Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Blog

ATXWebmasters.com just posted a good article on search engine optimization and how it can increase your website sales. The article outlines reasons why getting your website optimized is like adding another sales person or two to your staff. I can honestly say that, this is VERY TRUE. Our website generates roughly 50% of our leads because our website is optimized and currently has over 700 first page listings in Google. Not to mention Yahoo, Live, and Ask. The best part about having your website generate new leads and sales is, there are no additional employee expenses to deduct. Which, in turn, produces a higher profit margin for your company.

Now, lets dig a little deeper and think about how much new employees cost your company:

• Recruiting Expenses
• Drug screening
• Background checks
• Employee Salary
• Employee Commissions
• Employee Benefits - Healthcare, Vacations, etc.
• Employment Taxes - S.S., Medicare, Worker’s Comp, etc.
• Office Space
• Office Equipment

I could probably go on forever outlining the costs associated with employees, and so could you. So back to the point of the article on ATXWebmasters.com, which was: Why hire another EXPENSIVE and unproductive employee, when you can have your website generate new leads and sales for you?

The SEO service that ATXWebmasters’ provides is very cost effective, and highly profitable for your company. The cost’s associated with the seo service depends on the size of the website, plus the competition in your market. However, ATX does provide a “Basic” SEO service for $999, that will provide great results for most small - medium sized businesses with a website under 20 pages. With that in mind, how much did you spend hiring your last employee? …. that much huh? LOL..

Well my friends, consider contacting ATXWebmasters a Cleveland SEO Firm today for a Free Website Analysis and Quote, or call 440-205-9500.

On todays posting at Ohio SEO dot net, I wanted to write something catchy that would get the attention of a lot folks in the blog communities. So I started looking around for article ideas on the latest tech gear, seo trends, search engine news, etc.. But, instead of writing an article using some cool topics I’ve found, I decided to share some of the headlines that caught my attention. I’ve removed the actual topics from the headlines, and created headline templates that work.

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How to [blank] in [blank] easy steps
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A marriage of [blank] and [blank].
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[blank] quiz. How do you measure up?
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Imagine Yourself [blank]
Create Your very own [blank].
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The Lazy [blank] Way to [blank]
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The perfect alternative to [blank].
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A truly Innovative way to [blank].
Do You Recognize the [blank] Early Warning Signs of [blank]?
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Why now is the right time to [blank].
Your [blank] Adventure Begins Here
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ATXWEBMASTERS, a Cleveland SEO firm can help you drive traffic to your website. Check out our expert seo services at http://www.atxwebmasters.com/seo

Anyone who has had experience in developing a search engine marketing strategy knows that it can be extremely complicated. Clients are usually completely unaware of the intricate work involved in a successful search engine optimization project. Each optimization project is unique and thus each requires a specific course of action. Even if a search optimization company works diligently it may still not achieve the desired results as soon as a customer might wish. This is because results are dependent on factors that are out of the optimizer’s hands such as the next crawl date.

In an attempt to avoid future disagreements we suggest that timeframe expectations should be brought to the client’s attention prior to starting a project. If a firm waits too long to discuss these expectations they may begin to sound like excuses and cause the customer to view the company as incompetent. The amount of time can vary greatly depending on the domain. Explain factors such as if your client has a brand new website, it will take longer to be indexed on Google than a website that has been around for a few years. Generally, new domains are crawled much less frequently than those that have been established. To sum, be honest with your customers and yourself…if you agree to unrealistic timeframes you are asking for countless problems down the road.

ATXWebmasters.com has an extensive Search Engine Optimization Marketing Service that entails everything from consultation, keyword research, copy writing, redevelopment of the website as needed, creation of incoming links, submission to all major search engines, plus, reporting on its results.

Picking the best web hosting provider requires a lot of research. Many factors must be taken into consideration such as Cost, Speed, Features, Security, Uptime, Support, etc,. For SEO discussion purposes Uptime is one of the most crucial factors. Uptime is a measure of the time a web server has been “up” and running. It came into use to describe the opposite of downtime, times when a server was not operational. The uptime and reliability of web hosting providers is sometimes measured in nines. “Five nines” means 99.999% availability, which translates to a total downtime of approximately five minutes and fifteen seconds per year. The closer to 100%, the better.

To illustrate the importance of Uptime consider the following example: If a Googlebot attempts to access your website that just so happens to be down due to the downtime of your web hosting provider, it will assume that the page no longer exists and thus will drastically reduce your search rankings or even eliminate your page from the index until the Googlebot can crawl the page again.

HostTracker.com offers a great Uptime Monitor Utility that places a button on your website displaying its uptime.

ATXWebmasters.com can provide your company with affordable website hosting in Cleveland, approved for top search engine rankings.

Who are you favorite website hosts? Post a comment below.

Matt Cutts discusses the Google Datacenter Caching and Crawl Dates.. If your into SEO, watch this video so you get an understanding of the how Google updates the listings.. Very good video and easy to understand.

Straight from the head of Google’s Web Spam team, Matt Cutts discusses in this video the proper way of using the IMG TAG with ALT and TITLE attributes.

For Cleveland web design, and search engine optimization contact the internet marketing experts in Cleveland, Ohio ATXWEBMASTERS at 440-205-9500.

