Big Oak SEO Blog

Images Provide SEO Traffic - SEO Tip Week 45

Any good SEO campaign will put the emphasis on ranking your site for the content of the site. But overlooking the images on the site can be a big mistake especially if your site is selling products which naturally use imagery as part of the sales pitch. So why not use those image to draw visitors through organic image search?

Your first step should be to set up a Google Account where you can use Webmaster Tools. Inside the Webmaster tools you will find an option under Tools named “Enable enhanced image search”. When this option is enabled Google will start cataloging your images for placement in the search engine results for images which can increase your traffic, especially if you can show in the search results that show images above the organic search results. (See example of Google search with images above organic results for the search term ‘oak tree’)

After you have instructed Google to look for your images, you want to be sure your images are telling Google and the other search engines exactly what they are about. How do you do this? Here are some things to pay attention to and think about when using images. I’ve listed them in order of “my importance”.

1. Image Size Does Matter - Larger images tend to rank better. Most image results that show in the top three I have done test searches on have been over 280 pixels in both directions. Bigger images make sense to show first, all other things being equal. I would shoot for 300 x 300 to be safe.
2. Image Close to Relevant Text - Keyword above or below the image in the same DIV -or- keyword in the same paragraph as the image, close to the image. Keyword should be in the same <td> (table cell) as the image.
3. Page Title & Page Theme - The title, content and image should all be connected.
4. File Name - It can be difficult to add the name of the image to the file name, especially if the shopping cart software doesn’t allow it, but when you can, be descriptive.
5. Alt Tags - Alt tags are designed to provide alternative text when the images cannot be displayed. They should be descriptive of the image. Example: <img src=”oak-tree.jpg” width=”200″ height=”350″ alt=”Oak Tree”>
6. Image Title Tags - This text shows up when you rollover the image in a popup. They should also describe image. Example: <img src=”oak-tree.jpg” width=”200″ height=”350″ alt=”Oak Tree” title=”Oak Tree”>
7. Image Sitemap - Okay, this is an idea which may or may not be of any help, but it certainly can’t hurt and if you feel your images are important enough to help your rankings then creating a sitemap with descriptive links to your important images might be the extra boost to get your images to the top of the search engine results.

Alt/Title for images have been spammed too much (like Meta tags) so I don’t think they play much of a factor at all anymore in images search.Please share any successes you may have had with image search or ideas you have tried. I’m especially interested in anyone who has tried an image sitemap or what you think of this idea.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Posted in 52 SEO Tips, SEO Tools, Search Engine Optimization | 3 Comments »

What if Google had to design their interface for Google?

This is the height of hilarity. It just goes to show the underlying hypocrisy of Google. Google can play the holy-than-thou card due to their popularity, but what they want from other sites would certainly change the look of their site if they followed their own advice.

Take a look at what Google would look like if they had to design their site based on their recommendations. See the Google madness.

Well done by the folks over at MeanGene.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Posted in Google, SEO Mistakes | 7 Comments »

Unique Product Descriptions - SEO Tip Week 40

This is a niche SEO tip, but if you fall into the category of those who resell products and are going against many other competitors selling the same item you will find this extremely valuable. If the manufacturer supplies you with the product description then it is likely that many of your competitors are using that same description which means you may be devaluing your product page because the search engines see your product page as duplicate content. Or your page might not even show up as Google would consider your site duplicated material not relevant enough to make the cut due to lack of popularity when compared against other sites showing the same results.

Here is a perfect example of how duplicate content can hurt your site rankings and your traffic. I picked a random child’s toy: Turbo Twist Math by Leap Frog. I did a search using the manufacturer’s initial text in the product description (”Be a Math Whiz with Turbo Twist Math”) and here are my Google search results. If you visit the link you will see only one result with the following text underneath:

“In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the 1 already displayed.
If you like, you can repeat the search with the omitted results included.”

Google is telling you that this description is used so often that they are only showing you one result. You must expand the list to see other results which is still only 6 which could mean they are not even including the dozens or hundreds of other similar listings in the results. This is an extreme case since I’ve searched for a specific phrase, but the theory still applies: Duplicate content will hurt your rankings.

You will have a much better chance of showing in the search results if you add your own unique information about the product you are selling or the service you are providing. This is good for SEO but also for better converting potential customers. Feel free to interject your own opinions or thoughts on why the product is useful and include information your visitors might be wary to know. Anything you can write of add to distinguish your product information from other sites will help.

Being different is better.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Posted in 52 SEO Tips, SEO Copywriting, Website Conversion | 2 Comments »

How Google Determines Paid Links

Popularity: 3% [?]

