If you haven’t yet heard, Google is on a rampage to “clean up” the webspam created by overly aggressive SEO firms seeking to rank their clients by the use of what Google considers to be “Unnatural Links”.   Since February of 2012, Google has sent out over 700,000 warnings through Google Webmaster Tools notifying clients of problems with their link profile.

The Google Webmaster Tools notice occurs when a site is suspected of using link-building efforts that are considered spam.  These efforts can include directory submissions, article submissions, and blog and forum comment spam, and particularly links with excessive use of keyword based anchor text, or links from low quality or unrelated sites.

The balance of low-quality links versus high-quality links alerts the bot that you may be spamming. However, Google has not commented on what algorithm it uses to determine the penalty threshold.

The message that webmasters have been receiving in their Google Webmaster Tools accounts looks like this:

Google Webmaster Tools notice of detected unnatural links to http://website.com/

Date

-Chris

- Guest Post by Sara Lancaster of No.2 Pen - 

You bought the domain name, you have a website design you love, and you’ve hired a trusty SEO consultant. Now you’re missing just one thing: web content that’s search engine friendly.

While SEO-friendly web content development might sound scary, it doesn’t have to be. Search engine optimized content can be created in five steps.

Step One: Calibrate Keywords

The keyword phrases you choose in your content matters, a whole heck of a lot. Determine how your prospects search the web for your product or service, and then naturally incorporate those terms into your content by assigning two to three keyword phrases to each of your important pages.

Some say you need a keyword density of 2–5% per page, but there’s no hard data to support these recommendations. Instead of worrying about density, use those target terms in your content naturally.

Step Two: Know the SEO Content Development Basics

Keywords are fundamental to SEO content development, but they’re not the only part of your content that can make a big impact on SEO. You must also consider these SEO content basics:

• Use a minimum of 250 words on your most important pages, please.
• Headlines and sub-headlines are good for visitors who want to scan the copy and for telling the search engines what your page is about. Therefore, it’s good to include your keywords in your headline and sub-headings.
• Put your most important content at the beginning of your web page. Think like a journalist thinks and put the inverted pyramid to good use.
• Incorporate keyword-rich anchor text/links into all of your pages. Links serve as a roadmap for the user, and—guess what?—links tell search engines what a page is all about.

Step Three: Complement Your Content with Images and Video

The web is powerful because you can easily incorporate pictures and video into your content. Therefore, it’s a good idea to write your content with complementary images and video in mind. This is great for the user experience – it really drives home the message you want to send. After all, pictures and video are important pieces of SEO content, too.

Step Four: Get an Outsider to Help

Many people believe that search engines are becoming capable of determining how well content is written, the idea being that poorly written content results in a poor user experience. So put another way, search engines may penalize you for poor grammar, misspelled words, etc. At least some day.

It’s best to hire a professional web content writer to write and/or review your content for you or to ask a couple people outside your day-to-day operations to read through your web content and provide feedback.

Step Five: Check Your Analytics – Test Your Copy Like You Test Your Design

You need to be looking at engagement stats in your website analytics data. If your company blog has an article with a really high or really low bounce rate, try to figure out why. If your new sales page has better time-on-site stats than the page it replaced, good. If it doesn’t, time to switch things back…or at least re-work the content.

If you approach web content the way you do any other important aspect of your business, you’re guaranteed to find success. Good luck!

Sara Lancaster is the voice behind No. 2 Pen, a website content writing company. She specializes in helping businesses sound sharp on the web.

-Chris

-Guest Post by Jason Lancaster of Spork Marketing-

The elegance of the pay-per-click (PPC) advertising concept is striking. There aren’t many forms of advertisement that give you the ability to put your ad in front of exactly the right person at exactly the right time, and for that reason PPC advertising is very alluring to business owners.

To ensure that your marketing dollars are well spent, there are several questions you want to be able to  answer before you dive into pay-per-click advertising .

5 Questions You Must Answer Before Starting a Pay Per Click Advertising Campaign

1.What are your specific, desired results? Do you want your PPC ads to generate a telephone call? An email lead? An order for a specific product? Answering this question as precisely as possible is a key first step in the process.

