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One of the most worthwhile skills you can learn to make money on-line in Internet marketing is Search Engine Optimization (SEO). You can bring your web sales page to the top of the search results, and bring thousands of visitors right to you, for free. Many web entrepreneurs have become rich from carefully executed SEO practices. There are very large companies that pay thousands of dollars every month just for SEO aid.

So, just what is SEO? SEO, also known as Search Engine Optimization, makes your website seem as valuable as possible to search engines such as Yahoo, Bing, and of course, Google. Google and other search engines use very complicated algorithms to help them retrieve the best, most relevant results for their viewers. The best search results will rank higher.

There are several ways in which a search engine determines how to order web results in a given web search. Search engines are always trying to bring the most valuable results to the consumer, and will look for trusted, informative sites.

The first factor that determines how high your site appears in the search results is the keyword. Make sure that the keyword that customers will most likely use to search for your web site is in the site’s URL, the title, meta tags, section titles, in links, and in all parts of your website.

The other factor is how many times other sites link to yours. If your site is being linked to by thousands of other sites, the search engine will find your site to be “popular” and the best site for the keyword, so it will be ranked higher. If your site has valuable information and is the most desired for the keywords used, more people will put a link to your site on their own website.

The quality of your links is a bit more important than the number of links. If a very notable site, such as the New York Times, were to link to your website, your site will also appear to be an authority on the subject and it will rank up higher in the search results. But if your site is linked by spam sites, your website will be considered less valuable for the search engine.

Search engine optimization is very complicated, as nobody really knows how to be ranked the highest in search engines except search engines themselves. There is so much for one to research on the subject, and some techniques are tried and true, while others will come back with limited success. Reaching the top results in a search engine does not happen overnight, and it can even take months, but if you are patient and work at it, you really can make it. Here’s to your first inspiration for using SEO to help you make money on-line!

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You know your friends have done it. You’ve thought about doing it, but you weren’t sure how it would benefit your company. But now’s the time to secure a web presence for your business.

Here are few a things a website will do for your business:

1. Broaden your potential customer base to the entire online world. You’re not limited to local people picking up a phone book or reading your print ads in the newspaper. Anyone with internet access becomes a potential customer.

2. Answer questions and explain the benefits of your business 24/7. Your potential customers don’t have to wait until office hours to call you. They don’t have to wait for a return call if you’re on another line. By searching your website they can find out exactly what you’re offering to do for them, read your companies mission statement, see your answers to the FAQ section, and find out where to email or call your for more information.

3. Make you an expert. People go online to find out information from someone who knows what they’re talking about. You can be that expert if you provide current, helpful information. It increases your credibility.

4. Create an interactive environment for your customers. Your site can have a place for comments or questions or even a survey asking what you’re customers would like to see added to your page or to your product line.

5. Keep your information current. A website isn’t like spending thousands of dollars to print full-color brochures that are obsolete before you finish distributing them. Websites can be set-up with reasonable fees and expanded when needed. You an update content whenever you choose to.

6. Sell your services night and day. Your page can be set up to directly process orders online. You get up in the morning to find out you made sales while you were sleeping.

7. Explain your service in as much detail as your potential customer wants, or as little. Some people want to skim web pages and read headlines or lists. Other people want all the details. A good webpage is set up to make both happy.

8. Show you understand technology. A webpage brings your company up to speed with other companies. It shows you’re not afraid to use technology to improve your level of customer service.

9. Increases awareness of your business to people who normally wouldn’t seek you out. People might not scan the phone book, but they do scan the web. And if your webpage is set up properly and optimized with the right content, you can pull in customers who weren’t even aware they needed your service. Until your webpage explains to them why they do!

10. Test new products and advertisements quickly. Instead of sending out an expensive direct mail package to a few thousand people, and then waiting to find out the results, you can text new products and marketing ideas on the web cheaply and quickly. If it doesn’t work, you can easily tweak the ads and try again.

A good web design company can give you a detailed quote explaining exactly how much a website will cost your company.

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Google has many different search operators. This helps when you need a bit more power while searching. Most the time your basic search does just fine because the simple search is often enough.

