Hi, I’m Ty Kilgore with SEO.com. Today’s question is: Why is Flash bad for SEO?

This is a very important question, and we will go over 5 different reasons why you want to avoid using flash on your website:

1. Search engine spiders can’t crawl Flash to figure out what is in that area. The google webmasters support forum states the following, “In general, search engines are text bases. This means that in order to be crawled and indexed, your content needs to be in text format. This doesn’t mean that you can’t include rich media content such as Flash, Silverlight, or videos on your site; it just means that any content you embed in these files should also be available in text format or it won’t be accessible to search engines.”
2. Flash only websites don’t allow the essentials for SEO. They don’t provide unique URLs for the different pages on your site. This is significant because it means that only your home page would rank for any keywords that you are hoping to show up for as there aren’t any additional URLs for the search engines to index. Also H1, meta tags, are all missing which are important for optimizing a web page.
3. Flash sites are typically slower to load because the browser you’re using has to load the flash player and the entire section of the site contained in the flash object. We know that one of the many factors in Google’s search algorithm is a site’s load time.
4. Link value isn’t there. The links are embedded in the Flash element making it invisible to the search engines. Also all of the links are pointing to the home page with no links going to deeper pages.
5. Flash sites have problems reporting accurately in Google Analytics. Without valuable Analytic data tracking; it’s hard to understand how to improve your website and make improvements to the bottom line whether it be ROI, Ecommerce, or Conversions.

I hope this helps you better understand why using flash on your website is bad for search engine optimization. If you have any additional thoughts about this topic, please leave them in the comments below.

Do you have a question about SEO, internet marketing or social media? If so, post your questions on the SEO.com  Facebook page, Tweet us, or leave a comment on the SEO.com Google+ page. For Twitter and G+ use the hashtag #SEOCOMFAQ.  Maybe we will use one of your questions in a future video.

Why Is Flash Bad For SEO? – [Video FAQ] is a post by SEO expert Ty Kilgore. For information about our SEO services or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the SEO.com blog.

Static vs Dynamic URLs: Video FAQ Transcription

Hello SEO.com followers, my name is Ty Kilgore and I’m a SEO Manager here at SEO.com. Today I want to answer the questions: What are dynamic URLs & how can they hurt your seo? And what are static URLs & why are they good for seo? Let me first start with Dynamic URLs:

A dynamic URL is a page address that results from the search of a database-driven web site. Dynamic URLs are the URLs that are generated by a server or a content management system and are not easy to remember. These are created because the server or CMS doesn’t know what to call each page. You can typically spot dynamic URLs by looking for characters like: ? = &.

There are some known disadvantages using dynamic URLs in your SEO efforts that I want to cover briefly:

In the Search engine result pages you have three places to help users understand what your page is about. The URL, the title tag, and the meta description. Using a dynamic URL you limit yourself to only two of these three. In the Search Engine Result Pages dynamic URLs have a lower click-through rate. No one can remember a dynamic URL so it’s impossible to type one into a address bar You can’t really share a URL on a business card or in print campaigns. If the URL is separately displayed it would be hard for the user to determine what the page is about before reaching the page You also won’t have the optimized anchor text that a static URL carries.

Now let me talk about Static URLs:

A static URL is one that doesn’t change and doesn’t contain any parameters. For example: www.seo.com/services/video-seo from the URL alone you know what type of information you are going to see when you come to this page. You would except to see information about how to optimize videos. Some other advantages of static URLs are higher click-through rates in the SERPS, easier to use in print campaigns, easy to remember which is always better for branding, you can also include good anchor text to help users know what is on the page.

So the main difference is dynamic URLs don’t give you the same value for search engine rankings or usability that static URLs that are rewritten and keyword-optimize. I would recommend that each page on your site displays some type of information that is unique to the other pages on your site. They need a unique static URL to go along with it to help both users and search engine to understand what the pages is about.

I hope this helps anyone that didn’t understand the difference between the two.
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Do you have a question about SEO, internet marketing or social media? If so, post your questions on the SEO.com  Facebook page, Tweet us, or leave a comment on the SEO.com Google+ page. For Twitter and G+ use the hashtag #SEOCOMFAQ.  Maybe we will use one of your questions in a future video.

What Are The Advantages of Static vs Dynamic URLs in SEO? [Video] is a post by SEO expert Ty Kilgore. For information about our SEO services or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the SEO.com blog.

I wanted to make sure that my client could see the ranking improvement that we had made with each keyword, so I created the following chart.  This chart shows rankings for the various keywords at the inception of our SEO campaign over a year ago, compared to the current rankings that we have been able to achieve.  I used a simple IF statement in excel to highlight the difference.

(=IF(C3-B3>0, “+” &C3-B3, C3-B3)

At this point I wanted to dive into ecommerce metrics in Google Analytics to show the revenue that each of these keywords had brought in for the last thirty days, and found something that I wasn’t expecting.

