Search Engine Roundtable
July 18, 2008

A Google Groups thread has discussion on the topic of dynamically creating pages to target localized searches. For example, this particular webmaster wants to be able to target 28 different zip codes for his client’s A/C business. He summarizes what he wants to do:

Johns A/C does work in 28 different zip codes. He creates 28 webspages, page names reflect the township AC_service_City_zip.htm, meta tags reflect city, zip such as Johns AC serivce serving the “City” and “zip code” area. Then the body is a template and the city and zip are filled in for each city/zip area.

This way when someone does a search for AC service “zipcode” or “city” there is a good chance his page will be included.

This was a popular SEO tactic years and years ago. These days, it is much harder to rank well for terms using the automated city database methodology. We actually covered some of the databases you can purchase to accomplish this back in 2005. But is this legit?

According to Google, no it is not. In fact, Googler, Reid, said that the manner in which this webmaster wants to go, seems to be a “doorway page.” Reid said:

I agree with webado in this scenario. If the body of these pages is a template and the only thing that changes is the city and zip code, this sounds a lot like doorway pages:

google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=66355

Why push the limit on how much duplicate content a page can have? Pages with unique content often perform the best in Google’s search results, are better for users, which in turn, is probably better for your business. Interesting old article.

Props

Plumbing SEO is not that difficult. Plumbers SEO is relatively untouched around the country and you can easily get your site to the top with a little guidance. I’m sure you’ve had all of these calls from marketers claiming they can get your plumbing site to the top and when you let them in to do some work, they FAIL! I say this with all seriousness, I GUARANTEE that I will get your site to the top within a few months! The best part of it is that you can add content to your site YOURSELF that will catapult your site to the top. The HVAC industry in Chicago is so saturated right now and with little effort I have gotten Around The Town Heating and Cooling (I did not design this site) to the top for several keywords such as Chicago Furnace Repair and the owner of the site is continuing to keep his site there by adding content himself on a regular basis. This is not rocket science folks, but most SEO companies and other people will lead you to believe it is. There is a process to SEO and it can be hampered by putting too much thought into simply purchasing something as simple and as necessary as a Yahoo link directory! There is no explanation needed, just pay the $299 and you will be helping your business out.

Another thing that needs to be mentioned is that if you are a company and hire someone to do your SEO in house who has proven himself by placing your competition in the organic positions you want to be in, let him or her move forward with little or no restrictions! Give him or her ftp access, as you would give an SEO company you outsource to, so they can get things done, lol, putting up your blog doesn’t need that much thought and it should only take a day or less to get it up and running. I’d rather put up 30 blogs in one day than wait for a “brilliant” idea on what the blog is going to be about (Once again, this is not rocket science). Bottom line, the more corporate you are with your SEO strategies, the worse off you’ll be. You need to pollute the internet in every way possible. We all heard the expression, “If you throw enough “stuff” against the wall, some of it is going to stick! Well the same holds true for SEO. If you pussy foot around, you will not have enough “stuff” to throw against the wall and less is going to stick leaving your business far behind your competition. If you like what you see here, give me a call  and we’ll talk about getting your plumbing business or any type of business to the top in terms you’ll actually understand, instead of all the fluff!

John Schuster is launching a brand new web development company specializing in search engine optimization and web design for businesses and organizations.

Chicago Web Design

Hey everyone, Chicago SEO here with a few tips on how to use Facebook to gain some links and business.

• Add everyone you know on Facebook.

• Make sure to put a photo of yourself on your profile, dont put any pictures of yourself doing a keg stand or anything criminal, duh.

• Look for 8 or so groups  to join that are relevant to your business, make sure whatever groups you choose have 40 plus members.

• Add relevant content to the group.   Talk to other members of the group.   Make sure to answer any questions you can, be real.

• Try to add as many of the group members as your friends as you can.

• Look into which of your new friends from the group have a blog with content pertaining to your company.  Check their profile info to see if they have a blog.

• Add some good comments to their blog or see if they will let you contribute some content to their blog.

• After you write the content for them, see if they will give you a link back to your site.

Don’t expect to go onto Facebook and advertise your business in any other way, it’s not going to work.  Don’t expect to accomplish the above steps with out a little work. Put the work in and the results will follow.

The HVAC business is very competitive and is hard to stay on top for your desired keywords. Your main keywords probably include a city keyword and a service keyword such as Chicago air conditioning repair. Your site needs to be designed properly to allow for proper SEO. Once the design is layed out we can start adding some good SEO content containing keywords in header tags and links. If your HVAC company is located in New York City you should probably have that in a h1 tag at the top of your page along with the words heating and cooling.

There are a lot of web design companies out there that claim they can optimize your site while they have no Google page rank! The top tier SEO companies are going to charge way too much money for a HVAC contractor to handle. That is where Robbuti.com comes in with more affordable pricing and the ability to get you the proper search engine optimization including quality links back to your site from other HVAC companies around the country. Chicago SEO will never include another HVAC contractor in your area of business, first come, first serve.

We will get your site up and running in a short period of time and will jump start your SEO with a quality PPC ad campaign inclucing a global campaign for pennies per click to get some traffic to your site from the start. We will blog about your site on one of our many high page ranked sites insuring the best quality of links. Being that we specialize in HVAC sites means we have HVAC sites up and running throughout the country so we will strategically link your sites together in the most efficient way to avoid reciprocal linking.

Whether you need a brand new site or a redesign, we are willing to give you the best possible design and SEO for the money. Most companies will claim this but they will nickel and dime you till your pockets are empty. Try out Robbuti.com and talk to one or our representatives for a free consultation to get your HVAC site where it needs to be, #1.

