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Archive for the ‘Search Engine Optimization’ Category

Join our team

Monday, June 21st, 2010

Web design careersWe’re looking for talented people to join our team.

We offer a friendly environment providing competitive compensation and the opportunity showcase your skills in a rapidly growing, stable organization. Applicants must excel in managing daily productions schedules and deadlines as well as possess exceptional creative skills and technical knowledge.

Here are a few open positions:

  • Contract LAMP Developer
    If you are a master at PHP and MySQL, you’ll want to check out this contract position.
  • Account Executive
    If you’re skilled at selling websites and search engine optimization packages, this full-time position offers great benefits and commissions.
  • Contract Graphic Designer
    Are your design skills head and shoulders above the rest?  We’re looking for a talented freelance graphic designer.

Be sure to bookmark our website’s careers page for the latest positions.

Posted in Company News, Search Engine Optimization, Web Design | No Comments »

What you need to know about WordPress and Google

Wednesday, May 26th, 2010

We stumbled across this video presentation made by Matt Cutts, Google’s Anti-Web Spam Guru, at last year’s WordCamp San Francisco. There are some really helpful tips on the video we would like to share. The video shows many, many ways that WordPress can increase your website’s overall search engine optimization.

A few quotes directly from Google’s Matt Cutts:

“WordPress is a fantastic piece of software.”

“WordPress automatically solves a ton of SEO issues.”

“WordPress takes care of 80-90% of the mechanics of Search Engine Optimization.”

Tips for making the most out of WordPress

Now that you’ve watched the entire presentation, you now know how you can extend the power of WordPress to attain your search engine goals. Update and post often with quality, relevant content to your audience. Choose a niche and stick with it and most importantly — simply love what you write.

Gain a reputation

  • Provide useful information
  • Do original research and reporting
  • Give great information and tips that can’t be found elsewhere
  • Find a creative niche
  • Live blog an event
  • Make List (“5 Best Widgets That Will Save Your Life”)
  • Create Controversy
  • Connect with People via Twitter, Facebook

Essential Plugins

  • Fight Comment Spam – WordPress has built in Akismet (requires a WordPress.com API Key) or Cookies for Comments which gives real users a cookie before allowing comments.
  • Solid Redirects – Force either www. or non-www via WP htaccess Control

Power Tips:

Enable descriptive postname permalinks:
http://www.example.com/?p=123 vs. http://www.example.com/engaging-post-about-wordpress/

Use keywords in url: example.com/my-keywords/

  • Dashes are best
  • Next best is underscore
  • No spaces is worst

The default “postname” permalink will use your page or post title. Change tenses of certain words in your permalink to compensate for other possible search queries or keywords.

Use Descriptive categories – “Search Engine Optimization” is better than “Cool News”

Utilize Heading Tags – Divide your text into sections and focus on keywords.

Show related posts – Engages users to continue to browse some of your similar content.

Use Google Analytics – Update your top posts often and consider writing similar posts.

Use Google Webmaster Tools – Check for strong incoming links and reduce possible 404s (Page Not Found) errors.

Finally, keep your WordPress installation up-to-date. This will patch security holes and both reduce spam and potential hacks.

Posted in Google, Search Engine Optimization, WordPress | 1 Comment »

5 Things About Search Engine Optimization

Friday, February 19th, 2010

How can you improve your website’s search engine rankings, entice customers and increase traffic to your Web pages? There are several search engine optimization (SEO) techniques that are effective in encouraging visibility, traffic and conversion. Be sure to select a firm that tests multiple scenarios, monitors customer usage, provides maintenance and customizes SEO tactics so they are appropriate for your target market to avoid the common pitfalls of professional optimization. Consider these SEO strategies and techniques, and let them be key determinants in choosing the best search engine optimization firm for you.

  1. Link Building
    SEO providers should offer comprehensive link building options. From link bait recommendations to draw Web users to your site’s current, comprehensive and unique content to link strategy recommendations and more, an efficient search engine optimizer succeeds in increasing link traffic to your Web page.
  2. Testing and Monitoring
    A large part of strong SEO depends on testing and monitoring – investigating one tactic’s success over another’s to create the most impacting optimization for you. Select an optimizer that provides monitoring of Google Webmaster Tools, tracking through Google Analytics, usability testing and quarterly reporting.
  3. Maintenance
    Dated content isn’t optimized content. Be sure your SEO includes current setups, site updates and recommendations and monthly on-page optimization – title tags, meta tags, and image attributes.
  4. Rich and Relevant Content
    It’s imperative that your website content be rich, up-to-date and relevant to the audience you’re attempting to attract. Content recommendations, maintained business blogs, keyword-rich text and social media recommendations are all helpful tools in ensuring your website is significant and meaningful.
  5. Promises, Promises
    With everyone competing to be the biggest and best, be wary of optimizers that offer or boast the following: guaranteed #1 placement for your website on search engines, unclear explanations as to what they provide and where your money goes, shadow domains, doorway pages and traffic generation from fake engines or spyware.

Posted in Search Engine Optimization, Social Media | No Comments »

Is SEO Emotional?

Monday, April 6th, 2009

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Basic search engine optimization (SEO) tactics get you noticed. If you present quality content with the right number of keywords, people find you. But will they take action? Profits aren’t about traffic, you need visitors to make a commitment. Much like personal relationships, emotions are involved to create productive business connections.

Recently we discussed the “personality” of your website and custom blog. As a webpreneur, you need to reach out your target market and speak their language. Visitors should understand and relate to what you say. If you’re unclear, visitors simply move on to another website.

While we know personality gets you noticed, it still may not convert visitors into profitable clients. Using the right keywords gets you recognized by the search engines. The mechanical aspect of SEO means using enough keywords to boost your ranking.  On the other hand, keyword stuffing  lowers your rankings and makes your content difficult to read.  If people can’t read what you’re saying, they won’t stay.

We can see effective SEO involves more than personality, numbers and search engine rankings. You need to appeal to human beings with everyday emotions and desires. Strong headlines and quality copy offers actual value to your visitors. Know what they want and offer potential solutions. This is this the real stuff that converts website visitors into making a commitment.

Basically, people are searching for answers, entertainment or help. Your business is to fulfill these needs in some way. Make visitors feel comfortable right away with an eye-catching, user-friendly website design. Update your website content and blog often.  Original content boosts your credibility and gives visitors a reason to return.

Ultimately your website content should call visitors to take action. When you get “into their heads” and appeal to their emotions, you’re halfway there. Be short and sweet and give them something worthwhile. Avoid going overboard with boring information and get right to the issues. Use leading statements, links and images to call visitors to take action. When visitors take action, your website design is profitable.

If your website isn’t converting visitors into sales, take it to the experts for help. Are you appealing to your visitors? Is your content valuable? Let the professionals at Southern Web Group do a website design review so you can maximize its potential.

Posted in General, Search Engine Optimization | No Comments »

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