Some of the reasons for my increased use of WordPress are (1) the user-friendly content management, and  (2) the availability of free and easy to use plug-ins which are easy to install and allow the site administrator to add just about any kind of functionality.  WordPress is also highly customizable, with hundreds of  high-quality inexpensive or free themes available that can make your site look like a website instead of a blog site.

A third huge benefit to using WordPress is the large community of support. No matter what your issue or problem, you can most likely find a solution on one of  WordPress’s  many forums.

For me however, the primary reason I use WordPress is that it is certainly one of the best,  and with just a few tweaks to the out-of-the-box version, perhaps the very best content management system for Search Engine Optimization (SEO), available on the market.

Before I provide all my secrets, I should acknowledge that search engine optimization can be incredibly complicated. This post goes through only a few of the processes needed to achieve better search engine rankings and using my recommendations does not guarantee you will achieve better search engine results.

With that disclaimer out of the way, here are a few things you can do to increase your WordPress SEO.

1. Update Permalinks Structure

2. Add Breadcrumbs

3. Add H1 Tags

3. Add Custom Meta Tags

1.      Permalink Structure
The first and one of the most important things that need to be done is to update the permalink structure. You will find this in Settings—>Permalinks. The default is ?p=<postid>, which will give your internal pages a url that looks like this: http://yoursite.com/?p=123/. This not only looks bad, but can be detrimental to your SEO. The preferred setting for SEO is /post-name/. This will give you the following page structure: http://yoursite.com/page-name/. You can also use /category/post-name/. To use this structure you would need to add a custom structure like this: /%category%/%postname%/. If you decide to use this type of structure, you should use custom categories as well,  sinice the default is uncategorized.

2.      Bread Crumbs
Bread crumbs are links on the interior pages, usually above the main content, that look something like this home—>About. They are a valuable part of the SEO process because they make site navigation easier and tell search engines a bit more about a site’s page structure. Many themes will add bread crumbs for you, however, if it is not available with your theme there are several plug-ins you can use as well.

3.      H1 Tags
H1 tags, or header tags, are generally considered the second most important on-page SEO factor after quality content.  The H1 should be the opening tag on the page and should be relevant to both the page’s title and the page’s content. . WordPress themes handle H1 tags differently with some using the page title as the default H1 tag and page header. These can usually be turned off and the H1 tag added manually to the page itself.

4.      Meta Tags
By meta-tags I am referring to the title and description tags. There are many more tags you can use, but these are the most important for SEO. This post won’t go into detail about how to properly write meta-tags, but they are an important part of the SEO process and they should be relevant to the content on your page. In most themes the default title tag will be a combination of the site title, found in the General Settings, and the page title. In order to overwrite these default settings, the preferred method is to use one of the many good SEO plug-ins available.

My personal favorite is SEO Ultimate, which is available for free. Once you have installed this plug-in you can add the SEO settings to your page setup using ‘screen options’. This will allow you to easily add custom title and description tags for each page as you create them, as well as to add these tags to existing pages.

About the author:
David Crockenberg is the owner of DEC Web Marketing, which specialize in custom website design and search engine marketing. You can follow us on  Facebook and subscribe to David’s blog to get updates on what’s new in search engine optimization, and marketing.

A questioner asked if Google was doing anything about the situation where a “Mom & Pop” website is being outranked by less relevant but more extensively SEO’d sites.

Here is Matt’s response:

What’s interesting about your question is you went a little bit deeper, and you said, “What about all the people who are sort of optimizing really hard and doing a lot of SEO?” And normally we don’t sort of pre-announce changes, but there is something we’ve been working on in the last few months, and hopefully in the next couple months or so, in the coming weeks, we hope to release it. And the idea is basically to try to level the playing ground a little bit.

So all those people who have sort have been doing, for lack of a better word, “over-optimization,” or overly doing their SEO, compared to the people who are just making great content and trying to make a fantastic site, we want to sort of make that playing field a little more level.

And so that’s the sort of thing where we try make the GoogleBot smarter, we try to make our relevance more adaptive, so if people don’t do SEO, we handle that. And we also start to look at the people who sort of abuse it, whether they throw too many keywords on a page or whether they exchange way too many links, or whatever they’re doing to sort of go beyond what a normal person would expect in a particular area. And so that is something where we continue to pay attention, and we continue to work on it. And it is an active area where we’ve got several engineers on my team working on that.

