SEO Blog
3 clues of what your site may be missing.
I have a buddy who once had a crush on a girl friend of mine. But in all honesty, he simply did not deserve her due to some bad decisions and a rough personal history. So I found myself trying to explain to him that to be with a girl of that caliber, he had to be the kind of man she would want to be with. He had to “deserve” her.
No, this is not a lesson on relationships. However, the idea of attracting website visitors is similar. In search engine optimization, and with our websites in general, we do things with the intent of deserving a good ranking. We use a number of methods to target a specific market and we seek for quality links to link back to our sites. But do our sites really deserve it? Do our sites really deserve to rank well? Unfortunately, we live in an age of entitlement, and all too often people think they deserve things without having to do the work to merit the prize. Sometimes we make bad site decisions, or sometimes we do nothing at all, and yet how many of us still entertain an expectation that we deserve better rankings, or that people should notice us?
Think about it for a minute or two, and forget about what matters most to the Search engines. What attracts you personally to a website? A need or a want of some kind? The design? Images? Usability? Obviously a good website will satisfy the individual in some way and entices them to return. So do we really care how poorly designed a website is as long as it satisfies our needs, offers a certain level of enjoyment, or does not require much effort on our part?
I am not advocating poorly designed sites. Search engines may not care specifically about what your site looks like on the surface, but people do. And perhaps this is where my concern comes to light. If we are not careful, we can get warped into a paradigm of search engine optimization which tends to optimize solely for search engines and not for the people who use them. So I think it is fair to ask whether our SEO efforts are as much for humans as they are for search engines. Maybe we blame the search engines or maybe we blame ourselves for the tunnel vision; but either way we are not going to deserve high conversion rates or a return on investment (ROI).
It is often easier to market a site through paid links, submitted links, and advertisements than to produce a well-optimized website that naturally attracts attention. But perhaps we create a false sense of “optimized security” when we run a PPC campaign, or a link building campaign. Are we merely trying to compensate for our site’s shortcomings by using superficial antics to build up links or paying to try and woo the good rankings? Sure, you can generate a lot of links and maybe even drive a lot of traffic but if those high bounce rate statistics are any indicator, your site likely needs some work to retain your audience and entice people to keep coming back.
So what is the solution? We should remember that SEO is not a dichotomy of search engines and site design. Nor should it be. Good site design is an inseparable part of SEO. So what can you do to help your site deserve more attention?
1) Site Redesign or Facelift? Think Simple.
Does your site still look the same as it did 10 years ago? And if your site is not that old, does it look like a website from the 90s? A complete site redesign may not always be plausible for some businesses, but you should consider those things that can be done to give your site a modern digital facelift.
Making your site more “current” does not mean adding every bell and whistle known to modern Web technology. Small site upgrades done right can fit in naturally and go a long way to upgrade your online image. Just look at the DrudgeReport.com, it has had practically the same simple design for the past 10 years and it still receives droves of traffic in the millions. On the other hand, design changes done wrong can be quite noticeable, – have you ever seen someone with bad or overdone plastic surgery? Of course there are other factors that determine whether or not you receive traffic, but investing in your website design is a key part of the equation.
2) Write Great Content
Why does great content on your site make a difference? It has been shown that a majority of people respond primarily to web site looks and visuals, but great content keeps your visitors coming back for more. This might include such things as interesting articles, blogs, videos and other media. Incorporate something unique and intriguing to make your site stand out.
Equally important to the type of content on the site is the manner in which it is presented. Is your content high quality? Does it offer something of value? Is your blog article readable and easy to understand, or full of grammatical errors?
3) Establish Trust
Trust. You often hear this word a lot in regards to the online presence of websites. Establishing a good reputation requires hard work and a lot of time, and doing what is ethically necessary to make your website stand out as something exceptional and credible. With the exception of a few lucky sites, the status quo might not cut it anymore.
On another note, get active in social networking. Get to know others in the business and your industry, and use social networking tools to promote your online presence.
