Benefits of Social Media Marketing – Will it Help Your Business Website?

October 11th, 2011

We all know that every business organization needs to create a unique webpage to boost their business profit and be seen among a large number of online visitors. As there’s a lot of fuss surrounding social media these days, you too must take a jump onto this bandwagon if you haven’t yet. There are many social media websites where a large number of people socialize and also try to make profit out of them. Marketing your business website through social networking sites is an effective part of SEO and can have a good effect on your profits. Here are a few ways how…

  • Ascertains a brand and raises awareness: Since the majority of the population is visiting social media websites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, you can also create your brand name by letting people know about your webpage. As these are the names of some authentic social networking websites, having a business profile on such sites will help boost your brand image and also raise the awareness among the people.
  • You may spy on your competitors: You can easily spy on your competitors by following them on Twitter or Facebook. You can easily see what the tools that they have up their sleeve are and that they’re using in order to keep an edge over others. You can adopt any methods you like that your competitors are using.
  • You can track your customers: Almost everyone nowadays uses websites like Twitter and Facebook and therefore they are great places to track your customers. You may come to know what they like about your company or products and services, and also about the problems that they have with the services offered by you. Utilize their constructive criticism and use them for enhancing the quality of your products so that you can make more profits.
  • Boosts customer confidence and loyalty: If you have a business profile in all the popular social media websites, you can speak to your customers more easily and frequently. This will boost the confidence of the customers and you can easily maintain a good relationship with them that is beyond the relation of a typical customer and business owner. This will also enhance your customer retention ability.
  • Conduct market research: You can visit various websites and make sure they are on par with the others. You may speak to your competitors so that you can share your opinions on various social media websites. Use your new-found information so that you can boost your productivity and also keep an edge over your competition.

Therefore, if you are a business owner who wants to increase its visibility, you must use the social media websites to promote your business in a natural way. This will also help with your SEO efforts to boost the search engine ranking of your website. There really is not downside to utilizing social media for your business other than the small amount of time it takes, so go for it!

This is a guest post sent by Alex Brown of http://www.all360.net

3 Ways to Make Money Online Fast

September 27th, 2011

I spend most of my time writing about ways to make money, which is great and all, but a lot of the time it can take months before you actually start earning anything. So what if you need a little extra money right now?

Glad you asked… Here are a few ideas which hopefully won’t mean waiting for months and months for your Google Adsense earnings to get into double digits:

1: eBay!

There are lots of ways to make money on eBay, but the simplest way to start is to sell some of your own stuff. Seriously, just a few things. First it will help later if you have at least sold a few items, and second you are going to need some seed money.

Next step, once you have a little bit of experience and money to spend, you are going to start looking in the wholesale section on eBay. This is by far the easiest way to find potential lots.

Try to buy mixed lots of “stuff” – look for lots which already have bids so that you know you are getting a good price. The bottom line is that you have to take a punt and learn what works, but if you are careful, you can re-sell any lots that don’t work out and at least get most of your money back, so the risk is pretty low.

2: Fiverr!

This is a simple site where people go on and say what they will do for $5. If you can think of some service, or quirky product that you can sell for $5 each, you might be able to make a little extra money on Fiverr.

To get ideas, simply navigate to fiverr.com and see what other people are offering. The key is to come up with something novel that can be done quickly and cheaply.

You may not be able to make a lot doing this, but there are certainly people who do make a nice little bit of extra money by doing silly, fun things. The first step is to spend a long time studying the site and other people’s offers; you will soon get a feel and hopefully some ideas for your own offering.

3: Textbroker!

If you are a native English speaker and you can write pretty well, you can sign up to be a writer on Textbroker.com. The system is simple enough – people who need articles request them, and as a writer you can pick the titles you want to write.

There are different quality levels, and you generally have to start at the bottom, but if you write well you can soon go up to the top quality level and you can actually make some decent money. The key is to get to level 5 – at this level the amount you get paid is actually pretty reasonable – much better than you stacking shelves anyway!

