Here in Chicago, it’s raining links and blogs. (SEO joke. Sorry.) In our last blog post, we discussed being proactive and original with your SEO campaigns, wowing potential customers with your freestyle, outside the box thinking. But, today I don’t feel like it. With the dreariness of a long Chicago winter ahead, and days like this, here is a list of five SEO strategies that can pass the time and still help you market your business.

Link Building – This is one of our premier SEO services for our clients. It’s the strategy (art) of connecting with relevant sites and having them link back to your site because you have something important to share; like an idea, product, or service. Link Building is my #1 favorite lazy day SEO activity. I turn on a movie or play a few albums, and just plug away at the computer. Most of link building is research, and reaching out to websites. It takes a while, but it is the backbone of search engine optimization. Plus, you can get in the zone and make a lot of progress when not distracted with the dreary outside world.

Blog Writing – Considering our last post, you can look for inspiration in anything to promote your website with a new blog post. A grey day is no exception (re: this post). Grab a hot beverage and just write. Try to keep it loose and comfortable. Come up with a few topics you haven’t blogged about in a while, and give a few reminders and updates to your readers.

Social Media Promotions – From a marketing standpoint, this is a slam dunk for local businesses that are social media savvy. In order to get a few extra followers, likes, and shares; target the people nearby passing the rainy day blues in front of their computers. Offer a promotion that will warm them up a bit. For example, “Rainy Day Special – The first five people to repost this on their wall receive two free movie passes, Starbucks Giftcard, etc”. If you’re running a restaurant or local service, you can give away a little something to get people to call you, as well as promote your company online. (I know this is skirting a fine line between being creative and proactive…I’ll fix that)

Organize Your Monthly Schedule – Don’t do today what you can put off tomorrow. While this seems like the ultimate lazy brush off, it can actually be quite helpful. Take a look at what needs to get done for the month in your marketing campaign. Go to your calendar; mark your time for link building, social media updates, blog posts, and more. Get organized, and it will help you when you feel like be more proactive on the next sunny day. I’d actually recommend doing this once and a while anyway, but why not on a day with nasty weather?

Website Maintenance – This is another thing you should do every once in a while anyway, but it can be tedious, so better to get it done without the allure of the great outdoors (of Chicago). Go through the back end of your site, and make sure everything is working properly. Make sure each link on your site is working, that your 404 page is in order, and update your content with some fresh, keyword rich text.

These tips should help maintain your valiant SEO efforts while keeping your occupied mind off of the rain, sleet, and hail of the longest season. Happy internet marketing!

Of all of the various SEO strategies, link building shares time between being the most tedious and frustrating, or the most effective and rewarding. In most cases, it is all of the above.  Link building is the on-going process of reaching out to other sites that share interests or subject matter with yours, and having them link back to your site. I liken it to having one of these sites “Like” or “+1” your site, in that it is essentially a vote from one site to another, to be taken into consideration by both search engines and searchers.

With this in mind, the benefits of effective link building are great. The more “votes” you have pointing to your site from relevant sources, the better. Search engines tally these votes and factor them into their algorithms when sorting sites in search results. The sites with the most links from the most relevant, authoritative sources will appear at the top. In the case of searchers, you want to put your site out there as best you can. So if they can find out about you through a search engine query, fantastic. If a potential customer finds your website through a partner site linking to you; equally fantastic.

At Evolving Interactive, our SEO analysts have developed the foundation for effective link building strategies that we put to work for our clients. We personalize each campaign, attaining the links that are most suitable for our client’s respective industries. Over the years, we have honed these strategies to understand which links are the most effective, and yield the best results. There are several ways to get a valuable link to your site. Here are a few examples of the links that will help boost your sites visibility and page rank.

Blogs 

As every industry has its experts, there is no shortage of places to find valuable updates and opinions on any subject. Search for the people making the updates in your industry, and follow their blogs. After reading a few of their posts and joining in on the conversation, send the author a message asking if you can write a guest blog post. This is mutually beneficial, as they will get a fresh perspective and some new content for their blog, and you will have the opportunity to link back to your site. The author may not always agree, but some will, and it is a good idea to build your relationship with these bloggers by swapping guest posts. Even if your guest blog post is rejected, many of these blogs have comment sections that will link back to your site, so join in on the conversation.

Press Releases

If you have a product or service to promote that has topical or current value, you can write and submit a press release. Many sites accept press releases, and this can be a good opportunity for a link back to your site. Most press releases are informative with a promotional element, and this line has to be walked carefully. The type of sites that will receive and post a press release will be high in value, with expert resources, so it is a valuable target in a link building campaign.

