Recently I have again noticed the “related searches” when I have Googled terms such as “running shoe” or “road bike” (getting ready for triathlon season again!). I noticed that Google is suggesting certain “brands”, “stores”, or “types” of the phrase I am searching. There is not much information about this I can find on the web, so I would like to offer my input as to what is going on here and how to show up in these “related searches” –please chime in if anyone has more input.
Load times are important, not only for SEO but for the user experience as well. Here is a tip I have used to improve load times on my sites, especially those with a lot of images. Before we begin, however, I must make a disclaimer. First, this will only be one tip to improve; there are many things you can do on your site that will improve load times. Adjusting your .htaccess file incorrectly can blow up a site, so do a site backup first (I always do this when altering anything) and if you are novice, you may want someone with experience to help you out.
I recently flew to Seattle and was observing something peculiar in the baggage claim area. In an area next to the baggage claim, there were what appeared to be information booths. I saw many people talking to the few gentlemen that occupied these booths and as I watched a little longer, people were walking away a bit annoyed. I observed the gentlemen call to another person walking by asking them, “Hello, do you need some help?” The person would stop and ask a question, and then the men would start into a pitch trying to sell them time-shares and other things. How annoying! By now you’re hopefully thinking…okay, what does this have to do with SEO??
There has already been a lot of conversation in the SEO industry about how various keyword rankings have increased or lowered on Google for local results, so I won’t rehash that too much here.
However, I did want to share my experience with one of my locally based business websites and one of my “national” business website and their respective rankings for local keywords. Read On
Chirp chirp. Chirp chirp.
Sometimes I hear the sound of crickets when I stumble across certain blogs written by small business owners. At first glance, the content is good, thorough, and up-to-date, but the page rank is 0 and there are a dozen signs leading me to believe that no one reads this blog. What is a blogger to do? Simple! Adopt a simple, 5-minute SEO routine that will gradually turn into a habit over time. Following an SEO routine will increase the chances of your blog finding luck in search engine results, and in turn increase traffic to your site. Read On
When Google released their new keyword tool, I was optimistic. Google tools are always awesome, right? Sadly, the latest tool release, the Google keyword tool, leaves one of the most important markets out in the cold: local search.
Geo targeting in AdWords and local maps listings for businesses are just a couple of the examples of products that Google has created entirely for the local market. Google loves local!
So imagine my surprise when I open up Google’s new keyword tool to run some local keywords and see that the new tool has flipped the opposite way – not only does it favor national keyterms, but it eschews geo qualifiers.
This is a question I get all the time. In short, the nofollow attribute in HTML is a way for you to tag a link to suggest to the search engines that they ignore this link’s existence. When I say ‘ignore the link’, I mean that Google won’t use the link for any of the 3 ways that Google uses links. That means they won’t visit the link to find new content, they won’t give link popularity through it, and they won’t take the anchor text as a clue for what keyword the content should rank for.
We know how humans use links – simply to redirect visitors to different resources. BORING! When Google came onto the scene, they innovated by introducing popularity into the search algorithm. The key to this popularity is linking. There are three ways that search engines use links to accomplish their purposes. These are:
1. Find new content to add to the index
2. To attribute popularity to the page being linked to
3. Anchor text as a clue to which keywords the content might be relevant for
Considering all the uses that search engines have for our links, it’s probably pretty important to make sure your linking strategy is sound.
Anyone who’s ever read anything about SEO knows that building links is important, but what does it mean? There are potentially millions of reasons for one site to link to another
Everyone is looking for the silver bullet with linkbuilding – how to create a process where you can easily, quickly, cheaply, and reliably create links that count and make a difference in your rankings? I’ll tell you that there is no golden gun (James Bond reference, anyone?) for getting awesome links.
In linkbuilding, scalability and effectiveness share an inverse relationship:
Many people are curious as to how they can find their website’s backlinks, especially if they are currently executing an SEO campaign. Now, there are a lot of tools out there that can give you a list of your website’s backlinks, but I’m just going to mention a few tools Read On
