I’ve been doing this SEO stuff for a long time, long enough to remember search engines like snap, hotbot, lycos, etc.  Things have greatly evolved when it comes to search since the good ole days, one evolution in particular is how we tell search engines about your new content or brand new web site. Back in the day, we had a whole list of places (URL’s) to submit a clients web site to. We would go to snap, hotbot, lycos, google, etc. and hand submit the URL, sometimes choosing categories, demographics, etc.  Fast forward about 12 years:

I laugh every time I see an alleged SEO company selling the dream of submitting your web site to thousands of directories and search engines (especially when they still have some of the non-existent search engines in the list.) The truth and reality is this: we do still submit web sites, sort of.  We build an XML sitemap and make certain that this sitemap is available for the search engines to digest.  For example, Yahoo has an area where we submit our clients XML sitemaps to, Google has the same. It is up to us to keep that XML sitemap fresh and updated. The search engines crawl this sitemap and are aware of any new links / pages we have created, thus helping us to get those pages indexed quickly and efficiently.

Who knows what tomorrow will bring in terms of search, but it is critical to stay on top of what the search engines are up to and how they are crawling / and / or indexing web sites.

As the major search engines strive to pull more market share from searchers seeking relevant and up to the minute search results, there are several black hat SEO companies out there seeking to position their clients through deceitful practices.  These practices violate the terms of use on the major search engines including Google, Bing & Yahoo. The search engines are constantly evolving to help combat blackhats, and the blackhats are constantly evolving to combat the new algorithms. Some of these practices involve (but are not limited to) the following:

Cloaking: Cloaking is the process of sending the web site visitor to one page while serving the search engines with another page, typically stuffed with keywords, etc.  There are ways to spot cloaking, but it involves adding an ‘agent switcher’ plugin in the Firefox browser:  http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/000821.html

Invisible Text: One other (more dated) unethical SEO tactic is to ‘hide’ text on the page so that the search engines see that text as they crawl the page.  The text is written for the search engines and typically stuffed with keywords.  You can spot invisible text by using your mouse and highlighting areas that are other wise blank: this can highlight all of the ‘invisible’ words.

Doorway Pages: A doorway page is simply a page written solely for search engines and NOT for the user.  Doorway pages are not usually seen by the end user and only by search engines.  They are typically stuffed with links pointing to the target domain name and crammed with keywords and spam copy.

Keyword Stuffing: This is the process of just jamming your web pages full of your target keywords, whether out in the open or hidden.  This is easily spotted by any user who attempts to read the copy and notes it is not written for human beings, but for search engines.

There are many tactics including some off site SEO tricks involving link farms, automated bots, etc. but the above is a sample of unethical blackhat practices and how to spot them.

The SEO team at On Target Web Solutions only employees white hat search engine optimization tactics.  Have questions? Give us a call today: 407-830-4550. On Target Web Solutions, The Internet Marketing Experts.

I’m a huge fan of Matt Cutts and I realize that not everyone is riveted by SEO, but I live it and breathe it daily: Here’s a great video (it’s a long one…) from Matt Cutts at WordCamp. Matt is head of the spam division at Google.

When it comes to organic search engine marketing or (SEO), your domain name can play a role in how well your web site is indexed in the search engines for a particular keyword.  Here are a few pointers when choosing your domain name:

• Try to get a keyword in the domain if at all possible
• Don’t choose extra long domains
• Try and register the domain for a few years, not just one.  Search engines want to know that your domain will be around and won’t be ‘fly by night’.
• Try your best to stick with .com and then .net. (If both are available, I recommend buying both)  Don’t buy a .org unless you are a non-profit organization.

We know that choosing a domain can be quite a chore, but if you put some thought into it from the beginning, you will truly be better off in the search engine rankings down the road.

How many keywords should be on my home page? Home many text links should I have? How many inbound links should my web site have? There is NO definitive answer to any of these questions.  I think people become so obsessed with search engine optimization that they overlook the big picture…. Is this a useful web site for my visitors? Does my web site convert prospects into sales? Does it educate? Is it easy to use? Is it valuable? If your web site is valuable, relevant and unique, it is serving it’s purpose, it is therefore, more valuable and more relevant to the public.

Once your web site becomes valuable, relevant and engaging, Google starts to pay attention.  Once Google starts to pay attention to your web site, the rest starts to come naturally.  You have to realize that Google’s mission is to provide end users / searchers with the most relevant and up to date information possible.  If your web site doesn’t provide that, you will be swimming against the current.

Trust the experts at On Target Web Solutions for sound internet marketing strategies and advice. Call 407-830-4550.

There are many web designers who for whatever reason feel the overwhelming urge inside of them to create an entire web site in Flash.  Flash is typically used to animate and create some pretty cool graphical motion related effects, however, if used to create the entire web site,  you have a potentially difficult up hill climb when it comes to organic search engine optimization.  Flash is essentially an image. When your web designer takes all of your brilliant copy and puts it  inside of flash, that copy turns into an image.  An image that is unreadable by Google bot. An image that says nothing to the various search engines that crawl your web site seeking unique content. Search engines do not read images, so they have no idea what your message is, therefore, your web site would not come up under keyword searches relevant to your web site.

I have no issues with using elements of Flash on a web site, in fact, I think it can polish off a look and can be used to polish your message. Use flash in conjunction with actual copy and words though so that those search engine spiders can have some meat to bite into. No copy, no rankings. It’s that easy.