Search Engine Optimization

What is SEO? How is Search Engine Optimization Performed?

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Let’s take a look at what SEO is, and the finer points about the search engine optimization process in order to have a more complete understanding of how SEO is utilized for websites.
Search Engine Optimization
You just got to love some of those terms that actually make no sense what so ever. Take SEO and SEM for example. By now everyone has at least heard the terms search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM); but what do those terms really mean?

SEO and SEM are 99.9% pure search engine optimization English.

The English language is filled with funny keyword terms that seem to deify logic.

Take for example the person that is a school teacher. Everyone says “she’s a school teacher” but come on really, how many teachers teach a school? Now, since my wife is one of the profession of “teacher,” I have to admit that I have used the wrong term at least on several occasions; that is, until she gave me a school lecture. Oops, I did it again on “school lecture” …

As far as I am concerned, even the online dictionaries get some of the definitions wrong. Here was an online definition for schoolteacher. “One who teaches or instructs a school.” Yeah right. I can see my wife talking to the walls, instructing them to stand straight and tall. ;-) It seems as though many folks are guilty of using Internet search engine terms that are not very clear, or at least not very logical.

So, what really is SEO and SEM all about?

Google has a help area on their website for webmasters that talks about search engine optimization and a search engine optimizer. See: Search Engine Optimization (SEO). The advice Google gives is excellent in regards to describing what a good search engine optimizer should be, along with advice on what to watch out for in the SEO industry.

Many SEOs and other agencies and consultants provide useful services for website owners, including:

* Review of your site content or structure
* Technical advice on website development: for example, hosting, redirects, error pages, use of JavaScript
* Content development
* Management of online business development campaigns
* Keyword research
* SEO training
* Expertise in specific markets and geographies.

While most people involved in SEO refer to the service provided as, search engine optimization, we really should call it Web Site Optimization or Web Page Optimization, or (WSO) and (WPO) respectively. The term search engine marketing, (SEM) typically refers to the pay-per-click type of marketing and advertising promotions, though some use the SEM acronym synonymously with the SEO term.

The heart of the matter of good website optimization is building a site foundation that is search engine friendly, with copywriting which includes industry specific keywords and keyword phrases for the business, and a website that is well written which speaks to your target markets. Many websites are simply way too heavy on the graphics used, and not built with nearly enough of useful written content.

As an owner, president, CEO, Sales and Marketing VP, or business person at your company, one should think of a website, not in terms of something that has to be there, but it should be thought of in terms of what it can do for the company’s brand in strategic ways of increasing online sales, making a significant Internet marketing branded impact with the website, as a strategic Web advertising tool for expanding market reach into both horizontal and vertical markets, as a tool for the sales and marketing staff to provide sales information, published brochures, and for email links to specific keyword targeted areas on the website, and as a customer service area for supporting frequently asked questions and/or other supporting documentation.

Internet Marketing StandoutBuilding a search engine friendly website requires more than just going in on a one time basis and optimizing the keywords for a particular business. This is only a small fraction of the work that is involved with the site. Addition items of importance are to continually seek out quality links (though if quality content is written, the quality links will come), do ongoing online market research, reading information pertaining to various market segments is certainly a requirement for developing quality content, copywriting, technical writing, and ongoing copy editing is also necessary in order to build a strong online foundation and brand image.

Today’s online market place requires SEOs to have intimate knowledge of an organization, strategic communications with executives, communication with sales and marketing personnel, and even coordination with IT departments. The SEO process also involves strategic marketing and advertising practices, good copywriting skills, and most importantly an SEO needs to have good business ethics.

Speaking of ethics, when it comes to your website, do be extra careful on who you hire to do your website optimization. Optimizing a website with hidden and underhanded tactics, can and has booted websites out of the search engine results all together. Imagine your business website not showing up online at all, not even when searching for your company’s name. Remember, the content of a B2B or B2C website (most business websites are in one of these two categories) is the intellectual property of the business owner, if you are the small business owner, or entrepreneur, or owned by the corporation in the case of larger companies. Would you let just anyone mess with your intellectual property?

Trust is the key for any type of outsourced services or even an in-house SEO arrangement for handling the online affairs of your business website. An honest, ethical, trustworthy, and professional SEO person and/or SEO company is a must when representing you and your company.

Contact Professional Web Services today for handling your Internet marketing affairs with a approach that we always place the customer first and will always treat your intellectual property with the proper respect it deserves.

SEO & Internet Marketing Services Company

ProWebs

Professional Web ServicesGood Internet marketing strategies and best practices website promotion have a number of important items to consider. Begin with good website development, with a good foundation, and implement ethical search engine optimization “SEO” procedures. Then it is wise to consider online advertising strategies and enhanced web branding solutions, which will bring your business more: visitors, buyers, consumers, engineers, online shoppers, and ultimately — paying customers through the website portal. This entire online marketing process will propel your website to making a bigger impact in the top three search engines: Google Search, Yahoo Search, and Microsoft Bing Search for relevant keywords and keyword phrases for your targeted market segments.

