There are so many cool search engine optimization features in Google Analytics that I could probably write about it for pages and pages but I just want to go over some of the top tips you need to know about using Analytics.

1. First, you want to make sure that you filter out your own traffic for accurate results. For example, say you own an e-commerce site and you want to find out what times of the days people are shopping on your site most often. In order for you to get precise results, you need to exclude any visits that come from your IP address (as well as the IP addresses of the rest of your company) because it is likely that they will be testing new things and will be constantly visiting the site to check that everything went smoothly. And you don’t want their visits to be counted with the rest of the population.
2. This brings me to my second point; set a goal! Let’s continue using the shoe website as an example. A good goal for this site may be to increase sales by a certain percentage. Setting goals will keep you focused on trying to achieve something instead of going into Analytics blindly. If you have a site where you don’t directly sell products online, instead you can set up a goal where you want to increase the amount of people that sign up for your monthly newsletter or use the “Contact Us” feature. It’s always good to have something to aim for, so set whatever goal you would be interested in tracking.
3. Keep an eye on your traffic sources. The traffic sources page allows you to see what percentage of your visitors are coming directly to your site as opposed to from the search engines or from referrals. This is great information to know, because once you know what search engines or referral sites are bringing traffic to your site, you can advertise on those particular sites for even better results. For example you may see Google as one of the top traffic driving sources, Analytics also allows you to view the keywords the user typed to get to you website. This can help tremendously when you are creating ads.

Here at Orlando SEO, we use Google Analytics to analyze our clients’ website traffic, so if you would like us to be in charge of watching over your Analytics account, contact us and we would be more than happy to help out! If you don’t feel like you have the time or it looks too complicated, we can provide you with concise monthly reports with information that is relevant to your business goals and can help get you better SEO results. We are YOUR Orlando SEO company.

Here are some of the top takeaways:

1. Use Google +. Even though it may not be your favorite social media outlet or you think that no one is on it, Google uses it for ranking on the search engines. So be present on Google + and post some relevant content.
2. Don’t use black hat techniques! Although this one is obvious, Google’s Matt Cutts made it a point to reiterate it at SMX. They are trying to catch all spammers and those who use black hat SEO techniques. One of the main points he made was about keyword stuffing—so just don’t do it. Keep your keyword list short and concise.
3. Create fresh, new content. Duane Forrester of Bing said, “If your content is the best thing since sliced bread, you’re going to rank well. We are focused on what searchers are engaging and how we can deliver them better results.” Although it takes time and energy, you need to create new, original content if you want to rank high on the search engines.
4. Make sure your site is mobile-friendly. Mobile will only get more popular, so if you need to make a mobile version of your website, now is the time to do it.
5. Be engaging and interesting. Not only should you post fresh content, but make it engaging so users will want to share it with others. This is the most natural way to link build, and the easiest (once you have the content) if you ask me—let your readers do the work!
6. Rank your pages in order of importance. What specific webpages do you want to focus your time and money on? If you have high conversions on a specific page, then make that the landing page for most of your keywords (if they are relevant to that page).

Hopefully you learned something new or a found an avenue in which you can better improve. Contact us if you have any questions or for a free SEO consultation.

I will leave you with my favorite Matt Cutts quote from SMX. “Be excellent to each other! Be excellent to users and search engines and give people content they want.”

Anyway, the only reason I decided to tell you this little story is because something similar happened with a huge online florist, Interflora. The company was penalized two weeks ago for not complying with Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.

David Naylor, head of SEO marketing at Bronco, said, “In January, Interflora, in order to get ready for Valentine’s Day, paid newspapers to run stories which were only there to get links to improve their Google ranking.”

Though Google did not directly address the Interflora catastrophe, Google’s Matt Cutts, the head of search spam, did readdress their rules: “Please be wary if someone approaches you and wants to pay you for links or ‘advertorial’ pages on your site that pass PageRank. Selling links (or entire advertorial pages with embedded links) that pass PageRank violates our quality guidelines, and Google does take action on such violations. The consequences for a linkselling site start with losing trust in Google’s search results, as well as reduction of the site’s visible PageRank in the Google Toolbar. The consequences can also include lower rankings for that site in Google’s search results.”

