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Tips for your Startup Optimization

Friday, May 10th, 2013

Those who have started up a business or have thought about starting up a business may know that it can be a huge risk. We hope that one of those risks does not involve your SEO optimization. A new business whether it has a brand new domain or not will most likely not be ranking high with great optimization, especially if the site has never been optimized. Hopefully, these tips will set your start up on the right path because having a poorly optimized site can really harm your results.

User Interface and User Experience: Most would think that it is not highly important to have a great interface or user experience and that is wrong. It is very important to keep a well-designed site. The search engines do in fact downgrade your site if not. For instance, the algorithm from Google, Panda, was designed to downgrade sites with a poor user interface and experience. So, before starting optimization it is suggested that you have a well-designed site.
Page load time: Try to avoid interfaces that include flash, marquees, large text images, etc. It can slow down your load time tremendously. Everyone has different internet, so be sure to avoid anything that can slow it down. The moment your site is taking too long to load the user will close out.
Social Media: It is now important to search engines that you are frequent on social media. Social signals have become part of the search engine’s algorithms for rankings. So, if you are a new business, there is no better way than reaching out to your clients in other ways such as social media. Plus, it will only help optimize your site.
Natural Link Building: It is imperative when link building that you avoid automated software or building too many links too fast on your own. This may send flags to the search engines that the site is being manipulated. When it comes to link building it is best to contact outside help that has ample experience on the matter. That way you know your site is building links naturally.
Choosing the right SEO firm: It is always important that if you do not know enough about SEO and how to optimize properly that you hire an SEO company to do it for you. We are very adamant that businesses know the importance of choosing the right SEO firm. If you choose the wrong firm it could do your site more harm than good. It is best to build questions that should be asked before making the decision. Some of these questions may include, their plans, how they operate, results of success, if they have a strong outreach, etc.

These are only a few tips that we find are important to starting up your SEO optimization. Keep in mind there are many more where this blog could become too long to read. If you want more information about your business and optimization, please feel free to contact us!

Posted in Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Search Engines | No Comments »

Do you Bing or Google?

Friday, April 19th, 2013

Survey Monkey held a recent study to explore if users prefer Google or Bing more. The study was conducted for SEO assumptions and purposes. Those in the study were shown two search result pages. One would show with the label Google and the other Bing. The respondent was then asked which they preferred. To wonder if people choose one or the other due to brand, the survey swapped the titles in the second survey. The results showed that even when the labels were switched, respondents still preferred Google. To explain further, the first survey went out to 379 respondents and they received one page of results for ‘file taxes’. The respondents were asked to choose which they preferred. One result page had true Google results and the other had true Bing results. The second survey was given to 262 respondents where they used the same search term but, instead swapped Google for Bing’s results and Bing for Google’s results. In both surveys the participant majority went to Google, proving that users are choosing Google as a result of the brand. So, continuing from last week’s post, Bing is coming out with their new product ads, if majority of respondents are still choosing Google, should businesses pay for Bing ads or would it be a waste of money? What do you think? Do you Bing or Google?

Posted in Search Engine Optimization, Search Engines | No Comments »

Will Bing Cash In With Windows 8 Update?

Friday, November 2nd, 2012

Several weeks ago we mentioned the battle between the search engines, Bing and Google, with the new marketing measure “Bing It On.” Today, Bing is still striving to capture as many searchers as Google and may have a little help in doing so. A week ago Microsoft launched the much anticipated Windows 8 and many Windows users are apt for the upgrade. This upgrade means a chance for Bing to be people’s main choice for searching.

In Windows 8 Bing lives on the Start menu. Many people could change the Start menu structure to show their search engine of choice, but how many people out there really care enough to take the time to do this? Besides residing on the Start menu of the new Windows 8, Bing has also released many new apps for web search, image search, a travel app, and many more. Many Search Engine Marketing experts believe that the new changes and advancements for Bing in conjunction with the Windows 8 update could mean that Bing may be able to take a larger piece of the search market. I do not see Bing coming close to the capacity of Google any time in the near future – but what do you think?

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Bing and Google Maps: Cool Tricks

Wednesday, August 10th, 2011

It seems like everyone these days has either a GPS system or a smart phone with built in navigation. That doesn’t mean that the value of online maps is diminishing, though. If you’re sitting at your desk, it’s surely easier to look up directions online than run out to your car for your GPS, and probably faster than checking on your phone. Two of my favorite services are Bing Maps and Google Maps, and each has a few nifty tools and tricks.

Bing has the standard stuff – driving, walking, and public transit directions, plus route traffic, satellite imagery, and street side views. Click on the Map Apps link, though, and you’re presented with a host of other cool options. You can compare gas prices near your destination, find parking, check traffic cameras, and even find weird roadside attractions. On the useful side, my favorite is the route optimizer. This app will find the most efficient route when you have multiple destinations, great if this feature isn’t built into your nav device.

Google Maps also handles standard mapping functions. Instead of apps, though, it houses a few tools in Labs (click the Options cog in the upper right corner). My favorite? The distance measurement tool. Enabling this feature allows you to figure the distance between any two or more points you put on the map. Combined with the satellite view, you can do cool things like measure the length of your driveway. Of course, Google puts their spin on this by offering some eclectic units of measurement. Anyone can measure in feet, but what if you want to know how far it is from your house to the store in, say, Olympic swimming pools? Football fields? How about smoots or beard-seconds? Google has you covered.