So, there you have it, three ways to make money online fast! Now all you have to do is get started.

This is a guest post written by Alex at http://www.tomakealiving.com

Choosing a Merchant Services Provider

September 26th, 2011

Accepting credit cards isn’t a do-it-yourself project. It requires a credit card processor (also called a merchant services provider) who establishes and administers your merchant account. During a transaction, the processor also acts as a middleman between the merchant and the credit card issuer to make sure the process goes smoothly.

Choosing the right merchant services provider requires an understanding of your credit card processing requirements and research into the various deals that are available. Here are five steps you should take when making your decision:

1) Learn about merchant accounts and the associated fees. You must establish a merchant account before you can accept credit cards. Basically, a merchant account is a bank account that acts as the depository for credit card transaction revenue. Once your merchant services provider has processed your transactions, it deposits the proceeds into your merchant account. The provider charges fees for its services — ask about them upfront and make sure you understand them.

2) Consider your technical requirements. What types of credit card processing are you planning to do? Traditional point-of-sale (POS) at a credit card terminal? Online processing from your website through an electronic gateway? Mobile or wireless processing when your business takes you on the road? Mail order/telephone order (MOTO)? Are most of your transactions card present or card not present? What business expansion or diversification plans do you have for the near future? It could be you need one or more credit card processing options, and you should make that clear to the merchant services providers that you are considering so they can come up with the best package deal for your needs and budget.

3) Identify merchant services providers who want your business. Not all processors work with all businesses. Some don’t deal with start-up operations or merchants with bad credit histories. Many will not service so-called “high risk” businesses, a category that includes adult-related businesses, online casinos and businesses located outside the United States. Look for a reputable processor who deals with businesses similar to yours.

4) Compare fees and services. Once you’ve compiled a list of potential merchant services providers, compare their fees and services to see who comes closest to meeting you requirements. Ask detailed questions about the types of hardware and software each offers. If you’re in the market to change processors, determine if your current system is compatible with their technology. When it comes to fees, going with the cheapest may not be your best bet. Be sure you know what you’re getting for your money, that it fulfills your needs and fits your budget.

5) Scrutinize security. Solid, reliable security may be the only thing standing between your business and disaster. It’s no secret that credit card fraud and identity theft are major threats to merchants and consumers alike. Make sure your credit card processing takes security seriously and is PCI compliant. Your merchant services provider should be able to answer all your security-related questions and train you and your staff in the proper protocols to keep you and your customers safe from a data breach.

Guest post by Marc McDermott, the Online Marketing Manager at Merchant Express, a full-service merchant services provider that has helped thousands of businesses with their credit card processing needs since 1998.

BlogTrafficJam.com For Sale

August 24th, 2011

It’s been a while since I have written on Can I Make Big Money Online, because Jill and I are busy adding new services for our business, re-working some of our branding, and other things. Anyway, as part of our cleaning house process we are going to be putting some of our 250+ domains on the market. One that I thought might be of interest to people who read this blog is a domain I bought back in the spring of 2006 when I was planning on putting together a blog traffic membership program.

The domain name is blogtrafficjam.com and anyone interested should send us an email at george@websitepromotionbook.com with the subject “blogtrafficjam”. Let us know what price you are interested in buying it for and let us know any questions you may have about the domain. If we don’t have any serious offers then we will be putting it up for auction in the next week or two.

Implement Online Social Media Into Your Business Plan

August 16th, 2011

Social media tools have the potential to expose your business to an endless clientele base. They can operate as indispensible marketing devices to promote your business and your message as a business owner. These social media tools are all about establishing an online identity in hopes that you connect with individuals of similar interests at a steady rate, gradually developing a vast network of people who can rely on each other to share ideas and information. What follows are some pointers to begin and maintain an online identity through these social media tools.

