How to Optimize Pages for better Visibility June 10, 2008
Posted by seonotes in Uncategorized.Tags: keyword optimisation, keyword targeting, page optimisation, SEO
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It’s been a while since I’ve made a post here at SEOnotes. As usual, the busyness of life got the better of me since what? April!
Anyway for today’s post, I’ve taken down the topic of keyword optimisation on a per page basis. As a staple, SEOs are aware that it’s better to optimize your pages for 1 to 2 keywords only instead of a whole 20 of them. Why? Because your page is meant to have a focus. One proof that you have optimized your pages well, is when you see your home page, and the specific page where you are targeting a specific keyword to rank, both appearing at the same time in search results (usually one page is followed immediately by the other page in the listings).
How can you do this? You can try this technique:
Optimise your home page for your main (number 1) keyword.
Include your target keywords (of the whole website) in the body content and link it to their specific page where that keyword is in focus. Don’t forget to include these also in your footer links. Tweak CSS so links can blend with the look and feel of the design without looking like hidden text.
Optimise your pages by targeting 1-2 keywords.
Your next most important page should contain the next most important keywords. Don’t forget to link back to your home page, and the next most important page. It’s like linking to your internal pages.
Remember: When you have more of your pages appearing in the search engines (especially when they appear next to one another), you gain better visibility in the search results.
H1 Tag for SEO – is it a myth? April 15, 2008
Posted by seonotes in On-page Optimization.Tags: H1, H1 tag, Heading tags, Organic SEO, SEO myth
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Opening my spam mailbox yesterday, I found the SEO news email newsletter. They wrote about the 10 Myths in search engine optimization. There were a couple of points that I must say, are quite questionable to me, but the part that intrigued me most is this:
Organic SEO Myth 7: Header tags or H1 should be used to ensure high ranking. There is no evidence to prove this. However, this is one of the most common myths.
I have seen a lot of sites that lack that html element in its code. This is most evident in sites optimized via link building (instead of keyword/content optimization).
Speaking from experience, sites I have optimized with proper writing of the H1 tag or the ‘heading 1’ tag, have had more stable rankings, as compared to sites that lacked that important element. It was easier for me to maintain rankings for particular key terms which I have coded in the H1 tag.
Remember search engine crawlers look for your H1 description (aside from other important SEO elements, i.e. meta tags), to determine the relevance of your page. Omitting this tag isn’t good SEO practice.
How do you create the H1 tag?
• H1 tags are symbolized by this html code: <h1></h>
• Include your primary keyword in the H1 tag
• While you have your keyword, opt to write your headers (either h1 or h2), in a meaningful text: <h1>Summer Bikinis in all sizes for sale!</h1>
• Write your header tags prominently at the beginning of your content, ideally after the <body> tag.
• Learn how to tweak your CSS style sheet when you wish to blend your H1 tag with your page content font styles. Never hide the text in this tag.
Among experienced search engine optimization specialists, the H1 or the heading 1 tag still ranks high among other seo relevancy factors. You may do without this, but as far as page relevance and rank stability, putting heading tags for SEO are standard operating procedures.
Online Reputation Management: The Basics February 14, 2008
Posted by seonotes in Online Reputation Management.Tags: Online Reputation, Online Reputation Management, Search Engine Optimization
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This morning of the 14th of Feb, I cannot seem to connect to google.com. For some strange reason, I am limited in all my activities early today because my buddy search engine ain’t there. I believe there is a huge impact to society once this popularly used (and abused) search engine will stop to function. This is a not so nice start for Valentine’s day.
The above statement is a sample content meant for online reputation. It can be seen as a negative comment to Google’s inability to reach me this morning, or it can be a positive heads up note - as I’ve stated that Google impacts society big time.
Online reputation is not entirely a new concept. Even before the popular days of search engine optimization, people must have been reading customer reviews before purchasing a product. Management of online reputation is another thing. There is deliberate intervention by the parties involved as they maintain the good image of a product/service/company online. This is where the value of search engine optimization comes in. By using the techniques in optimizing pages, one can topple the negative reviews and comments against the client you are servicing.
But how exactly does online reputation management go about? To be honest, I am quite new in this particular field. I’ve been doing some research as to how to quantify online reputation damage, and the right strategies to cover for the damages. Here are some notes I’d like to share. Quite raw, though:
- Establish KPIs or Key Performance Indicators - How will you quantify damage, is it by the number of negative reviews? The search engine rankings of these negative sites? Their traffic? Page Popularity? By identifying these metrics, you will have a basis as to how you can measure your success in damage control
- Monitor what people are saying about you - Check the top websites that contribute to your thumbs down image. Who are they? Where do they get the basis of their claims? How influential are they? Then check in what search engines, forums, blogs do negative comments come from.