Quality over Quantity

There are thousands upon thousands of sites that will provide you with free links that can incrementally boost your page rank. It’s a good idea to submit to these types of sites that are relevant to your industry. However, 100 links from these types of sites won’t be as valuable as one link from a high ranking site like The New York Times or a .gov. Spend time searching for link opportunities from high ranking sites. They are much more difficult to get, but will make your website look like an authority to the search engines and its users.

Link building is an ongoing process, and takes a lot of patience and organization to be really effective. It is one of the most important aspects of SEO, and professional SEO’s never stop searching for ways to improve and expand their link building strategies.

If you are interested in learning more about link building strategies and their benefits, contact Evolving Interactive at moc.evitcaretnignivlovenull@ofni or 312-454-4550.

What a week. In this digital age, the ripple from a wave extends a long way, across many industries. Apple’s co-founder and figurehead, Steve Jobs, passed away this week at 56 years old. A wide range of people at the tops of several industries have made a point to tip their hat to Steve Jobs and his brilliant impact on the world and all of our lives. He has created a legacy with limitless potential, that we will be reminded of with each new product and service that Apple introduces.

In a fitting manner, Apple released the I-Phone 4S this week, with a new technology that many believe will be a major game changer in the industry. This new technology is called Siri, a personal assistant application that reacts to voice commands and questions. While demonstrating the new phone’s exciting addition, Apple’s software VP Scott Forstall asked Siri matter-of-factly “Will I need a raincoat today?”, to which she replied quickly “Looks like rain”. Siri will also help searchers find local stores, restaurants, and services. So now, instead of taking the (still relatively short time) to search your phone for this information on a browser or separate application, Siri will respond in no time with an accurate answer. Siri can also make appointments, send messages, and a wide variety of other functions you would want from an actual personal assistant.

From an SEO standpoint, Siri’s introduction to the world is a revelation. In early interviews, Jobs claimed Siri was not a tool to help bring Apple into the search market. But like it or not, by using Yelp as the exclusive data provider for Siri’s local information, Apple has a dog in the fight, and is now a direct competitor to Google’s Places pages.

In an earlier post, we talk about the importance of local businesses claiming or submitting their business to Yelp. At the time of that post, Yelp was important as a data provider for search engines like Google and Bing who would pull info and reviews from the popular review site. Now that millions of excited Apple users will be turning to Siri (and singing its praises once the bugs are worked out), it has become more than important to perform local optimization on your Yelp page. Now, it’s vital.

In addition to making sure all of your information is accurate and your photos and descriptions are listed; you will want to entice your current loyal customers to review your site. Siri will be taking reviews and ratings into consideration, though not always directly. Respond in a professional manner to your negative reviews. Respond enthusiastically to your positive ones. Offer incentives to existing and new customers to have them write about you. There are also professional SEO firms that can optimize and manage your Yelp local pages and review management for you.

Before the news that Steve Jobs had passed, there was tremendous buzz that Apple could be releasing the IPhone 5, and a collective sigh that only the 4S would be released for the time being. But as the impact of the 4S and its new technology ripples from industry to industry and to the hands of more and more searchers, one has to take a minute this week to see how far we’ve come thanks to one man’s creative visions.

In the last two posts of SEO You Should Know: Local Edition, we’ve discussed how you can begin to establish and manage your presence in the increasingly important world of local search. In just a few hours, you can locate, claim, build, and maintain your company’s profiles on Google, Yelp and Bing.

Those are only three of hundreds of online directories, search engines, and review sites that could have your company’s info. If you have the time (and patience), you can find these directories and complete the similar processes of getting your company listed. The more references and links to your site, the better. You could also hire an experienced SEO firm to focus on developing this local presence for you. And with the obligatory pitch out of the way, on to this week’s post.

A problem you will probably come across as you scour the web for these (mostly free) local directories is the issue of duplicate listings. It can happen on the lesser known directories and even on the heavy hitters like Google, Yelp, and Bing. You would think having more references and pages talking about and directing to your site would be a good thing right? It is, but not in this case.

Duplicate listings can occur when the search engine’s bots crawl the web after each query is submitted and they bring back all of the information they find to the searcher.  In the vastness of the internet, there are bound to be some discrepancies. These could occur when a customer cites the wrong address or phone number on a review site. Or maybe your company moved years ago, but some engines still have the old address and number. Possibly your URL or email address have changed. The reason we claim these business listings to remove discrepancies and manage your local profiles is the same reason we remove duplicate listings.

First, we don’t want incorrect information about your business feeding the search engine bots. In the last two posts, we talked about NAP. It is very important from a local standpoint that your NAP is accurate and matching the NAP that could be found at any corner of the internet in regards to your company.

Second, it is important that you leave the competition to your actual competition. You don’t want to be competing with yourself. Some of our clients have had duplicate Yelp or Google profiles with slight variations. Your potential customers won’t put too much thought into uncovering the correct listing or the incorrect one. Your gamble will be hoping they pick the one you’ve spent the time carefully selecting pictures, writing great descriptions, and developing your image. So we want to remove these duplicates to make sure when they click on your business name, they are getting the best first impression.

