Ant Onaf Search Marketing & SEO Services
Anthony Onaf is a skilled and professional SEO consultant
Call (973) 433-6712 for top notch SEO SERVICES. I specialize in search engine optimization, search marketing, and pay per click management.
Anthony Onaf is a skilled and professional SEO consultant
Call (973) 433-6712 for top notch SEO SERVICES. I specialize in search engine optimization, search marketing, and pay per click management.
Time It takes time to improve search engine rankings.
Effort It takes effort to enhance an online presence.
Strategy It takes strategy to drive targeted traffic to a website.
Taking your website from 0 to 60 is not extremely difficult, but you must
understand it takes time, effort, and strategy. With dedication and
determination you will begin to see the benefits of search marketing. If you
don't have the time, dedication, and determination to manage a search marketing
campaign then you may need to
hire an SEO consultant or outsource your search marketing work to a company
which provide
SEO services.
Any website can benefit from search engine marketing, because when your website
ranks high in the search engines for keywords which are related to your website
or business you will be rewarded with targeted traffic. There's a saying that
100 targeted visitors is better than 1,000 untargeted visitors. If your business
is plumbing and someone did a Google search for "Durham, NC attorneys" but your
plumbing website came up in the top search results and the visitor clicked on
your plumbing website, do you think you will get business from that untargeted
visit? No, because they do not need a plumber they need a lawyer. But if someone
did a search for "Durham, NC plumbers" and your website was at the top of the
search results, then guess what you now have a high probability of converting
that targeted visitor into a customer. Search marketing can help you get that
targeted visitor to your website. What website or business doesn't need more
targeted traffic?
The goal of search engine marketing is not to make the sale for you, but to
deliver targeted traffic your way. It is the job of your sales team to make the
sale or the job of the website to capture the visitor attention for a sale, this
can be done through design, lead generation forms, creatives, unique content,
etc. Many people confuse this and don't understand why sales are not being made
since they are ranking high and get plenty of visitors! Search marketing only
role is to generate targeted traffic. When a visitor makes it to your website
due to the efforts of search marketing then the job is complete. However,
inadvertently search marketing generate leads, increase sales, markets your
brand, improves online search performance, increase website rank position, and
delivers targeted traffic which ultimately results in higher conversions. These
factors itself are what makes search marketing valuable.
Big companies understand the value of search marketing and that's why they spend
hundreds of thousands to millions per year on search marketing solutions. The
great thing about search marketing is that it doesn't discriminate, just because
you are a big company spending millions does not mean a small company cannot
outrank the largest company on the web. It may be difficult and take more time
but it is very achievable. Big companies also understand the importance of time
and patience, because there is a gotcha associated with search marketing and
that is the fact it will take some time for your website to grow, it doesn't
happen overnight. Search engine marketing today is unlike it was in the past,
whereas any website could achieve rankings simply by adding some links on the
web, you must be more diligent these days because search engines have evolved
and the science of search engine marketing has also evolved. The day you give up
on search engine marketing is the day you have missed your opportunity! It is
important to understand it takes time so don't believe the hype of the overnight
success stories! Overnight ranking occurs in some instances where the website is
already well established with a positive relationship within the search engines,
in some rare occurrences when long tail keywords are the target, or if its a
paid search ranking, but in general practice it is fair to say there is no such
thing as organically ranking overnight.
Many times it can take 2+ years to see the rewards of a true search marketing
campaign. You might be familiar with Craigslist and only heard of it in the last
few years, but it's been online since 1995, that's almost 15 years, that shows
how long it can take for a website to garner a widespread buzz on the web.
Another factor is that building a positive relationship with search engines take
a great deal of time, search engines must first know that you are trustworthy
and not just another spammer trying to get on the first page results without
adding value to those who search and click on your listings. Search engines use
what is called "algorithm" to identify websites which fit certain criteria.
Algorithm is a series of tasked code executions for factoring rank, position,
weight, and trust of a website. There are well over 100 elements which
determines the viability for ranking a website.
