10 Do’s and Don’ts to Avoid SEO Mistakes
03 2010 Monday
15
By Debbie Everson in SE Optimization
With so much misinformation out there, along with a lack of knowledge about how SEO works, you could end up getting your website banned from the search engines. Learn how to avoid common mistakes with these 10 simple do’s and don’ts.
10. Don’t Use Flash for SEO. Flash websites are very eye-catching but search engines cannot read or index this type of content. If it is impossible to avoid a Flash-centric website and you need search engines to index it, you will have to offer an html version too. Search engines don’t like Flash sites for a reason – a spider can’t read Flash content and therefore can’t index it.
9. Don’t Use too Much JavaScript. Searchbots are not designed to read and understand JavaScript code. If a website contains a few lines of text in the JavaScript code, chances are that searchbots will ignore the entire block of code along with the text. This is true in the case of JavaScript menus. Try to keep the use of JavaScript to a minimum. Alternatively, create an external JavaScript file if it is unavoidable.
8. Do Implement a Robots.txt File. The primary purpose for using a robots.txt file is to gain complete control over the data indexed by the searchbots. Implement a Robots.txt file only when you want to prevent unwanted web pages from being indexed. A robots.txt file is always placed in the root folder of the website where the searchbots can access it easily.
7. Do Target the Correct Keywords. Targeting the wrong keywords is a common mistake many optimizers make and even worse – veteran SEO professionals do it. Marketers select keywords that they think are explanatory of their website but the average searcher does not think in those same keyword terms. Picking the right keywords can increase or decrease traffic to your SEO campaign. A first-class keyword suggestion aid, for example the Google search-based keyword tool will help you find keywords that are appropriate for your site.
6. Do Include Long Tail Keywords. With a million websites competing for short tail keywords, it can take more than 6 months to rank in the top 20 for a competitive keyword. In this case, long tail keywords come in handy. Long tail keywords are more specific and can contain the name of a specific product, brand or city. Ranking for long tail keywords is comparatively easier and the rate of conversion is better than that of short tail keywords. Do include keywords in the title tags.
5. Do Maintain a Uniform URL Structure. If your website is dynamic, then you need to modify the URL structure of the web pages. This maintains uniformity and helps searchbots to understand which page it is indexing. It is very easy to maintain the URL structure in dynamic websites. Blogging platforms like Wordpress provide an option for permalinks. Customized dynamic websites can use URL rewrite in the .htaccess file for the same.
4. Don’t Link to Low Quality Websites. Link building is a very crucial aspect of search engine optimization. Search engines consider the number of incoming links to a website as an indication of their popularity and give them priority rankings. Many beginners fail to realize that it is links from authoritative and quality websites that are important and they mistakenly link to low quality websites for higher rankings. This tactic can cause the credibility of the website to go down with search engines and in some cases, the website may get banned.
3. Do Perform Competitive Intelligence. Before starting your search engine optimization program, visit the competing websites in the top results. Research these types of questions:
A. How many websites are competing for the same keyword? B. How old are the websites in top search engine results pages? C. How many back links do the top ranking websites list? D. What type of social media is used by the competing sites?
2. Do Take Advantage of Google Analytics. 2009 was the year when web analytics gained momentum. Google Analytics came up with advanced metrics and intelligence report features which revolutionized free analytics tools. Companies realized the benefits of using web analytics tools to extract their relevant data. Implement Google Analytics to analyze data and build a 2010 plan to increase traffic and rates of conversion.
1. Do Create Fresh Content. Search engines are famous for penalizing a website for publishing duplicate content. With plagiarism on the rise and availability of content checking tools such as Copyscape, marketers have become more cautious. Yahoo is considered to be among the harshest of all the search engines with regard to this penalty. Add fresh content to your website to help build visitor interest and credibility with the search engines.
These 10 simple do’s and don’ts can help you to avoid making potentially dangerous seo mistakes and ensure your site is indexed and boost rankings.
