Denver SEO Blog » SEO

A Great SEO Tool For Geo-Targeted Keyword Combinations

Zack Katz — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 17:48:58 +0000

Save Time Creating SEO-Friendly Keyword Combinations

As an SEO, one of the things I do on a regular basis is come up with keyword permutations and combinations for many locations related to the corporations I am engaged with. What I often do is I use PHP scripting and create multiple arrays of keywords, locations, and services, then mix them up…similar to the SEO WordSpinner script.

There’s a great script that does this in an instant. It’s called the Local PPC Adwords & Keyword List Creator, and it does exactly what it sounds like it does.

One of the nice features of this tool is that it allows you to generate SEO-friendly keyword order combinations such as ‘Location Keyword’ & ‘Keyword Location’, saving lots of time. It’s a great tool for generating permutations for SEO and PPC. I recommend trying it out.

The keyword list creator will find all cities and zip codes surrounding the zip code you specify and generate a comprehensive list of geo-targeted SEO phrases.

Fun tip: specify a suffix of | and wrap it all up in {{ and }}, and you have yourself a formatted string for the SEO WordSpinner.

Kick SEO Ass with SEO WordSpinner Plugin for WordPress

Zack Katz — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 18:41:32 +0000

Download the SEO WordSpinner Plugin and test this great plugin out.

Refresh this page to experience content spinning in action.

Why use a content spinner?

There are a lot of content spinners out there (I won’t even bother linking to them, most are for spamming, not for SEO). The existing products allow you mass-export articles then submit them across content networks to build links using spammy articles. That is not what this plugin does. This plugin allows you to enhance your site’s SEO by reducing duplicate content.

Google has been improving its handling of duplicate content by implementing use of the canonical tag and updating its algorithm. They don’t punish a site for duplicate content, but having unique content is still better than duplicate content.

Different content in different context

Each category page
Each tag page
Any search result page
And this single article page

Each of those pages will show the full content or an excerpt (summary) of the content on this page. Each will show a title for this article. The SEO WordSpinner plugin allows you to mix things up so that on each page, users will see different content that means the same thing, therefore avoiding duplicate content issues if done properly.

Keeping spins predictable

The SEO WordSpinner plugin has an option to show the same content in the same context in a predictable manner. This is a setting in the plugin (“Make Spins Predictable by Default”). This means that when viewed on a separate tag, archive, search, or single page, the spun content will display the same way.

This global setting can also be modified on a per-post or per-page basis by adding the SEOSpinPredictable Custom Field to the post with a value of “true” or “false”. This allows you to change the settings on a per-post basis. This post has SEOSpinPredictable set as true, which is why refreshing changes the content.

Spin your `META` tags…All in One SEO Pack-Compatible

One of the neat features of this plugin is that there is a setting to have your title and meta tags spun. This allows you to vary the post title, the title tag, and the meta tags separately, allowing you to include variations in the most important parts of your page’s content.

Using the SEO WordSpinner Plugin

Using the following settings:

Split Character: |
Start Character(s): {{
End Character(s): }}

An example content spin:

This is a {{an example|a demonstration|a demo|a test}} of the powers of content spinning

Could produce the following spun variations:

This is an example of the powers of content spinning
This is a demonstration of the powers of content spinning
This is a demo of the powers of content spinning
This is a test of the powers of content spinning

In order for search engines to not consider your content duplicate, you need to change your text more than the text above. The example above is for demonstration purposes only.

Do you want us to show you how this works?

Text used above: {{Do you want|Would you like}} {{me|us|a person}} to {{test|demonstrate|show you}} how this works?

It works for Links, too.

Please leave comments, plugin improvement recommendations, or bug reports in the comments below.

Add Custom Titles for Tags and Categories in Wordpress

Zack Katz — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 10:37:28 +0000

The Best WordPress SEO Plugin? A combination of two.

All in One SEO Pack (AIOSEO) is the leader in WordPress SEO plugins. It offers great functionality and simple integration into the process of writing a post. AIOSEO is not a perfect plugin, however, because it lacks some very important functionality:

Custom category title tags
Custom tag title tags
Mass editing of page, post, tag and category title tags/slugs

The plugin that has all of the features above (but lacks AIOSEO features) is SEO Title Tag, an imperfect but elegant solution to the list above. This article shows how to use both plugins and have them combine forces to create a powerful solution for getting custom titles on all your site’s pages.

