SEO Update
Let’s assume you know what SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is. Let’s assume you know the value of using SEO to make it easy for people to find you on the internet. Now, let’s assume that you want to appear high on the first page of search engines for terms people would enter when looking for what you do.
You should then be aware that SEO is changing literally on a daily basis with new rules and techniques. Thus, staying up-to-date is almost an impossible task. So to help out, let me share with you some of today’s newest ways to help get your website more noticed.
1) LINKS
Google takes into account how many inbound links your website has coming from other websites. This number should be growing on a regular basis to keep search engines (Google especially) interested and re-visiting your website. Every time a search engines comes across a link to your website on someone else’s, they see you as an authority on the internet.
The more quality links you have, the more authority your website is given and your website will rank higher. Be careful, you can get too many too fast. Talk to an SEO expert before starting your own inbound link campaign.
The number one thing to help websites right now is an inbound link campaign. We call it Off Site Optimization, because all inbound links are from other people’s websites, not “on” yours.
2) THE LATEST META DATA TECHNIQUES
Your website’s meta data can contain all sorts of data to help search engines rank you. There are a few that you should absolutely have:
- Meta Title Tag – 70 characters or less and use keyword phrases only relevant to the page you are on.
- Meta Description Tag – 155 characters or less. Use sentence structure and include keyword phrases. Just one sentence to summarize the page.
NOTE: The Meta Keywords Tag is no longer used by the major search engines. Google states outright that they do not look at this tag anymore because it was so abused. If you want to use the Meta Keywords Tag, enter keyword phrases that the content on the page represents best, 3 to 5 phrases maximum.
3) CONTENT
Your website structure and code are the bread, the text content is the butter (the flavor in the meal). You don’t mix flavors like ice cream and fish, so don’t mix your content with history and product information. They should be separate on their own pages.
Ideally, each page should be a representation of one particular keyword or phrase. The history and company information pages would use the company’s name as the keyword phrase for branding. When it comes to the content, using keywords like the product name or function is going to get better rankings than marketing terms like “high performance” and “state-of-the-art”.
Every product or service is meant to help or make things easier for someone. Always use the name of the products or services for search engines as well. Remember that search engines don’t read context, they read characters and see patterns.
EXAMPLE OF CONTENT:
On a single page, if we talk about SEO and how SEO can help and how SEO is easy and what SEO does over time, a search engine will see “SEO” several times and place our site at the top of the “SEO” search results because it knows we talk about SEO.
Is SEO Helping Your Website
In today’s market, every business can and should have a website for customers and colleagues to reference for contact information, at least. For those of us who wanted to have the essentials on our websites, we expand the pages and have our products and services listed with details of the packages and maybe even a shopping cart. All a website represents is an online, interactive brochure for your company, with as much detail to make a visitor feel informed and confident in your ability or quality of product to place an order or make a phone call.
The first step, of course, is to get the website built. There are so many options, bells, and whistles that come with websites these days but there are some cornerstones that need addressing if you are going to have a user-friendly and well functioning website.
Every great website has: a home page with a clear and concise message, services or products pages with lots of details, an about page with information about the company, its capabilities, its policies, and commendations if nowhere else, and a contact page with phone numbers, emails, fax, maps, and even a form for questions or comments to be submitted.
Once your website is built, it can function beautifully and the design can look amazing but these things will not get people to your website and get you business. The only way to get people to your website, besides you handing out business cards and people typing in your business name, is through search engine optimization.
Search Engine Optimization, commonly referred to as SEO, is the practice of developing the code and content of a website to make it easier for the search engines to read and rank the pages. The higher a website ranks for a keyword, the more likely a user is to click on it. Making an effort to optimize a website will pay off in the long run through increased website traffic and sales.
There are several factors that are straight forward to improve your visibility on search engines and some that are obscure even to an expert SEO specialist. Ask yourself these questions when going through your website and things will turn around. Are the keywords you want to rank for used often enough on a single page? Search engines only rank one page at a time. Does each page have straight forward and keyword rich meta data? At the top of browser windows and on the tabs within the browser, each page should be different and specific to that page.
