SEO Questions

Q. Give me a description of your general SEO experience.

A. My experience is mainly with my own site at afreshpath and one other site www.qualitymotorsreno.com. So far, my site is on page one for narrow search terms involving outdoor recreation in Nevada. The other site has gone from not being listed at all in the first 10 pages of any search result to being in pages 2 and 3 of a couple of search engines. That work is ongoing at this time.

Q. Can you write HTML code by hand?

A. Yes I can. I do use some WYSIWYG editors and then modify the code by hand as needed.

Q. Could you briefly explain the PageRank algorithm?
A. In simple terms, Google uses the gross number of inbound links to a page to determine how important the page is. This "pagerank" has little to do with actual search results but can make a difference on user behavior.

 Q. Have you created any SEO tools either from scratch or pieced together from others?

A. No, I do make use of many tools already available on the internet as well as SEO programs that I have purchased.

 Q. What do you think of PageRank?

A. In relation to SEO projects, it is relatively unimportant but can give an indication of how much work needs to be done in gaining inbound links.

 Q. What do you think of using XML sitemaps?

A. I use them. They are an additional tool to help the search engines when they crawl a site. There is no requirement for any sitemap and your pages will get indexed without them if you pay close attention to navigation within your site.

 Q. What SEO tools do you regularly use?

A. Keyword analysis tools, keyword density tools, index checking, backlink checking, wordprocessor to check spelling and grammar, HTML validation and others.

 Q. Under what circumstances would you look to exclude pages from search engines using robots.txt vs meta robots tag?

A. Usually I would use the robots.txt to keep a search engine from indexing an entire directory on a site. This would often be directories dealing with admin functions or directories that only contain script or image libraries.

Q. What areas do you think are currently the most important in organically ranking a site?

A. Text on page! Search engines utilize text and only text in providing search results. That text is found in many place including the URL and title of your pages as well as the visible text you place on your pages.

Q. Do you have experience in copywriting and can you provide some writing samples?

A. My experience in "copywriting" is limited to my site at seoperfection.blogspot.com It is a blog about outdoor recreation in Nevada and so far is placing well in search results.

 Q. Have you ever had something you've written reach the front-page of Digg? Sphinn? Or be Stumbled?

A. Not yet! I am not particularly worried about it but I do try to write in such a way that others would be inticed to submit my articles.

Q. Explain to me what META tags matter in today's world.

     A. The most important META tag for SEO is your page description. Search engines do make use of this tag but it does not outweigh the title or visible text. The META keywords tag is not much of a factor in the major search engines but should not be overlooked.

 Q. Explain various steps that you would take to optimize a website?

A. 1. Interview website owner or webmaster to get a good grasp of the site's purpose and goals.
2.     Perform a keyword analysis to find best performing keywords that should be used for that site and for individual pages of the site
3.      Analyze site content to determine usage of relavant keywords and phrases. This includes visible text as well at titles, META tags, and "alt" attributes.
4.      Examine site navigation
5.      Determine the existence of robots.txt and sitemap and examine those for effectivenes.
6.      Make recommendations for changes needed for the site and each individual page.

Q. If the company whose site you've been workind for has decided to move all of its content to a new domain, what steps would you take?

A. I would update the old site with permanent redirects to to new page for every page. Then I would attempt to remove old content from the major search engines to avoid duplicate content issues.

 Q. Rate from 1 to 10, tell me the most important "on page" elements

A. #1 issue is visible text being relevant to expected search terms.
    # 2 would then be page titles
    # 3 is navigation and "alt" attributes for navigation items and link text.
    # 4 would be "alt" attributes for images and other media presented on pages.

 Q. What do you think about link buying?

A. I discourage the practice for the most part. There are more effective means of paid marketing. One exception would be purchasing listings in highly reputable directories such as Yahoo directory.

 Q. What is Latent Semantic Analysis (LSI Indexing)?

A. LSI indexing ries to overcome the limitations of "literal" search term matching . For example, if someone is searching for "hiking in Norhter Nevada" a literal search would only match the words used without taking into account words such as "hike", "hiked". LSI can give more relevant results because it does take word usage and context into account determining what a page is "about" rather than a strict reliance on literal wording.

 Q. What is Phrase Based Indexing and Retrieval and what roles does it play?

A. In regards to search results, it is a method that search engines such as google use to determine relevance of a page based on phrases acutally used in a document. For example, if you have a page instructing people on wildlife photography, the search engine would reasonably expect to see terms and phrases such as "selecting a camera", "appraoching wildlife", and "low light photo conditions". Related phrases will add to the relevance of a page where unrelated phrases will reduce the relevance of a page. This is one technique that Google is using to weed out "spam" sites.

Q. What is the difference between SEO and SEM?

A. Seo is search engine optimization and is the process you use in getting your pages to place well on search results. SEM is search engine marketing and involves purchasing advertising space on search result pages. Sponsored listings are SEM. Both are related though! When using Google Adwords, the better you optimize your pages for search, the less you will be paying for your selected keywords in the PPC campaign and the better placment your ads will get.

Q. What kind of strategies do you normally implement for backlinks?

A. I check the competitors backlinks to find hightly relevant sites and request a link from them. If reciprocal linking is required, I may be able to place a lik back to them in a relevant portion of a page on the site but if not, I will state so and may not gain that link. Another method I use is to submit press releases to relevant media.

Q. What role does social media play in an SEO strategy?

A. Social media such as social networking sites and news sites can provide for viral marketing. Viral marketing has proven to be powerful if the content of a site is appealing.

Q. What things wouldn't you to do increase rankings because the risk of penalty is too high?

A. I would avoid any site with the appearance of a link farm. I would also avoid any "spam" practice such as unsolicited email campaigns, certain affiliate advertising sites, sites that re-direct visitors to your site, and anything resembling the practices of Zango.

 Q. Why might you want to use no follow on an internal link?

A. Many sites have shoping carts and member login or logout links. This type of link is simply an administrative function and does nothig to contribute to site content. The search engine does not need to index those pages.

