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Search Engine Optimization – A different perspective

The best source of qualified, targeted traffic is search engine traffic. But millions are still unaware of this fact. The most baffling part is even people involved in an online business are unknown to this fact. Some would say, there would be no SEO companies if most knew it. That’s a truth too.

Where does a website go wrong in being search engine friendly ?  The answer to this is that it goes wrong as soon as it is started by a web designer. The lack of knowledge or complete illiteracy of SEO on the part of most web designers is the key problem. The second step where the website owners go wrong is the choice of an experienced and skillful seo expert. Tracking down someone good is not that difficult. The key to finding someone with reasonable skill is clear communication. When you interact with someone, you will find out the expertise level, the experience, search engine parameters and algorithm knowledge and also some references. These should be enough to verify YOUR seo expert. A couple of minor but sometimes reflective aspects are – mode of payments and his own website rankings. While varied mode of payments reflect an established company or individual, his own website ranking should provide a lot of insight in to his seo skills.

Search engine optimization at the inception of the website or designing of the website is the best way to go about. There are a lot of optimization companies which offer web designing and development. A lot of people actually opt to get a site designed by a seo company in order to make it search engine friendly right from the start. Why not all ?

Tags: search engine optimization, seo

Reasons To Ignore Toolbar Pagerank Updates

There seems to be this hysteria around Google and its Toolbar updates.  Maybe it relates to webmasters and web designers thinking that once Google make this fabled toolbar update that their website will magically jump up in the SERP’s.  Well I cannot say this clearly enough but if this is what you believe then you will be sadly disappointed.  Google just don’t work this way.

I see many, many articles, posts and blog comments by interested onlookers and self-declared SEO experts about the upcoming, and according to some people, well overdue, toolbar pagerank update.  I have one quote I would like to share with you, from Matt Cutts who is one of the head Google Search Engineers, “Toolbar Pagerank updates are a non-event at Google”.  The main reason Matt says this is because pagerank is updated constantly and the toolbar pagerank is only a snapshot of the real pagerank.  So this being the case once the snapshot of the real page rank is taken and assigned to the toolbar database it will have no affect on how Google actually view or rank the website in the SERP’s.  Fretting and stressing about where the toolbar pagerank update has gone is pointless because your web page already has a pagerank assigned to it, you just can’t see a little green bar.  It’s just so teasing by Google isn’t it!!

So, what should we do now that we have decided that checking your toolbar pagerank and those terribly inaccurate pagerank predictors is a waste of our time?

Well, find some good articles on SEO.  Read them.  Find more.  Read them.  Absorb as much information as you can about SEO and online marketing.  Read about the website language your website is coded in.  A common language nowadays is PHP.  Research keywords and how to find good keyword phrases.  Take a proactive approach and make some modifications to your site that you now know are correct SEO techniques.

If you have already got web pages in the SERP’s then look for where you have 2 pages with 1 indented and maybe make some small modifications to the page that is the indented result and experiment with it a little.  Keep a diary of your changes so that if you need to trace back to what changes you made you can.  If they get a positive result then you can apply the exact same changes across other pages or if they are negative in the SERP’s then you can start again from where you were before.

Give at least a week or two in-between making changes so that you can know exactly what affect your change had in the SERP’s.  Make only one change per page so that you can monitor that particular change vs. SERP’s rankings.

Tags: Internet Marketing, Melbourne, Online Marketing, Search Engine Marketing, search engine optimization, SEM, seo, Web Marketing, website marketing

Google is quickly changing

With the big buzz of Novembers fall within Google comes a newly indexed data-base…

Did Google do something bad to our great placements? No I don’t think so and here’s why.

While people are screaming for help and wondering what went wrong, I’ve noticed a MASSIVE shift in page ranking.

If you look at top placements at the moment, according to Scroogle, most of the ecommerce search terms got hit really hard. A lot of the top 100 placements were vanishing and quickly.

Now on the other hand, less impressive and especially smaller ranking sites have been bumped up top. I firmly believe this is all because of Google’s “refreshing” their memory and possibly starting to take on web site ID’s with 5 characters plus.

