SEO - Good Practices
Filed Under: SEO
First I will talk briefly about what not to do.
- Do not submit to 1000’s of search engines. There are only 3 that count, Google, Yahoo and MSN. All other search engines get their information from the mentioned search engines.
- Do not continually submit to them. It’s not necessary. Once you are in you are in. It won’t improve your position.
- Do not use keyword spamming.
Now here is what to do.
- Have great content and update it on a regular basis.
- Add new features and pages.
- Have great content. Content is what gets you ranked. Can we says it is content the search engines want? Yes, it is content!!
- If your web site hasn’t been crawled in a while update your site and manually submit it to Google, Yahoo and MSN.
- Create and then submit a site map to Google.
SEO Mistakes
Filed Under: SEO
A big one, especially in Google’s mind, is having multiple web sites with same content. Why do business waste time and money on having duplicate web sites, but with different domain names? You should always focus on one domain versus scattering your effort, including the advertising budget.
There is nothing wrong with registering different versions of your domain name, and redirect one, but no more than two to the active domain. It is not necessary to have have hosting for a domain name. You can register as many as you want.
Another of the worst things you can do is to have absolutely no text on your home page. You know that nice expensive splash page you had to have? The really neat Flash intro? Well guess what! The spiders want text…you know content! Content is king! They also want links!
Just because you have a web site built it doesn’t mean they (customers) will come.
You also need to do print advertising, and possibly PPC. Depending on your market area radio or TV advertising.
Another thing not to do? Respond to one of those emails from some company will guarantee to you a #1 listing. No one can do that!
A very bad thing to do is to use the following META tags:
<META NAME=”ROBOTS” CONTENT=”NOINDEX,NOFOLLOW”>
What the above does is tell the search engine spiders not to index this page and do not follow any of the links on it. So that means that no one will ever be able to find your web site unless they happen to know the address. Not smart! Very, very stupid.
Don’t use these spamming techniques
Filed Under: SEO
I absolutely abhor SEO spamming techniques. It is unethical and does not work in the long term.
Recently a website that I have been working on (not my client but under a subcontract) had been contracted out to an SEO firm. When the files were returned the DOCTYPE was missing from all of the pages. When I contacted the firm as to why they had been removed they told me that they always remove anything that has nothing to do with improving SEO. Groan.
The DOCTYPE is just HTML, but it tells the browser(s) how it should interpret the code on the page. In fact spiders treat HTML as just HTML. They don’t index it at all. This SEO firm used lots of “comment” tags thinking it will help. It won’t. It is a myth. Comment tags are HTML and are ignored. They had added so much info to the tags that it added over 3KB to one page alone.
What the spiders pay attention to are:
- META description tag
- META keyword tag (Google no longer pays attention to the keyword tag because of it being used as spam.)
- Title tag
- Alt tag used with images. The description should be appropriate. If it is a pool say so, but there is no rule against saying where the pool is. Incorporate the information in.
- Title tag in links. This also should be appropriate to the site and particular page.
- Content, content, content. The content should be updated on a regular basis. Spiders love to see fresh content.
- Clean and well written code. If the code is bloated (think of pasting content from a Word to HTML), ending tags are missing, excessive use of nested tables well the spiders will decide enough is enough and stop spidering the site.
- A good site map. Think of an index that is in the back of a book if you have a decent sized web site. If it’s also a very large site having a search feature would be an excellent tool for visitors.
The SEO firm also used poor grammar just to fit keywords and keyword phrases in and just looks unprofessional.
SEO Tips
Filed Under: SEO
Register your domain name as long as you possibly can.
Use appropriate search terms in the “title” tag of images to appropriately describe the photo or image. Example: The web site is a hotel site. You could use the following in the alt tag: “Hotel Meridien is a luxury 4-star hotel near Central Park in New York City”.
The “title” tag in links. Example: <a href=”directions.html” title=”To find directions to the Hotel Meridien from La Guardia and Kennedy Airports click here”>Directions</a>
As I previously mentioned the importance of using a more complete description in the tags remember not repeat it in the textual content that immediately surrounds it the image or link. If it is the same it looks likeappears as duplicate content to the search engine spiders.