Debbie A. Everson is the CEO of SearchMar.com, experienced SEO Consultants and Search Engine Optimization Agency to over 2,000 small businesses. Learn about search engine optimization, paid search advertising, social media, and email marketing. Read my SEO Blog for hints and tips. Follow @Searchmar on Twitter.Optimize PDF Files for Maximum SEO Performance
02 2010 Wednesday
24
By Debbie Everson in SE Optimization
A PDF file can be in the form of an eBook, technical document or a brochure. Most of the search engines can read the content and index the PDF files. Currently, there are a number of well optimized PDF files which rank well and are a source of traffic for their website. Listed below are some tips for optimizing PDFs:
1. Use a Text Based PDF Creator:
There are a lot free tools available online with Adobe Acrobat being the best text based PDF creator. If a PDF document is created in an image based program, the search engines will completely ignore it. If the PDF is created using a text based creator like Adobe acrobat, the search engine robots will read and index the text like any other web page.2. Update the Document Title:
The title of the PDF file is as important as the title tag of a web page. The PDF title property tells the search engine robots about the type of content. The most important aspect of the title is that Google uses the text in the title field as the link in the search engine result pages. Thus, the title field should be keyword rich and should not contain random text.3. Complete the document properties:
A PDF file contains many document properties apart from the title field. These are keywords, description, author info, copyright info etc. All the fields must be completed with relevant information. The keyword field should not be stuffed with keywords or remain empty. It has not been proven that the search engines give importance to the keyword field in the document properties. If in future they do, your PDF file will have an advantage over other web pages.4. Link to the PDF File from the Homepage:
The Searchbots will not discover and index the PDF file if it is placed too deep within the website. To ensure that the PDF file gets crawled by the search engines, it should be visibly linked from the home page or any other page which gets crawled regularly. If your aim is to get the PDF in top search engine result pages, then you have to lead the searchbots to it.5. Optimize the content in the PDF File:
The content in the text based PDF files is similar to the content in a website. This makes content optimization an important aspect in optimization of PDF files. The content should be relevant to the subject matter. Important text should be highlighted by increasing their font size and utilizing the bold and italics features of the PDF files. Keywords should be placed in the first few lines of the content.6. Place Links in the PDF File:
When a visitor opens a PDF file ranking in the top search engine results page, there should be a provision in the file to link back to its original website. This action reduces the efforts of the visitor to hunt for the main website. Also, a link from the PDF file can be considered as a backlink by the search engine.A PDF file is similar to a web page in an assortment of aspects. It should be optimized with as much care as a web page to achieve high rankings.
Debbie A. Everson is the CEO of SearchMar.com, experienced SEO Consultants and Search Engine Optimization Agency to over 2,000 small businesses. Learn about search engine optimization, paid search advertising, social media, and email marketing. Read my SEO Blog for hints and tips. Follow @Searchmar on Twitter.Do You Want the Top Spot on Google? Find Out How
02 2010 Thursday
4
By Anton Pearce in SE Optimization
Every website is battling for the top spot in Google’s search results page, and to do that you have to optimize your website for Google. Optimization requires continually improving your site’s content. Even though Yahoo and Bing simply search the tag structures in HTML, Google uses a trickier, and somewhat clandestine, method to determine top spot.
Google looks for websites that continually provide fresh and relevant content. Since Google has such strict guidelines for top spot, it requires web page owners to continually work on keeping their page’s content fresh and relevant to hold a top spot in the list.
Keywords and Phrases
Google looks for phrases and keywords as it is assessing a site. It evaluates a site’s content, and looks for phrases that match a particular search term. If say, a visitor is looking for ‘boat repair’ Google will display pages where that keyword shows up several of times in the body of the page. So when you are optimizing your web page, you should concentrate on phrases rather than single words. Now that you know Google is looking for a particular phrase you do not want to go crazy with that phrase on a page either, because this is know as keyword stuffing. Be careful with keyword phrases–if Google sees too many of them, they will lower your page in the search engine rankings.
The Title Tag
The title tag is important and is unique to each page in a website. The tag can be found on the browser’s title bar. It is also used by Googlebot to see what the page contents are going to be. Google then looks at the page contents and evaluates if the two match, and this helps determine page relevance. Since Google looks at each page in a domain, many sites dynamically generate page titles with an introduction text appended to the company name.
Anchor Text
When you add link tags to your page, this is anchor text. Take care to be precise in your anchor test by using relevant phrases for prominent links on your page. Google is looking for specific link information, so the more specific that you can be the better. If you focus on your site’s keyword terms and make sure that these are always in line with your content, you will make Google’s assessment of your site easy. Google is generous with its link limits saying that no more than 100 links should ever appear on a web page.
Header Tags
Header tags are HTML page elements coded “”, and they provide a bold heading on the page. The headers tell Google what the purpose of the page is, and the title tag tells it the purpose of the website. You should have a header tag on each page.
Quality Content
The last thing that Google is looking for is unique content. Google’s customers are your website visitors, and when Google returns a search list, they want their customers to be happy. So you are helping Google as it is helping your. New content and keyword phrases help you get to the top of Google’s search list. So if you have bad content – either plagiarized, badly written or irrelevant content – Google is
not interested in you. Make sure to follow Google guidelines, or Google will blacklist your domain and not link to it at all.Optimize Your Website for Google and Make it Readable
By complying with the guidelines that Google has set out for page ranking, you can set your page up to show up at the top of the search list. By continually adding new content,
Google will mark your page as a good one to return to its customer. However, you must always make sure that you site is aesthetically pleasing and readable by a human, because the point of why you optimize your website for Google, is to attract new visitors to your page to increase your company’s market share.
