spidersplat.com

– Gary E. Haffer - Director of Sales and Marketing SpiderSplat Search Engine algorithms are constantly evolving so that the most relevant sites end up with the highest page ranks. An algorithm is a set of rules that an engine uses to rank the listings contained within its index, in response to a particular query. Google makes algorithmic changes more frequently than leading competitors such as MSN and Yahoo - and it is a constant battle of wits between search engines and search engine marketers. Webmasters and marketers want to know how to manipulate and maintain high page rankings, while search engines strive to make sure the pages with high ranks are the most relevant possible and are filled with valuable content for searchers. Relevancy is one of the biggest perceived differentiators between the main search market share holders.  One of the most important ways to improve your site’s ranking is through link building. Not only will the search engines see links to your site as increasing its relevance, but links from outside sites will always lead to more direct web traffic. Search engines see incoming links as an endorsement or vote for your site. Would you link your website to one that you did not appreciate? In addition, a search engine will think that your site is really important if you are linked to by sites with autonomous link popularity. This gives your website authority and engines will perceive you as a reputable resource. The term “link popularity” refers to the number of indexed inbound links to your website. Simply put - the more websites that link to you the more “popular” your site becomes. Link analysis of this sort evaluates which sites link to you, and what text is being used in the outgoing hyperlink itself. This text should contain keywords that accurately tell search engines how your site should be ranked in relation to the information contained within. For example, if your website sold pottery, ideally sites that link to your domain would contain that keyword: Buy Pottery Online.  One way links to your site are perceived by algorithms to be more important than those you reciprocate. If someone links to you, and you aren’t returning the favor, then that likely means your site is of greater importance. One good way to gain links without having to reciprocate is through the use of testimonials. It is difficult to convince or encourage another site to link to you without reciprocation. Testimonials, however, solve this problem by making it in the best interest of others to link to you. If you write a sincere testimony or review, they are going to want their readers to be able to see it. They must include the source of the testimony - hence your incoming link. Also consider adding your site to the wealth of free online directories.  Frequently adding original content to your site helps you gain page rank, but it can also help to share content with other sites. If other websites want to include your content on their page, then all you have to do is insist they include a link to you or utilize an RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed. Also, write articles that will be of interest to others and then distribute them to other article databases. Incoming links to your site is one of the most important facets of SEO today, and any related effort must include this sort of legwork in order to be truly successful. Utilize directories, RSS, testimonials, press releases and good, original content to encourage links and improve the visibility of your web presence.

By Gary E. Haffer, Director of Sales and Marketing

Below you’ll find potential elements of an ongoing SEO strategy for your site. Some items are going to be immediately applicable, and others may require some creative thinking to see them applied to your business. The challenging, and exciting, aspect of SEO is that is never becomes stagnant and we try to keep our noses in the blogs and server logs to stay current and innovative.

Some specific items to keep in mind in the SEO/SEM toolbox:

1) PRESS RELEASES: A minimum of one a month for a total of at least 12 a year. Ideally you’ll do one every month and target a different market each time. PRs drive direct traffic and via syndication have multiple SEO benefits, the foremost being one-way incoming links. SpiderSplat has a new resource who will increase our PR output capabilities.

2) NEWS & BLOG: Simply put, press releases re-purposed within ‘blog’ style content management system (CMS). The CMS can then be used to post newsworthy items supplementary to the proper PRs. CMS enables SM personnel to easily update content in this ‘News’ section. Frequently updated, original content is a cornerstone of successful SEO efforts. Write about, and link to sites with “in the news” pages. Those mentioned may link back to stories and blog posts which cover their developments.

3) SQUIDOO & OTHERS: The content/social networking sites are among several with SEO benefits via the production of incoming links. We already have content here which points back to numerous pages on our client websites.

4) DIGG & DEL.ICI.OUS & OTHERS: These news aggregation and networking sites continue to become popular, create communities and reveal benefits to SEO. All old and upcoming press releases will be submitted to these networks for more visibility and incoming links.

