As a business owner, you undoubtedly understand the importance of great marketing. In a time where everything has “gone digital,” tech-savvy marketing is crucial; even the smallest business owner is expected to have a website these days. With that comes a seemingly endless to-do list that can confuse even the most seasoned business owner. You can easily become overwhelmed by all the search engine marketing jargon out there. SEO, SMM, SEM, CPC, PPC — what does it all mean? Do I need it, and if so… how do I do it?

Delving into the what and hows of every form of digital marketing takes time, dedication, and experience. For our purposes here, let’s take a look at one of the most critical forms of digital marketing. One that guarantees effective, fast results — search engine marketing aka, SEM. Continue reading →

One of the most important  factors for your site’s search engine ranking is the number of links pointing to your site from external websites. In essence, Google and other search engines feel that the more links a site has, the more established, relevant, and important it must be, therefore it should rank higher. Since having links has become very important, therefore attaining links, otherwise known as “link building,” has become a basic practice of SEO work.  Continue reading →

SEO content on the cheap

Nothing is more important for SEO than good content, and there are many options for getting content written cheaply. I use the word “cheap” for a reason, because it’s worse than inexpensive – this SEO content is downright cheap, or even free, and should be avoided.

One such option is the use of article spinning software, where you enter several keywords you’d like your article to have, and then a program produces an article, usually by scouring the web for content. Another one allows you to enter an original article and then rewrites it, using synonyms for words. In both cases, the result is pure garbage, and usually has grammatical errors and doesn’t read well. Continue reading →

A few years ago, as social media came onto the scene, many viewed it as a separate entity from search engine marketing. One could do SEO, but not social media, and vice versa, and one didn’t seem to be part of the other. Common thought at the time was that social media didn’t influence ranking.

This has changed as Google and other search engines have placed greater weight to social media in their search algorithms, and as the shift in SEO has gone away from ranking and more to increasing website visits. Now, Google sees social media activity as a measure of a company’s web presence, and this can effect search engine results. Continue reading →

SEO takes bright ideas, not quick tricks.

I have seen so many SEO “tactics” in the past few years, from automated link building, and fake blog comments, to article spinning and guest posts using software. There is always the latest SEO tactic used to take a shortcut.

Many SEO companies use these techniques. You can call them black hat, or grey hat, or whatever – the bottom line is, they may provide immediate results (if at all), but they will not last. Eventually Google will eventually take garbage links down, penalize sites for questionable tactics, and make major changes to the search algorithm that will render these links useless.  Continue reading →

Your website looks great, has captivating content, and accurately portrays all you have to offer, but there’s one BIG problem: No visitors. If this sounds like you, then you should explore a concept known as search engine optimization (SEO). SEO deals with your website’s ranking with the major search engines. If your website is suffering from low search engine ranking, then read on to understand why. Continue reading →

It seems like just yesterday we rang in the new year. Now, with a quarter of the year almost gone, you might be starting to slack on some of your New Year’s resolutions. If one of your resolutions is to build a business online, or increase traffic to your business website, then don’t give up just yet. Watt Media specializes in creating effective websites that rank highly with the major search engines. We’ve stayed on top of the latest search engine optimization (SEO) trends for 2015. For powerful search engine optimization, Watt Media has you covered.

Here are some of the top trends for SEO this year.

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It’s sometimes difficult to come up with quality content for an existing website, and a really effective way which has multiple benefits is asking for client testimonials. There are several reasons why this is such a great, creative way to add content to your site:

– Testimonials will usually have many quality key words in them, since the client is often complimenting you on a particular product or service you provide.

– Asking for a testimonial puts you in contact with a client, which is always beneficial; any “touch points” with a client are important ways to build on your business relationship. Continue reading →

In response to ongoing complaints that search results do not often yield the highest quality websites first, Google announced that they it some modifications to its search algorithms.  The result of this change is supposed to be more websites with original, quality content ranking higher.  Insiders say that sites such as eHow typically rank highly, but offer shallow and lower quality content, and in a rare public admission of fallibility, Google made this change and announcement. Continue reading →

Sometimes it makes sense to have more than just one website, even if they are all for the same company and have lots of similar content. Why would you want to do this? If you can get two or more sites ranking well, then you have basically blocked out the competition and diluted search results a bit.

Say you sell garage doors, and have a really good site that ranks well. Then you add another site with a different url, which has different content, but still about your company. Once this site starts ranking well also, you can target a different set of key words, so now you have a much broader set of key words, or you can rank for the same key words as your first website. If someone searches for garage doors, if both sites show up, you increase the chances that someone will visit one of your sites – it’s that simple. Continue reading →