Well as I’ve told a few people, SEO is no secret – there are no secrets to SEO but there are 4 skills you need and they are as follows:

1. technical skills and capabilities
2. the ability to get links back to your website
3. brilliant writing skills
4. patience

Patience
I stress patience because when it comes to SEO you have to learn how to sit back and look at your site, stare at it and find areas that can be enhanced by your SEO practices. Patience would be the key combined with knowing what to look for and what you’re looking at when it comes to making a document or website better – not only and at all for the search engines but mostly for your users.

SEO Writing
The next SEO skill I’d like to stress is writing. Do you, the up-and-coming SEO know how much writing you have to do to make your SEO campaign a success? As we all know, writing informative articles about our products or services and placing links to our important pages within those articles are conducive to a successful SEO campaign. Those articles not only help from an SEO perspective but they also build traffic as more people share them.

And remember people won’t share your articles unless it’s worth their time and the time of the person they’re sharing with.

Getting Links
Oh the big SEO secret – getting links. Aren’t you glad I told you? Now all you need to do is figure out a way to get links back to your website. Here are 3 ways.

1. Submit your site to free business directories and bulletin boards
2. Write articles & press releases with links in them to your website (please use proper anchor text)
3. Ask for links or write awesome content that compel people to link to you

Technical Skills
This is almost self-explanatory but I’ll sum it up for you. At the very least you need to know how to do technical things like writing decent and validating XHTML and performing such tasks as speeding up your website according to Google’s webmaster guidelines.

Speaking of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines, that’s a great place to learn SEO.

Asynchronous Tracking
To set up asynchronous tracking you simply need to replace your current Analytics script with the following:

<script type=”text/javascript”>

var _gaq = _gaq || [];
_gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-XXXXX-X']);
_gaq.push(['_trackPageview']);

(function() {
var ga = document.createElement(‘script’); ga.type = ‘text/javascript’; ga.async = true;
ga.src = (‘https:’ == document.location.protocol ? ‘https://ssl’ : ‘http://www’) + ‘.google-analytics.com/ga.js’;
var s = document.getElementsByTagName(‘script’)[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s);
})();

</script>

Pay special attention to this line in code in the script above and change it to your current property ID. Your current property ID is found in the Analytics code you are now replacing.

_gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-XXXXX-X']);

Make sure to check the status of your script in your Google Analytics account to make sure it is receiving data.

Optimize the order of styles and scripts
Simply put, the browser delays rendering all code after JavaScript has been downloaded, parsed and executed. Therefore Google’s suggestion is to place all you the references to your external CSS files before you load your JavaScript files. For example if a file is being downloaded when a JavaScript file is referenced for download, the JavaScript file is downloaded in parallel with the first file and in essence, will reduce the speed at which the first (possibly smaller) file is downloaded.

Combine external JavaScript
This would be listed in your on-page SEO proposal most likely as: Combine all external JavaScript files into one so as to reduce the number of calls to the server during page load. It’s obvious that this could contribute to page load speeds but remember two things: a. it isn’t always easy or beneficial to combine code from one JavaScript file into another as conflicting issues could arise. Remember putting all your JavaScript code into one file may take some time to work properly too. b. some of your JavaScript code may not ever work if it is combined with other JavaScript files successfully for a myriad of reasons. If that is the case you’ll just have to settle with a separate call to the server for that file. That’s OK though. It’s not the biggest problem but do your best to combine as many JavaScript files as you reasonably can.

Minimize DNS lookups
Straight from Google on this one: “Reducing the number of unique hostnames from which resources are served cuts down on the number of DNS resolutions that the browser has to make, and therefore, RTT delays.” The entire piece of information regarding the reduction of DNS lookups is quite lengthy and technical so I’ll summarize it here: Try your best, your very best to reduce the number of domains/hosts that your files come from OR try to reduce the number of external files you use on your site especially during initial load time.

Combine external CSS
This is straight forward and even slightly intuitive. It’s almost second nature to cut the corner a little bit by placing all your CSS code into one file and is conducive to a faster loading website. Again one file, one call – responses to CSS calls are usually quick and combining your CSS references into one file can only benefit your site with respect to site speed. There generally aren’t any problems related to putting all your CSS code into one stylesheet.

