My CMS

Blog

  • SEO Factor Blog

    October 9, 2006 Optimizing a website is only part of the SEO / SEM process. Once a site is optimized for the search engines, you still have to consider “old-fashioned” ways of marketing your product or service. Before the Internet, we used magazines, billboards, T.V. commercials and endorsements, among other creative ways to advertise. The Internet is no different. You have to get your name out there and bring hits to your site. Let’s check one of these methods. Banner Ads If the Internet is the “information super highway,” then banners would be our billboards. Basically, banners will be a small picture or animation placed on other websites that, when clicked, would lead to your website. You can see an example by going to MSN.com in the upper right corner of the search engine. There is always an advertisement there. Most sites implement banners in much the same way, setting up a specified space for banners. This creates an advertising space, providing the ad to a potential customer, yet preventing an annoyance that would be created with pop-ups. I won’t name any specifics (Mostly because I don’t like banners myself. Hated billboards…hate these. But hey, they work and we use what works), but there are a number of banner services out there to get you started. You can find every service from the creation of a banner, online editors for those do-it-yourselfers, the promotions of an already created banner, and everything in between. Now, if you go to MSN and see a banner, then go back 5 minutes later, you will see a different banner ad. They rotate, giving MSN the power to provide banner space for more than one customer. Most services that offer the promotion of a banner advertisement, do it in one of two ways. You can purchase “impressions,” which means that if your banner is shown to a website’s visitor, regardless of a click through or not, that counts as 1 impression. Usually these impressions are purchased in large blocks, sometimes in the tens of thousands. The second way is a purchase of an amount of clicks. This means that your banner is shown as many times as is necessary to use up the determined amount of down payment you provide to the service, much in the same way a Pay-Per-Click service is handled. Google (I know I know. I said I wouldn’t promote any, but I like Google) provides a banner service in this way with their Adwords program. There are other service methods, like trading banner clicks, in where if you show a banner, and it gets a click, your banner will be shown somewhere for the same amount of clicks, but the first 2 are the most popular.

    I said that I don’t like banners. But that wasn’t because they don’t work. It’s really just one of the many ticks I have. Banners do indeed work…greatly. If you have a well designed and worded banner, and the service you use, you can get a good amount of relevant traffic, for a fairly low price. Like every form of marketing out there, you have to play with it though. Sometimes you may not get a click through for something so simple as a bad color or too many/ too few words. Find out what works for you, and you could be a very happy banner….ummm…person.

    The URI to TrackBack this entry is: http://www.seo-factor.com/Blog/bblog/trackback.php/20/

    Line and paragraph breaks automatic, HTML allowed:

