Internet Marketing Blog

Archive for the ‘SEO’ Category

Bing has finally transitioned Yahoo search algorithms over to its search engine. With this announcement, so was the date that Yahoo Site Explorer will no longer be serving the information it used to.

This information was very important for link reporting since Yahoo Site Explorer was not only used for webmaster communication with Yahoo, it also was use to determine a relatively accurate number of inbound links to any particular website on the Web.

For many years, Google has given inaccurate inbound linking statistics deliberately. Yahoo Explorer was one of the tools the Search Engine Optimization industry relied on for a rough look into how many links were coming into a particular site. This is a sad day indeed.

Other link reporting options will be implemented, but we will have to start gathering new trending data from new sources which will definitely skew 2011 results for yearly reporting.

Webtyde will notify all clients of our new tracking methods in your monthly SE Performance Reports. As always, let Allyson know if you have questions.

It’s been a busy Fall for Webtyde.  Many exciting changes are happening all the time in SEO, PPC, and Social Media marketing.  Internet marketing has never been more important to your business than it is today.

I found this quick video for you that are new to SEO or want to understand it better.  As always, please contact me if you have any questions about Internet marketing.  Have a great Thanksgiving!

Holiday remnants are being stowed away for next year, the New Year’s diet begins, and 2011 is officially here.  As we all get back to work this week, I want to give you a brief update on the world of Webtyde Internet Marketing so you’re aware of all our new services we are offering to help make your company more visible online.

Local SEO

Local SEO has seen a huge change in Q4 2010.  We saw the integration of Google Local Map results into the organic results.  This means that your Google Places page (formerly known as your Google Local page) can now place in the rankings even if you DO NOT have a website.  Most local businesses have a combination of a Google Places listing AND a website that is geo-targeted, so those clients are showing the top rankings.

As a result, Webtyde Internet Marketing now offers Local SEO package services, comprised of Local Business Listings (LBL) Management services.  You can get optimized local listings created in Google, Yahoo, and Bing for as low as $29.95 /mo with a $199 setup fee for our Local Basic package.  The next two packages up in our Local SEO Local Business Management services are the Local Advanced package, which consists of creating optimized Google, Yahoo, Bing, Yelp, Merchant Circle, and Superpages with monthly management starting at $39.95 /mo + $249 setup fee. Our most comprehensive Local SEO package is our Local Aggressive with Google, Yahoo, Bing, Yelp, Merchant Circle,  Superpages, Facebook, and Twitter optimized listing creations and monthly management for $49.95 /mo with a one-time $299 setup fee.

Included in your monthly management fees are monthly updates of your listings, including two Facebook posts and two Twitter Tweets per month.  Each of these packages help maintain the freshness of your listings, which we all know Google loves.  You will also receive valuable tips and recommendations which you can implement for your business to help rankings, such as requesting feedback from customers on your listings, etc…

National SEO

As we see local results taking up much of the shorter phrases in each geo-graphic location, one would wonder how you will be able to compete nationally against local companies.  It has become imperrative to have a current, well analysed keyword campaign as the base for your National SEO campaign.  Longer-tailed keyword phrases (ie: “fresh pecans” instead of  “pecans”, or “holiday candy gifts” instead of “candy”) and having more of these keyword phrases are the key to 2011 national SEO campaigns.  Plus, longer-tailed keyword phrases will send you more qualified traffic to really concentrate on getting that click-through and sell your products and services online.

We offer SEO packages with flexible initial and monthly payments to get you started without having to majorly invest your marketing budget, while seeing a great return on your investment.

International SEO

We are expanding this year into International territory.  Webtyde welcomes one of our new International clients, Profile Tyrecenter in Westland, located just outside of The Hague in Holland.  Our Local SEO and National SEO services can be applied anywhere served by major search engines.  We help create localized (or translated) content, work directly with websites of various languages, and optimized for your specific geo-graphic markets.  Because the United States is usually the first application of Google’s major changes, we offer cutting edge knowledge of search engines in most markets around the world.  Stay WAY ahead of your competition by contacting us today.  We offer conference calls via Skype.

eCommerce SEO

The eCommerce SEO website traffic and sales statistics are trickling in from our clients after the holiday eCommerce madness settles and they are looking like the best our clients have had.  Remember, folks, it’s not just about getting people to see your website, but to get them to act and purchase your products or services.  Webtyde Internet Marketing educates and empowers our clients to make the best of their Internet marketing campaigns.

Contact us today to get your campaign in full force by next holiday season.

Individual Internet Marketing Services

We now offer a variety of individual Internet marketing services for those people who just need a little help, are constrained by a tight budget, or just want to do one piece at a time.  No client is too big or too small for us to help.  Please let us know how we can help.

I have assembled an amazing team over 2010, made some strong partnerships with talented complimentary companies, and I’m looking forward to bringing you the best services so far in 2011.  Call us today to reserve your project since spaces are limited this year.  I look forward to talking with each of you.

Happy 2011!

Best Regards,
Allyson Seitzler, Principal
Webtyde Internet Marketing, LLC

The time has come: we are now that much closer to becoming Knight Rider, and K.I.T. is going to be doing our searches online for us while we drive.

