There are social deal sites that are general, like Groupon, City Deals or Living Social. There are regional sites, like the ones my local newspaper and news station run. Then there are luxury deal sites, like Overstock’s Ebiza, Gilt Groupe or Bergine. The site 25Tuesdays just has spa deals. Then there’s Yipit, which consolidates at least 90 deal sites. And on and on.

Most have a deal a day that are at least 50 percent off and good for one day only. Customers pay on the spot, then redeem the coupon later by printing it out or flashing their smartphone. Deal sites take advantage of the impulse buy and social circles. If I see that my friend bought something, it’s a powerful motivator for me to buy too.

Some deal niches are more profitable than others, but it’s obvious the niche has been profitable. According to TechCrunch, Groupon got $173 million in funding, Gilt has raised $83 million and LivingSocial got $25 million. Even Twitter got in on the trend by working with both Groupon and Gilt for their @earlybird deals.

“There’s plenty of room in the deal industry for growth,” says Jim Moran, a founder of Yipit, which was started by former Harvard students (a la Facebook). “The industry will remain fragmented. I don’t think there will be just one player. What was once a former salesman is now an entrepreneur. Let’s say he or she takes $3,000 to kick up a website and if the company can get 100 deals sold a week, that’s about $50,000 – $100,000 a year in revenue.”

The best part for local businesses looking to participate in these deal sites? There are no upfront costs for advertising, and you can track the results. Many sites write the ad copy for you. Unlike most advertising, deal sites have a built-in sharing component where your customers tell their online friends. They also buy on the spot, which means you get money upfront. The system works on a profit sharing-model – which means you’ll share up to 50 percent of sales with the Web site that promotes the deal.

Obviously there’s money to be made. The question is for who? There’s a lot of debate on how and if these sites help or hurt local businesses. According to one study, 66 percent of businesses found Groupon profitable. I interviewed a business owner of a salon on my weekly marketing podcast who said she made $13k in one day from Living Social. This business is an exception; this business was almost bankrupt from an offer they ran (the article gives valuable insight).

Here are five tips to getting the most from group deal sites:

1. Use Them to Drive Social Media Engagement
Consider adding an extra gift or additional dollars off when people who buy also “Like” your Facebook Page or become a follower on Twitter.

2.  Promote Special Packages
You could put together a package deal or event just for your Groupon deal that is a preview of your business offerings but may not appeal to existing customers. For example, the Utah symphony sold a package of a few concerts in a series you could choose from.

3. Help Staff Prepare for the New Business
According to the survey referenced above, one of the biggest predictors of success is how happy workers are. It workers are treated badly and not prepared, it could hurt the promotion.

4. Get Repeat Business by Collecting E-mail Addresses
Deal sites may not let you keep the e-mail addresses of people who buy, but once you get them in the store, you can ask for their e-mails. Then you can let them know about upcoming events or promotions and hopefully build a more long-term relationship.

5. Have Customers Pay Right on Facebook
I’m noticing that once on Facebook and Twitter, people want to stay on the site, not click through to another. Thanks to the new Twitter design, you don’t have to click off the site to view photos or videos – they show up in the sidebar when you click on them. The same goes with deals – you could offer them directly from your Facebook Page. There’s an app that helps you do that.

While I like leveraging the network that sites like Groupon have built, if you have a strong base you could develop your own deal component. Here’s an example of a business that wants to build their own deal site. 

Here are some additional tips to running a successful deal.

Have you tried a social deal site to promote your business? How’d it go? What tips can you share?

Editor’s Note: This article was previously published at OPENForum.com under the title: “Ways a Small Business Can Capitalize on the Growing Social Deals Trend.” It is republished here with permission.

The post 5 Ways to Capitalize on the Social Deals Trend appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Instead of a paper trail, there was a trail of online comments. There were IMs, text messages, e-mails, blog comments and even a website that all quickly led to some serious (but thankfully short-lived) issues.

Has it happened to you? Maybe a blogger you know writes something about you in a blog post that really stings. Or worse, someone you don’t know deliberately attacks you or your reputation in public–and permanently–through search engines. You may have been through something similar. No one is exempt-it happens to individuals, but it attacks small businesses too. And if you think it stings personally, imagine the blow it can deal to your small business.

