December 8, 2009
- It’s true that you can teach the algo anything but you would think the Google geeks would be smart enough to filter out the crap!

December 8, 2009
- Realtime search is already noisy enough on Twitter and difficult to filter out real from spam. I’m not so keen on the idea of having tweets showing up on page one of the SERP’s.

December 8, 2009
- This is good news for local business but using Twitter with a business makes pr a little harder to control

Post from: Denver SEO - Local Search Expert

Top SEO News on – December 8, 2009

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

There is a solid hour of the teams views on search engine optimization do’s and don’t so make sure to grab pen, paper and your favorite beverage before you get started.

As usually I’ve broken down the video in to segments and listed them below allowing your to drill down on the topics of interest.

1:00 – Using static html links in conjunction with embedded navigation

9:00 – Bolding text and keyword density hog wash

13:58 – OMG, my site has been hacked! What do I do?

18:34 – Using good link description

22:30 – Spam:  envelope pages, shadow domains, door way pages

25:00 – Keep it simple stupid

28:50 -  Page Rank, nofollow and internal pages

32:14 – What is this site about? Making your site more professional looking

35:57 – non www or www, using redirects and splitting PR.

Here’s a link to the Firefox extension mentioned – wire tap your own website – livehttpheaders

45:20 – Researching a domain name before you buy it

48:25 – Small image or large?

50:07 – Ranking with videos

52:41 – The pitfalls of Flash. PDF’s versus html

55:17 – Factors that help Google index and rank pages

Post from: Denver SEO - Local Search Expert

Google Search Quality Site Reviews

To see what I’m talking about go to Google and type in a competitive “core” keyword or phrase,  “mexican restaurant”,  into the search box and examine the results that were found. Chances are you will see local search results for your geographical area, in either the 1st position or around 4th position. These results are extracted from Google’s Local Business Center data which allows business owners to add their business to Local Search.

There is another way to get into the search results , not only in local search but organic search, and be identified as a local business. All you have to do to rank well in local search results is to have your city, state and zip code on every page on your site. Google’s spiders will find this and identify you as local business and drop you right into the search results.

The best place to do this would be in the footer of your site. If you use a content management system like the Wordpress platform I use here on this blog then changing every page is a piece of cake. Simply edit the footer.php file , add your local modifiers into the code and save the file. If you are not tech savvy and are using a web designner to manage your site for you, make sure he/she adds your local information to every page of your site.

See you on Google.

Post from: Denver SEO - Local Search Expert

How To: Ranking In Local Search

These tips should only be implemented after extensive keyword testing has been done. PPC  is the only way I have found to find the keywords that are worth optimizing for. Nothing is worse than SEO’ing for keywords that do not delivery the intended results. Until your keywords have been tested you don’t have anything concrete that proves whether a keyword will actually bring sales to your site. You don’t want just traffic, you want sales!

There are several advantage of SEO . The first thing to note is it’s free, unlike PPC where you have to pay every time someone visits your site. Being listed in the organic search results could also attract more visitors to your site than a  paid listings.  Believe it or not most people are not inclined to click on ads. They prefer to click on natural search results especially if the title of the link is written with the human, not the search engine, in mind.

There are downsides to SEO though. The search engines are constantly changing their algorithms which means you need to stay up-to-date on what changes are taking place with the search engines to stay competitive. But all is not lost. By following these basic tips below, you’ll stand a much better chance of being listed in the top 10 results for your keywords .

Title tag

The search engines place great emphasis on the <title> tag; it tells them what the web pages topic is about. Place your keywords at the start of the title tag for best results but remember; write the with the human in mind. Google will only read the first 60 characters of the title so don’t try to write a small paragraph here. This does more harm than good.

Meta Description

Over the past few years many people who give advice on SEO tell you that the meta description tag <meta name=“description”> is worthless. They are of the thinking that Google is just going to pull the description it wants from the page. Well, I’m here to tell you they are dead wrong. Sure, if you don’t have a description Google will pull something, but it’s usually not what you want. On several occasions I’ve seen Google mangle the description of a page by combing two different parts of a page into the description tag. Make sure your description contains your keywords, is unique;  keep it to 150 characters or less.

Meta Keyword

Google overlooks the meta keyword tag <meta name=“keywords”>, but Yahoo and MSN still read them. So spend a few minutes putting your keywords in keyword meta to add to your search engine authority. Don’t go crazy stuffing keywords here. Adding 3 or 4 main keywords is all you need. If your building landing pages for a ppc campaign the meta keyword can play an integral role in Google’s quality score for the ad.

( H1 tags, H2 tags)

The search engines place great emphasis on words between headings (<H1>, <H2>) so it would be a smart idea to have your keywords placed within them. Just make sure that the keywords are suitable to the content and you’re not stuffing them.

Page name

Having your keywords in your page name will help the search engines determine what the page is about. For example, if you page is about “nail polish colors,” your page name should look like this: http://yoursite.com/nail-polish-colors.htm.

Making sure your pages have all of these elements will increase your ability of getting listed on the first page ( top 10) of search results for your targeted keywords.

Best of luck to your SEO efforts!

Post from: Denver SEO - Local Search Expert

Search Engine Optimization:Tips For Domination