Nine steps to getting your website noticed - The rise to the Top of search engines

When considering your web site and or blog you have to go back to basics.  I like to revisit this at least 2 times per year and rethink and review what I am focusing on and why.

This my seem like an unusual source but I found it to be right on the money.  It is only one page and will take you all of 5 minutes.  I found (or had forgotten) several pearls and here they are

1. Are you submitting your site to to DMOZ.org
http://www.dmoz.org/help/submit.html

2. when was the last time you updated your site map?
http://www.xml-sitemaps.com

3. Are you photos tagged?  Use the ALT tag to identify what is on that page.

4. Make each page of your web site have a unique title.

5. Is someone on your staff working the forums for your industry and local market to place questions and ideas about what "the market" should be thinking about so that you become viewed as an expert?  Are the links coming back to the right landing page?

6. Have you run your site through Google's URL evaluator to see how your site is searched?

Read more here
http://www.costcoconnection.com/connection/201102/u1=issues?pg=28#pg28
Source: The Costco Connection Article by Andy Tilbrook

Local Search: Your Address is the New Link

This may seem trivial but can Google find your address on the home page of your web site?
Does it say the category (categories) you represent for a typical yellow page add along with your address, phone number and web page?  Is this in plain text that search engine spiders can understand?

Google has moved to a system where they are posting, like a yellow pages listing, all the businesses that are in a market area for specific categories.... are you there?

Are you listed in Google Places?
places.google.com

These are basic issues I see time and again but are critical to your business appearing on or at the top of search engines.  How about the cities you serve?

Read this great short article about how and why you should pay attention to this simple way to get your listings to the top of search engines
http://searchenginewatch.com/3641789 

Video SEO - Optimize your YouTube video so it will be found, viewed and shared

Learn how to optimize your video for YouTube. Otherwise, the odds that a critical mass of viewers will discover it are slim to nil.

The first step in this process is to think about the words users would type into the YouTube search box to find your video. Choosing relevant keywords can help you get your video content in front of interested users.

You can use the YouTube keyword tool to get new keyword ideas. It gives you a couple of options. You can enter a few descriptive words or phrases, or you can type in a YouTube video's ID or watch page URL. Results can be tailored to more than 40 languages and more than 230 countries.

In addition, the YouTube keyword tool lets you choose the demographic you wish to target. This includes male or female, ages 13 to 65+, applicable countries, and 24 interests from animals to travel.

Although you can use these keywords for advertizing if you want, you don't need to. The YouTube keyword tool can be used to optimize your video for YouTube search, too.

Remember, users are searching for video content, so they're less likely to look for something to buy on YouTube than they are on a search engine. Users search for topics related to what entertains them, so choose your keywords accordingly:

• Names (celebrities)
• Titles (movies, shows)
• Quotes
• Actions/verbs
• Objects in the video (cars, etc.)
• Emotions (funny, hilarious)

When choosing your keywords, think about the trends in online video overall, plus trends on YouTube (hot topics, political awareness, celebrity gossip, and popular videos).

From :

YouTube Keyword Tool and Video Optimization Techniques

Greg Jarboe | Jan 3, 2011

http://searchenginewatch.com/3641672

YouTube Clickable Links. Overlay Web Links on your YouTube Videos to create Calls To Action

Clicks vs Search now you can have both.

Having your content on YouTube gives you a 50x advantage of appearing on the front page of a Google search vs a traditional HTML web page according to Forrester Research.

Getting on the front page of Goolge (70+% of all searchers use Google) is great but it does you no good if people don't click on your link.

Recently data was released showing that people click most on searches or links presented in Facebook, YouTube is #2.... Google is number 6 (see report Why you need to be on Facebook).

So, once they click on your YouTube presentation... what is the "Call To Action" to get them to come to your web page?

Look at this link

http://autodealermls.com/images/clickablelink.gif

We are providing this new capability to all of our clients who want this great new feature.  We cannot post how it is done... would be teaching our competition about how this goes...can't do that.

There is a small charge to set this up, and a small monthly fee or it is free depending on what program you are on with us.

What do you get: 25 characters of text on 2 lines.  Clickable link on line 3 (Trackable Click Page.  A :Link that is presented can be different than the link that it goes to).

Learn more at 

http://autodealermls.com/trafficircle  

We are also rolling this out to our Real Estate Clients.

Happy New Year

Torrey