While SEO works on improving website visibility, people become aware of a website and use word of mouth, social media, or email to pass it along. More importantly, SEO should NEVER be considered finished. It is an ongoing effort that takes time. A brand new website will not rank first on any phrase overnight. Through patience and persistence, a business owner will be able to watch their website soar through the ranks in a matter of weeks and even more in a matter of months.
Obviously it is better to start a website with a search engine optimization in mind but 99% of websites can be optimized just fine after the website is built because it’s not a design element. SEO is in the coding and the content and content should be changed on a regular basis anyway to stay current. Search Engine Optimization helps companies reach customers they never knew they could. All it takes is that first step of talking to an SEO company to get your website working for you.
10 Tips for Off Site Optimization
Off Site Optimization or OSO as we call it is becoming (if it hasn't already become) the absolute best way to get your website great rankings after optimizing it. Sure the On-Site Optimization stuff is all in place, your keyword density is awesome and you have the most straight forward meta data ever. Good for you. Have a cookie.
How much work have you accomplished in the grand scheme of a thorough SEO campaign?... Eh 28%.
The rest is in Off Site Optimization. The inbound links that you should be building exponentially as long as the site is online is what will not only build up your rankings but keep them there too.
So how do you start with this amazingly difficult task of link building? (Just kidding, its not hard, just takes time and experience, you will get better the more you do it)
1. Concentrate on Clusters, pick a word or phrase that you want to build up your rankings for while you build links to your website. I clearly do SEO so I always use phrases surrounding the SEO industry. "Links", "SEO", "Optimization", "On Site", "Off Site", etc.
2. Change Up the Wording, avoid using the same phrase on every single anchor text link you build from other websites. Search engines get wise to it and say "Boo! Not creative!". So change up the accent words in the phrase. If "SEO" is my phrase I use "SEO Guy", "SEO Expert", "SEO Guru" (I actually hate this one but I take what I can get, I am not a snob), "Optimization Help", etc.
3. Blogs are OK for Link Building, leaving comments on blogs is not an outlawed traitorous move if you want to really branch out and get a bunch of links organically. I do it all the time when the affiliate link pool is shallow. rel=nofollow links don't help things either I believe the quantity of links that come to your site help just as much as where they are coming from matters.
4. Check Where You are Linking From, if you are going to go on a directory or even a blog and get a quick backlink, look at the Page Rank and the amount of back links they have. If you are 3 Page Ranks or more above a site, and you have more back links than them, don't bother staying. It's not worth one link from a lame site. Think of it like an anchor, you are flying high and you get links from PR2 sites. You will see your PR7 drop to PR6 or PR5 if you don't cut it out.
5. Keep Records, a MS word document or Excel sheet with all the places you request links from is the easiest way. I keep a list so I can follow up and see if the links are completed. If its a popular blog that has regular posts, go back and maintain your presence on there. After a while, blogs archive and your link is buried. Keep one on the most recent articles.
6. Don't be a Spammer, writing general emails with directions of what you want your link to look like on someone else's site and a link back to your fake "affiliate" section is a big No-No! Even worse is sending huge spam blasts of the email to a list of people who don't know you. I will report every email's website for spamming when I get those. I have even seen the request to trade links emails where they ask me to link to site A, and they will place my link on site Z with 500 other links on the page. Ummm No.
7. SEO People are not Superman, as much as I wish I was like the big blue and red boy scout, I am not. Search engines account for how many links you are getting and in what span of time. If you use an automated software to comment on blogs or request links or whatever in the 100's to 1000's a day or even a week, search engines will catch you and demote your links to very little value if not to no value. Organic, by hand, and legit links never get demoted. That is a gamble I am not willing to take with my clients' businesses. If their rankings disappear so does their sales. No thank you.
8. Be a Socialite, bookmarking websites is a great way to reach out and intermix your website with the big boys. That's what they are there for, search engines promote the interaction of sites and even website graders not check to see if you have a blog, a twitter account, a digg profile, and even a Facebook page. Sign up for the social media profiles everyone else is on. Its easy and you are probably already on their so make it help your website.
9. Become Shakespearean, writing articles and submitting them to e-zine websites can create much needed buzz about your company. Obviously it takes a bit of a dedicated person to write an article but if its to help your company, why not, you already know the subject, now elaborate the highlights while sprinkling in some humor. If your company is more affordable than the corporate super-power you compete with, tell people about it. If you are a niche company doing new things, people want to hear about it. Not just see a link to a random website.