For instance, Ford SYNC is an “in-car connectivity system that allows you to make hands-free calls and control your music and other functions with simple voice commands”.  Next thing you know, car manufacturers will be installing cellular antennas, like those on our smart phones and mobile broadband-enabled computers, and they will have data connections built-in.  With a built-in data connection and voice recognition software, automotive computers will then be able to surf the Web while you drive.

This is just another reason to get your local business website and map listings optimized for search engines.  People are now searching for your business on their laptops, their smart phones, and soon, their cars.

First generation automotive GPS systems, like Garmin and Tom Tom, offered business suggestions based off your physical location and type of product or service for which you were searching.  Soon, the new search results will be pulled from Google and Yahoo/Bing and include your business reviews, your ranking in search engines, heck…even what’s on your menu can be reviewed online.

Before it was okay just to get a Local SEO Maps listing and it would be a bonus to optimize your website.  Now, you really need to have an optimized website along with your Local SEO Map listings because of the need to get your information out there.  Information is the key to ranking because you are giving search engines AND your customers  every bit of relevant information you can in order for people to find you.

Just as it’s best to be as transparent and honest as possible in your business affairs, the same goes for your dealings with Google.  The complexity of Google’s algorithms will eventually catch up with those who are trying to defraud, manipulate, or misrepresent themselves by buying links from link farms, duplicating content, hiding keywords, and the list goes on and on.  A website’s  repercussions when caught by Google for fraud is to be thrown into the “Sandbox” or removed entirely from their indexes, depending on the severity of the violation(s).  To be “Sandboxed” by Google is to be ranking somewhere after page 5 or not at all.  Keep it honest, people, and will stay far away from the Sandbox.

One way to remain honest is to update your content as often as you say you will in your sitemap.xml.  There are options of daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly so the SEs know when to revisit your website. Even though they usually visit much more often, it shows Google that you are true to your word when you update according to what your sitemap.xml says.  Our clients show consistent ranking improvements due to monthly updates, versus our non-updated test websites.  Our non-updated websites show a steady downward trend in rankings depending on how competitive their keyword phrases are.

Just remember, Google loves fresh content almost as much as they love honesty.

I’ve been noticing the results in Yahoo and Bing from my clients’ ranking reports showing very similar ranking placement for almost all keyword phrases we are targeting.  They seem to be getting closer and closer together in the past two months.  It’s been a slow progression, but this week seems almost exact except for a few standard variations.

Neither engine appears to be taking on the others’ exact rankings, but rather a marriage of both sets of algorithms have come together to make one happy search engine (at least happy with most of my clients).  It looks like there are just two big players in the game at this time.

Canonicalization sounds like a process for recognizing saints.  But it’s actually one of the most important aspects of organic SEO.  Consolidating your URLs (see below), or “good” canonicalization means search engines crawl more pages of your site.  It means that link authority and PageRank get consolidated, so you have a stronger link profile.  It means fewer broken links from other sites.  Bad canonicalization gets you all that stuff, but with the opposite effect.

DEFININTION

The simple definition of canonicalization is: “every resource on your web site has a single web address.”  This means every page, every image, every video, etc.. has only one Uniform Resource Locator (URL) for each page of content, image, video, etc..

A URLs look like this:

http://www.webtyde.com/

Or, http://www.webtyde.com/internet-marketing-blog/blog-entry.html.

Or, http:///www.webtyde.com/internet-marketing-blog/blog-entry.php?meh=123.

Note that I said ‘page of content’.  That means that a single page of content, article, product description or list of articles should appear at a single URL.  You should never have multiple URLs for one product description, or one article.

Some of the overly complex content management systems and e-commerce suites out there make canonicalization a challenge.  But it’s doable.

CONSEQUENCES

Here’s an example of “bad” canonicalization:

http://www.webtyde.com/

But it also lives at

http://webtyde.com/  ***NOTE: No www***

People will find the home page at all three versions.  They won’t know the difference, right?  Well, sure…but search engines will.  Googlebot sees the three above URLs as three different pages on the web.  That has two major consequences that hurt SEO.

1.)  You lose link authority.

If blogger “A” comes to ‘www.webtyde.com’ and links to that page, blogger “B” lands on ‘webtyde.com’ and links to that URL, and blogger “C” lands on ‘www.webtyde.com/index.html’ and links to that page, Googlebot sees three links to three different pages, and applies one”vote” to each one.  These three links could have sent three authoritative signals to Googlebot for my site’s home page.  Instead, they’re split into three weaker individual votes for three different pages.

2.)  Search engines won’t crawl your site as deeply as they might.

Search engines allocate resources for each crawl.  No one knows exactly how, but it’s safe to say Googlebot won’t just wander around your site until its found every page.  At some point, it gives up and leaves.  If multiple pages on my site have multiple URLs, then visiting search bots waste time tracking down all of those different versions.  That’s time they could spend crawling other unique pages, instead.  So fewer unique pages of our site end up in the search index, and we have fewer chances to rank.

So, if you’re not already a client, give us a call so we can start cleaning up your website. Canonicalization fixes are generally simple, have a broad impact and let you fix multiple SEO problems at once. You’ll get more link authority, deeper site crawls and better rankings. What are you waiting for?

Don’t forget to update your copyright date on each page of your website as soon as possible to reflect 2010.  This is one item search engines look at to see if your website is current.