Seven Deadly Sins of SEO Services – Pride

Posted on May 6, 2013 by Christine Martindale

First, I just wanted to say that I am sorry that I missed last week. I am sure you were all waiting with bated breath for the final installment of the Sins of SEO Services series. What? My delusions and I are very happy together, I assure you.

Anyway…

The last sin I wanted to look at in this series was pride, and let’s face it, there are a lot of directions I could go with this. But instead of looking at how pride can hurt a campaign, I wanted to look at how pride can affect a successful campaign. In other words, does page one make you better than SEO?

Imagine this scenario: You have received the same report for three months in a row. The vast majority of your keywords are have been consistently ranking in the top five positions on Google, with no real change. If you have some that haven’t quite hit the front page, they are ones that you aren’t too concerned with. Your traffic is higher than it’s ever been, but it’s been pretty level for the past few months, and you are getting loads of conversions.

That’s when pride whispers in your ear, “What more can SEO services do?” You begin to think that you have met your goals. That you have defeated the lord of search engines. The end-boss was hard, but you now perch victoriously on your page one, position one throne as ruler of the internet.

And then you think “I don’t need SEO services anymore.” That, my friends, is the sin of pride.

The truth is that SEO never stops. It may shock you to know that even hugely popular websites that always seem to dominate the front page still have their pages optimized. Why? Because they aren’t thinking about their rankings today, or even their rankings in five years from now. They are thinking about the potential web strength of their competitors in five years from now, and they know that if they don’t continue to make the SEO effort today, someday another site (or bajillion sites) may be poised to take position one.

Because SEO never stops, your SEO services should never stop. I completely understand why people might be looking at the same report month after month and wonder why they should continue paying for services that don’t appear to have anything more to do. But the problem is that it only appears they have nothing more to do. Good SEO services will be just as active on your campaign when you have gotten your keywords to page one as they have been to get you there.

I know this comes across as a bit self-serving. But the truth is, we have seen this time and again.

Remember, once you achieve page one rankings, you may have achieved one goal but you have created another. Now you need to stay there.

 

_______________

 

Christine Martindale is one of the Account Managers at SEOhaus. If you would like to stay up-to-date on all of the latest SEO industry news and tips, you can subscribe to our blog here. Thanks for reading the SEOhaus blog!

Posted in SEO Advice, SEO tips, Uncategorized | Tagged | Leave a comment

Local Business Favored In Google Update

Posted on May 3, 2013 by Elisa Houghtelin

Listen up business owners, because Google is at it again. They have recently (and quietly) rolled out another update that continues to give the power back to the local business by giving them top priority in rankings when it comes to local search terms.  While not necessarily a game changer for some, it should make you re-look your targeted terms and come up with a new strategy for you how approach what kind of business you are in.

As a local business owner, this should come as fantastic news.  Getting a leg up with Google never hurt anyone but are you making the most of the advantage? Just being a brick and mortar isn’t going to get you jumping up the top of the ranks, like most things, you have to put a little work to reap the rewards. First and foremost, let Google know that you are there. Set your business up on Google Places (and linking it to your Google Plus account wouldn’t be a bad idea either). This is going to allow you the chance to get listed in the local listing section of Google, which is becoming a more predominant part if Page 1 every day.

Next, while it may seem obvious, make sure that your keywords reflect you are in fact a local business.  Geo-targeted keywords are more important than ever, and if they are relevant to your business, than make sure to include them in your content.  Think about it, if you’re a bakery in Portland, but just focus on your brand name, you then begin competing with every other bakery on the web. Help Google, as well as potential customers, make it really easy to find you. Include contact forms, maps (linked to Google maps perhaps?) and any kind of info that would be helpful. Remember user experience is top priority for Google, and if they can find you, chances are others will to.

Lastly, use local directories as well as social media to your advantage. Yelp is great for this purpose. Getting listed in these is one more way of saying, “Hey, world, we’re right here!” While there may be hesitation opening your business up for reviews and critiques, the fact of the matter is it’s the nature of the business and if you hide from potentially negative feedback, all you’re doing is holding yourself back from a lot more potential business.

