here are a few ways to gain more control of the search market through “free” and paid techniques.

If you are striving to dominate in a competitive market organically, you’ve got to get creative and use your competitors to your advantage. Start by running a query on the keyword or phrase you want to rank for and see who your competitors are and what they are doing. Then brainstorm ideas that can make you stand apart from them and offer a more specific, targeted solution. You can then incorporate your messaging into your page titles and meta descriptions and write them like ad copy.

Gaining saturation in a competitive marketing through paid search is not an easy task and will require a lot of time, money and monitoring. To get the most out of paying for top listings, you may want to consider day-parting, placement testing, geo-targeting and determining your most lucrative timeframes.

When working in a less competitive market, using long tail phrases for organic results saturation may help you jump up the page quicker. Focus on getting more than one page within your domain to rank for a query. This way, Google will combine your listings and you can move up a spot or two on your results pages. For example, if you were displayed at spot 4 and 6 before, Google would combine your listings and move you to spots 4 and 5.

For paid search saturation, gain rank through buying directory listings and paying for sponsored ads to be placed on competitors sites. You may also consider building multiple web sites and buying PPC ads for these sites for the same keywords and phrases. The only downside to this strategy is that it can be expensive and you need to make sure that you aren’t bidding against yourself. Additionally, this may grab you a large share of the market, but also gives your competitors a chance to drive up the bids on your long tail phrases.

Overall, the best way to gain saturation of the market is to stay one step ahead of your competitors. Keep an eye on what they are doing and strategies they are using and then try to optimize on them.

Selecting a good domain name for your website or online business is an important part of building up your brand and improving your online presence, along with improving your online ranking. Owning your own domain name adds credibility to your site and adds mobility so that you can take your name with you if you transfer Web hosts.

So when it comes time to create a domain name, here are some tips to keep in mind:

• The shorter, the better
Short and sweet is definitely the way to go. If your domain name is too long, it will be harder for people to remember and therefore harder for them to recommend to others.

• Always try to get the .com version
This will help you improve your odds of being found organically online. If a user types “shoes” into a search engine, they will typically locate the .com versions before moving on to the .net, .org, etc. extensions.

• Think of odd, one-word domain names
Think Yahoo, Google, Wikipedia, Bing or eBay. These sites have seemingly strange domain names but they are easy to remember but they are short and stand out from the norm. Try Wordoid.com for ideas.

• Incorporate the keyword(s) you are trying to rank for
Make a list of all the keywords you are trying to rank for, then separate them into primary and secondary lists. Next, try various combinations of these keywords and see what you can come up with.

• To hyphenate, or not to hyphenate
There is some debate as to whether hyphenating a domain name is a good idea or not. This domain is hyphenated, so I guess I think it is ok at times. Some people use them when the unhyphenated domain name is already taken or to break up a string of keywords.

• Protect your name by registering multiple extensions
If you really like a selected domain name and plan on building out your site and pushing your brand, it may be a good idea to buy all the extensions of your domain name. This deters people from copying your name.

The overall purpose of optimizing your website is to get your pages to rank higher in the major search engines. Creating a site that is search engine friendly usually involves targeting keywords and phrases, placing html links to pages within your site, using targeted meta tags, updating content and providing smooth site navigation.

Moving beyond technical optimization, visually optimizing your website is just as important and in the end can make a huge impact on the overall success or failure of your site.

A good place to start visual optimization is with a style sheet. Stick to one and it will help you clean up your code and remove any font tags. This will help avoid any problems with spiders and won’t make your targeted keywords stand out in your coding, just visually.

The next place to look is your homepage. A good rule of thumb is to keep important information above the fold and that the eye moves from left to right on a page. You typically don’t want to place an image smack-dab in the center and remember to leave a good proportion of whitespace to promote readability. A good tool to use when optimizing your homepage is Feng-GUI.com. This tool highlights how people view your website and which areas get the most attention.

Another thing to consider is your site’s navigation and how easy it is for a user and a spider to locate information and move between pages. You can improve navigation by including text links along the bottom of your pages to supplement a drop-down list, as a spider can’t read JavaScript. Along the lines of navigation, also be sure to include a site map so it is easier to index.

In general, here are a few things to keep in mind when designing your website:

• The eye is attracted to color blocks
• Whitespace on a page promotes readability
• The eye is attracted to human faces
• Balance and contrast are important and help guide your visitor to certain areas of a page
• Always choose simplicity over complexity
• Use complimentary colors – typically across from each other on the color wheel

I have to admit, like many others I was a total skeptic of Twitter when it first came out. After visiting the site and reading what it was all about, I was still confused and therefore decided that it was dumb.

