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Monday, January 18th, 2010
With Google’s threat to pull out of China, all eyes are on the unfolding drama to find out what the future of the internet will look like in that part of the world. Amidst accusations of cyber attacks by the company and claims of intellectual property theft, Google has threatened to abandon all operations in that county. Cyber espionage experts claim that these attacks must be state sponsored, in an attempt to catch up and pass their western rivals technologically and militarily. Backing these claims is the speed and consistency of the attacks. Which many say can only be possible with government backing. Currently, Google cites the hacking of various gmail accounts of Chinese Political Dissidents, but it is unclear what else Chinese Hackers may have stolen with the declaration of intellectual property theft. Obviously it must have been something big for Google to threaten to leave the fastest growing economy in the world. It must have been something to threaten Google’s global operations. Speculation may lead some to think that China may have accessed Google’s algorithm, or some of Googles up and coming innovative technologies. Whatever it was, it must be worth severing further business with China.
Many companies and governments are now waiting to see what happens next. Some of these spectators are supporting Google and are showing their support against nation sponsored cyber attacks. Although it has been alleged that China has been in the business of state sponsored cyber theft for a long time, it could just be that this time, they went too far and attacked a company large enough to stand up to them. It is unclear what kind of fallout may follow, but one thing for sure, China’s unchecked internet abuse will not continue without watchful eyes on the look out.
The future of the internet in China is unclear, their communist government discourages free thought and independance, but these are the building blocks upon which innovation is fostered. Without innovation, China will never meet their goals of being a cultural, political, and military leaders. All of which can explain China’s relentless efforts of online theft. They have to resort to stealing ideas because their government discourages new ideas from emerging.
Saba is a San Diego SEO Company dedicated to bringing you great ideas for improving your website and getting it found online. In order to schedule a free consulation or to get a free website analysis call us today at 858.937.1717.
Tags: china, google, internet news
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Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009
Since the beginning courses one takes when learning to design a website to the constant automatic reminders one gets from their professional software, we are bombarded into remembering our <ALT> description tag. The Alt tag is meant to help those who cannot see the graphics embedded in a website. This is often caused by an error that causes the graphic to load, instead of seeing the graphic in this case, the visitor will see the description. Special software is also available to the blind. This software will read the description tags to visitors when hovering over a graphic. Through the use of the Alt tag, the web has become a place easier to navigate, and has allowed a place for optimizers to embedd keyword rich descriptions. In turn, pages that are rich in alt tags will have the ability to rank for content, despite an image/graphic lacking text.
Although most may have heard and understand the importance of an Alt tag, there is a lesser known tool that can also help to add descriptions to your website and make it more content rich. Unlike the Alt tag, this tool is not meant for images and graphics, but rather for links (text and images). This tool is called the Title attribute. Not to be mistaken for the <Title> tag, the Title attribute will allow you to add a rich description to each of your links when the mouse hovers over them. This Title can also take advantage of keywords similar to the Alt tag, and will provide a great deal of keyword rich content, specially to pages heavy in links. Look at the examples below and try the title tag for yourself. If you would like to see an example in action, hover over the following link or be sure to check out our San Diego SEO Homepage and hover over a few of our links there to see how we have employed it.
In text links, the Title attribute can be added after the <a href> link, and before the link text. In graphics, the Title attribute can be added just after the Alt tag.
<a href="link.html" title="descriptive title">Link text</a>
alt="alt description" title="descriptive title"
Tags: alt tag, title attribute
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Monday, August 17th, 2009
Creating a well designed website is no easy task. The first and most basic of all steps that must be taken to reach this goal is a plan of navigation. A plan of navigation will take into account what has worked for you in the past, and what you expect to work for you in the future. It will display your strengths, while strengthening your weaknesses. This can only be achieved by focusing on the most important of all phases of creating a website: RESEARCH!
Why is research so important?
Research is the tool by which you will examine the past to predict the future.
