Category Archives: SEO Tips

SEO Tips | Website Strategies

Why You Should Avoid Building Flash Websites

Drew Hannush by Drew Hannush (12 Aug 2009)  |  1 Comment

It happens occasionally.  I’ll get a client who asks about getting a website developed that is high on creativity…inevitably leading to the question of using Flash for the site.

My answer is usually not as simple as just “avoid it.”  I like to give advantages and disadvantages to my clients so they can make an informed decision.

So with that in mind, I also looked for some credible resources to feed their opinion on the subject.  In a world where SEO techniques are growing more and more in demand, I find that drives the decisions of most people.

Read more of this post.

SEO Tips

Goodbye Yahoo! Bing becomes #2 Search Engine

Drew Hannush by Drew Hannush (30 Jul 2009)  |  Leave a comment

Well, if you haven’t heard already, once again Yahoo! has given up on search again.

Quite a few years ago, Yahoo! gave away their search power to Google, using them as a major part of their search results.  Then management decided to break from Google and do it on their own.

They had some success but could never touch the 60%+ market share that Google has enjoyed in the search engine race.

For the last year or so, Microsoft has made serious bids to buy the search feature, but Yahoo! wouldn’t sell.  Then Microsoft introduced Bing and the power dynamic changed.  Soon Bing was passing Yahoo! by.   The ultimate result…Yahoo! cuts their losses and doesn’t really get anything out of the agreement other than 88% of ad revenue from its ads placed on Bing.

Microsoft becomes the undisputed #2 in the search market with approximately 28% share (this of course will adjust depending on how the change is implemented and how much Yahoo! users like the idea or decide to jump ship for giant Google.

So for us in the web design and SEO market, its time to take a deep long look at our search engine strategies and make a bigger place for Bing…its not just another marketing play by Microsoft, this looks serious.

We will follow this story and will move our focus in discussions from Yahoo! to Bing and Google in the future.  Stay Tuned.  Meanwhile, check out latest articles on the merger.

Read more of this post.

SEO Tips

Bada boom Bada “Bing”

Drew Hannush by Drew Hannush (1 Jun 2009)  |  Leave a comment

Okay, if at first you don’t succeed…rebrand!  At least that seems to be Microsoft’s plan on how to conquer the search engine market.  Consistently number 3 behind Google and Yahoo!, Microsoft has decided to dump its short lived “Live” branding for the new “Bing.com”

What is so exciting about the new Bing.com you ask?

Well, for  you…probably not a whole lot.  Yes, it does use a slightly different indexing method and algorithm, but in reality, regular searches don’t seem to deliver anything very different than its “Live” predecessor.  For shopping, it does seem to be branching into reviews and pricing searches (like mysimon.com is).  For maps it actually has my business location (which Google hasn’t gotten to yet).  The Bird’s Eye shots are really clean and crisp…  But again, searches don’t seem very advanced and not any more advanced than Google from my initial views.  Time will tell.

For Microsoft, they are going to go on a brand blitz, with millions of dollars going into pushing Bing.com as the hot new competition to Google.com.

You see, Microsoft’s Live search was no unnoteworthy that less than 1% of people actually typed in Live.com to do searches on the site…the other 99% came from MSN.com.  Google has no master website feeding it searches…it uses a combination of toolbar searches and direct access searches, which keeps Google’s name in the forefront.  So it seems Microsoft thinks its way to beat Google is to get a new brand developed again and just heavily promote it.

But this strategy hasn’t done Vista any favors.  Even though it really is a decent and stable operating system, it still has a bad name…no matter how much Microsoft promotes it.  They have started promoting “Windows” now more than “Vista” because the next operating system will be called “Windows 7.”  And maybe that is the key for Microsoft…stop coming up with cute names and different brands…and just call their search Windows Search or Microsoft Search…and then just make a product that doesn’t change every 6 months.

Read more of this post.

SEO Tips

New Competition For Google

Drew Hannush by Drew Hannush (5 May 2009)  |  Leave a comment

As I am prone to do…I am always looking for a better mousetrap.  So, while doing a little research on the search engines, I read a curious post on Matt Cutt’s blog about new competition for Google.  The site is called Blekko. Curious as I was, I went to look at the site to see what they had posted on their site (since so many of the less professional sites I’ve seen feature those ugly under construction graphics).  To my surprise, this is what I found (http://www.blekko.com).

