Posts Tagged ‘DIY SEO’

Want The Bang for The Buck?

May 4th, 2010

No Need to Be Left in The Dark

When is the best time to start a business? Perhaps you have an idea, but in this economy are you crazy for getting started now? Or are you running a small business and having difficulty attracting new customers and wondering when things are going to get better?

I can’t imagine starting or managing a small business anywhere else except this great country. To wax a bit historic and patriotic, when the framers of the Constitution worked tirelessly at the Constitutional Convention in the spring and summer of 1787, they knew the power and potential of having a free market. They wanted all to have the opportunity to fulfill their dreams. The framers stuck to these free market principles:

  • The freedom to try
  • The freedom to buy
  • The freedom to sell
  • The freedom to fail

At Boostability, we’re rooting for the small business, the dreamer, the visionary. We created a do-it-yourself (DIY) online marketing package that will get your business noticed without much impact on your budget. We’re not about that failure part.

I posted an article a few months ago about how customers aren’t referring to phone books much to find businesses. Instead, they’re going to their trusty search engine and looking at the results that pop up on the first page. The winning business is the one that has done the work to get their site noticed. Recent polls suggest that 90% of online searchers don’t click past the first page. Where does your website rank?

There are many Search Engine Optimization (SEO) companies out there that would like to get you on that first page, and if you have the budget for that kind of monthly spend, this may well suit you. However, to the small business owner just getting started and being meticulous about every dollar spent, an SEO agency may be out of range.

Enter Boostability’s DIY SEO work-flow product. Our team of developers and SEO experts have been in the business for over six years and we know what it takes to get a business noticed on the web. When we started developing our automated work-flow application, we had the small business owner in mind. The spending for SEO has increased significantly in the last few years and is expected to rise sharply still. Small businesses are catching on but, simply put, if the money is not there, does that mean the small business owner is out of luck? We think otherwise.

There is a place for a small business owner to follow along as an SEO consultant would and perform the functions necessary to get noticed on the web. Boostability’s DIY SEO automated work-flow application is accessible online for a low monthly cost and will walk a user through all the important steps to build a website’s presence.

The process may only take a few hours a week and then, with regular attention, in a few months you may see your website show up at the top of the list. If you’d like to learn more about this easy-to-follow product, visit us at http://www.boostability.com/SEO-Software or give us a call at 1-800-261-1537.

–JK

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Posted in Local Online Marketing, Small Business

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Links, Links, and More Links, But The Right Kinds of Links

March 14th, 2010

Boostability’s DIY SEO Tools Walks Users Through an Effective Linking Process

Before there was Google, there was HotBot. Before HotBot there was Alta Vista.  Before that? I don’t really know but that’s okay. This post is not a history lesson in the birth and development of Internet search engines.  What I do wish to write about is how link building has influenced a website’s popularity for as long as there has been an Internet search engine.   

A local business that maintains a website to draw customers can benefit greatly by having many links pointing to its site. Why is this important? The most obvious reason is that new customers discover you by following the links that lead to your site.  Another important reason for having these links is that search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing, and Ask refer to them as a measure in determining your site’s relevance.

If your website has strong relevance it’s bound to positively influence its page rank and that’s where you see the results you want to, i.e. your website link near the top of an organic search results index.

If you’re like me, I barely make it past page 3 when searching for a service on the Internet. Everyone wants to show up at the top but a lot of work needs to be done to get your site there. This is why SEO spending is so huge. Companies, including local businesses, often pay Internet marketing agencies to conduct back linking activities to help yield top page results.

Newcomers to Intenet marketing practices need to know that  linking (AKA back-linking) is not science. No special degrees are required to do the work. If you’re a small business owner, have a website, a little time, and a tight budget, you can do this yourself. The only hard part is figuring out where to post your URL. Finding the right locations on the Internet can be cumbersome. The trick is finding articles, blogs, DIGGs, Tweets, and Yahoo Q&A that relate to your business and then adding an appropriate comment with your link. The comment you write is most effective when it includes keywords that are associated to content on your site. 

What may be frustrating is that the software Internet search tools (like Google) use to rank your site is not forgiving. If you post 50 links one month and none the next it won’t help you in your climb to get to the top.  Now you’re thinking, “Hey, it’s not rocket science but it looks like it will take a good chunk of my time and I have an actual business to run. Forget it.” Before you cut and run, know that Boostability is in the business of making back linking easy.

We’ve eliminated all the guess work. Our DIY SEO tools, including the back linking component, have been designed to arm you with what you need to successfully run an SEO campaign, including effective back linking. Our developers have constructed a system that will automatically generate connections to relevant locations where you can post your link. The tool will even guide you in inserting comments with appropriate keywords.

Utilizing our web-based software can make monthly, consistent back linking a concievable, ongoing practice.  The result can ultimately lead to  your page landing near the top of the search results list.

For more information, check out what we have to offer on our website at www.boostability.com, or send an email to sales@boostability.com

–JK

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Posted in Local Online Marketing, Small Business

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Local Businesses Look to Internet to Help Maximize Reach

March 5th, 2010

Are SEO Agencies Meeting Local Business Needs? 

In a recent post I  joked about all the different ways I use a phone book besides actually looking for a phone number. While I’m not perusing for phone numbers in a book, I wonder if the same holds true for most households.  Are local businesses catching on to the internet as a method of local business searching? 

As recently as a few years ago, you’d have to be specific in your searching to find the right business. Yahoo and Google crawlers did not pick up on the locality of the user conducting the search. Because I live in Utah, if I wanted to throw my five-year-old son a birthday bash at Chuck E. Cheese’s I made sure I entered in the search field: “Chuck E. Cheese’s Salt Lake City”. It wasn’t terribly cumbersome but I do appreciate that all I have to do now is just enter Chuck E. Cheese’s.

Internet searching is smarter today. Nothing can be easier than just entering the type of service, or the exact name of the business and voila, results are split second fast (at least on my cable connection), and thanks to Google Maps I can see the location and contact information of the business in proximity to my location. If local businesses are not already trying to tap how they can boost exposure through  ever-popular local search methods, they soon will be.

The question is are these small businesses going to take the time to cite their business on internet directories and regularly conduct DIY SEO? Business owners may soon realize the work it takes to get a high listing on Google Maps and will be reaching out to an SEO agency for help. Perhaps these businesses will have the budget to have an outside consultant get them to where they want to be. An SEO agency may have a range of plans that fit the needs of different types of clients.

If you are an SEO agency and offer local businesses an SEO consulting plan, can you commit the resources to this emerging market and still maintain favorable margins? At Boostability we’re aware that high-performing and reputable SEO agencies retain top talent to effectively manage their clients’ needs. What may be challenging is meeting expectations for local businesses with smaller budgets. 

Our main goal at Boostability is to provide the tools necessary to cut through the tediousness of cumbersome SEO tasks. Our campaign management software is designed to address multiple domains with clear cut automated workflow for each of them. SEO analysts can log in to the tool online and follow the set of instructions.  SEO agency managers can view the progress their analysts are making and provide input.

In addition, our software tool includes centralized dashboards and reporting that can be accessed internally to review campaign status.  Clients may also have access to reporting to follow the progress of their campaign.

If you want to learn more about how our suite of tools can help create additional business opportunities please contact us at sales@boostability.com

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Posted in Local Online Marketing, SEO Agency, Small Business

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