So what is over optimization?

As far as SEO goes the old adage, if it looks like shit and smells like shit, it is probably shit. While I am sure Matt’s new algorithm will take many things into account, based on the rest of his comments, Google appears to be focusing on a few areas.

First the bad:
· Buying links
· Too many non-relevant links in content
· Too many keywords

The Good:
· To engage in social media
· Relevant content

To summarize, no SEO person can guarantee search results, but they can increase your chances. Duane Forrester of BING says an SEO expert is like a coach, someone that helps you present yourself. And we know how far a good coach can take you.

About the author:
David Crockenberg is the owner of DEC Systems LLC and DEC Web Marketing, which specialize in custom website design and search engine marketing. You can follow DEC Systems on Facebook and subscribe to David’s blog to get updates on what’s new in search engine optimization, and marketing.

Any good SEO person will tell you that your local listings in Google as well as other search engines including Yahoo and Bing are a very important factor in the search engine optimization process, especially for businesses that provide services only in a specific geographic area. The process for optimizing these listings in Google Places is similar to any basic page optimization. If  done correctly your places listing may integrate with your organic listing, replacing the standard organic listing for geographically relevant keyword searches.

Optimizing the Google Places Page

The process for optimizing your Google Places listing is similar to any basic page optimization. While certain areas are more important from a listing standpoint, it is critical to fill out all of the information. For the purpose of this article I will focus on those most relevant to organic SEO. For complete instruction on how to add your local listing click here.

There are a number of important parts to optimizing your Google places listing. From a organic standpoint, the most important facets are the business name and location,  description and the categories you select to identify your business. The latter two appear to have the greatest weight in this process as you are likely limited in what you can have for a company name. If you have relevant keywords included in the name of your business, this can be beneficial, however, I give pause to adding additional keywords to this area, unless you can do so without losing the integrity of your business name.

Like any basic page optimization, the description is key. You have 200 words to describe your business. Make sure to include relevant keyword phrases including geographic related keywords. Like your meta description tag, readability is also important and stuffing too many keywords in can be a negative.

Your categories are also of great importance. The category options are currently a bit limited and if you are looking for niche categories you may be disappointed. You can,however, add in your own categories. Google suggests adding at least one Google-suggested category before adding customizable categories. You can enter up to 5 categories for your business.

Image and Videos

Adding an image can also be beneficial, however, the benefit is primarily from an increase in click-through rates and conversions rather than ranking. It is important that the images your select accurately reflect your services.

Videos also seem to have little effect on the optimization process but like images can enhance the listing. In addition while the overall effect of videos on SEO has been greatly exaggerated recently, it is clear that Google indexes video and that the use of video can be effective as an SEO tool.

Don’t forget your main site

Like with Google Adwords quality score, linking your Google places page to a poorly optimized website will reduce its effectiveness.

Reviews

What currently appears to have the greatest effect on Google places results and thus organic optimization (besides location) is reviews. It doesn’t appear to matter whether or not those reviews are positive or negative and unlike other review sites such as Yelp, reviews on Google places seem to be far and few. Perhaps this is why their relevance seems to be such a positive on search results. So far, Plus 1 seems to be a bust, but Google is clearly looking to inject more a personal and geographic approach to its results. Optimizing Google Place pages and soliciting reviews should be considered a major part of any SEO project.

About the author:
David Crockenberg is the owner of DEC Systems, a Rhode Island web design company specializing in search engine optimization and marketing. You can follow DEC Systems on Facebook and subscribe to David’s web design blog to get updates on what’s hot (and what’s not) in search engine optimization, and marketing.

The text below assumes that you have a site that can be indexed by the search engines and that you are not involved in any black hat practices.

Content, Content, Content

You have heard the term “content is king”. When it comes to search engine optimization, this holds true. But it is not just about the amount of content, it is more about the quality of that content. By quality, we are talking about relevant keyword density. In other words your content should contain keywords and keyword phrases that are relevant to your site, and are the keywords that potential customers will use to find your site. Be careful not to over do this however, as content that is overly keyword dense can actually work against you. A general rule of thumb is to keep individual keyword densities at no more than 3% and not to use a phrase more than 6 times.

