Stacy Pessoney – Search Engine Marketing Tips

Quick Changes to Boost Your Search Rankings

noreply@blogger.com (Stacy) — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 23:08:00 +0000

It used to be true that you could add some key phrases to the code of your site and immediately see some quick results. Oh, how long ago that was. If only it were so easy, then the search results would be nearly irrelevant. Search engines use a very complex array of information to rank sites and no one knows them all. So, sorry, there is no quick trick to bounce you to the number one spot in search rankings and keep you there. However, there are definitely some relatively easy things that you can do to help ensure your success in the search engines.

1. Have a useful site. If your site is no good, then you can expect to never show up in the higher rankings. Social media plays a part in your ranking success, so people have to find your site relevant, current and useful for anyone to start talking about it.
2. Choose key phrases that are relevant to the content on your site. If people search for a celebrity and find information about computer printers, then your site is not going to be taken seriously by the search engines or people in general. Relevant keywords and phrases give the search engine valuable information about what type of content is on your site. It also helps people searching for you to find you. Keyword research is extremely important, because it can tell you what people are typing in to find you who aren’t finding you.
3. Publicize your developments. You can have the most user friendly, perfectly configured site on the internet, provide current information that is useful to your demographic, but it won’t matter if no one knows about it. Current publicity is not only press releases, but a trickle-down of communicating with the people and the people communicating with each other. Social media is incredibly powerful. You are dependent on people’s recommendations, sharing of links and opinion of you on social networks. You have to regularly announce blog updates, product developments and sometimes even other site’s articles or products to be a part of the community interested in your business.
4. On-page optimization is very important because it helps you rank in a lot of different ways. Your page content has to be relevant to the key phrase that you are optimizing for. Search engines do not look at graphics or flash shows that interest viewers, they look at the text and the actual content. Search engines even look to see if the text around your key phrase is relevant or not. They want to see through the code of the site if the title tag, section headings and image attributes are all relevant to the desired key phrase. If they are, then you may rank for that keyword or phrase.
5. Keep it up for a long time. Search engines may crawl your site many times before it will rank. Sites under a year old may not rank, but how they conduct themselves in that year can affect rankings, after the fact.

You must consistently uphold your promise to the search engine that you are a quality site, you offer relevant information, keep up with the public interest and update regularly. Don’t stop once you reach your goals or you could find yourself starting over. Search Engine Optimization companies specialize in handling all of this activity and making changes as the search engines evolve.

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.

SEO Changes with Google

noreply@blogger.com (Stacy) — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 20:43:00 +0000

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is always evolving and always changing. Why? Mostly because as technology advances, people’s behaviors change. SEO companies are in a unique position to monitor the changes in search as well as the changes in user behavior.

Search engines, such as Google, will periodically present new ideas and let us know how they have updated searches and rankings. They will hypothesize about the future and fine tune the results that you get when you search for information on their site. Google has been especially successful in giving users useful and relevant search results. They have been an industry leader and they establish new search standards all the time.

All of these changes are exciting and overall really improve the user experience. If you are a small or local business, you may have previously had almost no interest in coming up on the first page of Google results, because it just seemed impossible. Advancements in search have made it possible for smaller companies to be found by users that would benefit from finding them. The search advancements have forced companies to keep up with the times by getting involved in providing useful information to the public.

All of these things trickle down to the business owner. You have to be responsible enough in your advertising to make sure that you are being recommended by real people, providing current and useful information on a blog and not just spamming your name around social sites until everyone is annoyed by you. Advertising has made it to a whole new level. I don’t even own a phone book anymore. I fast forward through commercials on TV. I change the radio station if I feel an ad coming on. So how do you advertise?

You have got to go to where people are looking. The internet is more widely used to find businesses than any other medium. So, should you just have ads pop up in people’s faces all the time? No. That is annoying and companies that use pop-ups like that will turn me against them faster than I can click that little X. You really have to work with the people. Let them know what you offer and that it is of value. Provide information about areas related to your industry. You can provide a link so that after I read it and I’m interested, I can find your site and check it out. But, if something starts to sound like sales copy, then I automatically think that the article is an ad and may be full of biased information.

SEO companies that keep up with these changes will go about your optimization in an almost delicate manner. The campaign that is right for your company will be different from other companies. Everyone’s needs are different and there is never a one-size-fits-all strategy. You may have to be patient for the results, but the results will be real. Organic SEO uses the right strategy at the right time to help the search engines find you and rank you based on their current standards. So, don’t waste your money on anything else. Go to where the people are and find the right SEO company for your business needs.

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.

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

noreply@blogger.com (Stacy) — Wed, 13 May 2009 17:01:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Stacy) — Wed, 13 May 2009 16:04:00 +0000

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.

Importance of Diligent Tagging

noreply@blogger.com (Stacy) — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 17:18:00 +0000

Tags and bookmarking clouds need to be well thought when you are promoting your site. Search engines are using social media as a source of ranking information in their algorithms. Using tags that directly relate to the information you are providing will help search engines see specifically what you are talking about, therefore exposing more users to your links and relevant information. You should also include generic, more general terms that relate to your area of expertise, if and only if they pertain to the article, video, podcast, etc. that you are posting.

