Search Engine Guide

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by Chris Warden

Local Search Ranking Factors

Review Sites

This is an area that is often overlooked by small business owners, but its importance can't be understated. One of the main ranking factors for local listings is reviews, and in order to achieve high rankings you not only have to be on these sites, you have to monitor your reputation there.

Bad reviews sink sites. The difference between a "3" star review on Yelp and a "3.5" star review is a 63-percent increase in business. That's just half of a point! Want to increase your business by 60-percent or more with no additional work? Get and maintain high rankings on review sites.

The most popular of the review sites are Yelp, Google Places, Angie's List and Urban Spoon, although there are many others.

Negative Reviews

Negative reviews are a part of business. The sad truth is that most of your customers won't take the time to leave a review if they had a positive experience, but they'll go out of their way to do it if they had a negative one. The key here is reminding people to leave positive reviews. Offer a coupon, add a table topper reminding people to leave a review, put it on the receipt, or mention it at the point of sale. There is plenty of room for creativity here.

Citations

Citations are essentially mentions by other businesses, people or websites. These are links, without actually linking to the site you are mentioning. This is a popular PR term that has found its way on to the web in recent years. Citations are another key ranking factor in local search and properly optimized campaigns get their business name mentioned as often as possible, from as many different sources as they can find.  

Remember, a citation is just a mention of your business. Anywhere you can leave your business information (directories, forums, blog posts, etc.) would contribute to the number of citations for your business.

Review & Discovery Sites

Did you know "checking in" when you're at a place of business does more than just tell your friends what you're doing? This simple act allows Google the opportunity to verify listing information by seeing that people have actually been to the business, thus proving its authenticity.

This isn't a ranking factor by itself, but it helps to build trust that this business is genuine and not a spam listing, which goes a long way toward earning top rankings. It's all about trust with Google, and the more you can do to prove that you're an actual business, the better your search position becomes.

The most popular of the review and discovery sites are:

Facebook should be included in this list as well. With graph search, they've essentially become a recommendation engine, and they've allowed users the option to "check in" for quite some time. You've already built a business page (or claimed one) on Facebook, so you're already set up to allow people the option to check in when they do business with you.

There are hundreds of these types of sites online, but these are the most popular, so these are the ones that should get the lion's share of your focus.

Review and discovery sites present two opportunities, or challenges for local businesses. In essence, you want people to:

But how do you get them to do that?

Foursquare offers you the option to give a user a coupon for checking in at your place of business. If they have their phones out, this might be an opportunity to leave a review. Once you put the thought in a customer's head to grab their phone and complete an activity (checking in, in this case) you'd be well served to ask them to leave a review. If you've provided a great product, service or experience, people will often be more than happy to help you out with a review if you ask.  

Additional steps: There are companies out there, like Sqwid, that offer you the opportunity to reward positive reviews, offer "second chance" opportunities to bad ones, and reward customer loyalty all from a single dashboard. This certainly isn't a bad option to improve your reviews, incentivize new reviews and monitor your online reputation from one place.

Additional steps (part two): Google Places and Yelp offer events for certain types of businesses. You pay a fee, and they organize events for prolific reviewers to try your service or offering. This obviously doesn't work for every business, but if you are in the bar/restaurant/entertainment industry, this could be a huge opportunity.

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by Jayson DeMers

Volkswagen has embarked on a new bid to capture an even larger piece of the pie in the American auto marketplace, and Internet marketing techniques are playing a big role in that campaign.

Let's face it, if your company was founded by Hitler, you start off with a public relations deficit that to most of us might seem insurmountable. But Volkswagen (German, "people's car") did a spectacular job of erasing that deficit with the Beetle in the 50s and 60s. The company dealt with a threatened slump in the 70s with new models such as the Passat, the Golf, and the Jetta.

Volkswagen's current bid to maintain and even enhance its dominant position follows a different strategy. It is not based on new models, even though they occasionally appear, as do new generations of the tried and true models like Golf, Passat, and Scirocco.

New models do not drive the current marketing strategies of Volkswagen. Instead, the thrust of the campaign is based on using up to date online marketing tools, like search engine optimization, and social networking sites. These are turning out to be a bonanza. They've even used some clever SEO tricks to create special effects on Google Images.

