Online public relations and search engine optimization tread common waters. While each discipline and its methods may differ, they both build organizations (and websites) through relevant and quality content. Some companies feel torn choosing between the two, but they fail to understand the interconnected impact of utilizing both search marketing and online PR. Because SEO is about optimizing your entire web presence, it inherently includes things like social media and PR. In fact, it seems these two disciplines actually have room for a relationship of synergy.

PR Scratches SEO’s Back

Most people recognize that SEO is more than just on-site optimization, meaning that off-site optimization is increasingly more important. Part of off-site optimization means creating quality content that people want to share. Building authority for a website includes links from articles, blogs, news, and more. At this point online public relations is beneficial in an SEO campaign because it helps attract quality links to build site credibility.

The role of public relations in an SEO campaign is growing in significance. On the surface, online PR means understanding the client, knowing their industry, and creating an image using content that reaches the target market. By reaching the target and providing value, the role PR plays is significant for building your brand. Bringing it back to SEO, there is no point in generating content if people are not interested. Through the use of online PR, content can be SEO-friendly, relevant, and help solidify an online presence because it ensures people are interested.

The Benefits of Bonding

SEO relies on quality content to be picked up and distributed, and PR can successfully swoop in to help. Consider Google’s organic search algorithm. Google continually tweaks the algorithm, and while most of these improvements don’t always impact your online presence, there were three pretty substantial changes in the last year that had a profound effect on positioning.

1. Panda Updates (reducing content farms)
2. Freshness Updates (ensuring content is relevant)
3. Social Signals (gauging social media marketing interactions)

Creating quality, relevant content that fits most search engine’s criteria and SEO purposes can include a press release. The content of a press release should reflect the keyword research for the SEO campaign to broaden the scope of links. From the search engine’s perspective, an online press release contains:

1. Trusted backlinks (Panda Updates)
2. Timely content (Freshness Updates)
3. “Sharing” icons (Potential Social Signals)

Clearly, the cooperation of online PR and SEO can be beneficial for a brand.

The PR and SEO Cocktail

Creating a cohesive strategy utilizing PR and SEO can be brilliant because the integration maximizes reach. By implementing keywords in a press release, SEO advantages continue. Interesting online stories and releases spread fast and easily, and by being SEO optimized, they have extra mileage. Even after a story or event is over, the content can continually generate traffic and interest months afterward. Better yet, the interested audience may also include journalists who want to publish your story or feature your release on their site, creating a bigger brand buzz. Additionally, the links a story creates not only generate traffic, but they help boost rankings as well.

In order to get the best return from publicity and positioning efforts online, these two disciplines can successfully integrate to generate interest, build authority, and cover more ground. An SEO strategy is the key to improving your overall web presence, and PR sparks intrigue and assists with organic rankings by producing fresh content. If you’re interested in learning more about the collaboration of online PR and SEO, SEO.com is hosting a How to Optimize Your Press Release webinar on February 23.

Client Spotlight: Aquarium supply company becomes an industry asset

Many people connect the stunning display of a saltwater aquarium with high-end hotels and dental offices, and few ever think they can afford one. However, there are opportunities to experience this luxury for less because building your own aquarium is possible and affordable.

Bulk Reef Supply is an online retailer of affordable saltwater aquarium supplies. Back in 2007, owners Andrew Duneman and Ryan Batcheller recognized that typical pet stores lack helpful resources that educate people about owning a saltwater aquarium. With opportunity in mind, they started Bulk Reef Supply. The company not only sells all the products you need to build a complete aquarium but also provides helpful videos on how to build and maintain them. They shine in the industry as an educational tool and vendor for anyone curious about owning a saltwater aquarium.

For those interested in saltwater aquariums, knowing where to start and how much money and time to invest is difficult to figure out. Likewise, many customers worry about managing and maintaining their aquarium, especially while on vacation.

“We want people to know that this isn’t as hard as they think,” said Richard Mast, director of marketing for Bulk Reef Supply. “We offer educational videos and we have customer service representatives with aquarium experience. We are trying to be the one source for any and all questions.”

The company really sets out to be the most responsive in the industry. With their vast variety of products and supplies, customers know their questions will be expertly answered in a timely fashion.

To take it a step further and truly help educate sea life enthusiasts, Bulk Reef Supply will launch a new interactive website within the year that includes a video explanation of many of the products found on the site. Eventually, people will be able to surf the site and learn what they need to know for their aquarium adventures including how to start a saltwater aquarium.

“Five years ago we wanted to be a resource, and today we remain a reliable resource. We separate ourselves from other companies because we take it to the next level,” Mast said.

Bulk Reef Supply is an excellent place for the novice, but the company can also provide experts with precisely what they need to keep their aquarium looking amazing.

