No, I’m not becoming a review blogger! I blogged about how I wanted to try out Lotus Jump and the company let me try it out. Lotus Jum a content management system to help you manage a Do-It-Yourself SEO campaign. It’s a great way to break down all of the SEO tasks you need to do.

If you’re like most people who has ideas, starts web sites or blog, and then doesn’t promote them online, Lotus Jump can help. It will help you stay on task and organized. When you measure something and get reports it helps you stick to it when there’s no boss or deadline.

Here are my thoughts

PRO

• They identify ways to get links for you and link directly to the place to go to submit a directory listing, a blog comment, a Yahoo Answer, etc.
• Very intuitive and easy to use. You select a task, delete it or complete it. It gives a short explanation of the site and what to do.
• Reports show you where your competitors have links, links you have, and tasks completed.
• They give you the code to link to your site with a specific keyword phrase.
• Saves you time identifying opportunities for you to get links.
• Gives a short list of how to use the site and where to put links.

CONS

• Not enough variety of links. For example, mine was a blog and it only had a few blog directories but I now there are many more. It would rock if it identified related Wikipedia entries you could post on.
• It assumes some SEO basics such as where and how often to use your keyword phrase as a link.
• The link is not to a specific related page but to the home page. However it does insert the link text for you: Example: press release writer when it should link directly to my press release services page of my blog (or web site if I had one).

I didn’t see the social profile parts, which I’m also interested in.

Lotus Jump is pretty reasonably priced and you can add another domain to your account for an additional $19 a month or go for the pro account for $50. I think the pro account should let you have more domains.

You must already know what keyword phrases you want to target, which is part of the battle for some. It would be nice if they helped with that part – even linking to tools to help you gauge the competition and/or demand for phrases relating to your business. That could be a value-add service. They could also add press release distribution tasks on the top free or paid sites (they could ask me for help on that!).

Questions: Can I add my own tasks? I saw the article suggestions but not the submission process.

Nice endorsement from Anita Campbell (who I have immense respect for) on the front page of the site:

Bottom line: It’s easy to get distracted on what you need to do to market your web site. On a basic level Lotus Jump will help you by giving you tasks and keeping track of them for you. I don’t know of anything else like it and the price is pretty fair.

Can SEO software be a viable solution for small business owners who understand SEO enough to know they need it but lack the “how to” knowlege?

There are many times in consulting where I have what I’ll call an “in-between” client. I usually refer them to people I know who can do the tasks they need to help them rank well in search engines. I do keyword research and online PR but I don’t usually do the more mundane parts of SEO. These important but sometimes tedious tasks include: article writing and submission, directories, online review sites, profiles on social sites, etc.

My coworkers and I have been talking about Lotus Jump – which is SEO software that automates a lot of SEO processes. It walks you through step-by-step for about $50 a month (I’ve heard). It’s geared for the novice – so it tells you what you need to do.

Even though I’m an SEO in my job I lack the focus at home to do the parts of SEO that aren’t my favorite. So I’m thinking of trying this software. I’m curious if anyone has tried it. If you have please leave comments.

Here are my questions (which I’ll answer when I sign up and test the service):

• How is the useability

• Rate the difficulty level (SEO beginner, intermediate, advanced) and what you can get out of the software from each level

• Have you outsourced someone to do the tasks using this system and how has it gone?

• What results have you seen from using the software in your traffic, sales, or other measurements

• What are the analytics/reporting features?

If you try it before I do, let me know what you think:

Forgive the title – I want to address businesses who want to do SEO but have a tough time finding keywords that have much demand. Most businesses rank naturally in the top 10 for their branded terms. For example, I should rank highest for the term Newspapergrl. However, that doesn’t describe what I do and only reaches people who have already heard of me.

I’ve noticed some clients who have a name that doesn’t describe what they do and they provide a service that isn’t searched for online. This is the time to get creative.

Go to SpyFu and type in your URL to get an idea of what keywords you rank for. Here’s my list (this isn’t always accurate). This used to be better but as you can see it’s all over the map. As you can see I’m ranking for terms that aren’t very helpful – I’d rather rank for terms such as “Online PR” “online press releases” etc. It also shows my top competitors online. If they have nothing to do with what you do, you need to focus on relevant keywords in your writing.