The tricky part is the actual removal of these listings. Some directories and engines are better than others. As we’ve mentioned before, Google has very little (if anything) in the way of customer service. If you come across multiple listings on Google for the same location, you will have to go through the claiming process again. Once you verify that you are the owner, update the information in the profile and then suspend the listing. (Note: Don’t delete it from your places, just the Google Results…you’ll still want to be able to manage it). Every once in a while, do a Google Places search for your company and make sure no other duplicates pop up. Popular or larger companies have this happen often.

Most of the other directories are easier, but are not uniform. For the most part, it is a matter of tracking down the customer support section of the directory, and sending an email to the support team to help you by manually removing the listing. Other times there will be an FAQ section, and in many cases you can find support there by selecting “Duplicate Listing Error” or something similar and submitting a request to have the duplicates removed. It helps if you know the URL’s of the duplicates, so have those ready or open in separate tabs.

Then it’s just a matter of time and patience. Keep up with your emails sent out to these support teams and check back every so often. There are a ton of directories out there, so your work is never completely done. Justify this with the knowledge that every little bit really does help. And again, if you’d rather leave it to the SEO pros, there’s always that option.

We’ve come to the end of our local advice for now. Stay tuned for the next edition of SEO You Should Know, and we’ll tackle another element of search engine optimization that will help you grow your online presence. As always, if you have any questions, email us at moc.evitcaretnignivlovenull@ofni, call us, or sound off in the comment section.

Last week we started a segment called SEO You Should Know. Sticking with Local Optimization, we’re going to talk about getting your business listed on a major search engine (Bing) and a major review site (Yelp).  In Volume 1, we talked about getting listed, verified, and seen on Google, which is the most popular and used search engine. But let’s not count out Bing (Google’s largest competitor) and Yelp (a review site where Google receives a lot of its reviews and info).

Again, these posts are here to help get you started. If you have questions about local optimization or other SEO marketing strategies, email moc.evitcaretnignivlovenull@ofni.

1. Get Listed on Bing.com

Similar to how you found and claimed your business on Google, you should start by doing a Bing search for your business name and city or town. This should pull up your business as the first result. Bing’s 1^st result page isn’t too far off from Google when it returns your specific result. There will be a sectioned off Map and listing for your business if Bing has the information. If you don’t see the Map section right away, you will need to go to the “More” tab at the top of the search results. Select “Maps” from these options. If you find your business has a listing, click on the title of your business. On your businesses local page, you will see an option to “Change Your Business Listing”. Click on that link, it will prompt you to the next page where you can claim your listing by creating an account. Once your account is set up, you will have access to your local listings page.

From this point, Bing’s relatively new Business Portal allows you to add pictures, target your industry terms, and most importantly; make sure the NAP (name, address, phone) matches what is on your website and the other local profiles you’ll be building. Remember, many of these search engines and directories will have info about your company that they found from crawling the internet. It won’t always be correct, so take the time to claim and revise. The more sources across the web that show the same info, the more these search engines will trust the information they find.

2. Verifying on Bing

Similar to how you had to verify your listing on Google, Bing will ask for a phone call or mailer for verification. The phone call is faster of course, with instant gratification that allows you to publish your updates. The mail option will take a couple of weeks, but as long as all of the information is accurate, shouldn’t be a problem. The main difference between the search engines is that Bing has a support center that will help you if you’re having trouble getting verified.

3. Get Listed on Yelp

In most cases, unless you’re a brand new business, Yelp will have a profile for your company already. Yelp gets its information from customers and reviewers,  and while most who review try to be as descriptive and accurate as possible, nobody really knows your business like you. Since Search Engines will grab information from sites like Yelp, it is important that you claim your profile and complete it as much as possible. Yelp’s site is a little more fun and user friendly.

Search for your business name or industry in your area to find if you have an existing profile. If you do, click on it and claim it. If not, follow the directions to add a business.

Unlike the others, Yelp requires that you verify your business before you edit any information. Yelp will place an automatic call to your company (make sure your automated system is off) and provide you with a pin. Once Yelp offers its sincere “Congratulations!”, you’re good to go. Add photos, bios, special deals for Yelp customers, and of course the accurate NAP. Also, take advantage of the Yelp analytics to help track the benefits of your completed Yelp profile.

That’s all for this week in SEO You Should Know: Local Edition Volume 2. In the third and final volume, we will talk about duplicate listings in the local world. If you have any questions or would like to know more about other internet marketing strategies and how they can help your business, contact the Chicago SEO experts at moc.evitcaretnignivlovenull@ofni or call today.