The Rank Magic Blog

Learn Digital Photography For Your Web Site

October 26, 2009 ::: Our friend and strategic partner Juliet Foster has taken many fine photos to grace the pages of some of our clients' web sites. Now she's branched out to teach small business owners how to use their own cameras to create photos of their products or illustrations of their services for their own web sites.

We don't all have the budget to hire a professional photographer for our web sites. Juliet can teach us how to do it ourselves, and she teaches us to do it with the equipment we already own. We can't aspire to the quality of Juliet's own photos, but she can certainly show us how to do a much better job on our own than we could without her help. Learn more on her web site.

Debut: Google Local Listing Ads

October 25, 2009 ::: The good news: Google's rolling out something that should at some point help small businesses in a lot of places reach potential customers online. They're small, text-only ads of the sort Google often displays, only the trick is that they're shown when people near a company's physical location search for a specific type of business.

These ads are shown on Google and Google Maps. The first 30 days are free, you then only need to pay "a flat monthly fee based on your location and business category". There are no bids or keywords to manage, and you can get a full report on the number of calls, clicks to your ad, requests for driving directions, and clicks to your info window on Google Maps.

The bad news: this service is currently available only in San Francisco and San Diego, California. Assuming it's successful, look for it to be rolled out nationwide in the future. If your business is in San Francisco or San Diego, here's where you can learn more and sign up.

Sponsored Search Results Lead to Malware

October 21, 2009 ::: Windows Secrets recently reported that the ads served by Bing and Google along with your search results are linking more and more often to sites trying to infect your machine. For example, if you recently have used either Google or Microsoft's new Bing search engine to find the popular Malwarebytes Anti-Malware utility, chances are good that the sponsored ads alongside your search results contained links to the very malware that the security tool is designed to remove.

Such "malvertisements" are showing up as paid ads on non-search engine web sites, too.

The article from Windows Secrets offers some suggestions on how to avoid such sites, and how to report them if you get stung. But, sadly, their recommendations are neither foolproof nor convenient.

As for your own searches, It's best to be somewhat wary of sponsored links until the search engines address the problem.

Welcome New Clients

October 15, 2009 ::: I'd like to welcome some new clients who've joined us since June. We're looking forward to seeing some great rankings  for them.

• Barry Gartenberg is a business attorney in Springfield, NJ with a wealth of experience running businesses.

• Ome Caterers is New Jersey's premier caterer offering gourmet off-site catering in the New Jersey/New York City area.

• Glenn Kaplan is a personal injury lawyer and workers' compensation attorney in in Randolph, NJ.

• Evan's Auto Care is an expert car repair shop in Cincinnati, Ohio.

• Party On With Natalie caters parties and events for young and old alike throughout New Jersey.

• Anytime Service offers outstanding appliance repair services in New Jersey and nearby Pennsylvania and New York.

  

The Value of Outbound Links

October 12, 2009 ::: Outbound links to quality content are good not only for the site being linked to, but also for the site doing the linking. Many people are reluctant to link to other web sites, for fear the visitor may not return to the original site, and for the fear that outbound links can drain PageRank, or Link Popularity. Neither fear is justified.

To keep from losing your visitors to an external web site, you can simply set up the link to open in a new tab or a new window. Then if your visitor closes that window or tab, Bada-Bing! they're right back on your site where they were before they left. (Can you tell I'm from New Jersey?)

As for draining PageRank, if you choose your outbound link target pages on relevance to your own content and on the quality of their content, then according to Matt, Google’s going to reward you. That word comes from Google's own Matt Cutts, whose blog often illuminates Google's intentions. Basically, Google (and the other search engines) want to reward web sites that provide value to their visitors. And if your pages contain links to highly valued content that's relevant to your visitors' interests, Google reflects that in their opinion of your site's value.

If you're inclined to check out the technical discussion from Matt (and it is a bit technical) the relevant blog posting is here.

5 Factors When Choosing an SEO Company

October 8, 2009 ::: Jill Whalen , CEO and founder of High Rankings, a search marketing firm outside of Boston, and co-founder of SEMNE, a New England search marketing networking organization, has been performing SEO since 1995. Jill is the host of the High Rankings Advisor search engine marketing newsletter, and she wrote this article in her newsletter recently. I find I agree with it almost completely, and am happy to share it with you.

SEO for Bing

October 2, 2009 ::: Microsoft's Bing search engine is different from Google and Yahoo in a number of ways. It groups results differently, and provides a number of features that may (or may not) improve your searching experience.

But what about your rankings? Since Bing is going to power Yahoo searches starting sometime next year, that's something that has many web site owners concerned. But don't worry. Here's what Microsoft has to say about that.

Other blogs of interest

The Computer Lady