I have focused on my blog design, getting my professional services page updated, and many things. Just writing regularly has been a challenge. Now that I’ve gotten past a lot of the most difficult parts I need to focus in on SEO more again. I also need to finish my online PR book and get a web site up about online PR.

According to SpyFu this is what I rank for (if you pay they’ll give more results). It’s far different than what I used to rank for.

14 jeremy palmer affiliate high performa…
27 innuity
32 email marketing guide
41 affiliate marketing article
42 www optimizemysite com
44 calling libya
45 replacesearch
49 corporation attorney

Back to the point about SEO for businesses where people aren’t actively searching out what you do online. One creative way to approach finding keywords is to think about problems you solve or the audience you want to reach. If your audience is small businesses you might search “for small businesses” and see what comes up. Use a keyword tool such as freekeywords.wordtracker.com or Google’s Keyword tool.

You also want to look at what your competition ranks for, or who you want my competition to be. Or even who you work with or want to work with. For example, I put PRWeb into Spyfu. Since I write optimized press releases that I distribute with PRWeb, they are a complementary business.

I notice PRWeb ranks on terms that have nothing to do with press releases. Obviously they are ranking for their actual press release content, not for what they do. They’re not ranking on “optimized press releases” or “online press releases.”  A blog is an excellent way to build your rankings for keywords and create your own content. Even though PRWeb is one of the most known online press release services, smaller online press release businesses are ranking for terms relating to their business.

Sometimes there just isn’t demand or it’s so small that you need to focus on other tactics after ranking for the obvious terms like your brand name. For most businesses that is easy. You may then turn to getting mentions in blog posts, leaving comments, being active in forums or social networks and other ways to build your visibility online. This is where relationship building is key. It’s vital to find out where your audience is spending time online and getting creative about how to reach them.

Rather than focus on SEO you will need to identify publications, associations, bloggers, groups and complimentary businesses and work on those relationships. See if you can offer content in exchange for a link and some publicity. Try advertising in newsletters, running contests, and finding other ways to engage with your audience. Most of all produce content that your audience will relate to. See who is ranking well for your audience and see if you can partner with or engage them.

These are ways that I found effective, but it’s something I’m always thinking about. Each business challenges me to think of new ways to market online. What creative ways have you found to market your business online when SEO and keywords aren’t a good fit?

I hear the chorus – when it comes to pitching the media – traditional media like newspapers or tv shows – they want the story. They are sick of pitches that either don’t apply to them, or that aren’t interesting.

Most of the time, it’s not interesting that you named a new CEO or made a new partnership. Your software or product isn’t that interesting (unless you’re Klimit). What makes things interesting is the human element or the story.

Reporters are burned out, stressed out, and many are losing their jobs right now. They don’t have energy and time to read about your news. So what is a PR firm or a company trying to get attention to do? Tell and distribute your own story. When and if you have a story that’s interesting or bigger, then go ahead and pitch.

In the meantime, your audience is a search engine. Or, it’s a social media site like Facebook where you interact with potential customers (or just people) directly. It’s really about being human, responding, and building trust with communities. It’s where someone who specifically cares about your industry, your product, or your company will find you.

You pay a lot for distribution (hiring someone to get the word out to new audiences). You have something to say but no one is listening. You can say it on your web site, but how many people will find it? Some. But if you distribute your news online hundreds of others outlets will see it, you’ll get more exposure. Your news will be interesting to someone and be reprinted, blogged about, or linked to on other web sites that otherwise wouldn’t know you exist.

Or, your news will just sit there until someone looks for it in a search engine. That’s good too. Because search engines don’t get headaches. They’re not overwhelmed or losing their jobs. They have space. Sure it helps to be interesting. But it’s not the same as pitching to media.

When it comes to news, search engines are the holders of information about your company. Traditional PR needs to weed through the news and choose the right outlet. Many stories will go to search engines. Some will get on the news. Clients must change from wanting to see stories about them in the press, to thinking about impressions, traffic to their web site, and direct sales from their news releases.

I just wrote about how Google is selling off Performics search engine marketing services and keeping the affiliate division. I wish Google would sell the entire division of Performics but they kept the affiliate marketing part. Both seem like a conflict of interest. (Sidenote: Has anyone signed up or tested the Google Affiliate Network?)
What’s interesting to me in the industry is the whole issue of print vs. online advertising or marketing. Clients want PR and advertising to be more seemless – to have both in one place and to measure results across both. But the PR side and the online side are so different that each struggle to figure out how to combine them.
I see it on both sides. We (OrangeSoda or myself) offer press releases to clients for online visibility. To get search engine rankings and a permanent link and online distribution. Clients also want to get press coverage, which we don’t measure. We don’t find and distribute press releases to traditional media or even to individual blogs – but maybe we should. However, it’s not our expertise.

