SEO Articles

Here are several excellent SEO articles:

Setting SEO client expectations - Jill Whalen via ISEDB

Search & Design: Indelibly Linked - Chris Winfield via iMedia Connection

Stop Errors. Get Better Rankings?

There are two files almost every search engine always looks for when visiting a site. One is a robots.txt file and one is a favicon.ico file.

Even if you don't want to stop a search engine spider from not indexing any of your pages, it's always a good idea to add a blank robots.txt file to your website. Just open NotePad or TextEdit and save an empty file named robots.txt. Now upload that file to your websites main directory. Search engine spiders will find it, however they should act no differently.

Search engine bots also seem to look for a file called favicon.ico. This is a little graphic that appears before the address in the address bar in Firefox, Safari and sometimes Internet Explorer. It's also that little icon that shows up in your bookmarks when you bookmark a site. To make it show up you have to do a few things.
1) Create a 16x16 graphic in your favorite graphic program.
2) Save it as an .ico file, or a .bmp file, and name it favicon. If you saved it out as a .bmp file just rename it to favicon.ico
3) Upload it to the main directory of your website.
4) In your files add this line of code: <link rel="SHORTCUT ICON" href="favicon.ico">

That's it. Interestingly enough, Firefox doesn't need that code in order for it to see favicon files It automatically detects them. It's also good to note that Internet Explorer will not show this file until you bookmark a site. Most other browsers will show it whenever you navigate to a site.

There is no proof that either of these two tips will improve your ranking, however they can't hurt. Plus, they decrease the amount of errors that your site creates because the files can now be found.

Yahoo's RSS Tips

Yahoo has published some tips on how to promote the RSS feed you have created. http://publisher.yahoo.com/rssguide

Search Engine Market Share

Share of search queries *Comscore

Google - 36.4%
Yahoo - 30.6%
MSN - 16.5%
AOL - 8.9%
Ask Jeeves - 5.5%

SEO Articles

How do I know what keywords to market my site under?

Should I hire a SEO firm or optimize it in-house?

What kinds of tactics can get my site penalized by search engines?

How do you optimize a press release?

Is it still important to get reciprocal links?

What are the most common reasons sites don't rank well?

How can a blog help market my business on line?

What is RSS marketing?

What's the best way to measure results from SEO?

Should I use SEO or PPC or both?

Google SEO

Google might use the following to determine the ranking of your pages:

• the frequency of web page changes
• the amount of web page changes (substantial or shallow changes)
• the change in keyword density
• the number of new web pages that link to a web page
• the changes in anchor texts (the text that is used to link to a web page)
• the number of links to low trust web sites (for example too many affiliate links on one web page)

Your Google rankings can also be influenced by your domain name:

• the length of the domain registration (one year vs. several years)
• the address of the web site owner, the admin and the technical contact
• the stability of data and host company
• the number of pages on a web site (web sites must have more than one page)

How Google might rate the links to your web site:

• the anchor text and the discovery date of links are recorded
• the appearance and disappearance of a link over time might be monitored
• the growth rates of links as well as the link growth of independent peer documents might be monitored
• the changes in the anchor texts over a given period of time might be monitored
• the rate at which new links to a web page appear and disappear might be recorded
• the distribution rating for the age of all links might be recorded
• links with a long life span might get a higher rating than links with a short life span
• links from fresh pages might be considered more important
• if a stale document continues to get incoming links, it will be considered fresh
• Google doesn't expect that new web sites have a large number of links
• if a new web site gets many new links, this will be tolerated if some of the links are from authorative sites
• Google indicates that it is better if link growth remains constant and slow
• Google indicates that anchor texts should be varied as much as possible
• Google indicates that burst link growth may be a strong indicator of search engine spam

Search results and user behavior might influence your Google rankings:

• the volume of searches over time is recorded and monitored for
  increases
• the information regarding a web page's rankings are recorded and monitored for changes
• the click through rates are monitored for changes in seasonality, fast increases, or other spike traffic
• the click through rates are monitored for increase or decrease trends
• the click through rates are monitored to find out if stale or fresh web pages are preferred for a search query
• the click through rates for web pages for a search term is recorded
• the traffic to a web page is recorded and monitored for changes
• the user behavior on web pages is monitored and recorded for changes
  (for example the use of the back button etc.)
• the user behavior might also be monitored through bookmarks, cache, favorites, and temporary files
• bookmarks and favorites are monitored for both additions and deletions
• the overall user behavior for documents is monitored for trend changes
• the time a user spends on a web page might be used to indicate the quality and freshness of a web page

Miscellaneous factors that can influence your Google rankings:

• web pages with frequent ranking changes might be considered untrustworthy
• keywords that have little change in the result pages are probably matched to domains with stable rankings
• keywords with many changes in the results are probably matched to domains with more votality

Via Axandra Search Engine Facts

Should your SEO firm offer a guarantee?