Tagging in order of importance can help your tag cloud be indexed more easily. For example, if I was writing about cavities for a local dentist, my tag list would look something like this: cavities, cavity treatment, porcelain fillings, dentist Huntsville AL, Dr. Davis Huntsville AL

Notice how the tag line starts out with the information most specific to the article. Then, it goes on to include people that may be searching for a local dentist or for information about “Dr. Davis” in Huntsville, AL. Dr. Davis is totally fictional, by the way.

Do not use tags that use your keywords unless those keywords were mentioned in the article. Some people are tempted to get their favorite keywords out there as much as possible. But, it could seriously backfire unless the information you provide pertains to the keyword. Using a keyword specifically to bait people to your site link without providing information about that keyword, will only drive people away. It will even cause current customers or readers to lose their trust in you. In turn, it can affect your rankings.

The moral of the story is that you need to avoid black hat SEO companies that use keyword and tag stuffing as a way to show you quick results. The boost will be temporary at best and can cause you to fall lower than before you even hired them by turning your readers and customers away. Make your efforts genuine and organic. Organic SEO companies provide actual unique information that relates to your industry to help you get your name out there. This also helps people and search engines see you as a trusted source of information.

Your SEO company should put a lot of effort into your keyword research. This will give you the best chance of finding out how users are trying to find you. Some terms may prove to be too competitive for your time frame or budget. You can discover which keywords are being searched for without producing results and dominate these searches. These keywords will translate into ideas and tags that will help people and search engines find you more often.

Social media efforts need to be sincere and may take a little longer to catch on than some other “tricks of the trade”. But, the results can be really long lasting and can put your investment in SEO to work for you. Remember that rank criteria are always changing. In general, the criteria trends toward real results. Rankings are becoming more and more like a true picture of what people find interesting and trustworthy, as opposed to yesteryear when they only produced results for pages that mentioned your keyphrase over and over again.

Search engines are very intuitive and can figure out if your information is current, useful, respected and popular. Doing the proper research for topics and keywords is ultra important. This information can be used to properly tag your articles and so forth, thus producing the long-lasting, dependable results that search engines and users are drooling for.

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.

Should Twitter be Part of Your SEO Strategy?

noreply@blogger.com (Stacy) — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 17:09:00 +0000

Twitter is still a very young site, but its growth as a social network catalyst and its effective uses as a marketing tool cannot be ignored. Twitter acts as streaming search engine, allowing you to find the latest news about the topic you’re interested in. Of course, Twitter has its advertising spammers, but mostly you’ll find recommendations for information that includes user comments and other valuable links to the subject you’re looking for.

Twitter has taken social media by storm. As you may know, social efforts on behalf of your site can be almost as important as your content when it comes to rankings. For example, you may have a top-notch design, proper keyword placement and the most user-friendly site in the business. But if people aren’t talking about you, sharing your links and promoting you on social networking sites, you could be dead in the water.

This is what organic SEO’s have been talking about for years. Hallelujah! The world is finally catching up. You can’t just cram in keywords, spread your links around the web and expect to see lasting results. You have to tediously and carefully place your links where they can be shared, commented on and seen.

Think like a user. If you enter a phrase into a search engine and get results, what do you assume the top results are showing you? Is it the most keyword rich site? Probably not the first thing on a users mind. Users have come to expect that the top rankers are the most popular as well as the most relevant to their search. So, as a business owner, shouldn’t you be focusing on making your site not only look good and function properly, but also on making your site popular?

You can’t force it down people’s throats and you can’t make it all happen with Twitter. But, you can provide useful, interesting, current information about your field, prompting users to popularize your site for you. Twitter is only one of the tools that your SEO company uses to help you accomplish this.

Popularization through social media can take some time to increase your search engine rankings. The upside is that the results can last a lot longer than the occasional promotion or print ad. Furthermore, investing in search engine marketing will help sustain your site’s popularity through economic downfalls that can zap your advertising budget. Would you rather pay for a temporary ad or actually gain a fan base that can weather the storm in hard times?

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

noreply@blogger.com (Stacy) — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 16:18:00 +0000

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.

How Does Your SEO Company Choose Keywords?

noreply@blogger.com (Stacy) — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 15:04:00 +0000

Keyword selection is possibly the most important part of your marketing strategy. Everything you do to your site or relating to your site hinges on how effective your keywords are. If chosen correctly and periodically updated, then the right keywords can really pay off.

You can do keyword research on your own, but using a reputable search engine marketing company that stays cutting edge will increase your chances of having the best keywords possible.

A good SEO company will use a lot of different programs and tools to determine what people are searching for when they could benefit by finding your site. You don't necessarily need keywords that are general or too broad to compete.

Competitive keywords are ones that will not only drive traffic to your site. Competitive keywords should drive people to your site that will actually benefit from being there. They will also not waste your time and money competing for a ranking that could take years to get and even then may not make you any money.

Another benefit of using an SEO company to do your keyword research is experience. This is their primary focus and there is a whole industry built around it. Don't assume that you can learn everything about keyword selection in one day! An SEO company will look for hidden keywords, or words that people are using to search for you and not finding anything useful. It is sometimes very hard to think like a layman when you are an expert in your field.

