Are you considering hiring an SEO company?  Let us provide you with a free SEO report so you know where you stand before you start shopping around.  We proudly offer a free SEO analysis with no obligations.  That way you can compare apples to apples when you start shopping around and you already know where you rank.  Then, hopefully, we look forward to being a candidate of your liking.

Interested?  Simply go to our free SEO analysis page.

Welcome to the month of All Fools’ Day. Did you see Google’s latest “trick” for their annual April Fools’ Day prank? Each year Google come up with a random joke. Past April Fools’ Day jokes by Google have included a joint project to establish a permanent settlement on planet Mars, fake menu links in Google Docs, free internet via flushing your toilet, Google Voice for pets, interplanetary Analytics and more. This year’s prank was that Google would be developing a self driven NASCAR vehicle using their auotmated driving technology. Those silly tricksters. For a list of Google’s pranks from previous years, click here.

In this newsletter we’ll discuss the following:

• Search Engine News

SEARCH ENGINE NEWS

Webmaster Tools

For those of you that use Webmaster Tools, Google recently launched a new feature. Google’s official Webmaster blog recently made the following statement. “We just launched a new feature that allows you as a verified site owner to grant limited access to your site’s data and settings in Webmaster Tools. You’ve had the ability to grant full verified access to others for a couple of years. Since then we’ve heard lots of requests from site owners for the ability to grant limited permission for others to view a site’s data in Webmaster Tools without being able to modify all the settings. Now you can do exactly that with our new User administration feature.

Google also announced “The Next Generation” in crawl errors. Google’s blog states, “We now detect and report many new types of errors. To help make sense of the new data, we’ve split the errors into two parts: site errors and URL errors. Site errors are errors that aren’t specific to a particular URL—they affect your entire site… URL errors are errors that are specific to a particular page.” (read more)

Pagination

Does your site offer a variety of products or pages that get “split up” using pagination? An example of pagination would be if you have a product category that has 20 products, and your site splits them up so that 10 show on one page and you have to click on something like “page 2″ or “see more” to view the remaining 10 products. If so, ask your CMS (Content Management System) developer if they plan on integrating Google’s latest variables that can be used to best instruct search engines how to interpret these divided content pages. For more information, see Google’s pagination video.

Many of our clients like to do a little research of their own and understand a bit of the SEO process. If you fall under this category, try and make it out to SES New York 2012. SES gets many of the industry’s brightest minds to come together. You can learn about various web metrics, including conversions, ROI, etc. SES is from March 19-23, 2012.

Google recently launched another “Panda” update. In their continued efforts to give searchers more relevant results, the latest Panda update was intended to weed out more sites that are less than desirable. Content has always been one of the most important factors in SEO, but it is continuing to become a larger factor. Google wants your site to be an “authority” on your subject matter. Make sure that any new pages or products that you may be adding to your site has unique, relevant text. It may take you a few extra minutes to write your text more efficiently, but it will be worth increased relevancy in Google’s search results.

Google also adjusted one of their algorithm’s variables and how it analyzes backlinks. Backlinks are when another site links to yours. At SEO National, we take pride in manually submitting your backlinks to ensure that they are submitted for approval to relevant sites. We also make sure to diversify where your backlinks are submitted to. Many SEO agencies focus on directories, because they’re easier than other backlink resources. With our advanced tools and resources, we instead focus on more targeted backlinks from other resources. For many clients, directories make up only 25% of their backlink volume. Many of the others come from forums, blogs, press releases and social bookmarking sites. We’re committed to maintinaing your volume consistency and diversification of your backlinks.

As Google continues to change their interfaces and search algorithms to improve user experiences, they have made some recent updates to a few services. One of the more recent changes include new data being displayed in the Sitemaps section of Google Webmaster Tools.

Sitemaps
Sitemaps allow webmasters the ability to tell search engines about newly added pages, url changes, etc.

