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The Most Common Reason for Dropped Rankings: Duplication

Jan
31
2007

By Ross Dunn, CEO, StepForth Search Engine Placement Inc.

Repeatedly my salës and consulting staff find themselves explaining that using duplicate content can and will negatively affect search engine rankings and it is heartbreaking to see clients having to rebuild rankings due to such a simple mistake. As a result, I felt it was time to write this article and hopefully dispel many misled website owners.
Why write an entire article on something as simple as duplicate content? Well probably because it is not as simple as it sounds and many website owners find themselves in the grey area of duplication; where they don’t know for sure whether they are risking rankings or not.

The following is a sectional breakdown of the most common duplicate content issues we see defined from the standpoint of a question – hopefully making this article a little easier to read. After all, I have no illusions that reading up on duplicate content rules is exciting.

Duplicate Websites

Definition: a duplicate website is a website that has many if not all of the same pages as another live website.

Note: the following questíons are based on a person who owns two websites that are duplicates.

Q: “Why is a duplicate website such a bad idea?”

A: The major search engines are constantly trying to improve the quality of their search engine results in an effort to provide the best quality content for users. When duplicate content is indexed by search engine spiders, valuable time and processing power is wasted. As a result, search engines have blocked sites that used duplicate content from their database, ultimately favouring the site that either had the content first, or I believe, the one site that has the greater online history. In addition, the major search engines have a bad taste after dealing with so much duplicate content created by spammers over the past several years. As a result, posting a duplicate website is an offense that can quite literally blacklist a domain; there are few things the search engine properties dislike more than being gamed by spammers.

Q: “What should I do with my duplicate website then? Just delete it?”

A: Deleting the site is the only option unless you want to create an entirely new website with unique content and a unique purpose. That said, by deleting the website you can still ensure the effort you put into promoting the old site does not go to waste by pointing the domain to your new website’s domain using a 301 redirect. A 301 is a term used to describe a server protocol which Google and other search engines will ‘see’ when they visit the old site. The protocol essentially says that your content from the old site can be found on the new site and that this is a permanent forwarding of all traffíc. 301 redirects are by far the best way to minimize your losses from shutting down a website that just might have traffíc or inbound links.

Q: “Which website should I shut down? Is there anything I should consider first?”

A: Yes, it is very important that you choose the website that has the most backlinks and has been online the longest. The reason I say this is that Google tends to favour entrenched websites; they have been around a while, are well backlinked and overall appear to have a positive history.

Whatever your decision is, it is vital you understand switching a website to a new domain is a dangerous step. This is because of Google’s famed ‘sandbox’. The ‘sandbox’ is really only an overused turn of phrase that represents a portion of the Google algorithm which considers the age of the domain as a signifier of trust. Generally, new websites will require 6 months to a year before substantial rankings are evident; this is kind of a right of passage that Google appears to be enforcing on the average website. Sites that are obviously popular and quickly gain a load of legitímate link popularity will easily avoid the sandbox (because Google can not afford to miss a ‘great’ website) but this is not the common scenario.

Q: “Will using a 301 redirect pass on the benefit of the deleted site’s link popularity?”

A: Link popularity is passed onto the other website when a 301 is used but how much this pass-over will benefit the website seems to fluctuate on a case-by-case basis. Usually the fluctuation is only present when popularity from one domain is passed to another with differing content/topic. In this case, since the link popularity is being redirected to an identical website I expect the benefit to be virtually lossless.

Duplicate Content

Definition: content appearing within a website that is duplicated elsewhere on the same website or elsewhere on the Internet.

Q: “I need content for my website; can I just copy content from industry journals and benefit from that quality content?”

A: No, aside from the copyright concerns of using content that is not yours, your rankings (if they exist) would suffer because it is highly likely the major search engines would detect the duplicate content. As a result, the page that you create may get flagged as duplicated and it would be ignored at the very least. The page could even devalue your site’s overall credibility. Credibility is a critical component of Google’s algorithm so sites with less credibility tend to have a harder time staying (‘sticking’ if you will) in a particular ranking.

Q: “I use a content management system to manage my site and it uses a particular set of templates. These templates have some duplicate content within them and they are spread all throughout my website. Should I be worried?”

A: No, in most cases the amount of duplicate content used within a template in a content management system (CMS) is negligible. If, however, you have a large number of pages created using a page where 90% of the text is duplicated and only 10% is unique you do have a reason to make some changes. In my opinion it is crucial that every page within a website be composed mostly of unique content with the exception of catalogues and shopping carts where text simply has to be reused over and over.

Whatever your situation make certain that your site contains a large number of pages composed of unique content that has been well optimized by yourself or your search engine optimizer (SEO).

Q: “How much of my page should be unique? Is there a standard ratio or percentage you can share?”

A: There is no industry standard formula but, if I had to state a percentage, I would say a minimum of 70% of the page should be completely unique to thwart any concerns of duplication. You may be able to get away with less than 70% unique content, but I would suggest this is playing with fire. Either way, this statistic is moot since every page you create needs to be created with the intention to provide a powerful resource; after all search engines are only a small part of the plan – you do need visitors to like what they see and büy your product or service!

Q: “My blog currently has many different ways to find content and depending on the route a visitor may find the page is actually shown on a different URL (i.e. archives, search by label, etc.). In this scenario am I not in danger of a duplicate content penalty?”

A: Yes and no. Yes that this is duplicated content but no you are not likely to be penalized by this simply because a majority of blogs offër these additional methods of finding content so it would be detrimental if search engines penalized this application right now. That said, search engines do have to have some way to handle this duplicate content. I expect when Google (picking the most advanced search engine) finds duplicate blog postings on a website its algorithm chooses the most popular posting as the primary page to provide in its ranking results. In other words, the posting URL that has the most number of inbound links or was spidered first will be the page that attains rankings.

For those unfamiliar with blogs, the following is an example how a blog can easily have 3 duplications of a single article. In this scenario, I recently posted an article on our SEO Blog called “SEO Answers #12″. Upon posting this article was immediately posted in 3 places: once on the home page (because it is the latest article), second on its own page for permanent linking purposes, and third within the label “Local Search a topic related to this posting.

1) SEO blog home URL: http://news.stepforth.com
2) Permalink URL: http://news.stepforth.com/blog/2007/01/seo-answers-12-my-couk-domain-lost.php
3) “Local Search” label URL: http://news.stepforth.com/blog/labels/Local%20Search.php

In the future I expect blog systems will offër an option to specifically add a NO INDEX tag to the top of posts located within the labelled search section. After all, every additional label I added to this article created a duplicate version which is something that I expect search engines will soon either ignore or require a NO INDEX tag.

Conclusion

I am sure I didn’t cover every question regarding duplicate content, but I am fairly certain I touched on the most common questíons we see at StepForth. If you would like to submit a duplicate content question or any other SEO question please go to our submission page and I will endeavour to respond as soon as possible; likely in an article format or SEO blog posting.

About The Author
Ross Dunn is the founder and CEO of StepForth Search Engine Placement Inc. Based in Victoria, BC, Canada, StepForth has provided professional search engine placement and management services since 1997. Ross is a search engine optimization and placement expert with over 9 years of marketing experience and is a Certified Internet Marketing and Business Strategist (CIMBS). Blending his experience in the art of web design and search engine optimization, Ross offers a unique and informed perspective on obtaining top search engine placements. Ross can be reached at ross@stepforth.com.