There are many reasons why a page may not be working for your company and not converting customers. If a page is not being visited, perhaps it is due to content that is not relevant to your market. It may also be that your choice of keywords may not be well defined, or even too obscure to draw attention. In this research phase you will examine the keywords you currently have against the keyword trends that others are searching. I suggest using Google’s keyword tool to find out what are the words that are popular and compare them to what you have in your site content. Ideally, you want to optimize your site to a traffic amount that your site can handle. If your trying to get into a niche market, perhaps the obscure keywords that only have a few hundred visitors may be good for you, but we suggest focusing on the “middle fruit” keywords with a few thousand to increase your odds. Once you find the keywords that you think may work well for your page, check them against your competitors. I find that keywordspy.com helps in this task. Here you can see what keywords your competitors are optimized for and what keywords they are competing for. If the competition is too high for you to compete effectively, begin your research again.
Once a keyword list has been compiled, you can begin creating your navigation. Navigation is important because it will be the major factor aside from your content keeping your visitors engaged. By creating an easy navigation structure, you will make each visit count by making it easy to go from page to page, allowing your visitors to get the information they came to seek in a much faster way. By increasing the speed to find information, the less likely your visitor is to abandon your site, in which you loose all odds of making that sale. In order to create this structure, you want to group your keywords by relevance. This means that the keywords “seo website development” and “seo site development” may be grouped together because 1. they both relate to the same subject and 2. because they are similar in language. By grouping the keywords by subject (context) you are making sure that the visitors to the page with these words are finding exactly what they are looking for. Don’t put irrelevant keywords that will only confuse people, so don’t try to optimize for “organic SEO” and “search engine marketing” on the same page. This is a common mistake that many people make specially on their home page. By grouping words by language similarity, you will be enforcing that your page is focused and you will increase your odds of being found as opposed to only optimizing for one word (we suggest no more than 3 keywords per page). Once you have a good solid list of grouped keywords, you will be on your way to creating a landing page structure and will allow your navigation to develop itself based on what people are searching for. Since each page will be unique, you will avoid duplicate content which can damage your page rank.
Once you are happy with your keyword list and the grouping you have developed, it is time to begin organizing your list into your navigation menu. You can organize the grouping to find out what will go into your about page, your service page, etc. You may also find that your research requires you to create new pages you didn’t have before. If it begins getting complicated, I suggest creating html flyout menus that will fly out when your mouse hovers above the button. For example: “website design company”, “seo firm”, and “sem company” may all fit into your services section and can easily fly out from when hovering out of your services button. By keeping the flyout menus in html, you will also help your site by creating keyword rich links that increase your odds of being found.
When creating a website, consider doing your research before anything, and use this information when creating your navigation menu. Having an optimized navigation will help your customers have a good experience because it will allow them to find what they were searching for in a fast and efficient way. It will also help your site rank well as you will have essentially created a landing page structure that will serve as an optimized site map. Follow these steps and you will begin to see a difference in your website’s usablility. Your visitors will appreciate it and you can begin to follow your progress. If you still need help in creating an optimized experience for your website, call a San Diego SEO company, Saba SEO at 1-866-937-1717.
Tags: optimized navigation, Search Engine Optimization, website navigation, website optimization
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Monday, August 10th, 2009
In a fight to the finish, who would win in the epic battle of Design vs SEO. This question comes up time and time again. I have had to face this question myself several times. As a passionate designer, my heart races to defend design as the most important of all assets in our website creation toolbox. As an SEO expert, my brain kicks in to say, “what good is design if nobody sees it?” This battle rages on as one’s idea of aesthetics may contradict SEO best practices, and how a website with bad design may make the most searchable of sites unpleasant to read, leading to high bounce rates. Often, a designer may provide a website for a client, only to find that after 6 months, no traffic has been generated. After an SEO expert comes to review the site, he may easily find that the site will need to be redesigned to rank. This is a nightmare that companies have had to face for far too long. In an effort to understand this battle, we will examine the strengths of the two competitors.
Design: Design has existed for a long time. Ask a creationist and he will tell you that God himself is a designer. Humans have been designing since we first picked up a stick and drew in the sand or placed an image on a cave wall. It has since then developed into a language of its own capable of speaking millions of words without saying anything at all. It is capable of drawing on emotions, and it is able to encourage the viewer to take action. Good design can add up to more than the sum of its parts, meaning that it can tell an entire story just by the relationship between images. This has innumerable applications in the business world and is used everyday by advertisers to draw people online or to the stores. Advertising without design is just radio.
