Sacramento Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Guy

In my full time job we just launched a new version of governing.com: government news on politics, management and finance. With the launch I installed Google Webmaster Tools so I could see what traffic is already coming in for keywords through search engines.

A couple days after launch I downloaded a report that showed every key phrase that GOVERNING owns in search, its rank, and how many impressions and clicks it receives. Let me illustrate how incredible this data is with an example.

It ranked #12 for Wisconsin legislature. 2400 users see that search result per month and <10 click on that result. In the webmaster tool reports (or by searching Google) I can see the exact article that ranks. Some simple headline tweaking (in favor of “Wisconsin legislature”) and a couple of links to this page could improve its rank to the first page of Google and increase the clicks much higher than 10. This process could be repeated for strategic pages where an increase in rank can have a big payoff.

Keyword snapshot from Google Webmaster Tools

If you want this kind of visibility into your website, down to the individual keyword and what you can do to improve your rank for that keyword, give me a buzz.

You know the sample stand at the back of Trader Joes? How much EXTRA product sells when the item is being sampled that day? Easily 100x. That’s what my internet marketing skills bring to a website. Let me help you organize your online sample stand so you can sell 100x of any given product or service.

Take for example the home and garden nursery I visited last weekend. They have a great website and a wonderful shop. I know nothing about plants, so after 30 minutes of wandering (a bit overwhelmed) I was about to leave without making a purchase.  I happened to ask how much it costs to hire a professional to look at my yard and tell me what to get. Turns out it costs only about $50. And that small consulting investment will surely bring me back to the shop to buy all of my plants from there (now and in the future). When you think about the type of customer who would buy that service they are at the beginning of the marketing cycle, so catching them at this point captures someone with a very high customer lifetime value. From my perspective (the consumer) I wish I would have known about this sooner – I would have done it years ago! I thought it was going to cost hundreds of dollars or that there was not an option for me to do the work myself.

Here is a perfect opportunity to promote this product/service on the homepage of the website. A simple banner won’t do. No, it needs a full bio of the landscape designer (probably been doing it for 20 years) so that we establish trust. Note: creating this page and perhaps related articles on the subject would help the site rank for this niche. It also needs a sign-up form so users can directly request more information or signup for consultations directly from the website. Now this product’s reach will grow significantly without relying on users to visit the store. By using goals in Google Analytics, we can also track which search keywords generated the most conversions (sign-ups).

By adding the consulting sign up form we turn our homepage from a general information page with no conversion tracking into a product sign up form, where we can “push” our sample product and earn new lifetime customers.

I spent an evening with Live Sound Audio optimizing his WordPress blog for Sacramento searches. For $250 I was able to provide the following:

• Configuration of All in One SEO Pack, titles, and meta descriptions
• Configuration Google Webmaster Tools and upload of sitemap from the sitemap plugin
• Setup of permalinks for the blog
• Change and setup of blog theme
• Training and setup new pages, posts, keyword tags, comments, and widgets
• General SEO strategy discussion for pages, posts, and images (titles and captions)

This was basically a complete blog overhaul in about 3 hours time, with personal SEO consulting at the same time. With the right foundation and training in place, this company now has the tools to go after several key search terms in its niche to gain new business from Google users.

Michael Clifford now has a Folsom Pain Management blog to accompany his business. Blogs, if used well can expect 3x the traffic from search than a main website! He invited me to his office to setup his WordPress blog and teach him about how to optimize it for search engines. I should mention, that Michael is a massage expert, but not technical at all. Nevertheless, in about an hour we had his blog created from scratch on wordpress.com. I showed him how to create new pages, posts, links, and lookup stats to see how it is performing (including what keywords users type in search engines to get there).

The second hour we spent training on Google strategies for getting his blog and blog posts to rank well. I gave a quick rundown of how Google works, what it looks for on blogs to rank it well, and how to integrate these things into the blog headlines and text. Of course the main SEO elements we already implemented during blog setup like domain name, blog title, etc.

In 2 hours and for $250, Michael has a second website presence in search engines and tons of great advice on ranking for specific phrases (in addition to Folsom Pain Management which his main site already ranks well for).

Excuse my long absence from blogging, I’ve been busy since early last year working on a major project, the Photographers SEO Book and Blog. I wrote this ebook for photographers to teach them how to optimize their own websites for search engines. It helps me to reach more small business who otherwise could not afford SEO services and I would not have the time to assist. It’s packed with 30 pages of knowledge including how to get images to rank in Google, the best places to get photographer links, and the perfect key phrase that a photographer should optimize for.

Check out the blog for tons of helpful advice on search engine optimization, not only for photographers, but most of it can apply to any industry.