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Archive for the ‘SEO for Small Business’ Category
Thursday, October 20th, 2011
Jennifer Ledbetter wrote about something on her blog last week that not many people know about. She explained that when your web pages hit the No. 1 spot in Google rankings, they are then reviewed by real human eyeballs. It’s not all “man vs. machine,” she said.
That’s an important thing to understand. Search rankings are not just based on algorithms. If you do well and get your pages ranked for keywords that you target, you’ll have to get through a human reviewer. If your web pages can stand the scrutiny of that reviewer, they may stay at the top. If not, they could fall from the rankings – sometimes pretty far.
So what do these human reviewers look for? Basically, they’re looking for signs that might tell them something is amiss.
If your web page is full of spam, you’ll fall in the rankings. If it is relevant for the search query for which it ranks well, it might stay. The one big question your human reviewer will be asking about your page is, Does this web page have any discernible weaknesses that would prevent it from ranking for this search query in a perfect world?
The reviewer probably isn’t asking that specific question, but they are asking something similar. The idea is to scrutinize the search result as a searcher would. Would any normal searcher be satisfied to see that page rank so well for their search query? If not, you’ll fall in the rankings. If so, you’ll stick around.
Aren’t you glad you know Google uses human reviewers?
Tags: google, search rankings
Posted in SEO for Small Business | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, October 19th, 2011
The SEO community is all up in arms over a little change that Google announced regarding encrypted searches. You can read Frank Reed’s take at Marketing Pilgrim.
I think I’ll have to agree with Frank on this one.
If you’re concerned that your marketing will be less effective because you won’t be able to tell which keywords are leading to the most conversions, stop worrying. This change will affect such a small number of searchers that you’ll hardly notice.
Most searchers don’t have a Google account. Therefore, when they conduct a search at Google.com, they won’t be automatically logged into an encrypted account for their search. That means you’ll still be able to track them to the final conversion. That’s most people.
I can see where this might affect a group of SEOs more than others is in the tech industry where a high number of prospects might have Google accounts. But, again, they’ll have to conduct their searches from Google.com.
If you’re a small business owner thinking this change is going to kill your business, stop thinking about it. Just watch what happens and keep conducting business as usual. Most people don’t know about SEO or care. Don’t make mountains out of molehills.
Tags: encrypted search, google, SEO
Posted in SEO for Small Business | 3 Comments »
Wednesday, October 12th, 2011
When you plan your search engine optimization efforts, do you do it for the long term or the short term? Most search marketers do it for the short term.
Short-term SEO can be characterized by a list of do’s and don’ts on your search company’s list of best practices. They are essentially a list of things to do today so that your website ranks next month. But they don’t account for eventual search engine algorithm changes. They are essentially based on a follow-the-crowd mentality.
Long-term SEO is different. It doesn’t concern itself with what everyone else is doing. It just does what makes sense and what will ultimately make sense five years from now.
For instance, a short-term SEO strategy usually leads to broken links and bad website navigation. Long-term SEO, on the other hand, takes into consideration how a user might navigate several hundred web pages on your website before those pages have even been planned. It takes into consideration the taxonomy of web pages and puts together an intelligent web design plan that will make as much sense next decade as it does next week.
So I’ll ask again: Is your SEO strategy a long-term strategy or a short-term strategy? How many times to do you want to build that website?
Tags: search engine optimization, SEO, web design
Posted in SEO for Small Business | 4 Comments »
Friday, September 30th, 2011
Here’s a joke for you: How many SEOs does it take to optimize a website?
Answer: Only 1.
So that’s not funny? I didn’t suspect it would be. It’s not really a joke.
The reason I bring it up is because some clients seem to believe that if they hire multiple SEOs to work on the same website, then they’ll get better search engine rankings. That’s not true. In fact, you could actually be hurting yourself.
Not all SEOs think alike. Some put more emphasis on link building while others emphasize on-site SEO factors. If you hire more than one SEO to work on the same website, then your optimizers could actually compete against each other and cancel each other out. What you really want them to do is work together and enhance each other’s efforts. But can you really expect them to do that?
You’ll save yourself a lot of headaches if you just use one SEO for each web property you own. If you own more than one website, you can have a different SEO working on each site. But don’t let two SEOs work on the same website. Ever.
The only time multiple SEOs working on the same website will work is if you have a division of duties system where there is one decision maker at the top who assigns responsibilities and tracks your total SEO efforts. It’s the only way to ensure the team remains a team.
Tags: search engine optimization, SEOs, website optimization
Posted in SEO for Small Business | 2 Comments »
Saturday, September 17th, 2011
You’d think that SEO is some kind of magic if you listen to some professionals in this field. Only an expert SEO can do this. Watch Ma, no hands!
The truth is, SEO is no voodoo science. There’s no magic bullet. No magic words you can say to make your pages rank well in the search results. It just takes good old-fashioned hard work.
Of course, there are different ways to get the job done.
Some SEOs swear by their keywords. Others swear by their links. But you need both. Keywords and links.
Usually, SEOs talk about on-page SEO factors and off-page SEO factors. The on-page factors include things like page titles, meta tags, internal links, alt tags, etc. Off-page SEO factors generally are a reference to links.
But even within those two categories, there are a variety of factors that can influence your search rankings. Quality, age of domain, age of link, anchor text, etc. Your job as SEO is to think about all of those factors.
Some SEOs develop a formula. Do they work? Probably, to some extent. But there is no SEO-by-the-numbers routine that works for every web page. You have to understand the principles at work and play up to those. If you do it well, you can make any web page rank respectably.