Getting All in One SEO Pack and SEO Title Tag to play well together

The goal is this: when displaying a tag page, category page, or a post with SEO Title Tag title, use SEO Title Tag’s generated title. Otherwise, let All in One SEO Pack generate titles.

Add the following code to your theme’s functions.php file, or your Thesis Theme’s custom_functions.php file:

function kws_check_title_conflict() {
	function kws_get_seo_title() { // Find out whether the title should be rewritten
		if(is_singular()) { // For some reason, get_seo_title_tag() kills WP if it's singular and not active on post/page, so this function looks janky
			global $post;
			$custom_title_key = get_option("custom_title_key");
			$post_custom = get_post_custom($post->ID);
			$custom_title_value = trim($post_custom["$custom_title_key"][0]);
			if(!empty($custom_title_value)) { return get_seo_title_tag(); }
		}
		else {
			// Don't return a custom title if it's just the category name (SEO Title Tags default)
			if(function_exists(get_seo_title_tag) && get_seo_title_tag() && (is_category() && get_seo_title_tag() != single_cat_title("", false)) || (is_tag() && get_seo_title_tag() != single_tag_title("", false))) {
				return get_seo_title_tag();
			}
		}
		return false;
	}

	if(kws_get_seo_title()) { // If there's a SEO Title Tags title,
		global $aioseop_options;
		$aioseop_options['aiosp_rewrite_titles'] = false;  // turn off AIOSEO Pack title rewriting
		add_action('wp_title', 'kws_get_seo_title', 1, 1); // and update the page's title
	} else {
		return false;
	}
}
add_action('wp', 'kws_check_title_conflict', 1);

Customize every `title` tag on your site

Break free from the %category_title% | %blog_title% SEO doldrums!

Now, using a combination of All in One SEO and SEO Title Tags, you can have custom page titles, tag titles, and category titles for every page on your website. This means that you can optimize every page title.

In addition, use the Katz Web Services Rich Text Tags plugin so that you will have high-SEO value tag descriptions as well…making your site super-optimized!

SEO Google Profiles – Google Adds NoFollow to Links

Zack Katz — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 23:06:49 +0000

Just a quick post to show that Google has started to nofollow all links on new Google Profiles. This is too bad for a quick SEO shot in the arm, but also makes sense, since most of the people who knew about Google Profiles were SEO’s anyway

Here’s my do-follow Google profile: Zachary Katz – Google Profile.
Here’s a no-followed profile: John Sileo – Google Profile.

Oh well, on to greener pastures!

As an user on BlogCatalog notes,

The links on your Google profile will be nofollow, but the links on your Google Reader shared items page (as of the time I write this) are NOT nofollow.

Linking to your profile on your site or blog is a great idea, but linking to your shared items page is an even better one.

Update: Google Profiles are Back to Do-Follow

Over the weekend I created a brand-new profile for my wife, and noticed that the profile for John Sileo that I had previously mentioned is now “dofollow,” as is the brand-new profile for my wife.

Use it, don’t abuse it!

It’s good that Google’s reversed their policy on this, because Google Profiles are a natural thing to optimize and promote. They are a great tool for linking to other properties, and you should create your own. Just don’t go too crazy, or Google might pull the follow plug again.

SEO & Switching Domains

Zack Katz — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 01:11:17 +0000

Goodbye old friend. Hello shiny new domain!

Recently I moved my company’s domain from KatzWebDesign.net to KatzWebServices.com to reflect the change of the business name (over one year ago) from Katz Web Design to Katz Web Services, Inc., to reflect the in company services offerings, and to have a .com domain.

This is a simple switch, not re-launching a new website — just moving the same site from one domain to the next. Here’s how I approached the switch, and it’s a solid method to use for any domain switch:

A week before:

Make sure the new domain works properly
Start pointing some new links to the domain (which will just be parked on top of the current site)

On the day of move:

Add the website and a site-map to Google Webmaster Tools

Update the .htaccess file to move permanently move the domain

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^katzwebdesign.net(.*) [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.katzwebservices.com/$1 [R=301,NC,L]

For great .htaccess tips, check out corz.org.

Update the site map to reflect new domain addresses
Fill out a change of address form in Google Webmaster Tools
Request people you know link to the new domain

Week after move, you should slowly change existing backlinks to the new domain

Update profile pages (LinkedIn, Facebook, MerchantCircle, Google Profiles, CitySearch, you know the drill)
Email webmasters and request link changes be made

Matt Cutts tells people to change things slowly and steadily so Google doesn’t freak out:

Note: changing your IP address, webhost, domain name, blog template, and blog version all at the same time is the exact opposite of what you should normally do. It’s better to change only one thing at a time so that if something goes horribly wrong, you can trace what caused it.

