Archive for January, 2010
January 15th, 2010 by Patrick Hare
White Papers and Case Studies Have Certain Limitations, and Can’t Always Be Reproduced
SEO case studies can be very useful when it comes to learning about how a particular company overcame poor search engine rankings. Case studies (or white papers) are also useful for businesses seeking experienced professionals who can optimize a website for a particular vertical or niche.
Unfortunately, an SEO case study is not likely to function as a guide for a similar company to follow. This is due to several factors:
- Search engines value unique, useful content. Therefore, your site has to be substantially different from the one in the case study, even if it sells the exact same items.
- A new website will have more stumbling blocks to overcome than one that is established. In some case studies, SEO success for an established site comes off as being quick and easy. This often happens when a site has already been around for a number of years, and only needs a few small tweaks.
- The site in the case study may be getting search engine relevance (or credibility) from other online and offline marketing efforts. 50% or more of your SEO success can come from references on other sites and social media.
- Very few white papers will analyze an SEO failure, even if it is a result of the client failing to implement the optimization firm’s recommendations. Business and the field of SEO science can learn a lot more from a failed search engine placement campaign than a successful one.
- Many of the best success stories in search engine optimization are untold, due to confidentiality agreements. This is because major corporations don’t want their competitors to retain similar SEO professionals, or learn which SEO tactic made a difference.
Google and other search engines consider over 200 different factors in what makes a site relevant or worthy of top search engine rankings. There are not many case studies that go into great depth about all of the processes and changes made that resulted in a top placement on the search engines. Furthermore, a detailed study of one company’s SEO success would give a very narrow picture of how top SEO firms operate, since a project for a similar client’s website would focus on some of the other 200 ranking rules. For instance, one website may experience “instant success” with minor changes that are relatively inexpensive, while another may require 6 months to a year of careful and expensive optimization to achieve the same result.
The true value of an SEO white paper or case study can be found between the lines. A reading of several case studies from the same optimization firm should produce a narrative that shows professional management, customized problem solving, and solutions tailored to fit each client’s unique situation. If the firm can identify the rankings challenges that are particular to each site, then almost every SEO project will yield positive results, no matter what product or service is sold by the client. Therefore, a reading of any SEO study should move beyond the improvement in rankings and traffic, and the reader should be seeking insight into the SEO consulting company’s flexibility, problem solving skills, and track record.
Tags: seo case studies
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January 15th, 2010 by Patrick Hare
Bad press and negative publicity can affect businesses in many different ways. In the online world, negative information can be difficult to combat, especially when it ends up adjacent to keyword queries in search engines. In many cases, medium and large companies who find themselves on the wrong side of a search engine will consult with their PR and marketing firms. Unfortunately, not every agency has team of search engine optimization (SEO) specialists on retainer.
Having a Search Engine Reputation Management Partner can be a great way for marketing agencies and PR firms to deal with unwanted search engine listings. Firms like Web.com Search Agency have in-house professionals who specialize in reducing and removing the impact of malicious, defamatory, inaccurate, or outdated online content. Even if your PR client has legitimately upset customers in the past, a good SEO campaign can reduce the stigma left behind by unhappy clients or bloggers with an axe to grind.
If you have a client who is seeing negative, unwanted, or defamatory results in search engine listings, then an SEO company is the best choice for reducing the impact of the bad postings. While it is possible to remove some postings from search engine results through legal channels, there are some websites that are either outside the reach of the law or immune from lawsuits. In the US, courts have held that defamatory forum postings are not the responsibility of the site owner. Even worse, sites like RipoffReport.com will not remove defamatory and negative postings, even if the underlying issues are resolved or the charges are untrue.
In many cases, calls for web reputation management come from C-Level Executives who Google their company names (or their own names), and find information that is not complimentary. You never know when the wrong person may come across this information, so savvy businesspeople are generally more motivated to deal with any potential negativity as quickly as possible. This is always a good idea, especially considering that due diligence in any business transaction requires a thorough examination of the partner company and its public faces, and Google is now a top utility for learning about other companies. Therefore, a course of aggressive reputation management may be the difference between a multimillion dollar deal and a lost sale.
