Sometimes when you are too close to something you don’t notice the subtle changes and nuances, therefore stepping away helps one gain perspective. So what is my point? Facebook has a very different feel to it lately. I blame Timeline.  Why Timeline? Due to Timeline’s very image driven layout, people are realizing their pages look flat when purely putting up their status or comments and therefore they are now adding all of these corny photos with cutsie quotes. This is all I see on my Profile wall these days.

Facebook is beginning to lose its ‘personal’ feel as people compete for visual attention. Add to this the fact that Facebook has become a strong influencing factor in website rankings with Google, Yahoo and MSN, and suddenly one is seeing a surge of businesses playing the Facebook game like never before.

With numerous businesses jumping into Facebook comes a lot of surface information and advertorials.  Mix this with paid ads that Facebook is now tucking into our timelines and everything just looks like a hot mess.

So, despite my personal opinion and disappointment with how Facebook has evolved, there is a positive side. Social media has given a voice to companies of all sizes. If these companies use social media, such as Facebook properly, they won’t offend their Friends but actually win their loyalty. As I write this, the best practices of social media is changing. What used to be a best practice of a month ago is being scrapped and companies are beginning to realize they can’t preach and sell to their followers, they must listen and offer something back of value.

What value does your Facebook account offer your followers?

PS You can follow our Business Facebook page at SEO Essential Solutions or our laid back Profile at Sedona Living.

With the above example, I typed in “Scottsdale Golf Resort”. A number of listings came up on the first page along with a location marker on the map. What better advertising could a business have than a listing like this showing up for them? These listings are not part of Google Pay Per Click, they are free.  Bing and Yahoo have something similar.

How do you know if you have a listing or not? Beyond  just Googling yourself, there is a great tool called GetListed.org. Go to their website and fill in your company name and website address and find out how you are showing up on the Internet, if at all.

If your company’s physical location isn’t showing up in the search engines when people look for you within your community you are missing out on tons of free leads and traffic.

Other tips for marketing yourself online within your community include:

1. Using location based mobile apps and coupons. This can include Foursquare and Yelp. Being listed on these phone apps along with a coupon or offer can capture local’s attention.

2.  Pay per click advertising. This includes Google Pay Per Click. With Google ads, you can set up your ad to only show within your community or people searching within your community. This is a wonderful feature that can save you tons of money and really narrow your target. With Google PPC you can even narrow your target to certain demographics or a handful of communities. The parameters are almost endless.

While there are countless ways to market to your community online, just starting with these few steps will take your business leaps and bounds above your competition.

Social Media outlets such as Twitter and Facebook have been booming in the world of computer nerds and forward thinking corporations for quite some time. The art of meaningful conversation without overloading potential clients with sales pitches every minute of every day it truly a skill. Over the past few years smaller businesses have begun to catch on. But it hasn’t been until recently that everyone and their dog is using the term ‘Social Media’ like the drawing of a gun in the Old West.

The problem is that very few business owners actually know what the term entails and how a Social Media Campaign is analyzed professionally. Sure, most everyone has a Personal Facebook page, where we can all see who has friends and who doesn’t, who is ‘with Abbie eating ice cream’, etc. But very few people, products and businesses have a Business Facebook page.

A business Facebook page is a very different animal. They are difficult to set up correctly, and take much more effort to build a base of followers. This applies with Twitter accounts as well. There are millions of individuals that tweet every day under their personal account, including that of Beyonce, Adam Sandler and the President’s dog. To formulate an optimized Twitter page for a business, service or product, again, takes an experienced professional.

Social Media outlets can produce leads to future sales, build repertoire and awareness for a brand and even promote referrals between your current client base. It is a business tool that must be utilized by every business. The bottom line is that over 77% of individuals make a purchase because they either:

a) found a business or brand online

b) were referred to a business or brand online

c) researched a brand or business online

Your clients and potential clients are online searching for the best: hotdog bun, insurance agent, auto body shop, vitamins and more! Why shouldn’t they be making that purchase from you?

The experts at SEO Essential Solutions specialize in professional Social Media business campaigns for all types of products and services. To purchase an affordable Social Media package or for more information contact SEO Essential Solutions at: http://seoessentialsolutions.com/seo-services/ or call 480-788-8026.

Almost everybody has heard of Social Media. Before the term ‘social media’ became popular, people were building Facebook pages and learning about Twitter. Soon, businesses were quickly seeing the value of a Facebook business page or a Twitter business page – but then came the problem of drawing traffic to these sites or knowing what to write about day-to-day.

There are many creative examples in the business world of effective social media strategies and from them smaller businesses have been taking their cue. Cross marketing a brand name, launching of new products combined with enticing people to become ‘a part’ of the company by following them on Facebook or Twitter is just a small part of what businesses are doing. And then there is keeping up with all the changes Facebook implements nearly year-to-year.