Choosing the right social media tool

Choose a social media tool that you feel comfortable with. If you’re looking for a strictly utilitarian networking approach, you may want to try a website like LinkedIn, which allows you to make in rows with professionals from similar business backgrounds. You can upload a substantial amount of information about your employment history and knowledge in your field, increasing the likelihood that those who want to connect with you would share you interests. However LinkedIn’s reach is limited when compared to the millions and millions of users who utilize more informal social media tools like Facebook and Twitter. These sites tend to attract a much wider variety of followers (professionals and nonprofessionals alike) than those on LinkedIn, which means that you’ll have to work that much harder to establish your unique identity. Ultimately LinkedIn may give you a smaller but more traditionally professional audience, while sites like Twitter and Facebook have a looser feel but a much wider readership.

Update regularly

Once you’ve selected a social media tool, create an account and start posting! Use the site’s searching features to locate users who share similar interests or values, and connect with them. Don’t be afraid of contacting too many individuals — you’re creating a larger network for you business with every new follower. When posting content, share engaging information about your business with a link to your website included at the end. An easy way to reach people is to offer free tips related to the nature of your business. If you’re a financial consultant, give some basic money saving advice for the online entrepreneur. Build trust among your followers by presenting yourself as an affable and outgoing business person.

Separate business and personal personas

Bear in mind that your personal life and opinions should never be advertised on your business’s social media account. You’re trying to gain business contacts, potential clientele, and interested readers on the merit of your business and its ideals. You aren’t creating a social media account to win a popularity contest for your social life; you’re growing a business! In most cases people are following your business online because they enjoy what you have to say about your particular niche, so don’t throw them a curveball by impulsively posting your take on the political issue of the day.

Allow yourself to experiment with social media tools and (if handled correctly) you’ll watch your business thrive, buoyed by feedback and interest of your online followers.

This is a guest post from Carol Wilson who writes for a business insurance site. She contributes articles about a variety of marketing, business, stock market, and small business topics. She can be contacted at: wilson.carol24 @ gmail.com

Mom Blogging for Dummies

July 14th, 2011

My good friend, Wendy Piersall’s new book, “Mom Blogging for Dummies” has just been released. When you get a chance go over to her facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/MomBloggingForDummies) and learn more about the book. Then go buy it!

Congrats Wendy! Look forward to checking it out.

PS. I know I haven’t been writing much on this blog. At some point I plan on talking about that in more detail, but right now I am still working out the details.

How To Set Up A Business Blog

July 7th, 2011

It’s easy to build a blog that will improve customer relationships and generate goodwill for your business. A well-designed business blog keeps your current customers engaged while allowing new clients to get acquainted with your company. Following a few simple tips, you can set up a blog that will be a powerful marketing tool for your business.

Here’s how to set up a business blog that will serve your company well…

Put It In The Right Place

If your company already has a website, make the blog part of your existing website. It should be a menu choice that’s easy for any visitor to find.

If your company doesn’t have a website, choose a domain name for your blog that’s as close to your company name as possible or includes your industry’s primary keywords.

Start With A Simple Design

Most companies power their blogs with WordPress, a blogging platform that many hosting companies will set up for you. Thousands of pre-designed WordPress themes are available, and one of them will likely work for your blog.

Blogs linked to an existing website should echo the colors and design of the site, but stand-alone blogs usually benefit from starting with a simple design. Make changes as your readership grows and you need for more features.

Pack Your Business Blog With Value

Before you tell anyone about the blog, pack it with useful articles so visitors will find good content even on their first visit. Post perhaps a dozen articles before you promote your blog, then keep posting new content at least once a week. Many experts recommend two or three posts each week.

Be sure to include coupons, exclusive offers and other deals along with meaningful content that supports your business goals.

Promote Your Blog At Every Opportunity

If you pay attention to search engine optimization techniques, Google and other search engines will bring traffic to your site, but that doesn’t mean you can neglect other means of promotion.

