Just in case anyone who happened to look at this site using FireFox and wondered what the heck I was doing, I've fixed the problem. Turned out there is an Apache Server issue that required me to alter a .htaccess file for it to work.

Long story short, it seems to be fixed. I love FireFox and I sure wouldn't want my own site to not work. If anyone ever runs into trouble with a CSS sheet not working, ask me. I know how to fix the problem!

Of course, this has nothing to do with search engine optimization, but if humans can't read your site, thats a problem too!

Labels: FireFox, search engine optimization

I know how much my fees are, and if you ask me I'll be happy to tell you. The more research I do and the more postings I see makes me wonder.

I've always tried to provide a fair service for a fair price. Some recent articles have lead me to believe not everyone is doing the same thing. Is an in-house Search Engine Optimization person for your company worth 250 000 per year?

I know someone is going to argue with me, but I would say no. Most of us are specialists to be sure, but we're mostly self taught. Many SEO's don't even have a solid grasp and still rely on META tags which they probably generated with a free online tool. (I swear if I see another "revisit-after" tag I'm going to scream.. ok I do scream somewhat regularly.)

Now of course, I'm as big of a fan of getting paid more as anyone else. Fair is fair though, and you can learn as much or more about SEO as I know by listening to Google, doing research online and visiting search engine forums. The reality is that the basics of SEO like good page design, proper tagging, quality tagging and reputable inbound links have not changed. How search engines detect pages which are designed to fool them has definitely gotten more sophisticated but a quality interesting page has always ranked well in Google and probably will for quite some time.

If you're researching either my company, Get Clicked SEO, or another SEO company, get some background information first. Do some basic research on search engine optimization so you can at least understand what services you're getting for your money. Feel free to start here with my SEO articles. I certainly don't believe that the cheapest is the best, but I am fan of value for your investment. With some basic knowledge about what you're buying, you're far less likely to get ripped off.

Labels: search engine optimization, SEO

Ok, so as many people have probably noticed, the main Google page has changed...slightly. A new bar appeared with the so-called tab links at the top of the screen (which used to be under the Google logo, and at the time of this writing still was in the old position for some versions like Google.ca).

This is part of the launch of the new Google universal search paradigm. The moving of the links is really immaterial, because very few people ever clicked on them anyway. It's surprising how few people are aware of the image search, book search etc. Hence the reason for universal search. Google will now import results from these other "vertical" search services into the main Google web results.

Check out the main Google blog post here.

The main idea here is to present more relevant content for searches. So now, if you type the word ipod into Google and scroll down your results, you'll now see a YouTube video, which you can actually play right on that page. (When I looked, it was the infamous "will it blend" video from the series which I just love!) The theory is that many, if not most searchers miss a lot of good results by not checking the other vertical search services (books, video, images, news etc.), so now Google is going to plop them into the main results.

Begin the great search engine optimization professional freak out! (A Google change! A Google CHANGE! AHhhh)

Ok, well, maybe it's not that big of a deal. In fact, the savvy SEO can now expand into these new verticals to generate all kinds of new success. For example, let's say your trying to promote a martial arts school through search engine optimization. You add a lot of great content to your site with targeted keywords sprinkled though out. You fix up your navigation, meta tags, titles, and all the other little details you need to and you start seeing your site appear higher in Google.

Now... you can start putting up videos of your classes and demonstrations on YouTube, which can suddenly now also appear on the main search engine results page (SERP for those who love acronyms as much as I do *sigh*). If your pictures are numerous and tagged properly, they could also appear separately within the results.

Cool!

If you're a SEO expert, or someone just trying to improve your online presence, this can open up all new avenues for landing on first page. The stronger your presence on the individual vertical search services, the more you'll show up in the main Google search results. The down side is that regular results may be pushed down one or two spots by results from these other verticals. However, by expanding your optimization efforts beyond just the basic web page tweaks, you could have stronger impact than ever.

A couple of ongoing topics I've ran into lately...

Recently Google Analytics launched their new and upgraded interface. After a few minutes of playing around with it, I've found everything I've used in the past. A great deal of attention in group forums though has been focused on the disappearance of visitor statics by the hour. It now appears that Google either forgot or ignored it but thanks to user outcry, they are now working on putting it back in.