Volkswagen And Proper SEO - A Lovely Marriage

A look at the site "Why VW" (a site that was recently commended by a writer on Forbes) will show how their campaign strategy works. The introductory text uses phrases like "our philosophy," "celebration of ... people," and "everyone deserves a better car" (a concept also dear to the hearts of Henry Ford and Der Führer, whose leadership is a seldom emphasized part of the company's prehistory). The meta-name of this page, embedded in the source code, reads as follows:

"Why VW? Our reasons are built on years of experience making cars. For our drivers, their reasons are as diverse as they are. Start exploring now."

Keywords, Social Tools

Keywords for what follows are listed under "Values," a buzz word designed to give the shopper a sense of high purpose; they include "Performance," "Design," "Quality," "Environment," and "Safety." Of course the first three of those one might find in any pitch aimed at consumers interested in buying an auto. "Environment" shows sensitivity to a more current issue, one that gives the buyer the feeling that he or she is acting in good conscience with a Volkswagen purchase.

And of course "Safety" has assumed tremendous importance for today's auto buying public. The second section of the Why VW page may be the more crucial one, however. It is entitled "Stories," and it really functions as a social networking site for VW owners. The meta name reads as follows: "This is a place for stories about where we've been and where we're headed. Every ride in a Volkswagen is an adventure, and we want to hear your story too."

Addressing the user with an invitation to share is a brilliant sales ploy, as is the use of the word "adventure." Another keyword and heading that shows up is "Enthusiast," which is quite telling, as the whole idea here is to create a group of enthusiasts for this vehicle, much in the same way that ads for the Beetle in the 50s and 60s created enthusiasts for their "bugs."

When discussing the social networking quadrant it would be wise to remember that these sites and their supporting technologies are not ignored either. The site includes links to a Facebook site, Twitter, YouTube, Google+, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Instagram, as well as a local blog.

Volkswagen has definitely entered the SEO era in its marketing strategies, and is sensitively using social networking tools as part of an up to date sales strategy. They've unquestionably "made it cool again," and their marketing campaign will be worth watching.

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by Chris Warden

Local Search Ranking Factors

Google Places Listing

One of the main ranking factors in local search is an optimized listing using some of Google's own properties, most notably Google Places.

Fill out the standard information first, such as:

Fill out all the information required. An incomplete profile certainly isn't doing you any favors. Your goal, above all else, is to earn trust from Google so that they rank your site favorably in their local listings.

When selecting your business name, don't use your keywords in the title unless it's a natural part of the business. Google doesn't take kindly to spam in their Places listings.

Once you're done filling out the standard parts of the profile, the optimization begins.

You're going to select a category (or categories) for your business as well as write a description. Choose a category that is as close to your target keyword as possible and feel free to add more than one category (lawn service, landscaping, etc.) but don't go overboard.

Next you'll have the opportunity to select your service area (if you provide in-home support, delivery, etc.) or decline this option entirely (people have to come to you) as well as some other pretty standard information (payment options, etc.) and the option to add photos or video. Studies show that photos of your business (even just the outside of it) entice more people to click than those without photos.

At the bottom of the page, you have the option to add additional information. This is where you can start using some keywords. Remember, don't go overboard by adding too many. Google takes spam on Google Places very seriously, and they might remove your listing.

Your best bet here is to provide a list of your services offered (which typically happen to be your keywords).

Once you're finished, you'll have to verify that you are the owner of the business by accepting a call from Google and entering the PIN they give you.

Social Media

The next point of attack is to claim your Facebook page and to start creating social media accounts. Social indicators are a huge part of local search, and your Facebook listing is amongst the most important of them all. Google uses social accounts to verify the information in the Google Places listing, so it's important that the website, address, phone number and all of that information appear the same across all platforms.

To claim a Facebook page:

Once you're an admin, write your description and ensure that all of the pertinent information is correct (address, phone number, website, etc.).

After claiming your Facebook page, you might want to start thinking about other social accounts you can link your business to. Yelp, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Instagram are popular options, but there are literally hundreds or thousands to choose from.

You don't have to be active on every social site, but it's important to claim the account (or create it) in order to keep others from taking it in the future.

Pick two or three social networks and start posting on them semi-regularly. Popular choices are Twitter, Facebook and Google+, but you can choose anything that fits your business. If you're a photographer, for example, Pinterest, Instagram and Facebook might be better choices. If you are a contractor, Angie's List, Google+ and Twitter might be your best bets. Use your head and try to decide where your content is the best match.

