One way to really get familiar with what is going on in your keyword on the Internet . . .is to set up some Google Alerts.  You can monitor the chatter for your business.  This is really easy to do and a great internet marketing tip for search engine optimization. 

1.  Go to Google Alerts and sign into your account (or sign up if you don’t have a Google account yet)

2.  Set your keyword alerts.  Be careful on overloading the information you are about to receive.  Simple pick one to three of your focused keywords and then decide how often you want the updates and where

3.  Check your email or texts to read the alerts. 

These alerts help you see who is on Google’s radar for those keywords.  When you write in your blog or on your site, do your new posts show up for your keywords?  Who shows up and for what?  What are they doing?

These alerts serve a dual purpose.  You can monitor your success in showing up for your keywords but you can also keep up to date of what is going on in your industry specifically.

As always, if you need some help, don’t hesitate to contact us.

Alison Elliott is a Marketing Expert and founder of Corner Your Market Global Marketing.  To get these tips along with tips on SEO for Small Business, Social Media Marketing for Small Business, Unique, Interesting and Great Marketing Ideas for Small Business ,  Help Creating Online Marketing Plans for Small Businesses, and Businesses and Software to help Market your Small Business online , you can sign up to our small business marketing e-guide here.

Now that you have set up your blog there is a lot to do to customize it.  I am a fan of pushing every button and link inside your dashboard so that you become very familiar with your blogging software and what it can do for your blog.  From an Internet Marketing standpoint, there is so much to customize to make the most of your site:  your page names, your keywords, your tags, your categories, your external and internal links, cross linking, post titles, the words inside each post, a consistent posting structure, pertinent information for your readers, forms for signing up, sequencing when the sign up is complete, what you are going to give your readers to interest them, who is writing about you, your RSS feed, what you are reading, ping backs, comments, videos, photos, photo tags . . .the list goes on and on.

One thing to do immediately:  add the All In One SEO Pack Plugin to your blog.  This will help you with your search engine optimization.  To find the plugin inside your blogging dashboard (if you are using WordPress):

1.  Go to your Plugins section on the right side

2. Click on the “Add New” button near the top

3.  In the search section, type “All In One SEO” 

When you find the plugin, install it and then you will need to activate it and add all your keywords, change your page titles and customize the whole program.  It will make a huge difference in your search engine recognition.  If you need some help implementing this, don’t hesitate to contact us. 

Alison Elliott is a Marketing Expert and founder of Corner Your Market Global Marketing.  To get these tips along with tips on SEO for Small Business, Social Media Marketing for Small Business, Unique, Interesting and Great Marketing Ideas for Small Business ,  Help Creating Online Marketing Plans for Small Businesses, and Businesses and Software to help Market your Small Business online , you can sign up to our small business marketing e-guide here.

You have done your keyword research and purchased your domain name.  Now it is time to set up a blog so that you can write about your business and focus on bringing the world to the realization that you exist and you are a valuable source for your keyword(s).  By the way, start with only three keywords to focus on.

You have a choice:  set up a blog that is hosted elsewhere – think WordPress.com or Blogger – or you can set up a self-hosted blog where you have more control (this is what I recommend).  To do this, you start at WordPress.org and can host in a variety of places.  If you are new to this, I recommend GoDaddy for hosting on this one.  I don’t host there but it is a good place to start.

There are a lot of resources to help you with this process, including information right on their site.  You can purchase this ebook about setting up your own custom wordpress blogon GoDaddy.

If this is overwhelming to you or you don’t have the time to work on your SEO, contact us and we can help.

Alison Elliott is a Marketing Expert and founder of Corner Your Market Global Marketing.  To get these tips along with tips on SEO for Small Business, Social Media Marketing for Small Business, Unique, Interesting and Great Marketing Ideas for Small Business ,  Help Creating Online Marketing Plans for Small Businesses, and Businesses and Software to help Market your Small Business online , you can sign up to our small business marketing e-guide here.

After you have done your Google Keyword Research and decided on the keywords you are going to target, you need to purchase a domain name.  I like to purchase my domain names from GoDaddy.com. 

Ideally, your domain name should have your keyword in it and you need to register it for at least three years.  You may have to really get inventive with your domain name, trying dashes and adding word to find the perfect domain name for your site or blog. 

Registering your domain name for three years ensures that the search engines are taking your seriously because you are taking your business seriously – saying you are here to stay. 

So, go buy your domain names and stay tuned for the next steps to better search engine placement.

Alison Elliott is a Marketing Expert and founder of Corner Your Market Global Marketing.  To get these tips along with tips on SEO for Small Business, Social Media Marketing for Small Business, Unique, Interesting and Great Marketing Ideas for Small Business ,  Help Creating Online Marketing Plans for Small Businesses, and Businesses and Software to help Market your Small Business online , you can sign up to our small business marketing e-guide here.

Why Hire An Internet Marketing Company?

I am really excited to help you with your SEO.  Search Engine Optimzation is truly important to your business.  It is one of the main internet marketing consulting  jobs I work on for businesses.  I know it is easy to ignore it because it seems so mysterious . . . what is it?  why should I spend money on that again?  And if I don’t, what happens? (trust me, it is easy to ignore but might make the difference between an acceptable revenue stream and a life changing revenue stream).

The simple answer is this.  Someone is looking for your service or product online right now . . . really, right now.  This person is ready to buy or in the research process as a future buyer.  This is who you want on your site looking at your business.  So, when they put in “kids shoes las vegas” or “motorcycle helmets”  do you show up?  And, better yet, do you show up in the sought after natural SEO area.  The area in the middle left side of the search answers page? 

Well . . .everything good that will come from your Seach Engine Optimization work will start here:  RESEARCH.

1.  Use this Google Keyword Tool here

2.  Start typing in what you think people search on for SEO and type them in (one word at a time)

3.  Next step, look at the local monthly searches.  The larger the number the more possible competition between others

4.  Now open a new web browser and type in that exact keyword into Google.  Who is competing with you here?  Are the people paying to be here the same or similar to your business?  Is this where you want to show up?

5.  Repeat this process until you have narrowed it down to a nice three keyword target with reasonably low search volume (less than 12K a month) to start working on

More to come!

Alison Elliott is a Marketing Expert and founder of CYM Global Marketing.  To get these tips along with tips on SEO for Small Business, Social Media Marketing for Small Business, Unique, Interesting and Great Marketing Ideas for Small Business ,  and Help Creating Online Marketing Plans for Small Businesses, Businesses and Software to help Market your Small Business online ,

Welcome to my Internet Marketing Consulting Blog.  My name is Alison Elliott and I am a marketing expert for small businesses online.  I work to help small businesses succeed through internet marketing. 

This blog is set up to help you understand what internet marketing consulting can do for you, starting with a play by play of building my online presence through search engine optimization.