10. Share the Load, I have been doing SEO for years and now Off Site Optimization has nearly taken over my life. I have trained our sales team, our employees and even our customers to post links about us when they are online "LMAO"-ing. If you have a staff, ask them for help. Tell everyone to seek out one link per day. If just one person does it as well as you. After just 1 week, your link building efforst have increased 500%. So just ask.
So that's the 10, I didn't say they are "Guaranteed for Better Off Site Optimization", I said they were tips. Now that I read this, its more like 10 thoughts on Off Site Optimization with some SEO chattering, ranting and experience. I hope it helps. Cheers!
15 Steps to Improve Your SEO
This is just a great beginner / refresher for any web designer or SEO specialist. Enjoy
Search Engine Journal SEO Guide
5 Tips for Managing Social Media Campaigns Across Multiple Languages
In the context of the current social media boom, e-marketers may be surprised – if not shocked – to learn that the majority of companies are not taking social media communication channels very seriously…or at least not yet. As Econsultancy’s ‘2010 Social Media and Online PR’ report found, 40% of the companies have “experimented with social media but not done much”, while only 26% of the business respondents said their senior managers were eager to adopt social media procedures.
And what’s most baffling is that a mere quarter of marketers say they would run multilingual campaigns in more than one country.
There’s no need to bang the drum for the benefits of social media marketing in allowing a business to directly connect to an audience and delivering remarkable return on investment. So, instead of restricting yourself to a monolingual social media presence, why not expand it globally when you can do so at the click of a button?
With a mere 31% of internet users being native English speakers, and over 80% of netizens preferring to browse in their mother tongue, the need for multilingual social media marketing campaigns is more critical than ever. As more and more marketers are likely to hop on the digital marketing bandwagon in the months to come, establishing a global presence across all social media platforms will help increase your brand awareness and make you stand out from the competition in a definitive way.
Going social and multilingual is a pretty straightforward process – however, there are a few intricacies to keep in mind if you want to reap the maximum benefits of multilingual social media marketing. The following five tips will make you a social media power user:
Do your homework
Depending on your exporting experience, you may or may not know which markets to target. There are some nifty online tools, such as Google’s Global Market Finder and Google Global, which can help you gauge the online markets for a particular product per region. Most businesses tend to gravitate towards the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) and CIVETS (Columbia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Egypt, Turkey and South Africa) countries as examples of emerging and highly lucrative markets.
Once you have identified the right markets for your product, you should engage in some in-country market research: what social media platforms do locals use, what is their disposable income, what are their spending habits, are there any cultural intricacies that need to be addressed? Allow as much time for research as needed and be ready to incorporate any findings in your digital marketing strategy.
Twitter? Create separate accounts for each market
Twitter has turned into the definitive vehicle for businesses wishing to spread their message. But there’s one caveat: however tempting it may be to create one account and tweet from it in different languages, bear in mind that your followers in Turkey, for instance, will not have a clue what your Chinese tweet means – and vice versa. It doesn’t take much to annoy – and alienate – the Twitterati.
If you take the time to create separate accounts and manage them locally, however, your feeds will have a more personal feel. An individual approach can work wonders!
Translate but don’t forget to localize
Automated translation tools may be free and help you get the gist but as far as business is concerned, you can’t afford to take the risk. Even Google Translate’s creators have conceded that it is imperfect in rendering the nuances of discourse, be they Facebook updates or quick thoughts Twitter style. It certainly pays to invest a little in hiring in-country native-speaking Twitter editors who would be switched on about local social media intricacies.
Be omnipresent
Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and most recently Google+… if you’re serious about wanting to establish a solid social media presence, you should engage on all fronts. Don’t forget that the communication channels popular in the English-speaking countries are not the be-all and end-all of social media. Renren in China, Yandex in the Russian-speaking world, Orkut in Brazil, and a host of hyper local social networks… if you’re looking to expand to the respective countries, establishing a presence on these social media platforms is probably your best bet.
Interact!
Social media is all about interacting and engaging with one’s audience so don’t just broadcast your message – create discussions, encourage conversation, and you’ll soon see your social media influence take off.
This was a repost of the article posted originally by Christian Arno.
