Google, PPC, SEO and More

Best Practices for Title and Description Tags

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 20:52:00 -0500

Due to being busy I have never written on this topic in detail like I am going to do here. When I really cared, I would enter my title and descriptions very specifically... and for google. This is about character length and keywords and how they are displayed in google organic listings. Note I said displayed. This article is not focused on keywords as much as on display.

While it is the keywords that make a listing show up in the first place, it is what happens next that is also very important. Someone needs to notice your listing so it gets a click. Right! This is more important at this point than even your landing page because the google visitor is not there yet.

Step 1. Proper keywords and site prep to make your listing show up
Step 2. Proper setup of your title and description content to make someone click
Step 3. A landing page designed to get attention and generate leads

The Title Tag

The title tag is the content printed to the top left of your browser window, found on the browser tab, and more importantly, used by google to display your listing in the organic (left side of the google search engine) listings.

The title tag must be made up with your main keyword for your landing page PAGE. Each page can and should have it's own title tag.

What do you want your title to look like on the google listing? This is your listing, and it is FREE. You own it. You heard me right, you need to look at this as real estate on google, the most powerful piece of real estate in the world, and you can have a piece of it; but it will take time and effort to stake your claim.

There are several purpose types of title tags...

Internet Marketing Business by Steve Nyhof (keyword plus branding)
Internet marketing Business | Looking For Partners Now (keyword plus call to action)
Internet Marketing Business for New Marketers (keyword plus target)
Internet Marketing Business | What You Should Know (keyword plus interest)
Internet Marketing Business (keyword only - best for higher ranking)

None are right or wrong. The title should tell what your landing page is about. All titles here have the keywords in them and should when possible be the first words in the title. Your title tag should be 64 characters or less in length. Using more words does not also mean better click throughs, concentrate on catchy, exciting and interesting titles of any length.

When someone enters your keyword phrase into google, your keywords will be shown in bold. This will get the persons attention.

Internet marketing Business (this specific title only without other words will rank better with google)

In the source code your title look like this... <title>Internet Marketing Business</title>

The Description tag

You would think that if you just get at least your keyword once in the description you will be fine.

Being in the construction industry, I design all new homes for resale when ever possible. Seems kind of silly while drawing a plan to be built for a client that we would care at this time about it's resale value. On average, people move every five years - resale is important.

What does it mean to design for resale? Well, it must be both practical for living as it is attractive. In fact, how the house looks on the outside (curb appeal) may be the deciding factor if someone will be willing to walk through the door. Hmmm. Written well, curb appeal, enter the front door, click to my site. Do you see some similarities here?

If you are just as interested in getting someone through your front door of your "home for sale", as you are in getting someone to click on your listing, you will want to make sure you have an attractive house - I mean description.

An attractive description? What the! Calm down, this can be kind of fun if you spend a few more seconds thinking through what you want to say, and then in how you want to write it. Your description should be written in 150 characters or about 25 words.

This rule is not true to all search engines, nor is the length of the field. Remember, we want to be impressive on google first and so we must use google for our guidelines.

I have never read anything on this before, never really searched for it, but I have been doing this for several years. The length of the google description field is about 92 characters long before the remaining description wraps to the next line. Can we take advantage of this? I think so. You see, I like to place my keywords into my description two time when possible. And I like my keywords to begin on the left when ever possible.

Title and Description 1.
Learn more aboout my Internet Marketing Business
People looking for an Internet Marketing Business are looking to get into an Internet
Business to help them gain financial freedom

Title and Description 2.
Internet Marketing Business for New Marketers
Internet Marketing Business for new Marketers and anyone that is looking to get into an
Internet Marketing Business that will help them gain financial freedom

Which listing has more curb appeal - attracts you more than others? Number 2. without question! All I did was change a few words to say the same thing and got my keyword to wrap and show up as the first bold text on the second line as well.

I want to end this with a thought that fits here. When we grew up each of the brothers owned beautiful cars, GTO's, Grand Prix's, Cutless 442, and others. However, when people would see and comment on our cars they would say that they just somehow look cleaner, sharper, beautiful. Why? Because we always painted the under-body of the car frame and wheel wells black. We always carried black spray paint in our trunks and stayed up on this. You could have the most beautiful finish that sparkles in the sun, but if the under-body was a little tan from the road dirt, it just didn't hold a candle to our cars.

