Beanstalk's SEO News Blog

Due to frequent requests and increased resources Beanstalk is pleased to announce the introduction of SEO training into the list of services we provide.

Our SEO training services will provide everything that you need to not jsut get your website to the top of the rankings but will also provide you with the information you need to keep it there. More information can be found on this new service on our site at http://www.beanstalk-inc.com/services/training.htm.

For those of you who frequent our blog to keep posted on the latest and greatest in the SEO world you'll know that I'm a HUGE fan of The Amazing Race and specifically, contestants BJ and Tyler. Last week we found them at the back of the pack but fortunately (for me at least) they were not eliminated. They started with $0, were given $30 by two other contestants at the beginning and headed off. They picked up a hitch-hiker along the way to the airport and received some free gas and food for their troubles and after a thorough ransacking on the plane for cash they would up with $300 (more than the other contestants).

The finished this leg of the race in third position (yeah). Once again I get to look forward to next week's episode.

On a sadder note, the elder contestants Fran & Barry lost and were kicked out of the race. A shame as I liked watching this couple race together after 40 years of marriage. But better them than BJ & Tyler. :)

Now of course, this is all well-and-good however you most certainly didn't visit us today for a TV update (I'm sure you're just viewing that as a pleasant by-product). So in a related matter I'd like to mention the power of blogs.

Looking through our stats I noticed that we're getting a good deal of traffic for the phrase "bj and tyler". A simple blog post on our site about the Google Calendar with a short not about BJ and Tyler is currently ranking on the first page of both Google and Yahoo! This resulted in a reasonable deal of traffic for this unexpected phrase.

Blogs are useful tools for both site visitors and SEO and if you haven't added one yet ... do. It gives a site owner the opportunity to keep their visitors updated on current news from their field and ad a page of relevant content to their site with each post. It can also be a good money generator. While we at Beanstalk have decided to keep our blog ad-free, adding AdSense ads to it is a simple matter and can provide an additional revenue stream for your business, even if you're ranking for phrases that are unrelated to your direct industry.

If you're going to add a blog to your site we recommend (and use) Blogger. While there are many blog systems out there that are good Blogger is the one owned by Google. If you always want to make sure that your blog is easily read by Google then why not choose a system you know they'll always be able to read. :)

Frequently we at Beanstalk get asked about the creation of multiple websites for SEO in cases where the topic is varied. For example, if one is attempting to build a large real estate directory and would like to rank for a variety of cities, states or countries would it be better to build a unique site with a unique domain for each of these regions. Consistently the answer is a resounding "no".

Some years ago the practice of building multiple websites was a common practice to artificially increase PageRank by interlinking them all. Note the word "artificially" in the previous sentence and you'll see why the practice is no longer valid. Search engines are sophisticated beings and can now easily detect this sort of thing. While there theoretically may be valid reasons for the multiple domain approach and periodically we see the valid use of it (the iEntry network of sites which includes WebProNews, WebProWorld, SearchNewz and many more for example) the best practice for most is to use subdomains.

To clarify what a subdomain is, it's easiest to use an example. In the case above where we have multiple cities in a real estate directory one would build the general directory at http://www.thedomain.com. For the area of the directory on California for example the URL would be http://california.thedomain.com, for Washington state it would be http://washington.thedomain.com, and so on.

The benefits:

The are two primary benefits to this tactic. The first is that the SEO efforts done on one area will cascade to the others. Links built to http://www.thedomain.com with strengthen that area and thus internal links pointing to one of the subdomains will hold more weight and result in a higher PR. The second is the greatly reduced risk of penalization due to link sp@mming. When multiple domains were first introduced as an artificial link building tactic, webmasters would build 100 sites focusing on ... say ... Viagra and point them all to a single domain that they actually wanted to rank. Detection systems were thus introduced by the major engines to find these and discredit the links or worse, penalize the site for such practices.

The downside:

There are no real downsides to this other than the simple fact that you re going to have to treat each site as unique and SEO and link build as such. That said, you would have to do this regardless of whether you are using subdomains or unique sites.

As a note:

One may also want to consider the simple use of folders. Unless you're planning on building large regional areas (50+ pages) or require unique designs for each section, using folders is completely acceptable and SEO-friendly. An example of the use of folder can be seen exactly where you are right now. The Beanstalk site lives at http://www.beanstalk-inc.com/, or SEO blog at http://www.beanstalk-inc.com/blog/. With links established to point directly to http://www.beanstalk-inc.com/blog/ our blog ranks for the phrases intended (i.e. "seo blog" and "seo news"). Because our design is consistent on our blog and site this was the logical approach and successful from an SEO standpoint.

Resources:

This post was inspired by client questions and a decent article recently published on just this topic. If you'd like more information on the subject you can read the article on the ISEDB website here.

For a while now Beanstalk has been providing an RSS feed of our SEO blog to provide our visitors with the SEO information they're looking for more easily. Well today we ask a favor of you, our valued visitors.

If you have found our SEO blog useful or have subscribed to our feed we would like to ask you to vote for Beanstalk on the SearchEngineFeeds poll. This poll is for the best feeds (blogs with feeds count) and Beanstalk is in the running.