I sorted by organic traffic, then clicked on Ecommerce then sorted by revenue.

In a 30-day period, there were 13 of our target keywords that didn’t bring in any revenue. These keywords had decent search volume, which was why they were selected ahead of other keywords.  To make sure that it wasn’t a fluke, I also looked at the same time period the previous year for the same keywords. I found out of the 13 keywords that didn’t bring in revenue, 11 didn’t bring in revenue for the previous year.

Now I understand that this is just a thirty day period of time, and to get a clearer picture I would need to expand the data, but this was very interesting to me.  Here are the 11 keywords and the search volume and the rankings for those keywords.

Many of these keywords had a decent amount of global monthly searches but weren’t bringing in the revenue that our client needed to see.

I decided to look at the data from the past year instead of just a thirty day period of time.  I used the following RegEx expression to exclude many branded terms  (^(branded keyword 1|branded keyword 2|branded keyword 3| branded keyword 4)$ and sorted again by revenue.  I expanded the list to show 500 keywords and downloaded the data for Excel.  Once in excel I was able to format and make it look like this:

This chart shows visits, revenue, transactions, and search volume for non-branded keywords in the year 2011.  The rows in green highlight keywords that we weren’t currently targeting in our search engine optimization efforts, but did generate revenue.  The fourth one down from the top was very interesting to me because it only had 46 global monthly searches but was the fourth highest revenue driving keyword for 2011.

Presenting this information to the client allowed us to switch out the 11 keywords that weren’t bringing in any revenue, and replace them with the 12 keywords here in green.

I found that my client was excited about refining these keywords by targeting keywords that were already bringing in revenue.   In the SEO world, we are constantly trying to find ways to show our value to our clients.

This also helped me realize that choosing the best keywords was not all about search volume; but instead, it should be based on the keywords that visitors use to purchase products, regardless the search volume.  Focusing on keywords that convert to revenue for ecommerce sites (or goals for non-ecommerce sites) is better than focusing on keywords that have high search volume but aren’t being used to make purchases or complete goals.

How do you constantly show value to your clients in your SEO efforts?

Keyword Research: How to Target Low Hanging Fruit with Google Analytics is a post by SEO expert Ty Kilgore. For information about our SEO services or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the SEO.com blog.

[jwplayer mediaid="22056"]

Hi SEO.com followers,  My name is Ty Kilgore and today I’m going to be answering the question;  How do I Rank in Local Search or how do I rank in maps? Local SEO is that something that has really taken off in the last year to year in a half.  The search engines are putting more emphasis on the users to fill out the information than ever before. So I am going to be talking about 5 different things that you can do to help you to rank in Local SEO.

1. First thing is that you want to make sure that if you want to show up for localized terms that you have a business address and phone number that is local. For instance if I wanted to show up for terms in Lawrenceville, Georgia I would need to make sure that my business was located in Lawrenceville, Georgia and that I also had a phone number that was local to the area.
2. Next, you will want to build out citations.  You can build these citations on the many different popular citations sites out there. For example:

• Yelp
• CitySearch
• Yellow Book
• Insider Pages
• Super Pages

And the list goes on. Essentially what you want to do is make sure that you have local citations built out and that you have all the correct information for your business listed there.

3. The third thing that you want to do is claim you local business on Google Places or Bing. An owner verified listing will rank higher than a non owner verified listing so it’s important that you claim that listing.  To verify the listing you will need to fill out the proper information on Google or Bing using information they will send you by phone or mail to confirm that you own that place.
4. The fourth bullet point that I’ll talk about is link building. You want to link build especially to the local listings on Google or Bing so that you have different things that are pointing back to that actual page.
5. The fifth thing that I’ll talk about is getting reviews. We live in an age where everybody wants to find out what everyone else thought about a product or service and nowhere is that more important than in local search.  If you have customers that are satisfied and enjoy your product encourage them to go online to fill out a review about their experience that will also help people that come to your site to learn more about what other people think.

Hopefully these five things will help you in your local SEO marketing campaign.

How Do I Rank in Maps? [Video FAQ Series] is a post by SEO expert Ty Kilgore. For information about our SEO services or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the SEO.com blog.

Keyword research is not just for determining what you would like your website to rank for. Keyword mapping decides which URL shows up in the search results for certain keywords.

Once upon a time, individuals read newspapers. If you wanted the latest sports news, you picked up the paper and found the sports page. What if you went to the sports page and found movie reviews?  This would be frustrating. You would most likely find a different newspaper.

The same is true for web pages. If you search for “Atlanta Hawks” wanting to see if they won last night’s game, you would be rather disappointed if the first link in the results was on the history of the team in the 1960s.

Just like the newspaper, you would leave that web page and look elsewhere. Then why are keywords mapped to certain URLs? Keyword mapping guides people to the pages that contain the information they want.  Google tracks bounce rates because the goal is to provide the most relevant search results.