As of 2012, Internet Marking companies have quickly discovered what it takes to create an operate a successful Social Media campaign. Where we are located in Sedona Arizona, we are seeing numerous resorts and companies using these strategies quite effectively – including of course the Sedona Chamber of Commerce.

The chamber offers contests to gather followers and they provide travel information for those who are Sedona fans – people who have already been to Sedona and for those who plan to visit Sedona. Within their Twitter gallery you will also find photos of Sedona.

Another Sedona company that uses social media well is L’Auberge de Sedona. As you can see this company had already integrated new required Facebook timeline (that will officially be used by everybody March 30). They have also taken advantage of the application buttons by putting up their own images and information that include: Photos, Likes, Map and Events.  The resort’s address is used and has a link to a map and more information.

Social Media Strategies

1. Use social media to meet new people and develop brand awareness. Social media was meant for networking. To do this effectively requires time as you are building relationships and trust.

2. Don’t just talk about your company. Offer people interesting information that helps them. Maybe you read an interesting article on how to most effectively organize your office and your company is in the business of selling office supplies – link to that article. (If you are really on top of your Internet Marketing, that article will be on your website inside of your blog – therefore linking back to your own site). To know what information to offer others is to strategize and research your market and know ahead of time the types of questions they are asking.

3. Listen to what others are saying and respond. Interact with others, everybody wants to be heard. Show people you really care and aren’t out to just sell them something. This builds relationships and trust.

4. If you read something interesting within the realm of social media – for Gods sake share it. If you want people to share your information then do a favor back by sharing their information. Retweeting, Liking, Plussing – there are many ways to share information through social media as this is what it was designed for.

5. Track results. How is your social media campaign performing? It is bringing in new referrals or contacts? Are people talking about your brand and if so, is it positive or negative? Not all negative social media is a bad thing. Maybe you can learn something about your company or brand that you didn’t know and fix it quickly before the problem grows. If positive, thank the person and know you are doing something right.

6. Look at what other successful companies are doing to attract Followers or Likes to their social media accounts. The ideas are numerous from contests to giveaways. Some companies offer exclusive online offers and discounts to their social media followers.

Social media doesn’t have to be difficult but it also isn’t as easy as it seems. Social media campaigns can be ran superficially or they can be operated like a true business strategy.

Today, press releases are just as valuable but now. One can submit them digitally and receive more value than you can ever imagine. When clients come to us asking for a basic marketing package, we almost always suggest that they include a press release.

What value is there in a press release beyond the obvious – that is, getting information out to the media for free about your company? Here’s how it works:

1. The use of strategically researched keywords and phrases placed in the heading of the press release and then within the body to attract people looking for your specific product in search engines, is most important. For example, I wrote a press release back in 2007 for a website I own called ThatsMyOldHouse.com. I knew a common question or keyphrase was “who lived in my house”. I therefore titled my press release “Who Lived in My House Before Me?” The press release still shows up on a blog whereupon somebody picked up that press release and printed it for me. I still get traffic to my website from that press release , even five years later.

2. The use of links back to a site is also important. Press release sites such as PRWeb allows anyone to insert links into their press release (that is for a hefty cost). What this means is that you are allowed to highlight certain keywords within your press release and link them to your website or anywhere you would like. Knowing how Google loves to give websites higher rankings that have a higher number of backlinks, this is invaluable. Making those links tied into what is called anchor text that contains your keywords is also valuable. See this press release written for a company Iwe provide services for. Three important terms are highlighted as backlinks and include: http://www.prweb.com/releases/dahn_yoga_video/2minute_tips_2/prweb8396455.htm.

3. These press releases get picked up by journalists and other website owners and reprinted, not only providing you a backlink from Prweb.com’s website but other sites as well. This increasing your numbers. For example, I Googled the title of the above press release “Dahn Yoga Video Introduces Exercises to Put A Spring In Your Step.” As of this writing, I am seeing 22 different websites that picked up this press release and reprinted it – and that is only counting the first three pages on Google.

A well optimized press release is worth its weight in SEO gold and highly encouraged. Every company has newsworthy events and information of some sort that could warrant creating a press release – so start moving your website up in the search engines today.

I was quite shocked and thought, how would anybody not familiar with the business of SEO be capable of knowing who to hire that will give them exactly what they need? They most likely don’t and just hire the person who is the cheapest or seems the most impressive.

This is when I decided that we need to offer SEO Project Management services. Large or small companies that know they need search engine optimization but are not familiar with what SEO is, beyond what they have read, may not be equipped to hire SEO specialists either in-house or to be out sourced without some professional assistance. Most people are operating on a shoe-string budget and of course want to get the most for their money, don’t want to find themselves stuck with somebody who promises a lot, charges a fortune and delivers next to nothing.

