The craze sweeping the nation this winter season comes from the NFL. Of course I’m talking about Tebowing, originated by Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow, and you either love him or hate him. Purging religious beliefs from the equation, Tim Tebow along with the Broncos have strung together a series of impressive comebacks before recently bowing to the superior Brady Bunch and the Patriots. Denver was left for dead on multiple occasions through three quarters plus in games, only to rise up like Lazarus to overcome the football Reaper and stand in victory.

Is there a management lesson in this over-hyped story for small company owners, executives and corporate officers ?

Tebow’s type of play has been derided as unsustainable, tagged as downright ugly, and parodied on Saturday Night Live. It’s also been applauded by evangelicals, adopted by presidential candidates, and embraced by middle-America. Yet the most exceptional thing that this phenomenon demonstrates is clutch behavior, doing your best when it’s all on the line, and it has been on display in sports throughout the decades in names like Reggie, Jordan, Montana and Gretsky. Tebow is the latest, albeit more unconventional representation of clutch production in crunch time. But is it abrupt, divine intervention, or a predictable strategy?

Fit Your Game Plan to Your Talent

If you’ve caught any of these Bronco games, you know that a few weeks ago, John Fox and the coaching staff kept it very simple, dumbing down the playbook, or so it seemed, so Tebow could get by. In a pass-happy, copycat league that is the NFL, Denver went almost wholly to a game plan of running the ball and clamping down on defense. With a few deviations, it worked. The coaching staff made the unconventional routine, shortened the games, and stayed within striking distance.

Tebow isn’t Manning or Drew Breese, and their offense wasn’t built that way with the players around the quarterback. Tebow is a rough, solid, contact-loving athlete who thus far relies more on a big heart and hard work than traditional passing talents.

There is more than one way to succeed!

As a leader in business, you may not have elite level talent or the mix of people on your team bus that you may have wanted. So what? Take stock not only of what human resources you have and what they’re good at, but of the strengths you may have in plant and machinery, intellectual property and patents, pricing, operating systems and capital. This is standard SWOT analysis with a capital S folks. Be aware of your weaknesses and seek to soften them right now by playing to your strengths. Nothing derails a business faster than trying to be what it isn’t.

Keep in the Game Until the 4th Quarter

The Denver game plan is playing to the strength of a running game that wears on the other team, shortens the game by exhausting the clock, and keeps the Broncos within winníng distance at the end. It’s this clutch time when Tebow magic happens, but that magic is almost predictable. The other team is exhausted, discouraged that this bible-thumping personality is even close after being statistically dominated for three quarters, and just a bit worried of being another fact on the Tebow legend wall. Perseverance wears down opposition like water in a stream smoothes over the stones.

In business if you have a goal, focus on it like a laser, and keep attempting again and again, success is inevitable as long as you believe it. Top performing sales persons know this when trying to crack the biggest accounts. Manufacturers demonstrate this every day by making things smaller, lighter, quicker and cheaper that do things we didn’t think feasible five years earlier. Set a business goal, create a plan that minimizes risk and moves you continuously toward it, and seize the opportuníty when it eventually comes.

Elevate Your Team

Now this is the leadership goal we all have, to raise the game of everybody in the organization. Easier said than done.

I’ve heard dozens of experts in recent weeks apologize for the Tebow success.

“He’s not the one kicking 59 yard field goals.”

“He’s not playing great defense.”

“He’s not making great catches on poorly thrown balls.”

Amazíng! That Tim Tebow — he’s a really fortunate guy. Let me ask you this, do you think the fact that all of those other players are stepping up is a fortunate coincidence? Before the coaches put Tebow in as a starter, the defense was allowing a lot of points, the kicker was missing kicks, and receivers had their share of lapses and then some. So what happened?

Leadership by example happened. Nothing sparks the defensive side of the ball more than seeing their second-year passer trying to run over linebackers, and literally doing it. Tebow’s not a queen. He gets dirty and bloody, playing more like an offensive lineman than a quarterback. The last thing anyone else on that team wants is to be shown up by this kid in the hard work department, and suddenly, the whole team is leagues ahead of where it was to open the year.

How do you lead by example in your company? The ways you can are too countless to list. Do whatever it is you ask employees to do, or be ready to when a key employee calls in ill. Pay vendors on a timely basis and watch the company ethics improve. Reward first-rate performance without being asked and everybody starts improving on the job. You are the commander of the company, and everything you do is being watched and emulated. Be aware of it and you’ll raise the game of your team like Tebow does.

