Google Webmaster Central YouTube Channel

The Google Webmaster Central team are showing that they practice the social media tips that they preach. They have opened their own channel on YouTube, presenting videos that answer all your questions about crawling, indexing, traffic enhancement, and other issues crucial to SEO practitioners.



In the video above, Matt Cutts addresses the question of whether multiple domain redirects can be flagged as suspicious by Google. It's a good question- will your site's rankings suffer if you purchase variances on your chosen domain name (i.e. ecklundmarketinggroup.com, ecklundmarketinggroup.net, etc) and point them toward a single website? Watch Matt as he examines the scenario and renders his opinion.

Keep It Fresh

According to Search Engine Watch's Mark Jackson, "Fresh content will help you achieve top rankings right away, and help your Web site become an "authority" site. Search engines love fresh content and deep Web sites."

That's the reality of SEO these days. While it's acknowledged that most websites will continue to have static pages (how many times can you modify the 'Contact Us' section??) site owners who strive to become an authority in their field will find that the increased traffic will translate into better rankings in the SERPS. Regularly updated content, a blog with interesting and informative posts, and your web link posted in vertical directories of appeal to your client base will all compensate you well for the time and effort invested.

Best SEO Tips by Matt Cutts

Google's Matt Cutts, in response to a request from USA Today, shared his Top Five Tips for Good SEO. They are as follows:

1. Spotlight your search term on the page. Once you have chosen a keyword (i.e. 'dog grooming'), ensure that you place that term in favorable spots throughout your site. This includes header tags, title tags, and in the copy itself.
2. Fill in your 'tags'. According to Cutts, the two most important meta tags are Title and Description, as their content is displayed in the search results and greatly influence a visitor's decision whether or not to click through to your site.
3. Get other sites to link back to you. Cutts confirms that this is one of the most important factors Google takes into account when ranking pages.
4. Create a blog and post often. Well, written, authoritative content will encourage repeat visits from bloggers and site owners who may decide to link to you.
5. Register for free tools. Cutts recommends that webmasters use the powerful tools available via Google's Webmaster Central, submit a text-based sitemap, and add their business information to Google's Local Business Center.

His final piece of advice was "less is more." No keyword stuffing, including your URL in link farms, or sharing links with sites whose content is not remotely comparable to yours. Such attempts to manipulate search results don't yield the top rankings that they used to. In SEO, impatience is now a liability.

-R. Keefe

Include a link back to your home page from PDF documents

If adding PDFs to your site, some good advice is to include a link back to your home page.

Search engines have become more sophisticated - the 'bots' are even crawling and reading your PDF files linked from your web site. If you use PDFs, make sure you have them open up in a separate window, that way the viewer can always close it and find themselves back on your site.

Also, add a link to your home page somewhere on each PDF; otherwise, site visitors that enter your site from a search engine via the PDF won't have navigation to take them to the rest of your site.

www.ecklundmarketinggroup.com

Identical content through varied URLs

When search engines crawl identical content through varied URLs, there can be many negative effects, such as:

Owning multiple URLs can dilute link popularity. For example, rather than 50 links to your intended display URL, the 50 links may be divided three ways among the three distinct URLs.

Link popularity is important to websites, because the more traffic you get for your search term, the more reputable your website becomes. So with three sites basically competing for the same terms, you are actually hurting your chances at gaining in Pagerank with any of them.

I know, you wanted more sites so that you'd have a better chance at getting more traffic. As long as you use different search terms and keywords for the same product or service you should safetly be able to have three or more sites (so long as they don't each have duplicate content).

The thing is, if all those search terms are on just one site, then you will pool all that traffic, thus gaining reputation with the search engines as the site to beat for all of your search terms.

Something to think about!

Exhibiting Search Engine Optimization at the Ontario Bar Association

The Ontario Bar Association was an exciting venue for our company to attend as an exhibitor, as we specialize in web marketing for lawyers and law firms.

This was our first time attending an expo like this and we were not disappointed. Several lawyers and paralegals approached us as well as some of the other exhibitors.

