On page search engine optimization (SEO) is a vital component to ranking on Google, Yahoo, Bing and hundreds of other search engines online.  Businesses that fail to improve the SEO of their websites often lose out on targeted, industry specific traffic.  The visibility of a website on search engines highly depends on how well the content is optimized.  Search engines rank websites according to many factors.  

Here are five suggestions that all webmasters can use to help improve their on page SEO.

1)  Keyword research work pays high dividends.  The very keywords that companies select to target can make or break their SEO efforts, not to mention the amount of money wasted on targeting low quality keywords.  It is not always the best idea to solely target the keywords that get the most traffic, especially when faced with a high amount of competition.

Google's keyword research tool gives accurate statistics on the number of times keywords are searched.  Many webmasters and SEO professionals alike use this tool to generate the amount of search queries on alternate, less competitive keywords.  From there, they can formulate a list of terms that still get traffic, but face far less competing websites for ranking.

2)  Include keywords in the HTML title.  Search engines place a high value on the keywords located within <title> tags.  The search terms located at the beginning of the HTML title are given the most “weight” by search engines.  In other words, as the HTML title gets longer, the importance of the keywords contained within diminishes.

Many search engines will only show the first 70 characters of a title tag in search results.  It is important for website owners to keep HTML titles somewhat short to avoid a truncated look in the search results.

3)  Build a blog and update it often. Google places high relevancy on quality website content.  Blog updates including interesting and fresh information, gives search engine spiders something to come back and index and users something to come back to read.

The benefits of optimizing a website via frequent blog entries is twofold.  The website not only improves its on page SEO through new content addition, it also greatly enhances chances of attracting a solid following of readers.  It is a numbers game where the more readers that a blog attracts, the more links that will be pointed back to it.  Getting links in this “natural” way is extremely valuable in SEO.  Back links serve as votes in favor of a website and are an important aspect of Google's ranking algorithm.

4)  Writing for the human audience of a website can assist in lowering bounce rate.  Bounce rate refers to single visits to a website where the visitor leaves after only viewing the landing page.  More often than not, websites that contain copy that is solely written for search engines have a higher bounce rate.  The top websites that are ranked competitively use a combination of both copy written for their audience as well as good SEO.

5)  Linking internal pages of a website with one another will increase the rate in which it is crawled by search engine bots.  Internally linking pages together will help spread link juice  throughout an entire website.  If pages within a website don't have links that point directly to them they  cannot be accessed by search engine bots (spiders).  These same bots don't just rely on links to find new websites, they also use them to scan pages deep within websites.

The anchor text of a link is important to search engines as well.  Using descriptive keywords in anchor text makes it easier for crawler based search engines to determine the relevancy of a link.  Using keyword enriched text is equally important for both internal links and links from other off page sources.

Search engines do their best to accurately display popular websites to their audience.  As they place an ever growing importance on quality content, it becomes that much more critical to implement beneficial on page SEO elements that search engines will index.  

Effective targeting of keywords in high search demand, through best practices in SEO, will bring organic search engine traffic and decrease your dependency of paid advertising media.

Get Started today - Contact Rostin Ventures.  Get Ranked.  Drive Traffic.  Profit Online.

Search engine optimization was thrown for a loop a few months ago as Google launched a new algorithm dubbed Panda. The net effect was that many SEO professionals' work suffered because some of the techniques they had been using no longer had the same high level of importance that they once had; some SEO work was even outright dropped by Google.

While some search engine optimization pros managed to hang on to their spots — the ones who were already doing the things Google now prefers — many less-than-professionals saw their efforts wiped out.

However, Google made it possible for everyone to reclaim their previous standings and earn their top spots once again. It takes a bit of understanding of what is considered "good" search engine optimization to be able to rise to the top.

Search Engine Optimization Tactic #1: Create High-Quality Content.

One of the factors Google is looking at for their new algorithm is how long people spend on a site. If a site is not very good, or if the writing is poor, and people do not spend a lot of time there — say, less than 10 seconds — Google concludes it must not be a very good site, and so they will drop it on the search engine results pages (SERPs).

To improve time on site, it is necessary to have both a well-designed site AND well-written content — two factors that keep people on a site longer, because they enjoy the experience. A good search engine optimization program will focus on creating good quality content and a good-looking navigation and layout. Have a beautiful site with interesting copy, and people will stay longer.

Search Engine Optimization Tactic #2: Lower Bounce Rates Through Navigation.

"Bounce" is when a person enters a site, visits one page, and then leaves the site again. They bounce, like a ball. But if someone visits a second page on the site, they did not bounce. If 10 people visit a site and leave, the site has a 100 percent bounce rate. But if five people visit a second page, the bounce rate is only 50 percent. The higher the bounce rate, the less valuable Google may consider it.

A good search engine optimization technique is to include navigation on a website that encourages visitors to visit more than one page. It could be an "articles just like these" section at the end of every blog post, or links to the next or previous post. Some newspapers and magazines will split up stories into two or three sections. They do this ostensibly to serve up more ads (thus charging more to their advertisers), but it also keeps their bounce rate lower, which helps them rank higher for certain stories and keywords.

Search Engine Optimization Tactic #3: Embed Videos

Videos are an excellent search engine optimization tactic, because they accomplish so many things at the same time. Just by embedding a YouTube video on a blog or website — especially if it is one's own video — it can help search engine optimization in at least three ways. 1) If a video is 1 - 2 minutes long, and a visitor stays to watch the video, time on site is increased. 2) By using video SEO tactics, the video will also rank higher in YouTube's SERPs. 3) Because Google often shows related videos in a SERP, a high-ranking YouTube placement will also lead to a high-ranking Google placement.