To get current customers reading your blog, make sure you point out during every customer contact the special offers and unique content available only to blog readers.

To bring new customers to your blog, include a mention of it in all your print and online advertising. Every time a customer sees or hears your company’s name, make sure your blog address is there along with it.

Now that you know more about how to set up a business blog, there’s no reason to delay any longer.

Blogs are powerful promotional and informational tools. Every moment your company is without one, you’re potentially losing money.

Guest post written by Nisha Sandhu who is an editor at the merchant account forum, and has been working with them for 2 years now. Nisha also loves to write and give online business advice to new and growing businesses.

5 Factors That Influence the Success of Your Affiliate Program

June 24th, 2011

Affiliate marketing is probably one of the most popular forms of advertisement today. That is because you do not need any money down to advertise; you just need to be able to prove that your product is worth that website owners time and before you know it, you will have sites clamoring to promote your products.

When using affiliate marketing to get ahead in the business world online, you need to make sure that you are aware of the issues at hand. Like everything else, there are a few problems that could occur when using this type of marketing.

#1 Traffic

One of the most common issues with any of the online money making ideas is not having enough traffic. When you work hard to build up your landing page and marketing strategies, you may be disappointed to see that there is hardly any traffic to the site at all. First focus on getting those few people to your site – through search engines or partnering with other sites, and then build on your success.

Once you see that traffic is coming in on a regular basis, you may think that your job is done and you no longer need to worry about it. That is not true. Getting comfortable with your current amount of traffic is the worse thing you can do. When running your own business and promoting products, the more traffic there is, the better it is.

Keep traffic coming in from all directions. Work hard on all major search engines and networks including social media sites. The more areas you can announce your product in, the better you will be. There is always another site that you can promote on. Finding it is not a problem either. You can always do a search and get different results every time.

#2 Pricing

You will need to rethink your prices. You may have them too high and no one can afford them. The same goes for prices that are too low. You won’t make enough money and people may be skeptical and think you are scamming them. Do your research and compare pricing. Be competitive but make money as well.

You can adjust your pricing on occasion so you can always have a competitive price list. Giving the potential affiliate a choice of pricing can make a difference because it puts them in control.

#3 Keywords

Keywords are very important in promoting a business today. If you don’t use good keywords you will not have enough traffic. Do your research and change the keywords a little to promote a product. This can generate more traffic and it can create more money for you. There are several online tools that you can use to help you come up with the right keywords based on the product that you are promoting or the focus of the product.

#4 Put it in words

Another issue is believing in the product that you are offering. If you don’t believe in your product then no one else will either. You need to offer the passion behind the products and people will begin to take you serious. Use the product, take pictures of you using the product, do a before and after picture, blog about it every day, hire a few people to also test the product for you and write a review.

#5 The focus

Losing the focus on the quality is a BIG problem. It takes continuous effort on your part to keep the quality high on your site. When quality is no longer a priority, traffic will decrease. You will need to work even harder to build up your traffic again. This can take time and you can lose money.

Regardless of how much money and time you have to spend on a product, you can use affiliate marketing to help you promote it. As long as you work hard to make it a success, anything is possible.

This is a guest post by Mary Mack. She is a contributing author at the site gradmoneymatters.com and loves to write about money making ideas.

Six Strategies to Lose Your Viewer

June 9th, 2011

A strong web presence is crucial to the success of your business, especially in today’s economic climate. You know it, your marketing team knows it, and, unfortunately, your competition knows it. In other words, if you don’t pay attention to the quality of your website, you’re going to lose business to someone who does. According to a study by leading web traffic controller Akamai Industries, a poorly designed website can lose 30% of its viewers within seconds. They also found that if a site takes more than four seconds to load, 75% of its viewers will not return to the site.

