Ever heard of link building?  Have you heard that it’s one of the the most important (if not THE most important) element affecting your current rankings on Google, Yahoo and Bing?   You heard right.

Have you heard of brand building, viral content and social media marketing?    Maybe.  It’s ok if you haven’t, these are newer terms that are only now taking over mainstream media.

Have you ever heard of syndicated web content?  No?  Don’t feel bad, you’re not far behind.   If you have, you are one of the few, the enlightened, or a very savvy internet marketer.

What is Syndicated Article Marketing?

Syndicated article marketing is the best thing since sliced bread!  Seriously.

Syndicated article marketing is a process in which we create unique, topical content about a product or service offered by a business. The article is then distributed across a nationwide network of regional news websites, archived and stored on the sites for a minimum of 4 months, and most of the sites will archive the articles indefinitely.

Secondarily, the article is also distributed to the 10,000 newspaper editors nationwide, including 2/3 of the top 100 daily newspapers in the country.  The article is featured in the appropriate section of the newspaper, e.g. a health article is featured in the health section, an article about sporting goods would be featured in the sports section.

While the newspaper distribution doesn’t give any direct SEO benefit, it is a great tool for creating brand awareness and generating buzz offline, which tends to spill over to the web as people try to learn more about the article’s topic.

Why is Syndicated Article Marketing an Excellent Link-Building Tool for SEO?

Ahh, the meat in the stew.   The reason that we offer this service.   Syndicated Article Marketing may very well be the future of SEO link-building.

When an article is distributed to our network (over 500 guaranteed web placements) your website is receiving over 500 inbound links, from relevant, trusted websites that are typically in the PR range of 5-8.  These are highly valuable links that are quickly recognized by the search engines.

In addition the the sheer volume of links from quality websites, the links are made using targeted anchor text.  There are 3 keyword based links included in every article.   After typically one article, a client will rank in the top 10 for those keywords within 30 days.

There are very few, if any, ways to build that kind of link volume and quality without violating some of the search engines’ webmaster guidelines.   Viral Marketing can generate this quantity of links in a short amount of time, but is far more difficult to coordinate and build, due to the reliance on social networks.

SAM is truly one of the greatest SEO tools to emerge in the past several years.

Why is SAM a Great Tool for Building Your Brand Online?

As the web becomes more social, so do the search engines.   Their ability to remain relevant in a newer, highly social web depends on their ability to integrate and mine the social networks for quality signals and popular content.  Our articles are written in a manner that lends itself well to social distribution and sharing, thus giving them a built in viral component that can be very powerful.

Because our articles are written in a manner that is informative, has broad, targeted reach and doesn’t come across as a sales pitch.   The readers have interest in the subject because it appears in columns which they regularly read, and because they are not being sold they are open to reading and absorbing the content.

This allows for an informative article that educates the reader on your products and services without an overall sales pitch.  They are lead to the water, and given the opportunity to drink.

If they choose to do so, they can follow the simple link contained in the closing paragraph to learn more information.

Sounds Great!  What Does Syndicated Article Marketing Cost?

Not for the thin wallet, SAM does cost a relatively large amount for the small business.   Spending a minimum of $5000 on an article, regardless of the distribution is a lot for the average business owner to swallow.

However, when you consider that your $5000 is going to net you well over $25,000 of national business advertising, brand building and SEO value, Syndicated Article Marketing is a steal.

$5000 would barely net you 500 (quality) links alone if you were to buy them individually from directories, link brokers, bloggers or other link-building services.

In the end, deciding whether or not to utilize Syndicated Articles as part of your overall marketing plan will largely depend on your marketing budget, your products and services, and your geographic presence.  Some industries will see a much greater benefit from SAM than others.

If you’re interested in  learning more about Syndicated Article Marketing, or you have questions about the industries that excel with this form of advertising, contact us here, or give us a call at 800-420-5770.

-Chris

Delicious and Twitter CAN be used to Create “Followed” Links.

Social Bookmarking is one of the most popular link-building techniques around, and for good reason. The links from many social sites are “followed”, they allow you to control the anchor text of the link, and you get the added benefit of social promotion and the potential for your links to spread virally.

The primary drawback associated with the social bookmarking links in Delicious and Twitter is that they are not “followed” links.  This simply means that the links you post on these sites do not transfer link value or anchor text to the associated site.  I’ll show you how to get a followed link every time you post to Twitter or Delicious.

Delicious is probably the most popular social bookmarking site around.   It’s easy to use, integrates with your browser for easy access, and has the largest reach of any social bookmarking site.   It’s hard to find a social bookmarking site that has more reach and potential than Delicious.

Twitter is arguably the most popular social site around, rivaled only by Facebook.   It’s fun, interactive and has the potential to reach millions of customers, friends and others within your niche.   You can’t go anywhere without hearing about Twitter, so you definitely want to capitalize on this great social medium.

There is a very easy process that allows you to post social links on Delicious and Twitter, and get a secondary followed link on Mister-Wong at the same time.  This little technique will help you to save time creating links, and spreading the message on 3 sites at once.  This is no real trade secret, and I’m sure most people have already done this, but for the average business owner who wants to create some quick and easy links to their site, this is the fastest way to get it done.

So how do you use Delicious & Twitter to create followed links to your websites?

