It’s important to understand that it’s not only your site that matters to Google, but also important to know which sites outrank you and why. Even if you don’t consider some sites to be ‘real’ competitors, if they outrank you, they ARE your competition for click-through from the search engines.

Let’s look at an example.

I have a client who wants their anti static brush page to rank for “anti-static brushes.” We’ve gone through the basics like using our keyword in the page title and meta description tags. The content is unique and relevant to the keyword and they have a good selection of anti static brush products. We’ve even got H1’s and H2’s with the keyword and have interlinked to it from other important pages on their site.

Google has recently indexed the page, and even comes back on a regular basis. But we’ve stalled out at position 9 in Google’s search results for weeks.

The first thing I like to do when I run into stalled rankings is to check out the competition for that keyword. Then I can look at what those sites are doing better. You can really dig deeply into this, but for simplicity’s sake, we’ll just focus on some basic data.

First, we look at the Google Indexed Page Count, or the number of pages Google recognizes for the site. The higher the number, the bigger (and more powerful) the site. As you can see, 2 sites – Amazon and Anglefire – are monster sites that probably carry a lot of clout with the search engines. It’s going to be tough to compete with them on size alone, but we’re bigger than all the others.

Next, we look at the external backlinks to the page and the site. Several of the sites have more backlinks to their pages than we have to ours. 4 of the sites have more domain backlinks than we do, but two of them are smaller numbers that we can conceivably compete with in the near future. Getting high quality backlinks will be an important tactic for us to gain rankings.

Finally, we look at the Cache Age, or number of days since Google indexed the page. This is important because we want to make sure that Google is frequently on our page to find any new information we have added. Only 3 of the sites have smaller cache ages than we do, which tells us that changes we make might get picked up faster than changes on some of the other sites.

Now, if you’ve really looked at the chart, you are probably asking, “What about Takk? They don’t have more pages or links and they haven’t been cached in twice as many days!”

Based on just this data, it’s true that they shouldn’t outrank us. Remember that we’re only looking at a handful of the 200 or more ranking factors that Google uses in its algorithm. Also, if they have higher quality backlinks, that could push them up, even if the quantity is lower. You can bet we’ll be digging deeper into their links to find out.

That gives us our quick list of “to-do’s” – gaining backlinks to the anti static brush page and the domain should give our ranking a boost. And digging deeper into competitor links will provide us with our next steps.

The search engines will often give localized results when they feel those results are relevant, even if the search didn’t type a city, state or other geographical qualifier. They use the searcher’s IP address location to determine locality. So, if I search for something in Minnesota, companies with a physical presence in Minnesota might get a boost in my search results. If I go to California and do the same search, I might see a different set of results with California companies getting higher priority.

Give it a try, just type in “pizza” and see if you get local results or national results. Basically, Google is saying – when you search for pizza, I think you want to find a place where you can eat pizza or have pizza delivered.

As the SE Land author states: “What this means for you, the national player, is that you are missing out on a potentially large, localized rankings boost for your major keywords by not having a physical address listing on your website.”

So, what do you need to do to have local search working for you? Here are a few things:

1. Make sure you have your physical address on your website. Putting that information in your site footer, as well as on your Contact Us page is helpful.
2. Update your Google Place Page and other local listings. We have a list of some local directories in a previous post.
3. Obtain links from local groups like the Chamber of Commerce, Better Business Bureau and local charities you support.
4. If you are a member of state/regional associations and organizations, especially when they are industry-related, make sure you get links from their sites too.
   Make sure you get links from the websites of your local distributors.

What other things are you doing to take advantage of local search?

Video Marketing—As Scott pointed out in a blog a few days ago, adding videos to your site and creating a YouTube channel for your company can have huge benefits for your business. Almost everybody carries at least a rudimentary video camera with them*, and it’s so easy to edit and upload videos now that there’s no reason not to. The saying goes, “A picture is worth a thousand words”—a talking picture is worth 14,753.6^†. What better way to show potential customers and clients what your company can do than by literally showing them what your company can do! One recent study showed that conversion rates from YouTube are up to 20 percent higher than conversion rates from traditional search engines. If it’s that easy and that effective, it’s definitely a must.

