Organic Response

I just successfully survived my first WordPress upgrade, but not without more than a few skipped heart beats. After deleting the appropriate files, and uloading the 2.3.2 using the FTP Client FileZilla, I proceed to the wp-content/upgrade.php page, and I get….”FATAL ERROR…”. Thanks to an esteemed colleague, and WordPress support, I got back up in running.

Not being especially confident messing around behind the scenes and this being my first “down time” experience, I must say this was quite a scare. Were months of original, heart-felt content down the drain? I am of course being a tad mellow dramatic because I backed up all my files, but being able to go to my blog to see those soothing blue skies whenever I want, and all of the sudden having that ripped out from under my noise, was, let’s say….not cool.

Anyways, if its your first time going for the upgrade definitely proceed with caution. It was after all a great learning experience, and an important advancement for the future of Organic Response. See ya soon…

Tomorrow is my first day as Ogilvy PR Worldwide’s newest Online Marketing Manager.  I will be working on their 360 Degree Digital Influence team under such social media industry experts as John Bell and Rohit Bhargava.  I think my SEO background as an Organic Search Specialist at Bennett Kuhn Varner will serve me well in my role, however I expect I am about to learn an absurd amount, as I launch my career to the forefront of the Word of Mouth Marketing space.  SEO is my first passion in the interactive world, and I will therefore continue to report on areas of search engine interest, as well as experiences at work that deal with organic search; however my realm of marketing knowledge (aka blog post material) is poised to expand tremendously.  Stay tuned…  

“Our entire site is flash…How do we SEO our site?” This is a common inquiry of many clients.  Walking the fine line between cloaking by providing a mirror description of the flash in html has always been the response. 

Google has begun to use the Macromedia Adobe Search Engine SDK tool to extract textual content from Flash files. In  Stephan Spencer’s recent interview with Matt Cutts, Google engineer and director of their webspam team, Cutts said the following:

It used to be the case that we had our own, home-brew code to pull the text out of Flash, but I think that we have moved to the search engine SDK tool that Adobe/Macromedia offers. So, my hunch is that most of the search engines will standardize on using that search engine SDK tool to pull out the text.

Cutts goes on to encourage Flash users to use the Adobe SDK tool to determine if your Flash is readable.  So, it sounds like they aren’t quite there in regards to being able to read Flash content as easily as HTML, but they are heading in the right direction.  Read some more of Spencer’s articles to get a better understanding of the topic: Flash alternatives blessed by Google, Progressive Enhancement is Good for SEO.

The information provided by Google Webmaster Tools once you verify ownership of your website (or client’s website) is extremely valuable.  Any self-respecting SEO should know the ins and outs of what Google Webmaster Tools have to offer.  Here is an abbreviated breakdown of the information provided, and what you can do with it to improve your search engine rankings:

• Web Crawl Erros – Make sure your internal linking is being optimized via PageRank scultping
  • HTTP errors
  • 404 Not found
  • URLs not followed
  • URLs restricted by robots.txt
  • URLs timed out
  • Unreachable URLs
• Content Analysis
  • Title tag issues – Google webmaster tools reports your pages that are missing title tags.  This can be extremely useful when conducting site audits for clients that frequently drop tags.
  • Meta description issues
    •  Duplicate meta descriptions
    • Long meta descriptions
    • Short meta descriptions
• Links
  • Pages with external links
  • Pages with internal links – find out which of your pages have a lot of links pointing to them, and which have few links pointing to them.  Then, in a way that makes sense to the user, anchor text link relevant keywords from high linked pages to low linked pages in order to steer your PageRank in the right directions.
• Tools
  • Analyze robots.txt
  • Set geographic targeting
  • Enable enhanced image search
  • Set crawl rate
  • Set preferred domain
  • Remove URLs

Once you have launched a new website your very first SEO related tasks should be to upload the Google Webmaster tag, verify that you own the site. Then create an XML sitemap to sit on your site like so, yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml.  You will then submit this URL to Google Webmaster Tools in order for Google to crawl your entire site faster than it normally would without the submission. Happy SEOing!

If it hasn’t already started it will in the very near future.  That is, college kids asking their career centers, “How Do I Get into SEO?”  Search has become such an integral part of our everyday life, that the profession of search engine optimization is becoming far more visible to the average Internet user trying to discover their career path.  Due to the ever increasing role of computers in the lives of kids these days, college graduates now have the tools to become an SEO even if they don’t know it.  I myself went from a liberal arts degree (major in psychology), fairly typical frat guy, to Organic Search Specialist in just a year and a half out of college.  I am highly considering compiling a How To Become an SEO Out of College, providing my story in detail, but I would like to first gauge public interest in such a story.  Please reply to this post if interested in how I got into search engine optimization.  Thanks!

Its pretty much an accepted fact among SEOs and SEO minded web designers that the search engines, especially Google, have a soft spot for the WordPress blogging platform.  We all know that the easily updated nature of blogs keep the search engine spiders frequently coming back for fresh content, but what exactly is better about WordPress compared to Blogger or Typepad, or any other blogging software.  Something to do with the ease in which pages can be tagged with appropriate keyword labels…right?

Does anyone have a more precise explanation for this?  I was recently asked by a web designer colleague if I new of any studies or proof of WordPress being fundamentally ideal for optimization.  He is in the process of perfecting a comprehensive web site analysis package that takes into account everything from user experience, to SEO, to conversion optimization.  The company that effectively incorporates the principles of WordPress into their web design efforts will present a very marketable product…. Any thoughts?