Enable gzip compression in your .htaccess file
Enabling gzip compression in your .htaccess file can substantially reduce the size of the files being sent from the server to your users computers (the browser). By enabling gzip compression within your .htaccess file you’re telling the server to compress (zip) the file before it is sent to the users browser. Compressing the file can make it substantially smaller and thus substantially reduce the load time of your pages.

Simply add the following directive into your .htaccess file.

# compress all text & html:
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/html text/plain text/xml

# Or, compress certain file types by extension:
<Files *.html>
SetOutputFilter DEFLATE
</Files>

Make sure to reload your website in your browser after applying this code to ensure it is working properly. Seriously.

If you’re a business owner, and you’ve stumbled across this article you may want to note the following questions and bring your resident SEO in for a meeting tomorrow – again just as a reminder and as an invitation to take a little break from the norm and surf the net to discover new ways of raising your rankings, increasing traffic and getting your brand out there.

Do we have a Google Account?
Since Google is the most used search engine on the planet it’s important to get in good with them and as early as possible. By registering your site with Google Webmaster Tools you are able to customizing your website settings, submit your XML sitemap and also browse various statistics related to your website like search terms your site is being listed for and clicked on. Registering your website with Google Webmaster Tools doesn’t necessarily enhance your rankings in the search engines per say, but it does help Google understand your site more accurately in various ways and that is where the possibility of a ranking or traffic increase can occur.

When was the last time we updated our XML sitemap?
As we know an XML sitemap helps tell the search engines how many and which pages are contained within your website. Many websites have new content added to their website daily, weekly or even monthly. Submitting a new sitemap on a monthly period could end up being a productive practice as you want to make sure the search engines know your content is available.

Was the last time you worked on link-building less than a month ago?
We all know link-building is an vital necessity to building more traffic and increasing your rankings in the search engines. Our competitors are doing it – are they above us in the results? Taking out time to link build at least a few times a month is an important job to remember as doing so keeps our sites busy in the search engines, fresh and new especially if you’re linking to your new content.

Have we discovered new ways of  optimizing our client sites? If so are we implementing them?
When it comes to SEO we all know you can’t get enough of it. There’s virtually no end to a good old SEO job. It’s important for an SEO to always strive to keep updated with new products, services, plugins technologies that will enhance their current game-plan. It might be time for your SEO to visit the forums he frequents and see if there’s anything new going on in the land of search. There’s always something new out there and it’s good to encourage your SEO to get out there and surf – do a little research in new ways of handling the job of an SEO.

Have we research and discovered any new ways of increasing click-through rates and conversions?
Are you running an ads campaign with your SEO behind the wheel? Is his work-load too much that he hasn’t time to go in at least once a month and research how your ads are performing? A seasoned SEO knows there it’s always beneficial to tweak your ads. Competitors try new things and succeed and there’s comes a time when you have to as well. Get your SEO back into your ads account, tweak your messages and try for more conversions. That is why you hired your SEO in the first place right?

The moral of the story is give your SEO the time he or she needs to research and perform the mundane tasks of the service. Many SEOs get tied up in taking care of the companies  web design services so it’s important to remember that the game of SEO is virtually never ending. In order to maintain traffic and keep bubbling at the top of the search engines you need your SEO to continue to learn, explore, research and enhance his or her skills in the practice.

I’d like to set out some guidelines that you, the business owner should look for when considering hiring an SEO web design firm – in Burlington, Hamilton or the rest of the GTA Ontario.

SEO Reports
One of the very first things an SEO web design firm should provide you with is a rankings report. A rankings report is a document that lists your website rankings in the search engines based on your keywords. You should also receive a rankings report for your current and discovered competitors. With these reports you and your marketing team can determine what if any amount should be applied to the online marketing budget and make a decision as to where they want to stand from a search engine perspective in the near future.

Before you receive your report the firm should have already requested your desired keyword list and enhanced it by adding a new list of related and long-tail keywords you should also consider ranking for. Obtaining new related and long-tail keywords is done through a process sometimes called keyword discovery.

If you’ve come across a company that provides acute web design services and SEO you’ll be in luck to find that you’ll usually also receive from them a rankings report for your current and discovered competitors as well.

If the SEO web design firm you’re speaking with decides to take another route at providing you a quote you might want to get a second opinion from at least another two sources.

After a little discussion with your SEO about your rankings report and some brainstorming with your marketing team your SEO web design firm should already be working on the next very important step.

