Use good anchor text that relates to the page you are linking to and if possible use text that is found within your title tag, description or page headlines. Of course this may mean rewriting some of these elements to be more optimized to your targeted key phrase.

See you next week for another Tidbit!

With this one simple line added to your robots.txt file you can avoid having your content management system (CMS) administration or login page indexed by the search engines.
Disallow: /admin/
Note: change “admin” to whatever directory or page has your CMS login on it. For example in WordPress this would be:
Disallow: /wp-login.php
For good measure you could also add this meta tag to the head of your login page or the index page in your login directory.
meta name="robots" content="noindex, nofollow"

See you next week for another tidbit!

Cornerstone Blogs

For many businesses blogging has become the cornerstone of their web marketing efforts, a way to disseminate information and reach their target demographic/potential client base in a new way. It allows for dialogue with their clients, albeit still in a top down fashion. The business pushes content down and the masses respond. They could respond in many ways including comments, linkbacks or tweets and retweets. Many businesses use it as a test bed for customer service and/or marketing messages, but there is one overriding characteristic of these blogs. They all add value to the company’s brand image by being useful and providing quality information to their users.

At Westward Strategy we strive to add value every single time we post something. Sure, sometimes we post our own business successes, but more often than not we post the successes of our clients over our own successes. We do research and find supporting and/or opposing arguments to the topic we are writing on. We even publish articles that could be useful to anyone looking for search optimization or web design resources. And we do all of it with the readers/users of our site at the forefront of our minds. If you’re shopping around for a web design firm we hope you can use and/or educate yourself a little bit more with our “10 Questions You Should Ask a Prospective Web Design Company“. It does not matter if you choose to contact us about your project or not.

Now I know what you are saying…

“Chris, if a company uses a blog to publish quality content and that in turn garners more market share and value for the company, isn’t that self-serving?”

The answer – sure, in a way. The difference is cornerstone blogs focus on the customer first and the business second.

Self-serving Blogs

The other type of blog is the self-serving blog. The blog that gets added to an existing website and updated maybe once a month with posts that read something like this:

Reno Car Wash has the best reno car washes in Reno. We use only the best car wash soap and reno car wash equipment at Reno Car Wash. You should stop by Reno Car Wash and see our brand new car wash equipment and get a car wash from Reno Car Wash while you’re there!

Or even worse, they look like this with a bazillion links in them:

Reno Car Wash has the best reno car washes in Reno. We use only the best car wash soap and reno car wash equipment at Reno Car Wash. You should stop by Reno Car Wash and see our brand new car wash equipment and get a car wash from Reno Car Wash while you’re there!

Ok, that may be a little exaggerated, but trust me it’s not by much. It should be painfully obvious, like a frying pan to the skull cap, what the difference is between a cornerstone blog and self-serving blog. Sure the self-serving blog will manage to get information to the user that may be of some use, but really is that the way you talk to your customers? Is that the way you should talk to your customers? The answer to both is NO.

Self-serving blogs are like cheap furniture. They may have a nice wood veneer, but one scratch will reveal the shoddy construction and cheap materials underneath that thin cover. At that point it doesn’t matter what you put into the blog, you or your company will be seen in a not-so-friendly light.

So, the question is, why do you blog? Are you adding value for your clients, customers and website users? Are you helping educate them? Are you freely giving information and knowledge? Or are you posting for your own perceived benefit? Are you blogging to dominate the search results? (See SEO Myth: Blogging Means Top Rankings) Are you adding value or just creating white noise?

Why do you blog?

1 ) How long have you been in business?

Think about what type of company you are comfortable working with before you meet with them. If they give an answer outside of your comfort level tell them immediately. Some businesses don’t mind working with startups or individuals with lesser experience if the price is right. Everyone has to start somewhere, but if this is a risk you are not willing to take just tell the SEO company upfront. This is critical when you look at SEO because if the SEO company or consultant you hire makes a mistake it could cost you a lot in the long run in terms of sales, exposure on the web, and traffic.