Posted in Google, Out on a Limb, SEO Mistakes | 1 Comment »

Google Alerts for Link Building - SEO Tip Week 39

As a senior member of a successful SEO company I’m always on the lookout for ways to make my job easier. Usually my job consist of defining an SEO strategy that will help our clients achieve high rankings in the search engines. High Rankings are supported by high-quality links, so how do we find high-quality links without doing a lot of work?

Hello, Google Alerts.

Google Alerts is a nifty tool that will monitor Google results with predefined search terms and then email you those results. They will send the email to you once a day, as it happens or once a week. You can insert any topic or query that you wish to keep tabs on.

For example, you can type in a competitor’s business name and/or his web address as an search term alert. Every time Google finds the search term they will send an email detailing where it was found in an email. It is like having a paid researcher always on call for free.

How best to use this for SEO you ask? Easy, here are just a few ideas. Let’s assume you have written an article or press release. You submit it through your normal channels but then you set up Google Alerts to notify you everytime it finds the exact title of your article. Be sure to put the search term in quotes so it looks for an exact match (”My Article Title”). Now you can track in real-time where you article gets picked up and then contact any of the sites that have placed your article or press release and contact them directly about a partnership. Maybe the next article you write can be given more prominence on their site or you can provide the webmaster original content with embedded links to your site.

Or you can track competitors by their name and URL find websites where that information has been posted and follow the same strategy by offering original content of your own. If you find a blog that has posted about you or your industry maybe you can become a contributor.

You can track a product name or service you want to sell or any word or phrase that will help you market your site to the search engines. And since Google is providing the information, you have a good shot at Google finding your link the next time they visit the site you have partnered with.

As with most SEO strategies you need to be creative with this idea and strike while the iron is hot. Constant alerts can keep you motivated and attentive to the market within your industry as well helping you keep a vigilant eye on your competition.

Has anyone employed this strategy for link building? I’d love to hear success stories.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Posted in 52 SEO Tips, Google, Link Building, SEO Strategies | 5 Comments »

DMOZ Directory not in Google’s Cache

Could this be the beginning of the end for the venerable DMOZ directory? (Dmoz homepage Google cache) Google does not have the home page of DMOZ cached and with Google’s recent devaluation of directories, who knows what this means. Of course this could be a momentary blip, but still you have to wonder if Google, like most webmasters, has had it with DMOZ. Frankly, I have.
Screenshot is attached in case this get “fixed”. Click for larger image.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Posted in Google | No Comments »

Google Interview Questions

We are currently looking to hire an SEO Specialist and so I have been creating interview questions and researching what other companies ask their potential employees.

In doing so I came across these sample interview questions asked by Google. After reading them I know I don’t want to work for Google and probably couldn’t get passed the first round, for that matter. Here are some of the quirkier, less technical quesitions, for your amusement.

1. You are shrunk to the height of a nickel and your mass is proportionally reduced so as to maintain your original density. You are then thrown into an empty glass blender. The blades will start moving in 60 seconds. What do you do?”
2. Explain a database in three sentences to your eight-year-old nephew.
3. How many gas stations would you say there are in the United States?
4. You have a sheet cake. There is a rectangular piece missing from the inside of the sheet cake. The location of the missing piece is arbitrary. I was told I could assume I had the means to make the cuts. How do you divide the sheet cake into 2 even proportions with 2 cuts?
5. It’s 2PM on a sunny Sunday afternoon in the Bay Area. You’re minutes from the Pacific Ocean, redwood forest hiking trails and world class cultural attractions. What do you do?
6. What will be the next great improvement in search technology?
7. Why are manhole covers round?
8. A man pushed his car to a hotel and lost his fortune. What happened?
9. Explain the significance of “dead beef”.
10. You are at a party with a friend and 10 people are present including you and the friend. Your friend makes you a wager that for every person you find that has the same birthday as you, you get $1; for every person he finds that does not have the same birthday as you, he gets $2. Would you accept the wager?”

So if you have any answers, post them in our comments section. I would love to know the next great improvement in search technology.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Posted in Google, Out on a Limb | 2 Comments »

When to Use a 301 vs. 302 Redirect - SEO Tip Week 35

There are two types of redirects you can use, a 301 and a 302. These numbers refer to the HTTP Status Code returned by the server for a given URL. A 301 redirect tells the search engine that the page has moved permanently to the new URL. A 302 redirect tells the search engine that the move is only temporary, and you may decide to show content at the original location in the future without a redirect.

