Bretts Marketing Bytes

Archive for the ‘Search Engine Optimization’ Category

Google is finally fighting the spam that has plagued the Google local channel for sometime. According to some experts, there are 5 new guidelines.

1. The business name on Google Maps must be your full legal business name. For example, you cannot use product descriptors such as, bulk silica gel.
2. PO Boxes do not count as physical locations.
3. A property for rent is not considered a place of business. Please create one listing for the central office that processes the rentals.
4. You must use a shared business email account if multiple users will be updating your business listing.
5. If possible, use an email account with a domain that matches your business URL. For example, if your business website is www.menssilkbowties.com, a matching email address would be you@menssilkbowties.com.

If you haven’t signed up for Google Local yet, you can do so by going to the Google Local Business Center.

Okay, I know  url Canonicalization sounds really technical and confusing, but truthfully it is an easy concept to understand. Not to mention it is very important for Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

First lets define URL Canonicalization as the process of establishing a single URL as the location of a web document. The web document being a page on your website. So what does “establishing a single URL” mean?

When it comes to SEO, search engines look at a URL with “www” in it differently than a URL that does not have “www” in it. For example, in Googles eyes, http://www.yoursite.com is a different URL than http://yoursite.com.

Why does this matter? Well mostly because of inbound links, which are very important for SEO. If you get one company who links to your site by putting in the “www” and another company who doesn’t use “www”,  your link equity will be split. Because of this you will not be driving as much link juice to your pages as you possibly could.

The idea is to generate one URL for all occasions, so no matter what they type in or link to it goes to one location. The way that you do this is  by 301 redirecting non “www” to the “www” version of the URL. Or in some cases vice versa, depending on what you want.

If your site is written in PHP you will most likely have a file called .htaccess. In this file is where you create the redirects. See below for the two scenario’s. The following code should be placed at the top of your .htaccess file. Make sure to save a copy of your current .htaccess file in the event you screw something up.

#redirect from non www to www

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} .
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.yoursite\.com [NC]
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.yoursite.com/$1 [R=301,L]

#redirect from www to non www

##www to non-www
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^yoursite\.com [nc]
RewriteRule (.*) http://yoursite.com/$1 [R=301,L]

Hope this helps you on your quest to ranking higher on the search engines.

A lot of customers who I first begin to work with get the idea that by hiring my company to do SEO work for them it is like flipping a switch and they will be ranking for highly searched keywords in a week or month or so.

Even after I make every attempt to tell them this is not the case. I don’t know how many different ways that I can say SEO doesn’t happen over night. I guess some customers just want to believe what they want to believe and they ignore what I repeat over and over. So I decided to write about it.

SEO is like growing a really nice lawn from scratch. Think about the process. First you lay the foundation soil, rake it smooth, seed it, cover with hay and water every day until it is fully grown.

This is similar to SEO. In the beginning you lay the foundation by creating the landing pages, fixing the technical issues with the site, optimize the page copy, submit  site-maps and finally link build every night.

Just like the first few weeks of watering your lawn it feels like nothing is happening. Link building is the same, you are germinating the links.  But then one day you wake up and you have a thin layer of grass or a sign that all your link building efforts are paying off.

Of course you can’t just stop watering your lawn at this point or your grass won’t grow to be full and lush. So you water it for the next few weeks, then cut it and then water it some more.

And if you want a really lush lawn you spend even more time fertilizing it and maintaining it for several months each year.

SEO is not much different. If you give up once you start seeing some results you will never have a really successful campaign. It takes time to see that first result but once you get some traction, you must nourish it and continue to build links to  help it become a healthy campaign.

In summary growing grass and SEO are really not all that different when it comes to patience, time and results. The more time and effort you put into it the better your results will be.  I hope this helps clarify the SEO process.

Keywords are at the heart of every SEO campaign. But what most people do not realize is how important their keywords choices are. Most people think that broad terms are the way to go, but niche targeted terms is where it’s at.

The idea is that niche targeted keywords will produce less traffic than broad terms, but will bring in more quality traffic, hence producing more conversions.  Below are a few examples that will help you identify niche targeted keywords.

Broad terms are for shoppers and niche terms are for buyers

1. Let’s say we have a company who makes Liquid Absorbers for Hazardous waste spills. The first broad keyword term that comes to mind is  Liquid Absorbers. This is a very broad term that could mean anything. Who knows what the searcher is looking for? A better term to target would be Hazardous waste liquid absorbers. This is a better term and will result in more conversions.
2. Let’s do another one. This time we will add a geo target. This website will help families find a nanny. The first keyword that comes to mind is the broadest term, find a nanny. But usually when someone is looking for a nanny they are in a geographic location. Let’s just say that our nanny searcher is in Boston. A better keyword to target would be find a nanny Boston. Pretty simple right?
3. Okay, one more. This time we have a website that caters to the tourist region of Niagara Falls USA.  Of course the broad term would be Niagara Falls, but a better and more niche term would be things to do in Niagara Falls. This  keyword is more relevant to the tourism industry and will produce more conversions on this site.

Summary: The whole idea is that broad keyword terms will produce a lot of traffic to your site, but niche keywords will bring in more conversions.  I hope this helps you identify the proper keywords to use in your SEO campaigns.

What is a CMS (Content Management Systems)?
A CMS is a graphical user interface that allows you to add, update and delete pages on your website. The beauty of one of these systems is that it makes it easy for even a non technical person to make quick changes to their website.

