Congratulations Cheyenne Bova!!!! Winner of this months giveaway!!!

This sweepstakes giveaway is now closed, thank you to everyone who participated. Don’t miss next months giveaway and tell a friend.

Enter To Win a SPOT Personal Tracker!

We are excited to announce our monthly giveaway! Enter for your chance to win a SPOT Personal Tracker with a 1Yr Service agreement with a value of $300! The SPOT Personal Tracker notifies your family, friends and rescue help with your GPS location. This is the world’s first satellite messenger, ensuring you can get help when you need it, where cell phones can’t.You just simply press a button and you can notify your loved ones that you’re ok! Always feel secure while traveling in the back country with a SPOT Tracker.

Click here to go to our Facebook page and enter to win. All you have to do is “Like” our page and let your friends know about us! You can also enter to win on our website at http://www.howardsemgroup.com/ by clicking the banner below.

Don’t miss out on this giveaway! We will be announcing the winner on October 8^th 2011. Tell your friends, tell your friends, oh yeah tell your friends!

Do you know what a blog can do for your website and business? So many business owners ask me about the different Social Media Marketing techniques like the use of  Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn etc.. Though not many bring up anything about a blog or blogging. Over the years I have seen too many companies focus their time, money and efforts on these Social Media type sites without ever adding a blog to their own site, this can be a mistake. As many website owners are starting to realize in the eyes of Google, “Content is King!”

Since the late 90’s Google has transformed the search engine industry into becoming an industry that rewards informative, resourceful websites with nice saturation within their search results pages (SERP’s). A corporate blog is the perfect answer to ensuring that Google see’s a dramatic increase in newly written unique & high quality content being generated on your website.  That’s right, even though a blog is usually a bit separate from your main website that usually has somewhat stagnant content; it views the content on your blog as coming directly from your website as long as you set it up correctly.

Creating or adding a blog to your site is not difficult as long as you set it up right, so that Google views it as part of your site.  An example being set-up as a sub-domain (blog.howardsemgroup.com) or a sub-directory (howardsemgroup.com/blog) these are the preferred methods. Having a blog set-up separately from your site with its own URL (HowardsBlog.com) does not necessarily write it off as long as you are using it correctly, optimizing the posts and writing regularly, then linking back to your site using keyword targeted anchor text (ex. “SEO Services” as the text link rather than “Howard SEM Group”) This will provide a good amount of Link Juice from your separated blog.

A blog that is attached to your site will help you in a few ways. 1) Shows Google that constant new content is being developed on your site baiting their site crawlers to visit often and re-index/update their search results. 2) It morphs your site into becoming an Authority in your niche/industry.  This attention helps SEO & Internet Marketing efforts tremendously, and seems to pay off faster, helping site rankings, customer conversions & trust for the long term over short term use of Social Media sites. Do not get me wrong, the Social Media sites are a great and powerful tool, though everyone should start with a blog and regular informative content before going down those paths. Using Social Media sites as tools with your blog can provide excellent results.

Some Blogging Tips & Techniques:

• Use an SEO-Friendly Platform ( I love WordPress)
• Ensure you target 1 or 2 keywords you want to rank for by having that keyword in the Title Tag & body of the blog post.
• Link back to pages on your website that are relevant to the subject of your blog post, using your keyword targets as the anchor text.
• Try not to create more than 1 link per 100 words on average.
• Your Meta description tag should be used with a brief description of your post and a strong call to action, as this is what your sites visitors will see in the Google results pages.
• Occasionally linking back to an older blog post that is relevant will ensure it stays fresh in Google’s eyes.
• Write regularly, I recommend at least 1-3 post (100-300 words) a week, with 1 large detailed post (500+ words) a month.
• Submit your blog to RSS & Blog Directory sites.
• Have a little personality in your writing, just because it is a corporate blog doesn’t mean it has to be robotic and stale sounding.
• Most Important!!! Write for your visitors and target consumers, DO NOT WRITE FOR THE SEARCH ENGINES.

