SoloSEO

Stay Online Stupid…

Posted by Aaron R Stewart on July 31st, 2007

Mike Moran’s post today, entitled Should Small Business Ditch the Web? discusses, well… I was going to say an “interesting point,” but I think instead I will say “ridiculously obvious point.” Mr. Moran essentially uses some of this post as a rebuttal to a comment to a prior post, by someone with the screen name of “Ikey.” It is Ikey’s view that big businesses have taken all the good keywords, and dominate the online marketplace to a point, that we as small business owners really have nothing left to live for online, and we might as well pack it in and move our marketing efforts offline, to more traditional forms of advertising.

AAAAAAAANNNNKKK! Wrong answer, terrible advice, and even sillier logic. Mr. Moran aptly points out that offline forms of advertising are much more expensive, which is true, and depending on the product, I would add they may not be as effective, or as beneficial to a small business in the long-term. I unfortunately took (wasted) the time to go and visit this Ikey’s site, and frankly it was, well… icky. It is my opinion Ikey isn’t going to sell anything from the site as now constituted, no matter how many folks happen to find him online. And this is probably where our online business discussion needs to go. Ikey’s site looks like many other cheap ebook, promise the world, deliver very little, type sites, and it is delivered in the almost cliche, early 90s look and feel, animating GIFs, etc. Now I realize that “retro” is cool with clothing and perhaps some models of cars right now, but retro isn’t cool with web site design. To really be successful online, I believe you must start with your site and company image. Online, the site essentially becomes the salesperson, and if the site looks cheap and sleezy, it reflects badly on the company, no matter the quality of the content. It is perhaps sad to admit the online world is as superficial as the offline world, but that has been our experience.

Being online is also important for small businesses because we never know who is going to find us. Michael and I have been surprised, no frankly shocked, at the number of clients that have found our companies, even some Fortune 500 clients, despite our poor performance in some search engine rankings. And we have been even more amazed at the keywords these clients used to find us.

Which kinds of leads us to another interesting post. Marketing Pilgrim posted an article entitled Business Doesn’t Need SEO by Jeremy Luebke last Thursday. Now it was quite an eye catching title, and thankfully the message was very appropriate. Do we as business owners need SEO to be a successful business? The answer is simply no, I know a number of business that have done very well without much help from an online presence, and they have done very little, if anything, in the form of SEO strategy implementation. I am sure you know companies like this as well. But is that the question we should be asking ourselves? Do we need SEO as small business owners? From my standpoint, no we don’t need it, but I believe we should all be doing it, at least a little bit. SEO is the difference between doing well, and doing extremely well for a long period of time. SEO strategies position a site to do well not only now, but even more so in the future. As a site improves in the rankings through implementing focused SEO strategies, and is indexed for a longer period of time, the search engine cred of the site will increase. As content is added, and links increase with time, the better the site’s ranking will become, and the better the chance potential clients will be able to find the site, even if it isn’t on the first SERP page. SEO efforts build on themselves, and where that takes a business in the future is anyone’s guess, but without a doubt it will drastically increase the potential that new clients will find us.

And what about these potential searchers/clients, who are they, and how do they eventually find us. This is an interesting phenomena as well. We are seeing the way people use search change, they are getting better at search, as they have learned how to better use long-tail search queries to more quickly and precisely find what they are looking for. Additionally, potential clients, both old and young are now not afraid to look online until they find a company that fits what they perceive they are looking for. Even my mother and father have become Googleites, and can find what they need very well. We have heard from some clients that they were just “searching” around and essentially stumbled on to us, if we had not been online, or at least trying to be visible online, this would not have happened. People are willing to look for what they want, and spend time doing it, because they have learned it does make a difference in their experience. I would also suggest that many searchers understand that the best company for their needs might not be on the first page of the search engine results page. Experience with the search engines results has taught us all this reality.

So if we add it all up, an online presence, meaning a welcoming site, with a good product/service, and good customer service equals a good chance for a successful small business. However, if we then throw in a good dose of SEO strategies, coupled with an ever-improving and discerning search population, and you have the recipe for steady to exceptional growth over time. So just stay online, going offline is just, you know…

4 comments Visited 1185 times July 31st, 2007 Aaron R Stewart

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You may have noticed…

Posted by Michael D Jensen on July 30th, 2007

You may have noticed a little slow down in our blog posting rate. I’ve been finishing my degree and it has been crunch time for a few weeks. I am in the middle of moving now, so my posting will be light over the next two weeks. I’m headed from Missouri (where I am now) to beautiful Saint George, Utah (red rock country).