Our specialized marketing strategies for legal support companies such as Canadian Process Serving Inc., United States Process Serving Corp, Ontario Process Serving, and OLAP are but a few of the websites our company promotes successfully over the world wide web.

For more information on web promotion look us up!

Will the real sitemap please stand up?

Sitemaps. Every webmaster and probably every site owner has heard of them, but only a few A) know that there are in fact two different types of sitemaps and B) fully understand what they do and don't accomplish.

Let's examine the first point. According to Google Webmaster Blog, "There's a difference between a (usually HTML) site map built to help humans navigate around your site, and an XML Sitemap built for search engines." An HTML sitemap can be seen here. These are pages that organize your content so that visitors can find what they're looking for more quickly. The XML version is (usually) not publicly visible, as its purpose is to help search engine spiders, not people, explore the site's content. See an example of XML sitemap coding and protocol details here. Multi-page sites should implement both types to ensure convenience for all visitors, both human and robot.

Now for the second point. A common misconception is that the XML sitemaps ensure regular crawling, thorough indexing, and better rankings. At the Chicago conference that Rose and Mike attended last December, one site owner complained, "I've submitted a sitemap to the engines but I haven't been crawled or indexed yet! What gives??" Expectant faces were turned toward the experts panel, suggesting that his problem is not an uncommon one.

According to Google Webmaster Central, "Submitting a Sitemap helps you make sure Google knows about the URLs on your site. It can be especially helpful if your content is not easily discoverable by our crawler (such as pages accessible only through a form). It is not, however, a guarantee that those URLs will be crawled or indexed. We use information from Sitemaps to augment our usual crawl and discovery processes... A Sitemap does not affect the actual ranking of your pages. However, if it helps get more of your site crawled (by notifying us of URLs we didn't previously know about, and/or by helping us prioritize the URLs on your site), that can lead to increased presence and visibility of your site in our index."

The bottom line is that sitemap creation and maintenance is not a substitute for other good SEO practices, such as keyword rich content, carefully chosen meta data, and relevant links. They're an asset, but not the final word in SEM success.

-R. Keefe

The perils of wearing a Black Hat

On January 2, 2008 a story appeared on the Search Engine Watch Blog that rattled the SEO community and made website owners understandably nervous. Matt Marlon, CEO of Traffic Power, had been jailed for allegedly running a housing foreclosure scam. Using four different aliases and 45 corporations, he allegedly convinced homeowners that he could save them from foreclosure. Not only did Marlon not really buy their houses or pay off their mortgages, he also, according to the SEW blog, "would get the rightful owners out of the house under false pretenses and would... rent the houses to tenants."

Such tactics did not bode well for his SEO clients either: he was also accused of using black hat tricks to secure favorable rankings for Traffic Power's clients. Matt Cutts of Google confirmed that the company site, traffic-power.com, and the domains that the company promoted were removed from Google's index due to violations of Google's webmaster guidelines. The owners of the now-blacklisted sites are left with the task of taking the necessary steps to re-include their pages in Google.

It all amounts to the same thing: SEO is a breeding ground for scam artists. Don't let yourself be caught by one of them.

-R. Keefe

Header Tags and Optimization

The poor use of Header tags is a widespread issue across the web. Frequently, H1 and H2 tags aren't used and, if they are, it's often the same from page to page. To have the H1 tag the same on every page renders this extra SEO step meaningless for the most part.
Most SEO specialists know that Header Tags are a useful information source for both the human user and the search engine bots. Some will even place an H1 tag around their logo, a practice that is helpful (according to some) to the visually impaired by making the alt text more prominent in site readers as the page's main topic.
The fact is, is that Headers are important and to over look them is a mistake too many webmaster make in their day to day optimization efforts.


See what Ecklund Marketing Group can do for your on-line business

RSS feeds and SEO

RSS feeds are a great way to add new content to your website. Be sure to find feeds that make sense to your sites audience of course!

If you happen to have a local site that updates the local community on events you might like to include feeds from your local newspaper, if your site is all about entertainment you should look into some magazine sites and find out whether they offer an RSS feed.