Always remember, if you do use advertorials, be sure to use a “no follow” attribute, telling Google not to use that link as part of their PageRank algorithm.

According to Search Engine Land, “As we could see in the Interflora Deep Dive Analysis the 100 or so Advertorials where not the only bad links in the mix…Interflora actually had more than 70% of their links as toxic or suspicious according to Link Detox. So those were actually 1000′s of links that would probably not pass a manual review by the Google spam team.”

They were back on the ranks on March 3rd. But they did see a drop in sales during those 11 days where they were not present on Google’s search engine.

Please take these examples as a warning. Do not trust cheap SEO companies and most certainly do not pay for links in order to rank higher. When hiring an SEO company, make sure you know exactly how they plan on optimizing your site to get you better results on the search engines. Be sure to ask what other clients they have worked with so you can Google them and see if they are present on the ranks.

Let’s take a look at Jeep and Burger King who have welcomed themselves into the “I’ve Been Hacked on Twitter” group. First, hackers on Burger King’s Twitter account announced that the fast food company had been sold to long time rival McDonalds. The hackers switched up the logo, header, and background image of Burger King’s account to look like the McDonald’s Twitter account. Burger King executives suspended the account until they are sure they have established full control. They are working with Twitter to ensure better security precautions be taken for future reputation management.

One week after the Burger King incident, Jeep announced on its Twitter header that Chrysler had been sold to Cadillac. In addition to this false announcement, the hackers tweeted content that was inappropriate, drug-related, and included extremely vulgar comments. Jeep demonstrated immediate action once the account of was regained tweeting “Hacking: Definitely not a #Jeep thing. We’re back in the driver’s seat!”

This issue should bring up many social media questions for your brand internally.  Do you have a social media plan of action in place? A crisis management strategy? Who is your key player when social media issues arise? Social media policies need to be set in place for when an issue arises in order to be able to take immediate action.

Do you have any tips or strategies for brands under attacked? Let us know!

Today we hope to give you a quick overview on how to optimize your website to make sure you are ranking for the keywords that relate to your website.

First, let’s start with a brief explanation of Meta Tags:

Meta Tags: This is the first element of readable content that the search engine sees. It is meant to serve as a summary of a page’s content. It is very important to have unique tags for each and every page of your site or it will look like you only have content on the pages that have Meta tags. You need to know what keywords you want to rank for on each page, and be sure to optimize that page with those keywords.  But keep in mind that over optimizing can hurt you. You want to keep everything simple and concise. The three main elements are Meta keywords, title tags and Meta descriptions. Read on to find out more about what each of these are and how they are factored into Google’s rankings.

Meta Keywords: This tag is not TOO important to Google anymore, but we still like to use them to know what each page is about on the back end. Keyword stuffing or using unfocused terms can actually hurt you, so keep that in mind if you choose to use Meta keywords. Using the business name of the company’s website as a keyword will help it look more natural to Google.

Title Tag: This is one of the most important elements of your page and probably the most important element of the Meta Tag, as Google heavily weighs title tags in your rankings. The title tag is also used by Google on the search engine results page (SERP)—the Title Tag for each page on your site will be the blue clickable link that appears on the results page. The title tags should feature the main keywords early on for ranking purposes.

Meta Description: This is also a very important element of the Meta tags. You should try to keep the Meta descriptions concise as the search engine only recognizes the first 180 characters. This is another area where Google will pull from to create the SERP description, so it is important not only that these be optimized with the keywords early on but also that they represent that page’s unique content and feature compelling text for a potential visitor. Tell the user why they should visit your site and why it’s relevant to the keywords they searched for. Treat it as a mini sales pitch to pull the customer to your site over your competitors’.

The take-away here is that you understand how important Meta tags truly are. Search engines want to help customers find what they are looking for, so each web page needs to tell the search engine crawlers what content can be found there using these Meta tags.

Hopefully this gets your feet wet with some of the popular SEO terms. Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions or if you would like us to help you get started with optimizing your website. Stay tuned to our blog to learn more about SEO in the upcoming weeks.

