Christmas in July, Part 1: Prepare Now to Boost This Year’s Holiday Sales

Beth Bijou, Director of Marketing, TextLinkBrokers.com

Here in the middle of summer, in the middle of a recession, the Holiday Season is probably the last thing on your mind. But it shouldn’t be. If you want this Christmas to be one for the record books, you need to start preparing your website for the rush of shoppers now. And it’s not just ecommerce sites that should be preparing. Consumer spending increases on a wide range of products/services during the holiday season.

Think I’m crazy? Consider this: Last year, Amazon.com had its best holiday shopping season in its 14-year history¹. While other vendors were suffering, even closing shop, Amazon’s profits kept on going up and up. Why? Because they got ready for the onslaught of shoppers that they knew would be looking for great online deals. They optimized their site. They researched their discounts and offers for what they knew they were going to sell. And they beefed up their servers to handle increased traffic.

So what can you do to get your site ready?

1. Get an SEO audit
   An SEO audit will give you the high-priority insights you need to organically optimize your site and top landing pages. Most SEO changes can take at least two months to see results on the search engines, so audit your site now! See this month’s promotion on our SEO audit service.
2. Build Links to your optimized pages
   Search engines look for links to your pages in order to determine their value. Pages with the right kinds of links will rank higher and quicker than pages without. TextLinkBrokers.com specializes in link building, using over 20+ methods.
3. Employ usability testing now
   Use a testing tool or service to determine which layout, images, color, wording and other variables work best to increase sales. Then apply the findings to all of your pages, if possible. This will ensure a boost in your conversion rate when the holiday season begins. Ask us about our Landing Page Optimization Services.

If the 2009 holiday season is at all similar to previous years, you have only two months or so until the shopping waves begin.

Online shopping studies of 2008 found that the week of Halloween marked the beginning of increased conversion rates. Online retail sales rose and fell throughout November, spiked again the week of Cyber Monday (December 1-7), and then began the annual descent through Christmas day.

There is no time to waste. If you want increased holiday sales this year, the time to act is now. You still have a chance to hold the top-sales trophy, but if you delay even another week, you may have to pass again until next year.

¹ Source: Reuters (http://www.reuters.com/article/businessNews/idUSTRE4BP1UJ20081226?sp=true)

Don’t miss our July sales promotion! It’s right below the TLB Update!

Advanced SEO Technique:
SEO Piggybacking with Content Silos

Jarrod Hunt, Founder, TextLinkBrokers.com

Let’s discuss a fairly complex and powerful SEO technique that we have been using for years. It’s very effective in helping our clients to rank for their most competitive keywords. That technique is a combination of “SEO Piggybacking” and “Content Silo Development.” While some professional SEOs have heard of one or both of these concepts, it is rare when they are correctly utilized – and even rarer when they are combined.

First, some definitions: SEO Piggybacking is a method of placing content on a site other than your own in order to rank those pages in the search engines. There are several reasons you would want to do this. One is in order to benefit from the authority status of the site hosting the content; another is to allow you to rank for a particular keyword multiple times. This in turn increases coverage. Piggybacking is also used in reputation management in order to “move down” negative search results from the first page.

Content Silos, aka Keyword Silos, interlink a group of closely related web pages (of the same or similar subject matter/keywords) in order to create a themed section of content. Similar to chapters in a book, closely related subject areas are grouped together in order to provide overall support to the entire chapter. When calculating rankings for web pages, search engines reward pages that are grouped in such a fashion. The idea is to create a main page that links to supporting pages, and to have those supporting pages link back to the main page. The main page is often optimized for a broad keyword, such as “Air Conditioning.” Meanwhile, the supporting pages elaborate on the main keyword, using long tail keywords such as “Air Conditioning Tips and Tricks” or “Air Conditioning Systems” or “Phoenix Air Conditioning Repair.” (Note: As I am writing this, it is 115 degrees in my hometown of Phoenix, AZ ….a great time to be in the air conditioning business here!)

Utilizing either of these techniques can increase your organic exposure on the search engines. However, combining the two is so deadly effective you’ll have competitors wondering if you made a deal with the devil.

Step 1: Find a site that is willing to host your content.

Step 2: Write 4-5 pages of interlinked content.

Step 3: Have the willing site owner upload that content to their site and link to it. At TextLinkBrokers.com, we link to this content from a myriad of external sources as well.

TextLinkBrokers.com provides these Authority Silos as a service. This not only allows us to explode our client’s web pages to the top of the SERPS for their keywords; it also lets us rank multiple times for the same keyword on different sites. The number of rankings is determined by what the client has ordered. All of these pages, of course, link back to the original client site, usually a related subpage or silo home page. These links are just about the most powerful types of links you can build. I’ll leave the subject of powerful links for another article.

I’ve barely scratched the surface in explaining piggybacking and link silos. Feel free to talk to any of our link-building specialists for more information.

