One of the biggest mistakes companies make when writing copy for a site is using industry terms that normal customers don’t think to use.

Archeology, of course, is the systematic method to uncover artifacts from the past that have been buried or forgotten. What archeologists do is examine artifacts that were lost and buried, and draw conclusions about how life was lived hundreds or thousands of years ago. When people search online, it’s a lot like sifting through thousands of years of junk and broken pieces of pottery in order to find the one intact tablet that solves your mystery. If you’re like me, you often see a lot of non-relevant results returned when you do a web search. Google, as good as it […]

Google’s continuing mission is to deliver the best search results possible to its end users. So how can a search engine like Google differentiate between a company that is brand new (and might be a fly-by-night operation) versus an organization that has years of experience in the field? The answer: Google looks at the age of your domain name (along with several other varibles). If your domain name was registered last week, chances are good that your site won’t even appear in Google’s rankings for several months. (This is called the Google Sandbox.) But if your domain name was registered […]

Even though search engines can’t read words inside graphics, they do use the name of the file and other contextual information to increase your rankings. One of the biggest missed opportunities is not naming images with search engine optimization in mind. I can’t tell you how many times I see a site that has the logo named: logo.jpg While that’s sufficient to display the logo in a browser, it’s much better to name the logo with descriptive keywords, such as: global-marketing-plus-logo.jpg (notice I seperated the words with an “-“.  This lets search engines read the words.  If I named the […]

We’ve discussed local search, and how to make sure you don’t confuse search engines with graphics and flash animation. We’ve also talked about the all-important title tags. This week, we’ll take a higher-level view to discuss what search engines look for when ranking your site. At the end of the day, a search engine is in business to help you find the most relevant results possible when you conduct a search. Search engines make their money by selling relevant advertising to supplement the natural, organic search results. Because a top ranking in Google or another search engine can translate into […]

One of the most cost-effective ways to boost your search engine performance is to make sure that the title tags on your website are set up properly. When you search in Google, the search results start with a blue underlined link. Here’s an example: What displays in the first line of the website listing is usually what is contained in the title tag of a web page. The keywords you placed in the search box are usually boldfaced in the search results. So, just what is a title tag, and why does it matter for search engine positioning? According to […]

This next strategy for Search Engine Optimization is often overlooked. But it’s key to making sure that people can find you at the top of the page when they conduct a search in Google, Yahoo or another search engine. Search engines are really good at reading text. But they’re very easily confused. And if Google gets confused when it crawls through your site, you won’t rank very high in search results. Search engines, for example, can’t read words that are contained in graphics or flash animation. So if your company’s name is only contained in a graphic on your site, […]