These social media updates aren't indexed by search engines, per se, but they do provide a point of reference for your business and the more updates you put out the more chances Google has to verify that this is indeed a real, and trustworthy business.

Additional steps: Join a small business or social media group on LinkedIn to find out what's working for others.

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by Stoney deGeyter

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by Jason Corrigan

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by Nick Stamoulis

There are many reasons that someone might want to invest in a pre-existing domain. For instance, one of my former B2B SEO clients, a large software company, would occasionally buy up smaller companies and enfold that second company's products into their own software line. Eventually Company B's website would be "sunsetted" and redirected to the new product pages on my client's site, giving those new pages a valuable SEO boost. Other companies might have several microsites from past marketing efforts that they want to redirect to their main corporate website, pushing any visitors, links, and SEO value over. And other want-to-be business owners might be looking to invest in a pre-existing domain and business as opposed to building a site from the ground up.

Whatever your reason is for investing in a pre-existing domain you have to ask yourself one question over and over again; "What kind of SEO mess am I getting myself in to?"

At one of my Boston SEO workshops one of the attendees was a woman whose husband had recently purchased a pre-existing domain as a business investment. The books looked good and it seemed like a great source of revenue...until three months later when the site was not just penalized, it was actually deindexed by Google. This woman and her husband were obviously in scramble mode, trying to salvage their investment. Turns out her husband had looked at the site from a finance point of view, but had completely overlooked SEO as a concern. Had he done a little digging I'm sure he would have seen the writing on the wall for this particular site. The former site owner had been in a hurry to sell the site and my guess is they knew what was coming and wanted to pass their mess onto someone else before it caught up with them.

There is nothing wrong with buying a pre-existing domain, either to grow as a business in its own right or to leverage for your own SEO efforts, but it's critical that you do your due diligence and understand exactly what kind of SEO mess you dealing with. Once that site is yours, in whatever form that may be, you are stuck with the consequences.

Here's what Kathy Nielsen, Director of Strategic Alliances at Sedo has to say about buying a pre-existing domain;

There is also something called the "Internet Archive Wayback Machine", which allows you to type in a web address and see screenshots of the site going back many years. It's a good tool that can give you a peek into the past use of any previously-owned domain.

I would like to point out that redirecting a pre-existing domain that you own and have done nothing with does NOT count as link building, as one of my clients once asked me. Redirecting a pre-existing domain typically can only help your SEO when A) it's a site with good standing in the search engines (no penalties on the horizon), B) it has a valuable link profile, and C) it can help drive more targeted traffic your way. For instance, about a year ago I redirected my personal SEO consulting site over my main company website, which helped those pages jump in the SERPs quite dramatically. However, since it was my personal site I knew exactly what kind of SEO work had gone into it. I was confident in my decision and knew it wouldn't harm my company website in any way, but if you haven't watched the SEO history of a site from the day it was created until the moment you redirect it be sure you do your homework! The last thing you want to do is inherit someone else's SEO mess.

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by Mike Fleming

There's an old adage that says "The pain of losing is twice as strong as the joy of winning."

This principle can help your business if you use it wisely.  Even the threat of potential loss creates agitation in people that plays a powerful role in their decision making.  Psychologists call this the principle of scarcity.  It says that humans hold more appeal for things that they perceive will become less available in the future.  This is why you see scarce items get valued at ridiculous prices.  For example, a baseball card might be worth hundreds or thousands of dollars simply because there are not many of them in existence.  The same goes for cars.  The actual raw material value of the card or car is the same as any other with the same amount of raw materials used to create it.  But, the value of the item is not in it's physical worth.  The value is in the possession of it.

Another way in which we value things is in the status of our possession of it.  If you don't have a thing and you are surviving just fine, then it might be nice to have, but you can usually live without it.  But something happens once you have obtained possession of a thing.  You get used to having it and the luxury or convenience that it brings to your life.  It may even be important enough that you've adjusted your whole life around it.

Take the iPhone for example.  Before I had one, I survived just fine.  Obtaining one was a luxury and it was quite exciting at the time, but I didn't need it.  But now that I have it, I don't think I could live without it.  You see what's going on there?  I actually can live without it just fine.  I just don't THINK I could live without it because I've adjusted many of my daily habits based upon my possession of it.  On top of that, there are feelings associated with possessing it.  I think that if it was taken away from me, I would feel a sense of going backwards in life.  Losing it is more of a powerful motivator than when I just wanted one.

