SEO World:

In the field of SEO (search engine optimization), there are a myriad of things you can do to affect rankings in search engines.

While its basic premise is simple (content + links), you cannot pick up strategy and tactics in a weekend or two. A long term committment is needed, and you need a combination of technical, entrepreneurial, design and marketing skills and certainly – copywriting skills.

But, with those writing skills, you can get started today!

Last week, I was introduced to a company and their current website. Like most serious businesses, they wanted top rankings for some related keyterms (which is good). When I did a more in-depth keyword research (this is where you must start) – it revealed none of their selected terms were used online (not good). You should still consider those related terms and test them via PPC & SEO. Monitor trends in your server and anlytics logs for performing keywords, and continue keyword research.

Keywords with search counts with at least 100-200 searches per month (try the Overture Suggestions Tool) could form a good starter strategy.

Try first to lift your rankings in MSN & Yahoo. However, do the competitive research and get metrics out of those comparisons, since every marketplace is different. Y & M favor content and care less about links – whereas Google cares about both.

This post is a reminder to look at quality content – always. That means your on-page factors need to be applied correctly.

Here is an onpage SEO list to (re)consider:

• After solid keyword research, make sure to include searched keyterms/phrases on your page, early and often – without being repetitive. Thinks about using synonyms and permutations to describe your content, and don’t worry too much about keyword density.
• Make sure you place those keywords in the TITLE of your page.
• Use 1-2 keywords per page and no more than three. We want to make sure the page reads well. You also don’t need to write a thesis either. Folks scan on the web, and it’s good to break content into more pages than just a monolithic one. Test with varying word counts, but 200 words on a page is definitely good.
• Place your keywords inside H<x> tags, and while H1 tags are important, you can also use H2 to help support your topic. Use CSS stylesheets to blend into the page and/or graphics.
• Use internal linking strategies to emphasize anchor text links and make sure the receiving page matches that keyword / topic.
• Optimize directories and filenames with keywords you are targeting. If you have an existing structure developed already, use 301 redirects or mod rewrite to get them set up right. Google highlights keywords in their results pages, including directories and URLs – which can make your listing stand out as well.
• Think users, then search engines – not the other way around, and don’t spam.  

This is an example of an on-page optimized page, related to “corporate blogs”.

Content on your page with keywords and links can get you ranked higher in search engines. 

The only way a search engine can know what your page is about, is via keywords.

Make sure you apply these techniques, and continue to build external link profiles as well using the same link strategy.

In my recent article, the 6 SEO blogging tips, I speak of the awesome opportunities that exist for you to combine a Wordpress blog with some common sense business strategies and tools to get into a positive place for search engine inclusion and ranking.

This is only the beginning. There are more tips you can apply that will help you further. (A recent video from Matt Cutts, Google – is posted at the end).

Directories & filenames with underscores?
We know that directory and filenames are important to search engines.  The ongoing discussion around hyphens and underscores was recently discussed at a conference where the below video was taped. Google is looking into how to best deal with underscores, but having an underscore in your URL like this: /sony_digital_camera is normally read by Google as ’sonydigitalcamera’, whereas /sony-digital-camera (hyphens) is correctly interpreted as ’sony digital camera’. This last example make it easy for the search engines to read it.

Worrying about this too much may cause headaches for an already established site (possibly losing established rankings) – but if you are building new pages, use the hyphen approach and with keywords in URL and domain, where you can.  The (+) plus sign and dots (.) can also be used, but stay away from underlines.

Dynamic pages are good?
If you are dealing with dynamic pages (sometimes called spider-traps) that contain long URLs separated by many ‘&’ characters, you will not be considered optimized for Google. In fact, if you have more than two parameters, you are losing indexing and ranking opportunities. Stay within 1-2 parameters max, something like this: http://www.yourdomain.com?z=parm1&y=parm2 – and you will be treated like a static URL. Dynamic pages are not good for SE’s.

In that recent blog article, I speak of the directory levels that can be set within the Wordpress system. I used the date driven structure. The structure creates a deeper level tree, but you can also test using the category page only, and applying a POST Slug (Wordpress) to name your directory specifically. (The post slug option is down/right side of the page, when you are in ‘Write’ mode on Wordpress). Either way, recent tests show that spiders will drill down and find your page.

Check out the (long) video  and see how you can apply further techniques – as instructed from the top (Google)…

In the community of SEO there is always discussion around who is the best individual or team to craft content and apply website changes for optimum SEO compliancy.

