Denver SEO Blog: Web Development, SEO & Marketing

Web Designers frequently destroy their clients’ chances of ranking well in Google, without even knowing it! Here are three common mistakes that can ruin a client’s chances of ranking well in Google, Yahoo or MSN – simply by preventing the site from being indexed!
Search engines follow regular text links, but web designers like to use these unfriendly search engine navigation methods:

1. JavaScript Menus
Search Engines do not follow links reliably in JavaScript, if at all.

2. Imagemaps
Search Engines cannot see the image, and so cannot classify the relevance or topic of the link. Lesser search engine robots do not even attempt to follow imagemap links.

3. Image Links / Rollover links
These links frequently contain JavaScript, but also are difficuly for search engines to classify.

4. JavaScript popups
Search Engines do not follow JavaScript reliably, and do not seem to like popups at all!

5. “Jump menus”
These pulldown menus are usually submitting a form. If the form target is sent GET requests, there is a chance that the links will be followed in some manner, but again – this isn’t reliable navigation for Search Engines.

6. NOSCRIPT embedded links
We were told that content in NOSCRIPT tags is for those visitors that have JavaScript off. But if you were told this means search engines, you were told wrong! This HTML tags has been abused by spammers early on, and search engines do not reliably follow navigation within these tags.

7. Frames – they’re rarely done in a search friendly manner
More on the “right way” in a later post. Frames are challenging for search engines, and we have recently seen Google penalizing framee-based sites, perhaps due to the usability challenges they can present.

8. Java
Java cannot be executed by search engines. Many early rollover effects relied on Java, but the navigation cannot be read by search engine robots.

9. Flash
Flash navigation cannot be followed by search engines. Splash pages can become a deadend for search engines, and alternatives to Flash navigation should always be given.
So what can you do to be sure that search engines will crawl your site? We’ll have answers in a future post, but a frequent supplement to websites that use the above techniques – meant almost entirely for search engines – is a set of footer links for seach engines to follow.

Tags: website design, website development, denver web development, denver web design, search engine optimization, seo

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Google Hell is a term being used to describe a sudden, far drop in a website’s ranking on Google. The ranking is usually for an important – or many different important – keyword terms.

I’m pleased an article on Google Hell being covered in the mainstream press. It’s a phenomenon known to main online businesses, tied heavily to changes in the Google algorthym. Some of the excellent points in the article:

• The criteria for Google’s Supplemental Index can be vague.
• “Grey-area” techniques are sometime necessary to compete on the internet with larger stores.
• Duplicate content penalties exist!
• Newly created sites are especially vulnerable to falling into the supplemental index.
• Buying links may now be a deciding factor in whether your site ends up in the supplemental results.

The article quotes Jim Boykin and Micheal Gray. Besides the great sources, it is refreshing that businesses are starting to see the importance of search engine marketing to the bottom line.

Tags: search engine optimization, website design, seo, website development, denver web development, denver web design

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Google Adwords opens your advertisement up to a vast audience. Sometimes it’s an audience that is a little too vast. You can save tremendous amounts of money on adwords by excluding the wrong audience:

1. Exclude surfers during the wrong time of day
If your product or service is primarily marketed to businesses, be sure to turn off your ads during off hours. Business products and services are only sought during business hours, and there is little need to show ads in evenings and on weekends.

2. Never use broad match
Broad match can be a horrible waste of money. If your broad match is for red widgets, your ad will come up in searches that include the word red, and searches that include the word widgets. With so much of the wrong traffic – searching for red gadgets, red ipods, etc. – there are bound to be costly clicks upon your ad. Instead of using broad match, use phrase and exact match. This will help save your clicks for visitors that might actually buy your product or service.

3. Exclude keywords that are unrelated
For most any product, you can exclude some keyword. If you sell boats, you should exclude the word “toy” from most of your ads. Be creative, search Google and look for negative keywords.

