Search Optimization Is Easier with Advanced Web Ranking

Search optimization isn’t an easy task and often you may feel overwhelmed by the complexities, the tags, the code, and the rankings. None of us have control of what Google and Yahoo do, and none of us get any search optimization feedback from the search engines when our efforts fail to produce the results we’d hoped for.

One of the biggest challenges in search optimization is getting good search rankings for your top keyphrases and tracking the changes in those rankings over time. Not only is it time-consuming to look up all those rankings, even with the assistance of special software, but the sheer volume of data starts to overwhelm when you’re talking about multiple keywords and/or multiple search-optimized websites.

If you’re facing this problem, you’re in luck. Brian just signed off on letting me share some information on one of our search optimization secret weapons, a software package called Advanced Web Ranking (AWR).

Serious Search Ranking Management Requires Serious Data Management Software

We’re running AWR on a Mac mini with a dedicated internet connection (AWR runs on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux). With this software, we track our clients’ rankings in all the major search engines for all of their keyphrases. This alone is a monumental task. Some of our search optimization clients have hundreds of keyphrases. In fact, some of our clients have hundreds of locations, and as a result we have keyphrase variations for each of those cities. You can see how this quickly becomes a data management problem of the first order if you don’t have a dedicated software solution.

AWR transparently mimics the behavior of a user googling for keyphrases, sending queries to the search engines and parsing the results for listings from your webpages. The end result is a report that shows your website’s ranking for all the keyphrases you care about, in PDF, XLS, XML, HTML, text, or CSV formats. Reports come in a variety of styles: listed by search engine, by keyword, by rank compared to your competition, et cetera. Reports can be customized, branded, and even automatically emailed after completion. In fact, you can set up AWR’s sophisticated scheduler and give AWR your FTP login and in return, it’ll automatically upload the reports in HTML format to your website whenever you like. That, my friends, is what you call search optimization service.

Does that sound like a search optimization secret weapon to you yet? How about if AWR stored website rankings for each keyphrase in a database, and allowed you to create custom reports almost instantly? Yes, indeed, all that data is stored and accessible. Client wants to compare this month’s search optimization rankings with December 2007? No problem. How about December 2007 versus January 2008, but only for the UK version of Google? Easy. Just go into the Reports menu, make a custom report, and choose your desired dates and report formats from drop-down menus.

Is AWR Better Than Analytics for Search Optimization Monitoring?

If I were doing search optimization “on the cheap,” I’d probably try to scrape by using Google Analytics instead of AWR for awhile. This strategy, however, is generally penny-wise-pound-foolish because the two tools are not competitors. Instead, they’re complimentary search optimization analysis instruments. Analytics shows you who’s visited your site, and AWR shows you where your site is ranking. Analytics is your exit poll, and AWR shows you where you have room to grow — your polling numbers for key issues, if you want to extend the political analogy. Analytics is reactive, and AWR is proactive.

AWR, which sits somewhere on the charts between “feature-rich” and “bewilderingly featurized,” offers many tools to help you figure out what keyphrases would best fit your site. You can also import keyphrase lists from text files, a website, Google Suggest, or Wordtracker. The software also caters to search optimization firms with some heavy-duty features like multiple proxy handling, seamless querying of over 1000 different search engines (yes, there are that many), rank evolution charts, user profiles, event-driven notifications (“triggers”), filters, backups, Local search tracking, a full keyword research tool, multiple API keys, and (with the Enterprise version) Google Page Rank tracking.

Responsive Search Optimization Software

Not only is the software extremely flexible and powerful, but the staff is gratifyingly responsive. Several times, we’ve had feature suggestions or bugs to bring to the attention of the search specialists at Caphyon, the publisher of AWR. We’ve visited the popular forums at their website, posted those questions, and received prompt assistance every time. They even created a specific search engine module just because of our feedback; thanks to their automated updates, that new module was disseminated within days to all AWR users, possibly helping hundreds or thousands of people to improve their search optimization tracking.

