Long-tail keywords are great at driving targeted traffic to your website. But you can’t forget to optimize for your brand name.

Repeat customers, word-of-mouth leads and your competition are searching your brand name on Google, Bing and Yahoo. If you do 1 thing right, from an SEO perspective, you must optimize for your brand name.

The image above is an example of what NOT to do. (Notice the search term is the brand name.)

• The 1st listing (the paid ad with yellow background) is the official site.
• The 2nd listing (first in organic results) is the actual website – but it shows a “Page Not Found” error. How confident are you clicking anything that says “Page Not Found?”
• The 3rd listing is the website home page.
• Did you see that ALL the listings start with the exact same text: “The most trusted name in…” – Even the paid ad!
• How about listing why they’re trusted, or a benefit to the potential customer… or the actual service they provide.

The point of this post is to do the most basic SEO task (like your customers), and search your own brand name in the major search engines. You’ll be amazed by what you find – you might discover a few easy ways to improve the search results and increase traffic at the same time.

SEO Tip: Search Your Brand Name! is a post from: Web Designer in Minneapolis, MN

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Web CEO, Web Position, SEO Book Rank Checker and a number of other SEO tools have the ability to find your website’s rank in Google’s search results for any keyword… Sorry, they had the ability – until last week.

*SEO software can still find link partners, keywords, etc. Just don’t bother with the rank checker.

What Did Google Change?

On December 4, 2009 Google released Personalized Search Results for everyone.

Simply put, if two people search the same keyword on Google, they might see a different list of websites. Or the same list of websites, but in a different order / rank.

If 2 people search “lawyer”, Google may show unique search results pages to each person. Lawyer.com might be #1 for John Smith, but #6 for Jane Doe.

Welcome to the new Google!

Why Are the Search Results Different for Each Person?

Google has been collecting information about your online habits since 2003!

Have you ever heard of the Google Toolbar? How about Google Chrome? If you use either of them, you’ve given permission to Google to track your activity online. They’re using this data to create a “web history” that’s unique to you.

Obviously, every person will have a different “web history” according to Google. Now Google is using that data to show search results (they think) you want to see.

Rank Checking Software (for Google) is Dead

It’s impossible to accurately determine ranking for any keyword because Google is rearranging search results for every user.

The uncertainty of search results and rank is what’s going to make Rank Checking – not only the software, but the activity itself – useless.

Main photo by Hobo

Google killed your SEO rank checking software is a post from: Web Designer in Minneapolis, MN

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Last month Google introduced a “solution” to export all of your keywords from Google Analytics. It’s not a solution, it’s a hack. The good news is the hack works and you can (finally) export all of your keywords to CSV for sorting and filtering in Excel.

How to get your keywords out of Google Analytics:

1. Login into Google Analytics
2. Click “view report” for your domain
3. Click “Traffic Sources”
4. Click “Keywords”
5. Copy this: &limit=5000
6. Go to the address bar in your browser and paste &limit=5000 at the end of the URL
7. Press “Enter” (“return” on the Mac) to reload the page
8. Click “Export” in Analytics
9. Click “CSV”
10. Done!

Long and stupid? Yep. Like I said, this is a hack not a solution. This feature should be built into Analytics because it’s a task most SEOs need to do.

What if you have more than 5000 keywords?

No problem – just change 5000 to the number of keywords your site has (but don’t include commas). However, there is a maximum of 50000 keywords. If you’re site has more than 50000 keywords, (congratulations!) you can still use the &limit=50000 hack. But, you’ll have to make a couple of other tweaks. Check out this blog for more info.

Don’t Use Firefox on PC

I love Firefox. It beats the crap out of Internet Explorer in every possible way. However, there seems to be a problem with using the Firefox on a PC and the &limit=5000 hack. I could not get it to work on my PC. If you have this problem, I’m very sorry, but you’ll have to switch to Internet Explorer to get  your keywords… Terrible. I know.

How to Export All Your Keywords from Google Analytics is a post from: Web Designer in Minneapolis, MN

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1. Do you want more local customers and / or clients?
2. Is your business located in a city? (not a trick question)

If you answered “YES” to either question, you need to get started with Google Local Business Center immediately.

What’s the Big Deal With Google Local Business Center?

When you search a “city name + keyword” on Google (like “Minneapolis Financial Planner”), you’ll see Local Business Results with map and hand full of businesses at the top of the page.

Next to the map is a list of 10 businesses who added themselves to Google Local Business Center.

Look at this screenshot:

Why is This Important?

It’s important because Google Local search results give you a change to beat older, larger businesses at SEO – just like I did!

Go to Google and search: Minneapolis SEO … You’ll see this website listed #2 next to the map – and all of the other SEO firms, companies, agencies and consultants listed below me.

