What Barack Obama Can Teach You About SEO
Now that the election is over, Search Engine Optimization Journal can congratulate Barack Obama on becoming the first black president in U.S. history. This is a landmark event. But how he got there is just as important and telling as being there. Here are a few tips that Obama's political campaign can teach about search engine optimization: Don't be too confident. Maintain some humility and bear in mind that no matter how good things look for you now, there is still work to do. Don't put all your keywords in one basket. Barack Obama new that winning an election meant campaigning in a multi-tiered fashion. You can't target just one demographic. You must appeal to every segment of your market in terms that they can understand. Start early. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
3 Things You Must Do When Changing Domain Names
If you are moving your website for any reason - changing hosts, seeking branding benefits, to make your URL more memorable, or ________________ (fill in the blank) - then there are some things that you should definitely do to make your change go more smoothly for yourself and for your loyal readers. The top 3 things on that list are: Implement universal 301 redirects Contact your top referrers Create custom 404 pages When you create your 301 redirects don't just redirect all of your old pages to your new index page. That will turn your readers off and you'll lose some business as your visitors won't go searching for the corresponding page they found in the search engine. Rather, do a 301 redirect on each page to the corresponding CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
Why JavaScript Sucks
I've seen all kinds of websites. The worst kinds of websites in the world are websites that sit on Windows servers, designed using ASP, and use Javascript dynamic navigation menus. Why even build a website? It's a combination of three of the worst design mistakes you can make. Like anything made by Microsoft, Windows servers are loaded with code. You'll typically find that many web hosts will offer a free website building tool with your hosting package. A great deal many of those are Windows-based. They suck. Don't use them. Your website will be littered with code, making it difficult for the search engines to find the meat of your content so that they can index it properly. You are much better off using a LINUX CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
Can Two SEOs With Differing Views Work Together?
A buddy of mine said that two SEOs with different approaches working together on the same project is like Obama and McCain working together to solve the Iraq issue. Is that true? Can two search engine optimization experts with different ideas about optimization work on the same project together? First, can two SEOs disagree that much? Isn't SEO pretty much a science? Don't all roads lead to Rome? As much as many of us would like to believe that white hat search engine optimization is an exact science, it isn't. There are likely as many solutions to a problem as there are search experts working on it. Sure, some may be better solutions than others, some more effective than others, but at the end of the day CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
Why Is SEO Like A Rat Race?
SEO is a game where winning is a temporary condition. Quite frequently, companies pour dollar after dollar in attaining the highest rankings only to see their sites fall in the rankings just as quickly as they rose. Often, even more quickly. That's why you need to keep your search engine optimization team occupied full time. Search engine rankings rise and fall with the tide. They are not a constant. There are several reasons for this: Search algorithms change frequently (Google has publicly admitted they tweak their's daily) Your competition is working hard to outdo you in the SEO rat race Sometimes an update can cause search engine rankings to tumble and rumble until they settle At any given time you may see your search engine rankings in one place or CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
Separate Landing Pages For Christmas Specials?
Do you need to set up separate landing pages for your Christmas specials? That's a good question and like a lot of other good questions the answer is a vaguely defined, "It depends." In most cases, e-commerce sites don't need to set up separate landing pages for their Christmas specials, but there may be cases where you want to. The typical e-commerce site can simply redesign a page and change their logo or wallpaper to a seasonal design and rearrange their shopping carts so that seasonal specials are highlighted clearly. That takes some work, but not as much work as building separate landing pages for items in your shopping cart. If you have thousands of items in your shopping cart, you definitely do not want CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
High Rankings: How Much Does it Cost?
One common misconception about search engine optimization is that companies that achieve the highest rankings paid to be there. This is still perhaps the most misunderstood aspect of Web business. The answer - the simple, short answer, "No, they didn't" - is somewhat misleading. Many of those companies did pay to achieve high rankings. But they didn't pay the search engines a single dime. The myth of paid high rankings manifests itself two ways. First, there the old-fashioned "You paid Google X amount of dollars and they put you at No. 1." Then, there is the myth that pay per click advertising influences search rankings. Both are false. If you do your own search engine optimization, you can achieve high rankings without spending a penny. It's just CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
Why Is There So Little Spending On SEO?