2 ) Can I see examples of your work?

Most SEO companies will have some form of case study to explain what they did on a particular project and what the end result was.

3 ) Do you have testimonials from other clients?

Good companies will happily provide a list of satisfied clients, both past and present. We even make them publicly available on our website.

4 ) What is the experience level of your team?

While almost every company has a few noobs (pronounced newbies) there should be some senior members on the team. Again, this is a comfort level thing on your part. Don’t get caught up in sales pitches and listen to your instincts here. As explained above there are some risks with working with an unexperienced SEO consultant, but there could be great rewards as well. Someone who is hungry to prove their talents and earn that experience may be a better fit for your company, but they also may require more oversight on your part.

5 ) What techniques do you use to help my website perform better?

Notice I didn’t say, “what is your technique to achieve better rankings?” Rankings are just a means to an end. Yes, they can be a critical evaluation tool, but at the end of the day you want to know if those rankings are bringing in dollars to the bottom line. It doesn’t matter if your website ranks #1 for “buy blue widgets  in Monkeys Eyebrow, Kentucky” (yes, Monkeys Eyebrow is a real place). If that term does not bring you one new customer, then the SEO company hasn’t done their job. Don’t expect full disclosure of all aspects of all their techniques, but they should be able to explain in plain english what they plan to do.

6 ) What is your process for search engine optimization?

A well outlined plan or SEO process ensures you and your vendor know each other’s respective roles in the SEO process. It also will help you gauge their level of experience. Beware of companies that don’t have a plan! Don’t expect full disclosure of all aspects of their process, but they should be able to explain in plain english what they plan to do.

7 ) Will you make changes to my website?

If you get any answer other than yes, you can end the interview right there. I would question their practices if they plan to never make any changes to your site.

8 ) When will I see results?

Reputable SEO companies that are playing by the rules will be able to give you an answer to this question without a problem. SEO companies that are using questionable techniques may not be able to answer this question.

9 ) What other services can you provide?

Companies that only focus on SEO are becoming few and far between. Modern SEO requires a good understanding of user behavior performance, web design, and general marketing principles. Many SEO companies also offer PPC advertising management services for search engine marketing.

10) Who owns the work in the end?

There is only one acceptable answer here. No matter what, the client owns the website including all graphics and content. The only exception is if your website uses a content management system. Often the CMS is outlined in your contract with the vendor as belonging to the vendor as their intellectual property. If they say you will lose rankings immediately when you stop paying them, then I hate to say you’ve been duped into paying for placement by nothing more than a swindler. Remove their access to your site and go look for a reputable SEO company.

Rand’s article raises some valid points about the SEO industry. Now that other forms of advertising and sales channels have slipped up a bit due to their high costs or lower ROI, online marketing – including SEO, is taking more of the marketing budget pie in a lot of corporate environments. Internal marketing departments and external marketing agencies are having to prove their worth more, now that budgets are getting stretched and squeezed to their fullest. If a channel isn’t accountable for spending vs. sales then the likelihood that it will survive this downturn is unlikely.

Also, SEO is coming out of the shadows. As myths get debunked and education is expanded to business owners and marketers, true SEO is gaining ground as a viable marketing initiative. Of course there are still gamers, hacks and snake oil salesmen out there and until our industry grows up a lot more and sets some standards the fight will rage on between white hat and black hat SEO.

On the other side of the fence Ms. Callow discusses the benefits of search marketing or PPC advertising. Which is one arena where we have seen tremendous growth in the last several months. Of course a majority of this growth can be attributed to the holiday season, as we handle pay per click advertising for several online retailers. However it is not just retailers looking to leverage this channel over traditional advertising – many of our b2b customers have been asking about it as well. I believe Ms. Callow nails the reasoning for this perfectly in her article.

