Charlotte Search Engine Optimization Firms are not to be mistaken with a traditional marketing firm in Charlotte.   Search Engine Optimization also known as SEO is a learned skill that takes years of practice to perfect.  It also takes a very highly technical analyst to be able to provide the level of optimization necessary to be able to provide the structural and contextual recommendations that today’s search engine algorithms are taking into consideration.   Today it is much more than just adjusting the Meta Tag Titles and building a sitemap.  You have to create an SEO friendly structure that will allow your entire site to be easily navigated by search engine spiders.  On top of that, you have to provide the relevant content with that is keyword rich to exactly what your target market is searching for through detailed, comprehensive keyword research.

There are search engine optimization companies in Charlotte that provide search engine optimization for less cost but when you are paying anything and not getting a positive return there is no value there.   We provide a different approach than most charlotte search engine optimization companies by taking out the templated approach by assigning an experienced Search engine optimization consultant to you business.  Our consultants only manage a very limited number of clients that allow for your business to get the attention that you demand.

Charlotte is a growing city, there are more and more people going online to find your business everyday and the longer you put off looking into search engine optimization the more it is costing you every day.  Contact us for a preliminary discussion so we can determine the level of market share of your online market you want to capture.   Charlotte Search Engine Optimization Consultants here at Beacon Technologies provide a difference you can measure.

ROI Revolution is based out of Raleigh, NC. They are primarily a Google Analytics Consulting firm with focus on PPC management. I met a lot of the employees there at the Googleplex for the Google Analytics Authorized Consultant (GAAC) training conference. They were all very nice and it was fun to see some more North Carolinians out there in Mountain View, CA. Because they are also based out of North Carolina, our two companies are somewhat competitive by nature but it was interesting to see how during these conferences, companies that typically compete come together to ask a lot of really good questions and help each other solve industry wide issues.

It wasn’t until month’s later that I was able to really able to see them in action when I had a Google Analytics issue that was causing me an enormous headache that Michael Harrison and Jeremy Aube worked together to come up with a creative way to solve the issue. I tested it out on several sites to ensure that it worked and sure enough it did. It was an elegantly simple way to solve a problem that created so much data skewing it was ridiculous. My hats off to both of those guys at ROI Revolution for taking the time to come up with a creative solution for a competitor nonetheless. That’s one of the really cool things about being a Google Analytics Authorized Consultant, all the companies recognize that while we compete in the same industry, we come together to create a better industry which benefits us all as a group.

My background is primarily on Search Marketing with a focus on Organic Optimization so while I am technical, I am not a javascript programmer like some of these guys out there. Instead I have resources available through the software development department at Beacon Technologies that I can utilize which allows me to focus more on the consulting and marketing side of analytics and search marketing. I guess that’s one of the things that separates Beacon; our size allows us to have specialist that focus on their specific niche divided up between departments for software development, design, website development and ultimately my department, the search marketing and analytics department. I think that helps us really focus our expertise but it is always nice when there are other experts in your industry that can work together for the benefit of our industry.

Google is in the middle of their Page Rank, Backlink, and Toolbar exports right now and these typically take a couple days to weeks. These numbers don’t reflect any new information, they just show the changes that have been in effect for the past 2-3 months but haven’t been visible such as Page Rank for new pages or backlinks for new sites.

This is not the big change that can re-arrange the search engine results pages as we know it. That change is reserved for a less frequented occasion. After researching into the patterns that Google has shown in their previous Algorithm updates I have been able to make a prediction of when I think the next major Algorithm change will be and some of the major impacts it could have.

Historically, Google had major updates in their algorithm on the following dates.

1. 04/2001
2. 11/29/2001 (7 months later)
3. 10/14/2002 (11 months later)
4. 11/16/2003 (13 months later)
5. 02/11/2004 (3 months later)
6. 02/03/2005 (12 months later)
7. 10-11/2005 Three separate Algorithm Updates over a month period. (8 months later)

Seeing as how the longest stint Google has gone in the recorded history I could find was 13 months back in 2003 and we are going into month 12 of no algorithm updates, it would be ignorant not to expect the big change within the next month or so.

Because they are in the middle of the current Toolbar, Backlink, and Page Rank update I can not foresee the update happening within the next 2 weeks. I am hypothesizing that their efforts are focused on rolling that project out, getting it off the belt then switching their efforts towards the Algorithm change.

We know its coming, now what should we expect. In order for Google to stay king of the mountain they are going to need to try to remove a lot of the spam that is out there from their index. I have heard about the Class C regulator which will impact a very large part of the SEO and design community. If you have a majority of your backlinks from the same Class C IP address, you might want to give them a hug goodbye… Word on the street is they are going to eliminate duplicate Class C IP address backlinks in order to take away that control that specific industries such as SEO, Development, and Design have over their backlink structures.