 Q. Are you familiar with web analytics and what packages are your familiar with?

A. Yes I am and the tool I use most frequently is Google's webmaster tools. I also use the available Yahoo hosting tools for my own sites. Knowing what search terms your visitors are actually using to find your site as well as where those visitors are coming from will help refine SEO efforts. The amount of time each visitor spends on your site will help in determining if content changes are needed.

 Q. From an analytics perspective, what is different between a user from organic search results vs. a type-in user?

A  A user coming into your site from an organic search usually has never visited your site before or is performing a general search for a specific product or topic. These visitors are trying to find the site that most suits thier needs. A "type-in" user is specifally interested in your website. They may have found your URL in print advertising or from a friend. Often, these users are familiar with what you are offering and are coming back to your site as a repeat visitor.

 Q. How do you evaluate whether an SEO campaign is working?

A. The main indicator is to perform a search on all major search engines using the keywords/ keyphrases I am optimizing for. An analysis of those results will help to determine if optimization has gained in the results or lost ground. This analysis should be done over time as each search engine will update and index on a varying schedule. Another aspect is to use website statistics to determine where traffic is originating.

  Q. What does competitive analysis mean to you and what techniques do you use?

A. Competitive analysis means taking a close look at websites that rank highly in search results and comparing those sites to the one you are optimizing. They have employed methods that are working and are a valuable source for ideas.

  Q. If you've done 6 months of SEO for a site and yet there haven't been any improvements, how would you go about diagnosing the problem?

A. I might approach the problem as if it were an entirely new project. Again taking a look at the keywords and phrases that I am attempting to optimize for and again taking a close inspection of top ranking competition. If the site is indexed and does show up in the irst 10 pages of a search but on in the top three, I would look into modification of major areas such as page titles, on page text, and page descriptions. If the site is not yet indexed or has been dropped from an index, there are major problems and the site may require a total re-work and re-submission.

   Q. How many target keywords should a site have?

A. I advise not more than three or four well related keyword phrases. This allows for more effective optimization.

  Q. You hear a rumor that Google is weighting the HTML LAYER tag very heavily in ranking the relevance of its results - how does this affect your work?

A. It doesn't unless the rumor proves to be fact. Yes, I check on the rumor but as with all rumors, it can have detrimental effects if you "jump on the band wagon" and it proves to be just a rumor with no basis in fact.

 Q.  Why does Google rank Wikipedia for so many topics?

A. Wikipedia is an established authority! As such, it is referenced by huge numbers of other documents with relevant text associated with links back to Wikipedia.

 Q. If salary and location were not an issue, who would you work for?

A. Myself and only myself if those conditions existed.

SEM SEO”S Step By Step Work Process

Step One : Initial Analysis

In order to kick start the campaign , we ask our clients to submit their website for "SEM SEO's Preliminary SEO Analysis" .

In this analysis , we study the current status of the website in all the major "Search Engines" in the terms of :

·      The Current Pagerank of the website

·      The number of links pointing to the website

·      The age of the domain name

·      Onpage optimization of the website

·      Whether the coding is error free.

·      The number of pages indexed in search engines.

·      The competition in the target market .

·      Once the "preliminary SEO" is complete we ask our clients to send us the list of at least "10" keywords that they want to target for their  SEO Campaign .

Step Two : Keywords Analysis

Keyword phrase research indicates locating those natural instinctive words through which people prefer to search about any specific product or service. The process of research is very time consuming and calls for undivided attention and dedication on the part of an SEO expert. Internet offers variety of tools to make this process easier and to derive the accurate results accompanied with traffic volume associated with every keyword phrase.

Determining the most used phrase which contains your product related keyword indicates the objective of the campaign. At this stage the strategy to get control of the search engine arena through these competitive keywords is bordered. In the form of a competitive keyword the SEO experts receive their target to achieve. Simultaneously this keyword will give a right direction to the optimization process.

In the keyword research process the whole stress is not put upon the most competitive keywords only rather we search less and medium competitive keywords as well. The number of such keywords can be stretched up to ten to twenty keywords in total.

SEMSEO’s team now works upon these keywords on basis of degree of their competitiveness. For example, at the first stage we concentrate upon the less competitive keywords and if not so then we target audience within your geographical area. Once we achieve coveted rankings on the search engine based upon the keywords including the name of your city and nation, we start crafting strategy for the keywords to be used on international platform.

For example you have  a web design company in Melbourne, Australia, then we will first target on the keywords like web design services in Melbourne, web design company Melbourne and so on. At the second stage we will target keywords like web design company Australia or web design services in Australia and so on. Once we achieve top-notch rankings for these two sections of keywords we will divert towards the international market and then our keyword will be “web design agency Melbourne”. The success of this keywo0rd will ensure that your website comes on top regardless of from which corner of the world the person is looking for a web design company.

Step Three :  Keywords Power Analysis

In this phase we set a power ranging from "1-10" for each keyword, this power is measured on the basis of competition that the targeted key phrase governs in Google.

Depending on this power, the keywords are divided in to three categories :

Number One : Short term keywords ( 4-6 months)

Number Two : Moderate keywords ( 6-8 months)

Number Three :  Long term keywords (8-12 months )

Step Four :  Competitive Analysis report

In this report we make a list of keywords that will be targeted for the SEO Campaign . The key words are highlighted on the basis of the category they belong to
(as discussed in the step three ) .

Step Five : Page Optimization and content development

These duos are the sure shot formula of success of any SEO campaign. To conquer the top-notch places on search engine on the basis of keywords the page optimization and content development are two most effective tools. These keywords are being used in the content of the web pages which is called page optimization. On the other hand content development includes article submissions, forum postings, blog syndication and optimized press releasing.

This page optimization and content development process targets on constellating the keywords on right places in the web page content, articles, blogs, forums postings, comments and press releases.