Rand Fishkin does a good job of painting the picture on this one. Pay per click advertising is a $9.3 billion industry while SEO only garners $1.3 billion of that. But we know that only 20% of searchers will click on the PPC ads and that Google organic SERPs are the leading referrer for most websites. Why then is only 11% of search engine marketing dollars being spent on the search products that provide the most value? I think there are two reasons: No. 1, good SEO takes time. In many cases, if you do everything you should do to optimize a website for maximum exposure it can take 2-5 years before you appear on Page 1 of the results. This largely depends on your CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
7 Tools That Can Help You Improve Your Onsite SEO
Without the right tools you'll have a hard time making your SEO stand out. To rank well for your given terms takes some research, creativity, and dogged persistence. The following tools are here to serve you, they are free, and they are designed by the search engines to help webmasters like you improve your search engine optimization and the content for your website: Google External Keyword Research Tool - So it doesn't provide as much detail as some key paid-for tools, but for a free tool, the Google keyword research tool is preemo. It's called the external research tool because Google has one inside of Google AdWords, which is also free, but if you don't have a Google AdWords account or you just don't CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
What’s The Most Important Aspect Of SEO?
Depending on who you talk to you'll get at least a dozen answers to this question: What's the most important aspect of SEO? Is it links? Keyword density? Content? Site architecture? CSS over tables? Believe me, I've heard all of this and more. The people who say that link building is the most important aspect to search engine optimization do so on the basis that link building drives traffic and increases PageRank, plus boosts your search rankings. The keyword density people say that keywords on your web pages are what feed the search engines. The content disciples claim that "Content is King" and that's all that needs said, as if it is a foregone conclusion. Site architecturists believe that internal link structure gives search engines CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
Is PageRank Sculpting Worth The Effort?
A fairly new search engine optimization technique has risen and is gaining in popularity. It's called PageRank sculpting. I see several problems with this technique, which I'll cover in a minute, but for now let's define PageRank sculpting. PageRank sculpting is the practice of attempting to boost the PageRank on certain high value pages on your website by devaluing the PageRank on other pages. How is this done exactly? It's done through strategic placement of nofollow attributes in your internal links. It works like this: You have a landing page that you want to achieve a high PR so as to increase the perception of your trust and credibility. You have that page in your navigation menu but also link to it from several pages on your CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
Boston SEO Networking Group Event Recap
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The Cambridge Search Engine Optimization Meetup Group!
Boston SEO networking group hosted its 37th event. The group which has about 450 members held its event just a building away from where Boston SEO Expert Nick Stamoulis from Brick Marketing spoke at the Arlington ebusiness Symposium last week. The event usually hosts industry guest speakers to lead the conversation, however this event was set up in a new format to have a moderated round table discussion.
Panel Speakers
David Matson
Dave Matson is the proprietor of GetLawyerLeads.com, a boutique internet marketing firm for attorneys. We generate artisan criminal defense leads crafted from the finest old world ingredients, for only the most discriminating defense attorneys.
Shoplifters of CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
Are Meta Tags More Important Than Alt Tags?
When it comes to detailed search engine optimization, which is more important - meta tags or alt tags? Before answering that question, let's examine what each is supposed to do. Your meta tags define important elements of your page. The title tag appears in the top left corner of your site visitor's web browser and is also the top line in the search engine listing. Your description tag is used by search engines to give a summary of your page in the SERP and appears right below the clickable title. The keyword tag simply defines specific keywords that appear on your page so that search engines can narrow down the scope of the page in their listings, but not all search engines put equal weight on CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
How Many Browsers Should Your Website Be Compatible For?
You've optimized your website to the hilt, made the design look sleek and pretty, ensure it meets all the latest W3C standards, now what? Is it ready for public consumption and viewing? Not quite. You should make sure that it is compatible with all the browsers. Many a webmaster have spent hours working on their website only to see it go live and get an e-mail weeks down the road saying that something on the site isn't viewable or "looks funny." When the webmaster goes up to take a look they don't see anything but a pretty site. This is caused usually by one very common mistake that new web designers make. They don't cross check their work with other browsers. There are several browsers on the CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
Tips to Consider for Document Optimization
These days we store video files, audio files and PDF files. In the early days we also stored documents created by a word processor or a spreadsheet. Come to think of it, we still do, and these documents can be optimized for the search engines just like a PDF (see our post on SEO for PDF's), video or audio file. Microsoft Office makes it quite easy to include SEO related meta information such as title, category, keywords and a description of sorts. To include the right information, access the Document Properties section. There you will find areas where you can include the documents author; document title; subject; keywords; category; and comments. When filling in these details, think about putting in relevant information. The document title should CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
SEO Journal is Written by
Brick Marketing Founder,
Nick Stamoulis:
Nick Stamoulis - SEO Bio.
Tel. - 877-295-0620
nick@brickmarketing.com
Connect with Nick Stamoulis
Brick Marketing - SEO Company
