Internet Marketing, Web Design, SEO, Web 2.0 Optimization
SEO tips
The posts here give some basic SEO tips
The Google Unnatural Links Update
01 week ago
Backl\inks
Ask any SEO specialist how important links are to a successful SEO campaign and they can tell you that links are certainly one of the important strategies to increased search engine result rankings. Recently, Google sent out an update that sent ripples across the entire SEO community. How will the Google update affect the types of link building strategies that we use? Or will it affect them at all? It is certainly worth taking a look at and double checking to ensure your site(s) are not unduly penalized.
Google’s Announcement
According to the official Google Search blog, many times links are used to help determine a topic of a linked page. The way Google evaluates these links is going to be different. They say that sometimes they “re-architect or turn off” certain parts of their scoring methods to help the system be easily maintained and clean. And that is about all that anybody is getting Google to say about the matter.
What many are discovering is that if the links provided to a site are all obtained by white hat methods there should be no penalty. It appears as though Google simply wants to crack down on sites that build back links through “unnatural” or “artificial” means. Those who are attempting to use artificial links to affect their Page Rank have experienced penalties by Google. Some webmasters have not received any notice before they noticed a sudden drop in the SERPs. The trouble seems to lie mostly with those who are engaging in buying or selling links and disregarding whether or not these are relevant or quality links. This is an obvious violation of Google’s Panda Update and can certainly affect a site’s ranking. There have also been some concern on the part of business owners who have hired SEO specialists. They are caught off-guard by the penalty and are unsure what to do to remedy the situation.
What’s Not a Violation?
It is important to note that all paid links are not in violation of these guidelines. It is really just part of the web’s economy, when the purpose is simply advertising and not trying to manipulate search results in any way. However, it is very important to note when links are purchased for advertising. One example of this is by redirecting links to a page that is not indexed by bots; such as .txt files. And another way to avoid the penalty is to add an “rel=’nofollow’” attribute to the tag <a>.
Google tries to make sure that it only penalizes sites that are purchasing links simply to manipulate the results. It will be looking for sites that engage in a huge amount of link exchanges or links that pass Page Rank. However, there are sites with many links that have been penalized in the rankings without cause. It is worth the time invested to make sure that natural links look more natural to the bots as well. For instance, if you have a link from a blog that is linked to your site alone, that looks unnatural. But a link from a blog that is linked to many different sites has a more natural look. A site that has a link from a professional organization will look natural as will a link to a relevant site. Large amounts of links from spam directories, loads of links from irrelevant sites or links from a “links” page will all send up some red flags to Google.
Impact on SEO
It is very possible that the recent changes in Google will directly affect SEO strategies. The Unnatural Link update is different from other updates because it is penalizing sites based solely on the link building strategies that have been used. For many it will mean no changes; for others it can be a clean-up headache. Based on the data available there are some observations that can be made about these penalties. If you get a message about unnatural links it is very likely that the site will be penalized within about 3 week’s time. These penalties seem to draw a correlation between the “unnatural links” and any anchor text that is used. Because the way that Google views anchor text has changed sites that contain large amounts of keyword anchor text are at risk.
For those who use commercial link building products, it is very likely that it will be or already is being targeted by Google. Some of the best known sites like Build My Rank are being de-indexed. Several SEO specialists have stated that they have been using their own blog networks for link building strategies. And some of them are aware that they have already been de-indexed. Sidebar links are going to send up a huge red flag so they should be removed. Links to any toxic sites should also be removed.
What to Do
It is really not that easy to clean up a site that has been penalized by Google’s updates. The first attempt should be to contact the link builders first and ask that the links be removed. If this is unsuccessful you can manually email the sites and ask that the links be removed. This can take a very long time and it will only work if a site has a real human who is managing the site and answering emails. This means that low quality sites will have no real means of contacting them so you cannot remove the link. This is why it is becoming very important to the SEO community to carefully guard link building campaigns and strategies. Google has yet to come up with a real way of dealing with this problem. However, you can link to Google Docs and state that you have asked for a link to be removed but have no means of contact and so you cannot do anything about it.
