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Top SEO Myths Debunked

March 8, 2011 By

SEO Myths Debunked

The internet may be called the “Information Superhighway” but that doesn’t always mean the information is correct!

This is especially true when it comes to Search Engine Optimization. Sometimes, the information may have been valid in the past but is no longer valid and sometimes… it was never valid to begin with.

Here are ten SEO myths and their corresponding “truths” :

1. It’s impossible to outrank a web page with a Google PageRank higher than your own.

While Google’s PageRank indicator may play a minor role in determining search engine placement, it’s not a critical factor.

If you conduct a few searches on Google you will find this to be true. It shouldn’t take more than a few minutes to find a page, with a lower Google PR, outranking a page with a higher one.

2. Having an XML Sitemap will boost your rankings in the SERPs.

It is wise to create an XML Sitemap but don’t expect to see any rank improvements. The sitemap is useful to the search engines and will help them crawl your site more efficiently but it won’t help you “leap frog” your competitors.

3. Including “meta keywords” will improve your SEO.

Most search engines disregard the “meta keyword” information altogether. While it can’t hurt to include a handful of relevant terms, it’s not time well spent.

4. It’s imperative to update your homepage frequently.

If changing your homepage content is good for your visitors and business model, then have at it. Otherwise, just leave it as is.

That’s not to say that your entire site should be stagnant but that there’s no evidence to conclude the necessity to update your homepage’s content on a regular basis.

5. Trading links with other webmasters is just as good as building quality “one way” links.

Trading links (aka Reciprocal linking) was something that worked a long time ago but it is no longer effective for improving one’s SEO rankings.

The only time that the trading of links makes any sense, is when both webmasters may benefit from the traffic that may come from the partner’s site.

6. SEO is a “set and forget” activity.

Most webmasters (and business owners) wished this were true but it’s simply not the case. Effective Search Engine Optimization is an ongoing activity and if you’re not going forward, you’ll find your rankings slip over time.

This is especially true as it pertains to link building. The search engines monitor your inbound links and if they find they find they are dwindling over time, they assume your page is losing its relevance.

7. Using Heading Tags is crucial to your SEO.

The use of Heading Tags (i.e. H1, H2, etc.) is useful to define your site’s content but don’t expect them to make marked improvements in your rankings.

8. Hiding a bunch of links on your pages is a good idea.

Google, and the other search engines, are incredibly smart and can spot the occurrence of “spammy links” quite easily.

Whether you’re using a teeny-tiny font size to display them, coloring them the same as your page background or using CSS to move them so far off the page they can’t be seen by visitors… the search engines know!

This practice is foolish and trust me on this — no good will come from it!

9. There is an optimum keyword density for your on-page content.

This may have been true in the past but it’s no longer relevant. It’s wise to ensure that your targeted keyword phrases appear somewhere on your page but don’t bother calculating the density percentages.

It’s much better to write content that will be found valuable by the humans reading your content than to concentrate writing for the robots.

10. Paying a firm to “register” your site with “hundreds of search engines” is a wise investment.

This type of offer may sound appealing, but it will do little, if anything, to improve your search engine rankings or generate meaningful website traffic.

As knowledge is power, this information will help you waste less time and money on outdated SEO tactics or those that never worked in the first place.

We can help with your professional SEO services needs. Call 1-866-910-4471 or 260-220-4830.

 

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Common Search Engine Optimization Mistakes

February 24, 2011 By

Common SEO Mistakes To Avoid – Part I

Effective Search Engine Optimization is really not that difficult but it does take a good bit of knowledge as well as a keen attention to detail.

Here are three common SEO mistakes to avoid:

By Far The Biggest SEO Mistake Is Choosing The Wrong Keywords.

Each page of your website should be optimized for a handful of keyword phrases. This helps your page get found whenever someone uses a search engine to search for a keyword phrase you’ve optimized for.

If you optimize for intelligent keywords, you’ll likely get an increase in website traffic from those looking for the types of products and services you offer. However, if you optimize for the “wrong” keywords, you may not get an increase in traffic or may be found by the wrong audience altogether.

Using a keyword research tool, you can determine how many times per month a particular keyword phrase is searched for. This is important because it won’t benefit you to optimize your web page for a term that no one cares about.

Also, you should type each keyword phrase into Google (or your search engine of choice) to see what results you find. If the results show you pages that are related to your own, you are on the right track.

If the results are completely unrelated, you should avoid optimizing for the keyword phrase and look for more appropriate targeted terms.

Include A Page Title When Applying SEO To Your Website -Many Don’t.

Each page of your website should have an intelligent page title… also called the “meta page title.” This information is added to the html code itself and can be found at the top of the page.

The page title serves a few different purposes. First, it is displayed at the top of the browser window to let the visitor know what kind of information to expect on the page. It also  helps the search engines know what kind of content to expect.

This is why it is crucial that your page title include the keyword phrases you are optimizing for.

The page title also appears whenever someone finds your page through the use of the search engine. The page title information is used for the blue, clickable link that will take the searcher to your page.

Forgetting to include a page title may cause the search engines to add the term, “Untitled Document,” to your page. This looks quite unprofessional and can hamper your sites ability to  be found for important keyword phrases too.

