Search and Rank » SEO basics

Local Edge or Talking Phone Book or Yellow Pages

will — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 21:13:31 +0000

One of the top questions that I get from local business owners is in reference to the Local Phone Book Directory on whether or not to advertise in it. To be completely honest I haven’t used a phone book to find a business in many many years, pretty much since the creation of Google. So do many of my friends and family, the use of a paper phone book is pretty much obsolete with print publications not to far behind. Technology has pushed most primitive forms of communication out of the way with less and less people using snail mail and using much more email.
As times change so should businesses, but in order to develop a great brand you need to keep up with times as do the consumers you so seek. As a resident of WNY I am presented with the ever not-so popular Yellow Pages; err I mean The Talking Phone Book; I mean Local Edge, heck with it I will just use Google.com
How can you trust something if you use multiple names? When weighing your options on an already limited online budget (that is increasing rapidly) you have to be careful on where you spend your marketing dollars to make sure you reach the right audience you are seeking. Notice in a phone book that there is hardly any web development companies or web design companies in the phone book for these reasons. We just don’t use them, personally I use them as a call list to target local businesses that are in desperate need of an overhaul to their marketing plans. Using good SEO techniques you should be able to achieve high rankings without even breaking a sweat, giving you a chance at the business you are missing out on because you spent your budget on Yellow Pages.
For the businesses that still lack an online presence using a yellow page directory seems to be the only logical solution for your marketing plan aside from mailers and flyers or other print publications maybe even a tv or radio commercial. You could be listed within Google and be found by potential customers without a website.
email us to find out how.

Learn SEO | Link Building Internal and External

will — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 15:52:22 +0000

If you want to learn SEO and expect to see immediate results you might want to check out some SEO Basics where you will learn SEO from the start.

Linking your site can produce very positive results or negative depending on how your link structure is set up. Link structure starts with the way your own website’s navigation is set, if you linked your site correctly, you will be able to get to any one page of your site with 1-click. From earlier articles on SEO Basics | Web Design, you will learn SEO on a web design level in where you have your main navigation, company information and so-on. Actual positioning of the navigation menu and what type of menu navigation makes a difference for the search engine crawlers and the people you are targeting that search for you. The search engine spiders and crawlers will follow all links, but will only associate links with text, nothing else. So make sure that your navigation “buttons” if any, have actual html text in them to alert the search engine spiders that “this link” is associated with “a service” or “a product”. People will associate links with what is presented to them, but if you don’t present it properly to the search engines they will never see it to click on it anyway. Text navigation menus help a lot when trying to apply SEO tactics to your website, a lot more then using just plain images with tags. If you use proper navigation, search engines see all your pages and so do the searchers.

Learn SEO | Linking Back to Your Website

After you have installed the snippet of code for Google Webmaster Tools, you will now be able to track incoming links to your site. Other websites, usually forums, blogs, facebook and other social media will have a link on their site going to yours just as if you were to link to another site relevant to the content on your website. You may start to get requests from other webmasters requesting to add a link on your site. Do this only if the content is relevant to the content on your site and the website or company appears to be a reputable company. If the content of the site you are linking to is questionable you may lose rankings for being associated with a “harmful website”, so be careful who you link with when linking. If they are linking to you, there is nothing you can do and you shouldn’t be penalized for this since you can’t control the content on a website other than yours.

Learn SEO | Linking Spam

If you were to add a bunch of links in a short period of time, it is evaluated for a spam check and I am not talking about the stuff in a can (although I guess it is equally as bad) this may negatively effect your linking thus having a negative impact on your SEO campaign. If you learn SEO properly, you can identify between the two and keep your link strategy spam free.

What do you need to learn SEO?

will — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 17:36:43 +0000

FTP File Transfer Protocol

Many SEOs and clients performing their own SEO ask what they need in order to perform SEO. It is actually quite simple and you really don’t have to be that technical to implement on page and off page SEO.

