Web Marketing and SEO Groups

The Green Bay web marketing and SEO (search engine optimization) group met on Wednesday morning, 07 November 2007, at ITT-Tech.

There were representatives from three web/marketing/IT companies as well as a number of people interested in optimizing the marketing and SEO performance of their websites. Wednesday's session was a small group discussion format where the meeting participants got to know each other a bit, then discuss various aspects of SEO.

Mike S. gave a demonstration of how he goes about choosing keywords using the Wordtracker tool. Wordtracker has both free and paid tools for doing keyword research. The free tool can be used for as long as you want at no charge. The paid Wordtracker tool is designed for people who spend a lot of money on ads for their website, people who are willing to invest some money in tools that will help them optimize their site for organic searches, or people whose business is web site design and seach engine optimization.

The paid tool can be purchased in several time commitments (as of Nov 2007):

1. $299 per year
2. $59 per month
3. $30 per week

If you are interested in seeing the capabilities of the paid Wordtracker tool, but aren't sure if it's worth the cost, try the free 30 day trial.

In addition to Wordtracker, there are many other keyword research tools available online. Do a Google search for "keyword tools" or "keyword research tools", or read over the keyword suggestions on the WSMS wiki.

Another topic discussed at the web marketing and SEO meeting on Tuesday was blogs. One of the primary benefits of writing a blog with respect to web marketing and SEO is that it helps you bring fresh content to your website. If you already post fresh content on your website at least two times per week, you don't need a blog just to keep your site content fresh. However, you may still want to write a blog to establish a dialogue with your customers or to provide a convenient forum for you to communicate important points about your organization.

One format for a blog is to incorporate it into the organization's current website if the content management system for the website will allow that. Incorporating it into the website will allow the blogs pages to have the same domain name as your website. That will increase the amount of time your site visitors spend on the site, and therefore is more likely to achieve the goals of your main website.

If you use a blog format which hosts your blog somewhere other than on your main organization website, blog readers are less likely to continue spending time on your website after they read the most recent blog post or other blog posts which are of interest to them. However, having a blog separate from your website may also bring new visitors to your organization's main website.

If your current website cannot easily add a blog, you can quickly set up one for free using Blogger, WordPress or a number of other tools. If you use this route and have a blog that is hosted for free, your blog will have a website address that ends with a name specified by the organization hosting the blog, such as http://xxxxx.blogspot.com or http://xxxxx.wordpress.com, where you have chosen the xxxxx portion of the blog website address.

There was also a general discussion at the Wednesday meeting about what topics people would like to discuss at the monthly web marketing and SEO meetings in northeast Wisconsin. If you have an interest in free, informal discussions about web marketing and SEO, come to one of these meetings to see if they will meet your needs. The next meeting scheduled for Neenah is on Thursday, 15 November 2007, at Generations Coffee Shop on Commercial Street. The next Green Bay meeting will be on Wednesday, 05 December 2007, at ITT-Tech Green Bay. If Green Bay and Neenah are not convenient meeting locations for you, and you'd like to start a web marketing and SEO group in your area, contact us at bwaldron [att] gmail {dott} com. We'll be glad to help you get a group going in your community.

Hope to see you soon at a northeast Wisconsin web marketing and SEO meeting!

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