What I experienced

Google showed both domains for a while until they completely updated their index. An example: when searching “Denver web design,” they showed katzwebdesign.net. When searching “Denver SEO,” they showed katzwebservices.com.

How Not to Optimize Your Search Results Page Title – Priceline.com Should Know Better

Zack Katz — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 16:41:12 +0000

A comparison in travel sites search results page titles

Wow, Priceline…who did you hire for SEO?

I was shopping around for a good price on a hotel in Aspen when William Shatner’s “Falcoln of Truth” showed me how not to write page titles.

Check out Priceline’s horrific search results page title:
Priceline.com - hotel, hotel reservation, cheap hotel, las vegas hotel, boston hotel, hotel deal, new york city hotel, hotel rooms, motel, lodging, accommodations, casino hotel, priceline

That is a terrible example of keyword stuffing, and is…well…awful. Even search results pages should be optimized. Priceline should know that!

What are the competition’s search results page titles like?

The Hotwire.com search page isn’t optimized, but not spammy:
Discount hotel rooms and hotel reservations - Hotwire.com

The best page titles for the search “Aspen hotels”

Travelocity.com is optimizing for the whole region quite well, but not specifically targeting my search:
Aspen and Snowmass and Carbondale Hotels - Find discount hotel rates!

Expedia.com’s results are optimized, but minimal. As a personal preference, I’m not wild about keyword-only page titles, though they do tend to rank well:
Aspen hotels

The Hotels.com search results page gets it right with a mix of simplicity, mixing & matching keywords, and having the most valuable keyword first (“Aspen Hotels”):
Aspen Hotels - Hotel Deals in Aspen, CO - Hotels.com

What are some other examples of good and bad search result page titles?

Have you come across any whoppers or thrillers? Share them below!

How to Create a Google Profile and Manage your Online Reputation

Zack Katz — Wed, 20 May 2009 21:59:06 +0000

As seen on 7News – View the video on TheDenverChannel.com

Why Google Profiles matter to you

Receive monthly tips like this one on how to get online exposure

Receive monthly emailed tips

As featured on the May 20th 7News program featuring Zack Katz of Katz Web Design, Google Profiles are a great way to be found online for your own name, even if you don’t have a website.If you set up an online profile with Google, a person looking for you online will be able to find you more easily.

Your profile will show up in search results

In the past, if you wanted to be listed in search results for your own name (it’s called a “vanity search”), you often needed your own website. Google is changing that, and giving users the power to show up in a search result with a picture and link to their profile.

The Google Profile box embedded in the search results for Zack Katz

In April, Google has started giving Profiles a prominent placement in search results. It is safe to presume that Google will be further incorporating the Profiles in the future, and assigning them more value. If you want to improve your findability online, setting up a profile is a great step to take.

How to create your Google Profile

If you already have a Google account (if you use Gmail, or any other Google product), go directly to the Google Profiles page, and skip to step #7.

Part 1: Getting signed up and logged in

(Click image to view larger) The 'Create your profile' page has many options, including your contact information. Choosing what information to include is a personal decision.

Click here to go to Google Profiles
Click on “Create an account now”
Fill out the short form to create a Google account.
Check your email on the email account you provided. Google will send a confirmation message confirming your email address.
Click the verification link provided in the confirmation email.
After clicking the link, a page will load with a link saying “click here to manage your account profile.” Click it.
You should now be on the Create your profile page (view image to the right).

Part 2: Adding information

There are lots fields you have the opportunity to fill out – fill out as many as you want. Google’s done a good job of having some silly options, such as a place to specify “My superpower.”

Here are some main items you won’t want to miss:

Explore — make sure to check out the different tabs near the top of the page. “Contact info” gives you a place to enter your email, phone numbers, instant messenging account information, and photos from photo sharing sites like Flickr.
Add a profile photo — why create a really great profile if you’re not going to share your likeness with the world? Click on the Googley-eyed image and follow the instructions. It’s easy, and it will make your profile truly personal….and if you don’t have a photo, the photo won’t show up in search results, reducing your exposure.
Add a bio — write a bit about yourself: your job history, your family pets…anything you would like to share. If you’re creating a professional profile, you could write about your business and your qualifications.

Google will let you know if they need more information before having your profile listed in search results.