New SEO Do’s and Don’ts
A good search engine optimization is thorough and unique. A bad search engine optimization is lazy, uniform and template.
Go through each item below and make sure your website falls in the "Do" column, not the "Don't".
Item |
Actions to Follow and NOT Follow |
|
| URL | Do's | Use Unique Page Relevant File names |
| Don'ts | Use bland file names...ie. about.htm | |
| Page Titles | Do's | 65 Characters, Different Page Title on every page |
| Don'ts | Use the same title on every page | |
| Meta Description | Do's | 155 Characters, Keyword Rich, page specific |
| Don'ts | Forget to insert it or use the same on every page | |
| Meta Summary | Do's | 155 Characters, Keyword Rich, page specific |
| Don'ts | Not insert it or use the same one on every page | |
| Meta Keywords | Do's | 3 to 5 keyword phrases (optional) |
| Don'ts | Overfill the meta keywords with words not on the page | |
| Keyword Density | Do's | 5% to 10% of your content should be 1 phrase per page |
| Don'ts | Use below 5% or over 10%, its not enough or keyword stuffing | |
| Anchor Text Links | Do's | Use Products and Services in Anchor Text Links |
| Don'ts | Use the name of your company that no on knows | |
| Heading Tags | Do's | Use Keywords in 1- H1, 1- H2, 1- H3 Per Page |
| Don'ts | Use "H" 1, 2, 3 all over a single page | |
| Keywords in Content | Do's | Keyword rich content in the beginning, middle and end. |
| Don'ts | Insert keyword rich content in lower paragraphs or content | |
| Image Alt Tags | Do's | Every Image on a page should have an Alt Tag |
| Don'ts | Leave images without Alt Tags | |
| Image Title Tags | Do's | If an image is also a button, add a Title Tag |
| Don'ts | Leave buttons without Title Tags | |
| Search Engine Submissions | Do's | Manually Submit to search engines |
| Don'ts | Use an automated software to submit to search engines | |
| Search Engine Reporting | Do's | Only run a report twice a month at most |
| Don'ts | Run the same report constantly, you will get blocked on SE's. | |
| Outgoing Links | Do's | Limit outgoing links on a single page to a few |
| Don'ts | Use only one page for all outgoing links, Link Farm!! | |
| Meta Tag geo.position | Do's | Use the GPS coords for your business |
| Don'ts | Use the companies street address | |
| Meta Tag geo.region | Do's | Use country code and state ie. "US-IL" |
| Don'ts | Use full words ie. "United States - Illinois" | |
| Meta Tag geo.place | Do's | Use city location and nearest metropolis ie. "Yorkville, Chicago" |
| Don'ts | Use just the city of your business | |
| Meta Tag Rating | Do's | Use appropriate rating for content on your site |
| Don'ts | Use a general rating so more visitors can get through | |
| Meta Tag Country | Do's | Use the country your business resides |
| Don'ts | Use the country your business deals with | |
| Meta Tag Expires | Do's | Use the term "Never" |
| Don'ts | Use a date and forget to change it, SE's will ignore expired sites |
|
| Meta Tag Robots | Do's | Use if you are not writing a robots.txt file |
| Don'ts | Use if you have a robots.txt file | |
| Hidden Text | Do's | Get it off your site |
| Don'ts | Insert it to get your keyword density up, very black hat |
Do these simple steps and watch out for the Don'ts and you will have yourself a much better performing search engine optimization.
SEO – Content is King!
When creating your website, have SEO in mind. Create useful keyword content not filler to make your site look full. The saying "content is king" is true. The actual content on your site has everything to do with your search rankings. Quantity and quality is what you need in order to keep up in the rankings.
If you are doing a site about "Search Engine Optimization", Google that phrase and look at the very first organic listing. How many times does the exact phrase "Search Engine Optimization" appear on the page.
The body text is obvious but the navigation, the footer links, the call to action links, there are so many places you can plant awesome keyword phrases that get overlooked so often. The nav and the footer links are self explanatory, but the call to actions are tricky.
Do NOT use a text link that says "Click Here", one its ominous and no one trusts those, tell the user what they are clicking, "Search Engine Optimization Info". That way you are clear to your users and your click through rates will climb and you just added another instance of your keyword in a link.
