Website Visibility - How To Win from Google's Panda Algorithm Ranking

Friends, your website's visibility in major search engines has a lot to do with how many new prospects and business leads you enjoy. New customers are the lifeblood of many companies, which is why Promise Production's SEO / SEM / Website Promotion and Search Engine Visibility play heavily in the marketing strategy we provide to grow your profits.

It is not just your IT department or your Webmaster, but your Marketing that needs to be savvy to the evolutions in search engine marketing. Otherwise, you'll continue to aim at the target where the results "were", not where they are "today." So even if you "win" in your goals, the target keeps moving, so in reality you have missed the lion's share of the profits. Up-to-date marketing strategy is so key, along with search engine optimization, you need smarter strategy to outthink the competition!

Below is an excellent article by that underscores everything we at Promise Productions have been saying. (Nice to find experts that agree, eh?) But seriously, it boils down to a few key concepts that Promise Productions knows exactly how to implement on your behalf:

•  Quality Content  - are your products and services communicated in a compelling way that makes their value stand out to your prospects?
• Video Marketing - are you making video more and more central to getting the message out? This is a win with your customer but also a win in the search engines - but only if you do it the right way!
• Quality Backlinks - how many others are talking about your brand, your products, your services. How many signposts pointing back to your website are there and how relevant  This area has been one of the most elusive to do in an effective and legitimate way with search engines – until now!

Both the Video Marketing and the Quality Backlinks overlap with Social Media Marketing, but as always the exact strategies we provide is what separates winners from losers. Again, these are not just "webmaster tweaks" – they are keys your company's decision makers need to be aware of to inform the entire way you orient your marketing, sales and advertising efforts. 

So contact Promise Productions for expert marketing strategy and implementation to promote your company at 877-858-0071.

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Without further ado, see the below recent article by Titus for a detailed discussion of these matters:

Lately, like many full-time webmasters, I have been spending a lot of my time dealing with the Panda/Farmer Update - Google's major Algorithm Changes which they did in February 2011 with further adjustments in the months following. This update was a major "game changer" since even some very prestigious sites saw their rankings drop and the debate/fallout is still continuing as I write this material.

Figuring Out "Exactly" How Google Ranks Web Pages Has Become the "Holy Grail" of SEO.

Webmasters and marketers have been debating these "ranking factors" for over 10 years now and that discussion will continue far into the future or for as long as Google remains the dominant search engine on the planet.


Rank Local Top 10 in Google
Of course, I have formed my own opinions and views on this matter, mostly from the information I get from running 9 or 10 websites. But mainly I derive the majority of my beliefs from observations of some major "keyword battles" which I have been fighting for about as long as Google has existed.




There are a lot of myths out there. For example, many SEO experts insist you must update your site/pages often. But I have one site which I have barely touched in over 4 or 5 years and it still ranks in the top spot in Google for its targeted keyword phrase "Internet Marketing Tools."




Now I have been constantly building backlinks to this site over the years, but I have not updated it or changed the content much since it was created. I have a few sites which I don't promote with link building and they have dropped off the map in Google.

What this tells me about Google is that quality one-way links is a very important factor in how Google ranks pages. These keyworded links back to your homepage and to your interior pages are extremely important for getting top rankings.




Actually, I would bet the shop, that if you ONLY concentrated on quality backlinks you would achieve those top spots in Google. While, of course, there is no need to ignore the other ranking factors, if you did, and concentrated most of your efforts on link building, you would still get to the first page of Google. At least that is how things were working...


The Panda Algorithm


The Google Panda Update threw a monkey wrench into the whole ranking game. It is more or less, the ultimate filter which can override all the other ranking factors. It finds poor quality content and filters it out or lowers its rankings in Google's Index.




The key here is that this Panda filter doesn't just rank your web pages, it can rank your whole site. In other words, webmasters have to worry about the over-all quality of their sites because if you have too many of what Google believes to be "poor quality pages" then your whole site could drop in their rankings.






If Panda struck your site, then you must take a closer look at all your content and make adjustments so that Panda (Google) perceives it as all top quality material. Also, you have to look carefully at your internal linking structure and avoid excessive "keyword spamming" within your site.


What's out: thinking that having a bunch of links within your own website pointing to a certain page will boost that page's visibility. 


On-page elements must be in order and factors like site load times and speed have become more important. Writing quality, style, spelling, and grammar have also taken center stage. So too has the trust factor. Can your content or site be trusted? There is also an ongoing argument about "bounce rates" and whether or not Google can even measure these? My own opinion on this is that Google can track your every click on the web and has massive amounts of data derived from your usage of their search engine (cookies-R-us), the Chrome Browser and countless programs such as Analytics, Adsense, Maps, Gmail, YouTube, etc. All this anonymous data can be compiled, analyzed and dissected to create their ranking metrics. They would be foolish not to use this data.




Videos are Winners


Of course, I haven't survived on the web for this long without learning a few tricks. You must go where Google is going.

Like many others, I have noticed videos and pages with videos on them weren't hit hard by the Panda Update. Ignoring for the moment that Google owns YouTube, videos have always done well in Google SERPs and Panda hasn't changed that in any significant way.




For years now, I have been enriching my web content and pages with videos - mainly through YouTube - not only because Google owns it, but because everybody uses it. I believe videos are a good way to get traffic and help your rankings plus videos are a form of quality content around which you can build channels and an online community.




Because I believe videos play such an important role in Google's SERPs, I have created several channels on YouTube. And, I just recently created another channel around my main site. These channels contain simple videos and are usually created from my articles.


Hopefully, one major consequence of Panda will be that companies will have to take a closer look at all of their content and filter out the inferior stuff as well as improve site speed, minimize ads, delete pages with little or no real content, fix broken links and make sites more user-friendly. Do all this, not just to please Google, but because having a clean, fast and easy-to-navigate site filled with unique top quality content is a great way to attract more business.




Titus Hoskins owns the copyright to this article.

Beyond SEO to Higher Website Visibility - Link Building Strategy

Being Found in the search engines involves multiple disciplines. 

