Lots of web design companies here in Phoenix say they’re experts at SEO. Then you take a look at a few local Google searches and realize that’s simply not true. And some SEO companies say that they are experts at web design. After one look at their website, you know that’s not the case.

The truth is, there are few companies who truly are experts at both web design and SEO. There was only one Bo Jackson. There was only one Micheal Jordan. And there are a ton of talented, highly skilled professional athletes. To be a true professional, it takes focus and dedication to your craft. And if your focus is scattered, you’ll probably end up being a jack of all trades and a master of none.

This is why those companies who can master both SEO and web design are so rare. Just like the athlete who can play more than one sport on a professional level, there are not very many of them, and the ones that are out there, are pretty impressive. The problem is that sometimes it’s hard to tell if a company is the real deal just by reading their websites. Because according to their websites, they are PROS at everything web related. So how can you weed out the BS artists from the real deal companies?

Simple. If they claim they are experts at SEO, do a couple of Google searches to see where they rank. Try these for example:

* Phoenix SEO
* Phoenix Web Design
* Arizona SEO
* Arizona Web Design

You can easily spot which sites actually know how to get their own sites to rank well. Interestingly enough, the two companies you see consistently at the top are OBU and MCP. So you can safely assume at least these two companies can walk the walk.

Now to weed out the companies that say they are web design companies, just click around on those Google pages listed above. All you need to do is look at their website. If it is terribly designed, you know they really aren’t the best choice to design your company. if you’re not sure whether or not a design company’s website is good enough, take a look at their portfolio. If the websites they list in their portfolio look like they were developed in 1999, steer clear. They are not going to be able to produce a quality design for your site either.

Being a professional in both web design and SEO can be difficult, because so many others claim to be. Sometimes potential clients are going assume you are feeding them the same crap they are used to hearing from other, less qualified firms. But the truth is, the rest of those companies are trying to copy the few successful professional SEO and web design companies that are ahead of them on Google, and have better looking sites.

Guest post by Chris Hooley, another Phoenix SEO and friend of OBU

Posted in SEO Articles | 1 Comment »

Blogging is simple. As a blogger, the thought of “what should I talk about today” should not cross your mind. In fact, blogging does not have to be an hour long project that turns into a homework assignment. If you read what’s on the net in regards to your industry (or your clients industry if you blog for clients), then you have material to blog about. It’s as easy as 1-2-3.

Blogs are just a collection of your thoughts regarding a specified subject. Right? You really only have 3 things to work off of:

1. You read something in the industry and disagree with it;
2. You read something and agree with it;
3. You design your own ideas and opinions about something past, present, or future.

#1. Disagreement: You were clicking around and ran across an article. Mid paragraph you pull the BS card and fully disagree, or disagree to an extent of the matter, and you might even make a comment about it in their blog. It’s okay… vent away little blogger. You have your own venting corner on your own blog where you can gripe and call them out. Make sure to prove your points with reliable resources of course. Don’t forget to back track links.

#2. Agreement: You read an article and by golly it was like a hammer hitting a nail in full force. Awesome. Not only have you found a blogger you can relate to, but you also have something to blog about. “But I agree with it. Why would I blog about it?” you might ask yourself. Well, as a human being, you have extra thoughts on the subject. More things you might like to add and point out will be helpful for your readers. Again, back track links.

#3. Epiphany: You are lying in bed about to go to sleep and have an SEO epiphany. Being in the SEO industry, I know your brain doesn’t quit even when you lay down for bed. We eat, sleep, and breathe SEO right? So use these ideas for a blog. Get out a pen, jot down your thoughts, let it play out in your head, and blog about it.

So now that you know the 1-2-3’s of blogging, go update yours before it gets stale.

Posted in SEO Industry Rant | Comments Off

After pondering over a few changes that I’ve seen recently, I’ve come to realize that Yahoo is fun and games, while Google is there to provide you with the most reliable resources to get the job done.

MyYahoo vs iGoogle:

As most of us are aware, Google offers you your own personalized iGoogle homepage once you are logged into your Google account. Just the same, Yahoo offers MyYahoo! personalized homepage once logged into your Yahoo account. Over the past few weeks, Yahoo has made big changes to their MyYahoo page to strongly resemble iGoogle’s features and tools. Seems almost apples to apples at first glance. However, Yahoo seems to have made their layout a little more functional, user friendly, and are working on adding even more social networking capabilities such as message boards.

