SEO Blog

A fellow SEO consultant sent me this Search Engine Land article written mainly on the SEO impact of HTML 5 with the comment: ” This guy doesn’t seem to be on the schema.org bandwagon.”

What’s Wrong with HTML 5, Microdata and Schema.org?

After reading the article, here are the main points Keery Dean makes against HTML 5 microdata tags using Schema.org vocabulary on your website.  People can simply go overboard and tag every possible thing on a webpage. This would cause code bloat and eventually nullify the effectiveness granted by search engines due to overuse.

Well, here’s the thing.  Overusing any type of tag is basically SPAM.

As website SEO professionals, we have to be sensible, practical and strategic.  Every SEO consultant should be able to spout off the known types of on-page SEO SPAM.  The oldest forms of SPAM mainly boil down to excessive use of keywords, A.K.A keyword stuffing.  The goal of over optimization of a website, being to game the search engine algorithm, tends to create poor user experience.  This is contrary to the search engine goal, which is to provide high quality user experience search results.  With the emergence of new technology, it is in our best interest to apply the principles of SEO best practices.  Microdata is a tool.  Use it when it makes sense.  Use it strategically, when needed.  Otherwise, as Kerry Dean points out, it becomes useless code bloat. …continute reading this SEO article »

Symptoms of Panda Filter Penalty and Strategy to Escape the Filter

Google Panda Filter Strategy

I enjoy giving free SEO consultation and advice.  The following conversation string is copied out of emails between myself and the www.rocknrolltv.net website owner who filled out the BlendSEO contact form because she abruptly lost rankings for her blog.  Per the website owner’s request, I have omitted her name throughout the conversation.

The unifying theme you can learn from this conversation is that rich, unique content is essential for organic search engine visibility.  Content is what the search engines rank.  If you have content, optimization is a matter of finessing and organizing the content.  As you read below, the ranking problem is due to her website being caught by the PANDA filter.  After comparing competitors and with an understanding of what  degree of thin or duplicate content trips the PANDA filter, the proposed solution is based on content.  There are some great SEO tips in there as well.

Website Owner:

Hello.

I’m interested in possibly hiring your services to help me with our site. We seem to be hitting some penalties with Google. Our site is a music news video show with affiliates. The affiliates give us coupon codes which we have to push. Several of the promo code pages have slipped drastically in the Google rankings and I’m not sure why. I used to be #6 or #7 for “4inkjets coupon code” .. now I am down around #80 or so. This has happened with a few important keywords to me and my income! Please let me know how you work and if you think this is fixable.

Thanks. …continute reading this SEO article »

SEO Tools, Strategies and Upcoming SEO Research

SEOmoz president Gillian Muessig, affectionately known as SEOmom, presented at the Online Marketing Summit July 19th, 2011.  The event was held in Alpharetta, GA at a venue called Roam Atlanta, in the metro Atlanta area, about 20 minutes north of midtown Atlanta, where Blend SEO consultancy is located.   Gillian Muessig revealed a glance at impressive and practical capabilities of SEOmoz software.  Gillian’s prepared presentation hit all the SEO strategy essentials.  She also gave insight on research performed by SEOmoz, keyword optimization strategies and answered questions about Google, Bing and Yahoo search engines.  After her presentation, Gillian Muessig caught me up on some of the current social marketing and SEO research her son Rand Fishkin is up to. …continute reading this SEO article »

SEO, Hosting and Web Design Decisions?

How does web hosting affect SEO?

Avoid SEO web hosting issues.  See Blend SEO top 3 picks for hosting.

Web Hosting and SEO

SEO should be addressed during the planning stages of a website or blog.  A wrong decision on website design, server platform and hosting company can handicap your SEO efforts.  Many SEO hosting web design companies offer turn-key, all-in-one, one-stop-shop, too-good-to-be-true solutions for SEO, hosting and web design.  Many of these companies started out in one area and respond to customer demand in other areas by putting together a package to serve them all.

• Don’t expect SEO from a hosting company to be a full service, all encompassing SEO solution.
• Likewise, don’t expect an SEO or web design firm to provide top notch hosting.
• More likely they are reselling server space from a hosting company or else maintain an on-site local server.

My top 3 choices for web hosting…

…continute reading this SEO article »

In a meeting today at an SEO agency where I perform research and development, a potential client leaned over to me to ask …

Does our website pass for a mobile website?

…since it looks the same on my Blackberry as it does on a PC?

We were discussing local search marketing, which overlaps with mobile search marketing.  I gave a pretty quick response since we were whispering under other people, but here are the main questions to answer when deciding if you need to invest in mobile website design…

• Does your website use Flash?
  • Flash does not render on iphones or ipad.  If your website degrades nicely with an image replacing a flash banner, that will pass for a mobile device.  If you turn off Flash in your  browser and it looks like crap, you probably need a mobile version.
• Can you read and navigate the website on a mobile phone?
  • His website showed everything, but you had to zoom in and pan around to read anything.
  • Are the buttons and points of action easy to read and use?

…continute reading this SEO article »

Are Paid Directories Worth It for SEO?

Paid Directories for SEO

Our M.B. SEO link builder was submitting a client website to directories and put together a registration document for paid directory submission so that the client can approve the costs before submission.  The SEO client (whose name has been removed) had these questions:

I am not familiar with site directory registration and optimization and have a question about the [client] document for approval.  Can you tell me why Bing and Google are not included on the directory listing?  Is it because they rely on these other directory/paid engines?

The question reveals the SEO client has some confusion between directories and search engines and how one affects the other.  Also, with the recent news about paid link penalties, other clients have been asking how paid directories are viewed by search engines.