That being said, I want to make this clear: A social media policy in your workplace should not shut down social media activity. To the contrary, I believe a policy should encourage activity. A policy should also protect your business and employees from getting into trouble with the law (issues like libel, defamation, leaking of confidential or damaging information, etc). It should inform employees what is acceptable and what is not, before an issue arises.

Things can blow up quickly when you least expect it.

Most people treat social media policies like long-term care insurance-they don’t think about it until they need it. By the time you need it, it’s either too expensive or too late. When something goes wrong online, it can catch you off-guard. If someone targets you or your business, it might start while you’re asleep. The next thing you know, it’s in the news headlines. And if you respond poorly, you have a fire you can’t put out (just ask Nestle).

Before you know it, the negative blog post or comment is one of the first things that comes up on Google. If you wait too long and a lot of people comment on the post, it can be very difficult to get the reference removed or displace it in search engines.

Inexperienced businesses may take situations too casually in the beginning. It’s better to address issues early on. Name the people at your company who should be informed, and plan who should respond. Make sure employees know the plan so they don’t address the attack individually. This is not a job to leave to your intern.

Decide what to do when you’re attacked online.

Let’s say someone writes something damaging about your business as a comment on your Facebook page or blog post. How would you respond? Don’t retaliate no matter how strong the urge.

Here are three possible responses:

1. Acknowledge the complaint, then transition to a statistic or how you are helping clients. Then offer to address the issue privately. This is the option I’d recommend for most cases – but it depends on the situation.
2. Delete the comment. If the comment is on your Facebook page, your blog or another site you moderate, you could delete the negative comment. If you have a policy, refer to it. Write something like, “This comment has been deleted because it violated [state reason].” I’ve deleted comments that were personal attacks on people mentioned in my post or for vulgar or explicit content. Sometimes I only delete part of the comment, always explaining why.  Be careful though, as deleting comments can turn into a PR nightmare.
3. Ignore the negative comment, post or review. If the person is just being belligerent (it happens) and they aren’t going on a rampage, you can probably ignore it. This can backfire, though-giving the person reason to be even angrier and fight even harder to destroy your reputation–so keep an eye on the item.

Here is some helpful information from Fast Company about the social media policies of various companies.

Remind employees to be professional – this is all public.

It’s easy to type something without thinking of the implications. Time Warner Cable’s social media policy states: “On social networks where you identify yourself as an employee of TWC, be mindful that the content posted will be visible to coworkers, customers and partners. Make sure the information posted is the most professional reflection of your opinions and beliefs.”

I also liked this language from this article about libel online:

Twitter and Facebook have become a great way to sound off online. But remember that you have an audience.

Remember you always have the possibility of causing someone serious harm when you make those statements on the Web. Unless you know you’re fully protecting yourself, you should be careful what you say.

I appreciate that OrangeSoda not only allows but encourages employees to be active online. It helps the company to have people with their own networks who can send a tweet out. Sometimes we get asked to speak at conferences thanks to our social media activity. It will probably help your business too-just don’t forget there are also risks.

Bottom line: We need to have zero tolerance for cruelty online and a plan to address the downsides of social media. When you set up your policy, don’t discourage participation but do set clear boundaries for what’s acceptable and what’s not. Have a plan that you can implement quickly before an issue explodes and is harder to address.

The post What to Do if You Are Attacked Online: Setting a Social Media Policy for Your Business appeared first on Small Business Trends.

So I was inspired by a small business that started over the holidays. People like case studies about how small businesses succeed with social media. Here is an example of a business that was started with social media. It was started, get this: over this Christmas and New Year’s, by a musician in Sweden who has never had a business online.

His name is Love Harnell and he’s a musician

I found out about Love Jingles through an email (great blogger PR) and then I called and got an interview with Love Harnell. I’m not used to calling men other than my husband Love but he let me know the Swedish pronunciation which is more like Louve (as in the Paris art museum).

