SEO Design Solutions™ Blog » Uncategorized

Is Your Website Stranded?

Jeffrey_Smith — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 00:43:29 +0000

Is your website stranded past page two for your main keywords? The chances of someone going to the second or third page to find your website is like the chances of this poor chap finding a signal or a ride from the dilemma. Fortunately in real life, there is SEO to the rescue for sinking sites that lack traffic.

Sometime a short and sweet delivery works wonders to get the message across. When it comes to your website and search engine traffic, don’t expect too much from eager and click-happy nimble searchers, in fact more than 70% of searchers click the top 5 results, so if you are below the fold, you can forget about conversion.

The majority of sites online were built with design in mind and SEO was just an afterthought. In many cases, enterprise sites are a nightmare to resurrect to being SEO friendly or smaller sites just don’t have enough link juice and for lack of better terms, are up a creek without a paddle.

Either genre of sites are susceptible to being outperformed by a new up and coming breed of websites constructed with SEO Web Design, targeted topical content and authority links.

In most instances, there are immense advantages for starting fresh and salvaging what you can to keep the brand intact. However, an addition of an optimized sub-folder or complete SEO redesign is often the solution.

A new website built with clear intent, fine-tuned for performance using principles such as a great keyword-rich name, exceptional content, W3C compliant code that validates, and the right combination of links from authority sites can leap-frog overconfident webmasters who are asleep behind the wheel and tackle extremely competitive keywords in a mere fraction of the time.

Speaking of time, (something this guy has plenty of)…. The moral of the story, rankings don’t just happen by themselves, you have to create them. So what are your waiting for? if you haven’t already, find an SEO firm that understands the immense amount of work involved in acquiring and maintaining top rankings, so you don’t end up like this poor soul (stranded with no traffic in sight).

-Jeffrey

Google Toolbar Page Rank Update September 2008

Jeffrey_Smith — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 20:00:45 +0000

Well, it’s that time of the year again, it seems that Google has updated their toolbar page rank once again.

With over 8 billion websites in their index, the mass amounts of computing power to consolidate this task is nothing less than immense. One thing I have noticed however is, pages are flowing page rank to internal pages much faster than typical time lines.

For example, we have pages that are just a few weeks old that jumped to page rank 4 that attracted links from high page rank pages. Not to say that this metric alone is significant as a means to determine authority, it does however add more buoyancy to your search engine result pages when pages with stronger links are referencing your website.

When considering how to improve the performance of your pages from the standpoint of Page Rank, just think of it as a tiered system.

Page Rank Flows From:

the pages that are tied into the navigation on your site which receive sufficient linkage
the pages that are receiving one way link weight from external pages from other websites
the pages that are receiving one way and reciprocating link weight from internal links

Since the Page Rank metric is all about link popularity, make sure you map out page rank through how your site architecture and links to pass value amongst themselves.

Instead of just having a rock star homepage and feeble pages suckling from it, consider ways to elevate landing pages or pages in your site that could stem off and supplement the home page by passing more link weight to the rest of the site. The stronger each page in your site is, the stronger your site is.

To cap page rank from diffusing in your own pages, you could for example “no follow” your privacy page, contact forms or 301 redirecting old pages into existing pages.

You could also pay more attention to how many links per page a site attracts or receives.

If you think from the perspective of the required link weight threshold that a site needs to have from other sites to be considered an authority or rank significantly higher for its main terms, you can then systematically build each page up by increasing internal linking to achieve this common goal.

For example if a website has 1000 quality inbound links from other sites and the page in question has 25-30 links to that page with anchor text linking to the page from a variety of sources, such a page and a site are contenders for more competitive / national terms.

Each industry, keyword and site as we know are unique, so this is not a one size fits all methodology, but it is a way of benchmarking SERP performance based on page and off page popularity and if you are engaging in deep links (links to other pages other than the homepage) or still relying on the old way of hoping the links to the homepage will find their mark and rank the entire site.

What I am suggesting is, 5 pages are better than 1 if you are attempting to funnel traffic to your website for a specific range of keywords. There is no simple way around it, if you want to rise to the top of the SERPs (search engine results pages), you simply have to do the work and add the content, look for link opportunities (social bookmarks, editorial links from bloggers or related sites, niche directories, etc).

