Skybox SEO San Diego

The Google Panda Update: How It Impacts Your Website

Skybox SEO — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 08:02:31 +0000

Understanding SEO tools and tactics is essential for all web designers, bloggers, or business owners — for example, defining your keyword combinations and building a solid linking structure can drastically affect Google’s perception of the quality of your website. But now, the most used search engine on the Web has handed us a huge new factor to consider: In February 2011, Google revealed a change in its search algorithm, aimed to support high-quality websites over those that have less merit.

Google’s official announcement regarding the update

Companies are already scrambling to tweak their online marketing strategies – nearly 12% of queries will be noticeably impacted by the update. The question is, could this change could direct traffic away from your business’s presence in the cyber world? The core of Google’s new algorithm is the use of temporal duration, data used to determine the quality of a webpage. In other words, search results will now be ranked by the length of time that a visitor spends on a particular website, before resorting back to the page of search results. Content was previously the determining factor for the order in which Google prioritized websites in the search results. However, once companies understood the algorithm, useless sites began to cheat the system using duplicate content, high advertising-to-content ratios, or deviously embedded keywords. As a result of search engine manipulation, many high quality sites with less content were loosing their Google ranking. With Google’s new algorithm, websites that are more engaging in a visitor’s eyes will be recognized with a higher search results ranking.

Read a more in-depth study of who Google’s update affects

With that in mind, many SEO factors that previously influenced your website’s ranking still apply – the scope of your businesses social involvement (discussions, linking, sharing) is still an influence on the value of your site. However, now that content is no longer Google’s primary determinant of quality, website/business owners must realize that impactful web design is more crucial than ever – the focus has shifted to creating a pleasant user experience, in harmony with stimulating content.

So what can you do to make sure your business doesn’t go down under the new algorithm? Here are some secure ways to ensure that your website stays competent:

6 Tips to Keep Your Website High Quality:

Don’t forget that every page on your site factors into the equation – low quality individual pages could drag your whole domain down.
Don’t click the back button on your own site …and don’t tempt your visitors to click it either by presenting substandard content.
Avoid amateurish graphical errors. This means no clip art, no irrelevant artwork. Less is more.
Be professional, be trustworthy. Include an About Us page, Terms of Use, Privacy Policy, etc. Build trust by displaying professional trade association logos.
Add sticky content: videos or engaging photos or audio can keep a user occupied longer.
Prove the user with a comfortable viewing experience — if you’re going to keep your ads, make sure they don’t interfere with the content. With the content, use fonts designed for online viewing (try Georgia, Trebuchet, or Verdana), and take the time to choose colors/sizes wisely.

What page of search are you on for your target keywords?

Remember, Google’s new algorithm is a machine that reasons with time and statistics, but what determines those numbers are human users. Learning more about SEO tools and seeking quality design is a surefire way to keep your website in the loop – Email us at info@skyboxseo.com for more info and a free quote!.

New SEO Tool! Google Provides URL Parameter Options

Skybox SEO — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 20:39:50 +0000

URL parameter controls were first introduced to Google Webmaster Tools in 2009, and Google improved these in 2010, by providing an option for a default value. Now, the URL parameters feature is giving site owners even more advanced controls — webmasters can now specify how a parameter changes the content of the page.

The new options you now have over whether specific parameters affect your site content:

No: Doesn’t affect page page content
Yes: Changes, reorders, or narrows page content
Let Googlebot decide

This new feature can be extremely useful for sorting, filtering, pagination, etc. By being able to communicate to Google about how to handle URLs containing specific parameters, webmasters can improve their PageRank potential by designating which URL to best represent clusters of duplicate URLs.

Of course, only edit these parameter settings if you are confident about how your parameters affect your website — excluding the wrong URLs could wipe your pages from the Google index, resulting in a completely adverse effect on your SEO efforts.

Skybox SEO provides SEO Services to increase your organic search placement. Contact us today for a free quote! info@skyboxseo.com or call 619.865.8881

What is Google Plus?

