That’s right supermarkets like Safeway and the like charge what are known as slotting fees. You have to shell out money just for the opportunity to get in front of potential buyers for your products. There is no assurance that your product will sell. That is why we compare slotting fees to Pay Per Click programs like Google’s AdWords.

When you use PPC you pay to have the opportunity to get in front of eyeballs. There is no guarantee that the owners of these eyes will want to buy from you. There is one advantage that PPC has over a supermarket and that is you will be able to target your potential customer better than you could in a supermarket.

Still the odds of making Pay Per Click pay off are not very good. The small business owner might actually obtain better odds in Vegas than through the use of PPC. It’s not that you can’t do well using programs like AdWords, because to many have done well to dismiss these programs. It’s just that to establish and maintain a successful PPC marketing effort is usually beyond the time and expensive that small businesses can put into the process.

AdWords is a daily auction and many variables come into play when using this method. The search engines for their part have a vested interest in seeing you succeed. That is why Google created it’s Website Optimizer tool. It allows for what is known as A/B testing of the effectiveness of similar web pages. For most website owners this will add a significant cost burden as they are likely to be unable to implement this by themselves. This generally requires the skills of a webmaster to implement and monitor this service.

We would like to offer another small business solution and it is search engine optimization. SEO is designed to acquire free website traffic from the search engines. While your success is not guaranteed with SEO the odds are a lot better than Vegas.

Are you ready to optimize your website?

We would like to invite you to become part the conversation and leave a comment. We also would like to invite you to continue this conversation on your own blog, perhaps maybe even social bookmark this post,  give it a Digg or Stumble.

To learn more about our services please check out these links:

Affordable Website Designs Holistic SEO Solutions Local SEO Small Business SEO Solutions

Geo-targeted SEO San Jose SEO Solutions Sunnyvale SEO Niche SEO Do Follow List

If your local small business is located in Sunnyvale, San Jose, Santa Clara, the Silicon Valley, the Bay area or through out California, the US, Canada, and you would like to learn more about how your website can benefit from a blog please call Mountain View SEO at 408- 916-1934

Mountain View Providing Holistic SEO Solutions

There are so many novel ways to gain and maintain a steady flow of backlinks using linkbait. Most articles unfortunately cover the same old material. Most posts about linking seem to merely re-hash what others have already said many times over. The problem that I encounter is that most topics on linking are rarely industry specific.

It is a huge challenge for a business to business website to create linkable content in large numbers. Some industries haven’t even begun to use blogs to create buzz and market their business. One of our clients is in a niche manufacturing segment that creates equipment for other manufacturers. Creating content in this environment and effectively marketing it is a challenge.

This may sound silly but when I consider linkbait approaches I often reflect upon my youth and fishing in rural western Pennsylvania. The little town of my birth sits at the confluence of two large rivers. One of those Rivers is known as a creek. However, we pronounced it crick. That slight regional variation in speech is very important when considering keyword development, but that’s a post for another day.

Growing up in rural western Pennsylvania provided us with one big challenge and that’s was there wasn’t much to do, and their still isn’t. But with two rivers available, fishing was a good way to spend the afternoons since the rivers were just an easy walk away.

When you go fishing you generally choose what fish to target. This will be different on any given day. Your decision will be based a multitude of factors such a time of day, water conditions, available food sources, and what you ultimately want to catch.

You then would have to choose between the rivers. Since they both drained different watersheds the water conditions could be dramatically different. After the river choice was made there were other things to consider. Was I going to fish the faster shallow water or the deeper slower pools and eddy’s. There is an awful lot to consider if you want to be successful fisherman on any given day.

Now, that the river and water conditions where chosen, I would have to have to choose my bait wisely to match my prey of the day. Fishing isn’t as simple as it might first appear, nor is creating great linkbait. Fishing is also based on a myriad of environmental conditions; if you wanted to be successful you had to plan wisely.

Now, it comes down to what bait that I had available that day. Your bait must be attractive to your targeted fish and be delivered in a way that induces a bite when you want. The same holds true for developing quality linkbait you must understand what will best attract the kinds of websites that you want linking to your website.

There is also another consideration for any linking project. Will these links be useful to generate quality traffic but be No Follow, or will they be DO Follow links that generate traffic and also assist you by passing link juice that will benefit your websites search rankings? The problem here is that you have no control over this process. You can only hope to influence what is pointed to your website.