These changes are certainly having an impact on SEO agencies. This is especially true for those who rely on link building strategies for site rankings. On a good note, sites that are using spam methods to build links used to rank for about a year before they were detected; now they only last about 3 months at most. But for those who legitimately desire to build a lint term business it is necessary to develop a strategy that will deliver long term results.
To run a smart SEO campaign it will involve about 5 areas. First, continue to produce quality and relevant content for the users of the site. Link building strategies should be natural through the use of content where other sites naturally link back to their sites. Stay on Google’s good side by providing quality content and a site that is engaging for visitors. Don’t over optimize. Use a well-balanced approach to develop a solid SEO campaign.
What is an Online Reputation?
02 weeks ago
online reputation
You already have an online reputation, even if you are unaware of it. Through the various interactions that you have made on social media sites, blogs and other comments you have created a virtual image of yourself. An online reputation is basically what people perceive about you or your business when your name comes up. What types of results are displayed when a query is made about your business, or when your name is typed in one of the major search engines? It is how you are perceived across the online community. Once there are negative comments made and posted online it can be nearly impossible to erase them completely. Your online reputation is a very important feature pertaining to your business; it is important to manage it properly and deal with it in the event that it becomes tainted.
How to Manage your Online Reputation
Managing your online reputation is rather simple in premise but it does take a conscious effort to do so effectively. Just remember that every single keystroke you make while online has the potential of being seen by literally millions of internet users. Each online activity reflects your reputation – or the one that you will earn. Always think before you share any piece of information on any site. Take time to think about what you are putting up online and who you are actually sharing it with. Every statement is a reflection of your online reputation.
It is important to sign up for personal alerts. Search engines can send automatic alerts that notify you when your name, business name or other types of personal information is mentioned. You should also periodically run your own search for your name or your business to see what types of results are displayed. This will help you keep track of what types of information are being catalogued by the search engines.
Create the online image that you want others to see. Link to items that you publish in your name, or business name. Join related professional networks such as LinkedIn and build a professional profile while linking with other persons in your field. Comment on various social media sites such as blogs or forums which are pertinent to your own business. Use the web 2.0 media platforms that are available such as blogs. These are wonderful SEO tools and can help establish a positive online reputation when you use your name to create them.
Be active on your business related social sites. Perhaps you share links through the media of social bookmarking sites, or have a business page on a social site such as Facebook. Stay active and respond to comments made by customers.
How do I Fix a Bad Online Reputation?
Once there are negative posts online, it can affect a business. Just a simple negative statement can cause a reader to think twice about doing business with your company. It is not always a simple task to remove such posts once they have been done. Of course the logical thing to do is to address any real problems that exist from the corporate level; if there is a legitimate concern. Then basically, you will want to begin to post positive content about the business to out rank the negative. Most people will not go past the first few search engine results and few venture past the first page or two. Posting positive company comments will out rank negative comments by pushing them further down in the rankings and hopefully out of sight. You may want to speak with a qualified SEO specialist about how to manage good content so that it ranks high in SERPs.
When there is an issue with a product or service, it is a good idea to make contact directly with the upset client. It may be possible, and really is the best case scenario, to fix the problem. It may not directly erase the initial negative comment, but it can end up with them placing positive comments about how you conducted your business in a professional and pleasing manner by directly addressing the issues they had. It is important to address issues as soon as they occur. PR experts advise to take action as soon as there is a negative comment so that it can be handled appropriately before it has a chance to build up more steam.
Stay focused on your company’s SEO campaign. Use social bookmarking sites and other social media to your advantage. Start a blog with the business name; create a Facebook or LinkedIn account. These can all be used to place positive content online which can help to push down negative comments. These types of web 2.0 platforms can also be places where other customers can leave positive feedback which can help out rank the bad.
Sometimes you can contact the company site which published the negative comment and ask them to remove it. Some sites will do so out of simple courtesy. Negative comments do not just disappear; the best way to protect your online reputation is to address each incident with proactive measures.
