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  • Compose tips

    • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.

    • Allowed HTML tags:

        1. This site allows HTML content. While learning all of HTML may feel intimidating, learning how to use a very small number of the most basic HTML "tags" is very easy. This table provides examples for each tag that is enabled on this site.

          For more information see W3C's HTML Specifications or use your favorite search engine to find other sites that explain HTML.

          Tag Description You Type You Get
          Anchors are used to make links to other pages. SEO Factor SEO Factor
          Emphasized Emphasized Emphasized
          Strong Strong Strong
          Cited Cited Cited
          Coded text used to show programming source code Coded Coded
          Unordered list – use the

          • to begin each list item
          • First item
          • Second item
          Ordered list – use the

          • to begin each list item
          1. First item
          2. Second item
          Definition lists are similar to other HTML lists. begins the definition list, begins the definition term and begins the definition description. First term First definition Second term Second definition First term First definition Second term Second definition

          Most unusual characters can be directly entered without any problems.

          If you do encounter problems, try using HTML character entities. A common example looks like & for an ampersand & character. For a full list of entities see HTML’s entities page. Some of the available characters include:

          Character Description You Type You Get
          Ampersand & &
          Greater than > >
          Less than <

  • Online Reputation

    I mentioned in my last post that I had a story about reputation management. This one is a story about 2 hotels. One charges a lot less than the other, but learns that price is not the only thing people want.

    Today you hear a lot about reputation montioring as a service, but I want to stress that there’s a little more to it. You need to act on the things that impact your business’ perception online. So, let’s start our story.

  • What Can SEO Do For My Business?

    Posted by admin on Tue, 01/29/2008 – 15:29

    All this talk about what SEO is, and we haven’t even begun a pitch the idea to a business. But, we got all the basic idea stuff out of the way, let’s talk some numbers.

    Appealing To The Masses
    Take a look at the Nielsen/NetRatings Report for August 2007. This shows that 4.2 billion searches were conducted at Google in August alone; and that’s only 54% of the search share. Yahoo! and MSN show another 33% of the total number of searches. These three search engines alone made up roughly 6.8 billion of the total searches through a search engine online, and those are the top three.

    Spendin’ Money
    According to a BIGresearch report just before the 2007 holiday season, it was estimated that 47% of consumers planned to make at least one online purchase. This was up from 36% three years prior. The same report 88.7% of consumers regularly or occassionally examine products online before buying from a store directly. Percentages are great and all, but let’s talk dollars.

    Makin’ Money
    The U.S. Census Bureau reported $32 billion in ecommerce sales in the first quarter of 2007, which is up 20.7% from the same quarter in 2006.

    What Does This Mean For You?
    As a business owner of any size, having an online presence should be one of your more important considerations. Further more, making that presence as visible to as many people as possible should be even more important. Having a webiste is one thing, but making sure people see your site is something else. It’s obvious that people use search engines to find what they are looking for, so having your site listed as close to the top as possible can help your bottom line. And that’s what we do.

    By making use of SEO techniques as a part of your online campaign, you can increase the amount of visitors to your site, and potentially grow your business as a whole.

  • A Lesson In Reputation Management From A Hotel

    I mentioned in my last post that I had a story about reputation management. This one is a story about 2 hotels. One charges a lot less than the other, but learns that price is not the only thing people want.

    Today you hear a lot about reputation montioring as a service, but I want to stress that there’s a little more to it. You need to act on the things that impact your business’ perception online. So, let’s start our story.

    My friend is going to Miami with her family and invited her friend to come along with her family as well. Sounds like fun, no? My friend is busy, so she asks her friend to find a suitable hotel. It doesn’t need to be fancy, but it needs a decent location, and appropriate accommodations for the 2 large groups.

    Within a few hours, my friend receives an email with a link to a hotel that her friend found. The location wasn’t bad, the rooms looked OK, and the price was $125 a night. Not bad in Miami. Thought my friend is pleased with this hotel, she wants to make certain there are no surprises, so she digs a little. This is where things get interesting.

    My friend heads over to Trip Advisor to check on the hotel’s recent reviews. After all, who better to ask about a hotel than the previous visitors? What does she find? Multiple negative reviews on the hotel. The thing is, they are all about the exact same thing. How slow the elevator is. Everyone is complaining about the long wait times to get from the lobby to their floor, and vice versa. At first, my friend thinks nothing of it. But then she thinks

    “What if we are all meeting in the lobby? One family will be waiting on the other for sure. What if we are out and I need to return to the room? That could be a long trip for just a little need. This whole thing could be very inconvenient.”

