Jacob Brown Designs Blog

5 Things Every SEO Should Know

Mar 17

jbdseoexpertsSEO, Web Design, marketing basic search engine optimization, local search, Search Engine Optimization Experts, SEO, seo basics, SEO Tips, SEO Tricks No Comments

Many different SEO experts have their own concepts, opinions and guidelines to follow by, but something that all of them have in common should be the 5 basic laws of SEO. There are certain basic techniques of SEO that should always be used when building an SEO-Friendly website.

#1 – Title Tag

The title tag in a website is one of the most important pieces in this whole search movement called SEO. For those unfamiliar with title tags, view the image below:

The Title tag tells the robots what each page should be about. This is also where your “Heavy Hitting Keywords” should be placed….I won’t charge you for that. That was free.

#2 – Meta Description

The description for each page is critical to search engines. Each page should have its own description describing what that page is about. The Meta Description is what appears beneath the Title of a search. View the example below:

Courtesy of Share Results.

#3 – H1, H2, H3 Tags

Many people and even some designers have no clue what H1, H2, or H3 tags are. These tags stand for Header, Sub-Header, and….I guess Sub-Sub-Header. H1 and H2 are the most important tags. The H1 should be the heading for each page, same as the title tag. The H2 is the support for the H1. An example is below:

#4 – Alt Tags

Alt tags are being used more and more as searches for images are becoming more common. Adding keywords or descriptions for images on a website is a big plus…especially for the search engines. These descriptions will index in the images section of search engines and will show as the title for that image. If you leave the Alt Tag blank, do not count on being found for an image search. An example is below:

#5 – Sitemap

Many do not understand the importance of a sitemap. Search engines eat the up like ice cream. Imagine trying to read a large book that had no index or glossary. This is what a website without a sitemap is like to search engine robots. The easier you make it on the search engines, and the audiences, the higher they will rank your site. Remember to create a sitemap for your website.

If you do not do anything else to your website in terms of SEO, please at least do these tactics. As simple as they may be, they will take your website a long way.

What Makes Your Website Stand Out?

Nov 17

jbdseoexpertsSEO, Web Design, marketing basic search engine optimization, Marketing Tips, Search Engine Optimization, SEO, Web Design No Comments

Time and time again I have clients ask, “How can I make my website stand out?” This is the number one question that everyone online business owner has…and rightfully so. When selling a service or product online now-a-days, there has to be something about your website that is different from the competition. There are over 186,727,854 websites on the Internet and a percentage of those 186,727,854 websites sell the exact same products or services that you do. Even if only .05% of those websites sold the same products or services….that would still be 9,336,392 web designers, photographers, cook book sellers, t-shirt makers, electronic sellers, etc trying to do the same thing you are…SELL YOUR PRODUCT, SERVICES OR YOURSELF. Scary huh?

So you might be saying to yourself…so how do I make my website stick out above a possible 9,336,392 other websites doing the same thing as me. Well…you can start with these basic principles:

DESIGN
Design of your website is very important. The first thing your potential customers or clients notice is the design of your website. It is like your face…the first thing people see. The design of your website tells the customer or clients what type of company you are. A sloppy design means a sloppy company and vice-versa.

(SEO) SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION
SEO is a huge factor in terms of standing out…especially within the search engines (Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc). Without having SEO done to your website, you may as well forget it….unless you are Donald Trump. SEO gives your website the ability to be found…but not only found, but found before and above your competition.

MARKETING
How your website is marketed plays a very large factor in making it stand out as well. Every product and service needs marketing…but the most important thing is how it is marketed. Things such as press releases, blogs, and word of mouth are huge when trying to market something. Without letting the customer or client know that you are there and what you have to offer them is better than the next….you stand no chance.

So again…how do you make your website stand out above those possible 9,336,392 other websites….DESIGN, SEO, & MARKETING!

For more information, vistit www.jacobbrowndesigns.com .

The Office: It Can Get Ugly

Sep 25

jbdseoexpertsSEO marketing, office fight, SEO No Comments

Ever had a coworker that just seems to have it out for you? They do not talk to you as much as they may have in the past, yet other coworkers let you know that your name was in their conversation. Somethings up right? Well…with all that said, I will tell you about an email I received at 6:56 AM from the President of the company I work for.