So, when the threat of potential loss is put upon us, we will fight for the preservation of that thing more aggressively than we would fight to obtain it when we don't have it.  This is the reason that political revolutions usually occur after times of prosperity go in reverse.  At the time of the American Revolution, the colonists had the highest standard of living and the lowest taxes in the world.  It was when the British asked them to give up what they already had that they decided to revolt.  Or how about the most recent economic downturn.  Republicans really had no shot in '08 because they were the party under which things got worse, not because they were the party necessarily responsible.  No campaign slogan or good speech was going to soothe the people enough to win.

So, when thinking about how to market your business, consider messages that communicate what customers will lose that they already have of value to them and you will likely see a much better response to the solution you possess that will enable them to avoid that loss.  For example, if I'm selling heavy duty iPhone cases, I might research and communicate messages about the loss of a person's iPhone.  I might say "You will drop your iPhone 25 times in the next year.  If you don't have this case, you'll be 50% more likely to need a new one."  I can guarantee that would be more effective on me than "Our iPhone cases are the best!"

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by Chris Warden

Understanding the Browsing Habits of Mobile Users

When optimizing for local search, it's important to remember that you are essentially optimizing for mobile. Mobile users are on the go, and they aren't searching for the sake of searching. They're looking to buy. When you're searching for a restaurant on your smartphone, you typically aren't doing it for the future. You're hungry now, and ready to eat. This applies across all mobile/local searches. 

Trying to understand the habits of mobile users isn't difficult; you are one.

What do you search for on your phone when you're on the go? 

The most common answers:

I'd say most local businesses fall into one of these categories and if you don't, it certainly doesn't mean people aren't looking for you. Local search is a very business-first segment of the search industry. If you own a business, chances are someone is looking for what you offer.

So you now understand that people are looking for you, but do you know how to actually give them what they want?

Mobile browsers aren't looking to browse your website. They aren't there to read your blog. They're looking for something specific, and in order to have a chance at converting this visitor into a sale you need to give them what they want.  For most local businesses, the browser is looking for:

This is, of course, a general list. You know what your business offers and with a little bit of thought you can probably guess what people are looking for when they're browsing your website. Put yourself into the shoes of the user and try to give them what they need.

Website Optimization

 Keyword Research

First you need to understand what people are most likely to search for in an attempt to find your business. If you run a lawn care business, the search query will probably be something along the lines of:

"lawn care San Diego, CA"

Remember, local search is often hyper local, so if you live in a big city you might even drill the search term down further. It could look like:

 "lawn care Miramar"

This is all about putting yourself in the shoes of the searcher and finding what they'd search for. If you need help, Google has a great keyword tool that can give you an idea of the search volume for specific keywords. For smaller towns, you'll search for the keyword that has the most search volume. For bigger cities - like San Diego - the key is finding a balance between search volume and competition. It's harder to rank for popular keywords, so you might not want to attempt "lawn care" in a big city like San Diego until you have a few reviews under your belt. We'll get into ranking factors later, but for now, let's take a look at the process.

To start, we're going to come up with 5-10 possible keyword combinations and we're going to type them in the box above.

In essence, when searching for keywords for local business, what you're doing is taking a list of search queries and finding one or two that you'd like to rank for.

There are two schools of thought here:

More Monthly Searches = More Money

This is true, but more searches generally means more competition. There is no right answer here, but essentially what we're doing here is attempting to take a small piece of a big pie as opposed to option number two, which would be to take a big piece from a small pie.

Less Competition = More Money

This sentiment isn't any less true than the first idea. The problem here, is that we need to grab a bigger number of the total searches to make the same dollar amount. In theory, this is obtainable because the competition isn't as strong as it is with the first set of keywords, but there isn't as much pie either.

The best marketers know that the real money falls somewhere in-between these two. We're looking for a keyword that isn't uber-competitive, but with enough search volume to make it worth our while.

Here's some sample keyword data that we're going to use to make our decision.

After typing our keywords into the box, and pressing enter, we're met with keyword data. There are some good options, some difficult options, and some without enough keyword data to make it worth our while. Avoid options with dashes, as these don't have enough data, meaning the search volume isn't high enough to be worth your time.

After looking at the data, as a lawn care professional in San Diego, I think I'd choose, "lawn care san diego" and "lawn service san diego" as my target keyphrases. Both of these terms are searched for semi-regularly, and neither of them look super difficult to rank for.

