Archive for category web promotion
10 Common Misconceptions About Search Engine Results
Posted by admin in search engine optimization, web design, web design process, web development, web promotion on June 28th, 2009
- If I simply build a website, it will show up on page one of the search engine results.
Many people have no idea how search engines work, and consequently don’t understand how websites get listed, or consider that it may be difficult to get seen. Search engines are “free” advertising, and there is a lot of competition. If the terms you want to rank for are very unique, then chances are there is little traffic for them. If the terms are not unique, then you have a lot of work ahead of you to beat the competition. - Just put the right words in the magical meta tags, and my web site will show up on top
Meta tags had a lot more weight when the Internet was young. Then webmasters figured out how to game the search engines, and all that stopped. You still need to know how to use meta tags properly on your web pages, but working on meta tags alone will get you nowhere. - It’s relatively easy to get on top of the search engine results if you know a few tricks.
A lot of SEO companies make promises like “guarantee top ranking in 1 week or your money back.” The catch is that you can’t have top ranking for any term you want. Getting on page one of Google for “Used car with red paint in Hayward California” is easy. Getting on page one for the term “Car” is just not going to happen for a small or even medium size business. If a company makes it sound easy, they either don’t know what they are doing, or they are trying to scam you! - If I’m on top of the search results for the terms I have chosen, I’ll be getting traffic and making money.
Being on top of the search engine results doesn’t make you money in itself. You need targeted traffic, and to convert that traffic in to sales, or whatever your objective for the web site is. If you rank highly for keywords that aren’t searched for, you won’t get traffic. It may sound obvious, but targeting the right keywords is a step that is often overlooked. - Once my website is published to the internet, it should show up in the rankings right away.
It can take from 2 to 4 weeks for your site to show up in the search engine index, and another 4 to 8 weeks for it to be completely crawled and included in a way that you will achieve optimum results. Also, most major search engines factor in such variables as domain name age, so it may take a matter of years before you can break on to page one for competetive keywords, especially if your competition has been around for a while. - Submitting a site to many search engines will result in traffic to my website .
SEO companies that say they will submit your site to 300 search engines are trying to scam you. There are at most 10 major search engines that will bring all of your traffic.You certainly want to submit your website to them, but if you take other necessary steps, such as obtaining incoming links to your
site, search engine spiders will find your web site even if you don’t submit. And just because the search engine knows about your site, doesn’t mean that it considers it important enough to rank highly in search results. - Pay per click (PPC) is an easy and inexpensive way to get search engine traffic quickly.
When Google Adwords and it’s copiers came out years ago, it was pretty easy and relatively inexpensive to get good traffic. This is no longer true. It is very easy to waste a lot of money trying to learn how to run a pay per click campaign. It may not even be cost effective to run a PPC in certain niches, and it can be very costly to find that out the hard way. - The web designer is the expert, and I don’t need to get involved in the web site design process to obtain great search engine performance.
Web designers are experts in making your Internet business plan a reality. To do that, we need to know as much as possible about your business, products, and customers. It is not uncommon for different departments in one company to use different terms to refer to the same thing. It is also not uncommon for people inside a company to use different terms than do customers when referring to the same thing. Maybe you offer a service, but it isn’t that profitable and would rather not push it. Not communicating this kind of information to your web designer can result in a website that is less effective than it could be. - Search engine optimization is something that can be tacked on after a website is built.
Web design is more than graphic design for web pages. Even more important than making a website look pretty, is creating an information design that will make the website user friendly. Since search engines should always be considered as a user in the design process, that means making the website search engine friendly. And since the information design is the foundation on which the graphic design is built, it necessarily comes before the graphic design. - The website alone determines ranking in the search engines.
External factors are what makes the difference between page 1 and page 100 of the search results, especially for competetive search terms. Search engines want to serve up the most authoritative and important results to their users. They determine the authority of a website based on the number and quality of relevant links pointing to that site. A related misconception people often make is thinking that linking out to many sites will improve your authority. In reality, linking too much to other sites can bleed the authority from your site and hurt your efforts.