He writes and performs jingles for brands. He makes a video of his performance and then promotes it. His story has been on Mashable and Adrants. Yahoo! has signed up to celebrate their 15 year anniversary with a jingle. So has a 12-step program (it booked 14 days to tell their story in song).

The idea is decent but it’s the way he markets it that people talk about

If you’ve heard of the Million Dollar Homepage or IWearYourShirt.com, this is in the same style. Here’s how it works – each day of the year you sign up to have a custom-made jingle and every day the price goes up. So on January 1, 2010 it cost $1 and then on January 2 it is $2. I got in for $85. You can upgrade to have your logo added on the video and on the blog post.

Time to Market and Costs

Time to market: a few weeks.

Cost to start: good luck, connections and talent.

Advertising: his friend Nils at Pronto Communication emailed 10 bloggers (which is how I found out about it), told his clients and the word started to spread.

Potential revenue if he sells every single day at the minimum price: $67,000.

How LoveJingles Works

Everyone gets a live recording of their jingle on YouTube, and a blog post with their video (in other words, customers help create the content). Then it’s promoted on Facebook, Twitter and Flickr. Even though it’s less than a week old just type Lovejingles.com into Google to see how many references there are to the site already (over 5,000). This is the new advertising.

LoveJingles.com was started in an industry that has been bleeding – music. It’s a perfect example of making something worthy of talking about (all done word of mouth). It has viral built right into it (meaning it markets itself by the great stories from the various people who’ve purchased jingles).

What can your small business do in 2010 to leverage social media and get a lot of buzz? It’s more about your imagination than your budget. Love has definitely Crushed It. Let this case study inspire you to do the same.

The post Musician Makes over $18k in 5 Days with Social Media appeared first on Small Business Trends.

I interviewed small business owners across industries and states to find out how they’re feeling about the economy right now. The thing that I noticed when talking to small business owners is their optimism. I think that’s the quality I like most and that was obvious no matter what their situation right now. They all thought it would only get better. However, few planned to hire.

Key issues for small businesses:

• Customers are spending more on needs than wants so average order size is lower.
• Small businesses are not hiring or replacing employees who quit.
• For many small businesses, expenses are going up but revenue is down.
• Online sales may be the one metric that is stronger than last year. Forrester Research  said retail and travel sales grew from $31 million to $33 million in Q1 and Q2 this year. They predict that online holiday sales will grow 20% over last year to $13.2 billion from $11 billion.

I talked to business owners or managers in a shipping business, a dress business, auto repair shop and auto parts to get their thoughts.

Seth Wright is the office manager for an office supply business and said business is down 20-25% but it’s starting to look up. His biggest concern is that taxes are going up. As far as hiring he said that last year they spent $500k on salaries and compensation and this year it’s about the same. The problem is that profits are down. So while he hasn’t let anyone go, he hasn’t replaced employees who have quit. The economy is also halting or delaying his plans to act on new ideas.

Then there’s Dave Young, CEO of a business that sells modest wedding dresses said, “we’re feeling it.” People still get married and buy dresses for the prom, so he’s selling dresses. It’s just that in leaner times his customers look for lower priced dresses. His sales are down 20% and he responded by cutting back on expenses, including advertising. Inventory is also down and shoppers are looking for bargains on the clearance rack – which include last year’s styles. Still, he is hiring right now to ramp up for their busy season in the Spring. Last year’s sales were quite a bit better.

Then I spoke to a local car mechanic shop in Chicago. They were most optimistic of all I talked to. They’re ahead of their goals for the last four weeks. They plan to expand their shop but will probably maintain the same size staff. Good word of mouth is what keeps his business growing. Overall, compared to last year, business is down just slightly.

Dustin Hansen of Dan Perkins Chevrolet in Connecticut says that business is okay. The repair business is good but the body work business has slowed. Customers are not adding extras to their orders like they used to. They’re just paying for the essentials and skipping additions like adding a vest, backpack or coffee mug. They are more likely to ask for a discount or to barter.  As far as hiring, Hansen says they don’t plan to hire. He mentioned that last year was a lot more scary than this year – because no one knew what to expect next. This year people have settled in and are used to not spending as much.