In this email, a coworker of mine was basically describing to my boss, the President, how they searched for a specific keyword phrase on Google and our main website didn’t show up in the search results…at all…not even in the first 10 pages, yet our competitor was on the first page.

WOW!

Well not only do I own a Web Design & SEO firm, but I’m also the Director of Business Development for a company in Michigan as well. This entails me being in charge of all marketing campaigns, web projects, and developing new business for the company. So basically…if our websites aren’t doing good, then it falls on me. This coworker knows that, so I can only believe that they were attempting to make me look bad to my boss….El Presidente!

WHY? I’ve done nothing but my job, and honestly…I’ve done it well! I researched this information and couldn’t believe my eyes. Not only was the keyword phrase, this coworker supposedly searched for, have our website on the 1st page of the Google results, but we don’t even use the those keywords combinations for our company.

This coworker has nothing to do with my department…so how could they possibly even know what to search for?

Well I handled the situation with the boss and gave him assurance that my marketing team was still dominating our online competition with facts and examples. Not sure what will happen next, but I know one thing…THIS MEANS WAR!

Is Facebook in need of a Facelift?

Jul 07

jbdseoexpertsFacebook, SEO Facebook, facebook users, Social Media, social networking 10 Comments

What is happening to Facebook?

Recent studies are showing that Facebook is beginning to lose it’s college student crowd, but only to be gaining a much older crowd in replace of them. Last month alone…users between the ages of 18-25 decreased by nearly 600,000 (3%) while their parents and even grandparents have been hitting record numbers…WOW!

Why is this happening? What is Facebook doing to drive their target audience away…or not doing for them to stay?

Is Facebook in need of a Facelift?

Within the last month…the number for Facebook users between the ages of 35-65 has grown tremendously…close to 5 million new users. Is Facebook losing the interest of it’s younger population to the middle and older ages?

I’ve been doing research myself on this topic to find out what Facebook is lacking and why so many users are beginning to lose interest. I’ve asked users what features for Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace are missing that they would like to see implemented in either the current social networks or possibly a new social network? Many of the responses were pretty interesting:

“I want to be able to have private chats and group chats with my friends online”

“I wish you could personalize your page a bit more”

“Being able to have a personal blog would be nice”

“I hate those dumb quizzes they’ve come out with”

“I just wanna see something new”

A lot of people were saying the same things…in terms of what they would like to see from the current social networks…or in some cases…a new one.

What do you think?

Social Media Boom vs Baby Boom during economical crisis

Jun 26

jbdseoexpertsSEO, twitter baby boom, economical crisis, SEO, social media boom, social media sites 2 Comments

Baby & Social Media Boom

A month ago today, my second son Connor was born. While speaking to our pediatrician, Dr. Forman of West Bloomfield Pediatrics…whose website I recently redesigned…BTW…he informed my wife and I that there is going to be a baby boom. Now his reason for this was that during these times of economical crisis…people have lost their jobs, and now they are at home with nothing to do…so they make babies.

There were two occasions in history that a baby boom occurred, the Post-World War II baby boom from 1946 to 1964 and the Echo baby boom (Millennial Generation) from 1980 to 1999. The Post-World War II baby boom occurred, obviously because of the returning soldiers to their families. The Echo baby booms, or Generation Y, were the children of the first baby booming generation, but this time around…it’ll be out of boredom.

Now….what does that have anything to do with Social Media? Well, I will show you.

There is a Social Media boom happening right now and will last a while. Everyone is talking about Twitter, Facebook….not so much MySpace anymore, but I won’t leave them out…they could be reading this…LOL

Thousands, if not millions of people are joining social networking sites daily. Why? Well #1, it’s fun…#2 people are realizing the advantages of doing business on these sites…but what I think is happening #3 is that people are home…either laid off or fired…and they are bored. Just like what’s going to happen with the baby boom…a social media boom will happen as well. A lot of people have nothing to do all day at home but Tweet and make babies.

While laid off at home, and supposed to be on the computer looking for another job…people are going to be joining these social media sites and getting caught up in all of the fun and excitement of interacting with others just like them. The smart ones will use these sites to for job hunting. A lot of social media sites offer great opportunities for both the job seekers and employers. Sites like TweetMyJobs.com funnel leads from recruiters and folks in HR out to job hunters. There’s also a new site called TwitterJobSearch.com that lets you search Tweets worldwide for mentions of jobs.

