Advanced SEO

I know what you are thinking, and I don’t fail to see the irony in this post. After years of helping web sites and pages show up and rank well in all the major search engines, I will now tell you how to remove a web page from search results. There are actually a few good reasons for doing this, i.e. duplicate page, page with sensitive data, as well as a few different degrees to which you can remove your page from querying results. Just make sure you are doing it for “whitehat” reasons. Here are the several different ways to remove a web page or specific URL from search. Read more »

On an average day, more than 2,000 press releases are distributed online by the five leading wire services – Business Wire, Marketwire, PrimeNewswire, PR Newswire, and PRWeb. But you can’t just publish a press release every time someone in your office wins a fantasy football game! Ask yourself, what can you do to set your press release apart from those other 1,999 of the day and help your target audience find you? SEO.

Press releases are not only a great way to spread your news, but also to get your website ranked higher in the search engines. But you have to search engine optimize your press release before you can gain its ‘link juice’ for your website. Here are some SEO tips for press releases that will surely get you noticed. Read more »

Although they’ve been around for years, microformats have only recently grown in popularity and are quickly becoming a technology preferred by web developers and SEO folks within their respective practices. Google and Yahoo have taken notice and invest more trust and authority in their information. If this is the first time you’ve heard of microformats, read on for an explanation and how it can help your search engine optimization. Read more »

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Social Media Optimization (SMO) are two very powerful processes to make a website more friendly to both the algorithmic and human users of the Internet. Where SEO’s main purpose is to help a website’s ranking in search results, SMO aims to establish a strong presence and on-going relationship on social media sites.

Both techniques are extremely effective in attracting traffic and brand fans on the Internet. However, the campaigns are run completely different. Let’s look at a comparison between SEO and SMO. Read more »

In SEO, the word is the bird. Targeting keywords and phrases help businesses, websites, and brands get ranked online and potentially found by consumption-hungry web users. (I can’t help but lick my own chops while writing that sentence) When creating the ‘written word’ for your website, article marketing, blog, e-newsletter, case study, web page, or meta description, you need to use the keywords in the title and body content.

For SEO purposes, having a quality keyword density in your content will help your content or website get ranked well for said word or phrase. For search engine optimization efforts, keyword density should be 2 to 5 percent. Here is a rocking tip for calculating keyword density. Read more »

Ask almost anyone and they will say that word of mouth (WOM) is more powerful than any type of advertisement. Ever. It is one of the most powerful marketing tools you can use and it doesn’t cost a dime. But don’t let that fact stop you from marketing and advertising. What it should mean is that you need more buzz around your business, more WOM generated.

For those of us who dabble in the arts of SEO, effective WOM is leveraged through testimonials. Candid comments from customers who are not only satisfied by your product or service, but are willing to put it in writing, are very valuable. You can rant about how great your company is all day long, but at the end of the day, your credibility is going to ride on the waves of what your customers are saying. Read more »