SEO Blog

New redesign

2006-09-30T12:22:00.000-07:00

Have you seen the new redesign of BearCanyonSEO.com?? If not, hurry on over. This is my first ever css-p site. I'm starting to get the hang of this css thing and it really does make sense. Not a lot of junk code, easy to update and even easy to change the design!

I pretty much moved over all the content and worked on it once it was moved over. My plan is to expand the Articles section. My idea is to expand it so that not all the articles are on one page. I've spent a long time collecting articles to reflect certain areas of SEO; Flash pages, Frames, Content, etc. What I'm going to do is make a new page for each category. I'll blab a bit about each of these area, then add my collection of links. Should be fun and a bit more user friendly.... will allow me to have an entire page for these ever growing important topics.

I'm a bad blogger...

2006-09-30T12:21:00.000-07:00

I "should" post everyday... but I don't. So much stuff going on. Going to try to get some of it up today. I mean well and have a lot of things to post up... I just don't get around to it!!!

Having Problems with my Blog??

2006-09-30T12:18:00.000-07:00

I just had a nice guy from Norway alert me that my blog, on the Blogspot domain, has some weird (and pink) stuff coming up:

SEObyKeli.blogspot.com

Weird.

I started an FTP feed to my server about a month ago so that

SEObyKeli.com would work with Blogger, which is where my blog is now.

I contacted Google, hopefully they can figure this out.

META NOODP tag/SEO Salaries/SEO Project Fees

2006-08-02T08:38:00.000-07:00

This was very exciting news:

http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/google-supports-meta-noodp-tag/

Basically, you can stop Google from pulling description tags from DMOZ. The problem with the DMOZ descriptions is that the editor make up their own and it's nearly impossible to change. Just getting into DMOZ these days is impossible... but that's a whole different epic.

Two cool posts came out regarding money. The money we "should" be making and the money we charge for projects.

The first, the money we should be making from the blog of Kalena. I don't see these numbers as being too far off:

Entry level SEO/SEM position = $30-45K
Three to five years experience / online account managers = $50-75K
Five + years / organic SEO specialists = $75-90K
Senior management level = $70-120K
SEM Director = $95-150K
VP Level = $100-200K (although there have been reports of offers ranging from $250-315K at this level)

I've been doing around 8 years and I specialize in organic SEO. Seems like good numbers to me.

Regarding how to price an SEO project comes from the infamous Rand Fishkin. I've always liked his posts; he's humble, honest, isn't afraid to talk about subjects others won't touch. He doesn't answer his users in a smart-ass tone like a lot of the high and mighty SEO'ers are doing now days. Is all that attitude necessary? Anyways... here's his post on How to Price an SEO Campaign. It contains a lot of great information and the considerations when pricing an SEO project; the first outing of it's kind. You'll find a lot of SEO companies don't post their prices (we do) - so this is a refreshing break not only because of the detail included but because it comes from one of the more well known SEO firms.

Football Field Sized Data Centers - Google

2006-06-14T09:42:00.000-07:00

Just read an article about Googles new data complex. It's the size of two football fields and has twin cooling plants four stories high. Not bad when you're starting to take over the world.

It's speculated that Google has around 450,000 data centers spread around 25 countries - holy cow. That's a lot muscle.

You can read the article here.

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Been a lot of talk about the ranking changes that seem to correlate with Big Daddy. Matt Cutts covered a lot of the changes in his blog. Good read. I myself haven't noticed any tragic drops in ranking. Rankings change - period. I don't think I'm going to point my finger at Big Daddy but rather point my finger at they dynamic, ever changing index of Google. It'll never be static, you can't always be #1.

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Google released an online spreadsheet ap that looks really cool. You have to sign up to try it out.

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I've added a lot of new articles, blog posts and other tid bits releated to the SEO industry. While you're there, you might as well visit my collection of SEO tools too.

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Other new things Google is rolling out (or has already):

GBUY - competition for PayPal

Google Calendar - as with all Google products, it's very slim and featureless... but will do the job.

Google Notebook - I haven't tried this one out and I have to admit I'm getting a bit creeped out by it all. I do my accounting with a spredsheet, mark my appointments (both for myself and my family) in calendars and take notes via notepad on my system. Just how much does Google need to know about me??

Google Trends - this is very cool, I could waste hours (and have) here.

Google Finances

They cannot be stopped!

Yahoo/MSN VS Google

2006-05-05T11:08:00.000-07:00

Related articles about the gossip/talks/speculation about Yahoo and MSN joining forces to conqure the Google empire.

Microsoft Going After Google
By Jim Hedger - May 03, 2006

Microsoft and Yahoo! Teaming Up?
Posted by Jennifer May 03, 2006

A Microsoft, Yahoo Tie-Up?
By ROBERT A. GUTH and KEVIN J. DELANEY

Yahoo vs. MSN, Google and Ask (and ABC, NBC, FOX, CNN, TIVO, Netflix, etc…)

Killer SEO Strategy

2006-05-05T11:06:00.000-07:00

Killer SEO Strategy
By Search Engine Articles and Press Releases - April 27, 2006

by Jason Green - GreenBUILT Research & Development LLC

One of the most fascinating aspects of SEO is the dynamic and fluid nature of the art itself. By definition any legitimate search optimization methodology will be closely related to the search engines of the day. This relationship is also mutually reinforcing: The search engines will continue to evolve partially in response to advancing SEO methodologies. The cycle begins again.

The current direction of search technology is towards the improvement of core search quality, this has resulted in a very positive shift within much of the search optimization industry; as practitioners must now place increased emphasis on providing quality web pages. In the end everyone wins, so long as this course is maintained.

In regards to modern search engines, what constitutes a great SEO strategy? Yesterday's answer to this question was different from todays, and tomorrow promises greater changes still. For now we will leave tomorrow's answer in the hands of those who have time for such speculation. What we are concerned with right now is defining some concrete features of a killer SEO strategy for today.

What is SEO?

Today more than ever we are finding an increasingly difficult task in answering this question definitively. The border between optimization, marketing, design and usability are starting to fade in a very positive way. Good SEO, which once defined a very narrow body of (superficial) activity, is fast becoming a comprehensive, holistic strategy, with sights focused on long-term success. The search engines themselves deserve a large portion of the credit for this leap forward as they continue to develop algorithms that reward genuinely good web pages.

SEO is not the only industry that is benefiting from an expanding “big-picture”. Given the immense success of search engine medium, traditional marketing is now taking a serious interest in the leviathan of potential that search has become. We are also seeing a shift in the web design and development world, as programmers integrate search friendly design principles into their work. After all what use is an awesome website if no one is going to see it? This is becoming a common mantra in web design. None of this offers any assistance in our task of defining SEO; however it indicates that rewarding professional collaborations and continuing education are certain to be an essential aspect of these industries for a long time.

So are we ready to define search engine optimization yet? Perhaps not for the industry at large, but for the purposes of this work, I will bite the bullet and offer some boundaries for our discussion. We will define search engine optimization thusly:

SEO is both an art and a science which aims to secure strategic, targeted, organic search engine visibility.

(The purpose of securing this visibility will be dependent upon the individual case; common motivations being: targeted visitor traffic, sales, brand recognition and even competitive interference.)

Some explanation:

* SEO is both an art and a science in that it involves ( ideally):
o i. Knowledge of search engine technologies and a practical understanding of how to apply that knowledge to develop highly relevant web pages.
o ii. An appreciation of core quality and end-user needs as well as an intuitive understanding of how to leverage this awareness to create user-centric benefits.
* SEO is concerned with achieving opacity for very specific audiences (targeted search phrases) with the purpose of motivating that audience towards a specific action. That action can be highly variable depending upon the needs of the site owner.

Many will argue against this definition, however it suits the purposes of this discussion nicely and we can now start laying out our killer SEO strategy.

Features of a Killer SEO Strategy

It will be necessary for our strategy to satisfy our basic definition of SEO as a minimum. Yet to receive the distinction of being the Killer strategy we need to go a little above and beyond the call of duty. In the descriptions below I have tried to avoid too much specificity so as to keep the discussion on a conceptual level. My hope is that this will inspire discussion and further refinement of SEO methodologies.