A website looks healthy with high-quality content and plays vital role to interest the site users. If they find relevant and rich information on your website, this will be the reason for them to stay longer on your website. If they find the articles, blogs and press releases too informative about your products and services it will incite them to visit your website to learn more about what you offer.

In addition to the keyword constellation, SEMSEO has some other tactics too to add an enticing factor into your website. Have a look on few below:

Step Six :Text based navigation

Search engines send their spiders to your website immediately after the optimization work starts on your website. These spiders are unable to read images and can identify value of the information provided on your website through text only. The navigation system facilitates their transformation from home page to sub-pages and if they find the text best informative in the matter of products and services you offer, then top-notch rankings are just a day away.

Prominence of targeted keyword phrases: Presence of only one product related keyword on the web page is not enough to divert the traffic to your website. So it is mandatory to give prominence and right placement to keywords with different competitiveness on your web page. For example if most competitive keyword is placed in the first paragraph of introduction of your company then it will surely enhance the traffic potential of your homepage. Besides this using larger font sizes and bolding the text can emphasize its importance and positively affect the page’s ranking on search engines.

Step Seven : Site Map

A sitemap helps the visitor to save time and efforts to reach the coveted information regarding any particular service or product. The site map should include an organized list of links to all important pages of your website. Your homepage should also contain a text link to your sitemap to make the user’s visit to your website pleasant.

Step Eight : ALT and META data

This is the data which can not be viewed by the visitor but is still important for the search engine rankings of your website. This data is embedded into html code of your website. ALT tags refer to the text that describes an image or words that you see in the form of pop up while your cursor moves over some images. In optimizing, an ALT tag is placed behind your company’s name and logo. On the other hand Meta Tag can be divided into two parts: description tags and keyword tags. These are the lines of code in the uppermost section of a website. Both of these codes include the relevant keywords and description of your products and services. Some description is also included in the meta description tag of your homepage which acts as an advantage when somebody searches through a particular keyword.

Clean up the code: It is important to move the keywords of your site up and up in the code. For this navigation rollovers and other JavaScript -based code should be taken out of the code of each page and put into an external file to which each page of the site is referenced. This will result in prompting the search engines to boost your site’s relevancy ratings. Though this is an inexpensive job to do but still the cost depends upon the number of pages into your website.

Step Nine : Maximize Quality Link Popularity

Link popularity simply means that other big companies in the same market pool refer to your website. This can be achieved by requesting the other website owners to add your link on the websites which rank higher on the search engines or provide their own link on your website. Each new link to your site increases the likelihood of both the search engines' spiders running across your site as well as searchers looking for services or products like yours. This is the matter of caution that you get links from and get linked to only those websites which are performing well on search engines. Collecting the links from less popular websites will be useless. Our SEO teams will make these requests on your behalf when you have to devote your whole time in running your big business enterprise.

Step Ten : Follow up reporting and analysis

With SEMSEO, you get the advantage of timely reporting. We will seek your permission before taking every step ahead and you will receive reports on daily basis about what we have conquered so far. These reports continue on daily basis irrespective of how long your SEO campaign runs. This reporting schedule helps you in comparing output with the pre-optimization levels and these scalable results place a guarantee that you have invested your money at the right place, which is our commitment.

SEO [Search engine Marketing] Campaign

SEO Benefits

·      Drive high quality customers to your website

·      Increase sales leads from customers looking for your products and services

·      Build your brand online by communicating marketing messages to your target audience

·      Increase your profile against your competitors

·      Target a global audience via international search engines

·      Be accountable with ROI tracking

SEO – Before and After

Before	After
Become only a SHOW piece	Become a REVENUE generation model
Only an invited visitor can enjoy the services of the website	An unknown visitor can also benefit with the website.
NO RE-SALE value	HIGH RESALE Value
Services and product CANNOT be sold to an unknown visitor	Services and product can also be sold to an unknown visitor to maximize PROFITS.
NEGLIGIBLE visitor participation & presence	UNLIMITED visitors participation & presence

SEO Understanding and process

We provide specialized SEO services in two segments:

·      On-page Optimization [Website Optimization]

·      Off-page Optimization [Link Optimization]

ON-Page Optimization

·      Check Domain Age

·      Fine when domain get registered. OLD is GOLD in as SEO point of View. Google give preference Old domain.

·      Check Page rank

·      Page rank can be view through Google tool Bar as Green Bar. PR give by google ONLY as 1 to 1 number,..Bigger number is better. Pr plays important roll on search Listing.

·      Check back link [Google / yahoo / Bing]

·      Back link known as Link popularity, it mean SE check how much your website is Popular within their listed website at database. SERP [search Engine result position] Depend on Mainly two factor Page rank and link popularity.

·      HTTP header Check [200 | 301 | 302]

·      Check weather URL open

·      Check Domain canonical Issue

·      Check Website version with “www” and “non www”. website should open either way i.e www.domain .com or domain.com. this problem should be solved .htaccess file.

·      Website Check with spider Simulator

·      Use third part tool to see How SE look the website, SE and human look website in different, Human eye could see Text, Link text, graphic and Flash, but SE understand only Text and Link text, it did not understand Graphic or other multimedia object.

·      Get internal URL Lists

·      Get internal URL at website to how many page are valid to list at SE. also fine how many page of website get list at SE.

·      Check Link Popularity

·      Find number of Website who list website as back link

·      Keyword Density Check

·      To check how many times main SEO targeted key-phrase are repeated in text Content of Page. Density of keyword should maintain within 4% to 7%.

·      Keyword Analysis As per Theme of Website

·      Find SEO Key-phrase targeted and those are also most searchable by SE visitors. Normally we use “google Keyword tool” to get most competitive key phrase which related to website theme.

·      Add JS Stat counter code [visitor log analysis]

·      Create A/c at www.statcounter.com. They will provide JS code, and we add that JS Code at every page of Website. Through this way we could see visitor activity on website on real time basis. This process known as Visitor Log analysis.

·      Create Google site Map Account

·      Create Google webmaster Tool a/c. After a/c create WMT provide verification Code and We add that Code between <head>..</head> tag of Home page Only. Once Code get implemented we need to go to WMT to go for verification process.

