The Maine SEO Blog

The search engines know your website exists, but can they see the whole thing? Not sure? Double check by Googling “site:www.yoursite.com”. (Here’s what the results should look like.)

Google Webmaster Tools might also give you some insights into crawl errors and page errors.

Large websites, especially Ecommerce sites, are often the unfortunate ones to have a percentage of their pages never indexed. That means that searchers will never see those pages. Big problem? I’d say so.

Search engines find new pages by using links. So, with very few links to the deep crevices on your website, it makes sense that Google can’t see them. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is creating links to the page(s) in question. There are a few ways to do that.

On your own

Make sure that the page(s) is/are easy to find in the navigation. If not, fix it. If the page is already apart of your navigation, or it’s still not being indexed then…

• Add a sitemap (if you don’t have one already).
• If you have a blog, write a post about the page and link to it.
• Create a link from your homepage. Perhaps a featured product or service, depending on what the page is about.
• Create a link from similar pages on your site, but make sure they are indexed first!
• Share the page on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Delicious, Digg, etc.

Help from others

• Get a link to the page from another website or blog.
• Ask your network to share the page on their favorite social network.
• If it applies, share the page in a press release.
• Create an article and distribute it on your favorite article marketing site.

The trouble is, submitting your website to Google doesn’t necessarily mean it will be indexed. Instead, you’ve got to create links that Google will follow to your non-indexed pages.

Nicki Hicks
Get indexed

It’s no secret that getting more links results from creating more content.

Sure, a year-old article might still hold some importance. But what about that brand spanking new breaking story over at Mashable? Now that I have to link to.

Blog

Blogging is, without a doubt, one of the best ways to create link worthy content. It makes sense, right? Small, bite-size morsels of information that answer a specific question. Plus, blogs tend to be way less salesy than web sites, so folks are bound to link.

How can you get more link building bang for your blogging buck? Here are a few tips:

• Submit a guest blogpost
• Hit pain points with your blogpost
• Leave insightful comments on other blogposts
• Broadcast your posts in all the right ways

Press Releases

By their nature, Press Releases are spread all over the web. You, of course, pay for this service. However, it’s an easy and effective way to get news (and links back to your website) spread. Plus, local newspapers often pick these releases up.

Article Marketing

Likewise, article distribution is a paid service. However, the articles themselves are often glorified blogposts, are they not? Webmasters and bloggers link to the article, and with a link to your website in your signature, you’ll get the benefits of that link juice!

Social Media

The “shareability” of social media makes it a linking smorgasbord. No, these links don’t pass link juice, but you can only imagine the constant linking to pictures, images, video, websites, and blogs is bound to expose a website (or blog) to legitimate, powerful links.

Nicki Hicks
Content is king

Some people just don’t want to be on Facebook – and that’s ok – because they still understand the importance of having a business presence there.

Not to worry, you can still create a fan page for your business without having a personal account. But, you need to understand that:

• Facebook will push you every step of the way to create a personal account.
• You will be limited in what you can do with only a Page (or business account), and no personal account.

Here’s all the information that Facebook provides on the matter:

What is the difference between a business account and a user profile?
Business accounts are designed for individuals who only want to use the site to administer Pages and their ad campaigns. For this reason, business accounts do not have the same functionality as personal accounts. Business accounts have limited access to information on the site. An individual with a business account can view all the Pages and Social Ads that they have created, however they will not be able to view the profiles of users on the site or other content on the site that does not live on the Pages they administer. In addition, business accounts cannot be found in search and cannot send or receive friend requests.

Your limitations, as (only) a Facebook business account

• You won’t be able to link to your Twitter account
• Your basic information will be limited to year founded, and not:
  • Address
  • Phone number
  • Hours of operation
• Your detailed information about your business will be limited to website, overview, mission, and products, and not:
  • Parking
  • Public transit
• You won’t have the ability to tag (your personal) friends in photos
• You won’t be able to invite your (personal) friends to become fans
• You won’t be able to add any admins. (You can only add friends as admins.)
• You won’t be able to get a vanity URL.

Note: This list may be a partial one, but it’s what I’ve noticed so far. (What limitations have you noticed?)

Unless you have an incredibly important reason for not tying your Facebook account to your personal account, I would suggest doing so. Look at all the cool things you can do!

Nicki Hicks
Being a person FTW

Recently, flyte relaunched a website for Smart Kids with LD, an organization dedicated to helping parents with children who have learning disabilities.

