Archive for the ‘seo experts’ tag
4 Tips to Insure Your Site Does Not Get Delisted
If you’re reading this article, you obviously understand there is quite a buzz around SEO and internet marketing. Not only is it becoming a must to be on the first page of Google, you also need to have a presence on all major social networking sites, article and video repositories and directories listings. Here are some helpful tips on how to avoid getting delisted by search engines so all of your hard work doesn’t go to waste!
Watch your Keyword Density
Your keywords on your web page are very important. It lets the search engine know what your content is about and what you are trying to target with each page. Each search engine has keyword density in their algorithm for ranking sites, however, their equation for density differs from one to another meaning their lenience of density allowed before a penalty varies.
If you know anything about SEO, you understand that at least 75% of searchers are using Google – I would think this is a pretty good place to start. I have heard many SEO’s give the 3-5% rule for keyword density. In my personal experience, I’ve gotten away with 7% and had great results. The idea here is to watch you keyword density throughout your web page and never exceed 9%! If you go over this mark, you are risking a negative reaction from the search engines. I would say stick between 3-6% here and you should be fine.
Keep your Content Original
If you are running your own SEO campaign, you have and will be investing a ton of time. Do not take the short cut and use someone else’s content on your web pages – it doesn’t make sense! Search Engines love original content and in the SEO world, content is king! It is what separates your page from the next before you even begin to create backlinks. That being said, why would you want to be on a level playing field from the start with the same content? Make sure you let the search engines know what separates your page from the competition. Follow the keyword density rule above and write as much as possible!
Do not allow a search engine to disregard your content because it is a duplicate of someone else’s page.
Don’t Hide your Content
As much as we don’t want to say it, the search engines (google bots) are actually pretty smart. They know the difference between visible and invisible content. Search engines will discredit a web page if they feel you are trying to trick them with text that cannot be read. Make sure the text on your page is a completely different font and do not hide it behind images. Make sure you tag your images with keywords but do not make the text invisible. If you are smart you will have content on your Home page that leads to more content in the site.
Tip: Publish articles to your home page with “Read More” buttons and your home page will get credit for all of the content on your home page including important keywords and links.
Be Cautious of Your Affiliate Links… too many = negative ranking
Be cautious of adding hundreds of affiliate links along with product descriptions. If you have too many affiliate links on your website, Google will drop you down the listings.”
I hope this article has helped you understand exactly not what to do to a web page. An SEO Campaign involves blood, sweat and tears which we don’t want to go to waste by getting delisted. Search Engines do not like keyword stuffing, duplicate or invisible content and too many outside links.
Nick Hantge is a SEO Professional with Iniquitous, a Denver SEO Firm. Nick Specializes in organic search engine optimization, traffic analysis and conversion as well as SEO coaching in Denver (303) 999-7963.
SEO Vs. PPC Vs. Social Networking
Cade, excited at Christmas about some new socks
By: Cade Lee
Completely new to Twitter (at least only having been there for the past couple of weeks now), I have never been so enthused about a new social networking media. I have been on facebook, MySpace, and other social networking sits but I have to say that I have run into more people in a shorter time frame on Twitter than anything else so far. So with that being said, I was asked by GreigWells (@GreigWells on Twitter) to conduct this post and I was happy to do so. I had never really considered the three types of marketing separate or “versus” one another before, nonetheless GriegWells requested a SWAT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Achievements and Threats also referred to as SWOT, O for opportunities) assessment on the these three internet marketing techniques. In trying to remain objective I must state that I am a strong believer in “search engine optimization” and that includes using all three of the above campaigns for marketing online. I definitely lean more towards traditional search engine optimization and social networking versus pay per click (cost per click) advertising and I will explain this very shortly. So with that being said, let’s begin.
For those that have not heard this before or are completely new to internet marketing, these are the advertisements that you see on the right hand side of your screen or at the very top of your Google internet marketing and already know this so bear with me for a few seconds while I explain to those who do not know. PPC or CPC advertising is paid for by the advertiser. In a pay per click campaign you will set up an account with whatever search engine you are advertising with, you will “buy” or define keywords that searchers would use to find your product or service and then bid on those keywords. Depending on your bid, you will show up on the 1st page or perhaps the 5th depending on how you bid. You can control the amount of money that you spend on these types of campaigns by defining a daily budget and how much you are willing to pay for the keywords defined in your campaign.
