If your website doesn’t possess a very good placement in the rankings then it may be hard, if not impossible, to find.

Considering that the majority of searchers simply click on the first couple of results, you want to make certain that your web site is ranked highly enough so that people can easily discover it on the very first page of search engine results.

Although no search engine optimization firm can guarantee a high rankings for your site forever, often times hiring a web marketing business will pay off many times over. For those of you performing your SEO yourself or those of you that would like to help ensure your marketing firm is doing the things that really matter, here are some tips for raising the search engine rankings of your website.

Optimize your web site for your target audience, not the search engines. Think of exactly what impression your web site gives your users—you’ll create a significantly better site the search engines will love.

Produce compelling content for pages of your site based on your chosen keyword phrases. Pick out a couple keyword phrases that apply towards the certain page you’re writing and work those phrases into the copy.

Incorporate your keyword phrases into each page’s unique title tag. Title tags are given significant weight with search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing. The title tag is the text shown in the engines search results, so it’s crucial that it be alluring, not just crammed with keywords and phrases.

Make certain your website is link-worthy. Search engines like Google and Yahoo judge a site’s popularity by the number of links pointing to it. Generate great content people will wish to hyperlink to. It’s a must for your link building efforts to offer things worth linking to.

Don’t be hitched to any one keyword or phrase. Optimize for all of the relevant key phrases. If you can rank high for a good percentage of them, they’re going to add up to a lot more than just that one particular keyword phrase that you think is the big money one.

Keeping these five tips in mind when optimizing your website and you’ll be on your way to getting much better rankings and a lot of organic (free) traffic.

Post from: Denver SEO - Local Search Expert

5 Tips To Raise Your Rankings

December 18, 2009
- SEO matters for anyone who wants to be found in search, especially for a local business who’s already facing an uphill battle. That’s not going to change, regardless of changes Google and the rest of the engines decide to implement. Keep an eye out for the new trends of today, but don’t let go of the solid SEO basics

December 18, 2009
- Now is a great time to get serious about your online business. While some will argue that it’s too late, the truth is that the early pioneers have already paved the way for you.

December 18, 2009
- The speed of light is expensive to build. I wonder if Google will invest in FTTH expansion so that all Internet users will have access the this blinding speed data?

Post from: Denver SEO - Local Search Expert

Top SEO News on – December 19, 2009

Keyword Research

• Tier 1
• Tier 2
• Long Tail
• Stemming
• Plurals
• Derivatives
• Voodoo (LSI)

Onpage

• Title Tag
• Meta Tag
• Keyword Density
• Style Sheet Emphasis
• Link Text
• First Link Priority
• No Follow

Offpage

• Keyword Targeting
• Link Text
• Authority Linking
• Page Rank Sculpting

Link Building

• Social Sites
• Authority Sites
• Directories
• Press Releases
• Syndicated Content
• Article Distribution
• Multi-Media Distribution

Competitive Analysis

• Trends
• Spying
• Market Data

Site Structure

• No Follow
• Silos
• Theme Vectoring
• Interactivity

Content

• Uniqueness
• Informational
• Descriptions of Product
• Category Assignment
• Usability Balance

Source: MindMapOfUltimateWoe via Andy Jenkin’s Blog – Irreverence Rebellion and interweb marketing

The next time somebody says you just need a few keywords and incoming links think of this list and ask yourself if the person who Tweet’d “bold your keywords” really has a clue about SE algorithms and the many, many things that solidify top ranking.

Post from: Denver SEO - Local Search Expert

The Many Faces Of SEO

This is a fantastic compilation of the search industries top minds and what ranking factors they know are most important and what factors are of low value.

Learn what ranking factors are the most important like:

• Keyword Use Anywhere in the Title Tag
• Existence of Substantive, Unique Content on the Page
• Keyword-Focused Anchor Text from External Links

Including a detailed  look at page-specific link popularity factors that win the day!

Links are to SEO’s what Snowflakes are to Eskimos. Off page factors were the most significant change in search relevancy that lead Google to become the 800 lbs. gorilla that they are.

Take the time to check it out – the survey participants are some of the best in the biz. What they weigh in on is fact, not guess work. This is a rock solid -  no bs – look at what ranking factors really matter!

Post from: Denver SEO - Local Search Expert

Ranking Factors for Page One Listings

I certainly do.

After leaving the corporate world in 1997 and starting my first business I didn’t have my usual endless disposal of resources that I enjoyed with a large company. I quickly learned that if I wanted something done I had to do-it-myself.

