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Posts Tagged ‘search engines’

Do you remember the line full of acronyms used by Robin Williams in the movie, “Good Morning Vietnam”? Every time I see all of the acronyms in the internet marketing world, it reminds me of that line from the movie.

“Seeing as how the V.P. is such a V.I.P. shouldn’t we keep the P.C. on the Q.T. ’cause if it leaks to the V.C. he could become a M.I.A. and then we’d all be put out on K.P.”

However, while I could tell stories and make jokes about the growing number of acronyms in the internet marketing world, I’m not here to discuss internet marketing acronyms. What I do want to talk about is a simple strategy that can save you a world of time and money because you will no longer be chasing after an empty piggy bank.

The Strategy

After conducting keyword research and determining the keywords to target for your SEO efforts, run them through a short PPC campaign. Why take your SEO keywords through a PPC campaign before you do any link building or on page optimization? The reason is simple. SEO takes time and effort. You cannot afford to waste time on keywords that will not deliver results. You need to be confident that the keyword phrases you target will bring the results you desire (in terms of leads, profit, etc.) once you make it to the top of the search engines.

The first step after finding the keywords you would like targeted is to build a landing page as quickly as possible. Make sure that you build the page with conversion in mind rather than SEO. However, while building the page for conversion, do not completely ignore SEO. Be sure to have keywords in the page name, title and content, but do not spend extra time optimizing the page. After the page is finished, I recommend starting a PPC campaign targeting the keywords. This can provide valuable information quickly. After running the campaign for a short time (I would recommend at least 500-1000 unique visitors), you will know if the keyword will convert at an acceptable rate. The question you should be asking is “Can you make money on that keyword phrase?”

By using PPC to test your keywords, you will discover whether the keywords are profitable. Think of it this way. If you spend all the time necessary in SEO to rank well for a keyword, get a ton of traffic but no business, then I say “so what?” That is good for bragging rights at the family party where no one else understands internet marketing, but bragging rights do not help pay the mortgage. I would much rather rank #1 for a keyword phrase that brings 20 unique visitors a day and converts at least 1 person into a sale. Wouldn’t you?

I heard something on the radio a few weeks ago that stuck with me and made me think about the basics of SEO. The line went something like this, “You have to have the fundamentals down before trying any of the fancy stuff. ” So before you go out and try to do things like PR sculpting or any of the other advanced techniques you hear about, get the basics down.

SEO can really be broken down into three essential areas: Architecture, Content, and Links. These are the basics of SEO that you need to understand and get right first. Let’s take a look at some key points to understand in each of these main areas.

Architecture – Can Your Site Be Crawled?

One of the first problems that a website has to address is whether or not their site can actually be crawled by the search engine spiders. You can have the best content in the world, but if the search engine spiders can’t get to it you won’t reap the benefits! Here are some things you can do to help your site be more crawl-able:

1. Avoid things like JavaScript or Flash navigation. Both of these kinds of navigation are not crawled very well by search engines at this time. This could change in the future, but for now it’s best to just avoid JavaScript and Flash navigations.
2. Keep your site’s architecture as flat as possible. Don’t have tons of levels in your architecture. Keep pages as close to the root as possible. In other words, mysite.com/folder/product is much better than mysite.com/category/subcategory/other-folder/product.
3. Stay away from parameter strings in URLs. By having parameter strings in URLs you could have multiple versions of the same content and will have to learn how to properly use the canonical element. You can avoid this by not using parameters. Instead, have a static URL for each page whenever possible. For example, mysite.com/productname.html is much better than mysite.com/?prod-id=abc123&cat-id=def456.
4. Use internal linking appropriately. Whenever it makes sense, link to other pages in your site from within the content of the page. Don’t just rely on your navigation to get people (and search engine spiders) to where you want them to go. (More about internal linking.)
5. Sitemaps are your friends. Make sure your site has both an HTML and XML sitemap. (More about sitemaps).

Content – Is It Optimized?

Once you have your website’s architecture set up the right way, the next step is to make sure that your content is well-optimized to help your site rank for your main keyword phrases. Here are a few basic guidelines to follow:

1. Don’t target too many phrases per page. You may have a list of 50 keywords you want to target, but you should only focus on 2-3 main phrases per page. Create other pages around additional phrases as needed.
2. No spammy stuff! Don’t do any keyword stuffing, alt stuffing, meta spamming, or any other spammy techniques. They don’t really work well anymore anyway.
3. Use your keyword phrases in titles, header tags, etc. By using your keyword phrases in your titles and header tags you can give them more emphasis.
4. Use your keywords in your content. Don’t just rely on your titles and header tags. Don’t overdo it; make the text read naturally but make sure you include your keywords and variations of them in the content.

