The SEO Blog

For the last several years, businesses have been looking to the web for less expensive advertising & marketing options.  With the current state of the economy, local businesses are now investigating online opportunities  & jumping on the local search bandwagon!

“With yellow pages being out of date before they’re even off the printing press, it’s no surprise that Local Search on the Web has taken the place of dusty old “yellows” as the preferred method for finding local products and services. “

Some benefits of local search include:

• increased Search Engine visibility
• increased local traffic to the site
• inexpensive local visibility & awareness
• increased traffic to your local brick & mortar business

“When it comes to Web Marketing, local businesses actually have certain advantages over businesses with a national presence.  Instead of having to compete on a national scale, local businesses can focus their web marketing efforts on a more targeted geographic area and even find success a bit easier.”

Read about how local search works, best practices and tips on how to integrate social marketing into your local web marketing strategies.

Spring is right around the corner now! The temperature is rising here in Northeast Ohio and the “spring forward” time change went into effect a few weeks ago. One of the biggest things to do in the spring is cut your grass. With the amount of rain in March and mostly April, the grass can grow pretty quick. I did a stint as a landscaper for a summer and I learned more than I need to know about cutting grass. The one thing I learned, is that preparation can go a long way, just like with SEO.

The first thing to do when you start off in the morning is to get all the equipment ready. One of the worst things that can happen is forgetting to gas up a piece of equipment or even forgetting it all together! SEO is similar in the sense that you should have all your stuff together before you get started like the following:

• Computer - Sometimes I bring my laptop home, and I actually forgot the computer and bag at home and had to drive all the way back to get it.
• Internet - I hate when I’m working remotely somewhere and don’t have wifi and have forgotten my data cable to tether my phone.
• Tools - Ever forget the login to one of the keyword tools you use?

Once you’re prepared to get working, you need a plan. When driving up to a house to cut the grass, you have to figure out which way the grass was cut before and cut against it this time. Also, professional landscapers cut those nice looking lines in the grass as seen below, and you have to plan out where you are going before zipping across the yard. Where would your SEO be without a plan? How would you know what to even optimize for?

Once you have the equipment and the plan, you can dig in to the actual work. What sets one SEO above another? Technique and skills. You can tell when a new guy cuts your yard by the lines he leaves, rather I should say, wiggles. A new SEO can leave wiggles across your website as well. Un-optimized page titles, lack of or poor link building, and other obvious signs.

The process isn’t over yet. You’ve got the yard cut, but what now? The finishing touches come into place now like the edging, weed whacking, clean-up, and most importantly, re-cutting. This is where SEO’s can really refine a website is by tweaking and re-optimizing. If a particular keyword isn’t getting any traction, you have to take a look into it and find out why. Is there enough content to support the phrase? Have you built your site’s trust up enough? Is the term too competitive? All of these things and more could be factors.

Take your time before jumping in with SEO. A well manicured lawn takes preparation and time to develop just like a successful SEO campagin.

Guest Blogger: Colleen Friess

When purchasing real estate there are numerous factors to consider when choosing where to set up a business. You would not want to set up a business in a poor traffic site or away from your target market. Deciding to purchase a domain should be undertaken with the same level of care as purchasing real estate.

You know the old real estate adage - location, location, location? On the Internet, it’s keywords, keywords, keywords. One of the first factors of purchasing a domain is that you include keywords that showcase what your business is about. Find keywords that describe your products and services, relate to your competitors, and can help brand your business as an industry leader. By finding the best keywords, you increase the likelihood that targeted traffic will get to your site. It helps that 70% of Internet users utilize keywords to get to a destination.

If you’re still not sure that domain strategies are helpful, then consider this:: Just like an individual’s FICO score is based on longevity of credit history, search engines consider history as well. Google considers long-term domain registrations as a way to help rank domains. If you intend to use the domain right away, make sure you get it live so that you can start getting credit for domain longevity?
Now for the not so intuitive information from my Magic 8 ball.

Avoid using dashes in your domain. They may look pretty now but in the grand scheme they do not help.
Do not fear purchasing a domain other than a .com. There are many great other domains out there: .info, .org, .net, etc.
For all the spelling fanatics, look away now. Go purchase domains that have common misspelling of your name. For example, Microsoft owns microsft.com.