2. Do you have precise tracking in place? One of the main benefits of PPC advertising is that it lends itself very easily to precision tracking. With tracking in place, you can determine:

• Which keywords are most likely to generate a lead or result in a sale
• Which ad text is most compelling
• Which landing pages and/or calls to action have the best conversion rate
• Which days of the week or times of the day are most profitable
• …and dozens of other useful stats that can help you improve your return on investment

Remember, you can’t manage what you don’t measure: a good tracking system is an absolute requirement for any PPC campaign.

3. Do you have a landing page? When many businesses begin a PPC campaign, landing pages (the page on your site where you direct your PPC clicks) are an afterthought. Yet the landing page is the most important aspect of your PPC campaign. A good landing page will:

• Clearly identify your business and the service you’re providing
• Have content that matches the keyword the user typed in and the ad they clicked on
• Have a clear description of your product or service and the key benefits
• Connote trust through the use of recognizable symbols and logos
• Have a clear call to action

If your landing page has all of these items, your PPC campaign has a very good chance of generating a profit.

On the other hand, if your landing page is lacking, a good percentage of your pay-per-click visitors will “bounce” (a term used to describe a visitor who views your site and leaves in less than 30 seconds). As you can imagine, the return on investment of a PPC landing page with a high bounce rate isn’t very good.

4. What keywords will show your ads? If you’ve paid an SEO consultant for professional keyword research, then you should have a nice stack of keywords you can use for your PPC campaign. Otherwise, it’s a good idea to hire a PPC or SEO consultant to do some keyword research.

If you’re on a budget and paying for professional keyword research is out the window, you’ll want to dig in and do some keyword research yourself. SEOMoz has a Beginner’s Guide to Keyword Research that is a great starting point.

5. Who will create and manage your PPC campaign? Pay-per-click advertising is deceptively complicated. While the concept is simple, the practical application requires knowledge, training, and experience. Whether or not you’ll want to hire someone to create and manage your PPC campaign will depend on the answers to the following questions:

• Are you buying ads on competitive keywords – are more than 3 or 4 people advertising on the terms you want to try?
• Is your average cost per click going to be higher than $1?
• Are you spending more than $500 per month?

If the answer to any of the questions above is “yes,” you should consider hiring a professional PPC ad manager. The reason? People who are new to PPC advertising platforms usually make mistakes, and the cost of these mistakes can ad up to hundreds or thousands of dollars in the circumstances listed above. By hiring a professional PPC manager, you’re saving yourself money in the long run.

Pay Per Click Advertising Works When Done Correctly

Bottom Line: Pay-per-click advertising is one of the most effective forms of advertising on the planet because it offers precision targeting and unparallelled tracking, both of which allow for continuous improvements in ROI.  If you answer the five key questions above before starting a PPC campaign, your odds of success are greatly improved.

Finally, remember that while the concept of PPC is simple in theory, it can be very complicated in practice. If you intend to invest in PPC advertising, you should seriously consider hiring a professional to setup and manage your PPC campaign.

If you’re looking for someone to help you with your PPC campaign, Google has a network of certified PPC advertising experts that you can search here. Of course, you can also contact Spork Marketing to discuss their PPC ad management services too!

About the Author: Jason Lancaster is President of Spork Marketing, LLC, a Denver Internet marketing company offering PPC ad management services.

-Chris

As a local business owner, if you’ve been in operation for more than 5 years, there’s a pretty good chance you’ve purchased an ad for your business in the local yellow pages at some point. That’s because up until 2006 or so, yellow pages advertisements were the way to reach local consumers.

However, if you’ve been in business for less than 5 years, there’s a pretty good chance that you’ve never purchased an ad in the phone book. The reason? Since 2006, consumers have steadily replaced their phone books with search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo. By some estimates, less than one-third of consumers will use a phone book in 2011*.

Local Search Forcing Out Traditional Print Ads

As consumers steadily replace their phone books with search engines, local businesses are beginning to recognize just how important search engine optimization has become.

Because search engines only show a handful of businesses on the first page – and because consumers usually click on the top search results – being listed #1 on Google (or Bing or Yahoo) for your business search term is more important than ever.

So, if you want consumers to find your local basement finishing business when they do a search for “Denver Basement Finishing,” you’ve got to work on optimizing your business for local search.

