SEO URLs are a very important piece of on-page SEO. An “SEO URL” means a URL that you can look at and clearly see the meaning of the page. Instead of having something like “foodmart.com/item21121″ it would be along the lines of “foodmart.com/gourmet-foods” to be considered an SEO URL.

If your URL is improperly named it makes it much more difficult for search engines to see the meaning or purpose of the page. For example, if you sell dog toys online and you have a page for “dog beds” and the search engines see the following 2 URLs, which one do you think they can understand the purpose of the page more efficiently?

superdogs.com/products/product13/infoprod13

superdogs.com/products/dog-beds/fancy-dog-bed

Making your URLs this way is a huge help convincing the search engines you should rank high. Make sure that you do not mislead them though with the names you choose for your URLs. If your website is about dog beds don’t make the URL about diamond jewelry. This is pretty close to common sense but people do a lot of crazy things in SEO to attempt to “trick” the search engines.

Alt Tags

Using alt tags on every image can give you a nice search engine score bump. Alt tags are the “alternate” text attached to an image. They are generally used for non-image enabled browsing and blind or vision impaired users. Not only does using alt tags increase accessibility for vision impaired users but it helps search engines know what your images are. If you have alt tags on your images your search engines scores will increase because they have no way to know what your images are about without them. This is a great place to add some keywords, just make sure they are relevant and appropriate to the image. The alt tag is also how images are indexed into Google images (http://images.google.com)  and other image searches so you can pick up some great and easy traffic on the image search pages by adding alt tags.

Proper Image Names

Very similar in importance to alt tags is proper image names. If your images are just named something like “image1.jpg, image2.jpg, image3.jpg” search engines have no way of knowing that your images match the theme of your website and can’t raise your ranking. If you’re selling a red corvette instead of having an image name such as “image343.jpg” name the image “1998-red-corvette-for-sale.jpg.” This will give you a search engine boost and also help increase your visibility in the image search engines we talked about in the alt tags section. Giving the search engines every reason to trust your websites content and images will ensure that your on-page SEO is as good as possible.

Whether creating a new website or editing a current website always add relevant URL names and give all of your images proper names and alt tags. These are great things to keep in mind if you haven’t started building your website yet, and if you already have a website give it an on-page optimization audit after reading this series. You will be surprised how many little things you can change to get bumped in the search engines quickly with fairly minimal effort.

Getting a new website is a lot like getting a new car. At first you’re in love with it and take really good care of it and after awhile you get over the “honeymoon” phase and its all downhill from there. This is a mistake a lot of new website owners make by creating lots of great content and backlinks in the beginning and over time allowing their SEO efforts fade to nothing.

The best way to prevent this is to create a weekly or monthly “to do” list of SEO activities that you can do over time instead of giving it an initial burst of effort and burning yourself out. For example: you can use every Monday to find 20 websites that you can get a link to your website from, and every Tuesday you can write an article, and every Wednesday you can contact other webmasters in your niche, you get the point. If you formulate a process like this it becomes much easier to stay up to date with your SEO efforts and it becomes a lot more organized!

Non-relevant content

After a few week or even months you might not be as motivated to write content. When a lot of people get to that point they try to use either non-relevant or non-unique content. Non-relevant content on your website can be a huge problem for you. If you’re trying to rank for fishing keywords an article about kittens is not going to help your website at all. That example might be a little extreme but that’s the idea. It might be tempting to just find something semi-relevant online and post it so you can say you updated your website, Keep content as targeted and relevant as possible at all times. Always be thinking as if you were in the users shoes: would I like this content? Is this what I was looking for? Would I come back to this site or purchase from them? Using non-relevant content can be appealing to take away the difficulty of finding relevant things to write about but it’s worth the extra effort.