Answers vary, but we never hear much success from the Information Technology or Developer Groups to handle SEO directly.

Reason: They are not good at it, and it’s not their job. Many SEO horror stories come from poor execution and judgement in applying SEO on-page and off-page (linking) strategies and these groups do not understand the 360 view you must have into the SEO world and the search engines themselves.

Is it possible that a lone Microsoft dot NET developer can do a quality SEO job of a specialized marketing person or outside SEM vendor?

Introducing the SEO informer for .NET product, recently announced. 

It is a cool and very useful tool for Microsoft ASP.NET developers to apply high quality SEO tactics, right inside the .NET IDE (integrated development environment). Now developers can publish SEO compliant code and websites directly to marketing – SEO done right.

I recently sat down with the creators (Levi Page & Brian Mishler) of this new product. (No affiliation with Larry Page/Google). Here’s what they said:

Q: Who are you, tell me a little bit about yourself and the company?

A: Brian: “I have an aerospace engineering degree from and I’m a self taught software developer. Started with dBASE II, Clipper (Ed Note: I was #4 on the Clipper development team myself) and have a passion for writing commercial software.”  Levi: “I have degree in Computer Information Systems, and have been doing  software for 15 years. I am really involved in SEO, software & graphics design. I started my software trek with a Tandy TRS-80 and QuickBasic. We have worked together for many years, and are partners in this new business. We both have strong roots in technology, and are very passionate about search engine optimizaton and bringing it out to people.”

Q: How did the idea for this product come about?

A: “We had been thinking about this for a while, and thought that Visual Studio add-ins might be a really useful thing for developers and how important it could be for a tight SEO tool integration with their IDE. You wouldn’t have to leave the environment you love, and work within the ASPX pages directly.  Also, we wanted something with instant feedback, no wait time.  The controls would tell you what to do next, and you would not need to be an SEO expert.  We also looked at other products, like IBP, TrendMX, SEO Elite, and saw no integration anywhere, only stand-alone products.  Also, when Visual Studio launched with new concepts of ‘master pages’, and a whole new way of interacting with web pages and sites, we moved away from DreamWeaver (Still a dominating web development product).”

Q: How does the product work?

A: “It uses meta data management among other things. An XML file is updated at the core, and the easy accessible panels allow you to edit directly, without worrying about the underlying data structures. Each node in the file represents a webpage, and at runtime, an ASP.NET control or http handler is used to merge data into a page header.  Many developers are familiar and comfortable with XML sitemaps, but here you don’t have to worry about it.  On the other hand, you could open the file, and email configuration and meta data to another party, and using the Internet Explorer for example, you could view all the nodes/properties of the pages in the site. Or, just use it directly in the environment itself.”

Q: Who should use this product?

A: “The huge community of non-SEO informed ASP.NET developers, they are finally able use an integrated tool that helps them write pages that is optimized for the web day one. It shows you what to type next, how to layout the page and much more. Plus, it’s only $99.00, and there’s a free download.”

Q: What is the future of this product?

A: “We are always listening to our customers, and we internally brainstorm ideas every week, and collect these – to prioritize tasks/projects for development.  The customers tell us what they want, and we typically act on it quickly.  We are excited to be part of this industry, but are baffled about by how much money is wasted, and how little people know about SEO and online marketing in general. It’s the cheapest form of advertising, and the old media (traditional magazine advertising, etc) – is not the way to go anymore.”

“You need search engine marketing, and organic listings is your best bet over time. Everybody online needs more traffic, and if done right, it will pay off – everybody needs quality traffic. We are working on a desktop version next, more analysis tools, instant pagerank into pages, inbound link analysis, duplicate content checks, everything rapid response via threading models.”

Thanks guys, I personally installed this product, and found it to be very intuitive, and recommend that my readers take a look, especially if you are a web developer using Microsoft Visual Studio & ASP.NET to build websites and want “instant SEO”…

Traditional search uses algos & objective properties to provide results – via links from other pages. The next generation search experience – sometimes dubbed the Google killer - is social search – human assisted search results.

There is little doubt that the human powered search engines have their place, and that the user-content driven interaction with websites, and specifically search is important and it is expanding in popularity.

Nothing new though. In fact, Ask.com started out this way, but it had problems scaling up. Yahoo started in 1994 with their now infamous directory and it was all about human interaction & validation. Microsoft also had human editing of results, but once Google took the world over with their link based system, and it worked so well – other engines were left in the dust.