In the SEO industry, we call this Local SEO, and it’s the fastest-growing service in our industry.

Getting Started with Local SEO

One of the first steps in any local SEO effort is to create and/or claim a profiles for your business on popular websites like Google Places.

With a profile on Google Places, business owners can share their business phone number, location, hours of operation, types of payment accepted, types of services provided, etc., and this information can then appear in local search results.

Google Places isn’t the only place business owners can register a profile. Bing, Yahoo,Yelp, MerchantCircle, Best of The Web, and dozens of other companies all offer business owners the opportunity to create profiles as well.

By creating and/or claiming profiles for your business on all of these websites, you increase the likelihood that your business will show in local search results.

Why Business Profiles Boost Search Results

When someone conducts a search on Google, Bing, or Yahoo for a local business, the search engines each use their own complicated algorithms to determine which business should appear #1, which business should appear #2, etc.

While the specific details of these algorithms are secret, we know that “citations” – or a mention of a specific business in an online directory, local business organization website, etc. – correlate with rankings.

The reason that search engines look for citations is that they’re a very good indicator of a business’s trust and longevity. If a local business has been around for a long time, or if a business is well-liked and trusted, there will be a lot of mentions for that business in local business directories, on the local chamber of commerce website, on local business association websites, and even in local media.

So, if you want your local business to show up at the top of local search results, you need mentions…and that means you need to create profiles on as many quality local directories as possible.

Contact us to learn more about our Local SEO services, including local directory submission, profile creation and reporting

*Based on a survey conducted by Harris Interactive

-Chris

When a site goes live on a new domain, or a new website design requires moving old pages to new URL’s, it is imperative that you use a 301 redirect (permanent redirect) to point all of the old pages to the new URL’s so that you don’t lose your existing page rankings and associated site traffic.

Since it can take up to 30 days for the search engines to recognize your new URL structure and appropriately update the SERP’s, time is of the essence.   An ecommerce site can lose thousands of dollars in just hours, so anything you can do to speed up the process is valuable.

For this reason, I like to write a little letter to the Big G and let them know we’ve moved some URL’s around.  This is best accomplished by posting the links on another site or blog that is regularly indexed,  in hopes that they will see all of the redirects as quickly as possible, and that the old links are followed by a spider to the new URL.

How to Tell Google About Your Redirected Pages:

The letter goes something like this:

Dear Google, please take a few minutes to re-index my existing pages that are occupying the front page of your search results.  These pages send an extraordinary amount of valuable traffic to our website and we do not want to lose any of this traffic.

The traffic you send us consists of people looking to buy the women’s sports apparel that we sell (primarily sports bras).  This traffic pays our bills, puts food on the table, and allows us to clothe our family.

Thank you for all the wonderful traffic you’ve sent over the years.  Can you please update the following URL’s in your index to the new corresponding pages.

