A lot of SEO companies outsource their work to groups overseas that (a) aren't native speakers and (b) don't really know what they're doing or use very outdated SEO techniques.  When someone promises you great SEO progress for $50 or $100 a month, not only are they sure to rip you off, but they're probably outsourcing whatever work they do to non-native speakers who may do more harm than good to your rankings and your reputation.  

 

Cheap SEO: you get what you pay for!

 

In many cases, "cheap" SEO is essentially an up front service where the company or individual promises a lot, but only does a little work up front and does nothing in the ensuing months.  They'll skip the research and analysis and copy competitors' title tags and tactics.  They'll point out that it takes time for SEO to build steam (which is true), but in the meantime, they take your money.   

 

Auto-generated content is a waste of time. 

 

Outsourced SEO work almost invariably fails in the important area of quality content.  Try to get a group in Bangladesh or Mexico to write articles for a psychologist in the USA without plagiarism or auto-generated content.  Even simple blog posts that are interesting and informative will give other sites a reason to link to you.  Auto-generated content is NOT the answer!  With the new Panda algorithm, quality content is imperative.  Auto-generated content that reads on a 3rd grade level now hurts your credibility with both the reader and Google.  

 

Gurantees are fraudulent.  

 

We repeat it frequently on this site because it's true: NO ONE can guarantee you top placement for any term without using paid search (sponsored ads or pay-per-click).  Your ranking depends on 100+ factors, and some of those are out of your control (e.g., what your competition does, changes Google may make).  Fraudulent SEO companies will promise you the sky, then take your money and run with it.  

 

Link building isn't the only task.  

 

With Google's 100+ factors come many different types of potential SEO tasks.  You may have hundreds of links to your site, but if your pages don't contain the appropriate keywords, the links will have little effect.  All of the tasks from title tags to keywords in your text to proper keyword tags on your images and a littany of other factors add up to a well-optimized page.  Well-optimized pages achieve much higher rankings for your linked pages.

 

Look at what type of link building they're doing.  

 

Posts in blogs and forums, especially "bulk comments" that have traditionally been the shortcut for SEO firms, no longer carry weight with Google like they used to.  Look for quality links on valuable sites and directories.

 

We get one or two inquiries each day from overseas SEO companies wanting us to outsource our work to them at insanely low rates.  Unfortunately, this is one industry where the saying "you get what you pay for" holds very true. 

You may have noticed some of the Internet's most influential sites like WordPress and WikiPedia "going dark" recently to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and emphasise the effect that SOPA, if passed, could have on the Web and daily life.  SOPA is a controversial measure introduced by House Judiciary Committee Chair and Texas Republican Lamar Smith.  The act's intent is to help fight online trafficking in copyrighted intellectual property and counterfeit goods by preventing advertising networks and payment facilities from conducting business with infringing websites, preventing search engines from linking to the sites, and (most concerningly), requiring ISPs to block people from even having access to the site.  The measure is obviously designed for the primary benefit of movie studios and record labels.

 

The vote on SOPA's senate counterpart (PIPA) is this Wednesday.  SOPA discussions will resume in February.  

 

Theft of Internet intellectual property is a serious problem, but unfettered censorship and curbing technological progress is not the answer.  Rather than securing a court order, property owners would simply need to present a notice of their "good faith belief" that the target site has infringed on their content.  The recipient of the notice would have 5 days to obstruct access to the material or challenge the claim in court.  Shockingly, though, content providers like YouTube and payment gateways like PayPal can shut block a site's resources without even receiving a letter.  Google could potentially block access to every viral video site with a "good faith belief" that they're infringing on copyrights and leaving YouTube with a virtual video monopoly. 

 

SOPA would obstruct advertising on infringing sites and result in a string of chaotic breaks in agreements and relationships among businesses across the Internet, not to mention the simplest effects like broken links that, left uncorrectd, could harm 3rd party sites in both usability and search engine rankings.  

 

SOPA also contains an anti-circumvention clause, which prohibits discussion of alternatives to SOPA-blocked sites.  Your tweet or Facebook post about a rights-protected movie torrent could be removed, and Facebook and Twitter could face the same blockades for ignoring the posts.  Take a moment to imagine the resources required on the part of so many different parties...

 

How can Congress accomplish its goal with minimal side effects?  It could start with a greater attention to enforcement of existing laws such as the Digital Millenium Enforcement Act and by developing sensible alternative legislation that protects the freedom of information.  

 

In the meantime, do what you can to help derail SOPA.  Email your local US representative and your state senators.   Participate in the discussions online.  Let your opinion be known.  People are listening.

Resellers often ask how to come up with a recommended budget for clients for a wide array of marketing services, and how to fit SEO/SEM into the mix.  The answer isn't an easy one, because you have to take into account many different factors when making a recommendation that's best for your client.  

 

Generally, I recommend developing an overall marketing budget and carving out pieces of the pie based on the client's needs.  Ad agencies spend a lot of time on marketing plan development and budget determinations.  For our work in particular, there are a ton of variables.  For example, if the client sells 100 products, you have potentially huge Paid Search and SEO projects based on that alone.  SEO also has a lot of variables.  Where is the client ranked now for their top keywords?  Where do they want to be ranked (page 1, top three, #1 overall) for each?  Are they in a competitive market?  How optimized is the site already?  Each of these factors, among others, helps determine the amount of time you need to spend on SEO.  Otherwise, you're almost arbitrarily assigning a budget. 

 

With paid search, we usually require a budget from the client.  Our resellers can help them determine that, similar to how they would recommend a budget for TV or radio ads.  

