by Jonathon Hyjek | Aug 13, 2012 | Search Engine Optimization
Being on page #1 in Google is exciting. That special moment when you realize that all your SEO work has paid off and you finally make it to first place.
But is there ever a time when being #1 in Google isn’t a big deal?
I can think of a circumstance when being #1 isn’t really a big deal.
When no one is competing for your keywords!
It happens. You may have a very specific niche in a small geographic area and in order for you to rank on the first page of Google for various search terms, it isn’t very hard. Some search terms get so little search volume and have no competition that any mediocre SEO company is going to be able to get you onto page one pretty easily.
If your website falls into this category, maybe it’s time you did some keyword research. There are terms that you can rank #1 in Google for, and because there just isn’t any demand for those search terms, that being #1 isn’t going to help you much. If your search terms are legitimately so narrow that no one is competing for them, that’s one thing; But if your just trying to compete for the WRONG search terms for your business, that’s a totally different problem.
Doing keyword research means that not only do you find keywords that you want to rank for, but you find keywords that you want to rank for that actually have search volume. There’s no challenge in ranking for terms that get next to no search traffic, on the other hand it cane be pretty difficult to rank for terms that get a lot of search volume and this is when having an SEO company working for you can really pay off.
Afterall, investing your SEO efforts on ranking for keywords that no one is searching for is a complete waste of time and money.
by Jonathon Hyjek | Aug 1, 2012 | Search Engine Optimization
There seems to be a wide variety of SEO experts that offer services in various cities around the globe and their talents are just as diverse as their geographic locations. Some SEO’s spend all their time focused on the mechanics and technology of search engine optimization, while others focus more on the marketing and creative aspects of SEO.
Which Way is the Right Way?
That’s not an easy question to answer because it’s going to depend on the stage that your company and your website is currently at. For example, for an established brand with a strong marketing behind them, they may need a more technical SEO to analyze their website structure in detail, scan their HTML or other coding to make sure there are no issues or to dig through your Analytics data to find an issue. Don’t get me wrong. This is an important task and should be done, but that’s not all there is to SEO either.
Good SEO starts with a plan. A plan that involves the previous elements mentioned, but also goes on to address branding, your message, your target markets, where your target market spends their time online and how to reach them. A good SEO will help you to connect with your audience online through persuasive copy that resonates with your audience, hits them at the heart level and creates an action or reaction.
The SEO professional who is able to create a reaction and connect with your audience through effective and persuasive content may not be the same person or company that’s able to dig through your html code and find the errors. On the other hand, it might be the same person or company.
A good SEO company is going to have a great blend of both creative individuals, but also a technical side as well. Finding both of these traits in a freelance SEO may or may not happen, but here’s a tip: If you’re looking for an SEO and you find one offering services for $10 per hour on an internet forum, run the other way. A good SEO knows their worth and it’s definitely not $10 per hour. It’s more than likely $100+ per hour and in some cases much, much more.through your code, or comb through your website structure to determine the issue.
SEO is one case where you get what you pay for
by Jonathon Hyjek | Jul 30, 2012 | Search Engine Optimization
The past year has been a difficult one for those in the SEO business, or at least those that rely on tricks and gimmicks in order to help clients reach the first page of Google. You don’t have to look far to find an “SEO expert” that will promise to get your website onto page one, or better yet, to position number one in Google in a few days. At one point in time, this was actually a feasible promise as there seemed to be an endless number of holes in Google’s algorithms that allowed SEO experts and spammers to game the system and get an unworthy website into the top spots.
Early SEO Gimmicks
Rewind to the early days of SEO when web directories and backlinks were everything. All you had to do was get your website listed on hundreds or thousands of web directories and in the sidebar of unrelated websites and your website would soon move onto page one. Companies and individuals jumped on the bandwagon realizing that there was money to be made not only in submitting websites to directories by the hundreds, but also in promising to get a client’s website to the number one position. They knew this little loophole and they capitalized on it and made plenty of money doing so. An unsuspecting client didn’t know any better. Soon the search engines began to realize that this loophole needed to be closed and they began to devalue links from directories.