A specific ranking or position guarantee on organic search engine listings is not practical for a couple of reasons:

1. Search Engines are in Control - SEO firms do not have control over how search engines algorithmically rank pages. We can identify the strong influencers and use what has worked in the past to achieve top rankings, but if a Search Engine decides to change the way it ranks pages (Google Dance), or goes out of business (Go.com), gets acquired (Excite, iWon, Inktomi, AltaVista), or adds/changes their source of search results data (Yahoo - MSN), there is really not much a SEO firm can do about that. However, a good SEO firm will know about these things before they happen and have a plan of attack to minimize traffic and ranking effects, if any, to the client site.

2. It's about conversion, not ranking - The guarantee of top ten listings is really an attempt at a guarantee of results, or satisfaction with the service. Being listed in the top ten for an unpopular keyword will mean nothing to the bottom line for a web site/business. What is more meaningful from a return on investment standpoint is a satisfaction guarantee. That is, there is more to profitable online marketing than specific rankings. Expert SEO firms implement a variety of tactics to help clients reach the true objectives, like increased inquiries and sales, rather than a particular ranking.

The only way to legitimately guarantee a specific ranking is on a pay per click program where the primary determining factor for ranking is based on something the advertiser is in complete control over - the cost per click bidding price.

3. Practical SEO guarantee - In the case of TopRank's search engine marketing service, we use rankings as one basic metric with an emphasis on first page results. But rankings are just the start. We also rely heavily on the increased number of unique visitors brought to the client and when possible, we also track conversions. Effective conversion tracking documents the number of times a search engine ranking or a pay per click listing results in an inquiry.

For example, here is the TopRank guarantee:

Client satisfaction is guaranteed. We work closely with our clients to identify realistic goals and timelines and employ the appropriate mix of tactics to achieve them. If objectives are not met within the agreed upon timeline, we will offer to make it right within 30 days or offer to terminate our agreement and refund any unused portion of the contract.

4. Focus on what's important - Above and beyond a guarantee, other evaluation items of a search engine marketing company, SEO firm or consultant should emphasize:

• Full disclosure of tactics. Nothing ambiguous
• Proposal and project plan outlining deliverables and timelines
• Ranking examples on phrases similar to yours or at least difficult phrases
• Clients that you can talk to for reference
• Experience and industry recognition/involvement

Setting clear expectations early on is critical both for the client and the SEO firm. Claims that appear as "too good to be true" are usually not worth the risk for the client. Demands for high rankings quickly on extremely competitive and non-relevant phrases are not practical for the SEO company. Provide clear objectives for the site and understand the metrics most valuable in determining success and you'll maximize the benefits of a successful search engine optimization program.

Additional Resources:

Search Engine Optimizaton - Wikipedia
Google Information for Webmasters

Technorati Tags: SEO firms, search engine marketing

Google Content Blocker

In a Google parody, Google Content Blocker has been launched. Google Content Blocker blocks the content so you see only ads. Since ads are what make sites money, it's a profitable tool for any webmaster.

What is Google Content Blocker?
Google's mission is to organize the world's advertising for maximum exposure to Web users. Unfortunately, annoying Web content often overwhelms the page, causing many users to become distracted and overlook the ads.

That's where Google Content Blocker comes in. It effectively blocks all Web site content, leaving only the advertisements.

Check out the rather funny parody over at the official Google Content Blocker page.

Google Patent Review for SEO

The article below is from slashdot and offers a good overview of the recent Google patent.

Cracking the Google Code... Under the GoogleScope
Google's US Patent confirms information retrieval is based on historical data.

Author Name: Lawrence Deon

An Introduction:

