Is the "About" section properly filled out on your Facebook business page? 

I've seen lots of businesses that haven't filled out much of it and maybe have some cute line instead of actual information. I've also seen totally wrong information in the wrong spot - like directions in the "About"  section or an "About" message in the directions.

It may not seem like a big deal to you but it is for two main reasons.

1. When people land on your page they need to know right away what your business is about and what you offer. So, that little short line that shows on the front page is very important. I have gone to business Facebook pages that just say something like "We Rock" or something like that and that's all. It just makes me click away.
   
2. The "About" section is fully indexed by search engines! That's right, so it's just another free SEO tool to help people find you. Use this section wisely. Make sure the key words your people are looking for are in the About section - but don't pack it. Just fill it out completely and let people know what you're about.       If you fill it - they will come.

Internal Links are links that stay within the same domain or website. So, for example, on the website for your business if you link one page to to another page on your same website - that is an internal link. 

Internal links are important to use because it helps the Google Spiders (what they call the programs that "read" websites and rank them for Google search results) know better what is on your site.

If a spider lands on a page on your site and no where on that site is there a link to another page, then that spider is done. But, if it links to another page and that page links to another then it creates a chain of information and that gives more for the Spiders to include in their findings, which can make your page results rank higher in a Google search. Does that make sense? 

So, the menu on your page definitely helps connect links, but you still need something on each page that is linking to another page.  You never know where the spiders are going to land! So, anytime you refer to something on another page link it up. Make sure to use the proper wording for links (called anchor text). <--See what I did there - I made an internal link for this blog.  You will find in just writing your regular copy for your site that there will be lots on instances to link to other pages. Use all those instances and build yourself a better search engine page rank!

You might read this title and think, of course I have my website titled. It says "Joe's Garage" on every page. But, there's more to it than that. I've seen lots of websites where every page says the same thing at the top (meaning the page tab): "Joe's Garage".  

However, you need each page to have a short and unique sub-title of what the page is about.  First of all each page having a separate short title helps the search engines know the difference between each page (if they all have the same title they're more likely to be recognized as the same page). The search engines need this information to help the searcher find what they're looking for.  Think of it as providing binoculars for each person who is searching for your services.

So, for example, the first page might say "Specializing on Domestic Car Repairs in Portland, Oregon" it will naturally put "Joe's Garage" before or after this, so no need to repeat it. Then, the trick is to make each page title be somewhat descriptive about what is on that page (keep it short, you have the page description for a longer sentence). For example, the page with your location and hours, needs to say that in the title. Try and think about the key words people will be using in their searches. If you're a local business make sure to use your town in at least one page title.

When you have page title the tabs will show the complete title (and more inportantly they will show up in the search. here's an example of how it will look on the page:

And on the search:

Here is an example of how it looks when no title or description is used.  On this page I am missing the opportunity to make it more clear what my business is and to help Google or Bing rank my page higher in searches.

What would be better here is if I had the title say: "How to contact Plain Language Marketing for your Small Business Marketing Needs".  Then the total title would say "Contact - Plain Language Marketing - How to contact Plain Language Marketing for your Small Business Marketing Needs"  That whole title may not be visible in a search, but the Search Engines sees it and it helps them know if your page is a good fit for the searcher's query.

Adding Your Page Titles


So, how do you get to this part of your website to add in the title pages? Well, it depends on what your website is built on. Many online web editors have this option under Advanced or Search Engine Optimization. If you can't find it try a search for how to title pages in [your website builder, like Blogger or Wix or whatever it is].

If you are accessing your html, you'll find the page title option in the code here:

<!DOCTYPE html> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" dir="ltr" lang="en-US"> <head> <title>online marketing help for micro and small business owners</title> </head>

If you have any questions, please let me know in the comments. 

Do you have a brick and mortar store?  If you do,  make sure your business is registered on Google's Places for Business.  97% of consumers search for local business online. With Google's Places for Business you can easily make your shop easier to find. 

Once your business is properly listed then a person searching your company will get a full profile with map and information right in the search results. It will look like this: 

Or this:

This is super handy because once your business is registered in Google Places a person can find you on Google Maps without even having to know your address.  I have used this feature many times when trying to find a business while out in my car.

The other big benefit to registering with Places for Business is you get the chance to update, correct or fill out more information about your bunsiness. 

You might think your listing is okay because your name comes up, but take another look and see. Your business may be in the wrong categories, have wrong hours listed or not enough information.

Having your brick and mortar store fully registered with Google's Places for Business can only help you. Especially these days as people rely on their phones to help them find locations.

It's easy to do, it's free and gives you a great way to control the most commonly seen listing of your business on the internet and maps.  It's win-win!  Get started with this link.

There is a place on every page of your website for a short description. It's something that is done behind the scenes in the code, but it's very important. The page description tells Google and other search engines what your page is about which then helps them determine if it is a good match for what people are searching.  Without it some of your pages can go almost unnoticed in a search.

Another great advantage is that the one line that you choose to describe that page is what people see in the Google search results. For example below is a search result done for this website.

And below you see a search result for a page that a page description wasn't made for. What you get is some random copy from the page. It may or may not have anything to do with what your page is about and certainly doesn't have the correct terms that the people who are looking for you are going to use.

You can't tell what the website above is about based on those lines and they aren't helping the searcher or the search engines know much about it.

So, what can you do to fix it? Make sure each page of your website has a page description. Where you find access to this of course depends on the kind of website you have. Most often it is under settings or options. Look for a description for the website if you are on a blog. If you have a website with multiple pages look for a page description under settings, options or search engine optimization. You can also put it directly in the code.