I wanted to see what hiring looked like on Twitter so I used the Open Forum’s new pulse tool – it aggregates small business tweets from Twitter at OPEN Forum Pulse.

I found this optimistic tweet:

Being an optimist myself, I wanted to find a positive story to end this post. I found this one about how small businesses in Oregon are planning to hire hundreds of new employees next year. Just reading about them fills me with optimism.

What about your business? How do you feel about the coming year?  Are you planning to hire? Let us know in the comments.

Editor’s note: this article was originally published at the American Express OPEN Forum titled, “Small Businesses Optimistic on the Economy Long Term, Few Hiring” and is republished here with permission.

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About the Author: Janet Meiners Thaeler is an Evangelist for OrangeSoda Inc. and the principal blogger for their corporate blog and Twitter account. She regularly advises clients on blogging and social media strategies. Her own blog is Newspapergrl.com (and Twitter account @newspapergrl). She is passionate about online marketing and is always looking for new insights, resources and trends to help her clients.

The post Hiring May Be Down, But These Small Businesses Are Optimistic appeared first on Small Business Trends.

“Of those intending to run free shipping offers almost 80 percent will make them conditional, which usually means a customer must purchase a specific item or spend a set dollar amount to qualify.”

They are also getting their social networking sites ready for the holidays – especially their Facebook fan pages (60.3 percent).

Here’s what else retailers are doing to make this holiday brighter and improve profits.

Discounts and Coupons

Discounting isn’t exactly a small business’s favorite marketing method right now, but this year coupons are king. Online shoppers are hunting for deals. The second annual Benchmark Survey on Consumer Coupon Behavior said 30 percent of shoppers go for the retailer who offers coupons. More than 20 percent will leave one store for another if the second store offers a coupon.

A positive part of offering coupons is they’re an easy sell to bloggers and coupon sites. Announce it in a press release and blog about it yourself. Then send short pitches to bloggers, people who tweet about deals on Twitter and coupon sites. That will get the word out quickly.

Focus on a DIY Christmas

I consulted my favorite tool to identify trends online – Google Insights for Search. If this isn’t telling about people’s moodGoogle searches for “homemade Christmas Gifts” – are up 80 percent. That means if you can offer guides, tips or directions for the DIY crowd, you’ll be a hit. Martha Stewart is especially well-positioned to help with this, and searches for her ideas are up too.

Here’s what else is hot this year:

Here’s another telling sign. Christmas hasn’t come yet and people are already searching for after Christmas sales (+70 percent).

Other rising searches:

Christmas tree shop +50 percent
Christmas music online +40 percent

It’s not too late for SEO (search engine optimization) and PPC (paid search ads) Campaigns

You can create content to help you come up higher in search engines for searches that have to do with the holidays. Write blog posts and articles that tie into the holidays and use holiday keywords. There are also online directories you can submit to that have holiday categories. And if you’re running ads on search engines, consider making new ad groups geared towards the holidays and bargains.

Consider Cause Related Marketing (Giving Back)

There’s nothing like giving to get you in a holiday mood. Your customers will see your human side and you’ll give to your community. It’s a winning marketing strategy.

Lisa Williams from MEDIA forte marketing told me about Oregon Growers in Hood River. Here’s what they are doing. They will donate a jar of marionberry jam to the Oregon Food Bank for every order they get through December 31st.  They are also donating jam to anyone who becomes a fan of their Facebook page. Additionally they are coordinating gift baskets from Hood River farmers and producers of local food to go to the food bank. Then they will leverage social media by getting bloggers involved by giving them recipes that use Oregon products.

Lisa is working with the association she belongs to, the local board of SEMpdx (search engine marketing professionals of Portland). They want to collect food or cash donations for the Oregon Food Bank.

I don’t know about you, but that makes me excited for the holidays.

So if you haven’t already, start preparing those gift guides, offering tips for holiday savings and sending out press releases about holiday sales and promotions. Then leverage social media and hopefully the song you’ll be singing this holiday season is more “Holly Jolly” than Elvis’s “Blue Christmas.”

Editor’s note: this article was originally published at the American Express OPEN Forum and is republished here with permission.