I can tell you that it was pretty tough in the beginning but once I knew (educated myself) what to do it became second nature to me. I took classes and constantly keep up-to-date with what is going on.

With the immense growth of Internet and the experts sharing their knowledge, online advertising has become much more do-able for small business.

With that said I found a great post by David Mihm highlighting some great low-cost steps for doing your own SEO.

He lends some great advice on learning the basics of search marketing, finding out what your customers are searching, setting up a web presences, submitting it to local search engines and tracking and analyze your results.

My #1 piece of advice I give to my friends and fellow business owners is to learn what you can. Even if you don’t want to do your own search engine optimization it’s worth your time to educate yourself about search marketing and whats involved so that when you are talking to a SEO firm you have a good idea of the process of search marketing before you begin the conversation.

Post from: Denver SEO - Local Search Expert

Do-It-Yourself Advice for SEO

” If your site has identical or vastly similar content that’s accessible through multiple URLs, this format provides you with more control over the URL returned in search results. It also helps to make sure that properties such as link popularity are consolidated to your preferred version.”

Source

So the whole point of canonical URL’s is that you have one url for multiple instances of the same content.

The Problem

Example:

http://www.mysite.com/

http://mysite.com

http://www.mysite.com/index.htm

http://mysite.com/

From my example all the url’s are technically different but in actuality they are the same website. Although all of these pages can be indexed by the search engines,  which version should the search engine resolve when users are searching?

So, is it www or non www? Do I use the slash (/) or type index.htm?

To further complicate things all of the url’s contain the same content which could be considered by the search engines as duplicate content. The engines may “downgrade” all versions, or may/may not index all version of the page. Either way this is a loose-loose for your website.

The Solutions

Solution #1 – 301 redirect (.htaccess)

This first solutions is pretty straight forward but requires that you have access to your server’s root directory and a basic knowledge of rewrites. You will need to create a htaccess.txt file with a text editor such as Notepad and add this:

#
Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine On
#
# REDIRECT to canonical url
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^mysite.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.mysite.com/$1 [R=301,L]
#

Once you have uploaded your new file to your server you will need to rename it to .htaccess

Solution #2- Canonical Tag

This is a <link> tag that can be added to the <head> section of a page like this:

<link rel=”canonical” href=”http://www.mysite.com” />

Adding this tag will tell Google, Yahoo , Bing and Ask that all other instances of this page (outlined in my example) should resolve the url http://www.mysite.com/

This solution works particularly well with e commerce sites as many of them have multiple instances of a product page , tracking parameters or a session ID.

Conclusions

It really doesn’t matter which url you pick, just pick one. Having both instances of the page does a heck of a lot of damage to you sites link popularity.

An easy way to check whether this may be a problem for you is to head over to Yahoo and check your site with the www and without.

linkdomain:www.mysite.com
linkdomain:mysite.com

If you get results for both www and non www and those results don’t match then you might consider using one of the solutions I’ve outlined here.

Post from: Denver SEO - Local Search Expert

Solving Duplicate Content With Canonical Url’s

What is “no follow”?

Back in 2005 Google adopted the no follow attribute (rel=”nofollow”) as a way to combat link spam. Basically is was a way of saying you don’t vouch for the content of a particular site.

Since then the no follow attribute has been used in pagerank sculpting to outgoing link relevance. In my opinion the whole thing is over blown.

Many people simple do not know what or how the attribute effects a sites reputation. They are either grossly misinformed (reading old post that are outdated) or simply just following the crowd because they don’t know any better.

I’ve read post that call people “scum bags for not following” a link in comments  to “I’m not going to use this site because “they don’t follow my links”. Phooey! I believe these folks are just plain illogical in their thinking and are missing the bigger picture.

In my opinion “no follow”  is the lowest ranking criteria. If your content is worthy of a link, people will link to it. Whether they no follow it or not is not the point. The point is when they link to your content it increases your chances of getting more visitors. That’s the whole idea right?

My partner Glen and I run a fairly large directory for Squidoo lenses and we have plenty of data that shows no follow means little when it comes to links. In a later post I will share some of this data with you.

Want more views on “no follow”?

Should You Still Use Nofollow?

The New Use (or non-use) of the “No Follow”

How Do We Plug the Nofollow Leak?

If you want up-to-date thinking on “no follow” I suggest you create a Google alert and compile your own list of  information and make your own decision. The alerts will give you fresh information on the subject and not some old post from 2005-2006.

