Some methods of search engine optimization, or SEO, will get your site banned from Google. Using ethical means to boost your search engine rankings, such as social bookmarking, will significantly increase the amount of online traffic your company’s site sees. Over the last year, Facebook has become a surprising place to begin your SEO search engine marketing strategy. Previously, only large companies had the money to pay for Facebook as an SEO tool, but now any business can market to Google at no cost at all.

Facebook is free, it’s simple, and it gets your company’s name out to hundreds of people at a time. While strategic Web design is the best way to get your site to rank higher on Google, creating a page on Facebook for your company will link back to your site and could help you to establish a fan base as well. This natural social bookmarking method couldn’t be better for word-of-mouth advertising. Read the rest of this entry »

SEO beginners and experts alike can learn pretty quickly what constitutes good and bad SEO tactics and strategies. For example, black-hat SEO practices like keyword stuffing are universally regarded as scam-like, second rate ways to get noticed on the Internet. However, one aspect of search engine optimization that is a bit newer — and therefore, has fewer rules — is social bookmarking.

From an SEO perspective, the goal of social bookmarking is to generate one-way links back to your Web site. These links should increase traffic and ultimately conversion ratios. If your site is placed on a social bookmarking outlet like Digg or del.icio.us, you are virtually guaranteed to get at least a few one-way links back into your site. Read the rest of this entry »

When it comes to creating an organized, concise, and informative Web site for your Pittsburgh audience, content might be king, but layout is key.

The reason is simple: If your site is not attractive and highly navigable, visitors will not come back. There are literally thousands of Web designers — amateur and professional; specializing in search engine optimization (SEO), or e-commerce, or information design — out there. Each one believes that his or her design style and informational organization approach are the best in the Internet marketing business.

Most of them are wrong.

Have you ever visited a Web site or online business that had a very difficult-to-understand ethos, mission, or purpose? Think back to that site: Why was it so difficult to understand, and to navigate? Read the rest of this entry »

If you have a limited marketing or advertising budget – say less than $10K – don’t waste your money on traditional forms of advertising: the newspaper ads, the television and radio spots, the direct mail pieces. Those forms of advertising are dead. At the least I can hear their ugly gurgling death rattle with each canceled newspaper subscription and with each because-I-don’t-want-to-have-to-listen-to-the-stupid-commercials TiVo purchase.

What’s more, these ad venues are very expensive. Extremely so. A small ad in the daily paper can cost a couple of hundred dollars. And that’s just for a one-day run. If you’ve ever priced out a tv or radio spot, I’m sure you asked the rep not for a pen to sign the contract, but for some antacid to calm you stomach. Read the rest of this entry »

Optimizing a website for search engines is a smart decision for any business — but do you really know all the benefits of a full-service, organic, search engine optimization campaign? If you are a seasoned veteran in the industry, you might, but most people in the industry still don’t understand all the benefits.

I’ll lay them out for you here. Read the rest of this entry »