Organic listings are bordered in blue while PPC is highlighted and bordered in Red. Our next figure will be easier "which one of these kids is doing his own thing".
searches. Usually you will notice a “sponsored links” text by these advertisements. I know that many of you have much experience in
Strengths, Achievements: With PPC or CPC advertising you are able to achieve a very high page ranking (as long as you bid high) at a very fast pace or in a very short time frame. You do not really have to work at obtaining high amounts of traffic to your site, it is extremely convenient and time efficient.
So PPC or CPC goes in line with the golden rule, you know, “He/she who has the most gold makes the rules”. You simply pay enough and you are in front of all that coveted “front page” traffic that everyone is after, as long as you have followed the terms and conditions of the search engine that you have placed the campaign with.
It has been documented in some studies that PPC/CPC advertising attracts 14% of the overall traffic; however, when you consider the sheer volume of some keywords 14% can add up to tens of thousands of searches every day. There are other studies that have shown PPC/CPC obtaining a total of 30% of total traffic. So while it is hard to say just how many searchers trust or look to PPC/CPC to find the solution for their search, pay per click advertising does deliver results and for many companies (especially newer domains or sites) it is a necessity.
Threats/Weaknesses: Man it was certainly tough to cover the strengths and I had to bite my tongue to get here. Threats and weaknesses to a pay per click campaign are many. To start, once you have initiated your campaign for PPC/CPC and “gotten the ball rolling” you can definitely expect to see traffic, but what kind of traffic? Could it be that your jealous competition is simply clicking on your ad to use your budget for the day? Google and other companies that offer PPC/CPC advertising cannot prevent this type of activity from occurring; although they have put some protocol in place to avoid it as much as possible it is still absolutely going to happen. I don’t necessarily condone this type of behavior (clicking on PPC ads to drive out the competition) but, for those that believe business is war (especially among small to mediums sized businesses) I know that this is a daily occurrence having heard it from the mouths of many prospective customers. At the end of the day spending your competitions budget on PPC is a strategy just like any other. The sooner your competition spends your budget for the day, the sooner they can take your advertisement down and then perhaps if they have an ad of their own, theirs will surface from the bottom of the heap where they have bid a much lower amount for the same keywords you have bid on.
Another weakness to PPC is that once you have spent your budget for the day you are off the “board” unless you are willing to go in and change your budget and spend more money. So in PPC/CPC you are sincerely at the mercy of the market. Whether your ad is visible to that prospective customer you are hoping to meet depends on whether or not your ad has been clicked on enough times to spend your budget for that day. If you think about this, what type of advertising have you ever done in the past where your ad disappears? Maybe with passing out flyers, or television ads, both of these campaigns tend to be just as effective in today’s market as PPC (maybe even more effective in my opinion).
Getting back on topic here, I thought I might mention that keywords in PPC/CPC seem to be less forgiving here than in search engine optimization. I say this because it seems to me that if you have not defined the keyword exactly as it is typed in by your searcher than you will miss that traffic as well. An example of this is “Denver Attorney” versus “Attorney in Denver”. In my experience in the past, if I purchased “Denver Attorney” and did not place “Attorney in Denver” in my campaign, than I would not show for it as a keyword. Makes sense as Google or any other search engine would not want to take charge of your PPC campaign and just assume that you would want to be in front of that traffic looking for “Attorney in Denver”. Whereas in search engine optimization you will be able to “net” the traffic from misspellings, variations of keywords, etc. I will explain more about this in our assessment of search engine optimization.
Strengths/Achievements: It seriously pains me to separate search engine optimization from social networking, but given the request of comparing these three “side by side” I must abide by the rules here. Anyway, search engine optimization for those of you who might have heard the term (who hasn’t latey?), but are new to the concept means that you are optimizing your site in hopes to achieve a page one ranking or improve your ranking in the search results by optimizing the keywords
One of these kids is doing his own thing, can you tell which one? By the way, this has nothing to do with this post.
used within your site as well as making use of meta tags and building links to your site from other credible and relevant sites. As cited earlier, 14% – 30% of traffic (according to some studies) is going to PPC/CPC results which would imply that 70% or more of searchers are going to the organic results. This would only make sense as Google or whatever major search engine that searcher is using has taken the time to find the most relevant site or results for that searchers specified search. There seems to be an inherent amount of trust given to the larger search engines as they have proven over time with their very complex algorithms that they deliver the most trusted and useful results first. So is it really any wonder that the majority of internet traffic prefers organic results over PPC/CPC results?
