SEO Training in Los Angeles CA – SEO Expert Speaker

I’ll be returning to the Los Angeles area on Feb. 6, 2008 to deliver search engine optimization training in Ventura, CA. I’ll be speaking on Pay-Per-Click Best Practices at a private event for a major corporate client.

The Search Engine Marketing (SEM) training will include:

• Creating and Monitoring PPC Campaigns
• The Role of Landing Pages
• The Importance of Keyword Research

As usual, the focus will be on Google AdWords and Yahoo Search Marketing. For those who may not know, I am a recognized SEO expert with over 10 years experience designing web sites that achieve high organic search engine rankings.

I teach SEO classes around the country, and have been quoted in publications such as the Wall Street Journal and Inc. Magazine.

If you're in need of SEO training in Los Angeles, please feel free to contact me using the information on my SEO Speaker page. I'd love to offer some additional training while I'm in the area.

Local Search: Optimizing Your Page Titles

I taught two lively SEO Training Classes in Atlanta, GA this week for the Association of Video Professionals. One of the more interesting revelations from the student case studies was that while all of the video service companies were trying to attract clients from their local area, few understood the importance of including their City and State in their page titles.

I may soon write a new case study that looks just at Search Engine Marketing for Video Professionals. For now, I'm going to repost an article from last year that discusses effective page titles for local search. While this case study is about landscaping, you can easily translate it to video services, neighborhood florists, or any business using their website to attract local customers.

Local Search Case Study: Landscaping Marketing

It has come to my attention that search engine optimization has not exactly caught on fire in the landscaping world. I know this because I’ve been searching for a local residential landscaper for my home in North Carolina. My search frustrations stem from landscaper’s lack of understanding local search.

Residential landscaping is local or regional by nature. A landscaper in Raleigh, NC may find parts of Durham (15-20 minutes away) out of their area. It is imperative for landscapers to include your service areas in the text of your web sites. Not just for SEO purposes, but to save you from having to follow up on out-of-area inquiries that will never convert to sales. Remember, sometimes you want to exclude potential customers.

Local search rule #1 is to include your service area in your page title. SEO experts agree that the title is the most important factor in determining you search engine ranking. Consider the following example page title:
AAA Landscapes – Homepage

Based on this title alone, this page isn’t likely to rank well for anything other than the company name – AAA Landscapes. If this page was lucky enough to rank well in the search engine results pages (SERPs) for my search on “residential landscaping in durham”, it is still missing three key elements: service area, keywords, and compelling marketing language. Now consider this revision:
AAA Landscapes – Award-winning Durham, NC Residential Landscaping since 1981

Look at what a difference a few words make:

• Service Area: By looking at the title, I can see this company is located in my area, Durham, NC (and not Durham, England – a very prominent other “Durham” in search results.)
• Keywords: Now our keywords “residential landscaping” and “durham” are right in the title. This company now has a better chance at ranking higher in the search engine results pages for their target customer base.
• Marketing Language: We can quickly see that this company has won some awards and has been in business for 25 years. Sounds like a reputable company.

Landscapers of the World, you have some work to do:

1. Get a web site (if you don’t already have one).
2. Perform keyword research to uncover the most popular search terms for your business.
3. Include those keywords – along with your service area – in your page titles and content.
4. Include clear contact information on every single page of your web site.
5. Consider pay-per-click advertising on Google, Yahoo! or MSN.

That should keep you busy for now. Contact me if I can be of service…

SEO Training Atlanta, GA - Search Engine Marketing Course

I'll be returning to Atlanta, GA on Wednesday, September 12, 2007 to offer my "Fundamentals of Search Engine Marketing" Training Course at the Association of Video Professionals Training Conference.

