Top SEM Tips

26 Nov

SwiftRank By Optimizing Page Speed

Google algorithm changes are a big deal for all of us in the industry. They key is to be aware of all that is happening and be ready to anticipate, test and react. One of the keys to obtaining swift rankings is to ensure that your pages load quickly.

Site speed is always an issue. If your page is not loading quickly enough then it can create problems for your site. You can check your site speed using this page speed tool. Use it by downloading the page speed add-on. Page speed is part of the best practices of web design.… Read the rest

02 Nov

Does Your Copy Ignore Your Site Visitors?

Sometimes choosing which company to buy from is about like deciding which brand of canned peas is the best. To make matters worse, the copy on most websites doesn’t offer any help.

There are three major offenders in copywriting that I see constantly on the Internet. The first is generic copy that offers no specific differentiation points — in other words, reasons why the visitor should choose you instead of the thousands of other sites that are just a click away. The second is overused fluff copy that has no substance. And the third?… Read the rest

19 Sep

The Curse of Ecommerce Resellers: Lack of Differentiation

During a recent copywriting consulting call with a new client, we discussed her primary concern: having good traffic, but no sales. I’ve seen this a thousand times before. Usually, what I find is a site filled with content that is chock-full of keyphrases and sounds stupidly repetitive. The solution is easy:
Write natural-sounding, persuasive SEO copy that entices customers to buy. But this client’s site didn’t fit the stereotype.

The home-page copy needed some work, but it wasn’t awful. The category and sub-category pages had no copy at all that needed to be fixed.… Read the rest

12 Sep

Search Engine Strategies in New York City

The next Search Engine Strategies (SES) conference to be held in New York City will occur on March 22 through 26 2010. SES is one of the leading global conference and expositions educating in the fields of search engine optimization and search engine marketing. There will also be a series of SES Search Marketing Events which will provide instruction from some of the industry’s leading lights and search engine representatives. When in New York stay at some of the best New York hotels including the Hotel Gansevoort in the Meat Packing district.… Read the rest

31 Jul

A great backyard grill

The kind of grill you have says a lot about you. Do you do it up classic style and grill your meat over an outdoor wood stove? Do you simmer your meat over charcoal for that great smoky flavor? Or do you have one of those fancy drop in grills with a full on outdoor sink?

No matter how you cook outdoors, grilling is an American past time and it has some deep roots in American culture. It is only recently that is has become a full on bonanza of basically full on kitchens, fully equipped with everything, even outdoor kitchen cabinets.… Read the rest

22 Jul

PHP UTF-8 and simplexml

Recently the page checking code was breaking when used on a site. The XML returned from the supplier was being read using file_get_contents() and passed straight into simplexml_load_string() which was then kicking out a UTF-8 Encoding Error.

The way around this is to use utf8_encode() to ensure the string is encoded into UTF-8 before passing to simplexml_load_string(). In this instance my code goes like:

{code type=php}
$FileContents = file_get_contents( $URL ) ;
if ( $FileContents !== false )
{
$xml = simplexml_load_string( utf8_encode( $FileContents ) ) ;
}
{/code}… Read the rest

10 Jul

Do Duplicate Content Filters Apply to Ecommerce Sites?

It’s a common complaint. Ecommerce site owners will contact me for help because their product pages don’t get ranked. Among one of my standard checks is their product copy. Very often, what I find is copy that was provided by the product manufacturers. Or, worse yet, copy that is the exact same for a variety of products with the exception of a few words. Both can cost you in the rankings.

Don’t Use Canned Copy

Using copy provided by product manufacturers may seem like the best way to go. After all, you get professionally written copy for free.… Read the rest

29 Jun

Building an Ecommerce Site with SEO in Mind

Have you ever noticed that ecommerce sites have their own set of challenges when it comes to search engine optimization (SEO)? If you’re a small ecommerce site owner, I’m sure you have. One reason is copy plays such a vital role in the optimization process. Because ecommerce sites typically have significantly less content than many other types of websites, they can face struggles others don’t have.

There are a few elements you, as an ecommerce site owner, can put into practice that will boost your tendency to get ranked highly. However, you’ll need to start from the ground up.… Read the rest

16 Jun

Setting Up Sales-Generating Do-It-Yourself Pages

In today’s economy, where auto and real estate sales are down, most people are focusing more on maintenance of their homes and cars rather than replacement. That means the do-it-yourself

(DIY) market is seeing a surge as was reported recently in Internet Retailer magazine. What did the publication recommend?

One suggestion was for auto parts and home improvement / hardware store sites to ramp up the content on their pages to help DIYers do their projects right. But just how – exactly – do you create a page that assists others and generates sales?… Read the rest

16 Jun

IIS Problem with Google Base XML Feed

Just ran into a really odd problem with a client using Microsoft IIS to produce a Google Base XML feed. After a number of years with the feed working fine it seems that a little while back the feed stopped working for no obvious reason. The application was written in C# reading a SQL Server database and outputting a XML data stream that is then fetched by the Googlebase robot.

The problem symptoms were that the feed stopped outputting anything and the server closed the connection with the client.

I decided to update the application to use the XmlTextWriter class – perhaps IIS was changed to force the use of this new interface – but that didn’t help.… Read the rest