My point. Do everything right, think about everything you are doing. Always be able to have an answer as to why you did or did not do something. Chances are, the extra small what seems to be meaningless details, will in fact be the difference on someone clicking on your listing and not someone else's.

Please leave a comment

You can delete this post and make your own

Testing Googles Keyword Tool For Money Keywords

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 22:00:00 -0500

This article could probably be sold for all the work and research that I put into proving the LandingPages was not the issue for some people who had their accounts slapped or banned. However, the LandingPages system went through a lot of fine tuning to rid anything that might cause unrelated keywords from showing up.

The information on this page was put together for several Internet marketers who claimed that Google looks deep into the sites residing on a server, finding a keyword theme so-to-speak and therefore corrupts anyone who uses a website that is shared with other users on the same server.

When I heard this, I had a hard time believing that Google would taint the SEO value of one persons site just because there were other sites on the same server that had a certain keyword theme generated by their content. So, I decided to do a number of things to find out if this theory holds any water.

Below is information of several days of hours of testing, reading, learning, testing, checking, results...

I started by making a new standard single account on godaddy.com to get away from my servers which are primarily hosting Internet marketers accounts.
I uploaded my LP files and installed it, seems to be working as expected.
I tested each page (with Google's keyword tool) on the site and there were no money keywords.
I added the linking option on Google's keyword tool, so now my site was connected or linked to other sites or pages linked to this page, and the money keywords returned as before.

I then went through the system with a fine toothed comb and removed any credits to people, designers, script developers, etc and so there was no reference to any outside website on the LandingPages template and system, even removed my own credits and links for the test. Same thing, no mater what I tried over and over I keep getting the money keywords as long as I was linked to other sites and/or pages that may be linked to other sites and/or pages with money keywords in their content. Remember this is on godaddy. Am I a part of a shared server where only marketers reside? I highly doubt it!

So we "think" that Google scans servers for keyword themes? Or, do we "know" this? (I asked this question because I was doing a lot of work, and I don't like doing a lot of work for nothing.)

Well, I am not on my server, so not sure what to think. Maybe it has something to do with the sneXXXX.info temp site domain names that LandingPages is delivered with - somehow google knows that we have hundreds of sites with these temp domain names? I'm having a really hard time believing that.

I have another shared server with a few marketers on it, mostly home builder websites. Ran test after test of these sites and the money keywords do not show up. drsmithdeal.com is a blog on the same server, full of money keywords, yes shows for his site, but none of the sites on the same server show anything. So we "could" guess that it is a percentage of a certain industry and keywords that would create a theme - ok, so I continue...

I setup a new site (on the main marketing server - about 80 marketers on this one) under 2201200.info (not available now) and uploaded a few files related to a rotating script and chuck norris - (just something I was messing with.) You would think that sense the theme of the server was predominated with marketers, that this site would be tainted with some keyword related to marketing or money, but no. It was about chuck norris and other keywords that made sense to the site files.

So then I decided to rename the sne1601.info to 2201200.info. Maybe Google does not like my sne. In fact I searched on sne and found that it relates to stocks and other financial things, etc.