Good SEO practices and Internet marketing strategies will pay substantial dividends for your business down the line. In essence, what you do now with your website to improve the results, will reap sales and financial rewards in the future. A website can become the solid foundation that your company needs online. Don’t take SEO and Internet marketing lightly.

Learn how to generate more leads, new customers, and sales from your website starting today.

To start showing up in the top search engine results pages requires SEO implementation to fine tune the website to your keywords and keyword phrases, build quality links, and building up brand awareness online. Target your keywords today.  Contact Professional Web Services for more SEO information.

SEO Sticky Black And White Uppercase Words

J. Warholic

Questions asked:

Is it best to use the color black in creating the home page. . or is it alright to use gold or purple for the search engines?

Is it better to make a lot of uppercase words?

When making a site ‘sticky’ does that apply for the most part to the Home Page?

Let me answer your second question first about using all UPPERCASE words.

If you are going to use all uppercase words, do it in extreme moderation. All uppercase words looks like shouting to most people, and in my opinion the search algorithms tend to categorize all uppercase words as shouting too. What I am saying, is the engineers at Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft Search are always tweaking the algorithms to get the best search results possible. They don’t want search results pages that look like they are shouting at people either. Now, that doesn’t mean that the search results pages are not going to pick up any (all uppercase) pages in the search results, it is just a guideline to think about when you are designing your website and performing SEO Best Practices.

Try to use good writing techniques in all your published writing on the Web. I am of a strong opinion, that the search algorithms are actually being engineered to analyze writing styles, proper writing syntax, and text semantics. If you write and publish on your website using good sentence structures, then the search algorithms will tend to give your website higher marks. It’s just like a writing rubric grading system at school, but this grading system is truly color blind to unjust prejudice.

Don’t fret if you are not a literary genius, or have a tendency to misspell words, or have other dyslexic writing tendencies. Use web browsers that have automatic spell checkers, like Firefox, or write using Microsoft Word or equivalent word processors, and have these programs do automatic spell checks and syntax checks for you. If you want additional writing help, there are automatic programs such as WhiteSmoke that will help analyze, proofread, spell check, and edit your text to make it much more palatable to your visitors and the search engines too. The WhiteSmoke writing program has various writing modules available for help with general, business, creative, Hi-Tech, Bio-Tech, and executive writing styles. In addition, it is wise to have others check your published works. Don’t take constructive criticism personally, and continue learning from mistakes. The best way to improve your writing skills is with practice; there is no other way.

What color should I make the home page for the search engines?

I’m convinced that color schemes in the website pages are not so much as an important factor for the search engines, as it is for your readers, and people that are likely to link to your website in the future. It you have body text, that is not hidden in the page, the search engines can read it regardless of what color your page is. An important point here is, don’t make your body text hidden by doing some form of Blackhat SEO tactics. The search engine algorithms are getting much more sophisticated, and will likely give your website a search ranking penalty if you use Blackhat SEO tactics. You however do need to make the page easy to read for your online readers. Typically white on black is harder to read than dark on light colors. Once again this is just a guideline. I have used both at various times. If I have a lot to say, and I expect my readers to be able to spend a lot of time on the website, then I would make the pages as easy to read as possible. If I have a little bit to say, and I want to use a little bit more creative license in my web designs, then experiment with other color schemes.

For example: My Backflag site that I use for Internet shorts, is light on dark backgrounds which in my opinion is harder to read. On the other hand, my According to Jim site is mostly dark on light backgrounds, for easier in-depth reading. See Marketing-101 for an overview.

Now, if you look closely, you will see that I actually use both, dark on light, and light on dark backgrounds, at www.jimwarholic.com. The header area is a dark background and the body is a light background.

Does making a site “sticky” apply, for the most part, to the Home Page?

The term “sticky” generally refers to the ability of a website to capture the attention of a reader in order to draw that reader back to your website, and the ability to empower your reader to interact with the site by having them explore the website pages and read more content. How well you do this through out the website will determine how sticky your website is. Different types of websites have different degrees of stickiness. As far as how sticky your Home Page should be is concerned, it all depends on what you intend to do with the site in the first place. In my opinion, the Home Page should be an overview guide about your website. If someone comes to your website the first time through the Home Page, and you have very little information, they will have no idea what it really is about.

The example you gave, about the “Company of Winners” books is an example of an overview Home Page. This one is a graphic, which generally speaking, an all graphic home page is not the best from a search engine optimization perspective to be search engine friendly, but it does however show the point I am trying to make about the home page being an overview guide.

