Search Optimization Blog

Fix duplicate content in the search engine index with the canonical element.

Susan — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 19:15:40 +0000

Let The Search Guru show you how to use the canonical element to fix duplicate content and search engine index issues.

Here at The Search Guru blog we’ve posted previous entries discussing canonical issues and how they can cause duplicate content in the search engine index. To refresh your memory, canonicalization is the process of the search engines having to choose the best URL to index when there are several choices. To a search engine, http://www.mysite.com and http://mysite.com look like two different sites that have exactly the same content, which can trigger the Google duplicate content filter.

One way to address this is by implementing a 301 redirect from the non-preferred to the preferred version of a URL. We show you how to do this on a Unix/Apache server and a Windows server.

Use the canonical element as well to fix Google duplicate content.

The canonical element was introduced by Google about a year ago, but you may not yet realize its power. The canonical element (also referred to as the canonical tag, although it is technically not a tag) shows Google which version of a URL to include in the search engine index.

The canonical element goes in the section of the page and tells Google the preferred URL of the page. The element looks like this:

Remove duplicate content with the power of the canonical element.

Recently a client’s site contained articles that were accessible through multiple URLs on the site. They wanted to keep this user-friendly feature, but multiple copies of the articles were in the search engine index.

The solution? Determining which URL would be the “main” URL of the article and adding the canonical element to the main and secondary URLs. For instance, http://www.mysite.com/articles/how-to-article was decided to be the main URL. http://www.mysite.com/articles/how-tos/how-to-article was a secondary URL. The canonical element
was added to both pages to indicate which one should be indexed. Neat, huh?

Keep similar pages out of the search engine index and avoid Google duplicate content.

Duplicate content can really wreak havoc on retail sites, when product pages can be very similar to one another with the same copy and product specs. The only difference in the content may be a size or color. By adding the canonical element to product pages, you can effectively keep Google from indexing similar pages on your site – and keep from getting penalized!

Choosing keywords to revise web page content: freshen up your website now.

Kelly — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 17:30:24 +0000

Spring is coming – so it’s time to freshen up your website by once again choosing keywords for your site and updating your web page content.

When was the last time that you conducted keyword research on your site? If the answer is a year – or more – then it’s definitely time to repeat the process. First, rerun all the keyphrases that you’ve been using. (The Search Guru provides links to terrific free keyword research tool options.)

What changes do you notice in your keyword research results? Why do you think those changes are occurring? What do they mean to your business?

For example, perhaps you’ve been featuring the luxury version of your product, because keyword research had previously indicated that there was significant interest in that product line. Perhaps, in today’s more uncertain economy, fewer people are searching for the luxury version of your product – but there is much stronger search traffic now on another product line of yours. How will this change your business – and search – strategies?

If you decide to change the focus of your product promotion, you’ll need to do more than just switch out keywords in your web page content.

If you’ve been touting the exclusive, prestigious nature of your luxury products, you’ll need to change the benefit statements included in your content when you start focusing on more mid-line products. Perhaps you could revise one of your main benefit statements to read this way:

Pamper yourself with the competitively-priced Product A that will make you look and feel great without putting a damper on your budget!

Or, as the economy is improving, the reverse may be true; you may notice that MORE people are wanting a luxury version of your product. So, again, when choosing keywords and revising web page content, keep that in mind.

What about local traffic? Should you be choosing keywords with a geo-targeted focus?

When you first optimized your web page content, you may not have included geo-targeted keyphrases. If your audience largely comes from specific geographical areas, though, you’ll want to revise your text to include appropriate geographical references.

Remember that Wordtracker has a question-based keyword research tool that allows you to see what questions your prospects are asking.

Use this keyword research tool to brainstorm topics for the new editorial you’ll also be adding to freshen up your site.

Watch The Search Guru blog for ways to freshen up your online reputation management strategy – and for some great technical tips, too.

Ebook review: how to create web page content to increase online traffic.