Strategic Online Marketing
21 month ago
Online Marketing
There are various strategies to be used when organizing an online marketing campaign. While there are many different types of strategies that can be used, any one SEO campaign may use only a few of them. The SEO specialist needs to be able to choose which of the strategies available will be the best tactics for each client. It is not a simple task since there is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all SEO marketing plan. Much research and hard work is necessary to determine which strategic tactics make up the most effective SEO campaign to meet a client’s online marketing needs.
Site Essentials
There are literally billions of web 2.0 websites that can be visited; however, many of them are not successful. While the needs and goals are different for each client, there are some elements that should be included on every site. Website optimization will include a series of items that are mostly unique to the client or business but remain basically the same across the board for each SEO campaign.
The first decision in website optimization is the URL. The domain name is like the business’ brand. It should be something that describes the basic premise of the business but is easy for users to remember. The site should be easy for visitors to navigate and find information pertinent to the business. If a visitor has to spend any length of time trying to find the information they are looking for they will likely move on to a more friendly site. The site design should also include contact information that is easy to find. It is good SEO practice to include contact information on every page on the site. Within the site, usually on the landing page, there should also be a very clear description of the businesses or services that are available. Potential customers should easily understand services as they are being offered to see if it meets their needs and be able to contact you about such services.
Every page on the site should contain content that is fresh and of high quality. It should not be just empty filler but should contain valuable information. There should also be a “call to action” that encourages the online visitor to call for a quote, sign up for an email list or add products to an online shopping cart.
From there it is always important to include SEO best practices for every web marketing campaign. Using SEO campaign strategies will ensure that traffic is driven to the site.
SEO Practices that Differ Depending on the Business
One of the differences between online business sites is the targeted audience. A lawyer site and a contract painter site will be trying to reach very different populations. Some internet users are looking purely for information but many are looking to employ various types of services. These considerations must come into play when developing an SEO and online marketing strategy.
The types of SEO strategies that are used will largely depend on what types of services are being made available. For instance, a legal site may largely deal with sharing information pertinent to their area of legal expertise while sites selling products will need to have some form of e-commerce available on site.
Local SEO will also play a large part in many business marketing strategies. It is important for contractors, doctors and lawyers to be able to reach an audience in their locality where they can easily provide services. An online marketer who will be shipping products or selling only through online sources will not be as concerned with local SEO.
The use of social media marketing on the web 2.0 platform will largely depend on the type of business as well. It is important to make use of this very effective platform. However, their usefulness will depend largely upon the marketing technique and the product being sold. Social bookmarking communities can be beneficial for most business areas; and social media platforms such as Twitter or Facebook can be used to make potential or current clients aware of new products, services or information as it becomes available.
How SEO Works
16 months ago
major search engines
The three major search engines have four basic functions: web crawling, indexing, calculating rank and relevance and sharing the results. Basically each of the search engines send out a crawler that searches the whole web and finds data relative to the search query. Most of the time, these are web pages, but they can also be a specific file such as a JPG or a PDF.
Crawling and Indexing
Crawlers access the entire structure of the web by using links. These bots go through literally billions of documents that are interconnected. After the crawler finds a page it will analyze the data and then file away pertinent information which is then recalled when a query is made. When a user types in a word or phrase in the search engine it will go through all the documents and return only the results that are deemed relevant to the search. It will also rank the results by which seem to be more valuable. So what makes a site, page or online document more relevant?
Ranking and Relevance
Presently search engines look at several factors to determine a page’s relevance to the search and where it is ranked. Links play a major role in determining relevance and that is followed closely by keyword usage including in the domain name. Then the smaller parts of the algorithm are made up of things like social metrics and traffic.
SEO and Search Engine Algorithms
The three major search engines which have varying algorithms. Each one has particular factors that weigh a little more than others. Here is a listing of the three major search engines and some hints on how to use the major components of their algorithms for best SEO strategies.
Yahoo
SEO for Yahoo!
