Indextree's Internet Marketing Blog» SEO

Online Directories Are Making Money – Is Yours?

Lawrence Johnson — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 03:01:20 +0000

Some online directories are making a lot of money, but not all; and those that don’t have only themselves to blame. A cursory review of independent publishers’ online directories reveals how their ambitions don’t necessarily align with their actions. So let’s focus on the four principal mistakes directories could avoid. Hopefully this is sufficient to quash the circular argument that goes like this: “since we cannot make money online why bother with improving our site”, when, in fact, they do all they can to impede their online success. More about that later. The four mistakes are: 1. Paying lip service to search engine-friendly structures 2. Not thinking about their users 3. Poor content 4. Assuming that they own “local”, really - what a missed opportunity! Related posts:

Turning Web Analytics Into A Money Making Machine

Why Your Website Needs a Site Map

Richard Horowitz — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 00:57:36 +0000

A sitemap is a page which lists all the pages of your website in an organized fashion. If you have a big website, then you may want to break the site map down into sections or levels. Think about how your users would navigate through your website and break the site down in the same fashion. To get the best results, this site map should display text based links to these pages. This will make it easier for the search engine spiders to crawl these links.

Other reasons to have a site map:

1. Easy Navigation for users to find what they are looking for – If organized properly, this site map will allow the users to find pages that they may not have found otherwise on your website.
2. Provide a full listing of all the pages of your website to the search engine. With larger or dynamically built websites, sometimes some of the deeper pages are not well-linked and the search engine spiders may never find them. With a proper site map, you can make it nice and easy for the search engine spiders to find these pages.
3. You can increase the chances of having your pages indexed by the search engines by providing them with a easy way to find all the pages of your website.

In the end, by having a site map you can increase conversions by giving your users another method of finding the information they need on your website that they may not have found before.

Off-Page SEO Basics

What Does Google’s New Universal Search Mean to You?

Richard Horowitz — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 00:49:15 +0000

I was asked to comment on Google’s recent announcement on their “Universal Search” system. The “universal search” is the permanent integration of the Google OneBox results within their main search results. This is where results from their other products like Videos, Local Search/Maps, Books and so on appear in the main search results of Google. They did a great write up on it on SearchEngineLand.com at http://searchengineland.com/070516-143312.php.

In a nutshell universal search will not affect the main search results rankings per se. It just means that the results from their vertical products will now creep into the normal result pages. This modification could have important implications as it opens new opportunities that you should take full advantage of. We highly recommend that if your products or service fall into one of those vertical searches that you should take special care to maximize their exposure opportunities through optimization. This encompasses taking action on many fronts: for example, if you are a local business then you should have a local business listing with Google Local or if you are an e-commerce website you should list your products into Google products. These initiatives are naturally in addition to the normal optimization work that needs to be done on any site.

Google Supersizes Images In Universal Search

Geo-target Your Website

Richard Horowitz — Tue, 22 May 2007 00:45:16 +0000

Do you service only a specific area of your state or the country? Do you let your users know this when they visit the website? When building and optimizing your website, you must speak to your target audience. Search engine optimization allows you to target the exact market that you want to reach whether it is a local, regional, national or international audience.

If you want to target a specific market then you must use the terms associated with that market on your website. For example, say you are a Carpet Cleaning company in Los Angeles, California. You should include terms like LA Carpet Cleaning or Carpet Cleaning in Los Angeles on your website. How else are users going to know that you serve a specific area if you do not tell them? Just having your address listed on your website is not enough. Remember search engines are like users, you need to give them the information they need in order for them. Use the numerous keyword research tools on the internet including our Keyword Research tool to find the appropriate versions to use on your website.

Submitting your website to local directories is another way to geo-target your website. Also, they provide excellent links for search engine optimization purposes. Google, Yahoo, Local.com, Judy’s Book and a number of Internet Yellow Pages offer a free local listing for any business. It should only take you a little time to go through the major ones and get listed.

By geo-targeting the keywords of your website, you are not only optimizing for the search engines but qualifying your audience.

On-Page SEO Basics

Eight Easy Ways to Get Your Own Links

Richard Horowitz — Tue, 08 May 2007 00:40:08 +0000

In this blog post I am going to point out the obvious about linking and the links that you should be obtaining for your website. Link Building has become a major factor in the rankings of your website, and not simply for the increased quality traffic (if you find the right websites for your links) it will generate. Links are seen as a trust vote or vote of confidence by the search engines. The higher quality links are more valuable than tons of low quality links. Remember link building is a form of advertising and you must be smart about where you list your company name. Getting links from irrelevant sites, link farms and other suspect sources will hurt you.

Here are eight simple ways to start obtaining links for your website:

1. Internal Linking – By setting up or improving your internal linking structure, you can see an improvement in the navigation and usability of our website as well help your website rankings. You should start with a text based navigation menu. This can be your primary navigation or supplemental to your primary (like a footer). Then you should also have text based site map. This will list out all your pages for the search engines. The final method is to use keywords in the anchor text of your links within your content. This will emphasize the theme or story of the other page of your website.
2. Organizations or Associations – Most companies belong to at least one organization if not a few including the Better Business Bureau, Local Chamber of Commerce, Dunn & Bradsheet and any of the specific associations to your industry. Almost of all these organizations or associations have a member directory on their website and if you are a member, you should make sure that you are listed.
3. Local Directories – Google, Yahoo, Local.com, Judy’s Book and a number of Internet Yellow Pages offer a free local listing for any business. It should only take you a little time to go through the major ones and get listed.
4. Partners – These can be manufacturers of the products you sell or service, distributors of your products or even companies that you partner with for other reasons. There is no reason to link to these companies.
5. Niche Directories – There are plenty of directories like Thomasnet.com or GlobalSpec that offer a free or paid listing in their directory. Search the web for “your industry + directory” to find these directories.
6. General Web Directories – Yeah they may not be worth a lot to the search engines, but they are simple links that are easy to obtain and most are free. The bigger more valuable ones like the Yahoo Directory and Business.com are paid, but there are thousands of other directories that offer listings for free.
7. Competitor Analysis – Using the various link tools around the internet (like the Indextree Link Popularity tool) you can view the backlinks of your competitors. This is another way to find links.
8. Content – Are you an authority or leading resource in your niche? If so, then you should be writing articles, white papers, case studies or blog posts. This will establish you as a resource for users.

Someone in your company should be undertaking this process on a continuous basis as an extension of your traditional marketing and sales initiatives.

Three Reasons Why You NEED Link Building?