Website Analysis
To an SEO in charge, after a detailed examination of your rankings report he should be able to see significant reasons why your rankings are what they are – whether high or low. Once the SEO has completed the website analysis they should be able to provide you with a sound strategy, one that makes clear sense to you the business owner, as to how you can begin the project of gaining higher ground in the search results, attract more traffic and increase conversions.

The SEO web design proposal should make no promises as to getting your website ranked #1 in the search engines but if a strong and long term relationship is built between you and the SEO web design firm and if they are true experts at SEO you can expect a measurable increase in traffic and decent boost in search engine rankings for your keywords.

SEO Craftsmen provides proven SEO Web Design services to their clients in Burlington and the surrounding GTA cities. Our web design services to Burlington businesses in the GTA combined with our in-depth and expert knowledge of SEO services has left all our clients very happy, earning more money from their websites and witnessing dramatic increases in traffic.

I was reminded of this simple fact of web-life while spending some time working with a great web design company in Hamilton, SynergyPro Solutions.  I came across a few articles regarding rich snippets and RDFa and at first shunned any future research into the framework. I didn’t even know it was a framework and because I was so busy with other SEO services that were on my plate I wanted to simply ignore the growing popularity of RDFa and it’s necessity when it comes to SEO services. But as usual curiosity got the best of me and after a little research into RDFa & Rich Snipperts, I was compelled to post a simple question at a very popular web business help forum: have you implemented RDFa into your web work. The response was enlightening and proved to me that there are a lot of SEOs who are ahead of the game and keeping up with new technologies and new frameworks – especially if they compliment SEO services.

Now not only have I worked with several web design and SEO firms in the GTA but I’ve recently spoken to a few of the owners of these firms and asked them what their stance is on RDFa. I won’t name any of these firms just yet but I will say to my amazement out of the 4 in the area that I spoke with, not one of them new the RDFa existed. I didn’t press the issue any further but I was able to conclude that the RDFa framework won’t be taking off here in Ontario any time in the future.

Are you an SEO staying ahead of the time?

As posted in my previous article about SEO services and the RDFa working together you can clearly see how Google and Yahoo are taking search results to a new level. The only snag most SEO companies find is that the news of Google and Yahoo showing rich snippets in the search results wasn’t big news. The changes and additions to the search results seemed to have changed slowly and behind the scenes.

My advice: If you are an SEO start digging your head into RDFa and try to get your head around it as quickly as possible. Although there isn’t a flood of information about RDFa to be had on the internet just yet be patience and dig deep because it’s out there – you’ll just have to look for it.

If you offer SEO or web design services in Burlington or the rest of the GTA jump on RDFa as soon as possible. You’ll thank me for compelling you and your clients will surely thank you too in the next 10 years as the RDFa grows and most likely becomes a standard in the world or SEO.

SEO Craftsmen provides proven SEO services & Web Design services to their clients. Our web design services to Burlington businesses in the GTA combined with our in-depth and expert knowledge of SEO services has left all our clients very happy, earning more money from their websites and witnessing dramatic increases in traffic. SEO Craftsmen do not confuse our customers when we discuss our services. SEO Craftsmen does not give our customers ‘filler SEO services’ either. Our SEO services are clear-cut and straight forward – producing results we can backup and prove.

People love to read and they love to read about your products and services even more. A lot of people will read up on reviews before they purchase a product or service or they will read articles based on those too.

SEO services related to article and content writing should have a long lasting effect on your readers. As Matt Cutts of Google said, we should be writing useful articles that readers will love and not simply copying bits and pieces of information from Wikipedia or some other website.

When an article is written with your readers in mind they can actually feel the quality of the article. When internet users truly enjoy an article or get value from it that is when they link to it from their websites and blogs. The more people who link to your article the more traffic you get and the higher your pages get in the search engines.

That is the fact.

If you’re SEO company is writing articles for you make sure the following is being taken care of:

a. make sure your articles are being written by qualified individuals
b. make sure you content is not being copied from other websites like Wikipedia or other similar sources
c. make sure the articles you are paying for aren’t spammy. Web users know spam when they see it and will dismiss articles that are obviously written for search and not people

As mentioned in a previous post here at seoCraftsmen I’ve worked with several so-called SEO companies in Burlington and the GTA and have found that the SEO for the CEO can claim to offer SEO and article writing services but in the end I’ve seen their customer’s websites fall by the wayside, lose traffic, lose rankings and are left having to pay out more and more money in an attempt at ranking higher in the search engines.

