How to be on Top of Your Competition on Google
Written by Smartt Team on September 20, 2009
If you’ve ever wondered what it is that your competitors are doing to rank number one on Google, you’re not alone. For many people the mere thought of ranking on the first page is an impossibility. Even with the all the talk about the importance search engine optimization (SEO), it’s still a mystery for many corporations how to out-rank your competitors.
Even through all the confusion, there is some good news. It’s not as hard as it seems. If you know what your competitors are doing, you can easily mimic the same process they used, do it better and out-rank them.
Start by Googling the keywords that are relevant to your business or industry. These words should be words that are related to your business that people type into the search bar in order to find your product. Now, take a look at the top 10 results that come up on the first page. These are the businesses you want to learn about and study because you know they’re doing something right if they come up on the first page. Browse each of their sites and find out what they’re doing on their website that might be helping them rank so well. Look for these elements:
- Blogs
- Forums
- Videos
- Articles
All of these components of a website help sites rank well because they’re interactive and provide information. Make note if your competitors have any of these on their site.
Find your competitors’ keywords
Continuing with the top 10 sites from your Google search, your next step is to find out what keywords they’re using and optimizing their page for. Look in the code of the website and find what keywords they’re using. This will give you some more ideas as to what keywords you could be optimizing your page for. If it’s working for them, it could work for you as well.
Find your competitor’s links
Link building is the foundation of all SEO work so it’s crucial that you know what your competitors are doing to get their links. Use Yahoo! site explorer to find out who is linking to your competition. The number of back links a site has is an excellent indicator of its ranking on Google. The more incoming links it has, the higher its position.
So, however many links your competitors have, you’re going to have to get more. If they’re on the first page and don’t have many incoming links, then that’s good news – it’s less work for you. However, if you find they have hundreds or thousands of incoming links, you have your work cut out for you. But don’t worry, if they did it so can you. When you’re browsing the list of incoming links look for places where you can also add your own link. Forums, blogs, discussion groups and directories are all places you want to look for. If your competitors are there, you can be there as well. Participate in the same forums, comment on the same blogs and submit your site to the same directories. By piggybacking off the research they’ve already done, you’re cutting your work in half because you don’t have to find these sites by yourself.
The secret of getting on top of Google
Back links are the key to ranking well on Google. As long as you have the most back links with well optimized anchors, you will rise above your competition and out-rank them every time. It’s not difficult, but it will take a little work. To make this link building strategy work, start by getting one new link every day for the first two months. After that you can bump it up to two links a day for the third month. And from the fourth month and beyond, you can add up to three new links every day.
How E-Marketing can Save Your Company During a Recession
Written by Smartt Team on September 3, 2009
When business slows during an economic recession, companies are faced with the challenge of deciding how to allocate their time and resources to make it over the hump. For many companies, one of the first things to go is the marketing budget. Resources need to be used wisely and many businesses fall into the trap of saving money on an “expendable” area, such as marketing.
This is an unfortunate decision. In order to attract more customers, businesses need to do more marketing, not less. The problem lies with the use of money. Marketing can be expensive, and with less people able to spend their disposable income on your product or service, many businesses opt to cut back on marketing for fear that they are wasting their efforts.
But marketing doesn’t have to be expensive. Especially when you use the internet. The internet gives you the ability to reach millions of potential buyers at a comparably low cost. This will allow you to gain more clients, without stretching your already tight budget too thin. The decisions you make during a recession will determine your future success. So it’s absolutely imperative that you make the right choices now.
How E-Marketing Can Help
E-marketing is the most cost-effective way to reach your customers. There are many strategies you can use online, many of which are completely free. Getting your site to rank higher on the search engines for your keywords is one way to increase business. These days, people are lazy when it comes to the internet. Most of the time when someone does a Google search, they never make it passed the first page. First page results are seen as the most important and most relevant results. Results on the second page or later aren’t looked at nearly as often as first page results.
The good news about this is that, anyone has the ability to rank well on the search engines, by doing a little optimization. The traffic generated from this method is completely free. When you optimize your website for the proper keywords, you’ll attract qualified leads to your site that are likely to convert into customers.
Beginning Your E-Marketing Campaign
The first step in any e-marketing campaign is to have a website. Without a website you’re not even in the game, much less doing well. A well designed, professional website is key. It represents the face of your company on the internet and creates an impression with your clients. Not having a well designed and informative website leaves clients with a feeling of unprofessionalism and creates distrust with your clients.
Not all websites are created equal though. The trick is to create a website that allows visitors to learn about your industry in a non-threatening, non-sales way. One of the best ways to do this is by starting a company blog right on your website. Blogs are an informal way to teach prospects about your industry and give them expert advice. The best part about blogs is that they tend to rank well on the search engines.
Another useful technique is to do an article writing campaign. As a rule of thumb you should write 20 articles and submit them to an article distribution site. This will help you in two ways. First, every time one of your articles is picked up, it will give you a back link to your website, increasing your SEO. Second, it will help get the word out about your product and people who read your articles will be able to visit your website to learn more about your company.
E-Marketing doesn’t have to be expensive, which is especially important during a recession. When done right, a successful e-marketing campaign has the potential to bring in a huge return on your investment by attracting more clients and bringing in more business. For very little money, it allows your business to go from making little or no money to thriving during a time when others are failing.
