“If You Build It They Will Come”

Wednesday, September 1st, 2010 | Search Engine Optimization | No Comments

Really? That might apply to baseball fields, but it certainly does not apply to websites. So many people naively think that all you need to do is just build a website and then sit back and wait for traffic to organically grow. Your website won’t show up on page one of Google without some know-how and effort. That’s where we come in.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has become one of the most widely used online marketing strategies around today. An SEO’s goal is to increase a company’s ranking throughout search engines and increase the number of visits to their client’s site. Our belief is that with higher rankings and more people visiting their site on a daily basis, their business will see a higher return on profits.

NetSearch Direct is a full service search engine marketing agency. We are SEO experts, PPC and local directory specialists, and we know about all of the newest social media marketing trends. We design websites, we blog, and we will help you figure out what you need. You want traffic? We can make it happen. So, if you build it… and use the right combination of SEO techniques to draw traffic to your site…they WILL come.

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SEO Mistakes to Avoid

Wednesday, August 25th, 2010 | Search Engine Optimization | No Comments

Optimizing your website is an on-going, systematic process that utilizes different techniques and formulas simultaneously to elevate your company’s rankings within a search engine. Complicated? Yes. Impossible? No.

There are several key components of search engine optimization that directly impact the search results of your website. Beware, there are some pitfalls along the road to optimization. Try to avoid making the following SEO mistakes:

1. Don’t target the wrong keywords. This is a common mistake many people make. People choose keywords that they think are descriptive of their website, but most people don’t search them. Selecting the right keywords will make or break your SEO campaign.

2.  Don’t ignore the title tag. Leaving the <title> tag empty is a common mistake. This is one of the most relevant places to use a keyword, because the text in your <title> tag shows in the search results as your page title.

3.  Don’t use flash exclusively on your website. There is a good reason search engines don’t like flash sites – a spider can’t see flash content and therefore can’t index it. Use flash in limited areas on your site, or provide an html version.

Search algorithms change regularly, so continual review and maintenance of your site is necessary to ensure consistent ranking. Consult with an SEO expert to see how you can incorporate search engine optimization techniques in your website to improve your company’s visibility rankings on the web.

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Jump On The Blogging Bandwagon

Monday, August 23rd, 2010 | Search Engine Optimization | No Comments

Does your company have a blog? A blog is a great marketing tool. Business blogs provide the perfect platform for companies to promote their products and services. In a blog you can talk about both the product as well as the benefits. And because blogs are so timely, they present an excellent opportunity to promote the most recent offers about existing or new products.

Blogging creates online excitement and promulgates your company’s message while reinforcing its brand image. Additionally, business blogs provide another way that companies can link back to pages on their own website for further promotion. Linking to your company’s pages and other news on the web strengthens your marketing message and improves your company’s rankings and search engine visibility.

At NetSearch Direct, we offer customized blog deployment as part of our search engine optimization (SEO) services. Don’t have time to blog? We will do it for you. Talk to us today about incorporating a blog into your current website structure.

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The New Buzzword – SEO

Monday, August 16th, 2010 | Search Engine Optimization | No Comments

Everyone is talking about SEO. You hear about it on conference calls, read articles about the importance of SEO, and it is the buzz at all the cocktail parties. What is SEO, and more importantly, where do you get it?

SEO stands for search engine optimization. The Great Google (Let’s think of Google as the mighty Oz.) keeps up with all content floating in internet space. He determines who gets ranked on Google searches. When you go to Google and search for something, have you wondered who is worthy enough to make page one of Google rankings? I was talking to someone about SEO at a cocktail party, and she thought that Google was like advertising – the people that paid the most showed up at the top….well not exactly. SEO is not advertising. Now, you can be included in paid search results for certain keywords, but that’s not SEO. The concept behind SEO is to utilize techniques that raise your Google rankings because your site is relevant to a particular search term.

SEO can be defined as the art of optimizing websites or just individual web pages in order to make them more search engine-friendly. And yes, you do need SEO. Talk to a SEO specialist to see how you can get in the game.

