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What is the Difference Between SEO Solicitations and Snake Oil Sales?

Doug Williams @ 6:30 am

This blog entry was posted on January 10, 2012.

In the days of the Wild West, salesmen would make wild claims that untested elixirs would provide miracle cures and instant relief. These false claims and worthless guarantees all became known as “snake oil.” The phrase came from a lotion reportedly made from the Chinese Water Snake that would cure joint pain and almost anything else.

Many SEO sales people also make wild unsubstantiated claims for wild cures for website traffic. How do you separate the charlatans from the real deal?

If you are like me, you receive unsolicited spam emails promising miracle traffic for your website. These will include promises of a #1 position in the SERPs, massive traffic or secret methods that only they have access to. Usually I just laugh to myself as I read these emails and hit DELETE.

But what about the poor business owner that receives these emails and is desperate to get more leads from his website? They don’t know enough to separate the scam from the real SEO.

Real SEO is not magic. Real SEO is a methodical process. It is about attracting people interested in what you sell. It must be highly relevant. The keyword phrases need to have enough search volume to make them worthwhile and not just “vanity phrases.”

SEO sales needs to be a consultative type sale where the buyer is educated, an initial keyword search done to determine level of competition and the website should be audited for technical problems.

What should you ask a SEO sales person?

  1. Will they tell you their SEO process? It shouldn’t be a secret.
  2. Ask for example of what they have done for others.
  3. Ask for references that you can talk to.
  4. Look at their own website(s), do they have great rankings?
  5. Do they help you with a linking strategy? What is it?

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Filed under: SEO Strategies



Bing SEO is Different than Google SEO

Doug Williams @ 4:45 am

This blog entry was posted on November 29, 2011.

Bing tends to place more emphasis on how well you optimize pages on your website. Google places more emphasis on backlinks from other sites in its algorithm. The best SEO method is to have a rigorous on-page SEO process and a good link popularity in your SEO process.

I have one SEO client in Charlottesville, Virginia. He has a retail business. He built and maintains his own website. When we started work a year ago, his website did not rank in the first 3 pages on any of the search engines. He wanted to make all the actual changes to his own website.

I prepared a SEO plan with instructions for changes. I then worked on the backlinking using keyword rich anchor text. After one year, the website had top rankings on Google, but continued to rank poorly on Yahoo and Bing.

My client admitted that he never implemented the changes to his website. This caused poor results with Bing. The backlinking alone moved his site to top positions on Google. The good news was that he was having his best year ever with his business with many customers now finding him through Google.

This illustrates that what works for Google, doesn’t automatically work on Bing. What are the important factors for Bing optimization?

  1. Title Tags: Use keywords in the first part of your Title Tag and keep them to 65 characters.
  2. Website Structure: Use search engine friendly URLs that include your keywords. Link to all your important pages using text links from your home page. Pay attention to validating HTML code which Bing puts more emphasis on than Google.
  3. Content: Use keywords in the H1 tags. Produce original, quality content. Bing likes a minimum of 300 words of text on a page. Use keyword phrases 1-2 times in your text.
  4. Bing Webmaster Tools: Use Bing’s Webmaster Tools to see traffic stats, indexing and crawl stats. They have some good link analysis tools to help with your Bing SEO work.
  5. Domain: Domain Age is very important to Bing. Using keywords as an exact match is important for Bing.

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Filed under: SEO Strategies



WWW vs. Non-WWW, Which is correct?

Doug Williams @ 3:48 am

This blog entry was posted on November 11, 2011.

Your website can either be WWW or the non-WWW version. Just make sure it isn’t both. Either form is considered correct. The general public is more comfortable starting a web address with WWW so WWW has become the most popular. But non-WWW is equally correct. Just choose one form and stick to it.

So what’s wrong with having both?

The Problem: Both the WWW or the non-WWW version are treated as completely separate versions of your website. If you have both, they are almost always treated as duplicate content of each other and cause indexing problems with the search engines. This will hurt search rankings.

Each version of your website will attract valuable inbound links. Some links will be to the WWW version and some will be to the non-WWW version. Splitting the inbound links greatly weakens both versions.

How to detect: Do a manual test of your website to make sure a redirect is in place. First go to your website at www.yourdomain.com (in the address bar of your browser). If your website automatically switches to http://yourdomain.com then a redirect is in place and your website is fine. If your website comes up with www.yourdomain.com try switching it to http://yourdomain.com. It should automatically redirect back to www.yourdomain.com.

How to fix: You will want to 301 redirect from the WWW to the non-WWW, or vice versa. This way if the wrong version is entered in, the visitor is automatically taken to the correct URL. A 301 redirect means a permanent change of address. The method for creating a 301 redirect will vary based on your web server. Please see instructions on how to implement a 301 redirect.

