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SEO Before or After Design of Your Website

posted by Authority SEO
Saturday, August 22, 2009

The most common thing that happens for many small businesses is that they create a website than start their Google Adwords program.  Only to find out the Adwords is costing them money with negative return on investment.  So the next step is turning to a search engine optimization (SEO) consultant.

Many web designers claim they know SEO

Many web designers claim they know SEO

This can be very confusing for a small business owner when their web designer claimed they knew SEO.  Which perpetuates the #1 myth with SEO that search engine optimization is a one time deal of add a couple things to your website and you are done.  The reality is SEO is a daily, yes I said daily, set of actions taken that directly support your website to rank higher in search results.

When is the best time for SEO?  The answer is as soon as you realize that traffic to your website is the most important aspect of your website.  It doesn’t matter how beautiful or how effective it will convert visitors if you have no visitors.  Getting a SEO consult inline with the development of your website can save you tons of money and time.

The best advice I have for small businesses creating websites is to take the budgeted money set aside for your website and switch your thinking to 15% for web site creation and 85% for online marketing.  You can always add more features to your website when your website is making money.  It is a lot harder to spend more on marketing when you are in the whole every month on your website.


For the first time in quite some time news on the search engine optimization landscape is important and it doesn’t have anything to do with Google.  There is a new deal between Yahoo and Microsoft which runs Bing that will have significant effects on search engine optimization.

Top Points on the New Deal

  1. the agreement is for 10 yrs
  2. for next 10 years Microsoft has exclusive license to Yahoo’s search engine technology
  3. current affiliate partners of Yahoo will still be syndicated by Yahoo
  4. Yahoo search will not be powered by Bing’s search algorithm for both organic search results and paid search
  5. Yahoo and Microsoft will still employ their own sales team for advertising
  6. the combined premium search advertisers will be handled by Yahoo while the “do it yourself” advertising will be handled by Microsoft

What all of this really means is that Bing, Microsoft’s search platform, will power Yahoo search.  Also, important is that now Microsoft will have access to Yahoo search technologies to enhance the present Bing offering.


What type of comments get accepted

posted by Authority SEO
Saturday, August 22, 2009

Another website had a survey they were doing as the type of comments people would accept on their blogs.  The major question they were looking for is do people accept comments when people put anchor text in the middle of the posted comment.

Anchor text is the highlighted word or phrase that is then linked to another website or web page.  Anchor text is important from an SEO standpoint as anchor text tells search engines like Google that the highlight term is important on the website or web page the link is pointed to.

Authority SEO will automatically delete comments with anchor text in them

The overwhelming response was that bloggers delete comments that have anchor text in them.  This is also how I voted as Authority SEO removes all comments without even reading them if people put anchor text in.  If a person puts anchor text in their comment they are attempting to get SEO value from their comment instead of continuing the ongoing discussion about the post or topic in hand.

For those who are attempting to engage in the discussion with comments on people’s blogs I would highly recommend that you don’t ever put anchor text into your comments if you want your comments to be approved.


As any business owners comes to realize at some point of time is that they need search engine optimization (SEO) support if they are going to grow their website and online revenue stream.  The challenge can ge daunting for the unfamiliar with the web as to how to find the right SEO consultant for your business.  The following are questions to ask any SEO website consultant before starting a contract with them.  For added validity to this list as Authority SEO is an SEO consulting company these questions were created by Google themselves (see Google’s complete list).

Authority SEO is excited to answer the questions that Google states are vital for high quality SEO consulting

Questions to Ask Your SEO Consultant

  1. Can you show me examples of past clients work? - See Authority SEO case studies
  2. Do you use the Google webmaster guidelines? - Yes
  3. Do you offer Internet marketing services that complement your organic search results? - Authority SEO offers many different options that can drive traffic to your site from social media to increasing conversion percentages from your traffic generated.
  4. What is a time frame for results and how do you measure results? - Time frame we go over in detail and it largely based on the budget you set forth.  All results are objectively measured by adding analytics to your website that tracks every visitor from where they come from to what they do on your site.
  5. What is your experience? - Authority SEO has over 8 years experience in web based businesses
  6. What are your most paramount SEO strategies? - One way link building and Content building
  7. How do I communicate with you?  Authority SEO has many options from in person meetings, conference calls with ability to view our screen, instant messaging, and email.

