Content is king

During a recent project I received a reminder that when it comes to SEO content is, and always will be, king.

There a numerous steps that one must take to achieve a great search ranking, some I discuss regularly are knowing your key words, optimizing your page titles and extensions and of course back links. All of these measures, though immensely valuable together are worthless without quality content.

An example I've found is that Google will outright ignore your page titles if they believe there to be little relevance to the page content. This is big, you're telling a search engine your content is about a specific topic but it's analysis says it's not. We can argue this point but it's never going to get us anywhere, if we want to rank in a search engine then we need to play by the search engines rules.

If you want to see how a search engine (in this case Google) views your content it's a very simple and often enlightening process. As with any SEO measures start out with knowing your key words - what words or phrases you want your site to rank for. Once you've got a clear idea on this log into webmaster tools and select your website. On the left hand menu there is an option entitled 'Google Index', click on that and you'll be presented with a sub menu, click on 'Content Keywords'.

This section will show you the Keywords on your site, ranked by significance. Often people will find their target Keywords aren't the top options.

What steps do you take?

1. Write quality content that includes your keywords regularly
2. See above

Quality content is content that actually serves a purpose, whether it describes your key words, tells you where to find services that relate to your keywords etc. Don't just type your keywords several times at the bottom of your page.

Another thing you have to do it keep language basic. I personally hate constantly reusing words in text, I prefer to use synonyms and other language to ensure variety - don't do this with your key words. This might take something away from the read-ability of your page but what you lose there you'll make up for in rankings. There's no point in having wonderfully crafted content if your target audience can't find it. If you do use synonyms then ensure that they are synonyms the search engine recognizes as being associated with your keywords.

The key thing to me to remember: although this might seem restrictive and you think search engines are technologically advanced, always remember that your website is essentially communicating with a robot before it communicates with your customer. Make sure the robot understands so that it give the opportunity to communicate with your customer.

Keep up the great content.

Shane
Direct Exposure Marketing
www.directexposuremarketing.com

The Benefits of Business Directories - Maxfit Projects: Shopffitting & Office Fitouts Gold Coast, Brisbane & Sydney

I’ve recently been working on a website for Maxfit Projects. Maxfit are based in Southport on the Gold Coast and are a top quality shopfitting and office fit out provider.

I’ve thoroughly enjoyed working on this project as with something like shopfitting it’s essential to showcase your work. Maxfit have had the foresight to build a large portfolio of photos of their work which can be used create a great looking site and also show their talent.

They’ve completed some fantastic fitouts for bars, restaurants, offices and retail stores all over the Gold Coast, in Brisbane and also in Sydney.

Once the hard work of getting the site done attention turns to making sure the site can get found. What I’d like to talk about in this post is the benefit of posting your business to various business directories. Directories are often over looked, because let’s be honest, when people search your business they don’t often visit a range of directories to find you do they? No they don’t. But the value of directories lies in SEO and specifically back linking.

Back linking is a term I use quite regularly and for those of you that are unfamiliar with it, it’s a term that refers to how many other websites link, or point, to your website. This is very, very important because the more websites that link to your website, the more important your website looks to search engines meaning you obtain a higher rating.

Posting your business in online directories is free and easy. Here are some tips to get you started:

• Use the same login details for easy followup.
• Include as much detail as possible in your listing to provide maximize value.
• Change the titles and descriptions to create a unique listing.
• Use a dedicated business email to differentiate between confirmation & marketing emails from personal email.
• You will receive a few phone calls from directories upselling premium listings.
• Check for confirmation emails immediately and after 5 days.
• Most of the information you will provide will be similar so set up a word document with details like your name, email, phone number, website, ABN and description so that you can copy and paste the details instead of retyping them.

Not all business directories are created equal, a back link on a regularly visited website is worth far more that a link from 3 nothing sites. Alexa is a site that ranks the most visited websites all over the world and provides a ranking based on a sites popularity in a specific country. To determine this ranking they use a combination of average daily visitors and page views. 

To get you started here’s a list of the top 20 Australian business directories:

Visit www.directexposuremarketing.com to get in touch with us and discover how we can help your business.

Business Directory	Alexa Traffic Ranking
www.yellowpages.com.au	124
www.truelocal.com.au	175
www.yelp.com.au	320
www.hotfrog.com.au	802
www.startlocal.com.au	897
www.womo.com.au	1035
www.aussieweb.com.au	1549
dlook.com.au	1947
www.localstore.com.au	2724
www.localbusinessguide.com.au	3504
www.yalwa.com.au	4380
www.localbd.com.au	6262
www.superpages.com.au	8108
www.businesslistings.net.au	8325
www.comeonaussie.com	10062
www.local.com.au	11389
www.yellowbook.com.au	14466
www.raveaboutit.com.au	18720
www.shopseek.com.au	20479
www.companylist.com.au	24902

Why Blog?

Welcome to the first blog from Direct Exposure Marketing. I'm going to be regularly adding to this blog with news from my company and also plenty of tips and tricks for people looking to market their businesses.

When I told people that I was going to start to write a blog for Direct Exposure Marketing the most common response I received was, "why?"

I'm aiming to provide lots of knowledge via this blog but I'm certainly not writing it to build an online following or to blow my own horn. No, writing this blog is purely a business decision. So, to get things started I'm going to cover the reasons why starting a blog is a great decision for any business.

1. A blog is a very easy way to connect with your customers (and potential customers) to share important information with them. A blog is a direct line of communication between your business and the customers that keep your business in business. If you're not communicating with your customers another business similar to you might just start.

2. A blog is great for Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Notice I have already linked back to the Direct Exposure Marketing website? That's building back links which is going to improve the SEO results. Search engines also rate blog content quite highly so by writing a blog you can cover a range of topics, many of which have no place on your business website, but at the sometime customers will find your posts and be directed to your business.

3. Your blog creation ties perfectly into your other marketing strategies. Are you struggling to decide what to put out via Facebook and Twitter? A good blog post is a great place to start.

4. A  blog gives your business a voice and an identity to help it stand out from the crowd. Via a blog you can talk about your products or services, comment on the news or current market trends and also communicate with customers that have an interest in your products and/or services.

5. A blog allows you to showcase your talents by sharing your expertise. If I didn't blog about why a business should blog how would you know I had valid reasons to recommend it for your business.

6. Having a blog published is easy. Even if you're not great with web development blogging is for you - if you can send an email you can easily start a blog. Notice I've decided to publish this blog through blogger.com instead of my own website? I've done this for 2 reasons:
                 i)  Publishing via blogger means I just need to type the content, I don't need to worry about updating my website each time I release a new blog post.
                 ii) My website links to my blog and my blog links to my website. Great for SEO.

7. Blog writing encourages you to think about your business. What you do well, what you can improve on, where you have an edge over your competitors etc. It also allows you to share these thoughts with your customer base.

8. It's free. A blog is free to do and provides many great upsides for your business. How many other marketing methods can you say that about?

9. By showing you're an expert in your industry customers will view you as one, you will gain more business via your blog and referrals.

10. Through the analytic's of your blog you're able to see how many people are clicking on your articles, how many click through to your links, view shares and read comments. This will give you direct insight into how successful your blog is for your business.

So there's 10 quick points as to why you should start a blog for your business. A blog is an unrivalled form of communication that can help grow your brand and give it the exposure it deserves.

I look forward to having you back to read my next post soon. If you have any questions please contact me via the website. Since I've mentioned the website please take a look and see how we can help your business.

Until next time,

Shane
Direct Exposure Marketing