Now Go and Blog! Blog! Blog!

ASK an Expert….Get Your Answers FREE!

Today’s post is an answer to a few questions we’ve received on our Ask An Expert page.  When we notice we get the same question more than once, we know it is no accident.

Answer:

What is a 404 Error Code?

When someone searches and clicks on a link going to a specific page on your site that is no longer there it will return a 404 Error (Page Not Found). This can also happen if someone links to the web page address directly though they misspell it (ex. HowardSEMGroup.com/aboutus.html vs. HowardSEMGroup.com/abouts.html).  This default Page Not Found error is there to ensure the user is informed.

A 404 Error page is absolutely normal, though it can be alarming especially if you are the visitor that gets this response page.  Over the years we have found that by customizing this page toward your visitor and giving them alternative pages, links, or direction to a visitor that might receive this response you can prevent them from leaving your site altogether.

Google’s Webmaster Central Blog recently did a post regarding just this subject that is up to date, current and also worth the read. It should calm the many fears about 404 pages out there…

Can a 404 Error (Page Not Found) response hurt my rankings in the search engines?

Easy answer, NO! Though it can hurt your visitor’s experience, and after being found that is truly the most important thing for any website owner. Great User Experience = Conversions, Leads, Sales, etc.

We recommend if you are planning on deleting a page of content from your site, you use a 301 redirect (Permanent Redirect) that points to a similar page on your site, or the category or home page of the deleted page in question.  This not only will prevent a 404 Error response being provided to your visitors it will also redirect them to other options or information that might help convert them into a sale, lead etc.

This method of using 301 redirects will also help your sites search engine optimization a bit by redirecting any remaining link juice, or page authority from the old page to the newly redirected page instead of just throwing it all out with the dish water.

In summary DO NOT FREAK OUT if you notice a 404 Error page your site is not exploding (at least we hope not!) work on finding the cause…if it is from a misspelled link see if it can be corrected, if not redirect the misspelled URL to the correct spelled URL for that page using a 301 redirect. Remember 404 Error codes are normal when you are deleting pages from your site, just redirect them. Lastly, customize those 404 Error pages for your sites visitors to hold onto their interest and trust of your site.

Thank you to all the inquiries from our Ask An Expert page!

If you or someone you know has a website that needs to be found online don’t hesitate to contact our Search Engine Optimization Firm to get the results you are looking for.

On my way to leave the office this evening and I noticed Google’s Preference Option Display has changed to a small “Sign In” and Preference Wheel in the top right corner of the screen. It made me remember to remind you all to click on that preference wheel  and you will see 3 options

1. Search Settings
2. Web History
3. Privacy

If you click on the “Web History”  you will notice the statement “Your search results may be customized using search activity from this computer.
Disable customizations based on search activity.”

As Google keeps track of your search activity and provides customized search results based on the pattern of your use. I personally do not care for this and prefer to see true, raw search results when I am searching for something. So you can click on that link and Disable customization if you would like to get those true, raw results….rather than what Google thinks you want to see. Just a tip…as most people do not know this is even occurring when they search for something in Google.

CityNAP Colocation Facility

CityNAP (www.citynap.com) is a carrier neutral colocation facility located in San Antonio, Texas.  For those not familiar with colocation I will give a brief overview.  Typical colocation centers provide ping, power and pipe.  What this means is that colocation facilities provide racks or floor space to house servers (to which customers can ping or access remotely), electrical power (often filtered, providing battery and generator backup) along with a pipe of internet or other data solution so that the data can be accessed remotely.  This provides major advantages in terms of cost savings, higher availability and disaster recovery solutions that can be implemented quickly versus a company trying to build these capabilities internally.  Based on market data it no longer makes sense for most companies to try and build this themselves as it is much more cost effective in the long run to work with a colocation provider.

