Fox News 1280 KDOX AM – The Jeremy Wayne Show
Had a blast co-hosting The Jeremy Wayne show on Fox News 1280 KDOX AM while visiting Las Vegas. Jeremy is by far one of the most talented talk show host on the planet. Be sure to tune into his show weekdays from 11:00 am to 12:00pm (PST) as he discusses politics, government and current events.
Listen to the Interview Now:
Attention Wedding Professionals:
Just a reminder that tonight at 7pm EST is our special Bridal Traffic site review webinar. Jump in! Be there and ask questions about YOUR site!
Here’s the link: http://budurl.com/WedLockWNR
This webinar is a very special one. It features myself along with Chris Watson from WedLock Magazine. – We’re going to be doing something that a lot of you guys have written me and asked for.
Tonight you will be able to watch over our shoulder as we:
• Use recommended free tools to assess each site
• Determine the best keywords for each site
• Cover Google Local and how to get a free listing to top rank
• Analyze the SEO strength or weakness of the competition
• Show you where to place the keywords ON your site
• Show you how to build links into your site
• Review how to blog for SEO
• Implement Media Syndication using Free Video Software
• Discuss what to outsource and where to find the right resources
This webinar’s going to really help you connect some SERIOUSLY business-booming dots – so make the time to be there. At the end of their presentation, we’ll be taking live questions.
Here’s the link, so go register right now: http://budurl.com/WedLockWNR
(As always – if you cannot make it, don’t worry! We will be recording and sending it out to all of our WedLock subscribers!)
If you would like to be on of the few people to have your site reviewed on the webinar tonight, please leave a comment below with you fist name and a url to your website.
See you on the webinar tonight at 7:00pm (EST)
Facebook recently changed their “Become a Fan” button with the “I Like” button.
What does that mean to your business? What does it mean to Google?
Some say it could be a game changer.
Take a peek at the video preview of an article that I wrote exclusively for WedLock Magazine, the Marketing Journal for Wedding Professionals, entitled “Why you should like Facebook“.
To continue reading this article – Subscribe to WedLock Magazine.
Best Regards
Jason Hennessey
1. First, what sort of services do you offer to help photographers market their sites?
We specialize in organic search engine optimization (SEO) and online conversion. This meets two very important needs for photographers:
a. SEO helps to get their webpage ranking on the first page of Google, which exposes their portfolio to qualified shopping prospects. (Google Domination)
b. The work we do with conversion then increases their website’s ability to convert more of those visitors into paying customers. It amps up their overall call to action and conversion. (Leads/revenue).
2. What are the unique challenges facing wedding professionals trying to improve their search engine rankings?
The biggest challenges are always time and commitment. SEO is something you have to keep at. It’s not a “set it and forget it” situation.
There really is no secret sauce to SEO, it all comes down to posting great content to your site and gathering quality backlinks (other sites linking to your site). Both of these are easier – far easier – said then done Because let’s face it, Google is like an ATM machine with an unlimited amount cash. But unfortunately – they know they are! So they’re very careful about whom they ‘reward’ that first page status to.
In general terms he/she who knows how to do their keyword research the right way, and has the MOST (and the right kind of) backlinks – gets to withdraw MOST of the money. In a perfect world, business owners should take two hours every day to do nothing but educate yourself using Google and YouTube on the topics of Search Engine Optimization, SEO, Link Building, Keyword Research, etc. Then, they should devote another hour every day to applying tactical substance to your online marketing efforts. You will be very surprised…and so will your competitors. Most companies I know don’t have that three full hours a day to spare, so they instead hire an outside agency that specializes in organic search optimization.
3. Does it matter whether the website is hand-built or based on a template like FolioLink?
Custom websites are great for photographers who really want full control of the look and feel of their online image. Since custom sites are typically designed by a professional web designer, you have the ability to control all of the important on-page optimization factors like: H1 tags, Meta Tags, Interlinks, Alt Tags, etc
If you’re going to go with a custom site, just be sure to consult with an SEO professional BEFORE you begin to build the wireframe. It breaks my heart to see thousands of dollars spent on development, only to find out later that the site is not Search Engine Friendly.