Meta-tags

Another critical element of SEO are the meta-tags. The tags for my site are below. It is crucial that these include relevant keyword terms and echo the content of the site.

<title>Website Design Rhode Island (RI) | Internet Marketing RI | Google Adwords Professionals</title>

<meta name=”description” content=”DEC Systems LLC is a Rhode Island web design company and search engine marketing specialist in RI. Google Adwords Qualified Professional. Make Your Website a Success”>

<meta name=”keywords” content=”web design, website design, rhode island, ri, seo, search engine optimization, internet marketing”>

The meta-tags include the title tag, the description tag and the keywords tag. For the purpose of search engine optimization, the first two are the most important. Google has recently gone on the record as no longer using the keywords tag.

The “Title tag” is the most important of these tags, as it is the one you see in search results as well as on the top of your browser window when you enter the site. It is generally preferred to have the business name in the title tag, but it will not hurt your rankings to not include it.

Submissions and Back Links

 These are more or less the same thing. While back links refer to any link to your site from another site, your best back links are generally going to come from search engine and directory submissions. It is no longer true that any backlink is a good link. In fact having back links from non-relevant sites may even have a negative impact on you organic rankings.

The best strategy is to add your site to the major search engines and directories, relevant sites, as well as updating your profiles in the major online yellow pages.

Major Search Engines and Directories

This is the most important part of your strategy and your submissions should not only include your free submissions to Google, Yahoo & MSN, but creating your local listings as well, assuming you have a location. In addition, the open directory http://dmoz.org, is a very nice listing if you are lucky enough to have your site accepted. Follow the directions carefully and only submit once. It took me almost a year to get into this directory, once included my Google rankings shot up. In the event this is a new site, I would advise adding your site to both the Yahoo Directory and Business.com. These both cost $299/yr. You may cancel at any time.

Relevant Sites

By relevant sites, I mean those that are advertising your products and services. For attorneys, a site like http://hg.org would be a good example. This is a highly ranked site, that allows you to create a profile, including a link to your site, for a relatively inexpensive price.

Online Yellow Pages

The online yellow pages is also a great source for high quality back links. I generally have nothing but distrust and disdain for the phone book and the online yellow pages, and don’t even have a Verizon land line, but you will find me listed in the all of the online yellow page directories.  If you do have a land line as most companies do, all you need to do is go in and claim your listing. If you don’t you may need to create an account.

While both will try to sell you outrageous marketing packages, you can usually claim your listing, update your categories and add a link to your website free or at a reasonable price.

About the author:
David Crockenberg is the owner of DEC Systems, a Rhode Island web design company specializing in search engine optimization and marketing. You can follow DEC Systems on Facebook and subscribe to David’s web design blog to get updates on what’s hot (and what’s not) in search engine optimization, and marketing.

You may have noticed the new “+1” icon showing up next to both Google organic and paid searches. It is currently available only to signed-in users of Google.com using a modern browser . Signed-in users also see personalized annotations from people in their Gmail (or Google Talk) chat list., members in their My Contacts group in Google Contacts, people they’re following in Google Reader and Google Buzz, and people with that user in one of their circles in Google+.

According to Google “the +1 button is shorthand for “this is pretty cool” or “you should check this out.” Click +1 to publicly give something your stamp of approval. Your +1′s can help friends, contacts, and others on the web find the best stuff when they search.”

It may also be used for determining a page’s or site’s relevance and ranking, and this is what makes it so exciting.

The +1 button is currently being compared to the Facebook Like button, and Facebook stooges are calling it just another failed attempt by Google to crush Facebook.
Google is characterizing +1 as a different function to Facebook’s Like, saying that recommendations are only shared within the context of relevant searches, rather than spamming all contacts. Google has always been about relevance and what is more relevant than a personalized annotation next to your page from friends, family, college buddies, etc…

In order to make Google plus-one more relevant and to avoid spam, users of Google Plus, or G+, Google’s new social media platform can categorize their connections into “circles” — such as business contacts, friends and family — and share different information with each circle, as in real life. Facebook attempted to do this with lists, but the process there is time-consuming and burdensome. Google+ circles are easier to create and use. Unlike Facebook, you don’t have to accept all “friends” into one large network and share information that at times may be irrelevant to many of them

According to Matt Cutts – the head of the Web Spam division at Google “ It’s only a matter of time before this very social tool becomes an important part of their algorithm. After all, they track, monitor, and gather all the results from those clicks. You can bet they’ll use the data.”