Part 3: For power users

Maximize your profile with search engine optimization techniques

One of the best parts about setting up your profile with Google is that you can tell Google what your website is. If you run a business, adding a link on your profile to your businesses’ website will help that website rank better in search results. Google Profiles pass value to sites you list.

Make sure to add all of your profiles and websites using the “Add custom links to my profile” form provided (pictured at right).
In the “Link name” field, be descriptive about your website. If you have a profile on LinkedIn, and you are a florist, you could write “Denver Florist on LinkedIn” — which is better than “My LinkedIn Profile,” because it has relevant, descriptive words.
Feel free to list as many links as you want, but be aware that the more links you have on one page, the less value each link will give; the page’s value will be divided.
Create a Profile URL (at the bottom of the profile page) — otherwise, your profile will look like google.com/profiles/104944297119239125072, instead of google.com/profiles/your-name, which is much nicer (and better for search)

Verify your name for added trust

Follow these steps to verify your phone number, and get a Verified Name badge on your profile.

How to monitor your online reputation

When someone writes about you online, it’s important for you to know about it. Reputation management in the age of the internet is an extremely important aspect of having an online presence. In order to monitor where you are mentioned online, we will set up an alert with Google Alerts.

Go to Google Alerts. If you are logged in to Google, you will see a form similar to the one on the right.

Enter in your name, or the name of your business in the field “Search terms,”
Choose Comprehensive as the “Type” — the other options will limit what content Google looks in.
Select from the “How often” drop-down your preferred frequency of alerts. I recommend setting “How often” to “as-it-happens;” that way, as soon as Google finds new content about you, Google will send you an email with a link to the web page where it found you.
Choose your email as the delivery option.
Click “Create Alert,” and you’re set up!

Once you’ve set up an alert

Now, when Google finds new content that mentions you, you will immediately receive an informative email. This will allow you to respond to the new content appropriately.

If a person has written a complimentary article about you, you can leave a comment on it thanking them. If the content is negative, you can seek ways to remedy the situation. But that’s for another article.

You may create as many alerts as you like, which will provide you with an immediate notification of any Google content related to your alert.

Any questions?

If you have questions about this article, please leave a comment in the form labeled “Leave a comment” below. You may also check out the following official Google help documents:

Zack Katz runs Katz Web Design, a search engine optimization and web design company in Denver. Katz Web Design specializes in helping small business owners dominate search results in their industry. Email KWD for a free consultation.

View Zack’s Google Profile

WordPress Search Engine Friendly Logo

Zack Katz — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 18:57:01 +0000

Optimize your logo using SEO-friendly techniques.

Google’s algorithm likes text more than images. It likes headlines more than paragraphs. You can increase how much weight your headline has by only having one or two of them. Having the same headline across all pages reduces the value of it each time.

Instead of having your logo be an image, or H1 image replacement using CSS, it’s now best practice to use a H1 (heading 1) for your home page and a P (paragraph) for the rest of your pages. Then, you can use the headline for your page’s title instead, and get more bang for your buck.

This is nothing new, but it’s best practice, and I hope those who don’t know this technique or code may find this helpful.

Add to your theme’s header.php file for the logo:

if(is_home() || is_front_page()) { // Is this the home page or front page? $tag = 'h1'; // If so, use h1 } else { $tag = 'p'; } ?> < id="logo">>>

This code will add a text link to your header, and using some CSS you can make it look like a normal image. Depending on how your code is set up, you can use this CSS:

Add to your theme’s stylesheet (style.css):

#logo a { display: block; width: 321px; /* Change the width to fit image size */ height: 123px; /* Change the height to fit image size */ text-indent: -9999px; /* Hide the text */ overflow: hidden; /* Keep the link outline sane when clicked */ background: url('images/your-logo-image-name.jpg') left top no-repeat; }

This code will convert your text link into what looks like an image, but actually is an “image-replacement” CSS technique.

Check out an example of this code on CAREER-Magic.com home page, and the Services page.

Hope this helps! Any questions?

An Inside Look: 4 Step SEO for a Denver Solar Company

Zack Katz — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 22:03:22 +0000

4 Steps to optimize a website — a Denver solar case study

This is an inside look into my process for optimizing a pre-existing website. This will cover lots of the aspects of the SEO I’ve done, but not all of it…These steps are often my first round of optimization on a site. Once I do these four vital SEO steps, I move on to content SEO and more link-building.

1. Re-write the site’s code

Matzen Electic & Solar’s web developer created a custom template for their website. The template used tables and images instead of CSS and image replacement methods. Check out the original template and the current site. Not much difference visually, but look at the code itself.