Today, Google, considered by many as only an algorithmic search engine, has been, and still is using humans to stay close to search results, and looking to add more. They know the combination of both are key to the success of the “Web 2.0″ phenomenon.

Whether the short list below will provide a v1.0 testbed for the “next big search engine model” – beating Google at its own game, still remains to be seen. We all know that Google didn’t get to #1 by slacking off.

Brin & Page, the founders of Google are fiercely competitive, and their top priority has always been to provide the ultimate in search relevancy and user experience, and I don’t see them taken over any time soon.

A brand new human powered search launched by the founder of Wikipedia, was just launched. (http://search.wikia.com/wiki/Search_Wikia). It’s getting lots of press and since it’s based on open source crawling and has a large existing and growing user base, it will be an interesting development to watch.

It’s all about the user community, and unlike the ridiculous editing experience of directories like DMOZ, it’s refreshing to see this open dialogue and debate. The Wikia crawler can be seen at Grub.org, where you can download it for your own use.

Other social search tools that you should check out are:

• http://www.chacha.com/ – human intelligence driven search engine
• http://www.irazoo.com/ – earn points and get rewards based on user recommendations.
• http://www.mahalo.com/ – Jason Calacanis and his human powered search engine.
• http://swicki.eurekster.com/- it was one of the first the field of social search, but I have not seen/heard much lately. Easy to monetize via Adsense.
• http://answers.yahoo.com/ – very popular and a great research tool for marketplace and keyword digging
• http://www.stumbleupon.com/ – recommendation engine – great traffic generator too, free account, and get traffic starting at 5c!
• http://www.sproose.com/- has a similar user experience to digg.com
• http://www.digg.com/- still a favorite – and if you can get dugg, massive traffic can be had
• http://squidoo.com/- although some may say this is not a social search engine, create a lens and watch traffic increase. Seth Godin, Lensmaster.

There is an area of the Google backoffice support system that is unknown to many learning about SEO. And, as recently as last week, Google launched an update to this system, and they want to talk to you.

It’s also the easiest and fastest way you can get your site synch’ed with Google, and where you can get statistics and feedback directly from the Google search engine — from crawling and indexing updates, error and verification issues, sitemap submissions.

Furthermore, it provides a detailed reporting system and expanded lists for your backlinks (link popularity), which normally is not shown via the Google searchbox. (That is the ’link:http://www.yourdomain.com’ command)

Go read at: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/ & https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/docs/en/about.html and click the “Go to webmaster tools” link on the right of that page to sign up.

Understand that you must have access (FTP or otherwise) to your site to make it “verify” (a process that lets Google know its your site). 

Sitemaps, both on your site (HTML) and via the Google Webmaster Console (XML) is an easy and important way to manage your site with Google.

This is true for existing sites, new sites and it is an awesome tool for dealing with moving domains and updating Google correctly in the process.

You need to build your XML sitemap to submit. 
A great tool is http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/ for starters, and you should read more about the initiative from the giants at http://www.sitemaps.org/ (Google, Microsoft, Yahoo).

Reading the webmaster guidelines on all the search engines is important if not vital to ethical SEO success, and they keep updating the information.

How do you keep track of webmaster changes?
A cool tool to keep yourself updated when things change is: www.google.com/alerts — just input keyword/phrases you are watching out for, and you’ll receive an email message weekly, daily or as-it-happens. (Try adding your own name too!)

Did you know that Google is competing for your business with a broader set of user services? You probably already know about Google Apps (video), but don’t stop there. Get Google’s newly released search technology for small business!

Let’s rewind briefly. Google has been in the marketplace with the Google Mini, a powerful search appliance/server with their onboard search technology.  But, the price tag is too high for most smaller companies and has additional hardware and infrastructure overhead.

Good news: This week Google announced the “Custom Search Business Edition” of their search technology, with a price tag of only 100 bucks for up to 5,000 pages (other pricing models exist).  You can be up and running within the hour, and with no hosting nightmares or additional, hidden costs. The Google Co-Op program requires a Google account, but it’s easy to sign up and you probably already have an email account with them.

“Millions of businesses have a web presence but offer users no ability to search their site,” said Dave Girouard, vice president and general manager, Google Enterprise.

Dave and his team are listening to the marketplace, and now – instead of complex hardware setup and server config troubles, you only apply a simple HTML code structure to your website and tell the system to run the searchbox on your site, and include partner sites if you want to.