Don’t follow the crowd just because a certain group says you have to do this or that. Be wise and draw your own conclusions.

Post from: Denver SEO - Local Search Expert

The No Follow Effect

I can’t say as I blame anyone for wanting to do the work themselves. I myself like to have full control over every aspect of my business including my online exposure. I believe if your smart enough to run a business then you defiantly have the smarts to promote your website. After all, no one person  knows your business better than you do.

When it comes to SEO there is a plethora of bad information out there about search engine optimization. To help steer you in the right direction there are really only 3 SEO training courses that I would recommend  and are worth your time. They don’t speak in ‘ SEO science talk ‘ but rather straight forward information.

The first training is free and comes from Dan Thies. I was introduced to Dan when I was a member of StomperNet. He has been a leader in the industry for over ten years and the proof of his expertise is in the results of his work.

SEO Fast Start

This 100 page book  is free. This is not just another book about SEO – it’s a framework for learning SEO. In fact, it’s a framework for understanding SEO, for managing SEO projects, for developing better methods, for teaching, for communicating with clients, and more. One important goal is to teach beginners a simple process that consistently delivers results.

SEO Book

Arron Wall’s SEO Book is one of the better guides I have found for getting serious web visibility. The site contains over 100 training modules, covering topics like: keyword research, link building, site architecture, website monetization, pay per click ads, tracking results, and more.

StomperNet

Choice cut – If you’re real serious about taking your business to the next level then StomperNet is my choice pick. You will know SEO inside and out, because when it comes to teaching SEO for business owners, no one does it better than StomperNet. This is not for the faint of heart. When I was a member the monthly membership was $800. If you do one thing, I would subscribe to their mailing list. The information they put out for free is 100x better than the information that most people charge for.

Post from: Denver SEO - Local Search Expert

DIY SEO

In the past this created a huge problem for the crawlers as they had great difficulty indexing flash websites. Although Google can now index some flash there are still difficulties with crawling the content.

For my Flash friends I compiled a short list of resources that may help you get the search engines to index your site and all of it’s content.

Can Google index Flash files ? Yes, and beyond !

We’ve discussed already at several posts that flash necessarily doesn’t mean bad SEO. In fact, Google had updated its bots long time back to detect and index flash files, their content and even spider links from them. Earlier, flash was a big no-no in SEO….

SEO Tips for Flash

It is just a myth that Flash is SEO unfriendly. Creating accessible flash content for search engines is crucial for you to preserve your online presence and drive traffic to your site. Follow these Flash Optimization Tips …

Better SEO for Flash

The reasons for that where basically two: Flash content was not index by Google because Google’s bots couldn’t run the swf file and search through it. Flash has a static url, which is very bad because we cannot link to the specific …

I’m not a big fan of flash and I tell everyone that asks me about a flash site to stay away. I’m a firm believer in Wordpress, especially for a new website. 10 times the bang for 100 times less money. Not to mention the ease of use.

Post from: Denver SEO - Local Search Expert

SEO Tips For Flash

How crazy is that?

Evidently many of the local SEO services are either unaware of this or just don’t care that a Real Estate site holds the top position for their term.

Seeing as how I’m the new guy on the block in the Denver SEO service arena I’m going to take a whack at taking over that spot. I’ve never competed in this space before but from the looks of things it might not take too much work to takeover the #1 spot in Google.

Don’t get me wrong, the local SEO services appear to be very good at what they do and the evidence is all over the web if you do simple searches related to SEO in Denver Colorado but there is a hole for me to wiggle in.

I’ve listed the top 5 search terms for SEO in Denver, both broad and phrase match in the screen shots below. My target will be phrase match.

As you can see from the screen shots above the phrase match gets 95 total searches a day while the broad match gets 178.  These aren’t exactly smoking traffic numbers but from a local stand point it ain’t too bad. The estimated traffic for the #1 one spot for phrase match is 39 (SEOT). That’s 39 potential customers a day that could come from this search phrase.

Just for the record this website doesn’t rank even in the top 50 for this search phrase so I do have a little work to do but I’m confident I can get to the top of the first page with minimum of work and using totally white hat strategies.

If you are a business owner in Denver Colorado I would like you to check back in the next few weeks as I will post my results on how easy can be to compete in your local market.

Wish me luck!

Post from: Denver SEO - Local Search Expert

Denver SEO