Should every website be SEO'd (search engine optimized)?

Just recently I was reading a post on SEOMoz, "Naivete & Misconceptions Still Prevalent Attitudes Towards SEO", and I commented about whether every website should really be optimized for the search engines. It may sound like an odd question coming from a company that helps companies optimize and build optimized websites, but it's one that we feel is important.

Are there websites that just shouldn't be optimized?
I think the answer for this is very simple - YES. Let me explain that a little. When it comes to business websites, for the most part they should be built well and optimized to gain the most exposure possible. However, what about the "business" websites that are really just fronts for other things.

One of the best examples I can think of would be affiliate marketing websites. Now I realize this is a large industry, but are these sites really helping anyone? An affiliate website by its nature is really just a middle man. Sure, it can be lucrative for the person(s) running it, but does it provide value to the website searcher? I would venture to guess that most if not all don't provide anymore value then if the visitor was brought to the source from the start.

So do white hat SEO's have an obligation to stop optimizing these sites?
I think we do. If we are calling ourselves White Hat SEO's and truly believe that the content that should be at the top of the search engines should be relevant and quality, then affiliate sites should be dropped to the bottom of the list. Other than creating some income for the middle man, I don't see how these types of sites provide value to people searching the web.

I believe that part of the reason the SEO industry has a bad reputation in the eyes of many is because we seem to be OK with optimizing any website. Just like lawyers have a bad wrap for defending even the most lowly people, SEO's are often too eager to get a project rather than stand by their principals.

Don't the search engines have a part in this also?
Now, it may seem like I'm being overly harsh on SEO's, and I know that there are many SEO's who do have very high standards and don't take these projects. For those that stand by their principles I commend you. For those that don't really care, I think the search engines should start playing a larger role in keeping these types of sites from ranking well. The search engines seem to be smart enough now to determine if a site is an affiliate marketer or not, so why are they still allowing them to rank well (sometimes better then the source)?

Remember: What you do speaks much louder then what you say.

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Ignite MediaLLC, Ignite Your Site™
http://www.ignite-media.com/
Website Design & Development eCommerce Development Search Engine Optimization
Website Packages Now Available!

Is traditional SEO worth it anymore?

I'm currently in the process of reading a book about Google Adwords entitled "Winning Results with Google Adwords" by Andrew Goodman. One of the things that came up in the start of the book was whether SEO, the traditional one site method, is worth the investment.

Is SEO worth the money?
Now I'd be inclined to say yes, but I'm going to hesitate there. SEO has become such a large industry that it would be hard to give a sweeping answer either way. When speaking of SEO there are the traditional on site methods such as keyword optimization, copy optimization, title tags, etc. Then there are the off site factors like link building and social media generation.

As the book notes, some if not all of the practices of traditional SEO could really fall under good usability. These are things that you would want to do regardless of whether the search engines existed or not. Having a good title tag that describes your page is just smart no matter what effect it has, and the same goes for page content and calls to action.

So what part of SEO is worth the money?
There definitely is value in "SEO" which should probably be referred to as SEM or search engine marketing, or website marketing to be more precise. Building good quality content and distributing it to note worthy blogs is a great resource for driving traffic to your website and hopefully boosting sales. The same can be said for twittering or having a facebook page. These are all resources that without some know-how can be a little overwhelming to tackle.

Then what is the answer, is SEO worth it?
I think we need to stop thinking of SEO as "being #1 on the search engines". We need to start looking at SEO as a form of marketing, just as it was meant to be. Sure going through the site is a good idea to make sure it's up to par, but if you are paying a company a monthly budget to "maintain your SEO" you are wasting your money (that is unless they are maintaining your PPC campaign, doing link building, twittering, etc). But if all they are doing is generating a report that shows you where you are ranking and "tweaking" your site accordingly, please stop the contract you are getting very little if anything in return.

Your monthly payments should be going towards services that you can track and monitor and can see what type of ROI your are getting. Link building for example can be directly tracked and monitored with a variety of tools. Your SEO/SEM expert can show you what they've done and how that has impacted your traffic and hopefully sales.

Remember: You get what you pay for, and if you are paying for "maintenance" you might want to figure out what is being maintained.

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Ignite MediaLLC, Ignite Your Site™
http://www.ignite-media.com/
Website Design & Development eCommerce Development Search Engine Optimization
Website Packages Now Available!