Google’s Webmaster blog comments, “The Sitemaps page displays details based on content-type. Now statistics from Web, Videos, Images and News are featured prominently. This lets you see how many items of each type were submitted (if any), and for some content types, we also show how many items have been indexed. With these enhancements, the new Sitemaps page replaces the Video Sitemaps Labs feature, which will be retired.

Another improvement is the ability to test a Sitemap. Unlike an actual submission, testing does not submit your Sitemap to Google as it only checks it for errors. Testing requires a live fetch by Googlebot and usually takes a few seconds to complete. Note that the initial testing is not exhaustive and may not detect all issues; for example, errors that can only be identified once the URLs are downloaded are not be caught by the test.”

To read the full article, visit Google’s Webmaster blog.

In mid-January, Google launched new, integrated search features called “Search Plus Your World.” When you do a Google search now, in addition to displaying regular search results, this new feature also searches your Google+ account to look for posts, names, etc. of people in your Circles on Google+ and displays those results with your regular results. Below is an example of a Search Plus Your World search result that displays regular results and social results from Google+ (click to enlarge).

To read more about Search Plus Your World, visit Google’s page on this service.

Le Croissant is a leading Utah catering company.  When they were looking for a Utah SEO company to expand their online presence, they didn’t have to look far.  After being referred by another local contact, Le Croissant Catering contacted SEO National.

SEO National is coincidentally, and convenient for Le Croissant Catering company, also located in Utah.  SEO National worked on creating a new website for Le Croissant Catering over the course of approximately 4 months.  After the new site launch, Le Croissant catering chose to stick with Utah SEO company, SEO National. to also increase their search engine position rankings.

“We are thrilled to continue working with local legends such as Le Croissant Catering” says SEO National President, Damon Burton.  He continues, “we knew of Le Croissant Catering for years after seeing their amazing Utah catering services at Utah corporate conventions that we have been to.  To have them referred to us is an honor and also shows our commitment to Utah web design excellence when a past client feels compelled to refer us.”

For more information about Le Croissant Catering you can visit them online at lecroissantcatering.com or they can be reached by phone at 801.466.2537.

From private-label to wholesale, Leading Lady has been a pioneer of full figure and nursing bras since 1939.   They are now expanding their own reach and have recently begun to drive sales through their own online site, leadinglady.com.  With the support of DAB Empire, the two look forward to exponential growth and a significant increase in online sales volume for Leading Lady.

As if results weren’t enough, number’s don’t lie either. As 2011 approaches an end, DAB Empire Inc, SEO National’s holding company, is on track to show a yearly average increase in gross sales of 697% since 2007, closing out 2011 with an increase of 187% since last year alone.

If you want SEO results, you need SEO National.

Your site’s load time is now a decent weight in the ability for your site to rank highly. Major search engines, like Google, acknowledge this as fact now.  Why would a search engine care how quickly your site loads?  Search engines want to provide searchers with the best and most accurate search experience.  Not only do they want to provide accurate search results, but they also want to include a pleasant experience with the sites that the search engines recommend.  Part of that experience involves getting users the results they want immediately, or as quick as possible.  Your site’s load time plays part a in that quick search experience.

If you are running a static site you should minimize the amount of html and table data that is within your site’s files.

• Avoid excessive, unnecessary pages or content

If you are using a CMS (Content Management System), there are usually a few options to increase your site load time nowaday.

• Add or enable a caching module or plugin

Caching modules for CMS’s take a “snapshot” of your site’s pages and archive them.  This allows your site to serve the already stored archive much quicker than trying to generate a new, dynamic page.  Usually, pages are pretty consistent and their content does not change regularly, other than maybe a home page.  With a caching module this allows your CMS to archive any and all pages so that it can load that previously stored “snapshot” much quicker.  To your visitor, it makes no difference at all.  Most CMS’s will also automaticaly update the cache of any page any time it detects that its content has been updated.  If your CMS does not, or you are unsure, simple ask your us and we can typically research your CMS’s setup immediately.