The following features describe the essentials of the killer search optimization strategy.

Research: The foundation any effective SEO strategy is comprehensive research.

The research effort should have three primary goals:
a) Identification of targeted audiences and the search phrases that will be targeted in order to reach them.
b) Important factors that will influence the campaign. For example competitive factors, industry trends, etc.
c) The development of an optimal strategy to achieve targeted visibility.

Some essential aspects of the research effort include:

Targeted search phrase research (keyword research):

The success of entire campaign will be dependent upon the strength of the keyword research. Ideally keyword research will draw upon many resources and take into consideration a broad range of factors to identify the search phrases of greatest value and strategic advantage. This can include: semantic analysis, topical integrity improvement, industry vocabulary building and a great deal more. An understanding of modern search engine textual analysis strategies is essential.

Website Analysis:

The purpose of this phase is to obtain a complete view of the current state of your web site; especially those factors which are not readily observable yet can significantly influence the outcome of the campaign. Factors such us user transparent code structures, hyper-link associations, etc. Areas of investigation could include: website credibility, usability/accessibility review, inherent user value, business efficacy, design quality, architecture, etc.

Competitive Analysis:

The two-fold purpose of this phase should be:

* Identification of your primary (targeted search phrase) competition and a thorough investigation of their business. Identify competitor strategies, strengths, weaknesses, upcoming developments, etc.
* The identification of unique industry-specific variables that can influence rankings. This is primarily a function of topical community analysis.

MWR Strategy:

This phase is concerned with directing visitors towards a Most Wanted Response. The most wanted response being the ideal action that visitors will take once they arrive at your site. Often this involves a review of the marketability and sales effectiveness of the website with an emphasis on improving usability, implementing effective conversion strategies and developing visitor loyalty programs.

Optimization: This is where all that research is put to good use. The optimization procedure should produce a final product that is an authoritative and valuable resource within its topical community. The website must also be highly relevant for targeted search phrases; this requires an understanding of search engine document analysis and sorting techniques. Some of the areas addressed by the optimization process should include:

* Text Optimization: Text improvement and optimization that improves the relevancy of a given web page for its targeted search phrases, without compromising the value to human visitors.
* Code Optimization: including user transparent code like Meta data. User visible code and document architecture. Intra-document connectivity and hyper-link optimization.
* Site Augmentation: Including the development of essential components such as site maps, error pages, robots.txt files and more.
* Implementation of your MWR strategy: This should include developing strategies for testing and tracking.

Management: Ongoing support and management is an essential component of any effective SEO strategy. Campaign management should include an ongoing strategic approach to citations development. Reciprocal linking does not count. Some common approaches include publishing linked content, writing product reviews and most importantly developing exceptional content that attracts links.

A comprehensive approach to ongoing management will also include some sort of reporting that effectively summarizes campaign progress.

A relatively new consideration in campaign management is reputation management which is concerned with monitoring the Internet for potentially damaging statements, sensitive information, parody websites and other activities which could compromise online reputation.

How Does Your Strategy Measure Up?

The above features describe the essential qualities of a Killer SEO Strategy: An SEO campaign built to perform and keep on performing. Does your strategy measure up?

Search Engine Usage Statistics

2006-04-12T09:35:00.000-07:00

Snippets from various articles regarding usage statistics.

As part of ongoing work conducted by Jupiter Research and sponsored by iProspect, "The iProspect Search Engine User Behavior Study" found that 62% of search engine users click on a search result within the first page of results, and a full 90% of users click on a result within the first three pages of search results.

These figures were just 48% and 81% in 2002, based on similar research iProspect did at the time.

41% of search engine users who continue their search when they don't find satisfactory results on the first page do one of two things: Change engines or change search terms. Four years ago, just 28% did.

82% of search engine users re-launch an unsuccessful search using the same search engine used initially, adding more keywords to their query. Just 68% stayed with the same engine in 2002.

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The 5 largest search engines on the web are:

1. Google 48.5 %
2. Yahoo 22.5 %
3. MSN Search 10.7 %
4. AOL Search 6.6 %
5. My Web 2.7 %

Feb 2006 / Source:
Research by Nielsen Media Research

Why Meta Description Tags Suck

2006-04-12T09:28:00.000-07:00

Look for the bulleted list on how to create a great Meta Tag. Good article.

Why Meta Description Tags Suck
By Todd Mintz - April 05, 2006

“It is a custom. More honored in the breach than the observance.”
- Hamlet

Our company has just brought aboard a healthcare client who needs, among other things, a brand new website. Currently, if you Google the name of the company, you will get the following:

Company Name
Free web site templates to jump start your new web site.
www.companyname.com- Cached - Similar pages

Whoever created the company's current website (using a free website template) wasn't skilled enough to replace or remove the template's meta description tag. As a result, whenever our client's website appears in search engine results, no matter the query, this unfortunate text snippet appears. In addition to the very obvious negative branding implications, a typical searcher would be extremely unlikely to click on their site when alternative sites map better to the search request.

What is a Meta Description Tag?

Fellow Search Engine Guide writer Jill Whalen in an article about this very topic gives an excellent concise definition:

“The Meta description tag is a snippet of HTML code that belongs inside the < Head > < /Head > section of a Web page. It usually is placed after the Title tag and before the Meta keywords tag, although the order is not important.

The proper syntax for this HTML tag is: < META NAME="Description" CONTENT="Your descriptive sentence or two goes here." >”

The theory behind Meta Description tags is reasonably sound…control the snippet of text that is shown when your website page appears in the search engines. However, there are serious drawbacks to its use.

Why Using Meta Description Tags Is Usually A Mistake

More often than not, the decision to use a meta description tag and what to say with it is made between the website designer & the client well before an SEO becomes involved with a website. There are significant marketing implications to the choice of wording and your designer isn't often the person to best advise you here.

What website owners fail to realize is that their meta description tag will often appear no matter the search query. If the query doesn't map to the tag, the website will be at a significant disadvantage at being chosen by the searcher. Frequently, the problem is compounded by using the same tag on every single page regardless of content. Also, description tags, like all meta tags, are worthless for improving search engine rankings.

Compared to text snippets supplied by the search engines (which I believe are usually excellent representations of the page content), the novice webmaster is better off skipping the meta description tag entirely.

If You Feel You Need To Use Meta Description Tags, Here Are A Few Rules:

1) Do not use the same tag on every page.
2) Keep the tag short…the search engines will truncate it.
3) Describe the page content…don't give your USP or generic business description.
4) Try to project the top 1-3 search engine keywords on the page and make sure to include them in the tag.
5) Realize that if the search query doesn't map closely to the tag, your website is far less likely to be chosen by a searcher.

The A to Z Guide to Getting Website Traffic

2006-04-12T09:27:00.000-07:00

The A to Z Guide to Getting Website Traffic
By Shawn Campbell - April 07, 2006

In September of 1999, Brett Tabke wrote "26 Steps to 15k a Day" in the Webmaster World forum. A lot has changed since then, and now is the time to consider a new 26-step plan that meets the current needs of webmasters in 2006. Some of the old ones still apply (writing new content everyday, for example), and some don't (submitting to the search engines is no longer necessary), and we're here to tell you which is which! As you probably already know, bringing in traffic is not easy - it takes hard work, determination and lots of elbow grease. So if you're ready, roll up your sleeves and follow these 26 simple steps, and within just one year you will generate enough traffic to keep you busy for a long, long time! The A to Z Guide to Getting Website Traffic

A) Keyword research
Before you do anything else, use a keyword research tool and do an extensive job researching the right keyphrases to use for your site. What keyphrases are your direct competitors using? Are there any keyphrases that create a potential for market entry? Are there any that you can put a spin on and create a whole new niche with?

B) Domain name
If you want to brand your company name, then choose a domain name that reflects it. If your company is Kawunga, then get www.kawunga.com. If it's taken, then get www.kawungawidgets.com. No dashes, and no more than two words in the domain if appropriate.

C) Avoid the sandbox
Buy your domain name early, as soon as you have chosen your keyphrases and your company name. Get it hosted right away and put up a quick one page site saying a little about who you are, what you sell, and that there will be more to come soon. Make sure it gets crawled by Google and Yahoo (either submit it or link to it from another site).

