Search Engine Academy of South Carolina

There has been a lot of discussion on this topic for a couple years now and we often get ask questions on just how important valid markup really is. 

Even though it is important to make sure your Web site validates mainly on a spiders ease of read your content a study done by Opera states that less than 5% of Web sites on the Web actually validate.  That leaves 95% of all sites being penalized for bad validation …that just isn’t going to happen!

So no valid validation is not one of Google’s top 200 ranking factors but it sure does make a spiders visit to your site faster if your sites code is clean and free of errors.

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We get this questions all the time from our students since Google cracked down on buying and selling links that pass page rank.

This is Googles response to that very question and the very same answer I give all our students at The Search Engine Academy of SC and Atlanta, GA.

Not all paid links violate our guidelines. Buying and selling links is a normal part of the economy of the web when done for advertising purposes, and not for manipulation of search results. Links purchased for advertising should be designated as such. This can be done in several ways, such as:

• Adding a rel=”nofollow” attribute to the <a> tag
• Redirecting the links to an intermediate page that is blocked from search engines with a robots.txt file

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If you use Firefox 3.0 or above you must install this new SEO tool. It will detail competitive data for you in a snap. Here are just a few points it gives us:

• how the on page optimization of any page looks (headings, meta description, page title)
• the keyword density of the page and popular phrases on the page
• how many links point into a page (total links, or links from external resources)
• how many links point out of a page (as well as the anchor text of these links, nofollow vs follow, internal vs external - all exportable in CSV format)

SEO Book published a great how-to-video …take the time to watch it and install it today!

• You have to be using Firefox to get this to work. If you have not yet used Firefox go download Firefox, and then come back to this page using Firefox as your web browser.
• Click Here to install the SEO for Firefox extension.

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Do you remember the time when the only thing that mattered in SEO was that you got your Web site submitted to hundreds of engines and directories? SEO was heavily reliant on Meta tags and on page factors. Now don’t get me wrong on-page factors still matter as the bases of good SEO but it takes more these days to be successful on the Internet. 

The search engines became polluted with the on-page spam and they needed to start to look at your trust from other sites so link building was a requirement. Now days those links that you get easy have disappeared from the Web, through no follow tags. More important Goggle has recently removed the recommendations to submit to directory submissions and link building from their guidelines.

These are the two guidelines that have been removed from their guidelines:

1.  Have other relevant sites link to yours

2.  Submit your site to relevant directories such as the Open Directory Project and Yahoo!, as well as other industry-specific expert sites.

That was the old face of Search Engine Optimization …the new face looks like this.

Every new link you create to your site and each additional page published makes Google smarter.  The Web is becoming a big social network and the search engines are starting to follow people.  Once you start thinking of the Web as being a big social society then you will have an advantage over your competitors who are still building one link at a time.  

So what does this all mean?

It means that the search engines especially Google wants your site to be well connected throughout the social society. 

The new face of SEO now looks like this: 

·     search engine submission

·     on page optimization

·     link building

·     and a big one on ….advertising, viral marketing, public relations & social interaction 

So to recap …on-page optimization is still very important as well as targeting the correct keywords with your keyword research and the structure of your site.  But as you continue to build your sites visibility on the Web you need to keep in mind the social interaction such as blogs, bookmarking, PPC advertising and belonging to on-line communities

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If you are trying to stay ahead of the game and including a blog on your Web site and using WordPress to process that Blog, Google is on your side!

Google just announced that they now are helping Web site owners keep control of hacks made to their Web sites.

They just released that there’s been a recent trend of spammers hacking websites, and most of the time that happens because the webmaster or site owner didn’t update a piece of software that runs their website. If you think you can install a piece of software on the web in 2008 and run it forever without upgrading, I’m sorry to say that your website will be at much higher risk of getting hacked.

If you log in to the webmaster console and we think your website is running WordPress 2.1.1, you’ll soon see a message that looks like this:

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While Google has condemned buying and selling links that pass PageRank, they’ve encouraged listing in paid directories like Yahoo for years. It seems that era may have come to an end.