Losers Have Hope – Winners Have Conviction

The Tebowing process of falling to one knee in prayer or thanks, the self-effacing pep talks in the huddle, and the poise under strain are the body language not of blind optimism, but of belief. When belief is followed by action, it becomes conviction, and that is infectious and hard to stop.

One of the biggest business clichés going is that Hope is Not a Strategy. Well here is the procedure of conviction, the absolute certainty that things will work out as good as they can, and when they don’t, something even greater will come out of the temporary setback.

How would you run your business if you really believed you couldn’t lose? What product lines would you grow? What people would you hire? The basic fact is that worry over possible results put more stress on us than when the worst actually occurs. I’m not advocating being risky or silly with your money or time. What I am saying is that if you have absolute conviction in your course of action, you’ll begin to do the other 3 things we’ve described: you’ll focus on your strengths, keep regularly progressing toward your goal, and improve the effectiveness of your employees and business partners.

Each of these 4 elements tends to feed the other, and suddenly you’ll find out that your success is more predictable than divinely inspired, although a little bit of providence doesn’t ever hurt.

When optimizing a site for search engines, it’s all about how you’re ranking for individual keywords. Depending on how you’ve optimized your site, you’ll rank differently for various keywords. If you’d like to see which keywords you’re ranking for, try this Multiple Website Search Engine Position tool.

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It’s something that you hear all the time – all of the SEO content in the world doesn’t do you any good, unless your readers are really engaged in it. After all, people don’t purchase products, sign up for email lists, or share links if they think that something is “just OK”. If you’re not publishing SEO content that really gets readers involved, you’re missing out on countless link opportunities, traffic, and sales.

So, how exactly do you create SEO content that’s going to engage readers?

1. Don’t Overlook the Importance of “You”

Your SEO articles, blog posts, and optimized sales pages are not formal research papers. The best way to get results out of them is to make each reader feel like you’re speaking directly to them. Luckily, you can do that by focusing on one little word – “you”. Writing in the third person (using “he”, “she”, or “they”) is impersonal; writing in the second person (using “you”) brings your SEO content to a personal level.

Take a look at this sentence:

“People have a hard time driving traffic to their websites because they haven’t defined a target audience.”

It’s not a bad sentence. It contains an important fact that is easy to understand, and it’s certainly better than some of the gibberish you see floating around out there. Your readers will look at this sentence and probably agree with it. Unfortunately, though, there’s no personal investment on their behalf. Instead, they’ll probably think, “Sure, ‘people’ probably do have that problem. So, what does that have to do with me?”

Now, change the same sentence ever so slightly, to:

“You have a hard time driving traffic to your website because you haven’t defined a target audience.”

You’re making the same point and using the same fact. The only difference is that you’re not talking about other people. Instead, you’re speaking directly to the reader and telling him exactly what his problem is. By phrasing the sentence this way, your reader is much more likely to think, “You know what? She’s right. That is my problem! Let me keep reading to see if she has any tips to help me fix it.”

Just like that, you’ve encouraged someone to read your SEO content all the way to the end. Assuming the rest of your SEO content is full of important information, readers will get to the end and think of you with more respect. You can’t ask for a reader to be more engaged than that!

2. Get Rid of the “$10 Words”

I don’t know about you, but I hate “$10 words” – you know, the words you learned for the vocabulary section of the SAT’s and haven’t used since. Most of the time, I see big words and the writer instantly strikes me as someone who wants everybody to think he’s smart. Unfortunately, it’s a terrible impression to give to readers – that you’re some kind of stuffy know-it-all. After all, would you do business with a stuffy know-it-all? I sure wouldn’t!

Making matters worse, you may have a reader who doesn’t know what your “$10 word” means – and now he feels stupid.

Guess what?

People don’t buy from businesses that make them feel stupid!

Bottom line – keep the “$10 words” out of your SEO content. You can provide answers, list solutions, and summarize benefits with the same language that you’d use talking to a fríend over lunch.

Remember, the goal is to make the reader feel like the two of you are having a conversation. You simply can’t do that with big, fancy words that no one actually uses in everyday conversation!

3. Use Lists Whenever You Can

Internet searchers are a bunch that love to scan and skim. They scan Google results, article titles, and even the body of the SEO content itself – until they see something that catches their eye. Once they think something’s worth their while, they’ll sit down and read the whole thing. So, the easier you make it for readers to scan your SEO content, the greater your chances of them slowing down to engage with what you have to say.