LOCATION: Atlanta, GA
HOTEL: Days Inn Downtown Atlanta
DATE: Wednesday, September 12, 2007
TIME: Choose either 8:00 - 12:00 PM or 1:00 - 5:00 PM
COST: Free for AVP Members. Only $295 for Non-AVP Members
WEBSITE: http://www.aovpros.com/events.php

This will be slightly different than the usual full-day class. I'm cutting the material down to four hours, with plenty of time for Q&A. This will be more of a lecture style presentation, with no hands-on software training. Laptops are optional. Here is a preliminary outline:

Introduction to Search Engine Marketing

• Defining SEM, SEO, PPC, usability
• The top search engines and their relationships
• How search engines work

Targeting the Right Keywords

• Uncovering the right keywords
• Understanding the conversion cycle
• Overview of keyword research tools

Optimizing your Content

• What a search engine spider sees
• Writing for search engines
• Creating and optimizing new content

Avoiding SEO Pitfalls

• Identifying spider traps
• Avoiding Spam
• Using site maps

Building Link Popularity

• Link analysis: quality vs. quantity
• Performing competitive link intelligence

Measuring Your Results (ROI)

• Defining your web site’s goals
• Reporting using Google Analytics or other programs

Starting a PPC Campaign

• Google AdWords and Yahoo Search Marketing
• How and why to avoid clicks

Recap and Resources

• The Top 10 Most Important Tasks you Must Perform
• Putting your plan into action
• Helpful websites and books

As always, there will be lots of real-world examples. The class will focus on Search Engine Marketing for video professionals, but the information is easily transferable to any product or service in any industry. In particular, I'll be discussing local search quite a bit.

$295 is a great deal for this training. Head over to the website to learn more and register: http://www.aovpros.com/events.php

The Actual Monetary Value of Internet Video Fame: A Case Study

On Friday, April 20 I awoke to find two of my comedy shorts on the front page of MySpace. To put things into perspective, MySpace is consistently one of the Top 5 most visited web sites in the World. They have 4 featured videos on the home page. And there I was in two of them. If we were to believe mainstream media’s coverage of “Internet fame”, then by all accounts I should be sipping Mojitos at the Casa Del Mar with Brent Weinstein from United Talent Agency. But instead of discussing my next film project, I’m writing this blog to reveal the real stats behind Internet video fame.

Key Internet Video Benchmarks

Summary from Day 1:
87,032 - video views
2,474 - visits to MySpace page after viewing video (2.8%)
110 - new MySpace friends (0.1%)
0 – revenue*

After Day 1, MySpace no longer displayed the two videos on the home page. However, one of the videos remained in homepage rotation for 7 days, and both remained “featured” videos on the main MySpace video tab for 7 days.

Full 7 day effect:
165,793 – video views
4,803 - visits to MySpace page after viewing video (2.9%)
198 - new MySpace friends (0.1%)
0 – revenue*

On Day 8 with no promotion from MySpace, video views plummeted 721%.

*A note on the $0 revenue: To be fair, I wasn’t selling anything. But let’s suppose I was offering a DVD of my best comedy shorts. With less than 3% of people clicking through to my page, and only .1% of people being interested enough to add me as a friend, how much could I have possibly made? The answer is likely not very much.

What is the Value of Internet Video Fame?

What I’m trying to determine is the actual monetary value of Internet video fame. Perhaps this isn’t a good case study. Maybe people hated the videos, and hated what they saw when they clicked through to the page. (And if you read the hilarious video comments, it’s certain that a very vocal percentage fits that description).

Using web analytics, “Internet Video Fame” can be measured, tested, and quantified. In this case study, the fame brought lots of eyeballs, but no money. So was it a waste? Or will the fame indirectly lead to other business opportunities down the road? I’ll definitely keep you posted.

What is the Value of a Reality TV Show Appearance?

Be sure to bookmark this blog and check back. I’ll soon have actual statistical data on the value of Reality TV show appearances for bands. Using web analytics, I’ll show you exactly how many website visits you can expect from your 15 minutes of fame, and how many CDs you can expect to sell. You won’t want to miss it!