Search engine optimization has changed for the better, thanks to Google's new Panda algorithm. It has gotten rid of many low-value pages that were created by spammers seeking to game the system and sell the three P's of the Internet — pills, poker, and porn. It also rewards the search engine optimization pros and marketers who are trying to do the best for their clients and employers, and deliver the search results that people truly want to see.

There are video SEO tools, techniques, and secrets that all explain how to get videos and their hosting websites to the top of the search engines. These video SEO techniques all focus on winning search on Google, the biggest search engine of them all, as well as Yahoo and Bing.

But the biggest video SEO secret? Forget about winning search on Google, win search on YouTube instead. That is because YouTube is the second biggest search engine in the world, behind Google. Furthermore, the fact that YouTube is so popular, also gives YouTube videos high ranking in search results on Google and other search engines online.

Why is YouTube so important? When people have "how to" questions where they need to learn how to do something — how to replace a key on a keyboard, how to defrag a hard drive, how to change a car's oil — there is a video of it. Or when they want to watch a music video from their favorite band or a scene from their favorite movie, they can find it on YouTube.

Why not take advantage of this?

Think about it. Everyone is focusing all their attention on Google, using onsite search engine optimization techniques, trying to win search for their chosen keywords. But what if it was possible to win search on YouTube instead? Imagine what kind of impact this could have on regular SEO efforts.

Start paying attention to the Google search results page and see what shows up near the top of the search results every time.

Videos!

And not just any videos, but the videos that are most likely to be found during a YouTube search — videos that only have the most basic video SEO done to them will even win search on YouTube, and by default, appear high on the Google search rankings.

Since most people do not even bother to optimize their videos, it is only by luck and happenstance that most videos appear at the top of YouTube's search in the first place. But by performing some basic video SEO techniques, it is possible to make a video appear high in YouTube's rankings as well as Google's.

Video SEO technique #1: Use Keywords in the Video Title. It is not enough to just give the video a clever title. The video needs a descriptive title that people will most likely use during a regular search, like "How to change a keyboard key on a laptop" or "How to change the oil in a car." This tells Google and YouTube what the most important keywords in the title are.

Video SEO technique #2: Use Keywords in the Description. It is important to use the keywords or key phrase at least once, and possibly twice, in the description of the video. Just like in an optimized blog post, the description tells YouTube (and Google) what the video is about.

Video SEO technique #3: Include Backlinks in the Description. Backlinks are an important part of regular SEO, and should be a part of video SEO as well, being incorporated into the video's description, which helps boost a website's ranking. But then, be sure to point several backlinks from other websites to the video.

Video SEO technique #4: Use Transcripts and Subtitles. Another way to include keywords to a video is to include an entire transcript of the spoken audio. Whether the video is one person talking about how to replace keys on a laptop, or is an interview between two people, it is very helpful to include a written transcript as part of the video SEO. When editing a YouTube video, there is a window to upload a transcript or a subtitle file and have it play along with the video. This is additional text that Google and YouTube are able to index and count toward search results, which helps video SEO.

These video SEO techniques allow marketers an advantage. YouTube's status as the world's second biggest search engine, will help to ensure your videos show up at the top of the search results in regular Google searches as well as within other search engines, social media and article and press sites online.  Follow these steps and begin ranking online!

SEO consulting can help grow a company's lead generation numbers just by virtue of making the company website found more easily on different search engines. SEO consulting agencies work to optimize a company's website, following the different techniques and tactics that SEO experts have found to work well.

Here is how SEO consulting can help improve lead generation.

A realtor specializes in mid-century modern homes in a particular part of town. Her website is currently a few pages of the usual real estate speak about customer satisfaction, putting buyers in their new home, and pictures of happy families. But the realtor's site does not rank well, and gets very few leads.

1. The SEO consulting professional first determines which keywords and phrases potential customers will use. They do this by checking other real estate websites, looking at the realtor's website analytics, and using SEO tools that show the best/most used keywords other visitors use when performing similar searches.
    
2. Next, the SEO consulting pro will revamp the realtor's website as needed, placing keywords in strategic areas, like page titles, headlines, and body copy. This "on-site SEO" an important part of any SEO consulting work, because this is the structure the search engines look for in order to determine what a website is about. If this important structure is missing, it is more difficult for the search engines to determine what a website is about. While it will not ruin the realtor's chances for being found, it does make it that much harder to be found, compared to other, similar websites.
   
   In the realtor's case, the SEO consulting firm will recommend keywords like "mid-century modern," the name of the neighborhood, and the name of the city.
    
3. Blogging is another important tool in an SEO consulting pro's toolbox. While the SEO consulting firm may not provide this service themselves — it is either up to the client to write their own content or an professional business blogging service — they will recommend it, and can even help create the blog. For the best effort, the blog should be a part of the realtor's website
   
    
4. That is because the search engines focus on a website's frequency and recency of updates — how often do they do it and when was the last time they did it? The more often a website is changed, the more valuable a search engine assumes it is. A blog is the easiest way to update the website, because a weekly or twice-weekly blog post will have the same effect as constantly changing the website.
   
   For the realtor, she should blog regularly about new houses for sale, changes in the neighborhood, state of the school, new restaurants, and anything else that will mention the keywords from point number two.
    
5. Backlinking is another service that top-flight SEO consulting firms will provide. While on-site SEO is important, it only tells the search engines what is important. Backlinks are what tell the search engines if something is popular and important. In that sense, backlinks are like votes. The more votes something has, the more important the search engines think it is. While anyone can read a book on SEO and call themselves an SEO consulting pro, the best agencies will actually manage backlinking for their clients as well
   
   For the realtor, her backlinking strategy needs to include articles written by other bloggers, comments left on other blogs, and even special mentions on discussion forums and community sites.

By hiring an SEO consulting agency to handle these details, the realtor will begin to see her website climb up in the search rankings. As she climbs up the rankings, she will also see an increase in traffic to her site — that traffic represents interested home buyers and sellers. As they read through her valuable information, they will then contact her for help in buying or selling their homes. The more contacts she gets, the more opportunity she has to close sales.