ALL of the sites below me have been doing SEO for longer, have more employees and more money to spend on SEO efforts & getting more traffic for themselves.

Me? It’s just me! I’m trying to balance client work & making my own site better all by myself!

Not impressed? Think about this: I’m beating most of the local SEO companies who are supposed to know how to do this!

The point is: Your new website can rank higher, get more traffic, more customers and conquer bigger companies with local search – even in a very, very competitive industry (like the SEO industry!)

How Do I Get to #1 in Local Search Results?

To grab local customers, you need to add your business to the Google Local Business Center – it’s easy and free.

1. Go to:  http://www.google.com/local/add
2. Also, you’ll need to use local “keywords” in the text on your site. Maybe “Minneapolis Financial Planner” or “get out of debt minnesota.”
3. If you can’t think of anything, try Google’s keyword search tool – it’s free too: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
4. There are many, many tips for local search. If you’d like to get a jump on the competition, check out Local SEO Guru David Mihm. Spend a couple of hours reading every word on his blog.
5. When you’re finished, you’ll have a complete education in local SEO. And you’ll be ready to crush your competition!

Ready to get started in local search / SEO? Send me an email today!

How Your Website Can Grab More Local Customers Online is a post from: Web Designer in Minneapolis, MN

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Which will bring you a new customer first:

1. A new logo
2. Promoting your business online

Congratulations! You’re right; Advertising your startup business online is the fastest way you’ll get new clients and customers.

Logos Don’t Attract Customers

Designers love to tell you how your logo should be the starting point for your business card, brochure, website, etc. They believe a new logo is the springboard to launch your new company and you should be willing to pay the price. They’ll say the logo must be easy to identify amongst the 1000s of logos we see every single day (and don’t even notice!)

The logo designers believe they’re looking out for you.

But the truth is: Logos don’t attract customers. In fact, customers will never see your logo, until you start promoting your business. That means getting the word out about your new venture.

Better ROI: Marketing or Logo Design?

Money is tight and you need customers & sales NOW. What do you do?

If given the choice of a marketing campaign or a logo, you’ll choose marketing. Why?  Because your business has operating expenses on day 1. You should be investing in products or services that provide a measured, positive ROI.

Ask a logo design company to provide the ROI on a new logo?  They can’t because it’s impossible to measure.

However, it’s much easier to justify a new website or increasing traffic to your website because they lead to actual sales. If you really need new customers today, start a paid search campaign because you can measure the ROI on every dollar spent.

Logos Are Important, But Not On Day 1

Yes, logos are important. In fact, a great logo design can reassure customers that your business is legitimate and trustworthy. And in the future, your product or service will add meaning to the logo (not the other way around.)

But, if your startup business is on a shoestring budget and needs to carefully invest every penny, then skip the logo and get more customers.

Main image by captcreate

Does your start-up business need a logo? Read this now. is a post from: Web Designer in Minneapolis, MN

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Tip 1: Submit your website to Google. Google doesn’t guarantee your site will be added. Do it anyway because it’s an “SEO Best Practice,” it will take you less than 30 seconds and it’s free.

Tip: 2: Add Google Analytics to your website. Google Analytics is a free tool that tracks how many visitors come to your website, which pages they see and lots more. You should add Google Analytics to your website because you want to show Google your website is legitimate and fully functional. *You may need help from your web designer or developer to install the code for Google Analytics.

Tip: 3: Register your website with Google’s Webmaster Tools. This is another way to tell Google “Hey, look at my website – It’s new and awesome!” You’ve got to make sure Google knows your site exists. *You may need help from your web designer or developer to verify your website with Google Webmaster Tools.

Tip: 4: Save your site to Delicious.com. Delicious.com is a Social Bookmarking website. That’s a fancy way to say: Save all of your bookmarks in one place online, so you can view them from any computer. Google looks through Delicious.com for links & new websites. Add your site to your Delicious.com account and you’ve got a better chance at getting into Google quickly. If you don’t have a Delicious.com account, it’s free and easy to setup.

Tip: 5: Get other websites to link to your site. Do you have a personal website, blog, Facebook or LinkedIn account. (Video: How to get traffic from your LinkedIn profile) If so, then write a post a short description about your new small business website and add a link! Google counts every link to your small biz website as a “vote” of confidence. And the more votes you have, the faster Google will find you.

Tip 6: Add your business information to Google Maps. Google lets business owners claim & edit their listings in Google Maps. Plus, you can add another link to your website. That way you’ll have a link to your website in Google’s system – another “vote” for your website.

Find out if your website has been found by Google. Go to Google.com and search for your domain name. For example, I’d search for www.mplswebguy.com. Do the same thing, but enter the URL for your small business website. If your site is listed in the search results, congratulations! If your site is not listed, do another search in a couple days.

