Matthew Rubin Marketing Services

How do you know if your Savannah SEO Agency’s links are worthwhile?

client — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 18:59:00 +0000

If you are a business owner that recently hired a Savannah SEO agency or an SEO agency in any major city for that matter, you might be wondering how to quantify SEO work. Every business owner knows that SEO is a type of online marketing that they simply cannot afford to ignore, but SEO can appear complicated when a business owner starts searching for an SEO agency or consultant. Everyone has a pitch and Google’s search engine is proprietary so how can you know who is right and who is wrong?

In terms of web design and development there is no shortage of bad ideas and certainly I could write a 5000 word article that discusses the sleazy things SEOs are doing in website footers or using excessive keyword text links to connect first tier pages, but for the purposes of this article I am going to focus on how to evaluate the links created by your Savannah SEO company.

A link is either a follow me link or a no follow link. A follow me link is a link that can take both a human website visitor and a Search Engine bot like Google to another website. A no follow link is a link that a human website visitor can follow to another website, but a Search Engine bot is instructed not to follow that link because of an attribute in the link which is rel=”nofollow”. This attribute was created in 2005 by Google as a way to stop SEOs from doing comment spam on blogs. Google Spokesman Matt Cutts is fond of saying that only a very small percentage of links on the web are no follow, however, what he fails to point out is that most of the popular websites in the World (such as Wikipedia or Twitter) now use this attribute on every link that appears on their site. This attribute has changed the web forever. Why is this important to you? If you hire a Savannah SEO agency and most of their web marketing results in no follow links to your website then you have wasted a lot of money.

If your Savannah SEO firm has set up Google webmasters tools you can navigate to “Traffic” and then “Links to your site”. This will show you exactly what your SEO Agency has accomplished. If your SEO conducted an audit of your website, corrected everything that was wrong with it, starting developing your site with new content, they were out there marketing your business website, and getting quality follow me links the fruits of their labor should be reflected in your Google webmasters tools and analytics data. Their theories and sales pitch does not make you money, but driving quality traffic to your website from organic search on Google will make you money. Your SEO company has proprietary secrets and you do not need to understand everything they are doing, however, it is critical that you can quantify the work performed and the effect it has on finding new customers for your business.

Mobile Responsive Design is important in Savannah SEO campaigns

client — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 18:49:06 +0000

Have you ever been on your phone or tablet and tried to go to a website, only to find out that the website that you are on is not compatible with the device that you are using? This is because the website that you are on has not been fitted to be “mobile friendly.” If you’re a business owner, you should consider whether or not your website is mobile friendly. The average web visitor gives you 7 seconds and if your site is not easy to use they are going to hit the back button and leave. No one has any patience in 2012 for a website that is extremely difficult to use on a mobile device.

There are two ways to provide your customer a mobile friendly website: A Mobile Responsive Design on your site or a Mobile version of your site.

A mobile responsive design (such as this site) allows for the automatic adaptation of your site to different screen sizes. This means that you’ll notice a bit of a difference in layout when you go back and forth between the screen on a laptop or desktop vs. the screen size on a tablet or smart phone. If your site is not responsive than you would need to redesign your site to make it mobile responsive.

Mobile versions of your site are quite popular right now, mainly because this approach is easy to implement, takes less time to do and is much less expensive than redesigning to a responsive design. This mobile version will be a simple template installed on a subdomain created just for mobile browsers. When a potential customer uses their phone to view your site, they are redirected to the alternate mobile version of your website. If you already have a website up and running, you may find it too expensive to completely redesign your site for the responsive design, and creating the mobile version might be your best option.

Technology is always advancing, and businesses must choose to advance with it or be left in the dust. With that in mind it is very important to your bottom line that you make sure your website is compatible with mobile devices. When you choose Matthew Rubin Marketing Services to work with you on your Savannah SEO campaign, you’ll get deep discounts on the critical mobile design solutions your business needs along with your SEO package. More and more business owners are turning to experienced professionals like Matthew Rubin when they need help with SEO in Savannah GA. With Matthew Rubin Marketing Services, you will find that your business gains a substantial amount of online exposure and traffic as a result of our industry leading SEO research & development.

The New Google Disavow Links Tool is a Game Changer for Savannah SEO

client — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 18:16:35 +0000

As of the month of October 2012, Google’s new disavow link’s tool is live in your Google Webmasters Tools account, and has been met with its fair share of praise. The main goal of the tool is to remove toxic links that link to your website that you’re not able to remove on your own. For those who may not know, links are one of the most important signals that Google relies on to help put their search results in order. Essentially Google looks at the sites that endorse your site with a link and decides how reliable your site is based on this. If your site is being talked about and endorsed by sleazy and unsavory websites Google might suspect that your business website is also sleazy and unsavory.