5) LINKBUILDING: As a very general term, link building is going to remain the key to SEO success for the foreseeable future, and SpiderSplat intends to stay on the bleeding edge of link baiting and development. Link building is time consuming and tedious, and ultimately we’re striving to pack more intelligence and creativity into our methods, as one can only go so far with directory submissions and press releases.

6) SOCIAL MEDIA: Social network visibility: MySpace, Squidoo, HubPages, Digg, Del.ici.ous, etc. In general terms, this is known as SMO, or Social Media Optimization. Original content for related products that will be perceived as objective resources and linked to by surfers without compensation or convincing. SpiderSplat writes original, product related articles for content and offer them up for syndication via an RSS feed or manually arrange content swaps with other webmasters.

To say that SEO has changed by leaps and bounds over the last 5 years would be the understatement… of the last 5 years. What was once a measure of a onsite meta tags and coding dilligence, has now become a larger measure of offsite influences.

Through a focused combination of attention to both your code and your surrounding landscape you can better the chances of your domain being interpreted positively by search engines and in turn reach your target market effectively.

Dave’s 5 Golden Rules of SEO:

1. Optimize Your TITLE Tags: Titles must be unique to each and every page, whenever possible. They should contain your top keywords, in a variety of iterations, throughout your site and be especially targeted to the content of the given page in question.

2. URL Structure: If you don’t need to have fancy dynamic, alpha-numeric URLS, then don’t! Make your URLs SEO-Friendly by incorporating keywords, or automatically mimicking page titles via a readily available mod-rewrite script.

3. External, Incoming, One-Way Link Building: Currently one of the most effective ways in which to increase your rankings is by getting other sites to link back to yours. This can be done via superior original content, press releases, good old fashioned flesh-pressing and more. Get creative. Think of every incoming link as a vote to your site - because the search engines will! Link building is not easy, takes time and is never truly finished. Hang in there.

4. Keyword Density and Placement: Your pages should contain an average of 3-500 words of ASCII text, with multiple keywords and iterations sprinkled healthily throughout. The best rule of thumb when walking the line between density and SPAM is to remember: If the copy reads poorly to you, there’s a good change it will sound funny to the spiders as well. Use keywords and phrases in moderation.

5. Don’t Panic: SEOs do just that - they optimize. Ultimately, webmasters have very little control over how their site is viewed by the major search engines. One can do everything right, follow all of the best practices and still be invisible for their most desired words and phrases. Algorithms fluctutate, and SERPs change - constantly. Just because you’re buried today, or have lost ground for yourself or a client, doesn’t mean that all can’t change in a few days. Stay dilligent with the offsite SEO and make sure you haven’t done anything for which you may be penalized.

How Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can maximize the potential of your business

What it really takes to catapult your URL to the top ranks of all the search engines is a committed, fully dedicated, experienced, and specialized professional outfit armed with all the resources, tools, and technology available in today’s fast-paced internet marketplace. SpiderSplat Consulting’s team of IT professionals, copy-writers, and hands-on managers come to the table with a wide variety of services, programs, and human-to-human contact other firms can’t always guarantee their clients.

A pioneer of the budding Search Engine Optimization industry, SpiderSplat’s unique approach is backed by a crew of highly skilled technicians with vast background, education, and training in novel approaches to internet marketing and Web-site promotion. They employ advanced software, strategies, and techniques that can give your company the on-line edge you need over your competitors.

Friendly person to person communication, deep resources, savvy networking capabilities, and a broad range of prices and options are just a few reasons SpiderSplat Consulting has continuously landed Fortune 500 and Fortune 1000 clients. SpiderSplat even offers basic packages for entrepreneurs and small business owners to get their new sites on the map. It can be extremely difficult to maximize the potential of your on-line business without partners who truly understand how it all works. SpiderSplat’s experts know how to analyze your existing capabilities and traffic and how to connect you with link exchanges and affiliate programs. They can also reconfigure your entire site to ensure keyword searches result in more top ten search engine hits. Competitively priced programs, performance based payment plans, and professional service can all provide customers of SpiderSplat a whole world of options to choose from. 