Tags: keywords, links, SEO
Posted in SEO for Small Business | 4 Comments »
Friday, September 16th, 2011
A very prominent SEO and veteran Internet marketer recently said that keywords are no longer necessary. Just write content, he says. The search engines will rank you.
Is there wisdom in that or is it a bit misguided?
I certainly believe that social media has changed the stakes of the game. You can feasibly build a business model completely around social media marketing, in which case keywords are not necessary. You could promote your content through Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Klout, Foursquare, YouTube, and every other social media giant out there and do just fine. No keywords necessary.
But I subscribe to a holistic view of Internet marketing. What I mean by that is, you want to give yourself every bit of an edge that you possibly can – in social media and in the search engines. To succeed at building yourself an edge, keywords are certainly helpful.
Many SEOs proclaim that keywords in titles are helpful to your on-page SEO. I’ll have to agree. That’s been my experience.
The prominent SEO mentioned above says keywords in titles aren’t necessary because it is your inbound links that are pushing you up in the rankings. But I’ve seen pages rank prominently without the links. So, no, I’ll have to say that’s bad advice.
I’m not saying links aren’t necessary. I’m not saying they aren’t helpful. I’m saying links alone are not going to give you the edge. Nor will on-page keyword stuffing. You have to focus on the big picture and that means honing your on-page content with SEO in mind.
Tags: keywords, links, SEO, Social Media
Posted in SEO for Small Business | 6 Comments »
Thursday, September 15th, 2011
Should you stop writing meta descriptions? Michael Martinez says you should.
Here’s his reasoning for abandoning your meta descriptions:
Trust me — there is nothing compelling about a meta description that a search engine chooses to ignore because it has moved the pointer a few degress further into the page.
I’ll have to respectfully disagree with him even though I respect his knowledge, reputation, and his spirit. He’s wrong about meta descriptions.
It isn’t that the search engines use them for ranking purposes, but they do use them. Let’s use a search query that Michael references in his blog post as an example. The search query, word for word as presented by MM, is: build a backyard canopy.
On Bing, the No. 1 search result is an eHow article – “How To Build An Outdoor Canopy.” Not an exact match, but don’t look at the Title. Look at the snippet.
A simple square or rectangular canopy can be built for your backyard or garden using standard-sized framing lumber and sheets of translucent corrugated roofing. …
This is taken word for word from the eHow article’s meta description, which, by the way, is too long, but that’s beside the point. Bing took eHow’s meta description, or a part of it, verbatim and used it as the search result snippet.
Google did the same thing, although eHow’s article is farther down in the search results. The snippet is the same.
You should continue writing meta descriptions because the search engines don’t always ignore them.
Tags: meta descriptions, SEO
Posted in SEO for Small Business | 6 Comments »
Friday, September 9th, 2011
SEOmoz used its Whiteboard Friday column this week to talk about the demise of exact match anchor text. I’m just curious if anyone else has thought about this.
The idea is that partial match anchor text will be the way search marketers build links in the future. In other words, if I want to rank for “SEO” as a key term, then I don’t have to make every link that points back to my website link for the specific term “SEO.” I can use other phrases like “SEO technique,” “this is great SEO,” and “small business SEO tactics.” In other words, the anchor text links rely in part upon the keyword I want to rank for rather than entirely upon that keyword.
I thought the best search engine marketers were already doing that. But maybe not.
Google has emphasized anchor text as a key ranking factor for years. SEOs have, for the most part, preached exact match anchor text. Now, SEOmoz, which has been one of those exact match proponents, is saying to do something else. The best practices are about to shift.
I can see the point. I think a part of the reason this shift is occurring is because the advent of social media. Google+ itself is changing the game for social media and for SEO. The question for search marketers, really, is this: To what degree will anchor text be important for SEO going into the future. Any ideas?
Tags: anchor text, link building, SEO
Posted in SEO for Small Business | 4 Comments »
Friday, September 2nd, 2011
SEO is not a difficult task if you know what you are doing. Many small business owners shudder at the thought of it, but you don’t have to. I’ve discovered 5 quick and easy ways to improve the SEO of any web page you own in under 5 minutes. Here they are.
- Write a unique title tag – Every page on your website should have a unique title tag that uses the primary keyword for that page.
- Compose a unique meta description – In 150 words or less, describe or summarize the contents of your page using your primary keyword and, if possible, a secondary keyword.
- Grab attention with a dynamic headline – Write an attention-grabbing headline in 70 characters or less that utilizes the primary keyword for that page.
- Social bookmark your pages – Social bookmarking can often be a great source of links. You can get direct links by bookmarking to do-follow websites or get indirect links by producing great content that others share and link to in their own blog posts.
- Create an internal link – Pick a keyword phrase on one page that matches the primary keyword phrase on another page and create an internal link between them. Make sure the link points to the page that is optimized for that keyword phrase and not vice-versa.
Each of these SEO tips can be performed in less than 5 minutes and they can each improve your website’s SEO tremendously.
Tags: search engine optimization, SEO
Posted in SEO for Small Business | 6 Comments »
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Would You Add Google+ To Your Blog Comments?
Tuesday, October 11th, 2011How many different blog comment applications are out there? If you are a WordPress user, then you know you don’t need to add a plug-in or application to encourage comments on your blog. WordPress has its own.
However, you can add comment management services like Disqus or CommentLuv. You can also use Facebook, which is very popular among bloggers – especially bloggers who are active on Facebook. But what if Google+ had a blog comment system? Would you use it?
Let me tell you why you should consider it:
Google+ is Google’s latest social media service and it’s taking the world by storm. Have you joined yet? If not, you should seriously consider it.
Tags: blog comments, google
Posted in SEO for Small Business | 4 Comments »