This article is in response to an interesting letter I received from a florist in Norfolk regarding one of their competitors who happens to by my client.

I recently received a “Cease and Desist” letter from a flower shop in Norfolk Virginia.  Apparently, they had trademarked their city name in combination with the popularly used keyword “Florist”.   I consider this a cheap shot at trying to kill the competition using trademark law for a city who’s name is used in more that one state in combination with the most general term for their industry.  I don’t know how they got approved for the specific term using their city name seeing as how Martha Stewart is having such a difficult time with it.

Regardless of how they got their city name trademarked, they did, which means my client has to remove that exact phrase from their pages.  When I tried to remove it, I found that it actually was not even on the page.  This really got to me because they must be sending these threatening letters out to all flower shops that operate on a national level in hopes that they may catch someone that is using their “name”.

Because I feel that this is such a cheap shot in internet marketing, I feel it is my duty to fight this in the only way I know how, using SEO.  Before this happened, the Norfolk wholesale florist market was of little concern because of the market size but now it has progressed to being the principle of the matter.

In order to make a point back to the company that started this trademark infringement pursuit, I am going to focus my efforts towards my client gaining as much Norfolk flower shop and florist market share as possible.   Through my research I was able to see that a lot of people also search for Norfolk Wholesale Florist in the Norfolk Virginia area as well so I will also be trying to gain market share for that specific phrase as well.

This is not a link scam or a joke, this is really happening. Here is their actual Trademark

http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=l1dn4o.2.1

If you have had a similar run in with a Florist in Norfolk, I would love to hear from you.

Thanks,

Brad Henry

Each Language has a set number of words we use therefore there are millions of pages on the web that essentially have the same physical words on them.   By using keyword density, Tags, Titles and other on page factors, Google can narrow this down to just a mere couple hundred thousand relevant pages.

In order to further refine the results and provide the most credible source of information Google assigns a point of credibility ranked on an exponential scale from 0-10 where 10 is the best.   It is more difficult to go from a 6 to a 7 than it is to go from a 2 to a 3.  The page with the highest relativity in combination with the highest credibility (Page Rank) will typically gain the highest positioning in the results.

Google uses your backlink structure to determine your Page Rank.   The quantity and quality of your backlinks ultimately determines your score.  Each link counts as a vote towards increasing the quantity or quality of your backlink structure.  In most cases, the more links you have the better.

It is important to not gain a significant amount of links from “bad neighborhoods” such as link farms because Google’s spiders are smart enough to recognize attempts to alter their ranking system and can penalize your site.

The Page Rank that is visible through the Google Toolbar is only updated about 4 times a year while the real Page Rank is a number that is continuously fluctuating depending on the links that come and go.  This can help explain why your link building efforts don’t seem to have any impact on your visible Page Rank.

Other search engines such as Yahoo and MSN use a similar technique for judging a site’s credibility.  Because of this system, link building is a crucial part to any search engine optimization strategy.

Thanks,

Brad Henry

Search Engine Optimization 

What is the best Keyword Density for a page for SEO?

This question has been asked at some point in time by most SEO Analyst, web marketers, copywriters, and anyone else who puts text on a website. While no search engine comes right out and says what the best keyword density is, I have worked with enough website to have an idea of what works and what does not.

You have to be careful about keyword density as not to go too high or search engines can discount your site because it becomes to spammy. I have found that if you a keyword density for a specific keyword phrase between the 2-3% range you will be ok. It is better to have more instances of the keyword on the page up to a point. You want to have more exact matches but in order to keep the density low you have to increase the volume of text on the page.

I have found that having between 300-600 words on the page will allow you to have a low enough keyword density but still allow you to have enough multiple exact matches to your targeted phrase to be competitive given you have enough Page Rank distributing to that page. You also typically don’t want to focus a single page to more than 2-3 highly competitive keyword phrases. The page will automatically get found for more “long tail” keyword phrases as well if you can generate enough unique content to fill the 300 word minimum.

