When performing a branded search for a company in Google you may have noticed something like the following display at the top of search engine results:

Optimized Site Links Example

Google will attempt to display an expanded business listing like the one above when someone is searching for a specific business (branded search).

Expanded business listings, or Site Links, provide additional information about the business being searched for.

Pay close attention to the few words below each Site Link. Notice how the words are descriptive in regard to each specific Site Link.

Optimized Site Links

In most cases, those few words below each Site Link are typically pulled from the Meta Description of each corresponding page. So, if you’ve been optimizing your Meta Descriptions all along, you are most likely in good shape or off to a good start. If you have duplicate Meta Descriptions in place this is where things could get a little sloppy (see below example).

Everything but those few words below each Site Link is determined by Google, which attempts to utilize popular or high ranking pages or posts as Site Links. Site Links seem to be changing on a semi-frequent basis, which means it would be a good idea to optimize all Meta Descriptions for use in Site Links.

Non-Optimized Site Links Example

Ignoring that the above example is actually a Boise SEO company (tisk tisk), pay close attention to the duplicate Site Link descriptions. Also, ignore the excessively long title tag for the homepage which obviously goes beyond 60 characters (sheesh). I’m picking on Tribute a little because they ‘tried’ to emulate the page title of Jtree.net. All things considered, if they ever read this it’s free SEO consulting. You’re welcome!

How to Optimize Your Website for Site Links

Since you don’t have control over what pages are selected as Site Links by Google, you might as well optimize Meta Descriptions site-wide, or for at least your top 20 pages.

• Optimize Site Links by optimizing Meta Descriptions for each page (yes, old skool SEO)
• Optimize Meta-Descriptions by focusing on the use of descriptive words at the start of each description (see Jtree example above)
• Check on Your Site Links on a semi-frequent basis as they are subject to change

Caveat

In some instances, Google may use actual text from your page instead of text from the page’s Meta Description. If this occurs, it will be up to you to locate the on-page text and optimze it for Site Links.

If you have any questions about Site Link optimization, SEO and/or Internet Marketing please contact Jtree.

About the Author

Josh has been in the search engine marketing and optimization field since the late 90s, spent time in San Francisco with one of the few Y2K .com survivors and is the founder of Jtree.net – Provider of SEO, PPC and Internet Marketing Consulting Services. He has over a decade’s worth of experience blending code and content for over 100 companies and agencies. Learn More…

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Google +1 Buttons for Web Publishers (and SEOs)

Google has released a variety of Google +1 buttons, similar to those currently in use by Facebook and Twitter. The +1 buttons provide a way for visitors to endorse and share web pages, blog posts and articles. Use of +1 buttons currently does not effect search engine rankings.

Get the Google +1 Button Code!

• Google Talks Local Search Relevance Factors – Key factors are relevance, prominence and distance
• Google Reveals New Social Site Links – Your social media friends as Google Site Links in search resutls; further integration of Social Media into Search
• New Ranking Signal to Consider – Essentially due to a recent story circulating about a business claiming to utilize negative reviews to boost their ranking in Google
• US Online Advertising Expected to Continue Growing
• New Google Keyword Tool Filtering and Refinement Options
• Embeddable Music, TV Shows, Slides and More Now on Twitter
• Who Needs a Website These Days Anyway?
• Google + Bing Confirm that Twitter/Facebook Influence SEO

The good news is; the same traditional SEO methodology applies to socially produced content. If optimized properly, content produced on social networks like Facebook and Twitter will show in the same search results as your website or blog.

Watch the SEOmoz video below for additional information:

PPC Tool : Google AdWords Bid Simulator

Have you ever wondered about the potential benefits a bid increase would bring to your Google AdWords PPC campaign? End the wonderment…

Google’s AdWords PPC Bid Simulator can help answer important campaign-related questions like:

• How many more ad impressions and clicks could potentially be received if I up my Max Cost Per Click (CPC) bid?
• What is the potential CPC of the new clicks received from upping my Max CPC?

PPC Tool : SEMRush

SEMRush allows you to quickly generate 6 reports that are split between organic SEO and PPC. Punch-in a competitor URL, domain or keywords to find out which organic and paid keyphrases are being targeted, and how much it is costing them. SEMRush is a great tool for gauging the value of both organic and paid traffic.

Click here to utilize this valuable PPC resource >

Remember that the most efficient use of your hard earned advertising dollars is to make use of a PPC consultant or company. They have the training, experience and skills necessary to maximize your ad budget and refine your targeting like no other. As PPC costs rise it becomes increasingly important to have someone in charge of your PPC campaigns that understands how to convert visitors and acquire ‘quality’ traffic.