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About the Author: Janet Meiners Thaeler is an Evangelist for OrangeSoda Inc. and the principal blogger for their corporate blog and Twitter account. She regularly advises clients on blogging and social media strategies. Her own blog is Newspapergrl.com (and Twitter account @newspapergrl). She is passionate about online marketing and is always looking for new insights, resources and trends to help her clients.

The post How to Avoid the ‘Bah Humbug’ Spirit from Consumers this Holiday Season appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Why not? You are not newsworthy! When I say newsworthy, I mean something new in your business that someone besides you (and your team) cares about.

So you know what I recommend? Coming up with a great story, essentially pre-write the story. You’ve done most of the work for the writer, be they a journalist or a blogger.

Another thing: most press releases that news organizations receive are deleted or thrown away. They are never seen by anyone else. But here’s a secret – online it doesn’t matter because you decide what gets published. All you need to do is write a press release and distribute it through an online news portal. But first, you have to have a killer idea.

Top Five Press Release Ideas

1. Publish Case Studies, Data and Surveys
   If you have research to share, a press release is a great way to do it. So maybe you looked through your customer list and found that small businesses with a blog get 5x more traffic to their web site. Expand that and send it out!
2. Make Lists
   Just like this article, you can create stories around a list. Information like “The 3 Mistakes Most Small Business Owners Make,” “How to Build Muscle like a Bodybuilder Pro,” “Small Business Trends Names 5 Best Online Tools for Small Businesses,” or this one – “5 Ways to Wear Leggings this Winter” make good stories.
3. Publicize a Good Cause
   This is the story about how you and your team took the day off to serve homeless youth. Or how OfficeMax is helping teachers by donating school supplies. Look for these type of “feel good” stories and write them up in a press release.
4. Give the Major News Story a Local (or your) Spin
   You’ll need to act fast to capitalize on this opportunity but it can be worth it. When big news hits and you can add your take, you can be a local expert on the topic. Recently my video editor made a video about the Typhoon in the Philippines where he lives. It got more than 40,000 views on YouTube. He could’ve sent out a press release with the video embedded in it.
5. Highlight the Strange and Bizarre
   This idea can go viral more quickly. Find the odd, sensational, strange and deranged to write about. The stranger the story, the more likely you’ll get publicity from your press release. This is extreme marketing. You can find examples in Digg.com by searching for a general term. If you’re a dentist, search for “teeth.” Follow that link and you’ll see one of the top stories is how monkeys teach their offspring to floss. You could send out a press release about that and how monkeys teach their kids to floss, why don’t humans? Another site I like for bizarre ideas is Trend Hunter.

Hopefully this inspires you to write your own press releases. Most businesses overlook many opportunities to send out a press release and get some media coverage. They make the one mistake that is common: they make it about them, not the story. Once you do that you’ll turn most people off right away, including journalists.

Use these tips and write your own killer press releases – and you’ll get media biting. And if you don’t, please distribute your news online and blog about it. Then people can find your story regardless of if media picks it up.

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About the Author: Janet Meiners Thaeler is an Evangelist for OrangeSoda Inc. and the principal blogger for their corporate blog and Twitter account. She regularly advises clients on blogging and social media strategies. Her own blog is Newspapergrl.com (and Twitter account @newspapergrl). She is passionate about online marketing and is always looking for new insights, resources and trends to help her clients.

The post Five Killer Press Release Tips for Small Businesses appeared first on Small Business Trends.

But until now I didn’t have current research about a blog’s impact on SEO

Hubspot just came out with research based on their actual customers on how a blog impacts their business. It’s a decent sample size of 1,531 of their customers which are primarily small and mid-sized businesses. Roughly half (795) blog and half don’t (736).

Here’s the data. Those who blog see:

• 55% more visitors to their website.
• 97% more links to their website which is a primary factor in where your website shows up in search results. (Want a higher ranking, get quality links to your site).
• 434% more indexed pages – this is the number of pages that show up in search engines. Just because you have a site doesn’t guarantee it is being indexed (findable). Just because some of your pages are in search engines doesn’t mean all of your pages are.

