Archive for the ‘SEO’ Category

Tips for an SEO-Friendly Website Design

July 16, 2010 | Online Marketing, SEO, Web Design, marketing campaigns | 0 Comments »

Being at the top of the search engines is a major priority for a business. People are not looking through the yellowpages like they used to! It’s important to create a strong SEO plan for your site. Here are some tips for building an SEO friendly web site. They’re a bit technical, but important for your designer to know.

  • Make sure that title elements and ALT attributes are descriptive and accurate.
  • Check for broken links and correct HTML.
  • Allow search bots to crawl your sites without session IDs or arguments that track their path through the site.
  • Make sure your web server supports the HTTP header.
  • Test your site to make sure that it appears correctly in different browsers.
  • Avoid using too complex of tables when laying out your page.
  • Use external Cascading Style Sheets and Java Script files to reduce page size and make the download time much faster.
  • The URL structure http://www.example.com/green-dress.html is much more useful than http://www.example.com/greendress.html. You should use hyphens (-) instead of underscores (_) in your URLs.

seo

Guest Blogging to Build Traffic

June 13, 2008 | Blog Marketing, SEO, internet marketing | 0 Comments »

We’ve talked about blogging as a means of traffic building many times.  However, guest blogging can also serve as a great way to generate additional traffic to your site.  Guest blogging is writing and submitting a post that is displayed on someone else’s blog.  Many bloggers use guest bloggers if they are going on vacation or just don’t have time to update their blogs on a regular basis.  Writing for someone else’s blog may seem counterintuitive, but it can actually very beneficial as part of a marketing campaign.  So how can guest blogging improve your Internet marketing results?

Exposure to a new audience – Guest blogging opens you up to a whole new audience of potential customers.  Those who haven’t come across your blog may be reading the blog you are guest posting on, so they’ll get a chance to read your writing and follow links to your site.

Backlinks – Guest bloggers are usually allowed to include a short bio that contains a link to their site.  This can help you to create backlinks, which make it easier for potential customers and the search engine spiders to find your site.

Improved credibility – If another blogger thinks your information is good enough to post on their blog, people may begin to see you as an expert in your field.  This improved credibility can result in more traffic to your site and increased inquiries from potential customers.

If you don’t feel like writing a guest blog post for someone else’s blog, send us an e-mail.  Our bloggers can develop a high quality post that you can use to reap the benefits of guest blogging.

The Importance of Narrow Page Focus for SEO

June 10, 2008 | SEO | 0 Comments »

In order to achieve the best possible SEO effects, each of your site pages should be highly focused on just one item or service.  If you have many products or services on each page, it will be difficult for the search engines to determine exactly what your pages are about.  Focusing on only one product or service per page allows you to optimize your meta tags, content, keywords, and links for those specific items so that it is easier for customers and the search engines to find your business.  For example, let’s consider an online jewelry store Web site.  Many jewelers group all of their products on a few pages.  This is not the best way to set up a site if you have SEO in mind.  Instead, the jeweler should devote one page to each of his different products, optimizing those pages with very specific keywords.  So, pages for “jewelry” and “gold jewelry,” which are very broad categories and hard to rank well for in the search engines, may turn into pages for “diamond tennis bracelet,” “14K gold emerald earrings,” and “amethyst pendant.”  These are more specific search terms.

The same can be done for someone who offers services instead of products.  Take the freelance writer who has one long services page titled, “freelance writing services.”  This is a very competitive keyword and is difficult, if not impossible, to rank well for in the search engines.  The writer could break up her group of services into separate pages for “SEO press release writing,” “article submission service,” and “ebook writer.”  These are more specific and ranking well for these terms is a more realistic goal than wanting to rank for a term such as “freelance writing services.”

An added benefit of using a very narrow focus on each page of your site is that you will receive more targeted traffic.  If someone is looking for an amethyst pendant, she will be likely to use the search phrase “amethyst pendant” when shopping online.  This may lead a warm prospect directly to your site.  The same thing can happen for the freelance writer who has separate pages for each service.  If someone is searching for an article submission service, they are not likely to type “freelance writing services” into a search box.  Instead, they will type “article submission service.”

Benefits of Hiring a Web Design Firm with SEO Expertise

June 9, 2008 | SEO, Web Design | 0 Comments »

In the Web design industry, Web designers are a dime a dozen.  From people who use Web page creation software to create mediocre pages to experts with degrees in design, it’s easy to find a Web designer.  What’s not so easy is finding a designer who is right for your company, and knows how to design a site that will appeal to visitors AND attract search engine spiders at the same time.  Hire a Web designer who is not familiar with SEO and you run the risk of damaging the rankings of your existing Web site or hurting your chances of having a new Web site get ranked at all.  There are several ways that a Web designer with no SEO knowledge can damage your business.