If you would like to help us out and you've found some of the information here and in our SEO articles useful we'd sure appreciate it.

You can vote for "Beanstalks SEO News Blog" at http://www.searchenginefeeds.org/featured/poll/index.php. It takes a whopping 5 seconds. :)

Thanks in advance for your support.

Well it's Friday again (which seems to be becoming a regular pattern) and thus the necessity to post pure-SEO information diminishes and the allure of the less geeky blog post calls.

I only had a chance to watch the most recent episode of the Amazing Race 9 last night (how I made it a full 24 hours without watching my taped copy I blame of actual work-related things-to-do and some interesting shifts on both Google and MSN that required my attention and analysis). Nonetheless, for those of you who read my post last week on the issue and the great relief at racers BJ & Tyler managing to pull into second-to-last place and avoid elimination, you'll certainly know who I'm rooting for.

Well when it came down to the pitstop this time my boys fell into last place after experiencing some difficulties with one of the tasks (seen to right). While this slip was disappointing it did give way to one of my alltime favorite quotes from the race by extremely tired digger BJ who "scolded" Tyler with, "I have to dig up gnomes and dig through sand ... you get to bungy jump and ..." Tyler didn't tell him to "hurry up" again. :)

And so they came in last place BUT much to my joy, this leg was a non-elimination round (which I have my suspicions is not pre-determined and they pick based on the popularity of the characters facing elimination. And so, deprived of all their belongings and money save the clothes on their backs BJ & Tyler live to race again. And so I'll anxiously await next weeks race. :)

While watching with my wife we questioned how it is that these two hippies seem to know at least a few words in virtually every language. I was inspired to look up their bio on the CBS website and discovered that these two are globe-trotting, well educated (including Harvard) travellers who fluently speak multiple languages and have spent much of their lives circling the world. An interesting bio which (if you're as addicted to the show as I am) you can read on the CBS website here.

Announced today was Google's earnings for the fiscal quarter ended March 31, 2006. Google reported revenues of $2.25 billion for the quarter ended March 31, 2006, an increase of 79% compared to the first quarter of 2005 and an increase of 17% compared to the fourth quarter of 2005.

"Google had an exceptional quarter with strong growth and profitability, from both Google properties and the network," said Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google. "We are driving this growth through investments in our infrastructure and our people, product innovations that attract new users, and relationships with advertisers and partners around the world. The strength of our business model gives us the opportunity to invest in our business, allowing us to maintain and grow our market leadership."

All I have to say is, "thank goodness". One could only image what would happen if they only realized single digit increases/quarter. ;)

There is a new article out by Beanstalk's Dave Davies (that's me) on optimizing your website for higher Google rankings. This article is part three in a four-part series on optimizing your website to rank highly accross all three major engines.

You can read the article in full on the Beanstalk site here.

Beanstalk's new site is finally live. The site, designed by W3 EDGE Web Design out of Boston provides what we believe is a more corporate feel and a professional image.

If you have any feedback regarding the look & feel, navigation or any other comments please don't hesitate to contact us and let us know. As our valued visitors we want to make sure that the site appeals to you visually and that you can find the information you're looking for quickly and easily.

The latest eyetracking study reveals some interesting things about visitor behaviour on both the search engines and your website. While the results of the study on the SE-results is not altogether shocking, how a visitor views your site reinforces what I refer to as the "microwave mentality" which works under the principle that you have seconds, not minutes, to get the job done. In this case that job is to let your visitor know that they will find the information they're looking for on your site.

According to Jakob Nielsen of Nielsen Norman Group, what we're seeing here (and on websites in general) is a F-pattern. The red is the area of the highest attention, yellow second and blue last. From this we can gather than the titles, and especially the first couple words of your titles are extremely important. They are your ad to the world for the whopping fraction of a second that you have the searchers attention.

There is a lot more information on this including eyetracking images of "real websites". Take a peek and learn what you can from them. Knowing what areas of your website are going to be viewed by your visitors in the 3 seconds you have to grab their attention will help you make the most of your online presence. SEO can get your website into the results and get visitors to your site but if you can't grab their attention when they get there you're not going to get the kind of ROI you're hoping for.

You can read more on this in a column by Jakob Neilson on the usit.com website at http://www.useit.com/alertbox/reading_pattern.html.

There is a new article out by Beanstalk's Dave Davies (that's me) on optimizing your website for higher Yahoo! rankings. This article is part two in a four-part series on optimizing your website to rank highly accross all three major engines.

You can read the article in full on the Beanstalk site here.

The first order of business in today's SEO blog world is to note the must anticipated launch of Google Calendar. The calendar service, free for anyone with a Google account (also free), is an excellent choice for those who wish access to their calendar online and don't have software such as Ogden Point Software's free Outlynk program.

The calendar includes such excellent features as email notifications, daily schedules and much more. Google's press release on the tool gives good details however nothing beats just logging in and giving it a test drive. If you have a Google account (did we mention they're free) you can do just that by visiting http://www.google.com/calendar/.

