Five Questions Web Designers Don’t Want You to Ask
Saturday, May 28th, 2005by Kristi Stangeland
Archive for May, 2005
Manage Your Search Engine Space – Online Reputation Management
Saturday, May 21st, 2005Do a search on your favorite search engine for your company name. Look at the results. Hopefully your company web site is at the top of the pile. But what about the other 9 results in the top 10? What do they say about you? People searching for your company name will look at all of these results – not just your homepage. What do they say about your company? Is it all good, relevant, up-to-date information that the searcher is seeing? Are there any flame (bad) sites saying bad things about you or your company? Is there old information listed? What are people saying about you on forums and blogs? This information will all be scanned by people looking for your company.
Many people think of their website as their online presence. However they forget about the ‘search engine results pages’ (SERP.) The SERP for your company name or your product name is the new digital ‘front page.’ It is often the first impression that people get of your company. You would like it to be a good impression. Therefore it is important that you manage your search engine space.
But how can you manage the results that are related to your site within the SERPs if you do not control what they say? You do not control what they say, but you can influence where they rank in the results.
Your search engine space is dynamic and constantly changing as new sites are added to the mix and as search engines alter their algorithms. You need to develop an understanding of your environment and of your competition.
First of all undertake an analysis of your search engine space. Look at the sites around you. Figure out which ones you may want to move. Look at their content, their page rank, and the amount of sites linking to the page. This will give you an idea of the scale of work involved. If high ranking of favorable publicity is your goal then you will want to push negative publicity down the list and out of consumers’ sight. The good news is that consumers rarely view more than one page of search engine results for any search.
Here are some of the things you can do to influence the results.
- You will want to make sure that your corporate site is fully optimized and is the top of the list for your name and your brand. If your organization has more than one site the same attention should be given to all of your sites.
- Consider the opportunities of developing a corporate Blog. This Blog can be aimed at supporting a specific business function such as marketing or customer service.
- Publish all your corporate communications on your website. Companies produce a large amount of compelling written content such as press releases, articles, testimonials, case studies, white papers, etc. Often, this information is not published on a company’s website nor optimized in a search friendly way. Therefore it is not indexed or listed by the search engines.
- Make sure that all content relating to your company on other highly ranked sites is accurate and current. Communicate with these sites regularly and provide them with updates.
- If you are outsourcing your SEO have your SEO provider add a page about you company to their clients pages.
- Look for 3rd party opportunities to include information about your company. This may include retailers of your products, suppliers of your parts, distributors etc. Develop relationships with any types of organizations that you partner with and set a goal of getting information about your business on their site.
- Release regular press releases that are newsworthy and submit them to the online wire services. Optimize these press releases for your name or brand.
- Submit articles about your business to online industry publications.
- Become a regular contributor to Blogs within your industry.
- Consider a paid listing for your company name or brand. Although this does not affect the ‘natural’ listings it helps to add to your total domination of your search engine space.
The above ideas are all directed at getting as many listing as possible related to your company or brand at the top of the SERPs. This is of course not an overnight task but rather should be viewed as a sustained on persistent campaign. However once you begin to see results you are effectively managing you search engine space. This gives you the control over how people perceive you company or brand. From a public relations viewpoint this helps develop favorable publicity for your company. From a business viewpoint it helps give consumers confidence in your company and brand. The end result is an increase in your overall web presence for your company and its products and services.
Ethics, Best Practices and SEO – A Crisis in the Profession? (part 2)
Monday, May 16th, 2005Bad SEO Can Get A Site Banned
The search engines say that any type of manipulation to get a site ranked is a threat against them and the relevancy of their results. Whitehat practitioners will say that they are not manipulating sites but rather fixing search engine obstacles within a web site. The need for their services is great as many web site designers do not know how to integrate search engine friendly designs.
Last year a prospective customer contacted me after being burned by a “rogue” SEO company who got their site (and others) banned from Google for spam tactics. A few weeks later they were contacted by the same “rogue” SEO company under a new name. Perhaps naively she almost fell for it again. She reasoned that if they had been banned once they would not do anything wrong again! This demonstrates the lack of knowledge that consumers have regarding our industry. They don’t know the difference between good and bad SEO. People are being taken advantage of because of their lack of knowledge.
No matter what techniques your SEO uses; ‘ethical’ , ‘whitehat’ ,’blackhat’ none at all it all boils down to one thing. Doing right by the client? Ethics is often viewed by many in the industry as hype.
I think the focus should be on serving users as opposed to manipulating the search engines. SEO’s who concentrate of making the sites the best that they can be for the end user will create a much better longer term affect. The SEOs who chase algorithms and try to game the search engines get burned when there is an algorithm change. Following search engine updates involving an algorithm shift, the industry message boards abound with posts along the lines of “I hate Google, they have killed my site” If these posters had spent more time improving their site for their clients, and the search users, the algorithm updates would be much less stressful for them.