Links – Getting Juice from Other Sites

Setting your site up the right way is one step, but getting traffic to your website takes a lot more than just using keywords on your pages. The other big key to getting a good rank on the search engines is to get other sites linking to you. By getting these links you are showing that your site has credibility and is worth ranking well. Here are a few quick tips to keep in mind when you’re building links:

1. Use a variety of techniques. There are a lot of things you can do to build links: directories, articles, social bookmarking, forums … the list goes on and on. Mix up what you’re doing and get a variety of link types coming into your site. (More about link building)
2. Spread your links over a lot of domains. It’s important to get a lot of links, but it’s also important to get a lot of links spread over many domains. If you follow tip #1 this shouldn’t be much of a problem for you.
3. Use keywords in your anchor text. One problem that I’ve seen over and over is that someone will build links to their site using either their name, their business name, or their URL. This is nice if that’s what you want to rank for, but if you want to rank for a keyword phrase you have to use that phrase as the anchor text of your link.
4. Use a variety of anchors. Don’t just use the same keyword phrase over and over again. Mix it up so that you aren’t spamming one phrase too much. This will help your link building look more natural.
5. The work is never done. Don’t think you can just submit to a bunch of directories and your work is over. SEO is an ongoing process.

While these tips don’t cover everything you need to know about the three main areas of search engine optimization, this is enough to get you started. Spend some time looking over your site to make sure that you are doing these basics. Then, if you want, you can try to get a little fancy.

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I came back last week from a relaxing vacation and found an email in my inbox sporting the following title: “PageRank is Dead.”

Upon reading the title, my mind went blank, closing up in an effort to prevent shock. Was this possible? The Death of PageRank? I tried to remember the predetermined events of the SEO Ragnarok: Facebook devours Odin; Twitter falls to the venom of the colossal snake, Jörmungandr; Google annihilates PageRank; the giant, Surt, sets the SEO world on fire…

I came slightly to my senses, and realized I don’t need to jump to eschatological conclusions. SEO can continue with, or without, PageRank. This was not the fiery end of linkbuilding or SEO.

Certainly it is true that, for many, PageRank acts as the guiding star for the value of any inbound link. The human mind naturally gravitates toward concrete numbers over the more abstract sentiments existing in a good link.

I consigned to fate. I would navigate my linkbuilding solely by the oft-overlooked principles of RELEVANCE, LINK ENVIRONMENT, and ANCHOR TEXT. Come walk with me while I explain…

Relevance is a principle frequently neglected in the frenzied piranha link building-style adopted by some. This explains why, on any given medical professional’s website, you are just as likely to find links to “Mexico Vacations!” as you are to truly helpful medical sites. But linking in relevant ways is better. (1) It strengthens user experience, (2) it looks natural, and (3) it makes you look more relevant to your industry in the eyes of the search engines. Want to know whether it’s worthwhile to try to put a link on a site? Ask yourself if the site is related to your own site, and/or links out to your competitors. And remember that this is not the 7 Degrees of Kevin Bacon. You need to be slapped by Common and Sense if your logic looks anything like this: My site is about doctors, doctors are typically wealthy, wealthy people like to vacation, Mexico is a great place to vacation, so clearly my doctor site is relevant to “Mexico Vacations!”

Link Environment is another principle by which to judge link potential. At this point we’ve determined relevance. But now we must ask where the link will be. While links on a link page are good, a link from a body of text is better. Imagine how someone would feel about your link were it lost in a gorilla-infested jungle of more links. You can only carry so many bananas in your hands, before some gorilla picks you up and carries you off to a more readable site. Imagine now that your link is highlighted amongst a bevy of text, all talking about your topic, and pointing to you as an authority on the subject, or an entertaining take. I guarantee the gorilla population is lower on those pages. But seriously, gorillas aside, your link is better off showing up in the body of a blog post or other content, than it is becoming just another body in a sea of link lists. The search engines think so too.

It is no secret that Anchor Text is the bread and butter of any link building effort. It is the crux, the golden child, the guitar solo. And yet many forget the power of anchor text. For a quick demonstration, type the word “here” into Google. At spot 3 you’ll find Adobe Reader, followed by Apple Quicktime, Windows Media Player, and so on. Nearly all the sites that require you to download Adobe Reader, or a Flash plug-in, or Quicktime to view their contents use the phrase “download here” with “here” almost always being the anchor text for the link. If you want to influence the search engines in what terms you should be showing up for, you better be paying attention to the anchor text of the links pointing to your site. Get too large a ratio of links with the anchor text “website” and you’ll find that your link campaign is a sad sorry affair. Your family will send you emails offering condolences. Your friends will stop returning your calls.

It is almost not worth mentioning to you that the email title “PageRank is Dead” was spurious. Upon opening the email, I learned that PageRank had faked its own death in a publicity stunt.