Hope that helps you.

Best regards,

Jim

Set your business apart with creative online marketing results. Learn how Internet marketing can help your business get discovered on the Web. Contact us for a free website evaluation today.

Tweaking Your B2B or B2C Brand Online

J. Warholic

Snippets of Your Brand
By: James A. Warholic, President of Professional Web Services, Inc.

Snippets sounds like some sort of cereal.

What are snippets and how do they affect your brand?

Snippets in the search engine world are a small sampling of a web page. When someone does an online search; this produces a results page with content snippets of various pages of information from many websites. If the search algorithm determines that a page from your B2B, Business to business or B2C, Business to consumer website has relevant information related to the searched for keywords then a small sampling of the page will show up in the search engine results pages.

Serious BusinessIt is important to understand that the first contact a person may have with your website is not when they actually go to the website but when they view the search engine results page. This is why from a marketing and advertising perspective that your brand “be the best that it can be” within the realms of a realistic approach to optimizing the page for Readers and the Search Engines.

As a President or CEO of your company you must consider at least two distinct ways another business or consumer views your brand online through the search engines. One must consider that someone already knows about your company name, and uses the search engine search bar to type in your company name to go to the website. The other way is that a consumer or purchasing manager from another company types in the keywords in the search bar, and your website shows up in the results pages. Both of these examples are typical of how a customer would find various businesses online. Each has its own unique approach for management, of the brand that needs to be portrayed to the customer.

Breaking this down further, it is also helpful to understand to which market segment your business is in. For example: vertical markets also known as niche markets are a very narrow or dedicated spectrum of products or services delivered to consumers or other businesses; while horizontal markets cross over a broad spectrum of products or services provided across multiple industries. Each of these business categories and buyers and sellers markets needs to have a particular brand approach to Internet marketing and advertising online that are going to be quite different. This will also be a factor in determining what your goals are for showing up in the search results pages and how your brand needs to be displayed on the Internet.

Search algorithms continue to change and improve. As the search companies fine tune and in some cases drastically change their algorithms this will also change to some degree the way the snippets are displayed for each website. A person can fine tune a web page to provide a better branded snippet while still maintaining the structural integrity of the page for the search engines and the readers. It is important to understand that changes to a web page can affect the page for the keyword search engine results. But, with quality writing, and proper and ethical search engine optimization techniques a person can actually improve both the branded snippets that are portrayed along with the ranking of the page in the search engine results.

Branding on the Internet does take time and effort to improve the image of a company. The days of just slapping a website together and saying, “that is it, and there is nothing more to do,” are over. Efforts need to be expended on a regular basis to view and analyze the results in the search engines. As the analysis is made, small or sometimes drastic changes need to take place to the website or web page in order to provide a better Brand for your company on the Internet.

Professional Web Services provides Internet marketing services, online advertising campaign management, and web branding solutions for your company online. Contact Professional Web Services today to get started toward more sales tomorrow.

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SEO School And Internet Marketing School

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Internet Marketing And Search Engine Optimization School

When it comes to developing your business, and building a quality online presence, there are some things to consider from an SEO and Internet marketing standpoint in order to maximize your return on investment of time, money, and resources. Let’s start off by answering the following question:

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What are the advantages and disadvantages to implementing business 2 business or consumer keywords and keyword phrases in the website that are seldom used?

There are two online schools of thought here. One SEO school says that the keywords selected to be used throughout the website should be the least competitive keywords and misspellings included, so it is much more likely to be found in the search results. The other SEO school says to develop the natural keywords throughout the website along with logical variations of keyword phrases including plural uses of the keyword and various tenses using proper writing syntax and grammar.

If we follow the first SEO school, a website may start showing up in the top results for very seldom searched for keyword phrases. While in the other SEO school, because of the numbers of pages with the same keywords, web pages are less likely to show up due to excessive competition.

Natural Language Writing vs Keyword Search Variations

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Actually, I believe that both SEO philosophies have ideas that are both right and wrong. First and foremost, I believe the emphasis should be on natural language writing and logical uses of the keywords. This will no doubt require extensive research, reading, and writing of quality content. It will certainly take an extended period of time to make a marketing impact in the various keyword market segments. At the same time, it is important to also develop other lesser used variations of those keywords and keyword phrases to help establish an online site theme or a type of Internet marketing trend in what a website is about. In essence, you have to write the way your customers think for the search engines to pick up on the keywords and keyword phrase syntax used throughout the website.

Are There Search Engine Optimization Shortcuts?

SEOs have used extensive Black Hat search engine shortcut tactics in the past for getting a website to the top of the search results. As search engine algorithms have improved, these black hat optimization tactics are becoming less effective. The emphasis today should be on developing good content, proper link building throughout the website, proper titles and meta tags, ethical search engine optimization strategies, unique marketing and advertising messages, and certainly strategic link building with various related topics and websites.