Skybox SEO — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 22:06:31 +0000

These days, it seems like we’ve got an excess of ways to connect with one another in the virtual world — we can follow each other on Tumblr and Twitter, have face-to-face conversations from opposite sides of the planet via Skype, and share photos on Flickr. And of course, there’s Facebook – the social networking site. But what is the deal with this new Google+? It looks like fun, but if you already use Facebook or Twitter, why would you want to invest time and effort in creating yet another social network?

Google+ is a project that Google has been working on in secrecy for nearly a year, until its official announcement on April 28, 2011. It’s currently in an invite-only testing phase, which makes the thought of owning an account feel like an exclusive privilege, quite reminiscent of all that Gmail hype from back in the day. Google explains on its official blog that Plus is more than just another social network — it’s an extension of Google itself, that promises effective privacy settings and unique sharing controls that are supposed to better mimic real-life connections.

The main feature that sets Google+ apart from Facebook and Twitter is Google Circles. It lets you organize your connections by how you define your relationship with them: Friends, Family, Coworkers, etc. Through Circles, thoughts can be shared with people selectively, the way it typically happens in the real world. Let’s face it, your boss wouldn’t be the first person you run to to boast about how you actually spent your “sick” day…but your Circle of buddies might be amused.

Other Google+ features include Hangouts, which is basically an integrated video chat, Huddles, a new group messaging application, and Sparks, which automatically recommends interesting content – articles, videos, photos – to you based on your interests. If you use an Android, the Instant Upload feature automatically uploads photos you take on your phone directly to Google+.

Google has definitely got a strong feeling about its ideas of how social networking online should be …but it’s hard to say whether the world is ready to convert to Google+. Only time (and termination of invite-only status) will tell if Google has truly cracked the code to social networking bliss.

Skybox SEO provides SEO Services to increase your organic search placement. Contact us today for a free quote! info@skyboxseo.com or call 619.865.8881

Skybox Creative Launches New Division: Skybox SEO

Skybox SEO — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 22:56:52 +0000

Skybox Creative, an innovative web and branding studio started in 2006, has launched a new division –
Welcome to Skybox SEO, specializing in organic Search Engine Optimization! Our experts have developed a strategy that has helped clients see a 60% average increase in website traffic. All of our campaigns are available on a month-to-month basis — no long-term contracts! We’re offering three affordable packages, all of which are results-oriented to generate the highest relevant traffic for your website. Our team of Web Strategists is constantly re-evaluating the changing search algorithms of Google, Yahoo, Bing, and others, to formulate the plan that will bring you the best results. Read more about our services and SEO strategy here!

In just 30-60 days, you’ll see your website ranking drastically improve. And, as a limited-time introductory offer, we’re taking off $100 every month from any of our SEO packages:

We’re positive that our services will help people looking for your products and services find YOU. Get a free SEO quote from us today: info@skyboxseo.com or call us at 619.537.9047.

Search by Voice or Image on Your Desktop

Skybox SEO — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 22:45:18 +0000

On June 14th, Google held an event in San Francisco where they talked about bringing speech recognition and computer vision technology to the desktop.

The promo video below is an announcement showing “voice search” using Google Chrome on your desktop or laptop computer.

On July 14th, Google taught their English Voice Search system using 230 billion words from real queries so that they can recognize the phrases people are using more accurately. As the quality of speech recognition has increased, so has usage: voice search traffic has increased six fold in the last year.

Another technology Google is bringing to chrome is the ability to search by dragging an image into your search field. Watch the video below to learn more!

Google makes the world go round! Read the Official Article on the Google Blog: Knocking Down Barriers to Knowledge Article

For more information about search engines, to get a Free Website Analysis or SEO Quote, get in touch today! info@skyboxseo.com or call 619.865.8881.

5 Tips to Increase Search Engine Traffic

Skybox SEO — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 22:30:00 +0000

Search engine traffic is the key to expanding any business. Ranking high translates directly to business growth, there’s no denying it! So what can you do to get more traffic?