I fail to understand how some people who have badly designed or outdated sites will pay for SEO services, but all they want to do is build links. I suppose if that works for them then so be it, but there is more to SEO than just link building. You can put as much makeup and cologne on a stinky rotten fish as you want, and link to it from a thousand locations; but a painted rotten fish with links is still a rotten fish.
Become the site that truly deserves the good ranking. What good is being number one on Google when no one wants to stay on your site because it stinks?
SEO.com Supports Haiti Relief Effort Through Seth Godin Event
SEO.com helps bring Seth Godin to a Utah networking event that will send all proceeds to “The Red Cross for Haiti Relief Fund.”
SALT LAKE CITY (Feb. 2, 2010) – SEO.com, a search marketing firm, is sponsoring Startup Princess to bring renowned author, speaker and marketer Seth Godin to a fundraising luncheon Feb. 12 at the Rail Events Center. All proceeds from the event will go to The Red Cross for Haiti Relief Fund.
“We’re honored to help out the Red Cross and the people in Haiti,” said Dave Bascom, president of SEO.com. “We’re also excited to be part of this event and to help bring a well-respected marketer to the local business community.”
The event is scheduled from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. and Godin will speak at noon. Tickets are $30 and will include lunch. There will be exhibitor tables and networking opportunities. To purchase tickets, and for more information, go to http://www.startupprincess.com/sethgodin .
Godin’s presentation will be surrounding the messages from his new book, “Linchpin: Are You Indispensable.” 200 copies of the book will be available to attendees at a reduced price.
“His overall presentation will be about being ‘indispensable’ and ‘mattering,’ by making a difference in your work and your life,” said Kelly King Anderson of StartupPrincess.com. “The charity event really matches Godin’s message. We are really excited that the two have come together.”
This is the second time SEO.com has donated money and time to help support the Red Cross. The SEO company has done pro bono work for the Utah Valley chapter of the Red Cross to help improve its search engine rankings. SEO.com also has given back to the community by helping Camp Kostopulous Dream Foundation, Grassroots.org and The Green Building Center with various search marketing services.
“Charity work is part of our core culture,” Bascom said. “As we grow we hope to continue doing good work for the community and for quality organizations.”
About Startup Princess
StartupPrincess.com is an international network committed to empowering women entrepreneurs by offering resources for women in business to support, mentor, collaborate, learn from, and inspire one another.
About SEO.com
SEO.com is a search marketing firm that makes its clients money by driving traffic to their websites through aggressive search engine optimization, pay per click management, and social media marketing. SEO.com then turns those visitors into sales through search-optimized Web design and conversion optimization. Clients range from small startups to Fortune 100 companies. For more information, visit www.seo.com
Many businesses don’t think SEO is difficult, and they are right. It’s not rocket science, but it does require applied strategy, testing, and a lot of patience. Faced with the choice of going all out SEO (in or out of house), or putting it into the hands of a few part-timers to cut costs, some choose the latter. They believe the knowledge to rank a website is now mainstream enough that anybody can do it. A couple of interns would have no problem fixing title tags on a website, but unfortunately for that company, search engine marketing has advanced beyond title and description tags.
It is great news that many companies are seeing value in SEO and SEM. It makes it easier for companies like SEO.com to persuade people to let us do what works. But the basic nature of some SEO services has led some to question whether or not the investment is worth it. It is tempting to view SEO as simply a task that once achieved by a first page ranking can be eliminated or at least outsourced for cheap.
So why is this misguided thinking?
SEO has become something much bigger than most people realize. This is why some use the term ‘SEM’ (search engine marketing), or ‘online marketing’, instead of SEO. SEO plays a very important part in what we do, but when you take into account our people who run PPC campaigns for clients, optimize site layouts for better conversion rates, re-design websites for better usability, and whatever else we do, you have something resembling a full-service web marketing firm.