Tips and Tricks: A clean surfing experience increases conversion

Consumers today are practically buried under an avalanche of product choices, and as the number of competitors begging for attention increases, so does the anxiety consumers feel. The best way to alleviate that anxiety is by simplifying your site. A clean surfing experience helps provide consumers with much needed assurance throughout the conversion process. Because you have mere seconds to engage a customer, the significance of a good design and easy checkout process cannot be overstated. Here are some areas you should consider adjusting to improve your site.

Limit content so you don’t distract from your call to action.

Too much text on a homepage can overwhelm, confuse, or bore the customer. If you clutter your homepage with content, they may leave the site without exploring any additional pages. To keep it clean, your homepage should directly lead your customer to what you want them to do. For example, if you’re selling clothing, make the apparel the focus of the page and provide easy to find “buy now” buttons.

Keep content clear and concise.

Being creative for creativities sake with your content can lose readership and sales. You want your content to be engaging, however, it shouldn’t be overly clever or confusing and you should avoid using industry jargon. To be honest, it never hurts to go back to the basics, so make sure your content addresses who, what, where, when, why, and how.

Make sure your call to action is noticeable.

Decide where you want people to look first on your site. If your call to action involves clicking a button, make the button big with contrasting colors to draw in more attention. Although the feel of your site needs to be clean and simple, the call to action must be bold and obvious.

Search marketing can only do so much to help increase your conversion rate. Once consumers click on your site, the site should seal the sale and an effortless surfing experience is critical for conversion.

Industry events

Online Marketing Summit: San Diego; Feb. 6-10, 2012

Search Engine Strategies Search & Social Accelerator Conference: San Diego; Feb. 9, 2012

PubCon: Honolulu; Feb. 13-15, 2012

SearchFest: Portland; Feb. 24, 2012

Search Marketing Expo West: San Jose; Feb. 28 to March 1, 2012

SEO.com events

Webinar: Tips to Improve Your Local Marketing — Feb. 9 at 11 a.m. MST

Webinar: How to Optimize Your Press Release — Feb. 23 at 11 a.m. MST

SLCSEM.org is a group of professional search marketers in Utah.

On the eve of the kickoff of the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, a Sundance official and a speaker from Bing.com will address SLCSEM.org, a group of professional Internet marketers in Utah. The event is scheduled Jan. 18 from 6 to 9 p.m. at The Leonardo, 209 E. 500 South in Salt Lake City.

Speakers will focus on the emergence of online video as an important Internet marketing tool for businesses. With billions of videos viewed on the Internet each week, the medium offers smaller companies a way to reach a wider audience.

Ash Buckles, president of SEO.com, a Utah-based professional SEO company, said the state’s longstanding participation in the Sundance Film Festival makes the discussion a great start to SLCSEM.org’s 2012 seminar series. Buckles is slated to speak at next week’s gathering.

Bing, which is owned by Microsoft and controls about 30 percent of the search engine market, is a major Sundance sponsor.

Bing Program Manager Troy Ma said that during the presentation he will explain how video has changed the marketing landscape for businesses online. He will describe how Bing uses video in its search results and ways companies use online video to get noticed by more customers.

Ma oversees Bing’s multimedia search team, which is responsible for Microsoft’s image and video search. He said much of his time is spent digging through data, researching and then integrating what he learns into Bing’s search engine.

“The evening’s discussion will focus on the opportunities search engines and social media provide for online marketers and Bing.com will share insight into how online marketers can start taking advantage of what Bing is doing with image search and video,” SLCSEM.org President Elisabeth Osmeloski said. “It’s critical for online marketers to understand the massive opportunity that image and video content optimization presents to any organization.”

Since Bing has sponsored the Sundance Film Festival for several years, SLCSEM.org thought it appropriate to dedicate the discussion to video search activities, Osmeloski added.

“It’s not just about watching kitten videos on the Internet. Users are searching for educational information on millions of topics, and a video produced and optimized for keywords surrounding your company’s product or services can deliver highly targeted traffic and ultimately, buyers from search,” she said.

SLCSEM.org will also hear from Morgan Vidakovich, marketing manager for the Sundance Institute. Vidakovich helps oversee marketing and advertising for the Sundance Film Festival. Vidakovich focuses on digital marketing and social media for Sundance.org.

“Vidakovich will discuss the challenges and opportunities related to online video and content distribution with limited resources and expanding goals,” Osmeloski said.

There has been a lot of conversation recently about how much social media affects your organic SEO efforts. While we can’t put this matter to rest because the industry is always changing, we have some insights to share about the present climate. The fact is that social media has both direct and indirect effects on search results, but these are not game-changing effects (at least not yet).

Google+ Friends and Personalized Searches

No previous social media tool has had quite the impact on search engine rankings that Google+ has. When someone is logged into Google+ he or she will get personalized search results from the Google search engine that take his/her +1s (Google’s term for “like”) and friends’ +1s into account. Here are some examples:

• Your friend has +1ed Steven Spielberg, so the movie Tintin pops up near the top of your search, “new movie releases.” You, however, are a Sherlock Holmes fan, which puts Game of Shadows near the top of your friend’s search (and at the top of yours).
• One of your Google Circles is a group of amateur astronomers. Therefore, you tend to get new planet discoveries by the satellite Kepler on the first page of your news results.
• Your spouse and you have been shopping for a new TV, and you both spend a lot of time scouring product review sites. The products each of you looks at rank higher in the other’s searches.