Posted in Law!, SEO | Comments Off

Is Your Business Website Old School – 5 Reasons To Redesign With CSS

Jan
30
2007

By Linda Bustos

Many small business owners have a hard time seeing the value of a website redesign. They believe “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” And this is understandable. Unless you are eating, breathing and sleeping technology and staying up to date with the moving target of Internet business, you’re not likely to know intuitively if your site needs a redesign.
And as a small business owner, you may be concerned about the up-front costs of a website redesign. But once you understand how a redesign can help you drive traffíc to your site, convert more users and even save monëy, you’ll feel more positive about making the ínvestment in your business.

Old School Web Design – Tables-Based HTML

Not long ago, fax machines were the best way to deliver business documents fast. But now it’s so easy to scan and email documents, and even capture digital signatures through email, the fax machine is quickly going the way of the typewriter. With email, recipients can choose to read and archive the message online, or print it out themselves on their own desktop printer. No need for individual telephone lines for the fax machine, taking up desk space, replacing toner, uncurling fax paper and listening to screeching fax machine tones!

Tables-based HTML websites are like the fax machine. At one time tables were the best way to render information on the Web. But like curled paper and fading ink, tables left something to be desired. Designers were constrained by tables that allowed data to be rendered only in tabular förm. The clean, professional and creative layouts today’s best designers create with Cascading Style Sheets could nevër be achieved with tables-based HTML.

New School Web Design – Cascading Style Sheets

Cascading Style Sheets separate the presentation elements of a website (code) from its content (words). CSS allows web designers and developers to format the layout and style (fonts, spacing, text size, colors and so on) of multiple Web pages using one file, rather than entering the code to each individual page. Making changes to styles and layouts is much quicker and easier with CSS as well, as updating one file “cascades” the changes to every page on the site. There is less room for error, and the website maintains a professional consistency.

But web designers and developers are not the only ones who benefit from CSS. You as a business owner benefit even more. How?

5 Solid Reasons To Redesign Your Website With CSS

1. Branding and Aesthetics

Consumer behavior experts tell us that, presented with many similar product or service options, and little prior knowledge and experience with these brands or companies, consumers will rely on mental shortcuts to make purchase decisions. The way your website looks compared to your competitors has a large influence on how a visitor perceives your company’s professionalism and goodwill. If your website looks modern, crisp and clean, you leave a positive impression on your visitors about your company.

2. Better Usability

CSS also reduces the amount of HTML code a website requires. Tables and extra tags for fonts and colors cause pages to load slowly. The longer it takes for your page to load, the more likely a visitor will hit the back button. Even though the majority of people use a broadband connection, many are still using dialup. And others may be using a high speed wireless network which, depending on how many others are sharing the same wireless channel, may experience fast or slow connections.

3. Accessibility

Rapid advances in wireless communications have made it easy to surf the ‘Net using PDA’s and cell phones. Tabular page layouts simply don’t display properly on small screens. A business that wants to be accessible to anyone, anywhere now and in the future needs to have a website that can be viewed on mobile devices.

CSS design also greatly improves the user experience for the visually impaired, as they cause fewer problems for screen readers and Braille programs.

4. Search Engine Benefits

It has been estimated that up to 80% of all purchases online begin with a search engine. And an entire industry is dedicated to helping businesses rank highly for specific search terms to take advantage of the power of search engines.

Although the relevance of a webpage to a search term is determined by HTML elements like title tags and heading tags, content is still “king” because visitors are looking for content, not code. When you have a high code-to-content ratio, your keyword density (the relative frequency of your targeted keywords on your page) is diluted by HTML instructions for how tables, fonts, styles and colors should be rendered. With CSS, there are no tables, and formatting information is contained in one style sheet. So search engines see more keywords and less code.

Search engines are more and are more likely to index deeper pages of your site and send you more referral traffíc.

5. Bandwidth

Cascading Style Sheets can save you monëy and íncrease the number of eyeballs that see your page in other ways. “Bandwidth” refers to how much website traffíc your hostíng company will allow you to have each month. Because every time a user lands on your site, he or she must load your pages in his or her browser. Not only visitors, but search engine spiders consume bandwidth too. The more code your pages have, the more bandwidth you use.

If you exceed your bandwidth usage, your site will be suspended until you buy more bandwidth or reach end of the month. Suppose your site receives a sudden surge of traffíc shortly after a popular magazine features your company. That would be the worst possible time for your website to go offline! CSS makes for a more efficient use of bandwidth, and reduces the chances of such problems.

So Are Tables Taboo?

Absolutely not. There are bona fide reasons to use tables to display certain types of content. The beauty about CSS is that you still can use tables when you need to, but you don’t need to use tables for everything which significantly reduces your “code load.”

How Do I Know If I’m Already Using CSS?

A quick test to see if your site is using CSS is to load your website in your browser (any page will do). Right clíck anywhere in the window, and a menu box will appear. Clíck “View Page Source.” You should see keywords like rel=”stylesheet” or type=”text/css” near the top of the window that pops up to view your source code.

If you’re already using CSS, there may be other ways your business could benefit from a website redesign. Driving traffíc, improving the customer experience, making your website more accessible to users and saving time and monëy on webmaster updates make it well worth the ínvestment. Whether you choose to redesign now or in the future, make sure that your web designer and developer are skilled in CSS.

About The Author
Linda Bustos is the Marketing Director for Image X Media, a Vancouver web design and Internet Marketing firm. She also blogs about social media and business.

Posted in CSS, Structure, Techniques | 1 Comment »

Generate Ad Revenue With Your Website

Jan
29
2007

If you have a website that provides free information or a free service, you may be sitting on a potential goldmine. It is possible to generate ad revenue with any website, even if it is just a blog or a message board. For our purposes here, we will review each of the different income streams available to you as a webmaster so that you can formulate a plan to turn your free service into a money making business.

The simplest way to get some ads running on your website is by displaying banners or text links for affiliate programs, strategically placed on your webpage where people will see the advertisements and subsequently click on them.

An affiliate program is a program whereby you, the affiliate, display a banner or text link advertising the products or services of another business. If someone clicks on that ad and then purchases something from that other company, you will be paid a commission on that sale.

There are thousands of affiliate programs available to you. Major corporations such as Amazon and Barnes and Noble have affiliate opportunities, as do smaller online businesses such as insurance quoting websites and internet dating services.

I recommend that you perform a search on Google for affiliate programs and sign up for those that either somehow relate to the topics being discussed on your website or are enticing enough that people will click on the banner ad. You should rotate different banners on to your website each day of the week, and then stick with those that work best. Try several different affiliate programs and see what works.

Another way you can make money with your site is by displaying pay-per-click (PPC) advertisements on your webpage. You need to sign up with companies that deliver PPC ads. Nextag has a pay-per-click program, as do several ad delivery services such as Adrevolver. Google Adsense is probably the most popular pay-per-click advertisement delivery service on the internet, and you should sign up with them as well.

It is also possible to make some significant ad revenue from your site by actually charging companies a fee to advertise on your website. This is easier said than done; your website has to establish itself as receiving a lot of high quality traffic.

If you have a website that gets thousands of hits per day, you need to have statistics that prove it so that you can justify someone paying a fee to advertise on your website. The more popular your site is, the more you can charge. Only if your website receives a ton of traffic will you be able to charge other websites a fee to display their banner on your site.

The best way to make money online is with a dealer program, which is a little different from an affiliate program. With a dealer program, you actually add a webpage to your own site that is tailored to fit the look and feel of your own website, rather than simply displaying an affiliate banner.

With a dealer program, the products or services of the other company are actually sold directly through your own website, so that you are in total control of the sale. Meanwhile, the parent company does all the order processing and shipping, etc. You can just sit back and collect your money.