  • SEO Factor Blog

    October 6, 2006 I know there is a lot on this blog, but it just started and I want to get a lot of the basics on here so we can start to get into the good stuff. I’m also gonna try to categorize the basics so that we can reference them as needed. So now I want to talk about link popularity. We will discuss the basics of this, then get into the coding anchor tags so hold on to your butts…it’s gonna be fun. Google, as stated many times, wants to make the Internet “easier and more organized.” This is a big debate lately as some results they provide are lacking in both of those areas, but that’s what they are trying to do according to them. One thing Google does is look at how the rest of the community feels about you. Let’s say I sell cars. I post a sign, but my lot is far back from the road and hard to see. Well that kinda sucks, how am I gonna sell cars this way. So I go to my local repair shop one day, and talk with the manager. I say “Dude, if you get a customer that comes in, and needs a new car, why not send them my way.” So Mr. repair guy is cool with that. So this brings me a few customers, and as time goes by, my customers refer me to more customers. Well one day, the mayor of SEO Town gets his car repaired, and is told about my lot. He gets a shiny new car for his daughter. Wow. The mayor now knows about my lot and liked my service. He tells all his friends. This will bring in a lot more customers. And these customers will spend more money because they are higher in our food chain. The mayor happens to have a cousin in a major car manufacturing plant. When he finds out about me, I get a ton more business. Who wouldn’t buy a car from a place that was referred to by the car maker? This is great and dandy, but my lot is still so removed from the road. And then it happens. The state newspaper does a poll and everyone in SEO Town refers my lot as the best car sales lot around. So the paper gives me all sorts of space in the periodical. Now, everyone that picks up the paper will see me. Now, I can afford a new lot with a better location, and even some advertising. I’m gonna sell many much cars. This is Google. Google is the newspaper and everyone one of these customers is another site. Some of those referrals from these other sites definitely helped, but when the car manufacturer (a very “important” site) decided to plug me, I got a lot more attention, especially when Googled asked about me. You want a link on other pages that point to your site. This is link popularity. But more importantly, you want links on other pages of sites that are relevant and rank well. This is quality inbound links. This will help in online business in 2 ways. First, for a while you will get hits from that other site and probably some business if it’s a good site and people trust them. Second, after a while Google will crawl the Internet and see that all these relevant, well-ranking sites link to you. Google will say “Dude, this guy must totally be werd up.” (That’s really how Google talks. Really) Now, a link is not a link. You could have a banner on someone’s site, and that will bring traffic, but not help in Google like it could. What you want is a “text link.” This is just a simple link with no pictures or frills. And here is the reason. This is what a link looks like in HTML: My Site This is technically called an anchor tag. All that will show on the site is the ‘My Site’ part, but will likely be underlined and can be clicked to go to the ‘http://www.wspseoguy.webword.com’ site. Now, look at the ‘My Site’ part. This is what everyone will see and will be real text on the site, so also what the search engines will see. You would really want this to be a search term. So maybe SEO Service would be more appropriate since I would want to be found by that term if I were optimizing this blog to be found when someone types “seo blog.” You will want as many of these out there, and really target sites that are relevant and rank well. Well what the hell, SEO Guy? How do I get these links. My customer will be clueless. Well, I can’t give away a bunch of secrets. Perhaps the next thing we will talk about is directories, but for now I’m really tired so let’s do it like this. Do a search for the terms you would like to be found under in Yahoo!, Google, and MSN. See all those results? Those are potential link partners. Every website has/ should have a contact e-mail address of some sort. Send them an e-mail. Tell them what you’re site is all about. Make sure to have a link to their site first, and ask if they would be cool with linking to you. Most sites are all to obliged to do this, and some even have a form that you will simply need to fill out, automating the process. You should shoot for the relevant sites for the first three pages on the results. Then, go to their “links” page if they have one. See all those links? Those are likely already link partners and have a higher chance of being willing to become link partners with you. Obviously this is SEO. There is a little more to it sometimes, and there are tricks you can do to legitimately get links. One thing I would like to warn against is “Link Farms” or “webrings” or any service that can guarantee “thousands of quality links in minutes,” or anything like that. These are not quality, never legit, and will almost always be frowned upon and known by Google.

    I love you all. Let me know if there is anything I can do for you.

    The URI to TrackBack this entry is: http://www.seo-factor.com/Blog/bblog/trackback.php/6/

    Line and paragraph breaks automatic, HTML allowed:

  • SEO Factor Blog

    October 9, 2006 After reading my last post on CSS and SEO, a buddy of mine asked for a more detailed reason on what exactly about CSS will reduce the amount of code. I figure, “hey, I got a blog. Might as well explain it here.” Do yourself a favor and read the original post, ‘CSS and SEO’ so that you are at least familiar with the idea of CSS. So, now we know what CSS is and that it helps, no? Well here is an example: Let’s just say you want to have a section of text on your site. With HTML we would normally place a table on the page to set aside an area for the text like so

    Text that would be in the table.

    That’s not too much I know, but stick with me. In CSS we could declare a ‘div’ tag on a completely seperate page that the crawler wouldn’t have to drudge through, but the browser would adhere to. Like so” .spacesaver { position:absolute; left:thismuch: top:thatmuch; height:whatever; width:whatever; background:mycolor; border-style:neatborderstyle; border-style-width:furthercustomization; } Now this looks like a lot more code, but notice a few things. Not only can I make the same table I could in HTML, but I can also determine a lot more aspects like the border style, color, and width, and the exact placement of the text area. I could go further to determine the font information, but normally I would do that in a seperate definition. But how does this help in our code? Well when putting it in the HTML page it would look like this:

    Text that would be in the table.

    So that’s a lot less code. And anyone that has been building websites knows that the original table we had would not really suffice. The real saver comes when we would normally make nested tabels, requiring a great deal more code….a great deal. Also, when it comes to table as in this example, the browser reads tables from inside out. So having nested tables, with all sorts of declarations on the look of the table, could create a lot of code. Also consider the amount of code it takes to declare how each ‘

    looks in the HTML, or every header tag. Everything that you can do in HTML to determine the look and placement, can be done in CSS. If this helps, let me know. If it doesn’t help. Let me know.