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2010 Retail Marketing Expo – Ride The Winning Wave

Tuesday, August 10th, 2010 | Internet Marketing, Local Search, NetSearch Direct News, PPC Advertising, Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Social Networking Sites | No Comments

On August 3rd, our team of SEO experts set up shop at the 2010 Retail Marketing Expo for the day to introduce our company and our unique concept to local businesses. The theme of the 2010 Retail Marketing Expo was “Ride the Winning Wave.” The day focused on finding opportunities to ride out the recession into the new waves of the future. A must-attend event for retail and business professionals for over six years, NetSearch Direct was proud to be part of the event.

At the Retail Marketing Expo, we talked to people about what NetSearch Direct does. Specializing in search engine optimization, we offer the following services to your business:

Pay-Per-Click
Local Paid Search
Local Business Directory
Call Tracking
Website Design/ Landing Page Design
Social Media / New Media
Custom Blog Setup
Blog Writing

To all the people we met over the course of the day, thank you for allowing us to introduce our team and our proven SEO program to you. Let’s talk again soon.

Ride the Winning Wave with NetSearch Direct

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Upcoming Seminar – The Rise of Digital Media

Tuesday, July 6th, 2010 | NetSearch Direct News, Search Engine Optimization | No Comments

As part of our ongoing commitment to educate and inform you about search engine optimization for your organization, NetSearch Direct is offering a free seminar this month entitled The Rise of Digital Media. This session will benefit business owners, marketing professionals and anyone interested in learning more about how the media & advertising are being shaped today.

Seminar Details:
July 22nd, 2010
3:30PM to 5:00PM

NetSearch Direct
6423 Rigsby Rd.
Richmond, VA 23226
(Seminar is located in the Training Room)

Highlights of the upcoming seminar:

Learn how digital media has turned traditional media upside down.
Determine what part of your advertising campaign is succesful and what part is not.
Discover how your business can profit from the new rules of advertising.
Realize your untapped opportunities for consumer awareness within your market area.

Join us for this casual, informative session and networking event. Space is limited, so call or email today to reserve your spot:
(804) 228-4400 / kates@netsearchdirect.com

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Social Media Shout Outs: eSmart Tax

Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010 | Search Engine Optimization | No Comments

Taken from the NetSearch Direct February Newsletter:

Normally we spotlight an emerging search trend or offer a free tool to gauge your business’ internet presence, but this month’s Company Spotlight is a public service announcement: America, if you aren’t aware…it’s tax season.

While we don’t know the biggest and baddest deductions to take in order to maximize your refund (in fact, we welcome tips you may have), we have been monitoring the companies out there vying for your return. This month we’re bringing you our favorite tax preparation and filing service that’s heating up the social media waves. It’s an invite to learn about how to save money filing your returns, check out some pretty hilarious YouTube vids, and most importantly – watch a company successfully leveraging social media.

In eSmartTax’s YouTube video, you can see company spokesperson Daryl Johnson being presented with the same dilemma we all face with our tax refunds: donate it…or go wild and spend it. The interactive video lets you choose the ending and you won’t be disappointed either way.

Their Twitter promotion ran for about a month and offered members who simply retweeted a phrase to be entered to win daily $100 Visa cash gift cards! That’s $100 contests every day.

What’s the value add eSmartTax is offering? Most tax preparation companies offer discounted federal and state tax return filing, but not eSmartTax. Every person with the last name Johnson is eligible to e-file their federal tax return free! That’s over 2.1 million Americans! And….if your last name isn’t Johnson they’re extending the free federal return offer to you too, check it out: IAmAJohnson.

This creative team has taken to Twitter and YouTube to create commercials and generate revenue by entertaining potential customers with interactive videos and daily prize winnings- these guys don’t want your business, they want you to have fun too. Couldn’t we all use a fresh approach to taxes this year?

NetSearch Direct applauds the efforts that eSmartTax is extending by reaching out to customers across a variety of demographics and for capitalizing on smart, effective marketing tools like Twitter and YouTube. If your advertising campaign needs a fresh face this year, give us a call and let’s talk new strategies.

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The NetSearch Direct Newsletter is a monthly publication featuring search engine marketing topics and industry trends. Each month we feature SEO, PPC, and Industry Trends articles as well as the latest search engine share statistics. It’s news, it’s marketing information, and it’s free. Sign up to get yours today!

