Getting the internet marketing formula right - producing a web site that actively generates sales leads or builds relationships with customers - involves a lot of variables and skillsets.  Many SEO professionals or firms focus so much on traffic generation that they can overlook the importance of copy, design, and layout in ensuring that visitors attracted to a site stay there and check out the offerings. 

While the latter are not strictly “SEO” functions, the fact is that like the proverbial weak link in a chain, SEO is only as good as its results — if targeter traffic is wasted on landing pages or sites with poor calls to action, then any investment on SEO was for naught.

A few general rules of thumb follow, in order of importance:

1. Make sure that the message on your site matches what people would expect when searching for the SEO terms you are optimizing a site for.  For example, if you sell digital cameras but optimize your site for “digital camera reviews” because your KEI analysis shows it drives solid traffic and is attainable, be sure that the page does provide users with access to some reviews - don’t make the mistake of exclusively advertising cameras for sale on that page.

2. Make sure that you have clear calls to action.  Large buttons and text that guide users to the “next step” are crucial.

3. Don’t overload your landing page or home page with text and copy, however advantageous that may seem for SEO.  Publish resources and articles in 3rd and 4th level page.

If you’d like to try a fun experiment to see whether your site design communicates the message you intend and matches the SEO keywords you are contemplating, try Five Second Test - this web site allows you to upload a screen shot of your web site and have anonymous viewers “review” how effectively it communicates by asking viewers to specify memorable aspects of a site after a limited five second viewing sessions.

As the prevalance of more and more web pages strewn about the Internet as well as increasingly larger web sites becomes commonplace, the level of investment you make in web site hardware can actually have implications on your search engine optimization. 

Operators of very large sites have often assumed that powerful servers or multi-server solutions, along with excessive bandwidth, are necessary to ensure performance during spikes in visitor traffic and activity.  E-commerce web site operators have long known that each additional second that a customer waits for a shopping cart page to load can lead to a 5% - 10% loss in conversion at that step.

The above are well known facts that impact web site hardware and bandwidth selection.   

But SEO?

As it turns out, Googlebot, the Google search engine spider, is a prime culprit of server and bandwidth resource theft.  The more external links to your web site, or internal links between pages, the more likely you are to receive a visit from Googlebot or a host of other search engine spiders.  As the number of pages on your site increases, and assuming that you have interlinked your pages using SEO best practices, the number of potential paths that a spider can take through your site increases exponentially.  The larger the site and the more complex the linking between pages, the more hits that spiders will make on your site and the more bandwidth, memory and CPU resources will be consumed.  We have witnessed sites with over 10,000 pages exceed bandwidth limitation due solely to a combination of good SEO and limited hardware resoures.

There are ways to reduce Googlebot and other spiders’ visits in order to accommodate hardware and bandwidth limitations, but from an SEO perspective, living with IT constraints is not a good option since webmasters should desire that spiders to visit their websites as often as possible.

How to Solve / Anticipate Spiders’ Impact on your Servers

1. Host a site with a lot of pages (+10,000) and complex interlinking of pages (average of 20 internal links per page or more with a non-heirarchical linking strategy) on a dedicated server to ensure the best performance and handle many spider visits.
2. Install Google Webmaster Tools on your websites; you can control the rate at which the Googlebot visits your site.

We don’t usually share information of this nature, but given the summer doldrums, we hope our readers appreciate a little spice to light their SEO efforts. 

Recently we discovered that a major online classified directory that allows free classifieds automatically adds the ‘rel no follow’ attribute to any hyperlinks?  It does this unbeknownst to posters, despite labeling itself as an open resource.  What is even less known is that there is an easy work around to this that allows you to conver the no follow to a do follow link.  

We won’t divulge the name of the resource here since the operators of the site might “fix” this oversight.  The resource in question allows postings (e.g., for services, selling homes, etc.) to remain online for a period of time, after which the postings are taken down but stored.  Users have the option to “repost” those listings for an additional period of time.  During the reposting process, you will see a screen where raw HTML code of the original posting is included.  In that screen, you can edit the code (unlike when you are creating a posting.  Notice that the hyperlinks have the rel no follow attribute included within them?

Simply delete the rel no follow attribute and proceed with the posting.  The new hyperlinks will be do follow links! 

Since we are not posting the actual identity of the site, be sure that you check the terms of service of any site to see if this is a violation.  Good luck!

Every now and then, the team at SEO Bootstrap gets to toss aside our Clark Kent frames and don a superman outfit.  Typically this happens after we discover some method that can risk our clients’ and followers an intriguing SEO angle pitched to us by a consultant, colleague, or indirectly by a twitter follower.  Here are a few common ones:

Scam #1: Millions of FREE PPC Clicks from Google!

There are a multitude of web sites and twitterers promoting $40 or $300 packages to uncover how to get millions of visitors.  In the past this involved signing up with Google for pay per click and taking advantage of the free $50 PPC budget for first time Google advertising customers.  Nowdays, these packages describes methods of generating leads for free by creating web sites that simply generate ad revenue through Google AdSense, which the site owner can then plow back into Google pay per click.  The latter is a legitmate, but hardly revolutionary method.