Links – Linking is one of the most important strategies used in search engine optimization.  In addition to making sure backlinks to your Web site are available, SEO experts know how to use anchor text and other techniques to boost your rankings.  A designer without SEO knowledge will not know about these techniques and may not focus on building links when designing your site.

Meta Tags – While meta tags are not the most important factor in getting ranked, they do have some impact on your rankings and how potential visitors see your pages.  Meta tags are HTML tags that contain information about your site.  The meta keyword tag should include the main keywords for each page on your site.  The meta description tag should contain a short description about your site; this is what the search engines display when your site comes up in the rankings.  Designers who do not have SEO knowledge may not use any meta tags, or they may fill the meta tags with generic keywords that do nothing to help get your site ranked.

Content – If your Web design firm also provides content, you need to be sure the content is optimized for search engines.  Without SEO experience, your designer may not know how to select the best keywords or implement them in your pages.

Taz Solutions is an Internet marketing and Web design firm with experience in SEO.  We have graphic designers, Web designers, copywriters, and Internet marketing professionals on staff to ensure that your site gets the results you want.  Contact us today for a free quote.

Blog Carnivals for SEO

June 8, 2008 | Blog Marketing, SEO | 0 Comments »

We’ve already talked about how beneficial blogging is for SEO purposes.  But what about blog carnivals?  These special blogosphere events can generate additional traffic for your site, give you good quality backlinks, and get people talking about your blog (you do have a blog, don’t you?).  A blog carnival is a regular event hosted by several different blog owners who form a blog circle.  The carnival is always on a specific topic, and blog owners in the circle submit their content for display on the scheduled blog carnival date.  But how can participating in such a carnival help your SEO and your business?

Backlinks – Blog owners who host blog carnivals link back to the sites of the original content authors.  This can give you good quality backlinks that the search engine spiders can use to find your blog.

Exposure – You may get 1,000 visitors to your site each day, but what will happen if your content is published and linked to on a site that gets 100,000 visitors per day?  Some of those visitors may click on backlinks to your site, giving you new readers and additional opportunities for revenue generation.

Publicity – If you participate in a well-known blog carnival, other bloggers or even print journalists may pick up some of your information for their own publications.  This can generate free publicity for your business.

Enhanced Credibility – Anyone can start up a free blog on Wordpress or blogger.  However, having other blog owners deem your content worthy of inclusion in their blog carnivals shows readers that you truly offer quality information.  This enhanced credibility can help people to trust you more and put your business in a more positive light.

Online Press Releases for SEO Success

June 7, 2008 | SEO | One Comment »

One of the best things about search engine optimization is that it can produce a great return on your investment and also provide you with opportunities for free marketing and publicity.  One of the best ways to generate free publicity online is to use online press releases for products, services, and events.  The press release is a tool used to contact media professionals and convince them to develop stories about your business.  Media outlets for press release distribution include magazines, newsletters, newspapers, and television stations.  The benefits of using online press releases as opposed to traditional marketing and publicity methods include extensive exposure at no cost, improved search engine rankings, and placement in trusted online news sources.  Using online press releases can have a real impact on your exposure and on your rankings.

If you want to use online press releases to generate publicity, there are a few things you need to keep in mind.  One is that online press release writing is much different than traditional press release writing.  Releases for online use need to be shorter and more highly targeted in order to bring quality traffic and backlinks to your site.  You also need to make your online press releases easy to understand.  The Web attracts an audience of people who have varying levels of reading comprehension, so you should avoid using lengthy words when shorter words will do just as well.  If you need help getting started with online press releases as an SEO and publicity tool, contact us.  One of our staff copywriters can develop a press release for your business so you can experience the benefits of using this free publicity tool.

Consistent Link Structure and SEO Success

June 6, 2008 | SEO | 0 Comments »

When you’re optimizing your site for the search engines, little SEO techniques matter just as much as the major techniques.  One good example of a simple technique that can work wonders for your PageRank and search engine rankings is the use of a consistent link structure for all of the pages on your site.  If you had your site designed by someone who is not an SEO expert, or you designed it yourself, it may be suffering from inconsistent link structure.  When you link from one page on your site to another page on your site, the search engines follow those links, which can help to get your pages indexed and improve your overall rankings.  However, you need to be careful that your links to a page are always structured in the same way.  If you have two or more link structures leading to the same page on your site, the search engine spiders actually read them as links to different pages.  This can have an impact on how well your site is ranked and how many people are exposed to your marketing message.  Here’s an example of inconsistent link structure:

Sally has a Web site about soy candles, and wants to create links to the page for her soy candle products.  On some pages, her link is to http://www.candles.com/soy-candle-products.html.  One other pages, her links point to http://candles.com/soy-candle-products.  These are two different links, and the search engine spiders will read them accordingly.  Sally should pick one of those links and make sure every page of her site uses the same format to point to the page for soy candle products.