Your SEO company will help you with your web site content to make sure that each page has unique content centered around the keywords. The keywords really do need to be the focus of the page that you are targeting. There is also a lot of behind the scenes work that can be done to increase your chances of being found with the great keywords that you have chosen.

Once your SEO company has your keywords, they should ask you which ones you consider most relevant to your site. After all, you are the one who has centered a career around the subject, and you know better than anyone which subjects are most important to you.

Don't make the mistake of discounting the collected data, though. Some people are so convinced that they know what is most important, that they don't consider what their users are actually typing into the search engines to find them. The hierarchy, however, may be best decided by you. Ask for an explanation of the keyword order of importance when your search engine marketing company presents you with your keyword list before you decide to change things.

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.

Is Trading Links Beneficial?

noreply@blogger.com (Stacy) — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 14:21:00 +0000

If you own a web site, you may get offers from other sites to trade links. This is essentially a link swap, where you put a link to their site somewhere on your page and they will put a link to your site on their page.

Building links around the web pointing to your site can be helpful in the search engine rankings and getting links on other pages can get new visitors coming to your site, but is there a downside? Well, it kind of depends.

Link trading can be beneficial to you. It is most beneficial if the site you are getting your link on is a reputable site that relates to your industry. If you do some research and figure out that the site is a good site to "advertise" on, then there are a couple of other things to consider.

Be picky about where they are going to put this link. If it is on the bottom of a page that does not have anything to do with you, then it will not be helpful at all, to the visitors or the search engines. If you will be on a page that is rarely visited, then it will not help. If you will be in a long list of other links or if there are already too many links on the page, then it may not help you either. Search engines and users are looking for links that are extremely relevant to the content on the page. So, make sure that you approve of the context and content that your link will be associated with.

If you do decide that this is a good site, they are going to relevantly use your link and it would actually be an "honor", so to speak, to be on this page and site, then there is the other side of things to consider before you jump into it. You will need to put a link for the other site on your page. Is linking to them going to look unnatural with your content? Would the link look relevant to your visitors? Would you be willing for your visitors to leave your page when they click on this link?

Linking to other sites is tricky. Sometimes you do want to be associated with other sites, or you want to give someone else credit for some information that you are using on your site. But, you have to be willing to lose your visitors when they stumble upon this link. Sometimes it's not worth it. It just depends on the nature of your site. Plus, you are putting your site's reputation with visitors and search engines in their hands by linking to them from your site.

Consider all of these things before you decide to jump on the link trading bandwagon. If you are just uneasy with the idea but you are still interested in social marketing, which has become very important in the search engines, then contact a search engine marketing company about link building in the social world of the web.

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 Images on Your Site

noreply@blogger.com (Stacy) — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 21:27:00 +0000

Images are a part of any good web site, but they can hurt you in the search engine rankings if they're not set up correctly. Also, you may have already noticed that you do not have to do an image search to pull up images in your search results. Images are becoming part of the normal search results on all of the search engines. Make sure your site is ready to rank with these important tips about optimizing the images on your web site.

File Name: The first step to optimizing the images on your site is to check the file names. Many, you may find, are titled things like "pic 1", "2.gif" or "3.jpg". You can rename the images so that the file names are actually descriptive of the image details. Avoid generic names that confuse search engine spiders and users alike.

Alt Attribute: Many people have security settings on their browsers to inhibit the display of images for one reason or another. Some may be to protect them from sites they do not trust while others do it just to increase their internet speed. The alt attribute is a message that displays in place of the image if it is blocked from view. The alt attribute should tell what the image is about. This message is also the anchor text for clickable images.

Clickable Images: Keep clickable images to a minimum. They can be confusing to search engines, especially if they are the only means of navigating around the site. This goes for images or graphics such as drop-down menus that are used for navigation. Use plain, organized text for navigation.

Robot blocked images: A lot of older sites and some of the newer ones with unaware webmasters are set up with the images blocked by their robots.txt files. These are useful for keeping certain things from being crawled and indexed on your site, but now that images are becoming important to search engine rankings, you may want to move your images to a new folder where they are not blocked from being ranked. Having your images all in one place helps the search engines to index them, as well.

You can use Web Analytics or Google Website Optimizer to see which image changes will do your site the most good. Since images are becoming more and more important on the search engines, you may want to work with a search engine marketing company to keep your images up to date.

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.

Creating User-Friendly URL’s for Your Site

noreply@blogger.com (Stacy) — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 19:47:00 +0000

Improving the URL's of your site may be a daunting task, but the payoff could be great. Hard-to-remember or reproduce URL's are a big reason that a lot of visitors never make it to a lot of sites. They make navigation difficult for users and in turn, can affect your search engine positioning.

Long, complicated URL's can be very annoying to users. Long streams of numbers, punctuation and odd characters are virtually useless to most people. The potential for error in reproducing them is great and can result in a lot less traffic to your site. Partial URL copying is just about guaranteed for URL's that are too long. Bookmarking and linking to your site will be greatly reduced if your URL's don't make sense or are simply too long.