Unique content

That brings us to point #2 – using non-unique content on your website. Do NOT use content on your website that is published on another website for SEO purposes. If you take articles or free resources and post them on your website it will not be indexed because search engines (google, yahoo, bing) only index content once and trash dupes. Any copies of that content remain out of the search engines and therefore will give you no SEO benefit to use. The search engines do this to assure quality and keep the user experience optimal for everyone.

Some people do what is called content “spinning” which is taking  written article and making it unique by using synonyms and different words through the article. This in theory sounds great – but it comes with a load of its own problems. The main problem with content spinning is that the content sounds terrible when spun 90% of the time. After using an article spinner or even hand spinning an article the verbiage and flow is usually ruined and the content becomes unreadable. Its OK to share content on your website that has been posted elsewhere (with permission) but you will receive zero, nada, nil SEO benefit from it (assuming that it is already indexed).

The major things to remember here are to keep your efforts steady and relevant. If you use these tips for creating and updating your website you’ll be ranking in no time.

If you’re wondering what all of this has to do with SEO hang in there – I’m about to tell you! With SEO it’s important that your tags (as we discussed in a recent post) as well as your file names and URLs are correct (as we’ll talk about in the next post). Content management systems allow you to easily change and update these tags and file names without editing code or doing anything difficult that someone with basic computer knowledge could handle.

WordPress is the best content management system available based on my experience and it has the Beast Media seal of approval! WordPress has loads of benefits with a few being:

1.) It’s free!
2.) It has great community support with lots of themes and plugins
3.) It’s very user friendly, intuitive, and easy to use
4.) It’s GREAT for on page SEO

Let’s dig into number 4 a little bit and talk about what makes WordPress so great for on-page SEO. With a traditional HTML website to modify and optimize things like H1, title, and meta tags you need to edit the actual HTML files which can get both tedious and tricky. If you aren’t familiar with HTML it’s very easy to mess up your entire website trying to make it SEO friendly. With WordPress however, you can do all of this through a simple graphical interface. If you are technical enough to type into a box then you can use WordPress and have great on-page SEO! WordPress will automatically create most of the important SEO tags when you create a page or a post.

There are some things that WordPress does not do by default but that’s where plugins come in. A plugin is an extension of your WordPress website – there is a plugin to do almost ANYTHING you can imagine that WordPress can’t do by default. Lucky for us, there are a wide variety of SEO plugins for WordPress that make the job of on-page optimization even easier. One particular SEO plugin for WordPress that I use often is called All in One SEO Pack. This plugin lets you modify all of your tags easily through the WordPress backend instead of digging around your HTML and trying to figure out how to set everything up page by page. I highly recommend it if you decide to use WordPress for your website and want to be on top of your SEO game.

With a content management system such as WordPress in place, you can have a properly optimized website in no time with very little technical experience needed.

After learning about search engine optimization many website owners and new optimizers have an initial “burst” of effort into their on-page and off-page SEO. Many don’t realize that the most effective SEO is an ongoing continual process that you must keep up with month-to-month. There was a time when a little effort would make your website rank high in the search engines (years ago) but that is long gone. With the amount of websites increasing every day and the likelihood of having more and more competition that at least knows the basics of SEO raising just as quickly, you have to give SEO a 100% consistent effort to hit and stay on the front page of the search results.

The best thing to do is to create an ongoing checklist of the same link building and optimization activities to complete every month. Instead of overdoing it in the beginning and trying to build hundreds of links and write lots of articles in your first week of optimization just do a gradual amount that won’t overwhelm you so you’ll actually come back and do it again the following weeks and months. Remember that you always want to make your optimization activities look as natural as possible. If a website goes from 0 backlinks to 2,000 backlinks in a month what do you think a sophisticated search engine algorithm is going to think? You are much better off gradually building links and creating content every week and ramping that amount up as time progresses. This will do 3 things for you: create a systematic checklist of SEO activities, create a solid backlink portfolio, and make your SEO strategy appear as natural as possible.