An additional step you might take here is to check to see how many Google Places listings there are for each keyphrase. This allows you to see which keyword should be your main keyword target when optimizing your page and profile listings.

Optimizing websites revolves around giving the customer what they want (as discussed above), as well as using your targeted keywords in vital places. The process is basically a stripped down version of optimizing web page for non-local search.

Title Tags

Use your keywords! Ideally, each page gets its own keyword, but the keyword or phrase used is relevant to your main title tag. For example, the title tag you use on your homepage might look like:

Lawn Care San Diego | Your Business Name

While the title tag on a secondary page, might be:

Lawn Service San Diego | Your Business Name

There are a few best practices to follow when using title tags on your website. Some of these are:</p>

 Meta Descriptions

Much like the title tag, try to use a unique description for each page that utilizes your keywords/keyphrases in descending order with the most important - or "main" - keyword used on the home page.

This string of text is what people see under the link to your page in the search results so it needs to be descriptive and offer a clear message to users to entice them to click.

Keep the text under 155 characters.

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by Mike Moran

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by Chris Warden

What's Local SEO?

When the term "local business" is thrown around, it doesn't mean the mom and pop shops in small town America. Local business is merely a term that means, if you search for a specific business in a specific area, you'll find a location close to you.

McDonald's is a local business. So is Verizon. These businesses are huge, but when searching for specific establishments in a specific area, it's all local search.

Local search is just what it sounds like, local customers (or potential customers) searching the Internet for products, services or stores near them.

Traditional SEO relies on Google's algorithm, which weighs factors such as social indicators (Tweets, Facebook shares, +1's, etc.) and incoming links. Local search is largely dependent on the optimization of your website, where it's listed and who's talking about it. We'll get into all of that in a moment.

Unlike traditional SEO, local search isn't at all complex. It all boils down to 3 essential ideas.

1.) Optimize your business website for mobile users and local search

2.) Utilize social networks wisely

3.) Get people talking

This is going to get more complex as the industry develops, and of course there's more to it than just these three things, but anything local search-related can be stuffed into one of these three headings.

With less than 50-percent of businesses even claiming their pages on Google Places or Facebook, you can see how even small steps can prove to be a powerful force in a world of business that refuses to adapt to changing times.

Local SEO isn't one of our product offerings at Spread Effect, so fear not; we aren't selling anything. This guide has the sole intention of providing you with actionable steps you can use to improve the visibility of your business with laser-targeted local traffic.

This guide isn't going to make you an expert in local search, but that isn't the intention. The intention is to get you started in this fast-growing field and to make you more recognizable than your competitors. The more you get noticed, the more money you make. It's that simple.

Local Is Mobile

With the rise in popularity of smartphones and tablets, conservative estimates state that mobile web traffic is set to exceed desktop and laptop browsing by 2014.

Read that statement until you truly understand the importance of what's happening. You're witnessing a colossal shift in the way people browse the Internet; and it's happening as we speak.

We've all fallen prey to the "If I had just acted sooner" bug. This is your chance to take action and be ahead of the curve rather than watching your competitors pass you by. Remember, the statistic claiming 2014 is the year mobile reaches critical mass is a conservative statement. It could very well happen sooner. Time to act.

According to Bing, 53-percent of all mobile traffic is local search related. That's a lot of traffic for those smart enough to go out and get it. Google has a more conservative estimate at 40-percent, but no matter which number you believe, it's significant and growing each day.

Why is Local SEO Important?

So why is mobile blowing up like nothing we've ever seen online?

Have you heard that statistic that more people worldwide own smartphones than toothbrushes? I can't back this up with numbers (does anyone work at Oral B?), but it's been a pretty popular talking point lately when discussing the importance of local SEO and mobile optimization. True or not, the talking point is merely intended to show the significance of smartphones and the developing world.

Now, China and India aren't going to help your local business, so let's take a quick look at the numbers in the United States.

The smartphone has reached widespread adoption throughout North America, but the United States is the first country in this part of the world to break the 50-percent smartphone to non-smartphone ratio. Sitting at 55-percent, growth is expected to continue climbing as "dumb phones" are phased out. With a US-based business, this is a number that you need to pay attention to. Local and mobile are the two key sectors that could just determine the future of your business.

What Can Local SEO Do for My Business?

In the search industry we throw around the term "targeted traffic" all the time, but this is truly the holy grail of online traffic. These are the people that are looking for what you are offering.