A simple way to structure your URL's is to make it obvious which page you are going to when you look at the URL. It should also make it obvious how important the page is and where it is located on your site. For example, "examplesite.com/home/furniture/kitchen/chairs/" tells you that you are in the kitchen area of furniture, looking at chairs. This can help to improve navigation for your users and simultaneously improve crawlability by search engines.

Make sure that anticipated links also work. If someone sees the above link and wants to go to the furniture section, can they simply leave out the "/kitchen/chairs/" portion of the URL and be directed to the furniture page?

Browsers like Google Chrome have made it a lot easier to type in URL's by hand, but not everyone uses browsers with URL self-correct. Work on making your URL's self-correcting. Consider common mistakes that people make when typing in your URL's. Capitalization, punctuation, synonyms, misspellings, partial URL’s and old URL's should automatically redirect users to the page that they intended to visit.

Breadcrumb links also improve navigation and cut down on people guessing what the URL's of certain pages are. For example, each page should have a breadcrumb navigation trail of links like this example:

Home < Furniture < Kitchen < Chairs

This makes it really easy for people to link to other pages in your site. You can also avoid drop down menus and images that aren’t easily followed by search engines. Two birds with one stone.

Improving your URL’s keeps your site really organized and user friendly. It should help increase the amount of bookmarking and sharing of your information as well. Easy to read and understand URL's make it obvious to search engines how important each page is and where it lies in your site. Improving your URL's is one of the things that your search engine marketing company will look at when optimizing your site.

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.

Improving Your Site's Crawlability and Indexing

noreply@blogger.com (Stacy) — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 18:59:00 +0000

There are a few simple guidelines that you can follow to make your site more crawlable and more easily indexed by the search engines. In general, you need to focus on making your site as user-friendly as possible. Your second focus should be organization. Organizing your site so that it flows easily not only makes navigation easier to your visitors, but also makes more of your pages visible to the search engines.

Sitemaps can be an easy way to organize a site with a lot of pages. Your visitors can easily see where they are or need to go and search engines can tell which pages you intend to be most important. XML Sitemap pages are easily crawled by search engines and help the search engine to see all of the pages on your site.

Using links to help your visitors navigate the site is another good idea. Search engines have a hard time following image links like drop down menus. Text links are most easily followed. This is especially true if the text is short and to the point. You want it to be descriptive of the content on the page that you are linking to without being too lengthy. Links like "click here" are confusing to search engines, so stick to precise descriptive text for your internal links.

Work on your page titles and descriptions. Page titles should be descriptive of the actual information on that page. Each page should have a unique title. Avoid naming every page the title of your site. Also, avoid page titles like "Page 1", or lengthy titles that stuff in a lot of keywords. Be precise and to the point. Keep in mind that the page title will show up in search results when people are looking for your site. The goal of the page title is to inform the person looking if this is the exact page they are looking for or not.

The next thing that will show up in a search is the page description. This is the description meta tag under the header of your site. This should broaden the title of the page without repeating it. This is usually a couple of sentences. They can be a teaser to entice visitors to become curious about the page. Two or three sentences are plenty. Avoid using lists of keywords here. This is more a summary than a place to squeeze in keywords. Each page should have its own unique description.

These few tips can help you to make your site more user friendly and crawlable by the search engines. Indexing will be more efficient and search results will be more understandable and usable by visitors. A search engine marketing company will be able to go a lot more in depth with your optimization, but this is a starting point for you to start improving your site.

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.

What Exactly is Social Media? SMO Basics

noreply@blogger.com (Stacy) — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 04:33:00 +0000

Social media is a new frontier and many business owners are discovering a need to understand it. If you have found yourself swimming in an ocean of marketing and search engine optimization jargon trying to figure it out, then you will probably benefit from this easy-to-understand tutorial.

Definition: Social media is referred to as "word of mouth" advertising. Although it isn't the actual "mouth" we're talking about, it basically is defined as what people are saying about you online or through mobile and hand-held devices.

What Social Media Does: Social discussions between actual human beings integrate you across boundaries of video, blogs, bookmarking, images, communities, etc. As people talk about you, discuss you, send links to your site or your blog, bookmark you and follow you, you become more and more "popular".

Why is Social Media Important for Search Engine Optimization?: Search engines highly value this popularity because it represents not how much you paid for your advertising, but how much current, quality, information you are providing. For example, if you never updated or provided any new information, then people would soon have nothing to talk about. So, by ranking you based on social media findings, search engines can keep their results fresh and relevant, reflecting the opinions of the users.

What does SEO do for Social Media? : Going through an organic search engine optimization company is a consistent way to keep up with social media demands. They should offer a huge range of services to keep your company in the eye of users that follow blogs and bookmark them, use discussion boards and forums, making you more visible to the internet community.

Why can't I just blog and be done? : Social media is beginning to include podcasts, video, images and mobile or hand-held device communications. SEO companies are evolving as the search engines do to keep you up to date with what's important. You also need your postings and your site to be search engine friendly. SEO's are aware of all the details and do extensive work beyond blogging. Concentration is put into social news, opinions, bookmarking, networking and blogging.

