11 Ways Your Site's Server Can Kill Your Rankings

According to John Heard and Kristi Hagen (searchenginenews.com), servers are often the last thing that marketers think about when it comes to attaining a number one spot on Google. However, at SEN, one of the first questions that will ask a client is "who is hosting your site and what type of server is it on?'. According to SEN, a server is like an engine of a race car, meaning that you want power, speed, and reliability. When visitors are on a website, they expect "a fast ride" that will take them exactly where they want to go. So, if you are looking to help visitors have a great experience on a website, I recommend you take a look at the topics discussed below.

 Below are the 11 essential topics to consider when focusing on a server:

1. Platform
 The two choices for a web host server are Linux based or Windows based. Unix based is the the system of choice for small to medium business websites because of the lower cost. The Windows based platform is used by larger businesses because it takes more tech knowledge and also makes it almost impossible to run a WordPress site.

2. Hosting Package
 Examining the hosting package will be very important because you will be charged fees if you run over your allotted disk space, or limitations. The cost for a hosting package will very depending on how much disc space and bandwith you need.  The lowest cost per month for a hosting package will start at $.95/month.


3. Secure Certificate
A secure site will get definitely get more favoritism from Google when it comes to ranking boosts. The amount of support surrounding a secure certificate will vary dramatically. So, it is important to do research on what the costs and services are available to upgrade to a secure server with the host you choose.

 

4. Shared or Dedicated
 In most cases, you will want to use a shared server space that will run multiple domains in the same box. Dedicated servers cost a lot and are often overkill unless you have a high traffic website. However, dedicated servers do allow some more room for control and customization.


5. Security 
 Security should be one of the most important aspects of choosing a host. You will want to find a host that does a great job with security, but you also do not want one that will make your site a nightmare when trying to install new software. The best way to find a host with good security will be by talking to people who have used hosts with good security.

6. Support
You will want to find a support team that is staffed 24/7 and offers both email and phone support. It is also suggested that you call their tech line to see how long you have to wait on hold before you sign up with them.

7. Subdomains
 You can have your subdomain be hosted on the same server as your root domain or SEN also suggests that you can use an "A" record DNS entry to point the subdomain to another IP, which could be on another server. It would also be helpful to do some research on costs and what is required to add a subdomain.


8. Speed
Speed will always be near the top of a priority lists when selecting a server because speed effects conversion rates, bounce rates, and your search rankings. Google has even mentioned that speed of a website is part of their algorithm. Therefore, it should be at the top of the list for your site's SEO as well.


9. Canonical
If the www and the non www versions both serve your site's page you may be in trouble because that means you are serving two different sites to customers and search engines. To correct this, you can visit 301 permanent redirect when setting up your website and domain. If you plan on using a Windows Host you should make sure that they can address this issue for you.


10. Location
The actual physical location for your server is important. If you have a multi-national site you need to give the search engines as many possible indications tying your site to the correct country. For example, if you have an American site you will want a server hosted in the U.S. or as close as possible to the U.S. Having a closer physical location will help improve your load times and it may also avoid having to resort to Content Delivery Networks.

11. Uptime
 Last, but not least, is uptime, the measure of the time your site has been working. Uptime is perhaps the most important metric that you will want to measure. If your website is down, customers won't be able to gain access to it, and search indexes will not be able to index it. Many of the top web hosts that show their servers status at all times.  If they do not, be careful with working with them. If you visit www.pingdom.com you can find a package for $9.95/month, that will monitor your site's performance and uptime.


If you want more information on this topic please visit the following link: https://www.searchenginenews.com/se-news/content/11-ways-your-sites-server-can-kill-your-rankings

9 SEO Tasks

SEO can be a confusing for people who are not familiar with it. In this blog, I am going to list nine things that you should plan to do if you are working on SEO for a website.

1. Setup Google Analytics
The first step is setting up Google Analytics for your website. Web hosting pages often offer analytics, but they are usually unreliable. Google Analytics is a great choice because of everything it offers, and it is actually free! Once you have Google Analytics for your website, make sure you understand how to check your organic search traffic volume. The following screen shot show where organic search volume is shown.

