How to Build Keyword Themes for Your Website

Doug Williams @ 4:34 am

This blog entry was posted on April 10, 2012.

Websites should be focused around closely related products or services in order to optimize for search traffic. The website should be focused on a single subject for the best results, but that is not always practical.

When you have multiple offerings, you need to organize your website into a clear structure that the search engines will understand. You should group very closely related topics into themes. In a website you can have keyword phrases, topics and themes.

On any web page you will introduce your keywords in the first paragraph. When keywords are used in all the paragraphs on a page, you have a topic. A group of closely related topics form a theme. A website may have 1-3 themes that are closely related.

Link Structure: You will want to link the most closely related topic pages together to form themes. To improve rankings for each topic page you can write articles and place them on your website. You can emphasize the individual topics by linking articles written around specific keyword phrase.

Example

Let’s say you have a residential landscaping business. You offer landscape design services and landscape maintenance services. These two groups of services are closely related, but should each be in its own theme.

Theme 1: The landscape design services theme could include topics for landscape design, front yard landscaping, back yard landscaping, installation of sprinkler systems, new sod installation, etc.

Theme 2: Maintenance services could also include topics for lawn mowing service, lawn aeration services, yard maintenance, tree trimming, etc.

When you have multiple themes, you would want to globally link the home page to the main landing page for the theme. Each topic would be interlinked within a theme specific.

Use your website architecture to connect very closely related content. This association helps the search engines determine relevance and you will be rewarded with higher rankings.

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Filed under: SEO Strategies

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How Fast You Do Link Building Affects Your SEO Results

Doug Williams @ 4:25 am

This blog entry was posted on April 6, 2012.

In search engine optimization, off page factors such as link building are even more important than the SEO you do on your website. Link building is not just the quality and quantity of links that you get. How fast you add new links to your website is another important factor.

This is called the link acquisition rate. This is the rate at which new links are discovered by the search engines. A long term steady rate is best.

Let’s say you notice that one of your competitor has thousands of links and you have very few.

Let’s take an extreme example. You decide that you want to do link building and add your website to 1,000 web directories one month and then stop. Your website will have very few links leading up to your link building event, have a massive spike in links and then go back to no new links.

Google will notice this and discount a huge percentage of these links. A steady addition of links is much more natural. You would be much better off if you are determined to add 1,000 directory links, to do this gradually over a year’s time.

How can you check your website’s link acquisition rate?

Majestic SEO has a Backlink History report that shows the number of links discovered each month. This free report allows you to visualize your link acquisition rate.

You can see that the top website gains most of their links over a short period while the lower example gains their links at a regular rate.

Link building done right will reward you with great rankings and targeted traffic. Done wrong, links can work against you.

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Filed under: Link Popularity,SEO Strategies

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Backlink Analysis Tools That I Like To Use

Doug Williams @ 11:30 am

This blog entry was posted on April 3, 2012.

Being able to analyze and understand the backlink profile of a site and its competitors is a key step in optimizing a website. This is a collection of tools that makes this analysis easier to do. All of these offer both free and paid versions. The free versions give good analysis powers… of course the paid ones are even better.

Analysis: searchmetrics.com offers a new (currently in beta) backlink analysis tool that looks at a comprehensive set of factors including an overview of your link profile, anchor text and geo location of links. This will be one to watch as they roll out features.

Authority: The SEOmoz site Open Site Explorer rates both the domain link strength and the individual page strength using their metrics of domain authority and page authority. These are 100 point scales that are meant to show ranking potential using an algorithmic mixture of link metrics. By clicking on the tab “top pages” you are able to view the authority ratings of many of the pages within the website.

Link Metrics: Examine over a dozen of the key individual link metrics for a domain using Open Site Explorer. This section of the site allows you to compare pages within your website or compare your website against your key competitors for a search phrase. At a glance you can see which page or domain is stronger and for which metrics.

Backlink History: Majestic SEO has some powerful analysis tools. Their backlink history report allows you to chart the history of link building that Majestic SEO has discovered over the years. These charts show rate of backlinking as well as the volume of backlinks. They allow you to compare multiple domains on the same chart.

Anchor Text:Open Site Explorer allows you to view the linking anchor text phrase frequency from both linking root domains and the total number of links. You are able to view this for links to an individual page or the entire domain.

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Meta Description Tags: Best Practices for SEO

Doug Williams @ 5:00 am

This blog entry was posted on March 30, 2012.

Meta Description tags are not about SEO directly, but their message will attract guests to your website. Description tags are used as the description in Google search results; so make them compelling. They should be unique and relevant for each page on your website.

On a search results page the Title tag serves as the title for the search result. The META Description serves as the body. When no Description tag exists, a snippet of relevant text is pulled from the page text.