SEO consulting can help other businesses grow in this same manner. It is all a matter of knowing the best and latest techniques, and knowing how to capitalize on the things that potential clients are looking for.

The mobile SEO world is deeply divided. They are deeply divided in a way that only the true geeks can deeply divide. Entire church denominations have splintered over much, much less.

What is rocking the mobile SEO world is the question of dedicated mobile websites and domains: are they important, necessary, and valuable, or are they a complete waste of time?

The argument boils down to whether companies need a mobile-specific website and a mobile-specific domain name on the .mobi platform. Should companies purchase a .mobi domain name and then a separate server to store their specially-designed mobile websites.

Mobile SEO Argument #1: Mobile Websites and Domains Are IMPORTANT

Some mobile phones have problems rendering websites, say these proponents. And mobile search engines look at websites differently than regular desktop websites. Even the users visit a website for different reasons, whether they are on a laptop or on their mobile phone.

Generally, a person who is looking at a mobile site only needs basic information, not long blocks of copy, Flash-based movies, or giant graphics that are difficult to read. They want quick information, because they are usually on the move, trying to find an address, look up an item, or decide what they should buy. They do not have the time to sit down, research, investigate, and ponder. This means their web browsing habits are different — they want fast, simple, and easy to use.

Also, a .mobi domain name is important to mobile SEO because it helps the mobile search engines determine whether to include a page in their mobile-only search results. Plus, it makes it easier for mobile SEO professionals to buy a domain that matches their most-frequently searched keywords.

This means mobile SEO professionals need to do what works for both the search engines and the mobile users. They need dedicated pages that are programmed in HTML5. They need pages that only a mobile user will want, like contact information, directions, menu, easy ordering, etc.

The benefit of this approach, say the proponents, is that it boosts mobile SEO rankings, making sure the company's website appears at the top of the mobile search results.

Mobile SEO Argument #2: Mobile Websites and Domains Are NOT NECESSARY

These proponents argue that the modern smartphone is like a mini-computer capable of rendering any website. There is not even a need to create mobile pages on a desktop site, because the site will render beautifully on the smartphone's web browser.

The benefit this has to the mobile SEO professional is that it saves money: no need for extra programming, extra domains, server space, and someone to manage it all. Any money that would have gone into website development and mobile SEO can instead be put into other social media marketing efforts.

The problem with his argument is that not all phones are the most up-to-date smartphones. They do not all render web pages correctly. Of the total cell phone market, only 28% of them are smartphones. And some of those phones are older and still cannot render desktop websites.

The proponents then say that if companies would only program in HTML5, then any device could read it — desktop computers, laptops, tablets, and cell phones — and this would no longer be an issue. Of course, the costs and hassles of redesigning an entire website is going to result in the same extra costs that creating a mobile website and hosting would have in the pro-mobile site argument above.

While this mobile SEO argument is not going to be resolved any time soon — at least not until all websites have begun adopting HTML5 and/or all smartphones are able to render desktop websites no matter the age. Until then, the mobile SEO professionals will hotly debate and discuss this issue for years to come.

Social media marketing has many myths and untruths surrounding it, usually by people who have no knowledge whatsoever of social media marketing and how it works. These are some of the most common myths that abound, and some possible responses to use when faced with them.

The Company's Customers Do Not Use Social Media

This is a common myth, and one that continues to astonish a lot of social media marketing professionals. Companies do not use social media at all, yet they profess to have the knowledge of their customers' social media habits. The best way to find out if customers are on a social network is to join it and upload the customer email list. If no one is truly on there, the company can avoid it and never use it again. But if at least 20% of the list is on the network, the company should use that network and engage in social media marketing.

People Might Say Bad Things About The Company

People are saying bad things about the company already. The only difference is that by not being on social media, the company cannot know how big the problem is. Social media marketing professionals can recite case study after case study about companies that were caught completely unaware about a problem on social media for weeks or months, until the mainstream media called to ask about it. The only way to see if people are saying bad things on social media is to be on social media.

Social Media Is Not Mainstream

There are 170 million Facebook users in the United States — nearly half the population. Very few things have that level of participation, except television, radio, and newspapers (and newspapers are dwindling). By ignoring a social media marketing opportunity like Facebook because of the mistaken belief that it is not mainstream, companies are ignoring a large part of their target market.

Of the 81 million Gen Yers in this country, 96% of them are on a social network of some kind. In fact, many of them do what they can to avoid mainstream advertising, by recording TV shows and skipping the commercials. However, they can be reached via social media marketing methods, like Facebook ads. Furthermore, social media marketing professionals can also specifically target their ads to Facebook users, based on their age, sex, relationship or job status, and even geography. Companies can reach women in their 50s who live in Florida, or single men who are between 18 and 24, living in a large city. Rarely, can mainstream media achieve such targeted results.

Social Media Results Cannot Be Measured

Actually, the advantage social media marketing has over mainstream marketing is that it can be easily measured with different social media monitoring tools. Not only can these analytical tools measure where something is being said about a company, it can measure the sentiment of the message, to see if it is positive, neutral, or negative.

Website analytics can even determine how many people arrive at a website, what steps they followed to get there, what pages they visited while they were at the website, and even if they made a purchase. This means that not only can social media marketing pros monitor the traffic to a particular website, they can determine what online mediums are having an impact on sales. Mainstream advertising cannot do that.

Internet marketing is not a new field — it is more than 20 years old — but there are still plenty of myths that surround it. And until these myths are disproved and social media marketing joins traditional marketing as an accepted and effective marketing channel, social media marketing pros will continue to fight this battle on a daily basis.