While it is anyone’s guess what Google’s true intention is, there is an abundance of evidence pointing to the positive influence of Google +1 on search results. I would strongly advise that anyone with an interest in the ongoing success of their website to keep a close eye on this new tool.

About the author:
David Crockenberg is the owner of DEC Systems, a Rhode Island web design company specializing in search engine optimization and marketing. You can follow DEC Systems on Facebook and subscribe to David’s web design blog to get updates on what’s hot (and what’s not) in search engine optimization, and marketing.

Either way, the question is: do you need a mobile SEO strategy or site to reach your target audience?

The answer is probably yes – and if you don’t already have a plan in place, you need to start thinking about it.

Why does every business need a mobile SEO strategy?

There has been a huge increase in mobile broadband usage and Google is responsible for 98.29% of searches conducted on mobile devices.  As a professional web designer, I know most websites aren’t designed to display well on these devices.

Most people I talk with are asking, “What exactly are people using these devices to search for?”  It’s a valid question – are they primarily lost tourists looking for a nearby restaurant or hotel, people trying to recover misplaced telephone numbers or those looking for airline and weather info? 

 That’s pretty much all I’ve used it for, and one person who agrees is Apple’s Steve Jobs. 

In April of this year, Jobs said, “On the desktop search is where it’s at; that’s where the money is. But on a mobile device search hasn’t happened. Search is not where it’s at – people are not searching on a mobile device like they do on the desktop.”

But is he correct?

Perhaps the fact that Apple and Google are not very good buddies and the fact that Google has almost completely monopolized mobile search has something to do with this.

That said, I am no Steve Jobs.  Even though I’m using my mobile device to check flight times or find phone numbers when I’m on the go, your customers and clients may be using it for more. 

Who Uses Mobile Browsers?

TechCrunch says over 60% of mobile Internet users are viewing web sites consistently.  Last year there were 20.7 million people using mobile browsers – were any of them your customers?

Reaching Mobile Searchers Effectively

My professional opinion is that you should review and optimize your Google Local listings and create a mobile site.

If your site isn’t optimized for mobile devices right now, why would a visitor stay and see what you’ve got to offer when they can easily use your competitor’s site?  Mobile sites can be created and hosted for as little as a few hundred dollars (or a small monthly fee). 

The last thing I encourage my clients to do is to try Google Click to Call ads.  They tie in with your Google AdWords account and, like AdWords, if you don’t receive any clicks you haven’t lost anything.

 It’s becoming rare to see someone without a mobile browser in their pocket – so we all need to work on our mobile SEO strategies or risk being left behind.

About the author:

David Crockenberg  is the owner of DEC Systems, a Rhode Island web design company specializing in SEO and providing site owners with the tools they need to succeed in today’s fast-paced global marketplace. You can follow DEC Systems on Facebook and subscribe to David’s web design blog to get updates on what’s hot (and what’s not) in SEO, web content and web design.

While Facebook is still relatively new (and Facebook advertising is even newer) I still think most businesses need at least a Facebook presence.

On top of that, I recommend that all my clients start a Facebook ad campaign.

Does Your Business Need a Facebook Page?

Just from a branding standpoint, it’s worth it. The fact is, you can create a custom Facebook page with minimal effort – and even if you hire a professional, it comes at a fraction of the cost of a new website.

A couple of the totally free benefits of using Facebook for business:

• Your Facebook page can virally attract new fans. When your fans “like” your custom Facebook page, it gets displayed to every one of their friends – and those friends have the chance to “like it,” too. This is so valuable when it comes to branding yourself.
• Facebook pages can provide valuable, relevant links. In a recent YouTube video, Matt Cutts discussed how Google’s PageRank determinations come more from the relevancy and reputability of incoming links than the quantity – and that links coming from Facebook are highly reputable.