In the United States, 90-percent of smartphone users use their phones to search for local businesses (comScore). With an estimated 55-percent (Nielsen) of all US mobile phone owners owning a smartphone, we've already reached the tipping point. In fact, 66-percent of all smartphone sales are to those 18-29 (Pew Internet Project), a chief buying demographic.

According to research by comScore, more than 4 out of 5 consumers that searched locally followed the online search with a visit to the store, a phone call, or a purchase. This means 80-percent of people who find your business online when looking for something specific are likely to visit you to follow up on their search.

In short, the tech savvy buying generation is looking for your business. Are you capitalizing on this opportunity?

If you aren't yet, you'll be playing catch up in the near future. Mark my words.

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by Stoney deGeyter

If you were ever going to tell a "back in the day" story about SEO, it would have to include a discussion of meta tags. Long before links were built, before content was king and before social was sharable, meta tags were optimized. Meta tag optimization is the original SEO.

But gone are the days when throwing long lists of keywords into a couple of meta tags could move your site to the first page of Alta Vista, Excite or Webcrawler. For that matter, gone are Alta Vista, Excite and WebCrawler. Today's SEO isn't the SEO of, well, your slightly older sibling. While there is still some value to optimizing your meta tags, it just isn't what it used to be.

Meta Description Tag

The meta description is intended to be a short summary of the content of a web page. Where the title tag is very limited, a meta description gives you a bit more space to summarize each page. Think of your meta description as a web page's 10-second elevator pitch - that is, if your web page was in an elevator and someone asked it what it does for a living.

The description itself is encased in the meta code, found in your page's <head> section of your code:

<head>
<meta name="description" content="This is your page description. Be specific and succinct so your visitors know what your page is about."/>
</head>

Meta Keyword Tag

The meta keyword tag is was intended to be a way to tell the search engines which keywords your page should rank for. Imagine SEO being so easy as telling Google, "Hey, rank this page for 'mortgage broker,'" and Google replies, "As you wish." Back in the day, keyword meta tags were filled with long lists of keywords as "SEOs" tried to work in ever possible keyword they want to rank for, regardless of the particular relevance for that page.

Like the meta description, the keywords are encased in the meta code, found in your page's <head> section of your code:

<head>
<meta name="description" content="..."/>
<meta name="keywords" content="this, is, what, a, meta, keyword, tag, often, looks, like, some, people, use, commas, and, a, space, between, words, some,people,don't,use,a,comma,but,no,space,between,words, and some people use just a space without commas between words"/>
</head>
How and Where the Meta Tags Are DisplayedMeta Description Tag

The meta description tag frequently accompanies that title tag in the search engine results pages. With the page's title generally being the clickable link, the meta description falls below that, providing additional information for the searcher. Highlighted below are three examples of meta description tags in the search results.

Google is pretty inconsistent in how, or if, it displays the meta tag in the search results. In the first image above you can see pretty much the full description displayed. In the second example you can see what happens when the meta description is too long to fit. Finally, in the third image, Google has chosen to only display the first line of the meta description and then filled the remainder of the space with information it assumes is relevant to the searcher. (I would take issue with this assumption!)

Meta Keyword Tag

The image below shows how searchers and visitors see your meta keyword tag:

Oh, wait. They don't see it. Ever.

Unfortunately, neither the meta description or meta keyword tag do anything to help improve your search engine rankings. Both of these tags are completely ignored when it comes to Google's ranking algorithm. Some suggest that Bing still use these tags, but the degree of value they add to improving your rankings is pretty minimal.

Without any ranking impact, what good are these tags? It's all in the display. And since only the meta description tag is displayed anywhere, that means, it's the only tag that really provides you any genuine benefit.

The displayed portion of the meta description in the search results is instrumental in increasing click thru rate from the search results to your website. Think of it as the "assist" to the title tag. Where the title is shorter and can't be as detailed, the meta description provides a bit more context for the searcher to see what information they will get on the page.

Many searchers (I use the word "many" figuratively, as I'm just making crap up, assuming there are more people out there like me) will often place more prominence on the description information than the title info. Since the title is often optimized for the main phrase for the page, the meta description will provide more "long tail" context for that phrase that the title cannot be optimized for. This gives the searcher a broader perspective of the page.