The bottom line is that Social Marketing utilizes the virtual community to make your site more popular with the search engines. If the search engines are weighing it heavily, then you should too. Your reputation can take a long time to build, so getting started with a competent search engine marketing company early in the game can help you to become more and more popular over time.

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.

SEO for 2009

noreply@blogger.com (Stacy) — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 03:35:00 +0000

Search engines have really been leaning towards localizing their rankings and considering social media to make each user's experience a more personal one. This basically means that you may not see the same results as someone else for many searches, depending on your location. You can also depend on user feedback driven results in the rankings.

Something else to expect for 2009 is the emergence of other media such as mobile, video, podcasts and images. Is your site ready to rank?

SEO is a constantly evolving industry in which SEO professionals are forced to keep up with the marketing demands of the search engines. SEO’s are no longer simply optimizing a web page for a certain phrase. They are now moving into more specific areas such as videos, blogs, mobile media and images. This makes SEO companies valuable assets to those who utilize their services, ensuring that their web sites can keep up with the changing rank criteria.

These changes are turning SEO firms into web marketing providers. SEO companies are really trying to create a reputation for your site online. Building this reputation with actual users is going to help you come up higher in the universal rankings, and more importantly, come up more often with localized individuals that may actually benefit from visiting your site. These types of results not only give you high visibility, but also place you where you need to be to popularize your site for social media efforts.

Organic SEO firms have always been interested in building your online reputation, seeking long-term results and staying away from underhanded methods just to get a quick ranking boost. Now that the search engines have evolved, the organic method of SEO is really paying off. Search engines are giving results based on your outreach, your popularity and the quality of the information that you are providing.
Building your reputation as an expert in your field with all types of users can take some time. Mobile marketing, informative video, podcasts, imaging and social blogging are soon to be basic categories of SEO. Many of us have already been utilizing or venturing into these areas in anticipation of these changes. Companies that are in on the ground floor of such progressions are going to have a better stronghold on their field of competitors, making SEO a more important facet in your web marketing plan than ever before.

Real results can take time so getting started early is your best bet. Mobile and social media are becoming the norm in qualifying sites for rankings, and you need to be ready. Visibility in the social world of online media can really take a while, even years, and search engines weigh it heavily. Some search engines have even been created to only give socially motivated results, and they are becoming more and more popular. Make sure you are getting good representation in all these areas when choosing your search engine marketing company.

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.

The Importance of Good Keyword Research

noreply@blogger.com (Stacy) — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 02:44:00 +0000

Good keyword research is the foundation for any SEO campaign. When you are looking for a good SEO company, avoid "guaranteed results" or companies that ask you what keywords you would like your site optimized for. If you are not working on the right keywords, then your whole campaign can be a huge waste of time and money.
Some companies have been known to guarantee certain rankings. Well, that can be pretty easy to accomplish if they optimize your site for a keyword that has no competition. You can end up spending a lot of money on nothing.

Keyword research should be a major part of the campaign. If someone asks you to choose your own, then you should turn and run the other way. Don’t get me wrong, you should be able to give your suggestions. After all, no one knows your business better than you. Your SEO company should work with you on determining whether or not your potential keyphrases will give you the best bang for your buck. Research generally starts with your suggestions and then grows from there.

The goal of good keyphrases is to generate traffic for your site. There may be some broad keyphrases that you need to optimize for, but there are likely some more specific keyphrases that will bring higher quality traffic to you. It’s all about the quality, not necessarily the quantity of viewers that you are going for here.

For example, let's say that your site sells appliances. You may want to optimize for the term "appliances" which could very well bring a lot of traffic to your site. But, you'll be getting everyone in the world looking for warranty information, inquiring about selling appliances themselves, looking for repairmen, or looking for parts. This type of traffic can be heavy and look great on results reports, but how much of this traffic actually turns into sales? Probably not much. If your SEO company does their job right, then you should end up with more specific keywords to compliment the broader ones. Your list may include "appliances", but it may also include "appliance distributor", "appliance Dallas" or "wholesale appliances".

The proper research is necessary before you can determine which keywords are actually being searched for by real people. Your SEO company should be looking for high volume searches on keywords related to your site that have been ignored by your competition. In other words, you may be able to find a niche that other companies have not yet discovered. Research on your competition’s keywords should be done as well. This is called "competitive intelligence" and not too many companies out there take the time to go this far. You need to do everything that the competition is doing, and then some, to make a real difference in your rankings.

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.