Keep in mind that the interests of Google+ friends only affect Internet searches when the user is logged into Google+. Otherwise, the user’s search results will be based on their previous Internet history and normal SEO optimization efforts.

Google+ versus Twitter and Facebook

Google+ will likely make some major waves in the social media world. In fact, we’re already starting to see some. For example, Twitter used to be open to Google crawlers. That meant that topics with a lot of Twitter traffic would rank high in Google. This can still happen to some degree, but Twitter has largely closed their doors to the crawlers. A topic with a high Twitter volume will appear in Google Suggest (the autocomplete feature in Chrome’s superbar and Firefox’s search bar), but it will not affect what shows up in the search once the user hits Enter.

Facebook, on the other hand, has never directly affected Google search results. Facebook’s primary revenue comes from users clicking ads on Facebook pages, so the last thing they want is someone leaving Facebook and searching for products with Google. For that reason, Facebook will probably always be closed to Google search crawlers. However, certain third-party Facebook apps allow Google crawlers a glimpse into the users of those apps. For example, an app where a Facebook user can list their favorite music can also reveal those preferences to Google, affecting that particular user’s search results (when they are logged in to Facebook).

Social Media: A Focus, but not the Focus

While definitely important for marketing, social media should not become the primary focus of your search engine marketing efforts. The impact of Google+ on rankings is important enough that you should get on Google+ right away, but it’s not going to move you to the first page by itself. Likewise, Facebook “likes” are not going to put your site any higher in a Google search. If there is a lot of “tweeting” about you going on, you might show up high in a Google Suggest list, but it won’t affect your rank on the search page. If a highly optimized competitor jumps on the bandwagon, they may be able to attack you in the Twitter conversation and steal customers away.

When you’re focusing on getting your site ranked high, the same mainstays that have been standard for the last three years still apply:

• Use keywords judiciously, aiming for quality over quantity
• Pick some long-tail search terms to focus on and outrank competitors for those terms
• Write for the actual reader and not just the search crawler
• Keep a blog with a lot of fresh and interesting content
• Use landing pages to create alternate doors to your site besides the home page

Social media marketing should be part of your effort to generate conversation about you and boost your brand image. This will encourage people to search for you. In this manner, social media is an indirect boost to your SEO because, when done properly, it can get friends of your customers to search for you. Google+ will be especially helpful in this regard. Also, your social media page can convince a prospective customer to make a purchase if they notice you have a loyal following and a lot of good reviews.

In the end, search engine optimization and social media are simply two separate tools for making sales and gaining customers. You need both of these tools to gain the recognition you need. While the industry may change as social media continues to grow, our advice today remains what it has been all year—to supplement traditional SEO efforts with social media and focus on both.

Client Spotlight: Awning company helps save money and the environment

General Awnings, an online home improvement company that sells a massive selection of window and door awnings as well as patio covers, offers more than a pretty product. The varieties of awnings found at General Awnings have dual purpose: they enhance buildings aesthetically and play a role in helping the environment.

“With our awnings, home owners and business owners require less air conditioning and use less energy,” said Alex Svirsky, a partner and senior manager at General Awnings. “Awnings are an environmentally friendly product and make quite a noticeable difference when it comes to savings.”

Most people might not have considered the benefits of adding an awning to a home or business. Beyond being decorative, awnings and patio covers are an efficient way to lower energy consumption. A study revealed that awnings help reduce direct sunlight and heat buildup by potentially 77%. Therefore, awnings assist with cooling energy savings and can cut air conditioning use by up to 69%, significantly lowering energy bills. By reducing energy consumption and limiting greenhouse gas emissions, awnings actually help make an impact on global warming as well.

Simple and affordable, General Awnings accommodates to numerous residential and commercial requests. The company can provide for a small window awning or if necessary, large awnings for commercial or industrial applications. While some people prefer to install the awnings on their own, the company can also refer highly recommended installers.

Saving money with awnings and doing your share for the environment does not automatically mean sacrificing style. General Awnings provides a practically limitless selection of fabric and aluminum awnings. Retractable and roll-up awnings are also available.

“We work hard to stay abreast of developments in the industry, to be able to offer the best products and value to our customers,” Svirsky said.

Tips and Tricks: Make Content SEO Friendly

Quality content on your site can help improve your rankings. Whether you would like to believe it or not, there are better ways to write SEO friendly content. The following five tips can help you create engaging and search engine friendly content:

1. Your title is vital. You must craft a catchy title that includes a keyword. If you don’t, it is an easily missed opportunity to maximize your position in search engines. Don’t sacrifice the chance to include a keyword in your title to be cute or cryptic. By having a clever title that includes a keyword, you can successfully entice readers while encouraging search engines to boost your rankings.