2. Setup Google Webmaster Tools
Setting up Google Webmaster Tools will allow you to see things that Google has observed about your site. Some of the interesting things it provides are: backlink data, rankings data, most common keywords on your site, crawl data, and much more! You can view an example of a crawl report by clicking on the following screenshot.

3. Check Your Indexing Status
This is very basic and easy to do as it only requires two steps. The first step is to to estimate how many pages you think your site has. You don't need to know the exact number, but it is important to know if you have dozens, hundreds, or thousands of pages. The second step will then require you to go to Google and type in the following "(site:yourdomain.com)". When you click search, the results will show you how many pages Google has in their index for your site. If you think that the results are way to low or high, it is time to get some more SEO help.
4. Run a Crawler on Your Site
Xenu and Screaming Frog are two options you can use for this. Xenu is more of a general purpose crawler and Screaming Frog is more targeted at SEO. You can choose either one, but the most important thing is to make sure that you fix all of the "page not found" errors. If Google sees a lot of errors it will believe that your site is of poor quality, which you will definitely don't want!
5.Pull Keyword Volume Data
 It is important to find out which keywords most relate to your business and which are most searched by users. You can use Google's Keyword Planner (this does require you have a Google AdWords acount), or Wordtracker. It is very important to understand what users think about when they think of your product or products similar to yours. You will want to be speaking in the language of your customer because it will lead to good results.

6. Optimize the Title Tags of Your Site
 On your website, you should try to have a specific page that contains each major user need you help address. This is described to be an important because it is hard to close a customer if you don't bring them to a page that addresses their need. The last step (pull keyword volume data) will help you pick out title tags for your site. This will also help you understand how to structure the content on the page.

7. Eliminate Duplicate Content
 The Xenu crawler that I mentioned in step 4 will show if you have duplicate title tags or not. You should look at the title tag column and find pages that have the same title. Once you have found this pages, you will need to get a developer to help resolve the issue, but the good thing is that you will know what to tell them. This may sound grueling, but it will definitely help.

8. Create Remarkable Content
 To create remarkable content, you should focus on creating content that will differentiate you from the competition. In fact, this is what search engines will be looking for themselves. To do this, you need to study up so that you are able to write content that solves problems for others, in ways that others have not done yet, or you should hire someone to do this for you. Being able to create remarkable content is critical if you want your website to make it in today's world.

9. Tell the World About it
The last and final step is to let the world know about what you have done. People won't just magically come to your website because that is not the type of world we live in. You have to get out there and promote your brand, and most importantly the great content on your website. You can publish articles in journals or blogs in your industry, speak at conferences, and build a strong social media presence. If you complete the first eight steps, this step will be much easier than you may think.

These nine steps definitely requires a lot of hard work, but the upside to it will be well worth it. For more information on the nine steps, please visit the following link: https://www.plusyourbusiness.com/first-9-seo-tasks/

META descriptions

Today I am going to inform you about Meta descriptions. If you have a blog or website, this post should be of interest to you. For those of you who don’t know, a Meta description is defined as an HTML and XHTML element that describes your page to search engines. Meta descriptions provide and explanation of the contents of web pages and they are commonly used on search engine result pages to show a preview of the snippets for a given page. Meta descriptions are not important to search engine rankings, but they are very important if you want to increase user click-throughs from search engine result pages. The Meta description on your page is an opportunity to advertise your website or blog to searchers, and let them know if your blog/website is what they were searching for. It is important to use the site’s keywords strategically in the Meta description, and you should also create an interesting description that a searcher would want to click. Lastly, uniqueness and direct relevance to a page between each page’s Meta description is key.

SEO Best Practices

1. Write Compelling Ad Copy

When you are writing Meta description, you will want it to be a compelling description because it serves the function of an advertising copy. It is what attracts the searchers to a website, so it is a very important part of search marketing. To maximize click-through rates on search engine pages it is important to remember that Google and all other search engines bold keywords in Meta descriptions

2. Recommended Length-155 Characters

Your Meta description can be any length, but the suggested length is approximately 150 characters.

3. Avoid Duplicate Meta Description Tags

To avoid duplicated Meta description tags, it is important to make each Meta description for every page unique.