SEO Strategies for a Down Market

noreply@blogger.com (Stacy) — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 18:35:00 +0000

With the recent market woes, companies are nervous about what their 2009 marketing strategies will look like. Some will, inevitably, need to cut their budgets. At the same time, they want to have the most visibility possible on the search engines to drive in the business that is out there to be had.
Many are cutting down on TV spots and big magazine and billboard advertising and vamping up their Search Engine Optimization efforts. After all, a lot of their target audience has TiVo or DVR, rendering your TV spots useless, and they flip right past magazine ads to get to the articles they want to read.
Internet strategies just make sense. Since most internet users utilize the major search engines to find you, it makes even more sense to spend your money on optimizing your site and building your online social reputation. Not only will it benefit you now, but in the long-run as well, relieving your stress about the next “bad year”.
Online marketing efforts not only make your site easier for search engines to crawl and index. Current SEO goes beyond that. A good Search Engine Optimization Company keeps up with the constantly changing rank criteria that the search engines dish out. SEO companies can keep your site up to date with these changes throughout the year, so you are not relying on one advertising strategy made in January to keep you going all year round.
SEO companies will give you the consistently updating blogs and links that help you build your reputation. Social media is so important, that sites without it will rank lower and lower over time. SEO facilitates discussions and bookmarking by producing relevant, quality information about your industry. Search engines value this type of marketing because it gives the searcher a clear picture of who is putting forth the most effort with the most relevant information out there.
Investing in Search Engine Optimization is more important now than ever. The sooner you start, the more intricate your online social “web” will be. Search engines are now the primary means for customers to find suppliers. Search engines constantly make their results more relevant to the searchers needs. It can take a long time to become the most relevant result, especially if your competitors have been at it longer than you. Make sure that you select a top search engine marketing company to keep your site up to snuff and ready for the future of marketing.

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.

Understanding Your Search Engine Ranking

noreply@blogger.com (Stacy) — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 17:50:00 +0000

If you’ve been checking your keyword rankings over the last few months or years, you may have noticed some changes in the results that are coming up. Keyword search results have evolved. You will need to adjust your strategy to keep up.
You may expect that your site should come up with your competitors’ sites. This may not necessarily be the case. Think about it from the search engine’s perspective. When someone searches, for example, lawn mowers, do you just want to bring up companies that sell lawn mowers? Not necessarily. Your results pool would be saturated with company names, when that may not be what the user was looking for at all.
Search engines have become more and more sophisticated over time. They are not looking to help anyone sell anything. Therefore, the search results, you’ll notice, now include a lot of blog discussions, books, videos and web casts, customer comments and articles about the keyword that you enter. This gives a more rich, diverse result for the search engine users.
Companies that sell are not excluded, but they are no longer the primary ranking holders that they used to be. Furthermore, sites that incorporate all of these other aspects of social media will be the companies that end up ranking higher and higher in the search. For example, you may have a wonderful, user friendly, search engine friendly site about lawn mowers. You may offer more and give better prices and customer service than your competitor. But, your competitor that has kept a current blog, released relevant information about lawn mowers, and sparked discussions and bookmarking among the public will rank higher than you anyway.
This gives everyone a fair advantage. It gives users a more complex picture of the rankings. I know that when I click on those first page results, I am going to get up to date information from companies and consumers like myself, not just the site of the company that pays the most for advertising and sells the most merchandise.
This gives smaller sites the unique ability to get visibility over the huge billion dollar budget companies. That is, if you play your cards wisely. Keeping your online reputation current, your visibility high and keeping up with the changes in the search engine world will require you to work with a world class search engine optimization company. Long gone are the days where spending the most money on advertising gets you the most customers. Money is probably better spent on Search Engine Optimization.

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.

SEO vs. Paid AdWords

noreply@blogger.com (Stacy) — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 17:02:00 +0000

Google has been aggressively advertising the sale of their AdWords. So, a lot of people are wondering if this could be an option for them. After all, AdWords lets you basically pay to come up when someone searches for your keyword. Can buying up enough AdWords take the place of your SEO efforts? Not likely, according to the research.
AdWords can be purchased through Google and your advertisement will come up under a “Paid Advertisers” section when someone searches for your keyword. You can choose to pay per click or pay per impression. Google has improved this system a little by placing advertisements at the top of the search page instead of down the right side where it is seldom seen. The problem is, it still looks like an ad, even appearing at the top in that fancy blue box, and most people searching are looking for popular search results, not paid advertisements.
Not to say that AdWords are useless, to the contrary. They can drive some traffic to your website, but they aren’t likely to take the place of organic search results. Search Engine Optimization, when done correctly, creates a true interest in your site. It builds your online reputation and gives you a real standing when it comes to social media.
Long term, lasting results have proven to be extremely effective in building your reputation and consistently getting those high rankings that you dream of. It’s not just your reputation, but your actual site that is affected by SEO efforts. When you hire an SEO company, they work with you on getting your site to a search engine friendly state. This can immediately get you ranking higher on all the top search engines.
Some newer search engines are using social media to rank web sites. This seems to be the new trend in search engine rankings and no amount of paid advertisement can compete. SEO is not considered advertising at all. It is the realistic “organic” way to prove yourself to the masses, thus leading to higher rankings over time.
AdWords can give you some short-term gains and some people choose to buy some ad space in addition to their SEO efforts. But, it is pretty much universally accepted that AdWords will not be replacing SEO. With social media being heavily weighted in the search engines and beyond, AdWords simply can’t compete. If you use AdWords as part of your marketing plan, you may need to consider them solely as a sideline objective, not your main plan of action.