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How to Read Your Google Local Listing Report

Tuesday, October 13th, 2009 | Internet Marketing, Local Search, Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Search Engines | No Comments

A listing on Google’s local business center provides much more than just a place to enter your company’s information; you just need to know where to look.

Have you viewed your local business center report lately? Do you know what it’s telling you? Below is a sample report, client information redacted, for the past 30 days. From this data you can gather which days were the best for triggering the client’s listing, and which days provided the most clicks.

Sample Google Local Business Center report

Using the date range filter at the top right-hand corner and working backwards in time, you just might be able to identify trends.  For example, Mondays are good for driving traffic, but Wednesdays provide the best click days. Or, generally you spot that the middle of the month seems great for “actions” which means that potential customers are trying to get as many details, driving directions, or visits to your website. You can use this data to tailor your advertising accordingly, and coordinate efforts with your sales team according to which days your customer base is the most active online.

Google’s Local Business Center report also goes on to tell you other exciting tidbits of performance information such as top search queries, and zip codes from IP addresses that searched for driving directions to your location.

Sample Google Local Business Center Report

Knowing this information affords business owners the opportunity to target advertising in extremely effective ways. To begin with, knowing the keywords that triggered your ad are imperative – if they keywords are off, you may need to re-categorize your listing or rewrite your description. The keywords should reflect any PPC or SEO advertising currently underway, and not distract from it. Knowing the zip codes that are searching for your business allows you to expand on advertising in a currently hot area, identify areas trending up, and save money from locations that may not be performing as well.

Your Google local listing report also provides a snapshot of the information that you have entered along the right-hand side of the reports page, and highlights areas where you can beef up details or add media for effect. If you’d like to read more on tricking out your Google local listing and making the most out of this extremely popular (and FREE!) product, read NetSearch Direct’s Top 5 Best Practice Tips.

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Tags: google local business center, google local business center report, google local listing, google local listing report, google maps report, local listings, local listings report, maps report

Look Before Your Customer Leaps

Thursday, September 24th, 2009 | Internet Marketing, PPC Advertising, Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization | No Comments

Your website is more than just an internet presence with some words wrapped around a few product or service-themed pictures. Think of your website as business’ virtual storefront. Just the same as you would focus on a brick-and-mortar storefront, consider applying the same eye for detail to your website.

When a potential customer visits your website, its more likely than not that they’re visiting via a search engine query. You can guarantee that by the time that potential customer has sorted through the links that have presented themselves on the page and clicked on a particular link, they want to see information that serves their original purpose. It’s your job to look before your customer leaps to that particular page.

Each page of your website should be the best possible representation of your business. Although there’s no winning formula for landing page success, NetSearch Direct customers know that they can depend on the following 5 elements to come together and leave a lasting impression on the visitor:

1) Relevant content stated as concisely as possible.
2) Graphics and videos demonstrating products.
3) Contact information prominently displayed.
4) Fast-loading pages.
5) Put the most important information above the fold.

Although using these tips alone won’t guarantee you extra sales, they certainly will improve the user’s experience when visiting your page. In the end, if your customer can easily read your information, locate what they are looking for, and smoothly navigate your site to checkout or pick up the phone for more information – then it’s a job well done for you.

When you look at your website from your customer’s perspective, the same way you would your storefront, it shows. Review your landing pages to make sure that relevant, up-to-date information is prominently displayed. Your customers will thank you with their wallets.

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Tags: good landing page, landing page, landing page design

Yahoo Search Results Page tries on some Fancy Pants

Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009 | Local Search, PPC Advertising, Search Engine Optimization, Search Engines | No Comments

Yesterday, I opened up the Yahoo Search Page and typed in “home siding Richmond” and was pleasantly surprised.   Yahoo has revamped their Search Results page and while it looks very similar to Bing’s and Google’s Results Page, ‘Imitation is the best form of flatter’ isn’t it?  Its much cleaner and the additional search results on the left side panel that includes top sites with news and info is pretty sweet.  The placement and new design of the sponsored search ads are much easier to read and they have increased their character limit..  Local search maps are also now more evident on search queries.  Yay Yahoo!  Shout out to my homie Dar,  Yahoo Rep from the West Coast…

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Tags: Yahoo, yahoo representative