SEO Today

Assessing a Web Site and your Client

2008-05-28T14:26:00.000-07:00

To stay current, I just wrote a blog article on:
5 Steps (minutes) to Assessing your Client through their Web Site

It’s useful information for other SEOs and their sales team. But, I think it could also be interesting for a client to use for checking out their own website. Understanding issues related to how the online world can see you (and how they see your site) and evaluate you can be most useful in a variety of ways.

Also, use the information provided in the article to create your 5 step process to not only check and evaluate your site but the websites of your competitors. Use these 5 steps along with our more formal SEO Checklist to do a more thorough site assessment.

Here’s the list of the 5 steps – that should take 5 minutes to perform:

1) PageRank
2) site: command
3) SEODigger.com
4) Archive.org
5) View page source – meta tags, H1, quick coding check

Check out the article and let me know here and/or there if it was helpful. I hope it is!

Best Link Building Techniques

2008-04-07T11:00:00.000-07:00

No time today - and for a while now - sorry! I've been traveling, training, SEOing for several important clients in the US and in Europe. Could things just quiet down for a brief second??!!

But, good news - and good information was collected over at SEOmoz on the "...Best Link Building Techniques". I saw it a bit late but added a few extra link building items myself that you might find interesting.

Read the whole blog - note the higher votes - take notes and off you go to work on this. This was a nice gathering of intelligent and useful link building tips for anyone with a website to look into.

The Silent SEO

2008-02-15T17:49:00.000-08:00

Interestingly, I’ve been reading articles lately on Search Engine Optimization consultants, how to find them and what makes a good one. Today, there was an article by Rhea Drysdale, Death of SEO Transparency, that discusses that the best SEOs seem to keep their mouths shut and "secrets" safe.

Working for several years now as a top SEO (yeah, tooting my own horn here!), the one thing I noticed that makes a great SEO consultant is not the tips or tricks but how and when they use them! It’s a form of logic that is nearly impossible to describe or teach to someone else. It comes from “feeling” the search engines and “playing” with them day in and day out. It’s having each website and each individual industry act and react differently in the search engines because there are so many factors involved. So, telling all your “SEO secrets” will not give any one a real advantage over another if they don’t know how to use it anyway. – Does that make sense?!

I don’t believe in keeping quiet or holding back (ask anyone at Bruce Clay – hi guys!). Sharing information and a willingness to teach all that you know tells me you are secure with your knowledge, secure in what you can do with it and, I think, gains you a lot of respect in this or any other industry you are involved in.

The problem I have is that I spend more time working for my clients and getting their sites optimized for whatever keyword phrases we need than I have time for talking about SEO or blogging about it. I wish I had more time to work on my own website!! Look at it! Look at the Page Rank – yup! - not so optimized is it – not so search visible!!?!! Search Visible Websites site started about 4 months ago when I went solo with my SEO services. My first thoughts were “%@*&!!, Now I have to do my own keyword research, write all this content, I need to start blogging, write press releases, find any and every way to build links to my site, etc, etc.” Needless to say, I was not thrilled, mainly because there was no one to pay me for all that work! And you SEOs out there know it takes work! Lucky for me, enough people knew where I was and how to find me and things started from the get-go. That’s why I just don’t have time for all of this here!! (round and round we go!)

I hope and wish for continued openness and sharing of SEO tactics and ideas. The more we give the more the consumer can get a hold of and judge things so as to make informed, intelligent choices. Read my previous blog posting on How to Find a Decent SEO – Interviewing an SEO Consultant. This will help give those in the “not-know” a better idea on how to distinguish one SEO over another.

Hope this all helps!!

How to Find a Decent SEO – Interviewing an SEO Consultant

2008-02-07T17:23:00.000-08:00

First, “decent” does not pertain to politeness or socially correct. It does, however, pertain here to someone who can “do the job”!!! -- I hope that you will find that this person can also be decently polite and socially correct too!