We have some exciting things happening with SoloSEO and we are developing new features that are very exciting and will further add to what has become a great SEO platform. Thanks to all our users, and for the rest of you who haven’t jumped in yet, bump up your SEO and get started today!

Thanks for reading!

1 comment Visited 968 times July 30th, 2007 Michael D Jensen

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The Increasing Importance of Content

Posted by Aaron R Stewart on July 24th, 2007

To really get an understanding of what good content is about and why it is so important, Copyblogger is a great site to visit. I subscribe to their blog and really find the advice and examples offered extremely helpful when it comes time for me to sit down and write. And because content will always be one of the most difficult and important aspects of site optimization, getting all the help we can concerning content is quite important.

Good content is simply a well written paragraph or page which communicates to the potential client, exactly what we hope to communicate, with no ambiguity, while it also offers info to the search engines so our site is categorized properly within their database. But the ability to write well isn’t something anyone can do without some training and practice. Writing is more than just using ones imagination, or creatively putting down ideas with nice verbiage, it also has to do with technical guidelines, such as proper punctuation, verb tense and sentence structure, etc. Online content is a very interesting animal, there is quite a bit of it, with more being thrown up everyday for a variety of reasons. All this new content is quite a bit of data for the search engines to process quickly and accurately, and then rank efficiently. However, site owners shouldn’t panic about all this new content, as much of the new and existing content if of questionable quality. In fact, I believe all this new content actually offers good writers an increased opportunity to shine long-term in the search engines ranking, if they continue to create high-quality content.

Let me explain, I personally subscribe to just over 50 blogs. And of these blogs, I would say there are only about 5 that could be considered well written. Most of these blogs are extremely informative, and good advice often abounds, but the sentences one needs to muck through to pull all the info out can be painful to read. I actually shudder at some sentences posted. In some cases reading poorly written blogs kind of feels like taking Nyquil to me. I really hate taking Nyquil, it causes me to gag, and the taste, as well as the aftertaste is putrid. It is a horrible experience. However, I will take it when I am really sick, even though I despise it, because I know I will feel better once I get it down. Reading some blogs is also uncomfortable, but I know by reading them I will learn something, but it sure isn’t enjoyable. (Which doesn’t bode well for their long-term readership numbers and growth rate)

Interestingly enough, some of the most knowledgeable SEO consultants seem to really struggle to write quality content. I originally found this odd, but it now kind of makes sense as I have had time to learn the history of SEO. Early on, when search engine marketing was in its infancy, some very bright individuals learned they could employ various questionable optimization tactics to get a site to quickly perform well on the search engines. One of these techniques was to simply fill site pages with random non-sensical text, then sprinkle in some carefully chosen keywords to fool the search engines into believing the site had some relevance on these keyword topics. Some of these individuals even had this phony content page creation technique automated, so they really had to do very little to have thousands of pages online in no time. So, in a very real sense, they simply used technology to employ their SEO tactics quickly, and frankly got good results with them. But now those days are gone, and they never thought they were going to need to really write something readable someday. Presently the search engines have become quite good at detecting and properly ranking these poorly written and non-sensical sites, while conversely awarding higher ratings to sites with quality content. And as the search engines continue to improve sniffing out poorly written sites, the importance and rankings of good quality content will increase. Think about it, with all the new content flying up online daily, how are site engines going to most efficiently deliver the search results most relevant as quickly as they need to? They are going to have to do better at determining the quality of content provided on sites, and award the well-written sites.

Above just the search engine results, there is also a more basic reason to focus on quality content, which is to give potential clients a good impression of the company. As a point, when searching for an expert on any given topic, it is much easier for us to feel comfortable with them, if we feel we understand them, and what they are about. If we can tell they have taken considerable care in presenting themselves in a professional manner, them we are more likely to believe they will take this care with us as well. Also, let’s face it, when search engines serve up quality sites, and reputable companies on their search results pages, it reflects well on the search engine’s algorithm and the firm’s image. However, when search engines frequently serve up garbage, irrelevant sites, no one will search with them anymore. So since search engines are going to do a better job of analyzing content, we need to make sure we are consistently adding quality content, or perhaps paying some professionals to do it for us. Many of you already know Michael and I started a content creation company, simply based on our understanding of the importance of quality content, and the difficulty to produce it consistently over time.