2. Subheadings can be significant. Incorporating relevant keywords in an H2 or H3 tag throughout your content reinforces the topic of your page for search engine spiders.

3. On average, a page of content should have a minimum of 300 words. With at least 300 words, you can write enough original and unique content to incorporate your primary keyword. This sensible amount of content won’t overwhelm readers if it’s organized well, and it gives search engines a sufficient amount of information.

4. Measure your keyword prominence. Plainly put, check how prominent your keyword is within your site. It is better to put your keyword close toward the beginning of the page, title, h tag, or key descriptions.

5. Mix up your keywords. For example, if you’re writing content on photography you could alternate between using the phrase ‘family pictures’ or ‘family portraits’ to change it up and avoid spamming your content with overused keywords.

Be sure to keep these five things in mind when you are writing content for your site. These suggestions can help ensure that your site ranks better in the search engines to increase traffic and visibility.

Industry events

Online Marketing Summit: San Diego; Feb. 6-10, 2012

Search Engine Strategies Search & Social Accelerator Conference: San Diego; Feb. 9, 2012

PubCon: Honolulu; Feb. 13-15, 2012

SearchFest: Portland; Feb. 24, 2012

Search Marketing Expo West: San Jose; Feb. 28 to March 1, 2012

SEO.com events

Webinar: The Science of Lead Generation — Jan. 12 at 11 a.m. MST

Webinar: SEO for Small Businesses — Jan. 26 at 11 a.m. MST

Webinar: Tips to Improve Your Local Marketing — Feb. 9 at 11 a.m. MST

In an economy comparable to a stormy sea, where many companies struggle to keep their heads above water, SEO.com has found solid ground, having been recognized several times this year for its rapid growth and increasing revenue. As the year closes, SEO.com is celebrating its success after receiving a handful of awards.

“We’ve seen continued growth and prosperity,” said Ash Buckles, president of SEO.com. “Our employees have amped up both the quality of their work, as well as their efficiency. We’re proud to have a team that dedicates themselves to our clients.”

SEO.com grew during the recession as many other businesses closed their doors. The search marketing company has been so successful that within the past two years its staff has expanded from about 45 employees to nearly 100.

Internet marketing remains a hot sector despite the lingering slow economy, according to the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization. Some officials expect online marketing to grow to a $20 billion industry in 2012.

SEO.com grew during the last recession because business owners must promote themselves even in a sluggish economy, said Mike Hohl, director of sales and marketing for SEO.com.

“Businesses are usually more successful when marketing budgets are not cut during tough economic times,” Hohl explained. “Innovation and maintaining your level of marketing is critical.”

Because results from online marketing are easily tracked, companies hire SEO.com after ending advertising contracts with newspapers and magazines that are unable to reach the growing audience online.

SEO.com received several awards this year for its Internet marketing service, including being named the top search engine optimization firm by Website Magazine. SEO.com was part of MountainWest Capital Network’s Emerging Elite for the third year in a row, and was placed among the top 20 e-commerce businesses in Utah and the Emerging Eight by Utah Business magazine, which recognizes some of the fastest-growing companies in the state.

Additionally, TopSEOs.com bumped SEO.com up 38 spots to No. 7 on its list of the top 50 search engine optimization companies in the United States.

“We’re absolutely committed to reputable, high-quality search engine optimization,” said Jon Reese, director of marketing at SEO.com. “I’m thrilled to see our skilled employees getting the recognition they deserve. This is a huge win for the entire company.”

About SEO.com

SEO.com is a search engine optimization company that delivers a big return on investment for its clients by driving traffic to their websites through aggressive SEM services. Clients range from small startups to Fortune 100 companies.

The views some high school and college students have of social media may be changing as they break this month for the holidays. Before Davis High School junior Breanna Barton took Jeff McCauley’s new social media marketing class, Facebook and YouTube were merely means for wasting time. Now Barton sees things a little differently.

“There’s so much more to [social media] than people think,” Barton said. “I didn’t really think you could market with them, but it’s amazing how much potential there is for it.”

Growth rates in social media marketing are expected to increase about 33 percent each year, from $400 million in 2010 to $2.3 billion in 2015, according to a forecast by BIA/Kelsey. Companies are no longer just dabbling in social media, but fully investing in it.

These developments are changing marketing curricula, both in high schools and colleges, McCauley said.

“I [do it] because it’s now and it’s happening,” he said. “Chances are these kids will be working a lot with social media in the future. I’m not trying to make good high school students; I’m trying to shape the next generation of marketing professionals.”

Jonah Berger, an assistant professor of marketing at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, said the school’s marketing program is also actively adjusting to the changes.

“The school as a whole is extremely interested in these issues and I think that points to the importance of it,” he said.

