Okay, so I made up that statistic.

But I bet it’s close enough. SEO is SUPER confusing because of a few reasons:

1. Historically, SEO has been limited to webmaster-techie-talk. Only computer whizzes could understand and could apply the back-end technicalities and logistics behind the SEO of a site
2. Google has evolved SEO tactics tremendously over time to try and out-smart the spammers. What used to work a few years ago (heck, even a few months ago), might no longer work. Unfortunately for us, that outdated information will live online forever, confusing those trying to study up on SEO
3. Like going to the gym, showing up is the hardest part. It’s challenging to get started without knowing what kind of commitment you’re going to have to…well, commit to.

SEO Basics: Start at the Beginning

If you’re looking for a simple, easy-to-understand resource about how to SEO your site, check out my free keyword research guide, “How to Find Keywords: 7 Simple Steps to Keyword Research (and SEO) Success.” 

Why start with keyword research? Because it’s the absolute foundation of an SEO strategy. It’s the very beginning of the beginning. In this guide you’ll discover:

• The #1 keyword strategy mistake most small business owners make
• Why the word “keyword” is so misleading and trips up small business owners
• How to use Google’s free keyword tool
• What the most overlooked step is of implementing an SEO strategy
• 4 keyword research mistakes most people make that you want to avoid

Get your free guide here today: http://jennymunn.com/free-keyword-research-guide/. And in the meanwhile, leave a comment below and let me know if you’ve attempted keyword research or what’s holding you back.

Related posts:

1. Stop Being a Scaredy Cat When it Comes to Keyword Research: Get Off Your Badonkadonk and Select Keywords that Convert
2. SEO Success Story Part 2: Two Copywriters Share Their SEO “Secrets”

You might be tempted to throw your hands up in the air dramatically, lamenting what the point is of getting started with SEO if every time you learn something it just changes again. That darn SEO – it’s like a slippery fish you just can’t get a firm grasp on.

I’m here to tell you not to fall victim to the hype.

The recent Penguin Update has many in the SEO community in an uproar. Basically, the update brought on by our friend Google targets websites perceived as having spammy backlink profiles and for having crappy content. And while some legit websites might’ve taken a hit, plenty of bad ones did too, which was rightfully deserved.

Read this sentence carefully: “Off-Page SEO has been changing dramatically for a while now.” The main part of this I want you to pay close attention to is this: Off-page SEO.  If you haven’t even done on-page SEO (let alone your keyword research), then you shouldn’t be worrying about off-page SEO. That’s putting the cart way before the horse.

You should not care about the Penguin update if:

• You don’t know what anchor text is
• You don’t understand what link building is
• You are a legit business owner who will put in the work to do things right
• You haven’t bought any links
• You haven’t hired a sketchy SEO agency or consultant anytime over the past few years – at least, not that you can remember

Google’s updates should not turn you off from getting started with SEO. In fact, it should do the opposite. These updates should have you scrambling to put together an SEO strategy, because the playing field has been leveled. You actually have a real chance of ranking against other legitimate sites. Not fighting spammy websites and webmasters who have unjustly kept the top spots from going to more deserving websites.

Does this make you feel better about the SEO changes and evolving SEO landscape? What still intimidates you?

If SEO changes concern you, then sign up to get my SEO updates I email out every now and then. I’ll keep it real and let you know what you really should and shouldn’t worry yourself about.

Image By Lars K. Jensen

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• The competition of your keywords
• The amount of SEO work your competitors on Page 1 have done and are doing
• How authoritative your site is
• How often fresh, engaging, keyword-rich content is being added to your site
• How many links are coming in to your site
• Site structure, site speed, and other important technical nuances

Now, onpage optimization alone did work for my Atlanta copywriting business for several years. But to maintain that ranking (as my competitors have gotten more web savvy), I’ve had to incorporate linkbuilding activities and social media marketing. This guy also achieved more business and clients due to his first page Google ranking solely from SEO copywriting. But – our focus areas are pretty niche.

Even if your SEO does get you to the first page of Google, there are no guarantees that SEO will bring you business and increase your profitability. There are many other factors to consider once a visitor arrives at your site: Did you attract the right traffic? Is your site trustworthy? Do you have a quality product? Is your sales funnel effective? How competitive is your niche? Are you educating your customers first?