4. Not a Google Ranking Factor

“In September of 2009, Google announced that neither Meta descriptions nor Meta key words factor into Google’s ranking algorithms for web search. Google uses Meta descriptions to pull preview snippets of result pages as well as returning results when researches use advance search operators to match Meta tag content.

5. Quotes Cut Off Descriptions

If you have quotes in your met description, Google will always cut off the description. So, when you are writing a Meta description remember to never include quotes or non-alphanumeric characters in your description. If you feel that you need quotes, you should change them to single quotes instead of double quotes.

Source: https://moz.com/learn/seo/meta-descripton

Creating a Free Website

In my SEO marketing class, we were required to make a website. The professor gave us the option of creating a site on Google, or on Weebly. I chose to create my site on Weebly.com. I have not fully finished editing my site or adding content to it. However, I do plan on adding information about myself this semester. Last semester I added a couple pictures and created a contact page that would then send people to a landing page. The landing page was a simple page that said "thank you". The goal of this was to track how many people reached this landing page by submitting their contact information. We are now again using Weebly to further help us understand SEO.

Another platform that you can try for free is Wix. I used Wix.com which is a web development platform that allows users to create web sites and mobile sites through the use of online drag and drop tools. I used this platform to make a website for a product I had to create for my marketing strategy class last semester. The product I created was a pair of heat activated football receiver gloves. Wix made it very easy for me to add images and customize the website to look the way I wanted it to. It may not look as professional as other websites look, but for a class project, I thought it was a great platform to use. If you are looking to create a website and are low on funds I would definitely suggest either of these two platforms. They are both user friendly and free to use!

Hubspot Certification

In this blog post, I am going to talk about the Hubspot Certification that I recently passed. For those of you who don't know, "Hubspot is an inbound marketing software platform that helps companies attract visitors, convert leads, and close customers." Traditional marketing is focused on cold calls, direct mail and advertising to consumers. Hubspot is focused on attracting potential buyers instead of interrupting them by cold-calling them or sending them direct mail. Inbound marketing involves creating content, optimizing it for search engines, and posting it to social media. You should then attract your prospects with landing pages, calls to action, and personalized emails and websites. That is what Hubspot describes as inbound marketing and the way you should market to human beings. If you want to learn more about what Hubspot is, visit the following link: http://www.hubspot.com/what-is-hubspot.

How I achieved a Hubspot Certification

I am currently taking an SEO marketing class and we were required to take and pass the exam to achieve the Hubspot Certification. I have the class twice a week and we watch approximately three videos from hubspot.com each class. For me, the videos were what really helped me pass the exam. I knew that I was required to pass the exam, so I made sure that I paid close attention to all of the videos. The videos discuss different topics that are important for SEO and inbound marketing. All of the topics that were discussed in the videos we watched were definitely covered on the exam in at least one of the questions. I was able to see what topics on the exam that I did well on and those that I did not do well on. After the exam was over it gave a percentage on how well I did on each topic. I found this to be helpful because it showed what I knew and what I should further look it to help me better understand inbound marketing. I was able to pass, however if you are unable to on your first try, you should pay close attention to these percentages. They will show you what you topics you will need to study for the next time you try to pass the exam. I suggest trying to pass this exam because it will improve your resume and be attractive to potential job recruiters.

Mobile Devices Upend Google Search

"Mobile Devices Upend Google Search" is the name of an article that was published in the Wall Street Journal. The the main focus of the article is centered around search engine optimization, and how mobile devices are changing it. In 2010, Chimani Inc. launched a smart phone app that would help guide visitors to Maine's Acadia National Park. At the time, Google did not include apps in any search results, so Chimani had to build a website and sprinkle in phrases such as " Chimani: mobile apps for outdoors". They sprinkled these types of phrases in their website because they hoped that it would help their app get noticed. This strategy has shown how mobile devices are upending fifteen years of SEO tactics created to attract search engine sites such as Google, or Yahoo.  SEO is now more about opening apps up to Google's computers, and/or feeding the computers product information, prices, or photos.

Google's Understanding of Apps
Just like Chimani Inc. had to change their strategy, Google has had to change theirs too. On the web, Google is able to see and analyze all information. However, apps which are self-contained programs are the opposite. Google needs help from app developers in order to see and organize the material inside an app. Currently, Google does have organized information inside more than 1,000 apps such as Twitter, and Facebook, however that is only a small percentage of the more than one million apps in Google's Play Store. Google also needs help assessing content even when it can see inside an app. Google ranks websites based on how many other sites are to linked to them. However, apps are not websites so they do not have links which means that Google had to find a way to rank them differently. According to Mr. Cristo (director of SEO innovation at WPP Group), Google seems to rank apps on the number of users, and how much time they spend in the app. So it seems that the best way to boost an app's SEO is to encourage product users to write reviews, give ratings, and share content because that is what Google seems to value the most.

Best Mobile SEO
According to Marty Weintraub (founder of digital marketing agency aimClear), writing a check to Google is the best mobile SEO these days. Google offers advertising that can be placed near certain search results. The Google product ads can have pictures, prices, and availability. These ads rely on continual data that is fed from the retailers who are creating the ads. It is also important to make sure that the data feed on the product ads are at least 95% correct. Correct data feed is described to be just as important as the keywords being used in the product ads. According to PMG and Kenshoo (marketing agencies) the product codes have to start with a numeral and product descriptions can't be in all capital letters.

The topics I discussed above are what I found to be most important in the article. If you would like to read the full article, you can visit the following link: http://www.wsj.com/articles/mobile-devices-upend-google-search-1456396202

CTA's and Landing Pages

 

CTA's


In this blog post, I am going to first talk about the importance of CTA's. If you are unaware, CTA stands for "call to action" which is a link that is added to a page to encourage some type of action such as link to sign up for a store's e-mail list that sends special offers and coupons. CTA's are often found on websites, emails and blogs, however the call to action button should be placed at different spots. If you are adding a call to action button on a website or e-mail, it can be placed anywhere where it is not distracting to the user on the website or e-mail, but can still catch their attention. If you are adding a call to action onto a blog, it should be placed at the end of the blog post, or on the side bar. You can measure a call to action button by looking at the click rate. A good click through rate goal to aim for a CTA would be be 1-2%, and a good click-to-submission goal to aim for would be about 10%. Whether you are getting good or bad results, it is still important to make some type of change and analyze the results. You will want to know what is working and what is not. The next step in the conversion process is the landing page!


Landing Page

Creating CTA's that are attractive is important, but in order to successfully generate leads it is also just as important to create an attractive landing page. A landing page is the page that you will reach if you click on a call to action link or button. It is the first thing that someone will see once they click the link. There are two types of landing pages: click through landing pages, and lead generation landing pages. Click through landing pages are focused on persuading the customer to click through to another page. An example of this type of landing page would be a product description. The main goal of click through landing pages is to push a visitor closer to a purchase decision. A lead generation landing page is used to gain user data such as a name or an e-mail address. The main goal of a lead generation landing page is to collect one's information so that it can be used for the company to market to the person at another time. An example of this would be an e-mail list. Once you have created an attractive landing page, the last step is a simple thank you page. The conversion process will now be complete as follows: call to action, landing page, and thank you page.

Buyer Personas of an Example Sporting Goods Company

In my last SEO blog post, I talked about what a buyer persona is, and talked about the three stages a buyer may go through. The three stages were: Awareness, Consideration, and Decision. In this blog, I am going to talk about the article that I wrote about for the website of the product I created last semester for a Promotional Strategy class.

The product that I created was a pair of heat activated wide receiver football gloves. The website that I created for the product can be accessed in the following link: http://erubel.wix.com/scorchers. The three personas that I decided to target based on a Hubspot example worksheet, were demographic information, what a day in the life of a person in the selected target market looks like, and where these people go for information. Some of the demographics of the target market that were important were age, gender, and geographic location. An average weekday in the lives of teenage boys who play football would be going to school, practice, and then going home and doing homework, possibly having some time to relax, and then going to bed. These boys are from the younger generation so they are most likely tech savvy. With that being said, these boys most likely use their phones often and search for information on their phones, laptops, or tablets.

Below is an example of what someone may be searching for in each stage, and how Scorchers(brand name I created) would create information that would be attractive to them.

