Media One Pro's Blog » Search Engine Optimization

Are Google SERPs the same on all browsers?

admin — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 01:44:30 +0000

Turns out that SERP’s can vary based on browser used, cookies stored and login.

Six Reasons Why a Business should hire a SEO specialist

admin — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 22:52:21 +0000

It can be a daunting task to market your online business. With all the competition on the web, there are many companies vying for the top spot in any niche. With new technologies come new challenges for an Internet marketer and being at the forefront is a great challenge. You have to not only place your website in front of the eyes of your customer, but you must compel them to click on your link. After that, it becomes a challenge of keeping them on your site and finally, choosing you over the rest.
Entrepreneurs spend tons of money coming up with innovative and attention-grabbing advertisements to increase awareness of there brand. While traditional advertising methods have shown to be effective in the past, today they’re slowly fading like the dinosaur. Online marketing and promotion have outstripped conventional advertising strategies. Search engine optimization is emerging to be the way forward for any business, online or off.

SEO has been around for years, yet a lot of business owners are still not fully aware of how powerful this marketing tool this can be. If you do not know where to begin with SEO, an SEO expert may guide you in utilizing SEO techniques to increase traffic to your site. Here are six reasons why as a business owner it is imperative that you hire the services of an SEO consultant in order to maintain a competitive edge in marketing your online business.

1. Any business can have a website, but how valuable is it if no one knows about it? Internet users who search for your product or service are the hottest potential customers. These customers need to be directed to your site somehow so they can choose you over the rest. This is why it is critical to obtain first page rankings for search terms that relate to your business. Here is where SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Experts come in. They can guide you through the process of building up your website rankings within the popular search engines.

2. A true SEO expert will have vast knowledge of not just a few techniques, but many that are critical in the success of your online marketing campaign. It is not enough just to create topical articles with back links to your domain at content directories. There is a lot more than trading links or publishing content. An SEO Expert will have a wide arsenal of SEO strategies and can utilize the best combination for your business.

3. To be successful in growing your business, it’s important to discover your true areas of weakness and to be resourceful in finding the best consultant for this. A good SEO advisor will be able to analyze and determine your weak points and develop strategies to strengthen these core areas.

4. The greatest value in SEO is simply the opportunity to increase your profit in relation to the expenditure with the SEO company. For example, a monthly expense of $1,000 in SEO services can be recouped by the gain of $8,000 in profit by the influx of new business that has been a result of the SEO expert’s efforts.

5. The benefits of SEO don’t stop when the service does. If you have invested heavily in SEO over time, then the higher rankings of your website remain, even if you stop the service for a time. In advertising, the business stops when the ads stop. The only downside is that if you discontinue SEO, you stand the chance of your competition catching up. That is why is it critical to have a SEO maintenance plan to maintain your high rankings.

6. The costs of SEO are generally less expensive than those of traditional advertising. For example, a directory listing (Yellow Pages) can run in the thousands. And the only benefit is that you can be found in that specific directory. With SEO, your website is found EVERYWHERE and on the major search engines (Google, Yahoo, Bing). Most people search on these search engines and less and less people utilize paid directories.

If you are a new business or an established one but seeking an injection of sales, a true SEO expert can be the hidden edge that you are seeking. Be sure to take your time and choose wisely. An experience SEO consultant will have client references and case studies to prove that they can get the job done.

About the Author:
Steven Kim, aka “Dr SEO”, has been performing SEO services in Las Vegas for over twelve years. His expertise has helped many in the realm of online marketing. For more information, visit his website, Media One Pro.

Top 10 Tips for Local Search Engine Optimization

admin — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 21:02:35 +0000

Punch Above your Weight Online – Localized search results have recently experienced a major overhaul within the Google SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) which has resulted in a fantastic opportunity for small and medium-sized businesses.

Local search results were previously relegated to a small map, which would appear within the first page of results, but now they enjoy first page domination for local search terms.

The benefit of this to small businesses is that they can now appear above their much larger revivals who are relegated to the last few results on page one of Google.

Don’t miss out on local search results; they’re your next customers. Here’s 10 tips to help you capture them:

1. Claim your Google Places listing – it’s easy to do and if one doesn’t exist for your business then you can quickly and simply create one. What is it? A Google Places listing is effectively a profile attached to Google’s local search results. It is important because Google ranks these profiles above all others in their new first page local search results.

2. Add pictures to your Google Places listing. The effectiveness of your Google places listing is impacted by its completeness. Images will not only flesh out your listing, but when they appear in the search results, besides your Google Places listing, they are eye-catching and attractive which will increase clicks.

