The web is a huge marketplace for promoting and selling your products and services. If you’re not already utilizing the internet to its fullest extent in regards to sales and marketing, you’re missing out and in a huge way! Just having a website can increase sales, grow your customer base, service your current customer base and increase your brand presence and awareness.

Whether or not you’re ready to engage in an in depth internet marketing strategy, there are plenty of free tools available that you can start using today to set goals and plan growth strategies for your site.

The following tools can help you be found on top search engines like Google and Google Maps, especially for local searches that relate to your company. You are able to identify and track specific search trends for relevant keyword or phrases over several months or even years. You can also track and analyze your web traffic, but more importantly, where the traffic comes from and to see what pages are visited the most. You are also able to discover what keywords people are searching for online related to your business while analyzing how many backlinks you obtain. Lastly, you can monitor mentions of your company and how people are talking about your company, both positively and negatively.

So the free tools you ask? Check them out below:

Google Places

With the great emphasis that Google has put on local search, you want to create a free business listing on Google Places so you can engage customers with photos, offers, testimonials, etc.

Google Insights

This tool is a great way to determine if there’s a hot keyword out there that seems to be getting more and more searches. You can compare search volume patterns for keywords related to your business across specific regions, time frames, categories, etc.

Google Analytics

You are able to analyze direct traffic, organic keyword traffic, most popular pages of your site, track goals, and more for free. This is one tool you can’t live without. If you don’t have some sort of analytics tracking installed in your site, how are you able to monitor what’s working and what’s not?

SEMRush

Determine out how much search volume a relevant keyword is getting – or spy on the competition and see what keywords they’re ranking for!

MajesticSEO

Get a cumulative look at how many sites are linking back to yours month over month – or check the same for a competitor! Backlinks are one of the major factors in getting your site ranking for a ton of keywords in the search engines.

Google/Yahoo Alerts

You can sign up to receive weekly, daily or “as it happens” emails from Google and Yahoo whenever someone mentions your brand or products online.

Many of the tools have both free and paid versions. If you’re a beginner, sign up for a free account and determine for yourself if it’s worth paying for the full monty!

I’m not gonna lie – I used to dread the days I dedicated to managing my PPC campaigns in Yahoo Search Marketing. When you’re used to editing campaigns in Adwords Editor, switching to the slow, cumbersome Yahoo Search Marketing interface (whether you use bulk editing or not) is a nightmare.

So needless to say I was pretty excited to get an email a while ago about the new Yahoo Search Marketing Desktop tool.

I just downloaded it today and have only played with it a bit, but so far I’m pretty happy with it. I think what I like most about it is that its layout and interface is pretty similar to AdWords Editor in a lot of ways – unlike MS’s AdCenter Desktop tool, which confused the crap out me at first (and to be honest, still does sometimes).

Editing keyword bids and ad text will certainly be much easier now, allowing me to get more work done for a client per month than I used to be able to. And, I was happy to note, they seem to have features similar to AdWords Editor’s “advanced keyword bid and ad changes,” which I find INCREDIBLY useful and time saving.

BUT – I will reserve further praise until I use it more in depth.

Are Yahoo & Microsoft Teaming Up Against Mac?

Now that Yahoo and Microsoft have formed their “search alliance” I can’t help but wonder what that means for us Mac users. I already know I can’t use AdCenter Desktop on the Mac without setting up parallels or special programs, which I leave up to my tech guys.

And now on the FAQs page about Yahoo’s Desktop Editor, I read “The tool has been officially certified by Yahoo! to work on the Windows platform only. Using the tool on another platform, such as Mac, that is capable of running Adobe AIR applications will work, but issues found will not be supported by Yahoo!.”

So basically you can use it on a Mac (as I have) but there’s no guarantee that something won’t go wrong…and you can’t rely on Yahoo to help you if it does.

Now obviously Microsoft’s not trying to produce Mac compatible downloads…but now Yahoo too? Look’s like their search alliance is against more than just Google….

I will of course, qualify that by saying that I’m not sure if any of Yahoo’s other tools or downloads were built to be Mac compatible – I’m not typically a big fan of Yahoo tools.

Bottom line: Support Macs Yahoo! I don’t care if you’re in bed with Microsoft, Macs need love too!

As promised, here’s Part 2 of my SEO Content Writing series…check out part one here: SEO Content Writing Part 1.

SEO Content Is Under Appreciated…

Typically, most clients don’t understand just how much SEO content can help their rankings. It’s really all about the terms you want to rank for. SEO’d content helps you rank for more long tail terms. And typically, long tail keywords send more relevant traffic to your website. By relevant I mean people who need what you offer and are more likely to convert to leads, sales, etc.

We’ve seen time and time again how many long tail keywords a site can rank well for just by having the right keywords sprinkled throughout their content.

Of course, I’m in NO way saying that SEO’d content is all you need to rank. There are tons of other factors that go into getting your site ranked for various keywords…SEO content writing is just one aspect of it, but an important one when it comes to long tail rankings.

A Few More Tips For SEO Content

I did promise a few additional tips, didn’t I? To get the first few, go back and read my other post (it’s fairly quick and painless, I promise.)

A few other things to keep in mind when writing content for SEO:

• Use your main keywords in your <h1>, <h2> and <h3> tags…and even <h4> if you got ‘em. Google sees this as a headings, and will usually see them first – they hold a bit more emphasis then body text.
• Bold the use of your keywords once or twice through out your copy.
• Include keywords in the file names and alt tags of any images.
• ABOVE ALL: make sure your content is genuinely useful and relevant information – that’s really what Google is looking for!