The first fatal SEO mistake is known as “over optimization.” Over optimization is when a website is built strictly for search engines without the end user in mind.  Over optimization creates many on-page problems such as incorrect or overused title, meta, and hx tags. Over optimization is a problem because it produces unusable websites that are not designed for human interaction.  This practice is so common because amateur optimizers and business owners make the mistake of doing what they think the search engines want to see.

Keyword stuffing is almost always the number one problem when it comes to on-site over optimization. Keyword stuffing is adding the keywords you are trying to target and rank for where they don’t belong in hopes you will receive an extra boost from search engines.  If you do this, chances are it will confuse the end user and they won’t stay on your website very long or take your desired action; whether it be buy a product, sign up for your email list, or make an appointment. Even though you may end up obtaining more traffic short term by doing this (even though you probably won’t) – what is the point if your website is so unusable your consumers can’t figure it out and end up going to a competitor?

The way to avoid this is to design and build your website for your consumer and to ALWAYS keep them in mind. You do need to use the proper tags (title, h1, h2, h3, etc.) which we will talk about next, but always make sure that every step of the way is clear and that the end user is never confused or frustrated.

Using H1, H2, H3, and title tags correctly

Using tags incorrectly is a huge part of over and incorrect optimization. Many new comers to SEO learn that it’s very important to include your keyword(s) in your title and H1 tags. While this is true, too much of a good thing does apply here.

Title Tags

The title tag is what appears at the very top of your search browser and the headline of search engine results.   The train of thought many new optimizers have is “Ok, if the title tag is so important, I’ll just put all of my keywords in it!” Like we talked about before, this is called keyword stuffing and something you should NEVER do. Search engine algorithms are so advanced that they can tell the difference between a relevant and user friendly title tag from a spammy keyword stuffed one.

So what should be in your title tag? You should always put your primary keyword or keyphrase the page you are working on is targeting. For a quick example, let’s say you’re selling dog supplies and are working on your websites title tags. If you have a page where you’re selling dog beds, instead of making your title tag “Dog training supplies, dog beds, dog food, dog treats at SuperDogs.com” make it something relevant to the page such as “Dog Beds and Pillows| SuperDogs.com”. This way, instead of having a keyword filled confusing headline you’ll have a relevant user friendly one. Search engine algorithms will calculate how much of your title tag is relevant to the keyword that the user is searching which is another reason why keyword stuffing will hurt you more than help you. Make sure to always be as relevant and to the point as possible with your title tags!

H1, H2, and H3 Tags

The H tags are very important and often used incorrectly or not at all. “H” stands for heading – meaning that these tags are supposed to indicate something important on the page or the focus. H1 is the primary focus of the page where H2 and H3 are supposed to be used for secondary focuses underneath the primary one. You should always use only one H1 tag on each page, multiple H2 and H3 tags are acceptable though. By using only one H1 tag, you’re showing the search engines that your page is super targeted to the focus inside of the tag. Whenever possible try to use the same keywords in both your Title and H1 tags. Here’s an example for a page with dog training beds again:

<title> Dog Beds and Pillows| SuperDogs.com</title>

<h1>Dog Beds</h1>

<h2>Big Dog Beds</h2>

<h3>Red </h3>

<h3>Blue </h3>

<h3>Yellow</h3>

<h2>Medium Dog Beds</h2>

<h3>Red </h3>

<h3>Blue </h3>

<h3>Yellow</h3>

<h2>Small Dog Beds</h2>

<h3>Red </h3>

<h3>Blue </h3>

<h3>Yellow</h3>

By pairing both proper title and H tags on your website you can count on both higher search engine rankings and a more clean and clear user experience. Use these tips to clean up your website and keep the end user in mind, always think to yourself “would I buy from this website?” and  ”Am I in the right place?”

