Podcasting makes sense. By adding premium audio content on your blog, you become more than just another site on your niche. Since blogging has exploded like crazy, you need all the edge you could get. However, because podcasts are usually audio content, search engine spiders can’t crawl them as easily as they do blogs. Is it even possible to make your podcasts search engine friendly?
Fortunately, the answer is yes, and here’s how: 1. Name that tune – Think of a good keyword-rich title for your show.
2. Future-proof today - MP3 files have ID3 tags which you can embed with relevant keywords. These include title, artist/author, comments and URL fields. Only a few search engines can read the ID3 tags now, but in the future, this will likely be a standard search parameter.
3. Summarize – Write a synopsis of each podcast show and blog about it. As with basic SEO practice, important keywords should be as high up in the blog post as possible.
4. Transcribe – While we wait for the ideal future when search engines can understand audio, right now the work has to be done manually. Find a good transcription service provider. Divide the transcript up into sections, and give each of them related keyword-rich titles. If it’s a long interview, you can put each section on a separate page.
5. Directories - Submit your podcast site to specialized podcast directories and search engines such as audio.weblogs.com.
6. Publicize – Be sure to let people know that you have a podcast. Not everybody has one, which makes you especially linkworthy than a run-of-the-mill blog.
7. Reach out – You may love hearing your voice, but it’s always best to give your show some variety. From time to time, it wouldn’t hurt to do an interview, particularly if you can convince people who already some street cred in your niche. Don’t worry, though, they would usually jump at the opportunity to be featured. It’s mutually beneficial.
Try these out. Once you get going, I’m sure you’ll come up with your own creative strategies.
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This is part 2 of our series on “How to Sell SEO to the Web Challenged”.
3) Expect comparisons with traditional advertising “So why should we avail of SEO services when we have ______ advertising? What would this increase in traffic do to us?” Now here is where it gets tricky. When we asked you earlier to dispel the wrong notions about SEO, it’s because SEO isn’t really an exact science. No SEO expert can really predict the increase in sales being on the top of search engines bring. So how is SEO different from the traditional advertising? With traditional advertising, the potential for generating revenue lasts only as long as the advertising does. In SEO, the effect on revenues goes on and on.
4) Know your audience Your audience may not be knowledgeable about SEO, but they may be an expert on another field. The key here is to understand that SEO may be filled with jargons and terms, but at its core, it relies on tried and tested principles, the same principles used by traditional marketing. So research and find out what language they use. Try to find out how you can explain SEO using their language and before long, you’d be seeing them bobbing their heads, understanding the things you are talking about. And once they do understand what you are talking about, you are now ready to start talking about the services that you offer.
5) Provide Additional Resources Create an SEO 101 primer that you’ll give out to new clients. It could be an ebook, video, or printed pamphlet. Make sure to include the following: what the clients should expect, a simplified overview of the working process, as well as additional services you provide. It also helps to provide the client with progress reports throughout the course of the SEO work as this lets them know how far the project has come. When presenting information, try to use easy-to-understand visuals rather than numbers. If you can, present case studies of previous work so that the client has a better idea of what to expect.
So, you’ve decided you’re knowledgeable enough now and would like to start selling SEO services. That’s great. Now if you are starting to sell your services to people who have ideas what SEO is, then usually a deal will be sealed and done without too much snags.
But what if your client has no inkling on what SEO is all about? How do you then sell SEO services? Usually, you have to do a crash course before you start rattling off the pricing for your services, making sure they understand what they are getting into. So better polish those layman terms and get ready to explain exactly what SEO is about.
1) Dispel the wrong notions of SEO outright. Believe it or not, there are still those who believe that SEO “will generate sure sales of their products” as soon as you get the site back up and running. Now the problem here is that when they don’t get an increase in sales immediately, the least they can do is to call you a thief or something to that effect. So dispel them right away.