    The URI to TrackBack this entry is: http://www.seo-factor.com/Blog/bblog/trackback.php/15/

    Line and paragraph breaks automatic, HTML allowed:

  • SEO Factor Blog

    October 9, 2006 Link popularity is a very important aspect of SEO and website promotion. It not only brings traffic to your site, but also helps the validity of your website’s importance in the eyes of Google and other search engines. There is, however, a big no no in the industry. Link farms. Before reading further, you may want to check the last Link Popularity post I have for a good basic idea on what link popularity is, and a good analogy to help with the philosophy.

    History

    There was a time when having meta tags and stuffing your site with keywords would get your site ranked highly. The search engines noticed that webmasters noticed this, and had to change it up a bit. Realizing that they gave too much consideration to onsite optimization, the search engines decided to take into account off page aspects (enter link popularity). Now, we savvy web dorks knew that we could get a lot of links. Not as easy to manipulate the engines, but we could very well setup services or a whole bunch of sites that would link to one site. Thus creating, at the time, link popularity. And again, the search engines caught us catching on, and upped the requirements just a bit.

    Today

    The idea now, is to not have just any link to your site. Links are still good no matter what, but really only for traffic, and not as much in the SERP’s. Google has placed a ‘quality over quantity’ policy, meaning that a site that has an inbound link from a relevant, higher ranking site, that in turn has a lot of links coming in to it, will give more validity than a link coming from just anywhere. So, we want links from sites that are relevant, and have a better link popularity than we do. And now the reason for this post. There are still link farms out there. Basically sites that have nothing more than links on them, or services in which a ring of sites all link to each other (web ring). These services often cost money, and do little more than get you in trouble with Google. Believe me, they notice. It might not be today, maybe not next week, but the search engines will catch on. This could mean anything from bad rankings to blacklisting. So, do yourself a favor. Don’t fall for any “shortcuts” or services that will automate too much of the process. Implementation So how do you get links? There are a few ways.

    1) Directories. This is something of a step one as it’s a way to get a good amount of links rather quickly. Simply look for directories (starting with DMOZ, of course), and submit your site to them. This will put your site in a certain category pertaining to your industry/ service, and help in link popularity just a little. Google seems to be giving less prominence to links that come from directories because they are so easy, but still a decent start.

    2) Link Exchanging. The most tedious of the methods, requiring you to look for valid link partners, email/calling them, and setting up the link. If you’re site is still new, it’s pretty difficult to get this going, but more rewarding than the directories idea. It’s a good idea to place a link to the other site first, to show that you are willing to link to them before even asking for a return of the favor.Put those sales skills to the test, and explain what your site is all about and how you can mutually benefit each other. Don’t expect too much, but don’t get discouraged. It will come with finesse and time.

    3) Quality. This idea still seems to elude webmasters and SEO Specialists alike. This is the single most important and rewarding method. Simply put, have a website that is rich in valuable content, providing a true service to the online community. With time and visitors, other site owners will link to you for no other reason than your excellent site. This will show to Google, and will indeed help with your ranking. Link popularity aside, your site should be this important anyway. There is already plenty of nonsense on the Internet, we don’t need anymore. Make a site worth making, and worth visiting.

    So, this is link popularity in explanation. It’s a good thing, but be careful when getting these links. Remember, we aren’t trying to trick the search engines or exploit any loopholes. We are merely proving to the search engines that our site is indeed important.

    The URI to TrackBack this entry is: http://www.seo-factor.com/Blog/bblog/trackback.php/19/

    Line and paragraph breaks automatic, HTML allowed:

  • SEO Factor Blog

    October 7, 2006 One of the terms used a great deal in the SEO industry is “PageRank.” PageRank is basically Google’s way of telling how “important” a page is. It is often thought that a good PageRank will inherently mean a good ranking. This is not so…sorta.

    Google’s PageRank is determined primarily on quality inbound links, sometimes called “Link Popularity.” There is a neat little explanation of the algorithm used to determine PageRank here for all you math enthusiasts out there. It’s a good read, but gets deep. One thing on this. For your PR to increase, the site linking to you will need to have a good ranking and be a relevant website.

    Now, PR does not mean that you will rank higher in Google, it just means that you have the proper criteria for inbound links, which means you will rank higher in Google. Funny huh? There is a lot of debate on whether you should consider a website’s PR before exchanging links with them. Nobody can give an exact answer for sure, because nobody knows. I can tell you that considering the algorithm, and logic, the theory is sound to me.

    I do indeed use the PR as a way of seeing if my SEO methods are working. Not the first way, and not the most important, but a way. You can check your, and other site’s PR with Google’s Toolbar.

    RSS feed for comments on this post.