Start-up businesses with promising products or services can rely on SpiderSplat’s most basic packages to help boost site traffic. Even the most simple on-line marketing strategies and approaches employed by SpiderSplat consultants can mean the difference between success and failure in the exponentially growing on-line marketplace. For a new company it is especially important to start out strong, and the SpiderSplat team can get your company sprinting out of the gates with the right mix of technology, human intelligence, and proven step-by-step optimization services. SpiderSplat professionals have helped some of today’s most profitable and resilient companies move up to the head of the pack.

Even after they are established, successful clients can reap the rewards of SpiderSplat’s long list of available programs to improve existing marketing strategies. Premium services offered by SpiderSplat can help any company race past the competition and secure a spot at the top of the search engine food chain. SpiderSplat’s team always gets the job done right and stays focused on constant improvement.

(more…)

What’s a search marketing professional to do when their vertical of choice becomes completely flooded? Or, more accurately, what’s a search engine marketing professional to do - period? When the low-hanging fruit is a fond memory, it’s time to break out the 24 foot extendable ladder.This article didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know, but it’s a good shortcut for the newbie. In a nutshell, find the more obscure phrases that people use to find what you’re selling. When it comes to PPC, locating these “sweet spots” is what SEM firms spend hours doing every day across the globe. But how many people are building pages that are focused specifically on terms like “discount blue baby bedding”? The longer the keyword phrase, the less people are likely competing to optimize for it.

Yes, we all already knew this. But when applied to page creation as opposed to PPC - it got my brain working. Stay tuned for my brand new site: www.brightredrubberpickuptruckfloormats.com.

Tim O’reilly recently wrote an article in his blog about paid links. Many people have commented about this article including Matt Cutts of Google. The gist of the article is how advertisers pay not only for the click throughs, but also for the Google Page Rank. I’ll leave aside the philosophical debate on if paid links are good or bad. The one thing that caught my attention was Matt’s comment about how Google does not trust certain sites when passing on link popularity. To quote Matt, ‘just because a site shows up for a “link:” command on Google does not mean that it passes PageRank, reputation, or anchortext’.Bottom line is that you have to be careful when buying links, why do you want a specific link? If it is for the potential click through or brand management in the field, go right a head. However, if the only reason for you buying that link is Page Rank and increased position in the search results, make sure you do your homework before paying for it.

Performance SEO recently sent out an online press release (info on file) claiming some revolutionary new pricing model. “trademarked pricing model consists of a standard 6 month agreement during which payments are broken out evenly. An optional maintenance program is then offered”. I have not looked into the trademark, but it does not seem to new to me.

Peaking my interest, I visited their website. The first thing I noticed was that their Google Page Rank is 0. A quick search on Google, show some 16 pages indexed, meaning the PR 0 was not due to a penalization. A domain whois check showed the domain was only registered in July (3 months ago) – yet the press release claims they have “28 years of combined experience”.

I then browsed through the site, to look at their pricing. They have a page labeled pricing and the whole press release goes on about their pricing model, so I thought I’d take a peak. The page has some text, a graph with representing their work, your results and your costs. At the bottom of a page there was a link to contact them. I understand that special jobs require custom quotes and contracts, but you’d think that after all the hype they would at least put in some basic prices so that one could compare them to the rest – silly me.

That’s three strikes in my book (brand new domain, no Page Rank and no prices where you would expect them). I hope they are not waiting for me to click the contact link at the bottom of that page to contact them, because they will just be waiting in vain.

The world of ecommerce is often times baffling as to the specifics of how everything works. Frequently, one successful strategy in a certain scenario fails to make a dent in another. Although there are no absolutes in this business, there are some helpful guidelines that can boost your conversions. First of all, 1% conversion is roughly the standard in the business. It may seem like a small number, but considering the volume of traffic that goes through a site; a conversion rate of 1.9% as reported by Shop.org in 2004 is average.