Next, in Google’s Webmaster Tools select either the www or non-www version as your preferred form of your domain. (Site configuration >> Settings >> Preferred domain).

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Filed under: SEO Strategies



How Important Are the Number of Pages in SEO?

Doug Williams @ 6:12 am

This blog entry was posted on November 1, 2011.

Search engine visibility increases with the number of pages. You should always work to increase the text on your website in the interest of SEO. This is as long as these pages are original and not duplicate content.

Earlier this year we saw Google hit hard content farms with its Panda update. This included article syndication sites and scraper sites that dealt almost exclusively with content that was duplicated elsewhere on the web.

In general, a larger website will attract more traffic than a smaller website. As search engines index more content, there are more opportunities to form a match with search phrases. Search engines favor websites with high information content.

How many words of text should be on a page?

Web pages with just a few sentences are less likely to get to the top of the search results. The optimum page size is 400+ words of text. There is no firm number for a maximum number of words. Some will say that the maximum number of words is about 3000 words.

How many pages are enough?

Look at your competition for a phrase. How many pages do the websites in the top 3 positions have? The easiest way to get this number is to use a toolbar such as SEOQuake. You can also do a Google search for site:www.yourdomain.com. The number of results is your number of pages.

To increase the numbers of pages on your site add news, press releases or articles. The articles need to be original and not duplicated anywhere else on the web. A favorite content growth strategy is to add a blog to your website. Each blog posting adds a new page to your website. 2 postings a week adds over 100 pages per year to your site.

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Filed under: SEO Strategies



Top 100 Most Searched for Business Services

Doug Williams @ 5:04 am

This blog entry was posted on October 28, 2011.

What are the hottest, most sought after business services? These are B2B services such as accounting, temporary personnel, etc. Which services are companies searching for online? Using keyword research, we are able to see current demand. These are the keywords being searched and the average daily search volume for that phrase (exact match). Exact match means the average number of daily searches for that exact phrase (no additional words used). This is based on US searches only.

Keyword phrase (searches)

  1. temp agencies (891)
  2. business insurance (487)
  3. graphic designer (487)
  4. staffing agencies (487)
  5. web designer (398)
  6. web developer (325)
  7. professional liability insurance (217)
  8. commercial insurance (178)
  9. computer training (178)
  10. employee assistance program (178)
  11. employee benefits (178)
  12. internet advertising (178)
  13. small business insurance (178)
  14. small business marketing (178)
  15. business consulting (145)
  16. business marketing (145)
  17. internet marketing strategies (145)
  18. janitorial services (145)
  19. leadership training (145)
  20. local internet marketing (145)
  21. accounting firms (118)
  22. bookkeeping services (118)
  23. business liability insurance (118)
  24. certified public accountant (118)
  25. commercial cleaning (118)
  26. group health insurance (118)
  27. 401k plan (95)
  28. tax accountant (95)
  29. business consultant (79)
  30. business planning (79)
  31. ecommerce website design (79)
  32. internet marketing consultant (79)
  33. accounting services (62)
  34. business lawyer (62)
  35. corporate lawyer (62)
  36. internet marketing companies (62)
  37. search marketing (62)
  38. seo services company (53)
  39. staffing services (53)
  40. business consulting firms (43)
  41. business meeting (43)
  42. corporate event planning (43)
  43. corporate events (43)
  44. managed it services (43)
  45. meeting scheduler (43)
  46. online marketing services (43)
  47. small business advice (43)
  48. 401k companies (33)
  49. advertising company (33)
  50. appointment setting (33)
  51. business training (33)
  52. chartered accountant (33)
  53. janitorial service (33)
  54. office cleaning services (33)
  55. self employed 401k (33)
  56. temporary staffing (33)
  57. corporate attorney (29)
  58. corporate trainer (29)
  59. information technology services (29)
  60. internet advertising agency (29)
  61. supervisor training (29)
  62. temporary staffing agencies (29)
  63. training consultants (29)
  64. business lawyers (24)
  65. email marketing company (24)
  66. online marketing firm (24)
  67. payroll services for small business (24)
  68. small business bookkeeping (24)
  69. small business coaching (24)
  70. social media marketing company (24)
  71. staffing company (24)
  72. web marketing company (24)
  73. commercial cleaning companies (19)
  74. franchise attorney (19)
  75. strategic internet marketing (19)
  76. appointment setting services (16)
  77. business car insurance (16)
  78. business litigation attorney (16)
  79. employee health insurance (16)
  80. events coordinator (16)
  81. small business it support (16)
  82. business evaluation services (13)
  83. corporate training programs (13)
  84. event organizer (13)
  85. incorporation services (13)
  86. accounting service (11)
  87. business advisors (11)
  88. small business answering service (11)
  89. appointment setting service (9)
  90. business answering services (9)
  91. business development training (9)
  92. business email service (7)
  93. business marketing consultants (7)
  94. corporate training companies (7)
  95. it infrastructure services (7)
  96. business accounting services (6)
  97. business banking services (6)
  98. business continuity services (6)
  99. bookkeeping firms (5)
  100. business hosting services (5)

Data compiled by Doug Williams keyword research services on October 22, 2011.