How can you avoid this mistake?  If you don’t have a Web site yet, have one designed by a company with design and SEO experts available.  These experts can work together to ensure that your site design is eye-catching and visually appealing, while an SEO expert can guide the designer in creating a site that will be ideal for SEO purposes.  Taz Solutions has both Web designers and graphic designers on staff, and we can help you build an SEO-friendly Web site from scratch or from an existing site.

Quality Content is Key for SEO Success

June 5, 2008 | SEO | 0 Comments »

Many Web site components are needed in order to experience success from your search engine optimization efforts.  On-page optimization, linking strategies, and other techniques are used to help improve your search engine rankings.  One thing you cannot avoid is adding quality content to your site on a regular basis.  Content is what makes your site relevant to readers.  Good content will prompt readers to link to your site and promote your business for you without you having to pay a cent.  Knowing how to develop quality content will help you to succeed at search engine optimization.

Keywords

Keywords are an important part of your content, but they are not the most important part.  You may have seen some pages that are filled with keywords and make absolutely no sense.  While you may get ranked highly by using very keyword-dense content, readers will be turned off and will not spend very much time at your site.  This goes against everything search engine optimization is for.  You should balance the use of keywords with the development of content that is useful or informative for your readers.  This will keep them on your site longer and improve your chances of making a sale or getting a new e-zine subscriber.

Originality

No one wants to visit your site or blog and see the same article they saw at three other sites.  Original content is important for your readers, and it’s also important for search engine optimization success.  When you update your content, the spiders have more opportunities to crawl your site and index your pages.  If your content is exactly the same as the content of other sites, your rankings will not improve.  What you need to do is add original, or unique, content to your site so that readers are able to learn about a new subject and the search engine spiders are able to find new content to index.

If you’re not sure how to develop content, or you just don’t have the time to write new content on a regular basis (which is what you need to do for search engine success), let us know.  We’ll put one of our copywriters to work developing fresh and useful content for your site or blog.

Web Linking: Good Links vs. Bad Links

June 4, 2008 | SEO, link building | 0 Comments »

Many of the articles and blogs available on search engine optimization emphasize linking as a way to improve your search engine rankings and increase traffic.  However, most of these sites fail to distinguish between good links and bad links.  Not all links are created equal, and choosing bad linking strategies can hurt your business more than it can help you.

Good Links

Good links are the kind of links you want to have coming in to your site.  Good links are posted on relevant sites and aren’t surrounded by questionable content that can harm your reputation.  When we say that you want relevant sites to link to your sites, we mean that you shouldn’t let just anyone link to your site.  Your linking partners should be related to your business somehow.  If your business is selling computers, your linking partners may be computer repair firms, printer and computer accessories dealers, and computer trainers.  You don’t want flower shops and clothing stores linking to your computer site if you want to reap all of the benefits of SEO.  Questionable content can be any content that sheds your business in a negative light.  You don’t want your link to appear near any content that is adult-oriented (unless you run an adult-oriented business) or near content that is considered very controversial.

Bad Links

Bad links are those that appear on sites that are not relevant to your business or that are surrounded by adult-oriented or questionable content.  Links appearing in link farms can also hurt your search engine rankings and your reputation.  Because you have no control over what other links appear on link farm sites, your link could end up next to a link to a site you would not want your visitors to associate your business with.  Additionally, the search engines consider link farms to be a form of spam.

Article Marketing for SEO

June 3, 2008 | SEO, article marketing | 0 Comments »

If you spend a lot of time on the Web, you may have heard about article marketing.  Article marketing can be a great SEO tool for businesses of any size and industry.  Knowing how to make article marketing work for your business can bring you increased traffic and better search engine rankings.

What is article marketing?

Article marketing is when you write articles about your industry or field of expertise and submit them to online article directories.  These directories usually allow authors to build a profile or include a resource box at the end of each article, so you can create links to your site.  In addition, your articles can prompt readers to visit your site in search of more information on related topics.

What are article directories?

Article directories are sites that accept submissions of articles from authors.  These articles are displayed on individual pages of the site and readers are allowed to use the articles on their own sites, provided they give the original author credit.  Article directories usually make money for their owners by generating ad revenue or affiliate income.  Some directories have many categories and are considered general directories.  Others only accept articles about specific topics.  These are known as niche directories.

How does article marketing benefit me in terms of SEO?

Article marketing provides valuable SEO benefits for businesses of all sizes.  Because you can include links to your Web site in each of your articles, this makes it easier for the search engine spiders to find your site and index your pages.  If you can have your articles published on sites that have a .edu domain extension, this can provide a very valuable SEO benefit.  Additionally, article marketing can increase your overall traffic.

If you haven’t started your own article marketing campaign, you need to get moving.  If you don’t have the time to write your own articles, let us know.  One of our copywriters can write quality articles that reflect positively on your business.