PlanWebs Web Design, Online Media & Marketing

TalentZoo.com
If you’ve got the right keywords and know where to put them, Jill Whalen has some tips for using that info to come up with effective, enticing title tags.

“You’ve got to take your few keyword phrases and arrange them in an order that provides you with the most benefit from search engines, while also appealing to your target audience within the search results pages,” Whalen says.

She suggests choosing three keyword phrases for each Title tag–perhaps one highly competitive term and two that are less so–since there’s only so much space available. You can supplement those chosen three with more diverse (but still targeted) keywords in the Meta description tags and in the pages’ copy itself.

Whalen also says that you should aim for a 10-12 word Title tag–so if you’re going to fit your three target phrases in there, then you’ll have to be judicious about the other words you choose. “It’s imperative to keep any jargon, superlatives or marketing fluff out of your Titles for this reason,” she says.

WebProNews
Once the initial tasks of on-page optimization are done, the “heavy lifting” phase of SEO takes a back seat to rankings maintenance. And as Jim Hedger notes, sustaining strong organic rankings isn’t rocket science, but it is hard work. So he serves up a roadmap for maintaining top organic placement in the long run.

“Barring unforeseen circumstances and assuming best practices have been followed all the way through, the majority of a search marketer’s working time is likely spent on continuing to update the blog, link building and social media marketing,” Hedger says.

In addition to content development, sustainable rankings are also tied to analytics programs and the data they provide. Everything from eye-tracking studies, to city-specific local search results, to multivariate tests can be used to refine copy and streamline usability. “Examining the data shows search marketers which pages or files are working and which require improvement,” Hedger says.

The benefits of trying to maintain rankings go beyond increased traffic, however–as Hedger notes that search marketers can use the same analytics to improve conversions as well.

SEO Smarty
A logo serves two key purposes for a company–to help establish brand identity, and to give a visual representation of the company’s products or services. Ann Smarty reviews a number of search firms’ logos to see how well their logos match up with these tasks–with a focus on how they actually describe SEO with their graphic.

For example, SEO Design Solutions uses an arrow that shoots in from the left up through the middle of their logo, which Smarty interprets as showing the growth aspect of SEO (be it growth in rankings or profits). A nice touch, but she recommends having the arrow come in from the right, to make it “more understandable [to U.S. and European people who are believed to think (as well as read) from left to right.”

Search Engine People’s logo highlights the uniqueness aspect of SEO (the service makes you stand out in the rankings) by showing one silver sphere in the midst of a number of blue ones. Meanwhile, Advance Rankings showcases the quality of its services by placing a star within its logo, and Search Engine Journal (along with Smarty herself) uses a magnifying glass in the logo–a nod to the high level of professionalism or expertise it provides.

Hamlet Batista
As Hamlet Batista notes, a solid link-building strategy involves equal parts link-baiting and link-conquesting–and he delves into the pros and cons of each tactic.

“Chasing links is the traditional way of building links,” Batista says. “This includes things like submitting your site to directories, creating press releases, submitting articles and comments with your site link and anchor text, and other strategies.”

Aggressively pursuing links gives you the ability to pick and choose which kinds of sites you get them from–meaning you can stick to high authority, highly relevant Web sites and reap the benefits. The only con is that it can take hard work–and it isn’t a tactic that you can readily outsource, “because it requires personal rapport,” Batista says. “It necessitates having your own voice and building a connection with representatives of other sites. Clearly, it also takes a whole lot of time and patience.”

On the other hand, getting people to link to you without asking them is the idea behind link-baiting. This tactic is based on developing exciting, interesting content–be it an article, a video, a widget–and enticing the influencers in your niche to pick it up.

“When successful, a good link bait will yield a massive amount of links,” Batista says. Outside of crafting the content, link-baiting is less labor-intensive and more cost effective, and your link profile will be flush with lots of different kinds of anchor text and many different Web sites. The cons stem from the fact that you aren’t in control of where the links come from, or what they’ll look like (you’re aiming for targeted, keyword-rich text, aren’t you?), and there’s no guarantee that you’ll be successful.

PPC Hero
So you’ve reviewed your site’s query and conversion reports, and tried all the keyword research tools–have you exhausted all of your options for sourcing new keywords? Not until you’ve done a thorough site review–with a particular focus on the deeper pages, says Joe Kerschbaum.

Your FAQ pages can offer insight into long-tail keywords that customers may be navigating to, and provide a good source for PPC ad copy. News update and press pages can also offer new keywords, since if your company is appearing at an upcoming conference, you can snag searchers with “PPC summit [company name]” queries, and so on.

And take another look at your product/service pages, this time with an eye for the kinds of problems they offer a solution to. For example, people in need of landscaping may not enter “lawn care” or even “landscaping” during a query–they may be in search of a solution for their “overgrown hedges,” “lawn rehabilitation” or even” dead grass removal.”