SEO agencies can use a variety of methods to push unwanted information off the first page of search results, which instantly keeps 70% of searchers from seeing the negative items. The advantage of retaining a reputation management professional like Web.com Search Agency is that your marketing firm may not have up-to-date SEO knowledge, and could exacerbate the situation by using outdated rep management techniques. SEO agencies also can work hand-in-hand with PR firms by creating new publicity, while simultaneously improving search engine positions for positive information that is already present on search engines like Google.
A Search Engine Reputation Management Partner should be part of any PR firm’s arsenal of disaster recovery tools. In many cases, adverse situations can be avoided or attenuated through a tactical approach to bad news and online customer complaints. Keeping an SEO firm in your contact list, or having a relationship with a trusted company, can ensure a timely response to publicity nightmares and unexpected situations. Furthermore, the use of an SEO firm for reputation management can be completely confidential, ensuring that your client can discreetly reduce the impact of unwanted information.
If you would like to learn more about our Partner Program, please contact Jeffrey Willenbrink at jwillenbrink[at]web.com or 480-747-9166.
Tags: online reputation management
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January 14th, 2010 by Patrick Hare
People who make their money off of search engine traffic usually understand the value of the “long tail” keyword, but often need to create a strategy for getting as many of these keywords as possible.
What is a “long tail” keyword? Basically, long tail keywords are longer phrases that are typed into search engines by people looking for specific products or services. For instance, a person may start searching on a short tail term like “Hawaii Vacation” but then become overwhelmed with the results. That person will then modify the search one or more times until the final result is “Hawaii Honeymoon Vacation with Luau.” At this point in the searcher’s quest, the results that show up are more likely to be specific to the query, and the person is more likely to make a purchase.
E-Commerce, Lead-Generation, and even informational sites like long-tail traffic because it converts at a higher rate. This is because short-tail terms can be too vague, or represent a mixture of multiple demographics.
The conversion rate on long-tail keywords can be many times higher than that for less specific phrases. However, the downside of long-tail keywords is that they don’t have a very high search volume, despite their profitability. They may also be “one of a kind” phrases that only hit your site once. If you monitor your keyword traffic, you may even see that you have a long list of very good keywords that only got you one visit. Instead of optimizing your site for a lot of individual phrases (which would be counterproductive) a better strategy is to make your site more long-tail friendly.
How do you get long tail traffic, without optimizing every possible keyword? The solution rests in creating content and links that cover all the main elements of customer interest. Using the “Hawaii Vacation” example, you would be best served creating a site with plenty of content about specific offerings like honeymoon vacations, luau listings, and other points of interests. Simultaneously, you would be getting links to your site pages that reference the most common elements of each search. You might have one inbound link that says “Hawaii honeymoon vacation” while another one says “Hawaii Luau.” Naturally, you don’t want to overload your links with every possible keyword variation, but you definitely want to make sure that your content pages are at least mentioning the most common topics that would make up a long-tail search.
How do you find long-tail terms? One way is to use the Google Keyword Tool . Start by typing in a few short-tail phrases and see the results you get. Normally there is a list of specific matches and a list of relevant phrases. You can sort these by search volume. If you have a tracking program like Google Analytics installed, you can look at your keyword traffic to see what people are typing in when they get to your site. This information is most useful when you note the words that are most common to the majority of your traffic. Conversely, you can look at this list to see what words are not part of the mix, and then go after those words with more SEO, link building, and content creation. If you have conversion or goal tracking installed, you can even see which terms are getting the best conversions, so you can work off the terms most likely to deliver results and not just traffic.
If you want to implement a long-tail SEO strategy, you definitely have your work cut out for you, but there are some shortcuts. For starters, having a blog lets you talk about all the different offerings you have at your business, and each blog entry functions as a new page added to your site. As a general rule, you can get lots of long-tail traffic by talking about your company, your services, and even your contribution to the community. In many cases you can start to see good long-tail traffic that you hadn’t previously been soliciting, and you can use this knowledge to build more “static” page on your site that develop this information. If you’re building a new site, long-tail traffic is almost always going to be the first traffic you see, so having good content built into your website is essential. Over the long haul, making periodic updates to your website will give you more chances to capture new traffic.