For a free, no-obligation consultation, contact Anton Pearce by completing the quick-response form at http://www.antonpearce.com . Set aside just 30 minutes and discover how you can use online marketing to get all the clients you need to fill your practice. Anton is an online marketing consultant who specializes in helping health and
wellness professionals to market their services online. Visit http://www.antonpearce.comUse SEO Strategies to Increase Web Traffic
02 2010 Monday
1
By Enzo F. Cesario in SE Optimization
Every new technology adopted widely by society brings about a number of new opportunities. The movable type printing press created affordable print information, the telephone and radio created the concept of instantaneous communication over great distances. Today, the Internet has unified both of these concepts into the information explosion that is the digital age.
Consider this article alone – a mere forty years ago printing even fifty copies of each page would cost either a chunk of change or at least a suspicious look from the boss as you hovered over the office copier. Now the information can be sent to thousands of people within the time it takes to brew a good cup of tea.
Of course with every technology comes a system to make the best marketing use of that advancement. The radio gave rise to the modern commercial advertisement, which was refined by the television and still persists on the Web. The telephone gave us telemarketers and the first concept of communication networking. For making the most of the Internet, the strategy of the day is Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
What is SEO, again?
In short, SEO is the presentation of a webpage in such a way that it consistently ranks highly in particular search engine results. While fads and sensations can quickly boom online from “word of mouth,” they don’t produce the same reliable success as a balanced, systematic approach.
Very few businesses, after all, want one rush of attention that leads to a website crash, followed by an equally quick slide into the various forgotten graveyards of the web. Therefore, SEO uses a combination of elements to make the site increasingly relevant to the various searches that Internet users perform, to bring it up again and again among the best results.
Key SEO Strategies
1. Set goals.
Identify what you want your SEO campaign to accomplish. While any SEO-conscious writing and page design can contribute to a site’s search engine rankings, an unfocused effort will simply waste time and money. After all, a business promoting athletic clothing and footwear may not benefit too much from showing up in searches for evening wear. Is your goal simply to increase your site’s visitor traffic? Do you want to generate more sales of a product? Is it part of an effort to promote your digital brand? Each of these goals benefits from different aspects of SEO technique.
2. Link up.
Link building is one of the cornerstones of any SEO effort. Many search engines are spider-based, meaning they use automated processes to collect and categorize information on various websites. When a large number of websites provide links back to your business, or when a particularly high-traffic site does so, the spiders take notice of it and increase the relevance of that link in searches related to those sites.
3. Get the keys.
Keyword writing is consistently stressed as a requirement when websites look for content writers. Keywords are just that, words and phrases chosen for their popularity and relevance to key searches.
There are dozens of theories about keyword writing. In the earlier days of SEO writing, it wasn’t uncommon to see pages that were nothing but long strings of repeated variations on a few keywords. This has evolved into more organic writing that fits in keywords with the article as a whole.
Whichever strategy is chosen, care must be taken to avoid the temptation to abuse keyword searches. Yes, a proper keyword density will bring up your search rankings over time. However, Google can and does ban pages from its index when they determine it to be a keyword-abusing effort. So consider your keyword choices carefully, and seamlessly integrate them into your entire strategy.
4. Be on the right page.
One aspect occasionally neglected in SEO is the architecture and design of the webpage itself. Search engines and their ranking systems (be they spider or human based) are growing more sophisticated all the time, and look at many different factors in their decisions. A site that buries its keyword-rich articles on interior pages behind dozens of subsidiary links will not perform as well as one with strategic keyword-oriented material right on the front page. Have an SEO-conscious designer look over your page, as well as your articles.
Remember that every business is a multi-faceted whole. Many failures occur when people attempt to compartmentalize too much. You can’t consider SEO as some sort of ‘event’ that you do every so often, just as a business can’t put off routine maintenance of their equipment and expect it to function properly. Integrate your efforts into the entire process, and give them the same focus as any other effort in the business, and they will return their investment much more reliably, quickly, and ideally.
Enzo F. Cesario is a Copywriter and co-founder of Brandsplat. Brandcasting uses informative content and state-of-the-art internet distribution and optimization to build links and drive the right kind of traffic to your website. Go to http://www.Brandsplat.com/ or visit our blog at: http://www.brandsplatblog.com/10 Profoundly Effective Steps to Internet Marketing Success
01 2010 Friday
29
By David Jackson in SE Optimization
Over the years, I’ve read thousands and thousands of marketing articles, both online and off. But to this point, I have never read any article that was what I considered to be 100% idiot-proof – meaning even a dunce, moron, or complete idiot couldn’t screw up the process.
So I decided to write such an article. And if you read and judiciously apply the ridiculously simple, but profoundly effective and proven success steps presented in this article, I am 100% convinced beyond any shadow of doubt that anyone can absolutely, positively make money with Internet Marketing.
Why am I so confident in these steps? Because these are the exact same steps I’ve used to build nearly 100 profitable websites of my own, in a very short period of time. Here are the steps:
1. Brainstorm Your Domain Name
This is an important process, so don’t rush it. Even if it takes you weeks or even months to come up with a domain name you’re satisfied with. Take as much time as you need. Your domain name is that important.