·      Create Xml site Map [sitemap.xml]

·      Generate Xml site map and keep that file at root of sever. Xml sit map contain list of all url which available in Pages.

·      Submit Xml site Map

·      After Generation of site map we submit xml site map file at google webmaster tool.

·      Optimize Title, Meta Description and Keyword [For home page]

·      We write SEO friendly Meta title, Desc, Keyword for home page. Meta Tile of Home page play very important roll in search listing.

·      Optimize Title, Meta Description and Keyword [for important inner pages]

·      We also write Meta title, Desc, Keyword for other pages of website. SE prefer unique Title of each page which get list in SE.

·      Content and Anchor Text optimization

·      We incorporate SEO targeted key phrase in form of text and Anchor text at main Content of Home page to main Keyword density.

·      Optimize IMG Alt Tag:

·      As we know Google did not understand Graphic, SE understand html Tag, We include SEO targeted key-phrase at img alt Tag.

·      Add H1 tag

·      We implement Competitive SEO target Key-phrase within H1 tag to point out as main keyphrase.

·      Create add Link page [for Directory submission]

·      We create One Page and keep in server to use fo rli nk exchange campaign with directory submission. This process helps to generate One way link and to increase ink popularity.

·      Create Reciprocal Link Page [for theme related website]

·      We create Reciprocal link page which help to increase Link popularity through Email reciprocal Link Campaign.

·      Implementation of Tag Cloud [optional]

·      Tag Cloud is method to use Anchor text of most visited key phrase based pages. Which we implement case to case basis

·      Open Project at WEB CEO [Reporting]

·      Web CEO is SEO Reporting Software which we use case to case basis.

OFF-Page Optimization [Only One-way Link]

• Directory submission
• Reciprocal Link Exchange
• Article Submission
•  Press Release Submission
• Blog comment
• Form Participation
• Social Bookmaking
•  Classified Entry [optional]
• Guest-book entry [optional]

5 QUICK SEO WINS

With the reams of information that’s available on the Internet about Search Engine optimisation, it’s sometimes hard to know what to adopt and what to ignore. We’ve compiled a concise checklist of our top 5 quick-wins which get results. This is power SEO. Enjoy.

1. Title Tags

The humble title tag is often ignored or applied uniformly on every page of a website. This is a classic school boy error. As one of the most important elements on a webpage, it still holds a special place in Search Engine algorithms.

Keep the tag to fewer than 12 words, make it unique and descriptive for each page, use keywords, and save any branding for the end.

2. i-Frames

i-Frames are pretty evil. Yes, they have their place in layout and can look relatively cool, but from a Search Engine perspective, they can be a little hellish.

Although content in i-frames is indexed, and possibly ranked, by search engines – if a user clicks on one of the i-frame results they’ll wind up on a page with no navigation and no contextual information.

Not ideal from a usability perspective, so we advise avoiding them wherever possible.

3. 301 Redirects

If you are wanting to permanently redirect a page to another, the correct redirect is a 301. This means a permanent redirect. 302 indicates a temporary move and does not transfer any of the old page’s Page Rank or link value to the new location.

Similarly, if you have multiple domains (with the same content), you should 301 redirect them to one domain. This consolidation will help you avoid any potential cannonicalisation issues that may arise.

4. Make sure your site is indexed

One of the best ways to up your online visibility, and hopefully the number of terms for which your site is found, is to get as many of your pages as possible into the Search Engine indexes.

XML sitemaps tell Search Engines about your website. You should create one and submit it to the relevant Search Engines. This will enable them to crawl your site more effectively, and hopefully index more of your content.

Another power tip is to make sure that you have a good user sitemap for your site. Google’s guidelines state that every page on your site should be linked to from at least one static text link. Some search engine robots have trouble following links in JavaScript, so it’s best practice to make sure that your entire site is accessible.

Tips:

There’s a wealth of information available on XML sitemaps at www.sitemaps.org.
You can check out the Google Sitemap protocol at www.google.com/webmasters.
Want to know how many pages you have in Google? Use site:www.yoursite.com in the search bar, and you’ll see the number of results at the top right of the page. 

You can see how many pages you have in the Yahoo! index at http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com

5. Don’t underestimate the power of solid internal linking

You can strengthen pages in your site by linking to them from your home page. Internal links also count in Search Engine algorithms, and give Search Engines an idea of what your site is about.

Be sure to use descriptive, keyword rich anchor text within your <a href> tags. These keywords tell Search Engines what the page they point to is about. You’re not trying to optimise your pages for “click here” and “read more”, are you?

Q. What is PPC?

In essence, PPC allows advertisers to display their products or services to a targeted audience, and pay only if the ad is clicked on. Advertisers bid on keywords that they predict their target market will use when typing in search terms for a certain product or service. The more you’re prepared to pay for each click-through, the higher up on the page your ad will appear under the “sponsored link” or “sponsored ads” section, next to or above the organic results on the search engine results pages.

Because you could be paying up to tens of rands per click for certain high-traffic search phrases, it is imperative to target the right keywords. Tools like Google AdWords help give advertisers perspective on the relevance of their advert text.

SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING GLOSSARY

Don’t know your CPC’s from your CPM’s? Fear not! We’ve compiled this Search Engine Marketing (SEM) glossary to help you demystify some of the industry’s top buzzwords.

Algorithm: A set of rules that a search engine uses to rank the listings contained within its index, in response to a particular query. No Search Engine reveals exactly how its own algorithm works, to protect itself from competitors and those who wish to spam the Search Engine.

Backlinks: All the links pointing at a particular web page. Also called inbound links.

Banned: When pages are removed from a Search Engine's index specifically because the Search Engine has deemed them to be spamming or violating some type of guidelines.

Click through Rate: The percentage of those clicking on a link out of the total number who see the link. For example, imagine 10 people do a web search. In response, they see links to a variety of web pages. Three of the 10 people all choose one particular link. That link then has a 30 percent click through rate. Also called CTR.