While we accept connectivity from all providers, we have many carriers on-net in the facility such as:  AT&T, Alpheus, TW telecom, Time Warner Cable, Qwest and others  which means we are sitting on the fiber backbones of many major networks.  We also have commitments from several other carriers to build in during 2011 and 2012.  These fiber options result in a robust and diverse bandwidth solution that can be implemented based on customer needs.  Along with basic colocation services, our data center provides a number of enhanced offerings such as backup, storage, compliance consulting, virtualization, monitoring, managed services, security, gap analysis, disaster recovery planning and business continuity.  Our staff is highly skilled as we have a number of vendor certifications from Adtran, Cisco, Extreme, Microsoft, VMWARE and Red Hat along with industry certifications such as CISSP, CEH, CFI, GIAC and more.

Besides offering both basic and advanced solutions to our customers, we strive to be a responsible corporate citizen.  For instance, our facility utilizes wind energy to help offset our carbon footprint.  We also support demand generation.  For those not familiar with the practice, we utilize our gen set to produce electricity in coordination with the electricity provider in our area.  This is a win-win situation for all parties as this gives CityNAP ample opportunity to fully exercise and test our backup power generation while providing assistance to the utility by offloading power requirements from the grid when demand is greatest.

The excellence of our facility and expertise of our staff is matched only by that of our customer service. Many businesses in search of colocation services choose CityNAP because of the caliber of our customer service.  Our customers have remarked that the support they receive from our team is simply “phenomenal.”  So whether your business is looking for a single cabinet or needs advanced design from experts you can trust, CityNAP has a suite of custom solutions for you.

About the Author – Don Douglas has literally grown up in the technology field as he joined its ranks as a programmer at an early age and took on his first professional engagement writing custom software while in high school.  He has worked in a wide variety of industries applying technology solutions to improve performance, reduce expenses, enforce compliance, increase speed to market and provide a competitive advantage.  Mr. Douglas currently oversees a number of technology companies including CityNAP, that not only solve business problems but often provide clients with a true competitive advantage.

If you own a business in South Lake Tahoe, California or live in the city or surrounding areas you will not want to miss this FREE workshop Introducing  SEO ( search engine optimization ) and Social Media Marketing brought to you by the TahoeChamber.org and the City Of South Lake Tahoe featuring guest speakers Missy Potalivo, owner of Social Sense Marketing and Anthony Howard, owner of Howard SEM Group both part of the Tahoe Tactical Team

The Tahoe Tactical Team is a group of expert business consultants who were pulled together by Tahoechamber.org to provide free business assistance to local businesses. This is a program paid for by the City of South Lake Tahoe through a Federal grant. The Tahoe Tactical Team is comprised of experts ranging from people like Anthony Howard an Expert Search Strategist through to Certified Accountants, Marketing Specialist, Web Designer and many more as their are currently Nine Professional Consultants on the team to help businesses in South Lake Tahoe succeed!

If you own a business or are considering starting one in or around South Lake Tahoe you don’t want to miss this workshop!  Thursday January 6th, 2010 at 8:30am – 10am in the Creekside Room at Lake Tahoe Community College…Some Tahoe Tactical Team members will be there after the workshop to answer any questions you might have….If you would like more information on this event or the business assistance program you can get more information at http://www.TahoeTacticalTeam.com or by calling 775-588-1728

We Look Forward to Seeing You there

Google’s announcement of their “Instant” search results sent ripples through the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) community. With search results showing up so much faster, and updating so quickly, they almost seem to become irrelevant. The user is connected to the destination website with almost no time spent on search results, meaning little time for them to see other sites and go there. The idea behind Google Instant is that the user can instantly find whatever they are looking for, while wasting as little time as possible looking through irrelevant search results. Many SEO professionals initially feared the outcome – if users were going only to the sites they wanted to see, and not taking the time to look at any other sites that may have appeared in the search results, then SEO might become obsolete.

Fortunately, it is evident that SEO will stay around for a long time, despite the initial panic. Legitimate SEO is the practice of taking good content and making it more visible. With Google Instant, it is less likely that irrelevant sites which rely purely on SEO spam will be seen at all in search results, but quality sites which people legitimately want to visit will still be seen and get traffic.

