A self-published author’s real struggle has to do with distribution and marketing. When it comes to media relations, if you do it right, you can play in the same ballpark as the majors.

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We all know the importance of SEO and getting your site listed in the top of the engines so you can tap into all that traffic out there that is searching for exactly what you have to offer.

The question is how do you optimize your site and tap into your piece of the pie?

It comes down to two options – handle your own optimization or hire a professional firm.

After careful consideration, you have decided to tackle your SEO work yourself and control your own destiny in the engines. Congratulations on your decision.

Once the decision has been made, it’s important to track your time and progress and determine if the decision is still what is best for you. Things change and what you decided initially may not always be the right decision. Like SEO work itself, deciding how to handle it isn’t a one time thing – you have to evaluate the progress and results and you may have to tweak your initial plan of action.

Here are some warning signs that handling SEO yourself is doing more harm than good.

If you decide it doesn’t make sense to continue to handle your own SEO, it’s not failure, no need to admit defeat, it’s simply smart business.

If you find:

• You aren’t finding the time to get done all that you need to in order to properly make your site SEO friendly, optimized, and submitted then you really aren’t making the progress you need to be and likely won’t see the results you were hoping for in the engines.
• You are spending too much time on your SEO, and getting it all done, but the rest of your work has slowed to a halt, and you can’t even handle the new business that comes in.

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Did you know that 25% of searches each month are brand new, never before seen search words and phrases?

That is shocking. You would think with the number of search queries running through Google, they have seen it all.

We spend so much time on keyword research – and rightfully so, it’s the foundation of your campaign. But this new information tells us that we need to tweak the process a little bit to keep up with the ever changing SEO world.

So, how do you handle keyword research and make sure you are staying current?

First and foremost you want to make sure you have outlined your strategy. Without a plan in place you are likely to forget to do it, and it’ll just rattle around in the back of your brain or sit on a post-it note that gets stuck to the back of another piece of paper in your planner.

So, before that happens, let’s define your plan right now.

1. Start with a brainstorming session to list all possible words and phrases that people would use to find what you have to offer. Remember to put yourself in the mindset of the potential customer.
2. Do the necessary research to continue building your list.
a. Research your competitors and see what keywords they are using.
b. Look at your web stats and logs and pull words and phrases from there (this is a great source of info, you can find the words that people are already using to find you and enhance your rankings on those words so you can get even more traffic).
c. If you have a search feature on your site, look at the logs and see what people are searching for within your site once they get there.
3. Take the large master list you have come up with, and use a keyword tool to determine how much traffic there is and how competitive the words/phrases are. Remember you can’t live and die by this information; it only acts as a guide for you.
4.

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There are so many articles out there on SEO and so many conflicting opinions. Some of those opinions are people just spouting off without any solid evidence to back it up and others are based on tests and experiments done by the author. It can be really confusing for someone trying to understand SEO. Who is right, who is wrong? Where should you focus your attention? Let’s answer that question by breaking things down…

The truth is…with over 200 components in Google’s algorithm there is definitely more than one way to get your site ranked.

If you’ve read any of my previous articles you may have come across my Gold Star analogy. Let me quickly break it down for you…

Think of the engines like teachers handing out gold stars. Google currently has about 200 factors in their algorithms that determine how your site will rank. Imagine your teacher with a clipboard and checklist with 200 items on it and she assigns you gold stars for each of the things you do well.

The catch is that some of the items on the list are more important and you may get multiple gold stars for that one item, whereas other items are worth only one gold star.

No one (but Google) knows for sure how the algorithm works, so we study and we test and we monitor the industry to come up with a technique that works well for getting sites ranked based on earning gold stars in various different areas.

The number of gold stars you achieve will determine how well your site will rank.

Let’s say you have a ton of great content that uses your keywords really well, and you also have some other on-page optimization in place (like naming images with keywords, clean code that is free of ‘bloat’ etc.) but you don’t have many links. You could still rank well, we see it all the time.

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Here is a simplified view of how the search engine algorithms work:

Think of the engines like teachers handing our gold stars (or check marks) for everything that you do well.

Google currently has about 200 factors in their algorithms that determine how your site will rank.

The process they go through is the equivalent of the teacher looking at your site and then looking at their checklist and giving you a gold star for each of the things that you do right.

However, some of the items on the list are more important and you may get multiple gold stars.

No one knows for sure how the algorithm works, but we test and monitor the industry to come up with a technique that works well for getting sites ranked.