TLB UPDATE

TextLinkBrokers Rolls Out New SEO Packages

In its ongoing effort to provide the best in Search Engine Optimization services, TextLinkBrokers.com recently announced the rollout of a new inventory of SEO products and services.

“Search Engine Optimization may be the single most important thing that a company should consider for their site,” Troy Ireland, TextLinkBrokers.com CEO, said. “The more you can fine-tune the power of the links leading to your page, the better that page will rank, and the more opportunities you have for a conversion.”

The SEO packages consist of a one-time audit and five monthly service packages:

SEO Audit

We thoroughly and painstakingly analyze your current website [up to 5 pages]:

• Page titles
• Meta tags
• Content
• Navigation
• Hyperlinks
• Code compliance
• Images and alt tags
• Page load time
• Other on-site factors as determined by unique situations

Suggestions are made as to how to improve your site’s performance by tweaking, altering or even completely changing these factors for maximum effect.

SEO Audit – Implementation

While you are free to implement the findings of our SEO Audit to your website on your own, many companies ask for assistance in implementation and we are more than happy to oblige. We will implement all recommendations made for:

• Title tags
• Meta descriptions
• Meta Keywords
• <H1> tags

Plus, we will install a custom XML sitemap. In addition, if we find anything in the audit that requires actual repair, such as broken links, W3C code errors, etc., we can provide a quote to you for correcting those problems.

Basic SEO Package

SEO is an ongoing process. You don’t just “fix it” then leave it to run. Things change. Regulations on the search engines change. The Basic SEO Package assures you that your page is in the best SEO shape every single day.

In addition to the audit, a Basic SEO Package includes analytics account review and deployment for the first month. This includes developing and placing a Google Analytics account on your site, if needed. We recommend which goals should be tracked, and employ IP filters so that your own visits to the site aren’t counted in the analysis.

We also perform monthly maintenance on your source code and provide in-depth reporting on SEO rank trends and next steps to be taken.

Standard SEO Package

The Standard Package not only keeps you informed on the changes you should be making to your site, but it also keeps you updated on what your competition is doing! Every month, you’ll receive a detailed report of your competitors and the entire market. The report covers such important areas as:

• Your competition’s SEO ranking
• Their keyword usage
• Site structure
• Market and audience focus

Your monthly report will also include a report on indexed pages and inbound link trends.

Premier SEO Package

This is the real package with punch! In addition to everything above, the reports you receive with the premium package include such priority data as:

• Visits to your site
• Conversions
• Bounce rate
• Complete competitive analysis

These SEO packages are just one aspect of the entire menu of products available from TextLinkBrokers.com! Or just give us a call now at 866-489-8546 during regular business hours, 8:00 AM – 5:30 PM PST. Or chat LIVE with us during business hours as well. We’ll have your site in “Search Engine Shape” in no time!

JULY SALE:

SPECIAL OFFER: Save 10%-OFF Our New SEO Audit – Just $539! A $599 Value!

Start preparing your site for the upcoming sales season – and SAVE! Have TextLinkBrokers.com’s SEO experts perform a complete SEO audit of your most essential web pages, so you’re ready for the best holiday season ever!

Call for details.

USE PROMO CODE: SAD-007
Limited time offer. VALID UNTIL: 8/31/09
Not valid with any other offer or previous product orders.

QUALIFIED AS A RESELLER? USE CODE SAD-RS7

Qualified Resellers*, with minimum monthly recurring sales of $2,350.00, get an additional 5% OFF! That’s just $509.00.

*See if you qualify for our generous Resellers Deep Discount Program Today!
Not valid with any other offer or previous product orders.

Talk To TLB!

Since we don’t all live in the same time zone, it’s important for us to stay in touch with you. That’s why you can reach TextLinkBrokers.com any time of day, via one of these convenient methods!

Telephone: Call us toll-free at 866-489-8546, between 8:00 AM and 5:30 PM PST.

Live Chat: Talk to virtually any department at TextLinkBrokers.com during office hours with our live php line!
Just log on to our website, TextLinkBrokers.com, and click the “Live Support & Sales” button or just click here.

Email: Send any questions or comments to customer-service@textlinkbrokers.com. We will answer you promptly, or fill out our Online Form.

Fax: 480-323-2446

Mail: 1580 N. Fiesta Blvd. #102, Gilbert, AZ 85233

Thanks for Your Support and Feedback!

We appreciate all of your input. Without your feedback and feature requests, we may be missing out on what you are looking for in an online survey system. Don’t hesitate to contact us at any time (even if it is just to say hello), and let us know what you would like to see added.

Here’s the link to the survey:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=2PWpummzYfFKN4VrpFwKGw_3d_3d

Coming in Our August Issue:

Christmas in July Part 2: Trimming Your Landing Page Optimization and Search Engine Optimization Trees

Part two of our pre-holiday preparation can be compared to getting out the lights and setting up the tree. Make sure your site is all pretty and attractive before the holidays get here, so you don’t have to set it up at the last minute. We’ll show you how with some fantastic tips on LPO and SEO that you can employ right away!