OK, so that’s great for the local guys, but what about those who do business strictly online? Don’t worry, there’s hope for you too! Stay tuned for ways to rethink the way you market yourself to Google as an online business.

Elisa Houghtelin is one of the Account Managers at SEOhaus. If you would like to stay up-to-date on all of the latest SEO industry news and tips, you can subscribe to our blog here. Thanks for reading the SEOhaus blog!

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3 Reasons to Speed Up Your Website + 6 Tools that Will Help You

Posted on April 30, 2013 by James Harrison

1. The Search Engines Demand Faster Websites

We hear all this buzz around the web-sphere about having to make your website perform faster for SEO. There has been many tests, speculations, recommendations and even demands to making your website faster for improved search engine rankings. In 2010, the Google Webmaster Central Blog stated this:

“You may have heard that here at Google, we’re obsessed with speed in our products and on the web. As part of that effort, today we’re including a new signal in our search ranking algorithms: site speed.”

It doesn’t get more straightforward than that. In short.. If your site is slow, Google could easily penalize your website, just as much as they can reward it for being fast. In fact, both Google and Yahoo! have provided page speed tools to help webmasters learn how fast their websites are performing (Google Page Speed Insights & Yahoo! YSlow). There are many factors to making a website speedier, including size of web pages, external file sources, styling, CMS, hosting, just to name a few. And withGoogle and Bing/Yahoo! both suggesting that you make changes to increase your page speed, it may be something to take serious if you want to perform better on their SERP’s.

A study by LightSpeedNow showed that by making a website faster, Google sent 15% more traffic. Bing and Yahoo! also sent more traffic.

2. Faster Sites Are Better for Search Bot Crawling

Imagine 1,000′s of search bots approaching your website with a 4 second limit. (You can apply this 4 second limit to per page or site-wide, both are applicable), how far would these bots get through your website? Would they be able to crawl your whole site or just a quarter of a page? Try using the Web Page Test Tool to learn about your website’s timing. This tool also provides a great ‘Waterfall’ view of the bots’ progression though your website & files. If it takes more than 4 seconds for your page to load, you could be loosing out on site speed ranking factors, search bot indexing crawl rates, and most of all those “need-it-now” users.

3. Speaking of Users…

Let’s not forget who our websites are really for… the users! Yes, we do need a means to get the users to our website. But user activity is the ultimate measure of the productivity and likability of our websites. Sure the engines can measure how long it takes to load a page and discover errors that prevent the site from performing at its optimal rate. But our visitors are the ones that click back buttons, go from page to page, and determines if our website is worth coming back to, or staying on. You also don’t want to frustrate your potential buyers.

So, all in all, having a fast website is good for both the search engines and your target users. Consider what Jon Colman, former Chief SEO of REI had to say about improving their site’s performance;

” …their website received a traffic increase of over 25%, from just a 12% speed increase!”

So speed up your website. Here is a list of website/page speed tools to help you.

  1. Google PageSpeed Insights
  2. Yahoo!’s YSlow (actually a browser extension)
  3. Web Page Test
  4. Page Size Extractor (shoot for <10K Bytes & >10% Text)
  5. GTMetrix
  6. W3C Site Validator (Cleaning up code can sometimes help, especially the warnings)

Getting the best results from these tools can pretty much ensure you that your website is in good standing for a MAJOR search ranking factor (site speed)when it comes to both Google & Bing. Good luck!

Posted in Bing, Google Webmasters Tools, Onpage Optimization, SEO Coding, Web Marketing Tools | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

The Power of Google Analytics

Posted on April 26, 2013 by Jori Stevian

Did you know, all SEOhaus account managers are certified in Google Analytics!  It’s an interesting test and one that a lot of our competitors offering SEO services don’t test on.  While studying for the certification test, I was reminded just how powerful this tool is.

I’ve always been fascinated with the slicing and dicing and data analysis that is accessible through G.A., however I don’t think I really understood the depth of which you can slice and dice. I think this goes without saying, but I am going to say this just once more: If you have a website, you really MUST have Google Analytics tracking installed. As an account manager, this is one of the most tangible measures of success that I can provide to my clients. The percentage of traffic increase month over month, or year over year shows that what we are doing with our SEO campaigns really works!