If you are on a budget or don’t care to deal with designers at $50.00 an hour for each and every small revision , I would suggest a template solution such as FolioLink. This is a great alternative since it allows you to update your site in real time using a user-friendly content management system, where as you upload a gallery, hit publish, and your portfolio is instantly available for the world to see. Just make sure to pick the template that best matches your photographic style and avoid the true FLASH templates. Because most Flash designs are not readable by most search engines crawlers.
** Just a side note – If I were just starting out, I myself would get a custom site designed and migrated to a word press blog. This is a FREE open source content management system with every SEO plug in known to man.
4. How exactly does a Squidoo lens help with search engine rankings and what should a wedding photographer put on it?
Squidoo was founded by Seth Godin, one of the greatest markers alive. Godin describes a lens as “{filtering} light and {showing} us what we need to see.” As a wedding photographer, you need to do just that…show the shopping bride who you are and what makes you unique.
Create a lens detailing the ten questions to ask while interviewing your wedding photographer or something that brides will find compelling. Be sure to include your best images, and most importantly add hyper-links pointing back to your website using your keyword anchor text of choice: i.e. Dallas Wedding Photographer. (This would be the blue underlined link linking back to your homepage). These links are extremely powerful, because Google looks at Squidoo as a trusted site, and so Squidoo gets trusted link love. Remember, because Squidoo is a traffic generating powerhouse, your lens will usually get listed very high in the SERPS (Search Engine Result Page) and visited time and time again by qualified prospects searching for your subject.
5. Does a blog help with SEO? How often should photographers update their blogs?
A blog is a MUST for Photographers who want to rank high in the search engines. As you may or may not have noticed, Google just released “Caffeine”. And I’m not talking about a new Goggle coffee shop (although that would be cool. I’d sure hang out there.) Caffeine is Google’s newest update to their algorithm and search results pages. Basically they are looking to pay closer attention to Speed, Accuracy, Relevance, and Index Site.
A WordPress blog (on your domain) provides you the ability to satisfy speed, accuracy and relevance by adding fresh content to your site . Remember Google LOVES content. Because without it, well, there would be no Google. So the more love you show them with unique content, the more love they will show you with rankings and traffic. So I would try to get in the habit of adding 2-3 new posts per week.
6. What can a photographer do to get links to their site?
You can always manipulate the search engines by listing your website on free directories, engaging in conversations on forums, and adding comments on blogs. But the MOST important strategy to get **quality** links to your site is to add **quality** content.
I use the word content, and some might take me literally and think content = copy. But I’m not just referring to text. Content can be words, images, videos, animation, etc..
If I were a photographer, I would pick up a $99.00 flip video camera and go to a local bridal show and interview 25 engaged couples. Ask them what is the single biggest fear while selecting a photographer for the most important day of their life, their wedding. Then take the time to create a video response for each and every question and address how your company, has a solution for that fear.
Then – I’d syndicate these videos on YouTube, Google Video, Vimeo, etc…The next thing you know, these videos are getting thousands of views and backlinks are being built while your sleep. Another strategy for getting quality back links is by writing and submitting a press release every few months.
7. What are the most common mistakes that you see wedding professionals make when it comes to promoting their websites?
The single biggest mistake that I see over and over again is NOT writing unique optimized page titles using keywords! The page title is EXTREMELY important , as it is the headline that Google displays in the search result pages.
In other words, if your homepage says **home** in the top left corner of the browser, you need to go back to the drawing board. An optimized page title looks something like this: Dallas Wedding Photography – Dallas Wedding Photographers | XYZ Company
8. What sort of keywords should wedding photographers target and where should they put them?
There is a rule that I like to use when optimizing a web page. Focus the page on the one keyword that gets the most monthly visits related to your niche. You can use the free Google Keyword tool to collect this data. For instance, the keyword Dallas Wedding Photographer receives 1,600 unique searches per month, and the #1 position of Google for this term get 56% of all clicks. That means your competitor is stealing 896 qualified visits every month just by applying basic SEO to his website. When you focus on one keyword, the long tail keywords will follow. And be sure to add the keyword in your content a few times, while making it bold at least twice.
9. And what sort of effect does contributing free articles to sites like Ezinearticles have on SEO?
Ezinearticles.com is considered one of the top FREE article directory submission site’s based on their Alexa Rating 131, Google Page Rank of 6, and over 1 million web pages linking back to them. Google sees this as a credible and trustworthy site, therefore indexes their articles high in the SERPS. What does that mean for YOU?