More than building a link or two
Consider the advantage that comes with expertise. For example,did you read Greg Shuey’s post about building links from relevant sites? If you didn’t know any better, you might think all link building was created equal. Turns out, there is a direct correlation between link building and on-page site structure. Go back and read up to find out more.
Or how about Rick Hardman’s discussion about Twitter? As social media continues to evolve, will you have anyone to consult with about its direction? Chances are, what you know about social media’s strategic relation to SEO is already a bit dated. You could study up, but you’ve got a business to run.
Maybe you missed David Malmborg’s post on why you shouldn’t send PPC traffic to your home page. Would you have continued to send all your hot leads to a poorly laid out page if you didn’t know that it was costing you money? Maybe, maybe not. But unless you had somebody on staff that had tested a landing page versus a home page for PPC traffic, you might never even think of something like that.
Pardon me for being a bit sales-pitchy there, but when you understand what SEO/SEM entails, it becomes clear that interns won’t cut it. Because while the business world got web savvy, online marketers were moving ahead. Some simple SEO tasks became commoditized, but web strategy became more complicated as social media, video, etc., gained acceptance. In sum, it takes more now than it ever has before to get the results you want. You could do some link building and content creation yourself, but your resources would be better spent on strategic search engine marketing.
This time of year is when most people reflect on their lives, where they’re at and where they want to be in the future. It’s also a time to reflect on the good things in their lives. I thought of a list of SEO things to be thankful for.
- You know what SEO is! You’re already ahead of the curve if you run a website and know what SEO is. Even better if you know what the key elements of SEO are.
- There are plenty of resources for SEO information. When I first started doing SEO almost 10 years ago, there was hardly any information available about what to do other than title, meta description, meta keywords and copy. Now we have other criteria to consider and plenty of resources, like the blogs at SEO.com, to get more information.
- Great conferences to attend:
SES (Search Engine Strategies), PubCon, SMX (Search Marketing Expo), and Search eXChange. There are even international conferences now, which didn’t exist a few years ago. - It’s not boring. Things within the industry change quite often, so you constantly get to learn new techniques and tricks to help sites rank well in the search engines.
- You can be creative. Being good in the SEO industry requires that you pay attention, think through what you’re doing, and try out new things. Testing to see what happens when you do a particular action is a great way to learn more about what works and what doesn’t. And testing in our industry doesn’t involve blood, animals, or human pain!
- Sharing. It’s amazing to me how well we share with one another. When one person learns something new, they blog about it and teach others how to do it and what the impact of it will be. We even share our toys (also known as plug-ins and tools).
- Learning a new language. Yeah, OK, we might be geeks, but we can be pretty dang interesting! At our Christmas party a group of us starting talking about SEO. The spouses started laughing because it didn’t make any sense to those outside of the industry.
- Our industry is growing at a time when almost everything else is declining. What a great space to be in! We are so different from other industries; we are definitely in a good spot.
- We can work from home when we need to. With only a computer and Internet access, we can work from the office, from home or even on vacation if we want to (one of my co-workers took a two-week vacation and is working part of the time to save on PTO). It’s so flexible!
- We work with great people! Most SEO people either know or want to know other SEO people. We talk about more than just our industry and take an active interest in other people’s views and ideas.
So there you have it. Ten things to be thankful for in regards to SEO. Hopefully you can think of a ton more things to be thankful for all year long.
I’ve been hearing a lot over the last year or so about long tail searches and all that. So today I wanted to talk briefly about why the long tail is important, but also why it should only be part of your overall search marketing strategy.
Understanding the Keyword Cycle
Let’s briefly discuss what head terms and long tail terms are for those of you that are not familiar with this concept.
People search for things in a variety of different ways, and they generally go through a cycle that looks something like this:
- A person starts looking for a new laptop, but they don’t really know what’s on the market. So they start their search with a head term like ‘laptop’
- As the person learns more about the topic, maybe they decide that they are most interested in a ‘Dell laptop’, so they do a search for that short tail phrase hoping to find out more about this brand.
