Web Design, Internet Marketing, E-commerce, SEO Blog | Las Vegas, NV

With each new client who orders a shopping cart, I get asked the same question.  How do I make my store more search engine friendly so I get ranked in Google, Yahoo & MSN?

There are a few different things I recommend that will help make your site more search friendly:

1.  Think about how you name your categories and your products.  These category and product titles are very important because you can add valuable search information so the search engines can understand your products and services better, which in return, should work in your favor and add more relevancy to your listing in their search engine.

2.  Be Descriptive.  In your product descriptions, tell the customer exactly what your product is.  Be as descriptive and as enticing as possible.  Not only will you be adding more pizzazz to your products and possibly inciting a sale from a customer, you are also adding valuable content for the search engines to read and possibly use when indexing your site in their search engine.

3.  Don’t abbreviate.  I don’t know how many times I’ve seen companies place funky abbreviations in their store because that is how they refer to it in their POS systems.  Remember, on the web, you have more room to describe your product than you do in your POS system descriptions and titles.  Instead of putting: B 24IN C-ON Tan.  Say exactly what your product is:  Black 24 inch Carry-on with Tan Lining.  This is much more descriptive and much more valuable to the customer browsing your store and the search engine crawling it.

There are other ways you can optimize your store, but if you can stick to those three tips above, you will be way ahead of the game, and hopefully…your competition.

I have been criticized by other developers who love Flash technology because I have said that Flash is not very search engine friendly.  Well, here we are hearing it straight from the horse’s mouth.  Adobe’s very own have said there “has always been a bit of a tradeoff” when using Flash.  “You get all the great graphics and experiences but you lose some search capability.”

Well, now Adobe is helping to change all of that.  This, to me as a developer, is fantastic news!  Adobe just announced that they are teaming up with Google and Yahoo to make Flash and other RIA (Rich Internet Applications) more searchable.

Even though I do applaud this move, I do want to point out still as a web user, that Flash can be over done.  My advice is to use it sparingly and not to go wild with it.  Remember, not everyone is a flash fan.  I come across many people on a daily basis who say to me, “I hate those flash banners, they are so annoying and slow.”  So…just keep the end user in mind when you are working on your website and adding flash.

As far as Adobe’s news though….that’s good news for developers and seo professionals alike.

Over the past year, as my clients become more aware of the web and how it all works, I’ve received several questions about PPC (Pay-per-click) campaigns. Most of my clients wonder if PPC works, what types of costs they can anticipate, and if they should even dip their toe into the water so to speak.

First, let me clarify that SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is a process that web developers and marketers do to get your website listed higher in natural search results (or non-paid search engine rankings). SEO is the first place I start with all of my clients. This gives me the information I need from the client’s standpoint as to what keywords and phrases are the most valuable to them. Then, once I get the SEO set for the initial launch of their website, I recommend they try PPC campaigns to hedge the traffic to their website while the natural SEO is taking place.

PPC Campaigns are a great way to market your website right away, as soon as you launch it. It gives you an immediate traffic boost, and hopefully, an immediate return on your investment. PPC campaigns are a valuable source of data that help to complement your marketing analysis as to what keywords and phrases people are typing in when they go to your website. Think of PPC campaigns as advertisements, because that’s exactly what they are. But, the beauty of PPC, is the amount of control you have and how well you can analyze your conversions.

If you are interested in advertising your website with a PPC campaign, my first recommendation is Google Adwords. Adwords is always the first place I suggest, since Google has held the majority search share and continues to grow each month. Google Adwords has a great help menu, if you decide to do it yourself…or you can hire a professional to manage your account. Here are just some of the features on Google Adwords:

• You can choose your geographic location (so if you only want to advertise locally,) you can.

• You can pick your days and times you want your ads to show.

• You can choose to place your ad on the Google Search Network and/or the Content Network.

• You enter the budget you can afford and the system will work its best to stay within it.

• You can track your conversions (i.e. Registrations, Email Subscriptions, Sales, etc.) with their conversion tools so you can really analyze your ROI.

If you’ve been anxious about taking the plunge with a PPC campaign, let us help you. For more information on PPC and other internet marketing opportunities, contact us and we will be glad to help.

Can I have more than one domain name for my website?