They have updated their guidelines concerning linking to directories.

Once your Web site was ready they used to encourage us to: 

*  Have other relevant sites link to yours. 
* Submit it to Google http://www.google.com/addurl.html. 
* Submit a Sitemap as part of our Google Webmaster Tools. Google uses your Sitemap to learn about the structure of your site and to increase our coverage of your web pages. 
* Make sure that all the sites that should know about your pages are aware that your site is online. 
* Submit your site to relevant directories such as the Open Directory Project and Yahoo!, as well as to other industry-specific expert sites.

They have updated the guidelines to encourage us to follow these steps when your site is ready:

* Submit it to Google at http://www.google.com/addurl.html. 
* Submit a Sitemap using Google Webmaster Tools. Google uses your Sitemap to learn about the structure of your site and to increase our coverage of your webpages. 
* Make sure all the sites that should know about your pages are aware your site is online.

So what does this really mean to us?  It was asked of one of Google Techs and his response was this:

This line was removed because we feel that you should not “force” other sites to link to yours. Obviously it’s good that sites link to each other, it’s fine to encourage that on your sites to link out and to make it easy for them to link to yours. However, I don’t think we need to make it a part of the guidelines that you should “have other sites link to yours” — they should be willing to do that on their own, it should be their decision not yours.

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Do you know your Web site needs help but just can not get away to join us for one of our 3 Day Workshop?

We may have the answer for you! Our SEO Consulting sessions are designed to show you exactly what you need to do to get your Web site to perform better in the search engines. Our SEO Consulting Session begins with a 50 Point Web Site Review.

The 50 point Web Site Review will discover all your sites strengths and weaknesses.

Your Web site can be one of your companies biggest assets, so we take our time to review every aspect of your sites presence on the Internet.

The review will cover these 6 aspects of your site:

Basic One Page Optimization
Site Architecture
Usability Analysis
Advanced SEO Factors
Social Media Marketing
Local Search

Once our 50 point review is complete we will supply you with a complete detailed report that will recommend changes that will help increase your Web site rankings.

Order your 50 Point Web Site Review Today!
$350.00

SEO Sessions are offered through Phone, Email and/or On-line meeting formats.  We will walk you through each step to ensure you completely understand each recommendation made to your site. 

Once the initial Review is completed and time or know how is not available to implement all the recommended changes we can asset you in carrying out the updates to your site under our SEO consulting services at $75.00 per hour.

If you’re looking to get your Web site compliant and functioning at its highest level in the search engines these SEO Consulting Sessions will detailed out exactly what needs to happen on your site for optimal success on the Internet.

Order your 50 Point Web Site Review Today!
$350.00

Not sure this type of consulting is the right for you?
The principles used in our SEO Consulting Sessions and our 50 Point Web Site Review are the same procedures that are taught in our Workshops. Each session is based on the same techniques we have used for years on our own sites and which have all resulted in premium organic results for us. Each report and/or outline will clearly detail every step to assure you completely understand each task.

Our goal is to provide you the latest information available to keep your site competitive on the Internet while teaching you how to properly take care of your Web sites investment.

We review your Web site and offer our professional advice and detailed instructions per each session.

If you are confused on where to start or what to do next we provide you a detailed analysis of your site with instructions on exactly what needs done to bring your site up to search engine standards.

If you would like to apply the same principles and techniques used by Professional SEO’s and taught in our workshops to your Web site order your 50 Point Web Site Review Today!
$350.00 

There are no guarantees: no minimum Page Rank value and no guaranteed search engine positioning.

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With the competition online increasing everyday it is vital that you develop the most compelling landing pages as possible.  Your landing pages determine ho your potential visitors respond to your product or service.  Below are a few questions to ask of your self to be sure you are developing successful landing pages.