Bing.Com Search Engine Launched
Posted by admin in google, joomla, search engine marketing, search engine optimization, seo, web promotion on June 1st, 2009
Microsoft’s update of LiveSearch launched this weekend. I haven’t read much of the hype, because I expect it is just that - hype. What I have absorbed is that Bing is supposed to be a “Google Killer” and a substantially new way of performing search, with the searcher being kept on the Bing site longer (because it gives them everything they need) so they can be exposed to more advertising.
The first thing I noticed when visiting Bing.com is the nice big graphic on the homepage. There was a little arrow indicating I could change the picture (hot air balloons, how original), but when I clicked on it, I was prompted to install Microsoft SilverLight, with no explanation of what it is. I happen to be aware that it’s supposed to be a Flash type program that allows rich media experience, but I don’t know that the typical visitor would be. Anyway, I learned my lesson from Windows Vista and my daughter’s X-Box to thouroughly research performance of Microsoft products before exposing my life to them, so, no thanks.
The searches returned results identical to LiveSearch. Focused on keyword relevance rather than link authority. On-page trump off-page factors, so very easy to get good ranking, even for competitive terms. Good news, I guess, if anyone actually starts using Bing.
On Bing.com you are automatically shown local listings, including a little map for certain searches. Not a huge difference from Google, which does that already. Also included are categorized links below the top result, kind of like Google Sitelinks.
A search for Pleasanton Restaurants in Bing resulted in a list of the worst restaurants in the area. I have a stomach ache just looking at it. The same search on Google results in a list of some very good, and some so-so restaurants. This is probably due to the review feature of Google Local. Bing has reviews listed too, but they are all pulled from Yelp. Bottom line is, as my son would say “FAIL.”
In conclusion, my first reaction to Bing.com is that it is a mediocre attempt to copy Google, so I have a hard time seeing how it is going to be a Google Killer.
Google’s Vince Update - Boost for Brands
Posted by admin in google, search engine marketing, search engine optimization, seo, web promotion on March 10th, 2009
Matt Cutts addressed the Google algorithm update that recently gave a boost to brands that I commented on in my post Big Company Google Boosts Other Big Brands in Search Results. He basically downplays the change and apparently ignores the question posed “What does Google consider a ‘Brand’” by saying his team doesn’t consider brands. Right. What is Vince based on then? Guess it’s a secret.
Big Company Google Boosts Other Big Brands in Search Results
Posted by admin in google, search engine marketing, search engine optimization, seo, silicon valley web guild, spam, web marketing, web promotion on March 7th, 2009
Let’s face it. Maybe Google started off as a egalitarian, nice, fair, “do no evil” type of company, but they have officially hit the big time. Big companies aren’t nice or fair. There is too much money involved. If you still buy into the nicey-nice Google culture, read the New York Times article on Google’s Marissa Mayer and the reaction/comments from Silicon Valley Web Guild and ValleyWag. That, along with comments from Google CEO Eric Schmidt, paints a pretty good picture of corporate executives drunk on their own elitist Koolaid (ok, crappy metaphor, but it’s early). He calls the internet a cesspool. And the solution? Good ole Big Brands. Trusted by millions.
So what does that mean to you, trying to make information about your products and services available to the general public ? It’s going to be harder, at least in the short term. What does it mean to you, the searcher trying to find specific information that’s a little bit off the beaten path. It may be more difficult.
Here’s a possible side-effect of the brand bump in the Google SERPS, that I haven’t see much discussion about. In a couple of different verticals I work with, I’ve noticed page one being filled with directory results from large paid directories, rather than websites of individual businesses, when doing a local search for a specific product or service. Are these big directories considered a brand? How does adding an extra step of displaying a directory results page in the search engine results page help anyone?
So Big Brand=Higher Quality, More Accurate Content=Better Search Results? No. Google has the ability, resonsibilty, or authority to determine what information is “TRUE” and what is not? NO. My personal opinion is that such an idea, forced into the algorithm by the almighty dollar rather than a concern for helping the searcher find what they are looking for, will result in people switching to another search engine to find what they are looking for. Then, when the traffic decrease results in a loss in revenue, Google will move the other way. I hope.
DMOZ is Corrupt?
Posted by admin in dmoz, open directory project, seo, web directories, web promotion on December 11th, 2008
I’ve known that there was something wrong with DMOZ (Open Directory Project) for some time. There have been many sites over the years that I have submitted to DMOZ every six months, painstakingly going over the information to make sure that it meets the requirements. What a colossal waste of time. The sites rarely get listed. No explanation from the editor. The submissions just fade into nothing.