- Build a solid link building campaign
- Create quality page content with well placed keyword(s) or phrases
- Update the index and site map on a regular basis
Bing
SEO for Bing
- Include popular search terms in the page text that individuals might use to find the site
- Limit the size of all the pages
- Make sure that every page can be reached by at least one static text link
- If you want text to be indexed do not put it inside images
SEO for Google
- Design pages and content for users not Google
- Include at least one static text link per page and give the site an obvious hierarchy
- Create content that is quality and full of useful (and relevant) information; include title elements that are both accurate and descriptive
- Keep links on each page to under 100
Benefits of SEO
137 months ago
Last time we discussed the temporary nature of social media. This leads to our next point about why SEOis just as important (if not more so) than social media.
social media strategies
Yes, social media can bring publicity to your business. Social media allows you to engage in conversation with others who are also interested in the same topic as you. It allows you to share knowledge with others about that topic. It even allows you to inform others about your own products and services, a hidden web marketing tactic? However, one drawback of social media is that you can’t tailor to individual customer experiences. Here is where the major flaw of social media without SEO is exposed: When you update your business’ Facebook page about something, you are no doubt putting out information that you want users to see. However, if the timing is not right, then your update is lost amidst a sea of other updates. The issue with social media is that it presents a lot of information to an audience of people who are not necessarily looking for the information/product/service at that time. The great thing about SEO then is that it guarantees that your services will be presented to the user when he/she is actually looking for it.
Updating your social media frequently helps build your brand as well as maintain your credibility among those that follow you. Building your brand through web marketing and social media can be very beneficial. From a different angle, it basically heightens awareness about your company to those that already know your company’s name. However, the other wonderful thing about SEO is that it is able to bring awareness about your company to those that are looking for your product/service but don’t know about you yet. SEO puts you in front of the people who are interested in your product/service but don’t necessarily know about your business.
To read more about why SEO is here to stay, be sure to check out our next blog post comparing SEO and social media.
SEO Tip # 21: What is Black Hat SEO?
21 year ago
Image via Wikipedia
I would like to welcome you to my twenty-first SEO tip of the day; here I will discuss the meaning of “Black Hat” SEO.
As “search” has developed into a viable industry and as search engines have refined their algorithms in order to deliver best results what is acceptable (legal, or White Hat) and what is not acceptable (illegal or Black Hat) has changed and continues to change. Google employs armies of people whose job it is to improve their search results and part of whose job it is to discover deceptive SEO practices and penalize the sites that employ such Black Hat techniques. There are a number of SEO companies around that use Black Hat SEO techniques and that claim that you’ll never get caught; the reality is that you will get caught and when you do your site will get penalized and you will loose your business, while the company you hired will not be punished. There are a number of Black Hat SEO techniques that are common today and a number of SEO’s attempt to pass these off as “legal” or “low risk”, the reality is that although these may be low risk for the SEO company (who may loose you as a client if Google catches what they are doing) this can be very high risk for the client b/c they can loose their business. Despite what some of you might want I will not be going over examples of Black Hat SEO (for fear that you may be tempted to do some of these things), the one example of Black Hat SEO that I will provide is one that was recently in the news, the website of JCPenney (a venerable department store) was recently hit with a heavy penalty by Google for buying links (link buying is an example of a Black Hat practice) it seems that they were able to outsmart Google for months, b/c for months their product pages were raking #1 for various terms such as “baby furniture”… but eventually they got caught and now their entire site is being penalized. Another example of Google punishing a site for using Black Hat SEO is a recent case where Google punished overstock.com for paying college students to put links to the site on their blogs. In addition to buying links, excessive link trading is also seen as black hat (although trading a few links here and there will not cause you harm; although trading links is highly unlikely to help your overall SEO)
My advice to you is this, talk to your SEO company and ask them what they do to get results, and ask them if they use and Black Hat SEO techniques, you should only hire an SEO company that uses White Hat SEO.
If your site has been hit with a penalty by Google for using Black Hat SEO please contact us, we will work with you and Google to get your penalty lifted; we are a highly respected SEO firm that uses only White Hat SEO.