Writing content that people want to read is as important for websites as it is for newspapers.  To have keywords mapped to URLs for the search engine results pages, the content must be what people want. Creating this unique content is vital for keeping visitors on your site.

How do we map keywords to URLs on a web page? The process isn’t as easy as you might think.

Let’s assume you’ve used the Google keyword tool ( check out this post for instructions).  You’ll have a large list of keywords gathered from brainstorming, looking at competitors, analytics and targeted pay per click. There are many resources to help you perform killer keyword research.

For example, let’s use the keywords modest wedding dresses, modest prom dresses and modest bridesmaid dresses. The location is Atlanta, Ga. Evaluate the words and organize a list based on search volume including localized terms.

Once my keyword list is complete, I narrow it down using the following:

1)      Is the keyword related to the site’s services?

I’m targeting modest wedding dresses and should avoid terms like dresses. Understanding the products helps you understand which keywords the client wants to target. There are many tools to help you understand your target audience.

Each product should have its own page on the site. The individual page targets the appropriate keyword. The wedding dress keyword should be mapped to the wedding dress page not the homecoming dress page.

Putting the keyword in quotes helps gauge the competition on Google and identifies how many pages have that exact string of text linked to that keyword.

To strategize and improve clients’ rankings with certain terms, you must research your competition.  Always consider the competition when making final decisions.

On the SERP above, eight out of 10 results are mapped to home pages. Also consider this when mapping keywords.

2)      After compiling your list, check the website’s URLs for the keywords. If a URL doesn’t exist for the keywords related to your site, then one should be created.

If the URL isn’t ranking, one thing to help the on-page optimization is to change the URL to include the keywords with search volume and 301 redirect the old URL to the new URL. If the URL is ranking, then it’s a judgment call whether or not to change the URL. It depends on how well the URL is ranking and whether changing it would help on-page optimization.

3)      Once the targeted keywords list is complete and you have ideas of what URLs to map to, find iterations of these keywords to target.

The modest wedding dress page should also target terms such as modest wedding dresses, modest wedding dresses with sleeves, beautiful modest wedding dresses and modest wedding dresses with long sleeves. After doing this for each of the different URLs that have products/services, you can map the home page.

4)      The home page has keywords that define the products/services of the site.

The keywords mapped to the home page could be modest wedding dress, modest prom dress, modest homecoming dress and wedding dress Atlanta. Since I’ve chosen my keywords, I know what the title of this page should be. Title for home page: Modest Wedding, Prom & Homecoming Dresses Atlanta. Through my keywords research, the term wedding dress in Atlanta didn’t have any search volume.  However, wedding dress Atlanta had 140 global monthly searches.

The wrong words could become the focus if keyword research isn’t optimized. Huge mistake. Remember the newspaper and misplaced sports page?  We don’t want visitors leaving the site and going elsewhere.   Make sure you help keywords find their long lost URLs.

What tips do you have for finding long lost URLs?  Please leave your comments below.

Helping Keywords Find Their Long Lost URL is a post by SEO expert Ty Kilgore. For information about our SEO services or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the SEO.com blog.

When I’m asked what I do for a living, I debate in my head how to answer the question. Should I say ‘SEO’ and wait for a confused look?

Perhaps I should share my wife’s answer: “He organizes the Internet to get high rankings on Google.” Should my answer be brief or should I spend time educating them about the awesomeness of SEO?

Many professionals probably find it challenging to explain to someone in a different field exactly what they do. My wife, a nurse, comes home and tries to share stories and challenges from her day. I feel like she’s speaking a foreign language. In the SEO industry, communication and clarity are important. Hopefully, I can clearly answer the question, “what is an SEO Specialist?”

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) helps people find what they’re searching for when using search engines like Google and Bing. Keywords are significant words or phrases used when performing a search, which direct you to the search results. Search results appear in a certain order for a reason. Keywords are competitive and SEO is used to help sites rank high on the list of results. Take the word SEO. When searched, this page appears.

SEO.com ranks third in the search. And there are reasons the company shows up at number three. In terms of Google, many factors contribute to making a site rank at the top.

Optimizing your website for search engines involves being aware of these factors and implementing them correctly to draw more attention to a site. For those wanting a more detailed explanation, here are a few of the key players in SEO:

• Why links are important?
• What can be done on-page to help a webpage rank?
• What can be done off-page to make a webpage rank?

A more in-depth explanation of SEO is available at the beginning guide to understanding SEO.

Some may hope this post continues, but I’m afraid by continuing I’ll create more questions than answers. It’s a fine line between sharing just enough information and trying to drink from a fire hose.

I’m interested in how you explain SEO to others.



What is an SEO Specialist? is a post by SEO expert Ty Kilgore. For information about our SEO services or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the SEO.com blog.