I hope this information has been helpful. Sometimes, it is easier to make money with a website that provides nothing but free information than it is with an actual business. However, you will need to run ads for products or services that somehow relate to the subject matter of your site.

If your site provides information about obtaining a mortgage, then your site should have affiliate banners or links to mortgage quoting services. There needs to be a relationship between between what kind of information your site provides and what you are advertising. Doing this will enable you to turn your free website into a real business.

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About the Author: Jim Pretin is the owner of http://www.forms4free.com, a service that helps programmers make free HTML forms.

Posted in Internet Marketing | Comments Off

Internet Marketing for 2007 – Affordable Efficiency

Jan
26
2007

If you pay attention to online marketing, you are constantly inundated with people who sell the so-called “secrets” to brand new marketing techniques on the Internet. Each and every day you are bombarded with new e-books, teleseminars and software alleging to hold the “secrets” of blog and ping, or the “secrets” of the death of Google Adsense or the “secrets” of content is king for Search Engines.

However, the truth of the matter in nearly all cases is that most of these products are expensive and endorsed solely by the gurus who get paid for every item they sell. Real testimonials are rare and the pressure you are under to purchase these products is enormous.

Let’s make a two-fold pact for 2007:

One – We will not be swept away by all the hype on the Internet.

Two – We will primarily use tried and tested, successful Internet marketing techniques that won’t cost us a fortune to use.

To help you off to the right start in launching your own cost-effective marketing strategy for 2007, I want to share some valuable ideas that I’ve used to grow my own business. These marketing concepts are genuinely affordable, truly simple to implement and have honestly helped me gain generous exposure, which has resulted in new clients and increased sales. My top fifteen favorite effective and inexpensive Internet marketing tactics are listed below:

1. Article submissions to online e-zines, directories and newsgroups, and off-line magazines and newspapers (don’t worry about the duplicate content issues … just get as many one-way links to your site as possible to boost your Search Engine ranking). Writing and submitting free reprint articles is a resourceful way to generate increased exposure and will drive traffic to your web site.

2. Create and market your own affiliate program using low cost tools on the Internet, which incidentally, there are numerous tools on the web that are very affordable. Offer affiliates your articles for reprint and allow them to use their affiliate link in your byline. But don’t stop there … submit your program to affiliate program directories so that prospects can find it readily.

3. Write and submit press releases to both paid and free press release sites. Let your target audience know about your company, new products and services you’re offering and also about special company events or promotions. If you’re concerned that perhaps your writing talents are a bit rough yet, hire a ghostwriter to draft your release for you. And yes, there are many talented, professional writers who work on a freelance basis and accept both one-time and ongoing projects at an affordable rate.

4. Register with and actively participate in forums that target your ideal client or customer. Check in at least once a week and offer helpful advice to other forum participants seeking assistance and information in your area of expertise. Be sure to craft and use a compelling signature that will get added to your posts. With just a small investment of your time, you can establish yourself as an expert within your industry, which can result in generous exposure.

5. Offer legitimate comments and articles to blog owners who cover your topic area and target your audience. Create solid and productive relationships, offering to make blog postings for them in return for a byline with a live link to your site. The fact that you’re willing to offer blog owners something of value upfront will make them eager to reciprocate.

6. List your teleseminars, e-zines, live events and books on Craigslist in cities and sections that have appeal for your target audience. Sign-in and repost your listings on a regular basis to keep them current.

7. Research opportunities to be a guest on teleseminars, podcasts and webinars. You’ll be pleasantly surprised at the number of opportunities available if you simply take the time to look for them. Keep a list of questions and potential topics ready for your pitch. Keep track of your guest appearances and promote them on your web site.

8. Actively participate in online social networks such as MySpace, Ryze and LinkedIn. Write compelling copy for your profile and be sure to have a good picture and logo to add where permitted. Including your photo allows people to feel a connection to you, simply because they can put a face to your name.

9. Join and participate in associations and non-profits that attract your perfect client. Find relevant associations by searching for your keyword + association in search engines and visit the American Society of Association Executives. Involvement in organizations such as this, as well as local civic organizations, offers valuable networking opportunities.

10. Place paid advertisements in e-zines that target your audience. If possible, purchase the advertisement when the publisher is running one of your articles in order to gain maximum exposure with this strategy. There are three types of common advertisements available in e-zines: classified, sponsor and solo. Chose the most inexpensive position with the greatest exposure.

11. Write or hire a ghostwriter to create a short e-course that you can give away so long as people provide you with their e-mail address. Make certain that your e-course is relevant to your target audience and not full of fluff and fillers. By offering solid value in your e-course, you can benefit from readers who take notice of your other work/articles and will often seek out additional work you’ve written. Be sure to include a privacy policy and notify those who give you their e-mail address that they will be subscribed to your e-zine.

12. Downloadable white papers are usually longer versions of articles and often include graphics and links to resources. As with your e-course require people who want the white paper to register for your e-zine. Encourage people to send the registration link to their colleagues, friends and family who share a similar interest.

13. Create your own blog, update at least every other day and include links to your web sites. Ping blog directories and Search Engines every time you make a post for verification that your blog is turning up results.

14. Sponsor contests and submit them to contest directories. Give away a book a month or an hour of your services and encourage people to register for your e-zine. If your business involves selling a product rather than a service, you can offer specific products for prizes with contest entry automatic when people signup for your e-zine. Be creative with your contests, but always make the winning prize something of value that is relevant to your business.

15. Testimonials and referrals can be obtained from the same people. Offer to include a picture with testimonials and a live link to your client’s web site. This strategy is a win-win marketing tactic for both you and your client. No satisfied client would refuse such an opportunity! Instead of e-mailing referrals send a professionally written letter via postal mail with some of your most popular articles and invite recipients to call you for a free fifteen minute consultation.

There are dozens of free marketing techniques in the online and off-line world. These fifteen are not the only ones I use but they are my absolute favorites and have been used successfully by thousands of people, including Internet gurus. Don’t fall for every new marketing scheme; instead, spend your money selectively on marketing products. If you are pressed for time hire a virtual assistant to handle the free and low cost marketing techniques listed here and carve out some time in your schedule every month to research and evaluate new techniques.

Happy Marketing!

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About the Author: Bonnie Jo Davis is an experienced and successful article marketer and author who built her entire business marketing with articles. Hire her to teach you how to exploit the power of article marketing or join her affiliate program by visiting http://www.WriteYourWayToProfit.com.

Posted in Internet Marketing | Comments Off

Organic SEO – What Does it Really Mean?

Jan
25
2007

When people refer to “organic SEO” (search engine optimization), they almost always use it as a blanket term to describe the unpaid, algorithm-driven results of any particular engine. However, a sophisticated search engine optimization company will often take the meaning of “organic” one step further. To such companies, the description of “organic SEO” is not to limited what shows up in the “natural” search engine results – it includes the methodologies used to achieve such rankings.

There’s more than one way to skin a cat (although I must admit that I don’t know the one way that everyone else presumably knows), and the same is true for achieving natural search engine results. A search engine optimization company usually falls into one of two camps. A “White Hat” search engine optimization company will use a largely content-based approach and will not violate the terms of service of the major search engines. A “Black Hat” search engine optimization company will use a largely technology driven approach and often ignore the terms of service. Neither approach is invalid (as I have said many times before, there is nothing illegal about violating a search engine’s terms of service), and both can achieve high rankings. But a search engine optimization company that takes the word “organic” literally believes that the “Black Hat” approach is anything but “organic SEO.”