Kelly — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 17:23:42 +0000

Here’s The Search Guru ebook review of The Web Content Recipe Book: 21 irresistible content ideas to wow visitors and boost your search engine optimization.

This ebook is written by multiple authors associated with Wordtracker, the professional keyword research tool; a copy of this ebook was given to us for review purposes.

The sub-title of the ebook does a great job of sharing both its scope and purpose, which is to present readers with numerous ways of writing web page content to help your company:

engage customers
increase online traffic
build your business

That’s pretty straightforward – and useful stuff for anyone engaged in e-commerce today.

This ebook shares why web page content is so important to your overall organic search engine optimization campaign.

The reality, as The Web Content Recipe Book points out, is that every page on your website needs to be a marketing page. You can’t predict which page a first-time site visitor will find, and he or she may only read one page before making a decision about your site. So, every page counts and should contain engaging copy that shares your expertise and/or information about your business.

In chapter 2, Rachelle Money lists 21 different types of articles that can help increase online traffic – relevant, targeted traffic – to your site.

We don’t want to give away too much information from the ebook, so we’ll just list one idea – and that’s to find out what questions your customers are asking and then provide them with the answers they need; The Search Guru recently blogged about the free keyword research tool being discussed.

What’s great about Rachelle’s ideas are that they can be used for writers of any level of experience:

If you’re a newer writer, she is offering strategies that will help you develop your copywriting craft.
If you’re an experienced writer, you probably fall into ruts from time to time and rely upon the same old, same old article structures. For you, this ebook can provide the rut-busting you need to return to fresh, exciting copywriting.

You won’t find an in-depth look at organic search engine optimization in this ebook, but you will find an extraordinary amount of practical information to help you connect with customers, increase online traffic and grow your business.

Be sure to also look at The Search Guru’s ebook review of Blogging for Business by Chris Garrett.

Link building strategies: The Search Guru offers 2 link building techniques.

Susan — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 15:52:51 +0000

Curious to know which sites are linking to your competitors or which are the most important link directories? The Search Guru has answers.

Follow these link building strategies to get some link love to your site!

Valentine’s Day is an annual reminder that we all need love. Our websites need love, too – link love, that is. But what link building techniques should you use to get that love?

First and foremost, for an effective link building campaign your site should contain fresh and interesting content, otherwise known as “link bait.” If you offer something worth linking to, then other sites will naturally link to your site. Be sure to include your target keyphrases in your content, too.

Checking your competitors’ sites is one of the best link building strategies to get additional link love.

If a site is linking to your competitor, they may be inclined to link to your site as well, if you ask. But how exactly do you find out how many, and which sites, are linking to your competitors?

Link building techniques using Yahoo! Site Explorer: Part 1

In Yahoo! Site Explorer, you can see the number of sites linking to your competitors. Go to http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com, type your competitor’s URL (e.g. http://www.competingsite.com) into the search box, and click “Explore URL.” Then, click the Inlinks button. Choose “Except from this domain” from the first dropdown menu; this will display the number of links coming only from external sites, and will exclude links from other pages in the competitor’s own site.

From the second dropdown menu, choose “Entire Site” to see the number of links going to every page in the competitor’s site:

Or, select “Only this URL” to see the number of links going to the home page only:

Link building techniques using Yahoo! Site Explorer: Part 2

Once you have noted how many links the competing site has compared to your own site, you will want to examine those links to determine if any would be good candidates for your link building campaign. Scan the list of links and click on any you think might be a good fit. The linking site should:

be relevant to the topic of your site,
have decent home page PageRank,
not be a competing site, and
have less than 100 other outbound links on the page.

In addition, submit your site to The Search Guru’s top 5 most important link directories to help with your link building campaign:

Google’s Directory (DMOZ.org)
Yahoo!’s Directory (Dir.Yahoo.com)
Business Directory (Business.com)
Best Of The Web Directory (BOTW.org)
JoeAnt Directory (JoeAnt.com)

Put these and other link building strategies to work for your site to increase rankings and traffic. Happy Valentine’s Day from The Search Guru!