Local SEO - Targeting Your Neighborhood

Many companies think that SEO is only for the large corporations that have offices and customers nation and world wide. This however, is not the case. SEO is for every company and/or website, it's just a matter of how you go about optimizing your site.

Home Grown SEO
Local SEO is the process of optimizing your website for local phrases. So if you have a website that deals with plumbing for your local area and some of the surrounding areas, local SEO is perfect for you. You aren't going to travel to California for a plumbing job (unless the client was picking up all the costs!), so you want to target people in your area.'

The best and most effective way to target local searchers would be to use your town, city, state names throughout the site. So instead of just saying Plumbing Services, you might change that to Reno Plumbing Services, or perhaps, Reno Nevada Plumbing Services.

Don't forget the phone number and zip code
Another way to get people to your site based on local searches is to be sure you have your phone number listed on your site in text. Many times people who are looking for local businesses online will search with the area code as a prefix or suffix to the search (ie: plumbing services + 203). This goes for zip codes as well.

Just think about the different ways in which you signify a local business and chances are you will have another way to optimize your website for local searches.

Remember: When writing copy for your website, or building out the template be sure you have your local phrases worked in, without being annoying about it!

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Ignite MediaLLC, Ignite Your Site™
http://www.ignite-media.com/
Website Design & Development eCommerce Development Search Engine Optimization

Pay Per Click - Is it right for me?

I'm often presented with the question "Is Pay-Per-Click really worth it?". Surprisingly the answer is both yes and no (it's never easy is it?!!).

Why is it both you may ask? Well for the simple reason that depending on what you are referring to, it may or may not be worth the time, cost, effort, etc. Lets take for instance a highly popular term like cars. Lets say you are the number one car distributor in your area. I would say in this case, it may be worth it to use PPC to come up when people search for general terms like car dealership, new cars, cars for sale, best cars, used cars, and more. The reason being, those are typically highly competitive terms and would be extremely hard to get natural rankings for with the top 2-3 pages. So using PPC will allow you the opportunity to have a presence closer to the top of the search engines (depending on your budget of course!).

On the other hand if you are trying to be visible for a phrase such as "used red corvettes in dayton", you may stand a very good chance of being found close to the top of the search results. Why? Well if you do the simple process of adding a couple of pages about "used red corvettes in dayton" and the years you carry, you most likely will have no problem showing up under this term in the top search engines, without having to pay. That's right I said without having to pay.

Pay per click is a highly effective tool when used appropriately and in conjunction with a well planned, and thought out natural search engine campaign. It takes a little time and evaluation of results to perfect your campaigns, but it will be well worth the effort in the end.

Remember: Think. Plan. Promote.

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Ignite MediaLLC, Ignite Your Site™
http://www.ignite-media.com/
Website Design & Development eCommerce Development

Is Cuil really cool?

Cuil, the new search engine that has set its radar on Google, is ready to play, but is it really ready to compete? After many months/years of development and some very experienced engineers and owners at the helm, will Cuil really be able to take on the king of the web, Google?

A slow trot out of the gate:
Unfortunately, on the day of the official launch Cuil was anything but raring to go. Because of the overwhelming media response and thus increased traffic, the servers started to buckle under the strain. Searches were taking forever if happening at all, and people were becoming very annoyed at the newbie. After some time, and increased capacity they servers were back up and running and searches started to work a bit more smoothly.

Will they withstand the test of Google?
Although not really the Google killer some had hoped for, I think that Cuil can make it's mark in some small way. They haven't revolutionized search like Google did back in the 90's but they have changed things up a bit. For example, the layout of the search results page is much different. Rather then the phonebook style listing of Google, Yahoo! and MSN, Cuil took the approach of a "magazines style layout". Interestingly this changes the whole ranking focus from being in the top 3 to something a bit more obscure. It's not clear as to whether they are considering the top 3 across or the top 3 down as the "top".

How were the searches?
This area is where they seem to be lacking the quality of data. They say they have more indexed pages then Google, but their algorithm seems to be a little skewed. Searches for local keywords bring up some rather random results and alternate suggestions. Perhaps it was just another early glitch that will be worked out, but hopefully they work it out soon.

Recommend, or stay away?
It certainly is not something that we will be jumping over to in full force with here at Ignite, but we will be keeping an eye on them. They may not be the Google killers, but they may produce some interesting attraction down the road.

Remember: sometimes even a little change can make you think of things in a whole new light.

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Ignite MediaLLC, Ignite Your Site™
http://www.ignite-media.com/
Website Design & Development eCommerce Development Search Engine Optimization

White Hat vs Black Hat and what about the Grey?

There are thousands of methods that search engine optimization and internet marketing specialists will use to help get a site ranked well. Anything from content building, link building and keyword stuffing, to viral marketing, guest blogging, and various others. So which methods are better then others, and which ones are considered black hat and white hat?

White Hat Methods:
I like to think of these methods as the methods that would be used if you didn't have to worry about the search engines. What I mean is that if you asked yourself "If I didn't have to worry at all about ranking, would I do what I'm about to try?", would you still do it? If the answer is no then it clearly is not White Hat.

Content building, link building (for the most part), code structuring, etc, are all mostly White Hat techniques. They can take longer to have an effect, but over the long run your site will be better off for trying these methods.

Black Hat Methods:
Pretty much the opposite of White Hat, Black Hat is anything you can do to get your site ranked well regardless of whether it is ethical or legal in the eyes of the search engines. Spamming blog and or forum posts with links back to your site, stuffing keywords in every possible place, cloaking your domain, etc.

Black Hat techniques can give you good results in the short term, but over time can prove to hurt your site overall. There have been instances of sites being delisted in the search engines for using such techniques, which obviously is the exact opposite effect that was intended.

The Grey Area:
As with anything in life, there is always a grey area. This area is where White meets Black and the line is blurred as to how ethical an action is. For example, buying links for inbound linking campaigns is often frowned upon by the search engines, but what if the link is for a reputable association but they just so happen to charge for them? It's hard to say what to do in cases like this. The link itself is probably very valuable but there is a chance the search engines will not look so kindly on it. My suggestion would be to ask yourself "Will the link benefit a user who clicks on it?". If the answer is yes then proceed, if the answer is maybe or no, I would tend to say don't even consider it.

Slow and Steady Wins the Race:
Although it may seem like an old, over used cliche, it is indeed true. Long terms internet marketing takes time, and over time your hard work and effort will pay off and those people who have employed Black Hat techniques will have to continually look over their shoulder to see if their site is still listed.

Remember: It's not about quantity, it's about quality.

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Ignite MediaLLC, Ignite Your Site™
http://www.ignite-media.com/
Website Design & Development eCommerce Development Search Engine Optimization

International Marketing Tips

The smaller the world gets, the easier it has become to do business overseas. Marketing your product overseas however, is not as easy as it may seem. Here are a few basic tips to help you when considering your venture into the international market.

Not everyone speaks English!
That's right, believe it or not, not everyone in the world speaks English. Although your product is made in the USA and you currently market it using the English language, you will have to seriously consider having everything translated. How frustrated would you be if you saw an add for a product/service you were interested in only to get to their website and see that it is in a language you don't understand?

Translations aren't always created equal
Just as in the English language, not all words translate clearly. Another thing to remember is that there are many different dialects for some languages, such as Spanish. You want to be sure to have someone who is native to that region either translate or proof read the translations so you can be sure you are not offending anyone.

Meaning is everything
Always be sure to see what your slogan means when translated. Most of us remember the story about the car company that had a slogan that translated into "doesn't run" (or something like that). You certainly don't want to be marketing your product only to realize that people are interpreting it as a negative thing.

Take the trip, see the people
There is no replacement for a first hand experience. Actually taking the time to visit the places that you are going to be marketing in and speaking with the local people can give you great insight. What you may once have thought about a particular destination based on what someone told you may not be true at all.

Remember: Do your homework, and you'll find it will pay off later.

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Ignite MediaLLC, Ignite Your Site™
http://www.ignite-media.com/
Website Design & Development eCommerce Development Search Engine Optimization

Meta Tags - Which ones should we use?

There often isn't a week that goes by that I get asked about keyword tags and how important they are, or whether they should use a variety of other meta tags to help the search engines index their site. Everyone wants to know which meta tags are the ones that are most important and which ones they can ignore.

It's all in the title
The answer, well it isn't exactly black and white. However, it is widely agreed that the most important tag, as of right now is the title tag. This tag should be written in such a way as to have your most important keyword/phrase included and it should be straight to the point. The title tag should also be unique for each page. For example, your products page should have a title geared towards your products while your company history page should have a title that relates to the history page. If someone only saw the title tag for each page they should be able to get a good idea of what that page will be about.

A good description always helps
Another tag that is important, but not for the reasons you may think is the description tag. This tag is invisible to the front-end user (unless you view source), but the search engines will use this tag to display as your search engine result listings. They generally speaking do not use this tag as a factor in your rankings, but it will give them some idea of what you feel the page is about. As with the title tag, this should be unique for each page.

Keywords aren't the key anymore
There was a time when the keyword meta tag was one of the most important tags on your website. Any word/phrase you put in there was a possible word/phrase that you would show up in in the search engines. Put them in there more then once, and you stood an even better chance. However, today this tag is seldom used by the search engines if at all. More often then not this tag is used for spam purposes and the search engines have decided not to even think about using it as a ranking factor.

The never ending list of meta tags
There are many, many meta tags that can be used within a page. However, most of them serve little to no purpose for the search engines. When you try to put all of these tags into each page you are making the search engines work harder to get to what is most important which is the content of the website. Ignite suggests that you stick to the basics. Make sure you have unique title tags, unique description tags, and if you have to you can use the keyword tags but make sure not to stuff them full of keyword phrases.

Remember: Less is often more, especially when it comes to placing keyword/phrases in meta tags.

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Ignite MediaLLC, Ignite Your Site™
http://www.ignite-media.com/
Website Design & Development eCommerce Development Search Engine Optimization

Can I redesign my site without losing my rankings?

It's a common question among people who so badly want a newer looking website, but don't want to lose the great search engine visibility that they are seeing. How much is too much, and if it drops will it ever come back?

Unfortunately there is no guarantee that anyone can make you as to whether your rankings will go up, down, or remain the same. However if things are done correctly you can certainly minimize the risk of them going down.

Keep File Names the Same:
You need to make sure that you keep the file names the same where possible. So for example if you have a page for products and the file name is products.htm you want to be sure that you keep this file name. If for some reason you can not keep the file name products.htm, then you want to be sure you can use 301 redirects before you start changing the names. 301 redirects are a search engine friendly way of telling the robots that the page that used to be called products.htm is now called cleaning-products.htm.

Keep Title Tags the Same:
Just like the file names you want to be sure that you keep the title tags of your current pages intact. The slightest change could make the spiders give your page a different "score" for their listings. Of course it could turn out to be a good thing if your visibility and rankings increase, however you may not want to take that risk.

Keep the Content to Same:
Whenever possible you want to try and keep the main content on each page the same or increased. For example if you have a page for widgets and it has 3 paragraphs of information about your widgets you want to try and keep that info intact. Reducing it or removing it will make the search engines look at that page again and decide if it is as relevant as it was before.

Always have a Sitemap:
A sitemap is important because it is a page with links to all the pages on your website. When the search engines crawl your site and find this page they can easily see all the pages that are available for them to crawl. There is no hard evidence that this helps your search engine visibility but it certainly can't hurt.

These are just a few tips to help improve your chances of redesigning your website without haring your search engine visibility.

Remember: Change can be a good thing, but there is such thing as too much change.

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Ignite Media LLC, Ignite Your Site™
http://www.ignite-media.com/
Website Design & Development eCommerce Development Search Engine Optimization

Should we hire an Inhouse SEO/M or Outsource?

Choosing whether or not to go with an in-house or outsourced SEO/M can be somewhat agonizing for many companies. There are many things to consider when going with either option, and each has its own set of pros and cons. And believe it or not, just because we offer these services here at Ignite Media, we don’t always believer outsourcing is the right choice.

In-House SEO/M
The biggest thing to consider when thinking about bringing your internet marketing in-house is not how much it will cost, but rather how many people you will need. The immediate thought might be that only one person is needed, and in some cases that might be correct. However, for larger companies you may need an internet marketing team. Not every SEO/M is good at all phases of the marketing.

The challenge with finding the right person(s) is knowing enough to know whether they will be effective for your company. This can be tough because most likely the reason you need an SEO/M is because you don’t know enough about this subject.

Outsourcing SEO/M
This should also should to be completely decided on price. You need to make sure that the company you are going to use will really give your company the best possible change to gain more traffic to your website. As we all know, more traffic means more chance for conversions.

It’s not always easy to tell the difference between each SEO/M company, but the biggest sign will be if you go to them and say you want this to happen they come back to you and say ok but you really should be doing this or that. You don’t want a company that is just going to do what you tell them you want, after all they are supposed to be the experts here right? You wouldn't go to your accountant and tell them how they would best do their job on your account would you?