The Difference Between Directories and Search Engines.

An internet directory, like a phone directory, simply provides a listing of websites with some information about each one.  Like a phone book, a user can browse a directory by categories to find different websites. …continute reading this SEO article »

Mobile search marketing takes a front seat in Bing as the Bing Local Listing Center has been replaced by the new Bing Business Portal.  An impressive slew of new internet marketing SEO services and tools have been combined into the Bing Business Portal.  These services can quickly launch your business into local search marketing, mobile search marketing, and social media marketing with no investment outside the time it takes to set up and optimize your content in your free Bing account.

Free Mobile Website and Local Listings from Bing Business Portal

The tools for local search marketing are changing quickly as mobile search explodes and overlaps with social media marketing.  Smart phone, Android phone, iPhone, tablet PC, and iPad popularity is growing the market for local search.

Throughout this article, I explain the new features of the Bing Business Portal compared to Google and Yahoo products along with SEO tips to maximize its benefits. The big WOW about the new Bing Business Portal is that it not only gives merchants an easy place to list local business locations (enabling exposure to local and map search), the new product area helps you create a free mobile website, mirroring the products you load into the Bing shopping engine and your local listing information.  This mobile website has its own shortened URL you can share in Facebook, and a Facebook Like button built in (later in this article, I’ll share an SEO secret about Facebook likes).  You can even generate your mobile website’s QR code to download and print onto a window sticker or distribute throughout your area.  Using a few tricks to detect the browser and redirect, or just a simple link, this mobile website provided by Bing can be integrated into your main desktop website – or stand alone if it is your initial entry into internet marketing. …continute reading this SEO article »

Updated: November 15, 2011

Google, Bing and Yahoo cracked down hard on duplicate content starting December 2010.  Penalties hit hardest on February 24, 2011 in the Google Panda algorithm update.  Bing and Yahoo rankings followed suite.

How To: The SEO Tools and Process to Address Duplicate Content

Comparison SEO Tool

An SEO services client with which we work has developed multiple websites for different brands, but the client recycled the content.  Instead of writing 100% unique text for each website, paragraphs and sometimes whole pages were used universally across multiple websites.  They were getting away without noticeable revenue loss, so despite existing duplicate content penalties (though not actual penalties – more accurately wasting crawl budget and possibly dividing link juice) on interior entry pages, the client decided it was not a big enough priority to rewrite all the content … until now.

February search engine algorithm updates penalized entire websites that have pages similar to any other site that the search engine credits as the originator. Even if words are rearranged and the brand name is switched out, the Google algorithm is not fooled.  Google chooses one website as the originator and penalizes the others.

In late 2010, various rankings started to slip.  On February 24th, clients with duplicate or similar content across different websites saw a total drop off for #1 ranked keyword phrases.   Google guidelines for duplicate content indicate that the algorithm perceives these similar pages as  “deliberately duplicated across domains in an attempt to manipulate search engine rankings or win more traffic“.

By the way, these guidelines were [initially] updated March 20, 2011, less than a month after the [first] Panda algorithm update.

Systematic Process of Identifying and Addressing Duplicate Pages

If you are intimately familiar with your websites, like this search engine optimization consultant is, you already know which pages are similar and possibly causing duplicate content penalties. If you are an SEO agency taking on a new client with duplicate content issues, leaving it up to you to figure out where the duplicates are within their online properties, then you may need a few SEO tools to help identify possible duplicate pages. …continute reading this SEO article »

GLiD becomes Blend.

Blend starts with the end in mind.  A blended skill set of design and marketing contributes to SEO for a stronger, unified result.  Blend is SEO (search engine optimization) infused with design and marketing.  Our blog, the BlendER (ER = Everything Relevant), breaks down problems that are hard to chew into easily digestible servings.

Meaning Behind the Cute Words and Symbols?

…continute reading this SEO article »

Advice on Mobile SEM and SEO from Inside Google

Google Office in Atlanta

Google invited 150 search marketing professionals along with Bing, Yahoo, Razorfish and 360i into the Atlanta Google office for a mobile search marketing event.  Each of the major search engines sat side by side along with Razorfish to speak on upcoming trends in mobile search and to answer our questions from search engine optimization consultants, internet marketing companies, web designers, creative agencies and any company providing SEM and SEO services among the 150 first people to make it through the door in Atlanta.

I was one of those 150 people.

The event was simulcast from Google Atlanta to offices in New York and Boston.  Limited audiences were invited to attend the event in New York and Boston.  A live feed from each office was projected on the wall in the Atlanta office alongside the speaker presentation screen.  The speakers responded to questions from all three locations.

The mobile search marketing speaker panel consisted of:

• Bing: Director of Bing Mobile Product Management – Andy Chu
• Yahoo: Senior Director, Mobile Sales Strategies – Paul Cushman
• Google: Senior Account Executive (Mobile Ads Team) – Elliott Nix
• Razorfish: VP of Mobile – Paul Gelb

I showed up a little early to make sure I had plenty of time to explore the Google office.  The office in Atlanta is a satellite office for Google, and as you might imagine looks like a small version of the California office descriptions, decorated with big red, yellow, green and blue circles in the carpet, carved into the walls, in the ceiling and repeated playfully throughout the decor.

After networking for about an hour with other SEM and SEO agency, marketing and designer SEMPO Atlanta members we settled down for the presentations.  After introductions by various sponsors and SEMPO officials we got to the speaker presentations.  Razorfish went first, followed by Yahoo, Bing, then Google.

Whether intended or not, the reoccurring theme behind was how human behavior drives mobile search. Here’s a synopsis of their presentations. …continute reading this SEO article »