Awareness Stage

The persona is high school football players who buy football wide receiver gloves.  This person is expressing how they need help catching the football and are unsure what can help.  The audience skill level is intermediate with the keyword being catching but football gloves most likely will be mentioned.  The buyer’s journey stage is at the awareness stage.  I would choose to post, and the format would be a video with a how-to content structure.  The video would contain the brand logo and demonstrate that Scorchers can be a solution to a player who may be having trouble catching the football.  The grip on the gloves is sticky and will make it much easier to catch the ball.  The unique feature of the heat being activated when it gets cold outside will also still be mentioned because it’s what makes the product different.  The title of this would be “Need gloves that can help you perform and keep warm? Scorchers’ has you covered!” 

Consideration Stage

The persona in this stage could be that the person knows that he wants football gloves to help him catch the football on the field, but he does not know which brands are the best.  The audience skill level is advanced and they are in the consideration stage of the buyer’s journey stage.  The topic/keyword is football glove brands that are the best for catching.  This person is most concerned about the performance of the football gloves.  This will be a blog post, and the format will be a demo video of Scorcher’s athlete endorsement Antonio Brown.  Teenage kids most often look up to athletes and like to wear gear that they are wearing.  The goal of the video will be to show Antonio Brown catching the ball and the voice in the video will be emphasizing the comfort and grip of the gloves and emphasize how much the gloves can increase the viewer’s performance.  The content structure as mentioned above is the best of Scorchers.  The content title will be: “Antonio Brown shows how Scorchers’ football receiver gloves can improve your receiver catching skills.”

Decision Stage

The persona in this stage will be that the buyer knows a select number of brands of gloves he wants, but is hoping that one of them is offering a special deal or has a coupon.  The audience skill level is advanced and the buyer’s journey stage is the decision stage.  The topic/keyword that this person will type in is football glove coupons or football glove special deals.  This will be an offer instead of a blog post and the format of it will be a purchasing guide and the content structure is product focused.  The buyer knows what product he wants so this offer will be attached to the product image itself.  The content title will be “Scorchers’ 10% first pair of football receiver gloves.

Buyer Personas

A buyer persona is described to be is a "semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer based on market research and real data about your existing customers". On Hubspot, there is a worksheet that can help someone develop buyer personas. Hubsport describes buyer personas to be a crucial component of successful inbound marketing. The marketing team needs to know who the target market is and the selling team also needs to know it is to be successful. Some examples on the worksheet on Hubspot are: "what is their demographic information?", "where do they go for information?", and "what does a day in their life look like?". When thinking about your buyer personas, it is important to remember that there are three different buyer's journey stages. The three stages are awareness, consideration, and decision. Below, I will go into detail about what happens at each stage.

Awareness Stage: In the awareness stage, buyers are unaware of their problems or solutions. They are looking for information that will give them insight on finding a solution to their problem. The types of content that are often made to attract to people in this stage are research reports, eBooks, editorial content, expert content, and educational content. An example of an undefined problem in this stage is shown in the picture below.

Consideration Stage: In the consideration stage, buyers have defined what the problem actually is. In this stage, they will be researching approaches or methods that will possibly solve this problem. The types of content that are often made to attract people in this stage are expert guides, live interactions, webcasts, podcasts, and videos. An example of someone with a defined problem who is interested in finding options that will help solve their problem is shown in the picture below.

Decision Stage: In the decision stage, buyers have now decided on their solution method or strategy. They also most likely have a list of brands or products that will solve their problem for them. The types of content that are often made to attract people in this stage are vendor comparisons, product comparisons, trial downloads, and live demos. An example of a person going through their options to solve their problem is shown in the picture below.

