Advice My Clients Probably Won't Read » SEO

Optimizing WordPress Sites

admin — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 23:36:53 +0000

I’m trying out this add-in for WordPress that helps you overcome the inherent WordPress deficiencies relative to search engine optimization, and, so far, I’m impressed.

http://yoast.com/wordpress/seo/#utm_source=wpadmin&utm_medium=sidebanner&utm_term=link&utm_campaign=wpseoplugin

And I guess you can tell I’ve been busy! It’s been so long since I posted because October to December are my busiest months of the year. And, personal note, during that same time, there is Thanksgiving, Christmas, Halloween (important to me), and 4 family birthdays. So I go nuts about now.

Better Search Results for SEO

admin — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 17:10:37 +0000

Did you know that Google, and probably the other search engines, uses your web history (where you’ve been & what you’ve searched for) to tailor the results you see when you search.

That’s fine and probably useful for the general public, but for someone like me who is constantly checking where clients rank for particular terms, or for my clients who do that themselves, we don’t want “tailored” searches. We want as much of the unvarnished truth of rankings as we can get.

This page tells you how to make Google not do that any more:

http://www.google.com/support/websearch/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=54048

I can think of times when it might be useful to let Google deliver more personalized results, but I think in general, I’d rather they not. I had noticed a while back that if I searched for something and my location in Google was shown as Austin, I would get slightly different results if I changed my location to Chicago. Makes it kind of tricky to do SEO for a company with clients all over the US, much less the world!

Why Ethical SEO is Best

admin — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 21:49:04 +0000

You know all those emails you get from folks who say they’ll get you to the top? (and who usually don’t include their phone number or company name)

Here’s a cautionary tale to consider:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/13/business/13search.html?_r=2

Google’s Localized Search Results

admin — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 00:23:14 +0000

In my business (SEO), I rarely click a client’s bookmarked site to get there. I do a search for a keyword/phrase we’re working on. Since Google’s last switcheroo, I’ve noticed that all my results seem to be concentrated in the Austin area. Since my clients are everywhere, that doesn’t give me an accurate picture of where they are ranking.

I finally did a little research, and learned if you want to see search results that aren’t tailored to your location, go to Google’s home page and click “search settings” in the upper right corner. Set your location as “United States” and save. Now you’ll see more realistic results.

The problem with all of this is that I never set “Austin” to be my “locale”. Google figured that out from the IP address of my computer and automatically – and unwantedly – started delivering localized results. I don’t like that.

If I want to search for some business in Austin or surrounding area, I’ll put the city in the phrase when I search. I don’t need Google to assume they know what I’m searching for.

Unsolicted SEO emails

admin — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 19:12:51 +0000

Ever get an email like this?

I’ve helped hundreds of companies increase their traffic and I’d love to show you what my service can do for you. I don’t promise the world, I’m straight forward and to the point … I deliver rankings.

Did you ask for it? If not, it’s spam. Do you like spam? Do you like spammers? Do you like telemarketers? Or salesmen who come to your door uninvited?

If you answered no to all of the above, then just hit delete when you get something like that.

If you need SEO services, call me or do a search online for SEO experts. Then research the top 5. Do they have testimonials from people you can contact? Do they give their rates? Do they guarantee top3 results? (If so, be suspicious and/or prepared to pay an arm and a leg).

Do they explain the difference between SEO and SEM? The latter is Search Engine Marketing, i.e. sponsored links.

But whatever you do, don’t respond to the email. Responding to spam is what it keeps it coming to all of us.

Get networked

admin — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 21:50:29 +0000

More and more lately, people are using social media to find information and products. If you’re interested in B2B sales in particular, I highly recommend LinkedIn. It’s a good way not only to get yourself “out there” but also to recommend products or services or people that you like–and to get recommendations as well.

It’s free to join and you can put as much info as you want in your profile. It differs from Facebook in that you don’t really post articles. It’s more like trading business cards or giving someone the card of a business you’ve used.

Give it a try and be sure to link to me!

Yahoo! Advertisers take note

admin — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 20:56:01 +0000

If you advertise on Yahoo!, you’ve probably received their notices about the upcoming merger with Bing. This is going to affect how your ads are displayed and you need to modify your ads accordingly:

While Yahoo! has a 40 character title limit, ad titles in adCenter may be no more than 25 characters. In addition, Yahoo! ad descriptions may be up to 71 characters, versus 70 characters with adCenter. To prevent your ads from being truncated in a way that may cause them to read improperly, or be ineligible for display, please revise your ad text now. Doing so now also gives you plenty of time to test ad copy variations within the new character limits.