My advice is to ask your SEO company a lot of questions especially when it comes to article writing. SEO is not talk, SEO is action that leads to a life-time of results. The web community isn’t stupid. They know what they’re reading and whether what their reading is spam or not.

SEO Craftsmen provides proven SEO services to their clients. Our web design services to Burlington businesses in the GTA combined with our in-depth and expert knowledge of SEO services has left all our clients very happy, earning more money from their websites and witnessing dramatic increases in traffic.

Living in Burlington and watching many web design companies come out of the wood-work over the years; web design companies offering what they claim as SEO services and even working for a few of them myself, I’ve become slightly dismayed at the current state of SEO potentially being depicted as a pseudo web design service. I’ve seen spam tactics being performed on customers while claiming they are a part of SEO service. I’ve seen article writing services (which when launched correctly and ethically substantially increase traffic and search rankings) being offered to clients who are paying top dollar for articles about their product or services written by 17 year olds who have absolutely know experience in those products or services and have no formal background in writing or marketing. We won’t be exposing these SEO companies just yet as this isn’t the time and this isn’t the forum.

The awareness that quite a few web development companies in the Burlington and the GTA in general are simply winging it when it comes to SEO services, compels me to want to give them a primer on RDFa but since I didn’t write the primer I will provide a simple overview of how the RDFa is being used in the search results.

RDFa and Rich Snippts

RDFa or Rich Snippets in the search results isn’t a mystery. You’ve probably seen them in action and simply don’t remember. The following pictures are clear examples of both Google and Yahoo’s usage of RDFa. The rich snippets are highlighted in red. It has been observed by several sources that rich snippets in a companie’s search result listing can substantially increase click-through rates not to mention build consumer loyalty.

The search that was performed to obtain these results was ‘cnet, ipod‘. As you can see both Google and Yahoo are reading RDFa markup. I would like to point out the rich snippet elements in the search result examples above.

a. the star rating
b. the number of reviews (with Yahoo)
c. The name of the reviewer
d. the date of the review
e. The price range of the product

Another area where rich snippets and through RDFa can be useful is in searches for movies. The following data can be displayed just underneath the title of the search results:

a. the movie running time
b. release date
c. movie rating
d. cinemas being played

Google has recently provided a means of searching for images based on license type. Using RDFa with your images allows the search bots know what licenses you are making your own images available under.

The following are some examples of the type of data that can be displayed. It is obvious that search marketers and SEOs will be utilizing this ability for themselves and their clients.

Personal Contact Information
Name
Nickname
URL
Affiliation / Organization
Address
Street Address
Locality (City)
Region
Post Code
Country
Photo
Title / Role

Business Contact Information
Organization Name
URL
Address
Street Address
Locality (City)
Region
Post Code
Country
Telephone

Product Information
Brand
Category
Product Description
Product Name
Price
Photo
Product URL

So if you offer SEO services remember one important fact: eventually your customers are going to notice these rich snippets in the search results and most likely as you how their listing in the search engines can be enhanced in such a way. That is one reason why working the RDFa into your web documents is important and getting your head around how to implement RDFa as soon as possible.

According to Google, their mission is to make the world’s information accessible to everyone:

Information access is at the core of Google’s mission – to make the world’s information universally accessible and useful. That’s why in addition to crawling, indexing and ranking billions of websites, images, videos and other content, we also work to make that content available in all languages and in accessible formats.

With that said, it can easily be surmised that SEO services and accessibility go hand-in-hand.

What is Website Accessibility?

According to Webnauts, the owner of SEOWorkers.com, website accessibility means creating a website which can be accessed by:

Users with older browsers or those which lack newer plugins (such as Flash and Java)

Those using text-only browsers such as Lynx and w3m

Visually impaired users who surf the web with text-to-speech web browsers

People who have limited access to the web; including users with older 28.8K and 14.4K modems

Users who are deaf or hard of hearing

Dyslexic users

Users with learning disabilities

People with impaired motor abilities, including paraplegic and quadriplegic users

What is the connection with SEO services and website accessibility?

Well the connection is clear. If Google’s mission is to “organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful” then we might safely assume that accessibility is a part of Google’s ranking algorithm – after all that is their goal.

