The Cutting Edge of Online Marketing

When marketing on the Internet, the hunt is always on for ways to better our ranking on the search engines. Improving the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) of our content is one of the best ways.

Here are seven basic things you can do to improve the SEO of your website:

1. Domain Name – Having a domain name that contains the keywords that you are trying to rank for can have a significant effect on your placement in search engine rankings. AnytownManufacturedHomes.com will draw a lot better search results for “manufactured home anytown” than say, MurphyHomes.com. Could you improve your search engine rankings by changing your domain name?

2. Clear, keyword-rich URLs – When a Search Engine robot spiders your web page there a number of factors that influence how it indexes your page. The page name should clearly indicate the purpose of the page. A page named “manufactured-homes-in-anytown.html” does a much better job of that than a page names “homes.html” or worse yet “showcase.html” Can you improve your website’s SEO by using a better URL structure?

3. Keyword-rich Page Title – The page title may be the single most important element in your SEO strategy. If the content of the page is “Manufactured Homes in Anytown”, that should be the page title. I have seen many websites where the page titles either don’t match the content or are absent entirely. Do your page titles match the content of each page on your site?

4. Keyword-rich Heading – The heading is usually the first line before the content of a web page (see image below). It should contain the keywords for the page content. For maximum SEO effect, it should be wrapped in <h1> tags.

5. Keywords used in first paragraph of text – Always use the keywords of the page once or preferably twice in the first paragraph. Over use will hurt you as much as overuse. Be sure that the use of the keywords fits naturally into the flow of the text. Gratuitous use is also a no-no.

6. Image filenames and ALT tags – One keyword-use opportunity often missed even by professional developers is in the filenames and “ALT” tags of images on the page. “ALT” tags are what a browser displays when an image fails to load for some reason. Since images are generally used to support text, their filenames and “ALT” tags should easily contain page keywords. Do not try to cram keywords into images such as bullet points, spacers, etc. These images should contain “ALT” tags but the tags should be empty to help support easy access for those using text-to-speech technology.

7. Use keyword-rich text for internal links – When you link inside you website to other pages or articles, never use just “Click Here” as link text. That doesn’t help you at all. If a link is to a “recently installed home in anytown” use that as the link text. It helps SEO for the linked page.

Well, that’s seven tips for improving your web pages SEO. If you use them, you should be able to move up a few notches on the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs).

If you are using WordPress, Joomla! or another CMS system, the software will handle most of these automatically. If not, they need to be coded by hand. Do not underestimate their importance. If you aren’t sure your website is taking advantage of these SEO methods, you should have your website reviewed professionally.

I live in Danville, Kentucky – a town of about 15,000 that has been named “one of America’s Best Small Towns.” As charming as our little town is, every so often a trip to the “big city” is in order. What this has to do with manufactured, or any factory-built housing will become apparent. This past Sunday was my wife’s birthday. We decided to go for dinner at Sutton’s Italian Restaurant in Lexington, KY. Sutton’s is a client of mine (we did their website) and this was their new location. I really like to keep up with what my client’s are doing as having knowledge of their operations helps me do a better job of marketing for them.

We ordered some wine, recommended by owner Gordon Lewis, a locally produced Merlot from Jean Farris Wineries. Notice how the locally-sourced product was the one recommended. It was a very good wine, the best Merlot I have ever had – and I’m NOT a big Merlot fan normally.

So far, so good. It’s the next succession of events that I wanted to point out. We ordered an appetizer. One of our favorites in Italian restaurants is calamari with marinara sauce, so we decided to go for that. Well, the calamari was super! It mixed in was a special treat. Banana peppers (peperoncini) which had been sliced into rings like the calamari and fried along with them. Exceptional.

So I took out my iPhone and photographed our half-finished plate and posted it on Facebook. Within minutes, a friend who didn’t know of the restaurant’s new location asked me where they were.

He’ll be checking out the new location shortly with his entire family. Now, my question is… how much benefit will Sutton’s receive from a picture, a caption and about a minute that it took me to post it to Facebook? Five people will eat there as a direct result. How many more read the post, now know the new location and will find their way there over the next few weeks?

And what’s it worth if they like it, return and tell their friends?