- Analyze the picture - What are the common complaints against you/your product? Are these factual? How can you give solution to these.
- Go Pro-active and Influence - Start from the bottom and do the dirty work. After the analysis, you should be able to identify the steps needed to topple bad content against you. Check if organic SEO techniques will be enough. Create a community wherein you can build good reputation. Don’t underestimate the power of social media marketing.
This is just a basic formula for online reputation management. Once I get the initial results of this project, there’ll be more meaty (and concise) details to share.
Pay-per-click: Fresh Tips for Fresh Newbies February 13, 2008
Posted by seonotes in Pay Per Click.add a comment
So you’re new in pay-per-click (PPC for short)? Here are quick, simple, and note-worthy tips you can implement in your latest earn-online-project:
Note: This is purely for Google Adwords - as it is the widest used paid campaign program in the Web.
1. There are 3 important factors to consider: your keywords, ad copy/ad text, and your landing page. Make sure these 3 are closely relevant to each other. Target keywords must be aligned with your ad text. Tip: If possible, have your keyword appear in the Title using {Keyword:Your Company}.
2. Best Practice: Keywords appear as headings in your landing page
3. Call-to-action buttons or links must be prominently displayed on the upper left part of the landing page. People read from left to right.
4. Keywords using your actual product name or service convert best. On very specific product names, traffic or number of clicks depends more on off line promotions, and the level at which you introduce and market your product online.
5. Conversion page should not be less than 1 click away from the landing page.
6. Long-tail keywords on PPC drive the most number of traffic - the individual demand for each keyword in long tail phrases, when taken the sum of all these result to greater traffic
7. Make sure that your target keyword matches the text (or is relevant to the text) of the ad copy.
8. Keep track of your keywords that get the most traffic, and keywords that get the best conversion. If the list isn’t alike, trickle down how you can make the highly demanded keywords to be converting.
9. In relation to #8: If all else fails and you’re spending too much, might as well pause that keyword.
10. It’s always good to partner your PPC campaign with a website that appears in the organic/natural listing (right hand side of Google’s page). Make sure to track it (i.e. Google Analytics). That way you can track the actual searches made by your target visitors that land on your non-PPC website.
PPC allows one to see the results more immediately than organic SEO. It’s better that you do it right the first time. Then learn as you go along the way.
Seasonality in Search January 28, 2008
Posted by seonotes in marketing.Tags: online business seasonality, search behavior, search seasonality, search trends, Seasonality in Search
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Factoring Seasonality in Search: What is the best approach?
Seasonality will almost always has something to do with the traffic a website receives from the search engines, regardless if your business will or will not click online. Search behavior varies in certain seasons, in certain industries. When talking of seasonality of search, 3 things come into consideration:
1. Industry/Product/Service
2. Period or season
3. Online Marketing Tactic
Nature of Industry
There are certain goods and services that follow their respective industry’s seasonal trends. Online selling Christmas-themed gifts will garner the peak of its traffic during the holiday season. As well as hotels and vacation properties, there will be off-peak and peak seasons of search in accordance to their busy and non-busy business months.
The Period or Season
Just like any business online or offline, to research on the peak seasons and those months where you have less sales must be identified in strategizing your traffic initiative on specific seasons.
Online Marketing Tactic
The top metric to consider when strategizing seasonal market initiatives online would be traffic. Knowing the nature of your product or service, and the industry it is under provides insights regarding the level of demand for your product or service, and the competition it faces. Considering the historical traffic data per season helps you decide as to when you will allocate your best resources: time and effort. You plan the specific initiatives that will work best per season.
For example, in handling hotel websites, it is best to pump up your marketing initiatives during the hotel’s peak season, so as to maximize ROI (return on investment). During off season, it is advisable to coordinate with the client about doing more offline activities, creating more affordable service packages, and have these communicated online, to boost interest and therefore, improve searchability of the hotel in the Internet. Campaigns about upcoming events and hotel amenities are also great to capitalize on during low travel season so as to prepare the potential guests in booking in that hotel.
In summary, you can categorize traffic initiatives with seasonality in consideration into two:
1. Off-peak/low season - Create campaigns/initiatives that will boost interest and search about your product/service. This will also make your website ready for the coming of the peak season
2. Peak season - Be more active in doing updates, building networks online, featuring the best assets of your product or service.
Seasonality in search is a good indicator in terms of allocating resources for both offline and online initiatives for a business. Getting the right information, particularly historical data on search behavior, and traffic are definitely useful in any search engine optimization campaign.