What I mean by that is the ability for Google to index more than 3.2 Billion web sites. Adding another character to the already large 4Id’s dedicated to each site indexed will allow Google to add a whole other list of sites within their data-base.

Now I could be wrong on that one but here’s another phenomenon going on. I’ve been talking to other ecommerce web sites and helping them gain better rankings. It’s been a while since they’ve had their Page Rank change within their site. Working real hard as I instructed, they have followed all the rules and attempted to boost their page ranks.

Up until now, nothing has changed and people are loosing their ranks within Google since Novembers algorithm change.

Around a week ago I’ve been getting calls left right and center about page ranks boosting like I’ve never seen.

The previous scare before this November change went something like this. Google stopped indexing more than 3 levels within your site. Ex. www.yoursite.com/level1/level2/level3

I affirm to you this: its pure baloney, more sites now have better PR ratings within their entire site than ever before. I believe that Google is rewarding most great resources online before taking on more listings within their index.

As towards se placements, I also took a major hit for my better search engine placements but a couple of days ago that started to all change. It almost seems as though Google wanted to take out the top placement companies in order to thoroughly crawl through all their information before letting them get back in the game.

I say this because one of my top placements was sitting at #1 for a long time. Since this November change, it immediately dropped to #181 and didn’t move one single number for over 3 weeks. To my knowledge, that’s a little strange. All of a sudden, my site stats recorded Google browsing through all my 600+ pages and presto, my site is back in the game, just like that.

In Conclusion:

It seems to me that we’re all just lined up to sign an application for better search engine placements. The question isn’t if your site will get back in shape, it’s a question of when your number will be called.

Have a little faith and a little patience and you too will rise again! Just keep doing what you’ve been doing all along and don’t worry about falling down. The ones who get back up are always the ones on top in the end.

Best of luck to you!

Tags: google changes, google search engine strategy, seo

Five Common Myths About Search Engine Optimization

Picture this scene, an adolescent boy walks into a barber shop and says to the barber, “Don’t touch me, I’m only here because my mom forced me.” Search engine optimizers are sometimes put into the position of the barber. They are knowledgeable and willing to work on their client’s site, but the client doesn’t want any modifications done to the text that is visible on her web pages. This kind of dilemma occurs due to general misconceptions about search engine optimization. Let’s look at these misconceptions.

1. SEO only involves writing meta tags and working on “invisible” code

Many people want to get a high ranking for various keywords or keyword phrases, but if you look at the text on their web pages you can hardly find these vital words. They come to a search engine optimizer and think that he or she will sprinkle these words into the meta tags and it will work like magic. This is a major misunderstanding.

It is true that your main keywords and key phrases should be in your title tag and your description meta tag, and even in the keywords meta tag, but they must also appear on the page itself and they must appear in some strategic places on that page. Some clients say, “But I like the way it looks now.” You may like the way it looks, but the search engines will not recognize that your page is truly about Electronic Widgets unless these words appear in headlines on the page, in the opening paragraph, in the file or domain name in link text and in the body text of your page.

So, by all means if you already have copy that works, that can convert visitors into buyers or otherwise accomplish the purposes of your site, keep it. But you should also be ready to listen to what the optimizer has to say about modifications that will enable search engines to select your site when a potential buyer makes a query for your key words or phrases.

2. Search Engine Optimization is Tricking the Search Engines

Some clients say, “Don’t touch the visible copy but put in the modifications invisibly.” Using invisible text is something that can get you banned from a search engine. The main purpose of search engine optimization is to give your website the best possible chance to come up in good positions when someone makes a query for your keywords or key phrases. The key to doing this is to design web pages and write copy that is intelligible to search engines, without sacrificing the experience and understanding of your end-users, the people who visit your site. So, don’t ask your SEO professional to try to trick the search engines, but work with him or her to present your website in the best possible way.