In today’s day and age it is critical to have a CMS. One of the most common mistakes that companies make when they hire a web development firm to implement a CMS is that they trust their web developer too much.

Not to put web developers down, but the problem is most of them don’t keep up with SEO on a regular basis. That is why I always say SEO is a marketing function, not a development function. I can’t tell you how many times I go to work with a company and they just had their website re-designed and I say…I can’t help you unless you get this fixed. And their response is… But I just had this done; shouldn’t my web developer have told me this?

It is unfortunate because the customer has usually spent a significant amount of money on the system at this point. But more often than not, I can’t help them. So I put together this list of important elements that every CMS should contain.  If your web developer is not providing these, walk away. If they say, oh yes, we will do that; make sure you have it in writing. Below is the list.

Read the rest of this entry »

Google is rolling out a new “under-the-hood” search technology, codenamed “Caffeine,” that could change how your company ranks in its search results.

Matt Cutts of Google says Caffeine is not intended to combat spammers like previous updates, but simply to update the foundation of the Google search infrastructure. He also notes that this update will not make Google look any different; however it may affect search engine rankings in a minor way. Unlike other algorithm updates, Google is actually giving us a preview of what our search results will look like if affected by the update.

To find out how your search rankings will be affected by cafeine click here to see the Google sandbox.

Here is what Google says

“For the last several months, a large team of Googlers has been working on a secret project: a next-generation architecture for Google’s web search,” two engineers wrote in the company’s official blog.

“It’s the first step in a process that will let us push the envelope on size, indexing speed, accuracy, comprehensiveness and other dimensions. The new infrastructure sits ‘under the hood’ of Google’s search engine, which means that most users won’t notice a difference in search results. But web developers and power searchers might notice a few differences, so we’re opening up a web developer preview to collect feedback.”

You will begin to see these changes take place over the next few weeks or months.

What is the difference between being ranked number 1 and number 2 on Google?

I often get this question when I am out on meetings talking with customers. So I decided to write a post about it. All of the data below is based on a leaked document from AOL that was posted a few years back.  Even though it is from AOL, it should reflect all of the other search engines including Google.

To figure out the difference between a number 1 listing and a number 2 listing, you have to think in click-through rates. A click-through rate is the amount of times a searcher will click on your listing from a Google search.

The information below will help you understand how much traffic you may be losing out on. Remember…Traffic = Sales.

• Ranking Number 1 receives 42.1 percent of clicks
• Ranking Number 2 receives 11.9 percent of clicks
• Ranking Number 3 receives 8.5 percent of clicks
• Ranking Number 4 receives 6.1 percent of clicks
• Ranking Number 5 receives 4.9 percent of clicks
• Ranking Number 6 receives 4.1 percent of clicks
• Ranking Number 7 receives 3.4 percent of clicks
• Ranking Number 8 receives 3.0 percent of clicks
• Ranking Number 9 receives 2.8 percent of clicks
• Ranking Number 10 receives 3.0 percent of click s

This means if you rank number 1 on Google for the term ” Niagara Falls Hotels “  and that term gets searched 100,000 times per month, you should expect roughly 42,100 clicks.

If you rank number 2 on Google for the same term, you can expect to get 11,900 clicks.

I know what you are thinking. Who cares about clicks? Well… you can’t sell to someone who isn’t clicking on your site. That just means they are not finding you at all. Imagine if you were on page 2 or even worse… page 10? You would be out of business if you were an online retailer.

Search engines are one of the first places that consumers go to when they are looking for products or services. Your company should be there. If it is not, you are losing out on making money. To find out if you are listed on page 1 of Google just type in your products or services in Google and view the results.

I help companies everyday accomplish the task of ranking on page 1 of the major search engines. If your company is not listed and you need help, contact me to set up a free one on one consultation with you or your company.

Good Luck!

Times are tough for many people. We are going through some of the worst economic times in 70 years and people are getting laid off left and right.

If you are afraid of losing your job or just want to create a future income for yourself, you should take advantage of one of the many opportunities to make money on the web.  You don’t have to be a webmaster, you simply have to be willing to learn.

So what can you do to make sure that you have an income in the event you lose your job? Start now, don’t wait until you have no income. Even if you only make a few hundred dollars at first, you can build on it over time.

Below  are some of the many opportunities to make money online.

Read the rest of this entry »

In the old days, say 2 or 3 years ago, blog commenting  used to be a great method to get links to your site. However, Google and other search engines have been telling us recently that these are really a waste of time for SEO’s due to the “no-follow” attribute tag that most blog commenting software utilizes these days.

So should you stop commenting on blogs? Well quite honestly, I still believe commenting on blogs is a great place to get links and network with other bloggers. When you build relationships with other bloggers, you increase the chances that they might link to you using the “do-follow” attribute in a future post.

Blog comments also get read by people and these people are who you want to visit your site, right? And of course, there is always the possibility that those people will click on your link, especially if it is relevant to what they are reading.

One thing that drives me crazy is comment spammers. They leave comments on my blog that don’t make any sense. Geez, at least act like you read my post and I might give you a chance. Don’t these people know that as the blog administrator, I approve these?
Read the rest of this entry »

Is this possible? Let’s break it down.

Let’s say you go after a highly searched keyword and are able to rank on the first page of Google. Let’s say that this keyword is searched 1 million times per month. Of course you are not going to convert all of that traffic, but let’s say you converted only 1%. For this example we will assume your average product sale is $10.00.

Read the rest of this entry »