Chicago search engine marketing company robbuti.com helps in the development and management of both PPC search campaigns and natural search engine optimization (SEO). We will produce a dramatic increase in the quality and quantity of visitors to your web site while driving thousands of others through cost effective global campaigns at the cost of $.03 per click. Our methods will have a drastic improvement on the rate of visitors become loyal customer, in return maximizing your online sales. All in all, we will get you to the top of all the search engines.

Chicago search engine marketing company robbuti.com has been helping businesses as well as organizations around the country with effective search engine marketing strategies with real results. We would love to be involved in your next SEO project as we take great pride in our work as our team of Search Engine Marketing Specialists have a passion for their work and produce superior strategies for your business or organization to succeed. Some of our work can be seen if you search the word “drapery” in Google, our client The Drapery Connection shows up within the first 3 positions. Whether your business or organization is highly competitive, in regards to competition, or less competitive, our team will have you were you want to be within 6 months. We will analyze your site and come up with the right strategy to meet and exceed your expectations. For a free analyzation of your site, call 630-750-1545.

Chicago SEO specialist Rob Buti will get your search engine optimization started off with a bang with a fully customized blog! After your blog is set up I will personally walk you through the process of adding blog posts and pages in the admin of your new blog. Your customized blog will allow you to control your website and add content anytime you want. If you have an existing site, I will customize the blog to look exactly like the rest of your site for seemless transitions between pages. Your blog will play an essential role in the SEO of your site. When you start blogging you should make each post more than 250 words so Google doesn’t see them as spam. Furthermore, you should follow the structure of my posts as I occasionally highlight some text and I add links back to my champion page with the main keyword I want to show up for in searches.

If you are creating pages within your blog they should be over 750 words with about 4 links linking back to other pages within your site. Even though I’ve been lazy, it is good to vary your posts with images like this one so they don’t follow a pattern as Google frowns upon this. We can also include longtail keywords to your post titles so you can be more vible to search engines for less competitive, but important, keywords. I have customized several blogs that can be viewed in the footers of the sites located in my portfolio.

My search for the secrets behind SEO are never satisfied as I keep talking to self proclaimed Search Engine Optimization Gurus who have conflicting views on what needs to be done beyond the obvious. I probably started off by trying to optimize my website for a keyword that is too competitive. The main keyword I chose about 6 months ago was Chicago web design, which was most likely a mistake as there are several other keywords that would have made more sense with less competition bogging me down. I recently contacted a SEO company, SEO Design Solutions, for a consultation and it was extremely informative and full of massive amounts of useful information. These guys got their act together and really know their stuff; after all, they do show up number one when you search for “SEO Chicago.” Their consultation was done over the phone as they used GoToMeeting to take over my screen to show me how I could improve upon my web sites standing in several ways. I tried to capture the meeting using Camtasia but failed which kind of pissed me off, but oh well.

My newly found obsession with Chicago SEO has been brought on by the simple fact that your sites visibility is essential to your business, unless you don’t want anyone to find you on the net. Hey, I’m still fascinated by a good flash site or any cool looking site for that matter, but what’s the point if nobody can find it to see your masterpiece? I’ve come to the realization that a crappy site that is optimized well is better than the most aesthetically pleasing site that can’t be found! So if you are a web designer with mad skills I suggest you take the time to at least learn the basics of SEO before designing your next site as you will be more valuable in your trade and your work will be seen giving you the recognition you deserve!

Web designers can do so much for themselves, their clients and their businesses by incorporating the following seo tips…

1) Make sure your URL’s are as SEO friendly as possible. Avoid all those “=” and “?” marks. Use mod re-write to re-create these URL’s to a more seo friendly format. Also, if the URL includes the keyword phrase for that page, that’s extra bonuses!

2) Keyword research should be the absolute basis of any website design project. It should be the very first thing that you do with your client. You’ll be surprised how many more pages and information you’ll be able to get from your client if you can show them what their target audience is looking for.

3) Use semantic tags on every website page. If you’re not familiar with these tags, read this list of semantic tags outlining all the semantic tags. These are not tags that are used in the section, instead, these are tags used within the body of text. They’re very helpful with search engines and how they understand the content of your website pages.

4) Avoid using flash for your navigation, if possible. I know, I know, you want to show your client your flash design, beautiful menus, etc, but the truth is search engines still have trouble reading flash files and they simply will not follow the links from the navigation menu if it’s written in flash.

5) Don’t forget the alt tags on your images. They should be not only descriptive of the image but use the keyword phrase for the page as well.

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I’m sitting in a café up here in Inwood and I overhear three guys doing a deal. The customer is an architect or interior designer. He wants a new Web site so his customers can find his shop — online and off — and can see the construction companies and contractors he likes to work with. “Pictures are nice, but not necessary,” he says. The two guys at the table with him are local Web designers.

After the customer leaves, I ask one of the designers how’s business, since, you know, everything blew up. “Actually it’s very good,” he tells me. But I’m skeptical. How could it be? Everyone’s hurting. “Well, people are looking for cost-effective ways to market themselves and redesigning their Web site is a relatively cheap alternative,” says the designer.

It’s true: I think I heard them offer to do the job for the architect for something like $1,300.

“Also it’s its a one-time charge. Advertising only lasts for a certain amount of time and then you have to pay more.” The designer says another good business right now is search engine optimization (SEO), which is the polite way of describing the business of tweaking Web sites so they’ll appear higher in natural search results. This makes sense to me. Paying a one-time fee for a SEO re-vamp is probably a lot cheaper than paying for clicks each month. Maybe when cash is easier again, you’ll do both.

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