Wolfram Alpha: How will it’s Launch Affect SEO?

Wolfram Alpha is set to launch sometime this month. It is not just another search engine, but a tool for answering specific questions. They call it a “computational knowledge engine”. It takes searches to another level by cross-referencing information to find an answer to a question. For example, Wolfram Alpha should be able to show you results for pages that can answer questions like, “What world leaders have birthdays in July?” or “Does Jennifer Anniston wear the same size shoe as Barbara Bush?”.

Wolfram Alpha should bring on some interesting results along with possible changes in your SEO strategy. SEO companies are constantly updating procedures to keep up with the ever-changing world of search engine optimization. So, when and if great changes are made in user behavior or ranking algorithmic functions, SEO will surely follow.

This new search engine will be most useful for research. Finding similarities in different types of trials, sites or information will help us get a better understanding of a multitude of subjects. Plus it will be fun to play around with just to see what types of useless facts we can come up with.

Wolfram Alpha was developed by Stephen Wolfram because he figured out that an age old assumption about computers handling questions could finally come to fruition. Wolfram says it best himself:

“Fifty years ago, when computers were young, people assumed that they’d quickly be able to handle all these kinds of things.
And that one would be able to ask a computer any factual question, and have it compute the answer.
But it didn’t work out that way. Computers have been able to do many remarkable and unexpected things. But not that.
I’d always thought, though, that eventually it should be possible. And a few years ago, I realized that I was finally in a position to try to do it.”

Whether or not Wolfram Alpha changes the face of searching or becomes a valuable research tool is still open for debate. Either way, we’re excited about it and can’t wait to see how a search engine that uses everyday language, cross-references sites, and thinks like a human being changes the web.

Will Wolfram Alpha affect internet marketing? That remains to be seen. It uses a lot of the same search techniques and algorithms as current search engines, so it may not require many if any changes at all.

About the Author: Stacy Pessoney is a Project Manager for ArteWorks SEO, one of the top search engine marketing companies in the world. A graduate of the University of Alabama, she implements and manages comprehensive SEO strategies and serve as an organizational liaison among company executives, clients and colleagues.

Optimizing your Optimization: SEO

When you were shopping around for your SEO, you probably got a lot of fuzzy quotes. Some companies are vague about what they are actually going to do because one, they may not want to be liable for something that they said they were going to do and didn’t, or two, they don’t want you to take their valuable research that determined what needed to be done.

Each web site needs an individualized plan for search engine optimization. This is really the main reason for vagary throughout the industry. Sure, there may be some obvious things that need to be done, but other things could take hours of research to figure out. There is no “one size fits all” approach in SEO.

When you are determining which company has the best plan in mind, think about what you really want. Do you only want your site optimized so that the browser spiders can more easily see you and rank you? Do you want extensive work done on keyword research, keyword density and link building? Before you sign on the dotted line, check around to make sure that you are getting what you’re paying for.

Ideally, you want your site to be improved by every means possible. This can include title tags, headlines, text quality and quantity, links, 301 redirects, and more. These things may need to be periodically updated as things change in your rankings, keyword focus or your industry. So, many people find themselves paying for these things by the year. Not a bad idea, but it isn’t all that needs to be considered.

What if this work is all done in the first week and then nothing ever needs to be changed? Your site may be perfectly optimized, but does that mean that you are done? Will this really keep you climbing in the rankings? Not necessarily. Yes, these things help a lot and are totally necessary, but what else needs to be done to increase your chances of success?

Browsers use more information than “how well your site is laid out” to determine your worth. Are you active in your industry community? Do you provide valuable information about your industry? Are you doing more than putting a product on the market? This is where copywriting and blogs come in. Your SEO will hopefully offer article writing services, along with posting to a blog, including relevant links to your site, and syndicating those articles so that they can be spread around the web. The articles should not sound like sales copy or they will not be taken seriously by the public or the browsers. Generic, relevant, interesting information should be provided in your articles.

Social media efforts are next. Social media is becoming more and more important to rankings. Bookmarking, social site posts and networking are the last piece of the services puzzle.

Make sure that you are getting all that you paid for. Going with a cheaper SEO that offers fewer services may put you waiting in line behind your competitors indefinitely.

About the Author: Stacy Pessoney is a Project Manager for ArteWorks SEO, one of the top search engine marketing companies in the world. A graduate of the University of Alabama, she implements and manages comprehensive SEO strategies and serve as an organizational liaison among company executives, clients and colleagues.

How to Not Get Penalized for Anchor Text

Anchor text is the actual word that you see in a link. The code that makes it direct you to a web site is hidden from view. You may be aware of the importance of links when optimizing your site, but you may not be aware of possible search engine penalties associated with your anchor text.

Back in the day, search engines simply looked at meta tags and links to rank your web site. As soon as people figured it out, they started spamming the search engines and undeserving sites were getting top rankings. Google quickly figured it out and created a system of penalizing sites for trying to manipulate the rankings. They changed their rank criteria to give results based on a lot more than how many times you can squeeze your keyword into your homepage.

Now Google and other search engines look at everything from the relevance of your content to the web of links pointing to your site from all over the web. They even consider the reputation of the site that is linking to you. The result is a very true search result. When I type in a keyphrase, I know that I am getting rankings based on relevance, popularity and quality content.

Now the question is, "How do I build these links to my site without raising any red flags with Google?" There are a few guidelines for building quality anchor text that will keep you out of trouble.

