Keeping up with the search engines

Ever since Google started growing around the turn of the millennium, they have been updating their algorithms and hardware to give their users the best experience possible. On the opposite side of that, spammers have been constantly finding new ways to abuse the system to rank for very competitive terms that send a lot of traffic that they can capitalize in.

The battle has been a constant back and forth, much like the arms race in the cold war. In today’s day and age, Google has done a very impressive job of weeding out the nasty sites and promoting ones that focus on solid content that people searching for information would be happy to stumble upon.

Google’s most recent algorithm update is called Google Panda 2.2, and it smashed tons of sketchy websites off the face of the internet because they were doing shady techniques that promoted the homepage to rank for a plethora of keywords. Google realized that legitimate sites have dozens to hundreds of thousands of pages rather than just one, so they really gave bonuses to sites that have tons of indexed pages. You can check how many pages your site has indexed by typing site:yoursite.com into Google.

With all that being said, I highly recommend you start promoting links to your inner pages, rather than the age-old technique of purely promoting the homepage and letting the traffic trickle down the line, as this idea doesn’t do as much as it use to. It is not the year 2000 anymore, so you need to keep up to date on 2011 link building strategies if you want to compete! Promoting inner pages can increase your longtail traffic an immense amount, and in my personal workings of being an SEO, I have noticed it has increased search terms for the homepage when I had slowed down the link building for those terms to focus on longtail.

The Case For Freelance Search Engine Optimization

There are many different ways to approach marketing on the web. One of the best and simplest ways to get your site noticed is through search engine hits. It just makes sense. When you head to the computer to look something up—be it a product or information—you’re headed towards a search engine. You type in a phrase and then click through the results until you find what you need. There are, of course, other ways for the average browser to reach your site, but this is really one of the most basic and therefore, one of the most important.

The Importance of SEO

A proper listing on a page of keyword search results can dramatically increase your site’s visibility. If, however, a keyword search on your site’s content puts you on the second or third page of search results, most users will never see it. That is why it is so important to find ways to work with the search engines and their algorithms. If your site is optimized for those algorithms then you are much more likely to be properly listed. If not, well, your page views will never increase beyond a certain level. SEO is necessary to grow your site.

The Solution to SEO

The best way for you to approach the question of SEO, if you have no experience with the matter yourself, is to get help from an experienced professional. There is a whole industry devoted to the study and development of effective and aboveboard SEO tactics. Why should you take on the question of your site’s SEO without the necessary experience—especially if you don’t have to? The best solution is to hire a freelance seo to help you develop your site content into optimized content. A good freelancer  is all you need to get the solid content that you want with the proper SEO to get your site noticed.

If you’re in the UK and in need of a good freelance seo service. Try SEO Newcastle.

Search Engine Optimization Richmond

Important update 11/18/2010:  BloomSEO cannot accept any new clients.

In ancient web history (5 years ago) you had to use Silicon Valley firms for internet marketing.  Not so any longer.  Even in a small city like Richmond you can find talented SEO Companies capable of ranking competitive keywords at the top of the search engine rankings.

BloomSEO is a search engine optimization specialist.  To stand out among the top seo firms in Richmond, BloomSEO offers unique services few other companies can handle.  You may be able to find SEO companies in Richmond with the skill and knowledge required to place your site in the top 10 on Google for your most valuable keywords.  BloomSEO does that of course, but you shouldn’t settle for rankings alone.  After all, you want visitors.  It doesn’t matter if your business is located in Richmond.  If you are interested in dominating the search engine rankings and generating valuable traffic to your website, BloomSEO delivers.

For an example of one of the unique services, take a look at the Link Bait Case Study.  If this is a service you are interested in, make sure your server can handle 10,000 to 20,000 visitors in a single day!  If you are looking for search engine optimization in Richmond, or anywhere – click that link for our recommendation for a company capable of helping you acheive your ranking goals.

On-Site SEO that Works

There is a ton of misinformation on the web about which SEO techniques work and which don’t.  As always, you should read with caution and test for yourself.

The #1 rule for on-site is SEO is relevance.  Make sure that the site or page you are trying to rank is relevant and useful for the visitors that click on your primary keyword.  A clean, straight to the point site will be appreciated by your visitors.  Use custom web design techniques which enhance the subject matter, don’t go over-the-top with flash, moving graphics, or anything distracting.

Start at the top.  The title of your page should feature your primary keywords and tell visitors and search engines what the focus of your page/site is.  Once you have attracted traffic to your site, they should instantly be able to see content which directly addresses the keywords you’ve placed in your title.  Article, video, or post headers should feature the keywords.

You can’t cram a ton of info onto your homepage, so include excepts with links to back pages that expand on the subject matter of the keywords.  According to Web Design Richmond you should keep the focus of the page simple and concise.  Function over form.

You want to make your site as clean and crisp as possible.  Even though most people have fast connections such as cable or satellite internet you don’t want to miss out on vital new consumers that are still kick’n it old school with dial-up.

Finally, make sure your link structure is easy to follow and intutive for finding information on your site.

For most legitimate web sites, the above steps will be all the on-site SEO necessary.  If you have a particularly large site, consider a site map.  For most though, they are unnecessary.  Keep it simple, stay focused, and above all – be useful!

Yahoo / Bing – What Does it Mean?

Bing is new, new stuff looks shiny for a while.

Google is used as a verb instead of ‘searching’. Bing/Yahoo have a long way to go before they steal permanent market share.  At this point I suspect Microsoft will shovel money into marketing for the next few years with no hope of generating anything close to a profit.  They have a big stockpile of money, but at some point shareholders will complain.  When the marketing ends, their product better deliver results as good or better than Google.  I doubt that will be the case.

The search algorithm seems fairly straight forward for Bing.  Unfortunately big company sites with huge budgets and blackhat auto link techniques will be more effective on Bing than Google.

My prediction:  the simple nature of the search algorithm used by Bing will be either exploited and results will look like your email spam folder, or they will look like Forbes 500 list — neither is as useful as Google’s results.