The Maine SEO Blog

Almost a year ago, I wrote about 9 Reasons Why You Need Google’s Webmaster Tools. After looking over the post, I soon realized that while it speaks to all that is fantastic about Webmaster Tools, it’s very out-of-date due to the most recent design revamp.

As such, I thought I’d redesign my original post. But what fun is a revamp if everything is the same? That said, here are 8 reasons why you probably should just steer clear of Google Webmaster Tools:

1. It’s so damn difficult to install.

You have the choice of adding either a meta-tag or an HTML file to your website. Bam. Can you think of anything closer to rocket science? A client of mine once installed it while we were talking at a meeting; it wasted all of 30 seconds.

2. How will you ever know if something’s wrong with your site?

Sneaky, sneaky Google. Those guys sit in their ivory tower and laugh as unforeseen 404s and inexplicable robots.txt files overcrowd our websites. Wouldn’t an interface that actually showed you these things be nice?

3. If it’s not on my smart phone, it doesn’t exist.

Does my website come up on iPhones, Blackberrys, and countless other mobile devices? Who knows – guess I’ll have to check every page by hand (or touch, rather) on my iPhone, thanks.

4. SEO assistance

Non-SEOs rumor that Google’s out to get all of us SEOs and SEMs. Well, maybe they’re right! It’d be nice if they gave us some sort of optimization direction, would it not?

5. Top Search Queries

Why would I want to know how people are finding me? “Organic impressions”? Whoever heard of such a thing?

6. Anchor text

Fantastic. I get to see what other people use in hyperlinks to my website. What, like that matters?

7. Pages with External Links

I’d actually rather not know who’s linking to me. I’d rather just guess.

8. Remove a URL

Page no longer in existence and 301 isn’t an option? You may get rid of it, but Google still sees it. What gives?

Google Webmaster Tools won’t change your life, but it will give you some really great statistics and let you know what’s wrong (if anything) with your website. While you’re at it, make sure you don’t use Google Analytics either.

Nicki Hicks
Just messing with you

A few months ago, flyte finished another web site/SEO project for Reliable Networks – a company right in downtown Portland, Maine that specializes in technology services.

Initially, Reliable Networks had an entirely flash-based website. While search engines are getting better about indexing flash, they still can’t see it as well as HTML text. So we popped the site onto WordPress, giving the folks at Reliable Networks a spot to blog at the same time.

What’s the big deal with flash? Here’s what the cache of the site originally looked like:

And now, Google can see the site!

So if you need help with your network security, sick of using Exchange, or need help becoming HIPAA compliant, contact Reliable Networks. If you need help converting your website from flash-based to WordPress, contact flyte.

Nicki Hicks
Maine SEO

A few weeks ago, flyte relaunched a WordPress website for SelectDwelling: a site that lists long-term home rentals in the Southwest Florida area.

The premise is simple: there’s a space for renters and a space for owners. Through some pretty extensive programming, the owners are able to create their own account, upload photos, add information – the whole nine yards.

Then, when a renter looks in a specific town, that property comes up in the search results. [There are more fantastic programming morsels that my marketing mind cannot grasp, you'll simply need to try it out for yourself.]

From a search standpoint, there’s an issue (as there often is with dynamically created content): how can we help individual listing pages rank better? Why, with a blog of course!

So if you’re planning on heading to South West Florida for an extended stay, be sure to check out SelectDwelling for the perfect long term rental and great things to do while there!

Nicki Hicks
Maine SEO

More and more, it’s becoming apparent how much website usability and search go hand-in-hand. You can’t have great search visibility without great usability; and no one will know your site has great usability without great search visibility. At this point, the two are so intertwined, it’s difficult to separate them; but let’s give it a go with some important usability rules for search:

Information Architecture

If you haven’t built your website yet…

Great! Stop right now.

Do you have a site outline yet? You’ll need to document exactly how your navigation structure is going to be set up.

Now you have an outline…does it make sense? Maybe to you, but why not test it out? Get feedback from anyone you can: your coworkers,your customers, your family, your friends. Ask, “if this was your website, how would you set it up?” and “If you came to this website, does this outline make sense?” You’ll have a proper site outline in no time.