At this time there is no initiative within the industry to create a trade body which sets a code of best practices. It is down to the consumer to practice “buyer beware” and ensure that they practice due diligence in selecting an SEO. They need to use even more caution than they would use to select any other vendor. I also believe the industry has a responsibility to provide education and resources for consumers and help de-mystify the profession.
Great SEO companies share their knowledge willingly. They hide nothing to either clients or search engines. They know that they have a specialized skill and are proud of what they do. They get their results through hard work and perseverance. They also know that to do the job properly takes a lot of time. This is something which most business owners feel they do not have. They are confident that when it comes to hiring a professional, their honest and open approach to their trade will be acknowledged by organizations who only want to work with the best.
Ethics, Best Practices and SEO – A Crisis in the Profession?
Monday, May 16th, 2005Black Hats, White Hats, Gray Hats
There has been much debate recently on the practice of ethical Search Engine Optimization (SEO). The recent removal of a high profile SEO company from the Google results has plunged the industry into yet another debate on what is ethical and what is not in our profession.
I have been involved in the SEO industry for a few years now and the mention of the word ethics and best practices in what is still an unregulated industry creates a level of confusion the likes of which I have not observed in any other industry. Why does this reluctance to discuss ethics and best practices exist? After all, we call ourselves professionals and as professionals we should strive to be part of an industry which stands for best practices and quality of service.
The confusion seems to come from the way that search engines rank sites. Each search engine has an algorithm which is a complex method of giving a value to a site which will ensure that it is returned in the search results when a relevant keyword is typed into a search engine. These algorithms are kept secret by the search engines for obvious reasons. The SEO industry is highly focused on analyzing these algorithms and using any knowledge gained to modify and rank websites. Ask any two SEO’s what they consider to be ethical in their pursuit of top results and you will most likely get two very different answers. Hence, the lack of agreement on what is ethical and what is not.
So where do we start? Our commitment must always start with the client and our responsibilities to them. An ethical company will always demonstrate loyalty and respect to their client. This is true whether they are an SEO, a doctor or an accountant.
Having sound business practices and a professional approach to all that you do then we can move onto the ‘search engine guidelines.’ All the major search engines and directories publish their own guidelines of use for webmasters. This should be the minimum that any SEO practitioner complies with when working on a client’s site. Search engines have a right to protect the integrity of their results and the SEO practitioners should respect those guidelines.
The confusion seems to arrive with the interpretation of the guidelines. One SEO will interpret the rules to mean one thing and another SEO will see it as completely different. The stakes are high and a top ranking in Google for your site is powerful branding and can lead to a major upswing in your business.
SEO practitioners have been classified as ‘whitehat,’ and ‘blackhat.’ Whitehat practitioners are the ones that try to stick to search engine guidelines while blackhat operate using more questionable techniques and view the search engines as the ‘enemy.’ Unfortunately blackhat techniques can sometimes adversely affect the sites ranking and worse, get their client’s sites banned.
Blackhats traditionally play to the emotional needs of their clients and often convince them to part with their money without giving clear and specific information on the changes they will make to their sites. If a client is fully aware of the risks and is prepared to buy into short term gain then that is their choice. However, many Blackhat SEO’s do not disclose their tactics. Would you hire a CPA who submits your tax return including questionable practices and breaking all the IRS rules? You are the one who will get audited, prosecuted and have to pay huge fines.
Blackhat techniques are just plain bad business practice. They also do the search engines and the search users a huge disservice by contributing to poor quality of results. This adds nothing to the end user experience.
Copywriting Makeover: Search Engine-Friendly Can Also Mean Visitor-Friendly
Friday, May 13th, 2005By Karon Thackston
Optimizing Your B2B Marketing
Wednesday, May 11th, 2005Marketing your products or services to other businesses offers many different challenges that marketing directly to consumers. Here are some steps to help you optimize your B2B marketing efforts.
Understand your target market.
Make sure you clearly identify your audience and customers. Find out who are the key decision makers. You can waste a lot of time and effort by trying to sell to those who do not have the power to make buying decisions. Maximize your resources by targeting the true decisions makers. If you are not talking directly to the decision maker ensure that all information and collateral stands on its own with a clear message. The decision makers may only see your summary so make sure it communicates your message clearly.
Make sure your marketing plan is aligned with your strategic business plan
It sounds simple but in many organizations this does not happen. Marketing plans may get reorganized on a near daily basis due to reductions in budget, re-focusing of ideas, or changes in sales initiatives. By keeping in touch with your strategic business plan you will reduce your risk and also make better decisions. This will help you to deliver your marketing communications with maximum impact.