Smart Kids has a lot going for them. Why? They’ve got a great content strategy. Not only do they have a blog, but they’ve also got a number of helpful articles, from:

• Learning disability basics, to
• What to expect for each age group, to
• What to do from here

On top of the blog and their articles, Smart Kids also has an email newsletter (which you can sign up for here) and an entire Parents Community.

Long story short, Smart Kids understands that it’s all about content creation.

So if you need help or support with your child’s learning disability, turn to Smart Kids with Learning Disabilities.

If you need help with your blogging, email marketing, SEO, or website strategy, turn to flyte.

Nicki Hicks
Maine SEO

In this post, Matt Cutts, head of Google’s Webspam team, talks about a lot of great things going on in search right now. He also incorporated on his latest Webmaster Tools video. In the video, Matt answers the question “What are some effective techniques for building links?” The video is below, but I’m going to recap his tips as well.

How does Matt Cutts suggest building links?

• Participate in the community: Answer a question, as in “hey I know the answer to this”.
• Original research: Do your own original research – test out what other people are saying. (Matt talks about the research Danny Sullivan did on Email spam filters.)
• Newsletters: If you have people already coming to the blog, why not make it even easier for them to get there?
• Social media: Participating here is a way to get more visibility, and more incoming links.
• Conferences: Speaking at conferences is a surefire way to get some backlinks.
• Blog: Establish yourself as an authority. You can use something like Posterous or Tumblr and not have to worry about updating software.
• Resources: Run a service or create a product (like a Firefox extension or WP Plugin)
• Other types of posts
  • How to’s and Tutorials: If you have to figure out the steps to something, why not write it down and share it?
  • Controversy (just don’t do it often)
  • Lists
  • Make videos: Videos are an easy way to share information. Do the work once, and it’s helpful all the way down the line.

BONUS TIP:

Create good site architecture: If it doesn’t make sense, Google can’t see your pages and people can’t find those pages to link to.

Last night, I got an interesting letter. Since I bought NickiHicks.com a few months ago (and have since proceeded to do nothing with it), the kind folks at a company called Web Listings Inc. offered to help me list my web site on the 20 major search engines for my 8 best keywords! Rich has received similar letters before, but this is my first.

I feel sorry for this company. They probably didn’t know…I do this for a living. So, let’s break down why this is bogus – and hopefully I’ve caught you in time before you gave Web Listings Inc. $65.

The promise: Domain Name Submission to 20 established Search Engines

Let me be frank. You don’t need to submit yourself to the search engines. If your web site is clean, readable, and doesn’t block the search engines, they’ll find you.

Just for giggles, which search engines would you get submitted to?

Google, Aol, ExactSeek, Cipinet, Netscape Search, Alexa, ScrubTheWeb, InfoTiger, Kazazz, Jayde, Searchsight, Amfibi *

Interesting. I’ve only heard of three. And only one even counts. What’s more?

* Any of the 20 search engines are subject to change without notice

…to start including even more search engines we haven’t heard of?

The promise: Up to 8 keyword/phrase listings

I don’t know what that means. In their FAQ section, Web Listings Inc. talks about meta-tags. But they’re not getting access to your site, so I can only assume they’re using these keywords for tracking purposes for…

The promise: Quarterly search engine position and ranking reports

This is the one piece that may…or may not have value. At flyte, we track rankings, but do they really matter that much? Not so much.

My hope is not to bash this company; but rather to make people aware of the issue before you go spending your precious money on something entirely ridiculous. And for what it’s worth, I’m not the only one talking about it.

Nicki Hicks
At least they say it’s a solicitation

For the past week or so, I’ve been writing about how to rank better in local search, specifically in Google Maps.

Here is the entire guide:

1. Submit to Google Local Business Center (Part 1)
2. Submit to Google Local Business Center (Part 2)
3. How to get Local Reviews
4. What to do when you get a negative local review
5. Measuring Local Analytics

Once you’ve completed the 5 steps, you’re not done. [I'm sorry.]

You’ll have to:

• Be on the look out for satisfied customers to review your business.
• Add new images and video.
• Update your local posts.
• Check your Dashboard for (the right) keywords.

Nicki Hicks
Go local

Last time we talked about dealing with negative reviews; today we’re going to finish this five-step series with Google Local Business measurement.

Last June, Google Local Business Center added a Dashboard and Analytics. To get started, log into your Local Business Account and click “View report”.

The Analytics aren’t as powerful as Google Analytics, but you do get some interesting data. Get a complete look at all of the Dashboard components here.