That’s why you see so many numbered lists and bullet points around the web. Successful writers know that they’re crucial to catching people’s attention. After all, scanning a list to see if it’s got some merit is a whole lot easier than trying to trudge through long paragraphs.

That doesn’t mean you should try to force lists into every piece of SEO content that you publish. In some cases, they just don’t work. In situations where a list isn’t appropriate, make sure that your SEO content has short paragraphs. That way, readers won’t feel “intimidated” by giant paragraphs that look far too time-consuming to read.

How short are we talking?

If your paragraphs have more than 5 or 6 sentences in them, they’re too long. Chances are you’re trying to make too many points in your paragraph. Stick to one point per paragraph, so that you don’t end up with SEO content that looks more like War and Peace.

Remember – internet searchers want answers and solutions, and they want them now. If your SEO content makes it easy for them to find what they’re looking for, you greatly improve the odds of them being fully engaged in what you have to say!

Hello Jill,

If you could only ask 10 general (non-industry-specific) questions of your new SEO customers, what would they be and why would their answers help you help them?

Thank you,
Andrew

++Jill’s Response++

Hi Andrew,

Great question! I have a variety of different questionnaires that I send to clients, depending on the type of ‘SEO consulting’ (http://www.highrankings.com/seo-services) that I’ll be doing with them. For any SEO service, the more information I get from the client about their business and website, the better I can help them with their SEO.

Here’s a selection of some of the questions I ask and why they’re important to the overall SEO process:

1. What Web Analytics Program Do You Use, and Can We Have Access to It?

Web analytics are the key to measuring the current level of SEO success (or lack thereof). They’re also the key to determining whether any future SEO implementation is helping to bring more targéted traffic. Therefore, it’s critical for me to have access to this information regardless of the level of SEO service I’m providing. If you use Google Analytics (GoAn), it’s very simple to add new users to the account and in most cases it’s fine to provide report-only access (rather than admin). Along with GoAn, I also ask for access to the client’s Google Webmaster Tools (GWMT) account. These days, if you have GoAn access, you can usually add the same website to your GWMT account as well, which makes the process easier.

2. What’s the Purpose of Your Site and who is Your Target Audience?

This is a seemingly simple question, yet it often stumps many clients. Some of them will cop out: “Well, the purpose of our site is to sell our product.” And your target audience? “Umm … anyone with a credít card?” Not very helpful. If you don’t have a good handle on who the people are who are buying your products, how will your SEO consultant help you bring those people to your website? An SEO consultant needs to have a clear picture of who you are because everything we do hinges upon this — from the keyword research to deciding what type of content needs to be written, to how you might want to attack social media marketing. If you’re an SEO consultant, I urge you to push for deep answers to this question.

3. Are There Any Other Domains or Sites That You Own or Control, or That You Used to Use Instead of the Current Domain? (Please list them all.)

This information is important so I can assess any duplicate content issues. I need to know whether that other site I found that is using nearly the same content as yours is owned by you, or if someone scraped yours. I also need to know if you’re using multiple domains as an SEO strategy (so I can smack you!). I added this one to my questionnaire when I kept finding doorway domains or other sites that my clients *forgot* to tell me about. Even those who really do forget or who purposely don’t tell me about their additional domains aren’t getting away with anything. I usually end up finding them during my website audit process. So if you’re a client, do us both a favor and come clean from the start. This will save us all some time down the line! (And I was just kidding about smacking you !)

4. What Have You Done so Far (if anything) About Optimizing Your Site?

My favorite answer to this is “nothing” because that means we’re starting with a clean slate and have nowhere to go but up! But most clients these days have done at least some rudimentary SEO. While I can usually spot any on-page optimization, it’s helpful to hear it from you. Sometimes, the things clients say they’ve done (e.g., created keyword-rich Title tags) don’t actually seem to be done when I look for them. That tells me that your idea of SEO and mine may be quite different, and it’s good to know this up front. It’s also good to know if you have already been through a string of SEOs and what each of them has done to the site during their tenure.

5. Is There Anything That You May Have Done That the Search Engines May Not Have Liked Regarding Previous Optimization Efforts for Your Site?