D) Create content
Create over 30 pages of real, original content on your site. This will give the spiders something to chew on. It will also give you more opportunities to been seen in the search engine results for a wide variety of keyphrases.

E) Site design
Use the "Keep It Simple" principle. Employ an external CSS file, clean up any Java Scripts by referring to them off the page in an external file, don't use frames, use flash the way you would an image, and no matter what, do not create a flash site. Do not offer a busy site with lots of bells and whistles to your visitors. Keep things nice and simple. Make it easy for them to find what they are looking for and they'll have no reason to look anywhere else.

F) Page size
The less kilobytes your page uses, the better - especially for the home page. Optimize your images and make sure the page loads quickly. Most people and businesses in the Western world may have high speed, but cell phones and other countries might not. If your site loads slowly, you may have already lost your visitor before they've even had a chance to browse around.

G) Usability
Make sure that your site follows good usability rules. Remember that people spend more time on other sites, so don't violate design conventions. Don't use PDF files for online reading. Change the colours for visited links, and use good headers. Look up usability for more tips and tricks, it will be worth your while.

H) On site optimization
Use the keyphrase you have chosen in your title (most important), your headers (when appropriate), and within the text. Make sure that your page/content is ABOUT your keyphrase. If you are selling widgets, than write about widgets. Don't just stick the word widgets into the text.

I) Globals
Globals are the links that remain the same on every page. They are the reference for new visitors to keep them from getting lost. Sometimes they are on the left of the page, sometimes they consist of tabs at the top. Often they are in the footer of the page as well. Make sure that you have an old style text version of your globals on every page. I usually create tabs at the top, and put the text versions in the footer at the bottom of the page. Find out what works best for you.

J) Headers
Use bold headers. On the Internet, people scan they don't read. So initially, all they will see are the headers. If your headers don't address their concerns, they won't stick around long enough to read your content. Use appropriate keyphrases when you can.

K) Site map
Build a site map with a link to each of your pages. Keep it up to date. This will allow the spiders to get to every page. Put a text link to the site map on the main pages.

L) Content
Add a page every 2-3 days: 200-500 words. Create original content, don't copy others. The more original and useful it is, the more people will read it, link to it, and most importantly of all - like it enough to keep coming back for more.

M) White hat only
Stay away from black hat optimizing techniques. Black hat optimization consists of using any method to get higher rankings that the search engines would disapprove of, such as keyword stuffing, doorway pages, invisible text, cloaking and more. Stick to white hat methods for long-term success. People who use black hat optimization are usually there for the short-term, such as in porn, gambling, and Viagra markets (just look at your email spam for more black hat markets). These black hat industry sites are usually around just long enough to make a quick buck.

N) Competition analysis
Who is linking to your competition? Use Yahoo's "link:" service to see the back links of your competition. For example, type in "link:http://www.yourdomain.com" into Yahoo search without the quotes). Try to get links from the same sites as your direct competitors. Better yet, see if you can replace them!

O) Submit
Submit to five groups of directories:

1. Dmoz.org and Yahoo (local, such as Yahoo.co.uk, or Yahoo.ca, etc... if you can).
2. Find directories in your field and get into them. Pay if you must, but only if the price is reasonable.
3. Local directories that relate to your country or region.
4. Any other directories that would be appropriate.
5. If you are targeting the local market, make sure that you are in the Yellow Pages and Superpages (because search engines use these listings to power local searches)

P) Blog
Start a blog about your industry and write a new entry at least once a week. Allow your visitors to comment or, better yet, write their own entries. This will create even more content on your site and will keep people coming back regularly to see what is new.

Q) Links from other sites
Simply submit your website to appropriate sites, asking that they link to your site as a reference because it will benefit their visitors. Don't spend too much time on this, if your content is good and original, they will find you and link to you naturally. Remember that Linking is Queen.

Stay away from reciprocal linking, links farms, link scams, and any other unnatural links. They may not necessarily hurt you, but Google tracks when you get a link, how long you have had a link, who links to the site that links to you, where you live, what you had for breakfast, and more (not really... but kind of).

R) Statistics
Make sure your server has a good statistics program. Use it! If you don't have access to a good program, then pay for one. Without the knowledge of who is coming to your site, from where, and how often, you will be missing out on some essential tools to improve your site.

S) Pay-per-click (PPC)
Sign up for Google AdWords and Yahoo Search Marketing. Spend money getting people to your site. Use it for branding too. This will create a steady flow of visitors to your site, and will make your site more accessible to your potential clients. You don't have to be #1, you don't even have to be #5... just make sure you are on the first page of search results for most of your keyphrases, when the cost is right.

T) Look ahead
Stay informed of what is coming up in your market. If a new product will be out next season, write about it now. Take advantage of being a first mover. The search engines, and linkers, will reward you.

U) Articles
Write an article once every week and get it published in as many online publications as you can (with a link back to your site). Include the article on your site. Not only will this create many links to your site, but it will also get people to click to your site, and most importantly you will become an expert in the eyes of your visitors. They may even begin looking for your site by querying your name!

V) Study your traffic
After 30 to 90 days you will have enough results to analyze in your statistics program. Go over them with a fine toothed comb. Get the answers to these questions:

- Where are your visitors coming from?
- Which search engines do they use?
- What queries do they type in?
- What pages on your site do they visit the most?
- What are the entry pages on your site?
- What are the exit pages?
- What path do they follow when they browse your site?

Use this information to tweak your site.

- Use the most popular page to encourage the visitors to make you money.
- Adjust the paths they use to send them where you want them.
- Figure out why they leave from the exit pages.

Also, see what search terms people use to find you, and fine tune your keyphrases. If you targeted "green widgets", but your visitors are finding you with the query "green leather widgets", then start creating content about "leather widgets"!

W) Verify your submissions
After 3-4 months, check that you got into Dmoz.org and all of the other directories that you submitted to. If you have not been included, then submit again, or better yet, write a polite email to the editor and ask why. Also, find any new directories that would be worthy of your submittal time and submit to them.

X) RSS feeds
RSS (Real Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary) is becoming a powerful tool for Internet marketers. You can quickly and easily add fresh content to your website. Article feeds are updated frequently, so you can give your visitors (and the search engines) what they want - fresh content! You can use RSS to promote any new content, such as new pages, articles, blogs, press releases, and more!

Y) Press releases
A press release is a written communication that you submit to journalists in the media (newspapers, radio, television, magazines) which are used to make announcements that are newsworthy. Create press releases announcing publication of any new articles or new company information or products. If it is interesting/original enough, a journalist may pick it up and write an article about it. Before you know it, your website address may get published in the NY Times.

Z) Keep your content fresh
Remember to write a new page every 2-3 days. I only mentioned it briefly, but it is probably the most important point in this article. Keep writing! Without fresh content, your site will gradually drop in the search engine results. To stay on top, your content has to be the most up-to-date, freshest, and most interesting and original content in your field.

Follow these 26 simple steps and I assure you that within one year you will call your site a success. You will bring in a massive amount of traffic from within your industry and watch as your business grows!

Why You Should Avoid the Top 10 Guarantee in SEO

2006-04-12T09:24:00.000-07:00

Great article about how we can't guarantee something we don't own or have any control over:

Why You Should Avoid the Top 10 Guarantee in SEO
By Karri Flatla - April 10, 2006

If you are a small business owner shopping for an SEO expert to optimize your website, no doubt you've been tempted by the ominous "Top 10 Guarantee." While top ten rankings are a worthy goal, shelling out money to an SEO that makes such pie-in-sky claims will leave you frustrated and probably wishing you had spent your cash on something more useful, like snake oil.

Experienced SEO experts know that top ten rankings (or even top twenty for that matter) do not happen over night. There can be a period of tweaking required depending on the requirements of your site, the complexity of its content, and you and your SEO's willingness to partner over the long run.

Moreover, it takes about three to six months for applied SEO to begin impacting your rankings in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). And even this three to six month window is itself a gray area. No SEO should guarantee when a web page will begin to start seeing improved rankings for specific key phrases. As if this is not enough to try the patience of a monk, new domains (and the pages that inhabit them) must endure Google's much dreaded "aging delay" which can last up to a year. During that time, Google does not care one iota what you or your SEO do to your site or its code. The Google algorithms simply won't permit your pages to compete in organic search until they are deemed to have aged like a fine wine, arguably demonstrating an intention or purpose that goes beyond spam, your brother-in-law's homework assignment, or just a whim on a dull Friday night.