Perhaps, you can attempt to influence what kind of link comes your way. You could simply add some kind of incentive or reward for a verified Do Follow link. You might also suggest what kind of anchor text is used in the link. As for me I take whatever comes my way. I am grateful for any link because that means that someone has written about our linkbait. Your success in obtaining quality links will depend on the value of what you are offering.

Any seasoned and skilled fisherman or woman knows you can catch a lot of junk fish while going after a desired species. The same thing is true with any linkbaiting method. When you develop your linkbaiting methods don’t ever loose site of the desired target.

We created a great linkbait on another website and enjoyed another benefit of linkbaiting for the blogger that has not gotten a lot of press. A really great linkbait effort will generate dozens if not hundreds of comments. And for the blog that is part of a website, those volumes of comments will provide lots of fresh content that will boost the overall website in the SERP’s. Your linkbait comments can break you into the first page of the search results for your targeted keyword phrase.

Are you ready to capture the power of a WordPress Website?

We would like to invite you to become part the conversation and leave a comment. We also would like to invite you to continue this conversation on your own blog, perhaps maybe even social bookmark this post,  give it a Digg or Stumble.

To learn more about our services please check out these links:

Affordable Website Designs Holistic SEO Solutions Local SEO Small Business SEO Solutions

Geo-targeted SEO San Jose SEO Solutions Sunnyvale SEO Niche SEO Do Follow List

If your local small business is located in Sunnyvale, San Jose, the Silicon Valley, the Bay area or through out California, the US, Canada, and you would like to learn more about how your website can benefit from a blog please call Mountain View SEO at 408- 916-1934

Mountain View Providing Holistic SEO Solutions

When a visitor stumbles onto something that is broken or isn’t just right they see your business in a negative light and leave, never to return. All your efforts to acquire the visitor are lost. A little maintenance goes a long way.

Most problems are minor and are an easy fix. One of our websites (we currently have seven) had been sending out the wrong message since it was re-launched in April. Several months had gone by and we failed to realize that we were giving out the message that we only worked in our home state. This was mentioned indirectly in an email inquiry. The inquirer asked if we worked outside our state.

This blew me away as I quickly pulled up the website. I already knew what the problem was. The last paragraph on every page indicated we were active in 10 cities within our state borders. There was nothing to indicate that yes we work all across the US and Canada. I quickly opened our WordPress control panel and began making changes to the content and page descriptions.

It was such a simple thing to overlook. That paragraph was created when we were only doing business regionally. The changes help place this website on the first page of Google’s search results. Not just once but about ten times for searches that include SEO in the keyword phrase. We have now become a national player and the website now indicates this.

This inquiry revealed another wonderful piece of information that balanced the service area problem out. When responding to the inquiry I asked; “how did you find us” since you likely didn’t do a local SEO search? He responded “I did a Google search for small business SEO solutions. I checked it out and was very pleased to see that we were sitting in the # 4 position. We always ask “how did you find us?” If you are not doing this you are missing out on valuable insights.

One email inquiry revealed both a problem that needed to be addressed and good news as well. We tell you this to encourage you to use your own website like a visitor might and do so at least once a week. In between our last website check-up two web masters in one day notified us that our contact form was broken. These people were contacting me about potentially becoming WordPress developers so they had motivation to tell us what they found. This doesn’t happen often and could have cost us business.

The odds of winning the lottery are better than those related to a customer telling you your website is broken. We also recommend that you run a broken link check weekly. There are lots of good free broken link checkers available. So find one that you like and bookmark it. Then schedule one day a week when you check to see if you have any broken links.

Are you ready to capture the power of a WordPress Website?

We would like to invite you to become part the conversation and leave a comment. We also would like to invite you to continue this conversation on your own blog, perhaps maybe even social bookmark this post, give it a Digg or Stumble.

To learn more about our services please check out these links:

Affordable Website Designs Holistic SEO Solutions Local SEO Small Business SEO Solutions

Geo-targeted SEO San Jose SEO Solutions Sunnyvale SEO Niche SEO Do Follow List

If your local small business is located in Palo Alto, the Silicon Valley, the Bay area or through out California, the US, Canada, and you would like to learn more about how your website can benefit from a blog please call Mountain View SEO at 408- 916-1934

Mountain View Providing Holistic SEO Solutions

The real beauty of the keyword numbers game is that for every word added to the search string query the fewer people are going to be using that search and targeting that keyword phrase. However, while the number of searchers is fewer those searchers become more valuable to the website owner because they become more targeted.

