There’s no way around it: search engine spiders love words, and so you’re going to have to find a lot of fresh ones if you’re going to make it to the top. As easy as it is to say we’re going to come up with a new blog post every few days, the reality is that the task leaves most of us just the way we were in high school – putting off our writing assignments until later, or even skipping them altogether.

Without fresh content, however, your online business is bound to get a failing grade. Here are a few steps you can take to keep your search engine efforts moving forward:

1. Make SEO a priority.

If adding material to your site becomes just another in a long list of “to-do’s,” it’s very unlikely to ever actually get done.  Finding your way to the top of the search engine rankings for a profitable keyword is akin to trying to move your business onto one of the busiest streets in the world, and achieving that goal takes time and effort.  Try to keep that perspective and let it motivate you to post more.  Unless SEO is a major goal for your business, it’s probably not going to get the attention it deserves.

2. Set realistic goals.

By trying to write too much material, or gather too many pieces of information in a short amount of time, you aren’t being ambitious, you’re setting yourself up for failure.  Like the dieter who vows to never taste chocolate again, the marketer who sets a goal of writing three articles a day is only kidding themselves.  Setting achievable goals isn’t just less stressful; it’s more productive.

3. Stick to schedule.

Once you’ve established a plan you can live with, you have to stick to it.  Pencil in your SEO time the same way you would an important meeting.  Even if it’s just fifteen minutes a day to spend writing or finding resources, it’s critical that you do it and keep moving forward.  It’s easy to get so swept away with day-to-day business issues that you forget, but it only takes a little lost momentum to throw your plan off track.

4. Get organized.

You should have some sort of log or spreadsheet that shows what topics and keywords you’ve worked with, as well as which ones you plan to add to in the future.  Filling it in can provide you with valuable focus and motivation during those times when you’d rather not bother with writing or posting material, as well as making sure you don’t duplicate your efforts.

5. Pay attention.

Sometimes the market changes – people begin searching for new answers, leading to an entirely different set of core keywords for your SEO plan.  That doesn’t have to mean you abandon your efforts, but it might indicate that you should alter your approach.  You can’t make that determination, however, if you’re not paying attention to what your customers are thinking and talking about.

6. Track your results.

Some business owners get so caught up in the doing part of SEO that they neglect to check and see if it’s actually working.  Keep tabs on how many visitors your pages are tracking, how long people are staying to read or shop, which keywords are drawing the most sales, and so on.  You can’t build an effective campaign without feedback, so keep your ear to the ground, virtually speaking.

7. Keep an idea file.

It’s very hard to just sit down and add content to your website out of nothing. That’s why it’s a good idea to keep a notebook or computer file where you can record thoughts for upcoming topics. Then, when you need one, you’ll have inspiration at your fingertips.

8. Practice patience.

SEO, like most marketing practices, is a slow science.  It can take weeks or months to work, not days.  Realize that from the outset and plan your business accordingly.  The orders might not start flying in overnight, but if you follow the right steps and add lots of fresh new content to your site, it will pay off in a big way.

Sticking to your search engine optimization plan might feel like a chore, but if you can follow these tips and keep your site constantly updated, you’ll eventually learn why so many companies love it.  Coming up with content isn’t always easy, but writing on your site is like writing a check to yourself in the future.

Microsoft and Yahoo announced a 10-year alliance in web search but as far as I can tell nobody really cares about Microsoft or Yahoo search engines as long as they continue to return some kind of search results when you enter a keyword. I think if their users really cared about cutting-edge search technology (or were even aware of it) they would already be using something else. More likely the deal will create a single competitor for Google to focus on in the search market. Like other mergers (while not an official merger it is a merger of search technology) this will give some users who have resisted making the jump to Google a good opportunity to make a switch. Expect Google to pick up another 3-4 points of market share pretty immediately if Microsoft and Yahoo get overly cozy and make the technology transition too obvious or annoying for users. Also expect some short term improvement in aggregate revenues, as advertisers are able to place more ads with less effort. In many cases, smaller advertisers usually prefer to only run on Yahoo and Google.

One side-effect of the deal that I haven’t seen considered is that Microsoft may be able to strong-arm Yahoo into a full sale since they now control a high percentage of Yahoo’s revenue through their latest agreement.

Google’s announcement that they will be creating an operating system is interesting but in itself not particularly exciting either. What’s more important than the sheer announcement of a new OS is the fact that a viable alternative OS is even possible. This is a significant paradigm shift that will likely play a major role in our computing future. As Google points out, “the operating systems that browsers run on were designed in an era where there was no web.”

Google is paying attention and taking notes:

We hear a lot from our users and their message is clear — computers need to get better. People want to get to their email instantly, without wasting time waiting for their computers to boot and browsers to start up… Even more importantly, they don’t want to spend hours configuring their computers to work with every new piece of hardware, or have to worry about constant software updates.

Many corporate users are heavily dependent upon custom applications that are written for Windows in much the same way that you still see the occasional green-screen application managing some unique function for government or retail. The shift that has happened recently is that software as a service or SaaS has gained significant strength. Salesforce, Basecamp, Google Doc’s, and a host of other truly great online software applications have given momentum in a trend which will underscore the first viable threat to Microsoft that I’ve ever seen. People buy computers and operating systems for what they can do, not for the operating system itself. If users can do what they want to do without Windows (or rely upon any particular OS) then they will.