1. First one must have a well-designed website with properly-written content and rich visuals. 
2. Second your websites needs to have SEO (described below). 
3. Third, your website needs meaningful inbound links from relevant sources. This is the most elusive part, but the part that today is the key to trumping competition. These inbound links can come from Social Media assets, but also other online sources.  

SEO for a website means it is keyword-rich and avoids coding technologies that displease or confuse search engine spiders (i.e. flash, some javascript, frames, all text as text and not images depicting text, etc.). An SEO – savvy website will have keywords both in (a) the text the user reads, in the titles, and in the content designed, not for the user but (b) for the search engine spider to read – in the Metatags and in the Alt tags (those describing a photo).

Promise Productions has always been very careful to communicate and not to hype SEO as doing something beyond its powers. In our online marketing industry, we repeatedly see two fatal mistakes business owners sometimes make regarding promoting their website. (1) One is to think of SEO as a one-time event versus an ongoing process, (2) the other is to think that having the SEO described in the paragraph above is enough to rank in the top spots.

It is no longer enough that your website itself is optimized for the keywords you want to rank high for because today’s marketplace is simply too competitive with other websites doing the same. SEO can only provide a website developed according to the current best practices so your website is pleasing to search engines and not displeasing in any known way. SEO can never guarantee rank because rank is determined by multiple, changing factors, including the SEO of all competitor’s websites.

Thus an Online Visibility Marketing program is needed, focused on inbound links. That phrase is key to distinguish, becomes often 3^rd party SEO firms will claim to offer a few pieces of that. Often 3^rd party Social Media marketing firms will claim to offer pieces of that. Does social media marketing involve this? Yes in the way we approach it, but social media has many focuses, and in the pursuit of high organic ranking for a key term, it is not social media marketing in general, but strategic backlink building that best accomplishes this purpose. 

To summarize, SEO attempts to overlap into this area, but not very well, Social Media Marketing defiantly overlaps this but is too broad. Thus the services proposed below are Search Marketing services using both social media methods and other proven methods to develop backlinks.

Search Marketing for the purposes of backlinks, is very distinct from SEO in that it uses assets outside of the website to make relevant links back to the website – spotlighting it in the eyes of the search engines. Social Media is used for many purposes other than increasing the visibility of a company’s website, but for our purposes here I am only speaking to how to use Social Media to most effectively raise the visibility higher in search engine results so it is found by more business prospects.

Unfortunately, there is a lot of "scary stuff" in the advertised SEO world because the less-scrululpous will "sell you" what you want to hear (quick, high results, at a nice price). Sadly, these people are not marketing strategists, they are selling a canned, automated process, designed to scam quick cash and leave the scene before it all backfires on the customer.

They don't want to take the time to really understand your business and generate truly quality content. They don't want to implement the tedious procedures to CRAFT quality links that will matter for years to come. They are search engine "speed" that ends up destroying the client.

Not wanting to do the real work that real results require, they take "shortcuts" that try to mimic the things search engines look for long enough to make off with the client's money. So unfortunately, there are many methods that will work FOR A BRIEF TIME, and you will enjoy #1 ranking for a week or so, but then BACKFIRE badly and you drop down hundreds of places in rank or get blacklisted altogether. These questionable short-term methods are all too common, even in larger SEO companies, because people are lured by the desire for immediate results (like steroids) and demand it regardless of the consequences.

While immediate gratification is an understandable desire, the horror stories around third party SEO companies abound, who often take advantage of these very "quick" demonstrated results to get large fees and then are no longer under contract when the real shit hits the fan for the client's rankings. Anything too good to be true, often is and true results that stand the test of time (and the tweaks in Google's algorithms) are always from (and this is the key to it all) legitimate content linked from legitimate sources.

Promise Productions offers the high-level online marketing strategies employed by recognized Fortune-50 companies and makes them available to medium-szed businesses for millions in profits. Call a marketing strategist today at 877-858-0071.

How To Use Twitter To Improve Your SEO

When you have a social media site with over 190 million users and 65 million daily posts (and growing),  turn it into a website promotion tool!

When you tweet, you have the ability to put a link in that tweet to your website. All Twitter links are "nofollow" (meaning they don't count towards your Link Popularity score), but that doesn't mean that you can't use Twitter to improve your website ranking.

While some SEO experts say that Twitter isn't a ranking factor, the fact is that Twitter pages directly INFLUENCE Google's SERPs and thus may provide a major force in search engine visibility. Google looks at what people search for on Twitter, both to observe trends and to display directly in their "realtime" section of their search engine.



Whether or not Twitter directly affects the SERPs, here are Twitter SEO tactics that are worth checking out.



The Twitter Website Traffic Benefit



After creating new posts on your blog or business website, it only makes sense to tweet about it. Many users search Twitter for useful information or tips they're interested in right at that moment and Twitter puts the latest tweets at the top.

You can't expect to receive hordes website visitors simply by posting a link to your site. Choose interesting text for better website promotion. A boring title wont get you anywhere. Something like "10 Tips to Maximize Your Twitter Followers" may generate more clicks.

 This doesn't really affect your search engine rankings, but it's an effective Twitter website traffic strategy.



Using Twitter for Link Building



By having a large group of Twitter followers, more will see your new posts and announcements. You're speaking to a larger audience, meaning increased likelihood of someone ready to take action. Here's how to do your Twitter SEO:



First off, for effective website promotion it's imperative that you have a large group of followers. Follow people who share the same interests as you and those within your niche. Roughly 30% of the users you follow will follow back. Those who are convinced that you should be followed on Twitter are surely interested in your latest updates. Yes, when done right, Twitter is really a great PR and website promotion tool.

Furthermore, it's highly likely that your followers will write about your new content in their blogs. This translates to link building. Plus, did you know that, in blogs, Google doesn't index shortened URLs? Instead, they index the actual URLs. Thus, you get even more website promotion opportunities.

There are useful Twitter tools such as TweetMeme and HootSuite Pro that let you check the number of users that have posted tweets with a link to your site. They can also tell which of your posts have been picked up and re-tweeted by the general public.