Merriam Webster defines organic, in part, as “having the characteristics of an organism: developing in the manner of a living plant or animal.” To a search engine optimization company, this definition accurately describes the approach taken to achieve long-lasting results in the “natural” section of search engines.

Below are just a few comparisons of the different approaches taken by the two types of SEO firms. I refer to the two approaches as “organic SEO” and “artificial SEO” for the sake of clarity.

Content vs. Technical Loopholes

There’s an “old” saying in the SEO industry that “content is king.” This is not necessarily true. In my experience, good content is king. Study after study has shown that when people use search engines, they are primarily seeking one thing: information. They are not seeking to be impressed by fancy flash sites. They are not looking for a virtual piece of art. A search engine optimization company that is truly practicing “organic SEO” recognizes this fact and will refuse SEO work when prospects insist that content addition is not an option. “Artificial SEO” firms, which embrace a technical loophole philosophy, will allow a company to leave its website exactly as it is, because the work that such firms do is largely technical and is designed to trick the engine into showing content that it would not otherwise. Certainly, there are acceptable (from the engine’s standpoint) technical aspects that any good search engine optimization company will use, such as relevant page titles and meta tags. But there are many more unacceptable technical methodologies than acceptable ones, including cloaking, redirects, multiple sites, keyphrase stuffing, hidden links, and numerous others. A company practicing “organic SEO” will avoid these.

Attracting Links vs. Linking Schemes

As any search engine optimization company knows, inbound links are critical to the success of an “organic SEO” campaign. But there are different ways to go about it. Firms that practice true “organic SEO” will look at the website itself and say “How can we make this site something that other sites would want to link to?” A search engine optimization company using “artificial SEO” will ask, “How can I get links pointing to this site without adding anything of value to it?” The latter approach usually leads to reciprocal linking schemes, link farms, the purchase of text links, and more – anything save for making changes to the website that entice others to link to the site without the link being reciprocated, without paying the website owner, or without asking “pretty please.”

There is a stark contrast between “organic SEO” and “artificial SEO.” Of course, any decent search engine optimization company will make certain that a site is listed in all the popular directories, such as the Yahoo Directory, the Open Directory Project, and Business.com. A good search engine optimization company will also continually seek any industry specific directories where your site should be listed. But truly using “organic SEO” means evolving your site into something that holds actual value to your prospects. In my opinion, this is much more beneficial in the long run than the artificial methodology of trying to garner incoming links that the site does not truly deserve.

Creating a Valuable Resource vs. Algorithm Chasing

Search engines change algorithms frequently, and for two reasons. One is, of course, to improve their results based upon their most recent user studies. The other, which is obviously related, is to remove sites that are ranked artificially high. Such updates raise panic in the SEO community – particularly among “artificial SEO” practitioners who have just discovered that their most recent and cherished trick no longer works (and may have gotten their clients’ sites removed from the engines altogether). It is not uncommon on the search engine forums to see the owner of such a search engine optimization company threatening to “sue Google” over a recent update. Not uncommon, but always amusing.

There is, with only a few exceptions, a common denominator in the websites that remain highly ranked throughout these algorithm shifts. They offer something of value to their visitors and are considered a resource for their industry. “Organic SEO” practitioners generally do not have to worry about going back and redoing work because of an algorithm shift. While an “artificial” search engine optimization company desperately tries to re-attain the rankings it lost for its clients (or to get the sites re-included in the search engine at all) because it was dependent on technical loopholes that have now been closed, “organic SEO” firms continue adding valuable content to a site, strengthening its value and bolstering its rankings.

A common argument from companies when advised by “organic SEO” practitioners to take this approach is “we aren’t trying to provide a resource for our industry – we are trying to sell products or services.” This is, in my opinion, shortsighted. Remember, you are trying to reach prospects in all stages of the buying cycle, not just the low hanging fruit ready to buy now. Let your website be their resource to learn about your industry, rather than your overpaid salesperson. Prospects are very likely to call you when they are ready to buy – after all, you’ve done so much for them already!

In addition, taking advantage of “organic SEO” to make your website an industry resource provides a tremendous natural boost to your rankings for your individual product or service pages. This means that with “organic SEO,” you’ll get the best of both worlds. You’ll reach people early in the buying cycle, educate them, and steer them toward your solution by using your website instead of your sales personnel. You will also reach the low hanging fruit because your individual product or service pages, which are intended for people who are ready to buy now, will get a significant rankings boost.

Learning from Engines vs. Learning How to Exploit Them

As I have said many times before, search engines conduct very expensive and frequent studies on what their users want to see when they enter search queries. Obviously, no company has a more vested interest in serving up the type of results that their users want than the engines themselves. “Organic SEO” firms will take the “piggyback” approach. A search engine optimization company that uses “organic SEO” will try to learn what the results of these studies were by examining the sites that figure prominently in search engine results over long periods of time. In this way, the search engine optimization company is using “organic SEO” to make the website not only better for search engines, but also for the user- presumably, the engine’s internal research has shown that these sites have what their users have consistently desired, study after study. “Artificial SEO” practitioners have no real interest in these studies- they are instead expending a great deal of energy finding the next technical loophole to exploit after their most recent one has failed.

The latter approach can make results erratic, but it also raises a larger issue – the goal of the campaign. If an “artificial” search engine optimization company finds a temporary loophole in an algorithm that brings your site to the top, but does not take the time to delve into the user experience once a user gets to the site, it will defeat the original purpose. You may get plenty of visitors, but a large percentage of these will be short-term visitors who do not find what they want on your site and back out without a second thought. The search engine optimization company did not “piggyback” on the engines’ research to learn what type of content users wanted to see when they entered their query.

“Organic” Revisited (AKA “One Step Too Far”)

A search engine optimization company that takes a true “organic SEO” approach will actually take the Merriam Webster definition literally. A good website does have the characteristics of an organism and does develop in the manner of a living plant or animal. It builds upon itself. It learns how it should behave for its own benefit. Most importantly, it establishes its territory at the top of the search engine results. And as the organism thrives, artificial machine after machine fades into obsolescence.

About the Author
Scott Buresh is the founder and CEO of Medium Blue, which was recently named the number one search engine optimization company in the world by PromotionWorld. Scott’s articles have appeared in numerous publications, including ZDNet, WebProNews, MarketingProfs, DarwinMag, SiteProNews, SEO Today, ISEDB.com, and Search Engine Guide. He was also a contributor to Building Your Business with Google For Dummies (Wiley, 2004). Medium Blue is an Atlanta search engine optimization company with local and national clients, including Boston Scientific, Cirronet, and DS Waters. Visit MediumBlue.com to request a custom SEO guarantee based on your goals and your data.

Posted in General SEO, Organic Optimisation, SEO | Comments Off

What’s Wrong With Reciprocal Linking

Jan
22
2007

By Donald Nelson (c) 2007

When the Internet was new to me, I was fascinated by following links and going to new sites. It was like an adventure. And when I had my own website the first thing that I wanted to do was to place my site’s links on other sites. I began reciprocal linking (trading links with other sites) way back then, but 11 years later things have changed and now I dread getting a “reciprocal link request” in my email inbox. I have a few pet peeves with reciprocal linking, as it is practiced today, and here they are:

1. Most of the Requests are Automated

It used to be flattering to get a link request, knowing that someone had visited your site and wanted to exchange a link. These days most of the requests are done with software and it means that no one has really visited your site. Automation in itself is not bad, but it leads to all kinds of abuses, and it prevents you from picking out the good links from the bad. Even if you have an automated directory to handle link requests, which is what I installed, you will still be swamped with tons of link requests.

