Search Engine Optimization Blog

For those of you with a Google Account, your search results have already changed. You can move rankings, comment on sites, and shift what you are looking for. Should search engine optimization specialists be heading for the unemployment line?

Recently, Google has been working on personalizing search results. If you don’t search within a Google Account, your rankings have been shifting based on your recent search activity. If you Google a keyphrase like “rattlesnake boots” then Google “rattlesnake skin boots”, you will see this at the top right of Google’s search results. “Customized based on recent search activity.”

So you might be thinking, “oh no, that is the end of SEO!” if everyone sees different results, how can one measure success? Fear not my good web marketer, for search engine optimization is not dead, it’s simply being upgraded.

The changes in Google’s personalized results have been monitored for a couple of years by my search engine optimization company. Being that we offer guaranteed search engine optimization, (guaranteeing page one rankings, not individual rankings) we were mildly concerned when Google started showing different results in different regions. And now, with this innovation, things are about to get different, not harder.

Basically, personalized search works around ranking monopolies. If you do a search for health insurance quotes, health insurance plans, and affordable health insurance, you are getting the same top two web sites for all three. So in your personalized search, just delete them. So the next time you search, you will be exposed to a few sites that you haven’t seen before and may have options that better suit you. Basically, personalized search increases visibility and fairness to web sites that don’t have ranking monopolies.

While personalized search may reduce traffic, it should increase conversion (in theory) because the visitors that are exposed to your web site have been because of their recent search history thus making them a more relevant visitor.

For regional search engine optimization, the changes will be minimal. National terms like “car” could go several directions. A searcher could be wanting to buy a car, looking for car repair tutorials, or simply wanting to read car blogs. General terms will be most effected by personalized search.

However, someone searching for a Houston immigration lawyer, or chiropractor, or insurance agent, will pretty much see the same results. Even with personalized search, your web site needs to have relevant content, clean code, properly formatted meta descriptions, descriptive text, descriptive image tags, and variety of relevant, quality web sites linking to it. All of these items need to be addressed so that your web site appears in the top ten of relevant search results.

The way I see it, personalized search is just another way search engines are becoming more relevant. I’m looking forward to implementing new services into our search engine optimization plans. This is what keeps this industry exciting.

Jason Bland is with search engine optimization company, Adviatech Corp. Adviatech is one of the leading SEO firms offering results based online marketing solutions. To learn more about guaranteed search engine optimization services, visit Adviatech.com.

Many web sites use flash, java, or images for their top or side menu links. The fancy rollover effects are esthetically enhancing to the web site’s design so its no mystery why they are popular. However, Google needs plain text links to best navigate your web site.

You can keep the attractive menu at the top of your web site but you should link in plain text to all of your pages at the bottom. A good example is at http://www.adviatech.com, Have your search engine optimization company use that as an example. This simple addition may be what is keeping your search engine optimization goals from being accomplished.

Each week, we talk about the various elements that will make your law firm’s web site rank higher in search engines. Google having the highest standards is of course, the search engine we based our practices and policies around. But to truly understand search engine optimization requires an inside look at what Google really wants.

Search Traffic
Google wants more people to use their search engine than any other search engine available. Currently, they get about 70% of search traffic. That means, they have 30% of online users to win over to their cause. All of their webmaster regulations are geared towards making their search engine have the most relevant and highest quality web sites indexed and ranked.

Quality
That brings us to quality. Google wants quality sites with quality content ranked in their search engine. If someone is searching in a search engine and the top ranking web sites are spammy, that lowers the quality of the search engine. Therefore, Google wants to see quality content and a professionally developed web site. Go ahead, do a search on Google and see how many top ranking web sites look like they were made by a “do it yourselfer”. Most high ranking web sites are professionally designed and developed.

One Way Links
Judging the quality of a web site by the number of quality web sites linking into it is referred to (in the SEO community) as the Google democracy. If you look at each quality web site on the internet as a qualified voter, that helps you understand their link philosophy. The most qualified web sites linking to your site, the more “votes” you have, thus a higher ranking.

This simple outline of what Google wants will help you understand the legal marketing strategies used by your search engine optimization company when developing a law firm marketing plan or other business SEO strategy.

The internet offers a great variety of marketing opportunities that fit into a small businesses budget. However, some of those such as pay per click, may not be suitable during tough economic conditions.

By now, most people probably are getting tired of hearing “times are tough”. A line that was overplayed by every running public official in the last election is something everybody knows. Rather than looking at economic conditions as a giant beast that just simply can’t be concurred, lets find a way to walk around it.

A quick glance at various stocks from television network affiliates to Google will show a sharp decline in advertising dollars being spent on traditional and new media. Google, this time last year was trading at more than $700.00 a share, now it’s at $291.00.

The point is, you need marketing. The big mistake most companies make during tough times is decreasing marketing expenses. A sensible way to decrease marketing expenses, increase conversion, and continue to have a market presence during a down swinging economic time is to utilize search engine optimization.

In fact, during tough economic times, you are immediately thrown into a marketing conundrum. With less expendable income (be it consumer or business), you actually need to be exposed to a greater number of people/businesses to reach a qualified customer. This is where the Pay Per Click model becomes a problem.