AudetteMedia
“There is a golden rule to link building: links reflect value on the Web,” says Adam Audette. Because of their inherent value, link building has become much harder today than it was pre-Google. Links are a commodity, and with that in mind, Audette delivers a detailed reference manual on effective link building.

For example, Audette defines a number of key components that define a valuable link–with the top factors being relevance and context. Beyond those concrete characteristics, the most valuable links are often difficult to obtain, require a human element (two people need to exchange ideas), and involve a significant investment (be it time spent creating content or designing the site itself, developing relationships with influencers, or even the cost of paying for a link).

Audette also offers a list of link-building sources, including social media hubs (blogs and forums related to your niche), email lists and directories, as well as human-powered search engines like ChaCha, Mahalo and Bessed.

Graywolf’s SEO Blog
New Web site owners (or even seasoned pros set to launch a new site) should have SEO in mind from the onset, but Michael Gray argues that the trick is to avoid putting the cart before the horse. “Look for a way to differentiate yourself first and use SEO to promote it, not the other way around,” Gray says.

Without quality content (including text, images and possibly video), or a unique value proposition, all the time spent working on keyword density, meta data and link accumulation could actually lead to a smackdown from the engines.

“At the time when some engineer decides to crawl over your suspected SEO site, if you don’t have the content that makes the grade [or your point of difference], you won’t have the links or on-site material to pass the sniff test,” Gray says. And the prized ranking will go out the window–or worse, the site will get banned.

A sitemap is a little-known secret to enhancing your Web site’s position in the search engine listings. No, it’s not a killer secret that will draw in thousands of new visitors overnight, but it is an important addition to your toolset, and not hard to implement. This article will tell you why you need a sitemap, and how to create one and submit it to the search engines.

The term “sitemap” can refer to two different things. Many large, complex Web sites provide a visual sitemap that visitors can use for quick navigation, if they already know roughly where they want to go. If your site is large or complex, you should provide one of these sitemaps for your visitors.

But this article is about the other kind of sitemap: The kind that is made for the search engines, like Google, to use in indexing your site. There are several forms that these sitemaps can take, but we’ll get to that a little later.

First of all, let’s consider why you even need a sitemap. Google and the other search engines will index your site even if you don’t have a sitemap. However, there are four main advantages to having a sitemap:
1. If your site uses non-HTML links, such as Macromedia Flash menus or JavaScript menus, the search engines will not be able to follow these links, and so they will not find all of your pages. A code-driven site must use a sitemap.

2. A sitemap tells the search engines which pages on your site are more important, and which are less important. This prevents the less important pages from competing with your own pages in the listings.

3. A sitemap tells the search engines which pages on your site are updated more frequently than others. This enables the search engines to ignore your static pages, increasing the likelihood that they will have the most current data on your most dynamic pages.

4. A sitemap enables you to tell the search engines when you have added or updated your site’s content. To some extent, this puts you in control of making the search engines aware of your latest content. Of course, it doesn’t force the search engines to do your bidding, but it tends to make it easier for users to find your new pages more quickly.

I’m Not A Doctor
“The Doc” (a search consultant based in San Diego) was working on a site that had consistently ranked within the top three organic results for a keyword, when one day he noticed it had slipped down to the tenth spot. At first, he thought that there might be duplicate content issues, a possible need to tweak the URL structure for canonicalization or maybe just build up more inbound links.

But after fiddling with those factors and waiting about a month, there was still no change. Frustrated, the Doc found that sometimes snagging rankings means going back to three basic questions: Does the keyword appear on the page? Does the site have a keyword rich h1 tag? And are the title tags and Meta data optimized? “By asking these three basic, but extremely important questions I found the problem,” the Doc says. “The homepage did not contain a keyword rich h1 and the target keyword only appeared in the text once.”

He added the target keyword to the h1 tags, sprinkling it into the homepage text as well, and saw the site return to the top three rankings within two weeks. “So, if you are having a hard time in your SEO campaign, take a step back,” the Doc says. “Take a deep breath. Go back to the basics.”

Solo SEO
“Your customers use online reviews to decide where to eat, shop, and do business. The feedback and ratings your customers give also help determine your rankings for your keywords.”

That’s the message that greets small business owners on the sign-up page for LeaveFeedback.org, a new free service from Utah-based search firm Solo SEO. The review generation service makes it easy for business owners to accumulate reviews on sites like Yahoo and Google Local and Yelp, get them ranked and even provide customers with an incentive for writing the review.

At LeaveFeedback.org, reviewers are taken directly to one of the business owner’s chosen review sites, and they get a printable coupon (created by the owner, but hosted on the site) once they’ve posted a review. There are quick links to the popular local search engines and directories so that business owners can get their company listed first, and the service also keeps track of how many times a coupon code was entered. Local search pros like Mike Blumenthal, Matt McGee and Miriam Ellis helped contribute to the project’s development through feedback and testing.