Features - Benefits

• Ad-free search results – create a non-commercial search system
• Customize your look and feel through a simple web interface – logo, colors, fonts
• XML feed of search results – for more advanced fit into existing design
• Categorization of search results – to “tag” keywords to support themes
• Custom links for subscribers – for special promotions or events
• Reporting – discover what people are searching for and how often, user behaviors
• Multiple languages – where text is reflected in the langugage configuration setup
• Competitive pricing!

To see a quick introductory overview, check this video.

See http://www.google.com/enterprise/csbe/ for more information, and to sign up.

These days, it seems not a day goes by without somebody asking me if Pay-Per-Click (PPC) or Search Engine Optimization (SEO) should be used online, and why one may be better than the other.

Search Engine Optimization is the applied practice of moving your website to elevated positions in the search engines. PPC  is an advertising medium you pay for and another way you can get a premier, top page listing in less than 10 minutes. Yes, you could potentially present your product or services millions of people, depending on your budget and targeting options – that quickly.

Where do you start?

Ideally, you should use both. Think about the power and business opportunity of ‘owning’ the search engine display, where you are listed not only in the top natural results, but on the paid search side as well. Great for brand recognition too!

Let’s step back for a moment. As seen in a previous post, users of search tend to click more on natural search results than the paid listings. The acute awareness of what paid search is, exist among the user communities now, especially on Google.

The trust factor is higher in the SERPs and some users even find that paid ads are a nuisance. And, with Pay Per Click costs rising, and becoming very competitive and especially high priced during holiday seasons, no wonder many look to SEO as their online traffic solution.  Some even feel that relevancy is higher in the natural listings, swaying decisions to choose SEO as their starter option.

Business owners who focus on organic/natural results also know that, if done right, they are building a real business asset, by creating free traffic, and providing a more long term effect. Of course, search engine algorithms change often, and business owners need to stay on top of them.

The immediacy of paid search is a fantastic “results-driven” opportunity. You can create a brand new account, add some keywords, set the targeting, relevant ad text and landing pages and be up and running in 10 minutes. You can use tracking software to see results very quickly, even that same day.  For example, if you have an event you are pushing, you can run it for a limited time, and tell the system start and end dates, including what times during the day, if you wanted to.

Paid search helps you control your spending, so for small business it may be a good option. You may not have a professional SEO individual in-house, and it can get expensive to hire an outsider (if they are any good).

Recently, I set up a Google account for a business owner in the business-to-consumer (B2C) space. We did it over the phone in 10 minutes, and after credit card and verification emails were sent, the account was ready. This particular business wanted to learn how to run a campaign in-house using PPC. To most, it’s a much more approachable option than SEO.  I help with keyword research, and they write the ads, and they could launch within 5-10 days. Then, with analytics scripts and good landing page designs and conversion tactics, they can have a “web leads engine” developed rather quickly.  It worked for them, but they are/will be looking into SEO as well.

But, PPC has issues with click fraud, and it can get expensive if you don’t do the upfront keyword research correctly, and proper bid analysis and management, as well as applying known tactics for optimal quality scoring.

If you use PPC and SEO wisely, they both can make sense for your business. It depends on your industry, budget, timelines and your own dedication.

P.S.
Oh, and the data you can capture from PPC campaigns, may help you to optimize your SEO programs, by watching keyword impressions, popularity and more. Always test!

I have been astounded by well meaning designers and web marketing managers who have created websites with a flair, with a stroke of artistic genius, and with a look/feel that excites not only the internal teams but their visitors as well.

Extreme graphics, use of Flash technology, smoothly streamlined, and pixel-perfectly positioned for web folks to admire, be impressed by and navigate within.

I have told them that they have done a good (great) job. I have told them that they have created works with the user in mind – NOT the search engines – which is the correct mindset, and the right place to start, always.

However – the sad truth in two recent cases (yes, large firms too) – is that when I showed them what the underlying data looked like for search engines, they felt embarassed, almost helpless, and then the ”Oh, My God” expression on their face thinking about the loads of dough they’d spent on graphic design, development and implementation initiatives.

See, the pictures I showed them tell it all – what the search engines really look for: words, content – heck, let’s call it like it is - quality content and links. (Off-the-page factors, the links are still considered the SEO trump card of yesterday, today and the future, especially for Google).