    The URI to TrackBack this entry is: http://www.seo-factor.com/Blog/bblog/trackback.php/13/

    Leave a Comment

    Line and paragraph breaks automatic, HTML allowed:

  • SEO Factor Blog

    October 9, 2006 I promise I will write something good and original today. But first, I wanted to give props to Andy Hagans and Aaron Wall of SEO Book for an incredible list of 101 Ways To Build Link Popularity In 2006. This list is a bit to get through, but I found things that I had never thought of. Very useful.

    Link building is a very important aspect of SEO that, unfortunately, can not be ignored. It is also one of the most hated because of it’s time consumption and work required. This post At SEO Book should help out a lot.

    RSS feed for comments on this post.

    The URI to TrackBack this entry is: http://www.seo-factor.com/Blog/bblog/trackback.php/30/

    Leave a Comment

    Line and paragraph breaks automatic, HTML allowed:

  • SEO Factor Blog

    October 6, 2006 I was very recently asked by a friend about alt tags in reference to using them to increase keyword relevancy. I answered, and she wanted to know if it was bad to stuff them with keywords (really funny that she should use the word ‘stuffing.’ You’ll see later), and if so, how bad. I hope this helps explain it. Alt tags were created and implemented for Internet browsers that don’t see images, and used by those with seeing disabilities. So, if I am blind, and I go to a site, my computer will tell me what the picture on a site is (whatever is written in the alt tags). The code is as such: whatever Being that this is a function for the greater of the Internet, a lot of search engines looked at this tag for a number of reasons. First, no search engines can see images, so they use that tag to tell what the image is. Second, and Google is known for this, a proper alt tag would reflect positively on a website as it shows the intent of it’s creator by accommodating the disabilities of some web surfers, thus making for a better online community. Because of the search engine’s view of this tag, we used to (used to as in a long long time ago) be able to stuff the alt tag with a lot of keywords and such for higher rankings. The search engines thought that if “hey, they have a picture of a car on this website,” proving further that the site was relevant to the term ‘car.’ The search engines caught on rather quickly, and now will actually penalize for such offenses. The only thing they want to see in the alt tag is a very short, very specific description of that image. It is a common method to place the description tag, or a lot of keywords in the alt tags. This, by definition, is known as “keyword stuffing.” It’s a giant no no in SEO. The search engines are seeing a large repetition of the description tag exactly as it is written in the meta. This on copy alone is bad. They are also seeing that every alt tag is the same. So they ask, “why does this site have the exact same picture on the page so many times? Oh, I don’t think it does. Nobody would do that. So I deduce that this site is just stuffing the terms. Oh wait, it also happens to be the description tag. Let’s stamp that with our ‘Seal of Disapproval’.” Google also sees this as taking advantage and misusing a function that is in place to help those who need that help. Hence the severity in which they will sometimes penalize.

    So, Unamed Friend, to answer your question on stuffing the alt tags. It is bad.

    The URI to TrackBack this entry is: http://www.seo-factor.com/Blog/bblog/trackback.php/2/

    Line and paragraph breaks automatic, HTML allowed:

  • SEO Factor Blog

    October 9, 2006 Often times we get so caught up in marketing our site and making it aesthetically pleasing, we forget one of, if not THE most important part of SEO. Content. The search engines can not see pictures, so the only way to tell them what your site is all about is to provide that information to them via text. But why is it so difficult to put text on our sites? During the creation of a site, we often care more about how it looks than how it functions. Flash, in my opinion, can be used to create some of the most beautiful sites out there. We get so drawn into making nice layouts with neat animations, we completely neglect the fact that we are building a site for the world, not just us. The content on your site should actually be the first thing you think of when optimizing it. You need to convey to the search engines that your site is worthy of ranking, and that you are here to offer something to the masses. I often give this advice to customers, and get a great deal of fearful feedback. I hear a lot of “I don’t even know what to write.” Well, your site is an extension of your business/service/whatever, and as such you are likely to be well versed in that area. But I think people get caught up in the idea that the text is going to be placed on the site, promoting the attention to variables such as what font to use, what color, how it will look, etc. The best advice that I can give in reference to thinking of text, is to close your site, use notepad (not Word. This creates problems when deciding to copy and paste), or a pen and paper (these do exist you know), and just put your thoughts to reality. Just write. Write about your business, yourself, your products, the history of your company, whatever. Just write. Before you know it, you will have well over 800 words of cryptic information all about your industry. As I write this, I am not thinking about my blog or my site, but only what I am trying to convey to you, the reader. Once you have all that information, organize it. Make it mean something, and make sense. Given enough thought, it will not be too difficult to come up with at least 500 words, which is a good amount of text to be placed on a website. Once the content is on the site, you can obviously tweak it here and there to make proper use of your search terms (this will most likely happen anyway. You are writing on or about the same subject as your site, right?). And once that is done, you can then figure out what the layout, spacing, font, and all the other wonderful cosmetics the online world can offer will be.