Each of these services offers some unique options, so it’s difficult to recommend one above the other. Try them out and see which you like best. Or do like I do and use them both.

Posted in Search Engines, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Google’s Hotel Finder Experiment

Tuesday, August 2nd, 2011

If you’re still trying to squeeze in a vacation before summer ends, or maybe you have a business trip in the works, Google has a new product that could be helpful. It’s called the Hotel Finder Experiment. Whether it becomes a permanent feature remains to be seen but at first blush, it’s pretty slick.

The Hotel Finder main page is clean and simple, with options for location, check in and out dates, and an interesting price slider that lets you choose the cost per night based on the hotel’s typical pricing (from 50% below the typical room rate up to any room rate). There are also selectors for hotel class rating and minimum user rating.

Plug in Richmond, VA for example, and you get a list of a dozen hotels in the downtown area. The list is dynamic, so as you move the selection sliders on the left, the list changes to incorporate your criteria. Another cool feature is the map: Google automatically selects hotels in the most popular area of the city you selected, with a line drawing around the area. If you want to narrow or expand the area, simply drag the lines to form a new shape and Google will change your list accordingly.

The list can be sorted by class, user rating, room rate, or “compared to typical” pricing, a column that displays the percentage to normal pricing for the room. Clicking on any hotel on the list will bring up some nice photos and a description, as well as contact information, user reviews, and a link to booking services.

The Google Hotel Finder Experiment is not a game changer, at least as it stands, but it does provide very clear, uncluttered search results, and that’s a big improvement over just about any other hotel search method.

Posted in Internet News, Search Engines | No Comments »

Google Offers Search Via Voice, Text or Image

Thursday, June 23rd, 2011

Google is now inspired to provide new ways to remove barriers to knowledge on the desktop and help you get to your results faster. On a mobile phone, you’re not limited to typing – you can search using your voice or a picture. Now you can do the same on your computer with Voice Search and Search by Image on your desktop or laptop. You can also get your results faster with Google Instant on Images and Instant Pages. With Voice Search now available on desktop, searching by voice is becoming more ubiquitous and the idea of being able to speak your search will be more familiar, no matter what you’re searching for.

To search using an image, go to images.google.com and just put your picture in the search box. Also, you can click the camera icon in the search box and upload a photo from your computer or paste the URL of an image from the web. You can also drag and drop pictures from web pages or your computer into the search box. To search images on the web even faster with just one click, you can download the Chrome or Firefox extensions.

According to Google, whether you’re typing, speaking, or using an image, entering your search is only part of the process. You’re not really done searching until you have the answer you’re looking for. But waiting for webpages to load adds time to this process – the average webpage takes about five seconds to load. With Instant Pages in Chrome, you can skip the extra seconds waiting for a page to load and get to the answers you’re looking for faster with web pages that load instantly.

Posted in Internet News, Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Search Engines | No Comments »

Service Highlight: SEO

Friday, June 17th, 2011

We offer several SEO packages depending on how many pages you have on your website that you would like search engine optimization performed for, as well as if you are looking for local, regional or national SEO services. We offer a couple of different SEO packages to fit varying budgets and needs.

NetSearch Direct would be glad to partner with you to manage your search engine optimization and help you compete more effectively on the internet. We can help increase your rankings in the search engines to get you noticed and we can get you leads for your business. Isn’t that what’s important? We can help you get there by helping you acquire more leads to help your business succeed and grow.

Using SEO we can help increase the chances you’ll have at gaining more leads and more return on your investment. To learn more about the SEO packages we offer please contact one of our sales representatives by calling us at (804)228-4400 and speaking with someone today!

Posted in Company News, NetSearch Direct News, Search Engine Optimization, Search Engines | No Comments »

Google Panda Update Coming Soon

Friday, June 10th, 2011

Google will soon be releasing version 2.2 of the Panda algorithm update.

Google’s Matt Cutts said that the update have been approved but have not been rolled out yet, but that should happen soon.

The next update will target a common webmaster complaint related to the original Panda/Farmer update: sites that scrape and re-publish content and are out-ranking the original source of the content.

Google’s Cutts also reiterated some previous Panda-related information:

Google will continue to tweak and update the Panda algorithm.
There’s no exact date yet for when Panda will launch fully beyond English-language searches.

Posted in Internet News, Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Search Engines | No Comments »

Google Supports “Author” Tag

Wednesday, June 8th, 2011

Google recently announced they will support the authorship markup, enabling content sites to help identify their authors on the site and across the web. Content would be linked up to the writers name and can be used to find all the stories the author has written on any site. It uses the rel attribute, so all you need to do is add the rel=”author” to your author’s hyperlink on the article page. For example:

Written by <a rel=”author” href=”../authors/amandabradbury”>Amanda Bradbury</a>.

As Google explained, this tells search engines: “The linked person is an author of this linking page.” The rel=”author” link must point to an author page on the same site as the content page. For example, the page http://example.com/content/webmaster_tips could have a link to the author page at http://example.com/authors/mattcutts. Google uses a variety of algorithms to determine whether two URLs are part of the same site. For example, http://example.com/content, http://www.example.com/content, and http://news.example.com can all be considered as part of the same site, even though the hostnames are not identical.

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