Brad Henry

Search Engine Optimization Analyst

www.seoslap.com

It’s been a while since I have posted a good article on here so it’s time I write about what I have been reading.   This particular post is going to talk about the impact of all the numerous big time lawsuits based on copyright infringement which seems to be the thing to do these days.    For example, the RIAA is suing what seems to be anyone and everyone, YouTube is being sued, Viacom is being sued, the Internet Archive is being sued, and all for relatively the same thing… Copyright Infringement.

The Internet is still very young relatively, and we are going through a learning process of how this flood of information can and should be handled.  Most people view the Internet as a free source for exchange of information and it has been viewed like that since the Internet became mainstream in terms of the sheer volume of people that utilize it for the purpose of exchanging information.

Many lawyers are seeing opportunity to make big money by exploiting how the overwhelming majority of people view the Internet as public domain.    People now are finding out the hard way that the Internet is not a free, open exchange of information and that attorneys are finding their hands in the pot more frequently.   Attorneys claim to sue in order to give financial compensation where it is due but in reality and overwhelming percentage of the financial contribution goes to the attorneys that are representing the so called victim’s of infringement.

There are multiple organizations that talk of an open internet but don’t really do much in creating the environment to support one from what I have found.   Because of this, I thought about if there is anything we could do to actually help support the idea of an open web into something more than just the idea.

Shown by the sheer volume of lawsuits, it is evident that we are already in too deep to fix the problem of the Internet.  How would you go about “fixing” something as big as the Internet anyways?

Is there anything we can do then?  There is nothing one man can do to fix this problem but as we all know there is strength in numbers in which the masses have the power to make change.  Seeing as the problems is that we are learning the World Wide Web is not a free source of exchange of ideas and information after the fact it presents us with the foregoing knowledge that we need to create a stated free or open web in which the exchange of all information is free and open before information and exchange occurs.  This would effectively remove the ability for any attorney to claim suite for any information exchanged in this open web.

Is it possible to create a new open web?  Probably not because it would require the restructuring of the Internet which would require millions if not billions of man hours.  That being said, let’s take a hypothetical look at what I think would have to happen in order to accomplish this.

1. We would need a new uniform resource location system.  Currently we use a “www.sitename.com” syntax which identifies that you are on the world wide web at the site called sitename on the .com extension.   In order to create complete inarguable distinction, I propose that we change this core attribute of the current web to a new syntax as follows.   The new uniform resource locator on the open web would be “open.sitename” which would signify you were on the open web at location “sitename”.  This would create a clear, undeniable sign that the information contained at that location was free for exchange.
2. Current businesses, blogs, and any other site that wanted to be included in the new open web would have to request their domain name in the new open domain registry.  This would have to be a free transition meaning if you own www.sitename.com you are automatically the owner of open.sitename.  It would be the domain owner’s responsibility to load their existing site into the new open domain via FTP if they wanted their site to be found on the new open Internet.    The only way that any site owners would consider this is if Internet users such as the masses of the public made a vow to only use the new open web.  This would force a transition.  Without that, there would be no purpose or justification for the time and money it would take for the transition.   Is it possible to get the overwhelming majority of people to boycott the WWW in order to start using open.web?   I don’t know, but probably not likely.
3. Make the open.web accessible through current www. Search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and MSN.  If open.web domains found their way to the top of search results and user’s make a conscious effort to chose the open.web domain versus a www.sitename.com website, I think we could theoretically make the transition.
4. Site’s that have member areas which required payment could still be on the open.web because users would know in advance that information was only available by payment.

The idea is not to create a non profit web but to put profit on the web into the right hands.  To put profit into the actual websites that are selling products or services while creating a free exchange of information.   The idea is not unflawed and I don’t claim it to be.  It’s more to provoke thought to people in the public and hopefully someone that can take more action on these ideas.

Thanks for your time,

Brad Henry

 

Because Web Site Promotion has gown in it’s importance to small businesses I thought I would write an article about Small Business Web Site Promotion and the different forms it can take. There are multiple forms of website promotion available including both paid and non-paid Web Site Promotion.