Well the keyword here is FREE. With a minimal amount of effort you can construct a 500 word **unique** article related to your niche, include no more than 2 keyword anchor text links, and then push submit. Not only will your article get read by ezine followers , it will also get indexed in the Google SERPS, and picked up by syndicates, all linking back to your webpage. So in essence 1 500 word article, could possibly get you 200-300 **quality** backlinks. And remember the one with the most **quality** backlinks wins.
10. Finally, if you were to recommend a set of steps that a wedding professional must follow to market their site, what would those steps be?
a. Add a WordPress blog to your site, i.e www.yourdomain.com/blog
b. Educate yourself on blogging, search engine optimization, link building, and social media. (Or hire someone to spend those hours doing it for you.)
c. Perform your extensive keyword research.
d. Focus on only ONE major keyword per page.
e. Write a unique page title and description that’s tailored to that keyword.
f. Blog 2-3 times per week.
g. Build a Squidoo lens.
h. Start to create quality content like videos and add them to your site as well as other video syndicate sites.
i. Spend 1-2 hours every day, building anchor text links back to site by engaging in conversations on forums, commenting on blogs, or adding your site to free directories.
j. Write and submit 1 – 500 word unique article to ezinearticles.com every week with your anchor text link within the content 2X .
k. Write a submit a press release to PRWeb.com once per month your anchor text link within the content 2X.
l. Set up a Facebook, Linkedin, and Twitter account for your business and link out to them from your homepage. Be sure to stay active with your social media campaigns.
m. Get your customers to add positive reviews on Yelp.com
If you would like to speak to Jason about your search engine marketing campaigns he can be reached by:
email: jason@eversparinteractive.com
blog: http://www.weddingseoblog.com
web: http://www.eversparkinteractive.com
twitter: http://www.twitter.com/jasonhennessey
Cooler than Brad Fallon - Jason Hennessey
Is there anyone on earth cooler than Brad Fallon? Google refers to Brad as not only the Coolest Guy (With Authority) but also the Coolest Guy on the planet. I thought it would be a “cool” experiment to try and rank for Cooler than Brad Fallon.
Why do I want to be Cooler than Brad Fallon?
Although new to the SEO and Internet Marketing community, I have learned that EVERYONE wants to be cooler than Brad Fallon. This includes Jonathan Leger, Mike Filsaime, Peter Drew, Daniel Molano, and even Aussie James Schramko. While they ALL battle to take the coolest reign away from Brad, I thought I would just go the easy route and officially claim myself “Cooler than Brad Fallon”. So there I said it….Today on September 6th, 2009 — I Jason Hennessey consider myself Cooler than Brad Fallon.
What makes me Cooler than Brad Fallon?
So as you can see my life has been pretty cool so far.
-Jason Hennessey
Cooler Than Brad Fallon
One of the most important elements of building and maintaining a “SEO Friendly” website is to completely avoid duplicate content.
What is Duplicate Content?
There are two forms of duplicate content.
Google’s mission statement states “Organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful”. So how would Google be able to accomplish their mission when your ordinary Internet surfer typed in “Photography” and Wikipedia displayed as the #1 page with relevant information about a Photography, then for the next 3 pages it was the same exact content as the wiki page except on 50 different websites that stole their content. I think you are starting to catch my drift. That would probably get you frustrated if you were looking to buy a camera, and you would think twice about using Google the next time you had to search for something on the web.
Therefor, Google has guys like Matt Cutts on staff to monitor, detect, and punish duplicate content spammers. Although this problem may seem trivial, and you probably have never stolen any one else’s content, you must still remain proactive in detecting duplicate content. And although most people think that Google is intelligent enough to distinguish between cache dates and such, believe it or not- they still don’t have this problem figured out 100% yet.
As the original author of web content, you may wake up one morning only to find your site penalized, because remember Google’s real concern is minimizing duplicate content, not arbitrating the rightful owner.
How do I know when I’m penalized and what can I do about it?
When Google or any other search engine discovers a duplicate content issue, they act and they act very fast. They will either:
Aaron Wall, author of The SEO Book posted a great article:
What are Google Supplemental Results?