Think of it this way, let’s start out with a searcher who’s search query is dry cleaning. That search today produces about 2.2 million results. This person isn’t likely to be a serious searcher with immediate needs beyond research. Now, let’s assume our searcher lives in the Silicon Valley and enters the search Silicon Valley dry cleaner. That search produces only 135,000 results and if you own a dry cleaning business in the Silicon Valley this is very good news.

Since the Silicon Valley is spread out, and if you had a business in the southwest valley you could be 40 minutes away if that searcher lives in the northwest. So we might want to try a smaller area search like Palo Alto dry cleaner. This search produced only 157,000 results.

So if you have used Geo-targeting for this targeted keyword phrases your website will likely be very high up on the first page of Google. Not only that but the searcher is highly targeted and is looking for your service in their neighborhood. This is what local search is all about, winning the numbers game.

We love winning and we have built our SEO service using long tail keyword phrases and Geo-targeting keyword phrases. We play where the numbers are in our clients favor.

Are you ready to win at the SEO numbers game?

We would like to invite you to become part the conversation and leave a comment. We also would like to invite you to continue this conversation on your own blog, perhaps maybe even social bookmark this post, give it a Digg or Stumble.

To learn more about our services please check out these links:

Affordable Website Designs Holistic SEO Solutions Local SEO Small Business SEO Solutions

Geo-targeted SEO San Jose SEO Solutions Sunnyvale SEO Niche SEO Do Follow List

If your local small business is located in the Silicon Valley, the Bay area or through out California, the US, Canada, and you would like to learn more about how your website can benefit from a blog please call Mountain View SEO at 408- 916-1934

Mountain View Providing Holistic SEO Solutions

This is the standard approach many web designers take. It is because website designers do not understand how to create a website that sells. They are creative types and take an artists approach to website design. We on the other hand are marketers first so we direct our designers to create websites that sell.

The first question that we ask is what do you want your website visitor to accomplish when they visit. We work back from that point to make certain that this occurs.

We take the time to explain to our clients and potential clients which design elements work and which ones don’t. We will take the time to explain what your visitor’s expectations are and how to fulfill those expectations. We will further explain the importance of eye tracking studies and how this affects the users experience.

We remove all possible distractions that might make concentrating on your content difficult. We make sure the page layout is consistent on every page. The look and feel of a website mostly benefits the website designer’s creative nature and should be avoided at all costs. We design to sell not look flashy.

Yes, we create vanilla websites, but then vanilla is the world’s favorite ice cream for a reason. This is because it’s tasty and meets the needs of the consumer. It doesn’t challenge the senses and it fulfills expectations. When visitors comment on our sites they often reply “we like the site because it was clean, simple, and straight forward.” This is sweet music to our ears. So if you want a website that benefits both you and your visitor you should pick up that phone now!

Are you ready to capture the power of a WordPress Website?

We would like to invite you to become part the conversation and leave a comment. We also would like to invite you to continue this conversation on your own blog, perhaps maybe even social bookmark this post,  give it a Digg Stumble.

To learn more about our services please check out these links:

Affordable Website Designs Holistic SEO Solutions Local SEO Small Business SEO Solutions

Geo-targeted SEO San Jose SEO Solutions Sunnyvale SEO Niche SEO Do Follow List

If your local small business is located in the Silicon Valley, the Bay area or through out California, the US, Canada, and you would like to learn more about how your website can benefit from a blog please call Mountain View SEO at 408- 916-1934

Mountain View Providing Holistic SEO Solutions

We hear from web designers who have never heard of WordPress. They simply read website developer and ignore the qualifications that we requested. We are not interested in using any other CMS no matter how great you think it is. We use WordPress because it is user friendly. Our goal is to create websites that the client can maintain.

Your experience level is meaningless if you are not dependable and trust worthy. We work on extremely tight work schedules. This will require that you be are capable of following performance guidelines and time tables. Mountain View SEO has no room for excuses, so we have established a no excuses policy. Should we trust you with a project and that project is not successfully completed on time we will no longer need your services. This is a business and we have obligations that must be fulfilled early and not later.

We have expectations that the launching of this website and our four sites in the Phoenix and Tucson area will generate new interest in our services. We currently have 6 website design/SEO websites with more being created on regular bases. We will never offer hourly positions. All work is on a bid bases and all work is completed as a sub-contractor.