 

 

Video SEO has become an important part of regular search engine optimization. Anyone doing a basic Google search has seen how their search results often contain videos, especially from Google-owned YouTube, on the search engine results page (SERP). This is because Google is putting a lot of emphasis on videos, which means video SEO is not only possible, it is expected.

One video SEO consulting agency used a video to help the SEO efforts of a mobile coupons app developer. The video, which dealt with using mobile coupons to reduce a person's carbon footprint, was posted to the company's blog in an entry on using mobile coupons on vacation, and then tweeted out to nearly 3,500 people in the agency's network.

As a result, the company's video has begun ranking even higher for its particular keywords about mobile coupons (ranked #4), mobile grocery coupons (#3), and green shopping (ranked #14, but because it is a video, is ranking on Page 1).

The videos are also ranking highly on Google within its own video search pages — they actually reached Google's first page within a single day, especially for the keyphrase "free grocery giveaway." In this particular case, the high ranking can be attributed to the video SEO technique of using the term in the description of the video.

For users who search on YouTube for these same keywords, the results are similarly positive. Mobile coupons is a Page 1 rank, mobile grocery coupons is first on YouTube's search results (in fact, different videos from the mobile app company rank first, second, fourth, and fifth). Unfortunately, green shopping does not rank well on YouTube, having been supplanted by comedian Tom Green, who apparently has a thing for taking videos of his shopping trips.

Keep in mind that YouTube is the world's second-largest search engine, which makes it ideal for video SEO efforts.

Based on these results, it is obvious that video SEO is important, but why? If companies and brand managers know why, this can help them decide whether to try video SEO or not.

Video SEO Factoid #1: Google Declared 2010 to be the Year of Video In 2010, Google put a lot of effort into growing its video offerings, improving its video search engine optimization, and making video easier to produce, upload, and use. Now, video has become prevalent in the online world, often replacing TV as a primary source of entertainment for many of those in Generation Y.

Video SEO Factoid #2: Google Declared 2011 to be the Year of Mobile Phones It may seem weird to include this here, but when one considers that videos are very easy to watch on  smartphones, and that many people consume videos on their phones, this becomes important. Now, not only will people want to watch videos on their phone, but they will go straight to YouTube — the world's #2 search engine — to find them.

Video SEO Factoid #3: YouTube is NOT the Only Video Site Vimeo and Daily Motion are also major video sites that accept video uploads, although there are dozens of video sharing sites available. Uploading the best videos to these different sites using a video uploading tool helps the company's videos not only reach different niche audiences that each video site reaches, but with all the video SEO techniques, like keyword-rich descriptions and titles, and backlinks, the company's website improve their own search engine ranking.

Video SEO is one tool that continues to provide solid results for its practitioners, but surprisingly, it is not a widely used tool by many SEO professionals. They continue to fight and tweak for different keywords and tactics, without considering the powerful benefits that video offers. For a complete SEO package, consider all the benefits that a simple video shot with a simple video camera or smartphone can offer.

Translation SEO may be the next big thing as more multinational companies localize their services, products, and even websites in different countries. Translation SEO is the idea that a website — say, one built in the U.S. — is translated into another language like German or Japanese, in the hopes that the SEO juice (that's a technical term) will be the same on the overseas search engine.

Many companies think running their website through a machine translator will perform just as well on the localized Google as it did in the U.S. Of course, translation SEO is not that easy.

For one thing, those translations are often word for word translations, and don't follow sentence structure rules or use idioms. Nothing is more embarrassing, for example, than finding a phrase like "Man, I'm hot!" doesn't mean you're overheated in German, but that you're. . . feeling very amorous. There are similar pitfalls when using machine translations, and you may find that people in other countries are finding your site for. . . "other" reasons.

Here are three other best practices for translation SEO.

Translation SEO Practice #1: Research country specific keywords.

People not only call things by different words in different countries (an "elevator" in the U.S. is a "lift" in England) but they may use entirely different search terms when they do perform a search. Do country-specific keyword research, rather than relying on your knowledge of the culture and language.

Also, don't rely on the staff in your overseas office. Many companies call a product one thing, while searchers and potential customers call it something else, both in the U.S. and other countries.

Translation SEO Practice #2: Optimize your site to rank within high search market targets.

This means following the best practices of the popular search engines in that country, which may not always be Google. In Russian it's Yandex, in China it's Baidu.  And their best practices are not necessarily Google's, which means your translation SEO is more than just following Google's best practices. It means you need to work with SEO professionals who have extensive experience in those countries.

Translation SEO Practice #3: Don't duplicate pages from other websites.

Even if you translate to another language, it's never a good idea to duplicate pages, unless there's a reason to do it. (And in that case, make sure you designate the original pages as the "canonical" pages.) Rather, make sure your translator is also a decent writer who can rewrite the copy enough so it's completely different. Otherwise, you could still suffer the same duplicate content "penalties" that other web designers see when they repost the same content on different websites.

Translation SEO, if done properly, can help a company achieve the same online success they have seen in their home country. It's a matter of finding the best keywords, and working with experienced SEO professionals who know how the other country's search engines work.

The Stop Online Piracy Act will be voted on soon in the U.S. House of Representatives. While the main goal of the bill does seem positive, to prevent copyright infringement and protect intellectual property, the bill’s vague language poses a threat to all members of the social online media community from search engines like Google, to social media giants like Facebook, to SEO, Social Media & Online Reputation Management Specialists like Rostin Ventures.

SOPA would not only give power to the Attorney General to shut down websites with copyright material, but it also lowers the threshold for who can be liable for IP theft. Under this bill, if an ISP, search engine, payment network, or ad network doesn’t take drastic measures to prevent piracy, they can be held responsible for copyright infringement. Any site could be declared “foreign infringing” if its domain name registration authorities are located outside the U.S. and the site “facilitates” the commission of criminal copyright or trademark infringement. In such an event the Attorney General would be permitted to shut down the host site. It is important to note, the bill doesn’t take into consideration whether or not the facilitation of infringement was intended or the amount of noninfringing content on the site.