3. Search Engine Optimization deals mainly with onsite modifications

Even if your website is well designed, has proper meta tags and has keyword-rich text, this alone does not guarantee that your site will rank high in competitive queries. All of these factors, design, meta tags, and copy, are on-site factors. Search engines certainly take them into consideration, but they also value off-site factors such as how many high quality or authoritative websites link to you. This means that hand-in-hand with your on-site optimization you and your promotion team will have to embark on a campaign to get links to your websites coming from websites that are already highly regarded by the search engines and by the public in general.

4. Search Engine Optimization works instantly

Don’t expect to get a flood of traffic right after your site has been optimized. Some search engines work in a fairly rapid manner, but the main search engine at the present moment, Google, is believed to have deliberately put an aging delay into its algorithm. This means that it may take several months before your site makes it into the top results for your particular category, especially if it is a newly created site. During this initial period you will also have to consider using other promotional methods such as pay per click advertising, article marketing, joint ventures, paid advertising in ezines and offline advertising.

5. Search Engine Optimization is Prohibitively Expensive

While it is true that very large organizations, ordering services from the top SEO companies, can end up spending thousands of dollars on their optimization campaigns, search engine optimization can be the most inexpensive and cost-effective option for web site promotion.

If you launch a modest pay per click campaign and pay five cents per click and get 100 clicks per day, then your cost is $5.00 per day or $1825 per year. If you learn how to optimize your pages by yourself you may be able to get natural search engine traffic without paying the pay per click fees. This is in fact what many webmasters do. Or, if you opt for a modest search engine optimization package from a professional you can end up spending less than the pay per click fees.

So the next time you hear one of the myths about search engine optimization don’t accept it blindly.

Tags: myths, search engine optimization, seo

Creative Search Engine Optimization – A Case Study

Search engine optimization this and search engine optimization that. You read and hear about it all day, but what about your site? While there are plenty of articles providing useful information, this article shows you how a real world example met with success. The point of this article is to emphasize creativity when approaching tough optimization situations.

Problems for BusinessTaxRecovery.com

In November of 2004, our firm took on the seo marketing for BusinessTaxRecovery.com. The site was being promoted through offline activities and pay-per-click campaigns. No effort had been made to achieve high rankings in Google, Yahoo or MSN.

Keyword analysis revealed that combinations of the root keywords, “business” and “tax” were going to be difficult to attack. The primary problem concerned government agencies with web sites. The IRS site, for instance, had roughly 9,680 inbound links and an absolute ton of content. State agencies weren’t far behind. The California tax agency site had roughly 7,000 inbound links and, again, tons of content.

For a final nail in the coffin, the client informed us the business was cyclical with the busiest months being January through April when people focused on taxes. The site absolutely had to rank highly during this period. We had two months to achieve results.

Gulp!

The Solution for BusinessTaxRecovery.com – 140,000 Hits

After staring at a Salvador Dali painting for a few hours, we came up with a solution. It involved a combination of internal site page focus, meta tag optimization, link exchange and massive article promotion. The results produced 145,828 hits from January through April, with only 5,000 coming from the pay-per-click program.

The first step was to change the focus of the site from the home page to the article page. Jumping the tax agency sites on keywords such as business tax and taxes was impossible in two months, so we didn’t even try. Instead, we decided to focus on the keyword phrase “business tax articles” and bring people into the site through the article page. Meta tags were optimized and a link exchange program undertaken. The key to campaign, however, was a strong article promotion campaign.

Since taxes are confusing, it seemed obvious that an article campaign focusing on tax information would meet with success. Boy, did it. Approximately 35 articles were written, published and submitted to article directories. Since the articles were timely, they were snapped up and published. The articles produced direct traffic to the site as well as numerous inbound links because of the link created in the article byline.

As for the search engines, we focused on everything but Google. We expected nothing from Google because the major content and meta tag changes would take six to eight months to show results per the usual practices of Google. In reality, it didn’t matter. The Yahoo and MSN search engines produced big time.

In mid-January, the site went to number 1 on MSN under “business tax articles.” By the end of January, Yahoo was also listing it as number 1. MSN started listing it at number 1 for “tax articles” in February. The combination of these listings produced a significant amount of traffic, conversions and a very happy client.