Finally, improving your short-tail traffic will pull up long-tail terms at the same time. This is because the long-tail terms you are looking for have one or more “root phrases” that are based around more popular keywords. By having plenty of relevant content, you have a better chance of snagging more of the specific multi-word queries that people are always typing in, and your site should see a better conversion rate via the aggregate of bigger phrases and their specific interests. While it is never possible to have a site that is “all things to all people” (unless you are Wikipedia, which is a charity), you can still scoop up a lot of profitable traffic by understanding the vast marketplace of low-volume keyword searches.
Tags: long tail
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January 14th, 2010 by Patrick Hare
First of all, many people in the US may be wondering what the term “bespoke” means. Across the pond in the UK, the term “bespoke” is best translated as “custom made.” It generally implies that you are getting something with more quality and care than “off the rack” or “one size fits all” designations. Web.com Search Agency has been specializing in “bespoke SEO” for quite some time, with packages for enterprise level customers as well as small businesses.
Just about any serious SEO effort requires customization because of the nature of the search engines and websites. Even if you have an ecommerce store that sell the very same brand name products as 100 other vendors, you are going to need a custom solution. This is because your website has to have original content if you want it to be found in the search engines. Additionally, your choice of shopping cart software, web design elements, hosting servers, and domain names is also going to play a big part in how your SEO package is going to be put together. On top of all that, search engines place specific values on the age of your website, the number and quality of links pointing at it, and the way your site code is structured.
For all of these reasons, the “bespoke search engine optimization” package is almost a certainty when an SEO proposal is outlined. Before a sale is even made, it is necessary to analyze a potential client’s site, understand any potential obstacles to search engine rankings, and create an SEO strategy that will result in high rankings on Google, Bing, Yahoo, and other search engines. Furthermore, selling an SEO package to a customer is not going to create a good long-term relationship if the client finds out that there was an unsold component that is now going to cost more money to make the project a success.
This is not to say that you can’t get good results with cheap SEO packages. Many fixed-price search engine optimization offerings will get rankings for neighborhood businesses, people who only have to sell a small number of products to stay profitable, and niche sites that have no competition. Off-the-shelf SEO is definitely better than no SEO at all, and in many cases a low-end submission package is a good jump start. We have even had many customers who started with inexpensive search engine optimization and submission packages, and used the experience (and revenue) as a basis for investing in higher-end offerings. One of the great things about SEO on almost any business vertical is that there is a lot of room for traffic growth.
While “Bespoke SEO” is only just starting to get into the American business lexicon, it should definitely be of interest to people who communicate about “search engine optimisation” to people in Commonwealth countries. The term itself also underscores the nature of almost all higher-end SEO initiatives, which are customized by necessity. No matter what your budget is for website optimization, there are certainly areas that need a custom touch in order to pick up the best possible share of search engine traffic that your budget can provide.
Tags: bespoke search engine optimization, bespoke seo
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January 13th, 2010 by Patrick Hare
CPC (AKA Cost-Per-Click, PPC, or Pay-Per-Click) can be one of the most expensive ways to get online traffic, but it can also be very effective if properly managed and executed. CPC marketing most commonly involves buying ads on Google, Yahoo, and Bing, but can paid clicks can also come through shopping engines and site placements.
Having an agency that can create a CPC strategy is essential for success in competitive sectors including real estate, ecommerce, and lead generation. If you know how to manage a CPC campaign on Adwords, you are still missing opportunities in places like Shopzilla and other comparison shopping engines. Sites like Business.com also have CPC functionality, which can be very useful for B2B sites that are looking for more customers. In several cases, the cost-per-click from these other sites can be much lower, convert at a higher rate, and show fewer competitors than a click on Google Adwords.
What should you look for in CPC management? First of all, you will want to know what the fee is for managing CPC, since fees are generally based on volume. From you own company perspective, you want to know that the management fee is going to be less than what you would pay a person to do the same task, and that having experienced CPC management will represent a value in excess of the cost. At Web.com Search Agency, our CPC management provides value to clients by way of improved ROI, professional experience, and the use of reporting/management tools that make customers more efficient.
