Introducing Barbara Gabogrecan - "Increase You Web Ranking"

[Peter O'Connor]

Hi,

Most of you know Barbara as the President of MCEI and HBBA. But she did have another life as a secondary college Director of Art. She taught for around 21 years and for 13 of those years, also taught Art part time at the National Gallery of Victoria.

So art and teaching (communication) are her main skills. Barbara found both sets of skills of great help in her new role of offering business support. She got started in business as the private school she was teaching in, went ‘under’ (in the recession we had to have) so she decided a change of course was necessary.

Barbara started a business painting on silk and producing product for the tourism market. She went on to win 7 of the Australian Gift of the Year awards in the second year of her business and that led to a number of larger companies (18 in fact) wanting to license her work on their product e.g. Shelta Umbrellas, Fresca Scarves and Laurentino Bags being the main ones.

It just seemed a natural step to provide assistance to others based on her success and the knowledge she had gained. She still says “if I can do it – so can you!” Art meant that she was creative and always thinking of different ways to do things (called being innovative in business) and her teaching skills just made her aim of sharing her knowledge with others, so much easier.

Barbara is also a published author and writing (perhaps even more than painting) comes very naturally to her. Her first (and only) published book ‘How to Run a Business From Your Kitchen Table’ was a huge success and the publishers reprinted 18 months after its release. Now she produce e-books and they are selling quite well on the HBBA website.

Two skills she did not have were in finance and technology – so being resourceful, she married me, an accountant who had good technical skills! Ah…yes, we were madly in love too – but our skills made us a good couple in business as well as personally!

What Barbara is about to share with you this week on ‘How to Improve Your Ranking & Increase Traffic to Your Website’, is a combination of both her and my skills – what we have learned (yep – at the ripe old ages of 60+, we both continue to do training) and put into practice. We know it works because we have had great success doing it, so we know that you can make it work too.

Peter

[Barbara Gabogrecan]

Thanks for the introduction Peter. I am more than happy to share what we have both learned, used and had success with, by having two websites achieve number one on page one on Google within a week, without us having to spend money. Though the expenditure in time was pretty huge. The first success was with http://www.mceimarketingawards.org.au and recently it was http://www.homebasedbusinessaustralia.org

Many have asked me "What is the main thing you have to do to ensure that you have a good website that is found by people?" Some may say it is registering a domain name; others may say that it is having good content, still others may say to have an attractive site that is easy to navigate….and they would all be correct!

But you need to keep this in mind: if you want to increase your traffic, you have to design your website to suit the search engines. If your website is not search engine optimised (SEO) then the search engines won't find you and your traffic is not likely to increase as much as it might if you do have SEO. It is my experience that most operators do not have SEO as a major emphasis of their website - it just does not normally happen. There are a couple of reasons why.

1. First of all graphic designers often build your website and they may not understand SEO
2. Secondly the owner provides content that is about what message they want to get to their clients, without fully understanding what clients are looking for when they go to the internet.
3. Many web owners think that it would cost a fortune to have their website SEO. And it can. But much can also be done for free, as long as you know what to do.

So, what do you do first?
Probably register a domain name. But you should not do that until you fully understand keywords and search volumes because the domain name should include the keyword.
How many do that?
Not many I can assure you.
Most people use their business name or their personal name as their domain name……not a good idea unless you are as well known as Cleo or Diana Ferrari.

Tomorrow I will discuss how to find the right keyword.

[Peter Hutchison]

I am excited in learning all about increasing our web ranking in order to grow our business even further.
A question please, as Wikipedia is regarded highly by search engines how can we get our brand or product included in Wikipedia ?
Peter Hutchison - SmartBurn

[Barbara Gabogrecan]

I am excited in learning all about increasing our web ranking in order to grow our business even further.
A question please, as Wikipedia is regarded highly by search engines how can we get our brand or product included in Wikipedia ?
Peter Hutchison - SmartBurn

Peter, I don't know that it is possible to get an individual product listed in Wikipedia. They are more likely to discuss issues that your product relates to e.g. environmental issues or air pollution. As a matter of fact if you go to Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_pollution you will see some useful information of fuel emission (note that Australia is in the top 10 for the worst emission in the world) and there is a tab at the top of the page where you can read discussions. It does have a 'contact us' link too and perhaps you could go there and ask if you can provide information to go in the discussion. Perhaps another reader of this topic can give us some more specific advice?

When you are putting information in a blog or on your website, you can add some anchor text links to highly respected websites (like Wikipedia) and the search engines like this. If you are writing an article or content for your webpage and in the text you used the phrase 'reduction of smoke emissions' you could link that to the Wikipidea page. You can see how I do this on http://www.homebasedbusinessaustralia.org/blog

Good luck with getting your smart burn product on Wikipidea Peter - it is certainly a product that all folk who burn fires over winter need and should use.
Cheers
Barb

[Barbara Gabogrecan]

The concept of Keywords seems so simple yet many people do not know how to get the right keyword or exactly what to do with it to help them get more traffic to their website.

The first thing to realise is that the keyword that you may choose for your business is not necessarily correct. The keyword you need is one that others use (and search on in the search engines).

So go to the Google Free Keyword Tool (used for Adwords) and put the keyword in that you think e.g. mortgage and click on the words ‘Global Monthly Search Volume’ and Google will sort them according to frequency of use. You will find that there are over 55 million searches on that word globally each month and 1 million local searches.

The mistake so many make is that they think the higher the search volume the better. Wrong. If you used ‘mortgage’ as a keyword you would absolutely never get found via the search engines! You have to target a niche market (a smaller market) and the keyword search volumes will give you a clue as to what niche market to choose.

