G2 | SEO and Web 2.0

video ($5 security system)

2008-06-26T12:34:00.000-06:00

While I was searching around for content for the site I came across this awesome video! This is for everyone that wants a cheap, cheap, CHEAP home security system. I know it's not SEO, but I think it is pretty cool....

$5 Dollar Burglar Alarm! - Celebrity bloopers here

SEO addictions....

2008-06-25T15:14:00.003-06:00

Hey, if you are an SEO nerd such as what I am morphing into, you will really appreciate these SEO nerd jokes....I think they are pretty good!

http://www.webconfs.com/seo-comics.php

Google Keyword Rankings | June 23

2008-06-23T17:49:00.002-06:00

It has only been four days, but we've received updates for our keywords reports already...

Overall not much improvement has occurred, we must definitely be in the competitive zone for the keyword 'adt home security.' However, another keyword has appeared, however far away it may be, and that is simply 'home security.' This is an EVEN HUGER keyword than the other one, so we are still climbing however it has somewhat come to a plateau now...

Google Keyword Rankings | June 19

2008-06-19T17:40:00.001-06:00

Here are the rankings for 6/19 for your viewing pleasure...
With this report, I also included the graph that Google Analytics gives you about how many views, visitors, clicks, etc.. you get. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND IT! All you have to do is sign in using your Google account and create an account for the website you'd like to keep track of. Google sends you a small piece of HTML code that you post right before the /body tag and you are all ready to go! Google will then begin to measure how many visitors you get. The cool thing is that you can even get it down to showing where those visitors are from and what pages they entered first and upon what pages they left...lots of cool options!

Notice also that we are beginning to rank a little higher for the keyword 'adt home security' - we are now up to position 26 on the search results. This puts us on the third page! We are still not within the range we would like to be though...it is estimated that about 80% of the clicks occur on the first page, and about 19% on the second page, so we don't have much public exposure yet..but we are getting there! Just a little more optimization and we should be there!

G2

Google Keyword Rankings | June 9

2008-06-09T17:21:00.001-06:00

Here the latest Google rankings for June 9th...Looking at these ones, you can tell the site has made some progress even in the past week. If you look at the righthand column for example, you will see that we actually generated some clicks this time. It shows the click percentage of the total keywords that we rank for, so you can see what keyword is working the best for you...

You will actually notice we have some important keywords showing up for the home security site..for example, adt home security! This is a major competitive keyword, and we are already showing up on the fourth page of Google's results (#31-40). This is a very good thing, and you'll see in the next several weeks as we focus on making that keyword a primary target for our optimzation and links, we are going to improve that ranking...Until then!

G2

Video (Another Web Bubble)

2008-06-01T18:20:00.000-06:00

If you have been slaving hours on end trying to make your site appear in the top ten of Google only to find that things are not working out at all, I found a video to cheer you up! It sure did wonders for me...

Google Keyword Rankings | May 31

2008-05-31T16:49:00.000-06:00

Here is my first report that I have received from Google Webmaster. These are available when you submit your URL to Google to be placed in the search results, and they are really easy to understand adn use.In order to take a close look at these rankings, just click on them and you'll get a bigger picture. What you'll notice is that the site is apparently making some progress with the search results. There are even some top ten rankings. It is important to realize that some of these keywords are not exactly popular, most only receive about one or two searches per day, if that.

The other thing you'll want to notice is that nearly all of these keywords were not the ones we optimized our site for. Google just determines them to be related in some way to the content we have on the site. These are all lesser-competitive keywords, so that is why our site has ranked in the top ten for these keywords.

Even though this appears to be little progress made since it does not exactly give your site more visitors, it is an important indicator that your site is going in the right direction, so don't give up and quit your job just yet! With some narrowing down on specific competitive keywords, this can really turn into something!

G2

Site Update | Secure24Seven

2008-05-10T18:43:00.000-06:00

Since the whole reason I have been going through the scrolls of SEO is to make the secure24seven site become ranked for significant keywords in Google, I will now give an update on my progress thus far...Anyway, the site is still basically unrecognized by Google, I have done all the optimization like I have outlined on the site, with keywords (one per page), headings, robots.txt etc...Since the content appears to be fairly optimized I will make my way toward generating links to the site...

The site has been crawled by Google, but it has not been recognized as being important enough to be in any rankings. There is one important thing to note with all this though...in order to get ranked well (in the top 10) for a good keyword sites can take anywhere from 6 months to 2 years to be ranked well, depending on how competitive a keyword may be. So, for all of you who are battling to have their site get recognized by Google, DON'T DESPAIR, THERE IS HOPE...it just might take a few years....