How to Submit your XML Site Map to Google, Yahoo & MSN

Submitting Your XML Site Map

Today we conclude our series on How to Build an XML sitemap for Google, Yahoo, and MSN. After creating your XML sitemap using a free online site map builder or site map software, you’ll want to upload it to your web server. For most users, this will mean simply adding the file “sitemap.xml” to the root directory of your web site. The result should be viewable in your browser. Here is an example (generated with CoffeeCup Google Sitemapper):
http://www.ciinc.com/sitemap.xml

For the final step, you’ll want to submit your sitemap to the search engines:

Google Webmaster Tools
First, you’ll need a Google Account to sign in (if you don’t already have one). Then you’ll need to prove ownership of any sites that you’d like to add sitemaps to. You can do this by uploading meta tags or a unique file to your site that they will provide. Once you are verified as the site owner, you can simply submit the URL of your XML sitemap. In addition to submitting your sitemap, this site provides a host of information including any crawl errors, pages with the highest PageRank, the top search queries for your site, and so much more.
http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/

Yahoo Site Explorer
As with Google Webmaster Tools, you’ll need to authenticate yourself as owner of any website you wish to manage. Yahoo will provide you with a file to upload to your web server. Once authenticated you can upload your XML sitemap.
http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/

MSN
For now, it appears you can simply submit your XML sitemap through MSN’s regular submittal page. This will no doubt change very soon:
http://search.msn.com/docs/submit.aspx

Site Map Software: CoffeeCup Google Sitemapper

CoffeeCup Google Sitemapper
Summary: Outstanding Site Map Software for any sized site

If you have a large web site (more than 500 pages), a site with dynamic content, or multiple websites to manage, you may just find Coffeecup’s Google Sitemapper the best $29 you can spend. I’ve been a fan of their software for years, and this application does not disappoint.

Sitemapper is a desktop application, so you don’t have to worry about installing it on your web server. You simply enter your web site URL and let the tool crawl your site. But there are many great advanced features like file types to include or exclude (.pdf, .mp3, etc.), pages or folders to ignore, queries to ignore (for dynamic content) and so much more. Plus you can save your profiles, schedule the software to run periodically, and automatically FTP the files to your web server. It works like a charm.

Bottom line: Highly recommended and well worth the cost
http://www.coffeecup.com/google-sitemapper/

Free Online Site Map Builder: XML-Sitemaps.com Review

XML-sitemaps.com Review
Summary: Great free online site map builder for small sites

If you have a small website (less than 500 pages), this free online site map builder should work great for you. The web site allows you to:

• Create an XML sitemap to submit to Google, Yahoo and MSN to help them crawl your website better.
• Generate an HTML site map to allow human visitors to easily navigate on your website.

Simply enter your web site URL from the homepage, complete the optional parameters, and press the “start” button. The homepage also includes helpful definitions for all of the optional parameters. I'm not sure how they could make this any easier.

After crawling your site, you’ll see the generated sitemap details page, including number of pages and broken links list. You'll also be given links to the XML file content and the HTML sitemap.

Bottom Line: simple, effective, and easy-to-use.
http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/

How to Build an XML Sitemap for Google, Yahoo, and MSN

The three largest search engines, Google, Yahoo, and MSN, now support a unified method of submitting web pages to their crawlers through XML sitemaps. If you’ve found that the search engines aren’t indexing all of your web pages, this new protocol may help. The new Sitemaps.org site sums it up nicely, “Using the Sitemap protocol does not guarantee that web pages are included in search engines, but provides hints for web crawlers to do a better job of crawling your site.”

There are three basic steps in the process:

1. Create an XML sitemap
2. Upload the sitemap to your web site
3. Submit the sitemap to the search engines

In this multi-post series, we'll explore each of these steps in full detail. I'll teach you How to Build an XML sitemap using a free online site map builder or downloadable site map software. I'll tell you exactly where to put the site map on your web server. Finally, I'll walk you step-by-step through submitting your XML site map to Google, Yahoo, and MSN.

It's absolutely critical that you understand and implement this important new development in search engine optimization. Be sure to refer back to this post for updates. As I post these how-to articles, I'll edit this post with links to each individual step.