Do not over optimize one general phrase. For example, if you sell sports equipment, you may believe that you should optimize for the keyphrase "sports". But truthfully, this is a very broad term with a lot of competition. You could work on it for years and barely rank. As far as anchor text goes, you will have a lot of links with the same anchor text, "sports". Search engines will see it as over-optimization and possibly penalize you, which can take a very long time to recover from. Optimizing for a broad term like this will also get a lot of people looking for all sorts of information relating to sports and not people looking to buy sports equipment.

Mix up your anchor text and the words that you are optimizing for. Instead of "sports" you may need to be a lot more specific and work with more specific keywords, like "soccer pads", "golf clubs", or "kids football cleats". Not only will you have less competition, but you will be targeting the people that are actually looking to buy sports equipment.

Work with your SEO company on an internet marketing strategy that uses specific keywords related to your content and your site. Use different combinations of words based on what your customers are typing in to find you. Avoid the over use of any one keyword and you should start to see some real results.

About the Author: Stacy Pessoney is a Project Manager for ArteWorks SEO, one of the top search engine marketing companies in the world. A graduate of the University of Alabama, she implements and manages comprehensive SEO strategies and serve as an organizational liaison among company executives, clients and colleagues.

Search Engine Internet Marketing

Internet marketing

Search engine Internet marketing is the promotion of websites through increased visibility on search engines for specific keyword searches. Keyphrases closely related to your business can produce valuable traffic to your website if you appear in search engine results for those terms. Internet marketing can be the means to help you achieve this goal.
Many companies choose a combination of strategies to increase visibility of their website on search engines. Paying for ad placement on search engine sites is often one part of the strategy. Known as Pay Per Click Advertising, this will provide a link to your website in a sponsored section of the search engine’s website. In this case, you will pay for every visitor that comes to your website through this ad until your designated budget is exhausted for the month.
Another increasingly popular strategy, and often more effective, is to seek high rankings in the natural listings of the search engines. People trust sites like Google to tell them the truth. If a web site is coming up high on the first page when user searches a specific keyword, then they believe that site to rank well for a reason. Perhaps they would suspect that they have a lot of satisfied customers or that they do business in a timely manner. Perhaps their site is easy to use and packed with information relevant to that search.
Using search engine optimization (SEO) services for your website can help you not only to tweak your pages to be more easily accessible for indexing, but it can also help you make the information on your site more accessible.
SEO should also utilize social media to increase visibility, and is a great way to get the ball rolling. Search engines not only look at your site and your content, but they also weigh the amount of online participation. If people are talking about your site, bookmarking pages, reading and commenting on your blog, and sending video or links to their friends, search engines will likely see your sight as a high quality information source.
The ranking system is very complex for search engine giants such as Google, requiring search engine optimization companies to constantly research changes and keep on top. The right SEO can meticulously build links and work on site changes so that you are more highly regarded by the search engines. Internet marketing consists of a lot more than buying a paid placement ad or putting a banner on someone’s site, so don’t hesitate to pay the professionals when it comes to promoting your business online.

Building Backlinks for SEO

When optimizing your site for Search Engine Optimization, you had better have Google in mind. Google is by far the most trusted and used Search Engine out there. We could go on for months about the algorithms that Google uses to rank your page, but usually it is best to start with the basics. Here we will talk about the importance of backlinks on your site.
Google is very good at detecting links that are irrelevant to your site content or that lead the clicker to a spam site. It is crucial that you go organic with your site building and your SEO efforts. You do not want to get into a manual audit by Google, or worse. Your links need to be natural and make sense. This is the bottom line when it comes to effective link building on your site.
Backlinks are considered to be one of the most important things to work on when optimizing a site. Backlinks are also known as inbound links. Inbound links or backlinks are simply links that lead people to your site. Google will see backlinks to your site and rate them. Google is able to determine if the links are relevant to your site. The number of links leading to your site can also be important, if you do not over do it.
Google wants to know if the links are relevant. Therefore, they will not only look at the link, but also analyze the content around the link. If the content is presented in a logical order, has no misspellings or grammatical errors, and is part of a discussion about something pertaining to your site, then Google will most likely see this as a quality link. Google also considers the quality of the site that has a link to your site on it. Get enough of these quality backlinks directing people to you, and you could be on your way to a highly ranking site.
You must be careful and never try to trick Google. Google will disregard non-quality links. This prevents people from simply creating web pages with inbound links to the site they want to optimize, or simply throwing a whole lot of links to their site all over the web. Google is very good at catching little tricky moves like this and they will not tolerate it. Try to trick Google and you will eventually get burned. Google will not hesitate to ban you from their searches and then you are a lot worse off than you originally were.
Google ranks higher for backlinks that are all naturally occurring on quality sites that are related to yours. Getting these links takes time. You have to be patient because Google is. If a lot of backlinks show up at once, they will simply be disregarded by Google. You have to have them slowly appear over time and they have to all be quality links.
The keywords used to link back to your site need to be varied so that it is not obvious that you are planting all of these links. The goal is to not "plant" all of the links yourself, but to provide readers with interesting content that will make them want to bookmark or forward the articles with the links to other people. This is where you get into the importance of social bookmarking, so we will stop here. Just remember that backlinking is the backbone of SEO and you need to keep it organic when getting your backlinks.