- Now they’re getting an idea of what the price range is, but they want to see if they can find a better deal. So the person starts using long tail terms like ‘Dell laptops for under $1000’, ‘cheap Dell laptops’, etc.
Does this process sound familiar? It should, because we all do it! The less we know about a topic, the more we tend to use head or short tail phrases. The more familiar we are with a topic, the more likely we are to start searching with medium and long tail phrases.
As you can probably guess, the shorter terms generally get a lot more traffic. But, because they are more general in nature, they tend to not convert very well. The long phrases get fewer searches, but tend to convert better because this type of person has a better idea of what they’re looking for. Here’s a sample of a very common graph showing this relationship:
Benefits of Short and Long Tail
Both short and long tail keywords have their place in your search marketing strategy. One mistake that a lot of companies make is only going after one or the other. But a complete strategy will take advantage of both. Here is a quick summary of things to consider with both of them:
Head and Short Tail Phrases
The lure of traffic is a big reason that companies go after these terms. The truth is that if you can get a good ranking on short terms you will get a lot of traffic for it. Sure, you may not get as many conversions from these terms, but they help to build your brand, which will in turn lead to more sales later.
In summary, head and short tail phrases:
- Generate a lot of searches
- Don’t have a high conversion rate
- Can be good for branding purposes
- Are generally more competitive
Long Tail Phrases
As you can see from the graph, there are a lot more long tail phrases than there are head and short tail terms. Cumulatively, you can get a lot of traffic this way, even though individual long tail terms may not generate much traffic by themselves. But because they generally convert better, you’ll want to rank well across the board for these phrases.
In summary, head and short tail phrases:
- Don’t get much traffic individually, but cumulatively can make up a large portion of your site’s traffic
- Convert better overall
- It’s estimated that 20% of searches have never happened before, so it’s impossible to optimize for all of them
Use All of the Tails!
By having a good position on shorter terms you are putting your company in front of a shopper while they are at the beginning stages of their search. But don’t stop there! The goal here is to get your site in front of the searcher during all stages of their search cycle.
Let’s look back at the example of the person searching for a laptop. What if your company came up in a majority of the searches they did, both short and long tail? Do you think they’ll notice this and consider your site as one of the more relevant ones for that topic?
This is one reason why it’s important to have a complete keyword strategy. You have to consider both the long and short phrases. You need to get your site in front of as many people as possible to get conversions, and you can do it across the board by incorporating both short and long tail phrases in your optimization efforts.
Optimizing for the Long Tail
The problem with optimizing for the long tail is that there are so many of them. And, being that an estimated 20% of searches are new, you can’t optimize for a majority of them anyway!
So what can you do to incorporate these long tail phrases into your site’s optimization? Here are a few tips:
- Use a good keyword tool to get an idea of what the known long tail phrases are.
- Watch your analytics for additional ideas of where you are getting traffic and conversions from.
- For each optimized page use your 1-3 main phrases in the copy, but also include long tail variations of them.
- Vary your anchor text when you’re building links with long tail variations.
- If your site has a blog, write content that is based around long tail phrases. Then link with those long tail phrases back over to the main page of your site that is optimized for the base phrase.
The good news is that ranking for long tail phrases is usually not too hard. Keep an eye on your analytics to see what’s working and tweak it from there. As you do this, you’ll get a better idea of the kinds of terms that are being used in your industry.
In my previous work experience, I designed and created pages and graphics for a company’s intranet. In this context, SEO practices were not number one on my list of priorities. Adding a few keywords to help the internal search engine sort through the pages was enough. Coming to SEO.com from this environment has been eye-opening to the importance of applying good SEO practices during the design phase. Unfortunately, optimizing content for search engines can often lead to challenges in maintaining a desired design.
