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Is Your Site Not Being Indexed By Google? Check Your Robots.txt File

Doug Williams @ 4:24 am

This blog entry was posted on March 2, 2012.

Is Google not indexing your website? You may have optimized your website and still you get no search traffic? Your robots.txt file may be to blame.

I was recently asked to check over a website that had zero pages indexed with Google, but 945 pages indexed by Bing. The domain had a website on it continuously for over ten years. A new website was built a few years back. I was asked to make recommendations to fix the problem.

The website had a number of minor SEO problems, but the big issue was the robots.txt file. The file showed:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /

The “User-agent: *” means this applies to all robots or search engine spiders. The “Disallow: /” tells the spiders that they should not visit any pages on this site.

My recommendation was to rewrite the robots.txt file to only disallow sections of the site not to be indexed.

Apparently the web developer that created the new website had added the robots.txt file and this resulted in a loss of indexed pages and a loss of rankings.

The robots.txt file is a simple text file that defines rules for spidering a site. It allows a site owner to specify which robots should crawl the site and which areas of their website should be left unspidered. A robots.txt file should only used to disallow areas of the website that you do not want spidered. An example might be:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /privatedir/
Disallow: /cgi-bin/

The above robots.txt file would instruct all bots and crawlers to not-spider the directories “privatedir” and “cgi-bin”.  The remainder of the website should be crawled and indexed.

I do find it interesting that Bing did end up indexing the website even though their Bot was advised not to. Don’t get me wrong, the site owner is delighted that Bing did index their site. This just shows that not all crawlers will follow the directions of the robots.txt.

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Filed under: SEO Strategies



How to Do a Simplified SEO Competitor Analysis

Doug Williams @ 4:59 am

This blog entry was posted on February 28, 2012.

One of the first steps in creating an effective SEO campaign is to do a competitor assessment. How does the website you will be optimizing stack up against the competition? You need to understand which SEO strategies the competition is using and how strong the SEO competition is for your targeted market niche.

Identify Competitors: List the top three offline competitors that your client goes up against on a regular basis. Who do they need to beat in the rankings race?

Next take 3-5 of the keyword phrases from your initial keyword research. Which websites repetitively come up on page one of the Google search results? Identify 3-5 of the top competitors. Some of these will likely be the same as the offline competitors. Your final comparison list should be roughly 7 websites including the website you will be optimizing.

Quickly measure 7 key factors on each competitor to develop a profile to compare against your website. Use these as a basis to develop your SEO strategies.

  1. Alexa Ranking: An indication of traffic volume going to the website. Lower is better. Use the SEOQuake tool bar to measure or go to Alexa.com.
  2. Website Age: How long has it been since Google first indexed a website on that domain? Newer domains are devalued in their ability to compete for rankings. Use the SEOQuake tool bar to measure age. This devaluation period can range from six months to two years depending on the competitiveness of the keyword phrase.
  3. Pages Indexed: How big is the website? How many pages are indexed by each of the major search engines? Larger websites tend to attract more traffic. Use the SEOQuake tool bar to see all search engines at one time. This may indicate a need for a content growth strategy.
  4. External Backlinks: The number of external links coming from outside websites. Use Majesticseo.com using the fresh index option.
  5. Referring Domains: These are unique domains that link into each website. This filters out the effect of site wide links and gives a truer picture of the link power of a website. Again use majesticseo.com using the fresh index option.
  6. Domain Authority: This is a measure of many link metrics on a 100 point scale (higher is better) meant to show a website’s ranking potential. This is a SEOmoz measure that can be found on opensitesiteexplorer.org.
  7. Current Rankings: Which keyword phrases is each website currently being ranked for? Go to keywordspy.com or spyfu.com and see.

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Filed under: SEO Strategies



The Easy 7 Step Search Engine Optimization Method

Doug Williams @ 5:01 am

This blog entry was posted on February 21, 2012.

SEO doesn’t have to be hard or complicated. This is a simple 7-step SEO method anyone can use on their website. It uses the most important principles for high quality SEO. This assumes you have already picked your keywords that you want to be found for.

  1. Title Tags: Use your most important keyword at the beginning of the Title Tag and follow it with your second most important phrase for that page. Every page should have different Title Tags and you should use keywords that are relevant to that page. Ideal length is 60-70 characters including spaces.
  2. Heading Tags: Heading tags can go from H1 to H6. H1 tags are given the most importance by Google. You will want to use only one H1 tag on each page. Place your most important keyword phrase at the beginning of the H1 tag. Example: “New Jersey Bankruptcy Attorney Can Help Erase Your Debts.”
  3. Content: Use your keyword phrases several times each in the first half of your content. Each page should have 400+ words of text. The text should be high quality and professionally written because you are writing both for the search engines and your visitors. Your writing should be clear, direct, concise, factual and detailed.
  4. Content Growth: Plan a long-term content growth strategy. Larger websites that have keyword rich content attract much more traffic than small websites. This could be adding new pages, articles or white papers. Adding a blog to your website is an excellent way to do this since each blog posting adds one new page to your website.
  5. Interlink Related Pages within your site. If you have ten pages about one topic; interlink these pages using the keywords in your hyperlinks. This reinforces the content as a keyword focused topic. Having multiple pages that have closely related semantic network of content that will yield many potential long tailed search phrases.
  6. Link Building: Get others to link to your content by publishing original and compelling articles. Links should be from relevant websites, blogs, directories and social media. Ideally the hyperlink text (anchor text) will include your keyword phrases. The best way to do this is by providing content that people will want to link to and share.
  7. Web Analytics: Use website analytics like Google Analytics to identify which phrases your website is already attracting organic search traffic. Check for visits, bounce rate and time visitors spend on your website. 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.

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SEO is Like… in 140 Characters or Less

Doug Williams @ 5:24 am

This blog entry was posted on February 17, 2012.

SEO is like smoking crack, when it’s working for you, there’s nothing else quite so good and you need more and more to satisfy you. @a1webserver

SEO is like music. The foundation hasn’t changed since the beginning, but the application of SEO evolves with time.

SEO is like gardening. You can’t plant your SEO recommendations this week and expect a rankings harvest the next. @CraigGeis

SEO Is like An iceberg, mainly hidden but with massive impact @CroudMarketing

SEO is like food. Quick, cheap SEO and has little long-term value, while healthy SEO costs more but has a better long-term effect.

SEO is like kids. A lot of work goes into it and you can’t be guaranteed of the results.

SEO is like a doctor. If you don’t follow the advice of your SEO, you’ll never have a healthy site.

SEO is like Acupuncture and Homeopathy; it works even if you don’t know how or why. @seotwittowoo

SEO is like a diet. It’s easy to know what to do. Not so easy to do it successfully. @mflcm25

SEO is like getting braces … it takes time and patience, you can’t rush it, but the results are outstanding!!! @ kissbyte

SEO is like getting in shape. There are no shortcuts to good results. @mflem25

SEO is like exercise. If you don’t keep at it, you lose the benefits of it.

SEO is like art. You can theorize about it all day long, but it’s the end result that matters.

SEO is like adding another rung to your website to get to #1 on Google. @graphicsdezine

SEO is like the Jones’s. If you are only keeping up, you’re falling behind.

SEO is like the weather. When traffic is hot everything is cool. When traffic disappears, temperatures rise.

SEO is like a video game. You want a top 10 score to show off to your friends, but you can’t be sure you’ll keep it. @rhcerff

SEO is like Highlander. There can only be one number one ranking (per keyword).

SEO is like 24 Hour news. There are lots of people giving their opinions, but very few have any solutions.

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Filed under: SEO Strategies



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



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