Texas SEO Company Blog

If you’re a Texan, then you know that this is ultra friggin’ cool.

Disclaimer: No, I am not a Texan, though I do live in Texas. I was not born here, nor do I have all of the prerequisites to be a Texan. However, I am in training (I have a friend teaching me the basics. Stuff like Chili never has beans and the whole High School football thing…).

In a couple of years I think I get to take some sort of state exam.

Wonder if I’ll get a badge???

I was thinking earlier today about investment. Not of money, but of time.

I started a routine of walking every day, not too long ago. When I started I was convinced that I did not have the time in my busy schedule to dedicate to walking each day.

That is, until I read a little blurb somewhere discussing exercise, and the time investment you are making. About how you are putting time in and getting more out of it. ROI if you will.

With the walking, what I found is that, in a very short time, I did in fact gain something for my invested time. I gained more energy and an overall, better sense of well being. I can actually get more done in the day, even though I have added yet another hour to my hectic schedule each day. So I have to get up an hour earlier each morning to get the walking done. I have to ‘make’ myself invest the time.

But I like what I’m getting, so I want to keep investing the time.

How does this apply to SEO you might ask? It’s simple, it’s all about the time investment. Lot’s of companies feel that investing any time in their website’s SEO is wasted, or that they just don’t have the time to dedicate to it.

But they do. If they knew what the return of investment for a very small amount of time could be, they would put that hour in each day. Because at the end of the year, they have invested into something that, if done right, could pay off much bigger. Giving them a whopping ROI on that time they put in.

So invest the time. Gain a great return. SEO can be done in very small pieces. In fact, it’s better if it’s done this way. And the return can be phenomenal.

Google Receives 68 Percent of U.S. Searches in May 2008

Search leader continues record growth - up 5 percent year-over-year;

Google accounted for 87 percent of searches in UK

NEW YORK, NY – June 10, 2008 – Google accounted for 68.29 percent of all U.S. searches in the four weeks ending May 31, 2008, Hitwise announced today. Yahoo! Search, MSN Search and Ask.com each received 19.95, 5.89 and 4.23 percent respectively. The remaining 41 search engines in the Hitwise Search Engine Analysis Tool accounted for 1.63 percent of U.S. searches.

Percentage of U.S. Searches Among Leading Search Engine Providers
Domain May-08 Apr-08 May-07
www.google.com 68.29% 67.90% 65.13%
search.yahoo.com 19.95% 20.28% 20.89%
search.msn.com 5.89% * 6.26% * 7.61% *
www.ask.com 4.23% 4.17% 3.92%

Note: Data is based on four week rolling periods (ending 5/31/ 2007, 4/26/08, 5/26/2007 from the Hitwise sample of 10 million U.S. Internet users. * - includes executed searches on Live.com and MSN Search but does not include searches on Club.Live.com.

Source Hitwise

In the U.K. market, Google search properties (Google.co.uk and Google.com) accounted for 87 percent of all UK searches in May 2008 representing a 12 percent increase compared to May 2007. Yahoo! search properties accounted for 4.09 percent of UK searches in May 2008, a 2 percent increase compared to April 2008. MSN search properties accounted for 3.72 percent and Ask search properties accounted for 3.07 percent of searches. MSN increased two percent compared to April 2008 and Ask increased 6 percent.

Percentage of U.K. Searches Among Leading Search Engine Providers
Domain May-08 Apr.-08 May-07
Google Properties 87.30% 87.69% 78.28%
Yahoo! Properties 4.09% 4.01% 8.58%
Microsoft Properties 3.72% 3.65% 5.46%
Ask Properties 3.07% 2.89% 4.96%

Note: Data is based on UK Internet usage over the four week rolling periods (ending 5/31/ 2007, 4/26/08, 5/26/2007) from the Hitwise sample of 8.4 million UK Internet users. Note that the percentages for the search properties include the .uk and .com domains.

Source: Hitwise UK

Google an Increasing Source of Traffic to Key U.S. Industries
Search engines continue to be the primary way Internet users navigate to key industry categories. Comparing May 2008 to May 2007, the Travel, News and Media, Entertainment, Business and Finance, Sports, Online Video and Social Networking categories showed double digit increases in their share of traffic coming directly from search engines.

