Because Share Results is committed to providing you with every service possible to help your business grow, we have started a new SEM Agency that offers services in PPC Management and SEO. We are now poised to offer services that help online business networks develop their Internet footprint and brand recognition. We are also offering supplemental Marketing Support because, at the end of the day, it’s really all about converting those leads into sales.

One of the most frustrating and challenging parts of SEO these days is the constant changing of the criteria that helps web pages to rank. Keeping track of these changes is really a full-time job, so unless you have someone employed within your company that can make sure that all of your codes and protocols are up to date, then you may be missing out on some small protocol that might be keeping your pages and PPC campaigns from ranking as high as you might like. That’s where we can help.

We have a team of dedicated professionals whose entire function in life (well, at work, at least) is to make sure that they have the most up-to-date SEO information. They can dissect your website, page by page, and show you where improvements can be made in coding, and keyword distribution. In addition, a navigational review of the site can be performed that will show you how you can keep traffic for longer, creating more opportunities for conversions.

It is one thing to get traffic coming to your site, but it’s something else entirely to convert that traffic into sales, so along with SEO support, Marketing Support is one of the most important aspects of the SEM Agency’s function. Our SEM professionals will help you to improve your web copy, and show you how you can more effectively reach your audience on websites and PPC campaigns. You’ll also receive some tips and tricks to help you increase your online presence and how to get there faster than your competition.

The best part of this service is that it is always personalized to your individual needs. We want to help your business be the best it can possibly be, and our new SEM Agency is just one more step in that direction. To find out more about how we can help drive qualified traffic to your site, feel free to contact us at agency [at] shareresults [dot] com and we’ll get you started in the right direction.

Not only do blogs offer a bunch of SEO benefits, but they are also a great community building tool, and building a strong community  lets an affiliate attract and retain new customers. So when you run a blog in the right way, it can become a great addition to your affiliate site, or even make for its own, separate affiliate portal.  But running a blog properly also requires proper blogging etiquette.

Blogging for Community

Just like a forum, blogs let users express themselves and interact with one another by leaving comments. So by publishing product reviews and news, and reporting on special promotions, you can build a community of users looking for a reliable source of up-to-date information. And as these users discuss your content and share their own ideas, they’ll build relationships with one another, and that kind of interaction will keep them coming back.

Blogging for SEO

A big part of SEO is getting your site content frequently indexed by search engines. Because of the way that blogs publish content, they can help you get your site indexed more often, and possibly rank higher in search results.

First, using categories and tags, a blog structures content, and that help search engines better index it for the right keywords. Second, blogs let you create structured URLs that contain keyword-rich title information. So as long as your post titles describe the post content, these structured URLs will help let search engines determine what your content is all about.

Finally, blogs provide you with a platform to easily update your site with fresh content, and the more that a site is updated, the more that a search engine will index that site. You see, search engines regard frequently updated sites as more authoritative because their information is more recent. So by blogging on a regular basis, you can help your site (1) get indexed more often, and (2) gain more authority with search engines.

Best Blogging Practices

Of course, if you’re going to use a blog to its full potential, you should also respect the medium for what it is. First, blogging is a social medium. This means that its potential lies in the relationships it helps you build with users. So if you neglect this relationship component and simply use your blog for its SEO potential, the results are going to be limited.

Second, you should take care to properly format your content . Make sure to make full use of categories and tags, and write keyword-relevant headlines for your posts. Also, if you don’t post original content at least three times a week (although five is preferable), you’ll miss out being frequently indexed by search engines.

If you incorporate a blog into your affilaite portal and start posting regularly, you should start seeing the first SEO returns within a couple weeks. And if you don’t let up, make an effort to build relationships with your users and participate in the conversation, over time you will build a veritable community, and that community will represent a defenisble and sticky source of return traffic.

Does your traffic fluctuate noticeably? Are you not sure why it’s happening? Do sudden drops in your traffic cost you money?

If so, you might want to consider a recent post by Problogger. Even though Darren Rowse (the Problogger) blogs mostly about, well, blogging, he nonetheless offers 6 clues as to what the cause of an increase or decrease in traffic might be, and what you can do about it:

1. Seasonal Traffic: most niches experience ups and downs that are completely natural, but you might want to isolate what you can do to capitalize on the highs, and bolster the lows.
2. Topical Interest: trends and events are going to stimulate public interest in certain niches, and while you should try to anticipate these trends/events, you should also have a plan for retaining these users after the fad is over.
3. Posting Frequency: Google likes frequently updated sites, so perhaps your site isn’t being updated often enough — you might want to try adding a blog to it
4. Shifts in Search Rankings: sometimes search engines change their algorithms and sites can lose from their rankings for no apparent reason, but as long as you follow Google’s webmaster guidelines, nothing drastic should happen to your site’s ranking.
5. Poor Quality Content: if your content is relevant to users, they’re not going to come back or link to it, and you’re not going to rank well on Google, so try to keep your content relevant to your target market.
6. Promotional Activities: just cause you build it, doesn’t mean that they’ll come, so a change in your marketing can have a big effect on your traffic; so try different things like using social media sites like Twitter to find users, leaving comments on other blogs and forums, or doing press releases.

Problogger’s post was targeted mainly at bloggers, but Darren is also an very experienced marketer, so his advice is worth considering if you’re trying to understand why your traffic is declining. So check out the original post, because Darren goes into much more detail about these potential causes, and has many more suggestions about what you do about them.

The BAMroll has a host of colorful bloggers who are into affiliate marketing. They have varying methods of rising to the top–tips, tricks, and niches. The additions for this week tend toward the trick category, in a black hat/white hat way… Check out their blogs to see why:

• OffWhiteHat is “Earth’s most trusted off-white-hat affiliate marketing resource.”
• Slightly Shady SEO says that “Blackhat is back, Baby.”