Your customers are searching every day for the services and products you offer. Don’t you want to be the company or service provider they turn to? If you need help sorting out the confusion around SEO, check out my how to SEO ebook. Or, drop your question in the comment box below – I’d love to hear from you!

Related posts:

1. 2 Minute Video Book Review: Search Engine Optimization
2. Stop Being a Scaredy Cat When it Comes to Keyword Research: Get Off Your Badonkadonk and Select Keywords that Convert
3. Have You Over Optimized Your Site? There’s a Penalty for That

In this post I’m providing snippets of Don’s SEO newsletter series and then adding my own SEO commentary and experiences. Leave your comments and questions below. As always, reach out if you have any questions about your own SEO efforts.

Don:
The details of SEO can get complicated…what I do want to share is how simple and easy improving your website’s organic search rankings can be with just some basic SEO copywriting techniques. How do I know this? Because SEO has virtually transformed my business over the past year.

Jenny:
Don’s experiences are similar to mine. With just a few simple additions and changes to my website, SEO started working for me in no time. As more businesses competing with mine started to get more SEO savvy however, I’ve had to do some additional off page/linkbuilding work to stay in the top spot. But my efforts have been minimal (not to mention a great investment) compared with the business and leads it has brought in.

Don:
Having a website enabled me to send prospects a simple link where they could learn almost everything they needed to know before deciding whether or not to hire me. I envisioned it as an online “brochure” I could send to clients and prospects, but not really as a new lead generation tool.

Jenny:
Don’s perspective reflects exactly how most small business owners initially view their website. They’re not aware of a website’s potential to drive leads and attract clients. However, that’s the power of SEO and online marketing.

Don:
I started seeing results almost immediately. In the first two years of my business, I received just a handful of leads from prospects who happened to find my website. But I started getting a steady stream of calls and emails from prospects within a couple of weeks of “SEOing” my homepage’s copy. 

Jenny:
Don and I share similar exciting results in this regard. It took just a few short weeks before leads and prospects found my website and started inquiring into my services. It’s a great feeling!

Don:
Virtually all of my leads now come from prospects who found my website via a keyword search. And best of all, this doesn’t cost me a dime! 

Jenny:
About 70% of my new business comes from leads and prospects who have found my website via search results. The other 30% comes from a great referral network and speaking gigs I do on SEO and copywriting. I always liken SEO to having a clone of myself who does the upfront business development and sales work for me. 

Don:
To be honest, I hesitated just a little bit to write last month’s article on how easy it can be to improve a website’s search engine rankings by doing some simple SEO copywriting techniques. That’s because I know there are at least a few real SEO experts receiving this newsletter who might scoff at my simplistic explanation of SEO copywriting (you know who you are!).

Jenny:
Don hit the nail on the head here. Many hard-working SEO gurus and technical professionals put a lot of effort behind SEO education, strategy and tactics in order to get their clients’ websites to page 1. However, the level of optimization you have to do depends on your niche, how competitive your keywords are, your competition, etc. For me and Don, we both only did on page SEO which was enough to get us ranked high enough in the search engines to see results.

However – and this is a big caveat that bears repeating – my keywords were pretty niche and not that competitive. So for a business owner who is trying to rank in a more competitive niche, more SEO efforts may have to be done. Not only writing keyword rich meta data (like title and description tags), but on page SEO (SEO copywriting), blogging and possibly/probably off page elements like link building and social media marketing. Again, the extent of SEO you have to do to get to the first page of Google varies widely depending on your niche, your industry and what your competitors who are already on page 1 are doing.

Don hired a technical SEO professional to help him with some of the back-end aspects of SEO. I did the back-end “technical” work myself, because I use WordPress, which removes the technical necessities with just a few plugins and techniques. Now, without WordPress, you bet I’d be hiring a technical person to help me get that stuff done.

Conclusion

This wraps up my 2-part SEO Success Story series. My thanks to Don Sadler for providing valuable insights into what worked with his SEO strategy. If you’d like to receive Don’s content-packed monthly newsletter, you can sign up at http://donsadlerwriter.com.

Interested in learning how to make SEO work for you? Subscribe to my monthly newsletter (you’ll see the form on the upper right of this blog post or you can go to my homepage) where I provide non-technical DIY SEO tips and strategies. If you’d like to learn more about optimizing your business website quickly and affordably, check out my DIY SEO ebook for small business owners and solopreneurs.