If you own a business than I hope you either have a website or are in the process of building one.  Which ever state you are in you come to the realization that no matter how pretty or how much time you tool to build it you are getting no web traffic.  So, as any good business owner you start an Internet marketing campaign.  In my experience there has been one over riding factor why most Internet marketing or search engine optimization (SEO) campaigns fail.  The answer is consistency.

Consistency is the reason most SEO plans fail

First, lets be honest how many people reading this post have at one time believed that SEO is just something you do once and then it is done?  I know for myself years ago when I got started online I had no idea the level of effort it took to achieve massive amounts of traffic to my website.  My original marketing plan for my first website was based on Google Adwords.  Oh, how times have changed.

To be successful online you have to do the right things consistently everyday.  I really mean everyday.  I have always looked at that everyday I don’t have a person on my team working on gaining online visibility I have competitors who are.  I believe the hardest concept for business owners to come to terms with is SEO doesn’t ever end.  You are always on a constant journey of growth or decay with your SEO marketing campaign.  I have worked on campaigns that receive millions of web traffic and you can tell on the analytics the exact day efforts were reduced and the exact day they were picked back up.

Read the rest of this entry »


If you have started marketing your website, you have probably read about how important content it.  I am not going into detail for this post, though lets say content is still vital to your site’s success.  The goal of this post is to look at giving your content writing a strategy.  Instead of shooting from the hip create a plan that you can follow which allows you to track that you are making progress.

After your first couple of article most business owners are like “what now do I write?”  The issue of constantly adding new content to your website can seem overwhelming.  It doesn’t have to be.

For good SEO content rely on quality before quantity

When I say “rely on quality” what I mean is that there are steps to writing better content.  It is better for your overall SEO campaign and conversion once you receive a visitor to focus on quality over just get it up so we have new content.  As your website becomes larger and you have more to do staying true to this objective becomes even more important.

Steps to Quality SEO Conent

  1. Keywords: the first thing is you have to figure out what to write about.  I find the best way is to take killing yourself over article topics and use keyword discovery tools to determine what subjects your target audience is searching for.  There are numerous free keyword traffic tools and create a new article for each topic or phrase that directly related to your business.
  2. Titles: your title of your content page has to have the keyword your are focusing on in the title.  Clever headlines like magazine articles look great though that isn’t how people search.  You want to use the techniques of magazine covers to get people to read it and click into your article while using the keywords that are specific to it.
  3. On Page: take your article and add bold or strong, H2 or H3 tags, quotes, and alt tags to the important keywords you are focusing on for that article.  This tells your reader and the search engines what is important on that page.
  4. Links: add your new content page to your intra linking strategy.  If you new content page doesn’t have other pages on your site linking to it then the search engines won’t see that it has any importance on your site.  No importance means no high rankings in search results.

Top 25 Websites on the Web

posted by Authority SEO
Tuesday, June 30, 2009

You many be wondering what websites get the most traffic on the web?  Your first guess is probably Google and you are right.  The Internet is a very vast place so there is still room for your website to get traffic.  The top ranking websites are search engines which is no surprise.  What is important to understand about that is the #1 websites people use are services to find a local business or ecommerce store like yours.

Photobucket receives more traffic than Twitter.  Do you have a Internet marketing plan that involves photos?  If not you should.

youtube_channelYou can learn great insight into what people find important and how to create your SEO strategy by looking at the sites people visit to most.  First as Google is #1, ranking is Google’s organic search is the top priority for your website’s success.  You probably already knew that though here are a few other observations you may not have.  Youtube is #5 and Photobucket is #23 which means that having a search engine optimization strategy for using videos and photos can allow you to get a leg up on the competition.  Twitter may be all in the news right now though Youtube and Photobucket still receive more traffic.