To find a list of other Black Hat SEO blogs, check out this blog. I wonder if the blogger has considered a BLACKroll?

For a wide spectrum of experts on affiliate marketing, check out the BAMroll for reviews on over 50 blogs on that topic! You can even download an OPML file for your convenience. If you’re on the BAMroll, then feel free to download a bright green badge for your site. If you think you should be on the BAMroll, let us know why

Have you seen the movie Big Fish? It is directed by Tim Burton, and is about a son telling of his father’s life. As the title of the film suggests, there are tall tales galore–from conjoined twins to circuses to catching really big fish.

Our additions to the BAMroll this week don’t exaggerate their experiences or mislead you, but they do approach affiliate marketing in a way that you’ve never seen before and keep you intrigued just like the storyteller in Big Fish.

• Can I Make Big Money Online? is the question, and the answer is, yes! This blog’s greatest asset is the relevance of their posts to internet marketers. The posts are about specific case studies, and reviews of trendy products.
• SEO by the Sea is an in-depth look at all that is related to search engines. The site map here is as vast as the sea, but very navigable, thanks to well-categorized posts in a user-friendly blog design. If you only have time for one new blog this week, month, or year…this is the one.

To keep biting, you can download the OPML file on our BAMroll page.  We also have badges for your blog, if you’re already a BAMroller.

Meta information is used to categorize and label web pages. Although it is not the end-all-be-all of search engine optimization (SEO), it is very important to the extent that it determines how sites are indexed by search engines and listed on the search engine result pages (SERPs). When your affiliate pages have the proper meta information attached to them, you are likely to get more organic traffic because your pages are more likely to (1) show up in relevant search results, (2) have the appropriate listing information when they do, and (3) experience higher click-through-rates (CTR).

Title Tag

This piece of information is simply the title of a webpage. The title tag should be used to describe the page it is actually for. It appears in two places that can affect how users convert:

1. At the top of a browser window.

2. As the title of a search engine result.

There are two negative implications when your title doesn’t actually reflect the page that it is for: (1) you rank less effectively in the SERPs, and (2) users can become suspicious when their on that page.

Meta Description

The meta description is what generates the description in the SERPs (see screenshot above). However, search engines only read the first 140 characters. It’s important, then, to include in those first 140 characters information that you think is relevant to users searching for keywords that pertain to the page in questions. Think of it as a sales pitch: there should be descriptive information, product highlights, and anything else to encourage users to click through.

Meta Keywords

This set of meta info pertains to keywords that are pertinent to the page. Essentially, here you want to include the search queries that you believe are most common for users that might be looking for a page like the one you’re tagging.

Some people, however, don’t see this as an important field, and suggest ignoring it for two reasons: (1) the major search engines stopped indexing this field a few years ago, and (2) it tells your competitors what keywords you’re trying to rank for.

You may have noticed that Google features a variety of results, such as news, images, and video on the main search engine results pages (SERPs). This is know as “blended” or “universal” search, and these multi-media results can be used to your advantage – for at least some keywords, anyways.

When multi-media results show up in the SERPs, users’ eyes are often drawn to them first, simply because they stand out. While thumbnails of images and videos are obvious lures, news results seem more objective and credible than normal sites, and blogs offer the allure of interaction.

There are two things you should to consider in leveraging blended search results: (1) what keywords you’re trying to rank for, and (2) producing content in a relevant search vertical.

Selecting Keywords for Blended Search Optimization

Chances are that you won’t be able to rank for any keyword on a blended search that you’re not already ranking for on a regular search. When choosing keywords, then, you have to consider how competitive the keywords you want to rank for are within each search vertical.

Don’t think that a keyword isn’t competitive for blended search just because there are no blended search results. The lack of multi-media search results might just be Google deciding that results from various verticals are not relevant to the average user. For example, a Google search for “online casino” probably won’t return any blended results because a user searching for that keyword is more likely looking for a type of product rather than any broad number of things.

Before trying to optimize for blended search, then, (1) consider the keywords you want to rank for and whether Google might be likely to display blended results for them, and (2) run those keywords through each of Google’s independent search verticals to determine their competitiveness. In the end, you’ll have much more success ranking in blended search for keywords that you already rank for.

Creating Vertical Content

Obviously, if you want to rank on blended search, you have to rank within various search verticals, which means you have to produce content for each of those verticals. As far as search verticals go, the best search verticals to target are news, blogs, images, and video.

• News: There are two way to produce news content: First, get actual news media coverage, Secondly, issue press releases through major online newswires such as PR Web – but be sure to read the newswire’s FAQs so that you can prepare a quality release that will rank better.
• Blogs: Start blogging about your niche, and don’t be a shameless self-promoter about it. Rather, blog from a perspective that you think your visitor would actually appreciate.
• Images: There are two ways to search optimize images. First, use appropriate keywords to re-name all the images on your site and add title and alt tags. Second, upload additional images to popular image hosting sites, tag them according, and then embed those images in your blog posts, making sure to add title and alt tags to the HTML embed code.
• Video: optimizing video content for blended search is like optimizing images. Simply upload your videos to popular hosting sites, tag them appropriately, and embed them on your blog, adding title and alt tags.

Blended Search Traffic

Organic traffic can be an immensely powerful source of revenue. After all, users regard organic search results as more credible than sponsored results.

By leveraging blended search strategies, you can not only increase your click-through-rater from the SERPs, but also other sources of traffic. After all, by producing content across a variety of verticals, you’re engaging users across several new channels.