Here are 5 tips that can help you increase search engine traffic to your website or blog.

1. Title Tags on Your Website or Blog

This SEO tactic has been around for ages and still makes a significant impact on your SEO in 2011. One thing to keep in mind when writing your title tags is to think of the person searching for your product or service, try to think of something that will make people want to click on your link. Try to include the topic and a benefit, this will easily allow you to fit 2 keyword phrases into the title.

Tip: only 65 characters will display in the search results, anything after that will show up as … in the results.

Fact: 80% of top ranking pages include keywords in their title.

2. Blog Updates

People used to say blogging once a week was enough, but things are changing and fresh content is the key to search engine ranking. The new rule of thumb is to update your blog every 1-2 days (or more if you can manage) to keep search engines indexing your pages consistently. Use keywords in your title, URL string, body copy, categories and keyword tags. That’s the beauty of blogging, WordPress and other blogging platforms make it easy to add keywords in a variety of different places that really help you rank. And don’t forget about linking…

3. Link to Other Blogs and Websites

Google likes links to relevant and reputable websites. As part of your SEO campaign, it’s a good idea to include outbound links.

4. Backlinking

Backlinking is one of the cornerstones of a good SEO campaign. The quality of your backlinks is very important, the better the page rank and the higher the foot traffic, the better the backlink. Also, the anchor text associated with the backlink makes a huge difference. There are awesome free tools like BlueBacklinks.com that show you how many backlinks you have and what anchor text is linking to your website.

5. Internal Linking

Links will still hold search engine value even if they are coming from within the same site. If a blog post or page within your site has achieved a good page rank, use it to build in a few links to other pages within your site. For example: SEO San Diego points to our home page using “rich anchor text”.

For an SEO website evaluation, contact us at info@skyboxseo.com or call 619.865.8881

Best SEO Tools for 2011

Skybox SEO — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 21:29:22 +0000

10 Best SEO Tools for 2011

Understanding all the information available about SEO can be a challenge, Organic Search Engine Optimization can be a full time job for multiple people depending on your goals. Fortunately, there are a few simple ways to educate yourself through free SEO tools. We have compiled a list of the 10 best SEO tools for 2011 to assist you in understanding your site, researching your competitors, keywords and creating a strategy to dominate your placement on search engines.

Research is key, this step requires a bit of time, but it’s worth it’s weight in gold. Provided by Google, this tool allows you to research your industry keywords to learn about local and global traffic statistics.

SEO Tool #1 Google Keyword Tool
www.adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Now, what does your site look like to search engines in terms of SEO?

SEO Tool #2 SEO Website Grader
www.websitegrader.com

SEO Tool #3 SEO Blog Grader
blog.grader.com

SEO Tool #4 Check Backlinks & Anchor Text
www.bluebacklinks.com

SEO Tool #5 Search Engine Spider Simulator
www.webconfs.com/search-engine-spider-simulator.php

SEO Tool #6 Alexa Ranking (Worldwide Rank, Search Analytics, Audience Stats, Etc.)
www.alexa.com

SEO Tool #7 SEO Book – Free SEO Tools (These SEO tools can be used for ongoing website analysis and stats.)
www.tools.seobook.com

Next, it’s a good idea to asses what your competition looks like. (You can use the tools above as well as the tools below for this purpose)

SEO Tool #8 Spy on Your Competitors (Learn About Competitor Keywords & AdWords)
www.spyfu.com

Once your ready to move forward with an SEO strategy, the tools below will hep you with search engine & directory submission as well as PR article distribution.

SEO Tool #9 Search Engine & Directory Submission Tool
www.ubl.org

SEO Tool #10 Press Release Article Distribution
www.prnewswire.com

Knowledge is only half the battle! Once you understand the status of your current site and have a better understanding of what you need to do, it’s time to hire experts to handle the workload so you ca get back to business.

Overwhelmed with information? We’re here to help. Contact us today for a free SEO quote. info@skyboxseo.com or call 619.865.8881