Once you have your shiny new piece of domain-estate, you want to make sure to keep it looking good. If you already have a site in place on another domain, then make sure it’s appropriately redirected to the main root domain. In other words, have visitors to your new site sent to the old domain. Another key point: don’t ever have two versions of the same site live - there should only be one domain that’s the main version of your site.
Many well-known brands have taken on these strategies to help increase direct traffic:

• Books.com = Barnes & Noble
• Baby.com = Johnson & Johnson
• Toddlertoys.com = Fisher Price

As you prepare to shop for your perfect piece of domain-estate, keep in mind the above criteria that will make your location more valuable and stand out from the rest of the online neighborhood.

How the SEO world has evolved in the last couple of years has been a major topic of discussion on several well known SEO blogs and forums.

When you work in the web business, you feel like you’re living in an ever evolving world. This is especially apparent as far as SEO goes. Of course there are the mainstays of SEO,  such as:

• quality content
• proper use of HTML
• general on page efforts
• relevant backlinks
• good navigation and site architecture

I could go on, but you get the point. I think the things about SEO that have changed are the more dynamic aspects. For instance, link building. This area of SEO has undergone major shifts. Back in the day, (and when I say that, I mean 3 or 4 years ago) it was common practice to submit your website to directories on a regular basis.  Even as recently as two years ago, this was a pretty accepted way of getting links to your site, as long as you were using legitimate directories, and categorizing your submissions well.  Today there are only a handful of directories left that have any real value, and these tend to be niche directories (other than DMOZ which is not quite as sought after a submission as it used to be. Submit , and if you get lucky, great. If not, oh well.)

Link building is done in a variety of ways, and not the least of which is the utilization of different social media techniques for indirect linking. Social media is going to be the trend for now, and it is an interesting one that allows users to learn more about a company or product in a variety of ways that were unavailable until recently. Trust between different users, as well as different sites will continue to play a large part in link building, especially when it comes to social media. People are not going to Digg a story for a company they don’t trust, unless it is to highlight a problem or complaint. There  are several ways one can use social media to build trust in their brand.  Blogging on a particular company or product, comments being left on consumer sites, and even Digging a story related to a company or product are all ways that consumers are using the web to make sure they get the best deal.  When they find something they like, they will often link back to it from their own site, or leave a comment for someone else who might be interested, thus many links back to the origin are built.

Another aspect of SEO that is changing is the use of video, another sector of social media. Corey Hammond has actually blogged here on viral videos and Emily Croskey has shown how the use of video can increase your online visibility.

What it comes down to is that while SEO has changed dramatically over the years, the core remains the same. Build a great site, with attention to accessibility, navigation and site architecture. Ensure that you have done your research and are using keyphrases that work for you, create quality content, and make sure your on page efforts are top notch. Even in the ever changing world of SEO, these tried and true strategies will continue to  benefit you, and the new stuff is icing on the cake!

Everywhere you turn there is news about the economy and its poor state. Companies are laying people off, the auto manufactures are scrambling for money, some things appear to be falling apart. Even the post office is seeing slow downs. Direct mail, once an effective marketing medium, is becoming less effictive. Why is it less effective? Because it costs a lot of money to snail mail things to people who don’t want it. The article says that credit card companies are being more selective about who they are sending things to because of this. I remember when I was 17-18 years old. I had boxes and boxes of credit card offers that I had been mailed. Sometimes I would get the same one more than once. That had to cost a lot of money in postage just for me to throw away. I’m sure the trash company felt pretty secure with their business since they were the ones hauling all of it away.

On to my point. So with this downturn and the ineffective and expensive marketing, where do companies turn? The internet is where those marketing budgets should be put and here is why.

1. When people want something, they search for it. Why not reach someone when there is an interest? There is less effort to acquire a lead when the person is asking for something vs. forcing it upon them.

2. A tangible ROI. You can track everything on the internet right down to how many phone calls you received from a particular pay per click (PPC) keyword on Google or how much of a particular product was sold due to organic search traffic and how did they navigate through your site to get there.

3. Direction of your business. The internet is a great way to test new things or get feedback on existing things.

4. Cost. It’s more cost effective to do online marketing than it is to do most traditional marketing like direct mail.

Search engine marketing is a huge benefit in this day and age. There is the old adage that you can’t “beat a dead horse” but some people are stuck in time and they keep trying to get business by using marketing methods that are not getting results anymore or are not as cost effective as online. So, chin up and get with the times, the outlook will be much better then.