...if you thought you cracked the Google Code and had Google all figured out ... guess again. Google's sweeping changes confirm the search giant has launched a full out assault against artificial link inflation & declared war against search engine spam in a continuing effort to provide the best search service in the world... and if you thought you cracked the Google Code and had Google all figured out ... guess again. Google has raised the bar against search engine spam and artificial link inflation to unrivaled heights with the filing of a United States Patent Application 20050071741 on March 31, 2005. The filing unquestionable provides SEO's with valuable insight into Google's tightly guarded search intelligence and confirms that Google's information retrieval is based on historical data. What exactly do these changes mean to you? Your credibility and reputation on-line are going under the Googlescope! Google has defined their patent abstract as follows: "A system identifies a document and obtains one or more types of history data associated with the document. The system may generate a score for the document based, at least in part, on the one or more types of history data." Google's patent specification reveals a significant amount of information both old and new about the possible ways Google can (and likely does) use your web page updates to determine the ranking of your site in the SERPs. Unfortunately, the patent filing does not prioritize or conclusively confirm any specific method one way or the other. Here's how Google scores your web pages. In addition to evaluating and scoring web page content, the ranking of web pages are admittedly still influenced by the frequency of page or site updates. What's new and interesting is what Google takes into account in determining the freshness of a web page. For example, if a stale page continues to procure incoming links, it will still be considered fresh, even if the page header (Last-Modified: tells when the file was most recently modified) hasn't changed and the content is not updated or 'stale'. According to their patent filing Google records and scores the following web page changes to determine freshness. The frequency of all web page changes The actual amount of the change itself... whether it is a substantial change redundant or superfluous Changes in keyword distribution or density The actual number of new web pages that link to a web page The change or update of anchor text (the text that is used to link to a web page) The numbers of new links to low trust web sites (for example, a domain may be considered low trust for having too many affiliate links on one web page). Although there is no specific number of links indicated in the patent it might be advisable to limit affiliate links on new web pages. Caution should also be used in linking to pages with multiple affiliate links. Developing your web page augments for page freshness. Now I'm not suggesting that it's always beneficial or advisable to change the content of your web pages regularly, but it is very important to keep your pages fresh regularly and that may not necessarily mean a content change. Google states that decayed or stale results might be desirable for information that doesn't necessarily need updating, while fresh content is good for results that require it. How do you unravel that statement and differentiate between the two types of content? An excellent example of this methodology is the roller coaster ride seasonal results might experience in Google's SERPs based on the actual season of the year. A page related to winter clothing may rank higher in the winter than the summer... and the geographical area the end user is searching from will now likely be considered and factored into the search results. Likewise, specific vacation destinations might rank higher in the SERPs in certain geographic regions during specific seasons of the year. Google can monitor and score pages by recording click through rate changes by season. Google is no stranger to fighting Spam and is taking serious new measures to crack down on offenders like never before. Section 0128 of Google's patent filing claims that you shouldn't change the focus of multiple pages at once. Here's a quote from their rationale: "A significant change over time in the set of topics associated with a document may indicate that the document has changed owners and previous document indicators, such as score, anchor text, etc., are no longer reliable. Similarly, a spike in the number of topics could indicate spam. For example, if a particular document is associated with a set of one or more topics over what may be considered a 'stable' period of time and then a (sudden) spike occurs in the number of topics associated with the document, this may be an indication that the document has been taken over as a 'doorway' document. Another indication may include the sudden disappearance of the original topics associated with the document. If one or more of these situations are detected, then [Google] may reduce the relative score of such documents and/or the links, anchor text, or other data associated the document." Unfortunately, this means that Google's sandbox phenomenon and/or the aging delay may apply to your web site if you change too many of your web pages at once. From the case studies I've conducted it's more likely the rule and not the exception. What does all this mean to you? Keep your pages themed, relevant and most importantly consistent. You have to establish reliability! The days of spamming Google are drawing to an end. If you require multi page content changes implement the changes in segments over time. Continue to use your original keywords on each page you change to maintain theme consistency. You can easily make significant content changes by implementing lateral keywords to support and reinforce your vertical keyword(s) and phrases. This will also help eliminate keyword stuffing. Make sure you determine if the keywords you're using require static or fresh search results and update your web site content accordingly. On this point RSS feeds may play a more valuable and strategic role than ever before in keeping pages fresh and at the top of the SERPs. The bottom line here is webmasters must look ahead, plan and mange their domains more tightly than ever before or risk plummeting in the SERPs. Does Google use your domain name to determine the ranking of your site? Google's patent references specific types of 'information relating to how a document is hosted within a computer network' that can directly influence the ranking of a specific web site. This is Google's way of determining the legitimacy of your domain name. Therefore, the credibility of your host has never been more important to ranking well in Google's SERP's. Google states they may check the information of a name server in multiple ways. Bad name servers might host known spam sites, adult and/or doorway domains. If you're hosted on a known bad name server your rankings will undoubtedly suffer... if you're not blacklisted entirely. What I found particularly interesting is the criteria that Google may consider in determining the value of a domain or