2. Most Link Requests are of Extremely Low Quality

The original idea of linking was to provide your own visitors with quality sites where they could visit next. The links were provided as a resource. Today, many sites have been set up only to make monëy from Adsense and other advertising programs. In addition, driven by the need to acquire PageRank many webmasters went into a link gathering frenzy and sent requests to any and all sites whether they were related to their site or not. If a link is to be a resource to visitors of both sites, then the two sites should somehow be related and the sites should be of comparable quality. Most reciprocal link requests fail this test.

3. Links are Buried on Pages Where Human Eyes Will Nevër See Them

In addition to being a resource to your own visitors, you want to exchange links in hopes of getting some targeted traffíc back to your site. It used to be easier; a webmaster would have a site with say ten different pages and one of his pages would be a “links” page. On that page he would display 30 or so links. The link to this page would be prominent in the site’s navigation menu. You could be assured of getting some meaningful traffíc if your link was placed on this kind of page.

That has all changed. People now build huge directories of hundreds of categories, stuffed with pages and pages of links. It is extremely unlikely that many visitors will drill down through all the pages and find your site in such a directory.

4. Many of the Link Requests are for “Three Way Links”

I find three-way links “creepy.” They work like this, if I link to site A, then they will give a link to my site originating from site B. This is done because Google is supposed to value one-way links more than reciprocal links. I can understand this. If someone links to you without asking you and doesn’t request a reciprocal link it means that your site is really good and this is why Google values true one-way links. However, the three-way links proposed by many people are just an attempt to trick the search engines; they are not true one-way links. Sooner or later Google will get wise to such schemes and this kind of effort will yield little benefit to the linking websites.

In addition, I dislike this kind of linking arrangement because you first have to chëck out who you are linking to, and then you are faced with checking another site that is going to link to you. Usually the site where the link to you will be placed is some kind of strange directory, a link-farm.

This is the state of reciprocal linking today. I delete most requests coming into my inbox, and do mass deleting on my automated systems as well. Now I don’t want to end on a negative note so here are a few suggestions on how to get quality incoming links without adding another reciprocal link request to the flood that is already out there:

1. Make Your Site so Cool that People Will Link to You Without Asking

People come to the Internet to solve a problem, find a solution and get information. If you can make your website a true resource and a great place where visitors can get the information that they need, then it will not go unnoticed. Even if you have a commercial e-commerce site, it is possible to add reviews, articles and information. This additional information will help your own customers and will be a resource for the entire web. Who knows? Maybe one day you will chëck your referrer logs and see that Wikipedia is linking to you. This is the goal, but it will take some work to achieve it.

2. Get Involved in Blogs and Forums that are Related to Your Field of Expertise

You can learn something from forums and blogs and you can contribute something as well. You can usually leave your url when you make a comment or a posting. If you offer solid advice, you will get a good online reputation and become known as an expert in your field. This newfound recognition as an expert, combined with links from these blogs and forums will be worth much more than low quality reciprocal links.

3. Get into Article Marketing

Article marketing means that you will write articles about your field of interest and distribute them for publication on other websites, blogs and ezines with a link back to your site. Each time your article is published on a website you get a one-way link to your site. As with most good things, this method has been pounced upon by Internet marketers and the net is flooded with a lot of low-quality articles. However, if you produce meaningful articles, you can still get a lot of benefit by distributing your articles.

4. Do Judicious Reciprocal Linking

There is nothing wrong with the idea of websites trading links. However, if you are going to do it, then only link to a site that you think is a good one or has some value for your web visitors. Make sure that your link will be placed on a page that has the potential of sending you some traffíc. Make your request with an email that clearly shows that you are a living and breathing human being and not a robot.

So, instead of adding to the spam-like flood of reciprocal link requests, go about building your own content and start using more reliable methods of increasing the number of incoming links to your site.

About The Author
Donald Nelson is a search engine optimization specialist. His SEO company A1-Optimization provides affordable search engine optimization, website copywriting, article marketing and other website promotion services.

Posted in Linking, SEO | Comments Off

How to Maintain Rankings after a Redesign

Jan
18
2007

By Scott Van Achte, Senior SEO,
StepForth Placement Inc. (c) 2007

As an SEO I am asked a number of questíons covering a broad range of SEO related topics and one question in particular is asked quite often. This question holds answers which, when ignored, could see a once well ranked website spiral into depths of the search engine rankings forever.
“I am in the process of redesigning my site, what should I look out for in order to maintain the SEO (and rankings)?”
In a word, the answer to this question is relatively straight forward, but depending on the intensity of the redesign, it can become very complex. In most cases there will be specifics for each site, and it is near impossible to cover all scenarios in a single article. With that in mind I will describe the process that would apply in most cases for a site which is currently enjoying great rankings that they do not want to disturb.

If your site has no, or very few rankings, some of this advice may be safely ignored (it really depends on a number of factors). If you currently do not have any rankings, and have very few pages indexed, or if your site has nevër been properly optimized, you may be able to undergo a redesign with minimal worry. (If you are looking for SEO Friendly Web Design, please view this article.)

However, if your site ranks very well in the search engines, or even has 1 or 2 key positions that you would not want to löse, it’s an entirely different story. The following rules assume that there are current rankings you are trying to watch out for.

Site Structure

The existing structure of your site is in most cases the single most important factor behind a safe redesign. If your structure changes, even just a little, you could easily see your rankings plummet.

With the redesign you will want to do everything in your power to maintain your existing site structure and page file names. The second you move or rename a file you risk losing valuable rankings. (Not only that, but you risk losing existing customers who may have bookmarked the now-moved page). Unless it is absolutely necessary to restructure the file hierarchy, don’t. In cases where it must take place, the use of a 301 redirect is your best friend.

The 301 redirect will save your existing customers from head aches when visiting now-moved pages by seamlessly directing them to the new location. Permanent 301′s will also help you retain your rankings – sometimes.

In theory, when you move a page, the 301 will tell the search engines “Hey, this page moved” and the search engines will re-assign credít. Existing rankings will eventually be transferred over to the new location along with any credít from inbound links.

It is important to note that the 301 is not a wild card that you can play to trump any drop in rankings. In principle this is the effect the 301 should have, although credít is not always transferred and when it is, it is sometimes many months down the road. It is certainly in the best interest of the site owner to not require this approach in the first place. If your redesign can maintain the existing site structure and file names your site will be in much better shape.

Advanced sites are another story all together. If your site suffers from obese URL strings loaded with extraneous characters, bizarre paths, session ids, etc. you may be in better shape to change your URL’s to something much cleaner. For example, www.domain.com/product/model/color is much more valuable than www.domain.com/product.cfm?item=productid&model=abc&c=white . Long URL’s like this can usually be processed by the search engines, indexed, and ranked, however cleaning them up offers a better chance of rankings, a cleaner impression to your site user, and an opportuníty to incorporate some potential target phrases.

Change in site structure can also include your domain name. If your domain name is the only change you make to your site, the above rule still applies. Even when proper 301 redirects are in place, you can expect to see your rankings drop significantly if not entirely. The 301 should help to reduce the down time, but it is not uncommon to see a sites rankings slip considerably, sometimes indefinitely with a domain change. Changing your domain name can be a complete rankings killer.

If you have implemented the new site to include a new site structure, a valuable tool combination is an XML sitemap combined with an HTML sitemap. For sites with current rankings many will have these two items already in place, but if you don’t, they can be your best friend. This is one more way to help Google index the new location of your site pages to ensure an easy and faster recovery from the change.