I ran the test on the keyword tool for 2201200.info. This is now on godaddy.com

This is on my server- sne1590.info - same files

I do not have half of these keywords even on the site - no work at home, or how to make - this is all bull!

~~~

I have just run a bunch of tests on "make money online", "need money now" "ppc domination" and others and checked out the sites on Adwords PPC connected to these. I know we want to believe that google bot just has not caught these marketers yet, but why would google not just put a person on google to search some of these clear keywords and make a list of the marketers listed? I could pay someone $200 to do this in one day have many of the marketers named and canceled with todays technology. Google could put 100 people on this for one week and remove them all - something does not sit well with me on this.

These sites were found on adwords PPC

my-secret-income.com

onlinemarketinglearning.com

jimyaghi.com

ashmax11.ws

I know Jim Yaghi knows what he is doing as he teaches how to stay on Google. I just received some of his emails. He might be willing to share some info with us concerning this??? He might be interested in promoting LandingPages.

Anyway, I hope there is something in here you can learn and give some guidance to, as to what we should do next. Google might be looking into server sites and themes of keywords, but even on Godaddy.com, the same results are happening.

I do believe something has changed, because about 3 months ago I started to make a new site for stay at home moms, stripped the site to nothing, and nothing showed up for keywords. Then I only added a header1 tag of Stay at home Mom jobs, and keywords showed up related to that key phrase just like the wonder wheel would show. As I continued to add content to the site, I could see when something began to go away from my focus, so I would re-write. The keyword tool is doing something now I have not seen before. Again, on its own pages, it make sense, click the checkbox and all goes bad.

The keyword tool says... Include other pages on "my" site linked from this URL -- I do not believe this is happening at all as you are saying. Google is doing more than just linking to your personal website.

Please offer some ideas, or even find someone else to tare into my site and make sure I am not missing anything.

Here is something I did find.

The maker of the popup that I use, and CCPro uses as well...

These were keywords generated from these sites...

geckotribe.com - affiliate - how to make - internet marketing - money

www.copyscape.com - make money - how to

So my question here is, does google have these peoples numbers? Meaning, are they tainted and therefore anyone connected to them tainted? I think so!

How can we know for sure that Google is using these money keywords to find and slap accounts? I would like to know anything you can share with me as this must be fixed, or find out why people like Jim Yaghi are getting away with it as it is.

Steve

~~~

Just an update.

Because sites that are not LandingPages do work on the marketing server with no effect, I decided to completely strip out all the html of my template and see what happens - leaving in the head and body tags and the content from the page - nothing else. And, there is no money keywords.

Now I am going to go through and add the code back in piece by piece and see what it is that is triggering these words.

So, as it stands, I am not seeing the keywords, I don't think it is the server, I just don't see it.

~~~

ok, this is what I have learned so far...

As I slowly added the html back into my template (not changing the content) all was fine until I hit the navigation html. Once the nav html was added, the money words came back. This is the new account on godaddy.com - not my servers. I will be testing that next, and I believe I will get the same results.

I removed the contact-us page from being indexed, but still in the navigation. I have an about-us page and site-map and of course a home page with content mainly talking to the user on how to add content.

If these pages were empty, seems google may think that someone is trying to sneak something by maybe, and so the money keywords are added. Again, doubt it. Once I added some random generated content to the about-us page and contact-us page, the money keywords went away.

I then removed the content from the contact-us page and tested, and the money keywords came back. I added them back in and removed them from the about-us page, and the money keywords did not come back.

Seems there is a connection to the contact page on a website. Typical sites do not contain much of anything on the contact page, but maybe there is something there, or maybe once there are several more pages, the contact page will not be an issue.

I have been working at this sense 8:00 this morning. Have learned a great deal. My next step is to test this same thing on my servers. I will keep you posted of the results.

I do believe based on some content that I had on the about-us page, that if you mention a business opportunity this could trigger the money words, or if nothing is entered into the contact page, the money keywords are triggered.

I have a feeling that my sites are fine, but there will be some special content that I will need to test that may need to be a part of the site content to keep the money words away. This is what I was thinking about last week when I mentioned that I wanted to produce some random content based on proven text that does not trigger these words.

More later
Steve

~~~

Once I got the site working on godaddy.com, I copied the database over from the godaddy test site to snepro2.com on my server. I received the very same keyword results with no money keywords - clean. Please test it.

I then added in an optin form on the side column with the words in the head area that read... "Yes! Please tell me more about this great opportunity, even in a poor economy." This triggered money words. So I made it say... "Yes! Please tell me more!" and it went back to no money words.

Whether on godaddy.com or my server the results are the same. I do not believe that google is looking into the server because godaddy gave me the same results before I changed the content. On one hand it would be nice to know they did and godaddy was the answer, but I am getting the same results on both servers when anything related to our industry is entered. It is nice to know that I can make content changes and see results as I would expect.