Since you'll never know how much of the meta description will be displayed in the search results (it can vary for each keyword searched), you want to maximize the first several words. In the third example above you can see that only the first handful of words is displayed. Don't miss an opportunity to get your message across by fluffing up content in the front of your meta description. Get to the point.

There are also some instances when no meta description at all will serve you better. When no meta description is available the search engines will often resort to displaying a snippet of text that uses your keywords pulled from the page. If your page has a lot of text, say 2000+ words that covers a wider swath of content, you may be better off letting Google pull the snippet based on the search. This will increase your likelihood of the actual search terms showing up in the snippet (your meta description can't fit them all), which increases the likelihood that the searcher will find your result relevant to their query.
How to Craft Good Meta TagsMeta Keyword Tag

Crafting a good meta keyword tag isn't rocket science. Since it's a 99.9% useless tag for external search engines, you can leave it off the page all together. Putting your keywords into the meta tag is like advertising to search engines and your competitors that you've optimize the page for those keywords. However, since some sites use this tag for internal site search, there can be some value for including it.

Don't waste too much time trying to figure out how best to create a keyword tag. Commas, spaces, length, context, phrases or whatever doesn't really matter. As long as your internal search (and supposedly Bing) can read the words, you're in good shape.

Meta Description Tag

Your meta description tag requires a bit more work. Remember, this (usually) shows up in the search results so you want to make it count for clicks, even if it doesn't count for rankings. To write a good meta description there are a few ground rules to follow:

150 Characters: Google will display up to about 150 characters of your meta description. This is almost 60% more space than the title tag allows, giving you the opportunity to include more keywords and/or calls to action.

Use Keywords Early: Since it's possible that your meta description will be severely truncated, you want to get your keywords as near to the front as possible. Feel free to add extended qualifiers and keyword variations throughout, as good sentence structure allows. Don't stuff it with keywords, but instead go after some longer-tail words that might be part of any search phrase.

Unique for Each Page: If you are writing a meta description tag for each page (and you should), it should be unique. Don't be lazy and copy/paste the same meta description from page to page. Write something that is relevant for that page only, even if the page's content is similar to other pages. Either way, create a description that speaks to the content of the page that isn't duplicated anywhere else.

Be Compelling: Above all else, your meta description should be a compelling statement. Use proper sentence structure rather than trying to throw in as many keywords as possible. It should read well and, ultimately, entice the visitor to want to click into your site. The better it reads, the more searchers will click, if the information matches their search intent.

While crafting a great keyword tag is impossible (like having a great appendix - ultimately it has no purpose and nobody cares if it's there until something goes horribly awry), crafting a good meta description tag can be the difference between being noticed and getting overlooked as the searcher clicks on your competitor's results. Crafting a good tag should take about 5 minutes per page, and it's well worth the time.

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by Jayson DeMers

Be sure and visit our small business news site.

by Mike Fleming

In the offline world, you wouldn't invest tons of money in a sloppy-looking, incorrect-grammar-ing, confusing, and unknowledgeable salesman that wasn't able to serve your customers needs in the ways they wanted to be served, would you?  So, why would you do it online?  Would you like to buy something from this guy?

The truth is, your website is your digital sales rep.  It's the go-to "person" in the online world for customers looking for your solutions.  In light of all the activities you may do online, this is your digital home.  It is THE preeminent piece of your digital existence.  Kinda makes you think a little more about what you do with it, right?!?

Psychologically, customers' perceptions of the quality of businesses has a lot to do with their purchasing decisions.  There are many ways in which quality is communicated on a website.  Right now, I'm going to focus on your professional authority in your industry. This is so important to your business because authority is a major contributor to the persuasive process for a customer. 

Why?  Humans have a deep-seated sense of duty to authority.  We are trained from birth to believe that obedience to proper authority is right and disobedience is wrong.  It is so entrenched in us that we often obey it even when it makes no sense to.  When stacked up with your competition, does your  website communicate effectively that you are THE authority in your industry for your solutions?  If not, it is failing.

If you really think about, you're very familiar with many of the ways in which authority is communicated because you see it in marketing all the time.  Here are a few examples:

On the flip side, if you don't include these types of environmental factors on your website that communicate authority, you will have a very hard time motivating the customers that reach your site to make a commitment to you.  After all that investment to get them to your site, don't waste most of it by displaying a poor image, not answering their questions, delivering confusing navigation and failing to communicate what you've achieved.

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by Mike Moran

Be sure and visit our small business news site.