    My friend then looks around Trip Advisor (why not? She’s already there) to find another hotel in the same general area, with fewer negative reviews. Very quickly she finds one. Actually, she finds a suite. This would be great for the long vacation these 2 families are planning. Needless to say they ended up staying there. Not only did they not stay at the original hotel, they ended up staying at a suite that charges twice as much as the hotel. So, where did the first hotel in our story go wrong?

    Listen
    The first mistake our hotel made was the same one many companies make on an almost constant basis. They neglected to listen to their customers. It’s my experience that the hotel doesn’t even know that there is a problem (this is all speculation as I have not contacted said hotel). If you want to provide a service or product that’s going to grow, you need to listen to what your customers want. You can’t give it to them if you don’t even know what it is.

    Fix The Heart Of The Problem
    From just my friend’s family alone, our hotel missed out on a week’s worth of paying visitors. Add to that her friend’s family, the games that their kids will certainly be purchasing and any other frills a hotel may provide in such an area. How many other people are reading the same reviews on TripAdvisor, and how many people are being advised by word of mouth by the people that left those reviews? “A lot” is the correct answer.

    Now, I’m no elevator expert, but I visit a building here in Jacksonville 2 times a week that makes use of those designated elevators. You know the ones. An elevator for floors 1 – 10, another for 11 – 20, and so on. This allows for each elevator to reach it’s destination, and return to pick up more riders more efficiently. How difficult or costly would it be to employ the same thing at our hotel? I wonder if it would pay for itself within a year of visitors.

    Respond
    The next thing our hotel needs to do is respond. All those negative comments and reviews, and not a single response from the hotel. Even a simple

    “we are very sorry to hear about the inconveniences, and appreciate everyone’s comments here. We are happy that you have all spoken up so that we may better our property. We will be working diligently to make your stays much more enjoyable in the future.”

    Or something like that. The point is, don’t just let those comments fester and influence more people without making your side heard as well. This will not only show that you care and are willing to accommodate, but it will help to move the negative comments from the first page, to the second.

    Brute Force
    If this had been a case of negative remarks showing up for a certain search term within the search engines, then you may be able to push those pages down in the rankings with the help of Jeff Quip’s idea. I haven’t done this myself, but it might be worth a shot.

    So what have we learned from this hotel?

    • We need to listen to our customers
    • We need to get to the root of the problem, and find an amicable way to rectify it
    • We need to respond. Don’t let negative remarks go unanswered (try to be nice; don’t want to make things worse with mud-slinging)
    • We should explore all of our options to cleaning up what needs cleaning

    I hope this gives you some ideas about why we need to monitor and manage our online reputation. I like this subject. I’m certainly far from an expert in this area, but I’ll be sharing some methods for monitoring in future posts, so stay tuned, and let me know if you have any questions.

    With this, and any other post, please read the disclaimer.

  • Learning The SEO Factor

    Posted by admin on Tue, 01/22/2008 – 00:59

    Learning SEO Factor is a beginner’s guide to learning the basics of SEO. It’s not finished right now, nor will it ever be. You see, this, unlike many other SEO eBooks, will be constantly updated and refined to ensure its relevancy.

    Hopefully, as time goes on, this eBook will not only be provided be from my desk, but from other SEO contributors as well.  

    If you have any questions, complaints, corrections, or would like to contribute (with credit of course), please feel free to email me at josh@.

    Thank You’s 

    Halfdeck – be sure to check out the domain, and his blog. He’s actually the one that made me realize I should be doing something like this in the first place, so when you get sick of reading my rants, blame him.

    XMCP – little bit of coding, little bit of black hat, whole lot of fun reading

  • Choosing An Internet Marketing Firm For Your Hotel

    After my hotel reputation management post yesterday, I received a lot of emails about the subject, and how a hotelier goes about finding an Internet marketing firm for their hotel. I couldn’t answer some of those emails too directly, as there would be a conflict of interest, but I thought I would create a decent post to help you out.

    In an effort to prevent any conflicts of interest and to fully disclose my information, I want to mention that I am indeed involved with a hotel Internet marketing company. However, I’m not going to name said company because I like to keep my blog as unbiased as I can, and give a good set of tid bits that any hotel can use to their advantage.

    So, how does a hotel find a good Internet marketing firm? I’ll give you a couple of good guidelines and questions to ask.