So, finding someone who will “get the job done” means understanding what that job is! The Search Engine Optimization job means that you will get increased rankings for a variety of good and valuable keywords (defining and understanding good and valuable keywords will come in a later blog post) for your website pages. If your SEO can increase your Page Rank by getting more inbound links pointing to your site and creating a good internal linking structure, then you’ve really hit the right guy (or gal – yup… that would be me!).

Those are the measurable successes that you are looking for, but, finding someone who fits that description and can actually “do” this for your site takes asking the right questions.

1) Are there websites that the SEO can put on their list of “optimized” sites?
An SEO may be able to suggest a website he or she has optimized but how do you really know? You can’t verify that unless the owner/operator of the website will confirm this – sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn’t. There are always confidentiality issues that seem to be present in this industry. Ask anyway and see how far you can push to get this information and get it verified.

2) Do they “guarantee” ranking increases?
If they do – run fast, run very fast!! About the only “guarantee” you can get would, hopefully, be for your website domain name and/or specialized business name – but even then I’ve seen issues of too many similarities in some names. The only other guarantee might be for a very obscure keyword and/or one that really isn’t terribly valuable and simply won’t bring the numbers of visitors that might help to pay for the SEO services.

Now – if they guarantee that they will work hard and describe or show you everything that they are doing or planning on doing then you might want them to stick around!

3) How many clients do they have?
An SEO consultant that restricts the number of clients or businesses that they take on is a good thing. You don’t want them overwhelmed, just trying to bring in the money, and then spending limited time on your site!

Personally, I don’t take on any new clients unless I have a minimum of 6 hours a week I can spend on them – that includes research time, review time, reporting time, competitive analysis time, content review time, link strategy time, communication time, etc, etc. Yes, that limits me, but I have time to do a good job – all the time!

4) Do they incorporate some sort of Linking Strategy that is part of their SEO services?
This relates to inbound (external) link building. This will also bring the most interesting of answers. Many SEOs only perform what is known as on-page optimization. On-page optimization focuses only on a variety of SEO factors that are found on individual pages already on your site. Take a look at our SEO Checklist, you’ll see a variety of elements that can be SEOed. There is actually a lot of work that can help a site that relates to these on-page factors. But, and that is a big BUT, you will want to find out if there are off-page factors that will be addressed during any given SEO project? These off-page factors are ones that can help develop inbound links pointing to your site. The more that an SEO can help you muster up the better – as long as no one is paying for those links! This linking strategy part of any SEO project can easily help pay for those SEO services if done correctly and effectively. Ask for their plan.

5) Will they suggest something that could help right away?
Ask if there is something the SEO would be willing to suggest even if you don’t choose them. There is always something that a good SEO is willing to “give away”. It’s difficult for a decent SEO to not want to help you right away.

I can look at a site and, within minutes, find something that can be done better or at least suggest that a prospective client could begin work on with or without me.

6) What sort of SEO Tools or Reporting do they use? And, will they be giving you access to those tools or reports?
You’ll want to know where your rankings for the keywords are before you start the project and definitely before you cut anyone their final check! Depending on the length of time that will be spent on the project, you should hopefully see some ranking increases for some keyword phrases, if nothing else, you shouldn’t have lost any rankings during the SEO process. There should be some sort of Ranking report that you can understand and have from your SEO consultant.

There may be other tools at your disposal - there are many Analytics tools/reports that are great - that will help with how your content is seen by the search engines, or information on who is linking to your site or even a competitor’s site, and a variety of other items that can help with evaluating and understanding the Search Engine Optimization process.

7) Where does the SEO get his updated information, and/or stay current in the industry?
This can be done through constant and continuous online research, monitoring websites, reading blogs, going to conferences, etc, etc. If there is a “buzz” word you’ve heard about, check and see if the SEO knows about it too.

Here’s a simple question that any SEO should know:
Question: About how many factors are involved in Google’s ranking algorithm?
Answer: As of this writing, there are about 200 ranking factors that play a part in the Google algorithm.