I’m a firm believer in creating generic domain names that utilize your primary keywords. For example, NewyorkCityHotels.com or NapaValleyWines.com. Having a generic domain name serves two crucial purposes:
First, it will attract a more targeted audience to your website. A targeted audience will give you a much higher conversion ratio – allowing you to make maximum use of the traffic you receive.
Second, generic domain names that utilize your primary keywords will help with your search ranking. While SEO experts have opposing viewpoints whether or not this actually helps, based on my own personal experience, I can tell you that it does.
By the way, because of the astronomical number of domains on the Internet, you may have to get a little creative in order to utilize your primary keywords in your domain name.
For example, if your first choice, NewYorkCityHotels.com is already taken, try playing around with different variations of your keywords.
For instance, try this variation, HotelsinNewYorkCity.com…or this one, CityofNewYorkHotels.com. Also, don’t be afraid to use hyphens in your domain name. Using this technique allows me to utilize my primary keywords 100% of the time.
It also allows me to use the much preferred .com domain. You should try to use .com domains whenever possible, because most people will automatically put a .com on the end of a domain when they type it into a search engine. This puts you in prime position to pick up traffic from domains in your category that utilize extensions other than .com.
2. Register Your Domain Name, and Forget It
After you decide on a domain name, don’t build your website right away. Register your domain name, and forget it.
Why? Because in my opinion, you should never build a website without having a plan to promote, as well as monetize your website. Develop a well-thought-out marketing plan going forward, then when you build your website, you can hit the ground running.
3. Develop Your Marketing Plan
I’m a member of several small business forums, and without fail, the two questions that get asked most often are:
“How do I promote my website?” or, “How do I get free traffic to my website?” Those two basic questions get asked every single day.
That’s why it’s so important to develop a marketing plan in advance. You need to know the answer to those questions, before you build your website. You can’t get to your destination, if you don’t know know where you want to go.
4. Your Budget Determines Your Marketing Plan
If you have thousands of dollars to work with, then you have many more options when it comes to promoting your website. For example, you can buy ads in offline publication, as well as online publications.
A word of advice: Unless you are an experienced marketer with extremely deep pockets, stay away from pay-per-click advertising. PPC advertising will eat up your advertising budget quicker than Usain Bolt breaks world records.
In reality, most people coming online don’t have thousands of dollars to work with. In fact, most people coming online have little or no money at all.
But that’s the beauty of the Internet. Even if you are broke, you can still promote your website effectively, if you know what you’re doing.
For example, you can participate in social media networking, and promote your website via mega-popular sites such as Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and a host of other social media websites.
Other free and highly effective promotion methods include article marketing, forum posting, guest blogging, RSS feeds, volunteering your expertise on Question & Answer sites like AllExperts.com and more.
5. Learn How to Implement Your Marketing Plan Effectively
Starting a business – any business without having even basic marketing skills is downright foolish. Competency in marketing is the most important business skill that you can have.
If you become proficient in the art of marketing, it will allow you to become profitable that much quicker. And there won’t be anything that you can’t accomplish.
Some of the greatest sales and marketing books ever written are located right under your nose, at your local library – and they’re free. Do yourself a favor and study the classics. Many of the marketing techniques being used today are based on sound marketing principles established many decades ago.
A few of my favorite marketing books include The Ultimate Sales Letter by Dan Kennedy, Advertising Secrets of the Written Word by Joe Sugarman, Breakthrough Advertising by Eugene Schwartz, Tested Advertising Methods by John Caples, Ogilvy on Advertising by David Ogilvy, Magic Words That Bring You Riches by Ted Nicholas and How to Write a Good Advertisement by Victor O. Schwab.
If you can’t find these books at your local library, you can pick them up for just a few dollars on Amazon.
6. Apply What You Learn
It’s not enough to just read the classics, you have to apply what you learn. Otherwise, what’s the point? That means reading the books more than once – several times if necessary.
Actually, you should read the books as many times as it takes for the information to sink in and become second nature to you.
You should also take copious notes, and practice writing ads over and over and over again. You should give yourself regular written exams on the information in the books, and each time you test yourself, your goal should be to score 100%.
Sounds like hard work, doesn’t it? It is. The question is how hard are you willing to work to get what you want?
7. Monetize Your Website
There are a number of ways that you can monetize your website – from selling advertising on your site to affiliate programs. My preferred method is affiliate programs.
Why? Because affiliate programs are completely hands-off for you. No billing, no inventory, no hassles. You simply choose from among the thousands of affiliate programs available on the Internet, select your program of interest, and promote the living daylights out of it. Then take your checks to the bank…that’s it.
8. Take Your Income to the Next Level
Once you start making $50 per month with affiliate programs, build another website, and start promoting another affiliate program. And when that website starts making $50, build another website and another and another.
Why? Because if you have 10 websites making $50 per month, that’s a monthly income of $500. And therein lies the secret to making money on the Internet.
