Not Just for Development
Page speed has been talked about for years, but it has normally been a web building issue, not an SEO issue. However, with faster internet and the importance of speed becoming more and more important, there is no excuse for having a page that loads slowly. If your website cannot load faster than an otherwise equivalent site, then you have potentially lost a reader. Moving on to the next information source is a simple click away.

The things that keep most websites from loading quickly are the common eye-candy elements. This includes improperly-scaled images, videos, JavaScript, and other elements that can slow load speeds. That is not to say that a few eye-candy pieces are not important, but they should not be the main focus of a search-conscious website.

How It Plays into Rank
Search engines consider countless elements before deciding which website should go on top. Google has announced that one of these elements is page speed. Not coincidentally, speeding up a website’s load time by eliminating excess code has collateral SEO effects. High speed internet SEO can be your way of bumping up the SERPs with only a few changes to your website. Removing unnecessary elements that do not add much value to your page will keep your website from loading slowly. Site builders often leave a website’s code riddled with excess text that can otherwise be taken out.

First Mover Advantage
Speed isn’t just important for ensuring that readers stay on your website. For time-sensitive websites, speed can be the number one factor in determining success. Those sites focused around news and recent events thrive on getting information to the public first, and speed is everything for them. More and more users have access to high speed internet, and they immediately turn to the web when they want to learn more about recent occurrences. Whether a site loads quickly determines if people can read the information they seek and if they will stay long enough to read the content.

Quick action also determines how quickly the page circulates through social networks. With a speedy website and fast internet, you can be the first to report on a story. This not only gives you the upper hand in rankings, but first movers tend to get the most social network love. For a news site, this is exceedingly important, especially since they live off this hype.

Announcing New Products
High speed internet has made communicating globally absolutely seamless. Over a billion users take advantage of this on social media networks. This creates a great platform for website and business owners to promote newly-released products. Gaining exposure through these mediums drives traffic to your site and gives you the appearance of authority among websites in the same niche.

A quick internet connection and a website optimized for speed do not just help you and your readers, but it helps your website survive the deadly search engine game. You can’t afford to let any chance or opportunity slip away, especially if you are in a competitive niche where any advantage can help you win.

Blake Sanders is a tech writer at broadband comparison site Broadband Expert. Blake specializes in providing industry news and information on high speed internet providers, cell phones, and wireless internet.

Note: Photo courtesy of davenportdesign via FlickR Creative Commons.

For those of us who practice the art of creating and maintaining good sites, we had nothing to worry about.  Google has made some great changes to reward good content and web development.  I have always preached that developing appropriate content is the way to a “natural reward”.  If the content is good and provides a service or information for your visitors, you are contributing to the “greater good” of the web and Google will reward you for this. So the first “do” on the list is to CREATE GOOD CONTENT.

The 2nd “do” involves web structure.  As a web developer and programmer, I cannot emphasize enough the importance of smart web design and development.  My motto is, “You gotta keep them separated!”  What I mean by this is you must use CSS to house your design elements and use HTML for site structure and content.  If you keep the design elements out of the page, the bots that scan your pages will see what your visitors see and be able to get to the heart of the content.  Also, I think you should include appropriate meta tags in your header.  Some experts say you don’t need title and keyword meta tags anymore, but I disagree.  They may not help your rankings on Google but they do help categorize your content and some search engines still use the information.  It’s a nice touch to a site and shows that you thought about what the page’s purpose is and what is about. So “do” number two is GOOD WEB DESIGN!

The 3rd thing that will help your Google rank is FRESH CONTENT.  I think this is the hardest thing for most people to do because it takes the most time and energy.  Fresh content usually means blogging which means RSS feeds (or some other feed) which means social media and bookmarking sites will pick up your content and your link building will gain momentum.  Most people trying to get to the top of Google know that lots of links to their site usually means lots of love.  But it’s not just the number of links to your site that’s important, it’s type of link.  You want good quality links from sites that host similar content as you do.  Quality content and blog material will help you get to this point.

Regardless of what Google does with its algorithm, you will always make progress and work your way to the top if you implement these three simple but effective strategies:

1) Good and appropriate content

2) Good web design

3) Fresh content

So with that said, I say to you, please keep up your blog if you want to keep your customers interested.

Now, hopefully I will have more content up before three weeks go by again!

The SEO specific site is something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time.  I have a wonderful repository of facts, opinions, ideas, and websites which I have been wanting to share for a while.

I’m also hoping to conduct some interviews of existing small to medium sized SEO companies to share strategies and thoughts about today’s SEO.  If you’d like to be considered for a possible interview, you can email me at contactus@epoff.com with the subject line: SEO Interview.  In a sentence or two tell me where you conduct business, an example or two of what you are doing to establish SEO best practices, and anything else you would like to share and why you think you should be interviewed.  I will try to respond to all requests but may not conduct the actual interviews for a while.

Cheers for now!