The image you see is appropriately called Boo.jpg.  Apparently the marketing VP discussed in the blog is going for “shock” value!  So far, Google has little to worry about from Blekko.

On another front though, there is a challenger to Google that might make some headway.  More than just a search engine, the Wolfram Alpha project is meant to think for you.  When it was first explained to me, it sounded like another version of Ask.com, where you give a question and this engine gives you back related sites.  But Wolfram Alpha is much more advanced than that.   Apparently Dr. Stephen Wolfram (obviously the engine’s creator) took his brilliant mind and came up with a search engine that actually intelligently takes the question you ask and finds the results and prints it on the screen…so it doesn’t necessarily take you to sites, but gives you the answers you’re looking for.  This I’ll have to see for myself.

Anyway, for anyone that is interested…check out his video presentation and read this article from G4 that gives you an overview.  It’s supposed to launch this month.  We shall see.

Read more of this post.

SEO Tips

Twitter and Facebook Little Business Power In Google

Drew Hannush by Drew Hannush (16 Mar 2009)  |  Leave a comment

Digging deeper into this concept of social media, I read some interesting articles the weekend.  Apparently anyone thinking their business is going to reap great benefits from putting links in Facebook and Twitter are just fooling themselves.

Both services use a “nofollow” attribute on their links to your site.  There are some ways around this, but for the novice or casual business owner who isn’t getting guidance from an SEO professional or web developer in the know are most likely wasting their time putting links in these two mediums.

Apparently Google developed the “nofollow” attribute to fight spam.  Years later, many business people don’t realize that Twitter, Facebook and Wikipedia have all agreed to use this tag to stop spiders from reaching through your posts to find your web site.

So in the end, it seems Google has chosen the Blog as the preferred medium for delivery of timely content.

Read more of this post.

SEO Tips

The Old Days of Misspellings

Drew Hannush by Drew Hannush (12 Mar 2009)  |  Leave a comment

I was reminded last night, after misspelling a name in a post (which Google apparently caches your mistake forever!) of those old days when we web developers were charged with the task of misspelling every word on the planet.

Ahhh yes, the good old days of meta tags, when a client would say, I need you to fill those up so I can be found under kat, cat, khat, khatuh, kitty, pussycat, kittycat, Cat, cAt, caT, CaT, Catt, KaT…and so on.

Luckily, a little enjoyed potted meat gave its name up for just such annoyances and that put the search kings at Yahoo and Google on the case.  With the death of the “keyword” meta tag and algorythmns that understand how to translate a misspelling into the correct search term, web developers no longer have to drop their IQ a few points by getting confused over what the correct spelling of a word really is.

My mistake will probably live in cyberspace until I die, but at least it was just a mistake and not a career!

Read more of this post.

SEO Tips

How Many Links in a Page Are Considered Spam?

Drew Hannush by Drew Hannush (10 Mar 2009)  |  Leave a comment

Its funny how the universe works.  The other day I was working on some Google AdWord concepts and one of the tips I wanted to give out was what cities were best to use in an Adwords campaign on a city level instead of a national level.  The thought was, I would post a list of the 25 most popular cities and then 400 or more of the next level towns.

This would be quite a list.  And then it got me to thinking about whether Google would consider my post to be a spamming attempt, when really it wasn’t…it was just meant to be good useful information.

Well, the universe came around and handed me the answer as soon as I started reading through some of the popular blogs I like to frequent.  There was one from Matt Capps of Google who was suggesting How Many Links Per Page? were within Google’s limit before they considered you spam.  Surprisingly, he said there really wasn’t a limit and that they wouldn’t consider more than 100 to be spam.

I was quite surprised.  But logically, as he suggested, having that many links in a page would make for a less than desirable user experience and with so many links in a page, it would lessen the power of the PageRank (an interesting clue into how the PageRank system also looks at the pollution of links on a page as well as its relevance and power).

So I am going to run ahead with my post in a little while.  Yes, it will be full of city names and wouldn’t be a very interesting read, but then, its not for reading, its for copying and pasting for a good purpose.

Read more of this post.