Google yourself: SEO tips for beginners

As you can probably assume by looking at our lack of blog posts in the last week or two, we've been busy here at Weidert Group. So, since I'm facing the same challenge today, I'll keep this short and sweet.

Google Yourself.


Okay, I'll give you a little more than that...
As online branding becomes more and more important, the effort you put into search engine optimization (SEO) and PR 2.0 needs to become a marketing necessity. Start your quest for SEO perfection by Googling your company, your staff, your competitors and keywords your customers might use to find your product or service online. Once you have a good idea of what people are seeing (and find a photo you never thought was online!), get a plan in place on how to improve your listing and the amount of information someone can get about your company from a single search.

Here are a few beginner tips to get started:
1. Start a blog
2. Evaluate your Web site for keywords using Google's Keyword Tool
3. Offer to write articles on other Web sites and blogs that link to your site
4. Include keyword descriptions on your images
5. Be smart about your link titles
6. Include a site map on your Web site
7. Publish social press releases using a service such as pitchengine.com
8. Regularly update an online newsroom with events and press releases
8. Continuously add fresh content on your site
9. Keep the blog you started in tip #1 updated every few days
10. Google yourself, your company and your keywords frequently to see how you're doing

For example, below is an image of what users see when they Google "Weidert Group". From one search, visitors already know that Weidert Group is on Twitter & Facebook, had a recent promotion, hired a new employee, and have a blog - all before they even get to weidert.com.