Related posts:

1. SEO Success Story Part 1: Freelance Copywriter Tells All

Thanks to puffed up so-called SEO experts, many people mistakenly believe that SEO success requires spending thousands of dollars. That it’s comprised of complex, confusing technical strategies and methods that are too complicated for you to attempt. It doesn’t help that those who do succeed in SEO keep their secrets closely guarded. The truth is, the fight for the first page of Google is a competitive—and often expensive—one.

In my live Atlanta SEO workshops and training presentations, I always share my keywords and show screenshots in Google Analytics of additional keywords people use to find my site. I get asked all the time why I share my strategy with my “competitors” (other copywriters) who are in the audience. My answer? It’s too darn hard to teach others about SEO without being completely honest about the who, what, why, where, when and how.

Enter Don Sadler: A Small Business Owner Unafraid of Discussing His SEO Success
A few months ago I got an e-newsletter from a colleague that immediately got my attention. Don Sadler, a fellow Atlanta-based copywriter and small business owner, had dedicated his monthly newsletter (and the next two after that) to discussing his keywords, on page optimization strategy and the success he has had with SEO. Don and I met at a Freelance Forum meeting a year ago and have kept in touch since. I reached out to see if I could interview Don about his SEO success, and he graciously accepted. In this interview you’ll learn:

• How soon Don started seeing results from his SEO efforts
• Why Don used a combination of DIY SEO along with hiring a consultant
• What Don has to say about using Google’s free keyword tool
• What Don thinks about spilling his SEO secrets

Because there is so much great information I want to cover, I am splitting up this article into two blog posts. In the next post (which I’ll publish later this week), I’ll share a few snippets of the advice Don shares in his newsletter and explain why this insight is so important for an SEO newbie. Now, on to the interview – enjoy!

Jenny: Did you do the SEO yourself or hire a company or consultant? Why?
Don: I did the SEO copywriting myself. I hired an expert to do the back-end on-page stuff: He made sure the meta data was correct, utilized image names and alts, and cleaned up extraneous code. This was done about 6 months after I did the copywriting.

Did anything surprise you as you got started optimizing your site?
Not really. It was pretty easy for me to think up the keyword phrases that would be best to optimize and then check them out on Google Adwords. Then it was simply a matter of SEO copywriting, which I’ve done for many clients, so it wasn’t new or hard for me.

You have a 6 page website – how many pages did you optimize?
Just the home page for copywriting. The SEO expert did work on most of the pages, I believe.

You mentioned SEO has transformed your business – how soon did you see results?
Almost immediately. I first got a few emails from “tire-kickers” who were looking for a cheap writer ($10-20 an article) but soon got calls and emails from prospects willing to pay market rates for copywriting. Leads tend to come in bunches for some reason — I can get several in a week (and even in a day) and go several weeks without a lead. But leads have come in steadily over the past year since I did the SEO copywriting. I’d say that 90% of my new work now comes from someone finding my website via a search using my optimized phrases. As of this morning, I rank #1 on Bing and Yahoo! for my phrases and #4 on Google.

Most people are so protective about their keywords and optimization efforts…I was VERY impressed with how open you were discussing these things. Weren’t you nervous to divulge these “secrets”? Are you worried about people copying you?
Just a little bit, but not too much. And I have a pretty specialized niche. But I do still check periodically to see if any new competition has cropped up from other writers optimizing my phrases! So far, none has.

Did you have any trouble using the Google Adwords tool? What advice would you have for someone who finds it intimidating?
No trouble. Just follow the instructions — it’s easy!

Don Sadler is a freelance writer and editor who specializes in business and financial topics. Check him out at http://donsadlerwriter.com where you can sign up to receive his insightful newsletter.

Stay tuned for the next blog post. I’ll get more detailed about how both Don and I achieved so much SEO success with minimal effort and costs.

Interested in learning how to make SEO work for you? Subscribe to my monthly newsletter where I provide non-technical DIY SEO tips and strategies.

Related posts:

1. SEO Success Story Part 2: Two Copywriters Share Their SEO “Secrets”
2. You Know You Need a Copywriter When…(8 Reasons to Hire a Freelance Copywriter)

But for those of you who aren’t heavily involved in the SEO industry or who don’t keep up with optimization news on a daily or weekly basis, you still might not understand the extent to which SEO has evolved over the past few years.

