We spend our days telling shop owners to write natural language describing their products to their customers, just as they would for example on the phone with a shopper. To this end, we get endless questions about keywords, density, traffic and more..... End result, most shop owners write spam. Why do you suppose that is?

Simple really, its quite hard not to grab a cookie while your hand is in the jar. Shop owners as a whole have a very challenging time being objective in their pursuit for great search rank. Honestly, shop owners who know little or nothing about SEO inevitably write better rankable content. Why?

Simple, shop owner's who are not trying to learn SEO... cannot be lured to the dark side and when they write, they write for their customers. Fact is, these shop owners are on a whole more successful with their content as well. Their shoppers are more engaged, they trust the store.... and most importantly, they convert better.

We have said to many a client after finishing up an SEO My Zen Cart package, that they needed only to create great content regularly and build links going forward to be successful. You see, once duplication issues and other foundation optimization values are handled.... It's really just that. Keep up with regular content (Google likes to know the lights are on AND someone is home) and build new inbound links.

If shop owners can manage these 2 things faithfully... Even if many foundation optimization issues exist, they can in fact be more successful.

Let's theorize for a moment, my desk phone rings... One the other end is a shop owner getting about 100 unique visits a day and converting at say 1.2%. This shop owner hardly ever tends to his content and has probably NEVER even been all the way through his own checkout.

What would your first steps be?

Many will say... Build links, write articles, you need a press release... No you need pay per click.

None of the above is the answer, for those who were playing along. While all of those things in themselves can bring traffic and rank (more traffic), not a damn one of those things will help you make the sale.

So we have this shop, making 1 or 2 sales a day... willing to spend a wad of cash to bring in say another 100 visits so they can then do 3 or 4 sales a day! Isn't that kinda like putting the cart before the horse?

My answer would be to do a proper usability study of the website, optimize the checkout and trust factors on site and segment their Analytics data to troubleshoot bottlenecks and troublesome areas. Cost, maybe $400... Reward, now you can take those same 100 original unique visitors a day and instead make 4 to 5 sales a day to fund your then convertible traffic campaign! So, small investment, return immediate... and 75% more sales!

Sometimes, we just have to pull our heads out of our little web bubble and use them for the greater good =-)

How Search Engines Rank Pages

You may be wondering how search engines select the top pages from millions of others. There are calculations involved called algorithms and you have to work with these to put your site in page one. The great part is that all of the things search engines look for to rank your site are beneficial to your shoppers as well.

How Do Search Engines Work?

There are three basic important elements that make up a search engine index and process of searching out relevant documents (web pages).  Understanding this process and terminology better will help you gain insight, knowledge and tools with which to better rank your store.

1. Web crawler - This is also known as a “spider” or “robot” which roams the web looking for content. A web crawler is a computer program that digests web pages and any existing links relevant to the page. The web crawler begins by looking through the web pages that are available in its index. Pages not in the existing index or database are best located by links from pages that are. Thus, the database/index continually grows and the web crawler also goes back to the index to check for updates and again search for new available links continuously.

2. Index - The index is the database that holds all information of websites and pages that the web crawler has discovered during its frequent crawling. Whenever any website or page is updated the index also updates its stored information when it discovers the changes, thus it continually grows over time. Not all pages are updated as frequently as others. Your crawl rate will depend on the regularity of which you create content, your level of duplication, your PageRank and number of incoming links.

3. Search engine - A search engine is a software program that sorts through all the information stored in the index and uses a specific  algorithm or set of rules to deliver relevant search results according to the basic metrics like inbound links, relevance and authority. It's well worth noting that the hierarchy of search page results is not dependent. This means in a nutshell that if your page is #2 and the #1 page drops you are not going to automatically slide in to the #1 slot... Instead the entire query is adjusted based on the specific algorithmic values of that particular search engine.

What is Goal of Search Engines?

The ultimate goal of a search engine is to provide the most relevant, helpful and informative web pages to its customers... Web searchers. Page results for different search engines may vary depending on the algorithm that they are using. Thus, website owners aim to improve their rank based on the specific algorithmic metrics of each specific search engine.