Scam #2: Get Your Site Listed or Linked from Hundreds of Websites!

These services generally involve placing a link to your site on hundreds of web sites, as advertised.  However, those sites will generally have very low pagerank, little meaningful content, and hundreds of other links which means that the traffic and link popularity benefit will be minimal.  Additionally, Google, Bing, Yahoo! and other search engines frown upon this tactic, considering it “spam” - a link from many such pages that are tracked as “spammy” can result in a reduction, not an increase, in your ranking.

Scam #3: Blogging for Bucks

It is a “well known” secret that bloggers often take a fee to promote a product.  Its only natural for bloggers to want to make a living - they won’t be able to spend hours of time researching and discussing topics without some backing.  However, unlike traditional media like newspapers that have developed quite extensive ethical codes to help them navigate the quandries of covering topics related to the companies that advertise, bloggers have not yet developed accepted standards of disclosure.  The risk with paying bloggers is less about SEO and more about the strong potential for discover by the hundreds of other bloggers policing ethics in the blogosphere.  If you are caught obtaining extensive promotion that masquarades as a spontaneous review, you may be called out in someone’s blog, leading to bad press and damage to your brand.  Proceed with care!

Following is a list of forums with high pagerank that do not publish “rel no follow” tags (Visit our SEO Glossary to learn what rel no follow means).  Use with care - many have anti-spam policies regardless, so don’t go bananas and start posting millions of links.  Use best practices with link building via forums: post threads or replies that are truly helpful and contribute to the community. 

List courtesy of Arthemia.

Like web sites, blogs also can benefit from submission.  Certainly one can submit a blog, like any website, to major search engines like Google, Yahoo! and MSN submission forms.  In that case, the blog will be treated like a web site with content indexed every month or so.

Blogs, however, are animals that demand immediate attention.  Fortunately, there are hundreds of specialty blog search engines, lists, and RSS feed redistributors in existence a well. 

Our favorite, Technorati, requires creation of an account and proceeding with a verfication procecure.  Another site, Buzzfeed, features an engaging interface that actively tracks the hotest blogs.  For a list of many other sites that accept blog submissions and syndicate the content through the Internet, give RSS Submissions a try.

Many practitioners of SEO as well as more and more marketers are aware of the importance of linked content in increasing web site’s search ranking and thus a company’s visibility or sales.  Fewer people are aware of the subtleties of link building and content creation that make SEO effective, such as matching meta titles with site content or the importance of carefully choose anchor text.  There will alway be experts and amateurs in any field, however as more and more marketers become aware of SEO, that greater awareness of SEO is changing the dynamics of SEO itself by reducing its effectiveness (as measured by results like ranking or traffic). 

More and more sites are adopting mini site strategies, blogging, and more and more webmasters or marketers are twittering and creating Facebook fan pages.  When the social media and search marketing space was virgin territory, even a quickly devised effort could have major impact.  Today, however, more effort must be made, which translates into more content, more links, more PR, more, more, more!

I’m not suggesting that SEO is saturated now, but I’m postulating that it will be within 12 months.  This doesn’t mean that it will be return the same or less investment per dollar than other advertising, either, but it will definitely return less than it has.  The results one obtains through a certan amount of effort today will be less in a year and even less in 3 years.  Preparing for that day should be on everyone’s mind.  A few key principals are worth mentioning:

1. Efficiency - One component of successful SEO, link building, involves identifying relevant sites with high pagerank.  Years ago, this was done manually by scanning each page.  Today’s technology includes tools like SEO for Firefox that can automate that process to some extent.  Google’s Webmaster Tools are a quick and easy way to analyze inbound links to every page on even the largest sites.  Marketers should continue to look for ways to make their link building more efficient by cutting down time needed to identify potential link partners.
2. Content is still king, but for different reasons in different eras - in the pre-Google era, content mattered for search positioning based on the keywords used.  Google increased the importance of the quality of content - webmasters are more likely to link to your content if they like it.  Additionally, some SEO consultants report positive effects on search engine’s spidering activity. In the increasingly frenetic world of online marketing accelerated by social networking, content that is merely good does not win - it must also be relevant, timely and entertaining.  Welcome to the age of ”ADD”vertising!
3. Golden Rule - the classic “golden rule” - “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” - applies in the search marketing space as well.  Highly annoying behavior like massive e-mail blasts to webmasters or massive spamming of the Internet with duplicative content are not only annoying but counter productive.  Individual targeting of particular web sites or bloggers by humans seeking out relevant content are generally considered acceptable.  
4. Research.  Search engines are evolving systems whose formulas are being updated and refined from time to time.  Despite the Google founders publicly available thesis that formed the basis of their search engine, the search engine continues to evolve over time with new rules being instituted to ensure the integrity of results.  Understanding these rules as they are released is a key part of ensuring successful placement — even better is understanding the fundamental reason that search engines exist : helping searchers find relevant content. To the extent that an SEO campaign has this at the root of its strategy, it will produce campaigns that result in quality content which in turn will cushion it from changes in search engine algorithms over time since all such changes ultimately are meant to improve the location of relevant content.