Further reading revealed that it had, in fact, NOT faked its death, but that we were having a network problem involving a browser plug-in. PageRank is alive and well. And yet… it’s worth keeping the above Triumvirate of principles at the forefront when linkbuilding. They are far more likely to outlive PageRank, an arbitrary numbering system that is bound to be tweaked and changed. These three principles are solid. Allow me to conclude with this quote from a slideshow presentation about the History of SEO given by Greg Boser of 3dogmedia.com and Marshall Simmonds of NYTimes.com:

“The PageRank that is displayed in the Google Toolbar is for entertainment purposes only. Due to repeated attempts by hackers to access this data, Google updates the PageRank data very infrequently because it is not secure. On average, the PR that is displayed in the Google Toolbar is several months old.”

And just because you asked, were I to speak at PageRank’s funeral, I imagine my remarks would be something like this: “PageRank, we obsessed about ye far too much. So we’ve buried you upside-down in case ye decide to come back.”

There was big news Wednesday morning that sent ripples throughout the SEO world. If you haven’t heard yet, on July 29, the Associated Press reported that Microsoft Corp and Yahoo Inc. finally merged.

Now, there are a lot of details and some obstacles facing this Microsoft-Yahoo deal. But if and/or when it happens, will it matter? How will that change the industry? What are the pros and cons of the eventual combination of Yahoo, Bing and the power behind Microsoft?

We’ve brought two of our SEO specialists together, mano-a-mano, to hash out the consequences of the eventual formation of a super-powered team that may or may not be able to bring down the vaunted Google, if even a little bit.

PROS:

First up, Albert Mitchell: Competition Will Make All Search Engines Better

Let me start with presenting a couple of facts:

• As of May, 2008, Google controlled about 60 percent of all the searches performed online.
• In comparison, Yahoo had a total of 17 percent.
• AOL/MSN/Live (the congregate of what is now called Bing) taking an additional 17 percent.
• Currently Google has no real competition to speak of in the search engine market.
• Since the formation of Bing, Microsoft has invested truckloads of money in research, development and marketing.

Now, here’s why it would be good for Yahoo and Bing to combine:

1. Competition drives companies to improve. Google has been the major market player in the search engine industry for many years. Once Yahoo and MSN got behind, they couldn’t catch up. A Yahoo-Bing combination will create a search engine that finally has a large enough market share (about 30 percent) to actually pose a threat to Google.
2. Cooperative work improves end results. I actually use Yahoo instead of Google for many projects, simply because I felt it gave me better results. When MSN and Live combined to form Bing, there were very few changes made to the back end. Bing still uses MSNBot and it seems to be using about the same algorithms. When Bing and Yahoo combine, Yahoo’s genius will be able to be applied to Bing. This will result in a stronger search engine better able to compete with Google.
3. Cost. Microsoft is a company with lots of money. Yahoo will increase its annual operating cost by as much as $500 million.  With the merger, $200 million of that will be saved directly because they will be no longer pumping money into their existing search engine. In the past few decades, both of these firms have pumped $billions into their search engines and kept losing a share of the market. This merger will enable these search engines to finally have a chance to actually compete and make a better profit on their money.

This move does not seem like it will change too much on the SEO front. If a person is applying best practices then rankings will improve in all search engines. This merger will change the emphasis we place on Yahoo and Bing and we will need to learn more about how Bing works and how we can get better results working with their tools.

CONS:

Dustin Williams: Two Bad Search Engines Will Not Create One Good One

Since the first attempt Microsoft made to acquire Yahoo, I have always felt that it would be a bad move for them to combine forces to try to compete with Google.

Think about it. How can they possibly believe that combining two bad search engines will make one good one? It wasn’t that long ago that MSN search results were powered by Yahoo. Then Microsoft developed its own search engine algorithm to break away from Yahoo, which forced them to compete with both search engines.

What could they be thinking by joining forces again and powering their search results from Microsoft’s new project called “Bing?”

I don’t think Google has a lot to worry about. Combining forces may give Yahoo/Bing more of the market share by combining their market share. But the merger is not going to instantly make Google users switch over. There is still a lot of work needed to develop a way to control search engine spam to the ability that Google possesses.

Ask.com could be the beneficiary of this whole thing. The Microsoft-Yahoo merger could backfire, causing Yahoo search users to lose confidence in its ability to produce relevant results. Those customers will either switch to other search engines like Ask.com – or just switch to Google and give Google even more of the market share.

Either this Microsoft-Yahoo merger will work, or it won’t. If it does then businesses and SEO experts will be forced to figure out the new Bing-Yahoo search engine. If it doesn’t work, then there will be one less search engine to worry about.

My SEO skills would be the song, “Eye of The Tiger.” It’s by Survivor, and the main chorus says: ‘rising up straight to the top, had the guts got the glory, went the distance, now I’m not gonna stop, just a man and his will to survive. It’s the eye of the tiger, it’s the cream of the fight, risin’ up to the challenge of our rivals, and the last known survivor stalks his prey in the night, and he’s watching us all with the eyeeeeeeee… of the tiger.’