My main question is... How in the world are we going to write content about home business, internet marketing or business opportunity if we cannot use those words?

If you are not buying this or my results then I am not sure what direction you would want me to take. This is a content issue or it is a little (not enough) content issue. Little content triggers money words, contact us pages with some content on the site is needed for google to give attention to the content and stop some kind of trigger that includes money keywords when there is too little to no content.

The about us page doesn't seem to matter if there is content on it or not. But if there is, there cannot be anything in there about business, internet or opportunity.

I have now spent about several solid days testing everything I can think of. The next step is to build a site, continue to add and test the content and run a campaign - on my server.

I have put a lot of work into this so far, I expect detailed and realistic responses please.

Bottom line... The LandingPages system on it's own is cleaner than any other site out there. It is Google Compliant! Your content may not be, but the LandingPages is.

I know this because as a developer, sites like Wordpress and other free CMS's and their addons, that most plugins and widgets are going to have names and domain names deep within their scripts that Google also scans, finds and uses to decide the content of your website.

Thank you,
Steve

SEO Friendly, Google Happy Spiders

Sat, 12 Dec 2009 16:37:00 -0500

After doing a lot of searching for top positions on google ads, and top of first page placement in the organic listings, I have found some consistent themes within the source code of the sites that are holding these positions. However, I have also come to find something else of interest as well.

First of all are the Header tags, or H1, H2 and H3 tags specifically.

In many cases with top placing ads for common short tail keywords like "internet marketing" and "home based business" and others; the header tags could not even be found in the source code of the landing pages or even within the style sheets (CSS). On the other hand, when the header tags were there, I found the higher placement of these sites came from sites that had header tags in a specific order.

Make sure to use only one H1 header tag per page. Our landing page system uses the H1 tag (like Heading 1) for the page name by default. You can also decide not to use the page name. However, if you do not use it, I would advise that your first words on the page use the H1 tag. The other thing that I found is that there is a hierarchy...

H1 should always be first, and should be followed by H2. H2 can be followed by either H2 or H3, but do not jump directly from an H1 tag to an H3 tag...

Good:
H1
H2
H3

Good:
H1
H2
H2
H3
H2

Bad:
H1
H1

Bad:
H1
H3

Bad:
H2
H3

So, what do we write for our header tags then? Add your keyword phrase and synonyms.

H1 tag: Your Main Keyword Phrase
H2 tag: Synonyms (Other Related Keywords)*
H3 tag: Main Keyword Phrase AND Your Synonyms (Other Related Keywords)

synonym

one of two or more words or expressions of the same language that have the same or nearly the same meaning in some or all senses

*Important: Use the Google Adwords Tool to find related words according to Google. These are related Synonyms according to your main keyword phrase.

Please try to use some common sense here. Google is about relative and commonsensical content. If a person is not getting what they want, it may be because people are trying too hard and writing very specific keyword rich articles that have been very carefully written to include only the main keyword phrase. Google doesn't like that. Think about it! I believe google is looking for the synonyms after the main title keyword because it is more with natural speech and communication. No one talks or writes with such specific focus to one phrase, but splits it up into several common related keyword phrases. Learn this!

This can help Google AdWords identify what your content is about for organic search rankings, but it also helps the quality score bot (spider) understand that your landing page is in fact related to the keywords and phrases you are bidding on and/or using in your page content. I used one of my landing page sites for this example: http://homebasedbusinessccp.com/

Showing keywords grouped by these terms:

This list and quantities show how many times the keywords show up in the page or (optional site).
home based business (14), work from home (6), work at home (5), home based (5), home business (14), business opportunity (9), network marketing (11), small business (8), business opportunities (6), opportunity seekers (5), mlm companies (5), business (20), mlm (44), home (5), opportunity (5), leads (7), international (5), money (5), Miscellaneous keywords (21)

In the google keyword tool, use the left tab "Website content" after you have setup your page with your keywords to check how relevant your keywords are. Enter the URL of your landing page.

Bottom line, make sure you have most of your keywords on your page relating to your main keyword phrase.

I have setup a sample landing page in which you can follow these guidelines. I will continue to setup sample pages for your use, but may change them when and if rules change or new information becomes available.