Even if the restaurant has no idea where those customers originated, they benefit from that small bit of social networking. It happens that Sutton’s has a Facebook page of their own, so those reading my post can easily find them on Facebook. And or course, their Facebook page has a link to their website.

So round and round it goes, a small ripple in the pond of information creates a much larger result. Sutton’s pays their employees who then spend the money in the local economy and the additive value of a dollar spent adds to Lexington’s GDP.

More ripples in our various ponds are what will get the economy moving again on a local, national and global basis. It’s not hard. Go make a ripple today, even a small one. It will will multiply as the circle widens.

And don’t forget to post every new thing your business does on your website, your blog, your Facebook page, your LinkedIn status and tweet it on Twitter to boot. Have a new home on your lot or in your community? Install a new home? Performed some community service? Hire a new sales person, customer service rep or installer. Each of those is a small stone causing a small ripple that grows and grows and…

I love it when simple products do a job extraordinarily well. In a recent blog post, Refreshing Your Manufactured Housing website – why?, we covered some of the reasons why now may be the time to update your online information. If you haven’t read it, of have forgotten it, read it again.

In the July issue of MHMSM.com, Maria Cucchiara of All Seasons Communications wrote Six Reasons to Update Your Current MH Website, which explained why an updated website is a necessity. Again, read it or re-read it – there is wisdom in Maria’s words.

All well and good. All commercial websites need to be refreshed every few years or their effectiveness starts to fade. And that is a job for a web design professional. If that’s where you find yourself, call us.

But what about those little changes that need to be made from time to time? You know the ones… a changed price or phone number. Adding a feature to a bullet list. Adding or deleting a dated sentence…

If your’s is a small to medium operation, you may not want to call your web developer every time one of those pops up. If you hired an amateur – or a part-time developer – you may have to wait a long time to get the change made – if ever. They may have simply disappeared or gone out of business.

What if there was a way to make it easy for anyone in your office who can create a simple Word doc to make those little updates for you? Think that could save you some time and money? You bet it could!

If we had built your website, you probably wouldn’t be facing this problem right now because it would be built on a platform that allows you to make simple updates.

But even if your website was built using static pages, the ability to edit sections of your site can be added even now.

And if you can use Microsoft Word®, you can use the simple WYSIWYG interface that can be installed on your website using the files you use now, and keeping the “look and feel” of your current site – the design.

There is more information on this on the Update Your Own Website page at OrangeCat.net. If you are in the position where you or an employee need to make some updates to your website, this may be the answer.

And we’ve been doing this since 1996, so we’ve never vanished on any client.

You’ve attended the meetings. You’ve got your copy of The Manufactured Housing Revolution book. You’ve read Bob Stovall’s Online Marketing 1-2-3, Part 1 – the Website and Maria Cucchiara’s Six Reasons to Update Your Current MH Website in this month’s MHMSM.com.

May 2010′s sales figures from MHI show a 16.9% gain on the previous May. Momentum is starting to build. Now is the time to make your commitment to making more sales this month, and the next and the next…

No one else can do it for you.

We believe that Manufactured Housing has a very bright future. Market conditions are coming to favor the industry. See Ken Rishel‘s Why Does Globalization Favor Manufactured Housing? in the July issue of MHMSM.com for more on that.

Read the two articles mentioned previously… again, if you’ve read them already. Internalize what is being said. Then, take action! Without action, even the grandest plans will come to nought.

It’s said that “nothing happens until a sale is made.” The sale is the root – the production, delivery, installation, usage and service are the fruits.

Here at MHMSM.com, we have been planting seeds for nine months. In that short period of time, our website, podcasts, blogs and special reports have drawn huge numbers of readers from the industry in the U.S. and around the world.

We score extremely well in Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) for keywords relevant to our industry.

Page one positions 2, 2b and 5 held by us for keyword “manufactured housing online marketing.

Retailers and communities note: we can do the same for you.

We can build – or re-build – your website. We can add on a blog (ask us why this can be vital). We can run your email list for you. We can handle your social networking. We can create a comprehensive eMarketing program to boost your Search Engine ranking in your local market.

Now is the time to get started.

The Manufactured Housing REVOLUTION.

Make it your’s – make it now!