10 Signs That Your SEO Is a Quack
Filed Under: SEO
By Jill Whalen
There are so many SEO/SEM firms cropping up that talk a good game but don’t deliver results. This is in part because there’s so much information that is freely available about search engine optimization. On the surface, SEO sounds easy – and it really is – once you’ve had a number of sites to experiment with. What’s even easier than SEO, however, is discussing SEO as if you know what you’re actually doing (when you don’t)!
Here are 10 signs to watch out for that may very well indicate that your potential SEO is a quack. Please note that one of these individually may not be bad, but if you notice more than 2 or 3 of these when speaking with any SEO company, you may just want to head for the hills!
1. Your SEO company talks about Meta tags and Google PageRank (PR) as if they are the magic bullet to high rankings.
For the most part, there’s no reason to even bring up the keyword Meta tag nor toolbar PR in a discussion about what needs to be done to get better search engine exposure for your site. Both of them are issues that quack SEO companies will talk about because they actually believe they are the key to SEO success. They are not. I’ve discussed in previous articles the Meta keyword tag’s lack of importance, so I won’t go into that again here. In regards to PageRank, increasing the little green bar graph’s number should never be the ultimate goal of a professional SEO campaign. A good campaign will automatically increase your real and true PageRank (as measured by Google) without your specifically setting out to increasing it on your own. Since PR doesn’t bring you traffic and sales (nor rankings), increasing it should not ever be the main goal of your campaign. This fact is of course lost on SEO quacks.
2. Your SEO company’s site (or those of their clients) has the same Title tags on every page. Sounds crazy I know, but I’ve seen this more than once!
I once got a client who had previously used a very major SEO company that most people have heard of. They had been with this firm for a whole year, and yet the Title tags on every page of their site were all the same (the name of the company). Since Title tags are probably the most important (and easiest) thing to change on a site, any SEO company that can’t do this one basic thing for their own site or their clients’ is most definitely a quack!
3. Your SEO company talks only about optimizing for the “long tail.”
Now, don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with long-tail keyword phrases, as they can bring a lot of traffic when all is said and done. But you don’t need an SEO company if those are the only phrases you’re interested in – you can do it yourself just by writing articles. Your SEO company should not be afraid to optimize for the actual keyword phrases that most people would use at the engines to find your site. Yeah, it’s gonna take time and money to go after the most competitive keyphrases, but there’s usually a happy medium. Most sites have plenty of phrases that are somewhere between long tail and highly competitive. Those are the ones you definitely want to target.
4. Your SEO company tells you it’s ALL about links (or ALL about content).
SEO isn’t ALL about anything. It’s about lots of things all added together to make the perfect combination for your site. A linking campaign alone will never be as effective if you neglect your on-page content, and vice versa. Be sure that your SEO company looks at your site from all angles andmakes sure all your bases are covered. Otherwise, they’re probably a quack!
5. Your SEO company tells you that you need a linking campaign even though you already have tons of links and are a well-established popular site in your niche.
Not every site needs every SEO service out there. Just because your SEO company likes to sell link-building doesn’t mean you actually need it for your site. Why should you pay for something you don’t need? The same thing goes for sites that already have great, well-written, optimized content. If you’ve got that, perhaps you just need a linking campaign to help boost your traffic and sales. Don’t allow an SEO quack to fix what isn’t actually broken.
6. Your SEO company is almost surely 99% quackish if they tell you that they can rank your brand-new site in Google for keywords that will bring you traffic within a few months.
In fact, if they claim they can do it in less than 9 months, they’re either inexperienced or lying. Google has an aging delay that is most certainly related to the age of the site, as well as a certain trust factor. It is only the very rare and wonderful site that can get around this delay. But if your site is like most, you’re going to have to look to the long term for your Google results, regardless of what the quacks might try to convince you of.
7. Your SEO company never mentions that they may very well need to redo your site architecture so that your important pages are prominently featured within your site navigation.
In this case it’s very possible you’re dealing with an inexperienced, quack SEO. This is usually something that is not a quick fix, so most quacks are reluctant to discuss it with you (if they even know it’s important). But if your site architecture is not search-engine-ready, everything else you do will have much less impact.
8. Your SEO company can’t provide you with any quality references.
This one pretty much goes without saying, but do be sure to get references, and do be sure to actually call them. Yeah, a reference may very well turn out to be their cousin, but you should be able to get some feel for the company you’re choosing if you can at least talk to some references.