Guest Blogger: Emily Croskey

If you have taken the time to learn about Search Engine optimization, you may have come across two odd phrases, White Hat SEO and Black Hat SEO, and you may have wondered - just what are these exactly?

White Hat SEO

White Hat SEO is used to describe any Search Engine optimization techniques that are ethically correct, and follow all of the Search Engine best practice guidelines, no short cuts are taken and no ‘cheating’ is involved. If you want to build a site that will stand the test of time, then White Hat SEO is the only way to go. White Hat techniques are designed to build traffic and rankings over time, by using a combination of on-page and off-page optimization techniques.

Black Hat SEO

Black Hat SEO uses significantly less ethical techniques, many of which are fully capable of seeing a website banned from the major Search Engines such as Google, Yahoo! and MSN. Black Hat SEO will push as much traffic to the site as possible in the shortest amount of time. If you have a reputable brand name that you wish to keep clean, using Black Hat SEO techniques could potentially tarnish your good name and image.

Your website would greatly benefit from White Hat SEO techniques. Even though you may have quicker results using Black Hat SEO techniques, in the long run it is not worth it. The best thing to do is to have an ethically sound website by using only White Hat SEO - it will pay off greatly!

Guest Blogger: Chad Henderson

While it’s hard to pinpoint just one thing that is the “most important” component of page optimization, there will be few who disagree that content is consistently at the top of the importance list.  With keyword research and page titles complete, the next consideration is content, or copy, on the page.  I’ve narrowed down a much larger list into 4 considerations for content creation you should make.

Action oriented web content
A user should easily identify what action or activity (conversion) you wish them to take.  For an e-commerce site, the ability to purchase a product (the sales process) should be easily recognized and easy to follow.  For an informational site, the ability to contact you should be easily recognized.  The internet is the ultimate example of a medium that limits the amount of time that a user will be engaged, so action oriented content should quickly convince them to take the activity you wish them to take.

Web Writing Patterns
Writing patterns for the web should reflect a conclusion first approach, letting the user know about the ultimate goal of the content previous to building it up with supportive content that will typically not be read by the user.  However, the search engine will appreciate the presence of supportive, relative content on a page and will consider it when evaluating the strength of it.  Additionally, studies show that the utilization of bullets can be an effective method for both user and search engines. Emphasis on the page, accomplished by appropriate HTML tagging will also be beneficial.

Content Keyword Density
Keyword density, or the saturation of key phrases on a page, is one of several factors that help the search engine determine the theme or topic of the page.  While keyword density is important, an overly saturated page can be perceived as “spammy”.  The general rule of thumb, as it is for other optimization strategies, is to ensure that the content reads well for the user, which will translate well for the search engines.

Site Readability Studies
Typical studies, such as the one provided by various readability studies in the picture below, reflect a typical pattern of reading that is demonstrated with most sites.  The “F” pattern, should be considered when thinking about where to place the important pieces of the information for the user.  From a search engine perspective, higher importance is placed to copy placed in at the top left of the page.

Guest Blogger: Chad Henderson

For those new to the SEO, it’s easy to get overwhelmed with the amount of information that needs to be collected so that your search marketing campaign is on target.  While we have discussed some issues such as creating page titles and keyword research in previous blogs, I wanted to take a second to mention some  tools available through the search engines that can be very useful.  These tools are built into the search engines and can provide a ton of great information that may help you in a variety of ways.  We’re focusing on Google, because well, it’s usually accepted as the industry benchmark, although tools in the other search engines are also available.

Search Operators
Known as search operators, these word based phrases (there are a few symbols that also help) added to the text of a Google search can provide a plethora of information that assist the planning or execution of an SEO campaign.  The basic syntax for their entry within the google search box (although some can be used within the search string and others have other exceptions) is:

{SEARCH OPERATOR}:{URL} OR {PHRASE}

Syntax examples of each are provided within each of the operators below.

site operator:

The site: search operator added to a search query tells Google to restrict results to those pages within the supplied domain.  The site: operator is also fantastic tool to evaluate the visibility or “indexability” of a site.  The search operator returns a listing of pages within a site that have been indexed by the search engine.  If you know that your site has 100 pages within it, and the search engines only see 1, then it is an indication that you have issues that need to be resolved.

Example: seminars site:www.tkg.com

(noting no space after site:,  resulting in pages about “seminars” within www.tkg.com)

link operator:

The link: operator reports the number and source of links coming into a specific URL, and is a general indicator of a sites popularity.  External link popularity, or the quantity and quality of links comining into your site, is an extremely important indicator of value to the search engines.