So…how can we as online marketers take advantage of this booming situation?

1. Many of people are beginning to venture into entrepreneurship and starting up small businesses….isn’t that who we target? Our social media presence and interaction will help gain their business.

2. More and more visitors will be on your blogs and websites, either looking for useful information or possibly your services…so be everywhere that you can so you don’t miss out on opportunities.

3. Make sure you are putting links to your website or blog in these social media sites. With these social media sites gaining more and more traffic…this in turn will boost your site with more and more relative inbound links.  So this way…we all win.

Twitter tricks and tips for SEO

Jun 17

jbdseoexpertsSEO, twitter SEO Tips, SEO Tricks, Twitter and SEO, Twitter Tips, Twitter Tricks 6 Comments

Just this a few days ago Scott Cowley from SEO.com mentioned a technique that I used in my most recent blog post, Will Bing.com change the face of search? The tactic that Scott referred to was how I targeted certain individuals who I knew would take interest in that particular post using a direct message with a link on Twitter.

There are several different Twitter techniques that can be successful…if used properly. I’ve compiled a few of them below for all to see.

Twitter Tip #1:

Be a good Twitter citizen. Don’t spam people with dumb links to things they probably don’t care about anyway.

Ok…now that we’ve gotten that one out of the way…now we can learn. LOL

Twitter Tip #2:

Connect with people on Twitter that share the same interests as you. A lot of times you may get requests from Twitter Spammers, or as some call them, Twammers…..BLOCK THEM….hopefully eventually they may disappear.

Twitter Tip #3:

Be courteous enough to retweet (or “RT”) other people’s blogs, websites, press releases. This will help your posts out in the long run as well and you will begin to see other tweets about your information as well.

Twitter Tip #4:

Add a retweet button to your blog. This will allow an easy avenue for those reading your blog posts to tweet your post easier than copying and pasting your url…which is always too long, so they end up having to shorten the url, which is just too much work.

Useful Plugins: Wordpress, Blogger

Twitter Tip #5:

Remember that Twitter is a Social Media site, where you are supposed to be meeting and networking with similar individuals…not just posting links without interaction. This is where your Twitterank drops…and people just stop liking you. The more you are liked…the more will follow.

Will Bing.com change the face of search?

Jun 09

jbdseoexpertsSEO basic search engine optimization, Bing.com, Google.com, local search, long tail keyword phrases, search engines, SEO, webmaster program 5 Comments

Ok SEO world…we have to talk about this…. Bing.com

I have to be honest…I like it, and I think I like it a lot. Sorry Google, I’m not jumping ship yet, but I am starting to click my Bing bookmark a bit more often. It looks good, it has new search features, but most of all…my websites index awesome on it. LOL

I am a die hard Googler, yet I have to admit that there is just something about this Bing.com. All of the blogs and posts that I’ve read so far have been pretty consistent with noting that Google will be hard to beat…and I do agree, but Bing is getting a lot of online publicity and searches are going to at least try it out.

I’ve noticed that Bing.com has implemented a webmaster program for us SEOs such as Google already has. We like this kind of thing. It gives us a sense of controlling our search engine destiny, in a way.

So what does Bing.com have to do in order to compete with Google? I guess it depends on the online searchers using these search engines. It will take quite a few million people to change there searching habits and make that switch from one giant to the newer up-and-coming one…Bing.com

Bing.com is supposed to help online searchers deal with information overload and narrow the search results for the users. This is also supposed to help searchers make better more informed decisions focusing initially on four key vertical areas: making a purchase decision, planning a trip, researching a health condition or finding a local business.

With local search becoming a bigger part of SEO along with “long tail keyword phrases“, Bing might have something here…. if it works the way it is purposed to.

I’m anxious to see where this thing goes.

SEO Mysterious

Jun 04

jbdseoexpertsSEO basic search engine optimization, Internet Marketing Firm, science, SEO, SEO firm, SEO Specialist, SEO Strategies 7 Comments

Guest Profile:

David Scoville, 23, is an SEO specialist at SEO.com. His emphasis includes conversion and on-page optimization. He is currently completing a degree in Advertising from Brigham Young University.

