SEO Basics

Almost all of us use search engines on a daily basis. When I need information Google is the first place that I go. Although many of us use search engines, we don’t know exactly what they are and how they work. So, a search engine is defined as a program that searches documents for specific keywords and returns a list of the documents where the keywords were found.  Some of the top search engines include Google, Yahoo, Bing, and Ask. Below I have provided some information about these particular search engines.

Google:  Personally, I prefer to use Google when I need information because I think that it provides the most accurate results of what I am searching for.  Google is by far the most popular search engine and there are over 250 million searches performed in just one day! It is a crawler base

d search engine which helps to provide relevant information.  Its size and scope it covers are the search engines greatest strengths.

Yahoo!: They are the second most popular search engine, owning 28% of the market share. Like Google, Yahoo! is a crawler based search engine. They were actually powered by Google until 2004, but now they use their own technology. There are around 167 million searches conducted per day using Yahoo!.

Bing Search: This search engine is powered by Microsoft and is the search engine for the MSN portal site. In 2005, it began using their own unique database that includes separate databases for images, news, and local databases. Although the search engine is large, it lacks advanced features, which puts it at a disadvantage.

Ask: This search engine has built its own unique data base.  Its original debut was in spring of 2001, but it re-launched in April of 2002. Like Bing Search, the search engine lacks more advanced features, but it expanded its capabilities by adding a more advanced search. Sometimes there are paid ad results and its weaknesses include a smaller database and no direct URL submissions. 

4 Steps to Promote Your Business Blog

Knowing how to create a blog, and what content the blog should have are extremely important, but how do you get people to know about your blog? You could have valuable information that people are missing out on because you do not know how to start promoting your blog. There a few steps to take to ensure that your blog, and all of its useful content, is seen.

Leverage a Website is one approach to take in promoting your blog. This means adding links to your main website navigation. You can also add blog links to your homepage or link internally to other articles that are relevant to your blog post.

Using your social media presence is another option.  Most of you probably have a Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram account that you can use to add a link for your blog. The more followers or friends you have on those social media sites will lead to more potential viewers, and maybe even customers. It is also useful to engage in meaningful conversations with others. So, it is important to have people comment and take those comments into consideration.

Including you blog in email marketing can help you to better promote your blog. First, you need to use your buyer personas to segment leads, and then send out relevant blog posts. When an email newsletter is sent out you can include relevant articles from you blog posts in those emails. It is also important to create a weekly or monthly blog email to effectively promote your blog.

Connecting with networks can be a valuable tool in getting the word out about your blog.  One way to do this is to publish a press release. You can also add your blog articles to a relevant resource center or add a link to business cards that you hand out.

After you take these steps to promote your posts your can analyze trends by looking at the number of views to see how effective your promotions efforts were and make changes accordingly. 

How to Optimize a Website

      The video that we watched in class today gave useful information on how to effective optimize a website. I learned about the steps involved, and what exactly helps to make a website more effective. The two topics greatly discussed in the video involved searchers and search engines. Understanding both of these terms and ideas are important in order to successfully optimize a website.

      The searcher typically has something in mind when they are searching for a website. They are looking for something to accomplish or do, hoping to learn something, or searching for somewhere to go or do something. It is important to keep this in mind because the searchers are the ones that are going to buy the product or service offered on the website. Search engines are what connect people to a website. When I think of a search engine I automatically think of Google. Search engines like Google have website finders that discover pages that are new or updated. The content of the pages are extremely important.

      From the video I learned that  design, content, and content formatting are extremely important in attracting people to your site and keeping their attention. Many people think that the content is the most important part of a webpage, but the way that content is formatted is also important. If someone visits a page that look crazy, and has everything all over the place and hard to find, they will most likely leave that page and go look at a different one. It is better to have a webpage simple and to the point than all over the place while filled with unnecessary content. It is important to remember that a webpage should change! They are not suppose to be static. With technology everything changes at a fast place including websites.



                                            Example of formatting content gone wrong 

Formatting content done well 

What is Inbound Marketing?

             Today in class we watched a video from Hubspot about Inbound marketing. From the video I gained information about what inbound marketing actually is, the methodology, and fundamentals about inbound marketing. The video compares inbound marketing to tradition marketing, and from the comparison given, I found that the inbound way seems to be the route that I agree with. Traditional marketing can be disruptive to many people. There are unwanted phone calls and pop-up ads that turn customers away from the information that they are seeking. Whenever there is a 30 second ad before a video I am trying to view, I almost always close the page and look for something else. Inbound marketing stays away from being disruptive.

          The video provided me with information as to what inbound is all about and how it works. Inbound empowers customers with education and creates a good user experience. There is a particular methodology to the inbound marketing process which consists of attracting, converting, closing, and delighting clients. The process is a continuous cycle and allows for information to be shared openly.  The content attracts customers and they are then able to make their own decisions based on the information provided at their convenience. If they are satisfied with the content received, they will spread the word to others and the cycle will continue.

          Content includes blog posts, interactive tools, photos, videos, and other things of that nature. Although content is important, context is just as important.  I found a blog on Hubspot titled, “The 45 Inbound Marketing Terms You Should Know”, to be useful for explaining some terms. One that caught my eye involved context. It helped to explain that context is important because content needs to be customized for the right persona. For instance, you would not want to send out a free sample of Snickers to someone who has a peanut allergy. By knowing who you’re creating the content for, the more useful the content will be. Context and content go hand-in-hand and are an important part of inbound marketing.

Link to blog from Hubspot: http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/inbound-marketing-glossary-list 

Diagram of inbound methodology