Important Things to Remember



When doing your Twitter SEO strategies, remember that all your tweets shouldn't be about your own website and content. This is bad for your website promotion and would turn people off. No one wants to follow a conceited, I'm-so-great prima donna. Besides, if your tweets would be all about your products and services, they would look like spam. Post engaging and useful information, answer and ask questions, tweet interesting facts, and send messages that your followers will find valuable.



Optimize Your Twitter Page



This is another Twitter SEO tactic that'll help increase your followers and improve your brand reputation. The major search engines all include Twitter account pages on their SERPs. Here are website promotion tips on how to get your profile on the front page of search engine results.



1.  Consider a username that's relevant to your niche or your business. Your username can affect your website promotion since its part of your page's URL and title tag.


2. Choose a relevant account name. This will further boost your Twitter website traffic, since the account name is also part of the page title. The account name should be different from the username.
3. Promote your Twitter profile page by building links to it. Link to it from your company website and from the company blog. 
4. Since your bio serves as the meta description tag, choose your text wisely and keep website promotion in mind.



More importantly, Twitter provides benefits that are far different from the advantages of search engine optimization. So, before building your SEO campaign via this social network, make sure to achieve Twitter SEO benefits first.



Tweet Optimization


Optimizing your tweets also helps in website promotion. Your tweets help your profile, content and brand gain more exposure.

A tweet's title tag is made up of the username of the account sending out the tweet and the first 30 characters. For that reason, for best SEO value, place your keywords in the post's first few words.

That also means, when retweeting, its better to place the "RT@username" at the end of the tweet so that you'll have plenty of room to place the keywords in the tweet. Also, limit your tweets to 120 characters so that there will be space when other users add the RT@username. Otherwise, some parts of your post might get chopped off.

Twitter SEO tactics are pretty easy to implement. Twitter continues to evolve and has a lot of potential for search engine optimization. Explore its website promotion benefits, discover new website promotion methods, and make your own experiments.

Dallas Marketing and Social Media Marketing Company

For professional Social Media Strategy and Social Media Marketing that maximizes your results through smarter strategies that reinforce all other communications, advertising and marketing efforts, simply call Promise Productions at 877-858-0071.

The Importance of Search Marketing in Simple Terms

If you are like most businesses these days, you want more clients and profits!

But to get clients you have to have visibility where your clients are today.

Most of the time, your prospects have migrated online, so you need to be readily found the moment they want your products and services.

The best way to ensure visibility is to have us PUT you into the Top 3 positions on Google. We have a unique approach that takes all the guesswork out of it.

But first, you need to know HOW your clients are looking for you. What they search for.

I have 8 year track record of success in Search Marketing and every time, the business owner is shocked to learn how his clients think of his services. It has always been different than how he believed his business was thought of.

If you miss how your prospects are looking for you, you miss their business. The solution to never missing another prospect is online market research that nails down exactly how your products and services are being searched for online.

Without knowing what terms they use when searching for you, there can be no smart strategy to attract clients and profits.

Our $895 Online Market Research Tells You these 3 vital things:
1 • exactly what your prospects are search for – in every variation
2 • how many people each month search for that specific set of keywords
3 • what it would cost, monthly, to put your business into the Top 3 in Google for that particular set of keywords

From there, we consult with you to develop the smartest strategy for whatever budget you choose.
One business invested $135/month and made $8,000/month
One business invested $1,200/month and made $12,700/month
One business invested $8,000/month and made $133,000/month

We work with you wherever you are at, knowing each marketplace and service area is unique. We have done it for small local business and nationwide corporations alike.

We have so proven this works that we are offering a special no-contract offer valid through 12/12/09. This lets you try it for a month and see for yourself the amount of new business you generate. Then you tell us whether you want continued visibility and attention or now. Simple.

So we start with keyword research. Then we consult with you on what terms will produce the most profits. Those two things are $895. Next you pick the terms and each term has a price next to it based on the research. Simply add the terms and that determines your monthly budget. There are no hidden fees and no surprise costs (unlike everyone else).

Research-Backed Strategy For Results
Success starts with solid data that tells you exactly what your online marketability profile is. You know your strategy is smart before you even start promoting yourself and that is the key to new profits and clients today.

Call Promise Productions to generate clients and profits for your business -- call 972-822-3587.

Benefits to Your Business of Smart SEO

Search Engine Optimization is a set of skills that can powerfully benefit your business. As a marketing communications firm, we at Promise Productions are here to position you for massive success. We form a beneficial relationship with you to forward your business growth goals. When done from a strategic fashion, SEO is a marketing investment that can reap massive profits.
Open communication between your business goals and our SEO services is a relationship that contributes to the long-term success of your business. You see, we are business strategy and marketing experts first, so our SEO services all contribute to that purpose.
Here are key aspects that Promise Productions' SEOs provide to best benefit your business:

1. Strategic Planning
   SEO cannot be shoved into a one-size-fits-all campaign. Every business is different and every business website is different. Its marketplace is different. Its goals is different. Therefore each site needs its own unique SEO and marketing strategy.
   
   We understand this. So, before you get a proposal for services the SEO should have taken time to review your site in order to determine what services you need most. Once the SEO work begins, more research needs to be performed so the optimum strategy for success can be developed.
   
   There is much more to SEO than just throwing some keywords on the page. Good SEOs plan out a strategy specific for every site they work with.
2. 
   Business Communication
   
   We must be communicating on a regular basis becuase good SEO requires your involvement, and I would likely avoid taking on a client that wanted to avoid involvement.
   
   You know your business better than we do and we know SEO better than you. We are on the same team to get the best results for your company.
   