Communicating with New and Existing Customers through a Custom Facebook Page

Many of my clients (in fact, I do this myself) use their Facebook page to communicate with their own customers and clients. What better place to run contests, announce specials and keep a finger on the pulse of what your customers need?

Facebook pages allow room for discussion, too. If you pose a question in a friendly, approachable way (“At our staff meeting this morning, someone mentioned how amazing our customers are – so we decided to ask how we can reciprocate. What do you like about our products and customer service? What can we improve?”)

After seeing how Facebook pages are changing the business landscape, I think they’re one of the best (and least expensive) methods of marketing… even better than massive email marketing campaigns because they allow for interaction in a traditionally one-sided marketplace.

You’re not talking at your customers, you’re talking to them.

Designing Your Own Custom Facebook Page

Designing your own business Facebook page is free and relatively easy. With some basic graphic design skills you can really make it nice. Should you decide to add customized pages you’ll need basic HTML skills and a host server for the images and any stylesheets you plan on adding.

Using the free FBML (Facebook markup language) application, you can create custom Facebook pages which can be used as a landing page for new visitors. These pages may include an unlimited amount of text to describe your services and links to your existing web page if you have one.

Facebook Ad Campaigns

Once you have a custom Facebook page, you can patiently wait and hope it catches on. I’ve been helping clients build their brands for a long time, though, and with custom Facebook pages I always recommend that they try running a few ads.

Why? They’re cheaper than Google ads and the targeting and demographics are highly refined. You choose the exact audience you want to advertise your custom Facebook page to – including:

• location
• age
• sex
• interests
• relationship status
• likes and interests
• existing connections (friends or fans of other pages and groups)

It can be difficult to figure out exactly how and when Facebook is running your ads, but after a while you’ll get the hang of it. In my experience, it’s a worthwhile expense for most businesses.

Custom Facebook Pages in Conjunction with Facebook Ads

The fastest growing demographic worldwide is among people 35 years and older. Facebook started for college kids, and now it’s hard to find someone who isn’t using it. That means regardless of who your customers are, you can find them on Facebook.

About the author:
David Crockenberg is the owner of DEC Systems, a Rhode Island web design company specializing in custom Facebook pages, SEO and more. You can follow DEC Systems on Facebook and subscribe to David’s web design blog to get updates on what’s hot (and what’s not) in SEO, web content and web design.

With SEO “experts” all over the Internet trying to attract business, it’s now popular belief that web content isn’t important when compared to meta tags and other built-in features of web design. In the past, site owners lived by the saying ‘content is king.’

Good Web design and well written meta-tags are vital, but they work best combined with search engine optimized (SEO) web content.

Meta tags in web design

Search engines do recognize meta tags built into your web design; however, each search engine has different standards. Matt Cutts, head of Google’s Webspam Team, says, “Google doesn’t use the ‘keywords’ meta tag in our web search ranking.”

That doesn’t mean keyword meta tags are irrelevant in your web design (other search engines, like Yahoo! and BING are likely to use them), and Google does use other meta tags to define your site. What it does mean is that search engine giant Google is also looking  for other things, including keywords, in your web content.

Pleasing the search engines

SEO web content is what allows Google (and other search engines) to determine whether your site is worth giving to visitors. Choosing effective SEO keywords for your web content and integrating SEO web design techniques is what brings visitors – and turns them into buyers.

SEO web design + web content

Web design combined with solid SEO web content is not only crucial from a rankings standpoint. Web content is a major  factor in whether or not you convert visitors to clients or customers.

When people arrive at your site, they’re looking for valuable information that makes sense. You can have the most attractive web design and layout on the Internet, but visitors are less likely to purchase your products or services without web content to inspire them.

Your SEO web content should cover all the bases:

• Attract search engines
• Engage readers
• Encourage them to become clients or customers

Combining progressive web design techniques and SEO web content is where it’s at – don’t let people claiming to be SEO “experts” tell you otherwise.

About the author:

David Crockenberg  is the owner of DEC Systems, a Rhode Island web design company specializing in SEO and providing site owners with the tools they need to succeed in today’s fast-paced global marketplace. You can follow DEC Systems on Facebook and subscribe to David’s web design blog to get updates on what’s hot (and what’s not) in SEO, web content and web design.