On the other side, PR firms are trying to expand their online offerings to include search engine optimization and social media services. Often it’s tough to define and charge for – as I eluded to in my last post (what terrible anchor text!). Obviously, the biggest players are trying to sort this out, as is the rest of the industry.

I read a twit today (entry on the web site Twitter) that stood out to me. Working with local businesses, it touches on a common issue. It’s about your business name and how it affects your search engine rankings. Almost every business will rank highest for their business name.

That’s because the name of your business is usually all over your web site. It’s in your title tags, the first thing on every page, you have links to it within your site, and from other sites, etc. That’s not bad because you do want to be the first result when someone types in the name of your business.

The problem is when you’re a new business no one has heard of you. Unless you do a lot of marketing and advertising and spend the time to familiarize people with your business, there probably aren’t many people typing your business name into a search engine. Being number one isn’t that helpful and it’s likely pretty easy and quick to achieve. What you really want is to be number one when someone types in what you sell or do.

Example: I just wrote a press release for a locally owned business called HugaMonkey. They sell baby slings. If you type in HugaMonkey their business is #3 in Google. That’s pretty good, but they’d get even more value if they came up #1 for the words: baby sling.

According to WordTracker there are 256 searches a day on the term “baby sling.” It’s actually a lot more that, but that’s a number you can use to approximate how many people are searching the internet for baby slings.

Here’s the twit that spurned this post – it’s from Wendy Piersall. She is inspiring to me. It took courage for her to transform her blog into a business and expand it. She pulled it off beautifully and her community is as vibrant as ever because of her work. Not long ago, she changed her business name from eMoms to Sparkplugging. There are over 400 searches a day on the term “spark plugs,” it’s probably a reasonably competitive term.

It’s great that Wendy ranks high (#2) for that term, but the problem is, she doesn’t sell spark plugs! This may not be a big deal because Wendy has a community not an ecommerce site, but if I were selling sparkplugs I’d be mad. And then I’d start blogging. If that’s all I sell or a big part of my businses, I’d wish my business name had the words “spark plug” in it.

Takeaway SEO lesson: Think about how your business name will affect your search engine rankings, especially if you’re a small business. It’s not an end-all, but consider tacking on other words (like a tagline) that explains what you do – and uses a keyword that people are searching for.

My article on SEO for blogs was featured in the March/April 2008 issue of Engage Magazine. My friends Nash and Shahar started the magazine. They do a great job making internet marketing subjects simple for small business owners.
http://www.engagemag.net/archives/Engage-Mar08Web.pdf

This is a guest post by Paul Wilson, my business partner who recently sold his blog to buy a wedding ring. I spent a good year trying to get him to blog and now I miss his posts.

Paul said he’ll start a new blog but in the meantime I’ve asked him to write for mine (and if anyone else wants to do a guest post, please contact me).

I’ll preface this by saying I’m a fan of Shoemoney and I read his blog and have met him in real life twice. I always respect that he’s worked hard and overcome personal issues as they are determined to succeed. (According to him he’s been fired, he used to be fat, etc). Over time he’s built a business, gotten healthier, built a lot of respect, and he’s openly shared a lot of his journey in an authentic way.

Jeremy doesn’t actually say he hates ALL SEOs – he just doesn’t like most of them. I wrote about how Aaron Wall loves SEO a few posts back (he didn’t say how he feels about actual SEO experts).

——- BEGIN POST BY PAUL WILSON ABOUT SHOEMONEY AND SEOs ——–

Jeremy Shoemaker (shoemoney.com) recently did a post on why he hates SEO experts (SEOs = people who are experts in search engine optimization). I know that there has been a lot said on this, but I have to weigh in.

I could not but wonder if Jeremy has lost touch with reality when I read his comment:

“SEO’s are like the 21st century car salesmen. Most are slimy and have no clue what they are talking about. They tell you you just need to put spammy keywords in your title tag, keyword tag, and write a spammy as hell description meta tag.”