If you’ve received a message from Google via your Webmaster Tools account concerning unnatural links, it is likely because of the inexpensive link building solutions that you’ve tried in the past and now those links still point to your site. Some fly by night SEO companies instead of doing any work for you choose to outsource subpar link builders overseas who end up providing links from toxic websites that harm your business’s reputation on Google. If you’re one of these companies suffering from toxic links to your site then Google’s disavow tool is great news as it provides expert Savannah SEO companies the opportunity to clean up the mess for you. One thing is for certain, and that is that if you’ve ever been caught up in linkspam, it’s no fun.

According to the blog post that Google posted soon after the launch of their new disavow tool, the feature is best used after trying to manually remove the links yourself, or with the help of a highly recommended Savannah SEO company. Google will be able to see that you’ve taken a proactive step in getting rid of those spammy toxic links that are keeping you from connecting with your prospective customers searching for your product or service on Google.

Maintaining your website’s reputation is crucial, so make sure that you take action to correct any problems Google may have with your site and the links that point to your site.

Google shifts the focus of their organic search engine algorithm and the World-wide web takes notice.

admin — Thu, 28 Jun 2012 17:09:07 +0000

Evolution of the Blog and it’s influence on SEO

One of the most common websites found in the World-wide web is a blog. Blogs were first invented to serve as an online diary for an individual, but instead of being private thoughts they are published on the web for all to see. The blog became an important medium and eventually blogs evolved into massive collections of articles about all kinds of specific topics. Since Google’s inception their search engine has relied heavily on blogs for specific information related to a niche topic. If a blog article endorses a company’s website by linking to them within an article that is very relevant to that company’s product or service this was a link that Google took very seriously. If a company that sells hardware links to a company that sells paint on a links page also known as back page (back link) on their site that would provide the paint company with a very good and loosely related link.

Google’s Panda 3.5 Algorithm Update in April 2012

The Panda 3.5 algorithm update in April 2012 changed this hierarchy of the web. Google engineers felt these types of links were not as reliable as they once believed. These links had evolved into a source of manipulation for the Google search engine. Since most of the web is in fact connected through back links and blog articles they certainly could not ignore these links otherwise what would Googlebot crawl? However, they did delude the value of these links which has put many SEO agencies and SEO consultants out of business. Getting links from relevant businesses and articles is still extremely important, but what is different is that it is a smaller piece of the algorithm pie.

Link Popularity and Overall Link Profile

I would recommend that you revisit your linking strategy to ensure that you are not a one trick pony. Are all of the major social media sites linking to you? Is there social buzz about your brand across the web? What percent of your website’s link portfolio are social media sites or social news sites? Are you promoting your brand across the web or just one webpage on your site?

Strategic Web Development

I would also recommend that you revisit your onsite strategy to ensure that you are not over-optimizing your website for certain keywords. Is your website properly developed? Can Google crawl the site without reporting tons of errors in Google webmasters tools? Is every other word in your body content a text link? Is your footer full of exact match keyword text links? That’s not what a website’s footer was designed to do. Are you repeating your keywords over and over again on your page title tags like a laundry list? If this describes your current SEO strategy then you might want to update your strategy to the latest Google algorithm. I can help with your Atlanta SEO or Savannah SEO strategy. You can reach me at (912) 398-1900.

What are Unnatural Links? Improving your Website will always be within Google Webmaster Guidelines.

admin — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 21:58:54 +0000

Google recently announced some big changes. You can look up the 50 so called changes announced by Google on April 3rd 2012 that is written in their typical secretive language, but I’ll be happy to share my insights on it with you right now. The short version of the story is that Google has devalued many websites across the entire web. Every website has a Google page rank score in a range of 0 to 10 for each page of the site. The Google page rank score is a measurement of that page’s link popularity. Hyperlinks are what make up the web and Google has always relied on link popularity as the primary factor in determining the value of a page for a user’s search query. If many of the websites that link to your website are losing their page rank score this will, of course, affect your website’s rankings on Google. If your website’s link equity is devalued then at least to some degree your website is devalued. Google has often written about Paid Links. Google says that some paid links like advertisements are alright such as a listing on a yellow pages website, but other types of paid links are a violation of Google webmaster guidelines. Now Google uses the term “Unnatural Links” which is very difficult to define since that does not just refer to paid links. I can’t think of anything more natural than a business owner wanting to promote their own website! So the question is this, when does Savannah SEO, Atlanta SEO, Charleston SEO, Hilton Head SEO, Charlotte SEO, or Orlando SEO become toxic and unnatural? If a website is exactly the same today as it was 5 years ago and all of the sudden it gains enormous link popularity in one Month that could look very Unnatural to Google. If you add to this scenario that all of the links are coming from websites with the same C Class IP address and the links describe the website exactly the same way that might be the definition of unnatural links. Great SEO starts with great web development! If you have not added any new content to your website in many years or made any effort to improve it for your customers then that would be the first step. Improve your website for Google and your customers with strategic web development and content development. Once your website is razor sharp the gradual increase in link popularity will definitely seem both natural and logical to Google. After all, you don’t want to be #1 on Google Today, you want to be #1 on Google for the long term so you can connect with more of your prospective customers and lower your cost of new customer acquisition.