The good news, there are FREE tools that assist in the discovery of duplicate content. One of the most popular tools is Copyscape. This is a FREE service that goes out on your behalf and searches the web for content similar or identical to the content on your website. Although I suggest just using the FREE service, if you really want to protect yourself from duplicate content, CopyScape also offers an upgraded version of their software that provides unlimited amounts of scans and help identify, detect and notifiy you with any acts of plagiarism.
If you detect duplicate content immediately report it as SPAM to all three major search engines.
When you are doing search engine optimization, it is important to use an analytics program. An analytics program helps you track all of the statistics in one program. When you have this installed, you can see which keywords are bringing you the most traffic. You can also see which keywords are converting the best for you. Once you see which keywords you are ranking high for, you can concentrate on getting to the top of the search engine rankings for those keywords. Also, you can get yourself ranked in other keywords and check if you are getting any traffic from those.
Another factor to keep an eye on is when Google or any of the other search engine’s algorithm changes. Google uses a very complex algorithm to rank websites for keywords. An algorithm, by definition, is a complex sequence of steps used to solve an equation. There may have been a time when you were wondering why your website dropped from the first page of Google to the fifth. Other times the algorithm may have liked your website and you may got a major boost in the ranking of your website. Instead of making a knee-jerk reaction and drastically making changes to your website, it is better to take some time to try to find out exactly why those other pages were moved ahead of you. Take some time to browse all of the websites on the first page of Google for your keyword and determine what all of those pages have in common. Also check out what those pages have that your website does not.
Remember that just because your site dropped in the search engine results pages, it is not the end of the world. If you are building a solid business, you should have been making repeat customers and the customers you are targeting should already know about your services. If your entire business can be taken out by a simple change in Google’s algorithm, then you need to evaluate how you are running your business. If another company can completely whipe out all of the profit you are making from your business, then you really do not have a long-term business. The search results should be a strong component of your business, but if you allow it to be your entire business, you can run into problems.
One way you can combat the algorithm changes is by having many websites that lead to the services offered on your website. If you have three or four websites that point to your main website which offers the services and products for your website. If you offer products for weddings, use a few different domains for different wedding gifts, wedding favors, etc. This is only necessary if your business completely relies on the search engines to do business. If you have other avenues of revenue, then you will have time to figure out exactly what changed in the algorithm. Many times there are drastic changes in the search results early on, but after time when everything settles down it is very common for everything to go back to a similar place to where it was to begin with.
Many times, social events can effect your business in Google. You need to be aware of popular items or services that your business can offer. If there is a new craze for a certain wedding favor that many couples are using, it is important to find out about it as soon as possible. If you are able to do this, you will have little competition on Google for these keywords. Doing this will give you a boost in sales for a period of time. Sometimes it can be a short-term boost, other times it can be a lasting source of income. If you do research on your keyword and industry on a regular basis, it will keep you ahead of all of the other businesses you are competing against. Here are some FREE tools to stay ahead of the competition.
So exactly how can I apply these tools to my Wedding Business? Great Question!! Let me explain this to you. There are two types of back links Off-Topic Links and On-Topic Links. An Off-Topic link is a link coming from Site A to Site B where the two sites are unrelated. An On-Topic Link is where Site A is linking to Site B, and both sites share common keywords like “Atlanta” and “Wedding” somewhere within the content. If you were a wedding service provider in Atlanta, you would benefit MUCH more by having a On-Topic backlink with your keywords like mentioned in scenario 2. Google Alerts will notify you the moment a new blog is posted with your keywords included in the content. It is then your job to click on the page, add a relevant comment to the blog post, and include an Anchor Text with your keywords. i.e. “Atlanta Wedding Photographer” Do this 6-10 times per day, and you will start to see your site climbing the search engines rather quickly.
If you are trying to build a long-term business online, it is important to factor all of this information into your search engine optimization. SEO gets visitors to your website from Google, but it does not build a long-term business for you. Making lasting relationships with the visitors to your website is what makes a long-term business.
Many people doing search engine optimization often overestimate the value of keyword density. Sure you want to get your keywords in the articles, but after you get them in there a couple times, that is enough. Do not put the keywords in there to the point that your article sounds like spam.