4. Exclude other countries
Make sure you are not showing ads in other countries. Some continents are also notorious for being involved in PPC fraud.
More tips to save money with Google AdWords and Yahoo Search Marketing! Get Joy Milkowski’s “Amazing Results with Google AdWords” course – it pays for itself! Or you can continue throwing extra money to Google.

Tags: website development, denver web development, seo, search engine optimization, denver web design, website design

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If you are using Pay Per Click advertising with Google or Yahoo, you are probably aware of what it feels like to light money on fire. If you have a limited amount of money, you get a bad feeling in your stomach.

Google and Yahoo have two main ways on displaying the advertisements you are paying for: to searchers, and across their content network. The content network consists of web pages that may have articles containing your keywords, and it is the focus of our five tips.

You see, these content ads are shown to a completely different audience than search ads. Search ads are usually shown to visitors actively engaged in the buying process. Whether they are doing preliminary research, evaluating features, or comparing prices, search visitors are on a completely different wavelength than the group being shown your content ads.

Here are some tips to make sure your Content ad campaign is as effective as possible:

1. Treat your content ad completely different from your search ad
First of all, consider placing your content ad in a new campaign. You want to keep it separate from your search ad, and let it evolve in it’s own direction over time. Don’t let it get too close to your search ad – keep them separated! Be sure to use different ad copy and ad titles: Everything about your content ad should be different than your search ad.

2. Setup Google link alerts to see where your ads are showing
Want to know where your ads are showing? Of course you do – It tells you where your money is being burned spent! Sign up for Google Alerts for the search term “domain.com”

Using this service, you’ll receive email alerts whenever Google comes across your ad. Sometimes, you will see your ad has shown up on a page that you don’t necessarily want it to. Google’s guess may sometimes be wrong. After all, “Pad Printing” doesn’t always refer to printing on notepads. You should log back into Google AdWords – or Yahoo Search Marketing – and exclude that site from your list of allowed sites on which to show ads.

3. Use different display URLs to split test

Your display URL is part of the advertisement. Google recognizes this, and so allows you to choose a URL different from the actual location to display to your prospective visitors.

Try different display URLs and watch the results: Is one getting a better “Click Through Rate”? Improve the worst of the two, and test some more.

4. Split test your landing pages, too

It might also be that traffic from certain content ads converts better than others. Set up a split test with two identical content ads, but send visitors to two different “landing pages”. These landing pages are just the destinations that your ad leads visitors to. They might be named “Contact-Us.html” and “Contact.html”, if you are selling a service. Using Google Analytics, you can sometimes see which landing page converts best into a visitor clicking your “contact us” form.

5. Make sure display URLs also redirect
Google crawls through javascript links, and we’ve seen several cases where links from AdWords get into Google’s index. The URL that you choose for Google to display may actually direct traffic right to your site! We call this effect “PPC leakthrough”, because these links are leaking out of the adwords system and into Google’s main index.
For example, on our myKarateStore.com advertisement for “Wing Chun Dummies”, we use “http://www.myKarateStore.com/dummy/” as the URL displayed in the ad. Even though that page is not the exact location Google’s AdWords system directs visitors to, we make sure it goes somewhere meaningful.

More tips to save money with Google AdWords and Yahoo Search Marketing! Get Joy Milkowski’s “Amazing Results with Google AdWords” course – it pays for itself.

Tags: website design, search engine optimization, seo, website development

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With the ever increasing impatience of internet visitors, it is important that pages load as fast as possible. Here are some quick tips we implement when developing websites to keep the page size to a minimum:

1. CSS and Javascript should be in external files. This way, they are cached after the first page is visited.

2. For large images that cannot be optimized any further, load a placeholder and update it with the full version after the page has loaded.

3. Get faster hosting.

4. Use CSS instead of tables for layout.

5. Be a minimalist. Do you really need a sound on the home page? Are animations really needed to convey your message?

Tags: seo, website development, website design, search engine optimization

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Brian Wiener has an interesting post over at AdAge: YouTube as marketing channel.