Pay Per Click is of course when you pay a fee for each click on your ad. In theory, it sounds good because its performance based. No traffic, no money spent. However, based on the fact that you need more exposure at the time that you can afford it the least, Pay Per Click is a problem.

Let’s say that you pay $1.00 a click for a pay per click ad in a search engine. When the economy was stable, you would get a new client after every 50 clicks. So the cost of acquiring each client was $50.00. If you based your marketing budget around that, you are now faced with a problem. You need more clicks.

Now you need to be exposed to more people to get the same results so your client acquisition is going to cost $100.00 because you need twice as many clicks.

This is where search engine optimization becomes your better strategy. When working with a solid search engine optimization company, you will have a set monthly fee. If your natural Google ranking delivers those fifty needed clicks or one thousand clicks, your SEO firm only collects the set monthly fee. So you can base your marketing budget on a predictable fee that is locked in for your term… usually twelve months.

So don’t let the economy force you into having a zero marketing presence. There are customers are out, they just have to find you.

Jason Bland is with search engine optimization company, Adviatech Corp. Adviatech is one of the leading SEO firms offering results based online marketing solutions. To learn more about guaranteed search engine optimization services, visit Adviatech.com.

If you have a web site, you absolutely need an on site blog. Your search engine optimization company should have set one up. This keeps your web site fresh, dynamic, and search engine friendly.

But does it help to also have blogs on Wordpress.com, Blogger.com, and other third party blog web sites? It turns out, yes it does.

By having a couple other blogs, you are increasing exposure and links to your main web site. You can keep them updated with similar content to keep them fresh.

So if you were thinking about getting a couple of free blogs to help your web site grow, by all means, move forward. This is a helpful SEO technique.

To learn more about guaranteed search engine optimization, visit Adviatech.com.

When encouraging businesses, insurance agents, insurance companies, law firms, and sole practicing attorneys to move forward with a search engine optimization project, the one question that always comes up is “how long is it going to take?”

Search engine optimization is a progressive process which means your ranking will gradually increase over time.

So here is something you won’t get from other SEO companies; a direct answer. Generally… 2-4 months in most markets.

This is always a fascinating statistic. Between the decision making, discussing, questioning, and contract reviewing, the process of proposal to contract takes about 2 months (in many cases).

That means, had you signed up the same day that you received your proposal, it is highly possible that you would already be on the first page of Google by the time most people are just beginning.

Just food for thought. I however, enjoy talking with prospective clients about the search engine optimization process because an informed client that understands what they are paying for is much easier to work with over the long term.

Of course, if you are getting a new web site, you have 3-6 weeks of design and development prior to the SEO process beginning.

The short of it, the sooner you start your project, the sooner you’ll see a return on your investment.

To learn more about guaranteed search engine optimization, visit search engine optimization company, Adviatech.com.

One of the best ways to convert visitors into customers is by offering free information. A downloadable guide relevant to your business is like a digital business card.

Speaking from first hand experience, visitors will become customers with a company that positions themselves as an authority in their field. By writing an Ebook or guide, you are doing just that. So write a 10-15 page guide and link it to your web site. You can also use this as an opportunity to build a newsletter subscriber base.

To learn about guaranteed search engine optimization from search engine optimization company, Adviatech Corp., visit Adviatech.com

Traffic is just one part of search engine optimization. In most cases, its not the traffic that makes SEO worth the money, it’s the new business. New business from web traffic is all about conversion.

If you walk into a store that is dirty and has disorganized shelves and an overall unpleasant environment, is it likely that you will become a loyal patron? Probably not. Your web site is no different.

Professionally designed web sites convert traffic much better than template or cookie cutter web sites. Not only does it convert your search engine traffic better, it also helps with search engine optimization. A professional web designer will know how to keep the code clean and navigation structure in the format that search engines prefer seeing.

Learn more at Adviatech.com or call 1.800.728.5306

The guaranteed search engine optimization tip of the week is generally about link building but this week, we are moving to the top. The top of the page.

Your page title is the single most important line of your web site. This is where it is vital to list your keyphrases in left to right order of most to least importance. For example, using our demo law firm Smith & White, the fictiscious divorce lawyers in Chicago, we would make a title that looked something like this.

“Chicago Divorce Lawyer, Chicago Family Law, Custody Lawyers – Smith & White”

Notice the law firm name goes on the far right of the page title. This is because your law firm’s name is least important in terms of keyphrases needing to be optimized. This is simple way to improve your online law firm marketing.

The first response from a search engine optimization specialists when reading a title like that may be “whaaaaaat?”. It turns out, that Flash has a place in this world and you can use it properly without taking a ranking dive.

First, let us explore why flash is generally frowned upon in the search engine optimization community. Flash movies are usually animated and are best used for elements, presentations, and YouTube like videos. However, some designers take it to the extreme and develop whole web sites in Flash.

Flash is pretty. But Google does not have eyes that can see content in a flash movie. So if you use only flash on your web site, Google will not have text to read when indexing (then ranking) your web site.

The use of flash as an animated header, fading slideshow of images, testimonials, and statements of dedication, and other enhancing elements are impressive to your user and you can achieve a page one ranking with your web site even if you use some minor flash elements. Just make sure the bulk of the web site is good old fashioned, easy to read text.

To learn more about guaranteed search engine optimization, visit http://www.adviatech.com.