Think of your description tag as a mini elevator pitch that is done in 160 characters or less. So its length is not much longer than a tweet.

Competition: Look at your competition before you start writing. Get an idea of their messages. You want to stand out and be better than they are.

Unique and relevant: Every page should have its own description that accurately describes that page. Make them compelling mini ads that accurately describe that page. This helps draw in targeted visitors.

Advertising Copy: The purpose of the Meta Description is to encourage people to click on the search engine result and come to your web page. Include a call to action to entice people to click through to your site. One technique is to include your phone number to encourage phone calls. Some people will call directly off the results page without clicking through to the site.

Keywords Unnecessary: Descriptions do not affect rankings; they should be crafted to entice people to click on your search result. Descriptions are more about conversion rather than SEO.

Length: Search engines will only display up to 160 characters. The optimal length of a description is 150-160 characters.

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How to Check Out a Company Online

Doug Williams @ 4:14 am

This blog entry was posted on March 27, 2012.

You are getting ready to do business with someone new. Are they reputable or are they a scammer? Nobody wants to get scammed and lose money. You don’t want to just pick a name off the web; you want to be able to find out if they are reliable, read reviews and complaints. Here are some things to look for and resources that you can use.

How did you hear about them? Did you find them on the web? Did a friend tell you about them? Did you receive a spam email (bad)? Did you receive an unsolicited call even though you are on the “do not call” list (even worse)?

Look at their website: Is it complete and polished? Read the fine print including the terms of service, privacy policy and contact information. Read their “about us” page. Do they publish their phone numbers, physical address (not just a PO Box)?

How long have they been in business? Look at their website’s about-us page. Check how long they have had their website by looking up the “Whois” information on their domain. Go to the Secretary of State website for the state they are located in and look up their corporate name.

Check for reviews and complaints. There are a large number of social review and complaint sites that you can use to see what others are saying about this company. Here are some resources you can use.

Google Search: Do a Google search for the company name + complaints. See what comes up.
Search BBB Business Reviews. Businesses must be in business over one year to join. Research complaints and how (or if) they were resolved.
Angies List. Reviews and ratings for service providers.
Check with state and local consumer agencies. Check with your state attorney general’s office and state and local consumer protection offices to see if they have a record of complaints about the company.
Contractor’s License. Most states require contractors to be licensed. Verify licensing with your Local State License Board. Most allow for online researching.
Google Places or Google Maps pages allow people to submit reviews. Search for the company name and city and the map listing normally comes up on the right hand side of the search results page.
Review websites: Check Yelp, Ripoff Report or Complaints Board for reviews or complaints.

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Filed under: Internet Marketing

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Internet Marketing Tips for the Small Business Owner

Doug Williams @ 5:46 am

This blog entry was posted on March 23, 2012.

Internet marketing is new and scary for many business owners. They don’t understand the technology. Technology changes at an ever increasing speed. Internet marketing is much less about technology and much more about connecting with people. Good Internet marketing combines clear communication and understanding people.

Marketing on the web is not very different than day-to-day marketing of your business. It is about people and helping them solve a problem or find something they need.

Simple Design: Your website should highlight your content and what you offer. Avoid showy and overly elaborate designs since these distract from your message.
Clear Message: People come to your website searching for a solution. Your job is to understand exactly why people come to your site and then make it easy for them to find it. If you are a restaurant, they want to know where you are located, the hours you are open and to see your menu.
Action: Have a clear call to action. If you have people come to your site and then quietly leave, what benefit was it having them come to your website? Have visitors request a quote, sign-up for your newsletter or get a copy of your eBook.
Helpful Advice: It is about engaging people with helpful information, “how to” advice and conversations. This can include a blog, how-to videos or a great FAQ or knowledge base area.
Traffic Strategy: How are you going to attract prospects? According to Netcraft, there are about 650 million websites on the Internet. Plan to use organic SEO, PPC, social media or a combination of all of these.

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Filed under: Internet Marketing

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80 Percent Rule for Determining Your Local Sales Area

Doug Williams @ 6:28 am

This blog entry was posted on March 20, 2012.

In designing a SEO campaign, one of the first questions to ask is where do we want to market to? Do you market your products locally, regionally, nationally or internationally? This affects how you select keyword phrases which geo modifiers or local terms that you use.

From a local SEO viewpoint, it is important to include localization (aka “geo-modifiers”) throughout the content and in any link building. You need to signal to Google where your business is located and where you do business. This helps Google return relevant search results.

The first step is to identify your current sales area. Where do 80% of your sales currently come from? This could be anywhere from your neighborhood to the entire US or specific countries. As an example, if your business is in Los Angeles, California and 90% of your business comes from Los Angeles and its surrounding communities, then you would want optimize for keywords that use Los Angeles as part of your keyword phrase.