Even more so, Yahoo allows you to customize both the color of your page (or theme if you wish), column layout of your page, and a feature to add further pages. As I am aware Google has all but one of these features, Yahoo seems to push the envelope with their design and easy to find “share this page” buttons. Yahoo earns 1 up on the fun factor here.

iGoogle focuses on a clean layout, few theme selections, and allows you to get down to business with what you want on your page. The tools are mostly provided by outside sources. You can integrate your Google calendar, news, and other various categories. Just looking at the popular categories to select from, we can tell the tools are for a more mature audience. Google earns 1 up on the Business factor.

Yahoo Features vs Google Features

Yahoo focuses more and more on the kids and teens (elementary/junior high)

- Yahoo 360
- Yahoo Games
- Yahoo Music
- Yahoo Kids (Yahooligans)

Google pulls in the older crowd (high school/college) with features such as:

- Scholar search
- Book Search
- News Search

Yahoo ask’s the audience, while Google gathers the facts from reliable resources. As much as reliability outweighs ‘he said she said’ answers, Yahoo answers has grown amazingly large and comes to the top for searches dealing with the question being asked.

So what have we learned today? Yahoo is fun and Google gets the job done.

How can we use this information to help out SEO/SEM?

SEO should be focused towards the target audience, and as we understand, each  search engine targets a specific audience. Have a client that is selling children’s toys? Get them set up with a PPC campaign through Yahoo. Have a client wanting to obtaining leads for car sells? Google is the way to go.

Posted in SEO Industry Rant | 2 Comments »

All websites should serve the purpose of either selling services/products, or informing their users. No matter what your business plan is, the user always comes first. To have a successful online marketing campaign, you have to corner your niche and target your audience.

There are an abundant amount of online marketers that push clicks and traffic as being a buying factor into their services. The line I use all too often is that you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make them drink. Horses are one thing, but when you start leading animals down to the watering hole that don’t naturally drink from them, conversions are 99 times harder to come by. This is why target marketing is so important in todays online industry.

Not only will target marketing be the soul driving factor of the search engines in the near future (I suspect within the next 3 years), it is also the easiest way to grab your audience and sell them on your purpose.

Social networks such as Facebook and Myspace are making it easier than ever before to create our own little sections and leach off it’s pre-defined juice (or users rather).

Recently I created a Mypsace profile for BestPartyEver.com to bring in targeted traffic. With BPE being it’s own social network for party goers, vendors, and event planners; what better audience to target than those already apart of a social network?

With this in mind, I also thought about the possibilities that Myspace already offers. Myspace has groups for users interested in different areas. Groups are probably one of the easiest places to scrounge around and dig up potential traffic. Since BPE is for parties, we can focus on the groups planning weddings, baby showers, army wifes, food vendors, and party/event planners.

Taking it a step beyond adding friends to our newly created Myspace, I added a list of services that we offered. This is to funnel the Myspace visitors to our BestPartyEver.com page.

Of course after users are so kindly to add us to their Myspace page, I have to thank them. What a better way than to create “comment stickers” or banners to lay out the basics of what BPE can provide to them as an individual. All comment stickers should focus on our groups for a more personal touch. Those planning a wedding will get “Plan your wedding with BPE,” and those holding a baby shower will get “Celebrate the birth of your baby using BPE” and the like.

Putting in the extra care to market a target audience per the individual’s wants and needs is a surefire way to not only increase your traffic, but your conversions as well.

Posted in SEO Articles, SEO Industry Rant | Leave a Comment »

SEO for many years has moved from one level to the next. In the mid to late 90s, SEO was all about meta tags, keywords, and backlinks. Spam central hit the net as website owners grew brighter and took note on what worked. Don’t kid yourself, you know you did it too (at least to some point). It was an “if you can’t beat em, join em” scenario. Venturing into mid 2000’s, we discovered that not only did we have to have backlinks, but they had to be relevant. We also noticed that “content is king” and to be on top of your game, you must have relevant content on your website that related to your backlinks. Meta’s were still important, but the keyword tag nearly lots all meaning.

We are now approaching the end of 2007, and boy are times changing. There are enough online social networks, blogs, and user feedback sites to make your head spin. You can no longer just be “on” the internet; you have to be “in” the internet. Many markets are falling behind, as the ones that jumped on board when the internet first started or soon there after, and kept abreast of the changing online market, are striving to the top.

Within the last 6-7 months alone, SEO services took a leap up the ladder. No longer can an SEO specialist manage 50 accounts, we are cut down to10 max to give each client the understanding and dedication they deserve for their services. SEO/SEM packaged contracts dwindled down and we now must customize them per clients need. Prices have gone up as more time is needed to receive well rounded desired results, and hourly pricing is necessary to keep businesses afloat. Now we must focus on details details details. There is always more to come, so sit tight and keep focused on your target market, your niche, what they use, and who you are. That is the key, has been the key, and will always be the key, to online success.