How Should we Measure Search Engine Software Algorithms?

No search engine company is going to come out and tell you exactly what is required to get your web page or website up to the top in the search engine results. Though they will give you some best practices guidance for webmasters to follow. First off when it comes to the Internet presence, every search engine company wants to have the best results possible. If a search engine tells you exactly what to do, then everyone would try to do the exact same thing. There are a multitude of variables involved in page ranking, that are factors in attaining top standing in the search results. We can not control what Google, Yahoo!, or Microsoft Bing Search do in their search algorithms. So, what we can control is the content and layout of websites under our control.

Present Relevant Information for the Search Engines and Users (Customers)

The number one goal of any website should be to provide quality content to get found online. Algorithms and software improvements at the Search Engines have made great strides in evaluating keywords throughout the page and site, along with Natural Language Processing (NLP), Text Analysis, and Automatic Classification Systems are some of the key areas for establishing what a website is all about. The days of just pasting a whole bunch of keywords over the entire page or hiding the keywords in the underlying html code to get a website in the top search results is all but over. Sure, there still are websites in the search results list that do this type of Black Hat SEO tactic, of hiding keywords, but that is only because other parts of the software algorithms might give higher Page Rank [Google PageRank™] to these pages based on the number of pages that link to them on the Internet. Read more insights into the Google PageRank perspective.

Developing a Keyword Search Engine

It becomes exceedingly difficult for Search Engines to say how much is too much for certain types of keywords in the body text. There are an infinite number of variables for establishing the density of a keyword. Certainly, the difficulty becomes even greater when one considers the use of certain words having different meanings for different industries. Then there is the aspect of how the word is used in the context of the text itself. Natural Language Writing has different styles, such as Argumentative, Narrative, Enunciative, and Descriptive Styles; along with different uses of grammar and even the proper spelling and even misspellings can significantly alter how a search engine responds to the classification and Keyword Density of the page.

What Additional Factors are used in Keyword Analysis?

Keyword Relationships

Graph Showing the Keyword Relationships in a Document

Search Algorithms need to be able to filter through all of the other words in a website. Every single word that is placed on a web page can have some degree of influence over the whole of the page and even the website itself. Simple words like: them, your, you, it, or, AND even and, need to be filtered and evaluated. Too many uses of those words in the web page can throw off the algorithm. Relationships exist between all words. The proximity of the Online words relative to each other, will also significantly influence the software algorithms of what the page is about (See Keyword Graph.) Writing on the Web has to be tightened up and more structurally focused toward the subject matter, in order to become more successful in establishing new pages online, especially when it comes to the highly competitive Internet keywords.

Search Algorithms Analyze Capitalization, Bold Text, Font Size, and Font Placement

To grasp the degree of difficultly that Search Engines face in cataloging a website is to consider what needs to be analyzed from their perspective. By somewhat of a Reverse Engineering Marketing aspect we can gain Internet marketing insight into what is looked at for establishing the ranking in the search engine results pages. Capitalization, bold text, font size, and font placement are all factors in page analysis. For example: as Google Search algorithms have improved, and certainly expanded over time to include other on-site and off-site website factors, the weight factor given to each of these hundreds of variables has changed slightly, and in some instances drastically affected the search results.

Understanding Search Engines and the Online Marketing Learning Curve

I believe that we are all on an online marketing learning curve. Search engines are continually learning about the World Wide Web by constantly traveling the Net with their Robots that catalog the pages. Then with analysis software, the companies can determine the so-called Mean, Mode, and Median of any particular criteria within the page or group of search results they wish to analyze. With such detailed analysis, they then can tighten or loosen a set of parameters to slightly change or drastically change the search results. Every update to a search engine algorithm in-turn creates a new round of learning by all the SEO Webmasters of the world. Through this type of online school teaching, the SEO is constantly being trained toward better content writing and layout quality. The whole of search is also trained, because as creativity and new technology are implemented into websites, along with the popularity of other types of online content sites, the search companies can continue to upgrade and improve their algorithms to reflect these new changes. Sure, there may be the law of unintended consequences that occur along the way, but in the long run, everyone will benefit with better content, websites, and search engine results pages.

Professional Web Services, Inc., is a SEO strategies, Internet marketing services, online advertising strategies, and a Web branding solutions company. Contact us today for Internet Marketing Services for your B2B or B2C business to be found in the search engines. Turn your business into a great online sales tool with a Pro. eBusiness Online marketing solutions with Professional Web Services. If you are serious about gaining more customers now, getting more online sales leads, and learn how we can help your business get discovered on the Web, then send us an email today for your online marketing solution.

Article by: Jim Warholic

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