RSS feeds can change daily, depending upon where the news is coming from and new content is king for offering new keywords and terms to your own site bringing in new and returning users to your pages.You can also include an RSS feed to your blog, blogger offers this opportunity.

www.ecklundmarketinggroup.com

Description Meta tags - by Ecklund Marketing Group

It's been confirmed! Google still pays attention to the Description Meta information. They have discounted the Keyword Meta tags though and have gone directly to the copy content on your site in order to pick out keywords. This way less keyword dumping can be utilized, rather properly written content with occasional keywords and key phrases is the way to impress Google.
One tip I will offer you is to include in your Description Meta information identical content that you have in your copy for each page. This is an indicator to the engines that you are in fact promoting in your meta information what you are writing about for your human audience. This gives your site a better chance at ranking for what you really want to rank for.

www.ecklundmarketinggroup.com

Landing Pages - by Ecklund Marketing Group

When thinking about optimization of your website think about what it is you're trying to get across. Write for your audience and be specific. Keep in mind that you want to include as many different search terms (The things people are punching into the search engines in order to find you) as you can without sounding ridiculous.
This is not merely important for your index page but for every page in your site. If each page is optimized like this, each page being different from the next in content and purpose, then each page will be ranked due to it's relevance to your audiences search terms. When each page of your site ranks separately then you are covering all of your bases - in effect - making each page a stand alone index page.
If the user finds what they wanted and felt there might be more to gain by venturing further along in your site you need to optimize that aspect as well. By including html links to every page on every page you allow the user to navigate comfortably through your site, and ease of navigation is essential to keeping your audiences attention, that and the content you've written.

See what Ecklund Marketing Group can do to Optimize your web site!

flickr and image optimization

With the purchase of flickr , by Yahoo! there has been a lot of buzz around the idea that one ought to add any and all pictures from their websites including them into the flickr database tagging them with descriptive information concerning their company.
Flickr is a social search engine where people can comment on your pictures and find your pictures through searching specific terms.
It was proven to be a source of great interest at the SES chicago conference this past week.

Any and all pictures, photos, illustrations that you might own the rights too should be included into the flickr database so that when people look for a picture of the item or service they want they will fall on yours and that will link back to your website.

People like graphic images, it's a fact, we look at a graphic long before we look to text. Keeping that in mind will make the flickr ideal make more sense. And consider this, add pictures to all of your blog entries...

www.ecklundmarketinggroup.com

SES conference in Chicago

After a successful learning experience at the 2007 SES show and Conference in Chicago we have come away with new and powerful ways to optimize your website to help rank your site on the major search engines!
Some quick tools for the eager webmaster are located at MSN's Webmaster Help and ASK.com 'Tips for Optimizing your Campaign.'
We've gone over Googles Webmaster Tools in the past and Yahoo's Site Explorer. MSN has a section you can add your URL directly like Google and Yahoo, ASK however doesn't seem to offer that option, rather they simply ask that you include an XML sitemap that their crawlers will pick up on.

In the coming days I will speak more of what we learned and how we can help you increase your visability on the web.

www.ecklundmarketinggroup.com

Search Engine Strategies, Chicago

We're off to the Search Engine Strategies conference this Sunday in Chicago to learn new techniques in search engine marketing.
We look forward to this show every year as it helps hone our skills and update our knowledge base concerning the search engines. As technology grows so do the intricacies of the world wide web and the only way to keep up on emerging strategies is to take in a show like this.
I'm sure we'll see some familiar faces as we hustle to our seats eager to absorb what wisdom is passed down to us by the speakers, all experts in their fields.
Anticipating a show like this never leaves you feeling like you'd built yourself up for nothing.The amount of knowledge gained is usually more than you can actually retain, and so for weeks after the conference you are still finding clues and ways to better your standing on the SR from your notes.
Needless to say we are looking forward to it. The further ahead of the game Ecklund Marketing Group can aspire to be the further ahead our clients will find themselves on the search engines.

http://www.ecklundmarketing.com/

Source code and your ranking - by Ecklund Marketing Gorup

A great way to see how your top competitors are getting ahead of you on the search engines is to right click on the page you would like to emulate and click on 'view source'.
Doing this will bring up another window that contains the meta information that is being read by Google bots and the like.
With this information at your fingertips you can then begin your own meta campaign. Take the basic information (The keywords and phrases used by your competitor and include them into your own tags.) This is one way to be looked at more favourably by the Search engines.
Of course you shouldn't borrow their company name or anything that does not apply to your own company because if your meta tags do not jive with your text then the search bots may not see your site as a good resource of information but rather a confusing source.
Be smart, include the information that applies to your site, anything more might steer the wrong traffic to your site generating no sales.
Something to think about.