One thing I don't care for, as with many of Google's products, is the search function (how ironic). While search is a great idea there's just something about having Google "reading" all my events that somehow triggers a warning to me. Though admittedly that may be more due to the fact that I'm an SEO and really am not interested in handing Google the ability to snoop through and see what client's I'm communicating with. Call me paranoid but I think I'll stick with Outlynk. Remember, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you. ;)

As an aside ...

For those of you who visit our blog regularly to keep up-to-date on the latest SEO news you'll undoubtedly know that every now and then we like to post amusing tid-bits, especially when heading into long weekends. :)

Well today's post comes with a huge sign of relief after watching yesterdays Amazing Race 9. I'll admit that I'm addicted to this show. Since the last episode of Cheers it's the first show that I'm actually willing to schedule my time around. Fortunately my wife and kids are equally enthralled so it's easy to do. :)

Well last night was a nail-biter for all of us as our favorite team of BJ and Tyler looked to be set for elimination after a misturn took them 2 hours off course. That, combined with a 15 minutes penalty right at the end made it appear (due mainly to excellent editing) as though married parents Lake and Michelle Garner (like her but man he's a jerk) were going to beat them to the finish line leaving BJ and Tyler headed home. But fortunately delays on their end set them back and "our team" won, much to the glee of anyone with a sense of humor and to the cheers of my 8-year old.

So a big congratulations go out to BJ and Tyler for a well-won round of this race after pulling it together during the challenges and setting excellent times. Thanks to you we get to look forward to next weeks episode. :)

I definitely don't want to push down the previous post on "How People Search" published just scant monets ago however we do like to keep it interesting here. If you haven't read the article by Chris Sherman on search behaviour scroll down a bit further or click here for more info.

That said, as a geek and an avid reader of the Dilbert comic strip which I receive every day to my Inbox, I simply felt the need to publish today's strip here as an unnamed family member recently insisted on keeping me on the phone with them while dealing with a similar issue to that covered.

And so for them and for any of you who have ever been frustrated by your computer's security (or perhaps, lack thereof) this is for you.

Chris Sherman, Sr. Editor of SearchEngineWatch, published a great article yesterday based on the recent finding of iProspect in regards to how people search. The results can be companred with a similar study done in 2002 by the same company.

The study reveals great detail regarding how deep people are willing to go and perhaps more importantly, what they do when they don't find what then need.

I could describe in detail all the points from the article or I could do you a better favor and point you in the right direction to just read the thing yourself. As I couldn't possibly word it any better than Chris did and I like my blog visitors I'll do the later. :)

You can read the article in all it's glory on the SearchEngineWatch website here. Enjoy.

The use of text link ads is a hotly contested issue among many SEO experts and most certainly by the search engines themselves. Google has as much noted that the sale of text links solely for the PageRank value is a form of sp@m. That said, anyone familiar with AdWords (and I highly doubt that anyone on our blog isn't) knows that Google themselves recognizes the value of text links in directing traffic, their value in regards to increasing PageRank and boosting the relevancy of your site is purely a pleasant by-product.

When I received an email this morning offering a discount for paid links it prompted me to :

a) take a peek at the site and the quality of the links they were offering, and
b) post a blog on this important topic

While the major search engines cannot condone the purchase of text links for their SEO value, I am not a search engine. :) That said, one must be careful in the choices one makes in this regard. There is purchase of text links with hopes of it helping your search engine rankings and there is the purchase of text links SOLELY for increased PageRank. The later is not recommended.

When purchasing text links one should follow these rules:

1. Puchase links from relevant sites. If it seems logical for a person to actually click on your link from the page it is being displayed on then chances are it's a good link regardless of the PageRank. If someone would click it (an SEO link on a web design site for example) then there is an implied relevancy there.
2. Base the desision to purchase a link based on the PageRank of the homepage not the linking page. A site with a high PageRank homepage (usually matched with a high Alexa ranking though not necessarily) usually indicates that the site is well regarded by both the search engines and site owners.
3. Vary your anchor text. A sudden increase from 3 links to 5,000, all with the same anchor text is bound to look suspiscious to the search engines. Take a look at the content of the page your link is going on and adjust the linking text accordingly. Remember, you're also hoping for real-for-real traffic here. A link that appeals to the visitors is going to provide that.
4. Remember aging delays. Google (wisely) "sandboxes" links in much the same way that they do domains. A link that is a day old is worth virtually nothing whereas a link that is months old hold much more weight. If you're purchasing a link purely for it's affect on your Google rankings than be prepared to pay for it for many months (between 6 and 8) before you get the full weight though the value of these links will increase over that time.

There are a number of sites that sell text links, some good and some bad. The one I got an email from this morning is one of the better I've seen with a lot of selection and a directory (with a search function) that allows you to select sites that are relevant to yours easily and quickly.

Note: Link to text-link-ads.com has been removed. Text links are a dangerous dangerous game and I for one don't want to be blamed for leading you, our valued readers, into an area that could get your site(s) penalized.

Labels: paid links