Why beat yourself up trying to make hundreds – or even thousands of dollars with a single website? Take the path of least resistance. Build a bunch of websites that make just $50 per month. If you can build fifty websites in a year, that’s a monthly income of $2500, or $30,000 a year.
Does your current job pay that much? And the beauty of this method is you can keep giving yourself a raise. If you build another fifty websites the following year, you just doubled your income to $5,000 per month.
And if you can build another fifty websites the following year, you just tripled your income to $7500 per month.
The key to making this method work is building simple, low-maintenance websites. Just add content once or twice a month, and forget about them.
Think it can’t be done? Think again. I’m doing it, and so are thousands of other smart and resourceful entrepreneurs.
9. What About Content?
The key to having a website that other websites want to link to is having quality, content that is relevant to the overall theme of your website. You can either produce the content yourself, import it from somewhere else, or a combination of both.
If you elect to import your content from somewhere else, you can either use free content from article directories like EzineArticles, or you can purchase PLR articles, which I don’t recommmend.
Why? Because hundreds of other people purchased the exact same PLR package as you. So those articles have to be completely rewritten, which is a time-consuming process.
Whichever way you choose to go, just remember, it’s important to have lots and lots of relevant content on your website.
How much content? The more the better. After all, the more content you have on your website, the more often your visitors will return to read that content.
10. Build Your Website
Okay, now that you’ve properly laid the foundation for success, it’s time to build your website. The type of website you build will again depend on the amount of money you have to play around with.
I have a bunch of websites that I paid absolutely nothing for. And I have websites that I paid hundreds of dollars for. My recommendation: If you don’t have to spend money on a website, don’t.
Nowadays, it’s not necessary to spend a lot of money to get a decent looking website.
But whatever you do, be sure to purchase your own domain name. You definitely don’t want the name Blogspot, WordPress or Homestead in your domain name. It just looks amateurish.
I buy most of my domains through NetworkSolutions.com, because I’ve been using them for years, and I’m comfortable with them. Their domains cost a lot more, but they more than make up for it with great customer service.
That’s something you just can’t put a price on. That being said, I’ve also purchased $10 domain names from GoDaddy without any problems.
One last thing, don’t beat your brains out worrying about SEO. Just make sure your primary keywords appear in your title tag, and you’ll be just fine.
David Jackson is a writer, marketing consultant and entrepreneur. Which online services can you trust? Find out here:http://reviews-by-customers.comOrganic SEO or PPC advertising?
11 2009 Monday
16
By Andrew Plimmer in SE Optimization
Sadly enough, there are still many online business entrepreneurs who take it for granted that they can still use the old marketing techniques in order to overtake their competitors. Little do they realize that those old basic techniques such as including a simple “click here” link, simply doesn’t cut it anymore. If for example you own an online business which is currently in dire need of some changes, then you may need to consider taking advantage of online marketing techniques which include the likes of search engine optimisation and pay-per-click advertising.
In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if you’ve already heard about these techniques from some of the world’s best internet marketers, but the truth is, you might be reluctant to begin integrating them into your existing business. However, there’s nothing to be gained by simply keeping these strategies on hold, so here are a few tips on how to go about using search engine optimisation (SEO) and PPC advertising.
Search Engine Optimisation
Organic search engine optimisation is essentially an online marketing strategy which is dependent on having momentum and some long term commitment. By utilising SEO, you’ll be taking a step in the right direction in terms of accumulating information regarding link building campaigns, relationship building with other webmasters, and even some respectable and desirable publications. Of course, in order to be in full control, you need to set certain milestones so that you’ll be able to monitor your progress as you proceed.
For example, you need to ask yourself what it is exactly that you wish to accomplish. You also need to pay attention to your current image and to the level of optimisation regarding your website.
An experienced SEO specialist will be able to help you determine which the best keywords to use are, and of course they’ll be able to help you integrate those keywords into your meta tags so that you’re able to restructure your marketing strategies in order to overcome any negative fallout resulting from your previous attempts. Over and above SEO, you could of course also take advantage of other techniques, such as paid one way links and link exchanges for example, providing you do so with other reputable websites. But don’t forget – once you start organic SEO, you need to continue with it in order to maintain the momentum or else your diligently attained rankings will go down.
Pay-Per-Click Advertising
PPC advertising places much emphasis on keyword usage and the placement of adverts which are relevant to a specific website. In fact, it’s often said that this form of advertising has revolutionised the world of online advertising, in that it can provide small businesses with the same amount of leverage as what the big businesses have. Providing it’s done correctly, PPC advertising can certainly help you stand out from the crowd. If you’re currently considering a PPC campaign then you should also pay attention to the following three questions:
- What do I have to offer?
- Why will customers want to click on my advert?
- How can I hook them with just ten words?
At this point, the most important thing for you to do is to integrate an ideal title and ten words which tell potential customers what your business is all about. The most difficult aspect of PPC advertising is that you will be in close proximity to your competitors, both in search engine results and in sponsored positions. Remember, if someone types in a search relevant to the type of website you own, your advert will appear at the top of the page or on the right hand side, and it’s vital that your advertisement must be powerful enough in order to trigger an immediate response.