How search engines work: part 3 of your search engine optimization strategy.

Leslie — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 21:22:34 +0000

Make sure the search spiders will crawl all the pages on your site by following these search engine optimization strategy tips!

This is the last post in our multi-part series on how search engines work; read the basics of how search engines work and the importance of visibility to the search spiders.

Search engine optimization strategy #1: Add a robots.txt to your site.

A robots.txt is a file that tells search spiders where they are and are not allowed to go on a site. Having a robots.txt, even a basic one, is considered to be a “sign of quality.” It shows that you acknowledge that search engines are allowed on your site and that they may have free access to it. Learn how to add a robots.txt file to your site.

Search engine optimization strategy #2: Use search engine-friendly CSS navigation.

These days, all of the cool navigational effects previously accomplished with JavaScript can be replicated using text-based CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). CSS navigation is much more search engine friendly in that the links, which sometimes look like images, are actually HTML text that can easily be crawled and indexed by the search spiders. Many types of JavaScript links cannot be read or followed by the spiders. If the links can’t be read, the pages can’t be indexed.

Search engine optimization strategy #3: Strengthen internal linking with a site map.

Having a good site map is one of the most important things you can do for your site visibility. A site map makes it easy for the search spiders to find all of the pages in your site and index them efficiently. Link to the site map in the footer, and be sure to include every page on your site in the map. Remember to update the site map whenever new pages are added to your site.

We hope you’ve enjoyed this series about how search engines work. Contact The Search Guru to plan your search engine optimization strategy today!

Search spiders: find more helpful information about how search engines work.

Leslie — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 16:10:09 +0000

If your pages can’t be seen or read by search spiders, then those pages can’t show up in search results! Find out more from The Search Guru.

In a previous post, we covered the basics of how search engines work, and how they use search spiders to index the pages on your site. It’s very important that your pages become indexed because, if they aren’t, then those pages can’t show up in search results.

The number of pages that have been indexed by the search engines is referred to as your level of “visibility,” and this is another crucial part of your search engine optimization strategy – to become more visible.

Here are the types of questions that we get at The Search Guru – and their answers.

1. I want to become more visible. How can I tell which pages search spiders have indexed?

Check Google and Yahoo! separately. The numbers will rarely be exactly the same, but they should at least be in the ballpark of one another. If they’re not, then it could indicate a deeper issue.

To check the number of pages indexed by Google, go to http://www.google.com. In the search box type in site:yourdomain.com (omit the www reference).

You will see in the upper right hand corner a reference to “Results 1-X of about X.” The number that comes after “about” indicates the total number of pages Google has found on your site.

To find out how many pages Yahoo! has indexed, go to http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com and type http://yourdomain.com into the search box (again omit the www reference).

It’s important to note that these numbers will fluctuate constantly, as search spiders are always crawling and indexing. Don’t be alarmed if you see these numbers going up and down slightly – it’s just how search engines work.

2. Are those the only search engines I should check as part of my search engine optimization strategy?

Google and Yahoo! are going to give you the most reliable figures on indexed pages, so those are the most important to check – and, Google can provide even more detailed data.

Google has two different indices that it pulls results from: the main index and the supplemental index. Google pulls results for searches from both indices, but gives preference to the main index; therefore you want as many pages as possible to be in the main index.

Pages are placed into the supplemental index when Google considers them to be weak or not as important. These pages also tend to have deeper issues, such as a lack of linking, little content or duplicate content.

To look at the number of pages you have in the supplemental index, type site:domain.com/* into the Google search box. This will give you the number of pages in the main index. Subtract that number from the total number of pages indexed to find the number of pages in the supplemental index. Then, calculate the percentage of your pages in the supplemental index; you want to shoot for no more than 80% of your pages being there.