1. Is your contact information in an area that is easily visible? 
2. Does your visitor know exactly what call to action you ant them to make?
3. Do you clearly display pricing of your product or services?
4. Does your landing page offer exactly what was offered in your ad?
5. Are your terms of service clearly stated?
6. Is your Web design consistent from page to page?
7. Are you promoting related products on your landing pages?
8. Have you added security seals to convey a sense of safety?
9. Have you included images of your products that are appealing to your visitor?
10. Is your description detailed to encourage a sale?
11. Have you included testimonials or product reviews?
12. Is your “Buy Now” button clearly visible?

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Latent semantic indexing adds an important step to a Website indexing process. It records which keywords a document contains, the method examines the Web site as a whole, to see which other sites contain some of those same words. LSI considers sites that have many words in common to be semantically close and ones with few words in common to be semantically distant. This simple method correlates surprisingly well with how a human being, looking at content, might classify sites. Although the LSI algorithm doesn’t understand anything about what the words mean, the patterns it notices can make it seem astonishingly intelligent.

(Keywords: Synonyms, related keywords, ontology, thesaurus, lexfn.com, l3xicon.com, Google sets, keyword relationships, “theme density” versus “keyword density”)

When the Florida update happened, if a page was targeting too aggressively, pages would be stopped and no more ranking. Most commercial sites were gaming the money pages and keywords at that time. Back then, search engines were trying to figure out whether text was natural or not. However, times and SEs (search engines) have changed.

In today’s search engines, (example) if the keyword phrase or term is “bass fishing” they can tell that the word “bass” is related to it and will highlight that in the search engines.

SEs are changing from “give me what I said” to “give me what I want.” They are moving to knowing what people are searching for, and it’s an ongoing activity to locate users’ true intent. (”…Google uses a best-in-class spelling suggestion system, an advanced synonyms system and a very strong concept analysis system, a world class localization system. . .”). So is something like latent semantic indexing used? Most certainly! In search queries–you’ll see the “related searches” at top or bottom–in other words, they “know.” Sometimes you can see where they screwed up mathematically. They are testing all the time, and it’s of course all about relevancy.

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Google Maps

It is getting more important for your Web site to show up in the maps section of Google (which is also referred to as the “10 Pack”) especially if your business is a brick and mortar business.   The issue is how do you get there and how do you stay there once you are there.

Let me explain….

First did you know that 30 to 40% of all searches are local?  For instance people who are searching on a doctor or a car wash normally attach their search to a geographical location.  Such as “Doctors in Lexington SC” or “car wash near Highway 1, Lexington SC.”

Google has been working for years to provide searchers with the ability to search with local intent.  Since the implementation of Universal Search earlier this year, they have made it easier for local business to show up in their “10 Pack” and help drive traffic not only to their businesses but to their Web sites as well.

The one thing that differs is that the Google Map algorithm is completely different then the algorithms used to determine regular rankings in the SERP’s. 

Just how are they different?

Regular rankings in the SERP’s rely heavily on your on-page and off-page factors from your Web site where as Google Maps rely on factual information they have about your business and the trust factor that you have earned with your business listings through business directories such as the Yellow Pages, infousa.com and localeze.com .  Google relies on your business listings or profile to determine rankings.

Note: It is possible to rank in the “10 Pack” without having a Web site.

If your industry or location is highly competitive then they will start using your Web site as a determining factor when ranking you in the “10 Pack” but only after they have looked at business profile.

So how can you improve your Google Map listings?

• First and foremost add your business profile to Google Maps. Enhance your listing in Google maps as much as possible.  Verify your listing using the phone verification method for quicker results.
• Standardize your information by being sure you are listing your business name, address and contact information the same in all of your online profiles.
• If Google goes to your Web site for additional ranking information make sure your business location, address and phone number including area code is all listed in straight html code and not embedded in a graphic.
• Optimize your site for the localities you want to be found in.
• Work on getting reviews for your business within Google Maps. 

I hope this helps you understand how Google Maps work and gives you some insight on how they determine if your business appears in the “10 Pack.”

For more SEO tips sign up for our SEO tips of the day at:

http://www.searchengineacademysc.com/seo-tip.htm

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