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When will the search engines start to realize that it’s not the anchor text that counts so much as the text surrounding it? There are billions of great link backs out there from online newspapers, online journals, and respected online communities that point back to web pages using URL’s. Because these back links are straight URL’s, they aren’t getting the weight and credit they are worth.

How about also taking into consideration plain text URL’s that lack the link? There are billions of those lying around the internet giving back no creditability what so ever. These plain text links would be easy to detect with adding a small algorithm to their “spiders”. How hard can it possibly be to pick up on http:// and www and recognize that it is being a reference, or has importance, to the article?

As website owners, we don’t have much say so in how our website is being referenced. Great back links are being left out of the mix because online newspapers and journals are not here to feed your websites food to the search engines. Sometimes if you ask kind enough, high authority sites will allow you to pick your anchor text. Other than that, you are losing out on some great juice you naturally earned.

All I’m saying is give all links, even the little ones, a chance to make an impression for website rankings. There’s a lot of lost juice out there!

Posted in SEO Industry Rant | 2 Comments »

I kick myself to this day when I think about the start of the internet and how much potential for earning some extra cash I would have in my pocket right now if I knew better. Investments rather.

3 letter domain names go for hundreds and thousands of dollars. A domain name! If I jumped on this when domain names first started, I would be swimming in cash. The good ones are being eaten up faster than I can type this. Domain names are huge when it comes to marketing and branding a company. Are domain names important? They sure the hell are. It’s the final stamp on your branding endeavor.

So yesterday I began to ponder something. Myspace is huge right? More and more companies are joining this online social network to build a reputation and clientele. You sometimes see commercials with a URL at the bottom of the screen telling you to visit their Myspace URL (i.e. myspace.com/companyname). We have also heard DJs on the radio spout off to listeners asking to friend them on their Myspace. Small companies keep their client base going, while also expanding it, by using Myspace to run contest and give away prizes (http://myspace.com/tshirthell). Bands, mainstream and underground, both use Myspace to expand and connect. Large companies advertise movies on Myspace as well (http://myspace.com/spiderman, http://myspace.com/simpsonsmovie)

Alright that’s enough explaining to get down to my final point:

Are Myspace URL’s going to be worth something in the future? Think about it. You can make your Myspace URL whatever you’d like. There’s really no limit.

Here are the top taken Myspace URL’s that I discovered while brainstorming:

http://myspace.com/cocacola
http://myspace.com/sprite
http://myspace.com/ford
http://myspace.com/toyota
http://myspace.com/ipod
http://myspace.com/apple
http://myspace.com/iphone
http://myspace.com/realestate
http://myspace.com/superbowl
http://myspace.com/doritos
http://myspace.com/pepsi

Smart guys who got in early:

http://myspace.com/microsoft
http://myspace.com/spiderman
http://myspace.com/simpsonsmovie
http://myspace.com/mattcutts

Let me know if you find anyone else on the smart guy list. I could be here all day searching for top names. So what I’m wondering is if these goobers we are seeing on these Myspace pages are our future domain name selling “thousand-airs.”

I don’t know about you, but I think I could be on to something.

Posted in The Osearch Blog | 4 Comments »

I broke into the Vault using Ask.com

Most internet users don’t enjoy signing up for services to receive the information/data they are seeking. Placing personal information out there, no matter whether it is a simple email address or your name, is no fun for anyone. Paying for information is no fun either.

I was doing a quick search the other day, looking for salary information and company surveys for Bear Stearns & Co. when I came across Vault.com. Because Vault.com gives you raw facts from submitted surveys and reviews, I was quite curious to see what they were surveys referenced in regards to working for Bear Stearns & Co. Vault will give you a little snap shot into the submitted survey and then leave you hanging if you want to “read more.”

If you want to read more you must subscribe. Not just subscribe as a standard member, but you must be a GOLD member to read the surveys. Yeah. Pay up buddy.

All I could think to myself was “that sucks” and I almost by-passed the juicy office drama (or surveys as you’d like to call them), when I realized that there might be a back way into these pages by using search. I mean, they may be indexed right?

So as easy as it was, I went on Ask.com to use their search. “bear stearns vault.com” and I was already off to a good start with my results.

In the Ask.com search results, it allowed me to “view more results from vault.com” which I found quite nifty; so I took a peek. To my astonishment, I was viewing the results of the lovely surveys I was after with a direct link into their back end.

No signing up, no information required. I was in the vault!

That just shows you how knowing how to search can save you time and money. I broke into the Vault using Ask.com. I simulated these same results using Google, but it took a little more search criteria to get there.