Look for long tailed keywords (2 or more words) as not only will these suggest a niche market but they may also suggest the people searching on them may have a problem that you can help them solve by offering your product or service.

So, using the same e.g. as above, you will find that the longtailed keyword ‘home mortgage’ has a search volume of 13,600 while ‘mortgage loans’ has a search volume of 6,120. Both of these are good keywords to use as you should be looking for keywords with a search volume of between 1,500 and 20,000 (though if you can find a suitable one under 10,000 that is even better).

OK. Now you have your keyword, what do you do with it?
I will discuss this tomorrow.

In the meantime, you may like to have a look at the Webinar on this topic and may have some questions to ask.
http://homebasedbusinessaustralia.org/t ... inars.html

Cheers
Barb

[Susan Gianevsky]

Thanks for the updated information Barb, find the work that both yourself and Peter do most inspiring. As a result of what you have shared in your information both on your website and forum have had an impact on my business ....had my graphics person change my wording on my cover page and wham...up the ranking went...

Do you need to change your information - wording regularly or do you find it stays at a high ranking on an ongoing basis...am new to this and so wanted to ask the expert!

Be Free Now has gone from strength to strength since winning my 3 awards...it won't be difficult to get Sponsors for the event...will keep spreading the word...

Susan Gianevsky
MCEI - Membership Officer
Homeopath?Health Educator
www.befreenow.com.au

[Barbara Gabogrecan]

Hi Susan,
It's great to see one of our Award winners becoming so involved in MCEI. First let me congratulate you and your product 'Be Free' on this Forum. Secondly, what a delight to have you take on the role of Membership Oficer - wowee!!! and thirdly, what an inspiration - you actually take action when you learn something new - and get great results! Now that is the true WOW Factor MCEI offers and dynamic members create.

To respond to your question re changing content and keeping ranking. Unfortunately ranking never stays the same as there are so many conditions ot consider. HBBA has already droped down a couple of pegs from number one. That would probably be due to a decrease in the numbers of people looking at the website (there was a 600% increase in visitors during the launch that lasted for one week) - then it begins to drop. But keeping your content up dated is very important. Even if you do not change everything on a page, add some things, delete some things. Have you had a look at the home page for http://www.homebasedbusinessaustralia.org? I will be changing the 'Featured member' (it might be your top customer); plus the update on the Webinars, Forum and Events (put yours in too).

Later this week I will discuss how a blog can bring attention and traffic to your website.

And another important consideration - do not just try to SEO your home page. Treat each page of information as important as the home page (you don't have to worry about the 'contact' or 'about us' pages). Different pages can be listed higher than others by the search engines and that is great.

Hope this helps
Barb

[Anne Morton]

Hi Barb
Thanks for all this great information you keep handing out for everyone.
Our business name is also our domain name, but we have been thinking about changing to a keyword optimised domain name. We don't want to lose our original domain name, as that is what is printed on our promotional material and business cards and so how can we keep it?
Anne Morton
Lifestyle Video Productions
http://www.lifestylevideos.com.au

[Barbara Gabogrecan]

Hi Barb
Thanks for all this great information you keep handing out for everyone.
Our business name is also our domain name, but we have been thinking about changing to a keyword optimised domain name. We don't want to lose our original domain name, as that is what is printed on our promotional material and business cards and so how can we keep it?
Anne Morton
Lifestyle Video Productions
http://www.lifestylevideos.com.au

Hi Anne - yep, it is always a worry when we want to change things (phone, PO Box etc) and we have the information printed on our promotional material. But with websites it is easy! You simply have your old domain address (that is printed everywhere) pointing to the new domain name. You do this through your hosting company. For example, when we changed www.hbba.biz to www.homebasedbusinessaustralia.org anyone can use either URL and will end up at the same website.
Cheers
Barb

[Barbara Gabogrecan]

Remember that I said in the first part of this discussion is that everything you do on your website should be to gain the attention of the search engines (if you want traffic to come from them), as well as looking after your clients. Well keywords are the best way of increasing traffic via the search engines.

Now you have your keyword what do you do with it?

The first thing is to register a domain name using your keyword. Now this is not so easy with so many others out there looking to do the same thing; so you may have to get a bit creative to get the keyword domain name that you want. If you go to http://www.nameboy.com you can use this free software to check out ideas for your domain name (but don’t buy them from this site – they are too expensive at US$15). You can put in the name you want e.g. ‘mortgage loans’ you will find that all possible combinations have been taken for .com (only consider .com – not .net or .biz etc. If you are only targeting a local market you can use .com.au but this is more expensive and must have an association with your business name, so it may not advisable be advisable to use it)

If you cannot get mortgageloans.com then what do you do? Be a bit creative. Nameboy shows that mortgageloansnow.com is available; so is bestmortgageloans.com When you decide on the domain name you want (that fits the main keyword you intend using) go to http://tinyurl.com/yjg5l82 (namecheap) to register your business name for only US$9.69

It may be appropriate to mention Hosting here as well.

One of our members had a huge problem around Christmas time. It seems as though her hosting company simply ‘disappeared’ as did her 3 websites. You just must have a well known and large hosting company to protect your websites. Remember if they go off the air – so do you! Also, it is important that you back up your website data (the same as you do for your ordinary data). I do mine every two days as I am constantly putting new information on the site.

HostGator (http://tinyurl.com/qwcxk9) is one of the best. It has over 2 million clients; is available 7/24 to help you if you have any problems; it has a 99% ‘on air’ record (its servers do not fall over!); and it is cheap (the baby plan costs US$9.95 per month and you can have any number of domain names, and any number of websites of any size – all for the same fee).

Tomorrow I will tell you where else you should use your keywords.