   Without communication the potential for a derailed SEO campaign is significant. Good SEOs keep in regular contact with their clients, seeking their input and providing status updates.
3. 
   Focus on Search Engine Friendly Architecture
   
   We as SEOs have to focus on many things, most of which revolve around keywords. Many clients still look at "keyword rankings" as a measure of success. But good SEO has to go beyond adding keywords to the site, they also need to focus on a site's overall architecture. A good website architecture can make a difference in a site's performance by best organizing your value proposition both to your prospects and to the search engines.
   The better the site's architecture is the greater the opportunity for SEO success. Good SEOs will look for issues within the architecture that can or should be fixed for better SEO results.
4. Educate
   SEO deals in cutting edge technology. The search engines are always changing and algorithm updates are made on a regular basis. SEOs must continue to stay educated of these changes. While SEO strategies are remarkably consistent over time, small subtle changes can make a big difference. SEO has to adjust with the times and the same target goal will eventually need evolving methods to accomplish them.
   
   The SEO must keep their team, and even their clients informed and educated. The clients need to know how changes may affect them, and what the SEO's plans are if any adjustments are to be made.
   While not every bit of information is a game changer, keeping up with industry changes is essential. Good SEOs keep up to date, and make sure clients stay informed.
5. Focus on sales
   Many businesses look to SEOs to improve their rankings. But really what they want is someone to help them grow their business. Rankings are just a means to achieve that goal. Despite what any client thinks they want, a good SEO will look beyond rankings and help the client gain traffic and improve sales. At Promise Productions, we look at the big picture.
   
   This means they have to analyze the progress of the campaign and the effect keyword rankings are having in regard to traffic and sales. We will also focus on usability issues that could improve the ability of the site to do sell better.
   Revenue is generally the number one thing clients want, even if they are not thinking in those terms when hiring an SEO. Good SEOs help the client focus on the bigger picture and measure success properly.
6. 
   Test, review and re-strategize
   There is no set-it and forget-it in SEO. While some major issues can be fixed up front, keyword targeting and usability fixes are an ongoing, everlasting process. The SEO campaign should be under periodic review. New keywords should be tested and optimized and new strategies for improvement should be implemented on a regular basis. Unless the site runs out of keywords (very unlikely except in niche industries) the SEO should always be targeting new phrases for ranking on a regular basis.
   When it comes to SEO there is always more that can be done, provided it fits within the scope of the client's contract. Good SEOs are looking for opportunities (in or outside of that scope) that can help the client improve performance.

Good SEOs are not always easy to come by because optimum success requires many skillsets. Other SEOs may know how to do one thing really well, but don't focus on other essential aspects. The most important thing one can find in an SEO is one that cares about his clients. Good SEOs want their clients to succeed and are willing to make these seven best practices a part of their business model.

When you want Intelligent Search Engine Optimization from a marketing-savvy perspective for maximum profits, call Promise Productions at 972-822-3587.

Is SEO the Holy Grail for Your Business?

Some say SEO is the "Holy Grail" for their business because it makes their phones ring with new customers. While that is over the top, Search Engine Optimization is vital to the future of your business because gaining new customers now largely depends on your company's website being found for the right keyword searches.

Simply put, SEO is the variety of ways to make your site most likeable by Google and Yahoo. Search Engine Optimization consists of website modifications to the various elements the searcn engines look for when ranking your website versus your competitor's web site.

Keywords research, backlinking, site freshness and many other components are key to any SEO strategy. The decision most clients have to make is how much time they want to devote to their ranking. Most industries these days have a heavy level of competition for keywords in most markets. To most companies, a steady stream of new, quality, customers is the key to staying in business, so all aspects of Search Engine Visibility (of which SEO, along with Web Video Marketing, Search Engine Positioning, and Social Media Marketing are all parts) are paramount.

The most important element to your website being a tool to gain new business is simply this – how good of a resource is your website to your client? Does it serve their needs? Put yourself in your clients' shoes and build the site from that perspective. If that is your main focus, as opposed to simply having high ranking, your site will stand the test of time.

CONTENT
This brings us to our first, and most overlooked, SEO element: web site content. 
The content or text on your website is compared to the content on your competition's site. More than just trying to beat the competition, we counsel our clients to make their site the best possible resource for their clients. Asking the actual users what they would like to find on your website will many times give you great ideas of what to and what not to include.

Content must also be written and presented in a friendly way to the search engines. It just contain the optimum percentage of keywords (not too many or too few).

• Writing Effective Website Copy
• Why Content is King for SEO

KEYWORDS
Choosing the correct keywords to focus the marketing on is the foundation of the SEO strategy. Our marketing team uses keyword software, old fashioned competition research and testing to find the best keywords that attract your ideal clients. That means terms where there are lot of people searching that keyword with little competition for ranking. Finding great keywords takes considerable research in the short term, but provides long term rewards if completed correctly.

One of the main mistakes I see companies doing when they try to do their own SEO is assume they know the best keywords. They know how THEY think about their products and services, but are usually out of touch with how their ideal prospects are thinking about them. This is why we are more than an SEO or Web Development company; we are Strategic Marketing Communicators. One of our primary roles is helping you target your ideal customers and market to them in the way they and this distinction means more value for your business.

WEBSITE FRESHNESS
Keeping a website current is an important factor to your clients as well as any search engine. The reason for this is because people trust a website that has up-to-date information. This can explain why business blogs and CMSs (Content Management Systems) have become so popular and why most of our website packages include them. They make it easy for companys to update their website content.


BACKLINKS
This is also called Link Popularity. 
This is the number of other websites linking to your website, and the quality of the websites that link back to yours. For more information, see our article on Link Popularity.

LOAD SPEED
The time it takes to load your website is called its "load speed." There are several reasons this is important. The first is if it takes 15 seconds or more to load your website, visitors are going to leave. The second and little-known fact is that when a website is built under the current standards of load speed and compatibility, Google will reward that site with better ranking. 


OUTSMARTING THE COMPETITION
Research on a client's competition is a vital part of the SEO strategy. We research keywords, content, load speed and content trends. New competition in the marketplace makes it necessary to constantly review the competition. Staying ahead of the competition on Google is paramount to most of our competition. Our team reviews what keywords the competition is focusing on and reports their findings to you to ensure you stay on top of the market.

BOUNCE RATE
Bounce rate is how long a client is on your website before leaving. If the bounce rate is below one minute on average, clients are not finding what they want on your site. It will require a major change on the website and reorganization of the content. Keeping the bounce rate above rate 1 minute will help your Google ranking -- but more importantly ensure you are meeting your clients needs. 
This is also called "stickiness" -- how long the prospect sticks to your web page.