8) Last, but not least, the last question is one for you, the client. Ask yourself these questions:
Did you feel comfortable talking to the SEO Consultant?
Did you understand the answers given or was he or she too technical?
Did the consultant seem to pay attention to your questions or concerns?
Did you like spending time talking with this person?

– because this, hopefully, will become a nice long-term and valuable relationship!

Five SEO things to do for your Business in 2008:

2008-01-15T12:08:00.000-08:00

I’ve seen lots of predictions for 2008 with regards to search engine optimization and marketing. Most of these come from SEO firms and consultants. They all focus on what they think Google will do or how Universal Search (blended search), Social Marketing and such will change or affect how we will view search engines and their results on our websites. But I’ve not seen any predictions related to what businesses should do about all of these predictions and changes.

Five things businesses should plan on doing for themselves and their websites in 2008:

1) Create a blog.

I’ve said this before in an earlier blog post. Update your blog when you can but pick a topic to focus on and use that topic to link to a page within your site.

2) Check your anchor text use within your site.

Use consistent terms for individual pages to keep them distinct from one another. Don’t use “click here” or “learn more”. You can say “learn more about xyz”, like “learn more about SEO Services” as we would do. Note the only part highlighted is the link.

3) Create a sitemaps.xml page.

Make sure you have this XML feed of all the pages on your site. See www.sitemaps.org for information on these types of files accepted by Google, Yahoo! and MSN.

4) Get the word out!

Write Press Releases of new and fascination information or offerings you have on your site. Participate in others blogs or forums and add a reference (link) to a specific page of your site that you are responding to. Map your location. Create link magnets, or link bait, and let others know it’s on your site. Maybe add a video to YouTube and your site. And, if it’s not online then make sure you always, always reference your website in any publications, stationary, local news articles, whatever.

5) Hire an internal SEO for your organization.

Full-time is best but part-time is ok too. This will give you better first-hand knowledge and more control over SEO happenings with regards to your website. It also gives a sense of more responsibility to the newly hired SEO for results! – I have first hand knowledge of that one!! Hi, Richard! Hi, David!! (wink)

Note: We do have access to SEO specialists around the globe that will work locally, remotely or on a consultant basis so contact Search Visible Websites if we can help.

Blogging for SEO

2007-12-14T15:26:00.000-08:00

You may be seeing that Blogs are an important addition to your website. I’m seeing news reports on this topic more and more… “Blogging for Business”, “Marketing with Blogs”, “Blogging for SEO” (oh, is that my blog post?!!!), etc… but is it just a trend?? I don’t think this one is.

I see blog posts as a great way to keep bits of information fresh and new for your site. Writing and maintaining an interesting blog can be great for readership and developing inbound links to your blog page. Inbound links developed here or through other link building techniques can only help your website with better search visibility. But, the information written about can also be used as supporting documentation to help strengthen the inter-linking of your website.

Now, don’t forget that you can set up your blog so that you have complete control. You don’t have to allow any and all comments if you don’t want to. I do suggest that when first starting a blog that you just write. Write a few posts before you consider opening any flood gates to comments. Advertise or market the fact that you have this blog for whatever reason. Let fellow bloggers know about your postings. See if there are others that you can comment on and refer to yours for a response. Even if you can’t get an active hyperlink for this you can still spell out your page reference and, hopefully, interest will follow and active hyperlinks will come about.

Pick precise topics or very specific subjects to write about. Don’t think about SEO while writing but do consider re-reading and editing your blog post for possible spelling or grammar issues. Then make sure that you have stayed on topic, add a few extra keywords that might help elaborate on the topic and help SEO then add a link to the page or area of the site that could best use the blog post for support. Know that your blog can spread your voice to others so write in a way that you feel comfortable. It will bring added benefit to your SEO efforts and your website will have better search visibility!

The blog post before this one suggests creating a plan for increasing link popularity, well… here you go!! Setting up you site with a blog directory is a great 1st step towards fulfilling this plan.

