Local Search Engine Marketing Archives - GreenMelonMarketing.com

Even Google needs SEO – better do not ignore it for your own site

Posted on September 18, 2015 Written by Michael Williams

Even Google needs SEO – better do not ignore it for your own site

Search engine optimization is so important that even Google is looking for SEO managers who help it to improve the organic rankings of their web pages. If you think that your website does not need search engine optimization, you might want to reconsider your position.

What exactly is Google looking for?

Google has posted a job offer for a full-time ‘Program Manager for Technical SEO’:

“As a Program Manager for Technical SEO, you will work with cross-functional teams across Marketing, Sales, Product Development, Engineering and more to help drive organic traffic and business growth.

You will take part in website development and optimization, help shape blog and social strategy, improve website code hygiene and define web architecture for international websites.”

Google: search engine optimization is important

Google’s job offer has several implications:

1. Even though Google is the most visited website in the world, they still acknowledge the importance of search engine optimization. Even Google needs to comply and compete.

2. Google are saying that they are following responsible search practices and that they want to compete fairly in their own search results.

3. Google has an enormous marketing budget. Nevertheless, they find SEO very valuable for their marketing purposes.

Stop spamming, start doing SEO

Note that the ad is talking about search engine optimization, not about spamming. So forget about automated link building tools, article spinners or other shady SEO methods.

If you want to be successful, you have to start doing real SEO: create good web page content, optimize that content, make sure that search engines can index your web pages, improve the links that point to your site, etc.

The tools in SEOprofiler help you to do real SEO. If you want to get high rankings on Google and other search engines, SEO is crucial. If you haven’t done it yet, try SEOprofiler now and see for yourself:

Article by
Axandra SEO software

Official: how Google handles new top level domains (TLDs)

Posted on August 10, 2015 Written by Michael Williams

Official: how Google handles new top level domains (TLDs)

In a post on Google’s Webmaster Central blog, Google’s John Mueller explained how Google handles new top level domains (TLDs) such as .guru or .how. Here are the details:

1. Google does not favor any TLD

Google’s systems treat new gTLDs (generic top level domains) like other gTLDs (like .com & .org). Keywords in a TLD do not give any advantage or disadvantage in search.

2. Googlebot can crawl and index IDN TLDs

Internationalized domain names (IDN) TLDs such as .みんな can be used the same as other TLDs. Google treats the Punycode version of a hostname as being equivalent to the unencoded version, so you don’t need to redirect or canonicalize them separately. For the rest of the URL, remember to use UTF-8 for the path and query-string in the URL, when using non-ASCII characters.

3. A .brand TLD has the same weight as a .com domain

Those TLDs will be treated the same as a other gTLDs. They will require the same geotargeting settings and configuration, and they won’t have more weight or influence in the way Google crawls, indexes, or ranks URLs.

4. Region or city TLDs like .london or .bayern are treated as gTLDs

Even if they look region-specific, Google will treat these TLDs as gTLDs (generic top level domains). This is consistent with Google’s handling of regional TLDs like .eu and .asia. There may be exceptions at some point down the line, as Google sees how they’re used in practice.

5. Country code TLDs will be used for geo-targeting

By default, most ccTLDs (country code top-level domains) result in Google using these to geotarget the website (with some exceptions); it tells Google that the website is probably more relevant in the appropriate country. For example, a .de domain is probably more relevant than a .com domain in Germany.

6. Moving your site to a new TLD is the same as moving your site to a new domain name

Google treats moves to a new TLD the same as any other site move. Domain changes can take time to be processed for search (and outside of search, users expect email addresses to remain valid over a longer period of time), so it’s generally best to choose a domain that will fit your long-term needs.

Summary: you can choose the domain that works best for your website

Google does not find any TLD better than others. All TLDs are treated equally. For particular countries, geo-specific TLDs have an advantage as they are an indicator that the website is more relevant to the particular geographic region.

According to John Mueller: “If you spot a domain name on a new TLD that you really like, you’re keen on using it for longer, and understand there’s no magical SEO bonus, then go for it :-).”

There are many different things that influence the positions of your web pages in Google’s search results. SEOprofiler, the popular SEO tool that many professionals use, works with all top level domains and it helps you to improve the search engine performance of all of your pages. If you haven’t done it yet, try SEOprofiler now:

See plans & pricing

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Article by Axandra SEO software

Search engine optimization (SEO) is continually evolving

Posted on June 22, 2015 Written by Michael Williams

Ride the wave: why change is good for your business

Search engine optimization (SEO) is continually evolving. Things that worked great in the past can trigger a ranking penalty today. Technology is always undergoing change and you have to make sure that you do the right things if you do not want to become obsolete tomorrow.

Here are some things that you can do to make sure that your business gets the best results from search engine optimization:

1. Accept that change is constant

Change is the only constant in life. Six years ago, tablet computers did not exist. Today, you can buy tablet computers in different sizes, with different operating systems, from different manufacturers. For a company that sells computer related goods, it wasn’t necessary to have high rankings for the keyword ‘tablet’. Today, there are many different ‘tablet’ key phrases that can deliver a high return-on-investment.

To get lasting results, you have to watch trends. The words that are used by customers and prospects can change. Your business has to change when markets change. Ride the wave. Stopping it won’t work.

2. Watch your competitors and learn from them

Innovation and evolution is necessary if you want to succeed. Several years ago, Apple just built computers. Nowadays, they compete with companies such as Spotify. Netflix competes with traditional TV. The companies who are your competitors can change.

