Blog - SEO

If you've never heard me say it, blogging is *great* for your business on many levels, no matter what your business is. It gives you opportunities to do several things at once, and despite what overzealous social networkers say, Twittering won't replace blogging, as Twitter is only there to enhance what content is put on websites.

I'm not blowing our own horn here, but here is a great example of a blog post by accessories designer and Collective-E member, Stefany Di Manno of Di Manno Designs, who covered the Spark Network and Single Edition event at Saks, Live the Life You Love, that our Beth spoke at (and yes, she spoke about being a single woman starting a business).

Stefany's blog post works on several levels:

• Stefany is a designer, but she's also a business owner. Her voice is confident as she speaks about issues business owners face. She links to several other websites. For SEO purposes alone, this is great because it shows search engines that you are being as helpful as possible.
• Again with the links, the website on the other end of that link appreciates it, remembers it, and there is a very good chance they will link to you in the future.
• Relationship building. I suppose combine the above two bullets, but what blogging allows you to do is publicly support something, and strengthen a relationship with another business.
• Use of a pictures. Stefany took my class, Blog Speak, which was inspired by another Collective-E member actually who needed to find her voice while blogging and how to do some basic things. We covered how to add a picture to the blog, and why it was important to link it if you could. Stefany caught on right away, and now her blog is ever more fun to look at.
• New SEO (search engine optimization) benefits. Stefany may very likely reach a new crowd of people who were searching for information or writeups on the Spark Network and Single Edition event at Saks, Life the Life You Love.

Do check it out Stefany's post, as she makes some great points:
http://dimannodesigns.blogspot.com/2009/11/saks-fifth-avenue-event-live-life-you.html

See if we're having more classes like Blog Speak or the SEO Blitz session to start thinking multi-dimensionally about what you put online.

Collective-E member Sara Schwimmer, founder of the online gift store PopJudaica, took my first SEO (search engine optimization) class, and has excelled ever since. She 'gets it', and so can you if you haven't yet. Here's a recent example of creative uses of building SEO by taking advantages of every day angles and applying them to your website to increase business.

Before we start, here's the premise of SEO so that you can fully see how Sara's actions worked: 
People go to Google to search for something.

They type in a keyword phrase and sift through the search results that Google presents.

They find what they are looking for, and if it's something they want to buy, and if the website looks legit, they buy it.

Here's how Sara got in on that action:
In the movie "Funny People", Seth Rogen is wearing a Super Jew t-shirt (think Super Man with the blue t-shirt, and red S, but this S is in the Star of David). The t-shirt is even in some previews for the movie, so if you haven't seen the movie, you may have seen the t-shirt.

Sara saw it and said to herself: "Hey! I carry that SuperJew tshirt in my online store! How can I let people know?" Sara went to work right away:

1. Sara immediately emailed the Collective-E member-only Google Group to let members who care know that she carries the t-shirt, and to ask them to bookmark or blog about the SuperJew tshirt. Sara knows that links from other websites to her website are extremely important, so she reached out and asked other members for help.

2. She changed the title tag on her product to include keyword terms that people may be searching for to help narrow their search for the SuperJew t-shirt if they don't know that it's called that.

3. She edited the product description copy to also include those terms. The more terms in legit places in the product copy, the better.

Sara's SuperJew t-shirt is ranking on page 1 in Google for targeted searches around that product. Now Sara can create ads on Collective-E or Facebook around that t-shirt. With blog posts linking to her product, she will continue to move up the rankings. She can continue tweaking her title tag and product copy until she finds just the right combination that gets her the most sales from those product searches while they happen. The term won't be hot forever, most likely just when the movie is out, when it's released on DVD, and when it's newly available on Pay Per View. In other words, when there is marketing around the film.

I'll be offering another SEO class in September or October, so keep your eyes on our class section and on our newsletter for when that is posted. Also, Collective-E Core members get 25% off all classes, and sometimes, classes are available to Core members for free. SEO can be very fun when you 'get it' and is a constant evolution. What can you be tweaking on your site?

