Internet Marketing, Web Design, SEO, Web 2.0 Optimization
Posts tagged basic SEO
Is SEO Always the Same?
91 year ago
Industry specific SEO
Often most people see all SEO as being the same, and many SEO companies treat the optimization of different types of sites equally… but the reality is that SEO is not always the same, and different websites in different industries require different types of optimization. The simplest way to illustrate this concept is to think of traditional forms of marketing (lets say TV commercials for example). Different companies choose to optimize their budget on commercials by carefully choosing the shows during which their commercials air, (an add targeting kids products may appear either during a children’s show, or a show watched by parents, while an ad for the latest sports car might appear during certain sporting events that fit the demographic for that car…) such selection helps to ensure that each ad will reach the target niche for the product, and also helps to maximize each ad dollar the company spends. A similar process takes place, or rather should take place in every SEO campaign.
SEO as a whole encompasses as a huge spectrum of individual marketing techniques, and every campaign needs to select the best tools that would provide the biggest bang. SEO tools range from, on page optimization (which is typically the same, at least for most static websites), to off page optimization such as, social bookmarking, social media, blogging, link building… and furthermore each of these off page tools can be farther broken down, for example, under social media, there are many options that might work depending on your niche: Twitter, Facebook, Linked In, Gather… In addition to these tools, there are certain industry specific SEO tools that can be used, such tools are things like, an online community that exists for real estate agents to network…
So the simple answer is, No, SEO is not always the same. Each website has to be analyzed, and each target niche has to be closely examined in order to see which tools will work best.
What is Unique Content, Why Should I Care?
31 year ago
Unique content is important
Duplicate content is a scourge that plagues the internet (or at least that is how Google sees it) and Google does everything they can to eliminate the problem of duplicate content…
There are two primary types of duplicate content, duplicate content on your site (mostly a problem suffered by dynamic sites) and off page duplicate content, In the following I will try to cover both of these issues, if you are still unsure, or have a question about duplicate content, please feel free to ask in the comments section of this post.
The first type of duplicate content that I want to discuss is off page duplicate content. Off page duplicate content is a problem that is often seen by new bloggers, when in their haste to promote their blog they reproduce content found elsewhere on their blog… This problem is fairly straight forward to understand and can be thought of simply as plagiarism, or duplication of existing content on your site/blog. Although there are other examples of duplicate content that you might not be aware of, such as copying your bio or the information that you include on the “about us” page of your site… (When dealing with duplicate content it is best to play it safe, and if you absolutely must duplicate content from another location I recommend using a “no follow index tag” along with the content duplicated so that you will not be penalized…) If you choose to duplicate such content, you should do so at your own risk b/c Google (just like that teacher who caught you plagiarizing on a paper in high school and gave you a bad grade) is likely to punish you for duplicate content, and unlike your high school teacher (with whom you had a shot of getting away with it) you will not get away with it with Google! – Google invests tons of resources into preventing spam and duplicate content, and I can guarantee you that if you try to get away with duplicate content you will be caught; and you will be punished. (BTW, when you embed a YouTube video on your site/ blog post, this is not seen as duplicate content).
The other type of duplicate content is duplicate content that you have on your site; this type of duplicate content typically affects blogs and dynamic websites, but has the potential to be very harmful in the way that your site is seen by Google… When you have a dynamic site there is constant content that is being created, and often, through no intentional actions by the webmaster there will be duplication of pages under different URL’s, and placed in different locations, this is a “no, no” and if you have a dynamic site I would urge you to analyze your system to make sure that no duplicate content is being created, or if such content is created, to tag it in such a way that Google will not penalize you. If you do not want to do this analysis yourself, or are not able to do it for some reason, I recommend you contact NetLZ, your dynamic website SEO specialists, and we will help optimize your dynamic site.
The moral of the story is simple, your high school teacher was right (yes I know you do not want to hear that), plagiarism is bad, and you will be punished if you plagiarize.
SEO for Web Developers
41 year ago
This is a guest blog post submitted by, Nick LeRoy
Nick LeRoy is the Search Marketing Specialist over at Minneapolis MN Web Design
Every SEO has had to deal with web developers that don’t know much about SEO. Their job is to create a website and many times they don’t realize what they are doing (or not doing) is hurting your sites search presence. Sometimes all it takes is some direction and reasoning to get them to change their ways. Other webmasters may take SEO suggestions offensively and will make you jump hurtles in order to get them to make changes. “Simple” changes by a webmaster can indeed make a world of difference when it comes to search engine optimization. Below is a list that every website owner should be printing out and handing to their webmasters.
- Create Unique Title Tags For Every Page
Placing the website name or company name on each page does not accurately describe what that individual page is about. Every page should have a custom written title tag that describes exactly what a user can expect from that page.