This one is sort of an addendum to the last one for those who may have *forgotten* to tell me any bad or spammy things they (or a previous SEO) may have done. While they may have not mentioned anything spammy in the last question, this gives them the chance to add anything that they weren’t quite sure was on the up-and-up. Very often, the client may think something was bad or caused problems, when it’s actually innocuous. Other times, there can be a big mess to sort out — e.g., all kinds of paid-for spammy-anchor-text links. As an SEO it’s helpful to know right away where to focus my efforts.

6. List the Websites of Your Three Biggest Competitors. Why Do You Feel They Compete With Your Site?

I like this question more for the second part than the first. It’s always interesting to see why people think another company or site is their competitor. Very often, the only reason people think it is that the other site shows up in the search results for the keyword phrase that the client wants to show up for! While that may make them your competitor, it also may not. It may simply mean that you’re shooting for the wrong keyword phrases. It’s also very helpful to look at competitor sites to see how they’re set up and whether they seem to have done much in the way of SEO or not.

7. What Do You Feel is Your Most Unique Selling Proposition (USP)? Why Would These Clients Come to You as Opposed to Anyone Else Who Offers the Same or Similar Products and Services? What’s Different or Better About Your Product or Service?

Hat tip to Karon Thackston for these questions, because they are ones she always asks before doing any copywriting for a website. Along with who your target audience is, these are some of the most important questions for any client to think about and answer. Sometimes a client will have a great grasp of this and provide lots of valuable information, but more often, the best they can come up with is that they are “more friendly” than their competitors <sigh>. In today’s competitive marketplace and search results (especially since Google’s Panda Update), it’s critical to be able to differentiate your products and services from the rest. And even those who have an excellent grasp of this don’t always make it clear to the users of their website, which is something that will need to be fixed.

8. After a Potential Customer Visits Your Site, What Specifically Do You Want Them to Do?

This is a wonderful way to understand what the various conversion points of your website are. If your only answer is “Make a sale,” then you likely need to add some other smaller conversion points, such as signing up for a newsletter or updates, following you on social media, filling out a contact form, calling you, etc. As an SEO you need to know what all of these points are so that you can make sure that the client’s web analytics are set up to correctly capture all the conversions, and that the website is properly leading people to complete those conversions.

9. Do You Have Social Media Accounts (e.g., Twitter, Facebook, Google+) and if so, What are Your User Names?

This is important to see if and how they’re using social media. If they’re not using it at all, as an SEO, you must determine whether they should be. If they are using it, a quick review of their accounts will show you exactly how they’re using it. For instance, you’d want to look at whether they are simply tweeting out links to their own content via an automated feed, or if they are also interacting with their audience. This will help you devise an appropriate social media marketing strategy for them down the line.

10. Is There Anything Else You May Have That You Think Will Provide a More Complete Picture of Your Site?

It’s always a good idea to have a final, open-ended question such as this in case the client forgot to tell you anything within their previous answers. You may learn all kinds of things that you would not have otherwise learned without asking this question.

Those are the most important ones that should get you started. While you can ask all these in person or on the phone, I find it extremely helpful to have it all in writing. It also provides the client with the opportunity to think about their answers and get additional input from others within the company, as necessary.

“SEO is never done” is a phrase that is thrown around a lot, mostly because it’s true! However, when most people talk about the continuation of a SEO campaign, they are usually referring to offsite link building. SEO is about more than developing inbound links! Without a well optimized link to send traffic to, all your hard work offsite is just going to waste. Don’t let your onsite SEO go years before you revisit it. Here are 3 quick onsite SEO touchups you can do today to make sure your site is in top SEO shape:

All industries change with time, some just evolve faster than others. If you want your website to become a trusted source of information for your target audience, you have got to make sure you are giving them the most up-to-date and relevant information at all times. That’s simple enough to do on a business blog; as long as you are publishing new content on a regular basis, the blog will stay fresh and useful. However, many site owners forget to treat their website’s resource section with the same care.

As part of a well-rounded content marketing strategy, you should be creating whitepapers, articles, videos and other forms of informational content for your target audience. However, these whitepapers/articles are not forever current. As your industry evolves the information in them becomes obsolete. Unlike your business blog, which may get updated every day with the latest and greatest industry news, these whitepapers can sit for years on your site, waiting to be downloaded. When was the last time you read through those whitepapers? How much of that information is still applicable today?