This is incredible data – who wouldn’t want those kind of results?

However, blogging isn’t for everyone. Think this over:

• Do you have content to write about? If you don’t have much to say blogging isn’t a good medium for saying it. Sending out a press release every few months would probably be better.
• Can you commit to writing regularly? Google rewards consistency and consistency builds trust with people. If you can’t maintain a blog then it’s probably better not to.
• Do you have the technical background to install and maintain a blog (plugins, features, etc)?
• Would you need help posting on a blog?

Here are some ways to get help posting on a blog. Consider hiring an intern from a local college to create blog posts – take pictures for the posts and get valuable online PR experience. Most of the time this is a free way to go about it, but you must manage them or find someone who can write and learn quickly with little or no supervision.

Another option is to hire a blogger who understands SEO or hire someone to coach your team. While having someone else blog for you who is not as familiar as you are with your business may initially be a drawback, it does at least ensure your blog is being updated.It can fill in some of the gaps. The better information you can supply to the blogger, the better quality your posts will be. As time goes by they will gain knowledge and understanding of your business that will make it easier and easier for them to blog.

If you want to get started, here are some blogging tips. A solution that can work for a small businesses is Yola – it’s free to set up a simple blog or website. You can add Google Maps and you can optimize it for search engines. For a nominal cost you can get your own domain name (it will redirect to your Yola blog). If you have things to write about and want to save on time or choose something less technical it’s a good choice. You can help your SEO and ultimately your business.

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About the Author: Janet Meiners Thaeler is an Evangelist for OrangeSoda Inc. and the principal blogger for their corporate blog and Twitter account. She regularly advises clients on blogging and social media strategies. Her own blog is Newspapergrl.com (and Twitter account @newspapergrl). She is passionate about online marketing and is always looking for new insights, resources and trends to help her clients.

The post Blogging: The Best SEO Tool for Small Businesses appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Many small business owners are missing out on the potential traffic and sales they could get if their web sites were optimized for search engines. Location is everything — even online. An SEO company helps your web site rise to the top of search engines when someone types in words relating to your business.

In my last post I went over SEO practices that your SEO company should not use. Now I’ll talk about the opposite – what a good SEO company should do.

A good SEO company should do the following things:

• Analyze your web site. The basis of SEO starts with your web site. Like a doctor who should ask questions and do some tests before making a diagnosis, your SEO company should start by examining your web site.They should look at factors such as: the URL structure, your title and Meta tags, page content, and how you link pages of your site to each other. The more complex your web site, the more thorough the analysis should be. This is where advanced SEO knowledge is crucial. Minor changes can have a big impact.

• Identify keywords. Keywords are words that people type into search engines to find web pages. For most, they already rank well for the name of their business. To attract new business, they also need to rank well for other terms. Where your web page shows up in the list is your ranking – and getting on the first page can mean a lot more business than being lower on the list.Keywords and content are the foundation of a well-optimized web site. Your SEO company should see where you currently rank for relevant keywords. They should give the approximate demand and competition for various words (usually phrases) that are important to your business.If your business is a local business, your SEO company should focus on local terms by adding state or city names to keyword phrases you’re targeting. They should be sure that you’re listed correctly on search engine maps like Google Maps because map results show up above the rest of the results.

Once you determine these words, they will form the basis of your SEO efforts. When you target a particular phrase you usually get residual ranking benefits. In other words you can rank well for similar phrases.

• Build Links. Links are a form of currency online. A link to your site is like a vote for it. The more important the site the more valuable a link from them will be.The key is to build or attract links from other sites that are well established or credible, to a particular related page on your web site. One way to build links is to get stories written about you online. If you are lucky to get a story written about your business with a key phrase linked back to your web site, it can be more powerful than paying for an ad. Not only do you get the trust and endorsement from the mention, you’ll get search engine rankings for that phrase.

Aaron Wall of SEOBook.com said, “When people link at you in editorial channels, they not only link, but in many cases leave behind an endorsement. Assuming they are writing to a relevant targeted audience then you just gained a bunch of social proof of value and reached a wider audience in a means that is much cheaper and more effective than traditional advertising.”