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 Get Efficiently Indexed

noreply@blogger.com (Stacy) — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 02:51:00 +0000

When you start out with a search engine optimization company, you will need to adjust your web pages so that they can be properly indexed by the search engines. This includes a few key steps.
First, your SEO company will do some research and give you a list of competitive keywords. You will need to use these keywords in moderation throughout the text of your site, in the headers, in the page titles, and in the metatags.
Using your keywords in moderation ensures that you do not overdo it. Search engines may rank you lower because of keyword abuse and you could incur penalties if you are not careful. You want your keywords to make logical sense in relation to the context around them. You may even decide to narrow down your keywords by page.
For example, if you sell all types of lawn care equipment and you want to optimize your page about weed eaters for the keywords weedeater,weed wacker and lawn equipment. You could use text on that specific page of your site to draw people looking for these items directly to that page, instead of making them search for what they want from your homepage.
You also want your page headers to be labeled with page corresponding keywords. Use your most important keyword for a page as the h1 header. You can add additional keywords under the h2, h3 headers, and so on. All of these keywords should be related to each other and support the information provided on the page.
Page titles are also important for efficient indexing. Create a title that ideally includes your most important keyword or keywords. Do not overdo it; once again, use your keywords in moderation. The title should very accurately summarize the content of the page.
Metatags are a means for your website to allow search engines to easily identify your keywords. Do not ever use keywords that are unrelated to the information on your site or you could be quickly penalized by the search engines. Be specific, descriptive and brief in your metatag creation.
Combining these page design basics can help your search engine marketing company get your site quickly indexed and on your way to favorable placement on the SERPs.

Are Search Engines Going Social?

noreply@blogger.com (Stacy) — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 02:30:00 +0000

Search Engine Optimization companies have been focusing a lot of effort towards social media marketing. There are already lots of social sites out there where people can search for popularity-controlled results. These sites allow the masses to rank and comment on their favorite sites and articles. SEO companies use these sites to increase their clients’ sites’ visibility on the search engine results page.

One example of the social media explosion Me.dium Search released by Yahoo. Me.dium basically gives you a search basing results on the real-time activity of the searching masses. Basically, you get results based on what everyone else is looking at and ranking. SEO companies are constantly changing their strategies and practices to keep up with the ever-changing world of search engine marketing, so they are ready to step it up as the search engines have already started to lean more in the social direction.

SEO companies already heavily weigh your online social reputation when coming up with a marketing strategy. Social media efforts can help create a network of inbound links to your site, thus improving socially charged rankings on the big search engines. As social media sites become more and more powerful influencers in the major search engines, your efforts in SEO can really begin to escalate to a new level.

Powerful social media domains such as Facebook, MySpace, Linkedin and YouTube have proven to be great forums for launching ideas, getting votes and showing up in the rankings. These along with other social sites give us a platform for reputation management services and social marketing efforts.

Social innovations still to come will ensure that SEO continues to evolve. Search engine results will be targeted to a more defined group of visitors and therefore create more personalized results for the public. Social media is a part of your advertising and marketing approach that you and your search engine marketing company soon won’t be able to ignore.

How Do I Promote My Web Site?

noreply@blogger.com (Stacy) — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 16:16:00 +0000

Web site promotion is a part of an effective search engine optimization strategy. Many clients assume that promoting a web site consists of banner ads and paid placement ads in the search engines. There is actually a lot more to it.
When initializing web site promotion, many things are considered. The bottom line is not necessarily getting a flood of site visitors, but getting quality site visitors. The search engines do not just look at how many people visit your page. If they did, search engine optimization would consist of paying people to sit around visiting your site and clicking on your links thousands of times a day.
-So, what is a quality visitor? A quality visitor is someone who is actively seeking out your products or services. This doesn’t include people who accidentally stumble upon your site when searching for your keywords. Search engines look at the quality of the visitor when determining if their visit will improve your rankings.
-How do you target quality visitors? By researching which key phrases are going to be most effective. If your key phrases are completely relevant to your site content and the quality of information and services provided is very high, then your quality site traffic should increase, resulting in more consistent sales. Search engines will rate the quality of your site, how user friendly it is and how closely your content matches the selected key phrase that was used to find you.
-How do you increase visibility to these types of visitors? By determining your target audience, you can research what typical key phrases they are using to look for your services. Your site should be user-friendly and customers should have no problem navigating around your site. Different key phrases should take them to different pages of your site. This will help ease their transition from the search engine results to the product that they are looking for. You should consider directing people to other pages on your site other than your home page, for this reason.
-How is all of this relevant to my key phrases? By manipulating your site to closely match the relevancy of the key phrases, you can increase visibility and narrow down your target audience. Each page should ideally match the key phrase that you are optimizing for. This will help raise the quality of your site in the eyes of the search engines and your consumers.
Web site promotion is a tedious, necessary step that should be taken by your search engine marketing company. Done correctly and diligently, you could increase the quality of your traffic, visibility of your site, and in turn, your sales.

Search Engine Internet Marketing

noreply@blogger.com (Stacy) — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 19:17:00 +0000

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.