SEO Mysterious

I’ve sat in plenty of meetings where internet marketers rally back and forth, discussing ideas to increase search rankings. Sometimes there’s a little conflict about certain methods. One guy may think his SEO method is more effective than another. Working with such experts in the SE industry, how can there be disagreements about how a search engine works? We know that search engines are machines who think with black and white logic. However, to the average person, search engines are very mysterious.

Simply put, we don’t know the algorithm and Google is not going to tell us. That’s why search engines like Google are mysterious. Google has provided documentation about basic search engine optimization, but most of is based in common sense—none of it gives anything away about their algorithm. That leads internet marketers to guess.

Scientists use “guess and check” or the scientific method to discover new theories. SEO is a science—a man-made science. We utilize the scientific method to discover theories about how search engines work.

First, we state a hypothesis. For instance: “Google bases its rankings on bounce rate.” Then we run a series of experiments to test our hypothesis, making sure to have a proper control. Ilia from ExposedSEO.com ran an experiment about bounce rate and came up with some enlightening results. Greg Shuey from SEO.com just conducted an experiment about long tail search terms with the words “how to” and how their search rankings are affected by a company’s FAQ page. His new knowledge is stellar.

The search engine scientist (the SEO) who discovers a new theory, cries ‘Eureka’ and then takes steps to apply his/her new-found knowledge. Yes, with search engine wisdom comes great marketing power, indeed.

The wonderful (or annoying, whatever your take) thing about SEO science is that theories can change. A good internet marketing theory today may be a bad one tomorrow. Websites with stuffed keywords used to rank well in the 90s. However, as we know from further experimentation and experience, that theory no longer stands.

If search engine optimization is such a mystery, how do you know if an SEO firm is really going to be affective? Here are a few questions to ask your prospective firm.

Are they forward thinkers? Are they at the top of their industry? Do they think outside of the box? Do they consider themselves researchers, always seeking the latest theories?

How is their track record? Have they actually increased the search rankings of their clients’ websites? Have they done so recently?

I’ve met some incredible SEO experts who’ve had tremendous success. Consistent among these experts is their willingness to stay immersed in the latest SEO techniques, theories, and news. They seek to understand how search engines work and how their algorithms change.

7 Design Flaws that Kill Your SEO

May 31

jbdseoexpertsSEO Blogging, Jacob Stoops, SEO Analyst, Social Media, Web Design, Wordpress 3 Comments

Guest Post Bio:

Jacob Stoops is a 27 year-old SEO Analyst at People To My Site (Columbus, OH). He is also active in Social Media, Web Design, Wordpress, Blogging and more. Follow his SEO & Wordpress blog.

7 Design Flaws that Kill Your SEO

Many times the fate of a website’s search future is determined long before it is ever launched, in what most design firms call the “Planning Stages” or “Kick-Off”. For the sake of this article, imagine yourself sitting in on one of these Kick-Off meetings.

Kick-Off meetings for a design project are often filled with lots of optimism. They are a place where good ideas get passed around, and many design decisions are made. While these events are supposed to be positive, they can also be the place where SEO goes to die!

In the list below, I will detail a few design flaws that are the equivalent of putting a hit out on your website’s searchability:

1. No Text

From a fundamental SEO standpoint, this is probably right up there at the top. The importance of having text on your website is immeasurable. You would be surprised (but I wouldn’t) on how many people miss the boat in this critical area.

Search engines scan the text on your website and use that text as a large deciding factor in where it should rank your website in the search engine results page. Therefore, it is important that you have quality text on your website that talks about what you do, what your site is all about, and/or where you service.

2. Text in Images

If I’ve seen it once, I’ve seen it a thousand times. Designers placing all the relevant text within a flattened image. Why is this bad, you ask? Because search engines can’t read images on a website.

Images are the proverbial blind spot for the major search engine powerhouses. This means that all that pretty text that you layered on that flattened image isn’t really there in the eyes of the search engines. The only way around this is by using Alt tags on your images.

In short, don’t place your text within images, but place it in the HTML so that it can be scanned. You want to use a font that isn’t web-safe? There are many CSS tricks you can do to use non-web safe fonts. Look them up.

3. Splash Pages

Ughh…splash pages. Splash pages were once a popular design trend (circa 1999), however they are now the bane of every SEO’s existence. The fact that I still see them in use is simply appalling.