G2

Negative SEO Factors

2008-05-10T18:26:00.000-06:00

I thought that for this week I would put together a little checklist that basically summarizes WHAT YOU SHOULD NOT DO in the SEO world...Again, DON'T DO THESE THINGS! Let me know if you come up with anything else so I can post it later, I would really appreciate any help to the list!

1. No real body text on the page - the entire text presented in images
2. Affiliates site - network of sites containing little variety
3. – Over Optimizing Penalty (OOP) - Examples - keyword stuffing, stuffed meta tags, over-labeling H1
4. Link bad neighborhoods - namely, link farms
5. Vile language, ethnic slurs
6. Poison Words? (Possibilities - namely, death, drugs, gambling, etc.…)
7. Excess Cross-Linking
8. Stealing images, text block another domain * Google responds strongly
9. Keyword dilution (Too many keywords)
10. The content changes too often
11. The freshness of a text change (Too much change=penalty)
12. Too many dynamic pages
13. Excess JavaScript
14. Flash Page
15. Using Frames
16. Single Pixel links
17. Invisible Text (text same color as background)
18. HTML code violations
19. Gateway, doorway pages
20. Using phrases that Google has determined to be associated with spam

Video (Headings)

2008-05-07T18:15:00.000-06:00

I found a video online that really stresses the importance of headings in your site...I hope it helps out somebody out there:

h1, h2, h3, ........

2008-05-06T14:47:00.002-06:00

So during my SEO studies I found out that people everywhere have put how great an h1, h2, etc... tag is for your site...I honestly did not have any idea what that was starting out. So for all of you who are just beginning to understand this elusive concept called SEO, and need some kind of a translator, I am going to talk to you about these tags.

What these tags do is create headings for your site. It is a great way to organize your site's content, and the more organization your site has, the happier search engine bots will be! In order to effectively use tags, you must include your keyword(s) from your page, especially if you can fit it in as a first word(s) in the heading. H1 headings are given the most importance by bots, so make sure that is where your keyword is. H2 and the rest can include some sub-keywords, but they are not as important, although they are important if your site has a lot of sub-headings. I hope this little tidbit helps out with headings..

G2

Submit to Google

2008-05-05T15:06:00.000-06:00

The site's content is basically all ready, however, optimization is not totally done yet... I have just done the basic optimization as described so there is quite a bit left to do. I submitted the site to Google so that it starts to index it.

Note: You should submit your URL as soon as you can, even if the site still has a lot of construction left. The reasoning behind this is so that you can start building up 'site age' which is an important factor for Google rankings. There is a saying in the Google world that conveys how it does things: 'OLD IS GOLD.' Of course this just refers to your domain age, not necessarily your content, which should not be old...

Anyway, the site is still unranked and basically unknown by Google, but with the basic optimization and submitting the site through Google Webmaster should help give it a jump start...

Just so you know, Google also has a special thing where it will give your new site a jump start, only temporarily though. I noticed this with my site since it suddenly was ranking number 6 for a keyword but then just as quickly it disappeared from the search results...

Video (Robots.txt file)

2008-05-02T13:33:00.000-06:00

Just to back up what I said about the robots.txt file, here is some helpful info about how to do it on Google to get the best results...ENJOY!

---ROBOTS(Content)---------

2008-05-01T17:15:00.001-06:00

If you ever ask an SEO pro, The first thing they will ask you, almost 99% guaranteed, is do you have a robots.txt file? You might ask, what in the blue blazes is a robots.txt file....does it cost money...do I have to hire someone to make it?

The answer in one word: NO! It is probably the easiest thing you will ever do when you are optimizing your site for content, and it is one of the most important things you can do in order to get noticed by search engines. Basically, it is a way of saying to search bots, come look at my pages, but don't look at these pages here...

Just as a side note here...what is a bot you may be asking? In a short answer sort of way, a bot is a program that a search engine sends out to your site to check the site's content and links. It checks the places you link to, your site's organization and content...EVERYTHING! It is a way for search engines to not spend millions hiring people to do the horribly boring job of checking everyone's site out. In the end, you want to do whatever you can to PLEASE THE BOT!!

So how do you do it? Here is the best way I think. Just open up notepad or some other text editor that saves in the .txt format. Then open it up and type the following text:

User-Agent: *

Disallow:

This text will open up your site to all bots that might index your site, this includes all of the different search engines out there. However, you may not want to have your whole site indexed. You may do this in the case of outgoing link pages, search results, or even forum discussions. To stop the bot from indexing a certain area of your site, put the following line and substitute your-page.html with the page you want to keep hidden from bots.

Disallow: /your-page.html

If for some reason, you want to stop all bots from indexing any part of your site, there is also a tag for that. You might do this if you are in construction or changing the site extensively. Note though, it is a very good thing to have your site indexed as much as possible by bots, so try not to block them if you don't have to...

