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Welcome to the August 2006 Issue of our newsletter
for the technically challenged and web site
wannabe's. We feature articles to help guide you
through the process of designing, building, and
promoting your business web site. If you know
someone who may benefit from this newsletter, please
forward it to them in its entirety, or have them
subscribe below.
We've added a new feature, Ask Girl Geek, actual
inquiries from real people needing assistance with
website design or promotion. Hope you enjoy it. Feel
free to submit your questions to Annette@GirlGeekWebDesigns.com
for possible inclusion in future issues. I will
answer all questions or direct you to resources
where you can get better answers than I might be
able to provide.
IN THIS ISSUE:
Ask Girl Geek: Getting High Rankings in Search
Engines
How I Got 5000 + Emails in a Single Day!
Ask Girl Geek: Getting High
Rankings in Search Engines
Hi Girl Geek,
We have several big competitors in our primary
market, and we are looking to make our website hit
higher on Google searches and generate more
business. Can you help? How do we get started?
Name withheld
Hi,
Getting your website ranked well in search engines
is called Search Engine Optimization or SEO for
short. When people ask me how to get a #1 ranking in
search engines I have a list of questions I ask
them.
1. What search engines do you want to be ranked well
in?
2. What keywords are you wanting high rankings on?
3. Who's linking to your site already?
4. Are you using a Pay Per Click advertising
program?
5. What sites do you consider your main competitors?
The first step I would take is a thorough review of
your site to see:
1. Is is search engine compatible and browser
friendly?
2. What keywords are already on your site?
3. What incoming links are driving traffic to your
site?
4. Where does your rank in the desired search
engines already?
Then depending on your goals and budget I would make
recommendations that could be implemented in stages.
Whole books and conferences are held on this topic,
so I'm just going to give the briefest of overviews.
My goal is to give you enough information for you to
know what's involved and so that you can ask
intelligent questions when discussing this with an
SEO company or even with your web designer who will
need to know whether or not you plan to promote your
site via search engines.
So here goes...
SEO is a complicated and ongoing art/science and
needs to be reviewed at a bare minimum of every 3-6
months because the ranking formulas/algorithms used
by the major search engines are changed frequently.
Do not be mistaken: this is NOT an easy project, but
it is do-able. To really do the job right you need
an ongoing effort. It's almost a full time job, if
you're serious about doing it right. And, there's no
magic bullet, at least, not one I've heard of or
tried.
SEO is also different depending on which search
engine you're wanting to get ranked well in. If
you're covered by the top 3, Google, Yahoo, and MSN,
you've reached at least 90% of internet users. Each
of these search engines attract different
demographics and have different requirements for the
site construction and keyword placement, so that's
something to consider when trying to figure out
where to put most of your effort.
Similarly, when you ask for better rankings it all
depends on what search terms you're wanting good
rankings on. SEO strategies also change over time,
so your site needs to be reviewed for those
periodically. Also, since the internet reindexes
itself once a month, changes made today in your site
might not result in changes in ranking for up to 30
days.
The two main strategies in SEO are keyword selection
and placement and link strategies. Of course, the
site has to be designed in such a way that it is not
only compatible with the search engines, but that it
loads quickly and displays correctly in all
browsers. If your site takes longer than 8 seconds
to load, it is estimated that you lose up to 80% of
potential visitors.
Selection of appropriate keywords is essential. I
use a 4 step process to determine appropriate
keywords. 1) brainstorming all the keyword phrases
that potential site visitor in your niche might us
in a natural search 2) checking to see if those
terms are being searched monthly at a high rate 3)
checking the number of websites competing for that
search term and 4) determining the relative cost for
that keyword in the 3 major Pay Per Click programs.
(You have to go through the same steps for PPC
programs, so why not do them all at the same time?)
Then you need to follow the guidelines of the search
engines as to where to place the keywords within
your site and at what frequency. These rules change
over time, as people try to "fool" the search
engines.
Link strategies are important for 2 reasons. Having
outside sites link into your site drives targeted
traffic to your site. Having multiple incoming links
into your site also alerts the search engines that
your site must be "important," so it is awarded a
higher ranking if it is busy. So think, strategic
alliance.
The best incoming links are natural links, which are
unsolicited. You obtain these by having really
useful content on your site, so that people will
naturally want to link to your site.
The other strategy is to request links to your site
from "relevant" websites. Determining "relevant"
links is time consuming. The quality of the incoming
link is more important that the quantity of links.
You have to request links to your site, follow up
and often give reciprocal links from your site as a
"courtesy" to the linking site.
It seems now that a lot of sites are requesting
payment for providing links to your site. That can
run into some money. So I generally start out with
the free links, then scrutinize the quality and
traffic on the paid sites. Some of the ones I've
looked at for my other client appear just to be
people whose site exists for the sole purpose of
bilking money out of naive site owners, who don't
know a quality link from a hole in the ground.
About 6 years ago, I got a bid for SEO on my Geek
website, and with the designers discount it was
$1200 for 3 months. I didn't get specifics because
that was outside of my budget at the time, but I've
learned what questions to ask since then, because
too many people have gotten ripped off because of
fantastic claims by SEO companies. So beware of SEO
companies that "guarantee a #1 ranking in search
engines." What they might mean is they can get you a
#1 ranking on an obscure search engine on 1 keyword
for about a month. When you get a bid, get a
detailed explanation of what you're getting for the
money.
Thanks for asking!
Annette
How I Got 5000 + Emails in a
Single Day!
I was thrilled when I saw my Outlook downloading
emails one afternoon. Had I run some killer
newsletter that was bring such a response? Had my
search engine optimization hit the gold mine? But
when it got to over 5000 emails, I began to get
suspicious.
Sure enough, I was getting spam emails that had
backed up and clogged up my hosting server since
2005. So, if you've every gotten feedback that
people cannot reach you through your email on your
website, you too might have this problem.
The solution, log in to your control panel of your
web hosting company and clear your email box of spam
at least once a month. Often your hosting company
supplies some sort of Spamblocker that you can add
to prevent this from happening, or a way to route
spam into a :blackhole or bounce them back to the
sender.
Another way to prevent getting alot of spam from
your website email address is to not list is as a
text link. For example, instead of me putting
Annette@GirlGeekWebDesigns.com, I'd put Annette AT
GirlGeekWebDesigns DOT com. Or, you could create the
@ symbol as an image file and use that. That would
confound the spammers out phishing for emails.
Shameless Self Promotion:
Email or Call now (well, maybe wait until next week
as I'm kinda swamped) for your FREE initial web
design consultation and NO OBLIGATION bid for new
websites or old website revamping.
Also, we are now offering WEBSITE PROMOTION
CONSULTATION services which help get your site in
front of the people who absolutely, positively must
see it!
Girl Geek Web Designs - ask for Annette
Please note our NEW PHONE NUMBER (618) 457-8103
Email: Annette@GirlGeekWebDesigns.com
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