Just Say No To SEO

SEO, Web-Dev

Admittedly a slightly inflammatory title for an article about SEO. The lesson that I hope you can take away from this blog is that it is a mistake to concentrate on SEO (Search Engine Optimization.)  You will be much better served by concentrating on WSO (WebSite Optimization).

To concentrate on WSO (website optimization) requires first that you divide SEO into two distinct and separate areas of endeavor — 1) website development, and 2) website marketing.

All of the discussion around SEO have confused these two. The topics of website development and marketing of one’s website have been mushed together. This has served (either deliberately or accidentally) to confuse the issues of web development and marketing. This has made it possible for certain service companies to create a niche for themselves that allows them to provide a service that is inherently difficult to measure.

Let’s get back to basics. Let’s have those folks that know the products and services represented by the website spearhead the development — with expert technical help where and when necessary. And, let’s have those folks that know marketing spearhead the marketing of the website. If you happen to be running a one man (or one woman) operation, then get yourself two hats and get down to business wearing only one hat at time.

In my next blog, let’s start assigning SEO tasks to each of these hats.

Search Engine Spam

Web-Dev

Spam is usually associated with email — and for a few folks a pork-based meat cube in a can. We all agree that email spam is a bad thing. And email programs around the world are taking more and more steps every day to exclude spam.

There is such as thing as search engine spam as well. In email spam, the spam is volumes of un-wanted emails. In search engine spam, the spam is volumes of un-wanted content on a web page. If you let this notion of search engines such as google defining something like “un-wanted content on a web page” you might get a little annoyed at the prospect of google (or anyone else) trying to tell me what I can and cannot put on my website. Continue reading →

Morphotony — An unexpected alarm mechanism

morphotony, SEO, Web-Dev

A few months ago I registered the domain morphotony.com after discovering that it had the word morphotony had zero search results in google.

How and why did I come to search for the word morphotony? Was in the process of looking up possible names for a band I play bass in. Morphotony was just one of many names we were looking into. (We finally settled on Faxl).

Any way, while looking to see if any existing bands were using the name I noticed that out of the trillions of web pages on the internet google had cataloged zero with the word morphotony. So of course I couldn’t rushing out and registering the name. Somehow the fact that no one else on the planet had any interest in the word did not deter my enthusiasm. If I ever get a psychiatrist, I guess I should bring this up in a session — or two.

Any, any way….. I now have the website and I have established a google alert to inform me of any new pages with the search term morphotony.

That means any time a page is indexed by google that contains morphotony I will be informed. Thus, I have an automatic ping back when google indexes a page. All I have to do is slip “morphotony” onto the page.

For your website, you would want to find a word that works for you.

What is my SERP

SEO, Web-Dev

What is my search engine results placement?

Step #1 — Confirm you site is indexed by google.

Open a google search page. http://www.google.com

In the search box type in site:www.your-domain-name.com (note: replace your-domain-name.com with the name of your domain.)

Press the go button. If you see no results whatsoever, then you are not even indexed in google. Continue reading →

Landing Page Quality — A close look Part #2

Web-Dev

In Part #1 of this article we discussed the contribution of “relevant, original, (and authentic) content” to the quality of a landing page. In this (the second part) we shall address the role of transparency.

2. Transparency

This is a totally different type of consideration. Now we move past consideration of content into considerations of relationship. You have a relationship with your visitor. This relationship may be brief. This relationship is long-distance. But you have a relationship. And as will all relationships transparency is important.

Anyone that you relate to wants to know three basic things: Continue reading →

Landing Page Quality — A close look Part #1

Mishmosh, Web-Dev

Digging through Google’s advice to webmaster you will find many useful suggestions and reminders.

In doing this one will come upon a definition for the three main components of a high quality website:

  1. Relevant, original, (and authentic) content
  2. Transparency
  3. Navigability.

Along with the definition for these three main components, Google offers a covenant “Maintaining a positive user experience in these areas will help improve your site’s landing page quality.”

Strong words. Google is very invested in the promotion of quality websites that give users a positive user experience. In fact, they put their money where their mouth is. When bidding with adwords for position in the SERP (search engine results page) the higher the quality of your landing page the less you have to pay for top position. That’s right. You pay less per click for the best spot if your page is higher quality than the competition. More about this later. For the moment just take it as read that they are very invested in promoting quality websites with quality user experience. Continue reading →

Landing Page Quality — A close look Part #3

Web-Dev

In Part #1 of this article we discussed the contribution of “relevant, original, (and authentic) content” to the quality of a landing page.

In Part #2 of this article we discussed the contribution of “transparency” to the quality of a landing page. In this (the third part) we shall address the role of navigation .

3. Navigability

Why does navigability enter into the calculation of page ranking?  Or in other words, how does navigability enter into the question of page quality?

The answer to this lies in the question of “quality of experience” for the visitor. If a website has bad navigation, then a visitor’s experience of that website will be diminished. Remember all of this stems from Google’s interest in the quality of experience for visitors to their SERP (search engine results page). If clicking on an ad leads to a page which makes the visitor regret clicking on the ad in the first place, that reflects badly on Google. And more importantly, if visitors have a bad experience clicking on ad buttons they will be less likely to click on future ad buttons. And, dear reader, is Google being paid per view or per click? Continue reading →

Webdesign Advice From Paypal — 5 Design Elements that Can Boost Sales

SEO, Web-Dev

Why is Paypal giving web page design & SEO advice?

That’s right. Paypal has made it their business to provide web page design & SEO advice.
Use this link to check out their article.

So, why do you think Paypal would involve themselves? What is their gain? Simple. Paypal makes money processing orders — a few percentage points on every sale a merchant processes through the Paypal system. So, it is simple math.

The more sales a web page generates the more money Paypal makes. So, the quality and functionality of a web page is of intimate concern to Paypal.

Admittedly, the appearance of being helpful can be of benefit to Paypal. I’m sure the marketing boys and girls are happy to use this to enhance the company image. However, the fact of being helpful is of even greater value to the bottom line. So I trust that they did not dredge up miscellaneous waffle to parade in front of webmasters. I believe Paypal either paid for the best advice they could find, or turned an in-house team loose on the challenge of finding their five design element suggestions.

Below you’ll find Paypal’s five points with a few comments from myself. Continue reading →