Archive for December, 2006

Search engines are always striving for better quality results. This is to try and give the user what they want, the better the quality of results, the more likely the user is to keep using the chosen search engine. There is much talk of google being secretive and the SEO guys guessing what Google are up to. Lots of so called ‘SEO experts’ are working on much out dated information and especially when it comes to linking campaigns. Linking does play an important part for sure but the rules and weighting for links are changing as Google refines its search algorithms. All search engines work in a similar manner whereby they are trying to improve and also changing their algorithms. Your chosen search engine consultants should be up with the latest updates and be able to provide you with good advice. Bombarding your site with irrelevant links should not be part of that plan.

Before looking at key phrases, examine the architecture and look for off page items. Look at the in bound links and make sure re-directs are set correctly. Many people don’t know how to use multiple TLD’s for their businesses. This naturally cripples your SEO work and on page changes will have no effect.

SEO campaigns don’t always go to plan. Often the mistakes made which cause problems are fairly common ones which are not too hard to alter, but sometimes the mistakes made can be early on and have a surprisingly large effect for an apparently simple problem.

‘Experts’ on  the subject are also prone to making mistakes just like this, and  can easily end up doing work which, while ‘professionally done’, yields results no better than work you could have done yourself – it’s important that you find a search engine consultant who knows what they are doing.

1.  Never assume that if an SEO company or search engine consultants help a particular business to achieve success, that it can do the same for yours despite the fact that you run a totally different type of company.  Different types of businesses and companies often have very little in common. Competition, especially, varies vastly between businesses of different types. A site regarding a very competitive subject or product will be infinitely harder to get to the top of the search engine than one which a product or service which is uncommon and not in high demand and the webmaster must understand this. It is not always possible to get the very top spot on a search, especially not in a competitive field and the webmaster must understand this. The webmaster should always expect to have some level of input and involvement if they want success, even if they do have the help of a search engine consultant.
2. It is important to remember that your site and business should never attempt to focus on an overly broad spectrum of subjects, products or services. A webmaster should decide exactly what their business is intended to focus on, and stick with it. This means there will not only be a narrower selection of competition to deal with, but it will be a lot simpler to raise your SERP ratings when focused one only one subject . Try to remember an SEO probably does not have as much experience as someone who has worked in a certain occupations relating to your own business, which is precisely why your input will be important. However, a webmaster doing the SEO completely alone can end in disaster – it’s better to collaborate with an expert. Even if they may not know much about your line of work and may lack your specialized knowledge of your industry, they have many other specialized skills so working together can mean success when it comes to SEO.
3. It is also vitally important to keep monitoring the latest changes and trends in keywords and search terms for sites similar to your own site. Often, webmasters do their keyword research once and think that’s the end of it. On the contrary, the trends and the popularity of certain keywords are constantly changing and if you want your site to remain successful you will have to make sure to keep up to date with the latest changes in the popularity of keyword phrases. So it is very important to monitor and research keywords often to stay up to date. The research information could also be very useful to a search engine consultant if you require their help, and will make it easier for them to decide the best course of action for your website.

SEO research will be very important when it comes to keeping your website successful. So, in conclusion – ensure any SEO consultant you are getting help from is given enough information to get off to a good start. A lot of research and time will need to be put into the SEO work for your website, but if done properly and maintained will it will pay off in the end.

Google’s Sandbox Effect – Newly launched websites (especially those with highly competitive or popular terms) could face the sandbox issue. When a new site is launched, it may not be included in the ranking index, or despite its popularity, face very lows SERP rankings for some months, particularly if a new site becomes an immediate success. A relatively new site receiving a huge number of hits so quickly after launch catches Google’s attention immediately and can raise suspicions of manipulations of the page ranking. Sites with less competitive terms are still practically exempt from the ‘penalty’ while many new sites on more competitive terms are forced to endure months of dismal SERP rankings. This continues to be an issue recently.

Canonical Issues at Google – This issue is an indexing problem and involves Google’s indexing capability which still hasn’t been resolved. Recently, Google has begun to treat simple URL variations as different sites altogether – http://www.google.com/, google.com, and google.com/index.html are all treated as completely different web pages. This can cause various problems, the most pressing of which is the fact that your site could then be penalized for having identical content as what are apparently totally different websites, but are in fact just your own.  This problem can be addressed
The Supplement Index Problem – The supplement page problem issue continues to be an issue to some extent. While Google has addressed this issue fairly well, there are still issues with websites which are using RSS or newsfeeds to allow people to read stories found elsewhere. These sites are also being penalized for duplicate content, and finding themselves placed in the supplemental index.

When optimising pages of a site, it is important to have the titles, keywords and descriptions all matched up nicely with the content of the page. The SERPs will display the title and the 2 lines of text that follow are usually taken from the meta description tag, however, you can on deeper pages and certainly on large dynamic sites, leave out the meta description and have the search engine choose the text for you. The search engine will select off the page the most appropriate text and in many large e-commerce sites this will quite often be the product description. If you monitor your pages and SERPs were this has been done through the site you will get a knack for the way in which to write the page copy to suit.