Search engines will also be merged, from what I’ve read and this means whereas Bing & Yahoo! separately were not a large enough component of total searches to worry about, they will probably account for 25-35% of all searches in the future. Their algorithms (how they decide who ranks highest) are very different from Google’s.

Once they’ve merged their engines, I’ll be spending time analyzing search results to see what they are considering important. If you’re a management client, that may mean some adjustments to your site to make sure you rank well in Bing/Yahoo! as well as Google.

Yahoo! Advertisers, take note

admin — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 00:05:01 +0000

If you advertise on Yahoo!, you need to start modifying your ads to meet the requirements of Bing. That means shorter titles (ugh!) and one less character available in the description.

To Advertise (online) or Not

admin — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 19:56:29 +0000

I’m a big supporter of paid links but usually only for those phrases that you can’t seem to rank well for in the natural results, primarily because they are such generic terms. And even if you’re ranking #1 for some phrase, if it’s an extremely popular phrase/product, it might be worthwhile to spend a little money on a sponsored link.

What’s a “little” money? Anywhere from 50 cents per click to $2.50/click, depending on the business you’re in and your business finances. For example, if you’re a personal injury lawyer, you’ll pay a whole lot more than $2.50/click to be in the top 3 sponsored links for “personal injury lawyer”.

The nice thing about Adwords and other sponsored link programs is that you can try them out to see if they make a difference by creating a campaign that runs for as little as a week.

The bad thing about sponsored links is that you can never be absolutely sure if they are working. Someone might find your site via the ad, but what if they don’t order something until a week later and they order when they’re on someone else’s computer or they’ve cleared cookies on their pc and the site doesn’t realize you originally came their via a paid link.

But that’s where your common sense should kick in. If you run an ad for a week and you get an appreciable number of click-throughs, then look at sales for that week plus the following 2 or 3 weeks to see if the increased sales exceeded the cost of the ad. If they did, try it again. A pattern should become clear over time.

Of course, if you don’t see any additional sales, that might mean a number of things, including:

Your ad misled the customer in some way, intentionally or not;
Your ad took them to your home page and they couldn’t find the product/service you were advertising (always take them straight to the page where they can buy the product);
Your product isn’t exactly what they wanted, i.e. maybe you don’t have the color or size or whatever they need;
Your website doesn’t impress them enough for them to spend money with you.

More on this subject at a future date. Time to make a living!

SEO Results

admin — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 21:39:46 +0000

Most of my customers only know me as a web host or the owner of Truly Texan, a juried directory of Texas companies and artisans. But my real expertise is in designing (or tweaking) websites to improve their ranking in Google and other search engines.

It kills me when I find that a client has been paying some SEO company to do what I do, but they’re charging them 5 or 6 times what I charge. It’s not that I’m cheap. It’s that these other companies are overpriced and/or charging for things that look like work but do you little or no real good.

I mean, will you really read a 20 page report each month that shows where you rank for every phrase remotely related to your website, even if no one would ever search for that phrase?

I don’t generate reports. If you want reports, I can certainly charge you an extra $150/month to produce them, but it won’t get your site any higher in the results.

My philosophy is that your money- and my time- is best spent trying to get you to #1 (a never-ending goal) for those phrases most likely to be searched for by people who actually want your type of service or product.

With that in mind, here’s what I sent my customers yesterday to illustrate the quality of my work.

On Jan 29, searching in Google for:

Texas gifts - 4 of my clients are in top 7
Paris tours small groups – my client is #1
mesquite furniture – 2 of my clients are in top 3
wedding keepsake gifts – my client is in top 3
Texas gift baskets - my client is in top 10
Texas speech writer - my client is #1
gourmet cooking classes – my client is in top 10
gourmet kitchen tools – my client is in top 5
furniture restoration Texas – client is #1
closet design Houston – my client is in top 10
murphy beds San antonio – my client is #3
custom closets Austin – my client is #1
Austin wedding coordinator – my client is #2
custom fireplace tools – my client is #1
wildflower t-shirts – my client’s in top 5
custom mesquite bed – my clients are #1, #2, #8 and #10
custom children’s furniture – my client is #3
top Austin realtors – my client is #2
Austin interior designers – my client is #7

I could go on and on, but that should give you an idea. If you want to learn more, please visit my web design site for all the details and to sign up