• Learn more about how we design web sites for improved stickiness and conversion.

URL, LINK & PAGE NAMES
The name of your website along with the name of the pages is important to Google as well as your clients. All these are opportunites for more keywords. Having the URL http://www.weddingphotographerdallas.com/ is better than www.FredJamesStudios.com .

Purchasing domain names for sale that have great keywords in the name is a service we offer. We also look at the age of a domain because the older the domain, the more credibility Google and the other search engines give it.


Naming internal and external links with keywords is an important aspect of website ranking. For example, a website selling flashlights could name the page dedicated to flashlights page003.html, but it would be better to name the page worlds-brightest-flashlights.html.

Naming backlinks is extremely important as well. The best example of this is "click here". If you Google the word phrase "click here" the first page is Adobe Reader. See the proof by clicking this link. 
Now if you click the #1 site on that page you will get this page: Adobe Reader . But that page has no words "click here" on the page. It is ranked #1 because millions of websites have a link on it that reads: "Click here to download Adobe Acrobat Reader".

Because millions of websites name their link "click here" it is ranked number one. Now imagine those same websites had the link: "New York Lawyer to download Adobe Acrobate Reader". The site that the words New York Lawyer links to would be #1 anytime someone Googled "New York Lawyer".

METATAGS
These are computer code tags embedded within your website that are invisible to the user, but give the search engines clues as to the subject matter and content on that web psge. These too need to be laced with the right keywords. Learn more on Metatags for smarter SEO here.

CONCLUSION
This overview of elements to SEO lets you know why many of the companies that spam you with hype and promises cannot deliver. You see, it takes considerable skill in multiple areas to make your company web site rank high in an intelligent and strategic way.

Properly done SEO is extremely valuable. We believe that your SEO strategy should be looked at within the context of savvy marketing – that is, your business growth goals, target audiences and market share. After all SEO is finally about being more profitable. Turn to Promise Productions Strategic Marketing Communications for a higher degree of success – call 972-822-3587.

SEO Should be Integrated into Your Web Design From The Start

Creating a business website that is a success in the largest sense of the word means that is accomplishes three core things:

1 • Your website's look and feel appeals to your target audience
2 • Your website clearly communicates your value proposition
3 • Your website is found by your best prospects

Today we will focus on the third aspect -- being found. Your value proposition Promise Productions, we believe that search engine optimization should be as integral as possible in the creation and web site development process.


This is where the full-featured skill sets of Covenant Designs comes in. You see, we are marketers at heart. That means that beyond a modern design, beyond efficient programmings, when we build your web site, we build it to (a) appealing to, (b) earning the trust of and (c) attracting new business profits.

When web design, web programming and search engine optimization are all built into your website at the core level, the result is all that more powerful - powerful to attract the right kinds of clients that lead to optimum success. Yes it is more work to think of SEO from the start, but that is a higher level of strategic planning for a higher level of results.

What Does It Mean To "Build In" SEO?
It means many specific things. It means using programming structures that are inherently friendly to search engines such as Google and Yahoo. It means avoiding web programming practices that create web pages that can look fine on screen to humans but are unfriendly to the search engines (i.e. Javascript and Flash). Smart SEO affects the way you build your menus, the way verbiage is displayed on screen and the way your company blog integrates with the web site.

There is no single magic formula and one size does not fit all. As with all lasting success, it involves building your website to accomplish specific goals. Our strength is marketing and making every area of your business communicate a cohesive message that best resonates with your target audience. This can be simple or complex, straightforward or multifaceted. The key word here is "Smart Strategy".

Call Promise Productions to consult with you about your business growth goals, and where our web design services, marketing communications services and social media services can best support what your business is up to. We welcome your inquiry at 972-822-3587.

The Evolution Of SEO

Search Engine Optimization is the science (and art) of making a company web site, not just pleasing to the users, but pleasing to the search engines so it ranks higher than the competition for specific terms connected to your products and services.

Higher ranking means more visibility, traffic and thus profits. Search Engine Optimization used to be an insider term, with only those practicing it really knowing what it entailed and how it boosted a website's relevant traffic.


EVOLVING SEO AWARENESS
Today, most people have some idea of what SEO is. It has gained awareness because businesses have come to understand that qualified traffic means everything to ongoing business profits. People know what keywords are, what metatags are and a few other of the more obvious aspects of SEO.

This can be both good and bad -- meaning that people can assume they know SEO when they are only scratching the surface. Those that truly value their web site's visibility understand that search engine page rank is a moving target and that outstanding results only come from dedicated expertise.

These people "get it" that SEO directly ties to their business' bottom line and hire a full-time in house staff. Others, outsource it to professional search marketing companies such as Promise Productions. Either approach can work, but the common understanding is the same -- top performance requires dedicated expertise.

Another evolution in SEO has to do with the emerging dominance of Google over the other A-list search engines such as Yahoo, MSN and AOL. In most demographics, Yahoo, MSN and AOL have become B-List engines in every practical sense.

Given that every search engine has different rules as how they rank what it relevant for a given search, and given that any single HTML page can only best meet the rules for one search engine, SEO is evolving to be geared almost exclusively for Google. 



When Google speaks, SEO consultants listen and if your business is not being found on Google, it's almost certain it's not being found at all - around 70% of user searches are done using Google.


KEY WORDS ARE KING

There are more tools and techniques coming out every day, but I will not digress to them. The most important thing is still key words. Key words must be in your site's verbiage, metatags and so forth.

The biggest mistake I see companies make is in SEO for the WRONG key words. It is not enough to know that key words are important. It is crucial to know which keywords are MOST important, and to prioritize those. So many times I see SEO in place for either:

(a) words that are so general, obvious and competitive, that there is little hope of the golden TOP THREE ranking in Google.

or (b) words that the owner FELT were the main words because that is how he thinks of his own business, but not the main way his customers think about his business.