Be Safe! Even if you move all your files around and implement the appropriate 301 redirects and everything looks all nice and perfect, ensure that you also have a 404 redirect in place. Either direct “page not found” traffíc to a custom 404 error page, or to your site’s home page. Displaying to a potential client (or search engine for that matter) a 404 error can be tragic. Customers and search engines can löse confidence in your site. The custom 404 page is your best bet for retaining their attention.

5. Your Link Structure Should Be Easy for Search Engines to Follow

Navigation

Undoubtedly, navigation is one of the most important aspects of your site contributing to positive site rankings. Drastic changes in the site’s navigation can be fatal to your existing rankings.

Flash

With newer design applications and technologies available these days more and more webmasters are incorporating Flash into their designs. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but if used incorrectly it can destroy your rankings. Flash has incredible benefits with site aesthetics. The possibilities for phenomenal design are endless, but it is not search friendly and really, search engines do not like Flash one bit. If you are thinking of introducing an entirely Flash based site to replace your existing one, there is only one circumstance where I would say go for it – if you don’t care about your search engine rankings. (Actually, there is also another exception here. If your site is a very high level authority site, with thousands, if not millíons of inbound links, you just may be safe to do whatever you want without jeopardizing your sites rankings).
If introducing a new Flash based site is essential to your master plan, you would be best to offër users, and search engines, a non-flash version of your site.

The best middle ground between Flash developers and SEOs is to use “spot-Flash”. Incorporate pieces of Flash into the html based site. This will allow the search engines all the content they require, while leaving the aesthetics in place for your visitors. This said, your new design should not utilize Flash as the exclusive means of site navigation. In order to retain your existing rankings, you are best to retain the existing means of site navigation. In most cases your optimized site will have some form of textual based navigation. This is here for a reason. While spiders are fully capable of following image based links, as well as a number of dropdown menus, basic text links offër the most ‘bang for your buck’. Basic text links provide an easy path for spiders while also helping with relevant contextualization. The relevance of the link anchor text passes along to the destination page, and along with this, keyphrase value.

Image Links

The major search engines really have no problems following links contained within images. The problem here is adding relevance to the link. Alt tags help, but the best way to link to main pages is through standard text links. The text helps add key phrase relevance to the linked page. If your current site utilizes text links, ensure that they are carried over to the new design. Even if the new site switches over to image based navigation, be sure to include the text based links somewhere on the page.

Content Management Systems

Many new sites today are utilizing CMS for ease of site updates and new content additions, but many of these systems can destroy your rankings. If you decide to make the switch to a CMS you need to ensure that changed URL’s are properly covered with 301 redirects. Where at all possible retain your existing URL paths. Many Content Management Systems create a site structure with very unfriendly URLs that contain a number of extraneous characters. Do your best to find a system that will offër clean simple URL strings with minimal extra characters. Try to find a system that will still allow you to edit all aspects of a given page. Can each page have unique title and meta tags? Can you adjust alt tags? A good search engine friendly CMS is monëy well spent, especially if you have existing rankings you wish to maintain.

Content

Chances are if you are redesigning the look of your site, the majority of the content will not be changing. If this is the case ensure that all textual content makes it over to the new site, as it is most likely playing a significant role in your existing rankings. Changing up your content significantly can cause a drop in rankings if not done properly.

If your new site will contain entirely fresh textual content you will want to ensure that keyword densities and focus remain as close as possible to the old copy. Be sure to keep items such as mid-sentence (inline) text links (especially if they link to internal pages on your own site), heading tags, and keyword placement within the top portions of the new site.

If your SEO has implemented text above the header image (often referred to as Search Engine text, or SE text), be sure to keep it in place also. This text was probably placed there to ensure that the search engines saw relevant content immediately when visiting the page, and there is a strong chance this text is contributing to your positive rankings.

Meta / Title Tags

Be sure to copy over your title tag, meta keyword tag, and description tag from each page to the new version. The title tag is especially important as there is still significant value placed here. You want to ensure that each page retains its old, optimized title tag.

The description meta tag is also important to carry over to the new design. The description tags do still carry some weíght, and also can have an influence on the copy used in the search engine listing. Be sure not to löse these tags.

The meta keyword tag can really go either way. While these days it provides little to no value, if it is optimized and unique for each page, you may as well carry it over. It will provide some value for some of the smaller engines, but really have next to no impact on Google, Yahoo and MSN. Since you’ll be transferring the description tag over anyways, it’s all part of the same cut and paste action to transfer the keyword tag also. If you are switching the entire back end system, and copying over the keyword tag will provide you with an extensive amount of extra work, then you are most likely safe to leave it out.

Alt Tags

For images remaining on the site be sure to keep the optimized alt tags in place. In cases where header images and image based navigation is being completely updated be sure to follow the same guide set with the alt tags in the original design. Wherever it makes sense, be sure to have the same alt tags copied over to the replacement images. These alt tags do have some value in your search engine rankings, and removing them entirely could cause a ranking decline.

Summary

If your website has rankings in the major search engines, chances are you have spent good monëy, time, or both on making this happen. This is not something that you want to simply throw away for a newer, fancier looking site. By incorporating the above items into your new design you will stand the best chance for retaining your existing rankings.

I do want to put an important caveat here. Redesigning your site, even when following all the rules, can still result in your site being demoted. You may still find your rankings disappear. Redesigning a ranked website is really a gamble any way you look at it. Your rankings could drop, they could skyrocket, or they could stay exactly where they are. There is no way to know for sure without moving forward.

About The Author
Scott Van Achte is the Senior SEO at StepForth Search Engine Placement. Several years ago after graduating from Camoson College with a Diploma in Computer Systems Technology, Scott joined the team at StepForth and began his SEO career. When he is not busy with work he can be found out at the golf course, fishing, or simply spending quality time with his wife Lyndsay.

Scott can be reached at scott@stepforth.com.

Posted in SEO | Comments Off

Top 10 Sins of Blog Usability

Jan
16
2007

By Linda Bustos

“Sinning” is an archery term, which literally means “to miss the mark.” If you’re blogging to establish a two-way dialogue with the world, the “mark” is the optimal reader experience. The following is a líst of ten things that can hurt your blog’s usability.

10. Sending Mixed Messages

The focus of your blog should be decided before your first post and then committed to. Random blog entries about a melee of topics might work for a personal blog read by friends and family, but is not a good approach for a serious, professional blog. The lifeblood of any blog is in its loyal subscriber base. And readers are more willing to subscribe to blogs that talk about their area of interest on a consistent basis.

If your blog’s “personality” includes the odd personal entry, create a separate category for “fun stuff,” “random” or other “personal,” and think about each post’s fit with your target audience before you publish. Or start a separate blog on that topic and cross-link your blogs.

9. Making It Hard to Subscribe

Because subscribers are such an important part of blogging success, you need to make it easy for users to sign up. Since not all users understand and use RSS feed aggregators like Feedburner and Bloglines (also called newsreaders), offër both email and RSS options. Make them very conspicuous, preferably placing them at the top of your navigation menu and above the fold.

Don’t be afraid to “ask for the subscription” at the end of each post as well. Chicklets are mini-icons that make it easy to add to feed aggregators and social bookmark sites like del.icio.us and Netvouz with one clíck. You can find more information on adding chicklets to your blog with the Chicklet Creator. If you are using free blog software and hostíng, it may not be possible to add these extra functions. So plan ahead when choosing your platform.