Improving the efficiency of a CPC campaign takes time, so that should be part of the expectation of any new client. It is necessary to research new keywords, write ad copy, test competing ad versions, and monitor end-user behavior to determine the best possible conversion sources. Even with two very similar lines of business, customers may react very differently to offers and ads in Google, or on a shopping engine. A continuous level of human interaction with your cost-per-click campaign will produce efficiencies, even when automated bidding tools are used. After a few weeks, you should be noticing an improvement in CPC results, which can further be refined over time as more information is gathered, and your account manager finds additional opportunities for traffic growth.
As an added level of service, your CPC agency should also be advising you on ways to improve conversion on your site. It does not make sense to send traffic to a website if there is not a direct benefit in the form of more sales, leads, phone calls, or visibility. Conversion optimization and advice on best practices can significantly increase the profitability of any paid marketing campaign, and simultaneously can improve the response rate you get from other forms of web traffic.
However you generate CPC traffic to your website, the advantages to having an agency manage your campaigns are numerous. First of all, an experienced CPC campaign manager has a level of knowledge that is unavailable to in-house marketing personnel. Second, an agency is going to be aware of trends, changes, and efficiency improvements that may affect even the smallest online marketing account. Third, agencies are able to leverage bid management tools, proprietary automation systems, and software that creates efficiency on a scale that is unavailable to most companies who manage PPC bidding on their own. As a result, an agency can often employ client-based tactics that leave competitors wondering why a certain site always has better rankings, or is able to compete for keywords that would otherwise be cost-prohibitive.
Tags: cpc management, cpc marketing
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January 12th, 2010 by Lisa Rosenkrantz
Definition
Simply put, backlinks are links that are directed to your website from another website. Also called inbound or incoming links, they indicate the importance or popularity of your website, which determines your rankings in the search engines. Backlinks can be viewed as sort of a vote for the webpage they link to by the granting page. They not only improve your rankings, but they are instrumental in getting quality traffic and potential customers to your site.
Backlinks and SEO
Backlinks have become some of the main building blocks for successful search engine optimization (SEO). Some search engines, Google in particular, give more credit to websites with a higher number of quality backlinks, viewing them as more relevant compared to other similar websites. Building quality Google backlinks is one of THE most important factors in SEO as well as in driving traffic.
How to Get Backlinks to Your Site
• Write quality content on your site.
• Promote quality content on other sites.
• Support quality content via blog comments.
• Contribute to the Internet via articles, plugins, etc.
• Use descriptive anchor text that incorporates keywords.
• Make use of social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter.
What constitutes a quality backlink?
When search engines calculate the relevance of a site to a keyword, first and foremost is the number of quality inbound links to that site. So just having inbound links isn’t enough; the quality of each inbound SEO backlink is what matters. Search engines consider the content of the site to determine the quality of a link. The higher the relevance of inbound links, the higher their quality. That is, when inbound links to your site come from sites that have content related to your site, these links are considered more relevant (and vice versa). In recent years, a search engine’s standard for quality inbound links has gotten even tougher in response to black hat SEO practices like hidden links and link farms.
Some other factors that determine quality backlinks:
• Backlink comes from an authoritative site.
• Both sites have content relative to the keyword.
• Anchor text is descriptive and relevant to the content to which it links.
How WSA Helps
Building quality backlinks should be very high on your SEO to-do list. Web.com Search Agency can help you get backlinks, improve your rankings in the search engine results pages (SERPs) and drive interested traffic to your site.
Web.com Search Agency can also check out the current links to your site, which may have been obtained through now-discredited practices, and determine whether one or more links may be creating a search engine penalty. We can then improve the search engine’s trust in your site by advising you on how to remove bad links, or overcome them with trustworthy links from relevant sites.
Tags: backlinks, SEO backlink
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January 12th, 2010 by Jessica Runberg
By this point, we’re all so used to sorting through search engine results that we don’t even stop to think about the process. The decision to click on one website over another is a seemingly subconscious decision that is largely based on rankings. But if you look closer, within the top five, 10 or 20 results, there is one very important on-page element that influences our decision: the meta description tag.
Although a far cry from the rankings boost that an optimized meta title tag provides, what the meta description tag lacks in ranking ability, it makes up for with a high click-through rate. The meta description is to the Internet what the headline is to the newspaper: a short, enticing description that makes the reader want to keep going.