This is where SEO Essential Solutions can help. If you are such a company or manager, we can help you. We will assist you in meeting your companies goals, finding the right outsourced companies to work with you and make sure they are providing you with SEO services that will truly help you. We will also make sure they are providing reporting and that you are getting what you pay for.

We are currently providing such services for a company that had already established a SEO relationship with a large corporation. After reviewing their documents, we realized they had not been given over $3,000 worth of deliverables that the company said was completed. In exchange for the error, the company provided our clients with a large amount of free services in order to maintain their relationship and to make up for their error. What this says to me is that even well known and established SEO companies make mistakes.

If you are interested in having assistance in managing or auditing your SEO contracts or services, please feel free to contact us for more details.

A well written article that answers a question that your potential customer may have will gain not only traffic but the type of website traffic that could lead to a conversion (or sale, or new client).

For those who are still skeptical about the value of quality content on their website, I would say just ask anybody who monitors the amount of traffic coming to their site and what pages they are visiting and you will find your answer.

Now, if your site is rather unknown, don’t expect thousands of visitors, unless your article goes viral. A good number of visitors can be around 100 to 200 more than you would usually gain within a month’s time. While that doesn’t seem like a large number to many, think about what 200 visitors would cost you if you were using only Google pay-per-click to gain those hits.

For example, to bid on a term that would show up on the front page of Google could run anywhere from $3.00 and up per click, depending on the competition for that term. So, going on the less expensive side, let’s say your search terms are averaging only $3.00 per click. If you were able to get 200 visitors to click on your search term, that amount of traffic would therefore cost $600. Compare that to one well-written article that costs anywhere from $40 to $100 and you can see how the savings quickly adds up.

The value of articles on your website within a blog not only draws traffic to your site, it also establishes you as a professional, somebody who is knowledgeable about your field. So, worst case scenario, your visitor is one of those do-it-yourself types of people who is just gathering information so they can tackle their problem by themselves – comes across your site, reads your article, bookmarks it, and later realizes they don’t have the time or expertise to handle their problem after all – may come back to your company’s website and ask for help.

Well optimized SEO articles are worth the marketing dollars invested and most certainly can increase website traffic.

What is a bad link: Links that typically can be traced back to some sort of link farm.

The problem with this is that almost all sites have links that are probably tied to some type of link farm as it was only a handful of years back that we discovered that Google favored the number of links to one’s site along with keyword rich anchor text. They favored it so much that one would see their site jump to the top based on links alone. JC Penney’s discovered this secret and of course went all out to buy, steal and beg for as many links as possible. This is what pushed them to the top for almost every category one could possibly shop for, therefore angering their competition and raising red flags.

Then came the Farmers Update and boom – JC Penney’s website was severely penalized as was numerous other popular websites. People saw their traffic numbers plummet overnight. Others discovered their website no longer was showing on Google, it had been penalized right off the map.

Building Quality Links to Your Website

So the question left on everybody’s tongue was, well, if we can’t buy links, then how do we find them otherwise? The answer is slowly and surely.

First of all, there is no quick fix to this problem. I still see people looking for link builders online for a penny a link – really? This person obviously doesn’t know all the work it takes to just obtain one link nowadays.

So how are SEO experts putting together link profiles for their clients? It is done with a bit of a shotgun effect in that a large handful of strategies are applied and hoped to stick. These strategies are then monitored for effectiveness.

Linking Strategies

These linking strategies include:

1. Writing quality content  that the reader would want to share with others through Facebook, Twitter, or a link from their own site.
2. Writing a press release with keywords and links to your site.
3. Writing guest posts for other blog sites or articles. This requires being very knowledgeable about a particular topic and having built a relationship with the blog owner of the site you want to post your content on.
4. Searching for sites that allow you to just submit your URL or suggest a site.
5. Building social profiles and using them to link back to your content.
6. Internal links from pages within your site.
7. Offering something for free or hosting a contest.
8. Going after competitor’s links – if they are linked to a particular site, maybe that site will allow you to link as well.
9. Participation in forums.
10. Leaving reviews for products.
11. Commenting on blog entries that you have an interest in.
12. Sponsoring an event, especially if that event is for a local nonprofit.
13. Check sites for broken links to types of content you also offer and ask site owner to use your content instead.
14. Offer commissions to those who promote your product much like an affiliate would.
15. Promote content through paid sources such as sponsored Tweets, Facebook Ads and Stumbleupon ads.