What Is Google Really Looking For?

Many sites today use style sheets and div tag ids to make up the architecture of the page. However, I have also found pages that were placing high that were built on the tabulated structure of standard HTML of early sites. The reason sites moved to div tags and css was to help improve slow Internet connection speeds. This is really not an issue today. I have used the tabulated structure for years and get good results on websites that are meant to target a niche market. Our current system uses both of these styles within the same structure.

My thought is that Google knows there are perhaps billions of early structured websites on the Internet, and therefore will not rate a site higher or lower based on the architecture. That would put millions of people out of the game. I also believe Google looks at tabulated structured sites with a little more compassion than newer div/css sites, because the techy gurus out there are continually trying to beat Google, and are in fact what I believe on Google's most watched list. (Or watch out for, be careful of them list.)

Listen, once a person is caught doing a crime, they are typically marked for life, they have a history now. Google is all too aware of these people or these people types. Yes, I am sure they understand that there are plenty of white hat div/css developers, I am just saying that the likelihood of a highly intelligent website developer/guru using older methods to boost their site ranking will most likely use modern methods to do it. I may be wrong.

See Google Webmaster Guidelines for more information

Maybe You Just Need The Right Tools

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 22:41:00 -0500

As I review what people are doing to get past the google slap, I can't help but feel sorry for them. Many new people are being guided by other new people who are all with good intentions trying their best to help and offer help. But really, very few people take the time to really research something, and even less time learning something they really do not care to learn. And why should they?

For Internet marketers, their job should be marketing their product or business. Yet, many of them are being told that this is part of business, part of what it takes to become a great marketer - as my son would say; bull mess!

You know, I appreciate the efforts people put into doing something, hey, they might even be pretty good at it in a year or so. But if you were or are like me, most of what I first learned has long been thrown into the trash. Yep, there is always learning to be had, and I wouldn't give up what I have learned about website development and programming over the last ten years for anything.

But do you have a few years to get all the things sorted out? Are you willing to find out 6 months from now that what your blind friend told you to do doesn't really work, or that the tools you have been given are only a small outdated portion of what is available?

I am a visual person, an artist by birth. I understand things better when I see a picture, or in this example, a contrast to what you might be learning; following and trying, as compared to what is available today.

So, do you keep going with what you're doing because you have something to prove to yourself, while others are generating leads and sales doing what they really want to do, make money?

Just because your leader or sponsor tells you to get the lead (weight) out and figure this out, is that really what you want to do, or should do?

For that matter, why listen to me? Who am I, talking like I have something that it better? That's a fair question.

As with many things in life, we must first step out in faith, trusting what we hear because until we've experienced it for ourselves, there is no way to fully understand what it is.

So what is IT? Well this much I know, the pictures on this post are true. Meaning, you most likely are working with tools, parts and the limitations of the past. What worked two years ago, can and is continually improved. This is the computer age, things change and get more automated, simpler and just better... Especially for Internet Marketers.

So. Are you sure you are working with technology that can make your marketing business easier and more profitable? Do you want to spend your time making money, or figuring stuff out?

Click here to get started

Please leave a comment

Google, PPC and your Landing Pages

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 16:33:00 -0500

Making the most out of your PPC adwords campaign requires that you put your landing pages to work in a way that works, and makes google happy. Watch the video below as it explains very well the importance of targeting the right people. However, google is not in charge of your landing page, and therefore the connection between a very throughout adword ad and the proper landing page content is what is important.

See the SEO blog post for domain lenth limitation for google ads

Google has more control over their organic listings (the left side of the page) because if you don't have relevant content related to the keyword phrase searched, they just won't show your site. Plain and simple.

But google does pay close attention to how long you stay (away from google) on a site targeted by one of their adwords ads (before you hit the back button). When people get what they want, they stay a while longer. When someone stays at your site longer, google believes that the content that was found was in fact what the user was looking for. This will improve your ad campaign.

The amazing thing about our landing page system, is that while you might focus more on a PPC campaign, (because google is requiring relevant content in your PPC campaign also), you will write relevant content that will at the same time become (SEO) search engine friendly - is that cool or what!