However, the real significance occurs when all of those off page and on page factors unify and your page makes it to the elite (top 20 results which eventually can grace the top 10) or fails to impress the algorithm for lack of better terms and plummets.

With all of the link schemes and shady tactics failing as fast as reward is realized, the obvious solution is to focus on quality and specialize in your industry to such a degree that instead of you having to consider link building from a level of desperation, others will link to you, because you offer something of value.

The longer each page is online (if it is supported by a healthy site) the more opportunity it has to gain its own authority and eventually pull its own weight.

The moral of the story is, put things in motion now that will blossom in 60-90 days and continue to layer the content, deep links (from your older pages to new pages or vice versa) to reduce the dependency your site has on other sites to provide a high ranking position.

Page rank is just a measurement, it serves to inform you of what Google thinks of your page (not your site). So, by keeping that in mind, it does not have to be an issue that creates a mental meltdown if it rises or falls.

Just use it for what it was designed for, to provide guidance for increasing the popularity of your pages online. The overall contention about what significance it has on your search engine results are arguable, but much like a badge of authority, a site with a higher page rank is obviously better for trust and perceived value to potential visitors.

Often, the entire debate about page rank and its true impact is really about saving face which is really the main concern for those who live or die by its presence or lack thereof, at least for those looking to buy or sell links.

In closing, create quality content, focus on quality links, strengthen your own site from within so it requires less from other sites to rank higher for specific phrases and above all, just remember it is only one metric and is not worth losing sleep over.

Chances are in 3 months what you lost will return on the next update and new pages can sprout new life if you focus on quality instead of link quantity.

-Jeffrey

SEO, Online Marketing, Recession and ROI (Return On Investment)

Jeffrey_Smith — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 01:07:10 +0000

With recession and (ROI) return on investment staring each other face to face, being brutally honest about the profit and return on your search engine optimization or online marketing campaign has never been so important.

For those who may not have noticed, various industries typically replete with activity in the market-place are coming to a screeching halt as result of inflation and the value of the dollar plummeting on a global scale. The trend for consumers to spend less on impulse items, auxiliary products or services and more on bare essentials continues to escalate as a result of a weakened economic state.

Online sales are just one region taking the hit as the sales cycle and the consumers within this cycle are looking for greater value at the fair price. Needless to say, due diligence has taken on an entirely new definition as the business with the best offer, sale or SEO promotion gain the favor of the masses. To appease such value-conscious times, refining your content to represent the most compelling and tactful value proposition is necessary to supplement slouching sales and traffic (less money equates to less spending).

Despite this economic recession, observing the latest trends in competitive verticals while forecasting demand to convert new prospects into customers has become as much of an art as a science.

Incentives and promotions for cross-market exposure are just one example of businesses with larger budgets attempting to infuse and find the ideal hybrid shopper and capitalize on the vulnerability of other markets. Sign up for Product A (from one market) and receive a free 30 day trial period, or get 15% off your favorite movie, etc. from Industry B. In summary, the emotional triggers that incline consumers to purchase are evolving as well as those who are crafting the offer.

This is because tactics that may have worked 6 months or a year ago online or promotional methods based on years of success and stability from traditional offline channels no longer hold their sway over the masses as value is subjugated to the rules of survival of the fittest.

Is it the fact that A) the market is evolving, B) that money is tighter, C) the fact that online consumers are savvier than ever or D) a combination of all of the above? Typically, those with larger budgets (like publicly traded companies) wield the spoils of a collective advertising and marketing campaign piggybacking promotions on industries with less favorable returns (much like trickle-down economics).

This is not to suggest that smaller more nimble companies do not stand a chance, it is merely that the scalability of an advertising campaign designed to optimize 1000 keywords for example vs. a smaller company who may only have the budget to target 10 leaves a margin of opportunity and exposure that unfortunately provides advantages that the smaller firm may not be able to grasp due to budgetary constraints.

Now is the time to take advantage of narrow-casting instead of generalized broadcasting your message to reach the audience with the most likelihood for conversion.