Besides the basic tracking information: Visitors, Pageviews, Time on Page, Bounce Rate, etc., there many dimensions for which you can break down traffic. You can see which Landing Pages are the most active and the length of time a visitor spends on these pages. You can see which country a visitor came from and which browser they used to view your website. Is it borderline creepy? Maybe. Probably. Either way, all of this information can be extremely insightful when you are analyzing your website performance and considering changes to your website.

Goal Conversion is another handy dandy tool that will allow you to break down the data for the visitors who arrived to your site and converted. What is a conversion? This happens when an action is taken and can include the completion of a contact form, email newsletter subscription or the achievement of a sale. Breaking down a visitor who completed a goal can provide you with a wealth of knowledge regarding the path for which the conversion took place. Something here must be working and you may want to try it on other pages of your website.

Of course, this is just the tip of the iceberg. If you aren’t familiar with this interface, I highly recommend that you sign in and do a little investigation of your own. After all, knowledge is power, right!?

Jori Stevian is an Account Manager at SEOhaus. If you would like to stay up-to-date on all of the latest SEO industry news and tips, you can subscribe to our blog here. Thanks for reading the SEOhaus blog!

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Get Your Blog on: Tips on Blogging Effectively

Posted on April 25, 2013 by Brian Carver

It’s no secret that blogging helps support SEO efforts. Blogging can be a natural way to create original content that targets your keywords and can help you establish a following on the web. Building a following can in turn lead to more traffic to your site. Blogging may also lead to more links pointing back to your site, as other blogs or sites may share your blog. These links of course, are an important way that Google determines the relevancy of your website. Blogging keeps your site active and up-to-date, not just in general but also with search engines like Google.

When blogging, it’s always important to keep in mind “will someone want to read this?” Think about what makes you want to read a blog. Be creative! Here’s some questions you should consider:

  • Do you have a unique perspective or angle on the subject matter?
  • Do you have any interesting anecdotes or stories to share from your industry?
  • Think of your blog as a resource for users: are you providing them with quality information or problem-solving advice?

In addition to the type of content on your blog, be mindful of the amount of content. Don’t overwhelm your readers with too much text. Again, it goes back to, “will someone want to read this?” A good rule of thumb is to keep blog posts at about 200-300 words.

One popular and proven blog format right now is the list format. These type of blogs are ubiquitous these days. An example of a list format would be, “10 Reasons Why You Need SEO Now More than Ever” or “Top 10 Vacation Spots in the World.” Not only is this format easier to read and more digestible to readers, it also makes writing blogs easier as it helps you establish an outline for your topic. Once you have your list together, it’s just a matter of filling in the blanks.

After you have published your blog, it’s important to share, share, share! Post links to your blog on your social media like Facebook, Twitter and Google+. Sharing increases your exposure with your followers and gives them the opportunity to share your blog with even more people.

There are multiple blogging platforms out there. WordPress is one of the most popular, offering an easy to use interface that makes publishing blogs a breeze. Your SEO professional at SEOhaus can help you set up your blog.

It’s worth noting that blogging isn’t for everyone. Keep in mind the type of industry or business you’re in and your audience. Depending on what you do there might not be a big blog-reading audience. But who knows, maybe you have a fresh or unique perspective to share.

Brian Carver is an Account Manager at SEOhaus. If you would like to stay up-to-date on all of the latest SEO industry news and tips, you can subscribe to our blog here. Thanks for reading the SEOhaus blog!

Posted in General Online Marketing, SEO Advice, SEO tips, Social Media | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

10 Reasons Why You Need SEO Now More than Ever

Posted on April 23, 2013 by James Harrison

In the past few years there has been an increased need for SEO services, businesses are really starting to realize the necessity of SEO services  not only for online success but for overall business success as well. Currently (in 2013), SEO services are needed more now than ever.

SEO services have been around for nearly two decades, over the years it has changed drastically. Before I get into why your website needs SEO, let me re-define “SEO”. In the beginning SEO focused entirely on keyword relevance then SEO focused on keyword placement and backlinks (a different way to measure relevance). Today, although SEO is still all about relevance, the ways Google and other search engines measure relevance are based on many contributing factors including quality of backlinks, social media presence, site performance, context of content, offsite influences and many more. Because of this SEO service providers are no longer just link building companies, they have become social media, web development, content marketing, conversion optimization and programming companies as well.

