WHAT IS THE DEAL WITH GOOGLE'S UNIVERSAL SEARCH?

For the last week and a half I have been getting "swop" offers from nervous SEO firms in Michigan and.... quite frankly ... all over. They are trying their best to stay relevant and not lose thier rankings in the weeks to come. This brand new thing with the Google Universal Search has them all shaking in their boots for one very good reason.

They stand to lose practically everything they own in the upcoming weeks.

That is to say that this is THE END of SEO, Search Engine Optimization as we know it. And I say GOOD.

I have been waiting for this for quite some time. The search engines have stepped up to the challenge of creating a new web environment where everything is all interconnected. This is finally what everything that the web was supposed to be in the first place. This took long enough to evolve and I say lets GET ON WITH IT.....

To clear up what this means for your business we cut a recent podcast that you will find most interesting. You can listen to it here....



You can also visit this site directly here....
http://911copywriter.podomatic.com/

Ted Cantu posted this on June 4, at 6:54 am.

New Developments in SEO in Michigan

What a day it was in the city of Ann Arbor, Michigan. Author and marketing expert, (see Squidoo) Seth Godin stopped by the Michigan Theater today to showcase his new book, "The Dip". This was his second stop for the day, (his first was earlier that morning in Chicago).

The topic of that book centers around the very notion of quitting some aspect of your business that is not working. The focus shifts to working with something in your business that can help establish a very unique position in the market place. This idea becomes very intriguing.

Following this 90 minute talk was a round table discussion on new web site developments. This was held at the Ann Arbor IT Zone. Amid some of the more well noted self appointed heads of SEO and Internet Marketing expertise, (see.. sponsors for recent event) were roughly 60 people from various industries.

30 minutes into the round table discussion about half of the room got up and actually left the event. This was interesting.....

But what really got my attention was how the focus of this event was centered around past data. There were no new topics here centering on how to get new customers online or how to create a natural flood of OPT IN customers.....

It was if Seth Godin had taken us out of the rut and into the future while the round table took us back in time. The mood of the room and the overall feeling made me feel as though we somehow slipped back into the year 1992. No kidding....

There was little attention spent on Internet Marketing and more time spent on definitions of terminology taken from Dictionary.com. There was little mention of anything in the realm of RSS development or traffic generation.

The advice from Pure Visibility was perhaps the most disappointing. They suggested starting grass roots groups that meet regulary for Be Bim Bop and ... stamp collecting.

Seriously.

Do you have time for that?

Ted Cantu posted this on May 23, 2007 at 1:24 am and can be found at http://www.1seomichigan.com

Getting Thousands of Visitors To Your Site

"Here's How You Can Get More Visitors To Your Site"

Are you looking to get more people to your web site? Are you looking to not have to spend a fortune to accomplish this? Well, then you are not alone. There are a few considerations you will want to make as you progress.

Here is some tips from Entrepreneur.com

Step 1: Get the traffic you need to test your website fast! When I talk about testing with new internet business owners, I hear the same two questions all the time:

How do I test my site?

What do I test on my site?

As you may already know, there are an infinite number of things you can test on your site to help you increase sales. From layout to copy to design, there are limitless combinations of changes that may improve your visitor-to-sale conversion rate. But what's "enough" when you're just starting out? What elements should you focus on testing before rolling out your traffic campaign?

My advice is to stick to the basics. Focus on testing your:

Salescopy, especially your headline, benefits, guarantee and call to action

Order process, which needs to be simple enough for a novice web user to place an order
Opt-in offer, so you can determine if you're successfully capturing your visitors' contact information

Site navigation, so you can figure out how many clicks it takes to buy. Ideally it should take less than three.

These are the four critical aspects of your sales process that need to be tested before you start driving traffic. Later on, once you've generated sales and have some steady traffic, you can move on to testing other parts of your site.

Of course, all this talk of testing your new site raises one big question: How can you test without traffic? Because if you're just getting started, chances are good that your website doesn't get much traffic yet.

The solution is simple: Buy traffic through PPC search engines.

Source: Entrepreneur.com

Does it always come back down to pay per click? This is what turns a lot of people off but it is the shortest way to get traffic to come to you.

Drawbacks:
I would caution anyone who does this without properly outfitting your site with some sort of OPT IN customer forms. There are plenty of ways that you can actually miss the flood of incoming traffic. If you are not ready to somehow trap the lead flow that comes through your site you are running the risk of throwing your money out the window.

Ted Cantu posted this on May 13, 2007 at 11:12 pm, and can be found at http://www.1seomichigan.com