In short, SEO practicioners must become more than experts in their field, but must continuously ask the underlying question - why do search engines exist in the first place and how can produce content that helps, not hinders, their activity, while also benefitting my client.  This approach will protect any SEO practicioner in the coming age of saturation.

Mega Tips for Meta Tags

A few common and not so common tips.  A number bloggers have already reported these on a theoretical level, but we can confirmt this with results of some projects:

General Meta Tagging Advice

1. Do not forget them - they DO matter!
2. Try to match them with page names or heading names where possble for added impact
3. Use commonly known tools like Wordtracker or Google adwords to identify keywords that will drive traffic.  Just guessing the right keywords isn’t enough anymore.  If you can afford to, hire a web marketing agency to bring experience and a strategic perspective to the process.
4. Of the three types of meta tags commonly though to influence search results - meta titles, meta descriptions and meta keywords - meta titles are by far the most important.  Many SEO industry observers and actual results suggest that meta keywords are mostly ignored these days.

Meta Titles

1. The first few words in a meta title have more weight than the later words.  Additionally, they are the ones users tend to see in search results, so choose them carefully.
2. Repetition within a meta title is not always good or bad - it depends on how blatant it is.  “Insurance Insurance Insurance Insurance” is obviously going to get your page flagged as spam, but “Insurance agent offering auto insurance” is usually acceptable.

Remember that you’re not just writing tags for search engines - people are reading the tags on the results pages in search engines and then clicking to the page, so if the tags are mostly unrelated to the target page content, it will make your site optimization less effective as well as irritate visitors and cause them to bounce.

As always, please leave some feedback or contact us with questions! 

2.

The “rel nofollow” tag in hyperlink text is commonly thought to instruct Google and its spiders that a link should not be counted toward the target web site’s link popularity.  This is enormous implications on link building efforts.  First, however, a little background…

In Google’s blog, instructions to webmasters about how to avoid being blacklisted include identifying what links are “paid” versus “free”.  The presumption is that Google considers that paid links should not count toward a site’s link popularity and, if it discovers that a site is attempting to distort its position in search engines through excessive spamming (buying or trading of links, posting of redundant content for SEO purposes only, etc.), that site could be penalized.  One way that webmasters are asked to instruct Google’s spiders whether a link is indeed paid is by inserting the “rel no follow” tag into hyperlink text.  An example of what rel no follow looks like in a link tag, ummm, follows:

<a href=”http://www.visitorcamp.com” rel=”nofollow“>Website Packages</a>

As compared to a standard hyperlink:

<a href=”http://www.visitorcamp.com”>Website Packages</a>

You can’t tell if a rel no follow tag exists unless you actually look at the page source code.  In both of the above examples, the link looks like this: Website Packages .

Why should webmasters or search engine marketers care?  Well, for one thing, a lot of web sites that feature link exchange now surreptitiously add the rel no follow tag into their hyperlinks.  Thus, if you, an honest wbemaster, add a link to a third party site in exchange for one back, you may not actually get any benefit if the site does use rel no follow.  Many major web sites like Wikipedia do this automatically.

There are many implications:

1. Many Link checkers, used to verify that site that you link to are linking back, do not check for this

2. Webmasters that manage web sites using content management solutions or databases can sometimes tweak hyperlink tags across their site very quickly - sites that used to provide link popularity can stop doing so overnight

Having said all that, the actual truth behind rel no follow is not so clear cut.  Many other major search engines like Yahoo appear to ignore the no follow tag.  Even Google is said to potentially include links toward pagerank in some cases according to the nofollow article in Wikipedia.  Finally, even if a link does not count toward your link popularity and Pagerank, you can still benefit from web site visitors that click on it to visit you!  So don’t let SEO objectives completely cloud visitor traffic and other benefits of having links simply because rel nofollow is used.

The best strategy is vigilance.  Check if your link checker software detects rel no follow. Stay aware of developments in how rel no follow is evaluated by visiting the Google blog, and check the source code of sites that you partner with.  You don’t have to avoid seeking links that will have a rel no follow tag, but consider whether link exchange is worth it or if its justified by other factors like traffic or visibility.

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During this time of economic struggle, many businesses cut back on their marketing budgets in hopes of conserving money and increasing their chance of survival. However, research shows that this tactic will harm rather than help your business. Instead of cutting back, businesses should INCREASE their marketing budgets during a recession.

The Harvard Business Review found that companies who increased their marketing budgets during recessions saw the biggest growth in sales. During the Great Depression, Kellogg continued to push their marketing while Post did not. For the next fifty years, Kellogg’s Corn Flakes dominated the cereal market while Post struggled to keep up. Read even more about the benefits of increased marketing during a recession.

What does this mean for your business? That it is important to continue your marketing efforts, and one of the best ways to do so is through search engine marketing. Read about Polar Design’s search engine marketing packages to put your business on the path to increasing sales!

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