So, to protect my clients, I will show you other pictures of a recognized website that is highly ranked in Google, a well known brand. I simply typed “shoes” into Google, and received this page when I clicked the link:

It’s payless shoes! Great looking site – inviting, strong call to action, relevant and apparently well designed at first glance (thinking ‘web site visitor’ now)…

However, looking at this page from a search engine perspective, we see a different view, not as pretty, but now we’re really looking at it with “search-bot eyes“:

There is really no content here at all, only links.  My quick disclaimer note is that they have thousands of incoming links and have built a long-time presence on the web, such that content for this (home) page may mean less (no pun intended) to them than you & your own website.

To find out what you can do to look under the covers – try the Lynx Viewer, which is a text-only based browser and what I used in this example. (You can also use Google itself, by clicking on the “Cached” link from search results, and then the “cached text” link on the resulting page).

It is certainly revealing, and hopefully will help you think about how you can structure content and links on your page to support your core keywords and theme(s).

It’s good practice to provide at least 200 words on a page and sprinkle your keywords/phrases throughout: “early, often & naturally”.

I was recently asked why search engine optimization (SEO) is so important for a website and online business.

Good question!

When you hear people in the business speak about natural search or organic search results, they are talking about the website listings that show up in the non-paid area of your result pages.

Paid advertising, sponsored ads, PPC (pay-per-click) refers to ads you can purchase/bid for placement and are displayed around your page (top, right, bottom) *format & positions vary depending on search engine.

Search engine optimization is the art and science of tuning your site for maximum exposure in the non-paid area for your key search terms – and optimally, on page #1 of the search engine results pages.

Once a search engine visitor types a query into the search box and receives results, findings have shown that:

• Natural Search receives 250% more traffic than the paid search.
• Natural search converts 30% higher than PPC
• 1st Page on SERPs gets at least 80% of the clicks
• 2nd page on SERPs gets much less at about 10% of the clicks

It is widely known that the SERPs have a higher credibility factor, and as shown on the picture below (courtesy Eyetools), subjects tend to view data on a page in an “F-shaped” fashion, top-left and staggered downward and to the right. This area has been referred to as the Golden Triangle, since being shown here for your key terms is the most trusted, and collects the highest and best action & conversion.

Click for larger image

Explanations of HeatMap:
Red/Orange color: all subjects halted their gaze at this part of the page
Yellow color: More than half of all subjects halted their gaze here
Purple X: Shows a mouse click
Dotted line: Shows where computer breaks on the PC screen (”fold”)
Red lines: How far subjects scrolled down before leaving the page

In the next post, I’ll show you why content on your page is so important, and what the difference between what the human and non-human visitors sees. It’ll blow you away!

Why this somewhat provocative question in my first SEO blog post?

The <blank> entry in the headline may remind you of school tests you’ve taken before.

Something that makes you stop and think.

My hope is that it also can reflect the message or intention of this blog – to educate, learn and talk about how to deal with online issues, and specifically around SEO and Search Engine Optimization.

Since SEO is becoming a broader field in which to operate, I wanted to start with some fundementals, not just dive right in.

Most folks that I come across think that the <blank> should be replaced with Google, and perhaps Yahoo, or MSN.  This is wrong!

The line should read: “Your Information On Page #1 of ……=> “Your Own Page”. 

See, if you don’t have your own page(s) set up ‘correctly’, with quality content, relevant call-to-action statements, and with both a user-friendly and search-friendly (in that order!) architecture, you don’t deserve to be on page of Google (which probably was your choice of the <blank> entry, right)?

So, here are some quick’n-dirty tips to get your own website whipped into shape. Amazingly enough, these changes can boost ranking in search engine results pages (SERPS).

Here is a list to get you started – a Beginner’s Success Formula, if you will:

1. What is the sole purpose of your website? – Start by answering this question first!
2. Think “Above the fold” for messaging – your Unique Value Proposition Content and main navigation on the top half of page, most people read here first 
3. Well designed internal link structure, navigation and quality content – relevant keywords and phrases – early on the page is better, and with a relevant, matching keyword(s) title on top of the page + supportive meta tags (for search engines, a big deal!)
4. Think 2007, not 1997 – get your site updated to reasonable and current time standards, an “old looking” site is not preferred anymore, and keep content fresh
5. What would make people bookmark the site and keep coming back? – think ‘visitor value’ over the long term and how much cost, revenue or other opportunities they could provide to you over that term.

A discussion could be had around what an exclusion of some of these would mean, or what additions would further boost opportunities. For example, what if you only did #3? Would that be enough? (Hint: It’s a good beginner’s SEO Strategy)

What has been your own experience?