Projects are paid 14 days after they have been completed and the customer has signed-off on the project. This waiting period is to make sure that all the kinks have been eliminated. We will pay you by business check delivered by Fed-X or through PayPal.

Mountain View SEO has always operated its business on an under promise and over deliver process. What that will mean for the client is that we will exceed their expectations. When we provide an 8 week delivery date to the customer the project should be completed in 7 weeks or less. The client doesn’t pay for delays they pay for a timely completion of their project. We need developers that understand this and who can work quickly. This is WordPress and there is not a lot of coding involved.

Mountain Views parent company has 25 domains now that we plan on developing. We have recently launched 4 sites in the Phoenix area.

If you are interested we will need the following:

Please deliver your work history or resume in the body of an email.

If you have previously developed WordPress websites or blogs for pay we will need links to that work and solid references.

Again Note: We are not interested in using any other CMS such as Drupal.

Are you ready to capture the power of a WordPress Website?

We would like to invite you to become part the conversation and leave a comment. We also would like to invite you to continue this conversation on your own blog, perhaps maybe even social bookmark this post,  give it a Digg or Stumble.

To learn more about our services please check out these links:

Affordable Website Designs Holistic SEO Solutions Local SEO Small Business SEO Solutions

Geo-targeted SEO San Jose SEO Solutions Sunnyvale SEO Niche SEO Do Follow List

If your local small business is located in Mountain View, Sunnyvale, the Silicon Valley, the Bay area or through out California, the US, Canada, and you would like to learn more about how your website can benefit from a blog please call Mountain View SEO at 408- 916-1934

Mountain View Providing Holistic SEO Solutions

Being a World Champion in baseball is a long shot at best and it’s no different with SEO. It takes team effort and lots of practice to become the ultimate winner at baseball and SEO. Baseball develops young players hoping that they are a right fit for the team. SEO is no different you develop keywords hoping that they will be your next star.

The professional teams draft young players hoping that they have the right stuff. The players practice their game day in and day out hoping to make the team. The SEO develops keywords and then puts them in play hoping that they are the right combination for the website team. Just like a baseball team practices the website owner practices. They analyze the SERP’s and their web statistics and they update their content.

There is another reason that we like the baseball analogy. Baseball is a highly competitive sport that has tens of millions of young men world wide chasing after only a few hundred positions in the top leagues. The odds at becoming a player for the Yankee’s is minimal at best. Ranking on the first page of Google is equally difficult for competitive keywords.

We also believe baseball can be used to explain what is known as the Google sandbox. There is a large belief that there is a sandbox, of sorts were Google, holds new websites before putting them in their search results. We like to think of a new website as a little league player with dreams of making the big leagues. They have to work hard and practice for the right to move up into the big leagues. No one ever became and overnight sensation in baseball and no site will rise to the top the the search results overnight either. You have hundreds if not thousands of established websites that are working hard as well to stay on the top of their big league.

Baseball is a game to be won and so is SEO.

Are you ready to capture the power of a WordPress Website?

We would like to invite you to become part the conversation and leave a comment. We also would like to invite you to continue this conversation on your own blog, perhaps maybe even social bookmark this post,  give it a Digg or Stumble.

To learn more about our services please check out these links:

Affordable Website Designs Holistic SEO Solutions Local SEO Small Business SEO Solutions

Geo-targeted SEO San Jose SEO Solutions Sunnyvale SEO Niche SEO Do Follow List

If your local small business is located in Mountain View, Sunnyvale, San Jose, the Silicon Valley, San Pablo, the Bay area or through out California, the US, Canada, and you would like to learn more about how your website can benefit from a blog please call Mountain View SEO at 408- 916-1934

Mountain View Providing Holistic SEO Solutions

We do not offer web hosting or domain registration services. There are lots of really good services already available. We have no interest in becoming a re-seller of these services. They demand too much time and resources and are just not profitable enough. Many companies offer these services as a way to hook you into a long term commitment to their company. We have no interest venturing beyond our core competencies.

When we provide you with a contract for services we will only provide what you need. We do not offer service packages. These packages are often loaded with useless and obsolete services. You should avoid companies that offer any of the following obsolete practices.