A lot has changed over the past year in Search Engines and Google will have to make some directional changes in their algorithm to stay on top. Google’s new Algorithm will also be much smarter in being able to determine bad links from good links. If you are tied into any types of link farms, or bad link neighborhoods I would suggest that you try to take care of those issues now versus once you can’t be found in Google.

In order to provide the most relevant data versus the most optimized, Google will probably adjust the new algorithm to be able to identify any Black Hat SEO tactics that have been used and abused over the past year such as Cloaking, and 302 redirects for both Search Engines and visitors.

What should you take away from this article? Just that we are due for the big one any day now and we should be taking precautions to make sure that we have great SEO friendly site structures with relevant data. Avoid any Black Hat tricks because they probably won’t be working for long.

If you have any inside information or anything else to add to this article, we would love to have your input.

Learn how to locate online business communication and steps you can take to help control the existing communications.

The Business Blog also known as the corporate blog is a very essential part of the traditional website today. Your customers and competitors are placing comments, questions, complaints, and more about your business every day on the internet. How do you monitor all this information? There are a couple ways to get a handle on all the information. Below provides a very basic strategy and you may need to have some level of technical background to accomplish this. First off, you will want to locate what is already out there.

Steps to locate what already exist:

1. 1. Go to www.technorati.com or www.digg.com and type in your company name. It will bring back any relevant results. These are feeds that will take you the actual articles.
2. 2. Install Google Reader or another RSS reader. There are multiple XML or RSS readers that will do the job.
3. 3. Find the XML link or “add to RSS” button on the relevant articles. Submit this newly found feed to your new RSS Readers. This will automatically pull any other relevant that is attached to the blog that your business is the topic off. You can monitor the online communications through your reader on a daily basis.
4. 4. You can also go to Google and type in your business name and look at the search engine results pages to see if there are any prominent websites of interest. Browse through those websites. Locate any XML or RSS feed buttons. Add those to your new reader.

Steps to control online business communication

1. 1. You will want to create a corporate blog or business blog that you control. Install a blog system on your existing website in the “blog” directory. You may need to hire a web development firm or technology firm to accomplish this. It needs to be set up to be Search Engine Friendly so that it has a certain level of competitiveness for the relevant information.
2. 2. Submit this new blog to all the multiple blog directories out there. Gain some exposure, go to the existing blogs and insert comments with links to your “official blog”. Get it out there that you want to listen to your customers.
3. 3. Maintain an active role in the business blog. If people are trying to communicate with you and do not every hear back, it could send a worse signal than if you had no blog at all. Write articles, post news updates, be personal with your customers.
4. 4. Syndicate your blog. Allow for active RSS feed through your development setup by putting “add to RSS” very prominently near the blog.
5. 5. Install your own blog on your reader so you can place close attention to it.

This is a very basic tutorial but should give you a very basic overview about how to identify online business communication and how to help control negative business communication through your own corporate blog.

For more information in detail on Business blogs or Corporate blogs please feel free to contact Brad Henry www.seoslap.com.

Google has recently updated their Page Rank and Backlink Information. How will this impact your site?

The Google Page Rank and Backlink update started in late September and from what I can tell is still happening. I have recently noticed that the Google Toolbar Page Rank has dropped for one of my clients. When I check the separate datacenters I find that it is about split between two separate scores. This means that the update is still in progress and I still have hope that I can get the client’s overall Page Rank back to where it was and then continue to move forward with it.

Does this new Google Page Rank updated include the new Class C link detector? I am not really sure yet. I know they are planning on discounting a lot backlinks that were all on the same Class C IP address sometime in the near future and this may be the beginnings of that. Because I work for a firm that develops multiple projects we host on a couple of servers, we should feel the impact of the Class C regulator but surprisingly, my company has not seen a drop in Page Rank. We have new pages on the site that have been there about a month and they still have not been assigned a Page Rank yet. I am expecting their new Page Ranks to display within the next week or so and I will have a better view into what is going on.

How will this impact your website? For most site’s that have a very SEO friendly structure and have implemented white hat SEO tactics in the past for the external link structure, you should not see too many negative impacts. The sites that need to be worried are those that are tied into any types of link farms, or link networks because that is what Google is trying to get smarter at being able to identify and discount. There are multiple new tactics for gaining high volumes of credible links which I plan on writing about in the next couple of weeks.

If you did see a hit in your backlinks or Page Rank, don’t fret, there are still options you can take to get back in the game. As with any search engine optimization, it takes time but doing it the right way is going to guarantee you long term success.

I will be starting a new SEO tutorial that will contain multiple sessions on how to design a white hat or ethical search engine optimization strategy from beginning to end. This will be your opportunity to learn a lot but you have to start at the beginning and I would recommend you subscribe to this feed here to be sure you receive the sessions as they come out. Click here for this feed.