Building Relevance for SEO October 16, 2007
Posted by seonotes in Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Marketing.Tags: Aaron Wall, Philippine SEMCON, Philippine SEMCON 2007, relevance in SEO, relevancy in search, SEO relevancy
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After the Philippine SEMCON 2007, it has become more pronounced that Web 2.0 is all about relevancy. As Aaron Wall puts it in his keynote address, relevancy has been the name of the game in today’s search engine marketing game. This is proven true by the various blogs, Technorati pages, and forum posts that crawl up the search listings for the hottest key phrases. This is the reason why CMS (or blog-software-like templates), social media marketing, and all forms of buzz marketing have been playing essential roles in marketing online. The challenge is to build relevancy.
But how does one become relevant?
1. Specify the target audience and conquer the space where they actually read. SEO practitioners are well-bombarded by all sorts of social networks and bookmarking sites that they forget the essence of it all - to connect with your audience. So be picky in joining groups and registering in sites. Have a feel of the people participating in a particular social media site before creating yet another account.
2. Build interest for your product or service. Don’t just sell on what you’ve got. Don’t forget that people visit a particular site not because of a product, but primarily because of an interest. Capitalize on that by having blogs or bloggers write about what’s interesting in your product/service or topic to offer.
3. Meet the right people offline. Yes, socialize offline. Shake hands with the right people. It will always be necessary to be in personal contact with people who are interested in your subject. That way, you truly build relevancy.
Aaron Wall is right in saying that search engines follow what people follow. It is not easy to rank for trophy keywords, but it is easier to build relevancy by catering more to the “human” side of search engine optimization.
The Key in Finding the Long-tail Keywords September 26, 2007
Posted by seonotes in SE Rankings, SEO, Search Engine Optimization, keyword research.add a comment
The long-tail of search theory has helped a lot of small websites in making it big. Long-tail keywords may not be a trophy keyword if the basis is brevity or the level of competition in order to hit the ranks for it. But if all know that a successful online campaign boils down to relevant traffic that leads to conversion, long-tail keywords are definitely your most prized bombs in the battlefield.
Long-tail key phrases are unpopular, never-been-seen-before, and easy to target keywords. Disclosed from the human mind, long-tail keywords cater to a larger demand balloon as an economic theory.
If long-tail keywords are easy to target, the only challenge is how to find them. Here’s how:
Look up queries that lead to your site
Server logs can show which key phrases and real human queries that got you found by the visitor. From this data, you can actually see the types of searches your target audience is looking for in a given period. If your business is highly dependent on seasonality, you can notice the changes in the key phrases people use in finding you.
Google Webmaster Tools: Relevant Keywords
Just like your server logs, Google Webmaster Tools show the most number of queries that brought people to your site. The list may contain both short and long-tail keywords. The main point is, you will know the variations of phrases that are more likely effective in bringing traffic to your website. Plus the main key terms that Google recognizes from your site: check out the “what Google sees” tab.
Most popular searches
Hitwise can always come up with a list, but one cannot ignore the highly-populated social media sites like technorati, delicious, and whatever site that caters to people interested in your niche. These sites where social participation is involved will help you analyze what people are looking for. Some portals also have this option of showing a list of the most recent searches done in their website.
Competition Check
After getting a harvest of long-tails from these sources, it’s now time to check the battlefield. Check the competition for each individual word in your long-tail phrase, and analyze which combinations will help you find your niche. It’s always nice to have a blend of high traffic keywords combined with not-so-popular queries. It’s like hitting two birds in one stone.
Test and Analyze
This can sound too safe and can be dubbed as a last resort, but it won’t hurt to sit down and write down the natural flow of words when one is to make a search in the search engines. Think how your audience thinks. Then compare how this set of long tail keywords fared in the previous months/years. Analyze market trends, in other words.
Top Ways to Get to Your Target Market August 22, 2007
Posted by seonotes in Search Engine Marketing, marketing.5 comments
Every webmaster of an Adsense site has one main goal - it’s to profit from conversion. And there is only 1 secret in achieving the goal - traffic.
It is a given fact in the search engine marketing world that the most profitable Adsense sites cater to the aged and non-techie market. These people don’t mind exploring on links without having to think if these are paid or not. They’re after the information they need. Now the question is, how do you get to them? If traffic is the means to conversion, here are the means to traffic:
1. Blog and allow comments
Let your site be interactive where people can feel at ease and involved. That way, they’ll be coming back to your site
2. Try your best to rank on the first page of search engines
Since most people who have less of the tech-savvy side are more prone to just looking at the first page of Google and other search engines, you should aim to be part of the prime list of the first page. This has been the very essence of search engine optimization through the years.
3. Be picky in joining social networks. Choose those were the fishes are.
Although there are so many people of all age range joining social networks, you have to do your research and observation of where they usually make profiles of themselves. This way you’d be saving time and energy in making bulletin announcements and making friends.
4. Join forums where they can be found
Almost all sorts of niche has its own forum. Choose where your topic is god, and observe if the treasure (target market) can be found there. You’d have to check who are actively participating.