So how can we become better writers? The easy answer is to read well written content and attempt to learn by analyzing their techniques, but I am of the mind that this method isn’t always practical, possible or long-lasting. Case in point, I am historically not a good writer, I have been told as much by many a professor and teacher through the years. It is so bad, I was required to take various writing classes at almost every level of schooling, from high school, to college, to Master to PhD, each educational level was more challenging to write within, and I have struggled terribly to get my writing skill to a point where it was finally considered acceptable, even if it was only barely so, to some of my educators. But for me these courses were the only way for me to learn it. So, while I didn’t enjoy the writing courses when I took them, I am grateful for the stuff I learned now, and I strongly recommend writing courses to others who struggle as I do. There are many way to take writing courses out there; such as accredited online universities, local community colleges and universities, and even some good home study opportunities where you can move at your own pace. I am confident that any time spent learning to be a better writer will pay dividends in the future. And these benefits will far exceed any short term cost of time, or money required to make it happen. Even if writing content for a site isn’t what you plan do be doing in the future, becoming a better writer is still worth the time and can enhance your ability to communicate in the digital world.

Ultimately, I believe the future of quality content is incredibly bright, and it will continue becoming a more important measuring stick of a site’s quality. And as the search engines get better at properly analyzing the quality of a site’s content, and organizing accordingly, they will be able to more confidently recommend these quality sites to their search customers. It is kind of a cool turn of events, its like search has gone retro like everything else these days. For many years slick technology and automated tactics dominated the search engine rankings, and now we find out we need to draw upon the techniques and skills we were taught, and hopefully learned, in our 9th grade English classes. I guess all these English teachers were actually right, good writing never does goes out of style. Who would have thought that old codger, Mr. Burton, was actually correct all these years?

7 comments Visited 1161 times July 24th, 2007 Aaron R Stewart

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Hyphens and Underscores, Together at Last

Posted by Michael D Jensen on July 24th, 2007

Big news for small punctuation! SERoundtable.com reports that underscores will now be treated as word separators as hyphens have in the past. This might mean a little ranking change up (maybe we already saw this change in effect, or it could be occurring right now). Most wordpress blogs (and others) already use hyphens in the URL naming structure, but I know many sites use exclusively underscores out of habit (I used to!).

Matt Cutts on dashes vs underscores

The announcement from WordCamp (covered by News.com)

Let me point out that domain names only allow hyphens, not underscores, and I don’t think they will ever implement underscores in domain names.

Some links about using your URLs to enhance your SEO:

Keywords in URL the New Google Search Optimization Winner?

Matt Cutts stating that they do contribute to rankings

1 comment Visited 974 times July 24th, 2007 Michael D Jensen

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Empty Title Tag = Google uses WHOIS data?

Posted by Michael D Jensen on July 20th, 2007

What happens if you leave your title tag blank? It’s a bit embarrassing, but I developed a site for a friend years ago and after a modification to the homepage earlier this year the title tag has been empty (note, I wasn’t doing SEO, just the site). I noticed this not from looking into the code itself, but from checking some rankings manually through Google. I noticed the listing wasn’t the name of the site or the page, but rather of the company itself!

At first I thought, okay maybe it is pulling the name from another meta tag…nope! I did a quick site: query and found really only one page, the contact us page, that the company name could be pulled from. Then I thought, Google wouldn’t go to a contact us page for that, too much variability. Seeming that Google is a registrar, and we all know how important domain age is to the Googlerithm, why not go to the WHOIS data for the title page? Sure enough, the title listed in Google is an EXACT MATCH to the registrant data for the domain.

Obviously one instance isn’t enough to prove it, but I’m convinced that is what happened in this case. The only other example I could find is where Google used a header tag instead.

Anyone else seen this?