Last month I had the great privilege of speaking to the Atlanta Bloggers Meetup on this very topic.

If you’re interested in viewing the presentation, check it out here:  SEO presentation – Atl bloggers meetup.

Here are a few takeaways:

• SEO is not dead. The traditional SEO from a few years ago is dead, but many people are now lumping SEO practices into terms such as inbound marketing, content marketing, or Internet Marketing.
• SEO used to be about onpage optimization and links, which, if your keywords are very competitive, isn’t enough to cut it in 2012
• SEO has grown beyond simply building links, writing comments and optimizing tags.
• In 2012, a successful social marketing plan will have a significant impact on search engine rankings, traffic and online profitability.
• SEO is not the end-all-be-all of your marketing strategy; conversion is the goal of your SEO efforts. You can’t talk about SEO without talking about conversions

Again, the full “SEO in 2012″ presentation is here.

Enjoy!

Related posts:

1. Teaching SEO for Small Business Owners at WordCamp Atlanta 2012 (AKA My Nerd Nirvana)
2. What the Future Holds for Sales and Marketing in 2012
3. Announcing My Ebook Launch – Coming January 2012

While this really isn’t anything completely new (quality content has always been critical for SEO), the fact that Google is coming out to verify this new penalty is pretty newsworthy.

As I tell my small business owners during my SEO Atlanta training and DIY SEO talks, all of Google’s changes – while understandable frustrating and difficult to keep up with – are actually good for ethical business owners who have a quality website. Google’s frequent algorithm changes are actually intended to penalize sites that have overinflated high search results and reduce their high rankings. In other words, the spammers, scammers, and those trying to take the easy way out.

Another Google Penalty to “Level the Playing Field” for Small Business Owners

Now, according to Matt Cutts, the head of Google’s Webspam team, Google is working on a new penalty for sites that are “over-optimized” and “over SEO’ed.” Want to see an example of over optimized copy?  And yes, this example is a little extreme but scary enough I’ve seen copy that’s just as bad:

Thanks to the good folks at Search Engine Land, here is a brief transcription of the talk Matt gave where he provided a rare “heads up” about this new penalty coming down in the next month or so:

“What about the people optimizing really hard and doing a lot of SEO. We don’t normally pre-announce changes but there is something we are working in the last few months and hope to release it in the next months or few weeks. We are trying to level the playing field a bit. All those people doing, for lack of a better word, over optimization or overly SEO – versus those making great content and great site. We are trying to make GoogleBot smarter, make our relevance better, and we are also looking for those who abuse it, like too many keywords on a page, or exchange way too many links or go well beyond what you normally expect. We have several engineers on my team working on this right now.”

Will your site move up in rankings? Or down? If you’ve over optimized (aka keyword stuffed your pages), I’d say right now is juuuussssttt about the best time to go and cut back on some of your on page keyword usage.

Bottom line: if you’re putting out quality content and sprinkling in your keywords judiciously like I always recommend, you have nothing to worry about. Carry on.

**I wanted to add an aside, because I know there are many Google haters out there who say that Google is just doing what’s in Google’s best interest to get more advertising dollars. Yes, Google does have to look out for #1, but I do believe that their changes are designed to give the searcher a better experience and to give quality websites a fair chance.

What do you think?

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Courtesy of Mokra

Before I begin, I wanted to tell you that the original title for this blog post was “Keyword Research Basics: Select Keywords That Will Convert.” Kind of boring though, right? I thought I’d rev it up a notch and used the title that you now see. I’d love to know which you prefer (let me know in the comments). Okay, on to the post…

I love speaking to people about keyword research. It’s a challenging topic to perfect to a science because every business is so different and keyword research is often subjective. BUT, keyword research is also a lot of fun (in my nerdy opinion).

Keyword research is the foundation of your SEO efforts. Pick the wrong keyword, and you’ll be led along on an SEO strategy that will never bring you any rewards. It’s critical you pick the right keyowrds to optimize on your web pages and blog posts.

Keyword Tip: Get Specific

So many people choose 1-2 word keywords, to their peril. 1-2 word keyword phrases are most of the time just too darn general, and extremely competitive for most small business owners with a limited SEO budget. Let’s take my  business, for example. What would be a good keyword?