Online Reputation Management

noreply@blogger.com (Stacy) — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 18:59:00 +0000

Your online identity can be very important. So what do you do if your reputation in the search engines gets tainted? Many people have run into this problem. Whether it is the result of slander or a lawsuit, someone’s opinion or a professional mistake, a bad reputation following you around online can be a battle that you end up fighting for years.
If you have found yourself in this situation, then you should probably hire an SEO firm that specializes in Reputation Management. An SEO company is in a unique position to analyze your problem. They can offer sensible solutions to build your reputation back to where you think it should be. They have all of the resources to help fight the problem. They will analyze and track the progress of the project along the way. Then you may choose to keep the project going on a maintenance level.
Some reputations can be easier to fix than others. If you simply have some bad customer reviews or something of the sort, then it may not take too long to repair the damage. However, if there is a lawsuit or other problem that is dictated on a government or education web site, then it can take a more significant amount of analysis and work to help you. This is because government and education web sites generally have such a good reputation with the search engines. Any site that ranks highly can be more costly and time consuming to combat.
Reputation Management can be used for companies or other entities, not just individuals. Companies that start out with a bad reputation can take a lot longer to repair. If you started out in good standing, then the time and money that it takes to bring your reputation back up to a reputable level can be a lot less.
If there is bad press about you or your company online, then it can take a while to push it down far enough in the SERP’s that it is no longer noticed. Reputation Management is something that you may have to continue even after your bad press rankings are down. This is because the damaging information about you could work its way back to the top over time. This is especially true if the information hurting you is widespread or included on a highly ranked site.
Be sure that the company you hire handles your situation with tact and diligence. Be patient, as these things can take time. Get on board with a solid plan and don’t be afraid to ask questions along the way. The investment you make in your future could really pay off.

Google Penalties

noreply@blogger.com (Stacy) — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 18:20:00 +0000

Google can impose penalties on sites that try to abuse the system. This is why it is crucial to hire a professional, reputable, organically driven Search Engine Optimization (SEO) company to optimize your site. Optimizing a site can take time. Rushing things could be detrimental to your success.
For example, SEO is built around building quality links that bring attention to your site. If you try to be tricky and just get a bunch of shotty links out there, you might just catch the eye of the Google-nators. Building a bunch of links really fast will send up a red flag and you could incur some penalties.
If you continue to abuse Google, you could be banned. This could mean a swift death for most companies. We depend so heavily on search engines to drive business to our sites that we really have to be careful.
Hiring the right people to optimize is key to avoiding penalty. Penalties are passed out freely by Google to those who violate their terms. Creating a bunch of links really fast to move up in the rankings could cause Google to push you down a few pages. Another thing that they penalize for is trying to hide text links on your page.
For example, I want people searching for “fuzzy kitties” to be directed to my site. I believe that I sell the best fuzzy kitties in the world. I can’t come up with a good way for fuzzy kitties to fit in the text of my home page, so I decide to make the text the same color as my homepage background. This way, I can type “fuzzy kitties” all over my site without anyone ever knowing the difference. Little tricks like this one can quickly bring on a penalty.
The same goes for using your keywords over and over again in the text copy of your pages. For example, “Fuzzy kitties are great. I love fuzzy kitties. Fuzzy kitties beget fuzzy kitties.” This type of action is not tolerated either. You do want to use your keywords early on in the text of your homepage, but it has to be naturally occurring. You can’t force it in and expect to be indexed for it. Google looks at all of your content. If it is totally relevant to have your keywords, even repeatedly, then you could be rewarded for it.
The bottom line is to follow the terms of service provided by Google. Hire a GOOD SEO company that utilizes organic social media to boost your ratings.

What Is Social Media and Does My Site Need It?

noreply@blogger.com (Stacy) — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 17:55:00 +0000

Social media refers to an electronic means for people to share your information. People visiting your site or blog can make comments, e-mail links to their friends, or post information on their personal blogs linking to your site. All of these things help to build your social media reputation.
Social media is also referred to as social networking. As more and more people comment about you or pass your site around, you build a reputation online. Search engines weigh the opinions of others heavily when giving you your ranking. This is the main reason that social networking has become such an iatrical part of Search Engine Optimization.
Social media is not just comments on your blog. Social media can consist of video, pictures, reviews, articles or any other form of electronic communication. Blogs and other user driven forums, such as discussion boards, FAQ’s and comment sections of your own web site can help build your social media reputation.
Google does not care what you say about yourself. Actual users must be able to find your content and then it needs to be interesting or informative enough for them to want to pass it on or link back to it in some way. Social bookmarking is an effective tool when optimizing your site. Including links to social bookmarking sites on your blog or discussion forum can help you to encourage your users to spread the word, so to speak. Once bookmarked, you will suddenly become more visible to people looking for information on the subject that you are discussing. This should hopefully drive more web traffic to your site.
When your social efforts start to pay off, then you have a stronghold over search engines. Blogs and other user driven media are heavily weighted by the search engines and this side of search engine optimization should not be ignored. Developing a social reputation can take some time. You can help it along by utilizing a blog or other social media outlet.
The more varied your social media network the better. Make sure that all of your forums are relevant, especially if they are linking back to your site. The higher the quality, the higher the rankings can get. This is something that you should really spend the time and money to make sure that your site is getting all of the exposure that it needs to compete in today’s SEO market.