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  • 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.

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  • 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.

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  • 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.

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  • SEO Factor Blog

    October 9, 2006 Sometimes I get so caught up in describing some of the complexities of SEO, I neglect the simple things. So today I think I will discuss internal links. Internal links are any links on a page that lead to another page of the same site. The idea of internal linking in reference to SEO, is to write the anchor text so that it shows a search term, and leads to a page dedicated to that specific term. Did that sound tricky? Let’s give an example So I have a car sales website. Omitting the amount of other SEO work involved in actually ranking in such an industry, let’s just say I wanted to be found using terms like ‘car sales’ or ‘used cars’ or specific models like ‘used chevy.’ I would obviously use these terms in the content of my site, and I would probably have pages dedicated specifically to each of these terms. Well, in the text, close to the beginning if at all possible, I would want to use the desired term as a link to the page that deals with that term. Ex:

    “Blah blah body text…Used Cars…blah rest of text”

    Where “Used Cars” would be a link to the used cars page. This will show the search engines a little more weight to that term, as your site must be relevant to it because there is a whole page in dedication. Now, You don’t want to overdo it. Personally, unless I have more than 500 words on a site, I really don’t like to use this method more than one time. If you have a bunch of links all over your content, not only will it look a little funny to a visitor, it will also likely smell spammy to a search engine. Also, the weight given to these links is getting lighter, but it’s still there and still a very valid and worthy SEO tactic.

    I’m going to post today (maybe tomorrow if my lunch goes wrong) about how internal links come into play with regard to link popularity. This is really fun to explain. Good luck out that.

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  • SEO Factor Blog

    October 7, 2006 SEO is a sticky subject sometimes. Many people have been burned by people claiming to be SEO Specialists, and are aprehensive to give another one a shot. There are plenty of resources out there on what a “shady SEO” is, even Google has a bit to say about it here, so I’m not going to go over that right now. Today I am going to try to give some advise on overcoming some of these walls so that we can all work together and be a happy online family. First and foremost, don’t be a shady SEO. No hidden text, no doorway pages, no spamware, no fake hits. None of these things are helping the stigma of an SEO and you will only hurt yourself and your client, and recently can get into a lot of trouble with the FTC. The ‘F’ in ‘FTC’ stands for Federal. That’s a whole new kind of trouble. Anyway, be honest. If you don’t wanna be honest, get into the spam business or hacking business, there are plenty of ‘Pen Pal’ services for inmates. You won’t be too lonely. Be Honest. Let your client know exactly what you intend to do for them and what processes you will take. Don’t be scared that someone will get this knowledge and do it themselves. SEO is far easier said than done. You know this. If your potential client does indeed try to take it on themselves, wish them luck, give a pointer or two, and let them know there are no hard feelings and that you will help in any way you can. They will be calling in about a month or so. Also, be honest about what your client should expect. We know how long it can take to rank, get traffic, and so on. Don’t set expectations that you can meet. You will end up working double time for less money. Be Diplomatic: Many people already have a designer and want help with traffic. Often times you will have to work with their designer. As stated above, most designers don’t know the SE’s like you do. Be patient. It’s not a bad thing. Their whole job is to make a site that looks and functions well. Besides, they had to deal with the same customer you are now dealing with. Let’s step to the side. There is a lot of animosity between designers and SEO guys. There really isn’t a need for this, and it usually fades as soon as you start to see eye to eye. It’s just the way of things as often times sites are designed with very little text or in frames or Flash. SEO Specialists understand the need for simplicity and content. Don’t smack them or anything. Try to find a common ground and hopefully you, the designer, and most importantly the client, can all come up with something that will be beneficial to everyone. Be Patient. SEO as an idea is growing, but there are still those that really don’t understand what it is. Don’t let it get to you. Try your best to educate and be clear on what can and can not be done in a certain timeframe. Sometimes people will come to you thinking the world will suddenly turn on their clock. There are times when you have to give your best advice, and let that customer go. But it’s OK, there will be more.

    Man. I love this stuff.