A good SEO is worth every penny. Getting a website to rank on competitive keyphrases is a very difficult task which requires an ongoing effort from an experienced SEO. If your business depends on the web, ranking well for keyphrases that potential customers will use to find you is crucial to your ROI.

Everyone claims to be an SEO these days. Web design/development companies and consultants are hastily adding it to their service roster, despite having any real clue as to what SEO really is. Marketing and Brand Management agencies have done the same, adopting a technology they know little about. That leaves the SEOs themselves… the consultants and companies fully devoted to SEO, PPC and Social Marketing. Many of which, drop the ball on keyphrase targeting, monitoring and reporting. SEO is so much more than just marketing. It requires a fundamental understanding of the technology that powers the web.

How To Tell if an SEO Knows

1. The GOLDEN RULE. Google them. You are hiring someone to get your website to rank well after all. If you can’t find them online, don’t expect to rank well by employing their services. Be wary of SEOs that show up in the sponsored portion of the search results; these include the box-like results that show at the top and to the right of typical search results. These are paid advertisements. Meaning, the SEO is merely paying for their site to be displayed versus it actually ranking well in the ‘organic’ search results. An SEO that pays to rank is not an SEO at all.
   Example searches; your city name plus the words SEO or Internet Marketing i.e. “boise internet marketing” or “seo boise”. All things considered, if an SEO can’t rank well with their own website, I wouldn’t even worry about applying the following rules.
2. Portfolio Availability. Many new SEOs smell the money, and subsequently have very little experience at providing optimization services. A good SEO will have a robust portfolio of clients readily available online. If you are unsure, e-mail them a request for references, success stories and a link to their LinkedIn profile.
3. Under the Hood Optimization. SEOs should know how to optimize code along with content. They need to be able to write sitemap.xml and robots.txt files, analyze website structure, naming conventions, RSS/XML feeds and optimize CMS code to boot. A technical understanding of how search engines work will definitely give any SEO an edge. Many SEOs are reformed traditional marketers and brand managers that typically lack this technology-based skill set. Hat Tip: If the SEO in question uses a blog, click on one of their pages (not a post), other than the homepage. If there is a time stamp on the page you can almost bet that the SEO is technically clueless.
4. Backlinks. Backlinks. Backlinks. Your potential SEO better be good at this. Very good. This off-page SEO tactic is aimed at acquiring 1-way, incoming links to your website. Good, ‘quality’ backlinks from reputable, well-ranked and authority sources not only represent votes of confidence for your site in the eyes of the search engines, but they also can increase overall levels of exposure by ranking well themselves. For example, my Twitter profile has at times out-ranked my website when people search for “seo boise”. Same goes for individual content items, like a well-optimized YouTube video, blog post, Squidoo and press release. If an SEO doesn’t have many ‘quality’ backlinks for their own website or blog, they probably didn’t pass the golden rule anyway (see #1). Without ‘quality’ backlinks, you might as well kiss good rankings goodbye.
5. Competing Clients. If an SEO has 2 or more clients that have directly competing search terms, then the SEO greatly benefits by allowing said clients to compete with each other. A good SEO will turn away a potential client if direct search term competition exists. Ask your potential SEO about this, especially if they fail rule 2.
6. Who Does What. You will also want to inquire about who actually performs the SEO, and make sure it’s not being outsourced to India, unless you’re OK with that.

Use the 6 rules above to help thin the crowd when searching for an SEO that is knowledgeable in their field. If you are interested in SEO Boise (.com) Internet Marketing consulting services please click here to contact us.

Not only can duplicated content make it difficult for search engines to index your web pages properly, but it can lead to penalties that could dramatically effect a website’s ability to rank well for targeted keyphrases in the major search engines.

As websites grow-up, the potential for duplicate content increases. Sites that contain a lot of content might have a variety of different URLs that all reference the same location. This issue can often impact smaller websites that show up in search engine results with and without the ‘www’ in front of the corresponding URL.

An Open Standard Solution Supported by Google – Yahoo! – and Microsoft

Even though Google Webmaster Tools has an option to select the ‘www’ preference for the URLs of your website, a tactic with more control that is acceptable for other search engines was needed. The canonical link element was developed to help search engines determine the preferred URL to be used for your website.

When linking to pages of your site or blog, utilize the canonical link element in the header portion of your links.

Here’s the canonical link element in action:

<link rel="canonical" href="http://example.com/page.html"/>

This tells the search engines that the prefferred URL is http://example.com/page.html (note: without the ‘www’). Where canonical = preferred.

Additional Information

Video clip of Google’s Matt Cutts explaining the link element…