More and more business owners have started to recognize that Google is no longer providing all of the keyword data that it used to within Google Analytics. If you monitor your website analytics regularly, you may have noticed that your Keyword report is showing more (not provided) than other keywords. This has search engine marketers and business owners more than a little concerned! Why aren't these words being provided, and what can we do about it?

For most businesses, implementation of a blog is a core component of a content marketing strategy that is designed to attract more and more visitors who can be educated through blog posts and converted into customers. While the creation of great, compelling content is a key aspect of that strategy, it's also extremely important that your blog is optimized for search engines. The best blog post in the world is worth nothing if no one knows about it and can't find it!

Every time you publish a new blog post or article, it includes a title or headline. How much time do you spend thinking about that headline? If you're like most business owners, you probably only spend a couple of minutes. It's the content of your blog itself that's most important, right? Wrong! The fact is, most of your potential readers will decide whether or not to read your article based SOLELY on your headline! On average, 8 out of 10 people will read headline copy, but just 2 out of 10 will read the rest. Just as magazines spend considerable effort making their covers compelling to readers, you too must devote sufficient time to making your headlines even better. Here are some things to keep in mind.

It's no longer enough to have an ad in the yellow pages. Direct mail advertising, leaflets, radio ads, billboards and television - who can afford all that? Cold calling and direct email campaigns can work, but they're time-consuming and difficult to target.

If your business depends on local customers, it is becoming increasingly critical that your business establish an effective presence online that takes advantage of local search engines and directories and methods. 90% of Americans are now using the internet to shop for goods and services, and 65% of them are using their smart phones. Businesses who aren't taking advantage of these facts are missing out on potential business! The good news is, it's not expensive or time consuming to get listed locally. Here are three methods every business should implement immediately.

Bounce Rate is a term that you may have seen on your website's Google Analytics report, or heard about from your web designer when talking about search engine optimization. The importance of bounce rate as a measurement of how effective your website and marketing materials are cannot be understated. It's important enough that we will review what bounce rate is and what you can do to improve your site's "stickiness" for better SEO and more traffic conversion.

According to Google Analytics, Bounce Rate is the percentage of bounced visits (i.e. visits in which the person left your site from the entrance page). Bounce Rate is a measure of visit quality and a high Bounce Rate generally indicates that site entrance (landing) pages aren't relevant to your visitors. Bounce Rate is different from Exit Rate, which refers to visitors who leave your site from a particular page when coming to that page from somewhere else within our site.

Generally, if a potential customer wants to find your business website on the internet, there are two methods available to them. First, they can use a search engine like Google to type in your business name or some other keywords associated with you and your business, and see if your website comes up in the search results. The second method is to use a directory. A directory is a website that simply catalogs and lists other websites and businesses. Directories catagorize listings by location and type of business so that users can find what they're looking for easily. Users can also search within a directory.

Every business and website needs to make sure that they are listed in search engines and directories. It doesn't matter how great a website design you have, if customers cannot find your site, you will not earn revenue.

The focus of every Search Engine Optimization effort should be to target a specific set of keywords, but how does a small business owner go about deciding which words and phrases to include? We'll outline what it means to have targeted keywords, how to go about getting them, and where to use them, so that you can make sure that your website, and your web content, is optimal.