I agree that the TV Networks should be controlling their content by distributing it themselves:
1. Full Episodes should be available online(with Ads, of course). NBC’s Heroes will probably never be bootlegged on Youtube, because there is no need for it to be.
2. Small clips – 2 minute highlight clips – should be purposefully uploaded everywhere on the web. These previews and teasers are perfect to drive increased traffic and gain exposure.

I also agree that search optimization should be key. Networks should host blogs to encourage as much juicy user-generated content as possible. And by using search friendly link structures throughout their sites, these media empires could rise to the top of search results – right where their audience expects to find them!

Tags: seo, search engine optimization, website development, website design

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Nofollow tags are a fairly recent invention. The history of nofollow goes something like this:

1. Google gives priority to sites with many links.

2. Spammers use blogs and guestbooks to artificially increase their link counts.

3. Somebody proposes that certain places on the web – like blogs and guestbooks – should have a way of devaluing any links that are added.

4. Search engines listened. Well, some of them. Well, Google.

Search Engine Journal did a recent  posting: 13 reasons why nofollow tags suck.  I couldn’t agree more!

Tags: search engine optimization, website design, website development, seo

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I recently say another analysis showing that bidding for the number 3 spot  is the best use of money. Brandt Dainow, CEO of ThinkMetrics, after reviewed three years worth(1500 keyword sets!) of click-through trends and found the click-through rates (CTR) were virtually identical between ad positions 1-3 in his campaigns.

Others disagree, but in our testing (limited, not 1500 keyword sets!) we have found the same result: positions 3 and 4 are your best use of money. (In most cases. Your mileage may vary. Other standard disclaimers here. Banned where prohibited.)

Tags: seo, search engine optimization, website design, website development

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The phenomenon known as “Googlebombing” has been defused by Google. It used to be that if enough sites linked to a site using certain words, that site would quickly rise in rank for that keyphrase. The result? You could search Google for “miserable failure” and see the White House is number 1, with Micheal Moore only slightly behind. Political viewpoints were being communicated, and we all understood a little more about the “Google Algorithm”.

With a recent change at google, this “Googlebombing” technique is no more. What technique lies ahead? What is Google’s new strategy for ranking? We’ve seen positive results for many of our clients in this last Google update, but it will be interesting to see what techniques will be found with Google’s latest changes!

More coverage on slashdot…

And at Google’s webmaster blog

Tags: search engine optimization, seo, website design, website development

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Each of the search engines have their own unique criteria for relevancy. Google is no exception, and is usually the most mystical. In our tests, msn and Yahoo respond very quickly to SEO efforts, but Google take a little more time and finesse. And every once in a while, you see something in Google’s search results that makes no sense.

Over at Intrapromote, Erik noticed recently that a search for 2007 Ford Explorer is yielding some very confusing results. He noticed that one text link was getting a site into Google’s top 10 for this competitive keyword. No giant SEO campaign, no link popularity project, and no compelling, fresh content. Just a single link. Compare the power this link has – this lame site is being ranked above relevant content in yahoo auto’s, about.com and auto magazine. Surely this content is more helpful to potential visitors?!
And so, where is this illustrious link from? The Google DataCenter? Or perhaps Sergey Brin’s blog? Nope. The link is from a page almost as lame: www.egateway.us/elist.html This link should also have no real weight, either. Erik points out that the egateway page has pretty much nothing but junk links pointing to it.

Didn’t Google tell us this wouldn’t work any more? That fresh, relevant content and popular, themed links are the only way to get to the top of Google? If Matt Cutts were dead, he’d roll over in his grave. Thankfully, he is alive and – hopefully – well. Matt, what the heck is going on here? Please wave your mighty spam wand at the site – Google only wants good sites in their SERPs, right? (But please tell us how to achieve the same result with RELEVANT content before you do!)

I’m interested to see Erik’s analysis, and will keep poking around in these links to see what the secret could be!

Tags: search engine optimization, seo, website development, website design

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