Microsoft’s dominance is still largely dependent on the Windows client operating system (not including server revenue). In their most recent quarter Windows client operating system revenue was more than 23% of gross revenue and has probably been higher in previous quarters when overall performance was better. Closely linked to the 23% is all of the server and software revenue that is generated as a direct result of the client OS’ dominance.

Judging from Bill Gates reaction to the news, Microsoft thinks it’s just business as usual although I’m not sure they can really do much in response. With a fundamental shift in computing underway they could start moving their applications online, but that will only hasten the demise of Windows. If Microsoft follows its current course and doubles-down on its investments in installed software vs. SaaS here is the way the future looks:

• Corporate Users — Will continue using Microsoft until their custom applications are ported to the Internet or rewritten as SaaS applications. Corporations can save obscene amounts of money within their computing environments without distributed application computing using Microsoft. Once a few leading companies embrace the new paradigm the others will quickly fall like dominoes.
• Personal Users (not gamers) — As long as the new operating systems can play music, manage photos and browse the web the low price and ease of use will attract users. Most users young and old spend the majority of their time on the Internet and if they aren’t actually on the Internet they are probably doing things that could easily move to the Internet (such as personal finance apps, local email, photos, etc). Of course there is always the Mac as an option for power users which many people argue is better for personal users of all types anyway.
• Gamers — There are already specialized platforms for game playing such as Xbox and Wii. Once lightweight low-horsepower systems become the norm, gamers are likely to continue moving toward these offerings.
• Graphics/Design/Engineering — The Mac is a better platform for these applications and their users already. Remaining holdouts will see more pressure to move to Mac.

Claim Your Listing

The first thing you will want to do is sign up for Google LBC, Yahoo LBC, and MSN LBC and claim your listing. By claiming your listing you are notifying each search engine that the can confirm and verify you are the business owner.  For Google and MSN they allow you to verify your listing by calling your phone and entering the 4 digit pin they provide, or you can wait for a pin number to be mailed.  Yahoo will manually verify the business listing.

One of the most important factors search engines look at is if your listing is verified or not.  If you do not claim your listing, you are susceptible to profile hijacking.  Profile or listing hijacking means that someone acts like they are your listing and changes the information provided in the profile.  For any listing that is not claimed, anyone can edit the local business information, so be sure you claim yours!

Complete Business Profile

It is important to fill out your listing completely by adding the following: your full address, a company description, email address, store hours, upload photos/videos, etc.  The more complete your listing is, the more likely it is to rank well in the local business listing results.

Reviews

Search engines will take the number of business reviews you have into consideration and see if the reviews are positive or negative.  You may also notice that Google can pull in reviews from other relevant websites and other 3^rd party local directories.  With that being said, you may want to monitor what others are saying about you on other review sites.  Also, ask your current clients to submit a review.  Ask them in person, in a newsletter, a personalized email, or on your website.

Where to submit your Business Listing

There are a number of local directories available that we recommend you submit your business to besides Google, Yahoo and MSN.  Make sure you add your listing to Yelp!, Best of the Web Local, Merchant Circle, Insider Pages,  and Judy’s Book.

For a more in-depth look at local search ranking factors check out David Mihm: Local Search Ranking Factors.

Related Topics

• Google Local Business Listings Now Have Analytics

So what ultimately lead to Yahoo’s fall from grace? After all it was only about 3 years ago that Google and Yahoo had at least a comparable share of the search market (~30% for Yahoo and ~35% for Google) and their revenue was at least in the same ballpark as Google’s (5.2 Billion vs. 6.1 Billion).

1. Poor focus/trying to do it all – Where Google first focused on search and kept working on it until they were clearly the winner, Yahoo dabbled in everything. They became a complex content portal with massive amounts of content they had to keep current. I have never really dived into the makeup of their workforce but they had to have a ton of staff dedicated to customer service and content management. When you compare that to a lean business model like delivering search results and selling pay-per-click ad space there’s no comparison. Of course since the cash started rolling in Google has diversified by creating compelling software offerings such as Google Maps, Gmail, and Google Docs but despite the intense development requirement they don’t require massive manpower to continue delivering the content.
2. Too Complicated – The #1 driver of revenue for Google (in fact almost their entire revenue) is AdWords. When Yahoo was still floundering around with the Overture platform Google delivered a simple easy to use console for creating and tracking PPC ads. As the ultimate show of flattery for Google’s (and possibly more so their traffic) platform Yahoo recently announced a partnership with Google to display Adwords on Yahoo sites. This deal was of course was ultimately backed out of by Google due to potentially lengthy anti-trust problems.

The mistake of trying to do it all was probably ultimately the most costly. Where Google’s strategy assumed correctly that the web would generate enough of its own content, Yahoo felt a mandate to develop and deliver content on its own. Google it seems, will only develop a new add-on if it feels it can provide something new and innovative that requires only software and hardware to succeed. Google maps is a bit different but because something like “street view” is so groundbreaking I think they make an exception when they can gain a competitive advantage by being first and being so large that others are unlikely to follow.