Business is business and opportunity and expression determine the course of action for websites that need to produce a profit to survive. While being a highly trafficked site may be great for the ego, having a highly trafficked site that sells thousands of products, generates dozens of sales leads a day or has viral appeal to social networks is even more better.

In summary, make sure you identify your audience, growth is nice but stability amidst crisis is even better. Looking for greener grass instead of tending the yard you have can leave your marketing plan depleted and out of focus. It’s better to have 10% of something than 90% of nothing, so make sure before you extend your scope of the market to reach new prospects, you reap the equity of the authority and presence you have developed in your primary niche.

Healthy margins are the bottom line, so if you have them, then this message is not nearly as crucial as it is to those who are feeling the impact of a languishing economic crisis in their industry. SEO is a valid solution, but also being aware of the trends and circumstances that impact everyone in an economy can shed some light on why some periods are more fruitful than others. The key is not to get flustered and diversify your tactics to spread the risk and reward for your online campaign.

-Jeffrey

SEO is All About Performance!

Jeffrey_Smith — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 00:23:58 +0000

With the top 10 as a benchmark, SEO is all about performance, there are no gray areas (when measuring performance), it either works, or it does not.

They key is to understand how and why problems arise and how to assess the circumstances that suppress a site or page from buoyancy in the SERPs (search engine result pages).

Determining factors such as:

Spider Traps – Ensuring there are no hiccups present in the code for dynamically loaded pages from a database is one of the primary reasons sites hemorrhage ranking potential through canoncalization. For example, if a php programming error from your data generates multiple tags, you could have several versions of a single page (all fighting for link juice and authority) within your site.

If that occurs, the whole site (or that page) suffer as a result of potential penalization from (multiple occurrences of the same content) in the search engines index.

Clutter and more of the same old new same does not add points to your relevance score, on the contrary it only invokes an algorithmic suppression (to maintain the highest quality for the search engine index) as your pages suppress themselves from greatness.

For this reason, ensuring that each title and description tag on every page is unique you are not shooting holes in your sites ranking potential from a simple oversight such as spider traps or duplicate content is essential.

Server Issues – such as loading time (keep it lean) or if the IP address is shared (hosting multiple sites) or dedicated (exclusive IP or Server for your site) or has it been blacklisted in the past from someone abusing it. Sharing hosted space (on the same IP) with an offending site is also a mark against your site. All of these slight nuances matter and have an impact.

Coding Choices – Do your pages use SEO friendly methods or not? For example, ensuring your coding is conducive to optimization standards like using .HTACCESS files (for the main site or each sub folder) to control how each page is loaded or treated from spiders, the use of Robots.txt (to control which pages are included or excluded) or ensuring your server headers return the appropriate response and that your internal links are optimized properly also can have an impact on search engine rankings.

With a trained eye, it is not difficult to assess why a site is or is not ranking well in search engines, but getting to the place where you have the ability to diagnose or prescribe the right solution to each symptom requires a firm grasp of SEO fundamentals.

Traffic alone does not conquer all, you need conversion and user engagement to seal the deal. So, just because your pages have all the right keywords, but send all of the wrong messages or images to convey the total package a visitor might expect, remember to look beyond keywords for something much more concrete…performance.

-Jeffrey

Link Building using Web 2.0 SEO | Social Bookmarking

Jeffrey_Smith — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 18:24:40 +0000

As the search for the latest and greatest link building strategies make their rounds in search engines. Link building using Web 2.0 SEO and Social Bookmarking Sites can be just what the doctor ordered. Just as multiple marketing channels are available for promoting web sites, assessing your own pages strengths or weaknesses can provide you with the impetus to determine if a web 2.0 campaign is necessary to augment organic search placement.

Is Social Bookmarking a Means to an End or Just Common Sense?

You have to ask yourself, do people really care where your pages are hosted if it pops up in the top 10? Some argue, yes and to some extent no, more specifically, why not have more than one page in the top 10, 20 or 30 search results from various sources if the ends justify the means which ultimately is to drive qualified traffic to your website (free of charge). Be fruitful and multiply may be a passage from biblical reference, but something about this ancient ruse has precedence in modern search engine optimization tactics and is worth noting, even if the meaning is used slightly out of context.