    General SEO and Internet Marketing
    Overall, a potential hotel Internet marketing firm should have basic SEO knowledge. I say this for 2 major reasons. 1) some firms didn’t start out providing SEO or Internet marketing services. They previously started somewhere else, and decided that this was a good business to get into. This doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be considered, but it does mean that they should have hired some people who are knowledgeable about the industry, and not trying to reinvent the wheel or just looking for a few quick bucks. 2) There are plenty of SEO scam firms out there, and a niche provider is no different. You need to educate and protect yourself.

    To help you out a little, the First Chapter of the Learning The SEO Factor book I started (and will try to consistently expand on) that should help you ask the right questions and what to look out for.

    I also wrote an article for another blog called 7 Signs of SEO Scams.

    Rankings To Traffic To Bookings (Proof of ROI)
    The neat thing about hotel SEO and Internet marketing is the ability to show a return on investment. You see, hotel websites can make use of what is known as an Internet Booking Engine (IBE) to allow visitors to book rooms online. You Internet marketing firm should be able to work with your IBE (or even provide one for you) and track the visitors to your site, and then to your booking engine as a result of their online marketing efforts. These are good, hard numbers. Now, just because a firm doesn’t offer or work with an IBE doesn’t mean they aren’t providing a quality service, but it is something of the norm and provides a good bit of information.

    Hotel Experience
    Generally speaking, I’ve never really agreed with the niche service providing model in regard to SEO. Why limit yourself to just one field. Besides, we SEOs get really excited when we get to work on something new and interesting. That being said, that is only my personal opinion and I don’t feel has any bearing whatsoever on the quality of service being provided. However, if a firm is to focus on providing a specific service to a specific type of business, then they should probably employ a few people with experience in that type of business. This will only help the SEOs working on your site have a greater understanding of your business.

    Again, this shouldn’t be a deal breaker, but if a company is going to focus on one niche, I feel they should have a few experts in that area. Just food for thought.

    Practice What You Preach
    When I was a kid I worked for a landscaping company. My yard, however, looked terrible. It was something of a running joke between the workers. They all had ugly lawns. I currently have a mechanic friend (now THAT’s good networking. He comes in handy) that drives a car that’s in really bad shape. There’s a point here, I promise.

    When I became involved with SEO, I had the feeling that my site didn’t need SEO attention. I now feel that this is very ignorant thinking. If I can’t SEO my own site and see some rankings for my targeted terms, how will a potential client trust in me. You should hold your bidding firm to the same expectations.

    Ask them what search terms they rank for. Are these competitive terms? Do they sell “Web 2.0 services?” Do they even have an active blog? Is the firm giving excuses why they don’t rank? You may want to take a closer look.

    Custom Services For Your Hotel
    SEO firms have a notorious stereotype of trying to fit all SEO clients into the same package every time. Though this is the case sometimes, there are plenty that don’t do this. SEO is not a one-size-fits-all service. This will yield mediocre results at best. Ask you potential firm if they will tailor their service to meet your specific hotel’s needs, or will you get the exact same treatment as all the others? Are they offering a set price every time? They are probably trying to package their services. Want a good hint on this?

    If they are trying to sell services on the first call, something isn’t right. As an SEO, it’s important that I analyze each and every site individually to provide the best service I can and an appropriate quote.

    Riding On Coat Tails
    And finally, the saddest part. As I’m sure you know, SEO takes time. It’s really funny though, that the first three months or so really set the mood for the next nine. The initial SEO efforts on a site are, in my opinion, the most important. Lately though, I am seeing a lot of hotel Internet marketing companies pulling new clients from one company to theirs. They wait a few months, call the hotel, let them know that nothing is happening for them and take the business. I’ve even seen sites taken, and absolutely nothing changing. They let another company do the grunt work, and take credit for results a few months later. Legal issues aside, this is just shady.

    As much as I hate telling someone to ask for previous clients for SEO (I sign a non-compete, non-disclosure to ensure that I will never release such information) this may be something to think about. Larger firms don’t seem to have a problem showing previous clients off, so poke around. I know it’s a lot of work, but find out when said hotel became a client. When did they see results? Did they have a previous SEO firm? Who was that? You may even be able to contact the hotel directly to ask some questions.

    Well, my fingers are tired now. I hope this guide helps you to find a quality hotel Internet marketing firm. If you have any questions at all, as always, please feel free to contact me.

    With this, and any other post, please read the disclaimer.

  • Beginning SEO

    Posted by admin on Fri, 06/20/2008 – 18:30 in

    Today I thought it a good idea to write a post meant to get the brain juices flowing more than a strict SEO technique. Sometimes it’s nice to think aloud without holding back on your ideas just to get to the good little nuggets tucked away in your own brain.