# go away
User-agent: *
Disallow: /

One more thing you may want to do is block the bot from indexing a specific folder (such as private data or data that has nothing to do with your site). In this case, you may use the following tag in addition to the other script you have placed:

Disallow: /your-folder/

It is also important to note that if you change the User-agent script you will select for a certain search engine's bot, such as googlebot. In most cases though, you will just want to leave the asterisk there so that all bots are welcome.

So, in the end, if you have followed these instructions, your robots.txt file may look like the following SEO example:

User-agent: *
# disallow all files in these directories
Disallow: /cgi-bin/
Disallow: /z/j/
Disallow: /z/c/
Disallow: /stats/
Disallow: /dh_
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Disallow: /wp-includes/
Disallow: /contact/
Disallow: /tag/
Disallow: /wp-content/b
Disallow: /wp-content/p
Disallow: /wp-content/themes/askapache/4
Disallow: /wp-content/themes/askapache/c
Disallow: /wp-content/themes/askapache/d
Disallow: /wp-content/themes/askapache/f
Disallow: /wp-content/themes/askapache/h
Disallow: /wp-content/themes/askapache/in
Disallow: /wp-content/themes/askapache/p
Disallow: /wp-content/themes/askapache/s
Disallow: /trackback/
Disallow: /*?*
Disallow: */trackback/

(taken from http://www.askapache.com/seo/wordpress-robotstxt-seo.html)

After all your hard work, DON'T FORGET TO SAVE IT!! Save it as robots.txt and upload it to your site's server! There you have it, a fully-functional, SEO-friendly robots.txt file!

G2

Video (5 Tips for Effective SEO)

2008-04-28T13:29:00.000-06:00

This video is a pretty good starting point for SEO, it focuses on the BIG things you do and don't want to do, so I thought you might enjoy it...

ALT TEXT

2008-04-28T05:58:00.002-06:00

So you might have stumbled upon something called an ALT text...you are probably wondering what in the world it is...Well to be short, ALT text is a description of an image in case a disabled person uses the site so that he or she can navigate the site.

Translated to SEO language...it is a huge factor for bots when they scour your site looking at your content, because believe it or not but bots can't tell what a site is about just by reading your images or flash programming. In essence, it is much better to have a crappier looking site using just HTML than using brilliantly-made and laid-out flash or imagery. Bots cannot read images or flash!

To do an ALT text, just go to the image in question in some kind of programming utility and enter in the text that best describes the image. You should choose something related to your keyword for the page because bots factor that into the equation. Again, be wise about your use of keywords though, don't overstuff and don't dilute your keywords here...

Aren't you just loving this process, you are now getting into the nitty-gritty...

Video (Keyword Research)

2008-04-27T18:59:00.001-06:00

For anyone doing keyword research, trying to find the perfect mix of keywords, this video is for you!!

Keyword Checklist...

2008-04-26T17:42:00.001-06:00

Just to help everyone out, I thought I would make a little checklist when it comes to your keywords...this should help you out to organize them a little bit since they are some of the most important factors when it comes to search engines...without any further adieu then, I present the checklist:

1. Keyword in the URL
2. Keyword in the domain name
3. Keyword in the title tag (10-60 characters)
4. Keyword in the meta tag description (less than 200 characters. Long)
5. Keyword in the meta tag keywords (*Each keyword must be listed in the body text*)
6. Density of keywords in the text (about 5%)
7. Keyword Density of individual words (1-5%)
8. Keyword in the H1, H2, H3 headings
9. Keyword: font size (Attention = bold, italic=italic)
10. Keyword proximity to other keywords
11. Order of keyword phrases
12. Keyword prominence (Order of appearance in page, earlier = More emphasis)
13. Keyword in the ALT text(used to describe images)
14. Keyword on the site links to pages (anchor text)

If I haven't discussed one of these factors in a previous text, I will make it a priority to talk about them in a later posting, let me know if you have any questions or comments about any of these so I can get them updated!

Thanks!

Keyword Density and Goldilocks

2008-04-25T20:14:00.006-06:00

One thing I wanted to add to my earlier post about keywords is a little tidbit about keyword density. It is a little bit of a tricky subject, because you almost have to play a Goldilocks game to really get it right on Google.

Put too many keywords in your body text, meta tags, or headings and Google will deem you the title of SPAM! Dilute your keywords and you will not even be recognized by Google...so what is the perfect solution?? Some say about 3-5% is a good range for your keyword density, but it does not apply in all situations..The best way is to find out what they rest of the websites are doing that are competing with you. In order to do that, I recommend using the following keyword density tool found here:

http://www.seotoolset.com/tools/free_tools.html

To do this, just go to Google, type in your keyword and take note of the first ten results. Take these sites and put their URL's in the tool and check what they are all doing for their keyword density. Then either dilute or concentrate your keywords in order to match what everyone else is doing. This is probably the surest way to get in the top 10 results...