Fast forward to today and I not only have an account, but it is among the first sites I visit each morning and where I now make daily updates. So why they change of heart? Here are a few reasons why having a Twitter account can help you professionally and a few tips for starters.

Twitter essentially is a micro-blogging forum that allows for users to post short, 140-character blurbs on what they doing, reading, working on, etc. You have the ability to design your own background, upload a photo, provide a brief bio and place a link to your site. You won’t have “friends”, you will have “Followers” and your updates are called “Tweets”.

Some people use Twitter to provide the world with an updated status of what they eat, when they nap, who they are mad at or how great they are. I don’t follow these people. The ones that I do follow update their status with useful information, blog updates and online marketing related content.

So why do I find Twitter useful? There are several reasons. The first is that it is a great way to connect with people in your industry and share ideas, resources and contacts. Twitter has helped improve my networking and stay in touch with people that I don’t see on a regular basis, or ever for that matter.

The second reason is that it is an easy way to stay up-to-date with online trends. It also has a search feature, so it can double as a live search engine.

Lastly, Twitter is helpful with branding, SEO and site traffic. My profile has a link to this blog and I get a large majority of my visits here from Twitter. You can use it to grow traffic to your site and get your name known. For SEO purposes, you can focus on certain keywords and build links.

So if you think this could help you, you can sign up here. If not, at least now you know what it is.

Also, if you already have an account, be sure to follow Epicenter: @EpiKim, @EpiMonica, @EpiGarrett

Are you new to search marketing or looking for some funding to improve your skills? If you said yes, then you should consider applying for the SEM Scholarship from Marketing Pilgrim.

Here is a brief description of the scholarship contest:

We want to help find the brightest minds in search and social media, so each year, we ask you to submit your very best “how to” article on the topic of SEO, PPC, or social media. Over a 4 week period we tally the traffic count and send the top 5 most visited entries to our panel of expert judges. They pick their favorite, and the winner helps themselves to a prize package worth over $10,000!

If you win the contest, not only are you given $10,000 but you also receive a prize package full of SEM and SEO event passes, memberships and subscriptions. A few of these include a premium membership to SEOmoz.org, a subscription to SoloSEO.com and passes to SMX East and Pubcon.

Want to enter? The deadline is June 22nd at 6pm Eastern time. Click here for full entry details.

When it comes to ranking with SEO, don’t focus entirely on textual content. Many people overlook the power of images and graphics for their attention grabbing and link grabbing abilities. However, with the proper use of image tags and descriptions you can easily take advantage of Google’s ranking system and help bump your site even higher in rank results.

Here are a few steps to follow to ensure that you are getting the most out of your images.

1. Describe your image
Always use the alt attribute when you include an image on your site. Create a short and sweet description of your image and keep in mind the keywords you are targeting. Another thing to consider is that these descriptions are read by search engines and translated to speech readers for the visually impaired. Therefore, this not only helps improve your search results, but also extends your audience.

2. Don’t embed text into your images
Yes, this looks fancy and having pretty text is fun, but try to avoid it. Search engines don’t recognize this text, so it won’t help you. However, if you can’t overcome the urge, be sure to insert alt text and consider using a text description next to your image.

3. Name your files
If you’re in a hurry it’s easy to save an image as IMG1.jpg. Don’t do this. If you are working with a lot of images at once it can be tedious to name each one individually, but taking the time to do this will help out in the long run. Try to include the page title, page content and alt tag into the file name. If someone searches for “all natural weight loss pills”, you are more likely to show up as a result with an image titled ‘all natural RezV supplement’ than you are with ‘IMG1234.jp’.

4. Take advantage of image sharing sites
Upload your images on sites like Flickr, Wikipedia or Picassa and then link them back to your site. The more places your images can be found, the better.

5. Link back to previous posts
If an image or the content related to the image relates to a previous post, link back to it. This follows the same basic idea of linking keywords or phrases to previous posts.

Perhaps I’m a little bias when saying this, but content is one of the most important – dare I say the most important – component for an agency or individual marketer’s success. It’s what draws a visitor in, keeps them engaged and ultimately causes them to react in one way or another.

A copywriter does more than just translate a company’s product into words; they often are a key part of brainstorming, coming up with new ideas and contributing to the overall creative process.

So how good is your site’s content? For those of you that have been blessed with a strong left and right sided brain, you may not need to hire an outside copywriter, as you can create content just fine. However, if you don’t have the strongest grasp on grammar or have a difficult time writing compelling content, you may want to outsource.