Did you get your Google SEO Handbook?

admin — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 21:28:14 +0000

Unfortunately Google doesn’t publish an SEO Handbook that tells you how to properly develop your website. As a result of this there are thousands of opinions and strategies out there to get your site ranked #1 on Google. Some of those opinions and strategies create enormous wealth for both enterpise level corporations and successful small businesses such as a law firm or a plastic surgeon and some of those opinions and strategies are being written about on the Better Business Bureau right now. You need to carefully evaluate your prospective SEO Consultant. What makes that person qualified to develop your website for superior SEO performance and what are they going to do to connect you with your prospective customers. If you decide to hire an SEO Consultant then hire them and let them do what they need to do to make your website a success. Just give them access to your site and don’t second guess everything they tell you because they are either going to be successful or not. Trying to control and manage something you don’t really understand is not going to help your SEO campaign. You need to quantify the work that your SEO Consultant is doing, but at the same time you need to recognize that your SEO Consultant does not want to share his or her trade secrets with you. There are some crooks in the SEO business for sure, but there are also many talented and honest SEO Consultants that I’ve met over the years. The best way to start a great relationship with your SEO Consultant is talk about the specifics of the project and your goals. Transparency and great communication are essential for a successful SEO campaign.

Lowering the cost of new customer acquisition in 2012 with SEO.

admin — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 16:29:51 +0000

That’s a new year’s resolution that many business owners ought to make in 2012. All of us business owners need new customers. It doesn’t matter if you are a DUI Attorney, a Fertility Doctor, or someone selling designer handbags out of your home. You need to retain your customers and find new customers. If you can’t do that you go out of business, it’s that simple. What is less simple is how to control your cost of new customer acquisition. If you don’t know your cost of new customer acquisition I suggest you figure it out because it may surprise you and not in a good way. If your customers use Google to find your product or service then you might want to consider investing in a professionally designed website. If you already have a professionally designed website and your customers are searching Google trying to find your product or service then you might want to connect with them using Search Engine Optimization. Search Engine Optimization also known as SEO will move your website up in the organic search results to the #1 position. Customers searching Google for your product or service will notice your website and they will visit your website. At this point having a professionally designed website becomes very important. You need to convert that prospective customer into an actual customer. This part of the equation has nothing to do with Savannah SEO, Atlanta SEO, Charleston SEO, Orlando SEO, or Charlotte SEO, but rather it’s all about marketing from this point on. Your website has to have a strong brand presence, a strong value proposition, and the prospective customer needs to be able to find exactly what they are looking for on your site. These are the driving factors for converting web visitors into customers. It takes about 3 to 4 Months to achieve great results with an SEO campaign, but the fact that the cost of SEO goes down over time thus lowering your cost of new customer acquisition is not something that should be taken lightly. You need to take control of your cost of new customer acquisition for the long term and Search Engine Optimization is the best way to accomplish that.

Pubcon Search Engine Conference in Las Vegas was a lot of fun, but Google’s Freshness Algorithm puts us SEOs back to work.

admin — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 18:02:09 +0000

I had a great time in Las Vegas at the Pubcon Search Engine conference! Now it’s time to go to work and to make sure my new clients have websites that are a great fit for this new and challenging Freshness Algorithm. If you are a business owner in Savannah, GA then Google’s Freshness Algorithm might not neccessarily turn your World upside down, but for business owners doing Atlanta SEO Google’s Freshness Algorithm will likely change the way you develop and promote your website! If you are using a web platform that makes it difficult to add new pages and content to your website then you will find it impossible to rank well on Google. You can buy all of the links from SEO Companies that your marketing budget will allow, but you still are not going to rank for your keywords. You need to be creating pages and content for your website in addition to having superior link popularity. That’s how you are going to get in front of your competitors on Google. Developing pages, content, and links for your website has always been the best Atlanta SEO practices, but now it is the elephant in the room and you will not be able to ignore it any longer. If you don’t change the way you are marketing your website you will literally lose thousands of dollars in lost sales because no one in Atlanta will be able to find your website when they search for your product or service. It’s that simple. Now I would not neccessarily look at Google’s Freshness Algorithm as a terrible thing because with every change there is a huge opportunity to take your Atlanta SEO to the next level and outperform your struggling competitors! I just spent a Week in Las Vegas comparing notes with some of the smartest SEO Consultants from all over the World and I would be very interested to share my ideas with you regarding your website’s search engine optimization.