But Berger also said that social media is simply another weapon in the marketing arsenal.

“These are technologies, not strategies,” he said. “To be effective, you have to understand the motivations for people’s interactions on those pages.”

He said he focuses much of his teaching on how to understand people’s behavior in social media so his students can better target their audiences.

The change to social media marketing has been gradual until recently, according to Ash Buckles, president of SEO.com, a Utah-based search marketing company that offers social media to its clients.

“When companies execute a social media campaign well, communication is maximized and open,” he said. “Social media allows businesses to receive direct feedback as a listening platform as well as introduce new product ideas.”

Berger said the power of the word of mouth is unequaled by any other tool in the marketing field, and social media is but the online version of “spreading the word.”

“I believe we will continue to see a rapid shift in marketing strategy as recent graduates enter the workforce and bring their own insights on the technology they have grown up with,” Buckles said. “I am excited to see how they will revolutionize the industry.”

Cyber Monday shoppers spent a record $1.3 billion this year as the Monday after Thanksgiving crept up on Black Friday as one of the busiest shopping days of the year. With Christmas just around the corner and so much possible revenue crammed into a short time span, businesses are rushing to capture as many holiday customers as they can.

While sales at brick-and-mortar stores the day after Thanksgiving still dwarf Cyber Monday receipts, a website that is optimized for the search engines will not only drive Internet traffic, but also foot traffic into your physical business by showing potential customers your location and the products and services you provide.

Two webinars scheduled at SEO.com in December will help you start the New Year with a website that could rank on the first page of Google when people search for your industry online. The programs are the final two installments in our Learn to SEO Like a Pro webinar series.

“This webinar series is intended to equip businesses with confidence in their ability to successfully manage SEO campaigns, or at least understand the most important components they are made up of,” said Claye Stokes, director of search engine optimization at SEO.com.

On Dec. 8, our experts will discuss strategies for doubling website traffic in 2012. Using Google Analytics to increase sales will be the topic of the Dec. 22 webinar.

Both webinars are free and you can register today.

Here are some tips from past webinars in the series in case you missed the first three installments:

SEO’s True Value Revealed

The true value of search engine optimization is revealed through demographics research. To really excel, you need to know who looks at your site and why, how they come into your site (home page or a services page), whether they are a repeat customer or not, and whether they respond to any of your calls to action.

Analyzing Demographics

Once you know something about the demographics of visitors to your site, you can then start analyzing each demographic and the return on investment you’re getting from each client. Calculating the cost per lead (CPL) can be just as useful as calculating the ROI. When you know how much you are spending per customer action, you can take steps to reduce that cost and/or increase the volume of customers you attract.

Keyword Research

It is helpful to know what keywords attract given customers. Keyword tracking is not only possible from online leads, but also through phone call tracking, which determines what keyword in an Internet search led a customer to call your phone number.

With data on your target audiences and how they respond to leads, you are finally in a position to audit your search engine marketing efforts. You will want to determine some key performance indicators and use them as a baseline to see how your efforts progress over time. Some particularly useful segments to establish indicators for are new visitors, return visitors, conversions, and non-bounce visits.

Ranking Using Long-Tail Keywords

To rank high on your product or service pages, you need to choose the right keywords. Longer keyword phrases (called long-tail keywords) are much easier to rank for, and they also address specific customer needs better. However, long-tail keywords can be a little unwieldy in headings, so select the most important keywords from the long-tail phrase for your page title and then place the long-tail phrase in the opening paragraph of your page or post.

Present Your Value in Search Results

Make good use of the title tags and meta descriptions that search engines display on their results page. You will typically want it to give your product name followed by your company name. The meta description should include a clear value statement that essentially says, “This product (or service) solves your problem. It will provide you with real value. Click here to find out more about it.”

Convert Leads to Sales on Your Landing Page

When they click on your link you want to provide the product or service information and an easy way to purchase right from the landing page. A best practice is to put a call-to-action box or form in the top-right corner of the screen.

Although your text is primarily there for SEO, you need to make it easy for the viewer to read as well. You can make it scannable by using headers, bullets, white space, and some images. These will break up the flow to make it look more readable and less intimidating.

Get Your Landing Page Shared

Social media marketing is playing an increasingly important role in search engine rankings and product visibility. You need to provide your customers with a means to share your product with their friends. This is best done by providing “share this” buttons to each of the major social media tools available.

In an age when retail stores are gradually being replaced by online sales, these are crucial steps in maintaining your edge in the market.

Client Spotlight: Cleaning company is secret to others' success

It is likely you haven’t considered any behind-the-scenes efforts required to keep a company smooth sailing—which is where a firm like TEAM Solutions enters the picture. TEAM Solutions is an international technical cleaning and facility support service that is designed to optimize other companies’ performance.

TEAM Solutions has specialized in technical cleaning for nearly 30 years. Their facility-cleaning program meets the needs of several industries including aerospace and defense, automotive manufacturing, industrial cleaning, medical industry, food processing and a variety of other support services. Offering all these support services allows businesses to maintain focus on their core business activities.

