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Helpful Information for Small Business People about Search Engine Optimization and Online Marketing

Online Marketing can be a frustrating, confusing and complicated endeavor for any business owner. We believe it doesn't have to be. At GreatCircle, a Tampa website design and SEO company, we provide a number of services to help our clients improve their online marketing and the performance of their websites in the search engines. We created this SEO Blog to help you succeed in your SEO efforts.

Since we're very involved in this subject we stay on top of the ever-changing world of SEO. We decided to create this blog as a way to publish information on this subject as we come across it. We also offer a free white paper on SEO and online marketing, so check that out too. We hope you find the information we have assembled here useful. Feel free to share with us your SEO knowledge and experiences using the comments links below each article.

Content Is Very Important To Your SEO Efforts

Published in SEO Basics

When you are setting up a new Web page it can be confusing trying to determine which SEO efforts are important and which ones are not.  When it comes to content on your page many Web page owners are still wondering if this tactic is needed for gaining more traffic. The fact is, content is still king and yes it is extremely important to your SEO efforts.

The majority of business Web sites consist of four pages:

  • Home
  • About Us
  • Services
  • Contact

Most times these pages are written by someone who has little to no sales experience and they are often filled mostly with “fluff.” The truth is that if these are the only four pages on your site, even if they are written with rich content they will not be enough to compete for top placement in the search engine results. So how much content do you need? As much as you can get!

The top sites offer hundreds upon thousands of pages filled with keyword-rich content. This may seem overwhelming, but you don’t have to put all that original content up at one time, and in fact it is better if you don’t.

Google as with other major search engines rewards sites that offer new and fresh content on a regular basis. So, while your site is growing and your content expanding you are gaining higher rankings as Google reviews and indexes your site.

What Type of Content Should Be Used?

Any content that is relevant to your Web site is great to use. He’s a few ideas that always work for business owners on the Internet when it comes to content:

  • White Papers and Reports
  • Customer Reviews
  • Purchasing Guides
  • FAQs
  • Industry News
  • Knowledge Bases

Blogs are another great way to get fresh content on your site without having to write it all yourself. You can add something new to your blog once a week and even if no one else responds you will notice a dramatic increase in your rankings over a short period of time.

There are many reasons why you need fresh content on your site and why you need so much of it. So, start writing and get your Web site pages at the top of the search engine rankings where they belong.

What Is Google Instant?

Published in Google and General SEO

You may have already noticed the changes in your search queries but just did not know why. The new Google Instant begins showing you top Websites for what you have typed in the search box immediately. In many cases people will be visiting sites without ever having to hit “enter” in their search box.

If you’re using Google Webmaster Tools you may have noticed that ‘impressions’ now being shown as part of the search queries statistic. Your site will register impressions in three ways:

  • Traditional Method: This is where your site shows up in the search results after the user has completed typing their search or has hit enter.
  • Google Instant Method #1: The user partially types in a search term or phrase and your site appears on the top list automatically and the user clicks the link.
  • Google Instant method #2: The user stops typing and the results are displayed for at least 3 seconds and they click the link to your page.

Google counts impressions for your site by clicks that resulted in the Google Instant display. For example, if your site deals with luggage and someone types that term into the search box without finishing, such as ‘lug’ or ‘luggag’ and they then click to your site from the automatic results , that counts as an impression for your site.

That impression will then show up in the Webmaster Tools under Search Queries for the query term Luggage. The term Luggage will be included in the HTTP referrer once the user clicks the link through to your site.

Your site will see more impressions and come up in more searches due to the Google Instant method that has been created. The interface is designed to give searchers an easier way to browse the Web and quickly find what they are looking for but is also beneficial to the Web page owner as well.

How To Clean Up A Malware Attack On Your Site

Published in General Web and Search Info

If your Web site has been flagged as having malware it can be removed from Google’s index. This, of course, means traffic will no longer be driven to your site.  The first step to removing the malware is to find it. There are many programs that will scan your site and inform you of any malicious behavior or suspicious programs that might be considered malware.