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Filed under: SEO Strategies



Is the Google +1 (Plus One) Button a Ranking Signal?

Doug Williams @ 5:10 am

This blog entry was posted on October 25, 2011.

Most SEOs agree that the Google Algorithm is increasing its use of social signals at the page level. This has included links within Tweets and other social factors. To me it’s clear that search engines will be using social recommendations as important ranking factors.

Six months ago Google unveiled their +1 button. This allows visitors to recommend a search result or if placed on a web page, to recommend a web page. Where Bing chose to integrate Facebook’s “like” button in the search results, Google choose to do this with their own +1 button.

Google+1 buttonPlacing a +1 button on your web page or blog gives your visitors a way to make a social recommendations that could be used to influence search results. Every logged in Google user will be able see these votes and if they are in your social circle, they will also see who voted.

Google has said that using +1 results in their search algorithm was an option and they were looking at it to improve search quality.

In June of this year; SEOeffect.com ran an experiment on the SEO effects of the +1 Button. They added a +1 button to 3 pages on their site. They encouraged visitors to +1 these pages. They found a 20% increase in rankings and corresponding increases in CTR and visits for pages being plus oned. They reached the conclusion that Google was already factoring in +1 results into their search algorithm back in June.

The +1 button will affect the Click through Rate (another ranking signal). This is because others will click on search results that have been recommended by their social group.

To take advantage of Google +1, add buttons to your site and encourage visitors to +1 your content. How to add a Google plus one button.

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Filed under: SEO Strategies



5 Free Web Tools for Picking the Right Keywords

Doug Williams @ 4:10 pm

This blog entry was posted on October 10, 2011.

Picking the right keywords is the critical first step in SEO. Selecting the best phrases is part art and part science. Using the right keyword selector tools makes all the difference.

Google Keyword Tool: Use this for keyword research. The Google keyword tool allows you to find keywords based on your own keyword suggestions, a specific website or even a category. It will show the competition, global and local search volumes as well as the estimated cost per click if you were going to do a PPC campaign.

Keyword Questions: Use this to research questions people are asking. This is a free tool created by Wordtracker. Keyword Questions allows you to enter a 1-2 word phrase and comes back with questions people are actually asking along with the search volume for that question. This allows you to pose questions and then answer them that people are really searching for.

Web Analytics: Use website analytics like Google Analytics to identify which phrases your website is already attracting organic search traffic. This allows you to understand visitor behavior with things like bounce rate or time and page. This will allow you to measure the success of your SEO campaign.

SEODigger is an excellent tool for doing competitor research. SEOdigger will list out keywords that are in the top 20 results that their website is currently ranking for as well as their current search volumes. It also lists out other competitors as well as a keywords cloud.

Google Insights for Search allows you to compare search volumes of targeted core phrases for specific geographic areas, time periods and even categories. Google Insights allows you to see seasonality of a phrase or to analyze phrases down to a specific metro or state level. You can separate out web search traffic from news search.

Keyword selection takes more than the initial research to hone in on the best keywords. Use keyword research services to outsource the work for you.

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Filed under: SEO Strategies



Sub-Domain or Folder… Which is better For SEO?

Doug Williams @ 7:45 am

This blog entry was posted on October 4, 2011.

How you structure your website is very important when it comes to SEO. There is a big difference how search engines treat folders and sub-domains. Should you organize your website in folders or on sub-domains? This could be for adding multi-language versions of your website, adding a store or simply adding a blog.

Subdomains and folders are two ways to organize your website. If you were placing a blog on your website, you could place it in a sub-domain such as blog.yourdomain.com. Your other option is to place it in a folder like www.yourdomain.com/blog.

A very important part of SEO is the link popularity of the website and how the link authority flows through the site. Folders allow this flow and sub-domains stop this flow. A subdomain acts very much like a separate domain or website.

Let’s suppose you add a blog to your website. If you add it to a folder on your website (www.yourdomain.com/blog), the links that a blog naturally attracts will help the link popularity of the entire website.