TEAM Solutions works for major automotive manufacturers in the United States, Canada, Europe, and Asia, as well as food processing companies, beverage companies and aerospace and defense contractors. By keeping these facilities clean, each company is capable of operating efficiently.

“It’s all about helping our customers do what they do best in making their products as safe as they can be,” said Tom Rowland, the TEAM Solutions vice president of sales and marketing. “It’s about supporting the client so they can make the best things possible. Just as an example, we support the production of some of the best fighter jets.”

What sets TEAM Solutions apart from other facility cleaning programs is how they manage their operating system. TEAM Solutions drives operational excellence and ensures key performance at each of their sites.

“We do our job right for our clients to make sure they can focus on what they do best. Their food is safe, the cars look the best, and what we do helps them make everything better,” Rowland said.

Although some may not see any direct impact on their lives from a company like TEAM Solutions, be assured they play an indirect role in public safety. By keeping food processing facilities and the medical industry up to par with sanitation and cleanliness, TEAM Solutions in a way keeps the public in good hands.

“As an industry leader in technical cleaning facility management for a variety of industries, we touch on every aspect of people lives,” said Rowland.

Tips and Tricks: Title tags can be longer than 70 characters

Some may argue that title tags are the most important SEO tags for a website. Although most people are no stranger to the significance of a title tag for search engine optimization, there are those who could benefit from carefully crafting the right tag.

Title tags are a line of text normally found at the top of a browser window. Search engine spiders utilize title tags as a main source for understanding the topic of a page. The spiders crawl the site and determine the relevance between a title tag and the rest of the content. For this reason, using your keywords in the page title can help improve your rankings.

The length of a title tag to be displayed ranges from 60 to 70 characters for most search engines. If you use more than 70 characters, the title will be cut off on the search results page. However, even though search engines display 70 characters of a title tag, that doesn't mean they don't index titles longer than 70 characters. If you feel your unique title is limited, you can use more characters to ensure your critical keywords and phrases are included.

Utilizing title tags often helps generate quick and significant improvements for your search engine rankings. Feel free to push the boundaries of the 70 character “limit” for your title tag in order to provide the information you need for a boost.

Industry events

Online Marketing Summit: San Diego; Feb. 6-10, 2012

Search Engine Strategies Search & Social Accelerator Conference: San Diego; Feb. 9, 2012

PubCon: Honolulu; Feb. 13-15, 2012

SearchFest: Portland; Feb. 24, 2012

Search Marketing Expo West: San Jose; Feb. 28 to March 1, 2012

SEO.com events

Webinar: Double Your Website Traffic in 2012 — Dec. 8 at 11 a.m. Eastern

Webinar: Use Google Analytics to Increase Sales — Dec. 22 at 11 a.m. Eastern

The list has been based in past years on a company’s gross billing, number of clients and the number of full-time employees.

Atop the list were companies like Ancestry.com, Overstock.com and Backcountry.com.

“We’re thrilled to be listed with such prominent companies,” said Mike Hohl, vice president of sales and marketing at SEO.com. “E-commerce is becoming more and more competitive, and we are committed to not only keeping ourselves high on that list, but also bringing our clients along with us.”

One of SEO.com’s clients, PRMarketing.com, was also on the list, ranking thirteenth.

“SEO.com has done incredible things for us,” said Lori Gilson, president of PRMarketing.com. “Their expertise and superior client relations truly set them apart from other search engine optimization companies out there.”

SEO.com specializes in search engine optimization, which is the practice of increasing visibility for websites in search engine results. Done by researching search terms people use in search engines and then optimizing websites and online activity accordingly, the goal of search engine optimization is to place websites as high as possible in search engine results to generate Internet traffic.

SEO.com has seen huge success with some of their major clients, like H&R Block and Mrs. Fields, according to Jon Reese, marketing director at SEO.com. Touting high returns on investment for those companies, SEO.com has also developed online marketing strategies and SEO for small businesses.

“We realize there are people out there who are not so convinced of the effectiveness of SEO,” Reese said. “But we are committed to offering the very best, not just in ROI, but also client relations and transparency.”

Online sales the Monday after Thanksgiving have doubled since 2006 as fewer Americans braved Black Friday crowds, instead waiting for Cyber Monday to begin their holiday shopping on the Internet. With so much possible revenue crammed into such a short time span, officials at SEO.com advised business owners to explore every possible advantage for outpacing the competition in the weeks leading up to Christmas.

“The online world basically mimics the offline world without the geographic constraints,” said Claye Stokes, director of search engine optimization at SEO.com. “You have to set aside an entire day to go store to store. But you can see a lot more websites in a smaller amount of time and do more cost comparisons.”

Though it’s too late for some Internet marketing services to increase the bottom line this Christmas, Stokes had some last-minute search engine marketing tips for business owners hoping to make their companies more visible on the Internet in time for holiday shoppers.