Essentially, in order to get the best results you should ideally consider using SEO and PPC advertising simultaneously, rather than just opting for one of them.
Andrew Plimmer is CEO of Suncoast Internet, SEO Sunshine Coast, web design and web development specialists. For more information on Internet Marketing go to => http://www.suncoastinternet.com.au/When is an SEO agency NOT an SEO agency?
10 2009 Monday
19
By admin in SE Optimization
Let’s face it, almost all SEO agencies, like most online service providers, will outsource some aspects of their work. This is nothing new. In fact, even before the advent of the internet, businesses would traditionally outsource certain tasks – Hence the plethora of ‘temping’ agencies.
Commonly outsourced tasks were things like telesales, recruitment, even accounting and auditing to some extent. But with the massive growth of online business, outsourcing has grown, and indeed actually changed in its very nature.
In the online business world, the term outsourcing has almost become synonymous with paying for workers that actually live in other countries, whereas previously the outsource workers would be the same country as the employer, if not the same city!
What about the question we started with? When is an SEO agency NOT an SEO agency?
The answer to this is not simple, and the question is really only meant to provoke thought. My own personal feeling is that an SEO agency is not really an SEO agency when it outsources all the work except the customer facing aspect.
What I mean by this is that some SEO ‘agencies’ merely employ UK based office staff to do the selling and silver tongue sales pitches, then farm out the actual work to cheap overseas labour. The better agencies may have their own database of workers they use on a regular basis, and trust – whereas others may simply use freelancer type websites to ‘pick up’ staff.
Whilst this may not at first seem like much of an issue, it is not exactly honest!. The kind of setup mentioned above, to my mind, is NOT an SEO agency, more of a sales agency that then passes the work on to others.
I guess you could argue that they are more than a sales agency; after all, perhaps they plan a campaign prior to the work being handed out to freelancers, and pop a quick report together once it’s been done… Alright, let’s call them an admin agencyIs it wrong for SEO agencies to outsource at all?
Again, this is down to a matter of opinion. I think its fine for any company, whatever its industry, to outsource some of its workload. At kingpin-seo we sometimes outsource bits and pieces – who doesn’t! But perhaps the problem arises when the bulk of the workload is outsourced, without the knowledge of the SEO agencies clients.
The client is in the belief that their work is being carried out by UK workers, whereas unbeknownst to them, someone half way round the world is carrying out the actual work, and for a tiny fraction of the amount the client is paying the agency.
What is it good to outsource, and what shouldn’t be outsourced
Again, this is my own opinion – but it is founded on background knowledge of what our own clients are happy with.
We feel it is okay to outsource small amounts of manual, repetitive work, things like gathering initial, basic info on competitors (although we prefer to carry out in depth reports in house!) , and some elements of promotion (such as submitting articles, that are of course, written in house)
A basic rule of thumb is that if the client would not be comfortable with something being outsourced, then it shouldn’t be outsourced! – Simply!
Another little rule of thumb is that if something requires or involves decision making that could have some bearing or impact upon the SEO campaign on the whole, it shouldn’t be outsourced.
How do I find a decent SEO Agency, that isn’t simply an ‘Outsource/Admin Agency?
Simple! – Just ask!. Seriously, call or email the agency, and ask them straight if they outsource, and to what extent they outsource.
If they say they don’t outsource anything at all, either they are lying, or they don’t fully understand the question!
If they say they do outsource, but are fully transparent about what processes and work practices they outsource – that’s a good start. We can define in a single sentence our stance on outsourcing, and we suggest you ask any potential SEO agency to do the same…
“We never outsource any decision making, creative production or administrative workload, everything is planned in house, and the vast majority of our work is carried out in house… any outsourcing we do is isolated to repetitive techniques such as submitting a previously written high quality piece of content to directories & websites”
If an agency is not willing to disclose to what extent they outsource, then I would just walk away. At the end of the day, it is YOUR money being used for this service, and just like a service offered offline, you are entitled to know where it is going!
Resource Section – About Kingpin-seo
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Search Engine Strategies – How To Increase Your Search Engine Ranking
10 2009 Thursday
8
By Nelson Tan in SE Optimization
The methods employed to increase your search engine rankings may seem like rocket science to you, so you have probably avoided dealing with this issue. I am here to tell you—the time has come to face your website! A high search engine ranking for your website is so essential that if you have the slightest desire to actually succeed in your business, there is no way you can continue to avoid this issue.
At least 85% of people looking for goods and services on the Internet find websites through search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and MSN. The idea of optimizing your pages for high search engine rankings is to attract targeted customers to your site who will be more than likely to make a purchase. The higher your page comes up in search engine results, the greater the traffic that is directed to your website. That’s what search engine optimization is about.