3. Gather citations – citations are instances on the web where your business is mentioned, Google uses the consistency of the information it finds and the authority of the referring site to boost your rank in local search engine results. The quality as well as volume of citations is an important factor in local search engine optimization.

4. Include your locality in on-page optimization – revisit your META and Title Tags to ensure your town is included wherever possible. Make sure your address appears on every page and that you have a contact page.

5. Submit your site to local directories including Yelp, Merchant Circle, local Chamber of Commerce and business directories. Local directories will have greater relevance in local search as it narrows your field of operation for Google to a localized area.

6. Manage your online exposure – make sure the information distributed across the web that pertains to your business is managed carefully. Trawl local directories and existing listings, double-check that your details are correct and that they match both your Google Places contact information as well as your websites contact page.

7. Get your reviews and testimonials on the web – no doubt you will already have testimonials collected from customers, these need to go online as well as in other marketing materials. Put a process in place of asking satisfied customers to review you online if at all possible. Pen a short email with instructions of where and how you would like the review left and send this to all satisfied customers.

8. Use a local phone number instead of a 0800, 0845 or 0870 – this again refines your location making it easier for search engines to place you within a specific region.

9. Target local keywords – when link building make sure you target some local variations on your keywords in the anchor text of your links.

10. Use your supply network – think about local search as being similar to networking. No doubt you will already have a network of local contacts, associates and suppliers who all allow your business to thrive. Simply transfer this network online by linking to each other.

Local search is set to dominate first page results for all local search terms. Small, local businesses should take advantage of this by implementing some or all of the tips above which will allow them to compete with much larger businesses who have until now monopolized the first page results by investing in aggressive SEO campaigns.

If you find local search engine optimization confusing or simply don’t have the time to optimize your local online presence you can call on the of an SEO expert like Media One Pro. For Google Places listing and local search engine optimization visit www.mediaonepro.com.

Article courtesy of Kriss Davies of Liberty Marketing

History of SEO

admin — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 20:40:06 +0000

History of SEO

When the first search engines began returning results, website creators realized that having their sites appear high up in the rankings would impart a great advantage. They thus started to optimize their sites for these engines. To get listed by the search engines, webmasters simply needed to submit their URL to the engines that then sent ‘spiders’ to ‘crawl’ the website. The spider downloaded all the site’s information to the engine’s server, where it was acted upon by an indexer which would analyze the page. The indexer would see what words were on the site and where the words were, analyze the page’s links, and then set up the site for future crawling.

Webmasters then began to optimize their sites in order to be ranked highly, leading to the emergence of white and black hate SEO. Well, what is SEO? Danny Sullivan, an industry analyst, believes that ‘search engine optimization’ first appeared in 1997. The first clear example of term’s use can was by Jon Audette and Multimedia Marketing Group. This can be seen on a webpage from February 1997. (A great SEO company is one that can actually prove their success, not just talk about them!)

Search algorithms, the formula that rank websites, originally did their work on the information provided by site owners, such as keyword meta tags. These tags show what the page is supposed to be about. The only problem with this method, however, was that site owners could put information in the tags that misrepresented what the site was actually about. Thus, pages would rank for random search terms, making search engines return inconsistent results. In addition, crafty webmasters also modified certain features in the HTML code of a website to help it rank better.

Since these engines depended on webmaster entered information, like keyword density, rampant abuse occurred. Thus, engines had to change their methods in order to return truly useful pages, not just pages stuffed with keywords. If a search engine provided bad results, users wouldn’t return, and it would lose market share. Thus, search engines began to create new, more complex algorithms that would rely on other factors that couldn’t easily be affected by webmasters.

Larry Page and Sergey Brin, students at Stanford, created a search engine called “backrub.” This engine used math to rank pages based on the number of links, or backlinks, pointed to the website, coming up with a number called “PageRank.” PageRank, theoretically, describes the chances that a user will reach a particular webpage through random wanderings around the internet. This means that certain links, those associated with high PageRank, are better than others.

In 1998, these two graduate students then created the company Google. Many users then flocked to Google, at first admiring its simplicity. The algorithm was balanced between the usual on-page indicators, like keywords, meta tags, site structure, etc.) and off-page indicators like inbound links and PageRank. This prevented webmasters from easily manipulating the rankings. However, this didn’t stop some webmasters from gaming the system, as they began exchanging, trading, buying, and selling links as much as possible. Some people created link farms, which are simply sites with huge numbers of links that are created to pass artificial PageRank.

Eventually, by 2004, many search engines took this manipulation into account, adding more indicators to help rank webpages. Google, for example, claims they rank pages based on 200 factors. The most popular search engines, such as Google and Yahoo, don’t tell anyone what their algorithms are, lest unscrupulous webmasters learn how to game the system. Many different search engine optimization experts, like Rand Fishkin, Aaron Wall, and Barry Schwaryz have studied search engine optimization and published their thoughts online. Some SEO people, in an effort to figure out what is SEO, have consulted the patents of these search engines.