It doesn’t matter if you have 5% of your sales coming from Phoenix and 5% from New York City. Your prime sales area is still Los Angeles. You will receive your greatest increase in sales by focusing your Internet marketing efforts on the LA area.

Let’s say you want to transform your business into a national company. You want to move from a local company to sales spread nationwide. Then design your SEO effort around where you want 80% of your sales to come from.

The 80 percent rule can be applied to actual historical sales or your vision of where you want your sales to come from.

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Is DMOZ Still Important For SEO?

Doug Williams @ 7:49 am

This blog entry was posted on March 16, 2012.

The Open Directory Project or DMOZ.org has been an important directory listing when optimizing a website for over a decade. DMOZ is a huge directory that is free to submit to. The Open Directory Project is the largest human-edited directory of the Web. It is staffed with volunteer editors whose job it is to review and approve submissions.

Getting websites approved and listed can be a lengthy and problematic process. If the website is not viewed as high quality and authoritative or if there are already a high number of similar listings, the submission can be rejected. The approval process can take months or years, depending on the editor assigned to a given category.

But is DMOZ still important as a SEO strategy?

DMOZ links are powerful. The link you get back is from a highly authoritative website. The cost for submission is free.

In the end remember it is only a link. One link will not make or break your link building effort. By all means, I do recommend submitting your site to DMOZ. It is best to submit once and then forget about it. It won’t happen quickly. Check back in a year and if not listed, re-try your submission.

How to submit to DMOZ. Submission is actually quite easy.

First verify the quality of your site. It should not be under construction, a mirror site, contain extensive duplicate content, contains illegal content or be a URL that redirects to another website.
Go to Dmoz.org and check if your site is already included. Search for your domain.
Identify the single best category for your site. Navigate to that page and then select “suggest URL” in the upper right.

Mistakes to Avoid

Don’t use promotional language (hype) in the title or description such as best or finest…
Don’t submit to multiple categories
Don’t be impatient and submit multiple times. Each time you submit, it erases your original submission and starts the waiting period over again.

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Filed under: Link Popularity

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Prune Your Website Now For Vigorous Growth Later

Doug Williams @ 6:05 am

This blog entry was posted on March 13, 2012.

Has your website become stale? Are fewer visitors coming and the ones that do come leave right away? Maybe it is time to make your website fresh again. Prune away the dead, obsolete content. Remove or fix the broken links. Rejuvenate with a good content growth strategy. Add a compelling and enticing call to action.

Your website should be a living and growing marketing center for your business. At least annually, go in and refresh your website.

Dead content: Remove products and services that you no longer offer. Add in those that are new and update those that have changed. Use your analytics to help. Find pages with high bounce rates and low time on page. Rewrite these pages to make them more relevant and enticing.

Duplicate content: Remove duplicate content that may exist on other websites… or at least prevent them from being spidered with robots.txt files.

Broken links: Scan your website with a broken link checker like Xenu. Unlink or repair broken links. Add no-follow tags to external links to keep from passing link juice.

Blog: Add a blog or other content growth strategy so you are regularly adding keyword rich content to your website. It is this regular content additions that will make your website bloom.

Conversion form: Have a clear call to action visibly on the home page. Collect email addresses; ask for quotes or requests for free samples. Make sure you have a way for visitors to interact with your website.

At least annually perform a complete diagnostic website analysis to find what items on your website needs fixing.

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Filed under: SEO Strategies

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Which Demographics Still Prefer the Yellow Pages?

Doug Williams @ 5:39 am

This blog entry was posted on March 9, 2012.

Usage of Yellow Page directories has been on a steady decline for years. Search has largely replaced the paper directories and use of online directories is only limited. Most people will use a search engine rather than use a directory. Yellow page companies are facing large losses of revenue.

Dex announced a week ago that they are implementing another $120 million in cost cutting to offset declining ad sales. They are in the process of transforming themselves into a digital marketing company with services such as website creation, hosting and search engine optimization services.

A 2011 eMarketer survey found that 62% of US consumers used yellow pages (print or online) during the prior month. The same group responded with 67% had used a search engine. Most demographic groups continue to turn to search engines in increasing numbers.

Which demographic groups still prefer to use yellow pages over search? This is taken from the 2011 emarketer survey.

Rural respondents (37% yellow pages, vs. 27% search)
High school education or less (36% yellow pages vs. 19% search)
Divorced people (37% yellow pages vs. 30% search)
Blacks (36% yellow pages vs. 33% search)
Those with incomes under $40,000 annually

What are the future trends? Print yellow page revenue is expected to decline from 9.3 billion in 2010 to $5 billion by 2015. In contrast search ad spending is expected to grow from $14.4 billion in 2011 to $21.5 billion in 2015.

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Filed under: Local Search