This is a video case study of Gomeyer.com. Gomeyer hired DataFlurry for Affordable Search Engine Optimization Marketing. This website already had great inbound links, however the design and navigation was poor.  After implementing changes traffic had grown substantially.  Please watch the video to learn more!

Below is a better picture of the statistics

When starting a search engine optimization marketing campaign, you must not make any of these fatal seo mistakes.

1. Not using Title, Description or Keywords tags on every page of your website you want to succeed.  Or another issue is that you should not have duplicate Title or Description tags on your website. Every page should have completely unique meta tags.
2. Linking with Javascript within navigation. Unfortunately, depending on the Javascript code this could prohibit your success in the search engines. Either pages won’t get indexed or else link relevance won’t be passed on to your sub pages.
3. Creating a website that has important content more than 2 clicks from the home page.  Make sure to link from your home page (if possible) to content that is developed to improve your search engine rankings.
4. Creating a website entirely in flash without learning about the negatives associated with this.
5. Not updating your website regularly. I believe a website should be updated at a minimum of 1 time per month.  Once a week is even better.
6. Using image navigation without any link navigation.  There are benefits to using text navigation with good anchor text.
7. Promoting your competition’s ranking by linking to them without anything in return.
8. Functional problems with your website. For example Invalid Links, invalid Images, Invalid Sitemaps, Etc.
9. Not using search engine friendly URL’s.
10. Changing popular pages URL’s without using the benefits of a 301 redirect. Learn more at BigOak
11. Not working on either link building or link bait to improve your website’s link popularity.
12. Not creating a blog! I love WordPress, it is designed great for SEO to help demolish competition in the search engines.
13. Not branding your website as unique so people are inclined to link to you.
14. Linking to website’s that use illegal or bad seo practices - This is an easy way to run the risk of getting banned in the search engines.
15. Targeting the wrong keywords – Make sure that you focus on keywords you have researched and know will perform. Also understand your competition – if you are in a highly competitive field, expect 6 months to a year of really hard work to grab top rankings.
16. Not using your keywords in your content. Make sure to use your keywords within your content; however don’t use them too often or else you can hurt your rankings by keyword spamming.
17. Creating content only for the search engines! You should create content that visitors will enjoy as well. Sites that succeed long term offer something unique to their visitors that helps to spark visitor’s curiosity which will help to gain quality links.
18. Aiming for the hardest to obtain keyword from the start of a SEO campaign.  I have seen many website owners trying to obtain top rankings under major terms such as “cars” or “insurance”, then realizing that it’s nearly impossible without a large Internet marketing budget or years of daily and relentless branding, link building and link baiting.
19. Planning to succeed instantly! I like to look at my websites from the perspective that they won’t succeed for a long period of time. Then I try to prove myself wrong. This helps to keep myself from being let down if results aren’t instant! 
20. Last mistake is simple, many website owners give up on their website after putting so much in to them.  Ross Perot said it right, “Most people give up just when they’re about to achieve success. They quit on the one yard line. They give up at the last minute of the game one foot from a winning touchdown.”

Google Images is an amazing way to grab extra traffic to your website. You may wonder how Google knows when to display image results and when they should not. It’s actually amazingly simple in all reality, however not many understand this topic.

I was building links the other day and requested a link from someone. They requested a link back (of course), within their reciprocal link exchange request they asked me to link to an image. After thinking about it, out of curiosity, I asked if this was to improve google image results.  The answer was yes!

This website managed to obtain top Google Image results for the term Logo Design.

When images appear in Google’s results, heavy placement depends on 2 major factors which fall in to normal SEO rules. 

• The image file name should be keyword rich. Picture1.jpg won’t perform as well as logo_design.jpg
• Include the keyword you are focusing on within an inbound link to your image.
• Place the image on your website, and surround it with keyword rich text, also add Alt text to the image specifying what it is.

So, let’s say you wanted a picture of your dog to appear under the Google search phrase “Dog Pictures” since it is searched 50,000 times per month in Google, and you really want your dog to be popular. You would simply snap a picture of your dog, then you should name your file something like dog_pictures.jpg – After creating this image, you need to obtain links to it from other relevant website’s. The more links the better!.  The link pointing to your image should include the anchor text Dog Pictures as well. So your link should look like this – Dog Pictures

If you decide to create links to your image using a thumbnail of your image, make sure that you use the ALT text “Dog Pictures” for the image attributes.