If you already have a website built…

Don’t panic. You may very well already have a fantastic, easy-to-understand information architecture.

How can you tell? Check your bounce rate. This might be a clue as to who lands on one page of your website, gets confused, gives up, and just leaves (essentially “bounces”). If your bounce rate is high (I’m talking really high – greater than 90% high), it might be worth taking a look at other stats to make sure it’s your navigation to blame. If it is, it might be worth a navigation revamp – a pretty hefty undertaking; where a complete site overhaul might be in order. Regardless, either option will make a drastic improvement if navigation is to blame.

Call-to-action

Gone are the days of the online brochure. Your website needs to have a purpose: what do you want people to do on your website? Do you want them to call you? Email you? Fill out a form? Sign up for your email newsletter? Buy something? Make your call-to-action big, bold, and obvious. Subtlety doesn’t pay in a fast-paced web surfer world.

Think of every page as a landing page

By default, most of us think our visitors will start on our homepage, then travel through the rest of the website in order – reading every word we wrote – just as we planned it. I hate to burst your bubble, but people start in the middle of your website, skip around, and leave before you want them to. [Acceptance is the first step.]

So, as you plan your pages and write the copy; think: what if this is the very first page someone sees of my website? (That’s why the *cough* call-to-action is so important.)

By keeping these usability tips in mind as you plan – or revamp – your website, you’re already on the road to better search engine visibility.

Nicki Hicks
Usability is as usability does

Let’s not beat around the bush…if you use AdWords, you Google to see if, how, and where your ad comes up. Don’t worry, everyone does it.

While you know better than to click, did you know that simply by searching you’re still skewing your results? That’s right, your impressions! So even though you don’t click, you’re actually decreasing your CTR (click thru rate) by increasing impressions.

How can you stop skewing your results? Google was kind enough to create a tool for that: Ad Preview.

It looks similar to the Google search results, but doesn’t count as a conventional search.

Notice that you can also set your location to test how results change based on geographic location.

Nicki Hicks
Stop Skewing

You’ve launched a great new website and you’re awaiting patiently for it to be indexed.

You Google. Relentlessly.

Your homepage could be indexed within a week or so. Unfortunately, it’s not uncommon for it to take an entire month (or even two) for the deeper level pages to be indexed.

But if you’re not careful, you’ll never see your website in the search results. Why? It could be a few things…

If you use WordPress

You have an option during development to stop search bots from crawling your site. You should take it. The option is in a small space in a deep corner of your Admin: the privacy settings.

If you use the setting, great; just make sure upon launch, make your site visible!

NoIndex, Nofollow, Robots.txt

Not to get too geeky, but when you check the privacy setting above in WordPress, what you’re doing is adding a robots.txt file and noindexing the site.

However, you don’t need WordPress to do this. You can add a robots.txt file in any website – and there are certain pages you might want to use it for like your Privacy policy.

That being said, don’t nofollow, noindex your entire site after launch…

…or add any pages deeper than the homepage to your robots.txt file. In this case, that little backslash can make a world of difference.

How to make your site index faster

So you’ve launched. You’ve gotten rid of your noindex, nofollow tag and you’re ready to be found. Here are some ways to get found faster:

• Add Google Webmaster Tools. By adding this simple (and down the road, helpful) tool, you’re killing two birds with one stone and also submitting your website to Google.
• Add the Bing Toolbox. Like Webmaster Tools, this automatically submits your website to Bing, along with some other added benefits.
• Create a sitemap and submit it to your Google Webmaster Tools and Bing Toolbox account. While it may not help your site be crawled faster – it will certainly help search engines find those deeper pages a little quicker.
• Get links. Lots and lots of links. The links from quality, established websites you have, the better! Think about it: those websites get crawled on a regular basis, follow a new link to your site and voila! Not to mention…now you have a link to establish expertise.
• Along the same lines, submit to directories.
• Submit yourself on social sites websites like Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon, etc. Then have friends/colleagues help you go “hot” on those sites.
• Create a presence on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Then link to your new website.

Nicki Hicks
Get indexed