As with most Analyst or Specialist in this industry, I’m a “Jack of all Trades” and a Master of One. I happen to specialize in Organic Optimization (which I think can be the most rewarding). Some of my colleagues at Beacon Technologies are Masters of PPC and others so we all work as a team closing the gaps on any weaknesses.

First I will discuss the paid web site promotion. This takes many forms in itself.

Paid Web Site Promotion:

1. Yahoo Business Directory: Good for credibility, cost about $300 and will help improve your Page Rank. You may see some traffic but it is better in terms of passing credibility.
2. YellowPages.com: Good for getting leads. This directory isn’t setup to pass Page Rank that well so it won’t help give you any credibility. People do use this to find a business when they are ready to purchase so it can be a good source of qualified leads. It can be relatively pricey especially on a national level. There are many other similar directories including Superpages.com and theyellowpages.com but they all provide the same functionality and are about the same pricing.
3. Google PPC: Straight forward Pay Per Click Advertising. You pay every time a visitor clicks on your paid advertisement in Google. There is also the content network in which your ad can be seen on websites that are running Google’s Adsense Program. Here you also pay when a visitor clicks on your ad or an adsense fraud bot clicks it, either way, you pay. Yahoo and MSN’s PPC programs work very similar. This is easy to get started, hard and time consuming to master but can prove to be very rewarding if done with precision.
4. Affiliate Marketing: If a visitor is on a website that is participating in affiliate marketing and follows the link and ultimately ends up converting or purchasing from the site that was advertising, then the site where the user came from that displayed the ad gets a cut of the revenue or a fixed price. This can be beneficial because you only ending up paying if a visitor turns out to be a paying customer. It’s a win win situation for an advertiser but can be difficult to setup and get started with.
5. Purchased Text Links: Looking to build Page Rank? Some sites will sell you a text link which can help give your site credibility. That credibility can then be used to rank naturally for more competitive keywords. This can be effective but if you get caught, Search Engines don’t look too kindly upon this type of activity and it could get you banned.
6. Buying Traffic: When domain names expire, some companies will buy them up by the masses. When traffic goes to these old domains it can be redirected to your site if you are willing to pay for it. I don’t know how effective the conversions would be on this type of traffic because people don’t like to be redirected but it is a straightforward way to buy traffic if nothing else works for you.

There are many more ways to buy web site promotion but these are the top ones that came to my mind. Now to the free web site promotion tips.

Free Web Site Promotion:

1. Organic Optimization: Getting your website to rank high in the natural results from Google, Yahoo, and MSN for keywords that your target market regularly uses to find your type of business. This can be one of the most difficult yet rewarding web site promotion techniques. Depending on how competitive your industry is, and how active your market is online, this will probably be your highest return on investment. Techniques range vastly in how you can achieve this from white hat to black hat.
2. Social Media Optimization: Using networks like Linkedin and Myspace to drive traffic through links. This can be beneficial depending on the industry you are in. The music and arts industries thrive on this type of website promotion whereas others such as business to consumer or b2b markets aren’t so effective.
3. Blogging: Setting up a blog to draw an audience through great content can give you an active audience that is free to market to in the future. This can difficult to achieve and can be very time consuming. Most Business’s never see the positive impact because they give up on it before it can be lucrative. It can also help control online communication.
4. Viral Marketing: Creating something so cool, funny, stupid, or interesting it spreads like wild fire. Doing this successfully can have a very positive impact by creating a lot links, driving traffic, building credibility, and creating brand awareness. This is very difficult to and seems to happen almost randomly but can have a very positive impact. Most SEO Analyst and online marketers strive to create something that will create a successful viral marketing campaign.
5. Online Press Releases: There are multiple free online press release distribution websites. Anytime that your site or company has something to proclaim, releasing an online press release can help build links, and promote brand awareness. Sometimes, it can lead to a successful Viral Marketing Effort.

This really only touches the tip of the iceberg but should give you an idea of what is out there and my opinion of these available options. As the internet shifts, online marketing and web site promotion techniques will also have to shift to adjust to the everchanging atmosphere we operate in. Articles like this are a great way to find out what is out there and what other online marketers are doing for Web Site Promotion.

Brad Henry
SEOslap.com