First you need an FTP program, File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is a standard network protocol used to copy a file from one host to another over a TCP/IP-based network, such as the Internet. FTP is built on a client-server architecture and utilizes separate control and data connections between the client and server applications, which solves the problem of different end host configurations (i.e., Operating Systems, file names). FTP is used with user-based password authentication or with anonymous user access. (via wiki-pedia)

I know this sounds complicated but all it does is allow you to transfer files from your computer to your web hosting server where your website is located. It is just as simple if you were copying files from a flash drive and putting them somewhere on your hard drive. The programming aspect of the website should be done by someone with extensive html coding experience, but you can add meta information and the proper html snippets of code to your website via FTP by just using a notepad application or a web developer software.

What Do I Need to Learn SEO

First off if you don’t have a computer and cable/dsl or better don’t bother reading any further, there is no reason for you to learn seo! Now that you have a computer, Internet access and an FTP program you are ready to perform SEO or search engine optimization. Anyone can sign up for a Google Account which then will give you access to all of their internet applications like AdWords, Analytics and AdSense. From their you can get the snippets of code to install into the HTML of your website. From here you will copy the code they give you and paste it into the HTML where they verify the code to give you access to:

Google Analytics– Analytical data compiled real time for you to view statistics of website traffic

Google Webmaster Tools– More analytical data which allows you to track links, set crawl rate, see what keywords are triggering your ads and even what pages aren’t working

Google AdWords– This will allow you advertise on Google search results pages for a CPC (cost-per-click)

Google AdSense– Adding this snippet of code will allow Google to show ads from websites using AdWords to share the CPC with you that the advertiser pays

These are just a few of the Google programs that will allow you to track the success as well as earn income or advertise using the Google Network of advertisers that you can use simply by having FTP access and very little html knowledge.

Submit URL to Search Engines and Directories

will — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 15:35:04 +0000

I must get about 10 emails a week from various companies telling me that for a nominal fee they can submit my URL for indexing to Search Engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing along with hundreds of other directories and search engines. What most website owners do not know when they get these emails, is that they can easily submit their URL to these Search Engines free of charge. Another thing is if 75% + of the search share is Google, 8%+ for Yahoo, and pretty much the same for Bing sitting at about 8% what else is there to submit to? Most of the smaller search engines get their search results from Google, Yahoo or Bing anyway.

Free URL Submission to Google

So I watched a video once where Matt Cutts was giving a lecture on proper setup of web pages to be indexed properly in Google. Matt Cutts himself gets these emails to submit his URL to Google for 29.99 or 99.99 for a bunch of other search engines.

A website URL submission is just a faster way to get you listed in Google as if you were to sit back and wait for Google to find it and index it on it’s own. By no means does this mean that immediately after your URL submission to Google you will start appearing at the top of search results, or that you will even be listed in Google at all let alone at the top. It takes some time before your website is approved for submission maybe a day or so, then you may see yourself if you were to type in www.YourDomain.com in the Google search bar depending on the competition for your name or a variation of it.

Free URL Submission to Yahoo VS. Paid Inclusion

So Yahoo has 2 different types of URL submission. The first being the free submission to the search engine waiting your turn to be indexed, or Paid Inclusion which you can pay to be included right away with maybe even some prime real estate on higher search engines results pages. Either way, its a big waste of money, you are only being promoted to less then 10% of the search market share at ridiculous prices. I am not saying that advertising in Yahoo is bad, just paying to have it grace the search engine with it’s presence. I never personally submit my websites to Yahoo or Bing, they just find it on their own usually before I even see myself on Google after I submitted to Google.

So take responsibility and don’t waste your money on something that takes less then a minute.

Submit URL to Google

Submit URL to Yahoo

Submit URL to Bing

Google Analytics Changes

will — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 17:38:01 +0000

Recently Google has been providing a little more information on Google Analytics, allowing you to drill down to find exact searches and how many clicks you are missing out on. There are a lot of requests for SearchandRank to decipher the unknown on Google Analytics. The best part about it, is that you can’t screw anything up while clicking around, the only thing you do is enlighten yourself and learn from your mistakes. When you really can’t make mistakes while accessing Google Analytics Dashboard, which is really where the bulk of the important information can be stored. You can really set up your dashboard to display the information you feel as the most important to you analysis of your website traffic using Google Analytics. One of the most important factors of SEO is tracking the data that is at your fingertips and making changes on the fly to improve your rankings and be ready to make any changes back if the changes negatively affect your rankings.

