So, your website has been optimized and you’re not seeing a return on your investment.  You’re frustrated and are upset with your internet marketing company. I get it and have seen it from both sides.

Sometimes a small business will hire someone without an seo and internet marketing background, who just isn’t able to get the job done. Other times, you hire a company with proven experience, yet things just aren’t happening.  Why?

Ask yourself.

• Is your seo company bookmarking your blogs and posting on Facebook and Twitter.  [Tip Facebook and Twitter posts shouldn't just spit out content about your business. Create a relationship with your followers.]
• Are they link building, and I don’t mean hiring link farms. My suggestions is always slow and steady wins the race. [Example,  if you sell cars and you have worked with a company in the past, a simple call asking for a link is the way to go. Then keep going from there.]
• What is your online advertising budget. The amount of work an seo company needs to perform is often misunderstood by the company hiring them.  Writing one blog from scratch can take a couple hours, especially if they are left to do all the research and writing on their own. Any good seo company will work within your budget, but if your budget is small, you will need to provide them with content to keep things rolling efficiently.
• Am I in a highly competitive field?  You need to make sure things are set up right in order to compete. If you believe your site is properly optimized and your social media presence is solid, then ask yourself, is my competition doing any form of traditional advertising?  Are they on tv, radio, or billboard advertising. If they are, that may be something to consider.
• Have you tried Google AdWords. While your site is being indexed, you may want to consider beginning an AdWords campaign. You need to be careful and you need to know your industry. I’d stay away from the display network as that would eat up your budget. Again, take it slow and do your research.

These are just a few tips to check out if you’re not seeing a quality return on your investment. You can always sit down with your seo company and share your concerns. You could also hire a new company to give you an overview of your website.  A little advice into what’s the best direction could save you a lot of money down the road.

Best of luck to you in your future endeavors.

Everything you do online to optimize your website, social media sites, blogs, press releases and more, revolve around keywords.  It’s all about the keywords people.

If you develop a sound keyword strategy, through keyword research and competitive analysis and then take those keywords to develop a sound internet marketing strategy, you can’t go wrong.

Google and Bing are using Twitter and Facebook to influence the natural search results, which means, now more than ever, everyone needs to think about the keywords they use when they post.

So, what is the easiest way to develop a keyword strategy?  Here is just a quick checklist that may help you.

1. Develop a list of keywords. This is accomplished in a number of ways, such as having a brainstorming session, doing competitive analysis, using Google’s keyword tool and more.
2. Each page on your website should be optimized with unique keyword rich content and tagged appropriately.  These keywords should be directly related to the research you did in step #1. Please note, do not stuff your pages full of keywords just for keyword sake.  This is frowned upon by Google and could get you banned.
3. Take your list of keywords and create an excel spreadsheet.  Simply put the keyword in one column and then the landing page in another.  This will help to keep things streamlined and organized.
4. When posting on facebook and twitter, or when blogging, use those keywords and link where applicable to the appropriate landing page.

Keyword research can be time consuming, however, if you take the time and do things the right way, the reward will be a strong web presence.  Just remember, Rome wasn’t built in a day.

Have a great day everyone and enjoy the sunshine.

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One thing small business owners have shared with me is the fact that they understand what I am talking about. That’s really important and exciting to me.  It should be important to you as well.

As a Buffalo internet marketer, I believe in explaining my seo and internet marketing strategy in a way that isn’t just a bunch of seo jargon they don’t understand.

Keep it simple stupid.  No disrepect here, but if you use the KISS moto, you may not always impress the CEO of a company, but Mr. Johnson, who just opened that hardware store, will certainly appreciate it.

Know your audience.  If you are trying to reach small business owners on their level, just be real.

• You don’t have to talk about the analytics, refer to it as the traffic reports.
• Don’t just throw at them that their ROI will increase.  Explain that by investing money in their online marketing, they will get more business.
• Don’t just say you want to optimize their site.  Explain it to them.  Search engine optimization is the process of getting your website ranking high on the search engines, such as Google, Yahoo and Bing.

Make sense?

On the other hand, I have spoken with small business owners who really know their way around seo and internet marketing, which is cool.  In that case, you can put your seo hat on and talk the talk.

Just remember, the whole point of being an internet marketer is to try to help people understand why seo and internet marketing is so important.  Don’t lose them trying to impress yourself.