Hopefully this post has helped your ambitions for getting your puppy’s picture to the top. 

Joel McLaughlin

Phoenix SEO, Search Engine Optimization

Through my recent Internet travels on the Internet I found an interesting service provider that helps website owners get more traffic. A website was launched called LotusJump (seo software), this service creates unique tasks designed specifically around your keywords of focus to help build your link popularity and website referrals. The great thing about this website is that it’s affordable compared to hiring a search engine optimization specialist for assistance.

Being the owner of an Internet marketing company I am very skeptical when it comes to website’s that offer “Do It Yourself” SEO tools; however the quality research and development put in to LotusJump has caught me by surprise.

LotusJump is a website designed to provide website owners with specific tasks that need to be completed by the website owner. These tasks help the website owners link popularity with the search engines. LotusJump is very easy to use and provides everything you need to easily make a “lotus jump” forward in the search engines.

The idea is great, however it is the quality of the tasks that really impressed me.  Lotusjump walks you through a large number of SEO step’s in their database. These steps (aka tasks) help you to easily obtain links pointing to your website; these links come from other website’s with a large amount of online popularity and visibility. So the great benefit is that you will obtain links that build your search engine rankings; but something even more beneficial is that the links mostly come from popular sites that will (in my opinion) also improve website traffic from clicks and referrals. Everyone that knows me, understands that I love links that actually get clicks!

The tasks are compiled from a wide array of search engine optimization tactics. The links that LotusJump helps you to obtain will come from a variety of website’s, so you will obtain a well rounded link popularity. 

Some of the recommended tasks include:

• Writing & Submitting Articles
• Popular Directory / Search Engine Submission (some free and some paid)
• They will recommend you get involved in specific social networking sites

After using the program, I caught myself completing some tasks. I was surprised I never came across some of the great links that they recommend, and I have been doing this for quite some time.

The only downside I found is that LotusJump doesn’t offer much advice to improve your website optimization, however I am guessing this is something that is planned in to the development.  Make sure to verify that your on-site optimization is well developed if using LotusJump, this will help to get the most out of your website marketing campaign.

Overall, I think it is a great tool.  I can tell that they are regularly adding new tasks and it is still being improved on a regular basis, so I see LotusJump being a popular resource for webmasters on a budget in the near future.

Joel McLaughlin
Phoenix SEO, Search Engine Optimization

Hey Everyone, Google just published an excellent starter guide to help website owner understand how to create their website to be search engine friendly.

This is a quality article provided right from the search engine leader itself. I thought that Google produced an excellent breakdown of what SEO is and how it can benefit your website.  This is a well written, non biased guide that helps to give you a good understanding of what search engine optimization is and how to make your site adhere to basic SEO principles.

Click Here To view the SEO Guide

Joel McLaughlin

Phoenix SEO

There is so much hype out there about “to buy” or “not to buy” when it comes to buying links. Here are my 2 cents.

Lets first state this simple fact, Buying links can actually get you in trouble with the search engines.

You shouldn’t buy links from website’s that openly sell links and you should not buy links from link brokers.  Eventually the search engines will improve on their ability to detect these link purchases.  If you choose to buy links, this should only be a small part of your overall online marketing campaign.

On the flip side, it is amazing how many high quality links you can grab on high page rank sites by simply offering to toss the website owner $25 through paypal or if you want to take a more personable approach and offer them beer money. All jokes aside, try to be creative and only buy links from sites that don’t actively sell links.  Make sure the link is coming from a well rounded and established site without any links or sponsors sections on their main pages. So if you are buying links, make sure that your link isn’t grouped with a large number of other outbound links.

Google employee Matt Cutts has made an open statement that you should not buy links. You can see his video opinion below

Google is trying hard to provide quality search engine results, and Google does not want their search engine results altered.

Something I noticed that Google did in the somewhat recent past was de-valuing link directories.

Since some types of paid links come from directories full of numerous link pages; I believe Google determined that those pages should not hold much relevance, therefore we saw decreased trust on these directory pages.  Even Yahoo’s expensive directories lost a large amount of their Google Trust, or Page Rank.

In conclusion, be proactive about contacting webmasters that are not in the business of buying and selling links and attempt to create a relationship with the webmaster. Then ask if you can have or buy a link.

Some of the best links you could purchase would be by asking for a website to review your website, and then link to it. Or something of that nature, it’s common sense that the search engines could never manage to create their algorithm with that type of complexity.  Plus I love having reviews done about my company, because then I get one page dedicated to promoting my website and therefore you won’t get other junk links potentially de-valuing yours on that same page.

