How to Beat Your Competition at Google

Times have certainly changed since the beginning of SEO, where the objective to winning the game was to just concentrate on a few keywords. Today, it’s also about researching your competitors – both direct and indirect – to see where they’re ranking and what they’re doing to get there.

Fortunately there are a plethora of tools out there now to help us dig deeper to find out not only what keywords rank well in general but what keywords your competitors are using, what backlinks may be helping them, as well as which of their web pages are getting the most attention. This allows you to leverage that information and make tweaks to your own site and content so you can beat the competition and rank higher in search.

If you find a competitor is ranking higher than you and you just can’t figure out why, maybe the problem is that they are doing a better job at answering the intention of the searcher than you are. So don’t go reinventing the wheel, see what they’re doing as a jumping off point, and then do it better.

(more…)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

The New Rules of SEO – @kcseopros

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Like many things in the business world, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has changed dramatically since the early days, and continues to do so. Thanks to things like Google constantly tweaking their algorithms, marketers and content creators need to be crafty and smart with their SEO strategies.

Gone are the days of just using your keyword phrases as many times as you could in your post or buying tons of backlinks to point back to your site. These days businesses need to take a more holistic approach to how they’re distributing the content. And that means carefully utilizing other social platforms, reputation management, quality backlinks, as well as strategic outreach opportunities.

(more…)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

The New Rules of Public Relations for Small Business – @nikkilambtudico

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

If you took a poll and asked people to explain what exactly Public Relations is, you’d most likely hear “press releases” repeated time and again. But obviously there’s a lot more to it than that. PR is the business of persuasion where it is their job to convince an audience – both inside and outside your usual circle of influence – to promote, support, purchase from, and recognize your business, product or brand.

Public relations is a very strategic process of communication where you are attempting to build mutually beneficial relationships between an organization and their audience. This means you must know what your end goal is at the start, and build upon that to enhance and grow your reputation through channels such as the press, social media, television and radio by way of tools like blogging, speaking gigs, outreach events and yes, press releases.

Nikki Lamb Tudico shares her experience and knowledge of the PR industry to help us with strategies that can fit any size business, because PR isn’t just for the big, national brands.

(more…)