SEO Importance: 10/10
SEO Tip: Include keywords within your title tags. A big factor in ranking for a specific keyword is whether or not the keyword is located within the pages title tag.
- Avoiding Duplicate Content Issues.
Duplicate content issues occur when the same (or nearly identical) content is found on two separate URL’s. This issue is most commonly found on e-commerce websites but does exist on standard sites as well. If avoiding duplicate content is not possible use a 301 redirect or a canonical tag. Canonical tag html code is the following. <link rel=”canonical” href=”http://www.yourwebsiteurl.com/” />
SEO Importance: 10/10
SEO Tip: Avoid having the www and non-www versions of your website available. Choose one and 301 redirect the other so your website doesn’t split its link juice between the two different URL’s.
- Implement Internal Linking Throughout Entire Website.
Linking is essential to top rankings in the search engines. Webmasters have full control over internal links so it doesn’t make sense to not take advantage of them. Whenever you see a keyword or key phrase that a certain page within the site is dedicated to, make sure to link to that page. If we have an e-commerce site and within the category page a specific product is mentioned, it’s a great idea to hyperlink the product name and point it to that specific product page.
SEO Importance: 9/10
SEO Tip: Try to link to each page using the same keyword phrase throughout entire website. This will help convince the search engines that this page is about that keyword and help it rank better in the search engines.
- Set Up SEO Friendly File Names (URL’s).
A static, keyword rich URL will give your page an extra SEO boost. Search engines have been known to give precedence to a website that has keyword matching URL’s in their search results. Just like the title tag, you want this URL to be related to this specific page so make sure to keep it topically relevant.
SEO Importance: 8/10
SEO Tip: Use dashes to separate words within your URL’s. An example for a web page that sells red socks could use
(domain.com/boys-red-socks.html)
- Create Search Engine Friendly Navigation Menus
Search engines at this time have not perfected the art of reading flash and JavaScript technologies. If your menus are created in flash or JavaScript the search engines will not be able to see them and won’t be able to dig deeper into the website. Alternatively, avoid image based menus; search engines can’t see images either. If it’s absolutely necessary to have image based navigation, make sure you place image alt tags on each individual image within the navigation.
SEO Importance: 8/10
SEO Tip: If you cannot avoid Flash or JavaScript, place text links to each of the menu pages in the footer of the website so the search engines can find the deeper pages within your site.
SEO for Mom and Pop Stores
01 year ago
Mom and pop stores are still the cornerstone of many towns in the United States. When many of us think of our childhood we still remember that corner store that was a block away where we’d get milk, or that diner where we may have gone on our first date, or perhaps the flower shop or that boutique… most importantly we can remember that nice store keeper who we got to know through the years…
Much has changed for mom and pop shops recently, globalization and the “Wal-Martization” of the marketplace has made things very difficult… but through the internet many mom and pop shops are now able to reach a global audience, and the local boutique, that only recently catered to a few neighborhoods or a small town may now have the entire world as a potential customer!
When it comes to websites and SEO for mom and pop shops there are a few things that ought to be considered; such sites should be targeted to the local community, and off page SEO for these sites should be done primarily through Google local and other local search engines/classifieds. If your shop produces a unique product or service the site should include a page that describes this and the geographic region where this is available (if applicable). In the case of unique products/services it is also important to have proper title tags, b/c since these products are unique (not very competitive) it is likely that these pages will rank well in Google with little effort; additionally, you can target your link building efforts at the titles of your core products, so that your product pages will rank well.
When it comes to local SEO, it is extremely important to properly optimize your local SEO. This means that you set up proper local accounts on all of the top search engines (Google local, Yahoo local, Bing local) and that you provide these accounts with all of the proper information (Your company name, address, phone #, website…) As far as the optimization of the title for your Local listing, if your company name does not mention your product you should try to include it in the title, for example, “Bold Electric – Licensed electrician NJ”.
What does SEO have to do with Buddhism?
02 years ago
I realize that many might find the title of this blog post odd, and I want to apologize in advance to anyone who practices Buddhism and who might be offended by the analogy that I will make here, but I thought that this was an apt observation and I wanted to share it.
In Buddhism there is an old parable the moral of which states that a man can take many different roads to achieve nirvana, and although few men are likely to travel the same path, many are likely to end up in the same place. The same might be said for SEO, there are many different ways to achieve success with your search engine optimization strategy, you can choose to follow any of these paths, but as long as your path is just (you have a good website, and you follow the rules set up for SEO) and as long you are willing to make a commitment to the Path for the proper amount of time (you are interested improving your site over the long term and are willing to commit to SEO for years rather than months) you will succeed in making your site great and you will see tremendous results from your efforts.
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