Can we go on cruise control now? No! With the end of the tax season, the traffic to the articles page of the site has dropped by 75%. Nobody is looking for tax information after April 15th, so this is hardly surprising. The promotion of the article page was simply a short-term solution to a difficult situation. While it should produce traffic during the first quarter of each subsequent year, it is not a year-around solution.

Over the next six months, we will focus on the long-term goal of jumping over the tax agency sites for keywords such as “business taxes”, etc. It is going to take a lot of patience, but will eventually produce a significant amount of business for the client.

Creativity is often the key to conquering seo situations. Blindly slapping up new meta tags and links isn’t always the best answer. Sometimes, a little pre-emptive consideration can yield amazing results. It did in this case.

Tags: search engine optimization, seo

The Truth about Search Engine Optimization

While the basics of Search Engine Optimization or SEO are pretty much textbook, it isn’t the textbooks that you’re competing with, it’s the competition … who within the most competative markets make it almost impossible to get to that search engine position of being number one. Discovering the Truth about Search Engine Optimization will require an analysis of every factor of optimization.

Professional SEO

Profession Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is more than simply understanding the goal of a website. The real SEO Professional, or real ‘Search Engine Optimizer’, will do extensive query-based keyword research because they know professional optimization needs a strong keyword foundation.

SEO professionals ask the all important question … Who is the “target audience” or the “target market” … and then, they work to create a website that brings their content to that audience through the search engines.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) involves:

-Optimizing every page’s page titles, meta tags, attributes, anchor text and more. – Theming of the primary domain, sub-domains and supporting web properties (such as blogs, forums and companion websites). – Content is king … and paramount to good optimization.

- Search engine friendly GUI navigation (internal linking strategy). – A must have ‘inbound link’ building strategy (external links coming in).

The professional SEO (search engine optimization) knows that if you want to be found in the top of the search results for a competitive keyword term, you have to cover all your search engine optimization basics and more. That means both, exceptional website on-page and external off-page SEO, as well as a fully comprehensive link strategy.

Professional SEO Company

Any Professional SEO worth hiring understands that effective SEO (search engine optimization) constant continuing education because the search engine algorithms and the rules search engines use to position a web page within the search engine results page (serp) are always changing. The search engine most challenging to the SEO professional is Google. Here’s Google’s tips on things to look for in an SEO company:

- Be wary of SEO firms that send you email out of the blue. – No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google. – Be careful if a company is secretive or won’t clearly explain what they intend to do. – You should never have to link to an SEO. – Some SEOs may try to sell you the ability to type keywords directly into the browser address bar. – Choose wisely. – Be sure to understand where the money goes. – Talk to many SEOs, and ask other SEOs if they would recommend the firm you’re considering. – Make sure you’re protected legally.

- Professional SEO Strategy and Conversion

The truly Professional SEO and Search Engine Optimization Company understands that there are other considerations to be kept in mind.

For example, a website must not only be optimized for search engine spider algorithms, but it also has to remain optimized for the visitor as well. Ranking number one in all the major search engines is what gets the visitors to your website, but then the website must convert those visitors into actual sales.

Professional SEO is like Royalty

If content is king, then website design is queen. The combination of the two, if done correctly, will produce results for both your search engine rankings and your revenue. While keyword location, weight (absolute and relative), density, proximity, frequency, keyword targeting … is a important part of the puzzle, how the code for the website is created and the linking strategies are equally considered royalty in the world of the professional optimizer. The knowledge of how best to accomplish that is always changing and that’s why a real SEO professional who is on top of the trends, can be worth gold to the success of your business.

Tags: freelance, keywords, search engine keywords, search engine optimization, seo, seo writer, writer, writing

The Truth about Search Engine Optimization

While the basics of Search Engine Optimization or SEO are pretty much textbook, it isn’t the textbooks that you’re competing with, it’s the competition … who within the most competative markets make it almost impossible to get to that search engine position of being number one. Discovering the Truth about Search Engine Optimization will require an analysis of every factor of optimization.

Professional SEO

Profession Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is more than simply understanding the goal of a website. The real SEO Professional, or real ‘Search Engine Optimizer’, will do extensive query-based keyword research because they know professional optimization needs a strong keyword foundation.