Now, I will agree with Jeremy that there are definitely hacks in the SEO industry. However, you are going to find hacks in every industry. There will always be people who don’t know what they are talking about, trying to convince others that they are the “gurus.”

My good friend Jason runs JibberJobber, a legitimate business in the employment industry. Just because I receive tons of spam about slimy business opportunities doesn’t mean what Jason does isn’t viable, if not necessary.

What makes Jeremy’s post even worse, is the influence he wields. By him stating that 95% of SEO experts are “slimy” states that the industry as a whole is worthless (which I believe it wouldn’t take much to get him to admit).

To drive my point home, I recently was twittering Newspapergrl about possibly creating a monthly Utah SEO organization. Here are the responses her and I got on Twitter:

Twitter A: @paulwilson … sounds interesting but I do think that 90% of SEO is snake oil. Maybe i’m misinformed?

Newspapergirl: @Twitter A – misinformed. SEO is messier to track but it’s totally legit. You could benefit – you need to expand the reach on your site.

Twitter B: @PaulWilson There’s no need for monthly SEO meetings. Everything honorable about SEO can be learned fast. Monthly meetings are just slime.

Me: @Twitter B: I seriously disagree. I have been doing SEO since 1999, and I still learn something new with every person that I meet in my industry.

Twitter B: @PaulWilson You have to get past the slime, though. The good people will avoid a monthly SEO meeting, so all you’ll be left with is slime.

Me: @Twitter B: If the meeting is for SEO experts and sponsored by corporations like Franklin Covey, 1-800-Contacts and other corporations. Just like RMAMA. I am pretty sure we would get past the slime.

@NewspaperGrl: I am surprised the overall impression people have of SEO

@NewspaperGrl: I guess that makes it easier to rank higher for us =)

Twitter B: @PaulWilson It is possible to increase your rank honestly. SEO has been synonymous with gaming the system. Don’t brag about it.

Me: @Twitter B: You are welcome to believe what you like.

Me: @Twitter B: I personally believe SEO & SEM is a viable solution.

Twitter B: @PaulWilson Writing good content is the only viable solution. Once you start writing for robots, they’ll be the only ones reading your site.

NewspaperGrl: @Twitter B – don’t you think you can write good content AND add keywords that people are searching for? It’s usually not either/or

If you read Jeremy’s post in its entirety you will see that Twitter B is espousing almost word for word what Jeremy wrote. It worries me to see such a powerful blogger wield his influence so carelessly. For me, I see Jeremy blogging in his ivory tower totally disconnected from the practical concerns of everyday web life.

So, all-mighty Shoemoney what is your advice to the rest of us lowly peons:

“Concentrate on building a quality service. One that people will actually WANT TO BOOKMARK and comeback to…Its like people don’t know you can goto a web site without going to a god-damn Search Engine. When you create a good, useful service/site people will actually want to come to your site without you spamming Google.”

This is not bad advice Jeremy offers, but with so much noise on the web word of mouth generally will carry a website only so far. To believe that SEO shouldn’t be a part of your quiver of arrows is either ignorance, or willful stupidity. Google’s own page on creating useful websites shows that good content should be coupled with keyword research:

“Provide high-quality content on your pages, especially your homepage. This is the single most important thing to do. If your pages contain useful information, their content will attract many visitors and entice webmasters to link to your site. In creating a helpful, information-rich site, write pages that clearly and accurately describe your topic. Think about the words users would type to find your pages and include those words on your site.“

It truly is sad to see those, like Jeremy, live in their lofty ivory towers and scoff at us who make our living doing SEO.

———– END POST BY PAUL WILSON ABOUT SHOEMONEY AND SEOs ————–

I recommend looking at this – straight from Google for a primer on SEO for your web site:
Google’s – Making the Most of Your Content: A Publisher’s Guide to the Web

Done well SEO helps people find what they’re looking for. Most of the SEOs I know provide a huge benefit and 5% are scum.

Aaron Wall of the SEO Book blog wrote a great rant about PPC vs. SEO. He talks about how PPC (paid per click advertising) is a continual race to the top – eroding profits and starting bidding wars. Who wins? Search engines. Remember that Google makes 99% of their $16 billion revenue on advertising.

Both methods have some barrier to entry, because they’re both technical and take a certain amount of skill. SEO (search engine optimization) on the other hand is more difficult to copy. SEO is sustainable.

