Using my Philip Busk Linkedin account, I did a mini SEO audit for someone that posted a site on Linkedin that I thought was worth sharing. My partner at Marketing on the Web (www.marketing-ontheweb.com) does most of our audits but I do know a thing or two about a good SEO audit. The site I looked at is pretty much a business PowerPoint template site but the company offers several levels of PowerPoint support including templates, presentation makeovers, consultation, and complete presentation builds.  This mini audit took about 30 minutes and would normally take about 20 hours so it will be very thin and generic.

Market Analysis

Their Initial Key-phrases – “Business Presentations”, “PowerPoint Presentations”

• Too generic, doesn’t bring in targeted traffic, too much competition
  • Narrow your focus
  • Pick more specific key-phrases – use a keyword tool to determine the number of searches done daily.

Refined Key-phrases – “PowerPoint business presentations” (~60 per day), “business presentation templates” (~45 per day), “business presentations PowerPoint templates.” A lot less searches but much more focused. You will need to dig into and generate many more of these. Do some research on long tail key-words. Generate more ideas. Get very specific with your categories: “health and safety PowerPoint presentations”, “medical tourism PowerPoint presentations”, etc. Use a key-word discovery tool and type in “PowerPoint templates”, “business templates”, “PowerPoint business presentations”, etc and start to create a list of potential phrases.

• Much lower traffic but much more targeted, less competition

Home Page

• Tags  – What is the main emphasis
  • Change tag to PowerPoint Presentation Templates | Pure Presentations
  • Change description to “selling copy” that will entice a searcher into your site. Limit to 160 characters + Read More

Here is a great article on stupid SEO advice. It’s out there folks. My advic has always been to verify and test any advice you get, even from the experts. If you are working on clinets sites; test and verify on your own first. It may be easier for me to do this becasue of my engineering and sales management back ground. Engineers test theroies and in sales you learn to be slightly sceptical of information. Test and verify!

Nice list of keyword plus research tools. These will probably yield a bit more relevant “what is happening now” results.
5 Useful Research Tools

Have you ever started looking for a business in town? If you are like me you’ll go on the internet and do a search and hope for the best. I’ve found a directory in Huntsville that lists five top businesses for each category. Home Resource Huntsville has several well laid out categories that are easy to sort through. From Pet Sitting to Home Repair, you’ll find the right company in this resource.

 I’ve owned a few directories in my time and the thing about this one is that it is well promoted. They use billboards along the busiest roads, postcard mailings, and a group of dedicated salespeople to constantly promote the directory and the advertised businesses.

Directory owners could learn a valuable lesson by looking at the Home Resource directory.  Every day I see so many crappy directories that have nothing to do with helping people; they are mostly link farms. Home Resource Huntsville is a model directory for businesses that want people finding them and coming to their place of business. With all the non-internet marketing that goes into this site, people will find it and then find the advertised businesses.

Brad Geddes wrote a nice article on How Many Google Privcay Policies Are You Violating?

 It’s important to remember that if you use Google AdWords, Analytic, or AdSense, you’ve agreed to follow Google’s privacy policies. If you are in violation of those policies you could be at risk of losing access to the Google program or even being sued. Neither being something I want to have happen to me or my clients.

I’m off to double check that my sites are in compliance.

 BP Manipulating Search Results on Google?

 BP is in the middle of the ultimate reputation management task. I’d have to say this is a task that is like climbing an oiled pole. As far as internet marketing, BP is doing what a ton of businesses do everyday; reputation management. In the reputation management world buying ad space for the terms people are searching is the right thing to do.  The writer should learn that paid ads, ppc, are not considered true search results…at least not by me.

Set a goal of making a million dollars and you’ll have a good chance of reaching it. Make no goals; you’ll have a good chance of reaching those too. When I was in high school I had a friend David that had a piece of paper over his desk with $1,000,000 printed in large black letters. I asked him what that was all about and he explained to me that was his goal. He wanted to make a million dollars and he wanted to make it soon. David not only reached that goal but I’m guessing surpassed it. At the same time, many people I knew had no goals, wandered through life, and have little to show for it. Set specific tangible goals, create a plan to reach those goal, measure your progress, and you’ll have a good chance of success.

Everyday David looked at his one million dollars sign and thought of ways to achieve the goal. Stocks, small businesses, other investments were all vehicles to achieve the goal. He set his sites, mapped out a course to achieve the goal, measured his successes and failures, and refined his strategy. I know when it comes to financial goals you’ve heard people like Suze Orman talk about taking steps toward financial freedom. Those steps start with a goal and then planning to reach that goal. You have a much better chance of getting to a destination if you know it’s location. After David set his specific goal, he mapped out the path to his success.

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