identifying it as a spam domain; According to their patent, Google may now record the following information: The length of the domain registration... is it greater than one year or less than one year? The address of the web site owner. Possibly for returning higher relevancy local search results and attaching accountability to the domain. The admin and the technical contact info. This info is often changed several times or completely falsified on spam domains; again this check is for consistency! The stability of your host and their IP range... is your IP range associated with spam? Securing a reputable host can and will go a long way in promoting your web site to Google. Google's rationale for domain registration is based on the premise that valuable domains are often secured many years in advance while domains used for spam are rarely secured for more than a year. If in doubt about a host's integrity I recommend checking their mail server at http://www.dnsstuff.com/ [dnsstuff.com] to see if they're in the spam database. Watch for red flags! If your mail server is listed you may have a problem ranking well in Google! The simplest strategy may be registering your domain several years in advance with a reputable provider thereby demonstrating longevity and accountability to Google. Google wants to see that you're serious about your site and not a flash in the pan spam shop. http://www.tkqlhce.com/click-1604302-10294265 [tkqlhce.com] Google's Aging Delay has teeth... and they're taking a bite out of spam! It's no big secret that Google relies heavily on links when it comes to ranking web sites. According to their patent filing, Google may record the discovery date of a link and link changes over time. In addition to volume, quality & the anchor text of links, Google's patent illustrates possible ways how Google might use historical information to further determine the value of links. For example, the life span of a link and the speed at which a new web site gets links. "Burst link growth MAY be a strong indicator of search engine spam". This is the first concrete evidence that Google may penalize sites for rapid link acquisition. Whether the "burst growth" rule applies to high trust/authorative sites and directory listings remains unknown. I personally haven't experienced this phenomenon. What's clear for certain though is the inevitable end to results orientated link farming. I would point out here that regardless of whether burst link growth will be tolerated for authorative sites or authorative link acquisition, webmasters will have to get smarter and work harder to secure authorative links as their counterparts become reluctant to exchange links with low trust sites. Now Page Rank really has value! Relevant content swaps may be a nice alternative to the standard link exchange and allow you some control of the link page elements. So what else does Google consider in determining the aging delay? The anchor text and the discovery date of links are recorded, thus establishing the countdown period of the aging delay. Links with a long-term life span may be more valuable than links with a short life span. The appearance and disappearance of a links over time. Growth rates of links as well as the link growth of independent peer pages. Again, this suggests that rapid link acquisition and the quality of peer pages are monitored Anchor text over a given period of time for keyword consistency. Inbound links from fresh pages... might be considered more important than links from stale pages. Google doesn't expect that new web sites have a large number of links so purchasing large numbers of brokered links will likely hurt you more than help you. Google indicates that it is better for link growth to remain constant and naturally paced. In addition, the anchor text should be varied as much as possible. New web sites should not acquire too many new links; it'll be tolerated if the links are from trusted sites but it may be considered spam. So how do you build your link popularity / Page Rank and avoid penalties? When it comes to linking, you should clearly avoid the hocus pocus or magic bullet linking schemes. If you participate in quick fix link exchange scams, use automated link exchange software or buy hundreds of links at once, chances are Google will interpret your efforts as a spam attempt and act accordingly. Don't get caught in this trap... the recovery period could be substantial since your host and IP range are also considered! When you exchange links with other web sites, do it slowly and consistently. Develop a link management and maintenance program. Schedule regular times every week to build the links to your site and vary the anchor text that points to your site. Obviously, the links to your site should utilize your keywords. To avoid repetition use lateral keywords and keyword phrases in the anchor text since Google wants to see varied anchor text! Your sites click through rate may now monitored through bookmarks, cache, favorites, and temporary files. It's no big secret that Google has always been suspected of rewarding sites with higher click through rates (very similar to what Google does with their AdWords program) so it shouldn't come as a great surprise that Google still considers site stickiness and CTR tracking in their criterion. What's interesting though is Google is interested in tracking the behavior of web surfers through bookmarks, cache, favorites, and temporary files (most likely with the Google toolbar and/or the Google desktop search tool). Google's Patent filing indicates Google might track the following information: Click through rates are monitored for changes in seasonality, fast increases, or other spike traffic in addition to increase or decrease trends. The volume of searches over time is recorded and monitored for increases. The information regarding a web page's rankings are recorded and monitored for changes. Click through rates are monitored to find out if stale or fresh web pages are preferred for a search query. The traffic to a web page is recorded and monitored for changes... like Alexa. User behavior may be monitored through bookmarks, cache, favorites, and temporary files. Bookmarks and favorites could be monitored for both additions and deletions, and; The overall user behavior for trends and changes. Since Google is capable of tracking the click-through rates to your web site, you should make sure that your web pages have attractive titles and utilize calls to action so that web surfers click on them in the search results. It's also important to keep your visitors there so make your web pages interesting enough so that web surfers stay some time on your web site. It might also help if your web site visitors added your web site to their bookmarks. As you can see, Google's new ranking criterion has evolved far beyond the reliance of criteria that can be readily or easily manipulated. One thing is for certain with Google, whatever direction search innovation is going; you can trust Google to be pioneering the way and setting new standards! Another good review of the Information Retreival through Historical Data patent is provided by SEOMoz. Tags: Google patent, SEO

