I'm sure many of you are familiar with this but I thought a little reminder couldn't hurt.

I've noticed that when I click on your signatures that many of you do not make use of your web site's title tags. If you click on your home page and it says "home" in the blue bar at the very top of your screen then you are not taking advantage of a very important piece of your marketing puzzle.

I encourage you to read the SEO section of the forum and take particular notice of any threads that discuss Title tags and Description tags.

There are over 100 million active websites on the internet. If you want your website to be found you *must* take advantage of your title tags. It's not a cure-all but it sure puts you ahead those of who don't use them.

I know that some of you don't consider SEO to be an important part of your marketing strategy *today*. But, as the virtual assistant industry becomes more mainstream, prospective clients will begin to search for your services. One of the ways you can tell them what you do is by putting it in your title tags. The search engines place a lot of importance on title tags and use them as a way to decide what your site is about. This should be a part of your marketing strategy.

Okay, I'll get down off my soapbox now.

__________________
Shari Sultana
Online Business Manager (marketing for retail ecommerce)

Yes! This is so true Shari (I'm on that soapbox almost every day ) - nearly a whopping 100% of the sites that our members ask for reviews and feedback on in the Website Reviews section are missing their page titles. This is such an easy thing to implement on a website and is really like 'free' market placement when done right.

__________________

Hm...I'm definitely guilty of not using title tags. Thanks for pointing this out; I'm going to brush up on my SEO knowledge and get those tags added! Couldn't hurt, right?

__________________
Tammi Metzler ~ The Write Associate
Free call: "How to Write Email Subject Lines That Grab Attention!"

Tammi: It will definitely *not* hurt.

__________________
Shari Sultana
Online Business Manager (marketing for retail ecommerce)

Could someone recommend a great book about SEO and internet marketing that is easy to read and understand for the newbies. I've got some learning to do.

Thanks,

Cindy

Hi Cindy,

I have Aaron Wall's SEO book, which is great, but it's $79. (It's also over 300 pages and I don't have time to finish it yet) I haven't read "Internet Marketing for Dummies" but those books are usually pretty good and easy to read.

I learned by reading forums like this and forums specifically geared to SEO. Just google SEO forums and you'll find them. I don't think I'm allowed to provide links to other forums so I won't.

Blogs are good too. Check out Aaron Walls seobook.com blog. It's great. There is also seomoz.com and for internet marketing especially I like hubspot.com and marketingprofs.com

And, of course, Seth Godin. Just google his name and you'll find tons. He's got a real "modern" perspective on marketing in general. And, he thinks like I do, which is one of the reasons I like him so much.

And, of course, check out our SEO section at this forum first. Oh, and the google blog.

Happy reading

__________________
Shari Sultana
Online Business Manager (marketing for retail ecommerce)

Yes I fully agree with Shari Aaron Wall's book is THE book on SEO right now - his blog is an amazing resource as well.

__________________

Thanks ladies for the referrals. I'll be doing some reading tonight.

Have a nice day!

Cindy