The Rank Magic Blog

Small Business Web Sites -- Pretty Sad

October 29, 2008 ::: Danny Sullivan, editor of Search Engine Land and a nationally known and respected SEO expert reported  recently on his experiences with some pretty sad small business web sites. He wrote about his recent move from Europe to California, and describes many of the things he ended up searching for as he got settled in. He tells the story about trying to get some pizza and coming across the site for a local pizza joint that ranked well for his query, but when he got to the site, all he found was a malware message, indicating that the business had not been taking very good care of their site. "Trying to help, I even called and explained that something really bad was happening with the site," says Danny. "I was told the owner would call back. I didn’t think he would, nor did he." Danny also noted that the town where this took place is a big tourist town, and would likely cater to a lot of pizza eaters who would be using search engines to find places to eat. Duh!

He then recounted a similar story about a locksmith whose site was "not found", but whose domain went to a holding page from a yellow pages company. They had even created a second site for the company, but told Danny that they intended to get the other one back as well. Danny laments, "The things I wanted to ask. Why did you ever build your business around a domain you didn’t control? Why isn’t your developer doing everything possible right now to get that domain back? Can you get the hosting company to do a temporary redirect for a fee over to your holding site? How are you going to handle the aftermath of building up two different sites for your business? Will you redirect the temporary one back to the main one after you get control of that?"

He left his email address with them along with an offer to talk to their developer free of charge. They didn't contact him. It's astonishing to think that these two businesses who clearly have troubles with their online presences were offered free consultation from THE Danny Sullivan and didn't even bother to get back to him. Meanwhile, their sites are probably still in miserable shape.

Here's Danny's full article.

Anxious Over Online Privacy?

October 23, 2008 ::: Most Americans are concerned about what's being done with their personal information online, according to a new poll from Consumer Reports.

"Many consumers have misconceptions about the information available about them and how commonly it is sold by companies without their knowledge," said Joel Kelsey, policy analyst with Consumers Union. "Our poll makes clear that consumers want more control over the treasure trove of information companies are collecting about their activities online."

The Consumer Reports poll found that 82% of Internet users are concerned about their credit card numbers being stolen online, and 72% are worried that their online activity is being tracked and profiled by companies. More than 2/3 of Americans have provided personal information to gain access to a Web site, but 53% said they weren't comfortable with companies using their email content or browsing history to send them ads, and 54% are uncomfortable with third parties collecting information about their online behavior.

Two New Programs from Rank Magic

October 19, 2008 ::: We're offering two new programs to our clients that I'd like to share with you.  These are most appropriate after your main SEO campaign has concluded.

SEO Monitoring

Search engine rankings, when achieved properly, tend to be relatively stable over time without the need for major revisions to your optimization. Nevertheless, nothing stays the same forever. Your rankings may fluctuate up and down, or they may even begin a steady decline, depending on a number of factors.

Search engines are always adjusting their ranking algorithms, giving more weight to certain things and less weight to others. Lately, we're seeing more weight being given to incoming links and the clickable text of those links. Your competitors may be adding links and starting to beat you out in the results. Links on your site may go bad, reducing your TrustRank and negatively affecting your rankings. (I have an article on that subject under consideration at Entrepreneur Magazine's web site. I'll report here if and when it's published.)

You can't react to changes in your rankings if you're not aware of  them. And you don't want to wait until they reveal themselves through fewer clients or customers. That's why we're offering an SEO Monitoring package so you'll always know if anything needs attention. Here's what's included:

Bill Hartzer's Search Engine Tip #3 - Keywords In Your Content

October 15, 2008 ::: Bill Hartzer has an excellent blog on search engine optimization (SEO), and he's started a series of search engine tips that I think you'll find very valuable. Last month I wrote about his second tip, relating to the Meta Description Tag.

This month the focus is on using keywords in the text content of your site. It may sound obvious, but as Bill points out, a surprising number of web pages fail to use their keyword phrases more than once in their page content. Some don't use them at all.

Bill suggests, "In an ideal situation, before the web page’s copy is written, the keyword or keyword phrase is given to the copywriter. And the copywriter uses that keyword or keyword phrase several times on the page." I recommend Bill's article on using keywords in your copy. Check it out.

Google Blog Search

October 9, 2008 ::: Google Blog Search (now in Beta) provides search results from millions of feed-enabled blogs. Users can search for blogs or blog posts, and can narrow their searches by dates and more. We'll soon be working to make sure the Rank Magic blog is listed. In the meantime, this is still a great source to find blogs and blog posts on subjects that interest you.

Other blogs of interest

The Computer Lady