Writing an entirely new whitepaper is going to take a lot of time, research and effort. If you just can’t fit that into your schedule, why not just update your existing whitepapers? Some of the core information might still be relevant, but you can add or delete sections as needed. You can re-promote them as your 2012 version and give them a second chance at life!

Every page of your website has the potential to be a landing page for a visitor. This is because the search engines rank individual pages, not websites as a whole. It’s important to conduct keyword research on a page-by-page basis for that exact reason. The keywords you select should be an accurate reflection of each page of content. Many websites fail to convert because they target the wrong keywords, meaning they attract the wrong visitor.

Using your website’s analytics, determine which pages of your site are under-performing in terms of converting. Reread the content with fresh eyes and make sure the keywords you are targeting make sense. Did you miss the mark the first time around? The more you know about your target audience the more you can understand their intent when searching. For instance, “BPM” could mean “beats per minute” or it could mean “business process management.” The same search phrase is applicable in multiple situations! Is your website taking that into account?

It could also mean you missed out on important keyword variations your target audience is using. For instance, I run a SEO company. It could also be called a SEO firm, SEO agency, search engine optimization company, SEO services firm and so forth. People are going to search for the same thing using different terms. If your website only focuses on one of these variations, you’re alienating a large segment of your target audience.

Incorporate New Call-To-Actions

You have to make it very clear to visitors to your site about what you want them to do. Should they call your office? Fill out a lead form? Download a free tríal? Spell it out for them and then repeat those call-to-actions throughout your site. Every visitor to your site is going to have different motivations driving them, so you can try to appeal to those motivations by incorporating different call-to-actions throughout your site.

For instance, an e-commerce site could use call-to-actions like “Búy now and guaranteéd delivery in 3 days” to appeal to last minutes shoppers or “Spend $50 today and receive 10% back as a gift card for future purchases” to go after shoppers looking for a deal. The goal is all the same, to get shoppers to purchase now, but each call-to-action focuses on a specific benefit that appeals to particular shoppers.

With so much misinformation about SEO having been dispensed over the years, it’s hard to know what’s true and isn’t true – making it all the more difficult to separate the proverbial wheat from the chaff, as it were. Concerned about the potential harm misinformation about SEO can ultimately cause, I decided to compile an alphabetical listing of the most popular and persistent SEO myths, to either debunk or confirm their factuality.

1. Adwords

Since the arrival of Google Adwords, there has been an ongoing debate over whether or not running an Adwords campaign can improve search engine rankings. Ultimately, only Google knows the answer to that question for sure. However, to my knowledge, there is no credible evidence to support the notion that Adwords can improve your search engine ranking. If there were indeed concrete evidence to the contrary, it stands to reason, everybody would just start an Adwords campaign to boost their rankings.

2. Anchor Text

Although it can be other colors, anchor text is typically the blue, hyperlinked text you see on a web page – the words that you click onto take you to another page. For example:

free marketing tips

Okay, but is anchor text important? Yes, it is because it’s a crucial element in the search engines complex algorithmic formula that helps determine the rankings of websites.

For example, suppose you have a blog that reviews digital camera’s; the more links you have with the words “digital camera reviews” in your anchor text, the greater your chances of increasing your ranking for the keywords digital camera reviews.

3. Alt Tags

Alt tags are used to display a short text description of an image. It gets displayed when you hover your mouse over the graphic. But are Alt tags an important part of SEO?

It depends on whom you ask. Some experts dismiss the importance of Alt tags altogether, while others tout its importance. Personally, I used to léan in the direction of “not important,” until I read a couple of outstanding articles that made me rethink my position.

SEO expert Bill Hartzer makes a strong argument for the use of Alt tags. In his article, Search Engine Optimization: Why Image Alt Tags are Important.

“There is strong evidence that the search engines are now giving more weight to Alt Tags than they are the Title Tag or even an H1 Tag on the page. What?!? Yes, that’s right. You do need to make sure you use proper Title Tags and H1 Tags, but more SEO value for organic search engine rankings can be gained by using proper Alt Tags than using proper Title Tags or H1 Tags.”

And in his article, Why You Need to Stop Ignoring Image Alt Attributes, AJ Wilcox of OrangeSoda.com makes a compelling common sense argument:

“Keyword usage in image alt text is classified as having minimal importance by a consortium of SEO experts, but that doesn’t mean it’s worthless. It is yet another opportuníty to declare your relevance to your given keyword. The little things add up to big things together, so don’t ignore them.”