You can immerse yourself in all the technical information available online to figure out how to optimize your web pages to achieve higher rankings. Or you can look at a few simple items on your pages, make some small adjustments, and most likely see improved rankings quite rapidly. The first item you should examine is the title bar on your home page.
The title bar is the colored bar at the top of the page. Look at the words that appear there when you access your home page. To increase search engine rankings, the words on your homepage’s title bar should include the most important keywords or phrases, one of which would include your company name.
Then click on all your links and examine the title bars on the pages you access. Each title bar on every single page of your site should contain the most important keywords and phrases taken from the page itself. However, avoid very long strings of keywords, keeping them to six words or less. Avoid repeating keywords more than once in the title bars, and make sure that identical words are not next to each other.
The next item to put under your microscope is your website content. Search engines generally list sites that contain quality content rather than scintillating graphics. The text on your site must contain the most important keywords—the words that potential customers will be typing into search engines to find your site.
Aim to have around 250 words on each page, but if this is not desirable due to your design, aim for at least 100 carefully chosen words. If you want to achieve a high ranking on search engines, this text is essential. However, the search engines must be able to read the text, meaning that the text must be in HTML and not graphic format.
To find out if your text is in HTML format, take your cursor and try to highlight a word or two. If you are able to do this, the text is HTML. If the text will not highlight, it is probably in graphic form. In this case, ask your webmaster to change the text into HTML format in order to increase your search engine rankings.
Next we come to what is called metatags. I know this sounds like something out of science fiction, but it is really just simple code. Many people believe that metatags are the key to high search engine rankings, but in reality, they only have a limited effect. Still, it’s worth adding them in the event that a search engine will use metatags in their ranking formula.
To find out if your page is set up with metatags, you must access the code. To do this, click the “view” button on the browser menu bar, and select “source”. This will pull up a window revealing the underlying code that created the page. If there are metatags, they usually appear near the top of the window. For example, a metatag would read: meta name=”keywords” content=. If you do not find code that reads like this, ask your webmaster to put them in. This may not do much for your search engine rankings, but any little boost helps.
Lastly, we come to the issue of link popularity. This is a factor that is extremely important in terms of search engine rankings. Almost all search engines use link popularity to rank your website. Link popularity is based on the quality of the sites you have linked to from your links page.
If you type in “free link popularity check” in a popular search engine, the search engine will then show you what sites are linked to your site. In the case that there aren’t many sites linked up to yours, or that the sites that are linked up have low search engine rankings, consider launching a link popularity campaign. Essentially, this entails contacting quality sites and requesting that they exchange links with your site. Of course, this requires checking out the rankings of the websites you want to link up with. Linking to popular, quality sites not only boosts your search engine ranking, but it also directs more quality traffic to your website.
Search engine rankings are extremely important for a successful Internet Marketing campaign. Before you go out and hire a search engine optimization company, try taking some of the simple steps listed above, and see if you can’t boost your rankings yourself. Don’t ever ignore this all-important factor in Internet marketing. Remember, the higher your search engine ranking, the more quality customers will be directed your way.
Nelson Tan is the webmaster behind Internet Mastery Center. Download $347 worth of FREE Internet Marketing gifts at http://www.internetmasterycenter.comWhat Are Meta Tags and Why Do I Need Them?
10 2009 Friday
2
By admin in SE Optimization
There is no other way to put it; the World Wide Web is big business. As an example, you only have to look at the phenomenal success of the online bookstore, Amazon. In 2008, Amazon brought in over nineteen billion dollars in income, yet only required an operating budget of approximately eight hundred and fifty million dollars. It really is no surprise to anyone then that more businesses are investing in expanded web presence and capability. Yet, not every organization has the same successes. Barnes and Noble was selling books online before Amazon was even an idea, and yet it isn’t Barnes and Noble that people think of when considering online bookstores, it’s Amazon. The key? Amazon took greater advantage of the opportunity to effectively market their product.
Search Engines, Spiders and Websites, Oh My
The most important and often least understood tool for online marketers is the search engine. The primary type of search engine is the web crawler – these are largely automated programs that crawl through available web pages, indexing data according to a variety of parameters. In short, the crawler, or spider, examines each page of a website. Once it has examined the page, it submits it to an index. Then, when a person uses the search engine software, the index provides links to these pages, ranked according to relevance. It is worth mentioning two other points. First, not all engines index the same way. Some use keyword density; others focus on the content of the first paragraph. Second, any changes to a webpage are likely to affect search rankings, so webmasters must carefully consider each change and its possible effects.
I Never Meta Tag I Didn’t Like
One important part of preparing a page for good search engine rankings is effective use of HTML meta-tags. These tags do not directly relate to the position a site will have in a search result, but they do offer webmasters some control over the way their sites are presented when they come up in a search. In brief, meta-tags are additional bits of code added to the head of your HTML document, right after “TITLE.” Because of the tendency for unscrupulous coders to find and abuse loopholes in search technologies, search engines do not rely heavily on these tags for rankings. Their benefits to web users are important, however.
