I’ve always been a big proponent of ad position testing in order to get the best ROI on paid search campaigns but this new element will add an interesting variable to the mix.  As you can see below there is a significant amount of above the fold screen real estate taken up by this new addition.  We do have the PPC account attached to our Google places account which may be required to even enable this option.  If you don’t already have this enabled we highly recommend you do so now.

Check out the pic below and you’ll see that with the new map option expanded in the PPC section Google is now only displaying 2 organic listings above the fold.  That makes PPC all the more attractive, especially the number 1 position.

Evolve is planning a comprehensive reorganization of COVA’s website. The campaign focuses on website architecture and sales optimization. The plan is formulated to capture relevant market share for search terms like: Central Oregon Golf Courses, Central Oregon Ski Resorts and Central Oregon Hotels.

“This search campaign will help COVA and its members maximize their market reach while ensuring that more dollars are concentrated on tourism leads that are likely to buy,” says Evolve President, Derek Mabie. “Ultimately we will define a tracking system that allows COVA to see exactly how their investments are driving tourism sales for the region.”

According to COVA Web & Interactive Marketing Director, Maureen Mattingly, “The Visitors Association provides a valuable service to the visitors and businesses of Central Oregon. Our partnership with Evolve substantially increases the value of our marketing dollars by providing a foundation for measurable return on investment.”

Tony Courtwright, Director of Interactive Sales, News-Press & Gazette Broadcasting (NPG) adds, “NPG’s team of experts continue to focus on the needs of our local clients by providing solutions including search engine marketing, video, display and e-marketing.”

About Evolve

Evolve is an internet marketing company headquartered in St. Louis, MO., specializing in Search Engine Optimization, Paid Search, Brand Monitoring and Data Analysis. Evolve’s methodologies provide clients with measurable results grounded in sound marketing strategy. With a growing roster of clients, Evolve is projecting over 1.156 million in revenue in its first fiscal year.

About the Central Oregon Visitors Association

The Central Oregon Visitors Association (COVA) has been the non-profit tourism Destination Marketing Association serving Central Oregon since 1971. Supported by more than 500 member businesses and operating with an annual budget of more than $1.5 million; COVA manages tourism advertising, marketing, promotion, public relations, and industry relations on behalf of the Central Oregon region.

About The Science of Search

The Science of Search is Evolve’s proprietary Search Engine Optimization workshop developed to provide television syndicates with additional internet reach and advertising value. News Press & Gazette (NPG) contracted Evolve to service select markets in 2010.

About News-Press & Gazette

News-Press & Gazette Broadcasting (NPG), based in St. Louis, Mo., is a division of the News-Press & Gazette Company, a media holding company owned by the Bradley family based in St. Joseph Missouri operating cable, newspaper and broadcast properties. The Broadcast Division operates television and radio stations and station specific websites in seven Western and Southwestern markets including Colorado Springs-Pueblo, El Paso-Las Cruces, Palm Springs, Idaho Falls-Pocatello, Grand Junction-Montrose, Yuma-El Centro, and Bend, OR.

The art of website SEO is incredibly complex. That being said, the same is true for video SEO. Thanks to the ever-changing algorithms of search engines across the net, there is not necessarily a cut and dry answer for the exact dos and don’ts of search engine optimization. The question then is what steps have been proven to increase rankings in the recent past? Below are a few that have worked well for others, myself included:

1.  Tags – While search engine algorithms that determine what websites should rank and where are continually changing, one thing remains constant: tags. Tags make up one of the most widely accepted ranking factors out there. Search engines use these tags to determine what the video in question is about and therefore what it is relevant to. Properly tagging the videos on your channel can only help your video to rank better. Of course, keyword stuffing is one thing that absolutely should not be done. Be sure to keep the keywords to a minimum when filling in the tags.