Things to ask when hiring a SEO firm

Larry Chase recently published a list of things you should ask a SEO firm. I've added my own comments after each point. Some I agree with and some are just misguided:

1. Why doesn't your website rank higher? - I agree with Larry on this one. I do not buy the excuse that the SEO firm is working so hard for clients that they cannot spend time on their own rankings. At a minimum, a SEO firm or consultant should rank for their specialty areas.


2. Where have you been published? - I can see the value here, but I also know some "SEO gurus" spend more time on the pulpit than in the trenches. Hire someone in the game, not someone who just spends all their time writing articles.

3. Who says nice things about you publicly? - definitely important. Search for the SEO firm or consultant on search engines, forums, blogs, etc to see what commentary is being published about them.

4. Which three references can I call? - Another very important one. Multiple references that you can talk to are very important. Ask the hard questions too.

5. How long have you been an SEO consultant? - This is important, but I know some pretty smart and effective SEOs who've only been in the game 3-4 years. They're as good or better than some of the old school farts who've been at it 7+ years.

6. Which shows do you speak at? - This is a bunch of crap. Limiting your self to the handful of firms that speak at SES (Danny Sullivan's friends) and AdTEch (which is a show about advertising not SEO) is a BAD business decision. I know quite a few SEO gurus who speak at those events and most of them a super people and great at what they do. And some brag about what little they know on the topic they speak of and how they were able to get in as a speaker. Speaking at a show allows you to see the consultant and speak to them and that is valuable. Being selected to speak at a show is not at all an indication of how well they will be able to serve you.

7. How many sites point to your site? - A decent metric, but only an indication of how good a link builder they are.

8. What's the title of your book or ebook? - You've got to be kidding. This reminds me of the phrase, "If you can't do it, write about it." There are plenty of book writing SEOs who couldn't optimize their way out of a paper algorithm.

9. What kind of results will I get? - Excellent. Be careful of overly ambitious claims of results and timeframes. SEO takes time. It is an investment, not an insertion order for an ad.

10. How do you charge? - Agree. Price too low? Something's fishy. Price too high? Comapred to what? Do your homework on what SEO costs and what's involved. Some SEO firms offer more than you might need and others not enough. $500/mo might be just fine for you site - others might require $2,000 or more per month worth of services. Each situation is unique.

11. Bonus Tip: Ask an SEO Guru Who Has Too Much Work For a Recommendation: - I agree. I get inquiries daily and I turn away a lot more business than I take on. Where do I send them? To other SEO firms that I know can handle the task and the workload.

Tags: hiring SEO firms, SEO, search engine optimization

Basic Search Engine Optimization Tips

In the search for increased rankings and sales, many webmasters and site owners get distracted by the "latest trends" and "secret tactics" and forget about the value of basic site optimization. Here are some tried and true site optimization tips and resources.

Keywords

• Research keywords with tools like wordtracker.com and ensure their presence in unique title tags, on-page headings, in text links between pages, as image alt text and within the body copy – but don’t overdo it
• Keep keywords in mind when categorizing your site
  

Relevant, fresh content

• Add content regularly and make sure it's in a text format readable by search engine bots
• If no one can find your site, it doesn’t matter how great the design and functionality are

Link out – link in

• Link to a few authoritative, information-rich sites
• Never stop getting one-way links from related web sites
• Get links from pages that are often updated but where your link stays the same
• Vary the text used to link to your site
• Encourage deep links to categorical content from related web sites
• Encourage others to bookmark your site

For more in depth articles on basic web site optimization for search engines visit:

• Ten things you need to know about SEO
• Intro to Search Engine Optimization - oldie but goodie
  
• Basic Organic Search Engine Optimization

Additional books on optimizing websites and search marketing:

• SEO Book - Aaron Wall
• Search Engine Marketing Kit - Dan Thies
• The Nitty Gritty of Writing for Search Engines - Jill Whalen
• Search Engine Marketing Book - Mike Grehan
  

Tags: SEO, Search Engine Optimization

Link Building

A new link building resource site is out and looks pretty cool. There are guideline articles for beginners and a nice directory of links. Definitely worth a bookmark.

Tag: link building