Also look for credentials from the industry. I know of more of these from the paid search side rather than for SEO companies. One example is a Certified Google AdWords Reseller. This shows that they are interested in keeping community standards. Remember that reputable companies don’t try to hide from the Search Engines. They seek relationships with them. They want to ensure they work with them in the most transparent way possible.

My favorite SEO tactic? Blogging. Set up correctly (applying the same principles I outlined above), a company or even personal blog can be a great tool for SEO. If creating your own blog isn’t a good fit, participating on other people’s blog by leaving comments or writing a guest post using keywords is also effective.

SEO is a form of marketing. There are many approaches to getting links. The best approach for your business depends on many factors. However there are fundamentals that don’t change which every small business should be aware of –especially in this economy.

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About the Author: Janet Meiners Thaeler is an Evangelist for OrangeSoda Inc. and the principal blogger for their corporate blog and Twitter account. She regularly advises clients on blogging and social media strategies. Her own blog is Newspapergrl.com (and Twitter account @newspapergrl). She is passionate about online marketing and is always looking for new insights, resources and trends to help her clients.

The post Practices of Top SEO Companies for Small Businesses appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Deceptive SEO companies use ‘black hat’ or unethical techniques to get your site to the top of the search engine rankings. The techniques may work well in the short term and bring lots of traffic or great rankings. However, over time they won’t produce good, lasting results – or worse – they may get you banned from search engines. And once penalized your site may be practically worthless.

The worst part is that many small business owners are not well versed in SEO and may not be aware of the deceptive techniques a company is using. Or they do not examine what their SEO company does to get their site ranked well.

First of all, it’s important to distinguish between deceptive SEO tactics and tactics that are debated but not necessarily deceptive. Some of these include whether its better to use hyphens, underscores, or no space between keywords in your URLs. Or the best CMS (content management system) and site structure for SEO value. These practices won’t prevent your website from being well indexed.

Then there are tactics that are clearly deceptive. They usually involve trying to hide or mass-produce something that should happen naturally (or organically) over time. Google has published a lengthy list of deceptive practices.

The first sign of a deceptive SEO company is any guarantee of rankings on competitive search keywords. While they may be able to get high rankings for a keyword term that no one searches for (and that is essentially worthless), it is always a red flag when they make guarantees for popular search terms.

It’s important to remember that SEO companies do not control search results and therefore can’t guarantee anything. Instead they can take specific actions to create the best chances of ranking well amongst the hundreds or thousands of other sites.

Here is a top five list of some negative or deceptive SEO practices, based on my experience:

1. Putting too many keywords on your web site. If a website repeats words or phrases so often that it’s unnatural to read, it’s called keyword stuffing and could get the site penalized. Some sites hide keywords in the text or code of the site which have nothing to do with their site. They might use the same words over and over but otherwise give very little information and no news value. You might find web sites that have hundreds of keywords in the footer or bottom of a web page – this is ineffective and your SEO company should not employ these techniques.
2. Overuse of bolded text or too many links. Not only does this look terrible but it also doesn’t build trust with people or help your search engine rankings over time. Again, while it’s important to create search engine-friendly content, writing for people will be better in the long run.
3. Hidden links. Sometimes these links are hidden in the code of a site or in the footer of a website. They code the site to hide the links or they are the same color as the background so you can’t see them. The links are often unrelated to the site but even a huge list of related links that are hidden can hurt you. My blog was recently spammed so that every time it loaded there were links to viagra sites. You couldn’t see them but they slowed down my site considerably. I got it cleaned fast because a friend of mine recently had his site banned by Google for the same problem.
4. Complicated link schemes. Google can detect unnatural linking patterns and there are many variations of link schemes. An example is that overnight your site has thousands of links when you did nothing to deserve those links. Some people build programs that add links automatically or that create new web pages or blogs (splogs) full of spam content and links.
5. Multiple domains or subdomains with essentially the same content. These sites or pages have practically the same information but with different keywords. Here’s an example I saw when I was looking for a locksmith. When I type in a city name the same site comes up again and again. The only difference is they have a different domain for each city or state. They are not regional but contract out to various cities. The page for Denver is the same as the page for Las Vegas, only with the words “Denver” swapped out for “Las Vegas.” There are many variations on this tactic which may work short term but long term they are risky.  Example of duplicate content:
   www.completelocksmith.com/locksmith_city.php?cid=denver
   www.completelocksmith.com/locksmith_city.php?cid=las vegas

The Google webmasters guide says: “In some cases, content is deliberately duplicated across domains in an attempt to manipulate search engine rankings or win more traffic. Deceptive practices like this can result in a poor user experience, when a visitor sees substantially the same content repeated within a set of search results.”