    As with all things online, this is easier written than done. But try this method out and see if it helps. To me, writing is my very weakest point, and this helps a great deal. Content is so very important to search engine optimization, and should be treated as such.

    The URI to TrackBack this entry is: http://www.seo-factor.com/Blog/bblog/trackback.php/29/

    Line and paragraph breaks automatic, HTML allowed:

  • SEO Factor Blog

    October 9, 2006 Blogging is an ever-growing method of networking on the Internet. This one, for example, was created to help beginners that I work with in consulting on search engine optimization. It since has grown out of that, but that was the original intent. A great deal of companies are using blogs as an avenue of marketing, helping to provide updated information on products or services. But something a lot of bloggers neglect, is that it should be treated like a website in respect to marketing.

    One of the links on my sidebar go to a great Marketing Blog, and there is a great deal of information there on marketing your blog. One of the greatest thing I found on that site was the massive list of directories meant for blogs and RSS feeds. You can get to that page directly here. So check that out for all you bloggers out there, and keep mind on blog SEO.

    RSS feed for comments on this post.

    The URI to TrackBack this entry is: http://www.seo-factor.com/Blog/bblog/trackback.php/26/

    Leave a Comment

    Line and paragraph breaks automatic, HTML allowed:

  • SEO Factor Blog

    October 7, 2006 I just read an incredible article on keyword analyzing, and it inspired me to want to share a little about the way I conduct business with my potential clients, and how we should explore all likely options. One of the first thing I discuss with a potential client is what expectations they have. It’s very important to make sure we are on the same page with what they want from ranking, traffic, leads, etc. In the discussion in the way of ranking, we find out what search terms the client would like to be found under. This conversation then leads to a usually in depth explanation on research of these terms and relevancy of possible “like terms.” This post isn’t as much for the veteran SEO Specialist as it is for those just starting out or those looking to get an understanding on what they should be hiring and SEO Specialist to do for them. As human nature consumes us all, we tend to keep a one-track mind set on what we want and how we can acquire it, neglecting the idea that we could achieve this with a different means. This is also true with SEO in respect to what terms we are going to market. There is almost always an existing market for the desired terms, and with higher saturation of that market comes a higher consumption of time and work, and inherently my price for service will follow. Now, if I were to just say “yeah, I can do that Mr. Smith, but because of the desire, my price will be x,” and do little more, the client may end up leaving because not everyone can afford to hit with the big players. Instead, I educate the client on the possibility of shooting for terms that are relevant to the business, while still bringing a good amount of traffic, that would also be a little less complex to market for. So that’s the idea, let’s talk examples.

    Let’s say I own a small cell phone shop, and I want to make my big break on the Internet. I don’t want to stay too local, but if I optimize and market my site for the term “cell phone sales,” I’m not likely to be found in Google with my new site for a long time. Long, long time. So, let’s think about what it is I do at my shop. I not only sell cell phones, I also repair them. This brings in about 30% of my revenue. Being that you can send a cell phone to me easily and rather cheaply, it would be a good idea to market for the term “cell phone repair.” Much better results. There are a number of tools that can be used to check for searches for certain terms. Overture for example has a nice one. So I can look at how many people search for “cell phone repair” and use that number in conjunction with the number of results given when searched in Google, and that would likely push me to consider that term, and market as such. Knowing that I could rank a little higher with this term, it would also inherently bring traffic for those that may be looking to buy. If I have good prices, a person with a broken cell phone will likely want to just buy a new one anyway.

    Now I don’t want to limit myself to only one term. So I will use my God-given noggin to use this same method for finding other terms that will bring relevant traffic and provide me with ample opportunity to rank with the best of them. You can also use Google’s nifty Keyword Variation Tool to find other “like terms.”

    Keep in mind I will not have a one page site, and I can optimize other pages for other terms and or services that my company will offer, thus trying to get other pages indexed on the search engines. I want people to get to my site. As long as they aren’t getting to my site is created with a clear navigation and flow, a buyer landing on any page should be OK as they will be able to see what I have to offer from anywhere within my site.

    The URI to TrackBack this entry is: http://www.seo-factor.com/Blog/bblog/trackback.php/12/

    Line and paragraph breaks automatic, HTML allowed: