Google Spam Team Targets Real Estate Websites

I have been debating the last half hour on whether I should even write this article/blog post. I have recently made a few comments over at Matt Cutts' blog about what Google has recently done and a few of my real estate peers thought it was a bit brave or stupid for being outspoken. I will take my chances and write about what is happening. Hopefully, someone can learn from this in the future. Will Google keep me in the penalty box longer? Hopefully not.
If you have any experience or background in SEO (search engine optimization) you know that Google likes website that have links pointing to it. A part of their search algorithm involves the popularity of the site determined by the number of other sites pointing to it via a link. With all else being equal Google will rank a website with quality links pointing to it higher than another website with no links. If you read Google's Webmaster Guidelines the very first bit of advice they give you is:

* have other relevant sites link to yours.

Google loves links and they admit it. Webmasters figured this out and came up with all kinds of different techniques for getting links to their sites - link baiting, reciprocal links, ninja links, 3 way links, one way links, contextual links etc. The problem is a lot of the techniques are frowned upon by Google. They want you to get links the natural way and not to try to cheat the system. Their guidelines say:

* Don't participate in link schemes designed to increase your site's ranking or PageRank. In particular, avoid links to web spammers or "bad neighborhoods" on the web, as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links.

* Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings. A good rule of thumb is whether you'd feel comfortable explaining what you've done to a website that competes with you. Another useful test is to ask, "Does this help my users? Would I do this if search engines didn't exist?

In one breath Google tells you to get links to your site and then in the other breath tells you not to participate in any link scheme designed to increase your site's ranking. How do you know what a link scheme is? What is acceptable? What is not acceptable? I guess you have to ask yourself "Does this help my users?" It definitely is not a black and white situation and has plenty for room for interpretation.

Google has a web spam team headed by Matt Cutts. Their job is to enforce these Google Webmaster Guidelines and crack down on link spam. When he talks people listen. He frequently speaks at search engine conferences around the world.

I could not find it anywhere (didn't really look long) but heard that Matt Cutts in the past has mentioned that he does not like the reciprocal linking that Realtors engage in. Supposedly, he had mentioned this several times over the last few years but has not done anything about it.

Real estate agents trade links with other agents around the country and world with the argument that we refer business to each other so therefore it is a legitimate link exchange and not done for the sole purpose of pumping up our rankings. This may be true in some instances but for the most part it is bologna. I would venture to say that 95% of the agents who trade links do so to achieve higher rankings in the results. That was the only reason I did it. What was the likelihood that a visitor to my Sarasota, Florida website was there to find an agent in Albuquerque, New Mexico? The only reason I ever traded a link with an agent outside Florida was to get to number 1 in Google.

In the beginning, when I knew absolutely nothing, I was told to trade links with anyone and everyone. I did that for awhile. Then someone told me to only trade with people in the real estate industry. So, I changed it up and did that. The link exchanging worked. I wasn't number 1 but was on the first page for a couple key phrases.

Fast forward a little bit, I changed to a more search engine friendly website, traded links sporadically, added plenty of original content, included and updated a blog frequently. My overall goal was to become an authority site and build a valuable, useful website to people looking for anything real estate related in Sarasota, Florida. I simply wanted to make a website better than my competitors. Eventually, I became number 1 for the most sought after key phrases in my market and was on the first page for hundreds of phrases. I got there by having a better website than most. That is a great thing about the Google search engine. It generally does the best job of providing relevant results.

It dawned on me that reciprocal linking with hundreds of agents around the country was pretty useless to my visitors so I stopped doing it about a year or so ago. I did a couple contextual link exchanges with other agents in Florida. I figured that would be useful to someone looking for real estate in Florida but was not sure in what part of the state to look.

I had stopped paying attention to what was going on in the SEO world for awhile as I get paid to service buyers and sellers of real estate, not updating my website. I continued to post in my blog but that was the extent of it. So, I was out of the loop for 6 months or so.

A shot across the bow

Advanced Access is an enormous real estate website provider with around 30,000 Realtor websites. I am not up to speed on the details but apparently many or all of the Advanced Access users were penalized by Yahoo. Many of the AA users would trade links with each other and it was possibly viewed by Yahoo as one big incestuous link farm.