Often marketers are attracted to PPC advertising due to its inherent benefits such as advanced targeting, accountability and cost effectiveness. With PPC advertising you can start or stop ads at any time, run them only when you know people will be looking for your product or service, target by geographic region (down to the city level) and attract customers using their nomenclature at the exact instance of their interest and query. With advanced web analytics you can track click to conversion metrics to further account for each dollar spent vs. each dollar generated.

There is also a “safe” factor to PPC advertising. Marketers know that they can invest a minimal amount upfront and give it a test run. If they feel it is not working for them they can stop all ads and outgoing costs instantly or they can retool ads and spend more time doing keyword research to find better converting terms. Right now these are especially attractive features.

Don’t Stop at SEO and PPC Advertising

The only thing both of these articles are missing is any mention of other online marketing initiatives, like permission based email marketing. Email marketing is still a tremendous way to market on a very cost effective platform. It literally costs pennies, and in most cases fractions of pennies, to leverage an internal customer or lead list that may be gathering dust and turn it into a powerful customer relationship management channel and sales tool.

So if you are not already involved in online marketing, you better get your move on! You are already losing ground, market share and revenue to your competitors if you are not actively working the online channel. In all market conditions it is a powerful marketing tool, but especially during an economic downturn.

Titles

Hello my name is Fred and there’s nothing unique about me.  Would you be interested in hiring me?  Seems like the job interview from hell.  The funny thing is many websites have this same mentality in regards to title tags.  Titles are the first glimpse of a page users have with your site.  When a user bookmarks a page, the title is what is saved in the bookmarks folder.  Could you be missing conversions simply because your titles are not unique with your site’s main keywords?

Google recommends using accurate, unique and brief titles for each and every page on your site.  This is simple SEO at its finest, but quite often gets overlooked or forgotten about.  The title is valuable real estate for your site and as such should be effectively communicating the topic of the page.   All search engine queries that have keywords in your title will be bolded, instantly encouraging eyes of searchers towards your listing.

Descriptions

The meta description tag gives search engines a glimpse or summary of what the page is about.  Google recommends accurate and unique phrases that inform and interest users.  In essence, your site’s description is a brief piece of marketing copy that can make or break someone clicking on to your site.  There are many worst practice scenarios that seem to come up over and over again and should be avoided:

• duplicate descriptions across a website
• copying the title tag into the description tag
• stuffing the description tag with a list of keywords
• using a description that is not compelling marketing copy and lacks uniqueness

URL Structure

Hello, my name is Fredrif-06390p=12.  What’s your name?

Who’s going to remember Fredrif-06390p=12 and what makes him unique?  No one.  In the same sense your  website’s URL structure plays an important role in best practices SEO.  Google recommends using a URL structure that uses keywords from that specific page.  In addition, from a usability standpoint, a nice looking URL structure will make it easier for others to remember pages from your site.  Google also recommends having one URL for one unique page.  Many sites have duplicate pages with different URLs causing a duplicate content issue.  Set up a 301 redirect to solve this problem and clear any duplicate content issues.

Navigation

Your site’s navigation should be both intuitive and user-friendly.  Visitors on your site should find it easy to navigate to the page they are looking for.  Google recommends:

• text-based navigation
• properly formatted site-maps
• useful 404 pages

Content

The brunt of your site lies within its content.  It’s the reason that someone visits your site.  Google’s guide has quite a bit of good information on this subject.  Here are some of the key take-aways:

• make effective use of heading tags
• make text easy to read, staying organized on the topic
• use relevant language with keywords that users are searching for
• keep anchor text intuitive and relevant
• name images in a more intuitive way

• Why Reputable SEO Firms Don’t Promise Guaranteed Search Engine Rankings
• Time to be creative — and cost-efficient — in marketing
• Top 7 Reasons Why It’s Better to Hire a Freelance Designer or Small Design Firm Than a Large Design Company
• Do We Need Another Web Browser?
• Traffic trends for Digg vs. nine other social news sites
• I Don’t Have Time for Marketing

We knew we could go in there with all the facts, figures, and evidence to support what we do, but we also knew it wouldn’t benefit us and it wouldn’t benefit our contact. We would be seen as an outside source with just another pitch and the contact would be seen as inept by their supervisors. Prior to meeting the executives we worked closely with the marketing manager to help them sell SEO as a critical marketing initiative to the executives. What we provided them with is more or less included in the following boiled down list.