How do we decide?
Unfortunately there is no easy answer, but if you do your homework and you carefully consider your options you should be ok. Don’t be afraid to get on some SEO forums and ask them if the have heard of the companies you are considering or what questions you might want to ask a possible in-house candidate.

Remember: Don’t be afraid to change companies or employees if they aren't taking you in the right direction.

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Ignite Media LLC, Ignite Your Site™
http://www.ignite-media.com/
Website Design & Development eCommerce Development Search Engine Optimization

Which meta tags do I use and which should I not?

There is a constant debate over which meta tags the search engines use when considering listing a certain page in their results pages. So how do you know who you should listen to and who you should ignore? Well that is not so easy, because no-one except the engineers working for the search engines know what they are looking for or not.

So what do I do with my meta tags?
Our suggestion is to use what you feel is necessary to define that page. The reason that meta tags became such a problem was because people were "stuffing" them with "keywords". What this means is if you were selling red cars your meta tags would only say red cars, red cars, red cars, etc. Although for a while this worked, it is now considered SPAM to "stuff" meta tags and/or page content.

A meta tag should be used for the purpose they were created. For example the eta description tags are just that; a description of what that page is about in 2-3 sentences. This is not a place to pitch your product or service and not a place to use your keywords as every other word. Should you use keywords at all in there? Yes, whenever it makes sense to do so you should use your keywords/phrases, but make sure it makes sense to the people who will be reading it (yes people do read the things you write on your website, it's not all just the search engines).

What happens if I use a meta tag that the search engines don't use?
As long as you aren't spamming or stuffing your meta tags then there should never be a problem. If they don't use that tag, then you just did a little extra work. Better yet, you may have done something before you had to! What I mean by that is the search engines are constantly changing what they look at to list a website, and there may come a time when that meta tag they aren't using now will actually be used. So you've just covered your bases.

Remember: Create for your visitors not for the search engines!

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Ignite Media LLC, Ignite Your Site™
http://www.ignite-media.com/
Website Design & Development eCommerce Development Search Engine Optimization

SEO Rules - Do they exist?

There are no hard and fast rules of SEO (search engine optimization). There are many people who believe that they have a pretty good idea, by testing and researching, of what the search engines are looking for from a good website, but only the search engine algorithm creators really know. This research and testing has lead to some industry accepted best practice guidelines, but in reality if the algorithm changes, these guidelines will have to as well.

Does this mean we shouldn't SEO our site?
Absolutely not! A well optimized website will most often do much better then a website that is created without the guidelines and best practices of SEO and usability. SEO should be done as naturally as possible. A good SEO'd website in our humble opinion should go through at least 5 things:

Keyword research: the agency you hire should do their homework and find out as best as possible what phrases people are actually using to find your products/services.

Site Review/Usability Review: an objective review of your current site, or a solid plan before starting a new site is key. You need to know that the efforts you put into optimizing your site will stand the best chance of succeeding and good website that is usable is the only way that is possible.

Natural Inclusion of Phrases: the list of phrases that you choose to optimize your site should be naturally worked into the site. Ideally there would be a page for each phrase. If this is not the case, don't just use the phrases anywhere. Really put some thought into how those phrases are used and be sure that when a visitor reads that page it still makes sense.

Quality Content: your website needs to have quality content. Quantity is good, but quality is better. You and eight other people could be selling lounge chairs, but if your content is better, more informative and keyword rich, you will stand a better chance of not only being found but keeping that visitor and converting.

Good Code and Structure: You might have the best content in the world and from a visitors perspective the most usable site, but if the spiders cannot get through the code to get to that content, you will have a hard time being found in the search engines. Good, clean code will go a long way in making sure you stand the best possible chance of being indexed.

There are many more things that are important (right now) to optimizing a website, but these are some of the very basics that should be kept in mind. Just because you don't know how to optimize your website doesn't mean you shouldn't be able to ask the "experts" working on your site if they've done their job thoroughly.

Remember: When having your site optimized ask yourself this "If I didn't have to worry about the search engines would I take that approach?", if the answer is no then don't do it.

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Ignite Media LLC, Ignite Your Site™
http://www.ignite-media.com/
Website Design & Development eCommerce Development Search Engine Optimization

SEO or SEM - What to do?

