by Jonathon Hyjek | Sep 9, 2012 | Search Engine Optimization
Over the course of completing SEO audits, I consistently see SEO issues that are avoidable, even by amateurs. For example, improper page titles are a very important SEO component that still get overlooked for the value that they can bring. Page titles are one of the factors that will tell the search engines what a web page is about. Combined with meta description, on-page content and backlinks with relevant anchor text, these factors help Google determine how to rank your page or website for certain search terms. This of course is a simplistic view as many other factors apply, but just because this is a basic concept, doesn’t mean it’s not an important one.
Time and time again I see page titles written in a way that is inefficient and sometimes, just wrong. For those that don’t know what I’m talking about, the best way to describe a page title is to go to a website/webpage and look up at the top of your browser. This is the title of the particular page and there’s a right way to write the page title and there’s a wrong way.
Page Titles – The Basics
The page title should be descriptive of what a particular page is about. If your website is selling “yellow widgets” on an individual page, using “yellow widgets” is a great start for your page title. You have about 60 to 65 characters to work with in a page title, so it’s usually a good idea to use up your available characters, if you can use them without looking spammy. Putting a location in your page title may be a good idea as well, especially if your website is targeted at a certain geographic area. It’s likely that people will type “yellow widgets in Toronto” into their Google search page, so adding the location may be of benefit.
Wasting Page Title Real Estate
Time and time again I see websites wasting SEO real estate by putting words or phrases in their page titles that do nothing but waste space. For example, if your company name is “The Blue, Green & Yellow Widget Company,” using that in your page title may seem logical, but it’s a waste of characters, since you only have about 20-25 characters left to tell your visitors and the search engines what that page is about. It’s common for websites to have their company title on every page title, but this isn’t a great title in many cases. Putting your company name on your index page can be a good move for some companies trying to build their brand, but not for everyone.
Some companies waste page title space by putting a slogan in the page title. This may work for your home page (maybe,) but it’s a bad idea for the bulk of your pages. This is another waste of space that should be avoided in most cases.
Duplicate Page Titles
It’s tempting when building a website to just put the same page title on every page of a website. This is a bad idea! Make sure every page has a unique title that is descriptive of what’s on the page.
“Home” is Not a Good Page Title
An unnamed, fairly high profile website in the city I live (London, Ontario) has a page title that makes me laugh. The saddest part of this is that the website was built by a big web design agency in London and they should know better. What’s the page title that I’m referring to? Here it is: “HOME – Company Name”
This page title makes me laugh. Yes, it is the “homepage” but it’s not really important for them to tell everyone that their index page is called “HOME.” It’s not a big deal in that it only uses up 4 characters, but it’s unnecessary.
Keyword Research Is at the Foundation of a Good Page Title
Your page titles should be determined after you have done thorough keyword research to find out what phrases and keywords actually get enough search volume to make them worth pursuing. There’s no sense using a page title that doesn’t get much search volume or one that isn’t descriptive of what’s on the page.
An Optimum Page Title
An optimum page title is goes something like this:
Keyword 1 | Keyword 2 | Company Name or Brand
Remember, you only have 60 to 65 characters to work with, so sometimes you have to make sacrifices with a page title, but the above is a general guideline that works well.
Choosing the right page titles should be done after some thought and research and not chosen in haste. Choose page titles that describe what service or product you provide, make them keyword rich and possibly include a geographic location if appropriate or maybe your brand/company name, but avoid wasting space with redundant information.
by Jonathon Hyjek | Aug 22, 2012 | Search Engine Optimization
You don’t have to look very hard to find an SEO company to help you improve your rankings. Just Google the term “SEO company”, do a search on Twitter or check out Linkedin and you will be faced with hundreds or thousands of results for SEO companies and independent consultants who claim to all be able to get your website onto the front page of Google.
How do you know which company or consultant to trust? How do you know what they’re telling you is true?
SEO is a field that technically doesn’t have right or wrong answers because there isn’t a formal/official body that oversees the industry. It’s not like doing a safety check on a car or wiring a house where there’s a right way and a wrong way. There’s a standard list of do’s and don’ts.
SEO isn’t like that. There are tactics and strategies that one SEO company will use and another will avoid. Each company has their own way of doing things and it may vary slightly from what another company does. At the end of it all, there isn’t an official body or group that oversees and makes sure that SEO is done right because in one sense, it’s like nailing jello to the wall!
SEO is Evolving
SEO is an ever-changing and evolving field and what worked 12 months ago may not work as well today, or might not work at all. That in itself isn’t a bad thing as it keeps professional SEO consultants and companies on their toes. Daily reading of whats happening in the industry and with Google is just part of understanding the field.
Bad SEO Companies Use Old Methods
With the SEO world changing so rapidly, what sets a good SEO company apart from a bad one is updated information. Good SEO companies are always learning, reading and testing to keep up with the changes and evolving their techniques and strategies as Google rolls out changes to their search algorithm.
SEO Company Tactics to Avoid
If you ever see phrases like this, you might be dealing with a company that “thinks” they know SEO, but they clearly do not.
“We will submit your website to search engines”
“We will submit your website to hundreds of web directories”
“We will submit hundreds of articles to article directories”
“We guarantee #1 rankings”
Other Warning Signs
If an SEO company is secretive about their methods and they aren’t able to answer your questions, you might want to look elsewhere. While every SEO company isn’t going to know everything there is to know, if they can’t or aren’t willing to talk specifics about your SEO campaign, it’s probably time to find another SEO company.