In addition to allocating too much power to the government to regulate internet activity and threatening the operations of companies that play a key role in our domestic economy, SOPA fails to even achieve its main goal of stopping piracy. While shutting down a host site does increase the difficulty for piracy to continue, the site may still be reached with its IP address. Because the bill does not call for the elimination of IP addresses of pirating sites, it is not sufficient in stopping copyright infringement.
       
If passed SOPA could have serious negative implications for social media, stifle speech and innovation as well as economic growth during harsh economic times. Rostin Ventures will take all means necessary to inform its clients and the rest of the social and online media community of these potentially disastrous effects, and asks for your support.

A link to a more detailed summary of the bill written by The Center for Democracy and Technology is provided below:
http://www.cdt.org/files/pdfs/SOPA%202-pager%20final.pdf

A link to a full copy of the bill:
http://judiciary.house.gov/hearings/pdf/112%20HR%203261.pdf

Rostin Ventures Inc. Press Contact
Cameron Ross, Issue Analyst
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
2149953824

Social media marketing is more than just spreading a marketing message through social networking tools like Twitter or Facebook. It is about brand management and defense on those same social tools, and turning that defense into marketing opportunities. In many cases, social media marketing will often transcend the typical marketing communication messages and campaigns, because it comes from sources other than the marketing department.

The customer service department is an unlikely place for social media marketing to happen, but because of the public nature of social networks, it can be a great place for brand defense and word of mouth marketing to happen, all because the customer service department is on the ball and handling customer complaints.

Here is an example of how social media marketing usually works.

1. A customer has a complaint with their satellite service provider. They send a tweet out, which is seen by their 750 followers: "Channel 213 is out, and right before the big game. Stupid satellite company. Been sitting on hold for past 30 minutes."
2.  The satellite company is monitoring Twitter, and they respond with a message of apology and an offer to help. They may even offer to call the customer themselves, or ask them to send a direct message outlining the problem.
3. After a few direct messages back and forth, the satellite company is able to diagnose the problem. It is something wrong with the company's equipment. In the meantime, they tell the customer to switch to an alternate channel which is carrying the same game.
4. The customer is very happy. Not only does he feel heard, but he is now able to watch the game. He tweets out, "Satellite company just told me to switch to channel 271 for the game while they fix the problem. They will have the old channel up and running by halftime." (This is brand defense.)
5. The customer's friends are also interested in watching the game, so not only do they switch to the new channel, but they retweet the message to their own friends. This also tells other viewers where they can find the new channel (this is word of mouth marketing).
   
   But the biggest benefit this has is in social media marketing. By telling his friends and followers, the original customer spreads the message (word of mouth marketing) that his satellite provider was responsive and helpful (brand defense).
   
   Their customer service response became a social media marketing function, because the customer told everyone about it. His friends and followers — who he has a relationship with, and who trust him — are more willing to listen to him if he ever recommends that satellite provider.
   
   This is because people have begun ignoring traditional marketing messages, preferring instead to believe their friends and social media connections for recommendations. The lesson for brands that want to use social media marketing is that they need to have trusted relationships with their customers. It means they have to communicate with them in something more than advertising slogans and special offers.
   
   Brands that successfully use social media marketing talk with their customers about things other than just their product or service. They answer questions in their industry, help customers solve problems, and even recommend them to other companies to find solutions.
   
   Proper social media marketing makes companies someone more than just a faceless marketer whose only interest is the bottom line. It makes them evangelists and advocates for the customers. It also shows that the company is willing to look out for their customers, listen to them, and have their best interests at heart. And so who do the customers buy from? The companies that show more interest in them than in their wallets.
   
   Ultimately, social media marketing is about forming relationships with customers and potential customers. It takes more work than billboards and brochures, but it has a better ROI and can even improve sales where traditional marketing cannot. Social media marketing is becoming a more popular channel for companies, because it can encompass more than just traditional marketing. Customer service, public relations, and even research and development are all social media marketing channels now.

Reverse SEO can help a restaurant or small retail shop overcome a bad review or two on different review sites. The problem that many restaurant and retail owners face is when a disgruntled customer or troll — someone who gets their jollies by overstating problems or even making up outrageous complaints — leaves a bad comment on a review site, sometimes even making it up. In fact, some trolls even try to parlay their fictionalized complaint into free food, merchandise, or in some cases, cash.

But there is no need for restaurant owners to fall prey to these negative reviews. Rather than buckling or running in fear from bad reviews, it is possible to use reverse SEO tactics to push them right off the page.

Here are four reverse SEO tactics business owners can use to push down negative reviews.

Reverse SEO Tactic #1: Ask customers to write positive reviews. Enough positive reviews will outweigh the negative reviews. Plus, people who read the site will also see that while one person may have complained, there are plenty of other people who enjoyed it. They will attribute the bad review to an uncommon experience. That does not mean owners should bribe customers to leave reviews or even fake customer reviews.

Reverse SEO Tactic #2: Create and publish videos on video sharing sites. This is an ideal reverse SEO strategy, because search engines love videos. Make them customer interviews, behind the scenes looks at the restaurant, or previews of upcoming menu changes. In many cases, search engines will place video results at or near the top of the search engine results page, which will help push down any normal, non-video results that might have appeared. Plus, because videos are often evergreen — that is, they last for a long time, because it will take more videos to push them off the page — they are a reverse SEO mainstay.