Do Your Research (or have someone do it for you)
You’ve got to be able to talk the game if you have any hope of selling it. Even though it is time consuming, find as many authoritative SEO sites as possible and do your reading. Visit forums and blogs to find other people in situations similar to yours. Put yourself out there and ask questions.

Show and Tell
Within your organization get out there and talk to people about SEO. Some times people’s eyes glaze over when they hear that term so soften it up by talking about internet or search marketing. Talk to the people that matter outside of a formal meeting – water coolers, coffee makers, all the usual places they might hang out.

List the Advantages
Create a list of all the advantages a search marketing campaign can give your organization over your competitors. Initially you will use this list for your own information, however later you will use this in formal meetings with your execs. There are numerous benefits of SEO, but keep your list under five items.

Understand Management’s Pain Points
Do every thing you can to understand management’s objectives and find the pain points that relate to the advantages list you created previously. They probably will not talk about those points in the same way you might so listen carefully. Where applicable interject with the benefits of SEO as they relate to those pain points.

Don’t Give Up
People are resistant to change and fear the things they don’t know. Through education and repeated discussion you can break through their fears and show them the benefits of a strong SEO strategy so by the time you bring in an outside company to manage your search engine optimization campaign the execs are comfortable making an informed decision.

In truth marketing is an investment in your company. What you put into it determines what you get out of it or your return on that investment. When things are not going well, for whatever reason, the last thing you should be doing is trying to bury your head in the sand and make your company as small as possible.

With that being said, sometimes it is difficult to know where or with whom you should invest your marketing dollars. It can be even more difficult when you begin to investigate online marketing initiatives and companies. The web is largely the wild west of marketing. It has very few rules and even fewer lawmen (or law women if you prefer). If you put your project out there, whether it be a complete website redesign or a natural search optimization campaign, you’re likely to get all kinds of people knocking down your (virtual) door. You might receive bids for $500 and $50,000 on the same project for the same work. So how do you tell the snake oil salesman from the real deal? First thing you can do is eliminate the outliers, the extreme lows and the extreme highs.

If you are requesting a redesign of your 10 page website and they are telling you it is going to be $60,000 turn tail and run! Otherwise you’ll be taken for a ride. Same thing for the $200 bid – you probably won’t get the quality you’re looking for. Other than that go with the company you feel the most comfortable with.

For more information I invite you to review this post from Forty Media on setting your web budget. The most valuable points are the bullets at the bottom.

• In the current market, $5-10k is a good price range for a simple, custom-designed website. If you have unusual needs requiring custom software or configuration, that might get up into the $10-15k range. (If you’re on a tight budget, you may be able to get a decent site from a talented freelancer for a good amount bit less, though you’ll be trading one set of risks for another.)
• If you’re looking to build a custom web application, expect the final pricing to land in the tens of thousands of dollars. The exact pricing will depend on the scope and nature of the project itself.
• Logo design and web design can be two very different things. If you don’t have a logo already, consider getting that designed by a corporate identity designer before starting the web project.
• Remember that you get what you pay for. Set your budget, and then find the best possible firm that can work within your budget. The bigger your investment is, the better (in theory) the return will be.

How to get search engines to pay attention
Kristy Crabtree with Chris Gandolfo

The days of putting up a Web page then waiting for it to show up on the first page of any search engine are long gone. Today it takes time and effort to see your site in the first couple pages of results.
However, most site owners and webmasters do not know where to begin. By following these 10 steps you can increase your Web site’s natural search optimization and get the search engines to take notice.

1. Optimize for keyword content
To get listed correctly in the search engines, each page of your site needs to be optimized to the best of your ability. Since the keywords that you decide to target will be used throughout the optimization process, choosing the right keywords is essential. If you choose the wrong keywords you will not be found in the search engines. If you are not found in the search engines how will anyone find your site? Pick one core term for each page and write the optimized text around it. To brainstorm top phrases for your industry try reviewing your competitors’websites.