Fortunately, there are simple solutions to the design problems that could be keeping your website from being as effective a tool as possible to bring you additional sales and optimize your search engine rankings. Take a look at the following “how-not-to” list, and then cast a critical eye on your own website. Even a few simple changes could pay big dividends in increased direct business and a more robust web presence.

Six Strategies to Lose Your Viewer: An Overview of What Not to Do and Why

1) Make sure your homepage takes forever to load:

Why Not Do This? To return to Akamai’s findings, you don’t have much time to keep a viewer. Web surfers are an impatient bunch. If they have to sit for five minutes waiting for a page to load, they’re going to look elsewhere. A friend of mine got married recently. When she was looking for a wedding photographer, she found dozens of photographers who wanted to showcase their best (and most high resolution) work on their homepages. The problem for the photographers was that the bride-to-be never got to see those pictures. She got impatient and went on to the next site. She didn’t use their services, she never linked to their sites on her wedding website, and she never raved about their fabulous photos to her friends. I’m sure their homepages looked fantastic once they loaded, but did they achieve their purpose?

2) Make your homepage visually boring

Why Not Do This? This may seem to contradict point number one at first, but a visually unappealing homepage can lose viewers in seconds. Use graphics or photos that catch the eye and draw a viewer in. We can take a lesson from print media here. Newspapers try to place a particularly striking photo “above the fold” on the front page to make their paper look more interesting than the one next to it on the newsstand. You can benefit from this technique as well. Just make sure that your graphics don’t compromise load time.

3) Design your site thinking only of SEO and not an audience of real people

Why Not Do This? In the quest for SEO and those all-important backlinks, businesses often forget a very basic truth. People aren’t coming to your site to help you increase your web presence or your search engine ranking. They want something – to get information, to buy a product, to be entertained. If you don’t provide interesting and original content, they won’t be satisfied. A site with quality content that is updated regularly will keep visitors on your site longer, bring them back again, and prompt them to email a link to friends. This will help you build backlinks naturally. Remember that sites go viral because they’re entertaining or emotionally engaging – not because of their keyword density.

4) Make the purpose of your site unclear:

Why Not Do This? Again, I’m impatient, and I know there are lots of other sites out there that will give me what I want. If I’m looking for grass-fed, certified organic goat cheese, I need to know pretty quickly whether I can find it on your site. If I need to spend more than thirty seconds trying to figure that out, you’ve lost me.

5) Make navigation confusing and difficult:

Why Not Do This? Ok. I can tell from your homepage that you have the cheese I want, but I don’t want to spend all day figuring out how to find a list of your products, prices, and shipping information. Make it clear where the links are that I’ll need to get around your site by placing them in one or two main areas. Don’t bury them all in a lot of text that I may or may not read. If I spend ten minutes on your site, but I never end up buying your product, you’ve won the first battle but lost the war.

6) Jam the homepage with lots and lots of text:

Why Not Do This? Your homepage should draw a viewer in and provide clear links to get to additional information. Use enough text to make the purpose of your site clear and capture the viewer’s attention, but don’t use so much that your viewers get information overload. Think of your own web browsing habits. If you wanted to spend hours reading a lot of words, you’d pick up a copy of War and Peace; you wouldn’t hit the Internet.

The common thread here is that you should always remind yourself that real people are viewing your site. Put yourself in their position. Is my site interesting and fun? Is it easy to get around on? Does it quickly give viewers what they’re looking for? If not, is there really any reason anyone should spend their time there?

Guest post written by Tim Eyre. He helps residential and business customers who use self storage when they don’t have enough storage space on their own property. Tim’s company has locations from coast to coast, including Las Vegas self storage.

The True Importance of Building a List

June 1st, 2011

We have heard the saying “Money is in the list” many times before, but for some reason a lot of affiliates and marketers still don’t realize how important building a list actually is.

I am not sure why affiliate marketers forget this crucial business building step, but list building should be your highest priority if you sell anything online. I don’t care if you are promoting a “how to build an igloo” ebook. Build that list of subscribers, or your business will not last very long.