Posted in The Osearch Blog | Leave a Comment »

Am I more “me” on the web or off the web?

The web is truly another world of its own. “You” on the web are different than you away from the computer screen. This is because the web sucks you in and opens you up to a whole new portal of people and personalities; which allows you to expand your own. So are you more yourself on the web, or off the web?

We can even change (and most of us do without realizing it) who we are on the web. I am quite shy in a crowd, even a bit anxiety ridden, but when I’m on the web, nothing can stop me. I’m quite fierce and outspoken in my own little online world. I tell all fairly freely.

Online social networking websites allow us to interact with each other in ways we never thought possible 5 years ago. Beyond the chat rooms, beyond simple email between friends and family, online social networks give us a way to debate with others, express our opinions, and be more open about our beliefs.

We can even find out more about ourselves by socializing with others like us on the internet. Special interest websites and social networking groups allow us to interact with others that have the same religious beliefs, diseases, health issues, job industry fields, demographic regions, interests, etc. More and more, we interact online with others and find ourselves sucked into this other dimension. We open up to those we hardly know, expressing our most secretive, deepest and darkest self beings.

Online users do this because they feel their information is somehow kept private. Keyboard and screen keep us from feeling tracked or violated in any way. Actually a sense of freedom is felt while browsing around the net.

Not everybody knows that their information is being tracked. And even if they do, they are lightly conditioned to be OK with the fact that our information is out there to be tracked by anyone who wants it. Why? Because we are already open to the thought of web personality, interaction, and search.

Google picks apart your brain.

Again: Since we are so open with each other on the net, this allows search engines to track who we are (demographics, gender, age, interests, etc.).

The search engine that tracks us the most is obviously Google. Beyond our general search (even though the General search statistics are tracked too), if we have set up any type of account with Google, our online search activity is being tracked to properly display SERPs that will pertain to our specific liking. Good ol’ Google helped us find that specialized social network we are now apart of.

Just like with a psychologist, the more they know you, and the more you tell them about yourself, the better they can help diagnose you. Proper therapy or medication (or in our case search results) can be administered.

Many search engine optimization and marketing specialists fear this change, as it will be harder to ‘game’ the search engines to provide them top rankings that result in more traffic. However, by search engines being more in-tune with each individual user, they will be able to display more accurate results, which in turn provide better conversions. These changes will actually make my job a little easier.

For the most part, we wont have to target demographically related keywords. Google will already know its users demographic location, age group, special interest, and past search conversions.

How can this necessarily be a bad thing? The future of Google excites me actually. This means going beyond marketing, beyond user function and click troughs, beyond funneling a user to purchase a service or product.

We are going to need to understand our potential users reason for possibly coming to the website to convert them. I just hope Google makes these statistics readily available in our Analytics. This way we can continue to provide clients with the most accurate analysis (demographics, gender, age, common interests, etc.) for their website.

So go ahead and take over the brains of all us Google guppies, analyze what we’re into, and give us the results we want.

Posted in SEO Articles, The Osearch Blog | 1 Comment »

Google! Stop Stealing my SERPs!

I was doing a simple keyword analysis for a client of mine when I came across something I have never seen before in Google. I know they toy around with the supplemental results, I know there have been rumors of them selling organic placement, but this didn’t fall into either of those categories.

What I found was that instead of using a suggested keyword list for my searched term as normally done, they provided me with an ‘inset’ second list of SERPs distinguished with “See results for: equity apartments” as shown below.

When I scrolled over the link to discover the link’s path, it was clear that Google is carefully tracking the click through for the input suggested SERPs. At first I thought maybe Google was selling the placement for keywords relating to my original terms. But it seemed unlikely, as they were clearly marked as being keywords I was not searching for.

So I then viewed the SERPs for equity apartments, and found out that the 3 placed SERPs were ranked the top 3 in their correct order as viewed using “equity management” SERPs.

When I scrolled over these results, thinking that maybe Google got rid of the sponsored section look to make everything flow, I noticed the links without the Google tracking. So the input links were the top 3 SERPs for their designated keyword.

This still boggles me a bit. I was reading a Sphinn article by Kimber Cook how Craigslist was stealing her clients Google rankings, and now I feel that Google is stealing my Google rankings. In this case, it narrows down the 1st pages results to displaying only 7 results pertaining to the originally suggested keywords. The spots with the highest lead conversions (SERPs 3-6), are being replaced with other semi relevant suggestions.

I would love to know how readers of this article feel about this discovery. Anyone know what’s going on?

Melinda Roberts

obu Web Technologies, Phoenix Search Engine Optimization

Posted in SEO Articles, SEO Industry News | 2 Comments »