Google Caffeine Officially Annouced

admin    google     alpharetta seo, facebook, google caffeine, Social Media, twitter

Google has officially announced the launch of caffeine their new search index. There has been a buzz around for a while that caffeine was being launched and Google told us a while back that they were testing out caffeine in various markets. It looks like it now official as you can see on their blog with the official launch of Google caffeine.

So what does the launch of the new index mean to you and me. As you can tell Google is pushing hard to pull as much content as they can and they are going to index it faster. If you have a static web site than you may be in trouble but if you have a blog on your site or are continually adding new web pages to your website you will be just fine. This also means you will see  a lot of the social media sites such as facebook, twitter, and youtube showing up in your search results more now than ever.

Remember the saying that content is king? Well this has been true in the past and will continue to be very important. If you do not have a content strategy now is the time to create one. My first recommendation would be to add a blog to your website and decide to populate it with new content. Make a blog part of you site so that it sits in a sub-directory so it would like this www.mysite.com/blog. Do not put it in a sub-domain or put your blog on an external site such as wordpress or blogger. I recommend wordpress because it has tons of free plug-ins and it is really seo friendly.

Consistently add new articles to your blog or website and if you have a company with several employees make them part of the content team and let them contribute articles to your site. If you are adding new content to your site every month or so you are missing the point and you need to schedule time in your week to add as much content to the site as you can.

Go ahead and add a facebook business page and a twitter account if have not already done it and when you post new content to your website
link back to the content. Since Google and the other search engines are constantly crawling facebook and twitter this will insure that the new content has been picked up by Google. If Google knows that your new content exist than the better your chances are that it will rank.

The caffeine update can be a good thing and help you with traffic to your website if understand what Google wants and serve it to them. Websites that are consistently add new and relevant content to their site will get all the Google love that they can stand.

Need help with your search engine marketing strategy drop us a line and schedule a consultation.

Twitter 101

admin    Uncategorized     alpharetta seo, Social Media, twitter

It has been a while since I have posted and I apologize but it has been a busy few weeks and business has been booming. So as opposed to not updating my blog I thought I pass along a link to a great read that I came across recently. If you have ever thought about using twitter to drive traffic than now is a great time dip your foot in the pool.

Twitter has gotten a lot of buzz and it seems like every place that you turn somebody is pushing their twitter account. To learn the basics of twitter here is a link to an article by Ron Jones that you should check out…Twitter 101.

After reading the article feel free to comment let me know your thoughts.

Is Seo A Winner Take All Game?

admin    Website Traffic     alpharetta seo, Keyword Research, number 1 listing, organic rankings

What a number 1 listing for your keyword can mean for traffic.

I am sure you have seen the advertisements for seo companies that claim to get on the first page for you keyword. Getting on the first page for your keyword term is a great outcome but there can be a huge difference between being in the number 1 postion and being in the number 10 postion. In terms of traffic to your site and sales or leads increasing your ranking several postions can have a huge impact on the overall visitors to your site.

How much difference does it make to have the number 1 postion versus the number 10 postion? Lets take a look at what you can expect from click through rates from being on the first page.

- Listing #1 : 42% CTR

- Listing #2 : 12% CTR

- Listing #3 : 8.5% CTR

- Listing #4 : 6% CTR

- Listing #5 : 5% CTR

- Listing #6 : 4% CTR

- Listing #7 : 3.5% CTR

- Listing #8 : 3% CTR

- Listing #9 : 3% CTR

- Listing #10 : 3% CTR

The numbers above only take a look at the organic clicks and do not factor in Pay Per Click. So as you can see having a number 1 listing can have a massive effect on the traffic to your site. You also have to keep in mind that there are other factors when it comes to click through rates such as the title and description that is shown in the listings. If you have a compelling title and meta description than your click through rate can go up but as you can see most of the eyeballs go straight to the top listing.