These are the 5 fatal mistakes that are made every day in search engine optimization that we are going to discuss in the next few posts:

• On-site over optimization and using H1, H2, H3, and title tags correctly
• Thinking SEO is a “one time” process
• Picking the right technologies for SEO
• Infrequent updates and non-relevant content
• Non-SEO URLs, alt tags and proper image names

By small, I mean 20 at the most, and by ‘tightly knit’ I mean keywords that are related/similar to each other. So an ad group for “ppc management” might look like this:

ppc management
ppc management company
ppc management services
professional ppc management
ppc management companies

And other such keywords organized around the term “PPC Management” A term that wouldn’t fit into that ad group would be “PPC Services”, as it’s not the full “PPC Management” phrase. Part of the reasoning behind this is that if the ad text contains the keyword “PPC Management” – and all of your keywords that you are bidding on have the word “PPC Management” in them (like the list above), when people search for these keywords, the word “PPC Management” in your ad will show up bold. This generally will increase your clickthrough rate of your ad.

The biggest reason for this arrangement, though, is relevance. The more similar your keywords are in your ad group, the more relevant your ad will be to those keywords, and the more targeted it will be to people searching for those keywords. If you were to put in “SEO Services” into that ad group, and your ad text is about PPC Management, people are going to search for SEO Services and either your PPC Management ad is going to show up, or your ad will not show up at all — which is a complete waste of the SEO Services keyword.

Don’t: Bid on top tier keywords & expect massive conversions

A top tier keyword would be something that is extremely general and generates massive search volume. For this example – we’ll use “Cars”. If you’re a local car dealership, it’s important that you are bidding on more specific keywords than “Cars”. As much as you might think that you’re going to get massive traffic from that keyword, the competition is outrageous, the bid prices are sky high, and the traffic will be extremely untargeted. It is a much better use of your time and budget to focus on more relevant keywords. So let’s say you’re a Stamford Nissan dealership. You’d want to bid on keywords such as “Stamford Nissan”, “Nissan Dealership Stamford” – etc, local, targeted keywords. Even the keyword “Nissan” is extremely untargeted and not worth your time.

What I’m really trying to say is – it’s important to focus on the long tail, targeted keywords when trying to advertise successfully on Adwords. Don’t fall for the trap of top tier keywords – unless you are ready to drop some SERIOUS cash. (or you’re running Cars.com!)

We’re actually going to take a break from adwords posts for a little while – my partner Tom has compiled a list of his top SEO mistakes that he sees websites make, and he’s going to share them here with you. Look for the beginning of our “Top 8 SEO Mistakes” (I think it’s top series starting this weekend.

The Google “slap” (not sure who came up with that name…) is when Google jacks up your keyword bid prices to around $5-$10 a click. This is not the competition outbidding you, this is Google telling you to fix your campaign or to go advertise somewhere else.

Google doesn’t need your money – people who have been spending hundreds of thousands a month have had their campaigns slapped. It’s important that as an advertiser, you follow their rules and make the appropriate changes if this happens to you.

The most common reason I see for people’s campaigns getting slapped is because their site is too thin. By “thin” I mean that there is not enough relevant, unique content on the website. Google does not like it when people throw up simple one page “bridge” websites – they have decided that this creates a poor experience for the search user, and have told advertisers to change their sites accordingly.
When creating sites to run advertising campaigns to with Google Adwords, we usually make sure that there are 10-15 unique, relevant articles on the website. If we’re running a campaign that is about “red widgets”, there are going to be 10-15 articles about red widgets, and other similar things to “red widgets” (Top 10 uses for red widgets, etc.). Without this content, your campaign is bound to get slapped.

The other pages that are important for your site to have are Terms & Conditions page, Disclaimer/Disclosure, Contact Us, and Privacy Policy. Without those, Google doesn’t really think your site is legitimate, so will likely shut down your campaign.

Even if you follow all of these protocols, there still might come a time when your campaign is slapped. If that happens, usually the best course of action is to call up Google and ask them what you can do to get back up and running. They are usually pretty helpful, and can point you in the right direction.

Hopefully these tips will help you make your campaigns “slap proof” for the future.