SEO professionals ask the all important question … Who is the “target audience” or the “target market” … and then, they work to create a website that brings their content to that audience through the search engines.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) involves:

-Optimizing every page’s page titles, meta tags, attributes, anchor text and more. – Theming of the primary domain, sub-domains and supporting web properties (such as blogs, forums and companion websites). – Content is king … and paramount to good optimization.

- Search engine friendly GUI navigation (internal linking strategy). – A must have ‘inbound link’ building strategy (external links coming in).

The professional SEO (search engine optimization) knows that if you want to be found in the top of the search results for a competitive keyword term, you have to cover all your search engine optimization basics and more. That means both, exceptional website on-page and external off-page SEO, as well as a fully comprehensive link strategy.

Professional SEO Company

Any Professional SEO worth hiring understands that effective SEO (search engine optimization) constant continuing education because the search engine algorithms and the rules search engines use to position a web page within the search engine results page (serp) are always changing. The search engine most challenging to the SEO professional is Google. Here’s Google’s tips on things to look for in an SEO company:

- Be wary of SEO firms that send you email out of the blue. – No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google. – Be careful if a company is secretive or won’t clearly explain what they intend to do. – You should never have to link to an SEO. – Some SEOs may try to sell you the ability to type keywords directly into the browser address bar. – Choose wisely. – Be sure to understand where the money goes. – Talk to many SEOs, and ask other SEOs if they would recommend the firm you’re considering. – Make sure you’re protected legally.

- Professional SEO Strategy and Conversion

The truly Professional SEO and Search Engine Optimization Company understands that there are other considerations to be kept in mind.

For example, a website must not only be optimized for search engine spider algorithms, but it also has to remain optimized for the visitor as well. Ranking number one in all the major search engines is what gets the visitors to your website, but then the website must convert those visitors into actual sales.

Professional SEO is like Royalty

If content is king, then website design is queen. The combination of the two, if done correctly, will produce results for both your search engine rankings and your revenue. While keyword location, weight (absolute and relative), density, proximity, frequency, keyword targeting … is a important part of the puzzle, how the code for the website is created and the linking strategies are equally considered royalty in the world of the professional optimizer. The knowledge of how best to accomplish that is always changing and that’s why a real SEO professional who is on top of the trends, can be worth gold to the success of your business.

Tags: freelance, keywords, search engine keywords, search engine optimization, seo, seo writer, writer, writing

All Link Types and SEO

This article covers a much discussed topic in the SEO community. Also, clients and often site owners come up with questions about what links to get, and how to get them. Note that I will not consider reciprocal links here, because of better alternatives, and because their effectiveness only applies to a small number of sites, who use them under 10% of their overall link ratio. I will review the main types you want to get for your site.

The natural one-way links.
This one is solely based in good content and resources. This is the safest method of link building available as far as search engines, which look at the “intent” of links. But it is also the slowest. If your site is new, then as part of its launch, submit it to niche web directories. Start with a few highly trusted directories, but do not have more than 10-15% of your overall links coming from them. Don’t overlook industry-specific directories that may be paid or unpaid. These usually send highly qualified traffic and can be a real bargain. Directories will get you site many natural one-way links, at a natural speed of growth. This combination of type and speed is very beneficial. Look for sites that would benefit from offering users your content.

Linkbaiting, or link bait.
This one is not easy, and involves creativity. But it is worth every effort. Linkbaiting refers to content, videos, images or anything on your site that is created with the intention of increasing links to it. It is highly effective in getting links, probably the cheapest too, based on the cost of the “bait” you use, has no negative effects from the search engines, at least not for the moment, since all links generated look natural. When complemented by social bookmarking, the networks associated with these links will add even more value to them.

Paying for links, or paid links.
These links can have great short-term search benefits. These are good mainly for sites that have tons of pages with content, and have been well established online for years. In addition, these sites also have tons of natural links to them, again because they had been well established online for years. These are not recommended for new sites. Look for sites that are highly on topic with yours, and in complementary niches. A very important factor in the evaluation of these links, like any other, is age. And the latest “Google Slap” effect were sites fall pass the top 30 in the listings, is affecting primarily those which do heavy link buying.