Advanced Access hired Greg Boser, a search engine guru, to solve their problems with Yahoo. His recommendation to AA users was to erase all state pages containing excessive reciprocal links. He viewed them as useless spam. Not all of the AA users took his advice. Many of the customers resisted because of the hundreds of man hours they put into accumulating all of the links. Others were probably ranking well and did not want to rock the boat.

In April of 2007 many high ranking Advanced Access websites were suddenly missing from the Google search results. Was it an algorithm change? Probably not since the AA website were the only ones affected. Ultimately, the consensus was that the AA websites were manually given a penalty by Google. Of course, no one was 100% sure because you can't call Google on the phone or email them to get a definitive answer. Why would Google focus on only one website provider? Why the largest provider of real estate websites? Were they penalized for excessive reciprocal links? Probably. Evidently, Matt Cutts previously made warnings about it. Did the well connected internet guru, Greg Boser, have anything to do with the penalty? I don't know. Some people believe that. He supposedly knows Matt Cutts.

In the Advanced Access forums one participant noticed that some AA websites were penalized while others were not. Almost all of the sites had state pages and excessive reciprocal links. Why were some chosen and other spared? How did Google determine which websites to hit and why? The forum participant noticed that just about everyone who voiced their opinions, beliefs and thoughts in the forums were hit with the penalties while the site owners who were not active went penalty free. Did Google hand pick the loudest website owners?

In May, just over 30 days later, most of the AA sites had their penalties dropped and were found again in Google.

Real Estate Webmasters is another large and very visible real estate website provider. Many of their customer sites rank exceptionally well in Google. They also host a very active forum for webmasters. If someone (or Google) wanted to send a message through the real estate community this is a great place to do it. I found it interesting that Greg Boser, the well connected internet guru, became very active in the Real Estate Webmasters forum on April 27th. Just a few weeks prior to many of their websites getting hit with a penalty.

On May 9th, a number of high ranking Real Estate Webmaster websites were suddenly missing from the Google search results. Sites from all over country had been hit with a Google penalty. I own one of those sites and was probably penalized for state pages and reciprocal linking. The damn thing is that I deleted all of my state pages and links on the 4th of May. Google most likely pinpointed me as a violator before the 4th and it took until the 9th to employ the penalty.

It is interesting that Google would hit customers of another large and potentially loud real estate website provider with an active forum. Is Google trying to send a message to the real estate community about excessive reciprocal links? Maybe. Probably. Greg Boser became active in the forums a couple of weeks prior to the penalty. Did he have something to do with it? I don't know. Possibly.

Here we are 44 days later and almost all of the Real Estate Webmasters sites are still penalized. We all have deleted our state pages, reciprocal links, removed the URL's through the Google webmaster tools and have asked forgiveness via a re-inclusion request.

Is Google waiting for us to spread the word throughout the Realtor community about the no-no's of reciprocal linking? I don't know. Is it fair that a small group of us were targeted while others continue to fill their websites with spammy reciprocal links? No, but life is not fair.

Rand Fishkind at www.seomoz.org recently interviewed Matt Cutts. You can watch the interview here http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-smx-diaries-iv-the-matt-cutts-interview. Watch the 2nd video and fast forward it to around the 5:30 mark. Matt acknowledges the Real Estate Webmaster thread discussing the recent penalties. He also mentions "a shot across the bow" technique of policing.

Isn't everyone employed by Google a genius? Couldn't they have come up with a better system to policing the real estate industry other than hurting a few mom and pop Realtors?

Lessons Learned:

* Don't try to game the Google search engine. They will eventually figure you out.

* Don't trade links with hundreds of Realtors around the country. Build links only for the benefit of your users, not your search engine rankings.

* Build a site with tons of unique content, provide lots of value to visitors and eventually links will come with time. I have received several one way links from the Sarasota Herald Tribune (my local newspaper) from articles they wrote about my website and blog. I imagine this is the way Google likes to see links built.

* Google isn't perfect.