The following pages have been moved to a new address:
http://www.ladiesonlysports.com/fibymococoso.html
http://www.ladiesonlysports.com/sportsbras1.html
http://www.ladiesonlysports.com/plussizcomso.html
http://www.ladiesonlysports.com/pants.html
http://www.ladiesonlysports.com/bikeshorts.html
http://www.ladiesonlysports.com/youtsiz5infi.html
http://www.ladiesonlysports.com/5infitshorin.html
http://www.ladiesonlysports.com/cheerleading.html
http://www.ladiesonlysports.com/11infitshorb.html
http://www.ladiesonlysports.com/paspbrainfic.html
http://www.ladiesonlysports.com/coanlebydaco.html
http://www.ladiesonlysports.com/safeq.html
http://www.ladiesonlysports.com/rootpomforfa.html
http://www.ladiesonlysports.com/rooterpoms.html
http://www.ladiesonlysports.com/weighttraning.html
http://www.ladiesonlysports.com/haspbra.html
http://www.ladiesonlysports.com/sporbrainten.html
http://www.ladiesonlysports.com/chcl.html
http://www.ladiesonlysports.com/atun.html
http://www.ladiesonlysports.com/jewelry.html
http://www.ladiesonlysports.com/chmein3sipa.html
http://www.ladiesonlysports.com/running.html
http://www.ladiesonlysports.com/youtpom2colm.html
http://www.ladiesonlysports.com/anprinsporbr.html
http://www.ladiesonlysports.com/pepsprayalla.html
http://www.ladiesonlysports.com/haspbradetof.html
http://www.ladiesonlysports.com/adpomsolcol.html
http://www.ladiesonlysports.com/newitzifrscc.html
http://www.ladiesonlysports.com/ind.html
http://www.ladiesonlysports.com/anprrabalobr.html
http://www.ladiesonlysports.com/cospbrabydac.html
http://www.ladiesonlysports.com/anlentigbyda.html
http://www.ladiesonlysports.com/pibyjubasp.html
http://www.ladiesonlysports.com/skwianprboyc.html
http://www.ladiesonlysports.com/bodglidstopc.html
http://www.ladiesonlysports.com/corfoottigin.html
http://www.ladiesonlysports.com/smpaunforacw.html
http://www.ladiesonlysports.com/sockshats.html
http://www.ladiesonlysports.com/yomechbr.html
http://www.ladiesonlysports.com/shap20padspo.html
http://www.ladiesonlysports.com/yogaandpilates.html
http://www.ladiesonlysports.com/shoepoms.html
http://www.ladiesonlysports.com/cappanbydan.html
http://www.ladiesonlysports.com/8inbikshor.html
http://www.ladiesonlysports.com/socks.html
http://www.ladiesonlysports.com/9inpowshorby.html
http://www.ladiesonlysports.com/paspcopac.html
http://www.ladiesonlysports.com/bobasocoboyc.html
http://www.ladiesonlysports.com/bobameboycut.html
http://www.ladiesonlysports.com/7coshbyda.html
http://www.ladiesonlysports.com/ansocbybay.html
http://www.ladiesonlysports.com/rgidolablso.html
http://www.ladiesonlysports.com/youtpommet.html
http://www.ladiesonlysports.com/minimegaphones.html
http://www.ladiesonlysports.com/chmein3sipa.html
http://www.ladiesonlysports.com/zeglboycutbr.html
http://www.ladiesonlysports.com/scoreflipper.html
http://www.ladiesonlysports.com/feedback.html
http://www.ladiesonlysports.com/enlilafren.html
http://www.ladiesonlysports.com/inchunshtopw.html
http://www.ladiesonlysports.com/runnergirlwear.html
http://www.ladiesonlysports.com/somehistory.html
http://www.ladiesonlysports.com/closoutspec.html
http://www.ladiesonlysports.com/13flchinstsi.html
http://www.ladiesonlysports.com/lmechso.html
http://www.ladiesonlysports.com/enwislim.html
http://www.ladiesonlysports.com/volleyball.html
http://www.ladiesonlysports.com/chweuncageby.html
http://www.ladiesonlysports.com/basketball.html
http://www.ladiesonlysports.com/softball.html
http://www.ladiesonlysports.com/tennis.html

I know that’s a lot of URL’s, but it’s a large site.   Thanks for your prompt attention to this matter, and once again, we appreciate your help in growing our business.

Best Regards,

Chris Gragg, Webmaster

There you have it.   One simple letter that will probably never be read by anyone at Google, except for GoogleBot, but that’s who you want to read it anyway.  He’ll take the message back to the leaders and make sure that the task gets accomplished in a timely manner.

If you have other 301 redirect techniques and would like to write a guest post for our blog, please contact us with the proposed topic and we’ll check it out.

-Chris

HighPoint Search Marketing is a Denver SEO Company and Integrated Search Engine Marketing company that provides a variety of Internet Marketing Services for companies in Denver, Colorado and across the United States.

We provide professional grade SEO Services.  This means that our SEO Services are provided in a targeted, transparent manner & our reporting metrics PROVE the results.  Don’t take chances with an SEO provider that delivers anything less.