Work with Someone You Can Trust
If you find a good SEO company that you feel that you can trust, settle in for the long haul. Don’t look at it like a one-time transaction, but rather a long-term relationship.
by Jonathon Hyjek | Aug 16, 2012 | Search Engine Optimization
The key to being on page one is complex yet at the same time, quite simple. Many brands and websites are doing “seo” without realizing that they are doing it because it comes naturally to them and their marketing. Getting to the first page of Google might be much easier than you think.
Here’s the Secret:
Be good at what you do, talk about it on your website, talk about it elsewhere on the web, make other people talk about it and then talk about it some more.
That may be a very simplified way to look at it, but it’s true. The old days of marketing are long gone. Gone are the days when you could slap an advertisement in the newspaper every quarter and rely on it to bring you new business. You need to be everywhere, all the time but without being annoying. You need to be blogging about your business, your accomplishments, your product offering and blogging just to give helpful tips and information without self-promotion. In fact, these types of useful pieces of content are the ones that get shared and spread broadly across the internet and help your SEO efforts tremendously.
Blog Your Way to the Top
If you aren’t blogging or writing content on your company website on a fairly regular basis (more than once per week) then you are missing out on tremendous opportunity to get higher rankings. You may not be a great writer and that’s ok, because blogging doesn’t require you to be a prize winning writer; It requires that you have something to say and that your personality comes out in your writing.
Here’s a good method to follow that is sure to get you noticed by the search engines and it’s a great start or a local business with limited funds.
1. Make sure your website includes a blog on the site. If the website is built on WordPress, that’s easy.
2. Write a blog post at least once per week. Make sure it’s not completely promotional, but actual has some value. Give tips, tricks or information about your product or service and take time to educate your readers.
3. Tweet your new blog post out to your Twitter followers and post it to Facebook as well. Make sure people see it.
4. Hopefully you have written something that gets shared, re-tweeted and commented on.
5. Rinse and Repeat. Do this as often as you can to generate discussion and soon enough you have visitors and your search engine rankings will improve.
One Step Down, 20 to Go
As I said before, this is an oversimplified way to improve search engine rankings, but it works. It’s not the ONLY thing you need to concern yourself with though. There are other elements to SEO and each step you take will further improve your rankings.
by Jonathon Hyjek | Aug 15, 2012 | Search Engine Optimization
A sobering reminder for any SEO professional or website owner desperately trying to crack the front page of the search engines.
A staggering 75% of internet users never go past the first page when searching in Google!
The sad reminder of this fact is that if your website isn’t on the first page of Google, your website is only performing at maximum – 25% capacity in terms of it’s search engine traffic capacity. Even scarier is that the coveted page #1 position has only 10 spots available and there are thousands, hundreds of thousands or maybe even millions of websites are competing for that spot. If you don’t bring your A-Game to your SEO efforts, someone else will. When that happens, you end up on page 2, 5, 18, or 72!
You might be happy being on page #2 in a Google search, but all that means is that you’re the first loser.
I’m not trying to be harsh or insensitive, but rather make your realize that “good enough” doesn’t cut it in the SEO world. You need to be on page one for as many search terms as possible and you need to work hard to stay in that position. Every day that you’re not in the number one spot, you’re losing out on potential customers and sales. Your competitor who holds the page #1 spot for your optimum keywords is essentially taking your customers from you.
Don’t just sit back and let your website be a victim of your lack of time, experience, expertise or laziness. Take charge of your SEO efforts, or let someone else take charge of them.
Your website is an investment not an expense. It should have an ROI.
If your website has only ever been an expense, you’ve been doing something wrong. A website costs money to build and maintain, but it should have a fairly tangible ROI. You should be getting leads through your website, and leads that convert to sales or clients and this is something you should be able to measure.
The difference between a poor performing website and one that bring in sales/customers/leads/prospects is a very thin line because quite often it’s not the actual website that’s the problem. It’s the website’s search engine rankings that are preventing the website from reaching out and touching your prospective clients/customers.
An SEO audit and strategy can solve this!
by Jonathon Hyjek | Aug 14, 2012 | Search Engine Optimization
An SEO audit is the foundation of an SEO campaign because it gives us an understanding of the factors affecting a websites search engine rankings. Until we do an SEO audit, we can’t fully understand what we need to do in order for your website to be a success.
SEO Panic…
The usual scenario unfortunately goes like this: A company realizes that their website is under-performing in the search engine rankings so they start doing completely random activities like link building or article marketing in a flurry of activity, trying to get their website rankings to improve. It’s a panicked approach to taking action and often fails because activity apart from a strategy is an inefficient way to spend your SEO efforts and may even lead to a penalty.
A better approach is to have an SEO audit completed to get a full picture of where your website stands, the issues affecting your rankings and the solutions to improve. This method offers a more methodical approach to SEO and is a must for any company or organization serious about website rankings.
What’s included in an SEO Audit?
An SEO audit is the starting place that allows us to help you build a strategy. The SEO audit addresses many factors including:
- Keyword Research, Placement & Anchor Text
- Google Analytics & Webmaster Tools Data
- Response Codes (404, 301, 302 etc.,)
- Sitemap, Robots.txt & .htacess Analysis
- Title Tag & Meta Information review
- On-site & Off-site Content/Media Review (text, video, images)
- Website Structure & Usability
- Backlink Analysis
- Competition Comparison
- Social Media, Web2.0 & 3.0 property evaluation
- Up to 2 hours of SEO coaching to help implement recommendations
The SEO Audit is Done: Now What?
The good news is that our SEO audits don’t just tell you the issues, but they give you the solutions and actionable steps to improve your rankings. We write the report in plain, easy to understand language with steps that can either be implemented by your in-house developer or team, or you can inquire about an SEO package with Jonathon Hyjek and allow us to work to build your rankings.
To answer the question at the outset of this post: Do you need an SEO audit? For many, the answer will be YES without any hesitation.