When your pages do get released from Google's holding pattern and SEO efforts being to pay off, it's tempting to get complacent about the maintenance of other important online marketing efforts. (Why does fame do this to people?) Anyone who has lived through the last couple of rounds of algo updates over at Google can attest to the monolith's rather ticklish disposition. "Here one day, gone the next" has happened to the most savvy marketers on the Internet. That's life in SEO. (That's also why you should have a well-stocked marketing toolkit working for your site at all times.)

While many of the best things for sale do in fact come with a guarantee, the only thing your SEO should "guarantee" is to work with your firm to uncover key business goals and implement a strategy to help your site move closer to achieving them. Esoteric? Perhaps. But SEO is not an exact science—neither is business in general, despite what the academics and Wallstreet cronies would have you believe. Attempting to quantify and guarantee results is a dangerous gamble for both parties.

A top notch SEO consultant will be the behind the scenes partner that works to drive more qualified traffic to your site than what it is currently seeing. And therein lies the catch: qualified traffic. It's relatively easy to achieve top ten rankings for key phrases that no one is searching on and that none of your competitors are optimizing for either. But that won't help your bottom line, will it?

SEO is about alerting the search engines to content, content your target market is likely to be searching for when seeking information regarding the products or services you have to offer. There are numerous ways to do this, but a good SEO will work in an ethical fashion with no intent to "trick" the search engines into thinking your pages are something other than what they really are.

Search engines may just be mega computers in a warehouse, but they are programmed to act like humans do on the web. Humans want to see SERPs that relate as closely as possible to the search terms they just typed in. Search engines thus strive to provide relevant results to their audience. In doing so, they can also offer a better ROI for paid advertising, ultimately protecting their revenue streams. An SEO who doesn't understand these basic economic principles is an SEO that probably doesn't have your best interests in mind.

Search engine optimization does not have to be an exercise in frustration or budget busting. However, a savvy entrepreneur will ignore whatever sounds too good to be true. Instead, he will seek out an SEO practitioner who will focus on the wins that could bring long term success rather than short term goal scoring.

Google’s New Popularity Rank; Traffic Versus Links

2006-04-12T09:13:00.000-07:00

Google’s New Popularity Rank; Traffic Versus Links

There is a fresh thread at WebmasterWorld named Google algo moves away from links, towards traffic patterns. This reinforces what many have been saying for the past year or so.

Google’s popularity came from using linkage data and PageRank to score how popular a Web page is. Times are changing and algorithms need to shift.

Linkage data, although incredibility important, is not the complete future of Web page popularity. Traffic is where the popularity is heading, and Google is trying to lead the pack to it.

How does Google measure traffic of a Web site? They can look at dozens of factors, including clicks from the SERPs to your page, and then back. They can use the Google Toolbar data, AdSense data, AdWords data, Analytics (although they would never), and so on. Just keep thinking….

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

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Barry Schwartz, Search Engine Roundtable Search Forum Coverage - Barry Schwartz is the Editor of Search Engine Roundtable

What Danny hates about Google - and more.

2006-04-07T08:05:00.000-07:00

Long time no blog... I've been so busy doing some major SEO projects, which is good for me but bad for el blogo.

Danny Sullivan wrote an article "25 Things I Hate About Google" that I thought was pretty interesting. Most the points he makes are valid, especially about the click fraud. I just had an attorney call me in a panic about 30K hits to his site (via his Google Ads) coming from very suspicious IP address. We installed some tracking software on his site and hopefully we're going to track this nutcase down. Google gave him a *whatever* kind of attitude, which really disappointed me. I guess when you're the big guy on the block it really doesn't matter does it? They were putting the burden on him to product the information THEY need to detect fraud. With technology these days, wouldn't it be easier for GOOGLE to provide this information? "Sure Mr. So-and-so, let me look at your log files and see what we can do". You'd think Google would be proactive on helping their users with their only revenue-stream product.

This is a great article on how to boost your revenue stream:
Top 10 AdSense Tricks To Boost Your Commission
I added AdSense to a few of my high-traffic sites about a year ago and I have to admit, while I'm not making enough to retire with, it sure is cool to get a check with GOOGLE on the top.

This is the coolest thing (not search related but I had to share):
Windows Live Local
I put my address in it and HOLY COW! I can see the details around my house. Much better than Google's solution (sorry Google). When you change the view to NSE or W, you get a completely different perspective. I could spend hours looking at the maps generated by this.

Oh Google... you're going to start a second avenue stream. Downloadable music. What's next? You guys gonna start building cars?

15 Reasons Why Nobody Wants You As An SEO Client

2006-03-17T09:48:00.000-07:00

1. You have a subject matter your SEO is not comfortable with. This could include porn, casino, pills, illegal, gay themes, religions, hate sites, products you know will offend someone. Be aware of any content on your site that might offend someone, even if it doesn't offend you or your friends.

2. You have a NEW website.

3. Unrealistic expectations for rankings in the search engines. This one is a big one, and one SEO's hate the most. Re-evaluate your expectations.

4. You don't want to do anything yourself. SEO's don't hold your hand. Realize that you may need to do the SEO work yourself, starting with link building.

5. Re-adjust your budget. You don't need the $10,000 min that most SEO's require, but you do need a least a moderate budget to start such as ($2000-$5000). This figure could be per month too.

6. Don't give up. If not one wants you as a client, figure out why!!! Call back one of the SEO's and ask "Why does my site suck?" They will give you a candid answer, I promise.

7. Don't lie. This is the worst thing you can do and helps no one. Don't lie about that hidden text and pretend you didn't know it wasn't there. Don't lie that you didn't write a word of the content on your website.

8. Your website design sucks! Did you design it yourself? This is very common. You may not realize it, but if you design sucks, so does your website. If thats the case it will make it hard for an SEO to do this job as the technology is rudimentary. Hire a professional web designer/usability consultant to give it a more professional look.

9. Don't complain or tell your sob story to an SEO. This will not help you rank higher or get an SEO to work with you.

10. DON'T CALL ME PAST BUSINESS HOURS! Typical business hours are M-F, 9-5pm.

11. Ask your SEO to become your business partner. Won't work, sorry. Not unless the offer is really good.

12. All your sites are affiliate websites. Affiliate websites are not great to work with. There I said it. While they can be great websites, often a NEW affiliate website is the worse kind of client. Realize if you fit in this category.

13. Your SEO has to report to more than 3 people all at the same time. While this isn't a bad thing and I have done it successfully, some SEO's don't like working where they have to answer to a group of people. Others prefer it. It is more work, realize that and know a good SEO will charge more for this. Ask your company if its necessary to have so many ears and eyes present when the SEO speaks.

14. You want something in a writing about a refund and a guarantee. Nope, no one will sign or work with you if you require that. Rankings can not/will not/should not be guaranteed as no one can promise you placement in a search engine.

15. You have no idea what you are doing. This can be common condition too. Ask yourself if you have a plan at all? If you don't then, develop a RFP (request for proposal), a spec sheet on what you want to do and accomplish, and put it in your email and send to your SEO. They will appreciate it.

From the article: What To Do If You're The SEO Client Nobody Wants? by Benjamin Pfeiffer

Google Wants Your Gigabytes

2006-03-08T11:03:00.000-07:00

Google Wants Your Gigabytes
By David Miller
March 7, 2006

The 900-pound gorilla in the search space is apparently developing a service that will allow users to store every scrap of data from their computers' hard drives on Google's servers.

This information was contained in the speaker's notes section of a PowerPoint presentation posted on Google's Web site by the company after its Analysts Presentation Day event last Thursday.

But Google removed the presentation shortly after it was posted and later replaced it with an edited version in PDF format. The speaker's notes had been deleted from the PDF.

Too late, Google.

Some quick-on-the-keyboard people, including Greg Linden, author of the Geeking with Greg blog, had already read the unedited version and released tidbits of information about Google's newest plans on their blogs.