There are many fine touches one can make in order to improve conversion rates; however, three key areas to focus on are website simplicity, humanization, and security. Nothing is more frustrating for an online shopper than a complex website with excessive scrolling, a navigation system that takes you everywhere except where you want to be, or intrusive pop-up windows. By keeping everything organized and making the shopping experience as intuitive as possible, potential buyers just may take that extra step and become a customer. This idea of keeping it simple holds true especially during the checkout phase because nothing will make you pull out your hair quicker than a lost sale during checkout. Make prices of products big and bold and post shipping rates upfront or possibly consider free shipping on selective products altogether.

Once you’ve managed to organize and simplify your website, then next phase is to bring a human element. The internet is a cold world of anonymity and in order to bring a more enjoyable experience to a potential buyer; they need a sign of reassurance that you’re not just another faceless corporate company. By developing an in-depth “about us” page citing company history, a bond of trust is instilled within the user. Another little touch is posting real pictures of employees past customers or even testimonials, all of which adds a bit of warmth.

With so much news about hackers, identity theft, and viruses floating around the internet these days, security is a big issue especially with ecommerce. Subscribing to a knowledgeable online security company and posting the logo prominently on your website is a big plus with consumers. Utilizing SSL and making sure to let users know it within your privacy policy also helps. With the knowledge that they are safe from the prying eyes of online intruders, potential buyers feel free to unlock that safe they stash their credit cards in.

By no means are these guides the only way to improve conversion rates; however they are a good starting point. In the end, the key ingredient within the relationship between buyer and seller is and always has been trust. Once you’ve gained that bond, you must strive even harder just to maintain it.

The competition in the SEO/SEM/SMO arena is quickly becoming saturated with industry leaders, medium-sized optimization firms, boutiques, and start-ups. Everybody wants a piece of the action, be it the SEO service provider or the business owner looking for the SEO. Business owners who are looking to place their website in the hands of an SEO firm may find that their options are as confusing as the industry lingo. Here are some things to consider when choosing a firm that’s right for you.

How does the SEO/SEM firm operate?
SEO/SEM firms operate in varying ways using varying techniques to push your website. The most important things to look for are link building, original content generation, site compliance, and their ability to properly format your website’s title and meta tags.

Link building is one if the most important aspects of SEO. Part of a website’s validity and quality is measured by the number of links from other websites pointing back to yours. The major search engines use this number as part of a larger algorithm to rank your website against the other billions of websites out there. When shopping for SEO firms, make sure you ask them how they handle this. Link building can be done manually or automatically in-house, or outsourced. There is no perfect scenario for implementing this but make sure you ask your SEO for a record of where the link building is being done. Sites that link back to yours should contain content that’s relevant to your content. If you sell lampshades and you have 10 websites that link to you that sell ping pong tables then those 10 links aren’t worth much.

(more…)

Search Engines, such as, Google, Yahoo and MSN, sift through the seemingly infinite pages of the internet to bring you to exactly what you are looking for. At least, that’s what they set out to do. Google has had a stronghold on the industry for as long as most users can remember, with Yahoo, MSN, AOL and AskJeeves bringing up the rear. However in recent years the gap between Google and it’s search competitors has decreased, and now both Yahoo and MSN are threatening to encroach Google’s once dominant market share.

Since its separation from Google in 2003, Yahoo has broken away from its former partner to become an industry threat with its own proprietary search technology. A study done by The comScore Media Metrix indicated that before the split Google held 79% of the market while Yahoo held a mere 16%. However - as of late 2005 this Yahoo’s portion increased to an impressive 42%.

The future of the market is also dependent on which Search Engine is perceived as more convenient, user friendly and appealing to consumers. Google and Yahoo differ in their search result styles with the latter displaying each result with a description of the page, while Google writes its own description based on the first paragraph of the webpage’s copy. Other competitors, such as AOL and AskJeeves, are adding new and unique features to keep up with the race. For example, AOL now suggests search phrases as you type your inquiry and AskJeeves displays a thumbnail of the SERP webpage result. (more…)