Reverse SEO Tactic #3: Use social media tools like Twitter, Facebook, and Google+; follow customers who follow the restaurant Twitter account. Social media is beginning to have an impact on search results. Now, when someone does a Google search, Google looks at their social media footprint to see if they are connected to anyone who has talked about that particular search topic before. If a potential customer does a search for a restaurant name, they will see that one of their social media friends has either tweeted about, written a status update about, or even written a blog post about that restaurant. The friend's content will show up in the search engine results page, which may help push the negative comments off the front page.

Reverse SEO Tactic #4: Start a blog. Blogging about positive aspects about the restaurant, the community, and the staff can all help the restaurant website rise above the negative comments, and help push it off the site. The more content with the restaurant's name and brand that gets placed on the Internet, the more it can push down the negative content. This works because search engines love websites that update frequently. The best way to update a website is with a blog post.

A blog can contain customer testimonials and special reviews and letters, making it a powerful reverse SEO tool. They are a place to embed videos, rather than just leaving them on YouTube. And a blog can be promoted on social tools like Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. All of these can occupy a place on a blog, making it not only a place for fans and customers to interact with the restaurant, but a way to keep negative comments from rising to the top of the search engines.

Reverse SEO, when done properly, can undo damage that has been done by trolls, disgruntled customers, and even legitimate complaints. But remember that reverse SEO cannot replace good customer service, no matter how hard one tries.

Reverse SEO can help mitigate a corporate crisis, especially when the crisis is being played out in social media networks and on blogs. Many times, a story grows online instead of in the mainstream media, which can cause major problems with a company's search engine rankings. Whenever someone searches for the company name, the story will be the first several listings to appear on the first page, not the company's home page. But with proper tactics, this story can eventually be pushed down off the first page.

Here are four tactics a PR professional can use reverse SEO to suppress the negative stories from search results

Reverse SEO Tactics #1. Start a Blog on the Company Website

Search engines love websites that post new content on a regular basis. A blog is the best way to do this. Not only does it help the PR pro do some reverse SEO during the crisis, it also helps the marketing department with regular SEO, so the company can be found for their chosen keywords.

If the search engines can see regular updates to a website, they are more likely to push it to the top of their results, displacing the negative story.

Reverse SEO Tactics #2. Respond POSITIVELY to the Criticisms

The worst thing to do during a crisis is to let emotions take hold and to respond in kind to negative comments in the heat of the moment. While the first instinct may be to take on the naysayers and critics, a shrill outburst will not only delay the reverse SEO efforts, it will fan the flames of the story. There are too many cases of PR pros forgetting themselves and causing the story to grow bigger than it would have if they had left it alone. In some cases, the response even becomes a story of its own.

Reverse SEO Tactics #3. Use Social Media Ranking Tools to Determine Whether the Person is Even Worth a Response

Hopefully, companies managing their reverse SEO efforts are using social media monitoring tools to keep up with online mentions. These tools find all mentions of a company's keywords in different social networks, blogs, and forums. The temptation is for a PR pro to respond to all of them. This can be a big mistake.

Not everyone who responds has the influence to have a big impact on the story. Use a social media scoring and ranking tool to see whether the person has any real "clout" before responding. If they have a low score, it is safe to ignore them. Otherwise, a wasted response to a non-influencer may give continued life to the story.

Reverse SEO Tactics #4. Give it Time

Keep in mind that regular search engine optimization takes time — as much as three to six months. So does reverse SEO. Companies cannot count on immediate results on their reverse SEO efforts. They need to remember they are in this for the long haul. While companies need to deal with a corporate crisis in the usual manner, they need to realize this is a long-term strategy as well.

Just like with every other crisis and problem, this too shall pass. But its effects can linger, thanks to the search engines, if it is not dealt with properly. For some companies and individuals, an old crisis will still rear its ugly head whenever someone searches for the company name, because they did not take the proper steps. But reverse SEO techniques will suppress those results after the original furor dies down.

Reverse search engine optimization is an ideal long-term strategy to deal with company crises, and to protect its online reputation. Not only does it deal with problems as they arise, it can be an effective inoculation against future crises as they develop.

SEO consulting

may seem like an extravagance for some smaller companies companies, but it can be the thing that separates a successful company from a mediocre one, a successful online campaign from a failed campaign. SEO consulting may seem like an added expense to companies operating on a smaller budget, but the benefits it can reap will make the SEO consulting costs more than pay for itself.

Here are four reasons small companies need

SEO consulting

.

SEO Consulting Tip #1: It Can Create a Positive ROI in Months, Not Years The whole reason to do search engine optimization (SEO) is because it can help a company be more easily found on Google and other search engines. When companies sell products online, the most important thing they can ever do to survive and thrive is to be found at the top of the search engine results page. If companies are on page two, they might as well not be on the Internet at all. Studies have shown that users rarely go past the first page of search results. Page two is rarely visited, and if a company is on page three, they might as well be selling televisions to the Amish.

SEO Consulting Tip #2: The SEO Learning Curve Is Fairly Steep Search engine optimization is rather complicated and requires in-depth knowledge. While anyone can learn to do it, it takes months and months of reading, implementing the lessons, monitoring, measuring the results, tweaking the parameters, remeasuring the results, and constantly tweaking and measuring, especially when there are major changes to the search engine algorithms. SEO consulting is a full-time job for a reason. This is not necessarily knowledge that can be picked up by reading a book. It requires constant learning and testing.

SEO Consulting Tip #3: SEO Tactics Change Constantly Search engines are always trying to provide the best possible experience for users that they can. If a user has a good experience during one search, they will be back for another. And then another. Pretty soon, they are regular users of that search engine, which means the search engine can continue to serve up their ads, which is how they make money. In order to get people to use that search engine, they constantly work to provide the best experience possible.

This means they are constantly working to weed out spammers, eliminating unimportant or useless websites, and making sure the Internet experience is as useful and enjoyable as possible. All of these changes can have serious ramifications on a website's search ranking. This is why SEO consulting is a full-time job. The SEO consulting professional is constantly keeping up with changes in the industry via articles, white papers, and blogs. They know that any information in a book is usually out of date before it is ever printed. The SEO consultant is always keeping up with these changes, which is something that a part-time practitioner just is not able to manage.