Google, in 2005, started to personalize search engine results for individual users. This personalization depended on the searches that users had previously made. This went so far that it led Bruce Clay to say, in 2008, that ‘ranking is dead.’ He said this because he believed that personalized rankings would make a universal “ranking” impossible.

Google continued its campaign against gaming the system, beginning a war against paid links in 2007. In June 2009, Google added the ‘nofollow’ attribute to links, preventing certain links from passing PageRank. Matt Cutts explained that Google bots would treat followed links as valuable, but would otherwise totally ignore nofollow links. Thus nofollow links do not allow webmasters to game the system and accrue unmerited PageRank. However, this did not stop SEO practitioners, as they created certain Javascript code that would allow PageRank sculpting, along with other methods such as iframes and Flash.

In 2009, Google said that it would use the search history of Google users to help create and rank web pages in search results.

Later in 2009, instant or ‘real-time’ search was added to Google. This would allegedly make searches more relevant and timely. Social media sites make the internet change quickly; thus, search engines need to adapt. For a long time webmasters have carefully crafted and created their website over years to rank; now, fresh content ranks very quickly, and search algorithms have responded to this shift in web usage. Thus, fresh and unique content currently rules the landscape. Search Engine Optimization companies have grown over the years, but only the top 10% actually know how to influence the SERPS (Search Engine Result Pages).

Google does NOT use keywords in page ranking

Lyndsay — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 10:22:59 +0000

Recently we received some questions about how Google uses (or more accurately, doesn’t use) the “keywords” meta tag in ranking web search results. Suppose you have two website owners, Alice and Bob. Alice runs a company called AliceCo and Bob runs BobCo. One day while looking at Bob’s site, Alice notices that Bob has copied some of the words that she uses in her “keywords” meta tag. Even more interesting, Bob has added the words “AliceCo” to his “keywords” meta tag. Should Alice be concerned?

At least for Google’s web search results currently (September 2009), the answer is no. Google doesn’t use the “keywords” meta tag in our web search ranking. This video explains more, or see the questions below.

to read rest of article, visit Google Webmaster Central Blog

Layered Semantic Markup

Lyndsay — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 06:47:31 +0000

Semantic Data Extractor

Layered Semantic Markup is important as a meaningful markup as the core of web development. This is a great tool to show that value, and remind that the reason you put meaning in is to get meaning out.

The tool tries to extract information from a semantically-rich HTML document. It only uses information available through the good usage of the semantics provided by HTML. “The aim is to show that providing semantically rich HTML gives much more value to your code: using semantically rich HTML allows a better use of CSS, and makes your HTML intelligible to a wider range of user agents (especially search engines bots).”

To see it in action, check out the new next.yahoo.com page. The Extractor handles it pretty well, showing a clear document hierarchy.

What is Layered Semantic Markup?

Today’s Wrong Solution is Tomorrow’s Constraint

Layered Semantic Markup (LSM) is not a technology, but a framework comprised of HTML, XHTML, Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), Javascript, DOM and other Web technologies. LSM allows for appropriately implemented principles and standards.

LSM is a development framework for creating Web documents and experiences. LSM builds for the least capable devices first, then enhances those documents with separate logic for presentation, in ways that do not place an undue burden on baseline devices but which allow a richer experience for those users with modern graphical browser software. LSM supports all user agents, and is inclusive by design. (Progressive Enhancement – Unobtrusive Javascript)

LSM has structural semantic markup at its core, which provides lean, meaningful, accessible pages. This well-built core and the clear separation of structural, presentational and behavioral layers make this development philosophy superior to many short-sighted approaches.

Today’s wrong solution is tomorrow’s constraint. A holistic vision – an underlying philosophy – must guide technical decisions. LSM provides the strategy for a sound and future-ready approach.

LSM embraces Graded Browser Support by using one markup document, subsequently layered with stylesheets and scripts that provide a gradually enhanced experience across a wide variety of browsers and devices.

This approach has profound advantages over other browser support approaches such as graceful degradation. Graded Browser Support recognizes that advanced technology support is not a guarantee of the future, and that legacy software as well as alternative devices (mobile) must always be considered. Graded Browser Support defines support in terms of current capabilities, not in terms of legacy or obsolete software; it embraces accessibility, universality, and peaceful coexistence with more feature-rich browsers/devices; and it allows for adoption of new technology and strategies without leaving any browser/device behind.

excerpt from natek.typepad.com