* If you rely on Google search results to feed you and your family you better have some money stashed away in the event you get penalized. Fortunately, I did this.

* If you do make money off the web keep at least one eye on what is happening in the search engine world to stay competitive.

* I rank fairly well in MSN and really don't get that much traffic from it.

* Ranking very well in Google will bring tons of traffic to your website.

* Being penalized by Google sucks.

Marc Rasmussen www.TheSarasotaMLS.com


About the author
Realtor in Sarasota, Florida

http://seoarticles4u.com

SEO: The Answer to your Online Marketing Problem

When I was a child, people around me has many source of informations. For instance, they use the television, radio and newspaper for consumer information, which are called infomercials nowadays, and news for current events. Magazines and journals are for articles that illuminate people on a specific or several topics. I also remember my mom, when my sister is already entering her high school years, buying encyclopedias for reference purposes.

Now, there is a one-stop shop for all informations needed by anyone. Internet is the information hi way of the new age. There is a site for almost each and every need for information. Most consumers prefer this because almost all their concerns are met through the internet.

With this, online marketing is a phenomena. Promoting online of products of the smallest size and amount up to the biggest deals and services, is always a hit.

But it is not that easy promoting marketing online. Because most people use search engine before they enter a web site, it is necessary to have a high ranking on search engines. People frequently view only the first two pages of the search result. Given this fact, companies and even sole proprietors still often neglect this aspect or part of their business because they do not like to lose their focus on their business core objectives.

Search Engine Optimization plays a big role on this part. It helps the entities keep a high ranking in major search engines or help improve their rankings on some matter. It works significantly on boosting their client's web visibility on search engines. In this way more consumers will enter your site, therefore, giving more chances of increasing sales.

Some entities waste the thousands or hundred thousands of dollars they invested on web site design after which they will discover that their site is not visible to major search engines. Because of this, some companies reinvest in redesigning their web site and some just accept the awful limited result they are achieving with their site.

For the premium and most coherent results in online marketing campaign, have the best search engine optimization services. Use your website as your strategic weapon against your competitors and this will accordingly increase your return of investment.

About the author
RESOURCE: Methyl Vizcarra writes articles and press releases for WickedInnovations - a web site design company that offers affordable web site design and maintenance services, search engine optimization and other advance multimedia services for low prices

http://seoarticles4u.com

5 Search Engine Optimization Myths

Have ever heard about myths or rumors in your life ? Well, we hear it everyday, don't we ? It's purely understood that myths are not true, but then people still keep believing in it.
In this article, Ngadutrafik 2007 would love to share with you some of the SEO myths. Hope you find it useful.

Here are the myths :

1 - Optimizing META TAGS will boost my website ranking

This is true if and ONLY if your website has good and quality contents to visitors, and have a frequent and fresh updated. Some people asked me why they don't rank well in search engine even if they have optimized the meta tags and front page ?

Well, I figured out that the websites has only 2 content (1 considered as index.html and other is About Us page, and never got updated), so that's the main reason.Currently, due to some bad implementation in altering META TAGS (especially the keyword tags, known also as Keyword Stuffing, read Day 9 - Black Hat Techniques : Something You Should Know, but You Shouln't Do), Google has ignored the meta tags in their search algorithm, while Yahoo and others still use it but in a very little percentage of the search placement.

So bear in my mind that optimizing META TAGS will only work if you also have some quality contents in your website.

2 - Multiple domain names will multiply my rankings in Google

Multiple domain names with exactly the same contents (duplicate contents), will probably get your website penalized by search engine in rankings. Some webmasters go smarter : creating 15 or more websites exactly in the same niche, provide 1-2 contents for each website, and doing aggressive linking among those 15 websites to the targeted website.

Is it gonna work ?

It COULD be. But remember, 15 websites means 15 work and 15 more allocated time you should spend to those websites. If you just wanna give a shot to a website in specific niche, then build one with appropriate keywords, off page and on page optimization, and you save a lot of time. This is gonna work well and much better.

3 - SEO experts aren't cheap ?

Compare to other advertising media campaign, SEO experts that offer they services is still considered affordable. The benefit for you is : your website will get exposed in 24x7 basis, around the world, anytime, anywhere.