I will attach the buyer persona developing worksheet, and content concepting worksheet that are on hubspot.net


http://cdn2.hubspot.net/hub/137828/file-17623295-pdf/product%20classes/buyer%20personas/developing-personas.pdf?t=1455127601637

http://cdn2.hubspot.net/hub/137828/file-799282870-pdf/HubSpot_Concepting_worksheet_editable.pdf?t=1455127601637

Reflection on Sports Fundriaising

In this post, I am going to talk an article that I recently wrote. The article I wrote was about sports fundraising. The website mentioned why people need to do fundraising for sports and what type of products are attractive to people for fundraising. Some of the products they mentioned were chocolate bars, lollipops, cookie dough, and pizza. All are great ideas that people would be willing to buy to help a kid with a fundraiser. In the article, I also talked about my experience in sports fundraising and I mentioned how I sold candy bars when I played park district baseball. I felt that giving a personal experience would better attract the attention of the readers and help support sports fundraising because of the great experience I had with it. Another idea I mentioned that would help generate money for a sports team was a fundraising event such as a golf outing. Below, I have attached a link to my article if you are interested.








http://www.rgbexchange.org/nonprofits/fundraising/fundraising-sports






Although sports fundraising is cool to learn about, the purpose of writing the article was to post it on rgbexchange.org to improve it's search rank. The website is for "non-profit organizations to leverage market dynamics and help people channel resources to where they are most effectively used". As a class, we are using this website to help understand SEO. Below, I have attached two pictures.  The first one is a picture of my posting of my article on my LinkedIn account. I posted the article on LinkedIn to allow other people to see the article and visit the website. The bottom picture is a screenshot of the SEO rank checker. The screenshot shows the rgbexchance.org search rank results. The website has not ranked any higher than it did when I last posted a screenshot of the rank checker. However, the hope is to get the website towards the top of search results whenever people type in the word fundraising. We hope to do this by writing articles related to fundraising that people may be interested.

Google Sites

In this blog post, I am going to talk about "Google Sites". Google Sites is any easy way to create and share webpages. Google describes creating a team or website to be as easy as as editing a document. Google Sites allows you to gather information, videos, calendars, attachments, and presentations all in one place. It then allows you to easily share any of it with a group or organization. If you decide that this is something that you would be interested in you can visit https://support.google.com/a/topic/14075?en&ref_topic=9197.

Google Sites key product features:

• Customize your site's interface
• Create a new sub-page with the click of a button
• Choose different page types, such as webpage
• Centralize shared information, embed content into any page
• Manage permission settings to keep your site as private or as view-able as you would like
• Search across your Google Sites content with Google search technology

When visiting Google Sites, it gives you links under Overview, Setup, and Options. The links under Overview describe what Google Sites is all about in more detail, what is required for a Google Site, and any support for it. The links under the Setup heading will allow you to turn sites on or off for users, set sharing options, restrict access to new sites, change default visibility, and turn on commenting. Lastly, some of the links under are Options are manage gadget access, edit sites at your domain, change a site URL, manage page templates, create an external website, and improve site performance. I did not describe any of theses links under the three subheadings so if you want to learn more about Google Sites, how to set it up and how it works, visit the link from the last paragraph! Google Sites also gives you the option to use a 30 day free trial. So if you think that Google Sites could help you, you can try it for 30 free days and then decide if it is really worth paying for.

Keyword Rank Checker

Digital Marketing has become very important to businesses in today's society. Technology is rapidly increasing and it seems that almost everything is becoming digital. With that being said, I am going to tell you why and how a keyword rank checker can help a company get their website on the first page of a google search result.

 SEO Rank Check can help your website both short-term, and long-term.  First, the most obvious way that this can help you is it will show you where your company website is ranked based off of a certain keyword. This is important because when people type in a word on google, they are most likely going to click the first few links that they see on the page after they click enter. To generate customer traffic to your website, you are going to want to be on the first page of a google search page. 

The Long-term strategy should be to add content, or do whatever it is possible that you can do. Write down everything you have done each week so when you go to check your results of your website you can see if and what worked best. The best tactic of website or blog is quality content. However, you need to inform people about your website so they are able to view it and see the quality content that is on there. You can try to share content and even ask people what the most important thing is that they want to know about a certain topic. You can post it to a social media site or even posting it on LinkedIn can help. The overall goal is to let people know that you have a blog or website and inform them what it is about.

How do I do this?: Below, I will list steps of an example website and keyword that you can use to see results on the SEO Keyword Rank Checker. The link to enter the example website and keyword is also below.

Keyword: non profit stock exchange

www.rgbexchange.org-sample website

npoex.strikingly.com-this is optional

http://www.seocentro.com/tools/search-engines/keyword-position.html

The above image shows that the website is not ranked to appear on any of the top three search engines.