Google instant drives users to the content they are looking for faster. Since they can see the search results for their query as they type, they are more likely to type a search query that reflects what they are actually looking for. Misspellings or broad queries can instantly be refined to narrow down search results, without having to retype and resubmit the whole search query. It is expected that Adwords – Pay Per Click advertisers will notice and increased amount of impressions with a lower click through rate (CTR). SEO spammers who relied on misdirected users to come to their site will see a decrease in traffic as well.

A site that has legitimate content which visitors may actually want to see should still expect good quality visitors. Small business SEO practices will still remain relevant – if you offer a good product or service, then people will want it and search for it, and you can use SEO for small business to make sure that your site ranks well.

Google Instant also makes it more important to rank well. For small business SEO, this means that you should still use the same methods and best practices to optimize your site to make it visible. In this way, it makes SEO all the more important – potential visitors take even less time deciding what site to visit, defining the importance of ensuring your sites visibility. Using SEO for small business can help your site to get lots of visitors, regardless of Google Instant. Will Google’s investment pay-off is yet to be seen…. SEO LIVES!

If you are looking for ways to increase your online visibility contact us today.



Why a credible web presence is essential for small businesses

As a small business competing for customers in your local market area, you may still think an ad in the yellow pages or local newspaper will be enough to attract new customers, but these days – especially in this economy – it is absolutely essential to be found online.  In fact, most potential customers will look online before they look anywhere else.  Just having a web site is not enough.  You will also need to market your site in such a way that lets customers find your business first.

According to a study by the Kelsey Group, 97% of consumers use the Internet to search for products and services within their local area.  Which tools do they typically use?  90 percent use general search engines; 42 percent use comparison shopping web sites; 48 percent use online yellow pages services; and 24 percent use vertical search engines.

The growing fragmentation of the Internet means businesses need a strategic approach to being found online on various channels, including directories, industry-specific blogs and social networking sites. A diverse online presence can make a big difference to your bottom line. Small Business SEO is a very powerful tool that provides a very high ROI.

Pay-per-click advertising, also known as paid search, allows you to target your advertising messages to a local audience as they search for products and services like yours.  While this type of advertising can help drive immediate and targeted traffic to your web site, that traffic only comes as long as you are willing to pay for each click.  Search engine optimization (SEO) may take a little longer to get your site listed on page one of the Google results, but you will continue to get high rankings long after your SEO efforts are done.  Google research shows that up to 80 percent of their users will click on organic listings before a sponsored message, but the best results come when a site appears in both places.  In order to truly succeed with search engine marketing, it makes sense to use both pay-per-click and SEO.

Major search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo all understand the power of localized search, delivering dramatically accurate results for users.  Thanks to their ability to track a computer’s IP address, search engines like Google usually know where your customers live, and will provide search results that are based on that specific location.  For example, if a customer types “plumber” into a search engine, they are likely to see a list of local plumbers’ web sites come up as the first result, along with their locations plotted on a local map.   Just think of the impact a listing like this could have on your local business!

As you read this, you may be asking yourself, “If online marketing is so important, then why are most of my sales coming in ‘offline’?”  If you are like most brick and mortar businesses, only about 5 percent of your sales will occur online; but that doesn’t mean that your customer’s buying decision was not made on the Internet.  Most people start their research online, and they expect to get the information they need from your web site.  When your business has a professionally designed web site, it levels the playing field in your industry, allowing you to compete against much larger enterprises in your area.

With more cell phone companies offering smart phones with Internet access, customers are able to find local businesses instantly through voice-activated Google searches that return relevant results based on their GPS location.  This recent surge in mobile search volume has been a real windfall for local business owners who are positioned well on the search engines.

All of these developments point to one thing: the Internet has changed the way we do almost everything, including the way we conduct business. Today’s customers have the tools to find out if they are making the right buying decision before they ever pick up the phone or stop by your place of business.  At one time, it was easy to differentiate between an online business and brick-and-mortar store, but now it’s becoming more and more difficult to draw that line.