So, here they are ( You can check out Google’s Page here):

Phrase search (“”)

When you put a double quotes around your search words, you are telling Google to only return the exact match that is within those quotes. So if you search for “Spinner Web Studios”, Google will return pages with that exact match. Most the time quotes are unnecessary but mess around with it and see what Google gives you!

 Single word exactly as is (“”)

When you put double quotes around a single word, this tells Google that you want to match that particular word exactly as you typed it.

Fill in the blanks (*)

The asterisk (*) is also known as a wildcard. This little symbol can be a powerful tool when searching. Let’s say you type in [ Google * ], Google will give you the results about Google’s products. Another example, if you query (example from Google’s page) [ Obama voted * on the * bill ], Google will give you all the stories about the different votes on all the different bills.  The * only works on whole words and not parts of words.

The OR operator

Google normally takes in your search query with all the words you type in. If you want to allow one OR another word, this is where you can use the OR operator. Don’t forget to type OR in all capital letters. For example, you could use [ Seattle Seahawks 2001 OR 2002] and Google will give you results about either one of the years you entered into your query. If you left out the OR, then Google would show pages that have both of those years displayed on the same page. You can also use the pipe symbol – | in place of the OR. For example, [Seattle Seahawks 2001 | 2002 ]

There are other Search Features that come in handy for quick queries!

Everyday Essentials

To check out the weather for many US and worldwide cities, type “weather” followed by the city and state , US zip code or city and country.

Example: weather San Francisco, CA

Stock Quotes

To see what the current market data for a given company or fund, you can type the ticker symbol in and search. Once the results pages opens, you can click the link to see more data from Google Finance.

Example: CSCO

Time

To check out the time in different cities around the world, type in “time” and the name of the city

Example: time Australia

Stop by Google’s page on search features to find more cool tricks!

IMPROVE YOUR SEARCH EXPERIENCE – Google’s page on Search Features

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What is a good way to help your local customers find you?

• Get those <title pages> to do some work for you.
  The <title page> is the area that shows up in your “tab” description next to the “favicon.” The favicon is the little tiny logo that is next to the <title page> within your browser page (on the tab portion of your browser). SWS’s favicon is the SWS spinner logo with the text beside it that says “…Blog | Spinner Web Studios…”. The area where this text is placed is a hot spot that enables search engines to get more information about your website. These are key and need to be different for every page!
• Each of these <title pages> belong to each individual page. This means that you need a unique <title page> description for every page! Keywords are great to use here, in a description-type paragraph. Adding your city and state to this description also helps customers narrow you down in a search.
• <your address here><add your phone number here>. Yep, add your address and phone number to every page. You want to make it as easy as possible for people to find your contact information!
• Get your profile up on Google Local Business, Yahoo Local Business, and any other local e-submission.
• Add a Blog to your site! Adding fresh content to your site helps your visibility on the Internet. Once you have your blog up, running and ready….submit it. Go to http://blogsearch.google.com/ping. Each post you make now will be added to Google. This of course, maximizes your chances of being found via your unique subject area, or keywords.
• Make a video – it doesn’t have to be a major production. But, it will be an impression. Make it professional or make it informal. It doesn’t matter, as long as you’re encouraging your consumers to familiarize themselves with you, your company, and your products. You can also name it with keywords and link it to your website!
• GOT LINKS? Well you’d better! This is a very important. Links tell the search engines how important websites are. The more quality links you have to your site, the better. You can start with friends and customers who have websites and see if they would be willing to swap links. This includes local business directory websites, social media websites, etc.

These are just some starters. There are a lot of ways to help increase your chances of getting spotted on the web! The best part about it? SWS does it all for you. Time is money and when you are already doing the large job of RUNNING YOUR BUSINESS, you need someone else to cover your Web Development, SEO & Marketing. It will help boost your rankings and get more customers to your site and in your store (if you have one).

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and RUNNING!

SWS is excited to help

SPIN your next website!!

You can fill out a form on the CONTACT PAGE, shoot me an email or give me a call with any questions you may have to start on the road to revamping your website, or merely getting a website up and running. Let’s get started, stop putting it off and let’s spin it in gear….