If a search optimization software company is committed from the beginning to a public forum for product commentary and feedback, you know they are serious about serving the SEO community. Search optimization specialists are not shy about sharing their opinions in a public forum. If they get angry about a product, they’ll make sure that you see negative feedback about it all over the web.

If you’re interested in taking a peek at this useful search optimization tool, check out a trial version. You can download a free 30-day trial without obligation.

For Search Optimized Link Coordination: Advanced Link Manager

It’s hard to treat any of Caphyon’s search optimization offerings as an afterthought, but this blog wouldn’t be complete without mentioning their Advanced Link Manager tool, a link popularity and coordination package. If your search strategy centers on incoming links, you should take a peek at ALM’s features and reporting. ALM incorporates many of AWR’s strengths (like database management and all-in-one comprehensiveness). Some of our favorite ALM features include the reciprocal link tracking, the personalized and flexible reporting, and the “find link partners” tool that helps you quickly find potential link partners based on metrics that best fit your search optimization priorities. ALM even has a convenient email composer that lets you fire off emails to those optimal link partners’ webmasters without having to leave the application.

Search Secrets

That’s our big search optimization secret disclosure for this holiday season. Our little gift to you, our faithful search readers. Hope you enjoyed this little optimization tip. If you have some feedback on search tracking tools or SEO in general, please send it our way! Stay warm and have a restful, peaceful winter break.

Search Engine Optimization for Small Business Is a Necessity, Not a Luxury

Search marketing and search engine optimization for small business may sound like another fancy-pants way of fleecing you of scarce marketing dollars, especially if your small business is encountering tight budgets and increased competition in this harsh economic climate. In fact, we at Get Page One are 100% certain that some of the “search engine optimization for small business” pitches you see are 100% scams.

However, we also believe that quality search engine optimization (SEO) can make a huge difference to medium-sized and small businesses with customers who use the internet to find products and services. I.e., nearly everybody.

And the co-founder of our humble SEO company, Brian Rutledge, will be talking about search engine optimization for small business at the SEM for SMB conference in Austin, TX. More on that later!

What Search Engine Optimization for Small Business Can Do

We run into a lot of medium-sized and small business owners who don’t see the need for search engine optimization. “We don’t sell anything on the web,” they say. “We don’t get business from our website.” “We don’t sell technology.” “Our customers don’t use the web much.” “Our customers know how to find us.” “Our web designer is already doing SEO.” “We saw an ad for guaranteed search engine optimization that costs $50 a month.” “We don’t have a website.” And of course, our favorite: “We don’t have the budget.”

This blog isn’t a sales blog. I’m not writing this to sell you our services; I blog to share SEO knowledge and to chat about funny things in this digital life of ours. But still, I feel I have to address all of these common excuses. My disclaimer: it’s okay if you don’t choose us for your small business’ search engine optimization provider. We’re cool with that. But we like people to understand what search engine optimization is all about. We’re little internet marketing evangelists. The more people understand SEO, the easier our job becomes.

“We don’t sell anything on the web.”

The majority of our clients don’t sell anything on their websites. But they do sell products or services. And people find products and services on the web.

“We don’t get business from our website. Our customers know how to find us.”

This is a popular one. Some businesses do build a website solely as a service to their existing customers, like a digital sign that points people to an address or phone number. Of course, this begs the question: Do you want business from your website? Can your website do more than just shunt people to a phone number? Do you know how many customers are currently visiting your website or how many are non-repeat visitors? (Yes, this information is easy to see and free to track.) Are your competitors getting business from their websites? Do you want more business?

Some small businesses actually don’t want more business. My mechanic routinely turns people away. He’s happy with his current volume of customers. Good for him. If he came to us looking for search engine optimization for small business, we’d tell him we couldn’t help him.

“We don’t sell technology.”

Do you sell a product or service that people don’t search for on the web? Are you sure?

There are still some things that people don’t shop for on the web. People usually don’t look for a grocery store or a gas station on the web. They assign more value to proximity, and aren’t concerned about differentiators.

Not that search engine optimization for small business can’t help such entities. Gas stations and grocery stores usually belong to chains that have elaborate websites with a variety of customer loyalty and marketing projects going at all times. If they don’t, they might benefit from a strong web presence that emphasizes what separates them from the big boys. And that web presence probably needs search engine optimization for small business.

