I came across an interesting article that any webmaster could benefit from.

Nick Stamoulis from searchengineguide.com wrote “A high search volume doesn’t mean it’s the right keyword for you.” He begins his article by saying, “One of the most common mistakes I see website owners and marketers make when launching their first SEO campaign is that they let search volume dictate which keywords they should target.

Many people assume that the higher volume to their site from a specific keyword, the more they will get paid. Well, logically, that seems legit. But it isn’t.

Stamoulis goes on to explain. “The higher of a search volume a keyword has the more competition there is for it, which means it’s going to be much harder and take a lot longer to rank well in the search engines for. It’s also important to remember that just because a particular keyword has a high search volume that doesn’t mean it’s the right keyword for you.”

Let me explain. Let’s say you own an extreme bike store meant for the roughest conditions of rocks, cliffs and water. You have a website and use the keyword ‘bike.’ I bet you will get quite a bit of traffic. That word in Google brings up 934,000,000 results. But is it the right traffic? Probably not. Not only that but ‘bike’ is so huge and vague.  There are so many different aspects to it; you have gear, helmets, tires, bikes of all different sorts such as road, racing, mountain, BMX. I bet you the general population is looking for a standard road bike. You aren’t going to see the moms and dads with their little children up on cliff edges. Those are the people you are attracting to your site by typing in ‘bike’ but they aren’t going to buy what you have. So try more specific key words such as ‘extreme mountain biking” or you could associate it with an extreme biking place like “biking Moab.”

Now these are just examples but what you can do is take a look at your niche and figure out how you are going to attract a smaller amount people but the right people who are looking for what you have. All the traffic in the world doesn’t mean anything if they are just going to land on your page and realize that isn’t what they are looking for. Narrow down your niche. What do you have to offer that the other biking sites don’t? That is your target.

No one gets their keywords right the first time. It is a process and even the greatest SEOers in the world will agree that it is through trial and error that you finally narrow it down.

Good luck!

Rand Fishkin from SEOMOZ explains and illustrates how to win customers and influence rankings in this week’s Whiteboard Friday.

Starting a consulting company is a very difficult thing to do. Often times the most difficult part is getting new customers and clients.

This week’s video goes over how to find clients by getting referrals and winning customers.

Enjoy!

Gold SEO Service Package Launched by SEO Miracle

Leading SEO Company SEO Miracle has launched a gold SEO service package to offer clients more online presence and significantly improve sales.

Offering not only reliable and fast SEO services, the US-based company understands that being able to go on the top position of major search engines requires a lot of efforts and investments, that’s why they will go above and beyond for their clients by providing a complex system which helps in reporting about the client’s SEO work.

“We are all about presenting the gold SEO service package these days. It is meant for people who want to rank regionally and locally with as much as 10 keywords. We are determined to provide the best SEO service with full support by email or phone. The gold package is something that people usually go for. 10 keywords is really a great start if you are looking to expand your business scope or to promote new services,” said Joshua Hood, CEO and a co-founder of SEO Miracle.

The gold SEO service package, which has a very affordable price, includes setup of 10 onsite SEO pages, more than 400 directory submissions, 120 social bookmarking submissions and 250 real twitter tweets.

“SEO Miracle has completed lots of projects of online marketing and search engine optimization and I can say that we are the best when it comes to SEO and Internet marketing. Our gold SEO service package will allow business owners, who want to invest more money in promoting their business, to get a chance to work with SEO professionals at SEO Miracle, and actively participate in the project,” added Hood.

Warrior+Plus has launched their new WSO Pro Adaptive

Warriorplus.com has released its new advanced WSOPlus system,WSO Pro Adaptive, to fill in the gaps that in their standard WSO Pro option.

Those include:

• Affiliates can give bonuses to their buyers (auto-delivered on download page)
• Instantly pay affiliates when sale is made
• Instant revenue split with JV partners
• 1-click instant refunds

WSO Pro Adaptive will also add many more cool features soon according to the Warriorplus website.

The only attribute that WSO Pro had that WSO Pro Adaptive does not currently have is the ‘sell subscription-based products’ feature. This feature is soon to come so that all the original attributes will be available in the new system.

Mike Lantz, creator of WSO Pro Adaptive, said on the Warrior Forum, “There would be very few situations where I would recommend using the “Standard” version over the new one – basically only if you can’t use the new one for some PayPal-related reason. (Uncommon)”

He also went on to give the two biggest advantages of the new WSO Pro Adaptive. He said, “We created our system to “just work”, so you don’t have to be concerned about all of the details – because we take care of them! You can [also] share revenue with a partner automatically, or with affiliates who want to promote your offer. All you need to do is create your listing and go.”

Warrior+Plus states, “If you plan to run an affiliate program or partner with others, the new option is the way to go.”

Check out Warrior+Plus for more information.

JVZoo’s Latest Bonus Delivery System Has Arrived!

Over the last month, JVZoo has reportedly received many ideas and requests from the many people who use JVZoo. One of the most popular requests to be implemented immediately was the affiliate bonus system. With how popular it is for affiliates to give away bonuses, JVZoo thought it appropriate to make things easier for the affiliate giving those away.

“Now, when you promote a product through JVZoo, we will also deliver your bonus for you, completely hands off to you!” JVZoo.com explained. “All you need to do is simply enter your URL of where your bonus is, or upload the bonus file to our servers and when someone goes through your link and purchases, their bonus from you will be waiting for them on the receipt.”

It’s a very simple process to get these added to your sites. There are two ways to do it. The first one is by going to your approved products page and click the blue “add bonus” button. The other will get you direct access to the bonus delivery page by going to the “affiliates bonuses” link under the “affiliates” tab. Go ahead and select the product you wish to attach as a bonus. Then all you need to do is decide if you want it to be uploaded to your page or use a delivery page and you are good to go.

