Chris Pearson is a wonderful asset to the Wordpress Community. If you haven’t heard about the new Thesis Theme, then you should go check it out now.
I’m not going to rank and rave here about the Thesis Theme because there is plenty of that on the rest of the web. Let’s just say that I’m impressed with it enough to take the dive and put it into use here at BradleySpencer.com…
There is one HUGE problem with the Thesis Theme though…
And it is that without much background in PHP, it can be very difficult to make any significant changes to the theme without breaking it. Because Thesis is so advanced, there is a super-steep learning curve for Wordpressers who just want something done the way they’ve always done it. You just aren’t going to get that with Thesis. [click to continue…]
There is a pretty prevalent problem in Search Engine Optimization that deserves some serious attention. And it’s causing us all to think that our own sites are ranking a LOT higher then they actually are.
It’s called Google Personalized Search. Here’s a bit about it:
Google has released a new version of Google Personalized Search, this time in a format intended to constantly monitor what people select from search results and shape future queries based on their choices.
The new service is linked to the My Search History feature that Google unveiled last April (see our Google My Search History Personalizes the Web for more on the feature). Google Personalized Search uses My Search History data to refine your results based on your searching habits.
-From SearchEngineWatch
There is nothing wrong with Google Personalized Search by itself. The problem arises when we check out rankings for different keywords.
I’ll show you an example of what can happen…
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Client: “OK, so my main site is doing well. We’ve got a bunch of links, some age on the domain name, a decent pagerank, and a couple hundred indexed pages. But the domain name itself doesn’t have our main keyword(s) in it. And I see a bunch of the highest rank websites have the equivalent of a “vanity URL”… it’s chock full of keywords. So what do we do?”
SEO: “Well gee, it depends” (aka: The SEO’s Standard Response)
It’s a question that all of us SEO’s have had to answer at one time or another. And there isn’t a whole lot of agreement across the board (so I invite anyone with expert experience in this department to chime in below in the comments section.) Until we have a tested answer to the question, I’ll wildly speculate on the best approach.
The Problem: Let’s re-phrase the question with an example to make sure we are all on the same page:
Let’s say Ying’s Teahouse and Yum Yum is trying to rank for “Columbus Chinese Food.” And Ying bought www.yingsteahouseandyumyum.com when she started the business 5 years ago and has added a bit of content slowly over the last five years. The domain is five years old and is getting steady traffic and has picked up some decent links along the way.
But now Ying is thinking that maybe buying www.columbuschinesefood.com will get her higher in the rankings. And to boot, she also bought up clintonvillechinesefood.com, centralohiochinesefood.com, ohiosbestchinesefood.com, and a handful of other keyword rich domains. So what do we do now?
My Opinion: Google’s search algo. is constantly searching for a balance in the importance of keywords in the domain name. About a year ago, domain name keywords didn’t have a whole lot of importance, but lately there seems to be a good deal more importance placed on the keywords in the domain. Who knows where it will be in 6 months? [click to continue…]
Update: I’d like to thank all of the Sphinners out there who helped put this article on the front page. A special thanks goes out to these two who helped get this article there. Thanks!
We all know that Google uses the Click Thru Rate (CTR) in their paid listings. Heck, you can even see the CTR of each of your own running ads in the Google Adwords dashboard.
So with that same technology, is it sensible to think they use the same technology to improve the relevancy of their organic results too?
Case + Point:
Google has a limited amount of factors that they can distill from their own personal analytics. With that set of data, they have to try and extract the most meaning possible.
If Google serves the same 10 results for “Wordpress Consulting” over and over then hypothetically each result should get 10% of the clicks. [click to continue…]
A Rant:
Does an advertisement like “Get More Traffic NOW” sound familiar? Doesn’t everybody just LOVE the idea of more, more, more traffic? Jeez, wouldn’t everything just be great if there was MORE traffic to your website?
Let me tell you something: More doesn’t cut it.
I don’t mean to be the guy to spoil the “More Traffic Party”, but it’s not more traffic that you want. It’s the RIGHT traffic you want.
You don’t see restaurant owners going out begging for just anybody to be in their restaurant… they aren’t looking for people just milling around with no money getting the rugs all dirty and getting in the way of the servers and what not. A restaurant wants the RIGHT kind of traffic too, in this case someone who is a)hungry and b)willing to pay what it costs to eat there. The 85% of the population who is either not hungry or has insufficient funds isn’t invited. That’s how you should be thinking about your website too.
What is the right traffic? Well it depends on your site, but usually the right traffic is someone who wants to buy your product, will click on an ad, or wants to hire you for a service. Too many webmasters are out there working for and paying for traffic that’s getting them NOWHERE.