Cloaking: In terms of Search Engine Marketing, this is the act of getting a Search Engine to record content for a URL that is different than what a searcher will ultimately see. It can be done in many technical ways. Several Search Engines have explicit rules against unapproved cloaking. Those violating these guidelines might find their pages penalized or banned from a Search Engine's index. As for approved cloaking, this generally only happens with Search Engines offering paid inclusion programs. Anyone offering cloaking services should be able to demonstrate explicit approval from a Search Engine about what they intend to do.

Contextual Link Inventory: To supplement their business models, certain text-link advertising networks have expanded their network distribution to include contextual inventory. Most vendors of "search engine traffic" have expanded the definition of Search Engine Marketing to include this contextual inventory. Contextual or content inventory is generated when listings are displayed on pages of Web sites (usually not Search Engines), where the written content on the page indicates to the ad-server that the page is a good match to specific keywords and phrases. Often this matching method is validated by measuring the number of times a viewer clicks on the displayed ad.

Conversion Rate: The relationship between visitors to a web site and actions consider to be a "conversion," such as a sale or request to receive more information. Often expressed as a percentage. If a web site has 50 visitors and 10 of them convert, then the site has a 20 percent conversion rate.

Cost Per Click: A system where an advertiser pays an agreed amount for each click someone makes on a link leading to their web site. Also known as CPC.

CPM: A system where an advertiser pays an agreed amount for the number of times their ad is seen by a consumer, regardless of the consumer's subsequent action. It's heavily used in print, broadcasting and direct Marketing, as well as with online banner ad sales. CPM stands for "cost per thousand," since ad views are often sold in blocks of 1,000. The M in CPM is Latin for thousand.

Crawler: A component of a Search Engine that gathers listings by automatically "crawling" the web. A Search Engine's crawler (also called a spider or robot), follows links to web pages. It makes copies of the web pages found and stores these in the Search Engine's index.

Delisting: When pages are removed from a Search Engines index. This could happen because a web site has been banned or for other reasons, such as an accidental glitch on the Search Engine's part.

Directories: A type of Search Engine where listings are gathered through human efforts, rather than by automated crawling of the web. In directories, web sites are often reviewed, summarized in about 25 words and placed in a particular category.

Doorway Page: A web page created expressly in the hope of ranking well for a term in a Search Engine's non-paid listings and which itself does not deliver much information to those viewing it. Instead, visitors will often see only some enticement on the doorway page leading them to other pages (i.e., "Click Here To Enter), or they may be automatically propelled quickly past the doorway page. With cloaking, they may never see the doorway page at all. Several search engines have guidelines against doorway pages, though they are more commonly allowed in through paid inclusion programs. They're also referred to as bridge pages, gateway pages and jump pages, among other names.

Graphical Search Inventory: Banners, and other types of advertising units which can be synchronized to search keywords. These includes pop-ups, browser toolbars and rich media.

Index: The collection of information a Search Engine has that searchers can query against. With crawler-based Search Engines, the index is typically copies of all the web pages they have found from crawling the web. With human-powered directories, the index contains the summaries of all web sites that have been categorized.

Landing Page: The specific web page that a visitor ultimately reaches after clicking a Search Engine listing. Marketers attempt to improve conversion rates by testing various landing page creative, which encompasses the entire user experience including navigation, layout and copy.

Link Popularity: A raw count of how "popular" a page is based on the number of backlinks it has. It does not factor in link context or link quality, which are also important elements in how Search Engines make use of links to impact rankings.

Link Text: The text that is contained within a link. For example, Search Engine is a link that contains the link text "search engine."

Listings: The information that appears on a search engine's results page in response to a search.

Meta Search Engine: A Search Engine that gets listings from two or more other Search Engines, rather than through its own efforts.

Meta Tags: Information placed in the code of a web page that is not intended for users to see, but instead which typically passes information to search engine crawlers, browser software and some other applications.

Meta Description Tag: Allows page authors to say how they would like their pages described when listed by Search Engines. Not all Search Engines use the tag.

Meta Keywords Tag: Allows page authors to create a list of words of what the page is about, which could help with the Search Engine ranking process. Not all search engines use the tag.

Meta Robots Tag: Allows page authors to keep their web pages from being indexed by Search Engines which is especially helpful for those who cannot create robots.txt files. The Robots Exclusion page provides official details.

Organic Listings: Listings that Search Engines do not sell (unlike paid listings). Instead, sites appear solely because a Search Engine has deemed it editorially important for them to be included, regardless of payment. Paid inclusion content is also often considered "organic" even though it is paid for. This is because that content usually appears intermixed with unpaid organic results.

Outbound Links: Developing outbound links to other relevant websites is an important part of a linking campaign. Good links can add value to your website. By pointing your visitors at useful information you help them and so make your site more valuable in the process. Also if you link quality sites you benefit by association.

Paid Inclusion: An advertising program where pages are guaranteed to be included in a Search Engine's index in exchange for payment, though no guarantee of ranking well is typically given. For example, Looksmart is a directory that lists pages and sites, not based on position but based on relevance. Marketers pay to be included in the directory, on a CPC basis or per-URL fee basis, with no guarantee of specific placement. Also see XML Feeds.

PPC :Stands for Pay Per Click and means the same as cost-per-click. See Cost Per Click.

Paid Listings: The listings that Search Engines sell to advertisers, usually through paid placement or paid inclusion programs. In contrast, organic listings are not sold.

Pay-for-Performance: A term popularized by some search engines as a synonym for Pay Per Click, stressing to advertisers that they are only paying for ads that "perform" in terms of delivering traffic, as opposed to CPM-based ads, where ads cost money, even if they don't generate a click.

Paid Placement: An advertising program where listings are guaranteed to appear in response to particular search terms, with higher ranking typically obtained by paying more than other advertisers. Paid placement listings can be purchased from a portal or a search network. Search networks are often set up in an auction environment where keywords and phrases are associated with a cost-per-click (CPC) fee. Overture and Google are the largest networks, but MSN and other portals sometimes sell paid placement listings directly as well. Portal sponsorships are also a type of paid placement.