One of the most effective ways to find more online customers is to list products the company sells in Google Product Search, according to Stokes.

“A lot of websites aren’t doing that yet,” he explained.

Listing a business in Google Product Search allows shoppers to easily find your products when they search online. The items appear in a box with Google’s shopping results, and local businesses are highlighted when online shoppers click to find out where the items can be purchased.

“Google Product Search is great for local companies,” Stokes said. “If they get into these product feeds, it’s a good way to let Google and local customers know you have these products.”

The Bing search engine has its own product feed called Bing Shopping. Merchants may use the Google and Bing shopping feeds for free.

Once products are listed in the shopping feeds, it’s important to advertise holiday markdowns and reduced shipping costs so the search engines quickly notice the business and move it to the top of the search results.

Listing a company in Google Product Search is simple, but it requires some data entry or development, and a Google Merchant Center account.

“If businesses get a shopping feed put together before Cyber Monday they have an opportunity to really benefit from one of the busiest days of the year,” said Mike Hohl, vice president of sales and marketing for SEO.com. “But this is going to help you every day, until Christmas and beyond.”

Hohl said retailers also sell more items during the holidays when they prominently feature their products on their home page.

“Featuring items on the home page will get more attention for those products,” he said.

Though the popularity of infographics has exploded over the past few years, questions may always linger about how to design and promote graphics that generate leads, build your reputation or expand your company's reach on Facebook and Twitter.

Infographics, also known as information graphics, are visual representations of data or knowledge. They present complex information in a quick, clear manner that makes it interesting to the average person.

Some examples of infographic topics have included: “Father’s Day vs. Mother’s Day”, “How Are Smartphones Being Used?” and “What is a Stock.” The information was presented using colorful pictures, graphs and charts. And the data came together in the end as one image known as an infographic.

Infographics are powerful tools for improving your website search engine optimization. They boost SEO by providing visibility and brand awareness, generating social signals and creating natural backlinks.

Infographics also generate visibility by pushing your brand to the forefront of social media marketing.

“If it’s interesting enough for the average individual then it’s very promotable. It gets shared and helps drives traffic to the website,” said Greg Shuey, vice president of client services for SEO.com.

This can create natural backlinks. When search engines see that your website is receiving lots of shares across the popular social networks, the search engines begin viewing the page as a trustworthy source.

But for an infographic to be successful, you need to have an awesome concept and amazing design. If these elements are not present, then your graphic will not make an impression.

"If you have unique data pertaining to your company, utilize it to create an infographic," Shuey said.

Infographics with new data that is not publicly available thrive in social media, he added.

Your team must also be excited about the project for an infographic to really be successful. It is important that everybody involved in the infographic be committed and eager to participate and promote it.

“When the client is brought in, they begin pushing it through their organization. They’re sharing it with their friends, their neighbors and out on Facebook … We get a whole lot more promotion, we get a whole lot more visibility and more eyeballs on the website when we have that excited team,” Shuey said.

However, design is only one component when it comes to utilizing infographics for SEO. Before you start creating your infographic, you must develop specific goals for the content. Decide what you want the infographic to achieve before diving into the process. Do you want 15,000 page views? How about 65 new backlinks or 25 new leads?

“The goals can really be anything, but you want goals that will help build the business,” Shuey said.

Laying out the goals of the infographic beforehand is important because it can play a major role in the design.

Another key element to using infographics to boost SEO marketing is developing a plan for promotion. Simply uploading the content to your website or blog won’t cut it. Work at getting your infographic into the public eye. Otherwise, only your followers are going to see it.

“If you don’t have a solid promotion plan in place, you’re probably not going to have a very successful infographic,” Shuey said.

It is important to tailor your promotion plan to your design. Some infographics fare better than others when it comes to different social media outlets. There are many ways to get your infographic noticed and earn natural backlinks. It’s important to reach out and connect with networks of individuals who share content.

Shuey recommended contacting the blogger community by utilizing websites such as Tumblr and Pinterest. Leveraging social media like Facebook, Twitter and Digg is also important, but these should not be your only promotional techniques.

When infographics are created and promoted correctly, they will continue to acquire backlinks and be shared through social media networks long after your campaign is complete.

Listen to Shuey's webinar for more infographic tips.

Client Spotlight: Michigan company sees boom despite the slow economy

One of the largest industries in the United States is the automobile industry, and Michigan is its hub. The state also bears the stigma of a gloomy economic landscape. However, for Alta Equipment Company, this is not the case.

Alta Equipment Company is a family-owned business, which was founded by Steve Greenawalt in 1984. The firm provides industrial forklifts, heavy construction equipment, and warehouse solutions to a variety of companies in the Midwest. They currently have 14 branches located in Michigan, Illinois and northwestern Indiana, and they carry an array of brands from Combilift forklifts to Volvo construction equipment.