Search engines understand the value in search marketing and understand there
isn't anything they can do from stopping people from continuing to influence
search engine rankings using SEO practices. Search engines have chosen to
embrace this loosing battle. Even though the algorithm is mostly designed to
work against you and counter your search marketing efforts, the major search
engines have published guidelines which will help you understand how the search
engines work and how to better optimize your website so it appeals to their
algorithm.
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Google Webmaster Guidelines
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Yahoo Search Content Quality Guidelines
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MSN Live Webmaster Center Help
Adhering and understanding these guidelines will keep your website well tuned
for appealing to search engines. At one time search engines were mostly against
search engine optimization as they felt too much weight was being placed on the
search engines and not the visitors, which is true but they soon realized that
the search engines are the catalyst for finding that visitor (or better yet,
that visitor finding you) therefore they now get it, but still hold firm that
the focus is the visitor. I actually take this same stance and believe the true
intent of any search marketing campaign is to deliver targeted traffic and not
just rank high in the search engines --- however I also recognize that ranking
high in the search engines is what will ultimately drive targeted traffic to
your website, therefore targeted traffic comes with dependencies.
In the next sections I will provide you with search engine marketing strategies
which will help take your website from 0 to 60. I will focus on a single keyword
to make it easy.
The single most important thing for any search marketing campaign is choosing
the right keywords for your website. You should find keywords which relate to
your website, which have a high search volume, and try finding keywords which
have low competition. It may not be possible to find the best keywords which
have low competition, so I tend to not make "low competition" a prerequisite for
keyword selection. If the keyword highly relates, has high search volume, and
has high competition, then still target the keyword --- it may take more time to
rank, but it will be very rewarding in the long term. You should first determine
which pages in your website should be optimized. Only include content pages or
important site pages, exclude terms of service pages, privacy policy pages, in
some cases contact pages, etc. If you do not have any content pages then you
should create at least 3-5 content pages to start with. For each page being
optimized create a small set of keyword targets anywhere from 1-5 keywords per
page, this make the task of keyword management much easier and once you begin
ranking for your small set of keywords, then you can expand the keyword set to
include more keywords.
There are a number of tools online which are dedicated to finding keywords.
These tools allow you to search a particular keyword and then provide you with a
list of suggestions for keyword targets. Here are a list of keyword suggestion
tools.
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Google Adwords Keyword Tool
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Google Search Based Keyword Tool
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SEO Book Keyword Suggestion Tool
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NicheWatch
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Wordtracker
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Keyword Discovery
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Microsft AdCenter Keyword Forecast
After you have found the best possible keywords for your website then it's
time to start putting those keywords to use so you can begin ranking for your
targets. The first thing you need to do is make your website appeal to the
search engines while also telling the search engines what your website is about
so it is properly crawled and indexed.
I advise you to do some basic site analysis to see how your website is
performing and how well your website is being received in the search engines.
Once you understand what areas of your website is (or not) performing then
you'll be in a better position to improve search performance! There are free
tools out there which can help you do basic site analysis.
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Google Webmaster Central
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Website Grader
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SEM Rush
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Rank.NL
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SEO Workers
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SpyFu
You should not solely rely on the data the tools provide, because
inaccuracies may exist. However, you should use the tools for guidance and
assistance in making sure you determine the overall and most general view of
your website. You should consult a professional SEO if you need assistance
understanding the data. You should have a professional
SEO consultant analyze your website without the use of tools and do an under
the hood check of your site.
After your website has been properly analyzed, then the next phase is to
optimize the pages so your website appeals to search engines while being
properly crawled and indexed. This phase is the most important and most
critical, because if the search bots is unable to crawl or index your pages
properly then all other completed task are void.
On page optimization is a technique used for optimizing your website pages so
they are more appealing to the search engines. On page optimization can be the
missing ingredient which prevents your website from achieving rank. On page
optimization makes your website more search engine friendly. You must perform a
set of specialized task on each page in your website.
Optimize Page Titles. Each page of your website should include unique
keyword-rich page titles. Unique page titles help search engines categorize your
web pages. Using the keywords you had originally created above for each page,
try to use these keyword terms in the page title without making the title
illegible. The page title should be a maximum of 70 characters and a minimum of
50 characters.