The importance of accurate keyword search data cannot be overemphasized.

SOCIAL MEDIA FOR SEO
The Third way to increase a website's organic ranking is not with the site itself, but with creating a buzz and forming lots of links that act like signposts back to the site. This has traditionally been called link popularity. But the method of generating valuable links has evolved.

Social Media Marketing can now be strategically used to boost the company's main website in the search engines. Through strategic blogs, articles, customer reviews and Tweets -- the more conversation around you, the more attention you get.

Social media such as Facebook and Twitter are educating people to communicate in entirely new ways, and business owners should be engaging these people in order to attract a whole new audience. More details can be found on this very blog and our own website.

Given that search engines are evolving, the business landscape is changing, and customers are turning to social media in ever-increasing numbers, your SEO also has to evolve.

Today, businesses cannot afford to be without up-to-date SEO. Yes we can work with budgets both big and small, BUT that is not the right issue. The real value for your company lies in defining and enacting the right strategy to deliver optimum results and profits.

If your company needs expert help with optimum results and profits, Promise Productions is a call away at 972-822-3587.


SEO Done Right -- Cost-Effective Visibility For Your Business

With so much information - and misinformation - available on the topic of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) it can be tricky trying to separate fact from fiction.

Coupled with the fact that SEO changes only slightly less rapidly than the weather, it can be downright overwhelming for a business to know where to start promoting their website's products and services in search engines like Google and Yahoo. So, if you're an SEO newbie looking for a place to start, or cannot afford to waste advertising dollars on suspect SEO, here's a quick tutprial at good Search Engine Optimization (SEO) basics.

What Is SEO?


Even the most beautifully-designed site won't do you much good if potential customers can't find it. That's where Search Engine Optimization (SEO) comes in: SEO helps ensure your site is more visible in the search engines, drive qualified traffic to your website, and convert that traffic into actual customers.



In short, SEO ups your website's rankings in the search engines by making the pages within your site more attractive to the search engines. The more attractive your site is to Google, the higher its rankings in the search engine results pages. And the higher your rankings, the more likely users will visit your site. Obviously, a site with a result on Page 1 of Google is going to get more traffic than a site buried on Page 3.

 If your site is missing from the top search results, then you essentially dead when it comes to your ability to generate new business and add revenue to your business.

Let's take a look at some stats:


* Over 4.3 billion Internet users

* Over 85% start at a search engine
 and look for their desired products and services using key words
* Less than 20% will go beyond the top 10 search engine results

* Top 10 results get 85% more traffic than all those in the thousands of other pages after them

In addition to obtaining better rankings in the search engines, SEO is effective in several other areas as well:


* Branding/establishment of your business as an authority

* Pre-qualified lead generation

* Easily tracked ROI

* Cost savings compared to other promotion mediums (i.e. glossy brochures, yellow pages ads)

Key Components of Effective SEO
SEO consists of several key elements that work together to generate increases in a website's rankings, traffic and conversions: Keyword Selection, Copywriting, Link Building, HTML Optimization and Analytics.

Let's take a look at each element in more detail:



Keyword Selection

 for SEO
The foundation of any SEO campaign is good keyword research. That's because targeting the right keywords is essential to getting your SEO on the right track. If your sell Rolex ladies watches, then you're going to want to rank in the search engines for the phrase "Rolex ladies watches" and other similar phrases (Rolex Womens Watch, etc.).

You might be hitting the wrong target: If your keyword research is off and you target the wrong keywords, then you may not get visitors who want what your site has to offer. That's why you need to make sure that your site is properly optimized for the most-searched-for keywords related to your business.



Copywriting

 for SEO
Getting potential customers to your site is only half the battle; you've got to convince them to buy. That's where persuasive copywriting comes in. Be sure to tell people why they need your products or services and include conversion points throughout the site. The search engines like content, so you also need to optimize your copy to include your keywords.

This includes things like descriptive product pages, built-out content like biographies, news sections, etc. One important point to remember is to keep your most critical content "above the fold" - that's the area that's visible to your users before they have to scroll down.



Link Building
Link building is like one big online popularity contest, and the search engines like the popular kids. Your success in the search engines depends, in part, on the amount of relevant incoming links to your site.

Of course, having lots of good links also drives customers to your site, which is a good thing, too. Links can come in various sources, including directories, business partners, organizations, social media sites, and much, much more.

HTML Optimization


These are things that the user does not necessarily see, but the search engines do. Title tags, header tags, Alt tags, Meta-descriptions -- the search engines want your site's HTML to be descriptive and clean.

Search engines want to know exactly what your page is about; they don't want to sort through a bunch of extraneous code to figure it out. That's why you'll hear SEO experts talk about the importance of having clean web site code and how to use CSS to make that happen.



Measuring Success


No SEO campaign is complete without analytics. After all, if you aren't measuring things like traffic, link popularity, and conversions, then how do you know if your SEO strategies are working? Programs like ClickTracks and Google Analytics help make the number-crunching a little easier.

Conclusion
SEO is more important than ever because it maximizes your advertising dollars. 

If you want to have an effective SEO campaign, you need to include all of the five SEO elements listed above.

The summaries above just scratch the surface on these topics, and there are certainly other more advanced SEO strategies that can benefit your site as well. These building blocks, however, are the ideal way to get your SEO campaign working for you.

For expert Search Engine Optimization as well as other top strategies to get the most targeted visibility for your marketing dollar, call Promise Productions at 972-822-3587.

Using Social Media for Positive PR

Refer to our previous post for an overview of how Social Media has changed the face of Public Relations. Because what the public sees on the Internet often makes up most of what they know about your business, managing your online image is very important.

An unhappy customer has access to the same Internet as your business does. And these days a happy customer tells 3 people, but an unhappy one can now use the Internet to tell 30,000 people! In addition to the need to maintain high customer service standards, you want to get the positive PR on your company our there on the world wide web.