The rankings were gathered by Ranking.com

Top 25 Websites on the Web

  1. google.com
  2. yahoo.com
  3. msn.com
  4. live.com
  5. youtube.com
  6. aol.com
  7. myspace.com
  8. facebook.com
  9. google.co.uk
  10. microsoft.com
  11. ebay.com
  12. ask.com
  13. wikipedia.org
  14. go.com
  15. google.ca
  16. blogspot.com
  17. casalemedia.com
  18. findstuff.com
  19. starware.com
  20. att.net
  21. cnn.com
  22. mywebsearch.com
  23. photobucket.com
  24. netzero.net
  25. amazon.com

In the Transformer movies the term is used “more than meets the eye.”  The phrase may be used to describe how the Transformers turn from cars into fighting robots though you could use this to describe some of the most basic aspects of search engine optimization (SEO).  When people think about SEO transforming the basics can achieve big dividends as it relates to search engine rankings.

Like Transformers their are parts of your website that are “More Than Meets the Eye”

Transformer #1

transformersTitles: Titles are as basic as it gets on your website.  Every page on your website has a title.  I believe titles are the #1 aspect of your website done poorly for SEO than any other.  If you want to rank for a competitive keyword, the keyword phrase has to be in the title.

  • Many websites have the same title as their homepage spread throughout every page.  This tells Google and other search engines that every page has the same info.  Every page on your website needs to have a unique keyword driven title.
  • The second way to transform your titles is by adding other keyword adjectives to your keyword phrase you want to rank for.  Seventy percent of all searches are unique and this will greatly support you in ranking for many of the different ways future customers are searching for your business.

Transformer #2

Meta Tags: Meta tags are the description of every page that you tell the search engines and is the brief description online searchers will read under your website in organic rankings.  You want the meta description to describe your title and you have 160 characters to do so.  More than 160 won’t be picked and can look spammy.

Where to find the best blogs

posted by Authority SEO
Wednesday, June 17, 2009

If you search using keywords in Google’s blog search you may find that you don’t always find what you are looking for.  rssHugger.com is an excellent resource for indexing the highest quality blogs.  What I like most is the list of top 100 blogs which gives added validity to what you are reading.


Once you started marketing your website you probably heard right away you need to gets links.  The important thing is that you need high quality links.  Google and other search engines have become very effective in determining scams to manipulate their search results.

Directories, which are listing of websites, used to be a highly effective way of link building.  The problem with every good idea it gets abused online.  Because of this many directories hold no wait with search engines like Google.

The best part is and this works in many areas of internet marketing, where there is abuse there is opportunity.  Now, most people have given up submitting to directories so you can gain an advantage if you find high quality directories which are now going to have fewer listings.

What to look for when submitting to directories

  1. Paid directories: most of the good directories you have to pay for (because they are good); keep in mind that a fee will eliminate all free loaders and typically leave just real success businesses
  2. Crawl stats: look to see the last time Google crawled the directory page that your listing will be in; if it has been a long time than most likely Google doesn’t give that page any value
  3. Link total: if your directory page has hundreds of websites and no inbound links than that page has no value; if you are going to pay for a directory you want fewer (not to few so it probably isn’t a good directory) and that there are one way links pointing back to your directory page
  4. Unique content: don’t copy and paste anything off your website; also write each directory listing a little differently.  This takes more time though you will get more value from fewer directories done right than hundreds done poorly.
  5. No auto fillers: stay away from websites or programs that state they will automatically get you listed in directories.  Auto filled information is picked up by Google and carries no weight.  Also, it is possible that Google could penalize your website for using these techniques as they don’t like websites manipulating their search results.

Why On Page SEO is More than Meta Tags

posted by Authority SEO
Monday, June 15, 2009

You want to optimize your website for the search engines, namely Google.  My favorite conversion with future SEO consulting clients is on the conversion of site optimization.  The first thing that any person will tell me is I have meta tags on my website.  Meta tags are important though they should be done before I even start with what I would call fundamentals.  I am not going into in this articles how many sites which have the same meta information on every page.

The goal of this post is receive a greater understanding about other important factors for each page of your website.