In the sites that we manage (we are a search engine optimization firm if I didn’t say that before) we have noticed a lower bounce rate and a higher “lead conversion rate” on our SEO efforts versus the results our customers had achieved through their previous experiences with pay per click campaigns managed by “pay per click” experts. Mind you that some of these customers were using “AdWords qualified professionals” designated so by Google’s very own designation program. In order to qualify for this program (read this) you will read that it is imperative that these professionals have a quota to fulfill before they ever even qualify. This was absolutely amazing to me as I thought Google would want to have the absolute most qualified individuals giving advice on this sort of campaign versus requiring some sort of monthly quota as they have outlined in their requirements.
Okay, okay, back on topic here. Search engine optimization offers stability for those sites which abide by the guidelines stated here. Although Google changes their algorithms and updates their search engine results regularly, I have noticed that by abiding the guidelines set forth and constantly improving our customer’s websites we are able to stay in front of the right prospective customers for the same keywords 24/7 for a myriad of keyword combinations (i.e. “Denver Attorney” versus “Attorney in Denver). So the biggest strengths of SEO (search engine optimization) is that a site has no daily budget concerns because it is free! Also there seems to be more trust among searchers with organic listings and more stability and dependability as far as showing up at “the right time and being in the right place” when that prospective customer is looking for your products or services. Lastly, the conversion rate seems to always be higher with a well optimized site versus only working with PPC traffic.
Threats/Weaknesses: At any given time, when you are depending on search engine optimization for your results, you are at the complete mercy of the search engine. At any given time a search engine can go through an “update” or change their algorithms and not include your site in their new results for various search terms. So you are at the complete mercy of the unknown here. With PPC/CPC as long as you pay your bill, you do not have this concern.
With SEO, there is no such thing as instant gratification and there is no “known” way of obtaining a 1st page ranking. All SEO experts have usually deomnstrated some sort of ability to achieve these types of results, but even they cannot sincerely guaranty a page one ranking. Perhaps if you are optimizing for a search term like ,”Rodent racing” as used by Peter Kent in “Search Engine Optimization for Dummies” you might see quicker results; however, if you live in the real world it is most likely that there are many competitors vying for that first page result you are looking for. So, there is much competition in search engine optimization not to mention how time consuming it really is. If you are sincere about optimizing your site and obtaining that 1st page ranking than it is imperative that you work on optimizing your website every day and following an “optimization plan”. I know that there are many other experts out there that would disagree with me, but I sincerely believe that the only way to “white hat” your way to the top is to work earnestly on obtaining that 1st page ranking every day.
A well optimized site requires regular maintenance, so it is imperative that you continue working on your optimization even when you obtain that 1st page ranking. PPC/CPC does not require any of this laborious work.
Social Networking
Strengths/Achievements: I strongly believe that social networking differs from PPC/CPC and SEO altogether. If I were to come up with a fair analogy, I view social networking like networking in general.
When I first entered the professional market, I was a sales representative. I trained with a class of other sales representatives and we were taught two basic ways to obtain business. One was through hard work which included marketing, cold calling and basically getting out there in front of strangers. The other way we were taught to obtain new business was in networking. Networking is also hard word, I did not mean to imply that it wasn’t, but it always seemed like so much more fun than cold calling or handing out fliers (I know I used flyers before, who knows both seem acceptable). Social networking online is the same to me as networking. If you can establish you or your company as a trusted source for any particular solution, than when the time is right for the prospect who has been reading your facebook or linked-in page comes, they will contact you (at least that is the hope). These leads are solid as they already know who you are, what you have to say, how many kids you have and where you went to school. These prospects know that they want to do business with you, they have studied your content and they are interested period.
I strongly believe that (personal opinion here) the closing ratio is higher for those businesses and professionals that have obtained leads or prospective customers strictly by networking online versus those who are only using PPC/CPC or SEO. I say this because social networking is more like public relations versus SEO and PPC/CPC which is more in line with advertising. When advertising, it is more likely to get objections from prospective customers about price or value than it is from referrals. I view social networking just like I do networking in real life.
Threats/ Weaknesses: Similar to SEO, with social networking, your ranking and account are always at the mercy of who you have them with. Just as Google has guidelines, so do the majority of social networking sites. So at the end of the day it is not beyond the realm of reason to suggest that the page on linkedin you have been working at so hard to promote goes away over night as they are sold off to a larger competitor or perhaps they change their guidelines and the scope of your page goes against their guidelines now. While my first example might seem more ridiculous (imagine facebook disappearing overnight, right) the second is not so unimaginable. Facebook could change guidelines tomorrow eliminating all references to any commercial product or company within their domain tomorrow if they wanted, and if they did I don’t think they would suffer all that much for it. I am obviously using my imagination here; the point is that anyone depending on social networking is at the mercy of the services they use to network. Take Squidoo for example, many were using this as a way to promote themselves only to have Google disregard the high page rank they had obtained for their Squidoo page and next thing you know they were not visible any longer. The rules can change at any given time.