I agree with AJ. A lot of little things in combination do indeed add up to big things.

4. FFA Pages

FFA is an acronym for “Free-For All.” Here’s an example of an FFA page:

In a nutshell, FFAs are basically web pages of worthless links where anyone can submit their website’s URL for free (hence the term Free-For-All). One of the biggest and oldest SEO myths is, if you post your website’s URL on FFA pages, you will get massive traffic, as well boost your link popularity and search engine ranking. Here’s the truth: People who visit FFA pages do so only to post their own ads – not look at someone else’s. And any traffic you do get will be completely worthless!

In addition, FFA pages are considered both spammy and scammy, and posting on them could adversely affect your website’s reputation with the search engines – which could in fact hurt your ranking – or even get you banned. Why? Because in essence, FFA pages are nothing but link farms – and you know what Google thinks of link farms.

My advice: RUN, DON’T WALK away from FFA pages!

5. Header Tags

Header tags, for example H1, H2 are standard HTML elements used to define headings and subheadings on a web page.

Are they important? To my knowledge, there is no credible evidence to suggest that header tags have an effect on search engine rankings one way or the other. My advice: If you’re currently using header tags, continue using them if you wish. If you’re not using them, don’t worry about it.

6. Keyword Density

Question: What is the correct density of keywords on a web page?

Answer: There isn’t one.

Yes, I know this topic has been debated back and forth, but personally, I don’t think keyword density even exists as a calculable numeric constant. In other words, don’t worry about the correct keyword density. And don’t worry about counting keywords. Just create your web pages naturally, without trying to force or stuff keywords where they don’t belong. Then, let the proverbial chips fall where they may.

7. Keywords in Domain Name

Do keywords in a domain name help your ranking?

Based on my own personal experience, yes, having your primary keywords in your domain name does help with your ranking. To what degree, however, only Google knows the answer to that. But since Google uses over 200 signals to determine the ranking of websites, I can’t imagine keywords in your domain name not carrying some amount of weight.

Google Place Search (formerly known as Google Places) rules local search. Just try it. Go to Google and type in “Personal Injury Attorney Your City.” The first seven listings in the “natural search listings” are all Google Places pages. Since 20% of searches are local and the majority of their over $30 billion in revenue comes from small businesses, Google has decided to go hard after local small business advertising.

They started by creating 50 million Google Places pages using aggregated data from online directories and the Yellow Pages. These pages are mobile optimized and attached to Google Maps.

Only about 8% of local businesses have actually claimed their Google Place Search page. Even less have fully optimized their pages. However, this is changing fast. Local businesses are getting hip to the importance of Google Places pages. If you have a local business, the first place potential customers will start to find you is on your Google Places page from their smart phone. You want to make sure you are at the top of the list for your category. Here is how you get a jump on your competition in local search:

1. Stake Your Claim!

Google made the Google Place Search Page now you need to claim yours. You need to claim it because it is possible that the information listed is not correct and the more completely you fill out your page the higher it is ranked in searches. In order to be able to add information to your page you need to claim it first. Google verifies your claim to the page by sending you a postcard by snail mail with a confirmation code or by sending you a message on your phone.

Now that you have claimed your page you want the information to be accurate and complete. Is the address the same? Have you changed phone numbers? You want to add pictures, videos, links to your website, reviews, coupons and as much pertinent information about your business as possible. You want to do this for 2 reasons. First you want your customers to have the most accurate and relevant information about your business. Next you want to completely optimize your Google Place Search Page because optimized pages get ranked first. The better optimized your page the higher it ranks in local search and you want to be first right? Remember, most likely your customers will find your Google Place Search page before they will find your website so you want this to be as attractive and complete as possible.

3. Citations Citations Citations

Citations are listings and references made to you in other local directories. Google aggregates links and reviews from other local directories and places them in your Google Places listing. This also is a factor in determining your rank in local search.

So you want to be lísted in as many other local dírectories as possible to boost your rank in Google Place Search. Also, these directories, such as Yelp, are highly trafficked directories in their own right and people will find your business directly there as well.

Here is a list of 15 local directories where you can get your business listed quickly. Here is a more complete list of 100 local directories.

Súbmitting to each of these directories making sure the information is accurate on each is a very tedious task. Here are a couple of services which will do the submissions for you: Localeze.com and Universal Business Listing.

Another trick is to use YouTube as a citation source. On your YouTube video description make sure you include the same name address and phone number that is on your Google Place Search Page and include local tags in the tag section and Google will pick this up as a local citation.