U.S. Category Upstream Traffic from Search Engines and Google - May 2008
Category Percent of Category Traffic from Search Engines, May-08 Percentage Change in Share of Traffic From, Search Engines, May-08 - May-07 Percent of Category Traffic from Google, May-08 Percent Change in Share of Traffic From Google, May-08 - May-07
Health and Medical 45.76% 3% 30.86% 5%
Travel 34.81% 11% 24.26% 21%
Shopping and Classifieds 25.48% 2% 16.84% 8%
News and Media 21.70% 7% 14.53% 10%
Entertainment 24.33% 17% 15.76% 22%
Business and Finance 18.15% 14% 11.73% 22%
Sports 13.09% 17% 8.81% 24%
Online Video* 29.94% 37% 20.78% 52%
Social Networking* 16.50% 18% 9.98% 21%

All figures are based on U.S. data from the Hitwise sample of 10 million Internet users.
* denotes custom category

Source: Hitwise

About Hitwise
Hitwise is the leading online competitive intelligence service. Only Hitwise provides its 1,400 clients around the world with daily insights on how their customers interact with a broad range of competitive websites, and how their competitors use different tactics to attract online customers.

Since 1997, Hitwise has pioneered a unique, network-based approach to Internet measurement. Through relationships with ISPs around the world, Hitwise’s patented methodology anonymously captures the online usage, search and conversion behavior of 25 million Internet users. This unprecedented volume of Internet usage data is seamlessly integrated into an easy to use, web-based service, designed to help marketers better plan, implement and report on a range of online marketing programs.

Hitwise, a subsidiary of Experian (FTS: EXPN) www.experiangroup.com operates in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore. More information about Hitwise is available at www.hitwise.com.

For up to date analysis of online trends, please visit the Hitwise Intelligence-Analyst Weblogs at http://weblogs.hitwise.com and the Hitwise Data Center at www.hitwise.com/datacenter. For up to date analysis of online trends, please visit the Hitwise Intelligence-Analyst Weblogs at http://weblogs.hitwise.com and the Hitwise Data Center at www.hitwise.com/datacenter.

One question I get from new clients sometimes is whether they should focus on SEO or PPC?

My answer is usually, “yes”.

The reason is that both are important for a website’s success. Or failure if you opt to use neither when developing your web business.

PPC (pay per click) marketing is where you pay for your ad to be placed on the front page of the search engine result pages (SERP). It’s fast and effective. You can see results from good PPC ad placement almost immediately.

SEO on the other hand takes time. It can take up to a year for your site to rank. If you don’t work on your SEO, it might never rank at all. But organic listings have a much higher click through ratio. Surveys have shown that people trust organic results more than paid PPC ads. Because they feel that the listings are more ‘natural’. That is, they are aware that anybody with a budget can get those paid listings and trust the algorithms to give them a better option for whatever it is they are searching for.

Used in combination, SEO and PPC can be super powerful for any website. If you are working on your traffic, I suggest you ad both to your site development budget. Your overall sales will be much higher.

What’s the difference between page one results and page two results when it comes to a new business?

I was asked this today by a new client. My answer was, “possibly shutting down your site before Christmas”….

Now that’s a bit harsh, because other traffic sources can be gained of course. There are a million other ways to become a successful website without ever breaching the glory that is the front page of Google.

But it’s still not the success that good SEO can bring.

With solid SEO you can achieve success for your business and hit your traffic goals with a much smaller budget. With listings that are free. Organic listings for your terms. The products and services matched with people that want and need them.

Don’t miss the boat when it comes to organic traffic. It’s the Holy Grail of traffic sources. Not a secondary option to consider after your advertising budget has been depleted and you are reaching a point of despair looking for potential buyers.

Nope, work on your SEO from the start. You’ll be glad you did, and your bottom line will thank you!

In years past, it was a good idea to get as many link trades as possible in order to perform well in the search engine result pages. But just like many old ideas, this is one that has passed it’s prime. Yet I still receive a request for a link trade on one or more of my websites almost every single day.

In fact, when you do a quick search on ‘link page’ you get millions of sites that are employing this tactic. But I’m here to tell you, it’s a dead method.

Today you need to work on inbound links. Not only to your front page, but internal pages in your website. And not just any links. Work on RELEVANT links. By relevant, I mean websites that are in your industry or one very similar. For example, if you have a construction company website, you want to try and get links from trusted construction type websites. Organizations, labor unions, and construction or contractor directories.

Not links that require you to link back either. You want these links to be one way, inbound links if at all possible.

Now how can you work this out for the sites that require you to put a link back to their site?

One way is to have more than one website. For example, many companies have their blog on another domain than their main site. If mapped correctly, you could give links out on the blog and get links back to the main site. In effect completing a link circuit, but if careful, never having a two way link connection.

Make sense?