A lot of SEO to work with!

2007-11-07T22:54:00.000-08:00

So much SEO to do and so little time to do it in!

I just haven't had the time I've needed or wanted to get this blog really started and focused on SEO and SEM issues that I'd like. So, I'll start tempting you with these topics...

How about Linking Strategies?!?

Or, ways to increase your site's Page Rank?

How about increasing your site's conversions - making more money! (no question mark here!!)
That's really it, isn't it!!! (or here!!)

Today's SEO blog will just start outlining the basics of Linking Strategies. I'll take things step-by-step and elaborate slowly because for those who know, and I mean really know, they don't have to read this! This is for those that have heard some of these things but it's over their heads and they are just trying to understand it all!

To start strategizing on building links to your site, you'll want an understanding of Link Popularity.

Link Popularity relates to the number of links and authority of web sites linking to your web site.

Search engines recognize when a site is popular. They base this determination on other sites that point to your site or any page in your site. Link popularity is factored into search engine algorithms. Increasing quality external links to your site can improve search engine rankings. You gain popularity points with the search engines for quality links. Quality links are defined by their content relevancy to your site as well as their own popularity. Understanding the basics to establishing good links will help increase your site’s popularity.

To gain additional link popularity, it is good to have information on how your site is currently doing. Determining if you have others linking to your site is invaluable information. Knowing if the search engines know about that is what gives you the popularity rankings. Then you can decide if you need to establish more quality links that point to your site. Or maybe, you need to get rid of badly placed links that point to your site, such as those related to link farms. Pay attention to the content and quality of a site linking to yours and the other sites that they link to as well.

Consider formulating a plan of action and goals for your web site, including procedures for a Link Building Campaign related to your site. If you are not sure on how to formulate a plan for increasing link popularity for your web site then consider reeading the next blog entry COMING SOON!

You can always email me with any questions. I don't mind at all!

Maybe it's not a daily routine!

2007-10-05T08:39:00.000-07:00

I know that I said day-to-day routines would be documented here but it seems that my day sometimes just gets too busy to write about SEO goings on rather than just doing the SEO work!

Anyway, since we last chatted, I had to try to get a client to understand that, even though his site had a great amount of content, we still needed to spend time on making that content "valuable". What I mean by that is that he never seemed to actually say what his site was really there for. There were lots of words on pages but he used more analogous wording than actual "real world" terms to understand and describe his business.

You know, I still love the example I use often to help others understand the use of certain terms and the lack of terms used in association for clarification. - Did that sentence make sense??? - The example is "IT". Problem is that "IT" is also "it" which can be considered a stop-word for the search engine spiders when reading website content. - I know IT is not making sense yet but IT will.

So, if I add some clarification terms like "computer" or even "professional" then we have "computer IT" or "IT professional". Now it makes sense! I still strongly recommend actually spelling it out, IT is Information Technology. Say it in your web pages if you use IT. Your readers really won't mind that you've spelled IT out and the search engine spiders will like that you know what you are talking about and your pages will benefit more, especially when you see them with better ranked listings in the indexes and/or with more keywords that your site starts coming up for. IT is a good thing!

... Oh, so much more to talk about but work has got to be done. Remind me to tell you about another issue with website ranking improvements but no real conversion increases. I got to put on my marketing cap for that one! Ok - au revoir for now!

The first day of SEO... NOT!!!

2007-10-01T17:47:00.000-07:00

So... it has been suggested, more times than I can remember, that I should create a blog... an SEO (search engine optimization for those who don't know) blog. I kept trying to decide the best way to do this. What could I write to interest those out there that might actually read this blog??! So (and I say "so" a lot - sorry!), I decided that a day-to-day goings on in my world of SEO might actually be interesting. I can let fellow SEO analysts see what I do for the various clients I deal with and inspire them to do great things for their own clients. And, this can help those that have no clue what search engine optimization is and maybe get a little working knowledge and "free" help for making their own websites more visible in the SERPS.

So... here goes...