Social Network Optimization—I mentioned in previous blogs that social networks and social media are rapidly taking over the world as we know it. But, this is not necessarily a bad thing. You can use your Facebook and Twitter accounts to update your customers/clients on any and all new developments in your company quickly, easily, and, best of all, for free. Keeping them up to date on your latest and greatest will also keep you front and center in their minds when it’s business time. Tweets, Facebook updates, and the like are also a great opportunities for link building and generating referral traffic. Again: fast + easy – expensive × effective = a must. Facebook and Twitter may not always be the King and Queen of the social networking prom (remember Myspace? Didn’t think so), but social networking itself shows no signs of slowing down, so this one will be a key SEO focus for many years to come.

Local Search Marketing—Thirty years ago, if your business wasn’t listed in the local Yellow Pages, you might as well not have existed. Now, Google and other search engines are the new Yellow Pages, so if you’re not showing up on Google when local customers are searching for your goods or services, the same holds true. Even if you do more business on a national level, once you’ve built up a good search engine ranking on the local level, you’ll start to see better results from national-level searches as well, as Google et al. will recognize your site’s credibility and improve your overall ranking. No matter how big your company is, it never hurts to pay attention to the small stuff.

Mobile Marketing—This one is kind of tricky, because it can be difficult to know where/how to differentiate between your regular online presence and your mobile-friendly online presence. However, as more and more people are using smartphones**, it’s important that you cater to the phones’ full capabilities. Maybe you don’t need your own iPhone app, but a coupon or QR code that can be downloaded right to a potential customer’s phone can certainly make your business more attractive. Many companies have even created mobile-friendly versions of their sites (with the “m.” prefix) that feature more smartphone-ready content. Everyone and their mother has a smartphone now^††, so, like social network optimization, mobile marketing promises to be an important factor in SEO for quite some time.

I hope this list has been at least a little bit helpful and informative. Let us know what you think in the comments section, and keep an eye out for new SEO trends on the horizon. They’re changing all the time, so it’s good to be prepared. My prediction for the biggest, best SEO trend of 2012: blimps. Don’t ask me how, don’t ask me why, but trust me—blimps.

* Hint: It’s your cellular telephone.
^† Rounded to the nearest tenth.
** They’re not that smart. Mine can’t even tie its shoes.
^†† The day my Dad gets one will truly be the dawn of a new age, however.

Some of the new product and service page features:

• Add banners and images to highlight your offerings
• Create detailed descriptions with bulleted lists for features
• Link to product or service page, rather than just to the home page
• Add a promotion for individual products or services
• Add company contacts for each product or service
• Ability to add YouTube videos
• Ability for other LinkedIn members to create reviews

Here’s what we’ve started for the Ecreativeworks page:

Here’s a service page example:

It looks like LinkedIn is really stepping up to be the social media leader for companies by making company pages easily editable and useful. (For any of you who have built fan pages in Facebook, you know what I mean.) Don’t have a LinkedIn company page yet? If you don’t, you’re missing out. Talk to your program manager at Ecreativeworks and we’ll help you get set up.

Special thanks to Ron at Freelin-Wade for giving us our first review!

On the other side (I call the “New Age thinking”) are the Quality link marketers.  These marketers would argue that if the link does not make sense or isn’t relevant, then you should not use it.  They  often believe that the search engines can actually penalize a site for having “bad tasting” link juice.  They would prefer that all of your link juice be of pure quality.

I guess I would fall into the quality side of this argument.  Let’s not just clutter up the web to have lots of links to our sites.  We should follow the ideals behind the search engines to help people find and navigate to what they are looking for easily.    I think that you will see the search engines start to heavily favor “good tasting” link juice in the near future and discard the stuff that is just not that good.  Sorry to all those paid linking services out there, but maybe if you can create better customized links for your customers you will survive.  I am not saying it is going to be easy for any of us, but we should be on the lookout for those links that make sense to our customers and ignore the ones that just “link”.

He answers the question: “how many changes did Google make to their algorithm in 2009?” The answer – approximately one change for each day of the year. That’s more than 350 changes to their algorithm in 2009!