A good rule of thumb is to create a good experience for your site visitors. This means good, original content or other elements that make people want to link to you. Anything that is artificially creating content or links or interfering with a good user experience on your site should be avoided.

In the end, one of the best ways to find out about your SEO company’s practices is to ask. Hiring an SEO firm is like hiring any service, you should always take into account what others are saying about them.

On my next post I’ll go over the traits of a good SEO company.

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About the Author: Janet Meiners Thaeler is an Evangelist for OrangeSoda Inc. and the principal blogger for their corporate blog and Twitter account. She regularly advises clients on blogging and social media strategies. Her own blog is Newspapergrl.com (and Twitter account @newspapergrl). She is passionate about online marketing and is always looking for new insights, resources and trends to help her clients.

The post Five Tips for Avoiding Deceptive SEO Companies appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Several people have chimed in, defending SEO and exposing the ignorance of his claim.

Dvorak says changing URLs for SEO is worthless because he tried it on his blog and his web traffic went DOWN. So do website address or URL structures matter? Yes – especially when you start out. Rather than having a long URL with no keywords, it’s ideal to have keywords included in the URL. It’s usually best to keep URLs as short as possible.

Is it better to have URLs with words rather than question marks and numbers? According to Google’s senior webmaster Matt Cutts, yes it is.

Why then did Dvorak’s traffic go down? It was probably changing the URL that was a problem, not the URL structure itself.  It’s not a good idea to make massive changes on large established websites without careful planning.

We walk our clients through changing a site so they don’t lose all of their rankings (and therefore traffic to their site) in search engines. One of the biggest issues is when they switch to a content management system (CMS) that has long, cumbersome URLs. When your sales leads drop dramatically overnight with a new site, you care more than ever about SEO and 301 redirects.

The problem with long URLs is that they can be tough to deal with. They won’t wrap and then the URL breaks. They can’t be easily shared.

URLs aren’t the most important SEO element (I love this article that polled top SEOs to see what matters). Ranking in this survey says it’s of moderate importance.

There are debates about what’s important and what is of marginal importance when it comes to SEO. However, SEO is one of the most cost-effective ways to market online. Anyone who has a business online should at least learn the basics. You may want to hire someone on staff or an agency.

If you hire an SEO firm, look for a company that is established and growing, or who comes with a trusted recommendation. There are many who come and go. It can be tempting to hire someone to do work for almost nothing (often in another country). To be sustainable businesses can’t give away their services and stay in business – so be skeptical.

Most of all realize that SEO isn’t snake oil, but it’s not a silver bullet either. It takes time – especially if your keywords are competitive or your competitors more entrenched. I’m always worried by clients who sign up and then cancel two months later because they haven’t seen mind-blowing results.

Search engines do not produce instant results. Pay-per-click or sponsored results in a search engine can have an almost immediate effect, but these can be expensive and depending on the terms you use, very costly. With SEO, you make changes and those changes could take months to be updated in search results. Always remember that while good SEO will give you the best chances it can’t “guarantee” top rankings, but with a good strategy and diligence it will definitely make a positive difference.

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About the Author: Janet Meiners Thaeler is an Evangelist for OrangeSoda Inc. and the principal blogger for their corporate blog and Twitter account. She regularly advises clients on blogging and social media strategies. Her own blog is Newspapergrl.com (and Twitter account @newspapergrl). She is passionate about online marketing and is always looking for new insights, resources and trends to help her clients.

The post SEO — Just Snake Oil? appeared first on Small Business Trends.