A well-optimized website nowadays will get more benefits in terms of business practice rather than any other advertising media (e.g. TV ads, radio, or paper).

4 - Submit website again and again will make my site better.

O rilly ? Now if you do this action, I bet you will get penalized by Google and others, ASAP. Do it just ONCE, and after your website get listed in the search engine, don't ever think about submitting again. Not only your website would get penalized, but the rankings will go lower and lower.

Ever seen supplemental result in Google? I bet you don't want that happened to your websites. Especially, if youre promoting an SEO websites like NgaduTrafik 2007 :)

5 - Search Engine is bad. TV is better

If you're an old school guy, this may be correct. Why put US$2,000 paying that Search Engine Optimization guy, we can use that for a low budget TV ads instead ?

The answer : How many spot you could have for US$2,000 TV ads ? Say 10 spot that cost 200 each. 10 spot of your TV ads can't guarantee anything related to your business. Yes, I am talking now, in the Internet era.

While search engine, placement with good position will get your website visited by millions people around the world in 24x7 basis. As more and more internet users join every day, this will be a huge benefit.

What kind of TV ads that are able you to have 24x7 spot ads everyday ?

OK, so you know the myths now. As it's very popular myths and false facts related to search engine optimization, please read it carefully and take some notes of action.

Believe it or Not ?

Read Full HTML story at : http://ngadutrafik2007.pakarseo.com/ngadutrafik-2007-articles/day-13-5-search-engine-optimization-myths-believe-it-or.html

Related source : http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2005/09/29/the-top-seo-myths-all-of-it-hearsay http://www.rankforsales.com/seo-myths.html

About the author Graduated from Sepuluh Nopember Institute of Technology (ITS, Surabaya), majoring Informatics, I have been in deep with SEO and Internet Marketing in the last two years. Originally from a system development background, the first time I was so focus learning SEO tricks is when I was asked to 'put' certain search results regarding Newmont issues on tailing in 2004 in Google first page, and I did it succesfully.

http://seoarticles4u.com/

11 Tips for Pay-Per-Click Success

This list details some very important points to keep in mind when creating or managing any pay-per-click campaign. Is this all there is to know about pay-per-click advertising? Absolutely not, but for those new to PPC it should serve as good place to start. Additionally, pay-per-click veterans or at least the moderately-seasoned will want to touch upon these points now and then to brush up on their fundamentals.

1) Do your keyword homework.

Use Google's free Keyword Tool or sign up for a WordTracker account to find out which keywords are the most competitive. The more competitive the keyword, the more expensive your clicks will be. While you're finding out which keywords are too expensive you'll come across some that aren't being targeted heavily by advertisers. Take a good look at these - they may be your keys to a successful niche campaign.

2) Don't bunch your ad groups.

You should be striving to separate your ad groups by keyword. Whatever your target, separate your keyword lists into closely related groups containing the same target words and write ads geared specifically to those words. Your ads will show up higher in results based on their quality, and search terms show up bold in results - a click-through rate booster.

3) Drive home your selling point.

What's your offer? Why are you better than the others? Remember that your ads are going to display with your competitors. The difference between a user clicking your ad and clicking a competitor ad is about 100 pixels on the screen - or a millisecond of time. You need to convince them that you are the one they want. You are better. Grab them.

4) Don't send users to your home page.

This is perhaps one of the worst things you can do to your Pay-Per-Click campaign. Internet users are notoriously impatient. Send them to your home page when they were searching for a specific product or service and see how fast they leave. Don't waste your advertising budget - send them to optimized landing pages.

5) Optimize your landing pages.

Your landing pages need to drive something home immediately for your users: "you have landed in the right place." They need to know that, yes, this is what they were looking for, here it is, here is why it is better than the rest and here's the easy thing they need to do to get it. In most cases you'll need to create multiple landing pages based on your different ad groups and keywords, but look at it this way - if your users aren't landing at pages geared exactly to their search phrases they'll leave and take your advertising budget with them.

6) Don't lie in your ads.

