Local Mobile Search

Posted: Saturday, December 10th, 2011 by | Filed under: , ,

We’ll wrap up our discussion on mobile SEO by going into finer detail about how exactly mobile SEO is changing the landscape of web marketing. With desktop sites, scale plays a major role in page ranking and search relevance. However, with mobile sites, this is no longer the case. More importance is given to proximity of location or vertical business/product/service category suitability. That is, no longer do big brand names/chain stores have an automatic advantage in results pages. For example, in terms of mobile queries, Sally’s Organic Groceries Shop now has just as much of a chance in a local search results page as does Whole Foods. Local mobile search opens more doors for businesses of all shapes and sizes, so if you are just starting out and want to get noticed, you’ll definitely want to optimize your mobile site so that you can start taking advantage of the perks local searches can grant to smaller businesses. In addition, another helpful content marketing suggestion for mobile devices/smartphones is to submit your site to places that are responsible for a lot of mobile traffic (such as the most relevant directories).

One of the best SEO tips for mobile devices is to make sure that your site is easily accessible and clear. It is imperative that your site be crawlable at the code level. Did you use the correct robots.text file instructions? Are you using Flash? Are all of the pages you want indexed stored in the public domain? These are things that any SEO would ask when optimizing a desktop website, and mobile sites are no different. Read more …

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SEO and sitemaps

Posted: Thursday, October 20th, 2011 by | Filed under: , ,

An XML sitemap tells the search engine what is on your website and where that information is located. XML sitemaps are important for search engine optimization because they help search engines pull up relevant content from your site whenever a user searches for it online. When web crawlers encounter a new site, they will look through its XML sitemap to see if there is anything that should be displayed on the search results page.

XML sitemaps tell search engines like Google and Bing what you want indexed. The benefit of having an XML sitemap is that it helps web crawlers discover content on your site that they might otherwise overlook (for example, do you have any pages that aren’t linked to or accessible through your website? If so, search engines won’t be able to find it on their own). If you’re interested in internet marketing, then you’ll definitely want to make sure that your site has an XML sitemap. Of course, links carry the most weight in SEO; indeed, links (and not an XML sitemap) will have the most influence on your site’s ranking. However, by using an XML sitemap to index more of your web pages, you increase the likelihood that the most relevant content will be presented to the user when he/she enters a search query.

Search engines like Google love websites that are easy to navigate and enhance the user’s experience. Based off of this rule, you’re site will rank higher in the search engine results page if you have an XML sitemap than if you don’t. With SEO, every little bit helps, so what are you waiting for? If you don’t have a sitemap yet, there are several free online tools  (such as http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/) that allow you to create your own XML sitemap.

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Title Tag Optimization

Posted: Thursday, October 13th, 2011 by | Filed under: , ,

Welcome back to the second segment of our series on making sure your website isn’t losing out on any of its own important SEO hotspots. Last time we talked about why it’s so important to embed the right keywords into your web pages. Today we’ll discuss the second checkpoint:

2) Are you using keyword-rich title tags?

Are you using keywords in your title tags? It seems almost too obvious, but we feel it is worth saying again because too often new businesses will launch websites with their web pages inappropriately (or should we say, ineffectively) labeled as “page1” or their company’s name. If you’re looking to improve your web marketing and get noticed on the web, then you should make sure that your title pages use some of the keywords that you’re targeting.

Another benefit of having descriptive title tags is that it’ll help users (and yourself) navigate through your site. Ideally, you will spread your services/products across several pages. Make each page distinct, and if you can, try to put only one product/service per page. You should never clump all your products/services together on one page. Doing so dilutes the relevance of your page in the eyes of search engine crawlers. In addition, making each web page focus on only one type of product/service will naturally lead to the use of more keywords on those pages, and this will only help you in terms of content marketing. Read more …

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Optimizing Your Page Rank

Posted: Wednesday, June 29th, 2011 by | Filed under: , ,

Page Rank is very important to your website, as are many other web marketing services. Of course SEO is important, but there any many other ways to improve your Page Rank. When developing and constructing a website, be sure to build your site with smart architecture. Faceted navigation is important for your website and any online marketing you plan on exploring. Users should be able to explore by filtering available information so make sure navigation around your website is simple, easy to read and doesn’t need explanation.

While developing your website it is important to be sure all broken links are fixed. Links are constructed many times based on SEO and small errors can be overlooked. When 404 errors occur throughout your website, Google may take that as a lack of credibility. If you can’t fix 404 errors, be sure to redirect the page to a relevant content-rich page.  Follow simple online services outlines to figure out redirection.

When deciding on a host for your website, make sure you choose a fast server. A hosting server that utilizes multiple resources will be sure to load your website at a faster rate. Google also views this as one of there many classifications for ranking. Choosing a host is just as important as choosing your web marketing company. Read more …

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How to Improve Page Rank

Posted: Wednesday, June 22nd, 2011 by | Filed under: , ,

Page Rank is an important factor used in many SEO campaigns. By now, you’ve learned that Page Rank is a numerical value that Google uses to determine how important a page is on the web.

How do you increase your Page Rank?

Most web marketing companies include these online services in their campaigns, but be sure to make the most of search engine optimization and Page Rank by following these simple rules.

Most importantly, fill your website with original quality content and write keyword-rich pages that others will want to link to. Many web marketing tools utilized to their fullest and valuable content can help with SEO. Plus, others are more likely to link to your site if they read informative or interesting information. Links from outside sources or “backlinks” on your webpages help increase the credibility of your site. Google also has a hard time classifying pages with little copy. Keyword-rich pages help with SEO and make it easier to identify in search engines.

Be sure to remove or fix duplicate content on your website. Any web marketing company will tell you, you’re just making it harder on yourself. There should only be one version of each page on your website. Google doesn’t want to read through duplicate content and SEO services only become more challenging. By having duplicate content, Google and other search engines may penalize you, thinking you are trying to outsmart their system.

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Search Engine Optimization Basics

Posted: Tuesday, May 24th, 2011 by | Filed under: , ,

Having at least a basic knowledge of web marketing will benefit anyone looking to drive more traffic to his or her site. Today’s generation is noticeably more technologically savvy than past generations. Chances are that if someone is interested in a product or service, he or she will look it up online before trying anything else. With the internet being the primary tool people depend on for fast information; it is crucial to any company’s success to consider search engine optimization.

What is search engine optimization (SEO)? Simply put, it is the strategic placement of target keywords on a web page in order to obtain a higher search engine ranking. When people type in the service or product that you sell into a search engine, you want your site to list high on the first page of links that the search engine returns.

Say you just opened up a bakery in NJ and are hoping to attract traffic to your website. Quite frankly, most people nowadays don’t have the time/patience to browse past the first page of results in search engine returns. So when people type “bakery NJ” in the search engine and your website doesn’t appear on the first page of results, then you’ve just missed out on potential customers who might have been willing to try out your store had they known about it. Fortunately, thanks to internet marketing, even if you don’t rank on the first page now, that doesn’t mean you are doomed to being stuck on page 20 of the search engine results for “bakery nj.” Read more …

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