We’d like to take this opportunity, to comment on this topic.
How hard can it be to obey the law, be a safe and responsible driver? Red light running and other distracted driving behavior continues to be a very serious problem throughout the United States… and Arizona.

Let’s strive for less sudden brake lights, less incidents, and more awareness. Thank you for your efforts, Frank. Keep it up. You can support Frank Hinds’ cause at www.redmeansstop.org

On the other hand, a thorough and well thought out campaign that targets on-site as well as off-site optimization can be costly. Most SEO firms charge heavily for their services and rightfully so as true search engine optimization can be resource intensive and time consuming.

So, what is the small business or individual to do? You don’t want to get caught in a scheme nor do you have the budget to pay for a huge campaign. Well, just because you are a small business does not mean your search engine presence has to be small. The best option for someone with a low budget is to do basic SEO in-house and try to make your website as search engine friendly as possible.

Here are the basics, and even some free resources to help you out:

Keyword Research
I cannot stress how important this is. Keyword research is the basis for your SEO campaign’s success. You are looking for “diamond in the rough” keywords. These are keywords that get a heavier search volume, yet they have relatively little competition. After finding the most significant keywords, half the battle is won. For guidance, follow this mini-guide below, and leverage the recommended tools.

• Get to know your target market. How would they think? What would they search for? Compile a list.

• Use keyword tools to determine relative search volumes and trends. A few great tools include:
  
  Google Adwords
  MSN AdCenter
  Wordtracker

• Take these new keywords and now check for competition
• A quick search in Google or Yahoo to get a feel for the competition. Use quotes and/or brackets to view sites that are actually vying and competing for those exact keyword phrases. Why compete against the “800 lb gorilla”, when in certain instances merely making a keyword plural will give you more search volume and less competition.

• Finalize your keyword list by taking the ones with higher volumes of search and less competition. This will essentially become your “word checklist” to be dispersed throughout your website.

Content
Search engines cannot survive without content, it is their food supply and they eat it up. Content is king with SEO. Utilizing the keywords you have just found through your keyword research you create new and unique content for your site. Another option is to “sprinkle” these keywords into existing content whenever possible.

Meta Tags
Even though meta tags are cliché and over-used, they are still an important factor in providing proper information about a web page to search engine spiders. If this were the fashion industry, the title tags would be the timeless classic. At a minimum, make sure that you have the proper title tags optimized with your keywords. The description meta tag is still relevant and something to consider.

W3C Validation
CSS and HTML should be formatted according to the W3C standards because many search engines cannot properly index a site that has serious HTML errors. Make sure that your site is properly built according to the most recent webs standards. To do this, you can use the W3C Validation Tool.

Sitemap Creation
Sitemaps help search engines spiders understand precisely what your site is about and the hierarchy of the web pages. It gives them a link structure to follow. If your current site does not automatically generate this, you can use this Free Online Google Sitemap Generator to create one yourself.

Search Engine submission
Once you have completed the aforementioned steps, the site should be ready to submit to the major search engines. Here are the links…

http://www.google.com/addurl.html

http://www.bing.com/docs/submit.aspx

http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/in/free/request

Web Analytics
Web analytics measure the behavior of visitors to a website. You can use these tools to validate your keyword research. Are your keywords climbing the engine rankings? Are they brining in new visitors? Most importantly, are they attracting visitors that convert? There are plenty of free web analytics software and services available to help you reap the fruits of your SEO labor. Google Analytics is one of the better tools.

The bottom line here is don’t fall for an SEO scam nor pay prices that you really cannot afford. Here are the essentials (hopefully provide value for you) with provided resources. If there’s something that I’ve missed here, or if you have any additional tips for readers, let us know your comments.

This year marks the 30th anniversary, and we are more than happy to be working with the local chapter, offering in-kind support, and celebrating their successes! Max Fose is a Board Member of the Make-A-Wish Foundation®, and has always believed in supporting non-profits.

In celebration of the foundation’s birthday, Max and the IWS team are giving their time and services to amplify community engagement – developing web applications and advertising assurance.

Max says, “…We all have a responsibility to give back. We’re fortunate enough to be in a position that we can.”

The Make-A-Wish Foundation® of Arizona will continue the fulfillment of its mission for years to come. To all the children, the staff and volunteers… Happy 30th Anniversary.

We have been working with the alliance to create a bolder more effective site to further bring awareness to the cause.

RMS users can read about how the Traffic Safety Alliance came about, learn about the laws, watch videos and have the ability to reach out to others for support or make a donation.

Visit www.redmeansstop.org today!

AzAEYC’s members can take full advantage of the resources provided, including information on early childhood development, or searching for local events.  When asked his opinion of the new site, Naomi Karp, President of AzAEYC said, “I think the web site is beautiful. It’s beyond my wildest expectations.”

Visit www.AzAEYC.net today!

As email marketing is constantly evolving, bigger is not necessarily better. You can have a list 5 million strong, but if you’re simply hitting send with the same message to everyone, you’re just wasting time and money. Sure, there are some instances where you have a message that is strong enough to send to your entire database, but this isn’t always the case.

Having a large list to communicate with your audience is a good thing. But knowing who is in that list is even more important. It’s about getting beyond the normal demographics such as age, location and gender. Your creative team can write and design a great email, but if it’s not getting to the right audience, then it’s not a great message.

Segmenting your database into smaller lists helps cut out the clutter and gets you to those who really want to interact with your message. With today’s technology, segmenting your email list is easier than ever. You just have to figure out what it is you’re looking for. The goal of this process is to improve your knowledge or your database.

Do you have a segment comprised of those who opened your email versus those who haven’t? You should. What about a segment of those who clicked on a link in your email? You should. Starting with these very basic segments, you can begin to drill down and understand that each person is unique from the millions of others in your database.

But it doesn’t stop there.

Once you have this basic data recorded, continue segmenting the list based on your actionable data as you continue to send your email messages. As more data comes in and more segments are defined, be sure to create different messages for these unique segments and watch your open rates and click rates climb.

One simple way to further define your list is by sending an easy survey email. Knowing what you want to find out about your list will determine what the survey is about. You can ask about email preferences, their thoughts on a particular issue or product, or anything else that will get your list to where you need it. Asking your audience what types of messaging they want to receive – and listening to their responses – goes a long way to achieving your goals.

Understanding your audience and their email tendencies is essential to delivering the right message every time. Yes, it takes time to figure out where everyone fits in to your database and yes, that database will be perpetually evolving. There will be many failures along the way as you continue to test and re-test using different messages to different segments, but this extra effort now will only help later.