To get even more citations you can use a free service called Whitespark which will give you an even more in depth list of local directories. If your niche is highly competitive, these extra citations can mean the difference between getting a top listing, or not, in Google local search.

4. Get as Many Reviews as Possible

The number one rule with reviews is that they have to be real. Do not just put a bunch of phony reviews on Google or anywhere else. People are smart, Google is smart. You will get busted. This could end up with you not only losing credibility but having your page penalized. Plus, in some cases it can be illegal.

Some business owners have their customers write hand written reviews right there in the local business. They then upload the scanned version of the review with a link using a service called Posterous. With the customer’s permission you can also just input the review online right then and there. Many customers have smart phones and they can place the review directly online themselves while they are in the establishment.

You can even incentivize your customers to give you a review. Maybe you could give 10% off or a coupon if they place a review online. Be careful, some directories allow this others do not. Check the TOS of the directory you are placing the review on first.

The more reviews you have the higher you are ranked on Google Place Search. Also people look at reviews before making a purchase. This is something that really needs your attention. If you do happen to get a negative review many directories will let you respond. Keep up with this, your business depends on it.

The keywords and phrases you use in your Meta description tag may not affect your page’s ranking in the search engines, but this tag can still come in handy in your overall SEO and social media marketing campaigns.

What Is the Meta Description Tag?

It’s a snippet of HTML code that belongs inside the <Head> </Head> section of a web page. It is usually placed after the Title tag and before the Meta keywords tag (if you use one), although the order is not important.

The proper syntax for this HTML tag is:

<META NAME=”Description” CONTENT=”Your descriptive sentence or two goes here.”>

If you’re using a content management system (CMS), look for a field to fill out that’s called Meta Description, or possibly just “Description.”

Many years ago, the information contained in a Meta description could slightly help a page rank highly for the words that were contained within it. Today, neither Google, Bing, nor Yahoo! use it as a ranking signal.

In other words, whether you use your important keyword phrases in your Meta description tag or not, the position of your page in the search engine results will not be affected. So in terms of rankings, you could easily leave it out altogether.

But should you?

There are 3 important ways that Meta descriptions are being used today that make them an important part of your SEO and overall onlíne marketing strategy:

1. They can be used as the description (or part of the description) of your page if it shows up in the search results.

2. They are often used as part of the descriptive information for your pages when Google shows “extended sitelinks” for your site.

3. They are often used as the default description in social media marketing links such as Facebook and Google+.

Let’s look at each of these in more detail.

1. Meta Descriptions in the Search Results

People often think that whatever they put in their Meta description tag will be the default description that the search engines use under the clickable link to their site in the search results. While this is sometimes true, it’s not always the case.

Currently, if you’re searching for a site by its URL (for example www.highrankings.com) Google tends to use the first 20 to 25 words of your Meta description as the default description in the search engine result pages (SERP). However, if you have a listing at DMOZ, also known as the Open Directory Project (ODP) and are not using the “noodp” tag, they may default to that description instead. (Do a search at Google for www.amazon.com to see an example.)

Bing and Yahoo!, on the other hand, don’t always default to the Meta description tag for URL searches. Sometimes they do, and sometimes they don’t. A search for www.highrankings.com at Bing or Yahoo! shows content from my home page as the description rather than the contents of my Meta description tag.

Of course, real people aren’t typically searching for a site by URL, so what the search engines show for those types of search queries is not as important as a true keyword search. So don’t get hung up on what you see when you search for your site by its URL or if you’re doing a “site:command” search to see how they’re indexing your pages.

Instead, go to your favorite web analytics program and find the keyword phrases that are currently bringing you the most traffic. Then see what your description looks like at Google when you type in those keywords.

And surprise! What you’ll find is that your search results description will be different for every search query! You may see any combination of the following used:

* Your entire Meta description tag text as the complete description (typically if it’s highly relevant and contains no more than 25 words).

* A full sentence pulled from your Meta description tag, but not the entire Meta description (if it contains more than one sentence).

* Text from one part of your Meta description mashed together with text from another part of it (if it’s more than 25 words long).

* Some text from your Meta description mashed together with some text from the page.

* Some text from your page mashed together from some other text from your page (nothing from the Meta description).

Some of the circumstances that cause Google to not use text from your Meta description may include:

* The information in the Meta description tag was not specific to the page it was on.

