Organic Response

“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?

While I was hoping to create a wiki as an extension of my site, my lack of patience and programming skills lead me to launch a free version at http://organicresponse.wikidot.com/. My intention with this wiki is to create a platform that houses a robust library of resources related to the interactive space . I laid the foundation of the wiki by uploaded several sections from my whitepaper, in hopes that they will provide an adequate launching pad for a flourishing of information, opinions, and innovation on the evolving World Wide Web. Below are the different sections of the wiki so far. Any input is welcome and appreciated. Happy Wikiing!!!

• Search Engines – A Brief HistoryWeb 2.0 – The New Internet

• Web 2.0 – The Technical Landscape

• SEO Link Strategy in Web 2.0

• Social Media Optimization – A Piece of the SEO Puzzle

• Usability vs. Searchability – The RIA Search Challenge

• Googles Personalized Search – The End of Traditional SEO?

• Search Behavior R&D – Customized Engines and Long Tail Keywords

I’ve been researching the best way to add a wiki to my website, and so far I have not been impressed. I want to host the wiki on my site so the domain looks like wiki.organicresponse.com or organicresponse.com/wiki. While I’m sure it would be a worthwhile skill to have I’m not trying to take the time to learn a programming language like Ruby to build the wiki. I’ve looked at Wetpaint, Wikispaces, Pbwiki, and Editme. They all have a monthly fee of atleast $10 to have your own domain. Why aren’t wikis as available as blogs? Are they just not mainstream enough, so the demand isn’t there? Is the programming that much more complicated than a weblog? Any insight into this matter would be greatly appreciated. Or if you have any recommendations for how this non-techy guy can create a wiki on my site without paying a monthly fee.

A cool way to get an idea of what kind of sites the search engines like to crawl is to see where your name comes up in the search results.  Create some profiles on a few social sites, comment on some blogs, and submit some original articles to free article submission services.  Then do a Google search on your name and watch what comes up.  The difficulty level of getting yourself on the first page certainly depends very much on how common your name is.  Be sure to search on your name and “your name”. I myself, Will Fleiss, am currently competing with my distant cousin Heidi Fleiss and Mike Fleiss, creator of the reality tv show The Will.  Admittedly, I am lucky enough to have a rather uncommon name, however if you test a few things out I think you will find that its not that hard to get your 15 minutes (or rankings) in the Google Search spotlight. 

The spammers on Squidoo have hit the trip wire, and Google has begun to penalize a lot of Squidoo pages. Jason Calanis cites a few examples of the spam.  We’re talking real –  free rington, porn, viagra - spam, not spam like my client creating information rich lenses, that could actually be useful to someone moving to Charlotte. Ed Dale’s blog TubbyNerd.com, sites several reasons for Google penalizing Squidoo’s ranking, non of which have anything to do with spamming.  Either way, Squidoo has lost a lot of its initial zazooo given to it by its high rankings on Google, so it appears it will be necessary to build some backlinks to your Squidoo pages if you want to see them rank.

Check out this SEO informational video with interviews of the top guns in the SEO industry.

In the world of search engines, the answer to this question can become less absolute than you may think. My first perception of a competitor, is a company, voice or form of influence fighting to occupy the same space as another. Initially, it all starts in the mind of the consumer. When they get the inclination to buy something, you want your product to take up as much space as possible as the buying thought process moves its gears towards a final decision. Brand marketers attempt to win this battle by sending an over arching message that they hope will slowly infiltrate the consumer’s thinking, while direct marketers cater to their target’s impulses by making their products accessible at strategic times. Despite the different tactics, both methods are competing for the same space.

Unfortunately, the real world does not exist in a vacuum like a consumer’s thought process when they decide to buy jeans. There are so many different influences occupying the same space, that it can be difficult to pick out who is competing against who. A major casino may say, these are our top 5 competitors because they are the other top casinos in the country. On one level those 5 casinos may be their competitors, but type the keyword “casino” into Google, and only two actual casino websites appear on the first page. Are those 8 other websites not their competitors? They certainly want to be in the top position. They are certainly competing for this space. Not to mention the fact that casinos typically have hotels. So their competitors are not only the casino websites, but the hotel and travel websites as well.

These thoughts stem from an assignment I received at work today. I have been tasked with coming up with a standard format for conducting a competitive analysis for SEO. A step by step process that could be performed by an entry level employee. Usually the account service team gives us a list of the clients competitors (in the eyes of the client) and says we need a competitve analysis. In the SEO world, it strikes me this is the wrong way to go about it. I think you come up with a core list of keywords, see who is currently ranking on those keywords, and pick out specific elements of their websites that have been optimized in comparison to the client’s website. I guess ultimately my question is, what is the best way to communicate to the client the distinction between the rankings of who they think are their competitors, and who Google thinks are their competitors?

I hope some of that made sense. Any thoughts on performing a good SEO competitive analysis would be greatly appreciated.