Sometimes Google has a hard time finding all your pages especially if there aren’t any links back to those pages. An XML sitemap (usually in the format of sitemap.xml) is just the right file for you. It’s really easy to create and takes only a second to upload to your server.

How do I create my sitemap.xml file?

This is so easy. The first thing you must do is navigate to the following site which allows you to easily create an XML Sitemap.

From there simply add in your website address (URL). The only option you should really concern yourself with is the ‘change frequency’ drop down. I usually set it to weekly as I usually make changes to my websites on a weekly basis. (Content is King when it comes to SEO services)

Finally click submit and in a matter of minutes or less your new sitemap.xml file will be created. From there you will see where you can download it – so go ahead – download your sitemap.

The tricky part

Not really. All you have to do now is upload the sitemap.xml file to the root directory of your website. Within a matter of days Google and other search engines will find your sitemap and get an overview of all the pages in your site.

You could also, if you have a Google Account, log into Google Webmaster Tools and if you have already submitted your website, submit your newly create sitemap.xml file and Google will pick it up in a matter of hours.

How does my sitemap work with SEO Services?

Good question. Basically and as mentioned, the sitemap helps the search engines and specifically Google find your pages. The more easier it is for Google to find your pages or know they exist the more chances your website get at being crawled by Google, indexed and the ability to rank higher will be substantially increased.

Find out more about our SEO services and get your website out of the jungle today!

There are many SEO companies in the Greater GTA that say they offer superb SEO services but here are a few things to look for in a fraudulent SEO company.

SEO Service Claims to Watch Out For and Avoid

#1. If you’ve been consulting with an firm that offers SEO services and you’ve heard the following words come out of their mouth run the other way. The words which can never be qualified are “we will get your website ranked #1 on Google“.

That statement is a complete farce as there are no SEO companies that can guarantee first place rankings on Google or any search engines. With proper SEO services applied to your website you can wager the cost of the farm that you will get more traffic and you will rank higher for many of your newly discovered keywords and key-phrases but can you be guaranteed to achieve the #1 spot? Not at all. Achieving the #1 spot on Google or any other search engines takes hard work and time. Getting to the first spot on Google can be done as you can see there are millions of sites that rank #1 but if an SEO company claims they can do it without a hitch they are not telling you the truth.

The Truth

A true firm that offers SEO services will be able to get your more traffic and higher rankings for a vast array of your keywords or keyword-clusters (key-phrases). If proper SEO techniques are applied to your site (off-site and on-site) and continually there are higher chances of achieving number 1 rankings.

#2. Even a true or pseudo SEO firm will know that getting links pointing back to your website is one of the most successful ways of getting your website ranked #1. The problem is getting those links and if you’ve been promised by a firm offering SEO services that they will make sure to get you links pointing to your website you have to take into considerations a few of the hurdles an SEO firm will have to overcome in getting those links and will you be paying for them.

The Truth

The truth is you can have your SEO company can do their best to get links to your website but it’s not an easy task. There are also quite a few SEO firms out there, in Burlington, the GTA or Canada wide who will take the money you give them for their services and attempt to solicit other websites in an attempt to purchase links to your website for them. Purchasing links from other websites is clearly against Google Conditions and is highly frowned upon. A good website, with good content should get links back to it naturally not by paying website owners a hundred bucks a year for a link.

Also, with paid linking you cannot guarantee that you’re link will be there a year from now. The people who usually sell link space on their websites are shady and don’t follow the rules. Are we to put trust in our SEO services company who has in turn put their trust in a shady website or blog owner? Not a chance.

One of our SEO services involve creating a blog for you and constantly updating it with proven, reliable and targeted articles. Targeted articles that actually provide something useful for the reader will definitely get your website backlinks and those are the links that are free and usually stay around for a while.

In Closing

My advice is to stay away from an SEO services company that claims they will guarantee to get your website ranked #1 on Google or other search engines and if they promise to get your links to your website (which is what they definitely MUST do) then ask them how they are going to do this. If they say they are going to solicit other website owners for a link for pay – walk out the door. If they say they’re going to write articles for you (as I mentioned above) then ask them where they are going to post them, who is writing the articles, how qualified are the writers and the most important question is, will the content be good enough that other website owners will want to link to it. If they say yes, ask for a written guarantee and then walk out the door.

The lesson here is nothing is guaranteed in SEO and you need to watch out for the firms that claim to offer SEO services when indeed they are wolves in SEO clothing.