Did you know you could use your blog to easily increase and climb up the search engine results?

Disclaimer: This will not work for you if your blog is hosted on a 3rd party host such as blogspot.com, blogger.com, typepad.com, wordpress.com, or any other FREE blogging host.

Here is a bit of background on this subject.

Did you know that if Google.com does not find many relevant websites that contain the keyword phrase that a user is looking for, they will just start adding results that Google thinks may be relevant to the search results? Most of the time they really are not even close to what the user is searching for. If you EVER see anything like this, it’s clear that there are very little to no websites out there that are targeting those keywords.

Let me give you a live example, because I suck at explaining concepts…

A few days ago, and I do mean Days, I was not even close to being ranked for the keywords “Gobo Design Houston.”  In fact the top spots were for very non related websites. There was one gobo design company in Houston and the rest were either from California, Gobo Manufacturers (not designers), and well wedding DJ’s from other cities and states.

What that means is that there either were very little to none actual websites that Google could show to people looking for a GOBO Designer in Houston or some poorly optimized websites of gobo designers.

I wrote a short article entitled, “Gobo Designs in Houston” and Viola!!!  My Website is Ranked #3 & #4 for the keywords “Gobo Design Houston” Not only That, I received a couple of  unrequested links to my website with the same keywords, a Digg and they are ranked #1, #2 &#10 for those keywords.

So Where I was not even ranked before, I now  own 5 of the 10 positions on the front page of the search engine results. It took actually a few minutes to an Hour for my website to be ranked so high with those keywords…

WHY?

As stated before…

1. Lack of competition
2. lack of websites targeting those words
3. lack of knowledge from business owners who are targeting those keywords.

What’s in it for me?

More business! More income! More Clients! More people going through my sales funnel and not only needing gobo design, but possibly even a DJ or a Photo Booth!

This is a great example of bloggin for the sole purpose of increasing Traffic to your website.  Additionally, be sure to track your traffic to see where it comes from and how you can use this one idea to increase traffic by capturing related terms to this search keyword.

There you have it, now go out and try it for yourself, be sure to use the google keyword analytics tool as discussed on the post on how to “Grow Your Wedding Traffic, One Simple Technique to Try” to gather ideas for keywords you may want to target.

Give it a try!!

Happy Bloggin!

–
|o| Simply Frank |o|
Bloggin Wedding DJ

Very few is done to educate wedding vendors how to properly run their blogs. It’s exciting news to hear that there will be an upcoming bloggin Bootcamp here in Houston. If you want to learn the correct way to run a blog, this might be an event worth checking out. $150 is not a lot compared the the benefits you WILL receive once you properly run your blog. As stated in my previous Post, My blog currently brings in over $100 a month by doing NOTHING, just sitting there and hosting Links for other advertisers. And that’s beside the amount of business that is brought to my website as a result of a properly run Blog!  Most, I would say over 80%, of the people who already have a blog are doing it incorrectly, losing out on a huge opportunity that is the internet, and missing out on a lot of money and business because their blog is not run correctly.

So, there could be nothing but great benefits from attending any form of training on how to properly Blog!

You already know why you should blog.  We’ll show you how.

Blogging Bootcamp :: Houston
presented by Liene Stevens of Blue Orchid Designs and The Smart Planner™

Who: Any wedding professional who wants to effectively leverage online media to grow their business
When: Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Time: 9 am – 4 pm
Where: For Your Memories at the Lofts of Post Oak
Cost: $150 per person

Since the launch of the Blue Orchid Blog in 2006, it has grown to include over 3000 unique daily visitors and is partially to credit for the launch of two new Blue Orchid Designs offices on the East Coast.  In the Blogging Bootcamp, Liene will share specific strategies and techniques she has personally used to grow the Blue Orchid Designs blog to where it is today.

This workshop is open to all wedding professionals, not just wedding planners.  Space is limited and will be filled on a first come, first served basis so reserve your spot now!  Laptops are optional and lunch will be provided.

Topics covered will include:
*How to discover and leverage your blogging voice
*How to maximize your blogging ROI
*How to develop killer content – consistently
*How to set short term and long term goals for your blog
*How to effectively analyze your stats and blog traffic
*How to increase your readership and keep them coming back for more
*Specific strategies and techniques to use your blog to improve your main website’s SEO or “findability” on Google
*How to promote your brand through your blog’s design and content
*Maintaining professional boundaries while still being personable
*And more!