People aren't dumb. If you promise something in your ads you had better well deliver. Otherwise you'll not only waste advertising dollars but damage your brand. Be honest, and focus on points that make you stand out from the competition. Grandiose ad text might bring in clicks, but if it isn't the truth it won't bring in conversions.

7) Your domain name counts.

In most cases you can display a domain name that you own as the "display domain" but point the ads to a page on a different domain. Why does this matter? If you own a domain name that contains the keyword text it will show up bold and increase conversions. Enter the optimized domain as the displayed domain, point the ads to your landing pages and you can expect higher CTRs in most cases.

8) Utilize negative keywords.

Google has a new Negative Keyword Tool that will allow you to find negative keywords that you should specify for your ads. Negative keywords are those that you don't want your ads to display for. For example, if you're selling "blue widgets" you don't want to display your ads to those users searching for "free blue widgets." If you don't use negative keywords you are missing out on a chance to get more targeted traffic to your landing pages, and this can really hurt your conversion rates.

9) Test, test, and test some more.

The greatest thing about internet advertising is the ability it grants you to measure your success. It's easy to create A/B split tests with Pay-Per-Click advertising. Change one word, add a comma, include a value proposition. . .just make sure you only change one thing for each split or you won't know which variable it was that made the difference! You'll find out right away that this is a great way to optimize your click-through rates - just don't forget that clicks aren't everything!

10) Don't focus too heavily on CTRs.

Getting tons of clicks isn't always the name of the game. In fact, if you aren't using proper techniques to ensure that you're getting targeted traffic and sending it to well-optimized landing pages you can blow through your advertising budget in no time flat. Remember that the success of any advertisement is getting back more than you put in. It's an investment, not a cost - so do all that you can to better your rate of return!

11) Don't pigeonhole yourself.

We all know that Google AdWords is the most popular Pay-Per-Click service out there. Your competitors know it, your users know it - even your grandma might know it. It would be foolish to ignore Google as a venue for advertising, but don't forget that there are other search engines out there who offer similar services. Yahoo!'s new Panama search system is catching on, and Microsoft's adCenter is nothing to sneeze at either. Both companies are currently offering sweet promotional deals to new Pay-Per-Click advertisers to stay competitive so take advantage and diversify!
________________________

About the Author: Mike Tekula handles SEO, SEM, usability and standards-compliance for NewSunGraphics, a Long Island, New York firm offering Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Marketing, W3C-Compliant web design using full CSS layouts and all things web design/development.

Microsoft Adds Copyrighted Works to Search Engine

Microsoft Adds Copyrighted Works to Search Engine
By Sari N. Kent
Staff Writer: ToTheCenter.com

Microsoft has expanded its book search engine by including copyrighted works for the first time, beginning Thursday evening.According to InfoWorld’s web site, “Microsoft has obtained permission for all the copyrighted books included in the Live Search Books service, said Danielle Tiedt, general manager of the Live Search selection team."...... For More Click Here : http://tothecenter.com

Source : tothecenter.com

A search engine for open-source code

Robert Mullins, IDG News Service

Krugle aspires to be the Google of software code search, even referring to itself as a verb. And recently, Krugle has started to become the go-to search site for open-source developers, partnering with key websites, including SourceForge.net, the leading repository for open-source software projects, to embed Krugle search. Krugle also announced a similar partnership with CollabNet, a community of 1 million developers.... For More Click Here : www.linuxworld.com.au

Source : www.linuxworld.com.au

Google keeps tweaking its search engine

By Saul Hansell

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--These days, Google seems to be doing everything, everywhere.
It takes pictures of your house from outer space, copies rare Sanskrit books in India, charms its way onto Madison Avenue, picks fights with Hollywood and tries to undercut Microsoft's software dominance.

But at its core, Google remains a search engine. And its search pages, blue hyperlinks set against a bland, white background, have made it the most visited, most profitable and arguably the most powerful company on the Internet. Google is the homework helper, navigator and yellow pages for half a billion users, able to find the most improbable needles in the world's largest haystack of information in just the blink of an eye.... For More Click Here : news.com.com

Source : news.com.com

Tracking the Success of Your Website - Google Analytics

How successful is your website? Do you really know how well it is performing for your business?