In our next post, we’ll talk about how to structure your Google Adwords campaigns properly to make sure you’re not wasting any advertising dollars.

With that thought in mind, Google created something called the “Quality Score”. Quality score is a simple 1-10 measurement (10 being the best, 1 being the worst) of how high “quality” your ad is. The full algorithm for determining quality score is secret, however, a good amount of information has been released to lead advertisers in the right direction.

The main factors that have been released that determine quality score are: Click-through rate, ad copy relevance, landing page quality, and landing page load time.

1. Click-Through Rate: this is simply how many times your ad is clicked divided by how many impressions it receives. If your ad has 1000 impressions and 10 clicks, your click-through rate is 1%. With Google, your keyword & it’s matched ad’s historical click-through rate are the most important factors in getting a high quality score. Google also factors in your overall historic click-through rate of your entire Adwords account when determining quality score.

2. Ad Copy Relevance: The relevance of your ad copy to your keyword is another very important factor in determining your quality score. If you are bidding on the keyword “red widgets”, then your ad should have the text “red widgets” in it. Although it is still possible to get a decent quality score without putting your keyword in your ad, any ad with its keyword in it will almost always perform better than the ad without the keyword in it.

3. Landing Page Quality: This one is extremely important, as if your landing page is not up to Google’s guidelines, then you won’t even be able to run your campaign – you will receive the Google “slap.” (In my next post, I’ll go over what that is and how to avoid it). Landing page quality generally refers to how relevant your landing page is to the keyword you’re bidding on (if you’re bidding on red widgets, your landing page should be about red widgets). It also is important that your landing page has original and not duplicate content on it, or again, you will not be able to run your campaign.

4. Landing Page Load Time: This is simply how fast your page loads – there are tips and tricks for this, but as a general rule you shouldn’t have any issue with this. You can always check your page load time here if you are concerned: Web Page Analyzer

Those are the four main factors, though there are definitely some other things that go into determining quality score. However, if you focus on having original, relevant content on your website, relevant ad copy, and enticing ads that actually get clicked on, you should do just fine with Google Adwords.

In our next post, we’ll talk a little bit more about quality score and dive into the Google slap – what it is and how to avoid it.

I briefly mentioned that there are some other factors that go into determining what placements you get, such as ad quality & ad relevance. In fact – it is sometimes possible for you to bid less than another advertiser, but still receive a better placement than them in the search engines or on websites.

In order to understand how to do this, let’s first talk about how search engines & PPC ad networks (for the purposes of this article, we’ll be talking about Google for both) make their money.
The most important thing in the world to Google is the end-users experience. The reason for this is – when a user goes to Google.com and searches for a “red widget” – they want to find websites about red widgets. If advertisements show up about blue widgets, flying cars, and weight loss, then the user is going to be disappointed and will be less likely to use Google again in the future to search for things. This means less users clicking on ads, and less revenue for Google.

So with this in mind, it’s in Google’s best interest to make sure that advertisers that are bidding on “red widget” related keywords have advertisements and websites that are about red widgets. They reward you for this relevance through their quality score algorithm (the details of which we will cover in a later post), which allows you to have cheaper keyword bids, while still remaining in the same placements.

Another way that Google determines ad quality is through your ads click-through rate (CTR). Your click through rate is simply the amount of clicks on your ad divided by the amount of impressions that it receives. So if your ad is shown to 1000 people, and 10 people click on it, your click through rate is 1%.
If your ad has a high click through rate, you will be able to lower your keyword bids for that ad, while still receiving the same placements. So for example, if you have a high click through rate, you might be bidding 30 cents a click and have the number one position, while your competitors are bidding 50 cents and have a lower position. If you have a high click through rate, Google wants as many people to see your ad as possible so they can generate as much revenue as they can. So click through rate is an extremely important metric for advertisers that are looking to get top placements with their pay per click ads.

In our next post, we’ll talk more about quality score – what it is, what it means, and how to maximize it.