SEO for Blogs

10 years ago, Search Engine Optimization was spam. People who knew very little about the practice could manipulate the search engines with very little effort and huge results. Nowadays, it's much more difficult and takes more than simple trickery to get results. The following myths, however prevalent in the current SEO scene, need some busting, by yours truly, Integraphix.

Myth One: Search Engines don't "see" Images

While this is correct that the actual image itself can't be seen by search engines, applying appropriate tags to the image can benefit your image search capabilities and on-page optimization efforts. While not a huge benefit, Alt Text and Image Filenames does make a difference and should be included in your SEO strategy.

Myth Two: An SEO Can 'Fix' Your Website after it's Built

The simple fact is, if your website is not designed and built around search engine optimization the first time around, it will be more difficult and more expensive to optimize your website for search engines after it's designed. Most web designers don't know what's important for SEO unless they've researched it on their own and can seriously screw up a site's optimization. Optimizing a site that hasn't seen the hand of an SEO can need some serious changes including code changes, CSS changes, and a complete reworking of internal structure.

Myth Three: Google is the SEO God

While Google is very important, there are two other major search engines out there that have their own set of rules to abide by. If Google said it, it may not necessarily work on other search engines. Take all the rules into account, test a bit and see which one works best. Google may not be the end all be all of SEO techniques.

Myth Four: No-Follow Links Don't Count

Actually, Google, Bing and Yahoo all look upon an unbalanced Do-Follow/No-Follow links as spam. If you've got too many Do-follow links, the Search Engines may actually punish you rather than give you rankings. Try to keep a healthy balance of no-follow/do-follow links to keep your link profile healthy and natural.

Myth Five: Internal Linking Doesn't Matter

The main issue we find when optimizing a client's website is that their previous SEO Firm hasn't paid attention to internal page authority techniques. Internal linking is one of those techniques. Linking to your interior pages via the receiving page's keywords creates authority within the interior pages of your website. This can improve your interior page's PR Rank and even the search engine rankings of your interior pages. Not taking advantage of this can be severely detrimental to your website's on-page and overall website optimization.

For more SEO Tips such as How to use Tumblr for SEO and What does Do-follow mean subscribe to our RSS feed via your favorite feed reader! Have any other myths you want busted? Let us know in the comments!

Chicago SEO :: Chicago Internet Marketing :: Internet Marketing Agency :: SEO Consultants

With so many SEO Specialists in Chicago, how do you choose the right one for your company? There are several factors to consider when you approach an SEO Specialist for the first time. Below we will break these factors down for you so you can go into a meeting with knowledge, and avoid getting scammed.

Research
Typically, when you approach a company that specializes in something, they'll know far more about the topic than you. They're good at it and you rely on them to produce results for you. Our recommendation is to do your research before you go into a meeting with an SEO specialist. As with any specialized area, one bad egg can make it hard for the rest of us to keep our good name. Researching before walking into a meeting with minimize the possibility of being taken advantage of or signing a contract with a company that uses unethical practices. There are plenty of blogs and advices from other business owners that you can look at. SEOmoz is a great resource, though the blog is full of SEO lingo that might be a little over the head of an untrained person. A little knowledge will stop you being completely baffled about what your Chicago SEO Specialist is talking about and trying to sell you.

Terminology
As with any business there is technical jargon for the products or services that are offered. Your SEO Specialist should be able to deliver a strategy in laymen's terms for you. A few industry terms are as follows:
Backlinks: Links from one website that pointing to your website.
Keywords: Words that are used by search engines to determine the topic of a given web page.
Organic Search:Search results in a search engine that are not paid advertisements.
White Hat SEO: The use of accepted SEO practices in order to get higher rankings, more traffic, etc.
Be sure to look at a great glossary of SEO Terms, and take a look at some of our previous posts including Why SEO should be important to you, Optimizing your Website for Local Search, When to Fire your SEO Firm, and How to Optimize your Social Media.

SEO Strategy
No business is creative equal. Following that, there is no one-size-fits-all approach to SEO. If your SEO Firm is trying to sell you the same strategy they sold to someone else, not only will it not work, but it's unethical on their part to be working for two competing companies. In addition to demanding a unique strategy, never ever buy an SEO package online from a company you've never met with.

Results
As with any business, success is measured by results. If your SEO firm can't show you real, current results, run away quickly. Depending on client confidentiality, ask your chosen SEO firm to show you a few results pages in Google to see the current positions they've achieved. Ask to see their social media and Google Place page. Ask to see the SEO Firms's Place page. Make sure people are saying GOOD things about them. Do a little research on your own as well - don't ever take a company's website as the gospel truth. People can lie! It's helpful to type in the company's name and add 'scam' to it in a Google search. If there've been problems, they'll show their ugly face soon enough.

If you need more information on SEO and Internet Marketing, call Integraphix, a Chicago SEO Firm at 847.537.0067 to set up a Free Internet Marketing appointment.

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Integraphix | Chicago SEO Firm

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