SEO Tip # 19 Value of Backlinks
91 year ago
Image via Wikipedia
I would like to welcome you to my nineteenth SEO tip of the day; here I will discuss the importance of backlinks to improve your SEO.
Backlinks are a vital component of SEO b/c the number of backlinks and the quality of these backlinks is still the primary method through which Google and other search engines determine how a site will rank for a certain keyword. The value of backlinks has ebbed as search engines have refined their search algorithms (search engines today consider many factors not just backlinks) but backlinks are still the dominant way that keyword rankings are determined.
Trading links is one of the primary methods through which you can get backlinks – this is when you make an arrangement with another site that you will link to them if they will link to you. Trading links is seen as an artificial way of building links (since links are supposed to measure the popularity of your site). Although link trading is still a dominant method through which most new sites/blogs get backlinks, link trading is seen as a Black Hat SEO practice by Google (illigal) and if you engage in too much link trading it can get your site penalized; also Google tends to ignore two way link trades, so much link trading is a waste of time, but if done right trading links can be a useful way to improve your rankings (organic backlinks are always better though). Two way link trades are frowned upon by Google (site “A” adds a link to site “B”, and site “B” adds a link to site “A”) such links are not given much weight. It is much more valuable for you to do a 3 way link trade, this is simple a link trade between 3 sites instead of just 2, and is seen as more organic.
Related Articles
- SEO Lessons from JCPenney (netlz1.wordpress.com)
- What Are Backlinks: Get Backlinks most from tools directory … (what-are-backlinks.blogspot.com)
SEO Tip # 18 Blogging to Improve SEO
21 year ago
I would like to welcome you to my eighteenth SEO tip of the day; here I will discuss the importance of blogging to improve your SEO. I know that I’ve already talked about this in an earlier tip, but I am very passionate about blogging for SEO and for this of you who may not have read my earlier tip I wanted to repeat myself.
Blogging is in all likelihood the most worthwhile and cost effective thing that you can do in order to improve your SEO. Although they were not started with this intention today blogs have become the leading way that businesses can communicate with their customers/clients. When blogging there are a few important things of which you should be aware (see my article on blog optimization), in addition to being well optimized it is important for you to blog often, (at least once every other day) and it is important that each blog post relate to your core business in some way, for example, if you are a doctor you can blog about types of hormone replacement therapy, or if you are a business services consultant you can blog about offshore business formation jurisdictions… To have a successful blog it is also important for you to promote each post that you write, you can do this by utilizing the RSS feed to sync your blog with Twitter, Facebook and other social media that you use. Again, the most important thing about a successful blog is that you blog often and that your posts are well written and interesting to read.
Related Articles
- SEO Tip # 17 Using Squidoo for SEO (netlz1.wordpress.com)
- SEO Tip # 13 Using Twitter for SEO (netlz1.wordpress.com)
- SEO Tip # 8 Blog Optimization (netlz1.wordpress.com)
- SEO Tip # 7 Benefits of Blogging for SEO (netlz1.wordpress.com)
SEO Tip # 17 Using Squidoo for SEO
61 year ago
Image by coreyweb via Flickr
I would like to welcome you to my seventeenth SEO tip of the day; here I will discuss the importance of Squidoo to improve your SEO.
Squidoo is currently one of my favorite web 2.0 platforms. Squidoo is a platform, (similar to blogs) which allows you to create a page on a specific topic (ex: Offshore Business Formation Benefits) and to add a variety of content on that topic, articles, pics videos etc… The reason that I really like Squidoo for SEO is b/c in addition to being able to create quality content you can embed links to other content of yours (your site, blog, another Squidoo lens…) and these links are typically given much juice (weight by Google and other search engines). Squidoo is also highly interactive and allows you to rate and vote other lenses (pages) and also to let others rate your lenses… In addition Squidoo lets you add your blog/RSS feed of your blog to every page and will automatically update this info based on your most recent blog posts, which means that you can get automatic quality links to each new blog post that you create. Visit Eugene on Squidoo.
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