Also, if you do not focus on using your exact phrase, it opens up your website to getting more traffic from long-tail keywords. If you do not remember, long-tail keywords are keywords that contain multiple words that are more specific to the exact kind of search. Instead of the keyword being “wedding djs,” a long-tail keyword would have the phrase “wedding djs in maryland.” Since many people write in the same manner, if you just write your content exactly how it comes to mind, you are very likely to come up with some great long-tail keywords naturally. Another advantage of not forcing the keywords into your site is this way your readers are more likely to return to your site because of the quality content. It also makes it more likely that other websites will link to your site.
Now would you want to receive a birthday card that looked like this?
This was the perfect example of what NOT to do when writing for search engines. Some people cram their keywords into their articles to many times that is does not even make sense. This can cause some serious problems. Articles like these can be flagged as spam and be taken completely off of the search engine results pages.
Your writing style is another way you can rank well in the search engine results pages. Mix up your keywords phrase in order to get ranked in many different long-tail keywords. Instead of saying “djs in Maryland” a whole bunch of times, switch it up and use other phrases, such as “Maryland djs.” If your writing sounds like it was done by a human instead of a robot, it will help you with your rankings. The search engines are looking for high-quality information to put at the top of their rankings. What you want to do is make your article read like a newspaper, opposed to something written strictly for SEO. Google is pretty smart when it comes to identifying unique, quality content.
It is very common to underestimate the power of linking out to other sites. This does not mean providing links only to sites that also link to yours. This is called a link exchange and if the search engines become aware of this, your site can be dropped in the rankings. Try to put quality links on your page where they fit in naturally. This will improve the quality of your site and can also increase the page rank. Having broken links on your page can also hurt your page. Is is a real turn off to visitors and can cause them to leave your site immediately. Also, people are very unlikely to bookmark your site if it is full of broken links. Additional to that, when you submit your site to directories to build links, your site may not be approved for the directory submission if it has broken links. They will sometimes run a program that views your site and checks all of the links to make sure they are not broken. You do not want your directory submissions to fail, because backlinks are possibly the most important aspect of building the seo for your website.
Many times when a website is built it can immediately get ranked in Google, sometimes even ranked on the first page. Then after a week or so, the pages will disappear from these rankings. This is often referred to as the “Google Sandbox.” If you keep putting fresh, unique content on your website, you will climb out of this so-called sandbox within a week or two. You can compare the Google Sandbox to a probationary period for your website. After a week or two passes with Google’s spiders crawling through your site, there will be no problem getting your high spot in the search engines rankings back.
Remember, search engine optimization is very important, but if you are sacrificing the quality of your content in order to optimize it more, then you are not doing a service for your website. You are depriving your business of return customers and your content can look like spam and get lost in the Google rankings.
As we have discussed before, Squidoo is a very powerful tool when it comes to search engine optimization. If you create a Squidoo lens, it gains immediate recognition in the search engine rankings, so it brings a great deal of traffic to your website if optimized properly. Also, it provides a quality backlinks to your main website. Many people do not even have a website and use Squidoo to generate a full-time income. In the wedding industry, this is not recommended, but it is definitely a great way to give your traffic and conversions to your website a major boost.
Let’s go over some of the benefits of creating a Squidoo lens. First of all, a lens is indexed by Google faster than a regular website you create. Many times they are indexed immediately upon creation. Also, Squidoo is a simple and free way to get a presence on the internet. Even if you are not experienced at all on the internet you can have a lens up in under an hour. Many people that are new to advertising on the internet are on a limited budget, so this is very helpful. When you compare Squidoo to its competitors, such as HubPages and WordPress, there is little regulation on your site. Squidoo has no problem with you putting affiliate links on your website. This does not mean to create a really spammy Squidoo that is packed with no information, but has affiliate links all over it. If you do this, there is a small possibility your lens can be taken down. Not only that, your page will not rank well in the search engines if there is no quality content enriched with keywords, and your site is just filled with hoplinks to affiliate products.
When you begin to make your lens, after you log in and click create lens, you will be taken to a screen that asks you what kind of lens you want to make. Click on the options that says “do my own thing.” This gives you freedom to add whatever modules you want to your lens. After this, you will be asked to select a title. You need to use your keyword in your title. If it makes sense, you can simply use the keyword as your title. If the title is taken you can simply add a number to the end of the title and it will not affect your search engine rankings. For instance, you could make your title “Top 10 Wedding Favors 1.” This will make your url http://www.squidoo.com/top-10-wedding-favors-1. If you are having trouble selecting a keyword, feel free to consult my previous blog post about selecting keywords.