As Lee Iacocca said "you can have brilliant ideas, but if you can't get them across, your ideas won't get you anywhere." Social Media is a great tool for getting your ideas "out there" to be responded to. Instead of just being at the mercy of what everyone else is saying online, our Social Media optimization services advocate using Social Media to your advantage is about creative persuasion (aka marketing) and getting across why your prospects should WANT to do business with your company. We call that "Marketing Communications" and it is how you attract the business success you want.

Here are the Top Five ways to use Social Media for beneficial PR.

1 • Instead of the happy customer just telling 3 other people, put them on your blog so the goodness can spread to all the areas your blog is broadcast to. Better yet, do a video feature on your website and blog (it does not have to be fancy, just real) so prospective customers can see and hear someone who appreciated the value of what your company offers.

2 • Blogs are great for positive PR for two basic reasons. First, you yourself write them so you control the content. (Or hire professionals like Promise Productions to ghost write your blog entries in a marketing-savvy way). Second, you can moderate any comments that outsiders make -- filtering out those who would devalue your content.


3 • Put your Press Releases on Your blog. These newsworthy announcements deserve the extra boost in awareness that your blog's (when properly setup) RSS feed can give it.

4 • Be your own publicist. A publicist is there to accentuate the positive spin on whatever their client does. Don't distort the facts, but feel free to utilize Social Media to announce donations made, how your employees volunteer at other charitable organizations, community involvement, to explain the positive motivations and intentions behind company actions, changes and so forth.

5 • Put positive PR out there on other blogs. Find complimentary blogs with common interests and leave a positive footprint there. Comments and testimonials, when done in a win-win fashion and not a self-serving, opportunistic style, can let readers of other blogs know what worked for you. Pay it forward. Think of this as a place to share your positive comments and testimonials.

For Strategic Blogging and Social Media Optimization services call Promise Productions at 972-822-3587.

Social Media Strategy For Positive Public Relations

Today, everyone gets their information online and does a reality-check against advertising hype by seeing what "the people" have to say through social media (Blogging, Facebook, Myspace, etc.)

Your customers and prospects are getting information about your company online before doing business with you. The days where there were just 12 channels on TV, a dozen radio stations in town, one newspaper per city and died with the 60s.

So isn't it time you managed your company's Image and Public Relations where your customers are -- Online and in Social Media. That is why businesses must replace their old PR approaches with ones that impact social media networks.

Public Relations is about creating a POSITIVE link between the company and the public. Public relations is all about creating and maintaining relationships. Relationships can be between an organization and the public, management and employees or business to business. Distrust of the polished News-anchor is at an all-time high. The public is now thoroughly into Social Media for trustworthy reports about your products and services.

Social media and SEO are constantly evolving, but thankfully, our team knows the latest features, strategies and networks that help distribute information, increase visibility and monitor results.

The days of constructing intricate press kits and snail mailing to editors at publications are gone. In fact, those very publication’s days are numbered. The ones that have survived are the ones that successfully transitioned their information where there readers are -- online.

With all the social media options out there, where do you start? The three main social media outlets to manage are — Bloggers, Facebook and Twitter.

Bloggers now have just about as much clout as the seasoned newspaper columnist. You cannot afford to dismiss blogging's ability to sway public opinion. As we know, customers feel better about a brand and will be more loyal if they believe the company cares about them.

NEGATIVE PR
There is a fly in Social Media's ointment: it is easier than ever to attract negative PR! It used to be that you had to have some credentials in the industry to launch a complaint that would stick.

But today there are a dozen major sites that readily accept any complaint against your company without verifying it. (RipOffReport, for example, along with a host of others) Sadly, these complaint sites make money by charging the business to "undo" the negative PR.

So while the little guy now has a voice (as he should) on the one hand, there is a scam going on and some honest businesses are getting hurt more than they should. Were this in the traditional days of PR and the mud slinging was being done in the newspaper, you could have protested under Libel, but as it is cast as "a customer's opinion" such hearsay is much harder to remove.

POSITIVE PR
This is all the more reason why now is the time for business to protect their well-earned reputation with positive PR. Stay tuned for our next blog post on utilizing Social Media for Positive PR and Optimum Search Engine Visibility.

Call the professionals at Promise Productions at 972-822-3587 for effective Internet Marketing, Web Site Visibility and Social Media Optimization.

Strategic Blogging & Social Media for Business Profits

Social Media is all the buzz today because nearly everyone online today uses it in some form or other. It is growing and developing rapidly and the excitement is warranted. Did you ever wonder if you could harness this giant wave to some degree to benefit your business? This blog post is about just that!

Social Media Grows Up
To start with, blogging and social media was not originally created as a means to advertising. (but it can be used for that purpose.... keep reading) Social Media originated as a place where the average Joe could share what he was passionate about and inasmuch as that included a product, service or company, he gave his personal "thumbs up" as it were.

The enormous mass of individuals now doing this daily, has given rise to serious attention by Web Site Developers, Search Engine Marketers, Search Engine Optimization and Social Media Optimizers.

In fact, more progressive Marketing Communication firms such as Covenant Designs, now include Social Media and Strategic Blogging in their skillsets.

In short, Social Media means that word-of-mouth has firmly moved online. Individuals now consult the "community wisdom" of other people who have already experienced a product, company or service before they commit to action. Studies prove again and again that the opinions and messages on the Internet are the decisive determining factor over friends, coworkers and traditional authority figures. The idea is that this is a pool of unbiased individuals, and that many people "can't be wrong."

Although unassuming in concept, Social Media does something tremendous and priceless -- it bridges the TRUST GAP, thereby paving the way for prospects to sample YOUR product or service.

(for more about successfully bridging the confidence gap in your marketing, click here)

Businesses have an increasingly vested interest in promoting themselves in a cost-effective manner in this lean economy. Businesses should all be very aware and very concerned about managing their image -- their PR on the web.

You see, your official company web site is a formal presentation of your company. Your company blog, on the other hand, is where you get down on your customer's level to interact, share, and listen to THEM. Customers like that and will reward you with business for being EXTRA responsive to their needs. And we all know that no business will survive long without serving their customers where THEY live.

This does not mean that any old blog will do. It all revolves around smart strategy to setup, produce content and distribute your blog around cyberspace. That is where Promise Productions Strategic Blogging Services come in.