2. Write unique title tags
The title tag of your page is the most important factor to consider when optimizing your web page for the search engines. This is because most engines place a high level of importance on information found in your title tag. The title tag is also what the search engines usually use for the title of your listing in the search results.
The title tag appears as the description of the page at the top of your browser’s window. It should be a complete sentence that includes your term(s) for that page. Do not overstuff these tags or your website will be penalized in the search results!

3. Implement quality Meta content
Meta is a part of the page html code human visitors to your site rarely see. It is used by search engine visitors (robots or bots) to help them determine what the page is about.
Description Meta should be one or two core-term enriched sentences that do not exceed 250 characters.
Keyword Meta is a space-separated list of terms relating to your page. The core term should appear at the beginning and end of this list. Limit the number of characters to 1,024, including spaces.

4. Content is king
The page content is one of the most important factors to letting visitors and the search engines know what it is you are offering.
Improve your content and you will improve your listings in search engines. Each page should have at least 200 words of copy and include your keyword terms. The most important aspect of writing for the Web is that you write for the human visitors, not the search engines.

5. Use image alt text wisely
Each image on your page can include a keyword phrase that relates to the image. This text will also help those that may have their images turned off when visiting your site. This text can be included in the alternate or “alt” attribute of the html code for an image. The important thing is to describe the image first and then try to work in key terms.

6. Use a robots.txt file to tell search engines where to go
This simple text file is a roadmap of your web site. It should be placed in the root directory of your site, and it tells the search engine spiders which sections they should go into and which ones they are not allowed in. It is one of the easiest tactics you can use to help ensure your site gets crawled. It’s also one of the most overlooked opportunities.

7. Use a Sitemap.xml file, and keep it up to date
A sitemap file is a source of information for the search engines, like your robots.txt file. It tells them the location of all the sections and pages of your Web site, how important each of those sections are to your site, and most importantly when those sections were last updated.
Most importantly, when you change your content, update your sitemap file!

8. Get rid of duplicate content
It’s easy to use the same content for multiple pages on your site, especially if you’re a retailer and the manufacturer has already provided lots of content for you. However, every time you use the exact same content you are taking a chance that the search engines will throw your site out of their results, thereby negating all of your hard work to get there in the first place.
Take the time to rewrite content for each page, regardless of how similar it may be to another page. Get rid of mirrored sites or completely rewrite these as well. Also, rewrite an article two or three times for use in article marketing or syndication.

9. Create custom error pages
If a visitor accidentally stumbles into a section that does not exist anymore, their browser’s default “Page Not Found” message does not give them a way to get back into the content of your site.
However, it is very easy to set up custom error pages that have the same look and feel as the rest of your site. They will help keep visitors and therefore search engine spiders from reaching a dead end in your site and leaving.

10. Get validated!
First, validate your code for well-formed HTML. The rules of HTML have changed quite significantly over the years, and it is no longer optimal for you or your webmaster to generate messy, broken mark up.Although not a requirement from the search engines, both Google and Yahoo mention it in their guidelines for Webmasters.
Second, validate your entire Web site through Google and Yahoo. This is a simple task that involves uploading a file to your Web site’s root directory or adding information to your meta tags.You can find more information on this process in the search engines’ Webmaster guidelines.
This tip also serves to build a level of trust with the search engines and lets them know that your site is a current and active. This is a major component in determining how often your Web site is visited by the search engines.
The 10 tips presented here are just the beginning of a well-optimized Web site. The depth of a successful natural search optimization strategy is beyond the scope of this article, but we hope this guide will help site owners and Webmasters improve their natural search optimization.

Kristy Crabtree is the owner of Westward Strategy & Design Group in Sparks, and Chris Gandolfo is a marketing and design specialist with the firm. Contact them at (775) 720-3521.