To see what Ecklund Marketing Group can do for your website clck here.

Keyword Search - by Ecklund Marketing Group

If you're just getting started and want to enter into the world wide web with your business or idea then first things first, get your keywords all in order.
What is a keyword? A keyword can be many words or variations on that word that your audience will to enter into a search engine (like Google) in order to find the product they're looking for.
How do you know what keywords will propel you into the top ten companies searched under your listing? That's where Search Engine Optimization comes in. Nothing will replace a company that knows the ins and outs of the internet and how to design your website to compete with the millions of others that share a similar keyword, but, there are free sites out there that can get you started. Sites such as Key Word Search can offer you the top 100 search terms for any keyword you need. This will give you a fighting chance at getting seen by your audience when you put your site together. Take a look and play with keywords i.e. an internet marketing company might look into terms like "Search Engine Optimization" and "Website Marketing" or something along those lines.

Another tool worth looking into is the Google tool for keyword searches. The only difference is that it does not show an actual number - rather it uses bar graphs to tell you which keyword is most accessed and whether they're in the Pay Per Click category.

www.ecklundmarketinggroup.com

Targeting your website for search terms

First things first. If you can place the name of your product or service into the domain name then you are increasing your chances exponentially in coming up higher in the search rankings when someone punches in their search term.

Next would be the title tag, if it doesn't include the service or product name then the search engines aren't reading what you want them too and thus you're losing an excellent chance at gaining favour in the engines.
Then of course you have your keywords and description meta tags (make sure they match up with the description a viewer is reading off the site).

Having seperate pages for seperate terms is also a good idea, that way the term has a page dedicated to itself and if you include the specific name of that product or service in the domain name (i.e. www.widget.com/curved-widget/) then someone looking for a curved widget will be driven directly to the page on your site that mentions the curved widget rather than to the index page.

See how Ecklund Marketing Group can mprove your ranking on the web!

Social Media and Marketing with Ecklund Marketing Group

Eric Enge is one of our favourite bloggers and posts regularily on Search Engine Watch. Recently he attended the New York SMX Social Media to learn how to navigate the world of Digg, Reddit, facebook and other social networks. He supplies 11 basic rules when looking to emerse ones self into said arena.

A sample of his blog regarding social media and marketing is as follows:
"Don't self promote - There are almost no social media environments that are keen on self promotion. Even if the site terms of service say that self promotion is OK, the community itself tends to frown on it (this is true on Digg and Reddit, for example.) " by Eric Enge.

Visit Eric's latest offering to SEO specialists here.

See what Ecklund Marketing Group can do for you in the world of Social Media

Meta Tags and the Search Engines

Meta description information is used by all search engines, some to help with ranking and others merely as a means to educate the viewer as to what is on a specific page. An example of the description is as follows:

Ecklund Marketing Group
Ecklund Marketing Group is a Hamilton-based advertising, web design and search engine optimization company. We are also marketing specialists for the legal ...www.ecklundmarketinggroup.com/ - 10k -
Cached - Similar pages - Note this

Since individual pages of your site appear in web results a meta description of each page should reflect the content on that page rather than using the same description time and time again. Another mistake is to put identical information into your description that is in your title tag.
The meta description information is a great way to sum up your page for the viewer. The average number of characters that show up under the address is 155-160 so it is recommended you include your most descriptive sentences within those first few characters.
Google admits meta description information does little to advance a site on the page rank but encourages their use to inform the viewer and in doing so offer you more click through traffic from potential customers.

Find out how Ecklund Marketing Group can help your business find more quality leads on the internet.