In your quest to attract as much attention to your Web site as possible, along comes two more terms to deal with: 301 redirects and canonicalization. Canonicalization is the process of selecting the best, most efficient URL for your site.
http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/seo-advice-url-canonicalization

Put simply, a 301 redirect is a way to instruct a browser to a different location. Without a 301 redirect you can experience canonical issues, such as multiple varying URLs to a site. Canonicalization generally refers to home pages.

Most people consider the following to be the same URLs:

www.example.com
example.com
www.example.com/index.html
example.com/home.asp

But, are visitors to your Web site redirected to a centralized URL? This point is where setting up a 301 redirect is important for visitors to find your Web site. By establishing a 301 redirect, these inbound links go to one centralized URL. Many search engine optimization methods choose the www. version to which to redirect all links. This version is also more user friendly.

A 301 redirect is a way to instruct a browser to a different location. The code 301 is interpreted as “moved permanently.” Remember, a 301 redirect is the most efficient and SEO friendly method for Web page redirection. The 301 redirects are not that hard to implement and they should preserve your search engine rankings for that particular page. If you have to change file names or move pages around, 301 redirect is the safest option.

You’ve rolled out the Web site marketing strategy map on your war room table. You are pondering how successful you’ve been against the enemy. You’re confident that your Web site is helping you to win the battle against your competition, but how can you tell if your site – and search engine optimization results — are winning the war?

Since you are trying to measure the success of your SEO campaign, you need to pay attention to how your natural search engine traffic is improving. This fact means you need to look at the referrer domain data from Google.com, Yahoo.com, and any other search engine domains you are targeting. Any other metrics, like overall page views and visits, are meaningless unless they are tied into the referrer domain.
Keeping track of the keywords that drive traffic to your site can give you a heads up on what keywords you should be targeting. Sometimes a visitor will arrive at your site through a search term that you did not intentionally target. By paying attention to your web analytics, you can capitalize on SEO opportunities you may have missed.

Many Webmasters believe that Google Analytics is the best thing to happen to the Internet marketing industry since pay per click was introduced. The service is free, feature rich, and it’s a powerful tool that means you have no reason not to start using web analytics. Providing this free service helps the industry tremendously. Web analytics tools are necessary.

The bottom line is that Google Analytics is a powerful piece of software when used properly, and comes at an affordable price – free! The goal for Google is of course to increase AdWords spending; a goal many of today’s enhancements will help them to achieve.

OK, so now your company has finally concocted a slick new Web site with more bells and whistles than a Harlem Globetrotters basketball game. But will your customers be able to find your site on the Internet? The ball’s in your court on this one. Your presence depends on how effectively your search engine optimization company can place you on the Internet.

Most SEO companies use techniques to make a Web site more search engine and people friendly. Accomplishing this is mission not always. Careful research of your SEO company is paramount to the successful presence your site will enjoy on the Internet.

Keep in mind that there are basically two components to SEO: onsite optimization, which is Web site optimization, and offsite optimization, or Web site reputation through inbound links. The onsite optimization aspect of SEO is the work performed in enhancing and optimizing your site. Offsite optimization concentrates on increasing the number of inbound links and the description of the current links leading to your site.

Remember, part of a SEO’s job is to target which keywords are appropriate for placement on the Web, and which ones are inappropriate for placement.

Finally, here are a few items to consider as you search for an SEO firm (http://www.webconfs.com/choosing-a-seo-company-article-21.php).

• Do they promise to guarantee a No. 1 ranking? If they do, you have a serious reason to doubt their competencies. No SEO company can guarantee a No. 1 ranking in Google.

• Get recommendations from friends, business partners, and associates. Word of mouth is very important for the credibility of a company.

• Google the company name. If the company has a past history of fraud, chances are that you will find a lot of information about it on the Web. However, lack of negative publicity does not mean automatically that the company is great, nor do some subjective negative opinions mean that the company is a scammer.

With these thoughts in mind, you should have no problem finding the right SEO company to maximize you Web site.

Are you laying the groundwork with a designer to develop a new Web site for your company? Here’s a suggestion: ask the designer to use flash items sparingly. Granted most designers find animation and graphics to be an integral part of a nice looking Web site, but an overabundance of flash can hinder your site’s search engine optimization efforts.

You just can’t imagine what a disadvantage flash is with search engines – it is a top rankings killer! Although search engines are being able to index content inside a flash animation, keep your important information away from flash animation. A search engine may simply ignore the animation altogether.

Further complicating matters is the fact that your visitors may not be able to view your flash content. Your site must make accommodations to provide alternative content for when flash does not load properly. Other problems may arise as a result of using flash. Visitors will use their Web browser back button when viewing a flash animation to try to return to the Home page, but this process reloads the entire animation. There are many usability problems like this. A designer needs to keep these in mind when building a flash interface.

Ideally, your site content should open within 15 seconds. While flash can do a lot for your Web site’s presentation, from the SEO point of view it should be used sparingly – or not at all. If you must use flash, use it only on non-crucial content pages (http://www.blue2.com/art-03.htm).

Contact ATXWEBMASTERS in Cleveland, Ohio for more information on web design, ecommerce, email marketing, and of course, search engine optimization.