The announcement sparked many questions about trust and privacy, as well as how Google would manage to turn a profit from offering storage to the masses.

The speaker's notes briefly mentioned three services that will play a crucial role in Google's "Store 100%" plan: "GDS," "Lighthouse" and "Gdrive."

GDS is apparently Google's Desktop Search and, in this context, most likely refers to "Search Across Computers," the just launched component of the service that enables users to temporarily store copies of their hard drives on Google's servers and then search for information across all the computers they have access to.

For example, someone could use their desktop machine to search for a document created on their laptop.

Two weeks ago analyst firm Gartner warned enterprises to disable or establish strict security polices for the Search Across Computers application, citing security concerns.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation also issued a warning stating that using Search Across Computers opened the door for personal or corporate information to be accessed by law enforcement via subpoena.

Lighthouse was referred to in the presentation's notes as an "access list," perhaps a security permissions application that determines who can access what information stored on Google's servers.

GDrive seems to be a storage service capable of, according to the speaker's notes, storing 100 percent of a user's data on Google's servers and turning personal computers into temporary data caches.

"With infinite storage, we can house all user files, including emails, Web history, pictures, bookmarks, etc and make it accessible from anywhere (any device, any platform, etc)," read the notes in the original Google PowerPoint presentation.

None of these are particularly novel technologies -- online storage and remote access is offered by Box.net, Xdrive and Yahoo, among others. But Google tends to take tried and true ideas and remakes them into cool new services.

Who else could have gotten us all excited about e-mail again?

"Google's offering could be interesting for two reasons," said Linden.

"First, they have a tendency to do things at much larger scale than others; note the impact that GMail's 2G limit had on the existing online mail products," he said.

"Second, GDrive appears to be part of a much broader and bolder plan to move all of your data online, as indicated in the other notes in the Google analyst day slide deck."

The announcement sparked some snarky comments on the wisdom of storing all of one's data on a commercial server.

People wondered whether the information would be used for marketing purposes or potentially turned over to law enforcement.

"I think, given all the recent publicity surrounding the National Security Agency's efforts to get at Google's search engine logs and the renewed interest in online privacy, the public would be wary and reluctant to fully embrace this service, " said Greg Sterling, an analyst with The Kelsey Group.

"Google would have to go to extraordinary lengths to reassure users that the data were going to be kept private," Sterling added. "Even then I think it would be a tough sell.

"That's not to say that it's an all or nothing proposition. Some version of GDrive/Google storage and related services might well appeal to people. It remains to be seen what the final offerings are."

Welcome to Google Page Creator

2006-02-23T12:22:00.001-07:00

Looks like the big "G" launched yet a new, innovative product .

Introducing, Google Page Creator. You too can have your own static page, hosted by Google, with many templates to choose from. Competition for MySpace? Mum's the word when Google's Rosenstein was asked. Pages created by Google Page Creator and hosting by Google will be given no special ranking consideration... but how would we know? They hold all the cards. Each site is given "unlimited" bandwidth and 100 Megs of space.

Check it out for yourself (you'll need a Google account):

pages.google.com

When I log in to the above page, this is what I get:

-----
Thank you for your interest in Google Page Creator!

Google Page Creator has experienced extremely strong demand, and, as a result, we have temporarily limited the number of new signups as we increase capacity. We will notify you as soon as we are ready to add new accounts. Thank you for your patience.
-----

I guess all the Googlites stormed the castle!

Here's an *about* page:
http://pages.google.com/-/about.html

Review: Google Advertising Tools

2006-02-23T12:22:00.000-07:00

Dr. Ralph F. Wilson, Wilson Internet Rocklin, CA
Feb 22, 2006, 18:25

Google Advertising Tools
by Harold Davis
O'Reilly 2006
Paperback, 353 pages
ISBN 0596101082

Google Advertising Tools is a computer programmer's introduction to earning money online, with focus on advertising with Google, carrying Google AdSense ads on one's website, and using Google APIs.

Harold Davis begins with an introductory section: "Part 1: Making Money with Your Website" -- a crash course on creating a content-based website and optimizing it for best search engine placement. He explains how to monetize a site using affiliate programs and CPC advertising, and succeeds in compressing a great deal of information into the first third of the book.

"Part 2: Getting the Most from AdSense" explains the nuts and bolts of putting AdSense ads on a content-rich site. Most of this information is available from Google, but Davis explains it clearly.

"Part 3: Working with AdWords" holds the reader's hand through the process of signing up for an AdWords account and developing an AdWords campaign. He covers writing ads, optimizing a campaign, click-through reporting, and conversion tracking. While Davis explains the technical details of AdWords advertising, he presents little in terms of campaign strategy. He's looking at advertising from a programmer's point-of-view, not really a marketer's.

"Part 4: Using the AdWords APIs" constitutes the unique contribution of this book. Davis describes how programmers can tap into Google AdWords databases to extract data that can be integrated into software enabling ad agencies to manage hundreds or thousands of AdWords campaigns for clients. While the book doesn't include code for whole applications, the PHP snippets the author does provide are basic building blocks on which client applications using the Google AdWords API might be based.

Google Advertising Tools isn't intended for the entrepreneur or marketer. Rather, this is the book to purchase for your programmer so he can comprehend, in a language he can relate to, just what in the world you're trying to accomplish online. The book is written by a programmer for programmers.

Two New Studies Show Google Clicks Don't Convert as Well

2006-02-23T12:20:00.000-07:00

By Publisher Anne Holland

Funny, the biggest Net marketing trend these days I hear when interviewing people is Google hate. "Everyone loves them, they have the best brand in the world, but really they stink!" is a typical rant. I think most of it is due to human nature more than any research.

You know: Google is massive, Google is insanely powerful, Google and Bill Gates both have a "G" in their names…. Jealously and fear are very powerful.

Last week, not one but two separate research studies were released revealing "Ta da!" that Google clicks are not quite up to snuff compared to other search engines. (Link to more info below.)

First BIGresearch released a study with the key finding, ‘Yahoo Tops Search Engines for Influence to Purchase’. (Note: These folks mainly study the consumer marketing world, not B-to-B.)

The next day, Web analytics firm WebSideStory released a study showing the following conversion stats across their many clients:

AOL traffic 6.17%
MSN traffic 6.03%
Yahoo traffic 4.07%
Google traffic 3.83%

However dramatic this data, you should also realize (as I do) that the average marketer is often buying up to tens of thousands more keywords from Google than they are, in particular from AOL or MSN, so of course conversions would be lower. Broader terms equals lower conversions (but often cheaper CPC and better ROI.)

Also, whether or not clicks from Google’s non-search AdSense network are included is not noted. If they are (and I bet they are) lower conversions would make sense as contextual ads almost invariably pull lower conversions than search ads. Duh.

OK, while I’m not the biggest Google fan in the world (it’s hard to unwaveringly adore a company that holds massive power over your bottom line -– as Google does for all of us who rely to some degree on search traffic) I suspect this anti-Google research is in some part a very human backlash against its gargantuan-ness.

My recommendations in response to these studies?

#1. If you're focusing ONLY on Google get thyself onto additional mainstream search engines, niche engines, and/or shopping engines. As we've documented for two years now in our Search Marketing Benchmark Guide, a sizeable portion of the online marketplace uses search engines that sometimes are not Google.

A smart direct response marketer would never mail only one list unremittingly. Why focus on a single search engine?

#2. If you are lumping in contextual ads with your search ad buy, as far too many marketers are, split these campaigns and track them separately.

Just because an AdSense campaign has the "Google" name on it doesn't mean it's going to perform as well as ads that actually appear on Google.

#3. Search optimization (SEO) is generally far less expensive than an aggressive paid search campaign to get the same amount of traffic. Plus, the effects are longer lasting, and conversions are frequently in the same range (or even higher) than paid ads on engines.

This year marketers will spend roughly 1/8th of their search budgets on SEO, and 7/8th on paid search ads. That's really stupid. (Lemmings, cliff … you get the picture.)

#4. Don't use any search engine's free analytics program to track your conversions. Why would you give someone who sells you ads all the data they need to decide if they should put the price up higher?