Bad links and their effects.
Outbound links play a big role in the way search engines determine who your “neighborhood” is. Bad neighborhoods will affect your search engine rankings. Things like FFA (Free For All) link pages, links farms, etc, fall in this category. Note that this has nothing to do with your pages going into the supplemental index. That is not the kind of penalty these links cause for your site. And the amount of bad links considered is a big one. A small amount of them would not trigger a penalty, but make sure that your site is not related in any way to those link patterns.

Tags: bad links, link bait, Link Building, link building seo, One way links, paid links, reciprocal links, search engine optimization, seo

Affiliate Programs And SEO

While good SEO skills will get your page noticed by search engines by themselves there other tricks to help increase their effectiveness. Affiliate programs can be a good way to increase your website’s own SEO attributes. There are different types of affiliate programs. An older one would be the old banner concept which predates pay-per-click. Google’s Adwords is a modern incarnation of this where by people can profit from Google’s pay-per-click business. Let’s look at some of these.

Not all affiliate programs have to be for profit. There are many people who are just looking to get traffic to their sites by cooperating with other sites. Just as a strong page on your website can help increase the rankings of your other pages rankings on affiliates’ sites can do the same. Don’t confuse affiliates with guest books or link pages. An affiliate is working with some kind of service or business to make a profit so it is a function of commerce. This will help with the search engines’ rankings. Search engines look for link pages and don’t give them a very high ranking so they wouldn’t help you very much. However since affiliate pages are used for commerce they are going to have a much stronger ranking. Affiliates can act as a team just like the pages on your site.

Another point to consider is that pages that are involved with affiliate programs are going to be set up well in order to profit from them. So this is analogous to strong members of a team making a colossal team effort. Enough strong pages driving traffic to your site is lie diverting a river to a drought stricken town.

Fortunately affiliate programs are easy to find so just keep in mind what kind you would be willing to do for your site. Don’t give yourself more work than you need to.

Tags: Search Engine Marketing, search engine optimisation, search engine optimization, seo

Conflicting SEO Expectations

SEO is undisputedly the best method for generating traffic and profits. That being said, you need to understand the inherent conflict that can arise with SEO.

Conflicting SEO Expectations

SEO is both the technical effort and art of getting your site ranked highly in search results on Google, Yahoo and MSN. There are two competing factors in the effort, time and volume of traffic, which can lead to clients having unreasonable expectations.

The conflict giving rise to misunderstood SEO expectations deal with keywords.  Obviously, an optimization program is designed to get you high in the rankings on various keywords. The problem, of course, is the more traffic a keyword produces, the higher the number of sites competing for rankings under the phrase. Inevitably, this translates to a longer period of time required to get top rankings.

Obviously, most clients want to obtain top rankings as quickly as possible. The best way to do this is identify those keywords that have decent traffic, but few sites competing for rankings. In such a campaign, clients see results relatively quickly, but they have fallen into a trap. Even if they go into the number one position across the top three search engines, they have limited the amount of traffic they can receive. This leads to frustration as revenues are effectively capped.

A proper optimization plan should focus on both short and long term rankings. When laying out the site, the home page and other centralized pages should be devoted to keywords with monstrous amounts of traffic that will require a lot of time to obtain top rankings on. To counterbalance this, additional pages should be built focusing on keywords for which there is less traffic, but for which high rankings can be acquired relatively quickly.

The exact time periods on this approach are entirely dependent on the subject matter of the site and the keywords involved. For a brand new site, one can expect to see rankings on MSN within a month, Yahoo in four to six months and Google in six to nine months. For an established site, the figures will be shorter but it is dependent upon the results of the keyword research in the specific field.

Understanding optimization is the key to having reasonable SEO expectations. A mix of short and long term goals is the best method of attack in nearly every situation.

Tags: google, Internet Marketing, marketing, MSN, rankings, seo, serps, Yahoo