One of my favorite sites for finding freelance writers is Peter Shankman’s helpareporter.com. I have used this site in the past to find guest bloggers, PR freelancers, sources for articles and other content writers. It’s free, fast and really one of the best places to find a content writer.

Even if you are a good writer yourself, you may want to consider having guest bloggers or freelancing some of your content projects just to get a fresh take on things. You definitely want to stick with the same tone and goal of your site, but adding fresh content and new ideas can help re-engage people and attract new visitors.

Here is a list of free online tutorials for content writing.

• Pandecta.com
• Sherus.com
• Copyblogger.com

If you are a blogger looking to improve your site’s SEO, be sure not to overlook long tail keywords. Trying to rank higher by just focusing on a group of main keywords will only get you so far and won’t bring in the total volume you are looking for.

The problem with only using one or more main keywords is that there may be a great deal of competition and you will have a hard time ranking well on search engines. Using long tail keywords give you an advantage because they reach out to a more targeted audience and have less competition.

If you don’t already know what long tail keywords are, here is a definition: long tail keywords are groups of keywords that aren’t too common when by themselves, but when put together in phrases attract a more targeted audience to your pages.

So how do you find these longtail keywords? There are a few ways to find this information, the first of which is to use your site statistics. Most statistics programs, like Google Analytics, will provide you with a list of keywords people used to get to your site. Look for the longer phrases people used and write a post around those search phrases. Also be sure to link back to past posts to improve your exposure even more.

Another place to find these keywords is to use Google’s free keyword tool, which provides you with variations of similar keywords to your main keyword target. You can search for exact matches or broad matches to increase your range of keywords.

Although long tail keywords won’t bring in the same amount of traffic that a popular main keyword will, they will be easier to rank for and place you higher on the page of search results. Additionally, the more long tail keywords you use, the more your number of visitors will add up, equaling about the same as if you were able to rank for a main, popular keyword.

Here is an exciting announcement for small businesses and non–profits: free webinars focused around technology tips and techniques to help increase the efficiency and effectiveness of your organizations. The webinars will be held on the second Wednesday of every month starting tomorrow and ending in July, starting at noon EST.

These webinars are part of the Talking Tech series sponsored by FormSpring and will feature special speakers from a handful of different companies. Each session is composed of three 15 minute webinars and a Q&A session.

The first speaker for tomorrow’s webinar is Pat East, president and CEO from Hanapin Marketing. He will be talking about how to make SEO and PPC strategies work for businesses and organizations with different needs and objectives.

Also in tomorrow’s session, you will hear presenters from Cantaloupe talking about basic video marketing techniques and FormSpring will discuss online data collection methods.

Click here to register.

A landing page is like the store front of your online business. It influences whether people will come in and how long they will stay. You want to make a good first impression and make the consumer feel comfortable so they will stay and click through the rest of your site.

Overall, I would say that copy is your number one priority. Not only does copy provide your visitor with instructions on what to do, but it is also crawled by search engines and helps your page rank so that people will ultimately be able to find it. This is not to say that design is not important, but just to emphasis the key role that content plays in a landing page’s success.

When creating your landing page content, here are a couple things to keep in mind:

• Provide helpful information that offers a solution to the visitor’s needs
• State the benefits of your products – give your visitor the idea that they need your product
• State what you need to say in as little words as possible
• Make it easy to order – keep your checkout process to three clicks or less

Apart from content, other factors in creating a converting landing page include setting goals, obtaining testimonials, adding relevant links, choosing keywords and driving targeted traffic.

To keep your page simple and easy to follow, set one main goal per page. The first page may be informational, with the goal to create an urge to purchase in your visitor. The second page may be to enter their personal and payment information. And the third may be a thank you page and to provide them with additional offers they may be interested in.

Testimonials build trust in your visitor and can help them to believe in your product. This is especially powerful when you attach a picture and a name, giving it the whole human element.

Adding relevant links to your site makes you more trustworthy and a more valuable resource to the customer. If your site can offer solutions to multiple problems, it is more likely that you will create repeat customers and earn more referrals.

When building your page, brainstorm all the relevant keywords associated with your product. Think about what keywords you want to rank for and the words that will bring in the most targeted customer. This links right into driving targeted traffic, as you would use these same keywords with your PPC campaigns while also trying to rank for them organically.

Lastly, work on the design of your site and keep it consistent. Try not to make your site too busy and use color to emphasis action buttons and key areas to draw the eye. It’s also a good idea to take a look at some of your competitor’s landing pages and see how you can offer better solutions and easier-to-use pages.