All it takes is the integration of your Delicious & Twitter accounts with your Mister-Wong account.   Here’s the process for setting it up:

1. Create a Mister-Wong account (if you don’t already have one)
2. Create a Delicious account and start bookmarking your sites with the anchor text, tags and notes that you want associated with the linked site.
3. Sync your Mister Wong account with your Delicious account so that all of your Delicious bookmarks are automatically imported into Mister-Wong.  Mister-Wong Delicious Import
4. Create a Twitter account (if you don’t already have one)
5. Sync your Mister Wong account with your Twitter profile so all of your links posted to Twitter will be automatically imported into your Mister-Wong account. Mister-Wong Twitter Import

This little technique will make it easy and painless to create a followed link from your Mister-Wong account, and transfer the link juice and anchor text to the linked site.

Hope this is a helpful little nugget of information that will make link-building a little easier on the average business owner.   If you would like professional help with your link-building efforts, contact Denver SEO company HighPoint Search Marketing to handle this task for your, and many others.

-Chris

Business Blogging for Success

Is your Business Blogging?  You should be.

Businesses should be blogging, it’s the best way to produce new content for their websites and allow them to target the audience associated with their business.   Businesses often feel that they don’t have the time or the content to build their business, and often don’t understand the importance of having a quality blog.   This is a huge mistake, but easily rectified.   We’ll share some of the benefits of having a business blog as well as some of the techniques for managing your blog and keeping it updated regularly.

Benefits of Blogging for your Business

One of our common practices with new clients is to establish a blog for their business.  This can be an internal blog that’s integrated in the website, or an external blog on a related domain name, or both.   There are distinct advantages to both methods, but regardless of which one you choose, it will help your search engine visibility tremendously.

Here are 5 benefits to running a business blog:

1. Content Creation- On the Internet content is king.  The more you have, the better.   Most business websites have a limited number of pages, and therefore a limited amount of content.  If your web designer hasn’t built your site with a good Content Management System, creating new pages or adding content to additional pages can be difficult, tedious work, and in some cases will require the help of your web designer, which will also cost more.  By having a business blog you are able to write about your topics quickly and easily, and generate pages of content that will have an equal chance of ranking in the search engines.  Again, more content is better, and a blog allows you to easily create the content that is needed to keep the spiders crawling your site.
2. Targeting Long-Tail Keywords – Because your website has a finite number of pages, and your on-site SEO efforts can include a limited number of keywords, a blog can greatly expand the number of keywords and keyword phrases that you can effectively target.   When you are writing an article for your blog, you will naturally cover different variations of the keywords associated with your products and services.  This is a great opportunity to build links that cover long-tail keywords that may not be targeted in your sites content.  For example, if you had a website about San Diego golf, your on-site SEO may target the keyword “San Diego Golf“.   However, through your blog you can also target terms like “San Diego Golf Gift Certificates”, or “Book Tee Times for San Diego Golf Course“, which would be more difficult to integrate into your site’s meta data.   Long-tail keywords are lower volume, but a much more specific search term, which will generally result in higher conversions than short keyword phrases.
3. Reaching a Larger Audience – If you website isn’t properly optimized for your keywords, or you don’t have a recognizable brand name, it may be a deserted island that never gets traffic.   Your blog allows visitors to subscribe to your posts via RSS feed, and the audience that visits your blog is more likely to share your info with others if they find it valuable.  By submitting your blog to the various blog directories, you can put your info in front of others in your industry, and more importantly you spread your message through the Blogosphere, and gain an audience that will visit your site repeatedly.
4. Natural Link-Building Platform – Blogs are a natural platform for link-building.  When you are writing articles about your topic, you will generally link to other related pages within your site, and you’ll most likely be using keyword targeted anchor text when building those links.    This not only provides your visitors with more information, it helps your search engine rankings due to the anchor text that is used within your links.   As your blog gains value and PageRank , it passes that value on to the other pages of your site, thus helping them rank higher as well.
5. Potential to go Viral – Never discount the power of the blogosphere.   If you write a particularly compelling article, it has the potential to be rapidly recirculated throughout social media site and re-published on other industry publications, and other bloggers websites.  If it’s an especially well written article, it could potentially be re-published on Yahoo news, or in a local paper, etc…  This is one of the best ways to get traffic to your website, as well as gain valuable inbound links from others in your niche.  As you continue to write valuable articles, you may well become a thought leader or industry expert in your field, which ultimately leads to more business via referrals etc…

Those are just a few of the reasons that your business should be blogging.   We’ll follow up this article with a few tips on using an internal blog, as well as using an external blog to promote your business.

If you don’t have a blog already, now is the time to get one.  Spending just three hours a week on your blog can pay off handsomely over time.  If you don’t have the time, or feel uncomfortable blogging about your business, contact a professional blog management company to do it for you.

Go get a blog on WordPress (my favorite platform), Blogger, TypePad or any of the other blogging services and give it a shot.

If you put in the effort you will be rewarded!

-Chris

HighPoint Search Marketing was officially founded as an LLC in October 2008.  While we have done freelance work in the past for various clients, we had not officially registered as a company and gone through the proper process of setting up the company as an LLC.

Our company has over 10 years of internet marketing experience, promoting both product and service related companies on the major search engines.  Our areas of expertise include but are not limited to: Search Engine Optimization, Video Search Optimization, Social Media Marketing, Link-building, Online Reputation Management, Blog Management and Pay Per Click Campaigns.

We are very excited about the new business and the opportunity to work with new clients for their Search Engine Optimization needs.   Contact us for your business, big or small!

-Chris