9. Your SEO company tells you that you have to have a DMOZ listing or your site will never be able to get high rankings.
Sure, a DMOZ listing is great, but it’s a link just like any other. Submit and forget about it. If you don’t get in, it’s no big deal – there are plenty of other links you can get instead.
10. Your SEO company’s site mentions that they’ll get you high rankings in AltaVista, Fast, Inktomi, Lycos, Excite, HotBot and the like.
If it does, you are 100% positively dealing with a quack! ‘Nuff said!
Jill
Jill Whalen of High Rankings® is an internationally recognized search engine optimization consultant and host of the free weekly High Rankings® Advisor search engine marketing newsletter. Jill’s handbook, “The Nitty-gritty of Writing for the Search Engines” teaches business owners how and where to place relevant keyword phrases on their Web sites so that they make sense to users and gain high rankings in the major search engines.
Jill specializes in search engine optimization, SEO consultations, site analysis reports, SEM seminars and is the co-founder of Search Engine Marketing New England (SEMNE) a local networking organization.
Selecting a Hosting Company
Filed Under: Hosting
Do not select a host until you have discussed your web site with web designer. My personal recommendation is to stay away from Yahoo, MSN or similar hosts. Many have proprietary features and if you need to add something you can’t or you need to hire someone to implement it (and generally someone that can work with the later charge quite a bit of money).
A good to excellent host is:
Flexible and makes it easy to manage the account information
Numerous features
Install software applications (shopping cart, blog, CMS)
Setup databases (MySQL, Access, MS SQL Server)
Has very good support
Has tutorials or help files for common questions, such as how do I setup my webmail or setup Outlook, etc. for receiving email, how to figure out the path to your web site (needed for many applications to work properly).
A poor to bad host:
Makes it difficult to do anything
Makes you go through them to implement changes
Charges you way too much for such basic features that it’s ridiculous (very small hosting size, low bandwidth, email accounts)
There’s no help files.
Good hosts have either cPanel, Fantastico or other one-click installs for many commonly used features or applications. They also have good stats for your web site.
These are what really annoy me
Filed Under: General Annoyances
Right-click disabled. I love to use it to open new windows or tabs or to search on a key phrases or other information. If you really don’t want something taken don’t put it on the web.
Music or Sound: Unless you are in the business of selling music I hate seeing it on your web site. I finally got so tired of it that I now browse without the speakers on. If you have to have it give us the option to listen to it.
Sites that fall apart: You know the ones. The ones designed just for IE. I am a Firefox fan and only use IE to check to see that the sites I design look good in it.
Movement: Nothing wrong with having a bit of movement on the site. If it’s the header it should only move once and then stop. News can scroll, preferably vertically, and slow enough that it can be easily read. Anything over 2 items moving and you’re going to have me leave your site really fast. It’s a major distraction.
Java Applets: I don’t like them and never have and never will. Only because I have never seen a good one.
Firms Soliciting Your Clients: They may not like my stating this but it is unethical to contact potential clients when a designer or hosting provider is clearly stated on a web site. It’s a major no-no in my book.
Unrealistic Expectations: Actually the title should be “I want the sun and the moon for practically no money”. I have a favorite place to look, and there are so many potential customers that have absolutely no clue. I am very good at estimating the amount of time it will take me to complete something, but to expect a website that will cost $10,000 to implement for $500.00 is ridiculous.
I did have a response to one of my inquiries for more information, and they wanted social networking (think MySpace), classifieds, forum, tutoring and an unbelieveable amount of features web site, and had no budget. Or the ones that think you can do a full e-commerce web site for them for just $500. Another is working for a percentage of the profits.
I found this excellent article Top 10 Lies told to Naive Artists and Designers.
Email Problems and Good Usage
Filed Under: Email
Not using a business email address that contains your domain name and then checking the email account is not a good practice. Also, don’t have your email forwarded to an ISP or other provider such as Yahoo, MSN or Yahoo. It doesn’t take anymore time to login into your web mail for your domain. Besides it looks unprofessional not to use an email address with your domain name in it.