How Can I Get on Page 1 of Search Engines?

1. Links - Links are small routes leading back to your website from others, thus a lot of these backlinks will increase your visibility in search engines and establish relevancy from the donor page's content and link text. Links are a vote... simple as that, winning the election requires enough votes to do so.

2. On Page Metrics -  Make your pages more search engine and user friendly by supplying each page with page specific, unique and descriptive content (TEXT). Use short and highly relevant page titles to utilize the strength of the page most effectively. Use proper Meta descriptions with a call to action. The Meta description is not used to rank your page, but can clearly lend you an advantage in click through rates... which in itself can help you rank better as most search engines use some type of behavioral metrics in their algorithms.

3. Keywords - Do not go out of your way to target very specific keywords phrases in the same phrasal order and context. For example, using the exact term "green bananas" in a page 10x will make the page unnatural and spammy, but using different textual ordering and associated phrases will increase your ability to rank for "green bananas" and other related phrases as well.

New Tools!

Google announced yesterday that they have launched a fresh new design for webmaster tools. If you have never used Google's webmaster tools the you can get started with the new interface right off. If you are already using these excellent tools from Google, then login to find a link to "Checkout the New Look" in your overview screens.

Switch the New Look On

One nice feature right off is the ability to forward dashboard messages from Google about your sites to any email address associated with your Google account. To take advantage of this go to your Google Webmaster Tools main page and in the top right hand side (inside the blue bar) click forward your messages -- Select the email address and save. We like this!

When you select a domain in your account you will notice right away that the resulting page has really changed. Now you have a quick summary of Top Search Queries, Crawl Errors, Sitemaps and Inbound Links too. These are probably what Google refers to as the data we view most regularly. Nice!

The menu for navigation is still on the left side and breakdown is below.

Site configuration
-Sitemaps > Your site's sitemaps info
-Crawler access > Robots txt and url removal tools
-Sitelinks > Your sitelinks
-Settings > Settings like geographic target and canonical url

Your Site on the Web
-Top search queries > Top search queries for your site now 100 of them
-Links to your site > Inbound links and anchor text too
-Keywords > Keywords
-Internal links > Your internal links
-Subscriber stats > People subscribing to your feeds

Diagnostics
-Crawl errors > Errors found crawling like missing pages, urls in sitemaps that are blocked or gone etc.
-Crawl stats > Googlebot activity in the last 90 days for your site's crawls
-HTML suggestions > This was previously the content tool. Reported duplicate, short etc tag and titles information

Some other cool new additions to the toolset:

Sitemap tracking for multiple users: In the past, you were unable to monitor Sitemaps submitted by other users or via mechanisms like robots.txt. Now you can track the status of Sitemaps submitted by other users in addition to yourself.

Smarter help: Every page displays links to relevant Help Center articles and by the way, we've streamlined our Help Center and made it easier to use. These are everywhere, nice!

Sites must be verified now to access detailed functionality: Since we're providing so much more data, going forward your site must be verified before you can access any features in Webmaster Tools, including features such as Sitemaps, Test Robots.txt and Generate Robots.txt which were previously available for unverified sites. If you submit Sitemaps for unverified sites, you can continue to do so using Sitemap pings or by including the Sitemap location in your robots.txt file. This was necessary, and I think an added level of snooping prevention as well.

Removal of the enhanced Image Search option: We're always iterating and improving on our services, both by adding new product attributes and removing old ones. With this release, the enhanced Image Search option is no longer a component of Webmaster Tools. The Google Image Labeler will continue to select images from sites regardless of this setting. Soooo, if you DO NOT want your images crawled, better block them with robots.txt.

The new tools interface supports 40 languages and the help center 21, now that is International usability! The video tour below is a nice little virtual tour of the new features and interface changes. Don't forget that it was in part our request and suggestions that brought about the changes and advances in the toolset... So check it out and make sure to let Google know what you think.