    Posted by admin on Wed, 05/28/2008 – 15:28 in

    It seems that almost every conversation I have about SEO with someone new to the idea includes some common questions. With answering these questions, I am then asked the exact same question, every time. “So, what sites do you read?” Well, let me tell you.

    It’s not uncommon for SEOs and bloggers to share their RSS feeds or XML files to their readers. This indeed allows for the reader to make use of the ones they want to read, and use their desired RSS Reader.

    Posted by admin on Thu, 05/15/2008 – 15:33 in

    I recently wrote an article for Skellie of Anywired.com on 7 Signs of SEO Scams. It was posted yesterday, and I would like to direct my readers to it. It was a post on SEO offers that should be noted as signs of a scam.

    Posted by admin on Thu, 04/17/2008 – 15:43 in

    Shimon Sandler wrote an interesting article on CEO Bloggers and whether or not they should clear their posts throught their legal department that got me thinking about my current situation with company blogs. I love to push the idea of a blog to my clients, but with a strong air of caution. I’m also in a constant uphill battle with an agency I work for to either take their blog seriously, or remove it all together. I thought this would be a great time to go over some of the reasons not to start a blog.

    Posted by admin on Thu, 02/21/2008 – 00:58 in

    As part of my initiative to take my freelancing SEO services more seriously, I decided to branch out to communities comprised of more than just other Internet marketers (sorry Sphinn, I still love you though).

    Posted by admin on Tue, 02/05/2008 – 16:36 in

    Today, I wanted to do another beginner post, but didn’t want to wait until I reached this portion of the beginner’s SEO book. I want to talk about header tags.

    If you aren’t sure what header tags are, these are tags in HTML used to create…well…headers. They have a range in size, and can be used for header and sub-headers. Header tags are signified by the syntax, ‘x’ being a number from 1 – 6. Example as follows:

    Posted by admin on Wed, 01/23/2008 – 23:30 in

    During the whole Shoemoney circus, it became clear to me (with the help of Halfdeck) that we SEOs, especially us bloggers, should concentrate on more important things that feeding into the bait tactics of nay-sayers.

    For eample, we should be looking for ways to come up with better education for up and coming SEOs, new business owners, and hopefully one day some sort of standardization by way of SEO certifications.

    Posted by admin on Mon, 01/21/2008 – 16:04 in

    I know the title sounds a little weird, but it rhymes, so it must be true.

  • Additional Reading – SEOCopywriting.com

    As many blogs and sources I read, you would think that I share them a little more on my blog. Not too sure why I don’t, but I think I’m going to try. Especially the newer ones that are popping up and producing some really great stuff. Today, I want to shine a little light on a very important (if not tied for the most important) aspect of SEO, and an awesome blog dedicated to the subject. SEO Copywriting.

    Even myself, in all my SEO greatness, use a copywriter for a lot of my projects. why? Because I want to make sure the content created for my clients is of the best quality, with a mind for SEO. I let my professional copywriter create the content, which is then passed to me for an SEO glance.

    By name of the blog, and the subject itself, SEO copywriting is one of those aspects that seems to elude even some experienced SEOs. The thing is, all too often we are wrting copy for the search engines, and not thinking about how it might read to a real live person. A website created for a human? Who would have have thunk it?

    Over at SEOCopywriting.com, Heather Lloyd-Martin and Aimee Beck post about creating quality content for your readers, while keeping a mindful keystroke for the search engines. Though still a new blog, there have been some really great posts generated, and I bet more will follow.

    So head on over there, and read some more. Tell them I sent ya, will you?

    With this, and any other post, please read the disclaimer.

  • The Stuff I read

    It seems that almost every conversation I have about SEO with someone new to the idea includes some common questions. With answering these questions, I am then asked the exact same question, every time. “So, what sites do you read?” Well, let me tell you.

    It’s not uncommon for SEOs and bloggers to share their RSS feeds or XML files to their readers. This indeed allows for the reader to make use of the ones they want to read, and use their desired RSS Reader.

    Sidetrack: While we are talking about RSS, why not follow mine? If you are new to RSS, I put together a quick and simple RSS explanation that should suffice.

    Back to the post.

    I decided to do something just a little different with the stuff I read. I put it on the Interwebs for all the world to see using Netvibes’ Universe feature. This way, anyone can see the blogs that I read, I can update them whenever and won’t have to repost my new XML or RSS list. It also allowed me to put up a small sitemap (horribly designed, I know) promoting SEO Factor just a bit more.

    So, check out the stuff I read. I’ll try to keep it as updated as my personal reader is. Some things are still missing, but they will be there in time.

    With this, and any other post, please read the disclaimer.