If your domain or a client’s has been blacklisted by one of the big boys you’re not going to receive messages from some of your clients (existing or new). That is not good for business.
Another thing I’m starting to advise against is having an email link on web sites, using standard info@, support@, webmaster@, sales@ as they are such spam magnets. Use a form that prevents spam bots and mail injection instead.
Quite often when a business owner is interviewed and the article published an email address will be in the news article but not the URL of the business.
E-commerce: So you want to sell online?
Filed Under: e-Commerce
I am going to be very blunt here (like I’m not already). Selling on-line has its responsibilities and tasks you have to do and if you just want to sit back and expect money to just come in don’t sell on-line.
All carts have problems with abandonment. That’s when a customer goes through your site adding items to purchase, but does not complete the order by paying for it. If there is a great deal of abandonment then it may be something wrong about the checkout process. It may be difficult or awkward.
A few abandonment reasons:
Internet connection goes down, computer locks up, browser crashes
Shipping too expensive (I’ve done that myself)
Phone call
Something distracts the shopper
Customer hits the wrong button
They all of a sudden remember they have to do something more important to do.
There are lots of reasons. If you want to know why a particular customer didn’t complete the process you might want to contact them. But I’m going to advise against that. It’s like going to a store and having a salesperson descend or hover around you.
It is your responsibility to verify that you have received payment for an order and not to ship until then. It’s called managing your business effectively.
It is your responsibility to contact the vendors that process payments including your bank. Those institutions will not talk with anyone but you. If you expect others to do this for you then you are opening your business to major problems. Not keeping track of your finances opens yourself up to fraud. You know those stories about bookkepeers, etc. embezzling money. Well it happens when no one is paying attention to important details. Like your money!!!
You should not rely solely upon email notifications of orders. You need to login and check. Then you need to cross check (orders to payments).
The “I don’t have the time to check”. Well you’re going to be out of business soon if you don’t. If you are really too busy you need to hire someone to take care of other areas of your business.
Do not assume because you have received notice of an order that it has been paid for or that you even have orders. You need to verify that it has been paid for or check to see if there’s an order. It’s your responsibility not your web designer/developer’s responsibility. You need to login and check, and then cross-reference orders to payments.
You are the one that needs to contact your credit card processor and find out why certain things are not happening, like why you haven’t received payment or you weren’t approved. They will not discuss that information with your designer/developer.
The following are the basics that you will need to sell:
Merchant account
Payment gateway/processor
Shopping cart/catalog: A cart holds the items that are being purchased. A catalog is what you are selling whether it’s books, clothing, food items or anything else and includes photos, description, prices, physical inventory, etc. Some are all inclusive while others are separate.
SSL: All files, directories and subdirectories that may collect or temporarily “hold” confidential information need to have security. Credit card information should never, and I mean never saved in a database on your web server, nor should that information be transmitted by email. Many hosts have shared SSL’s (their domain name will show in the location bar instead of yours), but what is best is to have your own and you will need a fixed IP address for your web site.
A good intuitive design. Anyone should be able to tell immediately what your business is about or what you are selling. Don’t make them guess. The customer needs to be able to quickly navigate through the site.
I was asked to critique a jeweler’s web site that they had created themselves to sell their handmade jewelry. They were focusing on where they were located versus their jewelry. That needed to be reversed. My monitor has a 1920×1200 resolution and there was a horizontal scroll. Not good.
Tip
One or several things that you can do is offer something that your competitors don’t. These can be as simple as any one of the following:
Gift registry
Blog
Reminder service so they never forget a special date
Wish list
Newsletter
Email signups for specials
Search Engine Optimization - When to Start
Filed Under: SEO
The moment to start planning the “when and how” your web site will be found is before one line of code is written, a design is created, or even before you select a domain name. It should never be an afterthought.
Let’s just say I have seen first hand very poorly executed web sites that were home grown because of the “it won’t cost me anything if I do it myself” to the “my friend, kid, relative…fill in the blank.. did it for me”. Then they wonder why one can find them, they aren’t indexed in any of the search engines, or show up under certain search terms or key phrases..
The problem with DIY or having the friend, kid, or relative do it is that your site will most likely have to be completely redone. It takes a lot of work, careful planning, and time to get a web site picked up by the search engines and obtain a decent position for keyword phrases.