2. Link Building – If the concept of pointing links to your website has worked in the past, why not build links to your YouTube video channel? The more links pointing to your videos, the more relevant they will appear. One major mistake made amongst novices for SEO is the lack of using keywords for the anchor text. Pick two or three keywords you want to rank for and use those to embed the links that point to your video.

For example, when pointing a link to a video that talks about satellite television programming, use the term ‘DISH Network’ as the anchor text to embed your link. This tells the search engines that your videos are about DISH Network television programming and aids them in deciding how relevant your videos are to keyword searches for television programming.

3.  Less is Just Less – When it comes to building your YouTube channel, it helps to have a lot of content on it. After all, your channel should be set up as an authority on the information it provides. The more information present, the more authoritative the channel appears. Search engines love relevant informational content from a big YouTube channel.

YouTube and the content on it receive approximately 100 million visitors on a monthly basis. With the wealth of traffic possibilities available, there is no reason to not incorporate a YouTube channel into your video SEO strategy.  Those who understand how to best optimize their channels will undoubtedly notice an increase in their video SEO rankings.

This entry was written by a guest author. The author’s views below are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of Evolve: The Science of Search

Image Taken From: http://blog.karachicorner.com/2010/02/seo-for-youtube-videos-seo-tips-for-youtube/

In an SEO FAQ  blog post not long ago, I answered the question: ” Why is SEO so expensive?”

There are some people who think SEO is expensive.  This is, of course, a matter of perspective.  If you go online because you’ve bought into the scam still being pitched that you can make big money with almost no investment, and you set up a website for under $1000 using offshore labor, then the idea of paying $500, $1000, or $1500 a month might sound expensive for SEO costs.  If you’ve heard this lie we suggest watching this great video below:

Sorry that you have been misled, but the scam is a lie.  Well, not completely.  You actually CAN make more money online with less investment than offline.  Here is why:

1. It costs a lot less to set up a website that can distribute goods or services, or even just information products, than it takes to set up a chip stand that serves a community like mine (population under 5000 people).  With $5000-$10,000, you can have an online presence that is in a position to compete with major international brands (that does not mean your website will be as fancy as theirs, but you can be in a realistic position to compete).

2. It costs a lot less to compete against major brands in the search engines than it does through radio advertising (go ahead, call your local radio station and ask), TV advertising (don’t even bother asking) and glossy magazine ads.

The fact is that the big brands have the money to spend.  If Burger King can spend $300 million a year on advertising and GM can spend over a billion dollars each year, surely big brands can outspend you online.  Suddenly an SEO budget of $500, $1000, or $1500 a month sounds like peanuts.  And it is.  That’s because SEO is so cost effective when it comes to identifying prospects and delivering them to your sales team.

And the big brands do not always win the SEO game, although many of them do have an advantage.  Try searching for “winter boots”, ” garlic press” and “gourmet coffee” to see how well ordinary businesses compete with the big brand websites.

In many niches, SEO peanuts will work just fine. Don’t expect to rank #1 at Google or Bing for “cars” or for “books” or for “food” on that kind of budget.  But for the majority of niches, that price range is reasonable, and even in most fairly competitive niches the price to compete – I mean really compete – is way below what it would cost to compete against established brands offline.

There is a great article posted by Evolve over at YouMoz about How To Choose an SEO Company.

Establish a reasonable budget from the start, and you’ll find SEO is a very cost effective means of promotion.

This post was written by David Leonhardt an SEO consultant in Ottawa, Canada.  For more think-outside-the-box SEO marketing ideas, subscribe to his blog, where he is now offering a free SEO white paper for small business.

This came across my Google Alerts today.  When I click on the link it just directs directly to the main domain of Top SEO’s.

Can anyone comment on a legitimate reason as to why this link would exist if it wasn’t spam?

Self proclaimed internet marketing experts abound.  Whether you’re a beginner or an expert this list serves to remind you that we need to treat our visitors as people to effectively market to them.

