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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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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Blog Posts – This involves getting respected bloggers to write about you or your website. In addition to the benefit of having the topics discussed by recognized “experts,” often they will link back to your website within relevant text with an appropriate anchor text link. 

Press Release Marketing – Press releases are a marvelous way to increase the visibility of your website. They get your news and information in front of a potentially limitless audience through targeted distribution. 

Article Marketing -  Article marketing actually provides two benefits: it gives you contextual links back to your website and it allows your site to become the authority on a given topic. Because those who read articles you’ve written on a particular subject are generally following a link because they are already highly interested in the topic, traffic to your site will convert better than typical search traffic. It’s crucial that you provide articles that are informative, nut just fluff, and that you place them on high quality sites that are respected. 

Blog Comments – Commenting regularly on relevant blogs can be a great source of traffic and links for your websites. 

Bookmarking – Getting your site noticed on sites social media marketing that rate sites for their quality and interest can lead to impressive as web surfers visit and vote. Be sure you’re bookmarked on these popular sites for lots of incoming links.

Directories – Directories are pretty straightforward – steer clear of those that will accept everyone one and look for those that have editorial reviews. The more discriminating the directory site, the better the ranking you’ll get by being associated with that particular directory. If the directory has particular standards you need to meet and a review process before you can be accepted, it’s a good sign that the directory is a respectable one.

Videos – YouTube and other sites allowing you to post your own videos with links back to your site are great ways to increase traffic to your site. These days there’s no predicting what videos will go viral, and short “how to” videos are an excellent way to educate viewers and build trust.

Social Media Marketing – On Google’s own webmaster forum social links were recognized as a valuable source for inbound links – you can’t find a much better advocate for the validity of this source of incoming links. Because of the informal, social-based nature of this form of marketing, search engines tend to trust these links. 

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It’s been a long time since I have addressed Google’s Page Rank.  It almost seems as if it has fallen off the face of the Internet.  It defiantly is not as important as it used to be but there are still some factors to using a pages PageRank to help build link popularity to your site. 

In the days of old everyone was concerned with a pages rank.  We are seeing a shift away from this and concentrating on other things like Social Media Marketing. 

Today PageRanks most important element is the effect it has on a pages in-coming links.  The PR of the page itself does not have as much influence as it used to for helping in ranking for specific keyphrases.  However, the PR of an in-coming (keyphrase-relevant) link does help with ranking for that specific
keyphrase. 

So what does this really mean for you? It means that you should look at the sites you are trying to get to link to you.  Look only for those Web sites that are industry related and have a PageRank of 4 or higher.  Those are the pages that are going to benefit you the most in building your link popularity.

As far as internal links goes the PR of your internal pages help with internal linking and, therefore, the way you pass and distribute Google PR throughout your site via absolute vs. relative URLs does make a small difference on ranking. 

So you should still be concerned a little bit about your internal linking by always choosing absolute linking vs. relative linking for your internal pages and always look for those sites that link to you that have a PR of 4 or higher.

Would you like to learn more SEO techniques to apply to your Web site?  Sign up for one of our 3 Day SEO Workshops today and take your Web site to the next level!

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Are you looking for a quick way to drive traffic to your site? In as little as 48 hours you could have a first page listing on Google just by taking advantage of the power of press releases.While tradition media outlets like newspapers, magazines, radio stations and news agencies are still a great way to target journalists many are not aware of the power one press release can have on driving traffic to your Web site.If you have never written a press release and do not know where to start visit PRWEB.com they have a great tutorial on how to write your first press release.http://www.prweb.com/writing_release.php

Here are a few basic guidelines to get you started:

1. Optimize your press release just as you would a page on your Web site.  Include your most important keywords in the press release title and first paragraph.
2. Hyperlink to your important pages on your Web site with suitable keywords as anchor text. When the press release is distributed these links will be picked up by distribution  partners
3. With Google’s Universal Search, Google has started showing press releases in its organic search results.  If your press release is well optimized, it can rank in two or three days in the Google’s organic results.

Press releases can be extremely valuable for both long and short term purposes.  One press release may not give you a great deal of exposure by if you dedicated yourself to writing one a month you are sure to drive additional traffic to your site fairly quickly. 

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Your Web site is becoming not only a means to bring people into your business it is also becoming the talk around the water cooler, posts on blogs, part of email blasts and so much more.  Knowing this it is increasingly more important to make our sites as sticky as possible.   Visitors are looking past a Web site as a lone source of information they are looking at competing Web sites, message boards’ referrers from friends and associates and even more. So what is our goal now? It is all about keeping your visitors attention and keeps them coming back for more.Let’s examine a few ways you can make your Web site sticky:

1. Make your home page like your front door.  Make the introduction into your site fast and easy.  Stay away from slow loading pages, heavy flash files and forced intros.
2. Open as many windows into your site as possible. Craft your landing pages to directly match your messages in your title tag, PPC ads and any referring site links coming your way.
3. Always offer your visitors something new.  Continue to add fresh content to your site relevant to your sites industry.  Visitors will bookmark your site if they know they can always come back for fresh relevant content.
4. Talk to your visitors. Give your user a way to make comments or ask questions about your content or Web site.  A great way is to add a blog to your site and allow comments.
5. Address FAQ’s. - We are a very instant gratification society now and like to get our questions answered immediately.  Create and continue to add to your FAQ pages.

With the onset of new technology available to us today, creating sticky sites is easier then ever.  Creative content, videos, media players, blogging and so much more is just the start to attracting and keeping those visitors to your site. 

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In the early days of the Internet and PPC (Pay Per Click) Advertising Web site owners where quick to shell out thousands of dollars to out rank their competitors and grab that #1 spot. Gone are the days where you could put up a simple site targeting some basic keyword and get indexed right away. As more business owners realized the need for on-line marketing the quick and easy days of top rankings where gone as well.

Without a lot of knowledge about ROI’s (Return on Investment) or SEO (Search Engine Optimization) advertisers soon saw their ad cost increase without seeing much of them converting to sales. Many still believe that the only way to quickly get leads to their site is to invest in expensive PPC Campaigns.

I am here to tell you that there truly is a way to combine both PPC advertising with SEO and cut your ad cost and still generate qualified leads to your site. Before we go any further let me explain how both PPC and SEO can work together.

One of the things I often hear from my students is how easy PPC is in comparison to SEO. Seeing that setting up a new ad only takes a few minutes and you can have it displaying the same day. Where as implementing SEO strategies can takes weeks or months to really see the benefit. I do agree with this concept of time but in the end it all comes down to the dollar and sense (yes I really meant to spell sense not cents) of it all.

Dollar = the amount of money you are willing to spend to generate leads
Sense = cutting that cost by properly setting up your ads in conjunction with taking
advantage of free organic search engine listings

If you have jumped on the Web band wagon with sponsored listings and have never really taken the time to do anything other then set up some basic ads and pay your credit card bill each month it is crucial that you take the time to read the following steps. After you review the steps you will need to revisit your ad campaigns, implement the suggestions, include search engine optimization into the mix and enjoy the extra money you will soon see accumulating in your check book. There really is a way to effectively advertise on line without breaking your budget.

Click here to read the complete article on ways to cut your PPC AD Cost

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