SEO in The Desert

by Mark Maynem

In March 2009 Google image search was labeled as Google’s fourth hottest property by Hitwise. The report went on to show that Google image search attributed 5.79% to the company’s monthly market share of visits. With this type of data and developments in universal search the smart search marketer will leverage this area to his or her advantage.

Before undertaking image search optimization many search marketers will evaluate its value in relation to its clients. Will the value of this activity be higher than another SEO activity? This is important, as image optimization can be time consuming and lends itself to being more beneficial to some sites than others.

Image Optimization Tips

Filenames – Include the keyword you are targeting within the file name. Remember to use hyphens for spaces between the keywords.

Image Formatting – Make sure you use the correct image formats. For example save photos as JPG files etc.

Image Quality – Use good quality images, which will read well when shown in a thumbnail format. Poor quality images are unlikely to get click throughs.

Strings – Avoid using strings in image urls. Make your image urls as a readable as possible to human beings. Continue reading »

By Richard V. Burckhardt

I recently upgraded from the original iPhone to the iPhone 3GS so that I could take advantage of the increased speed, both hardware and Internet-wise, because some of the apps that I had installed, many purchased, just weren’t working well on the old phone.

For instance, the TVU Networks app, which lets you watch a lot of Internet based TV, was just too much for the old girl. The picture would freeze and the audio and video would be completely out of sync, even on a fast wi-fi network. Other apps like Last.fm and Pandora would sputter on the Edge network while I was out on my daily walk in the Palm Springs sunshine.

Anyway, it was with much anticipation that I brought home a brand new iPhone 3GS to play with. The apps worked ever so much better!

The battery in the phone was a totally different story, however. With the new 3GS phone, I would find myself recharging two or three times a day as the little power bar would start plummeting after just a few phone calls or other use. I was getting frustrated and firmly believe that Apple should be ashamed to have introduced a phone with such sucky battery life. Apple will tell you to disable all of the things you got the phone for to prolong the battery – 3G, bluetooth, etc. Lame!

Fortunately, someone heard my cries of dispair and I was given a Mophie Juice Pack Air Case and Rechargeable Battery for iPhone 3G, 3G S (Black) as a gift. This little jewel effectively doubles my battery life with just a small bit of added bulk to the phone. This is especially handy if you are traveling or out of the office all day and have no way to plug your phone in to charge it. Continue reading »

By Richard V. Burckhardt

Got something to say? Guest blog at The Web Optimist.

Just so you know, The Web Optimist blog is open to guest blogger articles related to SEO, VOIP and search marketing. These guest posts are free, of course (take that, Google!) and posts must be a minimum of 200 words in length.

Guest blog post in the following categories for free – SEO, News, Reviews. All are moderated and edited. Inappropriate posts will be deleted. Be civil, folks! A total of three links are allowed within the body text. Obvious spam, inappropriate or off-topic content will not be considered. In other words, if I do not like it, I will not publish it!

Simply go to the Contact page to submit your article idea. I’ll set up frequent contributors with an author’s account.

By Richard V. Burckhardt

When I started out in web development way back in the dark ages (1998), I was doing web design for an in-house agency. Primarily, we did sites for the publications that the parent publishing company produced, but we also took on local Palm Springs area clients and built web sites for them.

It went something like this. For a certain amount of money, like $500, we’d build a ten page static web site. We’d do the design work, but the client provided images and text. We’d do the SEO as it existed in those days (title, meta tags, submit to the search engines/directories) and then there would be a monthly hosting/maintenance fee (about $50). Quarterly changes (pictures and text) were part of the fee, anything else cost extra.

Of course, the client was sort of at our mercy as they had no way to make changes themselves. They had to go through us. This could get frustrating for clients who needed frequent changes to their sites, like real estate agents or those with products that needed changing constantly.

Fast forward to today. Yes, if you really need a complicated site with a web designer, programmer and so forth, that option is definitely available more than ever. But, if what you want is a smaller site that you have complete control over and won’t cost a fortune, it can be had quickly and inexpensively. Continue reading »

By Jill Whalen

Each year around this time, I like to review the traffic trends to our High Rankings website, and compare the traffic to the previous year. I usually learn a lot from this exercise, and I highly recommend it to everyone. Thankfully, with Google Analytics it’s very simple.

Some of the things I look at are total number of visits to the website, as well as the number of visits to certain sections or pages of the site. And of course, I especially like to look at which keyword phrases drive search engine traffic.

Because our site is all about SEO, in addition to learning how we’re doing with our own optimization and overall online marketing initiatives, I can also learn about overall trends in the industry. High Rankings has a number of authoritative articles on fundamental SEO techniques that are typically ranked #1 or #2 for the keywords that relate to them. In fact, those articles tend to have more page views than any others on the site.

Today I thought I’d share some of these insights with you. Please remember that you have to take these “trends” with a grain of salt because many factors could be at play beyond just what people are searching at Google.

With that said, here are some statistics for you, with my commentary on what they might (or might not) mean.

For this exercise I looked at just Google visitors, rather than all search engine visitors, because it was easier to filter the data that way. Our overall Google visitor number was about the same in 2008 as it was in 2009 (–0.24%), which is good for purposes of looking at the trends. If we had substantially more or fewer Google visitors, the numbers of visitors based on keywords would be skewed because of that. Continue reading »

By Richard V. Burckhardt

Link building doesn’t have to be all about begging. Try building relationships and self branding instead.

Ask just about any SEO what their least favorite part of search engine optimization and a lot of them will give link building as the answer. Begging for links from authority sites is no one’s idea of fun. Rejection feels so, well, rejected!

Building organic links to your site is something that we’d all like to put on auto pilot as much as possible. There are ways to do this, but they can be different depending on whether your site is brand spanking new or a seasoned veteran.

So, we’ll divide these tips and suggestions into two parts: New Sites and Established Sites.

Continue reading »