The Blogging Bootcamp will not be a class on blogging philosophy.  You already know that blogging is a good idea.  We’ll be showing you how to do it so that it is worth your time. No topic will be off the table, and any questions you may have will be fair game.

This event would not be possible without the generous support of Beginnings Wedding and Event Planning and For Your Memories Wedding Consulting.

Questions? Please send an email to workshops{at}thesmartplanner.com.

The fine print: Payment must be made in full prior to the event and is non-refundable.  Payment may be made via credit card or PayPal at the Eventbrite website.  Lunch will be provided and is included in the cost of the event.  Space is limited and will be filled on a first come, first served basis. In the event that the workshop is cancelled due to not meeting minimum registration requirements, a full refund will be issued to each registrant via PayPal.  Prices and terms are subject to change.

I am NOT a search engine marketing guru, but I hold #1 and #2 spots on all the search engines for ALL my targeted keywrods.

Ranking high on the search engines is crucial if you do any kind of online marketing. The people who know the secrets want to charge you an arm an a leg for something they cannot guarantee. Once you stop paying them, you lose out on the benefit and you see your search traffic and website visitors die down.

Blogging allows you to keep your website up to date. Just by writing at least once a week, you can keep your search engine rankings and your search traffic at a constant level and you don’t have to depend on your online marketer for your website’s success.

Here are a few tips to consider if you want your search engine traffic to remain at a constant level.

1. Post to your Blog Often.

   Search engines want to give its users, the brides (or anyone using the search engine), the most up-to-date results as well as the most relative results when they search for something. The rule of thumb I use is, the longer I go without posting to my blog, the lower my search engine result will be. Ideally I would like to post an article every weekday to my blog, but in reality I only get to do so about once or twice a week. Also, if you establish a fan base for your blog, they will expect to read from you often. They want that free, valuable advice you have to give them. Some visitors will even rely on what you have to say. Even though at first you may think this is not good for your business, it is. Giving away, free valuable advice helps those brides that are about to make a decision.

2. Target a Wide Variety of Keywords in your Titles.

   The bloggers with most creative minds will prevail here. Being creative is key to gaining getting a successful blog going. Everyone is creative, everyone has a unique twist to things, it’s just a matter of trusting yourself and doing it. Especially if it’s different and nobody has done it before. In a previous post, How to find Related Search Engine Terms, I give you an idea of how to find some popular keywords, I even gave you some of mine so you can just change it to fit your niche inside the wedding industry. For example, I am running a series of blog posts that pertain to a specific venue and adding what I do to it. Let me show you.. Now this may seem like something easy to come up with, but who do you know that’s doing it.. Nobody? I thought so.. Again Easy to do, it took some creative thinking on my side (patting myself on the back) and it has worked like a charm.

   Examples: Paraiso Marabilla Wedding DJ in Houston, Bella Terraza DJ Houston, and Sweetwater Country Club DJ.

   Whenever the people search for either of those venues my website comes up, whenever they look for a DJ that has DJ’ed that venue i should be one of the first websites to come up.

3. Install All in One SEO Pack for your Wordpress Blog.

   This one plugin for wordpress does all the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) for you. You just install it and it does the rest. I’ve noticed about 20-30 more visitors to my website since I installed this tool. So all the keywords that I am targeting are getting ranked pretty well in google.com. Again, Search Engine Optimization is critical for getting your blog listed on the Search engines and this does EVERYTHING for you. Without this, the previous step is useless

4. BONUS TIP:

   Always, always, always… Aim to help someone with your experience. If your blog is not about helping others, it will never succeed no matter how far high in the search engines you get it. SEO is for the robots that crawl your webpage, but good, juicy, helpful content is for the readers that land on your site. Think of it this way, brides are absolutely clueless about weddings, if you give them a golden nugget that saves them time, saves them money, or saves them both… you will hold a place in their mind and fighting for mind space is what all marketers are aiming to do. Once you are in their mind as someone they can trust… you’ve made a happy customer.

Blogging success, like anything else, does not require a brain surgeon…err marketing guru, just a little work and determination. Follow the 3 tips above and you are on your way to reaching success through blogging.

Happy Bloggin!