Text Rendering: SEO vs. Design
An area of uncertainty that I would like to focus on is the rendering of text, since text is also an important contributor to a page’s search rankings. It is important to try to keep page content coded in HTML with the appropriate tags (h1, p, etc) for search engine and accessibility purposes. How might this limit a designer, when text is coded in HTML and styled with CSS? As with the range of available operating systems, browsers, screens, and settings, all of which can alter the way a web page is displayed, there is variation in the fonts that viewers have installed on their computers. Consequently, choosing a particular font does not guarantee that your text will actually display in this font to all of your users.
Why does it matter if text shows up in Times New Roman instead of Papyrus? Well, it doesn’t necessarily, but if you’re at all concerned with the user experience (And why wouldn’t you be?) then it certainly does. The fonts you use can, for example, emphasize important text, establish your site’s branding, or make content more or less readable, affecting how long a viewer stays on your site and what they decide to do. What, then, is the best way to display the fonts you want while maintaining compatibility with multiple systems and staying search engine friendly?
CSS
First of all, CSS does have a catch if there is a font you wish to use that a user does not have. You can list the name of the desired font, alternative fonts, and even a font family that you want applied to the text if your first choice is not available. However, if your ideal font is not the one that ends up being displayed, layout issues can arise due to variations in font spacing and sizes.
Image Replacement
Another way web designers cope is through image replacement. You can create an image of the text in the font you wish to use and this image will display the content instead of coded text. Problem solved, right? Not necessarily. Using images with “alt” tags will make that text less relevant to search engines than if it were coded and tagged appropriately. There are some work-around techniques for coping with this issue, including placing images in the background and indenting coded text off of the page and out of view, setting the display of the coded text to “none”, or using the CSS layout to hide coded text behind images. However, Google does warn that “Hiding text or links in your content can cause your site to be perceived as untrustworthy since it presents information to search engines differently than to visitors.” It is therefore possible that even these adapted techniques can negatively affect your search rankings, as well as interfering with screen reader accessibility.
FLIR
FLIR (Face Lift Image Replacement) plays off of the concept of image replacement, but does so dynamically using PHP. Text can still be coded appropriately in HTML for search engines even though it is being swapped out with an image for the viewer. Possible downsides of this method include its reliance on PHP, and the fact that text cannot be selected, which decreases site usability.
sIFR
Another method is to use Scalable Inman Flash Replacement (sIFR). This method combines Flash, Javascript, and CSS to do dynamic text replacement as well. Like FLIR, text remains SEO friendly but the text is replaced with a Flash file instead of an image. This technique, like the others, is not without its drawbacks which include increased loading time and a reliance on the viewer having a Flash Player installed.
Cufon
Cufon is another popular method which can render fonts using Javascript. This technique allows for faster load times, but uses embedded fonts, which can cause copyright issues with certain font license agreements. Also, unlike sIFR, the text will not be selectable.
CSS3 and Embedded Fonts
Browsers are beginning to support the next version of CSS (level 3), which also allows for fonts to be downloaded from the web. Copyright violations are also a concern here as well as possible security issues.
Conclusion
Although none of these methods are perfect, new technologies and techniques come closer every day to addressing the need for both good design and searchable content. At this point it is up to the designer to navigate these options and adapt their design based on the requirements of the project.
Read more about these web typography techniques here:
Last night SEO.com hosted a live Tweet-up and #gno party. It was a lot of fun. We had a full house, kept the Twitter-feed busy with SEO tips, and website owners all over the country joined us via Twitter and Ustream.
We would like to thank Jyl Pattee with www.momitforward.com, Clark Winegar with Mustache Power, the panelists, and all of the #gno attendees for making it so successful.
The topic of the night was “How to Grow Your Website/Blog Traffic.” A panel of Internet marketing gurus weighed-in on various SEO topics and answered questions that came from the live audience both in-house and over Twitter. If you missed the event, or are looking for tips to increase your visitors and monetize your site, you can watch the recorded Ustream below.
Panelists include:
Dave Bascom @davebascom, Ash Buckles @ashbuckles, Scott Cowley @scottcowley
Robyn Storms: @robynstorms, Dan Patterson @dan_patterson
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