Think think think when it comes to your linking structure. Your inbound link strategy is super important in your overall SEO efforts. It will be the difference between good placement and being buried.

Looking to increase your business?

Have you considered your local search options?

More and more users are opting for local search options rather than national or worldwide search results. It’s clear. Users prefer to work with firms that are local rather than halfway around the globe.

Even more, if you have a bricks and mortar business this can bring more customers right to your physical location. In years gone by, it was the yellow pages that brought them in. Today it’s a quick local search that does the trick.

Make sure you optimize your search listings for local search. It’s not just a matter of getting into local search. It’s knowing what to put there so that your company is the top result for your market. It doesn’t do a lot of good for your company to be listed in local search if no one actually sees it.

Here at Texas SEO, we offer local search submission to the 3 majors, Google, Yahoo, and MSN for only $199.

If you are interested in getting your company listed in local search, call us today: (956) 622-4965

Till next time…

So it’s raining cats and dogs here in south Texas…

McAllen is being bombarded by summer rain storms and I’m stuck here in the house. Working on some client SEO this morning. So I started thinking about rainy day SEO.

What is rainy day SEO? It’s the SEO work you do on your website, whenever you get a chance that is.

But does rainy day SEO help your overall search optimization? Or is it just a feeble excuse to say that you did some work today on your website?

One of the problems with infrequent attention to your overall site optimization is that you rarely see good results. Rainy day SEO might include sending out a few emails asking for some links, or adding a bit of content to your blog, or changing some of the content within your site.

But without looking at how this effects your positioning, good or bad, you may be not be having much of an impact. You may actually lose ground, rather than gain it. But if you’re only working on your SEO intermittently, you probably won’t see where you’re at and how your efforts have changed your placement for a while.

SEO takes commitment. More specifically, it takes a commitment of time and effort. If you don’t have the time to commit to your website and making it better, commit a budget to the process and hire a professional to help you get to where you want to go.

The internet is the great equalizer and your site can compete with the big boys. All it takes is ongoing effort and some knowledge. If you don’t have either, get it. Or hire someone that can get the job done for you.

Don’t just wait for a rainy Sunday. More often than not, the sun is shining here in McAllen, Texas.

Get a lot of spam? Me too. Sucks, huh?

One of the spammy emails I get a lot from different wannabe SEO companies is the one offering number one placement in Google, or Yahoo, or blah blah blah…

Heck, they gaaaurannntteee it. Just like the guy that paints cars on T.V.

Does this really work? Are businesses so desperate for good SEO that they result to using a company that spams their inbox?

Think about it for a second folks. If they were such a successful SEO company, would they really need to spam their services to you? Probably not. They would have really great placement in the search engines and have clients falling out of their pockets.

Nope, the reason why they are spamming you is…. You guessed it…. They suck at SEO. They can’t get the listings in those same search engines they are promising you for the terms they need.

So how is it they guarantee you top ten placement in the engines? If they can’t get the terms they need and have to result to spamming to drum up clients.

Easy. They promise top ten, or even number one sometimes, but they never promised you it was for a term you wanted or needed. Yup, you spend some dough, and a few months later you’re the proud listing in google for a term that doesn’t exist. Or that does not apply to your industry or your potential customer base.

It’s worthless to you.

Except for braggin’ rights with your buddies.

Yup, you can tell them that you’re number one in Google alright.

Just don’t tell them it’s for the term “donut oil”……

In an SEO world full of new tips and tricks, one thing I’ve seen over the years is this.

The basics rule. Write good code for your site first. Work on the actual code of your site from the very beginning. No matter what you hear or read, clean code DOES matter. It’s the very foundation of your online business. It’s your website.

I’m not alone in this. Here’s an excerpt from Search Engine Optimization Journal:

> Clean HTML Code is a Big Factor – Websites constructed with clean code load more quickly for site visitors, are easier for search engines to index, and are much less likely to result in loading errors which turn off visitors and search engines alike.

Not to blow my own horn, but I’ve been doing this for a long time. Over 13 years now. I’ve seen many search optimization fads and tricks come and go. Software that supposedly simplifies SEO and ‘magically’ gets you top listings.

Nope folks. It’s not true. The basics have, and always will, rule.

If you build clean websites and do all of the other basic things consistently, your website will float to the top like cream.

Yes, there are many other factors in search optimization. But start with clean code. If you have a junky website, you’ll get junky results.

Start from the very beginning with quality. Keep going with quality. Obtain quality inbound links, write quality sales text… etc.

Quality, quality, quality…. Embed that word in your mind and your SEO will go the distance.