You start a client on blogging or an SEO strategy and they get nervous about how much time and/or money it costs and they stop. If they continued they’d see that it’s a worthwhile investment. The links don’t disappear after your budget does. However, it’s not a straight line to profit like PPC can be. It takes a slower, less direct path.
SEO shows a work ethic and builds credibility. It separates the legit long-term businesses from the get-rich-quick schemers:

This is why I like SEO so much more than PPC. Most people are too lazy to spend years researching their topic, years building a brand, years building links, and years building social and customer relationships. We are afraid of failure, afraid of success, and afraid that we are investing too much in one place. But, if someone sees me ranking in the organic results they can’t just clone it unless they know SEO well, and are committed for the long haul. In many cases, knowing SEO well means having capital, time, passion, and a lot of marketing knowledge.

Then he wrote about how if you do well, it’s easy for someone (or your ad network) to steal or copy you. Aaron had this happen – someone stole his ad copy – and here’s his response:

SEO separates out real businesses from 95% of the people buying PPC ads. The guy stealing ad copy is too lazy to compete at that level. I’ll enjoy the logarithmic growth in profits (which have been at least doubling every year) while he keeps stealing table-scraps from Google and other affiliates until his accounts get banned.

This is why successful internet marketers who are the real deal start to give away their secrets. After they’ve built their business, they can afford to tell people how to do what they do. They know most people won’t have the skills or work ethic to get where they are. Some do, but it’s a small percentage.

Easy WordPress blog hosting and installation with 24/7 customer support – just $6.95 a month with BlueHost.

I’ve been writing a lot more SEO press releases again and so it’s on my mind. I want to go over the steps of writing an SEO press release.

1. Assemble the facts, news angle, and begin writing.
   To me, the best quality press releases involve actual interviewing, on the phone. There is so much more information you get by talking to someone. Sure, you can use email and that works, especially because you can’t misquote and you have a record. However, when you interview the right person, their passion for the subject can shine through and you can capture that essence in your writing. It also makes the story unique. But it takes longer.
2. Identify the keyword phrase or related phrase you want to optimize your press release for.
   This can be easy if you already know the phrase but most of the time you need to do keyword research to see the competition and demand for a keyword phrase. You may want to go for a niche keyword that you can rank for more quickly. If you choose something like “Internet marketing” then you’re up against at least 100k other web sites who want to rank for that. That’s a long-term investment.
3. Incorporate the keyword phrase into the press release.
   You need to make the keyword phrase an anchor, use it in the first sentence, title, and body of the press release. Don’t overdo it or it will look like spam. There are times I take an existing press release from a PR firm and add SEO. Otherwise you may want to start out with keyword phrase first rather than adding it later. I like my press releases to read well and the feel of them to come through first and then add keywords.
4. Submit the press release to a press release distribution service.
   This sounds easy, but this is almost as much work as writing the press release. Each press release service has different rules according to how much you pay.
   Links – Some won’t allow links, most regulate how many links your press release can have. Even the process of creating links is different for each service (and not always intuitive).
   Optimization in the code (you can’t see this because it’s just for search engines) – You might need a list of 20 related keywords and write a summary with keyword phrases. This is SEO that no one sees but is very important.
   Categorizing your press release – You may need to categorize your press release by subject and geographic areas.
   Social media optimization – You may be able to add tags or other aspects, like Digg, Delicious, etc.
   Attachments - If the service (like PRWeb) allows attachments, images, podcasts, etc, you need to identify and upload those.
   Timing- Most of the time you need to submit your release a day or more before you want it to go out. For the media, you want to make sure that’s not on a weekend.

I’ve crafted a great press release for search engines and for people. I know that my editorial score will be high so there will be upwards of 50k (conservatively) clicks. Then they change it so it sounds right to them (but messes up the search engine optimization piece). Sometimes legal, a few VPs, and directors have to buy off. That can seriously affect the success of your release (and takes much more time).

I’ve written press releases for newspapers and the media and we just faxed or emailed them to a list. Not much thought after writing except to target the release to the right people. Writing for search engines is much more technical and takes quite a bit more time.

Feel free to add information that I may have overlooked, or reference your posts about SEO press releases. Within the SEO industry we know a lot and none of this is news to you. However, I wanted to distinguish the difference between regular press releases and SEO optimized press releases.

Want to start a business blog? I recommend BlueHost for their easy blog install and 24/7 customer support.
Reliable, Affordable Business Hosting from Bluehost.com.