What To Know About SEO and PPC

Frequently Asked Questions on Search Engine Optimization and Pay Per Click Campaigns

Will Flash hurt my SEO success?

The Web goes through trends or phases of what’s “in”, or most popular, for visual website design.  Completely flash-driven websites have now become a trend of the past as the need for search engine compatibility has risen.  No longer are website designers creating duplicate websites with options to view a Flash driven website and a static HTML website.  The search engines are indeed improving their ability to index content within Flash files, but if search engine visibility and placement are a top marketing priority, it’s best to steer away from completely Flash-driven websites and utilize Flash when needed to enhance the user experience. 

Many developers have found workarounds to help the search engines index content within .swf files, including Adobe’s Flash Search Engine SDK or extracting all content into an XML document and splicing the file across multiple HTML pages. 

However, indexing content is only one piece of the puzzle when it comes to search engine optimization.  The chatter around Google and Yahoo now being able to index content within Flash files doesn’t mean that we should revert to designing entire websites in Flash throwing out web standards and SEO best practices. 

Flash incorporates logic and programming, which the engines often have difficulty following.  In addition, one of the most influential parts of designing a search engine marketing campaign is to develop an effective linking strategy for both the search engines and the end user to follow.  It may be getting easier for Google and Yahoo to index content within Flash files, but the internal linking structure and navigation of a website embedded in a Flash document will not be traveled as easily. 

The bottom line is to determine the best use of incorporating Flash in your website. Retire the Flash-only websites and substitute for eye-catching Flash banners, product demonstrations, or other simple animations designed strictly to aid the end-user experience.

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How much content do I need for my website?

Writing quality website content can help achieve dramatic results with search engine placement. The search engines place a high priority on quality unique content as a way to rank website pages on a particular topic. Your goal should be to concentrate on one keyword or topic per page of your website. Get specific - don't try to combine 5 different topics on one page. Expanding your site in an organized fashion will not only help the search engines identify what your site is about (so that they can rank you effectively), but will also help your visitors find the information they are looking for on your products or services.

If you are serious about driving more traffic to your website, aim to reach about 400-600 words per page keeping in mind the targeted keyword phrase you have chosen for each page. Having a couple page website with nothing more than an additional means of contact information for your company is a thing of the past. You should have no less than 20 pages in your website to start competing for high-ranking keywords and much more if you're in a very competitive industry or field.

It may be helpful to outsource your content writing to an SEO copywriter. SEO copywriting is writing web content specific for both the search engines and your website visitors. Typically, if you choose to outsource your search engine optimization work to an SEO firm, they will have an SEO copywriter on staff. Your keywords designated per page must be effectively optimized within your body content, titles, descriptions and in the meta tags in the code of your pages.

Unique and recurring content for your website is key. The search engines do not view old, stale websites in high fashion. Find new, creative ways to keep adding content to your site on a regular basis to keep the search engines returning to index the new content of your website. Write a weekly column or article on what's hot in your industry. Keep a 'frequently asked questions' space in your website and keep it up to date with new questions for your visitors. Send out press releases and post them on your website. There are lots of great ways to keep content refreshing on your site so be sure to use them to your advantage and optimize each one for your top keyword terms.

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What do the search engines view as 'illegal'?

Strategies to reach the top of the search engine result pages (SERPS) are continually evolving.  However, as the search engines continue to advance their ranking algorithm, illegal (or commonly referred to as "black hat") techniques have surfaced.  Search engine spammers often utilize black hat techniques to essential try and "trick" the search engines to displaying a website at the top of the result listings. 

Listed below are five tactics that search engine spammers often use that eventually results in getting penalized or banned from the search engines.  Before agreeing to a contract with an SEO specialist, talk to them about what strategies they plan on using to build up the visibility of your website.   

Keyword Stuffing.  Keyword stuffing is often used to spam the search engines by stuffing as many keywords into the text and code as possible. In the beginning of the era of search engine optimization, stuffing meta tags and code with an over abundance of keywords wasn’t considered spamming, but a perfectly legitimate way of targeting specific keywords for search engine visibility.  The technique is not only no longer an effective way to reach to placement but is often very apparent to your website visitors as they read through the content of your site.  Targeting the search engines and ignoring the needs of your visitors may drive more people to your website, but won’t help convert any of those visitors to paying customers.

Hidden Text.  Hidden text is another form of keyword stuffing that tries to hide content or links on a webpage by using same color text on a same color background, extremely small font that is too hard to read by the average visitor, or special CSS elements that hide text from the visitor but display it to the search engines.  If your visitor cannot see the content, don’t try to make the search engines see it.

Cloaking.  Cloaking refers to the spamming process of serving different content to the search engines than your end user.  The “cloaked” site is often stuffed with repeated keyword phrases to target top placement. 

Duplicate Content.   Creating duplicate websites all with the same content in push more keyword traffic to your primary website is a spamming technique and won’t be tolerated by the search engines.  The best way to enhance your placement is to create as much quality and unique content that can be found by the search engines and can be useful to your visitors.  Think of new creative ways to keep adding more content to your website, you will not also see higher placement results, but will work your way up to reviewed by your visitors as an authority in your industry.

Link Farms.  Don’t confuse quality link exchange programs or quality directory listings with illegitimate link farms.  Link farms are websites that host hundreds or thousands of links creating reciprocal links with the intent of taking advantage of the influence hyper linking has with search engine ranking.  Google, Yahoo, and MSN do give websites with great inbound and outbound linking structures good ranking results, however it relies heavily on the quality of the inbound link. Beware of spammers that guarantee you top search engine results by simply adding your link to their websites (alongside with thousands of other links).

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How many search engines should I optimize for?

The three major search engines that monopolize nearly 90% of search traffic originates from Google, Yahoo, and MSN, respectively (with AOL and Ask.com coming in slightly behind the Big 3). Be weary of search engine firms offering to submit your website to thousands of search engines. True, there are an increasing number of search engines popping up, but with 90% of the market share why waste your efforts that will not likely bring in any return on your investment.

You are likely to see slightly different ranking results across the three major search engines; however, the basic foundation for the search engine optimization process remains the same. While each of the search engines have constructed their own algorithm or ranking strategies, be sure to stay away from using any illegal or 'black hat' strategies that may get your site banned from any of the engines.

You will, however, need to utilize different strategies if you are taking part in pay per click campaigns Google, Yahoo, and MSN. Each of the three search engines have different portals for their sponsored advertisements with varying regulations and limitations. There are also different strategies that can be used for the different portals that will make the most return on your advertising investments. Ad placement, ad copy, and landing page design all play key roles in how a visitor reacts to your advertisements and behaves while visiting your website. Be sure to customize each of your pay per click campaigns to the search engines, track your results, and keep testing to maximize your ROI.

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