1. Writer?
2. Copywriter?
3. Atlanta Copywriter?
4. Atlanta SEO Copywriter?

The first two are just way too general, the third – even though it’s only two words – is better because it targets a geographic location (“Atlanta Copywriter” is actually my primary keyword for my homepage) but the fourth keyword is my best converting keyword.

And right there is the reason we’re in this whole SEO thing to begin with. CONVERSION. Which keyword is going to bring you the most conversions? Not the most traffic per se, but the most conversions. For this blog post “conversion” means people who will type in a keyword, land on your site, and take your desired action. If you choose too general of a keyword, good chances are the person who lands on your site will hit the back button and find the more specific information they were looking for.

Keyword Phrases for Blog Posts vs. Website Pages

Most experts agree that long-tail keywords (5+ keyword phrases) convert very well. A few examples of long-tail keywords I pulled from my Google Analytics account include:

• “best book on becoming a better storyteller in business”
• “workshop in Atlanta for small business 2012”
• “how to create a freelance copywriter website with WordPress”
• “how to promote a service on LinkedIn”

But keep 2 factors in mind: long-tail keywords aren’t always appropriate for your website pages, and you can’t use more than 1 or 2 on a page because they will sound unnatural when used in the copy.

General vs. Specific Keywords: Where to Use Them

A good keyword research rule of thumb: you can be general on your homepage and about page (meaning general but PRACTICAL about which words you can realistically compete for to get to page 1 on Google), and more specific on your interior pages and blog posts.

Takeaways?

• Evaluate keywords based on more than traffic volume
• Strongly consider which words will bring you conversions
• Understand that “Babies,” “Bananas,” “Weight Loss” and “Writer” will never be your keywords

Do you have any questions about keyword research? Let me know in the comments below and I’ll get back to you.

Related posts:

1. The Compliment Guys Making a Stop in Atlanta
2. How to SEO: Let’s Start at the Very Beginning (A Very Good Place to Start)

Photo courtesy of javajoba

WordCamp Atlanta 2012, which took place the first weekend of February, seriously rocked. Not that I’d expect anything less from a conference designed exclusively to bring together WordPress enthusiasts.

I had the privilege of leading two back-to-back sessions on search engine optimization for small business owners. My talk was formally titled, “SEO & WordPress: Do this, not that for the small business owner or solopreneur.” Two hours of talking about SEO and WordPress + meeting other cool business owners = a slice of nerd heaven.

As always, the audience was fabulous and there were lots of great questions and interaction. If you missed the presentation, here are a few links:

• Atlanta social media consultant Charity Hisle gives a presentation recap on her website
• The SlideShare link to my SEO for small business owners presentation
• WordPress.tv recorded most of the talks from WordCamp Atlanta, so the video of my talk should be available soon (although as of publishing this post it’s not there yet)

For anyone that attended the presentation (or even if you didn’t attend but are trying to learn about search engine optimization), if you have any questions about SEO’ing your website, don’t hesitate to reach out!

Photo courtesy of Brandy Nagel

Related posts:

1. What SEO Looks Like in 2012: SEO Presentation
2. Announcing My Ebook Launch – Coming January 2012
3. My 5 Favorite Things from WordCamp Atlanta 2010

In August 2011 I quietly decided to start writing my first “how to SEO” ebook for small business owners, solopreneurs and consultants who couldn’t afford expensive SEO services. I fielded questions frequently from SBOs who were frustrated by the technical jargon. Plus, a lot of people come to me wanting to know how I rank on the first page of Google for my keyword, “Atlanta Copywriter.”

Day by day SEO is becoming more small business friendly, and I certainly wanted to do what I could to be part of that.

The idea formulation, research, outlining, and drafting took a solid 4 months. Because my day job (client copywriting project work) has kept me very busy, I restricted myself to working on my ebook only during weekend, evening, and early morning hours. And finally, it’s ready! A few weeks ago I sent it to a proofreader and graphics layout person, and it is finally ready. I’m thrilled with how it turned out! I just uploaded the ebook to E-Junkie and I’m drafting my sales page now.

Here’s a sneak peak at the cover and table of contents:

Cover Image

Table of Contents:
TOC – How to SEO (A DIY Workbook for SBOs)

The ebook will be ready for purchase soon – just in time to kick off 2012. Thanks to everyone for your support!

Related posts:

1. Teaching SEO for Small Business Owners at WordCamp Atlanta 2012 (AKA My Nerd Nirvana)