Google's Sandbox

Google's Sandbox is a very live and working filter within Google's current indexing and ranking structure. You will commonly see me refer to this as "Flux", as customers are VERY worried about the term "Sandbox" and it is difficult to explain it properly to your average shop owner. That being said... Lets explain it, find out what causes it and lastly give you some tools to help you overcome it, perhaps a bit more quickly.

Wikipedia defines the Google Sandbox as follows:

The phenomenon that people have claimed to observe is that Google temporarily reduces the page rank of new domains, placing them into what is referred to as its "sandbox", in an effort to counter the ways that search engine optimizers attempt to manipulate Google's page ranking to bring sites to the top, by creating lots of inbound links to a new web site from other web sites that they own before creating that web site. A "reverse sandbox" effect is also claimed to exist, whereby new pages with good content but without inbound links are temporarily increased in rank, much like the "New Releases" in a book store are displayed more prominently, to encourage organic building of the World Wide Web.

Many have claimed that this sandbox filtering by Google is not applicable to all sites and furthermore that this effect is just another piece of the algorithm which Google uses for evaluating a website's trust. I believe this, as this is what I have experienced first hand. Many believe otherwise, and until Google sends a webmastergram telling us exactly what this is and isn't this will be our working theory at PRO Webs.

Why Does Google Do this?

Very simply, Google uses this filter to remove (sandbox) pages which are very new or much content on a site has been changed. The thought process is to encourage new and fresh content, whilst protecting the index from spam. Yes, this is a test... A trust test.

Common Google Sandbox Behavior

The most common experience many have had with Google's Sandbox effect is upon launching a new site. It goes down like this --

Months of hard work and development have come to a culmination of the project and finally it's launch day for your new website. You unblock it or turn it on... whatever the case may be, sit back and wait with extreme anticipation. Boom, a few days to a week later Google has indexed some of your site.. YEAH! A few weeks/months after that you are ranking very well for some great terms. Few weeks/months later some or all of your site's pages have been removed from the index... UGH. This is in fact the dampening of the sandbox filter.

This sandbox filter was/is designed to weed out spam in Google's index. It actually functions pretty well, in my estimation. What happens is to your new site is textbook for Google's behavior on trust.. and one other claim to famed metric Google adores -- FRESHNESS.

Your site is initially ranked and performing well simply on its "Fresh" factor. You see Google's "claim to fame" is the freshest results. We know that Google will rank websites whose content is both fresh and maintained well... We even know why. Google simply wants the best results for their customers, the searchers.

Google also knows that many have sought to game Google's algorithm and many more create spam. So, to battle this, site's with specifically low authority and TrustRank are boxed for a bit, perhaps to determine their true intentions... Perhaps to cause the webmaster to provide the content and link support to be trusted. (Trust is earned??)

This sandbox filtering is not only for new sites. Many sites have reported (and I can attest to this behavior as well) that Google will pull pages from the index that have been live for some time. This works in exactly the same fashion. If you have changed a large percentage of your site's content, you are likely to be visited by the sandbox. I have also seen this dampening filter or something very similar indicated for a seemingly small site wide change.... Navigation. Site wide navigation changes for large websites seem to bring the filters running as well. I have seen site moves, even with same urls, cause this briefly.... The fact is Google is only trying to do their job.

How Do I Escape Google's Sandbox?

While there is no -- ONE -- answer to this question, we have some idea of the things needed to shorten your sandbox time. These are things you should be doing anyhow, so dig in and show Google you ARE to be trusted.

1. Create new content... Regularly, on a schedule. Don't dump 500 new pages in and then no content for 2 months. Stage your new content on a regular schedule and commit to keeping the schedule.
2. Continue to build links to your pages from great, relevant sites. (You are doing this right??)
3. Verify your site in Google's Webmasters Tools and create a search engine sitemap to submit to Google.
4. Make sure your robots.txt and other page factors are not inhibiting -- or worse preventing Google's crawls.
5. Improve your navigation and spend some time on usability.

What do all of these tasks have in common?