SEO: Search Engine Optimization is a protocol by which a website will find a competitive advantage over its competitors by filling in all of the possible cracks of a website with useful information that may make the site easy to find. Good SEO techniques involves good research and can easily allow a small company to compete with larger, more established organizations. SEO is the method by which one can spread their message and the way in which one is found by those searching. SEO also allows for greater networking possibilities and can add legitimacy to a company by making them a resource to the market or a authority figure to searchers. It is a valuable tool that becomes more and more necessary to companies every day.
The division and competition between the two studies continues to grow as very few designers are taught the fundamentals of good SEO. The nuances of effective SEO based design strategies are therefore left behind when a designer begins a project, making it hard to optimize in the future and costing the company thousands of dollars in a re-design. We strongly suggest that when you begin a website, you ask your designer if they are familiar with SEO strategies and if they are capable of designing a website that can be optimized. If they do not, then you should probably look elsewhere. In order to get a website that will benefit your company, here are a few technicalities that your designer should know, so ask them:
1. Why are CSS layouts are more search friendly than html tables?
2. Why should my page be designed in a Z or F pattern of hierarchy?
3. Why should my website load fast and how will you accomplish this?
4. Why should my navigation should be streamlined?
5. Are you familiar with my company brand?
6. Why does each page need to have unique and original html content?
7. How easy will it be to edit my website?
Although there are other factors to consider, the way your designer answers these relatively simple questions should be a good indicator of how prepared they are at providing you a website that is both well designed an easy to optimize. After all, these should be simple questions to answer if they are even minutely experienced with SEO friendly design. Otherwise, they may provide a great looking site, that will do you no good.
This competition of titans continues to grow as people continue to debate which is better. Rather, at Saba SEO, we encourage one to view the two as a married couple. This couple may have its occasional fights, but once the disagreements are settled, the two emerge stronger than ever in a solid union. Similarly, in any successful website, you cannot have one without the other. This is why our web design team is versed in both design and SEO, this way, design can continue with SEO efforts in mind, avoiding future conflict of interest between the two. It also allows us to provide a service at a lower price as we begin with SEO research before we even start designing a site, making the entire process quick, affordable, and easy to edit.
If you are ready to go with a professional San Diego Web Design Company, contact Saba SEO today at 1-866-937-1717. We optimize new and existing websites for top results on all major search engines.
For more tips please cut and paste the following urls to your browser address bar:
The 5 hats of Website Development
http://sabaseo.com/blog/the-5-hats-of-website-development/
Introduction to Search Engine Optimization
http://sabaseo.com/blog/search-engine-optimization-with-saba/
Tags: design vs seo, Search Engine Optimization, website design, website development
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Monday, August 10th, 2009
Good SEO depends on good principals that when followed correctly will tell any search engine what a site is about. HTML sets a presendence by allowing a website to communicate properly with a search engine through the use of url, title, headings, keywords, description, and content. If all of these are optimized, you do not need to focus on only optimizing for one search engine because they all read the same data. If you optimize specifically for Yahoo, you may hurt your optimization efforts for Google for example. The best way to do it is to practice good organic SEO with proper keyword research, then access each search engine’s webmaster tools. This will allow you to add a site map, links, etc. Optimize for search engines this way, rather than editing your onsite codes to gain favorability with a specific one. Since search engines have a lot of competitive secrecy and they change their algorithm regularly, optimizing for a specific search engine is like shooting blindly, what works today may not work tomorrow.
Tags: organic seo, Search Engine Optimization, seo best practices
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Wednesday, July 29th, 2009
As you may have heard, it has been announced that Yahoo and Microsoft have teamed up in order to attack Google’s Market share. This 10 year contract puts Microsoft in the driver’s seat, and allows Yahoo to make the majority of the profits for the first 5 years. It also allows Microsoft to access Yahoo’s database and algorithm to allow Bing to supposedly provide more relevant results and for it to rival Google in customer loyalty. Microsoft claims their search engine to be as good if not better than Google, and have just received Yahoo’s seal of approval. Yahoo claims to forecast a saving of over $200 million dollars with the merger, and will likely rake in a good amount of money from the profits, but at what cost?
