One of the most useful tools for new webmasters and people venturing into the world of SEO is a product by Google called Webmaster Tools. Although Google’s no-nonsense interface makes an effort to cut out everything unnecessary, it can sometimes be difficult for novices to jump into using the application without a little guidance. This is where we come in. Below I have outline 7 things that every person that manages a website should implement when getting set up with Webmaster Tools for the first time.
1. Verify the Site
This first task is actually easier than it looks. In order for Google to know that you actually own the site, it is required that you prove it by copying a chunk of code into the top section of your homepage’s code of the site in question. You will need (FTP) access to your site’s code in order to do this or, as an alternative, you can simply name one of the files on your site the big, long string of gibberish that Google gives you. Read more »
At Envoca one of the things that specialize in is building websites that generate leads for our clients. It is one thing to design a good-looking business website for a client but it is quite another to build a website that brings business to a client. One of the other things that we specialize in is legal internet marketing. When we work on projects that are a combination of the two you can find examples of some of our best work.
Staying Ahead of the Curve – The Hydroxycut Recall
On the morning of May 1, 2009 the FDA announced that the popular diet drug Hydroxycut was to be recalled due to severe cases of liver damage and the risk of death. Several of our clients are law firms who handle pharmaceutical injury lawsuits and wanted to be able to take the cases of people injured by this drug as soon as possible. We have found that these days, when people need a lawyer, they look on the internet to find one. Therefore, it was important to us to make sure that people searching online for a Hydroxycut lawyer found our clients on Google as soon as possible. Read more »
When I talk with traditional search engine optimizers the question I hear is, “What is the most important factor with Local search?” I think there are a lot of parallels with traditional and local search, but the one thing that is really important to remember, something that someone new to local search optimization often overlooks, is the importance of data standardization. Standardization tells Google, and in fact all the search engines, a consistency story from the seed provider to the end user. Consistency regarding your company name, address, phone number—from the bottom up.
Inconsistency Leads to Fragmentation
This is the most common error we see where inconsistency has lead to fragmentation for companies because sometimes they add “inc.” to their name or change their address from suite #123 to ste. 123. These differences water down your brand where Google is getting better at this, it still takes time to merge nuances. Look at the example below. Read more »
The second official day of Search Engine Strategies (SES) is now underway and some interesting things have happened so far. Yesterday we had the privilege of hearing Clay Shirky speak on Social Media and its effects on world affairs. Clay touched on the effects of social media’s consumer impact and even sported the now infamous “3 wolf moon t-shirt.”
The trade show was open so I got a few minutes to chat with the folks working on Bing’s up-and-coming mobile search platform as well as WYS from Google who is known online as “that guy who does the Google webmaster videos with Matt Cutts.” In the afternoon I got to sit in on a panel that included 3 of the top 5 people involved in SEO in the world namely Bruce Clay, Michael Gray, and Aaron Wall. Then in the evening, WebmasterRadio.fm put on their Search Bash after party where the industry’s movers and shakers were able to well…move and shake together. Read more »
The confirmation email for my SES registration came in the email today. The plane tickets are purchased and I think we have come up with a plan to stay on top of managing our projects currently in development from the hotel in California. As of next Tuesday, Envoca will be fully immersed in one of the largest and most prominent search conferences in the world.
For those of you who are not familiar with search conferences, I will explain. Aside from designing and building beautiful and functional websites for our clients we are also heavily involved in SEO (Search Engine Optimization). What this means is that in addition to building websites for our clients, we also provide services that help them get better visibility and traffic from search engines such as Google. Read more »
In recent weeks, there has been a lot of hype about Bing.
I have to admit at first I was not excited about Bing. At a glance it appeared to be yet another attempt to design a search engine that grabs more of the market from namely Google and Yahoo!. With Microsoft’s $100 million advertising budget it we noticed that Bing was getting a fair amount more attention then previous versions to the point that clients were actually contacting us to make sure their sites are ‘optimized for Bing’.
One of the most useful tools for new webmasters and people venturing into the world of SEO is a product by Google called Webmaster Tools. Although Google’s no-nonsense interface makes an effort to cut out everything unnecessary, it can sometimes be difficult for novices to jump into using the application without a little guidance. This is where we come in. Below I have outline 7 things that every person that manages a website should implement when getting set up with Webmaster Tools for the first time.