Tumblr .com a is a great gift to all Atlanta SEO, Savannah SEO, and Charleston SEO Consultants.

admin — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 19:55:53 +0000

If you are doing Search Engine Optimization (SEO) in Atlanta, GA, Savannah, GA, or Charleston, SC and you’re not building links to your website from Google Plus, Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr .com then what are you doing? I mean why not build links to your site or your client’s site from the most important and link friendly websites on the internet? My name is Matthew Rubin and I have been an SEO Consultant for many years. The key to successful SEO is being a step ahead of your competitors and that’s really what I love about my job. What can be a little discouraging about my industry is that I literally get about 25 emails a week trying to sell me SEO and I’m an SEO Consultant! I think it makes the SEO industry look like a bunch of scam artists. All the fly by night companies calling from foreign countries wanting to sell you SEO and charge your credit card. The reason you see so much solicitation for SEO services is that when SEO is done by a reputable Consultant or Company it can make a big impact in your company’s revenue. A 40% to 60% increase in a company’s revenue is common after 3 to 4 months of SEO, of course, it depends on the Search volume on Google, demand for the product or service, and how competitive is the price of the product or service. The point is that professional can make a big impact. I would recommend working with a fee per hour SEO Consultant like myself. There are some very high caliber and respectable SEO Companies out there, but what drives me crazy is how folks often go for the sleazy, fly by night, scam artist companies that charge like $150 a month for a SEO “package”. SEO is hard work. It takes smart folks to understand how to create page rank 7 one-way links with your target keyword in anchor text on those high page rank pages all across Tumblr .com. Tumblr .com is a powerful ally in Atlanta SEO, Savannah SEO, and Charleston SEO, but you can’t expect that someone is doing that kind of work for you at a price of $150 a month! The truth is that almost nothing at all is being done for you at $150 a month. That’s why I think the fee per hour business model is the most fair, cost-effective, strategic, and powerful SEO campaign. Pay Per Performance? Now that’s a joke! Anybody that knows a little something about Google or SEO can understand that no one works for free. Automated linking fooled Google years ago, but that certainly doesn’t work on Panda 2.5. I don’t want to get sued here so I’m not going to mention their name, but a certain company (the name starts with “Rank”) says I can be top ranked 1-3 on Google for the keyword “SEO Consultant” for $196 a month. Only the dumbest SEO Consultant in the World would fall for that scam. Of course, there is a big upfront fee and then I do need to pay a monthly fee once I’m on the 4th page of search results for each Search Engine. I can’t tell you how many people I know that have fallen for that Company and many other pay per performance companies just like it. The truth is that it takes a lot of labor not just strategy or flipping a switch to get on top of the search results on Google. You don’t have to spend a fortune to make some smart SEO savvy decisions regarding your website. I can help you improve your website for both Google and your customers. That’s what professional SEO is all about, doing the right things for your website and consistently improving it month after month. Although creating a lot of authoritative links on a site like Tumblr .com can certainly help in that effort.

Leveraging Google Plus for Savannah SEO, Atlanta SEO, and Charleston SEO.

admin — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 19:39:34 +0000

Any given topic or search query is going to have millions of webpages with content that contains those keywords. If you are a business owner that does for example roofing in Savannah, GA, or Atlanta, GA, or Charleston, SC then having a ten year old website that talks about your roofing service in 300 or so words per page is not going to differentiate your website from all of the others. There are no short cuts when doing great Search Engine Optimization. You need to create pages on your website that illustrate that you are an authority for your product or service. This content needs to be unique and it needs to be helpful and insightful. It also needs to be credible. You need websites to write about your website and link to your website. A great place to start is Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus. Don’t have a Google Plus profile yet? You should create a Google Plus profile! It is also very easy to copy and paste the Google Plus code on your website so that your web visitors can click the Google Plus button on your website. That is how you can leverage the popularity of Google Plus to make your website more popular and more credible. Yes, there is a lot more to effective Savannah SEO, Atlanta SEO, or Charleston SEO, but Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus are a great place to start. The next step would be to contact an expert SEO Consultant like me that can work on a per hour basis. SEO on a fee per hour basis is by far the most cost effective type of SEO engagement.