Example: link:www.tkg.com

cache operator:

The cache: operator displays the cached version of site as recorded in the index of the search engine.  “TEXT version only” options, available when viewing the cache: results, also give a good indication of the text (search engine favorite) that is seen on the page.  The absence of text in a cache: page result may be an indication of site limitations that would need resolved.

Example: cache:www.tkg.com

allinurl operator:

The allinurl: operator displays google results where the search phrase is contained within the url of the page.  When using multiple phrases, the Google results will display results where the phrase(s) occurs anywhere within the URL, in any order.

Example: allinurl: web marketing

info operator:

The info: search operator will report information that Google has about the specific domain you are inquiring about. Usually, the results are simply linked entry points into many of the other tools already mentioned.

Example: info:www.tkg.com

I am confident that these search operators will allow you to gather some great information about your site, or that of a competitor.

The theory of The Long Tail, created by Chris Anderson, has recently been challenged by Harvard professor Anita Elberse. Anderson describes the Long Tail theory:

The theory of the Long Tail is that our culture and economy is increasingly shifting away from a focus on a relatively small number of “hits” (mainstream products and markets) at the head of the demand curve and toward a huge number of niches in the tail. As the costs of production and distribution fall, especially online, there is now less need to lump products and consumers into one-size-fits-all containers. In an era without the constraints of physical shelf space and other bottlenecks of distribution, narrowly-targeted goods and services can be as economically attractive as mainstream fare.

The Long Tail is something that has benefited our SEO clients, many of which are small business owners. Anita Campbell explores the Long Tail and Elberse’s criticism of it from a small business perspective in a recent article that can be found on Small Business Trends. Campbell’s article has great insight, so check out Is It Time to Chuck the Long Tail Theory?

Guest Blogger: Megan Jeffery
As I make my way through the natural SEO world, occasionally writing news pieces for the newsletter, creating copy for our site and those of our clients, I have learned that there is a fine line between a naturally optimized page, and one that is just spammy. Sometimes that line is a judgment call.

There are certain elements on a page that need to be addressed when it comes to optimization. Most tend to agree that Meta tags are still a good idea (they certainly can’t hurt), so they should be optimized to reflect the theme of the page. The page titles should also clue your reader (and secondarily, the search engines) in to what they will find on the page. I personally feel that these items should represent exactly what is on the page, and that the phrases used to optimize should serve the user, not the search engines. If you serve your users, you will ultimately serve the SEs anyway.

Many people feel that the copy itself should have the key phrases sprinkled throughout the copy for the purpose of ranking for certain terms. This is where things can get a little tricky. I am sure that many of you have seen copy on a page that goes something like this:

“We sell hockey pucks, blue hockey pucks, green hockey pucks and yellow hockey pucks. If you really need hockey pucks, you should buy our hockey pucks because they are the best hockey pucks in the whole world.”

I am sure that most would agree that this is a little bit spammy. When you are using your key phrases so much that it even borders on annoying or difficult to read, or changes the meaning of your copy, then you have gone too far. A more appropriate approach is to write what you want your readers to know about your product. A few pointers:

• Be descriptive, especially when writing for the web, because your customers want to know what they will be getting if the decide to buy from you.

• Make sure they know why they should purchase your product, as opposed to someone else’s.

• Read it through. Make sure it sounds good, the meaning is clear and the product or subject is well described.

• Then, go back through and find the places where your key phrases will fit into the copy naturally. Many times the key phrase is better than the word you used, especially if you have copy such as “Try our new product line!”. A sentence that includes the phrase you would like to optimize for such as “Our Green Hockey Pucks are now available!” would be a better choice. However, watch how many places you decide to plug in your key phrases. Too many and not only will your piece make no sense, but it could be considered spam.

So, that annoying paragraph about hockey pucks should look a little more like this:

“The Pucks are Us Company has a long standing tradition of producing only the highest quality, best performing hockey pucks. Our new line of hockey pucks come in new colors such as blue, yellow and green.”

A good rule of thumb is if you have included the phrases, and you enjoy reading the piece, it flows nicely, then you have probably done a pretty good job. On the other hand, if you are repeating your key phrase four times in three sentences, you have probably gone over the edge into spamdom.

Until next time, keep it natural!