Never Use The Same Page Title On All Pages.

While effective SEO needn’t be difficult, it does take work. All too often, I see webmasters using the exact same page title on every page of a site and this is cause for genuine concern.

Remember that the whole idea of effective SEO is providing the search engines unique pages and content to index. Search engines index each individual pages of your site, not your website as a whole. Your “meta page title” should include the keyword phrases you want to optimize a particular page for, and each page should be optimized for a unique set of terms.

Though there is much more to effective search engine optimization, avoiding these three common mistakes will help your website outrank the many sites that include these mistakes.

Starting with thorough, in-depth keyword research then including individual specific keyword focused titles on each page will give your website an SEO advantage and help your site outrank your competition and get more targeted traffic.

Need help with Search Engine Optimization? Give us a call  at 1-866-910-4471

 

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Common SEO Mistakes To Avoid

February 22, 2011 By

SEO Mistakes To Avoid – II

While there are a wide variety of SEO mistakes to avoid, these three can make the difference between having a nice surge in website traffic or having your website trapped in a virtual “black hole.”

Keyword Stuffing – A Major Search Engine Optimization Mistake

So, you’ve done your keyword research and have found three really great keyword phrases to optimize a page of your site for. You’ve added the phrases to your “meta page title” and  plan to add them to your “meta keywords” list too.

Now you’re  on your way to meaningful search engine optimization.

While it could prove to be tempting to add 1,001 keywords into this list, it’s the wrong thing to do. Generally, we think that “more is better” but it’s simply not true with effective SEO.

You see, the search engines are trying to find the best content for individual keyword terms and are looking to index your web pages for terms relevant to your “on page” content. The better they do this, the more likely it is that the “internet surfer” will continue to use their search engine. True search engine optimization involves presenting the best content related to the terms your targeting and to do it using tried and proven search engine friendly methods.

As a result, they will usually index your pages to appear for a handful of keyword phrases but they’re not going to index it for hundreds or thousands.

While there’s no exact value, the practice of using many “meta keywords” or repeating your keyword phrases many times in your “on page” content is considered “keyword stuffing”and will severely handicap your SEO efforts.

Keyword stuffing is frowned upon by the search engines as it appears you are trying to “game” the system. Instead of getting more traffic, you may actually find that your page gets de-indexed and removed from the search engines altogether.

Forgetting To Add A Meta Page Description – Another Critical SEO Mistake

Often times, inexperienced webmasters forget to add appropriate “meta data” to each page. As most of this information is not displayed to human visitors, it’s easy to overlook.

It is vital, however, to add a unique “meta page description” to each page of your site and here’s why…

Google, and the other search engines, generally display the “meta page  description” content (unless you have an Open Directory listing) as part of your search engine listing. It appears beneath the click-able link to your website.

If you forget to add a page description, the search engines will automatically grab a portion of text from your page and use it instead. This may not sound like a big deal, but it is.

Your page description text can help to improve your “on page” optimization, but only if it includes the 1-3 keyword phrases you are optimizing around.

It also acts as a mini advertisement and should do its best to entice a web “surfer” to click the link to visit YOUR site!
As there are generally ten “organic” search engine listings on any search results page, you must compete with the others and do your best to see that your listing stands out from the  crowd.

Your page description content should be interesting to read and tell the reader what benefit(s) they’ll receive by visiting your site. If you accomplish this, you’ll likely get an increase in traffic and start to get clicks from the other listings.

Not Building Any Anchor Text Links – A Critical SEO Error

It’s important to optimize each page of your site around a handful of keyword phrases but the work doesn’t stop there!

While the search engines use many factors to determine where to “rank” each page in their indexes, none are more important than the presence of “anchor text” links pointing to your site.

Anchor text links (also called “text links,” “hypertext links,” “backlinks” etc.) are simply pieces of text that are linked to a particular page on your website. Each link is seen as a “vote” by the search engines and they use them to determine where to rank your page for the “linked” terms.

If the search engines don’t find any links, they make the assumption that no one really cares about the content found on your page. Of course, this assumption really isn’t fair as it  takes some time for a brand new page to acquire links naturally but that is the assumption they make.

So in order to speed the search engine optimization process up and help the search engines index your pages for the keyword phrases you’ve chosen during your research, you have to build some anchor text links yourself.

This can be accomplished in a variety of ways but buying links, or building them through article marketing, video marketing or online press release submission are some of the quickest and most effective methods.

No one can guarantee your exact results but by avoiding these SEO mistakes, you’ll set yourself apart from the masses. When you avoid these major search engine optimization mistakes, you give your website a distinct competitive advantage as well as a much better chance of getting  your web pages ranked on the first pages of search engine results for the terms you’re targeting.

We can help you with your search engine optimization needs. Give us a call at 1-866-910-4471

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What is Search Engine Optimization?

February 18, 2011 By

What is Search Engine Optimization?

You have a website and everyone keeps telling you that you need to take the time to optimize your website for the search engines. They’re throwing around terms like SEO and SEM and everything seems like a confusing mess. In order to have a successful website, or one that has online visibility, you do need to focus on SEO, or search engine optimization. But what exactly does that mean?