So, there you have it. The strengths, weaknesses, achievements and threats of SEO versus PPC versus social networking as I see and understand it. Ultimately, I think any professional or company for that matter is insane not to take advantage of all three of these. I am not suggesting that anyone go out and do all three at the same time, but I do believe that the first stage to obtaining good traffic for a new site is through PPC/CPC. I say this because a site that has never been marketed or is newer will not be able to achieve results organically right away (at least not for the long run), so while the search engine optimization campaign is being worked on, PPC/CPC can deliver results immediately.
The second phase of a solid internet marketing plan incorporates search engine optimization and social networking. Both search engine optimization and social networking used hand in hand will deliver the most optimal results for your search engine marketing campaign. First time I used this term right? What is search engine marketing you say? There are several different definitions of this; I am going to give you the meaning I give to search engine marketing. Search engine marketing is any attempt within the “whitehat” world of internet marketing to get a useful message out to the online community about your services or product, period. By making a constant effort to market you, your website and your product or service, I believe you are marketing through the internet and search engines alike.
The third phase of your internet marketing plan should be improvement. Improving traffic, improving conversion goals and education. The internet is obviously changing faster than any of us can keep up with it, so by constantly striving to stay on top of it all and educating yourself on the latest social networking techniques, PPC/CPC and SEO strategies you will be able to keep your traffic and grow.
At the end of the day, any one of these internet marketing techniques is beyond valuable and they have all assisted with the success of thousands of professionals and businesses alike. Used in combination with one another, an explosive internet marketing campaign can be designed for almost anyone.
The Myth Behind SEO
written by: Cade Lee
By now you know that Iniquitous is a search engine optimization firm in Denver, we specialize in search engine marketing and most of our clients are here in the Denver Metro Area. Anyway, as a Denver SEO firm we are pretty lucky as the SEO / SEM community here is pretty thick (well populated and saturated) and so I feel like we have a lot of real life professionals here. We have met some excellent affiliate marketing professionals in the area as well as some fantastic SEO experts over the last couple of years, just knowing these individuals has helped us offer our clients a better service.
This got me to thinking about when I started in Search Engine Optimization, and the myth or mystery I had originally placed with optimizing a website. In the beginning after we had worked so hard to get a website to the front of the search engines, and we actually achieved it, I thought we were lucky. I couldn’t believe that we had anything to do with it; I thought that we had just been fortunate and at anytime we would lose our ranking or Google would change the algorithms and our site would fall. In the end this never happened (I am certain that it could, but have been lucky thus far).
It got me to thinking about all the “quick” systems I have seen over the time I have been marketing online, you know what I am talking about if you have ever submitted your domain to directories that require a reciprocal link. These are the directories that have placed you on every junk e-mail list known online and so you constantly receive those fantastic offers. Fortunate for us we never participated in the 1 million backlinks overnight offer. Over and over again when I was getting started in this business, I read that there is no easy way to optimize a site, and that true optimization was not rocket science but rather time intensive work. I can honestly say that this is the case.
I have read many of the blogs written by other SEO experts in Denver and around the nation for that matter, and it seems that much of the literature that is out there on search engine optimization has been disregarded as old and out of date. I respectfully have to disagree with some of these folks as I haven’t read anything new and outstanding that held that golden key to excellent optimization; however, I continue to read the materials that come out and if nothing else they continue to reinforce the same principles over and over again.
I wrote this article to point out some of the good books I have read about search engine optimization and search engine marketing so that some of those who want to go to the library and find a well written book on the subject could do so. Mind you there is much more to optimization than is written in these books, but I believe they are an excellent start to learning about search engine optimization.
1. Search Engine Optimization for Dummies, Peter Kent
2. SEO Search Engine Optimization Bible, Jerri L Ledford
3. Get to the top on Google, David Viney
4. Search Engine Optimization, An Hour A Day, Jennifer Grappone and Gradiva Couzin
5. 101 Ways to Promote Your Web Site, Susan Sweeney, CA, CSP, HoF
6. Problogger, Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income, Darren Rowse and Chris Garrett
I could go on and on about other references and materials for Search Engine Optimization and internet marketing, but in my honest opinion, these are some of the first materials that I would cover if you are looking to market your site. In many cases these books will show you how to market your site with a limited knowledge of the internet or web design.
I hope this helps a little, if you need further resources or you are looking for more tools to optimize your site let us know!
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