While the inclusion of keywords in meta descriptions can help people see that your site contains a variation of the phrase they queried (Google bolds keywords that are a match), it’s more about what the meta description says rather than the keywords it includes.
In essence, the Google meta description is an advertisement for your site. Whether search engine users realize it or not, this short and sweet summation of your Web page is usually the reason they are compelled to visit your website. Although space is limited to a mere two lines of text (usually no more than 150 characters), what you put here has a huge impact on whether someone decides to visit your site – or not.
The best part is, it’s free – all you have to do is write it.
Whether you choose to write the description on your own or hire an Internet marketing professional (such as those employed at Web.com Search Agency) to write it for you, the goal is to write enticing ad copy that will drive traffic to your website.
Need ideas? Type in a few of your top keywords and see what your competitors are doing. After all, it’s their meta descriptions that your site will be competing against. When brainstorming, keep in mind that the description can be an excellent place to mention a promotion or any other aspect that makes your website stand out.
The secret to writing an effective meta description tag is to say as much as possible while being as brief as possible. Make it descriptive, yet informative. After all, brevity is the soul of wit.
And if you need some help, give us a call at 1-877-Rank-321.
Tags: Meta description tag
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January 12th, 2010 by Jessica Runberg
Relevant keywords are the backbone of search engine optimization. Think about it: If you’re searching for “red sweaters” and somehow you land on a site selling “chocolate candies,” you’re going to bounce out of that website lighting fast.
Irrelevant keywords make for high bounce rates and poor conversions. That’s why keyword relevance is the name of the game when it comes to SEO. The keywords chosen for optimization on each page should be highly targeted and specific to the products/services/information featured on that page.
If you’re building a page or website from scratch, this is a great time to not only think about the keywords you want to target, but also how you want to set up your website. Think in terms of clear and defined categories that have like-products on the page. A jewelry website, for example, might break up categories and separate Web pages by gemstone such as emerald jewelry, ruby jewelry, diamond jewelry and so on. However you approach it, these are the type of keyword “themes” for which you want to optimize.
Just as you wouldn’t put all of your products on one page, you don’t want to have too many different keyword themes on a given page. Relevant keywords and keyword phrases that accurately describe the page and product category are the way to go. Oftentimes, if your SEO company has made good keyword theming choices, you’ll hardly even notice the keywords sprinkled throughout the on-page optimization because it will blend in seamlessly with your products and services!
Keyword relevance in SEO can greatly reduce your bounce rate and increase your site conversions. It’s all in the art of optimizing your website for the products/services/information people are searching for and then delivering on your promises with relevant Web pages. If you want to sell “red sweaters,” go right on ahead; just don’t optimize for “chocolate candies!”
How relevant are your keywords? Give us a call at 1-877-Rank-321 for a complimentary analysis of your website’s SEO effectiveness.
Tags: Keyword Relevancy
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January 8th, 2010 by Patrick Hare
In some ways, SEO for niche sites and products can be easy. There may not be a lot of competition for your keywords, and you can get good rankings on them in a relatively short amount of time. The downside is that you may not be seeing a lot of traffic, even with top rankings, because niche items (by definition) don’t see a lot of demand. Niche items can be very profitable, especially when they are intended for enterprise-level clients, so a single sale can be worth millions of dollars. Therefore, search engine visibility is still essential.
What’s the best way to market your niche on search engines? Content and Visibility. Unsurprisingly, this answer also applies to high demand items, but for a profitable niche there is a greater need to be found for any variation of a valuable search term, no matter how low the search volume. For example, if you design custom electronics components, a single order could be quite lucrative, but you need to have plenty of information online outlining your company’s capabilities. A well optimized site in this field would have pages describing the manufacturing process, international certifications, and types of products already developed. Additionally, case studies and white papers should be available to the general public, which also makes them easier for search engines to find. Finally, press releases and news items about products and services should also be present.
From a search engine optimization standpoint, keyword research for niche products is usually higher because of the lack of demand. A good researcher will try to get into the customer’s mind and understand what a person might type in when he/she has a particular product in mind. With high demand terms, this is easy, because several thousand people type in the same phrases every month, and keyword tools will provide a list of alternates. Conversely, if you’re selling a product that may be of interest to a few hundred product design engineers in the world, you have to consider all the variations that one of those people may use to look up what you’re offering.