First, there is the Meta Description tag. This is a brief report about the content of the webpage in question. When a search engine presents users with a hyperlink, there is frequently a small description accompanying that result. In many cases, that is the Meta Description tag the Webmaster put in the HTML document so that when a spider visits the site, it indexes this information. This is not always the case, however; Google in particular will generate its own description for a site.
The Meta Description is often the first piece of information someone using a search engine will see. The URL may not mean anything to them, but this description will. If it is poorly written, the user will likely skim right past the site for one that presents itself more effectively. Thus, the key is effective, concise writing that conveys exactly what the site is about.
The second tag is the Meta Keywords tag. This tag is a list of keywords the Webmaster considers most pertinent to each page. Proper use of the keywords tag is also vital. While search engines use a variety of keyword systems, and have in recent years de-emphasized the Meta Keywords tag, it still contributes to website rankings and should not be neglected. The best method is to examine each page carefully, and pick approximately ten keywords that best represent the data therein. Too many nonspecific keywords will lead to inconsistent search results, and too few means missing an opportunity to get a message in front of users. In addition, many sites are actively on the lookout for keyword abuse. Google in particular is known to ban certain pages from its index entirely if they consider the article to be an abusive, loophole-seeking piece.
There are other, less relevant tags that can provide some benefits, though they aren’t as important as the previous two. An example is the Robots tag, which is only useful in making sure certain sites do not index a particular page. This can help a Webmaster keep their content from being associated with undesirable elements, but it does not contribute directly to higher search placement.
No Meta Tag is an Island
Once again, it must be stressed that meta-tags are not a magical solution to the very complex problem of online marketing. They must be regarded as one tool in an inventory of other tools, and should be used responsibly. Properly implemented, they will help complete an effective marketing strategy.
Enzo F. Cesario is a Copywriter and co-founder of Brandsplat. Brandcasting uses informative content and state-of-the-art internet distribution and optimization to build links and drive the right kind of traffic to your website. Go to http://www.Brandsplat.com/ or visit our blog at: http://www.brandsplatblog.com/Keywords are Key
09 2009 Thursday
17
By Greg Newell in SE Optimization
If you spend a couple hundred bucks on good keyword research software or pay as much as $1,000 to have someone do it for you, you can save yourself thousands. I have clients who have come to me after spending thousands and did not get the results they expected. One that comes to mind was optimizing for the highest search volume rated words and the other one determine the search terms by simply letting the client guess. Both are recipes for disaster.
Keyword research is market research. I can’t stress this enough. And no matter how much you think you know your business, I can adamently tell you that you can’t sit there and guess the best terms for use with your business website. NOTE: I said the best terms. Not the most popular. Keyword research gives you insight into the customer that you have probably never seen in traditional marketing channels.
There are many keyword research tools on the market and for the most part, they all seem to work. That’s mostly because they’re all getting data from the same place. For example, if you type “allintitle:keyword” (substituting the keyword with the one you’re researching), it is possible to determine the number of web pages that use that keyword in the title. Including keywords in the title at least offers a clue that that page is attempting to rnk for that search term. Therefore, that represents some indication of your competition for that keyword. If I just type the same keyword in quotes, Google will tell you how many pages are indexed for that same keyword. If you calculate allintitle/total indexed, you have some index relative to competition for that keyword. The lower the number the better. This is just one of the many competitive parameters you can use to determine if that keyword is something you should be chasing.
This is not all you have to do. You just need to appreciate that there is a lot of information that the search engines will give you relative to your market. Google will even provide search volumes for related keywords used in your market. To find the Google tool to do this, just Google: “Google free Keyword research”. The first organic result will get you to that tool. It’s a pretty cool tool but it doesn’t help you much in the way of correctly targeting competition. Still it’s a good start.
The biggest mistake I see most businesses make, and many SEO firms for that matter is not targeting keywords for which you KNOW you can rank for. I’m not suggesting you choose some really obscure keywords that never get used…anyone with half a brain can make you rank for those. It’s also a devious trick of some less than credible SEO companies. I’m saying that it’s possible for you to rank for keywords associated with your business ONLY IF your keywords deliver on three principles. They are relevant, they produce traffic and they are relatively non-competitive.
There are three factors you need to consider for every keyword. Relevance, volume and competition. A keyword is relevant if your page represents what the visitor is looking for relative to the search. The volume is indicated by the total searches for a keyword. The competition is indicatd by many parameters including those above plus a consideration of the sites in the first page search engine results to see if there is site parity.
Having website parity means that your site carries as much weight as some of the other site in the SERPS (Search Engine Results Pages). If you can beat some of the sites in terms of page rank and in-bound links than it is likely that you can optimize to beat at least some of the current sites.
Ultimately, SEO should be a very predictable process. It does not mean you can be guaranteed a first postion but with the right tools you should be able to characterize how difficult a first place position would be to achieve for a particular key word.
Greg Newell – Build-a-Web-Shop is devoted to helping clients achieve online success.
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