What you get from the Dashboard

Google’s gone social

I just noticed this new section in the Dashboard (perhaps inspired by Buzz?). You can now post a 160-character status update; not unlike Twitter or Facebook.

And posts go live pretty quickly…

Local posts would be a great way to advertise a sale, a blogpost, whatever you’re looking to promote!

Is your profile complete?

Google will let you know if your profile is complete. Do you have pictures and video uploaded? Are all of your categories included? Are your business hours live?

Keywords

Activity, impressions, and driving directions are interesting – and might be more important depending on what industry your company is in. But I think one of the most valuable pieces of information the Dashboard gives are the top search queries. While I wish they would provide the geographic identifier (is it Portland, Maine or Scarborough, Maine the person was searching for?), the keywords will give you a good idea of whether or not people are finding you using the right keywords.

If the search queries are different than what you’re looking to rank for, start by changing your categories around a bit. If that doesn’t help, then there’s a problem with how your web site is optimized.

And that does it! You’ve just done everything you can to rank better at Google Maps.

See the entire guide here.

Nicki Hicks
Measure, measure, measure

Ways to write ReTweets

• H/T = Hat Tip
• RT = ReTweet
• ReTweet
• via @nickihicks

RT Tips

• Keep your tweets short, so they can be ReTweeted
• Only ask “Please ReTweet” every so often for great content

ReTweet Decision Model

1. Following sender of tweet (get more followers)
2. Notice the tweet? (get more attention)
3. Want to share?

Cool Stats

• About 20% of all tweets have links in them; about 35% of RTs have links in them
• Bit.ly is more ReTweetable than TinyURL (it occurs in RTs more often)
• ReTweets tend to have more syllables/word than non-ReTweeted tweets
• ReTweets tend to have higher readability grade levels than non-ReTweeted tweets
• Novel words (new words) are ReTweeted far more often than non-ReTweeted tweets
• ReTweets have more punctuation than non-ReTweeted tweets (even when colons aren’t counted)
• ReTweets tend to be less emotional, more social and concrete
• Self reference does not get ReTweets
• Breaking news is ReTweetable
• Men and women ReTweet differently
• People aren’t ReTweet late at night or early in the morning; ReTweets usually happen between 1-5pm (4pm EST is about the best time to ReTweet)
• The most ReTweetable day of the week is Friday

20 Most ReTweetable Words

(Not the most RT’ed words, but the words used more often in RTs than you’d expect)

1. you (people want to hear about themselves, not about you)
2. twitter (how can a technology you’re already on be fascinating?!)
3. please
4. retweet
5. post
6. blog
7. social
8. free (people like free)
9. media
10. help (as in “help spread the word”)
11. please retweet (people thinks it’s cheesy, but it works)
12. great
13. social media
14. 10 (as in “top 10 lists”)
15. follow
16. how to
17. top
18. blog post
19. check out
20. new blog post

20 Least Retweeted Words

1. game
2. going
3. haha
4. but
5. watching
6. work
7. home
8. night
9. bed
10. well
11. sleep
12. gonna
13. hey
14. tomorrow
15. tired
16. some
17. back
18. bored
19. listening
20. Oops, sorry, guess I missed one!

Webinar by Dan Zarrella, Hubspot

Last time we talked about getting local reviews; but what if they’re not always positive?

The fact of the matter is…everyone gets a bad review at one time or another. Something out of the ordinary happened, and something went horribly wrong. It happens to even the best of businesses.

So maybe you have a bad review or two under your belt. How you respond is what counts.

You have two choices.

1. Face it head on. Leave a comment right after the review and humbly apologize for their bad experience, then offer them a free night stay or a free product for their trouble. (And if they take you up on your offer, make it the best experience they’ve ever had.)
2. If you don’t feel comfortable responding publicly, a lot of review sites give you the option to contact the person directly.

One of three things could happen.

1. Worst case scenario, the person won’t respond and won’t remove the review. Think of the benefit though: you just publicly showed potential customers that your business isn’t about to let a bad experience happen.
2. The person might take you up on your offer, and then remove their negative review.
3. Or the best case scenario (and it has happened)? The customer replaces their negative review with a positive one, pointing out that a mistake was made and a bad experience had; but this organization did everything in their power to make it right.

Next time, we’ll talk about how to measure your success using Google Local Business Center.

See the entire guide here.

Nicki Hicks
Sometimes a negative is a positive

Photo by httpoldmaisonblogspotcom