Below are 10 reasons why SEO services are imperative for a company to succeed in today’s day and age:

  1. Internet Saturation – The internet is flooded with pages and pages of content related to almost any topic. To be that diamond in the rough, you need experts that know how to make your website not only stick out but to help you stand on top.
  2. Fierce Competition – Because every business has pretty much come to realize the need for SEO, all of your competitors are most likely already doing SEO. And depending on their SEO company and your niche, you may be competing with some pros. To top it off, you may have a lot of catching up to do in the most efficient manner.
  3. Because Google Said So – Many SEO’s think Google hates them, but in reality Google loves the honest SEO and provides them with tips, walk-throughs and tools for search engine success. Just be careful who you choose to provide the service! http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35291
  4. Google Webmaster Guidelines – Years ago, the Google Webmaster Guidelines just listed a few tasks you needed to accomplish in order to meet their requirements. But today, the guidelines are pages of bare minimum requirements. Many of which requires experienced SEO and technical programmers.
  5. Work, Work, Work – There is so much time required to put into SEO and to compete with other websites. And depending on how behind you are from the competition, the workload may vary. Time is money and if you are spending too much time doing the SEO yourself, you could be wasting your time, when you could be hiring a pro to handle the work or taking that time to do what you specialize in (which probably isn’t SEO)
  6. Updates, Updates, Updates – You need an SEO expert that not only knows about the most recent algorithm updates, but one that knows how to adapt to the new updates and make the necessary strategy adjustments to make sure your website stays relevant and competitive. I would actually go as far to say; make sure your SEO service provider can predict updates and knows how to future proof your business for the next updates to come.
  7. Search Volume – Every year, more and more people are abandoning other business finding methods for the search engines. 81% of US consumers use search engines to make purchase decisions (Forrester Research). Even more reason to capitalize on search engine optimization. More ‘Eye Popping’ Stats.
  8. Social Media Signals – Social media is becoming a bigger factor when it comes to SEO. Google is starting to look at social signals to determine a website’s relevancy and popularity. It seems like hiring a social media company to help you with better rankings would be the way to go. But today, SEO’s should know how to do social media marketing and it’d be better for a company that specializes in both to perform he services so you can benefit from synchronized strategies. Plus, even Matt Cutts says social factors are getting stronger.
  9. Clean Up & Recovery – There’s an 82% chance your website has some cleaning up to do. Rather it’s cleaning up some back links that triggered a GWT email, your site navigation, or any other factor affected by a recent Google update, hiring an SEO expert that knows the remedy is probably your business’ best hope for recovery.
  10. Too Many Factors – Years ago Google claimed to use over 400 ranking factors to determine search results. They haven’t come out with any new figures. But in view of all of the new updates and the increased sophistication of their search engine, we can pretty much guarantee that there are just as many (if not more) search engine ranking factors you’ll need a professional SEO to address and help your website optimize for.

As you can see, SEO services are a necessity and to take this responsibility on yourself as a business owner is pretty time consuming and non-efficient. If you still haven’t hired an SEO service provider to help you with SEO, you are behind the curve and if you don’t start soon, it may take years for you to catch up with the competition.

James Harrison is the SEO Principal & Tech Director at SEOhaus. If you would like to stay up-to-date on all of the latest SEO industry news and tips, you can subscribe to our blog here. Thanks for reading the SEOhaus blog!