For example, Google banned thousands of affiliates a while back from their Adwords program and those who weren’t capturing names and email addresses got left out in the cold. Their income dropped almost instantly and there was nothing they could do about it.

The fact is that it should be your highest priority to build a list of raving fans that read your emails. Sure you can make money online by simply driving traffic straight to an offer, but as soon as your traffic source stops producing clicks or your ads get disapproved, you are finished.

Let me give you some of the biggest key benefits of owning a highly responsive list of subscribers.

1. Traffic on Tap – Anytime you want to test out an offer or make some quick cash, you can simply load up your auto-responder with a promo email and click “send”. When that email hits people’s inboxes they click on your link and go to the offer. If you did a great job at preselling, they are going to buy whatever it is you recommended. What’s really important is that you no longer depend on other traffic sources for income. You basically own a traffic source that you can always count on without paying a dime for clicks it generates.

2. Joint Ventures – This is a huge benefit that most affiliate marketers forget about. If you have a highly responsive list, you can leverage it to sell your own products and services. When you promote someone else’s product and do a decent volume of sales for them, 98% of the time they will offer a reciprocal mailing for you. There is a reason why marketers with big lists make most of the money in the internet marketing niche.

3. Knowing What Your Market Wants – Use your list to find out what they want and sell it to them. You can use a service like SurveyMonkey.com and create a simple survey to send out to your subscribers. Ask them what they want or what they need help with. Then create a product or service based on the data you collected. Why guess what they want, when you can simply ask them and remove the risk of poor conversions completely from the picture?

4. Leverage – Don’t ever underestimate people on your list. Some of them might have successful businesses and could become your super affiliates. Imagine announcing your affiliate program to thousands of people with a single click of a button. You could literally overnight get your site flooded with traffic by leveraging your subscribers’ efforts. 1000 affiliates driving 100 clicks per day is better than one joint venture partner, who can send a limited number of clicks.

5. Be Viewed As An Expert – When you have a big audience, your opinion and message, which you send out matters. You could have a big impact on your niche market if you have the power to reach thousands of people with a click of a button. A lot of marketers do not know how to position themselves as experts. Build a list and eventually you won’t have to worry about that because of the instant social proof you can generate.

I think the above 5 key benefits make things very clear and why it’s absolutely crucial to put 100% of your effort into growing your subscriber base. I hope you now realize how powerful this actually is, and how it can take your business to a new level very quickly.

Your ultimate goal is to capture the attention of your market and have it at your disposal any time you want them to take your desired action.

This is a guest post written by Pawel Reszka, the founder of Affhelper.com, a blog dedicated to making money online and internet marketing. Check out his blog is for some cool super affiliate tips.

5 Steps to Affiliate Marketing Success

May 23rd, 2011

To be successful in affiliate marketing requires the willingness to put in the time and the effort necessary to operate your business properly. It is a business, not a hobby, and you must treat it that way. There are certain steps that you need to follow in order to be successful and bring in those big commission checks that you have been dreaming about. If you leave out any of the steps then ultimately your efforts will fail. No matter what niche or specific product within that niche you have chosen to affiliate yourself with, the process to promote it successfully is the same.

That process consists of these five steps:

1. Build your own site. It is possible to get started in affiliate marketing and make money online without your own site, but to bring in the big checks and truly be successful you need to have your own site. And not just one site. You should have a separate site for each affiliate offer that you want to promote. If an offer is not worth the few dollars that it costs to get a domain name and the few minutes it takes to add the site to your hosting account then that offer is not worth promoting. You must build it before they can come.

2. Start your own newsletter. You want to brand yourself as the expert within your niche. There is no better way to do that than to publish your own newsletter on a regular basis. Promote it at least as heavily as you do any of your offers. Give something away to get people to sign up to your mailing list to get your newsletter. Go easy on the affiliate offers with your newsletter, keep it mostly content and provide good information. You will be getting affiliate offers in front of your subscribers with the autoresponder series you will set up in the next step.