301 Redirects
All three major search engines handle 301 redirects the same, that is to say they ignore the original URL and instead index the destination URL. For example, www.beekerfurniture.com uses a 301 redirect to www.hendersonsfurniture.com and Google, MSN and Yahoo all return the result www.hendersonsfurniture.com when searching for “beeker furniture”. The word beeker doesn’t appear anywhere on the hendersonsfurniture.com site, and a site search in Google shows that only the home page has any relevance for the word. Clicking on the Cached link in the site search results further shows that the word only exists in links pointing to the site, “These terms only appear in links pointing to this page: beeker.” Those links Google is referring to are actually pointing to www.beekerfurniture.com and the 301 redirect is passing along the relevance of the word beeker to hendersonsfurniture.com.

301 redirects can be very powerful when you redesign your site and the URLs change, move to a different domain, acquire a new domain, or implement a URL rewrite. In most cases, this is the type of redirect you want to use because you know exactly how the search engines will respond.

302 Redirects
The three major engines handle 302 redirects very differently, and because of this 302s are typically not recommended.

Google treats 302 redirects differently depending if they are on-domain or off-domain. An example of an on-domain redirect is athletics.mlb.com which uses a 302 redirect to http://oakland.athletics.mlb.com/index.jsp?c_id=oak. If you search for “oakland a’s” in Google you will see that athletics.mlb.com is displayed in the results because links point to that URL, which in turn uses a 302 redirect to the destination page. This is a great example where 302 redirects can be used effectively, since the shorter URL looks much more enticing in the results pages.

Off-domain 302 redirects would be ripe for hijacking situations if treated the same way. Because of this, in most cases, Google will treat off-domain 302 redirects like 301s, where they will ignore the original URL and instead index the destination URL. I say most cases because Google will sometimes determine that the 302 is legitimate & index the original URL instead. An example of an off-domain redirect is pets.roanoke.com which uses a 302 redirect to a third-party site http://www.gadzoo.com/roanoke/pets.aspx. In this case, Google determined that this was a legitimate use of a 302 redirect and displays pets.roanoke.com when searching for “pets roanoke”.

MSN treats 302 redirects exactly how it treats 301 redirects, it will always ignore the original URL and instead index the destination URL. A search for “oakland a’s” in MSN shows the URL oakland.athletics.mlb.com/index.jsp?c_id=oak in its results. And a search for “pets roanoke” shows www.gadzoo.com/roanoke/pets.aspx in its results.

Yahoo takes the same stance that MSN takes, except that they reserve the right to make exceptions in handling redirects. A search for “oakland a’s” in Yahoo shows the URL www.oaklandathletics.com in its results. (www.oaklandathletics.com also uses a 302 redirect to http://oakland.athletics.mlb.com/index.jsp?c_id=oak) But a search for “pets roanoke” shows www.gadzoo.com/roanoke/pets.aspx in its results.

There are very few times where you actually want a 302 redirect, although they are used more often than 301s merely because most people don’t know the difference. 302 redirects are often the default redirect in website control panels, and JavaScript or Meta redirects will produce a 302 status as well. In certain situations however, 302 redirects work wonders.

As with all our tips, please use them responsibly. When in doubt, use a 301 redirct.

Popularity: 14% [?]

Posted in 52 SEO Tips, Google, Live Search (MSN), SEO Strategies, Search Engine Optimization, Search Engines, Yahoo Search | 4 Comments »

Reviews Can Improve Your Local Search Rankings - SEO Tip Week 34

A search engine optimization company can sometimes forget about the little guy. Sometimes working for web sites who need search results for terms that have national competition can overwhelm you and blind you to the company who is competing for search terms in a local geographic area. I wrote a post on improving local search results a few weeks ago and in doing so discovered a new tip: Add Reviews. Or better yet ask your customers to add reviews.

For example I have done a search for Home Improvement in Richmond, Virginia. Click on the screenshot to the right and you can see the #1 search result is a client of ours, Creative Energy. You can also see they have 2 reviews listed. Local reviews can help boost your search engine rankings and if they are positive reviews they can boost your sales. imagine if you were looking at the results listed, wouldn’t you read the reviews? If they were positive you might visit their site or give them call. Every advantage helps.

So how do you add reviews? Visit Google Maps and do a search for you business by name and your city and state. When you find your business click the more information link. (Or you may see a review link to click from here, it depends on your search results). From there you will see a link to write a review. You can provide this link to customers and if they have a Google account, as many people do, they can add a review. You can also add reviews through other sites, Google will find them, such as Yelp and your local CitySearch.com, but they customers will need accounts to use these as well.

