I wrote in an earlier post, about an experiment I’m currently running about local search engine optimization (SEO) in Bozeman, MT. In that post I made some predictions of what would happen after I registered with several national websites that feed local results to search engines.I predicted that the following things would happen:

1. No significant improvement for Google search engine ranking.
2. Slight increase in web traffic.
3. Better inclusion in “local” search results across all search engines.

What were the results of this search engine optimization?

1. Sorta’ true – We were bumped up from position #5 to position #4 for the search term “website development + bozeman, mt“! This was unexpected, as we already have a significant number of back-links to our website using these search terms.
2. Inconclusive – It’s still a bit early to tell whether our web traffic has increased. According to our analytics package there haven’t been any visitors who were referred from any of these directories. I suspect that this is simply because most web users would rather search Google (or another search engine) rather than wade through the category listings of something like SuperPages.com.
3. True! Google, Yahoo, Local.com, MSN Local, BOTW.org… All were very quick to add my free listing. Again, I expect that the back-link is probably more important from a SEO standpoint than the actual listing. However, many of these local directories allow their visitors to rate and post comments about your business. It’s probably a good idea to visit them time to time and see what (and if) people are saying about you. You may also wish to ask your clients to review your business on their favorite website as well.

Digg.com social media marketing experiment

This experiment underperformed wildly! There were only 5 Diggs on the article we we used. Lessons to take away from this:

1. Make sure that your content appeals to a wide range of people if you hope for it to be promoted on social media. Just because it’s important to you does not mean that most people care!
2. Begin to build your network of friends on social media websites. They are probably the quickest way for your article to become noticed and have any chance of succeeding among the thousands (millions?) of others submitted every day.
3. Keep the content short. An amazing photograph, a short blog post, an extremely unique article. These are the types of information that have any chance of making it to the top.
4. The back-link is still important though! There’s no reason not to submit your article to sites like Digg.com. It provides a valuable link back to your website using the keywords contained in your headline. However, do not expect it to be picked up and generate thousands of page views.

Well, that pretty much concludes this quick experiment. Thank you to everyone who assisted me and left kind comments! If there are significant changes to this experiment, I’ll add a quick post down the road!

While these recommendations are fairly basic, and many may feel that they go without saying, I wanted to highlight them here:

#1) Your own domain name

Domain names usually cost about $10 per year from sites like GoDaddy.com. Do a bit of research and try to register your business name or an easily remembered domain name. Shorter is better, and try to stay away from .net or hyphenated names if you can.Here’s a great article from SitePoint.com on choosing a domain name for your site.

#2) A website host and e-mail address.

I’ve had great success with HostGator. Their plans are cheap and they will auto-install WordPress blogging software for you. (See information on WordPress below.) As for your e-mail address, it’s fine to have a general address such as info@yourname.com. However, since sales are about personal connections, I want you to set-up me@yourname.com. Your webhost or designer can help with this if needed.

#3) A clear idea of your internet marketing goals.

This doesn’t have to be a long paper detailing all the aspects of your internet marketing. Focus on 3 key elements and WRITE THEM DOWN – don’t type them! There’s something about physically putting pen to paper that will help you judge your upcoming efforts against these goals.Your goals should be simple things to begin with. Things like “I want to ensure that my business is found with my top 5 keywords on Google”, “I want to improve my monthly communication with my current customers”, or “I want generate 10 new sales leads each month”. The key is to be very specific.Your goals will change – I would be worried if they didn’t! But right now, get out your favorite fountain pen, Bic ballpoint or Sharpie marker and decide what they are.

#4) A blog or other publishing platform

One of the most popular blogging platforms is free software called Wordpress. A blog will allow you to quickly and cost-effectively publish articles that relate to the products or services that you’re looking to sell. They show to potential customers that you know what you’re talking about and that you want to help them with their purchasing decision.A blog theme is the look and feel of your blog. Wile a custom-designed theme would be ideal, there are many free and cheap blog themes available. Begin by doing a Google search. If you’re working with a web designer, talk with them about the type of content that you plan to publish. He or she will often have great advice about how to feature certain content on your blog, how to deal with comment spam and how to include social bookmarking on all of your posts.

#5) An analytics package

The industry standard has quickly become Google Analytics. You can sign up for free, and if you have basic knowledge of HTML, you can add it to your website yourself. There are also several free plug-ins for WordPress that will allow you to include your Google Analytics code on each page of your blog. Google Analytics is fairly easy to use, and there are great newbie articles floating around on the internet for that as well. Well, that concludes my list of must-haves… Things that every person starting out with internet marketing should learn as much as they can about. However, remember one thing for me… To avoid exhaustion, stick to the things that you know and love to do. If you’re best at writing the articles for a blog, let your website developer handle the rest. If digging into analytics and determining where your strongest areas for improvement are, do your best to stick to that and let a copywriter or colleague make your posts!