If instead you chose to add your blog to a separate sub-domain (blog.yourdomain.com), then the links that your blog gathers will not help the link popularity of your website. You would normally place a blog in a folder of the root website for maximum SEO benefit.

Let’s suppose your website is created in multiple languages and you want to optimize it for specific countries such as France. By placing it in a sub-domain, you can effectively isolate this version of your site. You can then do separate link building targeting focusing on French companies to get a higher relevance and better rankings in France. In this case the sub-domain strategy makes perfect sense.

Sub-domains allow you to use multiple technologies or proprietary shopping carts. Sub-domains can actually exist on two separate web servers. This is convenient when part of your website is in .NET and part in Linux PHP. This just makes SEO potentially more difficult.

Your decision should be based on how integrated you want the content and the link structure. Folders are better when your content and audience are focused and relevant to each other. Use sub-domains when you want to establish a separation between sections of your website.

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Filed under: SEO Strategies



Title Tag Best Practices

Doug Williams @ 5:06 am

This blog entry was posted on September 30, 2011.

The Title Tag describes a webpage for both search engines and for visitors. It is the single most important SEO element for page level SEO (on-page factors). Many times simply fixing Title Tags alone will improve search engine rankings for a website.

It not only appears visibly at the top of your browser, it appears in the HTML code of your website and as the main headline in the search engine results page (SERP).

A well crafted title tag will help get a top ranking and catch the attention of a searcher to begin the conversion process by inviting them to your web page. It should be an accurate, concise description of the content on the web page.

Title Tag format: Keyword 1, Keyword 2 | Company (or brand) name

Your Title Tag should be unique (not duplicated on other pages). It should contain the central topic of the web page. Words placed at the beginning of the Title Tag are given more importance than the words at the end. This is why the most important keyword phrase for a web page should be at the beginning. The company name is typically placed at the end.

An alternate approach: If you company brand is strong and people will search for you by your brand, then place the company name or brand name first and follow it with the keyword phrases.

Title Tag length: Less than 65-70 characters

This is because 70 characters is the maximum length Google will display on the SERP. Title tags can be longer, the search engines will just cut off the Title Tag and indicate that it was cut off with an ellipsis… Remember that the words placed at the beginning are given more weight by the search engines so longer tags don’t make sense. 65-70 characters usually gives you room for two keyword phrases and the company name.

Local: If yours is a local business seeking local customers, then include city and or state. Typically people will search using the company name + location or company type + location.

Compelling: Your Title Tag will appear in the search results. Make it compelling so it will pull in more visits from the search results.

Unique: Each page should have a unique Title Tag. Duplicate titles will harm search rankings.

Repeat Keywords: For the best SEO impact the keywords in the Title Tag should be used in the page headlines (H1 tag and H2 tags). Use the keywords in the first paragraph of the body text and in a hyperlink to a relevant web page.

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Filed under: SEO Strategies



7 Tools You Can Use to Quality Check Your Website

Doug Williams @ 12:10 pm

This blog entry was posted on September 26, 2011.

These are some of my favorite online tools for evaluating and testing websites. Use these to improve your current site or to evaluate a website your designer just completed.

  1. W3C Code Validator: This is the standard code validator put out by the World Wide Web Consortium. Pages should be error free for maximum browser compatibility. Pages don’t have to be completely error free to work and even to get great rankings. My general guideline is that any page should have 25 or fewer errors.
  2. Broken Link Checkers: Scan your site to find both internal and external broken links. Two great ones to download are Xenu Link Sleuth and Screaming Frog SEO Spider . W3C has their own online broken link checker.
  3. Spell Checker: There is nothing that spoils your professional image as fast as misspellings on your website. There are a number of spell checkers that you can use. W3C Spell Checker  will check one page URL at a time. Other services such as Spellchecker.net will spider your site and email you a report.
  4. Browser Check: Does your website render well on all the popular browsers? Browsershots.org allows you to generate a screenshot of how your site will look in over 80 browsers and browser versions. If you want to identify what the current market share is of each browser version, go to W3schools.com
  5. Mobile Emulators: There are several mobile emulators that will show how your website will render on the small screen. Opera Mini Simulator, dotMobi Emulator, iPad Emulator and the iPad Emulator
  6. Page Load Speed:  This page load speed checker tool downloads a complete web page including all objects. It shows the size of each object (images, CSS, JavaScripts, RSS, Flash and frames/iframes)., load time by object and then displays the load sequence graphically. It mimics the way a page is loaded in a web browser.
  7. SEO Website Analysis Tool:  Woorank has this free and surprisingly thorough service checks dozens of important website factors that influence SEO and displays them in a single page. This by itself can be used as a website audit report.

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Filed under: SEO Strategies



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