Search Engine Optimization is the phrase that haunts every website owner. It is one of the buzzwords that marketing gurus and web designers are recommending at every turn. “Search is the top driver of internet traffic to websites,” they say. You may have that feeling that optimizing your website is something you really ought to look into, but honestly, it’s daunting. Why is it important? Is it worth the cost? Here are some common questions webmasters ask – and some important answers you can’t afford to miss. Isn’t my engaging website enough? Not anymore. Over 86% of all online experiences start with a search engine. The majority of your customers may be starting their hunt for your website by searching – completely opening themselves to your competition, if you’re not there to beat them out. How often have you lost business because you weren’t easily found online? In ...
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When discussing SEO, it's impossible not to at least think of Google. Why? Because Google engineers invented the concept of "SEO" and also its “rules.” By “rules,” I mean the algorithms that determine which websites land on the first page of the search results. Lately, Google engineers have honed in on the concept of "freshness," or placing greater emphasis on returning the freshest web content for most queries. So now you're probably wondering: what makes a website fresh? Here are 7 important elements to focus on as you manage your site. 1. Date of inception. The inception date is the first time Google indexes your page, or puts it into its database of pages. Unfortunately, the inception date degenerates over time. So, the older a website is, it lessens in freshness. It might go without saying that if your site was created over 5 years ago, you may be due for a websi...
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Google is making headlines again, as they begin to reveal information about the next generation of their search engine. Google is trying to stay on top of the search market, which includes competitors Bing, Yahoo, Apple (now with Siri), and certain aspects of Facebook. In coming weeks, you should begin to see snippets of change in the way search results are provided. Google will start favoring sites that have more relevant content vs. sites that are simply overly optimized. While you don't want to wait to start optimizing your site to Google's new standards, top execs at Google say (source: The Wall Street Journal ) that it will actually be a couple of years for its changes to be fully in place. What will the new search engine look like? Google's plan is to provide increasingly relevant search results. For example, if you do a search for a set of home audio speakers, ...
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In today's world of online shopping, search engine results are critical for nearly every website owner. After all, "googling" has become a new verb in our vocabulary, according to most dictionaries. The majority of the populace first turn to a search engine when they are seeking information on a product or service or looking to buy. With our game-changing CMS product, Backstage, we have made it easy for you to cover all your basics in optimizing nearly every part of your website for the search engines (SEO). Here are 4 simple steps you can take today to create an optimized site. 1. Create a keyword-focused page title. It's simple to create your own keyword-driven page titles that will help you rank better in web searches. After logging into Backstage, and clicking on the page you would like to optimize, click on the "Optimize for SEO" option on the right-hand panel of...
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