Web 2.0 Piggy Back SEO using Social Bookmark Sites

What happens when you (a) have a new site or (b) a website without it’s own innate ranking potential and you want to position your message in front of decision makers for a competitive keyword? Do you, build links like crazy and wait for the allinanchor: links to kick in or do you plot your course, make the needed on page changes to content or create new content and then augment it through using web 2.0 media sites?

The answer in obviously the latter. Although this strategy does not just apply to websites on their way up, this is an excellent method for broadcasting a message and creating a nice horizon of catch all phrases for the top 10, 20 and 30 search results.

Instead of just having one top 10 result, why not blanket the SERP’s (search engine result pages) with keyword specific titles, that can play into your master plan. For example, there are specific websites which have the ability to rise to the top of search engines organically, based on the number of inbound links and resources housed within the site such as wikipedia, articleset.com, ezinearticles.com, goarticles.com, digg.com, netscape’s propeller.com To name a few, whereby one can either link to content on their own website, or publish the content on their network.

Aside from the fact that duplicate content filters exist on a number of search engines, you may wish to allow the original post or page to get indexed first by the major search engines before embarking on this type of popularity ring, but in any case, you can use web 2.0 sites such as these to appear in search engines in some instances overnight. One of the previously mentioned sites had a post within the top 10 of Google for a competitive term slightly over 1 hour over posting it, with positioning like that who needs PPC?

The method is simple, say for example that you write an article on your blog and publish it, let’s assume for now that it’s 48 hours later and the blog is indexed and tagged from search engines as belonging to your site as the originating author. From there you are ready to (a) build some back links to it for the purpose of prolonging it’s duration of organic hang time in the SERPs, as well as (b) establish the page, website or post as an authority in regard to the subject matter. So how do you accomplish this feat? Social book mark websites Here is a list gleaned from the #1 page in Google for “list of social bookmark sites” from blog marketing tactics, “very useful resource, hat’s off to the author of the post by the way”. The extent that you engage these sites is entirely up to you, but it is possible however to create a dynamo of content published on your own pages, web 2.0 sites and referenced links to your site (such as using DIGG) that provide a direct link to your pages from their listing in the SERPs.

Ideally you could employ the catch all phrase on your site with a hefty title, then when you repost the material change the titles slightly to more specific phrases (singular, plural, or acronyms) when applicable. This way, as the web 2.0 sites fight it out to see who is going to dominate the organic listings, all the while, your original post is getting a boost from the backlink, the traffic it produces from each of theses respected networks and their loyal following that constantly seek out new and interesting topics in which to participate, read and vote on. As you will note, in about a week, if your original post had been submerged, it should be back in full force at the top of the listings organically.

In essence it is a win win situation, they get content, you get a link and your post gets the benefit of reproducing itself and moving one several fronts or keywords simultaneously. You can see the benefit of this tactic for example, if you knew you wanted to target a very competitive key phrase, and your website just didn’t have the juice to crack the barrier to entry for the term. By chipping away at it using 3-5 social media networks, all of which are delivering link juice and visibility to your website, and in the interim have the capacity to hit the top 10, 20 and 30 search results to deliver traffic until your site has enough authority.

In the end, people don’t really care how many results there are for a given search or how it got there, only the fact that it is there in the top 10 highly relevant search results at the moment they were looking for it. Not everyone thinks like an SEO optimizer, just point,click and read is the logic behind the majority of the masses, no need to complicate things by over-thinking the means to the end.

So, be fruitful and multiply by replicating your content strategically to move on several fronts. A more advanced version is using this in conjunction with a time released method where you consistently roll out new or related material that is themed over the course of a month to keep the results fresh as over time, they have a tendency to sink in the SERPs over time.

One quick example of this strategy was for the term “Seo Link Building Tips” where 5 out of the 10 results all referenced one post in our site, over time one will rise and the others will fall, but as they do, they are great signposts that occupy the top 20,30 and 40 results with the ability to rank on their own merit for long tail search results over time.

-Jeffrey

SEO Design Solutions™ Blog » Uncategorized

Is Your Website Stranded?

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Google Toolbar Page Rank Update September 2008

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