The Tangled Webs we Peeve

In the not-too-distant past, having a company website was a symbol of technological accomplishment and a cutting-edge vision for customer communication and interaction.  However, as the Internet grew at a wild pace and became cheaper and easier for anyone to use, many companies have created small sites that are scarcely more complicated than a business card, spattered with other little pieces of content.  One reason for this is of course budgetary constraints, since creating a modern polished and interactive site isn’t exactly low-cost.  So, in order to draw traffic and attention to their Web presence, huge numbers of company sites are being promoted in various ways all over the Internet.

Some promotional techniques are subtle and interesting while others are actually more of a nuisance to the online community.  The following list details five of the more annoying forms of website marketing we’ve come across in our years of studying these advertising methodologies.  They may not have a huge impact on a company’s success, but they will definitely annoy some of the users who traffic the site.

Popups?  Really?

Pop-ups, in their various forms, are an obvious place to start this list.  This particular marketing technique has been annoying web users seemingly since day 1 by simply getting in the way of what they really want to see.  Sure, it gets the message in front of users, but may also induce their scorn and, usually, closing the new window without reading it.

Don’t Squeeze the Charmin’ Visitor

The so-called “squeeze page” is a fairly new tactic which works by offering something for free, such as information, a quote on something, or even a small prize.  But, of course, it’s not exactly free – it requires the person to enter their contact information, almost always for the purpose of putting them on some sort of advertising list.  Simply stating the facts and identifying the squeeze page as such is probably a better idea.

Keyword Keyword Word Keyword

Primarily for SEO purposes, many sites stuff keywords they want to rank for all over their site – even within content that’s supposed to be readable by humans.  Not only is this unnecessary for SEO, but it greatly reduces the quality of the user experience and may make a visitor wonder what planet the writer learned their craft on.

Commenting Competitions

Promoting one’s own site on other related sites is a foregone conclusion for any site that needs more traffic.  Making various types of comments on blogs and articles is a very common way to do this, but it’s also often done without really reading what’s being commented on, simply to leave a promotional statement and a link.  Even if moderators don’t get rid of these comments, they’re not terribly convincing efforts that any real user would follow.

Playing Covert Ops

Lastly in our list, attempting to obfuscate what is clearly marketing material simply doesn’t work on the savvy Internet user anymore.  Ads are ads, and can be distinguished from real content very easily (even when it’s just plain text with tracking URL links), so trying  to make such content look like anything else simply doesn’t work very well and will become far less effective as time goes on.

So, while these five website marketing techniques may not doom a campaign to failure, they probably also won’t charm many web users and may even be responsible for driving away a percentage of traffic.

About the Author: Steve Lazuka is the President of Interact Media, a company dedicated to providing clients with great SEO content for content marketing, as well as for website copy. You can find him on twitter (@SteveLauzka) or writing on the Interact Media blog.

5 Factors impacting Google Local Business Listings

1.  City and zip code are probably the most important factors that determine which results Google will rank the highest.  Google looks at the IP address of the computer that’s conducting the search and tries to provide the most relevant results by looking at the address in your listing.  So what are you supposed to do if you want to rank in a city that is different than what your physical address is.  For instance, if you’re business is located in Brentwood, MO and that’s what you use on your listing, then it won’t rank as well for the term St. Louis.  Since Brentwood is technically a suburb of St. Louis I recommend using the broader metro term that is more likely to get searched for your actual business listings.

Although Google will still use the IP address to return the most relevant results, if you are in a niche that isn’t as competitive then you may want to play with this option and monitor your results.  If you service more than one area I recommend setting up a separate account for each location and optimizing the listings accordingly.

2.  Title – The title of the listing should include your legal business name or a DBA name.  If you can register a DBA with the city name as part of your company DBA name then you would be able to use that as part of your listing.  This can drastically help your rankings.  Consider the benefits of a high ranking Google Local Business listing based on estimated search volumes for the keywords you target and decide if this is a strategy that is worth exploring.