DMOZ is a valuable link. Google uses the DMOZ directory as a basis for the Google directory. Many other directories on the Web do the same, so your DMOZ link is duplicated many times over. This can add up to a lot of incoming links, and significant link authority.
The DMOZ editors are volunteers, but they hold a lot of power. I found a enlightening example of how this power can manifest itself in the blog Corrupt DMOZ Editor.
Here’s an excerpt:
Another day, another screwed DMOZ submission
It’s another day and more submissions are lining my queues. I go to a cafe with free internet access and cute college age kids behind the counter, and log in to one of my dmoz accounts using firefox to spoof the OS and browser. Then I delete a handful of listings starting from the top without even looking at them. The next batch I include but I make sure to drain the listings of any useful keywords. The next bunch I keep on hold for the next time. I have a few listings that have been on hold for, I kid you not, eighteen months.
The postings on this blog are a few years old, and I’m not sure how tongue-in-cheek some of the information related is, but reading through the blog confirmed the image I had of what goes on behind the scenes at DMOZ. Geeks with power. Not a good combination. Something as obviously dysfunctional as DMOZ will go away on it’s own, hopefully sooner than later. In the meantime, there are plenty of other ways to promote your website. I’m done wasting my time with DMOZ.
Finding a Good SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Company
Posted by admin in seo, web promotion on June 12th, 2008
Let me start out by saying 90% of the SEO companies are out to scam you, so be careful. Here are some tip-offs that the company who is pitching you should be avoided:
1. They talk a lot about “meta-tags.” Sure, the description meta-tag is still important, as it’s used as a short description on the results page. Modern search engines are looking for good, relevant page content and link authority, NOT hidden content.
2. Reciprocal link exchanging is a central aspect of their strategy. Search engines, especially Google, consider excessive link exchanging to be a violation of their guidelines and will penalize you for it.
3. Submit to 300 search engines! There are only 3 or 4 that really matter, and it doesn’t take much time to submit to them. Submitting to the other 296 certainly won’t hurt, but it isn’t the key to making your website a success.
Things you should do:
1. Ask for references. Actually contact them and find out how successful their client relationships have been. Make sure improvement has been long-term. The danger of looking only at short-term success is that an unethical (black hat) SEO can get you huge short-term improvement, but get you banned in the long-term, long after they have your money in their bank!
2. Ask for guarantees. You are generally going to be paying a lot of money for and SEO service, so they should give you some kind of guaranteed position, or improvement in position.
Google Webmaster Tools Now Shows Backlinks
Posted by admin in backlinks, google webmaster tools, search engine marketing, seo, web promotion, yahoo site explorer on February 8th, 2007
Until now, the only way to get an inkling of which backlinks to your Website Google knew about was to use the “link:” operator. As I’ve mentioned before, it is utterly useless, especially if your Website dwells in the lower bowels of PR (PageRank). Here’s the backlinks the “link:www.tpdesigns.net” tells me that Google sees.
Nine backlinks? All that work for only nine backlinks? Well I knew I was being had, so Yahoo! to the rescue. Here’s what Yahoo! Site Explorer tells me about my backlinks:
6,228 backlinks? That’s more like it! Without actually counting, I can say that might be most of them.
Today I saw in Matt Cutts blog that Google Webmaster Tools now included backlinks. It had to be an improvement over the totally useless “link:” operator, and it is. I logged in, and after clicking to my Sitemap, I was pleased to see a new tab label “Links.” Here’s what it said:
448 Backlinks. That’s more like it. I noticed the the main difference between the number of backlinks displayed on the “Links” tab in Google Webmaster Tools, and the “Inlinks” displayed in Yahoo! Site Explorer seemed to be that Google was limiting backlinks displayed to a certain number per site, while Yahoo! was displaying most, if not all of them.
Google Webmaster Tools has always had some cool features, not all of which have worked for me. I’ve always felt that I’ve received limited data because my Website was just too small for Google to care about. With the new backlinks feature, Google has given me a reason to log into Webmaster Tools on a regular basis, as well as given me hope that their other tools may be made more useful to us little guys in the near future.
-
-
You are currently browsing the archives for the web promotion category.
Recent Comments