Many website owners make the mistake of thinking that the more traffic they get to their website the better, and they work towards this end. It is better to focus efforts on bringing in targeted traffic that will convert to sales or enquiries. To understand more correctly how well a website is performing, and who is visiting the website, a good website statistics package is required, as well as an understanding of the data these website reports produce.

With many website hosting packages free, website statistics are available. However, the information is not always easy to understand or doesn't always give you the information in a way that is easy to understand.

Google Analytics:
Google Analytics is a great application that Google provides absolutely free. It tracks all activity on your website, not just visits through Google. All you need is a Google Account, and FTP access to your website to insert a small amount of code in your website, and away you go. If you don't already have a Google account, I encourage you to set one up as soon as possible! You can do so at: https://www.google.com/accounts/NewAccount . Not only will you have access to Google Analytics, but having a Google account gives you a whole host of other tools.

Visitors:
As a start, it is a good idea to find out how many visitors are coming to your website. Visitors are broken down into new and returning visitors. While it is great to attract new visitors to your site, you should aim to see a decent percentage of returning visitors as well, as this gives a good indication that people find your site interesting enough to come back to.

Depth of Visit:
How many pages are viewed during a visit to your website?

Length of Visit:
How much time do visitors spend on your website? If they are spending very little time on your site when you have an information-rich site, then you need to start looking at the navigational report to find out where you are losing them.

Keywords:
The Keywords that people are finding your website through, are a good indication of what keywords are performing well for you in the search engines. Are the keywords that are displaying for you truly reflective of what you offer? If not, then it is time to revamp the content on your website.

Referrals:
Which referrals drive the highest quality traffic? This report lists activity coming via referrals from other websites. This is useful for tracking links that you cannot control. You can gauge the overall effectiveness and importance of PR activities, partnerships, etc. The referrals are compared to the number of visits, page views per visit, conversion rates and average value per visit.

Navigation:
Which navigation paths resulted in conversions during the visit? For each navigation path, this report shows conversion rates and the value per visit.

Exit Pages:
From which pages do visitors commonly exit your site? This report shows the number of exits from pages on your site. If you notice a high number of exits for specific pages, it is time to seriously analyze these pages and try to improve them, because it is very likely that people are not getting the information they expect or want.

Conversion data:
Arguably this is one of the most important pieces of information. Conversion data gives you a true understanding of how successful your site really is.

Conversional goals can be set up through your Analytics settings. Take time to think about what goals you want to track. These may be sales or web enquiries you are receiving, or specific pages in your website that you want to focus on. Keep in mind that if your visitor contacts you by phone or fax, this will not be reflected in the goal conversions. However, you can set your contact page as being a goal to get a feel for how many people are looking for your contact details.

By monitoring the changes in conversion rates for your primary goals, you can monitor the overall effectiveness of website changes, marketing roll-outs and other events.

Source: seo-news.com

Search Engine People Launches $1,000 SEO/SEM Lyric Contest - searchenginepeople.com

Search Engine People, a Canadian search engine marketing industry leader, today announced the launch of a $1,000 (US) SEO/SEM Lyric Contest.

Search Engine People (http://www.searchenginepeople.com), a Canadian search engine marketing industry leader, today announced the launch of a $1,000 (US) SEO/SEM Lyric Contest.

"Think of it as a cross between the Google Dance and American Idol, where blessedly, for the most part, no one actually has to sing," states Jeff Quipp, president and CEO of Search Engine People. "Put simply, we invite all creative types, talentless hacks, singers of shower diddies, Google, YAHOO, MSN or any paid ad copywriters to put quill to parchment, pen to paper or fingertips to keyboard to come up with the best darn lyric they can. And it would help if it rhymed. Even just a little bit."

"We have judges," states Quipp. "One's as pretty as Paula Abdul. One's as authoritative as Randy Jackson (II). And one's just as… well, one looks just like Simon Cowell. We don't know their names as we've left the judging, much like they do on American Idol up to the wisdom of the crowd. So the most popular will win."