The hourly traffic analysis is interesting on a few levels, but also raises many questions. Should you target
AdWords advertising during your low hours to boost traffic? Or is there bigger bang for your buck to advertise during your busiest hours to attract the largest possible interested audience?

If you're an e-commerce website, particularly a regionally targeted e-commerce website, this could be really good information. If you're a flower shop selling flowers only to people in a specific city, you will probably get hits at specific times of day, and then it may be good advice to use Google AdWords to boost this trend (attract visitors when they are looking).

Here's hoping the hourly report comes back soon!

Another interesting topic I've seen around lately is the length of URL title for search engine optimization purposes. Now there are two arguments here. One is that a description URL, like...www.calgary.com/downtown_calgary_flower_delivery.html is great from an SEO point of view. The counter argument is that no one will
remember that or type it in themselves. Compared to www.calgary.com/flowers which someone might actually recall from other advertising (radio, tv, or whatever) and type in themselves.

My theory is do both. I've used this strategy successfully for search engine optimization purposes AND advertising simplicity. All you need to do is create both pages, and then redirect the simpler, easier to remember address to the more complex one. Don't put any text on it or duplicate the page as you might be penalized for having duplicate content. A simple meta-refresh tag will do the trick. Also make sure
there is a text link on your main page or site map so Google can find and index the page easily.

Voila, a great search engine optimization URL plus a great advertising campaign. Google sees and indexes only one page with appropriate content. For more on SEO, check out my SEO Articles.

Good news for me and my fellow Calgary walkers and bikers, the weather is finally warming up!

Labels: google adwords, google analytics, search engine optimization, SEO

Well, I recently took the plunge and installed Windows Vista on my PC. I won't go on at length here about what an incredible pain in the you know where it was, but it did bring something to the forefront for me.

The initial security settings are such that I had to manually accept cookies that websites download into Internet browsers. What I had no idea of though was exactly how many there are.

Any website with a tracking program, including this one, uses tracking cookies to see how users move through and interact with a website. If however, you choose to visit a website with an ad on it, then you get two. One from the site, the other from the ad. If the site has multiple ads, you get a new one from each ad company that is represented.

One site I visited, I counted no less than 8 cookies. On the first page.

I realize that for some features it is quite useful to track your presence on. Others not so much. I'm not a big fan of giving out my IP address to every ad company on the planet.

So I started blocking them. It doesn't really affect functionality unless your buying something from that site. I couldn't believe the amount of people trying to collect my information.

That being said, don't block my cookie on this site. I use it only to track how people move through my site so I can make improvements to site navigation etc.

Search engine optimization can be greatly assisted by the information that tracking software generates, with the help of cookies. But it can also go overboard.

Or you can do what most people do and turn off the alerts so you never know who's watching what you do online... (cue big brother theme music here)..

Labels: search engine optimization

Well, that was interesting news. Microsoft wants to buy Yahoo. Considering MSN's complete lack of market share in the search engine space it's not totally surprising that the would want to buy the #2 rated Yahoo. With Yahoo's paid inclusion scheme meaning their "organic" search engine results are now being altered invisibly with advertising, they're a perfect match for the poor results of MSN's Live Search.

Of course, Yahoo is the number one website in the world hands down. So there are more factors than just search, but the real bucks online is in advertising. Naturally I'm more curious as to the search engine optimization ramifications that might come up. I guess we'll see but in my mind crappy search plus paid inclusion strategies does not equal beating Google.

Of course if Microsoft wants a piece of the online advertising pie, they need to do something. They should have made a pass at Google instead.

Labels: search engine optimization, Search Engines

Well, I've been running a little experiment with my Google AdWords recently. I was wondering if it was better to have general keyword terms, like say just a city name, with a highly specific ad text, or to use very specific keywords.

The jury is in, I thought people wouldn't click on a very clear ad if they weren't interested in the product. I was wrong! I got much better, like 3 times better results, using highly targeted ads with highly targeted keywords, although my actual number of clicks was lower, and my CPC much higher.

Thousands and thousands of people search for "Calgary, Alberta" everyday, but far less are looking for "Calgary Hotels" so as a result, clicks for calgary alberta were much cheaper. Yet still, in terms of ROI, I got better results from a much more specific keyword phrase for conversions. Even with VERY specific ads I still did worse in the general categories.

Interesting theory, but it didn't work out. Thoughts anyone?
- Dan the search engine optimization guy

Labels: google adwords