Users have to sign up for Bing rewards through Facebook or a Microsoft account (if you have a Windows phone or MSN/Hotmail/Live email account, you have a Microsoft account). Once your account is created you can receive a credit each time you use Bing’s search engine. You get 1 credit per 2 Bing searches, with a limit of 15 credits per day.

Bing also will have various promotions that you can get extra points for. Right now they have a promotion called “Bing It On” (http://www.bingiton.com/?form=MFEREW&publ=RewardsDO&crea=TEXT_MFEREW_BIO_Feb_new_1x1). In essence, you are blindly testing which search engine you like better—Google or Bing. You type in a keyword and you choose your favorite search engine. It doesn’t tell you which is Google and which is Bing. I took the test this morning and it was an even split between Bing and Google. But now that I know I can get rewards for using Bing…well, let’s just say I am a sucker for free stuff.

There are also credits for referring your friends to the program. Five credits for five friends who join, with a max of 25 credits.

Once you accumulate credits, you can redeem them for all sorts of gift cards to Starbucks, ProFlowers, Amazon, Groupon and more. They also have monthly Skype subscriptions, Xbox memberships and Hulu subscriptions. And if you want to feel all warm and fuzzy inside, you can also choose to donate to charities such as Teach for America, Boys & Girls Club of America and more.

One thing is for sure, Bing wants to raise the bar and compete head to head with Google and is willing to give you some cool prizes for doing so. This also will have an effect on how SEO companies track rankings. A good search engine optimization agency will take a holistic approach for its clients and will not neglect to track Bing rankings. Happy Googling, err, Binging!

1.       SEO is dead

Search engine optimization is actually always changing and therefore is not dead…it’s alive and well, thank you very much! SEO is the art of organically improving your rankings on the search engines. SEO won’t be dead until the day people stop using search engines—and even if that day comes, it will likely evolve to a focus on the platforms where people do search.

2.       SEO is just spam

This is a very common misconception. True SEO isn’t trying to fool anyone—it’s doing the exact opposite. The purpose of SEO is to make the content of websites more searchable and accessible to the search engines for terms that are relevant to the natural content of the site, and in turn, this helps you more easily find relevant content on a search engine. That is not to say that there aren’t those SEO companies who do not follow proper guidelines. So for the most part, it’s not spam…but as with anything, there will be a few rule breakers out there.

3.       Anyone can do their own SEO

If you want to see results, you should hire a qualified professional. Anyone can read some blogs and learn a few tricks of the trade, but only effective training and practice can turn that “anyone” into an experienced, seasoned SEO strategist. Plus, a good SEO company will have tools and resources at their disposal that most individuals will not.

4.       Buying links is a quick and easy way to make my pages rank higher

Buying links is first of all not really SEO. It’s pretty much cheating. And once Google or the other search engines find out, you will be severely penalized if not banished from the search results all together. If a company is selling links, DO NOT use them—they obviously are not real SEO professionals. (See number 5 below for further reason as to why buying links is not a good idea.)

5.       The more inbound links you have, the better

It is good to have inbound links if, and only if, the sites that are linking to you contain content that is relevant to your site or services. For example, if you are a limo company, it would be fine to have wedding sites linking to your website. However a link from a website about cats would not help. And hundreds of links from sites with unrelated content could actually get you penalized. But please note, having good quality backlinks WILL look good for your site and could give you a higher page rank. Think quality over quantity here.

6.       You should end all your URLs in .html

I have heard this one a few times, and I have no idea where it came from. This will not affect your page rankings whatsoever. End your URLs in whatever you want; HTML will not increase your rank on the search engines.

7.       SEO is a one-time activity

No, no, no! Just like the number one myth I mentioned above, Google (as well as the other search engines) are always changing their search engine ranking algorithms. New competitors are also likely to enter your industry or your market, so you need to keep up to date with the latest changes and be constantly optimizing your website so you don’t get stuck on page 45 because the last time you “did SEO” was five years ago. Google also favors websites that are dynamic and offer up-to-date content, so if yours is lacking this, you will be likely to fall off the ranks.

