Ethical Search Engine Optimization

What exactly is ethical search engine optimization? SEO or Search Engine Optimization has two different faces. On one side you have tricks and tactics that intentionally try to manipulate how search engines view your page or website. This is considered “black hat” search engine optimization and uses common tactics such as spamming, link farms, cloaking, redirects, and other black hat techniques. The other side or “white hat” side of SEO is dedicated to providing the easiest site structure that is well organized and attempts to create consistency between what is actually on the page and what you are telling the search engines is on the page. Determining what is black or white is similar to determining right from wrong. Once you understand SEO you can use your conscious to know whether something “feels” like you are trying to trick the search engines.. If so, you are probably in the black area if not grey.

Sometimes it’s not so clear as to whether what you are doing is black or white. We call these areas “grey hat”. Google is attempting to draw a harder line between the two in an attempt to clear as much of the grey area as possible. I expect their next Google Algorithm change will have new factors in the algorithm to try to establish a clear definition between the black hat areas and the white hat areas. I expect they will attempt to do this with new smarter logic that can distinguish between spam links and valid links. I also think that the new algorithm will attempt to remove some of the grey area by discounting the same class C IP backlinks. The reason for this is to discredit the companies that are benefiting from hundreds if not thousands of links from the same website.

It will be interesting to see what happens with this and how the upcoming changes will impact both black and white hat SEO.

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.

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.

Most SEO analysts continue to use Wordtracker as their main source for keyword analysis and considering being able to have the closest match to what your target market is searching for is soo important, having the most accurate keyword analysis is critical to being able to provide the best results. Wordtracker Keyword Analysis software has been around for quite some time now and is what most SEO analyst use as their primary choice for SEO but Wordtracker has a lot of limitations.

First, Wordtracker is very slow and cumbersome. You have to go through several processes that each require an annoying wait for the information to display before you can move onto the next predetermined step.

Keyword Discovery’s process is very simple and yields more keyword information such as keyword trending, dataset selection, language translation and more. You can navigate through the software just like a website and they even offer tools that you can load onto your desktop. I personally don’t have it because of the $price…

Second, Wordtracker pulls from a very small dataset in comparison to the actual population. Their database is comprised of nearly 200 million searches over the last 90 days. Considering the actual population is probably close to 100 billion searches a month, 200 million is very small which means the margin for error is much higher than Keyword Discovery.

Keyword Discovery’s dataset is nearly 26 billion search queries collected over the past year. Because their dataset is closer to the actual population, it means there is less margin for error. It is going to be a more accurate depiction of how people are searching and will provide more variations allowing you to find the niche phrases that are going to yield the best results.

Third, the setup and process flow of the analysis limits what you can do with the data. There is a predefined process that makes you go through step 1 then to step 2 and so one which limits what control you have over the process. Keyword discovery works more like a website in which you can navigate back and forth and from project to project, and from areas of the process to other areas which allows you to completed additional trending analysis to eliminate any keywords that are seasonally out.

Fourth, If you have ever tried geographic targeting in Wordtracker you can forget about it. Because Wordtracker’s dataset is so small and only comes from 2 search engines it is very limited and often returns zero results for geographic targeting which is often a huge factor for most smaller SEO clients and even for us SEO Analyst.

Keyword Discovery is very good at Geographic targeting which is one of the best attributes for the software in my opinion. I have multiple clients who need to focus on their specific areas and if their competitors are using Wordtracker, I have a competitive advantage over them and can more accurately target the market.

Now that I have beat up Wordtracker enough, I do want to say that Wordtracker isn’t all bad, it did serve me well for the first couple of years and may still be a viable tool for some people that don’t need the accuracy and level of analysis that I prefer. To create the simplest analogy that most of you would understand, it’s like comparing Dreamweaver to Frontpage…