Books can be very powerful traffic generators, when they are published in full online. If you are looking for reasons to create content on your website, and if you have a book already published, then you may be sitting on a golden goose of traffic generators. 

I just completed a website traffic analysis for a company I've been working with for several years. On an ongoing basis, we employ different SEO strategies, track those strategies to see if they worked or didn't work, and continue to analyze traffic patterns to better fine tune the website, both to increase traffic and to expose different sections of the website to existing readers. Several years ago, we decided to publish online a short book that had about 7 pages and was picture based. Each page had a description of the picture. We dedicated a section of the website to this book, built it in an SEO friendly way, and it continues to bring in the most traffic for this website in droves.

The decision was made again to put another popular book online. This book had fewer pictures (although shared some pictures with the search engine popular first book), and was all content. It had several chapters, so the navigation was deep. Initially, it didn't make a big splash. It was not integrated well with the website, in that, there were not very many internal links pointing to it from the website's own content. SEO-wise, it needed links from outside websites to help specific pages and sub-sections rank.

After the yearly review, in which several strategies were employed to help the website in general, here is how this section ended up getting a major boost. And I mean major. Keep in mind, this increase was the compilation of  several factors, almost a perfect storm of SEO strategies.

• Word choice for the menu navigation: Originally, the menu was a repeat of the book title. However, past keyword research indicated that having the word "book", and specifically what kind of book, yielded searches for that term. The conclusion was drawn that if people were using that term in searches, they would most likely respond to it if they saw it on the website. Result: Changing the menu name caught the attention of people already on the website, thus increasing pageviews to that section.
• Capitalizing on other high ranking pages: One main section of the website ranked highly for a few specific yet popular searches, which was odd because the content wasn't fully developed. For a long time, a "Coming soon...sign up for our newsletter" type message was the main content of several main landing pages in this section until tweaks were made to make it look a little less sparse. The goal became to better capitalize on the traffic that repeatedly came into this section from search engines, yet had nowhere to go because the content wasn't ready. We created very SEO friendly landing pages for the main pages of this section. We made sure to include linked pictures and linked text to specific areas of the website, to help this new traffic dig down deeper into site to find related content. Result: It worked. Featured sections of several areas of the website saw increased pageviews, including several pages of this new book
• Building from success of an image in Google Image search: Thanks to the first book that got put online, and the pictures in that book, we knew that the pictures were very SEO friendly and were ranking well in Google Images. We used that same image to appear in the section for the new book. Result: That image continues to rank highly in Google Images, but this time, it is linking to a page in the new book section, breathing new life into this new section.

These changes took place over the course of a few months, and were tracked in a spreadsheet we keep to track all changes, so that we can refer back as time goes on and increases in traffic are generated. One can't keep all of this in their head, so it is most effective to record all changes made by date, and with notes of what you hope will happen, and why you made this change. If you changed copy, record what the old copy was, and what the new copy is, so that if you have change for good, you know why. If you had change for bad, you can revert back to the copy that you didn't think was working but apparently was.

Take a look at the content you already have in your files. There are most likely a lot of ways you can transition it online and build your audience. If you need help thinking, consider our SEO Blitz sessions that we have periodically. Views from an outside perspective almost always sheds new light and refreshes what you are doing. You could be sitting on a gold mine right now!

We sent out an email today about our Collective-E Agency model, one of our biggest steps as a company yet.  Becoming an agency was a real evolution, when we started Collective-E we knew that the three of us had very distinct, yet complimentary expertise and we felt strongly that if we combined forces we would have many of the elements that businesses needed to succeed. Originally our plan was to be community for entrepreneurs, but as the world significantly changed in the midst of our launch, we really wanted to offer more, a new and fresh model for brand building; something that would be truly useful to businesses in the current economic environment.