Watch for our next post, where we’ll address the factors that can affect whether or not the search spiders will crawl your pages.

Search engine index: use 301 redirect to fix page counts in Google & Yahoo!

Susan — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 20:15:48 +0000

The number of site pages in a search engine index can differ widely between Google and Yahoo!, which we all know is frustrating. Why the difference?

Let’s say your site has 300 pages in the Google search engine index and 315 in the Yahoo! index. Those numbers are pretty close; it looks like both spiders are crawling and indexing most of your content.

But what if your site has 300 pages in Google, and 620 in Yahoo!? This indicates that there may be a deeper issue affecting your site.

Canonical URL, duplicate content and 404 error pages are three common reasons why page counts can differ.

1. Canonical URL

Canonicalization is the process of the search engines having to choose the best URL to index when there are several choices. Two of the most common ways a canonical URL can occur are:

www vs. non-www
http vs. https

The search engines can mistake http://www.mysite.com and http://mysite.com as two different sites with exactly the same content. This is also true for http://www.mysite.com and https://www.mysite.com.

2. Duplicate content

Google duplicate content, and duplicate content in Yahoo!, can occur as a result of a canonical URL as mentioned above. This may trip the Google duplicate content filter which can cause pages from your site, or even your entire site, to be removed from the search engine index.

3. 404 error pages

The Yahoo! search engine index is slower to crawl new pages and therefore tends to hold onto old pages longer than Google. If your site’s index count is inflated in Yahoo!, you may discover that Yahoo! has indexed 404 error pages occurring on your site.

All of these search engine index issues can be corrected using a 301 redirect.

A 301 redirect is a permanent redirect from one URL to another. Implementing this redirect will correct canonical issues and remove duplicate content and 404 error pages from the indexes.

Find the challenge of fixing these issues daunting? Let The Search Guru technical consultants help. Want to find out what other issues your site may have? Request a free SEO gift session today.

Free keyword research tool: find out about Wordtracker’s Keyword Questions.

Kelly — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 02:43:48 +0000

What if there was a free keyword research tool that let you find out what questions people had about your areas of expertise? Well, there is!

Wordtracker provides a free keyword research tool called Keyword Questions that is quick and easy to use. You simply enter a phrase and, in return, you get a list of questions that people have asked about that phrase.

Let’s say that you’re an accountant. This time of year, people are starting to organize material for their income taxes and are looking for helpful information online. If they find the information that they need on your site – in other words, if they find the answers to their questions – then you’ve got an excellent opportunity to also sell them on your services.

So, how do you find out what questions they’re asking?

By entering “income taxes” into the Keyword Questions search box, you can quickly discover that there are 5,311 searches on “How long does it take to get tax refund back?” So, you could write an article about that, ending with your contact information so that people could contact you for your income tax services.

There are also 2,998 searches on “When will my tax refund be mailed?” and 267 searches on “Am I entitled to working family tax credit?” You could write articles on those subjects, as well, along with many other questions that show up when you use the Keyword Questions keyword research tool.

If you’re interested in more in-depth keyword research services, contact The Search Guru today by calling 440-306-2418 or find out more about our free gift session.

Also ask about our advanced keyword research services!

Generate sales leads: 10 killer strategies to use in 2010 by The Search Guru.

Leslie — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 21:24:38 +0000

Top 10 Ways to Generate Sales Leads in 2010

You want and need a killer sales strategy to kick off 2010 and The Search Guru is here to help. You are probably already using some of these techniques. If so, what can you do in 2010 to ramp up their effectiveness? If you’re not using any of these strategies yet, why not?

Our recommended sales-churning methods include:

ways to use social media services
pay per click management techniques
organic search engine optimization strategies
insights into your link building campaign
buzz marketing

These methods are listed in no particular order because each situation is different – but we are confident that you can craft a powerful strategy using your own unique combination of the strategies listed below.