How do you decide what traffic is the RIGHT traffic for your website? Well, that’s a good question, and one that doesn’t get a lot of attention sometimes. And it just so happens to be one of the best questions you can ask yourself.
And, it’s also a big enough question to justify an entirely new post. So until then, just remember that it’s not MORE you want, but the RIGHT traffic.
(The follow-up to this post is the first post in the How to Find the Right Traffic to your Website series. Click here to see it.)
-Brad
Today I was sitting in Northstar (one of my favorite places to grab a bite to eat and a good cup of overpriced coffee in the Short North) and decided to pick up some of my secretly favorite magazines. No, not the magazines you are thinking of. Nerdy magazines. Like Wired.
Within Wired, somewhere deep in the back of the magazine, there is an article about web scraping and how it’s a dangerous business to get in because the sites you are scraping from can shut off your access to their data anytime. And then, like David Copperfield making a yacht go “buh-bye”, you’ll find the value of your site and the fickle traffic that payed your bills before have disappeared.
-If you have no idea what I’m talking about with scrapers, then head over to the Wired Article (here) and brush up.-
What can we learn from this? I mean I haven’t had one client yet, ever, ask me to make them a web scraper (or bot), so how could this possibly teach us anything? It’s easy. When you are creating a sustainable website, there are no shortcuts.
Creating a sustainable website, one that will stand the test of time, Content Is King. Your content has to be:
1. Interesting
2. Unique (meaning you can’t copy&paste or just reword something that everybody already knows)
3. Well-written
4. Linkable (meaning that other people will read it, and want to link to it)
When I first started creating websites and trying to get tons of traffic, I thought that Quantity beat Quality anytime. Over time, it seems that the opposite is true.
On the other side of the computer screen is always a HUMAN BEING spending their time reading what you’ve written to meet some need that they have. Maybe they want to know how to build a better website, make their website more SEO compliant, or in the case of this article, trying to learn what the article from Wired can teach us.
And, for 99% of websites, that means writing great content or hiring someone to write great content for you. Without good content, your website doesn’t offer any value to the visitors, and no short-term fixes (including SEO) will make your site take flight.
So what does all of this mean in terms of how ACTUAL sites look?
Well, I’ll show you from some pages that I’ve written myself.
Cheating Page:
Review Website Launched
Why: OK, this is a page from my own site. See, we all do this sometimes. The reason this page doesn’t work is because it doesn’t really offer anything of value to the user… You. just because you are at my site doesn’t mean you care at all about another site I’m launching. I can’t image anyone reading this page and saying… “Wow, knowing about this site launching sure is interesting. I think I’ll link to that and tell me friends about it.” Honestly, not going to happen. Why don’t I erase the page? Well, it give’s me a link to the site, which helps the Columbus Restaurant Review Site in the Search Engines. (But if I had the time, it’d help MORE to write a more compelling page.)
Good Pages:
Penguin Guide to Domaining
How To Dominate Your City in Google
Why: I wrote both of these pages over time. You know, I opened up Word and wrote and edited and edited and added and fact-checked and researched and all of that. It took time. It took energy. Heck, it was hard. But it paid off. People read these and comment, link, and somehow the Search Engines know that these are good pages and they give them prominent positions in the Indexes… which means more traffic and more money.
Do I walk the walk? Let me know if this article that you are reading write now is fluff or “stuff”. Leave a comment below about what you thought. And if you do think it’s stuff, why not let me take a look at your site and see if we can’t make some moves for you or your organization?
-Brad
While 2007 has been a truly interesting, exciting, and altogether great year, I’ve made some decisions about where the future lies for this business.
Based on the desires I’ve heard voiced from my clients, and the profits I’ve seen from my own investments in the Internet, it seems that Search Engine Optimization is without-a-doubt the best place to invest my time and energy.
SEO (short for Search Engine Optimization) is the part of Web Design that I’ve always enjoyed the most and had the most innate talent in. SEO is really the reason I was attracted to web design in the first place.
And, the more conversations I have with webmasters, the more I realize that what people really want is to get their message out… not just to have a pretty website.
So I’m going to focus on SEO starting in 2008.
I’ll still be accepting new Web Design clients on a per-client basis if the project seems like a good match. Each web design will have a growing emphasis on built-in Search Engine Optimization characteristics. Please contact me to see if we would be a good match for a web design.
And, of course, I’m interested in hearing from anyone that would be interested in seeing how SEO can help their bottom line. Read more about SEO or contact me today.
Since I’ve officially moved into German Village, Ohio, it seems like a good idea to make sure anyone looking for a Website Designer in German Village finds a great one (I’d like to think… me).
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My name is Brad and I love to help people drive traffic and make great blogs. Thanks for coming by. If you like what you see here then check me out on 