G2

THE FIRST, MOST IMPORTANT THING

2008-04-25T15:22:00.004-06:00

Hello everybody!

I would like to start out this SEO adventure with the most important starting subject in SEO....KEYWORDS! So, you have a great idea and you want to get indexed by Google so people will come to see your idea...you need keywords!

The best way for me to do this was to make a list of all pertinent subjects to home security. I started out security, home security, security systems, ADT, etc....until I had a huge list. Then I investigated each keyword to see if people actually searched for this word. Some great tools for this include Google's keyword tool (https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal), Wordtracker (http://www.freekeywords.wordtracker.com/) and Overture (http://www.inventory.overture.com/). All of these would be great tools for you to use! The most important thing with keywords though is to pick something that is searched for but that is unique, meaning there are not 5 bajillion searches for your word. If you go that route, you may never see your site ranking in Google at all because of how competitive it can get. Google's keyword tool is great for checking how competitive a keyword is..

Once you choose some keywords that describe your site, I would suggest you start with one keyword per page to make things simpler. In order for the search engine to know what keyword belongs to what page you will need to place a small HTML tag after the tag and before the head tag. So go to the page's HTML, and place this code, substituting the appropriate keyword:

meta name="keywords" content="your keyword"

(Don't forget to open and close the phrase with brackets < > )

Doing this will be like shouting to search engines that your site is about such and such subject. You may also at this time want to create a description about your site, so make up a great description that tells what your page is about, but also attracts readers. If you look at Google, the description is what appears beneath the site name, so it is an important subject. When making a description, it is also good practice to place your newly-selected keyword toward the front of the description if possible. However, avoid over-stuffing your description tag with your keyword because Google thinks of this as spam. When you have a description prepared place this tag by your other keywords tag you just put in:

meta name="description" content="your description"

For your own knowledge, a meta tag basically is a hidden indication to a search engine to describe additional information about your page. Just as an example, I will post what I have put for my site:

!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
head>
meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
title>SECURE 24 SEVEN | Authorized ADT Dealer | ADT Washington DC
meta name="description" content="ADT Home Security Washington DC | Receive a free ADT-monitored home security system when you set up a monthly monitoring agreement | Authorized ADT dealer| Secure24Seven" />
meta name="keywords" content="ADT home security Washington DC" />
meta name="robots" content="index, follow" />
link rel="stylesheet" href="./css/default.css" type="text/css" media="screen, projection, handheld" title="Default" />
link rel="stylesheet" href="./css/print.css" type="text/css" media="print" title="Default" />

URE 24 SEVEN | Authorized ADT Dealer | ADT Washington DC
You may also notice the little "robots" meta tag. This is a good practice to get into for your pages since it is almost like you are inviting the little search engine bot over for search engine tea and crumpets...

I hope this helps clear up some of the mystery with keywords, it is an ongoing subject of interest, so I will make other posts when I have some more time... See ya

G2

Links and Content...

2008-04-24T17:12:00.001-06:00

The first thing you will ever learn and that I have had ingrained into my brain now is that there are two things that matter in SEO: LINKS and CONTENT. If you have those two things as optimized as they can be, you will have a high Google Page Rank, and you will have a lot of indexed pages by Google...This all equals in the end a high ranking in the search results for Google. I am now directing all my tireless efforts into those two things then: links and content. All of my postings hereafter will be focused on one of those two subjects. I hope that this helps in your efforts when you get down to the SEO craze...

G2

Blog blocking....

2008-04-15T17:08:00.000-06:00

While creating this blog, I have been blocked out by Google...it appears that they have some pretty strict regulations regarding commercial websites. So, I'm not entirely sure when I'll be back, or if I'll ever be back, this may be my last message for this short run of time. All you have to do if Google blocks your commercial blog is send them a little message letting them know that the blog was made by you and not some program...Until next time....

My New Project....

2008-04-08T17:03:00.000-06:00

I have just been given a new project to take a leads site that is currently unranked by Google, and turn it into something really special...the site is www.secure24seven.com so you can check out the progress as time goes on...As it is right now, the basic images, buttons, and forms are on the page, but NO SEO or Web 2.0 has been used for the page at all.....That will be my job as project manager, to make something out of nothing...Thus it begins!!

Hello and Welcome!

2008-04-01T17:02:00.000-06:00

Hello and Welcome to my blog! Here we will attempt to debunk some of the truths and myths that are found etched within search engine optimization...I will document step by step the actions I take, even the most minor actions and script..This to the effect of helping you people around the world to get your own site up on Google! Please check back frequently for updates or just subscribe to the RSS feed and get updates automatically, Thanks!!

G2