You should look at the foundation of the site first (we call this search engine friendliness.)

This includes looking at the HTML that is used to build your site and making sure there are no errors in the code, and looking at how the site is built to make sure there is nothing that will block the spiders.

Then you should look at on-page optimization, which is tweaking the content for keyword density (increasing the usage of keywords on the site), tweaking the Meta tags (they are like a guide to each page that tells the search engines what keywords are on the page and what the page is about, and then use ALT tags, Header tags and various other HTML tweaks.

You should also look at adding new content - as long as it is informative and relevant and not just keyword stuffed text that has no value.

You should do a sitemap, an XML sitemap (this is a technical way of feeding your site to the engines so they spider your content frequently).

You should work on obtaining quality links into your site to boost your link popularity.

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Recently people have been asking for tips and “Do’s and Don’ts” for website design and content.

Whether you are building a new site or redesigning a current site, here is a collection of tips that you’d be wise to follow:

• Create your site with a clear hierarchy and interconnection of pages.
• Your most important pages should never be more than one click away from your homepage.
• Every page should be reachable from at least one static text link.
• Offer a site map to your users with links that point to the important parts of your site. If the site map is larger than 100 or so links, you may want to break the site map into separate pages. I’m conservative; I don’t like more than 50 links on a page.
• Try to use text instead of images to display important names, content, or links. The Google crawler doesn’t recognize text contained in images.
• If you are using images, name them with your keyword phrases.
• Avoid frames.
• Avoid an all Flash site. It doesn’t matter that Google can read and index Flash. You are still better off not having a site that is all Flash.
• Optimize your site – if you don’t know how – hire someone.
• Create a plan for content addition – keeping your site current with fresh content is good for the engines and your site visitors.
• If you decide to use dynamic pages (i.e., the URL contains a “?” character), be aware that not every search engine spider crawls dynamic pages as well as static pages. It helps to keep the parameters short and the number of them few.
• Use a text browser such as Lynx to examine your site, because most search engine spiders see your site much as Lynx would.

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Over the Holidays I spent a lot of time reading fairytales with my nieces and nephew. The Little Mermaid and Mulan are the current favorites. It reminded me how nice it is to have something you believe in so unconditionally. To my nieces there is nothing more exciting than the magic of those fairytales.

That’s when I realized when you are 3 or 5, it’s OK to believe in fairytales. As you get older, it becomes more important to face reality. Don’t get me wrong, I still believe in a little magic myself, but not when it comes to my business.

I still like the idea of Tinkerbell, but I know she isn’t going to sprinkle fairy dust on my website and make all my traffic dreams come true. For that I need to look to my SEO Director, so she can work her own special kind of magic.

Just as my nieces fantasize that they are princesses, play dress up and make believe that they are Ariel, or Mulan – many website owners are playing the same kind of make believe (likely without the dress up though!).

It’s a special kind of adult fairy tale – the one where you throw up a website and imagine all the traffic and sales that will come in.

But when reality sets in, and you realize that the traffic isn’t coming, what do you do? From my experience, I can tell you a lot of people still do nothing!

After much thought about this, I realized it comes down to 2 main factors – themes that are present both in the fairytales my nieces read & watch and in the adult business world.

One is fear - and while it is easy to imagine quaking in your boots at the sight of a fire breathing dragon, it’s harder to imagine an adult being afraid to hire a marketing or SEO consultant. Yet it happens, every single day. People are afraid they will be scammed, afraid they will spend money and not make money. In some cases people are even afraid they will succeed!

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Communication comes in many forms including television and radio. You will remember that in the past decade there has been a surge not only in the types of music and television programs but in the number of television and radio networks. Some of these networks have grown and become quite profitable while others were disasters that flopped and are no longer on the air. You can find a TV network for sale or even a radio network for sale through various methods.

Finding a Television Network for Sale
One way to find television businesses for sale is through an Internet search and asking around in your community. You can even contact the various TV networks to determine if one of the television businesses is for sale in your area. In fact, your strongest option is to locate one through direct contact with the station manager who will then be able to connect you with the station owner for buying the TV network for sale.

Finding a Radio Network for Sale
Radio stations and radio networks for sale are found using the same method as finding television network for sale. It will be important to be resourceful to find a potential seller in this niche of the communication industry. Do not despair because it is very probable to find a great radio network for sale.

Legal Assistance
You will need to have a strong business lawyer to help you finalize the paperwork for the sale and to make certain that everything is accurate on the legal forms.

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