"We have rules. They are official. And they are posted on the contest web site at http://www.searchenginepeople.com/contest/seo-related-lyric-contest/," Quipp adds.

"Most importantly, we have a prize," Quipp states. "$1,000 U.S. $1,000 for a set of SEO or SEM related lyrics set to your favorite song. And it doesn't have to be strictly SEO or SEM related, we'll settle for analytics, though rhyming Omniture would be a challenge even for the minds at Google. Web Side Story, well that's another tune altogether."

"So, if your search initiatives have you singing the blues, it's time to put pen to paper, you could win $1,000, links to your web site, free publicity and who knows, you might even come up with an algorithm worthy of your own dance and to the beat of your own drummer."

About Search Engine People
Search Engine People (http://www.searchenginepeople.com), Canada's search solution company began operations as QIMS in 2001 and has evolved into a full service Search Engine Optimization and Marketing firm. With demonstrated expertise in both competitive natural Search Engine Optimization or organic search results and Search Engine Marketing or pay per click, the company's mission is to provide search marketing solutions that increased traffic and prospect quality. Search Engine People offers a full range of services and solutions including SEO/SEM; Social Media Strategies; Content Development; Conversion Strategies; Reputation Management; and Analytics & Reporting. The organization was among the first in Canada to become a Google Adwords Qualified Company.

Jeff Quipp
President & CEO
SearchEnginePeople.com
1-877-486-7875
info @ searchenginepeople.com

Source : emediawire.com

Search Engine Optimization Vital for Successful Dental Web Marketing - Sinai Marketing, Inc

Research shows that search engine users rarely scan beyond the first page of a major-search-engine for the information they seek. This quirk of human nature makes high page placement even more vital for commercial sites.

Once upon a time, a dental practice could just throw together a website, toss it up on the Internet and wait for clients to flock to their site.

With the exponential growth of Internet sites, however, this outdated strategy ensures Google™, Yahoo!® and MSN® search engines will relegate such websites to their bargain-basement pages.

It wasn’t long before a new specialty emerged: Search Engine Optimization. This complex process employs a variety of tactics to ensure the site appears on the first pages of the major search engines. When combined with dental website design and development, SEO is a sure-fire method of improving the volume and quality of traffic for a website.

A 2006 study by Jupiter Research corroborated what had already become common knowledge: “62 percent of search engine users click on a search result within the first page of results, and a full 90 percent of users click on a result within the first three pages of search results.”

The study also found 88 percent of surfers unable to find the desired information in the first three pages are more likely to change their search engine terms than to look through additional results pages.

Is it any wonder page ranking became a vital aspect of Internet dental marketing?
Burying “keywords” into a websites code and content is the primary key to optimization. Keywords are the words or phrases surfers use to find the information they seek.
Sinai Marketing CEO Ali Husayni offered an example of how this dental website marketing process can move a site to those highly desirable first pages.

“The cosmetic dentists at Smile South Florida came to us because they weren’t getting the desired traffic to their site,” said Husayni. “When we first began working in January with Dr. (Charles) Nottingham and his team, they appeared just twice on the first pages of Google and nine times on Yahoo!® for their 212 primary keywords. They were practically non-existent on MSN®.”

By implementing a variety of SEO techniques, including link building (creating inbound links to a website) and regularly updating site content, the Fort Collins, Colo.-based Sinai Marketing blew Smile South Florida’s competitors out of the water.

“By April, they were appearing on the first pages of Google for 208 of their 212 keywords,” said Husayni. “They were amazed to see such fast results.”

The numbers for Yahoo and MSN were equally impressive. For the same 212 keywords, Yahoo posted 176 and MSN posted 514 first-page appearances. (MSN indexes for duplicate appearances.)

First page placement proved just the ticket to attract pre-qualified, potential patients, saving Smile South Florida an enormous amount of time, energy and money.
“In my 30 years of dentistry, I have never seen so many new patient consultations,” said Dr. Nottingham.

SEO expert John Reese perhaps put it best: “The key to dominating any market online (now or in the future) is simple. It comes down to who has the highest average visitor value and who has the most traffic.”

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Source : newswiretoday.com