Social Media Strategy Tip:
Social Media can cut both ways -- customers can complain or endorse you -- fairly or unfairly, and now their opinion has a forum and a life of its own that spreads its influence. Just think, a rant on RipOffReport will hang around for 10 years even if you ended up making that customer happy later on.

It has become danerously easy for an individual to sling mud at your company for any reason and you not to even know it is hurting your sales! Obviously it pays more than ever to provide great customer service.

What a smart business does is implement a social media strategy for all kinds of GOOD PR to be spread around the Internet, and have that overwhelm any NEGATIVE PR that threatens to soil your company's image.

We market your business to make our best prospects like doing business with you and give you their thumbs up! Want to know more? Contact Promise Productions at 972-822-3587.

Internet Marketing Consultants of Dallas

You just found your competitive advantage! Promise Productions is a professional Marketing Communications firm in Dallas specializing in Internet Marketing and Consulting.

Let us show you how to rapidly move towards achieving your success. Each of our internet marketing clients is unique, but typical results for our Internet Marketing Company Services are a 400% increase in traffic within one year.

In the past, our campaigns have given our clients a 600%-1400% Return On Investment (ROI) for their marketing budget. Of course each client and industry is unique and different, and your results may well surpass these. One client just posted its 2008 financials and they revealed that their $40,000 internet marketing spend in 2008 resulted in 1.6 Million in additional revenue (that is additional NET income).

There is no better investment today than smart internet marketing because your image and visibility is King and our internet marketing services are all geared to cause you to show up at the right place and right time in front of the right prospects.

We Group Our Services as Follows:
• Search Engine Optimization
• Pay-Per-Click Marketing
• Strategic Blogging

We invite you to consult with our team to find out if our services can benefit your unique situation. Promise Productions Internet Marketing Consultants are in high demand, thus we only offer our affordable services to companies that can benefit the most from our Internet Marketing Strategies.

Take the next step and contact us today at our Dallas office: 972-822-3587. Get A Quote

Internet Marketing Consultants, Dallas Search Engine Optimization Company, SEO SEM Firm

Promise Productions' Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing experts have successfully use SEO and SEM best-practices since 1995 to promote companies just like yours. Our SEO Copywriting team understands the nuances of SEO / SEM and utilize the latest techniques and strategies to get businesses positioned into the search engines to attract the attention of their best prospects.

This way they, and you, can spend time closing deals instead of trying to sell.

There is a lot more to successful Search Engine Marketing than throwing in a few relevant keywords into your content and meta data to affect your rankings in the search engine results pages. An effective Search Engine Optimization (SEO) or Search Engine Marketing (SEM) campaign takes several skill sets and each one provides the necessary ingredients for the combined success. While there are no magic bullets to overnight success, SEO is an extremely wise medium-term investment in today's economy where your profit -- or lack thereof -- is now directly tied to your search engine visibility.

Chances are your prospects are searching online for your products and services and you need to appear -- at the right place and right time -- to get their attention, win their trust, and rake in the profits.

In fact, the investment into a professional Internet marketing campaign can yield returns on the dollar up to 35 times higher than traditional advertising.

At Promise Productions, we partner with you. We look at your goals and work to attract your ideal customer. We can improve your site, create entirely new search engine friendly sites and employ pay-per-click to the right audience. Our goal is to forward your business goals.

In order to best present you to your prospects, we first get to know you. Then our SEO copywriters and technicians go to work developing optimized web content that is persuasive to both consumers and search engine spiders.

In 14 years of practicing SEO, we have ALWAYS find key phrases that the client did not know potential customers were using to find their product or service in the search engines. It is true, you are missing some of your best customers because you are trying to communicate with them like YOU communicate instead of how THEY communicate. Our extensive keyword research uncovers and repairs those communication gaps so that prospects welcome your message and are more inclined to WANT to do business with you.

Professional Keyword Research translates into Gold for You

Think of this -- literally every word, spelling variation, and phrase associated with each product and service you offer is a potential doorway that pre-qualified customers can enter your business.

The right keyword research results in tons of new marketing channels through which to reach new customers. See the power of ranking high on the Internet?

As a part of our Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing services, we develop and implement each of the following:


INTERNET MARKETING SERVICES

* Search Engine Optimization consulting strategy
* Search Engine Competitive Analysis
* Current Website Consultation
* Competitor Website Positioning Analysis


SEO STRATEGY IMPLEMENTATION

* Search Engine Optimization strategies
* Internet Marketing strategies
* Search engine strategy development
* Key phrase marketing


SEO COPYWRITING

* Search Engine Optimized copywriting
* Keyword and key phrase research analysis
* Keyword and key phrase development analysis
* Keyword and key phrase frequency analysis
* Keyword and key phrase proximity analysis
* Keyword and key phrase weight analysis
* Meta Tag Development (Title, Content, Description, Alt, etc.)


SEO CAMPAIGN MANAGEMENT

* Search engine rankings
* Website rank monitoring
* Search engine marketing
* Search engine promotion
* Internet marketing
* Pay per click campaigns
* Pay per click campaign management
* SEO campaign results reporting


BLOGGING FOR SEO

* Professional Written Blogs that link back to your web site
* Blog Promotion in directories, RSS feeds and more



CONTENT IS KING
Lesser SEO firms try to trick the system with gimmicks that never last. The fact is that your web site will be visited and responded to because it has truly useful content. Content is King.

Understanding that, our Search Engine Optimization copywriters know how to effectively develop keyword and key phrase-rich copy designed to improve your website rankings and get your website in front of pre-qualified customers – those actively looking for a specific product or service through a search engine. The sooner you have an SEO copywriter optimize your website content, the better chance you have of ranking above your competition.

CONCLUSION
Success in the search engines requires multiple strategies that must integrate for optimum results. SEO must serve your marketing campaign with intelligent integrated strategies that attract, not just traffic, but profits. Promise Productions has the comprehensive skill-sets you need to take your company to the next level.

Call Promise Productions to "Turn On The Results" -- 972-822-3587.