Using search engines to market products to the very wealthy is also quite challenging, yet highly rewarding. If you’re going after an audience that represents 1% of the general public, you have to a site with content that is going to be found for a variety of low-volume searches. For instance, an agent selling Beverly Hills Real Estate should have pages describing mansions, bungalows, homes with gated entrances, and houses with secluded swimming pools. A site in this niche should become the top resource for its topic, and be interesting enough that it may even get a lot of curiosity seekers in additions to its intended audience.
Link building for niche sites can also be a challenge, although the quantity of links necessary to rank for a low-interest topic can be smaller. In many cases there may only be a handful of sites similar to yours, and if they’re competing with you then soliciting links may be tough. In this case, standard link building through directories and other sources may be sufficient, but it can also pay to create content for relevant publications online that links back to your site. Online journals, industry blogs, and newsletters often will accept content if it is of interest to readers, so a blurb about your service, or an interesting story, may serve as alternate link building methods. Finally, soliciting links from your competitors may not always be a bad move, especially if you each have an added specialty that the other may not cover, or if you serve different geographical areas.
SEO for niche products and services isn’t as easy as it used to be, but still offers some opportunities for people who don’t need a high search volume to be profitable. For the most part, standard SEO rules apply to niche sites, but a higher amount of content and resources are essential, especially in fields where there isn’t a standard word or phrase for your core competency. Considering the high profit margin of some items, the added SEO and content cost can often be covered by the value of a single extra sale. Therefore, going to the next level with your site architecture and link profile, while always recommended, is a must for people who are going for the rarest gems in the internet marketplace.
Tags: niche seo
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January 7th, 2010 by Patrick Hare
Search engines like Google have gotten a lot better at reading Flash files than they were in the past. In fact, the content of a site written primarily in Adobe (formerly Macromedia) Flash used to be invisible to a search engine. Although Google is much better at reading and indexing Flash content, most people in the SEO world will still recommend having an HTML-style navigation and content template.
Many customers come to us with Flash site designs, which they like because Flash allows for animation, interesting transitions, and a better look and feel. People like graphic designers and wedding photographers commonly have Flash sites, but quickly learn that they aren’t getting good search engine placement, even in non-competitive areas. As stated above, the SWF (ShockWave Flash) file format is more readable to search engines than ever, but the downside is that the file, not the page containing the file, may be listed on the search engine as the content source.
Luckily, there are ways to keep the look-and-feel of Flash while getting your site indexed. Here are a few tips for having Flash functionality and search engine rankings.
- Visit Adobe’s SEO Page for Flash. Adobe is always adding functionality, and works with search engines to make it easier for files to be read.
- Add HTML content below Flash Pages. This can sometimes be anathema to visual people like photographers and graphic designers, since the content is usually visible in a paragraph below the fold of the page. However, if a site can’t be found on Google, potential customers (and critics) won’t be able to see the attractive visual elements above the content.
- Use Flash elements, instead of using Flash for primary site navigation. Also, it is usually better to have several individual files (one for each page) than a single file that resides on only one HTML Page.
- If you have to, create a set of HTML pages that contain good SEO content, and use calls to action that direct people to the Flash version.
- Have alternative text (which offers some SEO value) that offers up a description of the site content, in case your reader does not have Flash enabled.
- For Flash files that show text, avoid embedding the text into images. A search engine can read text in Flash, but a picture of text will not be indexed.
One of the things to keep in mind when designing Flash sites is that search engines prefer to find a hierarchy of pages, and then want to understand the relationship between those pages. This is easy to do with the classic HTML model, since there is usually a Homepage>Category>Subcategory model at work. Flash pages may avoid this level of functionality, and even trigger transitions between pages, which can confuse a search spider looking for direct relationships.
As time goes on, search engines are becoming better at emulating user behavior and understanding the content of all kinds of interactive media. Even so, it should be incumbent on the designer to make sure this media is properly labeled and searchable so engines like Google and Bing can classify it in relation to every other piece of information on the Internet.
Tags: flash seo
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