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– 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.

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“Information is the currency of the internet. As a medium, the internet is brilliantly efficient at shifting information from the hands of those who have it into the hands of those who do not.” (Levitt & Dubner 2005 p.68)

What economist Steven Levitt and journalist Stephen Dubner are talking about here in their wildly popular book Freakonomics, is the empowerment of the consumer via the availability of information. Typically within specialized industries or disciplines there are experts and then there are the consumers who need the expert advice. The experts are considered such due to their experience and the information they’re privy to. With the advent of the internet, this imbalance of information or what economists call ‘information asymmetry’ is no longer so.

Professional search marketers absorb an excessive amount of daily data via blogs, campaign results, and traffic logs in an effort to stay up to speed with search engine performance changes and to stay ahead of the competition. However, the search marketer is constantly at a disadvantage since the search engine programmer is the only one with absolute knowledge pertaining to their search engine’s mechanics. In a strange twist, the internet, in all its grand execution of information deliverability can only shed a dim light on the full scope of search engine functionality. (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.

According to Juniper Research, over 85% of all Internet surfers are directed by search engines and with over $300 billion worth of eCommerce in the year 2006, making it tempting for many companies to enter the online sector. Having an effective SEM Campaign is essential for getting listed among the top search engines today. Using the techniques described in this article will greatly improve the chances of your website getting listed on search engines.

A search engine is an online service that can aid a user in finding a web page that contains particular content the user is looking for. There are many different search engine services on the web. They are primarily distinguished from each other by the way they gather their information. Searching these engines only requires a small text command, and there are many ways to narrow down your searches. According to new research conducted by Jupiter Research, 62% of search engine users click on a search result within the first page of results, and a full 90% of users click on a result within the first three pages of search results. In this article, I will examine the techniques that can help to get your website rank well among the top search engines.

A Meta tag is a small piece html code used by a website to control what a search engine categorizes and stores the site as in their database. It basically tells the search engine what you want your page listed as. Search engines are used by millions of people around the world on a daily basis. They are the easiest and most user-friendly way to find content on the Internet. They provide an invaluable service to the Internet user by providing a huge database of websites that the user can quickly search through.
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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.

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. (more…)

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.

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