8. Inconsistent Posting

Now that you have a loyal fan base who are notified of every new post, don’t disappoint them with time lags between posts. Pick a posting schedule that’s realistic for your time schedule and stick to it. If you can’t think of anything to post about, blog about someone else’s post related to your topic and include a link back to that post.

Will this hurt your own blog to send subscribers away to another blog? No, because you’re still offering them something useful in lieu of you posting something. You can also leave a comment or trackback on the other blog that links back to your post which can send traffíc back to you. Bloggers often monitor their trackbacks or incoming links through Technorati, PubSub or other services. They might end up blogging about you in return.

7. No Contact Info

Some blogs can pull off the mystique of an anonymous posting. But if your website is for business, it’s hard to have a two way dialogue when you make it impossible to contact you. Transparency is fundamental to building trust on the web. And you don’t want users to mistake your reputable blog for a “splog” or spammy blog that scrapes content from other sites.

If you don’t want to advertise your email address because of spammers you can still enable comments on your posts. Yes you’ll still get spammed, that’s the reality of the Web. WordPress blogs come with Akismet anti-sp@m which does a good job at catching most sp@m. You usually have the option to moderate comments before they appear on your blog.

6. Not Moderating Comments

Allowing anyone and everyone to post whatever they want in your comments section is asking for sp@m. Not only is this annoying to your readers, but it really takes down the professionalism of your blog.

5. Excessive Advertising

It’s fine to monetize your blog or use affilíate links, as long as they are not intrusive to users and overshadow useful content. When ads appear all over the page and even in the middle of posts, the user experience suffers. Avoid contextual ads — programs that highlight words in your posts to make them look like hyperlinks, but popup an ad when they are rolled over with a mouse. Just like having items appear clickable that are not has been a usability issue, so is tricking users into clicking on ads or viewing ads when they appear to be hyperlinks.

And if your blog is very new, it’s a good idea to wait until you’ve built up a history of useful posts before running advertising.

4. Not Linking to Posts

When you’re referring to something that can be found on the Web such as a news story, another business, person or other blog post (whether on your own or someone else’s blog), allow your reader to chëck out the background info. Linking back to previous entries also builds page strength for those posts and can help you with search engine rankings. But don’t be afraid to link off your site, this generosity can help you get noticed by other bloggers. And it’s also nice to give credít where credít is due.

3. Dark Background, Light Text

What’s been a general usability rule for years certainly applies to blogs. Anything that makes your blog harder to read should be avoided. Remember, it’s harder to read online than offline. The worst culprits for eyestrain are white text on a black background, low contrast combinations like black with red and busy patterned backgrounds. And it’s a good idea to avoid blocks of red text, even on a white background.

2. No Search Box

Returning visitors may not remember a post that’s not intuitive to find through your navigation menu or tag system. Regular readers might also want to find their own comments, so make that possible by placing a search box somewhere in your layout.

1. Hiding Navigation

Most blog software comes with a variety of lovely templates to skin your site. But not all of these templates are optimal for usability. Templates that require users to scroll right down to the bottom of the blog to find navigation are not the best choice. Stick to conventional left column or right column navigation.

One of social media’s best gifts to the World Wide Web is the ability to “tag” posts by subject/content and automatically create navigation categories. Users can easily browse by subject, and hone in on all your posts related to a specific topic or microtopic. This also helps users find you on blog portals like Technorati.

You also have the option of displaying calendars, archives and tag clouds which may or may not be useful and can clutter up your page. Keep in mind that with usability and design, less is often more.

Conclusion

Taking some time to evaluate your blog, wearing the hat of your reader, can greatly improve the user experience. Considering what makes a user-friendly blog before you begin blogging helps you plan for optimal usability right from the start.

About The Author
Linda Bustos is the Marketing Director for Image X Media, a Vancouver web design and Internet marketing firm. She also writes for the Smogger Social Media Blog.

Posted in Blogging | Comments Off

The Critical Importance of Website Monitoring

Jan
15
2007

An essential element of the success of any Internet Marketing campaign is the ability to analyze the traffic to coming to your Website. A key business mantra is that if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.

The are a number of techniques that the best Internet Marketing Strategies employ to jump-start Website traffic building. These strategies include article marketing, blogging, search engine optimization and email marketing.

Luckily for the Internet offers a wealth of excellent and accessible tools for analyzing the success of each of these strategies.

Understanding what your visitors do on your site is crucial information, not to mention interesting. If your visitors proceed to purchase a product but then a large majority leave the site when they get to a specific page in the order process then you need to know about it. It could be that this page is confusing or hard to use. Fixing it could increase your sales by 200%. This is just an example; there are many reasons why you want a detailed analysis of your site visitors.

Most website hosting services offer a stats package that you can study. If you’re not sure where this is, call up your hosting service and ask them. Statistics are a vital part of tracking your marketing progress. If you don’t have access to website statistics get a package that can help you in this area. Do not get a counter that just shows how many visitors you’ve had. You’ll be missing out on vital information that can help strengthen weaknesses in your site.

A good website hosting service would offer traffic logs that provide an invaluable insight into the traffic being referred to a web site from various sources such as search engines, directories and other links.

Unfortunately traffic tracking provided by web hosting services is often in the form of raw traffic log files or other difficult to understand cryptic formats. These log files are basically text files that describe actions on the site. It is literally impossible to use the raw log files to understand what your visitors are doing. If you do not have the patience to go through these huge traffic logs, opting for a traffic-logging package would be a good idea.

Basically two options are available to you and these are: using a log analysis package or subscribing to a remotely hosted traffic logging service. A remotely hosted traffic logging service may be easy to use and is generally the cheaper option of the two. WebTrends Live and HitsLink are two good, remotely hosted, traffic-monitoring services worth considering. However, WebTrends Live is a more complicated system and is suitable for larger ecommerce websites. “SuperStats” is another recommended traffic logging service.

These services do not use your log files. Typically a small section of code is placed on any page you want to track. When the page is viewed, information is stored on the remote server and available in real time to view in charts and tables form.

Log analysis packages are typically expensive to buy and complex to set up. Apart from commercial packages there are also some free log analysis packages available, such as Analog.

A good traffic logging service would provide statistics pertaining to the following:

* How many people visit your site?

* Where are they from?

* How are visitors finding your site?

* What traffic is coming from search engines, links from other sites, and other sources?

* What keyword search phrases are they using to find your site?

* What pages are frequented the most – what information are visitors most interested in?

* How do visitors navigate within your web site?

Knowing the answers to these and other fundamental questions is essential for making informed decisions that maximize the return on investment (ROI) of your web site investment.

Did you know?

As with any marketing campaign you may run to assist your business, it is important to track the results of your Internet marketing campaign. This should be done on a continual basis so you can ensure the strategies you are utilizing are working. It can also help you to determine when a strategy is not working so you do not continue to invest time and money on a strategy which is not beneficial to your business.

The most important aspect of tracking visitors to your Website is analyzing all the statistics you get from your tracking software. The three main statistics that will show your overall progress are hits, visitors and page views. Hits are tracked when any picture or page loads from your server on to a visitor?s browser. Hits, however, can be very misleading. It is quite an irrelevant statistic for your Website.

The statistic that is probably the most important for a Website is Page Views/Visitors. This gives you a good indication of two things. First, how many people are coming to your site, and secondly how long are they staying on your site. If you have 250 visitors and 300 page views you can figure that most visitors view one page on your site and then leave. Generally, if you’re not getting 2 page views per visitor then you should consider upgrading your site’s content so your visitors will stay around longer. If you see the number of visitors you have increasing as well as the number of page views per visitor increasing then keep up the good work!