2) Tell your clients what they are buying…. Slowly. Tell them what SEO is and what it is not. Don’t spew out jargon while explaining. Remember, these are people who don’t know SEO. So don’t go all out and start talking about Result Pages, redirects, keyword density. The idea here is to get the client understand what you are offering him by slowly getting into the details one by one.
a. Explain the Search Engine – So you start with search engines. Don’t even try to attempt to explain what algorithms are, as you would probably met with dazed looks. The best way to go about explaining search engines is by making it clear what they really are and how they arrive with such results, including the ranking. Once you’ve gotten past that hurdle, then it’s time to explain that each search engine is different from one another and that they return different search results.
b. Moving on to Links – “Aren’t these the ones you click on to get to another page?” Well, yeah, but when it comes to SEO, you also have to explain that these links are a factor when it comes to ranking your site on search engines. Now since you will be doing all the SEO work, you don’t have to go through all the topics regarding links. Once you have briefly explained in simple terms why links are important, then you can move on to the next topic which is…
c. Keywords – Quite a simple topic to discuss. Just explain the rudimentary principles behind keywords and how they work hand in hand with search engines. Also, put in the importance of keyword research just to give them an idea about another part of your job if ever they avail of your services.
Like what they always say, not everyday is Christmas day, even if you are dealing with SEO. And if you are one of those who feel that they haven’t been getting enough successes in their SEO campaigns, here are some of the points you have to check out to see if you are indeed doing enough SEO for your site:
Keywords, keywords and keywords – Yes, that’s right. Doing keyword research once for your entire campaign is never enough. Why, you may ask. Because the internet is constantly in flux, changing trends rather quickly. And because of this, here are some points you have to consider when dealing with keyword researching
Are there new keywords you are unaware of? These keywords are what you can consider as fresh, which could easily help your site gain that coveted traffic. Be aware of new keywords by researching regularly.
Research on popularity trends. Yes, even old popular keyword trends can be mighty useful in your campaign. Check out the subtopics of past trends and try to find out if any of them will resurface in popularity any time soon. You can also keep watch for emerging, newsworthy trends that you can piggy-back on.
Prioritize your strengths. Do you have a strong keyword which has the most success in ranking? Then work on it! A common mistake is to focus on your weaknesses, leaving the strong keyword untouched. Capitalize on the keyword that you have had the most ranking success with, and find others that perform equally well.
Check out the competition. When you started out, you might have done competitive research. Well, do one again. Did the arena change? Are they still the same competitors from before? Or is there a new one emerging? If you see a new competitor emerging, then find out what makes his site rank well.
Tune-up for search engines. When we said that the internet is constantly in flux, this includes search engines as well. Or to be more precise, search engine algorithms. Google is one prime example who changes algorithms somewhat constantly. Usually these changes can have drastic effects in your ranking. So if you rely mostly on Google for traffic, then you better watch out for these updates and fix your site accordingly. Also, you might have taken note of the volume of traffic you are getting from other search engines as well. Time to check them out once more. Did the volume change? If so, did it decrease or increase? If it increased, then that’s so much the better. On the other hand, if it decreased, then it’s time to do some tracking. However, don’t forget that you shouldn’t focus all your attention to these weaknesses but instead, you should capitalize on your strengths.
Just as there are some things that can bolster the life of your SEO campaign, there are also sure-fire ways on that you could hurt them. Ranging from poor research to misinterpretations, here are 4 things that will surely cause the downfall of your campaign.
1) Have the mentality that SEO is “get-it-running-and-forget-about-it.” No matter how GREAT your SEO campaign is when you started, if you can’t keep up with the trends or competition in your niche, your SEO campaign will crumble eventually. Be alert on what’s currently hot, what keeps the experts talking, and what people are searching for. Remember, what’s great today is history by tomorrow -so be on your toes always.
2) Keywords schmeewords! My first picks are the best! Sure, it may be the best back then. But have you tried doing a key word search nowadays? You may be missing out on great keyword opportunities, or worse, you could be seriously crippling your campaign by leaving your keywords as is.
3) I love images, Flash movies and other multimedia and I’m peppering my site with lots of them! Sure, they look great, but have you given thought about search engines? Spiders sent by search engines can’t crawl graphics, Flash movies, and multimedia. And what spiders can’t read, they can’t index. Think about this when designing your site and make sure you have the right balance.
4) My site is all about everything! No, SEO is not about who has the most number of pages or products in their site, nor is it about who covers more ground. You must find your target niche and work on it. It will save you all the trouble of stuffing your site with almost anything you can get your hands on - relevant or not.
The first stage that SEO practitioners embark on is keyword research. It’s the foundation of one’s SEO campaign. Still, it’s not common knowledge. For the uninitiated, here is what you can do to learn the basics of keyword strategy: (more…)