Website submission services that offer to submit your website to dozens or hundreds of search engines. There are only four search engines that matter in the US market and they are Google, Yahoo, MSN, and Ask.com. Anything else is a waste of time and money. You only need to submit your website once.

You will also want to avoid any company that offers to list you in web directory sites. The only directory that we submit to is DMOZ. These directory links have been discounted long ago by the search engines and are mostly useless. Also beware of any company that offers to develop link exchanges, farms, or networks. These services could actually cause your website to be banned from the search engines permanently.

Another area that is ripe for abuse is article submissions. When done correctly this is a very useful tool, but is often beyond the budget of small business owners. To be effective these articles need to be of high quality original content that has been professionally proof read. This is seldom the case when this service is included in SEO packages.

These articles are often gleaned from article submission sites and are likely of questionable quality and not likely to be picked and used by other websites. Do you really want your website associated with low quality content? The whole idea for using article submission services is to gain links and traffic. However, low quality material seldom ever gets picked up so this offers the website owner little value.

As we mentioned article submission is a great service, but it is a costly and a time consuming process. So if you see article submission as part of an SEO package you should seriously reconsider your options. Quality content created should be sold as a separate option. When you see this being offered as part of a package it should be seen as a red flag.

Mountain View SEO believes in providing you with only the best tools, options, and services to assist you with marketing your website.

Are you ready to crush the competition and capture the power of a WordPress Website?

We would like to invite you to become part the conversation and leave a comment. We also would like to invite you to continue this conversation on your own blog, perhaps maybe even social bookmark this post, give it a Digg or Stumble.

To learn more about our services please check out these links:

Affordable Website Designs Holistic SEO Solutions Local SEO Small Business SEO Solutions

Geo-targeted SEO San Jose SEO Solutions Sunnyvale SEO Niche SEO Do Follow List

If your local small business is located in Mountain View, Sunnyvale, San Jose, the Silicon Valley, the Bay area or through out California, the US, Canada, and you would like to learn more about how your website can benefit from a blog please call Mountain View SEO at 408- 916-1934

Mountain View Providing Holistic SEO Solutions

Most small businesses are not national or even regional players. No, they serve their local communities. They are your bakers and house cleaners and increasingly they have websites and they all want to be on the first page of Google.

Many of them have realized SEO is many things to many people but when its all said and done it is a numbers game. The fewer websites that are competing for any one search query the better the odds of landing on the coveted first page. Any local website that applies Geo-targeted SEO on their site will greatly enhance there opportunities to succeed.

First off it is highly unlikely that your competition has optimized their website. So the first local site that optimizes by location will soar to the top of the SERP’s. If they have done their job correctly they can have success for multiple keyword phrases.

This process works well because the number of competitors in any given market is usually 25 or so and they do not all have a website. The Google result may show 330,000 results for your targeted keyword phrase, but that doesn’t mean that you have that many competitors. That number represents that Google had indexed 330,000 pages that contain the words used in your targeted phrase.

If you only have 25 websites that are direct competitors the odds are in your favor. You may actually soar to the number one position if it hasn’t been already occupied by super pages or similar websites. Often local searches have the first 3 or 4 positions taken up by information and referral sites. It is difficult, but not impossible to topple these. But you can have a reasonable expectation of being the first real local site listed.

There are several factors that are holding back the growth of Geo-targeted SEO. First, the consumer, and the small business owner, doesn’t know about search engine optimization or how it works. So this group needs to be educated on the cost and benefits of optimization. Finally, many website optimizers don’t think there is enough money in taking on small businesses so they go after the bigger fish.

We believe this window of opportunity to easily win at local search is closing and closing quickly. The first local website that optimizes in its business category wins and wins big!

Are you ready to capture the power of a WordPress Website?

We would like to invite you to become part the conversation and leave a comment. We also would like to invite you to continue this conversation on your own blog, perhaps maybe even social bookmark this post,  give it a Digg or Stumble.

To learn more about our services please check out these links:

Affordable Website Designs Holistic SEO Solutions Local SEO Small Business SEO Solutions

Geo-targeted SEO San Jose SEO Solutions Sunnyvale SEO Niche SEO Do Follow List

If your local small business is located in San Jose, Santa Clara, Sunnyvale, the Silicon Valley, the Bay area or through out California, the US, Canada, and you would like to learn more about how your website can benefit from a blog please call Mountain View SEO at 408- 916-1934

Mountain View Providing Holistic SEO Solutions