Rank: How well a particular web page or web site is listed in a Search Engine results. For example, a web page about apples may be listed in response to a query for "apples." However, "rank" indicates where exactly it was listed -- be it on the first page of results, the second page or perhaps the 200th page. Alternatively, it might also be said to be ranked first among all results, or 12th, or 111th. Overall, saying a page is "listed" only means that it can be found within a Search Engine in response to a query, not that it necessarily ranks well for that query. Also called position.

Reciprocal Link: A link exchange between two sites.

Results Page: After a user enters a search query, the page that is displayed, is called the results page. It can also be called a SERP , for "Search Engine results page."

Robots.txt: A file used to keep web pages from being indexed by Search Engines. The Robots Exclusion page provides official details.

ROI: Stands for "Return On Investment" and refers to the percentage of profit or revenue generated from a specific activity. For example, one might measure the ROI of a paid listing campaign by adding up the total amount spent on the campaign (say R200) versus the amount generated from it in revenue (say R1,000). The ROI would then be 500 percent.

Search Engine: Any service generally designed to allow users to search the web or a specialized database of information. Web Search Engines generally have paid listings and organic listings. Organic listings typically come from search engine spiders crawling the web, though often human-powered directory listings are also optionally offered.

Search Engine Marketing: The act of Marketing a web site via Search Engines, whether this be improving ranking in organic listings or purchasing paid listings, or a combination of these and other search engine-related activities.

Search Engine Optimisation: The act of altering a web site so that it does well in the organic, crawler-based listings of Search Engines. In the past, has also been used as a term for any type of Search Engine Marketing activity, although now the term search engine Marketing itself has taken over for this. Also called SEO.

Search Terms: The words (or word) a searcher enters into a Search Engine's search box. Also used to refer to the terms a Search Engine marketer hopes a particular page will be found for. Also called keywords, query terms or query.

SEM: Acronym for Search Engine Marketing and may also be used to refer to a person or company that does Search Engine Marketing (i.e.., "They're an SEM firm).

SEMPO: Search Engine Marketing Professional Organisation, a non-profit, formed to increase the awareness of and educate people on the value of Search Engine Marketing.

SEO: Acronym for Search Engine Optimisation and often also used to refer to a person or company that does Search Engine Optimisation (i.e., "They do SEO").

Shopping Search: Shopping Search Engines allow shoppers to look for products and prices in a search environment. Premium placement can be purchased on some shopping sites.

Spam: Any Search Engine Marketing method that a search engine deems to be detrimental to its efforts to deliver relevant, quality search results. Some Search Engines have written guidelines about what they consider to be spamming, but ultimately any activity a particular Search Engine deems harmful may be considered spam, whether or not there are published guidelines against it. Examples of spam include the creation of nonsensical doorway pages designed to please Search Engine algorithms rather than human visitors or heavy repetition of search terms on a page (i.e. the search terms are used tens or hundreds of times in a row). These are only two of many examples. Determining what is spam is complicated by the fact that different Search Engines have different standards. A particular Search Engine may even have different standards of what's allowed, depending on whether content is gathered through organic methods versus paid inclusion. Also referred to as spamdexing.

Submission: The act of submitting a URL for inclusion into a Search Engine's index. Unless done through paid inclusion, submission generally does not guarantee listing. In addition, submission does not help with rank improvement on crawler-based Search Engines unless Search Engine Optimisation efforts have been taken. Submission can be done manually (i.e., you fill out an online form and submit) or automated, where a software program or online service may process the forms behind the scenes.

XML Feeds: A form of paid inclusion where a search engine is "fed" information about pages via XML, rather than gathering that information through crawling actual pages. Marketers can pay to have their pages included in a spider-based search index either annually per URL or on a CPC basis based on an XML document representing each page on the client site. New media types are being introduced into paid inclusion, including graphics, video, audio, and rich media.

5 good reasons to use Pay-per-click advertising

1.  PPC offers fast results

Because pay-per-click advertising entails securing the top, paid results for specific search queries, you can be sure it’s reaching the right audience every time your ad is displayed. PPC gives you the opportunity to appear on the first page of the search engine results, from the very first day of your campaign – which means that you can start seeing results immediately, too. In this way, it’s far quicker than working towards achieving top organic search engine rankings, which could take months to do.

2.  People who click on your PPC ads are ready to buy NOW

People who respond to PPC ads do so because they want to buy your product or use your service now. It’s a well-known fact that Internet users who click on PPC ads are genuinely interested in making a purchase. In fact, because these ads target users’ specific search queries, you can be sure that anyone who clicks on your ad is not arbitrarily surfing the Web, but rather, is committed to buying your product or service.

3.  PPC ads are highly measurable

The beauty of a Pay-per-click campaign is that it offers immediate results that are easily tracked. You’ll be able to measure your campaign’s return on investment from the time it’s implemented, which means that you’ll always know how effectively your PPC strategy is performing. Most importantly, this gives you the opportunity to tweak your campaign, with immediate effect, in line with the results you observe.

4.  You only pay when someone clicks on your ad

Unlike other types of advertising which are charged at a set rate – regardless of how often they’re viewed, or how many people see them – Pay-per-click ads are charged according to how many times they’re clicked on. In other words, you only pay when an Internet user actually clicks on your PPC ad. This minimises wastage and enables you to see a direct correlation between adspend and results.

5.  PPC drives more traffic to your site

As far as online visibility and branding goes, PPC plays a useful role in building brand awareness while significantly increasing your online presence. Most notably, however, is the fact that it drives greater amounts of targeted traffic to your site. This increases awareness of your site, helps you to establish a loyal client base and, inevitably, should result in greater conversions.

