Checking to see how fast our site is being crawled and seeing if pages are passing link juice.
Dresses from Vineyard Vines, for the ladies!
Feb 232012
In our long search for the BEST Iowa SEO company we have finally come to the conclusion that TargetClick Marketing is the best of the best. Congrats to them! For more information give them a buzz at 319-575-0235 or email info@targetclickmarketing.com. They would be happy to answer any questions you may have regarding your website or interest in marketing online.
Sep 292011
As an online marketing company that specializes in search engine optimization (SEO), we are constantly running into websites (from our clients and around the web) that are not “search engine friendly.” Unfortunately, many of the web design companies that created the sites did so under the pretense that they were SEO friendly. That is, they sold the client an “SEO set-up package” or said they built the site using “SEO best practices.” I take issue with this and it presents many problems – for all parties involved.
First of all, too many web design companies are taking advantage of their clients when they use the term SEO. SEO has become so much of a buzzword that most people and businesses know they need it; they just don’t know what exactly it is, or whether they’re getting it.
We recently met with a potential client who just launched a new website a few months ago. The website is fantastic and their next step was to start working on their online presence through social media, local search and paid search advertising. They mentioned that they already received SEO from their web development company so there was no need to discuss that. As an SEO company, we naturally did some research before the meeting and were prepared with a website analysis and some keyword ranking data. When we asked them what they received with their “SEO package” from the web development firm, they said their meta tags and keywords were implemented. We then asked how their rankings and traffic had improved but they really had no idea. When presented with the data we had collected, they were shocked to see that not only were some of the most elementary SEO best practices incomplete, they were not ranking for most of the terms in their industry, even for long tailed, local level terms.
A client can actually end up spending more money when they don’t understand what their paying for and when they don’t ask the right questions to ensure their site is optimized. A site that has not been built using SEO best practices will need development changes that cost more money. We have encountered this several times and it always results in an un-happy client; they thought they’d already paid for this service, but later realize that they were misled.
For example, a business with multiple locations would want to rank for keywords searched on for each location, like a bank. If there are 7 locations, all listed on your website, but done so in a way that makes it impossible to optimized each page for correct location, it’s nearly impossible to rank for “bank city, state. This is likely the most desirable term for a bank so they have to pay a developer to take care of this, even though it should have already been done.
Just because keywords are entered into you title and meta tags does not mean that your site is optimized – you need to have the RIGHT keywords in your title tags and content. This requires research and strategic choices to make sure you are taking advantage of the way people actually search. Sites built with frames, dynamic pages and URLs and poor navigation strategies will not benefit you at all with the search engines.
The point I am trying to make is that if you are being offered any type of “SEO” on your website, make sure you know and understand what you are getting and how it can affect your website and business.
Coming Soon: Specific questions to ask web design or anyone offering you SEO
Many “on-page” search engine optimization techniques can be used to help increase your position on the search engines, in addition to the “off-page” tactics like link building. Optimizing your website content and page titles as well as acquiring links to your website is crucial. If you are a local business or a business that has several locations, there is another great way to make your business show up in the search results.
Local SEO or Local Search Marketing is the process of claiming, optimizing and submitting your business information to local maps, search engines and directories and internet yellow pages. It is important to claim these listings and optimize them for keywords specific to your product or service because “97% of consumers use online media when researching products or services in their local area. “(Kelsey Group) Not only are people in your area searching for products and services locally, search engines are putting more of an emphasis on local search results. According to comScore, “Once searchers find a local business, over 80% of them make contact offline.” You also need to take into account the increased amount of mobile device users that are searching for businesses locally. Optimizing your local listings will help increase you online visibility on mobile devices.
For example, if you are looking for a marketing agency in Iowa or even in a specific city you would search for marketing agency cedar falls iowa , not just search for “marketing agency”, right? The same would go for the example screenshot below. If I am looking for a taxi where I am located, I would search for “taxi cab cedar falls ia” notice how the Google Places listings are show up first, above the organic listings. This is the result of a claimed and optimized local listing that has several positive reviews.
We know that Google gets most of the searches on the web so it is very important to claim and optimize your listing there. However, it is just as important to claim your listing on Bing, Yahoo and many other search engines and directories because Google pulls in those listing to their search results as you can see on the screenshot above. By claiming and optimizing your listing across all of the relevant search engines and directories, you can increase your chances of showing up multiple times on the search engine results page.
By implementing proper local search marketing techniques to your online maps listings and profiles, you can help drive ongoing, free traffic to your website, drive customer leads and ultimately increase sales and profit for your business!
SEO Solutions is an informational platform designed to educate you on the search engine optimization. There are hundreds of other SEO blogs and we welcome the different views, opinions and practices. We’ll use SEOSolutionsLLC.com as a place to share with you.
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Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a relatively recent addition to traditional Internet marketing. Simply put, SEO is a way to increase search engine rankings through appealing equally to actual people and search engine bots. This is achieved through a variety of channels ranging from keyword research, content writing and link building, among others. Like all promotional practices, there are opportunities for ethical and unethical ways to achieve results.
This blog will discuss SEO, how it’s used and what it does. Some will be based on secondary research and some will be based on personal experiences. Throughout the posts, you’ll learn about what we’ve done in SEO including what I’ve learned and how I have improved. Although I am a proponent of SEO, we’ll touch on a variety of views and opinions and try to present multiple sides of this tactic. That’s not to say, however, that we won’t chime in with our two cents!
If you’re new to Internet marketing, specifically SEO, this will be a great opportunity for you to learn from our experiences and understand the purpose of all those links you’re building. Hopefully, you’ll also learn what NOT to do and the consequences you may suffer if you try to “cheat the system.” We look forward to this journey and hope you’ll stick around for the ride. Please post comments if you have questions, comments, suggestions or concerns.
**Although SEO is a tactic that applies to all search engines, the focus is often on Google and its algorithms. For the purposes of this blog, when “Google” is used, it actually represents all search engines. After all, it’s Google’s world and we just live in it.