Exploring Search Engine Optimization

Search engine optimization, aka SEO, is the term that refers to the things you can do to improve your website’s visibility in the search engines. Search engine optimization techniques focus on increasing  the organic, or natural, traffic that you receive based on your ranking within the search engines. The goal of search engine optimization is to ensure your website appeals to search engine crawlers, or bots. The search engines will take note of your site and its content, categorizing it in a way that will allow it to show up in search results when certain keywords are typed.

Search engine optimization is achieved through a wide variety of methods. Many webmasters or SEO professionals will focus on proper keyword research, clarity in the setup of your website’s headers, tags, file names and descriptions, external backlinking, internal cross linking, and quality content creation.

While each search engine uses its own algorithm for determining the ranking of every website, it is possible to increase your rankings by making your site informative and visible via both on-page and off-page search engine marketing techniques. Sites that are designed with ease-of-use and quality information in mind tend to do better than those that built sloppily and without a solid plan.

Exploring Search Engine Marketing

Search engine marketing, or SEM, is similar to search engine optimization but focuses less on natural rankings and more on the actual promotion of a website. SEM techniques generally include natural SEO but almost always branches out to include contextual or paid search advertising.

Paid search advertising models became more prominent in the late 1990′s, after the search engines themselves became more popular. SEM focuses more on business-oriented websites and their overall online marketing strategies. Because many of the paid advertisements appear at the top of the search engines, the FTC in 2002 responded to complaints by clarifying that paid advertisements and website listings must be clearly denoted so that consumers do not confuse them with websites that have obtained high rankings naturally.

It really doesn’t matter what type of website you have, whether it’s personal or geared towards your business. Incorporating search engine optimization techniques into the creation and ongoing upkeep of your site will ensure you receive higher levels of traffic and, ultimately, greater success.

Click Here For Help With Your Search Engine Optimization.

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Keyword Research-The Foundation Of A Successful SEO Plan

February 16, 2011 By

Keyword Research-The Foundation Of A Successful SEO Plan

Every successful SEO plan is developed around extensive research to identify the specific keywords and keyword phrases that will be targeted to attract the the site visitors searching for the information you want to present.

Do keyword research properly and you’ll dramatically improve the possibility of getting improved rankings for the terms you’ve optimized for and that results in an increase in targeted traffic. Which is the real reason for taking the extra time and effort in determining the best keywords to use to attract the site visitors you want to present your information to.

Do this wrong, however, and you will have wasted a whole lot of time and likely money.

Keyword research is what separates novice SEOs from true professionals. Most anyone can find keywords using a tool like that provided by Google but few know how to sift through the junk to find the treasure.

It would be impossible for me to teach you the intricacies of keyword research in this short blog post but I will give you a “top level” explanation of the three main aspects.

Keyword Search Volume

Behind each keyword phrase, there is an associated “search volume.”  The search volume is an approximation of how many times the keyword phrase is searched upon in an average month.

So, if you optimize a page around a term that has a listed search volume of 100 searches per month, you can’t expect a first page ranking to bring you much traffic. After all, you should never expect your site to receive all of the available “clicks.”

Keyword Commercial Intent

When choosing keywords it’s important that you try to get inside the mind of the person doing the search. You may think that the keyword phrase clearly conveys what the searcher is looking for but this is not always the case.

There are many sophisticated techniques used to determine the “intentionality” of each keyword phrase but here’s a simple tip… enter the keyword phrase into the search engine you care most about and look at all of the results.

Are there a number of sponsored ads on the page? This can indicate that the keyword phrase has a “commercial intent.”

Are the organic listings what you expected to see? If most of the listings are relevant to your business, you’re on the right track. If they’re not, you probably don’t really understand the intentionality of the keyword phrase.

If you search Google.com for the keyword phrase, “how to save a life,” you might expect to see listings on first aid, CPR, the Heimlich Maneuver, etc. Instead, however, you will find information on the song, “How To Save A Life,” by The Fray.

Determining And Evaluating Your Competition

This may sound a bit harsh, but it’s true… if you want to rank on the first page for a particular keyword phrase you are going to have to kick one of the current listings off!

Because of this, it’s important you know what it is going to take to accomplish this before deciding to optimize for the term. In some cases, you will find that the work will be easy and in others, nearly impossible.

There are many factors that come into play when determining the strength of your competition. It’s not just about the strength of the competitor’s website/web page, but also your overall strength in comparison.

This topic is a lengthy one but here are some of the questions you must ask:

•    What is the domain age of my competitor and how does that relate to mine?

•    How well optimized is their page and how does that relate to mine?

•    How many incoming links does their page have and how does that relate to mine?

While there is much more to it, but the answer to these three basic questions will give you a good general idea as to whether you can effectively compete or not for that keyword or term as well as what you must do to improve your chances.

Keyword research in combination with competitive keyword analysis is critical to a successful SEO plan.

We can help – extensive keyword research to give your business every online marketing advantage.

Give us a call 260-2220-4830 or 1-866-910-4471

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