What’s the problem? A splash page basically creates an uncrawlable barrier between a webcrawler and your website’s homepage (which is generally your site’s most important and most frequently crawled page). Of course, this is fine if you don’t care about how or if search engines rank your website.

4. Flash

Flash is actually a pretty awesome technology and has its uses, but it wreaks havoc on your SEO-campaign. As of now (although they are getting better) search engines can’t read text within Flash elements.

Therefore, it is not wise (unless you are a well-known brand or only care about cool functionality) to base your entire site in Flash.

What do I recommend? Flash is okay to use, but is best in smaller doses…like your in-laws.

5. Overuse of Dynamic Scripts

Many dynamic scripts such as AJAX act is barriers between webcrawlers and your site’s content. Therefore, if much of your content is populated via dynamic scripting it is likely that much of it will have a hard time getting indexed.

6. Non-Spiderable Navigation

This goes back to dynamic scripts and flash. If your site’s navigation is encased within a dynamic script or flash file, then you might as well bury those links yourself. I’ve heard the Pine Barrows or the Meadowlands are good locations if you don’t want things to be found (pardon the mob reference).

7. Frames

Using frames is probably the worst and most idiotic thing you can do for SEO. It is especially common with auto dealership websites who use third-party sources to frame in their vehicle inventory.

Basically, a frame pulls content in from another website and “frames” it into your site. This means that the content on your site resides on somebody else’s server.

What should you do? Kiss that content or inventory you were hoping to get indexed for goodbye, because it’s not being credited to your site.

Usually, there is nobody there to stop the project from a design destined for failure; HOWEVER we must remember that you’re the fly on the wall here and can try to persuade your team (or the client) to call off the hit.

What do I recommend? Make the decision makers aware of the inherent design flaws and remind them of the common SEO motto, “A beautiful website is worthless if nobody can find it!” If they don’t listen to your persuasive arguments, then I recommend just punching them squarely in the face and screaming bloody murder.

Just kidding! Wait, am I?

Who really needs SEO?

May 28

jbdseoexpertsSEO donald trump, Facebook, Search Engine Optimization Experts, SEO Expert, twitter, What is seo, youtube No Comments

There are a lot of companies and individuals that want brand new websites or even website makeovers, yet decline to accept SEO services…why is this?

During my extensive research over the past few years, I’ve notice that a lot of consumers and business owners have no clue what SEO is. Well, for those who do not know, SEO is an acronym for Search Engine Optimization, which is a process where you optimize a website in order to gain higher results within a search engine…in particular…Google.

But…what does that mean? Well, I’m glad you asked. People, or consumers, use search engines while searching online for particular services. If you happen to go online and you are looking for a company that sells custom bikes, then you would more then likely type something like this…”custom bikes for sale“. Now if your company sells custom bikes, then you would more than likely want your website to show up in the search results…not only show up, but show up as high in the results as possible…right?

It only makes since to want to be as close to the top of the page as possible. The higher up you are, the more of a chance your website has to be visited, which in turn could result in a sale.

So…….again I ask…who really NEEDS SEO?

Well, there are a few companies with websites that don’t really need SEO: Target, Best Buy, Walmart, Donald Trump….. starting to get the picture a little bit. None of these companies really NEED SEO…but why? Well, I’m glad you asked again. SEO is for companies with websites that are not widely known. If you have a name, such as Target or even Trump, then a searcher would just type your name instead of looking blindly for services.

You cannot find Donald Trump’s website within the search engines….and he doesn’t care….he’s RICH. Donald Trump does not care if his website isn’t found on Google…he’s worth $3 billion. Would you care? But if your company has not built an empire of a name for itself…then yes…you need SEO.

SEO is not only having to optimize your website properly anymore, but it has slowly been turning into an online popularity contest. Google usually ranks websites highest that are optimized well #1, but also popular #2. With the whole Social Media boom the past year or two, SEO has changed dramatically. There are certain things that you have to do to a website…but now there are also certain places that your website should appear in order to be someone in this online world: Twitter, Facebook, Youtube….need I go on?

The list of Social Media sites goes on forever…but why do we need to be on these sites? Well these Social Media websites have very high rankings with Google, and the links to your website from those Social Media sites are high quality links, which boost your websites ranking as well. The more quality links you have coming into your website, the higher you rise in the search engines.

So….Who really needs SEO? If you are reading this post…then you probably do. Go here for help.