Yahoo will never be the same. Its endorsement of competitor search engine Bing have killed its legitimacy as a search engine. It has basically turned at its back, exposing its belly to its competitor, offering itself up for a quick buck. Although this may be profitable for the first 5 years for Yahoo, it is hard to say what will happen when the profits stop rolling in. Eventually, Yahoo will want its independence after their contracted terms are over. By this time, Bing will have pillaged Yahoo and stripped or copied everything good about it. After 10 years of propping up Bing, it is hard to say if Yahoo will remain a competitive brand.
It is my opinion that this merger of convenience is not only bad for Yahoo, but it is bad for consumers. Yahoo should have focused its strength on innovation rather than making money. It is only through innovation that a company will succeed in the future. If it would have invested in a stronger algorithm or in better functionality, it would have risen in ranks amongst the competitors organically.
It is hard to say if Bing will ever reach the top tier, as Google owns nearly the entire market, but this current turn of events will definitely benefit the company. Yahoo on the other hand, may need life support come 10 years.
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Wednesday, July 15th, 2009
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Avoiding Bad SEO Blogs
It is very common today to run across a site or blog made specifically to create backlinks to a company website or a client’s site. In order to filter through the clutter to find well versed and reputable sites which to comment on and post links, it is very important for you to be able to tell the difference between good blogs and bad ones. Posting links to your site through bad blogs can be detrimental to your SEO efforts and can cause your site to loose ground to some of your competitors who have created good quality links.
What to look for:
1. Spelling
By looking at the spelling and grammar of the content, you can get an idea whether the blog you are reading is generated by a professional with attention to detail. Although some misspellings are excusable, too many of then can be a red flag that the blog you are reading will not benefit your own SEO. Remember that other readers just like you will notice it too and will likely not take the post author as a serious authority. In order to maximize the quality of your links, make sure they are posted in sites which provide valuable information and make an effort to be professional.
2. Grammar
If you find yourself having to read the same paragraph a few time trying to make sense of what is written, chances are that other readers will also find it confusing and will leave the site without reading the blog, and most importantly without reading your comments. Although elementary grade language is encouraged to help all visitors have an easy reading experience, avoid posting links on blogs that were written by elementary educated authors.
4. Check the Host
If the blog has links back to a domain, check the domain out to make sure it is a reputable site, and that it has related content. Avoid posting links to sites which you may fear to be spam sites, or link farms. You can take it a step further by checking out the neighborhood in which the site is hosted to make sure it is part of a good neighborhood of sites. Look at our recent blog post: Hosting Your Domain With Bad Neighbors for more details and a free tool to help you determin good and bad neighborhoods.
5. Read Existing Comments
If you see that the blog post has very few comments, it is okay because the blog may still be new and developing a following. If you are the first to comment, dont be shy to do so, but only if the content is related to your industry and if you found the information useful as others may also find it useful and will stick around long enough to read your comments. If comments exist, look at the comments and see if they are worth your while. Often, you will come across a link that will lead you back to a site which you would also want to comment on. Utilize this in order to build your network of industry professionals as they will likely also follow your links back to your site. If you see too many links that give high praise to a badly written blog, chances are that these comments have been generated by the auther himself or by a software built to create spam links. If spam links are obvious, you may have stumbled upon a blog that lacks moderation, and the author is allowing all sorts of links to their site without checking them. This is a red flag that the blog is maintained by software and not by a human who would otherwise check each comment for spam before allowing it to post.
Posting comments and links on a site are a valuable form of SEO that can lead relevant visitors to your site. It is a common form of link building that is still growing in popularity. Although there are many blogs in which you can comment, be sure you are only doing so on relevant blogs that are authored and maintained by reputable and authority figures in the industry. This will ensure you get the most out of each visitor, and will keep you from associating your site with spam sites or link farms that can otherwise hurt your search engine standings. Search engines will be able to tell the difference of a high quality blog and a low quality ones. By associating with bad ones you are in turn, showing support for bad behavior and your site may be penalized for your show of support.
Be sure to protect your site by getting expert advice before creating your SEO strategy. Call Saba SEO for a free consultation toll free at 1.866.937.1717. Also follow us on Twitter for valuable tips and tricks on helping you grow your website.
Tags: avoiding bad seo, better blogging, blog backlinks, blog commenting, seo blogs
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