8.       Social Media and SEO aren’t related

Social media has a huge effect on SEO. With the popularity of social media, search engines are increasingly integrating social content into their search results. You will see Facebook, Google+, Twitter and more social media sites in your search results if it is relevant to your query.

9.       A good SEO service provider can guarantee that you will rank in the top 10

No company can guarantee specific results. As I’ve mentioned multiple times now, the search engines’ ranking algorithms are constantly updating to become more effective at serving relevant results to consumers. If you find a company that is guaranteeing specific placement organically, run as fast as you can. You should seriously be skeptical because Google just doesn’t work like that—there are hundreds of factors that go into where you rank, and no one can control all of those. There is no guarantee in SEO. You should look for companies that will set realistic expectations just for you.

10.   Have as many keywords as possible

Keyword stuffing makes sites look spammy. Just stick to a few relevant keywords that represent your site. If you include every word in the dictionary, you may be penalized. It is better to have one really awesome (legitimate) article written about your company than to have twenty keywords stuffed onto your site. People get the picture if your website is called bestfurniturestore.com and your header is “Best Furniture Store.” There is no need to write “best furniture store” in every paragraph on your entire website. (Wasn’t that already annoying?!)

I hope that helps you understand a little more about SEO. Please feel free to contact our company if you have any questions at all!

Is backlink age an important SEO factor? Check out the video below to see Rand, from SEOMoz.org, help explain one of the popular myths about link age.

SEOmoz – SEO Software

Note: SeoMoz.org is not affiliated with Orlando SEO in anyway.

You are allowed to defend yourself in a court of law but I would not recommend it. You are also allowed to fix your own car but if you don’t know what you’re doing, I wouldn’t. Good local SEO companies are constantly thinking and researching on how to be better. We test, measure and learn while you’re busy running your business. SEO is our business.

The Early Months

Local SEO was similar to the early years of organic SEO.  Lame site + bunch of spammy backlinks = profit. In the beginning, Google’s local search was easy to game as there wasn’t much competition. Now, even baby sitters are pulling out all the stops.

Questions Business Should Ask Themselves

• Would I have a chance against a lawyer in a court of law?
• Could I beat 51 year old John McEnroe at tennis (errr probably not)?
• Do I understand the basics of local SEO?
• Can I devote the monthly hours on Local SEO to succeed?
• If I get in trouble (piss off the Google gods) can I find my way back?

Anger the Google gods?

The last bullet point is an important one. There are a number of pitfalls that local SEO posses. If you don’t have the experience to appease the Google gods then your Places page can be buried. Google Places spam has given Google a hair trigger. Look even remotely spammy, and you can trigger a manual review. Your top 3 local search rankings that have been bringing you tons of breast augmentation surgeries will vanish. You could disappear for weeks as the Google reviewers are a bit busy.

I can’t speak for all SEOs but I can say that there is one important thing a business should consider. SEO strategists obsess 24 hours per day about beating people that rank in front of them. It’s our full-time job, so we will not stop trying to raise our clients’ rankings.

Contact Orlando SEO today to get your free quote! We will work tirelessly for your company.

Consider the following Color Bars

Exhibit A – Google

This is the color that “Sponsored Links” uses to delineate itself from organic search. If your using a LCD screen, and you probably are on your computer or IPhone, then you have notice that some colors look different at different angles. Look at the above color bar straight on. Now move your head high while looking down at the screen. The light purple bar will disappear at about 5 degrees from center making paid and organic indistinguishable from one another.

Implications

My gut feeling is that Google, in their quest to raise revenue, noticed that light purple disappears on an LCD screen unless you look at it perfectly straight on. Move your head up 3-5 degrees and poof. If this change happened around January 1,  and I am sure I will get emails and calls disputing this date, then I would be willing to bet that revenues jumped a bit January 2. Fellow SEOs, how many times have you spoke to a client that told you something like this… “I never click on the paid links I just ignore them”.  It helps if you imagine them speaking like Hunter S. Thompson.

By the way, Bing seems to be doing the same thing only not as well.

Exhibit B – Bing

Scott