The moral of the story here kids is read your content, does it actually say anything.
Here is an exercise for you: Talking out loud, to yourself, what does your company do? Explain it just like you would if you were talking to a client. Your website should almost transcribe what you said out loud. Websites are interactive business cards, I am not going to call you if I don't know what you do or how you can help me.
The more often you update your content, the more the search engines will spider your site and walk through your content to see what it contains.
Content is King Ladies and Gentlemen, don't lose sight of that or no one will see you on the search engines!
New SEO Software for VisionFriendly.com
SEO Powersuite - Available on Link-Assistant.com
VisionFriendly.com has recently upgraded to SEO Powersuite to assist in improving the search engine optimizations of our clients' and our own websites.
The SEO Powersuite is composed of 4 software sweets all beneficial to any site's SEO.
Rank Tracker, which reports on keyword phrases and show the fluctuation of rankings from report to report.
Link Assistant, which seeks out potential inbound links for your site as well as sends invitations to those sites for a link exchange.
WebSite Auditor, which evaluates your website's SEO and suggests solutions to improve the rankings and working potential.
SEO SpyGlass, which checks the quality and quantity of a website's backlinks and advises on which ones to keep and which ones to seek out.
The SEO Powersuite is the best SEO toolkit on the market and VisionFriendly.com gives its full endorsement!
What to Look for From an SEO Company
Search Engine Optimization Services Should Include:
Initial SEO Analysis
An evaluation of your website's vitality in the eyes of a search engine for your industry, products, services and overall content. The purpose of an SEO analysis is to establish a plan to modify the code of the site and the visible content to reach its peak potential or add more to improve it.
Keyword Phrase Selection
The keyword phrases chosen for your site are the focus of your SEO campaign. By evaluating the content, the services and the products your company offers, keyword phrases can easily be established and then elaborated on to improve your website's search engine presence. Analyzing your competitors' sites and researching product trends will also help establish a focus for the rest of the optimization.
Site Optimization
Once the complete keyword phrase selection has been made, the SEO company can start with the on-site optimization. The SEO company will run an initial report to document the progress of the optimization before the SEO and after periodically. After they run the initial report they can add all the essentials: Meta Data, Heading Tags, image tags and titles, footer text links and more to help the search engines see as much of your site's content as possible.
Site Submission
After the on-site optimization changes are completed, the SEO company will proceed to submit your site to the major search engines manually. This is essential for good rankings because Google, Yahoo and Bing do not look kindly on automated submissions by software programs, no matter how easy it is to use.
Reporting
Use a tried and true ranking report software to "grade" your optimization on a month-to-month basis, because more frequently than a month, or so, will irritate search engines. This reports however give you valuable, "hard data" to improve your rankings with ease. As well as give you a definitive Return-On-Investment (ROI) for your SEO as you watch your website climb the rankings month after month.
Content Advisement
SEO changes can be made to your website "as is" and ideally your website could be off to the races for excellent search engine rankings. This scenario is rare and unlikely unfortunately. The company can make recommendations based on your SEO campaign's goals and improve your keyword phrase density within your website's content to improve your search engine rankings to their true potential.
Off Site Optimization (OSO)
Off Site Optimization or OSO is building inbound links from other websites to yours. Any self respecting SEO firm will recommend this. The absolute #1 thing to do after you do an On Site Optimization is to immediately start your Off Site Optimization. This "link building" can be a lot of things... Blog Commenting, Social Media Pages, Business Directories, Website Directories, and so on. The best tip I can give and its a pretty big one. Ask "Do you use an automated software to build the links". If they don't deny it and insist that they do them all by hand, the next question should be, "how many do I get?". The most important thing is they are done by hand and you don't get too many too fast. A search engine can spot it and will demote the value of not one but all your links potentially, leaving your website in very poor standing.
If they answer with something ridiculous like 500 or 1000 per month. They are lying. On average, finding a potential link and filling out stuff takes 10 to 15 minutes each. Multiplied by 500 and you have over 83 hours work. Two work weeks. And OSO should be ongoing. Get the point. A good build number for a monthly OSO campaign is 15, 30, even 50. At a price tag between $300 and $1250 depending on how many you get.
For more information on SEO or Web Design visit us at VisionFriendly.com.