8 comments Visited 2515 times July 20th, 2007 Michael D Jensen

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Getting Started in Domaining (and a Domain Finding Trick)

Posted by Michael D Jensen on July 19th, 2007

I’ve been diving into domaining activities recently, mostly reading, some bidding, and some buying. It is a very interesting field, and it opens a lot of doors in terms of return on investment. You could develop a site with a domain and grow it, quickly resell it, or just let it sit and sell it eventually. The sky is the limit really. One of the hardest parts of domaining is finding good domains. And I’ve got a good trick for you that can help you on your quest. But before the trick, here’s a few resources to help you out with domaining.

Domaining Blogs

As with SEO and search marketing, the best way to start and learn is to read blogs. Here are 3 that can give you a great jump start at domaining:

Frank Schilling’s blog
Domain Tools blog
Inside Domaining blog

Places to buy Domains

Buy Domains at SEDO.com
RSS Feed for Buying Domains at SitePoint.com

Places to buy Websites (which includes a domain)

Buy Websites at SEDO.com
RSS Feed for Buying Established Websites at SitePoint.com

Domaining and SEO

The merge of domaining and SEO is getting more mainstream, with several SEOs being invited to the Domain Roundtable this year.

Finally, the Domain Finding Trick

One of the tricks is actually finding domains for sale. Sure you can go to GoDaddy et al., but the best domains are already purchased (unless you are buying a web2.0 name). A simple query in google, along with the keyword that you have in mind, can give you a great working list of domains to check out that are actively for sale. The trick is to include with your keyword the phrase “this domain is for sale”, with the quotes (for an exact phrase match). Here are some example queries to get you started:

“diet” domains

“mortage” domains

“retirement” domains

10 comments Visited 2267 times July 19th, 2007 Michael D Jensen

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The Googlerithm

Posted by Michael D Jensen on July 17th, 2007

The Googlerithm is the “Google algorithm”, rolled into a single, catchy term. Ask a programmer what algorithm means, and he’ll probably tell you something like: “An algorithm is a set of instructions to accomplish a task.” In the case of Google’s algorithm, the task is to take a search term and end up with a relevant set of content, sorted by relevance. To accomplish this task, Google has a set of instructions that their machines follow for identifying and sorting relevant content based on the keyword search. This is the Googlerithm. But what exactly are those instructions?

The exact instructions, weights, and specifics about the Googlerithm are probably only privy to a few people on earth that work in Mountain View, California. However, years of SEO experience from SEOs across the globe have contributed to understanding much about the Googlerithm from the outside, based on experimentation and testing.

This is an attempt to condense the Googlerithm into its most basic components. It can serve as a good checklist for your sites, to make sure you aren’t missing important elements in your search engine optimization. Keep in mind there are many more factors, but this is a simple list of the most important items.

Backlinks

• Anchor text of links
• Context of link (subject matter of site and surrounding text)
• Strength of page and site (The Page Strength tool is helpful)

Content

• Keywords in title, header tags (h1, h2), main text, and URL
• Content quality (readability, spam-like?, and possibly manual ratings)
• Internal links (and here, and here, and here)
• Outbound links (topic, quantity, and reciprocal; case study here)

Other Factors

• Age of domain
• Visitor metrics (time on page, click-through rates from SERPs)
• Freshness (see indexed in an hour article)

Take a long, hard look at each of these 3 areas and identify how you are doing in each factor. If you need some more information, I’ve included links to some authoritative articles on most of the factors above. A new version of SEOmoz’ Search Ranking Factors that gathers opinions of experts on a long list of factors. Make a list for yourself on what needs done for each area so that you can make the most out of the Googlerithm.

7 comments Visited 1817 times July 17th, 2007 Michael D Jensen

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SEO “Blog Posters” vs “Article Bloggers”

Posted by Michael D Jensen on July 10th, 2007

Jakob Nielsen at UseIt.com has posted a thorough, authoritative article titled Write Articles, Not Blog Postings. I highly recommend the read for anyone who has a blog, hopes to have a blog, or reads blogs (did I leave anyone out?).

In the SEO industry, we definitely have both sides of the fence, some “Blog Posters” and some “Article Bloggers”. Here at SoloSEO, I would like to think we have a good mix of both. I find more satisfaction (and comments and links and traffic) from the “articles” I post versus the short blog postings, but I still think there is a role for the short blog postings.

So, who are the “Blog Posters” and who are the “Article Bloggers” of SEO?