The Automobile Industry

Automobile manufacturers comprise one of the most prominent industries served by Alta Equipment Company.

“We provide the automobile companies with lifts and other equipment to assist in the building of vehicles,” said Kristina Heimbaugh, Alta Equipment Company's marketing director.

Going Green

The environmental movement promotes the sustainable management of Earth’s resources. As the movement has grown in popularity, more companies have strived to reduce their carbon footprints. Alta Equipment Company is currently in the process of organizing an educational seminar on environmental responsibility.

“We are putting together this seminar to help our customers become a little greener,” Heimbaugh said.

The seminar will cover ways Alta Equipment Company’s customers can move toward alternative fuel and eco-friendly batteries.

Pride and Passion

Employees at Alta Equipment Company have pride in the business, and it definitely shows.

“We all love being here,” Heimbaugh said. “The salespeople and managers are great. Everybody does their part and they’re really here to support each other.”

They also have a passion for their customers and the service they provide.

“All companies say they’re about service, but we really are about service,” Heimbaugh said.

Tips and Tricks: Two awesome tools for link prospecting

Citation Labs founder Garrett French

Citation Labs has created some useful tools you can use for search engine optimization. These two tools — the Outbound Link Scraper Tool and the Contact Finder — may be found at citationlabs.com. They can save you lots of time (and headaches) when it comes to prospecting for links.

Outbound Link Scraper Tool

The Outbound Link Scraper Tool is not only useful, but it is very easy to use. With this tool, all you have to do is insert a URL and it gathers all outbound links on the page and returns the links to you in a csv file. This allows you to quickly go through and capture URLs that are relevant to what you are searching for.

Contact Finder

The Contact Finder is a tool that allows you to harvest contact information without manually going from site to site. The first step is adding the URLs you generated from the Outbound Link Scraper Tool. Next, specify what anchor text you want the tool to look for on a website, for example, the about us or contact page. Then identify what to pick out, including email addresses and phone numbers.

These tools are both easy to use and save lots of time. There are costs associated with the use of these tools, but they are definitely worth the price. One hundred megabytes of bandwidth starts at $10, and 1,000 megabytes at $50.

Find out how SEO.com Vice President of Client Services Greg Shuey used these tools to find 400 qualified link prospects in eight minutes.

Industry events

SES Chicago: Chicago; Nov. 14-18

SES Singapore: Singapore; Nov. 22-23

SMX Social Media Marketing: Scottsdale, Ariz.; Dec. 5-6

SEO.com events

Webinar: Is your website attracting visitors? — Nov. 10 at 11 a.m. Eastern

Webinar: Creating successful landing pages — Nov. 17 at 11 a.m. Eastern

The 2011 Emerging Elite was comprised of 15 companies that have each been in business for fewer than five years.

“We are honored to be recognized once again by MountainWest Capital Network,” SEO.com President Ash Buckles said. “This recognition for our company is a reflection of the hard work of our dedicated employees, who we proudly thank for their efforts.”

The winners were announced during a ceremony on Oct. 6 for the annual Utah 100 Awards.

According to MountainWest Capital Network, the Emerging Elite are young Utah companies “that show significant promise for future success.”

Other businesses on the list included: 2GIG Technologies, CampusBookRentals.com, Candlelight Homes, LLC, Cariloha, Coherex Medical, Inc., GOAL ZERO, Infuse Medical, Matchbin, Inc., Miche Bag, LLC, OptConnect, Orabrush, OrangeSoda, Qivana, LLC and Zoobies.

“Utah continues to prove its resiliency and economic prowess as one of the most business-friendly states in the country,” said Jason F. Watson, president of MountainWest Capital Network.

Speaking at the awards ceremony, Utah Gov. Gary Herbert praised the businesses for growing during a sluggish economy. He applauded the companies for the job growth and economic development they provide the state.

For SEO.com, the growth is a testament to the company’s strong leadership and business concept, Buckles said.

SEO.com increases revenue for its clients by driving more traffic to their websites. Through search engine optimization and social media marketing, employees at SEO.com push for the websites to dominate search results when people look for the products or services online.

“SEO.com continues to grow because we offer what every business needs, a powerful Internet presence that gets a company noticed by the search engines,” Buckles said. “We will build on this momentum by continuing to provide our clients with the best possible technology, along with fast, friendly customer service.”

The Emerging Elite award came on the heels of SEO.com being named to the 2011 Emerging 8 by Utah Business magazine.

About MountainWest Capital Network

Founded in Salt Lake City in 1983, the objective of the MountainWest Capital Network is to support entrepreneurial success and enable business growth by fostering the dynamic flow of information about capital formation and distribution, educating and mentoring excellence, recognizing and rewarding business success and performance, and fostering synergistic relationships through networking.

About SEO.com

SEO.com is a search engine optimization company that delivers a big return on investment for its clients by driving traffic to their websites through aggressive search engine marketing. Clients range from small startups to Fortune 50 companies.