When you are deciding on an seo program and your keywords than you can see that sometimes keywords that receive less traffic but are less competitive might be the way to go initially. If we use the numbers above we see that if you have a keyword that receives 1,000 searches per month and you have a top ranking than you should see about 420 visits per month for that keyword. If a keyword gets 5,000 visits per month and you are in the number 8 postion you should see about 150 visits per month for the keyword. Typically, keywords that have more traffic are tougher to rank for because other websites are gunning for them.

Sometimes less is more and in the instance of gaining a top ranking this really is the case. So when you are doing your keyword research do not discount the keywords that do not get a massive amount of traffic because you could be losing out on easily attainable keywords.

A List Of The Top 5 On Site Optimzation Attributes

admin    Search Engine Optimization     alpharetta seo, h1, internal linking, on site optimzation

The Top 5 On Site SEO Attributes

One of the most common questions I get when I speak with people about search engine optimization for their website is what is the best way to optimize their website for on site purposes? Let me be the first to say that on site optimization needs to be done but their are other variables that need to be undertaken to make sure that your seo project is a success.

From an on site optimization perspective there really are certain areas that you need to focus on. Here are the top 5 onsite seo attributes that you need to take care of when decide it is time to do a seo project. Keep in mind that these are in no particular order but all of them should have a positive effect.

1. Place your main keyword in the title tag of the web page. If you are focusing on the keyword “shared office space” your title tag should look something like this – Shared Office Space | Short Term Offices | www.website.com. Placing your domain name at the end of the title tag is not necessary but for brand awareness purposes you may want to include it.

2. Place your keyword in the domain name or the subfolders. When focusing on a keyword try use that keyword in your domain name if possible. If the domain name is already taken or you are working with a current domain put the keyword in the subfolder so it would read like this – www.domain.com/shared-office-space.html.

3. Add your keywords in the image alt tags. When placing images on your website within the code you can use your keyword as the alternate text. Alt tags are used because the the search engine spiders cannot read images so they need a way to find out what the image is about, this is where the alt text comes into play. There is a caveat to this, do not go crazy with this and stuff the keyword on several of the images.

4. Make sure that you use your keyword is in the copy of your text and place the keywords within the tags of your site such as the h1, strong, and various places that it makes sense. Again, do not over do this so you will not raise any red flags.

5. A strong internal linking structure. If you have several pages on your website and they also have terms such as shared office space than link that page the one that your are trying to get ranked with your keyword as the anchor text.

If you think about it all on site optimization is all about keywords and linking but as you start to do the work you can soon realize that it is all about the details.

For help with your websites on site optimization and need an Alpharetta seo please feel free to contact me for a consultation.

Chase The Longtail When Doing Keyword Searching

admin    Keyword Research     alpharetta seo, Keyword Research, long tail keywords, Website Traffic

When doing keyword research for your website you can be overwhelmed with the amount of different keywords that you could choose to optimize your website. The question becomes, focus your website on head terms or will you go after long tail keywords.

Depending on the competition in you industry or niche with the right amount of leg work rankings for certain head keyword terms can be attained, it will typically take more time to see your website rise up through the rankings. If you have never ventured into the wonderful world of search engine optimization and want to see quicker results than focusing on the long tail is probably your best bet.

Terms that are more heavily searched are the head and an example of a this would be a term such as golf balls. People typically use the head term when they are in the research phase of their search and are less likely to purchase. Optimizing your website for the head could be a strategy for the long haul and can bring you a ton of traffic if are able to reach the first page for the term.

Terms that are less heavily searched are the long tail, this would be a term such as golf balls for high handicappers. These terms tend to lead to less traffic but will bring in more sales because during this phase of search people have figured out pretty much what they are looking for.

The long tail of keyword research is important to your success. Long tail keywords have less competition from other websites, you have a much better chance of ranking highly in the search engines and will give your website much more visibility. It really is basic math the more terms you rank for the more traffic you get and the path to more rankings is to go after many long tail terms.

Here is a nugget to get you thinking about focusing on long tail keywords, In a 2008 report, that was published by Hitwise, they stated that for any given topic, the top 100 keywords account for just 5.7% of all website traffic while long tail keywords account for the remaining 94.3%.

So are you going to focus on the head term or the long tail?