Blog Posters

Andy Beal’s blog, MarketingPilgrim.com (although Andy has done some great exclusive articles, like on Google click fraud)

Lee Odden’s Online Marketing Blog, TopRankBlog.com (fantastic blog, always great posts)

Aaron Wall of SEObook.com (this was a tough one, each post is very well written and original, but not as deep as an “article”)

Darren Rowse of ProBlogger is one of the gold standards of blogging. Although he puts a lot of thought into his posts, I think most of them are still in the blog post arena (and rightly so, “pro blogger”).

Article Bloggers

SEOmoz is genius at writing authoritative articles. In fact they recently hit one million backlinks.

Todd Malicoat of StuntDubl. Todd has some amazing articles on SEO, if you don’t read his blog you better start!

Jim Boykin’s blog all about link building. Almost every post is a gem.

Neil Patel at QuickSprout.com is Neil’s personal blog about becoming famous. Neil puts a ton of thought into each and every post, it’s one of the purest “article blogs” out there.

I really think there is a place for both in the blogging world. I love to link to well-thought-out, thorough, researched, and authoritative articles, but I also love reading blog posts that in just a few seconds get me caught up or teach me something.

4 comments Visited 1793 times July 10th, 2007 Michael D Jensen

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Why You Should Love Yahoo! Answers

Posted by Michael D Jensen on July 6th, 2007

Just over a year ago Danny sullivan said “Look out Wikipedia, Here Comes Yahoo! Answers”. Yahoo! Answers is becoming not only a great resource, but also a social network (who isn’t, right?). I like Yahoo! Answers because people ask real questions and often get a handful or more of responses.

Sometimes links are all about ranking, but in this case you can get a good flow of traffic (Matt McGee on why he loves it) from a bona fide link on Yahoo! Answers. Every time I’ve jumped onto Yahoo! Answers, I’ve had a fun time. Not only responding, but also reading other people’s comments and questions.

Yahoo! Answers Made Easy

For starters, let’s make following your favorite topic really easy on Yahoo! Answers. They have a RSS feed, just like this blog and other blogs, that you can subscribe to and watch as new questions are asked.

http://answers.yahoo.com/rss/searchq?p=seo

Let’s say you are interested in GPS gadgets (i.e. you have a site/blog for GPS gadgets):

http://answers.yahoo.com/rss/searchq?p=gps

The name of the game is get there first (or early) and answer the question. If you answer it well, correctly, and in a thorough manner, chances are you get most of the attention and are selected as the best answer. Then “forever” afterwards if that search comes up in the SERPs you’ve got a great chance of getting some traffic.

The best way to use Yahoo! Answers is to primarily be there to help others. If you have something on your site or blog that is helpful, then point them to it. If not, point them somewhere else. A good mix of those would be very natural.

Do you ever have a hard time figuring out what to write? Why not take a question, or part of an answer to someone’s question, and expand it on your blog? Better yet, answer someone’s question on your blog (quickly) and then add it as a response!

8 comments Visited 3064 times July 6th, 2007 Michael D Jensen

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7 Months to Get Past Google’s “Did you Mean…”

Posted by Michael D Jensen on July 2nd, 2007

One of my early posts to the SoloSEO blog was How to Get Your Web 2.0 Brand Past the “Did you Mean” in Search, and I discussed how in Google if you searched for our brand name “soloseo” Google would come back and say “Did you mean: colosseo”. Well, it’s time to celebrate around here…we have overcome! No longer will Google give a suggestion, but now it knows that when people search for “soloseo” they mean it!

What contributes to that? It’s very hard to tell, and I don’t have case studies beyond our own, so it’s all just a guess. I think the main factor is the two main focuses of SEO, content and links. We establish our brand through both content and links, producing content from our site, and obtaining links to our site (many of which have soloseo as the anchor text of the link). Since November 2006 when we first launched SoloSEO, we have gained thousands of links and have created hundreds of pages of content.

My blog post mentioned above gave another example, this one with Alexa.com. Alexa also has a “did you mean” when searching for our domain name. Unfortunately, things haven’t changed there. If you type in soloseo.com it says: “Did you mean: solosexo com?”. How crazy is that?

What experiences have you had with getting past the “Did you mean” in search engines?

1 comment Visited 1224 times July 2nd, 2007 Michael D Jensen

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