About a minute into the video below Eli Paris explains how he asked two of his friends to input the keyword “Egypt” into Google and had them both take screenshots of the search results page. You may be surprised to learn that they both received different search results. This is because Google is starting to tailor search results to the individual. The million dollar question is how this effects search engine optimization if it effects it at all.
This news comes at no surprise really. I’ve known for a few years now that Google will rank sites higher in your individual search results if you “liked” that site on Stumbleupon.
Most webmasters are obsessed with acquiring more backlinks. Visit any internet forum about SEO or internet marketing and you’ll see countless threads about how to get more backlinks. What most don’t understand is that a proper backlinking strategy begins and ends with your unique selling proposition (USP).
You must ask yourself… “Are you worth recommending?”
Forget about building up backlinks to improve search engine rankings! If you offer something that is worth recommending, you’ll be receiving so much word of mout traffic that you really won’t need to rely on search engines anymore.
“One way is to be the very best at everything you do.
Another is to be obsessive about delivering value – all the time.
And have a story that spreads – often one that is tied to your purpose.
Watch this powerful video presentation at TEDtalk by Simon Sinek called “How Great Leaders Inspire Action”. It’s about the Golden Circle, and finding your WHY…a simple, effective way to get your prospects eager to do business with you.
Once you’ve reached this stage, one other thing matters. You’ve got to give your eager, interested prospects a COMPELLING REASON why they should buy from you, rather than anyone else.
And that means positioning and defining yourself in a unique way that sets you apart from the competition. In other words, you need a USP (Unique Selling Proposition).
Why Should Customers Buy From You?
The vast majority of businesses do not have a good, compelling or unique reason. Understand that this differentiation should confer an advantage from the perspective of the BUYER.
Saying you’ve been in business since 1932 isn’t really a benefit that’s immediately perceived – unless you can translate that into a benefit, as in:
‘Tailors for well dressed gentlemen since 1932. Our skilled designers have always been on top of current trends.’
The message to grab here is that conveying your uniqueness to your prospects involves a degree of EDUCATING them about yourself, your business and what you do to benefit them. Without the information, they will hesitate to make a buying decision. When they see all the facts, they’ll see the reason why what you’re offering is a wise buy.
Rolex Watches And Internet Marketing
Many years ago, I saw a magazine ad for a Rolex. In great detail, the ad explained what went on “beneath the dial” with beautiful pictures showing dozens of interlocking ratchets, with wheels within wheels. Each tiny, perfectly handcrafted element was responsible for a critical function. They all integrated perfectly, worked in synchronicity, coordinated wonderfully.
How did prospective buyers know all that? Because marketers TOLD THEM the story. Explained how their watches worked. Highlighted the benefit from such precision technology so that prospects were convinced that they wanted to own a Rolex, a masterpiece based on such technological excellence.
Schlitz beer ramped up from #5 in the U.S. market to capture the #1 slot after a skilled copywriter named Claude Hopkins decided to tell the story of how exactly they brewed beer. Strangely enough, the story was NOT unique. All beer manufacturers use nearly the identical process.
If you don’t follow this advice carefully, you could find yourself banned by Google Adwords in no time flat! Tread very carefully if you want to use Adwords now and well into the future.
This is great news! The more PPC options we have the better don’t you think? I still have yet to try PPC advertising on any social networks, but I think I just may after reading this news:
“SEMPO has released its comprehensive ‘State of Search’ report for 2011, and there are many key findings that are of interest to practicing search marketers, search strategists and PPC media buyers, to name a few. Over 900 agencies and companies from 66 countries were interviewed for the 133-page report. SEMPO research chair Marc Englesman of Digital Brand Expressions offered some key insights on the report for MediaPost. Of the findings, it is notable that social networks have become substantial alternative PPC networks, in some cases driving higher PPC participation than the Yahoo / Bing search alliance.
‘The SEMPO Report clearly shows that Facebook has rapidly become a top PPC advertising vehicle,’ said Engelsman. ‘This may be driven in part by companies looking to quickly and easily buy their way into social media presence instead of taking the time to build their digital outposts more organically. This would follow the trend we saw in the early times of SEO when many marketers decided to forego true search engine optimization in favor of paid search as a way to get fast visibility.
‘The reality of Facebook’s PPC ad growth (and to a lesser degree, the growth we are also seeing in use of LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter and mobile) means the PPC model has expanded well beyond traditional search engines, and marketers need to understand and budget for the growing opportunities in this arena.’”
Originally, my title tag for each page was something like this “TRUE (Website Name) >> Blog Category >> (Post Title)“.
This is not ideal for a couple reasons:
1. Your “post title” is what catches the interest of a potential reader when your site shows up in the search engines and if your “post title” is not near the beginning of your title tag then it’s not likely people will click on your site listing.
2. Search engines place more importance on keywords found near the beginning of your title tag.
For this reason, you want your title tags to be situated more like this:
“(Post Title) – (Website Name)”:
Title Tag Example - Click to enlarge
You can do this in WordPress by heading to Appearance > Editor and clicking on Header.php. There you will find the title tags.
Click To Enlarge
Copy and paste the following inbetween the title tags (see image):
<?php wp_title(”); ?>
After that just save your changes and you should be good to go.
Write For The Visitor, Not The Search Engines
Remember though that when writing your post titles (that then later become your title tags) you want to write to the visitor first and foremost. Don’t write content that appeals exclusively to the search engines. This is usually the biggest mistake most beginners make. Read my post Search Engine Marketing Simplified to understand where I’m coming from. Remember, just focus on appealing to humans, and the rest will take care of itself.
Check out these sweet title tag tips from SeoBook:
“Tips on Page Titles
Google shows the first 60 to 70 characters in the search results. Make sure your important keywords occur early in the page title for scan-ability. If your title goes beyond 70 characters Google may cut off the title before 69 characters and display … at the end of your page title.
Rather than making your page title just the keyword and/or starting your page title with the keyword, sometimes it helps to add in a descriptive modifier before your core keyword. This helps ensure your page is less likely to get filtered out of the search results (and thus makes your rankings more stable) while helping you rank for additional terms.
Page titles are used to draw in clicks from search results amongst many anonymous competing offers, thus they present an opportunity to differentiate yourself from the competition and qualify prospects to your offer.
Good titles evoke an emotional response, ask a question, or promise something (that the landing page fulfills).
Since the page title is one of the few elements search engines can show searchers before sending them to your site, they place significant weight on the words in the page title. In addition, some people link to pages using their official page title as the link anchor text.