It astonishes me that marketers who would never publicly reveal their conversion data will hand over the keys to the data castle in exchange for a little free software. Google may be an awfully nice brand, with awfully nice people, but this is business, remember?

Since when do you allow an ad sales rep inside your books?

Anyway, rant over. Here's a link to my other Blog over at ContentBiz where I first discussed this data last week and gave links to studies:
http://blog.contentbiz.com/

Big Daddy

2006-02-02T08:34:00.000-07:00

Google's Rumored 'Big Daddy' Overhaul Makes Waves
By Ben Charny
January 27, 2006

There are some new signs of Google Inc.'s rumored "Big Daddy" infrastructure overhaul, search engine industry sources say.

The evidence, now winding through the online community, led one Google aficionado screen-named SEOBrains to recently write "It seems like Big Daddy is 100 percent live."

Sources contacted by eWEEK have confirmed many recent examples cited by participants on Search Engine Watch and other online forums.

Big Daddy, said to be the project's nickname, refers to new data centers that Google was said to be developing and is now said to be testing.

Google and other search engines rely on a global network of data centers to perform core tasks like cataloging Web sites or serving up localized features.

The Big Daddy project stands out because search engines infrequently upgrade the computing and networking hardware. Instead, the firms focus on developing new features to lure more site visitors, which translates to more advertising revenues.

Infrastructure changes have a big impact on the enterprises and consumers that are increasingly relying on Google, and other search engines, in their day-to-day activities.

Lending support to these rumors, back in January, Google's chief search engineer, Matt Cutts, wrote on his blog that what he called the new "Bigdaddy" technology was in place in two of Google's data centers.

Cutts wrote that two data centers using the new infrastructure are "live 100% of the time." In the same blog entry, Cutts also answered his own question about when the new data centers would be online. "Right now I'm guessing 1-2 months," he wrote. "But if I find out more specifics I'll let you know."

Judging from the recent plethora of evidence cited by Google watchers, it seems that Big Daddy may have spread to much more of Google's data center network.

--------------------------

From Matt Cutts Blog

http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/bigdaddy-progress-update/

Original Big Daddy post:

http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/bigdaddy/

Notice the IP addresses in the above.

Why Ad Agencies STILL Hate Search Engine Marketing

2006-01-13T09:42:00.000-07:00

My philosophy on this... Say you buy a newspaper ad. It targets everyone that sees that article and in fact, not everyone may see it depending on placement. With SEO you are going after humans that are actively looking for YOUR product/service. Can't beat that can you? SEO puts YOU in front of the exact market you're trying to target, not your market plus the world as with newspapers/magazines/tv/radio. SEO is also a fraction of the cost of traditional marketing (at least with my company!) With SEO you can monitor traffic, results and many more metrics - traditional advertising is a little more tricky to get accurate stats.

With my 2 cents in mind, here is an article:

Why Ad Agencies STILL Hate Search Engine Marketing
by Robert Murray, Wednesday, Jan 11, 2006 3:30 PM EST

THE SECOND-EVER SEARCH INSIDER COLUMN was published on June 28, 2004, and was entitled "Five Reasons Why Ad Agencies Hate Search Engine Marketing". It was written by my colleague, John Tawadros, and today you'll find over 850 search results in Google that directly reference, or link to, that article. Well, it's now 18 months later. Search has certainly evolved as a marketing channel during that time, and more traditional and interactive agencies than ever are providing some sort of search marketing services to their clients. So I thought now might be an appropriate time to revisit a few key reasons why ad agencies STILL hate search marketing, and once again watch the fur fly on both sides of this topic.

Natural Search Results According to JupiterResearch, 87 percent of commercial clicks on the major search engines take place on the natural (or "organic") results. Because online marketers are growing to realize this, demands are increasingly being placed on ad agencies to provide natural search engine optimization services for their clients. Yet natural search results are much more difficult to produce than those generated by paid search marketing or other media buys.

In fact, to effectively compete in the natural search results marketplace, service providers need two key components that most ad agencies cannot claim: 1) proprietary technologies that interpret search engine ranking algorithms and inform their search optimization strategies and 2) a mature optimization process that's been refined over hundreds of clients, across a variety of vertical industries and business models, that has addressed the broad spectrum of technical challenges that can be posed by client Web sites. Service providers who lack either of these components are at an extreme disadvantage in producing search engine rankings, traffic and conversions for their clients.

Pay-Per-Click Management While pay-per-click (PPC) search advertising may be easier to set up and run--and therefore be much closer to ad agencies' "sweet spot" when it comes to their traditional media buying role--it is still not easy to run PPC campaigns effectively. And since John's article was published, the competitive environment within Google and Yahoo!'s paid search auctions has grown even more intense--due in no small part to the growing availability of automated bid management tools.

The recent prevalence of these tools in the management of paid search marketing campaigns has resulted in the adoption one of two new options by most ad agencies: 1) to either manually manage clients' PPC campaigns, competing against campaigns being managed much more effectively by automated software programs; or 2) to learn, staff and utilize third-party automation to manage clients' campaigns, but share per-click fees with the supplier of the automation. Neither option is ideal--and both require specialized training, along with the agency dedicating some number of man hours to campaign management.

Pricing Pressure A byproduct of the automated bid management tool revolution has been the continually decreasing fees that search engine marketing service providers (ad agencies and otherwise) can afford to charge for paid search campaign management. This has provided an advantage to those service providers who own and utilize their own bid management tools, as opposed to those owned by a third party to whom an additional per-click fee must be paid.

In fact, when you look at the tiny percentage of the paid search spend that many agencies are forced to accept as their fee for campaign management, the number of man hours the agency must dedicate to actually manage the campaign, and the per-click fees the agency has to pay the supplier of the bid management tools, there are most certainly agencies that are managing paid search as a "loss leader" simply in order to continue to be awarded their clients' other media buying business. How's that for a great reason to hate search?

----------------
I've always thought for the longest time that ad agencies should hire SEO's as full time employees, after all, it's just the online form of marketing and would be an extension of what they do already. If you can't beat em - join em.

Top 10 Search Engine Positioning Mistakes

2005-11-15T12:05:00.000-07:00

By Sumantra Roy - November 03, 2005

When it comes to search engine optimization, there are certain common mistakes that I see people making over and over again. Here's a list of the 10 most common mistakes that I see people making. By avoiding these mistakes, you can avoid a lot of anguish and frustration in the long run.

1) Optimizing your site for the wrong keywords

The first step in any search engine optimization campaign is to choose the keywords for which you should optimize your site.

If you initially choose the wrong keywords, all the time and effort that you devote in trying to get your site a high ranking will go down the drain.

If you choose keywords which no one search for, or if you choose keywords which won't bring in targeted traffic to your site, what good will the top rankings do?

In order to learn how you can choose the correct keywords for which you should optimize your site, see my article on this topic.

2) Putting too many keywords in the Meta Keywords tag

I often see sites which have hundreds of keywords listed in the Meta Keywords tag, in the hope that by listing the keywords in the Meta Keywords tag, they will be able to get a high ranking for those keywords.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Contrary to popular opinion, the Meta Keywords tag has almost completely lost its importance as far as search engine positioning is concerned.

Hence, just by listing keywords in the Meta Keywords tag, you will never be able to get a high ranking. To get a high ranking for those keywords, you need to put the keywords in the actual body content of your site.

3) Repeating the same keyword too many times

Another common mistake that people make is to endlessly repeat their target keywords in the body of their pages and in their Meta Keywords tags.

Because so many people have used this tactic in the past (and continue to use it), the search engines keep a sharp lookout for this, and may penalize a site which repeats keywords in this fashion. Sure, you do need to repeat the keywords a number of times.

But, the way you place the keywords in your pages needs to make grammatical sense. Simply repeating the keywords endlessly no longer works. Furthermore, a particular keyword should ideally not be present more than thrice in your Meta Keywords tag.

4) Creating lots of similar doorway pages

Another myth prevalent among people is that since the algorithm of each search engine is different, they need to create different pages for different search engines. While this is great in theory, it is counter-productive in practice.

If you use this tactic, you will soon end up with hundreds of pages, which can quickly become an administrative nightmare. Also, just imagine the amount of time you will need to spend constantly updating the pages in response to the changes that the search engines make to their algorithms.