There are two terms that people sometimes get confused, SEO and SEM. SEO is search engine optimization and SEM is search engine marketing. From someone outside of the field they may seem identical, and in some respects they are. They are both focused on getting and converting website visitors into customers.

So what is the difference and which is better?
The answer to that is not nearly as simple. It really isn't a matter of doing one over other, but rather one before the other. SEO as noted above is search engine optimization. This is the process of taking a website and making it as optimized for the search engines as possible. For example this would include creating keyword rich and powerful title tags, enhancing and/or cleaning up the code of a website, and many other things. This is extremely important to ensure that the search engines will be able to quickly and easily index your website for the appropriate phrases.

Recently there has been a lot of debate over whether or not SEO is an ongoing process or a one time thing. At Ignite we feel that for the most part this is a one time thing. We optimize your site for the phrases we are targeting and let the search engine spiders have at it. If the company changes it's focus, or things change with the search engines then more optimization may be needed. Usability and traffic analysis are often clumped in with SEO, but these are really subsets of SEM and website development in our eyes.

SEM on the other hand, is search engine marketing. This is the process of marketing your website to the internet and trying to drive as much targeted traffic as possible. This includes but is not limited to inbound link building, social media marketing, email blast creation and more. For the most part this can be thought of as any means by which you use to drive more and better traffic to your website.

So which comes first, SEO or SEM?
SEO would ideally come first. You have to make sure that your website is optimized for what you are going to be marketing it for. For example if you are selling bicycle and bicycle parts and your page about seats had a poorly phrases title tag and the code was a mess you certainly would not want to be sending the search engines there. Along with SEO you want to make sure to perform some usability tests as well. After these two things have been done then you can start with your SEM campaigns. This approach will ensure that the traffic you are sending the the site will have the best possible chance of converting.

Remember, you aren't just sending the search engines to your site, you are sending people and people will be the ones to decide if you are successful or not.

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Ignite Media LLC, Ignite Your Site™
http://www.ignite-media.com/
Website Design & Development eCommerce Development Search Engine Optimization

Planning a website for visitors and search engines

When planning out a website you want to be sure to focus on your audience. This may seem like pretty logical statement, but what happens when your audience is in two very different groups? Even more compounding is when one of those groups isn't actually human, but rather a robot! That's right I said a robot, as in a search engine robot that will crawl your website to see if they should index and rank your site for any phrases.

Many people in my opinion make the mistake of "optimizing their sites for Google", rather then creating a website for their potential and desired customers. What good is having #1 rankings in Google for a particular phrase if when you get that traffic to your site they don't understand and cannot intuitively navigate your website? You've now lead a horse to a dried up river bed, at this point even if you could force it to drink there is no water left!

I do not mean to suggest that you should completely ignore the search engines, especially not Google. What I do mean is put them in priority order. Make sure that your number one concern is your website visitor. Ultimately these are the people who will become your customers/clients and will pay the bills so to speak. The search engines comes second, but not a very distant second.

A rule of thumb that we like to go by at Ignite Media is that if it comes down to being either more visitor friendly then search engine friendly, the tie should always go to the visitor. Perhaps with a little creative thinking you could accommodate both, but if that has been thought through always let the visitor have the best experience.

Remember, search engines are a means to an end, which is your website, not the other way around.

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Ignite Media LLC, Ignite Your Site™
http://www.ignite-media.com/
Website Design & Development eCommerce Development Search Engine Optimization

A case study for knowing your audience

Last week I read a very interesting blog post at SEOMoz. The post was titled "Colloquial Copy: When Perfect is Wrong" and was written by jkellygarrett. It is one of the most interesting and educational posts that I have read to date at this site, and most of their posts are very interesting and educational.

The post talks about jkellygarrett's brother who is in the long haul trucking business and was upset that he couldn't find a website that used to be extremely helpful for his travels. With some creative searching they were able to eventually find the site again and realized something very important. The site was SEO'd but for the wrong audience! Seems a bit like an oxymoron, that you could SEO a site for the wrong audience but indeed you can.

Instead of thinking like a trucker the company or person that did the SEO for the site was thinking and writing like you and I would write. What they must not have realized was that truckers have their own language of sorts. This language carriers over to the internet when they are doing a Google search, and they aren't about to start using other words to find what they want.

So what does this tell us? Well for one thing you have to know your audience. You have to know where they come from, how they speak, what they want, and how they search to get what they want. It's not enough to do keyword research and get a list back that tells what words the search engines find relevant for that group. It's not enough to look at statistical data. You have to realize that perhaps the group you are optimizing the site for is too small to show any relevance on those statistics or keyword lists.

In this case truckers are a group of their own. They use a different language to communicate and they probably use the internet a little differently then you and I. To optimize this site to it's fullest potential the company should have taken the time to really get to know the industry as much as possible. Then they might have realized that the direction they were thinking of going would have lead the site to a dead-end.

Remember, your audience is your customer, don't leave them out in the dark.

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Ignite Media LLC, Ignite Your Site™
http://www.ignite-media.com/
Website Design & Development eCommerce Development Search Engine Optimization

I want a full Flash website!

This is the phrase that a web site design company that also does internet marketing hates to hear! Sure, Flash is great and makes your sit interesting, but what about the search engines and being indexed by them? What about the load time and the intro player that will cause many people to hit the back button on the browser, never to be seen or heard from again?

Flash is a very good application and used appropriately it can be a very powerful application. A website selling products should in most cases not be doing a full Flash website. A website promoting a rock band might be ok with a full Flash site, but not if they want to be found in the search engines any time soon!

The problem with Flash is that as of today there is no way for the search engine spiders to crawl through a Flash website to see what it is all about. A Flash website is like a movie when it comes to the search engines. For the most part it sees a page that calls a file (SWF file in most cases) and that file is unreadable to the spiders.

Flash can be effective if used appropriately though. For example a website that is built in HTML using style sheets that also has a small Flash banner with a marketing message is effective. The visitor is not required to wait for the movie to load to read everything else on the page and doesn’t have to hit “Skip Intro” in order to see the rest of your website.

Remember, when it comes to Flash less really is more!

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Ignite Media LLC, Ignite Your Site™
http://www.ignite-media.com/
Website Design & Development eCommerce Development Search Engine Optimization

Content is King. But who's job is it to get the content?

We have all heard the saying that "Content is King" when it comes to building a website and marketing it for the search engines. It makes perfect sense, the search engines index content and if you have more content on your site then you have a better chance of showing up for specific terms/phrases. But who's job should it be to get that content together?

I believe it should be a joint effort from someone that works for the company and the optimziation/marketing company that has been hired. This approach will ensure that you are building content that is relevant to the company at hand. Yes content is king, but relevant content is the supreme ruler!

Why a joint effort?
Who knows more about your business then people who work for you? Yes a search engine marketer should be able to pull information and learn about your company, but they still will not know everything. An employee can tell the search engine marketer what differntiates you from your competitor, a new product/service that is coming down the line, the largest segment of your business, and so much more. Why leave it to the search engine marketer to guess at these things when you could have more impactful content by providing them with this information?

Once that information is given to the search engine marketer then they can work their magic. They should be able to sell that product/service, and make it interesting to read about. They should be able to create keyword/phrase specific pages and sections of the website.

Remember, good content is only as good as the source from which it came. If you leave it all up to your search engine marketing company you may not be as happy as you would be if you worked with them to build out that content.

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Ignite Media LLC, Ignite Your Site™
http://www.ignite-media.com/
Website Design & Development eCommerce Development Search Engine Optimization

Is SEO worth it?

I was recently reading through some posts that were listed at Sphinn and came across one titled "What A Waste...Oh The SEO!!", in which they talk about how AMEX has decided to take the stance that SEO is a big scam. This brings to the forefront the question that many people often ask "Is SEO worth it?"

The answer to this is no as simple as one might think, in my humble opinion. You can not simple just say yes it is worth it, because as you can read in the above mentioned blog, there are times when SEO is simply not worth it. Whether you are being taken advantage of or the SEO you have hired just doesn't know enough, this scenario would yield the answer that NO it is not worth it.

However, if you have someone like Julie Joyce running your SEO campaign then I would have to say that YES SEO is worth it. A person like Julie will work as hard as they can to drive as much traffic to your site as possible while at all times keeping the best interest of your company in mind. This mentality is exactly what we preach and practice here at Ignite Media and commend Julie for conducting herself like this.

We realize that honest, hard working people are not always the easiest to come by. There are plenty of SEO companies out there who only care about the money they are getting for the "service" they are providing you and not about your success at all. As with any other purchase or contract in your life/business you need to know who you are getting involved with. Ask them for references, results, and/or an easy opt-out clause of the contract.

SEO can be worth it, and should be worth it, you just have to make sure you know who you are dealing with and that they are truly WORKING FOR YOU and not WORKING YOU FOR YOUR MONEY!

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Ignite Media LLC, Ignite Your Site™
http://www.ignite-media.com/
Website Design & Development eCommerce Development Search Engine Optimization

Beyond Your Website...

Internet Marketing should go well beyond your website. There are various ways to promote your company using the internet without them ever having to have gone to your website. Below are a few ways that you probably have heard of, but just never tried and we urge you to try:

Blog Writing

Ok so this one is usually connected with your website, but people will find your blog in various ways. If your blog is run by blogger you will/can show up in their blog lists. People can also subscribe to your RSS feed, and therefore not have to go back to your website or blog unless something interesting peaks their curiosity.

Press Releases

The days of contacting hundreds of editors and trying to find their correct phone number are over. Today there are few sites that you can submit your press release too and they will do the syndication for you. Sure they cost a little money, but your time is cut down drastically so you can concentrate on your next task.

Email Blasts

You probably have a contact/client database somewhere. If you have email addresses in that list you can start an email blast campaign. We do not suggest that you use Outlook or any in house emailing program, but rather use an email blast service as they can provide statistics as well as keep you Anti-Spam compliant.

Link Building

Go out and find websites that would make sense to have a link to your website and maybe even you having a link to them. It can be an association, distributor, informational site, etc. As long as you can see a natural connection between the two sites then the link will be beneficial.

These are just a few ways that you can utilize the internet to help promote your company and website. If you stop to think beyond the confines of your website you may find there is a whole world of possibilities on the web.

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Ignite Media LLC, Ignite Your Site™
http://www.ignite-media.com/
Website Design & Development eCommerce Development Search Engine Optimization

Finding the Right Website Development & SEO Firm

Finding the right website development and search engine optimization (SEO) firm can be hard. Often times they are two different companies as well. So how do you go about picking the right firm? This post will give you five ideas, tips and thoughts when considering which firm to go with.

#1 . Are they responsive?

This may sound like an odd question, but you will be surprised at how many companies are not. How quickly did they return your call/email when requesting information from them. How much time did they spend with you, before they rushed off to their next call or meeting? Be critical when selecting a firm. You want to find a company that you can create a long lasting relationship with.

#2. Do they have examples?

Examples of previous work that the firm has done will give you a good idea of what they might be able to do for you. You should note that past experience doesn't always mean future results for you. Whether you are having a new website built or starting up an internet marketing campaign, knowing what the company can do and has done is important. This doesn't mean you should ignore all of the new, smaller firms with less experience but it's another tool in your arsenal to ensure you are getting the best "bang for your buck"!

#3. Are they teaching you?

You might wonder why they should be teaching you. We're not talking about them sitting you down like a student and showing you step by step what they are doing. We are talking about explaining in clear and easily understandable terms what they will be doing and why and what effects it may have on your company and/or website. You wouldn't buy a car without the dealer telling you why this car is better then the older model or competitors model, would you

#4. What are you getting?

You might think to yourself, well I know what I'm getting. But do you? When you are signing up for that $5,000 website do you know how many pages you are getting, what is included in the hosting and whether they are writing the copy or are you? When you are signing up for that internet marketing campaign are they going to be giving you weekly, monthly, or quarterly reports? You want to be sure a clear outline of what the deliverables that you will be getting are. You wouldn't think about buying a house without knowing if the appliances you saw in there come with the house, so why take any chances on your website and/or marking plan?

#5. Will you have any say in what goes on?

Communication is key. A good internet marketing firm and/or website development company will involve you in almost every step of the process. You know your company best and your industry and it would be foolish to think that someone else could market your company without your input. Of course they should be able to understand what it is your company does and what differentiates you, but there will be areas that will need your input and approval. The most successful campaigns of any type require a lot of communication and whether yours is a small or large campaign it deserves that same attention.

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Remember, these are just some examples of what you should be looking for. You might find a company who only lacks in one area, or is just starting out in the field and they could be just the right fit. The one thing that holds true throughout is that you must do your homework and really know who it is you are going to be working with.

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Ignite Media LLC, Ignite Your Site™
http://www.ignite-media.com/
Website Design & Development eCommerce Development Search Engine Optimization