Search Engine Marketing Services:

• SEO (Search Engine Optimization) -  Our SEO Services are top notch!   HighPoint has been recognized as one of the top 25 SEO firms in the United States since 2009.  Our SEO packages are designed to help the small business owner, the mid sized business and organizations as large as Fortune 500 companies.  We create a targeted SEO plan, implement the necessary actions and share the results with our clients.  We believe that a good SEO company is transparent and works closely with their clients to achieve the best results possible.
• Video Marketing – With the rapid oncoming deployment of broadband Internet service, Video Marketing is becoming an essential tool for any business serious about gaining customers online.  We can help your business to create, professionally master, distribute and optimize your video content across the web.
• Pay Per Click Management – If you are currently managing a pay per click marketing campaign with Google or Bing, and you are not getting the results that you expect, let us have a look.   We can optimize your Pay Per Click campaigns to ensure that you’re receiving the most traffic possible at the lowest possible acquisition cost.
• Online Reputation Management – Businesses today have a difficult time while trying to manage their online reputation.  Just one bad review can cost a business thousands (or millions) of dollars and can be difficult to remove.   Our professional online reputation management services ensure that you are generating positive reviews online and negative reviews of your business are hidden from the search results.   We will actively monitor and manage your online reputation across hundreds of social sites, including Facebook, Twitter & YouTube.

If you are seeking professional Denver SEO Services, please contact HighPoint and we will prepare a custom Search Engine Optimization Plan for your business.   Call today 800-420-5770

-Chris

HighPoint Search Marketing is going to be sponsoring the August 11th meeting of the Parker Area Business Coalition (PABC) at Victorian Peaks.

The PABC is a local Meetup Group designed to help networking amongst business professionals in the Denver South Metro Area and Parker, Colorado.

This Meetup will feature special guest speak David Casiano, Mayor of Parker, CO:

Special Guest Speaker: David Casiano

Current mayor of Parker, David Casiano has made it known that he is throwing his hat in the ring for the Colorado House District 44th seat in this November’s election.

Don’t miss the next event with the hottest new networking group in the area …
Discover The Parker Area Business Coalition! Attend our monthly FREE events to meet new key business contacts, build relationships and help your business prosper in The New Economy! This event attracts business owners and professionals from throughout the metro area… come and grow with us!

The Agenda:
Networking-Introductions- Special Guest Speaker- Networking!
You will also enjoy complimentary wine, beer & appetizers provided by Featured Sponsors.

Come prepared to introduce yourself to other professionals and business owners…but remember, we focus on learning and helping each other…we all like to buy, no one wants to be sold!

There are currently 73 business leaders involved in this group, which is meeting for only the 4th time.   This group is growing fast and has a strong membership of local business owners that can really help you grow your business.

We are hoping to attract as many new members as possible for this meetup, so if you are available on August 11th, please join the PABC and RSVP for the event.

August 11th Parker Area Business Coalition Meetup

Join the Parker Area Business Coalition

Directions to Victorian Peaks

View Larger Map

-Chris

–Guest Post by Emily Thompson–

As the prominence of local search results grows, and more and more businesses come on board, Google continues to implement plans to make local search more effective. Throughout the last few years changes and features have come and gone and this year will be no exception!

One new feature, just recently announced, will include some refinements for local search results on Google. Designed mostly for exploring things to experience in a particular city, the results will now display other popular points of interest when you search for something say, in Maui, which is Google’s example.

When a location is searched for, they will now provide results of other interesting and related attractions and sites in the area. At the moment, this is available in about 200 U.S. cities, with plans to expand to more in the coming weeks. As the big G continues to expand this feature and offer other similar items for local searches, the value could be enormous for businesses that have optimized their listings and have the potential to drive traffic from these points of interest.

Also important are the “enhanced listings” Google has been testing.  The flat fee program allows you to highlight certain things within your local business listing, like videos, photos, coupons and more.  These enhanced features give more visibility and encourage more clicks on your listing, helping you get more traffic. Noted search expert Mike Blumenthal has great post on enhanced listings with some screen shots, and some helpful insights as well.

Location Based Services Are Powerful Tools

Along with changes that Google is making to their local search components, the growing importance of sites like Foursquare and GoWalla is also adding new opportunities for local businesses to increase visibility online. Search Engine Land discussed what they called ”location wars” and the impact of “check-in” sites. The stats about the traffic for sites like Foursquare are staggering.  As the article points out, “check-ins and tips are to local business reviews what Tweets are to blog posts”.  It could prove powerful to make sure you are utilizing these sites. Foursquare even has a program to help you encourage locals to check-in.