Furthermore, although the pages are meant for different engines, they will actually end up being pretty similar to each other. The search engines are often able to detect when a site has created such similar pages, and may penalize or even ban this site from their index.

Hence, instead of creating different pages for different search engines, create one page which is optimized for one keyword for all the search engines. In order to learn how to create such pages, see my article on this topic.

5) Using Hidden Text

Hidden text is text with the same color as the background color of your page. For example, if the background color of your page is white and you have added some white text to that page, that is considered as hidden text.

Many webmasters, in order to get high rankings in the search engines, try to make their pages as keyword rich as possible. However, there is a limit to the number of keywords you can repeat in a page without making it sound odd to your human visitors. Thus, in order to ensure that the human visitors to a page don't perceive the text to be odd, but that the page is still keyword rich, many webmasters add text (containing the keywords) with the same color as the background color.

This ensures that while the search engines can see the keywords, the human visitors cannot. The search engines have long since caught up with this technique, and ignore or penalize the pages which contain such text. They may also penalize the entire site if even one of the pages in that site contain such hidden text.

However, the problem with this is that the search engines may often end up penalizing sites which did not intend to use hidden text. For instance, suppose you have a page with a white background and a table in that page with a black background.

Further suppose that you have added some white text in that table. This text will, in fact, be visible to your human visitors, i.e. this shouldn't be called hidden text. However, the search engines can interpret this to be hidden text because they may often ignore the fact that the background of the table is black.

Hence, in order to ensure that your site is not penalized because of this, you should go through all the pages in your site and see whether you have inadvertently made any such mistake.

6) Creating Pages Containing Only Graphics

The search engines only understand text - they don't understand graphics. Hence, if your site contains lots of graphics but little text, it is unlikely to get a high ranking in the search engines. For improving your rankings, you need to replace the graphics by keyword rich text for the search engine spiders to feed on.

7) Not using the NOFRAMES tag in case your site uses frames

Many search engines don't understand frames. For sites which have used frames, these search engines only consider what is present in the NOFRAMES tag. Yet, many webmasters make the mistake of adding something like this to the NOFRAMES tag: "This site uses frames, but your browser doesn't support them".

For the search engines which don't understand frames, this is all the text that they ever get to see in this site, which means that the chances of this site getting a good ranking in these search engines are non-existent. Hence, if your site uses frames, you need to add a lot of keyword rich text to the NOFRAMES tag. For more information on the different issues that arise when you use frames in your site, see my article on this topic.

8) Using Page Cloaking

Page cloaking is a technique used to deliver different web pages under different circumstances. People generally use page cloaking for two reasons:

In order to hide the source code of their search engine optimized pages from their competitors and ii) in order to prevent human visitors from having to see a page which looks good to the search engines but does not necessarily look good to humans.

The problem with this is that when a site uses cloaking, it prevents the search engines from being able to spider the same page that their users are going to see. And if the search engines can't do this, they can no longer be confident of providing relevant results to their users.

Thus, if a search engine discovers that a site has used cloaking, it will probably ban the site forever from their index. Hence, my advice is that you should not even think about using cloaking in your site. For more information on what page cloaking is, how it is implemented, and why you should not use cloaking, see my article on this topic.

9) Using Automatic Submission Tools

In order to save time, many people use an automatic submission software or service to submit their sites to the major search engines. It is true that submitting your site manually to the search engines takes a lot of time and that an automatic submission tool can help you save a lot of time.

However, the search engines don't like automatic submission tools and may ignore your pages if you use them. In my opinion, the major search engines are simply too important for you not to spend the time to submit your site manually to them.

In order to speed up the process of submitting your site, you can use our free submission tool which allows you to submit your site manually to all the search engines, without having to go to the "ADD URL" pages of the individual engines. It is available here.

10) Submitting too many pages per day

People often make the mistake of submitting too many pages per day to the search engines. This often results in the search engines simply ignoring many of the pages which have been submitted from that site.

Ideally, you should submit no more than 1 page per day to the search engines. While many search engines accept more than 1 page per day from a particular domain, there are some which only accept 1 page per day. Hence, by limiting yourself to a maximum of one page per day, you ensure that you stay within the limits of all the search engines.

11) Devoting too much time to search engine positioning

Yes - I lied. There's another common mistake that people make when it comes to search engine optimization - they spend too much time over it.

Sure, search engine placement is the most cost effective way of driving traffic to your site and you do need to spend some time every day learning how the search engines work and in optimizing your site for the search engines.

However, you must remember that search engine optimization is a means to an end for you - it's not the end in itself. The end is to increase the sales of your products and services. Hence, apart from trying to improve your site's position in the search engines, you also need to spend time on all the other factors which determine the success or the failure of your web site - the quality of the products and services that you are selling, the quality of your customer service, and so on. You may have excellent rankings in the search engines, but if the quality of your products and services are poor, or if your customer service leaves a lot to be desired, those high rankings aren't going to do much good.

Avoiding Common Web Site Mistakes

2005-11-15T12:04:00.000-07:00

By Bill Hartzer - November 04, 2005

As a search engine marketing consultant, I see a lot of websites that haven't been optimized for the search engines. Over the years, I continue to see the same problems with what I call "non-optimized websites." Typically, the biggest issues tend to be basic website design elements that are not included when a website is developed, not bad web design. Most search engine optimization problems can be fixed by making sure nothing is overlooked when building a web page.

One reason why I think the internet has been so successful is that website technology has allowed anyone to make a website and publish it on the internet. There are a lot of people out there that have absolute no formal training when it comes building websites—and a lot of people who build websites for a living have trained themselves. That actually is a good thing, especially because it has allowed the internet to grow at such a rapid pace. There are website standards in place such as those developed by the W3C, the World Wide Web Consortium (www.w3.org). These standards, though, have more to do with coding—not what the typical website visitor actually sees.

Problems arise when search engine spiders try to crawl websites and figure out what a web page is "about". Search engine spiders aren't humans, so they cannot read and interpret what a web page is "about" without help from the person who created that web page. There are certain elements that must be included in a web page that ultimately helps the search engine spiders figure out what a web page is about, which ultimately helps your website be found in the search engine's results.

Duplicate Content

The search engines do not wish to have multiple copies of the same web pages in their indexes. It takes up a lot of unnecessary room in their databases, and slows down how much processing they have to do on a regular basis. Google, in particular, has been removing web pages from their search engine index that they deem to be a duplicate. If you have duplicate web pages on your website, Google will keep the first copy they find and throw out all the others.

When I look at websites that haven't been optimized for the search engines, I typically see a lot of duplicate content—or web pages that Google thinks are duplicates. The website owners don't mean to have duplicate pages, but their pages are most likely are considered to be duplicates by Google. Web pages need to be at least 25 percent different from another web page in order to be considered a unique web page. Websites that have the same title tags and meta tags on every page is one major factor. The search engines see the title tags and meta tags as part of the web pages—if those are the same on every web page then the pages could be duplicates. The search engines then look at the overall content of the page. If there's not a lot of text but a lot of graphics on the web page it could also be a duplicate. When it comes to making sure your web pages aren't considered to be duplicates, every web page on your website needs to have a unique title tag, meta keywords tag, and meta description tag—and enough indexable content on the page, as well.

Not Enough Content

Many web designers like to use fancy graphics on websites—it makes the websites look cool and are visually appealing. There's only one problem, though—search engine spiders cannot read text that appears in graphics. So, text that can be read by a human won't necessarily be read by the search engine spider. The search engine spiders consider text to be necessary content, not graphics. Oftentimes I see websites that are very well designed—but since all the text that appears on the web pages appear only in graphics, then the page is most likely considered to be a duplicate of another page, as only the image file name is referenced in the source code of the web page—which doesn't cover the "25 percent unique" requirement by the search engines.

The more text that is included on a web page the better a search engine can figure out what that web page is about. Title tags are essential—they should give a quick overview of the general subject of the web page. Since meta tags are considered to be part of the content of a web page, the text included in the meta tags help make a web page unique—which further helps cover the "25 percent unique" requirement by the search engines.