5. Share your content
In most social content sites, networking using relevant tags to your topic can be done. Utilize this by saving other people’s posts and then sharing what you have to say. Exchange bookmarks, in other words.
In any niche marketing venture, the most important task is to position yourself where the target market is most abundant. You save on time and effort. You gain in conversion.
Why A Business Website Fails August 1, 2007
Posted by seonotes in Search Engine Marketing.2 comments
Websites of various businesses fail for many reasons, it may be lack of search engine optimization, unattractive web design, or some lousy web copy. But the most often overlooked aspect of website owners selling online is the call-to-action link.
A lot of websites show off great call-to-action buttons. They can be attractive to the eye of the visitor. However this does not guarantee sucess for a business website. Some notes about call to action buttons and links:
1. Make use of Google Analytics’ Site Overlay. This tool is fundamental in testing which position of your call to action button is most prominent to the eye, and most promising for clicks as well. Site Overlay tool (at Google Analytics, click on Content, then check out the link named Site Overlay) displays your web page and each of its links. The links have a corresponding click meter that shows how many clicks the link got. This is useful when you want to experiment various layout positions for your click to action button.
2.Call to action LINKS. Some people just don’t go straight clicking on navigation bars and call to action buttons. Yes, there are several skeptics out there that wishes to know and read more about your product or service first before clicking on a button. This is where call to action links embedded in your paragraph content is most necessary. Some people read first. Your duty is to take on that lead until you convince them that it’s time to click on that, “Product Details here…” or “Reserve Now”.
3. Anchor text links. Make relevant words act as call to action links. Words or phrases in your paragraph like “affordable hp Printer” can be call to action links. People normally follow anything in blue and underlined since 1: these register to mind as links, and 2: your product is the subject of your content, thus it is the most interesting stuff your visitor is looking for. Again, Site Overlay tool is excellent to be of use.
Remember: Your goal is conversion, whether that is email/newsletter subscription, sign-ups, or sales. And call to action links and buttons are the keys to these. Placement of your call to action comes up as a major factor for the success and failure of a business website.
Can Your Business Click Online? July 21, 2007
Posted by seonotes in SEM.1 comment so far
This has been a most ignored question among business owners who are overly excited in launching their marketing strategy, or to those who got brainwashed by some marketing guy who wants the money out of people’s pocket. Read these 2 truths:
Truth no.1: The Internet is fast becoming the most popular and widely-used medium for advertising/marketing.
Truth no.2 (and of greater importance): Not every kind of business can make it online.
So before shelling out the money, it is imperative that you check if the kind of industry that you’re in is something that people search for online. There are a lot of establishments or businesses that have significant niches in the offline market. Take for example the motor inns and motels. There is a good market for that catering to travelers going by the highway in need of easy, along the road accommodation. But if you’re the motor inn owner, is it reasonable to go online? Are your potential guests search for you first over the Internet to make a booking? Do they even ask Google what’s the “nearest motel at Highway 66?”, for example. No, they don’t. So, can your business click online? Before diving into the Internet Marketing world:
1. Think of your customers. Do you think they’ll first go online to find you? Do they hang around the Internet?
2. Competitor Check. Know who your competitors are in your area and see if they have an online presence. A website isn’t the sole indication of this. See if they rank, or even appear in the search engine listings when you type in keywords, search terms related to their business. If you do not see them, check out the sites that appear in the search pages. Do these businesses target the same market as yours? Are these direct competitors? Are they as large/small as you are? If you answered No, then it’s not a good idea to be online. These websites could be owned by 1) webmasters of directories related to your industry, 2) the big players that are probably of a different, larger niche.
2. Brand Name Popularity. This is easier if you wanted more accurate results by launching a simple, time-framed PPC Adwords campaign. Use your brand as search keyword then check out the number of impressions it generates. Ad impressions reflect the number of times your brand name has been searched, or used as search term. If having an ad campaign is costly on your part, do keyword research using the most trusted keyword research/suggestion tools. Check on the monthly searches for your brand name. You now get a clue if people are searching for you online.
3. Industry Popularity. This is where keyword research also comes in handy. Apart from your brand name, check on the relevant search terms (or even your competitors’ brand name/key phrases), and the amount of traffic or monthly searches it generates from search engines. This data will tell you if your kind of industry suits the online market.
Now, I agree to Rand that yes it still is an Internet < Real World ratio we have here. Quality traffic is normally driven by offline campaigns because this traffic comprise of the people who have actually gained interest in your brand/product/service prior to checking you out in the world wide web. Yes offline advertising can lead your customers to check on your website, but the most important thing to ask is if going online will be of service for them.
Determine if launching a marketing campaign will add value to your business by finding out if your customers are really looking for you on the web, and if it is of service for them.
That’s the only way to know if you can click online.