You can generate sales leads by:

1. Using social media services more fully

While the direct correlation between using social media services to generating sales leads can be tough to quantify, it’s also tough to dispute that interacting with your customers can help your bottom line. Brands have become personalities with human voices, thanks to sites like Twitter and Facebook and, if you’re avoiding these channels, you’ll lose out to your competition that embraces them.

The best way to make these sites work for your company is to learn to listen to what your potential customers are saying, and to interact with them in response. Ask questions of your followers and fans, reply to complaints or compliments, and follow up on opportunities.

Consider participating in relevant Twitter chats as a method to reach new followers. Twitter chats typically take place at the same time on the same day of the week (i.e., Monday at 3 p.m., EST) and generally are created for niche groups. Sometimes there are predetermined topics and sometimes there are open chats. To participate in the chat, add a hash mark (#) immediately followed by the name of the chat in each of your tweets.

Ironically, one of the best ways to use social media services to get sales leads is to treat Twitter, Facebook and the like as conversations, rather than as sales channels.

2. Continuing to focus on your link building campaign – and by also creating a website and/or blog that linkers will naturally love

Pursuing links in major directories, niche directories and in other relevant sites online is still a great strategy. You can take some of the load off of your link building campaign, though, by creating site and blog content that is so useful and interesting that bloggers and other web sites will naturally want to link to your content.

What special knowledge do you have that would help your clients and prospective clients in their jobs? How can you clearly share that know-how in step by step how-to articles and blog posts? What does your keyphrase research indicate about how people are searching for that type of information?

If you write quality material that addresses a need and if you effectively optimize that information so that your great work is found, then you should automatically get more inbound links. Some of the people who link to you may directly contact you for more information, which is a great way to generate sales leads; meanwhile the search engine spiders will take note of the natural linking that is taking place and reward your site appropriately, making it easier for other potential clients to find you.

3. Creating a carefully targeted buzz marketing campaign

If you’re thinking of doing a giveaway or a sweepstakes to generate online attention, plan your online publicity before you launch your buzz marketing campaign. Leverage channels like Twitter to do double duty for your brand by tying the sweepstakes entry to a Twitter action that will also net you more followers. For example, make the sweepstakes entry requirement be for users to tweet a message that says they’re entering your giveaway, with a reference to your username. All of their followers will see it, and likely follow form. Now you not only have interested parties, but you also have them promoting you for free!

4. Getting to know your target audience all over again – and then making sure you’re speaking directly to them

Maybe you’re actively creating content on Twitter and Facebook and maybe you’re trying to interact with people through other social media services – but it isn’t working very well. If so, step back.

There are reasons why these types of online interactions are known as “social.” People want to chat and socialize and hear interesting news. Are you providing your potential sales leads with intriguing info?

If your copy isn’t converting too well, take a look at how you’re addressing your audience there, too. For your blog and website, conduct additional keyphrase research to see if that provides guidance on changes that may have taken place in your prospects’ lingo.

For example, if your research from a year or two ago indicated that people were searching for luxury widgets – but your new research indicates a desire for affordable widgets – have you adjusted your blogging and copywriting strategy to accommodate the changes caused by a tough economy? Or, if you want to continue to sell luxury widgets, have you modified your marketing plan to reach the portion of the widget audience that still wants and can afford luxury models? How has that changed the tone of your content so that you can persuade your potential customers to contact you?

5. Writing content, using organic search engine optimization techniques so that you prequalify your leads

We’ve seen statistics that suggest that only 25% of online leads are really ready to buy, leaving 75 percent of them in multiple spots along the buying cycle.

When writing content, use your keyphrase research to guide you in selecting the best keyphrases for each of the multiple levels of pages that you will write for Product A.

For example, for the 25% of the leads who are ready to buy, use the specific longtail keyphrases such as “Brand Q widgets”; the keyphrases that indicate a willingness to purchase, such as “buy widgets online”; and so forth.