 

With SEO, I usually require one of two things: 

Certain other tasks may have a wide range of things we could do.  For example, if the client needs a Facebook account, we could simply create an account for the client (which could take minutes) or put in some creative time, consult with the client, formulate a nice custom page or pages, etc. (which could take 10-50 hours depending on how much they want to do with the pages).

 

You should decide between the different types of online marketing in a similar manner.  Some types of ads work better for some clients than others.  Facebook may be a great outlet if the product or service is exciting or interesting and the audience needs to be targeted, but may be a waste of time if the product is something boring or difficult to explain in a small FB ad that no one will click on.  Similarly, you may need to develop more creative or explanatory ads based on the type of products and services the client offers.

 

We can help you customize a budget for your client, but let's do it together and make an informed decision that's in their best interests.

*Surprise!*  Google+ Pages Showing up Highly in Search Results!

 

The popularity of Google+ has been slow out of the gate, but Google appears to be promoting its own cause with large companies.

 

Google's new Direct Connect feature allows users to go directly to a company's Google+ page just by typing a plus ("+") symbol after the company's brand (e.g., toyota+). Google, through its own algorithm, decides which companies qulaify for this feature via Google's own algorithm.    

 

Not many people are using the Direct Connect feature, but the Facebook wannabe-competitor site's brand pages seem to place irregularly high in Google search results for companies that have qualified for Direct Connect. Many companies now see their Google+ page directly below their home page in Google's rankings. It's a not-so-surprising phenomenon that's causing qualified companies to pay attention to their Google+ pages, and non-qualified companies to try to become qualified. 

 

More on this later... we need to work on our Google+ page.

Dallas SEO Dogs doesn't lag behind the pack when it comes to trends in search engine optimization.  Ten years ago, putting tiny text at the bottom of your page and masking it in the same font color as your background was a FANTASTIC idea. Today?  Not so much.  

 

Today's search engines give you the smackdown for black hat trickery.  They want to see engaging content that speaks to your target audience with some actual value.  Google's 2011 Panda Algorithm is now so sophisticated that that SEO Companies now have to follow its terms of service closely if they want to achieve SEO success.  Dallas SEO Dogs believes that writing garbage articles full of keywords is a less-successful SEO tactic than it has been in recent years.  Here are some things we're now focusing on.

 

Update Your Content!  The Panda algorithm now considers your entire site's content.  If you have bad content anywhere on your site, it's holding you back.  Why does Google think this way?  Because stale content signifies that you can't keep up with the times.  On the bright side, if you have good (yet outdated) content, you don't necessarily have to trash it and start over.  Dallas SEO Dogs can help you update your old content and add valuable keywords and links.  We can supplement that with new content and articles.  If your content is just horrible, let's get rid of it and setup 301 redirects to the new pages.  Now, let's update the content FREQUENTLY!     

 

Clean Your Code!  Clean code means less chances for search engines to stumble when crawling your site.  Provide them with simple code that's easy to analyze and standards-compliant.  Dallas SEO Dogs stresses this important task now more than ever.  Almost all of our projects demand HTML and CSS validation.  

 

Reduce clicks!  Some clients want 100 pages of information with complex navigation.  Many of those pages are never even read by users.  Dallas SEO Dogs helps clients focus on the pages that are gettiong the most visits.  You may be able to move lesser-visited page content to another page to provide it with greater value and get increased visibility for the moved content.  Plus, you save some users the extra clicks they'd need to get to both pages. 

 

In the coming months, we'll add a lot more insight into current trends and tips.  Let us know if you have any questions.  

Not too long ago, SEO (Search Engine Optimization) was largely a matter of composing meta tags, creating backlinks and stuffing your page with keywords.  Over the years, Google has developed much more complex algorithms and added many factors to its search engine ranking criteria.  

 

The algorithm now changes so frequently that it's difficult for the average consultant to stay on top of Google's process and still cover all the "new" bases.  While there is no Google "manual", Dallas SEO Dogs follows Gooogle's SEO Starter Guide, its Webmaster Guidelines, and we're active in several discussion forums on the topic in order to stay up-to-date on the latest SEO news.  There's a lot of misinformation out there, so we also continuously tweak and monitor our clients' sites in order to learn by experience what works and what doesn't. 

 

SEO is a very bread term.  It now involves social media, video, link building, content writing/PR, code "cleaning" and research and analysis.  It's an almost unlimited task that requires creativity and the ability to allocate a client's budget in the most productive way possible.

 

Dallas SEO Dogs is a team that has advantages over individuals and inexperienced firms.  We have a wide range of skills and experience that allows us to determine accurately the best course of action for your firm's needs and budget that an individual most likely cannot handle.  While others may offer you a pre-set "package" of hours arbitrarily selected for you, we prefer to match a package to your budget and include tasks based on a subjective analysis of your needs.  Our success speaks for itself! 

With the recent switch to SSL Google's default search, some organic traffic data has been removed from Google Analytics.

 

Google says that approximately 10% of data would be lost, but many of our clients have seen 15-40% of their search data listed as "not provided" because of the change.  Note that AdWords customers, in typical Google fashion, get all of the data without any "not provided."

 

But hey, all is not lost.  For a small fee of ONE HUNDRED FIFTY THOUSAND DOLLARS for Google Analytics Premium, these features can be restored... Google, are you kidding? 

This week, Google made history by publishing changes to its search algorithm.  This list of changes is nothing monumental in itself, but represents a big change for SEO companies in that the details of future changes may also be made public and the search engine ranking criteria would therefore be more concrete and the rankings more predictable.  

 

The recent list of changes includes ten language- and display-related items.  You can read about them here.

 

The changes are believed to be a result of an antitrust investigation into claims that Google's search algorithms are biased towards Google businesses and operations.