Do you know if your important keywords are in the top 100 words of your page?

With site optimization you have to understand that it is a competition.  It isn’t do ABC and then presto I am #1 on Google’s search engine.  You have to do it better than the next guy if you want to succeed.  The other key understanding is that more is not better.  Because you need to have your keyword on your page if you are going to rank for it doesn’t mean to add it a thousand times and spam your page.

Top 5 Things to Optimize on Your Page

  1. Keyword in url
  2. Keyword in title
  3. Keyword in meta description and keywords
  4. Keyword at least twice in first 100 words
  5. Keyword in H1 tags

This should be a good to start to optimizing your page better for search engines.  Depending on your competition you still may have to make your page even better.



How well is Bing.com Search Engine Doing

posted by Authority SEO
Saturday, June 13, 2009

By now you have probably seen the keyword overload commerical by Bing which is the latest search engine to challenge Google.  Bing.com is created my Microsoft which uses past searches and more detailed information in the search results in hopes that people which switch from Google as the major search engine player to Bing.

So how well is Bing doing?  One thing you have to keep in mind is that it is only been available for a couple weeks.  Bing now ranks forth in highest visited search engines.  This isn’t too bad since people have only had a week to use.  The initial reviews are good as people like the search results interface.

Will Bing challenge Google; that chapter has yet to be written.  The greater obstacle in over taking Google is not just making a better search engine; it is that Google is now part of American culture and has become its own verb.  I bet you have said “just Google it.”


If you have started the process of driving traffic to your website then you have probably run into the moment when you realize “what else can I talk about.”  As you might have heard content is king online.  Which means that to be successful online driving traffic you need to constantly update content.  Finding new things to right about can be hard or it doesn’t have to be.

If you have run out of ideas start thinking more about questions and answers.  Questions and answer sites have more than double over the last couple of years as people find them a good way they want to get information.

You don’t have to start a new question and answer site just start asking what are important questions to your business and then writing an article that answers the question.

Read the rest of this entry »


You have created a website and now find out that your site receives no traffic.  Like everyone else your first thought is I how do I rank #1 on Google for the keywords that are important to me.  For the first time in your life you are going to hear the term search engine optimization or SEO.  The key word in this phrase is optimization.

Optimization is so important because it represent what we are doing, optimizing.  What most business owners don’t understand is that we need something to optimize.  I want you to look at your competition which are the websites that rank for the keywords you want to in Google search results.  What you are looking for is how many pages these websites offer.  If you want to find out how many pages they have indexed by Google watch the video we made on Top Keyword Rankings which demonstrates how do this.  What you will find is that your competition has sites loaded with content.

For your search engine optimization to work your website needs a consistent strategy for updating and creating new content on a regular basis.  Similar to fitness you need to think about what you are doing on a daily basis to be success instead of a destination.  Content building never ends; as soon as you stop producing new content your websites traffic rankings will drop.

Read the rest of this entry »


Does the Type of Page Affect SEO

posted by Authority SEO
Friday, May 29, 2009

You may have or not noticed that at the end of the url on your website or websites you are visiting are .php, .cfm, .html, .asp, or .pdf.  There are even more options than just these.  So, does the type of page created make a difference in link building and your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts.

The web language extensions or software programs used to create web pages like php, asp, html, and so on have no difference between them as it relates to SEO.  What is going to matter as it relates to SEO and link building for your site or the site you want a link from is the strength of that website not its extension.

There is more debate about pdf and word documents online or any other document format that may be published.  Search engines do index document formats online so they have some weight.  It is believed that links coming from a PDF doesn’t carry the same weight as a link from a more standard web page.  That changes when you add SEO factors though.  If a PDF has a 1,000 quality links pointing to it than it will have more power than a web page with 20 poor quality links.

The best way I look at this is do you want info in document format form like a PDF.  The answer for me is no.  When is the last time you searched online and when you clicked on a result go a PDF?  If you did because they typcially take so long to load you hit your back button and moved on.  I would recommend taking info you have in PDF form and getting into standard web lanuage with the rest of your website.  You can always have multiple pages if your PDF was large.