Always look for this stat as an overall barometer of how your site design is doing and if your marketing campaigns are taking hold. Also, a good stat to look for is unique visitors. Once a person visits your site they will not be added to the unique visitors? category if they visit again. This is a good way to track new visitors to your website. Page views are a good indication of how “sticky” your Website is. A good statistic to keep is Page Views divided by the number of Visitors you have. This statistic will give you a good idea if your content is interesting and if your visitors are staying on your site for a long time and surfing.

Some people are intimidated by web traffic statistics (mostly because of the sheer volume of data available), but they shouldn’t be. While there are many highly specialized statistics that can be used for more in-depth web traffic analysis, the above areas alone can provide invaluable information on your visitors and your Website performance.

Remember – this data is available for a reason. It’s up to you to use it.

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About the Author: Michael Saunders has an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He edits a site on using Tools for Traffic Analysis and maintains a site on Traffic Building Strategies.

Posted in Internet Marketing | Comments Off

Ten Tips To Clear Search Engines of Negative Press

Jan
12
2007

What do you see when you search for your company or brand name? Is there anything on the first page of the search engine results that you wouldn’t be proud to display on your home page? Consumer review sites, blogs and forums have made it easy for anyone to say whatever they want about your company, whether they be disgruntled customers or competitors who like to play dirty.

If you’re in a situation where negative publicity is front and center in search results, there are ways you can reclaim search engine real estate for your corporate identity. Though you can’t make negative results disappear from the search engine indexes entirely, the following strategies can help them slip off the first few pages of search engine results.

1. Good Old Fashioned Networking

Even if you take none of the advice following in this article, the first thing you should do is contact the webmasters of the sites in question with a polite request for removal of negative comments. There’s a good chance they’ll be willing to co-operate. Note that, even if they do remove the listing, the cached pages may remain in the search engine indexes for some time. But users who click through the search engine results will land on a page with the comments removed.

Check out some of the sites that already have something good to say about you. Send them an appreciation note, and offer them a link back from your site. You could even create a special page called “Gary’s Garage On The Web” (if that’s the name of your business) or “Press Room.”

2. Tap Into the Power of Wiki

Wiki websites allow users not only to add their own content, but also edit pages. They get their name from the Hawaiian word “wiki wiki” meaning “rapidly.” There are many wiki pages like AboutUs.org and LoveToKnow.com that you can use to create content about your company. If your company name is “notable” enough (meaning there are objective third party sites that already have pages citing facts about your company), you might also be able to create a page in Wikipedia. This is easier if your company is publicly traded.

3. Raise Your Profile

Some websites like PR.com allow you to post your company’s profile. An annual fee might be required. It’s not easy to find these sites, but you may find some opportunities by searching your competitors’ names and discovering where they are listed.

4. Wet Your Pen

Articles can help you kill three birds with one stone. Not only can articles rank for your company name, they also build valuable backlinks to your site and position you as an expert in your field. You can use your company name in the resource box at the end of an article along with a link back to your site.

Using your company name in the article body gives it a better chance of ranking well. You can research potential sites to submit your article to by searching for one of your industry keywords in a search engine like this: “car mechanics” + “submit article.” Or submit it to various article directories like Article Alley.

5. Become A Socialite

Using social bookmark sites like Netvous and Del.icio.us is an easy way to quickly create a page that ranks for your name. You can create an account for yourself that bookmarks all of your positive press, and anything interesting on your website, such as articles or videos. Make sure you use your company name in the titles of the articles (even if they are not the real titles) and in the descriptions. Although this may seem to be “spamming” the bookmarking sites, it really is not, as the purpose is to create a page that ranks for your name, and there is no ethical reason why you should not be able to create an account that keeps track of all your company’s press. You are simply choosing to make the list public for those that may be interested.

The links themselves are not given much weight by search engines, but you have an opportunity to use your company name in the titles and descriptions of your bookmarks and photos. Make sure you make good use of the tagging feature, using general keywords as these will also begin to rank for your name. For example, Gary’s Garage should tag: “Garys Garage,” “garage,” “autobody,” “mechanic,” “mechanics,” “body shop,” “car,” “auto body” and so on. When you are first starting out, the more popular tags will start appearing on pages 1-5 in Google. They will eventually drop off as Google finds and indexes your content as you get it out there on other websites.

6. Become A Lensmaster

A company blog is certain to rank well, and it’s easier than ever to create one with Squidoo.com. When you create a “lens” for your site, you can easily upload pictures and also make use of tags. Unlike other blogs, Squidoo won’t show the posting date, so your lens won’t look neglected if you ever stop posting. You can build your blog’s link popularity by submitting it to blog directories like LSBlogs and BlogHub, and linking to it from your site.

Once you’ve done that, why not drop some other lensmasters a line and exchange lensroll links (Squidoo’s answer to blogroll). This may be a tactic that is passee in search engine optimization link building, but remember that Squidoo is a community. So it’s not as much link building as networking. In my experience, Squidoo lensmasters are quite keen to cross-promote.

7. Broadcast Yourself

Do you have promo videos or other visual media about your site? Why not create a channel on ? .

8. Explore Shopping Engines

If you sell products online, consider listing them in comparison shopping sites, or “shopping engines” like Shopping.com, Bizrateor Nextag. If you are not ready to manage a new e-commerce channel for many products, you might consider listing one product in one engine to start.

9. Use Directories For Deep Links

Search engines still consider a page’s number of relevant backlinks to be a strong indicator of quality and relevance to a search term. Octopedia, WorldSiteIndex and Microsoft’s Small Business Directory are a few examples of solid directories that allow you to link to deeper pages of your own site, like your About Us page, to help raise their rankings for your company name.

10. Post An E-Help Wanted Sign

Leverage the strength of sites like Craigslist.org to post your company’s current job offerings. Make sure you use your company name first in the posting headline: “Gary’s Garage Now Hiring Junior Grease Monkeys,” for example. This will ensure the title tag for that page is optimized, which is very helpful for SEO. And make sure to describe your company in the ad, repeating your name three or four times.

Tracking Results

I strongly recommend setting up an account with Google Alerts (free) which monitors the top 50 results, or with Google Alert, a professional tracking system that will monitor the top 200 results for you for as little as $4.95/month. You will be notified daily when new references to your name have been found in Google – not only to see when your articles, profile pages, blog posts and so on get indexed, but also to keep on top of any new negative or positive references to your name outside of your own reputation management efforts.

How Long Will This Take?

Results may vary but they won’t come overnight. You will get out of your reputation management efforts what you put in. It could take anywhere from a few months to a year. Expect monitoring and tweaking your strategy to be a long-term activity. As new pages are being added daily to the Web, search results for your name can fluctuate daily, even hourly.

The danger with social media optimization for reputation management purposes is that whatever you create easily through social media sites can easily be re-created by users disgruntled with your company. Using sites like 43Things to quickly create a high ranking page using your name in the title bar for “Buy XYZ Product” can attract similar posts like “Boycott XYZ!”

Wrapping it Up

As the World Wide Web turns, you may come across new or different ways to help your cause, especially as social media sprockets keep creating new opportunities. If SEO’s not your bag, consider hiring a consulting firm skilled in copywriting and public relations. The key is to look at reputation management as a long term activity and to take advantage of all the options you have to keep the search engine results positive.

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About the Author: Linda Bustos is the Marketing Director for Image X Media, a Vancouver web design and Internet marketing firm. She also blogs about social media and business.

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