Main photo by marinacvinhal

6 Easy Tips To Get Your New Website Into Google – Fast! is a post from: Web Designer in Minneapolis, MN

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FYI: If you haven’t heard already, Microsoft’s Live.com search engine has a new name: Bing.com.

Last week I searched for a hotel in Bing.com and found 2 types of spam content:

1. Some guy has hijacked the listing for the hotel and inserted a link to his website instead of the hotel website. This guy is selling a book (not related to hotels) and using borrowed/stolen business listings in Bing.com to drive traffic to his website! Not a nice guy, right?
2. The “Book Now” link (to reserve a hotel room) didn’t go to the actual hotel website either. Instead, the link took people to Orbitz.com. This actually hurts the hotel because they pay Orbitz a commission for every reservation. If the hotel uses its own link (to Marriott.com) for reservations, they pay nothing.

In the video above, you’ll see the map spammers and find out how you can claim your business listing in Bing.com. And you should claim your listings in Yahoo and Google maps too.

How to rescue your Bing.com business listing from spammers and keep them out! is a post from: Web Designer in Minneapolis, MN

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1. SEO Tip: Search Your Brand Name!

Page rank is flowing from your LinkedIn profile page to your website. But there’s a problem. You need to change the anchor text on the links because it can help your site get more traffic from Google.

Watch the video to find out how easy it is to make the switch.

Use Your LinkedIn Profile To Get More Website Traffic is a post from: Web Designer in Minneapolis, MN

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Small businesses can easily pull more, targeted traffic to a website using a blog and a little SEO. And targeted traffic equals more customers and sales (and vacations for you.)

1. Your competition isn’t blogging. Most small businesses don’t blog, which means there’s a great chance that you’ll be one of the few bloggers in your industry or market. Take the opportunity to set yourself apart from your competition! Think “competitive advantage!”
2. Look like a genius. Talking about your business will show off your expertise and experience. Customers want to do business with industry leaders and a blog is your chance to become a leader.
3. Customers will find You. Search engines love websites with lots of pages. In fact, websites with blogs typically rank higher because each blog post literally creates a new “page” on your website. In time, each blog post can grab tiny bits of traffic from Google – targeted traffic. And targeted traffic on your website means more customers & sales. Congratulations!

Main photo credit: Annie Mole

3 Reasons Your Small Businesses Should Start Blogging Today is a post from: Web Designer in Minneapolis, MN

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Website traffic can start with links. When a website links to your website – that can drive traffic to your website. Let’s say that Mike loves your small business. Mike loves you so much, he put a link to your website on his.

Take a look at the example below to see how this works:

This is perfect for you because anyone who visits Mike’s website could click the link to your website… And that’s free website traffic for you!

Bad News:

Website traffic from links can disappear! In fact, you might have killed the traffic and didn’t know it — (Like Homer Simpson says… “Doh!”)

How did I destroy my website traffic?

Have you ever redesigned your website or changed the name of a web page in your site?

For example: Did you (or your website designer) change the file name “services.html” to something like “services.php” or “new-services.php?” That’s the type of change that can kill all of your free website traffic from links.

The problem started when Mike added the link to your website. Mike really loved your services page, so he linked directly to your services page and not your home page. Mike is using this link to send traffic to your website: http://www.YourWebsite.com/services.html

If your website designer changed the services page to http://www.YourWebsite.com/services.php – You’re loosing website traffic fast because the old page doesn’t exist – So nobody will ever see your services page!

Good News:

It’s easy to get your lost website traffic back!

You just need the right tool to fix the problem. The Swiss Army Knife of link traffic is called a “301 Redirect.”

The magical 301 Redirect will grab any website traffic to your old services page (www.YourWebsite.com/services.html) and automatically push those visitors to you NEW services page, which is now named www.YourWebsite.com/new-services.html

Find Out If Your Website Traffic Is Dead

Google has a free tool to find out if you’re loosing website traffic because of old pages that don’t exist. Go to Google Webmaster Tools and set up a new account for your website.

You’ll need to edit the HTML on the home page of your website to get started. Have your website designer add the simple code to your home page or talk to me and I’ll get it done for you.

Google will now show you all of the websites that link to your website – and which links are broken. You need to setup the 301 Redirect for all of the broken links.

When that’s done – BOOM!

Website traffic shoots up and your small business website is grabbing new customers.

Let’s get technical, technical. I wanna get technical…

The 301 Redirect works on Linux and Windows servers. Setting up the 301 Redirect is easy for any website hosting company or website designer with years of experience with website hosting – like me! Talk to me if you’re worried about lost website traffic.

Main Image Courtesy of: mark.woodbury

Boost Website Traffic in Seconds is a post from: Web Designer in Minneapolis, MN

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