If that doesn’t work, go for a reciprocal link. I still believe in reciprocal links wholeheartedly from some in-house case studies we performed.

Joel McLaughlin
Phoenix Search Engine Optimization SEO

There are so many companies in the United States, and fortunately for the readers of this blog post; many don’t know the power of their online potential.

Below are the top 10 reasons your company needs SEO or Search Engine Optimization services.

Drum Roll Please…

Reason #1 : You can improve your overall branding of your company by getting your name spread throughout the web with quality articles and press releases as well as improved search engine rankings.

Reason #2 : You can create some of the most targeted leads for your company, since you can obtain top rankings under specific terms relating directly to your company and products (or services).

Reason #3 : Online Search Engine Optimization for companies is one of the most cost effective methods of marketing available to companies with websites.

Reason #4 : Open a new gateway of business that doesn’t have a monthly rental cost and has a long lasting intrinsic value.

Reason #5 : You can reach customers locally or nationally that would have never known about your services in the past.

Reason #6 : You are able to lower your overall marketing budget once your website starts obtaining quality traffic from SEO efforts.

Reason #7 : You can use information compiled over the years about your company to improve search engine rankings to your website, because content is key!

Reason #8 : Easily expand in to new industries and across the nation without a large investment.

Reason #9 : With an effective Search Engine Optimization agency, you can become one of the top resources found for your specialty.

Reason #10 : The sooner you start promoting your website online, the better your long term success will sustain the test of time, because the search engines value popular sites that are on the internet for an extended period of time.

There are a wide number of reasons that your company should invest in this service, however the biggest reason is simple; Online seo advertising is one of the most cost effective ways to improve business and branding without making a large investment. If you wanted to increase business and branding, nowhere else can you reach such a large targeted audience at such a low cost. Today, information can flow to the ends of the earth in milliseconds. Take in to consideration the other methods of marketing available, and then lets talk about them.

Billboards : You will spend thousands of dollars monthly, and can only reach “non targeted” audiences at a specific location.

Radio Ads : People can’t search through advertisements if they miss your commercial, and they wouldn’t want to any ways.

Television Ads : I don’t know about you, but I am not big on watching commercials unless it has to do with Geico or Bud Light. I want something when I want it, and I want to find it easily.

Magazine Publications : I personally love magazine advertisements, however there is only 1 google used by millions, and there are thousands of magazines viewed by few. Plus, I like results that stand the test of time and don’t die off after 1 glimpse or 1 month.

Plus, other search engines like Yahoo & MSN use similar ways of ranking your website, so your one time investment is a promotion made to an amazingly large audience; which is specifically anyone that uses the internet.

Hopefully this article has helped to put the reasons for using SEO Services in to perspective.

Joel McLaughlin
Arizona SEO & Internet Marketing Agency

I meet with a client yesterday, and realized that all too often I overlook that fact that many customers don’t have an understanding of the basic principles needed to gain traffic improvements online. Being in the industry I am numb to the fact that most people don’t understand my services too well; this is because they specialize in their own industry. So, with that said – I want to give several basic tips below that can make a noticeable improvement to your website traffic and online visibility.

First and foremost

I am going to focus on “on site” optimization. On site optimization is the fine tuning of your current website to improve your rankings and conversions.

One of the biggest factors in search engine optimization is keeping everything on your website unique. Each page should have several paragraphs of unique content that isn’t placed anywhere else on your website.  This will tell the search engines that the optimized page is worth giving credibility and ranking to.

Next, you must learn about Meta and Title tags.

Meta tags are HTML coding that contain two major elements in telling the search engines about your website. These can dramatically help in your search engine rankings. These are not visible when browsing a website, however they play a major role in your online performance. Your Meta tag includes the following tags:

Description Tag – This should be a keyword rich synopsis of the page that you are optimizing. This should be around 2 sentences long, be catchy and also be keyword rich.  A great example of a home page title for a back doctor living in Los Angeles California’s would be something like this.

Los Angeles California back doctor & spine specialist Thomas Bradley helps you improve your back injury symptoms and reduce back pain using proven tactics, helping your spine and muscles recover.  With decades of back treatment experience, Doctor Bradley is an excellent choice!

We focused on many key words in the description tag, which includes ones you probably didn’t even notice. They are listed below:

Back, Spine, Doctor, Muscle, Treatment, specialist, injury, and more keywords were focused on local Los Angeles California internet surfers. It is also interesting and motivational. Because your description tag often times shows up in search engine results.