He also discussed whether or not ‘content is still king.’ Interestingly, great content is necessary, but if no one knows about it, it’s not going to do you much good. You need to show that you’re an authority on the subject to get the full SEO impact.

Although somewhat daunting, it reinforces that SEO isn’t just a project – it’s a process. Getting good results in the search engines requires working at it consistently throughout the year.

Industrial and B2B companies face a unique set of challenges when entering the social media world.  Their audiences aren’t always easily reachable through social media channels like Twitter or Facebook.

That doesn’t mean industrial companies can’t benefit from social media channels.  The trick is just finding the right tools for the job.

Maybe we need to think about tools in a different light. Rather than thinking of what social media tools you can use to market your website, let’s think about this: what tools do you have (or could you create) that would help your customers and make their lives easier?

In the industrial world, services and products can be complicated and trustworthy technical information is often hard to find. Many people are involved in the purchasing process, each of them needing different information to do their job. Why not make your industrial website a resource for this kind of information?

Do your customers need: price or feature comparison charts, technical specifications, industry or regulated standards, how-to videos, informational articles, or technical definitions? Do they need help choosing from similar products or configuring part numbers?

Once your tools are built – then use social media channels to promote them.

• Post them as resources on Wikipedia
• Blog about them or add them as comments on other blogs (if they are on-topic and helpful, of course)
• Send them out to LinkedIn groups that would find them useful
• Distribute them to online article sites
• Create and send a press release announcing them
• Create a YouTube channel and upload your videos

Not only will tools benefit your customers, but they can also help you to increase your site content and the number of back-links to your website, which the search engines love.

Internal Linking helps with:

• Cross-selling products or accessories
• Additional navigation for your visitors
• Showing search engines which pages are most important
• Helping search engines index deeper pages

So how do you use internal linking to the greatest benefit?

• Use your targeted keywords in the anchor text of links. Avoid using “more” or “click here” for all of your links.
• Make sure you use the canonical version of your URL consistently. For example, use “www.mysite.com” and not “www.mysite.com/index”.
• Use common sense when deciding how many internal links to add to your pages. If your page is filled with too many links, it may be difficult to read and therefore not convert well. Additionally, too many links can decrease the value placed on each link by the search engines.
• Links are calls to action, so really think about what you want visitors to do on a page before you add links. If your goals are to get them to read more about your company, product or services, then additional links is great tactic. However, linking to other pages from your checkout process can lead to distractions that can negatively impact conversions.

Post in an industry related forum a few times a week.

Actively participating in industry forums could help your site in terms of link builing – if you include your site in the signature of your post. In the big picture, posting on a forum helps forum visitors learn your company name and helps your company learn fresh ideas. With enough reading and active participation, you could begin to see trends emerging in your industry almost in real time.

Write and submit an article once a month.

Article writing is a way to add unique content into the internet cosmos, and that unique content leads right back to your company site. If the content is engaging and relevant, you’ll get search engine hits from people truly interested in your topic. The reader will see your name and link in the signature, and voila, you’ve got a new site visitor and potential lead. Plus, as opposed to paid links or ads, an article is a gift that keeps on giving. Once you publish an article it’s on the internet for good. You could continue to earn traffic from one article indefinitely. A once a month commitment to writing an article is worth it, for continuous relevant site traffic.

Improve page usability every few months.

What I mean by “improve page usability” is simply pick a page on your site and take a good look at it. Do all the links work? Could you add some relevant anchor links to other site pages? Is the content clear and well organized? Clean up the page and make it as usable as possible for your visitors. Improving usability could lead to higher volume of quote requests and leads. If your visitors can navigate and understand a page better, they’re more likely to stick around and talk to you. Ideally you want to be constantly checking site usability and content quality. But for busy companies, it’s not always possible. So if you pick a “focus page” every other month or so, you can gradually make your site a usable powerhouse.

So if you feel like SEO is overwhelming and you don’t know where to start, these simple tips could get you started. Once you get the ball rolling and see results, you’ll probably start making more and more time for SEO.