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  • SEO Factor Blog

    October 9, 2006 I’m really not sure where this information is coming from, but I’m getting a lot of clients asking me about poison words. This is an excellent example of a Google Myth. There are no such things as poison words. There are ‘stop’ words, but these don’t even have anything to do with your ranking as much as it does making good use of the space you have. I want to debunk this myth right now. There are tools and “experts” that say certain words in your title, description, or meta tags would get your site penalized by Google. These words include “lingerie,” “adult,” “sex,” “free,” and various school yard no no words. I’m not really sure where or why this myth started. Actually I think I do know why. Google is known for their lack of regard for porn and spammy sites. It’s not really that far-fetched to think that there would be trigger words that would mark a site as such material and ban it.

    There is indeed a service provided by Google called SafeSearch, but it doesn’t really work in the fashion described above. This is a manual filter that can be used in an attempt to omit certain types of sites from appearing on a Google search result.

    So, let’s get to the matter at hand. Google would not want to ban a site that contains the word(s) “lingerie,” “sexy,” or any variation as such. Think about the massive industry as lingerie sales in retail form. ‘Victoria’s Secret’ comes to mind. “Sex” is not exactly fair to target either, what with the ever-growing campaign for sex education and disease awareness that various organizations and government agencies that have been pushing for the last 30 years or so. “Adult,” well that’s just stupid. I could understand “free” as that is a word often used by spammers, but think of all the legitimate applications. Just too many to ban a word entirely. If you wanna test this yourself, do a search for “free lingerie” in Google. Check on the meta of all the sites on page one. I guess this post is coming to an end as I soon will be resting my case. I did mention “stop words.” Unlike poison words, these are words that a search engine like Google will ignore. Words like “and,” “for,” “the,” and words of the like. There is no penalty for including these in your meta. There is however a length to which your meta can exceed for less than satisfactory on-page optimization efforts. So it makes sense to be mindful of these words in order to conserve the space you are given for your meta.

    In closing, everything written or told about SEO should not be believed. The search engines are often a mystery, and naturally, we as humans will think of fantastic reasons and subjects for this mystery.

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  • SEO Factor Blog

    October 7, 2006 In the creation of a site, many people make use of frames. Frames are a way of making one page that will stay static, but a chunk of which will be used to call information from other pages. The use of frames is often because it is a person’s first site, or their relative made it after graduating a website design program or just picked up a book. This isn’t really a bad thing because most website design/HTML books don’t even go into SEO, and the use of frames is one of the very first subjects covered. It can be a neat little method of keeping a common look throughout the site before learning CSS. More on creating frames can be found here at my favorite online tutorial, Tizag.

    The problem with frames is that some browsers don’t play well with them, and the information on the page is often within a frame that can not be seen. Here is a way to get around this problem, posted on Search Engine Watch, while still making use of the frames method. Keep in mind that most methods of using frames and making them SEO friendly, will only help so much. And it’s not really that much.

    But maybe you have talking to someone that doesn’t want to give up the frames no matter what you say. One good method is the creation of landing pages. (note: not doorway pages or anything that is a “trick.”) You can create a few pages that have the same look and feel as the framed pages, and place the bulk of relevant text on those pages. They will be the first set of pages on the site, (that means replacing the homepage) and will link to the framed pages. Then these pages can be submitted to the search engines. I also think that this is a cheap and ‘shortcutty’ method. It leaves a void when a surfer is moving from framed to unframed pages, and decreases the amount of acceptable information that the search engines can see.

    In my opinion it’s probably best to make good use of CSS if you want a common feel on the pages of your site. This will give the desired effects, and work very well with a surfer and search engine alike. Keep in mind my opinion on design should be taken lightly. I’m very analytical, so “pretty” is not a word I implement often. I am very lucky to be involved with people that have an incredible eye for design and a comparable understanding of SEO. The make the site, I make the site work. Now that’s a partnership.

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  • SEO Factor Blog

    October 9, 2006 So you have an optimized site, have started and continue a good link building campaign, your site is on your business cards, and you tell all your friends about it, but for some reason, it just feels like your site needs a little…push. What ever will you do? One of the best next steps is a press release. Basically, an article will be written on your site/business/product or whatever, and distributed to many online press sources. This will provide your story to many eyes, which can lead to other article written by other syndications like newspapers, radio shows, and, the really big one, some sort of mention on television.

    There are many services out there that provide a written article, promote the article, or both. One that comes to mind the most is PRWeb. They allow you to write the article and do the promoting, or write and promote it for you.