Are you taking the time to give the images on your website an alt tag or alt text? There are a number of names for it, but basically what it is is a description of what your picture is of. It isn't a caption or something that shows up on the web page when published. It's something that lives behind the scenes and it is telling Google and other search engines,  "Hey, this is what this image is of."

See, Google and Bing (and other search engines) want to know what your images are.  It helps them determine if your web page is the one that each searcher is looking for. If Google is scanning your site and  seeing that there are images that have no alt text, they have nothing to go on.  Also, a reason to have quality alt text is that if someone is viewing your website (this applies to emails as well) and has it so the images are turned off, they'll have no idea what the image is. Knowing what the image is makes it more likely that they will want to learn more about what you're offering.

So, how do you do it? It depends on your website or blog. It may be in a simple visual way or you may need to just put in the code.  Many of the template sites or blogs have this option. Here is screen shot of Blogger's alt text option.

If you aren't sure if your images have an alt text you can look at the source code by right clicking on the page and choosing "view source" or "inspect element". Each browser is a little different. Here's what it looks like in code.

This may seem like a lot of confusing things at once, but once you figure out how to give your images an alt text on your website it'll be easy to do it each time. Just remember to accurately describe your image and don't try and pack a lot of key words or too much in each description. Google frowns on that and will rank you lower for doing that.

Is the image a new product at your shop? Say what it is, like:  "New Coffee Travel Mugs from Cafe All the Way" or if your image is for a sale, be specific, with "25% off through March 15th on all Amy Butler fabrics".

Be clear and truthful with your tags and definitely make sure to do them. It can be kind of easy to forget in the midst of writing a blog post. doing a new web page or email campaign. But, remember that all the work your doing is not as strong with out the images being tagged.

There are a lot of levels of SEO that I will cover in the future, but this blog is about one item at a time. So, what I want to talk about now is the basic definition of SEO and why it's important.

SEO means Search Engine Optimization. It's what you do to your website to make it easier for search engines to find you based on the keywords a person uses when they do a search.

There are going to be people who know they're looking for your company and will search by name. Usually your page will appear at the top of these search results. That's great, but it's not the only thing we're going for.

You want people who don't know about you to find you too. So, you need to make sure that your website uses key words that they would be looking for.

Just think about the things you would use to search for you. Maybe you are a yoga studio. A person would search yoga, yoga classes, yoga studio and the town they are in and probably the neighborhood. Maybe even the kind of yoga or things like kid-friendly or something else that would narrow it down.

If you want to check on where your listing would come up in a Google search, make sure you are signed out of Google or try on a different computer or browser (IE, Foxfire, Chrome) you haven't used (if you use Chrome, just open an incognito window). Google often shows you pages based on where you've been, so a simple search on your computer may not give you a true reading.

The best way to link your text on your website is to make sure to create the link on the words you want to promote and don't waste it on words like "here" or "click".

This is an easy fix for any website or blog that can really help your search results.  Even though it's a simple fix with great results, many website owners and bloggers don't do it. Either they don't know about the difference in linking text or it's just too easy to fall into the "click here" mode.  I even find myself doing it sometimes.

Search engines like Google pay extra attention to the words that are linked. They use them to help determine how relevant your website is to the keywords searched. Linked text (called anchor text) is significant because it tells the search engines what is included in the link. If your anchor text is "here", you're missing out on letting Google know more about your page and website.  

Take some time to go through your website and fix these links. It won't take long, but it will help enormously (make sure not to take it too far by linking lots of words or sentences. That will have the opposite effect).

You may have heard the term SEO a lot. Maybe you aren't quite sure what it means. 

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization.  Search Engine Optimization is the process that you take to make your website more attractive to the search engines. There are certain things Google and Bing are looking for when they determine search results.  Learning and applying SEO tips to your website can make your website appear higher in the search results.  By using each tip that we'll cover on this blog, you're making it more clear to the search engines what your site is about and how relevant it is the words searched.

There are 2 kinds of SEO.  On Page SEO and Off Page SEO.

On Page SEO is the things you can do on your website to maximize your search results. Things like making sure the titles on your blog posts have the right words, creating new content and many other tips we will cover in the future. But, let's focus on Off Page SEO for now.

Off Page SEO is what is done on other websites in regards to yours. Largely, it's links from other websites to yours. When another website mentions your company and links back to you it helps you. The more established and respected the website that links to you, the better.  This kind of SEO only works if it is legitimate. Many websites in the past have been set up as link farms just to up a website's SEO. This no longer works and Google will actually penalize your results for this kind of linking. 
 
If you wanna do some work in Off Page SEO (and I recommend you do) try reaching out to bloggers or organizations that work with you or would be open to having a article or ad exchange (guest blogging is a great way to do this).  If your business makes you an authority on something, write an article or blog post for some general knowledge website (like About.com or Ezines.com) and make sure that the byline has a link to your website. Can you make a tutorial? Make a video showing how to do something and make sure the info on YouTube has a link your website.

Just remember that Google is looking for relevant and authoritive information.  Create the best quality content you can and your On Page SEO and Off Page SEO will continue to improve.

A simple thing that can help the overall growth of your website's search results is to title your blog posts and articles with the key words that your customer is looking for.

For example: If you're a shoe shop and you're having a sale, don't just title your blog post with the words "50% off Sale!" This won't help your blog post come up in search results. Try and add in some of the words your potential customers are searching the internet for. So, in this instance that may be your most popular shoes on sale. 

Also, if it doesn't look too cheesy, add in the name of your shop. The more relevant articles and posts that mention your store name, even if it is linking from your own website - the better.

Do keep in mind though that if you pour it on too thick (like naming every brand you carry) the result will be the opposite and Google will mark it as a non-reputable site. So, just be clear, helpful and relevant with your titles and content. That'll lead you to success.