Submit your email address to SearchandRank and we will send you a Google Analytics “breakdown guide” at no cost, which is trademarked information and can’t be resold!

SEO Web Design

will — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 16:18:39 +0000

SEO or Web Design, You Must Have Both

SEO or Search Engine Optimization can be overlooked in the design of a website. Without proper planning these days, your newly designed website may not be search engine friendly and not provide you with the results you are looking for.

Proper Keyword Targeting

Without keyword research you shouldn’t even be this far in your website creation so at this point you should have the words you are targeting.

Your home page is going to be the most viewed page on your site if you are doing everything right. You want a lot of information (text information) on your home page, revolving around all the main keywords you have for your SEO campaign. This should not be any more then 7 if you want to have an effective SEO campaign. Keep in mind, you are going to need:

Links
Header tags
Page Title
Page Content
Images

All supporting the keywords you selected for your SEO campaign in order for those keywords to be effectively ranked. Once you target your market, use keywords associated with that market, then implement the keywords into the website on the home page and all corresponding pages within the site.

Design with SEO in Mind

Place your main header in the center of the page, give the user or website visitor something to look at, give the search engines a reason to believe you are the best result for the keywords used. If you are using a company or individual to code your website make sure they use text in their websites vs. using images for header tags. Some designers don’t use standard text for header tags only because they say it makes it look more like a document, however it is what the search engines look for in order to rank a web page. People are getting lazier and lazier and don’t like to scroll down, so have your most important information above the fold.

Retro Clothing Shopping for the Past Online

will — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 03:08:53 +0000

Remembering Retro Clothing

Today you have the 2000′s the 90′s, 80′s and many still rock the 70′s. Teenagers today refer to the 60′s, 50′s and 40′s as “Vintage” and only special parties or occasions warrant the option to wear these outfits.

Some of us don’t think we should let go of a fashion seemed to be forgotten. Not collectors items, but affordable replicas of the pin up dresses, greaser work shirts and even children’s retro clothing are reaching the market due to the brick and mortar and internet presence of CatsLikeUs.

CatsLikeUs :: Retro Meets Internet

Given the ability to create an online market for itself, CatslikeUs of the Buffalo NY area is taking a retro style clothing store from a local state of mind to a National clothing store by increasing its web traffic with natural flowing traffic. Taking basic SEO measures, CatsLikeUs target their keywords based on the content they provide to their customer base. Not reaching outside the text content of their shopping pages providing false keywords increasing their chances to rank higher according to their content.

Internal linking of web pages within your own site will increase the chances of your internal pages getting indexed along with the content page originally being ranked because of the pages hierarchy being closer to the home page.

CatsLikeUs.com will be indexed before shop.CatslikeUs.com due to it being the main URL and not a sub domain or a child page. Inter-Linking your pages will allow users to navigate as they read and increase your chances of staying on the site and converting to a sale.

SEO Basics

will — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 02:47:49 +0000

Put in the Time, Get the Results

If you want to learn how to do SEO, you really need to read. If you don’t plan on putting in the hours, don’t bother starting the project. A lot of times new website owners will go full board for a month or two, then stop what they are doing because it gets mundane and extremely boring. Well that is what SEO is, repetitive, mundane tasks that all together make a great and effective SEO campaign.

Pay to Learn SEO?

I cannot discredit things I have never myself experienced, but I probably wouldn’t waste my money on school for SEO only because of the nature of search engines and their ever changing algorithms. If something is a moving target, how could you teach on the past? Only to show bad habits that have been stopped, but if you never knew a bad habit, the times you do something that may effect your rankings negatively only in multiple examples or exploiting, not when you do it accidental or you just don’t think its wrong. My number one rule in SEO is if you don’t feel right doing it, don’t do it.