What has changed?  Women are still launching businesses at a rapid rate, in fact, even more rapidly as job opportunities have dried up.  Therefore, they are much more serious about making money and making it quickly, it is less the “lifestyle choice” or the “be your own boss” and more the “I am going to take control of my own destiny” mentality.  We also found that many entrepreneurs can’t afford the high rates of the larger agencies.  Not only that, it can be a very treacherous world out there, who to trust?  We hear story after story of entrepreneurs getting taken advantage of, especially in the areas of web development, PR, manufacturing and consulting, even business plans writing.

As a team, we knew that we could create a better solution and one that was affordable and empowering.  Our mission is to make sure that entrepreneurs truly have what they need to succeed, they work within their budget and that they can operate all aspects of their business, from website to PR to finances.   Now, with our current model we range from do it yourself with our membership to strategy and guidance to full blown management, we offer a solution to meet virtually every need or budget.

The community twist.  Community is a very important focus for Collective-E because we feel that connecting is important on many levels; from sharing resources to a marketplace for goods and services, partnerships, collaborations and maybe most important of all, friendships. 

Here is the email with all the details and some case studies, so you can see a full picture of how we work and think; more case studies to come shortly!

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The Collective-E Agency evolved because we understand more than anyone that it's easy to get overwhelmed in the sea of options for growing your business and generating revenue.

Collective-E is tying together everything you need to succeed with a new, fresh approach to brand building.  From creating new and improved revenue models, to building your website or running your PR campaign, our unique hybrid of an Entrepreneur Agency with a Community Twist is focused on bringing you the services, PR & marketing platforms, exposure and connections you need to nurture your ideas and build your brands.

OUR PHILOSOPHY
As a team, we are not only entrepreneurs who understand your experience, but collectively, we have worked with thousands of women entrepreneurs at all stages of their businesses.  Based upon that, we have determined four essential components for success:

Business strategy
Public relations
Online presence
Community

We operate under the belief that these four components must be actively engaged and in harmony, and that it is vitally important for entrepreneurs to have the ability to understand, control, and operate all aspects of their businesses.  Most importantly, our team approach ultimately makes your brand more visible, makes you money and leaves you empowered to successfully build your business.

OFFERINGS
Here is where Collective-E truly takes on a new dimension, our agency approach gives you options to meet virtually all of your brand building needs:

COLLECTIVE-E MEMBERSHIP
Joining our community as a member of the Collective-E Agency, we offer you a highly optimized marketing platform, access to exclusive PR leads and Random Acts of Pitching, a marketplace to feature your goods and services, events, free and discounted workshops, access to opportunities and most importantly, connections to other entrepreneurs you can depend on for support no matter what your stage of growth.
Learn more about all of these benefits in our newly designed and expanded Membership area

AGENCY EXPERIENCE
If you are seeking more personal brand building attention, our Agency Experience is designed to be an affordable way for you to have a team of experts focused on the growth of your brand.  Similar to having your own business adviser, public relations adviser, and web consultant on call and in touch with your vision, we put together a team of experts in the areas that will impact your business most and work together with you to propel your brand.
Learn more about our Agency Experience Program

AGENCY SERVICES A LA CARTE
The Collective-E Agency has an answer for almost all your brand building needs.  We offer assistance and experts in the categories of:

Business Strategy: Revenue Modeling, Brand Development, Copywriting/Brand Messaging, Business Plan Writing, Product Development & Manufacturing Consulting
Learn more

Online Presence: Website Building, Blog Development, SEO and Social Media, eCommerce  
Learn more

Public Relations: Press Strategy, Media Kit Development, Alternative Marketing, Campaign Management and Execution
Learn more

CASE STUDIES

	Mom Inventor Launches a Must Have Solution Business for Parents Read the case study
	One Innovative Idea, Multiple Revenue Streams Read the case study

With so much on your mind, we want to help you make the path to your goals totally clear and give you laser focus.  Please contact us to set up a call to discuss any of your idea nurturing or brand building needs and we'll figure out which membership or services best fit your goals.