3. Get an autoresponder. You should already have one for your newsletter, if not then get one now. You want to be able to use it for your newsletter and for a series of preloaded messages that your new subscribers will be getting over time. You can write the messages, stick them in your autoresponder, and set it to send them out to every new subscriber that you get over a specific period of time. You can have your autoresponder loaded up and ready to send out your affiliate offers for months or even years. Just make sure that any affiliate offers are evergreen so that you don’t have to go back and change them.

4. Start article marketing. You want to get your name and your articles out there in front of as many people as you possibly can. If you don’t like to write then you can outsource the articles. Articles that you have submitted to article directories will make you look like an expert in your niche, bring in traffic, and provide you with much needed back links.

5. Expand your linking campaigns. Back links are one of the most important aspects of getting your sites to rank highly in the search engine results. Set up a reciprocal link program on your site where you exchange links with other webmasters. One way links are even better. Get busy and start posting in forums, commenting on blogs, and writing more articles.

Follow these five steps and your affiliate marketing business will be off to a good start. A good foundation is the key to your affiliate marketing success. Get ready to start cashing in those commission checks.

This is a guest post written by Thomas Alling from http://makemoneyhelper.com

Don’t Forget the On-Page SEO Factors!

May 16th, 2011

Most website owners are so worried about the off-page search engine optimization (SEO) factors such as building links and creating a great social media presence that they forget about doing the right things on their actual site. Yes, backlinks and a following are extremely important but they won’t mean much if your site isn’t up to par.

Here are some on-page SEO strategies that you should implement on your website…

Domain – With enough work you could technically get any domain ranked highly for any keyword, but you can make it much easier on yourself by choosing the right domain from the start. Getting an exact match domain (EMD) can often be incredibly helpful in ranking your site at the top of search engines. Often times EMD’s will make it to the top 10, or even #1, based on that alone.

The problem is that in most niches all the best exact match domains will already be taken, so it’s not always possible to get one. However, you should at least get one with your main keywords in it. Just add an extra letter or word at the end, or whatever fits well. Having your keywords in the domain can be very helpful for search engine rankings.

Meta Tags – Your title tag and description tag are extremely important SEO factors. Your title tag should contain your main keywords without many extra filler words, but also don’t stuff it so full that it looks ridiculous. Keep the title to around 65 characters and that includes spaces. That’s about what Google shows in the search results so you want to keep it around there.

The description tag should also contain some of your main keywords but all tell a little more about what visitors can expect from your site. This should be kept to around 150 characters (including spaces) so it has to be a quick summary. Again don’t stuff it full of keywords or it could do more harm than good. Just put them in there as naturally as possible so it still reads well and looks good.

Great Content – Your site is worthless without content and in order for it to be a site that gets natural backlinks, high rankings, and so much more, the content must be very high quality. You will often hear internet marketer’s use the line, “Content is king” and there’s a reason for that saying. This is even more true now because there was a recent update at Google that has made really good original content even more important than ever.

Also, inside your content needs to be your keywords. You should include them wherever they fit in a natural way with around 3% density or so. That means for every 100 words on your page about three of them are keywords that you are trying to rank for. Don’t try to stuff them anywhere and everywhere just for the sake of getting them in there. That tactic used to work but it stopped working years ago. Doing that can actually hurt more than it helps.

Site Map – Having a sitemap is a great way to link all the pages of your site together easily and efficiently. Doing that is important for the search engines so they can find all of your content and rank it accordingly. And it also helps human visitors navigate your site much more easily if needed.

That’s pretty much it. Of course, there are many other things than can be included or tweaked for a maximum SEO score. But if you do the things listed above correctly on your site, you will already be far ahead of most sites. Then, you can start concentrating much more on the off-page strategies.