If you inherit a code structure that’s not great, you’re going to want to make sure to re-create the template using SEO-friendly code techniques. Here’s what I did for Matzen:

Made the logo
on the home page and a
on other pages. Before, it was an image without an ALT tag.
Reformatted the title tag to be structured properly: page name first, site name second.
Before: Matzen Electric & Solar » Home
After: Denver Residential Solar Installation – Matzen Electric & Solar
Converted the navigation from a bunch of images without ALT tags to text links that also improves accessibility for blind users.

2. Give search engines the right information

For any website, it’s important to let search engines know what pages exist on the site. Standard best practices apply here:

Create a robots.txt file
Create a sitemap.xml file
Make sure that there are no “loose” pages that shouldn’t be indexed. If there are, disallow them on the robots.txt file, and then redirect them using an .htaccess file.
Submit the sitemaps using Google Webmaster Tools & Yahoo! Site Explorer

These two steps alone took the site from being out of the top 100 to in the top 10 for some of their target phrases (Denver Solar Electricity and Denver Solar Installation). But not high enough by any means. Let’s get back to it!

3. Create profiles on high-value websites

If your company isn’t showing up for local searches, it’s probably because your Google Local listing isn’t optimized for their keywords. I took care of that, and made sure their visibility improved by having profiles created on the major websites.

LinkedIn
Google Local
Yelp
Yahoo! Local
GetSatisfaction - Create a company profile as well as a targeted product or service. In this case, I added a service they provide, which is solar installation. Note the SEO-friendly url: http://getsatisfaction.com/denver-solar/products/denver-solar_installation

Profile creation tips

Make sure you’re writing these profiles from your clients’ accounts – not from your own account! You are simply helping your clients create these profiles, not claiming them as your own. I strongly recommend you provide your clients with a full list of logins & passwords upon creating profiles.
Only leave comments that are true and that are from your own actual accounts — if this means you have to work the English language a bit, then work it…but do not create false testimonials. That’s no way to build trust in a brand. Have you ever used your clients services? If not, then do you want to? Why do you want to? Write about that.
Use every option available, because you never know what users will search for. Add as much information as you can, including videos and images, so that you’re giving the search engines as much content as they want to work with. More information (especially pictures that show up in mapped listing results) could also result in higher click-through rates.
- Yahoo! gives you a “Brands” option. Matzen Solar installs many different solar panel brands, so I made sure to list them.
- Google Local offers “Additional Details” options. You can write whatever you want to there. Keep it on topic, but make sure to cover any keywords or phrases that you hadn’t covered before.
Use the Address 2 field – I’ve been using the Address 2 field to add a c/o (Care Of) listing that is keyword rich, but also user-friendly. Something like “Widgets Inc., 123 Widgets Road, c/o the Best Widgets Company, Denver, CO”. This gets you more keywords, provides a nice little tagline, and is appropriate for the address field. If you do something inappropriate, chances are you’ll get punished for it.

4. Build more links

Find relevant websites and link to everything you’ve built. Link to all the profiles, link to the pages of the website, link everywhere — but make sure you link responsibly. Too much of the same link = search engines thinking you’re spam.

Do these 4 SEO items well, and you’re off to a good start

These SEO steps should get you ranked locally — even if you don’t touch your site’s content.

Be patient, young padawon. It takes 15-30 days for Google to update with your changes. It takes anywhere from 2 days to 4 months for some of these profiles to go live. Just know this: after doing these steps, you’ll be better off than you were before.

You need Denver SEO if you want to rank well in Google.

Zack Katz — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 19:01:45 +0000

Can a Denver business afford to rank poorly in search engines?

Katz Web Design is an SEO company in Denver. This is our blog. Need help with your website’s search presence? Call 303-362-0451 for a free consultation.

Denver SEO Case study: Ignite Matchmaking

An example of how effective Katz Web Design’s SEO services are is Ignite Matchmaking. When Ignite had KWD redesign and optimize their website for search, their website was ranked 508th in Google for the search “Denver matchmaker.”

“Since Katz Web Design redesigned my site, I’m completely overwhelmed with leads.”

Immediately after launch, their site rocketed to ranking 6th. 7 months later, and ever since, their website has been ranked #1 and #2 for the phrase. That has directly translated into more traffic, and more leads generated.

Editor’s Note: this was supposed to be a welcome post for the blog, but it didn’t look very good…so it had to be an actual blog post! I didn’t mean it to be so “Denver SEO-y” if you know what I mean