Keywords Tag – Your keywords tag should be simple and should not be more than 25 words (in my opinion). Don’t repeat certain terms often, just make sure major words are included. Excellent keywords for a back doctor would be:

Los Angeles, California, Back, Spine, Doctor, Specialist, Injury, Muscles, Symptoms, Treatment, Thomas Bradley

If you notice above we addressed all major terms and didn’t try to duplicate key words.

Next we are going to focus on the Title Tag. The title tag is one of the most important elements to your website search engine optimization. You must ensure that you keep it under 11 words (in my professional opinion) and make sure it’s intriguing and keyword rich. Another example based on the back doctor’s website would be:

Back Doctor Thomas Bradley | Los Angeles California | Spine Specialist | Muscle Injury Treatment

You can use a variety of separators within your title, or you don’t need to use them at all. It won’t make a difference as far as I have seen.

Just make sure that each page on your website has unique title and meta tags.

Now I want to talk about page content

Your pages content should be unique and keyword rich. However you don’t want to over use keywords. As long as you put your major key terms 2-4 times on each page you should be fine. You can also determine the keyword density of your top competition by viewing their web sites and then viewing the total number of words on the page.

I also want to talk about URL’s and Domain Names

If you are starting a website right now, and you are a california back doctor, its recommended to include one or more of your main keywords in your domain name (or website address) that you purchase.

If you already have a website, then I would recommend you create new sub pages focused on providing useful content for your visitors based around your keywords of focus. For example let’s say you’re domain name is www.thomasbradleymd.com and you are trying to improve rankings under California Spine Specialist.  You should create a page with a URL similar to the one shown below:

www.thomasbradleymd.com/california_spine_specialist.html

The search engines value sites that are keyword rich in Page Content, URL’s, Title Tags and Meta Tags.

Lastly, lets talk about links

Websites without links from websites similar in nature will not be valued by the search engines as relevant and “top ranking worthy”. So you need to implement a link building campaign to improve your websites “link popularity”. This can be done by creating articles, asking for links and also by creating content that people are excited to link to.  I also recommend creating a blog and adding to it regularly.

Hopefully this article has helped, and if you follow it closely you should notice some favorable results.

We are talented Internet marketing consultants eager to help your company. Thank you for visiting our website, make sure to bookmark it for future advice.

Joel McLaughlin

Phoenix Internet Marketing & Affordable SEO Search Engine Optimization

I stumbled past this information on BigOak’s site and found it was originally inspired from Loren Baker at Search Engine Journal.  After reading this article I wanted to share it with my readers, because I knew it would be extremely useful in helping you improve their blog popularity.  So here goes!

In order to improve any pages popularity in the search engines you must get links directly to it. The more links and higher quality referring links will dramatically improve link popularity.  Therefore, your blog will do a lot better in the search engines if you have some great links to it. These 20 blog directories listed below will help you gain traffic to your website easily and quickly.

Some directories require payment, you must determine whether it is worth it to you.  Also before obtaining a link find out what page would be best to have placement on. Certain directory pages on the following sites have more trust and popularity than others according to google’s page rank.

Hope this helped.

Joel McLaughlin

DataFlurry Phoenix Internet Marketing & Advertising Agency

Like my clients (and myself), most website owners want to grab top search engine rankings. To do this you need to do two things.

1. You must optimize your site properly for specific keywords.

2. You must obtain links to your website from other relevant and popular web sites.

Why not find out who is linking to your competition?  If you can find your competitions links easily, that would help right! Then all you will need to do is determine how to get a link on the same page for yourself!

One tool that I personally love and use regularly is the Linkhounds BackLink Finder. This helps you to find quality links and provides a wealth of information about the links as well.

Another great tool to find your competitions links is SEO Spyglass. They offer a great tool to find links easily, and once you find all the links for your competition you can arrange them by website popularity.

You can also search Yahoo to find competitions links rather easily. Use the following search query in their engine:

links:dataflurry.com

Don’t include the www. because some inbound links may have been only pointing to the partially qualified domain name dataflurry.com vs the fully qualified domain name www.dataflurry.com

Due to the fact that link popularity is now considered a top factor in handing out top rankings, you must find out what links are really succeeding online.  Make sure you always use good anchor text in your links. 

Joel McLaughlin

DataFlurry Phoenix Marketing