Implementing a PPC campaign the smart way

If you’ve decided to set up a PPC campaign, it’s best to turn to online marketing professionals to ensure that it’s implemented efficiently, effectively and monitored at all times. As PPC, SEO and online media specialists, Purple Cow Communications is able to design the most powerful PPC campaign for your business.

Making online marketing your most affordable advertising solution

Just about every company is looking for ways to reduce costs, and the good news is that is possible to cut back without forgoing a marketing campaign. One of the most fundamental errors businesses can make during times of economic uncertainty is slashing their marketing budgets, or removing them altogether. Advertising is often considered a “luxury” expense, and hence a company’s marketing allowance frequently becomes the first victim of budget-cutting exercises.

But actually, it’s during times like these that your marketing campaign is most critical. After all, you need to convince your clients that even when they’re tightening their belts, they still need to make use of your service. And an online campaign is one of best platforms via which to do it, given the fact that the Internet is widely accessible and generally cheap to use.

Online marketing offers one of the most affordable, effective and far-reaching means of advertising your business – which makes it the optimal advertising solution during tougher times. You’ll control exactly how much you spend, and you’ll get results that are highly measurable and indicative of your campaign’s success.

There are several other notable benefits of using an online marketing campaign to advertise your business or product:

·      Greater return on investment than other advertising mediums: For a fraction of the cost of traditional advertising, you can reach a broader and far larger target market – on a global scale.

·      Immediate action: The Internet enables consumers to act immediately when a product or service appeals to them. They don’t have to pick up a phone or visit a store – simply clicking a button could facilitate a purchase.

·      24/7 access to your consumers: Internet users are not only online all the time, but also have access to the Web from almost anywhere in the world. This means you’re reaching them at all times, and wherever they may be.

·      Targeting your market at the right time: Internet users usually surf the Net when it’s convenient to do so, which means that your message is reaching them when they’re in a frame of mind to act upon it. This brings about far quicker and reliable results than any other type of advertising medium.

·      Highly measurable results: Your online marketing campaign can be tracked, monitored and measured at all times. This means you’ll know right away how successfully your strategy is performing. The effectiveness of a print ad, billboard or radio slot is difficult to measure. But an online strategy – requiring users to click, fill in a form or undertake a certain action – can be monitored immediately – accurately, inexpensively and at any time.

The online advantage

Professional online marketers know how to craft the right Internet advertising strategy for any target market. If you’d like to take advantage of this highly effective means of reaching an audience, it’s time you invested in an online marketing campaign.

Google AdWords: Giving you the competitive edge

Google AdWords: Giving you the competitive edge

Imagine if you could discover exactly who your online customers were, and by implication, exactly what they wanted according to what they searched for? With Google AdWords, that’s precisely the type of “insider information” you’ll be privy to – and, if you’re running a PPC or SEO campaign with Purple Cow Communications, you’re already benefiting from our use of this quality keyword tool.

What’s remarkable about Google AdWords is that it takes the guesswork out of digital marketing by telling you where your customers are based, what they’re searching for online, and what they want to buy. Thus, if you really want to harness the Internet’s power to maximise sales, you need to be using Google AdWords.

How Google AdWords works

Primarily, AdWords has been designed to deliver paid traffic to websites via PPC campaigns. It does this very effectively, and thus has been hailed as an excellent tool for boosting online sales in a cost-effective manner. But this is merely the tip of the iceberg.

The key to a successful digital marketing strategy is analysis: Continually tracking and monitoring your campaign’s results, and tweaking your strategy in line with these results, is critical to its sustainability and growing online success. AdWords grants you direct insights into the search patterns of your clients, by revealing what keywords are being searched for by your clients, which are important for your business (and conversely, which are a waste of time and money), and which you should be targeting if you hope to boost revenue.

So is there a catch to gaining all this free and useful information? Well no – not if you know how to use Google AdWords correctly. That’s the only catch – and that’s where we come in.

What are Google AdWords Qualified Professionals?

Google AdWords has been credited with helping webmasters to attain superb results for their sites – think increased traffic, burgeoning sales and overall online growth. However, Google AdWords can also be a costly, ineffective tool if you don’t know how to use it properly. The tool is, in fact, advanced enough to merit its own qualification, and individuals have to meet stringent requirements – and pass an exam – in order to achieve Qualified Professional status.

Purple Cow Communication's Search Analysts boast Google AdWords Qualified Professional status. This means that they’re skilled in utilising this effective tool for your search campaign. They know how to use AdWords to:

·      Research and implement the most effective keywords for your website

·      Measure and track your results to ensure that the campaign performs at its peak, thereby ensuring maximum revenue

·      Effectively manage your budget to ensure the utmost profitability of your strategy.

To run a successful AdWords campaign, it’s essential to have a solid understanding of the tool. Purple Cow Communications’ analysts are professionally trained to implement AdWords campaigns, and are skilled in setting the correct spending parameters, creating the most appropriate ad copy, and researching, testing and using the most relevant keywords for your AdWords campaign.

Reap the benefits of Google AdWords – starting today

The beauty of a paid search campaign is that you get results fast. Once your campaign is launched, you can start seeing results almost immediately.

If you haven’t already implemented a digital marketing strategy, speak to us today about designing a tailor-made online campaign for your company. It’s the most effective – and cost-effective – means of advertising your business on a large-scale, and by using Google AdWords, we’ll ensure that it has maximum impact on the world’s largest marketing platform.

Effective tips for boosting online sales

As online shopping experiences a significant boom, is your company taking full advantage of this growth?

Since February 2008, online shopping has increased by 13 percent across the world – a whopping figure when one considers the current economic downturn. What this growth illustrates is that, even during these difficult times, consumers are still prepared to spend – and, more importantly, they’re choosing to spend online. As the world of online retail continues to boom, there’s excellent growth potential for your product or brand online.

At a time when business is increasingly going digital, it’s become essential to have an Internet presence. Busy lifestyles, combined with greater connectivity, mean that consumers are opting to shop online. As belts and budgets are tightened, consumers are searching for the best deals available – and they’re searching online, all day, every day.