Next up was Article Marketing. Someone on a blog somewhere in cyberspace recognized that Google ranked websites well if they simply submitted articles to article directories like Ezinearticles.com or Goarticles.com. Once the loophole was exposed, the article writing business took off. All you had to do was log on to any webmaster forum and you could find companies willing to write and submit content on your behalf to these article directories. For as little as a few dollars per article, you were essentially buying backlinks on article directories and this worked very well for about 3 or 4 years. This gave birth to thousands of low quality article directories spamming the internet. This terrible quality content was everywhere and it was ranking on the first page of Google. The problem was that this content lacked any real value. It was poorly written, had grammar and spelling mistakes and just didn’t give readers anything of value. 2011 and 2012 were great years for cleaning up this spam. With the Google Panda and Penguin updates, article marketing became devalued. Submitting hundreds of low quality articles no longer got your website to the first page.
Google Gets Serious
Fast forward to 2011 when Google started to get aggressive with tweaking their algorithm in an effort to rank websites not according to gimmicks, but according to their value to the reader. All the SEO changes that Google have made in the past 2 years has infuriated many SEO “experts,” but for those that work with high quality clients and don’t use underhanded techniques, this has been a welcome sign that Google and other search engines are serious about quality. Not only are they serious about the quality of websites but they are just as passionate about the quality of the content on these websites. Google is tight-lipped about what exactly they are looking for, but we do know a few things about what needs to happen to cause a website to have consistently good rankings.
Stop Thinking About Scamming the System
For many, this is going to need to be an ideological shift. They will need to stop thinking “What can I do to game the system?” and start looking at the website and its content. For a business owner or webmaster, the following tips will give you a great start on learning how to get your website ranking well.
Build for Readers
If you were looking for a product or service and you naturally turned to the internet for information, what would YOU like to find? Would you like to find poor quality articles with no value? Or, would you like to find high quality articles that offered honest information about the product or service? Think about your customers or your readers. What are they looking for? You have a wonderful opportunity to meet the needs of your customers and clients and show them that you are eager to give them high quality information. You have a captive audience, waiting to hear from you through your company’s blog or social media outlets. Don’t waste it.
Stay Up-To-Date
I was recently looking for a price to get a suit dry cleaned and I searched for a few local cleaners. I came across one of the larger dry cleaners in the area and it proudly said “Welcome to our new website.” That was the only article on the website and it was dated April 2008. The problem was that I was searching for this information in June of 2012. 4 years ago this company posted on their website’s blog and that was it. They never touched it again. I’m sure you have witnessed many examples of this – Twitter accounts and Facebook pages with only 1 post, or blogs with a few posts from several years ago. When I come across these website I immediately get the feeling that this company is out of date and it reflects on their business. Even if you don’t have time to blog or use social media on a regular basis, hire someone to do this for you.
Communicate with Your Readers
The internet has done a lot for small and medium sized businesses. It has leveled the playing field and allows smaller organizations and businesses to market for next-to-no investment. It’s also given businesses the opportunity to communicate with their customers and clients in real-time, which means there are no expensive mailings, or TV or radio commercials to produce. All you have to do is take part in the social media community, be authentic and communicate with your clients and customers in a real, transparent manner and it will grow your business. Consistency and authenticity can go a long way in engaging with your clients or prospective clients and customers.
Help Stop the Cycle of Bad SEO
All the SEO gimmicks of the past are supposedly behind us. Google is serious about quality and thankfully web results are getting better. Unfortunately there’s not a surefire way for them to totally eliminate spam and poor quality content from the internet, but you can do your part. Don’t fall for quick and easy SEO gimmicks advertised all over the internet. If you need SEO help or advice, work with someone that you can trust. Look for an SEO company that you can foster a long-term relationship of trust with, not a fly-by-night “expert” that may end up causing more harm than good.
by Jonathon Hyjek | Jul 25, 2012 | Search Engine Optimization
Fresh content is important from an SEO standpoint, so let me get that right out there at the beginning of this post. From a practical standpoint, I would suggest that it’s even more important. There’s nothing worse than going to a blog’s front page and noticing that the last time they posted was last year! There’s plenty of talk in the SEO community though about how fresh content ranks better in Google’s search results, but I don’t believe that’s entirely true.