Most of my customers don’t realize that you CAN have multiple domain names pointing to one primary domain name. For example: If you own www.yourdomain.com as your primary website that houses all of your content, you could also own www.yourdomain-lasvegas.com as another domain name that points back to your main website. So, owning several domain names is never a bad thing. The most important thing to keep in mind though, is how you redirect the user to the primary domain. That is the key to search engine friendliness.

Domain Alias or a 301 Redirect?

In your hosting control panel, there is a place for you to set up a domain alias. NEVER USE A DOMAIN ALIAS. This is considered spamming the search engines because the domain name DUPLICATES the content on your primary domain and in turn, masks the domain name under the secondary domain. This is a very bad thing to do and you will get dropped in rankings very quickly by Google, Yahoo and other search engines. They feel you are trying to trick the engine when you use a domain alias. Why? Because what they see when they crawl an aliased domain is a website domain that has exactly the same content as the primary domain. So, if you have say…10 domain names all aliased to one domain name…the search engine sees 11 websites all with the same content. Hence, they think you are spamming them with duplicate content to trick the engine into giving you higher rankings.

So…what to do when you have multiple domain names?

Use a 301 Redirect. A 301 redirect tells the search engines that you have moved this domain permanently to a new domain name that you will specify. 301 redirects are search engine friendly redirects. Never use a 302 Redirect. 302 redirects are temporary redirects and are normally used by spammers.

So how do I set up a 301 redirect?

Considering, the domain name you are redirecting has never been hosted on any web server, buy a cheap hosting plan at netmouser.net domains and hosting (or any other hosting provider of your choice) for the domain you want to redirect. Then, you will need to upload a file called a .htaccess into the root of the html folder. This file will ‘direct’ the search engine crawler that you have permanently moved the domain name to a specific domain name.

How to create and setup a .htaccess file:

1. Check your current website ftp to make sure you don’t already have a .htaccess file already. (If you do not know how to do this, check your ftp program for instructions. I know in WS_FTP Pro, you can type -la into your file mask textbox and this will display if a .htaccess file exists.) If file exists, open it and go to #3 below. If not, go to #2 below.

2. Open Notepad or other text editor.

3. Copy and Paste this line into the Notepad file: (change the yourdomain.com to the your primary domain.)

redirect 301 / http://www.yourdomain.com/

4. Now save the file a .htaccess - make sure Notepad doesn’t add a .txt extension at the end.

5. Upload the .htaccess file to your website html root folder.

Now, anytime that domain is typed in by a website visitor it will permanently forward to your primary website. This is now considered a search engine friendly redirect.

When shopping for an SEO expert, you may want to ask what color hat the SEO company wears… a white hat or black hat?  I know this question seems extremely crazy, but there really is such a thing as a white hat seo or black hat seo technique.

What’s the difference between white hat or black hat SEO?

Simple.  White hat seo is the technique of optimizing your website for search engine indexing, without doing anything deceptive.  White hat seo experts use ethical methods to getting your site listed with search engines, and do not try to ‘trick’ the search engines for top rankings.

Black hat seo is a deceptive practice that normally use techniques that search engines feel are spamming or just downright tricky.  A black hat seo may be able to gain top rankings on keywords/phrases, but they are normally short lived as once the search engine finds out what they are doing, they can be banned from the search engine.

What types of techniques are considered black hat?

Hidden Text - This is a process of hiding text on a web page.  For example, one type of hidden text is placing white text on a white background.  The search engine sees the text as visible in the code, but the website browser does not.  The black hat seo is trying to trick the search engine into reading text that is not visible on the page for a real visitor just to enhance their rankings.

Keyword Stuffing - This is a process where keywords are literally ’stuffed’ onto a page with nothing else on the page.  For example, if I had a website for real estate, and all I had on the page was a bunch of keywords and no real content…this would be considered keyword stuffing.

Doorway Pages - Doorway pages are used to deceive the search engine because they are ‘fake’ pages that a user will never see.  They are normally filled with keyword stuffed content just to try to fake out the search engines.

Although black hat methods can work…they normally are temporary and once found out, are banned from search engines.  Don’t let these types of techniques tempt you into higher rankings.  A well thought out, content rich website with white hat seo techniques will far outlast the black hats.