Not only does it have very inspiring melody and rhythm (which are appealing qualities of any song, in my book) but the lyrics almost 100% accurately describe my whole day. So, I’m going to take each refrain and relate it to a part of my SEO skills.

‘Rising up straight to the top’ refers to my efforts to get all of my client’s keywords to the top of the search engines.

‘Had the guts got the glory, went the distance now I’m not gonna stop’ refers to the fact that I have to be constantly working on improving my own seo skills while implementing tried and true methods of link building, blogging, social media, and on-page SEO.

‘Just a man and his will to survive’ refers to the fact that at the end of the day, I’m only one person who has either used his skills or hasn’t. Now just as a caveat, any fighting, learning, and improving on my part really boils down to understanding how to make a site relevant for a particular search term, and then improving site conversions by making the site useful for visitors.

And then the main chorus: ‘It’s the eye of the tiger (referring to Google and their constant algorithm changing and monitoring of their index), ‘rising up to the challenge of our rivals’ refers to the fact that there are always other SEOs out there working on getting their sites to the top of the search engines for any one of my keywords. ‘The last known survivor stalks his prey in the night, and he’s watching us all with the eyeeeeee of the tiger’ (Matt Cutts).

In the present times, we can rightly say that the business world is dominated by the internet. Various reports suggest that most of the users resort to search engines for help when searching for some information. Therefore, it is important that your website is in a good position in the search engine result page (SERP).

Here’s a list of common SEO errors that most businesses make during the website designing phase:

1. Keyword StuffingIt was first reported in the early 1990s that it helped achieve number one spot in Google. However Keyword stuffing your metadata is not only against Google’s guidelines but also increases unnecessary traffic flow to your website. Therefore, when you decide keyword, make sure they are relevant to your website’s content. It is essential that the content is written based on the readers and not the search engines. You will be penalized if your website is found over optimized.
2. Splash PagesIt is the first page that a user views when he/she logs onto your website. These pages are normally Flash object with a “click here to skip” button or a large static graphic that occupies most of the screen’s space with a “continue” button. One of the reasons why these pages don’t work is because they are not optimized for search engines to crawl. It contains little content for search engines to index, so it’s considered of little interest and ranked highly.

   Therefore, if you need a splash page for your website make sure they are optimized correctly with text and graphics for the search engines to read and index.

3. ALT tagThis tag was designed specifically as an alternative to an image. This helps with usability especially for the visually impaired. You can also use this tag to index your pictures correctly. Most of the search engines provide an “image” search facility, which acts as an important source of traffic to sites. Keep in mind that if your products have been indexed and tagged properly then image search could act as another source of revenue for your site.
4. Flash WebsitesThese websites have a great look, with moving images, sliding navigation and sleek designs. However, most search engines don’t prefer them, as they can’t view the text given within a Flash object and so can’t index your content. In order to make Flash objects more search engine friendly, Adobe, Google and Yahoo have recently introduced “SEO Technology Center for Flash” to improve search engine ranking for Flash based websites. Adobe still recommends an HTML version for websites.
5. Duplicate ContentIf the content in your website is duplicate then you can be heavily penalized by Google. E-commerce sites generally have duplicate content, as a store selling the same products may have similar content. These sites have access to product feeds to such websites, which they will either upload or copy & paste from other websites. In order that the search engines have fresh and unique content to index ensure to write original content.
6. Purchase of SEO ProgrammesMost SEO websites promise to offer number one position to your site in Google. Since their main aim is to get your URL and a small amount of money. But it is impossible and have a negative impact on your site as many of the techniques applied could be ‘Black Hat’. Applying such techniques on your website could get you blacklisted by Google.
7. Competitors LinksWith so many websites around and proving to your customers that you have the best products, you may be tempted to link to your competitor’s products or website to get a “vote,” which Google views as a recommendation. Remember, if your website haS high quality relevant links, the more of a trusted source you become which will improve your search engine rankings.
8. Link Farming/Link SpammingYou may have come across many advertisements, which offer the option to submit your website to hundreds of directories. One of the major threats of link farm websites is that they have content of low quality and treated as spam by Google.
9. Non-utilization of Meta
   
   Every page in a website has three main areas were you can include content to, such as the TITLE tag, DESCRIPTION tag and the KEYWORDS tag. To ensure that your site is search engine friendly it is important to write each tag correctly. However, your site can be punished if found with tags stuffed with keywords that are irrelevant to your website.
10. Never Avoid Google GuidelinesFinally, be aware of any changes made to the Google Webmaster Guidelines.Google constantly changes its search engine algorithm and any failure to these guidelines will affect your website’s rankings.