    My next post will touch more on the specifics of writing and promoting an article, but for now just know that it is a really good way to promote your business.

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  • SEO Factor Blog

    October 9, 2006 The online community is a fast one. So marketing online requires that you make use of new and creative avenues on a very mobile basis. One of the coolest thing I like about blogs is that you open your information up to anyone and everyone, giving a good opportunity for visibility. Because of our access to so much information conveniently, we want everything we want and we want it now. And that’s not an unacceptable request. This being the way of the Internet, there are easily hundreds of blog, forums, and newsgroups on which one can post in order to be heard and answered.

    One of the coolest of these avenues is Digg.com. Here is a community that allows for a member to read submissions from other members, and decide on whether the submission is spread worthy. These submissions are not necessarily provided by the member, but said member is more or less referring to a story, post, or some form of information from somewhere else on the Internet. That was confusing. Let’s say it like this.

    I go to my favorite news site. I read a story that I really liked and felt that it should be shared by all. I go to Digg, (because I’m a member) and I write a blurb like: “This is a really cool post about some guy who won a million dollars and spent the entire earnings on hot-air balloons and slingshots.” I would then link to the original story, and publish it on the Digg site in an appropriate category. Being that the story in our example deals with hot air, it would obviously be in a politics category (lol…seriously though. It would). This will give other members of Digg to check out the story, and decide on whether or not others should read it. They can ignore it, letting the story slip further into the abyss of nothingness, or they can click on a link that says “Digg.” The more “Diggs” a story gets, the more visibility it will receive. Now, this is obviously a great way to get exposure online from a large amount of people from many different areas of interests. In essence, you could post something on your blog or site, and write a blurb yourself for Digg in an attempt to drive traffic. I don’t necessarily disagree with this method of marketing, in fact I sometimes make use of it, but I really don’t like shameless posts for the sole reason of traffic building. I firmly believe there is plenty of useless stuff on the Internet already, and we don’t need anymore. If you choose this method, please be mindful of your fellow surfers. Like your site, any posts you make on forums or whatever other method you use, should be done so in an attempt to educate or share. Putting a link to your site is fine, but please don’t just run around yelling “Click On ME!!!” So check out Digg. When I post something that I believe should really be shared by all, I will post it there. Suffice to say, that’s not too often as I like to be respectful.

    Ya know, I think I’m gonna post this one on Digg with a blurb saying that this is a good post on telling others why they shouldn’t shamelessly post on Digg for self gratification…lol. Yeah. I’m gonna do that.

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  • SEO Factor Blog

    October 9, 2006 A press release is an article written on or about your company, site, product, or whatever. In respect to marketing, this will accommodate the exposure of your writing when promoted to many avenues of online press release viewers and publications . This is a good thing that can lead to a better thing. If someone reads your press release, and then writes an article for a local paper or some other medium, you get that much more exposure. There are press release services ranging from writers to promoters, to both. And depending on the release and amount of work that goes into it, it can be one of the easiest and most inexpensive ways of marketing online. But a good press release is important. Obviously, a press release will bring reader attention to your site. But there are far more benefits to them as well. There are a large number of sites that allow you to search for a press release or related news. That being said, you will want to take the same on-page optimization considerations when compiling your press release. This means good use (not stuffing) of your desired search terms, “internal” linking to pages or services on your site, and a link to your homepage on the press release. The links are especially important because, once distributed, these can, and most often do, provide a one way link to your site. We all know how important that is. You will also want to make sure that the press release grabs the attention. Nobody wants to read boring stories or sales pitches about things they don’t want to hear about. Make it compelling enough to make people want to go to your site. One press release is not enough. It’s a good idea to release one every 30, 60, and 90 days, at a maximum of three or four in total. This will show follow ups on your product, etc. The idea is to make the first press release an introduction to your business and site. The second one should be some sort of show of success or exceptional service offered, perhaps with testimonials. The third should show how well the site is doing, and maybe promote a different service or product following a touch on the previous press release topics. This will show a continuity, and increase the likelihood that someone will not only read and go to your site, but spread the word a little bit more.

    In conclusion, a good press release is a very neglected, but extremely rewarding marketing plan that should get as much attention as the “optimization” of your site.

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