Anecdotal evidence and experiences of search engine optimizers, as well as hints in the typically cryptic comments of search engine’s staff indicates that real time indexing is increasingly important.  This means that the number and quality of links is not enough – the frequency and freshness of content associated with links to your site have an impact as well.

What better method to post fresh content quickly and easily than via social media such as Twitter and Facebook?

One limitation of Twitter is its 160 character message size.  This causes many twitterers, and even Facebook marketers (without that limitation) to use link shortening services like bit.ly.  Those services “encrypt” longer links (e.g., http://www.polardesign.com/news/newsen/SearchBostonPolarDesignJV.newsitem.shtml ) to deep linked pages into shorter links that often look like this: http://bit.ly/cvegVL .

While a very cool service, link shorteners create a link that does not go directly to the target web site, but rather to the bit.ly web site where it is then redirected to the actual link.  This means that search engine spiders follow these bit.ly and other shortened links will not associate the final page destination,

Remember one of the cardinal rules about SEO – NO redirects!  Why?  Because the team at Google long ago determined that less scrupulous marketers were building up pages’ pagerank and then later redirecting them (as part of paid commercial relationships) to a web page whose owners wanted a high ranking, quickly.  For example, someone might create a web site called autoinsurance.com, attract links, amass traffic and pagerank, and then redirect it (for a fee) to an insurer’s web site.

This is a well known practice for moved pages.  Some evidence suggests that Google doesn’t penalize redirects in all cases.  Nevertheless, and this is the most important insight of this post: we have never seen bit.ly links appearing in Twitter tweets or Facebook status updates or wall posts registered as a link to a page in Google Webmaster Tools – only full, long links appear indexed and counted!

Therefore, tweet and post away bit.ly links freely for the purpose of driving traffic – but if your aim is to improve pagerank, be sure to use full, un-”encrypted” long links.

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.

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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Rel Nofollow
Linking
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Link Checker

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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Recession Marketing
Small Business Resources

Google released a search feature in November 2008 which allows Google Account Users to personalize their searches. Forty percent of internet searches are duplicate queries a web user has made one or more times before. Using this knowledge, Google created SearchWiki which is integrated with Google Search to allow users to rank, remove, and add notes to search results. Each time that Google Account Users perform that search query in the future, they will see the results as they have modified them. Currently, users can view other notes that have been created about search results; “See All Notes for this SearchWiki.” To learn more about these new features, read Google’s support page.

At the moment, Google is not using feedback from SearchWiki to influence their organic search ranking. However, one can imagine that this would be a logical next step for Google which poses an interesting question about how SEO will evolve. Read the New York Times article, Google Personalizes Search with SearchWiki, to learn more.

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Google Search Ranking
New SEO Tactics

Getting your content published in Wikipedia is notoriously hard. Wikipedia has strict guidelines about what they will allow to be published as well as a “no point of view expressed” policy which stop users from adding blatant advertising articles. For an amusing tale of one wiki writer’s struggle to get his web conferencing article published, click here.

Despite all of this, for-profit companies do have Wikipedia pages. This is accomplished through providing relevant content and following strict guidelines, as well as an understanding of Wikipedia’s inner workings. Polar Design was recently successful in creating a Wikipedia page for Kalahari Tea. This is a great search engine marketing tactic since the content gets copied and syndicated to many other sites, like this one.

Search Engine Marketing
Wikipedia Tips
Small Business Resources

Since the launch of Kalahari’s redesigned site, conversion has more than doubled! This is a great example of Polar Design’s search engine marketing work. Kalahari’s site has great design and interactive features–two of the most important factors in conversion. Check out Kalahari’s site for yourself!

Search Engine Marketing
Internet Marketing Tips