SEO Consulting Tip #4: Search Engine Optimization Takes a Lot of Time Search engine optimization is one of those tasks that usually get relegated to the bottom of the to-do list. It is one of those tasks that most everyone agrees is important, but there are always meetings to take, phone calls to make, copy to write, and sales to close. As well-intentioned as the business owner is, search engine optimization will always take a back seat to the meetings, phone calls, office tasks, and sales, which means it will never get done.

And by the time the owner has time to do everything — because sales and phone calls have slowed down, thanks to a poor search engine ranking — it is already too late. The months they should have spent optimizing their website are now lost, and it will take several more months for an SEO consulting professional to repair the damage. But by then, sales may have slowed to a deadly pace, and the business owner is looking for a quick fix just to keep the business going.

SEO consulting is not something a business owner can ignore or trivialize, not if they want their business to succeed. If a business needs to make a great impression online, an SEO consulting professional can really save their bacon.

Reverse SEO is an ongoing battle for a lot of people. One little mistake and a photo gets posted to dozens of websites. One lapse of judgment and the mistake is blasted all over the Internet. Or one person who shares a job seeker's name but doesn't share their sense of morality and good judgment can confuse people searching for that candidate.

Reverse SEO (search engine optimization) can help push negative search results down the search engine results pages (SERPs), and make the positive content appear at the top. Here are four reverse search engine tips that can start working almost immediately.

Reverse SEO Tip #1: Use Quora, Yahoo Answers, and Other Q&A Sites

Q&A sites like Quora, Yahoo Answers, and LinkedIn are all great places to not only establish expertise and credibility in a subject, they are also a good place to drop in URLs that point back to one's main website or blog. Visit the Q&A sites on a semi-frequent basis — at least every three days — and answer questions in a few niche areas. If there are useful blog posts or websites, include those as well. But this is not a place to spam articles or websites, because users will often report users as spammers. Rather, give high-quality useful answers, and only include URLs when they are important and valuable.

Reverse SEO Tip #2: Buy Personal Name as a URL

Using one's own name as a URL is the most effective reverse SEO technique, because search engines put a lot of stock into domain names. Any name or keyword in a .com URL gets extra attention from the search engines, and in many cases, they are likely to place that website at the top of the SERPs. As a result, it does not matter what content is at the top of the page, a named URL will trump even that, as long as there is some useful content. Create a basic website with a WordPress site or free Google page, and point different backlinks to it.

Reverse SEO Tip #3: Start a Blog

A blog is an excellent way to reverse SEO negative content off the top SERPs. It is regular content about a specific topic and by a specific person. If it is one person who is trying to remove negative content, then a blog is an ideal way to do this, because they can write and post everything under their own name. Every post has the potential to not only help reach its own high positions, but as each post is promoted on different social media networks, it can also push the positive content to the top of the SERPs, and push the negative content off.

Reverse SEO Tip #4: Use Videos

Videos aid greatly with reverse SEO, because they get a lot of search engine "juice." (It also does not hurt that sites like YouTube are owned by Google.) Just by posting a video to YouTube, adding a link that points back to the hosting website, and then embedding that video on the site, and it can boost the website's search engine rankings. This can be especially useful for a blog that requires regular content and needs a boost from the search engines to improve its performance.

While reverse SEO is not an easy fix — plan on taking at least three months and as long as a year to remove negative content — it can be an effective tool to overcoming negative search results. Whether the project is for a job candidate, a corporate brand, or even a politician who has made some drastically unfortunate life choices, reverse SEO can ultimately help restore the positive aspects of the person's or company's brand and image.

Reverse SEO was all about getting negative information pushed down off of Google, keeping it out of the top search engine ranks, to make sure people did not associate a brand with being an awful place to do business. Reverse SEO was necessary for companies that had a run of bad luck, or a few cranky customers who wanted to harm it. But no one used negativity as a marketing tool.

Then one New York business owner found that the negative results actually increased his sales. The owner of an online eyeglasses company found that by providing bad customer service, which people would complain about online, his page ranked higher on Google. The angrier people got, the higher it went.

It was not until a New York Times article detailed the company's practices — including fraud and violent threats — that Google was "horrified" to find their search engine was being gamed in so evil and heinous a manner.

What was happening was as people posted their complaints online, they backlinked to the vendor's website, which is a popular reverse SEO tactic. Google assumed that a backlink to a website was an endorsement, which meant Google believed it was an important site that provided a good user experience. (This is why backlinks are crucial in a reverse SEO strategy.)

Google quickly released a statement that they had "developed an algorithmic solution which detects the merchant from the Times article along with hundreds of other merchants that, in our opinion, provide an extremely poor user experience."

In other words, Google was now looking at the sentiment surrounding a backlink to determine whether it was a real vote or not, and their solution served as a notice to companies who screwed their customers: do business right, treat people decently, or get banned from Google.

This also means that the best reverse SEO tactic is going to be great customer service.

A lot of businesses already worry about what will happen if they receive a negative complaint on a user review site. They might lose sales, the complaint might be seen on the search engines, etc., so they use any reverse SEO tactics they can. But now that Google has changed, a new strategy to eliminate these complaints is to reverse SEO them through kindness and decency.

The best way to do this? Use these three "customer service reverse SEO tips:"

Customer Service Reverse SEO Tip #1: Ask customers and visitors for positive reviews, if it is truly deserved.

This can done on a comment card, a copy of their receipt, a sign by the front door, or even a quick email to the company's contact list.

Customer Service Reverse SEO Tip #2: Make sure to earn those positive reviews by providing great service and a memorable experience.