1)      Clear mission:  This sounds like business-talk and it is.  Most good business people will tell you that you must have a clear mission and set of goals before you embark on a successful business.  Why should a website be any different?  Before starting a website, ask yourself, “What is it that I’m trying to accomplish?”  If the answer is “Make Money” you need to start over.  All businesses want to make money.  You must dig deeper and determine how you will make money.  What is going to drive people to your site and why?  What will keep people coming back to your site?  If your main mission is to make money, you will fail because even if you get people to your site, you won’t keep them and they won’t come back.  They’ll see through your tactics.  You have to offer something of value.  For example, say you found an affiliate that pays you 70% for all referrals.  Sounds great, right?  You sign up and start selling the product.  Have you tried the product?  Have you researched and made sure it doesn’t turn people’s urine purple?  Seriously, you need to be the expert on that product.  Obviously with 70% return, you’ll have a lot of competition and you have to stand out from the crowd.  You become the expert and people will come to you.  Your mission here is to become the expert on said affiliate product.  The result will probably be that you will “make money”.

2)      Market that Puppy:  Blog, Tweet and By All Means Tell People You Are Out There!:  One of my favorite lines is from Field of Dreams where they say over and over, “If you build it they will come!”  Well, if we all had an all-star ghost baseball team lined up ready to play for us that might be true, but for those of us trying to make our way ahead of millions of other sites, it’s going to take a little more work.  You must let people know that you are there.  Some of the easiest ways to do that is by social marketing yourself.  Signing up for twitter probably takes 90 seconds and that’s while you’re getting yourself another cup of coffee.  Seriously, sign up, write a profile, and add a link to your page.  Find some friends.  If you start following people and you are a legitimate person or business, chances are they will follow you too.  If you start tweeting about things that make sense, are important to people and are interesting, more people will following you, you’ll get retweeted and things will actually start to roll in your favor.

Also you need to blog.  If you don’t have a blog on your own site there are plenty of places you can set up shop for free, like blogger.com.  If you have a blog, make sure to register it on business specific sites, and sites like technorati.com.  Also, go out and start commenting on other people’s blogs.  Make a name for yourself.  Marketing is a huge topic, but you get the idea.

3)      Clean code: I’m going to get a little “techie” on you.  The more valid your code is and the more direct, concise and easy it is to read, the better.  Why does anyone care what my site looks like on the backside, it works and looks good! ?  Well, the less cumbersome your code is on the backside, the easier it is for the bots (Googlebot especially) to find and properly index your site.  Less tags and code on the backside make it easier for your keywords to be spotted and keyword density to be noted.  Also, the pages will load more quickly and bandwidth will be saved.  I highly recommend a tableless design with a separate css page.  Sometimes this last step is easier said than done, but if you start cleaning up your code, Google (and others) will reward you for it.  I’ve personally optimized two sites with the same area of focus, one with clean code and one without (I did not build the one without  – I tried my best to make it better though).  Even though the site with the not-so-good code had more backlinks, exposure and a blog, the site with the squeaky clean code actually ended up at the top of the natural search results.  Go figure!

A combination of all three of the above must haves will keep people coming back to your site and help your popularity.  You must realize that true results require a lot of hard work and dedication.  This doesn’t happen overnight.  Anyone who tells you they can get you to the top in seven days is either lying or is utilizing “black hat” or inappropriate techniques to help your rank and in the end you will be penalized.  Google will find sites that don’t play by the rules.  I think this list is actually just common sense.  Have a business plan, market yourself and do it well.  Easy!

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait… Rank: wait… Traffic: wait… Price: wait… C: wait…

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and is the “art” of driving organic traffic to your site via search results from a search engine such as Google or Yahoo.  I call it an “art” because there is a bit of trial and error and dancing to get things optimized so that your site shows up naturally in the search engine results.

You may be asking, “Why would anyone care about that, can’t you just advertise and get the number one search spot?”  SEM, or search engine marketing will get you to the top of the ranks, indeed.  This, of course, comes at a price – and a big price at that.  Most search engine marketing campaigns run on a cost per click scale.  When someone types in your keywords, your ad appears either on the top or on the side of the “natural” listings.  In a cost per click setup you only have to pay if someone clicks on your ad and goes to your site.  Impressions occur when your ad is seen (i.e. makes an impression on the customer) but is not clicked and these don’t cost you money in a cost per click scenario.  The downside to the SEM approach is that it can cost you a fortune.   Some ads may only cost a quarter while most competitive ones will run you from $3-12 per click, depending on the competition.  SEM is a much bigger topic that will be explored later.

Back to SEO…

A site that is well optimized will return natural search results near the top of the page and you don’t have to pay anything to the search engine for that.  It’s free – well sort of!  SEO can come at a price.  If you have an obscure website with unique content, you may have an easy time getting your site listed at the top of the search results.  If you are trying to make your mark on the Las Vegas, Nevada Real Estate search results, you have a lot of work ahead of you and may have to hire a professional to get your site on the organic map!

In the coming weeks I’ll explore some of the basic things you can do to help get your site better suited for the search engines and we will also explore the costs associated with professional SEO and when and if it is worth it for your business.

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait… Rank: wait… Traffic: wait… Price: wait… C: wait…