–
DJ Francisco
Owner and Blogger of a Wedding DJ in Houston Blog

Here are the top ten reasons you you should begin bloggin’

10. Because you can Promote your Service or Products

This should be done tactfully tastefully. The last thing you want to do is turn you blog into a spam blog or an self advertising posting page. But don’t be afraid to stand up for what you believe and how your service solves certain problems, as an example.

9. Because you love to express yourself

We all have a voice and we all want to be heard. Bloggin’ gives everyone that freedom of expression that the great US of A is known for. By expressing yourself, through your blog, brides can get a feel, a sense of how charming and intelligent you are. After all, brides and any other client buys if you reach their emotions, get them to trust you, and if they feel you are the best choice there is.

8. Because you can establish yourself as an Industry Leader

Leaders Lead. Leaders know where they are going and what they are after. Leaders know how to solve problems. Leaders are trusted. Brides look for the industry leaders. nuf said…

7. Because it’s ZERO-DOLLAR-MARKETING!!!!

Blogs cost nothing but time to keep up with. You don’t have to pay anyone to blog. You can but you don’t have to. You can do it yourself. You don’t have to worry about how much space you have to run an ad. You don’t have to limit the amount of words you can use. You really don’t have any ‘real’ limits. Just the limits you put on yourself. The most popular bloggin programs are FREE. Installation is FREE, if you are technically inclined or if you have a great tech support on your website host.

6. Because you can Network with other bloggers

Bloggers love to network with other bloggers. They will read each other’s blog and make comments on their buddies blogs, add their view about a particular topic, add their insights to the industry, promote other vendors they believe have great service, write a blog post about another blogger, etc… Bloggin’ is the new Secret Society, except it’s all over the internet.

5. Because you will get ‘wider’ search engine exposure

The more you post to your blog, the more content you will have accumulated, the more the search engines will have to chose from, the more traffic you will generate. Typically when you blog about your industry you will cover many words and keywords and search terms that you would never know your brides were looking for.

Here’s a quick summary of how this works. A bride is looking for a particular wedding services, product, or to solve a particular problem. She opens up Google.com; types in a term, search engine phrase, or keyword; gets all the Google.com Results; and clicks on the ones she likes or the ones that seem to do the best at solving her problem. Those keywords are the ‘gold nuggets’ we want to target. How to find them is beyond the scope of this blog post. In my case, I run a DJ company, the ‘gold nuggets’ brides used to get to my website was Wedding DJ in Houston. Now that was an ideal keyword, but in the real world of Google.com, not every bride will use that exact phrase. They will use anywhere from Wedding entertainers, wedding music, dj companies in houston, what’s the best dj in houston, etc… and those, each, return 100% different results from the other. I also posted an article titled “Related Search Engine Terms” where i went into detail on some of the keywords my Wedding DJ Blog attracts form Google.com and Yahoo.com

4. Because you can achieve a Higher Search Engine Ranking

Google and all the search engines, like all the brides that use it, are looking for quality, authoritative websites. As mentioned before, by posting constant, quality posts to your blog, you will soon become the leader in your industry for your service and Google.com will begin to recognize that after some time. As a result, it will bump your website up on the rankings. But you must stay focused on what search engine terms you are trying to rank high for and use them tactfully. How do I know this for a fact? My Wedding DJ Website ranks very high for my targeted keywords.

3. Because you will increase traffic to your website

This is almost a no-brainer, but I still have to put it in here. Higher search engine results, wider search engine tracking will result in increased traffic. If you are on page 10 of the search results and you move up to page 1 then your search engine traffic will increase by an estimate of about 1000%. I was getting about 10 visitors per day to my website before my blog, now I am getting over 100 visitors per day consistently. I got 175 a few days ago.

2. Because you will increase your Lead Generation

Leads are golden. A lead from your website means that you just need to do a few more things and that lead will become a client. After you’ve created some great content, you’ve established yourself as an industry leader, provided great value, solved a problem for your bride, they will gladly give you their contact information so that you can offer your services. Have a way to capture that information by putting a form on your website. Just try to get the basic information: Name, phone number, email address, and wedding date. other than that you can get the rest of the details when you communicate with them.

1. Increased Income

This is why I blog at http://www.fhpentertainment.com/blog/ …. nuf said

Happy Bloggin!

–
DJ Francisco
Wedding DJ Blogger