3.  Description – You should use keyword rich descriptions that cover all of your products or services that you want to rank for.  Be sure to do your keyword research before writing your description or you may end up targeting keywords that aren’t getting much traffic.  Take the time to write unique, compelling content in a way that drives consumer action.  These listings can generate a significant amount of traffic and a good description can mean the difference between an impression and an action.  Go ahead and include the city name a few times in the description as well.

4.  PageRank – Google also takes into consideration your overall pagerank and domain authority.  If you have a newer domain without much pagerank or authority you may need to make some SEO efforts to boost those metrics and watch your LBC listings move up the charts at the same time.

5.  Reviews – Sites like Ratepoint.com or Yelp.com are consumer review sites that Google values.  Create profiles on these sites and start collecting feedback and reviews from your customers.  Google sees reviews as independent votes of confidence for your business and thus it helps your overal LBC rankings.  Not to mention these services add to your credibility and overall trustworthiness, both huge factors in growing your online presence.

If you liked this post please consider subscribing to our feed for weekly updates and check out our other articles in the SEO category of our blog.  Evolve is a St. Louis SEO Company.

Without further ado, please check out our list and review of the upcoming St. Louis SEO events

Fortunately we do have some SEO/SEM events that are worth checking out right here in St. Louis.  If you’re thinking about getting into this career field, or if you’re a business owner looking for the DIY approach to search engine marketing then take a look at our list of St. Louis SEO related events.

Small Business SEO Training

Here is a 6 hour course taught in 2 sessions at Meramec College in St. Louis, MO.  The main focus of the course is SEO and the target audience is small business owners.  At $49 for the entire course this one comes in at well below market value so if you’re new to the industry or just want to get more involved this is an investment that’s well worth your time and money.

The course is taught by Erin Steinbruegge, from The Loud Few, an interactive marketing firm based in St. Louis.  Her experience lies in developing ROI based SEO and SEM campaigns for a diverse group of clients and is considered a local expert on the subject matter.

Hurry, registration ends on this one soon and classes start tomorrow.

St. Louis Social Media Conference

Here we have a social media conference that is fairly well known.  There is an extensive panel of social media guru’s from the likes of Sprint, Best Buy, Hubspot, Scottrade, and more.  The course stresses a large focus on case studies and not concepts.  With social media being such a new frontier it makes sense to only focus what has been proven to work on a large scale rather than speculation.

An event catering specifically to the restaurant and hospitality industry and how they can effectively use social media.  If you’re involved with marketing for restaurants in St. Louis this is probably a great event for you to attend.  Social media has proven to be quite effective for this industry since people love to share their likes and dislikes about food and travel.

With the addition of location based sharing tools like FourSquare and Yelp! integrating with Google Maps it’s becoming quite important for restaurants and hotels to take an active interest in managing their online presence in the social sphere.  I read a great article not long ago, 5 Things You Need to Know About Location Based Social Media.

Last but not least, Buzzhound Learning Lab, is a St. Louis based SEO & PPC training service.  They feature a hands-on approach for those in the St. Louis area who want to learn SEO either for a career or to apply in business.  I haven’t had the chance to review the course yet but the cast at Buzzhound has credibility and it looks like the project may really take off this summer.

The cost ranges from $550 – $800 for a 1 day hands on learning lab and price depends on registration dates and promotions being offered.  I would say this is ideal for employees of companies that need SEO but are striving to put together an in house effort.  If anyone has feedback on this course I’d love to hear your comments on our blog.

SEO GURU

(PROCEED WITH CAUTION)

Alternatively, there is always the SEO Guru from Craigslist.  At only $479 for 8 hours I guess it’s price competitive to Buzzhound.  I’m not knocking entrepreneurs or consultants looking for business on Craigslist.  With what I know about the SEO industry I wouldn’t take the time to ask what “100% Guaranteed” even means in this scenario!

If you liked this post please consider subscribing to our feed for weekly updates and check out our other articles in the St. Louis SEO category of our blog.  Evolve is a St. Louis SEO Company.