For the potential leads who are still researching choices, use broader keyphrases in your copy, such as “highly efficient widgets” or “best widgets” while providing them with the education they need; this will help build loyalty towards your company. Then, guide them to the next step in their buying path by providing links to the most likely widgets that would suit their needs – and so on and so forth.

Does your keyphrase research indicate that some people search for widgets by brand while others search by size? If so, then create copy for both types of searchers so that they will want to contact YOUR company.

6. Using your analytics and log walking to create and/or modify copy

What keyphrases are people using to find your site? Are they what you expected? If not, what content can you create to further target these prospects? What specific articles and pages are drawing people to your site? Do those web pages clearly show site visitors how to buy your products and/or services? If it’s an article that you intend to be informational rather than promotional, is it clear how the prospect can contact you for more info?

In other words, how can you enhance the conversion value of the pages that are already attracting attention? Analyze why the pages that draw the most traffic are so successful. What needs are you meeting? What other types of content could fulfill similar needs? What will your organic search engine optimization strategy be for those new pages?

7. Pay per click management strategy

Laser-target your PPC management strategy by getting beyond those high-level keywords. As bids get more expensive, remember that your best-converting keywords are usually the longer phrases. For example, if you’re selling gift baskets, a keyword like “baskets” will be expensive and vague. Instead, add keyphrases like “corporate gift baskets.” A smaller audience is searching for “corporate gift baskets,” rather than simply “baskets,” but it’s a very specific term and one that delivers highly qualified sales leads that are precisely matched to your product. This means lower bids and better business!

8. Leverage Facebook’s full potential

Facebook has grown up a lot in the past few years, and its platform is a fantastic way to interact with your audience. Go beyond just posting a status or link on your Wall and use the tools that will really help you go viral. Create an event and invite your followers – did you know that if they accept the invite, it shows up on the news feed of all their followers? This is a quick way to spread the word without you having to do anything other than cultivate your current following.

9. Engaging clients

By providing top notch service to your current clients – and by going beyond the call of duty in watching out for challenges and opportunities for your clients, you have created a team of credible and engaged sales people for your company. Solicit testimonials from these incredibly satisfied clients and ask them to refer their peers and networking contacts to your company.

10. Being you!

You have passion for your work, you have helped numerous clients reach increasing numbers of their own potential customers and you know who should enjoy the benefits of your services more than anyone else does (or at least you should!).

Never lose sight of the fact that recommendations #1 through 8 are merely tools. Incredibly powerful tools to help you gather sales leads, but simply tools, nevertheless. Just as you need to keep site visitors in mind when writing optimized copy, you need to keep your clients and their needs, goals and strategies in the forefront as you use appropriate tools as a means to your end. Let your successes speak for themselves as you generate sales leads for the upcoming year.

What do you think are the hottest tools for sales leads in 2010? Post your comments below. And, by the way – Happy New Year!

Organic search engine optimization and pay per click management for 2010.

Leslie — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 20:55:22 +0000

Where do you want to take your business in 2010? What road map will get you there? Using what SEO strategies & PPC strategies to get sales leads?

Author C.S. Lewis has said that, “We all want progress, but if you’re on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.”

What does that mean to you and your company? Well, for one thing, if Christmas 2009 was disappointing for your business, you’ll need to honestly assess whether you did all you could with your organic search engine optimization and pay per click strategies.

In other words, was the economy entirely to blame – or could you have taken another road with your SEO and PPC strategies?

The reality is that nearly every company could improve upon their organic search engine optimization and/or their pay per click management. Yours may need only minor tweaking – or you may need to turn around and leave behind the wrong road to get on the right one in plenty of time for Christmas 2010.

What didn’t you accomplish this year with organic search or pay per click management that you must achieve in 2010?

How can we help you with your PPC and SEO strategies so that you can get the qualified targeted sales leads that you need to grow your business? Give yourself the gift of a FREE 30-minute consultation call with The Search Guru now!