Before you make your lens, it is a good idea to check out the Top 100 lenses. By doing this you will get a good idea of what it takes to create a high-quality lens that enjoys a great deal of traffic. No need to try to figure this out yourself, when the blueprint has been drawn for you by the top Squidoo marketers.
Squidoo will ask you if you want to keep the money you earn from your lens or donate it to charity. This is only referring to the Adsense earnings from your page. Adsense is the text ads placed on your website by Google. You will probably not generate much revenue from this, because this is not our main objective, so choose whichever option you like.
After this, you need to create a bio for yourself which includes a link to your main website. A link will be on each Squidoo you create that takes people to your bio, so put a little bit of time into it, because it will getting a good amount of views. You can make this bio default for each lens or create a special bio for each lens. If you have the time, I recommend creating a unique bio for each lens.
The first thing you create in the lens is the introduction. This is the most important part of your lens. This is where you need to capture the attention of your reader. This module is what gets your reader to continue. For this part you can write a short review of your product or service, or you can tell a story to gain interest. When you create your lens, make sure to use 4-5 modules. You want to include a lot of text. Also, add a module that contains something humorous or entertaining. You can use articles you have already written or other people’s articles from ezine. Just make sure to credit the author.
After this, you can take it from there. Use all of the seo techniques you have read previously in the blog and you can create a top Squidoo lens.
We all know that with proper search engine optimization, we can climb the rankings of Google and get traffic to our website. We do this by keeping our page updated with fresh content and building quality backlinks that point back to our website. However, just getting traffic to the website is not the end of the battle. Once we get visitors to the website, we need to be able to dictate where they go and what they do once they get on the site. This can be done with effective copywriting.
The most important aspect of copywriting is to first grab the attention of the reader. You can do this with an attention-grabbing headline.
DON’T RUIN YOUR WEDDING DAY BY MAKING THIS SIMPLE MISTAKE!
This can be done by asking them a question or making an interesting or even shocking statement. Whether or not the person reads the rest of your website is based upon how interesting your headline was. If you choose the route of making an unbelievable or controversial claim to grab their attention, then the first part of your article should be proof for your claim. You can use written proof or a picture. Also, to keep your website search engine optimized, it is also important to put your keywords in the title, if possible, but you already knew that, right? Also, people love statistics. If you are able to feed them some statistical evidence regarding the success of your product, that will help out a great deal.
When you get to the body of the article, you want to keep your sentences as short and concise as possible. If your sentences read easily and are easily understood, there is a much greater chance that your reader will continue reading. If there is any part of the article that could cause someone to be confused, either clear up that part of the article or take it out completely. If you cause your reader to be confused, they will most likely leave your website.
Another good method to get your viewers to continue reading your website is to tell an interesting story. Stories are likely to draw emotional reactions from your readers and get them to trust you more. Also, it is easy to transition from a story to your sales pitch. If you are unable to tell a story, you can instead use amazing facts. http://www.thisistrue.com is a great website on the Internet to find unbelievable facts that will suck in your reader. One of the best ways to go about copy writing is to draw them in with an entertaining story and them transition into some interesting facts. After you give them the interesting facts, you can then move into your sales pitch or tell them a little bit about what you have to offer them.
While you are writing the article, try to be aware of any kind of question or concern that could come up for the reader. If you are able to anticipate these questions, it will go a long way in keeping the reader glued to your content. It helps avoid any confusion that might come up for the reader. Also, when you are telling the reader about your product or service, make sure to stress how important the information is. If you can make them believe that the product you are offering is a life-changing product, they will be more likely to want more information about it, which leads to them purchasing your product.
Try not to make your sales copy too formal. People like articles that are written in a personal manner. Keep it very conversational. Address your reader as “you” as often as you can. Also statements such as, “I was devastated by the terrible services provided by my wedding DJ and I’m sure you would feel just as awful if you were in my position.”
Add some sub-headlines to your page. You want these to be just as catchy as your headline. When you add sub-headlines to your page, people will at least scan down the page and check them out. Many of the people that do this are the same people that would have simply left your page if you had just plain text all the way down the page. People do not take well to a lot of reading, it needs to be broken up for them. Pictures and videos will also keep your reader captivated for the duration of your website.