Almost all B2B websites are not utilized to their maximum potential. Rather than thinking of it as an on-line catalog see it more as a strategic competitive weapon. It is usually the first view of your company that many people receive. What do they see when they first look at your site? A global leader or another follower?
Today the search engine results page for your company name is the new digital front page for your company. When you do a search for your company’s name in Google what do the first ten search results say about your company? Remember that this is what many potential clients read about you before they even visit your site! There are companies out there whose sole purpose is online reputation management. This involves making sure that the top ten results for your name are favorable.
90% of technical buyers use the internet to look for products
So make sure you optimize your business opportunities by being visible in the major search engine results. Optimizing your site to be found in search engine searches is critical in today’s economy. But this is only the first step. Once on your site the visitors have to be converted into leads. Study your web analytics to find out the habits of your visitors. Invest in usability studies. Constantly update the site based on your findings to improve the user experience. This has paid huge dividends for many companies involved in B2B.
Remember that you website is a low cost way to communicate your product and brand to your target markets. Also bear in mind that the same is true for your smaller competitors! It is essential that you stay on the leading edge of the technology and maximize your online potential.
PR is better than advertising! However PR involves more than just press releases. A larger proportion of your efforts should be spent on case studies and white papers. Successful PR also requires continuous dialogue with media representatives. Frequent contact and relationship building are essential. Aim to make their job easier by reacting quickly and offering full explanations backed up with illustrations and photos. Making the editor’s job easier will reap rewards and generate increased editorial coverage. Optimizing your press releases for search engines is a powerful and cost effective way of getting an instant message to a mass audience. It also increases your chances of being found by a journalist researching your industry in a cost effective and effective manner.
Integration of you marketing efforts is an essential part of your comprehensive marketing strategy. These efforts are not individual tasks but rather linked together with a view to increasing your total business. For example, search engine results are PR, or – your target market determines your web site content. By linking together your marketing efforts you will help build your corporate brand and generate leads. The end result is better return on investment and increase value for your customers.
Indexing Obstacles for Dynamic Web Sites
Tuesday, May 10th, 2005URL Parameters, Session ID’s, Reserved Characters and Deep Nested web pages can make it harder for search engines to fully index your website. If your site uses any of the following you may find it hard to get indexed by the search engines:
Parameters
If your URL’s include parameters (end with ?a=1&b=2) then the search engines may not index these pages. This is because the spider can get caught in an infinite loop, indexing the same page hundreds of times with exactly the same content.
It used to be that no search engines would index pages with parameters. This is now much improved to how it used to be, however to ensure your site is indexed by all the search engine spiders always limit to a maximum of two parameters, but if possible use none.
Session IDs
Question – What’s worse than a search engine not indexing a URL with a session ID?
Answer – A search engine that does index a URL with a session ID
If a search engine indexed pages with session IDs the following could happen:
- Visitors coming from that search using the same session id share a shopping cart, exposing order and shipping history, and potentially credit card information
- The search engines index the same page with different session ids resulting in a duplicate content penalty
- The search engines ignore the page thus ensuring your pages are not indexed
Sometimes this problem can be extremely hard to see, the site may only use the URL session id when a visitor doesn’t accept cookies – no spiders accept cookies so they would always see the session ID. To check this properly turn off accepting cookies on your browser, clear your cookie cache, and then access your site.
Reserved Characters
Moving away from standard alphanumeric characters in a URL can cause issues. HTML and URL’s reserve certain characters to serve special uses. An example of this is the & character, which in URL’s is used to divide parameters. If your site uses these non-alphanumeric characters you need to encode them whenever they’re listed. If someone links to you from their own site they could mis-enter it causing it to point to the wrong URL.
# (pound sign or hash sign) are used for accessing anchors on pages, these can be kept when used for this purpose but avoid filesnames with these in.
Spaces are also a reserved character, being rendered as %20 in URLs. When representing a space in the URL, use a hypen (‘-’) instead.
Nested Too Deep
While not really about the syntax for URLs, if your page is more than three levels deep on your site the search engines may deem it irrelevant and not index it.
Depth should be measured from the home page of your site, count the number of clicks it takes to get t the destination page, add one (so you include home) and that’s your level. Keep at most three deep, if you can’t consider adding a search engine friendly site map.
Links
If you’re still having problems getting your site indexed it might just be lack of incoming links. Arrange non-reciprocated and reciprocated links from good quality sites. Instead of arranging for all your links to go to your home page, try to arrange deep links to your internal pages – some of the directories allow deep linking to internal pages as well as listing your home page.