Search Engine Spider Issues

The search engines spiders, when visiting your website, need to be able to crawl their way through all the web pages on your website. It's absolutely necessary that they can follow the links on your web pages. If they can't follow the links, it's likely that only the home page of your website will be listed in the search engines. Unfortunately, there are a lot of website navigation techniques that look really good and function well when a human visits a website—but those navigation techniques won't allow a search engine spider to follow the links. It's imperative that your website's navigation is search engine friendly and that you include a breadcrumb trail.

Lack of Links

In order for web pages to be crawled, indexed, and ranked well in the search results, they need links. Lately, the search engines have been relying more and more on linkage data (what other websites say about your website) in order to determine the search engine rankings. Not only is it important for your internal navigation to be search engine friendly, it's important that your web pages have links from other websites. Having links to your web pages helps the search engine spiders find your pages—and the more links your web pages have the better. Many websites that haven't been optimized well typically don't have search engine friendly links and they don't have many links from other websites.

By focusing on making sure your web pages aren't considered duplicate pages and providing enough search engine friendly content on your web pages, your website will benefit from increased visibility in the search engine results. Working on your website's internal navigation and including a breadcrumb trail as well as getting more links to your web pages will increase the likelihood of the search engine spiders finding your web pages. These are the most often overlooked issues—and they are the biggest contributors to poor search engine rankings.

Google Base

2005-10-28T12:05:00.000-07:00

HR 3
***

Group: Active Members
Posts: 94
Joined: 31-July 03
From: Albuquerque, New Mexico
Member No.: 96

Has anyone seen the speculation and articles going around about Google Base and the possibiliy of Google getting into listing homes/property/real estate for sale??

http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/002705.html

http://www.seweso.com/blog/uploaded_images/google-base2-735365.jpg

http://www.searchenginelowdown.com/2005/10/google-base-googles-first-shot-at-real.html
http://www.searchengineguide.com/searchbrief/senews/005989.html

Now I've read that many think that the real estate industry was "hit" with the latest buzz worthy Google update... although my Realtor client's didn't falter, the stuff I'm reading about certainly is interesting and makes you wonder what they're up do now.

What do y'all think of this one?

Balancing Paid and Organic Search Listings

2005-10-28T12:04:00.000-07:00

Balancing Paid and Organic Search Listings
By Bill Hartzer - October 25, 2005

Does your company's website really need to be listed in both the organic or "natural" search results as well as the paid "sponsored" results? According to panel of search engine experts at a recent Search Engine Strategies conference, the answer is yes. Most search engine marketing experts agree that a combined approach—one that relies on both organic search engine rankings and paid listings works best.

Higher click-thru ratios

According to recent research, websites that are listed at the top of the organic search results and the paid listings will triple their click-thru ratio. Three times more people will visit your website if it is listed in both places because there is a "second opinion effect". Searchers see both listings and are encouraged by the fact that a website is listed in both the organic listings and the paid listings.

Greater penetration of search results

By optimizing your website's content to rank well in the organic search results, your website can be found for many keyword phrases and combinations of keywords. Good organic search engine rankings typically take months to achieve, and are fairly easy to maintain on an ongoing basis. Pay per click (PPC) can be implemented quickly—it can also be turned on and off as needed, depending on your company's budget and current promotions.

More keyword research

Keyword research tells you how many people per day search for what keyword terms. There are many tools available that allow you to perform keyword research even before you achieve organic search engine rankings or start a PPC campaign. Once organic search engine rankings are achieved, keyword research using existing website statistic data allows you to enhance your listing of keywords—you can combine your organic keyword list with your PPC keyword list to focus on the keyword phrases that bring you the best ROI.

Build credibility

Organic search engine rankings provide very high levels of credibility and broad coverage on potentially every search engine worldwide. When a website is listed well in the organic search results, the website usually is found for not only their chosen keywords but many combinations of keyword phrases related to those chosen keywords. It's those other combinations of related keywords that bring a website a lot of more visibility in the search results, frequently causing a website appear to be found "for everything" related to a certain industry. The results can be staggering—a properly optimized website can appear in the search results more often and for more related keywords than a company who has not done any organic search optimization.

Appearing in the paid results also helps to build credibility—just because a searcher doesn't click on a paid ad and visits the website doesn't mean they haven't seen the company's sponsored listing. Paid listings also can provide some visibility and credibility for certain keywords that aren't usually obtainable through organic search engine optimization.

Google Bowling

2005-10-28T12:01:00.000-07:00

Google Bowling
By Michael Pedone - October 24, 2005

How Competitors Can Sabotage You; What Google Should Do About It

Have you heard about the latest "sport" in dirty online business? It's called Google Bowling and it represents a gaping flaw in Google's system that allows your competitors to sabotage your site to the point of getting it banned or penalized.

This can't happen, right? I mean, Google would have us believe their algorithms are not easily manipulated and that your rankings are safely under your (and their) control. But in fact there's a chink in Google's armor that can have massive consequences for any web business unfortunate enough to have aggressive and unethical competitors.

Here's the loophole, explained.

It all began with Google's aggressive attempts to curb link popularity manipulation by penalizing sites that purchase site-wide text link ads to get lots of incoming links in a hurry. (eg: If the ad selling site had 1,000 pages, the advertiser's link would instantly be on 1,000 pages.)

Google began filtering sites that indulged in this kind of linkage and either penalized or flat out removed the site from its database. Bad news for that business. Excellent news for their competition. Can you guess what's coming next?

Certain scoundrels began thinking: "If buying site-wide text link ads en masse will get my site into hot water with Google, why not buy them for my competitor's site instead? Then just sit back and wait for Google to solve my number one business headache... the competition." (Cue evil laughter sound track.)

This, ladies and gentlemen, is Google Bowling. Simple. Devious. Devastating. And not just in theory; it's really happening out there.

Here at eTrafficJams.com, we are hearing from a lot of businesses whose sites once enjoyed great rankings (ours included) and now don't even show up in Google for their own company name.

A small loophole has turned into a devastating black hole, sucking in and wiping out countless quality websites in the process. And it just may be their competitors sending them into the abyss.

Is your head spinning yet? I mean, it was bad enough knowing that with every Google update, your business may go up or down in the rankings depending on the whims of the Google geeks. But now add into the mix the fact that your competitors also have a hand in your search engine health and wellness... well, Houston, we have a problem.

Although this would be a fortuitous time for me to suggest that the solution to this problem is hiring a reputable SEO firm to watch over your rankings, I shall resist the temptation. Instead, I'd like to offer Google – as if they're listening – a simple solution to this nasty problem.

Right now, Google hands out either rewards or harsh penalties for linking strategies – good rankings to reward good linking techniques, and penalties, such as the now-infamous sandbox, to punish un-cool, manipulative linking practices. But there isn't any middle ground.

I say why not create a neutral response... a filter that simply ignores questionable links, neither rewarding nor punishing them?

This way, we would see several beneficial outcomes: 1) Innocent victims of Google Bowling don't get hurt. 2) If the dubious links actually were perpetrated by the business at the receiving end of them, Google would exclude those links and the site would gain nothing. It would simply be throwing ad money out the window (unless, of course, it was buying site-wide ads in vehicles that generated relevant traffic). And 3) Google's reputation for delivering accurate and fair search results would be restored.

Google needs to do something soon to plug this loophole, not just for the immediate relief of its users but for its own credibility.

Although being "Google Bowled" by a competitor and having your site removed from the database could ruin a small business, the consequences for Google could be just as dire. If chatter picks up that Google's results are easy to manipulate and consequently inaccurate, users may be scared away to other search engines.

Fewer users = fewer clicks on ads = lower revenues. Well, I don't have to spell that out for the financial wizards at Google.

But just think: a few stories on the big TV networks, say on MSNBC (*cough* think Bill Gates' MSN Search, a major Google competitor), revealing how the new sport of Google Bowling is sweeping the nation... well, the average user at home may start to have doubts about Google and maybe decide to try out Yahoo! or MSN Search.

Is it really that far-fetched to speculate that someone like oh, I don't know, Mr. Gates, might take advantage of this situation to solve his number one business headache... the competition?

So I suggest a simple solution to Google's link bowling problem: neutralize suspicious links so they are neither helpful nor harmful. Problem solved. Sorry, Mr. Gates.