Everyone loves being made to feel special and important. They love a great experience. And they certainly love being treated with respect and kindness. Nothing will engender a greater positive review than treating customers with sincere respect and kindness.

Customer Service Reverse SEO Tip #3: Visit the sites and social networks where most of the business' customers are.

Many businesses make the mistake of continuing to market and advertise in the places they "always have" — phone books, newspapers, billboards. But these are not always effective marketing channels. Instead, ask customers where they spend a lot of their time online. If it is a social networking site like Facebook, join Facebook, and friend them. Communicate to them like a person, not like a commercial.

Google has made sure that companies that game their algorithm through customer anger will not benefit. But that does not mean they will eliminate all negative comments. For any companies who still need to remove those from the search engine rankings need to let a positive customer experience be the reverse SEO they need.

Reverse SEO can save a company's Internet bacon, although one hopes they will never need it. Regular search engine optimization (SEO) is the science of getting your chosen website to the top of the search engines. Reverse SEO is when a company or individual needs to get negative results off the front page, because it can harm their reputation.

Here are four likely scenarios where a company might need reverse SEO.

Reverse SEO Scenario # 1: An individual shares the same name with someone else.

Bill (not his real name) is a respected businessman and former sportscaster on ESPN. Unfortunately, as uncommon as his name is, he shares it with a convicted felon. A year ago, when someone Googled Bill's name, he owned results 2 - 10. The felon? Ranked #1. Today, it is an even mix between the two.

Anyone who did not know Bill would assume that these were the same men, even though they were not. What was worse is the two Bills lived in the same state, so that did not help matters either. Bill needs to push the felon's name off Google, and to make sure that only his name appears at the top of the search results. Not only should Bill's reverse SEO efforts be about positive things the he done, but they should also include a page about how he and the other Bill are not the same people.

Reverse SEO Scenario #2: Someone made some bad choices in the past that won't go away.

No one means to put those photos on Facebook. No one means to get into the shouting match with the political troll on their favorite discussion board. But that is what keeps appearing at the top of the Google search results. While it may not seem like a big deal, it will be when a possible employer starts doing some basic online research for their new candidates, and those photos and discussion pop up.

Reverse SEO would hide those search results, by pushing more positive content to the top of the search engines, and hiding the negative results on a deeper page. In the meantime, it would not hurt to delete the posts and photos. It will not completely solve the problem, but it would help.

Reverse SEO Scenario #3: One of your patrons badmouthed you.

Restaurant owners always try to do their best to please their customers. They provide good service, work hard to train their staff, and make the best food they can. But things have a way of going wrong from time to time, and a customer leaves upset.

Thanks to social networks and online review sites like Yelp, UrbanSpoon, and Google Local, unhappy customers can leave negative reviews and list every grip — real or imagined — about the restaurant, and use every trick to hurt the restaurant. The first reaction for most restaurant owners is to challenge and discredit these trolls, which only makes the owner look bad, and makes the customer look good.

But some reverse SEO and online customer service could go a long way to hiding the negative reviews. The owner should respond positively and apologize in the same venue, so future customers can see they tried to solve the problem. It also does not hurt to ask other customers for positive reviews on the same site.

Reverse SEO Scenario #4: Your competition is copying you.

There is a company whose competitor copied his entire website: photos, copy, everything. Not only was the competitor stealing his design, he stole customers who were confused by the look of the website, and assumed it was the same company.

With some reverse SEO, the original company was able to push the competitor's site off the front page, and out of mind of the customers. This reverse SEO not only saved his business, but grew his business the next year.

Reverse SEO can be important when there is something companies want to remove or eliminate from the search engines. It can eliminate confusion between an ethical businessman and a convicted felon or unethical competitor. It can remove negative or inappropriate content. And it can hide negative reviews that might harm a business. While one hopes to never need it, it is at least good to know reverse SEO is available to help protect a business' reputation.

I've heard this so many times that I wanted to write about it. I was asked about free hosting as a package a potential client was getting for some other services they were purchasing. Free is fine for personal pages and stuff, but if you ask me, free comes with a lot of hidden things you'll need down the road. And if I'm a business owner, free won't give me what I need or my business needs.

People need to understand what Free really buys. Most companies offer free because it gets your attention. Once they have you, you realize you needed more services and space to work (i.e. bandwidth, webspace, email, databases, sub-directories and more). Then they charge you more than you could have received on a standard pay service to get what you really need. But by then, it costs you more to change. Hosting is pretty inexpensive anyway and good quality hosting services go a long way to managing your business online needs.

And don't get me started on free websites. Oh my. Free websites are a waste of time and effort. They are typically filled with third-party advertisements. Most of those ads are not even related to your business and some are even ads from competitors... Ouch! Even the free websites that you get that don't have much if any third-party ads limit functionality and ability to be creative. I can just about always spot the free websites over professional websites. Do you really want your potential customers going to a free website that might look decent to you? Would you buy or request information from a free website or one that is laced with ads? If someone is selling on a website, there should be limited ads. If they are offering free services or online products, then ads are fine.

So be careful with free services and make sure you know what you're getting and that it meets your short term and future needs.

Many websites, especially small or older websites, are built using static webpages. These webpages are built using HTML, Javascript, and Macromedia Flash code. This code is difficult to access on web servers and is virtually impossible to edit without special software and training. Thus, static websites are difficult and expensive to maintain.

To solve this website design and maintenance problem, a new technology called a Content Management System (CMS) was developed. A CMS uses a database to store, retrieve, and edit the content of your website.  Each page of your site is stored as simple text - making it easy to edit, search, and change. When someone visits your website the CMS automatically converts your text into the required HTML and Javascript. Furthermore, the CMS database allows for additional features to be easily integrated into the website: user login and passwords, events and calendars, blogs, news feeds, audio, video and much more.