How can small shops learn/use SEO effectively without paying an arm and a leg?

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bloomz said:
I always thought #6 was wrong. GWT in my opinion is a great tool set.
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I have to admit, I'm on the fence about sitemaps.
- The good thing is that they help Google find all your content.
- The bad thing is that they help Google find all your content.

If a site has navigational issues or dead-ends that prevent proper crawling, those pages will not be indexed. That can be an alert to the site owner that there is a problem.

On the other hand, if they use a sitemap that points to all the pages, those pages will at least be crawled. What's the downside? There are two:
1) It hides problems
2) It weakens pages

If I have a page that is not properly linked to, so that a normal crawl won't find it (or not as easily) then having a sitemap trigger the crawl means Google sees few or no incoming links to that page - therefore the page has no "strength" and is unlikely to rank for much, will get a slow crawl rate and get the supplemental treatment as a low quality page.

If I diagnose the crawl problem and let the SEs find the pages naturally, the pages will build more PR and be likely to rank for more.

So, a sitemap can get you more pages crawled - and may even force the SE to discover more internal links which can strengthen the site - or lead to indexing of weak pages with no incoming link juice.

Ryan
 
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Infinite said:
I have to admit, I'm on the fence about sitemaps.
- The good thing is that they help Google find all your content.
- The bad thing is that they help Google find all your content.

If a site has navigational issues or dead-ends that prevent proper crawling, those pages will not be indexed. That can be an alert to the site owner that there is a problem.

On the other hand, if they use a sitemap that points to all the pages, those pages will at least be crawled. What's the downside? There are two:
1) It hides problems
2) It weakens pages

If I have a page that is not properly linked to, so that a normal crawl won't find it (or not as easily) then having a sitemap trigger the crawl means Google sees few or no incoming links to that page - therefore the page has no "strength" and is unlikely to rank for much, will get a slow crawl rate and get the supplemental treatment as a low quality page.

If I diagnose the crawl problem and let the SEs find the pages naturally, the pages will build more PR and be likely to rank for more.

So, a sitemap can get you more pages crawled - and may even force the SE to discover more internal links which can strengthen the site - or lead to indexing of weak pages with no incoming link juice.

Ryan
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Is there a problem with having pages indexed that have very low link juice? Or are you saying that,
or lead to indexing of weak pages with no incoming link juice.
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is a good thing?
 
The problem is that with a sitemap a page can be indexed without achieving the strength that it would have with proper internal linking.

If a page is accidentally orphaned, it can still be crawled by a sitemap, but having no (or fewer than it should) incoming links it will be seen as low value, and not rank, nor will it have juice to pass.

You see that it's indexed ... therefore you don't see the internal linking problems in the site.

Ryan
 
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Infinite said:
The problem is that with a sitemap a page can be indexed without achieving the strength that it would have with proper internal linking.

If a page is accidentally orphaned, it can still be crawled by a sitemap, but having no (or fewer than it should) incoming links it will be seen as low value, and not rank, nor will it have juice to pass.

You see that it's indexed ... therefore you don't see the internal linking problems in the site.

Ryan
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So what you are saying, is that it is not bad for the search engines to have the sitemap, but is is potentially bad for SEO control and visibility over what is actually happening.
 
Right - it can mask signals that help your pages to be all that they can be :)
 
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I have a thought on that - it depends on how you generate it...I have both tools, a generator that sits on my hosting server (two actually as the host has one also and I bought another one) and couple other kewl programs that crawl externally from the web.

I tend to use the latter.

Hence my feeling that it can only crawl what it finds from the index page anyway.

So it doesn't seem to me it could index orphaned pages. Add to that I spent a couple evenings sculpting with nofollows to try to control the flow a bit. (Including the dumb links page I never really bought into anyway-they now all have condoms)

It doesn't seem orphaned pages would be a problem as long as it is crawled externally.

I also edit the sitemaps before uploading them, cuz they invariably seem to add some duplicate stuff.

So then, GWT tells me if there are duplicate page titles or other problems with the data I gave them in my sitemap, and I attempt to change that before uploading a new one.

Dunno if that made sense - no coffee yet.
 
I realize we are talking about SEO and not SEM but I thought I would put this out there just the same. Phonebook companies like Yellow Book, ATT & T and the like are now selling “Click Packages” The reason for this is print is slowly and steadily running out of steam and not yielding the results for advertisers like it use to.

The benefit of these click packages is it will put your website on various sites like Google, ASK, Yahoo and the list goes on. You pay by the number of times your website is clicked on. This is the whole idea of marketing on the internet in the first place. You can target your local market as well and it saves you time by not having to do this yourself. Another difference is you are listed in the paid section of Google which helps you compete as well with some of these other businesses that have SEO down to perfection.

Just an idea, I am in my early 40s (Yikes) but I can tell you my friends and neighbors use the internet to find just about everything from news, restaurants to retail. So the more information you can give your customer online the better. I lot of floral websites look the same. I read where someone made the comment about making your site different and I could not agree more. Speaking only as a customer, not an owner.

Hope this helps!
 
Dollar Tree - Mark Anderson said:
I realize we are talking about SEO and not SEM but I thought I would put this out there just the same. Phonebook companies like Yellow Book, ATT & T and the like are now selling “Click Packages” The reason for this is print is slowly and steadily running out of steam and not yielding the results for advertisers like it use to.

The benefit of these click packages is it will put your website on various sites like Google, ASK, Yahoo and the list goes on. You pay by the number of times your website is clicked on. This is the whole idea of marketing on the internet in the first place. You can target your local market as well and it saves you time by not having to do this yourself. Another difference is you are listed in the paid section of Google which helps you compete as well with some of these other businesses that have SEO down to perfection.

Just an idea, I am in my early 40s (Yikes) but I can tell you my friends and neighbors use the internet to find just about everything from news, restaurants to retail. So the more information you can give your customer online the better. I lot of floral websites look the same. I read where someone made the comment about making your site different and I could not agree more. Speaking only as a customer, not an owner.

Hope this helps!
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Thanks for posting this. I can't find the old post, but we have discussed this "service" a few times before. The YP click packages are borderline deceptive and are geared to prey on the not so tech savvy retailers. (That don't have networks like this to learn from)

These pay per click campaigns they run are incredibly over priced, and have little benefit to your business. They and others are charging per keyword rates that are astronomical in my opinion.

Others can weigh in on this, I have to run!
 
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duanermb said:
Thanks for posting this. I can't find the old post, but we have discussed this "service" a few times before. The YP click packages are borderline deceptive and are geared to prey on the not so tech savvy retailers. (That don't have networks like this to learn from)

These pay per click campaigns they run are incredibly over priced, and have little benefit to your business. They and others are charging per keyword rates that are astronomical in my opinion.

Others can weigh in on this, I have to run!
Click to expand...
Thanks for setting the record straight. I had only read about this service minus what they charge. I
 
wdestar said:
Of the keywords and phrases I'm seeking, I'm being found despite extraordinary odds. And maybe you can too!

Being ranked #8 of 16 million isn't too bad, is it?

Dan
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That entirely depends on what phrase you're using and the volume / quality of traffic it delivers. Can you be more specific?
 
Keyword research is an essential part of SEO, and usually quite overlooked. You have to determine what people are looking for, and balance that against the level of competition for each keyword.

Most business owners write using their own terminology and wind up targeting a flock of useless terms that people don't search for.

There are plenty of free and paid tools to help you with this research, if you're willing to take the time.

Ryan
 
Infinite said:
There are plenty of free and paid tools to help you with this research, if you're willing to take the time.

Ryan
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ain't that the crux of the matter tho....?:scatter
 
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