Cool SEO Content Tools & Resources

When I first started writing optimized content for clients, I used a very cool tool from SEOmoz called Term Target, that would basically give you a letter grade on how well you optimized your content for a chosen keyword. You basically put in the url of your content, enter the keyword you were targeting, and hit the button to run.

Within seconds you get a “grade” and suggestions on how to improve your grade. Once you’ve run this enough times, you basically memorize what your pages should include to get a good grade, but it’s an awesome tool if your still learning the ropes.

As a newbie in the world of web copy (for both SEO and sales/marketing stuff) I lived and breathed CopyBlogger.com. They’ve got a couple great posts about SEO copywriting that really helped me grasp the concept to begin with. While there are other blogs that may have more comprehensive info on the subject, CopyBlogger will always be near and dear to my heart!

Many people don’t realize how important optimizing your content can be for your SEO. While link building with relevant anchor text is one of the major factors, proper on page optimization, including SEO content, is crucial to your organic rankings.

The first question any business owner/CEO/SEO/marketer should ask themselves when entering the wide world of search engine optimization is “what are the best terms my site should rank for and why should I rank?”

In our experience, most people would reply “I want #1 rankings for the keywords that get the most searches because I want tons of site traffic!”

And as an SEO content writer, I would have to humbly disagree. All the traffic in the world isn’t going to help your site if it doesn’t lead to more business.

You see, the key word missing from their reply is “relevant.” What you want are rankings for RELEVANT keywords that send RELEVANT traffic. From there you can actually write RELEVANT SEO content! After all, if you sell Christmas decorations, you’re not going to see much in the way of relevant traffic if you rank #1 for just Christmas or just decorations. People searching those terms individually could be looking for just about anything!

Relevance in SEO Content Writing

Once you understand the importance of relevance, it’s time to gather a list of the MOST relevant keyword searches with the MOST amount of traffic. You should only focus on one keyword silo per page – so for instance, one page would focus on the silo “Christmas decorations” while another could focus on “holiday decorations”.

By keeping these silos on different pages, you can more easily tell the search engines what you think each page should rank for, and plan your content and SEO accordingly.

So using various keyword research tools (I love the Google Adwords Keyword Tool myself, but the Search-Based Tool and Wordtracker tools are good too), you want to collect a list of all keyword terms containing both words “Christmas” and “decorations” and sort by search volume.

Take your top 5-10 most searched terms and voila! You’ve got a list of keywords you want to use in your SEO content.

More to SEO Content Writing Than Meets the Eye

Of course, there’s more to optimizing SEO content then just throwing keywords all over the content. For one, keyword stuffing is definitely a no-no in Google’s eyes, and secondly, it makes content REALLY rough to read. So there’s a balance.

Write enough content (400-600 words is typically ideal) so that you can comfortably use combinations of your top 5 keywords without it looking unnatural or stilted.

There’s certainly some more goodies I can share about writing SEO content, but I think I’ll stop there for now. As you can see, this is only Part 1! Stay tuned for Part 2 in the next couple weeks, and in the meantime, feel free to ask questions and I’ll do my best to answer them in my next post!

SEO Content Writing Recap

1. Conduct keyword research to find relevant keywords to rank for (think about what prospective customers would search for).
2. Pick one keyword silo per page of content (or 2 REALLY closely related ones).
3. Incorporate the top 5 or so most searched for terms in different combinations within your content.
4. Do NOT keyword stuff – 400-600 words should make it easy to naturally tie in 5+ keyword combinations.
5. Come back sometime in January to see my follow up post and learn more about optimizing your SEO content.

Well, it’s that time of year again, and yes, this is the obligatory “Happy Thanksgiving” post. But in all seriousness, as we enter the holiday season, it’s important to reflect on the past year and all the things you have to be thankful for. Quite frankly, it’s something you should do on a regular basis, but let’s face it, most of us only worry about it from November to January.

Tis the Season for Thanksgiving…

I’d love it if the team and our readers could take some time and just give a shout out about what they’re thankful about. At the risk of sounding like a kiss ass, I am certainly thankful to be in the position I am here at ProspectMX. I work with some great people, I’m constantly learning new things… and I’ve got seniority I can lord over other people… kidding, kidding (sort of).

For real though, the internet marketing field is not only an exciting one, but incredible in it’s flexibility and need for creative thinking. Where else can you go out for a few drinks with your coworkers and wind up with tons ideas? Some are brilliant, some are hilarious, some are ridiculous, but all useful. Plus, once executed, those ideas can result in thousands of dollars in revenues from traffic, links, media notice, etc.

It’s a remarkable industry, and it’s nice to be a part of something that continues to grow and evolve.

Thanksgiving Fun Facts

I’m a sucker for fun or little known facts that have no practical use… so, here are some I found to add to my repertoire (and which are guaranteed to make you feel fat!):

• The average person consumes over 4,500 calories on Thanksgiving Day. (And we wonder why Americans are overwhelmingly overweight…)
• Turkeys can drown if they look up while it’s raining.
• American eat over 530 million pounds of Turkey on Thanksgiving, while more than 45 million turkeys are cooked and eaten on that day.
• Ripe cranberries of good quality will always bounce. (Um, you may want to wash before eating if you experiment with this…)
• Domesticated turkeys can’t fly, but wild turkeys can fly over 55mph for short distances.
• Turkeys can have heart attacks. Apparently when the Air Force conducted test runs and broke the sound barrier, fields of turkeys would drop dead.

Dang… I feel really, really bad for turkeys all of a sudden. But luckily not quite bad enough to go vegetarian this year. I can’t vouch for the validity of some of those facts… credit goes to the 1-800 Flowers website.

Have a blessed Thanksgiving everyone!