How can your business take advantage of increased online spending? Most importantly, your company must have an online presence, which can be built and sustained through a solid digital marketing campaign. Once you’ve established this, there are several tips you can follow to maximise conversions and benefit from the online shopping boom.

Tips for increasing online sales

1.  Implement banner advertising and PPC campaigns

These two methods of online advertising are ideal for driving valuable leads to your site. Through careful research, the demographics of your target market can be defined, which means you can tailor your ads to the specific needs of potential customers. This way, you can also ensure that the ads are displayed to appropriate users, thereby minimising wastage and increasing your return on investment. Qualified search analysts are ideally-positioned to undertake this type of research, and to implement these campaigns.

2.  Include a strong call-to-action on your landing pages

Ensure that your home page has a visible call-to-action that encourages your clients to “click to purchase” or “buy now”. The same applies to your landing pages, particularly if you’re running a PPC campaign that sends users directly to a specific page. Make it easy, quick and obvious for users to buy your product. Also be sure to include these call-to-action buttons next to each product for sale.

Remember, too, not to distract your customers from the purchasing process by keeping other website features to a minimum. Reduce scepticism or doubt by including trust icons (such as security icons for e-commerce websites), delivery information, and contact details on the site. This information must be clearly visible on every page, preferably above the fold.

3.  Display your products on your home page

It may sound obvious, but some websites have an intricately-designed home page that looks impressive, but which fails to display their products or services. Making your site attractive is important, but ensure that the design doesn’t detract from the pages’ primary objective: to sell. Help the visitor to find what they are looking for by providing a short welcome message stating who you are, what you do, and how the visitor can use the site. Don’t assume that the visitor knows about your business.

4.  Create compelling web copy for your sales pages

And make sure it’s clear, concise and interesting to read. Online shoppers aren’t there to read, but they do want to know about your product. Write your marketing copy compellingly, but keep it short. Provide links to further information, or an email address that customers can use to contact you about your offerings if they have any questions.

5.  Keep your customers in the loop

Whatever product or service you’re selling via your site, it’s important to keep your customers up to date. Consider sending a regular newsletter to your database. This keeps your company top-of-mind when your customers are looking to buy, and also encourages them to visit the site regularly. You can also use this platform to advertise special offers, competitions or new products and service offerings.

6.  Help visitors come back, AND spread the word for you

Make it easy for potential customers to find you again by adding bookmarking icons to every page, and most importantly, remember that word-of-mouth is more powerful than any sales message on your site. Thus, help your customers to spread the word about your site to their friends by adding a “refer a friend” link to every page of your site. This is an excellent way to take advantage of viral marketing. It’s also a good idea to include testimonials on your website, as this indicates credibility and shows that your site is well-established and trustworthy, thus instilling confidence in your customers.

Let us optimise your site for maximum results

Purple Cow Communications specialises in optimising websites to gain maximum online exposure and boost sales. Through our carefully-tailored and monitored digital marketing strategies, we’re able to increase your online presence and up your bottom line.

Optimising your website for local search

Optimising a website to target local search is often overlooked – to the detriment of online success. Think about it: More than a billion people are estimated to use the Internet, across seven continents and throughout hundreds of countries. Wouldn’t it be useful to target the customers that are right on your doorstep, rather than those who are thousands of miles away?

Certainly, credit cards and rapid global shipping has made it easier than ever to procure a rare book, beloved CD or yak-wool jersey from a distant land. But if you’re a Capetonian searching for a doctor, a plumber or a pizza restaurant, wouldn’t you like to find a service a little closer to home – say, in Newlands, rather than Newfoundland?

Introducing local search – and the necessity to cater to this growing online trend.

Why should I target local searchers?

The latest online statistics reveal that 30 to 40 percent of searches are of a local nature. If your business offers a product or service that is specific to your local market, it’s essential to optimise your website accordingly. Examples of these types of businesses are estate agencies, food and beverage outlets (including restaurants), health clubs, car dealerships, home loan providers and bricks-and-mortar service providers.

The search engines, too, have wizened up to the local search trend, and are increasingly showing results that imply a regional focus. Clearly, optimising for local search should be a priority for any company reliant on regional patronage.

How can I optimise for local search?

There are a number of ways to target a local market successfully through an SEO campaign. Most importantly, you need to include locally-focused terms in your keywords. Create content that focuses on these keywords – for example, “doctor in Durban” or, better yet, “doctor in Northdene, Durban”. Also bear in mind that if your consultancy is in Newlands, Durban, you should ensure that your keywords accurately target this. After all, there’s also a Newlands in Cape Town, and a Newlands in Glasgow.

One of the most effective ways to boost local searches is by including your city or town’s name in your website’s title tags. Remember to include specific markers to help search engines distinguish between similar-sounding areas.

Another important step is to list your company for local searches on Google, MSN and Yahoo. This is free of charge, simple to do, and will ensure that your company results are displayed for relevant searches. Remember that most searchers still rely on search engines to find what they’re looking for online.

However, it’s also vital to bear in mind that some searchers don’t use the world’s most popular search engines, but turn to directories and local engines instead. Thus, it’s just as important to register your company on local directories as well.

White Pages and City Search, for example, are ideal places to list your business online, and it’s essential to get listed in the online Yellow Pages – a directory that, by next year, is expected to dominate the local search market with more than a third of all local searches conducted.

On-page tactics for local optimisation include listing your business address in the footer of all your web pages, as well as your business telephone number and postal code. This is not only helpful to users, but also indicates to search engines that your site targets local searchers.

Various other methods can be implemented on your site in order to optimise it for local search. SEO specialists managing your optimisation initiative will help you to implement and monitor these tactics.

Boosting your brand’s local online presence

It’s not easy to build an online presence, and optimising for local search comes with its own challenges. That’s why it’s recommended that you turn to an SEO specialist – at least at the outset – to achieve your optimisation goals. Good rankings are essential to your online success, and if you need help to achieve these, Purple Cow is ideally positioned to assist you.