Posted in Google, Google Algorithm Update, Google Webmasters Tools, Search Engines, SEO Advice, SEO tips | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Why Google+ Should Be a Plus in Your Book

Posted on April 23, 2013 by Jori Stevian
It has been a while since Google+ launched and the reactions that I have been hearing have been rather interesting. I wonder if it is based on the frustration of learning how to navigate another Social Media outlet. Perhaps, we are just so comfortable with Facebook and Twitter that the thought of adding ANOTHER player into the game seems overwhelming. Whatever it is, I am here today to tell you why you really should reconsider. While we know that Google+ certainly isn’t going to become the next Facebook anytime soon, I think users would agree that it is an exceptional source to promote information. Google+ is sort of, the grown up version of Facebook. It steers us away from the surplus of baby and puppy photos and provides a better forum for the information that interests us. Here, you will find a community area that helps you connect with people that share certain interests. The community area  offers information and feedback from other users and, in my opinion, provides a classier overtone than some of the old school forum formats we have seen in the past. For example, I am a member of several communities that center around Search Engine Marketing, Internet Marketing, SEO, Social Media Marketing, etc.

Another strong PLUS of Google+ (see what I did there?) is that you can help support your overall marketing efforts. It can help prove to Google that you are, in fact, an authority in whatever field you say that you are. For example, once I post this blog update, I will share the post with Google+. My friends and co-workers will, hopefully, like and share this information throughout their networks and, along with our previous postings, link building, and general website content Google will continue to view us as an authority in Search Engine Marketing, Internet Marketing, SEO, Social Media Marketing, etc.

Of course, these are just a few benefits of Google+. In my opinion, it’s also very handy to have everything in the same place for easy access. They have done an exceptional job with this and I am a strong supporter of their platform.

In closing, while Google+ may not seem like the biggest and most popular kid on the block, I bet if we check in a year from now things will be a little different!

Jori Stevian is an Account Manager at SEOhaus. If you would like to stay up-to-date on all of the latest SEO industry news and tips, you can subscribe to our blog here. Thanks for reading the SEOhaus blog!

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Seven Deadly Sins of SEO Services – Sloth

Posted on April 22, 2013 by Christine Martindale

Something I don’t think I have touched on nearly enough in this Sins of SEO Services series is the idea of relevancy.  I have already touched on the idea that your site needs to deserve to be on page one, but I was stressing more on the quality of the content. Now I want to look at earning page one by showing Google that your site is pertinent to today’s search results.

How is this relevant to an SEO services sin? (You see what I did there?)

Sloth is the sin of inactivity; the reluctance to work, make an effort or change. The most common manifestation of this sin in SEO services is failure to keep up with the times. Google is constantly changing and being updated and if you as an individual, or you as a provider of SEO services, do not adjust your game plan accordingly then you could find your campaign slows to a sloth like crawl (yes, this blog post is going to be full of puns… come to peace with it).

Staying on top of Google’s expectations is not always as clear as it seems, especially now that Google has announced that it will no longer be publicizing their updates. This is one reason it’s so important to find an SEO services provider that you can trust with a history of success. They will know how to anticipate changes and react accordingly.

But keeping up with Google trends and tools is only a part of addressing this sin. Remember, it is just as much about a site being relevant today as it is about why a site should be validated on Google Webmasters Tools or getting set up with Google Authorship.

Imagine the following scenario:

There are two websites competing for the front page of Google for a keyword, conveniently named AwebsiteA.com and BwebsiteB.com. They were both established around the same time, let’s say two years ago, and have both begun SEO services around three months ago. AwebsiteA.com has a good, informative site with a relatively low bounce rate so has adopted a “if it’s not broken, don’t fix it” motto. BwebsiteB.com updates their products or services frequently, alerting customers to sales and promotions while also contributing to a blog once or twice a week.

Which of these two website is more likely to see results quickly?

Although a low bounce rate is good for SEO services, the answer is BwebsiteB.com. The reason for this is because Google will be able to see that the website is active and updated frequently, and will therefore recognize that it is relevant. Although blogging (and social media) won’t guarantee good rankings, it is definitely something that can help reinforce SEO services and speed up the process (I admit it, I tried and failed to come up with another terrible sloth joke).

So let’s assume that you or your SEO services are diligently updating, blogging and posting on social media, as well as building a strong web presence and keeping updated with all Google changes… and as a result, you are proudly on page one! What happens then?

My final blog in this series is Pride, where we discuss what happens after page one.

 

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Christine Martindale is one of the Account Managers at SEOhaus. If you would like to stay up-to-date on all of the latest SEO industry news and tips, you can subscribe to our blog here. Thanks for reading the SEOhaus blog!