Instead of trusting in a company’s advertising claims, customers now look to a growing variety of consumer review sites, search engines and social media to find out what their peers think.  How well a business is positioned online really counts.  In fact, the Internet has become a natural extension and evolution of how most businesses operate.  With this knowledge, many more small businesses realize that they can no longer afford to ignore the power of the Internet.

Anthony Howard is an SEO Expert/Search Engine Strategist and the owner of Howard SEM Group helping businesses succeed on the Internet. To find out how Internet Marketing can help your business visit HowardSEMGroup.com or call 1-877-4EZ-RANK (1-877-439-7265)

What is Link Building?

Link building or the skill of attaining back links is essentially working to gain website links from other websites pointing to your site. Understanding there are many that are somewhat new to SEO and they are not quite aware of the importance of building a good backlinks structure, I am going to dip into it a bit here today.

There are a few names you might have heard like; backlinks, link building, linking, inbound links, one way linking, reciprocal linking, 3-way linking, etc. For the most part they are all talking about getting a website link from someone else’s site pointing to yours.   The reason for the popularity of this is for some search engines the more important one being Google, they look at the amount & quality of links pointing to your website and that helps them determine how popular and relevant your site is for certain terms and helps them rank your site accordingly. Though this is only one of the many ways they determine your relevance and ranking for a term, it is a very important one. Please don’t smack me on my phrasing as I am trying to put this in layman’s terms for those that are not fluent in SEO and link building.

One of the more important aspects of link building and achieving backlinks is the way the links are produced. If you have a site that places a link to your site that looks like this  http://www.HowardSEMGroup.com it will work just find and even push a little authority or link juice your way though it doesn’t show the search engines what your site is really relevant for. Now if you have a link from a site pointing to yours that looks like this Small Business SEO this is the way that will give you the most relevance for your terms as this link is essentially telling the search engines that Small Business SEO = http://www.HowardSEMGroup.com essentially giving you a popularity point as well.

With that said remember this is the very watered down explanation…When it comes to one-way linking and reciprocal linking, one-way linking coming from another site to yours is always better, though much harder to achieve. If the search engines are giving you let’s say a popularity point for getting a link, when you give the linking site a link back (reciprocal) you are essentially giving them half of your earned point. Hopefully that makes sense.

One of the most important things to remember is that theme related relevance does matter when you are receiving links from other sites. When the search engines notice you’re getting a link from 2 different sites (using Howard SEM Group as an example), if you get a link from Mikes Donuts, and California SEO Services which do you think the search engines are going to give more value and credit to?

Unfortunately like all things many have tried to manipulate rankings by using black hat and unethical linking techniques. These techniques might produce great results as for your ranking in the short term, but can get your website banned or penalized in the long term. The search engines all have their own guidelines, but for the most part it’s pretty simple to understand. If you play by the rules you will succeed if you don’t, you won’t!

Effective link building and attaining backlinks can be very time consuming, and many in the industry struggle with this aspect of SEO. This is something you can learn as there is a lot of information on the Internet, though we always recommend using a professional SEO Firm or SEO Consultant to aid in your success. (Did you catch those? Ha!)

Happy 4th of July from the team at Howard SEM Group!!! We hope everyone out there has a wonderful and safe Independence Day celebration with their family and friends. We will be enjoying the traditional barbecue & picnic theme while watching the wonderful fireworks show where the music is choreographed with our local radio stations 93.9 FM  The Lake & 1490 AM KOWL …. We are also looking forward to listening to a few commercials we have out with those great stations to ensure our local businesses know we are here, and can help them succeed on the web.

You can listen here Howard SEM Group – Radio Commercial – 4th of July 2010

If you are needing help ensuring your business is found on the Internet and succeeds, give us a call at 1-877-4EZ-RANK or 1-877-439-7265  or visit us at www.HowardSEMGroup.com

HAVE A WONDERFUL DAY!