So am I telling you to manufacture or make up reviews? No, of course not. But if you have clients who have given you a written letter or verbal review it might be worth it to ask them to post a review online. Give them a coupon for future work or send them a gift of Virginia peanuts. Don’t think of it as bribery, think of it as good customer relations.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Posted in 52 SEO Tips, SEO Strategies, SEO Tools, Website Conversion | 7 Comments »

Google Supplemental Index Label Disappears

Google representatives posted this on August 1st, “Given all the progress that we’ve been able to make so far, and thinking ahead to future improvements, we’ve decided to stop labeling these URLs as “Supplemental Results.”"

Well, this isn’t good news. Google announced that the supplemental index label is being removed. Google claims, “The distinction between the main and the supplemental index is therefore continuing to narrow,” but I’m still skeptical. This now means we won’t know which pages need help and which pages are doing well. We use the supplemental label to help us see which pages need more attention as well as to see if a page can provide a quality link.

The bottom line is this, the supplemental index will still be there, we just won’t know which pages are in and which pages out. Seems to me Google is providing less information and trying to keep SEO companies and site owners in the dark.

Supplemental Results are pages residing in Google’s supplemental index, a secondary database containing pages of less importance, as measured primarily by Google’s algorithm.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Posted in Google | No Comments »

How to Improve Local Search Results - SEO Tip Week 31

In SEO, local search should never be overlooked. It can provide a boost in traffic has a higher tendency to convert more visitors to customers since most people prefer working with local companies, even SEO companies.

Here are some factors that Big Oak SEO feels are important and should be considered when trying to get higher rankings for your site, whether or not you are marketing to a national or local market. I have tried to list them in order of importance but it really depends how important local traffic is to your site.

Location in the Title of your Pages
Including your city and state, especially if you are counting on local customers is imperative. Don’t overdue it, but be sure to include it. I talk about this in detail on my SEO Titles: Using the Title Tag post.

Link Building with City and State Keywords
When building links to your site, include some with local terms like we do in this example: Richmond Virginia Search Engine Optimization Company. You get the idea.

Tell the Search Engines Where You Work
The physical location of your site should be on the footer of every page. If you work from home, get a P.O. box and list that address. It is important for the city, state and zip code be on every page.

Submit Your Site to Google’s Local Business Center
You can’t get found in a search unless Google knows where you are. Submit your business to Google’s Local Business Center even if you don’t have a website…yet.

Keep Your Contact Page Connected
Your physical address should be at the top of the contact page, above your contact form. At the very least it should be easy to find and accurate.

Link to your address on the Google Maps and Yahoo Maps. For example, go to Google Maps and then do a search for you physical address. After finding your location you will see a “Link to this page” link. Click that and then copy and paste that link on your contact page.

Adding written driving directions will allow for many local keywords to be included so having this in addition to a link to maps.google.com is a good idea.

List Coverage Area
Big Oak SEO is located in Glen Allen, Virginia, but very few people have heard of or search for Glen Allen. We are in the Richmond, Virginia area so we use Richmond in our footer and mention it on our company page as well as other local locations. Try to include the metropolitan areas on your site if that is what people will be searching for.

Add Listings in Yellow Pages, Superpages & Similar Sites
While I don’t often feel the cost is warranted for phone book sites, if you can get a free listing or a discount because you are already paying for a printed listing it can help to have a link pointing to your site from the online listing.

Provide a Local Phone number on Every Page
It is a no-brainer to have your 800 present at the top of every page, but be sure to list your local number in the footer as well. Don’t forget to include the area code.

List your Site in Directories for Local businesses
Sites like Yelp.com and Citysearch.com are good places for local businesses. They can also provide real traffic and not just higher rankings. I’m looking more into Yelp and hope to write a post about them soon.

Get your site or business reviewed
I think this is undervalued in importance, but getting a few reviews from a site like CitySearch and Yelp is a good thing for search engine rankings. Submit your site and ask friends to review for you. Of course this isn’t applicable to all businesses, but it should be part of the marketing plan if you count on local consumers.

Google Coupons
This isn’t new but not many people are using it. Google coupons was announced in August 2006. It may help your ranking, but it can’t hurt, especially if you have actual cost savings to offer over your competition.

Do you have any ideas or have any advice that has worked for you concerning local search. If so, send us an email or submit a comment to this post. We are always looking for new ideas to share.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Posted in 52 SEO Tips, Google, Website Conversion, Yahoo Search | 4 Comments »