So what does this all mean for your business? It means the standard things (optimized local listing, localized website content, etc.) but it also means you need to stay abreast of the current issues and the reality is that the landscape of local search is changing, but with that change, comes much opportunity. Keep your eyes peeled- you never know what developments could show up next! Seen any new changes? Let us know!

Emily Thompson is the online marketing coordinator for Kutenda Online Marketing Software.  Kutenda provides the tools, training and services small businesses need to succeed with Internet marketing.  Follow Emily’s updates on Twitter – @ekthompson

-Chris

It’s time that we dive in and overhaul the website.  There’s some things that we like, and some that we really don’t, so over the next few weeks this site will be in a constant state of flux.  We’ll be changing the theme of the site and customizing the look and feel to make it all our own.

In case there’s any problems with our site, the construction, losing rankings, etc., we’ve created a second blog to help solidify our rankings on some important local terms, and have an additional sounding board while the construction crews are doing their thing.

The new blog is aptly titled Denver SEO Blog, and as the name implies, the blog will discuss some of the trends and changing landscape of the Denver SEO scene, and will also be a canvas for us to practice Thesis customization techniques.

What’s Wrong With Our Current Site?

Not that there’s anything wrong with the existing design, but after implementing our new theme on scores of client’s blogs, I am so comfortable and happy working in the new environment, that I’m going to make the change.  We’re not going to disclose the new theme framework as we don’t want to show too much, but those people that know WordPress and SEO should easily recognize our framework.

Some of the early plans are to introduce more images through a gallery, add SEO video tutorials, Denver SEO case studies, a more detailed section for prospective clients, current customer testimonials, and maybe some cool widgets.

These things are all possible now, but haven’t been implemented because we have been holding out for this major overhaul.

Sounds Like a Lotta’ Web Design, What About the SEO?

SEO is the Driving Force Behind All That We Do

More important than any design changes that will happen with the new site are the upgraded SEO items we want to introduce.  We are already getting great results for Denver SEO, and some pretty competitive SEO terms on a national basis, but the game is constantly changing and we prefer to stay ahead, rather than play catch up.

We’re staying on WordPress, but we’re going to clean up some of the issues with our existing site.  Simple stuff really, but things that can make a big difference.

Repairing any/all broken links, cleaning up the code, removing unnecessary CSS, and getting rid of as many plugins as possible.   These really slow down the page load speed, so removing as many as possible is helpful.  Also implementing some server side changes that will make a big improvement on that front.

(As an aside, I’m not sure that Page Speed will be a large factor any time soon, as it’s a factor that is hard for the masses to address, and they don’t want to unfairly penalize the average SMB.   Here’s Google’s statement on Page Speed as a ranking factor.)

But I digress, – all in all we want to have a cleaner, faster loading site that is an example of SEO best practices.  The site needs to be more flexible, cleaner and faster, period.  In our current state, some of the items we want to address are not possible.

That’s about all, 5 minutes of typing that will equal a full month of work.

-Chris

2009 Was a Great Year for HighPoint SEO

Well it’s December 31st and the decade is coming to a close.  Time to start a new chapter and begin a fresh year!  Looking back over the last 12 months, there have been a lot of changes here at HighPoint.   Particularly with the growth of the company.   We’ve gone from being a one-man show to a team of dedicated SEO professionals each with their own areas of specialization.  Thankfully, our client list has grown right along with our team, and we’ve been able to fulfill our client obligations while increase our profitability in a tough economy.

What’s on the horizon for 2010?

Looking forward to 2010, we plan to introduce some new product packages that will help to make our company more efficient while increasing our product offerings and campaign performance.  We have been working hard to streamline our sales process, improve our reporting capabilities, create more affordable options with an ala-carte menu, and introduce some more comprehensive marketing packages focused on social media, video seo and local search.     On top of those new menu items, we are also introducing our SEO3 package, which should be one of the most comprehensive internet marketing packages on the market today.  (Official Announcement to come in January – look for the PR)

In conclusion, we’d like to thank all who have supported us in our growth, and the effort of all our employees who make this possible.  We’ve worked very hard in 2009, sometimes harder than necessary, but the hard work is paying off, and we’ve laid the groundwork for some explosive growth in 2010.

Wishing all of our readers a very safe and happy New Year, and that 2010 will be the best year of your life!!!

-Chris