They are all things you DO. You see, having a website is probably not that hammock lounging Margarita drinking dream you may have thought... It's really hard work and only the dedicated survive. Google is not required to index or rank your site. This is completely at their discretion and frankly, you must earn it.

One last note ---- IF a large change or redesign has brought the Sandbox effect to your doorstep, the VERY last thing to remedy this is to chuck the changes and go back. Once its here, just deal with it.... Better yet plan ahead for it and be very happy if the sandbox doesn't visit you.

Links?

We all realize that link building is a never ending need for our websites.... But, do you know what a "Great Link" is? Today we are going to delve in to the ingredients of great links and the qualities that make them great.

Let me start by saying, that no link is a bad link and inbound links cannot hurt you. However, not all backlinks are created equal. There are some easy to identify and specific things beginners can look for to help maximize your link building efforts. Before we move on, just to be crystal clear, the links we are discussing are inbound links or backlinks, which are other websites / web pages linking to your site / pages.

Link Quality Factors

1. Relevance: Relevance with relation to backlinks is really very simple and intuitive. Does the link donor page have anything in common with your page which its linking to? Again, links are all good, some are just better. So with regard to relevance you need to be able to discern the content on both pages is related in some logical way. A "Green Widget" page linking to another "Green Widget" page is obviously, highly relevant.... But what if its linking to a "Red Widget" page, still relevant? Yes, related products and services are great links and aside from the relevancy factor can create a new set of related phrases (Longtails) for your own page as well. So related items and item variations are in fact great pages to have a link from.
2. Quality: Quality really encompasses a great deal of metrics with regard to links, but lets point out a few you need to know. Is the website / page linking to you trusted, indexed, ranking and do they maintain their website well. You see, even a link from a related website isn't much help to you if that website lacks the quality and index score needed to perform well. For example, a link from a killer looking page which hasn't been updated in a year or has severe duplication isn't much help. Did you know that Google for example sometimes goes many months without crawling pages which are duplicate or have become stale?
3. Reciprocal: Reciprocal links are devalued... Period, they are not as good as a one way link and this is why search engines, Google specifically has a algorithmic theory regarding reciprocal links. Google believes that when a site links to another that this is in essence a "Vote" for that website. Having said that, I am certain you can clearly see why Google devalues reciprocal or traded links.
4. Link Text: Link text is the textual and click able part of the link. Search engines use this text to help them determine the content of the resulting page and then measure the relevance as well. So if your link is an image or the link text is something like "click here", the weight and quality of the link will be tremendously less than something like "Green Widgets" in the link text.
5. Variety: Many times I see webmasters engaging in huge link building campaigns using one set of link text/textual descriptions. This is not nearly as effective as using a variety of link text on your inbound links. The same sediment can be accomplished in a natural looking way by reordering the keywords and using plurals and synonyms. This also creates a larger pool of relevant keywords and phrases for your page... In turn more rank opportunity.
6. Surrounding Textual Content:  If your "Red Widget" link is buried in a sea of text about "Sea Horses"... You still lose as the on page relevancy sucks and Google thinks your link is in fact out of place and irrelevant. Not a good link. By the same token, links residing in lists and menus are not as effective as a link inside a paragraph of related text.
7. Advertising vs. Linking: A link is a link and should be clean (un nofollowed) unless its advertising. Google despises paid or purchased links... and rightly so. Buying links and not preventing them from passing both PageRank and link juice is manipulating the system. My theory here is simple, take it or leave it.... Advertising links should in fact be nofollowed as they are not links which are intended to lend the true nature of an organic link to the site's visitors.  So, save yourself a huge headache and costly re-inclusion by nofollowing advertising links. Keep it clean!
8. PageRank: PageRank or PR has NOTHING effectively to do with search rank. A great example of this is Googling a term to find a PR ZERO outranking a PR 5 on the search results page. While PageRank has its value, relevancy is far more valuable. So if you take our "Widgets" example from above.... Would you rather have a link from the PR5 "Seahorse" page or a link from the PR2 "Green Widget" page? That is up to you, but I would go with the one that pays the bills.