“Our customers don’t use the web much.”

Usually this comes from small businesses whose customers aren’t young or well-heeled. Do you know what the web usage statistics are for the elderly and the less affluent? Do you really know your demographics? Do you know the web traffic statistics for your website? Do you want more affluent customers in the 18-45 demographic?

“Our web designer is already doing SEO.”

We love in-house web designers. Many of them are experts at what they do, and partner with us smoothly in the implementation of good search engine optimization for small business.

But keep in mind that your web designer probably already has a full plate keeping the site running and up to date. She probably does some graphic design and IT work for you, too, right? (You know she does.) And with all these different priorities, do you think search engine optimization for small business is at the top of her daily to-do list?

And if your web designer happens to be untrained in search engine optimization, do you think she’ll say, “Hey, boss, I’m not sure what kind of file hierarchy to use for SEO” or spend hours restructuring the current site for better searchability? Would she seek out additional training when you’re already running her ragged? Probably not.

Good SEO needs constant maintenance and refinement, especially since it requires dogged, meticulous reverse-engineering to figure out the best techniques. You see, the search engines don’t tell us what search engine optimization processes work the best. We have to figure it out ourselves through grueling trial and error. But with experience and determination, it’s possible. To us, search engine optimization for small business isn’t a hobby; it’s a calling.

“We don’t have a website.”

Do you want a website? Do your customers ask about your website? Do your competitors have websites?

At Get Page One, we’ve developed a high-powered content management system (CMS) with our own SEO and useability enhancements. Because we’ve already built the software system, we can perform strategic website development at a fraction of the cost of boutique web design firms. For our bigger clients, we sometimes build their entire website at no cost because it makes it easier for us to do our job of search engine optimization.

“We don’t have the budget.”

People think SEO is expensive because it’s new and has its own weird acronym. Not true.

We’re pretty proud of the value proposition we offer to search engine optimization for small business clients. Simply put, we’re not high-priced consultants, and our SEO work can pay for itself in new business several times over.

In fact, we proposed to one client that we’d give them free SEO services in exchange for a percentage of the new profits they were getting from their increased web traffic. They turned us down politely. They knew they were earning too much from the new business we were bringing in.

“We saw an ad for guaranteed search engine optimization that costs $50 a month.”

This one makes us grieve. SEO scams like this give all a bad name to all search engine optimization for small business. They prey on people who don’t fully understand what good SEO involves. At best, they’ll take your money doing superficial things that don’t actually affect your search engine ranking. At worst, they’ll sell you unnecessary services and pull dirty tricks that will get your website banned from Google, Yahoo and MSN.

SEM for SMB Conference! Get Page One Co-Founder to Speak on Search Engine Optimization for Small Business

Our co-founder, Brian Rutledge, a leader in the use of search-engine-approved “white hat” SEO techniques, will be speaking at the SEM for SMB conference, July 16-17, 2008, which was organized specifically to help guide small business owners through the confusing maze of SEO, SEM, and PPC. It’ll take place at the downtown Austin Hilton.

“Search engine marketing for small businesses” is more than just a buzzphrase,” Brian says. “If your small business has a website, then you should be aware of SEO basics. If you are willing to learn some fundamentals of search marketing, the entry costs are very low in comparison with the potential gains. In today’s competitive markets, if you’re not doing SEO, you’re losing money.” Rutledge will also address some of the shady SEO practices that small businesses need to watch out for.

So if you’ll be in Austin this summer, check out this presentation on search engine optimization for small business. It should be a great networking event and Brian’s a lively and informative speaker.

If you were sent here from Digg, I apologize for the confusion. Apparrently someone liked our article on social networking optimization and Dugg it, however that post is located at http://getpageone.com/blog/2006/10/31/social-networking-optimization. Sorry. Actually, I have often heard it referenced as social media optimization lately, and while I personally think that conjours up a slightly different meaning, I’m leaning towards using it because, well, it just sounds better. Any thoughts?