The list goes on and on. As you can see it is no easy task to create links and every connection you make to another website doesn’t always end with a link. A lot of time has to be invested up front for the hopes of building one’s link profile

But the fact of the matter is, it has to be done. You can bet the person showing up at the top of search engines has a killer link profile that they have built over the years and that is what is keeping them ahead.

First, what makes a quality website? User-friendliness is a big portion of what makes individuals who visit your site, stay on your site. If your SEO team is working hard to get more people to visit your site, what is the use, if those people don’t make a purchase or contact with you?

A quality website also has to exhibit everything the user is looking for when they search for you. After your target market is determined by you, your SEO consultant can recommend information, forms, etc. on your website that will need to be amended or added. There is no use in getting good traffic ratings for your site, if you are not what those prospects are looking for. You want your image and what you are selling (service or product) to be clear and concise. If it is not, you’ll have people bouncing on and off your site continually, with little to no results.

What is it about a quality website that works hand in hand with your SEO work already being completed? The content, label headings, URL’s, tags, etc. must all be in alignment with each other, and search engine readable. A search engine optimization company can assist you with these changes after the website is complete, or while the website is in the midst of being built/re-built.

A good website can be acquired through a reputable website designer, or via a company your SEO specialist recommends. Remember, SEO and website creation are completely different things. Do be leery, if your website creator or amender is telling you that they are also working SEO into your website. SEO takes time, strategy, and cannot be completed in the time frame in which a website is changed or created.

Once you do get your website up to par via your web consultant, go back to your affordable SEO company and ask them to make recommendations for fine tuning. Then, continue your search engine optimization work as prior, working within your budget each month. It may not seem that a quality website could produce such amazing results, but wait and see. If you’re not receiving your competitor’s leads now, what do you really have to lose?

SEO Essential Solutions, LLC is an affordable SEO company. SEO Essential Solutions, LLC specializes in SEO Content, SEO Press Releases, outsourced SEO and increasing website rankings. For more information on this Arizona SEO Company, please visit: http://seoessentialsolutions.com.

Realty is a highly competitive profession; especially working alongside a large number of realtors in the same city or town. How do you get ahead of the pack? How do you steal the leads that your competitors are getting each and every day? SEO.

It is well known, that if you are searching for exercise equipment or antique light fixtures online, you will enter a keyword or a key phrase into a well-known search engine (Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc.). When results are displayed, who truly scans through the ninth, tenth or thirtieth page for a valid website? Few.

It is those websites in the top rankings that are looked at first. The same applies for realtors and real estate agents. The first few pages, and especially that of the first few ranked individuals, will get: the first website click, the first client, and possibly, the first sale. Who wouldn’t want to be this realtor?

SEO for realtors, moves your website up in the search engine rankings effectively, over time. On-page affordable SEO fixes such as meta-tags, description tags, etc., can make effective adjustments to your webpage within six to nine short few weeks of your SEO campaign‘s first month.

Off-page affordable SEO fixes can take six to nine months to register, but they will continue to increase your page rankings, should you decide at some point to cease with your SEO campaign temporarily or indefinitely.

Clearly, those that continue to have an affordable SEO company continually working on their SEO campaign, will receive faster and more aggressive results; but truly, any results will assist your webpage.

What exactly is affordable seo , and how much should I expect to pay? As with any profession, rates vary by: demand, years of experience, expertise, etc. An average SEO company will charge anywhere from $40 per hour on the low end, to $200 per hour on the higher end. Note that more expensive service, does not always mean, ‘better’ service. Some companies wish to play the Affordable SEO game of competitive pricing with each other, which is always in a realtor’s favor.

The first month of SEO for a realtor, as well as any other company or profession, will always be the most costly. Packages may start at $2,000 for the first month, but taper off to your budget of a few hundred dollars for months thereafter. The first month is a necessary search engine optimization investment. The first month of an SEO campaign gets your website ready and rockin’ for true SEO to commence.

One should notice a small jump in rankings even after only a few months of that initial SEO month. This is because when a website is properly prepared for search engines to read, that is exactly what happens – search engines like Google note the changes, and rank your site accordingly.

Why invest in SEO as a realtor? As something only a good and informative business person may realize; if it costs a few thousand dollars for an SEO campaign of a few months, and you sell $40,000 worth of house sale commission shortly after or within those months, a wise investment was made.

To even compete in the real estate market these days, one needs an SEO specialist on their side. A good SEO company will work within your budget after the initial campaign month is completed. Once you have invested what you can, you will quickly see the results that every other realtor has already been experiencing.

SEO Essential Solutions, LLC is an affordable SEO company. SEO Essential Solutions, LLC specializes in SEO Content, SEO Press Releases, outsourced SEO and increasing website rankings. For more information on this Arizona SEO Company, please visit: http://seoessentialsolutions.com.