Remember the page title is what is seen as the title for your search engine
listing, so it should describe the page and tell the visitor what the page is
about before even clicking on the listing. Make the page title as enticing as
possible. Try your best to use 3 to 5 keyword combinations to create page
titles.
Create Page Description. Each page of your website should include unique
page descriptions. Page descriptions are displayed in the search engine listing
results. Page descriptions should include your page keyword targets as defined
above. Creating keyword tags in my opinion is unnecessary since many search
engines ignore this tag, therefore it is optional if you wish to include it.
Create Fresh Content Pages. Creating fresh content should be a ongoing
process. You should routinely create fresh content pages which relate to your
website. If you have a product or ecommerce website then you should create
product-focused content pages. Pay attention to keyword density on your content
pages. Your goal should be to create at least 3-5 new content pages per week.
Maintaining a website blog is usually a good way of adding fresh content to your
website with little hassle and little content management from a manual
perspective.
Optimize Page Content. Each page of your website should include your
keyword targets within its page content. A good rule of thumb is to use one
keyword every 100 words, but not to exceed 5% keyword density on the page. I
suggest using the
Ranks.NL Keyword Density Analyzer Tool to determine page density.
Optimize Image Text. Each page of your website should include at least
one unique image file. Image files can enhance your search listing in vertical
searches such as image search. The file name should include the target keyword
or descriptor tag of the image.
Link Architecture & Interlinking Internal Links. Each page of your
website should include at least one outgoing internal link. Internal links are
links which point to another section of your website, without leaving your
website. I recommend creating a round robin link structure for simple (10 or
less) pages, for more pages create a strategic well planned link map...avoid
reciprocal linking between two internal pages.
Create robots.txt File. A robots.txt file will help you control the way
search engine robots crawl and visit your website. The robots.txt file is like a
bouncer at the club, you can't get in if your name is not on the list. I
recommend that you allow all robots unless you have a reason for blocking. I
also recommend you allow robots to crawl all directories unless you have a
reason for blocking. There is no need to block directories such as /includes/
unless there is a direct link published on the web to the directory and it holds
content. If the link is unpublished on the web or within your website then it
will not be crawled by robots. Regardless if you decide to block or unblock any
or all robots you should include a robots.txt file to your root site directory.
This is the first file legitimate robots visit when they visit your website.
Generate sitemap.xml File. A sitemap.xml will help you tell the search
engines which pages are most important and creates a clear navigation path for
search robots. Sitemap.xml files act as a tour guide for search engine bots. The
sitemap.xml file should include all the pages of your website which you want to
be crawled and indexed in the search engines. Your sitemap.xml file should be
updated routinely depending on the frequency of page changes. There are a number
of tools which generate sitemap.xml files for you, I recommend using
GSiteCrawler this is my sitemap generator of choice.
Create Search Engine Friendly URL Structure. Search engines are known to
have trouble reading dynamic URL's such as
http://www.antonaf.com/?=dynamic&sourceid=URL, most search engines have trouble
reading anything after the ? so it is wise to create search engine friendly
URL's so your website pages are properly crawled and indexed, otherwise
non-friendly URL's may prove troublesome in the future. To create search engine
friendly URL's the non-friendly URL needs to be rewritten, which is done with
regular expressions. Each web server has it's own method of handling URL
rewrites. Apache uses mod_rewrite and IIS uses an ISAPI filter such as
ISAPIRewrite --- while IIS 7.0+ has its own internal rewrite engine. A rewritten
URL or search engine friendly URL's will look similar to
http://www.antonaf.com/dynamicURL/ you notice how the dynamic parameters are
removed and the URL is structured in an easy to read format.
There are some other things you can do in regards to on page optimization to
improve search rankings, but the above are the main elements for successfully
optimizing your website pages. Other elements include page size reduction,
content rewriting, blog integration, etc. On page optimization is important
because it make certain your website is crawlable and able to be indexed
properly.
Now that you have your website optimized you need to get the search engines to
visit your web pages. One of the best ways to do this is by notifying the search
engines of your updated sitemap file.