Please click here to learn more about how and why writing keyword rich content and your domain name are important.

Please leave a comment.

Google, SEO and your Landing Pages

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 16:32:00 -0500

There is one very important feature when selecting your domain name for your new landing page site. Because google wants relevant content, they also give more attention to websites that use a similar domain name or have some of the keywords in the domain name.

Below is an example...

If my targeted buyer is about internet marketing I would want to find a domain name that includes the keywords internet marketing in the name.

Before I would go after that domain name, I would do my research on my targeted buyer and find a number of long-tail keywords (keyword phrases) that will make up a number of landing pages.

Look for keywords with little competition...

internet marketing for beginners
home business and internet marketing
internet marketing business from home

Go to godaddy.com and search for a domain name that is related to these keywords. (Note: If you are planning on using this same domain name for PPC, you cannot have more than 35 characters. In a google ad, the display URL does not need the www or http - therefore the domain name can be entered as shown below - which is 31 characters. 35 characters total including the .us or .com, or .info - be careful)

myinternetmarketingbusiness.com

Now I am ready to setup my landing page site with that domain name. My first landing page should use only one of the keyword phrases from my list. I would focus on that keyword, but make sure that what I write reads well. Put your keywords in your page about 3 to 5 times evenly throughout the page.

Once I have my first page setup and tested, I will make a duplicate of the page (just a click of the mouse) and make just a few changes to the new landing page, maybe remove my reference to the income I make, or change the header, or remove it. Make sure you note the change in a spread sheet on google docs.

Setup my Google Website Optimizer and start your test. Done.

Work on the next landing page

I would then work on my next landing page with my next keyword phrase, until I have made 10 to 20 landing pages, all that fit with the sites domain name. This site will become very SEO friendly and be found in the search engines as well - not only for PPC.

Start Again, Don't Stop Now

The next step is to start another search for new keyword phrases and purchase your next domain name that relates, or has the keywords in the name...

As you can see, if you put only one website together and target a broader audience your site will rarely be seen, or you can use our landing page system that in time can be targeting 10 to 20 main groups (domains) with hundreds of (keyword rich) landing pages - all of which are very relevant to content, and google will love you for your contribution and service to their users.

Please leave a comment.

Google Website Optimizer and Landing Pages

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 22:39:00 -0400

It was funny how I spent at least two weeks trying to figure out the script that could tell a user to go to landing page A or landing page B. I found quite a bit of information on the subject but realized that most of it was for gurus that know how to hard code and build their own pages. I can do that also, but I wanted to make sure that the guy or gale that doesn't know code could easily run a split test. Many of these references where older and out of date by what I was learning.

I was trying my own things, working through a possible php script or using the .htaccess file. In the mean time I had Google Website Optimizer (GWO) running on one of my sites. I began to wonder why I could not get to the "A" page after making some updates. Several more days passed before it hit me.

What! All this time Google Website Optimizer was doing exactly what I wanted all the time? What I learned was that GWO splits the "A" and "B" pages evenly between visitors. So if Frank is directed to "A", GWO puts a cookie on Franks computer so that if Frank ever goes back to my website, he will automatically be guided to page "A". This is so people do not get confused as to why a page changed.

GWO also only counts one hit to page "A" for Frank, no matter how many times he returns. As the system counts hits and conversions, I can then learn which landing page, page "A" or page "B" is the best performer. Once I am sure that page "A" or "B" is best, I take the looser and delete it, or at least unpublish it and make some notes. Simple.

Then I take page "B" and duplicate it, make a copy. Then make some other simple change that I believe will make it perform better than the last winner. Again, whatever page is the looser, gets removed and the winner gets copied and improved until I have a truly winning landing page which will convert better than any other website or blog.

Of course is doesn't stop there. Why would you stop at only one landing page? With our system, you can make another two pages and split test them, and then another two, and another two, etc.

But why would you stop there? You purchase another domain name based on a new target prospect and begin the process again, and again. From here you can do the math.

Make sure to read the other blog posts for more information related to this exciting way to improve your conversions.

Please leave a comment.