 

 

Posted in SEO Advice, SEO tips, Uncategorized | Tagged | 1 Comment

What’s in a Name? Google Displays a New Brand-Centric Outlook on Title Tags

Posted on April 18, 2013 by Richie Lauridsen

A Google Game Changer? Search Engine pulls branding the the forefront. Google has re-organized algorithm to reflect branding and company name at the beginning of a title tag. What could this mean for SEO?

From SEO savants to ‘net newbies, nearly everyone realizes the importance of a Title Tag. This is the window into the site’s sole purpose, as title tags are used by internet marketing experts and others to identify what the site is all about. After a thorough investigation of a few title tags, we noticed that for the past few weeks, Google has been toying with a new, curious behavior, and re-organizing the title tag to be a bit more brand-centric in SERPs.

After exploring a countless amount of sites, I noticed a certain pattern develop.

Let’s look at the anatomy of a title tag. Often, corporations and companies will put their brand near the end of the site in the title tag. For example: If you were a frozen yogurt shop that specialized in tons of toppings called Top FroGurt, the title tag might look like this:

<title>Frozen Yogurt with  Tons of Toppings! | Top FroGurt</title>

Those title attributes are how this would appear in the source code; typically, Google would display it accordingly. But today, a funny thing started happening. The result read:

Top FroGurt: Frozen Yogurt with Tons of Toppings

Checking the site, one couldn’t help but wonder if  the client may have made a change to the site, or somehow the optimization suggestions were left disregarded, or maybe that some change had occurred within the source code to cause the change in the order of these lexical items. However, the source code reflected the title tag unchanged, with the brand at the end of the title tag. After exploring countless variations, the theme continued: If your brand or website was located anywhere in your title tag, it would be moved to the front of the title tag when it displayed in the SERP. This pushed the all-important keywords further back in the title tag, and let the brand become more salient.

This was especially true if two conditions occurred:

1. The brand was included near the end of the title tag and after punctuation marks, such as a colon (:), a dash (-), or a pipe (|). : – | Seems a bit stern, doesn’t it? I’m affectionately calling this the “funny face refresh.”

2. If your URL has the same lexical items as your brand (for instance, using the example above, http://www.topfrogurt.com” ), it will more often look for the match within the title tag, and pull it to the front of the result.

So how will this affect rankings? It’s far too early to say. It may not, as tons of other factors still come into play: back links, shares, trust, content, user experience, PR score, and much, much more. However, the SERP seems to be focusing on the company itself, preferring to give the brand a bigger boost and a more prominent presence than any other words in the title tag.

So what’s in a name? Now, probably far more than we ever expected!

Posted in General Online Marketing, Google, Google Algorithm Update, News / Media, Search, Search Engines, Search News | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Are You Up to Speed? How Page Speed Affects SEO

Posted on April 17, 2013 by Brian Carver

I think most of us remember the days of dial-up internet access, when it could take minutes to load a webpage. Thanks to high speed internet, those days are long gone and most websites load in a matter of seconds. However, I’m sure most of us out there still come across the occasional website that takes an abnormally long time to load. If this is your website and you are looking to rank on Google, you’ll want to get this fixed.

I will now repeat my Google mantra: “Google’s goal is to provide a quality user experience.” Users are often irritated when a site takes a long time to load and are less likely to return to the site. Google takes this into account when determining your website’s relevancy in search rankings.

Page speed is measured on a scale of 100. To give you an idea how some of the major websites measure up, Facebook scores with a near perfect 98/100 and Amazon scores with an impressive 91/100. Google’s PageSpeed Insights can help you determine your site’s page speed.

While it can be easy to obsess over obtaining that perfect 100, your site should at least try and achieve an 80 or higher. However, no matter what your score, there may be steps to take to further improve your page speed.

So how do you improve your page speed score? Often times this can be accomplished by upgrading your server or optimizing the code and files on your site. Your SEO professional at SEOhaus can help get your page up to speed.

Brian Carver is an Account Manager at SEOhaus. If you would like to stay up-to-date on all of the latest SEO industry news and tips, you can subscribe to our blog here. Thanks for reading the SEOhaus blog!

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