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Google Submitting a Sitemap Help
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Yahoo Submitting Your Sitemap File to Search Engines
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MSN Live Sitemap Help
Another way to get search engines to your website is to gain a link from a website which is crawled routinely by search engine bots. To find websites which are crawled routinely you should first start with the first page search result listings for your target keywords, i.e. if your target keyword is "plumbing" then obtaining a link from the first page results of that keyword target would be beneficial. Another way to find sites which are crawled routinely is to target authority sites for link placement. There are different factors which determine an authority site, such as domain age, trust relationship, inbound links, etc. A good rule of thumb when placing a link is to say would you place this link if search engines did not exist. If yes, then it may be a valuable placement. Link placement on authority sites have a number of benefits and getting crawled is probably the least of the benefits. Authority links help build trust, page authority, page value, and page rank which all ultimately increase search engine result position.
Okay, so you are now targeting your best performing keywords, you have
optimized your website pages, and you have successfully got the search engines
to visit, crawl, and index your website. So what's next? Well, at this point
ranking should begin improving but for ranking to greatly improve at a faster
rate and to sustain ranking you will need to show the search engines that others
value your website as well. To do this you must perform what is called "Off Page
Optimization" which mostly involves "link building".
The way search engines determine the worthiness of your website is through
external links (links which are found on websites other than your own). External
links act as a vote of confidence from external referral sources, which says to
the search engines "hey I like this website and therefore I have linked to it
from my website." It may sound really simple, because you can get a number of
links from directories, link farms, blogs, etc., but search engines have evolved
so much that search engines have a number of factors to determine if the link is
actually worthy of a vote. Some things that play the part of link placement is
number of links published in a short timeframe, number of links published on the
page, relevancy of the page in comparison to the published link, position of the
link on the page, authority of the page the link is placed on, etc. There are so
many factors involved when considering link building and you don't want to jump
right in, you should do the proper research before building links, otherwise you
may waste your time or worse, you'll put your site in jeopardy of being devalued
by the search engines. To learn more about link building you should read
Link Building 101: The Key to Successful Link Building. It is a powerful
article which reveal the best methods for link building and finding the best
possible links.
When link building it is important that you use your target keyword(s) as the
anchor text for the link, but it is more important that you use variations of
your target keyword(s), i.e. if you target keyword is plumbing, then you should
use as anchor text the following keyword variations:
"plumbing"
"home plumbing"
"residential plumbing"
"plumbing services"
"durham nc plumbers"
"durham nc plumbing"
"plumbing in durham"
"plumbing in north carolina"
"plumbers in durham"
"plumbers in north carolina"
If you were to constantly use "plumbing" as the anchor text without any
variations then search engines will view this as a manipulative practice and
eventually your website will lose its rank or become devalued. You should also
use variations of URL's, instead of always pointing to the homepage URL you
should point to inner pages of your website as well. It will be ideal if each
keyword variation has its own unique content page.
It is also important that you try to build links on as many authority pages as
possible, because the more authority the page/site then the more valuable the
link will be. Link building is an artform and it takes time for many to master
the art of link building, but once you understand the dynamics surrounding link
building you will start to see improvements your search engine rank and position
like never before. Link building also helps to sustain your rank and position,
since many keywords are competitive and actively have other SEO who are
targeting the same keyword it is almost impossible to keep top rank and position
without any SEO efforts, therefore building links on a normal basis will
commonly help sustain your rank and position so your website maintains its #1
listing.
There are other off page elements such as article syndication, press release
writing, social media marketing, etc., but each of these involve some level of
link building to make it most effective in terms of search engine marketing. I
wish you the best of luck and happy ranking! If you have questions then
contact me or if you need SEO services then
contact me for a quote!
All of the above SEO task should be done on a routine basis (weekly). If you
continue the SEO process over and over then in time you will begin seeing
rewards and benefits from the campaign. This is not the only thing to SEO nor is
it an end to all, but the above is a great start to SEO and will show you the
power SEO can have if you are dedicated and committed.
10/2009 -
Raleigh-Durham SEO Expert Offers Free Search Engine Optimization Quotes
11/2009 -
AntOnaf Offers Free SEO Keyword Research