Here’s been my experience with how content ranks in Google when talking about “freshness.”
1.) Established websites that continue to write fresh content will more easily maintain their rankings. Fresh content is like a placeholder for these websites.
Fresh content is important to keep Google interested in your website, but it’s not the only game in town either. It’s just part of the puzzle and needs to be supplemented by social media, building quality backlinks (or better yet, acquiring them because your content is great.)
2.) New websites that post content can see small increases in their search engine rankings each time they post new content. If you’re on page 4 and in spot 8, after new content is published, you may move up a few spots, or maybe even make it onto page 3 for a short time, only to slip back.
It needs to be noted that SEO is a total picture and looking at just one element isn’t healthy. Fresh content is a piece, but only ONE piece of a puzzle that includes many pieces.
by Jonathon Hyjek | Jul 23, 2012 | Website Design
There seems to be an ever-increasing trend toward everyone thinking that they are an expert and wanting to build their own website to save a few dollars. While I do agree that some website designers charge far too much for their services, many times in an effort to cover their high overheard, I don’t believe that most business owners have the time, skill, patience or artistic eye to build a website that will represent their business professionally.
About 10 years ago I bought a cheap, new car that didn’t have a good reputation for their quality. After only a few years of driving it, the paint started to peel off of the bumper. I hated the look for the peeling paint, but didn’t have the money to take it to a body shop and have it repaired professionally. It was going to cost likely $200-$300 to fix and times were tough.
I decided to Google how to fix these blemishes and I found lots of information. The next step was to visit my local Canadian Tire store and look at the auto body section. I picked up some supplies and spray paint that matched the paint on my car and went home to give it a try. It was a nice sunny day, so I just worked in my driveway because I didn’t have a garage to pull the car into. I figured that it wasn’t very windy outside, so it wouldn’t matter. After a few hours of spraying and sanding and spraying some more I was done. Guess what? It looked TERRIBLE. I’m not sure if the new paint job or the previous peeling problem was worse.
I was disheartened by my little adventure into the auto body business, but it didn’t end there. A year or two later I needed to trade that car in for something else. As they were going over the car, determining the trade-in value, they noted my awful work and said that it would have to be repainted professionally. They knocked a few hundred dollars off the value to cover the repairs.
The moral of the story…
Don’t pretend you know how to do everything. If you need to call in a professional, do it!
When it comes to websites, it could be one of your most important assets. Long before a person calls you to inquire about your services or walks into your retail store, they’re going to visit your website. If your website is poor quality, it reflects on your business. Don’t just think that “it’s good enough.” That kind of attitude isn’t helpful, especially in our very web-savvy world. Customers and prospective customers will judge your company by the quality of the website and if it doesn’t look professional, those customers may never call or visit.
Is it worth losing out on potential customers, just to save a little money?
Free website builders have a number of flaws.
1. Free website builders usually have about 10 templates that you can use, so chances are good that there are an awful lot of websites out there that look exactly like yours.
2. With a completely free website builder, you don’t get your own domain name. Nothing says “cheap” like having to go to a website address that has a URL like mybusiness.yolasite.com or mybusiness.webs.com. Every customer that visits is going to know you didn’t invest anything into your website.
3. Don’t pretend that you can do everything. I know I can’t! I can’t fix my car and I won’t even attempt it. I take it to a local mechanic who charges $80 per hour. It’s a lot of money, but I know it gets done right. If you don’t have an eye for details or you aren’t a great website content writer, don’t try to be. Let someone else do that.
4. Free website builders have a lot of limitations. You basically take what they give you. If you’ve got an idea, a unique way to use your website or whatever, it’s not going to happen using a free website builder.
As an individual that builds websites for very small businesses, I am quite aware that money can be a big problem for most small businesses. That’s why for my clients, I prefer to be flexible with payment plans and try to give them a good deal, before I recommend going to a free website builder. I just hate seeing people try to struggle through building their own website when we could just work something out.
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