Adapting to Panda and Penguin Needs Research

Everywhere you look in the search engine world these days, you come across webmasters panicking about the new algorithms that Google has instated. They have good reason to panic, but are they acting too soon?

Too many people are rushing to fix their websites when they don’t even know why Google penalized them because they don’t know who hurt them. Was it Panda? Or was it Penguin?

I came across an article today that illustrates quite how to know which algorithm was their downfall and which steps to take to recover from it.

What are the risks with not knowing?

Searchenginejournal.com differentiates the two perfectly, “Since Penguin and Panda target two different issues, it’s extremely important to know the exact algorithm update that hit your website. Panda targets low quality content, thin content, duplicate content, etc., while Penguin targets Webspam (and at this point it’s heavily targeting unnatural inbound links.)

So, don’t prune your links if you were hit by Panda, and don’t gut content if you were hit by Penguin. Know what hit you, and then act.”

Another thing to make the matters worse is you will only know if the changes you made helped or hurt is when Panda and Penguin are rolled out again.

Was it Panda or Penguin?

The first and simplest step to take to find out which algorithm hurt you is to check the dates. Launch Google analytics and dig down into Google Organic Reporting. Set the time frame from April 1^st to May 15^th (Reason for setting it to the 15^th is the many rumors that traffic dropped on May 11^th and 12^th. Google denies any Panda or Penguin update but it seems pretty clear that somethign happend) Remember that Panda hit twice, April 19^th and April 27^th. Penguin hit once so far and that was on April 24^th.

In this graph provided by Searchenginejournal.com you can clearly see the days that the algorithms took effect.

The second thing to do is compare the days they occurred to the same day in the past. Remember that most sites take a dip around weekends so don’t compare a Tuesday to a Friday or Saturday. Compare the weekend days to weekends in the past weeks and months.

In the organic search, type in “Keyword.” This will show you all the keywords that lead to your site on those days. Next, you will want to compare those specific days and keyword results to that of the past.

You will then be presented information about the keywords to your site, percentages and whether it was an increase or decrease.

Another option to find out which update hurt you

It would be very beneficial to use Google Webmaster Tool to help you determine which algorithm hurt you.

Within this program there are different analytics to view. You can export the data into a spread sheet to better understand what is going on. There are also filters to apply that will help you determine which black and white creature attacked you.

Summary

The updates happened so close to each other that for many both updates changed before they even noticed the decrease. So basically you just need to do everything you can to determine how you were hurt and by what. Once you know that, you are able to formulate a plan to begin your recovery.

New Internet Marketing Training Sessions Announced by SES Toronto

Incisive Media SES Toronto, a leading global conference and training series focused on search engine marketing, has announced its new Internet marketing training to be held on June 11-13, 2012 at the Hyatt Regency Toronto.

The seminar called Made in Canada: Marketing Online Worldwide, which offers Canadian Internet marketers two brand new specific Canadian panel sessions, will observe the increasing retail merchant channel and how to accommodate Canadian affiliate partnerships as well as concentrate on how to balance Canadian and American content challenges and contend in the U.S. market without losing the Canadian online presence.

“Those that service either a Canadian and American customer base or Canadian organizations that compete with American companies, can’t miss this. Key takeaways will include, how to balance Canadian and American content challenges, domain differences, hosting, IP’s, architecture, and local SEO,” said Canadian-based speaker Ezra Silverton, President, 9th Sphere.

The conference will also feature about Enterprise Level SEO to be conducted by Lyndsay Walker, TD Bank Group, and Maximizing ROI in e-Commerce by Elazar Gabay, LeSite.ca.

“The Canadian marketplace is overflowing with profitable ecommerce opportunities, and it has been our experience that online retailers and website publishers in Canada who adopt an affiliate marketing model are tapping into one of the most cost-effective forms of entrepreneurship. I have plenty to share on best practices for affiliate marketers looking to grow their business,” explained SES speaker Nicky Senyard, President, Share Results, who will also be presenting strategies for both retailers and Web publishers.

Incisive Media also offers interactive marketers digital marketing news, information, commentary, advice, opinion and research and Search Engine Watch.

SEO firm Main Street ROI Outlines 3 Biggest Marketing Mistakes

SEO firm Main Street ROI has outlined the three biggest marketing mistakes made by local businesses.

Online marketing expert Pete Kennedy of the company explained that Internet marketing is usually easy and more affordable to implement, however, it is also easy to lose money in this industry. Kennedy revealed that the 3 most marketing mistakes to avoid are: Relying Too Much on SEO, Not Tracking Advertising Properly, and Not Building a System.

According to Kennedy, Relying Too Much on SEO is the main mistake business owners make as a business needs more than rankings in order for an SEO campaign to be profitable. More so, most business will be in an unsteady position where Google controls its fate if SEO is the central internet marketing approach.

By Not Tracking Advertising Properly business owners will also lose a lot of money as they invest in keywords that don’t turn into prospects and customers. Kennedy suggested that through tracking, they will determine who visit their websites regularly from advertising, who will contact them for possible business opportunities and what keywords are worth investing in.

Lastly, the last mistake the company revealed is by Not Building a System. Kennedy highlighted that email marketing is one of the key components of a profitable small business online marketing system.

“Used the right way, email marketing can help you turn more website visitors into prospects and customers, turn one-time customers into repeat customer and stimulate referrals. If you organize all the pieces of your online marketing (SEO, PPC, email, social media, and tracking/analytics) in just the right way, you’ll not only minimize your risk, you’ll create a system that generates reliable results for you month after month,” she said.

Established in 2012, Main Street ROI offers various online marketing training and tools for small businesses such as AdWords Success Formula, The Local SEO Formula,  and Main Street Inner Circle.