How much SEO is too much SEO?

Well, ask Google. Or rather, their about to tell us. As with many of the recent updates in the Google algorithm, we have to wait and see how a major update impacts your actual search queries.

The next round is an update to the GoogleBot, Google’s bot (or spider) that crawls the web for sites, pages and links to compile data that gets realized in the Search page result (SERP). Matt Cutts from Google says “…we are also looking at the people who abuse it, who put too many keywords on a page, exchange way too many links, or whatever else they are doing to go beyond what you normally expect.” See full article – PCMag.com

So, for us local, small business owners, what does that mean? If any of you have ever engaged in any level of SEO, you know that a very import aspect of it is your link profile. As part of the GoogleBot crawl, (or crawls occurring from other search providers or service providers) the website’s in-bound, out-bound and internal links are examined. A core premise of your ranking in a Google Search Result is determined by your Pagerank and is founded in the number of websites linking into your site as well as their quality based on their own Pagerank. As part of some paid SEO services, providers have used various techniques to generate additional in-bound links for their clients. Some have utilized tactics that go against Google’s policies and recommendations regarding SEO. The main reason that Google uses links as a determining quality factor is that they are very hard to fake or manipulate over time.

So how much SEO is too much SEO?

Be mindful of keyword packing. Content needs to be written for humans. Once we start writing for robots, we reduce the quality of our site. Google seems to be taking exception.

Also, artificially trumped up link profiles may get you into trouble. If you have excessively put links onto your homepage and or subsequent pages, you may be steering into dangerous territories. White hat SEO professionals have tools to measure your links by page and bring your site within accepted Google practices.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a process, an ongoing campaign to keep up with the latest Google recommendations, and monitor and manage your site for the best local search result.

We will be discussing link building in future articles, because your link profile should truly be organic and should stem from the relationships that your business proffers within your community and professional business relationships.

Link building is PR 2.0, and truly high quality links can only be achieved from sites that like you and receive benefits from your content.

Albuquerque yellow pages page count down

The Dex yellow page directory that was just delivered to my door was a record low 804 pages. That includes the business white pages that used to be in a separate volume.

And I am proud when my clients embrace the fact, that they too do not need to fill a whole page in a book that is closed 99% of the time.

The funny thing is, shouldn’t the phone book be getting bigger? With their primary audience’s vision issues you would think they would print in a larger font.

Save a tree Google it instead.

RentNGoABQ.com

We recently launched rentngoabq.com. If you know anyone who might be strapped for cash but really needs new tires or wheels, send them over to RentNGo Albuquerque. If you think you will receive a tax refund this year, get new tires now with a low monthly payment and 90 Days same as cash.

Become a fan on their Facebook page and receive our special offers. When we install your new rims, we will feature your ride on our fan page.

Search Engine Optimization

I take a falcon’s eye view of Search Engine Optimization, so I start from 10,000 feet. I like to look at the whole marketing perspective; what money is being spent where? I want to look at the whole website and see what people are using it for. I analyze site traffic and look for opportunities in which to convert users into buying channels.

The most mis-understood aspect of SEO is that it is this thing that gets done and you are done with it. The reality is that SEO is a process and it is a campaign. You must wage it constantly because search is a fluid landscape that is filled with opportunistic competition and unexpected variables and changes. (The latest example of that recently is that Google is emphasizing site load times and they are including page load-time into their latest algorithm.) However, you cannot disconnect it from your marketing strategy as a whole, it is fueled by other marketing initiatives and can help to ratify other objectives.

The marketing landscape has changed and your website is the hub to your advertising, marketing, PR and social media. You need to hire a professional outside or inside your business to keep pace.

Link Building – PR 2.0

Link building is the most elusive and frustrating realities of SEO for businesses new to the process or web designers and agencies who are branching into search services. Welcome to PR 2.0. It’s not who you know, it’s who knows you.

Conceptually mirrored from the citations in collegiate papers, links in the search algorithm are designed to judge authority and relevance by who links to you in what textual way. The better the page rank of the linking site, the better the benefit for you. The quality of the text that refers to you is equally as important. Known as anchor text, the better related your linked text is to the keywords you are trying to rank for the greater the benefit.

Get out your fountain pen (or better yet open up your email client) and start writing. You need to get to know people at the website you want to earn a link from. Welcome to PR 2.0. No longer are we talking about sending your “press release” to the news desk at the news paper. You need to submit a story release and a link to your website like, “The Winner for the best Albuquerque web design firm” linked back to your website.

Link building is about relationship building. Once you have identified who are the best prospects to be associated with, you have to identify who are the key contacts who publish the site. And then you have to reach out with something relevant. That leads to content, the subject of our next article.

 

Analytics

You can’t judge what you can’t measure. Your first activity in establishing and SEO strategy, will be to get analytics installed on your website. Depending on how much data you plan to review and act on there are options starting with free Google Analytics that go up to paid Google Analytics or sophisticated systems like Adobe’s Omniture.

Tracking how people are using your site and what words they are using to find you is critical to making good search strategy decisions.

Freshness Update

Google has second major update in the year. How will Freshness impact local search? Will it hurt as much as Panda did for some sites?

Last week Google rolled out an update to their algorithm that is designed to enhance real time events in the query. Though it will impact 35% of search queries, that should not be mistaken with “keywords”. However, it proves a point that I have been harping on for years. Google thinks fresh content is important. This is one of the reasons why I encourage business owners to blog.

If you get into a habit of it, it will do more than help your search rankings. It creates a way for your website visitors to interact with your business. If you are excited about your business and you share that excitement, personally, with your visitors and they engage back, you have accomplished a primary goal of your website. Obviously, Social Media strategy plays into this, but your website, your blog, should be the center of that activity.

So you have three options.

1) you can get engaged yourself and manage your web content and social media

2) you can have your already overtasked staff do it on their lunch break

3) (my favorite) Hire a professional person or firm who does this stuff all the time

But sooner or later your website is going to have to “Get down with the Freshness”.

 

More on the Google update:

Search Engine Land Article

Mobile Screen and Glass

We just launched MobileScreenandGlass.com and are very excited to see how the new SEO driven architecture will improve their rankings. We’ll keep an eye on it with SEOmoz and ramp up our marketing plan.

Mobile Screen and Glass definitely does what’s in their name. They fix broken windows, they replace screens and screen doors, they even sell the parts for you to fix that window roller yourself. If it has to with your glass, screen, window or door, “we do that at Mobile Screen and Glass.”

Should you hire an SEO?

Search Engine Optimization evokes a series of thoughts for most people that begins with clouded confusion, spins into thoughts about spammy websites, and rests on “what exactly am I paying for?” At the same time it is one of the hottest topics in media circles.

In reality it is both simple and complex. At the end of the day, you and I (and Google) really want people to find exactly what they are looking for. As Brad Geddes put it, “the search process is driven by giving someone the correct information at the correct time.”

The reason that SEO is confusing, is that it is actually best delivered out of the center of your marketing campaign. But, most days it is the last thing we think about or plan for. SEO is site development. It is a focus on developing keyword-rich content, creating easily accessible channels into your site based on an evaluated understanding of who you want to reach vs. who you are currently reaching. SEO is about developing mutually beneficial linking relationships with top-visited, top-ranked websites.

If there is one new marketing initiative for businesses to tackle in 2011, it is integrating a search strategy as the foundation of their marketing efforts.

Originally posted on MindScribe1.com

 

May 2012
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