SEO tools can help you to monitor the activities of your competitors. For example, the AdWords Profiler in SEOprofiler helps you to keep track of the Google AdWords campaigns of your competitors. The Ranking Profiler shows you the keywords and the pages with which your competitors are ranked on Google. The Link Profiler shows the links that point to the websites of your competitors.

Competitive intelligence can give you an edge over your competition. The tools in SEOprofiler help you with that.

3. Think of SEO as an ongoing process

Markets change and search engine algorithms change. Search engine optimization is an ongoing process. If you do not keep up with the changes, you might waste your time with methods that do not work anymore. Even worse, you might use spammy techniques that trigger a penalty.

Set realistic expectations if you want to get lasting results. It usually takes some months until you see the results of your SEO campaigns. If you conduct your SEO activities regularly, you will get high ranking pages that consistently remain at the top of the search results.

Just as Greek philosopher Heraclitus said: “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.” If your website rankings have been damaged because of shady SEO techniques, try it again with a serious SEO tool that plays by the rules.

The tools in SEOprofiler help you to get solid rankings at the top of the search result pages. If you haven’t done it yet, try SEOprofiler now:

Try SEOprofiler now!

Fort Lauderdale SEO Agency – Green Melon Marketing

(954) 306-9699

Article by Axandra SEO software

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Now Google sees you, now they don’t

Posted on May 19, 2015 Written by Michael Williams

1. Now Google sees you, now they don’t

Checking the technical aspects of your website is a necessity if you want to make sure that Google and other search engines give your web pages high rankings. If your web pages contain particular errors, Google won’t be able to see them. Regular website audits make sure that your site gets the rankings that it deserves.

1. Check your website for critical errors

Critical errors are errors that can have an immediate effect on the rankings of your website on Google:

Broken links Every website has broken links. If you update your web pages frequently, you will find many links that need an udpate. Some websites disappear, web pages get deleted, etc.
Server errors
Timeout errors Server errors can cause major problems with search engines. If a web page delivers the wrong HTTP status code, search engines won’t index it. For that reason, it is important to check your website for server errors.
Empty titles
Duplicate titles Empty titles and duplicate titles are a lost search engine optimization opportunity. If a web page has an empty title, it won’t rank as highly as it could.

You should avoid these errors if you don’t want to risk ranking problems. The website audit tool in SEOprofiler regularly checks if these errors appear on your web pages to make sure that your pages get the best possible rankings.

2. Check your web pages for things that can cause problems

Even if your website does not contain critical errors, there are several things that can have a negative influence on the rankings of your web pages:

Duplicate pages
Duplicate contentAlthough there is no penalty for duplicate content, it is difficult to get high rankings for pages with duplicate content. If possible, avoid duplicate content on your web pages.

http & https
www & non-wwwIf your web pages are linked with and without www, and with both http and https, there can be canonical URL problems. Identify these pages and use the rel=canonical attribute on these pages.

No text content
Little text contentWeb pages with no content or little text content won’t get high rankings.
No bot allowed
Bot blockedSome webmasters accidentally block search engine robots without knowing it. If a web page blocks search engine robots, it cannot get high rankings.Click depthA very high click depth can be an indicator that people cannot find a page easily. Web pages that aren’t easy to find should not contain important content.

Temporary redirects
Too many linksTemporary redirects can cause problems with search engines. Pages with too many links (in relation to the actual content) won’t get high rankings.
Meta Description empty
Meta Description too short
Meta Description too long
Meta Description wasted
Meta RefreshThe meta description tag does not have a direct influence on the rankings of a web page. It can, however, have a major influence on the number of clicks that your listing gets on the search results page. Meta refreshs can cause problems with search engines if they aren’t used correctly.
Duplicate canonical attribute
Duplicate meta tagDuplicate canonical attributes can keep search engine robots away. A duplicate meta tag is an indicator of a low quality web page.
Page too big
Title too short
Title too long
Title wasted
Title tag twiceThe title tag is an important web page element. For that reason, you should make sure that your web pages have the right title tags. If a page is too big, search engine robots might not index it completely and/or website visitors might go away before the page has fully loaded.
URL invalid
URL too dynamic
URL too longInvalid URLs or URLs with too many variables can cause problems with search engine robots. The same with URLs that are too long.

All of these things can have a positive influence on the rankings of your web pages if you optimize them. The website audit tool in SEOprofiler regularly checks if your web pages use these elements correctly.

3. Check your web pages for things that can be improved

In addition to the things above, there are several things that you can check to make sure that your web pages get the best possible rankings:

Anchor text wasted
H1 tag keyword
H1 tag empty
H1 tag missing
H1 tag wasted
Image problems
Meta Robots None
Meta NoFollow
Meta NoIndex
Meta NoSnippet
Perm. redirect (301)
Other redirect (303)
Temp. redirect (307)
Forbidden (403)
Redirect same URL
Upper case URLs
Rel. link to domain
Canonical URL used

Checking these things will make sure that your web pages perform as well as possible. For example, images should have descriptive alt attributes, H1 tags should contain the right keywords, etc. The website audit tool in SEOprofiler automatically checks your web pages for these elements.

4. Check your web pages for spelling mistakes

The website audit tool also checks your web pages for spelling mistakes. Most websites contain a lot of spelling mistakes and typing mistakes. First impressions count, so it’s better to correct these mistakes.

The website audit tool in SEOprofiler regular checks your web pages to make sure that everything is correct. You will save time and you will be able to correct errors quickly and easily:

Try SEOprofiler risk-free

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Article by Axandra SEO software

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