* The search query used some words that were not in the Meta description, but those words (or some of them) were used in the page content. This includes words that Google considers somewhat synonymous, such as “copy” and “copywriting” or “SEO” and “search engine optimization.”

But even the above are not hard and fast rules. Google doesn’t always use all or part of the Meta description even when the exact search phrase was contained within it – especially if the search query is also contained within the content of the page. Suffice it to say that there are no hard and fast rules for when Google will show it and when they won’t.

The two most important elements that qualify companies to promote themselves as SEO experts are competence and professionalism. And the way you find out if a company is competent and professional, as well as legitimate, is to do your due diligence and check their credentials thoroughly, by exercising good old common sense and following these steps:

1. Verify Their Contact Information

If the company provides a street address, Google it to see if it’s a real address. If they provide a telephone number, call the number to see if it’s answered by the company or an answering service. If they don’t provide a telephone number, walk away. SEO is serious business. You need to have the ability to talk to whomever is going to be handling your account. You need to be able to ask questions, and you have a right to expect your questions to be answered in a professional manner. 2. Talk to Previous Customers
If the SEO company publishes testimonials on their website, contact a few of their customers and get their feedback. If the company can’t provide testimonials, walk away, or if the testimonials don’t have contact information, they’re probably bogus. Walk away.

3. Visit Reputable SEO Forums

Visit reputable SEO forums like Jill Whalen’s High Rankings Forum to find out what forum members have to say about the company. If an SEO company has a bad reputation, it will race across the Internet at warp speed. Conversely, if a company has a good reputation, you will find that out also.

4. Check Their Better Business Bureau Record

Most companies who are members of the BBB post it on their website with a link to their record. Check their record to see if they have any complaints, but don’t panic if the company has complaints. All companies receive complaints from time to time. What you want to find out is whether or not the company has an inordinate amount of complaints, and how those complaints have been handled.

5. Check Them Out with Their State’s Attorney General’s Office

If the company is located in the United States, check them out with their state’s Attorney General’s Office, Division of Consumer Affairs. All companies aren’t members of the BBB so often unhappy or dissatisfied customers will file a report with the AG’s office to get satisfaction.

6. Check Them Out with Local Police Agencies

Before you give a company your hard-earned money, do your due diligence. In addition to checking them out with the BBB and AG, put a call into the police department in their city to see if they’re involved in fraudulent activities. You’d be surprised how cooperative many police agencies are when it comes to fighting fraud in their city.

7. Check Them Out with Online Scam Watch Sites

Like I mentioned a moment ago, if an SEO company has a bad reputation, it will race across the Internet at warp speed. If a company is ripping people off, someone will know about it. Before parting with your hard-earned money, always check companies out with various online scam watch sites like Scam.com.

8. Avoid Companies That Send You Unsolicited E-Mail (spam)

If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a million times, legitimate companies don’t send unsolicited e-mail. They don’t send sp@m. Do you know what kind of companies send sp@m? Scam artists intent on ripping you off, that’s who. The best thing to do when you receive sp@m is delete it. Don’t open it, don’t read it, don’t consider it…delete it!

9. Avoid Companies That Aren’t Ranked Competitively

If an SEO company doesn’t have the ability to secure a competitive ranking for their own site, then how on earth can they secure a competitive ranking for yours? Answer: They can’t. While far from perfect, sites like Alexa can give you a fair idea about a site’s ranking.

10. Don’t Make a Hasty Decision

Choosing the right SEO company is critical to the success of your company, so you want to make sure you get it right. Take your time and leave no stone unturned as you do your due diligence. Don’t rush the process, and walk away from companies that try to pressure you into making a quick decision.

11. How Long Has the Company Been Around?

When choosing an SEO company, the length of time they’ve been in business matters. A company’s longevity is a good indication of stability and how good they are at what they do. When it comes to SEO companies, the longer they’ve been in business the better.

12. Have They Written Articles About SEO?

Ask if anyone from their staff have written any articles that have been published on reputable websites. Has anyone on their staff written any books? Do they speak at major SEO conferences? Are they moderators at SEO/SEM forums? All of these things are indicators of professionalism, reputation and expertise.

13. Read the Contract

Don’t sign any contract until you’ve read and completely understood its terms. Better yet, let your attorney look over the contract. Contracts can be tricky, so it’s best to let a professional check things out. It’s too late to read the contract after the fact.