Cleaning up your site entails that you remove the suspicious software and then scan to ensure the changes are sufficient. If you have been infected you can request a malware review.  Once you have fixed the malware problems, you should request a review from Google. Follow these simple guidelines:

  • Log into your Google Webmaster Tools action. Select the site you want to review on the Webmaster Tools home page
  • Click on Diagnostics and then Malware
  • Choose Request a review

Google will scan your site for any malware and if none is found any warnings that were on your site will be lifted. It may take up to 48 hours or longer to have the warnings lifted, so don’t get too inpatient. Under the same Diagnostics tab in the Webmaster Tools tab you can check the status of your request.

If you have not seen the warnings removed from your site after a few days then it probably means that you still have problematic pages or content on your site. Under Diagnostics and in Webmaster Tools you will see a list of URLs for the pages that have been considered to be problematic. This is not a full list, just a partial one but will help you get started on cleaning up your site.

Other Warnings and Flags

Your site can be flagged for reasons other than malware and in these circumstances a review is not necessary. If you have been flagged for violating the Webmaster guidelines you will have to file a reconsideration request with Google.

Why You Need To Optimize For Search Engines Other Than Google

Published in SEO Basics

Last week the Internet was booming with news about Google Instant and how it has changed the way we search. But the previous week there was an even larger change that occurred; Yahoo and Microsoft signed a ten year contract to exclusive rights of Yahoos search results technology in the US and Canada and the new comer may be someone you have heard of in the past … BING.

Bing will be powering the Yahoo search engine and we can all expect big changes. With the Yahoo algorithms semi-retired Bing will be in the driver seat and they have some new techniques up their sleeve to start driving traffic to your site.

Yahoo and Bing’s algorithms were significantly different when search analysis was performed to compare search results using the same keywords and categories. More than 45% of the search results pages for the top 10 results were different between the two search engines.  When the search was expanded to the top 50 pages the results showed even more significant differences – a 77% difference in URLs.

What Does This Mean To Web Page Owners?

What this means to Web page owners is that the old way of optimizing their Web page for Yahoo has changed significantly since it is now powered by Bing. It also means that the difference in searches, while not as significant between Bing and Google, are still different. And as for other search engines it is safe to say that the algorithms used between them will vary greatly as well.

Optimizing for Google may remain the main concern for most Web page owners as it is controlling 70% of the search query traffic, but Bing and other search engines control the remaining 30% and not optimizing to meet their needs can be a huge mistake for profits.

What Are Facebook Searches and Why Are They So Important To Your SEO?

Published in Social Media

A new facet of Internet searching, one that impacts SEO, has emerged – social search. As of June 2010 comScore’s Search Engine Rankings Report shown that Facebook search queries grew from 395 million in January of 2010 to more than 621 million queries. That of course is not even close to the 10 billion queries on Google, but the growth is making more and more marketers stand up and recognize the significance of Facebook search.

Facebook has more than 500 million users that are registered on the site. This of course presents a huge opportunity for businesses to connect with social content that is optimized for Facebook searchers. The two forms of search visibility and optimization from Facebook are as follows:

  • Hosted pages from Facebook ranked very well with external sites such as Google and Yahoo.
  • Facebook’s internal search engine can display content such as Facebook questions and Web pages through partner Bing for search results.

Facebook Search and SEO

The internal search will display a mixture of results from your own Facebook network as well as other content such as applications, groups or off-Facebook Web pages.

You can choose your name and vanity URL and include keywords in the “about” box while writing your company description. The FBML (Facebook markup Language) offers the ability to add custom content such as text, links and images, and these can include relevant keywords as well.

When creating your company page or “Fan” page you can implement many of the same SEO tactics as you would in a traditional Web page. You can have external sites link to the discussion page and it will help rank it with search engines outside of the Facebook search.

Creating Facebook questions is a great way to implement keywords and promote your page. Make them interesting, interactive and don’t forget to promote within your network. Bing, not Google it seems, is the answer for getting your Facebook page into the search results. Incorporate the Open Graph protocol into your Web site and include a “Like” button so that visitors can share the information you have on your Web site with others within their network.