Anyone can do SEO

Learn to do SEO from the courtesy of your own home and for free, but if you don’t feel like doing it yourself, hire someone, hire someone reputable and has had some success. If you want really good results, let us handle your SEO, 33% of your revenue should be spent on advertising if you want to succeed. Internet marketing is taking over for all of marketing only because that is where the traffic is and that is where the traffic converts.

Search Queries, is longer better?

will — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 02:08:52 +0000

There was a post previously about long keyword phrases vs short keyword phrases and the differences and the pros and cons. Over time there has been patterns in my customer’s traffic showing that longer tail search queries are becoming more and more and people are staying on the site longer after the search.

Short Tail Search Query

When your website is envisioned on the web, you always have high expectations of what the website is going to accomplish. When placing your content on the site, you are thinking that you want to be indexed for one word search phrases and two word search phrases. When in essence the person performing the search is getting smarter and refining their search to find exactly what they want on the first search. Four, five and six word search phrases are becoming more common and providing more useful search results for the searcher thus two word search phrases are becoming obsolete and harder to rank for.

Long Tail Search Query

How do you tell what is a good search phrase is? Let the searcher tell you, check analytics regularly to see new search phrases that may have been used to find your site. Think of how you would search for your product or service if you had no idea other than what it was called. Many times search engine optimization specialists are told specific names of the product or services, so because they have no idea what they do or how they do it and go with what they are told. When come to find out, that product or service name given to the SEOS actually is only known amongst the specialists in the industry and the searcher doesn’t use the terminology and searches for something completely different not listed in the content on the site. This will result in your site not being under a search phrase that has a lot better chance of a conversion due to the specific nature in the long tail search query and the jargon is down to the consumers level increasing accuracy in what they are looking for and how well you provide the content they are looking for.

Freelance SEO vs. Internal SEO

will — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 15:01:47 +0000

Every business comes to a crossroads where their website isn’t providing the web traffic and sales leads they believe their website is capable of providing. Just like every other aspect of business there are professionals that can provide the services at a much lower cost that of which an actual staffed employee can provide.

Freelance SEO Specialist

Obtaining the services of a freelance SEO has it’s pro’s and con’s and this little list should provide adequate information on what your choices really are.

A freelance SEO may not have all the same qualifications as a reputable Internet Marketing Company or the same work experience with various business industries. With a reputable Internet Marketing Company you may not get the same type of attention you would from a freelance SEO. In this comparison, you could get a lot more bang for your buck by hiring someone that is willing to work for you rather than working for their company. You may hire a big company, but only 1 or 2 people will be doing the work on the website for that company. Hiring a freelance SEO will allow you to get that 1 person to work on your site with no one else to report to allowing you to possibly get some small additions for no additional cost.

Internal SEO Specialist

Instead of hiring a company to take care of all of your internet marketing needs, you may venture into hiring someone with SEO/Internet Marketing experience and bringing them on your staff full time. This just like anything else has it’s pro’s and con’s, bringing on someone full time will ultimately bring more cost to your company. Providing insurance, payments into unemployment and normal full time staff requirements. Hiring may be a pain because you can’t find the right employee for the job, the person with the most experience or possibly even a proven track record of success. Also if you were to hire someone full time to help with your internet marketing they may have no idea what they are doing with SEO and provide you with some bad choices that ultimately hurt your search engine rankings and negatively impact your marketing campaign.

Whether or not you are looking to permanently improve your search engine rankings for your website (most people are looking for permanent) you make your choices carefully just like any other business decision. Remember there isn’t any matriculated programs in schools to teach SEO due to the constant changes in search engine algorithms, so its constantly a moving target.

One of the most widely used forms of paying an SEO or Internet Marketing Specialist, is a small fee for preliminary work being done to the site (mainly to protect the SEO) and a commission for sales on the website is a way to track success and to put value to the work of the SEO.